MALEVOLENT HEART | TK

Chapter Twenty Five

And you know you are a paradox and you contradict
The road you walk, everything that you ever did
Cutting into my code
Erasing everything I know

Hear me out, I'm sorry, but I'm a little less than sold
I've been around, heard all the stories you said you never told
You're used to speaking in tongues to feel like you're in control
Now you've got nowhere to run, now you've got nowhere to go

I feel my focus fading away, I had high hopes
Running from the man that I used to be, but I'm too slow
Blood signed, we made a pact
Yours dried out, you took it back

***

Taehyung's eyelids fluttered open but, unlike the images he was expecting to see, wether those were representations of a concrete ceiling filled with bright lights or strangers staring down at him with guns pointed at his head, he wasn't met with any of those, nor was he met with the sight of dark irises that seemed to have an endless void swirling inside them. Instead, it was another person who greeted him.

One he wasn't expecting to see.

A person he had presumed to be dead.

Blue eyes stared at him from above, the skin around them wrinkled because of the smile the person was sporting. Despite the small lines that adorned the skin, there were no signs of aging on that forever youthful face he had dreamed about so many times.

"How do you feel?"

Taehyung's head was swirling. He blinked, three times, then turned his head to the side, his irises colder than ever under all the eyes following his gaze. He looked at his arm, at the IV in his vein, and with slow movements, almost too controlled, ripped it out of him, ignoring the gasps around him and the warmth of the hand that had settles itself on a shoulder, as light as a feather.

Just like it's been there forever.

Like it's never been gone.

Turning his head to the side, Taehyung gazed at the person next to him, into those irises he knew too well.

"Get your hand off me," he was shocked to notice how hoarse his voice sounded "before I do it myself."

The woman did as told, not because she was asked, but because she knew that look in his eyes. She was aware he couldn't be viewed the same, that he wasn't the person she knew anymore. The gaze in his irises no longer sparkled with innocence and faith. It flickered with darkness and specks of void that seemed to have found their home in Taehyung's soul.

The darkness looked like it's always been there, hidden behind the curtains of his mind.

"Taehyung.."

"How many days?" The man asked as he looked into another pair of eyes, one that burned with a fire he knew no one could put down.

"Four." Yoongi answered, his hand resting on a cane as he limped towards Taehyung's bed.

The man's irises fell on that staff, the golden design reminding him of the first day he had met Jeongguk, of the sounds that had echoed in the room as the most powerful man in the world had walked towards him. Taehyung took it from Yoongi's hand, knowing that his friend was offering it to him, not because Taehyung couldn't walk, but because it belonged to him.