Everybody Wants to Rule the World

35

Trigger Warning(s): none

Angels by Within Temptation

~ Emira's Point of View ~

5:03 PM, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2028. ZHOUZHUANG, CHINA.

"And you know what happened after that. You went to the meeting, which was a set-up, Charlisa and I got you out of there... and here we are."

To put it simply, I was speechless. Jimin's story had been an emotional ride for all of us. Arlie became uncharacteristically silent, clenching and unclenching her fists in her lap. I was a wreck. I knew that my cheeks were stained with tears from the emotional ups and downs of Jimin's story, and my heart was aching. I didn't know how to feel – betrayed? Sympathetic? Angry? All emotions fell short of the thoughts racing through my head, and I discreetly wiped at my eyes because, no matter how awful I felt, none of us appeared more broken than Jimin.

The story had been more difficult for him to tell than for me to hear. He frequently took several minutes to compose himself, and he kept avoiding my gaze. Even now, his hands were shaking as he raked them through his hair, and he was taking measured breaths to quell the tears glossing over his eyes. He looked like he was experiencing a million emotions at once. There was anger – at himself, I supposed – and hurt, but most prominent of all was fear. Every now and then, our eyes would meet, and he looked run ragged with terror.

As much as I wanted him to feel okay, he had reason to be afraid. I certainly didn't see him the same as I had. He had willingly turned himself into a murderer, all for the sake of a psychopath who manipulated and seduced him. While it wasn't entirely his fault, I couldn't shake the awful feeling that had penetrated my gut when I entered the equation, when Anesa had told him to... to...

I knew what he said about that night, that it was him being selfish for once, taking what he wanted. But as a Psychology major, I also knew there must have been some part of him deep down that wanted to do as Anesa commanded, wanted to please her, wanted to prove himself and regain her trust. Either way, I was nothing more than a toy to be used for his pleasure.

"Do you..." We had been immersed in silence for several minutes, but Jimin broke it with his quavering voice. He chuckled, and the sound was humorless, his voice bitter. "Do you still love me?"

"I don't think it's that simple to stop loving another person," I admitted, "but... I can't... I can't pursue anything with you. Not anymore. Even though you couldn't tell me anything at the time, I still feel... betrayed."

"You're justified in feeling that way," Arlie said. "But – and I can't believe I'm saying this – you need to trust me when I say that whatever happened in the hotel, your being in Shanghai in the first place... none of that was Jimin's fault. He didn't know anything of Anesa's plot – he probably just assumed the double booking was an accident."

"That's not true," Jimin said weakly.

"I'm trying to help you out here, stup–"

"Yes, I thought it was an accident, but I'd been with Anesa long enough to have my suspicions. I just chose not to pursue them, and I should have. God... everything's my fault. I would be shocked if you ever wanted to see me again."

"I... I do feel sorry for what you went through, what you're going through," I tried to amend, purposely ignoring the validity of his last statement. "You're so much stronger than me."

He didn't hesitate to negate the statement with a shake of his head. "No, I'm not. I've made so many mistakes in the past seven years – they're almost innumerable. Most of them, thankfully, I can credit to being young and stupid, but the ones I can't... the more recent ones..." This time, when tears sprang to his eyes, he didn't stop to compose himself as he regularly had – he kept talking through them. "Those are the ones that hurt the most because, this time, I'm hurting an innocent person that I grew to love. And that, in turn, makes me look back on all the times I killed other innocent people, and I wonder if I would've defected sooner if I loved them. But there's a dark side to love. For you, Emira, as far as I know, the experience was beautiful. Is that... a correct assumption?"