Under Own Life's Key; {Junhong/Zelo & Youngjae}
Height had always been Zelo’s best threat when his naïve facades failed him, but this stranger, this irritating boy, wasn’t deterred by his towering intimidation and in fact, the fool, surely he was one to mess with Zelo, was grinning ear to ear in a smirk that Zelo was determined to smack off. He’d had a few victims who’d taunted him the same but had retreated tails between their legs once he’d let his mask fall and now, Zelo was frustrated – the more the other remained with a curve to his mouth, the more an insuppressible fury ignited inside.
But the boy kept talking. In a voice, no, noise that grated on his ears as Zelo remained silent, attempting to find an opening to retort, but the boy kept logically speaking as if he’d known Zelo, as if he knew all the mysteries surrounding them. Yes, the other was goading him, purposely setting a lure for Zelo to take bait and in some small conscious crevice of his mind, Zelo knew it but this fox-eyed boy squinting at him with the look of pre-determined victory was too much to not bite the line.
Every step the boy took, every movement he move was just increasing the heat within the taller boy’s mind as his nails engraved crescents into his palm. He watched his addiction, in the filthy stubs of the other’s fingers, and felt his chest constrict, wondering why he’d sacrificed one of his treasures to deal with this annoying thing. The other must have noticed his gaze as he began toying with his lollipop as if it wasn’t a gift from the Heavens. “Wha-?” Zelo finally exclaimed as he dimly recalled that the other had spoken. Frozen at the suggestion of the other, a frantic tide of thoughts scrambled across his mind as he wondered how the other had known – he knew too much, Zelo needed to stop him. “Ye-…Of course not” his mouth began before Zelo could restrain his thoughts, though he normally lacked tact, this unlikely situation he found himself in was boiling his mind into a melting pot of incoherent thoughts.
First things first, Zelo’s main priority was to rescue his addiction from this stranger. He’d been prepared to reach out and snatch his precious back from the other but at his flinching, the stranger had already ripped the wrapper off (how uncivilized of him to not peel the wrapper off properly), and attached it to his tongue before Zelo could react. Snorting and truth tumbling out, Zelo laughed bitterly, “So what if it was snatched? Whatcha gonna do? Report me?” Reaching down for the collar of the other, he lifted the smirking boy to face level, “I’ll make you run everytime you hear my name.”
He couldn’t say he was surprised. He really wasn’t, not even in the least bit, so his smirk never dropped a millimetre. All his actions until now were all calculated moves to draw out the other and to confirm his hypothesis, but here, right now, he was faced with a particular situation that he had to rethink his motives and actions.
The other’s slip of the tongue and violent gestures labelled the other, at least in Youngjae’s head, as the FQVZ guy of his childhood (honestly, he wondered how the other had found the name. It was some sort of ancient European society’s god’s name, did the other just pick it out of a book in the library?). So with that sorted, Youngjae didn’t really have a reason to continually prod the other especially with the other leaning over him, fists clamped around his collar, murderous look in his eyes.
He sucked on the lollipop, rolling it around his mouth, staring up at the giant in an unperturbed manner, contemplating his next course of action. The sugar coating in his mouth felt disgusting, but tasted nice, although he never understood and probably never will why the other was so addicted to the dentist’s worst nightmare. There were essentially two routes that he could take now: 1) Ask the other what his name really was (he couldn’t very well call the other FQVZ to his face now, could he?); or 2) say what was on his mind the very second those words left the other’s lips. It was, stripped to the bare basics, a decision between treading along a crumbly path that hugged the cliff edge or flinging himself a hundred feet off it and into the sea.
And hey, Youngjae’s been in his fair share of fights. Street urchins never got along well and Youngjae would be a fool to think himself otherwise, so he knew those fist fights of survival well enough, were more than acquainted with fists and feet, bruises and blood, and his bracelet with its set of mini throwing knives and needles was still clamped around his wrist.
And in fights they tell you to go with your first instinct.
So he did.
“Why would I run every time I hear the word ‘moron’?”
