nightfall || minsung

Chapter 3

"Get started," Mr. Banner said. I'd totally forgotten to be listening. I tapped into my classmates' thoughts — the phases of mitosis. I knew enough to get by.

I looked at Minho — he was already staring at me. Our eyes got stuck.

"Do you want to go f-first or what?" he asked. Was he nervous? Or did he have a stutter?

"You can go first." It was hard to get the last word out. I didn't need air to live, but I needed it to speak. I couldn't refuse to talk to him for the rest of the project — I didn't want to anyway. He'd said twenty-three words to me in all. It wasn't enough.

Minho turned his attention to the microscope. While he was occupied, I leaned away and sucked in a breath. God, he smelled perfect. Flames licked up my throat. My hands fisted.

"Prophase," Minho said quietly.

I was grasping at any distraction, anything to take my mind off his blood. "Do you mind if I look?"

He waved his hand stiffly. I peeked through the eyepiece.

"Prophase," I parroted.

"Don't ever doubt me again." His tone was grave, face expressionless. A joke, I think. I laughed an ugly sound and didn't let the air back in. I turned to the microscope again.

"Anaphase," I said, writing it down.

He cleared his throat. "May I?"

I pushed the microscope his way.

He looked through the eyepiece and paused. Then he stuck his hand out in my direction. I realized he wanted the next slide, and I handed it to him.

"Interphase." He passed the microscope to me before I could ask. I pretended to look — knowing he would be right — and wrote the answer down.

We finished before time was up. I looked at Minho and didn't think to look away. Pretty nose, pudgy nose. What rhymed with nose? Hmm.

I was still staring at him when he turned and met my eyes.

His eyebrows pulled together, creasing his forehead. "Did you get contacts?"

I flinched hard. "No." It was a mistake. I should have remembered my eyes were black last he saw me. Now they were gold — I had hunted just last night. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was silent for a moment. I prayed to God he would forget about it, about everything. A sudden case of amnesia would be great right now. Make it two — then maybe I could let go of this idiotic fascination.

"Hey... buddy," Minho said abruptly. "Why were you acting so weird last week?"

I evened out my tone, breathing through my teeth. "Was I acting weird?"

"Yeah, you were."

"I barely remember what happened last week." I smiled innocently. "Were you thinking about me?"

He wheezed. "No." Something happy blew up in my chest.

"If I was acting weird, then it was because of familial" — how could I put it? — "er, matters and whatnot, so I'm sorry if I gave you too much to think about for the last days."

"Who the hell says 'whatnot' anymore?"

I started shaking faintly — it happened when I was nervous. "Don't attack me like that, we were just talking!"

He smiled. I memorized the way his eyes narrowed, how the corners of his mouth curled.

Mr. Banner suddenly appeared at our desk, startling me.