eighty-one.

1K 50 15
                                    

Jisung's head was spinning as he tried but failed to calm Hyunjin down, as he ultimately had to leave the sobbing boy alone on the bathroom floor. 

There was nothing else he could do, and he hated that. He hated that he just had to leave Hyunjin there, knowing how alone he was. 

Because being alone might be one of the most scary things of all. 

And he could tell Hyunjin was terrified of it. 

Jisung's head spun as Minho took his hand and led him to go find their friends, as they all cried and hugged. His head spun as they took group pictures together. Sure, he smiled in all of them, but the emotion on his face was nothing if not the opposite of the emotions that were flowing through his cloudy mind. 

"How? How did you guys do it?" 

Hyunjin's words wouldn't leave him the fuck alone. 

Sure, Minho and Jisung hadn't been a couple for a very long time. But they were happy - something Changbin and Hyunjin had claimed to be, too. And yet the latter had ended up in a place that was nothing short of disaster. 

So what was the real difference between him and Minho, and Hyunjin and Changbin? 

Was it pain? Loneliness? Trauma? 

What made Hyunjin's love so broken- and could that still be considered love at all? 

Love was turning Jisung's world around, mending him and healing him when he didn't even know how much he needed to be mended or healed. 

But love broke Hyunjin. 

It only caused him and Changbin pain in the end. 

But pain- pain wouldn't exist if not for love. Wasn't pain just the manifestation of love? If you never loved someone at all, then it wouldn't hurt to lose them. 

Pain and love were, in essence, the same. 

Both beautiful and dark and twisted and complicated. 

Both maddening. 

So Hyunjin's and Changbin's love- it turned dark. It was strong, it was strong enough to turn into such a horrifying, bruising pain that Jisung could physically see in Hyunjin's tearful eyes. 

Pain that Changbin was healing from- healing with the help of better love, of cleaner and healthier love. 

But Hyunjin... 

Jisung knew it just by looking at the boy, by hearing his cries and screams begging to just let him fucking kill himself. 

Hyunjin's pain ran deeper. 

His pain was painted into his skin in jagged scars, in heartbreak that was too permanent to leave. 

Hyunjin couldn't fix this love- this pain. 

And that in itself stopped Jisung from being able to enjoy this night with his friends, because all he could think about was the sincerity in Hyunjin's eyes when he promised - he promised - that he was in love with Changbin. And that he would never love anyone else again. 


you first {minsung} DISCONTINUEDWhere stories live. Discover now