merelypretty (ao3)
On the side of the shop by the floral coolers, the boy is peering in as he pushes his hands into the pockets of his letterman. Taehyung takes a deep breath before approaching him, unsure what to do except walk up to the football player. He coughs, alerting Jeongguk of his presence, only to startle when Jeongguk whips around with a wide eyed glance.
"Oh my god, sorry-"
"No, no. I was just shocked-" Jeongguk starts, breath hitching in his throat. "Oh. You're guy who got knocked out by a football."
"Your friend threw it at me," Taehyung corrects, lifting a brow as Jeongguk blushes and tries to get a sentence out only to shut his mouth with a snap.
(Or: No one has ever given Kim Taehyung flowers. He doesn't expect that Jeon Jeongguk, with his cold reputation, will be the first person to do so.)
----
There's a nook in the back of Taehyung's literature journal filled with tiny scraps of paper. A little origami heart, a sketch of a five-eyed monster, plethoras of inky blue flowers marred by the swipe of his hand- if he were to eye the side of his palm, he's sure he'd see smudges of dark blue ink as evidence.
"You wonder why you can't seem to get on Professor Sung's good side," Yoongi says from across the table. "That's it." He points accusingly at Taehyung's "bored collection", a series of mini-art projects all executively produced by droning professors and powerpoint presentations, and then turns back to his book to study.
To be fair, Taehyung is not the only student who slacks off. But also- to be fair, Taehyung is the only one who once tried to paste pictures of eyes on the inside of non-prescription glasses so he could stealthily fall asleep in the middle of a pre-midterm lecture.
"You're supposed to defend me," Taehyung whines.
"I want you to pass your class, so no." Yoongi's a real stickler when he wants to be. Really, Taehyung loves him for it, because every day at noon, Yoongi drags him to the library to sit through three hours of brain-numbing studying and pretend to make sense of finite math and introductory biology. Usually, he gets sidetracked- the library is an interesting place even if it's quiet, so he maps out puzzles in the space between his table and the girl's five spaces diagonal from his. The other library usual, a boy that must be two feet taller than Taehyung at least, provides ample entertainment by nodding off and dropping a pencil off the side of his table every five minutes. Then, Taehyung will doodle on page three of his notes- something about logarithms- before it's time to head to work.
Yoongi always says, "You're so smart, Taehyung. I just wish you'd put it to use." Then, he sighs, patronizingly patting Taehyung on the hand like he's a little baby hamster instead of a fully grown adult.
It's all an algorithm, really. Taehyung's smart. He's good at comprehending things, like digging into a chapter of his favorite book or writing an essay on an art piece. Yeah, he's smart in that way. But Taehyung can be lazy, a little disorganized or plain oblivious, so a lot of his natural genius talent gets sloughed off by his tendency to take a nap instead of work.
Taehyung doesn't really think it's his fault. The problem is that most professors teach things in a way that don't really suit Taehyung, which means the perfect students- like Seohyun, a girl from his first year language course- get an easy ride without even trying. Seohyun would show up, listen, and be fully prepared for a final after a few easy hours of studying. Then there's Taehyung, who has a hard time listening if he's not all that interested.
There is one thing that interests him, however.
At exactly three in the afternoon every day, Taehyung packs up two text books, a notebook, one- or two, on a good day- pencils, and a handful of multi-colored notecards. It's not always neat. Things are shoved this way and that in his haphazard mess of a bag, and Taehyung doesn't have anyone to blame but himself; his mom stopped cleaning out his backpack nearly a decade ago when swingsets faded to bubblegum-popping girls and eventually, rough-handed boys, and things went downhill from there.
