THE8 | Junhao

FORTY - THREE

| CHAPTER FORTY - THREE |

Seokmin was asleep, but Minghao was awake.

Ever since that day, that god awful day, he's had trouble with sleeping.... And when he does have somewhat of a lucky day and does end up getting some shut eye, his memories like to fuck with him. They like to paint his mind with things he's been trying so hard to forget.

Now, he lied awake. His back was against the headboard, and he was zoned out. He stared at the screen of his phone, the brightness illuminating the room, his eyes glowing.

He turns his head, glancing at Seokmin.

The boy was fast asleep, one hand on his pillow, the other draped over his waist. His eyes were shut, and he breathed softly.

Minghao wasn't necessarily happy with Seokmin being a quiet sleeper. At this point, he thinks any type of noise— any type of snoring whatsoever could hopefully cloud his senses, hopefully distract his mind enough to make him forget.

He looks back at his phone, lip caught between his teeth.

His finger hovers over a specific contact, and he wants to yell at himself for still having the person's number saved. It had no use now. Why hadn't he deleted it? He asks himself this all the time.

He eventually shuts his phone off, giving up.

He slumps against the headboard, letting out a soft sigh. He looks at the bandage on his hand, blinking at the gauze.

He decides to get up after a while of staring into space. Maybe he could go train for a bit. Injured hand or not, he needed to get these thoughts out of his head.

It had been a month. He needed to move on.

He shrugs on one of Seokmin's jackets, shivering as the material makes contact with his chilled skin. He hums silently, putting on the shoes he'd taken off just before he 'went to sleep.'

He runs a hand through his red hair a couple times, trying to tame the frizz, eyes glancing around the room to pass time as he fixes himself up to leave.

They eventually land on something familiar in a small basket near the end of seokmin's dresser.

He furrows his brows.

It looked so much like something he'd seen before, so much so to where he had to pause what he was doing right in that moment, attention solely focused on the object.

He walks over, red hair fanning in front of his eyes as he looks down. He moves a few things out of the way, fingertips eventually making contact with the familiar object.

He pulls it out, brows raised as he stares at the knife in his grip.

It had a purple handle, and it was super sharp. It looked dangerous, and Minghao wondered why Seokmin had this, and if he did for safety measures, why wasn't it at least wrapped up?

He looks at it for a moment, the wires in his brain running, connecting with others, zapping with so many different thoughts.

And then, all too suddenly, it felt like the air got caught in his lungs when he realized. He stares at the knife in absolute horror, dropping the fucking thing like he'd touched a piece of burning coal as soon as the puzzle's complete.

"You have 3 seconds.... 3 fucking seconds to tell me why you're here."

The man sighs, slapping a knife on his palm, a knife in which Minghao hadn't even noticed he'd pulled out. it had a purple handle, "You think you know things, Minghao.... You think you'll be able to find out things all by your fuck up of a self."