The Underground - 3RACHA

26

That morning, at an hour Jisung deemed too early to talk to anybody, he was awoken by a phone call. He sighed, rubbed his eyes and without opening them, felt around for the landline on his bedside table. "Hello?" He mumbled as he found the phone and raised the handset to his ear, turning over so his face was buried in his pillow.

"Jisung, did you do something to my car?"

Jisung's eyes snapped open at the sound of Hyunjin's voice, especially as it was so angry. He scrambled up into a sitting position and said, "no, is something wrong?"

"Yeah, something's fucking wrong! You destroyed my car, didn't you?" Hyunjin yelled so loud that Jisung had to hold the phone away from his ear.

"N-no, I don't know what you're talking about," Jisung said, already feeling the terror of Hyunjin being mad at him build up. He didn't know what he was going to do this time; he'd already knocked him out. Hyunjin probably liked the cut he'd given Jisung on his face; as if it was a way of marking his territory, but Jisung wasn't his territory and he had had enough of being treated like it. 

"Hyunjin, I didn't do anything to your stupid car so leave me alone!" He yelled back, overflowing with the confidence he could never have in person as he slammed the phone back onto its holder and threw himself back down on the bed. He'd only just started to get comfortable when the phone started ringing again. He gritted his teeth as he turned over to grab the phone and yelled, "fuck off!" as loud as he could.

"Woah, ok sorry," Chan's voice said through the phone and Jisung's eyes widened.

"Oh, no no no, not you! I thought you were someone else, I'm so sorry!" Jisung apologised, pushing himself into a sitting position again.

Chan chuckled, "it's alright. I was just calling to see if you wanted a ride to work this morning? We have the same shift."

"Oh," Jisung realised, a small smile starting to break out on his face. Subconsciously, he moved his hand up to touch the cut that Hyunjin had caused. He was going to have to explain that to Chan which he didn't want to do, but it's not like he could avoid him. "Yes, please," he said

"Great, I'll be there in just under an hour."

-

Jisung tried to cover up his black eye with Sooyoung's make-up. It didn't work well as Jisung had no idea what he was doing and Sooyoung already left for school before she could help him. In the end, it looked worse than his black eye did so he washed it off and settled for telling Chan the truth. It's not like Chan knew who Hyunjin was anyway. It would be fine.

When Jisung saw Chan pulling up outside his house, he started pacing backwards and forwards before finally picking up his coat and leaving the house. He tried to use the hood to cover the black eye and gash along his temple, but he looked suspicious and knew it was better to pull it down. Luckily, the cut was on the opposite side of his face to where Chan was sitting in the driver's seat. All Jisung had to do was stare forward.

"Good morning to you too," Chan chuckled at the boy who seemingly didn't want to say anything, "not in a good mood today?"

"Good morning," Jisung mumbled, eyes unshifting from next-door's car, parked in front of Chan's.

"Jisung," Chan said, making him dig his nails into his palms. "Can you look at me?"

"I-I don't look very good, I got ready in a rush," Jisung lied, causing Chan to sigh.

"First of all, you always look good. Second of all, I already know what happened, Changbin told me."

A wave of relief washed over Jisung. He didn't want to tell Chan himself and Changbin doing so made it easier. He couldn't help but wonder when they'd seen each other though.