In all honesty, they were all strangers. Amber was starting to realise that everything that she had been hearing about soulmates was a lie.
"How JieMi? HOW? You have a body exchange soulmate bond! What do you want? For her to find you in bed with her? For her to meet Ha-Eun?" Ezra was screaming at him.
"I took MinJae's soul bond suppressants."
"You-You what?"
Ezra's words mirrored her thoughts.
"And I ate them because I don't want her and I don't love her."
He really...he really didn't want her at all.
The burst of pain that spread throughout her body was pure torture. It took everything for her to not let the scream escape her throat.
Amber needed an out. She wanted to get out of here. She didn't want to hear his words, didn't want him to tell her everything she did not want to hear. She was crawling, escaping through the room and heading straight for the hotel door.
To be fair, her body felt numb and she was not exactly in the right state of mind, so she wasn't really that discrete in her blatant attempts to escape.
The soft mellifluous voice that echoed behind her was something she did not expect.
"Who are you?"
Amber swallowed thickly, staring up at the man before her.
MinJae looked like shit if that were even possible. Amber swore that her mind placed an automatic Snapchat filter over him that dulled down all the imperfections. And she still found him insanely attractive despite how sickly he looked.
If she looked past that, hidden beneath the golden sparkles and rainbow filters, was a guy that looked as if he had not been sleeping for days. The pouches of fat beneath his eyes were swollen and red. It sunk heavy on his pallid face. The eye bags were lightly carved into his skin and they stretched downwards, making him appear haggard and drained.
The usually dewy eyes that would glisten brightly when he spoke were bloodshot, streaked with tiny red veins and splotches of burst vessels. He appeared to have been crying for days and the thought of that sent a jolt of concern through her heart, burning deep within her chest.
The pretty flowers that once streaked through his hair were all gone. And it made Amber sad just looking at him. Him and his empty locks of fluffy, voluminous soft hair. She watched him as he stood languidly, hands fisted into a huge dark orange sweater that hung across his skinny frame.
He met her gaze steadily. Dark orbs staring at her carefully as they traced over her features as if he were reading a book. It wasn't a slow, languid drag of his line of sight that would insinuate a sexual gaze. Rather, MinJae's eyes bored into her steely, cold and unfeeling.
It scared her.
It made her think of things she didn't want to think about.
She watched as he raised his brow and his face stiffened further as they pressed tightly into a pinched frown. His lips were turning downwards, the shift of muscle resulting in cute little indents that formed on his chin.
Amber didn't know what to say. She really didn't.
"I'm..."
Amber cleared her throat, wincing at the rasp of her voice from the burn of tears. He continued to watch her. The hostility in his gaze made her feel even more self-conscious and her mind blanked out from the look he gave her.
"The cleaner," she replied lamely.
Aw, what was she saying? Amber winced mentally.
"Funny," MinJae drawled, brushing his fingers across the leather arm of the sofa. She watched as he leaned against the furniture, crossing his feet with his chin raised. He looked like he was modelling, and the sheer aesthetics of the whole scene distracted her for a second.
"I didn't know cleaners wore hoodies." MinJae said sarcastically, raising a well-threaded brow.
"We do now," Amber replied back quickly, her voice perky with her anxiety.
The Amber in her head was gnawing on her nails like a chipmunk, eyes darting around rapidly. A stiff smile stretched across her lips as she grinned awkwardly at the dark angel before her.
"So that we can blend in with the masses."
"Hmm?" He hummed the rumble that escaped his throat was a soft raspy tune.
So pretty.
"Uh, we don't want people to have a stereotype that this job is a demeaning and dirty one meant for only the less educated. So to confuse people we decided to make hoodies our new uniform."
"If the hoodie is a uniform..."
He teased and she swore his eyes crinkled with amusement. There was a lilt in his voice as he entertained her. He crossed his arms brushing his lips with the back of his index finger in thought as he watched her speak.
"Then, where is your equipment?"
"I ran out of materials. If we run out of cleaning materials, we use the hoodie."
She was completely bullshitting at this point, and it was not even high-grade bullshit. It was obvious and it was exactly like trying to convince an artist who was not colour blind that the colour red was the colour blue in an essay.
MinJae's lips twitched and a familiar little smile adorned his features briefly. It was a cute smirk that stretched his plush lips and made her heart hammer within her chest at the sight. Then it dropped as quickly as it came, like a trick of the light.
"You're funny," He sniffed as he crossed the room to loom before her. He let out a dramatic sigh as he watched her from under his nose. "But, cut the crap," MinJae hissed.
His voice was dark and serious this time, without the lilt of humour. It was the lowest that she'd ever heard from him and it scared her a little. The venomous drip of each syllabus stung and it made her heart pound in her chest.
"How. Did. You. Get. In?"
He spat out each word, irritation flickering in his eyes.
"I j-just appeared here—" Amber stammered out the truth. She sucked at lying. She couldn't do it. Really. MinJae clearly believed she was still lying.
"You don't want to tell me huh?" MinJae shrugged, the motion made his fluffy blonde locks bounce. "Then I'll just have to call security." He drawled, pulling his smartphone from his pocket to tap into it quickly with ring adorned fingers.
"No wait stop! I'm—" Amber's brows furrowed as her eyes met his steadily, trying to beseech him to believe her. She inhaled and...She did it.
"I'm your soulmate."