Love is not in the equation | Taegyu

𝑇𝑤𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦

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𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚

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A splatter of yellow. One spot for the red. A stroke of pink. A palette of black. 

Something's missing. Something didn't sit right with the canvas of the painted butterflies. And it was something not even the finest brushes and paints could fix.

Taehyun sat cross legged on the floor as he blankly stared at his artwork, unable to figure out what was amiss. He had done everything he wanted. It should be perfect, yet he couldn't shake this strange feeling off. 

It couldn't be...

His heart raced as realisation dawned on him, cold sweat broke out on his forehead and his whole body tensed at the implication of his sudden thought. 

Taehyun had lost control. 

He was no longer in control. 

"Taehyun, you won't believe who- Taehyun?!"

He turned to look at his best friend with shaking eyes and a face as white as a sheet of paper. The unease and trepidation had taken over him, causing his hands to tremble slightly as he clenched his fists in an attempt to calm his nerves. 

Kai was completely appalled by the sight before him. Taehyun had always been calm, knowing and stable. The only times he had seen him so shaken up was back when they were in primary school, where Taehyun had made a careless mistake on his test and lost first place to another schoolmate... and when he lost his very first pet bunny unexpectedly. 

"Hey, calm down" Kai quickly knelt down and grabbed his shoulders strongly, "this is only temporary. It'll go away soon... you know that." 

"Right- you're right..." Taehyun breathed shakily and gripped onto Kai's arms as he slowly collected himself, "this is not permanent, I haven't lost anything-"

His body seized with an involuntary chill as soon as he looked past Kai's shoulder, a sudden and palpable freeze coursed through him upon laying eyes on him. 

Their gazes met, and all of the sudden Taehyun felt his world crashing down, all his ideals shattering and all control lost. He wished to erase that dumbfounded look on his face, that disturbing look of concern and bewilderedness. 

"Is... is he okay?" the boy didn't even speak to him directly, opting to ask Kai instead. 

"I'm okay" Taehyun answered him instead and swallowed the burning lump in his throat, trying to act as normal as possible, "why are you here in our uni, Beomgyu?"

"Oh, I was paying Hannie a visit just now and bumped into Kai" the long haired boy explained with an awkward scratch of the nape, "Kai said you're still on campus and I thought I'd visit you too..." 

"Doesn't it take you 2 hours to travel back home from here? It's already 7pm" Taehyun pointed out as he pulled away from his friend and got up to finally clean and store his art supplies away. 

"I offered to drive him back just now" Kai informed and suspiciously glanced at the two, noticing the strange unexplainable tension between them. It was extremely unnatural for Taehyun to recover so fast as well.

"Don't trouble yourself, I'll drive him. You're not familiar with his address. Also, that brush doesn't go in there."

"Oops" Kai sheepishly took out the smaller brushes from the container that he initially thought was for them, "just trying to help."