Prince Caspian -Jung Yoonoh NCT

35. Goodbye, My Almost Lover

"I've got something on - right now, actually. An appointment." He is strengthening his tie, smoothing back his hair. "Yiseul, I'll see you later tonight. I'll come right over to your place the minute I'm done. Sweetheart?Did you hear what I said?"

"Something on?" I manage to say, through stiff lips. Like a date? With that woman on the phone?

"No." He's frowning, looking at me. "It's not what you're thinking. It's a business dinner - "

"It's a woman." My voice is hard, cold. "I heard her."

"It's a woman, but it's not what you're thinking." He puts his hands on my shoulders. "What kind of guy do you think I am? I would never do that to you."

He sounds as if he is placating me.

"Hey," he says. "Don't look like that. It's the truth."

"You'd better hurry." I turn away, avoiding his eyes. "She's waiting for you. You heard her. She's hungry."

"Yiseul - "

"I have to go." I pull away from his hands. "I have to go. I have to go."

I push past him and walk out of the room. The secretary smiles at me, and the wooden thing that is me twists its stiff face into an awful grotesque little smile and hurries, runs almost, down the corridor.

A part of me wishes he would follow, run after me.

But he doesn't. 

Nobody follows me.

Alone, I take the elevator down to the lobby. Alone, I walk out of the building.

My phone keeps beeping.

I switch it off without looking at it.

Bastard.

I walk and walk, past traffic lights and intersections, down alleys and along pavements, until I see a cafe up ahead.

It looks nice. It looks like the kind of place someone with a cheater of a fiance and a broken heart would go.

I go in, and choose a window seat, dark and hidden in the corner so no one would see me, and I wouldn't see them. I order a chicken sandwich and a coke.

Bastard.

Could he so easily turn around and share what we did with someone else?

I don't want him to share. I don't want him to do the same things to someone else right after me.

The sandwich comes, followed by the coke.

The sandwich tastes salty and crumbly. It's hard to swallow, because my throat is all dry and tight. I take a sip of the coke, but it doesn't help. My heart feels tight too; it hurts, I think it's because the scars that were healing nicely just cracked open again, and it's leaking tears again; I've got so many scars there, at this rate I've got to get myself a new heart. Or grow an extra thick layer of scar tissue, so it'd be as thick as leather, and twice as hard - that'll make sure it'll never hurt as bad again.

A song comes on.

Almost Lover. It's one of Chloe's favourite songs.

How odd. It hadn't meant a thing when she played it for me.

But tonight, it means everything to me.

She is me.

She is singing my pain, tearing my paper heart to pieces with every anguished syllable...

Your fingertips across my skin.