Taekook and the ECLIPSE

3 | A Movie in Port Angeles

I felt oddly buoyant as I walked from Spanish toward the cafeteria, and it wasn't just because I was holding hands with the most perfect person on the planet, though that was certainly part of it.

Maybe it was the knowledge that my sentence was served and I was a free man again. Or maybe it wasn't anything to do with me specifically. Maybe it was the atmosphere of freedom that hung over the entire campus. School was winding down, and, for the senior class especially, there was a perceptible thrill in the air.

Freedom was so close it was touchable, taste-able. Signs of it were everywhere. Posters crowded together on the cafeteria walls, and the trashcans wore a colorful skirt of spilled-over fliers: reminders to buy yearbooks, class rings, and announcements; deadlines to order graduation gowns, hats, and tassels; neon-bright sales pitches — the juniors campaigning for class office; ominous, rose-wreathed advertisements for this year's prom. The big dance was this coming weekend, but I had an ironclad promise from Taehyung that I would not be subjected to that again. After all, I'd already had that human experience.

No, it must be my personal freedom that lightened me today. The ending of the school year did not give me the pleasure it seemed to give the other students. Actually, I felt nervous to the point of nausea whenever I thought of it. I tried to not think of it. But it was hard to escape such an omnipresent topic as graduation.

"Have you sent your announcements, yet?" Angela asked when Taehyung and I sat down at our table.

She had her light brown hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail instead of her usual smooth hairdo, and there was a slightly frantic look about her eyes.

Jimin and Ben were already there, too, on either side of Angela. Ben was intent over a comic book, his glasses sliding down his narrow nose. Jimin was scrutinizing my boring jeans-and-a-t-shirt outfit in a way that made me self-conscious. Probably plotting another makeover. I sighed. My indifferent attitude to fashion was a constant thorn in his side. If I'd allow it, he'd love to dress me every day — perhaps several times a day — like some oversized three-dimensional paper doll, having me walk around looking like a Kpop idol.

I tried to look decent most days. My black ensembles didn't seem to bother me or Taehyung much so I didn't worry about what others thought. I did stick with my pink lip gloss, and jewelry which including earrings some days. But that was about it as for as spending a lot of time on my looks.

"No," I answered Angela. "There's no point, really. Eun knows when I'm graduating. Who else is there?"

"How about you, Jimin?"

Jimin smiled. "All done."

"Lucky you." Angela sighed. "My mother has a thousand cousins and she expects me to hand-address one to everybody. I'm going to get carpal tunnel. I can't put it off any longer and I'm just dreading it."

"I'll help you," I volunteered. "If you don't mind my awful handwriting." Jaewoo would like that. From the corner of my eye, I saw Taehyung smile. He must like that, too — me fulfilling Jaewoo's conditions without involving werewolves.