They kept following them.
Following him and Minho up alleyways, down the streets they turned to shake the pair of unknown men off of them. Pursing them at a distance, not close but not far enough away to not be suspicious in their lingering presence like a kite that hovers over a park on a sunny day. As they retraced their steps through the area once more, the bounty hunter’s wandering hand that kept itself pressed flat to Jisung’s back in warning to continue trotting toward an escape. Any sort of escape from, not quite the threat that they posted themselves to be, more what Jisung would regard as an annoyance he’d much rather ask Minho to stab or shoot to take care of.
Still, that method wasn’t the most ideal in broad daylight. So he kept his mouth firmly closed and his head down as Minho led him. Damn assholes regardless though. This meant he’d get home later… he’d have to finish his lunch later… he’d have to grade his kid’s assignments later… damn it…
Returning them both to the train station tucked between the few businesses on that lonely stretch of track, Minho who’s hand left him in a second to unclip his Doraemon keychain from his belt loop and scan his card over the electronic sensors, Jisung who had to flip his backpack around to find his wallet to smack it on the scanner as well. Following hot on the bounty hunter’s heels as he subtly picked up his pace to a quiet jog in the station, hurrying to escape the two men as they scanned into the station as well to follow after them. Minho glanced back at them before grabbing Jisung’s forearm.
Tugging him after onto the platform. The hard grip digging into the soft flesh covering the thrumming of his veins underneath. Jisung glanced down to the fingers, where the fabric of his button-up yielded as the white threads collapsed inward beneath a controlling palm, beneath he was sure his skin bent to melt around his touch as well, that sort of burning touch, burning fingers, where his fabric scored the patterns of his prints onto his shirt forever. Compared to the strength of the clutching around his forearm, the men who followed them seemed entirely irrelevant to him.
The bounty hunter dragged him after as he stepped onto the length of the station’s busy platform, hurrying down the line, narrowly avoiding the lines forming to board the oncoming train shooting them glances that could’ve frozen them on their steps, the droning hum of the tracks rattled against the ground to announce a train oncoming.
When that metal rolled into the station like a cold thunder, stopping at the platform as the electric gates opened to the doorway beyond, Minho clutched his arm tight enough to dig his fingers beneath his veins as he hurriedly tugged them onto the train. The doors closed gently behind him.
As soon as he stepped into the train car, a brutal reminder knocked into him as he bumped into the cluster of people inside of the train: Rush Hour. That brief window everyone hurried to one side of the city to another, a time he would usually spend at a park or staying late to finish up grading a few papers to avoid the smashed crowd, Minho wedged him into the center of it with an apologetic look. Bullshit. What apologetic look would drag him farther away from the safety of the open doors? Wedging them both through the clump in the aisle until he directed Jisung to a bare spot against the closing doors, and seeing no one would be pressed against him, Jisung wordlessly took the spot Minho offered to him. Quickly taking his backpack off to set on the floor between his legs as the bounty hunter was forced to stand in front of him. No room to keep the backpack separating them.
Rush hour…
Jisung glanced outside the adjacent window. Over the tops of heads of businessmen with earbuds wedged to play gentle music that mingled with the rumbling of the speedy train over the tracks, the clumps of high school boys that occupied seats that could have gone to the elderly woman standing merely a length away as she watched them play games on their phones, gazes that clung to phone screens, slumping over after a long day of work, those ordinary people who did ordinary things every day, Jisung watched them all with envy. He watched outside of the windows, the buildings that grew as the train brought them back to the inner suburbs. The station left far behind them. The men who missed the train, unable to follow, growing farther, farther away.
Still, rush hour was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for the concealment it providedー
Yet a curse for whatever tumultuous dust storm kicked up in Jisung’s mind.
Why were we being followed? It must’ve been what Minho said; If they were security, they must’ve thought we were someone loitering or looking to break in.
He shifted his gaze down while he secluded himself into his thoughts. Distracting himself with running his fingertips over the smooth surface of the train car’s thick double doors behind him. The undercurrents of murmurs against his hands shivering as the steel wheels roars against the slivers of silver ribbons like distant cannons blasting over and over, rolling artillery fire that sunk it’s bullets into his muscles. Into his chest, when the train switches tracks and his spine bumps against the door. Like brass that finds itself wedged between his arteries and vessels as Minho stumbles from the quake of the unexpected sway too. Admittedly, Jisung wasn’t the best at keeping himself focused when the bounty hunter steadied his hands against the door, stepping closer into Jisung to avoid the person who bumped him.
Though trying to keep a subtle difference between them, separated by his propped arms and his body he angled away, by Jisung who responded by slipping farther into the shut door behind him. Seemingly noticing his discomfort with the proximity, Minho whispered, “Sorry.”
“It’s just rush hour,” Jisung dismissed the apology with that returned utter. Its rush hour. Nothing either of them did meant anything more. Turning his head away from the other to smash himself further into the stationary doors. Hoping as the train stopped at the next station the crowd would die down enough for him to escape somewhere else. Both for his own sake, and for Minho, as uncomfortable as he seemed with the current situation as well; A lack of space that had his knees knocking into Minho’s, the faint rattling of his Doraemon keychain louder with every accidentally bump or rock from the moving car, the transparency of his eyes that gazed over with their unseeing gaze staring off at something outside the windows, something that neither of them would be able to see.
What an odd person.
His outfit that day had been comprised of that same multi-toned jacket he wore before, another cream tinted sweater shoved underneath that crested the top of his typical ripped blue jeans, that Doraemon keychain irritatingly clipped to his side like his own version of a green light at the end of a boat dock, some message that Jisung couldn’t understand in such a short time. His eyes, though distant at what laid ahead, carried a sort of color that Jisung kept sneaking glances to as the setting sunlight poured through the train windows. Like honey, or amber lit up, but without the same soul. But those unusual feline-structure of his nose, his jaw, as if they were permanently trapped in keeping a secret they would never be able to tell.
Odd, but attractive.
He had to admit that much to himself.
He had to. How could Jisung deny it? That his type had always leaned toward the enigmatic and unusual; That estranged bounty hunter from an unknown corner of the city an exact caricature of the people he saught out, for what reason? For their secrets? For the stories they could tell him and compare against his own experiences? For the comfort, that as wrong, that as empty as his chest often felt without something to fill up that insurpurable nothing, that as blank and ordinary as he felt, perhaps that wasn’t unsual to feel? For their personalities? The excitement brought upon them? What? For what reason? It was a much different feeling than he got from teaching.
Perhaps, it was that odd feeling. Of when his hand lingers on the trigger of his rifle and he inhales a breath so deep into his lungs he’d think they might explode from within him. Of when he angles the crosshairs of his sight to fix onto the target meters away from him and tracks their movements until that second of a window was opened to him. Of when he finally releases the tension, that trigger snaps back, and a bang resonates inside of his head. Of the adrenaline, the terror, the satisfaction, the relief that courses through him in a moment, and thenー
It’s gone.
Perhaps that’s what it is. Something that courses through him as he becomes a target too. Something that is gone before he can indulge in it’s sweetness.
Something that stirs those distance sensations inside of him when the bounty hunter forced his eyes off of the world outside the train, and offered a tentative smile to Jisung.
Something that he wanted, no, he wished was tangible enough to steal Minho’s knife from him and dig out of his own chest with the blade when he suddenly stepped closer. Despite no one bumping him or shifting to move in the cluster of people, Minho moved himself closer to Jisung regardless. Bending his arms, slouching ever so slightly, until he felt Minho’s chest knocking into his when he breathed, until he could trace the outline of his pistol and the knife with his stomach, until he could only statue in place to avoid an unnecessary movement.
Come on, pull yourself together.
Jisung squished himelf into the door behind him, “Why are you getting closer to me.”
“That time I wanted to,” Minho offered a smile down to him, his voice like a burning sun that rose against Jisung’s neck.
Jisung smashed his lips together. Zipping up what curses or prayers he wished to say to that man as he only pressed himself tighter into the doors behind him. Averting his eyes up to the screen hoisted above the adjacent door, distracting his mind off of the man practically a step away from being pressed flush against his front and a soft scent that invaded his nose when the train swayed them closer together; Like mint. Mint flavored hard candies that would sit between Jisung’s teeth before they grew edges to catch his tongue, mint that soiled his nostrils with an overwhelming tang yet chilled him through to his veins. He tried to push the scent out of his thoughts. Merely focusing up on the stations they passed by.
Behind his back, the doors banged as another train dashed by them on the other track. Jisung let the knock jostle through his body while that mechanical monster roared by.
The next station the door he was leaned against opened up to, Jisung hurriedly pressed himself off before he fell backwards onto the platform. If Minho grabbed his forearm again to tug him upright, then Jisung didn’t pay it any mind. Only slipping his hand around the bounty hunter’s own to grab onto the man’s thick jacket, clutching onto him before he grabbed his backpack off the floor of the platform and dragged Minho off the train into the humid autumn air. Though it seemed only they had stepped off of that crowded train; One of those open platforms raised amongst apartments and businesses rather than underground, Jisung inhaled a deep breath as he glanced around the empty station. Proceeding to realize when none of the area was familiar to himー
“Where are we?” Minho hummed playfully, releasing Jisung’s arm as he took the honors to glance around as well.
“Hell if I know,” Jisung uttered underneath his breath. He wobbled himself over to the closest bench on the platform, tucked beside a cleaned pillar and a vending machine lit up with a hundred alluring options for drinks he was blinded by, and proceeded to flop down onto it. Not paying much mind to Minho. Not to him casually swaying in his step as he glanced around at the station number and name pasted on the plaques around the platform, not to his hands that fished in his pocket to whip his phone out most likely to find the route out of this area, not as he casually wandered to set himself gingerly on the bench beside Jisung. Again, sitting far enough away from him that he couldn’t reach out to hit him in any vital areas.
Not paying him any mind. If he was busy searching for their route elsewhere, then Jisung had the freedom to do whatever else he wanted. First busying himself with unzipping his backpack. Tucked to the brim with his laptop, binders, folders, assignments, his copy of the book they were working through in class, he grabbed the cluster of work and set it beside himself on the bench. Another barrier to separate himself and the bounty hunter. Allowing the wall to be built up once more, before digging back to the bottom of his backpack. Finding the gold he had been digging for; His water bottle. Hurriedly unscrewing the top to gulp down as much of the refreshing liquid as possible. One of those reliefs he didn’t know he needed until he had it.
“Brave New World?”
Jisung glanced past the corner of his eye, sneaking a peek at the bounty hunter. Still half occupied with scrolling on his phone, though his eyes were latched to that black and white book at the top of his stack.
“That’s right. Why?” The teacher wondered to him, quickly screwing the water bottle closed once more before he placed the container somewhere he could reach much easier the next time. Following the placement with returning the rest of his items to his backpack, “Have you ever read Brave New World? My students are analyzing that story right now.”
All aside from the book. That, Minho plucked off the top of the stack as he shoved his phone into his jacket pocket once more. Hunching over his knees for support as he opened the cover and began to flip through the bronzed pages chunk by chunk, “I had to, in high school too. Dystopian by enforcing pleasure instead of pain: I don’t remember much about what happens or anything like that, but I remember I liked reading it.”
“Me too,” Jisung leaned back on the bench. Watching the bounty hunter become engrossed with the pages, “There’s something about it I can understand more than a lot of other stories they have to read in the curriculum.”
The bounty hunter offered a loose nod of a response. Continuing to thumb through each chapter with meticulous caution. Looking over a few words before flipping onto the next few pages.
Until he reached a particular part of the book. Near the end, Jisung had recognized the paragraph from the familiar pen that underlined each word.
Softly, Minho read out loud, “‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God. I want poetry. I want real danger. I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin.’
The hitman watched the people pass by them. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things. The trains zooming by as the metal tracks screamed with the demons that crawled along the veins waiting to catch up to the starstruck speed of those cars. Continuing on like clockwork, unstoppable machines. Beneath their sound, where those monsters hid against the platforms waiting to grab both him and the bounty hunter.
‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond. ‘You’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’
All shades of black and white inside of the station. No gray to mix those sterile colors together.
‘All right then,’ said the Savage defiantly,
But Jisung looked at Minho as he read the page.
‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.'”
“That’s one hell of a section you highlighted,” The bounty hunter shot him a slight smirk as he clapped the book close. But he gazed through Jisung. As if he was something to be toyed with. As if he was something to be preyed upon. A target. An anomaly. Entertainment. Nothing more. Perhaps he was one of those demons that rid on the tops of the trains and held onto the back between the cars, hitching along for the ride everyone else had to pay for. Perhaps the bounty hunter was some sort of demon, or mystery, or merely human, when he lifted his lips like a feline. Minho jested, “Is Mr. Han not happy with his life?”
Jisung shot him a pleasant smile and stood up from the bench.
“It’s a section I want my students to analyze in class. It’s an important moment to the plot, and to the later realization of the main character,” He grabbed his backpack up once more, placing it onto his front instead as he faced Minho, “Even if I highlighted that section for myself, anyone who says they’re happy with their lives, they’re either delusional or lying.”
“I’m happy with mine,” He offered the book out to him.
“Then you’re delusional,” Jisung snatched it from his hands, another soft smile offered to Minho, “And a liar.”
The bounty hunter leaned into the support behind him, his arms spreading out to rest on the back of the bench, “Well, now, I never said I wasn’t.”
Jisung quickly glanced him over, taking him in for what he was a second more. Though, he wasn’t sure what that could’ve been. How normal he looked in this situation. Yet…
What an odd person.
The next train rolling into the station interrupted his thoughts. His hands rushed to tuck his book away into his backpack once more, zipping what little sliver of an opening he left closed firmly, “Are you coming?”
“Naahhhh, I’ll stay here a bit longer, maybe get some ice cream from a convenience store, visit a few thrift stores, makesurenoonewasfollowingus, the usual,” Minho slumped farther back. He offered a soft wave to him, “Catch you later, buttercup.”
When the doors to the next train opened up, Jisung readily turned away from him and jogged into the nearest car.
Through the open doorway, Minho gave him one last wave.
Jisung scoffed. Still, returning the wave with his own before the train closed up.
▄︻デ â•â•â”一á°.áŸËŽËŠË—
Okay, so, up until this chapter I really want this to feel like???? Like you’re not really inside of Jisung’s perspective. More like it’s just watching them from outside with minimal thoughts/feelings from Jisung, is that obvious? Does that feel okay?
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