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“Taetae, he’s over there again.”
“Again?”
“Yeah.” Jimin shifted a bit, leaning in closer to whisper directly into Taehyung’s ear. “And he keeps glancing over here too.”
“Are you sure?”
Just as Taehyung asked that, the raven-haired boy on the park bench about ten meters away glanced up at them. Seeing both the chestnut brown-haired shorter boy and the blonde-haired taller boy with their heads really close to each other and looking directly at him scared him, making his eyes dart back down to his notebook. The raven-haired boy started to panic, hurriedly looking for his backpack.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Taehyung whispered to Jimin.
“No, wait—” Jimin started to whisper-yell at his best friend. Taehyung wasn’t stopping, though, confidently walking toward the raven-haired boy sitting on the bench. As Taehyung got close, the boy had just managed to find his backpack and haphazardly open the biggest pocket.
“Hey!” Taehyung yelled over at him.
The other boy’s head shot up, a mortified look spreading across his face as he saw Taehyung approaching his bench. The kid couldn’t have been older than Taehyung with the way his sharp features melted away into a boyish look that complemented the baby-blue cardigan he was wearing. Taehyung took a seat next to the boy; the raven-haired kid flinched from the closeness, protectively closing his notebook and looking down and away from the blonde-haired boy sitting next to him.
“What’s up?” Taehyung started. “I’m Taehyung.”
The other boy twiddled his thumbs, probably hoping that Taehyung would leave him if he just didn’t say anything.
“Have you been watching us?” Taehyung calmly asked.
He didn’t think it was possible, the younger boy looked even more mortified, eyes getting wider as he looked directly at Taehyung again.
“U-um, I c-can explain,” he finally stuttered, his light airy voice holding absolutely no confidence at all. Taehyung looked down at his notebook and noticed that it actually wasn’t a notebook—it was a sketchbook.
“Do you draw?”
The other boy nodded his head timidly.
“Can I see some of them?”
This time he wasn’t so mortified—more shocked than anything. He hesitantly handed Taehyung his sketchbook, now fidgeting with his pencil instead.
Taehyung opened up to the first page of the sketchbook and instantly had his breath taken away.
The very first drawing in the sketchbook was undeniably of the park they were sitting in. What surprised him was how good the drawing was, perfectly outlining and capturing every detail. Even the shading was superb, highlighting shadows while also capturing the sunny parts of the park flawlessly.
“Wow,” Taehyung breathed out.
He flipped to the next page and was equally blown away by the detail of the next drawing. It was another sketch of the park, but this time the boy had captured a different angle. He kept flipping, noticing how the boy would experiment with different shading techniques and would start to add people to his drawings too. There was one of the old lady who would feed the pigeons, one of the park ranger who often stood near the middle of the park, and another of the elderly couple that ate lunch at one of the benches every day.
There was one drawing he paused at, though. He didn’t quite recognize the two figures: they were sitting on top of one of the picnic tables in the park with their backs to the raven-haired boy’s vantage point. Taehyung and Jimin had found out the first day that sitting on the picnic tables was strictly forbidden when the park ranger scolded them—and then it hit him. This was a drawing of them on the very first day they came to the park.
He kept flipping, and the drawings slowly shifted from landscapes to more and more portraits of him. From all sorts of different angles, the raven-haired boy had captured Taehyung’s face. Occasionally, there would be a drawing of Jimin instead of Taehyung, but most of the notebook at this point was populated by headshots of him.
“Please, I can explain!” the boy blurted out, causing Taehyung to pause. “I swear I’m not a serial killer,” the younger boy huffed out. “I just, um, like drawing, and, uh, I noticed that you and your friend started coming to the park every day, so I, um, started drawing you two.” He paused, looking down again. “I, just, um, like drawing your face because it’s really pretty, and you always dress really nicely, and, um, I think you’re really cool.”
By the time boy finished stumbling through his explanation, his face was blushing bright red, and he was clearly embarrassed because he looked away once Taehyung started staring back at him.
“These are so good!” Taehyung finally responded, his face breaking out into a wide rectangle-like smile. “Like, so so good. I can’t even draw stick figures right and here you are drawing full-blown portraits…”
Flipping to the drawing the boy must have been working on today, Taehyung noticed it was a nearly-finished drawing of him and Jimin sitting next to each other laughing together. Beautiful.
“Can I borrow your pencil?”
The raven-haired boy nervously handed over his pencil, eyeing Taehyung carefully.
In a blank corner of the drawing, Taehyung scribbled down his phone number for the boy:
“I have class in a few minutes, but let’s get coffee sometime? What’s your name?”
“J-jungkook.”
“Jungkook,” Taehyung repeated, gently smiling at the boy. He closed the sketchbook and handed it over to the raven-haired boy.
“See you soon, Jungkook~” Taehyung stood up and winked at the boy before walking back toward Jimin.
“What happened?” Jimin quietly asked his friend.
Taehyung just smiled and replied: “I asked him out.”