The Boy Next Door

bathtub hugs

I took a deep inhale before I opened the door. I knew Changmin was sitting right there in the living room which I had to pass by to get to the bathroom.

But I just couldn't stop a few tears from falling down my face. Was I being dramatic? After all, this is what Sunwoo had to deal with on the regular, and he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. He could barely look at me, let alone touch me.

I sniffled, and then zoomed past the living room and locked myself into the bathroom.

Moments later I heard a chair being pushed and then footsteps down the hallway.

"Joy?" Changmin said. My full name.

"Yeah?" I cleared my throat so I didn't sound too devastated.

"Are you okay?" His voice was quiet and soft compared to the ones in the house next door.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My right arm had red and purple marks on it, and my shoulder had a long gash bleeding.

"Yeah." I said.

".... why were you holding your shoulder when you ran past me?" He asked.

"No reason," I opened the drawers looking for a first aid kit, when I remembered my mom cut her finger last week so it was probably in her room. "shit." I said quietly.

"What? What is it??" Changmin asked frantically.

"If I told you I was sticking a tampon up my ass would you leave me alone?" I asked.

"Hm no! One because you told me that two weeks ago. and two because was I not the one who walked you home after your first period and wrapped my jacket around your waist?"

He snickered when he heard me sigh. I did remember that day. He never got that jacket back.

"Yeah you can't get rid of me that easily." Changmin said after a moment.

I leaned against the door in silence. Maybe if I pretended like I fell asleep he would go, and I could sneak upstairs and cover up the blood before he asked what happened, and so I would never have to explain to him that I had been emotionally and physically battered.

"Jo," Changmin said. "Please, you're killing me out here. Since when do we keep secrets from each other?"

He was killing me just as much as I was him. I saw myself in the mirrror, holding my shoulder as tightly as I was holding back tears.

We didn't keep secrets, but these past few weeks I had been tempted to keep everything from him.

"Don't get mad." I said, unlocking the door slowly.

"I won't... not at you anyway."

"Don't cry, or else I'll cry." I said.

"I won't."

I thought about how different his reaction was to Sunwoo. So level headed, so responsible and prepared for anything. At some points I began to wonder if the adventure I wanted so badly was even worth the damage.

"Please don't leave." It slipped out of my mouth from holding back what I wanted to tell Sunwoo back there. I only wanted him to stay and he couldn't. That seemed to be the one thing he wouldn't do for me.

"I'd never leave you," Changmin said after a moment of silence. His voice was less steady than before, but no less certain.

I slowly cracked the door open.

His eyebrows raised slowly and he glanced from my bleeding shoulder to the bruises on my arm. Then he looked at my face and his eyebrows furrowed into anger.