Fated Love [BL]

Chapter 17: Tectonic Shift

Part 01: The Nirvana Team

Although physically exhausted from everything that happened earlier in the day, Aiden wasn't able to fall asleep, his mind preoccupied with a number of things, which was triggered by his unexpected encounter with AJ and JJ. For some reason, their relationship seemed to have had an impact on Aiden as he began to start questioning things he hasn't questioned before – mainly his existing relationship with Min.

Aiden wasn't particularly sure what Min's true motives and intentions are, since he was having trouble reading his body language and expressions – a first since he's usually able to easily read other people. Although Min did confess after the welcome party, there was doubt in Aiden's mind about the legitimacy and the sincerity of the confession, since they've only known each other barely even a month, and it also suddenly came out of the blue.

There was even confusion in Aiden's mind since he doesn't know what there was to like about him, given that he somewhat made Min's first few weeks rougher than the other students. He was also aware that although he had a lot of fans, it was only because of his looks and his mysterious personality that people see in him, not his actual self that members of the student council are privy to – ironically, his current personality isn't even his true self to begin with.

While Aiden's aware that he can be extremely crude, boring, witty, sarcastic, straightforward, serious, and a chronic workaholic, it was nowhere close in comparison to Monica's personality - at least what she tends to project towards the International students – which are not exactly the kind of personality someone would actually fall in love with. Interestingly, Aiden wasn't the kind of person that can be considered an expert when it comes to socializing, since that was something that he doesn't actually do outside of his official capacity sa Student Council President, more so in regard to questions about love – areas in which he wasn't particularly good at – a direct consequence of the incident, and the lingering after-effects of his closely guarded childhood under the Labrador Family.

Aiden struggled to get a full grasp of his somewhat complicated relationship with Min, which was built on successive embarrassing and awkward situations, and started in a bitter-sweet and cold encounter. While he wanted to directly ask Min about his intentions and motives, he was hesitant to do so since he might send the wrong signal and further escalate the cheesy advances that Min has been making on him – a worst case scenario that he didn't want to happen since he had no effective countermeasures against it.

There was also a brief moment that Aiden seriously considered asking Mingyu for advice, since he sees him as an expert on the matter and holds his socializing skills in high regard – a fact that he keeps a secret. Though he considered it, he quickly scrapped the idea when he realized that it might be something that Mingyu could use against him in the foreseeable future – blithely unaware that Mingyu's a part of a group that has been actively working in the shadows to bring him and Min closer together, supported by a Cadet-Captain, Min's Best Friend, and his own Student Council Chief of Staff, and Public Relations Officer.

The encounter with AJ and JJ not only forced Aiden to question the things around him, but it also had a small impact in his subconscious mind, albeit something that he was not aware of. When he started questioning his relationship with Min, the seal that his mind forced on his subconscious as a result of the trauma from the incident momentarily weakened, causing some microscopic cracks to appear on the impregnable walls he built around his old self in the form of Yukiya Aiden Kurosawa Labrador.

The cracks on the wall he surrounded his old self, which he had considered long dead for almost a decade, breathed a small flicker of life into it, incrementally bringing it slowly back to life. Although the events that had transpired made positive impacts on Aiden's subconsciousness which had remained dormant since he lost his mother and younger brother, it was still too small of a change to completely destroy the wall he surrounded his old self with and break the seal that would unlock his lost memories.