he'd gotten a lead about a gang leader he was supposed to meet in this godforsaken city, and yet, finding that gang leader seemed to be impossible in it's own right. he could barely see through the smog, let alone figure out where to go.
sighing, he finally pulls off the road and parks his bike, working on getting his helmet off and fixing his hair a little. he'd find them eventually, but for now, he just wanted to get a feel for his bearings. as he lets his gaze drift around the area, it lands on a lone figure on the stairs, staring. ❝ ... huh ? ❞
He wasn’t in a bad mood today. There was a timer ticking between his eyes, the repetitive clicks that flash back and forth like a metronome keeping him sedated. Never calm, always forced and subdued. Click click click click. Tension continues. He’s waiting, they’re both waiting. A pop! And a nauseating, gargled scream. His hand covers the mouth, his eyes are empty and tired; elsewhere. This is ritual. He doesn’t know this guy. He’s got no qualms with him, but the guy who told him to do it did. Or tangentially there were problems. Jaibo does it for fun and sport, for the cash that it offers him. He can’t keep stealing from his father unfortunately. But this feels so rote. It offers nothing to stimulate his mind. It’s another tooth and another tooth and another tooth. If it makes the boss man like him so fine, if it makes the underboss who told him to do it like it so fine. But he doesn’t want to be liked. He wants to be loved. But even then- Even then-
Patronizing thoughts of red hot love and overbearing affections have all since bled out, keeping his mind raw as a wound and festering. Instead he ponders elsewhere, into nothingness, where there is truly nothing but a ticking. The brain-fog that made it hard to think paralleled the dingy city where the smog made it hard to navigate. Not only from the billowing smoke that obscures the eyes but the suffocating feeling of inhaling rancid air, forced to breathe it in because there is nothing else you can do. His thoughts waded through that fog, his body however moved placidly through the narrow streets and crackling sidewalks.
Keep walking keep walking keep walking. It moves on it’s own.
He wasn’t in a bad mood. But it wasn’t good either.
A frown twists at his lips, the red of the makeup he chose to wear clings to his skin in an offensive way. The humidity makes him want to wretch, makes him want to claw his skin and tear away at his face with iron wool, get it all out. All the paint he still insists on smearing on himself in a clownish display. It’s all theater at this point. It’s not as though anyone is looking at you! It’s getting quite aggravating. Maybe the lack of focus is getting to him. He’s felt so despondent without it. No amount of violence he’s found is a remedy for it too. Which is sad for the boy, he really quite misses the manic vibrato he used to carry with him. But isn’t that just growing up? Growing out of the eccentric proclivities, having them replaced with ones more refined? Ones more dangerous, less eager to be tossed away by law. No excuses for youngness or naivete. He’s a boy but he wasn’t the boy he was before.
Should he be doing grown up crimes for grown up kids? He doesn’t consider himself a criminal. He doesn’t consider himself even human at this point, but a boy shaped thing in a flesh-made body. That he has no human relatives and no human emotions. All the edgy thoughts of an emotionally stunted brat but ones that have not fully passed. He’s thinking about this, the concept of big kid crimes. There are plenty of gangs in the area, biker ones and not-biker ones. The ones who are just on foot? Does it matter? There’s no fucking way he could ever be part of a group again. Last time it happened it didn’t end too well, but he was never really part of the greater whole there. Too much of a loner~ Too poor and unfortunate and pretty. Ugh.
But he does affiliate. Sometimes. When it’s useful, when it’s something to do. He thinks he might scare some of the younger local thugs. That’s silly though, cause aren’t the supposed to be tough? Or is it the same kind of fear any son of man would get against a feral animal? It’s not as though it’s dangerous outright, from afar, a distance. But get closer and you might be met with gnarled wounds and disease. You’re scared it’ll rip your fucking face off before you kill it.
Stop. Stare. Stare at the red sun hiding behind and ozone and smog. It looks horribly unnatural on your pallid complexion, pale and translucent. Sharp eyes carve into anything it looks at, dark and cold, unignited. He’s about to sneer, but red catches red and his eyes can twinkle momentarily.
“Nice bike.”
It’s practically spat. Forceful, curt. Eyes flash from side to side in a sort of rhythmic, unfocused way before they’re squeezed closed, his nose scrunches up and his lips curl into a smile before they flutter open again. He tics once, and again, almost on beat to the footfalls down the stairs. One hand is gripping the rusted guardrail as he descends, a joyful bounce all the way to the bottom until he’s face to face, toe to toe with the clear stranger around these parts. Jaibo doesn’t blink for an extended amount of time, before he does, once, and again, as if he needs to think about what he’s doing. How he’s presenting as a person. Like he wasn’t one moments ago. There is specks of red on him. A spray of blood, a fine mist paints his face. Obviously not his own. His right hands dips into his pocket to place something as he speaks, more red being wiped off on his pants as he continues.
“Real flashy! Do you have something to prove? Or is it just your personality?” His smile is coy, head canted to the side in a telltale lilt of interest, what for is always salacious but not always expected. Dirties converse kicks at the ground, hitting miscellaneous pebbles and dirt that gets caught on the viscous gunk that seems to be stuck on the bottom of his shoes. “Red’s my faaaavorite~ color. Lucky.”
