You check the messenger multiple times the next day but Luciel doesn't seem to have any plans on coming to the messenger. You throw your phone to the bed in disappointment each time. On Monday you were determined to find Luciel, the events on Saturday evening still not leaving your mind. You were distracted the whole day, resulting in a poor school performance. You ask Yoosung for his whereabouts and was disappointed to find out that he wasn't at school.
Four days have passed when you finally catch a glimpse of his brilliant red hair. You were on your way from the 7/11 store near your house when you saw him pass by. You make a split-second decision to follow him, making sure you were a couple meters away from him so he doesn't notice. After about thirty more minutes of following the boy, he stops and so do you. You look around and realize that you ended up at a park not unlike the last. You feel your phone buzz inside your jacket pocket and you fish it out. You see that you received a message from the same person you've been following and you swipe open your phone. The message "So how long are you planning to follow me?" flashed on your screen and you look up to see the smile plastered on his face. Your feet unknowingly brought you closer to him, and you only realize that you were walking when you were less than a meter in front of him. Up close, you can see the dark bags under his eyes, the tired look on his face. You reach out to touch him but stop halfway, not wanting to suddenly seem too close.
"How did you know I was following you?" You ask instead, your arm dropping back awkwardly to your side. He gives you a one shoulder shrug.
"I saw you walk out of 7/11."
"And you didn't bother telling me?" Your brows knit together and he flashes you another smile. You look around again, gesturing at the swings and the slide. "You really love parks don't you?" He doesn't give you a reply, walking instead to the swings. You watch him sit down on one of them and you follow him, taking the one on his right. Your left foot lightly kicks off the ground and you give yourself a little push. The two of you sit in silence like that for a while, the squeak of the chains the only sound breaking the silence.
"So," you start, your fingers clamping around the chains on both of your sides. "Where have you been these past few days?" You don't voice out the fact that you've been looking for him.
"Stuff at home." The redhead doesn't elaborate, his golden eyes staring intently at the slides. You watch him, noting the clenched fists resting on his lap. You decide to let the subject drop, and the two of you fall into an uneasy silence.
He stands up and tells you that he has to get going and walked away, leaving you in the park. You just sit there, frozen in place, realizing a little too late that he has already left. You stay there for a while longer before you leave.
You start to wonder why Luciel is acting weird, and you ask Yoosung why. The blond only gives you a shrug and tells you not to worry about it. "Seven hyung has always been weird," he tells you. But you can't help but worry.
Another month with Rika's drug syndicate and the drugs you used to detest slowly carves its way into your life. You don't use them yourself, but you're becoming accustomed to the people around you who do. Rika has yet to host another party and she has assigned you together with the other female in RFA to contact all guests from previous parties to invite everyone.
You went to V's apartment on Saturday (nobody knows where Rika lives except for herself, V, and the twins) with the short-haired brunette to fix the guest list and become overwhelmed at the sight of at least five stacks of folders side by side together. You hear the brunette sigh beside you and let out a murmur that you perfectly heard. "At least this is better than taking care of a cat." She turns her attention to you.
"You can contact all the people in those two stacks. That's probably around two hundred altogether. I'll handle the three hundred others."
Without waiting for you, the brunette whipped out a silver laptop inside her bag and placed it on the table right in front of the stacks of folders. She opened her internet browser and opened her mailbox before taking the topmost folder on the left stack. You stand there, in awe, as she does her work. "Jaehee is Jumin's assistant so she's very efficient when it comes to this kind of work." You hear someone say beside you and you flinch in surprise. You turn your attention to the blue-haired member of the RFA. He sees you flinch and offers you an apologetic smile.
"Sorry for startling you. But if you have questions then please, don't hesitate to ask me. I'll be right here to help you." His kindness surprised you. As Rika's significant other, you expected V to be scary or bossy or act like those mafia bosses you see on television. But he's nothing like that. In fact, he's the exact opposite. You silently wonder how he ended up in this business with Rika.
"Thank you," you say, giving him a smile of your own. You walk to the seat right next to Jaehee's and plop your MCM bag on the floor, taking out your own laptop.
It took the both of you at least five hours to finish e-mailing all the guests, your eyes tired from continuously scanning the screen. The blue-haired man offered to cook for the two of you for a job well done and you refuse, but V is such an insistent guy that you give in at the end.
You sit at the dining table next to Jaehee and stare at all the pictures hanging on V's apartment. They're beautiful, you think. Portraits and landscapes conveying a thousand words all molded into art in frames.
"V's a photographer." Jaehee informs you, and you turn your head towards her to see that she is looking at the photographs as well. "He's famous to the first-class people around the globe, which is one of the reasons why we have so many guests. V showcases his art at our parties sometimes. Maybe he'll do it again this time."
"They don't know that the party is for drug-dealing?"
Jaehee shakes her head. "No. Well, not all of them. Some of the party guests don't realize that Rika's Fundraising Association is a drug syndicate. They think they donate to charity when in truth, they donate to keep funding Rika's weed farm. I guess you can still call it charity if you think of all the homeless people Rika has given jobs to in her weed farm. They all think of Rika as their savior."
You absorb this new piece of information. You remember wondering what the RFA could be funding for, and remember Luciel not giving you a straight answer.
"Where is Rika's weed farm?" You ask Jaehee. She gives you a shrug. "Only Rika, V, Mr. Han and the twins know."
Another secret. You wonder how many secrets the RFA keeps from its own members, and what they are. You wonder why Luciel knows them. Could Luciel be much more dangerous than most of the members?
"It's a whole different level of depravity you'd wish to never enter," you hear Luciel's voice inside your head say. You open your mouth to ask another question but V comes back with heaping trays of food, and you know better than to ask questions in front of one of the two founding members of the RFA.
You admit that you were getting used to the extravagant parties the organization holds. What you're not used to is the fact that all these people (some of them you even see a lot on television) would initiate conversations with you like you're one of them. Maybe you are.
After an hour and a half of putting up with these people with a smile plastered on your face, you make your way to the exclusive hangout place for the members of the RFA. Everyone was there, with the exception of four people: Rika, V, Zen, and Luciel. Your eyes scan the whole place and you spot his twin brother, Unknown, sitting on one of the plush couches with a drink in one hand and a rolled up piece of paper on the other. You hesitate for a few minutes before making up your mind. Your heels clack on the floor as you make your way to the white-haired boy. He leans on the table in front of him and you notice the white salt-like substance perfectly lined up. The white-haired boy places one end of the stick at the start of the line and the other end inside one nostril. He plugs his other nostril with a finger and inhales the substance. Once finish, the boy straightens up with a shiver and brings his glass of wine to his mouth, taking in big gulps of the wine.
You stop in front of him but he doesn't seem to have noticed you, and upon closer inspection, you see that his mint eyes don't have focus. You sit beside him as he takes another gulp of his wine. You watch him have another go at the substance before you greet him.
"Hi," you say, but he doesn't look your way. He didn't seem to have heard you even, so loud was the music blaring inside the room, that you had to repeat your greeting, shouting this time. He stares at you with those unfocused mint eyes and you see familiarity pass through them. He points the rolled up piece of paper at you. "You're the new girl the stupid redhead has been blabbering about."
You stare at him for a moment, not sure how to react. Luciel has been talking about you? You realize that the white-haired boy is waiting for an answer and you give him a little nod. You lean closer to him, inhaling the scent of wine coming from him, and ask him for his twin's whereabouts. The boy beside you answers you with a shrug and offers you a glass. You refuse, telling him that you don't drink and he gives you a snort.
"Bullshit" he says, and shoves the glass to your hand, before pouring the red liquid. "Drink that, and it'll take your mind off your problems and place you to paradise." You stare at him with a frown and tell him that you don't have problems and he snorts and takes another sip from his glass. You stare at the wine and realize that yes, you do in fact have a problem, a problem that involves his brother. Unknown must have seen through you.
You shift your gaze back at the mint-eyed person and he nods, as if inviting you to drink, and you place the rim of the glass on your mouth and tilt it upwards. The liquid runs a line down your throat and you pull the empty glass away from you, coughing. You hear the boy beside you laughing, and you start to laugh as well even though there was nothing funny. The boy offers to pour you another glass and you comply. Soon, the two of you have finished two bottles of expensive wine, laughing as you both do it. You find that Unknown is a fun person to talk to, even though he seems to hold Rika in high regard. You purse your lips, not wanting to speak your thoughts about Rika lest you ruin the nice atmosphere.
You and Unknown finish two more bottles of wine and you feel the world getting blurry around you. Your words become a slur. You feel a shiver run down your spine, like somebody was watching you, and you divert your attention to the small number of people in the room. Your eyes land on a certain redhead staring at you with his brows furrowed, but you can't find it in you to care about him right now. You give him a grin before the world tips sideways and the last thing you remember is golden eyes behind yellow and black striped horn-rimmed glasses.
A/N: An update! Yay! It's not long though, and most definitely not the best chapter I made. I felt that it was rushed towards the end, but I guess it was because I was in a hurry to finish the chapter. Oh well… did you guys like it though? I hope you did. PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW AFTER! THANK YOU!
-olympicmayhem