you never know

uneasy truce

~~>•»

"so you actually don't like your mother all that much."

kim taehyung's voice sounds indifferent as usual, causing jisoo to think about which dumb part of her brain declared it would be a brilliant idea to narrate her overwhelmingly tragic life story in his perpetually unmoved presence.

"she abandoned me when i had barely entered my teenage years and chose to set off on a luxury cruise with some italian shoemaker she had met once in the opera, fucking days after my dad left us for some homewrecher bitch." the secretary sniffs depressingly, before downing another sip of the overpriced wine they both had discovered in their balcony hideout.

"she then didn't call me for another year, not that i noticed all that much in the posh boarding school i was sent to. after returning, the first words that despicable woman uttered with her whole teary eyes, pitiable face, we are fucking family facade were santiago told me i was too demanding and broke up with me. jisoo how is this fair on your beautiful eomma? i was her only daughter, who needed her to be there for me after losing my father and yet eating freshly cooked octopus on a glittery ship was more valuable to her. after him there was a bradley, a lee woo bin, a kim jung min, another santiego (this time a spanish one and he was a dressmaker) and many more who received her love, attention and care. but there was never kim jisoo, the one person who had a right over all these traits was constantly missing out on them, in spite of desperately needing them the most."

"wow. that's a really sad tale miss kim." he shakes his head, and abruptly sits down beside her. for a serene minute, the squally breeze billows against each of their faces, drying up the tears on jisoo's face (resulting in ugly mascara lines which will later cause her to scream in terror when she accidentally looks into a mirror), but then she notices the nonchalant expression on taehyung's face and all hell breaks loose.

"why are you even here? you don't give a single damn about anyone around you except your own perfection, you treat me like i'm some sort of tireless machine meant to constantly care for your humongously insatiable needs and even now, you sit there looking all regal while i sob. you can't even console me, sympathize or even falsely hold me for a second or two and let me vent. no, obviously not. you will always be impeccably stoic, even if the world crumbles around your arrogance." the brunette stands, her footsteps wobbling dangerously considering they were in a balcony and she starts walking away.

(her original intention was to stage a hollywood exit and run with the wind on her face, but realising the chances of that happening were equal to those of her falling from the gallery and breaking a limb, jisoo settled for something less dramatic.)

"it's because i moulded myself this way miss kim." taehyung's deep baritone voice rings out, almost startling the female. jisoo turns around to see him staring into the sky as his lips move.

"you know my brother, don't you? well he was supposed to be your boss, or in other words, the heir of this corporation. i was meant to be, you know what they call the second son in british royalty, the spare. but my brother hated this world we belonged to, the fight for power, for superiority, the need to establish our enterprises in the highest ranks. so i decided to step in for him, because hoseok was the one person that had always been there for me, as a brother and a friend. when the training began, i wasn't spelled out anything although i was a kid, just the bare minimum since nobody wanted me there. i had stolen someone else's identity and deep down i knew that too." 

an unwitting gasp slips out of jisoo's mouth at his miserable words and taehyung smiles at her awestricken face, the slight draw of his lips looks despondent and melancholic in a unhappy way.