“Found him. He’s plowed.”
“I only had a few shots, I’m not drunk,” Jisung defended himself, knocking Seungmin’s grip on his shoulder off as his boss dragged him around as if he was a young child wandered out to the center of a dense forest. Though his feet staggered ever so slightly over the uneven asphalt in the back alleyway he had been unceremoniously yanked out to despite finally feeling fuzzy enough to be comfortable in the strip club, slipping over the puddles of drying rain collected in cracks with the sitting garbage rotting away in the dumpster beside the spare exit. Count on Seungmin for ruining his time at the last minute. Even if his hand shot out to balance himself against the harsh concrete walls when his veins tingled and the floors breathed underneath his feet, “Maybe tipsy but not drunk…”
In his swimming vision, he caught Mimho and Seungmin exchanging a fast glance underneath the rays of the singular lamplight hung above the door. A soft sigh from his boss’s lips as he flipped his hand up to check his watch. Painfully reminding Jisung, “You’re teaching today.”
“I’ll deal with it, I’m a big kid,” He stubbornly dismissed. What time was it anyway? Past midnight? When did he usually get up for teaching? Five…. No…. Six? Yeah, he could do that. That’s not a problem. So what if his legs felt a tad bit wobbly as if he was steadying himself against a vicious current on the open ocean, or if his face flushed with a burning warmth he could only press the back of his floppy hand into his cheek to chill off, or if he had to shove his palm a little farther into the wall next to him to stay upright? A quick sleep would cure him of any of that without a problem, he could still teach tomorrow. It wasn’t like he was incapacitated…
Neither the bounty hunter or his boss gave him any regard despite his insistence. Which, rude. Extremely rude of them to pass him off as if he didn’t have any say over his own mental autonomy and bodily functions, like he was nothing more than a drunkard at 2 in the morning behind a strip club before they had to go into work. They simply turned themselves toward one another again, effectively blocking the hitman out of their discussion, like he couldn’t handle what they were saying! Rude! As if he couldn’t hear that Asshole Kim Seungmin complaining, “Listen, I got a text from my work. I have something to take care of in the morning, and I drove him here. Can you do me a favor and…?”
“Take him home? Yeah, that’s fine,” Even Minho seemed slightly surprised at the request! Though it was dark outside due to the stupidly atrocious hour they were still wandering about at, and the only light he really had to judge them off of was the dim crappy outdoor lamp above him that kept flickering every few minutes into the alleyway they were talking in, and Asshole Kim Seungmin’s big stupid head was somewhat blocking Minho’s face from Jisung seeing completely, and his vision being slightly fuzzy as if he was a television that played noise as it lost connection to the channels, and his ears were a little stuffy from the loud music… And… He felt a little dizzy from a gentle warbling in the corner of his eyes…. And his stomach was churning with discomfort every second he leaned against the wall for support…. And…
Maybe he was farther gone than he initially thought.
“Thanks man. I have to check up on him in the afternoon because of moral obligation so don’t kill him or anything,” Seungmin added in, stepping backwards over his feet as he headed to leave them alone in the alleyway. Returning to the parking lot as he walked backward. As if he was discussing terms and conditions with an agreement they signed off to without Jisung’s consent (Not that he minded… Minho was an interesting guy), “I’ll know, and you won’t live long after if you do anything to my precious moneymaker. Don’t touch him, don’t kill him, don’t let him beat you up, don’tー”
“Yes, I understand,” Minho quickly agreed as Seungmin flashed him a thumbs up, slipping out of the alleyway.
The hitman pressed himself off the wall, sludging his way closer to the bounty hunter.
“No problem,” Jisung lightly put his fists up, murmuring to himself as he plowed a weak punch into Minho’s back, “I could kick your ass anyway…”
“Yeah?” The other snorted as he glanced back to him, a blatant, and rather rude amazement glittering in his gaze cutting through every inch of Jisung’s being. Boring sinkholes through him for the rest of his body to cave into, collapsing away with the faint haze of those bleak eyes. Hazy, foggy, smokey, like the smoldering of a campfire or the embers off the tip of a lit cigarette that tumbles ash by ash. Eyes that could burn through his waning soul bleeding away, that could poison him with arsenic and sweet nicotine until his eyes flow unsteady, that poured over Jisung’s warm muscles with a feverish chill in a world he scored inside, wherever his gaze touched. Where his eyes branded him with a toxin that evaporated him away. That eroded him to dust. That continued on, while he was nothing at all, “Where’d you learn to kick my ass?”
He tried to distract himself of that familiar feeling. That simple one, that crawls along his spine and bites into his veins like monster’s fangs taking a taste of him. That one that skitters through the intoxicated daze in his thoughts to bleach vivid colors against his mind, that stains images within his eyes he’d never be able to shake off. That feeling, like a thrill, like a rush of a nervous greeting warning him of risk ahead, like his finger that lingered over a heavy trigger begging to be pulled back or the wavering of a sight that lingered on him. That sensation he would ignore, he tried to ignore, but slurred against anyway as he threw another harmless punch at Minho’s arm, “My boss used to take me outside the city…. and would beat the shit out of me until I fought back. That’s how I learned.”
“That seems abusive…?” The amusement on Minho’s expression slipped off.
“Only reason I’m alive. I wouldn’t have been ready to be in this world if he didn’t. I would’ve been dead a long time ago if it wasn’t for him,” He warbled, what felt like distant lies to himself what he should’ve called honesty to keep secrets in his pockets spilling out alongside his rationality. He wasn’t drunk though. Not drunk. He knew that from the weakness in his clutched fists, and the heat pulsing through his head with discomfort unsettling him, from the haziness in the corners of his eyes, and the heartbeat breaking in his ears. He knew that as he landed another few light punches, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he mimicked boxing the older, “Pull your pistol out, you pussy and point it at me. Even with a bullet in me, I could still kick your ass.”
“You’re drunk, and I need to get you home before you need to go to work,” The bounty hunter dismissed him again, rudely. So rude and disrespectful. Afterall, how many people who turn down a chance at fighting the sniper, the hitman, the P03, with the advantage of their pistol out? Rude! Minho was so rude to him, blowing him off as if he was nothing, passing him off as if his words were irrelevant to everything he did, ignoring him, just like his eyes always did, just like those stunning eyes always saw past him, into something, far away. How could he be so heartless! Cutting Jisung out, turning his back to him. Walking away from him. Leaving him there in the alleyway.
The hitman bounced after him. His hands bundling up into fists as he caught up.
Putting his hands up, he kept tapping light punches into Minho’s back.
Attempting to provoke him. Into answering him. Or into fighting him. Either way, Jisung earned what he wanted.
“Pow… pow… pow…”
Murmuring underneath his breath with every bump of his knuckles against him.
Against his spine, his shoulder blades.
Irritating Minho bit by bit.
He punched his arm, harder this time.
He saw the bounty hunter reach beneath his shirt, whipping back to Jisung. His pistol brandished at him. The void of a barrel that scowled at him, and grooves of it’s rifling like bared fangs. Like the cold touch of a throat thirsting to devour.
He could enclose his hands around and strangle to it’s last choking breath. If made of flesh and bone, instead of plated by steal and gunpowder. If made of blood and veins, instead of bolts and bullets. As if he wanted to feel the breath choking from the harsh metal lips, he curled his fingers around the neck of the gun’s barrel. Slowly, clutching on the frozen harsh of meticulous machinery, cold, without feeling, against the heat of his palm, and against his forehead as he leaned his body forward, hoping that single drum would be enough to catch him in his fall. As the end of the barrel bumped against him, Jisung taunted the bounty hunter with an unwavering gaze, “Pull it.”
As if to remind him of something he had forgotten, Minho pressed the pistol closer to his forehead, “You’ll die.”
Jisung watched him from the other end of the pistol. That man’s eyes, though distant at what laid ahead, carried a sort of color that sneaking glances beneath the unwashed light of the alleyway. Like pesticide, or gasoline lit up, but without the same soul, bleached to their bottom tones in the darkness of a never-ending midnight. That 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, fastened tightly. Pulled firm, pulled iron. Straightened out to a decisive point, Jisung couldn’t begin to imagine what he might be thinking. What he saw. The reflection of the world in his eyes. The faint scent, a smokey gaze that never loosened up. The enigmatic and unusual that had always charmed him to the edge of his life time and time again.
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 their twisted thoughts? Their casualness of cruelty, no, did these people have no sympathy? No morals? 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 lives? The excitement brought upon them, was excitement something real to be sought out for without reason, without a cause? Was there really any meaning to any of this anyway? What? For what reason? For what reason did he fight back against him, for the reason he tightened his grip and pressed the barrel closer to his head in the unsteady silence. For what reason does Minho not back down either?
Perhaps, it was that odd feeling that tricks him into betting odds in an unwinnable ring. Designed for him to loose, always to loose, and nothing more. Of when his hand lingers on the trigger of his rifle and he inhales a breath so deep into his lungs he’d think he would never breathe again. Of when he angles the crosshairs of his sight to fix onto a target meters away, and tracks their movements until that second of a window was opened up to his taking. Of when he finally releases the tension, his 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, hurrying to escape, to not be caught by barrels returning the favor to him in tenfold, and thenー
As his grasp tightened around the pistol, Jisung “Mr. Bounty Hunter, I like your eyes. What do you see so far away from here? I want to know…”
It’s gone.
A fleeting feeling his hands are unable to fully grasp.
“Do you see me at the end of your pistol’s sights, like this?” He stepped closer to Minho.
A fleeting feeling that chases across him from the monstrous cyclops of a pistol’s barrel.
The bounty hunter cautiously stepping back in turn, but eyes never wandering as Jisung spoke, “I know I do. “I see the crosshairs even when my rifle is far from my hands. So maybe, I think…”
A fleeting feeling that is somewhere beyond either of them, still yet to be reached.
“I think I wouldn’t mind if you pulled that trigger now,” His forehead tapped into the barrel again, as his hand slipped off of the metal and Minho statued once more. Bracing himself as unmoving as that steel weapon despite the hitman pressing. How infuriating… Irritating.
“Alright,” Lightly, almost testingly, Minho hummed, “Do you want me to count down?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The hitman squished his eyes shut.
Minho pulled the trigger.
Click.
The bounty hunter sung, “Baaaaaaaaannngggg~”
Gently, Jisung peeled his eyes open again.
“My pistol isn’t loaded and you’re drunk,” To the sight of a irkingly grin stretching Minho’s lips up like a Chesire cat, a sort of pride hinging off the man as he subtly lifted his shirt to once again holster his pistol (And if Jisung’s eyes lingered on the strip of skin that flashed, could you blame him for simply being human?). He snuck his hand onto the nape of Jisung’s neck, the warmth from his hands seeping sleepily into his skin as he nearly dragged the plastered teacher after his step. His thumb rubbing soothing circles against a bump from his bones below, tracing patterns mindlessly while he lead them both away from the alleyway and into the bright lamps of the parking lot waiting for their eventual arrival, “Come on firecracker, let’s get you home. What’s your address?”
With resignation, Jisung allowed Mimho to guide him away from the foul stench of the alleyway and from the strip club they had wasted their hours away at. Unhinging limp like a ragdoll underneath the others grip, he surrendered his painfully intoxicated self to following after the others orders; Grabbing the bounty hunter’s phone from his offered hands with grabby fingers, smashing his address clumsily into the keyboard until the phone’s maps were able to create some string of coherent location, simply slide into the passenger seat of Minho’s car and become a mess of gooed exhaustion against the padded seat, against the heated seat that the bounty hunter clicked on for him to enjoy. For him to cuddle up against as the late hour and the rocking of the driving car lulled him into a gentle sleep on the roads, relaxing with the white noise of the low radio filling the gaps of nothing with something.
Not exactly realizing where, or why he was where he was, until he was rudely awoken from his semi-concious fluidity in the passenger seat by a certain bounty hunter opening up his door. Lightly taking care as he unbuckled his seatbelt, the hand offered out for him to grab up. To assist him in standing up from the comfortable seat he glued himself to, and to assist him as the arm wrapped around his shoulder in hobbling himself up the driveway of a familiarly shaped home. His home to be exact. Stumbling his way to the front door, where the bounty hunter deposited him against the wall beside his stale doorway. No decoration to know it was, but his heart understanding he arrived safely home.
Minho wondered, “Keys?”
“Jacket,” Jisung nodded his head, sleep taking him over as lead cemented in his veins.
The soothing scent of mint overwhelmed him at once as the bounty hunter stepped closer, his hand searching in Jisung’s pocket as he snuck the house keys from him and unlocked the front door for him, “You reek of alcohol, by the way.”
Jisung just nodded once more, “Maybe I drank too much… You smell nice though.”
The bounty hunter helped him inside, assisting him in stumbling down the hallway to his bedroom, until he was able to lifelessly flop on top of his mattress. Face down into his sheets, he hardly bothered to kick his shoes off before his eyes were willing themselves closed.
In the open doorway, Minho’s silhouette crossed his arms over his chest, “Will you lock the door?”
“In the morning,” He murmured against his pillows.
“And what if someone comes in?”
Jisung flailed his leg a bit.
“i…. kick ’em…”
With a sharp snort, Minho pulled the door of the bedroom shut.
Like the lights in the hallway or a firecracker on a stormy summer night, Jisung fizzled out.
Minho didn’t have to search far, or for very long, to find a convenience store open at that shameful hour that had the items he was patrolling for. He quickly purchased what he needed, rushing back to the familiar neighborhood in the nicer part of town, parking his car in the empty space in the driveway, and jogging up to the deadened house. Without a light or flicker of life to alert anyone there was anyone within those walls. He silently ushered himself inside as well. Checking the surroundings to ensure nothing happened in the few moments he had left the teacher alone.
Inside of the bedroom, Minho set the unopened hangover drink and bottle of painkillers down on the nightstand. Cautiously stepping to not wake the teacher up from his deep slumber as he slipped outside of the bedroom.
He double checked the bedroom was pulled closed and the front door was locked before laying himself down on the couch. With nothing but his arms wrapped tightly around him, Minho fell asleep.
▄︻デ â•â•â”一á°.áŸËŽËŠË—
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