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Time had become shapeless recently.
I didn't even know what day it was, or how much time I had spent in glorified solitary confinement, but I was beginning to chafe under my shackles. No one had dared ask me anything after the time I had almost killed Jungkook with his own knife-in my defense, he had been the first to attack, even if it had been with words. And anyway, it wasn't like I would have been able to kill him. I wasn't skilled enough.
Yet.
He had seen me coming a mile away, and I had ended up pinned to the door of my own bedroom not more than a few seconds after; a snarling, rabid mess. Find control, he had simply said, letting me scream at him for a few more minutes before letting me go.
The most I had gotten out of the encounter was that a few days ago, I wouldn't have dared touch him. Whatever emotional toll my father's death had taken on me, it had been destructive of the most basic part of myself: humanity. I had never had control, and living in these conditions would have stripped me of a moral code slowly anyway, but the murder had been an efficient catalyst.
What did I not know yet? I tried to compartmentalize the facts in my head, marshal them into something coherent and manageable, but there were so many questions. Who had Baekhyun been running from? Had Taeyong turned over to his brother's side? Why did I have that was so important to the heir?
Trauma had handed me a weapon-a weapon is an emotion-and anxiety had made me turn the weapon towards myself, but things weren't the same now. Now, the pain acted outwards, spreading outside like a drop of blood in water, except nothing worked to dilute it. I had finally become the very thing my father never wanted me to be, the thing that Baekhyun had tried to protect me from.
A monster. The monster, the one that had been hiding in my heart for so long, and had finally ripped its way through.
The most disturbing thing about it was that I was fully aware of this, and wasn't in the least disturbed by it. I had nothing left, but I still had so much to avenge.
I wasn't scared anymore.
"-in there?"
I looked up dully. The door was half-open, and Chaeyoung was standing at the entrance, a covered plate in her hands. Her expression was as calm and serene as ever, but as she came close, I picked up on the careful way she set the food on the bedside table and sat down almost a foot away from me on the bed.
We sat in silence, the food remaining untouched, but she didn't tell me to eat. She didn't ask me what the matter was like she usually did-we all knew what the matter was. There were no overfriendly touches this time around, no reassuring smiles and no 'don't worry, baby'. The space between us was cold.
Chaeyoung smoothed back her rosette hair, and placed her hands palm-down on her lap. This had happened multiple times over the past...whatever the period of time was, and never had a word been exchanged by us. She held the same borderline expression on her face, the slight hesitation which was a completely new sight on her, but didn't speak.
