Dangers of a Saint || Ryeji

41

"Yeji, hey."

The cat-eyed woman blinked twice upon hearing her name, raising her brows at Minho, who seemed to be leaning against her desk for a while now.

"Hey," she said timidly as she was brought back to reality and cleared her throat. "What is it?"

"It's time to go," he said, straightening up. "Aren't you leaving? We're grabbing a few drinks at Solar. Come with us. You look like you could use a few shots of tequila."

Yeji suddenly felt like there was a hand gripping her heart, squeezing excruciatingly slowly as she thought of how her night ended with Ryujin at the exact same place.

"I'll take a rain check. I promised my sister I'm getting steak with her tonight," she said, avoiding his intent gaze and pretending to be occupied with her monitor.

"Your loss." Minho shrugged with an unconvinced look on his face. He didn't even bother hiding it as he began to walk away. "Go home, Yeji. Get some rest. You're drowning yourself with work for days. Christmas is coming!"

Once she was certain that she was finally alone, Yeji released the breath she didn't realize she was holding. It had been a while since she last saw Ryujin and as usual, the billionaire was yet again missing in action. And since then, nothing occupied Yeji's mind but the thought of how drastically their relationship changed and how it was starting to sink into her that she was no longer happy with how they were both refusing to verbally address the issue that was killing her inside.

Before the Christmas party, Yeji had rehearsals to keep her distracted, which was why even if she already felt the shift between them gravely, she chose to push it aside to be able to maintain the focus that she needed. Now she only had work to keep her mind off of what was actually bothering her and she was beginning to understand why Ryujin liked sitting for hours in front of the computer when she was dealing with particular problems. But they weren't the same. She wasn't the billionaire who could go on for days without talking to her, she wasn't the one who could simply control her emotions because she didn't want to get hurt, she wasn't the one who used sex to steer her mind someplace else every time she tried to initiate a conversation.

Ryujin was the shadow in Yeji's sunrays. The brighter her light was, the darker she became.

Yeji had been fighting it for so long, trying her very best to endure every dismissal of her requests, the invalidation of her frustrations, the misunderstanding of her approaches. Ryujin was quiet with her words but her actions were yelling right at her face and it repeated the same thing, echoing in Yeji's head that shattered her heart into pieces.

They were losing their light.

Yeji's hope for Ryujin was only as narrow as the end of the tunnel but it was there, and she held onto it with every fiber of her being as she loved the billionaire with everything that she had. She risked it all despite being dealt with the ugliest cards because she valued Ryujin like the greatest jackpot to be ever won. But even then, no matter how penurious she became, no matter how fast she ran towards that light, the tunnel was closing in around her, like a lethal grip of a python, coiling around her chest and suffocating her to death.

And wasn't it a surprise when she found out that the same thing that was killing her was the same reason she was trying to live for?

There Ryujin stood, glowing in the glory of her demons with her slender hand wrapped around Yeji's neck like a chain coated with false hope and seductive illusion that made her believe that going to war for her would be worth the heartache.

And it was the magic of her enigmatic charm that rendered Yeji unable to quit her completely. She just couldn't.

It hurt.