"Money?" My watery eyes narrow in disbelief. Fingers clutch, claw, and hold the sheet to my chest with shakes. "Money?" I repeat, louder.

"Yes," Min Yoongi snaps, eyes staring with harsh intent to mine.

I sniffle, but there is anger that leaves my lips. I snap. I snap, all the frustrations he threw at me, all of what my parents threw at me, and now, all of what my silence threw at me.

I'm shaking. "MONEY?"

"Did you not hear me the first time? Should I write it down for you on a bill?" Yoongi steps towards me, I'm no longer intimidated in stepping back. I step forward myself.

Both our warm breaths are hitting each other.

"I'm not some gold-digging bimbo that needs your success! I'm not giving up my freedom—the love of my life—for some idol-money!" I'm yelling in his face now.

"Then why huh?" Yoongi claps back, "Why not stand up for yourself? Why accept everything your parents say for you to do?"

"The same reason you do it!"

"What?" Yoongi's eyes squint.

"We're both on the same page! When will you realize that?" My body shakes, my voice shakes, I'm shaking.

"We aren't for this through same reasoning we—" I cut Yoongi off. For the first time in a long time, I cut him off.

"We're both scared to face our parents," I spit the reason, "No matter how successful, no matter how old, no matter how prideful and strong we get! We'll always be scared to break out of what they make of us!"

Yoongi's eyes soften. I see the way all the assumptions he has of me drain out. Similar to the way his shirt tangled earlier at his feet, now his thoughts loop at his ankles.

"No matter how right you were to leave, to disobey, to follow your dreams...you see nothing but a troublemaker that accidentally made it! They make you feel selfish, unworthy of your success, and that's where the fear of manipulation sets because I feel the same!"

"Listen, I—"
I cut Yoongi off again.

"It's my turn to talk," I smack out, teeth clenching, "Let me finish."

Yoongi's lip seal.
He watches me shake,
Expressions gentler than ever.

No longer angry,
He sees me dish out with mine.

"Same manipulation, same belittlement...I'll always be just a little girl to them that needs saving. I need a man to take care of me, I need a rich boy from the city." My voice wavers soft, numb tears leaving my eyes, "They think I need you when I don't."

Yoongi says nothing.

"...if anything, it's my parents who are after your money. Not me."

The boy is worried. He's worried for how much I shake.

I break. No longer angry, I cry loosely and hate that I have been so much. Never have I cried as much as I have this week.
This week.
This week.
This day.
Right now.

"Not me," I whimper.

My finger lamely jabs at his chest.
Yoongi watches me breakdown,
He wants to come close to me. I can tell from the way his eyes narrow and blink fast from crying himself.

Yet. He doesn't come close.
He moves backwards.

"I'll see you soon."

My watery eyes are confused when looking up to meet his dead ones. After all that I've said, that's what I get?

"What?" I whisper.

"Bye," he mumbles, irritate with something so I assume it's me.

Bye. He says this and walks away with hands in his pockets. He walks away when I don't want him to.

I don't want him to.

"Yoongi?" My voice is delicate, not wanting to be alone.

The man ignores me, slamming my bedroom door shut as he walks out—leaving me to my thoughts.

.

I jolt away from my memories of two nights ago. Feeling the cold air hit my hair in odd movements as I jump, the breath at my lungs leaves me as a sigh.

I look around me, blinking back tears that collected while thinking back to that night. That night where I was left alone. That night where I spoke all I wanted...all I wanted.

Now, here I sit. Knees tight together while looking past the stairs to Yoongi's house. At the porch, the swing that moves slow in the wind causes slight shifts under me.

I'm wearing a white dress again. Ever since I came with a duffel bag on my shoulder and a forced smile on my face, Yoongi's mother invited me over for a stay. I bused over alone, lying that I got a ride.

"Oh sweetheart, stay inside with us," his mother had said the first five minute of me here, "Freshen up while I get the vegetables ready for dinner."

"Or would you like to skip all that and come with me to go buy meat?" His father had asked.

I forced my smile larger.
I stared past their shoulders.
Min Yoongi wasn't here, and they were going to be busy...

"I'll stay at the house," I had sweetly said.

Now here, in white, hair wet, and unknowingly wanting to catch a cold from the chilly air, I can hear Yoongi's mother in the backyard from the small pathway the side of the small house allows.

She is sweet to me. Giving me a new dress, assuring me to relax. She didn't expect anything of me. I liked that she didn't, her smile kind and eyes old with tiredness.

"Go wait for Yoongi-ah on the porch would you?" She had said, crouching with a basket ready at her hip. "I've got a surprise waiting for you there as well. Needed to get something appropriate for my only daughter."

I glance over at the notebook that sits in my lap. It's dark brown, crisp and new. The first sheet that has writing scribbled on is a sweet letter from both, Yoongi's mother and father.

"Read your scholarly novel sweetheart," Yoongi's father wrote, "Hope ideas flourish for you on here for a second book, soon?"

"Write well, write strong," Yoongi's mother wrote, "Make us proud."

The end made me feel warm with happiness and awe, but also weird in comparison to Yoongi and his struggles with his own goals. Plus the sadness that invited me when realizing these weren't my actual parents words made my skin crawl.

I pushed to be pleased and honoured by the gift of the notebook however, holding it on my lap and re-reading the note present.

Having the string strap to the solid silk dress fall off my shoulder, I didn't move it up. The nightie-like dress felt nice on my freezing skin. The way the strap fell tickled me. I smiled a little before looking up to see the lawn upfront.

Up the steps boats clanked and my knees tightened tensely. My ankles bare, tangled with each other, and my eyes were soft when meeting the man before me.

The man I hadn't seen for two days.
Min Yoongi.

I close the notebook on my lap. I pick at the corners, glancing down before awkwardly watching his feet from the corner of my eye. He's hesitant to come sit next to me, but he does.

The swing below us moves in a creak. I meet his sides next to me, staring at what he wears when I catch his eyes do the same to my bathed exterior.

He wears a black zip-up hoodie, dark jeans, and a face that is bare with messy hair hitting his tired eyes.

I wonder where he's been in the moments I haven't seen him. There is worry and curiousity to this wonder. My inner concerns sound like a wife already...

"Where's your necklace?" He nudges his chin over to my bare skin.

I don't speak to him. I look forward. Shifting away when his fingers lightly move strands of my hair away from my neck, my eyes bounce to his when his thumb cocks by my crook. "Where?" He taps my collar, making me shiver, and moves his hand away.

Pursing his lips with a nibble of his teeth, Yoongi looks away from my shoulders, my dress, my neck, and to my face. His arm is draped around me on the swing.

"In my bag upstairs."

He nods.

I watch him stare away and forward.

There is silence between us but it isn't awkward.

I stare forward myself.

In this moment, we find it easier to talk to each other when not staring.

"Want me to go get it for you?" His voice is softer than ever. I don't know how to read that, or take that question in.

"No thank you."

Yoongi nods. He gulps and I stare at his neck while he doesn't watch me. I can see the gold chain he hides under the hoodie he wears nothing under, making sure the ring isn't shown, but not obviously hidden either.

"You been okay these two days?"

"Yes." I look at his jaw. It's sharp, and he still faces away from me so I'm allowed to admire.

When the corner's of his eyes move to see me, I get slightly flustered and look forward, looking away.

"You?" I calmly ask, holding back my worried mind.

Yoongi smirks to the side a little. "You worrying about me?" He teases lightly, hearing most of what I thought I succeeded in hiding.

"Are you okay with me staying here for the remaining of days? That's what your parents want...but is that what you want?" I ask, changing the subject.

"We both know what I want," Yoongi says, annoyed. His tongue pokes at his cheek, his eyes taking long in searching for most in the distance I don't see. "You around me isn't it."

That stings a little, but I can't blame him for saying it with such annoyance. The only thing I can say is, "...so I'm guessing you're planning on doing nothing to change this?"

"Are you?"

I shake my head, saddened.

"Then that's that. We have no right to mope and cry if we're playing along with what they want." His voice is bitter, but it's still gentle. I don't know how he passes this but Yoongi makes it a possibility.

"I won't cry unless you make me," I whisper, broken and honest.

Min Yoongi shuts up at that.
I stare at his jaw again, watching it move in action with a flex.

He doesn't say much after that. The rest of the conversation broken down to a dry, muted, and fairly absent-minded train of thought.

"We'll marry."

"Yes," I say, defeated and accepting.

"We won't fight for a no?"

"I guess we won't..." my lips purse.

"You'll move out to Seoul?"

My eyes shut. "Yes." I don't try and think for myself anymore. I don't try.

Min Yoongi licks his lips, "I'll have a wife?"

"Yes."

"You'll be a secret..." that's not a question, so I say;

"We won't one day."

He slowly looks at me.
I innocently move back, not knowing how to manage his heavy-weighting eyes.

"What else?"

My brows furrow lightly. "Sorry?"

"What else...one day..." Yoongi looks to my naked lips.

"What do you mean?" I can't handle the stares he gives to my mouth. The very parts he gawks at, I peer open afraid to breathe so harsh.

"Will we kiss one day?" Yoongi looks to my eyes.

"I don't know," I honestly whisper.

"Kids? Will you give me kids one day?" I'm being swallowed up from his eyes that don't dare leave mine—there is courage he tests with me at this moment.

"I..." I don't know what to say to that. "Would you like me to...?" I awkwardly ask instead.

"No." He bluntly says.

My eyes narrow.

Yoongi stares away from my face and back to the lawn and evening sky. "I wouldn't want you to kiss me either." Like a sharp bandage, he rips the wound open for me to spot while muddled.

"Okay?" My voice is pathetic.

"Not going to ask my why?" His voice is pathetic.

"No."

He goes on anyway, "Because I know we're giving up now, but I truly believe we won't in the future."

"What?" My knee accidentally grazes Yoongi's jean and he doesn't twitch away from me.

"We're weak."

I seal my lips.

"We're waste-cases now, but I know we won't be like this forever...and when we do find courage, when we do find wit to break free once again, it'll be amazing."

"What're you saying?"

Yoongi smiles. It doesn't reach the patterns at his eyes that are empty. What he says could be considered rude, but I don't take it as such. "When you become like the women you studied in university, and when I become the fearless man I always pretend to be...we'll get a divorce."

"Divorce?"

Yoongi nods. He stares at my lips, my neck, my strap that leans far down my shoulder, the wet strands of hair, and my finally my eyes.

With a sigh that hits my face, his grin is bitter hastily. "Yes, divorce. I'll never be able to consider you my wife, ever...the farthest I'm able to push this reality of ours is if I have an option of getting rid of you later—a divorce: the end of our story."

I blink. "Has it always been hard for you to talk to people?"

"Excuse me?" Yoongi's grows defensive.

"...like sparing or thinking of others feelings?" I ask, heart out in the open, "Ever think of your words effecting people?"

"I'm trying to be hopeful here."

"Then be so in a way where it doesn't make me feel like shit." I snap, having my feet pat to the pavement of the cold porch.

"Maybe you should stop being so sensitive?"

"Says the man who barley holds any emotions."

"Don't act like you know me," Yoongi snaps bored, glaring at my back that straightens.

"I wish I didn't, but we're both losing in that department."

"Sit down."

He watches me hug the notebook to my chest, not listening to him lamely try to order. "Sit by yourself," I mumble, turning to enter the home, "Get used to how it'll be like when you're alone and divorced."

"You littl—"

I close the front door on his words.

The rest of the week consists of exactly this; the silent treatment with the mix of annoyance.

...then marriage? Just like that? It's still hard for both of us to believe.

[ NEXT CHAPTER ]

💍 😭👰< —— that's the hint.