Bond Made in Hell || A TAEJIN STORY || Arranged Marriage

53

Dedicated to Millarca69 (sorry, I can never get the hang of how to properly dedicate a chapter to someone on Wattpad, lol <3333)

WARNING: THIS IS A SUPER LONG CHAPTER.

Jin

'Tae was supposed to have gotten married....before?'  I whisper to myself.

'How did I not know? Why was I kept in the dark about all this?'

For a moment, the shock fades and is replaced by anger: waves and waves of anger.

What has my life been till this point? Nothing but a damn lie?

I hear footsteps and look up to see Ken standing close to me.

'Seokjin-ssi,' he extends a hand, looking down at me with a sympathetic expression on his face. 'Come back inside.'

I stare at him with barely concealed hate in my eyes. Of all the people I could have trusted and worked with, this was the man I was forced to choose? A man who had treated me the way he did in our childhood: who was still a very despicable man, even in the present?

And yet, why had he changed so much? What could have made him change: had he really changed? Did he even remember how he had treated me in the past, or did he still consider me a wealthy stranger, his boss's husband, which was why he fluttered and simpered about me?

Nevertheless, I get up and slowly follow him back inside the coffee shop. It is no use creating a scene: I am aware that I am being, as of now, closely observed by the police, and a million other news channels and their much-too-eager reporters (including that hound Choi Soobin) and I do not want to be on their radar more than I already am.

Once we are seated inside, I sit back, looking out of the window and taking slow, deep breaths, trying to restore the circulation to my system. Nobody says a word for a while.

Then Ken finally speaks up. 'Seokjin-ssi. You know what this means, don't you?'

'Of course I know,' I reply, and my voice carries no emotion, much to my own surprise. 'Tae....he....he had been scheduled to marry a man three years ago, someone he was very much in love with....someone who left him at the very altar at their wedding.'

How had he never told me? How much had he never told me? How could I never realized? That, he, Taehyung, had been through so much pain, so much suffering of his own, in the past?

I could never imagine.

Was that the reason he had treated me so terribly when we had first got married? Because he was traumatized? Scared that I would leave him as well, and therefore tried to get me to divorce him, drive me away himself before things got worse?

Was that the reason he had always been so hesitant to love me? Afraid of his love being broken, shattered like it had been before? And I treated him like a devil, a ruthless devil with a heart of stone, someone who was incapable of love-

All this while, he had hidden the truth of his past. Hidden how hurt he had been, the pain he had to go through, the heartbreak- hidden it away and revealed it to nobody, not even myself, not even when I confided mine to him- no, he listened to my problems patiently, and comforted me through it, and made me feel so much better about myself- even if he only got worse and worse, and I never bothered to think about problems of his own-

'Oh, Tae....' I whisper aloud, but only I hear the words I say. 'If only I'd been more understanding, if only I'd thought about it....!'

'Seokjin-ssi...' Ken speaks into my ear, his voice soft but highly unwelcoming, 'I am afraid, y-you do not fully understand.'