Not Your Boyfriend (2PARK✔️)

Lesson Ten: Experiencing

sorry this took so long, I was busy sobbing over how talented wanna one is. y'know, the usual.

We lie still for too long, and I know my silence is going to become uncomfortable eventually, but I've no clue where to start, and I'm already unsure if I should. Not even a full minute ago, I was prepared to tell him anything and everything and now that I've let a few tears stain my cheeks, I'm overcome with nerves.

"You don't really have to tell me about it-"

"Don't say that," I whisper, rolling my eyes as I clench my fist between his two hands, simultaneously begging to be released and to be held tighter. "It's good practice for when I have to explain today to that doctor. I already know he's going to ask me about my mental history, since it's in my file that I went through therapy-" I cut myself off, licking my cracked lips as a damp spot forms at the nape of my neck. I've managed to break out in a cold sweat.

"Calm down," Woojin mutters, having lifted one of his hands to my wrist, keeping time of my pulse as it rises and falls erratically. "Just take some deep breaths, and stop thinking. Don't think at all, just talk to me. It's like any normal day, and we're just talking."

"Normally, we don't hold hands," I point out, grasping onto his as he tries to recoil from the contact. "B-but that's fine, I don't mind." He relaxes against my side once more, his head pressing against my shoulder to push some kind of comfort onto me, I'm sure. "Okay... Where should I start..?" I don't know why I ask, because he doesn't know where it begins, or ends.

He shrugs against me, even though the question was made rhetorically. "How about, the absolute earliest part of the whole story that you can remember. That's even better than the beginning. Practically a prologue."

I swallow, nodding to myself as I take in one long breath, Sungwoon's soap clinging to Woojin's hair just inches from my face. That alone gives me enough solace to let words begin passing my lips.

"Hwang Minhyun," I say quietly, nestling into my pillows as the sharp face of someone I thought loved me claws its way into my mind's eye. "He was another trainee when I first entered the company, a bit more than three years older than me."

I blink rapidly, narrow eyes watching me with each stretch of darkness the backs of my eyelids bring. Dark eyes that would watch me for seconds, or hours at a time, crinkled at the edges as smiles would overtake thin lips. As cheeks would lift and a chin was dropped into a hand. As time would stop and hold steady on that one gaze. I sigh at the thought, practically nostalgic.

"He... He was the first person that talked to me when I started training, besides the teacher." My hand twitches in Woojin's but he casually slips his fingers between mine, clasping my pale hand tightly within his dark one. "When Sungwoon was in and out of the hospital, Minhyun was always beside me to pat my shoulder and let me know I wasn't going to sit alone.

"We spent every training session side by side... Well as soon as we became friends, we basically spent every moment together." A lump at the back of my throat begins burning, like a pot of water preparing to boil over. "Because as a kid, I was always busy, I'd never paid much attention to how I felt towards others. I had friends... Er, I had Sungwoon... But I didn't have-"

"Crushes?" Woojin guesses, tilting his head back to look at me. I refuse to lower my gaze and meet his. "You just didn't have the time to connect with people, I get that."

"Right," I say quietly, clearing my throat and feeling that sharp lump swell. "I'd never had a crush on someone. Never really cared much if someone was cute, or my type, or anything like that. But after spending all that time with him, and using him as almost a human tissue, I became a bit dependent on him. Like he was a massive force keeping me stable."