ℙ𝕃𝔸𝕐 𝔽𝕆ℝ 𝕃𝔸𝕌𝔾ℍ𝕊 ✔ ¨°ʰʸᵘⁿʰᵒ°¨

¨°twenty-six°¨

It's been about an hour now that Hyunjin's night class has ended, and he still hasn't called Minho back. It consumes the dancer. He wonders if it was wise to hint through a clumsy voicemail that he's not the person what Hyunjin may have thought all these years.

Maybe he feels betrayed?

Minho's chest squeezes painfully. He just doesn't want Hyunjin to feel that way. That's the whole reason he wants to be open and honest with his friend now before the hidden truth wraps around his throat and forbids him to say anything more.

Felix will find out soon enough that Minho has not been hired as a dance teacher at the entertainment company. And then the questioning comes. So many questions. His freckled friend is a firm believer in Minho, in everything he does, that he'll never believe that Minho won't be hired without a very good reason.

The reason.

The brunet tightens his grip on the steering wheel. He stares straight ahead with a deep frown nestled between his eyebrows. The road to his parents is dimly lit. It perfectly outlines his thoughts and feelings. The black environment swallows him and the car—  borrowed from Changbin—sucking the brunet back to the darkest period of his life. He has not visited his parents since last summer vacation. No Chuseok, Christmas or New Year. Even on his birthday he came up with an excuse to get out of having to go to the countryside. Busy. That was his most common reason. People in the city are busy.

Don't get it wrong, Minho loves his parent—and his grandmother. It's the guilt that eats at him every time he sees them again. It's a selfish choice, honestly, but he tries to delay that typical feeling as long as possible.

Until today.

His uncle called him fairly quickly after their awkward encounter where the man works. Minho knows that. Still, he had hoped that in such a large building, the dancer could get out unseen. But whatever God is behind this, it clearly had other intentions for him.Which resulted in a call. Filled with threats, belittlement and lots of repeated finger pointing at him. His uncle is the solar opposite of his father. That was an understatement.

Minho peeks at the car's digital clock. The luminous green digits indicate that it is almost eleven o'clock. Hyunjin has been off work for exactly an hour now, and still no call. He cannot force anyone to follow his plead, not even the artist, they are free in their own choices. But it does stir up an ugly dominant side in Minho. A heavy pressure on his chest that forces him to pull over and take matters into his own hands by calling himself. To rebuke Hyunjin for making Minho worry unnecessarily. But that's a pretty big step across the multiple lines the relationship draws between the two. He then lets it be known that the blond is his. That it's so much more than friendship. Now it feels that he has left a piece of himself behind that must inform him what is going on— referably every second. 

His phone's ringtone makes Minho press harder on the accelerator out of pure startlement. His phone lights up in the dark car, the dancer draws his eyes to the screen. His shoulders slump. He presses the handsfree on his steering wheel.

"Hey Minho hyung! How are you?" Jeongin's distorted voice sounds.

"Hey Jeongin, good. Is something wrong?" The youngest of his group of friends doesn't call quickly. He's more of a texting kind of guy. Calling is unnecessary when you can just as well easily send a text, his words. But the dancer is completely the opposite and most of the time forgets to look at the messages of his friends, or family. Maybe that's why Jeongin calls, Minho must have missed another one.

"I think it's nothing..." There is a silence. Such a long silence that the brunet quickly looks at his phone to see if the connection has been lost. In certain parts of the country, the coverage is not yet optimal. But this is not the case right now, the figures of the ongoing conversation are still increasing. "-I can't get a hold on Hyunjin. I sent him a few messages, but he still hasn't responded. Then I called him three times, and he doesn't answer that either. Is he by any chance with you? Or do you know where is he? It's not like him to not respond for so long. He's done with work, right?"