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When Jungkook first opens his eyes in a new world, silence greets him. He lies in a garden lush with flowers in shades vivid beyond his imagination. The air tastes crisp and almost sweet on his tongue, like the first bite of an apple in autumn.
There is no birdsong. No hum of insects. Not a single whisper of wind. Even the illusive buzz of modern life, the whir of electric devices, the rush of a car on a distant road, that penetrates all but the deepest woods is absent.
It is strangely eerie.
For a few moments, Jungkook stays there on his back in the plush grass and just listens. He wonders if he has gone deaf.
His memories of the ritual slip from his grasp when he reaches for them, fleeing far from his conscious mind. There had been so much pain tearing through every molecule of his body that Jungkook will not be surprised if it has altered him irrevocably. He’s never experienced silence like this. It can’t be natural.
But no; air whispers from his own lungs, a sound he has subconsciously ignored until now. The grass rustles, and skin whispers against skin as he reaches up to touch his ear.
Perhaps it’s shock still affecting him? Or maybe he just hasn’t yet quite woken up. That seems more plausible, except—
The silence persists. As soon as Jungkook goes still, the world goes blank. If he closes his eyes, it almost feels as though he’s floating in empty space with only the sound of his own breaths to keep him company.
Is this a dream? An afterlife? Some sort of punishment or reward for a lifetime spent worshiping no deity, but trying to be good nonetheless?
Jungkook knows he’s dead. There had been so much pain; no one could’ve lived through that.
His heart still beats, though. If he stops breathing for more than a handful of seconds, his chest aches. His soul is still tied to the same body; he can tell by the little scar on the back of his left hand from scraping it against a sharp corner when he was helping his brother move.
There is a world around him, an oil-painting landscape inviolate from the taint of real living beings, but a world he can touch. The petals of the flowers feel smooth against his fingertips when he gathers enough consciousness to touch them, and they come away coated in pollen.
Yet there are no bees. No sign of insect or animal life.
There must be someone here, though. Fabric encircles his wrist, but in a gentle caress that slides smooth against his skin instead of the rough ropes that had bound him. His legs are free. The blindfold that had been tied so roughly that it tangled in his hair has vanished.
Someone has freed him, cleaned the abrasions left from his struggle against the rope, clothed his naked body. His every comfort has been provided for while he was unconscious. A chill slides down his spine.
“Hello?” he tries.
The air swallows the word whole. There is no echo, no rustle of plants that would suggest someone watching just out of sight, no other sound. Nothing to indicate the presence of another living being.
Yet there is this feeling. A weight to the air. The barest hint of something teasing the edge of his senses. Some deep, animal part of his brain knows instinctively what is beyond his ability to perceive.
Jungkook is being watched.
***
Eyes follow Jungkook everywhere he goes. He doesn’t see them, but they are heavy on his back.
It’s probably his own fault. While he doesn’t remember the exact purpose of the ritual that brought him here, Jungkook knows he wasn’t invited into this place. Whoever (whatever?) owns this space has the right to be suspicious of Jungkook as an interloper into their sanctuary.
And sanctuary it must be. It is too calm, too peaceful, too beautiful to be anything but that. Achingly silent, yes but perhaps the entity prefers it that way.
There is nothing to tell Jungkook what he should do or to delineate the boundaries of where he is allowed to go. He cannot stay in the meadow forever. Hunger already gnaws deep into the pit of his stomach and eats away at the clarity of his mind. Thirst makes the air rasp against his throat with every breath.
Whatever the rules of this place, Jungkook will not live long enough to learn them if he doesn’t move. All he can do is hope that the entity will be forgiving when he inevitably trespasses some unknown limit.
When he leaves the meadow, Jungkook is careful not to bend the stalks of those beautiful flowers. He will try, as best he can, to preserve the serenity around him.
If he is as unobtrusive as possible, maybe he will be allowed to live.
***
Jungkook does not know how long he has been walking. His feet, clad only in soft, thick socks, ache relentlessly. Each step jolts pain through his joints.
With no idea where he was or where he was going, Jungkook had picked a direction at random with the hope that he would be able to find food, shelter, water, something .
There is nothing. Not even an end to the trees.
The whisper of his steps through the undergrowth of the forest seems so loud and evincing that Jungkook wants to leave the woods entirely. Exposed he may be without the trees’ protection, but at least he can be quiet. Yet the trees won’t end.
It must have been hours that he’s been walking, surely. Keeping time is difficult without a watch, and the sun doesn’t seem to move properly. In fact, Jungkook isn’t sure that it’s moving at all.
Only his body cries evidence of the passage of time. Weakness tugs at his limbs until it feels like he’s dragging them along through sheer mental fortitude rather than being supported by their labour.
The possibility has occurred to Jungkook that the forest will not end. Ever. For all he knows, this new world consists only of endless trees under a clear blue sky. No animals to hunt or befriend, no streams to drink from, and not even a breeze to stir the leaves to rustle.
If Jungkook falls in this forest, will he make a sound? A desperate, dark part of his mind says that he will likely never learn the answer because he won’t rise again if he falls now.
***
Just as his trembling legs begin to give out, a house blooms between the trees. Jungkook almost walks straight into the closed door before he even realizes it’s there. His feet stop moving instinctively, and he blinks at the dark wood in front of him.
Had that been there a moment ago?
Forcing his exhausted body to back up a few steps, Jungkook stares at the house. It is enormous, more properly a castle or a manor than a house, all stonework and delicately carved wooden fixtures. Even the massive trees surrounding it can’t quite dwarf the structure as it soars with turreted towers towards the sky.
There’s no way that Jungkook could have missed this. Even his exhaustion couldn’t have clouded his sight that much.
For a moment, he hovers on the threshold. This house probably belongs to the entity who rules this world. That individual might not like a grubby and desperate stranger wandering about their home.
But it has been hours and hours, and Jungkook can’t walk any further. His choices are to risk either the entity’s wrath or dying of thirst while searching endlessly for some water source.
Before his exhausted mind can settle on which option is more terrifying, the door opens of its own volition. The sound of the latch sliding back from its catch startles Jungkook more than the autonomous movement itself.
Well then. Apparently he’s being invited in.
The smell captures Jungkook as soon as he steps inside: sharp and spicy, undercut by something meaty and aromatic. Jungkook’s stomach twists, hunger roaring back into his consciousness. If his mouth weren’t so dry, he might have started drooling.
Jungkook follows the scent as if in a daze. His feet slip along marble floors through hallways lit by light that floods through arching windows cut into the stone walls. The splendor dazzles his already dazed mind so that he can hardly even think to appreciate the beauty. Already, he’s lost in the depths of the house.
The smell draws him ever forwards until the niched windows abruptly give way to—
Crystal chandeliers that throw the sunlight across a silver table. Steam rises from some of the plates, but others condensate in the perfect summer air that filters in through glassless arches.
(Had it been summer? Jungkook thinks back and can only remember burnt orange Autumn leaves.)
Jungkook doesn’t remember moving, but he’s suddenly standing over the table. There’s more food here than he’s ever seen in one place. Some of the dishes are strange, fruits that he doesn’t recognize or meats that he can’t identify, but there’s more that is familiar. Kimchi, japchae, and tteok. Even a glass of what smells like banana milk.
Yet it’s the water that he reaches for first. Cool and clear, it washes the sticky dryness from his tongue. Jungkook drinks desperately, refilling his golden cup from a glass pitcher twice before he stops to breathe.
His legs finally give out with pure relief at slacking the terrible thirst, and Jungkook drops heavily into a padded chair.
Up close, the scent of the food layers sweetness and the distinctive tang of yeast under the more dominant spices. Jungkook looks at it, and wonders.
Once upon a time, Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds and lost her freedom. Odysseus stole cheese and doomed his companions to an agonizing death.
What does Jungkook give up, if he takes this food?
In the end, it doesn’t matter. There had been no berry bushes on his long walk, nor fruit trees or wild vegetables. There hadn’t even been animals that he could hunt, if he knew how.
Starvation is a slower death than dehydration. Perhaps it would be all the more painful for it.
Jungkook’s hand trembles as he reaches for a bowl.
The blueberry busts on his tongue, firm skin yielding and sweet juice spilling out with the perfect texture and flavour. Jungkook can’t help but have another, and then a bit of the kimchi which is fresh and spicy and crunches with a sour tang.
Each bite is more delicious, more succulent, more satisfying than the last. Jungkook is so hungry . When did he last eat?
By the time his stomach feels less like a cavernous pit, the light in the room has dimmed. The sun does move, then.
Shadows stretch long from the arches, shading the platters of food which look untouched no matter how much Jungkook eats and caressing his face. The chair is so soft beneath him, and Jungkook walked so far. His eyes itch as he struggles to keep them open.
Jungkook should move, should leave this place before he overstays his welcome. If he was ever welcome to begin with. He doesn’t know if the house is safe.
But the chair reclines as he hadn’t expected a dinning chair to, and oh, is that a blanket thrown over the back? Jungkook hadn’t noticed before. The soft, satiny fabric slithers over his shoulder to pool in his lap and spill down his legs of its own accord.
Eyes are still upon him. Whoever (whatever) controls this world can have him no matter where he goes. Inside the house or hidden in some cave in the forest, Jungkook will not escape them. Even in his sleep, they will keep guard.
Whether for him or against him remains to be seen.
***
Jungkook wakes in a bed. The sheets are as satiny against his bare chest as the blanket was last night.
Jungkook did not fall asleep in a bed. He is sure of it.
***
It is difficult to convince himself that he’s awake. Jungkook wanders through the house that seems to twist and change, corridors rearranging themselves as soon as he turns his back and architectural styles melding seamlessly despite their clashing aesthetics.
Every time Jungkook thinks he has found some limit to the building, has at least reached a deadend, it turns out to be an illusion created by cleverly placed mirrors or startlingly lifelike paintings. Like a dream flowing with twisted logic between dissidents scenes, the entire place is malleable.
Like a nightmare, there are no exits.
The eyes still follow Jungkook, and he wonders what they want but doesn’t try to hide from them. His footsteps ringing against the marble, wood, stone floors would give him away in an instant anyways.
Time still hangs static despite the copious windows. Like the architecture, the quality of the light varies between individual panes of the same window, let alone across a hall. Jungkook measures minutes by the growing ache in his (now bare, what happened to his shoes?) feet and the low ache in his belly.
The third time he slips past a room that smells like food, Jungkook stops in the doorway. The house does not repeat. Once he leaves one area, he doesn’t come across it again or anything in a similar style.
Yet here, for the third time, is food.
The air warms, and the gaze follows him as he hesitantly takes a seat at the table.
***
Once he has eaten, the door to leave the house reappears.
Jungkook rests for what feels like days before he uses it.
***
In the end, it’s the sound that drives him out of the house.
Part of Jungkook is terrified of getting lost again and not being able to find his way back to shelter and food. If the woods are as barren as they were the first time, he might yet die out there alone.
But the house echoes. It throws every sound (his voice, the splash of water in the sculpted porcelain tub, the tink of his chopsticks against each other) back at him tenfold.
Only his noises ever reach his ears. No wind, no rain, not a whisper of another voice. His very presence ruptures the peace. Every sound doubles back upon him, repeated in an endless chorus caught and refracted by the walls of the house.
The more noise he makes, the more crowded the house feels until it’s so full of invisible ghosts that he can’t move without brushing into them. Even the forest must be better than this.
Except there is no more forest, when he finally musters the courage to open the door. Instead of towering trees, the house is now surrounded by flowers in neat little plots and sprawling meadows.
Jungkook can’t be surprised: every window looked out onto a different landscape from within the house. Why shouldn’t the natural world fluctuate in the same way that the interior does?
Somehow, Jungkook is still stunned.
***
That first day in the garden, Jungkook stays very close to the house. The memory of trekking through an endless forest without food or water lingers on the back of his mind.
The second, woken to a new world once more, Jungkook runs far out into the moors. Everything is flat for kilometers around, and the house looms on the edges of his vision no matter how far he goes.
It isn’t until the fifth time he ventures out that Jungkook dares to go out of sight of the house. If he picks a direction and only goes straight, he can just turn around and walk back again when he starts to get hungry.
(Like a child in a nursery rhyme, Jungkook marks his path as he goes. A strip of cloth tied around this branch, a book from the voluminous library left there. These, at least, should remain if the world decides to tilt sideways.)
Jungkook walks in a straight path until his feet are starting to get tired and his mouth feels uncomfortably dry. Just as he starts thinking about turning back, something huge and dark appears in the distance. Curious, Jungkook pushes aside his body’s demands to discover what other structures exist in this world.
He walks for almost a quarter hour more before he recognizes the outline.
It’s the house.
***
Jungkook loses track of the number of times he has slept since he arrived and feels a little bit like he’s going crazy. It is always day, and it is always quiet, and the world will not be still. Nothing feels quite real anymore.
Nothing, except what is directly in his line of sight or underneath his fingertips. Jungkook must trust his own senses; there is nothing else for him to turn to if he doubts them.
Sometimes, though, even that is difficult. His mind cannot comprehend the lack of sound anymore. Echoes seem to last a bit too long, and every now and then, he swears there is another noise from very far off. Except when he goes searching for the source, Jungkook can never find anything.
The human mind will play tricks on itself, he knows. Deprived of outside stimuli, it will fill in the gaps with its own inane wanderings. The sounds he thinks he hears will grow more frequent and ever more believable as time stretches on.
When first he hears something as he explores the outdoors, Jungkook dismisses it as one such hallucination. The noise is rhythmic and rush, easily pushed out of mind in favor of far more interesting things.
The ground is different today, somehow not as steady as usual. It shifts slightly under his feet, and he can see that the vegetation thins just a bit ahead. That is unusual. Every landscape that he has been provided so far has been lush and pure, like an untouched paradise. Why suddenly now does it differ?
Jungkook tracks the increasingly barren foliage avidly because it is the most interesting thing he has seen in … well, in many sleeps. There is no more precise measure he can give.
The sound does not fade like most of them do, but even grows louder as he climbs a hill. Climbing demands most of his attention, though, because the earth beneath the sparse grass slides back when he steps on it. Out of shape after so long of neglecting his workouts, Jungkook huffs open-mouthed gasps as he struggles upwards.
Perhaps that is why it takes so long for him to notice the smell. No breeze carries it, as he might expect, but an oddly briney tang tinges the air.
Jungkook is almost to the top of the hill when the pieces click together: salt on his tongue, sand beneath his feet, waves in his ears . His hart jumps, and he can barely feel the stitch stabbing into his lungs as he desperately hurls himself the last few meters up the hill until he can see—
Ocean, stretching as far as his vision reaches. The light that passes for the sun here glints off rolling cerulean waters and crystal beaches. Shells dot the sands in jewel bright tones. The tide pulls the waves forwards and back, forwards and back, inexorable and predictable and audible .
A cry tears from Jungkook’s chest. The trip back down the dune and across the beach is a blur of loosing his footing and rolling halfway down only to stagger to his feet and sprint across the scorching sands.
Jungkook does not come back to himself until the water rolls merrily to greet him and rushes over his feet. Sharp rocks cut his knees as Jungkook throws himself down and tries to gather the wave into himself. Like he can embrace the first thing in this place that babbles back to him.
That is impossible, of course, and the water slides away from him again as though it doesn’t even notice his presence. But it comes back again, always back and always as loud as the first rush.
Jungkook laughs or maybe sobs. The sound does not echo, but is swallowed in the swish of water and sand.
***
More time slips away while Jungkook clings to the shore. Jungkook’s skin starts to feel tight with the salt and overhot with the sun.
This is the longest stretch of time that he’s spent outside since he woke up here. Usually, Jungkook wanders restlessly when he leaves the house, and the building reappears when it’s time for him to eat.
If Jungkook walks the shoreline, will the house be forced to manifest here? He picks a direction, and walks in the surf.
Sure enough, the house comes. Set far enough back from the water to make use of more stable ground, it looks like something he would see on a European coast, all white stone with open balconies and flat roofs. Jungkook will still be able to see and hear the ocean from inside.
His muscles ache from the unaccustomed strain of walking literally against the grain, his stomach rumbles, and his eyes itch with exhaustion. Yet for what might be hours, Jungkook sits just in the tideline and stares out at the sea and listens to the waves.
For the first time, a breeze rises to snatch at the back of Jungkook’s shirt and coax him towards the house.
Stretching out his hand to welcome in the tide, Jungkook sighs. He cannot stay here forever. The world won’t let him. Everytime he sleeps in a strange place, he wakes to find himself in his bed, and he knows this time won’t be different.
Eventually, he gives in and follows the brush of the cool wind against his parched skin back into the house. It whistles in through the open balconies, leading him first to water, then food, and then sleep.
“It’s the sounds,” Jungkook says as he settles beneath bamboo sheets that are deliciously cool against his fevered skin. “The sound makes me feel sane.”
He’s not sure if anyone is listening. Not sure if there is anyone to listen. Saying it still feels important.
***
Light strikes his overly warm face as Jungkook wakes, but his mind is still dreaming. Birds sing, and waves roll in heavily, and a breeze whispers in his ears. For a long moment, Jungkook lingers in this perfect place between sleep and wakefulness where he knows the comfort of his luxurious bed, but also the music of the natural world.
Abruptly, Jungkook realizes that he has not been dreaming for some time. His eyes flick open. Silk slides against his skin as Jungkook slips from his mattress and totters out onto the balcony.
The sea roars, the wind blows, and the birds still sing.
It seems someone is listening.
***
The bird song becomes Jungkook’s constant companion.
Jungkook never sees a single bird.
***
Jungkook stands before the huge balcony in his bedroom and glares. Now that the house always looks out onto the sea, his room always has a balcony. In theory, the stunning view, fresh air, and natural lighting should be perfect.
Except it never gets dark.
Sleeping has been strange since he arrived, partially because Jungkook is loath to close his eyes when he doesn’t know what he’ll open them to, but also because the sun never sets. Falling asleep is difficult in what amounts to broad daylight no matter how tired he is.
Jungkook puts off attempts to rest until he is so physically exhausted that he has no other choice. Often, this leads him to falling asleep in random places (most of them at least slightly darker than his bedroom), and Jungkook finds it slightly disconcerting to wake up in his bed after sleeping somewhere else. Comforting and endearing, in a way because it shows the master of this space cares for him, but also a bit disconcerting.
If he could just cover the windows with something more than the thin, diaphanous curtains that are usually provided, perhaps Jungkook could finally get some quality rest. Now that sound has blossomed into this world, the neverending light takes precedent as the most irksome feature of this place.
Jungkook has been waiting for a day when the ceilings of his bedroom are lower than usual so that the other windows will be short enough that he can reach the top of them, and it has finally arrived. After gathering thicker fabrics from the rest of the house, Jungkook has already secured them over the rest of the windows. Already his room is darker than it has been since he arrived.
The only remaining problem is the balcony. None of the various blankets and tablecloths he brought are large enough to cover the windows. Setting his hands on his hips, Jungkook narrows his eyes and estimates the dimensions of the balcony. His gaze darts back to his (way too large) bed, and catches on the silk sheets.
Wrestling the topsheet out from under the duvet is the work of a moment. The fine cloth drags across the floor as he pulls it over to the window, but Jungkook doesn’t care. Things here do not need to be cleaned. He would’ve woken up with new sheets anyway, so no need to worry about damaging this expensive set.
As he had with the other windows, Jungkook secures the midnight blue sheet to the curtain rod with pull backs that he has taken from other windows in the house. The silk slips against the braided rope, and it takes several tries to create a satisfactory knot to hold it in place.
When it is finally done, though, Jungkook steps away from the balcony and blinks around the room. His eyes are no longer accustomed to adjusting to darkness. The few seconds of complete blindness before his vision picks up enough traces of light to see vague outlines are a luxury he had never appreciated before.
A sigh of deep contentment leaves Jungkook. Something tense in him relaxes, and the headache he hadn’t realized he had finally eases a bit.
A breeze suddenly rushes into the room, picking up one edge of the sheet and brushing it against Jungkook in a way that feels almost questioning.
Squinting in the renewed sunlight, Jungkook swallows. The entity who rules this place has proved that it is infested in Jungkook’s health and comfort, but he is wary of how much he might impose upon it. He has not asked for any major changes to his surroundings since The Sounds.
“It’s too bright,” he explains to no one and nothing. “Where I come from, days are divided into light and darkness. I need the dark to know when to rest and to rest well.”
A yawn almost cuts off the end of the last word, exhaustion setting in now that it is finally dark enough to sleep, but Jungkook is careful of how he phrases himself. He does not want to live in a world of constant darkness, and he hopes that the hint of a daily schedule will lead to some kind of predictable change.
Jungkook misses being able to track some semblance of time. Measuring by “sleeps” is maddening because he has no idea how long he sleeps or even how long he is awake between sleeps. Hours, minutes, and days all blur together. He does not want months and years to do the same.
A wind stirs his hair and tugs his sleep shirt in the direction of the bed. The sheet over the balcony does not rustle this time, and none of the other windows are open.
As Jungkook collapses into the bed, he wonders when the brush of a breeze started to feel so much like a caress.
***
The next day, Jungkook watches the “sun” set over the sea for the first time in this place.
A strange feeling, aching and bittersweet, but so tender floods his chest. It reminds him of the feeling of home.
***
Having proper “days” relieves a pressure on his mind that Jungkook hadn’t realized was weighing him down. For the first time since arriving in this place, he starts to settle into a routine governed by something other than his own bodily needs.
Somehow, he feels more connected to the world, now that its variances contribute positively to his quality of life. Or perhaps it’s just easier to think when his body is properly rested.
Whatever the reason, Jungkook rediscovers an interest in hobbies and pleasures. He has focused on surviving for so long that it feels almost sacrilegious the first time he enters the library for nothing more than the pleasure of picking a book.
A breeze tousles his hair as he enters, and Jungkook can still feel those ever present eyes on him. Their weight is now more comforting than prohibitive. They are tracking his movements, he knows, paying attention to which sections of the library hold his interest. When he next enters the room, he is sure the sections with novels and history will be even more expansive.
Perhaps his interest in the art category might even spawn a studio somewhere around here. It has been a long time since Jungkook painted. His fingers flex with the imagined sensation of a brush in his hand dragging carefully along smooth paper. Jungkook would like to paint again.
For today, he sets the thought aside. Today he has come to choose a book because his mind is begging for something new to push his thoughts in a direction other than loneliness and the same circling despair of knowing that he will never go home.
It is not his first time in the library, but it is the first time Jungkook has come for anything other than a desperate search to understand where he is and what has happened to him. The magic which brought him here was complex and painful and unique. His body and mind had been metaphysically torn apart to offer him up to the master of this space as a sacrifice.
Jungkook does not know if it worked. He has no way of even looking back at his own world to see what is happening in his absence. Did the loss of his life bring the rain and end the drought as it was supposed to? Have the fields flourished and the flowers bloomed and the orchards burgeoned with fruit?
(Does his brother miss him? Has his place been filled in the little bakery where he used to work? Every day these memories grow fainter, and he is beginning to wonder which life is the dream.)
The library does not hold the answers. In all the iterations of the room that Jungkook has seen, towering tall and circular with ladders between levels, labyrinths of shelves packed closer together under a low ceiling, shelves made of wood on bookcases, of stone carved into the wall, of marble with bookends of the same vein, there has never been a section on magic.
(Jungkook can never leave this place, if he never learns how he came to be here in the first place. He has no magical education; he was a shopkeeper and the gift does not run in his family. With no way to study magic, he will not be able to even attempt a ritual to send him back. Jungkook will never go home.)
But today Jungkook is not looking for spellbooks. Today, Jungkook wants nothing more than to throw himself into a new story and forget his own world for a little while.
He has chosen a good day for it; the library is especially beautiful today. Natural light pours in through a skylight that stretches the length of the room. Golden ladders etched with floral designs twining around their thin circular rungs climb towards marble mezzanines in an open design. Each level is clearly labeled, but the anticipation of hidden knowledge within the pages of the embossed books curls through Jungkook’s blood.
There is no rush to choose a book, Jungkook has nowhere else to be, so he works his way leisurely through the novels section for some time. His fingers trail down the spines of the books, picking up those with interesting covers or titles and amassing a small collection that he will take back to his room.
The simple peace of the afternoon is broken only by the annoyance of the ladders. Pretty they might be, but the rungs sit awkwardly under his feet and feel as though they’ll break if he’s not careful with how he sets his weight. Worse, the wheels on which the rest slip against the marble floor with the slightest shift of Jungkook’s body. The ladders are fixed to a rod at the top but still feel unbalanced beneath him.
It is a passing irritation, but a recurring one. Each time he moves between mezzanines or wants to see the upper portion of a bookcase, he’s forced to wrestle with the ladders and engage his core muscles to stabilize the wheels.
Jungkook is embarrassed to realize that it’s actually tiring, after a little while. Daily walks aside, he hasn’t been very active since he arrived here. Perhaps it’s time again to start exercising.
Setting the thought aside, Jungkook surveys his pile of books thoughtfully. He’s been picky, can afford to be with so many choices available, and has only allowed himself to pick five books. Enough to keep him busy for a few days, but not so much that he’ll be tempted to hole himself up in his room and lose himself entirely for more than that.
His feet ache from the odd angle of the ladder rungs, and he’s starting to get hungry, so Jungkook decides to see what the kitchen might offer him today.
(It’s always something different, cuisine from around the world and every level of expense available to him at all times. No matter how much he eats, the amount of food never diminishes.)
Gathering the books in his arms, Jungkook frowns at the ladder once more. He hadn’t thought to bring a bag, and there’s no way down from the mezzanine except the ladder. Form over function at its finest.
All five books fit tucked between the curve of one arm and his chest, but only barely. Jungkook balances them carefully as he steps down onto the first rung of the ladder and holds the rail leading down with his other hand. It’s only maybe twelve rungs down. That’s no problem.
Except when he looks down, he can only see the floor in the empty air between steps. The books block his view of the next lowest rung. To see where he’s putting his feet, Jungkook would need to twist oh so carefully on thin wood, but the books slide against each other when he tries.
A smarter, or at least more circumspect, man might simply decide to take the books in a few trips so that their bulk won’t occlude his vision. Jungkook feels blindly for the next rung with a death grip on the railing. Only twelve steps.
The banister serves him well until he’s descended far enough that it gives way to the sides of the ladder itself. The pole is so slim that Jungkook can’t get a good hold. His next step down is considerably more cautious.
Earlier in the day, Jungkook had shed his house shoes and even his socks. The flat bottom of the slippers had slid against the curve of the rungs, and the slippery fabric of his socks was no better.
Now he grips onto the wood with his toes, all of his weight on the ball of one foot as he feels blindly for the next rung with the other. The front of his foot smacks into the wood, and he navigates by touch to the sturdiest position before he shifts his weight.
The next step is further down than feels right. The one leg that holds all of his weight has to bend to almost a right angle before he finds the rung. The position is an awkward strain, all of his weight held on the right side of his body while the left is occupied holding the books and searching for the next step. Jungkook begins to regret his decisions.
His toes eventually do find solid wood, and when he lowers himself down, Jungkook realizes he has skipped a step. Well, at least that’s one less to worry about. He’s almost halfway down now, only about ten feet off the ground. Surely the last few will be easier now that he’s started to figure out how the motion goes.
The ball of his foot catches on the next rung before he expects it to, and it shocks Jungkook just enough that his hold on the books momentarily loosens. Reflexively, he curls himself closer to the ladder, but that only slams the books together so quickly that one of them is forced out from the middle.
The foot he’d been lowering loses the step entirely to hang in midair, and the shift in his balance jolts the other foot to slip forwards off the rung. His grip on the side of the ladder is too precarious to hold when it suddenly bears all his weight.
A startled yelp shatters the quiet as Jungkook drops the books, misses his last desperate grab at the ladder, and falls backwards. In the split second before he impacts the ground, Jungkook tries to brace himself for impact by curling into a ball and covering his head.
Only to land with a soft thump against something very plush.
For a moment, shock locks his muscles in place. Jungkook gasps for breath inside the dark cradle of his own arms and wonders dazedly what just happened. The drop had been short, but there had been nothing except marble beneath him. There should be pain.
Air is still whistling in with every breath he takes when Jungkook sits up. His gaze falls on the books, scattered at the foot of the ladder. Two of them hit the ground and merely fell open, looking for all the world as though someone had laid them out open to keep their place and forgot them there. Two are closed, and the last fell open but face down so the pages are crumpled and sadly bent.
Jungkook’s eyes trail up the ladder, to the sixth step, the one he had missed. At least two meters, surely.
Then he finally looks down at the mattress he landed on. It’s enormous, topped with foam and lined by thicket blankets around the edge. Jungkook’s dazed mind remembers rucking up the blankets on his own bed like this once, when he was watching his baby cousin and feared the infant might roll off the bed.
A strong wind blows through the room. It howls as it wraps around Jungkook, tugging at his hair. One of the blankets is caught in its gusts and blows over Jungkook’s shoulder in the facsimile of an embrace.
***
Jungkook brings a basket the next time he goes to find new books. The room is single story and remains so for months after that.
Funnily enough, the library never has ladders between mezzanines even when more levels are eventually added. There are always stairs, glorious and sweeping, or winding and well guarded by banisters, often with books tucked in the gaps between steps.
Even the few ladders attached to the bookcase are no more than five rungs tall. Their steps are wide and sturdy with railings of their own attached. Function over form.
It’s a bit annoying when the poles dig into his chest as he’s reaching for a book, but it always makes Jungkook smile.
***
Jungkook wakes to a gentle, almost rhythmic static of noise. The susurration fades in and out of his dreams, something that reminds of the surf, no a babbling stream, no… rain .
Jungkook’s eyes fly open, and he’s falling out of his bed before he even knows that he decided to move. His foot catches on a plush rug, he grabs a nightstand to keep himself upright, tears back the curtains to his balcony, and—
Rain spatters against the glass in front of his face. Sheets of it drench the beach before him, and individual droplets fleck the glass. A streak of light splits the sky, followed seconds later by the distant roll of thunder.
The latch to the balcony door (there has never needed to be a door, the balcony is open to the sea breeze and the sun) slips his grip the first time because Jungkook cannot look away, but then gives way.
Hurling the door along it’s sliding track, Jungkook streaks out into the rain. It lights on his skin, sinks into his hair, seeps into his thin nightshirt. His cupped palm, held out in front of him, fills quickly with the brisk rain.
For a few moments, Jungkook stares out at the world in awe. His nightshirt quickly becomes drenched. It clings to his body and tangles uncomfortably between his legs when he walks to the railing.
The weather here has never been anything but perfectly climate controlled. Every day is the same perfect, mild temperature with clear skies and a slight breeze to contrast the warmth of the benevolent sun.
But now the heavens have burst while he slept. The wind is strong enough to tousle his wet hair, chill his bare legs, throw water into his face.
Jungkook throws back his head and laughs.
His bedroom floors are hardwood today and will be ruined by the water that streams from him as he darts back into the room. Jungkook shakes droplets from his hair and gives it not a single thought. They will be gone tomorrow, and even if they’re not, he finds himself unable to care.
Without bothering to stop for clothes, he runs through the house. His feet always arrive at his intended destination regardless of whether or not he stops to learn his way through the halls, so Jungkook is not surprised to reach the front door in mere seconds.
Seizing the knob, he makes to throw it open and stops. The door is locked.
Puzzled, Jungkook steps back and glances around. The door has never been locked before.
The wind blows the water puddling at Jungkook’s feet across the floor, and Jungkook follows its path to—A pair of rainboots with socks tucked into their tops sit neatly next to the threshold. A rainjacket hangs careless on the open frame of the coat closet.
Jungkook does not know whether to roll his eyes or smile fondly. Balancing on one foot withe a hand on the doorframe, he rolls the socks impatiently on. His feet are shoved carelessly into the boots, and the jacket has only made it over one arm when he tries the door again.
This time, he is welcomed out by a gust to his face.
Jungkook spends too long in the rain that day. There are too many things that he has not seen in far too long; waxy leaves that repel the droplets sprinkled over them, garden decorations with their crevices forming miniature lakes, puddles that Jungkook can’t resist jumping into.
Nothing looks quite the same shaded by iron clouds and lit by flashes of lightning.
(At home, Jungkook wouldn’t dare to play in a lightning storm for fear of being struck. The thought doesn’t even cross his mind until nearly two days later because that possibility cannot exist in the same reality that is controlled by a being who turns hot kitchen implements cool in the blink of an eye when Jungkook almost burns himself cooking.)
Even through the raincoat, Jungkook is soaked to the bone and shivering by the time he gives in to the tug of the breeze at the edge of his sleeve and makes his way back towards the house. The rain has lightened to only a drizzle, and Jungkook fears it might stop entirely if he doesn’t obey. Thoughts of a warm shower, and then a cup of hot chocolate while he’s tucked up in a rocking chair by the hearth while listening to the storm tempt him back inside.
Sure enough, the moment he steps over the threshold, a new wave of clouds rolls in.
***
Jungkook has the sniffles, the next day, but he’s too relaxed to care much. The world feels new in a way that has nothing to do with its constant shifting, and everything to do with the revival of life after a storm.
Seasons make a place for themselves in his universe. Not in any kind of predictable or logical order, of course. If the bright golds and crimsons of Autumn crown the trees one day, the flowers of Spring may replace them the next, and the snows of Winter cap them the day after that. No season ever lingers long enough for Jungkook to grow tired of its unique features.
It is a period in which Jungkook rediscovers old loves: raking up an enormous pile of leaves to jump in; cuddling under heavy blankets to watch the melancholy drift of snow across the window; running through a surf stirred to boiling by storm winds; watching the first bloom a new flower.
In the chapters of Jungkook’s life, these experiences do not take up pages. Nor even full paragraphs.
They are sentences, tiny and insignificant, but somehow all the more integral to the narrative for that fact. Jungkook had not realized how much of himself was written into the aching minutiae of those details.
***
Sometimes, Jungkook does think about home. The world that he came from was not as flawlessly idyllic as the one in which he now lives, but it was not so terrible. There had been a little house that he could call all his, and he might have to watch his stores during the winter, but he never went hungry. His life had been unremarkable, either for his suffering or his excellence.
The sacrifices that Jungkook heard about in hushed whispers were not like him. They were already dying, sick and starved, or perhaps utterly unattached to their community with no strong kin or friendship bonds, or maybe they were even criminals, chosen for this duty because they had nothing else to give society.
Jungkook had a family, a brother, aging parents, cousins, and the promise of niblings on the horizon. He had a job, a plan, a future.
Sometimes, Jungkook thinks about that. All of it was stolen from him in one fell swoop when he came here, and he doesn’t want to forget.
His parents will die, in a few years. His friends will get married. His brother will beget children that Jungkook has never met. Jungkook never will meet them, just as he will never see the rest of his loved ones. He can’t let himself forget.
Jungkook’s style of art has always tended towards landscapes in whimsical pastels and oil paints. Realism was never his goal.
The first time he finds an art room, Jungkook snatches up the expensive paper and the perfectly sharpened pencil and heads straight for the library. There are books there that will teach him to draw in a new style, he’s seen them before.
Jungkook pulls them down off the shelf, situates himself at a table under a skylight, and draws. He draws, and draws, and draws with a pencil that never goes dull, and a sketchbook that never runs out of paper until the natural light is all gone and lamps have winked to life close by.
Nothing he’s made is quite right. The shapes are not absolutely perfect, the shading needs work, even proportions could use correction.
So Jungkook comes back the next day. And the next. And the one after that. For five days, he spends every waking hour drawing until his hand aches and tears burns in his eyes because he still can’t get it exactly right .
On the sixth day, he can’t find a pencil. The art room is locked and the doors will not open for him no matter how long he spends juggling the doorknob, banging furiously on the solid oak, cajoling the air.
A rage burns in Jungkook’s chest, but his curses and threats come out more anguished than apoplectic. His wet cheeks burn, his throat closes off, and his hands ache.
With a final inarticulate scream, Jungkook slams both of them against the wood and sinks to kneel on the floor.
The wind rushes through his hair, chitters in his ear, blows tears from his face. Jungkook warps both arms around his head and huddles away from it.
It is hours before his breath does not catch in his lungs. Hours more before he gives up and stands on shaking legs.
The rustle of a breeze against curtains guides him to eat. Cool on his hot cheeks, the wind coaxes him then to an already filled bath, then slides against his skin when he gets in bed.
Jungkook miserably thinks it will take him hours to fall asleep. His eyes somehow close before his head even hits the pillow.
***
It is the first time that something in this world has been denied to Jungkook, and it comes as a bit of a shock. Jungkook lies in bed for hours after he wakes, mind buzzing and blank all at once.
He has known, in an abstract sort of way, that he has no power here. This world does not move by his rhythm, but he has been allowed to lead the dance up until this point. Everything has gone according to his desires since he realized he could communicate with the entity who rules this place.
Except all that communication has been one way. Jungkook has no idea what this being wants from him, whether it wanted a sacrifice in the first place (please, at least let it have worked. Jungkook needs to believe that this existence is worth it), or even what the being is. Hints come only as whispered babble on the breeze.
There have been small moments, doors that won’t open immediately, kitchen implements that won’t turn on if he’s had any alcohol, a sun that maybe sets a bit too fast when he’s exhausted himself during the day. Some part of Jungkook has always been aware that he lives on grace.
Yet this is the first time it has been so blatantly obvious that everything Jungkook does is with the permission of the entity who watches him always. The reality of it sinks straight through Jungkook’s bones and into his soul, an invisible weight that will bind him evermore.
No matter how far he wanders, how many diversions he invents to amuse himself, how friendly he becomes with the wind, Jungkook will never be free.
***
Days pass before Jungkook gathers his courage and sets out to find the art room once more. There is a chance that it is gone, or that Jungkook will only find himself huddled before its entrance once more, but he must return.
Most of his drawings are locked inside.
A melancholic anticipation of loss croons a lullaby that makes his steps stutter and his heart cry. But he has to know.
The location has changed, of course, so Jungkook wanders down several halls in his search. Slowly, the walk numbs his nerves. His hands do not shake quite as much as before, and his step is more sure.
The moment he turns a corner, Jungkook’s shoulders relax. There is a door halfway down the hall. Painted a deep green and inset with gold, it is unfamiliar. Nothing sets it apart from the other towering wooden doors along the hallway, except—
Jungkook’s breath catches in his chest.
Golden light spills through the arched frame. The smell of paint and parchment and chalk drifts on a breeze that swings the opening wider.
The wood is cold and smooth under Jungkook’s hand as he pushes the door to let himself in.
Everything is just as he left it: art books held open by crystal paperweights; balls of paper littering the floor; a pencil tossed in frustration to lie desolate in the middle of the floor; his mother’s half-fished face, too round of cheek with eyes not quite the correct almond shape and nose too snubbed, staring out from the middle of the desk, a too-dark black line marring her imperfect visage.
Jungkook’s hand spasms with a remembered cramp.
He stands over the desk, not quite sure how he got there, and reaches down to caress that line. It smudges under his fingertips.
Jungkook cannot forget his family. He will not forget his family.
His stomach twists, and he catches sight of an untouched glass of water. The food, he vaguely recalls, had always disappeared after a few hours of sitting untouched.
Perhaps he had been pushing too hard. This world may have been built, rebuilt, in a day, but Jungkook is human. Building skill takes time and effort. Grasping desperately for it with every waking moment makes him sloppy with exhaustion.
Jungkook sits down and picks up a pencil. When the hourglasses beside him runs empty, he sets it down again of his own free will.
***
Jungkook expects things to change, after once being locked out of the art room, but they do not. Or more precisely, they do, but in the same pattern that they always have: he opens his eyes to the same new world each morning.
The entity who rules this space is not a grudging god. There is no removal of privileges, no decrease in the quality of life he’s offered, no biting snaps of wind. Jungkook’s anger and violence are forgotten as soon as they fade from his own heart.
Perhaps Jungkook should hold on to them. He’s been slapped in the face with the fact that everything he has could be taken from him at the slightest whim without warning. Logic says he should be angry at the loss of agency and fearful of his fragile position.
Yet a part of Jungkook has always known the reality of his situation. The moment he was chosen as a sacrificial victim, Jungkook’s life had ended. The benevolence of his warden is the only reason that he has been healed, cared for, given a new lease on life. Of course it would be the province of that being to decide what Jungkook does with that gift.
Besides, this is not the first time that Jungkook has been censured for overworking himself.
(The summer sun beating hot on skin already tanned and now going red with exposure. His tongue swollen in his mouth with thirst, but dismissed as a minor annoyance as Jungkook shook his head to steady his swimming vision. His father’s face, twisted in concern that quickly dipped into fear when Jungkook’s legs gave out beneath him.)
His body is only capable of so much, and Jungkook has the habit of pushing that boundary. Sometimes, that leads him to create beautiful art or accomplish physical feats that others would’ve claimed to be impossible. Sometimes, his goal truly is impossible.
Jungkook will fling himself against the cliff of futility until he breaks not just his body, but also his spirit. It is comforting, in a way, to know that there is someone in this world who will grab him round the waist and refuse to let him shatter himself.
Jungkook has known love in his life. Yes, love is in worshipful murmurs, the press of skin on skin, the embrace of a parent’s strong arms. But love is also in the small, wordless gestures of care and attentiveness. It is in the willingness to support, but also remonstrate.
Love takes a thousand forms, and Jungkook has been lucky enough to savour many flavours of it already. Each person has their own unique blend.
The affection that he is growing for this entity tastes bitter and rich and sweet, heady in the way of alcohol and warm in the way of hot chocolate. It lingers on the back of his tongue every time the world around him reshapes itself to his own desires, and sticks in the back of his throat when he remembers that it is the last love he will ever know.
Yet it is love. In the play of the breeze over his skin and the waft of scent from his favorite foods, Jungkook reads reciprocity. His hair stroked delicately away from his face and twirled around the fingers of the wind is as a lover’s touch.
Each day the brush feels a tiny bit more solid. The silhouette of a tall, broad form haunts the edges of his vision, and sometimes Jungkook fancies he catches the cut off breath of a word.
It isn’t much. Practically nothing at all. It is all he has.
Jungkook has been alone for a long time. Wasting the only relationship vaguely within his grasp on fear and grudges is not a privilege he can afford.
So when the wind dances, it is not difficult to fall back into its rhythm.
***
The world in which Jungkook lives is very empty. Oh, there are plenty of things , luxuries and beauty beyond anything Jungkook could ever have dared hope for from…before. Yet things only take up so much space. They are static and azoic with no capacity for soul.
Gems wink, but never with the companionship of a shared secret. Rivers babble, but speak only senseless gibberish. The fire snaps, but not with anger.
But the wind…
The wind is for Jungkook. It caresses, comforts, cares for him. It tugs his hands to show him the beauty that lies just around the river bend and soothes down his comforts as he tucks himself in bed at night.
Perhaps he cannot understand the things it whispers in his ears, but he is learning the language.
***
There comes a day when Jungkook looks down at his own drawing and meets his brother’s eyes. Everything is just right, the crooked little smile, a fond, but tired gleam in eyes that crinkle with crow’s-feet, a few strands of hair that ever refuse to lie flat.
It is right, and Jungkook created it from memory. His family has not faded into a dreamy past. They live, and they love, and they probably miss him near as much as he misses them.
Yet they will live, and they will love. Their paths run parallel to his, out of sight and beyond an impenetrable barrier, but not obliterated. The world they had all shared was cruel and merciless. Jungkook is not the first sacrifice, and it is not strange for families to have to stitch themselves back together after losing integral parts.
Jungkook has seen it before. In a few years, his brother will tell his children about Jungkook with a fond smile on his face. His parents will look forwards to greeting him when their eyes close for the last time. The parties that his friends throw in his memory will come once a year, and then maybe every few years before they stop entirely. They will all keep on living.
Jungkook’s future is not destroyed either. It is changed, yes, irrevocably ripped from the course he’d been on since birth and uprooted to a world stranger than he could imagine. Yet the years unfold in front of him, and Jungkook does not fear what they will bring.
He does not, he knows now, face them alone.