I can read your smile - Choi Minho SHINee Fanfic (COMPLETED)

Chapter 19 - Anxiety

~January, the night of the game~

"So, ready for tonight?" Jude asked around the table excitedly.

"Wait, don't tell me you're all coming." Minho chuckled.

"Of course we are!" Key replied. "It's not like you lose in the Finals every other day!"

"You little shi-"

"I even took time off work." Crystal cut Minho off, eating lazily from the tray of food he brought her.

"Don't listen to Key, you have to win." Taemin stared him down. "This table is for winners."

"Of course, that's the plan." Minho waved his hand around as if to dismiss him, then looked at his plate.

He was nervous, they all could tell.

~

After eating, Minho and Crystal headed home, as he wanted to rest a bit before the game, and she had nothing else to do.

Even though he's been home for almost two weeks, they haven't spoken much except for lunchtime, because he was always away training. This game was stressing him out a lot, and Crystal worried about him. He's been acting off for the past few days, even since returning home, which gave Crystal a really unpleasant feeling in her stomach.

At 6PM, two hours before the game, she knocked on his bedroom's door.

He didn't answer, so she concluded he must be sleeping, but still, the game would start in 2 hours and she knew he was supposed to leave home in 30 minutes, so she decided to open the door and check on him.

He was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, and he was sweating badly and shaking.

"Oh my God! Minho! Are you okay?" She ran towards him and kneeled down in front of him, forcing him to look at her.

"My chest- it hurts badly. I think- I think I'm having a panic attack." He barely spoke. He was breathing heavily and shivering.

"Okay. Okay. Here, breathe with me for a bit." She instructed him, but he didn't seem to calm down.

"I'm so anxious, Crystal." He panted. "It's my last game. If I don't win-"

"Okay Minho, let's not think like that. I want you to listen to my voice closely. Lay down on the bed."

He nodded and she helped him lay down.

"Close your eyes and breathe in slowly, then out. Like this." She breathed with him. "Now focus on what you're feeling and locate it in your body. You don't have to tell me where it is. Just locate it, let yourself feel where it is, and give it a colour. Anything you like, it might be blue, like the walls in this room, or maybe black, or red, or why not green like the colour of our plants on the balcony? Once you've figured out what colour you want to give that feeling, think about how the colour is moving in your body. Perhaps it's a ball rotating at full speed, or maybe it's moving slowly. Visualise it, Minho, and then take your right hand and move it to where the feeling is located, and grab the colour. Hold it in your hand for a while, in front of you, and make it move differently. You can control if it rotates from left to right, if it moves slowly or fast, you can do anything with it. Make it jump up and down, or make it melt. You are feeling it in your hand, aren't you? It almost burns. Now go ahead and give it a different colour. And give it a different shape too. It's now another feeling that you control, so you can put it back in your chest. Take your hand to your chest and let the colour go in. You are probably noticing by now that you are no longer anxious, and that you can breathe normally, so you can open your eyes. Feeling better?"