“i always knew you were kinda into me.”
@jeonggukxmi
he turns around and heaves himself up, to sit on the balcony, facing both the male beside him and the party that rages on in the main area of the building. it’s a risky display of something, because jeongguk won’t call it trust– he’ll call it indifference: sitting in a position where he could be pushed to a plummeting fall and death by someone in a gang opposing his own.
he picks up his drink from where he set it on the balcony before he sat there, thinking for a moment, eyes still on jongin, and he extends the drink towards him, just for old time’s sake. “do you want it? thought i would offer, before you try to steal it from me.”
there’s a carelessness to the smirk on his face, but smiles rarely reach his eyes even on his best days. there’s something cold there instead, calculating, evaluating, absorbing information and tucking it away in a way that could only be described as habitual. jongin was never the top of his class, but his intelligence was rather practical wisdom than scholarly. so what if he couldn’t tell you the product of polynomials off the top of his head, but he could certainly recite the more interesting details of the conversation some important person was having ‘discretely’. he dealt in secrets and items, not in numbers and calculations.
but he knows that jeongguk, protocol or whatever pompous nickname the kid had given himself, sees things similarly to the way he does. he hadn’t noticed it at first, not those few short years ago when he was being assaulted by food. he thought he had been dealing with someone with a softer heart than his, someone who fed the orphans thanks to his own good fortune or some sappy shit like that. it wasn’t until later, until jongin took up the alias kai and got himself ass deep in shit that he realized the kid wasn’t all he appeared to be. they weren’t so different, but jongin wasn’t looking to bond over some childhood angst or something.
“well, i mean, usually people are throwing themselves at me anyways but you’re the broody type so i figure a bag of chips would be all the indication you’d give me anyways.” his tone is lofty, airy as if without a care in the world and he even goes so far to examine his fingernails and scratch at a bit of dirt that wasn’t actually there. it was the picture of cliche, but jongin couldn’t care less. “don’t pretend you’re usually the charity type. you’re not one to do something without a self-serving motive.” like me. but that part goes unspoken, he’s pretty sure jeongguk knows anyways.
the kid is something else. jongin doesn’t let much show on his face other than a slight upward tilt of his chin, the pure vanity that has the kid perched in such a dangerous position in front of a member of a rival gang. as if jongin owes him something for feeding him something years ago. it’s jeongguk’s airiness that pisses him off, that look of indifference that doesn’t flinch or fade for anyone. it infuriates jongin, despite trying to hold in his temper. “i don’t take leftovers anymore, kiddo. i’m not a dog who begs for scraps.”
it’s impulsivity that makes him act, something he rarely has the luxury of relenting to. fingers latch around jeongguk’s arms in a quick motion, quickly tilting the kid back as if he’d let go and let him plummet to his doom. jongin wouldn’t, just as much as he would never admit to being unable to kill someone who may or may not have kept him alive once. he just wants to see something on that god damn face instead of that impassive expression. even though the drink sloshes messily in the glass. he just wants to hear hip squeal, at least hiccup, to see eyes widen in fear or mouth hang agape in shock. anything.
