CHAEBEOL | minsung

thirty-one

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡

Minho could feel the spine of his notebook, ringed and metal and cold, imprinting in his cheek. He wondered if, when he sat up from where his face was pressed against it, it would leave a mark on his face like flushed pink chains.

When he did sit up, this was answered for him.

Jisung's laugh was bitter and breathed out. "You realise you look like a fucking idiot, right?" And then he'd flipped his phone round, turned on the camera. Minho reflected back at himself with his hair a sleep-hungry mess and those same chains, spiralling down the side of his face. "Why bother coming if you were just gonna sleep?"

Minho shrugged. "Didn't wanna come."

Jisung shook his head, scoffed. Directed his glare to his papers instead.

They'd been there for around an hour, but to Minho it felt like a century. Squeezed into the corner of some shitty coffee shop, all pastel-coloured drinks and cakes that looked pretty but tasted like arse. What a way to spend a Sunday.

Minho wasn't doing well. He hadn't been sleeping much. He felt particularly irritable. He had to spend time with Han Jisung. He couldn't stop thinking about what Seungmin had said. He was trying not to ask why he was so caught up on what Seungmin had said. Trying, at least. Failing.

"I can finish this part. You're better at Algebra. I can do the Trig stuff, I guess, it's probably the one I'm best at," Jisung mused as he pulled over the notebook which was probably still warm from where Minho had just been resting heavy on it.

Minho shouldn't have glossed over the fact that Jisung had just said he was better than him at something, but he was stuck in his own head.

I don't care if it's just sex. I was worried you might have feelings for him.

A world in which someone like Lee Minho had feelings for someone like Han Jisung, in his eyes, was laughable. The same sort of world where up is down, where left is right, where the Earth is flat and airplanes fight pigs for their spot on the runway.

Minho makes Jisung feel irritated. That's how Minho makes everyone feel. When he feels particularly annoying, he can see it rising in them, a meter which ticks over every time he makes a wrong move. He winds them up, watches the meter rise, and then laughs when it cracks and shatters and the person breaks with it. The further away he keeps them, the easier it is when they explode.

So why let anyone get close? When it's inevitable, unavoidable, the explosion that leaves fragments of the people he hurts embedded in his own flesh?

"Why are you staring at me?" Jisung was frowning at him, but hidden by the table where he must have thought Minho couldn't see, his fingers scratched almost anxiously at the wood.

"Thinking."

"Makes a change," Jisung scoffed, but still he ducked his head low. Minho knew he was pretending to re-absorb himself in the notebook. Hiding.

"Your friends have a lot to say." Minho tucked his arms together, leaned back in his chair to observe Jisung. Watched as Jisung's brow tightened and his eyes darkened somewhat. He'd straightened his lip, shot a glare up at the older even with his head still lowered.

"You're telling me," he mustered up. It felt like he was going to leave it at that until he sighed, spoke again. "What's brought this on?"

"Kim Seungmin."

Jisung spluttered a laugh. "He's a psycho. People think I'm bad? He's worse. Anything he's said is a lie."

"If he's worse than you, he should probably have been admitted somewhere by now."