Meridian ◈ Seungjin

6 ◈ Ellipsoid

Hyunjin approached their usual table in the cafeteria, spotting from his position rooted at the other end of the lunchtime rush two of the three gremlins he called his friends. At least, unlike real gremlins, these ones weren't nearly as damaging. Opting to void his chance of a free meal, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his uniform jacket and marched only towards the two at the table. One of them was hunched over the surface, the other sitting next to him as he rubbed a gentle and soothing pattern into the younger of the two's spine. Almost unnoticeably, words were exchanged between them under the covert mask of the other incessant chatter around the cafeteria.

As he stepped up to the table, Hyunjin scanned over his hunched friend violently burying his face into the strange patch of wet fabric covering his elbows folded carefully on the table. Their chest, Jeongin's chest rattled in an uneven breath, the puffs of air coming more as hissing warnings to fend off anyone to dared to mess with his vulnerable state of mind only patched up with every painful hiccup. Hardly afew seconds later as Hyunjin to sat at an empty spot across the way, glancing to Minho acting as a comforting guide for their younger friend, the pieces of the scene stitched together in a surprised question, "He's crying?"

"Jeongin has a crush on someone in his textile class," Minho briefly explained, an exasperated sigh spilling from his lips as he thumped on their friend's back. The motion was, supposedly, acting as a soothing comfort. The pats attempted to mimic the soft reassurance that came from someone you love, but evidently turned into a bumbling blows to his blandly breakable back.

"It's like," Jeongin's sentence trailed off. His head peeked up, a soft gaze raking over his two friends watching him with a light bemusement before they landed on Minho's untouched lunch tray containing the many wonders that counted as a school lunch. His grimy fingers reached out, grabbing a familiarly shaped green fruit off it as he presented it to the other two, an odd portentousness raking across his stuffy features and reddened veins stretching the otherwise clear cornea's of his eyes. His breath hiccupped with unsure huffs of air wishing to balance out the gentle sobs wrecking his nerves, the sensation barely suppressing themselves long enough for him to gesture to the fruit in his hands and whine, "You look at this pear and you think, 'Wow it's such a handsome pear'. But the pear is a person."

"Is it a human?" Hyunjin asked carefully.

Jeongin roared, "It's a human!"

"That's rough," Minho took the pear back from the younger's hands and set it back on his lunch tray, the unhelpful offer almost acting as an unsympathetic wall to disengage from any further attempts of discussing the topic. If not for the subtle look on his face, and the physical contact he kept consistent along the other's spine to trade with words, it could have easily been taken as a total isolation. He kept a worried gaze trained to the side of his friend's face, another sparkle of a concealed ember fizzling out behind his eyes as it was promptly snuffed out by raging breezes silencing it's existence.

As he observed them, Hyunjin balanced his head on a lazy palm, the bones of his elbow shredding uncomfortably into the top of the lunch table as it found an optimal position to rest in. Something about the scene was homely. Cozy. Safe. Something about it made a pain press deep in his chest; A searing blade digging between his lungs he struggled to hold back, a barrel belonging to a silver revolver pressing between his ribs as it's hammer was pulled back. Watching that scene, an ache in the back of his mind grabbed hold of his consciousness, enveloping it with a murky grime until he was dripping with the grease. Soaked in the feeling, a feeling that's pin was pulled, prepared to ignite and fire on whoever dared to touch it. That numb throbbing in his head, it told him that his friend would never do the same for him. Not ever him. Not someone like him.

He let his hands drop to the surface of the table, eyes following their languid movements. An itch developed in his throat. Lightly, he cleared his throat, a meager cough dismissing it in exchange for a lightheaded shock that disconnected him from the fingertips he was staring at. Then, as if it had never happened, the feeling was gone.