[FIC] Raison d'être - Chapter 6 (FINAL CHAPTER) pt. 2/6
“I filed for divorce with Yunho. I also had a restraining order placed against him. He’ll never come here again and he’ll never approach or contact you either.”
Just like the time where my school principal had announced my father’s death, everything around me seemed to slow. My brain had trouble processing this new information. Eomma and Yunho divorced? A restraining order? Yunho can never come near me again?
“Why?”
Eomma jumped back slightly, obviously surprised by my question. She fidgeted a bit, her gaze restlessly searching my face.
“Jae-baby, how couldn’t I want to divorce him?” The question was almost choked by a suppressed sob. “He… he raped you Jae. The man I trusted the most… hurt my baby…” Her fragile hand quickly covered her mouth as her voice cracked and I realized that my mother wasn’t taking all of this as well as I first thought.
It’s your fault. You know it is.
My heart clenched. Of course I knew that this was entirely my fault.
I grasped my mother’s hand and I whispered apology after apology to her. She merely answered by shaking her head and hugging me close, her grip so strong that it was nearly painful. But I didn’t have the heart to tell her. After all the pain she’s endured in the last years, I couldn’t bring myself to break her over something so trivial.
But it didn’t change the fact that this was all still my fault.
Suddenly, I was pulled from my thoughts as my mother straightened her back and looked at me with a serious expression. She gripped my hands gently but firmly between hers and I had a bad feeling of what she was going to ask next.
“Jaejoong, I want you to press criminal charges against Yunho-sshi.”
I flinched, mainly because of her usage of ‘sshi’ after Yunho’s name, meaning she didn’t consider him close anymore. But then I understood what she had really said. My eyes widen at Eomma and my heart stopped for a moment.
“No, I can’t.”
The words escaped my mouth before I could even stop them. Eomma’s eyes in turn widen in surprised.
“Jae baby, you don’t understand,” she clenched my hands harder, but not enough to hurt. I could see confusion and something like desperation in her eyes. I wanted to cry at the sight, knowing that I was causing these emotions. Why couldn’t I stop hurting my mother already?!
“Jae, Eomma can’t help you if you don’t say yes.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “The policy said that they have all of the necessary evidence to convict Yunho-sshi, but without your consent now that you’re over 14, they can’t do anything about it what he did to you…”
I turned my head away and stared at the wall behind my mother.
“Eomma, I’m really tired.” That’s wasn’t a lie. I could feel my eyelids starting to close by themselves and I was having an increasingly harder time keeping them open. Sleep would overwhelm me in no time and I didn’t want to fight it. All I wanted at the moment was to sleep: to sleep and forget about everything.
But I could never forget.
I glanced back and my mom merely shook her head, whispering that we would talk about this issue later when I was feeling better. I barely nodded before she left her bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.
Her words from a few moments ago rang out in my head as I turned on my side to find a comfortable position. Why did I say no? Why couldn’t (shouldn’t) I press charges against my ex-stepfather for assault and rape? Why? Why? Why? Why…
I pressed my clenched fist against my chest, right over my heart that pounded painfully at the thought of Yunho. How I could ever hate the man, despite what he did to me? I loved him so much, I just couldn’t bear the thought of ruining his life with something as grave as criminal charges. And not only would he be affected, but my mother and her carrier would suffer too. Imagining the damage a scandal of this magnitude would do to her carrier and business was incomprehensible to me and I didn’t even want to imagine it. I knew that it would probably be disastrous. How could I do that to Eomma? First she was now divorcing Yunho because of me and now her life’s work could be in jeopardy too if I reported this to the policy. I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t…
And what if in the trial the truth about Yunho and I’s true relationship would eventually come to light? Surely if that happened, the scandals would know no end. I wouldn’t risk that. I simply will not do that to my mother and Yunho. They didn’t deserve that.
I closed my eyes and put aside all thoughts of Yunho and Eomma. For now I just wanted to shut the world out and sleep. If I kept thinking about this much longer, I would definitely go crazy. So I snuggled into my mother’s pillow (because even Yunho’s pillow was gone) and let myself be lured to sleep.
But as I felt my conscious mind beginning to slip away, I asked a question to the one person who couldn’t stop invading my thoughts.
Yunho, what happened to us?
The last thing I remember was the feeling of something wet rolling down my cheek and then I fell asleep.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
God must have hated me at that moment because I couldn’t find peace even in the depths of sleep. I was plagued by nightmares, or more specifically, one nightmare. I dreamed about Yunho over and over again, always in the same moment in time. The time he raped me. The scene replayed before my mind’s eyes again and again without mercy and I couldn’t stop or prevent anything. I wanted to cry so badly, but I held it all back, telling myself that this was only a dream. But that realization didn’t stop the hurt, it never could.
But at one moment, just as my cruel mind was about to rewind the film again and press play, I felt something pick at my consciousness. I turned to towards it, curious. The feeling quickly became stronger and stronger, until I felt myself being slowly pulled to wakefulness. It took a few moments before I could open my eyes to the real world.
I blinked at the soft light emitting from the bedside table lamp and groaned a bit. Something suddenly touched my arm gently and I warily turned my head to see what it was. I gasped at the sight before me and I blinked a few more times to assure myself that what I was seeing was real. I reached a shaky hand up to touch a soft cheek and whispered the name of the person before me in a teary tone.
“Changmin-ah?”
- “Jae hyung…”
~*~*~* Author's note *~*~*~
What is this? Is this an update? Could it be? O_o....
Well it seems so ^^ So my dearies, here's an small update for Raison d'etre. Changmin's back :D Come on, who's happy? I know I am ^^ I missed him in this story >_>... But he's back until the end. And the epilogue is even in his P.O.V. (like I said in another post).
Also to maybe clear some confusion, I have no idea what the legal procedures in South Korea are, but here in Canada (the province of Quebec especially, cuz I live there) the legal age for making decisions is 14. Like you can go to the doctor by yourself and doctor can't tell your parents anything without your consent. I think there's some legal procedures that you can do too. But because I'm not completely sure, let's assume that's how it works, at least in the fic ^^;; So in other words, the police can't press charges without JJ's consent. So will our dear JJ gonna press charges? I guess we'll have to see, yes?
Since I posted earlier that the final date for Raison d'etre's completion is July 25th, I just wanted to add how I'll post things from now on. I'll post every part of Chapter 6 as I finish them. EXCEPT of the last part. I will edit the entire chapter before I post the last part. So that's gonna be a lot of editing TT-TT
So now I should be done with my super long author's note (^^;;) Though I feel like I forgot something (which I probably did >_>). But anyways, until I remember (which could be a while...) I'll leave you guys and hopefully we'll see each other soon. PLEASE leave a comment, it'll encourage me to finish faster ^^
Love you guys and see you soon! <333