DLMLU

Vulnerability

"This is where I was raised," Minho spoke softly, feeling his hands starting to shake slightly. He didn't know why he came here, or why he even thought telling Jisung his life story would make any difference. Minho was weak, that's probably how Jisung viewed him. Minho could never see himself as strong or brave. Cocky, or naïve, weak even. That's all Minho saw himself as even if he refused to admit it.

"Lee Know-" Jisung had no words. He looked at the building that was falling apart. It was aged and not taken care of in the slightest. If Jisung had to guess It had to have been years since someone's last been in the house. How the house wasn't condemned already or destroyed by now was almost shocking. However, the more Jisung looked at the neighborhood the more he felt it wasn't a safe one to even be traversing in to begin with.

"My parents own the place, but I've never been brave enough to circle back here. My life was great even when Felix was born, we were a family. I was excelling in school; I even partook in dance classes. It wasn't until I was seven when things started to go downhill..."

Jisung took every word from Minho seriously. There was no way he was fucking this up by not paying attention. Seeing Minho defenseless meant something shifted in their relationship. He held Minho's hand tighter, showing he was there as Minho seemed to lose himself in thoughts. This ever-so-sliver of a moment of showing your scars and wounds to someone meant everything to Jisung. Maybe one day he could tell his own story. It was by far more tamer than Minho's, but they both suffered in some form as children and it reflected on who they were now, as adults, it showed.

"I came home early one day. Extremely sick and I was forced to walk home. My mother- she was supposed to pick me up from school and Felix from daycare. I ended up entering the house at the wrong time. I could hear giggles and outrageously annoying moans and groans from down the hall- needless to say. I was still naive and walked in on my mother cheating on my father."

Minho pointed outwardly towards a blacked-out room that had boarded windows. Jisung felt a wave of pain litter his body. He couldn't imagine what Minho must've felt. He called it naive, but Minho was smarter than that. Jisung knew that much. Minho walked away from the house, not baring another moment to look at it as he began feeling sick to his stomach, guiding Jisung along. Silence loomed over the both of them as they walked. Neither of them acknowledged the hands being together since their departure from the train, it was like neither of them cared. They only cared about the sensation that someone was beside them. The air was thick but not of tension. It wasn't a heavy dose of anger or resentment, It was thick with pain, and unspoken words that were just waiting to be spoken.

"I'm sorry Minho." Jisung finally had enough words, but it wasn't nearly enough to convey the emotions he was feeling. How do you convey your regards without sounding lame or of pity? How do you tell someone everything would be okay when back then in the past it wasn't? It wasn't his story or life and yet, he was feeling like he was hit by a truck, his gut slammed around, knowing this was barely scratching the surface of who Minho was. Minho had a shit life and it started at such an early age, much different than Jisungs own.

"My dad came home that night- Felix, me, and mom sitting at the table. Felix was too young to understand the tension and anger I carried staring at our mother whilst sitting at that dinner table. What made it worse, was she didn't even have an ounce of guilt. He had told us he lost his job and from there everything began falling apart."