"Do you have plans?"
Hiro asks, shifting the subject as he blinks down at the curious fellow in front of him. He caught him staring with earnest but trifling waves of novel trapped in his eyes, searching for the unheard tattled voices he buried inside his depleted pupils.
They were loud—bewailing.
Jin took the umbrella from his hand and closed it down. He's hiding something.
Looking at his alarmed and scrutinizing eyes, he debated whether he had held furthermore answers from what's beyond this man's charade. His caves. What undefined monsters he hides.
After all this talking and pleasing who from who. It leads him to one conclusion. He knows nothing of him.
Not even a portion of him.
Who was he fooling about trespassing boundaries and thick lines? This man hasn't had any. He's the boundary itself that's seemingly too impossible to cross let alone discover or catch up, but now he's asking him if he has plans.
Will he take that as a gateway?
He doesn't know if it was him who's stepping in his bounds or he's knowingly welcoming him in.
The universe must have played with him poorly.
He doesn't understand. Hiro is a man with great fortune and fate, but why does he have to get involved in all of this phenomenal drama?
'Calm down. You're overthinking everything,' his subconscious kicks in holding his inhaler and fanning himself.
He heard him crystal clear. He told him to call him by his name over an honorific. What does that mean? Clearly, it was a slap that he doesn't belong nor has the right to call him brother.
Will that ever change? Even when both families have come to unite? Will he even let that happen? Would he let his mother be in a hands of a man he doesn't know if they could trust and depend on? His head starts to spin. Why is everything so—
"You're turning pale."
Jin steps back, panicking. No, he does not agree. They were fine before they came, his mother was doing fine—
"Enough." Hiro shakes him, waking him from his deep deep deep nightmare.
He glances up at his friends who are waiting for him ahead, "I-I do have plans. My friends have been waiting."
He brushes himself out from his grasp and gave him back his umbrella and handkerchief.
He just wants none of him.
'You know it's not his fault,' his subconscious voice out. 'And you still have his phone, dummy.'
When he looks at him in the eyes to beg goodbye, words couldn't find his lips.
He looked hurt.
But why? By all means, he shouldn't. His shoulders fell. He doesn't know what to think through anymore.
"I understand," Hiro says.
Intimidating but understanding.
'Ha,' spout his subconscious, 'We'll keep him.'
"They're just inviting me to Karaoke." He wasn't even planning to go.
He heard him taking a massive breath before tilting his head to the other side, intrigued, "I've never been to one."
Jin's eyes alternatively shift from his left pupil to another, studying him. Bit by bit his anxiousness dissolves. But—wait he hasn't?
Well, he doesn't need to at the moment.
Where he needs to go is somewhere he'll catch a wink of sleep.
"Will you agree?" Hiro, once again, interfered him from engulfing his deep thoughts.
Jin's eyebrows met.
He looks and sound . . . sullen.
"Agree?" Oh, Hiro.
Only if you could keep the discussion more specific.
"Go to Karaoke. . . " He clears his throat, " . . . with them."
And Jin catches him on the verge of yawning but shakes his head and shoo it away.
He jokingly shakes his head, "No, because you disagree with that thought, do you?" He smiles easing the atmosphere around them as he watches him intently, reading his next reaction.
Unexpectedly, Hiro stills. Gone is his drowsiness as he sobers, blinking his eyes lazily, speechless.
He's seen right through him.
Jin pauses and his face fell.
No way. He doesn't agree?
"Err . . . B-But I wasn't planning to go."
And immediately the person in front of him retrieved back his posture with a slight relief shown on his shoulders. Jin's mouth fell open at the revelation.
He's serious?
"Do you wish to fetch your phone back?" Nevermind that. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. He chants the mantra. He just wants this entire headache to end, so he wished for him to say yes.
Jihyuk wanted to head home anyway. He won't stand another second babysitting him from brawling or arguing wherever he goes. Home is fine, much better than anywhere far from his TV. He still needs to watch the live variety show of his favorite boy group idols this evening.
"No." Hiro sternly says.
Now he sounded upset.
No?
Isn't the 'phone issue' the main reason why he's here?
Well, if that's the case, "I'll be going then."
Jin gives him a polite smile and nods before turning his back on him the second time around and started walking away.
His left arm was pulled back, turning his body around in ninety degrees in a split second. Hiro looks at him straight in the eyes.
He come off as anxious, panicked, and pitiful all at once.
"Show me." He's breathless, "Show me where you hid it."
Oh. His phone.
His grip on him was firm, but not tight enough for it to hurt. His fingers were sprawled around his elbow and his menacing pupils' disturbingly twitches.
Jin's eyes gaze back at him, alarmed. He's ashen and . . . shaking.
"Alright," whispers Jin as softly as he could, reassuring the man in front of him as if he was talking to an errant child who's still building his trust foundation.
He had never seen him in this state.
He doesn't think that he'd steal his phone, did he?
Err. . . on the second thought. It might be possible. Well, if it weren't for his impeccable background that threatens him to another level, he might actually run for the hills with his phone abducted.
Jin smiles to himself, enjoying his private joke. At least this big fella here already realizes where he's wrong.
He trusts him too much.
But first, he has to deal with his friends' calculative gazes and inquisitions waving towards him.
He looks away from him, steps back, and moves his arm, trying to pull himself away, but to no avail. He, himself, wouldn't budge from his grasp.
He glimpses back at Hiro's now upset globes under his beautiful furrowed eyebrows, chuckling nervously, "I'll be back."
His nose flares, still looking hesitant.
It's indeed adorable seeing him so doubtful. But, oh, how to reassure this man? He might never leave this place by dusk.
Jin lifts his other free arm, showing him his little pinky finger, "I promise."
He gives him a shy but sincere smile, "Pinky swear?"
He does act like a child intermittently. At least this trick should work on him, no?