𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒐 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 : 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒆

00:19

They say time heals all wounds, that eventually scraped knees and trauma scars eventually mend themselves. Years pass, scar tissue forms and stitch skin and thoughts back together in slightly distorted ways. Raised skin and coping mechanisms.

However, the amount of time varies, days, months, years, generations, how long does it take to heal cuts and bruises that appeared years before?

Immune systems vary, nobody is the same.

Wonwoo and Mingyu are not the same, they've never been and never will. They're both sick, issues that need to be worked and bent, but they're very different illnesses.

His chest hurt, it always did when he was around dark eyes and baggy hoodies. It was a deep ache, somewhere lost inside his lungs and heart, one that no medication could soothe. It was a pain that came with knowing everything he does and holding that all in. Like a storm brewing inside his body that's edging on rain showers.
Sharp metal shards in his chest, rattling around with each heavy breath he took.

Too many emotions ran through him, flying by at light speed just so he can't process them. Can't consume the fruits of someone else's sick harvest.

So they sit there, knelt down on that dirty white tile floor with shaking hands and pounding hearts. Minds both racing but blank, one drifting to memories while the other thinks of pain and regret. The tv and machines rumbling around are barely there, like tiny ripples in a lake after a stone is thrown in, it barely touched them.

Nicotine and weak cologne, laundry sheets and bleach, florescent lights and moon shines. Demons at their heels, nipping like cow dogs.

Wonwoo shifts, pulling against the tight hold Mingyu has on him. It's a weak pull, just strong enough to break the locked fingers that grip at the back of his shirt. Those hands move, Mingyu's hands, away with a tremble that's not in fright but sadness.

Sharp eyes, the ones that drilled themselves into his flesh and stared right into his soul, are too sad, or maybe it's not sadness but exhaustion rather. Wonwoo has that expression a lot, he's tired and Mingyu can see that without issue. Not tired in a sense that a simple nap could cure him, no, it's a type or tiredness that sets itself deep in bones, hidden under muscle and thin layers of skin cells. A sickness that enters the blood stream and rots out veins, the type of tiredness that kills people without taking their breath.

They sit there, in that silence and white noise, for what seems like forever. The laundromat exists outside reality to them, it floats through the space that Wonwoo reminds him and the lights outside are just stars and comets rushing by. They're alone, in a place so distant from the world outside, and Mingyu really wants to hold Wonwoo's hand.

He doesn't know where to go from here, from their spot on the floor or the rut they've dug themselves into. He wants to speak, to mumble something to help, but his mouth is dry and his jaw is clamped shut with bolts in the bone. Wonwoo has already dropped his head back down, eyes averted to stare at his lap and trembling fingers. Mingyu stares at the elder with a wavering gaze, it shifts around his body and the soft raise of his shoulders with each breath.

Shuttering breaths that even out until his shoulders sag down and rest at their lowest point.

Mingyu feels himself slump as well, his own emotions have faded out and left him with guilt ridden pains throughout his body and a gnawing at his mind to just speak or something. He opens his mouth,  trying to force words out to help, but what comes out isn't what he'd meant to say.
"Is that why you live with your grandmother?"

Idiot...

Surprisingly, Wonwoo responds with a gruff tone.
"She's not my grandmother, not by blood."