heart of the cards

He doesn’t feel the need to look up much more and so, his eyes find refuge within the sentences of the book he’s looking at. He is not exactly reading everyhing too attentively, but rather flipping a couple of pages at a time so he can decide if that is the book he’ll take with him to read for the time being.

Shuffling.

He can hear it even before it gets faster; even before the cards flip and turn in the stranger’s hands and even before he places a few on the table. Somehow, he wonders if it’s a hobby even if he doesn’t think it’s strange at all. Woobin was raised in Eulsa and he remembers the fortune-tellers and the card masters who liked to lure the tourists in to their tents and little stalls. He remembers watching them as a kid and finding fun to listen to them blabber about someone else’s future. Honestly, he never believed them, but he knew a few were the real deal.

His eyes find the stranger’s almost intense stare - he thinks it’s ‘almost’ intense because the look he gives him is half-relaxed and he knows that even so, he might have to tone down.

Woobin is the first to break the eye contact, placing the book he’s holding back on the shelve before taking a different one and walking towards the improvised reading space.

He takes a seat on the old couch that has a couple of holes on its cushions, but that is stupidly comfortable, and places one leg over the other comfortably. The book stays there as well, on his lap, as he reads - or tries to - before sparing the man with the cards another glance. He wonders if he has something to tell him or if he takes staring as a hobby, but maybe he’ll sound a little too hostile if he asks it like that, so he tries something different.

“What?”

Actually, no, he doesn't even realize it then. It's not until the guy is actually talking to (snapping at) Jaehyo that he's jarred back to reality from the depths of his own head, twitching in his seat because somehow he failed to notice when the guy moved to the couch on the other side of the book covered table.

"Um," Jaehyo replies intelligently, eyes dropping back to the card spread like it might also have a script for this conversation. How awkward is it to tell someone that you just accidentally read their life story, even just superficially. At best, the guy might think Jaehyo was some kind of con artist, like so many fakey fortune tellers trying to make fast gold off of gullible tourists back home. At worst, he'd rightly suspect Jaehyo of being a mutant, and even though it's significantly less likely, Jaehyo has enough memories of bruises in the shape of casino security fists to know what getting caught might entail.

But he needs to come up with some kind of proper answer (that, or leave, but the bus back isn't due for another two hours), so... "Do you come here often?"

Nooope, that is not what he meant to say at all.

"I don't sleep much, so," he blurts quickly, attempting to recover from what sounds like a cliched come on. "I come here 'cause it's quiet and. Yeah. Cards." He didn't come here with the intention of talking and apparently his brain is holding him to that. In the lull, he flicks the edge of the card in his hand, setting it spinning fast between his thumb and index finger. The dimensions of his tarot deck are all wrong for flourish, but the spinning is such a nervous habit that he ends up doing it with everything.

"Ahn Jaehyo," he tries again after a moment. "I'm, uh. A student at the in-- I'm a college student." Jaehyo gives an awkward bow that's more like a bob of his head -- the guy is almost certainly older than he is. "Do you... do you want me to read your fortune?"

he opens his eyes lazily, studying jaehyos form. he’s sitting on a pillow and that’s such a prissy thing to do, yukwon thinks. there’s nothing wrong with the floor. it’s natural and pants can be washed.

well, these pants can be washed.

even high, jaehyo feels like a broken energizer bunny. yukwon doesn’t really get it.

then again, he doesn’t really get a lot about other people.

instead of answer, he just focuses a little, and then jaehyo’s rolling his wrist and smiling and getting to his feet. he’s so relaxed as a puppet, and yukwon files him away as an easy target before letting him sit back down- not on the cushion, because he’s an asshole.

Right now, though, he just says "oh," and then he's sitting down again, although he does glance around briefly in confusion because where did his pillow g-- oh.

He pulls it towards him with his foot, perching himself back on top of it with his long legs crossed as he considers how to show Yukwon what he does. He's a little tempted to just explain with words, because it's not all that complicated (that, and his stupid manipulation only works part of the time anyway). But his right hand is already methodically cutting and re-cutting the deck, while his left hand spins a card between his thumb and middle finger when it's not handling the joint -- both habits that have everything and nothing to do with his mutation.

It takes his brain a few, long drags to get to anything beyond "pick a card," but finally he just shrugs and bends the deck back, sending the cards spraying from his hand. Instead of landing haphazardly all over the floor, they freeze mid-air, like someone hit the pause button and oh shit, that actually worked, annnnnd he may have just said that out loud.

"I can also do--" Okay, now he's totally high, and the term "cartomancy" is somewhere up in the stratosphere. "I can read your fortune, if you want. Or, like. Answer a question about, uh. Stuff."

Taking a moment to straighten out his leather vest Tox struck a pose, “Just because its hot as shit doesn’t mean I cant look good or be a good looking puddle…..and I forgot how fucking hot it was here but that’s not important. Following Jaehyo close behind Tox listened as much as his fried brain could allow, “Fine, fine. Eyeliner later but what the hell is acorn jelly? You making some kind of pore sandwich on your face, just slap on a wolf’s bane face mask, your face feels fucking amazing after……wait no…don’t do that bad things will happen to your face and not mine”.

Walking into a store Tox couldn’t help but close his eyes and marvel in the beauty that was indoor air conditioning. How the hell people lived in Heukyang before air conditioning was beyond him. His small moment of paradise was taken as he gave Jaehyo a face that read ‘what the hell’ as he was yanked to some random rack.

Tox couldn’t help but look down at the shirt his tone oozing with sarcasm after having his moment ruined by it, “I’m flattered really, it goes great with my eyes…. but this isn’t even my size”. Looking around there wasn’t anything too special about the store aside from the tons of girls taking pictures with cardboard cutouts.

He turns back to Minki, pushing his Chanels back into place with complete disregard for A) how ridiculous he looks wearing shades indoors, and B) how difficult it is to see with them on. "And no, I didn't shoplift, and no, you don't shoplift either, god." Just once, Jaehyo would like to have a day in Heukyang that doesn't end with him running from some kind of security. It's bad enough he can't even set foot in a casino anymore without recognizing someone who's tried to rearrange his god-given facial structure. He refuses to lose the haven of retail therapy too.

"Ugh, just-- never mind," he huffs, putting the green shirt back on the rack. He and Minki agree on a lot of things, like the importance of skin care and why certain asses are absolutely not suited for skinny jeans, but Jaehyo can't realistically expect someone who drinks bleach like most people drink vitamin water to be properly apprehensive of the damage females are capable of, especially in large numbers. He shakes his head dismissively, but adds, "If it comes down to it, it's your job as hyung to protect both of us."

He turns his attention warily back to the task at hand, eyeing a shelf of neatly folded graphic tees for something more suited to Minki's style -- red shirt with black skull and crossbones, or black shirt with red skull and crossbones?

"Shouldn't you be looking for something with short sleeves?" he points out, grabbing both colors. "Since, you know, you were so concerned about melting earlier."