Sungjong hides his face beneath the scarf he was just given, concealing his blush that has been already on his cheeks since that cold city guy left the store. He inhales behind it and the scent of that guy’s strong perfume makes him blush even more.

“He didn’t tell me his name. That was unfair…” He mumbles under the scarf as he doesn’t notice someone entering the store. Sungjong will still have been oblivious that someone has already entered the store if not for the sound of falling boxes of cereals in the far left of the convenience store.

“Sir, let me help you with that.” Sungjong rushes to the guy, immediately dropping to his knees as he picks up the fallen boxes.

“N-no, I—It’s my fault so I think I need to be responsible for this mess,” The orange-haired boy stutters, hurriedly picking up as many boxes as he can. Sungjong just shakes his head as he helps the poor boy, thinking that the boy must have felt bad about what happened and tries his best to clean up the mess. This makes Sungjong’s lips curve into a light smile before heading back to the cashier post once everything is cleaned up.

The same boy shows up in front of him after a couple of minutes, securely holding three pieces of strawberry-coated cookie packs in his hands. Sungjong then proceeds to punching them at the machine, smiling as he does so.

“It’s 3000₩ all in all.” Sungjong says, the smile never leaving its spot on his face.

The boy hands him the cash and just as Sungjong is about to bag the boy’s purchases, a pack of the cookies appears in front of his face.

“My brother is right, you really are nice,” The orange-haired boy smiles as he offers Sungjong the cookie pack. “Thank you, Sungjong-ssi.”

Sungjong blinks in reply and stares at the cookie pack on the counter. Just as when the boy turns to leave the store, he immediately comes back running and faces Sungjong again.

“I forgot to give you these,” The boy places a pair of knitted gloves and ear muffs beside the cookie pack. “Myungsoo-hyung wants me to give these things to a guy named Sungjong at a convenience store. And look, it’s you!”

The boy chirped happily as he waves to Sungjong, saying his goodbye, but before he does, skips his way again back to Sungjong.

“I’m Kim Taehyung, by the way.” And the boy leaves the store. Finally.

Now I know. Kim Myungsoo.

Taehyung arrives at the campus in record time, snickering his way to their classroom as he sends Jungkook a message saying that the latter loses the bet and owes him a lunch later. Not much students are there at that time and for the president, it is the perfect time to think about what happened yesterday.

Dazed, Taehyung walks to where his feet will take him to, later finding himself in front of the stairway. He then tries to comprehend everything that happened yesterday. Why was Seokjin like that? Did he take pity on Taehyung? Did something fall from somewhere and hit Seokjin? Did Seokjin change?

The president then stops in his tracks as he takes a moment to ponder his last thought. Changing? The Kim Seokjin changing? Is that even possible?

Just as he is about to take a step higher, there comes the bickering and whisperings of those students who crosses his way.

Isn’t he the president from Seokjin’s class?

Yeah. He tried to save him, though but failed.

Why did he do that when he knew he couldn’t?

Maybe he likes Seokjin.

Maybe he just wants attention.

An attention-seeker freak, ugh.

More like a useless president.

The president stops for a while and takes that moment to catch his breath and maybe, if he can, ignore everything he heard. Eventually, everything around him starts to darken. Taehyung grasps at the railings for support, not caring if there are people seeing him. Sweat drips down his face and neck as he tries to calm his inner storm.  He looks around but everything is spinning. He also feels his phone vibrating but he can’t find the strength to pull it out.

Clumsy Little Taehyung, who couldn’t even stand such useless bickering; I pity you. No wonder Seokjin is like that yesterday. You couldn’t even walk up the stairway.

“Please, stop!” Taehyung shouts as he now sees nothing. He feels his phone vibrate more, but he is far too caught up in his mental illness. The whispers from earlier also doesn’t help as it increases in volume every second. The president feels his temperature getting higher and higher with every second passing by.

Now, now. People are looking at you. Would you want them to know what is really wrong with you?

Taehyung gasps for air as he felt a tear roll down his cheek. He tightly closes his eyes, slowly kneeling down because of his loss of strength. He gulps as he inhales more air; a sign that he is going to have the ‘breakdown’. Every intake of air, Taehyung feels his body giving up—his sweat starting to drench his undershirt; the air around him feeling cold on his skin; and his head starting to feel abnormally heavy.

Just then, a ‘ off!’ from the crowd is heard and Taehyung suddenly felt himself being lifted from the ground. As much as he wants to open his eyes, he can’t find the strength to do so.  He wraps his arms around the neck of that someone who carried him as the president buries his face on that someone’s chest. Taehyung feels even dizzier than earlier. He feels every part of his body tire out as his arms slowly loosen the grip on the stranger’s neck; also, his eyelids begin to droop to dreamland. Taehyung fights the urge to sleep but his body feels damn heavy that he can’t even do anything. Is he even breathing? Who knows?

On the brighter side, the voice in his head stopped talking to him. He didn’t know why but ever since he felt that someone carry him, it’s like a big boulder was taken off from him. Taehyung felt relaxed and how should he put this… happy? He felt that pounding in his chest while he was carried and strangely, he still feels that feeling: that feeling of happiness that someone actually cares.

Taehyung finally feels himself on the ground, feeling the chill beneath him. The president breathes out a sigh of content as he finally lets himself be lulled to sleep by the blowing wind.

Someone beside the president feels tired from all the carrying and running that he did, but looking at the sleeping president makes him forget that he is tired. A small smile forms on his lips as he swipes Taehyung’s forehead of his sweaty hair. He decides to lie beside the president for a while with him facing the president.

Taehyung, why do you always make me feel like this?

Myungsoo paces at their living room as he holds his phone next to his ear. He has been calling his brother since an hour ago yet still, Taehyung isn’t picking up. At times like this, Myungsoo’s instinct tells him that there must be something going on with his brother, and his gut feeling tells him that it is not something good.

He unconsciously puts his hand inside his pocket as he tries calling his brother for the 5^th time. He is becoming nervous and god, damn worried about Taehyung. Frustration builds up inside him with every ring his ears pick up. He grits his teeth and seethes as he hears nothing but the ringing tone from the other line. Myungsoo’s body starts to tenses up. What’s happening to you, Taehyung? Goddamnit.

His body loosens up as he heard the ringing tone stop. Myungsoo immediately calms his self and half-shouts at the line.

“Taehyung?! What the hell are you th—“

“Hello? This is not Taehyung.”

Myungsoo freezes for a moment. It is not Taehyung.

“Who is this? What did you do to Taehyung?!” Myungsoo says almost hurriedly, his concern obvious on the tone.

“Doesn’t matter. He kind of fainted. Found him panting on the stairs earlier. Took him at our rooftop.”

“What?” He blurts. “Don’t leave him. I’ll be there. Give me ten minutes.”

He hangs up immediately and fumbles in his drawer for his car key and as soon as he got it, Myungsoo speeds up.

Without Myungsoo knowing it, someone saw him speeding up along the road. He removes his work suit and hurries to wear his jacket and gloves.

“Boss, I’ll be leaving early. Will just make it up tomorrow. I’m sorry.” He shouts as he rushes out of his workplace and stops the first taxi he saw, ignoring his boss’ constant shouts to come back.

“Follow that car, please. Match his speed. I’ll double the meter.”

Seokjin rests his head against the wall as he waits at the rooftop. He closes his eyes and lets out a sigh of relief as he felt the cold wind kiss his cheek. The blow feels nice, making his lips curve upward. Only the chirps of the birds are heard that time and he could not be more than happy to be with the president lying peacefully at the cool surface. He then starts to recall everything from the past—way back to their first day in college.

1^st year college, August 1^st, 6:45 am

Seokjin smirks at the campus gate in front of him. “Finally.” He says as he makes his way to the admission desk.

The campus is big; way too big from what Seokjin had imagined. It is complete from the splendid form of the guard house to the neat cafeteria at the far end of the campus. Seokjin can’t help to smile as he entered his second home.

On the way to the admission, his eyes have caught sight of an orange lump behind the bushes. It doesn’t look like an orange to him; it looked like a hair from a person. Seokjin squints his eyes and heads toward the row of bushes. His assumption turns out right as a person who looks two years younger than him emerges from the bushes.

“What are you doing here?” Seokjin decides to ask the boy, who looks startled as he heard Seokjin.

“Eep! Don’t come near me! Go away!” And the boy runs away.

Seokjin snorts, his eyes following the quick retreating back of the boy. Who tells someone to go away and then run away?

He then resumes on his way to the admission desk. He smiles at the person-in-charge and asks for his schedule for the whole year. The lady gladly gives him his schedule and instructs him where to go. Seokjin thanks the lady with a bow and walks his way to his room.

Many students like him are also looking for their respective classrooms. Dozens and dozens are walking back and fro at every classroom they pass through. They are some lucky ones who already found theirs while they are still many who are looking for their classroom and unfortunately, Seokjin is one of them.

After passing through hundreds (it did seem like a hundred, though) of classrooms, Seokjin finally releases a breath of relief as he stands in front of his classroom. He takes out his handkerchief from his bag and wipes his forehead of sweat before entering the classroom.

He will be lying if he will say that he is not happy to see the orange lump again. Seokjin chuckles to himself as he makes his way towards a vacant seat near the boy, careful to not make himself noticed. He, somehow, manages to get the seat behind the boy without making any fuss and smiles to himself.

“Hey,” Seokjin says as he tries hard to hold in his laughter. “We met earlier, right?”

The boy slowly (he really did it slooooooow) turns to him and his blank face turns into a horrified one as he saw Seokjin behind him, smiling.

“Eep! What are you doing here?!”

“I belong to this classroom. We are going to be classmates, I presume?”

“No, we’re not. I’m leaving. I’ll try to shift to another classroom, you handsome stalker,” The boy dabs a finger at his chest as he, sort of, declaims. “Now, this is the part where I will say good bye. I’m off.”

The boy, however, returns after 7 minutes with a frowning face and meeting eyebrows. He definitely is not amused.

Seokjin is about to approach the orange-haired boy when a group of girls has started to surround him. They are blocking his view, completely depriving him the sight of the boy.

“Hey, you’re handsome,” says one of them. Seokjin moves his head from left to right as he tries to catch even just a glimpse of the boy behind this ’girl wall’.”What are you trying to look at?”

He widens his eyes but immediately covers them as one of the girls starts to strip in front of him. Seokjin stifles a gag from coming out.

“Yah! What the heck are you doing?! Eww~” a voice from behind the girls is heard and Seokjin immediately shots his head up and shoves the girls by the waist. He quickly goes and pulls the boy closer to him-- more like hugged him-- cupping his hand and uses it to cover the boy’s eyes.

“This is not a sight for young boys like you to see. Let’s get out of here.”

The boy, however, thinks of it as a game as he playfully wiggles his arms to the front as if he was blind. Seokjin can’t help to roll his eyes and just guides the boy out of the room, careful to not let the boy bump into any chair on the way out.

“Teeheeee. That was fun. Let’s do it again! I’ll cover yours this time.”

Seokjin lets out a sigh of defeat as he lets himself get dragged by the happy boy. ‘Better this than those strippers.’

August 2^nd, 10:00 am

Seokjin lines up at the cafeteria with a tired face. He is tired from all the looks he got from yesterday, ranging from those ty looks to the ones looking for a fight. Many also complimented him, which are mostly girls, along the hallway about his looks and damn, he is getting tired. Not that he don’t know it, but he just hate that kind of attention.

After paying for his food, which consists of a carton of milk and two pieces of sandwich, he scans the area for an empty space. Luckily, he spots one at the mid-corner of the area, near the transparent glass wall. He walks to it and again, tries to hide his face.

He sits there and just as he is about to take a bite of his sandwich, he spots a person resting his back on a tree, enjoying his free time by reading a book. Seokjin narrows his eyes to clearly see the face of whoever it is because the figure is kind of familiar. His lips, then, curve into a smile as he sees the orange-haired boy. Grabbing his milk carton and sandwiches, Seokjin makes his way to the garden, specifically: to the tree.

When Seokjin has arrived at the spot, he quickly grabs the book the boy is holding and replaces it with one of his sandwich. The boy looks up in disbelief, his face close to fume with anger.

“What do you want?” The boy asks rather tiredly, his lips forming into a pout. “I’m not in the mood for games, okay? Just go with one of the girls who compliment you ‘handsome’.”

Seokjin smirks at the boy’s last sentence. “Does that mean you’re jealous?”

“Yes,” The boy nods, but his eyes suddenly doubles in circumference as if his words just recently sunk in. “I mean, no! Why would I be jealous? Get away from me, Seokjin.”

The boy then hurries to pack-up his things and is about to run away again, but Seokjin is faster as he holds the boy by the arm.

“How did you know my name?” Seokjin muses.

“I just know it. Now, please let go of me. I am going to somewhere else.”

“Let me take you there, then.”

“No need,” The boy finally faces him, his eyes shining and voice shaking. Seokjin feels the world skip a second. “I would like to go there alone.”

His grip on the boy’s arm loosens as he lets the boy go. He, however, runs to the boy after the boy is two meters away.

“Just tell me your name, then.”

The boy faces him, straightening his uniform and wiping his face. He sniffs a bit, and then pasted a smile on his face as he cheerfully introduces himself to Seokjin.

“Hello, I am Kim Taehyung. I am... Uhh, I forgot how old I am. I have one brother. I live in a small house near this school. I let my close friends call me by my name but those who aren’t shall call me ‘Kim’. However, feel free to call me whatever you want as long as it doesn’t hurt me.”

With that, Taehyung runs away.

“I hope we can be friends!” Seokjin shouts.

August 5^th, 7:00 am

Seokjin huffs after sweeping the floor. He takes out his handkerchief and wiped his neck as sweat starts dripping down his chest. He suddenly feels very hot so he removes his blazer and hangs it on one of the chairs. A click of the doorknob is heard and just as Seokjin turns at the direction of the sound, he feels a pair of lips against his. He widens his eyes in shock as the kisser pushes him against the wall.

He closes his eyes, too shocked with what’s happening that it makes him dizzy.

But then, someone emerges from the door and freezes at the sight of Seokjin and someone. He feels his eyes fill with tears up to the brim and when he is about to wipe them, a streak rolls down his cheek. Unconsciously, he drops his bag, effectively startling both Seokjin and that .

Seokjin’s eyes widens and his mouth drops open as he sees Taehyung by the door, eyes shining with tears. He hurries towards Taehyung but the latter takes a step back, stopping Seokjin.

“I—I’m sorry f-for i-int… interrupting.”

3:00 pm

Seokjin becomes known for sharing a kiss with the most beautiful girl in the campus. But for him, it is nothing to celebrate of. For the whole day, Taehyung is not in class and he has not heard of him since morning that day.

The bell rings and Seokjin shouts a ‘Good bye’ to his teacher before hurrying outside his classroom. He runs around the school, eyes searching for that orange lump among the crowd or even among the bushes.

Thirty minutes have passed yet still; Seokjin has not found the boy. He already has looked around the campus, even at the tree where he saw Taehyung during break time, but there is no Taehyung. He is about to give up when he hears sniffing sounds from behind the bushes at the campus garden. Seokjin releases a sigh of relief as he approaches the topiary where a part of its side has an orange lump.

“Taehyung?”

“Eep!” Taehyung’s usual reaction makes Seokjin’s tense body to loosen up a little.

“Why are you crying?”

However, the boy’s tear-filled eyes greet Seokjin. He looks infuriated, but he still looked gorgeous. He always has.

“Don’t ever, ever, EVER, come near me again. I decided to make you my friend, but look, I became a mess. I thought you were good. I thought you were the one who is going to be my best friend; but I am wrong. You are like the others who will leave their friend after having somebody else. You are just like them who play with other’s feelings. You know what? I hate those kinds of persons. They make me feel like I am a toy. You made me feel like a toy. Congratulations. I thought I could love you; but no I couldn’t”

Taehyung slowly stands up and makes his way towards the campus exit, leaving a dumfounded Seokjin behind. The boy doesn’t care if he catches the attention of other people. The boy chooses to ignore the annoying whispers and mocks that are thrown at him.

“It’s okay. I’m used to it.”

On the other hand, Seokjin is still glued on his spot. “Taehyung, you loved me?”

From then on, Seokjin was never the same. That side of him didn’t ever show up again. He promised to himself that he would only be like that around Taehyung. No one else.

Seokjin buries his face under his hands. He screwed everything up. And now, he is going to do everything just to make things go back the way they were.

He immediately stands up as the door slams open, revealing a panting guy. He assumes that this is Taehyung’s brother, judging from the way their eyes resemble each other.

“What happened? Is Taehyung alright? What happened before he fainted? Are you there the moment he fainted? How long has it been? Did something else happen? Did you do something to him? Did you—“

“Myungsoo-shi?”

Taehyung’s brother stops and turns to the door. His face tells Seokjin that he is shocked to see the feminine-looking boy right at the door.

“Sungjong? What are you doing here?”

“I saw you speeding up way past the speed limit. I followed you to make sure… that… uhm… you are… I’m just worried, okay? I’ll leave now.”

Myungsoo’s hand immediately grabs the retreating boy. “No, I’ll take you home. And you,” he points a finger at Seokjin. “We will take Taehyung home. You still have some explanation to do.”

Hi~ I'm back. Sorry for being idle. University exams are coming up :(( Wish me luck