*This chapter contains sexual content so if you’re underage or uncomfortable with sexual acts, this is your warning, the book is also rated mature and has a warning in the prologue*
P R E S E N T
Moscow, Russia.
November 27, 2023 — 23:00
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The air between us felt heavy, thick with the weight of unspoken words. The tears that had been threatening to fall for so long now came spilling out of my eyes, hot and relentless. I didn’t understand why they were there—why the floodgates had opened the moment I’d confronted him. I didn’t even understand why I was holding on to his collar, as though his indifference could somehow unravel the years of confusion, betrayal, and hidden truths.
Taehyung’s gaze met mine—cool, emotionless, like a frozen lake reflecting the pale moonlight. His eyes were empty, void of the warmth I had once seen in them. But there was something in his silence, something that felt like a barrier between us, a distance that neither of us could cross. His expression was unreadable, but his stillness only deepened the rage and hurt inside me.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked, my voice trembling but firm, though I was sure he already knew the answer. “Do you know who I really am, Taehyung?” The words hung in the air, my question stabbing through the silence between us.
His gaze didn’t waver. “Yes,” he replied quickly, his voice as cold as the steel in his eyes. There was no hesitation, no pause in his response. It was as though he had been waiting for me to ask that question.
I recoiled for a moment, shocked. “Since when?” My voice cracked slightly as I asked, a deep ache forming in my chest. Was he pretending not to know all this time? Was he deliberately keeping it from me?
“Six months ago,” he answered again, his words calm, like he was recounting a fact he had long accepted.
Six months.
Six months, the timeline hit me like a slap to the face.
For six months, he had known who I was—who I really was—and he hadn’t told me. He had kept me in the dark, playing his games of manipulation, keeping me at arm’s length. The rage swelled inside me like a tidal wave, crashing through every part of me and drowning me in its fury.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, my grip tightening on his collar, pulling him closer. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”
His lips parted, but no words came out. For a long moment, he stood there, his eyes unreadable, as though he were choosing his words with care.
I waited, my pulse pounding in my ears, each second stretching into infinity. When he finally spoke, it was in a voice so low, so guttural, that it seemed to resonate deep in my bones. “I didn’t want you to become my weakness again,” he said, the words heavy with something that bordered on regret, though it was masked by a certain coldness. “I didn’t want you to be pulled into this world of darkness, into the chaos that’s already swallowing me whole. That’s why I kept you away from me.”
