Heartless || Choi Beomgyu [✓]

28 ~ Judge

"Hey."

Y/n greeted him awkwardly, not knowing what else to say as she approached him slowly. When he turned to face her, the first thing she noticed was the huge bundle of flowers in his arms; it had visibly increased since she was looking at him from the window.

"Hey."

It appeared to have become almost too large for him to carry in just his one arm, but he showed no sign of removing a single one of them any time soon.

"You come here a lot, don't you?"

"Occasionally."

Y/n mildly remembered the first time she asked that question, but he replied saying that he didn't. She liked to think of it as a form of progress.

"Do you like it here?"

"Do you usually ask a lot of questions?"

At this point, Y/n was beginning to become convinced that her earllier hypothesis that an impostor had replaced Beomgyu didn't seem that incredible anymore. He was conversing comfortably with her, and even in a friendly, unironic tone.

Feeling a little more comfortable in the garden, Y/n took it upon herself to explore parts of the garden that she hadn't had the chance to see during her last visit. She approached a further corner of the garden, not too far from Beomgyu, though.

"Are you gonna tell me why you were stalking me?"

Y/n's face instantly turned completely red at the question, an embarrassed smile forcing itself upon her lips as well. She stayed facing the bush in front of her.

"I j-jus-st want-ted t-to ask you s-someth-thing."

Beomgyu tilted his head in curiosity, setting the roses down on a marble bench. He took a roll of wide, black ribbon out of his pocket.

"Ask what?"

Y/n turned around to face him, planning to finally ask the question. Keeping her eyes on the loose bouquet on the bench, Y/n tried to manage her stutter by focusing on the flowers instead of Beomgyu's sharp gaze.

"Bef-fore I ask, I j-just want to clar-rify that y-you don't have t-to answer if you d-don't want to, okay?"

He gave her a weird look, but returned to the bouquet in front of him. He appeared to be tying the roses together at the stem using a nice length of the ribbon.

"Go ahead."

"I asked Kai an-nd Rina and T-Taehyun, but none o-of them would t-tell me anythi-thing. Taehyun told m-me that I should a-ask you instead."

Beomgyu's attention shifted from the bouquet to the girl in the corner of the rose garden, intrigued by the build-up. The roses lay still on the bench, the ribbon around them only half-tied into a bow.

"I wanted to know h-how you became a p-part of the maf-fia, when you weren't ra-raised in the mansion."

His mouth opened for a second, as if he was going to answer, but closed it soundlessly. Based on the absence of a huge breakdown or outburst of anger, a weight was lifted off of Y/n's chest because of the conclusion that it wasn't such a big deal that everyone was making it out to be.

Beomgyu dropped his gaze to the roses, like he was sending a help signal to them through his eyes. When they left him on delivered, he sighed and looked up at Y/n again.

"Before I tell you, I need you to understand that what I did was justified, and not just for no reason."

Y/n's heart began to beat a little faster, the anticipation making her wonder what on Earth Beomgyu had done to make him act this way before actually saying anything. Slowly, she nodded her head.

"I need you to promise."

His tone changed drastically, not so much in sound but in aura. He sounded more desperate than demanding, in the way Y/n heard it. It made her realise just how sensitive Beomgyu might be feeling about telling her.

"I promise, I won't judge."

She herself was wowed by the absence of stutter, but soon realised it came too simply out of her mouth to be flawed by any internal origin. Beomgyu's eyes softened a little, almost physically feeling his walls coming down.

"I was taken in by the leader... because I'm an orphan."

He said, not sounding like he was finished. Because of this, Y/n continued watching him intently.

"My mom died when I was a baby... and I killed my dad."

For a moment, Y/n's brain stopped functioning. She knew that he was part of the mafia and that he had killed many people, but it sounded so much worse to hear it rolling off his tongue in such a slow way, as if it was crushing her previous assumptions as it rolled.

You promised you wouldn't judge! Stop judging!

He said he had a reason, now get your shit together and wait for him to tell you!

As all this was going through her head, Beomgyu was having an internal crisis of his own.

As soon as the words sounded on his lips, he instantly regretted it. He saw the shock flash across Y/n's eyes when she heard him, and it brought sense to him like a lightning bolt. He wanted to turn back time and stop himself from even considering telling her.

"Wh-what was the reason?"

Y/n asked quietly. She avoided eye contact with him, feeling her old fear of him slowly creeping back in. Beomgyu noticed her eyes constantly darting across the ground, avoiding where he was standing.

He didn't want her to be scared of him anymore. He needed to explain himself. Quickly.

"It was because..."

Beomgyu started, but hesitated, feeling uncomfortable that she was still avoiding his gaze.

"Please look at me."

Y/n slowly lifted her gaze to his eyes, all her fear melting away like ice on hot tar. She heard it earlier in his voice, and now she was seeing it in his eyes; desperation. She suddenly understood how badly he wanted to say it properly. The blank look in her eyes quickly softened.

"The reason I did that, was because he killed my sister."

Her heart dropped.

An image appeared in her mind; a young boy coming home - probably from school - to find his younger sister, sprawled out lifelessly on the ground, blood seeping out of a bullet wound in her head. He cries out in despair, running to her side to clutch her limp arm close to his chest and rock back and forth for a few minutes, all the while weeping terribly. A middle-aged man walks in, holding a gun, his eyes red with absence of sobriety. The young boy looks up to him and quickly connects the dots in his young, fragile mind. A red screen covers his eyes, he grabs a knife and tackles the man, a raw cry of rage blaring straight from his throat.

The horrible image dissipated when Beomgyu spoke once again.

"Can you come somewhere with me?"

yeah.. we needed a traumatic backstory ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
how do we feel about this chapter??

a vote is highly appreciated <33

P.S. next chap will be like a day late