Title: you wound me
Rating: K
Fandom: The Inheritors, The Heirs, 상속자들
Characters: Cha Eun Sang, Kim Tan
Summary: Love is just an excuse to get hurt. Set at the end of episode 18.
Notes: NO I'M NOT WATCHING EPISODES 19 AND 20 I'M NOT LETTING THIS DRAMA END. /ugly crying
There is a bruise on her leg.
Cha Eun Sang brushes her fingers over the ugly discolouration, purple and yellow. She has no recollection of when she got it, exactly; was it when she was getting out of the car, too dazzled by love and the flash of cameras to notice where she was going? Was it when she plunged into the herd of paparazzi, with legs and umbrellas and expensive photo equipment flying?
Was it when she took his hand?
Because it hurts, really, to stand beside him, to feel his fingers twine with hers. It is the pang of foreboding, the ache of 'what am I doing here?' and the throb of 'will I drag him down?'
But it is beginning to pain her less.
Even though every tear of his was a knife in her smooth skin, even though she bit her nails so they bled when he left, her skin is beginning to harden. Young Do's barbs don't cut when she hears the wounded little boy behind them, Rachel's scowls do not hit her when she sees the broken doll she is, and the glares of everyone from the caterers to Kim Nam Yoon are inconsequential.
She pulls her red skirt down to hide the bruise.
When she enters the room to see Tan, besuited and radiant, she panics. His face falters, and his smile comes a little too late; his eyes are clouded. Distraught, she wonders what is wrong. Has something happened? Has his father already confronted him? Is she ugly? Has she torn her dress?
It is only when his smile splits his face that she realises:
'He thinks I am beautiful. He loves me.'
When she takes his hand and strides into the fray, it does not hurt at all.
