The Bentley arrived before the landmark building it had left at noon with a slow glide. Before its momentum finished bleeding off, the driver inside had already freed his hands from the wheel to type a text message which he sent just as the car stopped.
"Come down. We are going home."
The dark windows kept him isolated from the curious sidelong glances from the employees giving the car a wide berth as they clocked off. One would think that a giant like Arland Group would have its elites at the headquarters pulling overtime as the standard, but that could not be farther from the truth. It might even be rarer there than in smaller companies.
Alex engaged the handbrake, then waited. His face settled into a mask of indifference at the attention he was getting, relaxed, with a calm, small curve at the corner of his lips. Only the faint thoughtful gleam in his eyes spoke of a different depth, though only he knew what he was considering.
It didn't take too long for the one he was waiting for to catch his attention from the corner of his eyes. In her confident gait, he caught on the exhaustion she was fighting against while Lance chattered away beside her, making good use of his talent to keep any conversation going.
With their distance to the car just a few short meters, Alex unlocked the door and stepped out to meet them. His appearance silenced the whispers around, as well as the conversation held up by only one person. Unfortunately, the latter stopped speaking a second too late, and his words floated over to the ear they should not have reached:
"...can assure you, Sharon. Believe me when I say Alex is not a true playboy. He likes pretending, but his heart is actually too soft. He–"
Lance's smile went from light to heavy, ceasing to struggle to hold on. He slowly swallowed the words he hadn't manage to get out of his throat, while his face twisted into a bitter representation of human's features. He wished he could make himself small under the gaze of the calm brown eyes, and it would be better if he could disappear right there and there. Suddenly finding himself able to teleport would not be bad either, so that he could leave the road of suffering he had carelessly set himself on.
"Oh? I like pretending, huh? And I'm soft?"
Alex calmly inquired, ignoring Sharon who looked at him with a wisp of amusement on her lips.
The question, asked without any bite, made Lance smile sheepishly and take a step back while looking from side to side for an exit route to retreat through. But the square before the building was open for dozens of meters across, so he could only force a smile and try to face the disaster he had created for him:
"Hey, Alex, Alexander… Since you are here, I will take my leave."
"..."
The answer he got was a flat stare that pierced through him without even trying. He coughed to clear his throat of the discomfort there, then tried another strategy:
"Ahem… I've got a party to wash the bad taste of the day off my mouth. Wanna come?"
His smile had a marked improvement, but it was only less miserable than before. Alex looked at him for a while longer, then let his lips curl up in a half smile:
"Not interested. However, I want an inspection plan for all the subsidiaries controlled by Arland Group tomorrow on my desk."
Lance didn't get it immediately. Then his brain processed the instruction, and his hopeful face collapsed. It was like a quake inside him had made the pillars of the bridge holding his sanity break down. He looked at Alex, clinging onto the last string that had yet to snap, and questioned:
"All the subsidiaries?"
But unlike him, Alex's smile only grew, turning deeper as it was his turn to feel optimistic about life:
"All of them, even the one only indirectly controlled."
Lance seemed to freeze as he looked at Alex as if at a monster. When he snapped out of the stupor to find that hell's door had indeed been opened for him, he groaned. Even the world ending would have been better than what he was being thrown into. He had thought…
The look in Alex's eyes said it all. He had been set up. He should have seen that stab coming. It had been coming ever since Leyna had called him the day before yesterday to relay Alex's instructions in his stead. He had only been burying his head in the sand, pretending he could coast through the coming period before following Alex to jump out of the pit he had pulled him into. But he really should have known.
The pain from betrayal flooded his gaze as he looked at Alex, especially at the latter's brightening smile that seemed to see through him.
"You–"
"Sharon, get in."
Alex didn't let him finish his words. He turned around to enter the car again after speaking to his newly hired assistant, leaving only two sentences full of his affection for his friend:
"Remember to get the plan ready. Have fun with the guys."
The smiling brown eyes that glanced at him before being hidden by the dark window seared his heart already left dry by hopelessness. He looked at the car that restarted, then moved away, silent but imposing, like a Lord.
He swallowed the indescribable taste in his mouth, then closed his eyes in defeat. When he opened them again, he took out his phone. With an exhale, he sent a message into the same group he had left an audio message in this noon, his voice more of a defeated sigh than the usual energetic tone:
"Guys, hell has no bottom. I'm still falling, so let's postpone the party, alright?"
He didn't wait for the laughter that was sure to come. He turned off the screen of his phone, and weakly went away.
The world that forsook him… looked so grey!