Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.27 ⸙」

JISUNG

When I opened my phone to mindlessly scroll for a while whilst nursing a raging headache that was about to rip my skull apart, the first thing I see should not cause me to almost spit out the (thankfully not overly salted) hangover soup I had just managed to sip.

Unfortunately, the universe was not on my side today. Staring at the picture posted from Jackson's account, I could physically feel my body freeze over. Positive: I was now fully awake and not feeling any fogginess whatsoever from the vast amount of alcohol I must have consumed last night. Negative: I might die soon, regardless of how awake I feel now.

It wasn't the photo that was the problem. It was what was in the background.

Me, to be more precise. Me, cuddled up with a person shrouded in darkness, his hands on my waist and my face almost buried in his neck. A person who was most certainly a boy.

"Felix. Felix. Felix, I'm done for."

"What now, Sungie?" Felix skipped over, slowing down once he saw the - certainly not very pretty - expression on my face. Climbing on to the bed, he settled down next to me, turning his eyes to the photo I was showing him.

"It's... you? With a guy? Very close to a guy. Hey, we could use this to track down the guy who was kissing you up last night! Detectives Lixie and Sungs, on a mission to-"

"No, Lix." He blinked at me in confusion.

"Me." I pointed to me, earning a slow nod from Felix.

"With a boy." I pointed to the phone. Felix nodded again.

"On Jackson's very big, very popular, very very public account." I pointed to the profile picture. Felix paused. Maybe he was beginning to understand how much shit I'm in.

"With my parents who stalk all of my social media, whose response to me coming out as bi with much fear and deliberation was, and I quote, I don't care as long as you settle down and marry a girl."

Felix's expression began to match my own. "I forget how shitty your parents are sometimes."

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. Clicking on my contacts, my only solution was to call the most level-headed, problem-solving person I know.

I put the phone to my ear. Within a few minutes, a faint click indicated that he had picked up, so I took a deep breath before beginning my lament. "Hey, uh, Seungmin? I might need a little tiny bit of help."

His voice came from the other side of the phone, heavy with sleep and annoyed as always. "What have you done to yourself now?" It came out as more of a statement than a question.

"So, you see. I have gotten myself into some sort of a situation-"

After the explanation, I could hear him roll his eyes at me. "So... what do you want me to do about this? Hack Jackson's Instagram and delete it? Find the guy you were basically on top of and hire a hitman with some shitty codename like PO3 to kill him?"

"I don't know! You're the second-most responsible person I know, and probably - no, definitely - the smartest."

"If I'm the first person you call to help you sort something out, you must really have a shitty group of friends."

"...Seungmin. We have literally the exact same group of friends."

"Yeah, I know. Talk about carrying a team. Where would you all be without me?"

"Seungmin, seriously. What do I do?"

There was some shuffling from the other side of the phone before I heard Seungmin's voice once more. "Working on tracking that guy down for you already. I'll look on other people's posts for you two lovebirds, and ask Jackson to blur out the background on his photos because my hypothetical girl had her thighs exposed whilst bending over to tie shoelaces or something. He's nice enough, he'll do it without looking too closely. You can start by asking the rest of our shitty friend group if any of them saw you with the guy, and find him to shut him down."

I let out a breath, ever thankful for the presence of these amazing people by my side. Looking to my left, Felix was already pulling out his phone, flashing his screen towards me - Changbin was already being called - and silently gave me a thumbs up and a grin.

Seungmin's voice in my ear drew my attention back to him. "Hey. Jisung. It's gonna be okay. Worst comes to worst, your parents disown you and you come live with us forever. We won't ever leave you, yeah? You'll be alright."

"Yeah. Yeah, Seungmin. Okay. Thank you so, so much, I-"

"No need, Jisung. After all, you gotta have some compensation for your shitbag parents, yeah?"

A faint beeping sound told me he had hung up. Following Seungmin's instructions, I moved on to the next contact. My finger hovered over Minho's name. Fragments of last night's dreams surfaced in my mind again and I threw my phone across the room, only minorly regretting that decision as I buried my head under the covers. Screaming silently into my pillow, I almost tossed Felix off the bed too. I hadn't even seen Minho face-to-face yet, and his name had reduced me to a pile of useless blankets.

But the mission to not get murdered by my father was more important, so I did the walk of shame to collect my phone from the floor, and clambered back on to the bed to call Minho.

He picked up almost immediately. "Hey, squirrel. What's up?"

I stayed silent, sure that if I opened my mouth the first thing that would come out would be some unintelligent squealing noise. How was he doing this to me? Maybe it was his voice, lower than it usually would be in the morning, heavy with the remnants of sleep I might have woken him up from. Or maybe it was the smirk I could hear as he spoke into the phone, the half-tilted smile on his lips clearly envisioned in my mind as he continued, "Come on now, Ji, don't be shy. You were the one that called me. What, you miss me too much and have no idea what to say now?"

Clearing my throat, I tried to defend what was left of my honour. "Uh... no?"

It came out a couple of octaves higher than I had planned it to. But we move forwards. "Actually, I was calling to check something. You were at the party last night, right?"

After a few beats of silence, he replied. "Yeah. Yeah, I was."

His voice sounded more awake. Tense, perhaps. Like we were on the cusp of uncovering something. Nervousness, laced with excitement, and a bit of trepidation that always came with stepping into the unknown.

Maybe I was reading into it too much.

"This is a bit of an awkward question, but... did you see me standing really close, or... like... cuddling with someone last night? Like, being really close and basically in the arms of another person..."

This time, he was quiet for so long I thought that he had hung up. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I checked that he was still on call, before putting it back to my ear.

"...Minho?"

"You don't know who he... who they are?"

I huffed a laugh, wondering why he was taking so long to catch up. "No, Minho, I don't. Why else would I call you? I'm calling everyone to check if they know or if they've seen the guy."

"Oh. I thought... well it doesn't matter what I thought. Uh... no, I didn't see you close to someone else last night, unless you're counting Felix. I'm assuming you aren't, though, so... sorry I couldn't help."

"It's okay, Min. Thanks for trying to think back. See you soon?"

"Yeah... yeah, see you soon, Jisung."

He hung up before I could, and I was left staring at his name, with a strange feeling like I'd just thrown away the key to another world, like I'd lost something I didn't even know I had.

I moved on to the next person in my contacts.

"Hey, Hyunjin-"

*****

everyone say thank you to 

they be the reason i wrote this chapter lol

how do we all feel about this hahaha

ahem

song rec: WALKING ON WATER RAHHHHHH NEW ALBUM IS SO FUCKING GOOD YALL

love y'all <3 for gods sake dont be as oblivious as jisung