⊱Notre rencontre était mon souvenir préféré⊰

Our meeting was my favorite memory

┏━━━━━━༻♔༺━━━━━━┓

"Really, Kyungwon, thank you for the amazing feast yesterday! I've never eaten lobster or shrimps before and they were so so delicious!

"Yeah! Your birthday party was awesome, friend!"

One of the male students sitting at the back lost his concentration on the math equation he was solving and looked up ahead at his classmates crowding around his friend, Kyungwon, going on and on about the birthday party he wasn't aware of. If anything, he thought his friend was celebrating it at home with his family. He never would have thought that his friend would invite everyone else but him, his friend to the party.

He wondered if he made him mad before or did something wrong, but no matter how hard he sought for any fault, there was none. None whatsoever. After all, he wasn't the type to upset a friend.

Biting his lips, the boy tried focusing on the math equation again, but the excited cheers from his classmates and the warm tears slowly blurring his eyes were too much to ignore.

Thoughts like "Why me? Why didn't he invite me?" were plaguing his pure mind, leaving a nasty scar with no reason. He couldn't possibly confront his friend for he feared that his friendship would be damaged by doing so.

That's why he struggled to hide his tears, wanting to keep his friend by his side instead. That was a brave yet foolish move of the seven year old. No person would let himself be mistreated for no reason. Especially someone who was supposed to be close to you.

His breath hitched when someone asked, "Why didn't you invite Taehyung though?"

He thought his heart broke when his friend chuckled, "Ah, yeah, sorry, I didn't know his phone number."

•───────────⋅⚜️⋅───────────•

"Help me during the test pal, okay?" One of his friends told Taehyung with a pat on his shoulder from his front seat to which the boy smiled.

"Of course."

This wasn't an unusual occurrence to him. Having top grades meant having good reputation, and having top grades also meant having many dependences from other students. Your friends, in particular.

Valuing his friendships with those students, Taehyung would always try his best to save them during tests. From whispering the answers to throwing papers around, he would do anything.

One time, he received the cold shoulder from his friends when he refused to help them and it wasn't a pleasant experience. He never wanted that to happen ever again.

"You can use me," he would sometimes say, "I would definitely help my friends."

But the ten year old boy would often wonder why some of his friends never interacted with him about anything other than school related things.

•───────────⋅⚜️⋅───────────•

"Hey man, this is my address."

Taehyung was confused about why his friend was giving him his address but happily took it with a smile. "Thanks."

"I'm having a birthday party at my house after school tomorrow and I'm inviting you, Tae," the other boy chimed, blossoming warmth in Taehyung's chest and widening his smile in an instant.

"Really?! I will definitely come, Myungjin-ah!"

That night, the cheerful boy couldn't possibly fall asleep, imagining about the first birthday party he was going to attend the next day. Tossing and turning, he kept smiling to himself all night.

With a present he prepared for his friend, the thirteen year old boy followed the address he was given with so much elation bursting in him. He barely got a wink of sleep last night, but he was as awake as ever, feeling over the moon.

However, he soon realized that the address he was given was a wrong one and his friend never picked up the phone when he called him for over two hours while roaming the streets with the present still clutched in his hands.

Defeated and worn out, Taehyung came back home and got a call from one of his other friends, asking him where he was and telling him how great the birthday party was. Forcing himself to lie that he had stomachache and wasn't able to go, he, once again, decided to turn a blind eye to the matter.

His loud sobs were the only sound inside his empty home and the first thing he yearned for was his mother. With trembling hand, he called his mother but what answered him was her voice mail.

•───────────⋅⚜️⋅───────────•

Taehyung grunted from the sudden blow to his jaw and tried to steady himself with his hand against the wall. Shooting a glare at the men surrounding him, he growled, "What's your problem?!"

The one who punched him chuckled mockingly before pushing him against the wall and grabbing him in a chokehold. "The problem? Stay away from Jiyeon, you hear me, flower boy?"

Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows. This wasn't new at all. "Hey, we didn't do anything else but eat lunch together. What's the deal?"

"Well, if you didn't know, she's mine and I hate it when someone is around what's mine," the thug snarled, tightening his hold. "God, she should be put on a leash!"

"You shouldn't do that," Taehyung retaliated, earning snorts and snickers from the men around him.

"You know what else I shouldn't do?" The hooligan suddenly kneed him in the stomach and threw him on the ground. "That. But I just did."

This wasn't new at all. Taehyung's looks had attracted girls' attention everywhere he went. He was the main topic of the students, always receiving confessions and love letters from girls, and hate and beatings like this from boys.

He was forced to deal with this. He couldn't remember when he started isolating himself from everyone. He only remembered the sheer pain he felt and how he realized the bitter reality he lived and then, making an awful decision to finally free himself.

The seventeen year old boy stared blankly out the window as he sat at the back of the classroom, a seat he purposely occupied to avoid interactions with others. He never knew how easy it was for the others to start ignoring him once he himself started ignoring them.

"It's better this way," he would persuade himself. "No one can hurt me if I don't allow them to."

"Attention, everyone! We have a new transfer student today," the teacher announced as he walked in, but the boy wasn't paying attention to him. "Come on in!"

A long dark haired girl strode towards the teacher and bowed to the whole class with a small smile, a seemingly forced one. "Nice to meet you all. My name is Jang Seoyun and I'll be studying with you all from now on."

The students started whispering to each other about the new student and words of jealousy could be heard among them.

Unknowingly, Taehyung's eyes slipped from the window to the front and became glued to the new girl's face, widening slightly. She was beautiful, it was obvious.

Somewhere in his chest, something tugged and he didn't like it one bit. He wasn't supposed to be interested in anyone.

•───────────⋅⚜️⋅───────────•

Just a week into her new school, Seoyun was the hot topic of her classmates. Some even claimed that she transferred because she was expelled from her previous school. Still, that was just a baseless rumor as she got the highest scores in tests among her peers...

...even surpassing Taehyung.

Despite the spiteful rumors, girls tried befriending her to which Seoyun responded kindly, but never delved deep into friendship, only maintaining a respectable association. She would sometimes chat and eat lunch with them.

But whenever she was in the cafeteria, Seoyun would focus on only one thing.

She would end up staring at a lone boy across the room. Wonder, confusion and fascination were what she felt whenever her eyes laid on him.

She would suppress her wish to go talk to him.

•───────────⋅⚜️⋅───────────•

"Taehyung, right? Kim Taehyung?"

The boy momentarily looked up from the notebook on his desk to acknowledge the girl's presence with a silent nod and focused back on the task before him.

"Okay," Seoyun murmured to herself and closed the door before walking to the chair in front of him and sitting down, facing him.

Seconds turned to minutes as he heeded no attention to the girl sitting in front of him and simply continued scribbling on the stacked papers. Seoyun wondered if she offended him in any way before or if he was withdrawn like that with everyone as she thought.

"Why don't other students interact with you?"

Taken aback by her intrusive question, he froze for a moment before continuing to grade the papers, still silent.

Still, she wasn't falling back.

┗━━━━━━༻♔༺━━━━━━┛