Things we keep in the dark | minsung

📖just another day

Minho woke up to his alarm clock, rising from his bed calmly. He sighed deeply and got up.

He didn't like mornings, in fact he despised them. Waking up in a cold bed, a loud sound knocking you awake and the light blinding your eyes, not the best feeling in the world.

Regardless he got up and went to his balcony to smoke a bit, feeling the warm breeze of the exterior warm him up a bit. He had started smoking young, with friends, he always gave that as an excuse. Now, he found himself doing it alone, shamefully and completely lost in thought every time he did.

Though now because he understood Jisung wad uncomfortable with it, he would try not to smoke at school. He could still picture his back, like a canvas printed on his eyes. It was all he had thought of the past night, Jisung's eyes when he asked him, or his calm breath when he had told him.

Now you know why I don't like cigarettes

Is what he had said to him before leaving. He didn't know what to do with that information, or why Jisung had opened up in the first place. Had he been in a rough childhood? Was he still in that same place now? Minho spiralled.

He wanted to help him, however he could.

<3

For some reason, every possible thing had gone wrong. He had forgotten his keys to get in his office, he didn't wear a warm jacket and ended up freezing on the way to school, Minho had also bumped into a student and helped recover all her documents. All of the above, it was not a great day. Worst of all, during lunch break, he was cutting himself a slice of cheese when he slipped.

The knife cut right through his hand, making him tense and release the knife. Luckily, it didn't go deep and he was able to calmly go to the nurse to have it checked out. They wrapped it up with a white bandage once it was disinfected and Minho could go to his next class.

After this series of events, he was too tired to even think. So he finished up his class and went to his office to finish correcting the homework he had taken.

A knock came at the door.

"Come in"

Jisung opened the door, with eyes in the shape of a question.

"Oh I'm so sorry...i forgot" Minho rubbed his fingers on his temples out of frustration and then looked at jisung. "You can just go home, we can continue another time"

"The library could really use some cleaning." He said flatly.

"I need to finish these copies, I can't look after you in the other side of the school...you're free to go"

"That book shelf is messy, I should rearrange that one." Jisung said and didn't look like he was going to budge. Minho was about to argue before he saw his eyes. He was desperate.

Minho connected the dots.

"How bad is it...?" He said lowly and a simple stare from Jisung was able to answer him. "You can stay as long as you'd like, but I need to finish these papers for tomorrow"

He knew one thing, jisung didn't want to go home.

Jisung simply nodded and got on his knees in front of the book shelf, taking some books out and flipping through them, placing them one by one. Sometimes he would stop and read the back of some books, remembering them for later.

As this was happening, Minho got no work done, all he could do was glance at jisung every second, he wanted to see his reactions upon seing his own personal books, Minho wanted to see which one intrigued the younger one. After a couple of copies only, he realized he had done nothing. His hair was a soft brown, it almost seemed lighter with the sunset hitting it. Minho averted his eyes back to the paper and sighed, almost too noticeable.

He wrote so much that his hand started to bleed again, through the thick white cotton.

"You hurt your hand?" Jisung finally spoke, without even looking at him.

"Yes, at lunch, cut right through my thumb.." he looked at it and bragged the small medical compartment in his desk, taking a fresh new wrapped cloth. He unwrapped the bloody one and realize that he probably wouldn't get very far with one hand. "How good are you with blood?"

"Depends." He answered dryly before moving his eyes back to his teacher. He got up and walked to him, slowly, carefully. "You need me to tie it back up?"

"If you can it would really help me"

Jisung approached hesitantly, taking Minho's bleeding hand in his. He was warm but his finger tips were freezing. He took the bandage and started to wrap it around carefully. Minho didn't know where it was appropriate to look. He was sitting down while Jisung was standing right in front of him, holding his hand steadily for him to wrap the white cloth around it. Jisung had a light shade of pink on his cheeks and only looked at the hand, not once at Minho.

Once he was done, he stepped away and nodded.

"All done."

"Thank you, it feels much better now"

Minho stood up, which only brought them closer. Jisung quickly looked his way and hesitated to take a step back, but stayed where he was.

"It's late." Minho said under his breath.

Jisung nodded.

"Yes."

"You should go home"

"Mister Lee..." he said under his breath and held his stomach. Jisung then looked at the time, nervously and bit his lip. "Could we stay just another hour?" 

"It's late jisung, we should get some rest" normally he would have accepted, but he was exhausted.

"Yes...I'm so sorry, you're right sir..." he grabbed his bag and was about to head out the door when Minho stopped him.

"Jisung, if you tell me why you don't want to go home, maybe I can help you..."

Jisung turned back and gave him a cold look, his eyes frozen in place.

"I'd rather die." He said simply and left.