"They say the most beautiful smile hides the darkest secrets." he says ruefully.
Looking at her now, knowing the truth, his heart simmers with guilt. The hatred he had grown to home towards her, now withering away like the sand falling from one's f...
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With a mild headache and sore back, Jeongguk wakes up, making an audible grunt. He feels hazy and exhausted as the result of medicinal effects and the liquor.
Sleep dawned him but he refused to rest. He'd been lying in the bed, wide awake for hours now, his body heavy and mind deprived of peace. The room was still dark with the navy blue drapes preventing any sunlight from entering the room. The periodic sound of the wall clock and air purifier filling the placidly silent apartment.
Removing the covers from his body, he lands his feet on the floor, feeling the cold tile as the contact seems to have a soothing effect on his tensed muscles. He takes a deep breath as he stands up. Despite the sore back, he reaches out to his cell-phone placed on the side table and checks the inbox.
A smile appears on his face once he's finished reading the information. He then dials a number and presses the cell phone to his ears.
"Get the reports completed." He says, walking out.
For a moment, his eyes linger at the door to another room. Janice had left early in the morning. He'd heard her walk out of the apartment, but he was in a state of bizarre hypnagogic and couldn't find in himself the strength to get up and stop her.
He couldn't even stop his thoughts from eating him out, let alone imagine stopping someone else. At that very moment, he wasn't even sure of his senses. He checks her locked door once again before striding out into the hallway.
With his attention partly divided between his call and studying the apartment, he enters the living room. It resembled the rest of the apartment. Grey patterned walls with navy blue drapes covering the wide windows, Fos-lightings and classy furniture developed a vintage yet cozy ambiance.
A smile tags his lips as he cuts the call, looking at the Givenchy bags placed neatly on the coffee table. He slides the phone into his slack-pocket and turns around as he hears the main door open.
Janice enters, two paper-bags in her hand and a wallet in other. She wore a simple sacramento-green jumpsuit with a black coat draped over her shoulders.
She locks the door behind her, settling her car keys into the brass bowl as she approaches him with a smile. One that didn't reach her eyes, and she looked preoccupied.
Whilst asleep, the hints of her absence in the apartment disheartened him. But now, watching her walk towards him with a smile, though not entirely genuine, made him feel better. As if this was some regular regimen where she'd come to him and tell him about her day. But it was all in his head as she looks away from him and slips into the kitchen, though he could still see her through the open wooden panel.
His trance is broken when she removes the coat and busies herself in emptying the contents of the paper bag into the fridge. Eggs, water bottles, some jam and other stuff. The kitchen lacked some necessities; he guessed.
