101 Ways to Pretend│Taegyu

Chapter 14

Beomgyu rubbed his eyes open as he woke up with a smile, knowing that he would meet Taehyun later in the day. He had gone to sleep giddy with the thought of spending the entire day with Taehyun. Vision still blurry, he sat up and looked at the wall in front of him- when did he paint it that colour?

Shrugging it off, he trudged along to his bathroom and washed up. And when he emerged, only then did he realise the state his room was in.

His clothes were strewn everywhere, all the items on his dresser pushed to the floor in a messy pile, broken glass littering most of his area. Beomgyu himself didn't know how he didn't manage to catch it the moment he woke up. The sheer state of chaos in the room wasn't what caught Beomgyu's eye however, no, it was the collage of photos on his bedroom wall.

There were photos of him attending what seemed to be private schedules, meeting family and friends, the to and fro from his house to his shoots, and a concerning amount of photos where he was with Taehyun. And only then did it hit him:

Someone broke into his house.

A sinking feeling made its way to Beomgyu's stomach, and the actor felt a panic attack brewing in his chest.

He only remembered arriving home and passing out in exhaustion after the previous day's shoot. He clearly would've heard someone break into his room though- how could he sleep through all of it? Had he been drugged?

Beomgyu's throat began closing up, and it felt like someone had just gone and taken all the air out of his lungs. It had been a while since the actor had last gotten a panic attack, but he definitely didn't miss the feeling.

As his knees gave way, he speed-dialled Yeonjun while struggling to inhale. The other picked up after a few rings, immediately concerned at Beomgyu's laboured breathing.

"Hello? Beomgyu? Are you okay?"

"Yeonjun- someone... I think-" Beomgyu answered in between loud exhales, clutching his chest in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

"Calm down Gyu. Count to three," the actor did as his manager instructed, finally letting his wheezing simmer down to somewhat uneven breathing.

"Someone broke into my house."

--

"I'm so sorry to call you out here like this. I know we were supposed to have fun today, but something came up-" Beomgyu apologised about nothing in particular, disappointment evident in his tone despite the mask that covered his face. Taehyun didn't understand why the other looked so down.

"No it's fine, what happened?" he reassured the elder, placing his hand on Beomgyu's and giving him a comforting squeeze. They were at a cafe a few blocks down from Taehyun's apartment building, hastily picked due to the tone of urgency that Beomgyu called him in.

The actor wore a black cap baseball cap and mask which covered every part of his face other than his eyes- it was unlike Beomgyu, who had always never worried about paparazzi or the general public catching the two of them out together. Most of the time, he wanted to flaunt it actually- so why was he so reserved today? Taehyun knew something wasn't right. From the moment Beomgyu walked into the cafe, he didn't stop turning around every few seconds, almost as if he were wary of someone watching him from behind.

"Well you see, there was a sort of incident that occurred this morning-"

As Beomgyu explained the prior events of his day, Taehyun's face fell in shock. He thought the addition of new security would've been enough to hold off whoever this was for a few days, but it definitely wasn't. His heart broke for Beomgyu, who clearly seemed distressed just thinking about the whole ordeal. He never expected this person to go as far as to break into Beomgyu's house- what had he done to even deserve all this? Beomgyu never held grudges against anyone, so this was clearly a one-sided hatred.