#t get inked
get inked!
mina’s reaction makes him laugh, and he’s about to tell her he’s only kidding when she tells the tattoo artist exactly what he just said. his eyes widen, but the vengeful older brother in him gives him pause. daniel, as weak and easily humiliated as he is, has endured an entire lifetime of mina embarrassing him, both intentionally and otherwise. it comes with the territory of having such an extroverted, shameless little sister. would it be so bad to make her endure this punishment for losing the bet? mina did bring it upon herself.
he’s pretty sure that’s not what jesus would do, however, and considering daniel is supposed to follow that example and is trying to more now that he’s not lying to everyone he knows about his identity, he should probably do differently. “you don’t have to put all of that,” he corrects the artist. “just ‘kang daniel is the best’ works. thank you.” luckily, the tattoo artist has to start at the beginning of the sentence, so by the time daniel says so, it’s not too late to change it. if he was too late, then…oh well? (mina is lucky he’s so nice.)
he laughs again at her thumbs up, and if anything, mina gets credit for being a good sport about it. part of him is surprised she’s not complaining the whole way, but she probably realizes this was all her idea to begin with. daniel never would’ve come up with something like this on his own– never really wanted anything to do with the bet anyway –so this is ultimately all mina’s doing. maybe she really is getting more responsible as she gets older.
he hears her mutter something to the tattoo artist, but can’t make out the words. knowing mina it’s some kind of scheme, but daniel will let it slide, as he usually does. daniel gives her his full attention when she turns back to him, and taps at his chin in dramatic thought. “buy me food,” he decides. “since you ate everything else. that i worked hard on.” it wasn’t anything too elaborate, but he knows were their positions reversed mina would milk this face even more.
she tries her best to keep herself still, not wanting to ruin the tattoo artist’s concentration on what would be their futuremasterpiece (or what mina would like to name as future disaster for herself). when daniel makes the correction to go with “kang daniel is the best”, she thinks she hears boththe artist andher sigh in relief. of course, she’ssighing because the less embarrassing situation, the better for her. btu she thinks that the artist is sighing because they probably think mina’s request (let alone herself) is a lot to deal with. and… given the fact that her brotheris right here as proof, they’re not wrong.
he really issuch a good sport. if he were in hershoes, she knewthat she would still stick to the “kang mina is the best and i smell like socks” idea because she’s a little sister. it’s her job to make her siblings’ lives hard, even by just the bare minimum. she’s at least fortunate enough to know that the tattoo won’t last forever. they’d only last a few shower washes and thenno one would be looking at her funny-looking arm. even if she doesagree with the sentence, she stillhas her preciouspride.
on the topic of precious pride, him telling her that she has to buy him food makes her groan even more. she almost feels bad over the tattoo artist being the innocent bystander in this situation. a part of her wants to tell him ‘no way am i gonna do that!’, since she’s stillvery much a little brat, but she continues to restrain herself. curse her prideful self thinking that she had the upper hand in that bet. on the brightside, this will be a mistake she learns for the future.
she sighs later on, showing a look of slightdefeat as she pulls out that fake,forcedsmile again on him. “sure. you deserve it,” she answers. and it’s true, he does. he deserves a lotwith the fact that he had been dealing with her endless teasing for years. “don’t order any of my favorites, though. if you do, i will neverforgive you… even if i deserve it.”
get inked!
mina is one of the people daniel loves most in the world, if not the one. they endured the same life together, aware of their shared blessings, but withstanding the difficult parts: their mother, mainly. they held up against their constant criticism and built each other back up again, understanding constantly mutual, on the same insufficient level while their older brother seemed to meet every expectation. they shared a subtle resentment of him too, or– daniel did, at least. mina never really does anything subtly, but daniel loves that about her (usually.)
she annoys him to death sometimes though, like now, with her insistence on eating all of the food they packed up for the picnic before they even arrive. there kang mina sits in the back seat, drowning in food like some insatiable piglet, stuffing her face, and here is daniel, always looking at her in his rearview mirror, silently cursing seoul’s evening traffic. maybe, if he even could drive on the street long enough without stopping, he would even speed to get to their location in time.
it isn’t even really about the tattoo, although it would be humiliating. daniel could just find a way to cover that up. no, it’s the fact that he wants food too. he’s hungry!
thankfully, daniel’s excellent driving skills preserve some of the food. oh, yeah, it also wins him the bet, which is convenient. he laughs all the way to the airbrush tattoo stall, and even this much is fun. spending any time with mina is, though, with training getting in the way of their time together for the longest time. now she’s in sphere with him, and it’s still a joy, even if he has the feeling the heartz project will separate them once again.
“i don’t know,” he admits. “kang daniel is the best and i smell like socks?” honestly, daniel isn’t vengeful enough to make her get something that bad. it’s fun to joke about, though.
one of the things she’s thankful for is how daniel has always been a good brother to her. maybe toogood, especially considering the fact that most of the time, mina has acted like a demon spawn to him. or really a little sibling to him. either way, he has to witness half if not most of her wild shenanigans growing up and even nowcounts as proof. of course, she’s the one who lostin this situation, but mina will take this L even ifit’ll hurt her pride more than she would want it to. to be honest, it was bold of her to assume she’d win such a bet.
she groans at his response, not even trying to hide how she was not at all excited at that response. she wishes she can complain and instead tell the artist to draw something else. maybe something lesshumiliating for her, considering the fact that she’s putting it somewhere most people would be able to notice. but, this isher punishment for not keeping her end of the bet. not to mention, she’s too full to eat anything more from the basket to continueto try and prove herself. even if she did that, it’d be cheating and daniel won fair and square, thanks to his driving skills.
she sighs and looks over at the artist. “what he said. kang daniel is the best and i smell like socks. please.” the tattoo artist gives her a strange look, but complies to the request. she looks over at the other with an awkward, fake smile and a thumbs up similar to posing for a picture of a regretful decision. she turns back to the artist for a quick second to say something else to her. “if you could, could you make it as small as you can? only if that’s not a bother.”
she looks back to him as the artist begins drawing on her arm with the air brush. “congrats, by the way. for getting your win, i mean,” she says with a genuinesmile this time. “do you want to do anything else to congratulate your win? because i don’t think there’s much left food in the basket.” there’s a cheeky grin that follows right after because while she didn’t win, she still got benefitted from it in a way.
