Mingyu Shorts

Hide And Seek

At night, when she is left lying alone in her bed, the sheets askew, her loud mind being lulled by the sound of the bustling traffic below, the moon high in the sky reflecting brilliant and full, she often thinks of the night she first got high with him. She was never one to smoke weed or do drugs of any sort, it just wasn't her. However, that night she found herself sitting next to Mingyu on the floor of his apartment's living room. Their backs pressed up against the couch as she watched him skillfully roll the blunt.

"You know," she said, before clearing her throat, "I've never done something like this before."

Mingyu chuckled quietly, bringing the paper to his mouth and licking it, before sealing it off and laying it on the coffee table in front of them, "Wow, that is truly a fact that baffles me."

His response made her scoff lightly and he rolled his eyes. The silence settled again as he got up and went on the hunt for a lighter. He soon returned and plopped back down beside her, crossing his legs. When he grabbed the blunt off the table and turned to his friend, making her heart beat a little faster in her chest.

For Mingyu, it was easy to see she was nervous. Her posture got a little straighter and she began to fidget with her fingers. If anyone asked him, he'd swear that if they listened hard enough they'd be able to hear her heart beating wildly in her chest.

"Before you smoke any of this, you need to calm down mkay?'

She nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to regain composure. Nothing was going to go wrong, she told herself, everything would be fine because she was with her best friend.

An hour and two blunts later, they had moved the coffee table and were splayed out on the floor, giggling at nothing. The traffic below was loud and the only light source came from the bright and full moon through an open window. When their giggling died down and they were blanketed by comfortable silence Mingyu spoke.

"I think I like you."

His sentence hung in the air, each syllable twisting and winding through the air into her ears and swirling around her brain. It was hard to understand what he said, but regardless she got it eventually.

"Why did you say it like it was a bad thing?"

"Because I'm not supposed to like girls like you." His answer was quick, but his voice was shaky.

"Like me," she repeated to herself, but he thought she was asking for clarification.

"Weird girls, that make dumb puns and dance around their house in only their underwear despite the fact that they are-" Mingyu's voice trailed off and when his slowly spoken words registered in her lethargic brain, she finished the sentence for him.

"Despite the fact that they are fat, right?" It was a question, but she didn't need his answer. She knew what he meant as soon as he said it and if she wouldn't have been high as a kite, her heart would have been shattered.

They let the silence stretch on until finally...

"I'm not supposed to like guys like you either."

Mingyu turned his head to look at her, but she just continued staring at the ceiling, "You're an asshole, that plays sports and is popular. We even hide our friendship at school because you're so afraid and I shouldn't like boys that are afraid of everyone."

"But aren't you afraid of everyone too?" he asks. Anyone who heard him speak could tell that he was on the verge of tears.

"I'm never afraid enough to change how I dress or hide the people that I talk to. I'm never scared enough to stop acting how I would normally act because as much as I care about everyone and their opinions, at some point I decided that I would have to say 'fuck it' and live the best way I can. Cause I'm sad Mingyu," she doesn't know when she started crying but suddenly the tears were rolling down her face, "I'm sad and tired. I just wanna be happy and if liking you makes me happy then that is what I'm going to do and I'm not going to hide it anymore."

Mingyu has never cried in front of anyone other than his mother when his father left them, but there he was laying on the floor next to his secret best friend, crying his eyes out and she didn't look at him even once.

"I'll stop hiding it too," he choked out.

But that was a lie, just like most of the things he would come to tell her. Mingyu lived his life like a constant game of hide-and-seek. You could either join the game or leave his life and despite her being a wonderful team sport, she couldn't be left playing forever.