Meridian ◈ Seungjin

42 ◈ Percival

"When they said we'd be on lockdown again, I imagined it would be more entertaining than this."

Hyunjin nodded a silent agreement to the complaint. His head rested back against his navy blazer folded and draped over the back of the cushioned seat in their dorm's common room, hair rumbling against the smooth fabric, a strange burning sensation setting in to alert him as to how long he had spent stilled in that position. Hands resting on his slouched gut, he fiddled with the lower buttons of his collared shirt, his bare forearms rubbing against the alabaster fabric with a slight pain. Eyes vacantly staring up at the popcorn ceiling, he counted each individual bump for the fleeting hope of entertainment aside from the irritating buzz of electronic wiring running through the walls. There wasn't much else to do.

Besides sitting there, amongst his three other friends, fiddling, counting, listening, waiting, there wasn't anything to do.

"Hyunjin," Someone called his name. Barely voiced above the hum of a whisper, the gentle tone reluctantly pulled the vampire to draw his eyes from the popcorn ceiling. Draw himself from the lulling boredom consuming the hours into nothing but passing seconds. And pull his head up, eyes faintly spinning with a vertigo as he narrowed his gaze. Focusing on the form coming into his line of sight; Their body leaning across the way to the younger's separate seat distanced a small gap away, their hand immediately outstretching as the edged tips of their fingers landed on the vampire's shoulder, the motion jostling him farther from his far-off paradise lost in the grooved map of the ceiling, closer to the reality of the other vampire leaning close to him.

Minho dropped his voice as he leaned closer, "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just bored. Why?"

"Your forearms have scratches on them."

Hyunjin hummed in feigned confusion. His head swung,  bobbing in a tired way to glance down to the aforementioned bare skin decorating the muscles, the bones beneath those layers. As the other had said, irritated lines of red greeted his sight as they angrily raked down his forearms. Singular lines. Pulling down. And down. And down. Like the splayed claws of a monster had dug into the pale skin, but had not broken through. Like the slipping hands of a falling person had attempted to grab him, attempted to dig their nails in, attempted to save their descent from complete plummet, or attempted to hook their fingers tight enough to drag him down to the fiery pits alongside them. With a light click of his tongue signalling an irritation matching the glowing marks, he unrolled the folded sleeves of his white shirt over his forearms.

Minho tilted his head as he asked, "Where were you before?"

"With Seungmin," Hyunjin murmured as he rebuttoned the plastic cufflinks hugging snug around his wrist, where they belonged.

"Oh, really?"

He froze.

That tone.

Reluctantly, the younger vampire glanced over to his prying company.

As soon as his eyes landed on him, Minho wiggled his eyebrows.

"Shut up," Hyunjin choked back a shy smile as he attempted to defend himself from the accosting gaze, "They're not from Seungmin. We were talking. That's all."

"How can you two make jokes like that? Right now?" From across the way, Chan pipped the sharp bite of words into their conversation. Propped up in his own cushioned side seat, his elbows balanced his weight over his knees as his spine arched, his entire body hunched ungracefully over the support that those unsteady legs had provided him. His features pointed firm and unyielding, lips pressing thin against one another as his eyes trained on the carpeted floors, those playful quips turned into a serious scowl threatening to stay away. He hissed through his fangs, every word edged and daggered as he tossed glowers at the pair, "Someone we knew was almost murdered on campus and you're joking about Hyunjin's love life."