Viridescence | Yunho

༻ 32 ༺

"Are these my tears or the raindrops?"
- Aya by Mamamoo

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Hongjoong raises his eyes from the book with an eyebrow lifted. When he sees Jihyun's standing awkwardly at the entrance to the library his face lights up.

"Of course, take a seat!" he brightly exclaims while gesturing to the couch in front of him. He quickly places a bookmark in the book he was reading and carefully sets it down on the coffee table in front of him.

Jihyun nods with a gulp and timidly steps further in. She must be extra careful with what she says here.

"You're finally ready to talk to me! What did you want to talk about?" he asks with a warm tone. Jihyun takes a seat and nervously shuffles her feet in front of her.

"Why are you so eager to talk to me?" she wonders. He giggles brightly. "It's a simple reason, but it's the small things that make life fun, isn't it? I like talking to you because you remind me of someone I know," he replies with amusement. Jihyun starts to feel more uncomfortable in his presence but pushes forward.

"Why won't you tell us what you're developing a special serum for?" she bravely asks. Hongjoong nods thoughtfully and grins widely. "Because you've never asked! I have no reason to hide this stuff from you," he laughs.

"Then can you tell me right now- what is the serum you're trying to make and why?" she asks in a sheepish voice. The leader sits back into the couch and starts swinging his foot. "You're asking out of pure curiosity and not to try and sell us out, yeah?" he threatens. 

There he is. The scary Hongjoong is back.

"I'm just curious. It seems quite important to you guys and I wonder what the cause is," she defends while keeping her voice firm.

He stares at her, thinking for a few seconds. "Then I'll tell you."

Jihyun lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes into her seat. She clears her mind and gets ready to soak up every single thing he's going to say.

"To give you a short summary, we're trying to make people that will listen to us no matter what! Essentially we're making slaves using science," he nonchalantly blurts. Jihyun's breathing quickens. How could he so carelessly say something so horrible?

"W-What exactly does that mean?" she questions, starting to grow more scared.

"I'll go into more detail. How nice would it be to finally have control over everything? It really pisses me off when people do dumb things, so I thought that it's time to fix that. I need an over-powered army that will obey me and help me, it's been a life-long dream of mine. I want this army to be full of strong killing machines that will listen to my every command and will have no emotion in their way. I want them to be mindless and obedient- like a well trained dog!" he explains cheerfully.

Is this stuff even possible to do? Hongjoong's sick view on people and dogs as his slaves makes her want to throw up. But now Yunho's condition makes more sense. His strength and limited emotions must be little bits of what Hongjoong wants him to be.

"What even is your end goal with an army like that? And how are you getting away with a project so big? No one knows anything about you or your gang somehow," she wonders. The man in front of her chuckles loudly. "Are you interrogating me or something?" he asks with a sinister glint in his eye.

On edge again, she straightens up a bit. "No! It's just my mind, once I hear about something I can't help but get very curious," she half lies. Hongjoong nods a bit.