Hard Feelings

Stuck

After he notices that all of the makeshift meals and out-and-out junk are making his clothes fit a little more snugly, Min-Gi makes a concerted effort to stay fit on the road. He does sit-ups in the back of the van, push-ups whenever they spring for a motel, and jogs anytime they find a campsite or national park to stop at for the night. For reasons he cannot share, Ryan is finding it increasingly difficult to be supportive.
                   .....................................

"Can you pass me that water bottle?" Min asked from the back of the van.
Ryan handed it to him from the passenger's seat, trying his best to look anywhere but at the other boy.

Min-Gi took it and thanked him absently. He was bumping around in the back getting dressed for a run.

"You're not coming back here?" he noted as an afterthought. "We're parked man, get comfortable."

Ryan sighed.

"I'm coming," he said tiredly as he reluctantly crawled in between the seats to the back of the van.

"You okay, dude?" Min asked, curious at Ryan's reaction.

"Yeah, I just figured if we're parked we could talk about making changes to the set. Not sure why it's so important for you to go running," Ryan explained moodily, still not looking at the other boy.

"Sorry I don't metabolize all the trash rest stop food we eat as well as you do, Mr. Guitar Muscles," Min teased, giving him a playful shove. "I'll be back in like an hour and we can talk about the set then."

Min got up to leave and only once his back was turned did Ryan look at him. The larger boy was wearing runners, thick white socks and his Powell Lake Secondary School gym uniform from year eleven. The matching blue and yellow shirt and short set had shrunk since the mandatory phys-ed class they had taken almost three years ago whereas Min-Gi had only grown. The shirt was stretched tight over Min's torso and the shorts could barely be said to reach his thighs. Ryan looked away again as Min turned back to close the van door.
The door slammed shut and Ryan relaxed. Since he was alone with nothing to do, he supposed there was no harm in trying to do a little writing by himself. He grabbed his guitar case, his notebook and a pen then propped up some pillows and reclined against them. He picked his guitar back up and slung it over his neck.

The boys had decided they needed to branch out musically. 'Train to Nowhere' was their crowd-pleaser, and people really seemed to enjoy Kez's song (possibly because everyone who heard it assumed 'She's Warmer Than You'd Think' was about sex), but the rest of the songs about their adventures on the magical wormhole train weren't what you'd call universally relatable. They were going to need to add to their catalogue if they wanted to appeal to a wider audience.

Creatively, Ryan was a little stumped so they had already talked a lot about possible new directions. Chicken Choice Judy had hit the road a few months ago and were, on the whole, enjoying the ride. Ryan might have already been exploring new cities, living out of the van and performing for a different set of strangers every other night for a over a year, but for Min it still felt like an incredible adventure. No less improbable and baffling than discovering a magic train in a wormhole. He felt they should be performing songs that allowed people to get to know the Chicken Choice Judy of this dimension. However, Min wasn't a lyricist. Ryan was convinced he'd be great at it, but they were still working on getting Min to loosen up his onstage presence (and his off-stage presence for that matter). Pushing him to write down his innermost thoughts to be sung out loud seemed like maybe too much, too soon.

Luckily, Ryan didn't have a problem putting himself out there. Usually. Whether or not it was always any good was one thing, but normally Ryan could turn any random thought in his head into a lyric and give it a melody. He still could, actually. The fact was, Ryan didn't have writer's block at all. His mind was a constant jumble of lyrics, full songs even, that Min knew nothing about. There was 'BC Kids,' the rough melody of which played through his mind.

"Busy wasting time with you and it's my favorite thing to be. But I'm trying not to say something that causes you to see. Can you tell that it gets harder every day? Cause I really like our world just how it is. And I wanna stay those same BC kids.

When he wasn't working on that, he tried adding to the slightly more upbeat 'Don't Remind Me.'

"I do really, really well for like ten seconds at a time. But if I give it any longer then you're running through my mind. So, I'm not sure how to deal. I'll keep pretending that I'm blind. But, you're so perfect and I just can't help but see. And in love is the last place I wanna be. That's why I'm begging, baby, don't remind me."

And he couldn't forget 'Short Shorts'. That one didn't have any lyrics yet. He imagined it as several minutes of the most chaotic strumming imaginable, possibly punctuated by the occasional strangled scream to approximate what it sounded like in Ryan's head whenever he saw Min in his ridiculous little jogging outfit.

So there it was. The problem wasn't that he lacked creative inspiration. The problem was that any time Ryan had an idea for a song, it was glaringly, painfully, humiliatingly obvious that it was inspired by his feelings for Min-Gi.

And I just got him back.

Ryan had reminded himself of this over and over during the past few months. They were finally on the same page, and doing what they had always set out to do. Chicken Choice Judy was in a good place, but it was precarious. Min was gaining confidence in himself and in their music, but he'd sacrificed a lot to go on the road. Ryan knew how much that still weighed on him. Confessing that he had feelings for Min that went well beyond the scope of their friendship after having already dragged him so far out of his comfort zone wouldn't just be the stupidest thing Ryan could possibly do, it would be unkind. If Ryan confessed and Min couldn't cope, their friendship would be beyond repair. This wasn't just unthinkable because it would break Ryan's heart, but because he knew that he was the only support system Min-Gi had left. When he'd told them he wasn't going to uni but on the road with Ryan, Min's parents had been furious. They'd made it clear he wouldn't be welcomed back until he was ready to live his life in a way they approved of. It wasn't as if Min had expected their support, but they had been so harsh, practically ridiculing him. Part of him knew that they were just trying to scare him into changing his mind, but it was months later and he was still getting over his shock at some of the things they had said. If Min ever decided to go back there, Ryan wanted to be sure that it was on his own terms, and with dazzling success to throw back in their faces. It couldn't be because Ryan's lack of self-control had broken up the band and left Min with nowhere else to turn. He couldn't let that happen. Which was why he had an entire album's worth of 'I love Min-Gi' anthems filling up his head and exactly zero viable new material to spruce up their set.

Ryan picked out some tentative chords but lost focus almost immediately. Instead he strummed randomly and furiously to release some of the pent up energy he was feeling.

"Stop thinking about his thighs in those tiny, short-shorts and WRITE A FUCK-ING SONNGGG!"

Ryan punctuated the last few words with angry power chords. He let out a sigh.

So much for being productive.

Discouraged, he replaced his guitar in its case and laid back onto the pillows. If he couldn't focus on writing, he guessed he'd rest his eyes until Min got back.