Eight Letters / Taegyu; Until the End

twelve

if all it is is eight letters

word count; 1585

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"hey hue what's up?"

the boy jumped at the sudden voice mentioning his name from behind. a foreign voice at that. it became apparent that i don't really ever talk to him.

he took out his headphones and looked up at me from his English notes. he smiled at me and surprisingly welcomed me quite warmly to sit on the bench with him.

"you take English?"

he nodded and sighed in distress to display how much he disliked the subject. he seemed quite shy in the social manner despite his bright welcome. he was younger than us of course and still quite new to the school so he probably didn't have many friends, or at least any close ones. so of course it made sense that he might be really nervous. i hoped that he might want to be closer in the way i wanted to be closer to him so that we could be better friends and then i could ease my conscious knowing he at least had someone to trust here. 

"you aren't much of a talker huh? or probably just nervous cause we haven't talked much, i'm kind of nervous myself to be honest."

i laughed a little and he hesitated to answer me. maybe he was a lot shyer than i thought.

"are you okay?"

he nodded and cleared his throat a few times. he seemed to be about to say something so i sat quietly and waited patiently. diligently preparing to listen to whatever he was holding on his tongue.

"y-yeah i'm a bit n-ne-ner-n-nervous. i haven't t-talk-ed to many people here y-yet."

"that's okay, no rush. it's totally fine to feel nervous in a new place and surrounded by new people. i know i still get a bit intimidated by the students sometimes and hell i've known these people my whole life."

he giggled slightly with a very innocent, child-like smile that seemed so genuine. maybe my inhibitions about him at lunch were utterly incorrect. he just seemed like a genuinely sweet boy.

"were you feeling okay at lunch? you seemed a bit sad or something."

i looked at him in concern as he watched a colored leaf drift down to his feet. it landed next to a brown and dried up leaf and he picked both of them up and studied them for a moment before remembering that he was in the middle of a conversation.

huening kai reminded me a lot of choi byunchan, beomgyu's older brother. 

we hardly got to see each other and neither did he get to see his younger brother, my boyfriend. he texted often and called when he had the time but he couldn't come down to visit beomgyu very often if even at all sometimes because he was working hard for his college degree to get into his dream job. 

of course he did tend to express his guilt for not being there for his dongsaeng when their parents were gone all the time for work trips. but beomgyu assured him that just speaking to him and hearing how well his hyung was doing with school was enough to make up for it. i also made sure to always let him know that i would watch over beomgyu which made the older choi brother laugh everytime. 

he suffered from an attention deficit disorder so it could at times be difficult to hold a focused conversation with him because he had such issue with the mental illness. but he said he never wanted such a thing to hold him back and he worked with all of his might to stay focused and determined to reach his dreams. that always made me feel so inspired by him.