VMINKOOK / THE ART OF BEEKEEPING

19

— PART NINETEEN.

Polychromatic rivers bleed out over the expanse of Taemin's house; silly string intestines and party popper guts lithely making themselves at home upon every empty surface and every empty skull. Drunken breaths exert drunken words and disharmonious giggles attempt to break through the vast shield of drill beats. White residue sticks, in clumps, to their clothes and skin, making itself a rather intrusive reminder of all their mistakes. Screams of delight intertwist with hollers of pain and aggression; most body's conjoining in slurs of hormones and angst, teenagers kissing goodbye their parent's trust, in concoctions of teeth and saliva.

And, embedded within it all, is a smile. Albeit a twisted and not at all winsome smile, but a smile just the same.

His eyes skim across the dumb fleets of intoxicated brats, who've little to no self-control, nor any form of dignity. It's hilarious, to an extent, how warped their pretty, little minds are — he can practically see them melting, drifting away, along with their promise to a trust-fund. He finds utmost hilarity within this subdued party house filled with the relics of empty childhoods and burnt out adulthood. Having only dipped a finger into some person's Kopparburg and finding it to taste a tad too similar to juice, Jimin spat it out and decided remaining sober was far more entertaining.

He was waiting for Taehyung, of course, slightly vexed that the younger had rejected his offer to pick him up, claiming he'd make it alone. Jimin wasn't anxious so to speak, about the prospect of Taehyung not turning up, more so hopeful of the chance he would. Hopeful because he knew Taehyung would be the only interesting part of this toxic display of cumbersome, unkempt sobriety.

"Seulgi was lookin' for you." Jimin barely allows the image of the harlequin lights breaching the shadows of Sungwoon's face to engrave his eyes, as the other's presence becomes distinguishable within his peripheral vision.

The orange-haired male has to still time in order encompass his thoughts into distinct lines of fragmented sentences that'd politely define what he needed to say. Because Jimin was, in fact, aware of Seulgi looking for him, as the girl, only minutes ago, had her fingertips lodged between the fiery integument of Jimin's prideful stupor. Her tongue had kissed baneful nothing's into his eardrums and his impatient, jaded mind had let her. However, before their skin could fully melt into one another, he'd escaped from her acrylic clutches, opting to hide amongst the beer pong extraordinaire's.

But, it was a little game he liked to play that kept his words resting at the peak of his tongue. Park Jimin was ever the lover of the game of words, adored spindling sticky lies, which manifested as truths in the ears of those desperate to hear and not listen, "is she now?"

"Mmm, seems pretty pissed too." Sungwoon smiles from beneath his lipgloss — lipgloss which most certainly didn't belong to him, eyes glazed with slovenly acres of false worship and empathetic drawl.

"I'm sure she'll get over whatever it is." Jimin smiles back, somewhat genuinely, as the thought of the girl working herself up into a frenzy of jealousy and teenage pettiness was rather amusing.

Sungwoon agrees with a shrug of his shoulders, an action sombrely graced with indifference, before his mouth wobbles at the corners, the suppression of unspoken words suddenly beginning to become hazardous to keep tucked away, "where's your plus one, eh, Jimin?"

The redhead raises a brow at that, wishing he'd be able to give an answer that wasn't damaging to his image. It was quite unheard of for a Park to be stood up by a date, so the vary incarnation of it was perhaps a little devastating. If Taehyung were to not show up, it wouldn't just be irritating to Jimin, but also irritating to Jeongguk, who Jimin could see across the room.