Real To Your Touch

Untitled Part 1

Prologue

They say that even a mirror could never truly capture the rare breed of beauty that he was, and every man, women, all in between and child, sitting on these chairs would agree wholeheartedly. When he walks, it's a stride that carried emotions, not steps. The sway of his hips did not align to any music, but his story and that alone, but then again, every song was his story, all music that was ever written, was for the sole man under the spotlight, standing bare feet and head tilted down. He was the muse of mankind, with poise in posture and grace under his fingertips.

As the first note struck, he rises his head but not high enough, just barely to make eye contact. Music plays, soft and gentle as he strikes his first pose and he allows a gentle smile to settle on his lips, for to dance is to breath for him, and he has never felt so alive. The smooth music turns jarring as climax approaches, and the dancer twirls on the tips of his feet, again and again, the white cloth clutched in his fingers, wavering. So he does not see the fire rising. Eyes closed now, he feels every breath of life that the pianist pours for his keys to sound elegant, and he reaches out, sad, anger, fear of the song clasp on the tips of his fingers, unmixed with the carnage of death that happens beyond him.

All is irrelevant on a stage, he was taught, so the scream he heard was brushed past but when the first beam crashes, it was wakening call for all but him. They run and run, yet he stands, unable to break away from the daze, away from the emotions that he embodied, yet now, what he embodied has become his own reality as it seems. More screams followed by roaring fire, and the question; why wasn't he running?

The dancer stood weeping as he watches the place crumble apart; beam by beam the world he created, the home to his tears and the safety to his craft, comes apart and fear, anger, sadness tends to paralyze some.

They say he never stood a chance. That the cast never did; when the auditorium burned down, not one of them stood a chance to escape. The lie remains so, through all media coverage, despite the fact that the dancer stood, watching it all burn down, and all who saw him burned down with him.

Or maybe it's not a lie at all, since Park Jimin made sure that he himself didn't survive the fire, and so he burns.

*

When the world blackens, one can hear the sea from here, every wave breaking on rock and moan of the sea wind. To not see is to hear, smell and touch and move better than usual and he was flowing with the music as one, as the sea rushing to hit rocks he hits every beat not with force but with insistence. The contrast between violence and authority varies according how far one is willing to push. Jeon Jungkook freestyles to his playlist on his teachers demand, and he despises it, the lack of control he has over his own body once his world is black. That, apparently, is exactly what his teacher wants; "too constraint, too overthinking, to rigid. Learn to let go Jeon".

The roar of the sea matches his teacher's roar of commands for the rest of the class, a stumble of steps and huffs of breath. The sweat that made his clothes cling, the itch of blindfold, the floor under him. The smell, however, gratefully overpowers all, the undying char of burned wood that clung onto every corner nook and cranny of this auditorium. The telltale signs of the accident almost 8 years ago, dramatically known as the death of art; when the country lost the most talented artists of a generation in a single fire, and these wooden floors, under his very feet now, bore witness. Not much was salvaged, and most was rebuilt, but the same sense of tragic loss, of wood burning and cries of a dancer almost seems to bounce off the walls.

Many seems to prefer the modern mirror studios adjacent to the auditorium for this very reason, but not Jung kook, no. As he grew up, he explored his strange fascination towards vintage authenticity, always finding abandoned houses and exploring restricted ancient parks. It wasn't, by any means, that he was an adrenaline seeker or that he vandalizes. Jeon finds himself fascinated by the concept itself; the idea that someone stood where he stood, decades and centuries ago and the stories that a place has to tell was always fascinating to see. 'If I hold what was held a hundred years ago, I wonder how many people have held it since' his mind often wonders. As though he can soak up a history, just by existing parallel to it.