Town boys don't hang around the Seam. They don't fit in, and they generally don't want to, among the scrawny, hollow-looking faces and the reminders of that one step further into poverty that they'd been spared being being born into a certain family. Peeta, like them all, had been warned off that side of the District from a young age, and even now couldn't ignore a certain impression of the Seam as dangerous, illicit in some way. But this had also been the home of a certain girl who had captivated him from afar, before they'd been cast into the arena together and his fate as a captive of their lopsided love story was sealed for good. Funny that when he's looking for a distraction from the stilted silences, the cold remove of his life in the Victor's Village, he still finds himself in the wake of Katniss Everdeen. But he's looking for entertainment, and folks say the Seam's the best place for it, so here he is, applauding a rotation of performers, watching the dancing he can't join with his bad leg, and pretending he doesn't know he's being overcharged for food.
Most of the music is the kind of thing Peeta recognizes with half his attention as folk tunes and their variants, but one of the acts comes out with something he's never heard before, and it's enough to make him really listen, and really enjoy himself a little. When the singer leaves the stage and mingles back in with the crowd, finding a seat near him, Peeta can't help but strike up a conversation. "I've never heard that one before. You write it yourself?"
