𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐎.

18. Poison

His teeth dug into his lip, not flinching at the discomfort as his hand continued to glide over the portrait with its own conscious.

Concluding colours dying the blank material to life as the picture finally started to come together, making his light graphite lines manifest the girl to life.

"Is it almost done?" Greta's voice intruded, a puzzling tone illustrated into her voice.

"Y-Yeah... almost." He replied, hesitating slightly, afraid that one wrong stroke of his brush would ruin the realistic blend of colour, dragging him back to the torturous initial stages.

Just as the last touches of the faint bristles danced over the portrait, he drew his eyes away, absorbing the image. A warm, sun-like sigh ran from his lips as he realised it was finished.

"Done." He announced.

Greta sprang from her seat, striding over to Taehyung's side, expectations finding themselves forgotten as she met with the portrait.

It was almost like looking through a mirror, petit features and singularities she failed to notice taking hold of her attention as a smile was painted on her face.

She thought it was beautiful.

"Tae... it's—it's amazing." She exclaimed in a breathless voice. "I mean... it-it looks almost like my reflection." Failing to see the puzzled expression drowning Taehyung's features.

"Almost?" He asked.

She sighed, a smile still contorting her face. "Well I mean— my eyes don't really look that pretty and... and my nose is a potato in comparison to what you've drawn." She chuckled softly.

"That's what I see though." He interjected, lips slightly jetted out as his eyes graced her figure with calm ocean eyes. "You're a lot more beautiful than you think, Greta." He smiled with fatigue, Greta not being able to stop the lost burning feeling in her cheeks from erupting.

"T-Thanks." She only managed to conjure, feeling suffocated by the burning feeling infecting her face.

A fog of silence masked their conversation, both becoming blind to the right words to say. It had been so long since Greta had felt the scorching touch of being flustered. It almost felt foreign to her.

Yet, refreshing.

"So... w-what exactly were you doing wondering around school? I thought you said you had your lessons cancelled?" He spoke out, the opaque mist clearing between them as Greta felt the air rush back into her lungs.

"Oh—right. Well, I had to go to a meeting with Mrs Kang about my catch up scheme after I have the baby." She explained as her hand recoiled to her masked stomach.

"You're coming back to school?" He questioned. "I mean... isn't that going to be a bit hard with both a baby on your hands and school?" Taehyung continued.

"Yeah, I'll be taking night classes plus extra tutoring. I don't want a baby to get in the way of getting an education." She explained, a grin on her face as she observed his disbelieving face.

He hummed through a closed smile, gazing back to her face from his unsettled fingers, evolving into a grin he let his eyes melt into her face.

It was hard.

Trying to find pleasure in the pain.

As he tried to find the familiar wave of euphoria he felt crash into him every time she was drawn into his world, his senses became painfully saturated with the agonising fact he retaliated to hear.

Greta was Jungkook's. His child in her womb being the transparent evidence.

He wish it could be different, almost like the way he could carve his paintings into whatever he wanted with the slight touch of an eraser.