Hilde | Kim Taehyung fanfiction ✓

arya

33

After we got into the taxi, Tae gave the driver an address, and the three of us were engulfed in silence. Only this time, the silence was not pleasant. Instead, it fueled my panic. My hands moved up and down my thighs as both my legs were restless. My eyes darted from the rearview mirror, where I would see the driver glancing at me from time to time, to the people walking outside, to Taehyung, who looked lost in thought, to my hands on my thighs, and back to the rearview mirror.

At one point, I felt Tae's hand on my knee. He leaned in to talk in my ear as I turned to look at him with a cocked eyebrow. "Save your strength for later, will you?" he asked me with a blank expression and a monotone voice. I couldn't tell if he was serious, given how unreadable his whole attitude was. I guessed it was his way of not showing the impact the whole journey had on him; maybe he knew that if he showed how stressed he was, it would rub off on me. So, I tried to calm myself down for his sake. What if my restlessness was rubbing off on him?

I nodded at him, and after a big deep breath, I stopped fidgeting. The car was moving, the engine was running, and I wished it would never stop. I hadn't eaten a thing since the flight, and I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy; I felt the little food I had in my stomach rise in my throat.

Every now and then, I would glance at Tae for comfort, watching his demeanor and how he was handling this whole thing. After all, he was used to killing people left and right for a check, so I thought this would be easy for him; just an other job, only this time his paycheck would be freedom.

In my head, my plan seemed really easy: find Novikov, get him to tell me where my father is, kill Novikov, look for my father and confront him. Simple, concise, and straight to the point, right? But little did I know it was easier said than done because as I heard Tae say "You can stop here, we'll continue on foot,"  I felt my heartbeat in my head, in my ears, and in my toes.

The car stopped in the middle of nowhere, a grassland with only one remote house next to a small lake, and I watched as Tae gave the driver a fifty-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

We got out of the taxi and, side by side, watched as the car drove away, becoming smaller by the second. I balled and relaxed my hands a few times and rolled my neck and shoulders, trying to prepare myself to face what I'd been planning for the past six years.

"We're here," Tae said with finality in his tone. I nodded, too overcome by adrenaline to say anything.

"Do you regret this?" he asked.

I shook my head no as we both looked at the house in the distance. "It's too late to regret anything. Besides, I've been wanting this for six years, and now that I'm so close, there's no turning back."

We started walking slowly towards the house, which looked minuscule from where we were standing, our gazes fixated on it. "You still scared?" Tae asked.

I understood that, by the way he talked to me—calm and composed—he was trying to keep me neutral and level-headed for what was about to happen. "I was scared when you randomly appeared in my house for the first time. And when you drove us to God-knows-where. Not now, though. I need to be as rational as I can be. I can't leave any space for fear in my system."

"Oh, so randomly appearing in your house does the trick, huh?" Tae joked with a forced smile, trying and failing to lighten the atmosphere.

"Well, yes. I thought you were going to kill the only person I had left in my life. Do you blame me?"

Silence fell upon us as we kept walking at a slow pace. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tae shake his head no before muttering, "I really don't."

Despite having him by my side, I could not shake off the paranoia, as though someone was watching or worse, following us, and I prayed to the heavens above to be wrong.

"Would you have done it if my father had asked you to?" I stopped dead in my tracks and fully turned to scrutinize him and his reaction. "Kill Edith, I mean."

Tae stopped walking as well and turned his head to look at me with furrowed brows. "I already told you that assassins have morals. What good would it do me to take out an elderly woman? Time will do its course anyway, and I believe it wouldn't take longer than me to do the job."

I snorted at his words, not knowing whether he was joking or not. "Classy and delicate, Tae."

"As always, I might add."

"Why did we stop a mile away from the house? To tire me before we even reach it?" I asked half-jokingly, but the irritation was clear in my voice.

"In case you needed to walk off the anxiety," Tae replied with a doubtful tone, as though he didn't believe what he was saying.

"Oh, really? So, tell me, does it look like it's working?" I tilted my head, trying to get a better look at him.

"It could work if you tried hard enough to make it work," Tae answered cheekily with half a grin, which disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

I watched him take another step and then stop dead in his tracks right in front of me, preventing me from walking any further. "What are you doing, exactly? We're almost there," I said, trying to take a step forward. But with both hands on my shoulders, he stopped me.

"A few days ago, you said that you didn't trust me," he said.

I nodded, furrowing my eyebrows. "Right."

"Is it still the case?"

"I wouldn't be able to tell you. When you act weird like this, the little trust I have in you vanishes. What's going on?" I asked, feeling my heartbeat quicken slightly.

My puzzlement grew by the second. As I was about to question what he meant, I heard footsteps behind me growing louder. I tried to turn around, but Tae's grip on my shoulders tightened. A moment later, I felt a cloth cover my nose and mouth, and a third hand pressed against the nape of my neck.

My last thought before everything turned black was that the smell of the cloth was awfully similar to that of the public pool.