Meridian ◈ Seungjin

28 ◈ Antlers

"Hey, Chan," Jeongin leaned across the cafeteria table, a singsong trill pecking the edges of his lips like loving kisses meant to sweeten the atmosphere around him.

That noiseless chatter surrounding the table set to the far side of the cafeteria they usually converged at for the three meals of the day, brought to them by truck and steel containers from docked ships come into port. His voice managed to cut through the layers of conversation, slipping beneath even the internal discussions of his friends lounging in their usual seats, slicing through their words firmly as he attempted to grab the attention of the one he wished to bother. What he wished to bother him for? The packet of unfinished homework should have been enough of an answer for anyone who hadn't already guessed from his panicked demeanor, scrambling to write on the sheets, and the unzipped backpack chucked wildly on the cafeteria table to spew it's contents beneath any metal lunch tray placed upon that academic throne.

Hyunjin rested his throbbing head in a clammy fist, the curled knuckles pinching miserably against his cheekbone as he prodded at the jarring food on his plate. Sandwich. He thinks it's ham. Broccoli. In a pile of it's own sauces. Bread roll. Tasting more like cardboard than wheat. Water. The only item on the pathetic regiment that he could seriously touch without consequence. His free hand gripped at the plastic bottle, immediately unscrewing it and sipping at it's contents as delicately as he could. Prolonging the action as much as he was able to do, so it wouldn't seem as weird for him to not pay attention to the enemy of the food on his lunch tray. He scowled at the swampy broccoli through his half lidded and occupied eyes.

I'm feeling fevered again, Hyunjin flipped the ham sandwich over with a muted wince. I'll need to find Seungmin soon. 

The older sighed as he set the pear in his hand back down in it's proper place on the lunch tray, the force of the action rattling the top of the table in it's own version of a counter argument. His hands laced together professionally, as if he were the rich son of a conglomerate CEO sitting in on a business meeting. Or a job interview. They slammed down on the outside of his lunch tray, his hopes of eating abandoned as he retorted, "What do you want from me."

"Mr. Bang, that's rude," Jeongin jeered back at him. He laced his own hands together, coming to sit more properly in his seat as if he were attempting to challenge the authority of the older.

"The only time you use that tone of voice is when you want something from me," The older shot him down with the swift blow.

Slowly, Jeongin flattened back out in his seat. His hands came scurrying back to the uncompleted assignment laid before him, fingers dancing to twirl the pencil back into its preferred resting spot balanced on the webbed skin between his thumb and index finger, afterwards his shoulders following the same inward retreat. He smiled sheepishly at Chan, "...What's a meridian?"

"It's like, the line that cuts the world in half going vertical instead of horizontal like the equator," The older answered somewhat happily, despite the shell of his exterior implying he wishes to do anything but explain the concept to the younger. Hyunjin noted those features; The tenseness in his jaw as it gritted teeth together whenever he idled in interaction, the lowered eyelids kept at the perfect angle to slice his opposition in half with one cut, the chin tilted to the side, lightly. All of it, even more noticeable on the person who otherwise tolerated them. Enjoyed them? Hyunjin thought that was out of the question. No how many times he whipped Band-Aids from his pockets, Chan couldn't fool him. The older continued to explain, "Kind of, like where two halves of a world come together. A converging point."

"Ohhh okay, I see," Jeongin's gaze dropped back to the stapled chunk of papers. The graphite of his vibrant blue mechanical pencil) began to tap on a space yet to be marked with his eloquent words of intense reasoning. He nodded, more at the paper than at the older who helped him, "Thanks."