Taekook Oneshots

Reminiscence

If summer evenings were to be described in words, they would be as beautiful as those poems written by couples who were deeply in love with each other. There is innocence and purity in those poems, which were only meant for their beloved.

Crossing Hongdae Street, where fewer cars were driving, I was thinking mindlessly, an old habit of mine to be stuck in my own thoughts. My feet halted when I realized I was already in front of the main door of my house.

The first thing I did was prepare a cup of coffee for myself and plop on the couch in my living room.

After spending the whole day giving lectures and being busy in the conference room, how different this empty evening felt.

I remembered my hometown, Daegu. There used to be strong winds back there at this time, and evenings used to feel like blown-out candles. Placing the cup on the table, I played some songs on my phone.

The sad lines of the song occupied the silent room, but something in my heart ached like a needle piecing in there, relieving something old—an old wound. Unable to bear it, I stopped the song.

My attempts at distracting myself were going in vain. I was exhausted, somewhere defeated. I was not able to pretend anymore.

Him meeting me today out of nowhere made my cold heart shiver, it was awakening something in me, something that was far years old.

As if throwing a stone into a still stream of water. As if breaking the walls, I had built around my heart that had taken me years, but he broke it with just one meeting.

My mind travelled back to the moments that happened today.

"Coming up next is Jeon Jungkook from Seoul University." This announcement was what caused my eyes to move up from my files in search of that face—that person whose name was called right now.

Oh, how much I wish I was hearing it wrong, or this is some other Jeon Jungkook, not someone I was knowing. But no, my senses were working perfectly fine, neither were my ears working badly nor were my eyes betraying me.

I was looking at the same face—the same face I had sworn I would never look at again. I had promised this to myself eight years ago. When I first looked at him intensely, I could not find many differences in his features.

Just that his hair had grown a little longer, he had a lip piercing, and oh, he got his eyebrow piercing removed. Same bunny smile and same glasses that used to look so good on him. Nothing had truly changed in him.

But I was a completely different person now. I was not the same Taehyung I was years ago. Was I?

Just like those warm steams coming from the coffee wandering in the air above, my mind too wandered like those warm steams and went eight years back.

This love is a very beautiful feeling, but it does give me some mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it forces one to worry about their loved ones and spend less sleep nights, sometimes wetting those pillow covers in the desire of their love.

But love never takes care of itself. Lovers sometimes, or almost all the time, forget about their entity, their own existence.

The journey of dreaming how that me will change to us does not let one have a peaceful sleep.

Even I was in love—a love similar to this. Intelligence, practicality, caginess—anything that makes sense—this love was so far from it.

I was 19 years old, and I had recently taken admission to college. Yes, even I had heard about love stories and college romances, and I was eager to experience one too, just like others.