Chapter 337: Water definitely tasted better
Showing the world, and not just office workers and those after his fame, that there was someone next to him. Someone he could smoke gently towards. Someone he considered precious.
But... Isn’t that dangerous for me?
I rolled my eyes down, suddenly not seeing this as a good thing. He’s a mafia lord for crying out loud. Was I safe?
But I brushed all that worry aside as I felt that even if the entire mafia organization came after me, he would do his very best to protect me.
So, maybe it wasn’t a bad thing after all.
Light laughter and chuckles drifted through the hall as we walked in after having my entire... No, our entire existence flashed with pictures.
How do those models and actresses manage not to fade out of existence with all those pictures taken every single time?
I think that’s the hardest part of this night for me. Well, for now. I don’t know what else I’ll see but I don’t think anything’s going to beat having my existence flashed, haha.
(Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, baby)
My eyes sparkled as I beheld the interior of this castle-like building. It was expensively decorated with what looked like diamond chandeliers and draped with gold silk shimmering around and under them.
Everywhere I looked, people glittered like actual diamonds being reflected with golden light. Their accessories, their gowns that stretched to the floor beautifully with pearl and diamond stones embedded in them, and then gentlemen wearing suits that were polished to perfection.
Phew. Such oppression.
They were all glittering.
Well, at least I didn’t glitter any less.
I wasn’t nervous even when the oppression was way off my radar, and I decided to occupy myself instead of thinking past my own capacity.
I spotted a waiter passing by with a tray of champagne flutes and quickly snatched two before the poor guy even registered my existence.
Turning, I stretched one to Jin-Yeok, who was already watching me with that soft smile.
That smile... soft yet suspicious.
"What?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
"You’ve adapted so quickly." He said as he accepted the flute from me, his fingers brushing mine deliberately.
I looked away, puffing out my lips in a pout.
"I already said I’d do fine. Did you not believe me?" I asked but he simply chuckled as a response.
It sounded so low and smug, like he’d caught me in the middle of something I didn’t even realize I was guilty of.
I sipped my drink just to avoid replying and making eye contact. The bubbles fizzed against my tongue, and the taste? Well, bitter and elegant, and I tried not to wrinkle my nose because it was not exactly what I expected, but unknowingly to me, Jin-Yeok had spotted my reaction.
Why did rich people love this stuff so much? Water definitely tasted better.
Still, I tilted my glass like I’d been sipping champagne my whole life, making the perfect pose of a rich conglomerate.
Ha! Who was I kidding? I looked flawless.
As I pretended to admire the chandeliers, I could feel eyes on me, curious, measuring eyes accompanied by whispering.
They were the kind of stares that peeled away your skin to see what you were worth underneath. How annoying of the elite class to try and size up an unknown opponent.
I lifted my chin and smiled faintly. In any case, let them stare. I’m gorgeous. It’s only right that there are people to admire me.
(I think there’s been too much narcissist energy in Jo-Pil recently. Who flipped the switch?)
"You look like you’ve always been in these kinds of things all your life." Jin-Yeok suddenly said, sipping casually from his flute.
How could he even drink that without winching?
But his words got to me and my nose shot up in pride. It just shows how good an actor I was.
"Huhu, don’t look down on me. I’ve always belonged in this world. I was born to be a socialite." I boldly and shamelessly declared, my voice carrying just enough volume for the nearest busybodies to overhear.
He chuckled, shaking his head and the contents of his flute.
"Right, right."
"Don’t sound so doubtful," I muttered, pouting into my glass before taking another sip. The sharp bubbles fizzed against my tongue like little daggers, but I pretended it was liquid gold, though I didn’t drink it properly and only let a little slip through my throat.
"See? I even drink like one."
"Mm. Except you wrinkled your nose." His eyes glimmered with amusement, sharp enough to make me choke on what I was barely able to swallow.
I coughed lightly, turning away.
"T-that was me savoring it. Commoners wouldn’t understand." I said that and that earned me a full laugh, the kind that turned a few heads around us.
"Oh my, please enlighten me." He said and I realized that in my busybody act, I had actually called him a commoner indirectly.
But he didn’t look mad. Rather, it amused him.
In this hall, this party that seemed to bore the likes of someone like him, who only lived for three thrills while putting up a fake gentlemanly appearance, I was the strawberry on top of his ice cream.
Then, Jin-Yeok leaned closer, lowering his voice just for me as he said,
"I don’t know what’s more dangerous... the fact that you look the part, or that you can bluff your way into believing it." He said, and I boldly answered as if I had a reward waiting for me.
"Both," I replied without hesitation, my glass in the air. "It’s obviously both."
And to prove my point, I raised my glass, letting the chandelier light catch on the rim as though I’d rehearsed the pose a hundred times.
My reflection in the golden liquid winked back at me, flawless, untouchable, and absolutely full of myself.
"Ah, I was definitely born for this socialite world."
So, I don’t know if that was a vain inner demon eating up at my reasoning or just me being so emersed in the part that I forgot myself completely.
Whichever, my act was enough to fool even the busybodies who had never seen me before.
To them, I was a mystery they wanted to unravel. And to me... I grinned... They were fools who would get swallowed up by my act till the end.