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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To numb the guilt, to avoid the vitriolic screaming of his brain (which had been jostled by this start of a complete 180 in his life), Chan threw himself into making sure he had everything during this second, final trip. Everything he'd need for a summer away from home. In his own home. There was no pretense of 'doing it for the family' to hide behind, as it had been with college, when he'd mostly just given in to the desire to escape and committed himself to four years of intermittently living four hours away.
His clothes were already waiting there, sitting in hastily packed boxes in an otherwise empty bedroom(?) (could one really call it a bedroom without a bed in sight?), along with his laptop, his favorite mug and instant coffee mix— even his phone, which he and his permanent scatterbrain accidentally left on the card table Changbin had brought to temporarily serve as their kitchen table.
At the moment, his mother and little siblings were helping him carry out his disassembled bed frame and his mattress.
He couldn't stop to let himself think for a second about what that meant. The fact that he was leaving them. And the way they smiled lovingly at him nonetheless, without a hint of betrayal in their voices as they asked how they could help Chan get his car packed up, to let him leave them.
Most of all, the way that, standing directly across from him as she carried the other end of the bed frame, Hannah avoided eye contact with him as her smile crumbled.
It felt like a stake driven through Chan's overtaxed heart.
When they were all much younger and their father's more extreme alcoholic episodes had begun— the first time he'd threatened their mother, shouting in a drunken stupor— Chan remembered hiding with his siblings in the closet under the creaky wooden stairs, with little Lucas in his lap and Hannah against his side. He'd told them not to worry. That their big brother would keep them safe. And that one day the three of them would run away together and never have to feel afraid like this again. Together.
No, he couldn't think about that. Otherwise he'd call it all off— he'd have to tell Changbin he chickened out, and he'd have to go back and get all his things, and he'd have to call the owners of the house and tell them he'd changed his mind— would they even let him take back a rental agreement he'd just signed?
No, he'd made his decision; Mom said this is what she wanted. So, as he slid the pieces of the bedframe over his folded-up seats, he forced his brain back to: laptop, check. Coffee, check. Pillow, check. Melatonin? Out of it. Pick up some more later. Not that it's been helping.
Thank heavens above for a distraction. Across the way, not far in the distance, a door slammed open and footsteps thundered on concrete. Glancing over his shoulder toward the noise, Chan could just make out the form of Jisung across the street, bent over, hands on his knees as he squinted back at him. And that was just a second before he started shouting, "CHAN HYUNG, YOU GOT A HOUSE!?"
