LOST STARS

Chapter 22

“I had never imagined that Aehyun would come back into my life, at least not like this,” Yoongi thought as he walked towards the shop, hopeful to meet Aehyun again. Although over the years Yoongi had learned that the younger boy’s name was Taehyung, he would always remain Aehyun for Yoongi. That's the name he used to introduce himself that day at the clock tower, and that will always be the person Yoongi knew.

That day, Yoongi met Aehyun again on the same street. They sat on the same bench and ordered the same cup of tea from a vendor. For Yoongi, the shops, the market, everything was the same, like the market square of Boseong.. But for Taehyung, however, the most critical change that wasn’t lost on him was the shop where his bicycle was parked. That shop, sadly, was not Jimin’s. There were times when Taehyung used to stop and think about how Jimin must be doing. He hoped the police and community people did not give him unnecessary stress by asking questions about Taehyung.

Taehyung had happily settled into his daily routines, but he missed one thing the most. Sunghoon. He never thought he would miss ‘talking’ to someone so much. All his woes and worries would fly out of the window when he used to reach home and his father would just sit and listen to him.

A few weeks after coming to Seoul, after the dust settled, Taehyung started feeling the void. But Taehyung being Taehyung, was not corrupted by the negatives of the world, which was a good thing. Because he didn’t have anything except optimism in his bones. That’s exactly how his father had raised him.

At the day’s end, after he wrapped up his sales, like always, he used to have some spares left. Just like in Boseong, the street kids would huddle around him, and he would tell them some stories about those animals and hand over those balloon animals to the kids. However, what changed in Seoul was that he would retain one large balloon.

The black marker was always with him in the thread’s bag. In his broken words and sentences, he would write the day’s worry or excitement, or high or low—the highlight of his day and release the balloon up towards the sky.

Taehyung felt automatically lighter after doing that and the spring in his steps towards going to ‘their’ home was just natural.

After he saw Yoongi the next day, he wrote, “My heart still skips a beat seeing his smile. But… He’s not Jungkook.” However, what Taehyung missed noticing was that he introduced Jungkook to Sunghoon that day.

********************************

The next day, it happened again. Yoongi came to meet him. The bench, the tea, the conversation everything came naturally to them. Yoongi smiled a lot more on the third or fourth day than he did on the first day he met Taehyung at the market.

As Yoongi drove back home on the fourth day, he looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He could just see Yoongi. Not Professor Min, not the head of the family with responsibilities. Just that 20-something boy who was taking one day at a time, and building life experiences. His eyes used to have a glint that got lost down the way. He hadn’t seen his eyes light up like they were shining now. It was as if Yoongi was staring at the boy he thought got lost somewhere between being a professor and a husband.

Aehyun and Yoongi kept meeting day after day. Aehyun always made time for Yoongi, post the college hours were his usual visit time. The owner of the utensil shop agreed to keep an eye on his bicycle, balloons, and the other stuff.

On the eighth day of their meeting, Taehyung pointed his fingers upwards and asked Yoongi something, his hands making a sign of home. Yoongi didn’t have any doubts about what Taehyung was asking, “Will I come and see your home?” He enthusiastically mouthed. Taehyung gave an equally happy nod in agreement.

Taehyung walked in front and Yoongi carefully followed him through the narrow passageway to the stairs, making sure not to stain his clothes or drop something on the way.

Yoongi’s smile broadened to see the terrace roof, which had so many small, colourful origami animals hanging and lying around. It was a very well-lit rooftop with natural light. There,, he saw a small set-up of a room at one end with a medium-sized doorway.

Suddenly, Taehyung stopped in his tracks and turned around to gesture and ask Yoongi, “Is it okay for you to wait here for 5 mins?”

Yoongi was confused, he wasn’t expecting this, but of course, it was a natural thing to take a moment when someone came to your house unannounced. “Of course, of course,” Yoongi tried to calm Taehyung down and make it look completely natural.

Taehyung opened the door and went in. As had become a daily habit, Taehyung immediately jumped to look behind the door. The hide-and-seek jumpscare had become the norm greeting between Taehyung and Jungkook.

But how was Jungkook supposed to be there? He didn’t know Taehyung was coming. The communication system (mirror reflection) had not been booted for this visit. Taehyung continued to look inside, behind the small partition they had created for Jungkook and his origami paper and colours. There he was, sitting and colouring a bluebird as Taehyung went and tapped on his shoulder.

Jungkook was immediately startled, of course. Taehyung took a minute to calm him down. When Jungkook’s breathing got normal, he still went ahead to scare Taehyung. That was how innocent and how pure he was. And Taehyung jumped to show he got scared. That was just how caring and sensitive Taehyung was.

Once those shenanigans were done and handled, Taehyung immediately pulled Jungkook by his wrist and got him to sit on the bed. He pulled a clean collared t-shirt and nice khaki shorts from the closet and gestured for Jungkook to change. He waited for the nod from Jungkook as he proceeded to help Jungkook get out of his existing clothes. Jungkook may have had too many questions, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t even know clearly what he wanted to ask.

As Taehyung helped him get into the shorts, Jungkook spread both his arms. It was from muscle memory, sort of a very offbeat dance choreo synchronised for just the two of them. Taehyung straightened Jungkook’s shirt and tucked it into the shorts, tightening the buttons as much as needed. There was an urgency in Taehyung’s body language, but he was careful not to push Jungkook around. He was as soft as ever. However, Jungkook noticed the staggering breath and the continuous bites on the bottom lip, which tried to hide the smile Taehyung didn’t seem to be able to control.

He gave Jungkook a look from head to toe and smiled. It was rare for Jungkook to wear nicer clothes ever since they had been together. And dressing up made him look extremely misplaced in this broken setup. One look at Jungkook and anyone could tell that he came from a well-to-do family.

.
.
.
..
.
.
.