♡𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒇𝒊𝒂 𝑪𝒐𝒖𝒑𝒍𝒆♡

Lamentation of Love

YN's POV

The front door of the penthouse clicked shut, and the heavy, metallic thud of the lock sliding into place sounded like a final sentence.

I didn't turn on the lights. I didn't even take off my shoes. I just stood there in the suffocating darkness of the entryway, my hands flat against the cold wood of the door, waiting for my legs to give out.

When they finally did, I slid down the smooth panels until I was sitting flat on the marble floor, my knees pulled tightly against my chest, burying my face in my hands. My eyes watered, the tears pooling right at the brim.

The silence of my home was deafening. But inside my head, the noise was absolute.

My lungs burned with every breath I took, the air feeling heavy, dry, and thick with the scent of the hospital antiseptic I couldn't seem to wash off my skin.

I had said it all.

I had looked him in the eye, thrown his betrayal in his face, pulled my walls up to the sky, and walked away.

By every rule of survival I had ever learned, I should have felt a sense of cold, armor-clad victory.

Instead, I felt like I was bleeding out on the floor.

Every time I closed my eyes, the darkness didn't bring relief. It just replayed the image of him.

Not the cold, calculative Mafia King who had sat in that office with Jennie, but the completely unraveled, broken boy on the rough asphalt of the parking lot.

His hands hovering in the empty air. His shoulders shaking under the sickly orange glow of the streetlights.

"YN... YN, I-i didn't betray y-you.. Listen to m-me."

"Just... just hear me YN. One minute. I've waited so long to be able to tell you... I've been living in a nightmare just to get to this second. Please, YN, look at me."

"I never left you... I was right there. I was always right there, fighting for you... even when you hated me... especially when you hated me..."

His voice echoed in my head again and again.

I held my ear as tightly as I could and shut my eyes tight as if I could just reincarnate the situation.

YN: NOOOO! STOP!!

I screamed as hard as I could. So hard that my throat felt sliced, but I know... I know I can't stop it.

His voice was a ghost looping in my ears, a desperate, raw rasp that sounded so painfully real it made my chest ache until I could barely breathe.

Why was he begging me like that?

The question clawed at the back of my mind, a persistent, agonizing whisper.

If he had truly won, if he had successfully handed my entire legacy to Jennie and secured his ultimate position, why was he weeping at my feet?

A traitor doesn't crumble into dust the moment his victory is complete.

A liar doesn't choke on his own breath just trying to say my name.

What was the truth burning in his throat that he was so frantic for me to hear? Why did he keep screaming for me to just listen?

No.

I dug my fingernails into my palms, using the sharp sting of pain to force my mind back into alignment.

Don't do this to yourself, YN.
Don't be pathetic.