Page 41 of Signed, I'm Yours!
“No, they’re the devil?—”
“Here we go,” the cab driver says, and Seojun closes his mouth and reaches for the door handle.
I look out and pause.
“This is where you live?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”
I shake my head and exit the car into the courtyard of Central Park Diamond, the most expensive residential building in New York, or probably even the whole country. And it’s not just a building. It’s a skyscraper. The diamond of the New York City skyline, with over forty floors of luxury and style.
“No. Nothing,” I say.
Maybe he’s going to trick his way into the building. Maybe he’s just testing me or something. But no, I follow him, and sure as hell, he uses his own key fob to gain entry into the lobby and the elevators.
We go up to the thirty-ninth floor and to one of three apartment doors. His is the one in the middle, and once I go through, I nearly have a heart attack.
A short hallway leads to a dining table in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Central Park and beyond. To the left is the sitting room with two long six-seater couches opposite each other. In the middle are two wooden-and-glass blocks that are almost as long and act as coffee tables, complete with photography tables and mini-sculptures. Turning the corner, I find the kitchen with white marble countertops and ample space.
“You own all this?” I ask as Seojun takes his coat off, finally revealing his attire underneath, which, to my surprise, is a simple black tank top, and kicks off his shoes, collapsing on one of the couches with wild abandon, whereas I’m too scared to take another step for fear of dirtying the floors and leaving DNA traces for police to find afterward.
“Oh yeah. It’s all mine. I know it’s not much?—”
“Not much? Are you kidding?” I slowly peel off my shoes and approach him.
“Pftt, this? It’s nice, but it’s not the penthouse. But I’ll get it one of these days.”
I narrow my eyes.
“You’ll get it how? With your signature trickery?”
“Trickery?” he asks.
He looks far more human now, probably because the fur made everything he did seem big and extravagant.
“Baby, that’s no trickery. That’s just skill. Do you know how much practice it took to get where I am today? My power is no trick.”
Baby?
Did he just call me baby?
“But even my power has limits. I can’t sign for something that expensive, and believe me, I’ve tried. Besides, signatures are tricky when their effect fades. I couldn’t risk it with this place. I had to work around the lack of money so I could still own this place even after my power wore off. And that took de-di-cation.” He claps his hands to the rhythm of the last word as if for emphasis, and I smirk.
“I never doubted your dedication for a second,” I tell him.
He infiltrated our satellite office to find his family after all. That says it all.
“Good. Now!” He shoots right up, and I pull back. “I’ll show you to the guestroom because I’m tired, and I need to get my beauty sleep.”
He doesn’t need sleep to become beautiful, but I don’t tell him that because…that’s weird. Especially for me to think.
The rooms look pretty much as one would expect. They reflect the minimalism of the rest of the house, with beige the dominating color and navy blues and gold for accents. It’s odd. It’s impressive, but it’s not very homely.
I know my house is a hole and the things I own aren’t the newest or flashiest, but it feels more lived in than this massive space that’s mostly empty. Empty of clutter, empty of furniture, and empty of people.
“I’m just across the hall—” He starts to walk into his own room when pain bursts through me and I collapse to my knees.
When I look out at Seojun, he’s also on the floor. We crawl back to each other, and like magic, the pain snaps back to oblivion, leaving us gasping.
