whiplash.

[ ... ]

she lets him have silence for a few more minutes before breaking that across her knee.

“wanna order pizza?”

it’s a miracle they’ve gone this long with not a crack seen in what they have. he has half a mind to tell her that they’d let each other go thank you very much, but he decides that would be more childish and do little except give her something to laugh about. “would you want to hang around somebody who couldn’t graduate because of a little fun?” he asks. “i don’t see why you can’t give me hickies whilst i study but whatever. virtues and all that.”

he huffs at her, lips pursed at a girl who has luxury dripping off of her and probably more future plans at aged eighteen than he has now. in fact, marceline’s someone that jiheon probably shouldn’t even dare to look at but here he is with her prettily seated in his lap. “sounds like an easy decision for someone like you. for someone like me, however,” he tilts his head, “if i do that, i might as well sign my death warrant.”

“and that would be a tragedy?” he phrases it like a question when they both know it’s a clear statement, clipped at the sides with mirth. he doesn’t even find it within him to do anything when she has the audacity to pull his sweatshirt over, a chaste kiss to his jaw and that’s it. he feels the cool air against bare skin and sighs, a picture perfect example of someone used to her ways. “of course you’ll always be here. there’s not a single other person i could trust to flip a page for me and leave me half naked.” 

[ ... ]

the touch is unexpectedly soft - more explicitly soft than he’s ever seen from jiheon (aside from furtive glances and strange pauses), and he leans into the touch, humming idly. his is a tender greed, taking whenever something kind is offered to him. “you’re charming when you’re not being petulant,” moonsik smiles. “perhaps it’s the rarity of it that is really the most endearing thing.

“yes, congratulations, self importance is the way to go. i’m glad you’ve found the answer to life.” there’s little jiheon can reply to someone who knows who they are what what exactly they want if not words tinged with petulance. “i value myself.. as much as i am worth. nothing more, nothing less. stops me from being icarus and flying too close to the sun or the sea.”

his cheeks flush a red at that, the very colour of shame as he manages to hiss out a viciously audible “shut up” before glancing over. it wasn’t a surprise for the jaeger to be so blatant, but that doesn’t stop jiheon from being taken aback.

[ ... ]

“man, has alpha gotten bad at pong or what?” he stated with a chuckle, taking a swig of his drink before glancing at the other. “so, what’ya been doin’ while i’ve practically spent the last hour and a half destroying some alphas at beer pong?”

alphas are so atrocious that it only makes sense for their parties to be equally distasteful and frankly, nothing but a headache. he supposes the only good thing about the entire night was byul and jongin promising he’d have fun, taeyong being flat out amusing (jiheon counts the minutes down until the hellion captain gets amazingly wasted) and mideum being fascinatingly bright for hours. an odd combination, but a combination nonetheless.

which is probably why, due to his reluctance to communicate and the irritated stare he throws anyone besides hellions that try to approach him, he finds himself separated from his friends and mourns by drinking (i.e. the only acceptable way). so when he spots the other, it’s with relief that he lets taeyong latch onto him and jiheon reaches up to ruffle taeyong’s hair out of pure patronisation over anything else. 

[ ... ]

he gets dressed quickly. a plain colored shirt and dark jeans, as always. “maybe you should’ve chosen a different career path. doctors aren’t the only ones who make a lot of money.” by this time, jongin is ready, sitting on his bed. wallet, phone, and books are already stuffed into his backpack. five minutes is all he needs in the morning.

then againㅡ it’d be impossible to say the six (sorry, five now) of them haven’t changed since high school. jiheon thinks about how, sometimes, the only thing that keeps them connected is the sheer determination to stay together after surviving the few years of mess titled high school. about how they’d probably butt heads a lot more, being in other legacies if it weren’t for inhun. yet there’s no denying that the closeness of his friends vary even now.

he spits out the toothpaste, rinses out his mouth and splashes water on his face as a pathetic replacement for actually using face wash. jiheon steps out the bathroom, drying up with the towel before ruffling through his closet and glancing back at the elder. “you should be glad she treats you differently.” he scoffs, pulling on the first pair of ripped jeans he finds and a hoodie. “because the fact that taeyong has a fuckin’ big ass head, and mideum noona is so damn pretty i would marry her if she didn’t deserve better is something i’m never getting used too.”

[ ... ]

he twines his fingers with jiheon’s with a little laugh, the hellion’s skin warmer than he thought it’d be for a boy who usually operated in sarcasm and petulance (occasionally). “i only speak of it facetiously - i’m well aware of what i just did is far from virtuous.” had he not been drinking and were he easier to anger, perhaps his temper might have flared at the boys’ words - but as it is, moonsik can’t fault jiheon for his ignorance, for what he’s never seen. there’s no use defending himself from a boy who simply didn’t know any better - and he smiles, the curve of it as enigmatic as it is placid. “i would, but i’m sure you’d be just as petulant. you’re lucky your cantankerousness somehow lends itself to your charm. like garfield.”

“nothing bad about being self centered, i guess.” despite a gradual fondness for the jaeger vice captain, jiheon knows better than to exchange conversations without some sort of biting remark in his words. “just shows that you think you’re more important than you actually might be.” he finishes off, though he’s not so stupid to be unaware of the fact that they both grasp vital positions in their hands. it’s fun though, to nitpick at moonsik.

it’s a bit of an awkward timing but he laughs anyways, glancing down to throw the other a wayward look. “far from virtuous.. that is true. thinking about it, it’s not like your legacy would believe me if i said anything either.” jiheon adds the last sentence almost as an afterthought, eyebrows drawn in together, bottom lip tucked between teeth casually.

[ ... ]

he wears a smile of similar nature, however more sated, as he tilts his head from where it rests on jiheon’s chest, almond eyes peering up to meet his gaze. “that’s silly. do you take me for the legacy maiden whose chastity must be protected?” his smile widens then. “i’ll protect you.”

because the differences are still clear, too obvious and marked out in the way that there are even badges that sit (like the one on his own shorts right now) on their clothes. when those very same fabrics are discarded, when there’s nothing but the heated feeling on a mouth on a body that jiheon thinks it’s reasonable for jaegers to try kill him if one just so happened to walk in (he can already hear the ‘that’s our vice captain, you sick fuck!’). he still continues though, because nothing’s interesting without someone overstepping boundaries.

the excitement of it all dies down the exact second moonsik opens his mouth to talk instead of other things and jiheon’s taken aback at the unexpected words. he’s intoxicated, yes, but he’s not so much of a drunkard heathen that he can’t pinpoint what the other might be talking about. he just laughs, allows himself to look like he’s almost welcoming the remark. “mm. do you now?” he answers, an eyebrow quirked. “that’s oddly self centered of you.”

[ ... ]

she turns the page with aplomb, raising slowly and then flipping all at once. it can’t be called anticlimactic for how little expectation there was to begin with. “wow,” marceline leans her head back to look at jiheon, mouth stretched into a smile. “i’m really good, hey?”

“if we were still fooling around, i wouldn’t be studying right now.” he’s quick to throw an answer back, furtively enjoying the way both of them can dip their fingers into the waters of a testing friendship without making anything horrendously awkward. then again they’ve always clicked even if they’re so, so different. nothing like two peas in a pod, yet fitting together, much akin to a perfect puzzle. he hums appreciatively. “mm. you’ll have to stop doing that soon.” 

jiheon laughs though, fixes their positions again so that she settles much more comfortably into his lap. he runs a hand through her hair, twirling a strand between his index finger and thumb. “i can’t help it. biology makes me cranky.”

[ ... ]

the worn, leather first-aid kit he kept beneath his bed was restocked every sunday like clockwork, and luckily for jiheon, it was monday. 

“aren’t you supposed to be the vice captain?” jimin’s tone was light as he made his way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind himself and pointing a bit sternly to the toilet seat in a gesture for jiheon to sit. “at least tell me you won.” 

when jiheon had first been acquainted with hellion, it would be a lie to say he had liked the concept of joining the aforementioned lgacy in the first place. but he knew no matter how battered down, how ugly and dim, how destroyed a house was, this would be his family for the remainder of his university life. and so he finds himself having sucked it up with a simmered smile, though it’s three years along the line now and as vice captain, he’s tired of pretty much every day. 

granted, he speaks all about that loving hellion crap sometimes but he dipped out of the dorms as soon as he found an apartment to live in with a far too close friend. who could blame him? it was for his own health.

that doesn’t stop him from checking in at least once every two or so days, though, to make sure there aren’t any festering dead bodies. he belatedly realises each time that nothing ever’s going to change when it comes to a) the arguments that he can hear two hundred feet away from the house b) the dumb members that bother him far too much and c) the fact that he’ll eventually have to whoop their ass.

which brings him to now, standing in the corner of the bathroom very much like a child being scolded and trying not to meet jimin’s evidently judging eyes. he takes a seat as suggested, and scoffs in overconfidence. 

“isn’t it the vice captain’s job to beat some sense into those toddler-minded idiots we call hellions?” he asks, barely being able to keep the kid-like sourness out of his voice as he finally glances over at his legacy’s designated nurse. “obviously, i won.” a pause.

“yah,” carefully folded pale legs, body swallowed like a little wooden boy by a great big whale in his sweatshirt. she’s a tiny little fairytale bundled up in his lap, a cautionary tale in reverse (in this story, she starts deadly. she always was).“okay, tell me when to flip the page.” it’s the first half-piece of excitement she’s had since arrival, braiding herself into jiheon’s studying by gaining a passive role. textbook page flipper. her small fingers have already pinched the thin corner between them, hovering the paper mid-air as she waits for the starter gun to go off so she can perform. her other arm rests over his neck, keeping her stationary as her ankle rotates with pent-up energy. she’d be a fantastic racehorse, she thinks.

“you should read faster.” marceline’s head flops onto jiheon’s shoulder, nose brushing his clavicle, hair spilling into his shirt. it’s a disastrously casual kind of intimacy. “my arm is getting tired.”

marceline zhao is undoubtedly as beautiful as she is intelligent, and jiheon finds serenity in the way she effortlessly folds herself into his life like a storybook. their relationship had began as one would expect it to ㅡ sleepless nights, messy bed sheets and waves of passion. somewhere along the way it shifts to something else mild, and he thinks he’s glad it did for he prefers what they have now.

[ … ]

he sticks the toothbrush back into his mouth and continues to scrub. he raises an eyebrow at the liver comment and makes way for jiheon to come into the bathroom. he quickly finishes brushing his teeth and rinses out his mouth. jongin was never great at distinguishing sarcasm, but over the years of his friendship with jiheon and byul, his success rate of picking out sarcasm hovered around fifty percent. “you couldn’t drink alcohol if we didn’t have livers. or digest food. or process drugs. or store vitamins…” okay, maybe forty percent. he continues rambling on with the list as he walks over to the closet, hoping jiheon is making mental notes of this.

jiheon has the gall to scoff at the less than pitying (god, what did someone have to do around here to get some empathy? then again, it had been his own fault for trying to receive some from kim-stick-up-an-ass-jongin) answer and reaches for his toothbrush. “what, are you used to byul trying to bite your dick off as soon as you see her, or taeyong getting that big ass head of his stuck in turtlenecks, or mideum noona always fuckin’ smiling?” he squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles, shoves the brush in his mouth to scrub and shakes his head. “like i always say, if it wasn’t for the pay, i’d be gone.”

really though, what was a broke student supposed to do? for now, he clenches his teeth at work, throws smiles and pretends he doesn’t feel tempted to slam drinks down in front of customers.

[ … ]

a boisterous laugh slips from his lips at the absurd sight of a fully grown man shooting a baby such a flabbergasted look. “i might. i seem to talk to you just fine, don’t i?” the implication is soft and teasing, sugary tart rather than venomous, a far cry from the bile that spilled from their lips not so long ago. 

it’s more sad than most realise, but the inevitable is that the constantly evolving, spreading culture of villages are beginning to get more urbanized, with the newfound technology effortlessly weaving its way into daily parts of life. jiheon, a boy who was born and raised in possibly the most developing city in korea, has always wondered how different it had been back home for the likes of moonsik. “good thing for your village that i’m not like most city natives, then.” he bites back, equal parts wry and equal parts curious. 

a surprised look is thrown towards his wrist (like it’s betrayed him by being held) when moonsik grabs it, sudden charm overflowing as though it had always been there. see, jiheon finds it so unexpectedly endearing that the only response he can muster up for a second is an intelligent “uh.” followed by a more intelligent, “… it’s your patbingsu. you can, uh, choose whatever flavours i guess.”