Life Afterlife

21) I have never met any really wicked person before.

A deserted island of large hills and larger miles spread around the coffee table in Sunghoon and Taehyun's dorm's living room, and the sandy air blew hot at the inhabitants of said land, sat and focused on the paper spread over the glass of the table.

"Are you okay?" Taehyun carefully asked, eyes worrying in a squint as he looked at Sunghoon and Jake, pressed each on the opposite side of the table on the floor of the apartment, each staring at the other intensely.

"Shush," Sunghoon was quick to raise a finger wherever Taehyun's face could be, and the latter crossed his eyebrows and the sight of said figer. He looked down at Sunghoon's warning hand that stayed in the air for only seconds-worth of time before clutching the edge of the table again, "I'm trying to read him."

"You won't," Taehyun nodded all the same, "you won't read the boy if he does not talk." He elaborated, and his eyes went back to averting between both of his friends, utterly confused by their religious concentration on the game.

"Let him be," Jake spoke first after Taehyun, slowly moving his hand to where his small figure of a soldier stood on the map, "his stupidity has always been the cause of his loss."

"You are taking this way too serious-"

"Stupid," when Jake moved, the earth beneath them shifted, and air rose from the sand below their feet - a stronger wind with a swallowing land, water pouring from every direction where they sat, and it ran cold and harsh against both of their skins, "you forgetting that I am an ice prince is the only stupidity I can smell." Sunghoon told him with the spread of his hand over the paper, reaching for the dice when it was his turn.

The cold spread in the water's stead, and it reached even Taehyun, whose body went stiff when Sunhoon rose to his knees, and he smiled widely at his opponent, "beat that," he read the number on the dice first, then moved his soldier where the icebergs lied, clapping in content that his steps were with no pauses, slick and smooth all the way to the stairs that lead to heaven.

"Right away, your majesty." Jake did not hesitate to bow, respect beating all that of rivalry he had in stock before rolling the dice on his respectful time.

"No, no, no, no," Sunghoon's grip on the table multiplied in force, and he stretched where he sat with absolute devastation when all the land he had built in cold and white came crumbling beneath the spring Jake stepped on, and the last bits of ice melted over the petals that grew from around them right away, leading the older boy's way to paradise by the hand, "this can not be true!"

"Impossible," Taehyun clicked his tongue, the air shifting at once inside the room, and the furniture in their space enclosed on their beings again, bringing them to the real life where they were born, "this is plain insanity, I am telling you."

"He just never learns," Jake promised, weighting his words with the truth that did not seem arguable, for Sunghoon sat back, a small smile stretched over his lips as he threw himself against the feet of the couch, body inclined only the bit needed for him to lean his head over Taehyun's left shoulder, "although sometimes I feel like he makes me win on purpose."

"I would not put it past him," Taehyun giggled, easing in his seat when Jake joined them too, taking the right shoulder for himself, and his hand ran in the direction it had known for a long time, the place it was never hesitant upon finding - Sunghoon's hand, and they both lied on top of Taehyun's lap, "he is what Sihyeon made him to be."

"Tell me about her," Jake spoke, and it was not the first time he had asked. Both Sunghoon and Taehyun smiled at the direction their world has taken them, and neither of them stopped to think or reconsider their own steps, "I want to know more about your family."