"I can do it," Minho gulped the muttered encouragement beneath his breath, hands clenching up by his sides as he bundled around the fabric of his favorite white hoodie to collect what encouragement that spilling fabric could pool into his clenching fists. Comfort against the war he was about to wage once he passed the final threshold of a battle. Staring back to the intimidating loom of the closed door in front of him. The familiar shade of painted gray in the dim light of the narrow hallway, casting the gloom of warping shadows through the carpeted floors beneath his obstinate front against what dread those silhouettes sunk into his heart. The pictures and album awards hung framed in the length of that gothic corridor, suddenly so much more drafty than any Transylvania castle which may hold the undead Lord of a vampire inside. Maybe that house did, the two parasites which leeched his sanity from his body whenever he loved to be within their presence.
Beside him, his little shithead of a younger pipsqueak brother tapped his shoulder with encouraging fists. Reluctantly, while Minho forced his trembling gaze off from the demonic iron soldier of the armored doorway bulked beneath unbreakable titanium to block him from ever truly connecting to the two beyond the trenches, Felix bumped his cheerful fists in the air. Some kind of encouragement to the obviously terrified Minho. What? Terrified? No. No, he wasn't terrified, it's not like he didn't sleep at all that previous night from his nerves, and it wasn't like he was on a phone call with Jisung five minutes ago for encouragement, no. No. He wasn't scared or anything. Totally not. Though, Felix, his earrings jostling with the silky shirt of the casino uniform, seemed to think he was petrified as he gave the attempt of encouragement, "You can do it."
"Yeah, I can do it," The totally not horrified and statued excuse of a man that Lee Minho became in front of that doorway spoke back to him with totally not rigid and not unsteady words that felt about as comfortable to him as deepthroating a bullet train. No. Not even a little. His voice didn't stumble and his voice didn't shake over itself and nO HIS VOICE DIDN'T CRACK SHUT UP. He forced a chuckle from the icky slime coating his pained throat from working properly, turning back to the opponent of the doorway again. Forgetting Felix's existence while he tried to swallow back his fear, "Worse that happens is they hate me and never want to see me again."
"Minho that is not going to happen, those two love you," Felix argued back to him, nearly punching Minho's arm to convince him of those words. As if physical assault against his already sore muscles would be considered an encouragement and not a crime.
He simply brushed the throbbing in his arm off, whispering out a soft, "Okay."
"Okay," Felix repeated.
In the quiet of the hallway, Minho turned back to Felix. Bringing his attention away from the inevitable future coming barreling toward him as they stared at one another.
His brother giving him an uncharacteristically blank stare while he waited for the older to open the door and press through on his own. The houseplant stare. Unthinking. Unmoving. Not quite the typical NPC stance as he folded his arms over his chest and quirked an eyebrow up at him. Though he looked about done with all of Minho's piling antics, five seconds away from ripping the frightening entrance of the Rat Cave wide open and confessing his older's deepest secrets to his closest friends for him so this could be over with.
Minho looked away from Felix's antsy glare turned scowl staring back to him, and huffed out again to control his building nerves, "Okay."
"Okay."
A silence stretching between them that only allowed the anticipation of the coming conversation to nibble away at his nerves. Growing smaller in the face of that door staring back to him with the judgemental eyes of a persecutor come to weigh his heart against a feather, his mind against his will to continue forward. A world so unfamiliar, so unexplored while his body shrunk to the size of a squeaky mouse scurrying against the ground. Feeling the same as he did the first night he met with Jisung but unpleasantly so, every bit of his body shivering with an anxiousness trying to comprehend what would happen once he entered that rabbithole.
Nothing filling that moment but his own hitching breath locking up in the treasure chest of his throat. Unwilling to unblock itself from the regrets it held.
Beats that passed by with the drumming of his heart, matching the rhythm of the snare drum Chan was banging away at from the other side of that battlefront. Each beat a bomb, a minefield of stunning rhythms that didn't stop for nothing. Chan may have been vaguely problematic in his romantic relationships, but damn was he a talented musician who wrote phenomenal songs.
Minho took a deep breath.
And—
"Okay."
"Fuck, Minho, dude," Felix cut himself off with an irritated groan. His older brother recognized that sound in an instant. Felix was done. Fed up. Too far gone, so far gone, unrecoverable for tolerating anymore of Minho's pensiveness, coming to shove Minho to the side to sulk himself against the wall as he threw the door open and tugged his older brother inside.
Forcing him into the typical scenery that met his eyes when he stepped into that comfortable cave that friend group marinated in; Chan sitting at the stool of the drumset, the white oak drumsticks gripped tightly in his veiny hands (Yes, his best friends were hot motherfuckers and Minho was not afraid to admit it), the acorn tips slowly being brought to a stilled halt as he muted the crash of the symbol his sticks previously banged on; Changbin perking up from the sway of the indoor hammock he dropped himself dramatically to, were he wrote in the oldest's notebook sagged into his lap, laying on his thighs while he set his pen down on the binding; Both of them sturring to his direction as Felix forced them into the hangout spot. The secret lair for the gremlins of the world. The BatCave, for the group of borderline criminals and deviants who occupied the gadgets inside.
How unfamiliar it felt to his fingertips as he quietly shuffled over to the edge of the couch. Keeping his eyes diverted from the other two in the room while he gingerly perched himself at the cliffside ledge those pillows became beneath his weight. Knowing he must've looked silly in their eyes at that moment; The grand disposition of Lee Minho without a care for his self dignity in the world, curling in to himself. Hiding himself with the jittery uncertainty rooting itself within his body. Thorns and branches against his heart, piercing him while he tried to contain his nerves away. Knowing for certain the invasive stares training holes onto his body like arrowheads puncturing their targets were from his two friends. Evidently curious while they stayed quiet. Evidently puzzled by the strange behavior, no doubt the strange request from Minho sent by text earlier that day.
Meanwhile, while they were probably wondering a hundred things and assumptions of what was going on, Minho's mind was racing. Barreling down the drag strip with burning rubber tires spilling smoke from their engines like smoldering soot from dragon's lips, roars as mighty as those mythical beasts while they ripped through his head with their questions. How could he begin to explain? Where does he start? At the beginning, when he met those two all those years ago in elementary school, how every time they played tag, he sat out because he was wonky in the head? Because the kids that called him a freak were correct? Because whenever the promise of fighting dragons in the sky came to fruition of make-believe, he had to be the cave walls watching the battle? Could they even understand that... That there wasn't anything wrong with him in that way?
How could he begin? Knowing that their friendships would end here.
Finally, after an amount of silence which Minho considered to be longer than physically comfortable for any of the four involved, Changbin sat up off the swinging hammock. Sticking his leg out against the wall to bump the cadence to an ended tempo. Closing up the rock drummer's notebook while those page's owner held his sticks still. Facing Minho fully as he started, "So, what's up dickwad? What did you want to tell us us?"
What else could he do?
Beside look to Felix leaning against the closed door, for the upturn of his lip, the subtle thumbs up to encourage him. Beside to look back to the concerned eyes of his two friends with his hardened resolve, and prepare for the worst to come from their lips.
If Jisung could love him as much as he did while knowing about the funky wunky episodic ataxia and handling Minho as delicately as Minho did when the camboy experienced his own agoraphobia attacks, then they could too, damn it!
What else was there left to do? Besides to tell everything to the two curious eyes and hope their expressions didn't contort with discomfort. To explain everything to them; From the beginning of when it started and the memories his Mom used to recount to him when he asked in lieu of his own vacant memory, the day at the park when he fell off the swing and smacked his head on the swing seat in the middle of his first attack, not understanding what was happening but knowing that there was a comfort where his Mom was; To why it started, how it started, what it did, why it did what it did, what it meant; The fears that the ticking time bomb in his head naturally slotted away at, reminding him whenever he looked to a clock, he was constantly running late, he was constantly running out of time, and no matter how fast he ran, eventually he would never be able to see his reflection in the stopwatch again.
What else was there left to say? While they fell into a natural silence when Minho finished off, the jittering of his hands unstoppable in the midst of his thoughts becoming worse. His eyes falling to avoid the eyes staring him down. Second by second, ticking down. What if they really did hate him? What if they thought he was scum, a complete degenerate? What if they thought that he was incurable, something that would infect them with his condition? What if they thought he was...?
What if they left him? What if he lost his friends because of his ataxia too? Then what?
He'd still have the most important people in his life. He'd still have Felix, his family. He'd still have his parents, his safety. He'd still have Jisung, his love.
A hand landed on Minho's shoulder.
"Minho."
Clenching his hands together, he glanced back from his hands, to Changbin sat on the couch beside him. The grip kept on him squeezing down as the older leaned in.
"Do you know how many pranks we could've pulled together?"
Minho just looked at him. In... confusion. In so much confusion.
That confusion only growing more when Changbin leaned farther into him, hissing a regret to his open hand he displayed in front of Minho, "The pick-up lines we could've made?"
Huh.
Minho slumped, staring back to both of them with a complete blankness in his head.
And I thought Jisung's reaction was out of the ordinary.
He tried to start up in protest to them, "Well, I mean—"
"Why didn't you tell us sooner? We could've helped you?" Chan interrupted him with his own type of hopeless shrug. Lodged between being too serious, not serious enough, and accusatory to him while understanding, not hurt, but hurt enough for Minho to notice the maintained control of his eyes that wanted to weaken up from the stare he kept. An expression that reminded Minho of his own parents, honestly. Equal parts frustrated and worried on his behalf. Equal parts caring for him, and wishing to push him off the ledge of a building while Chan set his drumsticks down in the drumstick bag he kept to the side of his set, "We could've been more aware of it instead of making you run up seven flights of stairs to Changbin's old apartment everyday, no wonder you were always last and had to do dish duty."
Minho slouched back to the couch beside him, the weight of anxious nerves that sagged him down lifting as he watched their expressions for any hint of distain toward him. Only to come up to none; Chan still parented him, Changbin still regarded him with the same playful disgruntlement he typically offered to Minho, that little bastard of his younger brother just staring at him with a timid smile on his face wishing to peer through. "I just didn't know how you'd react. People usually don't take it well and leave me."
"Yeah, but, you shouldn't feel the need to hide that kind of shit. Medical issues are a different story. And if someone can't deal with it, or thinks it's weird or freakish, then, yeah! They can fuck off! Why would you want asshats like that in your life anyway, they can fuck off!" Chan ranted back to him, the sweaty glisten of his hands waving to accent his professional lecture. Each of his words causing Minho to sink back, to relax a little farther into the couch behind him, to allow himself to find a security amongst those two once more, "We react like anyone should react to their friend—"
Changbin clicked his tongue to interject, "With an intense amount of disappointment!"
"Thanks?" Minho snorted. Making sure to push the soon-to-be lawyer hard enough to tumble him, Changbin gladly taking it with a groan before sloughing to the floor off the couch.
He watched him roll across the floor, worming his way around the rat cave with awkward movements. Up until the point he knocked into a guitar case propped off to the side, and Chan nearly punted him across the room to save the poor instrument from toppling over at the body smacking into it, only backing off when Felix stood between them to lecture them both in proper mother-like fashion. Their antics still the same. Still the same haggle of baffling characters that charmed Minho with promises of getting hamburgers together after school, that roped Felix into their stupid ideas without mercy for his reputation, that kept Chan coming back to help that group no matter how many times they bashed each other, that had Changbin... Changbin-ing. The same adults who never matured when they were thrown together again, while Minho was given a chance to watch them together.
Watching in his own quiet while Changbin and Chan went back to working on their song together. Watching Felix, coming to sit beside Chan on the ground while they talked lightly in pauses and breaks, Minho barely able to make out the conversation topic of Seungmin and Eunwoo, Chan seeming completely content talking about Seungmin despite his previous disgruntlement with it. Watching Changbin rip pieces of paper and throw it at Felix's head until Felix ate one of the pieces and spit it back at him.
What did he do in his last life to deserve them?
What war crimes did he commit to get stuck with these bastards?
And feeling lost amongst them, and his own self. His own heart swelling with a peace. A tranquility, despite the scene being anything but serene around him.
They were bastards, but they were his bastards.
His contentment only being interrupted when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He quickly whipped his phone out, checking the notification as another feeling surged through him.
Love ♡
Love♡
Bunny
Baby
Cutest little shnookie pie
How did it go? Are they still around?
6:20 pm
Tell me when you're done
OH AND
I'm streaming tonight •̀.̫•́✧
Do you want to come watch?
Oooorrrrrrr
You could come over?
I have a surprise for you!
6:21 pm
oh no
6:21 pm
Love ♡
Stop it. (¯―¯٥)
It's something good, I promise
I swear to you
You'll like it (｡>﹏<｡)
6:22 pm
Also Gummy has found my sweaters and will not let me take my sweaters back
Please come get her
:(
6:23 pm
you were the one who wanted to bond with her
6:24 pm
Love ♡
Well
Yeah!
But not if she takes my sweaters!!!
6:24 pm
Anyway, come over tonight ❤️
I miss you and I want to see you
6:25 pm
ill be there
6:26 pm
"Was that the boyfriend?" Chan wondered, turning away from his conversation with Felix.
Minho grinned back to them, quickly pocketing his phone as a feeling grabbed hold of him.
A glow.
The glow of an ethereal touch, swelling on his skin while the world slowed only for him.
Carrying after him as a halo while he said his goodbyes and climbed into his car. Following him while he he navigated into the city's freeway, not having to follow the GPS navigator anymore as he passed through the towering buildings dwarfing him to a pinpoint on the scale of the universe. A speck in the ballroom of spirits and deities, barely swerving between their stomping feet matching time with the trill of violins for their waltz, hands firmly on the steering wheel propelling him through the night. The speakers of his car blasting whatever song was most recently escaping from his playlist. Some pop song that Jisung held him down and forced him to listen to recently, and admittedly, liking it more than he thought he would've. Murmuring the lyrics to himself as he switched lanes, mind filling up with the infatuation for that beauty waiting for him.
His lips quirked into a grin, the vivid memories of Jisung laying on his chest, playing the sound loud for both of them to listen to.
Enjoy the love he felt in all it's strange, eccentric ways. Those whispers. Wonderland on a halcyon voice. Speaking softly to him, beckoning. Come to me. Each of those words slipped into his ear by tempting lips, pressing a hand to his chest, shoving him until he fell down, down, and down farther into their mystical song. Their notes, tone, glowing vibrant as that blended blur found their own voices again. Colors of the midnight, of fingertips on skin, sunlight peeling through the windows at dawn, the scent of a fresh cup of coffee, the earthy tone of rain while it falls, the contentment with simply living. Experiencing the lights above as they bled to neon, as they burned into his skin. Ash which glimmered, falling to fireflies guiding him through a hazy path to secrets hidden within another's heart.
Jisung.
How life had become so vibrant to the luminance he gave.
Soon enough, that lit path tugging his hand forward, leading him through a wildfire that raged around him. Bringing him down the streets, roads, through the cityscape breaking away to the clean corner of the residential areas, to an apartment stacked in the sky. Inside, keying in the passcode locking the doors, to the front desk, to the elevator where he had to press in the second string of numbers for it to light-up and activate, the fireflies tingling and tickling his skin with anticipation as he watched the floors ticking up;
First,
Second,
Third,
Fourth,
Slowly,
Higher.
Until the doors opened to that hallway. A pathway escorting him where the fireflies abandoned him for the throbbing of his heart and the clamming of his skin now thumping in anticipation at the chance to see that addiction he loved so dearly. The sweetness of honeyed lips, delicate hands, purrs that met his ears while they laid in one another's arms, come to see him once more in the world they grew for themselves. Marching down the apartment's sheer walls, swabbed cleaned to a certain perfection, carpets below freshly vaccumed and spotless. Scrunching underneath his joyous step bringing him forward as he wandered down that same hallway. Narrowed, teasing, warping and twisting as it seemed to grow longer, farther away from him to taunt his excitement with those same whispers grazing his ears with hot breath.
Come to me.
Approached the door with the correct number.
Follow me.
He raised his hand and knocked.
And love me.
Not long after, the door to the apartment opened.
When you do,
Albeit, very slowly. It peeled back as Minho dropped his hand to face it. To face the reality and consequences of his actions.
Then I will devote myself too.
Then stopped as a thin crack. Large enough to slip a hand through.
We can fall into the hold we have on one another.
Two eyes popped into the break. Stacked on top of one another, the owner of them, head tipped over to the side.
Alluring and divine,
Those eyes...
To be revered so delicately.
He had seen them in photographs from the doxxing posts. He saw them in video calls, multiple times before, bright, bubbly, glimmering with a faint excitement and softened with an adoration. He saw them up close, gazing into his own, lingering while a warmth connected them together in the cold of the night. Completely enamored by the twinkling of the eyes reflecting the hallway lights. Deathly in love on a summer afternoon, the warm sunlight bearing down on him, on milky skin, kissed gently by bumblebees believing him to be the honey dropped scent of a flower. But how those eyes narrowed too, dimming down to tempting purrs fluttering his eyelids, hands which steadied against his chest, which tangled in his while they pressed into bedsheets, which lusted for him, loved him, a siren's call devouring him bit by bit. Every kiss, taking his heart as a trophy.
And we can sin together.
He had seen them before.
But nothing could stop the swoon of his heart when his baby looked at him like that.
We can be lovers in the day,
An airy laugh left Minho as he tilted his head to the side too, working his lips into a grin, "Hello, my love."
And sinners after dark.
That sunlight just giggled softly back to him. Glimmering in the eyes of a mortal so undeserving of witnessing that intangible beauty standing before him, a glow that pierced through his heart.
So we can tell everyone when we leave,
Grabbing onto the moonlight melting at the alter of his love, Jisung grinned wide as he pulled Minho inside the apartment.
How I found my paradise with you.
《 ↹ ♡↗ Finish ↖♡↹ 》
[A/N]
These stupid bitches are so cute I feel so lonely :(((
That's it for the adorable babies in the minsung main story. These two are so Hsucudjdid I want what they have. We! Support! Healthy! Relationships! in this household!
(๑•̀ㅁ•́๑)✧ But do not worry! I am drafting bonus chapters to post when I have the chance to work on them. These characters are so insanely stupid and funny and sweet that I don't want to stop this story completely yet. Seriously, Minho and his personality was so much fun to write (｡>﹏<｡)
As always,
Thank you for reading After Dark!
From your author,
Cakes ♡