feel me | yeonbin

037

He stumbles just short of the deluge and holds one hand on top of his head, searching the laneway in front of the station, but then he sees the car pulling up, windshield wipers moving at full speed. Yeonjun’s heart is working at a faster tempo than them.

“Straight home?” Jiyeong asks the moment Yeonjun is in the car.

“Yeah. Straight home,” Yeonjun agrees when he slams the door shut, yanking his cap off and wiping the rainwater off his hands and one of his cheeks. “Can I ask you to stick around? I’m just going to pack a bag and go to San’s house. I would appreciate it.”

“Sure thing.”

Most drives, Yeonjun buries his face in his phone and forgets that the world is bustling and buzzing around him, but this time, his phone remains in his pocket. He doesn’t even make an attempt to pull it out. He just stares out the window, watching the rain splatter against it, his mind so loud that he thinks that maybe he should cover his ears.

His time is limited. Daeul is at the station being questioned, and he’s rattled. Visibly rattled, finally. Anyone would be after what Yeonjun has just done in front of law enforcement, after that literal slap across the face. For so long, he quietly dreamed of the day when he could look Daeul in the eye and end it, sever the ties, wipe the slate clean.

Never before had it seemed possible. He has me in a chokehold. But not anymore. Maybe there will be consequences. Maybe the aftershocks will rip through Yeonjun and tear him to shreds. But before that happens, Yeonjun knows that his only option is to flee. Free as a bird. For the first time in years, he’s free.

It’s probably an illusion for now. But it will be a reality soon. Yeonjun holds onto that.

The apartment feels eerily empty. Yeonjun walks through the front door, and for the first time ever, he realizes that his home is poisoned. He’s been too close to it for too long, but now, standing at the entrance, he has perspective. And he’s not a fool—Soobin gave him that perspective. Soobin let him fight back. Soobin listened when Yeonjun spoke.

Soobin gave him everything.

Realistically, Yeonjun knows that Daeul won’t walk through the front door any time soon, but as he drops his phone on the kitchen countertop and makes a beeline for the bedroom, he laughs to himself, because fuck, he was so blind. Willfully blind. All of the warning signs were there, but Yeonjun ignored them for the sake of his life. Quite literally, for survival. His fear of Daeul coming home and discovering him in a compromising position is so deeply embedded into his brain that as Yeonjun reaches for his suitcase, he laughs again.

“God, fuck him,” he says out loud, and it feels good. “Fuck him,” he says louder, and then he turns and drops the suitcase at his feet. “FUCK YOU, LEE DAEUL.” And to his delight, his voice just echoes. Nobody answers. “Fuck you for gaslighting me and abusing me and turning me into this. Fuck you for trying to ruin my life. Fuck—” Yeonjun shoves the suitcase against the carpet— “you.”

Silence. It’s the best thing Yeonjun’s heard in years. Grinning, he throws open his closet door and starts to dump as much clothing as he can fit into the suitcase, knowing he won’t be able to take it all. He just needs enough to show Daeul that he’s really leaving. He’s going to take the important things that belong to him so that when Daeul comes home in the evening, it will be to an empty house. Yeonjun grabs another suitcase, and this time, he tosses in all of his toiletries and knick-knacks, pulling things off the wall of their bedroom that belong to him.

“Don’t need this to be here,” he says breathily to himself, taking awards and accolades from the shelves in the office space and tossing them into a duffle bag. Proper packing be damned. He just wants Daeul to walk in and stand there, jaw dropped, wondering why everything is gone. Knowing why everything is gone. Because Yeonjun will still pay rent and take care of his affairs. He’s good for it. But he doesn’t have to live in this apartment.