Originally posted by neon-areumdawo

With a heavy heart, I sit down on my seat in the art classroom. Having been through this a whole week before doesn’t seem to make it any easier. Why can’t I just be like any normal student here, enjoying their time off from more stressful classes and take it as a socializing opportunity?

It’s like something is keeping me back from even closely enjoying anything about doing art. A constricting feeling of guilt reaches for me every time I even begin to laugh. It doesn’t help that this teacher has a big sense of humor. Maybe it was a bad idea to enroll into an art school.

But… until now there hasn't been anything of that, yet. The day is still young, I guess.

I sit there in a daze and totally miss the introduction for today. It isn’t until I hear the chairs scraping and students standing up that I awaken from my inner turmoil.
Standing up too, I assume we’re supposed to continue with yesterday’s assignment. A mixed portrait of our parents.

Parent. Huh.

There it is, that constricting feeling. Why does this have to happen to me?

Waiting for it to go away, I get my sketch after everyone else and frown at the only thing I had been able to sketch yesterday. A pair of eyes. Not knowing if it’s my mother’s or my father’s, I sit back down on my stool. I guess that’s good, at least I seem to be doing the task correctly.

“________-Student.”

I jostle into awareness. “Yes?”

“Mhm… Seems like you weren’t listening, have I become that boring?” The other students snicker at that.

“Ah, that’s not it, Teacher,” I say quickly and stand up to bow apologetically. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Gosh, how embarrassing.

“It’s alright,” his eyes take on an empathetic look because he knows. All teachers know. “I was just saying how you won’t be the only one behind anymore.”

“Sorry?” What? What did I miss?

“Before I rudely interrupted your daydreaming, I was saying how you don’t have to worry about being far behind because Jungkook-Student is starting today, but that might change depending on his speed, so go to work, quick quick.” He hushes us with his hands.

Mouth agape because the teacher’s dynamic changed so frequently, I sit back down. What to draw next?

I pick up the pencil and twirl it around my fingers out of habit. This task is honestly not making sense, mother’s and father’s face merging into one, wouldn’t that just be drawing a self-portrait?
I drop my head and sigh lowly in frustration. It also doesn’t help that I can barely remember my mother’s face never mind my father’s. At least not the details.

“I meant it when I said he will pass your current progress,” I jump as the teacher rounds up next to me.

“Ah, who?” I say with a jumpy heart not really getting who ‘he’ is.

“Jungkook-Student.” The teacher looks away from me to give a pointed look at the easel almost opposite from mine.
Moving to look around the sketching pad blocking the view, I am taken aback to see Jungkook, the new student who only appeared yesterday, sitting in my art class. I hadn’t even noticed him in yesterday’s session.

As I continue to look, my mind slightly elsewhere, I focus back to see him glancing back with a curious look.
Embarrassed at being caught, I bow my head and hide back behind my block. I don’t think the little interaction we had made it OK for me to stare. I don’t want to seem like I’m interested.

But, wow, he’s really pretty, too, not just handsome, his eyes… are so pretty.

Shaking my head because I had just said I’m not interested, I knock my fist against my head and take a deep breath and begin sketching the nose and lips.
It’s weird for someone to start by drawing these features instead of the face but weirdly these are the most vivid memories of my childhood. The pecks of affection, the taps on my nose, the eyes that made me feel safe…

The teacher arrives next to my sketching bad again near the end of class. “Not bad, I guess my advice made you think of more to sketch.”

Not really but it’s true that the teacher is a stimulant to me. I shouldn’t use his empathy in my favor anymore. It’s been years already. Isn't it time to move on? I say to my heart that just won't listen.

“I particularly like the eyes, the eye for detail is really stunning,” his pun of words doesn’t go by me, and I can’t help but giggle shortly. “Well done, I can’t wait to see the full project.”

“Thank you.”

The teacher nods with a kind smile and claps his hands once to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, that’s all for today’s class, see you next time, don’t forget to clean up your mess. You always forget a few pencils and I almost always trip on them.”

The giggle that had left a smile deepens into a grin as I imagine it in my head.

“Yes!” We all say and in unison say our polite farewells.

One by one, we move in line to put back our sketches and as I stand up to follow I notice just how much my sketching resembled the me now.

It’s surprising how the teacher didn’t notice or comment that it’s more like me than my parents. For me the resemblance is huge and it tells me how much I have forgotten my parents’ faces. Instead, my mind has filled the blanks with features of my own face.

Makes sense. Once your parents are gone the only memory that is left of their existence is what they left behind. And that is me.

I snap out of it as it rings for the end of class and I look up to find my vision blurry. Quickly as not for anyone to notice, I press my sleeves to my eyes to make the tears go away. But as I peer back up, my eyes meet Jungkook’s as he blinks with a frown and then looks down. He saw.

That’s so humiliating.

At least he wasn’t commenting on it or making anyone else aware of it. Since it was a careless private moment that he accidentally was apart of I’m thankful that he kept it like that.

My mind was also fooling me into thinking that by him looking away it was to give me privacy.

But… it’s probably just wishful thinking.

~ ~ ~
Hello! it's 2018-me! 

How have you all been? wow, it's been a year since I posted something here but that's only because there is a sequel and that's where all the fun is happening hehe but for people that have no clue what's going on, I'm currently working through this fanfic and just finished improving all chapters. I posted a small update in the sequel if anyone is interested.

So, now I'm moving onto the bonus chapters that I never posted here (only on tumblr) because in 2016 I had gone to HK for a bit without my laptop and when I was back I had just assumed everyone read it already on tumblr, so I never posted them at the end.
But since I'm trying to finish up the sequel with the epilogues and stuff I wanted to properly round up this fanfiction so that all 3 platforms have the same versions.

If you have read these bonus chapters already then just ignore me :D I'm just doing some damage control for the start of this year.

Also can I just say that a lot of the things I wrote back in 2015 have come true and that I'm surprised I wrote them and I'm even more surprised that I took some of the veeeeeeery corny stuff out, cause the first draft had some scenes that the me now, never would have put in and when I was rereading I was already dreading those scenes but turns out 2016-me was smart enough to take them out before posting.
It was such a big relief lol I'm soooo glad those scenes didn't make it because they were just hmmmmnooo! I mean don't get me wrong, there still are a lot of corny scenes that make me think wow how did I write that but I guess 2015-me was just really feeling it xD

Anyway, eh, yeah, that's why I'm back here. There will be three more ^^ Thank you for... reading until here.... <3