-

Jinseok slammed his phone screen down and away from his face, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from yelling the profanities that flew past his head in a flurry. God, he was just seething, his head racing a mile a minute while boiling hot blood rushed through his veins.

The feeling down deep in his stomach was uncomfortably knotting and sloshing around in a sea of hatred and despise. And , Jinseok swallows back the curses on his tongue - His parents never texted him like this. Well, usually, because Jinseok would just leave them on read, but how dare they try to talk to him! And that wasn’t just the only thing - they just had to go and get his twin involved. The black-clad teen glared fiercely at the blank wall of the hallway in front of his old dorm complex from his stoop in the stairway.

He can feel the cold metal of the stairs soaking through the thin material of his sweats serving as the only tangible thing keeping him grounded in the moment. The biting coolness reminding him that he has to keep everything in. keep all of the emotions inside where they would be confined to the iron lockbox at the very depths of his soul, never to spill out or show. They COULDN’T spill out, Jinseok would never let them, and he was doing a damn good job of it all until today.

Until this all happened, and he felt like crumbling down again, felt the tiny pinching cracks try to wear him down. Jinseok worked too damn hard for all of his effort to shatter at the slightest confrontation, but - this was all their fault. Could they ever just leave him alone like he always wanted? Could they ever just let him be?

Jinseok’s twitchy body, alight with nerve endings on fire, slowly slumps back until the step ledge digs harshly into his lower back, suitcase promptly ignored on its spot slumped against the floor where he threw it down in his rage. All the teen can process is the cool sensation against his body and the equally cold, metal device squeezed in a death grip in his palms. It's barely anything, but really it's more than just the bitter twinge in his chest.

Fragments of memories, the past threatened to roll through his head like credits, but Jinseok clamped down and cut them off before they even had a chance. Instead, the offending text replayed over in a voice sounding suspiciously like his father in his head, and Jiseok wanted nothing more than to punch something or, namely - someone.

Oh yeah, someone is for sure, and he knew just the person.

3 NEW MESSAGES
From: 💩 father 🔥💩

His parents just had to go and bring up his blasted name. Just had to put that bad taste in his mouth. Jisung… him. That prick would never be his sunbae.

It wasn’t enough that Jinseok was already pissed about having to debut in a group rather than as a soloist (or even in ANY other group would be fine), but then his ‘family’ had to make it worse like it was their job to ruin his life. Now he was being compared to their golden son, Jisung.

Just like always, Jinseok blinked away the blurry threat of any other emotions besides the torment of raw, acrid despise. Fingers moved thoughtlessly against the skin of his thighs, pricking at the loose edges of his pants to find purchase. To cement him here and not there, inside his headspace.

Just the very name whispered like a spell - a curse branding across his brain - made Jinseok see red.

Red walls, red floors, red door.

The entire building was red, his hands dyed in crimson, his mouth tasting the nasty tang - “I’m nothing like that NCT maknae… they better never mention him in the same sentence as me ever again.” Jinseok snarled to himself, listening as his own harsh voice bounced back against the stairwell.

The sixteen-year-old was so lost in boiling in rage that he didn’t even realize someone had descended down onto the stairs just above him. A tall figure loomed over the smaller boy, and upon seeing a sudden dark shadow bathing his frame, Jinseok lifted his head up.

‘Great, just lovely. What now?’ He scoffed with a drawn-out eyeroll, clicking his tongue in poorly concealed aggravation. He didn’t have time for this and really couldn’t even dare think of putting in the effort needed to keep from completely biting someone's head off right now.

It would be better for everyone if he just stayed mute. Maybe the er could just step around him until they reached the landing because he sure as hell wasn’t moving. They would just have to deal.

But low and behold - luck wasn’t on his side. And just, of course, it wasn’t. Jinseok wasn’t even surprised anymore by all of the ty things that happened to him lately. It seemed like the universe was out to get him, or at least out to make Jisung the happiest boy alive and Jinseok the most resentful. 

Though the voice in the back of his mind let out the callous whisper he most definitely agreed with, 'Just as it has always been.'

Like a large, oversized toddler who hasn’t developed enough to recognize social cues, the intruder bounds right over Jinseok’s mental bulletproof wall, plowing through his space into settles so close to the teen that Jinseok can feel the heat radiating off of the person’s legs which only makes him more ticked off. Oh, does he hate anyone who invades his personal space. That’s more of an understatement.

‘What the hell?’ Jinseok is two seconds away from flying off the handle, thin dark brows furrowed with a pointed glare when the person decides now is an excellent time to speak up.

“What ‘cha doing down there, little man?” came the chipper probe, and Jinseok has to physically restrain the urge to strangle the older boy to death. But the desire is so strong and present, the invisible phantom weight of the intruder's head in his hands… It all makes sense now.

Everything clicks into place on why this idiot ignores social cues… Out of all the people to come across him. Jinseok’s glare snaps directly upward, and he’s met with the familiar slim face of his hyung.

The taller male’s lips are curled up into an amused grin, not an unfamiliar sight on his angular face, but very unwelcome right now, backpack loosely hanging off his shoulders. Brunette locks pushed up in a messy quaff off of his clear forehead and hands tucked casually into the pockets of the dark blue windbreaker track pants worn on long, lean legs. Jinseok scans over the slim, lanky figure of one rapper and hyung, Noeul, and hopes that the tall idiot gets the hint of his ‘kindly-go-to-hell’ deadpanned look that Jinseok pretty much coined at this point by how often he used it.

But of course, Jinseok would be stupid to assume Noeul is anything but an annoying loudmouth. It’s almost like a game between them. A sick cat and mouse tug of war that has Jinseok scrambling nearly every time to just wipe that putrid grin off the enthusiastic male's face. But it’s like Noeul s sunshine and glitter and eats unicorns for breakfast because he’s just so… Jinseok begrudgingly thinks accompanied by a full-body tremble of disgust- happy.

“Are you not talking to your hyung today, Jinseokkie?” Noeul is utterly unaffected by Jinseok’s hatefulness and instead beams down at him with that sharp, wide pearly white grin, the one that narrows his piercing eyes and scrunches his high nose.

Jinseok again has to resist the urge to physically lash out and bash his head into the nearby wall because ‘Jinseokkie?’ Was he five years olds? Yeah, no ing thanks. If he thought the smiley-faced elder was annoying before, well, he was a ing pest now.

“Don’t call me that again,” Jinseok's snippy remark starts, but he quickly tacks on an even snarkier, “hyung,” at the end to rial the other up. But the young teen is only disappointed when Noeul’s smile just widens.

“Aww, you’re really too cute! Trying to mess with me.” Noeul laughs, a hearty sound that makes Jinseok scowl deepen, and the smaller of the two sinks even further into his broody haze. “Come here and let hyung coddle you!”

Why can’t this idiot ever leave him alone? From the moment Jinseok signed on as a YG trainee, it seems like his hyung was around him constantly like a shadow. Every rap practice was scheduled at the same time as Noeul’s. Dance practice and even vocal lessons sometimes clashed and bled into each other’s time slots.

Anyone looking on at the pair would probably be taken back by the sheer humor of their differences... What with himself being a dark cloud of hatred and bitterness, Noeul is more like a bright blinding beam of light and sparkling joy. Honestly, he had heard the comparison more than once in practice since, again, the twenty-two year old always seemed a step behind him - hovering, stalking… clinging like a giant koala that Jinseok never asked for or wanted.

And guess what? Now the clingy koala was his group member. Great. Jinseok could just sense the number of homicides piling up…How was Noeul older than him? Really, life didn’t make sense sometimes.

Jinseok was convinced that he was actually just stuck in some kind of time-loop of a nightmare, and he had no clue how to get off this awful ride. And no, he wasn't just pessimistic, he was just a realist, mind you.

“For the last time, can you get the hint?” Jinseok drawls, heavy on the disrespect and clipped aggravation. Slowly turning his glare, an even fiercer narrowing of his monolid eyes as they find Noeul’s own.

“What hint?” Noeul just blinks innocently back as he all but plops down directly next to Jinseok, nearly squishing the dark-clad teen who lets out the tiniest squawk - that he would never admit to even on his deathbed - before barreling out of the way of the lanky buffoon, “That you’re all pouty on the middle of a staircase like an emo Disney princess? I’ll be your handsome knight if you’re that bored!” The brunette grins down at him while he shifts himself into a more comfortable position on the most uncomfortable staircase in the world.

‘I will not murder. I will not give in to the temptation. I can’t debut if I murder yet.’ Jinseok mentally recites like a mantra over and over again but really, it does nothing to soothe the rage in his soul lashing out to murder Noeul.

“Aren’t you on the way to the new dorms? You wanna head that way with me? Or are you going to continue to dramatically cry until you burst into song? Or wait. Is that how you find inspiration for lyrics?” Noeul just has to continue talking, raising his brows nearly up to his hairline as if to emphasize his question, and Jinseok is reminded precisely why he’s here in the first place.

Oh yeah, he was going to those damned dorms. The BLACKOUT dorms.

Or as he likes to call it, his doom. The teen mentally rolls his eyes at the thought. “Maybe I’d rather cry and sing than go with you.” The younger bites back without glancing at the other, but he doesn’t even need to in order to feel the smile he knows is shining on Noeul’s face. Damn him! Did he ever get offended? What would it take to push this happy, cheerful funtime bundle off a ing mountain?

The older’s easygoing disposition only makes Jinseok angrier - so he thinks, but really, it’s more like the lack of reaction of Jinseok’s bating. It’s not fun to bate people if they don’t actually, ya know, take the bate. Noeul makes him pissy because he never seems to react in the way the teen is used to. Seeing others get riled up and aggravated really hyped Jinseok up. It was his thing, almost a kink, but not really. He just enjoyed getting on people’s nerves, provoking and picking away at their defense until he was finally rewarded with the sweet satisfaction of their annoyance.

But with Noeul, it was all different. He never seemed to get the whole ‘reward system’ and instead flipped it around where Noeul himself was doing the annoying and Jinseok was always falling into the trap. God, sometimes he just hated the older boy, but at the same time, Jinseok had to begrudgingly admit that Noeul wasn’t as bad as some other YG trainees - ones that he couldn’t even think of their names without being set off. But that didn’t change the fact that Noeul was still the thorn in Jinseok’s side, and he would never in a million years admit ANYTHING to him.

It felt like an oversized dog was breathing down Jinseok’s neck as the younger shifted away from the eager grabby hands of the other boy, easily dodging out of Noeul’s attempt at throwing an arm over his shoulder. Jinseok ducked out of his reach like the plague, as if his gross hands even grazed the material of his black hoodie that he would combust into flames or probably a ty rash - and Noeul whined loudly in disappointment. Suddenly, the taller rose up to his feet, stomping his sneakers on the metal steps and the loud creaking sound nearly giving Jinseok a heart attack.

What the was he? A kid? What the hell was he throwing a temper tantrum for? Jinseok wondered, though his glare never shifted away from the older. Ummm, the black haired teen wearily peered at the other’