⚫
bloody snowflakes:
Namjoon's dreams are painted with the harsh words. They seem to have been engraved into the walls of his mind and playing like a broken record that haunts his thoughts and poisons the once sweet dreams of secret smiles.
He's glad that it's a Friday and he won't have to be passing the usual curb and face cigarette boy. Just the thought of being near him makes a knot form in his throat and his eyes tear up.
Namjoon quickly shakes his thoughts, he doesn't want to make the mood despondent for today.
He blinks away the tears that threaten to fall and gives a shaky smile to his shadow on the ground.
When Namjoon looks up he sees the group of bullies, the leader of the group gives him the finger and mouths a word that Namjoon is all too familiar with.
A shiver runs all over his body and Namjoon quickens his steps. Almost running the rest of the way to where Hoseok's car is parked and his two friends wait for him.
"Finally! I thought you'd be ditching us again." Jackson says as he opens his car door and steps inside.
Namjoon breathes heavily and shrugs, "Sorry, got caught up with something."
Hoseok looks at him from the rearview mirror, "They weren't bothering you again, were they?"
Namjoon jerks his shoulders and averts his eyes to glance out the window,
"It was nothing."
✧
For the next two weeks Namjoon asks Hoseok for a ride. Hoseok narrows his eyes at first, asking a bunch of questions of why Namjoon wants a ride.
"Is it-" Hoseok isn't able to finish his sentence because Namjoon blurts out that it has nothing to do with the school bullies.
"No, it's not. It's just ..." Namjoon looks around the empty parking lot, "it's been getting a bit colder and I don't want to be walking home."
Namjoon knows Hoseok doesn't believe this, but he also knows that Hoseok isn't the type to just abandon someone with no way of help. And Namjoon is one of Hoseok best friends so he'll take the opportunity he can get to help him out.
Since Hoseok lives on the opposite side of town Namjoon just tells Hoseok to drop him off the bus station and he'll walk the rest way from there.
Sometimes, when Hoseok doesn't like the idea of Namjoon walking home alone, Namjoon will call his mother and tell her he's staying over Hoseok's house and he ends up sleeping there. The two ending up calling Jackson so they can all be together.
When the three of them are inside their little tree house they built when they were younger Namjoon will want to talk about cigarette boy.
Tell Jackson and Hoseok all about that boy on the wall that smokes and grins at Namjoon when he's too far away.
But he doesn't mention cigarette boy and he doesn't talk about the hair pulling or the arm twisting that happens at school from the bullies.
"Anything you gotta say Joonie?"
Namjoon shakes his head.
✧
They got him.
The bullies caught Namjoon and bruised him up badly. Namjoon thinks, as he lies on the cold cement ground, that this beating has been one of the worst.
He can't even open his eyes, his lips are dry and he can taste blood whenever he licks them wet. His left arm aches and so does the left side of his torso, he attempts to pick himself up but when he does a shoot of electric pain rushes and Namjoon groans as he falls back onto the rough ground.
He's outside of the school campus, Namjoon had finally found the will to walk home and pass by stage boy. But when he passed by an alley where a bakery and a record store were annexed Namjoon had been jumped.
It happened so fast that the world seems to go in slow motion. He could hear the leader telling his minions what to do to him; they all grouped up around his fallen body and kicked anything they could kick.
Namjoon tried kicking back but there was too many of them and they kept throwing their feet and hands at his face.
With each kick and each word mumbled at him Namjoon could feel himself grow heavier, his lungs going numb, and his eyes closing in on themselves. Warm and thick blood fell from his brow and down to his neck.
Namjoon wasn't sure when it stopped, he just remembered someone spitting at his face and harshly pulling his hair and murmuring that word Namjoon completely despised.
It's been a few minutes since they all disappeared and Namjoon lies pitifully on the ground with blood staining his face. The air around him grows colder and colder and his eyes can only open so much he can see the blurry sight of feline eyes and smell the scent of cigarettes.
Namjoon can't hear what is said to him, he feels like he's underneath heavy water and his ears are being flooded with it. All Namjoon can do is groan and try to blink his eyes open.
He feels a soft settle on his shoulder and Namjoon flinches away from the touch which makes the pain feel worse.
When Namjoon opens his eyes just a tiny bit, he sees clear brown eyes that are opened wide in panic; a snowflake falls on thick eyelashes.
December is here and so is cigarette boy.
