╔═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╗
IF I RULED THE WORLD
╚═━────━▒ ۞ ▒━────━═╝

Yi-Seo

“And that was the day when everyone saw what I hid beneath my clothes… They saw me naked, they heard me moaning and cursing rather than singing, they saw me crumble while I was in my most vulnerable state…” A heavy and remorseful sigh leaves his lips, and then he continues, “it was all over the internet, spreading like wildfire, and even my staff saw it,” he nods his head a few times, keeping his eyes still glued to the floor beneath his bare feet.

I can clearly tell that he is experiencing a lot of shame and guilt by just thinking about the horrible moment from the past. Sex is a very intimate act, whether it is done with romantic intentions or otherwise. It is almost like an escape mechanism for many stressed souls, and when such a moment of weakness is recorded without consent and broadcast to the world, it definitely does a lot of damage, almost to an unimaginable and irreparable extent.

“Was it real or fabricated? Like you know some kind of video morphing or editing?” I put forward a question that makes him chortle, his smirk mocking me as if I just asked the most insensible question ever.

“Fabricated? Why?” He squints in an amused manner. “At least not with me because I wasn’t holy by any means, and I won’t deny that. The content of the tape was recorded in that suite, and it was as real as I am right now, in flesh and blood,” he spreads his arms open with a sad smile.

“I get it,” I nod my head blankly.

“The only good thing she did was to record just a part of it and not the entire duration we were there”

“Or maybe she did and released just a part of it,” I put forward my theory, and Taehyung sends a glare my way, which soon disappears under his cheeky grin.

“That’s possible too,” Taehyung’s smile dissolves, and he swallows thickly, and I do the same; the fifth glass of vodka that he’s holding in his hand is being swirled around mindlessly while his gaze stays frozen to one spot on the floor.

“Who is this idol? I’m curious to know,” I have no idea why I asked him that because I wouldn’t anyway be using real names when I write.

But something made me blurt out that question without my control.

Taehyung’s eyes shoot up at me in an almost shocked manner. “So, does that mean you haven’t watched the tape yet?” His lips gather into a pout of disbelief, and his eyes turn into the soft puppy kind.

“I probably never will,” I shake my head in response, sounding confident.

“You’re… unbelievable,” he announces softly and pushes away some of his hair from his forehead. “Mel was her stage name; you can read up about her.”

There’s an abrupt and long pause that follows, and I don’t know how to help him continue. So, I choose to remain silent until he decides to speak again because this is something too sensitive for him, and I want to be as cautious as possible with my words and actions right now.

“The sex tape…” his weary eyes lift to look at me after a whole three minutes of mutual silence, “it didn’t do all the damage that it was expected to do,” a smirk of slim victory forms on his discolored lips as he leans back in his seat and crosses one leg over the other, taking a sip of his drink thereafter.

“What do you mean?” My eyebrows pinch together in confusion.

“I was very rich and powerful, Miss Kwon,” he declares with a surge of pride in his tone. “My agency couldn’t foresee the tape being leaked, but they got it removed within a few days without any trace of it being there in the first place. But the ‘so-called’ fans who were always behind private information had obviously downloaded it, and it just kept circulating, and the agency had to work again and again to take it down from wherever it was uploaded,” Taehyung chuckles softly, taking another larger sip of the vodka.

“I did lose a part of my fandom after that, but on the brighter side, it brought even more attention to me, and I was all over the media. My performance was being talked about as if I was some highly coveted sex God,” he shakes his head a little and leans forward to place his glass on the coffee table.

“Did you enjoy that kind of popularity, though?” I ask him with a slight tilt of my head, and my question makes his drooping eyes fly to meet mine.

“Honestly, I did,” his tone deepens, and he sends me a devilish grin as he leans back once again and returns to his half-lying position on the couch with his legs spread wide apart.

I exhale sharply, feeling a little repulsed by his overly honest answer. My mind is oscillating like a wildly swinging pendulum between the two extremities of wanting to give him a hug and wanting to slap the pride and arrogance out of his face.

“I was young and wild, and I was being lusted after, heavily,” his smirk is almost pompous at this point. “Everyone wanted a taste of me, and everyone was ready to give me anything that I asked of them. And I mean anything,” he emphasizes, winking and licking his chapped lips to add more drama to his statement.

“I had a really wild few years,” Taehyung chuckles as he unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt and messily rolls the sleeves up to his elbows before he grabs the glass from the table once again.

I remain totally silent, and he takes this as his cue to continue spilling the truth about his sexual escapades from the past.

“There was someone to give me company almost every single night, and if I now tell you the names of some of them, you wouldn’t even believe me. But trust me,” he leans forward a little from his seat and rests his elbows on the top of his knees and speaks to me in an unnecessary whisper. “I’ve had the best inside and outside the industry go down on their knees… just for me,” he winks as he leans back again casually, causing me to gulp down the nervousness building up at the back of my throat.

“Why did you choose to live like that?” I question him in an attempt to peel off the already ripped mask of ‘being desired’ that he has been using to hide himself and his emotions behind.

His eyes instantly avoid mine, and his teeth nibble on his lips, mercilessly chewing them for a few seconds before he exhales deeply and breaks the silence in the room.

“Why do you think? Because I was lonely… so fucking lonely all the time,” his voice grows menacingly low before he draws in a long breath and collects himself together once again. “You have no idea, but being famous is a very isolating experience, Miss Kwon, and I know it way better than anyone else. I was always surrounded by people, cameras, and lights, but I truly had no one with me, for me, and everyone that ever approached me seemed to be doing it with some ulterior motive, and it made it so hard for me to trust anyone and form any kind of attachment towards anyone. But still, I shaped myself to enjoy it when I got any kind of company that came with no strings attached. It helped me escape my loneliness,” his raw honesty comes through, and his words are punctuated by the crinkling of the bag of chips that he abandoned on the coffee table a while ago.

It stings, what Taehyung just said really stings and wrenches my heart. I feel so bad for him because he was at the pinnacle of fame, living a life that the vast majority could only dream of, and still he felt so lonely and isolated that he gave in to mindlessly sleeping around with random people just so he wouldn’t feel so lonely. Is this how famous people feel within? Do people around them always make them lose their belief in true relationships and genuine feelings?

His mask has fallen, and the pendulum within my mind has swung back to that point where I want to give him a warm hug. I don’t do it though.

Taehyung grabs the bottle of vodka from the table and pours a large serving into his now empty glass before he sets the bottle down. This makes it six drinks tonight, and I don’t think I’m going to let it pass beyond this one.

“Why don’t you drink? I feel bad drinking it all on my own,” his eyes lift to look at me, and he slightly tilts his glass to point towards me, wordlessly offering me a drink as well.

“No,” I shake my head, “but I think you should stop drinking now,” my words earn a soft laugh from him.

“You don’t get to decide that Miss Kwon. I know my limits,” Taehyung snaps back. “You’re wasting your time trying to write about me. I am a nobody, so go find something better to do,” he disses me once a few more sips of alcohol go down his throat, and I begin wondering how his body is able to hold up this overload of undiluted alcohol so well.

If I were him, I might have been dead by now.

“Taehyung-ssi, you don’t get to decide what I can and cannot do. I’m an adult, and I know what I’m doing. We already discussed this,” I retaliate, pushing my glasses up my nose bridge and getting comfortable in my seat.

“Adults don’t always do the right things,” Taehyung spills a universal truth, and we both remain silent for a while.

“What more do you want to know?” His voice, so deep and scintillating, cuts through the silence in the room.

“Did you confront her about the tape leak?”

“Would that have changed anything?” He fires back instantly, but in a calm way.

“You would have at least known her reasons,” I state calmly.

“I did ask her about it, and I learnt that she didn’t do it on her own will.”

“So, somebody made her do it?” I squeak in surprise. “Do you suspect anyone in particular?” My voice comes out with a heavy undertone of nervousness, and I keep my eyes dead set on his face as I keenly study every minute twitch and tremble of his facial muscles.

“I don’t suspect anyone…” His tired but eerily attractive eyes lift to meet my gaze. “I precisely know who did it,” Taehyung brings the glass to his lips and takes a slow sip of the drink while his eyes stay riveted onto mine, and he smirks when he sees them going wide in shock.

⚜
After the prologue, this was the first chapter that I wrote.
🙃🙃

Published on : 01/18/2023