of sanguine body gold and vernal existence, birthed a boy of white-hot fingertips and eyes to spark a nova. 

he teetered, one kim taehyung. lapsed someplace between eerily unorthodox and refreshingly eccentric. but given the circumstances of his childhood, nothing less could be expected. his parents could hardly be considered such: uptight slaves to wall street fallacies with starched cuffs and iron-pressed lips. for most, the birth of a son was something joyous. to them, it held only convenience. appropriate. but within six years of violin eventides, chilled metal calipers, and inkwork schedules, it became clear that something was wrong. there wasn't a shred of doubt toward the boy's intellect as his desire to please far eclipsed the limitations of his age. but fragile health took the place of his ball and chain.

the lethargy elapsed into headaches. the headaches elapsed into fainting spells. and it was when taehyung startled the french tutor with his first seizure that his parents finally had him seen by professionals. "a brain tumor", the neurologist concluded, "One we can't get to without further damaging his mind." it was nestled, a stubborn little pest, within the deeper crevice of his hemispheres--- slowly suffocating the vessels around it. he was given a prognosis of at least three years of normalcy before he would further deteriorate and become something unrecognizable. undesirable. that was all his parents needed to hear to opt him out of their home. for defection in a child was meant to be corrected, fixed. not written off in the medical records and withstood at the risk of their money. 

taehyung was placed in fostercare before his seventh birthday, and by the time he had reached prepubescence--- he'd been ricocheted between twelve different homes. at the age of fourteen, he considered himself adult enough to evade the system, choosing to run away from the roof of his "nevada parents" and wander the streets. the concrete jungle, he found, was no kinder to him but it bore a distinctive freedom that he'd never felt before. curiosity was his corona, and his heart laid stitched upon his sleeve. the boy was young and naive but a fast learner and a people person which, in turn, made him a survivor. he touched upon whatever odd jobs could score him a meal at mcdonalds, no matter how grimy or self-depricating. taehyung had successfully compartmentalized his desire to live... gradually numbing the guilt and disgust eroding at his ribs.

california embraced him as an old friend, the pavement still unforgiving but the people far more interesting. the bums there seemed to take a liking to him, a softness instilled in their hearts at the sight of a child just trying to make it to his next meal. one man in particular kept him under his wing. a man born to poverty, without five of his teeth but with an abundance of musical capability. though he called himself a new name every week, he likened himself to "reginald buchanan" and would call taehyung nothing else but "viktor". the streets became their playground and taehyung found fatherhood in a man missing his right pinkie and with an abundance of musical ability. for months, they travelled and hit the streets--- reggie with his fiddle and taehyung with his old violin. but when he spotted the work taehyung could create with gritty hands and sidewalk chalk, reggie encouraged the boy to take up art. his first art book was a stolen biography of claude monet, and it became the first of taehyung's personal favorites. infatuation with the world around him would then grow to consume the boy, and that innate curiosity would evolve into something of an obsession with the earthen world.

but then came his first run in with a vampire.

taehyung and reggie had always been neutral beings both in politics and religion. like passivists, they excepted the coexistence of warring opinions--- the human color palette as taehyung would call it. their stance of vampires was no different, and reggie held a firm belief that whatever the universe had aligned for them would come to be. with his world unlocking and finally bestowing a path he could follow all his own, taehyung simply believed he had no desire to fixate himself to the supernatural. and on his sixteenth birthday, reggie revealed that he'd been quietly submitting taehyung's works to showcases around the south cali locales. finally catching the eye of a man who agreed to sponsor the boy through his school life if under strict regulation. catching up with what he'd missed in that span of time was child's play for a boy with taehyung's brain--- no matter how damaged it had become. he was already set to start college sometime after turning eighteen and it seemed that things were finally set abloom.

but taehyung would find soon that there would be no hand to hold at orientation. that parent visitation day would be meaningless to his concerns. because no sooner did classes start did he return to find reggie's lifeless form deposited beneath a frozen bridge. preserved by permafrost, the gashes at his neck so terrifyingly real. and taehyung's very first sight of a vampire would be when watery eyes lifted beyond his "father's" frozen corpse to behold a woman so deathly pallid yet untouched by the snowfall. lips rubescent beyond the blood drying against them. and it was then that taehyung recalled everything reggie had taught him, how life was all of giving and taking. how exchanges like this were all in the nature of existing. and taehyung knew that he still had a ways to go until he could ever be nearly as accepting or forgiving as his reggie.

he found solace in his studies, strove to become the man reggie would've wanted in him. he lived while he could, attended parties between classes, settled down with friends, took warm bodies home to ease the chilly mornings. the dorm lifestyle was a blessing to someone who'd been street-ridden for so long, and he made sure to enjoy every minute of it. taehyung graduated with a major in fine arts and a minor in psychology, finding his passion in the use of artistic escapism. the release that would come with unhindered expression and encouragement. this way, he embraced humanity in a whole novel sort of oneness. taehyung  continues to live as best he can, though his mind never rids itself of its bleak condition. he tries his best, fighting through the bouts of weakness or momentary lapses of mournful despair with distractions. he musing through his life, taehyung casts his eyes skyward despite the desolation toiling around him. it's all he can do, after all, to keep going.