#epjongin

@epjongin

Hoseok runs a hand gently through his hair, musing the short locks and causing them to stick up slightly as he takes in a deep breath. He can’t fully remember how this mess all started. Was it a simple brushed shoulder in the packed hallway? The jarring force of bodies colliding and the scathing words that came with it? Honestly, he’s not really sure anymore. He remembers the white hot feeling of anger pulsing down the base of his spine as he plants his hands firmly against the chest of the unfamiliar seventh year before shoving him away. The anger is a thriving mess, a hazy, sticky mess that clouds his senses until he can’t remember the words exchanged between the two of them. Doesn’t register that it got physically until familiar hands pulls him away and presses him against the cold stone of the castle walls, a shock to his system that leaves him staring at the mess in front of him.

They’re separated of course and Hoseok hopes that it’s a fluke, a one-time situation that he can forget about. But of course lady luck has a twisted sense of humor, something he learned quickly on earlier in life. All it takes is a set of wandering eyes at dinner and suddenly he notices the same seventh year sitting at the Slytherin table. And it’s like after that moment, he’s noewhere and everywhere at the same time. He locks gazes once more with the other boy and suddenly Hoseok has a damned war on his hands, not anything physically of course he’s not dumb enough for that. No, the battles are fought using childish tactics, pranks that leave statisfying results and sting the most.

It lasts for weeks, no months at a time, something that gets him through the winter. It chases away some of his toughest memories and there’s some part of it that ignites a fire inside of Hoseok, that little buried piece of him that screams childlike joy. The same fire that burns away any residual feelings of true hatred, anger, or humilation away until it becomes something like a game that he would never admit to anyone else. He supposes he should have seen it all boil down to this though, crammed into an empty classroom with the target of his frustrations for the past few months, awaiting judgement.