Meridian ◈ Seungjin

38 ◈ Lizard

"So, my assumptions were right then. There's a large chance it's a student here and Changbin..." Seungmin's words trailed off as he stared down at the packet sitting in front of him. He balanced his elbow on the library table, immediately coming to bury his lips among the concealment of his raised palm as he seemed to consider. His fingers peeled back from his face, as if he was ripping the words from his lips to ball them up tightly in his grip and discard them later, the fist lingering suspended by his head as he nodded a confirmation of, "I'll keep the detail in mind."

Hyunjin watched him carefully from across the way, his own improper seating arrangement of straddling the back of the chair shoved into the table edge allowing him to lean his arms folded on the table. His hands fumbled with the mechanical pencil he held. He spun it around his fingers, the promise of finishing his homework somewhere in the scribbled graphite and worn eraser, though he knew that was a lie. The idea of finishing his work had left his mind eons ago, it's abandonment traced back to the moment he set the assignment on the table. No, even further. Back when he said he would work on the questions. No, wait, maybe it was back when he traced Seungmin down to the most distant table possible in the quiet library and chose to hand over the packet like that was his assignment.

Screw it, he never was going to do this work anyway.

He could be doing the proper assignment, a study guide for an upcoming test. He could be studying, like he was supposed to be.

Or, as he chose to do, he could study the human sitting opposing him. He observed the way his bangs fell to hide his eyes behind a curtain when he tried to scribble in his notebook full of evidence from their investigation, the copper strands falling neatly around his features as he talked and attempted to adjust them. He noted the way the human would move in his seat, straightening out, him shifting and rocking in the cheaply made chair. He examinated the reflection of the younger's phone in his eyes, the white pages and text soaring by as he swiped through whatever he was reading, only to switch back to the lined paper to write. He inspected the discoloration on the human's neck, the sickly purple and yellow swirls of bruising hiding beneath the fully buttoned collar and noted the mavy blazer hung on the chair behind.

Admittedly, this meant that the entire time he had been sitting there, he was shamelessly staring down Seungmin like he was an abstract painting at an art museum and Hyunjin was trying to find the meaning. And the human was either oblivious to this fact, or couldn't be brothered to tell him to look away. They had made eye contact at least twice, there was no possible reality where Seungmin hadn't been cognitively aware of the vampire's unreciprocated staring contest.

Seungmin glanced up at Hyunjin. Again, as he kept a trained eye on him, the human returned the second of eye contact. He shuffled the packet of records into his hands and shoved the papers over to him, "Look over the records."

"What am I looking for?"

"Anything weird. Anything that stands out."

Hyunjin silently nodded as he picked up the loose pages waiting for him. He shoved his other work to the side, a final admission and a half-hearted promise to himself to complete it later, though he knew he would procrastinate on the assignment as long as possible. Out of sight, out of mind; And Hyunjin had shoved the unneeded papers to the corner of the table farthest away from him to replace them with the documents, afterwards flipping through them. Not truly reading or noting, but flipping through the pages. He dog-eared the corners, fingers brushing and crinkling up the sides to occupy the growing seconds between him and Seungmin. Thoughtlessly, he scanned over the names. Both familiar and not. He didn't choose to speak out about them before folding the page over the underlying paper and tucking it neatly underneath to gape at the words.