INFERNO ༄ PARK JISUNG

seven

"Alright, what's your full name?" Seorin asked, looking at the worksheet they had to complete for their weekly grade.

"This is so stupid." Jisung muttered under his breath, already wanting to go home.

"Okay, moving on." she subtly rolled her eyes, writing his name down in English. "Where were you born?" she followed up with the next question on the paper.

"Seoul." he dryly responded, twirling the pen in between his fingers as he resisted the urge to play with fire.

"Cool, me too." she eyed his paper, seeing that it was left blank. "You should probably fill yours in too." she mumbled.

"It's all in English, I can't read it."

"Well no shit, that's the purpose of this class." she grumbled, taking it into her own matters to write down the answer. "How did you even get into this course?"

Jisung rolled his eyes in annoyance, seeing as though she asked too many questions. "My dad made me take it." he shrugged, making Seorin hum in response.

"Anyways... next question. What do you wanna be in the future?" she brushed off his response, too uninterested to continue the conversation.

"The fire leader, not working with Baek Seorin." he smirked wryly. Seorin let out a scoff as she narrowed her eyes at his irritating expression.

"Make sure to write down that last part." he added, making her slam her pen down on the desk.

"Can you please take this assignment seriously? I know you don't care about your grades, but I do." her tone turned serious, irritation building up in her due to his insensitivity and her lack of sleep.

"I know you don't care about your grades, but I do." he repeated in a mocking tone, writing down something at the top of his paper.

"At least you finally wrote down your name." she huffed with a sigh, rubbing her temples in frustration.

"Well since you care so much, what do you want to be in the future?" he exhaled deeply, dreading as time passed by painfully slow.

Seorin bit her lip in thought, tapping her pen on the table. "Hm... I mean being the water leader sounds fun and all, but I also really like baking. Perhaps, what if I opened a bakery as water leader? Wouldn't that be so cool?" she beamed, reminiscing about her hobbies.

Jisung quirked an eyebrow up at her excitement about her ideal side job. "You talk so much." was all he said before writing down a question mark onto his paper. "If you really don't want to be one of the leaders, I would gladly suggest you step down."

"Don't get your hopes up, I still want to be a leader, stupid. Don't you have other dreams and aspirations outside of that though?" she questioned.

Jisung stayed silent, barely putting in any thought towards her question. "No, you can do anything you want when you're a leader." he simply replied.

Seorin examined his rather devoid expression, wondering if there was anything under his flesh. The boy talked so emptily, no concern shown for anything disregarding the position of being a leader. He seemed so disconnected, as if he didn't enjoy anything. The only thing on his mind was his responsibility of being a future inheritor.

"Like what you see?" the same smirk crawled it's way back onto his lips, immediately snapping her out of his thoughts.

"Never in a million years." she huffed, refocusing her gaze on the paper. The silence hung over them, creating an even more awkward atmosphere between the two.

"Do you enjoy anything besides like... you know, being a fire shifter." she mumbled almost incoherently. Jisung raised an eyebrow, slightly amused by her intimidation.

"That's not on the paper, but only a good leader is 100% focused on their work."

"Sure, but you're not even a leader yet. Don't you wanna enjoy your youth before we have to go into training?" Seorin asked genuinely, wondering what was beneath his empty void.

He ran his fingers through his messy black hair sticking up in some areas. A dry chuckle escaped his lips in response to her naive wonders. "Youth is just a state of mind, I'm not gonna spend my years feeling like I have to fulfill it." he clicked his tongue, taking her off guard with his uncommon answer.

"Jeez, you must be fun at parties." she said under her breath. "Do you do anything fun?"

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" he hissed.

"That's literally the assignment."

Jisung let out a frustrated sigh, his patience running low. "And in fact, I do have fun."

Seorin stifled a chuckle as she looked at his angry expression. "Okay, mister 'youth is only a mindset'." she mockingly repeated his stance.

"I'm not wasting precious years where my body is in it's prime to go partying and doing stupid things. Training is important whether you're out of high school or not."

Seorin was in disbelief about how strongly he felt about being a future leader. How could someone want to throw away their childhood before they're obligated to?

"I'll bring you to a party one day." she smiled, seeing the shocked expression plaster on his face.

"Did you not listen to anything I just said?" he scoffed.

"Loosen up, Park. You're gonna get gray hairs before you even get there." despite his pestering and snappy comebacks, her smile didn't waver, as if she saw through his fiery front.

Jisung stayed silent, not dwelling on why she was being so kind regardless of his retorts. "Let's just get this over with." he grumbled.

chapter seven — youth