Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Day the World Stopped
He stands in the doorway, a silhouette framed by the dying afternoon light. The silence between us is a living thing, heavy with unspoken accusations and the ghost of my betrayal. I am doubting everything—his motives, his past, the very nature of the darkness he wears like a second skin.
He walks toward me slowly, each step measured, closing the distance until he's just a breath away. His voice, when it comes, is low, a velvet rumble woven through with something perilously close to anguish.
"You're the only woman I ever dreamed of keeping beside me," he confesses, the words raw, stripped of their usual calculated edge. "Not in a cage, Angel. Beside me. I'll brick up the windows, lock the world out, swallow the key if I have to. Even if you scream my name in hatred every day for the rest of your life, I will not let you go."
The declaration should terrify me. It is terrifying. It's the anthem of a jailer, a vow of eternal imprisonment sung in a devastating baritone. My mind rebels, cataloging the reasons to rage, to fight, to hate. But beneath my ribs, my heart executes a frantic, traitorous rhythm. Because woven into the iron threads of that possession is a raw, desperate truth I don't dare examine.
Before I can formulate a retort, a sound cuts through the tension—a soft, rumbling growl from the hallway.
A moment later, they tumble into the room.
First, Leo, the lion cub, all oversized paws and golden fluff, trotting in with regal clumsiness. Right on his heels comes a new creature—a striped orange tiger cub, smaller, all bouncy curiosity and unchecked chaos.
I blink. Once. Twice, my brain refusing to process the image.
Then, pure, unadulterated primal terror erupts.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS THIS?!"
The scream tears from my throat. I launch myself backward off the bed, my feet tangling in the duvet. Leo, thinking it's a game, gives a playful pounce. The tiger cub echoes with a guttural little growl and bounds toward my flailing legs.
"NOPE—NOPE—ABSOLUTELY NOT!" I shriek, scrambling crab-like across the floor, hurling a pillow at them. It bounces off Leo's head harmlessly. I make a desperate dash for the tall dresser, my socks slipping on the polished wood as I try to haul myself up. "TAEHYUN! CALL OFF YOUR DEMON ZOO!"
For half a second, he just stares, his intense mood shattered by the absurdity. Then, a deep, rich laugh bursts from him, so genuine it shakes his shoulders. He braces a hand on the bedpost, doubling over. "Your face—oh, God, you should have seen your face—"
"THEY ARE GOING TO EAT MY FACE! THAT'S THE PROBLEM!" I'm halfway up the dresser, clinging to the top, waving a discarded curtain rod like a sword at the tiger cub who is now batting curiously at my dangling foot.
My yelling spooks the cubs. Leo lets out a startled whuff and leaps onto the bed, treating the expensive linens as his personal trampoline. The tiger cub, overstimulated, tumbles head over tail into an armchair, knocking it over with a crash.
The room descends into perfect, absurd chaos.
"TAEHYUN! I AM NOT JOKING! GET THESE EVIL, FUZZY MINIATURE PREDATORS OUT OF HERE!"
The tiger cub, regaining its footing, sets its sights on me again. With a playful snarl, it gathers its haunches and leaps.
Its claws scratch against the polished side of the dresser.
My balance, already precarious, vanishes.
The world tilts violently.
There's a fleeting sensation of flight, then a hard, unforgiving impact as I meet the floor face-first.
A blinding white pain explodes in my temple.
Then, nothing.
---
His laughter dies in his throat, replaced by a silence so profound it seems to suck the air from the room.
"Shit. No—Angel—hey."
His voice, usually so controlled, trembles. He's beside me in an instant, rolling me over with hands that are surprisingly, devastatingly gentle. He cradles my head, his fingers brushing back my hair. His eyes widen, the amusement evaporating into something stark and cold as he sees the vivid red welling from a gash at my hairline.
He glares over his shoulder at the cubs, who have gone still, sensing the shift in the atmosphere. "You little bastards," he mutters, but there's no real heat in it, only a frantic worry. "Not now. Out." He doesn't shout, but the command is absolute. They whimper, slinking back toward the door.
Gently, he lifts me and lays me on the bed. For a moment, his composure wavers, a crack in the kingpin's armor. He dashes to the adjoining bathroom, returning with a soft towel. He presses it to my wound, his hands steady but his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle leaping. His eyes hold a panic I've never witnessed—a raw, human fear.
He pulls his phone from his pocket. His voice is iron, sharp enough to cut glass. "The doctor. My private study. Now. It's urgent."
Minutes later, a man with a calm, professional demeanor and a black leather bag enters. He works in efficient silence, under the scorching intensity of Taehyun's gaze. Taehyun paces a tight line behind him, a predator rendered helpless.
"A concussion," the doctor states, his voice clinical. "Minor cranial trauma. She hit her head with significant force. She needs absolute rest. No stress. Fluids. Quiet."
Taehyun gives a single, stiff nod as the doctor cleans and bandages the wound. When the man leaves, Taehyun sinks into the chair he's dragged to my bedside. His voice drops to a whisper meant for the shadows. "I'll give her quiet. I'll wrap this entire world in cotton wool if I have to. I'll protect her from everything." His eyes fix on my still form. "Even from myself."
He doesn't leave that night. He becomes a statue in the chair, a sentinel carved from worry and guilt. His shadow, cast by a single low lamp, stretches across the room, keeping watch.
And just outside the door, sitting in a neat, forlorn row, the two cubs keep their own vigil, tails flicking quietly, as if they too understand the line they crossed.
---
Consciousness returns as a dull, pounding ache centered on my left temple. I blink, my vision swimming, the ornate ceiling above me performing a slow, nauseating waltz. The room is dim, hushed.
I try to push myself up, but a sharp, stabbing pain shoots through my skull, pulling a weak gasp from my lips.
Movement. Immediate and close.
Taehyun.
He is there, in the chair pulled so close to the bed our knees could almost touch. He's shed his jacket, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. His forearms rest on his knees, his hands clasped tightly in front of his mouth. His dark eyes are fixed on me, unblinking, intense.
"You're awake." His voice is low, carefully modulated, but beneath the control runs an undercurrent of something soft. Something shaken.
I swallow against a dry throat. "Why are you… here?" My voice is a rasp.
He doesn't answer directly. "I didn't know," he says, the words quiet, almost reluctant. "I didn't know you were that scared of them. They're harmless. Just babies. I thought…" He looks away, his gaze dropping to his clenched hands. The hard edge he so often wears is gone, sanded down to something raw and vulnerable. "I thought you might find them… cute."
A soft shuffling sound draws my attention to the doorway.
Two small shapes sit silhouetted against the hall light. Leo and the tiger cub. Utterly still. Waiting.
A fresh jolt of fear, instinctive and cold, shoots through me. I flinch back against the headboard, a small, terrified sound escaping me.
"They're not coming in," Taehyun says swiftly, his eyes snapping back to me. "They won't take a step in here unless I call them. They're trained." He holds my gaze for a long moment, ensuring I understand, then turns his head slightly toward the door. His voice shifts, layering back into that familiar, effortless command. "Stay."
The cubs instantly lower their heads, lying down flat on the floor just beyond the threshold. Obedient. Silent.
He turns back to me. "I'll have them moved to the conservatory. Permanently. If that's what you want." He leans forward slightly, the shadows hollowing his cheeks. "But don't you ever scare me like that again."
I blink, my foggy mind struggling to keep up. "You were… scared?"
His jaw tightens. He leans closer, the warmth of his body seeping into the space between us. "You were lying there. Not moving. There was blood on the floor." He closes his eyes briefly, as if to block the memory. "I thought… for a second, I thought I'd lost you."
The confession lands in the center of my chest with the force of a physical blow. My heart gives a painful, stumbling beat. I clutch the blanket tighter, the world tilting again, but not from the concussion.
"Why?" I whisper, the question torn from me. "Why do you care so much?"
His hand lifts, hesitates in the air between us, then finally brushes against my cheek. His touch is feather-light, his thumb stroking with infinite care just below the edge of the white bandage.
"Because," he says, his voice so low it's almost inaudible, each word a sacred, devastating truth, "I don't want to live in a world where you don't exist."
The air leaves my lungs. My cheeks flood with heat, a traitorous blush rising so fast and fierce I have to turn my face away, hiding behind the curtain of my hair. Damn it. Damn him. Why does my body betray me like this? Why does my chest constrict with this aching tightness when I should be recoiling?
I bite my lip, hard, fighting to steady my breathing. But his hand remains, a warm, grounding weight against my skin, and the wall around my resolve feels perilously thin.
I hate him. I should hate him. He is chaos and control, violence and velvet. He took my life and remade it in his image.
And yet… his voice when he said he was scared. The tremor in his hands. The raw, unveiled terror in his eyes when he thought I was gone. A part of me, a deep, hidden, treacherous part, melts like ice under a sudden sun.
Slowly, reluctantly, I turn my face back just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes soften, as if he can see the fracture in my armor. The blush on my cheeks deepens, burning, and I snap my gaze away again, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
He lets out a soft breath—not quite a laugh, but something broken and relieved. "You're blushing."
"Shut up," I whisper, mortified, pulling the blanket up higher as if it could hide the truth written across my skin.
But a smile touches his lips this time. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just… real. Just relieved.
And though I will bury the admission deep, where no one, especially not him, can ever find it, a secret part of me… doesn't hate being the reason for that smile.