Glorybringer AU ☆the fault in our stars☆

[33] Chameleon

☆Peril☆

The only way Chameleon survived was to stick to a powerful person like a parasite. He immediately became whatever was asked of him-- the funny friend, charming boyfriend, crazy-over-his-stepdaughter stepdad. 

Never a good father. Because he never saw it as something necessary. 

Chameleon never had any power except his shifting personality. So he gained people's trust and sucked secrets off them. And when he needed them to do something, he used those secrets to his own advantage. That was how he survived.

He taught his survival skills to me when I was seven. At then, I viewed it as a little game. Hearing a secret gave my seven-year-old self a small happiness, because I didn't even know what they were going to be about. 

When Chameleon brought me to his friend's-- a famous movie director-- house, I looked around it as if under a spell. A big, shiny house with stairs and so many rooms that I lost count. The man gave me a dazzling smile, and introduced me to his son, Jambu. He was a few years older than me. He squirmed under his father's hand, which I couldn't understand. 

After a while, two women arrived, and both men's face lighted up. Chameleon was staring at a red-haired woman, and I could tell-- even then-- that he was planning something. After her came a girl a little taller than me. "Scarlet would be delighted to meet Peril. I heard Peril's first in her grade, so she will have no problem catching up with an older girl. Right, girls?"

Scarlet quickly turned to me with narrowed eyes. "Of course." Then she eyed Chameleon, and then me. "Hey, Chameleon."

"Hey, little angel." Chameleon lifted her up and ran in circles-- something he had never done to me. "How have you been, you troublemaker?"

The woman next to Scarlet's mother was Anaconda-- I had seen her on TV. She stood there, her lips pressed together. It was an expression that I had never seen on TV. Her husband tried to reach for her hand, but when she snatched it away, he gave an exasperated sigh. "Chameleon, let's go to my study to talk."

Chameleon set Scarlet down, and Scarlet gave me a look that said, see? I don't know who you are, but he likes me more. It made me jealous, but also a little superior, because I knew it was all an act.

Finally, Chameleon turned to me. "Peril, go and play with Jambu and Scarlet. Father's going to talk to his friend in his study, okay?"

"Okay!" 

Chameleon was looking at the man and Anaconda, back and forth, as if trying to catch something. A secret? I wanted to know, too.

After an hour of playing with Scarlet-- and concluding that she had some sort of narcissism (although I didn't know the exact word back then)-- I tried to look for Chameleon because I really wanted to go home.

A room with a locked door soon came into sight, and I could hear voices. That was when I remembered what Chameleon said about secrets, and decided to eavesdrop.

"Anaconda has been like that ever since the car accident couple years ago." A huge sigh. What accident? "How dare she be mad at me when she doesn't even know what I did? The nerve! With Jambu, too. Of course she's almost never home to take care of him. And can you believe it? They had a child. A little girl."

"God, I never saw Anaconda that way. If my wife did such a thing...You're a saint to keep her as a wife. But it's necessary, seeing Jambu's age..."

"I know! In my crazy moments, I thought about killing her. But then, what would happen to our reputation? To Jambu? And I hate myself for saying this, but I still love her, Chameleon, my God." Silence. The words about killing surprised me, but I still listened. "If I can't kill her, I thought, who can I kill? That man. And I know some people that does those kinds of things, and they got the job done. It was clean and fast, they framed it like a natural accident. All it took was a little bit of money." A crazed laughter.