10; Knight in shiii~ning armor

A glass – carefully filled to the brim with clear liquid – was slammed against the bar top in front of Officer Park Jimin’s face. He stared at it with narrowed, questioning eyes for a long moment before he found his gaze falling upon the man beside him, who casually slumped into the chair on his left.

‘So this was your idea of a date, Kim Namjoon?’

The older man propped an elbow against the smooth rounded edge of the rosewood counter and eyed his companion levelly. A smile crept to his face and his eyebrows wiggled with what the latter had a hard time believing was some drunken lightheartedness of his.

‘Well, it’s what you were thinking too, right? You should have seen your face earlier, Jim. You looked like you could do with a whole bottle of this stuff.’

‘Oh, please. You make me sound like I was on the brink of suicide or something,’ Jimin scoffed disbelievingly, the rim of the short glass on returning to it.

‘Maybe this is what I need. But good gracious, whatever happens afterwards sure as hell isn’t.’

Namjoon rolled his eyes. ‘Wow. I’m now starting to see the ahjumma hidden inside you, according to Jin. It’s a Saturday night, dude! Forget about being a man of dignity for just a moment and enjoy the sweet privileges of being young and free.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jimin snorted, sipping the drink carefully from over the rim. ‘Who’s the ahjumma now with all that nonsense rambling of yours?’

The blonde nudged him in the side with a playful grin plastered on his face, and Jimin couldn’t help but return the action with an amused smirk himself.

It was hard to believe that just an hour ago he was at the police station questioning how on earth he managed to land himself in such a farfetched predicament in his life. In fact, he was slumped in his chair with a look so grave one would imagine he was on the brink of questioning his entire existence all over again.

Despite Namjoon’s attempts at keeping him positive, he felt awfully discouraged by the events following their mess of a weekly after-action report. Well, who wouldn’t anyway? To put it simply, he felt like utter crap. He’d made a complete fool of himself back there in front of every prominent figure in the force he could count on his fingers – better yet, even attempted some acrobatics stunt with the pointer accessory – and got reprimanded so intensely by the police chief that not even a maximum-powered defibrillator could have as much of an impact on his heart and soul as the commissioner’s words did then.

He’d imagined his day progressing thereafter with dejected rambles to his housecat. He would spend the night re-watching The Matrix trying to get his head around over how Neo’s redundant life turned out to be something so exhilarating and colourful, and perhaps binge on the ahjumma’s chocolate and caramel brownies… until realizing – of course – that the female protagonist Trinity was a lot like a certain someone in his life he at this point didn’t even want to so as think of. Oh, life was dreary. Dreary right now, at least.

But instead of indulging in the things he had in mind since the horrid afternoon, Jimin was convinced and dragged away for a night out with Kim Namjoon. The officer was determined for reasons beyond him to have the chap get drunk out of his mind (which was something he would make certain did not happen, as he carefully sipped from the short glass), and even though he wasn’t quite convinced of the idea at first, he found himself thinking otherwise.

‘The barkeeper said there’s a new face around tonight,’ Namjoon’s eyebrows wriggled in that hilarious way again; the contents of a brown bottle in his hand swirling with his flicking wrist.

‘And it’s a woman.’

Jimin tipped his glass encouragingly at the blonde. ‘Oh. Good luck with that.’

‘Dude. Jim,’ he started, twirling around again with a finger pointing straight between the latter’s eyebrows. ‘I was actually implying that you check out how true this is, but thanks for oh-so-generously giving me the privilege instead.’

‘Yep,’ Jimin carefully sipped from his drink again, leaning against the bar table with a knowing coolness to his actions. ‘Knock yourself out, captain disaster.’

With a confident raise of the eyebrows and obviously ignoring the nickname issued, Jimin watched as the blonde slipped away into the large crowd, sashaying towards the busy pool tables. The young officer put down his drink for a moment, wriggling in his chair to make himself comfortable as he watched the show about to unfold. Because he knew precisely what was going to become of Kim Namjoon’s moment of greatness.

He watched in anticipation and curiosity as the blonde reached the group of ladies at the far end, and they turned to offer him their attention. Upon seemingly piquing their interest successfully, the officer tilted his head back and offered Jimin a discreet look of triumph; an impish glint in his narrowed eyes and curved lips.

‘This is how it’s done,’ he could only imagine his colleague commenting pompously at this point, but instead of feeling irritated, he felt an amused smile crawl on his face and waved.

Namjoon raised his bottle while still looking back, and horribly miscalculating the action – or perhaps just by a of horrendously bad luck – the beer poured down his shirt in one smooth swig instead of the rim touching his lips. The young officer watching from afar threw a fist over his mouth, chuckling out a sound of incredible shock and hilarity at the embarrassing turn of events.

Unable to watch any longer at Namjoon’s flailing hands and thereafter making a quick escape, Jimin returned to his own drink on the table with the shake of a head. The moment he turned however, he felt the weight of a presence beside him. And just as quickly, a familiar voice that cried out in surprise.

‘Oh, my God…!’ Seokjin’s body shook with laughter as he occupied the seat beside Jimin. ‘What did I just walk into here? Oh man, hold on, here he comes.’

Both young men cackled maliciously at the arrival of a very upset-looking Namjoon. And the moment he reappeared – white and blue shirt drenched with what otherwise could have been visualized as a very unsightly sweat stain – the store clerk and police officer watching snorted in unison before breaking out into a mini laughing fit. The eldest couldn’t even take a proper look at the damage done because of how hilarious he found the blonde’s offended scrunch of the eyebrows and pursed lips.

‘Wow. True friends.’

‘Yah, what’s with that look?’ Jimin choked out between laughter, raising the last of his drink to his lips. ‘It’s not like we did that to…’

The moment the younger officer made this snarky comment however, the rim of the glass slipped off of his bottom lip. The last of his shot splattered straight into his lap… or more accurately, his crotch. Namjoon snorted almost instantly, throwing out an accusing finger between Jimin’s legs, and the only thing Seokjin could do at that point was proceed to