FACING THE SAME FACE | JINKOOK

CH13

When JungKook looked up, he showed no surprise. Just a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. Jin, however, couldn't stand that smile. It was a mockery, a provocation. The words started spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Everything you did to me, everything you said to me... it was all a lie, wasn't it?" he shouted, his voice breaking with fury, desperation. The words came out like sharp daggers, slicing through the air between them. JungKook didn't respond immediately. For a moment, the silence grew thick, unbearable. Jin struggled to breathe, as though he couldn't fill his lungs with enough air to face what was about to happen. The rage burned inside him, but there was something more, something much deeper that made him tremble. Sadness. Betrayal. The feeling of being completely empty. "I believed you..." he whispered, this time quieter, his voice breaking from the pain. "I believed you... and you, you destroyed me."

JungKook stayed silent for a long moment, staring at Jin without moving a muscle. His expression was unyielding, cold, as though he were not human, as though he didn't care in the slightest about the whirlwind of emotions suffocating Jin.

"Why?" Jin could barely articulate the question. "Why did you do it? Why did you lie to me? What were you trying to achieve with all of this?"

Finally, JungKook let out a heavy sigh, as if he were shedding an invisible weight he had carried for too long. He stood up slowly, as serene as always, but there was something in his gaze that was no longer indifferent. Something Jin hadn't seen before. Maybe regret, maybe something more.

"It wasn't my intention to destroy you," JungKook said quietly, and his words sounded sincere, but Jin couldn't believe them. He couldn't.

"No? It wasn't your intention?" Jin stepped forward, his eyes burning with fury. "Then what was all this? A joke? A game on your part?" JungKook averted his gaze for a moment, as if looking for something in the air, a response he couldn't find. Finally, his face tightened and he looked him in the eye with an intensity that made Jin step back a pace.

"You don't understand," JungKook said, his voice now deeper, laden with an emotion Jin didn't know how to interpret. "It wasn't about you. It was never about you." Jin furrowed his brow, confused.

"Then what? What was all of this? Revenge? Why did you use me like a pawn in your damn game?" Fury was building up inside him, each word a stifled scream in his throat. He stepped closer, his body trembling with anger, but also with a sense of hopelessness that made him feel vulnerable. "What don't you understand?" he shouted again. "I loved you, JungKook. I... loved you." The words surged between them like an electric shock, leaving JungKook completely silent. He didn't move. He didn't say anything. He just stared at him, as if he were assessing something in Jin, as if trying to comprehend the magnitude of what Jin had just confessed.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, JungKook spoke, his voice almost inaudible.

"And I... hated you," he said, as if freeing himself from a weight he had never spoken of before. His words were a dagger, but it wasn't the kind of hate one might expect from an enemy. It was something deeper, something twisted, as if the hatred was embedded deep within him.

Jin froze, unable to process what he had just heard. The blow was so heavy that it left him breathless.

"Fleeing from pain... with hate? Do you think that's enough?" he asked, his voice quieter, full of disbelief. "You took the easy way out, JungKook. You played with all of us, with him, with me." JungKook gritted his teeth, his jaw clenched.

"Don't make me feel guilty for what happened. I don't know how you did it, but you dragged everyone into your mess. I watched you sink, and I couldn't do anything. And then, JungHyun... he... you forced me to follow the game." Jin felt as if his soul had been ripped out. The idea of JungKook seeing him as a destroyer was like choking the air from his lungs. But before he could say anything more, the words he had just heard the guilt, the regret from JungKook vanished from his mind.