Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
It was raining the night she died.
A slow, persistent drizzle, like the sky had been holding in grief too long and finally gave up trying to swallow it. The kind of rain that didn't rush or roar, but tapped softly against windowpanes, like an apology no one would ever hear. The clouds hung low, heavy and tired, the world beneath them holding its breath.
Twelve-year-old Kim Taehyung stood in the hallway, barefoot on the cold marble, watching the lights flicker once-twice-before settling into a dim glow. His fingers trembled around the edge of his mother's old shawl, the lavender one she used to wear when reading stories to him on rainy afternoons. It still smelled like her. He kept pressing it to his face, as if the scent could hold back what he already knew.
He had heard the shouting. Then the crashing. Then the silence.
Silence that screamed louder than anything else.
There was a thud, too-he wasn't sure if it came from upstairs or inside his chest.
Down the hallway, behind the half-opened door, there had been the faintest rustle. A blur of black suit and blood-red tie. The footsteps that walked away weren't hurried. They were calm. Too calm. Like this had been expected. Like it was finished.
He didn't move. He couldn't.
From the corner of the hallway, a soft sniffle broke the quiet. He hadn't noticed it before. A small boy, barely six, with damp cheeks and wide eyes peeking from behind the staircase. His knees drawn up to his chest. His tiny fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. He looked at Taehyung like he'd seen a ghost.
Or maybe they both were ghosts now.
Neither of them spoke.
Taehyung slowly turned away from the hallway that led to the room that now only held silence and lavender, and walked toward the boy. He didn't know his name. Just that he belonged to someone important. Just that his father had brought him along for a "business dinner."
But they were.
And the rain didn't stop.
Taehyung sat down beside him. Didn't speak. Just sat. The shawl slipped from his shoulders and landed between them. The boy reached out, touched it with the smallest of fingers, and Taehyung let him.
They stayed like that until someone came to find them. By then, the storm outside had passed. But the one inside never quite did.
"Mute swans only sing when they're dying." He whispered.
He didn't move. Only his fingers twitched-three times. Then again. And again. "Lavender. Lavender. Lavender."
Hi my lil Lavenders,
"What do you get when you throw a grumpy autistic CEO, a bratty heir with too many opinions, a haunting childhood trauma, and a wedding no one asked for into a slow-burn blender? A very emotionally constipated masterpiece."
When the Clouds Break is a melancholic, poetic Taekook fanfic about broken things, unspoken pain, birds, clouds, rain, and the ache of healing in silence. It's arranged marriage meets corporate war meets found family-with touch-starvation, mystery, and symbolic heartbreak along the way. If you love long chapters, immersive storytelling, and characters that make you want to both cry and wrap them in blankets... Please read, support, scream in the comments, and tell me if you're emotionally ruined yet🕊️