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"Why do you trust me?" San asked Hongjoong, a curious glimmer in the boy's eyes as he did so. "I mean, I am the enemy after all and you openly welcomed me into your house. We're alone and there's no one to stop me from killing you right now."
It took the Kim faction heir a moment to respond, not expecting that sort of question to come out of his mouth. "Because you're Mari's friend," Hongjoong answered him, peering down the hallway they were in to make sure no one saw them. If anyone from his faction caught San on the premise they'd immediately switch into attack mode and try to kill him, and he wasn't looking for any blood on his hands right now. "Anyone who is a friend of Mari's, I can trust. No matter how... odd they seem."
After making sure the hallway was clear, he urged the Seo Faction member to follow him. If he just made it to his room before anyone could catch them, then he could successfully hide San until Mari returned. Sure, the whole reason he was here in the first place was to help them search for clues on Wooyoung's whereabouts but he just didn't feel safe with San wandering around his home alone. There were only so many people who would listen to Hongjoong if he tried to distract them on his own, it was too much of a risky move to try and proceed with the plan without Mari.
"Why do you trust Mari?" San ended up asking him as the two stopped at the staircase that led to the upper floors. Hongjoong turned towards the rival faction boy with a skeptical face, unsure as to why he was asking such strange questions. He smiled at the Kim Faction heir, his face turning catlike as he continued to speak. "You trust me because you trust Mari, so there's got to be a reason you're putting so much faith into her. You even agreed to bring me straight to the heart of the Kim Faction, there's so much damage I could cause just by being here."
Hongjoong stood in silence for a moment, his brain turning its gears into a desperate attempt to find an answer that would satisfy San's desires. Though when he couldn't come up with a response fast enough, he laughed at him. "You trust her because you like her, right?"
Reluctantly, he nodded.
"Both of you are so weird, you know that?" He asked Hongjoong, skipping past him like a rabbit and stepping up the stairs. "I know I was the one who encouraged Mari to set up this plan of having dinner with your dad and all, but in reality? I really don't trust you. Neither of you has any reason to trust each other either. You're the heir to the Kim Faction and tried to kill her and she's the heir to the Seo Faction and lied to you, but look at you now! Putting your lives into each other's hands without second guessing, you're crazy."
"I know Mari has no reason to trust me as much as she is right now," Hongjoong admitted, fidgeting with his hands as he began to pick up the pace to catch up with him. "But why don't you trust me?"
San hummed to himself, musing about all the memories that Kim Faction heir couldn't even think to recall. "Your faction tried to murder me alongside Mari's mother and I was the only one to survive the attack. Your faction set the Utopia on fire and almost trapped all of my friends inside a burning building. You attacked our home base and would have murdered Mari without thinking anything of it had you two not been called out by Jaerin. Oh, and I can't forget all of the trouble you caused Wooyoung who had been hopelessly pinning after that girl since he was a child."
"Oh," the boy trailed off, unable to properly respond to San's reasonings. "Those are some really good reasons to be untrusting."
"I know right?" He commented as the two reached the third floor of the house. "I've been sitting in shallow anger for months now and now I've got the perfect chance to get reparations. All I need to do is push," San told him, turning and imitating the motion of him pushing a person down the very long stairs. "And all my worry will be over within the blink of an eye."
"You're kinda scary, you know that?" Hongjoong asked him, almost scoffing at the boy's actions as he moved past him.
San smiled at his words, turning on his heel to follow him. "I'm the devil of the Seo Faction for a reason. I just choose to be friendly to those who happen to have their goals intertwine with my own."
"Your own goals?"
"I'm here because I want to save my friend. Wooyoung is Mari's childhood friend, but he's also my closest friend in the Seo Faction." He told him, shrugging softly as he explained himself. "It gets lonely without him, I won't lie. I miss his bad sarcasm and his petty arguments with Mari, but I'm also worried about him. He's a very strong willed person, he would go to hell and back in a eternal loop if it meant keeping the Kim Faction away from the people he cared about."
"Is that why he pointed a gun at me when we first met?" Hongjoong joked, a small smile growing on his face as San smiled back.
"Probably! He's a very eccentric person, that's why we like him so much."
The more Hongjoong spoke to San, the more comfortable he got with him. Which was funny seeing as though the boy had threatened to kill him multiple times over the last minute or so. That's probably just how he worked, how he gained curious friends like Mari and Wooyoung back at his faction. Though, Hongjoong couldn't judge him much. He was in love with Mari and the boy had his own gang of curious people on his side.
"Second room on the left, that's where my room is," He instructed. "Go in there and please stay in there until Mari comes back. Once she returns, we'll let you run free and cover for you as best as we possibly can. It shouldn't take long, it's been about three minutes so she'll be back any second."
"No," San declined, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he looked from the room's door to Hongjoong. "That's boring, I don't want to wait in there. Let me come with you!"
"Are all of you this stubborn?" Hongjoong mumbled to himself, recalling the times Mari flat out refused to heed his warning. "San, if someone catches you, they'll kill you. Mari's got special permission straight from my father to even be standing in the building. You snuck in here per Mari's requests."
"I don't think you know what you're dealing with," San told him, standing firmly in place so that he couldn't be moved. "You've got one of the best soldiers from the Seo Faction with you right now, dare I say I'm shooting even higher than a soldier. You don't need to worry about me, I can handle myself when I'm getting attacked by myself."
"Go," Hongjoong grumbled, opening the door and trying to force the boy inside. "In the room. It's for your safety."
"I don't need protection!" San complained, clinging to the door frame like a cat trying to escape the water. "And sitting around and waiting for people is boring! I'm not going to go in!"
"San!" He hissed.
"Hongjoong!" The other boy yelled even louder.
Though it seemed as though the two boys were causing a bit more of a commotion than anticipated. "Hongjoong?" A familiar feminine voice spoke. The sudden distraction made San's grip on the door frame weak, giving the boy a small time frame to shove the Seo Faction member into his room and close the door behind him. With a deep sigh of relief, he turned around to face the person in front of him before sucking the relief back into his body immediately.
"Mother?" He questioned, pressing his back against the door and clutching into the doorknob as if his life depended on it. How long had she been there? Had she caught sight of San? Did she hear him arguing with San beforehand? "What are you... what are you doing here?"
"I've been looking all over for you!" She exclaimed, reaching out a hand to latch onto Hongjoong and pull him away. "Did you not listen to me when I said do not be late to dinner? We haven't had dinner as a family in years and you invite a girl over for the first time in months, yet you go and ruin it by being late!"
"Does it really matter?" He asked her, snatching his arm away from her in retaliation.
She gasped at his response, refraining from putting her hands on him as she tried to explain herself. "Of course this matters, your father put aside his very busy schedule just for you! Mari, that peculiar girl, I was looking forward to getting to know her better. She seemed like such a dear, don't tell me you went and chased her away already!" Something was off about his mother he could already tell that much. Her curiosity of Mari seemed as though it was turning into an odd obsession and once his mother became obsessed with something, she'd never let it go.
"Mari isn't a dog that'll run away with its tail between its legs," Hongjoong defended, an annoyed glare beginning to fester in his face.
"Then why isn't she with you?" His mother asked him. "You two were attached by the hip earlier and now she's nowhere to be seen? You must have chased her away, just like you've chased all the ones before her!"
"Is there something you want from me?" Hongjoong snapped, his head aching at the number of questions San would probably have for him. There was no way he wasn't hearing the conversation between the family members. "If it's Mari you want so badly, I'll have to send her back home as soon as I can. I won't let her become another... another weird obsession of yours."
"No!" The woman yelled, her voice echoing across the hallways in an ominous tone. Any average person would have flinched at the amount of wrath and power she bellowed in one word, but this was his mother. Hongjoong was used to it. After a moment of silence between the two, she cleared her throat before speaking. "I mean... you shouldn't make your guest leave on an empty stomach. Let us have dinner first and then she may go home. I'll feel bad if we don't feed the poor child while she's here."
"Mari has her own home where her father takes care of her, you know that right?" He reminded her. "She's not sickly looking, she doesn't look starved, and someone is waiting for her to return."
"Ah yes, of course, a father." She nodded, though her voice sprinkled with spite and bitterness," but nothing beats the warm feeling of a mother, don't you agree?"
Hongjoong stared at the woman for a moment, his brain going to work as his mind started to race. Something is wrong, and his mother was distracting him to keep the thread loose. "What did you do to Mari?"
His mother smiled at him, placing her hands on his shoulders as she spoke to him. "Oh Hongjoong, you have such peculiar taste in women. But dare I say, I think you've reeled in the best one yet, a useful one too. You're such a good son, much better than the other one."
It was as if something in Hongjoong had been hit as if he got a bullet straight into the heart without any sort of warning. After a dazed moment of disbelief, he shoved the woman off him, making sure there was a good distance between him and his mother so that she couldn't touch him again. "I'm going to ask one more time, what did you do to Mari?"
"The Underboss went to greet her," his father explained, his condescending yet familiar smile burning holes into the boy's skin. The man chuckled at Hongjoong's look of despair, finding it more endearing than anything. "He couldn't wait to meet her personally after hearing and searching for her for almost... a month or so now? He was excited even, I've never seen such childlike glee on that man's face until now."
Hongjoong's heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach, his mind immediately blanking out and hitting the emergency button. "No."
"Yes!" He exclaimed, his smile too wide to be that of a saint's. "Even unknowingly you do your job so well. Thank you, Hongjoong, for leading the Seo Faction's daughter straight to me. I always knew you were the talented one when your brother was still alive and you continue to prove yourself even when you've estranged yourself from us! What is it you want as a reward? That motorcycle of yours is getting rather old, isn't it? I can get a new one from you, imported straight from a foreign country!"
"I want you to let go of Mari," Hongjoong demanded as adrenaline began to pump in his brain, attempting to cloud his thoughts as he tried to keep himself from breaking down right in front of them. The words were just flying out of his mouth now, not even taking a moment to think about its consequences. "I want you to stop talking about my brother, I just want you to stop!"
"Unfortunately, I cannot do that for you," his father responded, a wicked smirk growing on his face as he placed a hand on Hongjoong's shoulder with a vice-grip like strength. "How about you think a little longer on what you want as a reward?"
"No," He hissed, prying the man's hands off his shoulder as his eyes blazed with pure rage. "Let her go or I'll make you."
His father tsked in response, unsatisfied with the answer he had gotten. With a hard shove, he sent Hongjoong crashing into the door of his bedroom, the thud from his back colliding with the wood much louder than anticipated. Like an angry dog, he had forced himself to shake off the small aching pain, ready to make a run for it in between the two parents and find Mari on his own. Though the man pressed his foot against the boy's chest, putting a majority of his weight on it and watching Hongjoong struggle beneath him.
"You will stay here while we take her away for more... important business," He threatened, the commanding and savage undertones of his voice coming out on full blast. "You will stay here and not interfere with our matters any longer. Your job here is done, Kim Hongjoong. If I catch word of you escaping and running to find a way to snatch her back, I will not hesitate to kill you. Just as you did not hesitate to kill your brother."
"That's because you made me do that!" He argued, struggling to push the man off of him as footsteps could be heard climbing the stairs. "You forced me— you manipulated me into killing him! I won't let you hurt them, I promise you I'll be the one to kill you if Mari even ends up with a scratch on her head."
His father laughed at Hongjoong weak attempts at threatening him while his wife turned her head away, becoming blind to the scenario that played out in front of her. "Young love! So exhilarating, so fascinating! So much fun to take advantage of!" The man yelled, taking his foot off of the boy as the soldiers of his faction marched up the stairs at the beck and call of his father.
The boy scrambled to his feet as he tried to pinpoint the weak points within the men. He needed to slip out of the house as quickly as he possibly could but the soldiers were blocking his only exit from the upstairs and San was still in his room hiding away from the situation he had found himself in. "Shit."
"Keep this boy in this house," His father told his men, a glint of mockery in his eyes as he looked down on Hongjoong. "Lock him in the room and do not let him out until I say otherwise. Do not dare to have me set my eyes on him again."
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I wonder how bad my
foreshadowing of this was.
this will all make sense
soon I promise 💕