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Taeyong has always been enamoured with hearts. The small, black tattoos that are supposed to ink themselves onto your skin when someone starts to love you.And human hearts - the way they feel emotion, the way some people wear them proudly (or not so proudly) on their sleeve.The truth of the matter is: Taeyong has neither.He has a literal heart, the physical organ sitting in his chest, sure. It pumps blood around his body, keeps him alive and all that jazz. But he hasn’t felt love, not the romantic sort that the novels over-exaggerate or that movies dramatise. He hasn’t felt the “spark” you’re supposed to feel when your lips touch someone else’s. He hasn’t seen the world through rose-tinted glasses. He hasn’t felt the need to die for (or because of) someone.Taeyong is painfully aware of this. And yet he’s still obsessed with hearts, and the way he can make other people feel.He has a habit of collecting them.He knows it’s foul, he knows it’s self-absorbed and selfish. But he can’t stop.The water splashed in his face doesn’t come as a surprise. “Fuck you, Tae,” Seulgi spits, tears running down her cheeks. She drops the empty water bottle to the pavement, and it rolls away. Taeyong feels the urge to go and put it in the bin, but he clamps down on it for now. “Why can’t you just love me back?”Taeyong smiles back sadly, a bitter taste in his mouth. “I just don’t have the capacity for love.” he answers with the truth. “It’s nothing personal.”“Nothing personal?” Seulgi scoffs in disbelief through her tears. “Of course it’s personal, you prick! Don’t you understand that I love you?”Taeyong nods solemnly. “I know that. I have the mark to prove it.”This seems to anger Seulgi even more. “Yeah. You do. And obviously, that’s all that matters.”The guilt tries to wiggle its way through Taeyong’s defenses, but fails, instead going straight over his head. He has the decency to feel bad for his girlfriend-- correction, EX-girlfriend - but not to the extent that he would admit it. “I’m sorry you feel this way,” he tries, but by now, he doesn’t really care.Seulgi just laughs coldly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m really sorry too.” She abruptly stands up, collecting her bag from where it sits on the park bench beside her. Taeyong stands too, sticking his hands in his pockets. Seulgi takes a few deep breaths before starting again, eyes burning holes into Taeyong’s own. “You are going to end up old and bitter and cold and utterly alone,” she spits out. “I feel sorry for everyone else who falls in love with you.”“So do I,” Taeyong says, smiling despite the pain he knows she’s in.She scoffs again. “Unbelievable,” she whispers. “Have fun with your disgusting scars.” With those words, she walks away, not looking back. Taeyong shivers, water soaking the neckline of his shirt. He walks to where the bottle rolled to, picking it up before throwing it in the bin back beside the bench. His chest clenches. “They’re not ugly,” he whispers to himself. “They’re not ugly.”He knows he’s lying to himself.When he arrives back at his flat, he ignores his flatmate’s questions, choosing to instead quickly make his way to the bathroom. He makes sure to lock the door behind him, before tearing off his damp shirt, one of the buttons falling off in his haste. He hears a sigh from behind the door. “Taeyong hyung,”“I’m fine, Jaehyunnie,” Taeyong replies, looking in the mirror. His fair skin stares back at him, collarbones and shoulders and muscles creating sharp lines and angles, but that’s not what he’s focussed on. No, what Taeyong’s eyes immediately gravitate to are the scars decorating the left side of his chest.When someone admits to themselves that they love you, a black heart (similar to a tattoo) appears over your own heart. Taeyong is obsessed with them - they feel like validation, like he’s not alone. They make him proud, but they also make him sick to his stomach. When someone falls out of love with you, their respective heart fades into a white scar. From vibrant to faded, from perfect and crisp to puckered and uneven - that in itself is something else Taeyong is obsessed with; the pure dichotomy that resides within the whole biology. But the thing he loves the most is the sheer amount of scars. They differ in size, some not bigger in diameter than half a centimeter, some as large as a jar lid, but they travel up and down his chest. Most are centered around his heart, but because space on his skin really is a premium, there are a few dotted just below his collarbone, and some travel down to skirt around his ribcage. The only black heart, Seulgi’s, is located closer to the center of his chest. To the average eye it would look perfectly normal, but to Taeyong’s practised eye, he can already see it starting to fade. It doesn’t look as vibrant as it did yesterday. It’ll probably take a while to fade - but then again, each one takes a different amount of time. In the back of his mind, Taeyong knows how many people he’s hurt. But he blocks it out, refusing to register it. Because he knows if he does accept it, he won’t be able to piece himself back together.“What happened? Weren’t you supposed to be staying at Seulgi’s for the night?” Jaehyun’s voice sounds, bringing him back to reality. Taeyong runs a hand over his chest, fingertips skimming the damaged skin. As his finger brushes Seulgi’s heart, a stab of pain shocks his chest. Taeyong’s not surprised - Seulgi is probably angry, upset, hurt. In pain. That’s why her heart, both her own and the one inked into Taeyong’s skin, hurts like hell.“She broke up with me,” Taeyong replies. It’s not technically a lie. He’s just leaving out a lot of details. “Fuck man,” Jaehyun swears. “Are you okay? You just never seem to catch a break,”“I’m fine,” Taeyong replies somewhat honestly. His heart doesn’t hurt. But he wonders what it would feel like, to feel his heart breaking and torn up and in stitches - But above all of it, what it would feel like to leave his heart on someone else’s skin.