FATE'S GAME | | BTS FF (18+)

CHAPTER TEN

KIM ISHITA

There are two kinds of silence.

The first kind sits in a room and waits politely like a guest who knows it has overstayed but doesn't want to leave. That's the silence I'm used to. The one that fills the halls of this mansion. The one that existed between Taehyung and me long before we ever spoke our vows.

But then there's the second kind.....the one that settles into your bones. It doesn't ask permission. It doesn't wait. It just becomes a part of you.

I've lived with that kind of silence since I was a child.

Since the day I learned that some mothers don't hold their daughters gently. That some women carry their cruelty in perfume bottles and lace gloves.

That love, when forced, feels a lot like being locked in a room full of mirrors where none of the reflections are yours.

She never called me by a pet name. Never tucked me in. Never asked me what scared me at night.

She taught me posture, etiquette, the rules of survival in a world built on male pride and inherited sins.

But not love.

Never love.

And yet... somewhere in the half-formed edges of my memory, there is someone else.

A woman with a smile that felt like spring.

I don't know her name. I don't even know if she was real.

But when the world got too loud, I used to close my eyes and hum the tune she used to sing......the one I can't remember the words to, but always feel in my chest.

Sometimes, I wonder if she was the one who loved me before I knew what love was. Before it was torn away and replaced with porcelain expectations and cold approval.

Sometimes I think... she was my real mother.

Even if she wasn't.

I pulled my knees up to the armchair, sweater sleeves too long for my wrists again. Somewhere down the hall, a door shut quietly.

Taehyung.

I knew his footsteps by now.

Quiet. Controlled. Like he didn't want to leave a trace.

He was home.

I glanced toward the hallway, biting the inside of my cheek. I could pretend I didn't hear him. Keep sipping tea. Stay wrapped in safe silence.

But the truth was, even in this cold war of a marriage... I missed him.

Even if he was never really mine to miss.

This house wasn't cold, not in temperature. It was something else. The kind of cold that crept in through silence and secrets. The kind you couldn't fight with blankets.

Only with presence.

With showing up.

So I got up.

My steps were soft as I walked down the hall, hugging the oversized sweater closer around me. I didn't know what I was planning to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe just be there.....the way I always wished someone had been for me.

When I reached his study door, I paused. My fingers hovered above the wood.

No voices. No typing. Just that strange stillness that had followed him home lately like he'd brought back ghosts instead of answers.

I knocked lightly.

No answer.

I cracked the door open just enough to peek in.