The Red String Of Fate | tk

Chapter 47: Vignette

"Why not?" She asks and Jeongguk turns to her, looks at her in surprise.

"You love him." She shrugs as if it's nothing.

"Just tell me. Whom he betrayed the most? From whom do you think he's in danger? You or Hyunjae?" She asks.

"He gave away just two of your clients, Jeongguk. I know you won't forgive and forget but he ruined everything of Hyunjae's plan which he was making for years to ruin you. Taehyung was his key and he lost it." She explains.

"Hyunjae will---he will---." She stops.

"You know what he'll do to him if he finds him." She utters and it brings fear in Jeongguk's body immediately just at he mention of it.

"I don't care." Jeongguk says, tells a lie his mother so easily detects.

"Shouldn't you be mad at him too?" Jeongguk asks his mother.

"I don't even know him. I'd hate him if he was involved in your father's death but you said he's not and I trust you."

Her next words hit him unexpectedly, so hard;

"Besides, it's not just you who'd do anything to survive and keep the rule. Other people would do anything to survive to. Anything, to keep breathing in this cruel world. It's never just you or me. It's everyone out there. How many will you blame?" She says.

"He's hurt you but in his heart, for what he knows, you've hurt him first. He needs to survive too, just like you do in this very world. May it be differently but at the end, it's all the same." He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"A broken person understands the other."

"I kissed him, just a few hours ago I went to him. He said he hates me." Jeongguk utters in a weak voice and his mother cups his face.

"What did it feel like?"

"Like everything's okay. Like everything makes sense. Like I'm the calm I'd ever be in that moment and never again. He kissed me liked that." Jeongguk confesses.

"Do you, even for a little while felt that he feels the same, atleast about the kiss?" She asks.

Jeongguk remembers how Taehyung was tense but melted in his arms when he kissed him. How he held onto him as if wanting him closer and wanting him to stay. How he was just as lost in the kiss as he was.

"I did. Did felt it for a moment, a second even that he felt the same. His eyes---yes I did feel, just for little while." Jeongguk says.

"Then hold on to that little hope." She smiles at her son. "Even when you're ego and pride tells you not to."

"That's how I have raised you."

------------------

Taehyung holds a small bouquet of flowers in his hands. He appears calm but he's extremely nervous and scared as he's at the hospital side and he's going to meet his grandmother. He needs to avoid the receptionists, any of them because they might ask why he hasn't brought Sunwo back.

He does walk past them and isn't noticed because of his attire. He thinks he'll ruin the bouquet if he keeps holding onto it so tight.

He's unable to think of the way to get his grandmother out of this place. This is simply impossible without Hyunjae knowing of it and if he comes to know of it, hell will break lose on him.

He's so in his thoughts and bumps into someone, immediately apologizing to them and shakes off the thoughts from his mind for the moment.

He makes his way towards her room, puts on a smile even though she won't be a able to see him smiling. And if she does, she'd know immediately the pain he hides  behind it.