Meridian ◈ Seungjin

48 ◈ Recon

"There's something I wish to check, but we need to hurry. I'm afraid we'll already be too late by time we arrive," Seungmin muttered under his breath as he stomped wildly in front of the vampire, his pace kept at a marching tempo matched to the furious crinkle in his eyebrow. Trace of that shy, delicate human from the night before all but disappeared in a manner of seconds. Tossed away like garbage, that facet of him was now replaced with the typical arrogance which inflated the waved curls bouncing his hair strands with every step. The vampire was only given that sight of him. His back, tense as his shoulder blades attempted to kiss underneath the fabric of his shirt, the fluff of his hair which Hyunjin came to adore, and the shove of his heel in the carpet as he walked.

Truthfully, Hyunjin hadn't yet decided how to feel.

Torn between the image of the human before him; Proud, inflated, unwavering, undeniably grander, greater than most common folk will ever be, his hands curled and clutched tightly around his beloved imaginary revolver sat cold on his hips, bullet in the chamber, prepared to strike any that come for him. And the image of him laid in the dorm bed last night; Hunched, curled on his side, eyelashes fluttering gently where his lips brushed his wrist, unaware and unprotected against the true horrors of the world outside, the truth that beyond those doors was a dangerous mystery wanting to unfold. Guarded versus welcomed. Aggressive versus passive. The human was both. Yet he was neither, he wasn't aggressive in that moment. He wasn't complacent now.

But he was Seungmin.

Was this what the human meant, when he said Hyunjin being Hyunjin was an honesty he could appreciate?

Honesty...

The truth...

Hyunjin frowned at the floor.

How many facets could one person hold before they begin to lose shape?

How many masks can an actor wear?

How many squares could be colored on a Rubik's cube, before they no longer slotted together as perfectly as they had?

Seungmin's hands were loose by his sides.

Hyunjin watched as they swung back and forth with the pendulum pull of gravity flaying their unrestrained movements to brush through his sides. Past his hips. Out. Back in. Somewhere in the kept time of that ticking clock, he wondered if there were more secrets in the borrowed seconds. He wondered if there was more to the story. More than a hit and run, more than a bitter vengeance, more than the sweet taste of revenge through justice, the justice the human prided himself on. He wondered how much of the story is true. He wondered how much of anything Seungmin told him was true.

Then again,

Hyunjin smiled at the back of the human's head.

He would be a hypocrite to doubt Seungmin for that.

The human whipped his head around, tossing a chaste glance over his shoulder to Hyunjin trailing behind as his stepped slowed. He peeled to the side of the hallway, an outstretched hand meeting the cold knob of a door as he bobbed his head in the direction. As he pressed the door opened and stepped through the threshold, holding it open for the vampire to follow after, he told, "In here."

Hyunjin stepped through. The door thumped close behind them.

The bathroom. Seungmin brought them to the bathroom. The line of stalls on one wall, the row of sinks on the adjacent, clean white tile floors running contradictory of the soap suds drizzled beneath the old school dispensers, the grime of grout running abysmal black between the set tiles chasing geometric lines throughout the bathroom floors. Through a cut out in the wall waited the peeping corners of the classic seafoam, mint, and puke colored shower curtains everyone loved to hate. Three schoolwide threats to cut them up, four events of sudden disappearances, and five instances of total shredding, the only positive those hideous curtains offered were temporary privacy protection and stress relief in case of needing something pliable to punch hard.