Chapter 5: The Optimist

Kim Taeyeon. She was unlike any other I had ever encountered before. I had helped quite a few kids, but she was different from the rest. She was complicated.

I felt like whenever I was with her, it was like a game of Jenga. I would try and ease out a block, without effecting the rest of the tower, but every single block that I tried moved was locked tight in its place - keeping me from winning the game, keeping me from making my opponent falter and knock over the tower. Keeping me from getting inside. It was frustrating. She was frustrating.

I had met her at the least a month ago. But yet, I hardly knew anything about her. She was a mystery to say the least. I could tell she was keeping so many emotions and experiences inside, just locked up behind those deep eyes of hers. She had a story to tell, one that probably not many people had heard - a story that I hoped to hear sometime.

On the outside she seemed blank, emotionless and plain. Like she didn’t have much on her mind and saw the world in black and white, taking in the things around her for exactly what they were, but her drawings and paintings had proved me otherwise.

I could clearly see that there was passion, colour and expression thriving underneath her skin, someone with a personality and a high intelligence level, but, for some reason, she had decided to hide it from everyone.

Why?

I didn’t really know, but I was in the slow process of figuring it out.

I looked over at her as the sound of her pencil rubbing against her notepad filled the room, her head down and her eyes trained to look back and forth between what she was writing and the textbook.

Not much conversation was passed between us, other than me going over and explaining things to her, and her, very rarely, asking me a very quick and brief question, questions that I could only really give her one-word answers for.

It was slow, but it was progress, and I really couldn’t ask for more.

As far as I knew, her grades had gone up and this first week of tutoring had been successful.

I let my eyes glaze over the work she had done, scanning for mistakes that I could help her correct. She was a smart girl, she hooked onto things very quickly after I had explained them, and so I didn’t really expect too many errors in her chemistry work.

“No,” I said, scooting closer, placing my finger on the fault she had made. “This diagram should look like this.” I started sketching out the way it should look.

I looked over at the side of her face to find her furrowing her eyebrows in what seemed like confusion as she examined what I had drawn.

“Do you get it?” I asked, waiting for her response.

She wet her lips, giving a slow nod as she pursed into a thin line before getting her head back down to correct her mistake.

She probably found me annoying, like a pest nagging at her, poking at her to open up. But I wasn’t trying to annoy her, I was trying to act like a friend, help her, and show her that I cared.

I looked up at the many several sketches and pieces of art that were plastered on the walls.

Each and every single one of them was so amazing, so beautiful, and so expressive with so much emotion put into them. Looking at Taeyeon and the way she acted, I would’ve never thought that she was the one who had created them.

She did have feelings and emotions, an expressive side. It was just the case of letting her feel like she could expose it to people, because I know she could.

Even though I loved all of what I had seen of her artwork, one thing still bothered me.

That girl.

That girl in the sketches Taeyeon had done, the ones that she had done quite a few of. They were all of the same girl, in the same place and the same beauty radiated off of each drawing.

Who was this girl? Was she just a random girl in the park that Taeyeon had just decided to draw, or was she important to Taeyeon?

My guess was the latter.

Taeyeon didn’t seem like the type of person to go up to people and ask if she could draw them, she was too quiet for that.

But if she was special to Taeyeon, where was she? Had she left, ran away or possibly even in her grave now?

The sound of pencil against paper began to get quieter and until it fully stopped, causing me to look over at her as she set her pencil down, her gaze shifting to look at me. I dragged myself out of my thoughts.

“Are you finished?” I asked. She gave a few slow nods as I took her notepad to check over her homework.

I quickly scanned over her handwriting, the diagrams that were now perfectly drawn, searching to find any mistakes she had made. My eyes reached the end of the text and a smile began to form on my face.

It was perfect. Not a single mistake or error in sight.

I put the paper down and smiled at her. “It’s perfect. There are no mistakes. Well done.”

She gave a few small nods, her eyes looking down at her lap and I swear for a split second there was a flash of a smile on her face, but it quickly disappeared when she lifted her head and gave me a small nod.

She…smiled.

Well at least, I think she did. It was a good sign. But it seemed like she still wanted to hide it from me.

I looked at my watch, checking the time.

6:56pm

I should probably get home. Donghae had been telling me that we haven’t been spending enough time together, since everyday I’ve been coming to the orphanage for a few hours to tutor Taeyeon, which, in my opinion, had created a lot of progress.

I sighed, standing up and stretching slightly, loosening my tight muscles as I covered my mouth, letting out a tired yawn.

“That’s us finished for today.” I said, gathering up my things. I put my coat on and grabbed my bag, looking over at her, to find that she too had stood up. “I’ll come back tomorrow. But I was thinking of going somewhere else to study.” I said, slowly making my way to the door as she nodded to my suggestion.

I opened the door slightly. “You did really great today.” I said with a small bow.

She bowed back. “Thank you.”

I stopped in my tracks, deciding whether I had heard her right or not. I was a bit taken back by the sudden thanks, but it still made me smile. It was a sign to show that she was polite and she did notice what I was doing for her.

She stood up straight, her cheeks slightly red.

I giggled slightly. “You’re very welcome.” I stepped halfway through the door “I’ll see you tomorrow, Taeyeon. Bye.”

I caught a glimpse of her nodding, as I closed the door behind me.

The smile on my face getting bigger as the reality of what just happened settled into my skin and brain.

She smiled…and she…thanked me.

I gave myself a fist pump to the air with a small celebratory dance. I honestly thought that I was going to get nowhere with her, but I was, just extremely and painfully slowly.

It was better than nothing though.

I let out a small sigh of happiness and began to make my way down the stairs. They creaked as my weight pressed down against them. I could hear the sound of young voices from the othe