Van Gogh and Vodka Sodas

The asphalt was painted red by the little cuts on his bare feet as he slowly made his way home. It was a good thing Taehyung wasn't in a hurry, because with this amount of alcohol in his blood, walking straight was rather difficult. Nevertheless, he wasn't planning to stop either walking nor drinking, and brought a bottle of amber liquor to his lips. The pink lip gloss he had applied with so much care mere hours before was completely smudged. He swallowed the alcohol, tasting nothing but fire going down his throat. Taehyung didn't even remember the contents of the bottle. He also didn't really remember where his shoes were nor in which part of town he currently was. By the looks of it, he might have been in the Fae district, or Seelie territory... maybe? He couldn't remember. There was one thing he certainly did remember, but desperately wanted to forget.
He bumped into someone. The bottle slipped from his fingers and smashed to the ground. Taehyung toppled right after it, the glass cutting his hands and the road scraping his knees. For an ugly moment, the night stood still.
"I was going to drink that," Taehyung said after watching the alcohol escape the shards and seep away between the tiny cracks in the street. Sadness lingered on his voice.
"It looks to me like you're already drunk enough," the stranger rumbled, giving his voice a sharp edge.
"Drunk? yes, but not enough," Taehyung countered and slowly his eyes traveled toward the stranger. From his shiny dress shoes, to his tailored suit and lastly, to his face. The man was absolutely beautiful. Dark eyes met Taehyung's. The stranger's full lips were pressed into a thin line and his expression looked as if he had just smelled something disgusting. He looked like he belonged at a boujee party, not this shady part of town.
"You've been crying," he stated.
Taehyung blinked a few times. "Have I?" It did explain why his eyes felt itchy and dry. When he brought his hand to his face, he felt crusty eyeliner streaks staining his cheeks. "Huh."
Slowly he tried to lift himself off the ground, which wasn't an easy task with the alcohol seeming to weigh down all of his limbs. When Taehyung finally did manage to get up, he headed straight, or so he thought, down the road, pulling the man with him by his sleeve.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Taehyung pointed at the convenience store. "You owe me a drink."
The man let himself be pulled along. "Shouldn't your priority be, I don't know, getting alcohol to disinfect your wounds."
Taehyung briefly looked down at his hand, a vile abstract of crimson and amber. "Why, there's already alcohol in there."
"This is not a Hollywood movie, kid."
"I know. Life is far from a movie," he sighed. There was a short silence before Taehyung continued. "But tonight I don't need alcohol to disinfect cuts. Tonight I need alcohol to disinfect my soul." He threw the stranger a boxy smile over his shoulder, but it never quite reached his eyes.
The stranger sighed. "Fine, but after that you owe me one." For a split second, Taehyung caught a glimpse of a devious smile painting the stranger's face, but when he blinked it was gone. It was probably in his imagination, after all, seeing things straight was not his forte right now. In fact, the only thing straight tonight, was the alcohol he'd drank.
"Okay. What do you drink?"
"Blood. In a moment, hopefully your blood." Taehyung stopped in his tracks and looked back at the stranger. There it was again, the devious smile, contorting the stranger's face. It appeared it wasn't his imagination after all.
A normal person probably would have ran away. A normal person also probably would have tried and extract themselves from this situation, but Taehyung wasn't feeling normal tonight. It might have had something to do with the dangerous amount of alcohol flowing through his veins, or the events of tonight. Either way, Taehyung felt very self-destructive and didn't really care where he ended up tonight. Whether it was in his own bed or in some gutter. Though at this moment, preferably the gutter. At least he wouldn't have to worry about the deadline of his art project anymore. "A vampire."
The stranger's lips curled up, revealing lethal fangs. "Good guess."
The boxy smile found its way back on Taehyung's face again. "I can live with that... or die." He chuckled darkly. "It's a deal."
"Hmm, pity. I normally like the chase."
"I'm already running away from enough problems tonight and I don't really feel like adding one more." Taehyung tightened his grip on the stranger's sleeve again, even though he now knew the vampire could easily stop him if he wanted to. He didn't.
They walked into the convenience store and painfully bright fluorescent lights greeted them. Taehyung blinked against the brightness. They headed straight to the liquor aisle. Taehyung eyed the different bottles of sweet, sweet poison and eventually grabbed a clear bottle.
"You like Vodka?" Disbelief coated the stranger's voice.
"I hate vodka," Taehyung replied and grabbed a bottle of Fanta as well.
"Why not get a drink you like? Oh look, flavoured soju."
Taehyung shook his head and grabbed the stranger's sleeve again. "Tonight I'm not drinking to enjoy the taste."
The vampire looked him up and down for a short moment. "At least get a better brand," he decided as he reached for a bottle from the top shelf. Lastly, they grabbed plastic cups and headed to the register.
Taehyung chuckled. "You know, normally when a handsome man buys me a drink, I at least know their name."
The vampire was silent for a short moment. "Jin," he said as he handed the cashier the money.
"Hmm, Jin," Taehyung repeated to try the name on his tongue. "A pretty name for a pretty man." Jin rolled his eyes but stayed silent. "You're not asking for my name?"
Jin shrugged. "I don't really care for the name of my prey. I won't remember it anyways. It's just a waste of time."
"Well, you're immortal and have lots of time, so hello, my name is Taehyung. Nice to meet you," he countered with that boxy smile as he stumbled outside after Jin. They sat down at one of the tables in front of the store. Jin rubbed at his eyes and sighed.
"The things I'm willing to go through for a proper meal."
"You're not really a social guy, are you?"
"Actually, I am. Just not really a people person."
"Oh... okay. Well, it's okay if you won't talk as much. I can talk for the both of us."
"You don't say."
Taehyung reached for the bottle of vodka and tried to open the cap, but failed. His hands were still a bloody mess and were too slippery to get a good grip. Jin snorted and grabbed the bottle from his hands. Before opening the cap, he licked off the blood and Taehyung wiggled his eyebrows. "Suggestive."
Jin cussed under his breath and poured the young boy a drink. "Here, have a drink. At least you can't drink and talk at the same time."
Taehyung accepted it and took a big gulp. "I can try," he retorted before swallowing and choked on the drink. Tears sprang to his eyes as he tried to rid his lungs of the alcohol. "Wrong hole," he wheezed.
"You might kill yourself before I do," Jin sighed, shaking his head. "Honestly, how humans aren't extinct yet is a mystery that time may never solve."
Taehyung took another gulp, but this time swallowed before speaking. See, drunk Taehyung might not be the smartest, but at least was still capable of learning. "Don't worry, hyung- can I call you hyung?" He never awaited Jin's response. "Humans are a mystery for humans as well." Taehyung took another sip. "I guess we're all our own Mona Lisa."
"I've never understood art."
"Art is made by the broken to console the broken. It's emotional. I think when people don't understand a piece, it's because they just haven't felt that way."
"Hmm," Jin hummed as his fingers gracefully fumbled for a cigarette from the pack he just pulled out of his expensive looking jacket.
Taehyung's wrinkled his nose. "Smoking kills."
"Immortal."
"Right."
Jin lit up the cigarette and took a long drag. "So what kind of emotion is the Mona Lisa? What feelings must I have felt to understand it?"
Taehyung fell silent for a moment, trying to find the right words for that feeling. "It's the feeling of being misunderstood, of people thinking they have you figured out, but you're an enigma they just can't solve." He couldn't help but think about her knowing smile as her sharp eyes followed you around the room. "We always think we know the people around us, yet we always feel misunderstood. Isn't that the greatest paradox?" Taehyung chugged down the remaining contents of his red cup and chuckled. His laugh sounded bittersweet, just like how his drink tasted. "We talk so much without saying anything that even when we're not alone, we're still lonely. I think that's why we're all a little blue."
"Are you? Blue?"
Taehyung looked up at the starless sky. Their fight against the blindingly bright artificial city lights was unfair to begin with. Moments like this, he missed his hometown where everything felt so whole and untouched. There, he would look up to the sky and be greeted by a sea of light. Now, there was nothing.
"Tonight I'm midnight blue."
"Why midnight blue?" The night was so silent, Taehyung heard the burn of Jin's cigarette as he took another drag.
"Fairy tales tend to fall apart around midnight."
"So what happened when the clock struck twelve? Your princess turned into a frog?"
"Wrong fairy tale," Taehyung scoffed, eyes still focused on the sky. They were desperately searching for a little light in the darkness. "Tonight I got my shades mixed up. I thought the prince was cyan, but he turned out to be sapphire."
A line formed between Jin’s brows as he shot Taehyung a blank stare. "Right, kid, this might make a lot of sense in your head, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Cyan is pure, a primary colour, while sapphire is nothing but a beautiful deceit. Sapphire is a gem, therefore it doesn't shine, but reflects." Taehyung sighs. "He was just a toxic boy hiding behind a mirror of my own desires. Tonight it broke." Just like he did.
"I guess you could say he was cyan-ide," Jin said and proceeded to chuckle at his own joke. Taehyung felt his eyes were starting to sting and he looked at the night sky a moment longer. Normally he would have laughed along, but tonight the comment hit too close to home and he was feeling too dark to allow even a small ray of joy to shine through. Poison ran through his veins, the kind that seeped in when you got too close to noxious boys, and it made his skin crawl. Brief flashes of tonight continually tried to paint a picture in Taehyung's head that he didn't want to see. He had tried so hard to wash away the stains with alcohol. Taehyung sighed to stop his breath from shaking and blinked the wetness from his eyes so Jin wouldn't see. His hands found the bottle of liquor and he filled up his cup with just vodka, because yellow was the colour of joy and he didn't think he could stomach the sickening sweet taste.
"You know, van Gogh used to eat yellow paint whenever he was sad." Taehyung took a big gulp and absentmindedly started scratching the backs of his hands. His eyes found Jin again who crinkled his nose in utter revulsion. A cloud of grey ash fluttered to the table.
"That's disgusting. Why on earth would someone eat yellow paint?"
"Because it's the colour of happiness."
"You know what else is yellow, Fanta."
"Yes, I'm sure that was available in ever supermarché in the 19th century," he said, annoyance bleeding into his voice. "Point is, emotions influence how we see colour and different colours influence our emotions."
"I guess that explains why I feel like the colour black."
"The colour black doesn't exist."
"Exactly," Jin chuckled, but his smile fell a little when he noticed Taehyung's expression. "Get it? They're black, because they don't exis-"
"How can you be so cold?" Taehyung interrupted as he clenched his fists. The red cuts in his palms stung angrily.
"I'm a vampire, that's literally my nature."
Taehyung saw red. He felt the shadows of hands so cold, they burnt his skin where they touched. "That's not what I mean," he snapped. "How can you not care about the people around you? People like you set the world on fire and never look back at the explosion, because cool guys never do, right? You never see the damage you inflict and if you do, you wouldn't even feel bad because you don't feel."
Jin narrowed his eyes, smoke curling around his lips as he spoke. "You're the one playing with fire, kid."
Taehyung's loud laugh echoed through the night, but was devoid of any joy. Instead, it was flooded with grief and anger and he felt like he might drown in it. "Is that supposed to be a threat? You're going to kill me anyways."
Jin slammed his fist on the table. Taehyung tried not to flinch. "Enough! You don't have the right to talk. Look at you, the alcohol percentage in your blood is almost higher than the percentage in that bottle. What good are emotions doing you, kid?"
Taehyung's lip wobbled and he bit down so hard he tasted rust. "It's not just you who's cold, hyung. It's the entire world and everyone in it is the most blinding shade of sapphire, just mirroring my own starved reflection. I just wish people were warmer." Taehyung shivered, his skin still feeling searingly cold and he hugged himself.
"What happened tonight?" Taehyung stayed quiet, a portrait of defiance painted on his face. Jin sighed as he realised silence was the only answer he'd get. "Okay, let me give you some advice. I've been in this world for a long time. People are enigmas, you were right about that much. They create pretty pictures with prettier lies to hide their true colour and you won't see it until they choose to uncover themselves; usually by a knife in the back. Most people are sapphire and when they are cyan, their mortality won't allow them to stay for long. People always end up leaving pain behind, no matter their colour. It's better to keep to yourself so you won't end up hurting."
Taehyung kept his eyes on the plastic cup in front of him, not trusting his own expression. He was so cold and his body hurt all over. He felt like he had been walking in the winter air for too long and his face was permanently frozen in sadness. The dead blossom leaves fluttering in the soft breeze even looked like snow. Smiling just hurt too much and by god, he was so tired of pretending.
Taehyung drained the remaining contents of his cup, but even the burning alcohol didn't provide him any warmth anymore. He looked up at Jin who was eyeing him with an expression he couldn't quite place. It almost looked like worry, but that was probably the reflection of his own longing he saw. To worry about someone, you needed to care and Taehyung could barely imagine someone caring about him, let alone believe it to be true.
"I'm ready, hyung. Paint me red," Taehyung said and bared his throat for Jin. Jin put out his cigarette and rose from his seat to sit down next to Taehyung.
"Your wrist will suffice," Jin said and grabbed Taehyung's hand. He brought the hand closer to his face, but stopped right before it touched his lips, eyeing Taehyung's hand. Jin's eyes went over the scabby cuts on Taehyung's palm and then to the angry red scratches on the back of his hand. "Why did you agree?"
Taehyung looked at the rim of his long sleeve that hid memories he wished he didn't have. "Because at least you asked before taking."
He felt Jin freeze. "What happened tonight?"
Taehyung shook his head. Jin's grip on his hand tightened and he couldn't help but shrink. "What happened tonight, Taehyung?"
"W-what am I supposed to say?" Taehyung whispered.
Jin was quiet for a moment. "Whatever's on your heart."
Taehyung opened his mouth, but the words were stuck in his throat, forming a big lump. He pressed his lips together and tried to swallow it away. He opened his mouth again, trying to speak, but the only way Taehyung seemed to be able to articulate his feelings was with a loud sob and he started crying. His tears came out in a way his words couldn't, yet they spoke louder than anything he could have said. Taehyung rolled up his sleeve to reveal his arm. There was a galaxy of black and blue painted on his skin by another man's hands. His arm was midnight blue like the starless sky and Taehyung wished he could be dark like black instead, so he didn't exist. "Tonight I feel like eating yellow paint."
Jin stayed quiet, but he didn't let go of the younger's hand. Even though Jin's hand felt cold on his own, it didn't burn his skin and Taehyung found comfort in his touch. The lump in his throat loosened up and with it, words poured out. "I thought he liked me, hyung, but I guess all I saw was a reflection of my own feelings. He took something I didn't want to give and didn't care about the damage it would do. He didn't care about what he broke." Taehyung choked on his words, overflowing with emotion and Jin squeezed his hand to try and console him. He turned his tear-stained face towards Jin. "Please, hyung, please. I don't want to be blue anymore, I just... I don't want to be," he said as he desperately pushed his wrist towards Jin's lips.
Jin stopped Taehyung from moving with ease. "It's not your fault."
Taehyung frantically shook his head. "I did everything wrong. I was drunk, I dressed up, I was alone with him."
"It's not your fault."
"I let it happen. I didn't fight or flee. I just froze."
"Taehyung," Jin said softly, but Taehyung didn't hear him. He was stuck in his own universe, eyes fixated on his arm. Tears were freely rolling down his cheeks. "Taehyung, look at me." Slowly Taehyung lifted his gaze to meet Jin's. "It's not your fault."
Taehyung heard the sincerity in Jin's words ands read the truth in his eyes, but it still didn't feel that way. "Okay," he lied.
"You might not believe it right now, but I want you to say those words to yourself every day, until you do believe them." Taehyung nodded. "Promise me."
"I promise." His voice sounded raw and thick with tears that were still warming his face. Jin let him cry in silence, but never let go of his hand. After a while the tears stopped and Taehyung felt like he finally broke his head above water. He felt like he could breathe again.
"Alright, let's get you home," Jin said and stood up from his seat.
"What?" Taehyung said in confusion, wondering if he misheard. A moment ago Jin wanted to take his life and Taehyung was willing to give it to him. Was this his own reflection again?
Jin shrugged. "I think people took enough from you."
"Okay." Taehyung couldn't find the right words to show his gratitude. "My blood is all there's left to take anyways," he awkwardly joked, voice still shaky. Jin didn't laugh, so Taehyung got up as well, but toppled over right away. Only Jin's arms kept him from falling on the ground.
"You look a bit green, kid."
Taehyung's world was spinning and he actually felt a little sick. "That might have something to do with the inhumane amount of alcohol I've consumed tonight." He focused his eyes on the road ahead and tried to walk straight, but the moment Taehyung moved his foot he nearly crashed into the ground again.
"Alright, hop on," Jin said as he turned his back towards Taehyung. It took a little bit of effort from the both of them, but eventually Taehyung managed to jump on the vampire's back. Jin's arms wrapped around Taehyung's legs and for the first time tonight he felt warmth. A small sigh escaped his lips. "Don't you dare throw up in my neck, because I will eat you." Taehyung heard the smile in Jin's voice, but his face still seemed frozen and he didn't manage to form one himself.
"Hyung," he started, reluctance turning his voice into nothing but a whisper.
"Yeah?" Jin turned his head as best as he could with Taehyung on his back.
"Why did you want to drink my blood? I mean, it's like you said, it's almost more alcohol than blood at this point."
"Because it's Friday night and I'd like to get shit-faced," Jin says.
"What?"
"What, just because I'm old I can't enjoy myself a drink on the weekend?"
"No, I mean, what?" Taehyung asked again, not knowing how to articulate his confusion any other way.
"Oh... well, I'm a vampire. The only thing I can digest is blood, so that means the only way I can get drunk is by drinking an intoxicated human's blood."
Taehyung snorted and he felt the corners of his mouth lift up. "That's sad."
Jin laughed and the sound of it was so contagious that Taehyung found himself laughing along. For the first time tonight the smile reached his eyes. "This," Jin started. "I want to hear this more often. Your laugh."
The comment took him off guard, silencing Taehyung for a moment. "Okay."
"Good. Now let's get you home."
Jin started walking. Taehyung held onto the broad shoulders of the man who had promised him death, but now provided him safety. He couldn't help but smile when he thought about the prospect of his warm bed waiting for him. "Thank you."
"I should thank you."
Taehyung wasn't sure what Jin was thanking him for. What he was sure about is that he was glad he didn't die tonight. He's glad that he was midnight blue and not black, because just like the night, this too shall pass. He would never be cyan again, but he finally saw there are so many more beautiful colours he could become.
It did suck he had to work on his art project with probably the worst hangover he'll ever have.