SEQUEL TO HOLD ME
"it's only human."
those are words that stick in the minds of eight boys who have found themselves closer than ever because of a year spent at the same college.
minsung, seungin, changhyunlix... and chan :')
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Chan watched as Minho sat alone, arms around his shins, and staring blankly at the fire fizzling out, wearing that foggy expression of his.
There is a fine line between a relaxed face— one that is merely resting, void of expression, while the mind behind it is more or less empty— and a mask that's worn to hide restlessness and turmoil within— held straight and tight, unblinking, fighting the shaking pupils inside cloudy, overcast eyes. Only a few could tell the difference. Fewer still paid enough attention to notice it.
On the other hand, Jisung sat next to Chan, with Felix having at some point drifted away, seeming listless and out of it, as he'd been doing off-and-on all day long.
Chan was watching them both, eyebrows furrowed, head tilting slightly as he glanced back and forth. Across to the other side of the fire and back. Minho. Jisung.
Now, he wasn't exactly up-to-date on the goings-on between the two of them, but he had been told (and had picked up on by himself), that Jisung had become someone that Minho could lean on. The only one that Minho could lean on. Chan had witnessed the electric current between them himself. But what was he doing right now?
It bothered Chan, that Jisung— who he'd known to be observant and almost endlessly caring and compassionate— just seemed so indifferent. For the past several months, whenever he'd been awake enough to notice, Chan had seen Jisung gradually get Minho accustomed to being close to him. Almost like, one night at a time, Jisung would pull him down into his arms more and more. Until they could all get together for a movie night and Minho could fall asleep cuddled up to him, and he would have to threaten the other boys to keep them from taking pictures, because Minho would be genuinely upset by that.
But then came Jisung's strange disappearance.
And now it seemed to be reversed. They started drifting further and further apart over the past few days, hadn't they? But Chan hadn't really noticed Minho seeming this visibly disturbed until now, and now was when it struck him that Jisung was nowhere near Minho— now that he noticed, the fact that Jisung and he were seated totally opposite each other was quite significant. (If Chan recalled correctly, the two of them had ridden separate from each other on the ride here, too.) And in this moment it seemed that, for once, Jisung wasn't even paying a scrap of attention to Minho.
It was all very weird. What was going on? What was with Jisung?
He pondered it all for a while, but eventually, seeking answers, Chan reached out and tapped Jisung's arm. Jisung seemed to have woken up from a deep, yet open-eyed sleep at the contact. Jolting awake, he looked back at Chan.
Chan flicked his head and his gaze toward Minho as an answer. "Look at him," he mouthed.
Jisung did look. He looked at right Minho, silently struggling across from him, and breathed a deep, quiet sigh. But he did nothing.
