The Angel in the Black Sweater | Kim Taehyung

Chapter 1: L is for Love

7:43 am.

It's a cold-ish, late autumn day, and I'm running along the pavement to catch my tram. Naturally, I miss it by about half a second, and now I have to wait in the cold for 8 more minutes. I put my hands in my pockets and sigh. The cloud escaping my lips fades away and disappears into the cold air as I look up at the sky. 

I look around the station. People huddled up like penguins in their winter coats as they waddle along the cement makes me smile. I wonder what their story is, where they're going, what pushed them out of bed this morning. Actually, I wonder for about two seconds and then I'm enlightened. You see, I have some sort of a skill. I can tell what's going on in the head of a person just by seeing their facial expression. I don't know how I do it, I'm just never wrong, and so far, I've been able to do it for anyone I see.

Oh. Here's my tram. I get on, sit down on one of the red, metal seats and put my headphones on. First day of school. I'm 17, it's my last year of this hell commonly called "high school". And no, I'm not exaggerating, mother. I have absolutely no friends and I live my life just surviving through one day after the other. I'm invisible, camouflaged behind my books and by black clothes. I am nobody when it comes to that place, just a background character in a cheap drama. I find myself wanting to run away, wanting more to my life. 

I have a perfectly ordered day, during the school week. Late to the first tram, headphones, work, followed by work, followed by daydreaming, cheap food, followed by work, followed by the tram back, accompanied by headphones. The work is drowning me. The loneliness, the stress, the coming home to my foster parents fighting again, I just want to lock myself up in my room, listen and play my bass guitar to my favorite bands, read books sitting on the window sill and watching TV shows. I want to scream most of the time. That's all that brings me comfort these days, to be honest. Fiction. 

Experiencing someone else's emotions through illusion. It's all I have left. Let's not forget music. I would probably be a vegetable by now if I didn't have my idols. 

Whoops, here's my stop: High School. Wouldn't want to miss my fill of hell for the day. It could be worse, everyone could hate me, but for all I know, they don't care about me one bit. I know it, as I said, I know what people are thinking. A skill I've acquired after being so silent and thinking so much. I don't talk but that doesn't mean I have nothing to say.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I'm actually happy, believe it or not. Because I have a distraction. A guy I see every day on the tram. I don't know his name, I don't know his story, all I know is he sits, covered in black, with his headphones on and a guitar between his knees, and it gives me a feeling that I'm not the only one in my world. In my pitch black dark world, I see a ray of light. He looks like me, and that brings me a spark of happiness which helps me through the day, waiting until I get on the tram to see him when I go home. Every day, I see a new detail on him. The first day, it was the blonde hair. The second, it was the brown eyes, which, if you ask me, go pretty well with the jet black clothes he wears. The third was the lip ring. Alright, I find that extremely cool, I admit it. Although, some days he doesn't wear it. He's grunge as all heck, I must admit, but I kind of love it. 

As the days passed, I found myself looking forward to Monday mornings, which I never thought would happen. I couldn't help it, I was interested... or maybe obsessed. Can you blame me? I have nothing to lose, nothing else to think about. It's after I made some research on the internet (my trusty friend) that I understood what my feelings were about. A Buzzfeed quiz not only helped me figure out what type of fruit I was, but also made me realize that I had a crush on this stranger. And I thought that could never happen again after I had my heart ripped out of my chest and sowed back in multiple times. Yes, I'm a little overdramatic in my inner monologue, but when you live a life as lifeless as mine, that's necessary in order to survive.

Oh no... I think I'm in love. Hah! Or am I? I don't even know what love is?? Or do I? Either way, I have a huge crush. On a stranger. He could be a serial killer for all I know. And he looks emo as fuck. Typical.