BLACK
SAPPHIRE
BEER BOTTLES CLUTTERED the coffee table, whiskey and gin alike snuck between green glass. raesun smiled dozily while staring at a wrinkled band poster tacked to the wall in the midst of mindless chatter, jeongguk's tipsy hand fiddling with the hem of her shorts and yoongi's laughter louder than ever.
"so, what's your two's deal?" jimin asks from the couch, a finger circling the rim of his can, "any lil' guks and raesuns running around any time soon?"
jin snorted as jeongguk spluttered, raesun's grimace saying it all: children was definitely something not on the agenda, "don't be stupid, jimin, jesus christ," jeongguk is quick to recover from his short panicked episode.
children, for raesun at least, was a definite no. she was brought up in such a way that made children seem like a tool for success, another statistic that would make those higher above seem greater. she hadn't had the right teaching, and wouldn't know what to do with a child of her own — in her head she'd be an awful mother.
"raesun? you coming for a smoke?" jin chuckled while waving around a couple cigarettes pinched between his fingers, sunglasses askew on his head and fringe frayed with gaps.
"shut up jin," jeongguk shook his head, the elder and him followed by a stumbling jimin, exiting the garage clutching crumpled cigarette packets and half–filled beers.
raesun felt cold without jeongguk's warmth beneath her, wrapping her arms around herself as yoongi started to roll a joint. his voice broke through the chill atmosphere, "do you love him? jeongguk, i mean."
she blushed heavily — again, what could she do with love? she didn't even know what such a feeling was, but perhaps this little seedling in her heart was going to blossom into something dangerous yet beautiful; it could all decease, a hope of love taken from her before it even began.
"n–no, i don't," she whispered, peering at the drunken glaze over the older's pale face and the glint in his tar eyes, "but i'd like to think i could. eventually."
"he's had it rough that kid," yoongi spoke with a tongue of remorse, as if something inside him pained to talk about jeongguk's troubled past, "in n out of custody, foster care, fake love... he's had his golden moments, but he's always preferred the dark routes. i thought he'd go far, but things went to shit pretty quickly for him."
raesun frowned, "what do you mean exactly?" she remembered his grandma, her floral perfume matching entirely to her personality. as ignorant as it was, raesun thought he'd always had his grandma through those times.
"i don't think it's quite my place to talk about his family, and i don't even know what happened to them, just that they are... gone," yoongi winced, "but we actually all met from living in a bad neighbourhood, growing up around drugs and alcohol and other illegal things alike. one day, he stole a canvas and some paint, and we really thought he'd knuckle down..."
"but he couldn't?" she whispered. taking a glance over, the garage door open and seeing the honey boy laughing with the other two elders while standing around a broken motorcycle, she didn't see him as a thief or a criminal. perhaps a very misbehaved student, but nothing serious.
"well i guess he could try, but with his family once being part of a gang and that very gang being on his tail every five seconds, it was hard to escape," yoongi took a moment to lick the paper, sealing it in place as he admired the joint in the sunlight, all while talking a dark story, "i should know. i know people in it."
"is... is jeongguk in serious danger?" she mumbled, still staring at the tattooed boy on the last drags of his cigarette. a smokey hand graced his throat as he huffed out the chemicals, brows furrowed in concentration as jimin rattled on about an irrelevant subject.
"he hasn't heard from the gang in a few years, but it don't mean he's just going to up and change. he's too far down this hole to simply drop everything and run away," the older male sighed, lighting the joint and slouching back down on the worn leather couch, "we all are, i suppose. it's a deep great ocean raesun. don't drown, whatever you do."
"and what if i do?" she couldn't help herself but want to dip her toes into the waters of rebellion, the gleaming black waters shimmering with an undertone of sapphire, shades of cool to live and thrive in.
it was an unbreakable want.
"then you'll live in damned regret," his eyes meet hers and, for just a split second, she saw misery in his face, "and you'll have to deal with that til you draw your last breath."
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