halation: production of “halos”; round, bright spots in an image, formed by light spreading beyond its proper boundaries

“Jungkook.”

The man in question holds up a palm, aiming his Nikon over the two cups of matcha lattes that he had tried to arrange over the tatami in the most artistic manner he could. “Wait.”

If Taehyung had thought that Jungkook's obsessiveness with aesthetics couldn’t get any worse than this, Jungkook immediately proves him wrong by setting his camera down and scooting over the tatami towards the sliding door, pulling it open and trying to catch the falling cherry blossom petals.

Taehyung watches in muted disbelief as Jungkook scatters the petals over the tatami, then picks up his camera, trying to take pictures of the setup all over again.

“Jungkook,” there’s a soft whine wheedling its way into Taehyung's voice, bleeding out into hints of exasperation (because in Taehyung's defense, he’d made the drinks a little over an hour ago, and Jungkook won’t stop making a photoshoot of out them). “I swear to god, if you won’t drink them, I’ll have both lattes myself.”

All Jungkook does is flash Taehyung his widest smile, hoping to pull out some empathy. He catches the quiet stutter before Taehyung's next threat, but he releases it anyway, mumbling something about “the devil’s charm”, and then letting out a squawk when Jungkook asks if he should drop a cherry blossom petal into the drink so it would float on the surface of the matcha.

Taehyung wraps his hands around the cups and pulls them away, “no.”

When Jungkook laughs, time slows down, trickling into something like a stop motion film, and Jungkook tries not to read too much into the way Taehyung's eyes seem to soften when he’s looking at Jungkook, sides of his lips quirking up into a faint, almost fond smile.

Jungkook murmurs a quiet apology and lets Taehyung press the rim of his cup to his lips, catching only the top half of Taehyung's face, his shadowed eyes while he sips on the sweet milky beverage, now of a tepid temperature, and wonders what Taehyung is thinking about.

“Want to go see Mount Fuji today?”

The sky is light, bright, the breeze is warmer, and when Taehyung turns around to face Jungkook, the leaves in the cherry blossom trees part to allow the sun to outline Taehyung's hair. Jungkook doesn’t know what he’s doing before it’s already done, Nikon at eye level with a photograph of Taehyung in his playback.

(Later that night, when Jungkook's looping through all his pictures, he will come across this very one. He will trace his index finger over the halo of light blurring out part of Taehyung's head, and he will finally admit that Taehyung is no longer just a stranger. He will wonder how someone’s eyes can hold so much depth, even when blurred and unfocused.)

Jungkook smiles, says, “all right.”

It’s a three hour ride on the Shinkansen from Osaka to Shin-Fuji, and Taehyung's pressing need to just keep talking is all but foreign to Jungkook by this time. Taehyung chatters on about his childhood, about growing up in Daegu. His parents are busy people, but Taehyung loves them to bits, though he admits to being fonder of his grandmother.

“She’d bring me to the market with her,” Taehyung murmurs, absentmindedly pressing the rim of his milk tea bottle to his lips when he speaks (he’d ran out of the train during a stop and hastily gotten about three from the vending machine at the platform, leaving Jungkook watching him from the window, heart in his throat because even if he doesn’t understand Japanese, he knows how departure announcements sound like).

Jungkook hums in acknowledgment, quietly picking at his prepacked bento, wooden chopsticks sliding in muted scrapes against the bottom of the plastic rice box, and he glances up to where Taehyung's own sits untouched on his fold-down table.

“Oranges,” Taehyung's saying now, cupping his palms animatedly to resemble a sphere, and a soft smile quirks up at the sides of Jungkook's lips. “They were big and bright and tasted so ing good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And then she’d bring me for ice cream afterwards. Said she liked me chubby and all.” Taehyung's smile is infectious, and Jungkook grins with him, nodding.

It dwindles down into silence after that, and Jungkook basks in it, contented, wondering if Taehyung is exhausted from the train ride, because three hours is no joke, no matter how breath taking the scenery outside is. Flashes of landscape and the occasional building when they rush past the main stations.

Then, Taehyung says, “she passed away when I was in my senior year of high school.” His voice is so soft that Jungkook would have missed it if not for the fact that Taehyung had made the effort to lean in when he’s speaking. “It just happened. I was eating lunch and complaining about homework, or something, and then I got a call from the hospital.”

Jungkook says, “oh”, because he doesn’t know what else to do except to meet Taehyung's eyes and wish that he knows just how to fill them with the sort of hope and light that they would look best in. He reaches out, tentative, and rests his palm against Taehyung's nape, though ready to pull away if Taehyung shows any signs of discomfort.

He doesn’t do any of that. Taehyung just smiles, grateful, and then the warm weight of his head is on Jungkook's shoulder, and Jungkook can detect the faint scent of the shampoo that the both of them share back in their rented Airbnb apartment. “That’s why I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted, if I could, to never let anyone go through the pain I felt losing someone important. Someone I loved. I wanted, even if I couldn’t prevent it, to just… delay that pain.”

“You’re very brave,” Jungkook murmurs, echoing Taehyung's words from some time before. “You’re doing what only a few people can do. Not everyone can take the emotional stress of the path you’ve chosen. That’s brave. And that’s why we have people like you, you have enough bravery to sustain the world.”

Instead of replying, Taehyung just whispers, “the world is such a small place, but still big enough for us to get ourselves lost in.”

(The only downside is that when they finally, finally alight at Shin-Fuji, the lady at the customer service apologizes, and above the dull ringing in his head, Jungkook manages to suppress his annoyance at being given a load of bull about how Mount Fuji is shy and so she’s decided to hide today, look at all the fog, she doesn’t seem to be wanting visitors but here have a postcard embossed by our counter to show that you’ve come down with intentions to see her.

“Did they really have to say all that nonsense in replacement of a bad weather notice?”

So, Jungkook's irritated, but Taehyung is extremely taken in by their excuse, tugging on Jungkook's arm and grinn