Opposites Attract | Taejin

Chapter Thirty-One

Taehyung was chewing on his bottom lip as he stared at his tea, observing his dejected expression reflected in the brownish liquid and feeling his hands being warmed by the beautiful porcelain cup decorated with pinkish flowers while watching the steam waves dissipating in mid-air before hitting his face. He sighed in frustration as he mindlessly ran his thumb over the rim of the cup, completely ignoring the conversation between Gunhak and Soonyoung, his mind was too busy thinking about what happened that morning when he dropped Hoseok off at school.

When he arrived at the school, Taehyung saw Seokjin dropping Jimin off as usual, he panicked about what he should do – should or shouldn't he approach Seokjin and talk about what happened –, however, Taehyung was still doubtful about his decision and was completely lost, he hated the tense atmosphere between them, even Yoongi and Jungkook knew something was wrong since he usually would go to Seokjin and annoy the hell out of him like he always did. Taehyung was hoping to solve the awkward situation as quickly as possible, but apparently, Seokjin decided to avoid him and walk away from him, he didn't want to jump to conclusions and think the older male was hurt because of his harshness towards him, therefore he purposely ignored him and instantly left the school after saying goodbye to Jimin, maybe it was like Namjoon said, maybe Seokjin was respecting him by giving him some time to process, if that was the case, Taehyung didn't want that, he wanted his relationship with the man to go back to normal, they were finally getting somewhere.

"Hey, Tae, are you okay? You seem off today..."

Taehyung lifted his gaze from his tea and glanced at Soonyoung, who was sitting next to him, eyeing him worryingly, not knowing what he ought to say to appease his friend.

"Ah, yeah..." Taehyung responded expressionlessly, turning his attention to the porcelain cup once again "I just have a lot on my mind right now..."

"Taehyung, you turned off your phone and disappeared from this Earth for two days, now you are in a staring contest with the cup and I think you're winning, I know something happened while you were missing and it's bothering you" Soonyoung retorted as he stroke Taehyung's pink locks, noticing his friend pouting, a pout meant that something definitely was wrong "You can talk to me and Gu, right, Gu?" Soonyoung asked surely, averting his attention to Gunhak, his blue-haired friend seemed lost in his thoughts "Gu, I could use a little help here with our baby"

Gunhak remained quiet for a moment as he lowered his head, suspecting about the subject that was upsetting Taehyung, he was afraid to ask to confirm, not wanting to do more damage, however, seeing his friend like that – his friend who usually had a big smile on his face, who was always talking so cheerfully about Hoseok and having fun at Seokjin's expense –, Gunhak needed to make sure and, if it was indeed what he was thinking about, then he, along with Soonyoung, had to do everything in his power to bring the real Taehyung back to the surface.

"You saw him, didn't you?" Gunhak inquired solemnly, still not making eye contact with Taehyung "You saw Hongseok at the bar that night..."

Taehyung instantly looked at Gunhak, questioning how his friend knew about his encounter with Hongseok in the bar that night, Yoongi wouldn't talk about that matter without telling him because, despite being best friends, both of them respected each other private lives, so there was no way Gunhak got that information from him, the only explanation Taehyung could come up with was his blue-haired friend witnessed him acting shameless with Hongseok, that thought just made him regret his drunken actions even more.

"How is that possible? Unless he was stalking us, there is no way Hongseok would know we were at that bar" Soonyoung retorted incredulously, looking between Gunhak and Taehyung "Tae, d-did you see him that night? Is that why you ghosted us?"