SONG ABOUT US || Lee Juyeon || Singer AU

Chapter 33; Despair

"But you and I are meant to be, right?" I replied, my voice beginning to crack.

I turned away from him, walked to the balcony edge, and waited for his reply. His words were nearly lost beneath the sound of the pounding rain.

"Yoon, I think... I think I'm falling in love with you." There was a tiny part of me that wanted to believe him. To turn around and say it back.

And as soon as I stood there on the eleventh floor looking down at the city below, and the burning street lamps and the shops and the bars and the neon signs,

I remembered the day on the cliffs, how Juyeon took me so close to the edge and we talked about music, memory, and the families we have lost, and it left like nothing could break us apart.

I could feel him standing right behind me, but I didn't move. Tears were racing down my cheeks.

"Yoon, look at me, ple-"
"You're a liar!" I yelled, spinning around.

"You think you can get away with anything because of who you are, but...not this time. Not with me."

Juyeon began to speak but his words were jumbled, broken sounds that evaporated instantly in the wind.

"I let you in, Juyeon. Don't you understand that?" His amber eyes were incandescent but this time I'm not going to fall for it.

"I told you secrets. I told you things, almost no one knows, and you...you do this to me."

"This isn't over."
"You don't get to decide that." He reached out to me again.
"Leave me alone," I snapped.

"You don't mean that."
"Aren't you listening? I never want to see you again." I turned away from him again, sobbing, choking on my tears.

"Yoona..." He grabbed me and dragged me back around, pinning me against the railing. In his eyes, there was almost the hint of regret. Almost.

"Don't you see, Yoona? We're connected."
"Let go of me."

"We're connected." I pushed hard, but he wouldn't let go, and I let myself fall into him.

"You're saying that but you're not connected to anyone. You don't care about anyone except yourself."

I didn't know what was rain or tear anymore but Juyeon was just a blur in my mind, a shapeless figure in the night.

"Listen to me," he said, pulling me close. "This picture you have of me, in your head...it isn't the person I want to be."
"Maybe not," I replied, staring at him through the rain.

And it was then in that single dark and hopeless moment, that my heart finally broke. "...but this is who you are."

"What the hell is going on?" A new voice, coming from behind us. It was Hyunjae standing in the doorway, rainfall blotting his clothes.

"Are you alright, Yoona?" He said, walking towards us. Juyeon stepped into his path. "She's fine, mate. Go to bed. This has nothing to do with you."

Hyunjae glared at him, and a look of realization spread across his face.
"You slept with Chaerin, didn't you?"
"I said leave it."
"You're drunk, Juyeon. You need to leave Yoona alone."

Juyeon straightened up and leaned into Hyunjae. "You've never liked me, have you?" They were eye to eye now, their breathing oddly synchronized. Down below, a police siren wailed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Come on, don't screw me about. You've never wanted me in Crescent. And now you don't want me with Yoona."

Hyunjae's eyes lingered on mine, and I shivered in the cold.
"She deserves better."
Juyeon seized him by the collar of his T-shirt. "Don't you think I know that?"