Malli|TK

2

CONGRATS

"I heard she's done with correcting our exams already."

"For real? It's been what? Two days?"

Taehyung was sitting on his usual seat in the second row, right next to the window. There were no set seats in their class, yet Taehyung was always to be found sitting on the same place over and over again, each and every lesson. He loved this place for some reason, it had a beautiful view on the school garden outside and Taehyung liked to let his gaze roam there from time to time. Also, as the window was to be found on the east side, Taehyung can see the sunrise in mornings. The calming effect this would always have on him had him liking this place just more.

However, that's not the case when his seating neighbor turns out to be Jeon Jeongguk.

"Hey, boring," the ravenette greeted, making Taehyung avert his gaze from the view outside, glance to Jeongguk once, visibly roll his eyes and then turn back to look out of the window.

"Rude," Jeongguk marked, pulling his stuff out of his school back. "You looked lonely, I just wanted to keep you some company. Appreciate it."

Taehyung scoffed under his breath, knowing fully well Jeongguk did not mean what he said. "Why thank you, that's so sweet of you," he responded, the sarcasm evidently in his voice.

Jeongguk chuckled. "As I heard we're getting our exams back."

Taehyung tried to ignore him, seriously. He hated when Jeongguk would suddenly talk to him out of nowhere, hated when he would act like a normal person to him. It makes him fear it. He rather wants Jeongguk to tease him, then him to be nice and crush Taehyung's fragile heart for the second time.

"There are about ten other empty seats, why pick the one next to me? Am I not boring you?" Taehyung grumbled, annoyed, hating to refer to himself as boring, like Jeongguk always does. For a fact, Taehyung is not boring, not at all. It's just that he was chosen as the school council leader and has to take measurements if someone acts up. That is why Jeongguk came up with the silly nickname.

"I wanna sit here though. Maybe some of your boring personality loosens up if you get some vitamin JK."

Taehyung snorted, turning to face Jeongguk, who had a silly grin on his face. "Keep your vitamin JK to yourself, I'm fine."

"Well, your loss," Jeongguk snickered, pretending to rearrange some sheets in his folder.

"Why do you even bother talking to me?" It was a genuinely asked question. Jeongguk oh so abruptly broke off his whole friendship with Taehyung, ignored him for about a year, until they grew up to turn out even more handsome, their grades getting better, their popularity increasing and their fights to begin.

Honestly, Taehyung would've probably been better off with Jeongguk not even sparing a glance towards him, than getting to see his face everyday, reminding him on the best time of his life that turned into faded memories. And the scars of these memories were deeply engraved in Taehyung, filling him with sadness to the brim.

"As I said you looked lonely—

Taehyung's bitter chuckle interrupted Jeongguk and he just turned back to look out of the window. "As if I wasn't alone after you left me either" he thought, internally cursing at himself as he felt his eyes beginning to sting in the back.

He was not going to cry over Jeongguk. Not again, not anymore.

But the scars were too deep.

Trying to hide his face from Jeongguk, he got up. "M'going to the washroom, please tell Mrs Shin," was the last thing he said, before dashing out of the classroom, speed walking to the washroom.

"Oh my god," he groaned, frustrated over the fact he was crying. He quickly wiped his tears away, scrunching his nose up as he was disgusted by himself as he looked into the mirror.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid..."

He wetted a paper towel with cold water to pat it under his eyes, to get rid of the redness.

But eventually, he let it be, just stared at his reflection. He bit on his lower lip to prevent new tears from falling again as he locked eyes with himself. He hated this. He hated Jeongguk for this.

Taehyung has tried to move on, really. However, seeing Jeongguk everyday and getting treated like this by him was still not something he is used to, even if he pretends to be.

Pretending. That is what Taehyung turned out to be good in, after fooling everyone into thinking he was confident and secure. No one knows that behind this strong facade, there is still a broken kid who misses his best friend more than anything.

Taehyung sighed deeply, as he wiped his tears again. Luckily, his face turned out to be not as red as he expected it to be and a little cold water helped enough to calm his burning skin down.

Composing himself and taking a last deep breath, he went back to the classroom, getting prepared to receive the usual looks that everyone entering a class mid-session gets.

He kept his face usual, bowed to the teacher shortly, who gave him an accepting look.

Taehyung's eyes fell to his seat, where Jeongguk sat next to him, not sparing him a glance.

It annoyed Taehyung.

While he was down there crying about him, Jeongguk was living his life not caring a little bit about how he made Taehyung feel.

Wordlessly, he passed behind the ravenette to get to his seat and slumped down. Taehyung only looked up in surprise when the teacher suddenly appeared in front of him, with a thin stack of paper. Oh, right. The exams.

"Excellent work, Taehyung, you amaze me every time," she smiled sweetly, Taehyung weakly smiling back, bowing lightly.

"Thank you," he whispered, taking his exam to look at his points. 100/100– 100%.

He was pleased, of course, who wouldn't be? Getting full marks is always good.

Jeongguk took a sneak peak to Taehyung's points. "You have one point more than me."

Taehyung just hummed. Usually he would brag about it to Jeongguk, but he was not feeling like it now. 

"Congrats."