Chapter Text
Coffee makes his mornings feel better. About themselves, mostly, but Jeongguk likes to think it's somewhat helpful to chug down caffeinated drinks so early in the day. He's been built like that. He's also been built to obtain an annoyance towards the summer heat. It has been candid for weeks and true to its nature, allowing for thin blankets and feral air-conditioning.
Jeongguk sips the last drops of his iced coffee once he spots a nearby garbage can.
He should throw himself in it.
The sun continues to blaze down onto his skin, warm and fuming. Short sleeves are also a thing but he feels indifferent about that. Still, he'd rather not show too much of himself. Would also rather make this day about his favorite hobby than the unfortunate aspects of hot weather. His camera hangs from his neck. Everything's been terribly stringy lately and his fingers have become a knotted mess. Overall, he's got a double major to deal with on two completely opposing fields, cannot find the inspiration to deal with one of them, cannot find the motivation to deal with the other. A free day, however, gives him the opportunity to work things out. So he works them out.
The park is the best place to commit his disentanglement. There are not a lot of people. They prefer to flock around the fountain at the entrance and in the knick-knack shops and vegan restaurants. It’s perfect; he’d rather not take pictures with people in them. Of course, Jeongguk would prefer it, but he does not snap without permission and feels a formidable doom when thinking about asking things of strangers.
It will not be done. Absolutely not.
He sits on a picnic tables and looks down at one of his photos portraying the leaning shadow of an oak tree. Jeongguk glances up and watches where things are, how they are placed, if they are interesting enough to keep digitized. The playground is nearly empty, but the colors invite his finger to press down on the shutter release.
He supposes that the mothers pushing their children on the swings love their kin very much. So much that they keep them moving forward, even when they come right back. He zooms into the slide but does not find anything there, so he turns to the other picnic tables around him. Really, Jeongguk shouldn't be bothering with pictures of people. Summer gets him lazy. Summer melts all of his bones.
When he snaps a picture, he blames compulsion, blames bad habits. But then he’s taking two, three, all of the same person. Jeongguk puts down his camera to stare at him with his own eyes. The boy is inclined in his seat with his head resting on his hand, elbow resting on the table. He speaks with a smile, the same smile caught inside Jeongguk’s camera. He watches him silently, the way he moves his mouth, and Jeongguk believes in his own unconscious behavior. It is something he is ready to move on from, but does not move on from it at all.
He uses his camera as a magnifying glass, stares at the way the boy's hair sticks up in places, how he nods to his friends and taps his finger against the wood of the table. Jeongguk doesn't mean to do any of this, doesn't even mean to stand up. But he's ran out of inspiration, which makes him unbearably desperate. Finally, he has found someone odd enough to excite the air within him. Finally, walking up to him, Jeongguk finds a burst of ideas on what to do with a strange boy.
(He is something interesting, something really good to look at).
Jeongguk has a whole friend-group staring up at him, silently wondering what it is that could have led this interruption. He looks diligently and mutters a sorry so quiet that only he can hear. That boy; Jeongguk locks eyes with him and reverts deeper inside of himself. He's got a sultry air to him, looks like summer decided to humanize itself and is going right for Jeongguk's throat. He swallows, nervous, and he doesn't know why. He's done this before fluently. He's done this before so why now?
"Sorry, can I talk to you?" Wrong. Try looking at his eyes this time. "My name is Jeon Jeongguk. I'm a photography major. I was just wondering if I could . . . um . . . " He shakes his head, hopes that the boy catches on quickly because he doesn’t know if his tongue has been able to find itself yet.
"Sure."
He stands up from the picnic table and walks away, hands tucked into the pockets of his loose pants. Jeongguk gives a quick glance to the group of boys just to apologize once again, and follows him onto the nearest pathway. Somewhere private. Somewhere quiet. Hopefully, somewhere humble enough to rid Jeongguk of these unexpected nerves.
"I'm a fan of your work,” he says, turns around to look at Jeongguk in the face, gentle smile, no teeth. A daring welcome.
"Huh?" Jeongguk’s caught aback by the suddenness of it, by the unintelligible allure of his face, the slightly visible bruises peeking from the collar of his shirt.
"Yeah. That, and you're pretty famous on campus. I've got a friend in the fine arts department so I go to the exhibits a lot. I tend to wander in there," he says, and Jeongguk’s eyes keep trailing, and Jeongguk’s eyes shouldn’t. “I like the piece about the girl with the scars? How she smiled through it? I think you did a good job representing what the aftermath is like."
"We talked a lot about it.” Jeongguk keeps his eyes on his, does his best to, really. “It was mostly her. I just took the pictures."
"I'm sure you're not the first to say something like that." His smile widens. Jeongguk can’t stop staring. It’s the first time in a while since he’s been so infatuated, so caught up in something other than a mess. “I’m Kim Taehyung. I’m part of the performing arts program. I study theatre.”
He introduces himself fluently. Jeongguk envies a tongue he is unfamiliar with. How elusive, this whimsical something that’s being presented to him. He eats the whole thing right up.
"I didn't know we went to the same university.” Jeongguk does not like that a first impression has already been made. However, that’s usually how it goes. Rumors about him flourish endlessly throughout the campus but now, in this particular moment, Jeongguk feels disappointed by the whole endeavor. Those so-called facts hold no justice. They are drooling on the plainer side, mediocre at best. Jeongguk’s better. He wants to show him, him , Taehyung, that he’s better.
"I mean, worlds are pretty small." He smiles, but his eyes hold traces of sadness that perhaps even he himself is unaware of. Jeongguk wants to slow the whole thing down and take a good long look at him. Maybe then he’d figure him out a lot easier. "It's very nice to be talking to you, though. I really like what you do."
"Thank you." Inconsequential. Taehyung notices, but moves on.
"So . . . ?" He reaches up to scratch an itch on the back of his neck, lips shifting to the side.
It takes Jeongguk a couple of seconds to understand.
"I have a project due in a couple of months," He says, and can feel the fever-like heat resting underneath his skin.
"Okay.”
"And I was wondering if you weren't busy maybe you'd want to—" Jeongguk sighs, simply unable. Taehyung knows , but he wants Jeongguk to speak, wants to hear him speak. "I don't know, I think it's a little bit of a stretch since I just met you but—would you model for me?”
It’s out in the open, reaching undiscovered distances like most undone things do. Except this has been done, many times, with no problem attaching. But look at the gentle pinkness pressed against Jeongguk’s cheeks, at the face of disbelief still withholding; how can someone take a chunk out of him so quickly? So easily?
"I'd love that.”
Jeongguk becomes immobile in his spot.
His gaze saunters to the bruises at the bottom of Taehyung’s neck. He thinks that someone important must have sucked out bits of him there. Jeongguk finds his interest unfurling even more.
"Tae, we're leaving!"
Taehyung turns to look at them, then turns to look at Jeongguk and catches the boy’s intrigue.
“Do you want my number or something?" He's in a hurry, so Jeongguk takes his phone from his pocket and hands it to him.
"Is your schedule too busy? Because I could—" Jeongguk doesn't really want to look for another model. That’s why he doesn’t even finish his sentence. Because he doesn’t want to look for another model.
"My schedule is all over the place. Just call when you need to and we'll arrange something," he explains, as he presses the 'call' button, hands Jeongguk back his phone, and takes his own from the pocket of his jeans.
"Yeah, that's perfect." Jeongguk looks down at the screen and then back up at Taehyung.
He likes to do that a lot. Not look at him, and then look at him. Not look at him, and then look at him again. The pit of his stomach twists around, so happy, so loud, even in hot weather.
"It was really nice meeting you, Jeongguk.”
Taehyung leaves him there, enthralled and lonely. The feeling of him, however, does not leave Jeongguk. He thinks it temporary; tomorrow, everything will go back to normal and the sun will become an enemy once again. Instead, the traces of Taehyung will last for weeks. Summer heat will become familiar as it reminds Jeongguk of a short moment with a stranger that ate his way into him and now refuses to come back out.
- - -
There’s a breeze in the night sky, one that ruffles his hair softly.
Jeongguk is ever the careful boy on the sidelines of Banpo bridge. Cars roar behind him, honking in the distance, music loud with windows down. It all goes unjudged; he is too busy playing magic tricks with his camera. This is his favorite thing, favorite lens to use. He is here, with a lake beneath him and the gleam of city lights raging far away. He supposes a distant perspective of the place in which he lives would be a lot more interesting than the obvious close up of neon clatter.
There’s an endless flow of water that descends from one side and he uses the stray drops to his advantage. Jeongguk had thoughts about joining the crowd beneath him but it seems too basic, taking pictures of the bridge the same way a tourist would. He’d rather take pictures on it, make it part of his aesthetic all the while basking in moonlight. Jeongguk allows his creativity to curl outwards.
It’s late when he checks his watch. The time prepares him for his exit. Bored moments are hard on the boy so he escapes them, only to come right back. Jeongguk walks the path humming something low that would sound like a song if there weren’t so many cars passing by. This is what they’re like, his Tuesday nights. Or any night. He gets a pain, one that doctors can’t diagnose, and has learned to take it somewhere else. Instead of studying up on Financial Management, he grabs his camera and leaves home. It’s the only thing he’s got going for him.
Recently, though, there’s been a fault in the process.
He’s been thinking. He’s been thinking for a while, and all that energy has been put to good use considering how he’s finally got an idea about this obnoxious aching. It’s been a couple of weeks since it’s started, a couple of weeks since he met Taehyung too, and he thinks that’s it, that must be it. Somewhere in the burrows of his mind lays the image of a boy’s widened smile, eyes crinkling into kindness, and a feeling, so virtuoso in all of its want, that keeps Jeongguk numb and silent. He likes it most. There’s a strange thing to Taehyung, Jeongguk knows it. He just can’t figure out what it is.
The young boy, humble, moves aside for a group of girls giggling in pairs. He thinks them funny with the loudness of their throats, and basks in the idea that there must be mystic inside of everyone. Even within himself, who has no one to talk to most days. Just an empty home with white ceilings. A mother who calls occasionally about the sickly state of his father.
Jeongguk lacks carefree nature and wishes to be like everybody who isn’t himself. Like those girls, who write private manifestos concerning the availability of their male classmates. Like Taehyung, whose smile can blind a soldier in the midst of battle, gentle flair in the tongue to warm the muscles.
And his oddity. Yes, his hint of mystic. Ever the loud one.
Taehyung makes Jeongguk feel like he's witnessing all of the false things in the world; like he's running after a truth he doesn't want to get to.
- - -
Jeongguk doesn't know Jimin personally. They're in a similar field and can pick each other out in a crowd when asked to, but nothing more than that is expected. After all, Jimin's work speaks for most of him while it's the rumors that hold the most talk for Jeongguk. To say he is envious would not be saying enough. The contrast is heavy, and not just in their heights. Jimin, Jeongguk discovers, is relentless in his own special way, especially when it comes to Taehyung. Jeongguk stays quiet in his desire most times, knows what he wants yet has trouble chasing after it. He’s unfamiliar with Taehyung, really wishes he wasn’t, but once again, his legs trip while running.
He is abandoned but does not feel sad about it. This is a choice. He can accept the lunch invitations from the students of the performing arts department, most of them his prior models. The designers have also asked him to join them, wanting to know more about the boy behind the camera. But Jeongguk refuses to get in the middle of something unrecognizable. They all know about him, how his fate has been carved and his hands tied behind his back. They all know about his wealth, about the wicked talent hidden behind his brows. And he fears this, fears all of it; the fact that someone may be enticed with a made-up version of himself and refuse to go beyond the inheritance, beyond all the talk that travels around campus.
For this reason, he stays hidden in crowded places.
It’s a bad thing, the fact that he doesn’t give people a chance anymore. He wants to blame his upbringing but thinks it inappropriate, especially when it’s his finger on the trigger. So he stays lonely while waiting for the clock to hit four before he walks to his four-fifteen class. He sits here on the benches outside, looking at some older photos in his camera.
Again, Jeongguk does not know Jimin. Though, he found out that he’s Taehyung’s friend a while back so that’s most likely the reason he interrupts Jeongguk. Kind of like payback for a fateful summer morning but also kind of not. Mostly to have a short conversation with the boy who proposes inconsiderate things to those who are too busy to notice their own inconvenience.
“Taehyung told me about the photoshoot. I don’t think you should do it with him.”
Straight to the point. Not like it’s a new thing, always has been the same: straight to the point. He’s not going to dance around this or forget to sharpen his blade for the sake of seeming nice. Jimin doesn’t want nice. He wants Jeongguk to scurry back into his hole and forget that there is a world out here. Or at least, tell him to wander the streets somewhere else. Not on his territory.
“Did he say something?” Jeongguk, confused, fresh out of teenagehood, questions whether there is something wrong with himself because past events have always signalized that he is the problem.
“No, he’s thrilled.” And too busy to notice his own inconvenience. “But I’m just trying to look out for the both of you.”
Jeongguk looks up at him, how his head covers the sun. Perhaps he hears a threat somewhere in his voice, a quiet one, but he cannot comprehend any of this no matter how much he attempts to.
“I don’t understand.”
Jimin sighs, looks to the side with a jaw tucked tightly into his face. Frustration plays with him nicely; he thought this was going to be simple. Apparently, he’s going to have to break it down for this boy and hope he understands the necessity of lacking Taehyung in his life. There is trouble there for many reasons, something Jeongguk doesn’t need, or so Jimin thinks. There is trouble there. There, and everywhere.
“Taehyung’s difficult,” he settles. “He’s had a rough couple of months and it’s best if less people get involved.”
“I’m not going to get involved—”
“Listen—”
“I just want to take a couple of pictures and then I’ll be on my way.”
Jeongguk only contacts models when they’re needed and doesn’t involve himself with any of their lives. Taehyung is slightly different, yes, has Jeongguk’s mind cluttered with the repetition of their meeting, but he doesn’t find it threatening. He doesn’t know why Jimin does.
“He’s gay.”
They both, at the same time, find the statement inappropriate.
“That doesn’t matter.” Jeongguk doesn’t have the time to rummage through it and listen to how it makes him feel. He has class. “I have to go.”
So he goes, plainly visible. Visible in a way that does not scream much of anything, and that is Jeongguk. Nothing seems to be holding except Jimin’s confession, a thing that was not his to say, a thing so wrongly said but said anyways. Jeongguk hovers on the playing field for two hours or so once class ends. He finds his hunger ruining and hopes to stifle his stomach with the raw taste of a New Yorkan sub. He knows a place that maybe makes a mockery out of them but he’s engrossed and wide-eyed. He mostly makes jokes to himself about other people’s shortcoming. A sandwich and a notebook are his companions after class is over.
The first bite seems to tell it to him.
Taehyung’s gay.
There’s no bother, just surprise, and perhaps something more outlandish like . . . interest? Does he dare say that? It’s not even Friday; how brave of him. Jeongguk hides his smile close to his meal, takes another bite once he’s done swallowing. A lot to swallow down.
He makes eye-contact with the empty sheet of notebook paper and wonders what its purpose was in the first place. Notes are futile by this point. He’s a professional, of course. (Again, he smiles, his eyes becoming castaways as they ignore every living body in the room). This Sub place does a weird thing with their sauces, he notices, but decides he’d better think something up before the sun starts setting.
There’s an open canvas for this piece. That’s what the professor said, with her cat-eyed glasses and pixie cut. All too loudly, in fact. She likes to compare photography to art considering she’s been continuously victimized by her lack of talent with a brush. People will talk as long as their mouth allows them to. They say: “Painting is better because it carves into the difficult and talent of a bunch. Photography is expensive and easy with its button-pressing and shotgun exterior.”
He looks at his sandwich, puts it down, wipes his hand with a napkin before picking up his pencil and dropping it, accidentally, to the floor. Shit occurs restlessly. He leans down to get it, supports himself with a hand on the table. This was stupid from the beginning. He’s left promptless and supposed everything would assemble if he eats, but he’s eaten and cannot—takes a bite, chews—cannot figure anything out. Like he’s the blank canvas.
Jeongguk gets tired of his own snark and his eyes go all the way up to the roof, go back down to the empty seat in front of him. He eats with a ruckus in his mind. Taehyung’s gay, apparently, and the drop of his stomach gets real low because new possibilities are opening up and he’s left baffled by his own curiosity. The nerve of things. He’s got an accounting test he has to ace and a project without name or idea or any coherent structure. Then, he’s got Taehyung, a boy he hasn’t talked to, knows nothing about, except that he likes men and ignites small fires in the inside of Jeongguk.
Scandalous.
Most of the air is today, especially with this morning’s fiasco still ringing in his ears. Jeongguk flushes at it, at Taehyung's homosexuality and the many men that his honey skin has touched. He finishes his sub in hard, cold embarrassment, wipes his lips whilst thinking of Taehyung's and it just grows. His curiosity, his desire to entrap the boy in it.
Jeongguk throws everything away except for his undiscovered queerness, something that cannot be detached, more like embraced. Jeongguk, however, does not embrace anything, doesn't even know he's questioning himself at all. He will think about it later in the silence of his apartment with the night transitioning into that of autumn. He will think of many things. That, and the sounds of a promptless project, endless study hours he is not partaking in, indefinite loneliness, and the sudden flicker of a familiar face as he makes his exit. He turns. He halts. And moves quick before he swirls into awareness, before Taehyung can see the shock smeared across his face.
To comfort himself, he looks through the glass window once he’s outside and reassurance becomes a substance used for ass wiping. Surely enough, he thinks, there must be a mistake here. But that was indeed Taehyung, sitting with a friend, getting the whipped cream from his cold brew all over his top lip. That was him, who had boisterous smile syndrome the whole four seconds of Jeongguk's glance.
Jeongguk thinks about the rough couple of months Taehyung's been having while he walks to his car. About how meaningless they were when mentioned. Something like developing an abhor of the slickest kind towards endless piles of schoolwork, verbal fights with family members, or even a case of an unwelcomed flu that overstayed.
We, as humans, always think about the worser things.
So Jeongguk develops stories in his mind about people he knows nothing about, too intuned with his shock to think about the oddities. A heavy case of bullying, he thinks, with Taehyung's gayness intact and all. Fight clubs, too, like the kind they have in movies. Like Taehyung is a tough guy in the rink but hides that from the world. He sighs and scratches the side of his neck.
Jeongguk is left muted and unadorned, suddenly wants to find out more about Taehyung and his compulsions. And his hand gestures. And the dark, dark story behind his black eye.
- - -
A month strolls by elegantly, with its heat weakly spat across the pavements and green trees dyed a strange tint of orange. Jeongguk seems to notice Taehyung everywhere he goes. Hallways, shops near campus, even in the gallery sometimes. He’s distracting not just to him but to everyone that risks a glance.
Jeongguk watches the swollen eye calm down week by week, the way Taehyung’s shirt is almost always clinging loosely to his body. The bruises on his neck fade only to be back the next day as if their departure was just Jeongguk's imagination. He watches Taehyung’s smile, which seems to always shine golden as if that which hinders the world does not seem to hinder him. With it on display, Jeongguk becomes a sailboat caught in a storm, an endless abyss of screaming oceans asking nicely if they could swallow him whole.
He doesn't let them; he looks away.
At night, he seems to be held captive by the musing of this person. This Taehyung. And indeed, it has been a month, which so cowardly walked past Jeongguk at an odd time like this. So, the due date presses closer as the minutes go and he is left empty with ideas. But Taehyung. He’s got Taehyung to flick light, and that is the best way forward. Yes, it is, and that is why Jeongguk calls him while the moon sits with comfort in the sky.
"Hello?" As if the rings of his cellphone were not stressful enough, Taehyung’s voice quakes Jeongguk’s nervousness.
"Sorry,” he says. “Did I wake you?"
The reality is (and he ignores this while walking up to the window of his bedroom) Jeongguk has been wanting to hear this voice for a while. It sounds deep and perhaps much more aware of things than anyone else. Taehyung might just know that Jeongguk’s curtains hang red.
"Jeongguk, hold—hold on a sec." He hears rustling and a door shutting in the background, soft breathing, and he clenches his fist. "Okay, yeah, sorry. What's up?"
"I was wondering if we could talk about the project." That is all he knows. He understands little to nothing about his crippling desire to see Taehyung, therefore, names the fear of whatever is to happen after they are finished with the photoshoot invalid.
"We can.”
“Um . . .“ He looks at the starless sky as if all this blankness will allow for words. He does not know his tongue. It takes him a while to meet it. “I don't know what we're doing yet. It's a promptless piece so there's variety.”
“Which isn't always good.”
“Right.” Jeongguk licks his lips. “But either way, I thought we should start discussing prices since the deadline is coming up.”
“Uh huh.” There’s a pause at the other end long enough to make Jeongguk gulp. “You don't have to pay me.”
“You're modeling for me. It's etiquette.” Jeongguk fingers his curtains, likes to get the coolness of the polyester in the crooks of his fingers.
He listens to Taehyung’s soft hum.
“There's a shop near campus,” Taehyung says. “It's called Arari Ovene. I don't know if you know it. They have the best—Jeongguk, The Best pastries.” Jeongguk listens to him, enthralled by the traces of his dialect and the way his own name strolls off Taehyung’s tongue. “We can meet there, you can pay for a whole box of them, and I'll call it even.”
It takes force to keep himself from smiling.
"Okay."
“Just so we can understand each other a little better. It won't be weird. I hope.”
It is a striking hour of the night in which the traffic is still, somehow, abundant. Jeongguk has completed all that must have been completed, and now it is time to sleep. But he does not want to. He wishes he had great occurances to tell Taehyung about just to keep this conversation going. But Jeongguk is dry, has always been dry, and will most likely stay that way for years to come. The most interesting thing as of now is meeting him, talking to him, both sounding so groggy on the phone.
“That's good, yeah.”
“Yeah? Alright, then it's settled. Just pick a day—”
“Tomorrow.” Jeongguk’s youngness pokes him in the ribs, and he accepts the invitation to be selfish. He goes towards what he wants most. “I think the sooner the better.”
I really want to see you.
“Alright, tomorrow. Eight in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Jeongguk hears the smile forming without having to see it. “Have a good night.”
“You too.”
He doesn’t want to hang up but the line cuts off before he can think of a story big enough to tell.
- - -
Jeongguk’s punctuality makes him awkward. He thinks that after all the years spent alone, he’d get accustomed to having no one to talk to. But he still gushes with discomfort, and dressed himself in black fully expecting it.
His mother called this morning. She finds the need to tell him over and over how ill his father has been getting, but there might still be hope balancing on a thin wire. It is as if she were talking to herself. Then again, Jeongguk remembers her distancing, all of her friends who have healthy husbands becoming something attractive to envy. So she had cut them all off. Her sons are the only ones left, and she always finds nothing to say to the eldest, so Jeongguk gets victimized by the constant reminder that he will be one parent short very soon.
It is an aggravating film, one that is taking too long to finish.
Jeongguk buys himself black coffee in hopes of replacing his own well-developed bitterness.
"Is this seat taken?"
He looks up from his phone at a voice he wishes to hear often. Taehyung pulls out the chair across from him and sets down his drink before sitting. It’s got whipped cream and caramel sauce, and Jeongguk already understands its unannounced sweetness.
“You didn’t buy that here?” Jeongguk says, noticing the different logo on the plastic. “I thought you said this place was good.”
“Yeah, for its pastries. Their coffee isn’t bad, but it’s not the best. And it’s not the cheapest.” Taehyung stares at Jeongguk’s own cup with its lid taken off to prevent a fire hazard from occurring in his mouth. “You didn’t buy from here either.”
“I have preferences, too.”
Taehyung watches him cradled in mostly black, cap snug on his head to hide a morning laziness. He’s got some kind of game, Taehyung notices, subtly muscled and handsomely faced. Jeongguk stares right back but is too shy to hold it so he watches the length of the line in the café instead.
"Why are you here so early?" Taehyung asks.
"I always am."
"I like it.” He nods, contemplating timely manners and deciding on their subtle appeal. “Punctuality is attractive."
Jeongguk’s lips curl and he finds himself examining all of the knick-knacks on top of the display case. He feels Taehyung staring, the boy dressed in preparation for autumn, leeching off the early-day plumpness of Jeongguk’s cheeks.
He catches Taehyung’s thoughtful gaze and points out a perilous thing (one of the many) that’s been on his mind as a way to stun a conversation.
"Your eye is all better."
It’s clearly not his best idea.
"You saw that?" His eyebrows lift, and with that Jeongguk is already made aware that Taehyung excels at hiding things. "Yeah, it's amazing how your own two feet can betray you so easily."
Jeongguk tells himself to believe it. He tells himself to stop thinking about how Taehyung’s smile must be a cry for help. He wants to make Taehyung seem less fractured, so he swallows down the excuse.
"You fell."
"I did," Taehyung nods. “What did you think it was?” He narrows his eyes accusingly.
Jeongguk is not as good at this as Taehyung is. He prides himself with the taste of his own honesty, like it’s delicate and warm in his palm. Lying is something he cannot master.
"I didn't assume anything."
Even the girls that sit all the way across the room seem to notice the falsity of his voice. Taehyung gives no push to it. He knows assumptions are abundant amongst everyone, knows that Jeongguk must have thought up his own little stories about the visibility of his hurt.
“Okay, so when we’re done, I can choose the pastries?” Taehyung sips his drink through the straw and stares Jeongguk down with determination.
He smiles.
“Yeah.”
“So what are you thinking?” Taehyung swirls the cup in one hand.
“I might do something more fundamental, like expressions.” Jeongguk stares at his face, the angles of it, all the lines, and thinks about what will suit Taehyung best. “In a darker setting. Yeah, I haven’t worked that way in a while.”
“Right, because you capture movement and . . . uh, body dynamics.”
And it stuns him to think that Taehyung also knows him for what hangs in the school’s gallery. But what hangs in the school’s gallery is not him either.
“Yes, that’s what I do.”
“Why do you do it?” Taehyung slurps again, cheeks bloating with the cold of the frapé.
“It works best.” Jeongguk nods, puts the lid back on his coffee. “I’ve done still life before but I don’t think anything is as interesting as people.”
Again, people have their mystic, each a strange shade that shimmers off their skin. Taehyung’s mix is one Jeongguk has never seen before.
“How long have you been developing your style?”
“A long time. I started shooting when I was fifteen.” He gulps down his coffee, now warm, exceptionally dark. Taehyung’s thickening stare does not escape. “And you? Theatre, right?”
Pretending to be unsure of things is a frilly defeat.
“My mom studied it here in Seoul. I watched her perform once and I really liked it. I tried it for myself and it was just a good fit. Although, acting isn’t my preferred focus. I’d rather write, direct. That stuff.”
Taehyung does weird things with his drink while he talks. He takes the lid off and dips his finger in the whip cream only to suck it off after. Then, he swirls his straw, looks at Jeongguk, and just keeps swirling until everything is mixed in.
“Do you have shows planned? In the future?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you know,” Taehyung says. “We host performances throughout each semester. I’ll invite you to come see me.”
Jeongguk presses himself against a clean invitation, presses himself, too, against the back of his chair. Taehyung smiles at him. Jeongguk watches the exploring flicker of his eyes.Taehyung provides gentleness, a safety in his wet hands, and Jeongguk finds himself not interested in his own self-consciousness. The only quick movement is the drop of water sliding down Taehyung’s drink.
“So . . .” Jeongguk starts, “pastries?”
Taehyung does not repeat any of them, and as he’s signaling to the ones he wants through the glass, he tells Jeongguk that it’s because they’re all his favorite so one of each is the better choice. A box brings ten. Taehyung (who had complimented the pastel pink hair of the girl Jeongguk gave the money to) comes out of the shop with a loud satisfaction on his face.
He carries the box in both hands, his drink having been dumped alongside Jeongguk’s coffee. Taehyung stares down at the logo, then up at Jeongguk. There is an obvious fondness in the gesture, does not say thank you but instead signals to it with his happy eyes. Jeongguk wants to buy him a box every week.
“What’s in the bag?” Taehyung asks, noticing the backpack Jeongguk has on. “You have class?”
“Yeah, but like in an hour.” Jeongguk checks his watch just to make sure.
“You wanna do something until then?”
Jeongguk looks at him.
“Do what?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “It’s early. Did you bring your camera?”
“Yeah.”
He always does.
“So, I don’t know, take me somewhere.”
They walk side by side, Jeongguk unlocking his car with his keys from a distance, Taehyung leaning against it once they get there.
“I don’t . . .” He is clueless.
“I’m offering up a preview and you’re rejecting the idea?” Taehyung pouts, faking hurt. It bates Jeongguk in.
“I don’t know where I would take you.”
“Where do you usually shoot?”
He thinks.
There’s a silence in the park near where he lives. Yet, he finds the colors of it far too obnoxious to go well with the faded pink of Taehyung’s sweater. He thinks about the dulcet of a diluted morning sky. It flicks purple and orange and astounds his photographer’s eye. It will not cower from Taehyung.
“There’s some cool places in Dongdaemun,” Jeongguk says. “It’s famous for its night-time view so it’d be less rowdy in the morning. There are some buildings to shoot atop from.”
“How far is it from here?”
“No, it’s not far.” A district over.
“Okay.” Taehyung walks to the other side of the car. “Let’s go,then. No eating in the car, right?” He opens the passenger door.
“I eat in the car all the time.”
So Taehyung gets to eat in the car. Feels too guilty about it too because Jeongguk’s prefered method of transportation smells fresh of peppermint and is lined with a vastness that praises Taehyung’s tall frame. He is comfortable, calm, opens his box to peer down at the pastries and feels the guilt dissolving. He forgot how good of a job he had done when picking them out.
“You want?” He takes a Cuban pastelito that crumbles when he bites down, excess falling inside the box.
“I don’t have sweets in the morning.” Jeongguk glances over. “And you picked weird ones.”
“I have exotic tastes.” Taehyung speaks through a mouthful of guava-induced taste buds.
He eats a cannoli and then promises to eat no more, cheats and takes a spoonful out of the tiramisu slice. He is joyous in the act and smiles with the plastic spoon in between his lips.
Jeongguk is a quiet one and Taehyung does not mind it. He relishes, instead, in the somber sounds of Zion.T that began to play since they entered. Taehyung mumbles the lyrics, vaguely remembering, humming out the parts he does not know. He looks out at the birth of morning. The beginning of something that has not begun before.
Jeongguk parks away from the DDP, something they passed, something that rubs Taehyung’s attention. They enter through the back of a tall building.
There are too many flights. It looked a lot less stretched from the outside and now Taehyung is learning how appearances are almost always used to deceive. Jeongguk is indifferent about it. He shushes Taehyung’s whines with reassurance, says that they’re almost there when really, there are five more flights left. They move out the way for a woman and her child. Jeongguk, breathless, attempts to explain.
“This building’s an office space. Like they’ve got dentistry and occupational therapy and a salon. If we use the elevator then we’d have to deal with reception. It’s too much of a hassle.” His lungs run out, and he, who is ahead, must stop to take a breath.
“I honestly don’t think . . .” Taehyung huffs, “reception could be any worse than this.”
“No way.” Jeongguk keeps climbing. “This is much more fun.”
“Right.”
Even a laugh struggles.
The view of city-life does not get noticed immediately. They’re too busy. Catching. A runaway breath. The freshness of morning paints everything in hazy sequences, warmly proposed, as if love of day is the desired response. This moment is purely based on perspective. Jeongguk enlightens himself with the shape of Taehyung’s back. Everything other than that goes unnoticed. All the while, Taehyung feels trapped and blinded by the sun that peeks through urban architecture. The Design Plaza occupies space. Most people are hesitating their exit. There is isolation sprawled out on the street.
It does not take words to express his amazement. Taehyung simply looks over his shoulder at Jeongguk with an awe slapped onto his face.
“Yeah,” Jeongguk smiles, fiddles with his camera to hide his response to Taehyung’s gaze, “we’re not really supposed to be up here.”
Taehyung vaguely remembers the “Do Not Enter” sign pressed against the door they have walked out of. He turns around fully and fixates in his caution. Jeongguk notices.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never been caught.”
It is the first time he has taken someone else on top of the building. Usually, this is a method to coax away his sadness. Today it is simply just to show. He looks at Taehyung through his viewfinder and captures the softness of his face. He moves to a place where Taehyung’s body covers the sun.
“It really looks good in the morning.” Taehyung walks away from him. Jeongguk follows and snaps.”Everything is more faded. Usually, the lights come up at night and it doesn’t look . . . “ Taehyung gazes far away somewhere. Jeongguk crouches to get him tall. The pause lasts through; Taehyung thinks about a healing wound. He glances towards Jeongguk.
“It’s like you’re walking in two completely different places. Even the Plaza looks weird from here.” Taehyung meets the railing. He is done pretending like there is no camera. He believes, faintly, that Jeongguk is just a boy he had accidentally caught, a boy he will purposely let go of.
Old habits get smashed to the ground now-a-days.
Jeongguk looks at the pictures. He took many, all fluid with movement and a face that scares him. Taehyung was talking about the view. Just the view. But he bares an anger that has been held back. For how long, Jeongguk does not know, but it is evident in all of him. Taehyung moved away from the camera, keeps his back to Jeongguk, taps rhythmically on the railing. Inpatient.
“You’ve done this before,” Jeongguk says, coming closer.
“Talk pointlessly? Yes, I’ve talked pointlessly before.” Taehyung looks out at the vastness. There is a man down there that seems to be late for work.
“No.”
Jeongguk leans against the railing and captures the closeness of Taehyung’s face. The sound of the snap has Taehyung looking right at the lens.
“Yeah. Only when Jimin had to take a photography class for his art major. Back in freshman year.”
Jeongguk looks at him, then looks at what’s stored in the camera. He can count no difference now, but in the silence of his apartment he will begin to doubt the reliability of this technology. He will remember Taehyung’s face and portray it as much more complex than what appears in the pictures.
Another something that has not happened before.
Jeongguk reasons that Taehyung must have been locked up somewhere. It has taken him many years to find him and he wonders where, wonders why, wonders by whom.
“You’ve had a rough couple of months,” he murmurs, zooming into the photograph he had taken and studies the thinking inside of Taehyung’s eyes.
“Huh?”
Jeongguk looks up.
“Are you okay? Like, really?”
Taehyung’s expression does not move.
“Do you think there’s something wrong?”
Jeongguk shrugs.
“It’s just—” He struggles. “Jimin talked to me briefly and hinted at something—I don’t know—something that might explain . . . why you look like that.” Jeongguk signals to his camera.
“Look like what?”
“I don’t know. Like there’s something wrong.”
Jeongguk stares into the face of hostility as it begins to kick an apology out of his mouth.
Taehyung, who plays an interested antihero, wants desperately to insult those who seek answers from him. Answers are something he is not willing to disperse. Many times this has happened and with its lack of ceaselessness, he has had the practice of crafting surreal responses that give and do not give at the same time.
“There’s always something wrong,” he says. “But I know that these things go away. Because you have to make room for more wrong things to happen. If not, then you won’t grow.” Jeongguk, mesmerized, falls deeper into the enchantment. “I want to grow more than anyone else.”
He answers the question by not answering it at all, and knows that Jeongguk knows this. It is a mild insult. It is descendant of an angry tongue.
Taehyung makes Jeongguk regret his own honesty. However, if he is troubled he does not show it. They go down the steps and this time it’s more about gesture than anything else. Taehyung bounces ahead, reaches the bottom of one flight and looks up at Jeongguk. Jeongguk looks down at him. It is a moment of quiet analyzing. Taehyung’s capable eyes reach Jeongguk and ask, mockingly, if there’s something wrong. Jeongguk, who is shy and embarrassed, looks away.
Taehyung does not get into the car. He opens the door and takes out his box of pastries. Jeongguk stands shocked on the other side.
"I’ll take you home," he insists, scared of having ruined a young thing.
"No, I’ll call a taxi. I’ve got things to do anyway." He gets his phone out of his pocket and checks the time.
“I can just drop you off.”
“No, really. It’s okay,” Taehyung smiles. Jeongguk is reminded of his unnamed desires.
“You’re sure?”
Taehyung nods.
“I’ll call you.”
Jeongguk has heard that before but it has always been said with the intent to mean otherwise. Taehyung does not say it that way. Instead, he is firm. He promises. There is nothing gone awry here.
He walks away and looks back many times before rounding a corner. Jeongguk is left breathless with every show of his face.
He fails to make sense of anything the whole drive back. Jeongguk is a vague idea of a person and he had told Jimin that that is the way he will stay. Had told himself, too, that he will not get involved.
Yet, he finds himself wanting it. The feeling that Taehyung gives him, the company that he provides. Even the distortion of responses, even the subtle anger, one that will get louder with every forward step Jeongguk takes. If it means getting to Taehyung, then Jeongguk will keep taking them. Take all of them.
Maybe then he will learn why interest can be such a minacious thing.