VMIN / THE GUTTER

4

tw homophobia, bullying

He watches the world from beneath his hair, and it comes across so dark, as he casually observes the ways in which smiling faces bobble up and down and burst in and out of each other. With all their living skin and bone, the students weave around Taehyung's dark cloud of isolation, as he sits in the back of the class, watching. It's long past the point where people would pay him much attention, so the boy is able to exist in a rather comfortable manner, merely observing the interactions taking place before him.

He tries not to let his gaze linger on Park Jimin, but he can't help but be interested in how tired the boy looks. Slumped over in his chair, with only his palm and crooked elbow keeping him upright, Taehyung can see the unruly mess of his black hair, as it's slightly curled in its edges, shadowing over his face — a face that's pale as a diamond, with dark bags sagging the skin beneath his grey eyes. He looks a wreck, as he struggles to keep up conversations with the fast-talking Yoongi.

Taehyung, growing too curiously disheartened by the sight, as if seeing someone so tired and glum was having a mutual effect, and sucking the joy from Taehyung's mind, he curls a bit further into himself and watches as the teacher prances around.

"Very good work on this, guys," He announces, then, softly, to himself, "very, very good." As he commences handing out their history papers. Taehyung leans back in his seat, and watches the inflations and deflations of muscles as their papers are given back. Notably, he sees how Jimin instantly brightens when seeing his no doubt perfect score, and Mr Kim smiles serenely at him, tells him, "excellent work."

The boy basks in it for a moment longer, before, to Taehyung's mild surprise — seriously, only a very faint trace of surprise — his head swivels around on his neck, and his sharp eyes cut across Taehyung's face. His smirk is smug and mean and the blue-haired boy is irritated by the very sight of it.

As Mr Kim gets to Taehyung, his smile is even broader, an awkward wink accompanying it, and, though he whispers it, the whole class hears him, as he says, "great job. Best in the class."

Taehyung feels his face go a little red, but he combats it in favour of snapping his gaze toward Jimin and offering up an even bigger, brighter smirk. Oh, how he loves to see the way in which Jimin's face turns so exquisitely sour.

Taehyung keeps watching the world go by. He watches the hands of time and doesn't stop them as they grab ahold of him; his mind is pried apart so far as to orient him with a new mantle, wherein he feels as if he's merely floating through the breeze. His body and soul come apart, and, for the majority of the day, he doesn't speak to anyone, doesn't look at anyone, and merely lets the words of his teachers sink through him.

He exists like this until his final lesson of the day, the only lesson he ever skips: physical education. Taehyung's developed a deep rooted hatred for the thing, and not because he was bad — in fact, he believes himself to have a predisposition for activities of that kind — but mainly because, no matter the sport and no matter who he was against, everyone seemed to have a certain proclivity for assigning him target number one.

So, to reduce the chances of sustaining life-threatening injury, he sneaks off to the library.

He finally feels like he can breathe again when he's in the presence of silence. And, when he comes to find the only person he can call a friend in this hell-hole, lingering around the travel section.

"Vacationing?" Taehyung asks Jeon Jungkook, as soon as he finds him, and the younger boy jumps, having somehow not heard the older approaching.

"Fuck, Tae, you scared me." He announces, keeping his voice to a whisper with those rosy eyes of his glittering in the ochre lights that inundate the room. Jeon Jungkook is a tall boy, muscular and, like Jimin, a natural when it comes to basketball, however, unlike Jimin, he was friendly to everyone, and carried about him a smile that preached incandescence and affable warmth. "And, no, I was just trying to find an Atlas."