bleached bones and pinned butterflies

i keep wanting you when i shouldn't

Kwon Hyeok isn't bragging when he says he's a good student. He's being matter of fact, really, because all his life, when he was a student, he had to keep stellar grades just to get education. It was his only way to keep his scholarship. Only way to help himself, get him out of his sorry childhood. 

So he's a good student. This is fact. 

He's focused in his classes, and while his notes are not aesthetically pleasing, they're practical and easily understandable. His record is pristine, and all his teachers could only praise his scholastic achievements. Even when he joined Sabbath Crew, his records remained clean. His grades remained immaculate. His focus in his learning unshakeable. 

But why are the words on the whiteboard blurry? Why does the professor sound like he's slurring badly, all the while speaking in thick Gwangju satoori? Why, why, why, why- 

Hyeok knows why, he thinks with a deep, heavy sigh. 

He eyes the surface of his desk, empty and clean. Too clean. He didn't even take notes the previous class. 

His intrusive thoughts win, a thing that's been happening more and more lately, and he lets his forehead fall on the table surface with a loud, painful thunk. He does it a couple more times, not as loudly of course, and the throbbing ache on his forehead would surely leave a mark. Good. 

He needs a reminder for being stupid. 

He needs to stop thinking about warm flesh beneath his fingertips, firm because of toned muscles. The feel of her waist in his hands, how it felt like he could measure the width her waist with just one hand span. He needs to stop thinking about how soft those blue and violet strands are, hair like silk making him want to tangle his fingers there for a long, long time. Press his face to it just to feel how smooth they are. He needs go stop thinking about rose-red lips, soft beneath his own. Lips that spat curses at him, stretched into grins for him, whispered coy words at him.

He needs, he needs, he needs- 

It was a well known fact that if there's a mandatory sin everyone in Sabbath Crew should commit, it's greed. They're all greedy, every single member of their little family, and Kwon Hyeok knows he's the same. Wooin-hyung is greedy for his version of fun, Joker-hyung is greedy for the thrill of violence, Minseok is greedy for money, and Kwon Hyeok- 

Kwon Hyeok is greedy for acknowledgement. 

There's a reason why he loves to show off. A reason why he would always step up onto the spot light. Draw attention to himself with fancy tricks and brutal foul plays. 

And most of all, there's a reason he's so fascinated with Noah. 

It was the way she latched onto him, whether she knows what she's doing or not. Noah looked at him with those fiery eyes of hers, and Kwon Hyeok got greedy.

Oh, she was annoying at first. 

She was a prideful, entitled brat of a woman - no wonder he settled on calling her princess so fast - and for such a pretty girl her personality got nasty quite fast. But Kwon Hyeok is at the very least self-aware, so it's a bit hypocritical of him to give someone a nasty personality no second chance. 

Not when Kwon Hyeok's hands are dirty. Now when he dirtied his own hands with no hesitation, but with enjoyment instead. Finding fun in other's misery.

(Minseok once joked that Kwon Hyeok might as well actually be Wooin-hyung's son, what with the two of them being total sadists. 

Kwon Hyeok might've balked at the idea of Wooin-hyung giving birth to him, but he didn't exactly deny it.

It tells a lot about him, his reaction.)