Jaemin the Icy Prince on Campus - Na Jaemin NCT

49. Pity

"I need to talk to you about Luna." He swallows. He is uncomfortable talking about her, or his past with her. "I like her as a friend, and as a person, too. I've come to know her well enough to appreciate her as a loyal, dependable person. She and I were together for two years. But how can I be in love with anyone when you exist?" He puts his forehead to mine. "I'm so in love with you, I have been for so long, that there wasn't room for anyone else, not even my wife. And it made me feel like the biggest piece of shit to admit that." He wipes a hand over his face. "In the end, friendship wasn't enough. She wanted more, but I told her that was all I could offer her. She wanted me to love her, but I couldn't. How could I when it was you I loved? And so, she asked for a divorce. She said it was unbearable to live with me, knowing that I was incapable of loving her. She said - she said it was demeaning to be married to someone who didn't love her."

"Did she know about - "

"About us?" He is quiet for a while. "She never talked about it, but she knew." He stares unseeingly into the flickering light. "I got drunk on our wedding night. I called out your name. That much I remember. When I woke up the next morning, she was crying in the bathroom." His lips twist in self-derision. "I was a jerk. You were right, what you said once; it was you I thought of when I was doing all those - things with her. I pretended it was you. I closed my eyes. I never once looked at her. We did it in the dark. I told her I preferred the dark. She knew I was lying, of course. Sometimes, I would get drunk. I wonder how many times she heard me call out your name when I was high with booze. I was always too drunk to remember much of it afterwards."

He inhales a huge breath, slowly lifting his face to look at me.

"One night I woke up, and I was crying, and saying, 'I'm so sorry, Mina,' " he says, lifting a hand out toward me. He wraps it around the back of my neck and pulls me forward toward him, burying his face in the crevice between my neck and shoulder. " 'I'm so sorry.' I looked over at her, on the other side of the bed, and she was crying. She was just lying there, crying. The tears were streaming down her cheeks." He inhales heavily. "That was the night she told me she wanted a divorce."

"Oh, God," I whisper. "Oh, God."

"And you know what? I didn't even care. I was so fucking happy. I couldn't believe how happy I was. I went straight to your house the next day. I saw your mum. I told her my marriage was over. I asked for her permission to contact you." He swallows. "But she begged me not to tell you. She begged me to stay away from you. She's in a good place now, Jaemin, she said. She's got Leean. You broke her, so I'm begging you, please, Jaemin, stay away from my daughter. Please, let her go." His voice is a thin thread of pain. "So I promised her. I promised her that I would stay away from you. And then I went and got drunk." His voice is a sob, a low groan that filters through the darkness. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. Loving you wasn't supposed to be so hard."

"You want the truth, Kim Mina? That's the truth. It isn't very pretty, is it? I destroyed my wife's confidence, and I destroyed her happiness, and I pretty much destroyed her life. I destroyed your life, and I broke your heart. I should stay away from you, and leave you alone with - with Leean..." He reaches out for me, and pulls me close. "But I can't, because I'm a jerk, and I'm crazy about you, that's who I am, Kim Mina, I'm a selfish jerk who's so fucking crazy about you, I can't think straight anymore."

In the five years I was away in a foreign land, I spent a lot of time looking at my new world through a haze of pain. I imagined them happy together, living their new life as husband and wife. It was a world that I was not a part of, I imagined him forgetting me as time passed. Everything was brick and concrete, straight lines and sharp corners in my new world. There was no horizon. There were no dreams. There was no future. There was no happiness. Every day, I found myself confronted with a landscape filled up with loss.

She, too, must have been filled with sadness and pain, because there were three people in her marriage; I was there, always, the Other Woman, coming between her and him, in all their interactions. He could never be free of me. She could never be free of me. Perhaps, she was hopeful at first, but eventually, as the days passed, she must have realised, with a sinking heart, that her marriage was failing. Her unrequited love was not enough to sustain it, because it was one-sided, and weak. Nevertheless she must have clung on to it, she loved him too much to give him up. It is enough, she must have whispered to herself in the dark, he doesn't love me, but I love him enough for the both of us. She must have kept whispering the words fiercely to herself as the months passed, and they trode cautiously on eggshells about each other, and the first year of their precarious marriage stretched into two. But inevitably, that hope must have slowly withered, and died in the face of his colossal indifference. Until one day, she just gave up trying. She had grown tired; she faced the truth finally. He has never loved me. He loves her. He married me, loving her. Her marriage had been broken from the start.

His arms pull me in tighter, and the hold he has on me is more than an embrace, more than a hug. He is holding me like he is terrified he would drown if he were to release me.

"Mina," he whispers. "I've been in Hell these past five years. I can't go a single day without you. I can't live without you. I'd die without you." He pulls back just enough for his lips to meet my hair, then grips me tightly again. "I'm a jerk who's incapable of loving anyone else, but you."

"I'm tired of pretending that I'm okay without you. I'm tired of pretending that I'm not thinking of you. I'm tired of pretending that it's not killing me to want to know what you're doing, where you are. I'm tired of pretending that I'm not missing you. I'm tired of pretending. I'm done pretending. I want to make it goddamn clear. That you're everything. My only thing."

My heart cracks open with his words.

But even as the pain rips me, I soar, my joy shimmering in the liquid ink of the night and I'm flying, light as a feather.

He wrap his arms around me. We are so close together, touching each other, linked into one.

What must it have been like for Luna, to know that when Jaemin climbed under the covers with her and held her in his arms, that it was me he was thinking of, that I would intrude in their most physical moments? I pretended it was you, he had said. I closed my eyes. I never once looked at her. We did it in the dark. I told her I preferred the dark.

But he's looking into my eyes now, as his hand strokes my hair. Mina, he's saying to me, his voice low, passionate, Mina, his eyes burning, his hands hot on my skin. Look at me, Mina. I want you to look at me. It feels to me like this is perhaps the most intimate moment we have ever shared.

I am the one who leans in for the kiss. And then his mouth is on mine, devouring me.

Afterward, I lay with my head on his chest, his arms encircling me, his steady heartbeat lulling me to a drowsy contentment.

He loves me, I think, and I love him. Happiness fills me, so deep and profound it nearly makes me dizzy.

"I love you," I breathe, and his arms tighten on mine.

"I love you," he whispers. "So much. So much." 

There are tears in his eyes, and he cups my face with trembling hands.

He looks down at my face with a kind of wonder, and I know now what I knew before, I know now what I have always known - that he will walk through fire for me.

I love him, but I hated her.

Tonight, finally, I stop hating her. Tonight, finally, after all this time, I pity her.

And with the pity, comes a blessed relief, a lightening.

I am at peace at last, at long last.

I let go of the past.