"Let's talk sex."
He was a spark, a wildfire of flames that intended to set her heart ablaze, and she was merely another doll-faced student who was too easy to mess with.
EXAGUSTD, 2021
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"This week's topic is about emotions," Ms Choi sends an encouraging smile to each of her students, "emotions caught swaying in time, tremors through an unadorned film that speaks volumes about your story - a fib of a faraway memory that holds good for an occult fantasy. The art behind this theme is its essence of portraying your feelings through something so concise, swathed in an empty frame."
I shift in my seat, my arms heaving over the desk in a slump as her voice resounds in my mind. I'm devoid of thoughts as I blink down at her in utter confusion, my phone held carelessly in one hand and the edge of my pencil carelessly twiddled in the other.
It takes me an aloof few minutes to gather my attention on one spot, and it keeps fumbling back to how Taehyung calls me what he calls me. It tweaks a nerve in my rational sense of perceiving things and my spine stiffens at the uncanny feeling of being called a babygirl by someone I barely know - by someone who barely knows me.
My bottom lip is swept beneath my teeth and I wet the inflamed skin before levelling my gaze on our lecturer again. I can feel the heat rise to my neck when I lean against my seat, and the first thing I am inhaling is his musky boyish scent - a disorder of both cologne and steam. I 'm crowded with apprehension at the light-headed feeling it brings along.
"It's a secret," I stare at my professor, my knees pressed together as they start to bounce, "you feel things that don't weigh your expressions, you say things to mask it in a gently mildewed lie and you seek to bury your emotions in your heart - frozen with worry, because you want it to be yours. It's your secret, it's your mystery, and you want to cherish it for as many new beginnings as it would last. I want you to capture that moment in today's class."
The landscape stills there; everyone is holding their breath.
Ms Choi beams at her students, "fire away!"
Her voice funnels down to a summing-up and I'm rumpled with distress when I observe my deskmate's absence. Oh, to miss Park Jimin.
The class is stirring with chatter again, voices tweeting across as they move around to choose their partners and I barely move an inch as my eyes wander to Jungkook.
I don't think he would see me as so much of a hassle, and he is so much easier to get along with - he is cool and collected. His opinions conflicting with mine could bring about a peaceful explosion of talent. Plus, we have established some sort of friendship over the past three days.
I lean into my chair, my knees flouncing with agitation as I crane my neck to find his feathery brown hair. The room is flowing with people as they move around to get ahold of their subject, and I am awkwardly rocking back and forth on my seat as a few girls walk up to the desk behind mine. They are talking to Taehyung in loud, giggly voices and I chew on my lip to ease the anxiety. How ridiculous - it's not like either of them are going to end up married to Taehyung on a white elephant with rainbow ponies hopping around their meadows of liquid love. Why are they trying so hard?
