Hearts Awakened, Live Alive

Hongjoong: Of Coffee and Chemistry

Hongjoong carried two steaming mugs of coffee through the relatively busy café, platinum blonde hair acting as his beacon to the table he and Seonghwa had claimed for themselves.

His plan to ask Seonghwa to work with him outside of their shared lab course during Friday's period had gone even better than he had hoped. For one, Seonghwa had been the one to invite him out not only to work on their lab write up for class but also just straight up on a date. Hongjoong had reasonably been surprised at the end of the lab when after he suggested they meet up sometime over the weekend, Seonghwa had decided to take it one step further and call it an actual date instead. It was especially surprising considering Seonghwa had spent the entire class period shakily flustered and in various stages of embarrassment. For him to suddenly and very boldly just ask him out on a study date was so out of character for him, it had taken Hongjoong a solid thirty seconds to even understand what was happening. Seonghwa had immediately begun sputtering out an apology for his forwardness, but Hongjoong had quickly cut him off and accepted his invitation. The duality in that single conversation had taken Hongjoong completely off guard; he wondered what other strange personality quirks this man had.

They had worked extremely well together throughout the entirety of Friday's lab procedure. Seonghwa was clearly incredibly intelligent, easily filling in whatever Hongjoong was unsure about, which was quite a lot if he were being honest. Chemistry was not his forte, so it was a good thing Seonghwa was apparently a genius. Their conversation throughout class had started off rather stilted, mainly because Seonghwa seemed to go through an existential crisis whenever Hongjoong so much as looked at him. Thankfully, he'd gotten more comfortable around him by the end of the three-hour period. He even caught him trying to make an absolutely awful joke—a terrible chemistry pun—at one point too. Hongjoong had still laughed, regardless, which had earned him a smile. Seonghwa had suggested they meet at the coffee shop Hongjoong was carefully navigating now to both finish their report and get to know each other better. Hongjoong had quickly agreed, hardly having to fake his enthusiasm—he was very interested in understanding this strange man better, regardless of the fact that he was technically their enemy—and agreed to meet him this rather dreary Saturday afternoon.

Carefully, he placed the hot coffee mugs down on the table in front of their respective seats. Seonghwa smiled shyly in thanks up at him, bringing his sweater-pawed hands up to gently cup the warm mug. It was rather chilly outside and had been thunder storming all day once again. Though, Hongjoong couldn't complain. The rain had never really bothered him all that much and his date looked positively adorable in his oversized, black turtleneck sweater.

Focus. Right. He had a job to do.

"It's really busy in here today," Hongjoong said as he sat down across from Seonghwa. He began pulling out the various materials he would need to finish their assignment from his backpack as he spoke.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" Seonghwa immediately began. "I'm sure we could find somewhere less crowded."

Hongjoong waved him off.

"No, that's not what I meant," Hongjoong said with a smile. "I like it here. I always get coffee from here, so I don't mind. But usually, I get it to go."

Seonghwa nodded before saying:

"I know." He cleared his throat. "You had a cup on Friday."

"How sweet," Hongjoong cooed. "Already paying that close attention to me, you're off to a good start."

The other man gave another shy smile, shrinking back to hide a little further inside his turtleneck. Hongjoong's stomach did a backflip. Could this man actually be apart of such an evil and malicious organization? Not only that, could he actually have been raised by the Governor himself? Sure, he had been adopted in a desperate PR stunt about twelve years ago, but he'd been nine at the time. Surely, it wouldn't have been hard to turn a small, impressionable boy into a full-blown psychopath that felt no emotion and only followed orders. Hell, Agony had tried to do the same to Hongjoong at that age too before his parents had stepped in and paid the ultimate price for it. But Seonghwa hadn't had anyone like that, hadn't had anyone to sacrifice their lives so that he might grow up normally. He wondered if Seonghwa had actually managed to hold on to his humanity through years of ruthless conditioning or if he was just acting. If that were the case, he had to be an extremely good actor to fool even Wooyoung, the best people-reader he had ever met.