The days pass rather uneventfully. That’s what Hoseok thinks anyways. The first week is reserved for orientation, which is a blur of ridiculously monotonous team-building games that try to get the newbies familiar with the other students and the school grounds itself. Hoseok just believes it’s all bull and a complete waste of time. He’s not paying thousands of dollars for fees to drag his feet around on the ground rather than in the air. But since he has no choice, he decides to change his game plan and make use of the opportunity.

He’s managed to fool his orientation group into buying the whole “I’m made from sunshine, hope and rainbows” act that he’s mastered. Hoseok makes certain that no one sees the smile fade off his face, and then he’s off, making friends with anyone and everyone he comes across. Normal people call it socializing, but to Hoseok, it’s scooping out the competition. His name starts to spread fast within the student body, and by the third day, he’s already established his reputation. He gathers information about particular students from the intake, potential course mates that he needs to keep an eye on, and notes them all down in his head. He could use that information some day, when the time calls for it. When a bunch of Meteorology and Performance students surround him, headed towards the dorms after Friday, he smiles because one way or another, he’s got enough dirt to coerce anyone to do his bidding.

Jung Hoseok is incredibly intelligent. Although, most people tend to forget that. He skipped grades back at elementary school, and his name was never absent from the honour roll. Hoseok wears the Jung name proudly and carefully; never slipping up, never letting it be dragged down. The Jung Aeronautics Corporations is a manufacturer of airplanes for major airline firms, both domestically and globally. Being a pilot is all that Hoseok has known ever since he was a kid. After being surrounded by airplanes all the time – from actual airbuses to miniature planes he held in his hands and moved through the air, he decided that one day he’d be the one at the helm, flying them. He did all that he could to get there; grades, contacts…blackmail. After all, when you have a brain like his, the smartest move would be to use that intellect to help yourself.

As Hoseok picks up his uniform from the office and strides down the large, white hallways, he thinks back to the first day, and a certain boy from his childhood. He didn’t think the older boy would even be here, at an aviation academy, aspiring to be a pilot. The Min Yoongi he remembered was one that lived and breathed music. Even at the mere age of five, all that Yoongi could talk about was the way the notes his father played on the grand piano seemed to speak to him, and how he couldn’t wait to do the same thing, to give others the same overwhelming feelings he felt. While the other kids took chalk and drew thoughtless lines and unending families, Yoongi picked it up, a white chalk every single time, and with a resolute grip, traced measures and created melodies. Even if they didn’t make much sense to the other kids, it was beautiful to him.

The year Hoseok moved away, something had happened in the Min household next door.

His parents never told him anything, and suddenly he was uprooted and moved hundreds of kilometers away, to the Long Island mansion. As the years went by, he never bothered to ask anymore. Until now.

“Ah,” Hoseok perks up, as he finally digs deep enough into his memory to make sense of Yoongi’s sudden change in interests. He pads through the dorm and heads straight into his room, closing the door behind him. Turns out he was one of the lucky ones that had the dorm all to himself this year, so he didn’t have to worry about putting up another façade in his own space. Hoseok sits himself down at the dark, rosewood desk, and pulls up a page on his laptop. His eyes scan the search results quickly until he moves his fingers on the touch pad, and a new page pops up. “Holy ,” he breathes and brings his fist over his lips, his eyes taking in the information in front of him.

Local piano teacher Min Jaehoon found dead, body dismembered and thrown into dumpster off 65th Street. 

Hoseok is thrown off. It’s not something that happens, but this time, he can’t help it. He remembers watching tv all the time, and as soon as the opening for the news came on, he’d get up and change it to the children’s channel, where dragons and heroes took him into a different world, away from reality. If only he didn’t. He would’ve known.

He leans back into his seat, still shocked into silence. A wave of guilt begins to overwhelm him, and he gets off the chair and slumps onto the soft mattress. Flashes of the past begin to filter into his vision, like a rolling film slowly taking over his mind. He tries to shake it off, turning on his side in hope that it would go away. But they play on anyways. Maybe this was his punishment for all his years of ignorance.

+++

Years ago, on a lane in Sacramento, lived two boys. Jung Hoseok had a name no one could ignore, and Min Yoongi had a life of quite the bore. The two lived adjacent to each other, and on Wednesdays when Yoongi went out to his backyard, beyond the hedge, he’d see the same boy, playing with his toy plane. The other boy wore a different kind of clothes, that Yoongi could tell right off the bat. It looked more put together, more impressive, more expensive.

As soon as Yoongi came to that conclusion, he walked over to the short hedge, resting his elbows on the top. He watches the other boy run around the yard, his lips pursed while he made sounds that seemed to imitate the engine of the airplane. It takes a while before Hoseok notices the watchful eyes, and when he does he runs over excitedly. “You’re in the same class as me at school, right?” He asks, but Yoongi thinks Hoseok already knows. The teacher doesn’t praise Hoseok all the time for being dumb. “Yeah! You’re Yoongi, and I’m Hoseok!” He smiles, and his eyes turn into crescent moons, as if it’s completely normal to introduce the other person before giving your own name. “Your birthday’s coming, right? Your mum invited my mum and I to your house for the party.” Yoongi nods, a little unsurely, and Hoseok laughs. “Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise party. Whoops! I think I just spoiled the surprise.”

Yoongi turns back to look into his house, where his mother stood by the window, washing the dishes in the kitchen. “Do you wanna play pirates?” Yoongi asks, happy that he’s finally found a new friend he can play with even after school, during the weekends and on summer break. When Hoseok lights up and runs towards his front door, Yoongi starts looking for branches for their make believe swords.

+++

Hoseok jerks back to reality when he hears his phone ring. The slim metal piece vibrates on the side table, and threatens to fall right off the edge. Funny how that was exactly what Hoseok imagined Yoongi to be; fallen over the edge, except Hoseok wasn’t there to help him back up, over that same hedge that separated their backyards. “No,” he shakes his head, “it’s not my fault. We were kids. I couldn’t have done anything anyways.” He whispers to the air, and rests his arm over his eyes. The ringing eventually fades out and Hoseok sighs, the sound as if he’s breathed out his entire soul from his body.

+++

The pristinely white hallways were filled with students, rushing from classroom to classroom. The boy however, unlike the rest of them, takes languid, lazy steps to the end of the hallway. He brushes past the crowds, sidestepping as many as he can and shoving the stubborn ones. Not that he needs to do much of that, since the crowd seemed to part to pave his way. The navy tie is a stark contrast to the white dress shirt, which had been pressed to perfection, and swings slightly as he walks. It’s the second official week of the curriculum, and he’s headed towards Instrumentation, his first class of the day.

Turning the knob, he meets a group of approximately thirteen, no, Jungkook counts again, fifteen people. His eyes sweep over the seats and he settles on one in the corner. There are whispers as he walks past the desks to his seat, and a smirk lines his pink lips. He grabs the textbook from his black messenger bag and flips to a random page. He’s already taught himself the course last winter, so this class went on his ‘potential nap time’ list. But since it’s the first day in the class, he decides to give the stout man at the front an impression that he actually gave a about his class. Jungkook turns his attention instead to the front yard through the arched windows lining the side of the room. That’s how most of his day goes, really. He spends the time spacing out, just staring out at the clear blue skies that seemed to long his presence as much as he longed theirs. He fights the urge to sneak into the hangar and bring a Partenavia for a ride. It’s not as if he’s never done it before.