I Hate (That I Like) You. ~ Choi Jong-In/Baek Yoon-Ho

I Hate (That I Like) You.

Choi Jong-In is not a man who feels the need to meet his soulmate.

It would be nice, he supposes, to have someone made just for him, his special someone, but he doesn't grow depressed at the thought of never finding them like lots do. Finding your soulmate is as rare as finding someone with the exact same name, birthdate and birth year as you — even rarer, really, especially if you have a common name. The person could be in the shop right next door, or they could be all the way across the globe and you would never know.

The whole thing seems a bit finicky in Jong-In's mind, so he just doesn't think about it. He grew up with two parents who hadn't found their soulmates but still found love, and watching them, the way they worked around each other so easily, he always knew if he didn't find his soulmate he would at least find someone like that.

His mother had been a florist, always growing new plants and fruits and flowers in their front and back yards, his father often coming home with new seeds or little plotted plants for his mom. The pair were very cute together, and Jong-In had often helped his mother in the garden when he'd had the time after finishing up his school work.

His mother's favoured flower was the verbena plant, also known as vervain and verveine. They always brought bright and beautiful pops of colour to the lush, green garden, the flowers a lovely purple or pink shade.

He'd always loved the scent of the citrusy, herbal flowers, and when his parents had passed away due to an accident related to a dungeon break when gates first started to appear, Jong-In began to wear the rings his father had once worn and always kept a verbena plant on the sill of his window at home or on his desk at work.

Choi Jong-In knows the scent of verbena like he knows the rings he wears everyday on his fingers, and though it's not a scent completely unknown to the masses, it's still rare enough to give pause when he smells it. When he gets a whiff off Baek Yoon-Ho, his rival as Guild Master of White Tiger Guild where Jong-In is the Guild Master of the Hunters' Guild, he thinks the brutish oaf must have been gifted a perfume and simply used it without much thought

It annoys him to no end to have Baek Yoon-Ho smells so good to him, but he continuously reminds himself that it is not the man himself and only the perfume he wears.

When Choi Jong-In and Baek Yoon-Ho are asked to help with a dungeon break as they both happen to be the only nearby hunters, Jong-In side glances the large, orange-haired man and waves him off.

"I'll take care of it, your services won't be necessary." He says, but Baek Yoon-Ho all but growls at him and pushes past him.

"Watch yourself, I could say the same thing." He says, then looks at Jong-In over his shoulder and gives a wicked smile. "Why don't you go worry about your hair? I've got this, pretty boy."

Choi Jong-In flushes, but it's only because he is terribly annoyed with the man before him. If he singes the ends of the older man's orange hair just to see him freak out about his hair like he hadn't just taunted Jong-In for the same thing, laughing harder than he's allowed himself to since his parents passed away, then that's his little secret.

Choi Jong-In could not take care of this alone, it seems. The dungeon break appears to be no more than a high level B-rank, and most of the other monsters have been dealt with by him and the man he is unwilling to call his partner, but the boss is strong and fast and intelligently resourceful, possibly an A rank beast, and they target Jong-In as either the weak link due to his low physical prowess or the one to get rid of first because of his strong mage type powers, but either way it results in him being thrown into a large body of water.

It's not as though water can entirely douse his flames, they're magical in nature and he can shoot off fire balls or flame arrows through the water, but that doesn't stop it from weakening his powers. That, and Choi Jong-In is not a strong swimmer.