➥ Ratings & Warnings | NC-17 or +18 / M for mature and triggering content; (PLEASE READ!) this chapter involves implied acts of emotional manipulation (not done by Taehyung or any BTS members, of course), implied sexual intercourse done under emotional overwhelm/happened as a coping mechanism, first-time sex (Taehyung; both characters are at the age of 18)
White Lies
chapter v. his undoing
Autumn, four years ago...
It was the last summer that you would be spending in high school.
The enthusiasm pulsing around you was high, as graduation day was right around the corner and the weather had been nice enough for everyone to come out of their houses and enjoy the warm sun. It was the time of the year that you had been expecting the most. Not only because you had always loved summer and all its festivities, but also for the small tradition that you had kept for years since you had been friends with Taehyung.
The town's annual summer night fair had started ever since before you were born, though you had only gone there to experience it for the first time when you were 8 years old, when your parents took both you and Taehyung there in the middle of summer break. It had been the first getaway you had with your best friend that you vowed to each other to keep that moment as a small tradition that you would do together for the rest of your lives for as long as you were given a chance to.
Each year since, you would anticipate its return, and you had continued on going there together—starting from having your parents chaperone you on your night out until the day you were both old enough for them to let you go on your own.
You had already begun waiting and anticipating it since the beginning of summer, hoping that it would become the perfect way to celebrate pre-graduation day and the last summer before college. But you had another reason why this trip to the fair would matter to you the most that very year.
It was then when you had made the decision to take the leap of faith and confess your feelings to the boy who had shown you his heart from time and time again for the past—nearly—ten years. You had felt guilty for making him wait for so long, but your Dad had been strict about keeping you from dating anyone before you would reach the age of eighteen. Knowing this, Taehyung had even admitted that he would rather wait, constantly reminding you of the promise he made when you were children, where he vowed that the only time he would claim his place in your life as your lover would be the day when he was old enough to do so, only once he was mature enough and when he was ready to show you his worth.
You understood his reasons and had always been so grateful for his patience. You had always known that other boys wouldn't have been so understanding the way he was when dealing with your strict and uncompromising parents. Though you couldn't blame your parents for giving you their restrictions either.
Both of your parents had always perceived your relationship with Taehyung differently, knowing that there was something more than a simple friendship in what you had built together since you were kids. They had both noticed the bond between you even before you realised it, though it was not until the moment Taehyung came to put the promise ring on your finger on your 12th birthday when you finally found out that his intentions had been real. For years, your parents had been adamant in making you understand that you should be focusing on your study first before ever thinking about having a relationship with the opposite sex, even if they had known Taehyung well enough to treat him as if he was just another member of your family, and it had been one of the reasons why you have yet to give him the green light to make his move.
Until now.
Despite being so determined about what you were about to do, there was no denying how nervous you had felt ever since the sun came up to mark the start of the day and to remind you of what was about to happen.
There had been many reasons why you were so nervous that day.
Being honest with your feelings had been one of them, since you were not the kind of person to always voice them out loud and you had been so used to having Taehyung be the one to read you so well that you simply never had to. Another reason was the fact that you had not seen him as often as you used to, as you had both been busy preparing for graduation and applying for college, and he had been doing his own thing for the past few months that you barely had any chance to spend time together as much as you used to.
But those were not the only reasons why your heartbeat was racing as you made your trip to the fair and why you had this weird sensation in your gut telling you that things would go wrong. That there were some possibilities that perhaps Taehyung wouldn't accept your confession even if you had been showing him your feelings even more for the past year you were in senior year.
As you finally caught sight of the fair right in front of you, your mind instantly flew to Mina, adding her to the list of your worries.
You had noticed that Taehyung had started hanging out with the new girl, Mina, during spring break, though he could never quite explain why or how they had become so close. It made you feel jealous that he had allowed someone else into his life, but you knew that Taehyung had always been so open and welcoming to anyone around him that it was no surprise to see him approaching the new girl and making friends with her. But you had found yourself feeling neglected, pushed aside for the sake of his new friend when he would often excuse himself from hanging out with you to help out the other girl.
Perhaps that had been one of the reasons why you decided that it was finally time. That today was going to be the day. You had been patient until the day would come, as you had planned everything. Once you had arranged for the two of you to come to the summer fair tonight, you had pulled out the promise ring that he had given you years ago. It had been too big for you then, but it had fit so perfectly around your ring finger when you put it on right before you left home for the fair.
He had promised to meet you at the front gate at 5 PM, the usual time for him to come to the fair, when the sun was still up so you could watch the sunset while riding the mini ferris wheel together. You had come ten minutes early, too excited to see him and to watch his reaction to you wearing the ring as a sign that you were ready to finally become his girlfriend.
And so you waited. And waited. Until ten minutes became one hour, and one hour became two.
By the time the sun was gone and the fair was getting more crowded, your heart had been left in shambles. All hope was gone, while the pain from your disappointment came in its place. You looked down on the ring that you were wearing, admiring how it was glowing under the bright lights that were starting to come on to brighten up the fair, while the painful pinch inside your chest kept growing stronger the more you waited.
The two hours were slowly fading into three, and you were finally on your last thread, ready to give up and leave when you looked up from the ring to finally see him coming. Except that he wasn't coming alone. Right beside him and clinging to his arm was Mina, the girl that had made you feel so worried about having your best friend stolen from you. The sight that you saw then took the air right out of your chest, unable to believe the fact that not only had he come hours late without any news or any regards to your feelings, he had also taken someone else to join your little tradition, no doubt the reason why he had taken such a long time to come.
But the pain and betrayal that you felt then was nothing compared to what happened next.
As if his tardiness and his decision to involve a stranger to become a part of something that you had seen as sacred were not enough to hurt you, they both turned your broken heart into nothing but dust when you saw her pulling him back to her arms. A coy smile on her face was the last thing you saw when she came rising to her tiptoes to kiss Taehyung, your first love, right on his lips, showing you the end of your hope, as the one thing that you had feared the most had already happened.
She had stolen the boy you loved, and he had given in without so much of a glance to see you breaking apart.
Present day...
The moment you were done bidding your goodbye to him and left the cafe, Taehyung had fled the place in haste.
His heartbeat continued to pace rapidly, pounding so hard inside his chest that it became the only sound that he could hear as he raced across the town. He wasted no time to head back towards his hotel, going on foot as he was too restless to sit inside a cab. His head was spinning so hard it almost felt like he was floating above the ground. People kept away from his path, and yet he couldn't care less about any of them. To his eyes, they were nothing but blurry images as he had his eyes set on one destination, and he had to get there—fast.
His mind kept reeling over the circumstances and the events happening from the encounter he had with you, unable to make any sense of it. He replayed back to the conversation, to the slight of hope that came across him when you promised to give another try on fixing the broken friendship that he had cherished the most. Then the sight of the rose gold ring that you were wearing came flashing into his mind and he nearly stumbled on his steps, before he finally got a grip on himself and accelerated further to reach his hotel.
It can't be. It's impossible, he kept chanting these words inside his head, while everything else had been muddled ever since he laid his eyes on the ring on your finger and his mind had been locked on that small item since.
The ring.
The sound of his heartbeat kept getting louder, and louder, accompanied by the sound of his laboured breathing as he came bursting through the entrance door to his hotel and ran through the front lobby, not giving a single care to what people may think of him as he continued to move as fast as he could towards the elevator.
Doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
He repeated these words over and over again as he traveled all the way to the upper floor. How he managed to find his suite was some sort of a miracle, when the world around him simply appeared as if everything was veiled behind a thick fog, making it hard for him to think clearly, while the ground beneath his foot seemed to tilt sideways the more he tried to pace.
His hands were shaking so hard as he opened his door, and he practically raced inside and immediately ran into the bedroom. Blurry eyes focused on the bedside table where he rushed towards and pulled the drawers with his shaking hands, nearly toppling over everything that he had laid on top of it as he searched for the little box that he had kept in his possession for years. Fingers numb, he nearly ripped the box apart as he opened them, and his breath got caught in his throat as his eyes landed on the ring that had been kept safe inside.
The rose gold ring with the small diamond on its center which had cost his entire allowance and savings when he bought it for you as a gift on your 12th birthday.
The rose gold ring which was the perfect replica of the one that you were wearing today.
"How—?" he whispered to the empty bedroom, to himself, as he dropped down on the floor. His legs felt like rubber while his energy depleted from his whole body. He kept hold of the little velvet box in one hand as he fell back against the bed, while he ran the other hand through his hair, pulling the strands to the point that it gave him enough pain to let him know that he wasn't dreaming.
How was it possible that you were wearing the ring, when he had thought that you had thrown it away years ago?
How was it possible—?
He kept asking himself these questions over and over again, as his mind traveled back to the past, searching for answers, until the answer itself finally came to him.
Mina.
Autumn, three years ago...
Taehyung was livid.
But most importantly, he was angry at himself. The more he kept getting too deep into this ruse, the more he continued to hate the person he was becoming.
He had been feeling this way since last summer, and the feeling had only escalated as time continued to pass and he kept feeling that you were slowly drifting away from him. Though he had always known that everything was entirely his own fault.
He knew that he had been doing a shitty job of showing you how important you were to him and how much he still cared when he had been absent from your life since after high school graduation day. His obligations and his role had kept him apart from you, leaving him to keep missing out on the special days that he used to spend with you. How he missed all the birthdays and the special dates, and even to the little things that he used to do together with you like the morning runs and the weekend hiking up the hills behind your houses.
Today had felt like the last straw, when it had become painfully obvious to him that you had been purposely avoiding him on campus as long as you found him with Mina tagging along. He couldn't exactly blame it on you. Not at first, when he knew just how uncomfortable it had been for either of you whenever you and Mina would be present in the same room. Not because you truly ever had any disdain directed towards her—not that he knew of, at least—but mostly because Mina had never been shy in showing her disapproval of having you around, no matter what Taehyung had said to her.
Not even when Taehyung had to remind her that you were the only reason why he had become a part of this ruse at all.
He hated lying to you. He hated what it made him feel whenever he saw you and he would see the way you were looking at him with both pain and curiosity as if you could see right through him. He hated how he had always come so close to reveal the truth just by looking into your eyes, when your gaze would be enough to ignite the guilt feeling that he had for hiding the truth and for deceiving you. He knew that you had questions and he had been doing all he could to avoid giving you a chance to voice them out since he knew he could never give you an honest answer. And he hated it the most when he realised how things had been slowly changing for the past year and how he had no power to stop it from happening.
As the thought of what happened summer last year came to his mind, the urge to scream and run to you came over him. Right at the same time, he was cursing at himself for how powerless he had been in keeping his words to you or to be more firm when it came to saying no to Mina. He should have fought harder against it when Mina had first demanded him to keep things as a secret from you. Now that he had been too deep into the ruse, it would be too late for him to spill everything.
No, it's not too late, the inner voice in his head kept telling him as he trudged impatiently towards his mini studio. You can still tell her before things get any further and she truly believes that you have given up on her.
These thoughts kept running through his head as he made his way to the place that he had kept hidden from the people around him except for one. The inner battle happening between his conscience and the greedy, yet logical part of his brain kept him from getting there on time as he had to stop himself from turning around to find you multiple times already.
He should have learned how to say no to Mina and stop doing her bidding, he realised this now, and far too late, as he had already seen the damage that it had done so far.
His mind flew back to that unfateful summer, when he had ruined yet one of the memories that he had shared with you. He had been anticipating that summer, hoping that he could finally have a moment where he could be alone with you, to spend time with you like he normally used to before he would start acting out as Mina's boyfriend in public as they had only shown their act in front of her family at first. Perhaps he could find a way to reveal the secret to you then without Mina's knowledge just so he could have someone on his side and to let you know that nothing would change.
He should have known that things wouldn't go as planned when Mina suddenly got in the way.
Despite knowing that Taehyung had made a promise to see you that day to go to the annual fair, Mina still caught up to him, appearing at his mini-studio right before he was able to go and insisted that he should come with her as her grandfather suddenly fell ill. At that moment, Taehyung couldn't find it in him to say no. Although, looking back to it now, he could have insisted to stay away. He could have offered just to drive her off, and to only stay long enough to greet her family before leaving. There was really no need for him to stay longer than he should, no matter what Mina kept saying to make him feel guilty for leaving.
And he should have stopped her from tagging along once the deed was done.
It was already hours too late when he was finally able to leave, and for some reason, he had let Mina continued to convince him and make him believe that you may have left the fair already instead of waiting for him. A part of him believed that you would be there, but Mina had always been able to get inside his head, and he was too mentally exhausted after dealing with her family to fight it, and he was even unable to stop Mina from kissing him in public as she simply did it without a warning.
"It has begun. We have our schoolmates coming here, this could be the perfect starting point for our 'relationship'," she had whispered to him then. Taehyung had been deep in his despair that he had no power to push her away, knowing that he had to do his part somehow, so he let her kiss him right there for everyone to see.
He had looked around at one point before that moment happened, and while he hadn't noticed any of his school friends around, he had thought that perhaps she had noticed them while he was busy searching for you through the busy crowd in front of the fair. And so he simply gave in to the kiss, albeit reluctantly, not knowing the presence of the pair of eyes witnessing it happening and thinking that it was real. He didn't notice you standing there not too far away until it was far too late, and all he could see the moment he pulled away from the kiss was your retreating back as you turned and walked away from him with your eyes glistening under the lights when you gave him one final glance before you disappeared through the crowd.
He could have sworn that he had seen something glowing on your finger, making him think that you had been wearing the promise ring that day as you waited for him. The pain in his chest expanded as he kept thinking about that day and when he remembered the look on your face that he saw right before you left without giving him a word of goodbye. His shame and his guilt kept moulding into one as he thought of all the possibilities behind the reason why you had put on that ring that day and what would have happened if only he had been there on time and if only Mina was not around.
And what would have happened if you had stayed.
All this time, Taehyung had been holding on to false hope that maybe the ruse wouldn't have to last any longer than it should and things would get back to normal once high school was over. Or that he would at least do his part only through freshman year when it would be the crucial period of time for Mina to change her parents' minds about her planned future.
But things had progressed rather slowly, and things kept getting in the way to prevent him from ending things with Mina even once they had graduated. From her need for him to remain playing the part so her family wouldn't instantly send her off across the globe and so that they would give her a chance to go to a local college after graduation, to having his presence at various family events to show how serious and sincere he was to take his role as both her lover and her grandfather's apprentice in the art world that the elder man had cherished the most.
"Just another year. We wouldn't even have to see each other privately unless it's time for you to see my family or when you need to paint me," that was what Mina had promised him when he talked about ending things right at the start of college.
He realised then that the due date of that deal was closing in, and yet there was still no sign of the ruse truly turning on his favour or if their actions had been enough to fool her parents into canceling their plans on sending Mina away. The only thing he noticed then was how his own world seemed to be falling apart, and he knew that he couldn't let it go any further.
It was then when he started thinking that maybe he should end this whole thing now, before things could get out of hand. Before everything he held dear to his heart would start slipping away from him and he would be left with nothing waiting for him at the end of his journey.
Yes, perhaps it would be better to just end this before it would be too late to get out.
It would be such a waste to end his special lessons with Mina's grandfather too soon, just when he was getting a good start at college and was finally heading towards getting into an art school under the elder man's recommendation. But he has had enough time to build a supportive relationship with the man and he was quite sure that he would be able to convince him to keep supporting him in one way or another, even if it wouldn't be the same as the support he would have gotten while acting as his future grandson-in-law.
Even if he couldn't have that, there must be another way. And he would go through anything, as long as he wouldn't lose everything else. As long as he wouldn't lose you.
These thoughts continued to fill his head that he barely paid attention to his surroundings as he walked into his studio. It took him a moment to realise that someone was standing inside the room as he entered, and it wasn't until she called his name when Taehyung finally snapped out of it and noticed her.
"Tae—?"
"Holy shit, Mina," he nearly shouted as he jumped on his feet. "Christ, you scared me. How did you get in?"
Mina gave him a somber smile and pointed to his desk. "I found the spare key. You left the new spare under the floor mat after you lost the old one, remember?"
Taehyung followed to where she was pointing at with his eyes only to stop. Only that it wasn't the spare key that she had placed on the table that caught his gaze. Instead, his eyes were transfixed on the rose gold ring that she was toying in her fingers.
"Why do you have that?" His voice sounded like it came from outside of himself when he questioned this, feeling as if he was dreaming when he saw Mina handing out the ring that seemed too familiar to his eyes.
Mina, on the other hand, looked a bit sympathetic when she glanced down at the ring in her hand before looking up at him again. "I saw _____ today and she just gave it to me. She said something about not needing it anymore and that you might have a better purpose for it."
Hearing that, Taehyung could feel his heart plummeting in his chest. "She—" he choked out as the pain slowly grew inside him. His head was spinning so hard, that it was hard for him to understand what she was trying to say. "She said that?"
Instead of answering him, Mina simply shrugged, giving him a small smile which instantly faded as Taehyung fell to the ground.
"Taehyung, are you okay?" she asked, rushing to his side and falling on her knees as she supported him, though it was clear that she wasn't aware how the news had rendered his legs completely powerless. The ring was caught in her grip, and yet never once it had slipped away from Taehyung's gaze. Seeing this, Mina handed over the ring, to which he received it with shaking hands.
"No," he said, barely recognising his own voice as the sight of the ring on his palm started to blur. "No, I'm not."
At that moment, he could see his life fading away. All of his hopes and dreams seemed pointless at the thought of losing you. Everything from the past year came flashing through his head and he finally began to see it more clearly—how despite having something to gain from this, he was already starting to lose everything else. That no matter what he was planning to do to stop it from happening, it had been far too late for him to do anything as he had failed to notice it until everything was already gone.
That he had already lost you.
Even when he remained focused on his goals, he kept holding on to hope that the day would finally come for him to return to you, and that by then, both of you would be ready to take things to the next step and to embrace the future together. He had watched how you excelled in school, and how you had dedicated your time and energy to studying in college since day one started and it had become the encouragement he needed to do more, and to do better.
Never once had he let the thought of you leave his mind even when he was unable to stay by your side throughout the whole thing, when he couldn't be there to experience your breakthroughs or for him to share his own.
One small sacrifice for a bigger picture.
Those were the words he kept telling himself ever since the day he came to the annual summer fair a few months ago only to find out that you had chosen to be somewhere else, being the one to leave him behind this time around. He had taken it as the punishment that he deserved after what happened last year. Though he refused to stop hoping when he still managed to talk to you after that day and he had noticed that you were still wearing the promise ring once in a while to show him that you still held on to the old promises that you had made to each other in the past while giving him the space that he needed.
He had thought that it was simply a sign that his wait would be worth it, and that you were still waiting for him as well. He closed his eyes as he finally realised that the words he had given to himself had been nothing but white lies. Nothing but empty words to make himself feel better despite knowing that he may have hurt you—one too many times, no doubt—as he kept on failing to be there for you whenever his presence would have mattered. Never once had he realised just how badly he had ruined everything, letting things go out of control since the moment he had begun walking down this path filled with lies and deceit. And it took him too long to realise that his choices would be his undoing.
And now, that final thread of hope had been officially severed as he held it in his hand. Giving the ring back could only mean that you were setting him free, that you had decided that you were going in a different direction to what you had promised him to. That you were letting him go.
"Taehyung, talk to me."
Mina's voice slowly came through his head, and only then did he finally realise that he had been crying. Lost in his own grief, he had curled to a ball and had started rocking back and forth on the floor with Mina waiting by his side.
"Taehyung—" Mina tried again, only to have Taehyung flinching away from her touch and began shaking his head frantically.
"No! Don't you get it? It's over. There's no use to all of this anymore. There's no reason for me to—"
Right then, he began to fall apart just as the situation started to sink in. As the last remaining hope that he had was gone, his heart continued to break into pieces.
You should've told her the truth, the voice inside his head kept scolding him, blaming him for losing you. She wouldn't have thought that you had let her go.
"Taehyung, don't say that..." Mina tried to plead with him, yet her words simply faded while the hateful voice kept scolding him.
She would've supported you and she would've waited instead of walking away like this.
"We've come so far, and you're getting closer—" Mina's voice sounded faint, drowned by the voices that kept echoing inside his head. Her presence seemed far even when she was near, muddled by all the guilt, the pain, the betrayal—
"You can still succeed, even if she won't be there to celebrate it with you at the end of your journey. There is no need for you to give up now. Not when I'm still here with you."
Taehyung raised his head just then. His heart and soul were still breaking inside him, and everything else around him became nothing but white noise, even the sound of his heartbeat and the sound of his sobbing that was slowly winding down.
Mina gave him a smile as she cupped his face in her gentle hands and whispered to him, "You still have me. I'm here for you."
For some reason, he wanted so badly to hold on to those words. To have a reason to carry on when he could no longer put his hope on you to be there for him. As if enchanted, he felt drawn to the only person who was holding him up from falling back down, to the one who was holding him tight in her arms as he continued to fall apart.
He had no idea what went on inside his head when he let Mina pulled him to her, and he had no clue of what he was doing when he reached out, placing his palm on her face and then leaning in until their lips touched. His mind was a jumbled mess, but for a moment, everything seemed to make sense as Mina returned his kiss and began to take over.
Deep down, he knew that he was making a mistake. He knew that he needed to stop before he would do something that he would regret for the rest of his life. But the pain inside him had been too strong and he was feeling completely out of bounds that he could only hold on to the one last thread of what would keep him grounded.
All he ever wanted was for the pain to go away. All he wanted was to feel numb, to feel anything but the hurt that was eating him from inside. Anything. Anything but this hurt of being rejected after waiting for a long time to finally be with you.
You were the one he saw inside his head as he continued to kiss her and as he deepened the kiss until it felt like his body was burning. You were the one he had in mind when he traced his fingers down her body and started to peel every piece of fabric off of her and his body until there were no more barriers coming in between their naked skin. It was your face and your delicate fingers that he pictured inside his head when he let her touch him, when his lips began trailing down the column of her throat while he gently laid her down on top of the plush carpet that he had spread on the floor of his studio.
He closed his eyes and bit his tongue when he slowly descended, sinking into her warmth and let their bodies joined in the mix of lust and despair, when it was you that he still had in his thoughts, it was your name that he wanted so badly to cry out as his body pulsed with the rising pleasure. With each thrust he gave her, he put all of his pain into it, spilling all of his emotions with every grind of his hips until she was thrashing wildly beneath him with the mixture of pleasure and pain.
And he simply kept going, getting more and more lost in his despair until the moment the lust and pleasure all came in to take its place.
And he kept going, moving faster and harder until the waves of pleasure began to rise, rolling intensely inside his body and pulsing through hers until the moment came when they both reached their release, and he let himself go, mending his broken heart with nothing but carnal pleasure.
It was to the thought of you that he simply gave in to, when he continued to make love to Mina on the floor of his studio, wishing that he was making love to you instead, that it would be you that he simply gave himself to after years of waiting, just the way he had pictured it so many times before as the final reward of all the sacrifices that he had made.
Present day...
Hours had passed since Taehyung returned to his hotel bedroom.
Hours since he uncovered the lies that had been fed to him for a long time.
Despite his exhaustion and the jet lag that was still hanging over his shoulders from the long distanced trip, sleep had evaded him a long time ago that he simply stood there in the silence, looking out the window with his somber mood flowing through his veins. Outside, the night had fallen so deeply that the entire sky was nothing but a wide plane of black void, ready to engulf him in his sorrow. Meanwhile, the entire town seemed to have fallen into its slumber, leaving him accompanied only by silence, allowing his mind to grow louder as the seconds continued to pass.
As his mind kept traveling back to the past, he continued to feel his anger boiling at his own foolishness, to how easy it was for him to fall for Mina's deceit.
He was too blinded by his own desperate need of reaching his end goal that he failed to see the truth that was being laid upon him. He should have known. He should have seen through all the lies, to see through the sham he had been pulled into. He should have realised from the start that nothing about it made any sense. Not only for what she had made him believe when she came to him with the fake ring, but to the entire ordeal that she had placed him into.
He should have been able to read through the entire lies since the very first time Mina had proposed the entire ruse. He should have started questioning everything the way he was doing it now.
How was he supposed to help Mina by pretending to be her lover? How was his presence supposed to change anything at all, when her family had always held the blueprint of her life the entire time and there was nothing that he nor she could do to change it?
He should have known that everything had been nothing but a ploy, that he was simply a pawn in the game that Mina had been playing against her own family. Except that she had never seen her freedom as her endgame, knowing already that it would never be in her future no matter what she did to gain it. All those times, Mina had been using him as an escape, a tool to help her rebel against her parents while gaining something for herself.
All she had ever wanted was to have something of her own, something that belonged to her and her alone, a part of her life that would never be under her family's control. All she needed from Taehyung was the false sense of freedom, and to have someone beside her who would never try to take control over her life, and in return, someone for her to control and for her to wrap around her little fingers.
Just like a puppet. An obedient, little puppet whose life she could easily manipulate to however she sees fit.
He was never a means to an end. It was a phrase that Seokjin had tried to paint Taehyung with in his own way, back when he was trying to open his best friend's eyes when it all happened.
No. He was merely a toy. Something to admire, to use, only to dispose of by the time she was done with him.
And it had taken him too long to see it. For him to finally understand the reality of their arrangement and to finally have reasons to walk away from her trap just before her family finally shipped her out of the country. But it certainly did not happen until it was all far too late for him to fix everything.
It's not too late, the familiar voice of his conscience reminded him, taking him back to the conversation he shared with you earlier. She was willing to give you another chance, and you need to take it.
He knew that the voice was right, and with a deep sigh, Taehyung found a new determination to look far ahead in the future instead of continuing on digging into the past. He had been given one last chance, and he was not going to waste it again the way he had back then.
Taehyung ran his hand through his hair, something that he had been doing all night when he was not pulling and tugging the messy strands out of his despair. This time, he gave another pull just to snap him out of it, to make his mind work harder in figuring out just how he was going to make things right and how he was supposed to make you believe that he meant every word he said about keeping his old promises.
He knew that it would be impossible for him to go back to the past and change everything, so the only thing he could focus on was the future and what his next steps would be.
But first, he needed to severe one part of his past that was still haunting him to this day. Knowing how it would only come in his way one day in the future if he simply let it be.
As if on cue, his phone started ringing from the other room. He had barely gotten himself back together as he walked out of the bedroom to retrieve his phone, but he still went for it, as he suspected that he might know who was on the line to speak to him this late at night.
The phone kept on ringing, drawing him towards it. The phone kept blaring through the empty room, its lights flashing against the walls, and yet it didn't stop him from looking down to see the ID number and to confirm that his suspicions were true. The tightness in his chest returned when he took the device in his hands, raising it up for him to answer the call.
"Hello, Mina. What an amazing coincidence. I was just about to call you."