VMINKOOK / THE ART OF BEEKEEPING

22

— PART TWENTY TWO.

He sinks into the quicksand cloth of the beanbag, keeping his vision blurred due to the encompassing tufts of blonde hair which twirl like purlins of sunbeam in his eyes. He's intuitive enough to sense the wayward, distracted manner at which the other's in the room are conversing. He's the elephant in the room and good lord does he feel like it. He feels fifty feet tall, feels like ultraviolet is crammed within his framework, blaring through his pupils and creating the idea he's after attention. Desensitised magnitudes compress his head toward his shoulders, a black shadow flittering across his face and engraving shame into his detrimental heart (a heart which leaks with maudlin and woe).

"We should switch it up here, maybe try an F7.." Kim Namjoon's voice is overly loud in Taehyung's neurotic ears, the words booming as if his tongue was hooked up to the aux, the meaning of them loosing their temperament as they reach his ears.

The words are put to reality as Jeongguk plays a few effortless chords on his guitar, Hoseok despondently inputting, "doesn't sound right."

Taehyung is currently in the music room, having been brought here via the escalator of amorous hands, which dusted tender tutelage into his veins, distorting them and spiking little slithers of fire within the liquid. Jeongguk was a gas station, shocking petroleum into Taehyung's system and preserving his reservations and terrors within his own capsule, not letting loathing denote his fuselage of inky innovation. He was too nice to Taehyung, too kindred and tender, it almost made him scary. The brunette had never really seen Jeon Jeongguk be nice to anyone (not properly anyway) and that's what he thinks about as the others discuss the derivative.

He scrutinises the way they interact, the slightly adrift flow of emotions within Jeongguk, as he seems uninterested in their opinions. He wasn't unkind to them, not at all, but he wasn't particularly kind either — not in the way he was to Taehyung. Jeongguk had encased himself in steel and had whisked Taehyung off to this (supposedly) quiet place, allowing him virtue from the outer-world comprised of prudence and malignancy. He speaks gold into Taehyung's skin and lets the thrum of autumn leaves blow within his burnt out mind. Solace caresses his clefts and nectar divulges from his eyes.

He's cherry cola tastebuds and blackcurrant oil; pools of inferno leak out over the span of his perforations. Muscles are taut and smiles are rugged, as his fingertips summon love into the sounds of his guitar.

But, as far as Taehyung's line of vision was humanly able to see, this behaviour was only exhibited toward him. It's selfish and ridiculous to believe he was that special, the blonde thinks, but all humans are selfish and ridiculous and he deserves the sanctity of humanity every once in a while.

"Jeongguk, could you not?" Hoseok grumbles, not in the cheeriest of spirits, as he slinks into a seat beside Namjoon, who was running his drum sticks through his fingers. Taehyung hadn't ever really spoken to Namjoon, but had always deemed him a rather free spirit — a boy with a heart big enough for the entirety of mother nature's archive. He was kind, definitely, though not quite averse to Jeongguk's charms as he, unlike Hoseok, seemed to be wrapped around the boy's finger. Namjoon's presence actually kind of made Taehyung feel a sense of reality, as he was struck with the realisation Jeongguk wasn't actually the colours of a saint he'd painted his face with, no, he shared the same pastimes as Jimin, didn't he? He still got off from power trips and blasts of superiority, right?

"What? It's lunchtime." Jeongguk chides, mouth full of carrot sticks, crunching on them rather obscenely, in a manner which almost breaks Taehyung's fear, almost makes him grin.

"We're practicing." Hoseok argues, standing back up and attempting to pry the food from the younger boy's hands, the kid, in turn, pulling back, the strength he pertains easily outweighing the brunettes. "C'mon, you can eat after.. we've just got to finish this part-"