Here I Lie // ATEEZ ✔

- 22 -

He hums to a tune they liked listening to when there were the three of them - back when they were happy as nothing had broken their circle of friendship yet - contented. Opposite to the panic he evoked back at the station, he's currently in his cell, feeling peaceful and serene. Knowing that he had executed everything perfectly as planned, brings his heart to ease. The minutes passing by as he dragged the detective into another roundabout by being recalcitrant was only to make sure that all attention was on him, completely taking them by surprise once the interrogation ended. He had reached a peak he had climbed, his laugh echoing throughout the woods as he looked down on the detectives still struggling to get to the top where he, San and Wooyoung had surpassed them.

It feels good to play around with authority, knowing that you have them by the leash although you're the one being cuffed; because he knows how it feels being toyed around with - four years ago the authorities laughed in their faces, mocking them for putting too much trust in the law. And it's time to pay them back for what they've done.

He resumes his humming when he realizes that he had stopped, too consumed in relishing over the detectives' trepidation after realizing that they were played yet once again. He didn't even have to lift up a finger, nevertheless the play kept on rolling. He hooks his fingers behind his head, blowing a hair out of his face and a smile creeps on his face, twisting like it was a writhing caterpillar.

Ah, it's starting to get boring in the cell, unaware of what's going happening outside. Have they interrogated Wooyoung already? Have they identified the new bodies they were gifted with? Where is Choi San right now? Has he ascended to wherever he was supposed to go, now that his goal here is done?

Suddenly he feels inclined to reminisce all the days of their friendship; how the three of them were basically inseparable. No, scratch that. It was Wooyoung and San who were inseparable, and he... was simply an extra baggage. He never let it show of course. But how many times had it been when he grumbled to himself when he saw the two of them going off somewhere together, without inviting him to join them? What about the late night trips they went to a convenience store to grab some snacks because they were roommates, while he was moping around his apartment, bored out of his mind? Then there were the inside jokes he never seemed to get, shared between the two as they giggled like schoolgirls getting presents from their crushes. The two were always hanging out together that he eventually felt left out. He had tried to wriggle in between them, pretending as if he understood what was going on; however it's clear that there was a distinct gap between him and the two.

You're on a different level than us, Wooyoung had said jokingly to him one day. San only agreed while he munched on some snacks. That's why we don't usually ask you to hang out with us, you'll find the activities we do as peasants to be boring.

But I'm fine with anything, really. I don't even mind going on a walk with the two of you anywhere, he had replied, trying to keep the same energy so that it wouldn't appear as if he was irritated. He was highly irritated, in fact. But still, he kept it hidden away.

Even after saying that, they barely included him in anything. Okay, so maybe it was partly his fault. It's his fault that he's always busy with trying to keep up with the training from his parents, preparing to take over the company one day. It's his fault that he was born rich, unlike being born as average people like the two of them. It's his fault that people kept using him and only became friends with him because he was rich, that he thought he had found good friends within them. It's his fault that people were scared of him because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It's his fault that he had money and they didn't.

Growing up he never really had any close friends; they were either just people respecting him or resenting him. So when he found the two - Wooyoung and San - crouching under a bully, he thought that he had finally found two friends that wouldn't use him for his riches. They didn't, of course. But the bridge between them weren't really complete; there were still some holes. He never told them what he actually felt, so maybe that was why they were still oblivious to that.