Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.24 ⸙」

MINHO

The party was relatively normal. The usual. People were already slamming down drinks as if hangovers didn't exist. A low bass loud enough to shake the floor made it difficult to think, let alone talk. Bodies tangled up in each other on the poor excuse for a dance floor, making even poorer excuses for dancing. The lights were low, the rooms dark apart from the sharp stabs of light temporarily lent from a disco ball that Jackson had hung up on the ceiling. The air was already becoming stifling, the scent of perfume applied a few too many times mixing with the underlying stench of sweat and alchohol pressing into me.

Like I said, the usual.

Lisa shouted something into my ear. She was the one who always dragged me to these events I deemed unimportant. Friends, nothing more. We had tried, eons ago, but it didn't exactly work. Still, she'd be the one I'd choose if I wanted a girlfriend. But I didn't want a girlfriend. I wanted-

She nudged me, repeating words I couldn't hear over the thumping of the bass rocking the very foundations of Jackson's house - I felt increasingly bad for his parents each time I showed up at one of his parties - but I could at least understand her gestures towards the entrance of the building.

Glancing towards the door, I spotted a small group of people get ushered in, the door that was previously letting in the last of the natural light banging shut behind them, announcing their arrival.

Once I had glimpsed the object of Lisa's attention, my gaze refused to leave the figure that had stepped inside Jackson's house. Who needed the sun outside, truly, when I had my very own sun lighting up the room at this very instant? He was ten times brighter, and infinitely prettier. The great ball of fire that was supposed to be far in outer space seemed to all of a sudden have contained itself withing the confindments of my chest, my heart threatening to escape the ribs that cage it and fly, ecstatic, straight towards the sun. My sun.

His hair, usually so soft, had been styled, framing his face perfectly - he was perfect anyway - and a streak of bright blue (temporary hair dye?) ran through his previously brunette locks. Someone had swept a light layer of makeup on him, accentuating his eyes and dusting his cheekbones with glitter that shone, spilling out from bright eyes flitting around the room. A pink tongue darted across his lower lip, tantalisingly quick, tugging out some foreign yet familiar feeling from my stomach. It could not be called coincidence that I wondered at that moment what his lip balm tasted like. What were the consequences of gaining a taste of the sun? Of capturing the nimble flick of his tongue between my own lips, and savouring it by enticing him into a dance much more tender - yet maybe no less forgivable - than the savage grappling on the dance floor?

I think I could bear them.

But I am rendered helpless, a sea of people between us and the knowing eyes of Lisa boring into my back. I could only look. Look, not touch. Isn't that how all masterpieces were treated? Perhaps it was meant to be so.

Reluctantly, and only by degrees, I managed to turn back to Lisa, resisting the urge to surge towards him, parting the sea with my pure determination. I was Icarus, laughing, soaring headlong into the sun and hoping against hope that I would not plummet to my death. It would most certainly be to my death, if I were to fall.

Lisa only raised an eyebrow at me. I had told her some of the thoughts in my head, and the rest she was able to piece together. I didn't think it was very difficult, to be honest. I'm sometimes suprised at myself for not having fallen to my knees in front of him.

Of course, the intense glaring he was suddenly directing at me did a great job reminding me exactly why I hadn't done that yet.

"I see now what you mean by 'I'm pretty sure he hates me with every fibre of his being'." A soft voice, one that I knew well, travelled into my ear, finally making it past the loud bass beats. Lisa, on her tiptoes, a hand resting on my shoulder, leaned upwards to get her message across.