Chapter 85: Project K001

  

The next morning bloomed not with sunlight, but with the cold hush of clouds and an unsettling tension hanging in the air. Even within the serene, lavender-hued comfort of the Kim estate, something felt disjointed—like the silence before a painting cracks, or the breath before a scream. Jungkook sat cross-legged in the middle of the library’s upper chamber, canvas before him, brush gripped loosely in his paint-splattered fingers.

 

The twins had let him be. Neither interrupted him that morning, not even when he skipped breakfast and instead wandered to this rarely used room with its curved dome windows and tall bookshelves that arched like cathedral pillars. Jungkook didn’t ask for company. But he felt them—beneath the surface of the quiet, pacing like lions behind velvet curtains.

 

His strokes were gentle at first. Delicate smears of muted yellow across a grey-toned horizon. Then deeper. Thicker. Violent almost. The brush hit the canvas in harsh swipes, slashes of red interrupting the silence, a storm of lines that made no sense—until they did.

 

Until fire emerged.

 

Until shadows shaped into a mask.

 

His chest was tight. Sweat dampened his hairline. And as his hand finally stopped, trembling at his side, Jungkook didn’t look at the finished painting. He simply whispered, almost to himself:

 

“He was there.”

 

The door opened behind him, slow and cautious.

 

Taehyung’s voice drifted in first, soft and low. “You painted for hours, baby…”

 

Jungkook nodded, not turning around. “Koo remembered something.”

 

V stepped in after his twin, stopping beside the half-dried canvas. His breath hitched at the image. Flames. A crumbling building. And in the background, distant and ghostlike—a man in an ivory mask.

 

V crouched beside Jungkook, curling an arm around his waist. “Where is this, bunny?”

 

“I don’t know. It feels real. I… I think it burned. I think someone left me there.”

 

Taehyung's brows furrowed, fingers brushing along the canvas’ edge. “Someone left you there?”

 

“Koo was small,” he whispered. “And scared. And cold. But he was told to stay quiet.”

 

He clutched his brush tighter, almost like a shield.

 

“There was a man. He watched from far away. He didn’t help. Just… looked. And then he disappeared before the fire trucks came.”

 

Taehyung's jaw ticked.

 

V’s gaze darkened, but his touch remained gentle.

 

It was no longer about paintings.

 

It was about memory.

 

—

 

Across the city, Niki parked beneath a shuttered building in the old part of Gangnam—once an art warehouse, now just concrete bones and rusted beams. She waited by the elevator shaft, her phone clutched in shaking hands, a burner tucked into her coat pocket. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

 

But she had opened the K001 file.

 

And what she read wasn’t just about Jungkook.

 

It was about a child genius.

 

About a program.

 

About a collector who wasn’t just anonymous—but involved.

 

A hum of electricity crackled through the shaft as the elevator arrived. The door opened, and a man stepped out—clean suit, gloves, face still hidden behind that crescent-etched ivory mask.

 

“You’re late,” the voice said, smooth and terrifyingly calm.

 

“You’ve been watching him again,” Niki replied, fists clenched. “You said you were done.”

 

“I said he was not ready. I didn’t say I would stop watching.”

 

Niki took a shaky step forward. “You told his parents he’d be protected. That he’d never be used like a project.”

 

The masked man tilted his head. “He hasn’t. Yet.”

 

“Then why the letters? Why the art exhibition appearances? Why now?”

 

Silence.

 

Then, after a long breath, the man said, “Because the program was never just about protecting him. It was about unlocking him.”

 

Niki stared. “He’s not a weapon.”

 

“He’s not,” the man agreed. “He’s art. And the world is starting to remember him.”

 

The masked figure turned toward the elevator again, pausing at the threshold.

 

“Tell the twins,” he said, voice almost distant now, “that they aren’t the only ones who love him.”

 

And then he was gone.

 

—

 

Back at the mansion, Jungkook lay curled between the twins in their shared bedroom. He hadn’t spoken for hours since finishing the painting, only clung to their bodies like warmth anchors in a world trying to pull him under.

 

Taehyung pressed kisses to the crown of his head.

 

V curled fingers around Jungkook’s wrist, grounding him.

 

“You’re safe, love,” V whispered.

 

“You’re not alone,” Taehyung added.

 

Jungkook looked up at them, eyes wide and glassy. Then, in the faintest voice, like a child waking from a nightmare, he murmured, “Promise Koo won’t be sent away again?”

 

Taehyung’s voice broke first. “Never. Never again.”

 

“Even if someone comes for me?”

 

“They won’t reach you,” V said, fierce and low.

 

“You’re ours,” Taehyung added.

 

Jungkook sniffled, then nuzzled into their chest. “Dada… Daddy…”

 

Both twins froze at the whispered names.

 

And then melted.

 

The silence was broken, the quiet shattered—by the small, shy smile on Jungkook’s lips, the mischievous sparkle that returned to his eyes when he whispered again, this time sleepily:

 

“Koo loves you both the same.”

 

They didn’t need anything else that night.

 

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