Meridian ◈ Seungjin

16 ◈ Lights Out

"Someone looks a lot more lively," Jeongin laughed as his hands slammed on the back of the bench and he vaulted over, his body sailing for a brief moment in the air only roughly slam down next to his friend when gravity called him back to the world. Reminding him that vampires, and humans, were never meant to fly in that way.

Their feet couldn't rise from the ground, they couldn't ascend in the atmosphere and find homes among the infinity band of the blinking cosmos, they couldn't soar above puffed cloud tops and nibble on the sweet cotton fluffing their forms. As if tempting him, his gaze shot to an idle Chan on the other side of the shaded spot; The older distracted by the reverberating clicks of the aluminum tab of his soft drink snapping back into it's place when it slipped from the edge of his fingers, back facing his two friends on the bench as he watched the azure skyline and found the very clouds they couldn't reach on mortal soil.

Hyunjin let a placid smile quirk one side of his lips, putting hardly enough energy behind the motion to complete that composed friendliness all the way through the tunnel but far beyond what was needed to force it's appearance on his face. He propped his elbow on the backrest behind them, head thumping back against the chilled hand that folded under his weight. Chilled. So vaguely different from the days before, and vividly normal to his formerly deprived meadow fluttering fettle. No more drenched skin clamming with jammed heat, no more fevers stomping the lights in his head out, no more exhausting bags hung under his eyes, he couldn't feel any of it.

Beside the gnawing teeth digging trenches in his gut, reminding him of the fact he was contracted to the last person he wished to interact with. The unfortunate trade-off. Everyone had a price to pay. He shook it off, and vaguely explained, "I feel a lot better."

Jeongin quirked a suspicious eyebrow at him, "You were dragging yourself to class just yesterday. What changed?"

"Probably slept well," Hyunjin excused, the corner of his lips twitching into a smile that was hardly there. Enough to tell a lie of his own acceptance, in hopes it would convince the younger into believing the same lie. Under the gazes of his two friends trained on his face, the pads of his fingertips brushed over his own wrist sitting gently in his lap. If he tried hard enough, he could picture the bleeding bite marks on his accomplice's veins. He could taste that color again on his tongue, as much as it caused goosebumps to bleach him pale with the skittering centipede legs sprinting on his spine. So damn sweet. A candy. A treat, one that was only bad for him. Before his mind could drift any farther from the topic, he shook his head and murmured, "That's all."

The answer was enough to satisfy the other. Jeongin nodded his head, long and drawn out bobs like a tugboat flung on the mountain troughs of salty waves accentuating the amount of his acceptance to the ambiguous answer evidently loaded with it's own oceanliner worth of questions thrown upon one another in the tall smokestacks billowing drafts of coal coated soot to the cool breeze. The small tugboat was an ant compared to it. It's own secrets were meager, barely a blip on the radar, compared to the monstrous cruiser it guided in. The tugboat was completely content with such.

That much was obvious; It was in the way he relaxed back into the wooden bench, legs crossing over like a child's as they gracefully flapped with the pumping rhythm of his heartbeat, content to exist in an oblivion with matters that weren't related to his own. Instead, he made an easy conversation with the loitering Chan.

That's fine, Hyunjin slid down an inch on the bench, the backrest uncomfortably shoving his shoulders forward into a rolled position. I don't care much about their drama, I wouldn't think they want to suddenly be interested in mine.

His head rolled around, eyes chasing the sights as he attempted to find a point of interest other than the monumental remembrance of whatever the hell his friend's conversation consisted of. A video online? The stock market? Whether it was better to leave the workings of the world to a mysterious man behind a curtain or their own string drawn hands? What their plans were for later today, even if it was similar to the previous string of days since they couldn't leave campus? None of which took too much importance in his life. His eyes chased after the writhing silhouettes of the other students wandering around the academy campus on their lunch break. Watching, observing, noting their movements. Their patterns. How they walked, confidently, shy, involved, secluded, hunched, hurried. Everyone had a place to go, and the smallest ache in his chest yearned to know where.