Ghostly Beauty - Minsung

Chapter 3

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"Jisung, we still haven't found the thing that will take you to the afterlife." Minho pondered. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think of what could he tying Jisung here.

Jisung admired Minho's hopefulness. He wanted it to replace his because he'd given it up a long time ago.

"I'm okay with staying here. Maybe I'll start to look again after you leave." Jisung sighed contently, gazing at Minho softly, the older was unaware of the eyes that flickered down to his lips and lingered there before quickly darting away.

"What do you mean? I'm not leaving you." Minho's expression changed to one of confusion.

The two had been hanging out most of the time for a few days now, and neither wanted to imagine a life without the other.

Jisung chuckled slightly, "Minho, you have your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it on me and my sob story. I'll find a way out of this place. One day, you'll have to leave me behind. You'll have to wave goodbye to this ice rink to go pursue whatever you want, but I'll always be waiting for you to come back. Whether it's here or to wherever is beyond." Jisung smiled genuinely, and maybe a little sadly, at the other, "I won't forget about you, okay?"

"But I don't want to leave you behind! I can't let you spend the rest of your...life?" Minho slightly questioned, before carrying on, "here in this dilapidated and unwanted building. You deserve to go to the afterlife."

"Thank you." Jisung decided to take it and let it go, he knew that they would gain nothing by arguing about who's more important.

"How would we even begin to look for what blocks me from the afterlife anyway?" Jisung suddenly remembered.

"Is there anything you particularly wanted to do when you were alive?"

"No...I just kind of went with the flow, you know?" Minho was starting to understand why Jisung gave up. He had nothing to go off.

"Let's just forget about it, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay." Minho nodded.

"Tell me about yourself, I don't know much." Even though they had spent so long with each other, Minho hadn't talked about himself much.

"What are your friends like?"

"My best friend is Hwang Hyunjin. He's very over dramatic," Minho laughs to himself, "but his emotions are real. He tends to build up a wall for himself, but it's really easy to break and that makes him vulnerable. He doesn't like to be criticized and sometimes cries about things like that. But he's one of the best people in my life right now, he always knows what to say, even if he says it as a joke, normally it's good advice.

Hyunjin is always in the clouds, daydreaming. His mind is always somewhere else and I think he needs someone who can bring him back down and ground him. He needs someone who can bring a sense of realism into his life because he grew up with everything being laid out in front of him, he grew up with the perfect family, the perfect looks, money, education, opportunity. He doesn't know what the real world looks like, and he needs someone who can almost show him that.

Bangchan is like my mum friend. He takes care of everyone in my friend group. He always knows what to say and when to say it. I can rely on him, I can fall back on him. But the weight he carries can get too heavy for him and even he needs someone to cry to too.

To me, Chan is like the mother I never had. He heals my inner child. That's why I try to be there for him as much as he's there for me, but I don't think I do it as well. He needs someone who he can hold in his arms while he cries, not someone who holds him. Although, of course, he needs to be held sometimes. What he really needs is someone with innocence. He's seen hell and back and he just needs someone to bring innocent joy back into his life, someone who doesn't build a wall up, someone fragile that he can look after because he knows that we can survive without him. He needs to feel needed.

Seo Changbin, he's the mood maker, always laughing and teasing me. You know the phrase the biggest smiles hide the deepest pain?" Jisung hummed in acknowledgment, "well that's not him." Minho laughed, "he's genuinely happy. And I know that. I've seen his home life. I've seen everything about him. He's told me everything, and he's genuinely happy and content with his life. He likes to work out and gain muscle to de-stress and he finds joy in all the little things. But he's too careful. He doesn't take many risks and he keeps to his comfort zone and I think he needs someone who will push him out of it. Someone who can create more excitement in his life, and also someone who can stand up for him. He can stand up for himself, don't get me wrong, but I think he needs someone who's willing to fight for him and has that willpower and protectiveness about them while also letting Changbin take them under his wing and protect them back."

"I think you ranted more about who they needed than who they were." Jisung laughed.

Minho scratched scratched his neck in embrassement, "sorry." He mumbled.

"No, it's okay." He laughed.

"Are they on the hockey team as well?"

"Yeah." The older brought his knees up to his chest and lay his cheek on his knees, staring at the younger.

Suddenly, Jisung flinched and grasped his hair.

(Flashback)
"Don't leave me behind, okay?" Jisung said, quietly, brushing a hair out of someone's face.

"I would never even dream about it." He said, ruffling the younger's hair. Jisung blushed furiously.

He thought they were just friends, but lately, he'd been feeling something more towards the boy.

He thought quietly, laying there, in the boys arms. The boy hummed a song to lull him to sleep.

"Jisung?! Are you okay?!" Minho frantically asked.

"Y-yeah..." Jisung slowly sat up. That was weird. What the hell was that? Did he have his first flashback since he died?

"I just...remembered something. I've never really done that before." He wearily said.

"Lay down and try not to think about it, okay? You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Minho wanted nothing more than to bundle the boy in his arms and whisper sweet nothings into his ear until he calmed down. But obviously, he couldn't. So he just sat there while Jisung lay next to him, looking as if he was sleeping, but he wasn't. Ghosts can't sleep.

Being a ghost must be horrible.

"I'll help you." Minho thought to himself.

"I'll fix you."