"I refuse."

"You can take your time thinking about it," Junmyeon said gently, drawing the fluffy towel tighter around himself. Now that the curtains were drawn to protect them from prying eyes, there was nothing but the flickering fire lighting the room; a warm glow that had almost completely dried his hair by now.
"You're wasting your time. I'm not interested."
"It could do a lot of good. What people think... it's wrong." Junmyeon prodded gently, only getting a derogatory huff from the other. From his position in front of the fire, the shadows cast on Sehun's leisurely crossed legs  made them look even longer, the way he slumped down on his plush armchair even more haughty. This was his territory and they both knew it. Still, Junmyeon refused to give in that easily, even though pushing Oh Sehun was clearly dangerous. His throat was still burning, though no bruise would be able to prove it. Not today, not tomorrow.
"Don't you want the world to know the truth?"
Sehun let out a quick, joyless laugh.
"About what? About me? About what it's like?"
Junmyeon inhaled deeply.
"About your blood being red, just like everyone else's."
Sehun froze, an annoyed twitch of his eyebrow betraying the steely mask.
He'd undoubtedly hit a nerve. From whispered rumors to printed tabloid articles, it had established himself even more ever since Sehun unintentionally got into the public’s spotlight. The more substances you inject, the more colors are added to your blood—the more tainted it becomes. Junmyeon himself had endured those whispers, seeing as he wore seven tattoos marking the seven colors pulsing through his veins. But as one of the most influential politicians, those whispers were the least of his concerns.
Sehun, on the other hand, looked aggravated. He'd surely heard more than whispers.
Tainted. Inhuman. A monster.
With a condescending snort, the young man removed himself from the chair. Sank into the plush carpet, turned himself around and removed his shirt with one swift movement, exposing his .
Junmyeon gasped.
Flickers of light reflected off milky skin, shed light on rows and rows of markings, covering all of his back down to his slim waist. Tiny, familiar emblems and many more even Junmyeon had never seen before. Stark colors, pale ones, dark ones.
So many of them. He'd never seen anything like it before.
With utmost care, he reached out to trail his finger over the familiar electric blue wisdom knot symbolizing his birth place. It looked foreign in this systematic field of tattoos. Gently trailing over his shoulder blades, he traced out four crosses so dark they appeared black in the dim light. War zones. The muscles twitched beneath his fingertip, but Sehun only threw him a glance over his shoulder, eyes ablaze with pure spite.

"So? You still convinced my blood is red?"

Sehun's past is something I would've loved to delve into deeper. Maybe, in the future...

Also I had barely any chance to show the way people deal with 'abnormalities'. People who can shift very good, especially people like Sehun, who can do certain things... Jongdae is a pretty easy-going and tolerant person so it's not an issue he tends to think about, nor is the discrimination etched into his head - after all, he's striving to be a star (those are mostly pretty good at shifting), and his best friend is also pretty busy. Not to mention that his birth Layer is pretty chill overall.
Still, there's a lot of ugly people out there, and Sehun met a lot of them.

Love,
Sugar-and-Salt ♥