《Gray Hour: The Cursed Coin》The Manipulation Symphony #2
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Diana couldn't remember much from her first life or death. She didn't know how exactly she died, or who killed her. That had struck her as weird since she could remember some of her deaths - not much of anything else — but was in the dark about her first and most important one — the one that started it all.
What she did remember was the first time she had met him. How she introduced herself to him and slowly, but surely, started growing with him.
The first time she had seen Elliot was in high school when she had moved cities. She had lived the majority of her life in the countryside because of her health, and was excited to experience the city life.
She was both naive and pure.
Two things that she could no longer describe herself as.
He was a grade above her, so they didn't share any classes together. She hadn't encountered him until one time, both of their classes had decided to join Sports Day at the same time. He wasn't hard to pick out from the crowd, not because he was drop-dead gorgeous and time moved slowly around him — like how they explain in movies and books — but because he carried himself differently than others.
He had confidence and peacefulness around him as if he didn't care if nobody came close to him or if he was alone. He was himself and he was proud of that. Not many people interacted with him, which was odd since they had their eyes following him, but nobody dared to step up and actually speak.
He was the fire that attracted a lot of moths. And like everyone else, her eyes and attention stayed on him the whole day. Some of her new friends laughed at her but all of them understood. They all did the same thing when they first saw him.
--
After a while of explaining everything to Elliot, he had told her that it was better to inform her parents and get them in this conversation. He didn't forget to mention that the party would be canceled and that she didn't have to be worried about that.
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He sat down in one of the couches in her room — she saw how his eyes kept darting to the bed, but was too afraid to move towards it — and started calling his most trusted bodyguards and some of his elite friends that knew how to help.
When she voiced out that she didn't really want a lot of people to know, because that meant more possibilities, he just said he trusted these people with his soul.
In her hearts of hearts, she felt grateful that he showed this much attention and care about both of their lives. But she couldn't stop herself from looking at him silently as he worked through getting more information and security as he can. Diana knew that her choice of trusting him could either make or break her whole plan, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to take.
He was someone who was respected in many fields of the society, he knew more people than her and could arrange everything with a snap of a finger. She had entertained the thought of his enemies being the ones to kill them but quickly brushed it off, knowing he would have crushed anyone showing any signs danger toward him in the first place.
If he could protect her from the world, then all she had to do was protect herself from him.
Her heart ached a little from the thought, how sad and painful it was to actually think they had reached a point where she no longer trusted him or thought he was any good for her. But she steeled her heart in the end. This wasn't a game, as much as fate liked to remind her otherwise, she needed to get her thoughts together and actually pass through the twenty-four hours without anything happening to her.
But then, what would happen if she lived till tomorrow? Would this stop? Or would it just continue as sinister, if not worse?
No, no. Diana needed to be more optimistic.
They had stayed just like that until four am. She thought it wasn't good for her parents to see him in their house first thing in the morning.
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"Elliot, If my parents see you in my room when they wake up…" She trailed, but her main point had reached him. He nodded and walked outside to sit in the living room.
She looked at him warily. Did he really not understand that she was driving him away or was he acting as if he didn't?
She shrugged, he had already said he wanted to talk to her parents anyway.
"Stay alert and investigate if anyone had done anything suspicious around the Gray family's main branch," Elliot informed someone on the phone. "Don't forget to get the data for the newest project the Su family was planning to do and check with Dan to get more information about what father and second cousin latest meetings were about."
Su family? His dad?
She was confused as to why her father-in-law would have anything to do with it. But she kept it to herself, she just needed to be patient.
She looked at him as he was in all of his elements. He seemed to be focused and decisive when it came to planning. His reaction was both calm and collected.
She didn't notice until later that he was observing her quietly as well.
His eyes met hers and she looked away instantly, only rising his suspicions. There was something wrong with his fiancee and that made him worry. He knew that it might be the stress, but he couldn't get the idea, that there was something weird, out of his head. She seemed as if she was noticing him for the first time, looking at him and catching his every move.
That wasn't how she was usually, but he had to let this go for now since there was a more pressing issue coming their way and they needed to be a hundred percent ready.
He tried gathering all his family's recent records of questionable acts or anything that had any leads since he couldn't trust them. They would do anything to get him in trouble or take away things that he cared about.
He didn't forget to acquire some information on her family side too, even though he loved his family-in-laws, he couldn't merely throw his suspicion away, that included people that worked for them. The thing is, Gray family was so secretive that it was hard to pull anything out.
Another thing he had to think about was the guests that were supposed to come to the party. If she saw a vision of them getting hurt in the party, then there had to be a link between all of these events.
He wrecked his head left, right and center just to find any other possible outcomes and kept holding his phone to get reports from his subordinates and to give out orders.
The sun started to rise and as housekeepers started working, they tried to quickly get their actions together. Why was the Su family's young master here?! It made a lot of the older maids working in the mansion take a deep breath. They knew how the madam and master were going to react to this. They didn't know whether or not to wake up the madam and hesitated over disturbing them since they had such a serious aura surrounding them.
They found it weird how thoughtful their miss looked. She looked as if she was thinking about a serious issue, and even though no one was talking in the hall, they felt as if she was in such harmony with their future young master and that secretly made them happy.
They decided to wait until the Madam woke up to report to her — knowing that she would wake up soon — and continued working around the house, leaving the couple alone.
When both of the family heads woke up to the scene of their daughter engaging in such a deep conversation with their son-in-law, their faces darkened.
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