After dinner, Daniel and Liam were at the balcony of their family"s estate sharing a drink of whisky. The air was cool and it was a calm night. The Cho family"s estate was located in a higher ground private land which is about 30 minutes from the city proper. The next house from them is about 1 kilometer away, so it was always quiet in the area.Daniel sat on the lazy chair with his feet up on the railings, "How"s the construction going?" he asked.
Liam s.h.i.+fted his position, he was sitting on the ground with his knees up as he was tapping on his cellphone. "I visited the site 2 days ago and it"s 70% done.", he answered, not removing his eye off the screen.
"I didn"t know that it"s going to take that long…", Daniel played with the ice on his gla.s.s.
"Well the land is quite huge so it"s expected to take a while. Why are you in such a hurry? You"ve already brought her back home."
"I can"t wait anymore."
Liam scoffed, "It"s not like you"re getting married why couldn"t you wait."
"It"s because I want to get married that"s why I can no longer wait.", Daniel declared.
His brother laughed at his eagerness and impatience, it was rare to see Daniel being like this. Liam hasn"t even seen his brother with a woman before and now he was captured in shackles by Samantha Kim.
When Daniel graduated from high school, he went to Country F to study. He moved there together with his then good friend, Stefan Yoo and they both stayed in one apartment. The two of them even took the same course, Business Management as Stefan Yoo"s family also owns a family business.
Their stay in country F was quite a challenge since they arrived there with only very basic knowledge of the country"s language. So apart from studying their course at the university, they also took up cla.s.ses to improve their conversational skills. And over the months of studying and complete immersion, they were already speaking like how locals do.
Daniel and Stefan met Melissa Qin later and during that time, Daniel was 18 years old. After spending some time, they decided to date and their relations.h.i.+p went on for more than a year. But during those times, Melissa wasn"t always in the same city as they were so Daniell and she would only meet several times a month. And little did he know that during the last months in their relations.h.i.+p, Melissa and Stefan had also been getting closer.
While they dated, Daniel didn"t really tell his family about Melissa so they weren"t aware that he was seeing someone while he was in Country F. But when the betrayal happened, he called his mom and told her what happened.
Mrs. Cho was of course taken aback because her son didn"t tell her anything before that but with that one phone call Daniel told her everything and had also announced that he was moving to a different country to continue his studies. Staying in Country F was too much for him as he was very much hurt by what his best friend had done.
Truthfully, although Daniel was hurt because of his then girlfriend"s cheating, his affection towards Melissa Qin was way lesser than how he valued his relations.h.i.+p with Stefan Yoo. They"ve been friends for a very long time and he was already like a brother but sadly, Stefan betrayed him.
Now that he"s dating Samantha, he could very much identify and recognize the kind of feeling he has in which truth be told, is a lightyear away compared to his past relations.h.i.+p. He knows what he wants and he knows how he feels about her. So for Daniel, there was no point in dragging things. As long as Samantha allows him, he was practically ready to stand before the altar with her anytime.
Nonchalantly, as if he was just talking about the weather, he announced, "I asked her to marry me."
Liam who just drank the whiskey from his gla.s.s spat the drink in front of him and it splattered on the railings, he was sent into a coughing fit. "What did you say?", his eyes widened as he looked at his brother who at that moment looked very foreign to him.
Daniel sat up properly and lowered his head to look at his brother who was antic.i.p.ating for his reply. "I proposed to Samantha."
"So I did hear it correctly?", Liam thought for a second before he asked, "And what did she say?"
Daniel ran a hand on his face looking defeated, "She didn"t answer me. She just… looked at me!"
Liam turned to face his brother, "Well did you ask her again?"
He shook his head and drank some more whiskey. "No. I got nervous after that because she didn"t say anything. What was I supposed to do? So we didn"t talk and just sat there quietly for a while."
"Did you even get her a ring when you proposed?"
"It wasn"t exactly a planned proposal… I don"t know bro, I just suddenly said it. I guess I got carried away at that time.", he leaned back to the lazy chair and sighed.
Liam probed, "Did you regret that you proposed?"
"Of course not, like I said… I can"t wait to settle down. So that night I told her that I will ask her again later."
"Wow… you sure are persistent. You could"ve asked her first to move in before you talked about marriage, you know?", Liam suggested
"I asked her that too."
"What?! Brother, you are very bold! She agreed to that, right? Did you tell her about the villa?", Liam was stoked.
"Not yet. I want it to be a surprise so you are not allowed to say anything otherwise…"
"I know! I know! Jeez! You are one scary person! If I was your girlfriend, I don"t know whether I should be scared or thankful."
"I would never choose you as a girlfriend.", Daniel said dismissively.
"Why not?! You don"t know what you"re missing out! Don"t you know that I"m very popular with women and men? Huh!", Liam proudly exclaimed.