National V: étoile

1: star

Copyright 2020. kL. All rights reserved










-photo

"It's been a while, I really missed you. I wanted to contact you, I wanted to contact you all, but I couldn't because I didn't speak French."

Difficult words. Korean written in bold letters underneath. It's been a while. I really missed you. I wanted to contact you, but I couldn't because I don't speak French. I rested my chin on my hand, pondering, perhaps even thinking deeply, wondering if he still thought I was French. Maybe that's when we met, right?

A small moon village. Even smaller you. And an even smaller me, as if hiding behind it would hide everything else. Taehyung was born in a small moon village and grew up without a single child his age. Time passed and passed like that. If the small moon village had a heart, it would occupy the middle school, and the high school next door. Even the name was unsophisticated. Moon village middle school. On the day I entered school at the age of fourteen, I took an entrance ceremony photo with a third-year senior in middle school, a student I didn't even know. Until then, Taehyung was the only one in middle school. There was no second-year middle school. It was just the third-year middle school senior.

Taehyung, who was already running towards his third year of middle school, made his first friend. It's funny that he made his first friend in his second year of middle school. But at least for Taehyung, they were objects of envy. He'd always seen ideal friends in books, and he'd seen their idealized appearances in the older people he knew. Kim Taehyung, a native of a small town, didn't want to see those idealized appearances until he fell for Jeon Jungkook, a transfer student from Seoul. He didn't want to experience the betrayal, meanness, and pettiness of those he'd trusted and followed.

Taehyung was pretty, really pretty. A slender waist, slender legs, long, graceful fingers. But of all of them, what was most beautiful and endearing were undoubtedly Taehyung's features. His dark features, like his father's, his clear eyes, like his mother's. His bright eyes, cherry-red lips, and rosy knuckles were captivating.

Jungkook always carried a dark aura with him. Back when he was young, his friends, and all kids his age, thought he was like that. When we'd climb the steep mountain slopes, using the barely detectable signal to surf the internet, we'd often see a disease that only affected middle school students. The name itself was old-fashioned. But it wasn't as bad as my middle school. "Middle" for middle school, "Y" for grade level. And "Sickness." Jeon Jungkook was consumed by that disease. He couldn't escape it. At least, that's how it was in Taehyung's memories.






-