Speeding Into Trouble || Taekook

32

Taehyung was sprawled across his bed like a Victorian maiden in emotional distress, one hand draped dramatically over his eyes, the other gripping his phone as if it held the meaning of life itself.

Ping.

He peeked through his fingers like he was checking a tarot card for fate itself.

"Let's meet today?" — Jeongguk.

Time stopped.

His heart lurched, his toes curled, and a completely involuntary smile stretched across his face. His stomach did three pirouettes and tried to exit his body.

But as quickly as the excitement came, it was bulldozed by reality.

Right. He was stuck at home. Under twenty-four-hour fiancée surveillance. There was no way he could leave—

Unless.

An idea popped into his head like divine intervention.

He sat up in bed so suddenly he nearly gave himself whiplash. "No. No way. Am I really going to do this?" he muttered to himself, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Yes," he whispered with dangerous conviction, and immediately texted back:

"Yes!"

But Taehyung wasn't done. Oh no. This was only the beginning of Operation Get to Jeongguk Without Dying.

He inhaled deeply like a man about to jump out of an airplane and dialed Sara's number.

The phone rang.

Every ring felt like a countdown to the end of his peace.

"Hello, Taehyung?" came her cheerful voice.

He flinched. Show time.

"Hey, Sara..." he began, trying to sound casual and not like someone committing low-level emotional treason. "I was thinking maybe we should, uh, go out today?"

There was silence.

Then—

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

Taehyung held the phone away from his ear like it had exploded. He winced. "Yeah... of course," he forced out, voice climbing a painful octave. "I mean... we're, uh, fiancés, after all."

As soon as the F-word left his mouth, he mentally collapsed onto the floor. His soul left his body. His dignity packed its bags and exited stage left.

God, it sounded so fake. Like he was reading from a script written by someone who had never loved another human being.

Sara, oblivious and overjoyed, squealed again. "Oh my God, yes! I'd love that, Taehyung! Let's meet today!"

Taehyung nodded to himself with the enthusiasm of a man being drafted into war. "Great. I'll see you later then," he said, the smile on his face so strained it could've cracked.

He hung up.

And immediately faceplanted into his pillow with a long, tortured groan.

"What am I doing," he mumbled into the fabric, arms flailing out to the sides like he'd just been emotionally assassinated.

"I just used my engagement to sneak out on a fake date... so I can go on a real date... with a boyfriend I'm not supposed to like."

He flipped over, eyes wide with panic.

"This is peak drama. This is K-drama level sabotage. I'm going to hell and Jeongguk better make it so worth it."

But deep down, beneath the theatrics and the panic and the shame spiral... Taehyung was already smiling again.