The Sky Is Blue And The Sun Is Shining (Taekook)

Taehyung faces a white wall when he wakes up. He peels the sheets away from his skin, this time sticky and moist from the humid summer air. The parquet beneath his feet is a dark grey, and everything is flickering like static on a television from back in the 1930s.

It has always been like this.

Colour is a myth; his mother has never talked to him about it, and it is something that he’s had to find out for himself three years ago, at the age of twenty two, during his first day of work in the day-care centre located on a quiet street, away from the central business district area.

A five year old girl had settled herself into his lap and told him that one day, she hopes to see cherry blossoms in pink.

Taehyung had laughed, “that’s a nice thought.”

“Mommy said that it’s beautiful,” the girl said, eyes brightening up, and Taehyung had seen the life sparking in those grey, hopeful eyes. “She says it’ll feel like everything is alive.”

“Is that so?”

“She told me that the day the will come,” the girl nodded, all dimpled cheeks and sunshine. “When I meet my soulmate.”

Taehyung called his mother that day. “Have you ever seen cherry blossoms in pink,” he said.

His mother told him, “no”.

The world is in black and white, and while colour is not completely eradicated in the course of one’s life, not everyone has the luxury of meeting their soulmate.

But Taehyung has always been a believer, especially when it comes to miracles.

It’s Friday and Taehyung is late, but it wouldn’t make much of a difference because today is the day where part timers flood the day care, and most parents don’t drop their kids off that early. The fabric of Taehyung's simple white t-shirt plasters against his back, and he can feel the sweat, wet and uncomfortable.

Contrary to popular belief, Taehyung kind of hates summer.

There’s the heavy thud of shoes against the pavement as people rush by him, no doubt just as late for work, or even later than Taehyung. He spots a couple of suits, with blazers thrown haphazardly over their arms as the better dressed of them tug at their crooked ties.

All he wants is a cup of tea, and then he’ll cross the street to meet his babies (Taehyung's rather emotionally attached to the kids at the day care, they like to play with his hair and actually participate when he launches into discussions about outer space. The luckier ones of the lot tell him stories about colours, things that their parents tell them every day, and Taehyung feeds his heart with all the hope that he can get).

Scalding hot, and then Taehyung's jumping back with a soft yelp, staring down at his shirt in despair. There’s a growing splotch of milky brown right at the front, and he’s still wincing from the surprise of the burn.

“Fuck,” the inconsiderate stranger mutters, and then the both of them just stop.

Taehyung stares at him, navy blue long sleeved shirt, darkened at the front by the two cups of lattes that he’d spilled on himself, black tie and dark red hair that looks as if he’d just rolled out of bed ten minutes before he’d left his house, mussed and bangs half falling over his eyes. Taehyung just gapes.

“You’re…” the other man looks winded, stunned, but then it seems as if he’s suddenly remembering that he’s supposed to be rushing for something, he’s got both his lattes soaked into his shirt and the frown is back on his face. “Phone,” he says, stacking one half empty cup on top of the other, and stretches a hand out.

Against his better judgement, Taehyung obliges, and watches as the stranger taps impatiently at his screen and calls someone, a faint buzzing coming from his front pocket, which stops the moment he cuts the call.

“I,” Taehyung starts to say, but the stranger’s already tucked the phone back into Taehyung's open hands.

“I’ll call you,” his voice is deep and promising, and then he’s gone, slipping through the crowd of people and disappearing into the morning rush.

Taehyung stands on the street with his phone in his hands, coffee on his shirt and his mind in a daze. The traffic lights by the pedestrian crossing beside him are blinking bright green, and then red. The sky is a deep blue, and the LED sign above the laundry shop across the street is flashing in a cycle of neon greens, yellows and pinks.

Everything feels alive.

(“Hello?”

“I’m sorry about earlier, I was in a rush and didn’t get to introduce myself. I’m Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook.”

“I’m Kim Taehyung.”

“Taehyung, hi. So I was wondering… if I could ask you out to dinner some time?”)

Taehyung fondly remembers their first date as a little like this: Jungkook leaves him breathless, literally.

Three minutes in Jungkook's car has Taehyung grabbing at the seatbelt with both hands, terrified for his life. One very prominent downside of seeing in colour is that traffic lights are definitely more intimidating in red instead of grey.

“Slow the **** down! You’re going to get us both killed,” Taehyung hisses, his knuckles going white from how tightly he’s clutching at the strap of leather.

“The reservation is at seven.”

“I told you I’m all right with street food!”

“And I told you that I don’t bring people out onto the streets on dates.”

Taehyung really wants to throttle Jungkook right now. “That’s such an asshole-ish thing to say.”

“On first dates,” Jungkook corrects, realizing why Taehyung seems to be misunderstanding him. “Come on, I’m all for first impressions.”

“This certainly isn’t helping your case.”

That aside, the steak is really good and the last time Taehyung had eaten anything remotely classy was when he’d ordered pizza a few hours after midnight and spent the next day trying to forget about how much he’d had to pay for the delivery charges.

Jungkook is a lawyer, Taehyung learns (“Why the hell aren’t you following the highway code, then?”). He works in one of the better known law firms in Seoul, and graduated from a top school in the States. He’d come back just a few weeks ago, and his friend Namjoon was the one who’d recommended him the job he currently has.

“It was the first day of my first job,” Jungkook makes a face, and it makes him look younger than twenty four, makes Taehyung soften up towards him. “And I reported to work late with two cups of half empty lattes and coffee stains down the front of my shirt.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jungkook grins, dropping his gaze down to his plate where he’s cutting his steak up into little bite-sized pieces, “I also reported to work seeing everything in colour.”

Taehyung decides that pink looks good on Jungkook's cheeks.

Taehyung is tucking the last boy into bed when the door to the nap room opens, and he turns around, blinking in quiet bewilderment. It’s Jungkook, standing by the doorframe wearing a sheepish smile, and he waves at Taehyung, albeit shyly.

“Hello,” Jungkook says, when Taehyung's in front of him, and he slings his arms around Taehyung waist, a small smile ghosting on his lips.

“Hello.” Taehyung chuckles softly, walking Jungkook backwards out of the room so they don’t disturb the children who are sleeping, and he flashes a quick grin at the bemused receptionist when she gives him a knowing look, before turning his attention back to Jungkook. “Are you here to pick someone up?”

“Yeah,” a cheeky grin, one that Taehyung's grown rather fond of, and Jungkook leans in to nose at Taehyung's jaw. “There’s this boy, he’s twenty five. He’s got a beautiful smile and the wildest orange hair because I quote, ‘it’s summer’. I promised that I would spend more time with him. Can I pick him up now?”

Taehyung glances over at Hoseok, who rolls his eyes and waves his hand at the couple in a shooing motion. “Sure, sure. This boy is trouble, anyways. Please take him away, I have enough on my hands.”

Jungkook's laughing when he pulls Taehyung out through the automatic doors, hand tightly clasped with his. “I’ll bring him back, safe and sound.”

They’re walking down the streets, fingers loosely tangled as Taehyung puts a little swing into their arms. “Busy day?”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Jungkook turns to him, and Taehyung's first instinct is to smile, because the younger’s emotions are always on full display on his face, for all the world to see. When Jungkook is happy, his bunny toothed smile peeks out, and the sides of his eyes crinkle into crescents until they almost seem to disappear. “I took the rest of the week off, so why don’t we go somewhere, stay the weekend? Just the two of us.”

“Okay.” Taehyung squeezes Jungkook's hand in his, and pulls him towards a street stall where they share a bowl of spicy rice cakes, and Taehyung's heart feels as if it’s on fire, while Jungkook expresses the same sentiment towards his tongue.

“This isn’t right,” Jungkook grumbles, his tongue out as he tries to fan it with a hand, “I made time for you, but you’re trying to kill me.”

Taehyung laughs, wipes the red sauce from the side of Jungkook's lips with his thumb. “Why would I ever want to do that?”

When Jungkook brings them to the train station, Taehyung really doesn’t expect to be holding a ticket for the two hour ride to Daegu. His eyes widen, staring, and Jungkook's grinning so wide Taehyung wonders if his jaw is aching.

“What?” Taehyung also doesn’t mean to sound so defensive.

“I just thought you’d be missing home.”

And Taehyung does, he really does miss home. His heart swells, tucked close against Jungkook's side during the entire train ride, palms pressed to the warm glass windows, watching the scenery flit by like butterflies, soft little exhales fluttering by Taehyung's cheek as the younger dozes off on his shoulder.

It is different. Everything is different when seen in colour, and Taehyung's breath catches in his throat whenever he sees the faint glint of green of leaves or the blue-white flash of sunlight reflecting off of buildings.

Beautiful.

Beautiful and alive; the world is a phoenix, red and yellow, reborn from the grey of its ashes.

Taehyung takes (drags) Jungkook around, smiling wider than he has for the past few years, revisiting his childhood, hugging the trees at the parks and breathing in the tang of oranges in open-air markets, tasting the colour on his tongue. Tasting the life on his tongue. Jungkook watches him, fondness in his eyes and warm fingers tangled with Taehyung's.

They spend the morning in the arboretum, taking in the sight of multi-coloured flora, remembering how bright everything is, thanking each other in between laughs. The rest of the afternoon drifts away with Jungkook chasing Taehyung around the field, weaving between the sculptures in the outdoor exhibit of a museum.

That night, Taehyung brings Jungkook home, and his mother drops the television remote that she’s holding when she answers the door. Taehyung says, “your shirt is a nice shade of pink.” She looks down at his hand, sees it clasped with Jungkook's, and she knows.

Later, when Taehyung's fast asleep in bed, in the room where he grew up in, Jungkook sits up, unable to sleep in the foreign environment. He finds Taehyung's mother sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, and dips his head in greeting, returning her soft smile.

“So,” she says after a stretch of silence. “You’re the one who showed my son the colour of the sky.”

Jungkook swallows in his throat. “Yes.”

They remain that way, basking in each other’s presence, two people who are willing to die for the boy sleeping in the room next to them.

Taehyung's mother lifts her cup to her lips, takes a sip and whispers, “thank you. For doing what I could never do.”

At the other side of the wall, Taehyung dreams of dipping his hand into the surface of a turquoise ocean, watching the surface ripple like echoes.

It happens when the leaves start to shed their evergreen, slipping into a coat of rusty red. When nights are decidedly chillier and people stop going outside without a second layer of clothing.

Taehyung is laying in Jungkook's bed, eyes closed while the younger traces his fingers over the outline of Taehyung's body, the pale, bare skin of his shoulder illuminated by the sliver of moonlight spilling in through the gaps in the curtains.

When he opens his eyes, he finds that Jungkook is staring at him, his dark eyes unreadable but gaze still steady.

“Hey,” Jungkook whispers, and Taehyung makes a soft noncommittal noise in response. “Do you want to move in with me?”

And in that moment, Taehyung closes his eyes again and sees the pale orange and purple of all the sunrises that have yet to happen for the rest of his life, wrapped in the arms of one Jeon Jungkook, and he thinks that he’s never going to experience anything more beautiful than that.

Taehyung says, “yes”, keeps his eyes closed as Jungkook surges in to kiss him breathless, and it feels like the first time, all over again.

“I would have thought that you’ve had enough of doing that, considering the insane amount of time you spent outside this time last year.”

Taehyung's cheeks flush from where he’s currently shin deep in a pile of fallen leaves, mirroring the vibrant shades of red and brown still fluttering centimetres off the ground from when he’d jumped into them moments ago. “Don’t be an ***.”

Jungkook has been leaning against the side of his car, watching Taehyung in the yard, raking up fallen leaves and jumping into them for a total of ten minutes, before deciding to speak up. The other’s hair is a shade of desaturated red, perfect for the season, but Jungkook zeroes in on the colour of Taehyung's cheeks.

“My assholery aside,” Jungkook says, “Taehyung. Really?”

Taehyung just chucks a handful of leaves in Jungkook's direction (although they don’t even get within two metre radius of the younger, considering that leaves are almost weightless and also, the air resistance) and starts raking up the rest again. “Just… one more time, all right.”

Jungkook lets out a snort, one brow raised as the other man works, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips the way it always does when Taehyung's extra focused on something, and there’s something terribly endearing about the way Taehyung is so concentrated on piling leaves to jump into.

With a quiet sigh, Jungkook straightens and bends over to roll up the legs of his slacks, sauntering over to where Taehyung is, reaching out to take the rake from his hands, earning him a surprised look.

“So,” Taehyung says, breaking out into a teasing grin. “You’re not possibly thinking of joining me, are you?”

Ten minutes later, Jungkook's fighting Taehyung on who gets to jump into their current pile of leaves because we have to take turns, I only have one rake, and in another five, Taehyung's on his back, little fractures and fragments of autumn tangled into his hair as Jungkook marks similar hues of red down the column of his pale neck.

Sometimes, they would lay in bed together, just holding hands, and it is in these moments when Taehyung feels absolutely wrecked. In which he feels so in love that the feeling rises with the swell of his inhales, seeping into every crack in his bones, until it locks and stays.

Jungkook likes to take their hands and stretch their arms out in front of them, towards the ceiling, and then he would slot his thumb with Taehyung's, bending and straightening the rest of his fingers at the second knuckle in slow undulations. He calls them butterflies.

“I get these in my stomach whenever I’m with you,” Jungkook starts, and Taehyung tries to suppress the urge to suffocate the younger with a pillow. And Jungkook knows, the little shit knows, but he would still continue. “Which is, to say, always.”

Taehyung stares upwards, watching the flickering of their hands casting shadows on the ceiling and smiles, says, “you’re an idiot.”

Jungkook has never once denied. When Taehyung's finally asleep, he threads his fingers through the other’s hair and presses his lips against his forehead. He whispers, “only for you.”

Other times, they would spend their day off on a weekend morning in the café down the street, pointing out the associations of colours to different senses, they are always excited, always thrilled, and the novelty seems as if it would never wear off.

Jungkook's favourite colour is almost definitely blue.

(“Why?”

“Isn’t it beautiful? It’s the colour of the sky and ocean. It’s freedom, hope. But it’s also the colour of sorrow. It’s everything.”)

Taehyung doesn’t have a preference, he loves them all. He has a different hair colour almost every two months, like a child trying to decide on a favourite type of candy. He’s here, then there, and Jungkook is right behind him.

They’re contented, sated, stealing shades of the rainbow from everything and from each other.

Jungkook's hand is warm in Taehyung's, but their exhales drift into a translucent white. It’s cold in the late evening, and they’re both hungry, stomachs just as empty as Jungkook's refrigerator (much to Taehyung's chagrin).

“I can’t believe you don’t do grocery shopping,” Taehyung mumbles, squeezing Jungkook's hand extra tight, hoping that the noises from his stomach aren’t too loud. “Don’t normal people at least have instant ramyun?”

“I’m living the bachelor life,” Jungkook's saying, but then he catches the look that Taehyung is giving him, and corrects himself with a sheepish chuckle. “I was, and it’s never too late to start. We’re hardly at home anyway.”

Taehyung had crash dived onto Jungkook (who had no clients for the evening and was napping on the couch) the moment he had gotten home from the day care and demanded that they have a home cooked meal.

Groggy and disoriented, but not at all fazed, Jungkook had slung an arm around the older man’s waist and given in.

(“What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“You’ve got nothing in the refrigerator.”

“Oh, well. About that.”)

Once they’re in the warmth of the supermarket near Jungkook's semi-detached unit, Taehyung hangs a basket off the crook in his arm and immediately heads for the shelves, Jungkook trailing behind him like a lost, confused puppy.

Taehyung piles the basket with a couple packs of pasta (in penne because Taehyung thinks that they look like those Roller Coaster potato snacks that he’s infatuated with), a jar of Alfredo sauce, packs of shredded cheese and an assortment of different coloured capsicums (“Come on, Jungkook, if they look like that they’re bound to taste good.” “I hate peppers, monochrome or not.”)

They end up getting a few bottles of wine in red, white and rose, because Taehyung just can’t resist (“It’s pink! The wine is pink.” “Babe, that’s French wine, I’ve had quite a bit back in the States.”).

It’s heart-warming, Taehyung thinks, that Jungkook seems almost childlike, a man in his mid-twenties with an orange beanie pulled messily over his ears, following Taehyung around a supermarket and expressing disbelief that rice can be sold in pre-packaged forms.

“So, I just have to put this in the microwave for two minutes and I can eat it with kimchi?” The look of bewilderment is evident on Jungkook's face as he lifts the plastic bowl of film-packed rice to eye level, squinting at the ingredients list plastered at its base. “Wow.”

Taehyung plucks it out of Jungkook's hand and places it into the shopping basket, laughing so hard that his eyes disappear into crescents, and the younger can see his trademark rectangular smile. “Why don’t I prove it to you someday?”

At the checkout, while the cashier scans their items, Jungkook pulls Taehyung close against his side, arms winding around the older man’s waist as he presses his lips to Taehyung's temple. He whispers three words, low in Taehyung's ear so that only he can hear it (Taehyung smiles and whispers it back).

The glass blurs and splits into two when Taehyung reaches out for it, cheeks flushed from the alcohol while he lets out a surprised laugh, fingers closing around air. Pressing his lips thin in concentration, he tries again, curling his hand just beside the neck of the glass.

Opposite him, Jungkook is laughing, head slightly tipped back as the chuckles slip, low and amused from between his lips, at just how drunk Taehyung is.

There's an empty bottle of red wine placed near the side of the coffee table, and they're both sitting cross legged on the floor, a little over halfway through the bottle of white wine, since Taehyung had insisted on trying all three colours at one go, and Jungkook couldn't resist issuing him a challenge. A drinking challenge.

“Don’t back out on me now,” Taehyung's words are slurred as he throws Jungkook a dirty look, eyes slanting into slits at the sight of the condescending smirk adorning the younger’s lips. “You’re the one who wanted to do this.”

“No,” Jungkook says, his smile so wide that his eyes almost disappear into their crescents, and it makes Taehyung's heart flutter, the way it always does. “I merely asked if you wanted to do it.”

“I feel like I’ve been scammed,” Taehyung mumbles, genuinely confused, and he stares at his half-filled glass of white wine until Jungkook shifts himself and sits beside him, draping an arm around Taehyung's waist and nosing at his temple. “You’re being a jerk again.”

Jungkook's voice is low and warm by Taehyung's ear, his breath a tickle at his nape, and Taehyung shivers, leaning close. “But you love me anyway,” Jungkook presses his lips against Taehyung's jaw, trails downwards to the side of his neck. “And I am absolutely right back in love with you.”

Taehyung grumbles, “unfair”, and resumes his challenge, feeling Jungkook's eyes on him as he tips back the remaining wine in his glass, revelling in the way Jungkook tells him that he’s done a good job.

“Let’s cook dinner now,” Jungkook chuckles, gently pushing Taehyung's bangs away from his forehead, taking in the other’s flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes. “Wheat pasta?”

“With Alfredo sauce.” Taehyung lets Jungkook help him up from the floor and into the kitchen, where the younger hands him the jar of Alfredo sauce that they’d gotten from the supermarket earlier.

“Heat that up in the microwave, I’ll make the pasta.”

Even in his drunk state, Taehyung hears the alarm bells, and he stares down at the jar, turning it skeptically in his hand. “Are you sure you won’t burn the kitchen down or something?”

“I’m not entirely hopeless, I did live by myself in the States for over five years.”

Taehyung spoons the sauce into a bowl and pops it into the microwave, watching Jungkook slice peppers and dice them up into a miniature pile of red, green and yellow, the colours blurring into bright sparks that take Taehyung's breath again yet again.

And Jungkook. Jungkook is the masterpiece, all muscled arms and a slight frown on his face as he concentrates with the knife, as he estimates the amount of penne needed for both their portions, as he stirs the pot with the pasta boiling inside.

“Hey,” Taehyung murmurs, arms wrapping around Jungkook's waist in a back hug as the younger is panfrying the peppers. “I think you look good doing everything.”

Jungkook lets out a quiet chuckle, making a noncommittal sound in response as he pushes the diced peppers around the pan, the faint sizzling of oil humming in the silence. “Thank you?”

He’s reaching out for salt when Taehyung's lips graze over his nape, and Jungkook freezes, his protest cut off sharply once Taehyung cups the front of his boxers with a hand. “Not the time,” Jungkook warns, but it holds no bite, and Taehyung tightens his grip slightly, earning him a small hiss.

“Please,” Taehyung's voice is a low whine by Jungkook's ear, and Jungkook thinks he might go insane. “Kiss me, please.”

Once Jungkook has Taehyung sitting on the counter, he takes a step back and takes in the audacity of the situation. Taehyung with his alcohol flushed cheeks and thighs spread next to the induction plate, a pan of vegetables still cooking on the dim red circles of heat.

“Later,” Jungkook says, knuckles brushing over Taehyung's cheek though he obliges and leans in to press a soft kiss to the older man’s lips. “You must be ridiculously drunk.” It’s kind of adorable, but Jungkook doesn’t mention that.

“I’m not,” Taehyung's presses closer, insisting. His arms loop around Jungkook's neck, tugging the younger between his legs and slanting his lips over Jungkook's again, and Jungkook can taste the bittersweet of alcohol on Taehyung's tongue, on his lips.

Jungkook eventually gives in, fumbling to twist the heat of the induction plate down to zero and hoisting Taehyung onto his hips, stumbling their way into the bedroom where he lets Taehyung fall onto the mattress.

Taehyung's nails leave marks, harsh and red, down the length of Jungkook's arms, but Jungkook's lips are territorial in their own way. Stark and firm, loud bruises, deep purple and blooming all along Taehyung's neck, shoulders and over his left collarbone.

“Mine,” Jungkook growls, hips snapping, and Taehyung cries out, throws an arm over his eyes as he grasps desperately at the sheets beneath him, legs trembling. “Mine.”

This place is home.

Taehyung is a sanctuary, and Jungkook has been looking for sanity, for a long time. It’s where nothing matters, where there’s only the present, no past, and no future. Where he takes all he can from the beautiful mess beneath him as Taehyung falls apart, a sob of Jungkook's name dying at the tip of his tongue, and he learns the power of the colour white from behind his closed eyes all over again.

Later, when Jungkook is fast asleep and the shadows cast masks over his face, Taehyung brushes them all away with gentle fingers and whispers, “yours.”

It’s almost naptime for the kids and Taehyung's trying not to trip over the miniature humans who are clinging to his legs, whining about wanting to play games instead. He takes slow, awkward steps, ushering them into the nap room by their shoulders with his phone clamped between his ear and shoulder.

“Come on,” Taehyung murmurs, patting a little girl on the small of her back as she climbs into her bunk. “Be good.”

“What’s that?” the girl’s eyes are wide and curious as she prods a finger at the side of Taehyung's neck, and Taehyung is suddenly grateful that she only sees in black and white.

“Oh,” Taehyung chews on his lip, the girl’s gaze boring into his own, and he suddenly feels a little dumb for getting panicked. “It’s something that someone you love gives you. Like, an insect bite, but… in a nice way.”

“So they bite you?” the girl’s nose wrinkles up in confusion, and Taehyung hurriedly tucks her in, pulling the blankets up to her chin.

“Yup,” Taehyung quips, rather shamelessly. “And they suck on it like Dracula until it turns purple.”

“What’s purple?”

“You’ll know when you meet your soulmate.”

(Over at the other side of the line, Jungkook chokes on a sip of coffee, earning him a strange look from Namjoon and some other colleagues.)

Hoseok's sitting in front of the whiteboard at the other side of the nap room where he has been writing down the letters of the alphabet.

He drops his marker and turns around, gaping in disbelief.

(“What the ****, Kim Taehyung!”

“Shh, you’ll wake the kids!”

“What if they tell their parents what you said!”)

There’s something about the way snowflakes seem to slow down whenever they’re about to reach the ground. Taehyung thinks that it’s because they’re not ready to melt away into nothingness yet.

Everything craves life.

Strings of bright lights have been hung up from lamppost to lamppost, and there’s a big Christmas tree in the middle of the square.

It’s one week from Christmas, and Taehyung is as smitten by the colours as he had been three years ago when he’d first seen them.

They had spent their first Christmas together in Jungkook's house. Jungkook had gotten a small Christmas tree and they’d put it in the middle of the living room.

“It needs a star,” Taehyung had insisted, while they draped gold and magenta tinsels around the tree, hooking little bulbs and bells on the leaves.

There had been a point where Jungkook had to wrap his arms around Taehyung and drag him away to the couch. “You’re going to drown the poor tree. There’s way too many things hanging on that tiny plant,” he’d said, laughing, while Taehyung protested (“It needs more love and colour!”).

Taehyung had allowed himself to be pulled onto Jungkook's lap, but he’d taken something out from behind him and held it above him and Jungkook, a wide smile on his lips. “Mistletoe,” and Jungkook had raised an eyebrow at that, “so you have to kiss me. Now.”

Jungkook had kissed him so hard that Taehyung dropped the mistletoe.

Four in the afternoon sees almost no one in the record shop, and the shopkeeper has a warm smile as Taehyung enters, a small bell at the entrance tinkling to signal his presence.

Different albums line the shelves, from local to international music, and Taehyung lets out a soft sigh, because Jungkook's loves almost all sort of music, and he doesn’t remember an album that the younger doesn’t already own and Christmas presents have to be special, he’s even told that to almost everyone, ignoring their retaliations of it’s the thought that counts.

He’s in the back of the shop, when it happens.

Taehyung's head whirrs, almost like clockworks and gears turning, coming back to life, and his vision blurs. He reaches out to find some sort of leverage, and accidentally sweeps a stack of CDs off the shelf.

When the pain subsides enough for him to open his eyes, Taehyung's heart lurches, feet stumbling all the way to the front of the store and pushing out of the door.

Snow keeps falling, the Christmas decorations keep blinking, but the colour continues to bleed away from his vision, and everything dims, the beauty slipping away.

The phone call comes as the bleakest moment in Taehyung's entire life, and for once, he is the first who hangs up. He’s staring at the lights in the square, the sky. He stares at the Christmas tree.

“Are you all right?” It’s the shopkeeper from the record shop, voice laced with worry.

“It’s not green anymore,” Taehyung whispers, and he’s cold. It’s so cold here. “It’s dead. He’s dead. Everything is dead.”

Everything is colourless.

(Taehyung finds the small velvet box in Jungkook's sock drawer a week after the funeral, but he never opens it because he never wants to see the ring without the blue that Jungkook had loved so much.)

It’s difficult to revert back to a spectrum of greys when you’ve once tasted colour, red and hot and burning on someone else’s lips.

Taehyung holds a bouquet of tulips, the soles of his shoes digging into the soil before a grave. The tulips are yellow, or at least, that’s what he’d intended to buy. The florist at the shop had looked at him with so much pity in her eyes that Taehyung had turned away and left the moment he’d paid for it.

He remembers spring as a season of cherry blossoms and landscapes of green, one year ago when Jungkook had brought them on a short trip to Kyoto.

Jungkook's got his favourite Nikon slung around his neck as Taehyung walked too quickly down Philosopher’s Path, continuously beckoning for Jungkook to hurry up and look at these, they’re beautiful.

Cherry blossoms were in abundance, every tree was full of life and colour, and Taehyung had thrived in how surreal everything was.

When Taehyung had returned from the day care one evening, about a week after their trip, he’d seen photographs of himself among cherry blossoms put up in one stretch along the walls from the front door all the way to the staircase, and he had thought, this is definitely love, and love is here to stay.

Hoseok had told him to take a few days off from work when Taehyung accidentally poured water into the bowls of cereal that they had been preparing for the kids at the day care. Taehyung had lost almost all of his enthusiasm, stopped talking as much and his smiles no longer reach his eyes.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Hoseok had said, “it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. Some things just happen, and life is a bitch. Rest up, take some time off for yourself.”

Taehyung picks a fallen cherry blossom up from the ground and cradles it in both his palms, wishing that it isn’t grey.

Traffic lights and flashing pedestrian icons are essentially useless when one does not see in colour, so it is no wonder when Taehyung finds himself sprawled on his back, gasping from having the breath knocked out of him. He catches a glimpse of the truck; it delivers gas.

When he turns, cheek pressed against the road, the cement fluctuates between warm and cold. It doesn’t hurt, and vaguely, Taehyung remembers having read something about how the brain releases endorphins when you’re about to die and so, this is it.

He sees his blood seeping into the cracks, staining the road. Stark red chasing into black when melting into concrete.

Taehyung's eyelids flutter, and the world shifts out of focus, exploding out of its dimension. He stares, the vignette in his vision expanding rapidly inwards, but maybe, just maybe, it’s all right.

(Because the sky is blue again.)

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