Taehyung hummed mildly to the soothing melody of the song playing through the speakers of his car. Music was always his company when he was stressed, and today he was a lot as he headed to his parents’ house.

In the five days that crawled by, nothing happened and nothing changed; his father didn’t get in contact with him, there was no news from Yoongi or his friends, and he didn’t attempt to call them either. He still couldn’t get used to Jungkook’s absence from his life, and he truly believed he never would. His longing for him only blazed fiercer, and his suffering kept increasing like a black hole that could suck him in at any moment.

The sales of his store were few and his bank account was near empty once he paid all of his bills. He had to find a way to attract customers. Keeping his store closed for two weeks caused damage that could even put him out of business.

 
Taehyung soon parked the car and stepped out. He sauntered towards the door and found his mother waiting for him. “Hello,” he smiled as he enclosed her into his embrace.

“Hi, son.” Hee Jin caressed his back and pulled away. “How are you?”

“I’m good. You?”

“Me too. I’ll go to the kitchen to continue cooking and we’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Yes. I’ll use the bathroom and come find you.”

“Okay.” Hee Jin pinched his cheek, smiling, and retreated to the kitchen.

Taehyung stole across the living room and scurried to his father’s office. He slid the door aside and sneaked in. He aimed for the desk right away and pulled a paperclip out of his pocket. He drove it into the lock and twisted it left and right until it clicked open. Maybe it was because this was his second time doing this, but it seemed easier than before.

He unhooked the lock and left it on the desk, then opened the drawer. Everything was the same as the last time he was there, he observed, and he took hold of the phone Mi Sung was using to talk to Kang Soo. With a swift search of the call history, he detected they talked on the phone every day. He also noted they had a long call the day of his meeting with Dong Myun.

A ringing had him jolting and almost dropping the item in his hand. His frantic eyes flew to the open drawer and stared at the small screen of the other phone. Through his immense disquiet, he put the phone he was holding back in its place and dug his own out of his pocket. He took a photo of the number on the screen, then shut the drawer and locked it. He dashed out of the office with his heart still battering against his ribcage and hurried all the way to his living room.

He planted a hand on the wall to steady himself as he held his stomach, which was swimming in alarm. Fuck, I’m not made for this. And he truly didn’t think he was. Because he was on the verge of fainting by the scare he experienced.

With stable, deep inflows of breath, he managed to tone down his manic pulse. He advanced to the kitchen and chatted with his mother, also helping her with cooking.

 
With the table set a while later, they took their seats. “When is father coming? Around eight, as usual?”

“No, a little earlier. He has to pack, and he doesn’t like driving long distances at night.”

The unexpected words prompted a baffled expression from him. “What? Where will he go?”

“Oh,” Hee Jin breathed out. “He didn’t tell you... He’ll go to one of our cottages for the weekend.”

Even more befuddlement was injected into Taehyung’s crumpled face. “Since when is he taking time off work? He rarely did that.”

“I know, but lately he’s been taking time off once a month.”

Taehyung found it extremely weird. Mi Sung loved his work — he was obsessed with it. Of course, he had to stay at the hospital almost all day long often because of emergency cases, but he sometimes stayed there for no particular reason. As the chief of cardiothoracic surgery, he had a lot to take care of and couldn’t miss a day of work. And now he was about to miss two days of work.

His eyes regained their focus on his mother as a question breached through the billow of his trance. “When did this start?”

Hee Jin tilted her head back slightly as her gaze slunk to the top right corner in thought. “Hmm, I think about four months ago?”

“Four... months...” Taehyung muttered as a vile suspicion bolted to take root inside him. Is he meeting Kang Soo? If yes, why? Why is he meeting him every month?

Hee Jin frowned at the faraway look in his eyes. “Son?”

Her voice jolted him out of his intense cogitation again, and he forced the perplexed tightness out of his features with a little smile. “Do you know in which cottage he’s going?”

“The one in Yeosu.”

Taehyung nodded languidly. It’s three hours away from Seoul. Fuck, I’ll need a lot of gas. With the one hundred thousand won worth of gas he was about to buy, he would officially go broke.

 
It was minutes later when Mi Sung entered the house, and he headed to his office first, Taehyung guessed. Soon, he leaped into sight, and he greeted them before taking his seat.

“Thank you for the food, mom.”

“Thank you for coming. I’m glad we can eat all together again before your father leaves.”

Taehyung’s eyes grazed over the figure of his father and plummeted on his food again. “Father. How come you’re taking time off work? You never did that.”

“Well, I’m getting old. I need some rest too.”

His impassive tone, face, and existence, honestly, told him nothing like usual. “You’re right,” he said with a feigned smile. “I hated how much you overworked yourself. You should rest.”

Mi Sung only gave him a brief view along with something close to a smile, but not really. It was more of a relaxation of the tight blankness in his countenance.

And they resumed eating, bantering here and there, until Mi Sung rose from his seat as he still chewed on his last bite. “Hee Jin-ah, get me the bottle of whiskey and the food you prepared when you’re done. I’ll go pack.”

“Yes, love.”

Taehyung guzzled his last bite too, as a couple of creases framed his expression. Don’t tell me... he takes food and alcohol with him to give them to him. If he’s really going to the cottage, does this mean my father has been hiding him there this whole time? Fuck. I have to find out if he’s really there.

Mi Sung emerged again with a sack in his hold. It seemed heavily packed just for the two days he would supposedly stay in the cottage. He squeezed inside the whiskey and the containers, and he was ready to go.

“Bye, Hee Jin-ah.” He placed a peck on the side of her head. “Bye, son.”

“Bye.” Taehyung returned the halfhearted smile with a bit more warmth and waited until he heard the door close. “Mom, I’ll go now too. I want to rest.”

“Okay, baby.” She pushed herself off her seat to accompany him to the exit. She wrapped her arms around his form and squeezed him, then withdrew. “See you again soon.”

“Yes, mom. Goodbye.”

Taehyung scuttled to his car as he watched the gates close. He hurried to get inside and reversed the car to drive towards the gates that slithered open for him soon enough. He pierced the phone into the holder and tapped on the maps, then typed the cottage’s address.

His eyes frantically hunted for his father’s car as he craned his neck and slanted from side to side to have visual beyond the vehicle in front of him. “Where are you? Where are you?” he chanted in a murmur and switched lanes, cruising past a few cars that drove at a slow speed.

“Fuck, if he’s not going to the cottage, it’s over.” His freakout ended as he located his car at the gas station, and with little time to think, he drove right past it. He encountered another gas station a few meters away and seized upon the chance to refill his fuel tank as well.

His gaze darted towards the road without end as the cordial man served him, and his heart gave small explosions of anxiety when he spotted his father’s car speeding away. Thankfully, he was almost done too, and he paid the man hurriedly before he maneuvered the car into the main road.

He left three vehicles between them to be certain that Mi Sung wouldn’t trace him out, and he sensed some of the tension caused by his enormous apprehension mitigate stepwise.

For a while, they continued like this; Taehyung was so focused on following him he completely forgot to turn on the radio. Another thing that eluded his mind was to call Yoongi and inform him of his findings. It burst on him about an hour later when he was sure his father was heading to Yeosu, and he hastened to call him.

His face morphed into bemusement as it rang and rang and rang... until the call ended on its own. Don’t tell me he’s serious about not accepting my calls. With this maddening thought, he jabbed his finger into the screen to call him again. But the same thing happened, and a groan erupted from him with the scowl that painted over his countenance. “What an asshole...”

He played some relaxing music as he resumed monitoring his father from a safe distance, and that was how a couple more hours crept by.

Reaching close to the beachside, isolated house, Taehyung tried calling him again in vain. He parked the car a little further away from the cottage and snatched the phone out of the holder. He poked the message icon and typed away furiously.

Taehyung: I know where Kang Soo is. My father is with him right now. I followed him. Answer your fucking phone!

He stared at the screen so fixedly he could dig holes into it. With every second that passed, his heart thudded harder and harder in his chest by his restlessness. But then, the seen sign popped up underneath his message. And finally, finally Yoongi called him back.

The car door flung open before he could do anything, and he snapped his head to the side as an ocean of terror razed him to the ground. There stood his father, and he gaped with owlish eyes as a devilish smirk scattered across his harsh characteristics.

“You think I didn’t know you were following me again?”

The phone was wrenched out of his hold, and Taehyung chased after it on instinct. A brutal hand grasped his shirt and yanked him out of the car, then hauled him towards the cottage, as Taehyung strained to release himself.

Mi Sung swiveled abruptly and pounded his palm on the side of his face in a ruthless slap. “Behave.”

Taehyung felt the sizzling ache throb on his cheek, fierce enough to dizzy his head. He was dragged forward again with a wrench, and he resigned to his defeat. He let his father tow him into the spacious living room and toss him onto the couch.

Taehyung’s back slammed against the plush couch with a tiny whine. He evened out his head that swung back at the collision, and his petrified eyes stared at his father as his chest fluctuated faster with the scurry of alarm encircling his lungs.

Mi Sung loomed over him. The wrath in his gaze pinned him to the spot with exasperated discontent around the edges at the turn of events. “What are you up to, Taehyung?” He peeked down at the constant ringing of Taehyung’s phone and slipped it out of his pocket. “Who’s Yoon?” His brows lifted in two mild curves of curiosity as he sighted his eyes towards him again.

Taehyung gulped. Hard. If his father read his messages, he would be so fucking screwed. It was challenging to tame his disquiet with the incensed glower his father leveled at him, and he really couldn’t help the quiver of his mouth as he unfolded it. “Just—Just a friend.”

Mi Sung grimaced at the easy perception of his mendacity. The unrelenting ringing grated on his nerves, and he opted to shut off the phone for now. He dumped it on the table behind him, and his ferocious view searched for him again at once. “Why are you following me around?”

Taehyung kept eye contact, knowing he would suspect him of lying if he glanced away. It was already bad enough he couldn’t maintain a poised countenance since the gushes of anxiousness only grew stronger, but he had to craft a convincing story as fast as possible. Words tumbled from his lips a few seconds later, unsure if they made sense or not. “I heard you talk on the phone and I was curious to know what you were planning on doing. So I followed you. You bought drugs. Why? Why the hell are you buying drugs?”

Mi Sung huffed a disdainful sound as his head skewed to the side. “Why are you getting involved in my business?”

“Because I want to get into whatever you’re planning.” The fear from his eyes petered into unyielding determination that burned in vehement flames. The harried tremor in his frame subsided and his muscles untied themselves, mellowing in overwhelming confidence.

Mi Sung sank down onto the coffee table behind him and braced his elbows on his thighs. A glimmer of suspicion danced around his black eyes, incisive enough to spill over and suffuse his features. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. I’m broke. I want to make money.”

The sternness in the muscles of his face cracked with the snort that rifled from his mouth. “I don’t fucking trust you.”

Taehyung remained unfazed, although his poor heart kept thrashing against its enclosure endlessly. “What should I do about that?”

“You can do nothing, Taehyung. You’re not made for this,” he taunted. “I know you’re up to something. You rarely visited us after you moved out. And now you’ve been coming to our house often. Why?”

“I told you,” Taehyung said calmly, as if his father hadn’t just figured out everything. “I want to know what you’re planning so I can get in too.”

A husky sigh vibrated in Mi Sung’s chest as he meditated on his words, though the conclusion didn’t take too long to settle in. His son was too weak for this world. He wouldn’t survive a day and only cause him trouble. “Forget it.”

Taehyung scooted to the edge of his seat as an expostulation formed in his throat, but an unfamiliar voice rang to his left that strangled it.

“Let the kid join, Mi Sung-ah.”

The said man jerked up as if someone had yanked him out of his seat, enlarged eyes fastened on his friend. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Taehyung spectated as the man with rough-looking traits approached, taking note of a little sweet smile on his lips. “Who is this?”

“I’m Han Kang Soo. Your father’s friend.”

The information sank in Taehyung’s gut like a falling rock, gnarling it with tingling uneasiness. He was right, after all. Kang Soo had been staying in their cottage, and his father had been visiting him once a month.

“Yah, why did you come out? He’s not trusted,” Mi Sung hissed.

Kang Soo laughed his words off and perched on the couch next to Taehyung. “He’s your son. That’s how my son got into the business too. He was following me around until I caught him. He wanted in, and I trained him. We’re the best team since then.”

The unnerved doubt didn’t recede from Mi Sung’s gut; instead, it proceeded to flare wilder. He couldn’t trust Taehyung. He didn’t have a reason to. But he had plenty of reasons not to. “He doesn’t have what it takes to join me.”

“My son didn’t either, Mi Sung-ah. He was too soft and weak. You can change that. Like I did,” he chirped at last with a blithesome shrug of his shoulder. “They can even become friends. I can’t wait for you to meet him when he joins us, Taehyung.”

A frost of dread rippled across Taehyung’s frame, icing up his muscles so much his heart felt like it seized along with his brain. He wrestled with the devouring feeling that wanted to flood his face with shock and succeeded in projecting a structured facade. “Oh, I have to get going. I work early in the morning.”

“No, you can’t leave now.” Kang Soo’s voice was flavored with a sickening sweetness, hiding nefarious innuendos beneath it that Taehyung couldn’t grasp. “It’s late, and Seoul is three hours away. Stay here the night.”

“No, thanks,” he mumbled, steering his agitated eyes away from his rigorous gaze. “I really have to get back.” He swiped his phone from the table and strode towards the exit.

“Taehyung.”

He stopped short on rigid legs at the gruff and imposing sound of Kang Soo’s voice, clasping the phone in his hold.

“Stay.”

Taehyung swallowed the lump of panic in his throat that almost cut off his air supply and reluctantly returned to his seat.

Kang Soo observed the bruising grip on his phone as his hands rested on his lap, his taut jaw, and his evasive eyes that wandered on the floor with a dose of discomfort. “Why do you seem so uncomfortable, Taehyung? As if... you’re scared.”

“I just want to go home,” Taehyung said, throwing a glimpse his way. “I can’t keep the store closed another day. I’m really broke now.”

“Well, Mi Sung can help you with that, right?”

Mi Sung’s hard eyes slashed through his friend before they landed on Taehyung. “I can give you money. Even though you don’t deserve it. You wanted to be an artist,” he scoffed.

Taehyung had never seen or heard his father talk like this. He always preserved a veneer of apathy whenever they discussed, but now he showed him a side of him he wished he hadn’t come across. His cheek still throbbed and felt heavy from his brute slap — he was sure it was already bruised. And the contempt he spoke with cut through his chest, stealing the focus from his fright. “I just wanted to do what I love.”

“And now you’re broke. Why would I help you?”

“I’m not asking you to give me money. I’m asking you to give me a side job in the business you have with Kang Soo-ssi.”

The bell boomed across the room, impeding Mi Sung from responding and striking another tide of dread into Taehyung’s gut.

“Ah, finally,” Kang Soo chirped with that familiar sweetness and heaved himself off his seat to open the door. “Son.” He caged him into his hug and tapped his back, grinning. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Me too, dad.” Ji Hoo had a similar widish smile on his lips as he drew back. He looped an arm around his waist, and they headed to the living room, but his steps soon faltered as any brilliance from his traits drained away. “You... What are you doing here?”

Kang Soo perceived right away that his son’s bulging eyes were nailed on Taehyung, and the tip of his lips quirked. “You know him, son?”

“I met him on Jeju Island. He was staying at that hostel.”

The understanding in Kang Soo’s eyes smoldered stronger as he shuffled closer to the clearly fluttery man. “You were on Jeju Island recently? Why?”

“For vacation.”

Kang Soo propped his palm on the back of the couch, leaning over just slightly to take a better look at Taehyung’s lowered face. “And did you meet anyone?”

“No, not really.”

“Not really? So you met someone.”

“No, no, I didn’t,” Taehyung rushed to say as he shifted in his seat.

There it was. The spark of disquiet Kang Soo was certain he would see in his demeanor at some point. Taehyung really wasn’t made for this business, anyway. “I think you were right, Mi Sung-ah. Taehyung isn’t trusted.”

Mi Sung’s gaze sprinted to him. “What?”

“He knows who I am.”

Mi Sung sprang up as the turmoil in his eyes amplified. “He can’t know.”

“He knows,” Kang Soo said, each word punctuated with assuredness. “Because he met Jeon Jungkook.”

Mi Sung stared down at his son. “Is it true?”

“Who even is this?” Taehyung retorted, striving to act oblivious, but the jittery edge in his tone was beyond his grip. “What are you talking about?”

With a ruthless grasp on Taehyung’s hair, Kang Soo yanked his head back. “Don’t play dumb,” he growled. “Ji Hoo had seen your friend with Yoongi. We know you and your friends have a relation with Jeon Jungkook. You didn’t even ask why I’m staying here, Taehyung. Because you know I’m in hiding.”

Choked whines poured from Taehyung’s mouth as he squeezed his eyes shut. He ringed his wrist with both hands, struggling to free himself. “I don’t know what you’re—”

Kang Soo threw him onto the floor violently, stifling his words. “Yoon was calling you, hmm? Yoon is Yoongi, Mi Sung-ah. Check his phone.” He recognized Taehyung’s efforts to sit up and shoved his foot into his chest to hold him down.

Mi Sung dug the phone out of Taehyung’s pocket and turned it on. “Pin.”

Taehyung groaned incessantly at the crushing foot hammering him down on the floor. “Father, p-please.”

An overriding spate of rage coursed through Mi Sung’s body that goaded him to push Kang Soo out of the way and hoist Taehyung’s torso with a feral tug on his shirt. He dropped the phone and smashed his fist into his face, panting out his labored breaths by his livid state. “Pin.”

The savage punch sent him heeling steeply to the side, and he would have slammed against the floor if Mi Sung had released his iron-like grip on his shirt. The shock of pain disoriented him, numbing him for a few seconds before it spurted throughout his worn-out form in an unbearable current.

Mi Sung convulsed him to grab his attention. “Talk.”

Taehyung kept grunting, eyes screwed shut. “It’s... It’s 2435.”

Mi Sung dropped him onto the floor again and picked up the phone. He entered the pin and waited until it unlocked. He barely had time to glimpse at the twenty-seven missed calls before it rang again, and he declined the call to open the messages. “‘I know where Kang Soo is. My father is with him right now. I followed him. Answer your fucking phone,’” he read out loud, and his gaze crawled to Taehyung’s warped face. “You fucking lying piece of shit. You’re after Kang Soo?”

“I—I can explain,” Taehyung choked out, as Kang Soo’s constricting foot squashed him against the floor again.

“Why the fuck are you siding with Jeon Jungkook?”

“I’m not—fuck, can y-you let me t-talk?”

Kang Soo cast a glance at Mi Sung and saw him nod. He retracted his foot and lugged him to the couch, then plopped him down.

Taehyung touched his aching cheek and inspected his fingers, only to find dots of blood. Mi Sung’s ring must have slit his skin, but he was too lost in the thudding pain to comprehend it. “Alright. I met Jeon Jungkook at the hostel. I happened to overhear a conversation he had with his friends, and I found out the police were looking for him. He told me what had happened. And I just think it’s unfair. I remembered I heard you talk on the phone with someone named Kang Soo when Jungkook mentioned his name. And I wanted to find Kang Soo and ask him myself if he did this to him.”

“That’s why you’re following me around?” Mi Sung asked.

“Yes. I-I promise, I just wanted to ask if he did this to him.”

“My father didn’t do this,” Ji Hoo stated.

“Ji Hoo-yah.” Kang Soo held a silencing hand at him and directed his regard to Taehyung again. “And if I did this, what? What are you gonna do about it?”

“I’ll ask you why.” Taehyung dared to lock eyes with him. Now that they had discovered everything, his apprehension placated. How worse could it get, anyway?

“That’s all?”

“Yes. What did you expect? Kill you? I haven’t even held a gun before.”

“You know what I believe?” Kang Soo bent over him, bracing his hand on the couch. It was a move made to intimidate him, and it worked so fast his eyes glinted in delight. “You wanted to find me to rat my location on Jungkook and his friends. Which you already did, you motherfucker.”

Kang Soo’s arm swung back with the intent to deliver a blow to his face that would definitely knock him over, but the sound of constant, plangent bangs on the door paralyzed him with an abrupt spasm.

“Open the fucking door!” Jungkook screamed from the top of his lungs, voice carrying far through the enormous house.

Taehyung’s eyes reshaped into round ones, filling with a mash of emotions. Alarm, hope, eagerness, fear — all melded into one blaze that rocketed through him high and low, launching his heart into overdrive and blanking out his eyes with a prickling wetness.

Jungkook came to find him. While the police were hunting for him, he risked everything to get to him. Jungkook had come for him. And the simple realization nudged swift-flowing tears out of him and struck his heart with a conquering desire to hold him, kiss him, just feel him close and cry his bottled-up sorrow and disquiet in his embrace.

───⭒───༺🎭༻───⭒───

Jungkook to the rescue! Tomorrow I'll give you a double update as a thank you for 5k reads. It'll be worth the wait, promise! Thank you so much for your support 💜