iris . vkook

sixty four

육십넷

ABUSE IS MENTIONED IN THIS CHAPTER - BE CAREFUL

Narrator's PoV;

Taehyung was scared. It was a rare occurrence for him to feel genuine fear. Sure, he got nervous every now and then, confusing the clammy hands and butterflies in his stomach for fear. He didn't scare easily. He wasn't terrified of anything.

It could be said that he was scared of death and dying and what came after your final breath, but that was more of a nagging thought that pricked at his brain during strikes of boredom.

He didn't have many phobias when he thought about it. Spiders, heights, fire, you name it: didn't scare him. He'd admit that he'd get slightly spooked by clowns, but nothing traumatising. 

Jeongguk was similar. But Taehyung wasn't afraid of those things, because he'd never had fear provoked from them. He didn't fear fire, because there'd never been anything associated with it apart from cosy fireplaces. He wasn't scared of heights, because he'd never been traumatised by an event associated with it.

Jeongguk also wasn't afraid, but for a different reason. He'd experienced them. He'd once feared them at early stages. But after doing or feeling something so many times, it becomes the norm and it doesn't affect you.

He didn't fear dying in the slightest. He knew that he'd grazed palms with Death on too many occurrences, far too many to keep track of - never mind count. He knew that the bullet wound in his skin could've been a gateway to his reserved place in the afterlife but morbidly, he didn't care. He wasn't bothered by the fact that his lungs were filling up with tar, choking on cigarette smoke and all the chemicals that came with it. He wasn't fussed when his heart rate would spike up whenever the snorted white powder would course throughout his bloodstream. 

He wasn't afraid of conflict. He knew when and where to watch his mouth, and how to speak to people, but if he wrongly crossed paths with someone, he'd never run. He was born with knuckles that were meant to be constantly busted, bloodied and bruised. He wasn't born with his cockiness that he had now, he didn't always have a quick tongue that would spit venom at others. That was something that conflict had given him, and he wasn't prepared to let it go. Ever. He liked the way he was now.

Fire didn't scare Jeongguk at all. The scorching flames never even made him flinch. If anything, it was homely. The only warmth he'd ever experienced prior to meeting people who cared about him, was the flickering flames from sloppy 'bonfires', heat licking up at his school textbooks and other useless shit, leaving a mere trail of ash as evidence for its existence. The ash was the only proof that Jeon Jeongguk associated with education. His beloved BIC lighter, the purple plastic casing fitting snugly in his cold palms, covering the indents from his fingernails as he'd clench his fists - oh, he'd sit for hours and ignite the butane. It fascinated him. He loved the way it sparked and crackled, dancing in the wind. 

He never finished primary school or high school. He was slightly illiterate. He couldn't read well, the letters all jumbled together, lines swirling around the page and none of it made any sense. He could write a few sentences, but the only one without any error was his name. The only thing he could write perfectly was his name. Jeong-ja knew that Jeongguk didn't learn anything she taught him, he didn't know what a noun was or what a semicolon looked like. So she became dead-set on teaching him his name, because that could get him somewhere in life. It could get someone who couldn't read nor write somewhere. It took a month. He knew it all, but he confused where he should draw the line or the curve. He could write her name, because the first half was the same as his, but he forgot how to draw his 'a', so often he'd wing it and cover the mistakes with doodles.