vớ vẩn 2

chap 8 - Stated Dosage

The sky overhead looked like a bruise, a mottled patch of purple starting to dominate the horizon and push away the orange glow of the setting sun. He didn't need to check a watch to know that it was roughly 9pm or later, for the summer evening didn't start until at least then. Which meant that they were out in the middle of nowhere with nightfall on its way stuck with a broken fucking car. Right now the situation was so ridiculous that he decided to pretend that it wasn't happening. Hoseok even had his back turned away from the road so that he didn't have to look at the stupid vehicle, instead sitting on a low wooden fence that stretched across the length so that he could stare at the vast expanse of field in front of him. From behind him came the sound of his friends talking and bickering amongst each other and he really wasn't listening to their words, rather just hearing a mumbled load of nonsense like background static. There was very little to discuss and yet they had to, for there was little else for them to do: too shocked and confused to register it all. After a few minutes they would finally figure it out and start making actual plans to combat it, but for now they were just standing around stupidly.

Hoseok shifted to pull his legs up, balancing his boots on a low rut on the bottom of the fence so that his knees were cocked in front of him. The wooden fence was horribly uncomfortable and he hunched forward to fold his elbows on his knees. The grass was dancing in the breeze and the sound it made was rather like a chorus of sighs, a whispering noise like women's voices chatting amongst themselves. In the evening dusk the blades were starting to look black and the field looked like an oil spill. He snagged a handful of blades and fiddled with them for a moment, feeling them against his fingertips. They were waxy and the bottoms were wet, likely leaving grass stains all over his fingertips like blood.

"Wanna see a cool trick?" He turned his head to see Jungkook just a few feet away from him, elbows on the fence and head cocked as he studied him. The boy looked tired and yet he had forced a smile on his face regardless. He glanced over his shoulder to see the others still by the car, and then looked back at him. He shrugged and said "why not?" and his friend held a hand out to him. "Give me one of those blades then." Hoseok handed him the entire palmful of grass and he glanced over it all before plucking one free and holding it up to him. "I'm gonna make music with just this piece of grass."

"Oh yes?"

"Yeah, just watch." So Jungkook held the blade up to his lips and took a deep breath before letting it out again. He hadn't been expecting much at all, that perhaps the boy was pulling a gag to make him laugh, but when he exhaled there came the most strangest sound and he could only stare at him in wonder, mouth hanging open. It was a little like a kazoo, a thin reedy noise that wasn't particularly musical but close enough. He blew air out in a random tune, stopping and starting to try and make it sound like he was humming a line from a song and then he started laughing and lowered his hand for a second, blade of grass stuck to his lower lip rather cutely. "Told you I could do it!" He declared with a grin and then he pulled the blade free roughly and tossed it aside so that it landed on the ground out of sight. "You didn't believe me, did you?"

"Not really," he admitted, finding no reason to lie and instead tell him the truth, "I thought you were gonna do something stupid instead but that was...kind of musical, I guess?" The remark made Jungkook snort laughter. "How did you learn that, did someone teach you?"

"My dad did."

"When you were a kid?"

"Yeah, showed me how to do it way back. Must've still been in elementary school. He said it was hard and not a lot of people can do it, but he knew I would be able to. So he showed me and three attempts later I was doing it better than him."

"But of course," Hoseok said.

"Probably the only useful thing he's ever fucking taught me," Jungkook shifted slightly to glance across the field, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip which probably tasted like the grass blade, "was how to make music with grass. Hardly the kind of thing I'd get into college with, huh?"