Rainbow - BTS

24 - Green

inspiration has never come easy
conversations make me feel queasy
I don't want to be alone
but my heart is set in stone
i can't trust myself to love
can't trust myself to exist
can't trust myself to care
if the world revolves around a kiss

if i'm separate, i am safe
but being separate hurts
if i'm separate, i can't get tricked
but being separate makes me feel like dirt

It's safe to say that this is a conversation that Jungkook never expected to have with his talkative editor, who's kind of like his friend and his boss all rolled into one. This is a conversation that wouldn't have been possible, three years ago.

When Jungkook was fourteen, he used to sit outside and sketch. He used to watch people, draw them, draw the shop fronts, the sky, everything he saw. When he was fourteen, things were simpler but so much more complicated all at the same time. He had the opportunity to leave behind the life he was leading, and made the decision to become a professional illustrator.

But there's more to his tale than meets the eye.

He was born to older parents on a normal estate, went to school like everyone else, and was incredibly loyal to his friends. He was caring, he was open, and he wanted nothing more than to be an artist of some sort. From a young age, he was watching guidance videos and taking classes, practising whenever he got a spare moment. To start with, that was nearly all the time.

And then Hoseok and Namjoon saw him drawing them in the street, and his life changed.

Namjoon argued with Jungkook's mother for a good month before she finally gave in and allowed Hoseok to hire the nervous teenager as a part-time illustrator. They had ideas, had a poet who wanted to write something and share it. And Hoseok knew that Jungkook's art was needed to make those poems sing on the pages, words lift up and into the air like the lyrics of a ballad.

And so they did everything they could to make sure that the fourteen year old was able and willing to get involved. They just didn't know that it would work as well as it did. And once Jungkook's mother realised how successful the books had become, she gave Jungkook an ultimatum:

Give her the money that Jungkook earned from the books, so that she could 'look after it' for him whilst he had a proper education, or find his own home and build his own life.

When he turned sixteen, Yoongi's second collection was released, and Jungkook left school, applying for a cottage on the outskirts of the city. With the help of his new friends, he found himself a good place, and then Miri became part of his life.

And now he lives alone, a seventeen year old, too mature and aware for his age, too successful, to the point that it's overwhelming. Three books of illustrations to his name, at such a young age.

Oddly enough, that's a lot of pressure for someone like Jungkook, who just wants to make his friends (who are basically family) proud. As a result, he hates to ask for something for himself. He hates that kind of thing, feeling like it makes him selfish somehow, even if that's not true.

He's a green. His whole existence is about giving himself to others.

Hoseok welcomes him into the office, looking faintly confused and a little tired, and Jungkook can't help but feel guilty. This is someone who spends their life editing and working in a well-established publishing company. And Jungkook is coming here with a vague idea of something that he wants. A waste of the blonde editor's time, in the teenager's opinion.

"How can I help, Kook?"

Jungkook looks down at his hands. "Sorry to demand a random meeting out of nowhere," he mumbles awkwardly, shifting a little in his seat. "I just...I had an idea, and I couldn't forget it. You can tell me if it's dumb, I won't mind, it's just-"