Blasphemy - Minchan

epilogue

5 years later.

"How have you been sleeping?" Doctor Marshall, sat across the desk from Chan, asked. It was a simple question, yet the answer was so far from that. "Have there been any improvements over the past two weeks?"

Chan shrugged, his hands squeezed together in between his knees, "it's been ok, I guess. I still keep waking up in the night though. I feel guilty about waking Minho up all the time. He understands, of course, but... I still feel bad."

Dr Marshall nodded his head, "and how has facing your triggers come along?"

Chan grimaced, rocking himself back and forth once before realising what he was doing and stopping. Dr Marshall had told him he did it as a way of comfort himself, but Chan didn't even realise how often he did it until Minho pointed it out a couple of years ago. "I um- I haven't done very much. I'm still scared to go into a church... or walk past one."

"Have you tried recently?"

"Kind of," Chan mumbled, "I tried to go into one last Monday when Minho was in a lecture but I started panicking and left before I even got close."

"Have you tried taking Minho with you? Maybe he would help you face your fears better."

"I haven't asked him," Chan admitted, hands clutched impossibly tight, "he never liked churches. I don't know if he'd want to come..."

"From what you've told me of him, if he knows it will benefit you then I'm sure he'd be willing to go with you."

Chan nodded his head, staring at the edge of the desk. He flicked his eyes down to the ring on his left hand. "I just... I don't see why I need to go to one. We're not getting married in a church and I don't have any other reasons to go in one. Why can't I just avoid them?"

"Avoiding the source of your anxiety and traumatic memories won't solve anything, Chan. You know this. Going to a church and seeing that not all of them have to be feared will be helpful for you. It could bring you closure. It's possible that you won't have to panic every time you walk past one and you won't be awoken by nightmares in the middle of the night as often if you can overcome this."

Chan let out a heavy sigh. He knew what Doctor Marshall said was correct, he just wished it wasn't. He wished that everything was fine after he escaped from the church and could live a normal life, but that just wasn't the case. The memories still haunted him and Chan didn't know if they would ever go away. He could only be thankful he had Minho to help him get through it.

"Ok, I'll ask him this weekend," Chan decided and maybe this time he was telling the truth.

-

Chan lay on his apartment's sofa with his head in Minho's lap. Minho was playing with his hair as he watched something on the TV. Chan was hardly paying attention to it, but he knew it was a Nirvana music video. Minho much preferred watching those as opposed to TV shows. When Chan sighed, Minho looked down at him and asked, "what's wrong, angel?"

"Are you doing anything this weekend?"

"Uh, I have to work a shift at the record store on Saturday, but I'm not doing anything on Sunday. Why?"

Sunday. The day of worship and rest. The busiest day in the church, but Chan knew he couldn't put it off anymore. "Doctor Marshall thinks it will be good for me to visit a church. He thinks it will help with the nightmares and... all the other stuff."

The breakdowns, the panic attacks and the intrusive thoughts. Chan didn't have to say that aloud for Minho to know what he was talking about. He'd been there for it all and he was the one who found Chan a therapist in the first place.