Bring It On! - Chapter 84

Chapter 84.

Sharp eyes fixed on me. The slightly upturned corners of his gaze were cutting.

“Don’t you ever say that bastard’s name in front of me again.”

His voice fell like a final warning, and then his desperate lips locked onto mine. Cha Yoon rolled his body over mine, pressing me down completely. His weight, heavy as stone, engulfed me as he devoured my lips.

“Wuhhn, let go, ngh, let—!”

His wet flesh rubbed roughly against my tongue, sweeping through every corner of my mouth. When he pushed all the way in, down to the root of his tongue, my mouth was so stuffed I could hardly breathe. 

My vision began to blur as I pounded on his forearm with my fists.

“Ugh, nghh, hahh, mmph!”

With every ragged breath, every violent rub of his lips, it felt like shards of broken, wretched emotions were scattering. It didn’t seem like Cha Yoon was angry. He seemed tormented. 

As if his own actions, ruining what we had, were cutting him up inside. I could feel his unease and confusion.

I pushed at the bed with both legs, shaking my head hard. When I turned my face away, escaping his mouth, air flooded back into my lungs at once. 

Yet Cha Yoon didn’t stop. His hot tongue dragged deep across my cheek and eyelids.

“Ch–Cha Yoon!”

He had clearly lost control. When I shoved his chest roughly with my arms, he actually let me go. 

Slap! My hand struck his cheek. The sharp sound rang through the room, followed by a chilling silence. My ragged breaths sounded like thunder in the stillness.

“What the hell is wrong with you!”

As I tried to pull away, Cha Yoon seized my forearm with force. Our harsh breaths tangled. When my eyes met his, I saw a shimmering film of tears trembling above the red-rimmed gaze. 

Against his smooth face, his flushed eyes looked pitiful. Was it anger? Or sorrow? His expression was tangled with ambiguous, conflicting emotions. Consumed by extreme anxiety, he was drowning in feelings too chaotic for rational words. 

For a moment, I faltered. I’m the one who wants to cry, so why is he the one tearing up?

“You treat me like some lunatic who doesn’t even deserve to be remembered, while you keep searching for another man. How the hell am I supposed to stay sane?”

“…What?”

“What if I just pretended to be that bastard you want, would that make it any better?”

Cha Yoon’s twisted face sneered at me, his glare biting.

“Move. Let me go.”

“Don’t say that bastard’s name in front of me. Don’t look at me and think of him. Stop treating me like some fucking stand-in. I want nothing to do with your pathetic little romance.”

Even as his words bit down like teeth, the raw grief inside them was impossible to miss. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. His cold gaze and the weight of his resentment pressed down on me until I could hardly breathe.

“…I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?”

“I can’t stay with you.”

“…What?”

For a moment, Cha Yoon just stared at me blankly, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

“I hate that you call my name with Jay’s face, in Jay’s voice. I hate that when I look at you, I can’t help but think of him. It makes me feel fucking miserable too!”

It felt like something I’d held back inside me had finally snapped.

I knew Jay could never come back. I knew I’d burdened Cha Yoon because of it. Painful as it was, I had been trying to accept it. 

But I’d lived my whole life alone, ignorant of how to give or receive love, surviving day after day in crushing solitude. It was Jay who taught me what family meant, what it was to cherish someone. 

How could I possibly cut him off all at once?

“Who the hell are you to tell me to forget Jay or not? What do you know about us to talk like that? You say you don’t want to meddle in our relationship? Don’t make me laugh. You never had a place in it to begin with.”

I didn’t want to cry, but my eyes burned hot. I hated him. I hated Cha Yoon for speaking so cruelly of Jay without knowing a thing. I hated myself for stumbling, for messing up again and again. I hated that even though I knew Cha Yoon and Jay were completely different people, I still saw Jay when I looked at him.

“Since seeing each other just makes us both feel like shit, I’ll be the one to disappear.”

Tears streamed unchecked down my face as I held out my hand to him.

“Give me back my luggage.”

“…I threw it away.”

I couldn’t understand his words at first. He threw it away? What? My mind went hazy. Inside that luggage were the things I had brought back from the deserted island, the clothes I had worn there, and the tracksuit I had bought for Jay. They were the only things left that could remind me of him.

“…Who the hell are you to throw that away?”

“What were you going to do with it anyway? Sit holed up in some corner bawling while thinking about a bastard you can’t even meet again?”

“Whether I lock myself away or cry my eyes out, what the hell does that have to do with you?”

“When you look at me but think about another guy in your head, fuck, it makes a man feel pathetic. Who are you to make me feel like this?”

There was no way to communicate. Our emotions, at their breaking point, burst out of our voices like knives. A heat like anger, or something close to it, throbbed at my temples. 

What on earth was the problem? What kind of bastard was he, to think he could meddle in my life however he pleased? 

The man in front of me, with Jay’s identical face, filled me with murderous resentment.

“…Fine. Let’s end it all here.”

A thick tear slipped down my cheek from beneath trembling lashes. I should have cut him off long ago.

“Don’t ever contact me again.”

***

The day Cha Yoon went missing.

Outside, the party was in full swing. Music boomed through the cabin walls, shaking the whole space, clashing noisily with fireworks exploding in the night sky.

“Please… ngh, please, I beg…!”

A trail of blood stretched down the corridor. Cha Yoon caught Yoo Gayoung’s collapsing body in his arms in a panic. Dark red blood was gushing out from her side. 

How she had made it this far while losing so much blood was almost unimaginable. Her determination was immense.

Yoo Gayoung’s trembling hands wound something around Cha Yoon’s wrist. A rosary.

“Cha Seonghwan’s… disgrace…”

Her dying voice faded almost to nothing. Cha Yoon focused on her lips, straining to catch every syllable. And when his brother’s name left her mouth, he realized at once who she was.

He pressed down on Yoo Gayoung’s wound with his hands.

“Don’t give up. Just hold on a little longer.”

Tears welled in Yoo Gayoung’s wide eyes. As if already knowing her end was near, she slowly shook her head. Transparent tears rolled down her pale blood-splattered face.

“The baby is already…”

“…Baby?”

The moment he repeated it back, a massive shadow fell over him. It was already too late to react. A powerful force coiled mercilessly around Cha Yoon’s neck.

“Ghhk—damn it!”

His airway was instantly crushed. Thrashing desperately, Cha Yoon drove his elbow back with all his strength, and a grunt escaped from behind him. He knew that voice.

Cha Seonghwan.

Darkness began to flood his mind at once.

“You fucking… bastard…!”

His vision blurred. Blackness swallowed everything. His strength drained away, and the last thing he saw before the world went pitch-dark was Yoo Gayoung sprawled on the floor, eyes fixed on him, unable even to close them.

***

“Mr. Cha Yoon! Stay with me! You can’t fall asleep! Keep your eyes here. Try to stay awake!”

His body felt as if it were sinking downward. Blinding light seared his eyes, and someone was shaking his body painfully. The surroundings were unbearably loud. 

Rage surged in him, a wild urge to sweep every single thing away from his sight.

Cha Yoon’s thick lashes fluttered slowly. Each time his black eyes emerged from beneath his lids, they gleamed with a sharp, irritable energy.

Five days after being rescued, Cha Yoon awoke.

“You’ve been missing for five months. Do you really not remember anything?”

Director Park’s face crumpled as if he were about to cry. The secretary chief had been at Cha Yoon’s side since he was in middle school. 

He was closer than Cha Yoon’s own brother, Seonghwan, and had thrown himself into the search more passionately than anyone else when Cha Yoon vanished.

Cha Yoon, who had never once seen him falter or weep despite enduring his foul temper for years, finally began to accept the reality of his own situation when he saw the man’s tearful eyes.

“You weren’t just anywhere. You were stranded on a deserted island. A deserted island!”

For five whole months, at that. But to Cha Yoon, it was as if none of it had ever happened. He remembered nothing. 

The doctor diagnosed it as temporary memory loss due to trauma, assuring him he would soon regain his memories. But Cha Yoon felt not even the slightest regret for the missing past.

“…Where’s that bastard Cha Seonghwan?”

More important than anything was hunting Seonghwan down.

“He bolted to London before the news of your rescue even broke.”