REAL ART . TAETEN

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'hi, taeyong! thanks for inviting me over!' ten said with a wink, hoping that taeyong would play along

'yeah, no problem.' taeyong forced a smile as ten walked into his room

his mom left, leaving the two boys alone.

'ten, what the actual fuck?'

'i need to know, taeyong!'

'need to know what?'

'why you're the way you are.'

ten said and left taeyong speechless. no one really cared enough about him to ask him why he acted like he did sometimes. not even his close friends, who'd just brush it off.

'do you really want to know?' taeyong asked and earned a suspected nod from ten.

taeyong took a deep breath and began to explain.

when he was younger, he wasn't the best at making friends. one day, this group of older kids walked up to him at school, telling him that he was beautiful and that they wanted to be his friends. being a naive child at the time, taeyong believed them. of course, these kids were not being serious.

after a year or so of being taeyong's 'friends' they led him to the back of the school at the end of the school day. they beat him up extremely badly, leaving the sixteen year old taeyong barely alive at the back of the school. they continued to hurt him mentally even after they injured him, calling him ugly and worthless. they only left once taeyong stopped crying, assuming he had passed out. or even that he died.

it was fortunate that two other students, taeil and jaehyun, had after school activities that day. they were walking past the back of the school building and saw taeyong, immediately calling an ambulance and taeyong's parents.

taeyong, of course, had never been the same since. he barely even trusted the people he considered his closest friends, afraid that they might hurt him as well.

by the time taeyong was done telling his story, he was in tears. crying into ten's shoulder and hugging the younger boy as if there was no tomorrow.

ten didn't even do anything. taeyong was just glad that he was there. that he finally had someone to tell his story to. someone that would listen.

all that he ever told his other friends was that people called him ugly at school. he never wanted to bother them with the details.

but for some reason, ten was different. he wanted ten to know all of him. he wanted to know all of ten.

these thoughts rushed through taeyong's head when he finally came back to reality and realized that he was soaking ten's shirt with his tears.

'i-i'm sorry, a-about your shirt.' taeyong apologized between sniffs

'it's fine, taeyong.' ten smiled and separated himself from taeyong, 'i brought an extra one anyways.'

ten removed his wet shirt that he was wearing and looked through his bag for another one. he found the shirt he was looking for and turned back to taeyong.

ten smiled and said 'so what should we-' ten noticed that taeyong was holding his phone up as if taking a picture, 'wait were you taking pictures of me?'

'maybe i was. but hey, can you blame me?'

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Yoooooo it took me long enough to get to this point lmao

I was listening to The Beat by Topp Dogg on an endless loop while writing this and I don't know how to feel