#arcromi

[arcjoon-blog]

same old blues

@arcromi

Joon was confident he could find Romi anywhere, although he still wasn’t entirely sure if that was more of a threat or a promise, but it didn’t require any special abilities to find Romi most of the time, all you had to do was look to the edges of the room. That had been part of the reason Joon was so drawn to her even from the start. She was always at the peripheral, the place that Joon had made home in his months spent desperately trying to gain any semblance of control over himself, and he was finally beginning to trust himself enough to start inching closer to the rest of the world again, but he knew he had to start slow. He had watched her for weeks before he finally convinced himself that she was his safest bet. They didn’t say a word to each other when Joon finally worked up the courage to sit at her table for dinner, but he did find out later that she had heard each and every thought racing through his head ranging from his criticism of her music choice he could hear thrumming away in her headphones to the casual observations of how easily he could hurt everyone in the room, yet she stayed. And by some miracle, she continued to stay until Joon could no longer imagine not seeing her every day.

His feet carried him through the ARC and delivered him to her side without a single thought. He slumped onto the couch beside her leaning his weight against her careful not to crush her but heavy enough to plaster her against the couch and be impossible to ignore, but he still tugged one of her headphones out of her ear just to be certain. “I got my review today,” he announced, twirling the earbud between his fingers. “I have officially gone 15 days without incident.” He had tried to argue that the thing in the cafeteria didn’t count because he technically didn’t start it, but they wouldn’t listen. “However, my request for a framed certificate and a pizza party have been completely ignored.” It may or may not have had to do with the spiteful delivery of said requests, but Joon couldn’t help it. Each and every time they called him into a room to commend or reprimand him he suddenly felt like he was back in school again in the worst possible way.

“What about you?” He asked, tilting his head to get a look at her face. “Should we celebrate or are you just as much of a lost cause as I am?”

[arcjaeyong-blog]

truth in lies.

@arcromi

yong finds comfort in lies, in hiding behind them. funny, because he’s meant to force them out of people now. funnier, because he spent his childhood always wondering what the truth was. funnier still, because he’s not sure if he’s even lying anymore. or maybe he is sure, and that too is a lie to himself, just another wall built between yong and jaeyong. it’s this uncertainty that keeps him on his toes, like all it will take is one crack for everything to crumble. and there lies the issue he has with romi.

she knows too much. she can find the instability in his walls and can prod at it until it breaks.

he can’t control her perception of him, and it terrifies him, annoys him. it always has, but he’s managed to avoid her for the most part, or force himself to think of dumb, mundane things lest he provide her any more ammunition than what’s slipped through the cracks already. but lately? she meddles too much, too. has shown up one too many times when he’s with mona for it to just be a coincidence. it impedes his training, pulls him out of concentration when he focuses his energy on filtering his thoughts instead, and consequently lowers the amount of fear he can absorb from mona. and that, well, that pisses him off, prompts him to seek her out in the shooting range when he decides enough is enough.

he waits while she shoots a few rounds, back pressed against the back wall, arms crossed while he wonders if she can hear his thoughts underneath those headphones and over all the gunshots echoing in the enclosed space. it must suck, he thinks, to never have your mind to yourself. but pity isn’t why he’s there, so he pushes himself off the wall when she has to reload, reaches to pull one side of her headphones off and breathes hot into her ear, “nice shot.” he laughs quietly for no good reason but to be unsettling, lips painted smug after he lets go of her headphones and settles into the stall next to her, pushing the button to send the target board back while he loads his pistol. 

“you could probably kill a man with that aim,” he starts, straightening his posture when he draws his gun and aims at the head of the board, asking before he pulls the trigger, “-- have you, yet?”