Fire On Fire [TK]

(2) The town lit up

"Well, I started out down a dirty road
Started out all alone
And the sun went down as I crossed the hill
And the town lit up, the world got still"

— Learning to fly, Tom Petty

❀

— Jk —

The streets of Nonhyeon-dong were washed in the pale gold of June, the early Sunday light spilling lazily over quiet sidewalks and silent apartment windows. The morning felt suspended, too soft to be real, too bright to belong to him.

Jeongguk stood in front of a plain grey door, three suitcases lined neatly against the wall like soldiers awaiting orders. His fingers worried the straps of his backpack, nails digging into fabric as if he could anchor himself there.

This was it.

His new home for the foreseeable future.

A soft click broke the stillness.

The door opened to reveal a boy in his late teens, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes swollen with sleep, dressed in blindingly bright orange shorts and a wrinkled grey shirt that hung loosely over his slender frame.

He looked like someone who had been ripped from a dream too soon.

Jeongguk bowed immediately-instinctive, proper, precise-spine folding at the waist before the other could even fully register him.

"Ah-you must be the new trainee," the boy said, carding his fingers through his messy hair.

"Annyeonghaseyo, Jeon Jeongguk-imnida," Jeongguk murmured, his voice barely louder than a breath.

The boy's face softened into a warm, crescent-eyed smile.

"Nice to meet you, Jeonggukshi. Come on in. I'm Jung Hoseok."

The summer sun filled the apartment with the warmth of radiant beams, albeit there was not much space to fill in there. The living room, or was that the dining room? Or maybe multipurpose-melted seamlessly into a small, practical kitchen. Another door stood beside it, closed, unassuming.

The bedroom, Jeongguk assumed.

Two boys sat on stools near the counter.

One of them looked almost unreal with his pale skin luminous in the morning light, cheeks faintly rounded like freshly steamed dumplings.

The other stood.

And Jeongguk's heart stumbled.

Kim Namjoon, aka, Rap Monster.

In nothing but boxers.

Jeongguk's gaze snapped away so fast it almost hurt, heat flooding his ears as he pretended with intense focus to examine the dull eggshell walls.

Plain wooden panels stretched across the floor. A small television sat quietly in the corner, almost shy in its presence. Boxes were crammed into a shelf that ran the length of the wall connecting the bedroom, as if the room itself had secrets it did not know what to do with.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jeonggukshi," Namjoon said, breaking Jeongguk out of his thoughts.

One strong arm lifted Jeongguk's suitcase with ease, forearm muscles flexing, veins faintly visible beneath tanned skin, and placed it neatly in the corner.

Hoseok pushed in the other suitcase with a soft huff, nowhere nearly as gloriously as Namjoon, closing the door behind him.

"I already met him with PD nim," Namjoon addressed the room, unfurling a shirt he picked up from the back of a chair, and put his hands through it before pausing, "He is a damn talented kid." Then put his head in it, bringing his arms back down.