Wicked Fate

FORTY THIRD CHAPTER

It will always lead you back

"F*ck!"

Ji cannot believe how utterly stupid he is.

After almost exchanging fists with his cousins, vehemently denying to them everything about Dara, here he was... watching her bedroom window from a tree near the beach side.

The conversation this morning haunted him – even having him giving a higher dosage for Mrs. Yoon's nerves and then running after her to give her another prescription just as she's about to get to her car.

The older woman graciously laughed it off as soon as he said he had been distracted by her glowing face. She didn't believe him for one second, though, and had told him in all earnestness that she was sure she was distracted by a woman but it was surely not her.

"How the hell does everybody else know you're into someone and you yourself are not sure of it?!?" he asked the wind as he sat down on the sand and looked at the sea.

The moon was already out and it seemed Dara was too.

Her room's still dark and from all the nightly visits he's made, he knows she likes having a lamp on. It's one of her quirks that she is not been able to sleep in the dark.

She told him that the night he had first really opened up to her about the difficult relationship he had with his father.

He turned away from her house and shook her head. He doesn't know why the hell he suddenly decided to go here.

Maybe it's because he wasn't able to see any hint of her today or smell that lovely perfume she had on waffling through the clinic's corridors. Maybe it's because he wants to prove to himself he is immune to her no matter how near he could get. Maybe it's because he is afraid of that parting shot Seunghyun gave him.

Hell.

He doesn't know it and doesn't understand it.

But he does know he would go crazy if he fought with the need to see her.

Is that love?

"Do you want to extend your off for one more day?", he heard a voice come from the patio right behind Dara's house and felt himself stiffen.

That voice sounded familiar.

"I'll think about it", he heard Dara respond and knew his blood was probably rushing up his head now.

It wouldn't look good for him to be found out.

"Don't think a bout it anymore", the voice of a man answered, "We had a really great time today and I promise you that if you give me tomorrow... it would be far better than this."

Her tinkling laughter caressed his ears and he felt a smattering of glass pieces wash over his chest.

"What are you doing AttorneyPark? Since when did you become like this?", Dara asked.

"I'm trying to win you over with my dashing charms and super unexpected other persona", the man answered as Ji felt a vise-like grip take over his throat.

How glorious it would be to walk over there and tell that Jay (for he is sure this man is "the" Jay Park that Seungri and Chaerin had taken as a surprise to Dara) that he isn't going to stand a chance at all.

More laughter came and unlike Dara, he isn't able to find anything to laugh about in this. "I'll let you know tomorrow if I'll be free. How about that?"

"Won't matter", Jay answered, "I'm going to carry you off from the clinic. I bet your patients would be more than happy to let you go when I plead with all of them and tell them you're the love of my life."

"Stop that!"

Jay laughed. "I'll really do that, mind you. And then in a matter of nanoseconds, the whole island will know you have a suitor as bull-headed as the Minotaur."

"Are you blackmailing me?!?!"

"You bet I am!"

There was more laughter and then a sudden silence.

Ji peeked to see that Jay had bent over and kissed Dara right on the lips.

He felt his fist ball in tension.

"I'll come here for you tomorrow ok?", the slick lawyer told Dara, smiling like he had won a million dollars.

"What are you doing Jay?", Dara asked, confused.

"I'm trying to get you back", he fearlessly answered, "And this time, I won't be stopping even if you tell me to go away."

"Why?"

"Because I love you Dara", Ji felt the air constrict around him and knew he should just walk away but he is rooted to the spot, listening to the other man's bold confession, "You once loved me too and I'll do everything I can to hear you say that back to me. I won't ever stop."

Jay hugged her goodbye and Ji, like Dara, watched the man's back – thunderstruck.

Ji is the first to recover, though and as he prepared to leave before the Head Nurse caught him. He is once again frozen where he stood when the woman who had brought him such turbulent emotions suddenly called him out.

"Ji..."

It was a whisper compared to the sound of the waves but he heard it loud and clear. Had she actually seen him?

"There isn't any reason for me to stay in the dark hole you left me", she continued and as fast as the tension rose in him moments before, a sudden sense of longing engulfed him, "Jay told me today that there's nothing wrong with loving you but I have to disagree with him... I can't keep on loving a man who breaks my heart so easily."

He put a hand to his face as he realized what she is telling him.

Under the moonlight... near the beach... in the aftermath of a confession he had only dreamed of ever making to someone, Dara is sending him a message that no one can mistake.

"Jay can never be you but Jay has never broken my heart", her voice started to break, "...maybe it's time I heeded the advice you gave me. I'm going to Prince Charming."

There is a knot in his throat and he found himself grasping for air.

He's been looking at the sea the whole time she was talking to him and he knows she is waiting for him to react now.

But what can he say to her?

That the moment she decided to say goodbye to him is the moment he knows he cannot be without her?

Would it be enough?

"Dara", he began and came out of the tree.

Shock washed over him to find that she isn't there anymore and had gone inside.

"She didn't know I was here", he told himself and collapsed in the sand.

She just said goodbye to him.

She just said.... goodbye... to him.