Seungcheol parked his car on the big driveway, right next to the fancy looking house. Jeonghan was shocked to see the perfectly designed interior on the outside. Even the garden looked as if he had maids over every day to keep it all perfectly clean.
"You live here?!" Jeonghan asked unbelieving while he kept staring at every little detail that was engraved into the house. Seungcheol let out a low chuckle before opening the door on his side of the car.
"I do, the host family i moved into is pretty rich. But since they're on business trips most of the time i have the place to myself pretty much always." Seungcheol said, what instantly made Jeonghan regret asking him the question.
He totally forgot about Seungcheol not living with his parents, although he mentioned it yesterday. What even happened to them if he had to live with a host family? But jeonghan knew how hard it could be to talk about things like that. So he wouldn't ask.
"Oh.. I'm sorry i totally forgot about that." Jeonghan said, looking down and playing with the hem of his soaked sweater. Seungcheol sensed something was wrong and sat back in his drivers seat, closing the door he just opened.
"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked the younger in a worried tone. But Jeonghan couldn't look up. He felt so ashamed for not thinking twice about it, even though nothing really happened. He couldn't stop feeling sorry for recklessly saying something.
"I should've thought better before speaking. Sorry seungcheol." He said, still not averting his gaze from his fingers fidgeting with his sweater. Until he heard the elder silently laughing. He lifted his head and met the friendly dark eyes of Seungcheol.
"Why on earth should you be sorry for that?"
"Well, you said it yourself yesterday. Isn't it weird if you move in with a host family? And stupid me didn't even remember it. God, what if i made you uncomfor-" "-Jeonghan stop."
Jeonghan stopped midst his sentence and could only look at the big smile appearing on Seungcheol's face. "You didn't make me uncomfortable and you don't have to worry about mentioning it. If you hadn't apologized i wouldn't have noticed it at all. It's not like you meet someone with an extraordinary situation at home everyday."
an extraordinary situation at home
Jeonghan knew parental divorces happened all the time. It wasn't extraordinary. But something about the way seungcheol spoke to him made him feel understood. As if Seungcheol wasn't only talking about himself. But about the two of them. Like two people who were reaching out in the dark finally found each other.
"Are you okay though?" Seungcheol suddenly asked, making jeonghan realize he zoned out for a moment.
no, i'm not
"Yes, i am." Even though it was a lie, Jeonghan smiled. Exact the same he had been doing to his friends ever since his parents divorced. He felt like he needed to. Everyone saw him as a happy person. An angel. And although he knew himself he wasn't, it satisfied him enough if others still saw him as the happy angel he had always been. Or at least, he thought so. "let's just go, my clothes are starting to get cold."
Before seungcheol could say something, jeonghan had already opened the car door and stepped out. But to his surprise Seungcheol didn't ask any more questions. He just let it be for what it was and didn't fire tons of questions at jeonghan's head. What he really appreciated.
Seungcheol led the two to the entrance of the mansion, unlocking it with a key from his pocket. The rain outside was still going on as hard as ever, but neither of them seemed to bother anymore since they were now safely dry inside the house.
The inside was as big as it seemed on the outside. Everything seemed to be perfectly tidied, almost making you scared to walk in and move something by accident. The floors gleamed and Jeonghan asked himself if he would walk over them with his overworn sneakers that were soaking wet, would they ever be this clean again? The interior mostly consisted of white tinted colors, making it seem even more tidy and neat than it already was.
So the owners must really be neat freaks.
"A little overwhelming huh?" Seungcheol asked, playfully bumping Jeonghan's shoulder who hadn't moved an inch since they stepped inside.
"Kinda." He admitted, still too busy admiring every little detail around him. Seungcheol had already taken his shoes off and walked to the big staircase that was placed in the middle of the entrance hall. "How rich are these people?" Jeonghan asked, snapping himself out of his trance and taking off his shoes as well.
The first step on the perfectly cleaned floor felt painful, but he knew he had to follow Seungcheol if he didn't want to look like some weirdo. It was still just a house after all. If he could call this mansion 'just a house'.
"Tell me about it. They literally have rules for everything and sometimes i'm literally scared to step foot in this place. But they hired maids who clean everything up everyday. So i don't exactly follow the rules whenever they're out." Seungcheol said with a mischievous smile. Jeonghan noticed they were talking way more openly about it and decided to ask him more, since he was making him curious.
"But you said you've only been here for two weeks. How do you know they're out a lot and how can you ignore their rules already?" Jeonghan asked as he walked up the stairs right after Seungcheol.
"I've been here for the past two months, but they only let me start school two weeks ago so i could get used to the environment." Seungcheol said as they arrived up the stairs, walking into a hallway Jeonghan assumed wasn't by far the only one on the first floor. "And they really are out a lot. At the moment they are in Egypt if i'm not wrong. They left on Saturday and if I'm right they arrive next week on Friday. Only to stay home for 3 days and leave again to somewhere on the other side of the planet."
It was now Wednesday, so he would be all alone in the gigantic house until friday the week after. That would almost be two complete weeks since they left on Saturday. "How do you keep up all by yourself? Isn't it scary all alone in a place like this?" Jeonghan asked a bit shocked.
"Well, I'm not exactly alone. All the maids that work here are part of the house. They have the second floor for themselves. They take care of dinner and that's practically all i need. But besides them cleaning up the house and making me dinner, I'm pretty much alone all the time."
"Aren't you scared? It must be horrible to be alone in such a big house."
Seungcheol shrugged. If Jeonghan only knew, that where he came from was way scarier than being all alone in a house like this.
"I don't think it's scary. I like to finally have some room for myself."
