Chapter Text
To Jisung’s disappointment, waking up in the middle of the night was never like in the movies; there was no such thing as a sudden upthrust followed by a gasp, no unforeseen motion detaching him from the god-knows-how-many-threads sheets to dramatize the moment, a camera would be nothing but bored to have to follow the uneventful awakening that he experienced around three a.m on a Tuesday night. What a change would it be, wouldn’t it? A camera bored by Jisung was something he had yet to experience, and maybe that was one of his issues. What can be said without exaggerating about Jisung’s sudden inability to successfully sleep for more than four hours, an impediment that he had been undergoing for about a week now, is that it felt like fucking hell.
Symptoms: The whole length of his body cover by cold, disgusting sweat, in what would be the perfect picture of a boy falling asleep under a mild rain, ruling out the part of the rain and also the part about getting some shut-eye. So, yes, basically a lot a sweat accompanied by his racing heart, a beating he could feel more on his neck than in his actual ribcage, pulsing and throbbing in a rate that you wouldn’t expect from a person that was asleep just seconds ago. Maybe it would be understandable had he been awaked by an unexpected sound, movement, light, anything. Had Minho moved? Had he inconsiderately gotten up to go take a piss? Jisung took a look to his right, to where Minho was lying, and found his by now familiar answer: the sweat, the pace of his heart, the lump located in the middle of his throat, he knew that there was nothing in the outside that could have caused this to him. Again.
How could movies construct a hero that moves the second he is awaken? Does that happen in real life to anyone? Not having discussed the subject with many other individuals, his knowledge about the area began and ended in his own, personal experience, so if the world was to him only what he knew about it and what he had experienced, waking up and being able to instantly move was not something that would ever fucking happen. Instead, what was waiting for him to open his eyes was nothing but the reminiscent of his teenage angst, all of them amplified by the current context in which his life was taking place, all of them pushing him into the soft mattress.
What came first, the chicken, the egg, the feeling or the awakening? Jisung was a second-class detective that had been wondering without really desiring to get an answer. Did he feel bad because he couldn’t rest as he should, or was he unable to sleep because these dreadful feelings had the upper-hand and would be caught dead before letting him have a way out of them? Did the feelings infiltrate his dreams? Was that why he had been waking up with all of these alien symptoms that he couldn’t trace a reason for?
Whatever came in first wasn’t relevant at the moment, the sole idea of moving felt strenuous, it seemed as if a heavy weight had been placed in his chest, attaching him to the bed and taking the life out of his limbs. And no, it wasn’t Soonie, Doongie or…Jisung couldn’t for the life of it remember the name of the third cat (and was too afraid to ask at this point, since Minho’s irritation when it came to his cats was something he considered to have a phobia for), it was something coming from his own damn, betraying brain. He didn’t remember feeling this kind of exhaustion since the last time he had went to a protest against whatever shit the government was doing. Physical exhaustion was nothing, really, since nothing made him feel as drained as those moments in which his sanity would seem to fade away.
As fragile as it was, there was a need in him to take control of the situation, to move, get out of bed, go wash his face, maybe grab a bite. If he wasn’t a fighter then he wasn’t anything, right? In this situation, however, the difficulty of every possible action was amped considerably, except for one, clearly. The burning tears that were forming in his eyes were asking to be released, and as much as Jisung wanted to hold them back, they rolled down his cheeks, relentless to his need to stay strong, a reminder of the lack of control he seemed to be having over his body lately.
They had talked about this, but Jisung was unable to tell to which level the exchange had been truly sincere, a feeling of distrust he couldn’t get rid of. It hadn’t always been like that for him, he had a long past of being a naïve, trusting boy…well, man, a trusting man. God, now that he was close to turning twenty-five it really was time to stop thinking about himself as a boy and start accepting reality. Maybe that was another one of the problems.
He had been feeling suspicious of other people lately, he now doubted the conversations he participated in, the motivations and aims other people kept. His childish side wanted to blame this on the man sleeping next to him, one of the most distrustful persons he had ever crossed paths with, and also the literal person closest to him, the easiest one to put the blame on without having to reflect about why it was that he had changed so much.
Minho was…just one of those people, the kind that used to irritate Jisung, the ones he would rolled his eyes at whenever they would express their suspicion about every single fucking thing. The world is not plotting against you, he would like to say from time to time, you are not that important. Except now he was starting to understand the feeling, and that was why Jisung couldn’t bring himself to alert him about how dreadful he felt, even after Minho had expressly asked him to wake him up in case he experienced insomnia once again. How was he supposed to know if Minho was being sincere or not? Did he actually want to have his scarce sleeping interrupted? What was he going to do, anyway, comfort Jisung? He felt a shiver going down on his spine; tenderness wasn’t part of Minho’s personality, at least not part of what he had seen so far, and he had seen a lot.
Somehow, the train of thoughts that Jisung had followed made him feel worst, this time the pain in his stomach being enough to make him fold on himself, to make him finally move to one side and cry as silently as he could. He was lying to himself by pretending not to want to wake Minho up right now, it was the only thing he desired, to wake him up, to be held and told that everything was going to be alright, but how could he? What if Minho was bothered by it?
Worst, what if Minho rejected him? He wasn’t counting, but Minho’s ‘’rejection’’ and distance could be tolerated only a limited amount of times, if they were to keep on happening then his heart might start to actually, literally break.
It was his own fault, really, for no one had forced him to approach and chase a man he knew he couldn’t have in the first place. Well, maybe it was a little bit Hyunjin’s fault too?
At first, he had thought that Minho was just a dancer, like Hyunjin was, not to despise dancers and the incredible art they dedicated their lives to, but he was so, so much more. They day he had been cursed with what sometimes felt like the most intense feeling he had ever experienced had happened a few months ago, at a production of a ballet show. Not just a ballet show, but one of those postmodern productions in which something like putting a man in the Carmen role could happen.
That’s how he saw Minho dancing Entrée and Habanera, names he would later learn as he compulsively searched online in the company’s YouTube channel. A red Spanish-like attire with flowy strips, pointe shoes and a face constructed by Satan himself were the only things Minho carried with him.
There wasn’t much he could say about the movements per se, for he knew nothing about ballet, but the confidence, the looks, the flirt, he felt prepared to write an essay on that matter. He had presented himself with the characteristic Carmen smirk and pose, his eyes exuding a kind of confidence and seduction that made Jisung’s mind fly away for a few seconds, the next thing he noticed was the man putting up his leg while looking straight into the audience, knowing exactly how he looked, then two movements of his shoulder with his eyes lazily blinking, and a final pose that Jisung had burnt in his retina from watching the YouTube video so many times. Minho helplessly bending down on the arms of another person was going to be a recurrent image that his brain would bring up at the most inappropriate times no matter how much he tried to suppress it.
Still, watching that performance hadn’t been enough to turn Jisung into the borderline-obsessed mess he was nowadays. It was what came afterwards what would trigger a kind of fascination he had never felt before.
‘I’m going to vote for a president that’s gonna take most of your money away in taxes.’
Those were the first words Minho ever said to Jisung. Or something like that, it’s not like Jisung had the ability to remember every single one of the weird words Minho used in his day-to- day life, so maybe the phrase had been simplified in his memories. The words were spat more than said, since Minho’s gaze had obscured when Jisung had revealed his face by taking his mask off, far from exultant to see who he was. His expression didn’t linger for too long in the same position, it quickly transformed into a side smirk, one he found out was not reserved to Carmen performances.
Was it a good thing that the malicious smile didn’t die when the performance was put to an end? Jisung wasn’t sure, but as Hyunjin would later tell him, this was Minho’s final performance in the company, so at least he could still be sure that the Carmen smile was going to keep on living for the world to see it and for Jisung to be subjected to it. Minho really wasn’t that good of an impersonator; it was just that the Carmen spirit matched his own self, smirk included.
‘God, Minho, why do you have to be like this?’
Hyunjin’s words later that night confirmed what he was already suspecting: he was not special, Minho didn’t hold a particular grudge on him; he was just upfront about how he felt. He didn’t hate Han Jisung specifically, nor did he have any problems with his music, he just happened to have his reasons to dislike people like him.
‘Sorry dude, he’s like, I don’t know, a fucking communist or something. I swear I don’t understand half of the things he says.’ Hyunjin sighted, ashamed at his friend’s behaviour, while he watched Minho leave into the crowd of dancers without another word, just a fading laugh and a wink. ‘He’s just super weird and hates everyone.’
‘I thought you said he was your friend.’
‘Well, sort of, but I also can’t stand him.’
Never having done one of those tests about weaknesses and strengths, Jisung wasn’t sure if he would call himself impulsive. What he was sure of was the fact that he was, at the very least, intrigued, and that this particular feeling of curiousness wasn’t something people tended to spark in him very often. He also knew that when he wanted something he could have more confidence in himself than most people did.
That night Jisung begged Hyunjin to let him attend the dinner party the dance studio was holding. A bad idea, clearly, since they knew Jisung would attract unwanted attention. A bad idea that was carried out nevertheless once Jisung promised his friend to take him to the backstage of that other rapper he liked so much.
Getting out of his bag all the charisma an introvert was able to invoke, which was more than one would think, Jisung was able to spend most of the night besides Minho, mostly getting teased by him. In those hours the fascination merged with admiration, the man knew so much about so many things, he could get incredibly annoying at times and yet the people around him still wanted to hear his opinion again and again. He could carry himself with soft manners that converged rudeness and respect for others at the same time, he laughed easily but not too loudly and would help Jisung get out of a conversation he wasn’t interested in when some fan popped out of nowhere.
At the moment he couldn’t have guessed how increasingly hard getting Minho’s attention was going to be.
He found out that Minho had to stop performing because he was currently working on his philosophy Ph.D and wouldn’t have much time to practice. Minho also hated millionaires, a thing Jisung happened to be due to his music career. They met two more times thanks to Hyunjin, and after that it was Jisung the one that kept on looking for him. Months later, he was lying awake in Minho’s bed, unable to wake him up, what had happened in the middle?
Trying to keep the unpleasant memories away, Jisung found out that he was able to cry even harder no matter how many times he thought that he had run out of water in his system. His tears could apparently keep up with the pace in which his feelings grew, as branches of dread spread all along his chest and a single thought infected his mind, making his head throb and spin. He realized that his cries had also grow louder when he felt a pair of arms reaching to his back first, unsure, and then finding their way around Jisung’s waist.
They both waited.
Minho’s white curtains started moving as a sudden cold wind invaded the room, the big windows had been left open, a normal thing to do in what had been a particular hot summer night up to that point. Faintly, on the background, the sounds of cars could still be heard despite what the clock was marking. Jisung wasn’t seeing or hearing any of this, the only thing his panicked mind could be aware of at the time was the tight pressure against his body and the weight of Minho’s silence against his right ear, he was blind to what he didn’t feel as a matter of survival.
He wanted to stop crying just as much as he didn’t want to stop. Right now everything was contained and wrapped in an acceptable balance, but he knew what was going to happen, he would have to talk about what was going on once he was managed to calm down, Minho was not going to let it go until he knew what was up with him. But really, he didn’t want to have to think about what was up with him, he only felt like the world was going to end and was suddenly unable to think past it, the feeling had now become his reality and he wasn’t able to draw a future in which he didn’t feel like that. When a momentary feeling is treated like a permanent matter, a person can say stupid things, and really, Jisung didn’t want that to happen to him, not when Minho was finally starting to accept him
Sweet lord, the work it had taken to get close to Minho had been more than what a person would usually put up with, he had read books and watch a million hours of YouTube trying to understand what the fuck Minho talked about, he had accompanied him to seminaries and weird meetings, he also had discovered a fire inside of him and a need to chase that he never thought he would have. Jisung thought about a lot of situations he had lived with him like rejections, but truth was that Minho had never actually rejected him, it was just the feeling Jisung was left with most of the time. Minho never said no, he never said ‘’go away’’, he never reacted in the way Jisung expected him to, it was just that his attention was something really, truly hard to get.
Jisung might have felt like a creep chasing a man that wasn’t interested in him if it wasn’t for one detail, Minho didn’t act the same way as most people did, he really was upfront and didn’t have any problem with breaking someone’s heart. He had seen in a first road seat what it looked like when Minho actually rejected someone, it wasn’t nice and luckily it hadn’t been his fate yet. He knew that this intriguing, arrogant man was not rejecting him, but he couldn’t help his own feelings. When you are used to being chased by the spotlight, anything less than that can feel like rejection, and boy, Minho’s attention was the farthest he had ever gotten to being under the spotlight.
As a popular rising musician, Jisung was nothing but admired most of the time, even most of Minho’s academic snob friends were interested in chatting with him about his music, about the process, music theory and the lyrics. Some of them, conversely, looked down upon him for various reasons, going from his wealth to his low educational level, and to be honest Jisung hadn’t felt this dumb in his whole life, he was so used to being praised for saying the minimum that he had taken the obnoxious habit of talking about himself too much. Now, he needed to listen a lot more that he had been used to.
One time he had asked Minho if he thought he was dumb, to which he answered something about how the classification of smart/dumb didn’t have much use or analytical potential, so he didn’t use such typology and therefore wasn’t interested in sorting people out based on being smart or dumb, but rather on the kind of knowledge they possessed.
‘Ok, then what kind of knowledge do I have?’ Jisung asked, impatient at Minho’s inability to answer a simple yes or no question. Absorbed by whatever he was reading in his phone, Minho didn’t answer the question.
‘Never mind what I said, dumb is a useful category’ Minho looked at him with a bright smile, laughing and endlessly amused by the content of his phone, which he was now showing Jisung. ‘This song of yours is really fucking dumb.’
Jisung was used to being chased, not the other way around. He didn’t seek people, people seeked for him. But Minho, nothing but weird, always the fucking snowflake, never followed the rules of anything. He would sometimes talk to him for hours and listen like no one had ever listened in his life, only to then be silent for a week. Jisung didn’t have that much time to dwell on that fact, he had a tight schedule and it wasn’t like he would’ve been able to see Minho anyways.
He dwelled on the fact nonetheless.
A couple of months went by and Jisung was no longer a millionaire. He thanked whatever deity was up there for his popularity, because otherwise he wouldn’t have had the power to carry out the changes he wanted to make in the production of his music. Don’t get him wrong, he had always been a social advocated, and that was part of the reason behind his popularity and appeal to the public, but he had never understood how much he actually could do from his position, how distributing a mostly equal pay among his now co-workers (and no longer employees) could change lives, how talking against exploitation and unethical production of CD’s and merchandising could open national-wide debates about how the music industry should be managed. He understood all of this thanks to Minho, but he really didn’t do it for him, that would’ve been wrong, it was just that after opening his eyes there was no way back, all of that money needed to be used in something good, and not in the charitable way that did nothing to change structural problems, but in actually giving people a chance in life.
This was something that had helped him a lot in the last two months, it had made him feel like there where things worth fighting for, which was something increasingly harder to think as his mental state went down the hill. Sometimes nothing was enough, his fuel was starting to run out and nothing could give him the motivation he needed these days. And upturn had happened when Minho fucking finally decided to kiss him five weeks ago, after months of the weirdest ‘’not actually a friendship but also not a romantic relationship’’.
Summer was just starting back then, and of course, Minho had been using one of those tight pants that seemed to be too warm to use at that time of the year, the kind that made Jisung want to cry every time he looked at him. They were at…where were they? It was hard to remember in detail given how insanely intoxicated he had been, but it had been at a pool party or something, it had been Jisung who had invited Minho to the place, and he had accepted for a change. Yes, he could remember now, it had been at Chan’s girlfriend's house, the house that had burned down. That’s, of course, another story.
As he had learned, Minho was a great pretender, and could make everyone in the room laugh no matter the feelings he experienced at the moment, but lately it had become more and more difficult for him to engage in a conversation he actually had interest for, making an habit of turning the conversation into weird and unexpected paths that only he was interested in. Jisung, on the contrary, could be either the life of the party or the most uncommunicative person you will ever meet, no in-between. That day had been one of those weird ones in which Minho felt more rolled back than usual, immersed in his thoughts and unable to focus on the outer world, while Jisung felt capable of chatting about nonsense with whoever crossed their paths.
Given this, they had sat at some deck chairs located near the pool and stayed there, avoiding as much people as they could. Minho would occasionally show him something funny he found on his phone and Jisung would laugh more than he should, a result of how far gone he had been at the moment. People would come and talk to them, but Minho didn’t answer unless a direct question was asked to him. It was okay, this time Jisung could answer for both of them.
Hyunjin, now a close friend of Changbin, who had been kindly enough to invite him, was sitting next to them, sometimes chatting with other people and sometimes stating stupid theories about the world that would make Minho’s eyes roll backwards at the display of buffoonery. At some point Hyunjin left and Minho climbed on top of him.
Looking at him with his intense gaze, one that was born of the flames of hell just like his Carmen smirk, Minho asked one question Jisung never thought he would ask. He experienced at the same time a breath that smelled like alcohol and weed shoved right his face and the stupidest question he had ever heard.
‘Do you like me?’
Granted, Jisung was drunk and high, and that wasn’t a state in which people were known to successfully carry out a conversation, he surely must’ve heard wrong. Minho wasn’t asking what he thought he was asking, was he?.
‘Sorry, what?’
Some of the intensity of Minho’s gaze was lost after Jisung asked for a repetition, but his hands reached for his arms, grabbing them firmly and wrinkling the fabric of his shirt, perhaps to give him a dramatic touch, or maybe just to hold himself from falling.
‘Jisung, do you like me?’
He had asked exactly what he thought he had asked. He couldn’t believe it.
‘You are kidding me, right?’ He tried to analyze Minho’s eyes in search for something that would tell him why he would ask that when he already knew the answer. As always, he couldn’t find anything but rough honesty. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘Why would I be joking?’ He asked, dead serious. ‘I just want to know if you like me. I have been spaced out all day and now I’ve realized that I won’t be able to focus on anything else until you tell me.’
Jisung locked his eyes with him, hoping he would understand just from that, but apparently he was still waiting for the words to be said. He wanted to say so many things, he wanted to say that of course he liked him, that he wouldn’t have fucking stayed by his side if he didn’t, that he wouldn’t had bear a person like Minho if he hadn’t liked him, that the people that stayed by his side only did it because they all liked him. He didn’t only like him, he felt so much more and he wanted to state it.
He didn’t say it. He saw him, so expectant. Amazing.
So he just nodded. Releasing a breath, coming closer, Minho.
Chapped lips on him, his hand caressing him, arms around his waist, he only felt that.
As cliché as it was, being able to finally touch Minho felt like being able to breathe for the first time in months, he would like to say that his burning skin felt like the Promised Land under the tip of his hands, except that saying that sounded horrible and most likely objectifying. In any case, the desire had been built for so long that neither of them were able to think about the words they would use to describe each other, at least Jisung didn’t. However, apart from the kissing and the fucking, their relationship hadn’t changed that much.
There were some things that had changed, of course, otherwise Jisung wouldn’t had found himself crying his heart out in Minho’s bed, specially not on a Tuesday night, when Minho had to go to work in just a few hours.
Nights had been lonely for too many years, and maybe Minho’s arms around his waist trying to calm him were something good, so why was he so afraid? The answer came fast when Minho disentangled himself, his comforting warmth leaving his side and the cold wind finally reaching him. Jisung wanted to move, to turn around, get up and ask him why he stopped, especially when Minho got up from the bed and left the room, leaving the bed feeling too big and the night too cold. He wanted to move and ask, but he couldn’t, his body felt like a corpse, even more so now that he was left alone. That was what he feared, the abandonment.
It wasn’t something new, Jisung had dealt with this kind of feelings for most of his life and he had always gotten out alive, even from the moments he thought he wouldn’t. Getting out of his parents’ house had been a good moment, his music career starting to build was another one, those were things that kept him from lying down and letting himself be defeated, but the battle had existed inside of him since always. Lately he wasn’t winning anymore.
He never wanted to think the worst but he had been doing it, it was hard not to when he felt like situations kept repeating again and again. He couldn’t help but wonder why he kept dragging himself to places when he knew what the outcome was going to be, did he secretly wanted this? Or was it just that he wanted to prove that he was right to think that everyone would eventually leave him?
Being immersed in his thoughts, unable to focus on his surroundings, it came as a surprise when a warm ball of fur was thrown on top of him. The shock was the only thing motivating enough to finally make Jisung sit upright, ending the lethargy state with a screech and a quick movement. The cat didn’t seem to be baffled at all. Minho was standing next to him, looking at him amusedly. That fucking smirk.
‘There, Dori will make you feel better.’ Dori, that was the name of the third cat.
Minho walked to the other side of the bed and threw himself on it, crawling to lie close to Jisung and therefore being able to pat Dori. Jisung mimicked his movements, lying back down and staring at the ceiling, he felt slightly nauseous, talking was going to strenuous. He knew Minho was waiting for him to say something, so he did.
‘You scared me.’ His voice sounded weak and raspy.
‘Well…’’ Minho put his hand in Dori’s head, grabbing her head and moving it fast, annoying her like he usually did. ‘at least you stopped crying.’ He gave Jisung a towel, covering his face with it. ‘Clean your face, you are covered in snot.’
‘Why didn’t you bring me tissues?’ Jisung asked, blowing his nose with the towel. He had left a big puddle of tears in the pillow, he hoped that Minho wouldn’t mind too much, a difficult task considering he had some good quality sheets.
‘Look how much you cried, you would use too much paper.’ Minho pretended to sight with an ‘’ah’’ sound. ‘That wouldn’t be too ecological from you.’ He tried to joke with a little smile, but got no answer.
A minute or two went away as Jisung tried to get rid of his tears, Dori would occasionally try to grab the towel with her claws, when that happened, Minho would grab her with his left hand and put her back in Jisung’s lap. It didn’t really matter how many times he tried, the cat seemed to have a natural hunter instinct and would go back to chase the towel in seconds.
‘I sometimes forget that my cats are actually my masters and that I am just a human they decided to take care of.’ As he sighted, his cat kept on fraying the towel.
To this, Jisung finally answered, not with words but with a little snort. Of course the only beings in this world able to put Minho on a leash would be cats, no human would have such power, the only exception probably being Minho’s mom. He didn’t know that much about the relationship, but so it seemed that they were close, Jisung sometimes daydreamed about talking to her and asking how did she managed to raise such a pain in the ass, but that was only when he felt really angry.
Cleaning his face turn out to be a long, fruitless task, since Jisung started crying once again the second he felt the softness of Minho’s hand and the coldness of his rings lying on his cheek, trying to turn Jisung’s face with a delicacy he wasn’t used to, wanting to be able to look at him directly.
Minho. Straight nose, heart-shaped lips and cat eyes. Sweet voice, sweet laugh, sweet touch. Rough words, harsh looks, murderer eyes. Even behind the curtain of tears, he could look at Minho and see clearly, he sometimes wondered if no matter how much time happened, Jisung would still be able to close his eyes and see clearly. He didn’t know if this was something he wanted or not. Looking at him, he couldn’t help but linger on the details, Minho had stopped dying his hair, it was his natural black color now, parted in the middle and maybe a bit too long, covering his eyes in what could sometimes feel uncomfortable , he had his glasses on, but they were more on his right than they should be. Under the glasses, his eyes looked both tired and worried, was Minho really worried about him? Could that be it?
As if possessed by something else, Jisung extended his hand without realizing he did it, urged to caress Minho’s cheek too. He really was beautiful, but he was also so many other things. Both the smartest person in the room at all times and the person that wanted to hear other people’s opinion the most. Both the best listener he had ever met and the one that would mock you the hardest when he found something you said to be illogical or incorrect. Falling for him had been way too easy, and he feared it would be too painful as well.
‘Why are you crying, Jisung?’ Minho finally asked what he had wanted to ask since he woke up. As predictable as it was, it only made him cry harder, now putting both of his hands over his face to try and hide how ugly he thought he looked when he cried.
‘I don’t know.’ He managed to say in between sobs. It was a bit of a lie but not a full one, he knew what was upsetting him, but he didn’t know why it was that he was crying so hard. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sungie, don’t apologize, it’s okay. If you don’t know why you are crying then maybe you can try to tell me what you are feeling.’
Jisung couldn’t see any difference in between talking about why he was crying and talking about what he was feeling, so he said no with his head while he kept on crying behind his hands. There was no way out, was it? Minho was not going to let it go. He wished he had the power in him to just turn around and ignore his lover until he fell asleep, denying what happened until they both forget about it. Minho seemed to know where his thoughts had gone to.
‘Babe, it is not going to get better unless you talk about it. You haven’t slept properly for a week now, and now you are crying like the world is about to end.’ Minho moved so he could rub Jisung’s back, making some sort of effort to comfort him. He usually wasn’t the kind of person to do this, his approach had always been to look at the practical solution for a problem and not to dwell on what couldn’t be changed, and that was going to be how he would try to solve Jisung’s problem. ‘Believe me, I would rather be sleeping, but then the problem is gonna keep on coming to the surface, so talk to me and we’ll figure out how to make it better.’
Jisung felt some slight annoyance at this, why couldn’t he have it his way for once?
‘Minho I, like, fucking hate talking.’
Minho looked at him with disbelief clearly showing in his sleepy, confused eyes, a pair that seemed to be permanently frozen in a judging state. He looked at him as if wondering in what kind of parallel universe did Jisung live.
‘Sungie, you spend more time talking than breathing, I am willing to support this with empirical evidence.’ He declared, putting one hand over the other in a motion that mimicked the one that a person asking for proof would do. ‘Since when do you hate talking? To new people? Sure, but to me?’
‘You know what I mean.’ Jisung replied, ignoring what he felt was a critic being thrown at him, he didn’t need to dwell on anything that would make him feel more ashamed and small than he already did. ‘You are the one that’s good at talking, not me.’
The dramatic response from the older man was not something he was expecting, since Minho sat quickly and looked at him straight in the eye, fixing his glasses. The confused and exasperated look that took over his features was in the limit between funny and frightening.
‘Did you really just say that I am the one good at talking? Me? The person that was invited to Hyunjin’s house for breakfast and started talking about how Cecilie of Greece died in a plane crush while giving birth? I am starting to think that you are losing touch with reality and going crazy. Do you remember what month are we in?’
There was a big chance that, as it usually happened, Minho wasn’t actually trying to be a bitch, it was just the way he was, the way he interacted. Maybe, had he been less sleepy, Minho would’ve realized that this was not the moment for harshness, that what Jisung needed was containment and tenderness. Maybe, had Jisung been lees sleepy as well, he wouldn’t have taken Minho’s words so harshly. It was not the case either way, so Jisung reaction was to keep on sheding tears, not that he had any saying in this, it just happened.
‘Hey, no, no, no. Wait, I was trying to make you laugh’ As Jisung tried to keep his face hidden behind his hands, Minho grabbed them and pulled them away, putting his own fingers under Jisung’s eyes, drying his tears with his thumbs. While looking at each other, Minho used the sweetest voice Jisung thought he was capable of doing. ‘Sungie, what’s going on?’ he asked with his eyes rapidly looking up and down, from his eyes to his tears over and over.
‘Nothing’s going on’ Jisung knew that there was no way Minho was going to believe this, so he could only hope that the words, the annoyance with which he delivered them and the fact that he turned around so he wouldn’t be facing him anymore could get the message across. Really, it was bold of him to assume that Minho would give up so easily. No, what Minho wanted he usually got.
He could lie and say he was surprised when Minho turned him back and got himself on top of Jisung, grabbing his hands to pin him against the mattress, but truth is he wasn’t surprised at all. Minho, unlike what someone would think at first glance, would not doubt to appeal to physical strength if needed, something Jisung tried to avoid as much as necessary.
There he was, on top on him, the future of epistemology. Minho’s eyes rarely showed any emotion other than annoyance, this time was not the exception. Jisung tried to avoid his gaze, but Minho would move to whichever side Jisung did, chasing his look relentlessly. When he realized that catching his eyes was not going to happen, he settled with what he had.
‘I’m really sorry to bring this up, but you are leaving me no choice.’ Minho sighted. ‘You need to understand why I am so worried.’
When Jisung decided to spend the night in Minho’s house, he didn’t know that a tidal wave was waiting for him, otherwise he would’ve decided to sleep in his own house instead of having to face this.
‘One of the downsides of being a celebrity such as yourself, Mr. J.One, is that it very easy to learn a lot of personal stuff that I shouldn’t know.’ These words were triggering enough to make Jisung look at Minho in the eyes, trying to swallow but finding out that his throat was too dry for such thing. A pause. Minho staring at him, letting his words linger, a prelude to Jisung’s blood pressure lowering, his head getting lighter and his heart thumping loudly in his temples. ‘I know you tried to kill yourself, Jisung.’
He was right, he shouldn’t have known that.