The Elephant Between Us || SKZ

chapter twenty-five

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TO SELL SOMEONE DOWN THE RIVER

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That was their last day, and all they had over the table were twenty-two thousand seven hundred seventy dollars. To Jeongmin, that sounded a lot, but not when compared to one hundred twenty thousand dollars. It was a lot, but not even half of the amount they were supposed to have.

"How much did they pay for my cellphone?" She asked, counting the banknotes before folding them into bundles of one thousand dollars.

"One hundred, I guess?" Jeongin glanced at her before turning his attention back to the screen of his borrowed laptop, finishing some business while sending some texts. "Do that with smaller bundles, so it looks like more money." 

Fighting against their own fate, the two siblings woke up at 5 am just to sit in front of each other, with the usual table separating them as they knelt on the gelid ground and got everything ready for Felix. At that moment, after asking for a salary advance, selling everything they could sell and borrowing every cent they could borrow, they relied on luck, a lot of luck.

Jeongin was willing to pay everything back, including moratory interest if needed, yet he had to be given more time. Was he confident Felix would agree to that? Absolutely not, yet it was either that or leaving again, which, in his head, would mean running away from two different groups — Jeongin wasn't willing to go through that. 

"When are we supposed to go meet him?" Jeongin asked, stretching his back. They hadn't eaten yet, and the sun rising on the horizon alerted him it was almost time for them to go to work: breakfast would have to wait.

"I've got no idea." Her calm was something she couldn't explain either. "The later, the better."

"I honestly just want to wave goodbye to this." With that, he closed the laptop, standing up to grab the black sporty bag on the counter. "Here. For the banknotes."

Nodding, Jeongmin did as he told her to, sparring some glances at her brother in the meantime.

"How are you?" She ended up asking, quite reluctant.

"I'm okay," Jeongin answered quicker than she had expected, kneeling next to her while watching the care with which she stored the bundles inside the bag.

"Really?"

That time, all she got from him was silence, and she didn't know whether he was thinking and rethinking or just too busy observing her and all those carefully folded bundles of banknotes.

"Have we ever had all this amount of money over our coffee table?" His question caused her eyes to divert to the same place he had his fixed on, and it was like time had stopped for an hour. 

All that money belonged to them, to their efforts and sacrifices, and they were just about to throw it away. They were willing to go back to their miserable life just to pay an utterly unfair debt. It was Changbin's, not hers, and remembering that provoked a giant wave of rage to hit every single wall of her lungs. 

"Let's leave, Jeongin."

"What?"

"Let's leave this place, Jeongin." The more seconds passed, the more her thoughts conquered space in her mind. They made sense, they were reliable and, yes, they were doable. "Let's leave and restart again." Turning to face him, she held his hands tightly on the warmth of her restless ones. His eyes widened in surprise, apprehension and a lot of confusion, contrasting with the certainty hers carried. "We have enough money over the hell of this table to go to the furthest place possible. We've got this now, Jeongin!"

"Hold on, hold on." A chuckle escaped his lips and, lifting his palms to shake them in the air, the male caused a frown to grow on the young lines of her forehead.

"What do you mean?"

"Are- Are you even serious?" Her face said it all, and he couldn't help but take a glance away from her: he couldn't be hearing it right. "You're the first saying you're tired of running away, Jeongmin."

"This time is different." 

The fact she seemed so genuinely confident and certain made his heart pop out his ribcage three times in a row, provoking new chuckles to leave the gap between his lips.

"The four times before this one were different too, weren't they?"

"Okay, but look at all this!" Leaning in, she extended a hand in the table's direction and, with her eyes stuck on the colours of his, did her best to change his mind. "We have money now! We have experience, we have each other!"

"This money does not belong to us!" Jeongin whispered between his gritted teeth, widening his eyes. "And I don't take what isn't mine, Jeongmin, I don't do that."

She laughed.

"Yet you took Minho's life."

The care he had with the words he spoke before disappeared the moment Jeongmin made him hear that, and she could feel that difference right through his eyes. 

Jeongmin had never blamed him for killing Minho that day. She had never villainized him for grabbing that fork or burying that body. Never.
But, deep inside, he knew she felt like it sometimes. He knew she had to contain herself not to shout she had never asked Jeongin to kill her boyfriend. He knew, with all his certainties, that those words were not a mere lip service she paid.

And his eyes said it all.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled after a while, lowering her eyes and dropping her shoulders. "I didn't mean it like that-"

"Let's go," Jeongin said, standing up in a split. Before she could follow him with her gaze, Jeongin was already inside their bedroom, making no more sound.

F.ck me. 

Thinking of Minho always caused her skin to tremble. From top to bottom, her entire body reacted whenever that name crossed her mind, mainly because it often stayed for more than one hour.

Even dead, Minho wasn't willing to let go of her. 

"Jeongin?" Shaking her head, Jeongmin stood up and, sparring a glance at the sun rising outside, gathered the courage to speak to her brother about what she had just said: she couldn't just cross her arms and let him dwell over it. "Look, you know I didn't mean-" Reaching the bedroom doorframe, Jeongmin stopped, her shock causing her to silently observe him packing their clothes. "What are you doing??" 

"We're running away."

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