VMK. FEATHERS FOR ONE, A CROW FOR THREE.

01

The road is sizzling.

Jeongguk's eyes were wide pools of dark, childish interest. Boredom seeping through his bones and dripping onto the tarmac. Sssst. The road was sizzling. He thought that if he stared long enough, he would witness an incipient monstrous oddity sludging out of the ragged asphalt, the pitchy tones transferring. It was bound to happen, he thought. There were many creations, a manifold of genesis times, that went unseen by the everyday human eye.

Maybe if he stared long enough, something would come crawling out.

A tap on his shoulder. Jeongguk jumped, insides clanking together. Could people hear their bones shift and move like they had a mind of their own? Jeongguk could hear every crack, each creak, and squeal.

"Gguk?"

The brunette lifted his head, inky hair the color of the sizzling pavement falling into his capacious eyes. Irises enveloping more space than not, the galaxies swimming within pushing and pulling at the barrier keeping them bound prisoner in a sea of choppy waves.

The stars were blinking out. One by one.

Hazy afternoon heat shimmered on the edges of the dusky brown-haired male standing above Jeongguk. He was glowing from within, every line and shadow enveloped in equal parts light and dark. A crease ran down between his brows, concern etched into every crevice. The sun was slashing rays into his towering, lean limbs. If Jeongguk were the forest ground, Namjoon was the topmost branches stretching down to hang and slither, virescent leaves whispering.

"Hm?"

"You were doing it again."

"Sorry?"

"Spacing out. Like, y'know, not paying attention, looking creepy."

Jeongguk lifted a bracelet clad hand, shading his eyes as he looked upon his best friend. His attempts were futile though. The tree of a man was impossibly bright, blinding. His edges shimmered once more as he settled down beside the raven boy. The forms were starkly different. One was full of stars, a never-ending nebulous, an asterism unique to him only. The other was bursting at the seams with a lustrous gleam, only the smallest creases tainted with the darkness Jeongguk's universe consisted of.

He was breathtaking. Jeongguk was far from such a thing at that moment.

Haggard and misshapen were terms to better describe the boy made of galaxies. Slate was smeared beneath his shadowed eyes, where the whole problem started and ended. His skin was inked and threaded with milky ways, climbing and slinking against his dull flesh. There was misguided Fuschia and cardinal blotted along his cheekbones that scraped against the skies and opened virgin worlds crawling with sin and misfortune. Swathed in onyx, every limb carefully protected from the raging sunrise beside him. The present shimmering was emanating heat and depositing stars along his sleeves, the cuffs of his jeans, his rosy mouth, his jaded fingertips.

He was a boy of rips and constellations and obscurity.

And also hunger.

"Whatever. I'm starving."

Namjoon chucked a cellophane-wrapped sandwich at the younger, smacking him squarely on the chest. He got the finger back in return. Namjoon grinned.

"Alright, now that my bitch is fed, speak up. Come on, Jeon. Spill."

Jeongguk narrowed his eyes as he carefully unwrapped his food, taking a large bite. Of course, he couldn't depend on his closest friend to keep out of the circle of rumors that followed the raven-haired boy. But he couldn't blame Namjoon either. It was tempting to the victim himself.