ACT 2 ⎯ SCENE 4.
HE RECALLS.
TAEHYUNG REALLY HATES COLLEGE. He would be lying if he said that there's no shred of him that wishes he could drop out and do something like travel instead. But he knows that's not possible. He needed money to leave the country, he needed a job to get money, and he needed a degree to be able apply for a job. It's a long process, one that Taehyung isn't too inclined on going through, but it's one of those things that he really can't get out of no matter how much he wants to. Would really prefer spending all day in his apartment working on his artworks instead of sitting in lectures that put him to sleep faster than counting sheep.
Don't get him wrong, he's not at Picasso level or anything, but he's quite good after having only picked up the hobby a year ago. He doesn't know how it happened, but suddenly sketches and paintings started to fill every inch of his apartment. It makes him wish that he applied for an art school instead but he never knew he had the talent, never knew he had it in him.
He loves it, he loves mixing paint and furiously tracing lines on his notebook when he should be reviewing his notes. Taehyung finds comfort in transferring the images he captures with his eyes onto paper. He likes the honesty. He likes how drawing makes him notice the small details about something or someone that he would normally not even spare a glance at. He's not just looking, he's trying to perceive everything from his own perspective, and he thrives on the fact that whatever his hands create on his sketchbook is solely his.
Being an art boy came with perks, but the only one that mattered is that it caved him a path toward the ladies. Girls love it. They love that he's a modern, young, and attractive representation of their fantasy of being an artist's muse. Taehyung finds it amusing, and he would be lying if he said that it doesn't stroke his ego a little bit. What kind of guy doesn't thrive off of girls practically begging for him to get in their pants just because he can draw? The amount of times he's been asked to paint them like "one of his french girls" is overwhelming, and it's always, always after sex.
One, he has never dated or met a french girl before. Two, he's not one of those guys who gets inspired after a good fuck. All he ever does is laugh and tells his current partner sweetly, not tonight, sweetheart. And three, even if he supposes that can be good practice (drawing nude models, that is), he wants to wait it out and sharpen his skills first before venturing into that territory. And god, there's just something about being an artists' muse that drives girls crazy, and it's starting to drive him nuts too.
Taehyung's not looking for a muse. He's not even sure he can call himself a legitimate artist. He's merely just a boy who can draw decently for now. His casual ways have built him quite the reputation on campus, and he doesn't really mind that he's known for being the kind of person he is. Finding a lover is not in his memo. All he wants is someone who can help him fulfill his needs by the end of the night, someone who's not looking for anything serious, someone who's just looking for some stress relief as he is. Someone who can warm his bed without him having to worry about any commitments.
He knows his own history, how many girls he had let down, how many hearts he had broken, and how many times he had fucked up just because he had thought with everything else other than his heart. He never meant to be a flirt, it just comes naturally to him, as if the language of woos and romance is his second tongue. He never meant to hurt anyone, he makes it clear to every girl he had been with to not expect anything from him. It works wonders for the most part, but there are times where feelings (not his) start to get in the way and he's too late to end things before it gets complicated. The only actual relationship he ever had was with hwayoung, and everyone knows how that ended.
So this is kim Taehyung's work ethic whenever a girl catches his eye: talk to her, get to know her a little bit, and try to find out if she's looking for the same things as he is. If it's a yes, then he scores yet another one. And if it's no, then that's okay with him too. They can always be friends. It's easy and simple, just the way he wants it to be.
But if only getting the right strokes were as simple as that. Taehyung has been sitting on one of the benches by the fountain for an hour now and trying to sketch his surroundings. Though Taehyung loves doing portraits more, sceneries are pretty fun to work with. A lot less frustrating because he wouldn't have to feel bad about getting someone's nose wrong.
His focus is broken when he hears someone sneeze from his right, and when he turns his head to the source of voice, he finds jungkook sitting on the bench right next to his. The boy has his headphones on, phone in his hands as he bops his head to whatever tune he's listening to.
"Hey, Seojung's boyfriend," Taehyung calls out to him, but the younger's too lost in the music to hear him. Taehyung yells louder, "Jeongguk!"
Jeongguk takes his headphones off at the sound of his name being called and looks at Taehyung. "can i help you?"
Taehyung doesn't really have anything to ask of the boy. He was just merely trying to get jeongguk's attention for the heck of it. He doesn't recall ever speaking to him ever since he saw him at Seojung's apartment. The boy seems nice—a little closed off, Taehyung thinks—but nice. Good for Seojung. Taehyung eyes him, trying to take in his features and realizing that jeongguk doesn't look all that foreign to him.
"huh. Now that i think of it, you actually do look familiar," Taehyung squints and then widens his eyes when everything finally clicks, "You were at my parents' restaurant two years ago. You were checking Seojung out!"
"Y-yeah. I think something like that happened."
Despite them having only met twice, Taehyung can tell that the boy gets stiff whenever he's around. Doesn't know whether it's because he doesn't open up to strangers easily or if there's something about him that makes jeongguk wary and uncomfortable. He really hopes it's not the latter, because the last thing he wants is to have an awkward relationship with Seojung's boyfriend. But could it be that jeongguk knows what he did to Jimin, and that's why the boy looks like he'd rather be anywhere than here talking to him? Taehyung doesn't want some mistake he made in the past get in the way of making a new friend.
"Can't help but notice your Overwatch key chain," he points at jeongguk's backpack, "You play? What rank are you?"
"Yeah. I'm at platinum right now."
"Well shit, you gotta teach me a thing or two some time. I can't even get passed silver!" Taehyung exclaims.
"Sure! My roommate doesn't really play video games." Taehyung's glad that jeongguk actually sounds sincere and excited. But a second after the small smile on his lips disappears and he shifts into his default mode again. "I'll—uh—I'll get going then. I have to meet Seojung."
"Tell her I said hi!" Taehyung shouts as the boy walks away.
He goes back to his drawing, making his first strokes just as his phone vibrates in his pocket. He smirks, already knowing who it is.
—
"You seem distracted." Subin looks at him from where she's lying on his bed, the blanket covering her still unclothed body.
Taehyung picks up his shirt and jeans from the floor and slowly dresses himself as he waits for Subin to do so as well. Despite her not wanting a relationship just like him, she likes to linger whenever they're done with their activities. She stays in his bed longer, asks him questions, hangs around his apartment even when they're done for the night. It's nothing to be alarmed about since she had said right to his face she would rather eat raw eggs than date a pretentious womanizer like him. It's just her personality, but often times Taehyung finds it annoying just because she purposely pries when she doesn't have the right to.
"Distracted? How so?" Subin, thankfully, is already sitting up and putting on her underwear when Taehyung turns around. She pulls her leggings up her legs, slipping into the blouse that's missing a button.
"I don't know. You weren't as into it as usual, which kind of ruined my mood and had me thinking that i'd have to actually fake an orgasm tonight."
Taehyung snorts. "but you didn't."
"I didn't. You were surprisingly not vocal tonight, which is weird because you're hella loud. And you love it when i'm loud but you told me keep it down."
Taehyung crosses his arms over his chest and glares at the girl. "Stop trying to analyze me. That's not part of the arrangement."
"I'm a psych major, Taehyung. It's in my nature," she explains calmly, smoothening out the ends of her hair. She picks up her earnings from the bedside table and puts them on.
"Well then take it out of your nature." Subin gives him an unamused look. "I didn't want to disturb the neighbors."
"That's new, but enough about me." instead of getting up and leaving like Taehyung expects her to do, the girl jumps back to the bed and lies on her chest, resting her chin in the cup of her hands. A brittle smile is evident on her lips as she looks up at him with eyes that radiate fake innocence. "What's gotten into that pretty little head of yours, Kim?"
"None of your business," Taehyung replies gruffly.
"Rude. I'm stealing a muffin on the way out." with that, Subin finally jumps off the bed and leaves.
He waits until he hears the front door slam shut before he heads for the living room. He jumps on the couch, careful not to squish the mess of papers under his weight. But then again, his whole apartment is a mess. Take out boxes are still strewn all over his coffee table and if he peaks into the kitchen, he's sure he can spot empty bottles of soju on the sink that he still hasn't thrown away from days ago. When's the last time he swept the floor? Cleaned the windows? Dusted the shelves? The fact that he can't even remember must mean that it's time for him to do so.
A muffled crash followed by a hushed swear from outside has Taehyung on alert, his gaze going to the door and wondering who the person outside might be. Thinks that it's Seojung, but what would she have been doing to come home at an hour like this? It's fifteen minutes to midnight, doesn't she know better than to walk around this late?
Taehyung decides that it's not of his business. She's a big girl, she can do whatever she wants.
It still baffles him how, out of all of the apartments here in the area, she ends up choosing the one where he resides in. And out of all of the universities in seoul, she decides to enroll the one he's going to. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw her for the first time that afternoon. He stood in front of her door jaw slacked at the sight of his old neighbor unpacking her boxes. It had him thinking that maybe they were fated to end up living across each other whatever the circumstance.
He left busan just as they were getting close and it's inconvenient how what made that happen is the whole thing with Jimin and hwayoung. Taehyung doesn't know why she bothered being nice to him back then. She should've have hated him after everything he had done. But she didn't.
She let him tag along when she walked her dog, she let him call her in the middle of the night just because he wanted someone to talk to, she let him run to her for company because unsurprisingly, a lot of people hated him at that time.
It's not just how she treated him even when he had done his worst, she's just generally a kind girl who always sees the best in people. Her heart is too big for her own good and Taehyung fears that one day, it's going to get stomped over really bad and ruin her as a whole. Taehyung doesn't believe he deserves that kind of treatment, and how Seojung had given it to him so easily makes him feel like he owes her.
He recalls the last summer he spent in busan and all of the times he watched her fall asleep through his laptop screen as they had been skyping all night. She was always willing to hear his random tales and he wishes that he could ring her up right now, but the time they spent apart had been too long. Doesn't know if the same friendship still existed.
Taehyung wipes the smile he didn't realize had spread across his lips off his face and goes to the kitchen in search of something to drink, something strong enough to numb his thoughts and let him sleep peacefully for the night.
a.n | oh hello a taehyung centric chapter because i want you guys to be more familiar with his character !! sorry for any mistakes but i hope this was okay.
question; now that you've truly seen how taehyung is, any thoughts about his character? and perhaps future predictions for seojung and taehyung or seojung and jeongguk or even taehyung and jeongguk?
just to give you a visual (literally), here's what taehyung looks like in the story:
(im tempted to turn start writing this story in normal case instead of lower case. i'd have to edit all the chapters rip i might need to unpublish it for a few hours too. would you guys mind?)
love,
mara