Phoenix

Minji continued poking at him until they’re outside, and the door is shut between them and the room where the villains are returning. She exhales and tries desperately not to lean into him, her body humming with excitement and a deep seeded terror. There had been so many of them there. What had that many villains been hiding? She was tempted to look in the documents she’d picked up, but decided against it. It would only encourage her to further her hero career.

When they got far enough away, she felt him let go of her, and she peered up at him, sighing as well as she rubbed her face. “That was almost terrible.” She grumbled softly and half leaning against him. She realize quickly what she’d done, instinctively leaning into the warmth. She shivered as she pulled away and rubbed her face again, hands running through her hair. “I… I can’t…” She shook her head, unable to finish her words, and she looked up into his face. Tea sounded wonderful, and so did finishing this mission. She had made the decision. If this was what a hero was required to do, she wasn’t about to jump into it headfirst.

“Tea… yes. That sounds great.” She stretched, and closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the sounds inside the building. it seemed that they’d settled down enough to go back to whatever they’d been doing before, and she sighed, nodding to Jitae. “We’re good to go.” She turned her back on the building and followed him as they headed back to the Academy. Her mission was a success, but it was tiring, and she wanted nothing more than to be done with it.

Jitae laughed at her words. “Almost being the important word there...lets be glad it didn’t escalate,” he said, letting out a sigh. When she began to speak again, Jitae raised a brow, curious as to what she was trying to say and a frown on his lips. His mind raced through possible things she had wanted to say but it was hard to know what she was thinking right now. 

The look on her face made Jitae want to ask her what was up but then she spoke again, changing the subject and Jitae simply shrugged it off, thinking that was that and there wasn’t anything more to it.

Jitae nodded and gestured for Minji to go first, deciding to take up the rear just in case the villains somehow figured out they had been there and came after them. The return back felt much more quick and was silent, which was good and Jitae waited for Minji to drop off the documents before she emerged  again.

jihyuk sighed, shaking his head. “me not doing any laundry also means that i haven’t physically been in the laundry room foe days. at least unless i happen to sleepwalk and steal clothes when i’m asleep, which would be pretty surprising to find out.” though he doubted that to be the case, he was pretty sure he would have noticed by now, or more likely, someone else would have noticed him walking around the place asleep. 

“probably not,” he did have to agree though, looking down at the stain in question for a moment, “but writing your initials on all the labels is rather stupid as it clearly doesn’t work.” not if all his clothes had been stolen and he appeared to be wearing one of his shirts. but, as per usual, he hardly cared very much about that. so he was wearing his shirt, it was not the end of the world and he would probably get it back… eventually… if he remembered that this conversation had happened at the end of the day. 

“besides,” he continued, shifting to lean his shoulder up against the door frame and fold his arms over his chest, “this shirt has not been just washed, i can tell you that. it hardly smells just washed and it got it from my draw, meaning it’s probably been in there for days. i probably accidentally picked it up at another time, but i certainly didn’t go into the laundry room earlier to steal all your clothes. hardly sounds like something i would do.” 

“Well then I guess you do that, because that shirt was in my laundry and in the dryer when I left and it’s on you now,” he said, although that was still odd if he slept walked in the middle of the day but he supposed even mentors needed a break and a nap sometimes.

“Well if you were sleep walking there’s not much I can do then, can I? But this is how I get my clothes back...the rest are probably in your room too,” he said, gesturing behind him. “Seriously, I don’t know why you’re being so weird about this. I’m not accusing you of stealing but the more weird you act about it, the more I’m inclined to believe that you’re being a little shit who stole my clothes.”

His temper was starting to flare up a little and he knew he had to calm himself down before he ended up burning the shirt off of him. It was a weakness for Jitae, trying to control his temper so that his fire didn’t get out of control. It was ridiculous that it was happening because he wouldn’t simply make this whole thing easier and just be an ass about it.

     in that moment, hanako is thankful. appreciative of jitae’s kindness and the fact that he hadn’t been upset with her for her own tardiness. simply, she offers the other a sheepish laugh as he tells her not to worry about it. yet, still, she can’t help the slight tinge of guilt she feels for making him wait so long. and, in the back of her mind, she makes sure to note to herself, never to be late again. though, it’s his question that has hanako snapping back to reality. eyes slightly widened as she tries to remember what exactly she had planned on asking him to help her with. 

     ❝ hmmm.❞ the girl ponders for a moment as she looks up at nothing. thinking to herself only before a light blub seems to go off within her own mind, a smile blossoming across her visage.  ❝ oh ! i was thinking maybe we could work on defense ? like what i should do if my quirk failed ! .maybe we could even try and spar ?!❞ she beams perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm. excited to get things started with the other—moving one tiny step closer to being a better hero with his help. unlike her, jitae was somebody who seemed to contain more experience. seemed to be one the best candidates for an amazing hero within the academy.

     ❝ i have to try and stop being so dependent on my quirk.❞ her shoulders slump slightly as she confesses. a small pout forming on her lips as she recalls something from a few days prior. perhaps a realization she had come across within her squad’s training. looking to the other, she tries to brighten up a bit.  ❝ i  guess i can’t always rely on paralyzing bad guys .❞ hanako laughs as she playfully produces a (more harmless) bud in her hand. holding it up for the other to see. 

      but, shaking her head in dismay she sighs softly. 

Jitae was silent and patient as she considered what it was that she wanted to work on. He knew it was tricky, there was so much that all of them could do in order to improve and get better. 

Anyone who didn’t believe that they needed to improve was a little blinded Jitae thought, but it wasn’t his job to try and help them and convince them otherwise. Only, of course, if they were someone he cared for, like Hanako.

“Ah, defense,” he nodded. “Yes, physical combat is always good to know because we can’t always rely on our quirks.” In Jitae’s case, his fire was useless if he was in a place where a spark could easily be ignited and in cases like that, he would have to make sure he was in good shape to take things on physically. 

He chuckled as her shoulders slumped and he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “It’s okay, trust me, we’re all like that,” he reassured her. “We all think our quirk will get the job done but you just gotta think about it like....well, exercise. If you’re a soccer player you don’t just work on your leg muscles, you know? You gotta work on your cardio as well and your back and your shoulder and neck and everything else too...does that make sense?”

&&. **HER CHEEKS BEGAN **to show a bright pink tint the moment that she felt his hand upon her head. she felt her heart pump quickly as she followed him, her cheeks eventually hurting from smiling too much. instinctively, she began to hide her face by looking down, still smiling from cheek to cheek, as she tried to regain posture before coughing and facing him again. 

❛ _welllll _… , ❜ she thought, yet her mind seemed to have blanked out due to her uncontrollable happiness before. ❛ i think…. i’m… oh, well, i actually don’t think i have anything to do until the training scheduled later - ! i guess i was just going to go back to my dorm and maybe.. watch tv? ❜ i guess i don’t really have anything to do! she chuckled at her unfortunate state, making a joke out of how free she is. ❛ that’s enough about me! what about you, jitae sunbae? ❜

Her shy manner was slightly endearing as she seemed flustered as she tried to gather her thoughts to form some type of sentence. A quiet chuckle escaped from his lips but he did his best not to let it show in case the girl got offended or even more embarrassed and simply tried to keep a smile on his face.

“Well that sounds like fun,” he smiled. “What are you going to watch?” he asked, wondering if it was something he hadn’t seen before and something he should make note of. “Ah, me? What about me, Eunseol? What am I up to?” he asked, teasing her slightly. “I was more or less the same as you. I had nothing until training later.”

&. — @hrjitae  . ˟

 orange. 

        she’s  running late. hair falls loosely out of a messily put together bun, and at first glance, it is obvious to tell that the girl has only woken up minutes ago. her eyes still holding a sleepy daze, while her outfit sports an odd pairing of colors. clearly having put on the first pair of workout clothes her eyes had come across. not hearing the alarm she had set, she races throughout various halls while making her way to the place she had promised to meet jitae. in her heart, she knew she should have told minwoo no when he opted for a ghibli movie marathon. but, it was too late for that now. if she had only been strong enough to say no, maybe she wouldn’t be running only on a few hours of sleep.

       however, such regret was quickly forgotten once she spots the person she’d come to see. welcomed by the familiarity of his aura, her eye’s light up as she raises her hand in a wave.  ❝ hey ! ❞ the words slip past her in a natural greeting as she jogs over to meet the other while trying to catch her breath all at the same time. a sheepish smile tups upon the edge of petaled hues and subconsciously a hand reaches to rub the back of her neck.  ❝ sorry for being late  ! ❞  

Jitae sighed and drummed his fingers on his knees, waiting for his training partner for the day to arrive. A quick look at the clock told him that she was running 15 minutes late now, and he hadn’t heard a word from her so far.

Perhaps she slept in? That was likely. Since the days for the students were rigorous and required a lot of work, most students did what they could for some more sleep. Then he wondered if maybe he had gotten the date and time wrong, but he was sure he was right. He made note of it on his phone and had been reminded of it multiple times.

Then, he wondered if something had happened to her. This made him panic a little, but he was sure if someone had happened on campus, he would have heard about it by now. The news and gossip would have reached him.

Before his mind could wander too far about other possibilities, she arrived, looking a little wild to which he assumed she had likely run there. “Hey,” he greeted her with a smile and stood up. “Ah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he said, glancing at the clock to see it was only twenty minutes, which wasn’t so bad.

@hrjitae​

The library is usually fairly quiet at this time of day. Well - being a library, it’s always quiet - but there are fewer people. And to someone like Charlie, the presence of people is its own kind of static, humming constantly in the back of his mind and grating on his anxiety. As a result, there are days when he needed solitude, stillness, silence. 

It feels like one of those days, Charlie thinks. And yet, when he sees a familiar face seated at one of the long tables, he finds he doesn’t mind so much.

He doesn’t know the guy’s name; they’ve talked about assignments a few times, cracked some jokes, but never made a formal introduction - and now Charlie feels like too much time has passed to ask. He calls him Rice Cakes, on account of the fact that he once brought spicy rice cakes to the library (he never claimed to be creative). Most of the times that Charlie goes to the library, Rice Cakes seems to be there, too. Charlie decides that he has come to like Rice Cakes.

He shrugs off his bag and sits at the other end of the long table. After a long day, he finds he’s looking forward to studying. Reading has always been a comfortable, familiar, safe pastime for him, and he never seems to dread school like some of his peers. A few minutes of reading pass, the silence broken by the swipe of his highlighter on paper. 

Then, he caps his yellow marker and replaces it with a blue one, using it to mark a term he is unfamiliar with. He flips to the back of the book, only to find that it’s not in the glossary. Maybe, he thinks, his quiet companion on the other side of the table will know.

“Hey, Rice Cakes-”

He stops immediately, staring down at his book with wide eyes.

Did he actually say that out loud?

Jitae liked to think that he did well in his studies. He could be anywhere really, and he would be able to focus and tune the rest of the world out for a little while. But of course, there were always times that proved that things like this weren’t necessarily easy to do and as a habit, he decided to keep his studying to the library. 

It was promised to be a quiet place, given that it was in the rules of being a library and the silence was comforting and despite the many busy bodies who were around, it was as though no one felt as though they needed to fill the silence. They just simply kept to themselves.

Today was like any other day and Jitae had finished his studying earlier on, but decided to re-read a comic he particularly enjoyed simply because he was free for the rest of the day and really, why shouldn’t he?

He looked up when he heard shuffling of feet and noticed a familiar face sitting in a familiar spot. Jitae had known him as his library company and he always seemed to be there. They never said much and the two always kept to themselves and Jitae found quiet solace in the other’s company, although he didn’t know his name.

Jitae knew he was a student there, but it was funny to think that he only ever really saw him in the library.

He assumed it would be a day like any other and his attention quickly returned to his comic book when he heard the other speak.

he continued just to stare at the younger with a rather blank look. it was just a shirt and honestly he didn’t care much, he was quite sure that people had stolen some of his things before and things had gotten mixed up before. lord know’s if he still had all of his socks and hadn’t managed to wind up with someone else’s. he did feel as though some of them were a little too small for his feet these days, so it could be a possibility. 

“i didn’t do any laundry,” he hadn’t done any in awhile and the pile of dirty clothes was starting to pile up. but he really couldn’t be bothered to wash them, it took too much effort and he was simply far too lazy to make the trip down to the laundry room, even if he would be much faster than everyone as. but that was just the story of his life, he was just a lazy motherfucker most of the time when it came to boring and menial tasks like cleaning and laundry. every other time he was a man of action, running around the place and working out. but household chores just really drained him and he only really did laundry when he had nothing else to wear.

though if jitae was sure that this was his shirt was his, then the question did come to mind as how he was now wearing it. “this was just with my stuff,” though admittedly his stuff was all over his room so whatever, it was not like he was the most organized human being. “how do you know this is your shirt? might not be, i don’t know what clothes i own.” 

Jitae stared at him, blinking and confused. “If you didn’t do any laundry...then why would you go to the laundry room and take other people’s clothing?” he asked, wondering if this was just some weird, twisted joke that the mentor thought would be funny. 

“That’s my shirt, that ink stain there is from a pen that exploded a year ago and it never went away. There’s no way you have a shirt with the exact same stain,” he said, pointing at the stain in question. Sure, other people had ink stains on their clothing too but how likely was it that it was in the exact spot on the exact same shirt?

out of his entire year at snha, jihun had never felt so heated until this moment.

– okay, that was a gross exaggeration - he’s not mad (maybe a little), but he’s sure as hell not conceding to this guy’s perception of the best x-man, because he’s 200% sure that he’s not wrong on this.

he had been talking to some other kids about superheroes before the topic shifted to x-men - and apparently someone didn’t agree with him jumping in immediately to blurt out one of the best ones.

( he’s totally arguing with an upperclassman about the best x-man. he’s fairly sure the older guy’s name is…jihyuk? tae? jitae? regardless, he won’t forget them after this. )

“excuse me? are you telling me storm is below mystique? she literally controls lightning bolts with her hands. sure, shape shifting is pretty awesome, but controlling the weather is, like, powerful enough to make you a god.”

he’s gesturing pretty dramatically while he says this, although he can’t stop himself from grinning.

jihun’s not going to lie, he really did think storm was one of the coolest heroes if not the best, although emma frost was also a pretty strong contender (for obvious reasons). 

Jitae knew this wasn’t going to be an easy battle, but of course, when it came to matters like this, he supposed it never really would be. “True, Storm is great...” he nodded, thinking about the other’s words. Of course, if he hadn’t chosen Mystique, he might have gone with Storm as well.

“But come on, it’s not like...it’s a controlled thing. Sure’ she’s strong but she tries to attack one person but everyone else around her gets affected by it too,” Jitae pointed out.

 “Mystique is more sly and lowkey and she’s very strong, considering her abilities are just physical so she can adapt to survive much more easily, which is admirable and cool.”

At this point, others were slowly trickling away, maybe because they didn’t want to be around for this or they had other things to do, but Jitae still sat there, firm on his stance about the best x-men. 

004 — JITAE

❝  your flames are gross. ❞ ❝  good thing i’m here, i can clean them for you. ❞