chap 1 - Pigeon Boy

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The piece of scrap paper was shoved underneath the gap in the front door at exactly 1am.

Yoongi hadn't been paying much attention because he had been drifting in and out of consciousness, not really looking at the TV across the room but doing so only to keep himself awake. The lights from it blared enough so that with every change of scene the walls of the room seemed to flash with colour for a few seconds, burning the image onto his retinas so that when he blinked he would see the outlines of people or objects. He wasn't sure what it was about the TV that managed to keep his attention, for there wasn't a single interesting thing on it. Perhaps it was just the static drone from the speakers, the sound much like that of a swarm of annoying flies, or just the bright colours and lights that made his eyes latch onto it, but after nearly an hour of borderline vegetative staring he had finally gotten to his feet to leave the room. He hadn't bothered turning the TV off, rather letting the white noise fill the house, and he had been in the act of going down the narrow hall when he had heard the scrabbling noise, and when he had looked over his shoulder he had seen it.

The tattered and wrinkled sheet of paper, slipping between the wooden bottom of the door and the bare concrete flooring.

Yoongi cocked his head and watched it slowly emerge through the gap, heard the slight rustle of it rubbing against the concrete until it was most certainly inside the hallway. For a second he was almost certain that he could see the slightest hints of fingertips holding onto the corner before whoever had shoved the sheet under let go and no doubt got upright to turn on their heel and step off the porch. He considered racing down the hall to open the door, to see who it was, and yet that seemed too much trouble. With the lights off, the only hints of illumination coming from the frosted glass window on the front door, he could barely see a thing and he didn't want to end up tripping over one of the countless things left in the hallway. Whether it be shoes, boxes, an umbrella, there was so many things that he could trip on. So instead he waited a few seconds and then he slowly made his way down the hall to get to the door. After some momentary blind fumbling he stopped and bent down to snag hold of the sheet, holding it up so that he could use the light from the window, squinting to see what it said.

Trainyard, 4am. Wakey wakey!

The paper might have been white once upon a time, came from a notebook or perhaps a school exercise book, but in his fingertips it looked more grey with dirt. It was so badly wrinkled that if he put it down the sheet wouldn't lie flat against a surface, rather parts of it would bump up from where the deep set creases refused to flatten out. The message wasn't scrawled in pen but a thick smear of black that he knew would rub off against his fingertips if he touched it. Eyeliner. At least he had an idea who had left the message then, who would now be on their way across the rest of the city hastily shoving other sheets under doors, through letterboxes, climbing up trees to shove paper into the gaps in windowpanes.

4am? Well, that gave him enough time to get dressed and set out on foot. He might just get there by that time if he got his ass in gear.

Yoongi sighed and then scrunched the sheet up, tossing the ball over his shoulder so that it likely landed in the corner of the hallway, with the rest of the garbage that was cluttering the narrow area up. Then he made his way down the hall to get back into the sitting area. In front of the settee he had been lying on there was a small coffee table. The top was covered in random shit, newspapers, food wrappers and containers, a beer can or two, and just in front of it he spied his boots, so he bent down to grab hold of them and then perched on the edge of the settee. As he leaned forward to knot the laces he eyed the frayed twine wrapped around of one the legs to keep the table together, the thin material wrapped tightly and then snaking around and under the table top to snag onto the opposite leg and stop it from wobbling too much. Considering how bad it was he knew that a good hard kick would make the rickety leg snap clean off, so that the coffee table careened to the side and all of the shit on top would just crash to the floor with a thud like a bomb going off. He moved his eyes away from the table to study his boots, chin propped on his knee so that he felt the rough denim of his worn jeans rubbing against his skin. He knotted the first one securely and then moved onto the second. When he was done he shifted to look across the room before sighting his jacket tossed rather messily on top of broken lamp shade, so he got to his feet and shrugged it on, feeling the smooth polyester material rubbing against his bare lower arms as he did.

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