Believe Again: I love you

Well, here they were again. On a bench in a park, having ice cream, sitting in silence.

Except this time the silence wasn't quite so comfortable. No, it was thicker now, more awkward. And even though they were sitting side by side on a bench facing the pond, the gap between them felt bigger than it should.

Saeran didn't quite know how he felt about that. It had been three years, things would have changed somewhat. She had changed. Her hair was longer now, her expression neutral and blank as she ate her ice cream quietly and stared out at the pond. Before, she seemed content, relaxed, but now, her shoulders were tense, her jaw set and her lips pursed into a thin line. She hadn't snuck a single peek at him, even though she used to do sneak sideways glances at him when she thought he wouldn't notice.

Things were different now. And a part of him was disappointed. It was stupid of him to think that they could just pick up where they left off if they ever met again. He had been living in his daydreams for too long, and now that reality was sinking in—now that she was actually here with him—it felt like someone had thrown a cold bucket over his head, the water sloshing down, seeping into his skin and bones.

He could only eat his ice cream in silence too, not knowing what to say or do, even though there were so many questions in his mind right then: why are you here? How did you find out where I was? How have you been doing since everything that happened? Were you safe? Have you been happy?

Do you blame me for what happened?

Can you forgive me?

And… do you still… feel the same way as me?

"Your ice cream's melting."

Her soft voice jerked him out of his thoughts and his head snapped towards her direction, where she was pointing to his hand. He followed her finger and noticed that droplets of the sweet, chocolate cream were falling onto his hand.

She reached into her bag and handed him some wet tissues, while he attempted to lick up the melting cream to stop it from dribbling down his wrist.

"Here."

"Thanks."

Their fingers brushed against each other's briefly. The contact sent heat through his fingertips, and he pulled away a little too fast, still holding on to the tissues. She didn't seem all too surprised by his reaction, but he felt the need to apologise nevertheless. "S-Sorry…"

He cleaned himself up quickly, and resumed eating his ice cream with renewed vigour as a distraction to his beating heart and the warmth in his cheeks.

"You haven't changed," she commented, and he wasn't sure what to make of that tone. It felt nostalgic, but also a little bitter. "I mean, save for the contacts. This is your real eye colour, isn't it?"

His eyes fell to the floor, feeling bashful all of a sudden. "Yeah, it is." He had stopped wearing his contacts a long while back. He ran out of them—there was no time to pack them in when they moved here.

The other reason—the more important one—was that he no longer felt the need to remind himself about his past. It was finally over, Mint Eye, its illegal activities, everything. And it was long past the time he should have let it go and put it all behind him.

He had to move on.

Finally gaining the courage to look at her, he began to study her face, trying to find traces of the innocent woman he remembered her to be.

He found none.

"You've changed."

Her eyes widened by a fraction, but a brooding smile formed on her lips as she looked away.

"I guess I have."

"How… have you been?" he asked carefully, feeling as if he was on a minefield. One wrong move, one wrong word, and she might leave. At least, it felt that way.

"I've been better."

Saeran didn't understand. Had she gotten better after that ordeal? Or was she better in general because he had been out of her life for the past few years?

He decided he didn't want the answer to that, so he switched the topic. "Your hair is longer now. It looks different. And it's uh- it's nice," he added hastily, not wanting her to misunderstand.

A small smile lifted her lips, one that didn't reach her eyes. "Thanks."

No follow-up. No questions for him. It was ironic; she used to be the one asking him questions, being the curious one. Now, their roles had reversed completely, and he started to wonder if this was how it felt when she first spoke to him back then.

Well, if she didn't have questions for him, then he would ask them since he had plenty, and he was dying to get some answers.

"Why did you come here? Did you know I was here? Or was it just coincidence?"

Her answer was one he didn't expect. And it came before he could prepare himself.

"I wanted to see you again, for the last time."

"W-What do you mean?" The words tumbled out of his mouth more anxious and shocked than he intended to sound. An ache pounded in his chest, the pain sharp like a knife to his heart. They had finally met after all this time, and this was supposed to be their last time?

"I came to see you because I needed closure," she said, finally looking at him again. But he didn't like the look in her eyes. They were steeled, determined… The last time she looked like that, it had been to convince him to give her a chance, to open up to her.

But now, it was the opposite. She had made up her mind that this would be their final meeting. And his heart was sinking deeper and deeper like a dead boulder into the pits of his stomach the longer she hesitated to reply.

"What do you mean this is the 'last time'?" he asked again.

"When… you left, Saeyoung wrote me a number. He told me I should call it if I was ever in danger, just in case something went wrong or some loose ends weren't tied up after everything that happened. Two months ago, I called—"

Saeran's mind went into full alert. His ice cream cone fell to the floor and he sat forward, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you in danger? What happened? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she said, removing his hand. "I didn't call because I was in trouble."

"Oh… okay." He deflated slightly in his seat, letting out a relieved sigh. Images of her back in that cell, the blade of that knife to her arm… they were surfacing in his mind all over again. He would never forgive himself if he failed to protect her a second time.

"Then, why?"

"I needed closure," she repeated, a faraway look in her eyes. Her fingers dug into her jeans, and he noticed the slight quiver in her lips when they parted again to speak. "I… I still get nightmares. From back then."

Her admission made regret and guilt twist in his gut. He had expected as much, but hearing it from her still hurt the same, more than he thought it would. The guilt was a weight growing heavier on his chest by the second.

"I've been going for therapy and I've tried to move on, but I couldn't. In the back of my mind, there was always you. The last thing I remembered of you was you tied up in that cell, and I never got the chance to know that you were okay."

Did… Did that mean she still cared for him? Saeran felt his heart soar with the realisation, but it lasted for only a moment. The look in her eyes remained the same, and the finality of her words from before—that she had come to see him for the last time—echoed painfully in his mind.

"I decided to call Saeyoung. I wanted to see you again, see for myself that you were okay, and…" A shaky breath escaped her when she trailed off. He waited patiently for her to speak again.

"And… I wanted to properly end things between us."

He was expecting it. She had said it from the start—that this meeting would be their last. And yet her words still came like a hard slap in the face, and all he could do was stare at her, confusion and hurt unfiltered in his eyes.

All he could ask was, "Why?"

"We… never ended things properly. Things got messy, you had to go, all contact was lost… It was killing me to keep thinking about all the 'what-if's, to keep imagining how things might have been different if… if they had been different. It's been three years. I want to move on, I want to put all this behind me and just… breathe."

He couldn't say anything. Couldn't speak a word to convince her otherwise. Because he knew exactly what that felt like. He knew just how suffocating it could be, be constantly haunted by the past, the memories and the nightmares, to feel like a prisoner of his own mind.

"I'm sorry," was all he could offer. Two miserable, pathetic words. In the end, he could only ever take from her, while all he could give her were empty words and empty hands.

"What are you sorry for?"

"I… If I had been more careful, then maybe- maybe they wouldn't have targeted you. You wouldn't have gotten hurt, wouldn't have gone through all that—"

"That's not what I blame you for," she interjected, and he immediately dismissed as comfort that she felt pressured to say in that moment.

But then he took a double-take, replaying her words in his mind, letting their meaning slowly sink in.

She blamed him. But for reasons he didn't know about.

Even he wasn't stupid enough to ask "why" in this situation, despite it being the only question on his mind now. He tried racking his brains for other reasons, ones that were more compelling than the fact that he had dragged her into all this because he had been careless.

But what could possibly be worse than that?

"You… don't know." It wasn't a question. Neither was it an accusation. It was just an observation. And he could see both disappointment, anger, frustration, a swirl of other emotions bubbling to the surface and joining the fray, her neutral, carefully tailored demeanour beginning to crack.

"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.

"You don't know what you're sorry for." Her voice was tight, strained. Trembling with emotion, on the brink of bursting.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that."

He bit down on his lip before he could parrot the two words again. What else could he say? He didn't know. He really didn't know what else she might be blaming him for. In his panic his mind was starting to draw a blank, and he was coming up empty. He couldn't think of the answer, even though he usually had them when it came to assignments and exams.

What was his stupid brain even for, if it was going to be so useless when he needed it most?

"Aren't you at least going to ask me 'why'?" Her tone had turned icy—he had never heard her speak like this before. And yet it was familiar, somewhat, striking a bitter chord within him.

It was just like how he spoke to Saeyoung back then, when they met again after all those years of being apart, of misunderstanding each other.

He didn't dare to speak. He wanted to ask "why", but the word wouldn't come out. Maybe it was because the answer was already there, right in front of him. Hearing her like this, seeing her fingers curl into fists and her eyes turning misty… he remembered.

He looked just like her back then too.

When he was abandoned.

His silence had dragged on for too long, and abruptly, she stood up, angling her head away from him to hide the tears that were threatening to spill out.

"I… I'm done here. Goodbye, Saeran. Let's not meet again."

He wasn't about to let her leave so easily. Immediately he sprang to his feet, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back with more force than intended. She tumbled backwards, spinning around and crashing straight into his chest.

And he held her. Tightly. Caged her in with his arms and held on for dear life, even when she demanded for him to let go, even when she struggled to escape.

"I shouldn't have left you," he said, his voice small and meek by her ear. She froze, stiffening up momentarily. "I shouldn't have left without saying goodbye. Without saying anything. I'm sorry."

His words took some time to sink in, and then the weight of his words had her arms falling to her side, as if defeated. Resigned.

"But you did."

The words stung, but it was the truth. He had left her behind, without even saying goodbye. Without telling her where he was going, or for how long. He had left her on her own to recover the pieces that were left of her after her ordeal, left her when she needed support most. When she needed him most.

And to think he believed he was protecting her all this while. Keeping her safe by keeping her out of his life, making sure she knew nothing about him so that she wouldn't be tangled up in his affairs anymore.

"I'm sorry." The two words again, but this time they were more emphatic, more sincere. Maybe it didn't make a difference. "I thought I was protecting you by keeping you away. After everything that happened I didn't want to put you in harm's way again. And with the possibility of us being tracked down, I couldn't risk it again. I couldn't risk having you in danger twice."

He wrapped his arms tighter around her, but his back remained cold. Empty. Her hands were still by her sides.

"I know that," she told him. "I know things were dangerous. I expected as much. But you never reached out or tried to contact me. Not even once. Was that protecting me too?"

"I thought-"

"You were just running away. Pushing me away like you always did."

His grip slackened. He… had been running away? From her?

No, no, she had it all wrong. He was trying to protect her. Who was to say there wasn't anyone tracking him and his family down at this very moment? What if he let his guard down again and got her in trouble again?

She took the opportunity to push him away from her, leaving them an arm's length apart. The air felt colder now that her body warmth was gone, and he didn't have the energy to pull her back to him. All he could do was quietly watch while she wiped away the tears from her face.

"I'm tired… Let's just end things here."

He didn't want that. It couldn't end like this. He didn't dream of meeting her again only to have his last memory be of her crying and heartbroken because of him, because he had abandoned her, because he had gone and done the exact same thing that had left him estranged from his own twin brother for years.

No, actually, he had done worse. So much worse. He had convinced himself that he was protecting her by keeping silent, by doing absolutely nothing, when in fact he had just been a coward all along, too afraid and ashamed to face her after causing her so much pain.

"Wait," he called out, stopping her before she could turn to leave. "I don't want things to end like this. I'm sorry. You're right—I was a coward. I was too ashamed to talk to you so I didn't, pretended that everything was alright and I neglected to think about how you might have felt or what you needed all this time. I wasn't there for you when you needed it most. It was stupid of me and if I could turn back time and do things all over again, I would."

Silence. He waited nervously for her to speak again, hoping hard that she would change her mind.

"What's done is done, Saeran." Damn. He wished he didn't have to hear her utter his name in such a sad voice. "I appreciate you saying that now, but I'm not changing my mind."

He reached out to take her hand, stopping her from leaving. "Give me another chance. Please."

"Why?" she asked, wrenching her hand from his grasp. "Why should I? Almost every day, I was waiting. Waiting for a message, a call, something from you. You had all this time and you never came around, you never looked for me, never cared. I was stupid to have held out hope for so long, and I'm done. I can't do this anymore… I'm so tired."

"Then I'll do it." He closed the gap between them, taking her hand once more and holding it tighter this time. "I'll hope for us. I'll put in the effort this time, and maybe I won't ever be able to make it up to you fully, but I'll try."

"Why? I don't need you to do this just because you feel guilty—"

"It's because I love you."

That seemed to stun her enough to make her pause, stop struggling and to properly look at him. The pain in her eyes were clear as day, unshed tears glistening in the setting sun's rays. Her jaw was clenched as she tried to hold back her tears and compose herself, but try as she might to conceal her feelings, he could feel her pulse begin to race through her wrist.

Saeran thought he would be blushing and panicked if he ever confessed to her, but he had never felt more cool-headed. His heartbeat was still fast, but it wasn't pounding. His mind was clear, words measured and confident, his eyes not shying away from the hurt in her own, from the mistakes that he had made.

"All this time, I thought it would be best if you forgot about me, fell in love with someone else and started afresh. Or at least, I wanted to think that. So I tried to move on too. I thought with time, I would be able to erase my feelings for you, and start living a fresh life here with Saeyoung and MC. But I was never able to move on. Everything reminded me of you—the clouds, ice cream, the park, the nightmares... And every time I thought about you living a happy life with someone else, it killed me to think about it."

He took a deep breath, feeling moisture start to gather in the back of his eyes.

It was scary to be putting everything out here, into the silence and space between them. But he supposed that was what she had always been doing, pouring out her feelings while he listened and absorbed, tucked them away into a corner in his heart without giving anything to her in return.

Today though, she was listening to everything—his breaths, his tiny sniffles, his drumming heartbeat through his hand.

This was the very least he could do for her. He wasn't the most eloquent, not the most romantic, and he had no right to be saying all this, not when he had broken her heart first.

But this was the first step he had to take to make it up to her, to get her back.

It was his turn to fight.

"I guess what I'm saying is: I love you. I still do, and always have. So give me a chance to make it up to you. I promise, I won't let you go ever again."

A/N: well... it's been a while since i wrote something this emotional :"( Did you expect the reunion to turn out like this? :) would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Thanks for reading as always!