bright star • oneshots

14. scintilla | taerose

Taehyung stills, and she softens her pose a little when she sees the guilt in his eyes.

There's a beat of silence before he brings both hands forward and wrings them together.

"What'd you tell them today?" he asks quietly.

Chaeyoung sighs, but crosses her arms nonetheless to show that she's still mad at him. "That your cat was sick."

He frowns. "I don't have a cat. I'm allergic to them, remember?"

She groans, embarrassed. "I panicked okay? It was the only thing I could come up with when Mr. Park was waving the attendance list in my face, demanding for a valid reason why Kim Taehyung was absent again."

The corners of his lips tug up into a smile so ridiculous she wants to punch it off his face.

"I'm never helping you again," she mutters.

He chuckles. "Never?"

She forces herself to keep a straight face while she replies. "Never ever."

"That's harsh," he laughs. "Can't you help me with my math homework at least?"

Chaeyoung pauses for a moment before biting her lips to hide a smile.

"I guess I could make one, tiny exception this time."

Taehyung grins amazingly wide at that she thinks she'd be able to count all his teeth in one go, before crashing her into the tightest hug she's ever received.

"Have I ever told you how incredible of a best friend you are yet?"

"Every single day," she mumbles, hugging him back and she's more than thankful he doesn't see the blush on her face.

>

III. sunflower

She finds little notes, one for every day in the two weeks leading to senior year prom.

Taehyung catches her just in time when she opens her locker only for a pink piece of paper to fall out.

"Hey, I just wanted to- oh," he pauses.

She thinks she sees his eyes widen momentarily before his cheeks tinge with a hint of a flush.

"Hey," she smiles back, and he stills when she bends to retrieve the small pink note.

It's from the same person again- the neat handwriting becoming more prominent and recognizable in the increasing letters she's been receiving- and she lets out a little giggle at the line you smell like roses, cherry blossoms and all the flowers in the world combined.

"That sounds pretty overpowering," she laughs to herself, only stopping when she realizes how Taehyung's looking somewhat flustered.

"Tae? Hey? You okay?" she waves the paper in front of his face and he blinks.

"What? Yeah I'm fine! I'm totally fine! Why would you think I'm not fine? I mean not that kind of fine fine- unless you think that way then it's fine too- I mean you don't have to-"

"Tae, you're rambling."

He stops and looks at her with huge eyes. "I am?"

She raises her eyebrows in amusement and nods.

"I couldn't hear anything else besides the word fine. Do you have some weird word fetish I don't know about?" she teases, smiling cheekily.

"No! Of course not!" he shouts so loudly it echoes down the hallway. "I mean, I gotta go okay? See you after school!"

She doesn't see him after school.

Or the following week. It's like he's avoiding her, on purpose.

The notes keep coming though and she remembers to keep every single one of them without fail, folding them into little paper cranes, sometimes hearts when she feels like it and strings them up to hang just above her bed.

It's somewhat therapeutic and she'd like to think of it as a permanent substitute for the broken dreamcatcher Taehyung had given her on her fifteenth birthday.

To sweet dreams always, he had said back then.

She's almost falling asleep after stringing the latest pink note (this one made her blush at the cheesiness because it's not everyday someone tells her your eyes are like the ocean I wouldn't mind drowning in) when she hears a thud against her window and she scrambles off the bed quickly to rip open the curtains.

Taehyung is standing outside, clad in a suit she never knew he'd owned until now, holding by far the largest pink sheet of paper she's seen, with the words your smile is brighter than sunflowers above his head and looking somewhere in between extremely embarrassed and incredibly awkward.

Chaeyoung smiles so wide her cheeks hurt.

"Hey!" he shouts as she opens her window.

"Hey," she smiles, suddenly shy as she adds, "Nice suit."

He waves back at her (or at least tries to with the obstruction he's holding) and grins insanely bright.

Chaeyoung finds herself giggling as she points to the neon pink paper she's been so familiarly acquainted with for the past two weeks.

"Is that for me?" she asks, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Taehyung sends her a shy smile and nods. "Will you go to prom with me?"

"As your best friend?" she questions, biting her lip.

He shakes his head quickly, looking at her with eyes reflecting the sincerity of the moonlight. "As my date."

Her heart beats so fast, too fast and she blushes so hard, too hard she thinks her cheeks are probably of the same color as the paper cranes and hearts hanging above her bed.

She takes a deep breath, before smiling like a thousand sunflowers combined. "Of course I will."