When everythings wrong - Part 26
When everythings wrong - PrologueJaejoong's knees met mercilessly against the surface of a hard floor. He clenched his teeth, struggling pointlessly in the metal hand cuffs securely tightened around his wrists. "Let me go, you bastard." He spat, blinking his eyes wildly behind the coverage of the black bag over his head, attempting to make himself see something, anything, beyond the darkness he was captured in.
The bag was pulled swiftly from his head and the light of the house they were in blinded him. A face filled his vision and he squinted to adjust his eyes to the sudden change of lighting.
"I will, Jaejoong-ah. If you do one simple thing for me." Mr. Jung smirked in a way Jaejoong had never seen before, in a way that had him cowering momentarily under the unfamiliar gaze of the older man. He soon remembered that being frightened would help him none and his eyes narrowed into a glare.
"You already know what I want, Son."
"Do I?" Jaejoong shifted uncomfortably on his knees. He moved to stand, but two pairs of hands were quick to grip his shoulders and hold him down. A vulnerable position. He was at Mr. Jung's mercy entirely.
The old man nodded. "I told you earlier today, at work." He gripped the raven haired mans chin in his fingers, forcing his face up to look him in the eye. "Jaejoong, it wasn't something I wanted you to forget. It wasn't something I meant to be taken lightly." There was a hard, unmistakable threat in his voice.
"You want me to leave Yunho." Jaejoong stated coldly. It wasn't something he could forget. Leaving Yunho would be like taking away everything he ever wanted, ripping his heart out and stomping on it. Ruining what he'd worked so hard for in the short amount of time they'd been given together. They were married, had fallen in love, and to Jaejoong, Yunho was all that mattered to him now.
"I'm glad you remember, Jaej-"
"It's not going to happen." There wasn't a chance in hell he would leave Yunho. If it wasn't for his feelings that kept him by Yunho's side, it was his fear of leaving Yunho like his mother had. "I'm not going to leave him and there isn't a damn thing you can do to make me, Mr. Jung."
The small, raven haired man could almost see his bosses blood beginning to boil as the old man stepped away from him, fists clenched and jaw tight. Jaejoong should have been expecting it, but it still came as a surprise when Mr. Jung's closed knuckles made impact against his cheek bone, knocking him to the floor.
"Really, Jaejoong?" Came Mr. Jung's voice again, icy and venomous, from above him. "There's nothing I can do?"
Jaejoong could have laughed, despite the fact that he could taste blood and already feel his cheek starting to bruise. Did Mr. Jung really think punching him in the face would make him leave? "You must be insane."
"Insane?" Mr. Jung glared.
"Well," Shaking his head to try and feel the extent of pain that one punch had caused him, Jaejoong moved to sit up again, rolling his eyes when Mr. Jung's bodyguards moved with him. "What are you going to do? Tell me, Mr. Jung. You going to kill me?"
He regretted saying it the moment the words left his lips.
The old mans eyes hardened. "What did you say?"
"Well it's not like you don't have any experience, you know.. killing people. You've done it before, how hard can it be to do it again?"
"Jaejoong, you..." But whatever argument Mr. Jung had in store for him trailed off, falling somewhere unspoken in the depths of his eyes. It was obvious how much Jaejoong's statement stayed with him, twisting his stomach into gruesome knots of self pity, pulling his lips into a deeper frown than Jaejoong could have ever imagined seeing. He almost regretted saying what he did, almost feeling sorry for the kind man that given him a job in his time in need, the man who had him married to Yunho, but that Mr. Jung was dead. That Mr. Jung had always been a lie and nothing more. Jaejoong just couldn't bring himself to feel pity for whoever the man was standing before him.
"You killed your wife, Mr. Jung. You killed Yunho's mother."
It was a build up of fury, and pain, and regret. A mixture of unresolved feelings that made Mr. Jung launch another surprisingly well aimed punch at Jaejoong's face. It hit him in his jaw, knocking his head back as he crumpled to the floor again. He felt this one much harder than the one before. His head had crashed violently into the floor boards beneath him and his wounded cheek was pulsing. Jaejoong was trying to gather the strength and willpower to sit back up and face the older man with dignity. He wouldn't let him strip him of his life and Yunho's. He wasn't going to let that kind of evil go unpunished.
"I know I did it." Mr. Jung whimpered, sound muffled and low. "I did it to her, I did it to her." His shoulders shook, his breaths were heavy and quick.
Jaejoong watched him in silence, overtaken by the mans unanticipated reaction. He brought his own cuffed hands up to cradle the side of his face, rubbing soothing circles slowly around the bruising blotches of skin. His gaze was cold, directed at the man on the floor just inches from him, but despite how much he knew about Mr. Jung and what he'd done, his eyes softened when he found him falling apart, crying desperately into his cupped hands.
"I killed her, I know. It was horrible.. bad.. so bad, and I was wrong." He sobbed, some of his words lost into his big hands. "She was going to take him away from me.. and he was all I had. He was everything to me and I just wanted to make things better for him." His excuses, reasons, insanity poured form his mouth through a mess of snot and tears. The man pulled his hands away to wipe the accumulation of bodily fluids from his face.
"By killing his mother?" Jaejoong asked, but his voice wasn't judging like he wished it would be. Maybe his heart was weaker than it should have been.
Mr. Jung didn't speak for a long time. His shoulders shrunk down as he cried relentlessly, gasping for air between the sobs. Jaejoong had never seen anybody, a man nonetheless, cry so hard in his life. His heart pounded wildly in his chest and he sat back on his heels, not so sure of what to say or do anymore. The men at his sides looked just as uncomfortable as he felt, one of them clearing their throat and stepping back a little to give the older man space to grieve.
"It was what I needed to do." His mans voice was weak and raw, throat dry from his sob fest. "It seemed that way at the time. I didn't know what else to do. There wasn't another option."
Jaejoong shook his head. "It was wrong, Mr. Jung. There is always another option, you didn't see it through." The words came out like a line in a play.
Still shaking, hands quivering as he pulled them away from his face again, Mr. Jung looked up. His cheeks were stained with tears, every hint of self composer drowned in them. "I did! Killing her was the last thing I wanted to do, but she was going to take him away!"
"Then maybe you should have let her!" Jaejoong yelled back at him, anger returned, but not nearly as strong.
And Mr. Jung's face deflated like a balloon. His eyes crumpled, eyebrows turned in and his lips drooped downward into a frown. His shoulders dropped and he looked away from Jaejoong's gaze, seeking some sort of comfort in staring at the floor. "Maybe I should have, but I just wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to have a beautiful future, all his hopes and dreams achievable without the slightest bit of unease. I had everything lined up for him, but she wanted to take it all away. She wanted to take him away and I just couldn't let her."
"Maybe she wanted him to be happy, too. Maybe she wanted him to learn how to make himself happy, instead of you doing all the hard work for him."
Mr. Jung didn't move.
"You were wrong, Mr. Jung, and there has to be consequences for what you've done." Jaejoong a sharp prick in the back of his eyes. "You took a life."
The old man folded his hands together. Again and again. He made no sound but that of his breathing, shaky and labored. "You're right. Consequences."
Mr. Jung moved to stand up, his confused bodyguards rushing to help him. He turned to one of them and said in a low, raspy whisper, "Call my son and make him come here. I need to tell him now."
~
Yunho stepped past the entrance of the home, past a tall, built man that stood by the doorway. He eyed the man curiously and wondered with an understandable caution why he was here.
Yunho had been at home, pacing the floor in front of the couch and listening for the sound of the front door to open. Jaejoong hadn't come home yet. It was late, hours later than when he was supposed to be home and Jaejoong wasn't answering his phone. Yunho had cursed at his own phone, about to throw it down in his frustration when the technology started ringing.
Without looking at who was calling, he answered and pressed the phone to his ear. "Jaejoong?"
A low voice answered him in return. "No, not Jaejoong. Your father wants to see you at his vacation home. Come now." And then the dial tone filled Yunho's ear.
So Yunho was there, at his fathers vacation home. He wouldn't have come if he wasn't worried for Jaejoong. He had a feeling that his father had something to do with his husbands disappearance.
Yunho took the narrow hallway down to the living room. He looked into the large space and passed it when nobody was there. He followed the low melody of hushed voices coming from a room farther down the hall and pushed open a door to a room he remembered playing in when he was a child.
The first thing he saw was his father, hunched back into an old wooden chair that didn't look like it should be able to withstand his weight. A worn expression haunted the old mans face and Yunho felt a tightness in his throat, feeling pity for the man he had been hating for the past couple days. Yunho pushed the door open further and stepped inside the chilly room.
A noise of surprise stole his attention and Yunho let his gaze find a small figure knelt on the floor, hands bound by something metal. He took a step back, surprised by what he'd seen. What's going on here?
Yunho looked up at the face of the vulnerable victim and his heart stopped. Cheek and chin bruised and swollen, the man he'd been waiting for to come home all this time was sitting tied up on his fathers floor.
"Jaejoong?"
Jaejoong smiled at him, the relief in his expression so evident it hurt. "Yun." His whispered.
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