The Elephant Between Us || SKZ

chapter six

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BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW THAN THE DEVIL YOU DON'T

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With that, the boy entered the breakroom, leaving a smiling Jeongmin alone with one more customer in the room.

A customer who wouldn't take his eyes off her.

Noticing the guy wearing a black hoodie with a cap and a mask on, Jeongmin felt immediately uneasy. He was sitting alone in a corner and, although his coffee cup was already empty, it looked like he didn't plan to stand up that soon. Her smile disappeared in less than a second.

We gotta close dude. It's literally 11.34 pm.

Now that she thought about that, who on earth drank that amount of coffee at night?

Jeongmin didn't mean to be prejudiced, but the fact that a man in dark clothes sitting alone in a corner didn't move his eyes away from her didn't please her. Not at all.

That was why she went into the breakroom to call Hyunjin in the moment the guy seemed to smirk under the mask. She didn't want it to be her telling the guy to pay for the coffee and just leave.

"Hyunjin!" Jeongmin whispered, closing the door behind her. "Remember the hand you said I could borrow? I need it. Right now."

Me? I'm not scared.

"Hyunjin?"

There was no answer.

"Geez, Hyunjin?" That time, she moved away from the door and looked around, taking a few steps to have a better perspective of the whole room. 

Empty.

Could he have left without her noticing? No way, she had seen him entering the breakroom, and she certainly would have noticed if he had left as well. But where was he, then?

Jeongmin suddenly felt a shiver going up and down her spine.

"No. I'm not the deer." She gulped, closing her fists. "I won't be the goddamn deer."

Filling all her organs with courage, Jeongmin opened the door and finally left the breakroom, getting face-to-face with something she did not expect: a room with its lights turned off, only illuminated by the lights of a black car outside turned to the café, leaving in three seconds.

He's gone.

A part of her felt more than relieved, just as if an elephant had finally taken its paw out of her chest, yet the other did not feel the same way. That part of her felt just like something important had slipped out of her hands, like she had wasted the opportunity to choose freedom over that thing she was living at that moment. That part of her whispered in her ears that she was the deer. Again.

Frustrated, Jeongmin grunted, putting her hands to her head.

"This is not that." She mumbled to herself, shutting her eyes. "I'm safe."

You're safe here, Jeongmin. 

That was nothing.

Nobody followed you.

Nobody's coming for you.

You're safe here.

You're not a bad person.

Jeongmin!

That was a client.

A client, okay?

A normal client.

When Jeongmin opened her eyes and looked around, she noticed a folded banknote on the counter.

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"How was your day?" Jeongin asked, taking a piece of tuna into his mouth.

Now that they had started working, he was hopeful they'd be able to eat more than canned tuna and pasta soon. Although their apartment was empty, only with the kitchen's basic equipment, a bed, two chairs, a table and a lamp, that day at work made him positive that would change sooner than they'd ever thought. 

He was positive that night, but she was not.

"I see you didn't like it." 

"I'm not a doctor." She said in a low tone, looking at her food as she moved her fork in random movements. 

Lemons. F.cking lemons.

"Jeongmin..." He mumbled, sighing.

"Don't say anything, okay? I already know what you got to tell me." With that, she stood up. "I'm not hungry." And left. 

She loved her brother with her whole heart but, sometimes, he was way too rational for her. How could he not get pissed off knowing there were other people in the same world as them living better by doing less? They did not deserve that, and Jeongmin couldn't just accept it. She could not look at that piece of tuna and thank God for it. She knew she deserved way more. They deserved way more.

Jeongmin left the apartment that night wearing a blue dress and silver high heels, heading to the first nightclub she had found online.

Of course, Jeongin hadn't been briefed on that.

She deserved more than tuna, and that was the thought that made her get into a place with lights of every single colour and music that insanely made anyone's ears bleed. Jeongmin didn't care about that, though, she could only think of the drinks she was going to fill herself with that night. That was all.

As Jeongmin looked around and saw hundreds of faces she had never seen before, she smiled and walked through their dancing bodies, energetic muscles and vibrating lungs, her heart jumping out of her chest with every beat. That was a totally different type of adrenaline. A type of energy she enjoyed. 

Their lemons were not much better than hers for sure.

Reaching the bar, she sat on a stool and rested both elbows on the counter, patiently waiting for anybody to bring her the strongest cocktail of that damn place.

Jeongmin couldn't understand why her brother had never really liked drinking. She enjoyed it to the point she was able to be patient if that meant she'd get what she had asked for later. However, if there was a way she could get it without patience, she'd do it. With no boundaries included.

That was why she stood up and walked over to the man wearing a suit sitting three stools away from her, his glass over the counter full of blue liquid. Jeongmin didn't even ask permission to sit next to him. She didn't even let him speak a word. She simply took his glass in her fingers and took a long sip like it was nothing, looking into his eyes as he looked into hers.

Christ.

She thought and almost choked as she noticed the Patek Philippe on his wrist. A watch worth more than sixty thousand dollars.

When your lemons suck, be careful taking your neighbour's.

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