The In Between | TH -JK 🩸

68: It's Not Goodbye

With one sharp tug, she wrenched her wrists free from their grip, her skin burning where their hands had held her. The silence that followed was deafening, heavy enough to suffocate all three of them.

Jungkook stepped forward again, urgency burning in his voice. "Come back to me," he begged, reaching out with one hand to close the distance between them. I won't let us fall apart again. Trust me, please.

He swallowed hard, eyes glassing with raw need. "Taehyung is a liar. He won't make you happy. He's using you to prove something to me—trying to show he owns what was mine, just like before. Don't let him come between us, Lia."

Taehyung's jaw tightened once again. He didn't move at first—just watched Jungkook with a look that was colder than any words. Then, with a controlled, slow motion, he closed the space between them.

His fingers found Lia's wrist the way a tether finds its anchor. "That's enough," he said quietly, low and dangerous. "Don't you dare turn this into about you and him.

Then stop making me prove myself! Lia burst out, and this time it was louder than just a soft whisper.. "If either of you wants me, you have to want me because of me, not what I remind you of.

I am not a trophy you fight over. I am not the thing you take back to score points. I'm a person. I chose my life—I chose Taehyung. And I won't be dragged into whatever you two are trying to settle.

Both men looked at her in that moment—one with an apology, the other with an apology he'd never offered aloud—and Lia realized the only person she could actually trust to protect her heart was herself.

Taehyung's hand was warm and steady as he turned her toward him, one palm cradling her face while the other threaded with hers. His eyes bore into hers, fierce and unblinking.

You think my eyes can deceive you?" he asked quietly. "Jungkook talks about love, and I'm here to give you my all."

He moved closer, voice low and certain. "Do you really think I'm getting back at him by using you?"

Lia said nothing; she only watched him, the hurt and doubt still sharp behind her lashes. He didn't wait for her answer. Instead, he lifted her hand and pressed it flat against his chest.

"This—he tapped the steady beat beneath her palm—"beats for you." His fingers tightened around hers. "You need proof? Fine. I'm here to offer you my last name and my heart. Forever."

He paused, searching her face like the world depended on the next breath. Then, with a slight, raw tilt of his chin, he said the thing that made the room stop for her.

Marry me!

Lia's mouth parted, breath caught somewhere between disbelief and a rising, terrified hope. For a suspended second, everything slowed—the clink of glasses, the hum of distant laughter, the smear of flashbulbs—until only Taehyung's steady heartbeat under her palm existed.

Jungkook held his breath as if the world depended on her answer. No, Lia! he thought, the plea burning behind his eyes, but swallowed before it reached his lips.

She was blank momentarily, as if weighing two separate lives on the scale of a single heartbeat. Then Taehyung drew her closer, his face soft against hers, confusion and longing warring in his expression. "You still don't believe it?" he whispered.

Her silence lingered like a fragile sheet of glass.
Taehyung's hand lingered on her cheek, but when her silence stretched, his expression faltered.

The proud steadiness in his eyes dimmed, a shadow crossing his face. For a moment, he thought she might step back, that her hesitation was an answer in itself. His hand began withdrawing, his body tilting away as if preparing for rejection.