Sungjae had been living like an animal in its own cage for years because his parents thought that it’s too dangerous to let him out without any guardian. of course it wasn't that easy to cage him up alone in the apartment. His parents always changed the code numbers for their apartment every time he had tried to go out, or more like escaped. he may had something wrong with his head, but he wasn’t an idiot to not realize each of the surveillance cameras that were planted on each of the corners of the room. Thankfully his parents were always providing everything that he needed to live. He could ask for everything as easy as a snap of a finger, except breathing the outside world’s air.

He never had a visitor, he stopped attending school as soon as he graduated middle school and his parents decided that homeschooling system would be better for him, although most of his tutors decided to give up on him soon as Sungjae went literally insane. Heck, the neighbors weren’t even aware that Yook family had a son named Sungjae.

As an upper class, who attended many events with  countless important people, his father had to brought not only his wife, but also the successor for the future’s inheritor of the family company. Obviously bringing Sungjae to each of the events wasn't a choice.

“You know what dad, let me tell you something. You could’ve picked more good looking boy to be your fake son.” Sungjae who was seating across his father in the family room of the apartment was laughing his head off  the time his dad decided with a twisted plan of his by letting someone else to be his ‘son’ by sticking onto the parents every time they attended parties or events around. His dad knew that his real son wouldn’t be bothered by his choice but he felt bad to the other man that was seated beside him.

Sungjae was almost losing his breath but able to continue his words while eyeing person in front of him. “And… maybe taller?” he ended his words with a mocking scoff.

The father and the man beside him still lost in words, they both thought it’s better to keep their mouth shut, and didn't really mind each of his words because most of the time Sungjae didn't mean it. but at that time, Sungjae did really mean each of his words.

“Sungjae, please be nice to him he’s your hyung.” His father finally speak up while patting the man’s shoulder as an attempt to comfort the younger, Sungjae didn't answer with words, instead his scoff was loud enough to be heard by the entire people in the room.

“It’s okay Mr. Yook, after all these years I’m getting used to it already.” The man beside him replied with a tiny smile curved on his tiny lips.

***

“Going to pull out a rich son cosplay again, Ilhoon-hyung?” Sungjae with a strawberry popsicle in his mouth suddenly popped up in the living room where the older was busy fixing up his suit in front of the big mirror.

“Yeah, but today’s I don’t have to be in a rush like any other days.” his eyes  were still fixed in the mirror, checking up his black tie into a correct position. From the reflection in the mirror, Ilhoon had seen Sungjae walked towards the nearest couch and jumped into it, making the pillows fell down onto the carpeted floor. Ilhoon quietly rolled his eyes and made a note to himself to pick those pillows up when Sungjae wasn’t around.

“And why is that?” Sungjae tilted his head in curiousity, the half eaten popsicle in his mouth had made his voice more clearer than before while lifting both of his legs up to the sofa to make his position even more comfortable than before.

“The party or whatever-they-called-it is downstairs, at the auditorium. The scale isn’t that big but the people inside is no less important than the usual,” the older muttered and finally turned his back to face not-so-interested Sungjae.

“Oh sounds nice, don’t forget to bring desserts upstairs here okay?” he said in a straight boring tone. His words may sounded like he cares about Ilhoon’s words, but his face didn't state the same.

Ilhoon completely ignored him. That wasn’t the first time Sungjae asked him a favor to bring desserts from the party back home, and most of the time it didn’t turned out well. The worst that had happened was when he brought a piece of cheesecake to Sungjae and seconds later Sungjae threw the cheesecake at him.

“You know I don’t like strawberries!” were the words that spatted from the younger’s mouth.

“But I remembered one time when you eat one of those!” he looked down to see the stains on his black buttoned shirt before he half yelled at him, feeling really offended that his effort on bringing that cake home wasn’t a piece of cake task. He had to wrap the cake with lots of tissues and held it all the way home. He even wasted almost an hour just to plucked off the tissues that were sticking all over the cake. it wasn’t really a pleasant thing to see, but at least he thought that the cake was still edible.

And that won’t happen again.

“Don’t forget to throw out the popsicle stick into the trash bin,” were his last words before he got a phonecall that had told him to go downstairs.

the beeping sound from the front door indicated that the door was once again locked from the outside, meaning there won’t be a single soul would get to open the door, not until the owner come back, but it’s not like Sungjae had a chance anyway. Earlier that month, his father  had installed a new level of electronic locks that made Sungjae left in amusement because from the looks of it itself, it looked really expensive and just with that he easily just wanted to just called it quits to escape from the luxurious cage of his. But not wanting to give up, he did a simple and short research on the internet, thus he found out that the electronic device lets you create up to 19 private codes for various friends and family members, allowing you to customize codes so that they only work in a given time period.

that was the time when an invisible light bulb appeared above his head. He got up quickly, still up the stick from the already finished popsicle and went to the kitchen, searching for his prey. The incident weeks ago which had left a trauma to the new maid, ended up in peace somehow. After Ilhoon found out what Sungjae did to the harmless new maid, he quickly made a little chat with the maid, explaining that it was all a misunderstanding and telling her  that Sungjae likes to play around a lot and talking on how big the salary must be if she chose to stay. And of course money always made everything easier in the end. After the short talk, she chose to stay although She was scared once she faced Sungjae again after that time, but thankfully, from the looks of it Sungjae didn’t seem to hold a grudge on her. So everything’s good.

Sungjae let out a victorious smile the moment he saw the new maid washing up the dishes. Like a lion who finally found its prey, he opened his mouth.

“Hey, Jihye-ya!” he said to her, he could see that the woman jumped a bit because of it, he smirked again. “Jihye, that’s your name right?” He continued when the woman finally turned his back to face him face already looking pale.

“Yes, master. What can I do for you?” a bead of sweat had started to run from her forehead down to her left cheek. all this time sungjae had been ignoring her, and all they did were one-way conversation where Jihye was telling him about petty things such as “the dinner’s ready.”

“Yes, I really need your help. Follow me,” he answered, his usual smile was seen again. Jihye didn’t know that it was a good thing or a bad thing, but she chose to be positive this time when blankly followed him from behind but once her steps were stopped because Sungjae was throwing out the worn out popsicle stick into the trash bin in the outer side of the kitchen before she continued to trail him around.

“So Jihye, can you really help me for real?” The two stopped right in front of the front door. Sungjae put both of his hands inside his sweatpants pocket, eyes on the door. Jihye sure declining his request wasn’t an option.

“Of course I’d do anything.” She forced a smile even though it was useless, since Sungjae’s eyes were still locked to the door beside them.

“So, here’s the thing. Someone has a little bit problem.” He turned his head back to her. “Apparently, Ilhoon hyung left something here a while ago and he told me to give it to him downstairs because he couldn’t leave the party.”

***

Ricky swallowed his fancy meal half-heartedly just to act properly in front of his colleagues that evening. The situation hadn’t changed any bit for him, which made him back to his daydreaming habit once in minutes. The meeting he held earlier didn’t come out with any positive results. It killed him slowly as well as his superb faking skills.

“Are you okay, Changhyun-ssi?” his colleague who was sitting across him startled him as it brought him back to the reality. His worried expression somehow made him all gloomy in a sudden knowing that it’s not his family whom sensitive enough to sense something was wrong with him. “If you don’t like the food, I’ll tell them to have it changed for you,” the man continued.

With a forced polite smile, he hastily replied, “No need, Ilhoon-ssi. I’m okay. I have no problem with the food, really. Thank you for the offer, anyway.”

“If you have any inconvenience with our hospitality, please just let us know. I’ll tell the staffs to fix that for you as soon as possible.” Although Ilhoon had shown a relieved expression, he couldn’t help to insist offering him the best of their service.

“Sure. Thanks again, Ilhoon-ssi. I’m satisfied enough right now,” told Ricky, still with that fake polite smile plastered across his face.

Ricky chose to sit still when the dinner session was over, wishing to take some time calming himself down before trying to mingle with the others. Ricky’s expression was back on its gloomy mode when it’s only him left in the table. Ilhoon had excused himself to go around first, greeting the other colleagues as the host. He couldn’t help to stare at Ilhoon wherever he moved. That bright and honest expression of him during the interactions with others undoubtedly made Ricky thought of his brother and his successes again. That same exact expression he couldn’t forget. That bright expression which wasn’t faked like his.

Ricky was slowly getting sick of his jealousy towards Ilhoon and stopped staring at him. He took the last sip of his wine and got up as something had caught his attention when he glanced around the area. He made his way to the snack and dessert table nearby the ballroom’s entrance just to realize that what he had seen recently wasn’t about his poor sight.

A tall young guy was leisurely taking some slices of various cakes onto his plate. It’s not about the amount of cakes he took, but the way he dressed up into a formal party had quite taken Ricky aback, who seemed to be the one noticing his appearance there since nobody had made a fuss about it nor simply shot weird stares at the guy. Ricky glanced around once again to make sure. He still couldn’t believe that it’s just him who saw the guy with such bravery which deserved a standing ovation to get into a formal party wearing sweatpants, a SpongeBob t-shirt, garnished by a pair of flip flops. Normally he would already catch everyone’s attention, but then again it was only Ricky who was aware with his presence, leaving him thinking whether that eccentric guy was a human or a ghost.

“Yook Sungjae, if you’re wondering,” the guy said all of a sudden with a mouth full of a spoon of cheesecake he had shoved in earlier. “Yes, I’m talking to you,” added him, pointing his spoon at Ricky who was glancing around, searching for the person the eccentric guy actually talking to.

“Me?” Ricky pointed at himself to make sure again. “Oh,” was the only thing slipped out of his mouth after he got a positive nod from Sungjae.

“You’ve been staring at me while I was getting my cakes. Do you want some?” he had stepped forward and shoved a spoonful of tiramisu in front of Ricky’s mouth which made him flinched back in reflex.

Sungjae’s behavior somehow frightened him, but running away wasn’t the thing in his mind. Instead, he was interested to know him more. “N-no, thank you. I had some earlier.” Ricky decided to keep the politeness.

“You should never have enough of cakes! Hold this,” he passed his half eaten plate of cakes to Ricky. “I’ll get some for you!” he cheerfully walked to the other end of the table to get a new plate. Ricky wanted to say something about how there’s a bit of cheesecake here and there on the both sides of Sungjae’s mouth but decided to keep his mouth shut just to be safe.

“No need, Sungjae-ssi. I’m full already. Really, you don’t have to do that!” Ricky took a wide step to stop him by grabbing his upper arm. Still holding the urge to wipe the creamy substances from the taller man’s face.

Sungjae turned around to face him, but his expression had changed 180°. “Geez, ungrateful jerk,” he muttered, but still could be heard by Ricky who got more shock from his sudden change, as he snatched back his plate from Ricky’s grip and had himself busy eating the rest of his cakes.

Ricky couldn’t help to glance around once again and found it unbelievable to have no one still hadn’t aware of Sungjae’s presence. “I’m sorry, Sungjae-ssi,” Ricky carefully apologized.

“No problem!” he replied with a wide grin spread across his face, which again shocked Ricky. Ricky is used to a various type of grins, from the fake until the genuine ones, but for him, Sungjae’s grin was a little bit funny, but still freaky in a way that he couldn't even explain.

“W-what brought you here?” asked Ricky curiously while once in a while glancing around just in case someone was staring at them.

Sungjae laughed as he tried to collect the cake crumbles, “Is it wrong if I want some cakes from my own party?”

His words got Ricky furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh… Do you want to talk outside? I think it’s way too noisy here,” Ricky tried to find an excuse to not have him there dressed improperly before someone realized his eccentric presence there. Yet, he couldn’t just simply kick him out since he was curious about him.

“Hmm… the pool?” Sungjae raised one of his eyebrows as he started the plate, leaving Ricky choked on his breath at the extraordinary sight.

Ricky shrugged. “That can do.” He just need to get him out of the ballroom anyway.

Sungjae took him by the hand and showed his excited grin. “Let’s go, Mr. Cutie!”

For a brief moment, Ricky was wondering if Sungjae was being a sarcastic or not.