The Red of the Rose | Taeyong

16 | Absence

The next day, Taeyong had arrived early to take a walk around the corridors of the department building as usual, checking the classrooms, only to find them all empty. This means that Doyoung had scheduled a session for evening today.

Usually when Taeyong would arrive early and not find Miah or Doyoung, he would choose one of the classrooms to sleep in till his classes began. But today he was not exactly feeling sleepy. The thoughts circling inside his head kept him awake. He walked around the building, passing the bell statue, through the lawn and before he knew it, his feet led him to the steps. He found Jaehyun sitting on them and decided to rest there before classes and were shortly joined by Serin.

'I have never seen you up so early,' Jaehyun remarked at Taeyong.

Taeyong gave him a weak smile, clearly still in his thoughts.

'Extra class?' Jaehyun continued.

'No,' Taeyong sighed. 'I was hoping to catch Miah.' He immediately realized that Serin was present too and added quickly, '... and Doyoung.'

Serin's ears perked up when she heard Miah's name in the conversation, yet she pretended to continue working on her laptop.

'Aren't you hanging out around her a little too much?' Jaehyun inclined his head.

'I am not doing it for no reason.' Taeyong gestured towards Serin.

'I am sure there are other times you can seduce her than early morning,' Jaehyun said.

'I don't want to disturb her out of college. She needs rest,' Taeyong told him.

Jaehyun went silent, looking at Taeyong with an expression somewhere between amusement and shock. 'What are you talking about?'

At this point, Serin had quit pretending to work. She was now attentively listening to conversation.

'Nothing,' Taeyong said dismissively.

Jaehyun had no intention of giving up but had to stop when Doyoung's loud voice roared in the emptiness of the morning. Doyoung was standing at the foot of the steps with his arms folded, tapping his left foot. 'Can you just stop?' He yelled at Taeyong.

Taeyong knew why Doyoung was upset, in fact he was expecting Doyoung to turn up like this in front of him today.

'You were almost done yesterday. And it was such a boring topic, even I wanted to sleep,' Taeyong explained.

'Taeyong I am warning you. I am not stopping you from doing whatever you want, but don't interfere with her academics.' Doyoung's expression was stern and his voice clear. 'I have been putting up with you for two weeks now. Every session you are there to disturb her.'

'I make it fun for her,' Taeyong rebutted.

'They are not supposed to be fun!' Doyoung shouted in disbelief. 'They are supposed to be serious. You know how difficult our curriculum is and yet you are not letting her study and yesterday...' He paused to take a breath to calm himself down. 'That was the limit. To take her away in the middle like that.'

'Take her away? Where?' Serin spoke for the first time.

'I don't know,' Doyoung replied, not paying attention who had asked the question. 'Ask him. I went to get some notes and I came back to this.' Doyoung rummaged through his pocket to find the note Taeyong had left yesterday and threw it at him.

'You kept the note? Loser,' Taeyong scoffed.

Serin picked up the note from the first step, where it had landed. Unfolding it the crumpled paper, she read,