Chapter 62: Shadows That Follow Fame
Morning didn’t come gently.
There were no soft beams of light through sheer curtains, no
lull of birdsong or drowsy stirrings against silk sheets. Instead, there was a
sharp knock on the library door, the rustle of expensive shoes against polished
marble, and the strained whisper of Niki Park’s voice from the hallway: “You
need to see this.”
V was already in the library, sipping his coffee beside the
large arched window, clad in a midnight-black robe that hung low on his chest.
The quiet didn’t bother him. It rarely did. But the tone in Niki’s voice made
his hand pause mid-air.
Taehyung arrived seconds later from the opposite hall, still
dressed in a thin ivory shirt and grey slacks, barefoot, hair slightly tousled.
His brows furrowed as he caught the tension hanging in the space.
“Come in,” V called calmly, his voice low but firm.
Niki stepped in, tablet clutched to her chest, eyes darting
between them. She didn’t sit, didn’t offer the usual polite greetings. Instead,
she placed the device on the carved wooden table and tapped the screen.
The headline exploded across it like a wildfire:
“‘Koo’ Identified: Mystery Artist’s True Face Leaked After
Viral Interview”
And beneath it—photos.
Real photos.
Clear ones.
Stolen angles from the exhibition: Jungkook’s wide eyes as
he peeked behind the curtain, a grainy close-up of his face when he leaned over
to whisper to someone—his lips slightly parted, the soft curl of his dark hair
falling over one brow.
There were more.
One from months ago, leaving a gallery with Niki in tow,
head tucked into a scarf, but unmistakably him once now recognized.
Another—older—when he was seventeen, standing beside one of his paintings at a
private gala, blurred then, but now digitally enhanced and frighteningly sharp.
Taehyung’s blood ran cold.
V’s fingers clenched around the edge of the table.
“They found him…” Niki whispered, eyes wide. “It’s going
viral. It’s not just fans. International outlets. Blogs. Gossip sites. There’s
speculation about who he’s involved with, where he’s been, why his identity was
hidden. They’re digging into everything—trying to link him to your companies
too. He’s trending. Everywhere.”
There was silence.
Not the calm kind this time.
The storm kind.
The brewing kind.
They found Jungkook in the east balcony hallway, curled on
the broad cushioned window seat, knees to his chest, a sketchpad on his lap. He
wasn’t drawing. Not really. Just scribbling over the same space again and
again, filling a small flower with black ink until it looked like a rotting
bloom.
He didn’t look up as they entered.
Didn’t flinch.
His voice was small.
“I saw it,” he murmured. “They found me.”
Taehyung reached him first, crouching beside the seat.
“You’re safe,” he said quietly.
“But I’m not invisible anymore.”
Jungkook’s eyes—those beautiful, ink-dark eyes—rose slowly.
He didn’t cry.
But he looked gutted.
“People will know it’s me,” he whispered. “They’ll know who
I belong to. They’ll look at you and ask why me. They’ll say I’m too strange.
Too soft. Too quiet. That I don’t deserve you.”
V knelt behind Taehyung, hand resting on the small of
Jungkook’s back.
“They can say what they want,” V murmured. “But they weren’t
there when you pulled color from silence. When you painted things even we
couldn’t name. They didn’t hold you when you cried in the night or watched you
laugh so hard your nose scrunched.”
Taehyung added, his voice breaking slightly, “They didn’t
see you choose us. Again and again. Even when we didn’t know how to ask.”
Jungkook leaned into them—slowly, like a branch bowing into
the wind.
He whispered against Taehyung’s shirt, “I’m scared.”
V wrapped an arm around both of them.
“So are we,” he admitted. “But we won’t run.”
Not this time.
By afternoon, their legal team had arrived.
Discussions spilled from the office room like muffled
thunder—about copyright breaches, photo takedown notices, digital privacy laws.
There were contracts to tighten, past staff to interrogate, future steps to
orchestrate.
Jungkook wasn’t in the room.
He sat instead in the sunroom, quiet, wrapped in one of
Taehyung’s long knit cardigans, Niki beside him with a cup of lemon tea.
“Do you hate me now?” he asked her softly.
Niki blinked. “What?”
“For making everything complicated.”
Her hand found his gently. “Koo… you were always going to be
seen. You were born to be seen. It just happened sooner than planned.”
He nodded, then tilted his head slowly toward the glass
doors. “I used to wonder what it would feel like. For the world to see me. Not
just my art. Me. I thought I’d feel proud. But now… it just feels like I’m
being watched without clothes on.”
“That’s because it wasn’t your choice,” she said. “And that
makes it cruel.”
He blinked, slow and thoughtful.
Then he whispered, “Do you think they’ll hate me for being…
theirs?”
Niki smiled a little. “The world loves a mystery. And it
lives for a forbidden one.”
That night, the three of them didn’t leave their bedroom.
Dinner came late—a soft spread of steamed vegetables,
seasoned rice, grilled salmon, and warm tea. Jungkook picked at it while lying
in bed, legs draped over Taehyung’s lap, head against V’s shoulder.
They didn’t talk about the leak.
They didn’t mention the chaos outside.
Instead, Taehyung massaged Jungkook’s ankles slowly, up the bone,
across the arch, while V traced the soft curve of Jungkook’s temple with his
thumb.
“Do you want to leave the city?” V asked at one point, voice
low.
Jungkook shook his head.
“I want to finish the gallery first,” he whispered. “And
then… maybe disappear for a while. But not forever.”
Taehyung kissed his shin softly. “We’ll follow wherever you
go.”
“Even if I go to the mountains?”
“We’ll build you a castle.”
“Even if I want to live in a tree?”
V chuckled, breath warm against his ear. “Then we’ll build
stairs to the sky.”
Later, the quiet turned heavier.
More intimate.
There was no rush to undress—just hands that wandered, eyes
that met and lingered. Jungkook climbed onto Taehyung’s lap, straddling him
gently, letting V press kisses down his spine from behind.
It was warmth.
It was slow, patient claiming—like a fire that licked gently
at every corner of his fear until only embers remained. Taehyung whispered into
his neck, praising every sound he made. V held his hips firm, grounding him with
every caress.
It didn’t need to be frantic.
The whole world already saw him.
But they would be the ones who made him feel seen.
Worshiped.
Safe.
And when he finally cried—not from pain, not from shame, but
from the sheer overwhelming tide of it all—they held him until the sun dipped
behind the hills again, and silence settled once more between their hearts.
But this time, it was the soft kind.
The kind they had built together.
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