Chapter 80: When the World Begins to Look In
It started with a headline.
A soft ping on Niki’s phone, a whisper of an alert she
barely looked at until the words snagged her brain mid-sip of morning espresso.
"Art World in Chaos: Identity of Mysterious Prodigy
'Koo' Under Threat as Exhibition Breaks Records."
Niki stared. Then blinked. Then stared again.
In a blink, her quiet morning in the city was gone. Her
phone lit up again and again—agents, curators, press, and a few aggressive
gallery owners all clamoring for statements she didn’t have, chasing a phantom
no one was supposed to catch.
And back at the Kim estate, Jungkook slept in—curled between
two giants like a contented housecat, face tucked into Taehyung’s bare shoulder
while V’s hand rested along his spine like a shield.
The peace hadn’t yet shattered. Not here.
But it would.
—
Later that morning, the call came.
Jungkook sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing one of V’s
button-down shirts that swallowed him whole, listening as Niki’s voice,
unusually tight, filtered through the speakerphone.
“I’m doing my best,” she said carefully, “but you need to
understand—there’s speculation now. Someone leaked the acquisition ledger from
the gallery. Your name wasn’t on it, but…”
Taehyung exchanged a glance with V, their silent tension
passing like smoke between them.
Jungkook’s fingers tightened around his tea cup. “How much
time do we have?”
“Not much,” Niki sighed. “A week maybe? At most. And
someone’s definitely digging. If they find anything linking you to the estate…
or your name tied to either Kim…”
“We burn it,” V said coolly. “Erase and cover.”
Jungkook blinked slowly, staring into his cup as if he could
find safety inside the steam. “We can’t keep erasing forever.”
Taehyung reached over, curling a large hand around his
smaller one. “We won’t erase you, Koo. Just the parts the world doesn’t
deserve.”
That silenced him. He swallowed thickly.
But the twins could see it—the beginning of that storm
behind his eyes. The one that always came before he started shrinking into
silence or slipping into his softer, little space.
So they didn’t let him fall this time.
V stood smoothly and disappeared into the hallway. Taehyung
kept Jungkook seated, guiding him to lean back against his chest as they sat on
the living room carpet, the weight of the looming world pressing at their
doorstep.
Moments later, V returned.
With brushes. Ink. And a single, pristine sheet of canvas
paper.
“We’ll give them something to talk about,” he murmured,
setting the tools down. “On our terms.”
Jungkook tilted his head back, confused. “What…?”
“You’ll make a new piece,” V said calmly. “Something only we
understand. You’ll sign it as Koo, and it’ll be so hauntingly beautiful that no
one will dare speak louder than it.”
“And then we’ll disappear again,” Taehyung added, voice a
little gentler, lips brushing Jungkook’s temple. “Only to reappear when we’re
ready.”
Jungkook hesitated. “You’d do that for me?”
“No,” V said simply. “We’ll do that with you.”
—
That afternoon, a strange energy filled the studio. It was
sharper than usual—less dreamy, more charged.
Jungkook stood barefoot in the middle of the room in nothing
but black overalls, back open, hair tied up in a loose bun. His shoulders
trembled, but not with fear—with the weight of emotion he couldn’t quite put
into words.
The twins didn’t speak as they watched him work.
His strokes were frantic, almost violent at first—inky
shadows twisting across ivory paper like they wanted to escape it. Then came a
sudden tenderness. A hand. A mouth. A blurred figure curled into a lap. And two
dark silhouettes rising like towers behind it, arms outstretched, protectively
encircling.
Jungkook didn’t say it aloud.
But it was them.
It was always them.
By the time he signed the bottom, smearing crimson across
the white as if bleeding himself into it, his knees gave out and he collapsed
into V’s waiting arms.
They didn’t speak.
They just held him.
Again and again, the twins reminded him: you don’t have to
carry it alone.
And this time, he believed them.
—
Later, after the art was carefully dried and stored, after
Niki had arranged for its anonymous auction, and after the world had begun to
buzz even louder—there was peace again.
It came not with silence, but with laughter.
Jungkook padded through the long hallways in mismatched
socks and an oversized sweater, dragging behind him a blanket like a cape. His
cheeks were pink with leftover excitement, mischief in his eyes as he peeked
into the lounge.
“Dada,” he cooed softly, voice laced with syrupy innocence.
Taehyung looked up from his book, the corner of his mouth
twitching. “Yes, baby?”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“In the kitchen. Why?”
Jungkook grinned and tiptoed over, crawling onto the couch
beside him. “I wanna show Daddy my blanket fort.”
Taehyung raised a brow. “You made a blanket fort?”
Jungkook nodded proudly. “And it has lights, and snacks, and
my squishy bear.”
Taehyung laughed softly, cupping his cheek. “Then we better
go find Daddy before your bear eats all the snacks.”
It didn’t take long before all three were tucked under
blankets, surrounded by fairy lights and soft pillows inside a makeshift fort
in the music room. V pretended to be annoyed by the small space, but Jungkook’s
gentle pout and whispered, “Daddy, pleaaaase,” made him fold in less than a
second.
Their world was growing louder.
But in that blanket fort, under the weight of their shared
breathing, gentle kisses, and Jungkook’s quiet giggles, the world outside felt
very, very far away.
And for tonight, that was enough.
First, the digital kindling—Twitter threads laced with
speculation, TikTok videos dissecting the brushstrokes of Koo’s newest piece
like it was sacred scripture, Instagram stories zooming in on the crimson smear
beneath his signature. Was it paint? Was it blood? Was it a message?
And then came the real fire.
A leaked document. A blurry photo. A rumor with enough heat
to combust.
A private estate in the hills… a buyer who paid in full in cash…
a mysterious figure seen entering an underground gallery wearing oversized
sweaters and sunglasses at night.
Jungkook’s world, once wrapped in silk and silence, began to
rumble like the prelude to a storm.
—
Inside the estate, the calm was deceptive.
Jungkook sat at the breakfast bar, toes brushing the tiled
floor, one hand gripping a spoon that stirred air rather than cereal. His phone
lay on the counter beside him, untouched—but not unread.
The comments had crept through his defenses before sunrise.
“Koo is definitely someone’s pet project. No way an artist
this good isn’t being controlled.”
“I bet it’s one of those billionaire Kims. Probably seduced
the poor boy, locked him up in their mansion.”
“You mean the twins? V and Taehyung? I heard they bought the
gallery space. Wouldn’t surprise me if Koo was their dirty little secret.”
The words burned.
He hadn’t spoken since he read them.
Across the kitchen, Taehyung leaned against the marble
island, watching with quiet intensity. He didn’t need to ask what was wrong. V
had already seen it too—had stormed down the corridor an hour earlier, fingers
clenched, jaw set like stone.
But this wasn’t something fists could solve.
It was Jungkook’s heart they needed to reach.
So, Taehyung moved slowly—like approaching a wounded animal,
not because he feared Jungkook, but because he respected the delicacy of his
pain. He knelt beside the bar stool and gently touched the younger man’s knee.
“They don’t know you,” he murmured.
Jungkook blinked. His lips parted as if to speak, then
closed again. He was trembling, but only slightly—like a matchstick holding
back a spark.
“They don’t know us,” Taehyung said again, more firmly this
time.
Jungkook’s breath hitched. His hand dropped the spoon,
fingers gripping the edge of the counter until his knuckles paled. “But they’re
guessing,” he whispered. “They’re close. What happens when they know?”
“We don’t let them know,” V’s voice answered from the
doorway.
Jungkook turned, startled, to see V standing in the soft
morning light, his black silk robe tied loosely around his waist, collar open
to reveal bare skin and the angry red lines of fresh tension across his
throat—evidence of a night spent pacing and muttering and planning.
“They can speculate all they want,” V said calmly as he
walked forward. “But the truth is buried in silk sheets, locked behind six
levels of security, and wrapped in a wedding vow that no one else gets to
touch.”
He reached Jungkook, tilted his chin up.
“And if they come for you… for us… they’ll find we don’t
crumble.”
For a moment, silence fell again. But this time, it wasn't
brittle.
It was laced with fire.
Jungkook’s eyes slowly softened. His lips curved, small at
first—just a twitch. Then a smile. And then he leaned forward, buried his face
in V’s chest, and whispered something only the two of them heard.
Whatever it was, it made V’s fingers slide into his hair,
cradling him like something precious.
And Taehyung?
Taehyung stepped behind the stool, wrapped his arms around
them both, and for the first time in hours, Jungkook exhaled like he believed
again.
—
Later that evening, the mansion felt different.
Not because the walls had changed, but because Jungkook had.
He danced barefoot in the music room, a record spinning soft
jazz, V watching from the leather couch with a glass of red wine and half a
smirk. Taehyung sat at the piano, fingers drifting along the keys like clouds,
not quite playing, just touching—feeling.
“Dada,” Jungkook suddenly whispered, swaying toward Taehyung
with a mischievous tilt of his head. “Come dance with me.”
Taehyung looked up, eyes fond.
“You know I can’t say no when you say it like that.”
He stood slowly and walked over, letting Jungkook grab his
hands. They spun lazily in the low light, cheek to cheek, heart to heart. V
didn’t move, but his eyes never left them. And Jungkook didn’t miss that.
He let his gaze drift toward the darker twin, a pout
blooming on his lips.
“Daddy, you're not gonna join?”
V chuckled, setting down the wine. “Do I have a choice?”
“Nope.”
And suddenly, all three of them were tangled together in the
middle of the music room. Laughing. Twirling. Jungkook’s little space
shimmering just beneath the surface, warm and bold and full of giggles.
For a moment, the internet didn’t exist.
Neither did the press.
There was only this room, this warmth, this thrum of life
between their chests.
And when they finally collapsed into a pile of limbs and
kisses, Jungkook curled between them and whispered, half-lidded, voice already
fading into sleep.
“We’ll be okay, right?”
Taehyung kissed the tip of his nose. “We already are.”
V pressed his lips to the shell of Jungkook’s ear. “Let them
talk.”
And just like that, the world’s noise was pushed back out
again.
Because inside these walls, it wasn’t fear that ruled them
anymore—it was love. Tangled, fierce, and impossible to break.
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