bridges → taekook

1. vires acquirit eundo

❝vires acquirit eundo.❞

it wasn't unusual for jungkook to be awake late at night. his insomnia kept him up at night, painting nothing in particular and listening to music playing softly in the background. he would sit by his window from when the sky was black to when the sky turned a beautiful pink color that was similar to the wispy flavored clouds of cotton candy.

his landlord, however, hadn't seemed to think that he would have such great problems with sleep and decided to hide from him that just across the street was a horrible, horrible bridge that would leave a terrible burden on jungkook. he hadn't found out until a week after he moved in, when the first person he would witness fall stared at him, catching his attention in just enough time for him to watch and scream and cry as the person tilted backwards.

after that night, jungkook promised himself that he would never let another person fall.

for a year, he would rush out of his open window at night if a person were to step up onto the bridge. no matter if it was snowing or raining or hot or freezing, he would run over to them as fast as he could, yelling for them to stop. he would talk to them. 

over time he learned many things. six seconds was one of the most important things, ingrained into his mind as if it was his own name. six seconds until the person stepped down, embracing jungkook in a hug. six seconds until the person stepped off, leaving a teary-eyed and hurt jungkook to wonder what he did wrong. he would try his best to fix it.

through the course of the year, he had been mostly successful. fifty out of sixty had stepped down from the bridge, never to see jungkook or the horrifying structure of brick again or to return a few months later to thank him and tell him tales of all of the happy things that happened to them in the few months, weeks, days after him helping them. the other ten stepped off.

jungkook kept a book, honoring the people that he lost. he believed that they didn't deserve to be forgotten. they really didn't. whenever the paramedics arrived he would listen to them, receiving their names and times of death, but those were not the only things he would write. 

he would write the tales that they told him through their tears, he would describe what they looked like, he would write their last words. out of those who had survived, he had not gotten attached to them. he let them live the course of their lives. if they wanted him in it, that was up to them. he mostly forgot about them individually, but not as a whole.

that was, until the night a blue boy that looked as delicate as a paper bird stepped onto the bridge. 

jungkook slid through his window, landing quickly but safely on the soft grass of his front lawn. he sprinted towards the blue boy, waving his arms frantically in the air, yelling at him to wait. to stop. he could care less that the gravel of the road just before the bridge stabbed into his bare feet. at that moment, he only cared about the boy made of paper. 

he was panting by the time he reached the bridge. he stared up into soft brown eyes. eyes that he imagined held the kiss of chocolate melting on your tongue. the boy stared back, expression blank and unchanging.

"are you going to try to stop me?" the boy spoke. he asked the question smoothly, the baritone of his voice reverberating slowly through jungkook's bones. the low rumble of his voice is almost comforting as it wraps around jungkook and carries him off to a world where sound is the power that could change everything wrong in the world.