| District 9 | STRAY KIDS SHIPS

Nothing Lasts Forever// Minchan

Nothing Lasts Forever
Minchan (Minho x Chan)
Genre: really fucking sad
Status: dating
Words: 1198

Notes: This isn't really a ship one shot it's more Minho based than anything.

Nights like this were becoming too regular for my liking.

It's always been hard to explain what went on inside my own head, much like anyone else with a more complex maze in the control center in their body. My mind and body seemed to always act the opposite from one another, fighting in a brutal and bloody fist match, my heart nowhere in the mixture, not even playing referee.

But if there's one thing, and one thing alone, I can clearly tell you with full confidence it's that it's quiet. There is a silence that has been there for the last thirteen years of my life and I've become far too used to it. The context of it all was too much for me to explain all in one go but know I have at least a novel full of reasons for why I am like this and why it's my fault.

Fourteen year old me would have loved to blame and pin it all on everyone around me. Every single toxic person to exist. But as I've grown and come to accept the lack of feelings and emotions in my heart and stomach, I've come to the conclusion that every single bit of it is my fault. I didn't have to listen. I didn't have to conform to their ideas. But I did. And now I have to deal with the consequences of it all.

I still have to deal with the moments where I near the edge of myself destruct button. When I'm forced to isolate myself for the safety of everyone around me. When Minho, is no longer Minho.

But even as I lie in the warmth of my lover's arms and listen to the screaming of my eight best friends around me, it's still quiet and lonely.

Along with the silence, loneliness was something that I realized would be something that would forever linger in my life. However, I was far more comfortable with the loneliness rather than the silence. Some believe that the two go hand in hand. That if you were to be alone in a room, it would ultimately be silent, a dull ringing in your ears. But I can tell you that the dull ringing in your ears is not true silence.

True silence is hearing nothing at all. Not even the puffs of your breath or blood pumping in your head. Nothing is there.

I like to make a comparison for the sake of anyone I might be talking to about the state of my mind, and I can say it's the closest explanation I've managed to have.

Imagine if you were in a glass bottle the size of a hotel and your crippled form right in the middle. With sweat on your brown but goosebumps all up and down your arms and thighs, you scramble up when you come to the realization that everyone around you passes you by and disregards you as if you don't exist. You want to approach the glass, break it and escape the hell you've found yourself in, but four, thick black chains that practically ooze darkness itself cling on to you, wrapping around you like a spider would their prey.

You can't go anywhere.

And no one can hear you as you scream and cry for help. Not even yourself.

That's what's it's like in my head. And that's what it's been like for thirteen years.

To me, the silence was far more unsettling than the loneliness. I have come to accept the fact that my loneliness is something that I should embrace rather than fight. No one was truly meant to understand me, that's not how the world worked. I wasn't meant to be loved, or around multiple people who truly cared. It's not in my nature.

There was a time in my life where I was angry at this loneliness and lack of understanding. A time before I lost the one thing that I hold near and dear to my heart even when I know I'll never get them back, my emotions. I had been so angry I had gone mute for two years. I only spoke when needed but I avoided any and all socialization. No one listened to me. No one wanted to listen to me. So why speak?

But as I rest my arms against the balcony railings of the dorms, I begin to decide if any of this was worth it. Everything seems too good to be true. I debut tomorrow, I finally get to live the dreams I so desperately wanted to live and I'm doing it with eight other boys who mean the world to me.

But everything ends the same. Nothing lasts forever.

So how much longer do I have until this all comes crumbling back down onto my shoulders?

I can't help but flick the lighter on and off in my hand, watching the flame with a lost, dull look in my eyes. When I was younger, even now, I wondered what it would be like to place the flame close to my skin, let it lick at the hairs there and watch them burn off one by one.

I wondered what it would be like to set myself on fire. What it would be like if I shot myself in the head with the gun my parents kept in my room. I wondered if anyone cared.

I hadn't considered myself suicidal. I was curious as to why one would do this. I wanted to know what was beyond this hellish life I had lived for twenty years. I wanted to know what people would do if I suddenly died, how they would handle it.

I always loved knowing how people tick. So, I told myself that that had been merely an act of curiosity.

"Minho? Baby why are you out here?" Warm arms twine themselves around my waist, a nose burying itself into the nape of my neck. I could feel Chan breathing me in, practically latching his body onto me like a leach. I want to smile, bask in the warmth of my lover, but when he begins to guide me back to bed, I remember the silence I had been so desperately trying to avoid.

"C-Can you sing to me?" I ask, my desperation shining through as I clutch at the collar of Chan's shirt. The elder shushes me, stroking and combing my hair in hopes of getting my breathing to calm and settle. He sings a song that used to make my heart race and cheeks red back when we first began to date, but he falls asleep before me and I'm left alone in the silence once more.

His hold was no longer as comforting as it used to be and I began to wander just how much longer I could fake all of this.

Because the silence would never go away and the loneliness will forever remain in the deepest pits of my unbeating heart.