Taste of Ink | j.jk & k.th (COMPLETED)

Praying (Better Start)

Jungkook had met only a few gang members in the past that had made him feel uncomfortable, made him feel something akin to fear in their presence. Despite Yoongi's sharp tongue and habit of breaking bones his friend was not one of them, but there were a few goons he knew by name or sight that he found intimidating. Usually it was the men that were taller than him by a few inches and wide with muscle rather than just fat, the ones that never had bruises and yet were always working. Sometimes they had tattoos on their faces, on clear display so that no one could possibly mistake their affiliations and he noticed that they barely seemed to speak. Looking at most of them he wondered if they even could speak in anything more than grunts and growls, or if they stuck to using their fists alone to get their messages across. It was never something strong enough to call 'fear' but rather just a wariness that made him want to not get too close to them, to not even look at them. He had seen perhaps three Sam Yong Pa goons that were like this and he knew one of them wasn't even Korean but was actually Japanese. He had never heard his name said ever, it seemed that he went by the title 'the Japanese' as if he was some kind of superhero villain and he wasn't even that large or threatening. There just seemed to be an air coming off him that told people that he was not to be messed with and so Jungkook had sampled the air and decided that it was wise to avoid him. He had never been scared of another human being before, except maybe his drunken mother.

He had smuggled drugs into dens packed with foreign trade partners, he had had a few close run-ins with police in the past and he had spent several days on the streets when he had been practically a child and he had survived the deathly winter cold. People didn't scare him at all yet he had to admit that he felt something in the pit of his stomach when he locked eyes with this boy: with Kim Taehyung.

The boy didn't have a threatening face at all, that was what he found so very strange. He had a face that looked like it could be very friendly in the right circumstances. He wasn't a towering presence with shoulders like a linebacker and a grizzled look to him. Holding his eyes however he found that he was threatening in a different kind of way. His gaze was strong and unflinching and he realised that this was what it was like being on the receiving end of Yoongi's wrath. His large eyes looked at him, like a big cat eyeing up prey, and then they seemed to look right through him. He was not like Jimin, who had put on a show to try and look cooler and intimidating, no Taehyung had an effortless air around him that he didn't need to force or fake.

"What?" Taehyung asked suddenly, voice deep and an accent not from Busan. He would need to hear him talking a little more to figure it out. His eyebrows shifted ever so slightly and they disappeared under the fall of hair on his brow.

Why had Jimin introduced him as the Sam Yong Pa punk? Why had he thought that it was a good idea to introduce a rival to his friend rather than just give a name instead? Jungkook didn't know but he felt like maybe he should throw another chestnut at him for his stupidity. Maybe even deck him across the back of his head with his skateboard instead to help get the point across. He would have never introduced Jimin to Yoongi by telling him he was in Geum Sung Pa because he didn't know exactly how his friend would react to it. Maybe his friend would get pissed, maybe he would be too shocked to get mad, but whatever he might have reacted like he still wouldn't have told him. Had Jimin done it on purpose to see how he would react, or had he maybe told his friend about him in advance? If so...what exactly had he been saying?

"Why're you staring at me?" the boy asked as he shifted in the seat. Jungkook suddenly became aware of the fact that he had been staring at him like an art exhibition and he mentally chastised himself. "Is there something on my face?" Taehyung lifted a hand to touch his face and he caught sight of what had been in his hand: a manhwa book. Judging from the cover it was set in a high school, for he could see male characters in white and grey uniforms with crazy hair in colours of orange and yellow.