Taekook Oneshots

Paper Hearts

(A/n: so I'm actually a little bit proud of this one, arrogant as it may seem. See if you think I should be)

Some say that a human body is fragile, hard to fix and easy to break. They say that life is meaningless, because everything we do will be worthless after our death. They say that we're all paper thin, tissues drifting on the whim of the wind, with no direction or purpose at all.

But I disagree.

Every scar is a mark of something. Every moment, every memory, every single bruise we get in our lives, it's all a record of who we were and what happened to us. A person is more than a DNA sample in a lab, or a body. They're a collection of memories, experiences, a creation of every event in their own lives.

We are a blank canvas when we're created, whenever we believe that is, no matter the colour of our skin or the ethnicity or identity of our parents, and we leave behind a masterpiece. A Mona Lisa waiting to be discovered.

Some people come and go in our lives, walking in and out like pencil marks on paper waiting to be erased again when the time comes. Others make sure they're remembered, scored in permanent marker or in fluid tattoo ink on an arm, a shoulder, a leg. Carved into a heart, into the pain that hangs over them like a damp tissue.

My name is written in black cursive, in tiny font, on someone's collarbone. I have their initials on the inside of my wrist, in lowercase purple lettering. We have made our mark on each other, our relationship being one that we would want to keep with us even if it all turns toxic and the countless colours of us all turn to grey scale.

There's something precious about a positive memory, something that makes me feel more like a masterpiece than anything else.

I may be paper thin, but I feel strong. I am not ripped easily in the wind, like tissue. I am more than just my body, more than breakable bones and muscles that can sprain and tear without warning if I use them in the wrong way. My skin may be the visible canvas, but my mind is the real artwork.

I'm spider silk, stronger than steel but flexible and slender at the same time. I walk on a thin line, a tightrope of what's right and what's wrong, what's fair and what is unjust. And yet spider silk is pale, so I can't compare it to myself, because my skin is the colour of honey, or the colour of the flank of a palomino horse.

And yet I know that I am fragile, in many different ways.

For the initials on my wrist link to the name of my lover. He is more like cardboard, muscled and physically strong, with expressive brown eyes and reserved expressions. He's beautiful, in a way, his raven hair contrasting milky white skin like a badly named princess in a fairy tale. But beneath the icy surface, there's a warmth, a living pulse, a beating heart.

The real masterpiece of Jeon Jungkook appears when he takes down the cardboard and exposes the hidden tissue within, when he opens himself up to someone he knows and trusts, when that expressionless face shatters into a smile. There's something amazing about him, his eyes, his body, his mind, and that is why I have his initials tattooed on my wrist.

He could turn on me one day, decide that I'm not enough for him, turn the rainbow colours of my happiness into pure blue and grey, paint my life with pain. He's strong enough to break my body in two, muscled enough to fracture any part of me without warning.

But love is about trust. And love is about loyalty. And he is the epitome of both.

Jeon Jungkook is kind of like a shark tooth. Dangerous, sharp, potentially harmful, but stunning all the same. There's something about him that makes him seem more like a lucky charm than a person, the sort of thing you'd bring into bad situations to ward off bad luck. He's pale, but not unhealthily so. It's just the way he is.

But equally, he's not synthetic. There's nothing false about him, and that is precisely why I love him. He says what he wants, when he wants, showing disregard for the company unless it's children. He would never hurt a child, or harm their innocence. He's naturally kind, naturally strong, naturally reserved. There's nothing he's ashamed of.

That's what makes him tissue. Because he can move with the wind. He has the flexibility to bend with it like a willow branch, accept life as it comes and deal with whatever adversity tries to strike him down.

And if anyone tries to pull him apart, I would be there to fix him up again.

I am not someone special, a celebrity or a millionaire or anything like that. I am merely a university student, in my second year of studying. My story is still being written, probably still being planned somewhere, by the powers that control our lives. Whatever they are.

If they even exist at all.

I guess I'm a sceptic when it comes to religion. I don't judge people who believe in something 'more', because that's their opinion. Their memories and their experiences are different from mine. It's not my place to question them when I don't know them or understand them. But there's something so liberating about living for yourself, without worrying about following the rules of some high up deity that 'knows everything' or knows better than I do.

If there really is a higher power that created me, it would make sure that I don't stray from its plan by influencing my decisions, by changing the way the world leaves marks on my canvas. So I let all of that be, and focus on the things that really matter to me. Like my own life and my own problems, like climate change and how I'm supposed to get involved in improving the future for those who come after my generation.

Sometimes I feel fragile, but then I always have my protective shield, a waterproof cover that stops the rain from turning me into a mess of soggy tissue, in the shape of a beginner model with a body that can turn straight men gay and gay women straight for half a second, with a soul that can change discord into harmony without any effort at all.

He's got the ability to pull at my heart like gravity dragging an apple down to the ground, drag me closer until all I can see is him, all I can feel is him. Then, I am left with temporary purple and red flowers on my skin, that physically fade away but are never truly gone. They can be painted over time after time, and every time I feel more like a masterpiece than before.

There's something quietly sensual about Jeon Jungkook, something hidden behind a cold exterior, a hidden passion that strikes like a match whenever he wants it to. He's got so much control over his body, his voice, everything, that everything seems practiced, like the movement of water when it's poured. It's already planned its path before it flows out, and it follows that despite the improvisation of the moment.

I'll never understand how he does that.

I would marry him if given half the chance. I would walk down the aisle in a white suit that highlights the natural presence of melanin in my skin, that gilds me with sunlight when it falls just right. I would get him to wear black, all black, because the contrast of black and white is beautiful, in its own way.

The interesting thing about us isn't how fragile we are apart, or how much like a canvas our lives and our minds are.

It's the combined art of us.

Alone, I am merely a scrap of paper, a receipt, a kite dragged along on a current I can't control. Alone, Jungkook is too strong, too sturdy, almost brittle and therefore fragile as he could shatter at any time, just like I could rip into shreds if treated incorrectly.

But together, we are more than that.

He is the easel, and the canvas, and I am both as well. We don't complete each other. That would be too cliché, and he doesn't like those. He doesn't like fitting to others' expectations of what we should be. Who we should be. No. We aren't like that. We don't fit into each other like lock and key. We don't finish each other's masterpieces.

We create them.