6 - Not A Game

The ride back home was quiet, an uncomfortable silence that was slowly getting on Yuna's nerves and irritated her. Yerin wasn't one to not talk to her unless they were arguing about anything. However if the latter wasn't talking, then how she would know what the older girl was mad about?

"I asked Yein how's her puppy doing, she said Myuchi is healthy and gaining more weight now," Yuna tried to cheer her up, but Yerin was still silent without a response.

Not working...

"What did you and Yein's girlfriend talk about? I'm sure you got along well since the both of you are the same age," she didn't give up and still could sound cheerful when she asked her wife.

"........"

Sigh...Yerin was really putting her off.

"Look," Yuna breathed in as she stared at her driving wife. "You're really ruining the mood. Why are you acting so childish like this again?"

Yerin side glared at the girl on the passanger seat. "I'm driving," she replied nonchalantly.

Yuna scoffed in disbelief. Just before and during the dinner the pale-skin girl's mood was fine and they ate in a lovely air. Why she had suddenly changed in a blink of an eye after Yuna came back from the toilet?

Came back from the toilet...

That's it!

"Something must have happened when Yein and I were gone. Or are you jealous of your own cousin?" she inquired without giving up.

"Aish Choi Yuna please!" Yerin snapped. "Let me focus on the road!"

Her wife crossed her arms, showing her protest. Yerin was acting ridiculous now, throwing fit for no obvious reason.

When they arrived at their apartment, Yuna stomped her feet to her room without waiting, openly protesting against Yerin's unbelievable behaviour. She hated to act the same way like Yerin did, but she couldn't help it when the latter was being mean and not telling her anything.

Sighing to herself, Yerin watched Yuna disappeared upstairs and laid her back on the comfortable sofa in the living room. She didn't mean to hurt her wife's feelings like the way she did now, in fact when the younger got worked up because of her attitude and was sulking, it was painful for her too. But her brain was in a great mess and it couldn't be helped Yerin wasn't the type to talk it out with anyone. Instead she kept it to herself then would lash out her anger when someone bothered her more.

Like what happened just now.

She was initially angry at her cousin Yein who had dinner with her earlier. However, there was no reason why she would be angry when the latter did almost nothing that could infuriate her.

Almost. That word alone indicated a potential problem.

All the circumstances she faced for these past days just drove her mad. She remembered vividly all scenes passed her vision and there couldn't be either way they were only her own hallucination.

Yerin recalled when she saw Yuna at the hospital, lied lifelessly depending on the machine. Then the doctor declared her death. Yerin wailed, so loud and painfully. The funeral, the image of her entire family in black attires, became mourners while receiving condolence wishes left and right. Losing her job, quitting from her long dream career.

Yerin remembered being depressed. Mourning and crying endlessly from the lost of her wife. How could she forget it all? They were a life-changing cycle in her life.

Then suddenly she was brought back to a year before, repeating almost all the things she had experienced in that span of time. Except now she was more careful and avoided the mistake she knew that would have been done.

Was this the so-called famous dejavu?

No, it was beyond that. More than one could imagine. The reason Yerin was lost. There was no explanation how it came to this. She was suffocated from the desperation to know the answer.

Jung Yein. That certain (ex) magician girl could have had the answer that Yerin wanted. She inwardly muttered that name for many times, until it became accustomed with her heart. The girl's girlfriend's words stung in her heart and mind that she became numb.

"She played with time."

They were stuck inside her head like a magnet attaching closely to its metallic materials.

Slamming her hands against the soft couch, she reached for her phone from the coffee table before her and dialed her cousin's number.

"Yein, we need to talk! I need to see you now!"

There was no turning back. Yerin was stern and furious. The girl on the other line was taken aback, by surprise and somehow nervous.

"Sure."

***

Given the location Yein shared to her, Yerin left the house without saying a thing to her wife. The sky had turned darker, clouds were unseen and there was not many stars up there. Even the moon only provided dim light. Glum and serious, like her feelings. Not even the songs played from the radio could cheer her up.

It was a misery just to imagine her life was played by someone else. Like she was resigned to a certain fate made by some mere human beings, cruel and heartless. Yerin wasn't ready to hear the confirmation if what she felt was true, but she needed to confront Yein sooner or later anyway. This fate, that she was able to live her life happily with Yuna by her side again, was a fate made by Yein? That the doe-eyed former magician had reversed the time so Yuna could return in her arms?

There was no answer until she met Yein.

Knowing it was a serious matter Yerin wanted to talk about, the younger girl had asked her girlfriend to take their puppy to their room and let the cousins be left alone. The truth was about to be uncovered and Yein didn't want Myungeun to get herself involved if ever any anger would blow out between the former pair.

The place Yein lived in wasn't as tidy as Yerin expected it to be, but it wasn't a big mess either. Just nice and comfortable to have guests come over.

"I'm sorry my place is a bit of a mess. My friends often hung around here, playing games and everything," the girl humbly began. However, Yerin didn't come here to sit comfortably.

"I want to ask you something," she was straight to the point without hesitance. "Please be honest with me!"

Now or never, ready or not...

Yerin took a deep breath and looked up...

"It's true!" Yein confessed out of sudden.

Yerin was stunned. She didn't even manage to say anything yet, but her cousin beat her to it.

"What is true?" she was playing fool.

"Your agony, the things that you were worrying about, they're all true!" Yein's gaze was deep. "I have returned the time to you!"

***

She felt the world collapsed on her. Her head was spinning. She was numb. Yein's confession had her surrounding felt dark and suffocating. Yerin could barely breathe.

"You didn't me expect me to take this calmly, did you?" Her voice managed to speak up after a while.

"I...expected you would not like it," the former magician slyly remarked.

"Then how dare you..." Yerin clenched her fists beside her hips, eyes shut tight, hands trembled and breath heavy. "Am I a joke to you?" The younger girl suddenly looked so small in her eyes now that she narrowed her gaze. "Jung Yein?!"

"I'm sorry," the girl looked really apologetic, her voice was low. "I only did it to save you."

The statement only angered Yerin more. "How in the world it could save me? You took Yuna and I as a game for your damn magic trick! How do you think I would be feeling to know my life is being played by a low-minded girl like you?!" she was practically yelling, voice echoing in the house loud that even attracted Myungeun to check on the situation from the staircase.

If Yein was calm before, now she's about to release a storm.

"Game, you said? I can accept you insulted me as low-minded, but don't ever doubt I looked up to you seriously!" she raised her volume. "Yuna unnie died, that's her fate! It's you who can't accept that, then you committed suicide!"

"This is not a fiction!" the older cousin denied.

"I'm not creating a story on my own!" Yein snapped. "I only did it to save your life, and by means I have to make Yuna unnie returned to us!"

The girl unexpectedly was close to tears. "I'm not playing a game, unnie. I did so much so you can have a normal life."

Yerin broke down. She couldn't look up at Yein in the eyes anymore.

***

Yuna came down from her room to find the house was empty. Her wife had gone out without telling her anything, it was upsetting. Was Yerin's mood really that bad that she couldn't bother to make a sound while going out?

Eventually she fell asleep in the bedroom alone while waiting for Yerin to come home. The older girl's attitude might annoy her, but Yuna couldn't stay mad for long when she loved the former that much.

She felt like she was dreaming when someone suddenly held her hand, tightly like the person couldn't bear to lose her. Vulnerable, that was the perfect word she could describe when it came to the person.

The girl opened her eyes to see it was Yerin who was holding her right hand beside the bed. The back of her said hand was close to the older girl's lips. And she heard a sound of a sob.

Yerin came home crying, regret showed across her face, and like Yuna described before, her wife was vulnerable next to her.

"Yerin?" she sat up on the bed and her face was laced with concern. "Why are you crying?" Yuna frowned.

The back of her hand was kissed. It was wet from Yerin's tears. The older girl sobbed softly against her skin. Yuna raised her hands to cup her wife's face and wipe her tears away. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," the tears wouldn't stop pouring. "I'm sorry for everything. I love you so much," her voice was low and hoarse, almost inaudible. "I can never live without you!"

It tugged Yuna's heart so bad that had her eyes stung. Her face grimaced as she tried to hold back her tears. "Please don't say that. I love you too!" her thumb carrassed Yerin's paled skin softly.

"Promise me you won't leave me again, ever!" Yerin buried her face on the crook of Yuna's shoulder, begging desperately.

Yuna's lips quivered, but she gained some strength to say something back to Yerin.

"I will never leave you," she promised.

A low part of herself whispered internally. "I never left."

That was only she thought so.

***

Yerin was depressed, but it wasn't as worse as how she received the news about Yuna's death. But she knew her wife had once dead, and now came back from the help of Yein.

The married couple now cuddled in bed, Yerin sought comfort from Yuna's gentle pat on her arm, her other hand played with the former's bang. The latter did nothing but gave assurance and peace that the older girl felt calm again after her breakdown.

Meeting Yein was not a mistake, but discovering the truth hurt so much that it left a scar. However like the former magician said, it would help Yerin to feel so much peace and at ease for the later.

"It's true Yuna unnie died," Yerin flinched at the painful fact. "And I had reversed the time to a year before the accident."

"Why did you help me?" the older cousin cried. "I did nothing but disliked your presence around us."

"You might not be fond of me that much, but I helped you because I want you to live, because I really, really like you," Yein said. "Not in a romantic way, but you're so admirable that I respect you so much, alongside Eunbi unnie."

Yerin recalled what Myungeun had told her when they had dinner together (*read previous chapter).

"I was in Canada at that time, but Eunbi unnie texted me (via kakaotalk) about you committing suicide after you lost your job. They found you unconscious in your home," there were so much details. "You were overdosed with pills because you were depressed."

A tear rolled down from her eyes. "So I died." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah," Yein nodded her head. "That's why I attempted to save you by returning to the time before both you and Yuna unnie's death, because I know you don't want to live without your wife."

Yerin felt so pathetic, especially knowing that the girl she had a slight (could be an understatement) annoyance on was also the one who helped her felt alive by returning Yuna to her side. Now her wife was alive back again, healthy and beautiful.

"But remember, the incident will repeat itself since we only returned back to the time before it happened. By that time occured, I hope you can save Yuna unnie," Yein reminded her.

So Yuna would have a chance to die again if Yerin failed to reverse the situation before the accident, that's what she learned. This time she swore to herself that she would protect Yuna no matter how it took, because she couldn't lose Yuna again.

"Why did you cry so much, Yennie?" Yuna sounded so sad for her wife. She couldn't help but flashed back the image of Yerin breaking down beside her and holding her hand tight. It pained her to know Yerin wouldn't share what made her so upset with her.

"It hurt so much," Yerin's thumb slowy over Yuna's lips. "Just by thinking you could leave me forever."

"Also," Yein's voice rang at the back of her head. "The subject of this reversing time can never know about this. Yuna unnie should never know that both you and I brought her back to life. I've erased every memory to that one year to everyone except for you."

Yein made the rules clear. Only Yerin could know about this and not anyone else, especially Yuna.

"I'm sorry for being a jerk to you," Yerin acknowledged her behaviour after the dinner. "Don't leave me," she begged.

"I promise," Yuna said before scooting closer and kissed Yerin's lips, deep and full of passion like her vow to never leave her wife (again).

***I hope this chapter makes it clear to you guys what is the truth👀👀👀 From Yerin's committing suicide, you can refer to chapter 1 and 2 :) Have a nice reading ^^