better with you | minsung |

eighteen

a week & a half. it had been a week & a half since minho or the others had seen or heard from jisung. the first day, everyone figured jisung just wasn't feeling well, & didn't take his silence to their texts as something worrying. they figured if he was sick, he needed his rest, & that they shouldn't bother him so he can feel better. the second day was the same, however his silence was a bit worrying.

minho worried the most. he was the only one who was aware of jisung breaking up with seojun. his mind kept repeating how adamant the younger was that breaking up with seojun wouldn't work. he had a gut feeling that jisung's absence was due to seojun, but he didn't know if it was the proper time to tell their friends about seojun. yet, he remember jisung telling minho he would have to tell them on his own.

"because if things don't go the right way, i don't think i'll be there to tell anyone anything."

it still gave minho chills to think about this. at that point starting on day two, minho knew he was going to have to tell his friends eventually. it wasn't about if he was going to tell them, it was about when.

on day four, seojun randomly showed up at their lunch table. it wasn't his day to sit with them, & they were more than aware that seojun wouldn't sit with them if jisung wasn't there, so the question was, why was he there?

"hey guys," seojun said happily.

minho glared daggers into seojun's face. he was displeased with the older's presence to say the least.

chan grunted, looking away from the older boy. what minho had told him the other day really got him thinking about seojun. there were so many red flags he had ignored about the guy until then. now that he could see the truth, he had no interest in the person standing next to him.

"um.. hello," changbin said... questioned? changbin wasn't sure how to respond or how his response sounded.

"where is jisung," felix blurted out. he was so eager to know where his best friend was.

"yeah where has he been this week," hyunjin asked as he put his hand under his chin.

"ah yes, i actually came here to let you guys know that jisung has been extremely sick recently. it's quite bad. he's been sleeping all day & only gets up for the bathroom. i'm not sure what caused him to become so sick & i have no idea when he will be back to school," seojun lied. he honestly didn't even want to be in front of the group explaining but he knew if he didn't the others would go looking for him & bothering him with questions about the boy.

"oh," felix started. "well, can i visit him this afternoon then?"

"you're not going alone," chan said, placing his hand on top of felix's knee. he didn't want anything happening to him, especially because of everything he's seen with jisung.

"he won't be going at all," seojun said abruptly with a bland tone. "he won't even let me into the room he's locked himself in. he says he doesn't wanna get me sick," seojun paused & laughed to himself, making minho's blood boil, "& i'm sure he'll feel the same about his friends. it's better if we just give him time to heal."

chan looked at minho, who looked directly back at him. minho could see the look of disbelief & anger on chan's face. minho knew chan wasn't falling for seojun's lies.

as for the rest of their friends, they didn't doubt seojun one bit, asking seojun to tell jisung that they hope he feels better & gets well soon.

it took everything within minho to not tackle seojun to the ground & beat him to a bloody pulp. but he felt now wasn't the time to do so. he knew he would get his chance, the perfect chance to put his fists to use against seojun's disgusting face. and now wasn't the time.

minho tightened his fists to the point of cutting off his circulation as he watched seojun walk away. the boy walking away knew minho had an inkling of what was going on. but he felt minho was no match for him. he gave himself a smug smile, chuckling to himself as he walked away to his friends, who were just as disgusting as him.

later on after school, minho & chan met up with one another.

"something is horribly wrong, i can just feel it," chan expressed, holding onto the straps of his backpack tightly.

"i know. but there's not much we can do for now. as much as i'd love to go running to seojun's apartment & figure out what the hell is truly going on, we don't have any evidence of anything. seojun is probably home & i wouldn't put it past him in getting the law involved. we need this to go smoothly for jisung. we need him to be able to be separated from seojun. if the police get involved, seojun could probably conjure up some elaborate story & convince police nothing is wrong, then he'll truly be stuck with jisung."

chan nodded in agreement with minho's words. the younger was right. there truly wasn't much they could do. chan hoped jisung was alright, & that he would return to his friends.

—

"let's make a deal, yeah? if i even see you breathing in the same building as minho, i will fucking kill you."

jisung watched the black screen of his laptop with a blank expression, listening to the words seojun said to him. this was probably the 20th time he had listened to the video in the last 5 days. he was shocked the video he took on his phone had transferred to his laptop in such a short amount of time. hell, he was even more shocked that seojun didn't notice his laptop was in the room to begin with.

after he finished viewing the video, he pulled up the photos of the injuries seojun had caused. he was able to use the laptops photo booth to capture the injuries. his bruises had healed quite a bit, but still looked pretty bad. he couldn't lie, his injuries were causing him immense pain, but all he could do was suffer through it because he had no medicine. he decided to take healing progress photos.

once he was finished getting every angle he possibly could, he closed his laptop, hiding it before sliding down the wall & resting his chin on his kneecaps. he couldn't help but feel an immense amount of sadness. he missed his friends, he missed lee know. he was scared & alone. he didn't know when this nightmare would end. he wanted this to all be over with.

he had tried escaping multiple times, trying to force the door open while seojun is at school, forcing the small window in the room open, trying to get neighbours across the alleyway to notice his persistent banging on the windows, but all to no avail. he felt as if he wasn't going to be stuck in this tiny, suffocating room forever.

he sighed, shaking his head at all of his thoughts. he needed to get his mind off of everything. he decided to take a bath with the master bathroom attached to the guest room. as he got up, he couldn't help but groan in pain.

thinking about it now, even if he tried to escape right this moment, he probably wouldn't even make it that far. yet he couldn't even imagine leaving this place in any other way than escaping. as the warm bath water encased him, he thought about all of the ways he could get back at the boy who was kidnapping him.

i know. this is a shitty chapter. i could have done more. but if y'all writers know, there's just chapters where you can't think of anything exciting or good to put in there, so then it ends up incredibly short & dull. that's this chapter. sort of a filler before everything continues & my brain is fried, out of ideas. i wish i could make this chapter better... maybe in the future.

anyways, enjoy your day / night ((: