come away to the slaughter → for shanwens (2/2)
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jungda steps off from the carriage, lightheaded by the flashes of the camera and the appearance of everyone. they’re all so strange and weird - the capitol - too bright colors bombarding her eyes, who’s used to the dullness of district two. she sees minseok being stripped from his complicated suit, leaving him with only his shirt and pants - and in that moment, she realizes how she’s so ticked off by that line he has, the one he has on his lips.
she does not understand his no-smiles-show.
so jungda smiles, ever so sweetly. “minseok?”
he blinks and looks at her, surprise written all over his face. “yes?”
and so she just says the truth as the headpiece is taken off from her, fists shaking a little bit at how minseok doesn’t even care. “it won’t hurt to smile, wouldn’t it?” so much snark and not so much empathy. “smile a little.”
baekhyun doesn’t even look impressed when they eat dinner. “talk! why are you all silent!” he almost throws a tantrum, because jungda just smiles a little and doesn’t even open her mouth to speak, while minseok’s lips almost form a frown, only poking his food even though he knows it’s delicious. they don’t marvel at the capitol’s luxury, isn’t amazed by how different home is from here. “i’d prefer to talk to jessica if you’re all like this!”
“he doesn’t even try to win,” is jungda’s sharp reply, almost immediately staring at minseok, accusing. “how am i supposed to talk when he’s all frowns like that?”
their escort nods aggressively, jabbing a fork to the chicken he’s eating.
but then jungda continues.
“he doesn’t even try! he’s supposed to set an example to all the people training for the games and everyone! what a son of the mayor he is! do you even know how many people needed to sacrifice their dreams of being a victor for you and your brother? and next year it’s going to be brothers - do you even understand, minseok?! people don’t volunteer because they’ll be sentenced treason by the mayor and nobody wants that - do you understand? so suck it in and fucking smile - try, at least for a bit -”
and that same time, hakyeon goes in the room, footsteps unnoticed because of jungda’s rising voice. they all look at him, and minseok notices that his clothing is messed up and there are scratch marks on his neck, his hands - everywhere.
hakyeon notices him staring and pulls his sleeves down. “what’s this commotion?”
baekhyun saves the day, as always. “they’re arguing about the hunger games,” he raises a thumb up and smiles a face-splitting grin. “don’t worry, this is common between the tributes, most commonly with the one in their own districts - right, hakyeon? like that hyosung kid you were with in your year?”
their mentor blinks, processing baekhyun’s words, and in two seconds he understands and seems to force a smile to his face. how can hakyeon smile genuinely, really, when he knows that she’s killed for his survival? “yeah, hyosung,” he recalls. “we argued a bit on who should - win. yeah, that’s perfectly fine!”
the slam of her hands is unexpected and baekhyun’s reaction is almost comical - falling off his chair with a terrified yelp. “he’s not even trying,” jungda hisses. “there’s a difference.”
the knife whizzes past by minseok and it slices a bit of his cheek - stinging pain, searing pain - and it embeds itself on a wall of lights. electricity sparks fly through, and minseok bites his lips - but he realizes that jungda is gone and hakyeon is dragging him to sit, avoxes already treating the wound, baekhyun stalking off to the hallways of his room with a limping leg that looks so comical, like everything he is.
hakyeon just sits beside him, staring at minseok - who is, instead, staring at the knife that hasn’t been pulled out, carpet amazingly not burning.
he tries to not think of jungda’s words, because it’s stupid.
- and even though it’s stupid, he knows that it is - her words haunt him to his sleep.
minseok remembers how it started. with him thoroughly reading the books, not like his other peers, he realizes with a queasy stomach that the capitol is wrong. they’re not doing something good for panem. they were never - they never did, and so he walks to school the next day with disgust boiling beneath his skin and lips that he never opens, because no one will believe him.
especially his father - already the mayor - he will skin minseok alive. he almost did, a few months ago, when the old president was making his last tour around the districts - and minseok didn’t smile in gratitude in front of him.
he also remembers why he doesn’t smile.
some months before, he walked jongin to school, his knife was wrapped in worn cloth (even then, still smuggled under the words of mayor’s permission), clutched tightly inside his fist. jongin was beside him, skipping his way while minseok trudges. there’s a pout on his face, but for his little brother, the pout was (is) natural. his eyes were twinkling - still full of innocence and not the things they thought his then nine year old brother in school - and to be honest, minseok thought, it’s a good look on jongin.
there was a nagging feeling on the back of his head that it won’t last that long.
minseok, instead, smiled.
his little brother looked up, eyes surprised. “what’re you smiling for?”
“nothing,” minseok replied, and he grabbed jongin’s hands with his own free one to avoid him from slipping. the road ahead of them was known to be slippery with mud - and jongin, in return, was known to not have adequate coordination skills. not yet, anyway. “why are you asking?”
jongin’s pout was more prominent then. “that’s because,” he then seemed to be in deep thought, looking down to the ground.
minseok tugged at his hand, curious - and somehow, afraid. “because what, jongin?”
his little brother looked up - that day, a sky full of dirty clouds with almost no sun peeking out.
“you never smile.”
from then on, he was (continuing until now) cautious about how he presented his smiles to other people. a thing that looked more like a grimace for his father and junmyeon, a slight tilt of his lips to his friends and the instructors in the training place, and a genuine, rare one for jongin.
after a few months of doing that, he realized that he barricaded himself, even more strongly. in the end it’s just him - and the realization that he is, in fact, lonely.
minseok finally shuts his mind up, but his head is filled with the images that tortured him in the morning of the reaping day when he woke up - his father with his insides strewn out, an image of a twelve year old jongin shown on television, bloodied, battered, not breathing - and an additional of himself, jungda’s knife stuck in his head, her smile stretching too wide for any human to do so.
the next day, he is roused up awake by baekhyun’s too loud voice calling his name out insistently and knocks thundering down his door. minseok grimaces when his tongue feels too raw - it’s a bad habit that he has, biting his tongue down. literally and theoretically. he really should use his ability to shut up with care - because one day, he’s going to forget to talk, and minseok will be killed.
it happens.
“minseok, come ooooon, get dressed - you need to go to training, boy!”
so he does. he never wants to disappoint anyone. even though he repeatedly fails at doing so with his father, but that’s an exception. everything relating to the hunger games is an exception - but now minseok’s here, jabbing a button in a fancy shower of the capitol’s, hurrying to get this done and hurrying to get to the training center.
ordered by an escort of the capitol.
minseok showers in record time and puts on the clothes that have somehow been sent to him.
baekhyun practically shoves a steaming mug of coffee when he gets out of the bedroom, some of the still-scalding hot beverage spilling on his shirt. he fights the urge to wince. “it cools down quickly!” he seems to shout. “drink it up and meet jungda by the elevator! up, up you go, kim minseok!”
he obeys. thankfully, baekhyun wasn’t joking about the cooling-down-quickly part, because if he was, his throat would need medical intervention.
but of course, baekhyun doesn’t go. he’s an escort and he has nothing to do with fighting in the arena. hakyeon is, once again, nowhere to be seen.
the wound from yesterday’s fight is covered by a new bandage, minseok being stopped by an avox the way out of district two’s floor to do so. the man’s eyes were sharp, cheeks seeming to take up at least a third of his face, and he’s quiet. well, avoxes can’t speak - they’re not allowed to, they can’t - but if he could, he would still not speak. silent. unassuming.
jungda shoves him inside the elevator when he appears, jabbing the basement number with a force that makes him grimace.
the anger hasn’t cooled down between him and her - mostly, her. minseok’s just angry at how she thinks that winning and killing people is a way to honor her district, because it’s not. killing people should not be an honor. it should be illegal, should be morally bad - but that’s not what the training facility back at their district teaches. they teach how to poison, to aim for someone’s main artery, to aim for a silent death - to kill - it’s wrong. jungda just thinks that he’s a waste of space - something that he’s been told countless of times, really.
“we should at least try to make friends with people,” jungda says, voice still tight. “you should at least try to make friends with people.”
minseok doesn’t answer.
the little ding comes from the speakers above them, and they file out. there’s a long hallway between the room, and the air is silent and terse. he doesn’t initiate conversations, and jungda doesn’t want to.
he’s relieved, he’d admit.
it’s only then when he hears the voices.
harsh tones with such a sweet voice - it contrasts each other. “don’t you dare fuck this up,” a threat, and while minseok is acquainted with it, he’s not sure if other people do. jungda seems to not notice, keeping her head high while the door to the training center is being opened - they’re late by five minutes, and it’s bad track record. from the stories he heard when he was young, when he thought that winning should be the right thing, district two tributes are never late. “i will be watching you, understand?”
the voice that comes after is unexpected.
“fully,” it sounds so tiny, luhan’s voice. breaking. “fully understood.”
jungda has to drag him in, minseok lost in his own thoughts.
the person speaking introduces herself (“it’s hyoyeon, and please do not be late tomorrow”) to the three who has entered - district two and luhan. minseok would’ve thought that there would be people glaring daggers at him, sneering - but no one does. they’re all either staring intently at the instructor or at the floor. some are hungrily scanning their surroundings for weapons.
hyoyeon continues. “survival skills are just as important as fighting skills,” she advices sternly, but everything is so practiced, like she’s been in this for years. “now go on.”
minseok looks at jungda, who’s still transfixed at hyoyeon. her smile is still not here, still - but the bold eyes are, full of strange hope and determination. she notices him staring, finally - and she scowls, long hair swishing as she turns away.
it takes him a moment to see that she’s heading for the knife throwing station.
he eyes all of the knives, and really, how can he forget? how can he forget about her and the knives she throws, and the knives that he himself buries into an animal’s chest - that minseok will bury in someone’s chest?
he doesn’t know why he stays rooted on spot, watched as jungda takes a jagged but somehow sleek knife. doesn’t know why he thinks that it matches her - because she’s all rough edges and sharp and cutting words.
jungda practices in the training center - with only two hours for her everyday to practice on a foreign and new skill - with the knife throwing. it’s always been her niche, what she prefers. she doesn’t understand why she’s sometimes so clumsy and bad at moving things, but her arms and hands work on autopilot, throwingthrowingthrowing slicing a dummy’s artery.
she imagines that those dummies are the mayor’s sons.
“e-ve-ry,” the instructor intones, scribbling in his notebook. “every shot is deadly. well done, kim jungda.”
minseok isn’t even surprised when he only gets a six and that jungda gets a brilliant ten for her performance in their private sessions with the gamemakers.
“heads up, people!” baekhyun almost seems to squeak in dinner later, giggling and hiccupping madly. it was probably because of the wine hakyeon had poured him, which he had secretly laced with heavy alcohol - he said so to minseok with a wink. “tomorrow interviews! and you’ll all be so -” a hiccup, “fab - ulo - us!”
jungda throws her hair back and laughs. her cheeks are tinted pink, probably because of the glass of champagne she holds in her hand.
they don’t have that regularly in district two.
hakyeon takes a seat across minseok, pulling baekhyun down the sofa from standing up with an amused smile. minseok just takes a sip of water. he’s pretty good at handling alcohol, but he isn’t sure if he wants to do that two days prior to their entrance in the arena.
it’s back again, his dark thoughts.
“pretty sure i already am,” jungda jokes, the room erupting in raucous laughter, deafening minseok’s ears. the stylists are here - he still can’t remember their names, his head is just filled with people to look out for in the arena, to form something with, the ones to avoid and the ones who are weak. “dress is - fantastic! so elastic, not rocks!”
there are retching sounds and hakyeon just waves at an avox - she doesn’t protest, doesn’t flinch when the person says move out of the way, you good-for-nothing bitch - and minseok’s insides curl up. the sick and puking feeling is back again - the one that he had worked hard to keep at bay - and he’s swallowing them down again, which doesn’t do that much help.
just as the avox manages to calm the person with a morphine pill, there’s the loud ahem spreading inside the room.
minseok doesn’t miss the way hakyeon’s back stiffens.
“your service is requested, mr. cha hakyeon,” it’s a girl, long curls framing her face, body petite. she’s holding a clipboard full of red crosses from her own pen, blinking. “you have no choice but to come.”
the atmosphere dies down slowly, and baekhyun stands up, wobbling. “thought - booked already?” he slurs, and scratches his neck. “tonight here?”
“person of importance,” is the only thing that she replies with, and minseok watches how hakyeon forces a smile to his face, moving in mechanical movements - dusting his black trousers, saying an affirmative okay to the girl - and he moves out of the room.
baekhyun frowns. “strange,” he mumbles, and grabs a wine. “well, o -” a loud and embarrassing burp. “ - kay then. always gives the best head, so. i understand that. maybe. well. noise!”
jungda tells another joke with her smiling too widely, and they all end up drinking - even minseok, who’s coerced by baekhyun to do so, threatening to not train him to be more fucking likeable and speak up for a little more because all you do is just be quiet and disinterested and no one is going to be fucking rooting for you. understand, boy? those words are harsh, stings like tracker jackers, because all he ever does is compliment jungda, fawn over jungda - jungda, jungda, jungda.
(she’s still ignoring him and scowling at him, by the way.)
their escort has already picked a side.
minseok’s chance, really - he thinks as he takes a swig of come strange concoction of syrup and something, head woozy - are slim, if the capitol already has so much disinterest in him.
if jungda is already loved.
the feeling of being blinded and nervousness attempting to swallow him up in waves are thundering down minseok’s everything at once.
the night of their interviews is here - and after baekhyun had nursed his hangover yesterday, he went straight into business: barking, yelling, and screaming at him. it’s different from the baekhyun who’s always talking and chatting and everything. in the end, baekhyun just flopped to the couch and held his head with his arm, always so dramatic and comical. “i can’t do this anymore,” he moaned miserably. “the capitol will hate you, boy.”
now that minseok thinks of it, that’s what his objective is, anyway.
jungda looks fantastic in her dress, he must admit. it hugs her body perfectly, gemstones - he sees what her stylist did there, a gem and a stone with each other - covering it up, making it shine in the bright lights of the capitol.
minseok just barely remembers that sehun had accidentally or accidentally confessed his love to krystal on interview.
“you look dazzling!” is what the interviewer says when she sits down, giggling. he goes by the name of kim heechul, if minseok isn’t mistaken. “i know that your district works with masonry, jungda, but i would have never thought that there were gemstones! i thought you must’ve been from one!”
claps and laughter from the audience.
he wonders if jungda’s cheek hurt too much with all the smiles she does. “i’m actually friends with krystal,” she tells, which elicits a surprised gasp from the audience. heechul looks surprised himself, blinking his eyes and opening his orange lips. everything in the capitol is so comical. “she’s actually so nice, really -”
heechul is quick to cut. “but what in the arena?” he blabbers. “you need to kill each other! how are you going to do that?”
a dramatic sigh - something baekhyun would do - from jungda. “i don’t know,” her lips seem to wobble, interlinking her fingers. “maybe in another life, really. i would love to - you know - talk to her and know her more, yeah?”
the audience cries out. some do cry, and minseok doesn’t understand why they’re so gullible. “that’s such a shame,” heechul announces to the audience. “in another lifetime, maybe. but in this one, this is kim jungda from district two, everyone!”
minseok’s pushed into stage and he stammers a lot. heechul doesn’t even look impressed.
baekhyun doesn’t even look impressed either.
“you were supposed to entice the audience!” he almost breaks down. “you only made them hate you more! you’re done for! i never thought that what jungda told you when she sliced your cheek is right! and then you do this? shame on yourself, minseok, shame on your district!”
he stomps out after that, angry tears and snot running down his face, ruining his now dyed plain brown hair, ruining the special shirt he had ordered from district eight.
and then there’s jungda, who peeks inside - but fast to leave.
not fast enough, because minseok yanks her wrists - and she’s still smiling, still with those upward tilt of her lips and hat morbid sense of playfulness in her eyes, and it unnerves him so, so so much.
the only thing that minseok remembers from the bloodbath is that eunsook - because of all her clumsiness - was ripped into smithereens before the minute ends, specks of blood splattering on his face and him almost being blown into smithereens, too.
minseok remembers jungda cradling almost two dozens of throwing knifes before she starts to climb down the mountains.
luhan - luhan fell to his death, a fear of heights that minseok had once observed.
five days later, jongin watches his big brother being killed with a knife being thrown to his head, piercing his skull - dead in only a few minutes.
Author's Note: i'm really sorry if this feels rushed! i will edit in after reveals T_____T thank you for your lovely prompts! title taken from one of the songs in hunger games' first soundtrack, come away to the water by marron 5.
jungda steps off from the carriage, lightheaded by the flashes of the camera and the appearance of everyone. they’re all so strange and weird - the capitol - too bright colors bombarding her eyes, who’s used to the dullness of district two. she sees minseok being stripped from his complicated suit, leaving him with only his shirt and pants - and in that moment, she realizes how she’s so ticked off by that line he has, the one he has on his lips.
she does not understand his no-smiles-show.
so jungda smiles, ever so sweetly. “minseok?”
he blinks and looks at her, surprise written all over his face. “yes?”
and so she just says the truth as the headpiece is taken off from her, fists shaking a little bit at how minseok doesn’t even care. “it won’t hurt to smile, wouldn’t it?” so much snark and not so much empathy. “smile a little.”
baekhyun doesn’t even look impressed when they eat dinner. “talk! why are you all silent!” he almost throws a tantrum, because jungda just smiles a little and doesn’t even open her mouth to speak, while minseok’s lips almost form a frown, only poking his food even though he knows it’s delicious. they don’t marvel at the capitol’s luxury, isn’t amazed by how different home is from here. “i’d prefer to talk to jessica if you’re all like this!”
“he doesn’t even try to win,” is jungda’s sharp reply, almost immediately staring at minseok, accusing. “how am i supposed to talk when he’s all frowns like that?”
their escort nods aggressively, jabbing a fork to the chicken he’s eating.
but then jungda continues.
“he doesn’t even try! he’s supposed to set an example to all the people training for the games and everyone! what a son of the mayor he is! do you even know how many people needed to sacrifice their dreams of being a victor for you and your brother? and next year it’s going to be brothers - do you even understand, minseok?! people don’t volunteer because they’ll be sentenced treason by the mayor and nobody wants that - do you understand? so suck it in and fucking smile - try, at least for a bit -”
and that same time, hakyeon goes in the room, footsteps unnoticed because of jungda’s rising voice. they all look at him, and minseok notices that his clothing is messed up and there are scratch marks on his neck, his hands - everywhere.
hakyeon notices him staring and pulls his sleeves down. “what’s this commotion?”
baekhyun saves the day, as always. “they’re arguing about the hunger games,” he raises a thumb up and smiles a face-splitting grin. “don’t worry, this is common between the tributes, most commonly with the one in their own districts - right, hakyeon? like that hyosung kid you were with in your year?”
their mentor blinks, processing baekhyun’s words, and in two seconds he understands and seems to force a smile to his face. how can hakyeon smile genuinely, really, when he knows that she’s killed for his survival? “yeah, hyosung,” he recalls. “we argued a bit on who should - win. yeah, that’s perfectly fine!”
the slam of her hands is unexpected and baekhyun’s reaction is almost comical - falling off his chair with a terrified yelp. “he’s not even trying,” jungda hisses. “there’s a difference.”
the knife whizzes past by minseok and it slices a bit of his cheek - stinging pain, searing pain - and it embeds itself on a wall of lights. electricity sparks fly through, and minseok bites his lips - but he realizes that jungda is gone and hakyeon is dragging him to sit, avoxes already treating the wound, baekhyun stalking off to the hallways of his room with a limping leg that looks so comical, like everything he is.
hakyeon just sits beside him, staring at minseok - who is, instead, staring at the knife that hasn’t been pulled out, carpet amazingly not burning.
he tries to not think of jungda’s words, because it’s stupid.
- and even though it’s stupid, he knows that it is - her words haunt him to his sleep.
minseok remembers how it started. with him thoroughly reading the books, not like his other peers, he realizes with a queasy stomach that the capitol is wrong. they’re not doing something good for panem. they were never - they never did, and so he walks to school the next day with disgust boiling beneath his skin and lips that he never opens, because no one will believe him.
especially his father - already the mayor - he will skin minseok alive. he almost did, a few months ago, when the old president was making his last tour around the districts - and minseok didn’t smile in gratitude in front of him.
he also remembers why he doesn’t smile.
some months before, he walked jongin to school, his knife was wrapped in worn cloth (even then, still smuggled under the words of mayor’s permission), clutched tightly inside his fist. jongin was beside him, skipping his way while minseok trudges. there’s a pout on his face, but for his little brother, the pout was (is) natural. his eyes were twinkling - still full of innocence and not the things they thought his then nine year old brother in school - and to be honest, minseok thought, it’s a good look on jongin.
there was a nagging feeling on the back of his head that it won’t last that long.
minseok, instead, smiled.
his little brother looked up, eyes surprised. “what’re you smiling for?”
“nothing,” minseok replied, and he grabbed jongin’s hands with his own free one to avoid him from slipping. the road ahead of them was known to be slippery with mud - and jongin, in return, was known to not have adequate coordination skills. not yet, anyway. “why are you asking?”
jongin’s pout was more prominent then. “that’s because,” he then seemed to be in deep thought, looking down to the ground.
minseok tugged at his hand, curious - and somehow, afraid. “because what, jongin?”
his little brother looked up - that day, a sky full of dirty clouds with almost no sun peeking out.
“you never smile.”
from then on, he was (continuing until now) cautious about how he presented his smiles to other people. a thing that looked more like a grimace for his father and junmyeon, a slight tilt of his lips to his friends and the instructors in the training place, and a genuine, rare one for jongin.
after a few months of doing that, he realized that he barricaded himself, even more strongly. in the end it’s just him - and the realization that he is, in fact, lonely.
minseok finally shuts his mind up, but his head is filled with the images that tortured him in the morning of the reaping day when he woke up - his father with his insides strewn out, an image of a twelve year old jongin shown on television, bloodied, battered, not breathing - and an additional of himself, jungda’s knife stuck in his head, her smile stretching too wide for any human to do so.
the next day, he is roused up awake by baekhyun’s too loud voice calling his name out insistently and knocks thundering down his door. minseok grimaces when his tongue feels too raw - it’s a bad habit that he has, biting his tongue down. literally and theoretically. he really should use his ability to shut up with care - because one day, he’s going to forget to talk, and minseok will be killed.
it happens.
“minseok, come ooooon, get dressed - you need to go to training, boy!”
so he does. he never wants to disappoint anyone. even though he repeatedly fails at doing so with his father, but that’s an exception. everything relating to the hunger games is an exception - but now minseok’s here, jabbing a button in a fancy shower of the capitol’s, hurrying to get this done and hurrying to get to the training center.
ordered by an escort of the capitol.
minseok showers in record time and puts on the clothes that have somehow been sent to him.
baekhyun practically shoves a steaming mug of coffee when he gets out of the bedroom, some of the still-scalding hot beverage spilling on his shirt. he fights the urge to wince. “it cools down quickly!” he seems to shout. “drink it up and meet jungda by the elevator! up, up you go, kim minseok!”
he obeys. thankfully, baekhyun wasn’t joking about the cooling-down-quickly part, because if he was, his throat would need medical intervention.
but of course, baekhyun doesn’t go. he’s an escort and he has nothing to do with fighting in the arena. hakyeon is, once again, nowhere to be seen.
the wound from yesterday’s fight is covered by a new bandage, minseok being stopped by an avox the way out of district two’s floor to do so. the man’s eyes were sharp, cheeks seeming to take up at least a third of his face, and he’s quiet. well, avoxes can’t speak - they’re not allowed to, they can’t - but if he could, he would still not speak. silent. unassuming.
jungda shoves him inside the elevator when he appears, jabbing the basement number with a force that makes him grimace.
the anger hasn’t cooled down between him and her - mostly, her. minseok’s just angry at how she thinks that winning and killing people is a way to honor her district, because it’s not. killing people should not be an honor. it should be illegal, should be morally bad - but that’s not what the training facility back at their district teaches. they teach how to poison, to aim for someone’s main artery, to aim for a silent death - to kill - it’s wrong. jungda just thinks that he’s a waste of space - something that he’s been told countless of times, really.
“we should at least try to make friends with people,” jungda says, voice still tight. “you should at least try to make friends with people.”
minseok doesn’t answer.
the little ding comes from the speakers above them, and they file out. there’s a long hallway between the room, and the air is silent and terse. he doesn’t initiate conversations, and jungda doesn’t want to.
he’s relieved, he’d admit.
it’s only then when he hears the voices.
harsh tones with such a sweet voice - it contrasts each other. “don’t you dare fuck this up,” a threat, and while minseok is acquainted with it, he’s not sure if other people do. jungda seems to not notice, keeping her head high while the door to the training center is being opened - they’re late by five minutes, and it’s bad track record. from the stories he heard when he was young, when he thought that winning should be the right thing, district two tributes are never late. “i will be watching you, understand?”
the voice that comes after is unexpected.
“fully,” it sounds so tiny, luhan’s voice. breaking. “fully understood.”
jungda has to drag him in, minseok lost in his own thoughts.
the person speaking introduces herself (“it’s hyoyeon, and please do not be late tomorrow”) to the three who has entered - district two and luhan. minseok would’ve thought that there would be people glaring daggers at him, sneering - but no one does. they’re all either staring intently at the instructor or at the floor. some are hungrily scanning their surroundings for weapons.
hyoyeon continues. “survival skills are just as important as fighting skills,” she advices sternly, but everything is so practiced, like she’s been in this for years. “now go on.”
minseok looks at jungda, who’s still transfixed at hyoyeon. her smile is still not here, still - but the bold eyes are, full of strange hope and determination. she notices him staring, finally - and she scowls, long hair swishing as she turns away.
it takes him a moment to see that she’s heading for the knife throwing station.
he eyes all of the knives, and really, how can he forget? how can he forget about her and the knives she throws, and the knives that he himself buries into an animal’s chest - that minseok will bury in someone’s chest?
he doesn’t know why he stays rooted on spot, watched as jungda takes a jagged but somehow sleek knife. doesn’t know why he thinks that it matches her - because she’s all rough edges and sharp and cutting words.
jungda practices in the training center - with only two hours for her everyday to practice on a foreign and new skill - with the knife throwing. it’s always been her niche, what she prefers. she doesn’t understand why she’s sometimes so clumsy and bad at moving things, but her arms and hands work on autopilot, throwingthrowingthrowing slicing a dummy’s artery.
she imagines that those dummies are the mayor’s sons.
“e-ve-ry,” the instructor intones, scribbling in his notebook. “every shot is deadly. well done, kim jungda.”
minseok isn’t even surprised when he only gets a six and that jungda gets a brilliant ten for her performance in their private sessions with the gamemakers.
“heads up, people!” baekhyun almost seems to squeak in dinner later, giggling and hiccupping madly. it was probably because of the wine hakyeon had poured him, which he had secretly laced with heavy alcohol - he said so to minseok with a wink. “tomorrow interviews! and you’ll all be so -” a hiccup, “fab - ulo - us!”
jungda throws her hair back and laughs. her cheeks are tinted pink, probably because of the glass of champagne she holds in her hand.
they don’t have that regularly in district two.
hakyeon takes a seat across minseok, pulling baekhyun down the sofa from standing up with an amused smile. minseok just takes a sip of water. he’s pretty good at handling alcohol, but he isn’t sure if he wants to do that two days prior to their entrance in the arena.
it’s back again, his dark thoughts.
“pretty sure i already am,” jungda jokes, the room erupting in raucous laughter, deafening minseok’s ears. the stylists are here - he still can’t remember their names, his head is just filled with people to look out for in the arena, to form something with, the ones to avoid and the ones who are weak. “dress is - fantastic! so elastic, not rocks!”
there are retching sounds and hakyeon just waves at an avox - she doesn’t protest, doesn’t flinch when the person says move out of the way, you good-for-nothing bitch - and minseok’s insides curl up. the sick and puking feeling is back again - the one that he had worked hard to keep at bay - and he’s swallowing them down again, which doesn’t do that much help.
just as the avox manages to calm the person with a morphine pill, there’s the loud ahem spreading inside the room.
minseok doesn’t miss the way hakyeon’s back stiffens.
“your service is requested, mr. cha hakyeon,” it’s a girl, long curls framing her face, body petite. she’s holding a clipboard full of red crosses from her own pen, blinking. “you have no choice but to come.”
the atmosphere dies down slowly, and baekhyun stands up, wobbling. “thought - booked already?” he slurs, and scratches his neck. “tonight here?”
“person of importance,” is the only thing that she replies with, and minseok watches how hakyeon forces a smile to his face, moving in mechanical movements - dusting his black trousers, saying an affirmative okay to the girl - and he moves out of the room.
baekhyun frowns. “strange,” he mumbles, and grabs a wine. “well, o -” a loud and embarrassing burp. “ - kay then. always gives the best head, so. i understand that. maybe. well. noise!”
jungda tells another joke with her smiling too widely, and they all end up drinking - even minseok, who’s coerced by baekhyun to do so, threatening to not train him to be more fucking likeable and speak up for a little more because all you do is just be quiet and disinterested and no one is going to be fucking rooting for you. understand, boy? those words are harsh, stings like tracker jackers, because all he ever does is compliment jungda, fawn over jungda - jungda, jungda, jungda.
(she’s still ignoring him and scowling at him, by the way.)
their escort has already picked a side.
minseok’s chance, really - he thinks as he takes a swig of come strange concoction of syrup and something, head woozy - are slim, if the capitol already has so much disinterest in him.
if jungda is already loved.
the feeling of being blinded and nervousness attempting to swallow him up in waves are thundering down minseok’s everything at once.
the night of their interviews is here - and after baekhyun had nursed his hangover yesterday, he went straight into business: barking, yelling, and screaming at him. it’s different from the baekhyun who’s always talking and chatting and everything. in the end, baekhyun just flopped to the couch and held his head with his arm, always so dramatic and comical. “i can’t do this anymore,” he moaned miserably. “the capitol will hate you, boy.”
now that minseok thinks of it, that’s what his objective is, anyway.
jungda looks fantastic in her dress, he must admit. it hugs her body perfectly, gemstones - he sees what her stylist did there, a gem and a stone with each other - covering it up, making it shine in the bright lights of the capitol.
minseok just barely remembers that sehun had accidentally or accidentally confessed his love to krystal on interview.
“you look dazzling!” is what the interviewer says when she sits down, giggling. he goes by the name of kim heechul, if minseok isn’t mistaken. “i know that your district works with masonry, jungda, but i would have never thought that there were gemstones! i thought you must’ve been from one!”
claps and laughter from the audience.
he wonders if jungda’s cheek hurt too much with all the smiles she does. “i’m actually friends with krystal,” she tells, which elicits a surprised gasp from the audience. heechul looks surprised himself, blinking his eyes and opening his orange lips. everything in the capitol is so comical. “she’s actually so nice, really -”
heechul is quick to cut. “but what in the arena?” he blabbers. “you need to kill each other! how are you going to do that?”
a dramatic sigh - something baekhyun would do - from jungda. “i don’t know,” her lips seem to wobble, interlinking her fingers. “maybe in another life, really. i would love to - you know - talk to her and know her more, yeah?”
the audience cries out. some do cry, and minseok doesn’t understand why they’re so gullible. “that’s such a shame,” heechul announces to the audience. “in another lifetime, maybe. but in this one, this is kim jungda from district two, everyone!”
minseok’s pushed into stage and he stammers a lot. heechul doesn’t even look impressed.
baekhyun doesn’t even look impressed either.
“you were supposed to entice the audience!” he almost breaks down. “you only made them hate you more! you’re done for! i never thought that what jungda told you when she sliced your cheek is right! and then you do this? shame on yourself, minseok, shame on your district!”
he stomps out after that, angry tears and snot running down his face, ruining his now dyed plain brown hair, ruining the special shirt he had ordered from district eight.
and then there’s jungda, who peeks inside - but fast to leave.
not fast enough, because minseok yanks her wrists - and she’s still smiling, still with those upward tilt of her lips and hat morbid sense of playfulness in her eyes, and it unnerves him so, so so much.
the only thing that minseok remembers from the bloodbath is that eunsook - because of all her clumsiness - was ripped into smithereens before the minute ends, specks of blood splattering on his face and him almost being blown into smithereens, too.
minseok remembers jungda cradling almost two dozens of throwing knifes before she starts to climb down the mountains.
luhan - luhan fell to his death, a fear of heights that minseok had once observed.
five days later, jongin watches his big brother being killed with a knife being thrown to his head, piercing his skull - dead in only a few minutes.
Author's Note: i'm really sorry if this feels rushed! i will edit in after reveals T_____T thank you for your lovely prompts! title taken from one of the songs in hunger games' first soundtrack, come away to the water by marron 5.