aberration: the inability to produce a true image due to failure of rays to converge at one focus point, by fault of defective lens

It’s not until the third time that Taehyung's repeated himself that Jungkook's hungover self completely processes his sentence.

His alarm hasn’t even rung yet, and a quick glance at his phone shows that it’s barely eight in the morning; way too early for someone with a pounding head to even be opening his eyes.

Jungkook tucks himself back into bed very slowly, and blinks up at Taehyung with his best blank stare. “You want to go pet foxes,” he drawls—

— to which Taehyung replies, “the village isn’t too far, we can go by Shinkansen, since we’ve got the JR passes and all, we should ride the out of them. I didn’t pay hundreds for nothing.”

“Uhm,” Jungkook says, unable to come up with anything more intelligent.

“Come on,” Taehyung tugs Jungkook's duvet off, and Jungkook makes a soft, indignant squawk, voice still scratchy and hoarse from sleep, also at which o’clock did Taehyung even wake? The man looks like he’s slept eighteen hours, what the . “Foxes, Jungkook. Foxes.”

But the point is, Jungkook's not too confident about petting foxes, even more so when a deer did try to eat his sweater not too long ago.

The silence lasts for about ten seconds, then Taehyung quips, “I got coffee from the vending machines outside earlier. The cans are still warm.”

Jungkook gets up.

Contrary to Taehyung's intentions, the staff tells them in very heavily-accented English that no, they may not touch the foxes. Taehyung makes a small noise, equal parts disbelief and disappointment, but the lady at the ticketing counter brings out a laminated photograph of a fox on its hind legs, risen to its full height (which is over the little girl in front of it).

Jungkook says, “holy ,” right as a garbled squeak bubbles at the base of Taehyung's throat.

“Dangerous,” the lady says, “no dangling items on bag. No crinkling noises, foxes get aggressive when they hear the sound of plastic bags.”

Suddenly, Jungkook gets a very bad feeling about their suicide attempt. “We took a two hour train ride and paid a 4000 yen cab fare to die?”

“It’s also the reason we’re not just leaving, Jungkook,” and Taehyung's fingers are vice-like around the younger’s wrist. “We just have to keep walking, the lady says we’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” Jungkook deadpans, letting Taehyung pull him over to the backdoor that leads to the enclosure, attempting to zip his camera strap up into his backpack, not wanting to risk any of his equipment. “We have to keep moving because the foxes are going to pounce on us if we stop.”

“They’re cute though,” Taehyung's stopped in front of a barrier, cooing ridiculously at a fox curled up in front of a kennel-like structure, a chain loose around its neck. “We can pet the tamed ones, right?”

An assistant guides Taehyung's hand over to the fox’s head, as Jungkook lifts his Nikon. His finger is on the shutter, but then Taehyung smiles, his entire face lighting up as the fox nudges its head closer to his palm.

Jungkook forgets to take the picture, tries afterwards to blame it on his camera’s slow autofocus.

They spend the better part of the hour winding through the enclosure, Taehyung with one hand in Jungkook's coat pocket and the other in his own, while Jungkook religiously keeps his feet moving, his steps half clumsy whenever a fox stalks in his direction.

Taehyung laughs at him, a fond murmur of “you scared?” always at the tip of his tongue, to which Jungkook would respond with a tight-jawed smile before turning away to take another picture of, well, anything. “Don’t worry, little one,” Taehyung would continue in the most placating tone of voice, “this is a tourist attraction.”

In summary, it can be said that they spend majority of their time at the village petting bunnies outside the foxes’ enclosure.

The 200 yen fee for petting bunnies is hardly arguable once Taehyung pays for the both of them, holding a small bunny in his palms, a finger down its soft ears and lifting it to eye level, faint smile quirking up at the sides of his lips.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung shuffles closer, startling Jungkook just a little (he definitely hadn’t been distracted with staring at Taehyung's hands, because how do fingers even get that good-looking? He’s mad, Jungkook's gone mad). “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook's voice is scratchy, embarrassingly so, but Taehyung doesn’t seem to notice, just cradles the bunny close to his chest and flashing Jungkook his best smile.

“Take our picture! I need to blog tonight.”

Jungkook just nods, raises the camera and does the obligatory countdown from three.

It takes nearly an hour of persuasion, but Taehyung begrudgingly returns the bunny to its cage once the sky starts to darken, cold seeping into the tips of their fingers.

The wait for their cab back down to the station is spent browsing the souvenir shop, and Taehyung leaves with about five types of fox-related items.

Jungkook hadn’t expected any less.

He, however, hadn’t expected Taehyung to load up on packs of the vermicelli noodles they’d happened to have for dinner before taking the Shinkansen back to Tokyo from Shiroishizao.

(“Tae, we still have three days in Hokkaido.”

“This is the , I need to stock up.”

“What are you going to do? Ask the shop owner if you can buy her raw materials?”

“ing watch me.”)

Jungkook's reviewing his camera roll when Taehyung sets his laptop down onto the dining table with a thud.

“Are we really going to spend our last night in Tokyo lounging around?”

“It’s almost eleven,” Jungkook doesn’t even bother glancing up, properly accustomed to the sort of things that Taehyung would say by now. “We can’t do much at this time, and I don’t want to get faced before our seven a.m. flight tomorrow.”

At Taehyung's answering chuckle, Jungkook allows himself to look up, albeit slowly.

“I saw a twenty-four hour yakiniku place across the street. We picked an amazing