MY OWN STORY. minsung

three

There really was nothing special about Jisung. Perhaps it had been amusing to see the boy squirm in his seat whenever Minho stared, but that was only every so often — other times he would just sweat in silence. The latter? Definitely not fun.

"Excuse me?"

Jisung felt a gentle tap on his shoulder as he went up the stairs in school. He turned around.

"Oh, hello..." the shorter murmured. He wasn't particularly pleased to see Lee Minho's face, but he bowed anyway to be polite and used honourifics.

Minho smiled. "Do you remember me?"

Jisung nodded. "You're, uh, in the higher literature class, right?" he pursed his lips and continued when Minho stayed silent. "And in the higher maths class, aren't you? And the higher English class, I think, but we're only in literature and maths together—?"

"I see. I'm Lee Minho." strangely, Lee Minho upheld the smile on his face for a concerning amount of time. His cheeks had to have hurt.

Jisung nodded once more, gulping, then introducing himself to follow. "I'm Han Jisung. Nice to meet you."

The stagnant interaction ended there. When the two spoke, it was as if the whole world paused around them and then resumed as soon as they were no longer in a close distance. They were the only two people in the world.

Then another one of these choppy interactions occurred again. Then again. Then again, and again, and again.

They saw each other in the library. Minho had to approach the boy silently reading first.

"Jisung," he shone, "what are you reading?"

Jisung gulped. "Hellbound. It's a comic."

He felt sick again with Minho's gaze dead-set on him and only him.

"Yes, I've heard of that," he grinned. "Demons sent by God to eradicate sinners..."

"What?"

"In the book."

"Oh. Yeah, that's the... that's the gist of it."

It seemed like the only thing that kid Minho was capable of was smiling eerily. That was how Jisung saw it, at least. "What's your opinion on that?"

"On what?"

"The book."

"Oh," Jisung flushed, scratching his head sheepishly. Maybe he had come across quite daft. "It's good. The cult stuff is written well."

"The cult stuff." Minho repeated. Jisung kept killing him internally with how funny he was.

On that note, their conversation seemed to have finished with Minho leaving. Jisung made the presumption that he went to grab a book and shrugged to then carry on reading.

To his surprise, Minho came back with a book and promptly sat beside Jisung. 'The Metamorphosis' Jisung read from the cover, although from an odd angle, raising a brow. What the fuck was a Metamorphosis?

Jisung wanted to ask what Minho's book was about, but the acidic taste of throw-up climbed up his throat all so suddenly. He gripped the weak paperback cover of his book to satisfy his need for support. It would suffice.

Minho watched the boy sweat and shiver in the seat beside him and only continued smiling as he usually did. "Jisung, are you feeling sick?" he extended his hand out to latch onto Jisung's shoulder like an angel.

There was something about Minho's mere presence that simply embarrassed Jisung. Maybe it was the fact that Minho was a prodigy and Jisung was just ordinary, or maybe it was because Minho was creepy and always enabled the throw-up taste in his month to pile up with his saliva — he just didn't like how Minho made him feel way too wary of speaking any words.

He shook his head. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?" Minho continued asking questions.

Jisung sighed, but what he really wanted to do was gather all the oxygen he could and gasp for air. Something inside of him was on the verge of suffocation. He grasped his shirt right where his heart resided as if that would stop the pain.

"Minho..." Jisung gulped again, "what's your book about?"

He paused. "Do you think you would understand it?"

Minho made Jisung feel dumb. Inferiority bubbled and welled up in the corner of his eyes. No amount of swallowing would rid of the lump in his throat.

"Maybe I won't." — it was Jisung's turn to pause, thinking over his limited choice of words — "Minho, I think I'm gonna go. Nice talk."

He kicked his chair back behind him, coming to a halt as he stood up, and somehow left his comic on the table. Minho peered over at the boy hurriedly limping away with both his hands firmly placed over his chest. What was he trying to find inside of him?

Scoffing again, Minho closed 'The Metamorphosis'. It was so funny. It was so, so funny how Jisung was utterly incapable of lasting even five minutes around him, and how unsure of himself he appeared. The choice of words left Minho spellbound: 'I think I'm gonna go,', 'the cult stuff' and how Jisung stammered with every other word was just vaguely intriguing. Jisung really didn't know himself and Minho knew that.

So funny.

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