How to Be Human [EDITING]

B1 | heartstrings outstretched [minho]

❥ ❥ ❥

THE SPRING OF 2005
How to 'Break Up'

❥ ❥ ❥

Sometimes, sex is the glue that holds a crumbling relationship together.

For a moment, all of the tears and screaming matches cease to exist, and all that matters is the way someone feels in your arms. All that matters is how they smell of sweat and the faintest hint of cologne, and how it's your favorite scent in the whole universe and all its galaxies. It's easy to allow your anger to dissipate when a warm body is wrapped around yours; when there's a giggle and a kiss shared in the quiet of a dark room.

It's the only time where it feels like your love can be made physically tangible, and even if just for a few minutes, you feel like you can touch it, and hold it, and show it to the rest of the world.

In a relationship that feels like a battleground, it gives a person—a naïve, love-blind fool—the illusion that everything is going to be okay. It's a fleeting mirage that appropriates logic: a false sense of security that'll be gone before morning comes.

"Love you," a whisper echoes in the dark, spoken from an ocean away. "You were good."

Minho's bottom lip quivers as he stares blankly into the darkness of the room, curtains sealed shut, lights shut off. His mouth is stained of the saltine taste of semen, and it doesn't taste as good as it did a few minutes ago.

"Love you too," Minho's voice cracks as he whispers back, a tear rolling down the curve of his cheekbone, falling onto the pillow beneath him.

"I'm gonna' go wash up, okay?" and there's a quick peck to his cheek, licking up the saltwater. "I'll get you some pain meds for...y'know."

"'Kay." Minho nods, curling his legs towards his chest.

A sigh falls from the darkness and the bed dips and springs pop as the warmth next to him gets up and walks away. The light from the bathroom floods the room—and it's blinding—so Minho buries his face into the pillow. The sounds of the faucet running is all that Minho can hear until it turns off and there's silence.

Truthfully, he should have broken up with Leon a week ago.

He knew it, his soul craved it, and his heart reached for it with hopeless, outstretched arms. But, every time the words rose in his throat, Leon would grab him and press him against the wall, kissing him desperately, as if Minho was his only source of air.

Felix thinks that they've broken up already. Minho lied through his braces-bound teeth that the breakup had been immediate; that he had been strong enough; and that he wasn't a weak, pathetic, clingy coward who let his boyfriend fuck him into a mattress and cry while they did it.