daybreak || minsung

Chapter 26

For a moment, all I could comprehend was the absence of pain.

And then I realized I was alive, I was okay — better than okay. I felt good. Weightless and alert and free, like I'd been lost in a cloud of smoke all my life, walking around with skin made of iron. I wasn't breathing, I didn't need to — it felt redundant when I tried.

I stared at the ceiling above me. I saw each individual crack and bump in its surface, memorized them. Light was leaking through the window — the position of the sun told me it was around one-thirty in the afternoon. I could see traces of rainbow stretching across the room — all six colours in the spectrum, plus one more between green and blue that I didn't have a name for.

I looked away from the ceiling, and the first thing I saw was Jisung's face. His eyes were wide and wary, and he had my arm pinned to the couch. I remembered I had been thrashing. My hand was crushed around his, still squeezing. I uncurled my fingers and took my hand back.

Jisung mirrored me, let my wrist go and leaned back. He was kneeling on the floor next to me. I was half-lying lengthwise across his couch, frozen.

I sat up. The movement was practically invisible — like I had skipped the physical action and got right to the end result. I shuddered, and it wasn't because I was cold or afraid. I could feel power in me, quivering in my fingertips, making my muscles twitch. I closed my eyes for a minute.

"Minho?"

Jisung was staring up at me, measuring my reaction. I realized, along with all the other realizations jamming my brain, that his whole face was different. More distinct, clearer — my eyes could finally process him. He looked so much more real. His acne scars more noticeable, his front teeth crooked, his eyebrows pulled so tightly together that he would likely develop a wrinkle. There was a triangular scar on his forehead that I hadn't seen till now.

He was so goddamn beautiful.

He cautiously placed one hand on my knee. "My love," he whispered.

I wanted to hold his hand, and I was doing exactly that before I consciously thought to do it. I turned his palm up, laced our fingers together, felt his skin...

He wasn't cold. My body went into lockdown, totally motionless — a vampire thing, I guess. I couldn't describe the ache I felt for his touch. It was beyond physical or emotional or anything else.

Slowly, matching his wariness, I lifted myself off the couch, onto his lap, and wrapped my arms around his neck. I had been bound for days, drowning in fire, and now I found shelter in his arms. Looking back, it felt like he'd been a figment of my imagination, dreamed up to help me through the change.

I couldn't believe he was real. I couldn't believe he was real and here and warm and mine.

"Oh, my god," were the first words out of my mouth. I flinched when I heard myself. My voice was pretty — sharp and deliberate, and, for the first time since I was fourteen, it didn't crack. I cleared my throat and spoke again. "Oh, my god."

"You're safe, Minho," Jisung said, rubbing up and down my back.

"I... missed... you... so... much...," I murmured, listening to my voice, and then, "Oh, my god — I missed you so much, Jisungie."

He pulled back and held my face between his hands. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

I could remember how it felt — the extreme white-hot, burning pain in every inch of my body — but I was just insane enough that I shrugged like it was nothing.

"I'm okay." I realized I was smiling — and that just made me smile wider. I must have been acting like a baby, discovering how to smile and move and speak, but I wasn't embarrassed. I was living in a new body, starting a new life.