...how have you been...
Kang Taehyun was a logical person. He relied heavily on logic to explain a lot of things even though Yeonjun claimed that sometimes, he needed to leave things to his imagination instead. He'd been like that since he was a little kid reading books far too advanced for the average child his age, ignoring the laughter that echoed across the playground.
Logic was his first friend, the thing he relied on when his parents' shouts got louder and his sister's voice began to join them. It was the thing that kept him moving through school, kept him fighting back against the bullies that called him stinging names and passed out even harsher hands when Taehyun said something back.
Logic defined him, protected him, fed him something that resembled hope as he used trembling hands to unpack his items in his sister’s apartment after five long years of nothing and returning to everything wrong.
However...
There was no amount of logic that explained why he felt so … empty all the time now.
He'd woken up on a random day with a headache, a nasty scratch down his cheek that needed stitches and wearing two-day-old clothing covered in more grime than he had ever seen before in his life. His body ached, he was both exhausted and starving, and he felt like he'd been sobbing for hours, eyes puffy and red as he gaped at the mirror, appalled and confused at the image of himself.
Everything after that moment had just felt wrong. He went to school, easily fibbing to those who asked about the scratch as he went about his day like nothing was wrong, that there wasn't this feeling of brokenness in his heart. He'd met up with Yeonjun, who also looked as haunted as Taehyun felt, his smile not reaching his tired eyes as he greeted the other.
Neither boy spoke on it, but both of them felt like something - someone - was missing, the distance between them both just big enough for another person to stand in. Taehyun pretended that he didn’t see Yeonjun go to crack some joke to someone that wasn’t there, and in return, the older boy pretended he didn’t see Taehyun’s hands tremble at the sight of anyone with brown hair that fell just right.
His hands itched to draw someone he couldn’t remember the face of, his subconscious forcing him to draw out aimless features over and over again on the pages of his work, fingers aching as he traced over the same image a thousand times yet still somehow couldn’t get right.
Taehyun spent so much time hunched over his sketchbook, leaving behind half-finished sketch after half-finished sketch. He just couldn’t figure out exactly who it was that he was trying to remember, his heart aching at the mere sight of poorly drawn eyes hidden behind messy bangs.
This faceless boy even haunted his dreams, and every time Taehyun woke up he found his heart aching for someone he didn't know; someone who clearly was someone to him, whether it be from an past life or an forgotten memory.
Everything just felt wrong.
There was one less person in every photo on his wall; their was an unconscious space he left open beside him; their was an blank contact he opened every night, staring at nothing as if something was supposed to happen, as if someone was supposed to call him.
No amount of logic could explain why Taehyun was haunted by someone he didn't know. No amount of logic could explain why Taehyun dreamed of an boy with messy hair and an annoying laugh that echoed even when he was awake.
No amount of logic explained why Taehyun knew everything about this boy. How Taehyun knew that this boy hated light blue but adored the deeper tones of the colour. How Taehyun knew the way his face contorted with disgust as he ate mint-flavoured anything, and how annoyed Yeonjun got at it. How he knew how much strength the boy had - how much he lost and yet how he still loved the world as if it deserved to be loved. Taehyun knew that the boy meant more to him than anything else in the world, that he had loved him and had been loved by him back.
Taehyun knew, beyond anything else, that this boy had saved him in every possible way one could save an person.
And yet -
He didn't know how he sounded when he talked, whether his voice was loud or soft. He didn’t know the exact shade of his hair, or the glow of his eyes in the sun. He didn’t know how the boy’s hand felt against his own, or the taste of his lips pressed to his.
And logically, he shouldn’t care about some nameless, faceless boy that haunted him. After all - if this boy was really someone he was supposed to know, shouldn’t he remember him already? Shouldn’t he be able to remember how he sounded, how he felt, how he looked?
Shouldn’t he remember even his name?
Logic screamed at him to let it all go - it blared alarms in his mind as his fingers absentmindedly reached for an pencil to draw another aimless sketch. It soothed him to sleep after waking from yet another dream filled with forgotten laughter. Logic told him to forget about this forgotten boy and move forward, to keep going to his shifts at that horrid cafe he works at, to keep biting his tongue to stop himself from talking to that regular that always looks so sad, to keep pretending nothing was missing with Yeonjun as they hung out, awkward silence sometimes filling the air were someone else should be filling it.
His entire life, Taehyun has been known as a ‘logical person’. Logic had been his first friend, the first thing he could rely on without fear of falling. Logic had guided him, raised were his parents didn't. Logic was both his saving grace and his doom.
But for the first time in his life, Taehyun ignored the logic. He kept reaching for the pencil to draw the same aimless features. He kept dreaming about the annoying laugh. He and Yeonjun kept having those awkward silences.
Kang Taehyun might be a logical person, but he is also an person ruled by his heart - and boy, was his heart screaming.
So, Taehyun decided one day after one too many unfinished sketches, that he was going to remember this boy. He was going to remember how he sounded, how he felt, how he walked.
Kang Taehyun was going to remember the boy’s name - even if it was the last thing he did.