~*~

***

"This movie is going to make ... my job choice a huge mistake."

"Ah but if it's a success... your life will suck less."

"Jimin you're an idiot... and you look like a carrot."

"Oi! Call you me hyung you disrespectful brat!"

"HA! That didn't rhyme, you lose."

Jungkook and Jimin were sat in a cafe located halfway between their two workplaces, one of them complaining about how his orange hair was "fashionable, damn you!". During the last year they'd gotten into the habit of meeting there over lunch breaks, even though Jimin tended to travel around South Korea quite a bit for his job. They had, as they often did, been catching up on each other's lives. The catch: they had to speak in rhymes. It was more fun that way, apparently.

"I'll stick to the rules of the game if you stick to the rules of society," Jimin grumbled, though no real anger could be found in his words.

Jungkook didn't answer, choosing instead to fiddle with the drooping end of his bandage. His hand was healing fairly quickly. The pain had died down, but his stretched skin smarted constantly. And although his hand was progressively returning to its smooth surface, the blue swirls stayed etched out like a tattoo on his arm. He stared absentmindedly into his now empty coffee cup and looked back up, out of the window.

He'd been having dreams every night, all of the same person, all of them too real to make sense, all of them beyond magical. Most nights he just watched him compose, sat on his bed, light beaming stronger and stronger every night. It was addictive, he just couldn't get enough. He wondered if he was supposed to feel guilty... this could have been something like stalking, right? Like some really messed up version of Twilight, maybe he was doing something utterly wrong.

But it felt so... no, he refused to think that word. Way too cringy.

Jungkook sighed, causing Jimin to misunderstand and speak up.

"Let's go to the park... before it gets dark."

Jungkook snickered whilst nodding, and they both stood to leave. Said park was nearby, and when the coffee shop was too busy they would get takeaway cups and sit outdoors instead. They ambled along the pavements towards the treeline, still rhyming horrendously and causing each other to guffaw. Once there, they sat on a bench they called theirs, which overlooked the open space of the grassy field.

"Don't sleep with him, he seems stodgy... Most definitely he's dodgy."

"He's not a cake!... Your rhymes are fake!"

"Stop judging me!" Jungkook retaliated, trying to keep a straight face. "Let my rhymes be! Perfection is my enemy... This is the real me."

Jimin dissolved into a fit of laughter, rocking back and forth on the wooden bench. Although Jungkook wasn't particularly mad at his best friend, he carried on just to be bothersome.

"Oh if only you were taller... you could carry me but you're just too much smaller."

A growl took over the hilarity, and Jungkook had to bite his cheek at Jimin's angry face. That's how, barely a minute later, Jimin could be found teetering through the park, Jungkook sat on his shoulders and screaming "Hazah!" and "Yip yip boy!"

"Jungkook you're really... heavy... you should ... urgh go to the gym... maybe." Jimin puffed, straining to stand up.

"BUT HYUNG! On my own I'm so clumsy... on your shoulders I can see!"

Despite the added weight, Jimin couldn't help but chuckle.

"Perfection is your enemy... on my shoulders you can see?!"

The situation was too much, the older boys' knees buckled and they rolled onto the grass, landing hard. They just lay there, laughing at each other with no real reason, both thankfully unharmed apart for the younger's still injured hand, which tingled painfully upon impact.

They always messed around like this; two children who could be themselves after acting as adults at work all day. In a way, it was a pity they had no chemistry or they might have made a great couple.

Both said children parted ways shortly after, and on his way home Jimin continued to think fondly of the many random things Jungkook had spouted during the day. As such, as he headed for the hairdressers the next day, the words still spun around in his head, colliding and repeating themselves.

"Jimin Oppa, you're back!" a soft voice squealed from the front desk as he walked into the shop.

He turned and sent a winning smile her way, his eyes nearly disappearing in the act, which only caused the woman to melt into a pile of goo faster.

"Hi Mina, how's the puppy?" he asked, leaning casually against the desk.

"Oh he's still as messy, but I taught him to walk on his back feet! It's a-do-ra-ble."

She proceeded to show him pictures of a fluffy white Lhasa Apso, which admittedly, was to die for.

Their conversation died down when his stylist came to grab him, shooing Mina off to do "some actual work". Jimin winked at her when her boss wasn't looking, and her dejected face suddenly turned bright red and she shuffled off timidly. Jimin tended to have that effect on people.

"So, Jimin-shi, what colour are we changing to this time?"

He sat down in the chair being pointed to him, rolling his eyes as he shrugged off his jacket.

"Bubble-gum pink please, it's going to be in this season, and don't call me that, we're the same age you doofus. "

His stylist chuckled, grabbing the ingredients for the die and mixing them, knowing his client well by now. He'd had everything ready by the time he'd gone to retrieve the currently orange-haired man from the blushing receptionist.

"Jungkook has a bad influence on me," he shrugged, hands busy. "How is the boy anyways?"

Jimin launched into a kind-hearted rant about his best friend's life and his weird habits. As his hair was worked on, he talked about the younger boys' inability to have a social life or even a smidgen of an interesting day.

"Yesterday he was on a roll, the dolt," he was still rambling, his hairdresser just nodding here and there, listening with one ear. "What was it he said yesterday? Oh! 'Perfection is my enemy; this is the real me!'. And then he convinced me to let him onto my shoulders and screamed: 'On my own I'm so clumsy but on your shoulders I can see!' We both crashed into a tree. Honestly he could write songs, that mad boy, if he lives to tell the tale."

His hair was now completely wrapped in tin foil strips, and he was left to scroll through his twitter feed as the stylist moved on to another customer who was just getting finished up.

"How was everything?" he asked, running his hands through the soft hair to make sure it was even.

"Great, thanks," the stranger answered smoothly. "Just got a new job and thought it called for a change of pace. What do you think?"

The hairdresser whistled through his teeth, taking in the full effect.

"Well, you'll definitely have trouble keeping the girls away, that's for sure."

The man in the mirror burst into a boisterous laugh, his large shoulders moving up and down.

"Well they don't call me Worldwide Handsome for nothing."

"They call you that? Who?" the other lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh never mind, what do I owe you?"

A few minutes later, Kim Seokjin walked out of the hairdressers, a contented smirk on his lips and a ribbon of words churning inside his head. The now pink-haired man who had sat next to him had passed on his strange story onto another, and the words were refusing to fade just yet.

***

~*~ Jungkook awoke in a room full of stars. They bounced off the walls and spun the tango alike a web. He looked up, mouth agape, his eyes looking straight through the gods hovering in thin air. They were watching with curious looks, made both from wonder and worry. Jungkook spun around under their hungry gazes, only making the fact that he could move (when he wasn't supposed to) now very obvious. They were glancing at each other constantly, all three deities fully aware of the implications of the Dreamscape still actively bringing these two souls together, yet neither of them willing to discuss it.

In the semi darkness below, a tune rose through the air. Jungkook froze, his eyes landing on the shape of a piano with a home planetarium on top. In front of it sat a man, slender fingers running over the keys softly, letting the song be born and grow free, enchanting the intruder. His right hand played the melody, and so there were no words to hear, yet Jungkook could taste them on his tongue, sense them in his heartbeat.

Jungkook gulped, emotions crashing over him in dewdrop waves. It was confusing, all this love and care and tenderness rippling over his skin, mixed with a sudden realisation that the stranger's aura was no longer blinding. The light emanating from within was still there, but Jungkook could see through it now, could easily find the outline of his shoulders and soft flowing hair. He inched closer to the pair, piano and player intertwined, and came to a stop when he could see. He could see. Could relish over the soulful eyes and velvet mouth pursed in concentration. The stranger was heavenly. It felt like Jungkook would never be able to forget a single mole or hair on his face; could have drawn this man even if he was blind.

The song ended as a butterfly landing on heather. The last note trickled off into silence, but it echoed in his mind, mingled in his blood stream. The tune started once more, faster, angrier; and this time it was a swirling undercurrent; a monstrous white whale swimming gracefully, weighing nothing. When it stopped half way through, Jungkook hiccupped in shock. He hadn't realised he'd been sucked in until then, and the world seemed just a little bit more empty, dark hollows stretching for long periods of nothingness.

"Damn..." the musician sighed, and Jungkook nearly jumped. His voice had broken the silence alike a thunderclap, even though it was just a murmur; a soft and rocky word offered on a down pillow. "It still doesn't fit."

Jungkook still looked on, puzzled, until the phone left on the piano started ringing. The stranger picked up the device, answering its call with a small smile.

"Hi Hyung, what's up?"

A few beats passed, during which his interlocutor spoke and Jungkook tried to peer over the instrument to see what the man was working on. There were no words on the notebook, and he lifted one eyebrow in surprise. Was the stranger writing a song entirely from memory, or had he not found a single word he was happy with yet?

"Yeah... I'm still stuck on the lyrics," the other continued. "Even if I do finish it, I'm not sure about shari... Okay, okay! I'll think about it."

He let out a pearl of deep giggles, and Jungkook felt every last strand of his hair stand on end, felt the universe blink in adoration.

"I'm happy I changed managers Hyung, thanks for supporting my music. You were right by the way! Singing in the street... it really, really helped."

A newfound peace was wrapped round the pianist's shoulders, and Jungkook's heart swelled with pride as he finally recalled the song which, try as he might, he had been unable to remember during the day.

"I'll call you later, okay? Bye!"

The call ended, and the stranger went back to gazing at the barely touched piano sheet. Unknowingly to him, the DreamSoul stared at him in awe from the confines of his intangible prison, eyes brimming with wonder.

Jungkook knew he couldn't speak in his dreams, but he couldn't help it; didn't even mean to, but it happened anyways.

"The world needs to hear this..." he whispered, and as the words left his lips, the world stood still for a second.

Above him, the gods all gasped, eyes bulging and robes tinkling to the ricochet of a thousand bells.

And the DreamCatcher looked up.

His gaze was searching, lips parting in wonder, no fear in him despite the sudden confused tremors running up and down Jungkook's own spine. He stood from the piano, and tilted his head curiously, eyes looking for the intruder, but not quite catching his silhouette.

"Really?" he answered.

Above them, Mother Fate squealed and clapped her dainty hands to her rose petal cheeks, Universe sighed in despair, red sparks flying from his mouth, and Brother Future shook his head in an act of rebellion.

"This is too much for me," Future deadpanned, his shoulders moving up just an inch to demonstrate his disapproval. "I'm leaving; have fun."

With a silent twist he disappeared into the ether, leaving the two remaining gods to puzzle over the implications of a DreamCatcher and a DreamSoul actually communicating.

Below them, the Soul looked like he was attempting to speak, but his mouth simply opened wide and shut again, over and over. Of course, this was not due to the dreamscape stopping him. He simply had a very human case of the I'm-so-surprised-I'm-about-to-soil-myself face. He managed to speak no more words as the dreamscape pulled him back, through space and matter, over the moon and back to his small bedroom. As he flew backwards and away from the pianist, he heard the other call into the silence: "Hello?".

Even as he woke up, Jungkook's heart was beating fast and hard to the heartbeat-thought that the other man had been able to hear him. He tried to quash the hope that blossomed illogically in his chest, but the fire flower refused to wilt; his heart was galloping now. Then of course, a damper was thrown on his epiphany when he realised something else.

He had absolutely no memory of his face. ~*~

***