After Dark 》Minsung

Final 》Where Paradise Grows

What else could he do?

Beside look to Felix leaning against the closed door, for the upturn of his lip, the subtle thumbs up to encourage him. Beside to look back to the concerned eyes of his two friends with his hardened resolve, and prepare for the worst to come from their lips.

If Jisung could love him as much as he did while knowing about the funky wunky episodic ataxia and handling Minho as delicately as Minho did when the camboy experienced his own agoraphobia attacks, then they could too, damn it!

What else was there left to do? Besides to tell everything to the two curious eyes and hope their expressions didn't contort with discomfort. To explain everything to them; From the beginning of when it started and the memories his Mom used to recount to him when he asked in lieu of his own vacant memory, the day at the park when he fell off the swing and smacked his head on the swing seat in the middle of his first attack, not understanding what was happening but knowing that there was a comfort where his Mom was; To why it started, how it started, what it did, why it did what it did, what it meant; The fears that the ticking time bomb in his head naturally slotted away at, reminding him whenever he looked to a clock, he was constantly running late, he was constantly running out of time, and no matter how fast he ran, eventually he would never be able to see his reflection in the stopwatch again.

What else was there left to say? While they fell into a natural silence when Minho finished off, the jittering of his hands unstoppable in the midst of his thoughts becoming worse. His eyes falling to avoid the eyes staring him down. Second by second, ticking down. What if they really did hate him? What if they thought he was scum, a complete degenerate? What if they thought that he was incurable, something that would infect them with his condition? What if they thought he was...?

What if they left him? What if he lost his friends because of his ataxia too? Then what?

He'd still have the most important people in his life. He'd still have Felix, his family. He'd still have his parents, his safety. He'd still have Jisung, his love.

A hand landed on Minho's shoulder.

"Minho."

Clenching his hands together, he glanced back from his hands, to Changbin sat on the couch beside him. The grip kept on him squeezing down as the older leaned in.

"Do you know how many pranks we could've pulled together?"

Minho just looked at him. In... confusion. In so much confusion.

That confusion only growing more when Changbin leaned farther into him, hissing a regret to his open hand he displayed in front of Minho, "The pick-up lines we could've made?"

Huh.

Minho slumped, staring back to both of them with a complete blankness in his head.

And I thought Jisung's reaction was out of the ordinary.

He tried to start up in protest to them, "Well, I mean—"

"Why didn't you tell us sooner? We could've helped you?" Chan interrupted him with his own type of hopeless shrug. Lodged between being too serious, not serious enough, and accusatory to him while understanding, not hurt, but hurt enough for Minho to notice the maintained control of his eyes that wanted to weaken up from the stare he kept. An expression that reminded Minho of his own parents, honestly. Equal parts frustrated and worried on his behalf. Equal parts caring for him, and wishing to push him off the ledge of a building while Chan set his drumsticks down in the drumstick bag he kept to the side of his set, "We could've been more aware of it instead of making you run up seven flights of stairs to Changbin's old apartment everyday, no wonder you were always last and had to do dish duty."