✅Behind the smile || Kim Taehyung X Readers

18 | Protect

Your POV

"You look a bit familiar." I remember how Taehyung rushed to grab a seat after hearing my mother. He barely answered her and just gave an uncomfortable smile. Whereas for my mother, she was confused and although being a bother free woman , something had got into her and she wanted to remember Taehyung anyhow.

Right now she was rummaging through the box she had kept in our storage room filled with albums and some stuff of my brother. It was a big trigger to my inquisitive self and I couldn't help but wonder about what could be connected to the past which those pictures and stuff held.

And the answer to my question soon came in when my mother called out my name. " I told you he looked familiar." My mother breathed out deeply as she held out a picture in front of me. The moment felt like everything had stilled as my eyes scanned the two very familiar boys together in the picture.

It was my brother Ji-hoon and Taehyung standing together, looking like best buddies and in front of them was a birthday cake. If I could remember well , it was his seventeenth birthday… The last one of his and I wasn't present due to a school trip.

I looked up to my mother asking for an explanation and she seemed to have gotten my confusion. If Taehyung knew about my brother then why did he never talk about it ? If he was my brother's friend then why didn't I remember seeing him before like I did in other cases ? Was he always that hideous? It seems like he was always there but hidden…

" I don't remember seeing him much with your brother but all I know is that Ji-hoon was too fond of a guy named Taehyung. I never got it until it was his birthday. You know your brother was a very gentle kid and a little bit different from others. He always tried to laugh off difficult situations and it seemed to annoy every student around him. "

"He  was like an outcast and the jolly guy looked sad for the first time when no one turned up on his birthday… none wished your brother and treated him like everyday. He was feeling the worst until this guy turned up. I had never seen Ji-hoon that happy…Taehyung was like the best gift to your brother on his last birthday before…"

Involuntarily a sob escaped my mother's gape. What I felt was still oblivious to me. My heart felt heavy yet it was warm knowing the bond my brother and Taehyung shared was something precious. But again , it was a question of why Taehyung never spoke about it to me…

Suddenly certain words of his flashed in my mind . "I failed to hide myself yet again… " "whoever tries to help me gets hurt." He lost someone precious on the day I did. When I mentioned Ji-hoon's death , Taehyung ran away. What could all of this imply ? I shook my head at these upcoming thoughts. Taehyung can never be related to my brother's death. That's… that's not possible .

I reached upstairs in a hurry, dashing inside my room. I had to ask him this to settle down the raging invasion of negative thoughts . And so I grabbed my phone in a haste and dialed Taehyung's number.

Taehyung's POV

After getting back home , the first thing I did was to check whether Hansoo was present or not. Exploring his absence made me dash towards our storage room and run a thorough search. Being not able to find anything which could lead me to where my mother could be , I advanced inside my father's bedroom.

At this point I would not be surprised on finding a door to somewhere which I had never known existed within this house. I checked through the desk and under the bed. Behind the photo frames , just to find something suspicious. But my pent up hope to find anything was crushed down when I got nothing. The last place to run a search was his study room.

I gulped down a lump formed and stepped forward to approach the room at the end of the first floor of the house. Nobody was allowed to enter this room except Hansoo and I couldn't even imagine the consequences if he knew that I was here. So being extra cautious, I twisted the door knob and entered the surprisingly chilly room.

It was abnormal for the temperature being this low in the monsoon season. Maybe because of the lack of sunlight, it was damp and chilly ? Yet that wasn't my first priority, right then I had to fully concentrate on the search and so I did. I looked through everywhere possible but there wasn't much to look for in the first place. The room had two book shelves filled with different books and a study table opposite to the door.

The carpet placed on the floor was the only suspicious thing to me , so I moved it only to find nothing but the marble tiles. Defeatedly I sat down on the cold floor as my hands reached out to get a grip on my hairs . I tugged onto them , taking out my frustrations… that's all I could do, beating up myself for something which my father did.

"Why can't anything ever go right?" I cried, feeling the sting in my eyes. I hated to feel vulnerable and lost and at that moment I felt just like that. Lost, clueless, defeated with a limited time in hand.

Suddenly my phone buzzed, making me flinch a little. Gaining my posture I fished it out from my pocket , but my hands stopped fr receiving it once I saw the caller ID. Y/n was calling at this time of night , could it be because of what happened earlier when we all met ?

The phone stopped buzzing after a while , I was ready to leave out a breath which I was holding in when my phone buzzed again. This time I decided to pick and face whatever was upcoming.

"Hey… " I could hear her inhale deeply and then came the question which made my throat go dry. "Taehyung, do you know my brother?" As if my instinct hit in , I wanted to run away, far away from that question. How she got to know it was quite clear. Maybe Mrs. Lee could regain where we could have met ? But I didn't want to let Y/n know what I had caused her brother.

Our friendship caused his death and I was scared to let her know about it. "Tae? Are you still there ?" Realisation dawned over me. Staying silent about this wouldn't help us out. "Yeah… I was a friend of Ji-hoon." Best friend. I wanted to say that but….. " I feel so… I don't why I am thinking about this but… can I just ask you something? I really can't hold this feeling within me anymore, it's… it's eating me up and I really need you to make sure that whatever I'm thinking is not right. "

She spoke out all at once making me gulp down the rising tension within. " You can ask." I spoke out in a near whisper . " Why did you run away that day when I talked about my brother's death? Why did you never mention about knowing Ji-hoon? "

" Y/n… I -" I failed to speak anything, it was as if my mind went empty and I could not process anymore. She was someone to whom I never had to form an excuse and right then I suddenly felt a need to make up something, just anything believable. " Y/n.. he was-" as I started speaking suddenly the call ended. It might have been an accident right ?

I tried calling back again but she didn't pick up. Instead after a few minutes I received a text from her saying - " Meet me at the park , I'm on my way." There wasn't anything else written, just that. Confusion took over me as I tried calling her again but yet again nobody picked up. I stood up and existed my father's study room.

Once I was out of the house , yet again my phone buzzed. I hastily took it out of my pockets thinking it was Y/n but my hope died down seeing it was an unknown number. Yet I picked it up . "Go get your girl before she really believes that you killed her dear brother. I don't think you will want her to die believing something which you didn't do , right son ?"

My phone slipped down from my hands as it lost the strength to hold it. And the next moment I was running, running towards the place where I had met someone who could see through me , my aid whom I needed to protect.