CHIAROSCURO; TAEKOOK

4 - PORTRAITURE.

A few days went by. I had not spoken to Taehyung (obviously, I could've never mustered up the courage to approach him first). When I reached my classroom, something was a little different.

The air still smelt the same; like old books and oak. The classroom still had the same hickory and pecan colour palette as it always had. The rowdy boys who liked to chuck paper at each other and chase the smaller ones around the room were at it again.

When I finally picked up on that little change that made everything so different, the minuscule tweak to what I was used to, a feeling of both confusion and strange joy came over me. Kim Taehyung had shifted seats. He no longer was at the front of the class where I could only see the back of his head, now he was occupying the seat beside me.

I wondered what he had said or done to change his seat, considering that the rapscallion classmates of mine would never willingly sit directly beneath the teacher's eye. Deciding against asking him the reason behind the shift, I soundlessly slipped into my seat. I could faintly pick up that same caramellic smell, and I turned to look at him. He was focused on scribbling something in a journal. I couldn't tell if he was writing or sketching, but I didn't want to be nosy.

Throughout the day, it was hard not to steal glances at him. Our teacher had not mentioned the fact that he had changed seats out of blue - it was if he belonged in this seat all along. Every now and then I would look over at him, to see what he thought of the lesson. Now that he sat in this new position, the sunlight from the window highlighted his face in an almost angelic way. He didn't look up once to return my frequent glances, and I was glad he didn't. It would have been awkward to explain why I was staring in the middle of the lesson.

"Does God lead us into temptation?"

Kim Taehyung sure was something else. The teacher was concluding the lesson for the day when he had raised his hand to ask this. The teacher almost looked aghast and offended, and Taehyung was unwavering.

"I beg your pardon, Taehyung?"

"If God does not tempt us, why did he do so to Abraham?"

"God was not tempting Abraham to sin, he was testing him."

I could practically see Taehyung's stone-cold stare battling the teacher's disturbed one. Trying to read the expressions on Taehyung's face proved nearly impossible, I couldn't for the life of me decipher whether he was satisfied with the teacher's answer. He simply seemed very deep in thought, and if I looked hard enough, I could almost see the cogs in his brain spinning at lightning speed.

☾

When school had ended for the day, I stopped by the bakery to buy myself a loaf of bread. Then I sat down at the edge of the fountain, quietly watching life go on around me. I saw the boys from school running off to the candy shops, shoes causing the autumn leaves to crunch loudly beneath them. I saw the adults of the town hurrying here and there, all caught up running one errand after another.

Inevitably, my mind wandered to Taehyung again. What an interesting character he was, a multifaceted mystery. Was he tempting me, or was he testing me?

My mere thinking of him must have manifested him, for when I looked up from my loaf of bread, there he stood. I stared at him wordlessly, and he smiled, probably finding hilarity in how dumb I must've looked.

"Mind if I sit with you?" He asked, and I fervently shook my head in response. "I see you come here very often. What are you thinking about?"

"You noticed?"

"Of course. I walk the same route you do after school, how would I not notice?"

"The other boys walk this route too." None of them ever noticed me, I thought. I wondered if I looked like a reject to him, sitting alone here every day. In all honesty, I felt honoured that Taehyung was choosing to keep me company when he was so well-liked in school.

"You remind me so of that German painter Winterhalter's paintings," he said thoughtfully.

"Is that a compliment?" I dared to turn and fully face him, and the genuine, kind smile he was giving me assured me that it definitely was a compliment.

"He was the 'Painter of Princes'," Taehyung mused.

☾

i don't know much about him, but i came across franz xaver winterhalter's paintings, and the ones of the princesses are especially delicate and pretty - this was the kinda vibe i wanted jk & tae to have🥺