god as my witness
with @chrngmin
truthfully, she’s more cog-in-the-machine than real-human-girl. everything she does another step to the next. everyone around her a means to an end. it’s not as much evil as it is ergonomic. it’s not as much eliminating the competition as it is survival of the fittest. it’s not that she cares about anything she does, not really. just that the only thing she cares about is family, and she’ll do anything for family.
and him? from what she has seen of documents she wasn’t supposed to see, what she knows is he’ll do anything to family.
and she knows better than to speed up at a stop sign, to challenge a yellow light, to pick at a scab long since dried. reckless behavior leads to reckless endangerment leads to knowing too much. and there’s no turning back from knowing something. because once you know something, you can’t really unknow it. she knew she should have stopped before she did. because once you see something, you can’t really unsee it.
Every year on this same day would have been spent differently than he was doing now. If it were a party like this, for her birthday party in particular, he’d try to force socialization, keeping up the wall of his pretense higher than ever before, mingling with both strangers and familiar faces alike. He’d be lying if he says he doesn’t enjoy it, because he does. All for someone he treated like family all these years, and maybe he would use it to let loose as well.
But tonight was different than last year’s, and the year before that, and the other years before. He stood like a lone wolf with his thoughts, looking out of the balcony as if lost in his own thoughts. Rarely does guilt eat him up. Rarely do the consequences of his actions catch up with his conscience. It was like he didn’t have one at all. But you know what they say, rumors fly, and it sure doesn’t pass someone like Changmin. Especially when this particular piece of information involved him and none other than the most important person of the night...who happens to be one of the few most important persons in his life.
How did she find out? He was sure he had his act all cleaned up like usual. No evidence leading back to him, no documents, no contracts. None. But...how? This was the source of his confusion. Scratch that, he was surprised she even invited him after uncovering the truth about what he did. Given, she doesn’t know he was well aware of the information she holds. So until she says a word about it? He isn’t expected to say a word about it, either. Unless, she has thoughts of freeing his closely guarded secret. Then he wouldn’t have a choice. Everyone was equal in his eyes. Everyone. And whoever was a threat to him, his reputation, his status; they’d be dealt with his usual way.
Her presence finally joins him that night, as if he were anticipating her arrival with a glass of his favorite liquor. As if on cue, the crease between his brow irons itself out and the deeply set frown he had been donning disappears. It’s replaced with an endearing smile, his usual polite one. As if nothing was wrong.
“Hey, you.” Can I trust you? “Happy birthday!”
His excited greeting is followed by him taking the glass offered to him, taking a whiff of its aroma without sipping on it at first. He puts a hand inside his pocket, humming softly at the question. “Do I look like I’m having fun?” He raises his brow with an air of cockiness, chuckling at his teasing. That’s it. Pretend like nothing’s wrong. “You’re here, and I get you solo. That’s all the fun I need for tonight, right? Though I should be asking you...” He turns to her now, fully, directly, looking her in the eye as if he hasn’t been caught in a lie. “Are you having fun, birthday girl?”
