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. . . And I wish that you would hurt me harder than I hurt you. . .
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CHAPTER 66
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I knew silence could be an awfully awkward situation, but the mansion at this point wasn't even awkward. The air was just filled with so much tension, I didn't know how to deal with it at all. Every pair of eyes were turned towards me. I felt like a statue on an important exhibition. Except it was worse. I couldn't look at anyone for a long time. The only places available for my eyes were the floor, the ceiling or just my fingers fidgeting in my lap, trying to figure what to say to get out of there.
One more time the only thing I needed was to get out of there. This time it didn't even feel like escaping a home; it just felt like I was imprisoned.
Imprisoned with disappointed and dissatisfied guards I managed to hurt the second I stepped in this place. They were all hurt, I knew, it all just displayed on their faces in different forms. Taeyong looked angry, I knew he was worried too, but as always he managed to hide it perfectly behind his dark dead glare on me. Mark's eyes on the other hand looked like two deep lakes hiding a storm behind a calm surface. Jina just kept biting her naturally long red painted nails as her leg was bouncing in impatience. After I didn't even hug her back earlier she held up her guard almost as well as Taeyong. I knew she was hurt and confused, but her face was showing nothing. Nothing at all.
The rest were a mix of confusion, worry, betrayal and most of all curiosity as they waited for me to finally say anything, or just anyone to start talking and ease the tension that made the air heavier to breathe in every passing second.
"I-I think I better go..." I heard a new girly voice I haven't heard before speaking up silently, not easing the heaviness around me at all. A tall skinny girl with perfect jet black wolfcut and bangs stood in the crowd of people that was surrounding me. I barely made out what she whispered as Jeno nodded beside her before seeing her to the door.
Her style looked a lot like mine- all black, except a little bit edgy unlike me. She had that confidence radiating from her as she moved and the unreadable eyes of a murderer as her cold gaze landed on me for a second. I shivered from it. And I just thought 'Good. They already replaced me.' One more reason for me to not come back.
My eyes were still glued to the entrance of the living room as Jeno was leading the girl to the main door. Having heard it open a second before got me hoping whoever was about to enter would save me from the pressure I was putting up with. But instead I felt a mix of negative things looking at Jaehyun's stoic eyes combined with a smirk that was obviously trying to hide how mad at me he was as well.
"Well, you look excellent for someone who's been kidnapped by a rapist and a pedophile at that as well." Jaehyun commented with a big fake smile, leaning on the door frame having nowhere else to sit. His hands buried in his pockets as he- like the others- waited for me to say anything at all. For someone as calm and collected, this time I could clearly see how mad he was. Even Mark hadn't started with the sarcasm yet, which was weird considering he didn't even come close to me. He was clearly avoiding me. Auch... I guess I deserved it.
I cleared my throat. The strength to get rid of the pressure finally making its way through my body. "Never been better, thanks." I forced a smile back as naturally as humanly possible.
"Sorry if no one was expecting that, Ji."
"It's fine. I wasn't expecting you guys to be this persistent to find me either." I shrugged, then I took a deep breath. "So... now that you all know I'm doing excellent, can I go? I've got work to do-"
"What did he do to you..?" Jina butted in in the conversation. Her expression cold, her voice icy, scary even. She got up from the armchair she had occupied earlier, approaching me too slowly for someone whose leg was uncontrollably bouncing until a second ago. It seemed like she was afraid to come close, not because I might hurt her, but simply because she was approaching someone she didn't know. Everyone else's faces weren't saying any differently. I don't know what they had been expecting, but me being this talkative and cheerful wasn't it.
"Why are you acting like this, Soji?" She stopped right in front of me, staring at me as if she's looking at a stranger. I just gulped, holding the urge to jump from the chair and wrap my arms around her the way I was holding back the moment she did that when she saw me. "You can talk freely now, he's not here. You can be you now, Soji, you're home." She leaned down in front of me, her hands tightly gripping the sides of the armchair I was anxiously sitting in. Her knuckles turning white from the strength I knew she didn't know she was putting in. "Why are you still acting like the emotionless piece of shit he wants you to be? He isn't here, Soji. You know you're safe here."
I gulped. "I'm not acting like the emotionless piece of shit he wants me to be, Jina. I simply don't care..." I spoke lowly, staring at her stiff eyes mere few inches away from mine and trying to mimic perfectly the coldness I saw in them.
"Soji, you can't fucking lie to me... What the fuck did he do for you to want to go back to him so desperately?"
"It's not Minhyuk I'm going back to, Jina." I paused. "I'm going home." My lips started turning upwards in a smile that probably looked more creepy than sincere. "You can come back too, if you want." I took her hands off from the armchair and stood up, feeling the anger through the warm rushing blood in them. "To the family you left seven years ago."
"This is our family, Soji. They are our family." She pointed at everyone in the room. "Minhyuk was never our family." She stood firmly, her expression as headstrong as ever.
My smile saddened and my heart skipped a beat just by forming the words in my head. I tore my chest opened saying it, but it was inevitable. "Your family maybe, but mine is back there... with him."
A slap. A fiery sensation against my cheek that left my head turned away from her for a few moments. I smirked. I deserved it.
From the side of my eye, I saw the room emptying. Heads shaking in disappointment as well as knowing that this conversation wasn't supposed to be had in front of everyone.
"What the fuck are you saying, Soji?!" Her voice arose a little, shaking in anger as I slowly turned back to look at her. "He fucking raped you!" She pushed me back once. "He took away your childhood!!" She pushed me back twice. "He ruined your youth!!" Three times. "He raped you again!! How can you choose to go back there when you have a chance to be saved?!!"
Oh, Jina... the only way I can be saved from him is by killing him. The only way I can continue to live my life with no regrets is by getting revenge. I wouldn't be able to even close my eyes if I weren't the one to take him to hell. With my own hands.
I chuckled. "What are you talking about, Jina? Rape? Pain? Hurt?" I scoffed. "Do I look like I've gone through any of that?" I questioned lowly leaning my smiling face closer to hers. She kept silent. Her face still holding the icy coldness on it. I chuckled, as genuine as I could make it sound. "I'm happy... being here never managed to make me this happy."
Her eyes shone in tears and her hands formed tight fists as she struggled to keep her composure. Her teeth sinking in the side of her lower lip to hide the painful blow I hit her with. But I wasn't done. I knew it'd destroy her, but I was already starting my numerous revenges.
"Do you know why this is not the place for me, Jina?" I started pacing around. My eyes catching Mark's empty ones, Jisung and Chenle sitting on the other end of the room. Heachan and Jaehyun standing by the door. Jaemin's pained ones next to Mark. Taeyong's oddly silent figure and Dayeon sitting with tears in her eyes right next to him.
Then I continued- or started. "I don't have a brother here that would end the world for me, although," I spun to face Taeyong. "You were very close to one Taeyong-ssi." I flashed a smile- genuine one. "Thanks a lot for that. I might've had a boyfriend that loves me, but" I turned to Jaemin ready to dirtily lie my way out of my relationship with him. "I no longer see us going anywhere from here. I'm sorry love, but last night was a test for me. I wanted to know if it'd bring my feelings for you back, but they're no longer there... So don't wait for me, Jaemin! I'm sure you'll meet someone who deserves you more than me." I was surprised I managed to pull the genuinely-looking smile through that one. I looked away and at Heachan choosing to not stare at the pain in Jaemin's eyes any longer. Instead I continued with a sad smile that slowly turned into in an evil smirk. "I might've had a best friend too. You know, one that once did everything to get me out of Minhyuk's grip." By now everyone that stayed in the room knew whom I was talking about. "But turns out he was the exact person that threw me back there years later."
Haechan's eyes grew wide. In regret, in betrayal, in hurt, in confusion, not knowing what to do, especially when everyone's eyes fell on him, when Taeyong's deadly glare fell on him. When Jina's destroyed eyes fell on him. And she looked even more hurt than she was before. A single drop of tears from the whole pool she was struggling to hold in rolled out of the side of her eye and she quickly wiped it off and looked away from him and back at me again.
"Jina I swear-" The gray haired made a step forward, just to be stopped and cut off immediately.
"I don't wanna know Dongyuck..." Jina mouthed, not even looking at him. "I really don't want to know..."
She looked at me and for the first time in my life I saw her defeated. She was no longer fighting to keep me there, or to try and understand Haechan's reasons. To hell! She probably knew his reasons. She just wasn't a person who wanted to be protected for the prize of someone else's pain. Even less when it was my pain that was the prize.
"I'm sorry..." was all she said and she hugged me. Then she pulled away with a sad lopsided smile. "I never wished for anything else for you but happiness. If you've found it out there, then go..." She shook her head, her voice so low and I knew she spoke so silently just so she wouldn't break down. "Have a nice life, bestie..."
My eyes teared up. And they teared up fast. In fact, I've never teared up and started crying so fast before. I just couldn't hold it in anymore and damn I tended to always cry when someone else would. Jina wasn't someone who cried easily and I managed to make her tear up and almost break down. It was something that probably hurt me more than it hurt her. Suddenly I started rethinking everything I said, if I was too harsh, if if was too mean. But that was what I intended to do, right? Persuade them that I was happy without them and didn't want to come back. Right...?
"Thank you, bestie... for letting me go and believing in me." I looked at everyone one more time.
This time Dayeon was a sobbing mess, walking my way and throwing her arms around me which made it harder for me to stop crying myself. But I managed to hold myself together. The anger Taeyong had focused on me was now replaced with sadness, but relief at the same time. And he avoided looking at Haechan. I knew for a fact he wouldn't have it easy once I'd have left.
Taeyong hugged me too, holding me protectively against his chest and mouthing out the most brotherly thing he possibly could have said. "If you ever need me to shoot someone, I'd do it again. So, just call me, okay?" I looked up at him and then hid the tears that continuously fell from my eyes in his chest. I was leaving the best people existing on Earth and it felt horrendous. It hurt. It felt like I was betraying not just them, but myself too by lying to them.
I didn't even look at Mark again. I couldn't get myself to say goodbye to him. I'd rather not have a memory of those words ever leaving my mouth. I wouldn't be able to live knowing I've pushed both of them away from me like that. I'd rather hold on to the hope that maybe one day if I came back, he'd take the hint and not hate me, which would just be the impossible happening.
I waved goodbye at the youngest two that watched the drama from the couches. I hated goodbyes, so I didn't want to hug everyone and be forced to actually say it out loud. Like that I passed by Haechan who didn't dare to come close to me, just stared at me with pain-filled eyes. I wasn't sure if it was a right thing to do- hugging Jaehyun seeing how mad he still was at me. But I still did hug him. Mouthing a tiny sorry for making him feel like he's been worrying in vain.
Then I passed by everyone else gathered in the hall, not being able to look at any of them, even less say another goodbye or feel their warmth once more.
"Soji!" Jungwoo stood up from the stairs confused, almost running after me until Jina stopped him.
"Let her go, Jungwoo... She's telling the truth... she is happier without us..." She smiled before passing by him and upstairs to her room. Her words bringing more tears to my eyes as I opened the main door.
I stopped, turned around and mouthed a low "Bye..." to everyone else, suffocating the 'I love you' that wanted to escape my throat in tears.
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"Soji... are you okay?" Jennie asked carefully as I slammed the door of the back seat of Sunwoo's car, suppressing all of my tears and emotions.
I just nodded, my eyes getting their cold emotionless look back as I stared out the window. "I'm good. Let's go back and get this done."
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To be continued. . .