Tainted || liskook

Tainted [14]: real faces

The night was cold.

It wasn't much of a shocker—that was just the way this strange city was, sunny enough in the day and extremely chilly at night; one could never count on the weather to be consistent. Namjoon was over it, but fuck if he didn't hate the cold—it only reminded him of lonely nights and other irrelevant, sentimental bullshit that he shouldn't even be thinking as of now, however it was almost three in the morning and he has been staring at his laptop screen for fucking hours. It wasn't like him to wallow in self-pity or indulge too much into melancholic emotions especially if they were caused by the fucking weather—amongst other things that he wouldn't dare dive into, not now—but if Jin has nothing else for him, he thinks he might resort to writing poetry.

The horror.

The dirty-blonde reckoned it might not be appropriate for the occasion and he was—is—still worried for Jin as it was somewhat mandatory for him to show concern for his friend, though Namjoon didn't think he has enough angst compared to the rest of the boys and he didn't feel particularly competitive to outweigh or share notes with their past experiences to find out which of them turned out alright by their standards and which grew progressively worse; in his terms—all levels of fucked up. Living with six destructive boys has increased the standards, however, Namjoon wasn't one to pass judgment.

Fucked up shit happens to everyone all the time—it's just how one dealt with it.

And in Namjoon's case—he was excellent with deflection, in his own twisted way; he was loyal and he listened well but no one expected him to shield himself with a hard layer or internally combust—instead, he'll crack inappropriate jokes at the inappropriate time and if someone has the time to get offended then jokes on them because no one wants a Debbie Downer... Or a whiner, those too—they grinded on his fucking gears and compelled him to take out a gun and shoot them down. He didn't have any thoughts on the value of human lives but he didn't particularly enjoy killing... Though sometimes a little violence was necessary due to certain circumstances.

The bar owner was a great example, but the dirty-blonde lived by the saying 'you gotta do what you gotta do' and while it was somewhat unfortunate he had to die, the fact that he did will never change. Even though Namjoon wrote it off as an accident because he didn't mean to throw the bottle that hard, however he knew there's no point in justifying his actions—he broke the law, committed a grave sin and all that poetic bullshit but unlike the others, he didn't have to pay for it.

His mentor told him he had the potential to be an outstanding leader but the workload was honestly too much for him—or anything that got to do with responsibilities and caring in general—he'd rather pass the task to Hoseok, Yoongi, and Jin, since those three were eager to snatch the position from his hands. They weren't too bad either and sometimes they don't get along too well; Jin was too intense, Yoongi was too idealistic and Hoseok...Was just Hoseok. But the four of them has reached to an understanding and each of them has their own roles to play.

Which brought him to where he was now.

Namjoon curled into his sweater and leaned his cheek against a fist in boredom, another hand was tapping impatiently on the mouse, bloodshot eyes glued on the screen.

"You alright there, man?"

At the sound of his companion's voice, he paused the video and turned away from his laptop to look up at the raven-haired man; Jin has just stepped out of the bathroom dressed in a pair of clean clothes, a small towel was wrapped around his neck. He ran a hand through his freshly showered hair and gave him a pointed look.

"Yeah dude," Namjoon sighed tiredly, but managed to crack a grin. He ran his neck from side to side and groaned in satisfaction when the knots popped, "Was just watching the surveillance. Can't really do much though, I can't access the back building."