BOOK 3: The Seventeen Heirs Series; Yoon Jeonghan (SEVENTEEN FANFIC)

48: WOEBEGONE

LEE JAE KYUNG's POV

"Jae"

A sharp breath flew out of my lungs from the pain of hearing Jeonghan's voice. From somewhere deep inside me, I instinctively reached for an icy shield and pulled it up around me. I felt the need to protect myself now because, after everything that I have remembered, I realized nobody would do it for me but myself.

I felt like everything for me is new, like every just happened yesterday. I felt so raw and exposed.

I tilted my head to look up at him and felt that numbness spreading throughout my entire body, taking hold of my emotions. That's the reason why I could look up at Jeonghan without even blinking an eye. Without being affecting by the fear I'm seeing in his eyes. I'm far too gone.

"What are you . . ." He suddenly stopped from walking to me when I slowly pulled the baby blue folder out of his drawer and opened it.

Right there down my nose, I stared at the familiar paper with so much indifference that surprised me. I stared at Jeonghan while remembering what happened and I can't help but to taste the bitterness.

"I bet you're just dying to explain, aren't you?" I asked him jeeringly, breaking the eerie silence inside the room as I stared at Jeonghan standing at the door, thinking about everything he did ever since the day we saw each other again.

I couldn't stop a mocking sneer as I remembered how easily it was for him to trap me into this revenge web he had created.

Lead covered my chest and my cynical smile dropped as I thought of my own folly. My own gullibility was taunting . . . how easily I was deceived, for being so trusting.

I looked at Jeonghan again, giving him an emotionless stare. "I blamed myself for a long time, do you know that?" I said and tried to breathe slowly. "Even until now, I thought it was my entire fault. On why Dad died, Asher Rain . . . On why everything slipped through my grasp. I paid for all of it because I thought it's my fault. I accepted to feel the pain because I thought I deserved it. I thought me losing my memories was a punishment because of what I did to you."

I sneered again and shook my head in disbelief. "But now, I want to regret that I remembered everything. That I wished, the past should've stayed hidden, my son, our marriage . . . and you. I want to wish that we shouldn't have meet each other again, that you shouldn't have found me . . ." Because maybe then, I wouldn't hate myself so much for being so stupid, falling in love to a man who did nothing but destroy me. Hurt me. Spite me.

I shook my head when I saw him walking towards me. His mouth immediately closed at my rejection.

I tried breathing deeply because I felt like I will drown on his every word. I tried to hang onto that cold wall to keep my emotions at bay. I don't want to feel them now. I just wanted to . . . speak. To tell Jeonghan everything I felt I needed to tell him.

I stayed seated while staring at him. He was still as quiet as air. But I could see the battle in his eyes.

"For years, I thought I wouldn't have my memories back. I even considered that forgetting the past was my punishment. That I would live the rest of my life without them. I don't know if I can live with that, I don't know how. I just I had no one. I woke up and I couldn't walk . . . I didn't even know how to talk. I spent days trying to get out of my wheel chair, I wake up every day trying to learn words again. I felt like a child learning how to walk, to talk and read . . . knew my father died and my sisters won't talk to me . . . I had no one. It was hell, you know. Standing up on your own, alone and in pain. Fighting for your own survival. But what can I do? Cry? Yes, I cried. Billions of times. But at the end of the day, it didn't help me stand up." Just as I told myself not to cry right this moment.