"Why is Chan calling?" I groaned, pulling into Minho's long and winding driveway after the gate opened. "We just got back from that godawful trip."
Minho picked up the phone and put it on speaker, "Yeah, what's up?"
"Are you and Han back from that business trip yet?" Chan asked him, his tone filled with impatience and hostility. Yikes.
"We're quite literally pulling into the driveway right now, do you mind?" Minho asked.
"No, not at all. I have to talk to Han."
My face twisted in confusion and Minho cringed, "Why didn't you call him then?"
"I don't want to talk to him until I have to," Chan responded. I mouthed the words "Fuck him" to Minho and he grinned. "Hello? Fuck it, I'm just gonna come over."
"Sorry," Minho cleared his throat. "Han, Chan wants to talk to you."
"Yeah," I rolled my eyes.
"Just expect me in fifteen minutes, alright?" Chan said, then hanging up the phone.
I grimaced at Minho, "You should put a leash on him. He's just gonna come over here and blow smoke up my ass about the whole stalker thing. He's so convinced it's me, it's hilarious."
Minho unbuckled his seatbelt when I parked the car and he sighed, "I don't know why he's so insistent that it's you. It's not like he has proof, he's just going off a hunch. He's been weird about you since the beginning, I think he's just jealous that I spend so much time with you."
"Did you hear that he got kicked out of the group over it while we were gone?" I asked him.
"He took that theory of his to them? Dumbass.." Minho mumbled.
"I don't know what he expected," I shrugged.
"Yeah, me either," Minho huffed. "Let's get our shit inside before he gets here."
"Gotcha," I said to him before gathering my things and opening the trunk. I looked up and noticed that my tire pressure was low, "Hey, I need to fix this."
Minho looked over, "No, I've got it. Just worry about our stuff."
"It's okay, I can do it," I insisted.
Minho gave me a cold stare, "I've got it."
Weird.
"Okay, Mr. Grumpy Pants," I chuckled, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind me.
"Sorry, this Chan thing is getting on my nerves," Minho said as he got out of the passenger side. "I don't like that he's so accusatory. I wish I could just tell him that we're together but he'd flip his shit."
"Has he ever been like this with anyone else you've dated?" I asked him as I began pulling things out of the trunk and setting them down on the pavement.
"No, but yet again, I've never really dated anyone that seriously before," Minho then shook his head. "Fuck, he doesn't even know we're together. That just reminds me even more of how ridiculous he's being. I've never seen him like this before."
"Like you said, it's probably just jealousy. I refuse to overthink it until I know it matters," I said. I thought to myself for a moment when throwing Minho and I's shared toiletry bag over my shoulder and decided to ask, "Why is he so invested in you?"
Minho stopped what he was going with the tire pump and set it down, then leaning against my car, "It's not a story that I have enough time to share before he gets here but I can simplify it. I haven't wanted to have this conversation with you yet because it's so convoluted but I'll try to make it quick. Chan has viewed me like his little brother since day one. He took me under his wing and protected me like I was his own. He knows everything about me except for my inner dialogue, quite frankly. Lately, though, he hasn't known me. It's driven him nuts that I won't let him in anymore. He looks for every vulnerable place I'm in and tries to fix it for me. He tries to run my life and the more I push back, the harder he tries. The situation we're in now is unlike any other him and I have ever been in and there's a lot of things I've kept from him. He has missing context and he's filling the gaps with whatever his mind is telling him. I get that there's a small possibility I could be completely stupid and that he's right but he doesn't seem to understand that I don't care. I literally don't. You could be a serial killer and I'd still stay with you but he doesn't even know we're together in the first place. He's missing a lot of information and that's not even the biggest part. I made the mistake of portraying you to be someone you're not to him so he'd leave me to my own devices but it clearly backfired because now he's more suspicious than ever. It makes sense to me why he's so invested but I know it probably doesn't make much sense to anyone else. We have a weird bond. He was my ride or die before I met you I think he knows that how I feel about him has changed. I think he's under the impression that you've manipulated me to be against him but that's not the case. I've picked up on how he felt about you since day one, this all seems unprecedented but it's not. Chan's not stupid either. I want to tell him that we're together and that he needs to hop off your dick but I know he'd do something with that and hold it against you. He's not above that. Him and I have a lot more in common in terms of trauma than you're aware of and that contributes to how deep the weird bond is. I can't explain it well, but there."
"So, you're telling me that you actively added gasoline to this already burning heap of bullshit? Nice job," I rolled my eyes at him, grabbing onto one of the suitcases and making the trek to the front door. I called out back to him, "That was really smart of you, Minho!"
"Thanks!" Minho called after me.
When I made it to the front door, I heard the sound of an engine pulling up the driveway and I rolled my eyes once more. I entered in the code to Minho's front door and dragged the things I had in my hand inside before spinning on my heel to walk back outside. I watched in the doorway for a moment as Chan hurriedly parked his car and hopped out, running up to Minho with a look on his face that screamed 'I'm about to drop some shit on on you.'
What the fuck is this?
Almost immediately, I could tell without even being able to hear them that they were arguing. I walked over to them calmly and interrupted them, "Whats going on?"
Chan pointed to the bruise on Minho's cheek from his father's slap, "What the fuck is that? Did you do that?"
"Excuse me?" I guffawed at him. "Did you seriously just ask me that?"
"I told you, Han didn't do this!" Minho exclaimed. "I'm clumsy, you know this."
Yeah, it's pretty cute. I don't mind cleaning up your messes.
"You sound like an abused spouse lying to the cops right now," Chan crossed his arms. "What the fuck happened?"
Minho sighed impatiently and tapped his foot on the ground, "I can't tell you that, Chris. I need you to give me some space."
"Tell me what happened or I'm going to blame it on Han regardless," Chan said to him sternly.
I hate him, I really do. I don't want to but I don't think I have much of a choice anymore.
"Why am I getting thrown under the bus?" I asked.
"Shut up," Chan spat at me.
"You look like you bite," I mumbled under my breath.
"I'll tell you where we were but you need to lay the fuck off Han. I'm tired of the way you treat him, seriously. He's not stalking me and we're not in love with each other either, we're best friends," Minho insisted to him.
"What, am I not your best friend anymore?"
Chan, are you five? You're certainly acting like it.
"This isn't third grade, I can have more than one best friend," Minho rolled his eyes. "Do you want to know or not, man?"
"This better be good," Chan huffed.
"My dad hit me up and invited me to his wedding and Han came for moral support," Minho explained. "When I found out that he hadn't told his new "family" about me, I flipped my shit and ruined it. We got in a fight and he hit me and then I hit him back."
Oh, you hit him back?
"You finally hit your dad back? Congratulations!" Chan exclaimed, giving him a high five.
You've got to be fucking kidding me right now.
I walked away from the two of them and began unloading the rest of our things from the trip out of the car and slammed the doors after doing so to make a point. I made an effort to carry the rest of our things all at once in a dumb attempt to show my strength, but I could tell when I walked past them that they were paying no mind to me. I dropped our things off in the entrance of the house and slammed his front door behind me too, this time out of pure anger as opposed to standoffishness.
Kicking my shoes off, I grabbed my satchel and my suitcase from the floor and carried them up to our bedroom. I threw my suitcase down on the floor haphazardly and threw my satchel on his bed. I headed to our bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face from the sink in an attempt to clear my thoughts but it was no use.
Something is wrong with me. Something is seriously wrong with me and I can't fucking fix it.
I walked out of the bathroom and untucked the comforter from the bed. I got underneath the covers with just my face above the blanket and stared up at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes before I heard a knock on the door and the creaking of its' opening.
"Are you okay?" Minho asked me.
"Go away."
"Han-,"
"I'm very annoyed with you right now, Min. I need some time to myself to recollect my thoughts so I don't say something mean to you that I might regret," I said to him. "That situation was extremely uncomfortable and could've been avoided had you not portrayed me a certain way."
"Can I apologize, at the very least?" Minho asked. "I'll give you space if you want but I want to tell you that I'm sorry before I go."
"Thank you, I appreciate that," I said. "I'm probably just over-reacting but hearing that stuff made me feel bad. I know you told me to trust you and I do. I know you didn't mean any of it but I have to question how he'll take all of this. You're throwing him a bunch of mixed signals and we don't know how he's going to interpret it or what delusions those mixed signals could enable. We're playing with fire."
"Don't minimize your feelings. I'd probably be upset if I had to watch you talk about me like that to someone too," Minho shrugged. "I don't feel right about any of this. It keeps me up at night. I know we're playing with fire and everyone's going to get burned. Nobody's coming out of this unscathed and it terrifies me. I'm not infallible, I feel everything. I know you do too and that's one of the most special things we have in common."
"You're hiding something. What is it?" I asked him sternly. "You're rambling and trying to change the pace of the conversation. What'd you guys talk about?"
Minho walked over and sat down on the bed, "Chan's off his meds, dude. I think he might be on something, too. It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened. I can tell he's unstable."
I sat up and leaned my back against the headboard, "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, I could tell by the look he had in his eye. Asking him confirmed my suspicion," Minho said. "I don't know what to do. He really suspects that it's you. I know I fucked up by lying about you a bunch but at this point, I'm convinced he probably doesn't even remember that shit. He has a one-track mind and he told me himself that he's not going to stop trying to prove that you're my stalker until he has proof."
"He can have fun trying to find anything on me, especially considering the fact that it's not true. He's going to run himself ragged."
"The only proof he'd ever have is if he caught you in the act which I don't think would ever happen because, well, you're not my stalker. It's that simple," Minho said. "I don't think my stalker is dangerous either unlike everyone else. Unlike the stereotype they don't leave threatening messages, I don't get death threats, they've never sent me flowers like quite a few of mine in the past have done. They just watch."
"I wonder what it's like to be watched. I don't think I've ever had a stalker but if I do, they do a damn good job of hiding it."
"Would you be upset if you found out or flattered?" Minho asked me as I re-situated myself to lay with my head on the pillow.
"That's such an unrealistic scenario, why would anyone want to stalk me?" I laughed to myself whilst Minho stared straight at me.
"Let's see," Minho said, moving his position to rest half his body atop mine with his arm and leg wrapped around me and his head on my chest. "You're smart, sexy, confident and funny. You're dedicated and passionate about literally everything and it amazes me to this day. You're charming and charismatic and you command every room you're in. How the people around you feel is up to your posture and the way you hold yourself. Your offense is much better than your defense and like you said, you are incredibly impulsive, but it's extremely attractive regardless. You're able to hold yourself accountable in a way that I've never seen anyone else resemble and it makes you humble. No matter where you go or what you do in life you're always going to be grounded and there's something special in you that I've never seen in anyone else before. I'd be absolutely out of my mind to ever let you go and say you did have a stalker, I wouldn't be in any position to judge that person because I'm just as obsessed with you as they'd have to be."
My heart began racing, "That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, holy shit."
"Real shit, if you had a stalker would you press charges?" Minho asked me, causing the two of us to laugh.
"I'm in no position to be pressing charges on anyone at this point in my life," I spoke honestly. "If you find out who your stalker is, will you?"
"No, probably not. Chan underestimates how much I don't care," Minho said.
Interesting.
"Why don't you care?"
"Whoever's doing it has some deeply-rooted shit going on with them but so do I. Who am I to judge someone for having issues?"
"You're strange, Minho," I said to him.
"I love hearing you say my name. The whole 'Mr. Lee' thing was sexy for a little while but hearing my name roll of your lips is like poetry."
"Stop being so romantic, I'll have to smite you," I laughed. "Also, sexy? Seriously?"
"Yeah, it was," Minho laughed. "Something about you addressing me as superior like that knowing full-well I was going to bottom to you someday was a special kind of ironic for me."
I burst into laughter and when I snorted, I covered my face with the blanket only for Minho to try and grab it away from me. We tugged back and forth on it until I finally got it completely over my head and he plead with me, "I want to see you laugh, come on!"
"That's so gay!" I exclaimed, shaking my head back and forth.
Minho pried at the blanket, "You're so adorable!"
"I'm not trying to be adorable," I pouted at him as I moved the blanket just below my chin.
"Then why are you so good at it?" Minho asked me with that same shit-eating grin that I always wanted to slap off his face. He planted a bunch of small kisses all over my cheeks until I was a blushing mess and I wanted to hide underneath the blanket again. "See? You're so cute."
"Stop!" I exclaimed, eventually turning my body over so he couldn't kiss me anymore and my face was smushed into the pillow.
Minho tugged at my shoulder, "Come back, I miss your face."
I turned my head back to look at him, "I think you can stand to not look at my face for five seconds."
"Who said that? I certainly didn't," Minho said, pointing a finger at himself.
I rolled my eyes, "Clingy ass motherfucker."
"Says the one who follows me around the house like a puppy," Minho chuckled.
"You literally do the exact same thing to me, what point are you even trying to make here?"
Minho shrugged, "I don't know, it was the first thing that came to mind."
I laughed at his antics, "I love you so much."
"I love you too."