Falling for Your Lies(sope)

The Weight of Goodbye.

Authors pov

Hoseok knelt on the floor, his eyes vacant, staring into nothingness. Did he just hear correctly? His father's gone? It couldn't be. It was impossible. A strange, hollow laugh bubbled up from his throat as he reached for the phone that lay nearby, Somi’s voice faint but filled with concern.

He rose to his feet slowly, laughter still escaping him, soft and eerie. Somi’s worried voice came through the line, trembling, unsure. “Hoseok? What… why are you laughing?”

“Oh, come on, Somi,” he giggled, his voice filled with a fragile, desperate hope. “It’s a prank, right? It’s all just… a prank. Dad loved doing things like this, scaring me… It’s funny, right?”

On the other end, Somi sobbed—a sound so raw, so heart-wrenching, it cut through Hoseok's haze. "Hoseok," she choked, “it’s not… I’m not lying. Your father is gone. He’s gone.”

He laughed again, but the sound was hollow, bordering on hysterical. Clutching his chest as if to hold himself together, he paced the room, his heart fracturing with each step. "No, no, Somi," he begged, his voice rising with desperation. "Stop this, please. It’s not funny anymore. Just… tell me it’s a prank. Please, I’ll understand. I swear, I’ll forgive you, just… stop.”

“Hoseok,” Somi’s voice cracked, her grief wrapping around her words, “I wouldn’t lie about this. Your father… he loved you so much. He wanted to make sure you’d be okay after graduation. He saved everything he could, every penny. He even gave me the money, told me to keep it safe for you. He wanted you to have it when you were ready to stand on your own.”

Hoseok shook his head, his chest tightening painfully, like a vice clamping around his heart. “You’re lying,” he whispered, barely able to get the words out. “You… you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”

A quiet, broken sob was her only answer before she continued, “I didn’t want you to be distracted. He made me promise not to tell you… he said he didn’t want you to come back for him. He wanted you to live your life, to follow your dreams. He… he died three days after you left for Seoul.”

The words felt like shards of glass slicing through him. He staggered, his mind reeling, her voice dissolving into static as his world shattered. "No, no, no!" he screamed, throwing the phone against the wall. The device splintered on impact, pieces scattering across the floor, but Hoseok barely noticed. He was drowning, sinking into a chasm of despair so deep he couldn’t breathe.

He clutched his head, his fingers digging into his hair, pulling at the strands until his scalp stung, but he didn’t care. The pain in his chest was worse—relentless, tearing him apart from the inside out. His father was dead. His father, the only person who had ever loved him unconditionally, was gone. His anchor, his lifeline. How would he live after this?

“Why?” he whispered to the empty room, his voice breaking. “Why him? Why now?” He could feel himself unraveling, spiraling into a void of grief and helplessness. “What did I do to deserve this? All of this? Yoongi’s betrayal, the video, the shame, the expulsion, and now… this?”

His chest heaved with silent sobs as he stumbled to his desk, grabbing his journal with trembling hands. The emptiness, the feeling of worthlessness, gnawed at him, threatening to consume him. What was left for him here? His life was already in ruins, a hollow shell. “Everyone sees me as a whore now, right?” he muttered bitterly, Yoongi’s words echoing in his mind. “Just a broken, worthless… nobody.”

He tore a sheet of paper from the journal, scribbling a note with hands that shook so badly he could barely write. Folding it, he stuffed it into his pocket, his mind numb, his heart heavy with an anguish that words couldn’t capture.

As if in a trance, he walked toward the door, his movements sluggish, like a ghost. His fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and he didn’t bother locking it as he stepped out into the hallway, his footsteps hollow against the floor. His eyes were empty, his mind blank. He didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t care.

Wherever the universe took him, that was where he would end everything.