The Contract

What Is Freedom?

Yoongi's POV

He ran his fingers through his hair. They'd gotten done practicing for the concert and he was now in his hotel room. He always liked being alone, sometimes he wouldn't come out for days. But talking to Y/N made him just want to hide more. If he couldn't be with her then he could hear her voice before he went to sleep.

But now he was worried. The nurse said everything was fine but he wasn't there. He was thousands of miles away and if something happened he couldn't be there. His anxiety was kicking in. He took a couple deep breathes, trying to calm himself. He texted her.

Let me know when you wake up, okay? He needed to hear her voice.

The bed was too big. Every bed was too big for him now. He was used to always having someone with him. It had made it harder to sleep on tour. He couldn't get re-used to it. If she decided to leave...maybe he'd ask Jimin to move in with him.

-

The worst had passed the next morning and she was able to check her phone, but still didn't feel like getting up off the couch.

His response to her response was to call again. She hesitated, but ignoring him would just make him worry more. She'd just not tell him what happened, she decided.

"Hello."

"Hey, how you feeling?"

"I'm okay."

"Rested?"" her sleep had actually been crap, she hadn't gotten any until the worst of it had passed.

"Yeah." You could say that. Yoongi rambled on, telling her about his day and the things he'd seen and would see today. She listened at first but became so focused on coming up with a reply to any number of potential questions he might ask her that she didn't hear his question.

"Y/N?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Y/N, what's wrong." His tone was firm. She knew this time he wasn't going to let it go. Her attempt to hide this had just resulted in exposing it instead.

"It's nothing to worry about, I'm okay."

"No, you're not." He went quiet. He just waited. Waited for her to collect her thoughts. Waited for her to figure out how to express them. It was awhile. So many things. Where to start?

"It's hard to explain." She said finally.

"I have jet lag, I'll be up for awhile." He wasn't going to let her wiggle her way out of this. More time. More quiet.

"I don't...I don't know how to feel." She finally said quietly.

"About?"

"Us. The baby. Everything." He was quiet again, waiting for her to continue.

"I'm supposed to be excited about the baby. But I don't feel anything." She said tonelessly. "I just keep...I keep wishing it hadn't happened. And I know that I'm a horrible person. I should be excited. Happy. I should want to stay with you. But all I keep thinking about is how I didn't want this to happen and I wish it hadn't happened. I keep wishing I could go back in time and change everything. But I can't. And it's killing me. I think about how to set it right but nothing I do can. I'll never be able to get away from you. I'll always be connected to you. No matter what I do. I'll never fully be free. But if I try then..." Her voice was shaking. Tears were in her eyes. But that final push, that pain that always sheds them, she couldn't get to that. It stayed in her. Poisoning her. Eating her alive. A deep breath. "Then I have to watch you with someone else. Because I'll never be able to get away. I know...that probably sounded so horrible...I shouldn't have said it..."

"Gwanchana, gwanchana." He repeated the sentence in a soothing tone. In truth, it hurt. It hurt because he wanted her to choose him. He didn't know entirely how to feel about the baby either. But he knew that if she stayed, if they were together, it would make him happy.

"What's your definition of freedom?" He asked her suddenly and she stopped, turning the question around in her mind. She knew what it was for her but it was hard to articulate.

"Um...being my own person. Not being controlled. Getting to do what I want. Not being judged by things I can't change. Doing things when I want..." Her voice trailed off. Those words sounded so dry compared to the picture she saw in her mind.

"So then tell me this. If you stay with me, how can you not have that?" He desperately wanted to know how she could not see that she had all those things already.

"Um..." She didn't reply.

"Do you have those things now?" Did she think she didn't?

"I have your last name. I have security following me around everywhere. Everyone sees me as an extension of you. Not as my own person." In a way he was relieved. He had been afraid there was some big thing he was unknowingly doing.

"We can change the last name. I don't care about things like that and you know that. You'd still need security even without me because you pissed off a bunch of people that messed you over. Which was your choice. People also see me as an extension of you, every time your company's mentioned I come up. Neither of us is seen as separate from the other. So tell me again, how are you not free now?" His voice was strong and determined. She huddled in the couch, turning his words over in her mind.

"Marriage is a cage." She finally said, her voice barely audible.

"Says who?"

"I see it, everywhere I look."

"And you just...accept that? You see something you don't like and you're just going to accept that? Y/N, we determine what our marriage is. If you want it to be a cage it can be a cage. But if you want to make it something else you can do that too. Since when do you let other people tell you how you need to live your life?" He wasn't trying to be mean, he was trying to watch his tone, but he just honestly didn't understand how she didn't see the discrepancies right in front of her. And she was starting to see.

In actuality, now that his uncle was gone, her mobility hadn't changed. She could jet off to the other end of the world tomorrow and Yoongi wouldn't stop her. Or at least, he wouldn't stop her once she was fully healed. She hadn't thought about how her actions in the public eye might also reflect on him. She did know that they did but she hadn't pondered that it wasn't just her being seen in his light, sometimes he was seen in hers. Every news article that had covered her destruction of his uncle's company had mentioned him, always as secondary to her. And he was right, if having his last name bothered her that much she knew he wouldn't care if she changed it.

He was kind and caring and she didn't deserve him and yet she had him. So why was it so hard to take the leap? Why was she holding herself back? Why couldn't she just step out? Was she going to let the horrible actions of a few men dictate the rest of her life? Was she going to spend it living according to what they would want?

"You need to accept what happened, Y/N. We can't change it." His voice was soft, like he was afraid of startling her. He was everything she had ever wanted, on the off chance that she did fall for a man. Hell, she had fallen for him. She felt like she was being shoved in a door by her emotions and her reason was barely clinging to the door jamb. But was it reason? Was letting her life be guided by fear and hurt really reason?

"Yeah. I know." She finally admitted, just as quietly. How could she finally accept this?