Pathways

Loudest Light

Waves of regret and melancholy and a strange longing grabbed his soul firmly by the collar. They drowned together in some other plane of existence, treating oblivion like a pass time. He felt nauseous as the call disconnected since it forced all his senses to come back to Earth, to the concrete under him. Never had he realized his presence in the world more strongly than he did then. He looked left and right and, for the first time, he grasped how unusual his position might have been to a passerby. People he knew nothing about continued their lives while he was pinned to the ground, unable to force himself to stand up.

Whether anybody knew or not, he was proud of himself. He carried a full conversation, over the phone, with a stranger and it ended up not feeling disastrously awkward. He blamed part of his situation on all the soju he ingested thanks to the new Yoongi guy he just met. Jungkook knew the guy was eyeing him through the window from time to time but he didn't mind. On the contrary, he felt like smiling, hoping that his emotions would show.

Calm and insecure Jungkook felt alive and a strange tingle in the tips of his fingers made him gently move them over the black screen of the phone. In return, the screen shed light, showing him a lock icon and the time. Literally, two hours had passed since he started speaking to the stranger, but the man's voice was so deep and so broken that it weaved thought after thought in Jungkook's mind. There was something ethereal hidden within the voice as well, making him wonder if the guy was real or if he was just a tone coming through the beyond to play a prank on him like in some ghost story. Nothing felt entirely real anymore. Jungkook knew he existed but he couldn't attest to the existence of the world around him.

A pedestrian threw him a disgusted look. It probably hasn't the first suit which frowned at his drunken state during working hours. He rested his head on the wall behind him and he giggled shortly as he remembered how Taehyung told him that people in Milano rarely looked shabby. He liked the way the older boy pronounced the word "Milano" and how it rolled easily off his tongue as opposed to the English version of "Milan" Jungkook had always used until that point. Taehyung was different. He sounded different. He made Jungkook act differently. It wasn't bad yet it was new. It was true that courage came from alcohol.

For the first time, he wondered how Tae looked like. Throughout their conversation, he simply imagined the most generic Korean boy he could think of but judging by the friends he kept and their aesthetics Taehyung could be nothing if not a bit eccentric. He cursed himself for not paying attention at the phone when he ended the call. Perhaps he could have stopped it from locking because he was sure that Jimin must have kept photos of him and Taehyung. Jimin's wallpaper was a simple yellow balloon floating in the bluish skies and the word Serendipity under it, written in a fancy font. Jungkook had no idea what it meant.

"Kid" a voice rung from his side, protectively. "Maybe it's better if your hyung took you home. You look... tired." Yoongi said as he kneeled next to him.

Jungkook recognized the voice even without hearing it prior to that day and his eyes remained closed as the sun warmed up his lashes. "...not tired. I'm fine." He said and the tone of his voice surprised him slightly. He was calm. Calmer than he ever imagined being in the unimaginable situation. The guys he met that day were very kind and funny and they loved their Taehyung friend but he couldn't believe himself, still.

Yoongi sighed as he sat down next to the maknae. "Taehyung can be exhausting to talk to, I know. I've known him for years..." he said and it wasn't an attack. He was saying it as if it wasn't any big news but it opposed everything Jungkook perceived about the discussion.

Taehyung was not hard to talk to. On the contrary, he was bizarrely interesting and full of antitheses. Originally, Jungkook believed he wouldn't want to have a discussion so early in the morning, his somewhat run-down voice was the culprit of said supposition, but at no point did Tae give him the impression that he wished he'd be doing something else. Come to think about it, they ended the call only because Jungkook felt like the other man needed rest and not because Taehyung himself demanded it.