Taehyung's POV
The next few days were a blur of nervous energy and carefully constructed lies. Every time his phone buzzed, Taehyung's heart leaped, expecting Jungkook. Every conversation with Jennie felt like walking on eggshells, a performance he was increasingly bad at. He was living a double life, and the stress of it was suffocating.
He and Jungkook had exchanged a few texts since that night – hesitant, loaded messages that acknowledged the shift between them but skirted around the immediate implications. They needed to talk. Properly. But the fear of what that talk would mean, of dismantling the life he'd built, was paralyzing.
Jennie, meanwhile, was more observant than ever. Her subtle questions had grown into concerned glances. Her warmth, which once felt comforting, now felt like a heavy blanket of expectation. She noticed his distraction, the way he sometimes flinched when she reached for his hand, the phone calls he took in another room. He saw the flicker of hurt, then suspicion, in her eyes.
One evening, Taehyung arrived home late from a "client dinner" – another lie, a hastily arranged coffee with Jungkook where they barely spoke above whispers, unable to truly address the elephant in the room. He walked into the living room to find Jennie sitting on the sofa, a half-read book forgotten in her lap. The soft lamplight illuminated her face, which was set in a strangely calm, almost resigned expression.
"You're late," she said, her voice flat, devoid of emotion.
"Yeah, sorry. The meeting ran over," Taehyung began, already bracing himself for the usual questions.
Jennie slowly stood up, walking towards him. Her eyes, usually so warm and understanding, were now cold, piercing. "Meeting, Taehyung? Or Jungkook?"
The words hit him like a physical blow. His blood ran cold. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His mind raced, frantically searching for an explanation, a plausible lie, but his tongue felt tied.
Jennie walked closer, her gaze unwavering. "Don't bother, Taehyung. I saw you." Her voice cracked on the last word, a raw wound in the quiet room. "At the café today. You and him. The way you looked at him. The way he looked at you." Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but her expression remained chillingly composed. "You didn't even see me. You were too... preoccupied."
Taehyung felt the air leave his lungs. He wanted to deny it, to explain, to plead. But the image of their hushed conversation, the way Jungkook's hand had briefly, comfortingly, covered his over the table – it all flashed before his eyes. He couldn't lie. Not now. He was caught. Red-handed. And the weight of his betrayal, of her pain, crashed down on him with devastating force.
Jennie took a shaky breath, her gaze locking onto his. "So, are you going to tell me the truth now, Taehyung? Or are you going to keep pretending?"
The comfortable facade of his life had just shattered, leaving him exposed, facing the raw, painful consequences of his forbidden pull.