Masquerade | Johnyong

★ Chapter sixty-one

Masquerade 61

Taeyong spends the next two days mostly in silence, simply drawing and thinking. It's starting to seem like he'll have to confess the truth to Johnny sooner rather than later. He can't keep going on like this. The weight of it all is crushing him.

He lets out a frustrated sigh, ripping off a page in his sketchbook before throwing it somewhere on the ground. He starts over his sketch of a willow tree but it doesn't come together like he wants. His mind is filled with so much worry he can't even take a moment to do something as simple as sketching a tree.

"Drawing butterflies again?"

Taeyong doesn't bother to look up. He immediately recognizes the voice, belonging to Yuta. "Why are you here? You're not supposed to leave Seo's residence." He questions in a rather cold tone.

"I came to check up on you." Yuta replies, closing the door behind him.

Taeyong pauses. He can't help but feel a little astonished at the amount of times Yuta keeps approaching him so casually, like he's trying to ignore what he did. He puts his sketchbook down and sits up.

"Why?"

Yuta seems to be taken aback by the question. He nervously chuckles, scratching his nape. Taeyong scoffs, shaking his head.

Yuta's awkward smile fades into a frown as he takes careful steps towards Taeyong. He sighs as he slowly drops to his knees. "I'm sorry, Taeyong — for everything that I did." He mutters as honestly as he possibly could but it doesn't seem to be enough for Taeyong.

"Don't apologize now. It's too late." Taeyong replies, looking away. He didn't want to look at Yuta, not because of the feeling of disgust he gets but he just physically can't right now, not with this topic, and definitely not here.

"It's too late? What do you mean? Tae–"

"An apology isn't going to fix anything. You can't take back the day you poisoned me with fucking cyanide, you can't take back the pain I was in for days, you can't take back everything that you said and did to Sicheng. Maybe the others can forgive you, find a way to even justify your actions but. . . I can't." Taeyong's voice trembles with a mix of pain and anger.

Yuta lowers his head, ashamed. He pinches his temples, wondering to himself how he let everything get to this point. He stands up, trying to take Taeyong's hand to plead with him, but Taeyong puts a hand up, gesturing for him to stay where he is.

"You need to go." Taeyong says. Yuta stares for a moment longer, hoping the older man would change his mind, give him another chance, talk it out, anything but turn him away when he's trying to find some sort of redemption.

Yuta sighs heavily as he turns and finally leaves.

Taeyong lays back in bed. He already has so much on his mind, so much going on. If he faces his issues with Yuta now, he'll snap and he can't do that, for the sake of his baby.

🕊️

Joy's hands tremble as she reads the test results, the paper slightly crinkling up from her grip. From upstairs she watches Yeonwoo standing guard, composed as the other bodyguards. Her mind spins with disbelief. She tries to wrap her head around it all but she just can't. She has so many racing thoughts, so many questions.