Lots of photography nerding in this chapter, you've been warned!

***

 

"You said you have pets, the other day when we went to the restaurant. You've got more than one? What are they?"

Taehyung hesitated, holding his breath, his face shoved into his camera's screen, trying to stabilize the whole thing as he was looking through the gigantic electronic viewfinder in order to shoot a tiny flower at a distance that barely offered him a fraction of a millimeter of depth of field. The greenhouse in which they were shooting, about a week after Jungkook had announced that he'd be his friend, was a little dark and he had to use a large aperture to avoid lowering the shutter speed. His ISO was already about as high as he felt comfortable with. That left him with a tiny, super shallow depth of field, so he had to choose what he wanted to be sharp between the center of the flower or like, one petal. He loved macro, but it was hard work.

He slowly rolled his pointer finger on the button and tried not moving at all other than that. The camera got the shot and he breathed again, pressing the playback button in order to make sure he had the sharpness where he wanted it to be. And he did, which was super good because it never happened on the first try, usually, as his focus could shift if he moved a millimeter to the front or the back. He sighed, turning the camera off for now, saving the battery as he looked at Jungkook.

"How much do you hate rodents?" he asked instead of answering.
"I don't know, not very much I guess? I don't mind them. Squirrels are cute. You have rodents?"
"Rats," he admitted as he pulled his phone out. He figured a picture could help the situation, so he chose one he had taken a while ago, all four of his babies piled into a hammock and sleeping. None of them looked like a typical wild rat: two of them had a white with a darker head - Fuji almost black, Chrome pale bluish gray -, one - Raf - was a dumbo with a little white spot on his forehead, and Acros, the last one, was entirely pale bluish gray with the cutest little curious face. He was biased, but he knew what wild rats looked like and his babies definitely didn't look like that. Moreover, his babies were about as different, personality-wise, from wild rats as dogs were from wolves. "Here they are. Four boys."
"They're really cute. What did you name them?"
"Acros, Chrome, Fuji and Raf."
"Wait a second. Oh gosh. You did not."
"Yes I did," Taehyung grinned, unable not to when he saw Jungkook's expression.
"You all gave them Fujifilm names."
"Yes I did," he repeated with a wider, -eating grin.
"You're hopeless."
It was said very fondly though, and Taehyung giggled. "I'm terrible at naming. I used to write stories and I couldn't name my characters like, ever. I always ended up on baby names websites trying to find something that sounded cool enough."
"Cute. Why did you get rats? And why four?"

Taehyung's expression got a little darker at that, mentally going back to what had happened that made him want to get pets. He took a deep breath. Jungkook wasn't judging him. It was just a curious question. And a legit one at that. It wasn't like Taehyung's first thought had been to adopt a quartet of rats. He had actually gotten two at first, then added two more later on. As for the reason...

"I'm hopelessly allergic to cats, and my apartment doesn't accept dogs. I needed a pet that would be social enough, that would want to be with me. I considered hamsters for a while, but they don't like humans all that much and they're very solitary. Mice apparently stink the place up quickly, ferrets smell a little too much and I don't want to smell like ferrets at work. Reptiles and fish don't really care about their owner. Birds are too noisy for my apartment. So I went for rats. They don't live long, but they're very smart for how small they are, and they live in colonies, mischiefs they're called. You never want to get only one rat, so I got two at first. Then eventually I got two more." He waited a beat before he added more. "As for the reason why I got pets at all... well, sometimes my own survival isn't enough to make me feel like I gotta keep going."

Jungkook shook at those words, but he kept quiet, his camera in hand, but turned off so that it wouldn't seem like he wasn't listening. He could see Taehyung wasn't done yet.

"I had this... this 'friend'. The longest-lasting one I've ever had. We had been friends for like, almost two years I believe, although there are a lot of things I didn't dare tell him about myself. We talked often, I was hopeful he wouldn't be like everyone else. And then I started getting pushed aside little by little as my 'friend' found new buddies. The worst is that those friends he got were like... I dunno. They were 'game' friends, like in roleplay things? Whenever I asked my friend how he was doing, all he was talking about was his new friends, and how amazing they were, and how his character in the game had new friends, and how those friends were amazing, and how much more freeing it was to be with them. And then someday he wasn't talking to me anymore. When I tried reaching out he either didn't reply or just snapped at me. It... it did terrible things to me. I considered dying or disappearing, but then I figured he wouldn't even notice because he didn't give a , and nobody else would give a except maybe my job but only because they'd need to hire someone else. At some point I went to work feeling like I should die and just cried in front of my boss' wife when she asked me if I had spent a good day off. It was her idea that I should get a pet."

Taehyung took a deep breath after that, looking down, away from Jungkook. He didn't like remembering those times. It only made him bitter and angry and terribly sad when he did. He got startled a little when Jungkook suddenly pulled him into a hug, and Taehyung closed his eyes, noticing only then that he was trembling. His jaw was tight, teeth clenched and eyes burning. He inhaled shakily, exhaled slowly. Jungkook smelled wonderful. Taehyung was fairly certain he'd soon associate this scent with comfort, if Jungkook kept his promise.

"That was a terrible thing," Jungkook murmured in his ear. "I'm sorry you had to go through this."
"Definitely not your fault. Maybe it was mine. Maybe I was too clingy. I probably was."
"Taehyung, no. Wanting to spend time with someone you appreciate is legit. You shouldn't need to feel bad about it."

He huffed, but it wasn't in a happy way. No need to tell Jungkook that his friend had just... pretty much said again and again that he didn't want to see him, that he needed space, that Taehyung was super clingy and really annoying, but that he also admitted to seeing his other friends every weekend.

"Whatever," Taehyung sighed. "That's how I got my boys. I needed something to keep me going, something to force me to go to work and earn money and come back home instead of wanting to get lost somewhere and die."
"What about your coworker? The small one with the tiny eyes."
"Jimin? He's just a coworker."
"He seemed to care about you."
"... you talked to him?"

Jungkook slowly let go of him, but kept a hand on his arm, like he wanted to assure Taehyung that he was still there for him.

"Once. I went to the store during your lunch break. I didn't buy anything that time, but I did talk to Jimin. He could be your friend, if you let him."
"I don't know about that."

Taehyung bristled at that idea. Sure, Jimin knew more about his past than like, anyone else, but... but nothing. He didn't have any reason to keep him away the way he did, now that he thought about it. Jimin had always been kind to him. Always nodding with understanding, pushing Taehyung to do things when he felt it was right, and letting him be the rest of the time. "... do you really think it could work?"

"Try it out. You already see him almost everyday. It's not like he could exactly ghost you or anything, not that he would."
Was it really that easy to make friends? Just... talk to them and let them in? What even was the definition of 'friend'? Could coworkers be friends? Taehyung was a little overwhelmed. "I... I'll try."
It was all Jungkook needed. "Good Tae. Do we shoot a bit more? Are you up for that? We can go home otherwise. Or go elsewhere."
"No, I'm okay. Let's keep going."

Taehyung started shooting again, feeling weird about this whole thing, but in a good way. Jungkook was there. Jungkook had listened to him. And he hadn't said that Taehyung was at fault or anything! It was amazing. And he had even suggested that Taehyung should try making another friend, and reassured him when there had been doubts. He was feeling warm inside as he kept on shooting, although he was still shaking a little still, and most of his shots were blurry. He grumbled as he cranked up the ISO. Jungkook raised a brow at him.

"You're okay?"
"Yeah, just gotta get my ISO higher than I usually like for flowers. I try not going too much over 1600 when I can. I don't mind when it's other stuff, but for macro shots of flowers, it's just... it's so technical, and so precise, I don't really like seeing noise in there."
"What are your settings?"
"Currently 1/125 at f/2.8, and I had to bump up my ISO to 3200 because my speed was at 1/60 earlier and I kept getting blurry shots."
"Did you activate the stabilization?"
"Yeah, it's just that I'm shaking a little. Usually I'm able to get 1/60 even with this 80mm, but today's not a steady day for me apparently. It's all right though, I'll just deal with more noise than I'd usually like. That's what noise reduction is for in Lightroom."
"It smudges details a little though."
"Not enough to bother me."
"Okay."

They kept on shooting quietly for a while, until Jungkook made his way to Taehyung looking pouty and adorable, eyes cute and wide. "Tae, I need help."
"Okay, gimme a sec." He got the perfect framing for what he wanted, took the shot, and then lowered his camera. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure what I could change to get the results I want on this flower over there. It keeps looking terrible."
"Let's go take a look."

The flower in question was awkwardly placed. It was surrounded in other plants, and its background was the wall of the greenhouse, sending way more light from that direction and blasting the background to pure white if they tried to expose for the flower, which was also placed kind of diagonally in a way that made it really hard to figure out how to get it in focus. But Taehyung had spent over five years to dedicating his life to discovering the best angles in macrophotography, so he leaned forward a little while staring at the flower, pressing his hands on the wet bricks that made the side of the flowerbeds, careful not to make his camera smash right into the brick while he was doing that. He lowered himself and leaned forward a bit more, and- bingo.

"Try placing your camera here. If you shoot vertically, you can tilt your screen so that you're able to frame more easily. Tell me if that's what you were looking for."

Jungkook obeyed and his face lit up with a pleased smile as he took the shot. "That's exactly what I was trying to do. How did you manage that?"
"Your background is bright, but you don't want that unless you want a silhouette effect, so the trick is to find a darker background. The leaves over there are in shadow, so if you use them as a background, you'll get something nicer. And the flower tilts this way, so you have a flatter subject and it's easier to get the focus right, since then you can just make sure your camera's sensor is parallel to it. Oh, and the light that came from the back before now comes from the side, which makes it much better."
"Damn, Tae. You're so good at this."
"Got a few years of experience sticking my nose in flowerbeds trying to figure out how to get the best photos of weird flowers. You'll see me lying right down in the mud on rainy days to shoot water drops if we do this again."
"Shooting on rainy days," Jungkook hummed thoughtfully. "Is your gear all right in the rain?"
"My entire macro setup was chosen specifically so I could shoot outside in a storm. My camera is weather resistant and so is the lens. Of course, I do it knowing that, if water does get in, there isn't gonna be any warranty. They say it's weather resistant, not weatherproof, but I don't like carrying a Ziploc bag around, because yes you can totally use the big freezer ones as a rain cover. You just poke a hole big enough for your lens, tighten it with a rubber band around the tip of the lens, and if you have a lens hood and a protective filter it's even better because you can put those and protect your stuff even more. Then you use the open end to look through your viewfinder and play with your settings, or if it's raining heavily you can just zip it and use your screen. Now that I think about it, I shouldn't tell you that since we sell actual rain covers at my job, but whatever."

Jungkook looked at him fondly with an amused smile and Taehyung blinked, only now noticing that he had been rambling. He cleared his throat and looked away. "Erm, anyway, sorry for just, geeking out on you."
"No, don't worry about it, I actually really like it when you talk that much. It means you're comfortable. And it just confirms that you're super genuine when you work, because you use the same tone. I like that."

Well, that was true. He did like explaining things, and he did like sharing his knowledge, and he really did like going all photo gear geek on people. Most were overwhelmed by that unless they were real enthusiasts and/or nerds, so he tried to rein himself in when at work. Sometimes he met people who were really willing to learn and then Taehyung couldn't keep it in. His boss usually hated it when he did that because they offered photography courses and Taehyung had a tendency to just go on and on until he was stopped, but he also usually let Taehyung do it because the customers who had been on the receiving end of his nerding out often came back to the store to buy more stuff, having been charmed by Taehyung's enthusiasm. His job wasn't all that bad when he had those people, it was pretty fun even, and he also liked cute little grandmas who saw their grandson in him and shook his hand at the end only to slip two bucks into his hand discreetly with a wink once he had helped them. Despite dark thoughts and loneliness plaguing his life, he did have his good moments when he felt happy, and when-

He opened wide eyes, realizing something. Looking at his phone- yeah. Oh wow. He in a deep breath and looked at Jungkook. "I- Jungkook. I feel... I haven't worried in like, twenty minutes. And I-"

He could feel the barriers still being there, and he knew they weren't going to get broken down anytime soon, but- wow. Just... they weren't in the way. At least not right now. They weren't blocking him. He had talked to someone with enthusiasm, not at work because it was a customer, but during his free time because- because Jungkook was his friend. And he hadn't felt really awkward about it. And Jungkook had accepted his rambling with a smile and a fond look. He hadn't looked at Taehyung like he was a giant weirdo. Wow.

Jungkook's arms were strong and warm as he hugged Taehyung again, and Taehyung got another lungful of Jungkook's scent, which made him close his eyes. Damn he smelled good. And he looked good. And he was amazing. And strong. And beautiful. And he was such a good person in general. Actually, scratch that, good was a word that was severely too weak for how wonderful Jungkook was.

"You're doing great," the younger one said in a soft voice in his ear.

The praise got him all warm inside and he hugged Jungkook back, careful not to smack him with his Full Metal Camera - he might have been a little bit of a manga nerd as well.

"Thank you," he breathed out. "It's only been a week, but... you're helping. A lot."

Chatting with Jungkook every night on Discord had a tremendously good effect on his general self, apparently. He knew for a fact that he had been lonely, so this wasn't a surprise, but... he generally spent a lot of time hating himself or blaming himself for past things, so every little victory counted and not worrying for twenty minutes about where this relationship with Jungkook was going was quite a big victory in his book. He didn't fully trust this whole thing yet, not because of Jungkook but because of himself, and because of the past, and because of his tendency to fold back on himself when things went wrong, but he was improving a tiny bit.

"I'm your friend, Taehyung. I'm glad to be helping. Now, how about we keep shooting? We've got plenty of time to do that, the whole day actually, and you're feeling pretty good right? In exchange for helping you out, you gotta help me figure out how the heck I'm supposed to take a decent photo of that bed of tiny grass-like things. You showed me a really good one that you took the first time I came into the store to help me understand how good the Fuji colors are, so I know you know how to do this."
Taehyung grinned, but opened his eyes and squeezed Jungkook a little bit more before he let go. "Okay. I'll show you. Come here."

He explained how to get the proper angle, told him what parameters he had used, watched him focus on the photo he was going to take, and it hit him then that Jungkook was there. That Jungkook was his friend. He'd allow himself to enjoy the moment, if only because he was terribly selfish and, if this was bound to end someday despite Jungkook's promise, he'd rather take full advantage of their time together.