There’s something magical, Jungkook thinks, in drawing.

Take a bit of colored pigment and drag it across a piece of paper in the just the right way an you’ve got a flower so perfect you might want to smell it. Take some graphite and scribble until the lines of a dancer emerges, practically dancing across the page. Layer chalk on top of chalk in a thousand different colors and you have a window into an ocean a million miles away.

It was beautiful, enchanting, and so enticing that Jungkook had never looked at anything else after he first picked up a crayon and scrawled messy lines with his clumsy toddler hands.

Now, 18 years later, he’s in art school.

He can draw almost anything in the world if we wanted to. He could draw a royal peacock, with it’s rich blues and greens forming feathers so real you could almost feel them. Or a woman so beautiful you fell in love with her. Or prison so dark and small you felt trapped.

But only as long as his muse would allow him.

And today was not one of those days.

Alone in his studio, Jungkook threw his pencils across the room. They hit the wall and fell to the ground with shattered lead hidden inside the barrel. Scattered around him were dozens upon dozens of wadded up paper torn from his sketchbook. The terrible drawings on them were hidden by how crumpled they were.

Jungkook couldn’t draw.

The lines in his doing hold no life to them and the colors were there but they weren’t bright enough. The idea was in place but the passion was gone like a fire blown out in a stormy wind.

He was an artist with talent and materials.

But his muse had abandoned him.

*** 

A week later, he was still locked in his studio. The curtains where drawn so no light from the streets lamps outside his window could get in. The only light was from a single candle he had lit in the middle of the room in an ornate candle holder he had bought when he first moved out of his parents’ place to celebrate. He watched the flame flicker and drops of wax snake their way down the candle’s side.

He still couldn’t draw. He had gone through an entire sketchbook, trying to find something, anything, that his muse would came back for. But there was nothing.

It was probably some time past midnight. 

At least, he though it was.

He hadn’t checked the time since he last ate something and that had been quite some time ago. His stomach growled at the thought of food. Rolling onto his side and facing away from the camera, he ignored the empty feeling in his stomach and curled up into a ball.

After a while (he wasn’t quite sure how much though since time seemed to slip away from him in unmeasurable amounts), he heard the familiar sound of the lock to his studio being picked. Then the door swung open and harsh yellow light flooded in from the hall to his pitch black studio. The fresh air that rushed into the newly opened room blew out his candle and the warmth that had caressed his back slowly faded away.

“Are you done moping yet?” A voice asked him.

It was Jungkook’s boyfriend, Yoongi. He was a music major and understood how things where when he got in a creative stump. But he also prided himself on taking care of his younger boyfriend and would snap him out of it when he thought Jungkook was being too melodramatic. 

Jungkook ignored him and stared dully at the bland white wall of his studio.

“Come on, get up.” Yoongi thumped his way into the room, closing the door out into the hallway as he turned the lights on. “You need to do something other than lay there. You’re going to have weeds growing on you soon.”

Yoongi set down grocery by Jungkook head. Then he grabbed his arm and yanked Jungkook into a sitting position. He grumbled and tried to slump back down to the ground but Yoongi had other ideas. He sat down on the ground next to him and Jungkook ended up leaning up against him and resting his chin on Yoongi’s shoulder.

After wordlessly rustling around in the grocery bag for a while, Yoongi pulled out a gatorade and uncapped it.

“You’re probably dehydrated as . You never take care of yourself when you get like this.” Yoongi pressed the bottle to Jungkook’s lips and tipped it back, forcing him to take big gulps of the liquid so it didn’t spill. When Yoongi pulled it away with a satisfied nod, Jungkook his lips. He hadn’t noticed it, but his mouth and throat had grown so dry. Yoongi had forced him to drink half of the bottle but he was still parched.

While his boyfriend resulted around in the bag again, looking for something, Jungkook picked up the bottle he had placed on the ground and drank. When Yoongi finally found what he was looking for, he turned back to Jungkook but paused when he saw him. He smiled at him, satisfied he was getting some hydration.

“Take your time. Drink as much as you need.” Yoongi leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I have another bottle when you’re done with that.”

When Jungkook polished off the gatorade, he panted slightly. Yoongi wrapped his right arm around Jungkook’s shoulder and soothingly stoked his neck. With his other hand, he grabbed the connivence store kimbap he had in the bag. He held it up for Jungkook, he leaned forward and began to nibble at the seaweed on the side.

But then his stomach growled and he realized how hungry he was. Jungkook began to take large bites of food and his cheeks budged out as he chewed. Yoongi patiently fed him, occasionally whipping away grains of rice stuck to Jungkook’s lip with his thumb and eating them.

When Jungkook had finally eaten his fill, he leaned back into Yoongi and wrapped his arms around his waist. 

“Feel better?” Yoongi reached up and soothingly petted Jungkook hair.

Jungkook made a noncommental noise and Yoongi sighed.

“Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to get you back to normal.” Yoongi was quite for a moment before pulling away from Jungkook. But he took hold of his hand and pulled him until they were both standing up. “Come here.”

He herded Jungkook to the couch they kept in the corner for when Jungkook had a deadline coming up and slept in the studio. Yoongi sat down and yanked Jungkook down with him. They shuffled around for bit until they were both stretched out across it. Yoongi had his back resting up against the wall and Jungkook was nestled in-between his legs, his back pressed against his boyfriend’s front. Taking advantage of their position, Yoongi wrapped his arms around Jungkook waist and pressed kissed to his neck.

“What’s wrong, Jungkook?” He murmured in between kisses. “What’s bothering you?”

Jungkook squirmed away from Yoongi but his tight grasp on his waist didn’t let him get far.

“Come on, Jungkook.” Yoongi nuzzled his neck. “You can talk to me.”

“…” He was quiet for a moment before he finally opened his mouth to say something. “I can’t draw. And that scares me…”

“Why does that scare you?” Yoongi prompted patiently. 

“… Because people stop drawing. And I don’t want that to happen to me.” 

Jungkook seemed very small in Yoongi’s arms. He curled in on himself and none of his usual confidence was there.

“… Ya know, it’s good that you’re afraid of that.” Yoongi looked at Jungkook. “Because that means you really love drawing. It’s a part of who you are.”

“Sure, I guess…” He didn’t sound convinced.

Yoongi looked at his sad boyfriend thoughtfully for a moment, trying to think of a way to comfort him.

“You know how I love producing music?” Jungkook nodded. “Well, I almost gave that up in high school.”

“What?” Jungkook gave him an incredulous look. “Bull, there’s no way you’d give music up. ”

“You calling me a liar?” Yoongi teased and nipped Jungkook’s neck playful. “It’s ing true; I swear.”

“But I almost never see you without headphones on. And when you don’t, you’re rapping freestyle.”

“Yeah, but when I was in high school, my parents didn’t support me pursuing music. Thought it was ing garbage and that I’d end up on the streets.”

“Seriously?” Jungkook furrowed his brows. “But didn’t they send you here to study music?”

“It took a lot of convincing. We fought a lot. I spent a lot of time at a friend of mine, Namjoon’s, house to get away from my parents. He’s pursuing music too and he got it. His parents didn’t like it either.”

Yoongi sighed and looked into the distance as he remembered. 

“You know I’m a family man. My parents are important to me and it practically killed me that they weren’t supportive of the thing I love the most. Music made my relationship with my parents bad for a while and I blamed it for all my problems. I thought if I gave it up, my relationship with my parents would go back to normal.

“But it didn’t. Without music, I was just pissed off all the time. I ended up getting in trouble and my parents fought with me even more. But I felt ing sick at the thought of writing anything.”

“What made you start again?”

“My parents.” Yoongi smiled fondly. “This whole thing made them realize how important music was so that sat me down to knock some sense into me. They gave me their support and sent me here when I graduated.

“And now I write almost nonstop.”

Jungkook looked at his Yoongi with a guarded expression in his eyes. “I never knew that.”

“Well, now you do.” Yoongi playfully shoved his head to the side. “Look, what I’m trying to say Jungkook is, don’t draw right now if you don’t want to. ‘Cause I know it’s killing you that everything you draw isn’t good enough for you.”

“But-”

“But maybe your muse is telling you that enough is enough. That you should take some time to yourself and think about things before drawing again. Maybe go out with friends or watch a movie.”

Yoongi leaned down and kissed Jungkook on the lips and gave them a quick nip before pulling away. 

“Or pay more attention to your super y boyfriend.”

Jungkook snorted and pushed Yoongi away.

“Yeah, I’m sure that exactly what my muse wants me to do.” He rolled his eyes and turned around so that he straddled Yoongi’s legs.

Jungkook leaned forward and kissed Yoongi softly and thankfully.

Yoongi always claimed he was bad with his words, that they only came out right when he was rapping or writing. But Jungkook knew he was wrong because he always felt soothed by his boyfriend’s comforting words.