DUAL

//12

For just a few short moments wandering in the market, Chaeyoung felt like walking with ease was getting difficult. She wished she could shut out all the things she heard. She couldn't even lift her head. She couldn't even get the things her mother asked her to purchase.

Her name was on the people's mouths alongside the word marry and Junhoe. She shuddered at the thought. The next day would be it. She'd be meeting with them. When she walked past the Defense Sector's training ground and saw Jungkook training with his whole heart with unfaltering focus, the hollow feeling inside of her was inescapable.

He'd been avoiding her, she knew. She saw him a few times in the market. Either he was about to buy something or just walking past it, he tried his best to avoid her. He walked away so fast when their eyes met and without the need for him to say it, the message was clear. He didn't want to see her.

Sometimes it was too late when she finally noticed him. She'd called his name but it was as though his name wasn't Jungkook or that she was nothing but a ghost. His feet would bring him farther and farther in such swiftness.

She should have talked to him about it. But what would she expect to happen if she did tell him? What could happen? Would good things happen? Wouldn't the result be just the same? That he would still hate her?

Her fingers curled around her long dress. Still, she wanted to talk. No matter what would happen, she wanted to talk. Even the peace she'd gathered from being around the pond wasn't enough, especially after what happened on the previous day.

On the previous day, she was already present when he walked into the woods toward the pond. Their eyes settled on each other and he'd turn around so fast wordlessly, leaving the area as fast as he could and suddenly, peace was something unattainable.

*

Jungkook halted his steps, kept his eyes fixed on his house less than fifteen feet before him. He let his ears take in every soft sound of the footsteps behind him before it stopped, replaced with a voice calling his name.

He sighed, closed his eyes briefly. He turned his head slightly, catching a glimpse of a figure standing not too close but not even far. "You should go," he calmly said.

"No."

A moment later, he felt her hand on his shoulder and he felt the fire within him began to weaken. Jungkook turned around swiftly, her hand absent and he met face to face with Chaeyoung who was looking at him with brows furrowed. There was guilt perfectly written on her face.

Jungkook shifted his gaze away. "Is there something that you require from me?" he asked.

She was only filled with silence and when he glanced back at her, her eyes were staring down, lips separated and sealed a couple times. Jungkook knew she wanted to open the topic of her planned marriage to the Healer, yet she didn't seem to know how she was supposed to start it.

Silently, he tried to turn back around but her hands were quick to reach for his arm, holding it so firmly like it was a sin to let go.

"I need to talk to you," she said in a rush. "Of... of the things people are talking about."

"Now you want to talk?" He did not mean for it to sound cold, but it did and his throat tightened when he saw the look on her face. It was as though he could see her heart slowly broke into small pieces. For a moment, he felt bad. His mouth, though, acted on its own again. "Are you here to invite me?"

Her eyes easily watered and she looked away, gently rubbing her eyes with her fingers. He hated himself for what he said but he couldn't help it. Anger and disappointment controlled him for the past few days ever since he heard of the news. He felt betrayed.

When she looked at him again, the soft frown was replaced with her own wrath. "How could you say that when all I have been trying to do was to talk to you but all you have been doing was avoiding me?"

Jungkook felt his jaw clenched. "I expect to know it from you, not from other people. I expect to know it before anyone else was told."

"Had I told you about it before it was spread, what could you have done? Stop it? Stop my father? My father has decided on it and it's final. Not even my mother stands a chance to stop him. Not even Jimin."

He remained silent. Her life belonged to her. Why would she let her father decide something for her?

"So tell me, what could you have done?"

"I don't know!" he raised his voice, causing her to slightly flinch as flames coating his body before disappearing a second later. "I just..."

Shaking his head, he looked away with jaw tightening as he tried to control his anger. His mind took him back to his memory of having her close in his arms, his lips sending a message of his feelings, his mouth letting the feelings out for her to hear it all clearly.

"I just thought that after what we've shared..." he trailed off, not exactly knowing where he was going with that, not knowing what exactly he wanted to say.

"If you must know," Chaeyoung said. "I really wanted to tell you. But telling you would worry you. You would think that I don't care for you. I thought... I thought I could change Father's mind, but I was wrong. And –and now... this happened. I..." Her voice faded for a moment before she continued, slightly choked. "I am sorry, Jungkook."

Chaeyoung slowly moved closer toward him, leaving them with only one foot apart. Jungkook looked into the distance, unable to rest his eyes on hers even when she placed a palm on his face. Jungkook held her wrist gently and pushed her hand down, stepping backward to leave a wider space between them.

"I know that you are still mad –"

"I am not mad," he sighed heavily. Not exactly at you.

"Then why are you avoiding me still? You won't even look into my eyes."

Chaeyoung was right. What could he have done if her father's stubbornness was as solid as a stone? He could perhaps replace that Healer if he was a Healer himself, but he wasn't. He was a Newcomer of the Defense Sector, a future Defender. Would her father even spare him the briefest glance?

The Healers community needed more Healers, and as much as he hated to admit, those men, his fellow Newcomers' said something with some truth in it. The possibility to get Healers would be higher if two Healers were to be united. It was possibly why her father wanted her to get married to that Healer of his choice. For a moment, he wondered to whom she was going to marry but he pushed that thought away as hard as he could. It shouldn't matter to him.

"You are going to be someone else's wife," he began calmly, though his insides twisted and shattered painfully as he said it. "Anything that has happened between us, anything that we have been doing..." he stopped briefly and clenched his fist, "...we can't keep doing it."

Her face creased as her eyes began to drop bigger tears. Jungkook unclenched his fist at that sight but clenched it again tighter, holding himself from lifting his hand to wipe her tear streaked face.

Chaeyoung's lips trembled when she said, "No..." She shook her head. "What are you saying?"

"Perhaps... a better way to say it," he said carefully, his feet began to take turns to move backward. "It's best if we forget each other."

Jungkook turned around quick, refusing to spare her a last look before leaving her there as he pushed himself into his house with his own heart breaking, the sound loud in his ears.