ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 2
"ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴏᴜʟ"

Music had been in Jungkook's life for as long as he could remember it. He remembered flashes of a black piano standing in the hallway. Growing up his mother had always played the piano and she had inherited it from her mother after she passed. Sometimes, if Jungkook couldn't sleep or if he was bored, she'd play a song for him.

They would listen to music together a lot. Moments of separation and inconclusion were cast aside for as long as the vocals rang through the house. They would swim in melodies and get carried away by legato tones and moved by staccato progressions. Music had always a powerful tool and in mending whatever broken relationship they had, or more accurately stitching it together, that was no different.

That became all the more evident when Jungkook got older. As time progressed, so did his thoughts. He realised just how different he was and just how trapped. There was no one else who could see angels and demons, no one else who had to constantly live in fear of being caught or found out. The creatures would scare him to death and he would have no shoulder to cry on after an encounter. His mother just silenced him and his therapist shrugged him off. Friends were no better.

If it wasn't the intrusive thoughts and fear of demons following him that would haunt him, it was the other children at school. Being constantly anxious and overly sensitive together with the fact that he was from a broken family was more than enough to offer him a lifetime of suffering. Add to that the growing understanding as to why he never looked at girls the way he was supposed to, and it's clear why loneliness had a grip on his throat like a vice.

But in the moments where he felt most like an outcast, music opened its arms and let him in. He felt at home. Certain songs comforted him, others made him realise things about himself and life that he had yet to truly experience for himself. He learned how to be brave and take care of himself, and sometimes just how dark life could get. It was nice to know that when he fell down a sinkhole of despair that someone else had tread there before and survived. It helped him breathe.

He had a lot to thank his piano teacher for. In those lessons he was able to forget everything and just live. He could focus on getting the chord rights instead of the angels passing by the window. He could think about the tempo instead of the boys most surely waiting outside the school building. The only pain he would feel during those afternoon sessions was the cramp in his fingers.

Now, all those years of suffering later, he was back on the piano stool. Only this time, he wasn't the student.

His goal had always been to sing. He loved music and he loved being engulfed in his own voice. But as more angels and demons were looking for him, he knew that wasn't an option anymore. Instead, he had turned to producing. Every now and then he'd meet up with producers and writers from different companies and add his parts. One time he even got to be a background vocalist. Slowly he was working his way up, but he couldn't pay the rent with just a figment of a dream.

There was more work in teaching. Many children wanted to learn the piano and even more parents wanted their children to. For once prodigy culture worked in his favour. He got to teach children how to play the piano and some of them to sing. Many were frequent clients, but some were new as well.

"Mr Jeon?" a man asked. Jungkook turned around, facing the couple standing by the doorway. The man had a slender face and stubble, drawing attention to the strong jawbone protruding from his face. The woman's face was even slimmer although it was partially because her black hair framed it that way. A boy was hidden behind their legs, eight years old, the email had said.

"Yes, that's me," Jungkook replied, standing up and bowing to both the adults.

"Well, then we're in the right place," the man said. He reached behind him and pulled his child forward. "Go on."

The boy looked nervous. It reminded Jungkook of himself when he had his first piano lesson. He looked back at his parents before stepping forward a bit more. His fingers were clasped together and his stance was unassertive.

"I believe everything is settled. We'll come back to pick you up in an hour," the mother said to her son. The boy just nodded, mumbling an okay. A moment after, the parents went away and it was only Jungkook and the child left in the vacant classroom.

"Come on," Jungkook said, sitting back down on the piano stool. He held his arm out for the boy who very quietly sat down beside him. "You've never played the piano before, right?"

The boy simply shook his head. His gaze was fixed on the white ivory of the keys. The black ones were in stark contrast and obviously peeked his attention.

"Do you know how to read sheet music?"

His words were once again met with the boy shaking his head.

"Well, then I'll guess we'll start with that," Jungkook decided, taking the bundle of sheet music from the stand and placing it on the keys. He flipped through it briefly, trying to find an easy song to start with.

"I almost forgot to ask, what's your name?" the elder asked, turning towards the kid. The boy looked up at him with big, doe-like eyes. Jungkook was supposed to know, the name was probably mentioned in the email somewhere, but he had in all honesty hardly skimmed through it. As long as he knew a time and a place he'd be alright.

"Kim Taehyung," the boy said with an innocent voice.

Jungkook felt the air get knocked out of his lungs right that instant. For a moment he chocked, breath coming into his lungs unsteadily. That name would haunt him in many of his nightmares, but those weren't real. He knew the moment he opened his eyes that those things couldn't hurt him. Of course, he would see black-eyed creatures and white-winged monsters in the real world as well, but not in the same way. In the real world he hadn't lost. He had been to Hell and back, not many things tended to scare him anymore.

But that name, it brought back memories worse than Hell. It wasn't a memory of suffering and despair, it was a memory of love torn away. Seeing Hell up close was traumatising for simple reasons, but that name was of a different calibre. One felt like automatic gunfire, the other like a shot straight through the heart. Both were fatal but both were different. One was constant and violent, the other personal and slow.

As he looked at the boy he couldn't help but see Taehyung before him. Those cheekbones and those dark eyes turned into a similar shape. He remembered the day those eyes he loved so much turned completely black. The memory of Jimin grabbing Taehyung and flinging him across the room slipped back into his mind. He could see the knack in his neck and the coldness in his eyes so clearly, almost as if it wasn't a memory at all.

Jungkook shook his head, trying to think of a different memory. He knew trauma was already written on his face, but he couldn't speak comforting words to the child whilst his mind was still dragging him back to his personal inner circles of Hell.

Slowly but surely a different memory took hold. Sitting behind the piano transported him to that day in the study rooms where they played and sang together. It was happy but bittersweet, and the aftertaste in his mouth made him feel sick.

"Are you alright, sir?" Taehyung asked. As Jungkook looked over, the boy's face had turned back to normal. There was no darkness in those eyes nor depth, there was just innocence and youth. Jungkook took a deep breath although he could feel it rattle in the uppermost part of his lungs.

"Yes, I'm alright," he said before turning back to his sheet music. He tried to drown out all the memories with chord progressions and melodies, just as he had always done. He just knew that this wouldn't be the last time he'd see this kid. This wouldn't be the last time he would have to deal with this.

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It's three AM and uni starts again in two days. Love that for me.