8 is fate // Stray Kids

9

Hyunjin

"How can you trust him so blindly?"

Hyunjin looked up at Seungmin who had quietly entered the common room.

He could feel how his face unwillingly twisted, Hyunjin knew exactly who Seungmin was talking about. "Blindly? You have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Then enlighten me. Why do you trust him?", Seungmin's red eyes focused intensely on Hyunjin.

With a deep sigh, Hyunjin put the piece of charcoal down next to his half-finished sketch.

Seungmin was one of his best friends, they had clicked instantly and Hyunjin harbored a deep admiration for him. He didn't know anyone more structured than him. Seungmin planned every little detail of his day, week, year – he had his entire life mapped out. He diligently kept a trainings diary, never missing a day to protocol his struggles and his advancements. It was due to all of this, that Seungmin was already one of the strongest mages of his generation.

But as structured he was, as allergic to the unexpected he seemed.

And Han was the epitome of the unexpected.

He was a variable Seungmin had never calculated with.

"J. entered the arena on the same day as me. Automatically we were put together for literally everything. We shared a room, training sessions, our debut day, our lunch breaks, our days off. Everything.
Admittedly, I hated it at first, J. wasn't someone you could get along with easily. Every conversation turned into a fight. He was closed-off, stubborn, arrogant and snarky. He got a reputation in no time and it wasn't a good one. Most gladiators hated him. I hated him", Hyunjin had to chuckle at the memory. "I think I mostly hated him because I was jealous. It was like nothing could get to him. He didn't care for the people who shat on him, he would simply glare at them with his typical cocky grin and go on about his day. Though he would always make sure that they would eat their own shit during the official matches.
I was jealous of his mental strength as it was something I lacked. While I wallowed in self-pity because I felt mistreated and wronged, he never complained, not once. Instead, he put all his time into training. He decided to build his own future. It was like a wake-up call for me and it motivated me to start working hard as well. To make the best of the situation I was thrown into.
Quietly I started to follow him to his training regimes, he would eye me strangely, tease me about it, but he never sent me away. We spent almost every single minute of a day together. Mostly we were bickering and fighting but unbeknownst to us, we had somehow started to form a bond, we had begun to help each other out. In the most subtle of ways of course. We would have never admitted out loud that we had stopped hating each other's guts.
I trust him, because he was the first person who treated me honestly, who never let me down. He gave up on his shot at freedom for mine. Those are things that not even my parents could do for me. He became my family in there. So yes, I trust him blindly. I'd trust him with my life."

Hyunjin had said more than he had intended to. This was the most he had ever talked about his past and he could see the surprise on Seungmin's face.

"I understand that you can't trust him like I do – like Chan and Binnie do – but please trust us on this one", continued Hyunjin after Seungmin remained silent.

"What do you think of him as a fighter?"

Hyunjin was slightly taken aback by the question, this wasn't where he had expected the conversation to go.

"I think it's pretty obvious that I think that he's incredible. Technique-wise, I've never met someone as precise and flawless as him. He has basically turned his body into a fighting machine. There isn't a technique he hasn't learned, no weapon that he hasn't mastered, no strategy he hasn't heard of. He has no special power, no physical advantages, but I think he has remarkable intuition. It's like he can read his opponent's moves before they know them themselves, like he is always one step ahead of you. It used to really piss me off whenever we fought against each other."

"Do you think we can learn from him?", questioned Seungmin slowly, almost like he couldn't believe that he was even asking this.

"I know that I've learned a shit ton from him", Hyunjin answered. "I think there is always room for improvement. We're all strong but his techniques could influence us in a very new way.
Why are you asking?"

Seungmin nodded, letting the words sink in. "Just a thought."

Hyunjin looked at him doubtfully, there was surely more to this, but he decided to not press any further. He simply hoped that Seungmin would find it in himself to trust the human. Hyunjin was glad to have Han back and he wanted him to stay. For one, to repay his debt, but more than that, he liked having him around.

"I'm going to help Minho with dinner", Seungmin suddenly declared before he got up and left the room, but Hyunjin barely noticed it. Seungmin's voice sounded like it came from under water, mulled and distorted.

Just in time, Hyunjin managed to grab a blank piece of paper and his charcoal pen before his eyes rolled back. With only the white of his eyes visible, his right hand started moving. Frantically, Hyunjin began to draw like he was controlled by an invisible force.

He didn't know how long he had been drawing for, but it stopped just as abruptly as it had started. He was released from the invisible force and his hand froze midmovement. His vision turned back to normal and anxiously, he leaned over his drawing.

Multiple sheets of paper covered the table, creating a huge canvas.

In messy circles, an eight was drawn over and over and over, like a frame it circled the drawing in the middle.

A huge eye sat at the center of the canvas. It would have looked scarily realistic if it weren't for the pupil. In the middle of the golden iris, there was another eight.

Hyunjin looked further down. His breath caught in his throat, a chill ran down his spine. With shaking hands, he grabbed the sheet of paper and took it out of the constellation, leaving a hole just beneath the eye.

It felt like a cold hand enclosed around his heart as he read the words.

There, in small and elegant letters it stood:

8 is fate

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