Chapter Text
Jeongin possessed a gift. Or, at least he liked to view it as such, others might label it as a disease. Schizophrenia, some might say. Jeongin, knew it wasn't that. He was sure of it. He wasn’t insane.
His gift was that he saw something in people no one else saw; he saw their wings.
Most people had white wings, they were always slightly tinted grey though. The only people he's ever seen with pure white wings were toddlers. He'd like to think white represented purity in this sense, not many people had purely white wings because not many people were pure themselves, the world always found a way to taint untouched souls.
Despite his mindset when it came to purity, Jeongin himself was a fairly postive person. He's found smiling more often than not, some even say that his normal resting face was weird since they always saw him smiling. Yet, he wasn't a stranger to sadness either. Jeongin wore his heart on his sleeve, when he wanted to cry he cried and when he wanted to laugh and jump around in joy that's exactly what he did. After all, due to his gift, he's been able to see the result most people experienced when they surpressed their emotions...let's just say it was never pretty.
That's another thing about wings - not only did they come in all sizes, lengths, and shades, but they also told so much about the person they belonged to. They spread out, stretched to their full capacity when their host felt confident. They curled around a person's body protectivily when the person felt vulnrable. The feathers flared up when the person felt threatened. Wings expressed so much, they never lied.
That was another thing Jeongin adored about wings, they were something he could always rely on to tell nothing but the truth. In this world, nothing was certain, so it was nice to have something to put his faith and trust in without fear. Though, the truth came at a price.
Jeongin was - what most would refer to as - a loner. Not many people were close to him. He'd like to say that was how he liked it - but alas, Jeongin was a clingy person at nature. However, over the years, he's learned to suppress his old habits and build new ones - that worked too well - but, that was a story for another time. Point was, he had learned to transform himself from a whiny child, who demanded hugs and kisses on a daily basis, into a - well, he’s still a child in most people’s eyes - but he is much more reluctant in engaging in any form physical contact now. Why? You may ask, all because of his gift…
As he slowly started to notice the repeating patterns and began to pick on personality traits based on the movements, color, and shape of people’s wings - Jeongin started to take note of such behaviors when it came to the people closest to him.
As a kid Jeongin would always tell his mother and father about the wings he saw, and would only ever whine to them about how he couldn’t see his own wings. At first, they seemingly passed it off as the rampant imagination of a child, nothing out of the ordinary they thought. They’d even play along with him and “humor” him occasionally.
However, when he turned thirteen and kept insisting that he saw wings, well, they weren’t as amused. Eventually, Jeongin came to accept the fact that they won’t believe him, he’s long since let go of that hope. He had even promised himself that the wouldn’t let something like that come in the way of his relationship with his parents, and he didn’t. That wasn’t what drove them apart.
Instead, Jeongin began to notice certain things his parents - or rather their wings - did. His mother’s wings would always tremble when they were all gathered in the same room, and when they weren’t doing that, they would lay completely flat. The colors of her gray-ish feathered had turned even darker.
She felt guilty about something bad she had done.
That was Jeongin’s best guess at the time. It couldn’t have been fear after all; his mother was one of the feistiest people he had ever met. She was stubborn, hot-headed and refused to submit to anyone. Plus, his father was a kind and gentle man, he could never be the cause of someone’s fear, yet, his mother’s wings only ever shook around him. She must have betrayed him somehow.
The answer was pretty clear, yet it wasn’t one Jeongin enjoyed thinking about.
His father’s wings were also acting strange. They’d flare out angrily whenever he saw their neighbor - the most likely culprit for helping his mother in her act of betrayal - Jeongin concluded - it had become painfully obvious when his mother went out to “burrow sugar” from their neighbour three times a week without fail. His father’s wings would also lay completely flat on his back whenever Jeongin’s mother answered “nothing special.” to the daily “so anything you wanna tell me?” question he had developed a habit of asking her the past few weeks.
Jeongin’s father knew. Yet, he wasn’t doing anything about it. His father’s wings, which once spread out confidently in every situation, framing his built figure as he walked, now drooped lowly, dragging against the floors as he trudged.
All the while, everyone - including themselves - were fooled into thinking they were a perfect family.
Jeongin quickly learned that the truth wasn’t always the best answer.
Soon enough, it became to suffocating to live in that environment. Jeongin ended up moving into his own, small apartment at the age of 16 - this year. He was still his mommy and daddy’s boy though, he’d call them almost every day, and video chats were just as frequent. They’d even go hangout every single week at least once. He didn’t like visiting the house though, in the house his parents’ wings would be especially expressive. Places like the mall tended to distract them for short periods of time, and Jeongin enjoyed that time, no matter how brief.
The same soon applied to the people he hang out with as well. It hurt him to see people smiling up at him while their feathers stood up in anger and disgust. Some approached him with pure intentions, the worlds wasn’t all corrupt after all, but Jeongin didn’t really think it was fair to either of them if he could tell anything about the person, even without them wanting him to. It didn’t feel right, keeping something this big from someone close to him - and god knows he can’t reveal his gift, that’d probably be the first thing that makes them run away...and lands him in a mental hospital.
There had been a few people who were in a similar social status (read: loners) that had tried to reach out to him, yet their intentions weren’t as virtuous as they may have seemed on the outside. Some of their wings shook and shivered in guilt, others flapped erratically in panic and feelings of being over overwhelmed and a few even stretched out to tower above him in a show of dominance. He also couldn’t help but notice those people’s wings were usually tinted a little darker than normal, that in itself was unsettling.
It was safe to say, he preferred staying alone.
His gift made him a bit strange, naturally. Yet, he appreciated its beauty nonetheless. He also learned to ignore it when needed. As far as he knew, wings didn’t interact with anything physical, yet, in the beginning, he still found himself flinching whenever he passed through a set of wings on a crowded street, but he had no other choice, sidestepping literal air looked weird.
Now, however, he does it with indifference.
.
.
.
A few people and their strange wings might be able to strip him of his indifference, though.