Hate me. (Minsung)

//136//

when she left the only feeling there was empty.

a dark, deep emptiness that jisung couldn't even fully process.

he felt guilty. a guilt so strong and prominent that it could rip him apart limb by limb.

he had cried in minho's arms and didn't even realize that he was slowly guiding him back inside. he didn't process it until the door was shut and quickly locked.

he couldn't feel anything other than the guilt after he cried all the tears he could possibly cry.

it was worrying.

after all the crying there was just silence, minho's worried eyes looking over the quiet blonde who refused to utter a word or sound.

instead, he was sitting on the bed (which minho guided him to) and stared at the floor with puffy eyes and dried lips.

it was like he was a shell of a person.

minho knew he was in the middle of processing, but something with the way jisung wasn't moving made him nervous. he didn't like it.

"ji, let me see your face." he was kneeling down in front of him. he couldn't get the image of him being hit out of his mind, and it'll probably be something that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

nothing could've allowed him to even think a mother doing that to her child was possible. the way it completely caught him disturbingly off guard, the brute force of it, the way jisung's head followed the impact afterwards.

he couldn't forget the reaction from it either. the way jisung was just as shocked as he was- even worse.

the way he completely disconnected from everything the second he got hit.

minho realized that he was far more fortunate than jisung ever was due to the sheer fact that he knew confidently that his own mother would never do that.

jisung doesn't move still.

he is merely looking down at the ground with his face not exactly rested completely- there was an expression that was different from anything minho seen from him before.

it doesn't take much to make minho start to think he's been re-traumatized.

just like in the past, but now it was here. in front of him.

he hears stories of jisung being left outside during a snow storm. he knew about how he would starve endlessly and beg for his moms attention. he knew that he was neglected.

he understood that feeling of neglect. maybe not in the same way, but he knew what loneliness felt like at least.

he hoped that jisung would understand why he couldn't let him go back to his mother.

he hoped he wouldn't think it was a selfish act that he held him back from her.

minho knew he couldn't go back to her because that meant that jisung would only revert and sink back down to when he was a kid.

he would be alone if he went back.

"ji." he says his name again, moving in closer to try and be in his line of sight. "hey.. you're okay."

"no i'm not." it was a defeated reply, but the first thing he said in a while. his voice was small and tired.

minho's face softened. "look, you're living, you're real and i'm here with you. you aren't alone anymore."

jisung doesn't meet his eyes. he doesn't even try to look up.

"but i'm not." he uttered. "it feels like she killed me. she took every bright side of me and swallowed it whole. i feel empty."