Remnants of the Heart | Kim Taehyung

19: observe

ACT 2 — SCENE 10.
HE OBSERVES.

CERTAIN THINGS are just meant to be realized when it's too late. Taehyung has experienced this countless of times in the past. Realizing that getting drunk the night before a history exam is a bad idea a few hours before he's supposed to take it. Realizing that not wearing gloves while going into the city on a cold winter afternoon when his hands are already seconds away from freezing. Realizing that there's nothing good about messing around with his best friends girlfriend after his best friend finds out.

This time it's this: Seojung looks incredibly beautiful with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

The light he's seeing her in now is one he had tried so hard to avoid (and succeeded) years back. Boundaries. There were boundaries he wasn't supposed to cross (yet he still did so anyway and continuously kissed his friend's girlfriend), and Seojung was one of the many. He knew that he just simply couldn't. Restrictions and barriers had always been something he never shied away from. If anything, Taehyung would always challenge them and break rules because the thrill of it fed him the kind of adrenaline he would never want to miss out on.

He has always been well aware that the girl bore delicate features and a smile as sweet as nectar, but he had never been in a position to do anything about it. Wouldn't really say that he had a crush on her or anything. He merely thought she was pretty, still does, but it's a different kind of pretty now.

The kind where he can't help but look at her for a second too long and find himself staring when she's not aware of his presence. This new perception has him subconsciously tracing what he concludes are the lines of her face onto his sketch book whenever he finds himself daydreaming. Thinks about making her a portrait for her birthday, framed and everything. Seojung would like that.

They haven't been hanging out as much as he had hoped ever since they got back from Busan, ever since Seojung told him she used to like him. It's not that things are suddenly awkward, the girl is just constantly whisked away by her schoolwork and the search for her mother. And the times that Taehyung does see her on campus, she's either always with Jeongguk or Arai or both, and it's just so troublesome that it has to be the two people who would rather do everything else than associate themselves with him.

This newfound realization is bothersome and maybe it would've never come to him if she hadn't told him about her crush, wants to blame her but he can't since she has done nothing wrong. Has done nothing but be kind to him despite the kind of person he is and he tries so hard to shield that part of him away from her.

Sitting in the campus cafeteria, Taehyung thinks about what shade of pink would be perfect to paint her full lips or if the softness in her eyes would look captivating on canvas. He thinks instead of eats and imagines a life where he and Seojung were an item instead of with Hwayoung. Would he have ended up breaking her heart too in the end?

And as if his mind had called her presence, said girl walks into the room in all her glory and lines up to get her meal. Taehyung watches her and contemplates whether or not he should invite her over to his table (since no one else is here anyway). This is one of the rare moments that he finds her alone. He should ask her to eat with him, talk and—

"Staring is rude, Taehyung." A vision of strikingly red hair is what he is met with when he glances right. Taehyung has always admired Arai for being the bold and daring girl that she is, but he feels like the color is mocking him whenever he spots her on campus ground. It's bright, stands out, reminds him of the time he messed up and made a similar mistake to the one he swore he would never do again.