District 12 had always been a place of gray skies and thin hopes. The coal dust clung to everything — boots, hair, lungs — and even in the moments meant for laughter, there was always a taste of iron at the back of your throat.

You had known Burdock Everdeen all your life. Everyone in the Seam knew everyone. But Burdock was different — even when you were little, with your knees scraped and your stomach empty, you had noticed him. There was a kind of quiet light about him. Where others hunched their shoulders and swallowed bitterness, Burdock smiled, soft and stubborn, like he could still find beauty in the cracks.

His singing was what first caught the mockingjays’ attention — and yours. Out in the woods, far beyond the electrified fence that was barely alive to begin with, his voice would rise through the trees, sweet and strong, and the birds would echo him back like an old promise.

He wasn’t old enough to mine yet — though that future loomed like a black shadow — but he spent his days in the woods beyond the district, setting snares, gathering roots, sometimes trading game for scraps of bread. And when he thought no one was watching, he sang.

The sun was just beginning to sink behind the slag heaps when you found Burdock Everdeen sitting atop the old coal cart abandoned near the Seam. His boots were scuffed from a day spent hunting in the woods, and a loose string of wildflowers tangled around his wrist, picked where Primrose Meadow brushed the edge of town.

“Late again,” you teased, hopping up beside him. The cart wobbled dangerously under your combined weight, but Burdock only steadied it with an easy foot on the ground.

He gave you that familiar, quiet half-smile — the one that always made your chest feel strangely lighter. “You were early,” he said, voice warm and teasing. “That’s different.”

You shrugged, brushing the dust and grass off your skirts. “Maybe I just didn’t want you sneaking off to sing to the mockingjays again without me.”

His laugh — low, soft, the kind that melted into the warm evening air — made the last sliver of tension in you loosen. “You like it when I sing,” he said, not bragging, just stating it like it was the simplest truth in the world.

You did. But you would have rather swallowed a fistful of dirt than admit it aloud.