vớ vẩn

chap 10

Seokjin drums his fingers along the top of the table outside the grocery store. He looks out, his eyes unfocused but fixated on something in the pitch-black sky as his mind quietens into a stupor, a tired and exhausted silence that neither he nor Namjoon bother to break. There's only the faraway sounds of cars driving by every now and then, the sounds of the grocery store's door sliding open every now and then. The wind whips up a little and it nips at the exposed skin just above the collar of Seokjin's t-shirt, so he shivers and brings his focus back to his ramyeon in front of him. He picks up his chopsticks and picks up as much as he can and shovels it into his mouth.

"Seokjin-ssi?" Namjoon mumbles as he watches Seokjin resumes stuffing his face.

He only returns Namjoon's look after he swallows down everything in his mouth. Wipes his lips on the back of his hand. "No one is going to hurt my baby brother," Seokjin tells him flatly, adamantly, before he continues with his ramyeon. Slowly, cautiously, Namjoon does the same.

"You seem rather... calm."

"Yeah," Seokjin replies in between mouthfuls. Jeongguk is his little brother and Seokjin's last surviving family member, and Seokjin loves him more than anything this world can offer, so he knows Jeongguk's lifespan like it's imprinted onto the front surface of his brain. Jeongguk's lifespan was and is always going to be the one ray of light in Seokjin's life; in the midst of everything that is rotten and decaying in Seokjin's world, Jeongguk's lifespan is the one thing that makes him realise that this life of his isn't so bad. That there's something worth living for. That his baby brother would have a long and prosperous life. He knows Jeongguk's lifespan like it's imprinted onto the surface of his brain, and there is absolutely no way he would die in a month.

And even if his lifespan does change, even if the world is cruel enough to do that to Jeongguk the way it had no qualms of doing so to Namjoon, Seokjin would stop it. No matter what. This wasn't up for discussion.

There's a fire lit in Seokjin's heart, and it burns away every shred of sadness in him. He looks up at Namjoon, his lifespan blaring sixty-six days and the fire grows, blazing down every doubt, every concern, every fear that he'd carried around until now.

Seokjin might have once believed that he was powerless against the numbers, to change them or fight against them, but he douses that version of himself in petrol and he ignites it.

"No one," Seokjin begins resolutely after he finishes off his ramyeon, "is dying under my watch. No one."

He remains motionless as he watches that weaker version of himself dying in the midst of the flames that he kindled himself. The blaze grows and grows until there's a storm in Seokjin's chest that burns down everything in its wake, and from the ashes of everything left behind, he rises anew.

He doesn't sleep at all, that night. After he and Namjoon had finished off their ramyeon, Seokjin had driven him back home even though his apartment was just around the corner, and before Namjoon had stepped out of the vehicle, he turned to Seokjin and told him something that, along with the image of Jeongguk's lifespan that's burned into his memory, keeps replaying over and over in his memory, keeping him awake.

"Seokjin-ssi," Namjoon had started, after they'd both finished their ramyeon and started to feel the cold seeping back into their skins, "do you remember, in your final year of university, a mock trial that you participated in?"

Seokjin's drawn expression didn't change as he stared at Namjoon, who, for some reason, had leaned back in the plastic chair and looked somewhat relaxed. Seokjin didn't answer him, and Namjoon didn't seem to mind.

"I watched the trial. That was the first time I saw you. I was working towards international law at the time, but after that trial... I switched to criminal law, like you. I didn't hesitate. I just... was completely entranced by you."