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Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly
Away, and the other
“Come on, Namjoon!” Hoseok calls, his smile wide and unbelievably compelling. He’s swinging higher, higher, higher, and then he jumps. Namjoon, still swinging, looks at him nervously, then at the ground. He shakes his head nervously, letting the swing slow down before hopping a short distance and landing on his feet.
Hoseok is grinning like a madman, and Namjoon feels his own mouth curve upward in response. “Again, let’s do it again,” Hoseok says, and Namjoon, resigned, gets back onto the swing set.
Watches him close from that wire
Says he wants to as well but
He’s just a liar
Hoseok is the brave one in their friendship. He’s the one that can ride his small bike, pedaling faster as they ride downhill, hands nowhere near the handlebars. It’s going to destroy him one of these days, Namjoon thinks, but he tries it.
Hoseok always says that he can’t get over the feeling of the wind rushing by his ears and the sun in his eyes and the speed, the speed the speed. Namjoon can’t get over it either, but he can’t get over his breath coming faster than it should and the faster and faster beating of his heart and the sick fear in the pit of his stomach. He’s a coward.
He’ll always follow Hoseok downhill, slightly behind, so that the fear on his face is never seen.
I’ll believe it all
There’s nothing I won’t understand
I’ll believe it all
I won’t let go of your hand
When it’s hard for Namjoon, he’s very, very good at hiding it. Not even Hoseok’s persuasive smile will get him to spill his secrets, and he never has a slip of the tongue. Secrets, in a way, are his strong point. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing.
When Hoseok has trouble, he’s open about it. Wide, wide open. And Namjoon loves his friend so, so much, so even when he doesn’t want contact, he’ll hug Hoseok. He’ll tell him kind things that his cynical mind doesn't truly believe, because that’s what friends do. They make their friends feel okay.
Two birds on a wire
One says ‘come on’ and the
Other says ‘I’m tired’
Sometimes, when they’re both scared, Namjoon has to be the brave one. He has to convince Hoseok, like at the water park, that a ride is okay, even when that sick fear feeling is telling him not to do it. Hoseok will always follow, even when Namjoon doesn’t want to be leading.
After the water park that day, Namjoon is so tired that he’s almost glad they can’t hang out longer for that particular day. He’d never say it, though. Hoseok is a good friend.
The sky’s overcast and I’m sorry.
One more or one less
Nobody’s worried
One day, Hoseok is eating the cookie they bought with money they shouldn’t have had from a store they weren’t allowed to go to. Namjoon is a lot more comfortable with breaking the rules since meeting Hoseok, and it’s not a bad thing. There’s so much in life outside of the guidelines that he’s missed entirely.
Hoseok is using his phone to take a picture of the sunset, but Namjoon it looking at the thousands of birds sitting on a telephone wire, sitting among the trees. The ones that dare to try and fly away are caught in the windy day, and the ones that stay are slowly dying.
He doesn’t know which ones will die first.
He doesn’t know if any of them will survive.
He doesn’t know if anyone will care about one more bird, alive or dead.
I’ll believe it all
There’s nothing I won’t understand
I’ll believe it all
I won’t let go of your hand
Sometimes, half to please Hoseok and half to please himself, Namjoon takes the daredevil role. He goes to the park and jumps off the highest points he can climb to, or leaps across rocks and moving water. Mostly he climbs to be higher and higher and then lets himself fall, imagining a bridge or a skyscraper or somewhere he can just fall.
Hoseok doesn’t know that, thinks Namjoon just does it for fun. Even when Namjoon falls, the first and last time, he just gets back up, bleeding and bruised and smiling and Hoseok is confused but lets him go again. Namjoon is never sure which of them admires the other’s pluck more.
Two birds of a feather
Say that they’re always
Gonna stay together
They’re in different schools now, but they’ll go to the same high school when they grow older. Zones for school districts have made sure of that. Hoseok is the only person who can call Namjoon by a nickname, mostly because there’s another kid at his school that uses that same name, but Hoseok doesn’t know that.
Hoseok wants to go to the same college. He wants to go to the college that Namjoon’s parents graduated from, and he wants Namjoon to be his roommate. Namjoon agrees easily, because Hoseok can cook, even as he knows that it won’t be possible. The college doesn’t offer the program he wants to be in.
But one’s never going to let go of that wire
He says that he will but
He’s just a liar
Being Hoseok’s friend is just so addictive. Hoseok is the most free person Namjoon’s ever met- He goes out when he wants to, takes money at will , cooks and eats and has a phone and full reign over Netflix, and a million other things that Namjoon only wishes he could have.
Hoseok always tells him, Namjoon thinks wryly, to take some money, to ask to go to the park and then go further than that and buy something and to just “Break the rules for once, Namjoon!” He does, of course, but mostly he stays within boundaries, sensible boundaries. He doesn’t want to do what Hoseok does.
But being free comes with a price.
Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away and the other
Watches him close from that wire
Says he wants to as well but
He
Is a
Liar
They met each other by absolute coincidence, both at an ice skating rink when they ended up talking somehow. Hoseok had skated the wrong way around and Namjoon had just been going fast, fast, fast, fear, and he’d stopped before they collided and it ended up like that.
Their mothers had the same birthday somehow, they were born in the same hospital, and they both love to joke about how them meeting was fated by the universe somehow. Especially after they realize they’re the same age, Namjoon a little younger and a little taller.
Their parting will be fated by the universe, too. Namjoon just wonders which of them will fall first.
Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away
And the other....