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Every Tuesday, Chul goes into the manhwa world to deal with his businesses there and to catch up with his best friend, Seo Doyoon.
Yeonjoo somehow gets summoned into the manhwa. She gets confused, not knowing how or why she’s there. She starts walking, thinking about trying to call Chul while trying to see her surroundings. Maybe, she could see the rooftop of the Seoul Prime hotel, the hotel her husband owns and lives in. When she looks down to her phone, a bag is suddenly pulled over her head.
Yeonjoo screams, shocked and confused as to what was going on, but started to struggle and put up a fight, resisting them as best she could. One of the thugs holding her sticks her with a needle while another hand pulls her phone away. Yeonjoo soon passes out from the tranquilizer in the needle.
The thug holding the phone sees the name she was about to dial and laughs to the other. “Hey, this woman seems close to Kang Chul!”
The one holding Yeonjoo responds, “Really? Guess this will be good for us! We should let the boss know. He can decide what we should do to her and find out their relationship.”
The thugs throw Yeonjoo into the back of a van and drive to meet their boss at an abandoned warehouse. Their boss asks the usual questions when he sees Yeonjoo. “Looks like we have a captive, boys. Who is she?”
One of the kidnappers says, “I think we hit the jackpot with this one, boss!”
He sighs. “What do you mean? Why is she a ‘jackpot’?”
“She’s close to, or at least has a relationship with Kang Chul!”
The boss blinks. “Kang Chul? Billionaire Kang Chul? That one?” His voice sounds shocked.
One of the thugs says, “Just as we grabbed her, we got her phone too. The contact number on the screen showed Kang Chul’s name. See?” He holds the phone up excitedly.
The boss sees the name in the phone and nearly passes out from the shock. The other thug chimes in with, “Perhaps we could use her as a tool to get to Kang Chul or get a lot of money from him.”
The boss smiles then says, “I like the way you think.” He stares at Yeonjoo and continues, “Now, what should we do with you?”
In his penthouse, Kang Chul talks and laughs while talking with Doyoon as they finish up business. They are almost done catching up when Doyoon gets a call. Chul grabs his phone to see Yeonjoo was calling him. He is confused but picks it up.
In a playful tone, Chul says, “Did you miss me so much that you decided to come here?”
The only greeting he is met with is Yeonjoo’s voice screaming.
Chul’s heart drops and he goes from smiling playfully to being very concerned. “Yeonjoo? You okay? Oh Yeonjoo? Answer me!” His voice became more frantic as he talked and heard nothing in response.
A male voice finally answers him. “Oh my, my, my. If it isn’t Kang Chul himself.”
Chul tamps down the silent fury bubbling within him and says as calmly as possible, “Who is this? What have you done with Oh Yeonjoo?”
The man laughs, a sadistic tone to it, and says, “Nothing too serious. Yet. While looking at her, I saw she had a ring and your phone number. I thought she might have some importance to you. Since this number really is yours, guess it means you would hate it if anything would happen to her.” His voice turns sickly sweet toward the end, almost mocking Chul.
Suddenly, the camera of the call turns on and Chul can see footage of Yeonjoo. She’s tied up and there is a small trail of blood coming from her mouth. Chul leans forward instinctively, checking her for other injuries as much as he can. “Yeonjoo? Yeonjoo, are you alright?” His desperation was mounting.
The man laughs and says, “She’s fine. For now. If you want her to come back alive, bring us five million dollars in three hours. If she means so much to you, don’t be late.”
Chul doesn’t care about the money, he only wants Yeonjoo safe. “Where do I bring it?”
The man says, “Don’t worry, I’m texting you the location. Meet us here within three hours if you don’t want anything else to happen to her.” The camera shut off but before the call hung up, Chul heard the man mockingly say, “I miss you.”
Chul is worried and feeling sick with that worry about Yeonjoo. He ultimately blames himself for her capture.
As Chul is scrambling to get himself together and keep his emotions in check, Doyoon walks back in from his own phone call. “Hey,” Doyoon says. “What’s going on?”
Chul glances at his friend and says, “Some thugs thought it was a good idea to kidnap Yeonjoo. I’m getting her back.”
Doyoon nods, determined. “I’m coming with you.”
The pair drove to the location of the warehouse to be greeted by five thugs blocking the door. One of them speaks up when the friends get out of the car. “Do you have our money or not?”
Chul doesn’t bother to speak to them, just punches the closest one to him and kicks another away from him. Doyoon jumps on another thug, holding the majority of them off.
“Go!” Doyoon tells Chul. “Look for Yeonjoo, I can handle these guys.”
Chul hesitates for just a moment before he says, “I’m counting on you, bro.” and runs into the warehouse to look for his wife.
He finds Yeonjoo tied up in a room with another thug holding a knife close to her throat.
Chul approaches slowly, feeling worried. “Yeonjoo?” he asks, searching for some sign of life in her closed eyes.
The thug is, thankfully, cocky and impulsive as he lets go of Yeonjoo and charges Chul with the knife. Chul dodges the attacks easily and manages to knock the knife from the thug’s hand. He makes quick work of knocking the thug himself out.
With the threat gone, Chul grabs the knife and uses it to cut the ropes around Yeonjoo. By this point, her eyes were fluttering open. “Are you hurt?” Chul asks, voice concerned but tender.
Yeonjoo feels weak but tries to hide it. “I’m hurt and a bit weak, but I’ll be fine, Chul.”
She is more unbalanced than she thought she was when she stands up, still under the effects of the drugs the gang put in her. Yeonjoo is about to fall but Chul picks her up and holds her close, her feet barely brushing the ground. He smiles at her and hugs her.
Unfortunately, the leader of the gang comes up from behind them. He grabs Chul by the back of the shirt and pulls him away, leaving Yeonjoo to fall to the ground in a heap. She can do nothing but watch as the leader starts attacking Chul.
She takes a moment to get some sense of her surroundings, trying to keep herself awake despite the tranquilizer. Chul is fighting as best he can, but she can see he’s starting to lose to the gang leader. Yeonjoo searches the room for something to help him and sees the briefcase Chul had put down near her chair. It had gotten kicked closer to her in the struggle.
With what little strength she has, Yeonjoo crawls to reach the briefcase. The two other people in the room were too busy fighting to notice what she was doing. She stands up and takes a few steps towards them. After the leader knocks Chul down, Yeonjoo comes from the side and puts all her strength into the swing of the briefcase, knocking the boss out.
“Stay away from my husband, you bastard,” Yeonjoo says as she spits on the unconscious man.
She walks close to Chul but her legs give out and she falls on her knees, having used the last of her strength to knock the leader out and save her husband.
Chul crawls over to Yeonjoo and hugs her while helping her get up. Yeonjoo was smiling because she always felt safe when she was in Chul’s arms. She closes her eyes for just a few seconds.
When she opens them again, she sees the leader get up holding the knife and heading toward Chul.
“No!” Yeonjoo screams, acting out of fear. Her body twists before her mind can catch up, putting herself between Chul and the knife. Her only thought was that she couldn’t lose him again.
Chul can only look on in shock as he sees a knife stick into Yeonjoo and it gets pulled out, almost in slow motion. She falls to the ground and in a moment, Chul is on his knees beside her, pulling her into his arms. His eyes fill with tears as he cradles her and asks, “Why would you do that? Why do it?”
Yeonjoo smiled at him, reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek. Her voice was weak as she said, “Because I love you and can’t handle the thought of losing you again.” She just gets the words out when her eyes close and her hand falls limply to her side.
Chul thinks he’s lost her again.
He taps her face gently. “Yeonjoo, love, stay with me. Just hang on, please. Hang on.” He shook her shoulders gently, hoping she would wake up. When she doesn’t respond, Chul pulls her into his arms and starts sobbing.
The man who stabbed her starts laughing sadistically. Chul looks up at him, his eyes still full of tears shifting from sadness to rage filled. Gently, he sets Yeonjoo down and makes sure she’s out of the way. He’s fully ready to kill the leader of the gang if needed as Chul turns to fight the man.
The gang leader is able to cut Chul’s left arm with the knife. Chul starts focusing on his opponent, finding every opening possible after he finds the first one. Quickly, Chul gains control of the knife and throws it across the room, not caring where it lands.
In a few more minutes of struggle, Chul knocks the leader to the ground and grabs him by the front of his shirt. The man does not stop laughing as Chul yells, “You bastard!”
He nearly blacks out with rage, the only thing in his focus being his fist connecting with the man’s flesh over and over again.
Doyoon made quick work of those five thugs. He had, after all, trained for years in a boxing ring and had taken down more than his fair share of gangs while working with Chul. These five men were barely a warm up for him.
After Doyoon has knocked out the last of the thugs, he heads into the warehouse to find Chul and Yeonjoo. As he goes deeper, it becomes clearer where Chul is due to the sounds of punching. When he hears that, Doyoon starts running and quickly finds the room that Chul, Yeonjoo, and some other people are in.
He can only take a moment to take in the scene. Yeonjoo is lying unconscious in the middle of the room, bleeding from her side. Chul is sitting atop someone, punching them to the point they’re also unconscious. There’s a random other person in the corner, also unconscious.
Doyoon’s first action is to check on Yeonjoo. Once he finds she still has a pulse, he looks over at Chul. He has to yell the man’s name twice and still doesn’t break through the haze of rage he must be in.
Doyoon leaves Yeonjoo in order to pull Chul off the man he was punching. “Chul! That’s enough! You’ve nearly killed him! Yeonjoo is alive, but we need to get her to a doctor ASAP! Pull yourself together, man!”
Chul takes a few deep breaths as he stares at Yeonjoo, calming down. Once his breathing is under control, Chul carefully picks Yeonjoo up and pulls her into his arms in a bridal carry. “Let’s go, Doyoon.”
They all head out to the car. Doyoon stops and says, “Give me the keys, I’ll drive.” Chul thanks him and puts Yeonjoo in the back seat, sliding in beside her and putting her head in his lap. On the drive back to the penthouse, Chul contacts his personal doctor, Dr. Yoon, talking about how they need a team of doctors at the hotel as soon as they arrive.
By the time they get there, Chul refuses to let Yeonjoo out of his sight or his arms, the doctors are already waiting at the penthouse for them. Under Chul’s instructions, the doctors focus on Yeonjoo first.
When they’re done and move on to patching Chul up, he asks, “How is she? Will she be alright?” Adrenaline was still pumping throughout his system but he was more concerned for Yeonjoo than for his own physical state.
One of the doctors responds, “She has a few fractures in her left hand that have been tended to. The more concerning part is that she also has a stab wound but, thankfully, it isn’t a major or fatal one. She’s escaped the worst of it.”
Chul nods and asks, “Does she need anything?”
Dr. Yoon comes in and says, “All she needs is some rest. We’ve treated everything else. We were able to take care of the wounds but there’s a lot of drugs that were put in her system that she’s going to need to sleep off. So, we patched her up and now all she needs is rest.”
As the doctors finished patching Chul and Doyoon up, Doyoon notices Chul staring at Yeonjoo constantly, even twisting his body to keep her in his line of sight while the doctors worked on him.
“Chul, are you okay? Chul?” Doyoon asks as Chul has a smile on his face but his eyes look sad yet relieved at the same time.
Doyoon has to call him for a third time before Chul snaps out of it and looks over at him. “Something wrong?” Chul asks.
Doyoon shakes his head. “You just kept staring and I was concerned.”
“Yeah, I’m okay now.”
The doctors finish checking everyone and tell them that they seem fine with only minor scrapes and bruises from the fights. When they were released from the doctors’ custody, Chul goes to his room to keep staring at Yeonjoo and wait for her to wake up.
Yeonjoo wakes up to realize she’s in Chul’s bed in the penthouse. After looking around for a moment, she notices Chul laying down and sleeping in the bed next to her. She smiles and whispers his name happily, not trying to wake him up.
Yeonjoo doesn’t know Chul is awake until he opens his eyes with a smile. “So, you’re finally awake. It only took three days,” he teases her gently. He shifts over in the bed to hug her and kiss her on the forehead. His next words are filled with sadness and guilt as he says, “I’m sorry.”
Yeonjoo laughs lightly and confusedly asks, “What is there to be sorry for?”
Chul hesitates for a moment before replying. “For you being kidnapped.”
While Chul doesn’t say it directly, Yeonjoo knows him well enough by now to be able to tell he blames himself for the events of that day.
Yeonjoo shakes her head. “It isn’t your fault. In the end, we’re both okay, and that’s all that matters. I’m here, thanks to you and Doyoon.” She smiles. “I survived because I have an amazing action hero for a husband.”
Chul laughs at that and playfully says, “So you do know how to compliment me. And here I thought you just married me for the money.”
Yeonjoo scoffs, laughs, and shudders. “Ugh, that line was too cheesy for me!”
In response, Chul scrunched his nose and made a cute face that Yeonjoo could never resist, no matter how hard she tries to deny not being charmed by it. She smiles at his face and they both start to laugh after staring at each other for a few more seconds.
Chul lifts himself up on an elbow to hover over Yeonjoo. Carefully, gently, almost as if he would break her, he kisses her on the mouth, then the forehead. He lies back down and pulls her close, setting Yeonjoo’s head on his shoulder and resting his own head on top of hers. Cuddling like that, both safe in each other’s arms, they drifted back to sleep while resting together.