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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MAY 14
A warm breeze pulled gently at Minho's hair as he shut off the air conditioning and rolled the windows down after getting a sufficient distance away from the university.
He felt... free. Freer than he ever had. Somehow he ended up smiling— so wide that his cheeks hurt— though nothing happened, so he thought he would've looked like an idiot had there been anyone there to see him. But totally alone in the car and far from anyone who knew him, he drank in summer sunlight and fresh, green-feeling air and felt like it didn't matter if some random people on the road thought he looked like an idiot when they saw him for a few insignificant seconds. Had he ever smiled like this before?
He turned on music, too. And eventually sang— actually sang, instead of just humming along quietly (as had been his habit whenever the music was loud enough to completely cover up the sound). That's something he hadn't really done in who knows how long, not since he started to feel uncomfortable letting his voice out so indiscriminately. It'd been years, anyway.
How long had it been since he enjoyed being alone, not because he was too tired and afraid to be with other people, but because he felt free on his own? Because he could be anything, when he was on his own, now that he wasn't forcing himself to uphold an image, deluding himself into believing that that image, that icy mold, was what truly he was and wanted to be.
He felt a burning, bursting warmth inside him, different, but similar to the feeling that would bubble up in his chest and in his stomach when Jisung touched him. He felt alive. Overwhelmingly so— like he was a seed that had finally sprouted out of wintry, thawing ground. He let his left hand hang over the door of his open-windowed car; spread out his fingers to let the wind flow between them.
Three hours felt a lot shorter today than it possibly ever had. Way, way too short. By the time Minho started to recognize his surroundings, the warmth mellowed out, and so did he. He returned to humming softly along with the music as he pulled his hand back to the wheel to maneuver familiar turns. Humming turned into tapping his thumb on the wheel rhythmically as he pulled into his neighborhood, and finally, after months, he was back home. Too soon.
Needlessly, he wondered, as he parked, if he even wanted to be here.
Struggling to fiddle the keys into the right position and turn them in the lock when his hands were full of boxes, he opened the door and stepped inside and felt the remnants of the warmth in his chest go out like a candle as his pleasant, freeing solitude vanished. He hadn't even seen a single soul yet, and still, he felt an oppressive silence creep over him as his smile faded. Quiet was good in seclusion but here, it was suspense. He held his breath. A chill ran down his spine, ice cold sweeping over him as he shut out the sunny, near-eighty-degree weather with a click of the door.
