PROLOGUE: Bad news.

𓆩ཐིཋྀ𓆪

Sixteen year old Gunwook walked excitedly along the halls of the school building. It was definitely not normal for a guy in high school to have special weekend classes just for learning about the law. Especially when it was a class he got to partake in by luck instead of paying a bunch of money.

Gifted children – well mostly children born into certain families usually had weekend classes in highly professional jobs, like law as an example. This system is seen as problematic to others, but was strictly enforced for families such as the Yoon family. Gunwook was just gifted, though – wasn't born into some top class famous family, but was just an extremely hard working and talented young boy who got the chance to attend for free.

But somehow, this class had only two students: Gunwook himself, and a scary looking girl. But once he actually arrived in the classroom, he recognised her sitting there straight away and got frightened.

Anyone could recognise this one. Her father was Yoon Taewoo – the now president of South Korea, only being elected recently. But also because he is part of the prestigious Yoon family. It was rumoured that his daughter was a bully or delinquent during her early childhood instead of being the ordinary typical Yoon family student, so many said to fear her.

Forgetting the rumours and the fact that she definitely was intimidating to even look at, he slid out the chair next to her with a wide grin. "Hi! I'm Gunwook and I'm sixteen. I'm your classmate. Well, the only one." he giggled.

However, she didn't reciprocate his energy; she just looked down at the desk before shuffling her chair away from him a little bit. "Are you sixteen too?" he asked a little too enthusiastically, but she shook her head. "Fifteen?" she then nodded.

"Huh? Oh! You are fifteen, I see. And your name is Hanee, right? I've seen you on the internet a lot." his smile never left his face as he attempted to talk to her. In response, Hanee just nodded again.

He mirrored her and nodded too. "You have a pretty name, by the way. It sounds like honey." He smiled, unzipping his backpack and pulling out a shit ton of notebooks and pens. She watched him as he did so and looked away from him when he looked at her again.

"We're going to be in the same classes for two years, isn't that cool? Just us two?" he seemed a little too excited for this. Well who wouldn't be? Being in a class that's supposed to be for rich people only was a huge privilege, as well as his peer being the daughter of the president.

Then, the door opened wide, revealing their teacher. "Okay! Gunwook and Hanee, I'm glad you've met each other already." the lady grinned before typing into the laptop. "Now for our weekend classes, you'll be learning about criminal and civil law and also have early training to be a lawyer. You already look like future lawyers, I can see it!" she clapped in excitement.

As Miss Lee was preparing the lesson, Hanee turned to Gunwook, catching his attention. "I'm very competitive." she said quietly, those being her first words. "I don't want to make friends with someone like you, so leave me alone."

He awkwardly nodded and watched as she shuffled further away from him, resulting in the two being sat further away from each other. "Okay...." maybe sixteen year old Gunwook took it to heart, but he would never forget that moment. The one time he tried to make a friend with someone on the same level as him, she made it a competition. Well, what did he expect?

And just like that, a rivalry had sparked between them. Gunwook loathed her from then, and promised himself he'd give pay back and beat her in everything they ever did. And it just so happens she hated him back, for the exact same reasons.

𓆩ཐིཋྀ𓆪

PRESENT TIME

— PARK GUNWOOK

"Yoon Hanee is the precious daughter of Yoon Taewoo — the president of South Korea. She excels in everything she does and is known for her quiet manner, as well as being very intelligent and sophisticated for her young age.

Unlike her father, she found herself wanting to be a future criminal lawyer at a young age. However as of last month, she's been selected by the best detective agency in the country as the youngest female trainee detective at age eighteen. Lawyers AND Detectives already have their eyes on her in awe by her early skill, guaranteeing her success in life.

Hanee is widely known as one of the most gifted children in the country and not only has the brains, but most definitely the looks too. A parent's dream, must we say."

Gunwook clicked off the article about the girl and scoffed. "I can't believe she's already got two jobs ready for her and she's literally just turned eighteen." he said in annoyance, closing all of his tabs and shutting the laptop.

Gunwook himself was also a detective in training and went to law school with Hanee by chance. He decided to take his passion into being a detective instead of law and now he finds out she has done the same too – but in a more successful agency, enforcing his already existing jealousy towards her. They were both given titles of being the youngest people to even earn trainee jobs professionally in this field.

Ever since they met at age sixteen and fifteen in high school during their weekend classes, they've quite literally hated each other as much as they were stuck together. They've had the same dreams and aspirations ever since they were kids and both wanted to be the best at their passion — causing a rivalry between them.

It's easy to have competition when two intelligent individuals have the exact same career path waiting for them, this also causing many people in the country to admire their accomplishments and be entertained by their competitive natures.

Gunwook wanted to surpass her in every aspect of any job and be more well known. To his fortune, he was already one step ahead as being widely known for his intelligence, whereas Hanee was known for being 'the president's daughter' before her achievements.

Distracting him out of his daze, Gunwook's phone started to ring. He glanced at the contact and realised it was someone from his agency. Without hesitation, he pressed on the answer button and lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello?" He greeted calmly.

"There's a case we want you to participate in," the man over the phone said with a stern voice. "Can you make your way to where the Yoon family live as soon as you can? This is important."

"Yoon family as in Yoon Taewoo's house?" Gunwook questioned with a startled voice, as well as simultaneously picking up all of his belongings to waste no time. It seemed urgent and he already started to panic without even knowing what happened.

"Yes, you have access to the house. There's a case we have to solve and as our best trainee, you're perfect for this investigation." his voice became softer as muffled speech in the background could be heard. "Be here as soon as you can, I'll be waiting."

As soon as the phone call ended, Gunwook wasted no time to rush everywhere around the house to get himself prepared and ready. "Why the hell would they want me to go to the president's house?" he complained to himself as he slid into his shoes and walked straight out of the door. "She better not be there. What a coincidence that I was just reading her stupid articles."

Gunwook arrived at his neighbour's house, giving the door a loud knock. Almost instantly, the door opened and the boy walked out with a raised brow. "Gunwook, why are you here?" he looked as if he had just woken up. It was only one in the afternoon and Gunwook snorted before remembering why he was here.

"Hanbin can you please drive me to the Yoon house?" he asked, hands clasped together. "I just got assigned to a case there and I need someone to bring me as soon as possible."

Hanbin didn't question why the hell he was going to the president's house but nodded anyway, quickly picking up his car keys and locking the door. With a relieved sigh, Gunwook made his way to Hanbin's car and immediately sat inside.

Hanbin and Gunwook have been neighbours ever since they were children, even when they lived in a different neighbourhood with their parents. They've always been close and Gunwook viewed Hanbin as an older brother who would give him help whenever he needed it.

"Okay, so tell me what happened." Hanbin said as he backed out of the driveway. "Because that is a big achievement of you being able to go inside their house... for an investigation too? That's sick."

Gunwook shrugged and was about to say something until the radio had cut him off, making Hanbin turn up the volume. "Our country's president, Yoon Taewoo has been found dead in his home earlier this afternoon." Both the boy's eyes widened and Hanbin sped up a little as Gunwook began to panic at the news.

"Furthermore, an investigation is taking place and from inspection, it is a supposed assassination that connects to an unidentified killer in the country."

"Unidentified killer?" Hanbin repeated in surprise. "Oh shit, Gunwook you're in for a real case. You know how hard the police have been trying to figure out who this killer was for the past few years?"

Gunwook bit his lip. "But there hasn't been a case for that killer in so long," he panicked and looked out of the window to mentally prepare himself. He's only a trainee, so he didn't expect himself to be pulled into something so serious.

The president was dead and one of the youngest trainee detectives in the country was going to be a part of the case. Little did Gunwook know, this case would've changed his career and life forever.

𓆩ཐིཋྀ𓆪

— YOON HANEE

Hanee got bored and decided to read some articles about herself. Usually, she hated everything that involved her in the media and especially hated being praised on the internet. But now that she had recently started her career as a trainee detective, she was curious on what the world wanted to say about her.

Prior to this whole being praised thing, she was widely regarded as a disappointment to her family name. Rumours that she was a delinquent had spread around early on in her life and the media widely believed it, causing her to not be so open to the public until she was seventeen, almost eighteen.

Now Hanee was eighteen, and the whole media had changed their views on her. But still, she had to check for herself if people actually were praising her and forgetting about the past, so what better way than reading articles about herself?

However before she could do so, she had received a phone call. She didn't think twice and answered it without reading the contact. "Hello?"

"Hanee!" her brother's voice exclaimed through the phone, it was almost as if you could see his smile too. "I've been so busy lately, so I just called to say congrats on your job."

"Thanks, Hanjae." she replied in her usual monotone voice.

"Are you okay?" Hanjae asked in concern, noticing the quietness in her voice. "You're making the family proud, Hanee. You're doing something I couldn't do."

She scoffed and glanced at the multiple certificates displayed in the hallway. "I did it because I didn't want to live with the guilt of people calling us the disappointments of the family." she clicked her tongue as she glanced back at the articles about her. "People switch up so fast, random people are praising me now."

She heard Hanjae sigh deeply. "I'm sorry, it's my fault for being the actual disappointment to the family. But you're still doing so well, I know you can succeed." he tried to uplift the mood yet all Hanee could do was sigh. "Hanee, you're not going to start crying are you?" Hanjae asked in a panic. "Hanee don't cry—"

"I'm not. I don't cry." her voice was sharp. "I'm just frustrated; mother couldn't see my achievement, and she can't see yours either." her voice didn't dare tremble as she tried to keep herself collected whilst mentioning the topic.

"Uhh, I don't think being disowned and being a criminal is an achievement that she would've wanted me to have." Hanjae awkwardly chuckled.

Unlike Hanee, her older brother was quite the opposite of her. He was still intelligent, but couldn't live up to the family name, causing him to be disowned and basically forgotten by the media. The Yoon family are highly intelligent people who were known to hold amazing careers and all went to most of the top universities and studied prestigious subjects for generations.

Hanee and Hanjae's family consisted of lawyers, business owners, politicians, detectives, surgeons, scientists, programmers, engineers, basically everything. Yet the most common family career in the past few generations was in politics and detective work. It's a famous family built up of wealth and intellects, and they expect every child born from this family to be born and raised a prodigy, and it's a strict upbringing.

However, Hanjae abstained from the typical family values and tradition and found himself working in the criminal industry. Working in some sort of a secret crime syndicate – even Hanee wasn't so sure what it was. He was definitely an intimidating guy and was 'very dangerous' to the family name.

But despite it all, they still kept in touch since they were still siblings at the end of the day. And even though he was working in such an industry, his soft spot for his sister would never change regardless of their very opposite lifestyles.

One sibling commits crimes, the other solves them.

"...Sorry." Hanee sighed again. She then heard voices and footsteps becoming less distant. "Shit. I have to go, I'll speak to you later. Thanks for calling." she rushed a goodbye and ended the call.

"Miss Hanee?" a maid called, knocking on her room door although it was already surprisingly open. "Your father won't open the door to his bedroom, is he extremely busy today? It's fully locked and he's not saying anything."

"No, I don't think so." Hanee furrowed her eyebrows and walked around her room in a rush. She swiftly opened a drawer and found a key that she would normally use whenever her father didn't want to get out of the room. She found it useful as he'd always lock himself in the room after when her mother died.

She quickly went down the stairs and the rest of the maids were outside with worried eyes. Hanee gave them a reassuring nod before inserting the key into the door, and then a loud click followed. It had been so long since he locked himself in, so this was clearly worrying.

She hesitantly turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door. "Father?" She called out. But once the door was fully open, a horrifying and alarming sight unfolded in front of her eyes. "Father?!" She ran towards the body on the floor, lying in a pool of blood.

𓆩ཐིཋྀ𓆪

If you've already read this months ago I apologise x