Still reading?  Thank you.  :D

---

~~~~

Bian

~~~~

The next day I fully wished I had planned the excursion on a Friday.  Going into school on a slight hangover and having to uphold my continuously crumbling perfect appearance proved more difficult than expected.  Not only that, but seventh period brought with it a queasiness I couldn’t shake, my stomach turning itself into pretzel after painful pretzel.

Eighth came like it always did.  I sat in the front and dropped my bags next to the chair I was in; Hyewon sat next to me and pulled out the latest book of the latest series; Mr. Kim walked in, tall and proud and professional, any signs of drinking the night before expertly scrubbed out of his bright eyes and clean-shaven face.  I almost scoffed, remembering the disaster I’d been in after waking up.

“Whatever,” I hissed low under my breath into the surrounding bustle of young adults, both jealous and annoyed.  Annoyed that he’d taken so much care to wash out any evidence of our time together.  And to think that he wanted to join me on my next mission.

What am I thinking?

I shook my head and slapped the side of my thigh to help wake myself up, realizing just how dazed and rambling I’d gotten.  Kim Namjoon definitely needed to chill the out and take a break from the laps he was running ‘round my mind.

I barely paid attention to his class, trying so hard to focus on the material that I zoned out instead and delved between my throbbing temples to explore sore, irritated thoughts.

Why’s he so young and so attractive?

Why do I hurt so much when I was lucid enough to remember everything?

Why do I remember hugging Joon?

Kim Namjoon.  Mr. Kim.  Joon isn’t real.  I didn’t ask to call him that.  That would be mortifying.  That part was a bad dream.  That part was false.  So was the part about him agreeing.  Mr. Kim would never allow such inappropriate title to become common-nature to us both.

Sure, during class we’d talked and gotten to know each other on an academic level, but just the fact that we’d participated in drinking/bonding games worried me.  I knew him more personally, and it made me even more nervous to know that I liked everything I’d learned.  It almost sickened me, but it stirred my chest a little more, which in turn made me want to throw up, so by the end of class and by the end of my preliminary mental investigation, I wasn’t sure how I felt about anything.

Anything but his warm farewell grin, which made its way to me, along with everyone else.  His grin was something I was comfortable in saying I liked.  It was so warming, that I was sure anyone else would’ve said it felt the same for them.  I couldn’t be the only one who fell in love with such a beautiful smile.

No way.

I would’ve smiled back, but I was already out the door and on my way home, knowing the moment I saw that grin that everything I remembered happened.  Even the ‘Joon’ part.  It was all written in his face, in his eyes.

But putting it behind me, I needed to start planning for my next outing, seeing as how though it wasn’t as dangerous or risky, it would be just as fun.

And not only that, but in the corner of my mind I wondered if inviting Mr. Kim would be worth it.  If he would go.  If he would accept and tag along willingly, even participate.

That, in its own regard, was much more thrilling than any late night bar could ever be.

---

~~~~~~~

Namjoon

~~~~~~~

There was literally nothing to do.

Absolutely nothing.

Not a thing.

And the saddest part of the whole affair was not that I hadn’t a friend to call up, nor that I still had five-minute microwaveable noodles (despite the fact that I had the time to cook anything).  No; the saddest of it all was that I could think of nothing and nobody except for Lee Bi An, who I couldn’t imagine spending her Saturday night doing anything besides her third mission.

Without me.

I cringed with the thought and leant back into my couch, wanting nothing more than to forget about her and her list and I couldn’t come up with a good reason as to why I couldn’t.

I mean, for God’s sake, other than being a brilliant student, she was nothing special.  Our ‘bar date’ was nothing.  Nothing but all kinds of weird.  I was getting by my student, and she also stepped over the line.  Hugging me, calling me ‘Joon,’ making my heart beat.

Goddammit, I just needed to think of something else.  She was probably at home, sleeping.  I should be too.

“Sleep it off,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and shaking the polo shirt off just as my phone began to ring.  I walked across the room, shirtless, and answered, unable to recognize the number shown.  “Hello?”

“Joon?”

My breath caught and my heart stopped.

And I grinned, even as I told myself not to.

~~~~

Bian

~~~~

I clicked my phone off and almost threw it against the wall in my frustration.

How could I have just called him?  What had I been thinking five minutes prior?  Did I lose my mind?

I ground the heel of my palm into my forehead and cursed, the beginning credits rolling before the movie muffling my cuss words before any of the other patrons could hear.  He was coming here, and I couldn’t believe that I’d actually asked him to.  What the hell was my-

“Miss,” someone interrupted my mental tirade, and I looked up in surprise.  “Would you mind sitting in the next row?  This is the only row left that would seat my entire family.”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind,” I said with a smile, shuffling into the seat ahead of the one I was just in.

“Thank you so much,” the woman said, and she, her husband, and their kids piled in like a row of little ducklings.

“No problem.”  I looked around, scouting out where Namjoon and I could sit with a seat in between us (for safety measures).  But as the minutes ticked by and the people piled in, and I hadn’t the conscience to lie and say I was waiting for two more friends, I came to the grim conclusion that we’d have to sit next to each other.

“I should’ve chose a terrible frickin’ movie to start off with,” I hissed, cursing the lack of available seating.  The only upside was that the occasional aisle attendant wouldn’t remember our faces well enough to spot us in the other studio later.

That was the only difficult thing about movie-hopping.  You couldn’t be caught by the same janitors, the same managers.  The only rule was watch a movie, hide in the bathroom, and slip into another theater.  That was it.

I already sent the instructions to Joon Namjoon over text, knowing that whispering it would be too intimate and too risky (for the operation and my heart).

At some point I dug my face in my knees and sighed, wondering if I gave him the right directions, and if he was actually coming.  Maybe he was just reporting me.  Not paying for a movie or three wasn’t too bad, but wasn’t good.  I’d be escorted home with a warning, and my parents wouldn’t let me leave the house for the next three billion weeks.  That would destroy my plans.

My life.

“Why, may I ask, did ‘The Babadook’ strike your fancy?” Namjoon asked as he came to sit next to me.  I jumped and nearly smacked him unconsciously for it, recovering remarkably well and sitting straight, unperturbed, and aware.

“It didn’t.”  He leaned on the armrest that we shared, and I leaned on the one farthest from him.  “I thought you might like it.”  Dear God; kill me.

“Why?”

“You said in class that you liked supernatural genres, and horror’s practically the same thing.”

“Yes, I did.”  He cleared his throat and sat taller, looking away and facing the screen.  “’Can’t believe you remembered that.”

“I remember everything,” I said, looking away as well, our gazes parallel and unmerging.  “That’s why I do so well in school.”  Our voices were strained, our body language so stressed.  I could almost cringe from the awkwardness of it all, if only my spine would loosen up enough.

“Makes sense.”  He was definitely stretching for words, for something to say to me.  At least in the bar, he’d been comfortable, relaxed, if slightly tensed about the whole situation.  Sitting there next to me, he was absolutely as paranoid as I was, hands clasped painfully tight and teeth biting bottom lips in nervousness.

Why did I ever invite him?

“Why did you invite me?” he suddenly asked, still not looking over and yet still borrowing into my soul with his words, his deep, chest tonality that sent shivers running down my-

Why did he also have to be frickin’ mind-reader too?

“I, just, don’t… want to be alone if I’m caught, is all,” I lied, knowing the emotional turmoil that led to my phone call, quite familiar with the odd attraction that plagued me.

“I wouldn’t wanna be, either,” he concurred, and the show made the decision for both of us to shut up as the credits ended and the movie began.

Thank whatever deity is up there, I thought, running a hand over my mouth and praising the film gods for acting on their own initiative.  What I needed to calm my nerves was a nice show to watch, with time to relax and time to think through my life choices-

-We were watching a horror movie.

I groaned and leant back further, trying to disappear into the seat forever.  He noticed, I could tell by the slight inclination he made towards me, a worrying glance shooting over his shoulder to graze me before returning to the screen, but he either didn’t know what to do, or didn’t have the courage.

And so we continued, me silently regretting every decision I’d made since stepping into the theater, and him, completely engrossed in the film, down the last detail.  I refrained from gasping, but couldn’t stop from flinching from time to time, sparking more worrying gazes from him, which I promptly ignored and looked past.

The genre reflected my mood to a tee, and I found that the longer I thought about us, the more I felt horrified with my feelings.  The very fact that I called the mess in my gut ‘feelings’ upset me, but I couldn’t say I felt nothing for my teacher.  I definitely felt something, I was just so unsure of what it was.

I looked up to him; I thought he was brilliant; I loved his smile; he was nice, and oddly funny; I liked the way he looked interested in me…

That had to be it.

I was infatuated with his playboy looks, his playboy eyes.  Any guy with a pair of those would have no trouble getting a girl in any bar.  Hell, you could make a girl drop dead with that stare at a funeral.

Pun intended.

So there was no interest, just lust for attention, as always.  Such a typical female, I was, it almost hurt to admit.  I mean, there was literally no other expectation for the ordeal-

“-Are you okay?” Namjoon asked, noticing my clenched fists and pinched lips.  He leaned a little closer, but it was such a minute move that only someone paying attention would’ve taken note of it.  So, naturally, I took note.

“Nothing,” I lied, finding the content playing to be extremely disturbing and borderline heart-attack worthy.  I had no appetite for sleep, and guessed that I wouldn’t for another week or so.  “I’m fine.”

“Okay, but if you need to, you can hold my hand,” he said, making my head snap up to face him, his haunting eyes digging into my heart and striking keys that a mere playboy wouldn’t have been able to.  I got caught up staring, barely able to recognize the sound of a quiet chuckle hiccupping from his lungs.  “I’m joking.”

“I know,” I breathed, too quiet for him to hear and too breathy to be called a sentence.  Disappointment rang its bell within my chest and this time the movie couldn’t muffle out the noise.

~~~~~~~

Namjoon

~~~~~~~

I tried to laugh off my pathetic cover-up of a joke, hoping she bought it.  The completely and utterly terrified look she had on her face when I offered to hold hands was too much and I felt so guilty that I almost got up and left right then and there.

I was making moves on a student.

The mere thought of it gave me goose-bumps and an uncomfortable itch at the back of my neck that reminded me of how much of a ert I was being.  I hadn’t had a single intimate thought of her while there, but I still felt just as inappropriate.

Just as offensive.

As if she’d want me as a boyfriend.

As if anyone’d want me as a boyfriend.

I wasn’t exactly prime material.

Cool, collected, and witty in the classroom, and insecure anywhere else.  Society gave me the creeps, more than any horror movie could, and I sighed into my palm as I realized how close I allowing myself to get to her.

It was scary, frightening…  Alarming.

And yet the alarms in her own head obviously weren’t working right, seeing as how she personally invited me herself.  Didn’t she know that as a twenty-something-year-old guy, my warning bells never gave me accurate information?  I could literally be afraid of a bird that squawked weird, and two minutes later walk down a sketchy back alley to follow the hotdog stand.  That was how guys were.

She was supposed to push me away, not tempt me to come closer.  I couldn’t-

-Stop thinking.

I cleared my throat and sat back, pulling out a stick of gum to chew and another to offer her.  Bian took it and I treated the act as I would’ve had it been my best friend.  Calmly.

It was just gum.

The next movie had already started by the time we got in, our respected ‘bathroom breaks’ taking longer than needed.  A little caution never hurt anyone, though, and we slipped through the doors before any guards could see us.

My heart beat with the adrenaline, and I couldn’t remember the last time it had done that.  Childhood was full of such rushes, such passions, and with my early adulthood, I lost a lot of that.  Maybe that was all I liked about her.

Maybe all I found attractive was the chance to take back my youth, my wasted time.  Maybe I wasn’t a erted professor, but a man wanting to regain a bit of his adolescence.

Maybe I was just making up excuses for coveting after something I couldn’t have.

But could I?

Could it be so bad to like her?

Jungkook had said it.  Four years was barely an , and she was both mature enough to match me, and childish enough to bring me down from acting like a stickler of an adult.  Maybe we complimented each other.

It could happen.  My parents were three years apart.

I looked down at her again, seeing the way her eyes captured every piece of the movie and yet processed none of it.  She was just as out of it as I was, lost in thought and reason.  Maybe she was thinking we could work out too.

Maybe we were thinking the same thing.

But I would never know.

~~~~

Bian

~~~~

Four years wasn’t like six, or eight.  I’d say my limit was probably five…  Yah, definitely five.  Four was acceptable.  Four I could handle.  Once I got out of high school, of course.  Then I’d be free and in college and someone only four years older could provide for me.  Watch over me.  Be a man to me.

The comedy we were watching cracked both of us up and I managed to look at the situation light-heartedly.  We were enjoying our time together, and I saw not a single reason why I couldn’t entice him on my next escapade.  I liked his company, and he always looked like he needed a break from being old.

Twenty-four was young, but when you were teacher, and a new one at that, you tended to age faster.  Harder.  And I didn’t want anything happening to Namjoon’s lady-killer looks.  He was gonna need those.

I grinned as the main character got caught sneaking drugs into a party by her sister, hearing Joon’s reliably pleasing chuckle hit my ears too.  And I smiled a little more.

Four years.

Not bad.

By the time the movie ended we’d reached a point of comfortable conversation, which we carried out into the foyer.  It was already twelve, and my mother thought the movie I was going to see with my friends ended at eleven.  A clever lie could be formulated, but at the moment I was enjoying an easy talk with Namjoon and all my thought process was going into figuring out how he could have such perfect hair.

“You only snuck into one film?  Here I thought you’d be so rebellious as to cheat the system out of three or four.”

“I’ve gotta get home, and the rest of the movies were all Rated-R, Rated-M, -driven stuff.  I didn’t wanna watch that.”

He smiled at my disgust and held the door open for me as we traversed into the street outside.  His hands were so big I almost reached out and grabbed one, wanting to hold it so badly that I felt my pulse pick up just at the thought of them on my own, or my waist, or my hips…

“Thanks for saving me from that too,” he said, and I nodded with a laugh.  I saw the familiar truck he drove and felt myself flash back to a drunken trip home, filled with wishes of kisses and immature, premature dreams of ‘we.’

I wasn’t a child, but still the feelings of being in middle-school enveloped me as I realized how quickly my crush had developed.  Just like the five-minute infatuations one would experience with a complete stranger on the bus, or in a crowd.  Completely unreasonable but just as real.

“I would’ve loved to drive you home again,” Namjoon started, stuffing hands into his pockets like a high-schooler (which I felt he was at heart), “but we both brought our vehicles, and, gratefully, you’re not drunk this time.”

My cheeks heated up as he leaned on my car, my hand on the handle but unresponsive to all messages regarding getting in just yet.  His face was flushed and his eyes bright and I loved the way I could almost see myself in them, if I only inched a little nearer, and just a bit… closer…

I caught myself and bit my lip, holding back before I could step farther into the inescapable ditch of attraction.

Goddammit, Kim Namjoon was handsome.

“So unfortunate,” I replied teasingly, quiet and sounding like such a flirt I blushed again, never ducking my head and never breaking his stare.

“So, I’ll see you Monday?” he asked, and I felt a wave of recognition hit me as I remembered he was my professor, the fact making but a small splash in the oceans of my fascination.  I didn’t really care.  Not after seeing him casually dressed and casually talking and so, oh, so casually giving me a gaze that suggested he wanted to be more than just a teacher.

More than just a partner in crime.

And I couldn’t even lie well enough to convince myself I wouldn’t like that, though, I couldn’t quite admit I wanted it, either.

But I was getting there.

---

~~~~~~~~

Namjoon

~~~~~~~~

Walking through the doors and into the school lobby, I nearly ran into our principal, his pressed suit casual enough to be charmingly friendly, but professional enough to be business attire.  He smiled when he saw me, one hand on my shoulder as he steadied the both of us.

“Namjoon.  How’s the year been for you?  A few months in; are you starting to regret it yet?”  He chuckled and let go, walking with me as I answered.

“Not a chance; I love it.”  He appeared pleased.  “It’s been great; it really has.”

“That’s great; some teachers crash and burn, but all reports say you’re going strong,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.  “Well, I’ve got to get going.  Nice talking with you, Mr. Kim.”

“Anytime.”  I bade him goodbye and felt the air rush back into my lungs, their previous desertification leaving me a blinking, near gasping mess.  The big boss-man had no idea I was crushing on a student.  If he ever found out…

I held a hand to my chest as I continued to walk, hoping the quake in my hands would die out before first period.  My heart pounded hard and furious, threatening to break out of my chest.  Fraternization between students and teachers was obviously out of line and strictly banned under all circumstances.  In no way was I to socialize inappropriately with any student in the building, regardless of whether they had my class or not; it mattered not.

Feelings mattered not.

How I felt meant nothing.

Then I ran into another body, this time much smaller and more feminine.  I looked down to see Bian, her books safely in her arms and thank God not clichély strewn upon the floor.  She had an annoyed crinkle in her eyebrows as she glanced up, stepping back several feet before meeting my eyes.

Her gaze softened and she relaxed when she realized it was me, and I melted just a little, seeing her so affected by my presence.

“Sorry for that, Mr. Kim.  I wasn’t watching.”  Her lips moved so effortlessly, so fluidly that I wondered how they managed to stop moving when she stopped talking.

“Oh, it’s fine, Bian,” I began, looking around to catch sight of any surrounding students or faculty.  Only a few passing ones, casually seeing us and continuing on, bored.  “I was distracted.”

“I’ll see you eighth,” she said, all the while turning to leave, but something terribly influential in my stomach made my voice pick up and my arm almost shoot out to grab her elbow.  I stopped myself from touching, but couldn’t stop the words that poured past my lips into the air and into her ear.

“The next thing…”  She paused, fingers flexing against a binder nervously.  “It’s just as safe as the theater, right?”  She didn’t look back, her shoulder facing me and her body language strong in opposition to our conversation.

“No,” she then whispered, looking to the floor and hugging her bag closer, showing how submissively passive she was without her rebellious acts of independence.  “It’s not very dangerous, but it’s not very safe.”

I my lips and almost spoke, shutting my mouth for a second before taking half-a-step nearer.  “How ‘not safe’ is it?”

“You’ll see,” she breathed, taking into consideration her passing classmates and trying to meet my eyes in an effort to make it all look as normal as possible.  “You want to see, right?”

I pinched my lips tight together, keeping her gaze but feeling weak beneath it.  I hadn’t expected her to ask if I wanted to join again.  I almost wished she hadn’t.  I shouldn’t be doing things like that.  But she cocked an eyebrow and leaned heavily on one foot, hip jutting out in such a relaxed position I felt relaxed myself.  I felt calm, at ease; in a situation where I’d have no problem going out with her for one more night.

No harm, no foul.

“Only if you me to,” I replied, clearing my throat and standing straighter.  She mirrored me and did the same, grinning so slightly I would’ve thought I’d imagined it had her eyes not smiled too.

So bright.

So vibrant.

“Two weeks, Joon.  Two weeks.”  Bian pressed her tongue into the corner of her lips and I swallowed.  “I’ll text you the details.”

“I look forward to it.”

She blushed and I relished every moment of everything she did because of me.

“I hope not; you could lose your job for what we’re going to do.”

But nothing she said could scare me as long as her lashes kept sweeping me away into a sweet, sinful oblivion, and I cocked my head to the side so softly I thought I saw her do the same, mimicking me for lack of anything else to do.

“Maybe I’m not worried about that.”

I was such a flirt, and she knew it, but for whatever reason she let me.  And let herself too.

“Maybe you should be.”

“Maybe you should get to class, Miss Lee,” I said, already beginning to walk away, seeing the surprise and amusement in her fading face.  “And maybe you should refrain from calling me ‘Joon’ on school grounds.”

“Ah, but Mr. Kim,” she started, getting me to turn around in the empty hallway to face her, “’maybe’ is such a, suggestive word.  ‘Maybe’ you don’t want to be called Joon, but maybe you do.”  Her smile cut me and I felt my gaze flash with something more than just friendly interest.  More than anything appropriate.

“Get to class, Bian,” I said as a fellow teacher turned the corner and came into sight.  She waved and ducked away, instantly shrinking a few inches as she lost the firm stature she’d developed in my presence.  I thought about it and realized that maybe I gave her confidence.

Maybe I made her feel special.

But I didn’t do that to people; if anything, I made them feel insignificant and dumb in comparison to how smart I was.  Lee Bi An obviously knew how intelligent I was, but it never diminished the passionate spark that lit her up in times of revolt.  She had a wild side that revealed itself in the wildest of situations, and I felt that just a little bit of cheated-out movies wasn’t really enough to fan the flames high enough for her to be pacified.

Whatever we were doing, it was more than cheating the system, but less than drinking riskily at a bar underage.  That had been too much adventure, too involved.  If I could guess, she’d want to do something that left a mark, but not on her.  Not on me.  On something she wanted to scar as her own.  Something chancy but not dangerous.

And I looked forward to seeing how I fit into the equation.

---

~~~~

Bian

~~~~

I was picking up Namjoon this time, and as I drove by the streets he’d mentioned, turning down one in particular and parking next to a strange, tan house, I lowered the radio and rolled down the window.

A tall figure plodded out, dressed in black and bustling down the porch steps to the driveway.  I leaned over and strained to shove the passenger-side door open, failing and falling onto the arm rest uncomfortably.

I sat up as he opened the door by himself, the top of his hair clipping the top of my car.  It was white, and styled, and stuck out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of night.

“Here,” I said, tossing something into his lap and beginning the drive to the still undisclosed location at which we were to do something I still hadn’t told him about.  “You need to wear that at all times tonight.”

“This is insanity,” he mumbled, taking one look at the dark ski mask and grimacing.  “I did my hair nice this time.”

“For the record, your hair is always great; and you really can’t go out with that.  It’s a dead giveaway if the police are after us,” I explained, slipping my own mask over my head, the eyes and nose cut out of it but not the mouth.  “Wouldn’t want that.”

“I suppose,” he muttered, passing over the part about possibly getting chased by the po-po, and focusing instead of just what it meant for his marvelous head of gorgeous hair.  I really did like it; I always wanted to touch it, let my fingers slip in between the locks and run down the nape of his neck, feeling warm and feeling his hands hold me back and…

“Don’t worry,” I said to distract myself, “your striking eyes won’t be covered.”  I grinned a little, not that he could see it, and chuckled, looking over for a second before focusing again on the road.  What I saw was a happy Namjoon, holding the mask in his lap and gazing at me in the strangest of ways.

And I shivered, despite the heat.

“Well aren’t you lucky,” he replied, and I snorted, cruising into a familiar area after several minutes.  “But in all seriousness, we aren’t robbing anyone, are we?  Not a bank, I hope.”

“No theft of any kind,” I said, pulling into a parking spot two streets from where we actually needed to be.  “Just a little vandalism.”

“Like, breaking things?” he asked, looking apprehensive.

“No, like a mixture of trespassing, and a tiny, tiny little smidgen of spray paint.”  And the puzzle pieces in his head clicked and he looked away with a half-hearted chuckle to stare out the window.

“Graffiti.”  His mouth set tightly and I could see the strain in his jaw.  “Really?”

“Yah; doesn’t seem too bad in the grander scheme of things, right?”

“No, I mean, kinda, I-” He broke off and clasped his hands together, enveloping the mask.  “-I mean, Bian, that you could lose your scholarships for something this stupid, and I could get fired for things much, much less stupid, so let’s not talk about trying to keep my job after vandalizing the side of a building for fun.”

“So you think it’ll be fun,” I paraphrased, getting out and going to the trunk to grab my bag.

“I think it’ll be dangerous for our careers,” he continued, following and still not covering up his beautiful face.  I shrugged on the pack and stared up into his eyes, seeing the nervousness and the reluctance.  I wanted to reassure him of the situation, tell him that the police rarely scouted regions such as the one we were in, the buildings mostly empty and deserted (Namjoon lived near the sketchy areas in the city); but I knew that part of the thrill was thinking we could be caught at any time, and I wanted him to feel the full force of our endeavor.

“I think that it won’t be dangerous until we’re in custody.”

“Bian,” he exclaimed quietly, coming closer and leaning lower, “risking your scholarships for something so stupid, is stupid.”

“Being young is parallel to being stupid,” I whispered, and something in what I said must’ve struck a key in his heart, because he couldn’t meet my eye and couldn’t protest to our walking away from the car.

He trailed behind, slow and making me stop to wait for him on occasion.  It only took ten minutes or so to reach the old school, ancient and rotting and signed off for demolition in three weeks.  I thought it might be nice to redecorate before its death, hoping to spark a little life amongst the desolate brick.

Namjoon hadn’t spoken a word and I began to fear that I’d said the wrong thing and that he was either going to remain silent or refuse to participate, both of which would result in the night’s mood promptly dying.

I stared at him, seeing the mask in his hand and seeing his fingers work over the fabric in thought.  I stared into his face, the moonlight glinting off and leaving behind a sheen of diamond on his cheeks.

“Joon,” I began, and he met my gaze, eyes open but mouth cold, “are you gonna wear it?”

“Yah,” he said, looking down and studying the hood of wool I wanted him to put on, seemingly trying to judge its worth before giving in and pulling it over his head.  His big lips disappeared and I felt cheated out of something, but only turned to the bag and shook out several cans of spray paint, carefully deciding on the first color I wanted.

The first color for something I hadn’t yet sculpted in my mind.  I didn’t know what to do, but knew that something had to get drawn for me to build off, so I took a running start and trailed a line of white crying behind me.

“Very inspirational,” he chuckled, and I turned happily to hear more chuckles, his eyes smiling and his fingers curling around a can of blue.  “I can practically see the creativity dripping from this piece of art.”

“Shut up and make a better one, or join me in the pursuit of an ending better than its beginning.”

“Are you talking about making this streak of white into something good?”

“What else?”  He laughed again and came over, standing back and looking at the entire wall, plotting tiny points in his head and hopefully planning something.  “Will you help me?”

“What else?” he asked in retaliation, and I bit my lip, glad that he couldn’t see it.  “Over there, write something.”

“Like what?”

He sighed in a way that sounded more entertained than exasperated.  “Anything you want.”

“What I want?”

“Yah, we’ll both write something and then go over and embellish each other’s based on whatever the word is.  Get to it,” he said, turning to his own half of the line, the beginnings of a single letter bubbling from the can and onto the bricks.

I faced my own portion, already knowing what to draw.

~~~~~~~~

Namjoon

~~~~~~~~

‘YOUTH’ sprawled its way across the wall in curling letters rather than in a classic block font.  But that was how youth was anyhow: twirling and twisted and breaking from the stereotype of life.  At least, that was how it thought of itself.

That’s what young people thought of themselves.

I wasn’t sure what I thought of myself, but I sure as Hell didn’t think I was anything extraordinary.

“Done,” she whispered, and I briefly wondered why she was so quiet when there was no one around, before I turned to read what she’d written.  And for the millionth time in my existence, I felt the air in my lungs drain away, taking with it my heartbeat.  Or maybe my pulse was just so fast it became one single pounding in my ears, because even though I couldn’t hear it, my knees went weak and I barely processed how close she’d inched in the time it took my head to comprehend what I’d read.

‘KISS ME’ was stained into the brown-red bricks, bright and full of life and color and everything else I saw her as.  Young and stunning and pure art and ever purer beauty.

I felt the hand that fell on my shoulder, felt it like a burning brand stamping something into my flesh.  I looked down at Bian, her eyes closer than they’d ever been before and their russet tonalities sizzling themselves into my memory so that I’d never get the chance to forget.

“What about it?” she breathed, her other arm winding itself around my shoulders and pulling me nearer.  A hand found its way under my mask and into my hair and I shivered on contact.  I couldn’t stop my thumbs from lifting the edge of her own mask, pulling it up and up and over and past her nose and beyond her brilliant eyes, letting it fall behind her feet.  Her lips were parted so slightly I lost myself in trying to see her tongue, dropping the self-control that no longer truly had a hold on me.

My arms circled her, taking the body I’d watched move by itself for so long, taking it and moving it for myself.  She tugged my own hood off too, fingers coasting over my face and haunting on my cheeks, my ears, the crinkle of my eyes.  Our foreheads met and over her back splayed my palm, pressing her into me as her nose bumped mine.  I stopped breathing, eyes fluttering closed and her lingering exhale tracing my features like the finest of feathers.

And our mouths met, slow and soft and like two silk puzzle-pieces that fit together better than they were supposed to.  She leaned even closer, even farther into my embrace, letting herself mold to me like putty, and I replied by hugging her tighter, wrapping strong arms around her waist and resting a single hand between her shoulder blades, feeling her bones move and her body react to mine.

And in that moment there were no more teachers, no more students.  There were no longer an eighteen-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old.  There were no more social regulations to follow or preach.

There were only two kids, kissing, killing time like any two high-schoolers would.  They were young.  They were still growing up.

They were what youth was, and as the fumes of spray paint discolored the sky, they kissed, and their tongues knew what it felt like to tangle with another; their nails found just how softly they could dig into skin and hair and clothes without hurting anyone; their nerves discovered that they could be on overdrive, sparking like sparklers and burning like fire, all while being more numb than should’ve been possible.

She kissed me like she wanted to more than anything else.

I kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone in my life.

Graffiti, in that moment, became my favorite pastime.

 

 

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One more chapter.  Please comment.  They mean more than upvotes to me.  :)