Fragile Longing (Taekook)

Chapter Twenty Seven

I drew him into my dark world;

I write him into my long-forgotten lines;

My heart beats now as if it wants to belong to him;

Yet, he was never meant as mine...

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The silence in Jeon Janghyun's study was thick, disturbed only by the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock and the slow swirl of whiskey in his glass. The air was heavy with cigar smoke, the windows shut tight against the Florida humidity. His eyes remained fixed on the far wall, where above an antique desk, hung a single framed photograph, aged, its corners slightly curled. It told the story of a time when the man in that photo frame was alive, breathing, until he wasn't.

The same man who once told him that he could offer all the money he could manage, yet wouldn't be able to buy him. That man was right. He couldn't buy him, so he killed him instead. Janghyun kept staring at it, wondering if that man must have regretted his decision at that particular moment, when the knife slashed through his neck, cutting it in two. No, he hadn't. Something told him, even when he was dying, there was no regret in those black eyes. What was it? Exactly what was it that flashed through those eyes? His lips parted slightly, as if caught in mid-thought. His fingers flexed over the crystal glass, veins bulging as the past slithered back like a slow, venomous snake.

His secretary, stopping his trip midway, made him aware of the man inside the room. "Sir," Ji Hoon said, his voice filled with terror, "another man is dead. We found him yesterday in his apartment. Han Doyoung. Found hanging while everything from below the waist was burned to ashes. No sign of a break-in. They don't know who it was...no proof, no footage..." His voice sounded frustrated, yet that terror remained. Just like it had from the moment they all started dying, one by one, more brutally each time. As if someone was on a mission to find out how brutally and horridly one could be killed.

Though nothing touched Jeon Janghyun. His posture remained harder than steel, his eyes still fixed on the photo, as if it was a reminder that he could be more brutal than anything that existed. Just like that night.

"Do you know, that was the first time I heard him scream," words left his mouth absentmindedly.

"Sir?"

Janghyun didn't concentrate on his secretary's fear-filled voice. Instead, he kept on reminiscing about the past. "Dragged him by the neck," Janghyun muttered under his breath, his voice like gravel. "He begged like a dog... and bled like one too." His laughter echoed in the closed study, startling his secretary in the process.

Janghyun sipped his whiskey, his eyes never leaving the photo. "Begged like a dog to let his family go. To let them live, to kill him instead of them. But that idiot didn't know that I was about to kill his whole family." A cruel grin ghosted over his lips. "Including those little rats." The past tasted bitter in his mouth as his laughter died down. "Proof of their so-called love. A love that met its end in blood and slashed bodies." His eyes finally left the photo and landed on his secretary instead. "Do you know why I killed them, Ji Hoon?"

"S-sir?" Ji Hoon trembled under the gaze, unable to keep looking at those eyes where nothing but darkness remained.

"Do you know why I killed them all?"

"N-No, sir."

A smile tugged at Jeon Janghyun's lips. A smile that only told the story of a man who killed a whole family and was about to kill more. But his eyes were another matter. They held a distanced look, as if remembering a time when he decided to end it all. Because he didn't understand...not then, not even now.