Forced To Love You

Chapter 8

Duri decided that she was going to talk to Minho and get down to the bottom of her Choa investigation. She knew it would be hard for him, especially since Jae Woo wouldn't even tell her the slightest bit of information. She pulled herself out of the bundle of blankets she was under and walked over to Minho's room on the other side of the stairs. She paused for a moment in front of the door before softly knocking. Her heart was in her throat, and her stomach started churning. She momentarily thought about running back to her room.

He opened the door just enough to stick his head through "Can I help you?" He asked, he looked like he'd been asleep, apparently Duri hadn't realized she'd been diving into Minho's history as a part of Stray Kids for a few hours longer then she thought.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I'll just talk to you in the morning. I--" She started to ramble.

"No, it's ok" He said sleepily as he opened the door further and reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her from walking away. He didn't care that it was one in the morning. He just wanted to talk to her, and he would take any chance that she gave him. She stopped and turned around glancing down at his hand in hers. Even in the low light she could see him blush slightly. He quickly pulled it away not wanting to offend her. He opened his door the rest of way and stepped aside to let her in.

"What's up?" He asked quietly as she sat down in a chair in the corner of the room.

"I was talking to Jae about you today..." She started looking down at her fingers. He swallowed hard knowing that sometimes Jae Woo would overshare. She didn't do it on purpose, but he knew that she was always very proud of him and often wanted to share. Almost as if he was her own child.

"Oh" He mumbled sitting back down on his bed almost defeated, he was pretty sure he knew where this was going.

"There's just one thing I feel like I need to know......" she paused, "i-if that's ok" she stuttered. She wrung her hands in her lap nervously before finally asking her question. "Who was Choa?"

There it was. The question he knew she was going to ask. He didn't say anything and dropped his head low before looking out the window to the left of his bed. "Why?" He was stalling, trying to think of how to tell her and not tell her at the same time. Trying to come up with some combination of words that would get his point across without going into detail.

"Because I feel like whoever she was made you feel this way."

"And what way is that exactly?" He said trying not to sound angry, though he knew that had come out slightly more irritated then he meant it to.

"I'm trying to get to know you, Minho" She said looking up at him. He sighed loudly and looked back out the window. Right now would have been a good time for a distraction. Though that probably wasn't going to happen seeing as how Jae wasn't here and aliens probably weren't going to emerge from the sky and abduct him. Both of which would have been better options then this conversation.

"I know you are." He said more softly. He knew at some point he was going to have to let the rest of his guard down, but he also knew that talking about Choa left his raw emotions out in the open. The wall he'd built was pretty much laid to ruin over the last two months. "It's just....really hard for me to talk about, Duri."

"So just give me the need to know bits. I don't need to know all the details, Minho. I want to try to make this work with you, but I need to know you're not going to just up and leave me if she comes back."

"That won't happen." He said confidently as she looked at him confused.

"How do you know that?"

"Because she's dead." He said feeling tears sting his eyes. He silently cursed himself that she still, after the 3 years, had this hold on him. He desperately wanted to fully just let her go. He was tired of his life revolving around her and what she did. Especially when there was a girl he was married to that was turning out to really mean a lot to him. Arranged or not, he wanted to make his marriage work.