Strictly Business / Minsung

twenty one -

The two minutes that Ryujin took to return from talking to Felix unsurprisingly felt like hours to Minho. He sat down on the floor with Jisung as his side clutching his hand tightly and reminding him every few seconds that everything was going to be okay. It certainly didn't feel that way.

The older boy was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he had known Felix for probably 0.1% of the time that Namwoon had. There was just no way he would side with Minho over someone he knew so well.

When Ryujin finally returned, she did so with a worried looking Hyunjin behind her. He silently motioned for the two boys to follow him and they wordlessly obliged and allowed the boy to lead them upstairs to what appeared to be Felix's room.

Tension quickly took over the atmosphere and the Lee heir simply didn't know where to look. Jisung was still clutching tightly to his hand but even that support and comfort was not enough to make Minho feel okay. Namwoon was doing it again.

Minho had finally made some friends, he'd found people he related to, he'd found people who didn't judge him, he'd found people who didn't just want something from him and Namwoon was about to ruin that again. Minho simply felt defeated, it seemed that Namwoon would just never be gone from his life.

"Minho?" Hyunjin spoke first, "what happened? Ryujin just said that you have some not great history with one of Lix's guests?"

The worry seeping into Hyunjin's voice made Minho feel impossibly saddened. Hyunjin shouldn't be upstairs with him, he shouldn't have to deal with him being dramatic at his boyfriend's birthday party. It all just felt so wrong.

"Yeah," Minho managed to force out from behind his desperate attempt to keep back his sobs, "we uh... we were friends once."

He breathed deeply and Hyunjin just nodded patiently, "I'm taking it your friendship ended badly?"

"Yeah," Minho forced out the same word again, "he..."

A tear slipped down Minho's cheek and Jisung instantly wiped it away with his sleeve, "he was using me for my money," the boy finished.

Hyunjin's expression immediately changed into one of both anger and pity, "what? what happened?"

"He kept asking for things," Minho began, "and at first I gave in because I thought that was what friends do and then I heard him talking about me saying he was asking me for money for things and then he came over asking for rent and I just shut him out," Minho blurted as two more tear drops escaped and Jisung once again did everything to clear them away.

Hyunjin nodded as his eyes widened and a deep frown found its way onto his face.

"And I thought that was the last of him," Minho continued, "but then I saw him when I was out with Jisung and he figured we were dating and he knew who Jisung was and he was acting so weird saying you can tell me no one will find out and I'm so scared of him," Minho managed to speak as his tears now fell so frequently that Jisung could no longer help him hide them.

Instead the younger just squeezed his hand tightly and stroked small circles on the back of his palm. Hyunjin immediately reached out to grab Minho some tissues and nodded, "hey please don't worry about this, thank you for telling me, I'll speak to Lix and don't worry that it's his birthday party I'm sure he'd prefer that you were comfortable because of something like this, we'll find a reason to get rid of him and he'll never know you were here okay? That's only if you feel comfortable with that or if you feel comfortable with staying at all," Hyunjin spoke and Minho nodded.

"I'd like to stay, I don't want to ruin Felix's party completely," Minho spoke and Hyunjin smiled softly.

"The only one ruining the party is that bitch downstairs, don't worry about it, I'll send Jisung a text when he's gone okay?" Hyunjin smiled and Minho just nodded in thanks before the boy left.

As soon as the door closed Minho let all of his emotions out and Jisung pulled the younger into his chest and hugged him tightly.

"I don't want to ruin the party and I don't want Namwoon to tell my parents and then we have to leave each other I don't want to lose you," Minho sobbed and Jisung quickly realised that this was no longer just about the party. It seemed that all of Minho's worries had just piled in at once and Jisung sat there with his arms wrapped tightly around his boyfriend's sobbing figure and vowed to himself that he would do whatever it would take to get Namwoon to leave them alone.

"It's okay Minho, look at me now please," Jisung spoke softly and Minho slightly raised his head to face his boyfriend.

"You won't lose me," Jisung told him, "the only time I would ever leave you was if you begged me to."

Minho seemed to calm a little as Jisung's words swept over him. That was always the younger boy's biggest talent, words.

Jisung knew exactly what the say and when to say it and for Minho, that was a talent that never failed to make him feel better. Whenever he was insecure or low, Jisung could lift him back up in a sentence and Minho's biggest wish was that he could do that for the younger boy too.

After a few minutes, Jisung's phone pinged and Hyunjin's message displayed itself on the screen.

'you can come down now he's gone and felix wants to talk to you to make sure minho is okay <3'

The older began crying lightly again at that. He didn't know why, maybe it was the overwhelming feeling that people cared enough to protect him and look out for him. After years of being isolated and thinking he would never have anyone to rely on, Minho had finally found people who would move mountains to make him happy and that in itself made him feel on top of the world.

The knowledge that Namwoon hated him and was trying everything to ruin his life would never go away but knowing that his friends were there to protect him made that thought easier, even if it was only a little. In hindsight, Minho supposed that Namwoon wasn't the whole problem either, maybe if his father looked past his hatred of Mr Han and accepted that Jisung was much different, then Minho wouldn't have anything to fear where Namwoon was concerned in the first place.

"Minho," Jisung's voice dragged him back to reality.

"Yeah?" the boy stared up at his boyfriend's face.

"Felix wants to make sure you're okay, do you feel alright to go downstairs?"

"Yeah I'm okay."

"Alright then lets go."

Minho decided that the world seemed a lot less scary when Jisung was holding his hand.

—

hi! i'm so so sorry for both the awful quality of this chapter and how long it took me to update. i'm going through a really bad patch right now and writing is something i'm finding it really difficult to be motivated to do

but i really hope you enjoyed this chapter despite it being kinda sad and probably poorly written sjjdjd!! tysm for reading and once again for being so patient with my awful update schedule <33