To The Moon and Back | taekook

4. Ebony and Silver

Jungkook woke to a pounding headache and far more sunlight than he would have liked. The late morning light streamed cheerily through his open window, creating a rectangle of fuzzy yellow on the floor and half of his bed. Outside, birds sang merry melodies to each other and the songs resonated sweetly around his room. Jungkook wanted to smack them.

He made a dejected noise as he peeled the thin sheet off of himself, painstakingly sitting up into a slouch. Strands of messy hair fell into his face and he brushed them away, eyes blinking open and closed sleepily. His hand reached out to his nightstand to grab the glass of water he set there every night, but it closed around empty air instead.

Jungkook looked up and tilted his head in surprise, and that's when his attention finally fell on the space around him.

The events of the previous night came back with the force of a ten-horse carriage.

Jungkook's head suddenly felt ten times worse. He groaned, scrunching his eyes as his mind once again began its race for an explanation of the peculiar events which had occurred only a few hours earlier. How he'd even fallen asleep with all these thoughts bouncing around his skull was a mystery.

The brown-haired boy was silent for a while longer, hands curled into fists on the thin mattress, before he finally swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The floorboards protested loudly at his sudden weight, and Jungkook allowed his aching legs to adjust before taking another step.

The room he had slept in was actually the loft. He'd put the silver boy in his own bed downstairs, since it would have been far too difficult to haul him all the way up the ladder. Plus, by the time he'd returned the boy's telltale glow had receded, and the only source of light was that which came in pitiful flickers from the dying candles Jungkook had lit at the beginning of the night.

The walls of the cramped loft room followed the outline of the roof; peaking at the top and then slanting down all the way to the floor at either end. The only furnishings were the sparse bed he'd just risen from and a small bookshelf laden with dusty old copies of his favorite novels.

Jungkook was careful to make as little noise as possible as he descended the loft's crooked wooden ladder, but it still groaned at every rung.

You don't notice how much noise you make until you actually have to be quiet, Jungkook thought to himself grumpily, and at last he stepped onto the ground floor.

To his left was the door to his bedroom, inside which an unknown boy was currently sleeping. Jungkook's gaze lingered on it for a moment, but he decided it would be better to simply let him rest until he woke of his own accord.

For now, breakfast.

Jungkook's stomach rumbled as he crept to the kitchen. He hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day, and he was ravenous.

After nearly an hour of walking, Jungkook had returned home mentally exhausted, sore, and weary to the point of passing out. He'd barely had the energy to put the boy to bed and pull his still-bubbling soup out of the fire, much less serve himself and eat. Without changing, Jungkook had dragged himself upstairs and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.