Stephanie Hwang
I couldn't cry anymore. All I felt was numbness and my heart pounding. I went through this before, but it hurt more than last time. It hurt more than being hit, than being dragged across the room or shouted at. It hurt more because it was someone who I truly loved and who I placed my fragile heart in their hands.
I had no idea where he went, he just left. Will he even come back? I told myself that he will, that he'll never leave me.
I grasp the bed sheets, waiting for that same person to fill that empty spot, to be there breathing the same air in the same room as me. We would be laying on the bed together wrapped around each other laughing at nonsense as we usually do slowly drifting off to sleep as we tease each other.
I heard the door open and I glanced up, squeezing my hand when it wasn't the person I wanted to see.
"Oh, Stephanie. What happened?" Heechul said, kneeling beside me with concerning eyes scanning over me. Then I realized he had Prince in his arms. I reached out to rub his head and he squirmed out of Heechul's hold, laying beside me as he whimpered and looked at me.
It's like Prince knew.
"T-Tae. He left." I managed to sob out, holding onto the pillow in my lap as I held it to contain myself from exploding.
His eyes shifted into a pitiful look. I didn't want his special treatment, I didn't want anyone to pity me.
I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and sniffled. I gulped down the lump in my theist and cleared it, trying to make myself presentable at the very least.
"He cheated on me. He kissed fucking Juniel. Your idiot of a dongsaeng told me he loved me then went to grope that girl."
"I feel like a joke. You told me right before we had our fight to think about the relationship. You weren't even sure if we were going to last, and you were right." I said bitterly, smiling at how in that very moment I wasn't sure if I loved Tae. But I did.
Heechul ran his hand through his hair, sitting beside me while crossing his legs. "That fucking punk." He muttered.
"Remember what I told you? To leave when it got too bad because I won't blame you. No one will blame you. Fany-ah. You can leave." Heechul said, rubbing my back.
It got bad so many times, but I never left. But now, I'm not so sure.
"Where is he?" I managed to say.
"I don't know, but you can't leave the house. As much as it hurts I can't. We can't. It's for your own safety." He replied with a sympathetic tone in his voice.
"I wish I never got into this mess. I wouldn't have had to been kidnapped, locker in a house full of guns and heartbroken." I muttered, speaking my mind out loud. Heechul just nodded and played with the laces of his shoe.
I glanced at the door and saw my familiar pink suitcase. He brought my clothes as if I was going to live here. But I'm not, I want to go.
But where the fuck is he? He can't just walk out of me like that and leave me here. I was in his stupid house, this stupid safe house in the middle of nowhere.
Please comeback.
The next couple of days were the same. Waking up with swollen eyes, and then crying even more when I saw that he hadn't come home. I'd stay in bed the entire day crying violently or just shedding tears quietly thinking what went wrong. The only time I got up was the feed Prince and to pick him up and cuddle with him. My nightmares came back again, and instead of Nick usually being in those dreams it was Tae. My fear of seeing him doing those horrible actions to me haunted me. I know he wouldn't do that but when he grabbed me it wasn't right.
I think I went crazy counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds waiting for him to come up. A part of me was angry at him, another part was worried, and big chunk of it was missing him. I was doubting my choices as the days grew longer. Maybe he wasn't right for me, or I wasn't right for him. I thought we clicked like a jigsaw puzzle, but maybe the pieces were rotated in a way that it could fit for a while till you realize it's upside down and that it doesn't belong there. Maybe that was us.
I still love him, and care for him. I was the broken one, he wasn't.
I was drained of energy by the time the 8th day rolled along. I wasn't getting any better, I was still cooped up in my room awaiting his arrival. It got the point where I thought I was being stupid to even think a man like him will come back. He wasn't coming back, I hoped he did but to be realistic he wasn't coming home.
Heechul and Kris checked up on me periodically to keep me company. But I didn't want to do anything but lay in bed or cry. I felt bad for them because they were just wasting their time, but they stayed nonetheless.
I had no appetite when I woke up, it diminished at the sight of the emptiness beside me. Every night I'd hug his pillow to sleep catching a whiff of is disappearing scent hoping he'd be right there in his spot of the bed in the morning. There were times I cried harshly, and times where tears just rolled down my cheek like ever flowing rivers. The silent quiet ones where you lay in the bed and let emotions overtake you because you can't do anything to change the outcome, those were the ones that hurt so much.
I clutched hard onto the handkerchief he gave me when he protected me. Touching the threaded letters 'T.Y'
I need to go. I need to leave this place. We're over now, so why am I still in house. Why do I still have his cloth, why am I still involved in his shit. With breaking up means to leave everything behind, and I'm not doing that by staying here. I need to go.
But I can't. I need my closure. I want to talk. I want to see him one more time and maybe leave on good terms.
Taeyeon-ah. I'm hurting, you've said you wouldn't let anyone hurt me so where are you?
But just on cue I peered my head from my pillow listening to the sound of a door click open. I didn't think much of it because by now any thoughts of Tae coming back were already fantasies that I dreamt of everyday. It was settling in that I should just move on and forget about him.
I thought I was hearing and seeing things when I saw the familiar figure standing at the door. He smelt like alcohol as the door swung open and wafted the scent to me as his hands were dripping with blood. He looked like a mess and his clothes were tattered. He didn't change from the last night I saw him.
Nothing was spoken, no movement was made. We just looked at each other.
"Taeyeon." I manage to croak out despite my drowsiness and pounding head.
"Why? Why'd you accuse me. I'd never do something like that to you." He asks stepping inside the room.
At this point I was afraid of him. He looks like a murderous monster coming straight out of a horror movie.
"I accused you because it was the truth Tae. You cheated on me. You did something to another girl you're supposed to do with me, and me only. It hurts to even think about you being with another woman."
"Why would you fucking say that to me even though you know how much you mean to me!" He shouts and makes his way to the bed, I scootch back hitting my head on the beds head frame.
"Taeyeon-ah, please don't."
His eyes soften as I say that. He sits on the edge with his back facing me and he puts his head in his cupped hands and runs his hair through it.
What I'm about to say is going to hurt both of us. But I've given an explanation to myself as to why I'd do it - because I can not let myself suffer again just like how I was months ago.
"I've been thinking about it, I think we should really end it. I need to leave this house, away from you." He sits up straight looking at our reflection in the mirror and cuts me off.
"No, Fany-ah, don't leave me. You can't leave me please don't." He begs, his brows knitting.
"Tae, it's not th-"
"Don't say it. Whatever you do, don't say it. Please just listen to me, trust in me and just don't leave me." He pleads and I see himself clasping his hands tight and squeezing them out of angst.
"Be patient, give me more time. Everything will be okay, I-I'll fix it, I'll fix us. Please, Fany-ah." He said, reaching out for my hand timidly.
I moved my hand away and stepped back, looking up at the once tall towering man to see him slouched and as lost as can be. "More time for what? You left for a week and I couldn't get to you. I thought you ran away. We needed to talk, and by talk I meant with reasons not us crying and shouting at each other."
"N-No, I needed to do something. I promise you everything will be okay. Just wait with me? Don't go?"
"You keep making promises but you don't keep them Taeyeon-ah." I said as nicely as I could. I hated seeing him look so distressed, angsty and clueless.
That wasn't the Taetae I knew.
"I said we need to break up. Yes, all of us will be left here tonight. I have to go and this can be our closure."
"Why do we always fight about literally everything? From the time we met, we argue, we cry and we. . . its not good. It's so hard to be together." He says.
"This is part of the reason Taeng, I also don't remember the good times I've spent with you. All I've seen was just anger, tears and everything but happy between us. A couple is supposed to go through that honeymoon stage and quite frankly, we didn't. We went straight to fighting."
"I don't remember how we came to be. I don't know why you liked me, why you came to me and then loved me. We're not normal Tae. We didn't go through that awkward friend stage, we didn't really go on nice dates. Damn it Tae, I got taken away and out into a shack where I almost got beaten. Then you kept telling me you loved me and how you wanted me to say it back to you and I-I just can't Tae."
"Were forced into a relationship. We took nothing slow, we were just there together at same place and it was just convenient for us to be together at the time being." I trailed off. I raised my head slightly and saw that he was staring right at me with his brows raised but his tender eyes looked like he was dying on the inside.
"Why do you act like we never had history together? Do you remember anything we did Fany-ah? The times we smiled, laughed and loved?" He replied, looking more angsty.
"I told you and you told me. We've had bad horrific memories than good ones."
"Do you still care?" He asks, twisting his thumbs as he let out a sigh.
Oh Tae.
"I still care, but I've given up. You running away made me realize nothing is permanent. It made me rethink us, as a whole. It made me think that what if I forgave you at this very moment, would you do the same in the future? Because I know I can barely take it now and if it happens along the road, I'm sure I can't survive." As soon as I stopped talking he swallowed the lump in his throat. We stood there awkwardly. We didn't say anything. He didn't reach out for me and I didn't either.
He turns around and busies himself with literally nothing. I looked at his once strong taut back become so slouched, frail and tired. Like the weight on his shoulder increased by a tenfold.
I took a deep breath and reheated the like over and over again ninny head. I need to do this I combined myself. "I, I think we should end it here. We're done." I say to him with his back faced away from me.
"No, no, no you can't leave me. We both made a promise." The sudden change of the quiet voice strikes a string in my heart.
"No Tae, I can't do this. It hurts to love you, and I'm afraid of you now. I'm scared around you. I don't know what you'll do to me next, you're unpredictable. I was wrong to think I could change you."
He turns to me and I see his horrid face up close. Scratch marks on his cheeks a gouge on his upper eyebrow, and his eyes were dropping and defining those eye bags. He had a scruffy 5 o' clock shadow, and the mark on his neck was visible.
"You did change me for the better. I've become better than I was 3 months ago, everyone sees it. Stephanie, please don't go. I need you in my life, I depend on you."
I get up from the bed still afraid of his potential anger.
"Fucking stop walking away from me and tell me something, anything. I hate this so much, being away from you for even a week makes me want to knock myself out. Please just fucking answer me or don't go." He growls, clenching the sheets in his hands.
I stay silent, with my back faced away from him listening to his words as I let them register in my chaotic mind.
"Please don't. Don't do this, don't turn a cold shoulder towards me. It hurts, I can't take it. My heart can't take it. I'm only one man, I can only take so much. Stephanie please." He said with a voice crack. I wasn't so use to him being so soft, quiet and scared.
My full name sounds so wrong coming from his mouth, and my hearth shakes in its cage.
"I'm sorry Miyoung, it's was my fault. It was my fault. It was my fault."
The silence is too much, but I couldn't push myself to say even a word.
This pushed him over the edge because he slammed his fist on the night table, enough to chip off the corner and cut the side of his hand. "What the fuck do you want! Tell me what you want!" He roars, it made me flinch but I still kept silent.
I don't know what I want Taeyeon-ah, I don't know.
"I should go." I manage to whisper out, but he hears it and gets up at the sound of it
"Stephanie Young Hwang, don't you dare fucking leave me. You can't I won't let you! What do you want? Tell me right now! I'll give it to you everything and anything just don't you dare place a foot out my door." He continues to watch me, unmoved from the edge of the bed.
Tears well up in my eyes again for the umpteenth time. I grab my suitcase from the closet shoving everything in it wanting to leave as quickly as possible. He stops me by placing a hand on mine and throws the suitcase off the stand letting clothes fly everywhere.
"Is this what you want?!" He asks me firmly as I shake in his grasp. I'm afraid of him, I don't know if he'll lay a hand on me or spew out vicious mind cutting words that seem to never be forgotten.
"Y-yes." He searches my eyes for the longest time and I struggled to look back. When he found out through my eyes that I wasn't joking and what I said was true, he lets me go.
He watches me as I fill my suitcase again, I grab my belongings one by one as he stares. It was hard to even see with my mind fogged up and my tears blurring my vision. I could just leave everything here run away. But I didn't have the guts to.
"You promised Fany-ah! You promised, we promised!" He shouts, turning around to punch a wall or something. I hated how at that very moment my tears started to well up in my eyes. I hated how much of an emotional cry baby I was.
But a part of me told me to stay and to forgive him. But then the crumbling heart was a enough proof that a scar that was reopened couldn't be shut by anyone. Time was what healed it.
"Are you done?" He asks quietly. Nothing was scary about his tone, but just the tenderness I was greeted by every day before he left.
I couldn't even take a step into the closet before he wraps his arms around my waist. My whole body freezes and I couldn't react normally to his touch. I squirmed, I fidgeted and j even hit back at him. He lets me hit him but he never let go of me.
"Stephanie, if you're going for real, please stay one night with me." He mumbles against my head and I can feel his arm tightening around me.
"Taeyeon I can't do that, I need to go." I look up into the reflection of the mirror and here he is, standing behind me looking right into our reflection and into my eyes. His glossy eyes and broken smile wasn't the normal I've been so used to seeing. He's hurting so bad.
"Please? One last time as your lover? Just this night that I want to be with you." The brushes on my hand where I grasped his arms around my waist felt like a electricity that just shocked me and held me awake.
"No. Tae, it's hurting me. I need to stop this."
"Can't you just pretend that none of this ever happened and let me be at peace just for one night? I want to be with you as your man, for one last night. Just stay with me for my last time before you really say goodbye?" His quivering voice and the way he sinks his head deeper into the crook of my neck as he back hugged me had me falling deeper in the mess of a hole I was in with him.
He starts to get on both of his knees. He pleaded through his eyes and he held my hand gently while looking up at me.
"Please." He whispered. My heart just literally exploded at the sight. He's always been so strong and prideful. He never backed down from a fight and has always been trekking on no matter what happens. To see him look so lost and desperate surprised me because he's not the type to show that weak side of him. I know it's bad when Tae does this, because I know he cares. He's fighting but he's barely hanging on.
I grab his hands and pull him up but he didn't move at all. He stayed at the floor on his knees begging for me to not leave him. He repeated it over and over again. When he let a quiet whimper escape as I pulled away from his hand is when I knew I had enough.
I hate succumbing to him. I deserve to be happy, and happy isn't at all like this.
I gave in and nod silently and he guides me to the bed, I lay down before he follows and spoons me. He brings the covers over us before wrapping himself around me tightly.
"Everything that we had is going to be gone. What we had was something and I don't want to think that in moments past it's going to be nothing. We're going to strangers again. Strangers but with memories." I hummed at the sound of his cracked voice. I didn't say anything but I let him talk.
"I love you." I couldn't bring myself to say those three words back at him. He shuffles against the covers and kisses the back of my neck.
At first I couldn't make out why there was an occasional wet spot I felt on the back of my neck that slow led trickled down. But I realized it was Tae, he was tearing up or possibly crying. Three, I counted. Only three tears. It could've been more but the rustling of sheets behind me and the occasional sniffle was him trying hard to cover it up.
I wanted to turn around and hug him for the week we've been apart from each other, but I'm still afraid of seeing his face. I can't recognize him, he's slowly inching his was to Nick's persona. It's like I don't even know him anymore.
But every now and then he tucks the loose strands that happen to repeatedly fall in front of my face and squeezes my hand that he held close to my stomach. That was the Tae I knew. This was the Tae I fell in love with.
When his breathing finally was steady, I turned around to see the softly lit face that I loved to wake up to. Except it was bruised, scared, beaten up and showed the anger, frustration and angst all over it. It changed, and this time he didn't sleep with an angry expression, he slept with a peaceful fun; a content one.
My hands are slightly shaking when I brought it up to his face, I grazes my fingertips slightly on his cheeks and I could feel the warmness on his face. I traced the little knick above his eye down to caress the cut on his cheek. I felt my heart being tugged at with every stroke, I wanted to kiss him so bad.
I kissed him once on his lips before laying on the very edge of the bed away from him and slept with him as far away from me as possible. But he was so close to me yet I wanted to be as far away from him as possible. I kept being pulled towards him like its fate but no, this can't happen again.
I tried my best to keep quiet when I woke up. Pulling the covers off of me and slipping into the bathroom as cautiously as I could was nearly impossible. I didn't want to wake him up because I knew it would cause a fight or another heart wrenching confession.
My footsteps were pretty quiet and when I opened the door it creaked loud enough for Tae to wake up and groggily step towards me.
"Fany-ah, what are you doing?" The tired look on his face just makes me want to hold him and nurture him back to health.
"Taetae, I'm leaving."
"Miyoungie." He reaches out for my hand but I pull away quickly, stepping back.
Don't call me that Taetae. It seems like every time you do I just, obey. I hate it coming out of your lips because I used to love it.
"I just can't bring myself to stay. I want to Tae. But I just can't, I don't want a repeat of the past." I mumble towards the ground because if I looked at him I knew I'd break down.
I walked past him quickly not wanting to hear his answer to my goodbye. I carried my suitcases with me but maybe I was being emotional, I guess my heart finally took its toll and I froze in my spot. I sat in the hallway letting tears stream down my face but I didn't cry out loud. It was the bad tears, the silent ones. He watches from a far still frozen in his place watching me slide down from the wall sitting on the floor with my belongings.
"I'd rather die than see you step out of this house." His low raspy voice still cuts deep in me, and I don't want to leave.
He sits down on the opposite wall in front of me crossing his legs.
"I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make it up to you, I don't know how to be a good lover. I've said what I had to say everyday I was with you, from I love you, to your beautiful, I'll protect you, and goodnight. I'd never thought I had to say goodbye to you." He says and then he let out a quiet 'fuck.'
I wipe my tears off and turn towards him.
"I can't lose you, I don't want you to leave me." He says softly, and I see the gentle look in his eyes and the tears in them as the light from the bedroom hits the pair.
"I'm sorry." Was all I could muster out. He shook his head.
"You're really leaving, I never thought I'd live to see this day. But maybe karma has things stored for me. I deserve it." He smiles bitterly and I see him trying to hold back anything that he's got inside him.
"I guess all this time I'm pushy, forceful, possessive and always so damn angry towards you. I'm sorry for that. My nature seems to be, unfixable." He says, letting out a deep sigh. He sounds tired, tired of everything.
I've never seen him cry, and if I did it would probably be something involving his mother, but never in a million years I would think it would be because of me. I believe what he said because of it, and the sincerity in the soft voice.
"I won't stop you if you leave. I know it's for the best and I won't imprison you in my toxicity." He broke the silence by saying that softly.
Hearing those last words, I begged myself to stay. But I got up and dragged my heavy heart and belongings to the door as he watches still sitting down.
"You're really leaving Steph, you really are." He whispered to himself but his small mumble echoed in the hall and I broke a bit when I heard it.
"For 90 days, I told you that I'd prove my love to you, to make you fall in love with me. Enough to make you marry me. Remember?" He walks slowly towards me pulling out 8 of those wrapped coins and places it in the palm of my hand.
"But maybe I failed. I don't blame anything that happened on you. It was me, all me." He sighs and his hand runs through his hair and raked it harshly.
"I'll wait for you. I'll wait till you come back to me, I will not be sad. I'll smile instead and wait for you to return to me. I'll be waiting even if it may take months, years, decades. I'll be here Stephanie, so please. I can't stop you from leaving because we both deserve to be happy, and you're not with and frankly that's okay, you've taught me this." He kept shaking when he spoke and I looked away. I tore my gaze from his and I felt his voice become more desperate when I did.
"Come back okay? Or don't. You don't have to. But I will be waiting." After that he walks back and slowly shuts the bedroom door leaving me alone with my belongings.
I stop at his actions and words. I forgot about the proposal he made for us. I look down at my bag and see the tin box I've stored all the coins at. I don't even know why I wanted to take those with me. There were 53 coins neatly wrapped in blue paper. Now we'll add another 8. We were a month and a half in and I think it ends here. My thoughts of marrying him rapidly changed throughout those few weeks. I poked at the thought a couple of times. We were halfway there anyways, but I still didn't have a definite answer if it did reach that far.
I don't look back as I open the door and walk down the path. I descended down the hill and made a left with all my belongings in one hand and the other on Prince's leash. There was another 6 minutes of walking till I saw a damn road. If I'm lucky I'll hail a taxi.
Or walk home. K don't even know where I was but I wanted to go. I wanted to be free. Yet the feeling of Tae still lingers inside me.
Please move on Taetae?
Be good for me, okay?
Goodbye Taeyeon-ah, thank you.