The same wretchedness engulfed Taehyung’s existence throughout the three-hour surveillance of Ha Eun the next day, and it adhered to him again tightly as he trudged into the mansion to report to Jin Mo. 

He didn’t bother masking his lugubrious mood; it was just the third day of his torment, and he already didn’t have the strength to keep up with any facade. 

“What’s wrong with your face?” Jin Mo asked, frowning deeply, as he trod closer. 

Taehyung plumped down on the couch. “Just tired, don’t worry.”

Jin Mo, holding a glass of whiskey in one hand, sat across from him. His words didn’t sound that much convincing, and the glint of poignancy in his hollow eyes confirmed their mendacity. “You can tell me if something is bothering you, though.”

“I know.”

His short answers hinted he didn’t wish to elaborate or share whatever burdened his heart, and Jin Mo soon realized it. “Okay. What about Ha Eun?”

“He met with your friend today.”

Jin Mo grimaced, as if he had bitten a slice of lemon. “I have no friends in this business.”

“Fine, wrong wording. With your favorite business partner.”

Jin Mo’s squinted eyes lifted in thought, but they soon plummeted on him again. “Joo Eon?”

Taehyung nodded. “They must be planning a deal.”

“I don’t mind. Joo Eon’s business is going well, but he’s not a threat to me. I prefer to have him on my good side, anyway. He has excellent goods.”

“I know, but that’s not the point. Someone was following Joo Eon, like I was following Ha Eun.”

Jin Mo hummed a ruminative sound. “Is someone planning an attack on him?” he mumbled — a voice used when someone thinks aloud. 

“That’s what I thought too. Either that, or someone just wants information about him.”

Jin Mo seemed to meditate on the matter for a little longer. “I’ll give him a call. If someone strikes his business, it’ll be no good for me.”

“Okay.” 

“Also, I’ll prepare a plan for you to meet Ha Eun. It feels like he wants to expand his business since he even met with Joo Eon.”

“Okay.”

Jin Mo’s frown of thinking disintegrated at the lusterless, meek voice that coiled around his ears again. “What’s wrong, Tae?”

“Don’t mind me. Do you need something else? I’m supposed to meet my hyung in an hour.”

Jin Mo’s chest dropped with a defeated sigh. “No. I hope you get over whatever is going on fast. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

I won’t. “I hope so too.” 

  
His two friends were waiting for him at the exit of the mansion, and Taehyung knew it was because he had ignored their calls earlier. The answers to their questions were fixed and still the same. He felt like shit. No, he wasn’t better. No, nothing changed. No, he didn’t want to do something to take his mind off. He wanted to hurt because that was what he deserved. 

So he simply and silently accepted their hugs and caresses of comfort before he told them he had to meet his hyung. 

He was buzzing with determination as he drove to his hyung’s house. His sorrow had awakened a cold-blooded iron will to force out any scrap of information Jae Wook had concealed from him all these years. And he wouldn’t leave if he didn’t get his answers. 

He parked outside of the building and shuffled to the entrance. He pressed Jae Wook’s name and waited until he buzzed him in. He used the elevator to go to the second floor, and once he was there, he continued his way to the door. It opened before he got to knock, and Jae Wook appeared with a dull smile. 

“Hey, Tae.” He stepped to the side to let him enter and shut the door. 

“Hey.”

They took their seats in the living room across from each other. Jae Wook picked up on his sullen aura at once, but didn’t comment on it. “Well, what’s new? The last time you were here, you told me you wanted to die. Are you back to your senses now?”

Taehyung ignored the acid tone of his voice, maintaining a blank expression. “A lot happened. I went to Daegu recently.” He paused as he saw Jae Wook’s face warp in a frown with fury lurking beneath the surface. 

“What? Why?”

“To look for the truth, of course. All the detectives who worked on our parents’ case are dead except one, who’s nowhere to be found. And the officer I talked to gave me a false address to get me killed. You know who he was? Jung Jeo Soon. Do you remember him?”

Jae Wook dug into his memories and dragged up the image of him soon. “I remember him. He was raised by Ji Sun.”

“Exactly. Why was he there? Why is he trying so hard to hide the reason our parents died?”

“I don’t know, Tae,” he said with a hasty element, his eyes momentarily flying away from him. “How can he be an officer with his criminal record? Even if Ji Sun had bailed him out, this has to be on his record.” 

“He was using a stolen identity. He’s on the wanted list now. But that’s not important.” Taehyung observed him in silence for a stretch, noting his efforts to keep a straight countenance. “One of the guys who follow me had talked to me a while back. His name is Lee Man Shik.” Although it was a slight change, he detected his lips press harder together. “And he’s working for Moo Chae Yeon. Remember her?”

Jae Wook just blinked at him, but his gaze slid to the table before he spoke. “Chae Yeon? Was it... Woo Myeong’s wife?”

Taehyung’s fingers gouged into his palms, his fists dipping into the couch, as his features hardened ferociously. “Why are you pretending to be unsure?”

“I don’t, I just—It’s been years since I last heard her name.”

His stutter and mannered tone triggered a violent outburst within Taehyung that even brimmed his eyes with bitter tears because he realized. Jae Wook already knew she was the one who wanted to kill him. “You’re lying!” His voice, thick with exasperation, was raised to a scream. He suddenly erupted out of his seat and charged at him. He grasped his sweater and yanked him to his feet, his rowdy, tear-filled eyes cutting through him. “You knew all along. You knew she was after me. And you know why she’s after me, don’t you? You know why our parents were murdered, don’t you?”

Jae Wook wrestled with his grip and managed to detach him from him, jostling him aside. “How the fuck do you know these things? Why are you so fucking stubborn?”

His hyung’s thunderous voice and that unbelievably enraged look on his face was a combination Taehyung had never seen before; it was like he became a completely different person. Some of the cruelty fizzled out seconds later, but it didn’t make him seem any less intimidating. 

Jae Wook’s voice rang again with the same brutality, though something bitterly gloomy softened the edges this time. “Why, Tae? I’m doing this for you—everything I’m doing is for you. Why are you going around and look for answers you’re not supposed to know? For answers you don’t want to know?” 

Taehyung’s springing tears coursed down the harsh, contracted muscles of his face tacitly. “I spent my whole adult life trying to find these answers. I’m in misery because I can’t get closure while you live your life like you weren’t there when they killed our parents. I get that they’re not your biological parents, but still... They raised you with the same love as me. Especially our poor mother. Don’t you feel sorry for her? You’re not even sad that she had to die because of our father’s organization? Because of his rivalry with Woo Myeong?”

Something seemed to snap within Jae Wook towards the end of his speech that turned his eyes stony with pent-up hatred. The binds he had chained the truth inside him with got torn to pieces and hastened to spew out of him in a rumbling vociferation. 

“Our father was the one who died because of that slut!”

Taehyung’s eyes bulged unnaturally as his brain worked on processing these brutal words. “Yah!” he growled, his body growing so tense it began quivering. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t curse our mother. She’s the victim here!”

“No, she’s responsible for everything! That slut is responsible for our misery, Tae.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he cried hysterically, feeling his throat burn with the ferocity of his voice. His mind was a mess of bemusement, heartache, and wrath, and his tears refused to stop. 

“You really want to know what that disgusting person who you still call mother did? Are you sure you can bear it, Tae? It will fucking destroy you. It will ruin your already miserable life. It’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born,” Jae Wook spoke with a growling undertone. 

“Yes,” he replied at once and wiped the wetness from his cheeks with two quick, trembling palms.

“She slept with the boss of Sanan gang. Our father’s worst enemy. Yes, Kim Woo Myeong. Because she wanted to do it. And she continued getting fucked by him whenever that asshole wanted. You know why? Because she wanted it!”

The words floated around him like a tortuous mist, fogging his eyes with dolorous shock. They bore down on his chest, pooling and pooling in an intolerable load that made it feel as if it would cave in at any moment. “No,” he said in a wrecked whisper. He blinked the tears from his vision as he gulped, but more cartwheeled down his face instantly. “How can you know that? That can’t be true.” 

Recognizing the devastation meandering throughout his existence, Jae Wook’s expression sank with shared sorrow. “It is. I saw her, Tae. You weren’t born yet. Ji Sun was away for business most of the time. Woo Myeong dropped her off at our house at times. He even stayed the night. And that slut thought I had no idea. I didn’t know who he was at first, and I asked her why she was going out with another man. You know what she said? That they were in love. She threatened me not to say anything to Ji Sun or else she would put me in a mental clinic. She had the power to do it, so I kept my mouth shut. I kept my mouth shut for eight fucking years.”

Taehyung retreated with dragging little steps until he collapsed onto the couch. The truth still refused to settle in; it felt like a knife cutting out of his chest everything he knew and all his sweet memories with his mother. “But... But you loved her. We were so happy all together. You never showed any hatred towards her.”

Jae Wook sank down next to him. “I did it for you. I didn’t want you to go through what I went through when I found out at such a young age. You loved her more than anyone. It would break you if you found out.”

His hyung’s desire to protect him from such agony didn’t salve the excruciating mass on his chest, didn’t soothe the sickening tangle in his stomach, didn’t lessen his tears. It did nothing else than strike more bruises to his blackened heart because Jae Wook had kept him in the dark and lied to him while he knew everything and hurt all alone. 

“You made the choice to protect me all by yourself,” Taehyung’s low voice released with an apathetic timbre. “I wanted to know. I had to. She was my mother. Maybe—Maybe if I had talked to her—” 

“What do you think would have happened?” Jae Wook uttered. “She didn’t love Ji Sun anymore, Taehyung. She was in love with Woo Myeong. You think I didn’t try to talk to her? You think I didn’t try to save our family? Of course I did. She just didn’t want to listen.”

A vehement flood of anguish soared up Taehyung’s insides, filling his eyes with a fresh, plangent wetness that soon gushed out as he leaned his elbows to his thighs and buried his face in his hands. “She loved him. I-I could see it. Was everything an act?”

“Yes, Tae. She pretended because she didn’t want you to know. And she didn’t want me to tell you either.”

Taehyung drew in slow breaths in his attempt to calm the onslaught of tears. He wiped his face repeatedly as he reclined in his seat again. “What happened when you told our father?”

Jae Wook swiftly trod to the entryway table to grab a pack of tissues and returned. “He was furious.” He passed him the pack and squeezed his shoulder. “So much that he killed Woo Myeong’s son.”

Every muscle in Taehyung’s body glaciated with startle. He slowly twisted his head to look at him, his jaw going slack. “What?” 

Jae Wook took the pack from his hands and opened it himself. He offered him a tissue, which Taehyung took in his hands a few moments of stillness later. “He killed his fifteen-year-old son. And by killing him, Chae Yeon found out everything about his relationship with Maria. And she ordered to kill the whole family. That’s why they attacked us.”

The answer he was pining to find for so many years was finally unearthed and shocked through him, fiercer and crueler than his brain could ever imagine. “She’s responsible for our parents’ death,” Taehyung breathed out in a doleful daze. “But why does Chae Yeon still want to kill me? Because I’m Ji Sun’s son? Why doesn’t she want to kill you too?”

A heavy hush emerged like stormy clouds and enclosed them as Jae Wook drove his chin to his chest. “Tae...” He swallowed, trying to dispel the riptides of regret for telling him the truth. Because now, he had to reveal every single thing to him. And there was no going back anymore. “She doesn’t want to kill you because you’re Ji Sun’s son.”

Lines of intense contemplation leaped into sight on Taehyung’s face as he processed his words. He prayed with all his heart and soul that the meaning of Jae Wook’s words wasn’t what slammed into his mind. That the horrific realization that thundered down on him wasn’t true. But as he gaped at his hyung with a mix of shock and terror eddying in his eyes, tears blurred his vision anew because at that moment, by the way his hyung was gazing at him with such wrenching sadness, he knew. He knew it was true. 

“Ji Sun wasn't my father?” 

Jae Wook gave plodding shakes of his head, feeling his chest clench at the recognition of unbearable heartache in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Tae. Ji Sun didn’t even know about it. I couldn’t tell him. He was outraged and heartbroken at the same time when I told him Maria had a relationship with Woo Myeong. I couldn’t tell him you weren’t his son too.”

God, it was too much to take in and his already ravaged heart couldn’t bear it. The sweet memory of the happiest moments of his life crumbled before his eyes like a tower of cards, and he was left an empty wreck in the torturous aftermath of the collapse. “How do you know?” His voice could barely come out through the suffocating constriction in his throat. 

“I asked her. At first she told me you were Ji Sun’s son, and I told her I would request for a DNA test because I didn’t believe her. And afraid that Ji Sun would find out, she was forced to tell me the truth. I requested for a test later either way, though. You’re not Ji Sun’s son.” He rose to his full height and headed to his room. Soon, he was back with two envelopes in his hands. 

Taehyung dried his cheeks with his sleeves, biting his lower lip harshly, and reached for the envelope that was handed to him. He opened it with trembling hands, his vision foggy behind the ceaseless tears. His eyes descended to the end of the single paper. And the iron grip of devastation around his heart squeezed it deadly.

He wasn’t Ji Sun’s son. It was a reality that suddenly came crashing down on him and he was forced to accept it, but he couldn’t. How could he accept that his entire life, everything he believed and knew, was a lie? 

Jae Wook’s hand caressing his back dispersed the hurtful fog of his numbness by a fraction, causing his gaze to fall on the second envelope he was holding. He swallowed past the searing suffocation in his throat. He opened it. And he faced another reality he couldn’t take in, couldn’t believe, couldn’t bear. He clutched the paper as a wrenching cry exploded out of him, eyes screwing shut and still shedding countless tears.

“I’m sorry, Tae,” he said, his voice getting lost between Taehyung’s sobs. “Woo Myeong was your father. I secretly took his DNA and requested for another test. When Chae Yeon found out that you were his son, she killed Woo Myeong. And then wanted to kill all the family too. But since we escaped and you’re the last trace of his relationship with Maria, she wants to kill you like crazy. You’re the only living remembrance of her humiliation.”

The words sounded distorted in Taehyung’s ears by the stabbing woolliness that spiraled through his mind. In just a few minutes, everything he once knew changed and imposed on him such a crippling poignancy that his shattered heart couldn’t last through. 

Jae Wook sat there immobile, hearing his dongsaeng’s cries and being unable to do something for his suffering. He knew this would happen. It was expected and inevitable. “Do you understand now why I didn’t tell you anything all these years? I know I’m harsh to you, but it’s because you make me furious with your actions sometimes. I was trying to protect you. But you just couldn’t give up. You were looking for these answers your whole life, you said. You know the truth now. You know everything. And you feel more miserable. Don’t you?”

The answer was yes. He never imagined the truth would hurt that much. His whole life was a lie, like the ones he hurled at others for his missions. How could he keep on living now? How would he get through this since it had already destroyed him?

“How do you know all these things?” Taehyung choked out between gasping breaths. 

“I didn’t know either back then. When I disappeared for two years, I managed to find Ji Sun’s right hand, Sang Jon. And he told me that Chae Yeon was behind everything. I suspected it, though. Ji Sun killed her son. Maria fucked with her husband. And you’re Woo Myeong’s son. It had to be Chae Yeon.”

Taehyung’s sobs quieted as his strength abandoned him, though the agony inside him only festered, engulfing every inch of his existence. 

In the complete despondency that sat heavy on his shoulders, his heart called out for the one who always soothed him even with his simple presence, but it shattered him even more that he couldn’t run to him like he was so desperate to do. 

He pushed himself to his feet, not bothering to wipe the pouring tears. He weakly shook Jae Wook’s hold off him when he attempted to stop him and blotted out the calls of his name. He slouched out of the house and descended the stairs slowly, gripping the railings for support. 

His motorcycle was long forgotten through his aching daze, and he walked and walked and walked like a lost soul. He was empty and numb and a wreck of sadness all at the same time. 

At the end, he couldn’t deny what his heart was crying out for, and he was found outside of Jungkook’s house, staring at the door with tears still trickling down his hollow, reddened face randomly. 

Why was he there again? He didn’t have the right to crave his presence close to him. He deserved nothing from him after the pain he had caused him and the lies he had said. He couldn’t even face him. And although he needed his forbidden embrace, he didn’t want to see him. His guilt would destroy him. Not that it mattered. He was already ruined heart and soul. 

Realizing where he was, he continued to gaze at the door, with the aftermath of his actions adding more weight to his devastation. He wilted on the single stair and laid his forehead on his bent knees as he fastened his arms around them. 

🥀

The oppression within Jungkook’s chest had surprisingly subsided by a fraction. He knew now for sure that something was going on and Taehyung had to push him away. Although it still seared his heart achingly, he decided to wait. Wait for Taehyung to come back to him. 

So he returned home late at night after a normal day of interrogations, desk work, and snapping at almost anyone who talked to him. Like the good old days. And when he was in the safety of his home, he discarded his harsh facade and act of indifference like a piece of clothing. 

He took a long, warm shower and changed into his pajamas. Maybe it was his act throughout the day that made him feel so exhausted, but either way, his eyes longed to shut, along with his brain. 

He looked for his phone to set his alarms for tomorrow and remembered he had left it in his coat’s pocket. He dragged his feet to the stand beside the door and rummaged in his pocket, then pulled his phone out. His eyes squinted as the view of his doorstep was displayed on the screen. It was only seconds later when he recognized the back of the curled-up man sitting on his doorstep. And a rush of intense anxiety washed over him that rendered him at a standstill. 

He could tell Taehyung wasn’t there to explain himself. He wasn’t there to give him any answers. He wasn’t there to end his suffering. And even though he wasn’t supposed to open the door and talk to him, it was exactly what he rushed to do because Taehyung was sad. Or at least it seemed like it in his eyes. 

Taehyung’s head immediately perked up at the sound of the door opening, and he heaved himself to his feet. He dried his drenched cheeks with his sleeve and took a couple of quivering steps forward. 

But Jungkook reached for his wrist and held onto it delicately. He stood still for a while, maybe unconsciously waiting for Taehyung to yank his hand away or flee from him. He did neither of these things. Jungkook tugged him towards him in the gentlest of ways, then laid his hands on his shoulders, searching for his eyes. Although Taehyung kept his head down, he could see the tears roll down his cheeks with no sound or movement. “Do you want to come in?”

Taehyung flinched at the proposal. It was the last thing he thought he would hear from him. He told him so many cruel things — lies. He told him they meant nothing to each other, he avoided his calls, his texts, avoided him, and Jungkook still cared for him? Still asked him to come inside? He was supposed to yell at him, push him away, kick him out of there. Why didn’t he do any of these things? 

“You... don’t hate me?”

Jungkook’s chest ballooned with a slow inhalation and fell at the same dragging rhythm. His croaky, barely audible voice was like a spike digging into his heart. “No, Tae. I’m... confused. So, so confused. And mad. I’m mad at you. But I don’t hate you.”

Suddenly, Taehyung’s breath quickened until it turned to shallow, choked sobs. “Why—Why aren’t y-you yelling at me?” His fists clenched tightly to his sides in his exertion to subdue the gasping sounds that spewed from his lungs. “Why aren’t you—you t-throwing me out of here?” 

Jungkook’s face wrung with sorrow as he watched that man break down in front of him — that man who was near always cheerful and bubbly, who was able to raise a smile from him in no time and under any circumstances. “Because you’re sad, Tae. You’re not supposed to be sad.”

“I’m not sad,” he muttered between his sniffles. “I’m... I’m a fucking mess, Jungkook.” An agonizing sob came with his remark that convulsed his fragile figure. He covered his face with his hand and leaned into it, as if he couldn’t keep himself up anymore. “Fuck, it—it hurts. I can’t—It hurts so bad.”

Jungkook clamped his teeth into his lower lip as he gripped his nape and crushed him into his embrace gently. His other arm circled his form and his palm gave pacifying pats and caresses on his back. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered in his ear. 

“No, I won’t,” Taehyung spluttered as he grasped Jungkook’s sweater to each side, pressing his forehead harder into his chest. “My fucking life is a lie. Everything... Everything...” His barely coherent words drowned into another salvo of wails. 

It was truly excruciating for Jungkook to have that man crying his eyes out in his embrace. He wished he could do something to mollify his anguish, his tears, his sobs, but he could only hold him, shush him sweetly, and pray for his effusion to end because his heart couldn’t take it. 

Taehyung had lost track of time as he cried endlessly into his arms and didn’t realize when Jungkook began leading him into the house. He was found sitting on the couch with Jungkook cradling him, his messy face hidden in the crook of his neck. 

Only his muffled sobs filled the room for a long time until they got diminished to sniffles and mute tears. His numb body regained its ability to feel as the all-consuming turbidity of his heartache gradually cleared from his head. 

With his deluge of tears now soothed by a lot, he felt everything at once. Where he was, who was holding him, what he had done. God, the pain wouldn’t end. It couldn’t. He thought Jungkook’s presence would redeem his pain. But it only increased it now that he could feel something other than his misery.

Jungkook’s hug, which once felt soul-deep soothing, now felt like a spiked wire. It confined Taehyung achingly. One move, and the spikes would drill into his body. Would make him bleed and eventually kill him. But his heart already felt like a useless organ — like a dead burden that only weighed him down. 

“I shouldn’t have come here.”

Jungkook’s hold firmed up around him, as if he were expecting these words and had to clutch him tighter so Taehyung wouldn’t leave him again. “I’m here for you,” he uttered with a mouth tucked into ebony, silky hair. He drew a little kiss on the top of his head and froze, as though processing what he had done. Then, he planted more kisses that slid closer to his face. 

The spiked wire gouged into Taehyung’s flesh. 

“Let me make you feel better.” His lips pressed gently on his temple and painted a delicate line of kisses down to his jaw. 

Taehyung’s heart wailed at the unbearable pain of fresh, bleeding wounds all over his existence. 

“Let me take care of you.” Jungkook unburied his head and brought their faces inches away, his mouth ghosting over his. The pure devastation he discerned in Taehyung’s bloodshot, swollen eyes had his heart lurching in sorrow and his need to comfort him surging. 

He embraced his cheek, his thumb running smoothly over it, collecting a trail of tears. His eyes crawled to lips, which seemed to be forcefully pressed together, as if his sobs would escape again if he relaxed. He edged closer, closing his eyes. He caressed these lips with a tender kiss, slow and brief. Just their mouths connecting sweetly, softly — a kiss so fragile like a butterfly’s wings. 

But Taehyung’s lips pressed harder together. Tears started anew and poured harsher from his eyes. And his heart shut down, gasping its last breaths, as the pain suddenly became too much. 

Jungkook leaned their foreheads together at his reaction, keeping his eyes closed. “Let me make you feel better, Tae. Please. Just let me... I finally found the courage to kiss you while knowing exactly what I’m doing. While knowing that’s what I want to do. Let me, please.”

“Can’t—I can’t do this,” Taehyung croaked out. I can’t do this to you. He withdrew, but Jungkook’s arms clung onto him. 

“Please.” He was unaware of the wetness on his cheeks for a while now, and only perceived it when Taehyung brushed it away with two shaky hands. 

“I’m sorry. You have to let me go now,” he spoke through quiet sobs, wiping his own tears now with the back of his hand. “It hurts too much to hold on. And it will hurt even more later.” It will hurt you so fucking much later, fuck. Another sob leaked out of his mouth with this thought, more painful and louder than the others. 

“Please.”

Taehyung gripped his hands and tugged them. The strength of his hold was such that he couldn’t unshackle himself, and he didn’t have the power to try harder. “Let me leave.”

“I can’t. I don’t want to.”

“Don’t do this. You’ll only make things worse. I want to be alone.”

“Then why did you come here?” 

Taehyung averted his eyes. It was a question he didn’t have an answer to. “I was too out of it. And when I realized I was here, I just rested outside. I didn’t want to see you. That’s why I didn’t knock on the door.” He felt the grip around him lose its tautness, but it still didn't relent. 

Jungkook blinked the fog of tears from his vision, though the dejection adorning them only deepened. “You don’t want to see me anymore?”

Taehyung swallowed the words he wanted to say. “No. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

The arms around Taehyung’s form withered. Lost all strength and vitality, just like Jungkook’s heart. “Why? At least give me a reason.”

“I just... I told you. I want to work. I can’t associate with the police.” 

Harshness slashed across Jungkook’s face, masking the despair for a few moments. “I’m not a fucking detective when I hang out with you.”

“But you are one,” Taehyung said in a hushed tone, still avoiding his eyes. “And I feel uncomfortable. Doing illegal business and hanging out with you like I’m a saint or something. I don’t know how I did this all this time. Maybe because I was your informant. But it feels different now. It feels like...” His gaze traveled to Jungkook and dropped anchor. “I can’t stand talking to you.”

Jungkook’s furious and saddened at the same time eyes grew bigger as he watched Taehyung stand up. He jolted out of his seat and ruthlessly grasped his forearm. “Yah. Don’t use my stupid, fucking empty words to me.”

Taehyung mustered all the strength he could and pried his grip away from him. The sadness in his gaze got concealed by feigned sternness. “Stop touching me.” Please, please stop. “Maybe you didn’t mean them, but I do.” He marched towards the door, forcing his legs not to tremble. 

Jungkook lunged behind him when he was close to the exit and swiveled him, then pinned him to the door. He clutched at his biceps, rendering his efforts to squirm away useless. A dangerous scowl had fallen over his traits, darkening his eyes. “You wanted me to fuck you until a few days ago.” The words burst from his throat roughly. “And now you say you can’t stand talking to me? That you don’t want to see me anymore?” 

Taehyung ceased his struggle and dropped his hands. He took a fortifying breath to tell one more lie. One more so he could end this forever and drown in his unbearable misery. One more while he promised to himself he wouldn’t look for him ever again. “I realized I was stupid to beg for you. There are thousands of guys like you out there. And I can have them all.”

A look of madness slithered into Jungkook’s eyes as he slowly retreated, feeling deep slashes cut through his chest and brimming with bitter exasperation. “Go have them, then.”

Taehyung stood stock still for a while, staring at the floor. The pretended harshness faded from his gaze as his vision flooded with a burning wetness once more. He rotated, yanked the door open, and slammed it behind him. His knees felt weak the moment he got outside, feeling as if he would keel over at any second. 

He heard a muffled, but sonorous bang from behind him that made him jolt. For a moment he thought Jungkook stepped outside too and shut the door. But as he glanced back, he realized Jungkook simply banged on the closed door from the inside. 

The second bang that tumbled into his ears almost led him to run back to him, as though it begged him to get close to him again and caress his fist to soothe it, even kiss it. And at the third pounding, fresh tears fell again because he couldn’t return to him, and he knew it. So he left. 

He left more devastated than he was before. Because he made Jungkook cry again. Because he came to find him when he wasn’t planning to give him any answers. He came to find him for his own selfish reasons — to ease his pain, to salve his ravaged heart, to lessen the insupportable heaviness of his agony. But he was instead met with another revelation that razed him to the ground. 

Jungkook liked him. As Taehyung liked him. And he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, because it would destroy him if he found out who he truly was. 

He promised again to himself as he trudged away with slouched shoulders and tears showering down his face. He wouldn’t come find him again. He wouldn’t follow him again. He wouldn’t seek his embrace. No matter how desperate his heart was for him. 

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The reason Taehyung's parents were murdered has been revealed! What do you think about it? Did you expect it? Had you guessed it? 🤔💜