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Disclaimer- this is the same one shot I gave for the book called Vkook Authors Unite. So some of you have probably already read it.

Throb. Throb. Throb.

It felt like that's all Taehyung knew lately. Waking up with a hammering on his skull from last night's crying to sleep. Routine.

Tuning out the hissing whispers of mind, he gulps down some water and trudges to grab his gûdí flute- to substantiate his luck again. Routine.

Failure. Routine.

No sound transpires the flute. Happened every day of week, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less. Doesn't mean the beaten path of tears on cheeks is less warm.

He's hunched over the counter sobbing, when thrashing at window startles him. Jimin climbs in. "You're crying?"

"What else do I have in fate? I c-can't do this anymore! Look!" He extended his once flawless hands; obsidian veins ran jutted like branches of dead tree. "I'm decaying!"

"Lord Jin must've planned something when he gave you the ring to lift the curse. Have faith."

"I-I'm trying but it's been days and my remedy hasn't arrived! N-not once has this ring shined!"

He pulls out the ring in sheer despair to hurl when a blinding bright light emanated out of it as if swallowed the Sun.

Once gone, all Jimin came to face was the insensate emerald ring, barren of it's possessor. "TAE! WHERE'D YOU GO?!"

*********

Pestle grinding on the herb, Jungkook dipped his finger into the blend, jabbed it into his mouth cringing. "Needs honey."

However before he could grab, his hand twists queerly when a weight out of nowhere propelled on him taking both to collapse with the ground quite painfully.

"Ah- ugh.. can't you knock?" His eyes shut in pain, he finds his hands gripping the slender middle of whoever decided to plunge on him. "I think I broke my hip!"

The other gets up hastily bowing "Forgive me! I just emerged here and-"

"Wait! Are you sent by lord Jin?"

"I am! Oh yes! It's you!!" Taehyung bounced on balls of his socked feet and jumped to the other's embrace who caught him with equal enthusiasm. "I'm Taehyung!"

While hugging, Jungkook's hands brush the elevations on his back. "You're a fairy!" He drew back. "Ah, a fairy of allure, right? I can tell."

Scarlet graced Taehyung's cheeks "N-no, but thanks. I'm a euphony fairy."

"Euph-" Jungkook took a betrayed step back. "How is music supposed to cure me?"

"Music can cure anyth- wait, what? CURE YOU? I'm here to be cured myself!"

It's back and forth like this for more than an hour, soft baffles turning to full blown confounds to timid arguments to a shouting brawl- up until it's Taehyung who breaks into sobs, yelling something incoherent.

"I-I-  don't care ! T-there m-must be a reason! C-cure me! L-lift my curse! Or else.." he looked around, frantically grabbed the first thing his hands reached "-or else I'll kill y-you with this! Yes!"

"Um.. a spoon?" Taehyung pauses; both stare awkwardly before Taehyung starts wailing again at a volume that Jungkook stuffs his ears with a leaf.

*****

"I was just s-singing, playing my flute by the tree and didn't r-realise that I was releasing...."

"Pheromones?"

"We call it incense, sounds less racy. Her husband was on hunt, he got...."

"Hypnotised?"

"We call it mesmerised." He slurped the tea with apple he was offered as bargain to stop crying and considering his last meal was 12 hours ago, he complied.

So they sat on the dirty wooden floor of cottage that seemed more like an infirmary; exchanging portrayals of how they ended up begging Lord Jin for curse loophole.

"She called me b-bad names.. not allowed to curse... but something along how I use my powers to make people lust over me... I would never! I only use my powers to heal. Felt so...."

"Angry?"

"Repelled. I argued back!.. I shouldn't have."

"Why not? It wasn't your-"

"She was a witch." 

Jungkook couldn't hold back the wince. A big 'ouch'. "She cursed you loose your powers?"

"I wouldn't be this desperate for powers. She cursed me that 'no music prevails in me'. I'm a Euphony Fairy...."

"You decay without music." Taehyung replied by lifting his locks from his neck where the star of life, now only half of it the usual silver and half a peculiar black.

*******

It was another two hours later that Taehyung was a bit better.

Not from the meltdown, no, that was still rancid as ever; but from the bad stomach he got from casually plopping a cherry-like fruit in mouth.
He tilted his head like a puppy seeing Jungkook stampede towards him in hysteria, and before any of his queries was answered, he was barfing his guts out.

"I think I should introduce myself."Embarrassing how self-revolving his misery had made him that Taehyung forgot to ask the name of the man he was lodging on.

"Jungkook. You can figure out what I am."

"A herbalist wizard." Jungkook nodded. "What are you cursed into?"

"A broken heart."

Taehyung felt like he'd pass out.

While Jungkook proceeded to tell about feeling of a chest heavier than rocks, disconcerted ache of losing a lover he never even had! Taehyung surmises how he wouldn't have survived that- more surprisingly six months?

"-then I was exiled here on Panzil island to live feeling... alone."

"I'm so sor- whoa- what do you mean alone?"

"Nobody besides me lives on this island. Sparing my herbs, trees, animals..."

It was flabbergasting how Jungkook talked like it didn't tear him. If Taehyung wasn't a fairy, designed to sense people's distress- especially this heavy one, he may have believed his nonchalance.

"Ships arrive from the kingdom weekly to collect medicinal brews in exchange of resources." He looked at Taehyung's big inquisitive eyes, almost cracked a smile out of him.

"I refused to prepare a concoction for the petulant witch who lost his wife- saying it's not something painful enough for herbal magic to be wasted on."

Taehyung tsked "Is it... painful enough?"

"Let's just say I'd choose death over this. So it's convenient I'm alone.. nobody to fall for."

It was silent barter of mischances of how messed this situation was with Taehyung dropping his ring before appearing, and the only fairy Jungkook seems to know is the sea fairy Hoseok who only visits on his own accord.

It's deep into night, imminent dawn- Taehyung is still sleeplessly tossing on banana leaf mattress. He sits up, files out of the sheet and crawls to the side of cottage where he had seen Jungkook lay, only to find it devoid of the wizard.

It almost made him panic but he caught the dark figure sitting by the doorframe with head on the knees drawn into the chest, the way the shoulders trembled it didn't take a genius to understand what was happening.

"Oh!" He didn't think twice before collecting the broken boy in his arms, trying to lull him out of the heart wrenching sobs. "Shh.. it'll be okay."

"W-when!? I-I can't... pains... l-lift the curse please!"

"I will."

"Wha-huh?"

"It makes sense! This is all written! You make a concoction to bring me to music and then I compose a tune to heal you!" He yelled. "I knew the Lord cannot err!"

"B-but I don't-"

"It's okay." He cupped Jungkook's cheeks wiping traces of grief. "We're together."

********

Days ahead they're on mission to find the cure for Taehyung.

Morning hours witness them footing through forest- collecting nature,
afternoons are food and laid back chit-chats,
evenings for brewing concoctions and blends,
nights for mourning together under silent moonlight of failing at cure yet again.

After few tests Jungkook discovered that Taehyung is too sensitive to be experimented on, to taste smell and pungency. So there's an unsaid settlement where he tastes the brew before taehyung.

He also reckoned when happy, Taehyung is too chummy- imitating chirping birds first thing in morning, naming the potion bottles, talking to trees like 'look at you so handsome and green', and an adherent cuddler at night.

While most things pass, a few do irk Jungkook a little but he decides to give him leeway because when Taehyung sits by a petal, absentmindedly tries to sing for it to bloom- no voice comes, and the silent tear that rolls down the cheek tells Jungkook that he's not the only broken hearted.

As nights grew colder- cuddling grew tighter, there's unplanned hand holding through forest, afternoons with Taehyung writing songs for Jungkook and reading them to him like a poem while receiving massages; nights still same- only now Taehyung kisses his tear-stained cheeks after wiping.

******

Jungkook is making wine for a night of celebration. After three months they have a small progress. It wasn't the cure but Jungkook managed to turn Taehyung's hair back to black from dead grey.

"Something for you." Jungkook brings out of his shawl. Taehyung gasps.

"A VULTURE BONE FLUTE!" taehyung grabs it and places a kiss on.

"When we cure you, make the tune on this."
Fairy's smile could shame the moonlight while beads of tears in his eyes faded the stars.
"You're so pretty!"

"Jungkook, you're drunk."

"Tonight I'm drunk and you're pretty. Tomorrow I won't be drunk and you'll still be pretty."

"You like the hair so much?" hides his blush beneath the sheet they lay under.

"Pfft!" He yanks it off and places a finger on Taehyung's chest "this." He pulls Taehyung's neckline to his chest and places a peck. "I like your heart too much."

He falls asleep unbeknownst how his words left someone wide awake.

*****

"TAEHYUNG!" Jungkook runs in with eyes blown, panting.

"What's wrong-"

"I DON'T FEEL ANYTHING! THE PAIN, HEAVINESS, GRIEF! Nothing! Taehyung I'm free!!"

Giggling like maniac Taehyung jumps into his arms and before any of them has a leverage, they're kissing, not the shy kind that both had imagined in forbidden dreams, its hungry and unabashed- pouring the happiness and longing into their lips.

Jungkook draws back.
"I don't know what you did but I know it's you."

*******

Guilt gnaws Taehyung up when ship arrives and departs again. Jungkook could've left, one month ago, but he didn't because he wont give up on Taehyung.

"I love you."

Taehyung leans back between Jungkook's legs receiving kisses peppered on his cheek and shivers with lips trailing to back of his neck. Before he could relish, they're gone.

"Your star!" Jungkook startles in shock, grabs Taehyung's wrist and drags him to cottage throwing the flute in his direction. "Play."

"I can't-"

Only getting answered with a kiss on lips, Taehyung reluctantly starts and soon the entire weather changes.

The water on the beach sparkles, flowers bloom and the vitiated parts of him turn magnificent making Jungkook more penchant than ever.
The most melodious sound comes out of the instrument.

Taehyung is legitimately alive again.
"I don't know what you did, but I know it's you."

"It was both of you!"

A deep voice rings through the cottage. Both of them fall to their knees. "LORD!"

"Took you two long enough!"

"How did-"

"Jungkook's broken heart could only be mended once someone starts being afraid of loosing him so much that they treasure him more than themselves, just like Taehyung stopped trying to sing once he realised that there may be no reason for them to stay together if he cures."

Jin chuckled and patted the fairy on head. "Your powers could return if you managed to make someone fall in true love with you without the use of your profound powers. And look, your man stays even after his own purpose is solved."

They cannot look anywhere else but at each other's drawing eyes.
"Now do you want me to drop you two back?"

"No, I'm staying." Jungkook says in a breath.

"I will go." Taehyung smiles at Jin's confused face before locking his hands with Jungkook's.

"To say goodbye to Jimin and then come back and live with the love of my life forever."

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