MALEVOLENT HEART | TK

Chapter Twelve

***

"Full of despair, inside a darkness
Self conscious and scared held prisoner of war
Running out of air, buried in a sadness
Want a way out of this paralyzing world."

Taehyung woke up in an unknown room, filled with darkness and an eeriness he couldn't explain. The moment his eyes opened, truly opened, panic struck him. He didn't know where he was, why he was there, and in a matter of seconds, his breathing was already falling short due to his thoughts and the panic clouding his mind.

Was he back in that cottage?

He trashed around the bed, feeling the softness of the sheets as he fell on the floor, his breath still too rapid, too short. Getting up from the icy, cold, marbled floor was an effort he found extremely difficult to make but, after a few tries, he managed to get to the light switch.

When he pressed it, he let out a deep sigh and let himself fall back to the floor—his legs were still aching, burning, and his throat was all swollen up.

He was in Jeongguk's hideout.

He wasn't back in that cottage, the place in which most of his nightmares took place.

He was safe.

That's what Taehyung kept repeating as he calmed himself down. He wasn't able to fall asleep again but, being already used to that, the doctor simply stepped outside his room and ventured into what had once been an unknown place.

***

The surgery was supposed to take place tomorrow. Taehyung had learnt that Jeongguk's men had indeed set up a room with all the necessary equipment for the surgery—he had carefully analyzed everything in the hours he had spent awake while everyone else besides a few guards were sleeping. One of them had told him that his team was going to arrive tomorrow and that they were, under no circumstances, allowed to see or hear about Jeongguk. Their task was to assist him and that was it.

Taehyung couldn't agree more. He didn't want them involved either.

In the hours he spent pacing around the compound, Taehyung kept wondering what Jeongguk was doing.

Was he awake, like him?

Was he also haunted by nightmares of his past? Of what he had done? Of what his grandfather had done to him as well?

A part of him wanted to know—to find out if Jeongguk was like him as well; tormented by memories he couldn't erase, by moments of his past he couldn't escape from. A part of him knew he and Jeongguk were alike but, despite their similarities and their connection to his grandfather, they were, oh, so different. Jeongguk was like a man enveloped by thick walls of iron—Taehyung thought that nothing could break him, not even his grandfather, whereas he was made of glass; fragile, breakable.

All he needed  was a little push in order to break and, that night, he had tasted it—that sour moment. When he had learnt about his grandfather, that he was alive, Taehyung was on the verge of breaking. He broke inside, so much that he couldn't piece himself back together soon, not while that man was still out there.

However, no matter how much those news broke him, the thoughts of Jeongguk being there, by his side, made him feel safe.

He had saved him once.