AN:- Part Seven of You and I. I hope you're all enjoying where this OneShot is heading. This has been dragged out longer than I anticipated it to and I'm so grateful to all those who have still stuck by my side as I've taken my time updating and publishing it all up.
THANK YOU!! :) I appreciate each and every single one of you and your never-ending patience, love, and support so soo much! ♥️
Enjoy this new chapter and please as always do let me know what you think of it- especially if you have any improvements for me to make! I am open to constructive criticism and promise you that I will take it on board and do my best to keep on doing better with each passing chapter.
Out of curiosity who do you think is calling TaeHee now and who was it before and what do you think TaeHee's decision about her and JongHyun will be? 🙈👀 I'd love to hear your thoughts so please do let me know!
My eyes watered up again instantly, my shaky hands going up to cover my quivering mouth as the soft voice echoed out of the phone and into my ears.
"O-oppa..."
"TaeHee-ah." His voice was gentle as he spoke, and I could almost picture his worried face now as I spoke to him over the phone, as if he was actually stood right in front of me at this very moment in time.
"Oppa!" I sniffled lightly, being unable to help myself from letting a few traitorous tears slip out my eyes.
"Don't cry TaeHee-ah." He said gently. "I know all about what's happened and I want you to know that none of it is your fault. You hear me?!?"
"Oppa but h-"
He cut me off. "TaeHee don't listen to what he said at all. I know that this isn't your fault and if we really look at it fairly then you haven't even done anything! The party is next week for goodness sake and our family are all making such a big deal out of it."
"He was so angry Oppa." I whispered, hands playing with the sleeves of my blouse.
He scoffed. "When isn't he angry?"
"Onew Oppa." I sighed. "This time he seemed even more irked than usual with me and that's saying something considering he's always been annoyed at my every action and never- not even once, been happy with me or any of my decisions."
"What do you mean TaeHee?"
I toyed with my words for a while, wondering how to tell Onew Oppa exactly what it was that I had felt when he had spoken to me and how serious it seemed to me. Puffing my cheeks up with empty air, I felt my head itch with the stress I was unnecessarily piling unto it with the irrelevant worry that I was shouldering on. They had never been happy with me before so why was I still getting so upset over that realisation when it actively continued to play out in front of me even after all these years.
It didn't matter who I was to them. Didn't matter that I was their daughter... Their only daughter...
Nothing held any relevance. My entire existence had always been nothing but a nuisance. I was always going to be a disappointment for them, no matter what I did.
My father had never been one for public displays of affection but that didn't mean in the slightest that he took the liberty of freely displaying them at home, in private either. Ever since I could remember back to, Appa had always had a set scowl on his face, no words of encouragement or love ever leaving his lips, not even for his own children. The only times he would ever crack a little bit would be with Taemin and even then his love was so slight and controlled, it was a long shot before it could even actually be dubbed as proper affection.
Regardless of all that, however, whatever the case may be, it was the only act of adoration I had on my father and so that was my outlook on what his love looked like and I heavily doubted that there would be anything in the near or even far future to alter that specific outlook.
Eomma was no different to he, her every move only made based on how society would deem her fit to. She was the epitome of a trophy bride, having bared three children for my father and made sure to give him his male heirs, just the way she should have as her duty called for her to. She was what was desired and envied of a woman; wealth, luxury, elegance, and poise dripping from her every pore and to her, I was an absolute embarrassment as I opposed everything she stood for and had tirelessly worked so hard to build for herself in her life.
I must have been silent for longer than I realised because Oppa then began worriedly calling out to me.
"TaeHee... TaeHee... Tae-"
"I'm here Oppa." I suddenly cut him off, as my mind floated out of my thoughts. "I... I was just thinking..." My voice was softly poised as I toyed with the strap of my bracelet absentmindedly.
"About?" He probed. "You can tell me anything TaeHee. I'm your brother and whatever our parents say doesn't matter because I'll always believe you. I know you and I know your heart and I know what your intentions are. Those things to me are more important- so much more important, than the false words of status and wealth that our parents regurgitate the very damned second they see us. So..." He paused to take a long and deep winded breath after his little out bursted of a speech and I felt a glimmer of sadness spark in me at how much this all must have been eating at him.
Onew Oppa sighed once more, his weary feelings seeping through the metal device in my cold palms, their projection a mirror of my own feelings.
"My point in all of this is tha-"
"Do they..." I broke off his speech abruptly.
"Do they what...?" He asked quietly, abandoning his own words to clasp onto mine.
That should have made me smile truth be told, his eagerness and willingness to put my saying before his own. Unfortunately, my desolation at the very moment in time was so staggering that I didn't even think I could breathe, forget trying to uplift an emotion of happiness onto my face.
"Do they... do they even care??" I whispered, my voice holding out my yearning with a desperately hard despondency. "Does anyone even care anymore..?!"
He was silent for a while and my heart drooped to the very soles of my feet with a titanic wave akin to a raging thunderstorm. I was about to change the topic then and just brush off my sadness as accustomed to doing so when Oppa spoke up again in a gentle tone, his words electrifying me, freezing my broken smile into place.
"I care." His tone was simple and sweet and even more so than that, it was sincere...
My parted lips felt hollow but at his open statement, I felt my lips pull up with a slow hesitancy into a genuine smile, my face gradually beginning to light up with the sheer honesty that was in my brother's conviction for what he was saying to me.
"I care. Taemin cares. Your Unnie cares. Jake cares. And above all TaeHee... JongHyun cares..."
My breath hitched in my throat...
