iris . vkook

twenty two

스물 둘

Jeongguk's PoV;

Groaning, I felt a kick to my ribs after a punch to my face from an unhappy customer.

"Dude, I already fucking told you. I'm the dealer, not a goon. I don't fucking know where the prick resides, nor do I know where he gets his imports." I hissed, moving and lifting my leg, delivering a quick kick to the side of his head.

I suppose learning Taekwondo was occasionally useful.

"Y-you're a fucking liar." He spat, a mixture of blood and spit landing beside my battered and worn trainers, "you fucking know where Taeyong is. You know where he gets his drugs. You know for a fucking fact that this isn't coke. I didn't take you for an idiot. Shit, I didn't take you for a fiesty fucker either."

"Listen man, I just pick up the bags and stand in this alleyway for six or seven hours a day for a week. I just say what the label reads. For all we know, this might be sugar. I presume it's coke, you pay and we both move on with our lives." I sighed, shaking my bruised and pulsing hand, splatters of crimson liquid flicking away as I did so, "there's no need to be so fucking difficult. You're a junkie, I get that life is hard, but shit dude, I was a broke student and I had to pick up a job."

Jungwoo shivered, his teeth chattering as he sifts his fingers through the yellowed notes, the paper fragile and even more so in the damp air.

"He's a thousand underpaid." He spoke.

"Hand it over and I'll pretend that you didn't just attempt to beat the living shit out of a dealer."

The customer hissed, narrowing his eyes at a tired Jungwoo as he slapped money into his open hands, Jungwoo smiling sleepily and wishing him a good night as the junkie stumbled away.

I slid down the wall, desperate to rest my aching and cold legs as I pressed a careful hand to the area around my eye, flinching as I made contact with the bruising skin.

"Fuck, that's so gonna bruise. I can feel my pulse in my fucking eye." I cursed, watching as Jungwoo dropped into a crouch in the wide alleyway, inspecting my wounds with gentle hands.

"He's cut all your cheekbone and your lip and yeah, you're right. You're probably gonna have a beauty of a black eye." He smiled sadly, wiping blood with the corner of his sleeve which was wet from the snow.

"I hate customers like that. I understand that they're off their faces on god knows what, but why is it my fault that the fucking coke isn't strong enough to dissolve their skin?!" I ranted.

Jungwoo chuckled quietly, "it isn't. I'm surprised that you didn't have him on his ass in two seconds flat, you must be sick."

"I'm just tired." I replied.

I didn't want to tell Jungwoo about how the man reminded me of an ex-boyfriend. The one who spat nasty words at me and dragged me around like a paper doll. I didn't want to tell Jungwoo about how the man's quick snarl and venemous words that came along with knuckles to my eye and mouth and how he just reminded me of him.

Someone who made me weak and submissive. Quick to listen to any commands that often threatened my health. 

Such as making me take that pill to prove that it wasn't poisonous or a roofie. Or making me drive down to the busy nightclub in central Busan, one full of junkies and druggies and people riddled with disease and infection, to pick him and a random girl up and drive them to our house and force me to listen to their intimacy through paper thin walls. Even though he was my boyfriend.

And how dare I defy him by wearing those ripped jeans?

Or that whorish outfit? 

An outfit that consisted of black skinny jeans and a slim fitting navy jumper that drowned my figure, Chinese lettering scrawled onto the front in a white font.

How dare I look at another man? He'd yell, though his arm would be around a skinny woman who looked good enough to be a supermodel. Yelling at me like he didn't just have his tongue openly down her throat a second ago. Yet, I was in the wrong for looking at a man, even though my eye was purely caught due to freaky yellow hair.

I hated him.

I hated how the customer's fist to my eye brought back memories of him and the reason behind why I was so used to black eyes and split lips, bruised arms and fingernail marks deep on my wrists.

I hated everything about the customer, so much so that I couldn't fight how I normally would.

My kicks and punches didn't come quick enough.

My hestitation came from the fear brewing in my stomach at the customer who scarily represented him. How could I hit him?

"I see. We've only got two more customers tonight. Then, you're on JinJin's shift tomorrow and then you're back home in pretty Seoul. Think on the bright side, bun." He smiled, offering a hand to help me up as the familiar clicking of heels sounded.

I took his warm, gloved hand in my cold, bare one and allowed him to pull me to my feet, which ached from the lack of blood flow.

I greeted the grubby teenager which a swift nod of my head, murmuring a question as I pulled out a cigarette from the nearing-empty box, lighting it up and looking at the customer.

"Got any weed?" She asked, blonde and greasy hair flopping over her forehead and surprisingly blemish-free skin considering the kid's lack of hygiene.

"A few strains of sativa. Purple haze, blue dream or headband? Take your pick, kid." I replied, pulling out the bags and showing her.

"I've got a few thousand won, what will that get me?"

I sighed, "kid, you get that drugs are shit, right?"

"I do. And I appreciate that, however, I don't care to hear your ranting on the side effects of drugs. I know dude, I know. I just wanna get a little high. Nothing life changing. Just a quick fix, you get me?"

"Take fifteen grams of blue dream." I said, exchanging the bag for some notes, "just be careful, yeah?"

"Thanks man."

The kid walked away, looking no older than fifteen as she tottered away into the darkness of two in the morning.

"She was a kid." Jungwoo frowned.

"I'm a dealer. Their age and occupation doesn't concern us. We just get rid of drugs in exchange for money." I said, adjusting my coat, "they're ruining their own lives. We don't get involved."

"Still, I can't help but feel pity. Don't you feel the same?" He asked.

I scoffed, "no. Their health is not my concern."

"Oh yeah, I forgot that you were heartless." Jungwoo laughed.

"I'm not heartless, you're just soft."

Just like Taehyung.