The Marriage Assignment [4]

Chapter 30, Please Come Home?

[ YOONGI'S P.O.V. ]

"I'm leaving," she says slowly, looking to the tree-line. I've been coming here a lot. Usually alone with a security and driver. Today I'm not, I'm with her as well.

"I think that's smart," I sigh, blinking tiredly while staring over at how bright the sky is. "It's getting messy with the headlines more and more as days go by. You'll be safer back home."

"Sometimes I wonder if I deserve to feel the heat...to just stay and take what they're saying about me." The woman's voice is hesitant and small when she speaks, "I do deserve it, who am I kidding."

I look at her, I look at Terin who sits next to me. Smiling lightly, I nod and then squeeze my nose together. "I want to be an asshole and say 'yes', but then there's the other part of me that feels what you feel. Every time I read anything they say about Hoseok, I get mad and think of it as my fault."

Terin purses her lips, "I wanted that for you, you know?"

"What?" My brows furrow. I want to darkly chuckle because even though I look confused, I know exactly what she's about to say.

"The big plan was to get to Hoseok so it all comes back to you," she sighs, hugging her knees to her chest. "My twisted games were going to end the moment I had you pay through the eyes of hurting another. Another you cared so deeply for."

"Didn't work out how you wanted?" I joke. She nudges my side, trying not to painfully smile and cry in one. She nods, "I didn't expect Julian to come blasting in, killing people. Never did I want anyone to die because of me."

"I feel at fault." I say.
"No, I feel at fault." Terin says.

Then I laugh and explain my conversation with Namjoon's girlfriend and her take on cross-fire. "She told me to not blame the victims, but rather, the gunman doing the crime." I continue, "Then I agreed and concluded that even if we hadn't slept together, even if you hadn't cheated on him, maybe he'd still have it in him...this aggression, this violence?"

Terin questions, "Would he?" I shrug, glance at her thinking to herself. I begin to play with the grass under me liking how it tickles. She says, "What if we drove him to insanity?" With a side-smirk, I ask, "Like I drove you into becoming who you became?" And she shut up.

Silence.
I like the silence, she doesn't. I can tell from the way she twitches on the earth.

"I don't like who I became," she whispers. Out and in the open. She says this slow, tears leave her awkwardly. Normally, I'd lean her into my arms and help wipe them away, but I can't. Not anymore. Not in this stage of such toxicity.

"If I'm about to be honest," I sigh, squinting my eyes so I can feel the burning at my pupils. I keep trying to challenge the sun with my vision. "I haven't liked who I've been for a long time...I hit a whole new level of despair once my parents started to play puppeteer."

"I can't believe you're married." Terin laughs, but then it dims again when I don't laugh. She says she's sorry and I say it's not okay. She smiles when I say that, and I smile back. Civil, kind, but not nice.

Silence. More silence.
I like it, but Terin doesn't. I know for sure now as she goes through her phone. She deletes every picture of me there is. I'm washed in relief, I won't lie.

"Thanks," I say, and she does nothing but close her phone and put it back into her pocket.

Silence. More more silence.

"Don't you just love the quiet?"

"No, it's too loud for me," she laughs.

I smirk, "Not many people like it." Then I think of you. I think of us. I smile larger.