#bittersweetviolet

“I’ll call you Oppa when you’re worthy of a respectful title,” she replied, trying to hold back her chuckling by raising the back of her hand to her mouth. In all honesty, she was hesitant to call him anything but his name - after all, she didn’t want to unintentionally attach a deeper emotional meaning to it. Which, knowing herself, she would unwittingly do. Besides, the term felt as if it elevated him above her - and while she wouldn’t admit to it, her subconscious - and, perhaps, some of her conscious mind as well - wanted to always stay on top, never lowering herself below anyone else.

You have problems, CL-ssi. A low, quiet sigh, and CL ignored her feelings, bringing her focus instead back to Jiyong’s teasing. “Excuse me?” she asked, turning around to try and swat at him. “I may be the eldest in maturity here,” she hissed, only slightly succeeding at hiding the layer of absolute amusement hidden underneath her words as a slight laugh escaped, “but I do believe I am still the youngest in this room, JiJi. Me worrying doesn’t make me old.” She paused for a few moments, turning back in her chair. “It doesn’t, right?” Her voice was lowered slightly, and she almost wished to pinch herself for voicing it - but she simply couldn’t have helped it. Annoyed at herself, CL shook her head, moving her hair around while Jiyong seemed to step away. She glanced back at him, only to spy him fetching her hairbrush. A grin immediately lept to her face; there were so many ways she would be able to toy with him now.

She kept it simple - moving her head slowly at first, as if swaying in time to inaudible music; then, she resorted to brushing through her hair herself with her fingers, the long nails slightly scraping against her scalp. All the while she could image the frustration on Jiyong’s face, and a devilish smile decorated her face with glee. She laughed only after he pushed her head back in place, and then focused on actually keeping some kind of focus. “Ai, be careful, Ji,” she reprimanded him to keep him on his toes. “My hair is delicate, ya know. Don’t be too rough mmkay?” CL smiled and leaned back - hard as it was to admit, she rather enjoyed the feeling of someone else doing her hair. She’d frequent hairdressers, of course, but there was never quite anything like someone whom you knew and cared for, and was cared by in return, taking the time and effort to brush through the long tangle your hair could become. The last person to have done this for CL in such a familiar way was her mother, who’d always complain about the fact that her daughter had thicker hair than her own. “You’ve got your father’s hair, most definitely.”

It had always made CL smile - as if she carried around constantly a small part of the father she’d never met.

Oh no. That was never good. The ‘do you mind if I ask you something really awkward and personal’ question. He just hummed an ‘okay’, preparing for something he’d have to make one hell of a story for. That was okay, he did it before. Though when he did it before, it was under totally different circumstances. What was she going to ask? About his life? His mother? Perhaps his ch—

Oh.

That was relieving. He sighed, mulling over the question she actually asked him. It was still something difficult to answer, because there was also Dara involved in the mix of things and it wasn’t his place to say what happened to her. It was only if she wanted to tell people, and by the way she acted - she definitely didn’t.

That was relieving. He sighed, mulling over the question she actually asked him. It was still something difficult to answer, because there was also Dara involved in the mix of things and it wasn’t his place to say what happened to her. It was only if she wanted to tell people, and by the way she acted - she definitely didn’t. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t say his side of the story. He also had to admit that he was a bit amused that there were rumors finding their way around the circus. Although rumors were usually not the real story, and he nor Dara have spoken up about it – not to his knowledge, anyway, so who knows what people have actually been saying. They could have been saying that Jiyong was too dangerous to be in the circus, that if he could do that to someone outside of it, he could do that to someone on the inside too. Jiyong frowned at the thought. He really only did it because he had to. People could also be wondering where he even learned to defend himself like that. But that was a lie that could easily be conjured up by saying he took some class when he was in high school.

“Okay. Um…” he didn’t really know where to start. “I think Dara was buying things in the shops, alone. It was late, and I was wandering,” he paused. He realized that neither of them should have been by themselves. That was a rule. If they weren’t, the ordeal that conspired might have been prevented. “I don’t know what they were doing to her…” he said. “When I heard her scream, I went into the alley and just saw her on the ground. There were a lot of people around her,” he almost left it at that, but he quickly added, “She had her clothes on and everything.” Although that wasn’t entirely true – CL didn’t need to hear from him what they did to Dara. Only Dara could tell her that if she chose to.

“I ran at them to get Dara out of there and they all jumped me,” he said. “So I defended myself.” There really was nothing more to it, aside from the injuries that he received. “One had a knife and stabbed me in the side,” he said, moving his hand from her hair to gesture to where the wound was. “Dara stitched it up. I also cut my hand pretty bad because I gripped the knife when they came at me again,” he said, smiling lightly as if that was something to be amused by. One of the best defense mechanisms was to just laugh it off, after all. He continued to massage her hair, wondering if he should add anything else. “I’m okay though,” he said. CL was already super worried about everyone – he should have thought of that before revealing that he was stabbed.