Chapter Text
The stupidest thing to do would be to try and deny it, Minho could be a lot of things, a liar was not one of them, neither a charlatan. If he was bringing this up there was already a big chance that, as usual, he knew more than what he was saying. The logical thing to do, the best way out of the pickle he had found himself in would be to minimize it, to blame the press and say that it was nothing like it had been pictured, to laugh it off and treat is a nonchalantly as possible. However, when in a panic rush people tend not to be able to think of the logical thing to do quickly enough, but rather to act first and think later.
Later, Jisung will be able to reflect and wonder how he could think that a stupid, blatant lie would help him get out of an uncomfortable situation, but at the moment he was able to believe his own lie enough to be confident in it.
‘Wha-what are you talking about?’ Jisung asked, his voice raspy and choky after the continuous crying. He didn’t decide quickly enough if he should act offended or amused, so his reaction seemed to be a weird mix of both. ‘That’s not true.’
Dori jumped out of bed, scared when Minho released an unnecessary loud groan while looking at the ceiling as if asking some deity to help him carry out such strenuous task.
Jisung hated feeling like a problem, he felt like one for most of his childhood and became one on purpose in his adolescence. He hated it even more when it was others making him feel like one.
‘Are you really going to lie to me right now?’ Minho asked, sounded offended. ‘Do you think that I am an idiot? I know how to google, I know when the information I find has some truth in it.’ Is that was this is about? Minho feeling offended whenever he is not treated as some sort authority in whatever he is talking about? Jisung stared at him, incredulous for a few seconds. ‘Are you going to deny it? I know it is true.’
‘Yes, Minho, you always know better, don’t you?’ An unstoppable wave of repressed feelings seemed to be emerging from Jisung’s depths, ready to vomit on the first person available regardless if that person was guilty or not. As he tried to wipe the tears away with the sleeve of his shirt as best as he could, still being held down into the bed, he angrily spitted some words knowing that he was going to regret them very quickly. ‘It really amazes me how quickly you can become an expert on a subject, since day one you have never given a shit about me but suddenly you know everything there is to know about me better than I do?’
Perhaps the words were not completely true, perhaps saying that Minho never cared for him was stretching it too much, but reality and feelings don’t always meet, and a feeling can become someone’s reality once it grows to a certain extent, distorting it and molding it into something different. Maybe Minho wasn’t the cold-hearted man his mind portrayed at times, but he wasn’t lying when he said that he truly felt neglected, he had felt that for a long time, longer than what he could remember.
He had expected to be met with outrage, with the screams Minho was able to get out of him when he felt the need to speak louder than anyone else, when he felt the need to make everyone know that he was right and everybody else wasn’t, when he felt like the world needed to hear his opinion. Jisung wasn’t looking at him, so he didn’t know for sure what expression he was wearing on his face, but when all he could hear was a reflexive silence, he was able to imagine Minho frowning behind his glasses, eyes lost inside his own mind. A moment passed until Minho talked, still not releasing Jisung from his strong grip.
‘Do you...’ Minho cleared his throat, seemingly affected by what he had to say. ‘Do you really think that I don’t care about you?’
Even though Minho had a sweet voice, he had the habit of speaking loudly and confidently at all times, always finding the correct words quickly, always sounding assertive and sure. This is why Jisung was surprised to find that Minho’s voice came out small and unsure. That was a problem. Minho might have been trying to be communicative, he wasn’t yelling back, and that was going to make things harder for Jisung. While fighting, he could just yell whatever came into his mind without having to give too much thought to it, conversely, while communicating, Jisung would have to be honest about how he felt and try to give a logical explanation to the things he said. Dear Lord, he was already so exhausted.
‘Can you please get off of me?’ Jisung asked, still avoiding Minho’s eyes, the offense in his words wearing off at the fatigue.
‘Can you please answer my question?’
Jisung sighted. Time to say it.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, you feel like I don’t care about you or yes, you will answer my question?’
Jisung rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything, already used to the way Minho was. ‘Yes, I feel like you don’t care about me.’
His tongue felt weird as he said the words, embarrassed by what he was saying because really, who was he to demand attention from Minho? They hadn’t stablished a relationship or any kind of rules to follow, it felt childish to demand something from someone that didn’t owe him anything. At the same time, nevertheless, he felt angry, he knew that the ‘’we are not actually in a relationship’’ card was unfair, that it didn’t quite apply to their particular situation. He felt that, but if this was going to become a rational argument about what was true and what wasn’t, what was feelings and what was logic, then he would have no way to explain his line of thought to Minho and he would only end up embarrassing himself.
His arms were released as Minho’s hands finally set him free, changing his position but still sitting on top of Jisung. Glancing quickly at Minho’s face, afraid to linger on it too much, he noted that Minho was starting to make an explanation in his head about what was happening. It is important to note that Minho being able to explain a situation to himself didn’t necessarily mean that he actually understood the situation, just that he was able to link and make a mental map on how A could possibly lead into Z.
‘Oh. Is that why you have been crying so much?’
If only he could’ve lied and say he wasn’t crying.
‘I’m not sure.’ Jisung tried to be honest even though he wasn’t sure if that was going to end up being the right choice. ‘I woke up feeling like the world was going to end. It usually takes me a moment to understand what it is that is making me feel bad.’
The man on top him put his index finger in his mouth and looked down in a reflexive manner. He thought about it for a second.
‘Well, that’s fucking stupid.’ Minho said.
Groaning, Jisung took a pillow and put it over his face, hiding himself and desiring nothing but to be magically transported to another place in that same instant. No, that wasn’t it, what he actually wanted was to disappear from any sort of existence, whether material or spiritual, since being miserable doesn’t really change depending on where you are, or at least it doesn’t when your misery has nothing to do with material circumstances.
Of course he would find it stupid. Really, what did he expect?
‘It is not stupid, you fucking asshole.’ He said, words muffled against the pillow and exuding less bitter than what he would’ve liked. He wasn’t even that angry at this point, just frustrated at how impossible it seemed to explain himself. ‘You are the stupid one. If you were as smart as you think you are you would try to understand me.’
‘I’m trying to understand you, Sungie.’ Minho said, brushing off the fact that Jisung had just called him stupid. They both knew that wasn’t true anyways. ‘But I really can’t believe that you would think that I don’t care about you. I’m literally in top of you trying to make you talk about your feelings so you will feel better.’ He seemed a bit funny about the last sentence, wincing at his choice of words. ‘Look how I’ve been talking all delicate and everything.’
‘You literally just said that my feelings are stupid.’ Jisung retorted under the pillow.
‘But you know that I don’t really mean it. It’s not that I find it stupid, it’s just that I think you have reached a wrong conclusion, maybe you have overlooked some evidence in order to believe what you want to believe.’
So it seemed, humiliation was not going to be something Jisung would be able to escape. Taking the pillow out of his face and throwing it into the floor, Jisung looked at Minho in the eyes, trying, really trying to convey the swirl of emotions he had inside of him. Slowly, he tried to find the words that would be able to do the job. Luckily, Minho seemed to not be in a rush.
‘Sometimes, when I talk to you, I feel like a child.’ He started, trying not to portray how little he was indeed feeling. ‘You act like you know everything there is to know, like I will always be behind you. You even smile like there is something you understand and no one else does. Sometimes, when I ask you something you don’t even properly answer, you act like it is annoying to have to explain your thoughts.’ He stopped for a second, looking for understanding in the other pair of eyes. ‘Do you notice how condescending it is what you just said to me?’
He saw something in Minho’s eyes, but he was not able to understand what it was.
‘Maybe, but…’
‘No’ Jisung cut him off, feeling braver at his current ability to properly talk. In the back of his mind, he cursed at himself for starting to feel relived at finally putting in words the things he felt, since that meant that Minho had been right from the beginning; he needed to talk or he wouldn’t feel better. ‘Please talk to me like an equal, don’t treat me like I know nothing.’
He wouldn’t admit it, but there was something of a victory feeling sparking inside of him when he saw Minho sighting and starting to look desperate, being for once the one that couldn’t find the right words.
‘No, you are right, that was condescending and I’m sorry.’ Minho admitted, looking actually sorry for once. ‘But what I want you to know is that I don’t feel the way you think I do. I’m not condescending because I think that you are less than me, but because that’s the way I process my thoughts. If I thought that you were less than me I wouldn’t even try to tell you what I think.’
Minho now seemed to be wide awake and entering one of his explaining whirls, the kind that made him look like a crazy scientist bordering on conspiracist, his words were now accompanied by big hand gestures and lost eyes.
‘You hear what I say and maybe you think ‘’Wow, he really thinks that I’m an idiot’’ But I swear it is not it. How to explain it?’ Minho looked at his hands, trying to find inspiration to put his words in a way that wouldn’t sound offensive. He groaned, frustrated at how difficult it seemed to be, but trying anyways. A second later he seemed to find a thread to pull, a story that would make it easier for Jisung to understand. ‘I haven’t told you much about my dad, have I?’
Jisung frowned, surprised at the unexpected turn. ‘…not that I remember. I do know that you get along better with your mother, though.’
‘You are right. Well, I come from a high cultural capital background. My father is also an academic, a psychology professor.’ He chuckled. ‘That explains a lot, right?’
‘Is that why you intrude so much in other people’s mind?’
Minho hit his forehead lightly. ‘Hey, don’t push it, I’m opening up to you.’ He sighted, not comfortable with having to do this. ‘Long story short, he was a logical mind closer to a machine than a human being that never quite grasped how to communicate in a different way. Funny thing is that he literally dedicated his life to understanding subjective feelings, but even there he always needed to find the underlying logic in subjectivity. In any case, that’s the language we used to talk in, and no matter how much I hated it, it ended up being…well, my way as well. So we argued a lot, going from the most insignificant matters to big theories or whatever I needed to learn to not feel less than him. It was like one of those never ending twitter debates in which you end up trying to defend a point you don’t even care about just for the sake of doing it, you know?’
‘I don’t fight with people online.’
‘Of course not, you are famous, you would get into a lot of trouble if you did, that’s for us, peasants. Anyway, don’t focus on that… you do understand my point, right?’ That thing he had seen in Minho’s eyes was starting to have shape. Fear? Embarrassment? Maybe Jisung wasn’t the only one who had been scarred by his uprising. ‘I’m not trying to detach myself from fault; I am indeed a condescending person, but not because I think that you know less than I do, it’s just the way I talk, I throw facts and I expect facts to be thrown at me. I usually surround me with people that function in a similar way; I work well with people that are constantly intruding and trying to tell others how things are. I do the same to you because I respect you, not otherwise.’
‘I’m not someone from work, Minho.’
‘No, no. I know.’ Minho seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated at himself, putting his hands up in a defensive way. He definitely was looking afraid now, but at what? ‘To be honest, I’m so glad that you aren’t like this. I don’t want to be seen like that, I’m sorry. I really don’t want you to feel that way.’ Minho put his hands in both of Jisung’s cheeks, looking at him intensely. ‘I care about you, Jisung, if I didn’t you wouldn’t be here now.’
Maybe that ensemble of words would’ve worked if it had been Jisung directing them to Minho, but they didn’t work so well the other way around. They didn’t sound satisfying, but rather they seemed too harsh and impersonal.
‘I don’t think it is enough to… what? Not hate me as much as you hate others? Tolerate me for a longer period of time than you tolerate the average citizen?’ Jisung tried to joke even as his voice broke and his eyes started burning with the need to keep on crying.
‘Ok, hang on a second there, I don’t think you are being fair.’ As Minho said this, he shook Jisung’s head just a little bit, his voice feeling less affected now. ‘I have really tried these last couple of weeks to…’ Jisung raised his eyebrows, he tried what exactly? ‘…to show you that I care?’
‘Well’ Jisung cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think you have changed much.’
‘What?’ Minho sounded offended. ‘The other day I called you!’ He said this giving it so much importance that Jisung almost felt like laughing.
‘So what?’
‘Have you ever seen me talking in the phone to anybody? I only text, I hate talking on the phone, but I knew that you couldn’t focus on texting at that moment, that’s why I called you.’ He seemed to hear his own words and wasn’t too pleased with them. ‘Okay, that sounds silly, but I really am positive that a lot has changed recently and I don’t understand why you haven’t noticed.’
Making an effort to look for it, Jisung thought about the last couple of weeks, trying to grab on what he had been missing. He quickly realized that he couldn’t, maybe because of the poisonous cloud that had seemed to be fogging his being lately, the one he blamed for the changes his personality had been undergoing. In any case he could think about one thing that kept on repeating in his head, now blocking everything else, aching to get out and be resolved.
‘Minho…’ Jisung started, trying to be brave enough to ask what had been troubling him. ‘Why did you asked if I liked you? I mean that time at that party, when you kissed me for the first time…why would you ask that?’
The man on top of him raised his eyebrows, once again trying to connect dots. ‘You asked the same at the time and my answer is the same as well: I asked because I wanted to know. Why do you put so much thought into it?’
‘No, what I mean is’ Jisung inhaled, nervous at how much he had to reveal. ‘Why would you ask that? Did you really not know that I had been in… in love with you for months?’
Expecting Minho to get nervous at the display of feelings, since such words hadn’t been pronounced at all between them, he was pleasantly surprised to find a lack of nervousness or horror or whatever he thought that would happen once he talked about his feelings. This made him feel comfortable and safe, maybe the world wouldn’t end because of him talking.
‘Oh, no, of course I knew you thought you were in love with me.’
Or maybe it was going to end. It was hard to tell.
Jisung looked at him for a second, mouth open and eyebrows frown. ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that I knew you were attracted to me, I would have to be too obtuse to not know it. I then saw that the attraction was building into something else, but I was sure that it would fade after some time, and that’s why I asked you once I thought enough time had went by, I wanted to know.’
Still not understanding fully what Minho meant, it took Jisung another second of trying to comprehend, a task he failed to complete, before he talked again. ‘What?’ Was the only thing he could say at first. ‘I don’t even know where to begin, what are you saying? You knew that I was falling in love with you but at the same time you were sure I wasn’t?’
‘You said it, Jisung, I’m not easy to handle.’
‘I have no recollection whatsoever of saying that.’ Jisung raised a hand as if stopping Minho. Sure, he had thought that, but he hadn’t said it. ‘Those are your words, Minho, not mine.’
‘You caught me.’ Minho smiled, the happiness not quite reaching his eyes. ‘I’m not easy to handle, Jisung. I could try and pretend to be humble, but that’s not me, so I will be honest: I know when someone is attracted to me, a considerable amount of people is, but to actually stay by my side? That’s something that doesn’t happen often. When I asked you if you liked me the choice of words was not random. To be attracted, to love someone, those words have different meanings, what I wanted to know was if after months of being by my side you could say that you honestly liked me.’
‘Of course I fucking like you, Minho, what the fuck.’ Trying to make Minho feel better becoming a sort of urgency, Jisung grabbed his shoulders. ‘No, you are not the easiest person to be around, but that is part of what makes me like you.’
‘Hey, it’s alright.’ Minho put his hands on top of Jisung, caressing them in a calming way. ‘I have no doubts now; you are a weirdo that decided to stay by my side. Why? I don’t know, but I respect your awful decision making.’
‘Wait a second.’ Jisung cut suddenly, ignoring most of the self-deprecating words Minho had said, deciding to talk about them later. ‘So, what did you feel all those months? Like, it sounds like you had a plan in your mind. What were you thinking all along?’
‘Well…’ He started, seemingly unsure of what he was about to reveal. ‘Of course I was also attracted to you since the beginning. I just…wasn’t sure.’
Looking sadder than he had since he woke up, Minho finally got out of his lap (something Jisung’s legs appreciated, feeling numb at this point) and lay down by his side, staring at the ceiling and reaching to hold his hand. Jisung found that Minho’s pulse was beating harder than what he had been expecting, and thought that maybe the man had gotten out of him so he wouldn’t be able to see his expression so easily.
‘I was a big fucking moron, and I am sorry. I thought that it would reflect bad on me to be seen with you, I thought…god I feel so stupid now that I have to say it out loud, but I thought that the members of my party would have said something, or that people in university would look down on me. Of course in the end no one said anything, well some people did but no one that I cared for, they just were happy to see me interested and happy I guess, and this was even before you went all Jesus and started sharing your bread with everyone.’
‘I quickly realized that I respected you a lot.’ Minho continued talking. ‘I noticed that you have a kind of confidence that I lack. I doubt myself all the time and I have a hard time going after things because I always think that I am not going to do them well enough. You just go for things, you sometimes write stupid songs that I can’t help but to get obsessed with and you sometimes write things that can just be described as genius. I even felt a little jealous at times, but mostly I think I was afraid.’
‘Were you distant on purpose?’ Jisung asked with a small voice, knowing that whatever answer he was given was bound to hurt.
‘Distant…’ Minho said the word and made a thinking noise, savoring it and seeing something in it that Jisung wasn’t catching on. ‘I see…that hurts you a lot, doesn’t it? When people are distant?’
For some reason the question hurt a lot too. ‘Yes’ He answered, afraid to keep on going, he was starting to feel lightheaded again, the kind of anticipation that you get when you don’t want to know something that you are about to learn.
‘Yes and no.’ Minho sighted, not happy with himself. ‘I am a distant person, I can’t stand people for too long most of the time, so at the beginning it was a mix of me being just me and me being afraid of what people would say. Then I realized that I was in love with you and got scared.’
‘Wait, what?’
If Minho’s reaction to Jisung putting words to his feeling had been calm, Jisung’s one could be placed on the opposite spectrum of the scale. He quickly turned around and grabbed Minho by the shoulders, shocked at what he had heard. In a state of less angst, Jisung would have decided to focus his attention on the love confession, one he had been waiting for since a long time ago, one he now chose to dismiss in order to focus in what was causing pain to him.
‘You were afraid? I was the scared one! I followed you everywhere and you would ignore me half of the time but you were the one afraid?’ His voice was high-pitched but he didn’t mind it, he felt exasperated and wanted to show it. ‘I really can’t believe you, you are a fucking clown.’
‘What did you want me to do?!’ Minho asked sincerely, opening his eyes and mouth. ‘I told you, I was sure you wouldn’t want me after some time, I was getting attached and I didn’t like it.’
‘You acted like an asshole half of the time!’
‘Can you stop insulting me, Jisung?’ Minho asked, looking angry now. ‘You ask me to try to understand you but I don’t think you are doing the same for me. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad; I didn’t know what to do. One day I decided to just go for it, so I did and I stopped being distant.’
‘I really hate that you sound like you were always one step ahead of me. It actually feels like you had a plan all along, one I wasn’t involved in and that you decided on your own. You sound…I don’t even know how to tell you, I feel like a stupid child once again in front of someone that knew everything all along and decided to move strings at his will.’
Silence fell upon them as they faced each other, unable to look into each other’s eyes. Minho seemed to want to calm down before giving an answer. He started slowly and careful.
‘It is not easy, having a conversation like this means gambling and having to fight for the vision I have of myself, a vision I want to protect and that is the ground of my own perception, against the vision you have of me, one I might not like.’ He looked straight at Jisung. ‘What you are saying is partly true, but there’s a lot you are overlooking.’
‘Like what?’ Jisung asked, his voice sounding brattier than what he would’ve liked.
‘Like the fact that you also knew. You spend so much time with me, you got to know me, it would’ve been impossible for you not to know that I liked you more than as just a friend. You saw what would happen when someone was attracted to me and I wasn’t, and that didn’t happen to you. Yes, I might have waited too long before deciding to act on both our feelings, but it’s not like you tried either.’ He licked his lips, they had apparently started to get dry at the amount of talking he was doing. ‘What I think is that you knew I liked you all along, just like I knew about you, but you wanted more than what I was giving to you… Jisung, can I be honest?’
Jisung sighted. ‘It’s not like I have a choice, just say it.’
‘Baby’ Minho tried to say in a sweet way that didn’t fully succeed, putting one hand in Jisung’s cheek. At least he was making an effort. ‘Look, I understand what you mean. You don’t want me to be distant, and you are right that I should make an effort so that I won’t make you feel bad. We both agree on that, don’t we?’ Jisung nodded, tears starting to accumulate in his eyes once again, making it difficult to talk. ‘You are right to say that I wasn’t fair to you, but the thing is that in these couple of weeks things have changed a lot and I think I might be starting to understand why you haven’t realized.’ Minho swiped one of Jisung’s tears with his thumb before he kept on talking. ‘You are so afraid that I will leave you that you can’t see how much I am staying by you side. I think that you feel bad, that’s the foundation, so maybe it won’t matter how much I start caring about you, you won’t be able to register it while you are in this state. And that’s not all, I don’t think you have been crying for the last week because of me.’
‘I’m not sure why I have been crying.’ Jisung confessed. ‘I just know that I keep thinking about you and the times you were distant and it makes me feel really bad.’
Minho hugged Jisung with a kind of strength and warmth that was able to convey how much he cared for the younger boy. It would be inaccurate to say that everything was fine now, but the way he started crying out loud didn’t feel bad, it felt relaxing and calming, like puking to get out the poison inside of you, like cleaning a wound to let it start to heal. Maybe it wasn’t everything he needed, but it sure was everything he wanted.
‘Jisung, I really am so sorry that I made you feel this way, I don’t want to make you feel like this ever again. I promise I will make an effort to show you how much I care for you.’ He kissed his head and cheeks as he kept on hugging him strongly. ‘But like I said, I think this is the symptom but not the cause.’
‘Then what is the cause?’ Jisung asked in between sobs, not having the energy to feel like Minho was being condescending anymore, just wanting to be able to feel better.
It was a fact that, as much as sometimes people wouldn’t like it, Minho always saw things other people couldn’t see as fast. He had an special ability to connect dots that wouldn’t always work in his favor, maybe that’s why he tended towards acting a bit too suspicious of everyone at all times. In another life, he could’ve been a detective, and in some way he was one, dedicating his life to study and write about which are the best ways to get to know the world, about what are the best methods to arrive to an understanding of what surrounds us. Given this, it was not a surprise to find out that Minho had been connecting dots about Jisung, creating a path of understanding that Jisung had thought about but hadn’t given enough importance.
‘You are turning twenty-five in two weeks…when was the last time you talked to your parents?’ Minho waited for Jisung to answer, but when he didn’t he filled with the answer they both knew. ‘It was almost seven years ago, wasn’t it? At your birthday? I think that’s what you told me.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Jisung asked, not trying to sound annoyed but actually wanting to understand.
‘You also tried to kill yourself almost three years ago…again, at your birthday.’ Minho caressed Jisung head, passing his fingers and trying to calm him. Jisung decided not lie this time, there was no point in denying it when Minho clearly knew about it. ‘I’m not a mind-reader, but I think at this time of the year you might start feeling lonely or something.’
Somehow, Minho’s words didn’t sound as weird as they should have.
‘That time…’ Jisung cleared his voice and started again. Minho just kept on holding him, a silent way to say that he was listening. ‘That time, three years ago, it had nothing to do with my parents, what happened is that it was a point when it looked like my career was going to end, my sells had dropped horribly and no one was listening to my music anymore.’
‘Sungie, I don’t mean to say that the context didn’t have anything to do with it. At the moment you felt bad because of that, and now you feel bad because, well, because you are not exactly happy with our relationship. But what I’m trying to make you see is that there is a foundation of something else, something that may be worth to get out of you. See how badly you take rejection or distance, those are things everyone has to face on their day-to-day life, but they affect you more than they should. Look, I’m not a psychologist or anything, but if there’s something I have learned from my father is that everything is our parent’s fault.’
‘I thought everything was capitalism’s fault, though?’ Jisung tried to joke even with tears rolling down his eyes.
‘Shut up.’ Minho chuckled. ‘You do find some sort of logic in what I am saying, don’t you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘They left you here, didn’t they?’
‘My mom…she decided to leave to Malaysia, my father and older brother followed her. I couldn’t go with them, I was starting to have a career here and I didn’t want to drop everything. My parents acted like it was my fault, they were the ones leaving but they put all the blame on me for deciding to stay.’
‘How old were you?
‘Sixteen.’
Minho sighted and kissed him on his forehead. ‘You were too little to be on your own.’
‘It was okay, I managed it.’
‘Maybe, but it might have left some sequels on you.’
Starting to feel drowsy, Jisung’s words started to get out more easily.
‘They…they hated every single decision I made. They hated my music, they hated the way I managed my life. They used to love me so much when I was little, but as soon as I started to make my own decisions they made feel like I was completely useless and wrong all the time.’ Jisung was starting to recall things he wasn’t sure he wanted to recall. ‘We had a big fight at my birthday that time, a really big fight that ended up getting physical and I haven’t talked to them ever since. They tried to contact me a few times, but there never was an actual effort to see their son again.’ With his voice broken, Jisung admitted to one of his biggest fears. ‘They did succeed, tho, they made me feel like I was worth nothing. They made me feel like their silence and distance was a punishment, a rightful one.’
‘You need to find someone to talk about this, Jisung. Please, I really am concerned about you, I don’t think this can keep on going for long, look at the extremes you had been at. I can tell you that your parents are a couple of morons and that they are the ones missing out on the incredible son they have, I can tell you that I care about you and that I love you, but my words are not going to matter unless you can feel them and believe them. I want you to feel loved and cared for.’
Something clicked inside of Jisung’s mind. Ah, that was it.
‘You feel a lot like this too, don’t you?’
‘Like what?’ Minho asked, surprised by the question.
‘I think I get it too.’ Jisung said, making his own mental map. Maybe spending that much time besides Minho, reading and learning, had helped him develop his own analytical skills. ‘That’s why you can understand it so easily; you also tend to feel like a burden. It didn’t matter how much I stood by your side, you still couldn’t believe that I liked you.’
‘But I do know it now.’ Minho released Jisung from the embrace so he could kiss him, just a quick peck that meant the world for both of them. ‘I see why you don’t like it when I get inside your head.’
‘It’s awful.’ Jisung answered, his eyes shut and his body starting to feel like he might be able to finally sleep. ‘Can we stop talking about this now?’
‘Ok.’ Minho let him have his way. ‘But only because I’m really tired too.’
‘You have to get up in like an hour.’ Jisung guessed, not having any energy left to look at the clock.
‘I’m going to call in sick.’
‘You never miss work.’ Jisung’s voice sounded surprised.
‘Yeah, tomorrow I will have to fix all the mistakes those morons are going to make in our investigation without me’ He gave Jisung another quick peck before turning around and silently demanding to be hugged. ‘But right now if I don’t sleep next to you for a few hours I might die. And don’t think this ends here, we’re going to keep on talking tomorrow.’
Maybe, Jisung thought, maybe there was some truth in what Minho was saying. Of course, what he had said was just a hypothesis, a very vague one that he would have to work on to find out. He didn’t have the energy or the mental capacity to think about it now, but the talk had soothe him even if just for a while, he could sleep now and start working on feeling better tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow the sorrow and the suffering would start once again, but he knew he had a way of fighting out of it, he had gone through worst.
Maybe he wasn’t destined to be abandoned by everyone, he thought before falling asleep, with his angst kept at bay for a moment, clarity opening through his mind.