For reference in this story Jungkook looks like the day when BTS went to the Korea China Festival, black coat over white shirt. I can't seem post the picture here.

Taehyung's a bartender.
He shut the world down when the sun goes up. He occupies his lonely days locked in his apartment draining out his tears under the pounding water in his bathroom to his heart's satisfaction, watching how the world goes on without him, dancing to a constant rhythm alone. He lives in darkness but half heartedly expecting light to shine into his lonely life. Its highly depressing he thinks because there's no light or anything of some sort.

Taehyung likes the night so much he dyed his hair fluorescent orange so that he could pretend that the moon gets to meet the sun each night. And he find pleasure in serving drinks at the bar, at his counter. He called it his because he loves his job. He sobers himself through the night with loud beats in the bar with chokes of laughter and overwhelming feeling of forced. He
makes himself think it's all true. That everything that flows out of his lips is making him happy. Though it's funny he thinks how people see him as a happy pill but he has stopped laughing a long time back. He doesn't show the world he's sad.

Jungkook's a writer.
He lives off his day with words and sentences to make himself content, he has his knuckles bleeding when he thinks he can't take the weight of his aching heart any longer and he bites his lips to refrain himself from shedding tears. He live his life creating stories of diverse plots so that he could live in a different perspective of life in the day, so that he could leave and escape this world for a little while. And he lets the expectation of the people he work for hit him. Rips him. It makes him work hard, hard enough to bring a name to his words.

He drags himself through the night in the bar with melodies that only he could hear to, with a drunk heart and heart wrenching thoughts. He hates the night, he hates how dark it seems. He hates how the darkness seems to mock his already black life. He figured the noise the club brings could numb his unheard thoughts but he even if it didn't he still comes by each night to drown his black tears. During this time he lets his mind dwell on half the bull his editor wants from him and half the he critised him for. He shows the world that he's tired, that he's sick of all the expectations people crave from him.

Taehyung slides the cocktail with an amused face on the counter to the drunken man in a white tux he has been serving for the past two hours as he mutters under his breath at how funny life was. Taehyung once believed to his 20 year old self a few days back that money can buy happiness. He thought that if he's wealthy he would definitely be happy but now that almost half of his customer that meets him in the bar are wealthy people who seems in total despair.

Taehyung watches how some of them seems desperate for attention as they grind against each other and how they think all the pain is going to be gone by the time they drunk themselves off the dance floor because no, pain are meant to be felt. Even when they try to escape it, pain is always going to bite them harder in the end. Then he decides all this idiots jumping on the dance floor are zombies because that's how he sees them. And the only thing that separates them from him was the counter between them.Working in the bar for two years now he thinks he's good at judging people, at least that's what he tells himself. His break starts in five but he takes no time to worry because let the time tick, he won't succumb to it. He doesn't let time decides for him.

And Taehyung saw a boy, not exactly a boy he thinks because this boy he's seeing is in a club so maybe he's legal. And then Taehyung watches him, he watches the boy in the expensive black suit, hair dark as the night, back lean against the wall near Taehyung's counter. Taehyung watches how his lean shoulders seems to cave in, back weighing him down as though he's an ant carrying life burdens. He takes in how the boy puts his head in his shaking hands, pale lips bruised with purplish ink, fair complexion looks so worn out. And Taehyung gasps because this boy looks so beautifully vulnerable. When Taehyung's eyes drift to the boy's knuckles shaded in dirty red, he might wonder what had happened to the boy's fingers but he ended up thinking how red the wall would be. And then something in Taehyung's mind click. And everything seems sad. Seems duller and the surrounding changes to gray and Taehyung can't seems to understand why. And he feels himself disintegrating to thin air because no one seems to notice this poor boy.

He eyes the beautiful soul warily from his counter for a few minutes before he shocked himself taking a few steps back until his back hits the shelves of wine, gasping quietly because the boy had lift himself off the wall, walked to Taehyung and sits himself fatiguely on the stool at the end of Taehyung's counter. Then Taehyung gets confused at how everyone begin to leave the counter when the boy slide himself in and murmurs could be heard from mumbling lips. Then Taehyung overheard something about another famous writer finally lost his mind after much waiting. He averted his attention back to the boy who had his hands intertwined on the counter and head hung facing down. So Taehyung waits because the broken soul was his only customer at the moment.

Taehyung swore he lost himself somewhere between paradise and hell when the boy shifted his head up and look right at him. Then Taehyung realized he still had his back against the shelves of wine and he's still glued at that spot since the boy came. And Taehyung was aware that this boy is the first to make him react like this after so long. So Taehyung rips himself apart from the shelves and stood confidently near his counter where the boy's sitted and he smiles, he smiles his box-smile-teeth-showing-smile. And the boy surprisingly didn't smiled back instead he whispered a whiskey in return. And Taehyung kept smiling because he half expects this boy to smile back at him. He's not sure why but he just desperately wants a smile from this boy.

Soon Taehyung felt bad after leaving the whiskey to the boy and rushing to the other side of the counter leaving the boy in despair alone but he can't seems to get any customer for the past five minutes and he's dying from staying rooted on the ground like that. Then he decides he should at least accompany his 'acquaintance' for the night he called it, it's the least he could do as a bartender. So he stands himself an arms length away from the boy, arms glued on his sides and he thinks. He thinks about what he had heard earlier.

Jungkook sits himself in front of the counter, head still hung low, fingers numbed from the coldness of the glass of whiskey he had asked for. And he thinks how absurd his situation was, how absurd that everything are cold towards him, everyone had been all along. And he thinks how funny writers are suppose to feel this way and he starts to wonder how his dead body would be found, in what state his suicide would be because half of the writers he had known give themselves away to suicide. He feel himself being in silence until he sees the smiley orange haired bartender under his eyelashes. Except that when Jungkook lifts his face to glance at him this bartender guy wasn't smiling anymore. And he sees how confused this guy was, it's like he was having a debate in his mind about why oranges are orange (that's the only thing Jungkook could come up with because maybe this guy is obsessed with orange, his hair making an obvious point).

And when the bartender turns and look at him, Jungkook feel the air stuck in his throat. Maybe because this bartender guy was at arms length (and he was so beautiful) or his lungs are burning from the whiskey. The air between them seems to suspend in mid air and Jungkook had never felt so suffocating. So the only thing he could think of was to smile. No matter how hard his lips are tugging him down to not smile at this stranger because what's there to smile about he thinks. But a part of him wants to smile because this guy looked as though Jungkook would pounce and point a gun to his head. So he does. He smiled at someone for the first time in weeks (besides the small boy he saw last Friday).

But the stranger didn't return it and Jungkook wasn't mad or maybe he was because the first time the bartender smiled he didn't return it so Jungkook guess he deserved it but what the hell it hurts. It physically hurts for him to stretch his lips upwards  because his bottom lip was swollen and throbbing from all the biting he does. And he watches the bartender leave him maybe due to the annoyance of looking at his face Jungkook thinks and he shrugged. But the bartender came back, this time standing directly in front of Jungkook with a glass of ice and he holds it up to Jungkook's face and Jungkook feel perplexed.

This might help i hope, the bartender spoke, his stoic expression turning into a frown as though he could feel Jungkook's pain just by looking at him. It's the least i can do.

And it made Jungkook screamed in his head because no he doesn't even have to do this for him, he doesn't have to help him. Though Jungkook surprises himself by taking the glass in his bruised fingers and let the cold pierce through his lips. He winced a little at the contact before mumbling thank you to the bartender. A Taehyung was heard before he lets his eyes search through the bartender's eyes with a confuse face. And Jungkook sees all the corners turns into curves because Taehyung looked so sincere.

My name's Taehyung, with that Taehyung place his arms on the counter to hold his head in his hands facing Jungkook.  Jungkook wants to desperately lean back because this Taehyung guy's face is two feet away from his. But he lets himself be embraced with confusion if that's what it takes for him to scare his troubles away. He watched how Taehyung's face starts with perfection and ends with infallibility through perfectly carved jaw and cheekbones. And then Jungkook gives him a question look when he sees Taehyung wriggling his eyebrows at him because did Taehyung saw him gazing.

Instead a so, whats yours came out of this beautiful man's lips and Jungkook froze and he feel the beating of his heart and rhythm fade away into an overwhelming silence. Did Taehyung really don't know him because he have been in the newspaper headlines for months now about 'Another Writer finally loses his words'. But he mumbled a Jeon Jungkook anyway and then he sees Taehyung humming in return followed be a hello then Jungkook, in exclamation marks. With that Jungkook really thinks Taehyung doesn't know him. He doesn't want to laugh but he doesn't know why he's laughing.

Taehyung sees how the boy face exploded in happiness and Taehyung thinks is Jungkook excited too because he is. Taehyung find it astonishing how the boy was all glummy and smiley the next, and Taehyung thinks he like the smiley one better. The thing about Jungkook's smile the first time was only his lips moves up and all Taehyung could see was a frame of Jungkook in fit black tux and a set of teeth wrapped in smiling misery accompanied by sad eyes. But at this moment he watches how laughter roll out of purplish claret lips and Taehyung keeps in mind how wonderful it sounded. Taehyung smiles in return, he smiles with lips together and cheeks making him look ten years younger.

And when midnight came with the ticking of seconds, a conversation flowed with what do you do from Taehyung and a hesitated answer from Jungkook, nothing much, i write for a living. And Taehyung's heart crumbled with dismay because it's Jeon Jungkook - the rumors - it' true. He came across his article before but he lets himself say things like you should write about me then i have one hell of a interesting life.

Jungkook doesn't know if Taehyung's statement's suppose to turn out all sunshine with sparkles by the way he spoke or in glitter of despair but it sure looks like it's stuck in the middle. So Jungkook slips out a sure, maybe I'll write about you and Taehyung's box smile was replaced with a blank face and back to his cheek smile. And Jungkook could swore he had never seen so much emotions flashed in front of him in one single second.

Taehyung was knocked out by this bubble of rainbow between him and Jungkook when a man at the counter cleared his throat shamelessly and ordered a bottle of whiskey. Taehyung shrugged his shoulders to the man in return and send a wink glamorously as he could to Jungkook indicating that he's got to go back to work.

Jungkook however scoffed in return, mumbling how that wasn't y at all and don't try so hard hyung - Hyung, with that one word that slipped out of his lips, Jungkook froze and he felt his knuckles sting in contact with the glass of cold whiskey. He hadn't been calling anyone hyung for a long time. This remind him of someone he doesnt want to be reminded. And when he realizes that Taehyung's been looking at him, he can sees the look of awkwardess in Taehyung's eyes and he gets confused again because neither can understand where this is going.

Taehyung's heart has been pounding in his chest painfully since the boy called him hyung minutes ago and the tears in his eyes are aching to flow out because- hyung. He had called someone hyung before, someone who had loved the dear out of him but threw him away when he couldn't control being with Taehyung. Someone Taehyung thinks he will never get to forget.

His shift's over in a two minutes and it's past two but Taehyung can see Jungkook's still at the same spot with his head lying on the counter, one arm making a pillow for his forehead and another hand loosely circled the half empty glass of whiskey. And Taehyung awed mentally because Jungkook looked so perfect even when Taehyung can clearly see how worn out he was. And then Taehyung walked over to Jungkook, reaching his hand to get the last glass he has to wash but he ended up taking Jungkook's dainty hands in his as he gently wiped the dried blood on Jungkook's knuckles with a cold cloth.

Jungkook felt awfully like sobbing because he wasn't asleep like Taehyung thought he was. He wasn't. And this act of affection from Taehyung made him feel like a sad seven year old boy trapped in a eighteen years old body. Taehyung made his heart strings tugged out of his chest and Jungkook lets him. Jungkook allow Taehyung to clean his mess because Jungkook wanted this. He desperately wants this. And then Jungkook lost himself in stating that he wants Taehyung in his life to gather him back up. Then he decides his knuckles just needed assistance. That's all.

And when Taehyung was done washing both of Jungkook's hands and the last glass, he sees Jungkook pulling himself down the stool and sliding a couple of notes down the counter to Taehyung. And when Taehyung scrunched his face, shake his head super fast and muttering it's on me, Jungkook think's maybe he'll let Taehyung in his life for a while. Jungkook wants the affection that Taehyung could give to him.

So Taehyung sees him again, each night. Again and again until the younger calls him Tae, until Taehyung makes himself familiar of calling Jungkook, Kookie. They don't have long talks, they never have one, just short questions in return with short answers. They share short smiles when they have short glances of each other when Taehyung works and Jungkook watches him.

There's times when Taehyung takes note of how Jungkook's red knuckles and swollen lips lessen each day and more of Jungkook's sincere smile. And when Jungkook comes and sits on the stool of his counter, he starts to love the younger more each day.

And Taehyung sees lesser of Jungkook's hands shivering, lesser of Jungkook's fatigueself running him down. And when he sees lesser of Jungkook, he starts to miss the younger terribly each passing day.

So when Jungkook came by that one night like a sobbing mess, mumbling Taehyung's name like a chant and stumbling into Taehyung with tears, Taehyung let Jungkook hug him. Taehyung lets Jungkook fists his shirt tightly despite Taehyung ironing it that morning. And he thinks something is wrong. Something down right wrong happened even before Taehyung knows him. This boy needed saving. Taehyung wrap his arms around Jungkook and he could feel the boy shaking in his arms followed by sounds of teary chokes.

That night Jungkook tells a story about a boy who fell in love with words, and a boy hard. He let himself crumble under the pressure of writing each passing daylight and find solace each night with the boy he loved. But when the blood in his hardwork scattered and dripped everywhere, his lover left him. The lover couldn't take the boy's obsession for words so he left him vulnerable that one night. Even when the boy begged him to stay, even when he sprawled himself in his apartment floor screaming in agony. Then the boy decided to write about bleeding lips and lost love. People started to yell at him to get the up and live once so he wrote something about happy beginnings with sad endings and colorful emotionless art to prove that every happiness have sad endings. After that he lets the daylight him dry with words and the memories of his lover drained him each second.

Yesterday he came by and left a letter on my desk and i ran out of the apartment just in case he was there and i see him standing beside his car with his arms folded. So i thought that he'd decided to come back and wait for me. But when he looked up, he turned and went off. Why was i desperate? Why am i waiting for someone who doesn't give two s about me? It's just plain sad how i am hanging on a loose thread for dear life when it's clear that i had toppled over? I wanted him to love me. I-I wanted love to make me alive. Then Jungkook lets his face fall on the counter, hiding it in between his arms.

Minutes went on without neither talking. Taehyung find it hard to breathe the whole time Jungkook spoke beside him because he had just love this boy and the pain that inflicted from the boy's eyes left him shattered.

I'll make you feel alive, Taehyung lets the word endlessly roll from his lips and he in a breathe because Jungkook wasn't moving, neither responding. He allow his arm to reach out on Jungkook's shoulder and when he realizes the breathing in Jungkook was abnormally calm he laughed to himself because Jungkook was sleeping on the counter. So Taehyung went to his locker to get his blazer and placed it on Jungkook because tonight Jungkook wasn't in his expensive black suit. Tonight Jungkook allowed himself to crumble down and Taehyung was glad he got to be the one to comfort him.

Jungkook starts to find himself in Taehyung's apartment right after Taehyung is over with work. These nights,  Jungkook allows Taehyung to cuddle to him when they sit and talk, Jungkook allows himself to laugh whenever Taehyung pouts when he burned their breakfast and he lets himself be happy with just being in Taehyung's presence. And during this times he thinks he needed Taehyung badly in his life. He realizes how he's in love with this 20 year old sunshine.

And whenever Taehyung works, Jungkook will sit in his corner (he calls it his because he love this spot where he could get a clear view of Taehyung). Jungkook'll write, he doesn't know why he does but he write about Taehyung. He writes about the love Taehyung had for nights and how Taehyung back tends to falter whenever Jungkook's not looking.

This time when Taehyung works during the night, Taehyung tend to think if he could love anyone in the world he'll still love Jungkook because Jungkook was something so beautiful, he's scared of losing. And each time Jungkook laughs, Taehyung give himself to Jungkook without him knowing because when you find happiness in someone's happiness, you tend to give in so that they could remain happy.

And then one midnight alone, Jungkook let himself crumble under the pressure of reality. He struggled his thoughts as he lets himself write about a selfish bastard who wanted love from someone beautiful but didn't want to give the beautiful boy his love. He realized days back that he couldn't love Taehyung like how Taehyung wants him to. He couldn't let Taehyung stay with him. He wouldn't want Taehyung to be like Suga. He didn't want Taehyung to stumbled under Jungkook's mess. He doesn't allow Taehyung to suffer like how Suga did and how he left because he couldn't handled Jungkook. The distant memory of his past eating him away unconciously.

And Jungkook squelled in joy over the sadness of it, over the fact that he's a selfish bastard.

One night that started it all under Taehyung's old couch, Taehyung whispered promised comfort into Jungkook's ears. And then Jungkook broke away. He stumbled up.  And Taehyung's voice seems low, honey dripping and awfully careful when he reached out to Jungkook. He eyes Taehyung's wistful ones and whispered no, no you can't.

And Taehyung gets confused as each word seeps in his aching heart and he steps closer to Jungkook even when Jungkook takes a step back. What do you mean Kookie, he slips a laugh off his lips to bring this cruel situation a little humour.
 
I don't know - you can't love me. I'm a mess Tae. You shouldn't bring this in to yourself.

And then Taehyung felt awfully like sobbing but he doesn't because he realizes he was angry.

What do you mean i can't love you...what the hell are you talking about? I spend my days thinking about you when i was suppose to shatter in despair over Hoseok. When i should be ripping myself over the fact that no one could actually stay with me. When i think of the life Hoseok had once given me. And when i finally let myself love someone again - I actually love you and you don't allow me to?! Aren't someone being selfish here just because he thinks he can't love me? Taehyung's voice higher at each octave as he speaks but when he realizes the position he's in, Jungkook's back's on the wall and him towering over Jungkook and how scared Jungkook looked, he backed away.

Taehyung takes two steps back and he run his fingers in his styled hair in exasperation followed by a whisper of b-but i did most of the loving f-for us.

There was no 'us' to begin with.

With that it broke Taehyung into pieces he thought it never could. His head snapped up at Jungkook and his legs failed him when he found himself kneeling in front of Jungkook. Tears never failed to accompany his clenching sorrowful heart.

Jungkook's heart racing with absolute guilt and he felt like a . He felt like a mala fide because this time he's not in the position to cry and beg because this time he's the one who broke the one he loves. And Jungkook thinks, he's thinking about reaching out to Taehyung. He's thinking about who's this damn Hoseok guy. He's thinking about if the feeling of Taehyung's anger and restlessness is similar to the one night he saw Taehyung's back faltered. He's thinking about bleeding knuckles.

So he ran. He ran out of Taehyung's apartment to his. He ran down the street, up the stairs, drop his knees on his front door and feel his lungs burned like fire in his lungs. And he feel hot tears pouring down his face. There's a part in his heart shifted and he pull his knees to his chest to hug it tight. He knows he doesn't deserve to cry but everything's so messed up and he find his vision turned the air into melancholy gray. And he thinks he hasn't been a very good human being.

Taehyung sobs loudly in his small apartment till he sees the color of his wall coming down, till the sound echoes right back in his ears. And he thinks about why life is so bad to him but a part of him doesn't want to blame Fate. It isn't fate because he's 20, he's solely responsible for the paths he'd chosen and will choose. It isn't fate, he convinced himself.

Taehyung punch himself in the ribs for making things difficult for both of them. Although half of his heart's regretting every breathing space he used to confessed but the other half was glad that Jungkook had said he can't not that he don't at first. So maybe Jungkook lied about no us, maybe Jungkook wanted to push him away. He felt better that Jungkook knows Taehyung loves him. Taehyung stared at his lap, he knows he'd scare the younger away. Even when his heart's trampling in anger and sadness, Taehyung knows he took it too far. He watches his finger intertwined and he remembered the time Jungkook said something about Tae look we fit when Taehyung placed Jungkook's hand in his.

So there are two broken souls drifting away in their apartments, twenty two and sixty four floors up. Maybe if they looked up the ceiling they could see stars because it's almost enough to declare their love for each other but one's still too selfish to give in.

Taehyung wiped himself off throbbing hearts and feelings of dismay as he walk up to his opened front door and stroll into the night down to Jungkook's apartment.

Sometimes Jungkook cries harder then he has ever cried before, and he knows this because this isn't the pain that can be erased by himself. He thinks he should have actually let himself love Taehyung. He should at least reached out to Taehyung. He should. And he's thinking how it'd feel to have his hands around Taehyung's shoulder and his head on his chest. Jungkook tilts his head upwards, back slant against the metal door, legs spread outwards no longer to his chest, he thinks maybe if he couldn't be the perfect one for Taehyung, maybe Taehyung can be the perfect one in this lifetime.

And when he sees a glint in Taehyung's eyes when Taehyung appeared down the corridor of his apartment, he takes in a sharp breathe because Taehyung's there, right here for him when Jungkook'd actually left him. And when Taehyung stares down at him ten feet away between worn exasperation and lust, Jungkook smiles sadly, brought his right hand to his heart and whispered a Tae it aches.
 

No matter how hard Taehyung love Jungkook, he knows if love is not meant to be, they won't be together. But Taehyung'll try hard enough to fit himself in Jungkook's life because he knows a part of Jungkook will always love him. Even though Jungkook never admits it.

HI aishah here!! Hope you guys like this!

P.S HAPPY 17 BIRTHDAY IQIN! I hope you like it, maybe this could be half your bday present from me:) See you on monday!:)