Colliding Stars (Minsung)

Chapter 27: Truth Tape

(Credits to the rightful owner.)

TW: Childhood abuse (both emotional and physical), mentions of death.

Wordcount: 5.7k

Author's P.O.V

When hunting for a treasure one is uncertain where the treasure box is hidden, what the box containing the treasure looks like and what the treasure itself is. The journey towards finding the treasure is like throwing darts at a target blindfolded. There comes a stage where the one searching for the treasure for too long starts wondering if the treasure even exists at all.

But once that person finally reaches the box and opens it to uncover a treasure, they often find that the treasure had been right in front of there eyes all along.

Jisung was one of those those treasure hunters. After years of living in the false reality that his feelings towards his Prince were all unrequited and unreciprocated, he realised that the man he was longing for had been yearning for him as much. Maybe even more.

Jisung's and Minho's affection for one another has always been crystal clear to everyone around them except for themselves. But after Minho told Jisung about the grand affection he has for the younger through his own words, Jisung too started seeing how obvious things have always been.

Minho ruffling his hair at every opportunity he got. The older having the same gentle nervousness in his eyes just like Jisung's did every time they looked at each other. The brunet sharing his warm stories only with Jisung when he barely let anyone else see the pain he hid beneath his cold facade.

All this made Jisung feel stupid himself. He had called Minho a dumbass but he was no less of a idiot himself. The younger was so burdened by the belief that he himself was unlovable, he never even noticed that Minho was also drowning in his own insecurities. Minho loved him, he loved him with all his heart and soul. But the older was scared. Just as scared as Jisung was all along. If Minho never revealed his love for his Chipmunk, Jisung never confessed his love to his Prince as well. He still hasn't!

This whole discovery forced Jisung to rewind his memories and think about what else he might have failed to understand. What else he didn't realise about the perfect Prince living in his apparent perfect castle.

The Prince had been actually been living inside a lonely dark cage. He was locked up within its suffocating bars for years by a monster in disguise. The bars were invisible to those who didn't know how to see through.

But Jisung did now. He could see the chains digging into the very skin of his Prince, holding him back making him helpless. The chains of manipulation.

And then another set of questions arose in Jisung's mind. His recollections became clearer once he put himself out of his own shoes and into the ones filled with thorns belonging to the Prince.

Why did Minho show up to school covered in bruises when there hadn't even been a fight that his own bestfriends Chan and Changbin were aware of?
Why would he deliberately choose to stay out his own house whenever his father and step mother were in town? Who was the Prince afraid of running into? His appa? Or the witch living in his castle?

Is that why everytime Minho fought with his father, he could never look into the eyes of that witch present in the same room directly? Is that why he seemed more terrified than Jisung was when the younger told him how Erica had threatened to hurt their daughter? Is that why he looked so petrifried on the stage at the product launch party when that ratchet woman walked upto him?

Is this why you never asked me why I had flinched on that day when I met you? Because you already knew?

Hell, Minho even knows that Jisung's fake father was abusive but the younger never told the brunet that explicitly.