House of Cards

Chapter 5

"I just saw Taehyung – with another woman!"

You froze. Somehow along the denials and lies that you'd repeated internally, you'd convinced yourself that nothing like this would ever happen. It was stupid of you, and you'd be the first one to admit that. You knew you were an idiot for thinking that no one would ever find out. It was a miracle that you and Taehyung managed to keep it quiet for this long in the first place. Now that someone had finally confronted you, you didn't know how to react. You had foolishly never thought about what to do when this inevitably happened.

"What?" You pretended not to understand as your mind frantically searched for something to say.

"Taehyung – your boyfriend – is on a freaking date with another woman!" Jungkook sounded almost as panicked as you felt. "You need to come here right now!"

"I – I'm – I can't, Jungkook, I'm at work," you stuttered the easiest reasoning that came to mind.

"But –"

You cut him off before he could belt out his arguments. "Let's talk about this later, okay? Bye."

With a press of the pad of your thumb on the red circle on the screen of your phone with more force than necessary, you ended the call. Another one came almost immediately. On the screen flashed the name that you were expecting and sent chills down your spine: Jungkook. You rejected the call, put your phone on silent and tossed it into your handbag like it was an instrument that could cause you bodily harm. Softly panting even though you hadn't exerted yourself physically, you stared at the bag, half expecting the phone to jump out and attack you, but of course no such thing happened.

"Y/n, are you okay? Y/n?"

Jimin's gentle voice calling your name was finally enough to make you tear your eyes away from the bag and spin your chair around to look at him. Your colleague was leaning forward in his own chair, palms on his knees, worry etched on his face as he repeated the question.

"Ah, yes, I'm fine," you tried to reassure him with a forced grin. The beating of your heart was still loud in your ears in the few seconds it took for Jimin to curve his lips into a small smile in return. It was obvious that he wasn't convinced but you were thankful that he decided not to pry, turning back to his own work instead to leave you to your anxious thoughts.

Even though you couldn't get another ounce of work done for the rest of the day, when people around you started leaving for the day you still had no idea what to do. So you stayed. A pointless endeavour, as you were neither productive nor did you figure out a solution, but remain you did until it was late enough you could hope that Jungkook had chosen that night to spend outside, either for a party or for a study group, you didn't care. Still, as you drove home, you started thinking up excuses and reasonings to serve to him, each one sounding more ridiculous than the last.

Just as you feared, the instant you unlocked the front door and pushed it open, loud footsteps echoed from inside, quickly followed by Jungkook's appearance around the corner. You should have known that he'd be too worried about the predicament he thought you were in to let you spend the night alone.

"Where have you been?" Was his first question. Still an easy one; you knew how to answer this query.

"I was stuck at work." A white lie, you supposed. This was the first time that you'd stayed in the office this late, but fortunately Jungkook was too preoccupied to ask what project that kept you for so long – because there was no such project.

"Did you talk to Taehyung?"

Taking your time to take off your shoes and put them on the shoe rack offered you the respite from looking at Jungkook's concerned face. You shook your head no, still looking away from him. Hoping against hope that he would drop the subject, but of course he didn't.