The floor was covered with crumpled drawings. Each showed the young man who called himself V, differing ever so slightly. Jungkook tossed another one away and cursed under his breath. Just as he had assumed, his work would never turn out like he wanted it to. His drawings didn´t look ... alive enough to satisfy him. Maybe that was ridiculous but he wanted every picture, every piece of art he created, to be perfect and was not content until he deemed it the absolutely best he was capable of doing. So there he sat, retrying to capture the essence of his visitor again and again. Hours had passed already and nobody had spoken a word. It was silent except for the scraping of Jungkook´s pencil on the new sheet of paper.

As V broke the silence, Jungkook flinched and almost cried out of surprise.

"Sorry, but I really need a break now. I can´t feel my legs anymore."

"Oh. Sure." Jungkook quickly looked away. Had it been that long since he had instructed V how to pose and then begun drawing? He couldn´t tell. The normal flow of time had stopped the moment V had set foot in his house.

V walked around, stretched a little and picked up one of the many drawings laying around. He hummed appreciative. "What´s your problem? That looks amazing!"

Jungkook shook his head, closing the distance between them. "But it´s not... right." He tried to explain. "There is something missing and I am affraid that I won´t be able to change that anytime soon."

"What? What´s missing?" V furrowed his brows in confusion.

Jungkook ruffled his hair and sighed. Silence fell once more and the older one already stepped away, a disappointed expression on his face as he didn´t get an answer.

...

"The soul is missing, hyung."

In an instant V was back at him, now eagerly listening and watching him like an excited puppy.

The artist tilted his head, unsure how to make the other one understand. "You see... I don´t want to only paint or draw what I see and that´s it. I want to~" His eyes darted around as if a proper definition would pop up out of nowhere. "I want to~ to catch the essence of what I see. I don´t want it to be mere pictures but more likely... uhm... It´s just, I don´t want my pictures to give off a lifeless, dead vibe. I want to show the real being of the things I paint."

His expression lightened up as he got an idea. "Look."

Jungkook fetched a new sheet of paper and headed to the desk with his colors. Within minutes a realistic painting of an apple was finished. He left it on the table and went off somewhere.

"Look", he repeated and laid another picture of an apple next to the new one. "They are fundamentally different. Can you tell?"

V compared both pictures with grim determination. But to no use. After some time he gave up. "The one you brought looks better but I really don´t get why..."

Jungkook smiled at him fondly. "The difference hyung, is that the apple I painted just now is a mere reproduction. Whereas I put my whole understanding of what that apple is in the other one."

He put both pictures away and faced V. "You see, I always try to fully understand what I draw or paint. That´s why I crept around the lantern yesterday. I kinda investigated it." He grimaced at the thought of the embarassing memory.

At this, V´s gaze had grown stern. "So you are basically saying that you want to get to know me better." There was no tenderness to be heard in his voice.

Jungkook gulped. Yet he didn´t avert his eyes, although the tone of the older gave him chills.

"Basically, yes."