Look At Us | Hwang Hyunjin

Seventeen

|| BOREUM ||

Okay. So I've killed a man.

I turn to look at Chul again, just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. His head had a huge gash on it from when he got pushed against the glass coffee table. His eyes were still open, but I knew he was dead.

He was dead because of me.

The door closes to the room, and he cautiously starts to walk towards me. Is he disgusted? Will he report me to the police? He gazes at me. I gaze at him back.

He bends down on the floor, placing his index finger and middle finger against Chul's throat. He lets out a sigh. "No pulse." I feel the Earth stop. My hands start to quiver as I start to tremble away from the body.

I'm a murderer. Hyunjin get's up, looking at me. His expression was unreadable. "Did you hit him with your shoes?" He asks. I nod slowly.

"Put them on." He commands. "Why?" I ask quietly.

"His DNA is now on the shoes. If the forensics find that out you'll become the main suspect. Take the box that he gave you with and burn it, and put the shoes on." Hyunjin turns on the fireplace as I pick up the box and quickly throw it into the burning pile.

I take off my heels and replace them with diamond ones. They sparkled on me. "Go to the bathroom and turn the shower on for a little bit. Make sure it looks like someone just used it."

My feet take me to the bathroom where I turn the shower on. I didn't question Hyunjin's motives. I just hoped that it was all a dream. My mind felt numb as I watched the droplets touch against the marble floors. I turn the shower off and make sure to wet the towel as well.

I head out of the room, where Hyunjin was staring at Chul's body. A blank face, like he didn't know what he was doing.

"He... He knew everything." I say as he turns to look at me. "He told me to be with him and he won't tell anyone. When I said no he got mad and he tried to hit me. It was self-defence."

His hand reaches for Chul's pocket, opening it and pulling out a receipt, a one from Saint Laurent. "That's proof that could link the murder to you," He says, taking it and throwing it into the fireplace as well.

"Go downstairs, Boreum. Sit down at the table quietly, make sure no butler or maid sees you leave this room, or even go down the stairs. If anyone asks where you were, just say you went to the bathroom." He says.

"What about you?" I question. "I'll be fine. I just need to think for a while." He says. I glimpse at him one more time with guilt before exiting the room and steering downstairs quietly.

I sit back down at the dining table, where no one caught me while I was gone. They were still doing the gift ceremony. A few minutes go by and the main dish arrives at the table. I don't touch any of it.

Soon enough, Hyunjin strolls to the table and sits down swiftly as if he never left. "What took you so long?" I whisper to him.

"I had to think of a plan while I was up there." He clarifies quietly, catching his own fork and plowing the food into his mouth like everyone else at the plain. He's acting like nothing even happened, it's remarkable.

"Well, what plan?" I ask.

He gulps down his food. "In two minutes, Hyukjae will get a notification saying that something is wrong with his PS4. He will go upstairs and check on it in his room, and he will discover Chul's body. Then you will dribble your drink on the woman next to you—"

I stop to peek over at her. She was Hyunjin's second aunt or something like that. I didn't want to have anything to do with the plan but considering I was the one who executed the murder I shut my lips and resumed listening.

"—and she will go to the bathroom to cleanse her outfit. I locked all the bathrooms on the first floor, so she will have to go upstairs. When walking to the nearest bathroom, she will pass Hyukjae's room, where she will see Hyukjae with the dead body. She will freak out and will paint Hyukjae as the murderer."

I bite down on my lip anxiously. "What if it doesn't work? What if Hyukjae closes the door? What if he doesn't go upstairs?" I ramble.

"We just have to hope, darling. "He says. "Just hope."

So I did. I devoured my food for the next two minutes until Hyukjae pulls out his phone, his eyebrows creased at the screen. Hyunjin and I share glances as Hyukjae excuses himself quickly. I can hear him amble up the stairs.

The moments felt unreal. My gut was bashing outside my stomach and the only thing that I felt was fear. Not the fear that I slaughtered someone, the fear of getting detected. "Now." Hyunjin whispers in my ear.

My hand traces my red wine as I slowly pick it up, tilting it to the side as it slowly dripped onto the aunt's pink dress. She gasps as she backed away. "Oh my-" She says. I muttered out something similar to an apology, but I don't think she heard me.

The aunt grumble some stuff at me as she angrily left the table. The attention was away from the aunt and back to the dinner, politics, or whatever they wanted to talk about. My chest slowly rose up and down.

I saw Bitna look at me for a moment. She knew something was wrong. She knew that I did something terrible. Right now she was the most dangerous thing in the room for me. One suspicious thought and she'll paint me as the villain.

Then we heard it. The scream of terror. Coming from upstairs. Thundering through the house like lightning on a damp summer night.

"What the hell?" Mr. Hwang Kitae starts, getting up from his seat to follow the sound. So did everyone else, so Hyunjin and I were left to join. He gave my palm a strong squeeze. "Everything will be fine."

The entire walk through the house and up the stairs felt like slow motion. I almost tripped down the stairs as I climbed them due to nervousness.

I got a sneak peek from the back where I was standing of the situation once we arrived there. The aunt was on the floor, whimpering as Hyukjae has a hand over her mouth in an attempt to muffle her scream.

Everyone starts to screech and cry in dreadfulness as they get a look into what was inside the room. "What did you do to him?!" Someone asks Hyukjae, horrified. He got up from his spot, everyone staring at him in dread.

"Wait no. It wasn't me!" But not a single soul believed him. "You have to believe me!" He pleads. He was helpless in the situation. He was the murderer in their eyes, his hands were painted red with Chul's blood as I hid mine behind my back.

I look over to stare at Hyunjin's eyes, and we both start to grin.