Alice’s Tale of the Flames

“So what exactly is tungsten?” Sarah asked putting her hand under her chin. I sighed as I knew that I should’ve looked it up the first time that I saw the word, but I didn’t have any time.

“I’m on it right now.” Alice said looking it up on her phone. “Ah! Found it! Tungsten, it’s a chemical compound used to make…no way! It controls electric light fragments?!”

I tensed up once I heard the definition. No human being should be able to take such a chemical!

“How…how is that possible? How is Daesung still alive?” I asked. “How are any of the brothers alive if they had to take chemicals?”

“We’re not that far into it, Kelly.” Lucy whispered. That was the first thing that she said since we came back.

“Well, it caused some kind of reaction with their blood.” Heather nodded. “The outcome wasn’t good, of course.”

“I’m sure that we all got told the same story about how the fire happened.” I said crossing my arms.

“Yeah, but while each brother passed out, something important must’ve happened in-between. Like what happened to G-Dragon after Taeyang passed out?” Heather noted. “Or the other brother’s for that matter?”

“Well, Daesung was out taking classes, and he came home to find his brother’s on the floor in the basement.” I said. “He practically ran home when none of his brothers messaged him back.”

“It seems like Daesung has a sensitive side.” Heather noticed.

“He seems to have a soft side as well,” I blushed.

“And you wouldn’t believe what I heard from G-Dragon, since we are on the subject of people having a soft side.” Alice added in.

“What? Did he show a soft side to you?” Sarah asked leaning forward interested of what Alice has to share with us.

“You can say that,” she smiled.

ஜ

As soon as the door opened, I could feel the heat radiating from the inside. But once I peeked inside, it looked like any ordinary living room, except for one thing that stood out from the rest; there was a huge fireplace at the very end of the room taking up that whole wall. For a second I was afraid that the size of the fire would burn down the place, but I’m sure that they would have it under control. Sitting in the couch just in front of it, I saw the top of G-Dragon’s head, the light from the fire made his red hair seem brighter than it usually would. The fire seemed to dance in patterns, doing different tricks here and there. For a second, I could’ve sworn that I saw the fire take form of a dragon, but it was gone in the blink of an eye. I took a deep breath as I entered the hot room. As soon as the door closed, the fire from the fireplace quickly went out, lowering the temperature dramatically.

“Came here to call me a monster again?” G-Dragon asked not turning around in his seat.

“Do you always start off a conversation with an assumption?” I asked back going over to the couch.

“Maybe.” He answered. A black line appeared down the middle of his eye as he started a flame in his hands. Bringing them up, he lit the fireplace, bringing the temperature back up.

“How can you stand it being so hot?” I looked over at him.

“I just don’t stand it, I need it.” G-Dragon said with a glare. “Otherwise, I’ll loose energy.”

“So, you must’ve had a lot of energy when the fire happened.” I said, but I regret my words very quickly as G-Dragon threw one of his fireballs in the nearest wall, making it burn to a crisp, but the wall didn’t burn through. I noticed that his black tattoo never left him once he lit the fireplace.

“Now you’re assuming things!” He yelled. “Once that fire exploded, I used all of my energy to hold back the fire from my brothers and me!”

“And how exactly did that happen?” I leaned forward not afraid of him, which he just glared at me.

“Are you going to apologize first?” G-Dragon crossed his arms.

“Are we ever going to get to the story?” I asked him back.

“Fine. But I’ll be waiting for an apology. Or you’re never getting out of here. Now, watch the fire.” G-Dragon told me as he breathed out an irritated sigh and sat up on the couch. Holding out his hands towards the fire, the fire seemed to obey his command as he swiftly moved his hands making shapes of people out of the fire; talk about playing with fire. Three figures stood upright, two of them were Taeyang and G-Dragon, the other, the scientist.

“I wanted everything back that we lost, so I went to the scientist, Taeyang followed. The scientist started to talk about something that we might be interested in, but I didn’t listen.” G-Dragon started the story as he controlled the figures in the fire.

**

G-Dragon landed on the couch with a soft thud as he heard his brother struggle against the scientist. As he tried to get up from the couch, he was only knocked back down when the scientist got rammed into the wall. He finally got up when he heard the scientist fall onto the floor.

“He’s knocked out, now let’s go.” Taeyang said.

“TAEYANG!” G-Dragon’s eyes went wide, he formed a fire ball, but it was too late as the scientist quickly shoved the needle in his arm gaining blood. G-Dragon ran to Taeyang in panic, but the scientist held up a hand to make him stop. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

“I’ve gained his blood. It’s what I need for the new experiment. Now, if you would give me your arm.” The scientist getting a new shot out.

“Like hell I would!” He yelled as he ran out of the room down to the basement to alert his brothers. Leaving his brother back in that room was hard, but he had to warn TOP and Seungri. Just as he got to the basement hallway, he wished that Daesung was there considering how dark it was. If G-Dragon was to light up, he would burn down the place with all of the electric wiring hanging from the ceiling.

“SEUN-” But G-Dragon got cut off as the scientist grabbed him by the neck, trying not to choke him, and slammed him into the wall. He put his hands on the scientist’s arm as a black mark started to appear down the middle of his eye, making his hands warm up. But before he could fully burn him, the scientist rammed the needle in his arm receiving a scream from G-Dragon.

“NO! G-DRAGON!” G-Dragon heard Seungri yell from the doorway of the lab.

Letting go of his neck, G-Dragon slid to the floor as the scientist collected his blood.

“You…will…pay for this…” he whispered.

“I’m sorry…” the scientist told him.

“G-DRAGON!” Seungri yelled as wind started to blow in the hallway, but that was the last thing that G-Dragon saw before he passed out.

**

The figures in the fire stopped moving as the fire flowed back into G-Dragon’s hands. I looked down at them as they were in fists and I slowly moved my hand over to his shoulder, but it made him flinch.

“Don’t.” He warned.

I removed my hand quickly and looked back into the fire place. While he was telling his story, I saw the look in his eyes; full of hurt and sadness. But there was something else as he was controlling the fire; he seemed to have a bit of fun.

“So, what happened afterwards?” I asked hoping that he would continue the story.

“We woke up in his lab.” He answered. I was hoping that he would put the fire back, but he seemed to not want to. “I got angry, threw some fireballs, but to this day, I regret that I did because the bottled up chemicals fell to the floor. If I knew that the flask was going to explode, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“And what was the experiment?” I asked.

“It was mixed with our blood and everything that we took.” G-Dragon explained. “And once he added in Daesung’s dose, the explosion happened…”

He looked at me, the black tattoo gone, but his red eyes were intense and he looked like he was about to cry.

“You know, sometimes I think my brother’s are right…” he said sounding like he was trying not to stumble his words. “Remember when they told me to start out with the fire? I think that it was my fault that the fire spread.”

“I really don’t think that your brother’s blame you for the fire. I think that since you control fire, you would understand it more.” I explained. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, you got one thing right.” G-Dragon’s lips went up into a side smile and looked back at the empty fire place. It started to get really cold in the room, and he noticed this. He raised his hand again shooting flames inside the fireplace. “But you can’t change the past.”

“No, but you can affect the future.” I stated.

He looked at me and seemed to smile followed by a little laugh. That was the first time I ever saw him show a nice side, and it was confusing, yet somehow very comforting.

“I’ll have to be careful with my temper, then.” G-Dragon smiled.

I nodded knowing that he’s right. Then a laugh escaped my mouth, and to be honest, I have no idea why I was laughing. Was it from his statement? G-Dragon looked at me, his smile going away, confusion taking over his face, but once he caught on, he started to laugh as well.

“You have a cute laugh,” G-Dragon complimented.

My laughing stopped as I looked down in my lap, blush coming across my cheeks.

“Thanks.” I smiled. “And G-Dragon? I’m sorry, about everything.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and this time he didn’t flinch, but he did start to warm up again, but he wasn’t blaring hot like last time. It seemed like he was grateful towards the gesture.

“Alice…you are the only one who seemed to say that and actually mean it.” He said.

“And I do.” I said then quickly looking at my cell phone. “My times up, G-Dragon. Until next time.”

“Not tomorrow?” He asked with a little sadness in his voice.

“Sadly no, I’m sorry.” I frowned. “I know that I promised TOP, but once we were back in Ken’s office, I looked at the schedule and saw that we’re off tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he hung his head as I got up from the couch and went towards the door, which opened up, the guard waiting at the doorway. “Until next time… And Alice? Thank you.”

Before I could say anything, or even see his expression, the guard closed the door, the heat from the inside leaving me out in the cold. And I was getting used to the heat, too. I looked at the guard, who had a helmet covering his face, nodded at me and walked away. There was something off about that guard… But I saw Lucy in the hallway standing completely still.

“Lucy? Are you ok?” I asked going over to her.

She turned around and saw that she was crying and she looked scared.

“A-Alice?” She whispered. Soon she grabbed onto me like she was scared to death and started to cry into my shoulder.

“LUCY! What’s wrong?” I asked again, but she wouldn’t answer my questions. Until the girls came out, I was taking care of Lucy.