When The Tiger Lilies Bloom | Taekook

14. Vintage Blooms

Taehyung didn't know whether he should laugh or cry. Staring at his phone didn't help since the bright screen only showed a message from his best friend.

"bi*ch, thank me and Namjoon hyung later."

There was a selca underneath the message in which Jimin had finger hearts while Namjoon showed his dimple smile. They looked good together. A small grin plastered on his lips after seeing his best friends planning things behind him only to make him happy. It gave him so much comfort just by the thought that at least he has Jimin and Namjoon to stand next to him even after knowing how ridiculous Taehyung and his million-dollar dramas can get as time goes by. He smiles to himself before scanning around the room.

God, this is so...

K-drama style?

The library was dark, and suddenly Taehyung felt the urge to stop the thin string of light with his palm and do a twirl in the middle of the book stack. It was all a fairytale. It was what he wanted, except he was alone, dipped in the scent of old books, and embraced by the foreign feeling he used to hide in him. Just when Taehyung was about to crouch down on the floor to pick up the book named The catcher in the Rye, it all kicked his senses like a truck.

"Hello? Is there anyone here?"

Taehyung called out hiding the smugness with a tense expression written all over his face. He awaited a reply too bad, too impatient to hear that voice, to see that face. He thought no one ever really understood his cravings but how wrong he was since Jimin and Namjoon wrote a freaking drama plot for him, just right in front of his eyes. Fidgeting fingers and uneven heartbeats, Taehyung stood staring at the vacant space between the book stacks.

When he didn't hear anything, his heart dropped, and his gaze lowered as panic slowly started beating his faith in the plan of his best friends. His glance landed on the phone in his jeans pocket, and an idea popped up inside his head. Okay, let's get to work. He mumbled inside and pressed the power button firmly to switch off the phone. With an unsettled feeling inside, Taehyung searched again through the little glint but couldn't spot anything.

His gaze dropped to the floor, and hope slowly started to disappear when no response came his way. Taehyung wanted to throw a tantrum at the world. He was on the verge of crying, with lips pulled between his teeth, trembling while suppressing his tears, hands curled into fists, unable to process everything around him, he stood wanting to disappear away. Just then his gaze landed on a small glint far from him, yet lighting the shady old shacks of the library, he felt his heart squeezing under his ribcage and leaving him starstruck just like that.

Taehyung figured it was a flashlight, probably from a phone. Since he switched off his, it was sure that he wasn't alone there. Yeah, Taehyung did hear a lot about ghosts with unfulfilled desires wandering around their campus to taste the young blood, but this time his mind was not ready to settle upon those thoughts. Heaven, it was creepy and so... Unromantic? He hoped it to be the other way, the way his heart wants.

Then the light moved, from one stack to another, passing through the bunch of books as if it was enlightening with wisdom, Taehyung chose to believe it like that instead of something spooky qualms his mind was trying to decipher. It might be something like the God of Books or fairytales to pick him up from there in a space shuttle to take him away to the land of aliens. Then he heard footsteps.

The moving light and the footsteps- Taehyung held his hand on his heart unknowingly and tried to breathe calmly. Though he was miserably failing at it, he clenched his balled fist tighter than ever to control his nerves.

"Is--- is there anyone---"

Taehyung couldn't complete the sentence when the footsteps stopped, the light became more clear, kind of too shiny to his eyes but he didn't fail to read those eyes, trace those flawless features. He did hear the loud thumping of heart reverberated in the library along with him, he will never fail to catch a glimpse of the mellow rhythm that never beat for him but still, he can feel it even from far away. He was blinded by the cologne that blended with the old vintage pages and stained inks along with the sweet daffodils. His heart had already made the portrait.