slow down ➳ 이희승

𖥻 chapter twenty

"ava, what happened?"

he whispers, and he sounds genuinely worried. she looks at him, eyes puffy, teary, while his own orbs shake with concern. "did i hurt you last night? is that it?"

"where does it hurt?" he places a hand on her shoulder & she's scared. scared because who the hell does he think he is, doing a whole one eighty from one day to another?

wait...

could it be...

no... no no, no!

"I'm fine." she whispers back, but he has none of it. he pulls the car over in a swift move, turning the engine off & shifting so that his knees touch hers.

"ava... what's going on?" he rests one hand on the steering wheel, the other draped over the headrest of his seat. she blankly stares back at him, palms growing itchy as she wipes the sweat on her jeans.

"I told you, I'm fine." she insists on her last statement, yet the answer doesn't seem promising to heeseung. a raised brow, a snap of his fingers and a tilt of his head follow, urging her to answer his question quickly.

her leg bounces & he notices, his right hand reaching out to pin it down with his attention still drawn to her. "talk to me."

finally, she takes a deep breath and slaps her thighs, throwing her head back on the headrest. "fine, fuckass."

at that he flinches, but before he can protest, ava goes into a blabber. "you are being suspicious with all your 'i wanna be nicer to you' shit. it doesn't sit right with me."

"like how? why? you're confusing me lee, big time. and i don't like this, how you make me feel so... overwhelmed."

"yesterday, you comforted me & even hugged me. you even called me baby! then we agreed to fuck the night away but you didn't even try to make it feel like a hook-up. you made me feel safe, you put me before you ─ heck! you even asked for permission to kiss me."

"it's..." she scoffs, hands moving here and there, as if it'd help her put all of her thoughts in one place. "I feel like you're hiding something."

she stops, expecting an answer from the raven, but all she receives is static silence. the faint sound of cars racing past them is what breaks it every once in a while, considering how the traffic is not that busy.

she heard it.

she noticed everything.

and him staying quiet isn't helping.

"there is nothing I have to hide from you, ava yoon. i was hoping to make you feel safe after all that happened, and I'm glad to know that I achieved that. but you don't seem that happy."

"it's just that─" she sharply inhales. "whoever I dated in the past was all nice to me for a reason... they'd take advantage of me and leave me after they took what they wanted."

"and it's not just in relationships, but in friendships as well. and in general." she glances over at him ─ and, with a heavy heart, heeseung finds her two orbs filled with tears.

"I don't want to put myself through the same thing again. never, ever again."

she falls quiet, resting her head on the space above the storage compartment and softly sniffling. heeseung's hands are frozen on their respective spots, a shocked expression painted over his features.

"hee... say something."

but heeseung is short of words. it's as if his ability to speak was wiped off from him the moment he heard ava's confession, & he felt nothing but his heart breaking, shattering into little pieces.

because he knew this pain all too well, & the cause of it was none other than the person he cherished the most.

sam heathers, his first ever girlfriend.

"I..." he trails, yet nothing leaves his mouth. he remains still, quite literally praying for the ground to split up and swallow him up ─ he's asking for too much, he thinks.

"I understand." he opts to say instead, starting the car & checking the traffic before driving off. ava leans back on her seat & exhales, heart feeling way heavier than before.

what was supposed to relieve all the pent up stress of hers actually ended up adding more to it. that resulted in awkwardness as well, the suffocating type that had her jaw go numb and her palms rubbing against each other at an alarming pace.

heeseung, on the other hand, could care less about feeling awkward. he felt the same rush of emotions he felt three years ago strike him up, secretly sniffling to himself with his attention diverted to the front.

and all the way through to her house, he kept asking himself the same thing.

is it possible that his heart betrayed him last night?