‘first rule of fight club’
jongin’s tongue slips out across his lower lip, the salted taste filling his mouth, the familiar iron he’s become accustomed to, almost raised on like a vampire, and sometimes he wonders if he is one, if he might be some blood-hungry, hideous monster draped in pretty skin, only surviving from one night to the next by means of drinking down other peoples’ lives. it’d certainly explain a lot about him, not only how many fights he gets into, how many of these nothing parties evolve into battle grounds he loses himself in, the sting and pain from fighting occasionally the only way he can tell that he’s not entirely dead yet. it’s fun, right? existing is fun.
distantly, he hears the tap-tap-tapping of a gutter storm drain, the alleyway around him dark and unpleasant ( as all alleyways are supposed to be ), his haggard breathing along with that of the man sitting opposite him becoming the only other sounds in the crisp evening air. which is surprising, given that just a few feet from them, the masquerade ball blooms and carries on, high-pitched laughter over music hardly anyone is really paying attention to, each and every puppet in play between gilded walls. jongin had done his best, tried hard to fit in with them, to sit and dine pretty and pretend like he hasn’t been itching for a fight for almost two days now, this incursion with gao not even his first one here.
despite their general dislike of each other, faces bruised, knuckles tarnished, both their immaculate outfits in shambles, jongin finds himself grinning at the other in the darkness, the chuckles bubbling out of him like a broken dam. he has no real idea why they have just fought ( probably something he said, gao not showing up in a dress being a shock ), but it feels satisfying just the same, and jongin sighs as he leans his head back against the building behind him. “feel better?”