Mr. No || NCT || Completed

32 - Where Renjun's emotions ride a merry-go-round

"You hid it from me?" Renjun's voice was monotonous. His intestines had turned upside down.

Chaewon started playing with her fingers, too ashamed to lift her eyes from the table. "Yes."

"Why?"

The whole thing was bizarre. Renjun was waiting for her to tell him that it was a misunderstanding or that she was joking but – she couldn't lie. Despite the sobering effect of caffeine, his brain was still cloudy and slow because of the copious amounts of soju and beer he had inhaled earlier (though he couldn't really remember it) and he didn't know how to react. The bundle of unnamed emotions using his head as a merry-go-round confused him even more.

"That woman", Chaewon spoke timidly and glanced at the paper between them, "she was – it's the profile of my grandmother. The one who died a long time ago."

"And you hid it from me on purpose?" Renjun repeated.

"Yes."

"I thought that you can't lie or deceive anyone."

Chaewon lowered her gaze. "I didn't lie to you. I just... didn't tell you everything."

"Does that somehow make it better?"
Renjun still didn't know what he felt; the only emotion his drunken brain could recognize was betrayal.

"I didn't mean to do it, it just happened", she whispered. "My grandmother is a touchy topic in our family so seeing her file threw me off and I – "
"And you figured that you might as well derail my entire investigation just because of some old family drama", Renjun interrupted her. "Has this been some kind of a game for you? Was it fun to see how long you could keep up the pretence?"

Chaewon's eyes widened and she shook her head quickly, lifting her hands in the air as if that would disarm the situation. "No, of course not! I – "

"You were bored and decided to have fun", Renjun had recognized the second emotion lifting its head. It was anger. "Maybe it was like a treasure hunt for you? You blackmailed me into letting you help me, made me believe that you had to be trustworthy since you couldn't lie, and then you decided to deprive me of information just because you could do it and you happened to feel like it."

Chaewon shrunk into her seat as if his words were electric shocks. "I didn't mean to do it." Her voice was meek and her shoulders hunched, making her look very tiny underneath his coat. "Until today, you didn't tell me much about what we were doing. I didn't know how serious it was."

A hot wave of embarrassment flashed through Renjun when he understood how, mere minutes ago, he had been telling her all about his childhood, his fears, everything. Fury tinted his glare when the humiliation hit him.

"You're quite a playmaker, aren't you?" his words were shards of glass, "even now I played right into your corner without realizing it. I came here, to you, in the middle of the night and pretty much scored my own goal by being so damn pathetic. I suppose I should congratulate you."

Chaewon's breathing hitched. "You must be angry and I understand that but I didn't mean to make your life difficult. It just happened."

"And because you tell me now that you didn't mean it, I should just lay on my back and say thank you, right?" Renjun lifted his eyebrows, "I mean, gee, you've helped me out so much already. It's clear that I should exist only to make you feel better about yourself."

"Can you please listen to me?" Chaewon pleaded and reached over to grab his hand. Her eyebrows had arched hopelessly and her fingers were cold and tiny against his hand.

He looked down and stared at their hands. When she touched him, his heart jolted.
He hated it.
He hated it so much.

He shook her hand off like it was acid burning his skin. "Are you ready for the next round already? I wonder what moves you have left."