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Baekjin doesn't encourage it. Despises it, even. The whole bootlicking, ass-kissing spiel everyone in the Union plays around him. Boss, they like to call him. Which is not as bad as assuming the right to speak to him casually. As if Baekjin wasn't a teenage boy, but a mafia don who rules his territory with a white-knuckled iron fist. Okay, fine, Baekjin runs a tight ship. That much he can agree. But this is getting excessive. What should we do about it, Boss? What can we do? What do you want us to do? How about using your fucking brains, you fucking morons.
The only pleasure he derives from surrounding himself with idiots is watching them inflict twice as much psychic damage on Baekjin.
"What should we do about him?" Moron Number 1 asks him in the office, holding a bloody-nosed boy by the collar of his shirt.
Baekjin exhales sharply. Gathering patience they don't deserve.
Moron Number 2 has enough sense to get the hint. "Got it, Boss," he says, bowing to him.
Fingers curl around his math homework. Baekjin doesn't even bother to look up as they leave, not even when the first guy, honest-to-god, salutes him.
It's hilarious.
"Seongje-yah."
Seongje's laughter dies down. He cranes his neck from his position on the sofa, still smiling. "Mm?"
Baekjin closes his notebook. His eyes haven't left the empty space on the table. "Go home," he says, in a voice that suggests his mind is departing his body. Baekjin does that sometimes, when he thinks no one's paying attention. Losing himself in that mysterious head of his. Entertaining the past, future, or a whole different timeline, he will never know.
But Seongje notices.
He yanks him back to Earth.
"Buy me dinner first."
Baekjin's eyes flicker to his in one fluid motion. Unmoving. Unrelenting.
"Your treat," Seongje says, flashing his teeth. Because Baekjin would rather die than owe anyone anything.
Whenever he thinks of Baekjin, he pictures the shape of his skull. Trim hair meets the nape, suffocated by a thick collar. Always some stupid collar. Seongje has never seen him dress casually, not even in summer. What interests him most, though, is what lies on the inside: his secret fears, his shameful thoughts he'll take to his grave, the twisted things that bring him more joy than he'd ever admit.
He once says to Baekjin, "I want to crack open your skull and unspool your brain."
Baekjin looks up from his phone. Asshole doesn't even have the decency to wipe that annoyed expression from his face. But he likes that about him.
"What's stopping you?"
Baekjin sounds so…bored. Seongje is used to his impassivity, but there are moments when it grates on him unexpectedly. It's his stare, more than anything, that irks him. A look that says he's less than a speck of dirt for demanding his share of attention.
Which leads him to his next form of entertainment.
Seongje imagines wrapping his hand around his throat, thumb pressed firmly on the pulse point, skin on skin, the anomalous rhythm of his heart. Not to choke him, only enough to elicit a reaction. Any reaction. A crack in the unbothered facade he wears most of the time. And yes, he uses the word deliberately, because the cool-as-a-cucumber thing he has going on? Complete bullshit. Anyway, Baekjin's more fun when he has a fire lit under his toes.
He blows on Baekjin's face. A childish taunt, Seongje's not even smoking. Baekjin clenches his jaw. Success!
"Having to figure you out is more interesting."
That earns him a fraction of a smile.
He buys him actual food this time, not the convenience store garbage Seongje usually settles for. They sit outside a dingy restaurant. The overheard tarp flutters in the wind as if someone is trying to exorcise it, piss-coloured lighting of the lamp raining down its glory on them. Seongje is not fussy about his meals, but he's reached a point where he's forgotten what freshly-cooked rice tastes like.
Their drinks come first. He watches Baekjin tip his head back to drain the contents of his glass, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat.
Fuck you, he thinks. They're having the same thing; it's unfair how much better his drink looks. Like watching a stranger smoke. Someone else's cigarette is always better than yours. There must be a scientific explanation for it, right?
Seongje theorises that he had a secret twin he absorbed in the womb. He's living life for two people. That can be the only reason for his insatiable hunger, why he's always dissatisfied with anything.
"No. You are just that greedy."
Baekjin massages his temples.
"Yeesh. Am I such a headache to you?"
"It's not you."
Baekjin is a finicky, prissy asshole ninety per cent of the time, but there are fleeting moments, like golden flecks in the sun, when Seongje is rewarded for tolerating his prickly attitude. And he's granted a peek through the curtain of his mind.
So.
He flicks his lighter on. Once, twice. The flame catches.
Seongje can behave if he wants to. If it benefits him.
After an extended silence, "Choi wants a meeting," Baekjin offers. Seongje smiles, a private one just for himself.
"At six in the morning," says Baekjin.
"Don't you have assembly tomorrow? That inconsiderate dick." Seongje gestures with his cigarette. "It's a power move, I'm telling you."
"Obviously, it's a power move."
A long drag of his cigarette. Smoke escaping his lips. "Want me to kill him for you?"
The question sounds rhetorical enough.
When he finally glances over, it's just as he expected. Always studying people, that Baekjin. This time, it isn't scrutiny so much as a gentle, mellow curiosity. A look on his face that he has never seen before. It renders him speechless.
"Would you," says Baekjin carefully. His voice should not be this soft for this subject matter. "Do that for me?"
Seongje chuckles in lieu of answering, this time turning away to exhale the smoke.
Most people can't differentiate Seongje's standard bullshit from his sincerity.
Na Baekjin isn't most people.
He fixes his gaze on him.
Delight curls inside his stomach, a fire crackling at the hearth, when Baekjin doesn't shrink away.
Baekjin presses his lips into a thin line. "I can't afford to bail you out."
Seongje bursts into a fit of laughter. "Holy shit," he wheezes. "Were you seriously considering it?"
Baekjin forces a scoff. His tell that signals Seongje he's flustered.
"Your audacity knows no bounds."
That only makes him laugh harder.