Fire On Fire [TK]

(6) Cover your heart

"A stranger light comes on slowly
A stranger's heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then its smiles cover your heart"

— Fade Into You, Mazzy Star

❀

— Jk —

2012 was the year of the dragon.

And, true to its name, it breathed a perpetual, merciless fire into their lives. Not the blazing kind that destroys in one breath, but a slow burn that pressed against their skin day after day.

Practices stretched until the mirrors of the studio fogged white with their breaths, blurring their reflections into ghostly, sweating silhouettes. The wooden floors absorbed the rhythm of their footsteps, thudding, creaking, vibrating under the weight of their ambition. Vocal lessons bled into the late hours of the night, voices cracking, strengthening, breaking, then rebuilding again. And beneath all of it lingered that persistent, unspoken fear of being cut, and watching the dream slip through their fingers like water.

Their dorm, as always, existed in a state of controlled mess.

If “controlled” meant nothing was controlled at all.

Clothes lay scattered like fallen leaves across the floor. Shoes were stacked haphazardly by the door, some upright, some toppled over like they’d surrendered mid-battle. Socks claimed every possible surface, draped over chairs, tucked into couch cushions, hanging from bed rails like forgotten flags. More times than one, Jeongguk had stepped out wearing two different socks, one black, one striped, or one thin and one thick, grabbing whichever he could find from the laundry basket, which was still better than Hoseok finding one of his socks in the kitchen drawer. Nobody knew how it had gotten there. Nobody wanted to know. Every so often, someone would be struck by a bout of domestic inspiration, usually Seokjin or Namjoon, and would start cleaning with heroic determination. They would scrub one corner of the room until it gleamed… and then, inevitably, run out of steam.

Which meant their dorm always had at least one painfully clean spot, a shining oasis in the middle of otherwise glorious mess.

Laundry was its own tragedy.

They rarely had time to wash anything properly. When they did, everything went into one cycle together—whites, colours, delicates, towels, hopes, dreams, all tossed in without discrimination. Sorting clothes? Folding? Putting them away in drawers like civilized humans?

A fantasy at best.

One day, Yoongi, in a stroke of lazy brilliance, had simply bought another laundry basket. One for dirty clothes. One for clean clothes. And that was that. Clean clothes lived in the basket. When they needed something, they dug through it like raccoons. Nobody really cared whose shirt belonged to whom anymore.

Pure genius, Min Yoongi.

Though, apart from socks, nobody could share Jeongguk's clothes.

He had a thing.

He didn't share.

The night had fallen with its usual comforting darkness, soft and tranquil, while Jeongguk remained sprawled on the wooden floor, leaning back on the cushions propped against the wall, a blanket underneath him, eyes glued to his phone, a multiplayer game running, and his fingers moving in quick, practiced taps on the screen.

Taehyung sat cross-legged beside him, his own phone in his hand, tongue poking out slightly in concentration as he played against Jeongguk.

They had been at it since the past hour.