Chapter Text
REC
PM 9:29
The sound of a shutter whirrs to life, and the screen blinks itself on.
Up in the corner, a little red dot pulsed endlessly to signify that it was all getting recorded. Accompanying it in the other corner was a three-quarters full battery symbol, and beneath that a timer ticking by the seconds, then the minutes. There wasn’t enough tape to go over an hour, but it’d be enough time to get everything.
Well, maybe.
The camcorder pans to a guy with sun-kissed skin and a cocky smile, all too happy to be taking up the screen. Even this late at night, illuminated by nothing but the dreary orange-yellow street lights littered about the skatepark made even more desaturated with the film quality, his energy was loud and bright and almost obnoxiously comfortable, looking into the lens as if he were checking himself out in a mirror before a date.
Someone cackles off-camera, and the footage will undoubtedly make the crispness of it come out more muffled and scratchy. It’s decorated with a background purr of wheels on pavement and boards clattering around after unsuccessful tricks, guys shouting over other guys or group-wide hisses of sympathy when it was bodies colliding with the ground instead.
The subject in view is desensitized to it all or perhaps just too distracted by the prospect of being filmed, because he merely lifts the brim of his bucket hat to reveal a locked stare of deep, round eyes. The laughter from the side had only spurred his antics on, and he gives the camera a cheesy wink as he adjusts his eye-length fringe of dirty blonde out of his lashes.
“Jisung,” huffs a blasé voice from the person operating the camcorder. “Could you stop eyefucking my poor camera? I’m shooting a competition, not a porno.”
“Nah Minnie, you gotta get this,” Jisung says, insisting he gets more screen time by taking a few sultry steps back that he must think look modelesque. Seungmin complies with an almost palpable eyeroll, letting the camcorder pan up and down his form as he tries out a few poses with comical levels of exaggerated confidence. “The people needa know what a future skateboarding champion looks like.”
“..Like the grunge movement swallowed you whole, swigged you down with some lukewarm beer and spat you back up on the doorstep of a Zumiez? Okay,” that laughter-ridden tone says off to the side. Seungmin cuts to the perpetrator: Hyunjin’s giving Jisung some playful little up-down glances of judgment, the mock disgust in his features framed by straight, shoulder-length platinum strands hugged under the confines of a scarlet beanie.
The camera whooshes back to Jisung in a whirl of static and film grain, emitting some more whirrs and clicking noises as Jisung’s outfit gets zoomed in on; he’s sporting his third oversized Nirvana shirt of the week, the sleeves baggy enough to nearly hide his scabbed elbows. Further down are equally baggy jeans with some fray in the hems from excessive use, beginning to rip enough to show tan skin in the certain places he’s wiped out in the past. Half of those instances were due to his checkered vans he refused to replace, the laces so dirty and torn near the aglets that it’s a true wonder they still held together at all. Maybe Jisung could be pro by now if he bothered to outfit himself in things that fit right and weren’t falling apart.
“Don’t be jealous,” Jisung coos in Hyunjin’s direction, voice saccharine and honeyed. Getting all gushy as if they were some married couple made his best friend buckle the quickest, and tonight was no different. Jisung begins to waltz toward him as if going in for a hug, and Hyunjin screeches with a few skips backwards and some hands protectively palm-forward to ward off his advances.
Jisung just laughs it off and adjusts his bucket hat once more to cover his eyes, leaving nothing but that cheeky smirk on display. It stood as a perfect reminder that he could honestly wear whatever he wanted — he was too self-assured to be smartly advised out of anything. Probably explained why he’s fractured bits of every limb on him at least once and still decided to keep mastering the sport with that dangerously heedless give-zero-fucks attitude.
Seungmin sighs like a disappointed parent, giving up on trying to train his viewfinder on Jisung this zoomed in since the dude won’t stop fucking moving, so he merely zooms out and chooses to focus on how his subject has begun to impatiently wobble left-right-left-right on his board until his turn arrived.
“Contestant number.. uh, fourteen,” Seungmin whispers to his camcorder for his future audience, trying to retain some professionalism in his monotone. “Han Jisung. Hey, Sung, what did you bring for the winner’s pot?”
Jisung interrupts whatever comeback he was going to use to deflect Hyunjin’s off-screen sassy remarks to instead give Seungmin some wide, awkward side-eye. “‘Winner’s pot’?”
Another sigh. “Yeah man, gotta throw something in if you’re competing for this one. Winner takes all.”
“Shit, ‘kay.” The camera angles up to Jisung’s puffed cheeks he starts swapping trapped air between in idle, clearly racking his mind through whatever impromptu ideas stick the most. None of them seem to notice him reaching his hand in the back pocket of his jeans, but there’s some aggressive whirring to pan down to the little white stick he suddenly presents between pinched fingers, the round wrapping at the tip decorated with some cartoonish grapes.
“Is that a fucking lollipop?” Hyunjin barks out before he surrenders his voice to even more laughter.
It’s kind of a shame Seungmin is behind the camera, because he’s sure the frown he’s sporting has to be breaking some sort of record for its intensity. “What in the hell—.. how long have you had that in there?”
Considering Jisung’s inspecting it like he was also surprised it was in there wasn’t a good fucking sign. “About..” he starts, really getting a good glare at the thing, slowly bringing it closer to his face like the proximity might trigger some memory. Seungmin literally can’t tell if he’s joking or not anymore. Then Jisung’s pulling it away with a shrug, and a punch of breath-laughter escapes his nose. “Dude, I have zero idea. I haven’t even been in a candy store in at least a year or two.”
“That is beyond extra ultra ungodly levels of disgusting,” Hyunjin declares, giving the innocent little stick of sugar and corn syrup a disapproving scowl. “Bro, you probably sat on that, like, a million times. It’s flavored like your ass by now.”
“Naaaaaaah,” Jisung pffshts, smacking at the air as if to wave away the concept. “Maybe detergent, though — I’ve washed these jeans a bunch.”
Seungmin finally shows a little humor, snorting into the palm not currently keeping the camcorder steady. “You? Hygiene? Don’t make me laugh.”
Jisung balks and throws his hands in the air as if that’d somehow prove he applied deodorant. “I actually showered before I got here! I’m clean!”
“You’re a silly little comedian,” Seungmin hums giddily.
“And cruel,” Hyunjin tacks on, jutting his chin in the direction of the crowd watching the current contestant. It’s a wide ring of people surrounding the main ‘arena,’ backlit by the harsh street lamps so the majority of them looked like a human wall of silhouettes. Some had their own boards; other contestants gnawing their metaphorical nails with hawk eyes on every single move, trick and potential mistake the guy at the center of it all was doing. Jisung didn’t really bother worrying — another sign of his massive ego, sure, but the guy currently competing was also a good friend of his.
All attention seems to turn to him with Hyunjin’s motion, and Seungmin directs the camera on his distant form over the perspective of Jisung’s shoulder: Jeongin’s unbuttoned flannel whips behind his form rapidly with his moderate speed accelerating down a ramp, and the audience gives some lukewarm praise to the safe tricks he winds down with.
“He threw his SNES in the winnings,” Hyunjin clarifies on Jisung’s other side, and the humored venom in his tone was so obviously directed at him. “He loves that thing. You’re throwing in some fucking.. trillion-year-old candy you pulled out of your ass — pun intended.”
Jisung folds his arms, jostling the camcorder a bit from its perch on his broad shoulder. “Dude, that is not my problem. He’s an adult, he made his decision to fight a losing battle.”
“Losing!” Hyunjin gasps with feigned offense, amping up the banter. “He’s improved so much since the last competition. You gotta get off your high horse before you get knocked off, man, ‘cause he’s catching up, and the day you lose isn’t gonna be pretty for you.”
“Pfft, s’not gonna be tonight,” Jisung replies coolly and quickly. “Look at him, he’s wobbling, and..” Seungmin zooms the camera in to focus as much on Jeongin as he can, picking up what will likely only come out as a blurry, grainy silhouette under the harsh spotlight of streetlamps on screen. Even so, Seungmin manages to catch his recovery from where the board had begun to oscillate and, unfortunately, the next trick attempt he goes for a split second afterwards.
The trio collectively hold their breath on it, making the seconds feel like little eternities as they tick by. Jeongin’s got a good stance with his legs and feet, but his upper body has gone rigid and the speed was just too unreliable. By the time he’s in the air, the board isn’t even horizontal when gravity finally arrives, and he’s forced to the ground as the sad sound of his board clattering away gets drowned out by a collective round of cringe-hisses from the onlookers.
“Holy fuck,” Hyunjin gasps out, the slender fingers of his hand shooting up to shield the way his jaw has dropped to his shoes. “What happened!?”
“Yikes,” Jisung agrees with a dry laugh. He’s not too secondhand embarrassed for his buddy — Jeongin’s learned how to recover from trips and stumbles with grace, so he turns his collision with the pavement into a deft little forward roll onto his shoulder and back to his feet, but the look on his face from this distance still doesn’t seem pleased in the slightest. “Had his front foot kicking down, so.. based on stance and where the board was trying to go, I’m guessing he was attempting a switch inward heel.”
“And that’s incredibly difficult, right?” Seungmin asks, because he wants any potential audience kept up to speed. He backs up to have Jisung and Hyunjin in the shot again.
Jisung sniffs with this nonchalant vacancy in his features, but Hyunjin’s clear inability to wipe off the awe in his raised brows and gaping gaze was answer enough. “Not easy,” Jisung explains, shrugging. “Even on a good day. Risky. Jeongin gets my respect for the audacity.”
Almost as if beckoned by name alone, Jeongin’s suddenly making an appearance as a body soon to arrive in the periphery of the camera, and he’s there by the time Seungmin’s eyes have flicked away from the viewfinder.
His jog has slowed to a dejected trudge, barely lifting his soles off the asphalt, and his board is tucked between his hip and the lazy slot of his folded fingers. He’s so utterly drenched in sweat that Seungmin is sure even the shitty quality of his camcorder will be able to pick it up. It glistens down his collarbones and sternum into his tank that’d grown damp as well, glued to his torso to outline the definition of muscle. Even the thicker material of his flannel is a darker blue-green plaid around the neck, and his dark brown hair has plastered itself even darker to his nape and temples, the particularly longer strands over his forehead dripping some down the side of his nose and sharp jaw.
Hyunjin goes for him immediately once he’s in reach, dropping his mask of surprised horror to adopt something more kindly and crooning. “You did so good,” he says, wrapping both of his arms around Jeongin’s neck. Jeongin can only give a one-armed hug around the waist in return, but that’s as much as he could’ve, because once Hyunjin regrets his choice to bury his face in Jeongin’s collar (and probably got a whiff of all the sweat) he’s immediately recoiling to instead opt for some safe shoulder pats.
“Yeah? I nearly ate concrete,” Jeongin huffs with what little sass he could muster, voice scratchy. He can’t really even sound much of anything from how out of breath he is, lips parted to gulp in what seems to be never enough air, eyes tiredly and permanently in a state of almost-closed. He takes his free hand to wipe the sediment it’d collected down the side of his flannel. “Dunno what the fuck I thought — once I started getting shaky, I knew it’d deduct score, so I thought I’d make up for it by doing something intricate. Should’ve stuck to kickflips.”
“You were using your hands a bit too,” Jisung comments off to the side. Jeongin takes the criticism easily with a few nods, and his chest begins to slow down once his breathing steadies. “S’all good, we’ll work on it.”
“Tomorrow?” Jeongin asks, gulping up to his kinda-sorta mentor since his mouth had dried out thanks to all the inhaling. “We can try this park again. I like the rails they have here.”
Instead of verbal confirmation, Jisung just strides off his board to go over and clap their hands together like they always did after a rough day of riding — his own little way of showing the younger he was proud. “Mm, screw that. We’re keeping you on flatground and going straight to laser flips.”
Jeongin only realizes he’s teasing at that last bit, looking up to Jisung with furrowed brows and so much fear that he can’t even fathom sarcasm. “..Dude. Nobody can do laser flips.”
“I’ll have none of that talk in my house!” Jisung declares, turning heel to go back and grab his board. Seungmin follows him with the camcorder and a fond shake of his head at the dramatics.
“Even professionals struggle with that trick..” Jeongin tacks on.
“And this isn’t even your house!” Hyunjin squawks out, going to throw his arm around Jeongin in defense before remembering the sweat, so he just rests his hand there instead after poorly trying to disguise his disgust where he feels it go sticky. “That saying doesn’t apply!”
“True,” Jisung snorts, kicking down on the tail of his board so the nose shoots up into his waiting grip. He handles it with ease and fluidity as if it were an extension of his own body. Even simply walking with it in his hold seems to make him more at ease and brimming with bravado; a mere stride morphing into an overconfident gait. “It’s a skatepark, so I guess I should’ve called it my kingdom.”
The group unanimously groans.
“Please,” Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut, head tipped skyward — he was wishing to something. “Please get me through this night without one murderous urge, Jisung. I’m begging.”
“Alright, alright! Chill out, I’m going,” Jisung chuckles, stretching his neck with some rolls of his head on his shoulders for a quick warm-up. “Keep that cam on me and you’ll get an academy award, guaranteed.”
“Put your money where your mouth is,” Seungmin orders seriously, dedicating his sole focus to the viewfinder — they joke, yeah, but admitted to none is the trust Seungmin actually has in Jisung’s word. If he wants good footage, he’s gonna have to keep his hands steady on every second of this.
Jisung walks up to the break in the ring of people, twisting his board around all loose and carefree like a baseball veteran going up to bat. His posture only gets prepared once he drops the board back on all its wheels, placing his right foot near the back and giving a few back-and-forth experimental rolls.
Seungmin only has a shot of his back and bucket hat right now, but everyone knew the pause Jisung was taking. Once he’s in there and moving, that’s all it is; he loses himself to it. These brief seconds before both feet are on the board are when he vaguely plans, or so he’s said before. Whatever he’s thinking right now is what will dictate his ride once he’s shut off and allowed his body to take over.
“Mmkay,” Jisung eventually chirps, giving one final, dazzling smile over his shoulder to the camcorder. “Bye!”
“Break a leg!” Hyunjin bellows. “Or an ankle, or arm, or rib! I’m not picky!”
Seungmin’s faint laughter will probably be picked up by the camcorder, but he can’t help it, especially when Jisung turns around to send them a loving middle finger, the knuckle of it scraped with red little scratches like the rest.
Then everyone’s laughing, and right before Jisung kicks off, “Hey, Jeongin?”
“Mhm?”
“Thanks for the SNES.”
Jeongin releases the most angsty ‘ugh’ known to man, and the eyeroll accompanying it is so strong his whole head seems to knock back with it. “Blow me!”
Jisung doesn’t hear it, because he’s kicked off from the ground, his smile has dropped from his face, and everything ceases to exist except him, his board, and the concrete playground rushing past beneath his wheels. Showtime.
Fuck, this was what Jisung lived for.
Skateboarding like this made him feel sucked inside his favorite music, lost in something akin to the rapid-fire rush of banging drums and guitar that shredded fast enough to get your blood pumping on listen alone. He was convinced the fast-paced electricity of rock, punk, metal and everything in between must be the twin flame to his skating style; reckless yet alive, dangerous, so charged with adrenaline that even the admiration from an audience bled into whitenoise. The only applause he could hear was his heart thudding in his rib cage, every deep pulse with the risks a wordless thank you, thank you, thank you.
Going this fast, it didn’t matter that his hair was unkempt and long enough to fall in his eyes, because the wind did its job to whip it away. It fought through the tangles and flooded his ears with a constant whoosh above the purr of synthetic rubber on pavement. Jisung kicks off a few more times to reach a speed he’s been trying to tame for years — a daring and entirely unnecessary good fifteen miles per hour, going near twenty. He resists the urge to let out a maniacal laugh and settles for a competitive little smirk-glare at the ground ahead.
After sliding down some rails and grinding his board along some low-sitting ledges to warm himself up, he thinks he’s in the proper feel to flex his flatground muscles. His feet feel like they’re vibrating in his vans, nerves tingling from all the grinds in that static way when they sometimes fall asleep. It was flow, he’s come to understand — so ‘one’ with his board that it felt like an extension of him, at his peak confidence with the control and discipline he had over it.
He’s not sure how many times he bends his knees to perform trick after trick, but it feels like the routine he’d quickly come up with in his head was over before it even began. Happens. Jisung can’t count the amount of times he’s had to rewatch footage of himself from Seungmin’s camcorder to recall what he did, because being in the moment and performing felt so wildly different from the perspective of an onlooker.
His turn is almost up. He can hear the thunderous applause of boards banging against the concrete becoming more dominant to his senses — and, well, that mischievous little itch from his muscles can’t help but scream nuh-uh, not loud enough.
As he skates back towards his group of friends, he manages the most casual laser flip he can because he’s an asshole and the look it puts on Hyunjin’s face is priceless.
Jeongin, the good sport he is, accepts Jisung with open and sweaty arms, ecstatic reverence forcing his two dimples to appear on his cheeks. No matter how exhausted either of them could be, the high of a well-executed run like that was vicarious in a way beyond words. “Woo! Holy fuck!” Jisung howls at the stars above, taking his hat off to comb his fingers through the hairs that’ve tangled between all the wind and sweat. “You get all that on tape, Filmmaker?”
“You,” Seungmin begins in lieu of a real response, finally dropping his recording hand so he could pull Jisung into a handshake and one-armed hug, “are a fucking maniac, you know that?”
Well, Jisung supposed that was the closest he’d get to a compliment from Seungmin. Also an unacknowledged (but totally there) ‘that was the best you’ve ever skated, and yes, you’re totally winning this competition.’ Seungmin goes back to stand beside Hyunjin, looking down at his camcorder with the awe of someone who’d struck cinematic gold.
Hyunjin himself is still openmouthed and blank in the eyes, glancing back to where Jisung had just skated with a visible shiver creeping down his form; trying — and struggling — to comprehend that he did all those tricks and came out unscathed, no doubt. He’s paid enough visits to Jisung all bandaged up in a hospital bed to last him a lifetime, forced to watch him go back out with his board the second he could walk again with ornery and infuriating determination.
Jisung grins at him until he scoffs, back to his usual disgust, but he’s not allowed to voice it this time. As much as Jisung loves to brag and talk himself up.. he did sort of just justify it, as much as Hyunjin might want to snarl and bite and wrinkle his nose at him. Jisung had the audacity to think all that attitude might’ve been a hidden crush once upon a time.
“God, you’re so..” Hyunjin grumbles.
“Talented?” Jisung smirks. “Funny? Irresistibly sexy?”
“Was gonna say ‘insufferable,’ but sure, whatever you wanna think, champ.” Hyunjin lets the playful disdain roll thick off his tongue, and his clear height advantage makes it even easier for him to quite literally look down on Jisung.
Jisung just takes it in stride. “Mm, but an insufferable winner,” he shrugs, letting his board rest under a stationary foot while he reaches in his back pocket for that grape-flavored sucker he’s yet to forget about. He begins to unwrap it even as Hyunjin’s mock disgust becomes very obviously real.
“What?” he asks when Hyunjin begins to hide behind one of Jeongin’s shoulders that shakes with light humor. “I already know I won, so might as well have my prize. Nobody else is gonna take it.”
“Nobody else wants it!” Hyunjin whines just from the sight of the candy, averting his eyes when Jisung teases the candy towards his lips. “Ugh. I change my mind — I’m trading out ‘insufferable’ for gross. You’re so nasty.”
Yeah, well. Yeah. Spitting out a shot of mouthwash and rubbing a stick of deodorant under his arms was good enough for Jisung, thanks. He’s got more important things to bother caring about than if the candy he’s about to suck on is reaching archaic territory, or if the food he sometimes dropped had been on the ground longer than five seconds, or if he had a proper shower this week, or— fuck, alright, he was kinda-sorta disgusting.
Oh well. Giving the lollipop an experimental lick, it doesn’t.. taste poisonous? So he’ll survive the night with his pride and stomach intact, his outstanding performance will be documented, Hyunjin will have to endure his gloating for days, and he’s got a myriad of other prizes just begging to be enjoyed.
The day could literally not get any better than this.
“So,” Jisung points his lollipop towards Seungmin like a wand, and the licked side glints under the streetlights. “Are we done? Can I fuck off with my winnings?”
At the same time Hyunjin groans out a vexed, “Please,” an unfamiliarly calm voice overlaps his with a, “Not yet.”
The four of them turn to the source, and it’s a true miracle Jisung’s candy doesn’t slip from his grasp right then and there. He has to fight down the woah’s and oh my god’s basically pleading to slip past his parted lips, because the fact his breath has caught in his lungs and his eyes have slightly widened was honestly embarrassing enough.
The subject of a fucking renaissance painting had decided to waltz up into Jisung’s timeline, he guesses, disguising his ethereal features under a backwards cap and some plain-ass Spitfire hoodie to try and look like a regular human and not a walking work of art. Even the shitty amber street lamps tarnish his appearance none; standing as still as he was, the way it cast on his skin appeared radiant and fed even more into the belief that this dude could just in no fathomable way be real. Like, if you reached out and touched, your fingers would meet porcelain or skin-toned marble. But he couldn’t be sculpted, right? He just doesn’t look like something a human could conjure in their mind. Was Jisung in a movie scene? Maybe he’s the one that’s hopped realities, but — nah, his friends are looking at the stranger with expressions anywhere from stunned (Hyunjin) to outright intimidated (Jeongin).
It’d be the only way to explain why Jisung’s brain is uprooting a bunch of long-forgotten poetic adjectives he thought he’d left back in his high school days of literature class. Shit like.. celestial or, fuck, mesmeric. That’s as hard as his brain wants to work though, because knowing himself, it’s not gonna be long before he’s panting and drooling like a feral fucking animal just from being in this guy’s vicinity.
Then the guy looks at him, and yeah, it’s already happening. The depraved, horny demon that’s got permanent residency in his soul wakes up via a throb-ache somewhere deep in his pelvis, burning wilder with every added second their gazes stay locked. His eyes are so fucking dark, and intense, and stupid fucking hot. God, fuck.
Jisung refuses to fumble this interaction. He simply cannot.
The dude who looks like sex itself, stood there all confident in some indigo high-tops, casts his nonchalant glare on Seungmin instead. Jisung feels a pang of perfectly rational jealousy.
“I’d like to say my name,” he says with the briefest waver of uncertainty that does nothing to make his voice sound any less velvety. Then his eyes flick for the smallest increment to the camcorder before sidelong and up to Jisung again, and Jisung trades out his envy for pride, because — oh god, it all suddenly makes sense.
He was a fan! Jisung’s vainglory must skyrocket a thousandfold towards his performance he just had out on his board, because now he knows that this gorgeous creature had been watching the whole time. Between the clothes and the evident muscle corded into his legs from thigh to calf, visible thanks to the shorts he was wearing, perhaps he was an aspiring skateboarder similar to Jeongin. Cute.
And if he liked Jisung’s tricks enough to approach, they were already off to a great start. Were those wedding bells he could hear in the distance? Jisung was so fucking wrong — the day could absolutely get better, and it was. He’d jump with joy or flash the beauty a toothy grin if he didn’t have to keep his cool.
Settling on his signature smirk, he says, “Why? You want me to sign you an autograph, honey?”
The stranger stares at him in a much less discreet way, gaze almost.. challenging? One brow arches beneath his snapback, slightly judgmental, and Jisung’s not sure if the obvious yet unspoken rejection is a bigger blow to his self-esteem than simply being told a flat-out ‘no’ like others have gifted him in the past.
Hyunjin snorts, the fucking gremlin. But then all the amusement is leached from the atmosphere when the boy’s excruciatingly angular, way-too-kissable lips part again with a much more leveled timbre.
“I wanna compete,” he shrugs the shoulder closest to the people littered around the skatepark, head tilted its way. “Can I borrow your board?”
Well, at least Jisung was right about one thing — dude was a skater. Allegedly. As good as Jisung? Probably not, but if watching Jisung skate inspired him to compete himself, he’s gotta be just as confident, which.. well, Jisung’s not sure he’s ever met someone with an ego to rival his own. That alone would probably be enough to trust him with his board, but he’s honestly still grossly enchanted by how fucking hot he is, sue him.
Jisung tries to bite down the amusement begging him to smile when he kicks his board up into his empty hand, but he’s just so endeared. Logic is winning out just a touch against his infamous horniness, telling him this guy came without intending to skate but just had to after watching Jisung, and he wants to use his board.
Leave it to Jisung to find a way to feel flattered even in light of just getting his flirting attempt denied, he hears Seungmin’s voice say in his head.
The stranger accepts his board in silence, and Jisung suppresses the urge to squeal when his animalistic little brain puts together that they were in touching distance for the briefest moment.
Once it’s in his hold, the stranger flips it with skilled hands. Jisung wonders if he wanted to inspect the hardware, trucks, wheels, etcetera, but it’s clear that the deck art is what his eyes linger on.
It was originally blank, but back on his twenty-first birthday Hyunjin decided to gift him in the form of painting his deck free of charge — it was littered with his signature floral designs and some Ghibli-inspired scenes, knowing those movies were Jisung’s all-time favorites. The whole process took a few days, which Jisung was painfully reminded of via a lot of yelling after he got blackout that one night and drew a small army of dicks in one corner with permanent marker.
Too late to be embarrassed about it now, he guesses. The stranger looks like he huffs (in amusement?) before his eyes danced up to the nose of the board and how some of the wood had chipped off with all the collision against curbs and walls, beginning to pick at some peeling grip tape along the edge.
“Hey, that’s my baby,” Jisung warns lightheartedly. “Be careful with her.”
Those dark eyes are back on him, narrowed and holyfuckingshit he’s smirking. Did Jisung refer to him as celestial earlier? No way. Not now. That mouth looked fucking sinful. “Mhm,” he says in response. It sounds like it’s purred out, humming and dripping with sarcasm.
With a secretive gulp, Jisung’s got the feeling that he’s rapidly losing control here.. if he ever had any to begin with, anyway.
The stranger complies, however, bringing the board to the ground just as Seungmin lifts his camcorder up again and — oh right, yeah, Jisung’s friends are here. He blinks himself out of his tunnel vision despite the dude still burning a statuesque-looking silhouette in the periphery, trying to focus hard on how Seungmin checks to make sure the park is still clear behind them before mumbling down to his equipment.
“Alright, contestant fifteen..?” he says, pointing the camera at the stranger, who puts his left foot on Jisung’s board with some experimental rolls of his own. Jisung’s eyes are transfixed on the way the muscle of his leg shifts beneath the skin until he hears that equally sinful voice trill through the air again.
“Lee Minho,” he says to the camcorder, throwing it a lazy peace sign before pushing off.
Jisung shuffled up next to Seungmin once Minho began rolling away, probably with the intention to see how he got picked up in the viewfinder, but his eyes never make it away from where they’re practically glued to the skater.
It’s with a dying smile from Jisung and a storm of scoff-laughter from Hyunjin that he quickly realizes that Minho is a much, much better skater than him.
He doesn’t even just ride; the dude glides. Floats. He makes himself look weightless, handling the board beneath his shoes like he’s the one that’s been using it for years and not Jisung. Jisung might even be a little offended, because that’s his board, like, betraying him and shit, but he can’t manage past the total wonder and indecent malthought creeping through him with every second his whole being refuses to take his eyes off of Minho.
He skates so professionally that it’s honestly suspicious, because he doesn’t look much older than Jisung. He didn’t even have a board on him — how was he skating like he should be on some fucking television screen for X Games? He’s doing tricks so swiftly and fluidly that Jisung struggles keeping track of where his feet go, and he swears he even catches Seungmin frowning down at his camcorder in respect for the display of skill.
And just when Jisung thinks he’s seen everything, it gets worse. Minho pushes off and away from the railings and ledges, but it’s not to return back to the group.
“Holy shit,” Jeongin lowly whistles. “Is he gonna skate in a bowl?”
Yes, Jisung belatedly realizes, watching Minho gracefully dip right down into a bowl about your standard size of an empty swimming pool. The drop bothers him none, surfing along the walls of it with an amount of balance and familiarity that should make anyone in Jisung’s shoes embarrassed: Minho wasn’t just better than Jisung at skating, but he was a fucking vert skater.
And he was getting so much air. He was semi-flying at this rate, performing rotations Jisung got dizzy just looking at. It’s only with an oncoming breeze that Jisung feels the spit on his lip as he watches Minho — he was biting his bottom lip, and tapping his foot, picking at the skin around his nails.. nervous. Jisung hasn’t been nervous in ages, because he hardly ever thinks enough about anything to worry. He tries not to, anyway, and it was never about people, but this Minho guy.. fuck.
They were just so different yet similar at the same time; confident versus cocky, graceful versus reckless, but they both skated like they looked in the face of all the potential danger and laughed. Minho was committed to the thrill just as Jisung was, because you could only ever skate like this if danger excited you.
Jisung gulps, experiencing how his throat has gone tight with a feeling he’s never quite felt before.
Minho ends his performance once the crowd is sufficiently stunned and slack-jawed, beginning a lazy roll back over to the group at a laughable speed compared to what numbers he’d been pushing just a minute ago. He’s too skilled to come off as smug, but hell, he’s got his hands in his hoodie pockets and the most nonchalant stance for someone who’d just exerted themselves so much. If he doesn’t have any sweat on him, Jisung’s gonna be pissed.
Jisung honestly wasn’t paying too much attention to how the voting system for a winner worked in this recreational competition — probably just majority or something, since he figured he was winning anyway, but now he’s almost certain the pick for a winner will be unanimous and with no discussion necessary.
People look to still be trying to reboot after processing what they’d just witnessed, though Jisung’s not sure. He’s kept his eyes so loyally on Minho that he’s sure they’re gonna dry up and start burning soon if he doesn’t blink, but— oh fuck, he’s coming directly towards Jisung.
Jisung doesn’t notice any sweat. Grr. He’s gonna throw a tantrum and stomp his vans if this deity-human manages to get any more unfairly impressive.
Just as Jisung’s brain finally reminds him to blink, Minho’s right in front of him and he loses concentration again. Nothing but a nice, shameful little broken record of minhominhominho hothothot helphelphelp. He wonders why Minho smirks down at him again — not that he’s complaining — but then he’s reaching his left hand out of his pocket and bringing it toward Jisung’s face, plucking the grape lollipop from where it’d been held idle in front of his lips thanks to being hypnotized.
Minho refuses to break eye contact when he brings it to his own lips, letting the angular curve of them part around the slick-looking purple and oh fuck Jisung’s spit is on that. And Minho apparently does not give a single fuck.
“Thanks,” he mumbles with that stupidly perfect, slant smile. The spit from the candy coats the seam of his lips, making them look all glossy and messy. Hnnnnngh.
“Not getting your other prizes?” someone asks somewhere nearby — Jisung literally can’t bother to focus on anything else ever again, thanks.
“Nah,” Minho shrugs with one shoulder, playing the candy around the soft loll of his tongue. He finally looks away from Jisung to acknowledge the person before giving a backwards glance to wherever the figurative prizes might be, but then his eyes are back on Jisung’s agape features with too much focus and precision and something that could only be guessed as predatory. “Got everything I wanted.”
Jisung thinks he feels his board gently knock against the toe of his shoe, and then Minho’s walking off and away from the skatepark altogether, and the ominous nature of it isn’t helping to disprove that he has to be an otherworldly being or.. or something.
“Wait, so I get to keep my SNES thanks to him?” Jeongin beams. “Cool! And he was such a good skater. Dude’s my new hero.”
“He was strange, but. Yeah, not bad,” Seungmin coolly admits, rewatching some of the footage he captured.
“He was fucking terrifying,” Hyunjin states, though he struggles to hide his amusement when he looks over at Jisung’s still-stunned face. “Though I’ve gotta agree. I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone who took more pleasure out of humiliating Sungie than me, but hey, this night was full of surprises.”
Right — humiliation. That’s what Jisung was feeling. He hasn’t broken any bones in a long time, but Minho managed to break his ego in a matter of minutes.
But why was his heart kicking in his chest the same way it had out on his board? Why did the tips of his fingers itch? Why had the adrenaline gone sour when Minho started walking away? How could the shame in his stomach go deeper than that, violently begging for more?
He looks over to where he last saw Minho’s form in the distance with burning eyes and the vague memory of artificial grape on his tongue, and the question always ends the same way.
Why do I crave more of it?