The Bond
Der Märchenclub
Chapter 34
[The Bond]
Jessica did not know where to start.
Three days after the bloody night of Der Märchenclub’s meeting that took away the lives of Kim Kangin and Park Jung Soo, Jessica decided to visit Donghae again in his asylum. The last time she visited him had been quite traumatic. It had been the first time she saw him, but at the same time, not him. The first time she realized that there were two Donghae in this world, one the complete opposite of the other. True, they were both embedded in one same body, but they were different, entirely different.
She didn’t quite know which Donghae she was actually visiting that day.
When Jessica unsurely pushed open the door to the asylum’s visiting chamber, Donghae was already sitting on the chair in the center of the room. Exhaustion was clearly drawn on his face. The hospital shirt clung loosely on his thin frame and he looked thinner, worse than the last time she saw him. Being almost criminally charged and having to settle in a house for the imbecile, oh, how the great heir of the Lee Empire had fallen to the lowest pit.
But despite the downfall, Donghae was still a perspective young man himself. It didn’t take him more than a brief glance on his visitor to notice the hesitance that shadowed Jessica’s gesture –that plagued her mind. Nonetheless, he could never blame her for that. He was sick. He nearly hurt her. She had the perfect reason to be disgusted with him, and even if Jessica chose that moment to scream her loath at him, he would understood.
But Jessica stood there. Silent. Motionless.
Donghae decided to make it easier for her.
“You don’t have to come here, you know? You don’t have to risk yourself. I cannot fully control my other self well. I don’t know what I, what he, can do to you again. So please, just leave,” he spoke in a rather monotonous tone –spirit had rarely visited him anyway.
He waited for the fading footsteps. He waited for the sound of the closed door. But none. She did not move an inch.
He chuckled softly. “You are a stubborn girl, Sica.”
Her voice, once she finally found it, was choked out with difficulty. “Y-you’ll be okay. Everything will turn out to be okay from now on. You will recover and everything will turn back to normal again.”
He knew that a part of her words was not directed to him –it was directed to herself. Self-assurance was what she needed, she just desperately wished to wake up from the nightmare that had ended and had only begun to haunt her. He knew that the world did not work that smoothly. But Donghae reminded himself that he owed it to Jessica. He had been kept out of Der Märchenclub affairs during his treatment in the mental asylum. He was fighting his own monster here, but he knew that there were other monsters out there. He did not want Jessica to lose the battle. If self-assurance was something she needed to guard herself, than he would ensure his best to facilitate her.
He offered her a warm smile. “Of course. Everything will work out well in the end.”
He was lying. But it was the lie that she first introduced. Hence, as part of her responsibility, she would play along with it.
“Yes. Everything will be okay now. The killer finally confessed. Jung Soo was really the one behind all of this. Sungmin already took care of him. And the police also already captured Jung Soo’s ally, that girl whose voice I often heard prior to the misfortunes.”
Donghae did not say a word. He listened attentively to her words.
She continued. “It was not without sacrifice though. Kangin had to die that night.”
Donghae took a deep breath. He had never been close to Kangin, but still… “Kangin Hyung…” he bit his lips in silence to momentarily pray for his soul. After a couple of moments passed in silence, Donghae lifted his head again and asked, “How’s everybody been doing?”
“The Kim… from what I’ve heard… is facing a difficult time. T-that’s predictable. Their second oldest heir has just passed away. The Choi too. Everyone, actually. It might have been over, but…but…”
It was not a sentimental moment. Among all things, Jessica should have been glad. Her life would return back to normal then. The killers had been handled. No more incidents; no more killings; no more nightmare…
But she couldn’t control herself. Perhaps it was just about time. She was always hiding herself beneath the icy mask, pretending not to care, pretending not to be afraid. But it, she was not strong. She was afraid. She had imagined that when this all ended, she would be relieved, but no. Not really. It was only that moment, after everything had ended, in front of Donghae, only in front of him, that she broke.
Jessica cried.
It was the disbelief. The after shock that she finally felt after it all ended. Memories rushed inside her head. The moment when she received the invitation to Der Märchenclub, the moment when all those accidents and deaths occurred, the moment when she lost her rationality, lost the people she had probably learned to care about, the memories that would never be fully erased out of her mind.
Donghae hesitantly stood up from his chair. His instinct told him to embrace Jessica, but his conscience reminded himself: what if that person is awakened again? He could not control his other self. He could not predict when he would appear. And if he chose to resurface in front of Jessica and hurt her, Donghae knew he would never be able to forgive himself.
But her sobs continued. Her cries were far from being elegant. Jessica had always been that composed young woman who knew how to act mature, but right at that moment, she was nothing like those. Her cries were loud, her hands clumsily tried to wipe the tears that drenched her face. Suddenly he was reminded of her much younger self, the young Jessica who had the beautiful smile, who cried when she fell off the swing...
The little girl he cared so much about.
Donghae let his instinct took over. He approached the girl and slowly pulled her whimpering body close to his embrace. He did not know what to say, so he only tightened his embrace around her body.
“Lie to me,” she murmured between her sobs. “Tell me it is going to be alright…”
He sighed. “Jessica. I can’t –”
“Lie to me… please.”
His hand slowly caressed her brown locks. He closed his eyes and whispered next to her ears. “It will be alright. Everything will be alright…”
Her sobs slowly subsided. And she was mildly reminded at the memories of her past, of how Donghae was one of the very few people whose words she would always believe. Even when it was lie, even when it was not as sugar sweet as she had expected it to be, Donghae’s words were ones that could always calm her senses.
Something warm touched her heart.
In the midst of the pitch black nightmare, she began to see the soft light in him.
Yoona could not bring her feet to enter the room.
Donghae’s room had a small viewing window which allowed visitors to gaze at the inside of it. She knew that Jessica was there with her brother. And upon seeing the two hugged each other, Yoona knew that she did not have the right to enter.
Heechul only waited behind her, stealing a glance inside Donghae’s room to find out what made Yoona suddenly hesitated, and he understood immediately. Pocketing his hands intentionally to make himself look casual (oh, he was anything but that, lately), Heechul pointed out, “You can knock.”
Yoona turned her back against the door to Donghae’s room and faced Heechul instead. “I can’t.”
“Hae would be happy to see you. You two haven’t seen each other since…since that incident, have you?”
Yoona glanced at Heechul’s worried eyes. She knew that Heechul meant good, but good intention was often useless when faced with insecurity. “I still can’t,” she decided sternly as her feet carried her away from Donghae’s room. The steps she took were small, slow, almost lifeless. Heechul had to carefully watch over her back, praying that the girl would not suddenly collapse or anything. He knew that Yoona was a strong woman. Carefree most of the times, and ignorant too. But on the rarest time she decided on something, it would take a powerful might to make her change her mind.
They remained in silence until they reached the exit of the asylum’s building. The cool autumn breeze greeted her face as she walked to the parking lot.
Heechul clicked on the button of his automatic car key. His sport car’s alarm beeped and he indicated her to get in. Autumn’s wind could be too cold, he did not want her to get sick. To his relief, Yoona did not decide to do anything stupid like staying out in such weather. She nodded briefly to Heechul before she opened the door of the car and stepped in.
He followed her suit and the engine of the car. His hand reached out to the heater button, but he let his car remained on the same spot. He was not stepping on the gas pedal or spinning the steering wheel. Instead, he just waited for her.
Yoona exhaled a deep sigh. And she chose to deliver the secret first thing first in her opening speech.
“Donghae oppa is my blood-related brother. We have the same father.”
Surprise was an understatement for him. But perhaps the exhaustion from Kangin’s death had made Heechul rather passive about most of the things. Even when Heechul was su
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