Super

53. fate

Taemin didn't frequent public parks, but this one was familiar.

It was surprisingly empty of people, as if they had sensed the oncoming danger without even knowing anything about it. A couple of joggers made their way down the path, and children played in the sandbox, but it was still relatively quiet. Taemin adjusted the lapel of his overcoat, going off-track and walking until he came to a copse.

He remembered it from his younger years, a place he used to frequent when he had nowhere else to sleep. There was a bench to one side of the open space, and there was a man sitting on it with his back facing the blond. Taemin bit the inside of his cheek, hands fluttering at the fabric of his scarf in anxiousness. He took a step forward, then stopped.

It wasn't that he had come here uninvited. He wasn't stalking anyone or doing anything that went under an average moral code, simply meeting someone as a request by the other party. But guilt still ate at him, hidden beneath the calm composure he assumed, like mites eating away the inside of a wooden foundation, slowly working to topple the whole building.

Then the man on the bench turned, and Taemin's hands spasmed at his sides. Kai raised an eyebrow, looking more put-together than before, none of his usual confused energy surrounding him. In fact, he looked almost—older. More present.

"What are you still standing there for?" he asked, then shifted to the side, patting the empty spot on the bench beside him. "Come on."

Taemin hesitated only briefly before complying and sitting down beside him. To his surprise, Kai twisted away instead of continuing with the conversation, turning to look at the bare-branched trees and the shed leaves strewing the ground.

Taemin swallowed against the dryness in his throat, but his mouth felt equally dry. It was rare for him to feel so powerless—in front of another person, that is, though it may as well have been because of his lack of human contact. The two sat in silence for another few moments, the quietude calm on the surface but suffocating within.

"I'm sorry," Taemin started, almost stammering out the words in his haste to get them out. He hung his head, looking down at his hands in his lap, unsure how to proceed. "For not saying anything earlier."

"Is that all?" Kai asked. He sounded casual, almost uncaring, but his gaze was sharply observant when it landed on Taemin's face.

Once again, the millionaire found himself at a loss for words.

"I-I was—" Taemin started. Kai kept his eyes on his face, which did wonders for his already frantic pulse. "I don't know what to say."

Kai nodded slowly, and looked away. Silence cloaked them again, and Taemin curled in his fingers to stop from picking at his cuffs.

"Do you know why I never forced you to tell me about the parking lot fire?" Kai asked. "I could have convinced you to tell me, or whatever the word for it is. But I didn't."

Taemin frowned shakily. "I don't—"

"Know, yeah, I can see that." Kai sighed. "I did because I wanted you to tell me. Not because I forced you—manipulated you, whatever. I wanted you to tell me of your own accord, on your own terms. And yet you never did."

The blond's face turned ashen. He had never consciously hidden the fact, but he had definitely unconsciously buried it to avoid questions. In the few months that Taemin had worked with the team, his insecurity had never been so crippling. He knew that it stemmed from him hiding something as serious as an affiliation with their enemy, but instead of talking about it, he had shut himself away to avoid any possible conflict. It had only made things worse, and he had ended up avoiding many little things to go along with it—things that had seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but now he knew they weren't.