hi lovelies, sorry for the confusion. this chapter has been rewritten in its entirety because i wasn't very satisfied with the previous version. its quite different to the original so if you'd like to give it a read please do so <3

;;


he could barely breathe.

but a breath worth breathing in this second
would be the death of him.

and when the time would come for him
to speak, he did not think he'd have the
courage to.

he wondered how taehyung did.
how taehyung had.

how taehyung had so carefully detangled his
fingers from his own like it hadn't been the most
difficult thing to do in the world. had placed his hand
gently back in his lap. jeongguk did too, mindlessly.

but now, he simply couldn't understand,
how he managed to so calmly face
her glacier-blue eyes, her gaze as sharp as
a blade that cleaved the icy wind,
sharp enough to shatter the air that was stuck in his
throat. her eyes exhibited dimensions that paint itself
could not exploit, could not express. her physical reality was sinfully beautiful to explore.

he didn't think he'd be here.
not in a million years did he
think he'd ever have the privilege.

why was it that he had to be
terrible at anything civil? at simply looking
her in the eye and opening his mouth. it shouldn't
have been that hard of a task.
yet every flicker of her aqua iris that caught
the sun's iridescent rays left him dumbfounded.
awestruck beyond explanation.

it didn't strike him that he was just
staring at her till taehyung cleared his throat,
looking at him with that weighted stare
under those thick brows of his that snapped him,
once again, back to reality.

what had he said? had he said
something important? jeongguk didn't know.
couldn't focus. couldn't remember what he
himself was going to say in the first place.

why was he even here?

he had to get his thoughts straight.

though somewhere
along the lines, gratefulness seemed
to have lost its meaning.

for jeongguk was ever so thankful
that taehyung was doing
most of the talking for him.

he loved watching him talk and
be older and more responsible.
jeongguk wanted that responsibility.
wanted it to make him look like he
knew what he was doing. which he
certainly did not.

jeongguk didn't know what he
was doing, he doubted that
he ever would.

so he sat there, twiddling his
thumbs and staring at the way
anne's hands reached over to
taehyung's cheek, the way her fingers
gave it a maternal caress and the wrinkles
at the corners of her smile shifted even
more so as she gazed at him fondly.

and then, to the tiny boy sat beside her.

"jeongguk." he blurted out.
but taehyung had already told her that.
he'd already told her his name. how was he to
start now?
when he averted his gaze from her face,
he tried not to look too long at her too-thin
arms.
"my name is jeongguk."

a small hand reached over to his knee,
and like how she had done to taehyung, she patted
it softly, slowly.

"hello my love." she smiled weakly.

jeongguk wondered if her
heartbeat was slower than the way she had moved
that very hand.

"i've..." the boy took a shaky breath.
he'd planned this. he knew what he was
saying. why was he so foolishly stuttering
like an idiot now? isn't this what he craved?
validation? reassurance that he was right all along?
that his thoughts weren't just bizarre
and out of the blue?
anne would help him, would show him that, certainly?

"i've come to talk to you about
your portrait. you know... the... the one
that used to be up in the town hall."

he hoped she'd remember.
how could she forget?
surely not. anyone in their right
mind wouldn't forget a portrait as magnificent
as the one she herself had painted.

"the town hall." she repeated, voice absent.
she looked through him more than at him.
the town hall still stood,
but it was more a place for congregation than
anything. the locals used it as a gathering
vicinity for their close relatives. the togetherness of
the town had long been forgotten after the allies
had come out victorious. there was nothing to
celebrate about the lives that that town had
gallantly forfeited. and lost.
"a gift i gave the war effort." she said.

yes.

"yes, that one." jeongguk sat
up straighter, trying terribly to catch her full attention.
"it was shifted to an art gallery recently. just a
few years ago." her eyes returned to him.

"didn't think they'd have a place for such
a thing." she chuckled, clutching her hand
to her heart. or perhaps she was trying to cover
up her shivering body with her blankets.

"i'd beg to differ anne. i told you before that
it deserved the world." taehyung smoothly
intervened, eyes flickering with passion.

"yes, mrs lister," jeongguk continued.
he adored how respectfully she
listened to him. the way she titled
her head with interest.
"its remarkable actually."

"thank you for noticing it,
my love." she replied softly.
another fond smile.

oh, jeongguk had done far more
than just notice it.

but he couldn't just tell her that now,
could he?

would she be happy to hear it? to know
that there was someone who had listened to
her silent pleas? would she appreciate that
there was someone that saw the portrait for what
she wanted it to be, not for what everyone else
wanted?

"you'd be surprised, anne." taehyung
said, voice strained. he gave her a tight smile.  "more
surprised than the last time i visited you."

her eyes shone brightly with the light
of a million stars as she reminisced.
jeongguk wished to see what she remembered
of taehyung in his college days.

had he sat in this very seat? gazed at her with the
same longingness? the same hope?
had he had these dreams? these wonderful
visions that clouded his thoughts?
was he as surprised as jeongguk?

expect nothing and be surprised at
everything and anything.

but surprise was frightening.
he was terrified of what she would
say. what if jeongguk had gotten it wrong?

what if he was so far off from the
truth? he'd hate that, he'd hate that
he was wrong. he'd hate that that
would make him feel insecure and
ashamed. it shouldn't have, his perception
mattered, his perception was diamond,
a gemstone set in a rock that he'd
cracked to release and present to
anne. what if anne wouldn't take it?

paranoia gnawed at his throat.

what if her painting had nothing
to do with the great war? with the
bloodshed and the somme and
the political message she'd so
brutally reinstated?
what if it was something else
in its entirety? a shrine of an entity,
a ballad of paint and pretty pigments
against a porcelain canvas?
an ornament to admire and be
pleased of, void of the element
of surprise. jeongguk wished for it
not to be a void.
wished not for it to be empty,
sullen space.

but to pray for it to be anything
but the latter would be a terrible
gamble, for the world never worked
the way he wished it to, never revolved
the way he pleased.

or was it really
just a regular depiction of
a woman at her window?

a woman... at her window.

no... it couldn't be.

he'd be wrong to think it ever
would. even if anne told him so,
he'd never consciously believe
it to be that way. it didn't make
any sense for it to be that way.
women like her didn't simply
paint portraits for the sake of
them looking pretty.

no, women
like anne were strong and smart
and bold, despite the passing of
time. women like anne had an agenda,
a reason, and they wouldn't stop
till they were satisfied, settled
with their disposition.

what was anne waiting for?

had jeongguk robbed taehyung of
that joy? of that exhilaration?
of the feeling he felt as
he waited for her to say something? what did he
feel now? what did jeongguk feel now?
the pounding of his heart felt too loud, too drowning.

could taehyung hear his heart beating?
could he feel it?

could anne?

"why's that?" she asked breathlessly, carefully.

taehyung looked up at jeongguk,
and seeing this, anne turned her head
and did the same, her thin brows creasing
with confusion.

this was it.

this was where he showed her.

"i wanted to give you something."
jeongguk bravely said. he hoped that
she had not heard the quivering of his voice.

he hadn't told taehyung this.

had felt a little selfish to keep it hidden.

but what could
he have done? what if taehyung had judged him for
going so far, so out of his way to help this woman?
would it even help her? would it even bring her
joy? what if it'd only remind her of pain, of grief and
loss and torture. how could a boy so young
put her through that? what possible right did he have?

but what he was about to give her was rightfully hers.
and she every right to take it.

he could feel taehyung's eyes on him from the
corner of his vision as he slowly slid his backpack
off his shoulders and zipped it open.

with one last look at him, a second to get a
glimpse of his perfect face, which,
like anne's, was furrowed with confusion and
obliviousness in his ebony eyes, jeongguk
reached inside to retrieve a crisp white envelope.
his heart raced as his fingers grasped it tightly.

"i believe this is yours, mrs lister." he whispered,
holding it out for her to take.
the woman eyed the envelope.

jeongguk patiently waited for her to pry it
from his shaking hands.

when she tentatively took it from him,
he felt like a burdensome
weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
he exhaled.

with a certain caution, she tore
open the seal with her index finger,
attentively running her hand down the
blank front cover. her eyes roamed
every inch of it with curiosity.

taehyung's did too.
inside, was a smaller envelope.

she blinked with surprise.

tattered and brownish,
a hundred years out of date
and slightly ripped at the corners,
the envelope was tinged with
a dull beige hue, like a coffee stain
had settled upon it, creased,
such like the worry lines on
her forehead.

from where he sat, jeongguk
could make out the old seal and
stamp and the writing in a neat,
faded ink script that
was foreign to him.

a script that was not foreign to
anne.

she had not seen the front.
not yet.

but when she would turn it 
around to read that the envelope
was addressed to her. when she
would recognise that very handwriting
and know who sent that very letter...

jeongguk did not know whether
he would be able to watch.

he couldn't.
he closed his eyes.

and after a few seconds of
delicate rustling, followed by
a weighted, sullen silence...
a loud, grief- stricken sob
left the woman's throat.

jeongguk furrowed his brows,
listening painfully to her anguished,
aching cries.
the sharp intakes
of shallow breaths followed it,
they came in fits, sudden outbursts
of shock and years of grief.

through them, the teen felt nothing but
an absence of hope, he felt nothing but
sorrow and agony so cruel that it was all
that flooded the small room.

her cries consumed him.
he let them.

he too felt a sting behind his eyelids,
the welling of water.
he didn't wish to open them.

but he had to. he had more to say. so much.
her crestfallen face and mournful eyes
scanned the old paper before her,
envelope discarded on the bed.
forgotten. she did not need it. inside,
was something far more valuable.

cobalt irises shining with crystal tears
that threatened to spill, her orbs darted
too and fro across the page. the wrinkles at
the corners of her mouth stretched as her
lip trembled.  she read
the letter like it would be the last time she'd
see it, like she'd be stripped of its comfort,
stripped of the joy it brought her.

she read it like she had been taken back to
a lifetime that she thought she
would never see again, would never experience.
her eyes devoured the words,
let them sink into her skin till she could rehearse
them like a prayer, time and time again for time
was not on her side. it never seemed to be.

jeongguk knew what the letter read.

but jeongguk was not meant to know.

for that letter was between a grandfather and
his little granddaughter that he so dearly missed.
that letter was between a happy little girl who would run
to her living room window every morning, waiting for her
grandfather to come home from war, who would
ask her mother, time and time again, when he would
return, when he would pick her up and spin her
around like he used to, when he'd come back and kiss
her cheek and dance with him and sing and laugh and
play with her till the sunset and the sky turned twilight.
a girl who would sit, swinging her legs at that same
window, yearning, longing, hoping, oblivious to the
horrors that he was battling at the somme. the letters
between them betrayed nothing about the brutal reality,
had kept it hidden from her, safe and secure between the
loving lines written in crisp ink.

the letter
was to that same little girl who had grown to a woman,
time had passed like a storm, though her
resilience had never faltered.
still, she sat. waiting. hoping. longing.

even with
the telegram that had been delivered to her house
that one morning, a telegram that indicated her husband's fallen life, she still sat, years after the telegram that had spoken of her grandfather's passing, she still waited.

she still hoped.

that letter was between two souls that were
parted by such distance, yet bound by a
love that none could dispute.

that letter had fallen into jeongguk's hands.
and now finally, it had fallen into anne's.

"how?" she cried, lip trembling, hands
shaking as she placed the letter down on
her lap. "how did you find this?"

what is it? he felt taehyung's eyes ask.

"it was your grandfather's last letter to you.
it was left in your letter box in your old house."
jeongguk swallowed harshly against the
tightness of his throat, ignoring the shallow
breath of disbelief that escaped taehyungs's lips.
what would taehyung say? what would he have
said if he had told him in hindsight that he was
carrying around a hundred-year-old piece of paper
in his backpack?
"you were moving house the day this arrived."

as soon as jeongguk had figured out
what the portrait's true meaning held,
he was anxiously fast to ask for the address
of the artist from the gallery.

he was only
ten years of age at the time.
time that had still let him hold his own
grandfather's hand. the elder man had
taken him to the woman's house to visit
her and pay his respects.

only to find that it was uninhabited by her.
another family was now living there.
a family who knew nothing about anne
or where she had moved to. in fact,
no one in town seemed to know where
anne had gone. her family had long vacated
themselves, had long ago erased every trace of
themselves from that borough on the
outskirts of london.

but there was one thing that
she could not have left behind.
because it had not yet belonged to her.

they had told jeongguk that they
had something of hers that he
and his grandfather may as well take
and deliver to her when he did find her.

of course, jeongguk had lost all hope
of handing it to her himself. when his
granddad had died, he lost hope
of everything all together.

the woman
could have been anywhere.

he'd have to search the entire
world to find her.

he had not realised that he did not
have to.

not until he met taehyung.

"all this time," she shook her head
with disbelief at the precious words
on the page. her fingers grazed the
script ever so carefully, eyes glistening
with sorrow.
"i thought he had never said goodbye."

"he was fighting for that moment,
mrs lister." jeongguk whispered.

she let out a broken sob of happiness.

"thank you. thank you for giving this
to me. thank you."

"it was my honour."
he only watched her, trying
furiously to blink back tears.

she too seemed to be doing the
same.

"its funny." she began, voice shaky
as ever.
jeongguk had heard those words before.
somewhere.

he looked to taehyung.

but taehyung was looking at him
with an expression he could not read.
one he had never seen before.

"its funny," anne repeated, voice unsteady
and woeful, clad with sudden understanding.
"the doctors tell me that i do not
remember things. elizabeth looks at
me as though i do not remember her name,
or her daughters' names, or their childrens'
names, she looks at me like i cannot tell
my left hand from my right,
like i cannot remember how to walk or sit
or stand."

jeongguk listened respectfully,
all too aware of the way that
dementia so ruthlessly destroyed
the elderly mind.

the loneliness of it all.

"then tell me." she whispered,
voice nearly inaudible.
"why i remember every blemish on my
grandfather's face?" her voice broke on
the last word. as though it was the
only thing that time had not stolen from
her. "why i remember the way he laughed
and the way he walked and the way he
held my hand?"

"because the ones that love us
the most never really leave us."
jeongguk quietly replied, fiddling with his
little fingers in his lap.
"they just let go because they have to."

she nodded, eyes clearing.

jeongguk sniffed.

"my grandfather was the same.
promised me so much and left me
so very little." he felt the weight
of a hand on his own.

her hand.

"but he gave me so much more
than i could ever want. and i realised,
for that i must be appreciative."

"it seems we all fall into that trap.
we promise people so much more than
we can afford to give them. we promise them
things that time does not grant us and wallow
in our self pity at the state that we have put
ourselves in when we do not achieve what
we had planned. i'm a fool in that sense too."

"but you have achieved so much."

"and what might that be?"

"courage" he pleaded.
"you've given me courage.

and the ability to bring people together."
he whispered softly; eyes flickering subtly to taehyung.

"the ability to educate them about
things that they are somewhat insensitive to,
the ability to outlive grief
and draw a line against the detestable
idea that time will numb pain.
because sometimes it doesn't, mrs lister,
sometimes we just tell it to numb itself
so we can fit in and lead our melancholy lives.

"and you've made me appreciate
that if we'd be so foolish as mere mortals
to wish a world of perfection then we'd be
shunning the beauty in triumph and defeat."

taehyung sat.

wordless.
watching.

anne spoke quietly.

"how did you know?" she questioned.
"about the portrait."

jeongguk gave her a gentle smile.
and it was then, that he told her.

truly told her.

he told anne about what he thought

her painting meant, what he thought
it could mean- rather.

because there was
no right and wrong with differing perception.

he told her of the telegram she
clutched like a lifeline in her hands.
he told her of the clocks in her living
room and on her kitchen wall, the bleakness
of her black dress, indicative of her mourning,
he told her of her ruby carpet and the redness of
the remembrance poppies and he told her
of the bloodshed that he'd found, the list of
conscripts from the post office that he had spent
hours digging up.

he told her that he had found her grandfather's
name amongst the lot, alongside the men from
the neighbouring village, he found their battalion
and the day he had left and had compared it to the
day that the letter was delivered. he told her how much
he knew. he told her everything he knew.

he told her
how much he appreciated
her and thought she was powerful for
enforcing her message so hidden and
yet simultaneously exposed to the world.
he told her of his initial misconceptions
and his journey to discover her through her
painting and watched as her navy eyes
lit up with pure shock.

it made his heart race, seeing her like this.
seeing this woman, seeing her expressions,
the exquisiteness of her triumph being
recognized, voiced.

he loved it, he loved that he could see her,
watch her, let her watch him. let her
know that he heard her and would
do everything he could to ensure that her
voice, as long as he lived,
would never be extinguished to a lifeless
whisper. he took that ember of perception
and added fuel to the fire, let the embers
grow to powerful flames, let her voice
become a mantra, her painting a
prayer, worshiped her and idolized her
and hung on to her every brushstroke
and pigment, like the hues were the
colours of the wind. invisible to
most, beautiful to some.

he told her that it was his grandfather
who had been the one to tell him to
be bold enough and look past the exterior,
to look further, to look deeper.

to 'look for what you will never find.'

anne's words that she had told taehyung
ran through his head like a siren.

she had been right all along.

jeongguk had been looking for her,
something that he himself would never
have found without help.

taehyung had been looking for
an answer, an explanation. a
conclusion that he did not have the
capability of coming to.

together, they
had traded invaluable things and had
profited immensely. they had gifted
each other so very little, but had
won priceless feelings along
the way. their journey was treasurable.

he was expecting the
reasoning to sound half
stupid, as half as stupid as they had seemed
when he had told taehyung of his depiction
all that time ago.

but this time...
it sounded even more real.

a little less oblivious of the
world and a little wiser. he had
intertwined it with the knowledge
he'd learnt from taehyung's art lessons
and bit by bit, the puzzle pieces began
to fit together.

it made more... sense.

jeongguk came to an
eventual end.
his words cut themselves off,
clogged his throat.

he stopped.

and he waited for them to say something.
but they didn't say anything. they just sat
there watching him with bewilderment.

so he continued.
stumbling on his words, he
rounded off his little
one sided conversation with
a soft sigh of accomplishment.

what exactly he had accomplished,
he didn't know.

anne seemed to know.
or... at least the tears in her eyes did.
taehyung simply shook his head.
anne wasn't speaking either.

her eyes held nothing but a silent
gratitude, a comfort and subtle,
awe. words, as it so
treacherously seemed, had escaped
them, had been lost somewhere
in the heavy air.

jeongguk's had ceased
and anne's wouldn't begin.

they couldn't seem to be
pronounced in the quiet, in
the naked seconds that had
enveloped the room.

he wondered what she would say.
what taehyung would say.
what taehyung was thinking.
what she wanted to express.
had jeongguk said everything?
had jeongguk said something?
he couldn't imagine saying much else.
in fact, he couldn't imagine anything
in the slightest.

he couldn't envision the situation
to progress past the present.
he couldn't think properly, his
words were clogged like the air
that had fogged his throat.

all that he knew, was that he had said
everything he could.

usually, he'd have an idea.
he'd be able to sense their emotions,
hear their words, their thoughts,
their obvious remarks. people weren't
difficult to read if you were quiet
enough to listen to them.
he heard the words too quickly, before
they had even left their lips.

but... with anne and taehyung,
that privilege had gone.
as though it had never been there
to begin with.

jeongguk was grateful for that
relieved pressure.

his thoughts, as he knew it,
had once again clouded him.
when he transitioned back to
reality and stopped staring at
her pale, trembling hand at her side...

he realised he was a fool.

jeongguk had been a fool
to miss the flash of silver at the
edges of her lashes, the glimmer in her
iris.

had he paid a little closer attention,
had watched her a little further,
not through her, but at her...

perhaps he'd have spied the tears escape
those precious eyes before they settled
with no remorse against the
ash-sunken skin that was her cheek.

and all of a sudden, she was shifting to sit.

taehyung hooked his hand under her
elbow with caution, worry painted on
his brow. carefully, he moved with her,
helping her hoist herself up in the
linen sheets that were
dragging down her feeble body.
he helped her raise herself up till she
sat level with jeongguk.

till her gaze so calmly matched his own.

and then, her hand was nearing.

she reached out that hand and
jeongguk lay still with a fear that
had the muscles of body stiffening.
watching that hand reach out across
the gap that separated them to touch him.

to touch his cheek so softly...
it felt like a feather's tender caress.
a weight of comfort that was so foreign.

"all i could ever have asked for was
for someone to have the patience
to notice something." anne whispered.
her lips were tilted into a sad smile.
"and the time to look past the portrait."

could he tell her? that jeongguk would so
happily give up time for her. he had too much
of it these days.

"i hadn't the time to bring my husband
and grandfather the justice they had so
rightfully deserved.  nothing i did would
have made the slightest difference."

"i still think what you did was
immensely powerful, no matter how
indirect you may have thought it to be."

"a gamble was what it was. i'd wondered
whether there would be someone that
would care, someone your age
who would so kindly open their eyes
and hone their attention in on the
past." she paused. her voice suddenly
quieter than he'd ever heard it.
"whether they would focus on the
irrelevance of it all."

jeongguk did not hesitate then.
he couldn't.
he wouldn't have her thinking like that.

"the past built us, mrs lister. we'd be fools
to ignore our foundations,
the events that shaped our morals.
and i'd be arrogant to forget it all
and let time exile me to a deafness against
the pain that it brought you and so many
others alike."

gratitude seemed to be
an understatement with the way
her thumb shifted over the apple of
his cheek.

"when i was younger,
i did not know whether to

be proud of their deaths or ponder on
how different our lives should have
been had we fled to the country once
news of conscription had spread.
perhaps my husband and i could have led
a better life. i'd heard stories of others
in town escaping, taking that route."

"sometimes the easiest route is
not always the right one."

she nodded.

"my husband believed war
was the easy route. he was
blinded by patriarchy and saw
beauty in dying with valour, war
to him and my grandfather alike was
an adventure." she sighed heavily.
"to women like me, it was years of
robbery.
either way, i'd have been a coward.
first, grappling onto the grief of the
past and the latter, running away
from the deaths of my loved ones that
time would have so inevitably gifted
me with in the long run."

"i think you were incredibly brave to
sacrifice your husband like that."

she gave jeongguk another weak smile.

"it concerns you so very little, yet here
you are, sacrificing your time for a
helpless woman like me-"

no. she wasn't helpless. she never was
and never would be.

"your art concerns everybody," jeongguk
intervened. "i think
in this day and age we are so invisibly
ruled by dictatorship and consumed
by the deplorable necessity to be
law abiding citizens that we are
suddenly incapable of thinking for
ourselves and being knowledgeable of
our freedom of expression and appreciation."

he took a breath.
"it is our imagination that limits us."

"you are wondrous my boy." she cried softly.
her hand fell into his own. she held it tight.

"i want you to take that imagination and
do wonderous things with it."

she clasped it with a force that
jeongguk knew he would never forget.

"and i want you to achieve as much as
you told me i have achieved. if not more."
he'd never forget the way she held his
hand.

she held his hand in the way his grandfather
had. with the confidence that he could achieve
great things and the reassurance that he was behind him.
watching. helping. the belief that he wouldn't leave.

his grandfather had left him in his physical
state, and he was so certain that anne would too.

but nonetheless, the spiritual strength
that they had collectively given him
was none to dispute.

none at all.

and he would not let that
strength die in vain.

_________________

i need jungkook's braincells