Chapter 6
Disclaimer: You know the drill. Everything is not real.
嘒彼小星
small are those starlets
The launch party was a dazzling success.
All because they’d all flouted a million laws to make the online shopping mall happen.
This thought gnawed at Feifei’s conscience for the next week as she oversaw multiple projects related to getting the American branch up and running. Kris, in the meantime, had taken over some of her old projects, and Feifei begrudgingly conceded that he was doing a good job. He had yet to bring up what he overheard her discussing with Byun Baekhyun at the launch-not that she thought he would be able to connect all the dots. But Kris would try to block her whatever direction he thought she was heading, whether he could see the end goal or not.
But of course, Kris couldn’t see the end goal, because even Feifei wasn’t entirely sure what that looked like yet. Zhou Mi had started to quietly invest some of their savings in markets they thought wouldn’t be affected if their corruption became an international scandal. And Zhang Liyin, although she hadn’t given Feifei a wealth of information, knew enough now to make her own plans for her family’s businesses and their associated networks. What Feifei needed now was evidence that pointed to Procurator-General Lu himself. She had a hunch he solicited bribes, but no way to prove it yet. What she needed was to get at Lu Han, somehow.
The answer came in the form of a birthday party invitation. Lu Han was holding a huge bash at his house, like he did every year, but this year he was graduating from law school and inviting all the wealthy socialites in the Los Angeles area. Feifei was surely obligated to go, but she wanted to for once. The Lu mansion had been in the family since the mid-90s, something she knew because Zhou Mi had been raised to love real estate and looked it up out of curiosity. Who knew what could be at that house?
Feifei was putting in long hours at the office, then going home and resuming her studies. Zhou Mi, who always stayed with her in one of the spare suites when he visited Los Angeles (unless he met a new friend), kept scolding her for not getting enough sleep-but Feifei didn’t need sleep. What she needed was a victory.
She was still working through complicated contracts one night when someone knocked on the door to her office. It was already nearly dark out, the sky a dusky blue, and Feifei couldn’t fathom who was still working besides her and the night guards.
The door opened, and Kris shadowed the entrance.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked, not bothering to conceal her irritation. Kris closed the door behind him and smirked at her.
“Thought we should talk,” he said.
The last time they talked in private-Feifei didn’t want to think about that. “You have a girlfriend, now,” she said. “Tread very carefully.”
Kris kept smiling, and shook his head. “Different kind of talk, this time. Sorry to disappoint.”
Feifei closed the file in front of her and stood up. If Kris was here now to spell out his suspicions, she was ready for him. He couldn’t guess the whole plan, and only Zhou Mi knew how far she was willing to go. “Then talk,” she ordered.
Kris was still smiling like he had the upper hand. Feifei wished she’d worn heels, so that he wasn’t able to look down at her, but she could still hold her own. Physical intimidation was only part of the whole puzzle and in spite of his being with Jia, he would still be cowed by his proximity to Feifei just because he couldn’t have her.
“You know, this whole time I thought you were angling for something with Lu Han. But then I had a chat with Byun Baekhyun,” he said. “Sounds like you’re really planning to sabotage Dad’s hard work.”
Feifei rolled her eyes. She knew he said “dad” just to get a rise out of her, but she wouldn’t take the bait. “Byun Baekhyun knows nothing.”
“And yet you looked scared at the launch party when he called you out on it.”
Kris looked very convinced that he had the upper hand here, and Feifei realized she had to surrender a bit of ground if she wanted him to leave.
“You’re so smart,” Feifei said with faux-astonishment. Kris’s upper lip curled with disgust and Feifei slipped back into her natural tone. “Truthfully,” she said carefully. “There are some anomalies in the records. So yes, I might pull the plug. I haven’t decided yet.”
It was a calculated move, meant to give Kris enough to think that he’d won. He blinked, surprised, and she saw that it had worked-he really seemed shocked by what she’d said.
“You can’t stop this,” Kris said, astonished. “It’s too late for that. We’ll lose too much.”
“If we stand to lose down the road because the Byuns can’t play by the rules, then it doesn’t matter.”
Kris didn’t know even a fraction of what Feifei was really considering right now. But even so, his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.
“You want to play hero? Fine.” Kris towered over her and Feifei could only glare up at him. “But keep in mind who all you’re hurting. This is our business, Feifei. We lose here.”
Of course he would try to play that card. Feifei shook her head, almost ready to laugh at him. “It doesn’t matter. This is what’s right, and I’m going to do what I need to. I’ve figured it out, okay? The only people getting hurt are the guilty ones. We lose short term, but we win in the long run.”
“Not if we lose out on this market,” Kris yelled. “You can’t be this stupid! We’re already behind, here, and if we don’t act this whole opportunity could be shot to hell.”
“I don’t care,” Feifei said definitively.
Kris pulled out his phone and started scrolling through it. Feifei didn’t know what to make of that-this was not his normal play.
“If you won’t see reason, then maybe you’ll understand this.” Kris said with gritted teeth, and then he looked up at her. For the first time, Feifei felt her resolve shake. Something was coming, something she should be afraid of.
He held out his phone and Feifei took it. When she saw what was on the screen, she jumped.
“What the hell are you playing at?” she demanded. She tried to swipe away from the image, but the one that replaced it was the same type of content. She clicked the phone off.
“I have eighteen nude photos of Jia,” he said in a tone Feifei could only describe as professional. “Half of them are from before she started her internship, and half of them are from after. You want your friend to have a future in the corporate world? You probably don’t want people thinking she fucked her way there.”
Feifei shook her head. He had her backed into a metaphorical corner and she should have known he’d play dirty but she hadn’t seen this coming at all. “Everyone knows you’re dating her, you idiot.”
“No one in China knows. Her reputation gets questioned, you really think anyone in our circles is going to fight an uphill battle to save her?” His eyebrows lifted. Feifei wanted to punch him.
“I thought you cared about her,” she said in a low voice. She really had. As much as she hated her stepbrother, he was different with Jia. More relaxed. Or maybe he was playing Jia this whole time, too. And Feifei hadn’t done her part to save her.
“Of course I care about her,” Kris said. He took the phone out of Feifei’s hand and pocketed it. “I also care about my future.”
Feifei’s blood was boiling. He hadn’t disrupted her real plan, no. But he’d gotten in a very unfair strike, and right now she couldn’t retaliate without the chance of him guessing there was more on the table than mere “anomalies.”
“I meant it, you know,” she said to him, “When I promised I would hurt you if you hurt her.”
He considered her for a moment. “Well,” he said, “The power to stop me is in your hands right now, isn’t it?” He gave her a smile, and left.
Feifei watched him leave the office. He would pay.
__________
Minseok watched as his father angled for a good shot, before swinging away. By any standards it was a mediocre attempt, but he clapped along with everyone else anyway. His father handed the iron over to his caddy with a wide smile and joined him in the golf cart. Even under the shade he was sweating so much that his shirt was soaked through the back. Minseok’s father, though, had made sure that he was thoroughly educated in the concept that playing the little white ball game was effective for forging relationships that were good for everyone involved.
The wind was, at the very least, cool as they drove off towards the next hole. His father was talking about some new spokesperson appointment for their new youth credit card line that they were putting out in conjunction with the Wangs’ online shopping mall; Minseok honestly could not be less interested, but listened halfheartedly anyway. These were all things that Sohee wanted in on, but he really didn’t care for it at all. But because he was the oldest son, Minseok had flown in to New York for the sole reason of playing golf with his father. It was ridiculous, really.
“The Kims might have someone good. Go ask Jongin if he knows if any of their people are suitable for the new image.” His father was used to issuing orders. Whether Minseok took them or not was another thing entirely altogether. Kim Jongin was the youngest son of the biggest entertainment company in Korea, and Minseok wondered why he would know about suitable candidates when in reality his older siblings Hyoyeon and Jongdae were the ones actually working at their company. Then again, Jongin also had millions of girl groups wannabes throwing themselves at him. Minseok knew that Sehun was very interested in how many he actually slept with, but Jongin’s lips were firmly sealed.
“If I happen to meet him back in California, sure.” The cart rolled to a stop and Minseok got out. He could see the mild disapproval on his father’s face. No matter how much he showed his displeasure at being saddled with more and more official duties, his father never did actually get angry at him. It was like they were being patient with a pertinent child. The thought of it pissed Minseok off. “Isn’t Sohee living in the same apartment complex as him?”
His father picked a club from the bag his caddy was holding out for him. “I know how often he appears at those parties of yours, so don’t try to pretend otherwise.” He turned around, expression inscrutable because of his sunglasses, but Minseok could see his father’s mouth set severely in a line. They looked a lot alike whenever they had that expression on. “Your sister doesn’t need to do anything like this.”
Minseok pushed his shades up a little higher. They had slipped down his nose because of the sweat from the intense heat. “You do know that she’s also working at the Los Angeles branch right now, Father?” He grabbed the iron of his choice and stepped aside to let his father play first.
“Your sister,” his father adjusted his posture, “is a princess. Princesses don’t need to-” He swung and the ball flew far out across the green, where it rolled a great distance beyond the hole. Minseok scowled. “Princesses don’t need to do menial work.”
His father glanced at him, and gestured for him to step forward. Minseok breathed out heavily and took his stance. He didn’t hate golfing, but like much of the things that he’d been made to do in his life, he had very little enthusiasm for it. But still he looked in the distance, made a rough estimate, and swung. The ball flew out with a sharp crack, and as they watched, landed on the green and began rolling. Minseok waited impassively as the ball slowed and finally rolled in the hole. Hole-in-one. His father clapped loudly from behind him, and he could hear his caddy congratulating him on a game well played. Minseok grimaced. As if this could translate over to real life.
“Your princess,” he began as they settled in the golf cart again, “doesn’t want to be one. Sohee’s more than capable enough of doing more than whatever she’s doing now.” His sister wanted to be let in on all the important projects, but her chief schedules at work had to do with attending fashion shows and various social events. The media adored her but Sohee despised the socialite title.
His father shrugged. Minseok kept quiet as he went on about raising daughters in one way and sons in another. Pamper your daughters and train your sons to be tough. Minseok thought it was bullshit when it came to Sohee. She wanted to be tough, so all the mollycoddling was unnecessary. But clearly his parents didn’t need or want to understand that their youngest child wanted a life different from the one that they’d thought best for her.
“Just go to Jongin. I want a candidate list by next Monday.” His father’s tone was final. Minseok felt like throwing his club away and stalking off, but all he did was stand by and watch again as his father delivered another average shot. Sometimes, he figured, it was better to pretend that nothing was wrong. Everytime he spoke up a little more for Sohee, she seemed to have to suffer through more of the events she hated so much. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Minseok knew that this was all part of the game as well. The last person standing would be the one who managed to keep his feet dry. If that was what it was, he would do too much more to keep Sohee as far away from the cesspool as possible.
“I’ll try.” Minseok finally offered, and his father clapped a hand on his shoulder in approval. It was something he didn’t need.
__________
Feifei was in the bedroom putting on her earrings when she heard the electronic lock beep open. A few minutes later Zhou Mi entered the room, putting his briefcase down beside the doors of the walk in wardrobe first before walking over to her and giving her a sincere hug. Feifei didn’t say a word. Tonight they were going to Lu Han’s birthday party together. She couldn’t refuse it because Lu Han had invited her, Zhou Mi’s family and Lu Han’s family were old friends, and her father would throw a fit if his stepson went and she didn’t. Wouldn’t do for their image of the perfect family. But most of all, she needed to be there to do some investigating for her own. Lu Han’s place haboured secrets, and she had to get to them. Feifei grimaced, and Zhou Mi must have noticed it.
“Don’t want to go?” He asked, and Feifei kept quiet. Zhou Mi was the only person she could be honest to. After her mother had died, Zhou Mi was the only one who stayed and held her hand through the grief. Her own father was off gallivanting and marrying gold-diggers and taking someone else’s son for his own. “I could tell Lu Han we’re not coming, if you want.”
Feifei shook her head. “I’m good. It’s just a party, and we’ve known Lu Han for forever. He’ll be disappointed if we don’t turn up.” It was a half-truth. If she was to collect any more evidence, Lu Han’s house would be her best bet. Even overhearing a conversation could be possibly incriminating.
“I’ve got his present in the car, though I’m not sure how it compares to his parents’. According to Mom they might just give the kid his own personal island this year.” Zhou Mi shook his head in what seemed to be awe. Zhou Mi’s own family didn’t do this sort of extravagance. In their country they were the rare breed that kept to themselves and hardly socialised. But real estate was something everyone needed, so while they didn’t go to anyone, everyone came to them. Feifei knew her father wanted to be first in line.
“An island.” She frowned. It was incredible that no one ever wondered where Lu Han’s family was getting all their money from. Then again if someone blew the whistle on them, everyone else would be torn apart from the inside. Everyone was connected to everybody in their circle. If one of them fell, no one else would stay unscathed. “Where? I wouldn’t be surprised if they really did get him one.”
Zhou Mi shrugged. “Yeah. But I don’t think he actually wants one, you know? Even a Maserati would be a better choice. What would he do with an island?”
Feifei wasn’t sure that a sports car worth the price of an apartment unit would be a good replacement for a private island. But Zhou Mi had already headed into the bathroom and she simply finished putting on her earrings. It took a while before she realised that she had received them for her birthday. Zhou Mi was a person that bought Harry Winston diamond studs for birthday gifts. Suddenly she was hit with the realisation that they were all of the same stock, even if she’d thought herself different for the longest time.
“Feifei?” She jerked back when she felt Zhou Mi tap her on her arm. “Are you okay?” Zhou Mi looked at her, concerned, and Feifei realised that she must have been zoning out in front of the mirror. She nodded too quickly for it to be natural.
“Let’s go. We don’t want to be too late.” Feifei scooped up her bag and said, while she opened the door and they made their way down to the garage.
Zhou Mi unlocked the Aston Martin electronically as they walked towards it. “I heard all of the younger kids are going to be there.” He smiled at her mischieviously as he helped her into the front seat. “Are you ready to party with the youngins?”
Feifei rolled her eyes. Zhou Mi could sound like an old man at times. “We’re not even that much older,” she pointed out, “and besides we don’t have to stay for too long. Do we?” She tried to look hopefully at him. If Zhou Mi thought that she didn’t want to stay long, she could slip out of sight easily and look around the place as soon as possible. He shrugged as he started up the engine.
“Not technically, but I heard Kim Myungsoo is going to be there. His father is the mayor of Seoul, so it might help in our negotiations if I actually had some sort of connection to the son.” He turned smoothly out of the underground carpark. Zhou Mi had told her before about their company trying to advance into the South Korean market. The Koreans were hard to break down, and he’d been working on it for a long time. “Can’t count on Lu Han all the time. Not when he’s not too interested in the family tradition.”
“He’s going to be a lawyer,” Feifei pointed out as they stopped at a junction, “I think that counts as carrying on the family legacy.” A filthy one.
“Yeah, but he wants to work for UNICEF, not become Procurator-General.” Zhou Mi sped up as they turned into a highway. Lu Han’s place was in a very cushy suburb, accessible only by car. “Just be happy for him his father hasn’t found out yet.”
Yes, because who would bring in the dough if Lu Han was to work pro bono? Feifei’s upper lip curled. Her family wasn’t that different, anyway. Knowing her father it was only natural to take whatever people would offer. Turning a blind eye was the trick to getting on top. Lu Han was doing a super job of it. Zhou Mi was talking about something else entirely and when she next opened her eyes, they were already there. Looking at the European style mansion in front of her, Feifei wondered how much it took to buy and maintain. These were things they didn’t bother about normally, but Feifei was in the mood to think about it today.
Zhou Mi cut the gas. “Yixing texted to say that he would be in a corner pretending not to exist.” He laughed and even she had to crack a small smile. Yixing took his awkward social position in the best way possible. Besides, his cousin made sure that nobody actually did try to do anything to him. “But yeah, wishful thinking on his part. Lu Han’s not going to let that happen.”
Feifei stared up at the mansion as Zhou Mi handed the car over to the valet. The house was fully lit up and she could hear the buzz of excitement from where she was standing. This world seemed unnaturally real, when Feifei knew that it was just a bubble. Someone could burst it open anytime. Maybe it would be her.
“I sure hope so.” She muttered as Zhou Mi took her hand and they walked over to where the party awaited.
__________
If Oh Sehun could have his way, he would design cars for a living. But as it turned out he was actually born into a family of construction, and cars would have to take a backseat to blueprints of buildings. Everyone in the family was expected to be an architect, and Sehun sometimes wondered why his older brother had to set the bar so damn high. Oh Segyun didn’t think to leave some space for his younger brother to show off. How fucking mean, Sehun thought sometimes, but he didn’t try to care too much about it. He’d rather devote more time to collecting cars and paintings than try and mope around about how fantastic his brother was compared to him. Sometimes sleeping around helped too. Actually, it helped all the time. Sehun wasn’t choosy.
He had a hard time choosing an impressive car to drive to Lu Han’s party. Lu Han was a cool guy to hang out with, but he also had far more connections than the rest of them did. There were only so many tubs of cosmetics (Baekhyun), cups of instant noodles (Chanyeol), and LED nodes (Zitao) that he could use in so many situations. Lu Han, though, was a politician’s son. That opened as many doors as he wanted. Mostly Sehun just wanted to score with the Italian car makers, but Lu Han was also a good friend. His father constantly reminded him to be on friendly terms with the Chinese kids, even if they didn’t like them too much, and Sehun listened if he benefited from it as well.
He turned into the driveway of Lu Han’s elaborate mansion. Apparently he lived here with Zhang Yixing, the guy from some lower branch of a Chinese mining family. Sehun wondered if they slept with each other. The tires of his orange Lamborghini screeched as he pulled up the handbrake and slid smoothly out of the driver’s seat. He tossed his keys at the valet, who only barely caught onto them. Private valet service at a party. Yeah, Lu Han was fucking rich all right. Sehun shrugged and jogged towards the main entrance, where he could see the glint of Byun Baekhyun’s blonde hair. As he got closer he could see the girl next to him, dark haired and petite in the standard good rich girl way-Irene Bae. Seemed like they had gotten back together again. Baekhyun and Irene had an extremely volatile relationship that was good for gossip fodder but extremely dangerous to witness in person. Sehun had the unfortunate experience once, and spent the next month actively avoiding the both of them.
“‘Sup hyung.” Sehun slung his arms around the two of them. “I see we’re all early.”
Baekhyun grinned, but pushed his arm off Irene. “I’m always early.” Sehun raised an eyebrow and kept walking.
A server greeted them at the door, where they were served flutes of champagne. Sehun eyed them carelessly for a moment, and when he looked back both Baekhyun and Irene had disappeared. Probably to make out and have angry make-up sex, he thought. Lu Han’s place had more than enough rooms for them to do that uninterrupted. There were already people milling around the main hall, but no one else he knew had arrived yet. Zitao was in the habit of being continually late to everything, and Chanyeol liked appearing at random inopportune moments.
So Sehun wandered around for a while more, pushing doors open and venturing deeper into the house. It was a pretty one, and he was interested in looking at the blueprint if Lu Han would let him. The thought made him pause for a moment. He was really more whipped into shape by his family than he’d like to let on. Thinking about blueprints while he was at a party? Fucking ace. Sehun took another flight of stairs down and briefly toyed with the idea of breaking into Lu Han’s garage before he realised that it was likely to fail and set off multiple alarms, then climbed back up again and ascended until he’d reached the third floor. There he managed to find his way into the library, where there actually were armchairs situated behind a few shelves. Kinky, Sehun thought. Maybe this would be good for some voyeuristic fucking, but he wasn’t really in the mood.
His grandfather had made another hint at the division of their inheritance today. Sehun wasn’t excluded, but was going to likely get as as much as his baby brother would. Seyun was six. He was twenty fucking one. Sehun loved Seyun like the next brother would, but sometimes Grandfather was so damn unfair. Segyun was already rising through the ranks as he sat here, half empty champagne flute in hand, and was going to be made general manager next or something. The truth was, Sehun didn’t hate his brother, no, but the feeling of always being second rate was fucking shitty. His parents always seemed to look at him fondly as the family wastrel. Sehun snorted. Maybe having the largest car collection in Korea did have that effect but whatever. Didn’t mean he didn’t have what it took to be part of the empire they thought only Segyun could pull together. That was why he liked being in the States more than he did when in Seoul. His cooing mother was loving but it would get on his nerves more often than he’d prefer. Besides, Sehun liked not having to think about Grandfather clucking his tongue over his constant deferral of military service and talking about how accomplished Segyun was when he was in the Navy. Oh Sehun too needed a fucking break sometimes.
He’d finished the champagne when the door slammed open. Sehun jumped a little, but collected his wits quickly. This was potentially going to be very good, judging from the way the two people who had entered were breathing in that short, angry manner. Sehun could see them very well from where he was seated-the gaps between the books gave him a great view of the action. He recognised the two almost immediately as the Ahn siblings when they turned around. Ahn Minseok was a close friend of his brother’s, and his parties were legendary. Almost as legendary was his sister’s refusal to attend any of those. Ahn Sohee was continually breaking Chanyeol’s heart because she wouldn’t RSVP to anything, but clearly she didn’t give a fuck. Sehun silently applauded her for that.
He observed as they seemed to passive-aggressively argue about whether Minseok was going to that meeting and whether Sohee would stop “being so pushy” and “just leave Lu Han alone because it’s not our business”. Sehun nodded a little in agreement. He and she had been in the same high school and now university, and Sohee was the poster girl of self restraint. He suspected this inclination for haughtiness to be the reason why Chanyeol constantly hovered around her, nonstop if he could. Chanyeol was fucking obsessed with her but she never gave him the light of day. Once again Sehun gave her a standing ovation for that. Minseok had turned on his heel in that moment then, and Sehun watched as Sohee gripped her brother’s arm and said something too quiet for him to hear. She looked like she was about to cry. That was a first.
Sehun had never talked much to Sohee when they were in school, he’d merely watched from afar. Sohee was beautiful in a way that was meant to be seen from a distance. Their families had business dealings together, and he attended most of the parties Minseok threw, but Sohee was firmly out of bounds. He had seen the way she rebuffed people, thought about how he’d never want to be in a situation like that because Sehun didn’t deal well with rejection, and pretty much left her alone afterwards. Only somebody stupid (like Park Chanyeol) would constantly try to get on her nerves in order to gain a bit of attention, but Sehun wasn’t that sort of person. Not at least until he had seen her crestfallen face now, after Minseok walked out on her and the door slammed behind him. The poor, rich girl in Alexander McQueen and Christian Louboutins. Sehun actually felt some semblance of pity when he saw that she was trying her best not to cry.
He debated on giving up his place behind the shelves but the door opened again. Chanyeol’s head poked in and he could see his eyes light up when he realised that Sohee was alone. Sehun frowned a little but continued to watch. Chanyeol being smacked down was always satisfying but this time he found the guy annoying. He watched as Chanyeol, tall and all suited up, laid a hand on Sohee’s shoulder. She shook him off almost immediately but not in an irritated way. She seemed far too distracted for that. He said something in her ear too softly for Sehun to catch, and Sohee whirled around to glare up at him so hard that he swore he saw Chanyeol momentarily tremble. Sehun snorted softly. Well played. Chanyeol looked hurt, even, but slowly backed off. Should have done that right from the start, Sehun thought. Then again Chanyeol couldn’t read moods too well.
Sohee had sunk into a chair near the other rows of shelves after Chanyeol had closed the door behind him. Sehun continued to watch as she wrapped her hands around the back of her head and looked down at her knees. Even sitting down she had stunning legs. Sehun cleared his throat and she shot right back up.
“Who’s there?” Sohee called out. He could see the guardedness in her eyes. All of them Korean kids looked like that sometimes. Reporters could be aggressive in the motherland. “Hello?”
He decided to give himself up. “Hi.” Sehun picked up his empty glass and walked out from behind the shelves. She looked stunned, and then like she wanted to swing a fist at him. Sehun wasn’t exactly sorry for eavesdropping. He hardly felt sorry for anything, as a matter of fact. A lot of things that people had to bend themselves over for didn’t exist for him. He was sure that it was the same for Sohee, but today it might be different. He had seen a side of her that she would love to keep under wraps, and to a person like her it was tantamount to giving him a free pass to threaten her with. Sehun felt a slight pity but pushed it away soon enough. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’d think you would find that a relief.” Her voice was quietly venomous. Sehun was sure that she had already put two and two together. Not that it really mattered.
“If you appeared at Minseok hyung’s parties more often, we would see each other very frequently.” He shrugged and grinned at her, before plopping himself down on the chair next to her. He saw her arm twitch. She probably wanted to bolt out of the room now, but dignified children of the Korean chaebols didn’t do that sort of thing. Sehun found it crazy that they still needed to believe that Joseon-style rules still applied to daily life, but he was also willing to let it slide. As long as they were good in bed.
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t like wasting my life away.”
How harsh. Sehun whistled and she glared at him. “You do know that your brother’s parties are extremely hard to get into, right? Be proud.” He honestly found it something to be proud of. Segyun would never be able to organise parties of Minseok’s standard. Hedonism wasn’t exactly Segyun’s thing, because it was Sehun’s, but he was also too lazy to make sure that it would work in a party setting. Minseok though, was a genius at both. Sehun had to give him credit for that.
“I’m sure your parents are proud of you.” Sohee wasn’t sneering but he knew what she meant. She had gone straight for the jugular. Very clever, he thought, because it did fucking hurt. It also caught him by surprise, so he blanked out for a few seconds before he grinned again. Smiling was Sehun’s forte. It got him everything and everyone he wanted. Clearly it didn’t apply to Sohee at all. “Listening in on to someone else’s conversation is definitely something to be proud of. Of course it is.”
“Bet Chanyeol hyung wishes he could see you now.” He muttered and Sohee smiled humourlessly. She got up from the chair, smoothed the wrinkles of her blue dress, and walked towards the heavy doors. He raised an eyebrow. So heartless. “Does he know you’re such a character, Sohee?”
She paused, before turning back slowly and tilting her head to the side. Sehun’s pulse skipped a beat. She really was beautiful. No wonder Chanyeol was obsessed. He watched as she placed a foot behind her as she leaned on the brass handles of one of the doors. The dress was cut to the middle of her thigh and he found him admiring her legs again. Sehun was a visual beast and he found no need to deny it. The woman was hot.
“Depends.” She shrugged and pushed down on the handle. The door clicked open. “I don’t give a damn.”
Chanyeol would be heartbroken. Sehun raised his empty glass in salute. She did a little curtsey, and pulled the door open. He watched as the dress rode up a little as she stood back up. Now it was easy to see where the attraction lay in her. Sehun shifted in his seat, slightly uncomfortable.
“And you’d better damn well call me nuna.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and then stepped out.
__________
Zitao arrived at the Lu mansion slightly late, and exhausted. He only came here because it was Lu Han-who he liked quite well and had known since they were kids. And he couldn’t piss off the Procurator-General’s son. That was a habit ingrained in him since he was small. Be nice to Lu-ge, his mother always said. Play whatever he wants to play. Don’t talk back to him. Old habits died hard.
He walked into the spacious foyer and looked around. People milled around in every corner, still pretending at propriety at this point in the evening. Debauchery came later. It had its proper place, after the sun went down and the majority of the guests were drunk. Now that he was forbidden from drinking, Zitao could sit back and actually mark the point in the evening when people allowed themselves to shift from their proper rich selves to their gross rich selves. If he could ever get himself in a better mood, it would be amusing, but really he just felt like an outsider, watching his old crowd.
Sehun appeared down the stairs, a very odd smile on his face. Zitao stopped, his hands in the pockets of his Ermenegildo Zegna suit, to wait for him.
“You look happy,” Zitao commented when Sehun came up to him. Sehun’s grin turned bashful, then a bit lecherous.
“You ever taken a good look at Ahn Sohee’s legs?” he asked. Zitao snorted.
“She has great legs, but you’re never going to touch them,” Zitao laughed. “And even if she let you, Minseok would murder you. Her legs aren’t that great.”
“Did you know she got sued for punching a guy back in Korea last year?” Sehun asked eagerly. “It’s kind of hot, right?”
Zitao rolled his eyes. Sehun with a crush was an indefatigable puppy. He bit down hard on the stick and refused to let go, usually until the stick was in splinters and his chance had long since evaporated.
They stepped through the large living room and outside, walking down the stairs to the large, spacious pool. Some of the others were sitting around a fire pit, Lu Han in the center, looking very thin and on-edge. He and Sehun walked up to join them, and only then did Zitao notice that Jia was sitting on one of the couches, her hand intertwined with Kris’s.
“Sick party,” Sehun commented, flopping down on a couch and gesturing for one of the plates of hors devours sitting on an end table. “I ran into your sister,” he said to Minseok. “She’s in a bad mood.”
Minseok rolled his eyes and Zitao sat down next to Sehun, very aware that Jia was not looking at him or acknowledging him at all. Sehun gave him the platter and Zitao ate one of the little snacks. He didn’t even know what it was besides being salmon, but it tasted expensive.
“She’s always pissed off,” Minseok said. Zitao elbowed Sehun, to make his point from earlier, and strangely Sehun didn’t react. Maybe he could keep a secret when it suited him.
Then Kris got up and went into the pool house, leaving Jia alone. Zitao cleared his throat.
“You look nice,” he said to her, for lack of anything better to say. She really did. She had enough style that she didn’t look out of place with the rest of them, all dressed to the nines by personal stylists. She’d done something with her hair that Zitao couldn’t really identify, but he could tell that it made her look softer, which meant she was probably trying to blend in. Look the part of the rich girlfriend even if she couldn’t change the rich part. Gone were the days of dyed-pink or orange hair.
“I’m still not talking to you,” she announced.
The rest of the circle gave her an odd look, but Jia didn’t seem to notice. It took Zitao a minute to realize what her mistake was-she shouldn’t be so blunt. The rest of them fought with their emotions buried underneath masks of pure civility. Zitao had always been bad at that, which was probably why he was friends with Jia in the first place.
Zitao couldn’t even find it within himself to snap back a retort. Instead he just sank back into the couch and listened to the others laugh. Watched Sehun drink and then, when Kris came back with Feifei on his heels, them drink too. He felt like a dark cloud was hanging over him and every time someone splashed into the pool, he felt ill.
__________
Nothing irritated Feifei quite so much as watching Yifan stroke Jia’s back, his fingers pulling gently through her hair. She watched Jia lean into him, and Fei could just imagine the happy, satisfied looks on their faces-she was happy she couldn’t see them, because then she’d be more annoyed. Jia didn’t have a clue how Kris was willing to use her. And Feifei couldn’t tell her.
They were sitting outside around the “campfire,” as Lu Han referred to the built-in fire pit that surely cost thousands of dollars to install. Feifei was in the pool house kitchen, making a drink for herself as slowly as possible. There was no way she could endure this party even fall-down drunk, and she never got fall-down drunk, so she was just going to avoid as much of it as possible. She really hated Kris for making her such a terrible, unhappy person. Zhou Mi suggested that she was at fault for her own unhappiness, but since the alternative was watching Kris destroy both her fortune and her best friend, she didn’t have much choice. She had too many things on her plate, the biggest one being how to snoop around the Lu mansion without being seen. Trying to get Jia to dump Kris had to come second.
“Are you okay?”
Feifei jumped about a foot and turned around to glare at Kris. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just making myself a drink.”
“Me too.” He stepped up beside her and started looking through the bottles of alcohol lined up on the counter. A number of Korean voices echoed from another part of the house, and Feifei sighed involuntarily. She actually liked Lu Han well enough, but the company he kept frustrated her. Only the Zhangs were okay, and even then.
“Cheer up, Feifei. You’re at a party.” Kris flashed a smile at her and Feifei resumed working on her drink, which at this point was mostly ice that she’d put in one cube at a time.
“It’s hard to sit around and watch you cuddle with my best friend when I know you’d turn on her in a second,” Fei said in a pleasant voice. Accordingly, Kris laughed.
“Pretty sure she wants to be here. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.” He smiled at her again and Fei smiled back, because this was what they did-act the part of civil stepsiblings whether what they said matched or not.
“Eventually, she’ll see who you really are,” Fei said in a faux-gentle voice, reaching across him for a bottle she wanted. She could feel him bristle as she infringed on his space. “And I’m hoping she breaks your heart at the same time.”
Kris didn’t say anything for a long moment. Fei watched the alcohol pour into the glass, almost eager for his response.
“You could always speed up the process,” Kris said softly. “Tell her the truth about us.”
Fei laughed-a genuine, incredulous laugh. “Us? There is no us.”
Kris smirked down at her. “I have several very vivid memories that say otherwise.”
Fei kept smiling and shook her head at him. “It’s very cute that you think oral sex counts for anything,” she said in a voice dripping with condescension. If she could have reached his head easily, she would pat it.
He took a sip of his drink and held her gaze. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t the one on my knees.”
“And I’m not the one still thinking about it.” She titled her glass in his direction and they stared each other down. Finally, he blinked, and looked away. A good match. She was still winning. She walked outside, holding the door open for him as she went, since he had two drinks in his hands. He gave one to Jia as they sat down, and Fei settled herself next to Lu Han on one of the plush couches. The sky was a brilliant dark blue. Beautiful night.
“Everything okay?” Jia asked innocently. “You all were in there for a while.”
“Just catching up with my brother,” Fei said. Kris met her eyes with a glare, and Fei smiled back.
After a while, it was time to present gifts to Lu Han. Word spread throughout the party and slowly people began drifting to one of the main rooms.
“Here we go,” Lu Han sighed, and pushed himself up off the couch. Feifei watched him steady himself as he stood up. He looked a bit thin and wan, the usual perfect edges of his clothes wrinkled, his eyes constantly darting around. Feifei wondered what all this meant, if anything. For all she knew, he could have an addiction to hard drugs-it was Los Angeles, after all. Then again, it could all be connected, every one of them suffering the fallout of their parents’ decisions. Feifei had no way to know.
When the pool deck and eating areas were clear, Feifei drifted behind the rest, slowly working her way to the edges of the party. She followed everyone to the main living room where they were congregating, but stopped before she went in. Im Yoona, a girl she knew only by association, noticed her and gave her a questioning look.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Feifei explained sheepishly. “That time of the month.”
Yoona nodded and put her finger in front of her lips in a “shh” gesture and winked. Feifei grinned, and disappeared down the hall.
She guessed she had about a half hour. This was the only time she could search Lu Han’s house unnoticed, because the rest of the party guests would be at the gift giving, trying to impress Lu Han with their purchases. During the rest of the party most of the rooms would be filled up, so if she tried to go into a bedroom alone, people would look at her suspiciously. And it wasn’t like she could pretend she and Zhou Mi were sneaking into a bedroom to fool around.
She would start with Lu Han’s bedroom. That seemed like the best bet. She didn’t think Lu Han was a particularly sneaky person, so anything personal he would probably hide in a dresser drawer or under his mattress.
She made her way up to the third floor and tapped carefully on Lu Han’s door. Then she opened it and slid inside. His cat trotted up to her and she gave it a few affectionate pats on the head.
“Just between us, right?” she asked it. It purred, winding around her legs, and Feifei stood up and looked around.
__________
They gathered in the biggest room that Lu Han’s place had to offer for the present gifting. Minseok took a seat in the corner as he watched the party goers file in. Many he recognised and even more he wasn’t bothered to talk to. Lu Han’s connections were wider than any of theirs, but Minseok also thought it was due to everyone wanting to get a piece of him. Sohee had emerged through the doors and turned away almost immediately when she saw him. Fine by him. Minseok frowned until Yixing sat down beside him, nursing a glass of what he was sure was non-alcoholic.
“Does it have to be this way?” Yixing asked and Minseok shrugged absentmindedly. “This is so juvenile. Everyone presenting their gifts to Lu Han like he’s a seven year old.”
“How else are they going to get into his good books?” Minseok grabbed the glass from Yixing and gulped. It was indeed not of the alcoholic variety and tasted like apple juice. He gagged and shoved it back into Yixing’s hands.
Lu Han was sitting in the center, and Minseok thought he looked a little paler and more listless than usual. Maybe it was the stress of his final year in law school getting to him. Or maybe he just was overdoing the whole self-healing with nicotine thing. Minseok had spotted a nicotine patch on the inside of his wrist just now. Yixing let slip earlier that he was using them so frequently that he used up two boxes every three days. Minseok was sure that it was definitely not compliant with any doctor’s instructions, but then as long as Lu Han knew what he was doing it was fine by him. The guy was turning twenty five today, anyhow.
“Thanks for coming guys. Means a lot to me.” Lu Han’s smile was a little off, but nobody else seemed to notice. Minseok clapped along with everyone and spotted Sohee actually sitting near Chanyeol. She must be really mad at him, then. Somebody yelled that it was time for Lu Han to show off his presents, and Minseok sat back as they started off on the other side of the room.
There was a lot of YSL and Burberry, which Minseok knew Lu Han liked and used frequently as opposed to say, Jongdae, who didn’t know anything about the different fashion houses and just wore whatever his stylist gave him. Baekhyun had actually brought two pieces from Chanel’s latest runway collection, and Minseok laughed at the weird look Lu Han gave him.
Segyun, one of his oldest friends and the elder Oh brother, couldn’t be here today so Sehun represented them by stuffing a box into Lu Han’s hands and looking as cocky as he could. Minseok raised an eyebrow-Sehun was the more flamboyant of the Oh siblings. Maybe one day he could be surpassed by the youngest, but Seyun was only six.
“Hyung says happy birthday. He also said you’d like the Hablot.” Sehun gave Lu Han a pat on the shoulder and Lu Han returned it a little awkwardly. Lu Han and Minseok were both close to Segyun, but he was now more frequently based in Seoul than in Los Angeles. Plus, Minseok reckoned, Sehun was always a little on the weird side. “And he also said you’d like it for being limited edition. Ninety-seven thousand, that’s all I’m saying.”
There was a ripple of murmurs around the room. Sehun had definitely said it to get a reaction, but Minseok was ambivalent. The Ohs also banked with them, and he had a very good idea of what they were worth. This price wasn’t anything much to them, and Segyun probably bought the watch out of his own pocket. Sehun looked pleased and slightly drunk as he slid back to where Zitao was, and they exchanged high-fives.
Next to them were Kris, and Jia was nestled at his side. Minseok watched as Kris handed a bottle of red wine over, and Yixing went “From 1990?” beside him. Clever, Minseok thought. Kris was always just thoughtful enough, to the point that people found him tasteful but not overbearing.
“Happy birthday, Lu Han.” Jia said and stood up to give him a hug. Minseok could see Lu Han freeze for a moment before gingerly tapping on her back in thanks. “I hope you’ll have a great year.”
Lu Han mumbled something that he couldn’t hear in reply, and Jia took a small box out of her purse. She handed it over to him and smiled. It was small and square, with no visible logos that Minseok could see or identify. Opposite he could see Sohee eyeing the box with much interest, but as soon as she saw him looking she turned away with a scowl. Minseok thought it was okay if she found Chanyeol a more acceptable option to look at for now, because Sohee would have to deal with the consequences for it later.
“Thanks.” Lu Han sounded slightly warmer now, and took the box from her. He opened it and picked up a leather collar that had a golden heart pendant hanging from it. Minseok presumed it was for his cat, the one that Lu Han had bought a few years ago from a breeder at some exaggeratedly high price. Pureblood, he’d argued. Minseok still found it stupid. “Is this for Mew Mew? Thanks. I’ve been looking for one.”
“Yeah, Yixing said that it’d be useful.” Jia grinned and Lu Han looked like he was genuinely happy to receive the present. Minseok elbowed Yixing and he returned the jab. He didn’t know that the two of them were this close, but Yixing was looking steadfastly into the distance and didn’t seem to want and reply any questions. Minseok could bide his time, no problem. “Glad you like it.”
Lu Han nodded and was putting the collar back into the box when Baekhyun reached over to grab it out of his hand. “Nice. Did you make it yourself?” He asked with a grin, one that Minseok recognised immediately with ringing alarm bells to be a very dangerous sign. But Jia had no prior experience with Baekhyun, and simply nodded kindly. Baekhyun made a face of wonderment, and dropped it back into the box. Lu Han didn’t look too happy, because he almost certainly knew what Baekhyun was up to.
“Very intricate. You do give Chinese sweatshop workers a good name.”
But even Minseok hadn’t expected Baekhyun to say something like that. He was grinning at Jia, who had frozen on the spot. The room had quietened to a buzzing sort of silence, and Minseok heard Yixing draw a sharp intake of breath beside him. Opposite them he could see Zitao gaping at Baekhyun in horror. Sehun looked like he had been caught off guard. Kris was expressionless. Minseok himself was disturbed at Baekhyun’s complete lack of tact. Jia looked like she wanted to say something, but the edge of her mouth simply twitched. Baekhyun continued smiling like he was waiting for an answer.
Then Sehun rose from his seat almost immediately, pushing the ends of his suit jacket aside, before Zitao reacted a second later and caught him by the arm. He looked the angriest that Minseok had ever seen him be. Out of the corner of his eye Minseok could see Sohee watching, an odd expression on her face. Sehun opened his mouth presumably to say something rude, but Kris cut in before he could.
“Watch it, Byun.” Kris’s eyes were burning but his tone was cold. “This is not the time to be running your mouth off like this.”
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow at Kris. “Defending your little fuck buddy, Wu?”
Yixing bristled and Minseok pressed down on his knee. This was not their fight. Jia had blanched pale and Kris looked like he was contemplating punching Baekhyun in the face. But instead it was Lu Han who spoke up, his voice levelly acerbic.
“Don’t fuck up the party, Baekhyun.” Baekhyun shrugged. Lu Han shot him a cold look. “This isn’t Korea.”
“I was under the impression that this is much freer of a country than Korea.” Baekhyun spread his arms out, palms faced upwards. A muscle in Kris’s face twitched. “Or China, for that matter.”
Yixing stood up and flung his hand off so fast that Minseok almost fell over. “You need to stop, right now. It’s not your place to say anything like this.” Yixing was so angry that his ears had turned red. Minseok wanted to clamp a hand over his mouth. This was only going to bait Baekhyun, and Baekhyun was unstoppable whenever he thought he was being presented with a challenge.
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “And it’s yours, because you happen to leech off Lu Han here? Must be family tradition.”
Minseok saw Yixing’s fist clench tightly and knew that he was about to erupt. He pulled himself up using Yixing’s arm and narrowed his eyes at Baekhyun. He tilted his head in a sort of small, mocking greeting back. Minseok saw Irene behind Baekhyun, suddenly, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain. There were a lot of rumours about Irene being a long-suffering girlfriend, but Minseok knew that she didn’t leave because she didn’t want to. It was her choice. Baekhyun smiled again and Minseok pressed down harder on Yixing’s arm.
“You will stop now.” Minseok said calmly. “Before your father gets wind of your favourite ways to get high during parties.”
Baekhyun blinked. Beyond him Minseok could see his sister’s impassive face, but he knew she was impressed somewhat. Sohee never liked Baekhyun too much, and Minseok secretly approved. Irene had risen out of her seat to stand slightly behind her boyfriend. Baekhyun blinked again.
“At your parties, hyung?” He said finally, like a comeback.
Minseok felt the cruelty rise within him. “At my parties where I explicitly said I’d report anyone doing drugs. You’re testing my patience, Baekhyun. Leave the room. Now.”
Baekhyun’s face was blank, as he seemed to consider the better option to take. Then Irene went forward and took his hand. He didn’t even look back, just held her hand and stood there like he was still thinking about it. They had a sick relationship, Minseok thought as Yixing breathed heavily beside him. It took a while before Baekhyun nodded slowly and pulled Irene out of the room. As he walked past Kris he must have mouthed something, because Kris suddenly pulled an arm back and punched him squarely in the face. Jia yelped, and Lu Han rushed forward to hold Kris back. Zitao did the same. Chanyeol had instinctively put an arm in front of Sohee. Then the room was silent before somebody let out a bark of laughter. It sounded like Sehun.
“Fucking get out of my sight before I punch you again, you son of a bitch.” Kris growled, and Baekhyun stood up, a horrified Irene helping him up. He didn’t say anything afterwards and simply walked out. Minseok watched as Irene propped him up and turned the corner. He turned back towards the center of the room, and Lu Han caught his gaze. His friend looked like he wanted to order everyone to leave. But Lu Han pressed the buzzer for his butler instead, and the tenseness slowly melted away into nothing. Everything seemed normal now.
But Minseok watched as Jia slipped out of the room, stumbling a little, with Kris following shortly. Yixing’s arm was still straining against his grip. Minseok let go and Yixing looked around at him for a moment, a little lost, before he looked back at the hallway where Jia and Kris had disappeared into.
“You going?” Minseok asked as the butler arrived. Lu Han looked exhausted as he pointed out the blood drops on the carpet. Kris must have broken something in Baekhyun’s face.
Yixing remained quiet. “Maybe not.” He said finally, and then sank back down slowly into his seat. Minseok didn’t ask any more questions afterwards.
__________
Feifei had almost given up and headed back to the party when she took a second look at the notebook lying on Lu Han’s desk.
She picked it up and looked more closely. It had been closed, but a pen was stuck between the pages, and when she opened it she saw a list of characters running down the page: Wang, Song, Huang, Zhou, Li, Lau, and on it ran for three pages. At the end it said: the driver of the getaway car still has to go to jail.
The rest of the pages were blank, save for a few shopping lists and some half-hearted sketches of a car. Feifei set the notebook down on the desk and realized her hands were trembling. She knew she was close, now-the surnames in the book did not count as evidence, but she was on the right track. If this was everything, she could predict the fallout of the scandal going public. She dug her phone out of her pocket and snapped pictures of the pages. What she would need now was real evidence. She had a feeling Lu Han had it, but she didn’t know where to look.
Quietly, Feifei stole back to the party. She arrived just in time to see Kris punch Baekhyun in the face, and then for Jia and Kris and Baekhyun and Irene to all leave. She looked at Zhou Mi, but he just shook his head. She’d find out later.
After a few minutes the party resumed, and Feifei tried to keep her mind on the gifts being given to Lu Han, but all she could think about was how they were miming what their parents did to his father for years. And if their parents had any say, it would continue this way indefinitely.
tbc
嘒彼小星
small are those starlets
The launch party was a dazzling success.
All because they’d all flouted a million laws to make the online shopping mall happen.
This thought gnawed at Feifei’s conscience for the next week as she oversaw multiple projects related to getting the American branch up and running. Kris, in the meantime, had taken over some of her old projects, and Feifei begrudgingly conceded that he was doing a good job. He had yet to bring up what he overheard her discussing with Byun Baekhyun at the launch-not that she thought he would be able to connect all the dots. But Kris would try to block her whatever direction he thought she was heading, whether he could see the end goal or not.
But of course, Kris couldn’t see the end goal, because even Feifei wasn’t entirely sure what that looked like yet. Zhou Mi had started to quietly invest some of their savings in markets they thought wouldn’t be affected if their corruption became an international scandal. And Zhang Liyin, although she hadn’t given Feifei a wealth of information, knew enough now to make her own plans for her family’s businesses and their associated networks. What Feifei needed now was evidence that pointed to Procurator-General Lu himself. She had a hunch he solicited bribes, but no way to prove it yet. What she needed was to get at Lu Han, somehow.
The answer came in the form of a birthday party invitation. Lu Han was holding a huge bash at his house, like he did every year, but this year he was graduating from law school and inviting all the wealthy socialites in the Los Angeles area. Feifei was surely obligated to go, but she wanted to for once. The Lu mansion had been in the family since the mid-90s, something she knew because Zhou Mi had been raised to love real estate and looked it up out of curiosity. Who knew what could be at that house?
Feifei was putting in long hours at the office, then going home and resuming her studies. Zhou Mi, who always stayed with her in one of the spare suites when he visited Los Angeles (unless he met a new friend), kept scolding her for not getting enough sleep-but Feifei didn’t need sleep. What she needed was a victory.
She was still working through complicated contracts one night when someone knocked on the door to her office. It was already nearly dark out, the sky a dusky blue, and Feifei couldn’t fathom who was still working besides her and the night guards.
The door opened, and Kris shadowed the entrance.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked, not bothering to conceal her irritation. Kris closed the door behind him and smirked at her.
“Thought we should talk,” he said.
The last time they talked in private-Feifei didn’t want to think about that. “You have a girlfriend, now,” she said. “Tread very carefully.”
Kris kept smiling, and shook his head. “Different kind of talk, this time. Sorry to disappoint.”
Feifei closed the file in front of her and stood up. If Kris was here now to spell out his suspicions, she was ready for him. He couldn’t guess the whole plan, and only Zhou Mi knew how far she was willing to go. “Then talk,” she ordered.
Kris was still smiling like he had the upper hand. Feifei wished she’d worn heels, so that he wasn’t able to look down at her, but she could still hold her own. Physical intimidation was only part of the whole puzzle and in spite of his being with Jia, he would still be cowed by his proximity to Feifei just because he couldn’t have her.
“You know, this whole time I thought you were angling for something with Lu Han. But then I had a chat with Byun Baekhyun,” he said. “Sounds like you’re really planning to sabotage Dad’s hard work.”
Feifei rolled her eyes. She knew he said “dad” just to get a rise out of her, but she wouldn’t take the bait. “Byun Baekhyun knows nothing.”
“And yet you looked scared at the launch party when he called you out on it.”
Kris looked very convinced that he had the upper hand here, and Feifei realized she had to surrender a bit of ground if she wanted him to leave.
“You’re so smart,” Feifei said with faux-astonishment. Kris’s upper lip curled with disgust and Feifei slipped back into her natural tone. “Truthfully,” she said carefully. “There are some anomalies in the records. So yes, I might pull the plug. I haven’t decided yet.”
It was a calculated move, meant to give Kris enough to think that he’d won. He blinked, surprised, and she saw that it had worked-he really seemed shocked by what she’d said.
“You can’t stop this,” Kris said, astonished. “It’s too late for that. We’ll lose too much.”
“If we stand to lose down the road because the Byuns can’t play by the rules, then it doesn’t matter.”
Kris didn’t know even a fraction of what Feifei was really considering right now. But even so, his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.
“You want to play hero? Fine.” Kris towered over her and Feifei could only glare up at him. “But keep in mind who all you’re hurting. This is our business, Feifei. We lose here.”
Of course he would try to play that card. Feifei shook her head, almost ready to laugh at him. “It doesn’t matter. This is what’s right, and I’m going to do what I need to. I’ve figured it out, okay? The only people getting hurt are the guilty ones. We lose short term, but we win in the long run.”
“Not if we lose out on this market,” Kris yelled. “You can’t be this stupid! We’re already behind, here, and if we don’t act this whole opportunity could be shot to hell.”
“I don’t care,” Feifei said definitively.
Kris pulled out his phone and started scrolling through it. Feifei didn’t know what to make of that-this was not his normal play.
“If you won’t see reason, then maybe you’ll understand this.” Kris said with gritted teeth, and then he looked up at her. For the first time, Feifei felt her resolve shake. Something was coming, something she should be afraid of.
He held out his phone and Feifei took it. When she saw what was on the screen, she jumped.
“What the hell are you playing at?” she demanded. She tried to swipe away from the image, but the one that replaced it was the same type of content. She clicked the phone off.
“I have eighteen nude photos of Jia,” he said in a tone Feifei could only describe as professional. “Half of them are from before she started her internship, and half of them are from after. You want your friend to have a future in the corporate world? You probably don’t want people thinking she fucked her way there.”
Feifei shook her head. He had her backed into a metaphorical corner and she should have known he’d play dirty but she hadn’t seen this coming at all. “Everyone knows you’re dating her, you idiot.”
“No one in China knows. Her reputation gets questioned, you really think anyone in our circles is going to fight an uphill battle to save her?” His eyebrows lifted. Feifei wanted to punch him.
“I thought you cared about her,” she said in a low voice. She really had. As much as she hated her stepbrother, he was different with Jia. More relaxed. Or maybe he was playing Jia this whole time, too. And Feifei hadn’t done her part to save her.
“Of course I care about her,” Kris said. He took the phone out of Feifei’s hand and pocketed it. “I also care about my future.”
Feifei’s blood was boiling. He hadn’t disrupted her real plan, no. But he’d gotten in a very unfair strike, and right now she couldn’t retaliate without the chance of him guessing there was more on the table than mere “anomalies.”
“I meant it, you know,” she said to him, “When I promised I would hurt you if you hurt her.”
He considered her for a moment. “Well,” he said, “The power to stop me is in your hands right now, isn’t it?” He gave her a smile, and left.
Feifei watched him leave the office. He would pay.
__________
Minseok watched as his father angled for a good shot, before swinging away. By any standards it was a mediocre attempt, but he clapped along with everyone else anyway. His father handed the iron over to his caddy with a wide smile and joined him in the golf cart. Even under the shade he was sweating so much that his shirt was soaked through the back. Minseok’s father, though, had made sure that he was thoroughly educated in the concept that playing the little white ball game was effective for forging relationships that were good for everyone involved.
The wind was, at the very least, cool as they drove off towards the next hole. His father was talking about some new spokesperson appointment for their new youth credit card line that they were putting out in conjunction with the Wangs’ online shopping mall; Minseok honestly could not be less interested, but listened halfheartedly anyway. These were all things that Sohee wanted in on, but he really didn’t care for it at all. But because he was the oldest son, Minseok had flown in to New York for the sole reason of playing golf with his father. It was ridiculous, really.
“The Kims might have someone good. Go ask Jongin if he knows if any of their people are suitable for the new image.” His father was used to issuing orders. Whether Minseok took them or not was another thing entirely altogether. Kim Jongin was the youngest son of the biggest entertainment company in Korea, and Minseok wondered why he would know about suitable candidates when in reality his older siblings Hyoyeon and Jongdae were the ones actually working at their company. Then again, Jongin also had millions of girl groups wannabes throwing themselves at him. Minseok knew that Sehun was very interested in how many he actually slept with, but Jongin’s lips were firmly sealed.
“If I happen to meet him back in California, sure.” The cart rolled to a stop and Minseok got out. He could see the mild disapproval on his father’s face. No matter how much he showed his displeasure at being saddled with more and more official duties, his father never did actually get angry at him. It was like they were being patient with a pertinent child. The thought of it pissed Minseok off. “Isn’t Sohee living in the same apartment complex as him?”
His father picked a club from the bag his caddy was holding out for him. “I know how often he appears at those parties of yours, so don’t try to pretend otherwise.” He turned around, expression inscrutable because of his sunglasses, but Minseok could see his father’s mouth set severely in a line. They looked a lot alike whenever they had that expression on. “Your sister doesn’t need to do anything like this.”
Minseok pushed his shades up a little higher. They had slipped down his nose because of the sweat from the intense heat. “You do know that she’s also working at the Los Angeles branch right now, Father?” He grabbed the iron of his choice and stepped aside to let his father play first.
“Your sister,” his father adjusted his posture, “is a princess. Princesses don’t need to-” He swung and the ball flew far out across the green, where it rolled a great distance beyond the hole. Minseok scowled. “Princesses don’t need to do menial work.”
His father glanced at him, and gestured for him to step forward. Minseok breathed out heavily and took his stance. He didn’t hate golfing, but like much of the things that he’d been made to do in his life, he had very little enthusiasm for it. But still he looked in the distance, made a rough estimate, and swung. The ball flew out with a sharp crack, and as they watched, landed on the green and began rolling. Minseok waited impassively as the ball slowed and finally rolled in the hole. Hole-in-one. His father clapped loudly from behind him, and he could hear his caddy congratulating him on a game well played. Minseok grimaced. As if this could translate over to real life.
“Your princess,” he began as they settled in the golf cart again, “doesn’t want to be one. Sohee’s more than capable enough of doing more than whatever she’s doing now.” His sister wanted to be let in on all the important projects, but her chief schedules at work had to do with attending fashion shows and various social events. The media adored her but Sohee despised the socialite title.
His father shrugged. Minseok kept quiet as he went on about raising daughters in one way and sons in another. Pamper your daughters and train your sons to be tough. Minseok thought it was bullshit when it came to Sohee. She wanted to be tough, so all the mollycoddling was unnecessary. But clearly his parents didn’t need or want to understand that their youngest child wanted a life different from the one that they’d thought best for her.
“Just go to Jongin. I want a candidate list by next Monday.” His father’s tone was final. Minseok felt like throwing his club away and stalking off, but all he did was stand by and watch again as his father delivered another average shot. Sometimes, he figured, it was better to pretend that nothing was wrong. Everytime he spoke up a little more for Sohee, she seemed to have to suffer through more of the events she hated so much. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Minseok knew that this was all part of the game as well. The last person standing would be the one who managed to keep his feet dry. If that was what it was, he would do too much more to keep Sohee as far away from the cesspool as possible.
“I’ll try.” Minseok finally offered, and his father clapped a hand on his shoulder in approval. It was something he didn’t need.
__________
Feifei was in the bedroom putting on her earrings when she heard the electronic lock beep open. A few minutes later Zhou Mi entered the room, putting his briefcase down beside the doors of the walk in wardrobe first before walking over to her and giving her a sincere hug. Feifei didn’t say a word. Tonight they were going to Lu Han’s birthday party together. She couldn’t refuse it because Lu Han had invited her, Zhou Mi’s family and Lu Han’s family were old friends, and her father would throw a fit if his stepson went and she didn’t. Wouldn’t do for their image of the perfect family. But most of all, she needed to be there to do some investigating for her own. Lu Han’s place haboured secrets, and she had to get to them. Feifei grimaced, and Zhou Mi must have noticed it.
“Don’t want to go?” He asked, and Feifei kept quiet. Zhou Mi was the only person she could be honest to. After her mother had died, Zhou Mi was the only one who stayed and held her hand through the grief. Her own father was off gallivanting and marrying gold-diggers and taking someone else’s son for his own. “I could tell Lu Han we’re not coming, if you want.”
Feifei shook her head. “I’m good. It’s just a party, and we’ve known Lu Han for forever. He’ll be disappointed if we don’t turn up.” It was a half-truth. If she was to collect any more evidence, Lu Han’s house would be her best bet. Even overhearing a conversation could be possibly incriminating.
“I’ve got his present in the car, though I’m not sure how it compares to his parents’. According to Mom they might just give the kid his own personal island this year.” Zhou Mi shook his head in what seemed to be awe. Zhou Mi’s own family didn’t do this sort of extravagance. In their country they were the rare breed that kept to themselves and hardly socialised. But real estate was something everyone needed, so while they didn’t go to anyone, everyone came to them. Feifei knew her father wanted to be first in line.
“An island.” She frowned. It was incredible that no one ever wondered where Lu Han’s family was getting all their money from. Then again if someone blew the whistle on them, everyone else would be torn apart from the inside. Everyone was connected to everybody in their circle. If one of them fell, no one else would stay unscathed. “Where? I wouldn’t be surprised if they really did get him one.”
Zhou Mi shrugged. “Yeah. But I don’t think he actually wants one, you know? Even a Maserati would be a better choice. What would he do with an island?”
Feifei wasn’t sure that a sports car worth the price of an apartment unit would be a good replacement for a private island. But Zhou Mi had already headed into the bathroom and she simply finished putting on her earrings. It took a while before she realised that she had received them for her birthday. Zhou Mi was a person that bought Harry Winston diamond studs for birthday gifts. Suddenly she was hit with the realisation that they were all of the same stock, even if she’d thought herself different for the longest time.
“Feifei?” She jerked back when she felt Zhou Mi tap her on her arm. “Are you okay?” Zhou Mi looked at her, concerned, and Feifei realised that she must have been zoning out in front of the mirror. She nodded too quickly for it to be natural.
“Let’s go. We don’t want to be too late.” Feifei scooped up her bag and said, while she opened the door and they made their way down to the garage.
Zhou Mi unlocked the Aston Martin electronically as they walked towards it. “I heard all of the younger kids are going to be there.” He smiled at her mischieviously as he helped her into the front seat. “Are you ready to party with the youngins?”
Feifei rolled her eyes. Zhou Mi could sound like an old man at times. “We’re not even that much older,” she pointed out, “and besides we don’t have to stay for too long. Do we?” She tried to look hopefully at him. If Zhou Mi thought that she didn’t want to stay long, she could slip out of sight easily and look around the place as soon as possible. He shrugged as he started up the engine.
“Not technically, but I heard Kim Myungsoo is going to be there. His father is the mayor of Seoul, so it might help in our negotiations if I actually had some sort of connection to the son.” He turned smoothly out of the underground carpark. Zhou Mi had told her before about their company trying to advance into the South Korean market. The Koreans were hard to break down, and he’d been working on it for a long time. “Can’t count on Lu Han all the time. Not when he’s not too interested in the family tradition.”
“He’s going to be a lawyer,” Feifei pointed out as they stopped at a junction, “I think that counts as carrying on the family legacy.” A filthy one.
“Yeah, but he wants to work for UNICEF, not become Procurator-General.” Zhou Mi sped up as they turned into a highway. Lu Han’s place was in a very cushy suburb, accessible only by car. “Just be happy for him his father hasn’t found out yet.”
Yes, because who would bring in the dough if Lu Han was to work pro bono? Feifei’s upper lip curled. Her family wasn’t that different, anyway. Knowing her father it was only natural to take whatever people would offer. Turning a blind eye was the trick to getting on top. Lu Han was doing a super job of it. Zhou Mi was talking about something else entirely and when she next opened her eyes, they were already there. Looking at the European style mansion in front of her, Feifei wondered how much it took to buy and maintain. These were things they didn’t bother about normally, but Feifei was in the mood to think about it today.
Zhou Mi cut the gas. “Yixing texted to say that he would be in a corner pretending not to exist.” He laughed and even she had to crack a small smile. Yixing took his awkward social position in the best way possible. Besides, his cousin made sure that nobody actually did try to do anything to him. “But yeah, wishful thinking on his part. Lu Han’s not going to let that happen.”
Feifei stared up at the mansion as Zhou Mi handed the car over to the valet. The house was fully lit up and she could hear the buzz of excitement from where she was standing. This world seemed unnaturally real, when Feifei knew that it was just a bubble. Someone could burst it open anytime. Maybe it would be her.
“I sure hope so.” She muttered as Zhou Mi took her hand and they walked over to where the party awaited.
__________
If Oh Sehun could have his way, he would design cars for a living. But as it turned out he was actually born into a family of construction, and cars would have to take a backseat to blueprints of buildings. Everyone in the family was expected to be an architect, and Sehun sometimes wondered why his older brother had to set the bar so damn high. Oh Segyun didn’t think to leave some space for his younger brother to show off. How fucking mean, Sehun thought sometimes, but he didn’t try to care too much about it. He’d rather devote more time to collecting cars and paintings than try and mope around about how fantastic his brother was compared to him. Sometimes sleeping around helped too. Actually, it helped all the time. Sehun wasn’t choosy.
He had a hard time choosing an impressive car to drive to Lu Han’s party. Lu Han was a cool guy to hang out with, but he also had far more connections than the rest of them did. There were only so many tubs of cosmetics (Baekhyun), cups of instant noodles (Chanyeol), and LED nodes (Zitao) that he could use in so many situations. Lu Han, though, was a politician’s son. That opened as many doors as he wanted. Mostly Sehun just wanted to score with the Italian car makers, but Lu Han was also a good friend. His father constantly reminded him to be on friendly terms with the Chinese kids, even if they didn’t like them too much, and Sehun listened if he benefited from it as well.
He turned into the driveway of Lu Han’s elaborate mansion. Apparently he lived here with Zhang Yixing, the guy from some lower branch of a Chinese mining family. Sehun wondered if they slept with each other. The tires of his orange Lamborghini screeched as he pulled up the handbrake and slid smoothly out of the driver’s seat. He tossed his keys at the valet, who only barely caught onto them. Private valet service at a party. Yeah, Lu Han was fucking rich all right. Sehun shrugged and jogged towards the main entrance, where he could see the glint of Byun Baekhyun’s blonde hair. As he got closer he could see the girl next to him, dark haired and petite in the standard good rich girl way-Irene Bae. Seemed like they had gotten back together again. Baekhyun and Irene had an extremely volatile relationship that was good for gossip fodder but extremely dangerous to witness in person. Sehun had the unfortunate experience once, and spent the next month actively avoiding the both of them.
“‘Sup hyung.” Sehun slung his arms around the two of them. “I see we’re all early.”
Baekhyun grinned, but pushed his arm off Irene. “I’m always early.” Sehun raised an eyebrow and kept walking.
A server greeted them at the door, where they were served flutes of champagne. Sehun eyed them carelessly for a moment, and when he looked back both Baekhyun and Irene had disappeared. Probably to make out and have angry make-up sex, he thought. Lu Han’s place had more than enough rooms for them to do that uninterrupted. There were already people milling around the main hall, but no one else he knew had arrived yet. Zitao was in the habit of being continually late to everything, and Chanyeol liked appearing at random inopportune moments.
So Sehun wandered around for a while more, pushing doors open and venturing deeper into the house. It was a pretty one, and he was interested in looking at the blueprint if Lu Han would let him. The thought made him pause for a moment. He was really more whipped into shape by his family than he’d like to let on. Thinking about blueprints while he was at a party? Fucking ace. Sehun took another flight of stairs down and briefly toyed with the idea of breaking into Lu Han’s garage before he realised that it was likely to fail and set off multiple alarms, then climbed back up again and ascended until he’d reached the third floor. There he managed to find his way into the library, where there actually were armchairs situated behind a few shelves. Kinky, Sehun thought. Maybe this would be good for some voyeuristic fucking, but he wasn’t really in the mood.
His grandfather had made another hint at the division of their inheritance today. Sehun wasn’t excluded, but was going to likely get as as much as his baby brother would. Seyun was six. He was twenty fucking one. Sehun loved Seyun like the next brother would, but sometimes Grandfather was so damn unfair. Segyun was already rising through the ranks as he sat here, half empty champagne flute in hand, and was going to be made general manager next or something. The truth was, Sehun didn’t hate his brother, no, but the feeling of always being second rate was fucking shitty. His parents always seemed to look at him fondly as the family wastrel. Sehun snorted. Maybe having the largest car collection in Korea did have that effect but whatever. Didn’t mean he didn’t have what it took to be part of the empire they thought only Segyun could pull together. That was why he liked being in the States more than he did when in Seoul. His cooing mother was loving but it would get on his nerves more often than he’d prefer. Besides, Sehun liked not having to think about Grandfather clucking his tongue over his constant deferral of military service and talking about how accomplished Segyun was when he was in the Navy. Oh Sehun too needed a fucking break sometimes.
He’d finished the champagne when the door slammed open. Sehun jumped a little, but collected his wits quickly. This was potentially going to be very good, judging from the way the two people who had entered were breathing in that short, angry manner. Sehun could see them very well from where he was seated-the gaps between the books gave him a great view of the action. He recognised the two almost immediately as the Ahn siblings when they turned around. Ahn Minseok was a close friend of his brother’s, and his parties were legendary. Almost as legendary was his sister’s refusal to attend any of those. Ahn Sohee was continually breaking Chanyeol’s heart because she wouldn’t RSVP to anything, but clearly she didn’t give a fuck. Sehun silently applauded her for that.
He observed as they seemed to passive-aggressively argue about whether Minseok was going to that meeting and whether Sohee would stop “being so pushy” and “just leave Lu Han alone because it’s not our business”. Sehun nodded a little in agreement. He and she had been in the same high school and now university, and Sohee was the poster girl of self restraint. He suspected this inclination for haughtiness to be the reason why Chanyeol constantly hovered around her, nonstop if he could. Chanyeol was fucking obsessed with her but she never gave him the light of day. Once again Sehun gave her a standing ovation for that. Minseok had turned on his heel in that moment then, and Sehun watched as Sohee gripped her brother’s arm and said something too quiet for him to hear. She looked like she was about to cry. That was a first.
Sehun had never talked much to Sohee when they were in school, he’d merely watched from afar. Sohee was beautiful in a way that was meant to be seen from a distance. Their families had business dealings together, and he attended most of the parties Minseok threw, but Sohee was firmly out of bounds. He had seen the way she rebuffed people, thought about how he’d never want to be in a situation like that because Sehun didn’t deal well with rejection, and pretty much left her alone afterwards. Only somebody stupid (like Park Chanyeol) would constantly try to get on her nerves in order to gain a bit of attention, but Sehun wasn’t that sort of person. Not at least until he had seen her crestfallen face now, after Minseok walked out on her and the door slammed behind him. The poor, rich girl in Alexander McQueen and Christian Louboutins. Sehun actually felt some semblance of pity when he saw that she was trying her best not to cry.
He debated on giving up his place behind the shelves but the door opened again. Chanyeol’s head poked in and he could see his eyes light up when he realised that Sohee was alone. Sehun frowned a little but continued to watch. Chanyeol being smacked down was always satisfying but this time he found the guy annoying. He watched as Chanyeol, tall and all suited up, laid a hand on Sohee’s shoulder. She shook him off almost immediately but not in an irritated way. She seemed far too distracted for that. He said something in her ear too softly for Sehun to catch, and Sohee whirled around to glare up at him so hard that he swore he saw Chanyeol momentarily tremble. Sehun snorted softly. Well played. Chanyeol looked hurt, even, but slowly backed off. Should have done that right from the start, Sehun thought. Then again Chanyeol couldn’t read moods too well.
Sohee had sunk into a chair near the other rows of shelves after Chanyeol had closed the door behind him. Sehun continued to watch as she wrapped her hands around the back of her head and looked down at her knees. Even sitting down she had stunning legs. Sehun cleared his throat and she shot right back up.
“Who’s there?” Sohee called out. He could see the guardedness in her eyes. All of them Korean kids looked like that sometimes. Reporters could be aggressive in the motherland. “Hello?”
He decided to give himself up. “Hi.” Sehun picked up his empty glass and walked out from behind the shelves. She looked stunned, and then like she wanted to swing a fist at him. Sehun wasn’t exactly sorry for eavesdropping. He hardly felt sorry for anything, as a matter of fact. A lot of things that people had to bend themselves over for didn’t exist for him. He was sure that it was the same for Sohee, but today it might be different. He had seen a side of her that she would love to keep under wraps, and to a person like her it was tantamount to giving him a free pass to threaten her with. Sehun felt a slight pity but pushed it away soon enough. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’d think you would find that a relief.” Her voice was quietly venomous. Sehun was sure that she had already put two and two together. Not that it really mattered.
“If you appeared at Minseok hyung’s parties more often, we would see each other very frequently.” He shrugged and grinned at her, before plopping himself down on the chair next to her. He saw her arm twitch. She probably wanted to bolt out of the room now, but dignified children of the Korean chaebols didn’t do that sort of thing. Sehun found it crazy that they still needed to believe that Joseon-style rules still applied to daily life, but he was also willing to let it slide. As long as they were good in bed.
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t like wasting my life away.”
How harsh. Sehun whistled and she glared at him. “You do know that your brother’s parties are extremely hard to get into, right? Be proud.” He honestly found it something to be proud of. Segyun would never be able to organise parties of Minseok’s standard. Hedonism wasn’t exactly Segyun’s thing, because it was Sehun’s, but he was also too lazy to make sure that it would work in a party setting. Minseok though, was a genius at both. Sehun had to give him credit for that.
“I’m sure your parents are proud of you.” Sohee wasn’t sneering but he knew what she meant. She had gone straight for the jugular. Very clever, he thought, because it did fucking hurt. It also caught him by surprise, so he blanked out for a few seconds before he grinned again. Smiling was Sehun’s forte. It got him everything and everyone he wanted. Clearly it didn’t apply to Sohee at all. “Listening in on to someone else’s conversation is definitely something to be proud of. Of course it is.”
“Bet Chanyeol hyung wishes he could see you now.” He muttered and Sohee smiled humourlessly. She got up from the chair, smoothed the wrinkles of her blue dress, and walked towards the heavy doors. He raised an eyebrow. So heartless. “Does he know you’re such a character, Sohee?”
She paused, before turning back slowly and tilting her head to the side. Sehun’s pulse skipped a beat. She really was beautiful. No wonder Chanyeol was obsessed. He watched as she placed a foot behind her as she leaned on the brass handles of one of the doors. The dress was cut to the middle of her thigh and he found him admiring her legs again. Sehun was a visual beast and he found no need to deny it. The woman was hot.
“Depends.” She shrugged and pushed down on the handle. The door clicked open. “I don’t give a damn.”
Chanyeol would be heartbroken. Sehun raised his empty glass in salute. She did a little curtsey, and pulled the door open. He watched as the dress rode up a little as she stood back up. Now it was easy to see where the attraction lay in her. Sehun shifted in his seat, slightly uncomfortable.
“And you’d better damn well call me nuna.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and then stepped out.
__________
Zitao arrived at the Lu mansion slightly late, and exhausted. He only came here because it was Lu Han-who he liked quite well and had known since they were kids. And he couldn’t piss off the Procurator-General’s son. That was a habit ingrained in him since he was small. Be nice to Lu-ge, his mother always said. Play whatever he wants to play. Don’t talk back to him. Old habits died hard.
He walked into the spacious foyer and looked around. People milled around in every corner, still pretending at propriety at this point in the evening. Debauchery came later. It had its proper place, after the sun went down and the majority of the guests were drunk. Now that he was forbidden from drinking, Zitao could sit back and actually mark the point in the evening when people allowed themselves to shift from their proper rich selves to their gross rich selves. If he could ever get himself in a better mood, it would be amusing, but really he just felt like an outsider, watching his old crowd.
Sehun appeared down the stairs, a very odd smile on his face. Zitao stopped, his hands in the pockets of his Ermenegildo Zegna suit, to wait for him.
“You look happy,” Zitao commented when Sehun came up to him. Sehun’s grin turned bashful, then a bit lecherous.
“You ever taken a good look at Ahn Sohee’s legs?” he asked. Zitao snorted.
“She has great legs, but you’re never going to touch them,” Zitao laughed. “And even if she let you, Minseok would murder you. Her legs aren’t that great.”
“Did you know she got sued for punching a guy back in Korea last year?” Sehun asked eagerly. “It’s kind of hot, right?”
Zitao rolled his eyes. Sehun with a crush was an indefatigable puppy. He bit down hard on the stick and refused to let go, usually until the stick was in splinters and his chance had long since evaporated.
They stepped through the large living room and outside, walking down the stairs to the large, spacious pool. Some of the others were sitting around a fire pit, Lu Han in the center, looking very thin and on-edge. He and Sehun walked up to join them, and only then did Zitao notice that Jia was sitting on one of the couches, her hand intertwined with Kris’s.
“Sick party,” Sehun commented, flopping down on a couch and gesturing for one of the plates of hors devours sitting on an end table. “I ran into your sister,” he said to Minseok. “She’s in a bad mood.”
Minseok rolled his eyes and Zitao sat down next to Sehun, very aware that Jia was not looking at him or acknowledging him at all. Sehun gave him the platter and Zitao ate one of the little snacks. He didn’t even know what it was besides being salmon, but it tasted expensive.
“She’s always pissed off,” Minseok said. Zitao elbowed Sehun, to make his point from earlier, and strangely Sehun didn’t react. Maybe he could keep a secret when it suited him.
Then Kris got up and went into the pool house, leaving Jia alone. Zitao cleared his throat.
“You look nice,” he said to her, for lack of anything better to say. She really did. She had enough style that she didn’t look out of place with the rest of them, all dressed to the nines by personal stylists. She’d done something with her hair that Zitao couldn’t really identify, but he could tell that it made her look softer, which meant she was probably trying to blend in. Look the part of the rich girlfriend even if she couldn’t change the rich part. Gone were the days of dyed-pink or orange hair.
“I’m still not talking to you,” she announced.
The rest of the circle gave her an odd look, but Jia didn’t seem to notice. It took Zitao a minute to realize what her mistake was-she shouldn’t be so blunt. The rest of them fought with their emotions buried underneath masks of pure civility. Zitao had always been bad at that, which was probably why he was friends with Jia in the first place.
Zitao couldn’t even find it within himself to snap back a retort. Instead he just sank back into the couch and listened to the others laugh. Watched Sehun drink and then, when Kris came back with Feifei on his heels, them drink too. He felt like a dark cloud was hanging over him and every time someone splashed into the pool, he felt ill.
__________
Nothing irritated Feifei quite so much as watching Yifan stroke Jia’s back, his fingers pulling gently through her hair. She watched Jia lean into him, and Fei could just imagine the happy, satisfied looks on their faces-she was happy she couldn’t see them, because then she’d be more annoyed. Jia didn’t have a clue how Kris was willing to use her. And Feifei couldn’t tell her.
They were sitting outside around the “campfire,” as Lu Han referred to the built-in fire pit that surely cost thousands of dollars to install. Feifei was in the pool house kitchen, making a drink for herself as slowly as possible. There was no way she could endure this party even fall-down drunk, and she never got fall-down drunk, so she was just going to avoid as much of it as possible. She really hated Kris for making her such a terrible, unhappy person. Zhou Mi suggested that she was at fault for her own unhappiness, but since the alternative was watching Kris destroy both her fortune and her best friend, she didn’t have much choice. She had too many things on her plate, the biggest one being how to snoop around the Lu mansion without being seen. Trying to get Jia to dump Kris had to come second.
“Are you okay?”
Feifei jumped about a foot and turned around to glare at Kris. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just making myself a drink.”
“Me too.” He stepped up beside her and started looking through the bottles of alcohol lined up on the counter. A number of Korean voices echoed from another part of the house, and Feifei sighed involuntarily. She actually liked Lu Han well enough, but the company he kept frustrated her. Only the Zhangs were okay, and even then.
“Cheer up, Feifei. You’re at a party.” Kris flashed a smile at her and Feifei resumed working on her drink, which at this point was mostly ice that she’d put in one cube at a time.
“It’s hard to sit around and watch you cuddle with my best friend when I know you’d turn on her in a second,” Fei said in a pleasant voice. Accordingly, Kris laughed.
“Pretty sure she wants to be here. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.” He smiled at her again and Fei smiled back, because this was what they did-act the part of civil stepsiblings whether what they said matched or not.
“Eventually, she’ll see who you really are,” Fei said in a faux-gentle voice, reaching across him for a bottle she wanted. She could feel him bristle as she infringed on his space. “And I’m hoping she breaks your heart at the same time.”
Kris didn’t say anything for a long moment. Fei watched the alcohol pour into the glass, almost eager for his response.
“You could always speed up the process,” Kris said softly. “Tell her the truth about us.”
Fei laughed-a genuine, incredulous laugh. “Us? There is no us.”
Kris smirked down at her. “I have several very vivid memories that say otherwise.”
Fei kept smiling and shook her head at him. “It’s very cute that you think oral sex counts for anything,” she said in a voice dripping with condescension. If she could have reached his head easily, she would pat it.
He took a sip of his drink and held her gaze. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t the one on my knees.”
“And I’m not the one still thinking about it.” She titled her glass in his direction and they stared each other down. Finally, he blinked, and looked away. A good match. She was still winning. She walked outside, holding the door open for him as she went, since he had two drinks in his hands. He gave one to Jia as they sat down, and Fei settled herself next to Lu Han on one of the plush couches. The sky was a brilliant dark blue. Beautiful night.
“Everything okay?” Jia asked innocently. “You all were in there for a while.”
“Just catching up with my brother,” Fei said. Kris met her eyes with a glare, and Fei smiled back.
After a while, it was time to present gifts to Lu Han. Word spread throughout the party and slowly people began drifting to one of the main rooms.
“Here we go,” Lu Han sighed, and pushed himself up off the couch. Feifei watched him steady himself as he stood up. He looked a bit thin and wan, the usual perfect edges of his clothes wrinkled, his eyes constantly darting around. Feifei wondered what all this meant, if anything. For all she knew, he could have an addiction to hard drugs-it was Los Angeles, after all. Then again, it could all be connected, every one of them suffering the fallout of their parents’ decisions. Feifei had no way to know.
When the pool deck and eating areas were clear, Feifei drifted behind the rest, slowly working her way to the edges of the party. She followed everyone to the main living room where they were congregating, but stopped before she went in. Im Yoona, a girl she knew only by association, noticed her and gave her a questioning look.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Feifei explained sheepishly. “That time of the month.”
Yoona nodded and put her finger in front of her lips in a “shh” gesture and winked. Feifei grinned, and disappeared down the hall.
She guessed she had about a half hour. This was the only time she could search Lu Han’s house unnoticed, because the rest of the party guests would be at the gift giving, trying to impress Lu Han with their purchases. During the rest of the party most of the rooms would be filled up, so if she tried to go into a bedroom alone, people would look at her suspiciously. And it wasn’t like she could pretend she and Zhou Mi were sneaking into a bedroom to fool around.
She would start with Lu Han’s bedroom. That seemed like the best bet. She didn’t think Lu Han was a particularly sneaky person, so anything personal he would probably hide in a dresser drawer or under his mattress.
She made her way up to the third floor and tapped carefully on Lu Han’s door. Then she opened it and slid inside. His cat trotted up to her and she gave it a few affectionate pats on the head.
“Just between us, right?” she asked it. It purred, winding around her legs, and Feifei stood up and looked around.
__________
They gathered in the biggest room that Lu Han’s place had to offer for the present gifting. Minseok took a seat in the corner as he watched the party goers file in. Many he recognised and even more he wasn’t bothered to talk to. Lu Han’s connections were wider than any of theirs, but Minseok also thought it was due to everyone wanting to get a piece of him. Sohee had emerged through the doors and turned away almost immediately when she saw him. Fine by him. Minseok frowned until Yixing sat down beside him, nursing a glass of what he was sure was non-alcoholic.
“Does it have to be this way?” Yixing asked and Minseok shrugged absentmindedly. “This is so juvenile. Everyone presenting their gifts to Lu Han like he’s a seven year old.”
“How else are they going to get into his good books?” Minseok grabbed the glass from Yixing and gulped. It was indeed not of the alcoholic variety and tasted like apple juice. He gagged and shoved it back into Yixing’s hands.
Lu Han was sitting in the center, and Minseok thought he looked a little paler and more listless than usual. Maybe it was the stress of his final year in law school getting to him. Or maybe he just was overdoing the whole self-healing with nicotine thing. Minseok had spotted a nicotine patch on the inside of his wrist just now. Yixing let slip earlier that he was using them so frequently that he used up two boxes every three days. Minseok was sure that it was definitely not compliant with any doctor’s instructions, but then as long as Lu Han knew what he was doing it was fine by him. The guy was turning twenty five today, anyhow.
“Thanks for coming guys. Means a lot to me.” Lu Han’s smile was a little off, but nobody else seemed to notice. Minseok clapped along with everyone and spotted Sohee actually sitting near Chanyeol. She must be really mad at him, then. Somebody yelled that it was time for Lu Han to show off his presents, and Minseok sat back as they started off on the other side of the room.
There was a lot of YSL and Burberry, which Minseok knew Lu Han liked and used frequently as opposed to say, Jongdae, who didn’t know anything about the different fashion houses and just wore whatever his stylist gave him. Baekhyun had actually brought two pieces from Chanel’s latest runway collection, and Minseok laughed at the weird look Lu Han gave him.
Segyun, one of his oldest friends and the elder Oh brother, couldn’t be here today so Sehun represented them by stuffing a box into Lu Han’s hands and looking as cocky as he could. Minseok raised an eyebrow-Sehun was the more flamboyant of the Oh siblings. Maybe one day he could be surpassed by the youngest, but Seyun was only six.
“Hyung says happy birthday. He also said you’d like the Hablot.” Sehun gave Lu Han a pat on the shoulder and Lu Han returned it a little awkwardly. Lu Han and Minseok were both close to Segyun, but he was now more frequently based in Seoul than in Los Angeles. Plus, Minseok reckoned, Sehun was always a little on the weird side. “And he also said you’d like it for being limited edition. Ninety-seven thousand, that’s all I’m saying.”
There was a ripple of murmurs around the room. Sehun had definitely said it to get a reaction, but Minseok was ambivalent. The Ohs also banked with them, and he had a very good idea of what they were worth. This price wasn’t anything much to them, and Segyun probably bought the watch out of his own pocket. Sehun looked pleased and slightly drunk as he slid back to where Zitao was, and they exchanged high-fives.
Next to them were Kris, and Jia was nestled at his side. Minseok watched as Kris handed a bottle of red wine over, and Yixing went “From 1990?” beside him. Clever, Minseok thought. Kris was always just thoughtful enough, to the point that people found him tasteful but not overbearing.
“Happy birthday, Lu Han.” Jia said and stood up to give him a hug. Minseok could see Lu Han freeze for a moment before gingerly tapping on her back in thanks. “I hope you’ll have a great year.”
Lu Han mumbled something that he couldn’t hear in reply, and Jia took a small box out of her purse. She handed it over to him and smiled. It was small and square, with no visible logos that Minseok could see or identify. Opposite he could see Sohee eyeing the box with much interest, but as soon as she saw him looking she turned away with a scowl. Minseok thought it was okay if she found Chanyeol a more acceptable option to look at for now, because Sohee would have to deal with the consequences for it later.
“Thanks.” Lu Han sounded slightly warmer now, and took the box from her. He opened it and picked up a leather collar that had a golden heart pendant hanging from it. Minseok presumed it was for his cat, the one that Lu Han had bought a few years ago from a breeder at some exaggeratedly high price. Pureblood, he’d argued. Minseok still found it stupid. “Is this for Mew Mew? Thanks. I’ve been looking for one.”
“Yeah, Yixing said that it’d be useful.” Jia grinned and Lu Han looked like he was genuinely happy to receive the present. Minseok elbowed Yixing and he returned the jab. He didn’t know that the two of them were this close, but Yixing was looking steadfastly into the distance and didn’t seem to want and reply any questions. Minseok could bide his time, no problem. “Glad you like it.”
Lu Han nodded and was putting the collar back into the box when Baekhyun reached over to grab it out of his hand. “Nice. Did you make it yourself?” He asked with a grin, one that Minseok recognised immediately with ringing alarm bells to be a very dangerous sign. But Jia had no prior experience with Baekhyun, and simply nodded kindly. Baekhyun made a face of wonderment, and dropped it back into the box. Lu Han didn’t look too happy, because he almost certainly knew what Baekhyun was up to.
“Very intricate. You do give Chinese sweatshop workers a good name.”
But even Minseok hadn’t expected Baekhyun to say something like that. He was grinning at Jia, who had frozen on the spot. The room had quietened to a buzzing sort of silence, and Minseok heard Yixing draw a sharp intake of breath beside him. Opposite them he could see Zitao gaping at Baekhyun in horror. Sehun looked like he had been caught off guard. Kris was expressionless. Minseok himself was disturbed at Baekhyun’s complete lack of tact. Jia looked like she wanted to say something, but the edge of her mouth simply twitched. Baekhyun continued smiling like he was waiting for an answer.
Then Sehun rose from his seat almost immediately, pushing the ends of his suit jacket aside, before Zitao reacted a second later and caught him by the arm. He looked the angriest that Minseok had ever seen him be. Out of the corner of his eye Minseok could see Sohee watching, an odd expression on her face. Sehun opened his mouth presumably to say something rude, but Kris cut in before he could.
“Watch it, Byun.” Kris’s eyes were burning but his tone was cold. “This is not the time to be running your mouth off like this.”
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow at Kris. “Defending your little fuck buddy, Wu?”
Yixing bristled and Minseok pressed down on his knee. This was not their fight. Jia had blanched pale and Kris looked like he was contemplating punching Baekhyun in the face. But instead it was Lu Han who spoke up, his voice levelly acerbic.
“Don’t fuck up the party, Baekhyun.” Baekhyun shrugged. Lu Han shot him a cold look. “This isn’t Korea.”
“I was under the impression that this is much freer of a country than Korea.” Baekhyun spread his arms out, palms faced upwards. A muscle in Kris’s face twitched. “Or China, for that matter.”
Yixing stood up and flung his hand off so fast that Minseok almost fell over. “You need to stop, right now. It’s not your place to say anything like this.” Yixing was so angry that his ears had turned red. Minseok wanted to clamp a hand over his mouth. This was only going to bait Baekhyun, and Baekhyun was unstoppable whenever he thought he was being presented with a challenge.
Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “And it’s yours, because you happen to leech off Lu Han here? Must be family tradition.”
Minseok saw Yixing’s fist clench tightly and knew that he was about to erupt. He pulled himself up using Yixing’s arm and narrowed his eyes at Baekhyun. He tilted his head in a sort of small, mocking greeting back. Minseok saw Irene behind Baekhyun, suddenly, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain. There were a lot of rumours about Irene being a long-suffering girlfriend, but Minseok knew that she didn’t leave because she didn’t want to. It was her choice. Baekhyun smiled again and Minseok pressed down harder on Yixing’s arm.
“You will stop now.” Minseok said calmly. “Before your father gets wind of your favourite ways to get high during parties.”
Baekhyun blinked. Beyond him Minseok could see his sister’s impassive face, but he knew she was impressed somewhat. Sohee never liked Baekhyun too much, and Minseok secretly approved. Irene had risen out of her seat to stand slightly behind her boyfriend. Baekhyun blinked again.
“At your parties, hyung?” He said finally, like a comeback.
Minseok felt the cruelty rise within him. “At my parties where I explicitly said I’d report anyone doing drugs. You’re testing my patience, Baekhyun. Leave the room. Now.”
Baekhyun’s face was blank, as he seemed to consider the better option to take. Then Irene went forward and took his hand. He didn’t even look back, just held her hand and stood there like he was still thinking about it. They had a sick relationship, Minseok thought as Yixing breathed heavily beside him. It took a while before Baekhyun nodded slowly and pulled Irene out of the room. As he walked past Kris he must have mouthed something, because Kris suddenly pulled an arm back and punched him squarely in the face. Jia yelped, and Lu Han rushed forward to hold Kris back. Zitao did the same. Chanyeol had instinctively put an arm in front of Sohee. Then the room was silent before somebody let out a bark of laughter. It sounded like Sehun.
“Fucking get out of my sight before I punch you again, you son of a bitch.” Kris growled, and Baekhyun stood up, a horrified Irene helping him up. He didn’t say anything afterwards and simply walked out. Minseok watched as Irene propped him up and turned the corner. He turned back towards the center of the room, and Lu Han caught his gaze. His friend looked like he wanted to order everyone to leave. But Lu Han pressed the buzzer for his butler instead, and the tenseness slowly melted away into nothing. Everything seemed normal now.
But Minseok watched as Jia slipped out of the room, stumbling a little, with Kris following shortly. Yixing’s arm was still straining against his grip. Minseok let go and Yixing looked around at him for a moment, a little lost, before he looked back at the hallway where Jia and Kris had disappeared into.
“You going?” Minseok asked as the butler arrived. Lu Han looked exhausted as he pointed out the blood drops on the carpet. Kris must have broken something in Baekhyun’s face.
Yixing remained quiet. “Maybe not.” He said finally, and then sank back down slowly into his seat. Minseok didn’t ask any more questions afterwards.
__________
Feifei had almost given up and headed back to the party when she took a second look at the notebook lying on Lu Han’s desk.
She picked it up and looked more closely. It had been closed, but a pen was stuck between the pages, and when she opened it she saw a list of characters running down the page: Wang, Song, Huang, Zhou, Li, Lau, and on it ran for three pages. At the end it said: the driver of the getaway car still has to go to jail.
The rest of the pages were blank, save for a few shopping lists and some half-hearted sketches of a car. Feifei set the notebook down on the desk and realized her hands were trembling. She knew she was close, now-the surnames in the book did not count as evidence, but she was on the right track. If this was everything, she could predict the fallout of the scandal going public. She dug her phone out of her pocket and snapped pictures of the pages. What she would need now was real evidence. She had a feeling Lu Han had it, but she didn’t know where to look.
Quietly, Feifei stole back to the party. She arrived just in time to see Kris punch Baekhyun in the face, and then for Jia and Kris and Baekhyun and Irene to all leave. She looked at Zhou Mi, but he just shook his head. She’d find out later.
After a few minutes the party resumed, and Feifei tried to keep her mind on the gifts being given to Lu Han, but all she could think about was how they were miming what their parents did to his father for years. And if their parents had any say, it would continue this way indefinitely.
tbc