watch my heart burn | yhw+lkh

the fire you started in me

this is on ao3 and quotev but i forgot to post this here lol

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Hwanwoong doesn't ever remember being so obsessed with fire as he is now.

Something about the flames, the thought of the smoke, the remnants of embers in the soil, and the charred broken wood makes his stomach churn with a feeling of desire.

Flames against his skin reminded him of times he wishes to forget, but against others he finds comfort in watching the heat warm them to death, smothering them in blinding heat and passion. Sometimes it's nice to hurt others as they had you, but the pleasure to hadn't crossed him yet.

And he can't really place where the infatuation with destruction grew in his chest like the flames against a bush in a wildfire. The red and orange clouding his vision with wisps of gray smoke and embers grazing his cheeks in the haze were so inviting since ever.

The boy wants to feel the inferno consume him as the wood crackles and falls around him and the gasoline fueling the rapidly growing rage inside of him.

Hwanwoong thinks it was the captivating circus show of tigers jumping through hoops which never seemed to leave his mind. The tent top was lit ablaze and the screams haunted his nightmares, and he felt the arms grab his eight-year-old shoulders over and over again and shake him out of his daze before pulling him out of the tent. He would look back at the white-hot middle and dusty oranges while a stranger hoisted him over their shoulder, running away with the crowd.

Or maybe it was when his birthday candles left a messy candle wax cake behind because he waited for so long for his entire family to come together, and yet they didn't even come. The candles were burnt out stubs Hwanwoong kept relighting in hopes of at least one of them appearing at the front door. He made the cake, he bought the candles, he did everything and even set up his own balloons. Yet, they had forgotten about him, and his birthday, and his existence, as they all went together on a small weekend trip without him.

He threw the cake away and lit all the firewood ablaze, letting the fire run for hours as he stared unmoving into the crackling wood.

But maybe, he bets everything on this being the beginning, it was because Hwanwoong was burned and beaten into the school's brick wall. Sometimes he stares at the scars along his stomach and he remembers the old white stained Zippo lighter. He remembers the hard brick wall and its red surface so closely resembling the flames and the blood. He thinks of the white shirt he wore, and the chalk that rubbed off on the cloth from the younger grades drawings, and of the twisted features of the kids' faces.

He sees their faces all the time, everywhere, but they're blacked out or blurred. He can remember them so clearly but his memory paints them behind frosted glass or a smoke sheen at times. Hwanwoong didn't want to remember, too, and so he didn't, but he can see their hands and hear their voices and it doesn't hurt less than it's supposed to.

It's so hard, and he always wondered, why fire?

Why was the weapon fire? They could've used words or a pocket knife or even their own fists, but it was fire.

Hwanwoong thought of it so much, flames became intriguing. He's been trying to understand for years. Although, he could never ask because two of them were expelled and the gang leader moved away.

Why fire? Why fire? Why fire? Why fire?

He was so gravitated to fire, he didn't lean away from it like he had tried to when pressed against the brick wall.

Sometimes he swears the scars would melt and ache like the fresh wounds they were back then, but he'd blink and the pain would dissipate and he wonders if he imagined it. Somehow it never failed to leave a bitter taste in his mouth, the fake pains felt so real.