Speeding Into Trouble || Taekook

34

Taehyung sat at the dining table, barely touching the food on his plate. The clatter of utensils and half-hearted small talk from his mother and house help blurred into a distant hum. He wasn't really there. Not in spirit. Not in peace.

And then, it came.

"You and Sara meet quite often now, don't you?"
His father's voice cut through the room like a blade cloaked in silk—too calm, too calculated.

Taehyung's fingers curled tightly around the spoon. His shoulders tensed, but he forced himself to lift his gaze—not meeting his father's eyes, but daring to exist in their line of fire. "Yeah," he muttered. "We've met a few times."

His father smiled. That cold, rehearsed kind of smile that had nothing warm behind it—like frost dressed up as grace. "Good. I'm glad," he said slowly. "You're healing from your sickness."

The word sickness hung in the air like a stench. Taehyung's breath hitched.

Sickness. That's what his father called it. That's what his father called him.

He kept his expression still, trained, like he hadn't just been gutted at the dinner table. But inside, something cracked. Something old. Something quiet. And it bled.

Across the table, his father went on, voice gaining steel. "Since you and Sara are so 'in love,'" he said, the sarcasm slicing like glass, "we're thinking of finalizing the wedding date soon."

Taehyung froze.

The word wedding hit harder than he thought it would. Like a door slamming shut in his chest. A hand clenching around his lungs. He blinked once. Twice. His pulse thudded in his ears.

"Dad," he said, finally—his voice steady, but his throat dry, "isn't it... a bit too soon?"

His father's eyes darkened.

"I didn't ask you, Taehyung."

The words came out colder than the winter wind. Final. Unmoving. Like a verdict.

Something flared in Taehyung's chest. Anger, defiance, terror—all twisted together. He drew a breath through his nose and sat straighter. He didn't want to bow his head anymore. Not to this man. Not even if his heart was still scared of him.

"With all due respect, Father," he said, voice quieter now, but not weaker, "I'm not ready."

The silence that followed was volcanic.

Then—slam.

His father's palm crashed against the table, silverware jumping, plates rattling like the house itself recoiled.

"I said I didn't ASK YOU!"
His voice thundered across the room, laced with pure fury.

Taehyung flinched—he couldn't help it. His instincts screamed to run, to hide, like he was still a boy who once feared the man who could break him with words alone. But he didn't sit back down. He didn't apologize. He didn't say "yes, sir."

His eyes drifted to his mother. She sat there frozen, unmoved, like a statue carved by guilt and silence. She wouldn't look at him. She wouldn't save him.

The betrayal stung worse than the shouting.

Taehyung's voice was tight, trembling, but his spine didn't curl this time. "I need to go."

He pushed back his chair, the legs scraping the floor like a scream. His hands shook, but his steps didn't falter as he stood and walked away—out of that suffocating room, out of that cursed silence, out of that lie they called a home.

He didn't run.

He just walked away, carrying the terror, the rage, and the aching ache of wanting to live a life he wasn't allowed to want.