71
Third Person Pov
The mansion was bathed in silence, not the peaceful kind, but the kind that came after destruction.
The kind that rang with invisible screams. Every corner of the grand house seemed to ache, the air itself heavy with grief and disbelief.
This was the day everything would collapse…
the day everything would change and not for the better.
Seokjin had answered Taehyung’s call the moment he heard his voice.
.. blank, hollow, lifeless. Now standing at the threshold of the living room, he felt his stomach twist. Taehyung sat there on the couch, unmoving, his gaze fixed somewhere on the ground as if it held all the answers he’d lost. His face was pale, his lips trembling, but no tears came anymore. He had cried himself empty.
Just a few feet away stood little Gyubin, clutching Daisy the cat pressed tightly to his chest..
. his small eyes swollen and red, mirroring his father’s in a haunting way.
He didn’t understand everything, but even a kid could feel the weight of heartbreak.
He kept watching Taehyung as if his silent stare could somehow bring him back, could pull him out of that numbness.
Seokjin’s chest ached. He exhaled slowly, eyes flickering toward the grand staircase that spiraled upward.
The air seemed colder there, heavier, as though the house itself knew the sin it held within those walls.
Without a word, he turned away from the sight of his broken brother and began to ascend, each step echoing through the stillness.
His heart pounded as he neared Jeon Jungkook’s room.
... the room where the truth had fallen like a curse.
Every creak of the floorboard beneath his feet sounded like a warning.
By the time he reached the door, his hands were trembling, a bitter mix of fury and dread rising within him.
He could already smell the remnants of guilt and tragedy in the air.
Seokjin’s hand hovered over the doorknob, his reflection staring back at him in the glossy wood.
And then he pushed the door open quietly.
His eyes immediately fell on Jungkook...
still lying motionless on the bed, pale against the sheets.
Eighteen hours had passed since he’d fallen unconscious, and yet, he hadn’t moved.
The doctor had come and gone, his words still echoing in Seokjin’s ears like a curse.
.. “He overdosed… it’s a miracle he’s still breathing. ”
Seokjin’s chest tightened as he walked closer, every step echoing softly in the quiet room.
Sitting at the edge of the bed, he stared at Jungkook for a long moment really stared.
.. at the boy who once believed he could handle the world on his own.
Now he lay there, fragile, almost childlike, with dark shadows under his eyes as he breathed weakly.
With a trembling hand, Seokjin reached out, brushing away a few strands of hair that had fallen over Jungkook’s forehead.
His fingers lingered there, gentle as though afraid even his touch might break what little was left of him.
“What have you done to yourself, my brother…” he murmured, his voice low, heavy with an ache he couldn’t swallow.
The word brother slipped out before he could stop it, soft and tender, almost forgotten. No matter how distant they were in reality, there was still a part of Seokjin that remembered the young boy who followed him everywhere, who wanted to prove himself, who only ever wanted to be seen.
He let out a long, unsteady breath, dragging a hand through his own hair as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.
His eyes stayed fixed on the floor, on the shadows that seemed to stretch endlessly as silence wrapped around him once again.
He didn’t know what he was waiting for anymore.
Maybe for Jungkook to wake up and explain everything… maybe for things to get better soon.
Either way, Seokjin stayed there guarding the sinner and the victim both.
After nearly an hour, the silence in the room broke with a faint groan. Jungkook’s brows furrowed, his face twisting as pain clawed its way through his temples. “F—cking hell,” he muttered under his breath, voice cracked and raw. His eyelids fluttered open, squinting against the dim light.
Seokjin, lost in thought at the bedside, lifted his head instantly. “Jungkook,” he called softly, a mix of relief and dread in his tone as his hand instinctively gripped Jungkook’s arm.
Jungkook blinked, disoriented. His gaze moved to Seokjin, confusion painting his features. “What… what are you doing here?” he rasped, his throat dry as sandpaper. His voice carried that same detached authority but stripped of its usual power.
Seokjin didn’t reply immediately. He just stared, unable to decide what to say first. Jungkook sat up, there was heaviness in his limbs. He scanned the darkened room, taking in the sight of scattered pills, the untouched food tray.
He grabbed the glass of water from the bedside, gulping it down before demanding again, firmer this time, “I asked you something.”
Seokjin exhaled deeply, his tone finally breaking the heavy silence. “Taehyung got to know everything.”
Jungkook froze mid-sip. His head turned slowly toward Seokjin, eyes narrowing, pupils still blown from the remnants of intoxication.
“Got to know... what?” His voice dropped low, dangerous.
Seokjin held his gaze, steady and unflinching. “You overdosed last night. And in that state… you confessed everything.”
For a heartbeat, Jungkook didn’t move. Then, his jaw tightened... veins in his neck standing out as his fingers clenched around the rim of the glass. His reflection on the water surface distorted as his grip tightened, glass cracking faintly.
He pushed the blanket away abruptly and keeping the glass aside, trying to stand only to falter as dizziness hit him hard. Seokjin caught his arm before he could collapse again.
“Jungkook—”
“Don’t,” Jungkook hissed, voice sharp but shaky. His eyes were red, not from tears but from exhaustion, from the weight of realization settling like iron on his shoulders.
“Just say it,” Seokjin murmured, tightening his grip slightly, his tone softer now.... not angry, not pitying, just… human. “Don’t run anymore. Don’t hold back. You’ll lose him forever if you do.”
Jungkook’s throat bobbed. His breath came shallow. For a second, his eyes darted toward the door and in that silence, something in him snapped from regret into resolve.
He raked a trembling hand through his hair, nodded once, and pulled his arm free. Without a word, he walked toward the door, each step heavy, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.
Seokjin followed quietly, like a shadow a silent guardian to a man about to face the ruin he’d built himself.
When Jungkook reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped. His eyes immediately found Taehyung... sitting motionless on the couch, gaze empty, his face pale and hollow like all the color had been drained from it.
Beside him, little Gyubin stood holding Daisy in his small arms, the kitten blinking up at Jungkook as if sensing the storm in the room. The kid's wide, uncertain eyes flicked between his father and Jungkook, the air so still it felt as though the whole mansion had stopped breathing.
And for the first time, Jungkook didn’t know if he was walking toward forgiveness… or his own damnation.
Taehyung finally looked up. The sound of his breath was almost louder than the silence filling the mansion.
He rose slowly from the couch, each step deliberate, as though his body moved before his mind could process anything.
His face was void of expression pale, blank, lifeless mirroring the man standing at the foot of the stairs.
Jungkook stood there, posture stiff, eyes half-lidded and unfocused, still dulled by the remnants of the drugs. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Their eyes met.... Taehyung’s red and swollen, Jungkook’s glassy and heavy with fatigue.
Then Taehyung’s lips parted. His voice came out low, trembling, but cutting through the air like a blade.
“I hate the fact that you’re my husband.”
The words landed heavy, a tremor echoing through the walls. Jungkook didn’t flinch. He just stood there silent, accepting, like he’d already rehearsed this punishment in his mind.
From a few feet away, Gyubin blinked up at the two adults, his small hands clutching Daisy tighter. His brows furrowed in confusion.
“Mr. Jeon… appa’s husband?” he thought, lips parting slightly as he watched.
Mr. Haenam appeared behind him quietly, his expression grim. He placed a steady hand on Gyubin’s shoulder.
“Let’s go, Gyubin,” he said gently.
The little boy hesitated, eyes darting between his father and Jungkook. “Ahjussi… please,” he whispered, not wanting to leave, not understanding why the air around them felt so heavy.
Mr. Haenam only shook his head, guiding him away. Gyubin turned his head once more, his small eyes wide and fearful, as if trying to memorize his father’s face before he disappeared around the corner.
Taehyung’s gaze never wavered. He stared straight at Jungkook, his lips trembling before words finally tore their way out.
“Why?” he asked softly, voice breaking at the edges. “W-why did you do that? Why did you kill–kill my sister’s boyfriend? Why did you make her so miserable that she kept waiting for him to come back? Why did you–just–”
His voice faltered, throat tightening. The tears he had been holding back for hours began to sting again. “And not–not just that… y-you even planned this contract before the controversy? You wanted to cage me, trap me under your control. Just w-why...?”
He stopped talking because he couldn’t anymore. His voice cracked in the middle of the question, turning it into a half-broken whisper. The silence that followed was deafening.
Jungkook’s eyes closed briefly as he exhaled... long, heavy, shaking. When he finally looked at Taehyung again, there was something raw in his gaze, stripped of his usual composure.
“Your sister’s boyfriend…” he started, voice hoarse, uneven, “was my mother’s first son.”
Taehyung’s breath caught, his body stiffening as his eyes widened in disbelief. “Your… brother?”
Jungkook’s jaw clenched hard. His voice came out quieter this time, but sharper, filled with something that sounded like venom laced with pain.
“My mother’s son,” he repeated, as if correcting not just Taehyung but himself like he couldn’t bring himself to call that man brother.
The words hung between them, heavy and suffocating.
And in that single moment, Taehyung realized whatever explanation Jungkook would give next, it would not undo the wreckage already done.
Jungkook exhaled slowly, his gaze flicking toward Seokjin who met his eyes, gave the faintest nod, and said nothing. It was permission. Or maybe forgiveness. Jungkook didn’t know which, but he took it as a sign to go on.
He looked away, his expression hardening even as his voice wavered.
“We were… a happy family. At least, that’s what I thought.
Just me, my father, and my mother. She loved me or maybe she just played the part well.
My father worshipped her...” he said, shaking his head in bitter amusement “He was the kind of man who would die for the woman he loved. Loyal. Respectful. Honest. He gave her everything. And she she was perfect to him. The ideal wife. At least, that’s what we believed. ”
Taehyung stood silent, his fingers trembling slightly at his sides, waiting for whatever storm Jungkook’s words were leading to.
“My life,” Jungkook continued quietly, “was perfect until my father learned something that broke him apart. Broke us apart. Destroyed the business. Destroyed everything.” His voice turned rougher, heavy with the taste of memory.
“He found out the truth. That she’d been cheating on him for years. Before their marriage. During it.”
Taehyung’s breath hitched, but Jungkook didn’t stop.
“She had a relationship before she met him. With another man. They had a child... a son. One year old at the time. That man didn’t want to take responsibility…
said he’d only stay if she earned too.” Jungkook’s eyes dropped to the floor.
“Then my mother met my father. In some club. She played the victim... a helpless victim. She never told him about the son, never about the man. She hid everything. She was good at it. Too good.”
A bitter smile curved his lips, trembling at the edges. “I mean, look at her. She fooled him for years. Acted so pure, so devoted. But she was a liar from the start. My father… he was just too blinded by love to see the cracks.”
Taehyung’s throat tightened. Jungkook’s words weren’t steady anymore... they came in bursts, jagged and slurred, as if each sentence carried a weight that was splitting him open.
“My father married her. Gave her the world. And she smiled every day, pretending to love him... while her son, her first son, grew up with that man.” His hand clenched by his side.
“When I was fifteen, my father found out. He caught her… with that same man. He’d had his suspicions for some weeks but that day he hired professionals Investigators to get Proofs. ”
Jungkook let out a shaky exhale, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “He was heartbroken. I saw him on his knees that night. My father, the man who everyone admired...begging her to love him. Actually.... Begging.”
He swallowed hard, his eyes distant. “He kept saying, ‘Tell me it’s not true… tell me you didn’t.’ And she just stood there. Cold. Not even a tear. Not even guilt.”
The room felt smaller, air thicker with every word. Taehyung’s eyes began to sting, not out of sympathy but from the heaviness, the human pain that laced Jungkook’s voice.
“She broke him,” Jungkook said quietly, almost to himself. “And that’s when everything began to die.”
He swallowed, eyes rimmed glassy, and the words spilled out raw and ragged, each one a stone he’d been carrying for years.
“He threw her out,” Jungkook said, voice flat at first, as if reciting a fact too terrible to own.
“I watched him fall apart. My father stopped moving like a man and started moving like a shadow. Months went by and he… he just withered. The business died because he stopped caring. He didn’t go to work.
He didn’t answer the calls. He sat in that chair and waited for something that would never come back. ”
Taehyung listened in a stunned silence, the garden of his own grief still flowering while a different, darker story unfolded beside it. Jungkook’s hands trembled now, knuckles whitening.
“She came back again,” he continued, and the contempt in his voice made the room shrink.
“Came crawling back with that practiced sob, those fake tears. My father---that stupid man in love.... he softened. He wanted to forgive. He wanted to be whole again. I saw it and I… I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t watch him be hurt again.”
He clenched his jaw, his eyes burning with rage. “I thought I could fix it. I thought if I ended her, if I removed the rot, everything would snap back. So I took his gun.” The confession fell like a physical thing between them. “I shot her.”
Taehyung’s breath left him in a single ragged pull. The room tilted; the kitten’s soft padding from the distant and the city noise became a cruel, unreal soundtrack. He watched Jungkook countenance go empty, as if the part that spoke had already left the mansion.
“My father froze,” Jungkook said, voice small now.
“He looked at her, and then at me, like I’d shown him the bottom of the world.
He clutched at his chest... he couldn’t breathe.
.. and then he was on the floor. His heart gave out.
” The words came out slow, like each syllable was a step away from something monstrous.
“I did it. I pushed him to that. My rage… my hand on that trigger… it broke him. He died there, clutching the wound I made.”
He didn’t explain motives beyond that. There was no dramatic finish, only a thin, unbearable honesty.
“He died loving her,” Jungkook said, and the confession shredded whatever remained of a steady voice.
“And I stood there and watched both of them go. I watched my world collapse because I couldn’t hold my anger inside. ”
Silence pooled after that, thick and suffocating. Taehyung’s hands were small fists, trembling, nails biting his palms until the pain brought a sharp, grounding edge. He felt something inside fold... old pieces of trust, hope, the image of a man dying for love.
Jungkook’s shoulders sagged as if the weight of the confession had taken physical shape and settled there. He was talking past himself now, words tumbling out because there was nowhere else for them to go.
“I kept telling myself it was for the best. I told myself I was protecting him. But the truth is… I murdered everything I loved and then I hated myself for it. I watched him die. And I couldn’t save him.”
He closed his eyes, breath uneven, as if grieving a loss that had been his making. The room around them felt too small for such a history; every tick of the clock sounded like accusation. Taehyung stood frozen.
Jungkook’s words thinned into a whisper and then gathered weight again, each sentence dragging a little more of the past into the room until there was no air left between them.
“And then there was her son... the one who dated your sister.” He paused, as if tasting each word before letting it fall. “After my family died I wanted everyone who hurt us to burn. I wanted revenge. I wanted the people who betrayed my father to pay.” His lips curved into bitterness.
“I found him after years when I had already built my empire from the scratch. I killed his dad first and then I watched him. I tracked him. I thought maybe I could spare him because... because his girlfriend was pregnant."
He swallowed, and the movement looked painfully human. “But then I learned he was cheating, too... like his mother had. Like the same rot repeating. Seeing that… it set something off in me. It reminded me of why my father died. It reminded me of everything I couldn’t save.”
Taehyung felt the room tilt. He could hardly breathe.
His mind stalled at the image: his sister, pregnant, betrayed. A small, dry sound escaped him.
“So I did it. I shot him too. I killed him. I made sure he could never come back. I watched him die. I didn’t leave it to chance.” The words fell like struck metal. “I watched him burn. I watched the life I’d torn from him turn to ash and then I walked away.”
Silence pressed in; even the rain outside seemed to hold its breath.
“I thought I had fixed something,” Jungkook continued into the hollow that followed.
.. “But what I fixed were only pieces I wanted gone, not the damage that followed. I killed the man, and I killed what he might have become for your sister... the anticipation, the waiting, whatever future she imagined. I left her grief without explanation. I left her with an absence I created.” His voice broke on that last word, but it did not soften; it landed like a stone.
The confession unfolded further, remorseless peeling back of layers.
“She thought he just left her pregnant.” Jungkook said, voice rougher, smaller. “Your sister thought he vanished—she waited. She waited and waited and then she withered. She died waiting with that foolish for an absence I had made.”
His eyes flicked to Taehyung, and for a moment an ugly, stunned clarity showed on his face. “I didn’t explain. I didn’t tell her. I left her to yearn for something I’d stolen. I… I was selfish. I thought my work was done and it was enough.”
Taehyung’s throat tightened; a dry, raw pain spread under his ribs. Jungkook’s confession did not flinch from what it revealed... not an excuse, not a justification, only the terrible bluntness of what he’d done.
“I killed two betrayers,” Jungkook said finally, voice numb with the weight of it. “But I killed their lovers too—people who loved them, who waited. They died yearning."
Silence...
Jungkook’s words trailed off into a ragged whisper. “I killed them. I killed what I hated and I killed what I loved. I don’t know which is worse anymore.”
Taehyung’s stomach dropped; something inside him... anger, grief, an ugly, stubborn softness.... broke with a sound he felt rather than heard. Tears blurred his vision, hot and sudden, and when he let them fall there was no armor left to hide behind.
The room folded in on itself. Taehyung’s hand rubbed his face until his vision blurred; the movement felt small and useless against what Jungkook was saying.
Seokjin sat like a stone beside him, breath held in a way that made the silence louder.
Jungkook’s voice was flat at first..m tired, almost automatic then it gathered speed as if a sluice gate had opened.
“I made that contract long before the scandal even started,” Jungkook said, his voice low,“I could’ve ended it all with money… shut everyone up. But I didn’t. Because somewhere deep down, I didn’t want to fix the noise—I wanted to fix something real.”
He exhaled shakily. “I wanted you close… not because I loved you then, but because I thought maybe… if I gave that our—" he stopped holding back the words. Taehyung's teary eyes met with his detached ones.
Then Jungkook continued correcting himself. "....your son a better life, I could undo a part of what I destroyed. I know what it’s like to grow up without real love. It turns you into someone like me. And the world doesn’t need more of that.”
Taehyung wiped his tears as he blinked his wet eyelashes.
“I had people dig,” Jungkook continued, voice hollow.
“Full background work... your past, the people around you. I followed threads, names, addresses. I found him... the boy you call your son. He was the same newborn, I’d taken his parents' lives years ago. I found out he was sick with Leukemia.” The word landed like a stone.
“When I saw his file, something in me snapped and… I don’t know why I wanted responsibility. Maybe because I was the one who took his family away. Maybe because I owed something that debt could never pay.”
He stared at the floor as if the room itself might answer him.
“So I made the contract,” Jungkook said, and there was no defense in his tone, only raw practicality.
“It was an excuse. A scaffold. I waited for the right moment, and then I pushed it in front of you. You signed because you had nowhere else to go—and I used that moment. Not to bind you only to me, but to bind you close enough that I could be the one who paid the bills. Responsibility became my way to fix things.”
Taehyung felt the floor tilt. The neat explanations, the clinical language of research, responsibility, logistics... made the wound feel surgical and deliberate. He heard, dimly, the echo of their first collision in the office, the way Jungkook’s eyes had caught him.
Seokjin’s hand closed on his knee; he did not interrupt. The older man’s face was a map of restrained horror, brotherly concern tight at the edges. Jungkook watched Taehyung as if testing whether the words landed.
“You used my son,” Taehyung whispered, voice small and raw. “You used his sickness… to trap me.”
“I did,” Jungkook answered simply. No justification. No plea. The truth had the clean, terrible weight of a delivered verdict. “ I thought taking responsibility would be payment enough.” His eyes flicked up, glassy and distant.
“Maybe I was trying to buy a family. Maybe I wanted to fix a past I couldn’t forgive in myself.”
Taehyung’s throat closed. Images.. the hospital room, the admission papers, the way Jungkook’s men had carried their lives like chess pieces, ran through him like sharp shots.
Everything that had felt like spite, like cruelty, like inexplicable control, arranged itself now into a pattern: a deliberate architecture of possession.
Taehyung turned around, his steps heavy and uncertain, as though the ground itself rejected the weight of what he’d just heard.
He moved to the couch with a strange, fragile calm.
.. the kind that came only after the storm, when grief was too vast to scream.
He sank down slowly, his body folding into itself, his trembling hands clasped together between his knees as his eyes fixed on nothing.
The air in the room was thick, every breath drawn like a struggle. Seokjin, sitting across from him, watched quietly afraid that even the sound of his own breathing might shatter Taehyung further.
Across the room, Jungkook stood still, an unmoving silhouette framed by the pale morning light seeping through the curtains. His face was calm though... his chest rising and falling unevenly, like he was trying to remember how to breathe.
The confession lingered in the air unfinished, echoing, poisoning.
No one spoke. There was nothing left to ask. Everything that needed to be said had already been carved into Taehyung’s heart.
The mansion seemed to hold its breath, walls bearing silent witness to the ruin of everything that once pretended to be love.
The clock on the far wall ticked faintly, cruelly normal, while in the middle of it all sat Taehyung.
.. motionless, hollow-eyed, lost somewhere between disbelief and heartbreak.
The season of betrayal had been explained, but explanation did not equal forgiveness. Every word Jungkook had spoken had stripped away the last of Taehyung’s strength, layer by layer, until nothing was left but the ache of realization that everything had been calculated, deliberate, chosen.
And Taehyung…
Taehyung was lost.
He stared at the carpet, the blur of its patterns merging with his tears. His mind replayed the words over and over his sister’s death, Gyubin’s pain, the contract, every tender moment that now reeked of manipulation.
His lips parted as if to say something, a question, a curse, anything but no sound came out. His throat ached with the weight of everything he could never unhear.
And in that moment, the mansion fell into silence again.
The kind that doesn’t bring peace... only the unbearable awareness that nothing, ever again, would be the same.