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Yellows, oranges, reds.
Taehyung had pressed his face to the train window to better see the scenery as it had flown by. The autumnal colours had been captivating enough that the two and a half hour journey had felt like seconds.
Living in the heart of Daegu meant he often missed the glorious sight of forests as they caught in a fire of colours. By the time the school year ended and he found his way to his grandparents’ home, the trees were already silhouette-like.
Of course, last month, and every other year for Chuseok, he’d spent time in Geochang. He had been free to climb up trees, organize fallen leaves into different piles, take photos of and draw the colourful landscape too. Even with the team’s hotel being downtown, Jeongeup feels similar to Geochang. It’s much quieter than Daegu, and Taehyung had spotted rows of imposing trees as they’d walked from the train station.
It had taken a surprising amount of begging — and even a call to his parents — to have one of the team’s chaperones agree to accompany him come dawn, before their first scheduled match.
Despite only needing to locate his warmest sweater and the camera his parents had given him a year ago, the three other fourth graders on the team and sharing his hotel room had still woken up and groggily complained about the noise.
As soon as the hotel entrance is behind him though, he’s sprinting. He’s grateful for the cold morning air, for the space and silence to fill in with his voice.
However, it’s the adult with him — he’s forgotten their name already, he thinks maybe the father of one of the fifth graders — who ends up colouring the morning’s silence with his own shouts.
“Taehyung, get back here!” Urgently followed by, “Min Yoongi! You’re not allowed to leave the hotel on your own!”
That brings Taehyung to a stumbling stop. He doesn’t race back with nearly as much energy as before. But now that he knows what he’s looking for, he does notice he’d run past his upperclassman and star of the basketball team, Yoongi.
Being a sixth grader, Taehyung knows Yoongi will soon move on from the team. Which, he thinks, might be a good thing. They’d really only interacted once. Yoongi had told Taehyung he was doing the team a disservice by not playing seriously.
Taehyung understands. It’s easy for him to get the ball through the hoop. It’s just that he tends to get bored midway through a game or practice. He’d only joined the team to actually be on a team. With how reserved Yoongi is, Taehyung guesses he’d joined solely for the sake of playing basketball.
Yoongi seems embarrassed now, as he’s scolded by the chaperone. Taehyung’s impressed with his appearance, he hardly looks as if it’s only minutes past sunrise. Yoongi is as put-together as usual, with a bag slung over his shoulder that Taehyung has never noticed him with.
He only remembers to listen to the pair when he catches Yoongi using his name.
“Is Taehyung alright? He’s not sick, is he?”
“I’m going to see the trees!”
A moment passes. Yoongi watches him, not understanding, but waiting. Taehyung shows him his camera case and nods along as the parent explains.
“Taehyung was really interested in taking some pictures of the trees for his family. Isn’t that right?”
“Right. Because of the colours.”
Yoongi smiles, something that only looks polite and disinterested. Yet, when he opens his bag, it’s to reveal his own camera. Taehyung brings his case closer to his torso when he notices the size of the lens. There is no actual zoom lens on his own, it’s just his parents’ first digital camera, which had eventually fallen behind current technologies.
“They’re really vibrant a few streets from here. Check it out.” Taehyung leans in close. He’s already a little taller than Yoongi, which feels odd given their difference in ages. The photographs are stunning, capture the sight Taehyung had loved so on the way to Jeongeup. “I can take you there if you like?”
Taehyung is already grabbing Yoongi’s arm to drag him away, as if he could guess which spot Yoongi had spoken of.
“Even with a buddy, you’re not going anywhere without me, Taehyung!” Their chaperone quickly catches up with them, then asks Yoongi, “Is this also why you snuck out then?”
Yoongi shrugs, but doesn’t shrug out of Taehyung’s hold. In fact, he seems to walk progressively closer to Taehyung’s shape, as if attracted by his body heat in the cold weather. “I guess. It’s my first time here. I wanted some pictures, but everyone was still sleeping.”
They spend entirely too long outside. Taehyung repeatedly asks Yoongi how he can get his pictures to look just the way Yoongi’s do. By the end of it, Yoongi’s nose is completely pink. They almost miss warm-up with the team.
Taehyung’s ready for Yoongi to scold him for not taking the team seriously. But instead, as the team makes its way to the competitors’ school, Yoongi catches up to Taehyung’s long strides and tells him about Naejangsan National Park.
“It’s really close. It has amazing fall colours. My father’s been before. I’d really want to go some day, but doesn’t look like they really trust us to go out on our own this weekend.”
He’s surprised to hear his upperclassman say so many words in one go.
Still, he hardly has to think about it when he answers, “Let’s go together one day, you can help me take better pictures again!”
🍂
“You know, I heard there’s a word for this in English.”
Taehyung takes a few steps back, crouches down without ever pulling back from the camera’s viewfinder. He trusts Yoongi would pull him away from colliding into any other parkgoers. Truthfully, he tends to completely forget his spatial awareness whenever they’re together. He knows it’s not too much of a burden on Yoongi right now, as it almost feels like they're the only two souls awake in Daegu.
“For freezing our asses off?”
Taehyung’s fingers twitch and press down on the shutter button before he gets the chance to adjust the aperture stop.
He breathes in through his nose, pouts out his lips in an effort not to turn around, not to pull back from his camera. He doesn’t want them to have an argument. So, he doesn’t point out that the season’s only gotten this much colder because Yoongi hadn’t had any other availability before. He knows his pictures will be less colourful than the years before, so what? Every leaf still attached to the limbs of the trees is still like a tiny burst of life. He doesn’t point out either that daybreak is the only time Yoongi had free for this weekend.
He tries to tell himself “so what” on that point too, but it’s weak. Collapsing under the weight of their diverging futures. Taehyung will be starting senior secondary school next year, and Yoongi assures him they’ll have the full year to hang out before he’s off to university. Taehyung hasn’t told him he doesn’t think he’ll be going to the same senior school as Yoongi does.
There’s never been a lot of points of intersection in their lives. Basketball, which Yoongi still practices diligently, but which has bled out of Taehyung’s life easily. And then photography come the fall time. It had been at Taehyung’s request, in the fifth grade, that his parents had pulled out the basketball team’s old call tree to find Yoongi’s parents’ number to ask if he’d like to accompany Taehyung for a fall day outing. Which, to Taehyung’s surprise, Yoongi had immediately accepted.
It was their sixth year now. They’d both grown into teenagers, and Yoongi still had this entire life apart from Taehyung. With multiple circles of friends and hobbies Taehyung knew nothing of — just as Taehyung did, too. But, lately, the thought of that makes Taehyung anxious.
“I was kidding. What’s the word?”
Taehyung snaps the photo, sits down fully on the dirt path as he pulls it up on the LCD screen. He thinks of how Yoongi’s parents have told him multiple times that he’s not very good at apologizing. Taehyung doesn’t really think that’s true. He knows Yoongi expresses his feelings in different ways. Like, by asking him about a word he doesn’t care for, only to show him he doesn’t mean to be moody.
Taehyung looks up. Despite the early hour, and the cold of the forest, Yoongi’s silhouette is haloed enough by the rising sun that Taehyung finds himself squinting. Yoongi’s camera, which had remained unattainable for Taehyung throughout the years, is out, but Taehyung doesn’t think he’s seen Yoongi use it at all yet.
What was the word? All Taehyung can think of now is estrangement. Because he doesn’t play basketball anymore, and he won’t be going to Yoongi’s school, and if Yoongi isn’t actually interested in taking fall foliage pictures — which Taehyung can definitely tell he isn’t — then why would they spend any time together anymore? He knows he has dozens of other friends he shares other hobbies with that he could be with instead, but the thought of it all makes his heart feel heavy.
He clears his throat, smiles.
“The word for how the forest smells right now. You know, like earth and rain?”
Yoongi sits down next to him, puts his camera away. Taehyung’s heart gets heavier. He decides then that he won’t ask for Yoongi to accompany him next year. He’ll just take pictures alone.
“Maybe there’s also a word in Korean?”
“If you find it, text it to me.”
Taehyung thinks there probably won’t be much else Yoongi could text him about.
🍂
The ball goes through the hoop, to Taehyung’s lack of surprise and Yoongi’s despairing groans.
On the overpass nearby, Seoul traffic is still moving steadily. The sun hasn’t yet sunk fully beneath the horizon, but the passing cars’ headlights are all on by now.
“How about we head out for food, hyung? It’s starting to get dark.”
“We can’t leave until one of us misses a three-point goal.”
Taehyung retrieves the ball, passes it to Yoongi, and watches as the ball expectedly goes through.
Every other Friday they meet after work to play a short and friendly game in the outdoor court, midway between both of their apartments.
Today, Yoongi’s claimed that he’s come down with a cold, and has asked for a three-point contest instead. Miserably, neither of them have yet missed a shot.
“We’ve been out here longer than usual. It’s already October, it’s too cold for you to stay out here when sick. You need rest. A good meal!” Taehyung doesn’t move to pick up the ball this time, taking off his thick scarf to wrap it around the pale line of Yoongi’s neck instead. “Let me take care of you for once!”
Yoongi fusses, tries to squirm away, even mildly protests with “I’m not that sick!” But, that devolves into an ugly coughing fit.
Taehyung rubs his shoulder, pats his back comfortingly, but the coughs keep coming, sounding raw and like Yoongi’s lungs haven’t had air for a while.
He jogs over to grab Yoongi’s water bottle, but Yoongi can’t do much but grip the bottle tightly until the coughing passes.
“You have cough drops in your briefcase?” Yoongi’s nod is small and pained, but noticeable enough that Taehyung returns to their park bench.
In his haste to unbuckle it, he knocks the briefcase over. With shaky hands, he tries to gather the contents that had spilled out. He tries to brush off a fallen leaf from the pages of an opened journal. He realizes that it’s a pressed leaf, taped to the journal, just as Yoongi’s coughing stops.
He picks up the small journal as Yoongi calls for him, “Taehyung, hyung’s ok. Thank you for the water. Come back, it’s your goal next.”
It takes a lot of flipping back and forth for Taehyung to understand what the first twelve pages of the journal consist of. The first page has a printed photograph glued to it. Taehyung recognizes himself in it easily, clad in the sweater he used to wear every other day when he was still a child. He recognizes the sixth and last photograph of himself too, remembers that time of his life as an insecure teenager anxious about the future. Yet, Yoongi had captured his profile well, with the backdrop of a scenery that had already dipped into the opening notes of winter. Every other page, a pressed leaf.
Taehyung gets the picture. A photo and leaf for each of their outings as they had been growing up, photographing the fall foliage together.
He doesn’t really have time to flip through the rest of it, but judging by the rows of words, he guesses this might be one of the journals Yoongi keeps to scrawl his poetry into.
“Hey.” Taehyung nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of Yoongi’s deep voice, and shoots straight back up to his feet. “Memories from long ago, huh?”
Yoongi doesn’t seem shy, or ashamed, or upset, or anything really. So, Taehyung breathes a sigh of relief.
“You know, back then. I really didn’t think you liked going with me. I never saw you take any pictures, really.”
Yoongi’s laugh is easy, yet his words ring heavy.
“I was just waiting for you to look away so I could take pictures of you instead. I really liked you, you know?”
Slipping the journal back into the bag feels like storing a piece of his heart away. A thought that has plagued him, for months, years really, emerges at the forefront of his mind. Yoongi, the only person he’d known in the city when he’d moved to Seoul, and his oldest and closest friend.
“Did you ever get to go to Naejangsan National Park?”
It’s Yoongi’s turn to look surprised by a memory kept from so long ago.
“Not yet,” Yoongi answers slowly, with an even slower smile.
“It’s just a three-hour drive from Seoul. There’s still lots of leaves now. We could go, this weekend, or next.” Yoongi’s expression is so pleased, so open, that Taehyung almost feels bad for taking the leap and adding the next shyly-spoken words. “Like as a date. I mean, maybe it’s weird if we stay overnight, for like a day-trip. It’s a bit forward to have a first date that’s overnight. But…”
“But we’ve been waiting a long time for it,” Yoongi completes simply. “I’ll rest well this weekend so I’m not coughing on our first date next weekend then.”
Taehyung thinks of the red colouring of Yoongi's cheeks, the yellow wool of his scarf still wrapped around Yoongi’s neck, the burnt orange of Yoongi’s tie. He thinks that autumnal colours will continue to be his favourites for a very long time.