Behind that poker face

Chapter 3

"Jieun! You ok?"

"I'm not! I will never be! " She started breathing fast.

"What's wrong? Do you want me to take to the hospital?" I asked. I was worried about her.

No response.

I sat down next to her . For 20 minutes , none of us had spoken up. She was holding her head with her thumb and middle finger, hiding her eyes with her palm. I was there observing her, biting her lower lip from time to time. She was secretly crying and that was my first time seeing her that weak.

I couldn't do anything. I didn't know what to do. I only had to be present, to be next to her. What would she say if I left while she was in that situation. That would be rude if I did what she said.

Suddenly, she held her head up and sniffed. She looked at me. Her eyes were red from crying, her lips were plump from biting. I didn't care about how messed up she was, I cared because she looked at me right in the eyes, searching why I didn't leave when she wanted to stay alone.

"Leave ... " She softly said.

"I won't leave..."

"Why?"

Good question. Why don't you leave, Jongin? She obviously doesn't want you around and you obviously hate to be used, to be lectured and to be ordered by a woman like her. Why?

"Because I care about you." Here it is, I said it out loud .

"Am I blind?" She asked out of the blue.

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't I care about people who care about me?"

"Who do you mean?" As I heard, Baekhyun said that he cared too about her, but I think that she meant me.

"About Baekhyun."

"I don't know... Why do you want to get a divorce?"

"Because I can't make him happy..." She hang her head down while talking to me.

"How can that possibly be?" I reached out for her chin and held her head up to let myself look at her again, to search for the right answer inside of her eyes, her watery sad eyes, "He obviously sounded that he wants you around him."

"Because I can't be the mother of his child..."

The mother of his child?

"Stop spinning around and tell me the truth, your truth." I half whispered.

"I can't have children... I can't become a mother, Jongin..." A tear escaped her right eye and my thumb cleaned it.

"I want him to have a better life. I'm useless."
"The problem is not the arranged marriage. The problem is me."
"I only care about work because I'm escaping my life."

How stupid are you, Kim Jongin?

I couldn't talk. I didn't have the right words to comfort her. I didn't know what to do or how to act in front of her now. I didn't know the truth.

"You don't have words to say?" She asked, begging for comfort.

"I'm sorry to hear that ..."

She only chuckled and dried her eyes with the hem of her shirt then stood up, "I'm tired, can you please leave?"

"Why did you laugh?" I didn't bother to stand up.

"I have been mistaken for a moment. You have to forget about what happened between us." She crossed her arms and got her poker face on again.