lessons in love | minsung

43

It had been a few days since Minho received the ominous text message. Much to his surprise, nothing out of the ordinary happened, even though he deftly ifnored the warning given to him by the mysterious Malaysian number.

He even managed to relax a little over the past few days, focusing on school – or trying to – and hanging out with his friends. Not that he deemed himself safe; he knew someone wanted him gone and he always kept his guard up. But it had faded to the background a little, and he found it in him to manage a few somewhat normal days.

Right now he was at school, making his way through the hallways as he headed to his next class. It was Thursday, pretty late in the afternoon already. There was one hour left until he was free. Sadly, his final class was calculus, a subject he thoroughly despised.

The crowd of students was quite dense and it happened more than once that people bumped against his shoulders on both sides. Minho hardly minded, since he was pretty much used to it. But one particularly harsh push against his right arm shook him from his thoughts, and he blinked as he glanced up to find the culprit.

"Well, if it isn't Lee Minho," a guy he vaguely recognized from his physics class sneered. "Good to see you still alive, how do you manage?"

People around him drew to a halt, and a few dozen pairs of eyes were solely on him. Minho looked around, heaving out a sigh.

"What do you want?" he asked dryly. "Of course I'm still alive, why wouldn't I be?"

"You're fucking around with Han," the guy explained tauntingly. "That's bound to get you killed at some point."

Whispers started to resonate through the crowd, and Minho deciphered a few words such as cursed and dead and his name being repeated more than once.

"And your point is?" Minho replied, looking the guy dead in the eyes. "Who I hang out with is none of your business. I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions."

"So you basically have a death wish." The male opposite of him raised his voice, and announced to everyone who listened, "Look, Lee Minho is suicidal!"

Several students laughed, and Minho felt his throat constricting. He was struggling to breathe with all eyes on him. But the guy wasn't done yet.

"Maybe you should just kill yourself before Han does it," he added, feigning sympathy. A nasty smirk grew on his lips as he looked at Minho. "Or even better, maybe we should kill Han so no one else has to die. What about it, hm?"

While Minho had been frozen on the spot before, he suddenly jumped to life again upon those words. Anger surged through him as if fired by a shotgun as he leapt forward, his fingers gripping onto the guy's collar tightly.

"Don't you fucking dare," he growled lowly, his heart pounding maniacally as he was livid with sudden anger.

He saw red, he was on the verge of punching the living shit out of the guy who dared to threaten Jisung. But then a small hand landed on his shoulder and Minho jumped in surprise, letting go of the fabric he clutched so tightly.

"Hyung, don't," a deep voice called from behind, and the older turned around to find Felix standing there.

"Felix," Minho greeted curtly.

Softly, Felix took Minho's hand, ready to drag him away from the scene before it could escalate. But not before sending a warning look in the guy's direction.

"Don't fuel a fire you can't extinguish."

Then the lavender-haired boy tugged on Minho's arm and he followed obediently, too dazed by the red hot anger that nearly consumed him whole.