𝑪 𝑯 𝑨 𝑷 𝑻 𝑬 𝑹 𝑻 𝑯 𝑰 𝑹 𝑻 𝒀 𝑻 𝑾 𝑶

VENUS SUPPOSED SHE should begin with her family and her him. "Well, I grew up in Milan, but I used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents' farm in Tuscany. I have two sisters, my younger sister, Kora, and my twin sister, Valentina-"

Taehyung hated to interrupt but the thought of another Venus running around somewhere on Earth startled him. "You have a twin sister?" He couldn't imagine it. Another woman who looked just like her.

"Well, fraternal twin, but yeah. She's older than me by five minutes." Most wouldn't assume they were twins, though they did look rather similar with a few differences. "She used to do this thing where she would say, "When I was your age..." And proceed to tell me what she did five minutes ago." It was rather annoying when they were children, but Venus usually rolls her eyes and tells her what she's about to do in the next 5 minutes. "Well guess what I'm gonna do when I'm your age? Kick your ass if you don't shut the fuck up."

Taehyung found it amusing, a rather smart joke as well.

"But my mother, she mainly took care of us on her own. She did her best and I can't blame her for making mistakes along the way." Venus knew she was trying her very best and she did what she thought was best for her daughters, for that, she would never discredit her for how hard she worked. Now that Venus was getting paid well, she could send money over to her mother in Italy.

Taehyung noticed she never mentioned her father and felt the need to ask where he was in the picture. "No dad?"

Venus felt her throat grow dry. She reached out to grab her wine and drank a mouthful as if that would help even in the slightest. She didn't want to bring the mood down. "Nah- He died of cancer when I was 9." She tried to sound nonchalant about it, to make Taehyung feel better about asking.

His eyes blew wide, filling like balloons with regret. "Shit. I'm sorry for asking." Venus only shrugged and smiled, waving it off as if it were nothing. "You couldn't have known...Tell me about your childhood." She feels as though she's been talking too much. She wants to know more about Taehyung, what makes him who he is.

It seems as though the subject give him a similar dryness in his mouth as he took his wine glass to his lips. The topic of his parents has always been a sensitive one for him to talk about. He's dreaded his parents from the moment he suddenly gained consciousness and awareness of his existence.

"It was... interesting to put it lightly." Interesting was a rather misleading word. It could imply both good and bad. Taehyung wouldn't describe his childhood as being the most pleasant experience, but it certainly wasn't as bad as it could be. Just from that opening, Venus knew she was in for something.

"My parents were rather controlling when I was a kid. Wanted me to jump through hoops to win their affections. They expected me to be the best, go to med school, become a doctor like my mother, or an attorney like my father. Something "respectable"." He rolled his eyes at the thought. Him standing at an operating table or pacing a courtroom to be a paid, professional liar.

"Because of my memory, I did really well in school. I remembered written equations, passages from books for tests. I felt like it really wasn't a testament to my intelligence, just my memory, but my parents thought it was one and the same." As long as he could remember everything, he can never fail. He would be amazing at whatever he did because as long as he read written instructions, it was like a manual in his head that he can refer back to even a month after he had originally read it.

"They liked sticking their noses in my business. I couldn't hide anything from them, nor could I do anything without their approval, which meant nothing that wasn't academic." He sounded bitter. His tongue was a knife, sharpened with resentment for how his parents treated him as a child. And then it seemed as though he noticed how dark he was getting, so he decided to lighten up the mood.

"Did you know that they chose my first girlfriend for me?" Taehyung asked her as he chuckled softly. Venus wasn't sure if she should've been confused or amused, maybe a little bit of both. "What?" She twirled pasta onto her fork and shoved it into her mouth. How could parents manually choose out the person their child dates?

"Yeah. They chose this girl who was our neighbor at the time. Pretty, sure, but I wasn't very interested in her and she was infatuated with me." Taehyung remembered her. She was a nice girl, truly, but he simply wasn't interested. Mostly because their parents had shoved them together rather abruptly. "They were so obsessed with me dating and then marrying a certain type of person-"

"And I can assume I don't fit into that specific type of person." Just a wild guess. Venus is used to being the last one wanted. Universally black women (especially dark-skinned black women) were masculinized and demonized. So Venus was no stranger to being passed up for someone "better".

Taehyung couldn't lie to her. "Yes, but it doesn't matter." He thought she was the definition of perfect. She was the top and bottom line, the standard. "I think you to be gorgeous, Venus." Once again, not nearly a strong enough word. She was the sun, the stars that glitter the night sky, the moon that claims the night in its pale light.

Venus' smile is shy and beautiful. "Thank you." It's hard to feel beautiful sometimes when the whole world tells you you aren't wanted, so Taehyung's words, the way he looks at her like he would simply die if she continued to be so incomparably beautiful.

Their conversation continued smoothly. They finished their dinner, pushing their plates to the side for Taehyung to wash later on. Venus drinks far more wine than Taehyung and the prospects of him allowing her to drive him were looking unlikely.

"So how does your memory work?" That might be the aspect of him that Venus is most curious about. Very few people have a photographic memory and the science behind it is still rather underdeveloped. "Do you just... remember everything?"

Taehyung has never really had the chance to sit down and explain how his mind works. There are a lot of complexities with it. It isn't as simple as he just remembers every last thing he sees. "Well, no. I don't remember everything. I only remember things I see." He points to his eyes. "Say I have to remind myself of something very specific. If I just make a mental note, I can just as easily forget about it as anyone else. But if I write it down, I can think "what was I supposed to do?" See the note in my mind, and just do it. That's why I have sticky notes all over my studio."

It made sense. Photographic. It's like his mind is taking a picture of what he sees.

"But I can't just remember every last thing I see." Taehyung is quick to clear any misconceptions. "If I just barely glance at something, I'm not gonna remember it. I don't remember every person I pass on the street or every person that walks into the Red Room. I have to intentionally look at it." It was easy to think that he just remembered everything he saw. That's what he thought initially as well. It took him a little while to realize the sort of...rules by which his mind functions.

Venus finds it fascinating. She never thought photographic memory was a real thing, but sure enough, he painted her in perfect replication without a picture reference. It was truly amazing.

Taehyung stood up to take their plates while Venus finished off her wine. 4 glasses in total. She seemed to be holding it well, but all that stability came crumbling down with that last glass. While Taehyung busied himself with quickly rinsing off the dishes, Venus stood, and just as quickly as she did, she stumbled.

"Venus?" Taehyung returned to the dining room, his suit jacket and vest removed. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows and yet everything else is still nice and pristine. He comes to help her, placing his arms around her to keep her upright. "Hey, princess, you've had too much to drink." He held her close pulling her shirt together so she wouldn't reveal herself.

He was far too close. Venus could smell him. His cologne was different tonight but smelled equally as alluring and attractive. She felt his hands against her skin and shivered. "Sir, I'm perfectly fine." Venus placed her hands right here his jaw meets his neck and pulled him in.

Her lips met his, stained with the taste of overpriced red wine. They kissed with all the desire and passion that had been plaguing them since she arrived. It was as if she knew how much he adored her lips. The wine intoxicated him with her taste and he desired more. She was a dangerous thing, a temptation that he must deny, at least for now.

"Pri-" Venus continued to kiss him until he was able to pull away entirely. "Princess, you're drunk." He sighed, buttoning up her shirt to keep her covered. Her lips formed into a soft pout as she attempted to pull him towards her again. "I'm not." Her slightly slurred words said otherwise.

Taehyung insisted that she was. "Yes, you are. If you can't speak properly then you aren't thinking properly. You can't give consent." The foundation (or what should be the foundation) of all relationships is consent and if either one of them can't give consent, then nothing sexual would happen.

It wasn't that he wanted her to thank him or praise him for having basic decency or doing the bare minimum. He simply wouldn't want someone to take advantage of him while he was drunk.

Once her shirt was properly buttoned, Taehyung kept a hand on her in case she happened to stumble over something and he needed to catch her. "Sit." He made her sit down at the bottom of the stairs so he could remove her shoes to reduce the risk of her falling.

He held her shoes in one hand and wrapped his free arm around her to help her up the stairs and to his bedroom. Damn near immediately upon entering the room, Venus began to remove her clothing, undoing the buttons Taehyung just did up not 2 minutes ago. Just as quickly, Taehyung turned away from her as she removed her clothing. He went to go grab a shirt for her to put on but continued to maintain his gaze on the floor to respect her.

He had no right to look at her naked while she was drunk. He wasn't a fucking creep. He had respect for himself and other people, especially women. Once again, bare minimum, he wasn't looking for any praise.

"I'm dressed," Venus whispered, carefully undoing the bun holding her unruly curls back. He could see that her expression was grim, somber as she sat down on his bed and stared at the comforter neatly stretched over his unreasonably large bed.

Taehyung didn't want her to think that he didn't want her, far from it actually. He simply wanted to respect her. He tilted her head up to look at him and bent down to kiss her forehead. "You looked beautiful tonight, princess. I had an amazing night with you. Now, lay down, sleep the wine off."

Venus took his hand. "You'll come lay down with me, right?" She didn't want to sleep in his room alone, though, she probably should. Taehyung placed his hand on her head. "I've gotta put everything away, but I'll be back, okay?" He couldn't leave the candles burning throughout the night unless he wanted to wake up in a charred house.

She had to let him leave, only for a few minutes while he blew out all the candles and cleaned up the rose petals he had placed everywhere. By the time he returned to the bedroom, Venus was already laying down in bed.

Taehyung smiled fondly, carefully, removing his shoes before going to join her. He was far too lazy to change into different clothing. He simply got into bed with her, slipping his arm around her to pull her closer. Venus turned in his arms and buried her face in his chest.

"Thank you for tonight, Tae. I loved it."

That's all that matters to him.

*.✧ Kᴀʏs Eɴᴅɪɴɢ Nᴏᴛᴇs

I am just dishing these chapters out. I'm on a bit of a S&S binge and I'm trying to just shoot them out as soon as they're done so I don't take too long with this re-write. Idk if I'm gonna re-write another book but 🤷‍♀️

TSA of the Day:
"I remember I was dating this girl who was all nice and sweet and all, but then we started having sex and I quickly realized that she was into some freaky shit. She was talking about me giving her my bussy and that she wanted to peg me and I was thoroughly confused and scared. Thankfully I found a way out of that situation without getting fucked in the ass by a girl."
-Taehyung

Thank you all for reading. I hope you guys enjoyed and I wish you all a wonderful day/night.

사랑해

~Kay (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧