Flawed Perfection

|➵ here's to going ahead

. *･゜ﾟ

❝Take the rope and climb,
close your eyes. ❞

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"It's a ramshackled building filled with flavored smoke eating buffoons. Are you sure you want me to visit such a place? And that too everyday?"

"Honey, just six days of a week.", Taehyun's mother corrected, raising her eyes from the magazine in her hand for the first time in the duration of their 'discussion'.

"Is that supposed to make me feel any better? "

Taehyun's head was spiraling out of the boundaries of reason. It had been another Friday morning untill his parents decided to bomb his existence. They had proposed a change to his schedule: college. Apparently, they had been debating whether to send him there or not but when Taehyun's father declared that he won't be spending heavy bucks to have him home schooled like he had been, it was then as clear as water that Taehyun will be attending the local college of his new hometown.

"That was supposed to be taken as a fact and digested, Taehyun." His mother sighed for the twentieth time. " You should know its pointless to argue with me on this matter. For the record, I was in your favour but then again, he isn't entirely senseless you know, your father. He thinks it will be for the better and I will be betting my trust on that."

It was now Taehyun's turn to sigh. To be real, he wasn't strongly against the idea of attending a college. In fact, some part of him was excited. But that part was greatly overshadowed by the fact that fitting in with a group of teens is excruciating. He would be fine with the studies as he had nothing else to do but it was the socialising part that shook his bones. The awkwardness that would follow his attendance at the college left his mouth in a sour taste.

"Alright, agreed. But I need to shop. I'll need books, references, a school bag, stationary and clothes, not to forget-"

His rant was cut short by her mother's high pitched voice, " The door is always open, honey. Take the money and go to the market." She ended with a smile.

He nodded, his sarcastic smile now mirroring his mother's. As he looked at her, half laying on the couch, flipping through her "Social Synergy" magazine for which she worked for as a content writer- contributing a two page article every sunday, his mother seemed old to him. She no longer had tight skin and jet black hair. Instead, she had shrunken. Her hands and neck lined with wrinkles that now accumulated on her face too. She was no longer a fashionista posing for magazine covers but a decaying lady with thick glasses and bony fingers that write paragraphs over paragraphs for the same magazines now, analysing the outfits that other models wear.

To Taehyun, her job was like a punishment. To see others do what you spent your whole life doing and seeing them prosper through it was her daily routine now. She caught glimpses of herself in every model her eyes scanned and what is more gut wrenching than being forcefully reminded that you were out of business. All because you were old. The aging was a very humbling tunnel through which her mother never really made out the same as she was while entering it. Taehyun disliked how her mother only conceived him after her modeling days were over. Something about the fact that she didn't want a baby to interfere with her career made him question their bond.

With a last look at her, Taehyun twisted on his heel, waltzing to his room to get changed and become presentable before he went to the outside world.

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It was Friday. It was finally Friday. The long awaited weekend was here knocking at Zuki's doorstep and Zuki hadn't loved any other guest as much as she loved this one. The stretched period of pain and suffering was at last coming to an end. Although for a very short time since it'll begin again after two days, Zuki still held this break close to her heart. Sinking in her seat while sighing, Zuki couldn't wait to get home.

The words spoken by the teacher on the podium swirled in the air before entering her left ear only to get pulled out from the right one. This was her last lecture of the day: nutrition. Feliz sat beside her, jotting points down on his notebook without a break. Peeking at it, Zuki could hardly even make out what he was writing. He wrote in a weird curved and slanted cursive and what made it illegible was the speed at which he wrote. A frenzy which caused all the letters to become a mush.

Diverting her focus with a shake of her head, zuki looked outside the window, her favorite activity to do when in a class and she found herself getting drowned in the scenery outside. It sucked the soul out of her and made her body sit lifelessly on that seat while her mind wandered about above the tall trees and over the crowded canteen.

The campus was littered with students of all kinds, there were tall teens, short teens, not teens at all, grown ass adults drinking coffee, numerous of them buried in their books, many others being merry with their friends and a lot more flirting with their found partners.

People watching was basically a shitshow most of the time but very rarely, Zuki would look at humans being humans and start aching for humanity.
In the midst of this process, she felt a hand shake her shoulder.

The class had ended and Felix had already packed his bag.

"C'mon, time to go."

"Uh-yeah, go ahead I'm coming."

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Taehyun could feel his arms being ripped off by the weight of the bags he carried. It was a very wrong decision to come alone to a mall with a lot of money considering that Taehyun lacked self control. In the span of three hours, he had explored the whole vicinity of that mall and had made many shopkeepers happy with his shopping spree.

So far, he had covered his list of items he wanted to buy: some for his wardrobe, some stationary, a backpack which he surprisingly didn't own and even a lunchbox. Through this time he realised that despite his many baseless protests, he was pretty damn excited to attend a college.

"Oh!"

He stopped on his track upon seeing a particular shop. Neon lights decorated the entrance door upon which a huge black board stood. "Hive Salon" was written with white lights over the black board and through the glass wall, Taehyun could see hair equipments glistening and hairdryers whirring. In his lifetime, a salon was probably the place where he had spent most of his time at. Even then, he never felt welcomed there. He was a puppet in their hands and his will or interest never meant shit to the workers there. Being a model meant being a representative and it was unfortunate in Taehyun's opinion that models barely ever had the right to choose what they wanted to represent. He had to do as his mother instructed, who had to do as her manager suggested, who had to do as their company head demanded. It was a vicious cycle of attempting to monopolize the industry which crushed the lives of models while manupilating them into believing that their dreams were being fulfilled. Taehyun had always been an opinionated person with strong beliefs and perhaps this combined with the cursed knowledge of how the industry he was working for actually worked, had become the immediate factors that led him to quitting his well built career.

But looking inside of this Hive salon now, he was suddenly craving blonde hair.

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