Taehyung was on his way home.

From the start of the morning to the last minute of his final class of the day, he was planning on spending the evening enclosed within the four walls of his room, listening to music - at home. He hadn’t had a chance to do that in a while, not with all the homework he was getting recently. But just as he was on his way out of the school gates, he was somehow convinced to stay an extra two hours after school, simply to work on a project that they still had four weeks to complete. And it was none other than Yoon Hyunjung who had dragged him back.

“Why am I here again?” he said lethargically, flicking his eyes between Jimin and Shinae.

They were sat around a small table in the school library, still waiting for one person to show up to their small project session. Shinae propped her elbow on the table top, her chin resting on her hand and idly scribbled circles on the edges of her notebook, while Taehyung twisted a pen between his fingers.

It was an agonizing fifteen minutes of dead silence.

“So…” Jimin drawled.

Their heads turned when the door of the library creaked open.

“I’m here!” Hyunjung announced as she approached them. The librarian shushed her and she repeatedly apologized in a whispered voice.

Taehyung was obviously agitated. “You were the one that dragged me here in the first place, so why are you fifteen minutes late?”

“I was talking to someone,” she said, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could be.

“You were talking to someone?” Taehyung studied her expression carefully. “Was it Jungkook?”

There was a pause.

Shinae ceased drawing, looking up at her and Jimin coughed stiffly.

Hyunjung took out her notebook and sat down, but it felt like more of a stumble. Taehyung watched her as he waited.

She fumbled with the zip of her bag and hunted through it for her textbook. “Okay! Let’s start!”  They jumped in their seats when she suddenly dropped it on the table.

The librarian shot her a sharp look and she apologized again. Taehyung muttered something to himself, leaning back further into his seat as he shut his eyes.

Shinae gathered all of the research she did and spread it out in front of her and Hyunjung. Jimin glanced at them and compared their work to his and Taehyung’s; it was notable which pair had contributed the most effort so far.

“So how are we actually gonna do this project?” he asked Taehyung, who looked a little too uninvolved in this. His nonchalant manner bothered him slightly, but nevertheless, he wanted to try to get along with him even if it was going to take a mass amount of effort. Considering that they had to work together for the next four weeks, he didn’t have much of an option.

Shinae pulled an expression of disdain when she saw the little amount of work that the other two had managed to achieve. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even planned anything yet.”

“Last time I checked, Taehyung was my project partner, not you.” Jimin exaggerated a false smile.

She glowered at him in return. “I am aware of that.”

The rest of the two hours had gone by insufferably slower than they anticipated. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea for Hyunjung to have gathered them together after all. On a positive note, she and Shinae had managed to finish their planning under the span of those two hours. Too bad the same couldn’t be said for Jimin and Taehyung, their progress was close to zilch—zero.

They sorted out all the papers and were getting ready to leave. Hyunjung noticed Shinae looking at Taehyung from time to time while she was packing her books in her bag without him noticing.

The four had stayed together even while on their way home. Jimin and Taehyung were walking ahead, leaving the girls trailing not far behind them.

Hyunjung noticed Shinae staring ahead intently. “Shinae, do you um, like Taehyung?”

Snapping out of her gaze, Shinae sharply turned her head at her and stared in disbelief. “What makes you think that?”

Hyunjung had plenty of things in her mind she could’ve replied back-like how Shinae tried to talk to him whenever the chance came, or the frequent glances she stole at him just now in the library. “Um—well…”

Shinae didn’t let her finish. “Trust me, it’s not anything like that. When he arrived in our class I thought he was pretty good-looking so I tried being nice to him. He told me I was annoying after that and pushed me away when I tried to get close to him.”

Hyunjung thought in curiosity. She wasn’t surprised when she mentioned Taehyung’s behaviour towards her, he was like that to everyone. But she found it quite odd that Shinae’s reason for approaching him was vainly because she thought he was good-looking. “Is that it?”

Shinae continued to talk as if she didn’t hear her. “But he was like that to everyone who talked to him and I thought I could be the first one that he would open up to.” She paused. “Which was why I didn’t really like it when he began being with you.”

Slumping her shoulders, she looked ahead at Jimin and Taehyung who were walking a couple of strides ahead of them. She slowed her walking pace to let the distance between them increase to ensure that the either of them wouldn’t have been able to hear her.

“It’s pointless for me to continue to get close to him, isn’t it?” Shinae pouted to herself before adding; “What is he to you anyway?”

Hyunjung brushed off a few strands of hair away from her face and thought for a while. Taehyung did consider her as a friend now, right? He wasn’t as unreceptive to her as he was before, and he also treated her as more of a friend—so she assumed so.

“He’s a friend of mine.”

Shinae raised her brows. “Just a friend?”

“Yep, that’s what I said.”

“Isn’t Jungkook a friend of yours too?” Shinae asked.

The corners of Hyunjung’s lips formed into a diminutive smile. “A really good friend.”

Shinae looked at her through narrowed eyes before laughing breathily. “I see, so that’s how it is.”

Just as Hyunjung was about to question her, Shinae had already jogged up to Jimin and Taehyung. She turned her head to look back and beckoned her over. “What’re you doing? Get your over here, you look like a loner.”

Hyunjung smiled when the three of them stopped to wait for her so that she could catch up with them.

“What were you two talking about? All I heard was Jungkook and Taehyung’s name,” Jimin said.

Shinae sent a knowing glance at Hyunjung and waved him off. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”

“Well, what if it does?”

She purposely overlooked him.

“Oh, so now you’re ignoring me?” Jimin scoffed.

“Talking to you doesn’t give me any benefits,” she told him while examining her nails.

He huffed in frustration and instead tried conversing with Taehyung the rest of the way. Though from a passer-by, it would’ve looked like he was talking to himself. Taehyung did send him the occasional short reply, but he had very few words. Jimin didn’t seem to mind, he had plenty he wanted to say that he had kept to himself back in the library.

By five minutes, Shinae and Jimin had already left in the direction to their own homes, leaving Taehyung and Hyunjung walking together.

Taehyung watched Jimin’s distant figure and cringed. “He talks way too much.” 

You couldn’t deny that. It was true after all, but count on Jimin to always have a prolonging conversation with you if you encouraged it.

He rubbed his temples, his eyebrows sinking lower and his forehead crinkling slightly as he did so. “I thought my head was about to blow up, he kept changing the subject to something that had no relevancy to what he said before.”

Hyunjung responded with a light laugh. “Couldn’t keep up?”

“Nope.”

A few minutes passed and she was running dry out of things to talk about. Taehyung didn’t seem to have anything to say either. But the silence wasn’t an awkward one unlike the many times when it was. They just needed some sort of conversation starter to push them along. Between the two of them, it was usually her that spoke first.

“Um,” she started. “It’s nearly Christmas.”

Taehyung inhaled slowly and looked at her. “It’s not even September.”

“Only a few more months…it’s quite close.” She skimmed the gravel with the bottom of her shoe.

She almost stopped from asking him a question that was wedged in her mind for a while, but like the many times before, her curiosity beat her to it. “Hey Taehyung, does your mom work a lot?”

He stared at her. “Pardon?”

“I haven’t seen her in your house often and you don’t mention her much either.”

Taehyung buried his hands in his pockets and kept his gaze forward.  “My parents are divorced.”

A silence followed; it sustained horribly.

There was a brick wall up ahead and Hyunjung was tempted to run up and knock her head against it. All she seemed to be saying were the wrong things, and it irritated her to the point of wanting to pull her hair out.

Taehyung glanced at her from the side and observed her anxious expression. “It was eight years ago, I don’t care anymore.”

“But,” she hesitated, “don’t you miss her?”

The rigid look in his eyes dimmed. “It would be a lie if I said I didn't.” he responded.

They approached his house and Hyunjung stood outside of the gate. “I’m sorry.”

He pursed his lips together as he rummaged in his bag for the keys. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then stop, because it had nothing to do with you.”

He unlocked the front door and looked at her before going inside. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Bye.”

The door closed with a click and Hyunjung was left on her own.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The guilt twisted in her chest even after she had said goodbye to Taehyung.

The lights of the convenience store were within her view and she caught sight of the silhouette of a familiar person coming towards her.

Jungkook waved to her with a plastic bag swung on his arm. “What’s with the long face?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “How are you feeling?”

Jungkook looked at her, but didn’t answer. He gave her a tentative smile as his eyes met with hers as if to assure her, but from the solemn look in his eyes, she knew that not much had changed since the last time she asked. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again after considering his words. “Hyunjung,” he finally said. “Thanks for being with me at lunch earlier, it really helped.”

She tilted her head. “Helped with what?”

A small smile eased onto his face; a smile that made you question the reason behind it. “A lot of things.”

Before she could reply, he pulled her by the wrist and locked his arms around her into a tight embrace. Her breath hitched in . Not exactly knowing how to respond, she awkwardly put her arms around him, knowing that he’d pull away if she didn’t. He had hugged her like this before, but this was different, felt different. It felt like the small wings of a hummingbird was pattering against her ribcage - continuous and rapid. The passing feeling was warm, uplifting and sweet, but wholly unfamiliar and strange.

He drew back, looking into her eyes for a moment before staring back at the ground. “Goodnight,” he said hastily. And just like that, he had gone as fast as he came. She gulped with unease, laying a hand against her chest as she watched Jungkook’s distant figure. The pulsing gradually slowed as she drew in a long breath, dismissing the abrupt sentiment she just felt. The feeling lingered in her even after she arrived home.