Chapter Text
The sky of Seoul is grey; Namjoon thinks – if you wait a little longer, it would fly off the handle with muffled sobs, rain down on heads and shoulders of innocent people, the way it usually does, melt away under the heavy blanket of the thunderclouds and that would be the last that you ever see of it. Namjoon inhales the smell of not dried yet (never going dry?) pavement and puts his hood on. Well, just in case. Namjoon has lots of ambitions and almost no energy to satisfy them. He is just fourteen, but he has this stupid feeling that he is forty already because his birth certificate says he is a child, but the IQ test says he is a genius. Namjoon understood a long time ago that geniuses suffer the most.
Namjoon personally doesn’t consider himself to be a genius at all. It seems to him that geniuses should create and build up, but all he can do is destroy. Truth to be told, he doesn’t even do this on purpose; back to his childhood, he thought it was his superpower that can be directed to a good stream if tamed. Unfortunately, Namjoon didn’t manage to tame it, he just realized that he has shitty hands and poisoned aura. Maybe he really should’ve taken that pretty little puppy he saw at the crossing to his house.
Namjoon sees a lot and notices a lot; he doesn’t like to break things at all. Sometimes he sits and things are breaking by themselves. Sometimes he sits and breaks by himself. These moments make him paradoxically happy, because. Small sacrifices for the benefit of big deeds and stuff. Namjoon is afraid that one day instead of breaking a pencil or old microwave he would break something really important. That’s why he tries to keep away from such things. He has an unshapely figure, a strange haircut that seems familiar to hawk and bags under his eyes. He reaches into the pocket of his hoodie after his cigarettes because his birth certificate says he is a fourteen, but the IQ test says that everyone could suck his dick. Namjoon frowns at the sky and thinks that anyone else in his place would’ve bought an umbrella already but. Namjoon has nothing to protect and wasn’t afraid to get soaked himself – anyway, that wouldn’t be the worst of what had ever happened to him.
The packet of cigarettes is almost empty, there are only two cigarettes left and even they just became damp. Honestly, he doesn’t even care, he smokes only by force of habit and to occupy his hands (not to break something by accident), not because he has an addiction. Namjoon puts the cigarette between his lips exactly when the first drops begin to show up. He thinks that he even managed to break the sky, but brushes these thoughts away – he would’ve thought that if the sun suddenly appeared. But otherwise – it’s just another hysteric from a spoilt child and some soft cold wind that blows into his back. He thinks that in his life, probably, only wind has his back, makes him move forward and then he realizes that he didn’t light his cigarette. He doesn’t have any lighter in his pockets, he lost it once again, and Namjoon doesn’t even feel surprised by this fact. He wants to drink some coffee or finally smoke and – to create. He is a genius for a reason and he doesn’t care about his age. It’s never too late to start, it’s never too early to start. Namjoon has lungs that are full of ambitions and, probably, it’s the only reason he keeps breathing.
Namjoon got lost and he understands it only after he throws the wet (and never lightened) cigarette away and realizes that he doesn’t know the buildings around him at all. There are lots of people around, he could ask them about the right way, but Seoul’s sky is crying for its lost sun which it, probably, loves a lot, and Namjoon feels awkward to come to people with his tiny problem when such a huge tragedy happens around him.
“I was asked to give it to you,” someone pulls his sleeve and Namjoon looks down to the boy who is approximately ten years old and is standing under the big yellow umbrella. He has big black eyes and cute little barely visible scar under the left eye. He looks away and hands something to Namjoon in the open palm.
“By whom?” asks Namjoon stupidly didn’t even having a look at something in the boy’s hand. The boy turns around and looks somewhere behind but then looks confusedly back at Namjoon.
“He’s gone,” the boy scratches his head and fidgets with a small box. It catches Namjoon’s attention and he skips a breath for a second.
“Are you sure that it belongs to me?” his voice isn’t shaky but he has something like another self-destruction attack.
“Yeah, he said that it’s really important and that I should be sure that you have it,” the boy nods many times and looks right into Namjoon’s eyes for the first time. Namjoon stretches his hand and the boy puts the box onto his palm. “Oh, and one more thing!” the boy gives his umbrella to Namjoon and says before leaving: “He said that now you have something to protect. I don’t know what it means,” the boy smiles and runs someplace where, Namjoon is sure, he could hide from this omnipresent rain.
Namjoon looks at his matchbox and is afraid that this is just a cruel joke (and deep inside he hopes it is). The point is that Namjoon really doesn’t want to ruin his matchbox and he is the last person he would’ve trust in this universe. He takes the umbrella more comfortable and slowly pulls out the bottom part of the box. There is only one match inside, and he can see a little inscription on it. Namjoon almost puts his nose into the matchbox to read beautifully neat “Kim Seokjin”.
The sky of Seoul is crying, suffering because of its lost love. Namjoon thinks that the sky is really stupid because it is him who got lost in the city where he had lived his whole life, what could possibly be sillier? Namjoon looks at his matchbox, holds it tight but carefully and tries to find his way home by himself. Maybe, because he is sure that there, in the future, he will never be alone.
Seokjin puts his glasses on and adjusts his scarf and coat, puts his gloves on. It’s really cold at the bus stop. It has been an hour but his bus still isn't here. He is mad but he’s kinda got used to it. The snow lies around as some kind of really well-trodden hill, blinds him with its brightness. Seokjin thinks that it’s not the worst eighteen birthday he could have, but he can’t believe in it. There is only one argument left: this eighteen birthday is one and only and he won’t have another one as bad as this. He won’t have another one at all which is a pretty good point. Oddly, but it really calms him down, so he inhales deeply this cold December air. His backpack comfortably puts pressure on his shoulders and protects his back from the wind. Some bus passes him by and Seokjin looks down at his wristwatches. He is twenty minutes away from the underground and he wishes he would have gone there a long time. To be honest, he should’ve just turned away and gone there right now – at least to warm himself up – but this stupid feeling that the minute he’ll leave, his bus will come doesn’t let him be. Seokjin hates himself right now but. The only person who is waiting for him is his old granny who stopped worrying about her responsible grandson long ago.
The bus drives up to the stop silently, only the snow crunches under the wheels and Seokjin can feel the warmth of the cabin and the softness of the seats, that’s why he lets himself to close his eyes on a second. And that second is enough for Namjoon to fall out of the bus right on Seokjin and stretch him on the cold ground of the bus stop. People inside of the bus are watching at this with smiles and the hint of laughter in their eyes, but the driver just slowly closes the doors and keeps driving. Seokjin follows the bus with his eyes and thinks that his life can’t resemble some kind of dorama more. He starts laughing and the guy who is laying on him frightenedly lifts up his head.
“Are you okay?” his eyes are so big and scared that Seokjin chokes on his laughter. “I broke something inside of you? Maybe, I should call an ambulance?”
“That’s my laugh, you, idiot,” Seokjin lays his head back to the ground with a thump and slowly calms down. Namjoon gets up, shakes himself off and stretches his hand to Seokjin.
“You should get up before you'll catch a cold,” Namjoon feels awkward, but Seokjin suddenly feels warm and good. That’s why he doesn’t even tease him, simply gives him his hand, stands up and lets this boy help him to adjust himself. He still giggles from time to time. “You must have really hurt your head, right?”
“And whose fault is that I wonder?” Seokjin looks at him skeptically with a little grin on his lips.
“For your information, I stumbled over something,” Namjoon mumbles, starting searching for it on the ground.
“You just must mind your step,” Seokjin clicks his tongue while shaking head and that’s when he notices something soaked on the roadside. “Did you mean this?” he sits and picks a matchbox and then stands up and gives it to Namjoon.
“That’s not mine for sure,” Namjoons face turns pale and greyish at the same time and then he looks at Seokjin. “Maybe it's yours, fell down while we were falling?”
“I still don’t have mine,” Seokjin shrugs his shoulders and suddenly he can feel the heat of hope inside. “I’m eighteen today.”
Namjoon carefully inspects him with his eyes and looks back at the matchbox.
“Well, maybe it really is, you know, yours?” he slightly tilts the head towards the left shoulder and becomes all eyes. Seokjin keeps looking at the matchbox and then he just drawls:
“It's cruel. When did you find yours?”
“When I was fourteen, two years ago or so,” Namjoon bites his lip. “Well, you’ve found yours, why do you complain?”
“Yeah,” says Seokjin but his mind is far away from here.
“Not to be that person, but maybe you should finally open the box?” Namjoon snorts and steps from one leg to another. Namjoon sees how the snow on Seokjin’s lashes starts to melt and thinks that this guy is really handsome. Some girl is lucked out to have such a guy – that’s what Namjoon thinks about and purses his mouth.
“Huh?” Seokjin looks at the Namjoon quizzically.
“I said open it. Look in the face of your fate,” Namjoon smiles widely and Seokjin can’t manage to look away from his dimples. He forgets about matchbox and everything for a moment.
“Oh, yes,” Seokjin nods, slowly pulling out the bottom of the box. “Kim Namjoon,” Seokjin shrugs his shoulders.
“Wait, are you Kim Seokjin?” he quickly shifts his gaze from the match to the boy in front of him and opens and closes his mouth.
“Fuck,” Seokjin exhales in a low voice.
“Sorry?” Namjoon doesn’t know what exactly he is sorry for, he becomes so tiny in a moment and gets embarrassed without any particular reason. The bus that Seokjin was waiting for drives to the bus stop.
“I said come on, I should introduce you to my granny,” Seokjin catches Namjoon’s sleeve and, before he could do anything, pays fares for both of them and bear-leads him to last sits. “My life is such a dorama,” Seokjin rolls his eyes and sits near the window, keeping a watch over the winter city.
Namjoon pretends to be looking into the window, but he looks at Seokjin instead and smiles. He got used to breaking and falling, hurting himself and people around him, he got used that everything around come apart eventually, crash and tatter but. From now it won’t be like that anymore. Because Namjoon is ready to break anything, even his own fragile and half-shaped future, but not Seokjin (and far less – his heart).