Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

⑤⑨ The World, Tomorrow

Jeongin pressed a winning hand of cards against the hood of the car, laughing in a mocking way at the other street racers as he collected his prize of disgruntled groans and cheap bills of money all for him. If he learned anything from watching  Chan, besides how to morally weight a person's worth against the gravity of the world and other encouraging topics that resembled a pep-talk, it was how to gamble. Well.

His legs folded over each other as he leaned back against the windshield of Chan's car, the older sitting somewhere behind him in the driver's seat as the other crew members became heated in their private game of poker under the cover of the Hub's darkened lights. The lack of illumination that shroud them may or may not have helped him in the illicit gambling matched against Minho, Jisung, and Hyunjin but if no one noticed Chan feeding him cards from his spot, then no one noticed. The only one who might've noticed was Changbin but even he was focused on the engine of his own car, body leaning over as he stared the abyss in the eyes, the only light he had available to him being the ray of hope known as a phone flashlight.

A ray of hope like the sun that shined on them in the morning, if these were people that preferred the brightness of day over the realm of monsters and men alike. Maybe moonlight then. A guiding light shining through, both where they could see, and where they couldn't as the world around them seemed to return to normal. Seemed to. The last few days fell back into a steady rhythm, not quite dancing on an edge but not entirely on solid ground yet. Somewhere balancing in the middle, stumbling, before they could grab hold on something steady. Even if they did grab on, he was sure their hands would shred and bleed. They began to balance on their own feet again and the crew began a steady return to what they thought was correct.

"You never really told us what happened between you and Chan," Jisung started at Jeongin as Minho dealt in a new round to the players, each time the cards sliding a bit too far on the car's hood to be caught with a panicked slam. Chan sprung his head up at the name to briefly to scan them over but upon not being acknowledged beyond Jeongin catching his line of sight, he went back to distracting himself on his phone.

"I yelled at him, cried a bit, talked, cuddled on the couch, talked more," Jeongin listed off with his fingers. He collected the cards caught under his shoe and delicately held them in his hands as his eyes raked over the suits, the numbers, checking only to realize he received nothing that could even remotely land him a decent win this time. Glancing up from his cards to address the street racer, he muttered, "That's about it."

Hyunjin quirked an eyebrow and leaned to talk to Chan, "Cuddled on the couch? Don't you have a bed?"

"I don't think he can hear us."

"Damn."

"Chan is a genius," Minho froze up, eyes going wide at the older who was obviously not paying any attention to their conversation or even making an attempt at such. The ones who were, however, just sent him confused looks. Jisung even went as far as to make a small noise. After a few beats, Minho shook his head, placed his cards down, and began, "They were on a couch. Couches are small. Clicking yet?"

Hyunjin arranged his cards, commenting pointedly as he did so, "To me, it sounds like you're proving the theory you are a man of profoundly limited intelligence."

"Okay, imagine. Person you like is frustrated. They don't really want to talk, you send them off to sleep. But you know there's more they want to say and they probably won't be able to sleep. You wait for them to come back to talk because you know them, you know they'll be back, but even then there's not a guarantee they'll want to talk or even look at you. So, what do you do? The couch."

"Oh damn," Jisung's eyes widened.

"The bastard played me AGAIN!" The Songbird fumed as he tossed his hand of cards in front of him, one accidentally thwacking Hyunjin on the nose as he and whipped around to the older focused on the blaring screen of his phone casting mesmerizing shadows across his face. Jeongin shouted at him, "Chan!"