Jungkook hadn't told Jimin about his new dream. To tell him about his otherworldly night would have meant trying to explain the new pulse that resounded in his blood, and that would have been impossible. Words cannot explain everything.

So he pondered, stealing precious seconds from work to close his eyelids and revel in the knowledge of every hair on his body moving to the beat of invisible static electricity. He should have been worried, but he was addicted. With his eyes shut, he could taste light, smell cerulean blue and feel sounds dance fleetingly against his fingertips. He inhaled slowly, allowing the tingling in his hands to gradually climb up his arms as if he were immerging himself in water.

"Am I bothering you at all?"

The cynical voice pulled Jungkook from his reverie with the internal shriek of a five-car collision. His eyes shot open and he stood at rigid attention before bowing a full ninety degrees.

"No Sir, very sorry Sir," he sputtered with his head facing the ground, face flushed in mortification. "I'm a little tired, but it won't happen again."

Okay so he was lying a little white lie, but who cared? He had in fact slept like a child; he couldn't even remember the last time he had awoken feeling so alive. Whether his dreams were vivid or not, it seemed his body was perfectly content with him having them. However, he was not about to tell his very strict, very narrow-minded boss that he had been distracted by the pure, unadulterated and wonderful feeling of the universe coming into contact with his skin.

"Make sure it doesn't," the strict man in front of him snarled when Jungkook stood straight again.

The suit-clad man strode away without saying goodbye, and in his mind's eye Jungkook wrapped him in the ominous billowing robes of one Professor Snape. The thought made him grin wryly as he walked to his department with brisk steps.

The tinted glass doors slid open as he approached them, revealing a tall man with silver-dyed hair and rectangular glasses standing across from a see-through board. The object in question was covered in paper clippings, printed screenshots and colourful scribbles and arrows weaving a confusing web between them all. Jungkook dumped the files he was holding onto his desk and delicately removed his camera from his neck, before placing it with all the care in the world in hits hand-made cot hidden in the lockable desk drawer. Then he made his way to the board and stood there with his arms crossed.

"What took you so long?" the other asked noncommittally, most of his attention directed at the storyline mesh in front of them.

"Got distracted." Jungkook answered. He liked his department manager; he was always straightforward to-the-point, treated them all like equals, and cared too much about his job to indulge in personal lives.

"You... what?" The man spun to finally look at him, eyes nearly piercing through his metal frames in surprise. "Jeon Jungkook, camera addict who has never known love, never taken a sick day and never does anything fun outside of work got... distracted?"

Jungkook grimaced at the apt description.

"Am I really that boring?" he asked without looking at his young boss.

"Yes." Namjoon answered point-blank. "But you know I don't like mixing work with personal lives, so let's get to work."

"Yes, Hyung!" Jungkook answered enthusiastically. "So what are we doing with this new sequence?"

The men happily sunk back into their work, editing film for their movie production company. Later, when most of the building was empty and few workers were left to meet deadlines, the two of them stretched and grabbed their bags to leave. They parted easily; never close enough to go out for after work drinks together. Normally, Jungkook would have gone to the nearby gym and spent the last few hours of his day sweating and thinking about work and cameras, but that day he signed out of the premises and went straight home.

He should have been wired, considering the unspent energy coursing through his body, but after a quick shower and a sandwich, he lied down in bed and willed his dreams to whisk him away into the frozen warmth of his cerulean slumber.

The Goddess above him would have answered his prayers if she could, but as it was, she had no control over the phenomena anyways. Contentedly, she watched the magic pull the young man under, and followed his escaping soul out into the night sky.

***

Jungkook opened his eyes eagerly; heart pumping fast at the thought of what he might see this time. And there it was: colour. Every tint and shade in the spectrum meeting and dancing within this one light, unafraid of the world, trusting in their home. The beaming stranger sat on a log, unaware of his own beacon beauty as he stared into the flames. A blanket of night wrapped around his campfire, making it seem like an island floating through the emptiness of the universe, planets too far away to bother his tiny world and stars too dim to break through his gleam. The flames were the heartbeat to the smallest star in the galaxy, gliding on an invisible current, he a lonely planet following its sun into darkness.

The glow surrounding the man had dimmed ever so slightly since the last time, and it made Jungkook's veins twitch in worry and curiosity. He could nearly see who this was, could just make out the outline of every fold and crease in the others' clothes. He took a deep breath and tasted warm cinnamon buns and the flavour of a forest teeming with life on a cold winter morning.

There was no sound from the outside, but silence was absent. Between his hands, the stranger held a small collection of paper sheets. From them, ripples of lavender music reached out for the world, spreading the whisper of a song. When they reached the curtain of Night they lifted towards the skies alike great wales emerging from the ocean, as if an invisible barrier stood guardian to its children, and in their wake the waves left the budding blossoms of a story. Everywhere around Jungkook, pictures faded in and out of existence, expressing unheard lyrics on an unseeable canvas. He stood there until the song faded, transfixed by the utter beauty around him. He had never known pictures could express so much without words and he was too entranced to hold back the tears threatening to fall into the dark grass at his feet.

Finally, the notes ended, trickles lifting into the dark arms of the goddess, and the pictures around Jungkook dwindled into nothingness. He took a deep, cleansed breath, and looked back to the soul he had come here to see. His blood froze in his veins and eyes grew too wide in shock, stagnant tears finally giving way to gravity and escaping him only to disappear in a spark of blue.

Violet wrinkles shuddered in the flames as the stranger surrendered his precious paper cargo to oblivion. Jungkook could only watch as the piano sheet flared for a single dying second, before the next song made of sunshine yellow ripples spread its own eulogy on the curtain around them. Jungkook stared at the man in front of him, silently watching the light of his soul dim until his could make out high cheekbones and long eyelashes scrunched up like prison bars unable to hold back their watery convicts. When this new song ended, its paper bearer joined the ashes of the previous one, and a new song began.

Five songs. There were five songs, and Jungkook stood, heart breaking in his chest, unable to move. So he watched gratefully, absorbing the gift he had been presented with whilst mourning its loss. Pictures flickered and died, and the light grew dimmer around the subject of his desperation. In his hands, only one sheet remained. When the song it embodied started playing, Jungkook fell to his knees, freely sobbing, but he was mute and unable to voice any thoughts, the dream clogging his throat with starlight tar. So he watched, and as the notes reached him, his heart mended and broke at the same time, stuck in an endless loop of joy and sorrow. Never had he heard a song so beautiful and honest. The pictures around him had never been so colourful. Scenery washed around him, waves of teal and rocky mountains, snowy dewdrops and deep green jungle all met and loved and bore children in the shape of invisible spirits. Jungkook mourned like he never had before.

The soft, raw melody finally melted into the ocean above them. Jungkook stared in horror at the stranger, seeing finally all the emotions displayed across his face. His eyes said it all more clearly than words had ever expressed anything:

It was time then, time to throw away this piece of his soul, time to close the door to his happiness and sink into the darkness.

Slowly, the light of his soul dimmed until it was petering at the edge of oblivion, one foot of the chasm and the other clinging on for dear life.

Back in his bed Jungkook roared in his slumber, body thrashing around in the sheets, and Brother Future lifted one eyebrow questioningly. He clicked his fingers and appeared in a maelstrom, glancing over at Mother Fate.

"What's happening?" he asked her, gazing down at the paper quivering above the flames.

"I don't know..." Fate answered in fear and wonder. "Ture, you should be able to see what is supposed to happen here right? Is the DreamCatcher supposed to be dimming so much?"

Future pondered for a second as time slowed, allowing him to use his snowy eyes to sift through the possibilities.

"He is supposed to go through extremely difficult hardships in this life," he frowned. "That's why he was selected after all. And DreamSouls always end up helping their Catchers, but it's too soon... So why is the Soul fighting so much?"

"Exactly!" Fate exclaimed, staring intently at Jungkook's twitching feet. "He shouldn't have unlocked the ability to move yet, so how is he doing it?"

"I don't know." Brother Future answered softly.

Below, time resumed its course and the DreamCatcher lowered his sheet of music into the flames, causing his inner blaze to shrink into simmering coals, finally revealing his face to the world. Jungkook should have been watching. He should have seen the eyes he had been begging for, glimpsed the lips meant for smiling he had been dying to see. But he saw nothing, for his eyes were trained on his right hand, flames liking at his skin and causing sweat to trickle down the sides of his face. The sheer effort it took for him to move just that one inch closer was draining to the point of madness, but he held fast, resolve forged in steel refusing to give in. Between the tips of his fingers, barely within reach, the sheet of music caressed the warm air, untouched, unharmed.

A gasp came from the other side of the fire, but Jungkook kept his eyes on the ripples of blue emanating from the surviving paper. Buried in destruction, it danced on rivers of cerulean light; seemingly unaware of the hell it had entered. Slowly, impossibly, the DreamCatcher removed the piece of his soul from the blaze and cradled it close to his heart. As he took it back, the colours inside him leaped back into life, once more closing the rippling veil around his features. By the time Jungkook looked up, the stranger was unrecognizable once more.

Jungkook smiled tiredly, happy for the first time to be unable to gaze past the pulsating sun-coloured light. And so, when the dreamscape brought him back to his room, he let himself be taken without a fight.

When he awoke peacefully a few minutes later, the world fell into focus and his right arm sang a song of pain. Groaning, Jungkook doubled over and lifted his limb to his face. There, long strips of raw skin stretched and blistered. The next groan was made of sorrow and agony and tears as the needles dug into his nervous system.

The burns were severe, but they would heal, given a few weeks. What would be more difficult to explain would be how he got them, or more importantly: why the burn marks were of a deep, unmistakable blue.

Far above him, peering through his ceiling from the heavens, Universe frowned in astonishment.

***