Lines We Cross ||Front Man x Reader||

Chapter 49

My stomach twisted.

"I was never planning on keeping her alive," he said, eyes flicking toward me with a strange kind of warmth that made my blood run cold. "In fact, I wanted her dead."

The air in the room dropped ten degrees.

"But things took a turn," he continued, stepping just a little closer, slow and deliberate. "And if not for the... circumstances given, I'd want to spend my entire life with her."

My hands curled into fists, my breathing tight, uneven. I didn't know what was more fucked up—what he just admitted, or the fact that I believed him. That somewhere in the chaos, in the wreckage of what he turned into... some twisted part of him really did love me.

But at what cost?

At what fucking cost?

I couldn't look at either of them.

Not Jun-ho, because his eyes held the kind of heartbreak you don't recover from. And not In-ho, because his eyes held the kind of obsession that made my skin crawl.

The silence between us all felt weird.

Jun-ho was still held back by the guards. In-ho stood a few feet in front of me, calmly dabbing the blood from his split lip like he hadn't just told his own brother he was capable of loving someone and killing them in the same fucking breath.

What the actual fuck was wrong with him?

I finally looked up. "So that's it?" I asked, voice low. My heart pounded so hard in my chest I thought it might burst. 

In-ho didn't say anything.

"No. Speak." I snapped, my voice cutting through the air. "Say it. Say whatever fucking explanation you've cooked up in that twisted brain of yours."

He stepped closer, slow. The guards didn't move. Neither did Jun-ho. He was watching me now, eyes wide, worried. But I couldn't stop. I was shaking. My skin was hot. My jaw clenched tight as I stared In-ho down like he was a stranger I never wanted to meet again.

"You say you love me," I spat. "But you put me through hell. You tied me up. You threatened my life. You used your own brother to toy with my emotions. You made me question everything I knew about myself. You hurt me in every way but physically and think that makes you a fucking saint? Not to mention the fact that you fucking kidnapped me! Oh and your brother."

In-ho's eyes didn't waver. His jaw flexed, but he didn't interrupt.

I let out a laugh. A short, dry, broken sound. "You don't love me. You're obsessed with me. There's a difference."

Silence.

Then—"You're right," he said quietly.

He stepped closer, now just a breath away from me. "You're right," he repeated. "I am obsessed. I don't deny that. But everything I've done... it means nothing if you leave. I didn't know how deep my emotions ran until you tried to walk away."

I shook my head slowly, trying to suppress the emotions crawling up my throat. "You're a fucking monster, In-ho."

He tilted his head slightly, a twisted smile forming. "Even monsters can love."

"I don't want it," I whispered. "Not if it comes with shackles."

In-ho leaned in, his voice now barely audible. "What if it didn't?"

Jun-ho made a noise behind us, struggling against the guards. "Y/N, he's trying to manipulate you again!"

In-ho glanced back at him, eyes flickering with annoyance, before returning to me.

I stared at him. Hard.

He wasn't done talking—I could tell. His expression was changing, shifting into something I wasn't used to seeing on him. Something almost... human.

In-ho took a slow breath, chest rising and falling with deliberate control, before stepping even closer. He crouched down to my level, his voice low and steady—less performative now, more... real.

"I want to redeem myself."

The words hit me like a slap. I blinked.

"What?" I muttered, unsure if I even heard him right.

"I know what I've done," he said, eyes locked on mine, intense and unwavering. "And I'm not asking for forgiveness—not now. Maybe not ever. But I want to try. No games. No guards. No masks. No island."

I was frozen.

Jun-ho had stopped struggling. Even the guards seemed thrown off.

"I want you to stay for one more week," In-ho continued, quieter now. "Not just to see who I am... but to see if we can still exist without all this." He gestured to the room. The chaos. The power play. "I want you to fall in love with me again. Without the violence. Without the control."

A lump formed in my throat.

"And if you do," he said carefully, "If—if you can love me again... then I'll end it. The Games. The system. All of it. I'll burn it to the fucking ground. For you."

My chest ached.

Not from pain. Not from fear. From confusion. From the storm inside me that didn't know which way to turn. Because part of me wanted to believe him. Desperately. And another part of me wanted to scream and spit in his face again.

"And if I don't?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

In-ho paused. His eyes were unreadable for the first time since I met him.

He then shrugged. "Then you both die. Probably in very dramatic fashion. You know how the Front Man does things."

He then let out a laugh, "Just kidding! You both can go free," he said.

"You're insane," I whispered.

"What?" Jun-ho barked, clearly suspicious. "You expect us to believe that?"

"I said what I said," In-ho replied without looking at him. His gaze was fixed on me. "I've already taken so much from her. I won't take her choice too."

I swallowed hard.

He was serious.

The Front Man was giving me a choice.

Not as a puppet master. Not as the sick game-maker.

As In-ho. The man behind the mask. The man I once loved.

And now... he wanted to try again. To prove he was still human under all that power. To redeem himself in my eyes, not by force, not by fear... but by trying to deserve me.

It was the most terrifying offer he'd ever made.

Because this time, the cage wasn't around my body.

It was around my heart.

A/N~ Guys next chapter will be wild...