"I just couldn't resist."
"Only sacred things deserve to be messed with."
It all ended with a dead kid near the train tracks.
Six years later, the story repeats itself and two long-forgotten friends might find out that when death tries to play match...
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Dark Necessities by Red Hot Chili Peppers plays through my headphones as I look over the fence at the gigantic stone pit in front of me. It's one kilometer long and half of it in width, grey brownish rocks organized in tall messy piles. I can see a few whole bricks here and there, reminiscent of the day this used to be the excavation site where they dug up the rocks to make cinder blocks. Today, just like the old brick factory, it's abandoned, and in the lowest part of the pit, water covers everything now.
Nature is slowly claiming back its rights, and I know there are frogs in the water now, as well as herons and bustards nesting around. The area still belongs to the city and a fence surrounds the perimeter, barbed wires preventing curious teenagers like me from taking a closer look.
The long jump sand pits are far away from the school buildings. Being a private religious institution and all, the campus is gigantic, and even part of the forest belongs to them, as well as half of the small path going through the woods around the stone pit.
I sit in the grass while waiting for Taehyung. I didn't think he would be impatiently waiting for me as soon as school was over, but I didn't think either he would make me wait 30 minutes all alone in here. Beside the sand pits, used by the athletics' team, the path coming from the school and going through the forest and an old barn used by the gardener to put away his tools, the place is rather empty.
I text my dad, telling him that I'm going to Crystal's to do some homework and then stand up and start walking through the tall herbs lining up the fence. I identify sedge, mugwort, with which you can make tea, as well as field pennycress, recognizable by their small white flowers. I spot a wort of mint and rub my fingers on the leaves, smelling the freshness of toothpaste invade the air and I suddenly long for that ice cream I never had at the party.
Reflektor by Arcade Fire resonates in my ears and I grin at the fence and the herbs around me, pulling out my phone to take a picture. I don't know why the aesthetic in this moment is so pretty to me, but I feel like immortalizing this little patch of green with the fence and the stone hills in the background.
"What are you listening to?"
I turn around, startled.
Click.
Removing one of my headphones, I eye Taehyung, who again managed to sneak up on me. I grin at him, turning my phone around so he can see the title of the song and he nods in approval. Taking his cigarette pack from his pocket, he takes one, gesturing to me with it and I shake my head, slightly disgusted.
"Smoking is lame," I sneer, repeating his exact words about reading books and he smirks at my remark.
"Smoking isn't lame, it's the perfect pleasure, always leaving you unsatisfied."
Sometimes, Taehyung says things and I just don't get what he means. This is one of those moments and I stare at him, trying hard to find something smart to reply. It's pretty hard when he's looking at me so intently, shirt and hair carefully ruffled, and he just looks so sexily messy that my breath hitches.
