The stranger with the camera

The train screeched to a halt, the sound slicing through the heavy dusk air. Jungkook adjusted the strap of his duffel bag, eyes darting between the peeling station signs and the trickle of strangers weaving through the crowd. The city smelled like dust and possibility, like a story just waiting to begin.

He was here for a new start. University. Independence. A chance to breathe without everyone watching him like he was supposed to have it all figured out.

But the station wasn’t kind to dreamers—it swallowed them whole.

“Move,” someone muttered, bumping past him. Jungkook blinked, cheeks heating, and shuffled toward the exit, still clutching his bag like a lifeline.

And then he saw him.

Leaning casually against a cracked pillar, camera in hand, was a boy who looked like he belonged to another world. Loose button-up fluttering in the evening breeze, hair curling lazily into his eyes, lips tilted into the kind of smile that made time stutter. He was taking photos—not of the crowd, but of the empty spaces between. The corners no one noticed. The light nobody chased.

Jungkook froze. Something about the boy’s stillness in all this chaos tugged at him.

As if feeling the weight of his gaze, the stranger lifted his head. Their eyes locked.

For a heartbeat, Jungkook forgot how to breathe.

The boy lowered his camera, tilting his head with curiosity. Then, without hesitation, he walked over—slow, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world.

“You,” the boy said, voice warm, rich like velvet. “Don’t move.”

Jungkook blinked, stunned. “What?”

The boy lifted his camera again, a smirk ghosting his lips. “The light looks perfect on you right now.”

And before Jungkook could protest, the shutter clicked.

The moment was caught—forever sealed in grain and glass—while Jungkook’s heart hammered against his ribs like it wanted to escape.

He didn’t know this stranger’s name. Didn’t know why his chest suddenly ached, why the air around them felt heavier, charged.

But later, when he lay awake in his new dorm room replaying the moment in his head, he would remember one thing with startling clarity.

The boy with the camera had eyes like the dusk sky—deep, endless, and filled with possibilities

And his smile had already changed everything.

The dorm smelled faintly of floor wax. Jungkook dropped his bag by the bed assigned to him—bottom bunk, corner of the room. The sheets were thin, the walls scuffed with years of student lives layered over each other. It was nothing like home. But then again, that was the point.

He tugged at his hoodie strings, scanning the room. Empty. Quiet. Good. Maybe he’d get a moment to breathe.

But the door creaked open before he could even sit down.

“Guess we’re roommates,” came that same velvet voice, and Jungkook’s head snapped up so fast it hurt.

The boy with the camera.

His curls were damp from a shower somewhere down the hall, shirt half-buttoned, camera slung over his shoulder like it was part of him. When he smiled, Jungkook’s stomach turned traitorously.

“You—” Jungkook blurted, then stopped. His voice cracked like a kid’s. Heat flushed his ears.

The boy leaned against the doorframe, amused. “Me. Taehyung.” He said . “And you?”

“Jungkook,” he muttered, trying to sound casual, failing miserably.

Taehyung’s gaze flickered around the room, then back to him. “Which bed?”

Jungkook pointed stiffly.

“Perfect,” Taehyung said, tossing his bag on the top bunk above Jungkook’s without hesitation. The springs groaned, dust drifting down. He flopped onto the mattress like he owned it, one long arm hanging lazily over the edge, camera dangling from his fingers.

Jungkook swallowed. “You—you take pictures of random people a lot?”

“Not random,” Taehyung replied, eyes half-lidded. “Only when the light insists.”

Jungkook blinked. “The… light?”

“Mm.” A pause, then that quiet smirk. “Like earlier. Station lights hitting your face. Couldn’t ignore it.”

Jungkook stared at the floor, heart hammering. Nobody had ever looked at him like that before—like he was something worth capturing.

“Don’t worry,” Taehyung added, sensing his discomfort. “I won’t post it. It’s just… for me.”

The words landed heavier than Jungkook expected.

For me.

He curled his fists in his lap, trying to hide the way his pulse jumped.

Silence stretched between them, thick but not awkward. Just… charged. The sound of Taehyung’s camera clicking open filled the air as he fiddled with it absentmindedly, like even in stillness, he was searching for beauty.

Jungkook thought he should say something, anything—but the words tangled in his throat.

That night, as the dorm lights went out and Taehyung’s soft breathing above lulled him to a restless half-sleep, Jungkook stared at the cracks in the ceiling and wondered—

What had he just gotten himself into?

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