UNIVERSE / BTS.

61: cinnamon & lemon drops / namseok

CINNAMON &
LEMON DROPS

WORD COUNT 3.4k
OVERVIEW they're the only sane ones, the sane sinners in this goddamned town. ( warnings for child abuse, fucked up concept of religion, mentions of rape, this is just p intense actually i'm not joking / for mature audiences only, viewer discretion is advised, don't read if you're religious & read with caution )

PLAYLIST if i believe you / the 1975, cinnamon / jome, teen idle / marina and the diamonds.

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FEBRUARY ; 1982

NAMJOON'S JACKET SMELLS like church, lavender and musty pews, wood polish and scented vanilla candles. his hands are cold as ice as he sits in the cemetery, a lighter that he flicks on and off, watching the flame as if it'll save his soul, a cigarette between his lips slowly burning away. his back's against a marble tombstone, cold, everything's cold, winter clouds above him in the sky.

wild lavender blooms beside the brunette, the smell making him think of what awaits him at home, not good. she always drip drops lavender oil onto his pillow (and likewise onto his wounds), when he runs to her after leather and fists had tattooed bruises into his skin over and over like the prayers his mother repeats in the hallway under the picture of christ while her son is beaten bloody and black. namjoon coughs up blood sometimes; he doesn't know why. sometimes his wounds reopen at school and sometimes he bleeds through his school shirt and then the next day it'll smell like lemon soap and iron blood because he couldn't scrub all of it out in the dark. sometimes he can't wear white shirts because it'll show his blood.

sometimes he wants to die.

flicking the lighter and off, namjoon throws away the cigarette and closes his eyes. he's fifteen, too young to know what he knows, too young to have his beaten back stinging horribly against the cold cold tombstone through his thin jacket. his lips are as blue as the ribbons in the pretty choir girl's hair — jisoo, he thinks her name is — and his hands are shaking but he doesn't want to leave just yet. his heart thud thud thuds in his chest at the thought of going home, while he bleeds inside and his cracked ribs barely heal. he wants to just stay amongst the dead, where he used to play tag with wonwoo and taeil, where laughter once resonated.

namjoon hasn't laughed since he was eleven.

the priest tells them sin is all around, and that sin can be cured; namjoon's stepfather believes it can be cured by beating the living daylights out of his stepson, therefore beating out whatever sin he believes is in him. namjoon's not sure what he did, but maybe it has something to do with how he thinks about boys and how he thinks their lips might taste like cinnamon cake and lemon drops, his favourite sweet things. god doesn't like faggots, does he? but namjoon's never kissed a boy. not even touched one, unless it be in a game of tag a few years ago. he's never felt a boy's smooth skin, or his calloused hands, or his muscled arms—

namjoon stops himself when he realizes exactly who he's thinking of. so he blinks hard and burns his thumb on the lighter to bring himself back to reality, tears brimming in his sad eyes like those of fallen angels. the thoughts of a boy he forbade himself to think of resurface, because he's always on namjoon's mind, and maybe that's why his stepfather beats him. because namjoon can't get jung hoseok out of his head.

crunch, crunch, crunch, the grass sounds like broken bones under someone else's feet. namjoon hides the lighter and looks up as quick as he can, and there he sees the cinnamon-lemon-drops boy who he thinks about in bed when his sheets are stained with blood. namjoon goes stiff, hopes that hoseok can't see him, but he can't stop fucking stating at the boy who's ultimately his downfall. hoseok's the type of boy girls giggle about together in their knee socks and nightgowns, smelling like rose soap and angel's breath. he's all warm cinnamon eyes that make namjoon want to sin (boys don't think about other boys like that, namjoon), and he isn't like the church boys namjoon knows, his shirts are rumpled and his hair is dyed red and he's just fascinating in namjoon's eyes.