11
Third Person
Taehyung hesitated outside The CEO’s door, his presence barely a whisper in the silent corridor.
His fingers hovered over the brass doorknob, hesitant, like it might sear his skin on contact.
The chill of the polished floor seeped into his bare feet, a sharp contrast to the faint heat still clinging to his skin from the bed he’d been pulled from.
His hair was messy, pushed back in uneven strands, a clear sign of how quickly he’d left his room.
He had been summoned again.
At an odd hour.
Again.
A familiar tightness curled in his chest.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his breath past the invisible weight pressing down on his ribs. The hallway lights flickered softly above him, but all he could think about was how Gyubin had just fallen asleep.
He had tucked the child in with extra care tonight
Read his favorite dinosaur book twice, even though his throat had started to sting.
Gyubin had smiled sleepily, wrapping his tiny arms around Taehyung’s neck, murmuring a soft “Appa” before dozing off.
That warmth still clung to Taehyung’s shirt an anchor to something real.
But it had all shattered the moment the Mr.Haenam knocked, eyes apologetic but unmoved.
“He wants to see you.”
And now, here Taehyung stood, as if on trial.
As if he were fifteen again, summoned to the principal’s office.
Except this wasn’t school.
This was Jeon Jungkook.
He raised his hand, knuckles tapping the door with a sharp knock.
A beat of silence.
Then
“Get in.”
The voice on the other side was low. Controlled. But colder than usual. So much colder.
Taehyung’s stomach dropped.
There was something clipped in the tone.
Something restrained like a knife hidden behind silk.
His fingers trembled faintly as they curled around the knob.
The door creaked open, and he stepped inside.
The room was dimly lit. Just a low floor lamp in the corner casting a soft, amber glow that painted the edges of the space in gold and shadow.
The scent of whiskey hung in the air, thick and expensive, clinging to the silence like fog.
The curtains were drawn shut, sealing the room away from the rest of the world.
It didn’t feel like night.
It felt like a moment suspended
Somewhere between midnight and storm.
And there he was.
Jeon Jungkook.
Lounging in a leather armchair like a monarch in his throne.
Legs stretched out. One hand lazily cradling a crystal glass, the amber liquid inside catching the light like fire trapped in water.
He wasn’t looking at Taehyung.
Hs gaze was fixed on the glass. Focused. Detached.
Taehyung lingered at the threshold, suddenly unsure of where to stand. Or breathe.
His voice came out small, almost lost in the room.
“You… you called me?”
Jungkook looked up.
And Taehyung instantly regretted speaking.
Those eyes.
They were the eyes of a man who owned the room, the silence, and perhaps Taehyung feared the very breath in his lungs.
Jungkook didn’t greet him.
Didn’t blink.
He simply tilted the glass slightly, the liquid swirling, then asked
“Had fun?”
The words landed like a stone in Taehyung’s gut.
He blinked, thrown. “What?”
Jungkook’s voice remained even, a flat surface with no ripples of emotion.
“With Seokjin.”
Taehyung’s lips parted, his thoughts scrambling.
“I… we were just talking. About Gyubin’s school. That’s all.”
A quiet hum came from the chair.
A sound of dismissal. Disinterest.
Not anger but something heavier.
It was something colder.
I don’t care enough to argue, it said.
Then Jungkook moved.
Slowly, deliberately, he leaned forward, setting the glass down on the table beside him with a soft clink that echoed louder than it should have.
His gaze never left Taehyung’s.
There was no malice in it.
No heat.
But it made Taehyung’s spine straighten all the same.
“What’s your role in this marriage?” Jungkook asked, voice silk-wrapped steel.
Taehyung blinked again, his brows drawing together.
“To… pretend.”
The answer fell out of him like a habit. A reflex. A truth too familiar to resist.
A long pause followed.
So long it felt like Jungkook might say nothing at all.
Then, finally
Jungkook gave a slow, steady nod.
“Exactly.”
And just like that, something invisible cracked in the air between them.
The weight of it settled over Taehyung’s skin like frost.
Jungkook stood.
The movement was slow. Intentionally quiet.
"Tonight I want you to pretend a little harder." He didn’t need to raise his voice. He didn’t need to threaten.
Power simply followed him like a shadow.
A heavy weight pressed on Taheyung as he parted his mouth to speak something but when Jungkook didnt glance him as he walked right past him...he just waited.... waited for what was about to come.
Taehyung turned instinctively, watching him cross the room.
Watched him approach the tall cupboard built seamlessly into the wall sleek, unmarked wood.
Jungkook opened it with ease, pulling something from inside.
A bag.
He unzipped it in one clean motion.
And then
White. Sheer.
So thin it almost vanished in the light.
A shirt.
Long-sleeved. Buttoned at the cuffs. Cut from silk so delicate it looked like water.
Elegant yes. But unmistakably designed to expose. To humiliate.
Jungkook didn’t say a word.
Heturned then tossed the shirt across the room.
It floated through the air like a ghost, landing on the bed with a soft, whispering sound that somehow felt louder than anything else.
Taehyung stared. His pulse quickened.
Jungkook finally spoke.
“Wear that.”
His tone was as plain as if he were asking Taehyung to hold a file. Casual. Absolute.
Taehyung didn’t move.
His heart dropped straight into his stomach.
“…What?”
Jungkook met his gaze.
“You heard me.”
There was no amusement in his voice. No cruelty he could cling to and protest.
Only certainty.
Taehyung’s voice faltered. “You want me to wear it… now?”
Jungkook’s expression didn’t shift.
Not a blink. Not a twitch.
“Yes. Now.”
The words were sharp as glass.
Taehyung’s feet instinctively stepped back. Just once. Just enough.
“…Why?”
“Because I said so.” Jungkook replied, voice suddenly dry, hollow, cruel in its emptiness.
The words hit like a slap.
Taehyung felt the heat rise to his face not from embarrassment, but from the sting. Like he’d been slapped in front of a mirror. Like he wasn’t sure if he should defend himself or disappear.
His fists clenched slowly at his sides.
“I’m not wearing that.”
A flicker.
There it was.
Something cold and sharp passed behind Jungkook’s eyes. Not rage.
Not surprise.
Just something that felt like a wire tightening.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Until he was close enough for Taehyung to feel the warmth radiating off him.
Close enough that the air between them became hard to breathe.
"Do you think you have a choice? Because I assure you—you don’t."
Jungkook said quietly.
A whisper, but the kind you don’t dare ignore. Taehyung’s chest rose and fell, shallow and quick.
“This…”
His voice caught, then steadied.
“This wasn’t in the agreement.”
Jungkook’s lips curled. But it wasn’t a smile. It was something meaner. Something made of broken things.
“The agreement was that you’d belong to me on paper,” he murmured.
“But paper doesn’t flinch. Or bleed. Or breathe.”
He leaned in just enough for Taehyung to feel the weight of the words.
“You do.”
A pause.
“So adjust.”
Taehyung’s breath stuttered. His lips trembled.
“Why this shirt?” he asked, voice thin but edged in defiance.
And Jungkook, without hesitation, said
"I don’t spend without reason. Now show me what I bought."
The shame hit like a wave.
Hot. Viscous. Crawling under his skin like poison.
Taehyung’s throat closed up.
His hands balled tighter.
“I’m not a thing,” he whispered, like the words might save him. Might anchor him.
Jungkook tilted his head slightly, voice soft and sharp as a scalpel.
“You’re whatever I need you to be tonight.”
And then
“Now change.” A beat. “Or I’ll have someone come do it for you.”
Silence.
It settled over the room like a noose.
Taehyung’s eyes widened.
His jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t.”
Jungkook’s gaze didn’t even flicker.
He simply raised a brow, voice calm. Icy.
“Try me.”
It wasn’t a challenge.
It was a sentence.
And in that moment, the room felt too small. The air too thick.
Like every choice left would cost him something.
Taehyung stared at the shirt again.
It lay there limp, pale, and waiting.
Like silk soaked in shame.
An instrument of humiliation disguised as luxury.
And Jungkook?
He stood motionless. Watching. Expecting. Not like a man who hoped for submission but like a man who had already purchased the outcome.
His stillness was a verdict.
Slowly, Taehyung stepped forward.
He didn’t look at Jungkook.
His fingers curled around the fabric, hesitant and trembling. The silk was cool to the touch, too delicate for something meant to break him.
He turned his back.
Shoulders hunched. Head bowed.
Every movement restrained as if showing too much pain would only feed the cruelty.
His heart pounded wildly against his ribs, like it was trying to escape.
Each beat louder than the last.
The shirt trembled between his fingers. Not because of the breeze. But because of him.
He took one step toward the closet room.
His body felt like it was held together with thread, and that thread was fraying.
Then behind him came the voice.
Jungkook's voice.
“Right here.”
Two words. But they struck like a slap.
Not shouted. Not harsh. But detached.
The kind of voice that doesn’t need to scream to leave bruises.
Taehyung froze.
The shirt slipped slightly in his grasp.
His breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, his chest felt hollow like everything inside him had dropped out.
“I…” he whispered, almost to himself. “I can’t do this. It’s…”
His voice cracked.
“...it’s humiliating.”
A silence stretched behind him.
Long. Awful. Still.
And then, Jungkook’s reply cool and final:
“Then be humiliated.”
The words weren’t loud. But they came heavy, dragging dignity out of his bones.
Taehyung gritted his teeth. Shame rushed through him fast and hot and cruel. He didn’t even realize his body had started moving until his fingers were at his shirt.
He fumbled with the buttons, linen sleepwear slipping under trembling hands.
His vision blurred.
He couldn’t breathe properly. The air pressed in from all sides thick and unmoving, like the room itself was complicit in this slow unraveling.
But then
He heard it.
The quiet sound of fabric shifting. A faint clink of ice in a glass.
Jungkook had moved.
Taehyung stilled again, barely daring to glance.
But curiosity or fear made him turn just slightly.
Jungkook wasn’t coming toward him.
The CEO walked past him without a glance. Like Taehyung didn’t exist. Like he had already dismissed him as furniture in his opulent home.
He stepped through the tall glass doors that led onto the balcony, the air stirring faintly in his wake. The breeze rolled in gently, cool against the skin now exposed where Taehyung’s shirt had come undone.
Jungkook moved to the edge of the railing and stopped. Framed by the city lights. Bathed in the faint glow of a sleeping skyline.
One hand in his pocket.
The other holding his drink.
The ice clinked once as he tilted the glass slightly but he didn’t drink.
Didn’t speak.Didn’t look back.
Taehyung stayed frozen.
The silence felt... different now.
Not softer, but less suffocating. As if the shame had been paused set aside while the man who inflicted it admired the view.
For a split second, Taehyung’s chest shook with a shallow, bitter breath.
Taehyung turned fully toward the bed, the soft weight of the silk shirt still draped over his forearm like a burden.
His hands reached for the first button of his own linen shirt.
They fumbled. Just once.
Then again.
His breath stilled as he tried to steady his fingers, but they moved as if underwater slow, unsure, unwilling.
Each button came undone with a hesitation that felt more like grief than resistance.
The linen slipped from his shoulders in silence.
Cool air met bare skin.
He folded the shirt carefully.
Each motion deliberate. Precise.
As though by folding it neatly, by controlling something anything he could keep a scrap of dignity in this room where he owned nothing.
Not even himself.
But even the folds of fabric betrayed him creased from his shaking hands.
One piece at a time, he undressed.
Not just physically.
It was ritualistic. A quiet act of surrender. The slow peeling away of identity, of safety, of the thin veil that told him he was still a person...not just a role to fill.
And then came the silk.
White. Sheer. Soft as a whisper. Cold as a blade.
It clung to his fingers before it ever touched his skin.
He slid it on. His pants on the floor. Leaving him only in boxers. And a sheer white shirt.
The fabric glided over him like smoke elegant, weightless, cruel.
It kissed his collarbones, ghosted over his ribs, and hung from his frame like it was made to expose, not protect.
Not hide.
The collar brushed his throat.
The sleeves draped long and hollow, pooling slightly at his wrists.
It didn’t clothe him.
It revealed him.
And he hated it. He stood there, unmoving. Arms limp at his sides.
Head lowered.
The floor beneath his feet looked almost merciful like if he stared long enough, it might open and swallow him whole.
But it didn’t. He was still here.
Still seen. Still stripped.
Slowly too slowly he lifted his gaze.
Out on the balcony, Jungkook remained where he had been.
A silhouette against the glittering skyline, half-drunk glass still in hand.
There was something devastatingly beautiful about him.
Sharp. Sculpted. .
A man carved out of glass and shadow.
Taehyung’s eyes lingered a moment too long.
As if delaying the inevitable.
As if hoping this fragile second where he was still unseen might last.
But it didn’t.
Because Jungkook turned.
Effortless. And everything stopped.
His eyes found Taehyung.
And stilled.
They didn’t widen. Didn’t narrow.
Didn’t change at all.
Just... landed.
As if looking at an object on a shelf. Something one owned, but no longer admired.
Then Jungkook moved.
He walked back inside with the same calm grace that always made Taehyung feel like a prisoner watching his warden take a stroll.
His footsteps echoed faintly, unhurried across the polished floor.
He didn’t look again until he reached his seat.
Then he sat.
He leaned back into the armchair, one leg crossing over the other.
Glass placed gently on the side table with a practiced hand.
Silence. Until his gaze rose.
It swept up Taehyung slowly.
From bare feet to exposed chest. To exposed thighs.
From trembling fingers to clenched jaw.
But there was no desire in his eyes.
No spark of power.
No amusement. No lust.
Just... assessment.
A quiet checkmark drawn in his mind.
Had the command been followed?
Yes.
Nothing more. And then he spoke.
Cool. Detached. Dagger-sharp.
“Now,” he said, almost idly, “you finally look like what you are.”
Taehyung blinked. His lips parted, just barely. His chest rose sharply, as if struck air stolen from his lungs.
The shame twisted again, harder this time.
But Jungkook didn’t react.
He watched, like a man watching the sunset he didn’t care for. And then he said it. Soft. Final. Inevitable.
“My trophy slut. My playdoll.”
The words hung in the air like perfume and poison all at once.
Taehyung stood still.
Like a statue carved in shame.
His eyes stayed fixed on the floor, lashes lowered, breath shallow and even barely there.
The translucent hem of the shirt fluttered faintly just above his knees each time he shifted his weight, his legs exposed, vulnerable beneath the fabric meant to mock the idea of dignity.
His hands, curled at his sides, still gripped the edges of the shirt as if it might shield him. Even now.
Even after it had betrayed him completely.
He hadn’t looked up since Jungkook spoke that word.
My trophy slut.
It didn’t echo. Didn’t need to.
Because it had already settled inside him
Carved deeper than flesh.
Somewhere no blade or apology could reach.
Then Jungkook spoke again.
The words came soft. Almost idle.
But they landed sharper than any command.
“Come here.”
Taehyung’s body tensed instantly.
There was no mistaking that tone.
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
It carried no urgency, no cruelty.
Only expectation.
His head lifted slowly only halfway eyes barely rising above the edge of his lashes.
And there he saw him.
Sprawled in the leather chair like he owned time itself.
One hand cradling a half-drunk glass of whiskey, the other lazily draped over the armrest. Perfectly at ease.
Too relaxed for the violence he inflicted with words alone.
But his eyes
They were locked on Taehyung.
So Taehyung moved. Not because he wanted to. Not because anything in his soul agreed. But because he had no choice.
Because there was a child asleep in the next room.
Because he had already traded his dignity for survival the day he signed that contract.
And every breath since had been penance.
His bare feet met the marble floor with soft soundless taps.
Each step louder in his mind than in the room Like distant drums echoing through a hollow ribcage.
Like a quiet scream locked beneath skin.
When he reached the edge of the rug, he stopped.
His knuckles were bloodless, gripping the shirt still as if he might disappear inside it.
Jungkook said nothing.
He leaned forward slightly just enough to reach out.
His fingers wrapped around Taehyung’s wrist with a grip that wasn’t cruel, wasn’t rough
Just... final.
And with that, he pulled.
Effortless. Certain.
Taehyung stumbled slightly as his knees gave way, folding into Jungkook’s lap with awkward resistance. His hands landed instinctively on Jungkook’s chest for balance.
It was a reflex.
Not intimacy.