Time | Taegyu ✔️

Chapter Thriteen

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F l o r i s t

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23/08/2021

A new schedule. Different lecturers, tutors and classmates. The norm of a new term. Everything was operating normally and smoothly. If Taehyun's daily life for August was plotted as a graph, a parallel line to the x-axis could be drawn... until an anomaly appeared. And the cause was no other than Choi Beomgyu.

Beomgyu's popularity soared through the roof when one of the professors had a slip on his tongue and announced to everyone in the lecture hall that Beomgyu had received a perfect GPA for the previous term. Beomgyu had the looks, the smarts, and the money. He wasn't lacking in any area. He was perfection and that was what everyone thought of him. However, to Beomgyu, this was unwanted attention. Having a perfect GPA was useless to him. What was he going to do with that when he was bound to pass in less than two years? All he cared about was his relationships with his friends and Taehyun. That were what only mattered to him. He began skipping lectures and tutorials, only attending a few which he shared with Taehyun. Many who were envious and jealous of him thought that he was getting complacent and shunned him. Not like Beomgyu gave a damn though. And it was not like Taehyun would give a shit about this whole ordeal too. However, he had to give a shit. Because Choi Beomgyu was giving him attention. And he was distracting him. He was doing something weird to his heart. Something Taehyun disliked. Something Taehyun felt appalled by. Something that gave him discomfort and made him self aware. Something unexplainable. It bothered him. It wasn't love though. He was sure.

"Who are you googling?" A new friend Taehyun had made, Geon, asked as he peeked over his shoulder at Taehyun's device.

"Choi Do Hyun's apprentices..." Taehyun replied and scrolled through the articles. He had forgotten about it for the past weeks.

"Oh? If I remember correctly, there are only four of them" Geon commented.

Taehyun nodded his head. He knew that much. He slowly went through the profiles of each doctor presented in one of the articles and found the familiar looking man.

"Kim Sang Hoon... Palliative care physician. An outstanding researcher and surgeon who has been making progresses in finding cures for terminal illnesses." Taehyun read it out and frowned deeply.

Beomgyu and a palliative care doctor? What could that mean? There were a few possibilities Taehyun could think of. First, they could have been close because Beomgyu was the grandson and Choi Do Hyun. Beomgyu could also be learning from Kim Sang Hoon. He remembered seeing Beomgyu reading books about terminal illnesses. He could be interested in such areas and going for palliative care in the future. This sounded plausible to Taehyun. Maybe Beomgyu had wanted to study on his own without anyone's help and thus explaining the conversation they had. But he hadn't seen Beomgyu studying at all. Moreover, he had been skipping lectures and classes. Maybe he had given up? But why would he give up when he received perfect GPA? Taehyun sighed. In the end, it didn't make sense. He went on to the next possibility. Beomgyu had a terminal illness. Taehyun scowled at that idea. What was he thinking? Why would he even have such a thought? This possibility didn't sound possible at all. If that was the case, it could not be considered as a possibility. It should be impossibility. He turned to Geon.

"Geon. What does it mean if a palliative care physician told a man that 'Im glad you're enjoying your time' and the man replied 'I'm fine with the way it is now and thank you for everything'? What kind of relationship do you think they have?" Taehyun questioned.