HEAL || Lee Minho

6. The End of an Awkward Day

"Do you want me to drive?" Haejin asked Minho. Though, it seemed like Minho didn't expect such a question, given his facial expressions. "I mean... you drove a lot today..." Haejin spoke on seeing the unconventional reaction from Minho.

"Can you drive?" Minho asked, sceptical of Haejin.

"Of course? I'm like twenty-two, of course I can drive—" Haejin replied, slightly offended by how Minho thought that she couldn't drive.

"Okay, then, here!" Minho spoke, throwing the keys in her direction, Haejin having to catch them.

That was weird...

She thought to herself, nevertheless, got into the driver's seat and started the car once Minho also got in. She carefully got the car out of the parking and then drove in the direction the GPS showed.

Haejin drove peacefully, it was nice for her to have to concentrate on the road in front of her rather than on those useless thoughts of 'How would it be like after marriage'... She figured out that she'll know this only when she will start living with him. Thinking of it any sooner than that will not give her any answers but only anxiety.

"When did you learn to drive?" Minho asked.

"As soon as I was of legal age." Haejin spoke, not tearing her focus away from the road. Though, she has been driving for almost four years now, she still was nervous because never in her life did she think that she will get to drive a Mercedes Benz. So, she made sure to drive as carefully as she could.

"Impressive." Minho spoke, leaning back into his seat. His voice sounded weak and Haejin wondered if he really was that tired.

The atmosphere between the two started getting tense once again, the two of them having nothing to speak. And when Haejin looked in the screen to see that they were still an hour away from their destination, it didn't help her in feeling any better.

If anything, she just wanted to run away into a jungle, or, to jump into a deep ocean, just anywhere away from Minho and her mother... from Minho, because she felt bad for him which made for a slight percentage of her answer and from her mother because she made for the most percentage of her answer to the question of marrying Minho.

Though, as if Minho was perceptive, he turned up the volume of the radio, now the stiff atmosphere being replaced by the light noise of the song playing on the radio.

Minho, too, had things to say to Haejin. But he was as nervous as Haejin, not wanting to offend her in any way before the marriage. So, he waited too, to tell her that she could be just like before with him, just like they were in the high school. And when the thought hit his mind, he wondered if the setting had been less unsettling if he would've kept contact with Haejin throughout the years?

Would she have been more comfortable in voicing her doubts out?

He, too, felt dumb, for not keeping in contact with Haejin throughout the years. It wasn't like he could, being busy in all of the studies. After all, all of his focus was the reason for him being a gold-medalist in his course. And, the rest of his time apart from studying was spent with Yuri, with whom also, he was initially put up in an arrangement but slowly got to like her until...

One of the other reasons he didn't want to be in an "arranged marriage."

Minho was impotent in this situation. He was an adult, older than Haejin, but still a child for his parents. So he had to listen to what they had planned for him. There was no way in which he could make Haejin feel better about this arrangement when his own heart and mind weren't ready to think of this marriage, to think of Haejin as his future wife.