A Beautiful Stranger

Chapter 12: Skeletons

*A/N this part is a direct continuation of Chapter 11 because it was meant to be one whole thing but I had to chop it up. MJ is slightly out of canon here, but it's all for my angle of the story. There's also a lot of introspection because I'm hoping to show the dilemma he's wrestling with.  :) xoxo love u, no trigger warnings except for discussion of a death*

"Moon-Jo?"

"Hmm?" He snapped back to the present. Nalia was stroking his arm.

"Will you tell me about her?"

Moon-Jo sighed. He leaned down and gave her a kiss, contemplating how to begin.

**Moon-Jo's perspective**

Mrs. Um had been right in a way. He did find himself developing more than just mentor-like feelings for Nalia, and he had been trying to keep them at bay ever since the old woman had warned him. Even so, any time he told himself that he was just using her as his protégé, he would be interrupted by another thought, one that told him to do anything just to make her smile. Just like I used to do for Hana.

But almost fifteen years had passed since Hana's death. He had a lot more baggage. He'd killed more people than he could count on his hands at this point, and what was more, he shamelessly enjoyed it. How could he not, given his nature, his upbringing?

He couldn't explain before when Nalia asked, but he was romantic. If he had a love language it was acts of service. He'd get rid of anyone that was bothering her... permanently. The problem was, she might not see it that way.

He took a deep breath and drew Nalia into an embrace from behind. She snuggled up to him, spine against his warm chest, and he rested his chin on top of her head. He gave her a kiss there and then said, in a soft voice, "Where to begin?"

Nalia made a sound, and held his hands in her lap. "Was she your first love?"

My only love, he wanted to say. 

It was true that after Hana, Moon-Jo took Mrs. Um's advice and pursued no one. He'd gone through dental school and worked hard to open his own practice. He didn't make friends in school; his only goal was to become the patron of the family, to fund their operations. The alliances he formed with local charities and cops had only strengthened his reputation, pushing the narrative of his true menace as far from peoples' minds as it could be.

Had he had lovers? Of course, dozens of them. For a certain period of time, there were more men and women filing through his bedroom than his dental clinic. But it was all an act; something he did to forget that he wasn't fully human, at least according to the standards of the rest of the world. None of it did anything for him except give the impression that he could function when really, every day without Hana ate away at his soul until there was almost nothing left.

"She was," he replied softly. "We met in university... at Eunhye-dong, actually." He didn't want to say her name; not yet. 

"Was she going to be a dentist too?"

Moon-Jo hid his smile in Nalia's hair. "No," he murmured. "An optometrist."

"Oh."

"We spent a year as friends, and then as partners." He didn't know how much he should reveal, but the words were falling from his tongue; it had been so long since he could talk about Hana so freely and lovingly, and not be met with reproach. "I almost married her."

Nalia shifted at that and sat up. She turn her body around and leaned against the armrest of the couch, stretching her legs out so they were resting on Moon-Jo's knees.