IV
BLACK HOLE
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PARANOIA CONTROLLED MIN'S STRINGS.
As the days passed in a deceiving state of normalcy, she became more uneasy. A puppet being controlled by the master even from a distance. She stopped going to the studio late at night and avoided quiet areas. The fear was like a worn jacket, a constant weight burdening her shoulders.
Even though nearly a week had elapsed without trouble, Min knew she had poked a sleeping bear. A wicked wind howled overhead, rustling in the treetops on the side of the paved path that would guide her back to her apartment from Judes, the dance center.
Every shadow in her peripheral looked too human. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. She pulled her father's leather jacket closer, attempting to brush off the paranoia and failing miserably.
Despite the soreness pestering the arches of her feet, she did not dare stop at one of the benches. Logically, it wasn't likely that Yeosang and Juyeon would find her tucked away in a random corner on campus, but the risk was not one she wanted to take.
The hunt was slow, but that did not mean there were not wolves at her heels.
The thought stung and she hurriedly pulled out her phone and dialed Jisoo's number.
Her voice, thick with sleep, answered after a few rings. "Hey. What's up?"
"Hey. Sorry, did I wake you up?"
The phone went silent for a moment before hurried rustling sounded on Jisoo's end. "Shit. What time is it?"
Min glanced at her watch, an old tarnished trinket that her dad gave her a while ago. It was a miracle it still worked. "Uh, like two something."
"Fuck! Fuck!" Jisoo whispered swears in the background. Min imagined her rushing out of bed and into the bathroom, tossing her makeup bag on the counter.
It wouldn't be worth the rush anyway. Jisoo lived thirty minutes away from Strider Hall and her humanities course was already well underway.
"Skipping class again?" Min asked, tightening her grip on her bag.
She had just got out of Madame Dufort's clutches herself despite wanting to skip out. No matter how much she tried to focus, her mind and body were out of sync the entire session.
"Party at G.I. last night. I got carried away," Jisoo explained, voice a resigned hum. The sound of it nearly made Min trip over her own feet. It had barely been a week since a girl had fallen from the roof and already, the fraternity had returned to its status as NHU's party central. "Would've invited you but I know how you feel about parties. Especially after...you know."
"Right," she rasped dryly.
The reminder left an acrid taste on her tongue that she'd rather not think about. It was pointless though. Once Jisoo had her mind set on something, there was no distracting her until she said whatever she wanted to say.
She paused for a long moment. "I'm sorry for ditching you that night by the way."
Min sighed, taking a seat at the bus stop. "It's fine. I knew what I was getting into the moment I agreed to come with you."
"You're a good friend, Min." Jisoo's tone was nice enough but the guilt had seeped through and made her voice strained. "Look, I'll make it up to you. Meet me at Dailee's? I'll treat you to a coffee."
Min thought for only a moment before she had her answer. The idea of being alone in her cramped apartment only filled her with anxiety.
"Sure. How could I say no to free stuff?" she snorted just as the city bus pulled up. She boarded, flashed her student ID at the grumpy looking driver, and took an empty seat somewhere in the middle.
"That's what I thought."Jisoo laughed in her ear as the bus gave a rumble and took off down a brick street, away from campus and into the heart of the city.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. See you in a bit."
The call dropped and Min looked out of the window, watching students walk along Wilson Drive. The bus drove past the Gamma Iota house and the world seemed to slow as her eyes latched on the building. The lawn was a mess from the night before, cups and debris scattered across the grass. The red front door hung open, a familiar scowling face emerging from the shadow.
Yeosang chose that moment to look up, dark gaze of obsidian flashing with realization, like lightning even through the glass. Min snatched her eyes away as the bus passed him, shoving her headphones over her ears with shaky hands.
She swallowed thickly and leaned her head against the glass, allowing the rhythmic thrum of the drive to calm her.
It failed.
Coffee with Jisoo had failed too the moment the party she wanted so desperately to forget invaded their conversation yet again.
Dailee's was a quiet coffee shop despite its location in the city, a five minute drive from campus. The humble store smelled faintly of vanilla and coffee. There were students sitting at the tables with computers and textbooks open. The owners there were generous with the student discounts and made a point to host events like open mics, trivia, or karaoke every weekend.
It had become a comforting space for Min and other scholarship students to wind down since most of the wealthy at NHU wouldn't bother with a place so low profile. At the moment though, it felt suffocating.
The sunlight creeping through the windows lit up a curious gleam in Jisoo's eyes as she sipped at her strawberry smoothie.
"So..." she smiled mischievously around the straw. "I heard you danced with Juyeon. How was that?"
Min tried to fake a smile but it felt more like a grimace. "Yeah, I did. It was okay."
"Okay? Just okay?" Jisoo shook her head incredulously. "He's good-looking. Kind. Smart too. I'll be real, I don't see how it could be just okay. He was at the party last night too and everyone tried to dance with him. He's untouchable."
Jisoo had grown up wealthy in an environment where everyone fussed endlessly over things like social status. Of course she didn't get it, the idea that someone would want nothing to do with Juyeon, NHU's unofficial reigning god.
He was not as genuine as people thought but Min knew better. He just hid his skeletons well. Behind a close-lipped smile and Versace silks that draped him like an immortal descending to Earth.
Min shrugged, taking a slow sip of her coffee to hide her disturbed expression. "Your sister seems to think otherwise. Doesn't look like she likes him very much."
Jisoo stirred her smoothie at the mention of her sister, lips forming a pout. "Jennie's just overprotective. She doesn't like most people."
"I don't know. I think she's good at feeling people out. Like how she predicted Dr. Hox was kind of creepy long before anyone knew of his affair with Somin."
"Yeah, true sometimes," Jisoo conceded. "But she's also an overprotective sister and friend. Especially ever since mom first got her diagnosis. That part of her never went away. She likes to look out for everybody even if they don't need it."
Min averted her eyes to the city streets outside of the window. It was obvious Jisoo was not going to allow Jennie or Minni to blemish the perfect picture she had painted of Juyeon in her mind. Talking about him only reminded Minni of the ground seconds away from collapsing under her feet.
So she changed the subject all too eagerly. "Fair, I guess. Speaking of the party, what happened with you and Lucas?"
Min knew very little about Lucas other than the fact that he was an exchange student from Brazil and Jisoo's latest boyfriend. The wealthy heiress fell in and out of love at the drop of a hat. Her fickle heart got her into trouble more often than not, but Lucas seemed decent enough.
Jisoo visibly deflated at the question, resting her chin in her palm. Her eyelashes fluttered, lips slowly forming a scowl.
"It was going good until some dickhead decided to pick a fight with him. Ruined his night. It just...it sucks. He's a good guy y'know. It just kinda feels like every time something good happens something comes along to ruin it."
"Have you two talked since?"
"On and off but it's not the same. Just one word answers and he says he's too busy to meet in person right now. You know how it is."
Min did not know but she nodded anyway to be polite. Her relationship experience was limited to a few short flings in high school solely for the sake of fitting in and losing her virginity like everyone else around her had. Even so, she knew it did not make sense for Lucas to suddenly ignore the girl he was enamored with as though she were a passing breeze.
Min frowned thoughtfully. "Really? All that just because someone fought with him?"
Jisoo shrugged noncommittally but the sudden downturn to her lips suggested there was more to the story. There was no point trying to pry it from her. Kevin and Jisoo routinely closed parts of themselves off to her. Despite knowing them for months, it didn't feel like she knew much about her friends at all outside of the basics.
Min gave her a placating smile. "It's not your fault. He's probably just prideful or embarrassed or something. I'm sure he'll come around."
"Maybe. Can I be honest for a second though? I'm kind of jealous of you. You always seem to have your shit together."
Min blushed a little at the compliment, knowing that the little universe she built for herself at Newhurst was on the verge of falling apart at the seams. "Not really."
"Yes really. You're all studious, organized, and serious. I'm surprised you're not writing in that journal of yours right now.
That made Min laugh a little. "I misplaced it. My room's messy and I haven't had time to look for it. So much for being organized, huh?"
Jisoo's red lips formed a smile. "You should see mine then."
There was a small lull in the conversation and the sadness from before had returned to Jisoo's eyes. Min knew she was thinking of Lucas again. He was probably the same reason for her deciding to get drunk at a trashy fraternity on a weekday.
"Say, what are you doing later? We can go get our nails done or something," Jisoo offered hopefully. Min hated to say no, but she had plans.
"I want to but I have game night with Kevin tonight. He promised to bring back the newest StarForce disc. You can join us if you want."
Jisoo forced a laugh before standing up. "Ha, not my thing. Next time then."
···✧···
KEVIN MOON WAS A LIAR.
He was a scared boy that learned to wield his smile as an impenetrable shield of lip and teeth. Min had not spent all that time in the Cape surrounded by the damned and prideful with nothing to show for it. She knew how to see through fake smiles better than most.
It helped that the scrapes on his palm, the shift of his weight to one foot to angle his arm away from her, made his lie that much more obvious.
"Whoa," she said shakily, grip on his wrist tightening. His grin faltered. "What the hell happened?"
The sky had gone dark and starless by the time he showed up. He had just slammed the door to the apartment empty-handed, clothes and hair sodden with rain. Worry stabbed at her gut.
His lip was split and his eyes were cloudy.
He tore out of her grasp. "Nothing happened Minni. I fell."
The venom in his tone stunned her. She watched his back blankly as he stormed further inside, shaking his feet out of stained sneakers.
She followed him into the cramped kitchen, the air still warm from her earlier dinner. "Kev, please. Just talk to me. Are you okay? Really?"
He ignored her for a long while in favor of digging through the fridge. Just when she thought he would not respond, he tossed the plastic tub of leftovers she left for him onto the counter and looked up.
His face was haggard, eyes tinged red and swimming with sorrow. A broken boy trying to hide the fractures in his porcelain skin. His lips parted for a moment and he winced, the scratch at the corner of his mouth pulled thin.
He averted his gaze, covering the tension with a wheezy laugh. "I'm fine."
"Fine? You're bleeding! You don't have to lie to me."
He shook his head, voice almost a whisper. "God, you just don't get it. You're not from here."
She hated those words. Everyone in Newhurst knew Min was an outsider and they seemed set on making sure that she knew it too.
She frowned, cheeks heating with humiliation. "Then why can't you just explain it to me?"
His brows dropped, face going sour. He was quiet for a long moment, as if trying to make sense of the storm in his head. Trying to find a way to explain the obvious to the clueless.
He met her eyes again and the intensity nailed her to the cool, checkered tile under her socks.
"Don't you get it? I'm trying to protect you. If you knew, if you said anything, they'd do anything to silence you..."
His mouth clamped shut suddenly and his gaze wandered, eyes longingly stuck on his bedroom door.
"Who's they?" she questioned before he could rush off, taking a step closer. It was useless. Even though Kevin tended to be too blunt, even he would never answer such a direct question. "I can protect myself. Isn't it easier just to tell me–"
"–I said no, Min!" He slammed the refrigerator shut and the room shook with the force of it.
Despite herself, she flinched and her heart rate spiked.
Kevin did not know much about Minni and even less about her past. But he was aware that she had a strange aversion to yelling. He knew conflict made her uneasy. If nothing else, he knew better.
His brown eyes softened, voice growing quiet in a wordless apology. "It's better for you not to know. Don't ask me again. Please."
This time, when he snatched up the leftovers and fled to his room, she let him. His door closed and the heavy silence settled.
Emotions worked in a strange way when it came to Minni. They flowed and ebbed in waves. First came the shock, then anger, and at last, by the time the sadness hit, she felt like she was in a shipwreck, a captain going down with her ship. Slowly sinking into numbness.
She had always been sensitive to the smallest of things and she hated herself for it.
"It's the little things," her mom used to say, "that make or break a person. A relationship. A family."
Some part of her wanted to blame her parents for her inability to suppress emotion. She loved them but she never quite forgave them for the months leading up to the divorce where instead of exchanging harsh words, they exchanged blows. She spent many nights behind closed doors covering her sister Dasom's ears and picking up what was left of the porcelain from the china cabinet.
The little things.
She breathed a sigh, her mind expanding and sprawling with the vicious appetite of a black hole. It always took her back to the trailer park, to dog days and muffled yelling over the rattle of the air conditioner.
She rushed into the cozy room she called her own and snatched up her ballet bag from the closet floor. She stuffed it full of her typical ballet gear and a change of clothes just in case the rain got any heavier before she could convince herself to make her way back.
In a hurry, she threw the bag over her shoulders and gave up the warmth of the apartment for dark skies. Like Kevin, she fled too, to the only thing that could warm her body from the eternal winter raging in her mind.
Dance.