Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

⑥① Broken Wings

The locker shut. For the last time, he let the cold metal the sweeped chills into his body leave his touch and let the backpack carrying his notebooks sling over his shoulder. This really was it. That cage was emptied of everything, and now as Jeongin pushed away from the rows, it would wait dormant until it's next owner would need a home.

Guess I never did find out why my locker kept getting unlocked, he frowned at the lock spinning lazily around his knuckle. Each time, catching it, spinning it, fidgeting with the metal, trying to make it talk of what it witnessed in those hallways. He would almost be concerned if there was anything important in there but besides the textbooks he used to revere, there wasn't an object of value. Nothing worth taking. Maybe his phone one time. Aside from that, the locker burgler remained a mystery. Like desk graffiti and the gum slapped under library tables, the culprits of the unlocked locker would go unpersecuted.

He quickly slapped the mechanism in place to spin it easier on his finger, only for him to feel a vibrating click snap the lock out of place and for it to unbalance as he spun it. With a small flinch, Jeongin grabbed it before the lock could go flying away. I guess my parents gave me a busted lock.

"Troubles?"

"Yeah, just discovered the lock I was using for my locker was fucked since the beginning," Jeongin hurriedly replied as he swung the backpack around and slipped the metal object somewhere in his compartments. A moment later his brain caught up to his mouth. His feet halted in place. Quickly, he lowered his head in the direction of the approaching teacher, "I'm so sorry for swearing, I didn't realize it was you."

Mr. Park halted in front of him, "Don't concern yourself about it.  You look a lot happier than you used."

"Thank you," Jeongin kept his gaze down, a small smile on his face. Guess, of everything that happened, this teacher was an occasional help. At the very least, as far as Jeongin's memory was able to recover, he was the first to notice the encroaching paradigm in his mind. Besides the crew, or certain members in the crew, Mr. Park was one of the few senses of normality in that past life. It was almost sad to say goodbye.

"I would hardly think I'm the one that needs a 'thank you'. I believe there's someone more important to you that deserves to hear that," Mr. Park nodded. His hands came to tie themselves behind his back before he nodded at who was previously his student and passed him in the hallway.

Jeongin watched the teacher's back as it grew smaller, smaller, till it slipping into the doors of the office and disappeared from his line of sight. Might be disappeared forever, or for the time being, life tended to be that way; This unpredictable mess of comings and goings. Collision theory. A subject they briefly covered in chemistry. As his feet carried him to the front doors of the highschool, Jeongin hummed an airy note to himself.

How strange it is, that people act so much like what they are made of.

⊕⊕⊕

His strides bounded longer as he approached the shop, the trip from his school to the crew having been forgotten from his muscles and shooting aches through his calves for the sudden abuse of their abilities. Through the wide open bay doors, open to where there was nothing they could have hid within the concrete walls of their safe haven, Jeongin spot the glistening of that silver car waiting inside. It's owner gone somewhere far away. At least for the time being, it could have been the angle too, but that mop of blond hair wasn't visible within the main workspace.

"What if I just break out in sea shanty?" He could hear Jisung asking from his spot inside, no doubt at the table with the shop's laptop. Seemed Changbin made him slave over that thing the last few days. Like his wrists were reluctantly bound to it, despite the fact he seemed to enjoy it more than the people it was for. As he approached closer, Jisung began to sing, "There once was a ship that put to sea—"