Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.11 ⸙」

JISUNG

Classes were... quiet. Calm. Peaceful, even. There were no half-hidden whispers, and the constant kicking of my chair was gone. There were no confident smirks thrown my way, no winks, no galaxy eyes. No cheesecake. No teasing.

My life was normal. Like it was before the world's chaos and mischievous brilliance all contained in one person kicked his way into my life.

And yet the peacfulness that I thought I longed for somehow left a gaping hole in my routine. I wasn't used to it, and I found myself not liking it as much as I thought I would. A knife twisted in my stomach every time I looked at Minho, only to find him avoiding my gaze as if one look could turn him into stone. A strange bitterness washed over me every time I carried my tray to the lunch table, and the laughter and jokes would immediately hush down; everyone sent me careful glances as if I was some delicate bomb that could be set off at any moment.

Changbin especially was wary of me, and always ushered Minho out of the way when I came by. He would always make sure that Minho was sitting the furthest away from me he possibly could sit, and would sneak occasional half-concerned, half-angry glares my way when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

And Minho?

Minho.

I didn't recognise him sometimes. He seemed a shell of himself, as if his mind wasn't actually here and he was just going through the motions. He looked like he was drowning, like he couldn't find it in him to take the next breath. He avoided me completely, treated me as if I wasn't there. Even if I so much as looked at him, he would turn his head around and walk as fast as he could in the opposite direction. In class, he either arrived ridiculously early or shockingly late, head hung low and eyes trained on everywhere but me.

It made me feel sick.

The funniest thing was, I knew who's fault it was. I couldn't pin the blame on anyone else but me. The moment I spat those vile, vile words out into the air, there was no going back.

Congratulations, Jisung. You just managed to fuck up yet another time, to absolutely no one's surprise.

I could tell Felix was getting genuinely worried about me, but even he acted like he was stepping on egg shells. I was holed up in my room most of the time, headphones on at full volume, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling feeling sorry that I was ever born. The only positive thing I could glean from this is that my parents would probably leave me alone for a while after they had done their bi-annual check to see if I'm still the failure that they left me as.

Evidently, I am.

Tonight was no different. I could practically describe every dip and imperfection in the off-white ceiling purely from staring at it so often. I decided to travel the treacherous and long journey to the kitchen to grab a drink. I stood up, my bones cracking and my muscles tensing at being in the same position for so long. As I shuffled along, trying to remember when the last time I drank was, I almost bumped into Seungmin. I glanced at him, not questioining why he was in mine and Felix's dorm. At this point, all four of us shared both dorms.

Seungmin watched me quietly as I filled up a glass with water, and took a sip out of it. I looked back at him, mumbled a hello and was about to head back to my room to continue staring at the ceiling when he put out an arm to stop me. Furrowing my eyebrows, I opened my mouth to ask him what he thought he was doing when he cut me off my speaking first.

"Han Jisung."

My full name. A great start.

"Stop moping about and sort yourself out."