Purple Is Just A Color|| vkook

7~ "Hate is such a strong word, princess"

Tae POV

I sigh deeply and roll up the long stretch of parchment which is now covered in black little letters making up my potions essay.
While sitting up and stretching my back, I look around myself and sigh again.
It’s a mess.
I’ve been working on this week’s homework which is an awful lot even though it’s only Wednesday and I also started making up for all the work I never handed in.
Currently, I am sitting in one of the big and plush seats in the Slytherin common room, having snatched it right after Herbology ended since there are only a total of 4 of these perfectly soft green chairs and in my opinion, this one is the best one.
It’s right next to the wall consisting of glass that makes it possible for us students to look out into the lake, the soft and shimmering green light perfect to study and do homework like in my case.
There are piles of bunched up parchments and carefully rolled up ones around me, filled with the homework of a lot of subjects for a lot of time.
When I came here to this school, I had planned on doing nothing at all like I was used to because nobody cares about my grades and me in general anyways but… that annoying little Ravenclaw prefect, Jeon Purple… she is awfully ambitious for a Ravenclaw and she never stops nagging me about my carelessness and rather bad grades and that sparked something in me that I am still failing to explain.
She works hard for what I gave away, a dream and a goal and she is doing everything to achieve it and that behavior sparked something in me and here I am, making up for all the work because it isn’t hard for me at all.
And while she is succeeding in all her classes, she is not ashamed to show it off, never misses a chance to subtly notify other people, including me, about her outstanding efforts so I carefully chose her favorite subject, Transfiguration, and worked hard for beating her on a test, just once.
At first I had felt euphoric when I did so, thinking it would give me some kind of power over her and successfully stopping myself from getting attached to her hard-working self.
Never had I expected her to wreck herself about it the way she did and I still feel horrible about it.
I don’t know what drove me when I followed her after I noticed that she was holding back actual tears about what she called an imperfection and failure but I did, and what I found was not the Purple I had seen so far.
It wasn’t a Purple that she ever showed to anybody but me.
No, she accidentally exposed a vulnerability, even fear to me and that was the moment a part of me started watching her, watching out for her and what I saw surprised and shocked me at the same time.
I discovered that the girl I had ridiculed for trying too hard is actually an ambitious and hard-working person that is never satisfied with herself no matter how good she is.
I saw that the sassy personality is just an act she puts up for herself and everybody else around her and the longer I saw her keeping the facade up relentlessly, after I even caught a glimpse of her actual, hidden exhaustion in the prefect bathroom at the beginning of October… something in me shifted.
And that something started to grow and started to remind me of my childhood even though those kinds of memories are carefully locked away in the furthest and darkest corner of my mind.
Memories of my young self being exactly like Purple, hard-working and with the constant goal to please everybody around me and fulfill their expectations.
But nobody warned me of how it would be to lose exactly that.
Nobody told me what it is like to lose that part and become a shell that is refusing to care about people’s opinions.
Nobody told me what it is like to not have anybody to please anymore, to not be cared about in any way anymore.
To be alone.
And being alone killed the hope- and joyful child in me and the hole that was left, the dark void that dared to swallow me like it did with my mother is toxic.
Like a poison slowly flowing through my veins and changing me from an ambitious middle schooler that desperately wanted his parents to notice him to a High school kid that wore a scowl like a mask, that skipped class to smoke, that beat up people for fun because maybe… just maybe his parents would come home to talk to him about his disrespectful behavior, show him that they indeed still cared about him, his education and his future.
But they didn’t.
The only thing they did was send him to yet another boarding school so he is taken care of.
And the little boy grew up but his walls grew with him and protected him from ever trusting a person again just so they could destroy him when he is the most vulnerable, keeping him from giving in and leaning onto another individual that sees him, that loves him for who he is and that appreciates his efforts.
Somebody like Pur-
NO!
I shake my head and ignore my shaking hands while I collect feathers, empty ink bottles and parchments from the floor around me and carry them back to my room so I can hand them in tomorrow.
I am about to go back out there and stare into the seemingly endless water again without drowning in my own thoughts when I notice a note on my bedside table, my own messy handwriting on it.
I squint and read it, which results in a groan.
I completely forgot about this but now that I remember the astronomy homework for tonight, I grab my telescope and other materials and leave the Slytherin common room to head to the astronomy tower.
There are only a few students in the hallways seen as it is already late, dinner is over and we need to be back in our houses soon but I am sure I can sneak onto the tower and back to complete this assignment before it is due.
While walking up the stairs, I meet Purple’s friend Lisa, a tall and friendly girl and she greets me with a quiet mumble as she yawns while obviously heading back to bed, her astronomy homework in her arms.
Apparently I am not the only one who is a little bit late with the latest assignment and I climb the last steps and open the door.
I had hoped to be alone and be able to work in peace and silence without any disruptions, but there is one other person up here, taking scribbled notes about a constellation we are supposed to name.
They are small and their hair is tied together in a low ponytail, causing the locks, the color of which is hard to figure out in the darkness, to fall all over her back.
As the door falls shut with a ‘click’, she turns around and starts talking.
“Seriously, why am I never able to- oh.”
‘Oh’ describes it well.
Of course it is Purple who is here and I don’t like the warmth that is erupting in my stomach and chest and the smile that is daring to sneak onto my lips.
I need to stop liking her… getting attached to her and feeling good in her presence, it won’t end well, it never does.
“Hi” I force out and walk over to the brim of the tower and start setting up my equipment to get this over with as fast as possible but I can’t ignore her. 
Neither the way she hums under her breath while carefully taking notes nor the hasty stares she is throwing into my direction and I groan and look over to her.
“What?” I ask and I sound harsher than I wanted to.
“Nothing” she snaps back and I can hear how defensive she sounds.
“You are staring at me. Didn’t your parents teach you that that’s rude?”
She scowls and lays her quill down, a dribble of ink staining her parchment while she crosses her arms in front of her chest and her voice is icy when she responds.
“Excuse you? I was not staring and of course my parents taught me how to behave. Not that they have anything to do with you being rude for no reason.”
I chuckle and interrupt setting up my stuff, the homework slipping into the background of my mind.
“I am not being rude, I am stating facts. I don’t blame you for using this excellent opportunity to look at me. I know that I look handsome.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes at me, slightly shaking her head but… is that a blush creeping into the tips of her ears?
“You do in fact not look disrespectfully handsome, you are just as ugly as you were when I was exposed to more of… you” she says and vaguely points at my body and I smirk as she is obviously talking about the bathroom incident.
“Oh come on princess”, she scowls at the nickname,” you are just trying to distract the both of us from the fact that you are almost late with your astronomy homework. How non-prefect-like of you.”
Her blue eyes darken and her grip around herself tightens and I doubt that it comes from the cold breeze up here.
“Lord, Tae you are so annoying, why don’t you focus on the fact that you are at least one month too early with the assignment. You never hand in shit on time.”
Ouch.
“Well, nobody ever expects me to deliver, do they?”
My voice is cold as ice and basically dripping with resignation and bitterness.
It stings, my own words so painful in my chest as she is right. I never meet expectations even though I doubt there is anybody who hasn't given me up yet.
She just shrugs and turns back to her work without another word, the silence between us toxic and cold and I can feel myself suffering from it.
We both work silently for a while until I can hear Purple curse and I look over to her as she angrily rips her parchment into two pieces and pulls out a new one.
“Ohhh, did you get it wrong?” I ask, still hurt by her words but I can’t hold back from making her react to me, as it is the only genuine emotion anybody shows me seen as nobody has been that honest with me for a long time.
“Yes I did. I don’t get this one but I have to do it tonight or else the planets will have moved too far. Happy now?!”
I am surprised by the desperate tone she is failing to hide under her harsh anger and I step closer to her, my slim fingers reaching out to touch the bare skin of her wrist.
“Do you need help princess?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper and I am very unsure of how she will react, bracing myself for another outburst.
And rightly so.
Purple turns to me, slapping my hand away and raising her voice as she snaps.
“Oh my god, Tae! Just leave me alone! Honestly, I hate you, just let me be.”
My hand falls to my side and my face drops, returning to my motionless mask in a second, her words washing over me like a bucket of ice cold water, making the warmth in my chest fade and freeze to ice, enclosing around my heart.
“Ahh, hate is such a strong word, princess.”
I try and joke about it and I doubt that she is able to hear the pain and hurt drenching my voice and I turn back and fastly start doing the assignment, frantically looking for something to focus on apart from the gaping hole that is slowly ripping open my chest, pushing me into a darkness I do not want to have in me.
I dig my nails into my skin, hoping for the pain to chase away the poison in me and I feel cold, desperately wishing the warmth of… something on my skin or heart.
“Just shut up! I don’t need you.”
Right.
I bite down on my lip to stop a sob from escaping them, my body starting to shake and I grab my stuff and rush back down the staircase, ignoring the stone weighing down my heart and, slamming all doors behind me, I lock myself in the bathroom of the room I have to share and splash cold water onto myself and then stare at myself in the mirror.
I look into a pair of grey-blue eyes that look empty, in a pale face surrounded by messy blonde hair.
I breathe heavily and grab onto the sink tightly so my knees don’t give in.
Stop it, Kim Taehyung.
Stop thinking about the next time you see her already, stop it, she doesn’t need you.
Give her up and let it go.
She just doesn’t care.
Nobody ever does so stop hoping.
.
.
.
But deep down I know that I won‘t.
It‘s already too late.