The Bitch & The Bastard | Jaehyun

𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛

Thunder cut across the sky just as lightning crawled through the clouds, and in the silence that followed, Haeyoung stood motionless, staring at Jaehyun.

'Who is Nakamoto Yuta, Haeyoung?'

She had seen him angry before but never like this. He was barely controlling himself from yelling at her.

'Jaehyun,' she spoke, her voice barely carrying any weight. 'I don't know–'

'No,' he cut her off, running a hand through his hair in frustration. 'You know exactly what I am talking about.'

Her throat tightened and her fingers gripped the sides of her pants. The jig was up and they both knew it.

'Let me rephrase the question for you,' he said, taking a step forward. Even under his towering presence she stood her ground, unmoving.

'Does this person even exist,' he gritted out, 'or did you make him up to fuck with me and my company?'

'Jaehyun!' she cried, shocked.

'What?' He choked out a hollow laugh. 'Don't act so shocked now that I know the truth.'

'It's not what you think.'

'Oh, so there is a Nakamoto Yuta in the office, then?'

She stared back at him, defiantly, refusing to avert her gaze. The office had grown dark under the storm, the single lit lamp in the corner the only light in the room.

'Answer me,' he hissed with the thunder that shook the sky and for the brief moment when another lightning flashed, he saw her eyes mimicking the same fury that was in his own. 'It was you, was it not? Tell me. Say it!'

'Yes!' she yelled back, and with the rain that started pouring down, he felt his whole world collapse over on itself.

'It was me,' she admitted, no longer looking at him.

An uncomfortable heat rose inside him, crawling up his cheeks settling inside his throbbing head. He had already deduced the truth yet had expected to hear the opposite.

'There is no Nakamoto Yuta,' she said. 'I made him up.'

Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes, his head threatening to split at her words. Sure, they fought, and he knew she didn't approve of him as the President. There were days they disagreed on everything, weeks they would not even glance at each other.

But it was never him against her.

Haeyoung had been there since the first day he stepped foot in the office. She was there when he became Vice-President, there in the front row of the banquet his mother had thrown to announce him as the President, and on the first day on his job, waiting for him in his office with a pile of reports in her hand. Haeyoung had always been there– almost always criticizing everything he did, but always by his side.

But now she was standing on the other side of the line and he hated that she had made him feel this way, or rather how easily she had made him feel this way.

'Traitor,' he choked out. 'You betrayed me.'

She shot her eyes up at him. 'Jaehyun...'

'Enough.' He held up his hand, swallowing back his tears. 'It was all one big plot, wasn't it?'

'What?'

'You planned it all,' Jaehyun accused. 'Paris wasn't an accident, was it?'

'If you're trying to imply–'

'I'm not implying anything,' he said, not hiding the sharpness in his voice. 'I am stating the truth. You knew I liked that soap from his company.'

Rain pattered against the window pane behind him, the howling winds turning water into bullets against the glass.