Neunundzwanzig

I knew my eyes were dead swollen and that I probably had ugly tear marks all over my cheeks by the time Jongin came back to pick me up. But still in a sort of painful daze, I ignored my parents’ and Jongin’s curious gazes and made a beeline for the front door.  

“I’ll come back again to visit.” Was all I said before exiting the house. As much as I would love to stay more at home, but right now I was in no condition to answer the swarm of questions that was probably bubbling inside my parents.

Jongin too, after giving my parents a bow, followed suit after me. And catching up to my fast strides easily with his long legs, Jongin grabbed my arm and swirled me around so that I was facing him. Pressing my lips together, I quickly turned my face away from him and hoped that my hair would cover my current state of fragility.

“Nari, what’s wrong?”

I kept my face sideways and refused to answer.

“Nari, answer me.”

Still, I gave him no answer.

“Nari!”

Even though Jongin’s tone changed from gentle to demanding, I did not budge from my position. Sighing, Jongin seemed to have sensed how exhausted I was right now and let go off my arm.

The drive back to Jongin’s penthouse was silent.

But contrary to the other times, this silence wasn’t suffocating. Perhaps it was because Sehun’s farewell was still so raw in my brain that Jongin’s presence became insignificant all of a sudden, or perhaps after crying and wrenching my heart out for so long I had now reached a point where my over exertion of energy developed into a sense of exhaustion, but finally in a long time, my brain stopped thinking.

And in that state of nothingness, I found myself quickly falling asleep.

I did not know how long I slept for, but in my deep slumber, I seemed to have felt someone carrying me into the house and onto the bed. In my unconscious state, the arms felt strong and warm. But when I woke up from my sleep, the warmth evaporated as quickly as it came as I noticed that I was once again back in that pink room with white paint dotted around the pink walls randomly.

After that time I tried to paint the walls white and failed to make Jongin angry, I never really bothered with fixing it. And seeing how I didn’t complain about the walls, Jongin too didn’t mention anything.

But right now, at this moment, the white messy splashes of paint on the otherwise smooth pink walls seemed strikingly out of place. Frowning, I felt my head ache as the mismatched colours began messing with my head – and the peaceful nature of my mind in the car quickly took a painfully complicated turn.

Letting out a disgruntled sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to force the image of the wall away from my mind. Just when I was starting to feel more at ease, my phone suddenly rang, startling me out of my daze.

My heart beating fast from the sudden jolt of surprise, I had to calm down a little first before picking up the phone. But as soon as I picked it up and saw who was calling me, I immediately placed it back down and rejected the call.

It was from Park Chanyeol.

Though I did promise him that I would have a proper talk with him in our last conversation, but this guy always somewhat choose to call in my worst moments. And as much as I should answer the phone, but with Sehun still fairly fresh on my mind, I did not have the appetite to report to Chanyeol about my relationship status with Jongin.

Rrrring.

Groaning softly to myself as the phone rang again, I picked it up and spoke in a hushed voice in case Jongin could hear me.

“Hello?”

An annoyingly familiar snobbish sigh came from the other end of the line.

“Oh, so now you decide to pick up,” Chanyeol was as sarcastic as ever, “I see you’re so very enthusiastic about this plan that I’m working my off for you.”

My lips formed into a thin line and I chose not to say anything in case I accidentally ‘snap’ and go on a rampage.

“Hello? You there?” Chanyeol called into the phone when I did not answer.

“I’m here.”

“Sheesh…took you long enough to answer,” The sentence came more like a mumble to himself but I heard it anyway. After clearing his throat, Chanyeol then asked me the question I dreaded to hear the most, “Anyway, how is your relationship with Jongin right now? Are you two very lovey dovey?”

“Yes.”

That was a lie. I knew Jongin did not believe that I love him…and even if he does believe that I love him from a logical point of view due to my change in attitude and my harsh rejections towards Sehun in front of him, but I knew his heart didn’t trust what his brain did.

“You liar.” Chanyeol echoed the voice in my heart, “from what I know, you’re in a pretty bad position.”

Narrowing my eyes, I was starting to feel annoyed. If Chanyeol already knew about my position with Jongin probably due from the spies he’s sent out or whatever, then why does he want me to report back to him?

And hence with that uncomfortable feeling in my heart, I voiced out my complaint to Chanyeol.

“Why bother asking me then if you already know the answer?” I knew my attitude was pretty stiff, but I wasn’t exactly in the best mood either, “what’s the point in this conversation that we’re having right now?”

“Oh, there’s many ‘points’ in this conversation we’re having right now,” Chanyeol smirked, “I mean, of course I’m calling you to inform you on how you should act in order for Jongin to trust you enough at least for it to last until the betrayal happens.”

“And what should I do?”

“Well, maybe some…skinship will help?”

“Skinship…?” I frowned, “I’ve told you already, Chanyeol. I’m not going to be doing that with Jongin, no way.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to if you did a better job of making him believe you.” Chanyeol’s reply was snarky, “but now unless you trick his heart into believing that you love him, then there’s no way our plan would succeed. Listen, Nari, we have a week left until the plan is to happen. A week. Right now, my brother is at a state where he half believes that you’re going to leave him. If this goes on, our plan isn’t going to drive him up the wall, okay?”

I grew silent, and in my silence, Chanyeol let out another long sigh.

“Nari, think about this logically.” Chanyeol calmed down his tone and spoke slowly, “Would you prefer to have a ‘one-night stand’ with him, or would you prefer to get married to him and still do the ‘deed’ eventually? I mean, you have to do it anyway, but it’s a matter of whether you leave him, or stay by his side.”

If it was possible for silence to grow even more silent, then I was in this kind of state right now. Though Chanyeol’s words made sense, but everything just felt so wrong.  How much more do I have to sacrifice in order to escape from his grasp?

When I remained silent, Chanyeol broke it by heaving out an irritated sigh. Clearly, he wasn’t the type to be able to endure silence well…unlike Sehun and Jongin who seemed to always fall back into silence with me so much I felt like it was becoming a cliché. A boring cliché in my already mediocre life.

But who could I blame for the turn of events? Who could I blame but myself? If only I didn’t act so hot-tempered and pick a fight with Jongin that one night many months ago in the night market, if only I wasn’t stupid enough to actually sign that goddamn contract-

“-Yah!” The annoyed snap from the other end of the line jolted me away from the daze I was falling into. “Are you listening, Nari?”

“H-huh?” Still slightly out of it, my reply was incredulously stupid. Chanyeol must’ve let out his hundredth sigh since the conversation as he once again relea