Fire and Ice || J.Jk

Part 1 - The start

When you first meet Jungguk the conditions aren't exactly right for budding romance. They aren't even right for potential friendship. Or acquaintanceship.

Which is why you don't begin as lovers, crushing on each other, nor do you begin as friends, smiling fondly. Not even as casual acquaintances, barely registering each other's existence. Instead, you begin as enemies.

All because, after only two minutes of knowing each other, Jungguk manages to set your hair on fire.

Maybe it's your fault. After all, you're the one that provokes him.

You're determined to dislike him from the very beginning - because your parents have warned you about the infamous fire-tamers and their unruly flames, soaring out of control with their emotions.

So when you see Jungkook at the other side of the playground on your first day of school, which claims to give the best learning experience for gifted young individuals, blessed with unique abilities, you instantly pick him out as different from you. He's from the family that rivals your own, and just one glance at him has the proud blood in your veins bubbling.

With ice woven through your DNA, allowing you to create frost at a touch, and call forth thick clouds of soft snow, it's only natural that you're wary of this young fire-tamer, who you know can call plumes of fire with a snap of his fingers, and in doing so, can snap apart your fragile ice. You're prepared to hate him before you even speak to him.

Even though, when your mother had kissed you on your forehead, and waved you off to school, she made you promise, "Get on well with your new classmates. And make lots of friends."

But you can't be friends with a fire-tamer.

Even if he does look a lot different from what you were expecting - with his black hair parted and combed off his forehead, and his pristine school uniform, so different from the idea you had built up of fire-tamers, living wild in the desert, wearing animal hides on their backs and no shoes on their feet - you still can't be friends with him.

As an ice-summoner, brought up in a frozen mansion, kept clean by your mother's maids, and never allowed out into the cold, unless it was in your expensive coat, and your polished boots, just hearing of the fire-tamers' way of living is enough to make you faint in the head, swooning at the idea of stepping outside barefoot.

Staring across at the young boy on the other side of the playground, introducing himself to some other new students, you know you can't trust the clean image he presents. There's got to be truth to the stories you've heard about fire-tamers - their wild behaviours and unruly ways.

As you watch him with some other boys, an animal-talker, who's demonstrating his powers by calling over some birds by the shrubbery to chat to them, and an unseen-seer, showing his ability by blending out of sight, the fire-tamer lifts his hand, eager to show off his own gift, and with a loud snap of his fingers, he sends out a plume of fire that has the birds scattering.

The animal-talker stares after the birds, shocked by the smoke that still lingers in the air, his lips wobbling. The fire-tamer clearly has no common-sense, you decide, calling fires from his fingers in the middle of a playground and scaring other students.

A surge of anger wells in your chest. Before you can stop yourself, you're marching across the playground, pushing past the other new students to reach the group.

"Excuse me! Can't you be a bit more careful? Summoning fires out of the blue is dangerous you know!"

The fire-tamer looks you up and down, lips curling into a smirk when his eyes come to rest on your family brooch pinned to your school jumper: the diamond carved into a snow-flake that marks you out as an ice-whisperer.