Rip's cheeks went red and even his ears were stained.
His loud voice turned into a shy whisper, "...I was playing games on my phone."
Then came Blake's turn.
Blake, "Listening to music."
That was the longest sentence Blake had spoken in front of Ian and Levi.
Rip was surprised, so was Chase.
Usually Blake hardly speaks a word, even in front of them, let alone unfamiliar people.
However, Levi focused on something else.
"You must love music," Levi commented deliberately, but he acted as though he said as such casually and without thought.
Blake paused, and nodded.
"Just right, maybe you will give me the honor of listening to another one of your songs one day?" Levi smiled mysteriously.
Blake did not respond. His deep and dark colored eyes looked straight into Levi's narrow, invisible eyes.
After Blake, it was Ian's turn to give his answer.
Ian thought back to what happened yesterday night as a surge of gloom and anger sparked in his eyes.
Rip can feel that his big brother Ian was in a bad mood again.
He has never seen big brother Ian like this before. In front of people, Ian has always maintained a gentle and polite demeanor. In front of Rip, Ian had always been like a generous and pampering big brother.
This was the first for Rip to see Ian grumpy, although the other concealed it for the most part and only a small fraction showed to the world.
'How intense of an emotion must be tormenting big brother Ian to force him to show a sliver of what he's feeling when he was always calm and opaque?'
"…I was reading a book." Ian chose after much thought.
His pause and hesitation in answering was quite long, however, three of the four present did not dare to question him while the fourth one only said amusedly, "Is it that same book you have been reading since you were 9?"
"Yes. [Broken Innocence]. The story of an innocent and pure young child who's heart and soul went dark. After taking revenge on his enemies, he died a tragic death." Ian spoke calmly without fluctuations.
Rip and Chase gasped. What kind of a 9 year old reads a story like that?!
…Was his taste too strong?
"I thought so. Last night, I was bathing whilst surrounded by elegant, ancient music that inspire my literary soul." Levi replied and then carried on to give his own answer to the question. Levi gave off a pretentious scholarly air as he daintily raised his hand to tap his face gently.
Ian, "…" As pretentious as always.
"Next question! Who is your most favorite person in the world?" Chase picked a random question and asked.
"My dad!"
"…"
"My big brother." Ian said calmly. Not embarrassed from what could be seen as a childish answer from a teenager his age.
However, Levi's following answer was even more embarrassing, shameful, and narcissistic for people with a thin face.
"Myself."
Levi smiled smugly, 'Why wouldn't I be my favorite person? One needs to love oneself before loving another. If one can't even love themselves how can they truly love another? Not knowing love, how can one love?' A series of rhetorical questions flashed across Levi's mind as a wind of wisdom blew through his hair.
A golden shine seemed to break out of Levi's skin, making him shine.
Unfazed, Chase followed after Levi's answer with a sincere grin, "My little brother is my favorite person."
Since Blake kept his silence, he didn't get a point this round and became the only losing party in the game currently.
"Yay yay! It's my turn to ask questions now!" Pumped up, Rip hummed an energetic tune and eyed the cards in his hands eagerly.
Finally, with painstaking effort, Rip picked out a good question—at least he thought it was good—and asked it aloud.
"What do you think is the most ideal way to treat people?"
"Not like a dog?" Levi blurted out.
Suddenly, everyone turned to look at Levi with incredulous eyes.
Unsurprising to say, Chase and Rip thought back to what happened in front of the special training building this morning before they were taken here by Levi.
Ian wasn't there at the time so he wouldn't know, however, he thought the way Levi answered the question was strange and he also reminded him with a reprimand, "Levi, it's not your turn to answer yet. Don't cut in line, it'll mess up the order and we might miss a person."
Not embarrassed or angry at all, Levi smiled and said, "My apologies. It just popped into my head and slipped out of my mouth."
Rip, "It's okay, it's okay. It happens." Rip was really easy-going about it, after all, it's not like Levi committed an unforgivable crime.
Chase, "Don't mind it."
Blake, "..." He also didn't mind.
Suddenly, Blake looked conflicted, a rare expressive expression on his face.
Silence~
Because it was Blake's turn to answer, no one else spoke and so the atmosphere descended into calm with not a single sound uttered except that of the running air conditioner.
Seeing that Blake hasn't spoken a word in a while, Levi gave him a way out, "Seems like you deliberately want one of us desperate ones to win. Little Ian, why don't you tell us your answer?"
'You're such an impartial person, master.' Ian sneered sarcastically to himself.
Still, without any struggle or reluctance, Ian gave his answer on how he treats people, ideally.
"I believe that one should protect and take care of those close to oneself. As for the others, guard against and treat appropriately but distantly."
Ian did not beat around the bush and directly shared his heartfelt beliefs.
He did not see them as something private, as something that could not be told or seen by others.
If he dares to think so and dares to do so, why should he be afraid of others' judgements? Besides being cowardly and unconfident about one's own principles, that's just being two-faced and hypocritical.
That being said, his ideal itself might seem hypocritical and biased.
But, although his ideal might make him seem like a discriminating, two-faced person, one should remember that a human being is not 1D or 2D, they are 3D. Just like there are many facets to a diamond, so are there different sides to a person. Similarly, just as each facet of a diamond has different shapes, length, and width, so does a person's feelings towards another.
But that doesn't mean they are fake or lying to others, they simply act a different way to people of different values in their heart, accordingly.
You can't treat a baby the same as a grown adult, nor can you treat an adult like a child who'll listen to you unconditionally.
But that doesn't make you a hypocrite.
Ian's belief was to hold dear to his heart all those who he loves and cares for. And leave aside indifference and coldness for those not in his circle of protection.
He may seem cruel and heartless, but not everyone's heart has the vastness of the ocean. Sometimes, just fitting in one person, other than oneself, is already a challenge.
A human heart can only hold so much.
Not after being battered and bruised, broken beyond repair.
Thump!
Chase's heart skipped a beat.
Protect and take care of those close to oneself…
For some reason, this sentence moved Chase's heart. There was nothing fancy or awe-inspiring about any of the words the sentence consisted of nor would it move a passerby's heart, yet it spoke to Chase because he felt the same way.
In that second, Chase was overwhelmed with an urge, a temptation, to come clean to Ian about what he had seen last night.
But luckily, he held himself back in time. Though it ended up making his face weird, as though he wanted to spit out a bone and ended up choking on it in his throat instead.
"My turn? Little Ian, are you finished?" Levi turned to ask Ian.
Ian nodded his head lightly.
"Marvelous." Levi's lips lifted at the corners.
He leisurely began, "In the past, I believed there were only two types of people in this world—loyal ones and disloyal ones. However—" Levi raised his voice and then continued, "I have since changed my mind. Now, in my belief, people are split into three categories: loyal, unloyal, and undetermined."
Gesturing to emphasize, Levi straightened up a finger every time he named a category until three fingers were up in the air like the graceful tail of a peacock.
"To be loyal—I don't think I need to explain. On the other side of the fan, unloyal naturally means betrayal or deception, on the opposite side of their master.
"As for the third category—undetermined—I believe that they are neither loyal or unloyal until they meet their destined master."
As Levi enunciated certain words in his last sentence, he looked deeply into Blake's eyes that gave off gloomy airs. That, however, could not deter the mysterious smile on Levi's lips, and it could even be seen in his narrow eyes.
Blake calmly looked back, unafraid and unflinching. No waves could be detected in his dark, bottomless eyes.
Unbeknownst to everyone, once the topic of "loyalty" came up, one person was cast into a world of doubt and introspection.
'Loyalty…' Chase ruminated on that seemingly simple and straightforward yet deep word, a myriad of complex emotions and thoughts running a mile per second through his heart.
Ironic to say, Chase didn't believe in loyalty. Bright as his appearance may seem, a darkness lingered within his soul.
The only thing one could say he believes in was familial relations that breed familial affections.
When his parents were alive, they treated him and his newborn younger brother very well, showering them with unconditional love.
At school, his elementary friends also had good parents who cared for them, so Chase took it for granted, as young as he was, that this was the case for everyone in the world.
Loving parents, obedient children.
Loyalty was never in his dictionary.
Until the demise of his dear parents and his arrival in the dreary, cold, and loveless orphanage where he crossed paths with the mythical abandoned children.
Yes, some of the children were only there because they had no relatives to take them in, but most of them lived there because they were abandoned by their own family.
Once, Chase saw with his own eyes the actions of a nominal parent heartlessly throwing their baby bundle containing a fragile infant at the door of his orphanage.
Not "put", but "threw".
In that moment, Chase could not comprehend what he had just witnessed and, at the same time, he realized…
Parents were human beings too.
Parents weren't a species. Nor were they genetically programmed to love their offsprings.
Fortunately for him, his parents loved him and his little brother until their deaths. But others weren't so lucky.
In this world, if one couldn't even trust in one's family, related by blood and flesh, how could one trust another whose blood does not flow through one's veins?
The concept of loyalty was vague and impossible for Chase to understand, to comprehend.
What inspires loyalty in a person for someone else?
Was it admiration?
Reverence?
Trust?
Fear?
Violence?
Love?
Loyalty will remain as only an intangible concept until it is acted out.
And so far in Chase's life, he has never witnessed a semblance of this so-called loyalty.
Employees embezzling their employer's money.
Friends selling out friends.
Husbands and wives having affairs and tearing apart their families.
Subordinates backstabbing their superiors.
This caused Chase to question—Did loyalty exist?
If it does, how come it's never present?
If it's present, how come it's never visible? At least not to him.
Looking up and glancing at the young teenager with light purple eyes, Chase suddenly wondered if Ian knew what loyalty was. As the young master of the giant Everett Touch, Inc., he must have numerous underlings and servants at his beck and call. Loyal to him or his family.
He wondered if everyone present except him understood it, witnessed it.
A pair of blood red eyes shone in the light.
If so, in this time that he works here, he wishes to understand it. To see it proven with his own two eyes, because deep down, a part of him believed in its existence.