“Stopped – Kaiya, I…” He pushed to his feet, and despite myself, I couldn’t help but admire the fluidity with which he commanded his body.
“Kaiya… Never. I never stopped wanting you. I still want you. I want you from the second I open my eyes every morning. I don’t stop wanting you even when I sleep. I dream of you. I will always want you.”
He reached for me, but I recoiled, and he paused, conflict dancing over his face as clear as clouds crossing the sun.
I almost didn’t say it, but I was done moderating myself.
“Why did you throw me away, then?” I had to bite my tongue to keep from choking on the words.
He blinked, processing my words, trying to make sense of a scenario that had so clearly played out differently in his head for all these years.
“I had to protect you,” he said slowly, like he wanted to press the words into me, to make me understand. But I did understand. I saw perfectly how it made sense to him.
“I needed you to be safe, I needed to take care of-”
“I only ever felt safe with you!”
The words rang in the air, and with a stinging sort of satisfaction I saw him flinch. But the satisfaction didn’t last, and it only rebounded on me as my stomach twisted.
“You didn’t even trust me enough to talk to me. It’s what you’ve always done, Jihoon. You make decisions for me. You took away my choice!” I jabbed at my chest, suddenly feeling so hot that the words burned.
“Remember when I first moved to Korea? You kept disappearing to ENT, leaving in the morning like you were sneaking out.”
“I had to go, I told you that,” he protested, “I could not ignore the meetings.”
“I know that. You had to go, but you didn’t have to keep me in the dark about what was happening. I had to find out from Becka that there was a video of us! You should have been the one to tell me.”
He opened his mouth, but I carried on, not making room for him.
“And when I wanted to work? I practically had to force you to agree!” I laughed in disbelief at myself, throwing my arms in the air. “You were totally fine with the idea of me mooching off you, even when I told you how anxious it made me.”
“You had barely been in the country a month,” he insisted when there was a gap for his voice to squeeze into.
“A country I moved to for you!” I threw the words at him, and from his flinch, they hit. “Was it because you wanted me with you, or because you wanted me where you could keep an eye on me?”
That might have been unfair, but it was out there now.
“Jagi–”
“Don’t baby me, Baek Jihoon,” I said voice dangerously low, pushing up from the bench and putting my hands on my hips.
“I’ve spent three years without you. I have more perspective, and I do not need, or want, you swooping into my life to ‘save me’.”
He dragged his hands through his hair.
“Is that what you think?”
“I think you treated me like a princess.”
He laughed incredulously. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not when it means the same thing as fragile. You kept things from me. You hid me in a castle, and you made decisions about us – about me. You never trusted me to be able to take care ofmyself. You took away my agency, and that’s why we broke up – because you didn’t trust me with this! I could have helped, but you took away my power when it was not your choice to make!”
“I had to protect you!” He cried, swaying slightly, a wild look in his eyes. “I had to! Getting you away from me was the only way to do it.”
I stumbled back half a step.
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I said, quieter now, moving forward and reclaiming the space I’d surrendered.
