tough love ✔️ | pre-the maze runner minho

06

MINHO AND THE leaders let the Gladers saw her as a superhuman. Worshipped, loved, cared. A figure with no emotion. Someone who could take care of herself and could handle taking care of others as well.

Wasn't that what she had been doing since the day they arrived?

Nick might be first-in-command and Alby might be second, but she was the voice behind every decision the Council had made. And as much as his ego didn't want to admit it, she was always right. Well, most of the time.

Newt was feverish in his sleep. His body temperature was spiking, but his palms were clammy and terrifyingly cold, so he went to grab some extra blankets. Somehow the blankets were kept in her room. So he went there, whistling an unknown tune on his way.

To say that opening the door to see her cry was a surprising experience, was an understatement. He was horrified.

She was the unmatched goddess, and now she seemed... humane. Curled up in a ball, knees pressed against her chest, heads down. Her hiccups and sobs entered his ears like a foreign cry of a wounded animal, and he didn't know what to do.

He remembered that she could be sad, too.

"Frankie?"

She was a protector. But who protected her?

"Minho," she gasped, wiping her tears with her sleeves, "Shuck. You good? Need anything?"

As someone who called himself her friend, he was ashamed. He cared if she was injured physically (after all, she was his best Runner), but he never asked if she was okay inside. He never asked her 'you good?' or 'how are you feeling?'

That was the moment Minho felt a tug in his heart; an urge to do what he should've done for years.

〰️

NEWT WAS GETTING better and better with each passing day. The presence of his friends, their constant speech, his new job, and an introduction to this month's Greenie Hank had successfully, slowly but surely, made him realize that he was an irreplaceable asset to the Glade. That even when he was busy running the Maze and pitying himself, he left a gaping hole that could only be completed by his charming British grin and one-of-a-kind British accent.

He apologized to everyone in a Gathering, during which he was coronated to work officially under Zart's command while the Greenie under Gally's. Alby had vowed to never let Newt out of his sight as well, and since then the Glade had returned to its original roll.

Until one uneventful day ended in an eventful evening, not long after Newt's sudden and surprising recovery, when the mystery behind his abrupt change was unraveled in a casual conversation at the dinner table.

"I talked to him," Minho boasted playfully.

"Yeah. Surprisingly inspiring for a klunkhead like you, I give you that."

"Well? What did he say?" Alby asked.

"A lot. Words like we can't give up, and if you can't do it for yourself then do it for the Greenies. SHUCK, DO IT FOR ME! WE CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!"

Everyone laughed (or, in Frankie and Zart the introverts' case, smiled) at the image of Minho being such a dramatic preach, until one new revelation took over the hype of his wisdom in a sentence of only six words: "And Minho told me Frankie cried."

Everyone was stunned, including the two whose names were mentioned.

"Didn't know I mean that much to you, shank," Newt joked, ruffling her hair playfully. Only when nobody laughed did Newt realize that he had made a mistake. A bit too late.

As usual, emotions could only flashed through her face for a few short seconds before her stoic, strong, nonchalant mask returned. She gritted through her teeth, "You said it's our secret!"

"But it worked, didn't it?" Minho grimaced innocently.

"You jacked, shuckfaced, slintheaded, piece of klunk."

Minho raised both his arms and formed an X to protect his face from an impact he was expecting, his eyes pressed shut in painful anticipation. But after her record of longest profanities, she just stood up and left the table with her dinner half-eaten.

"Thought you knew you mean so much to all of us," she said to Newt, planting a hand on his shoulder, "Including me."

Truthfully, that was way worse than enduring a few hard hits. He hoped she would just call him shuckface, he would call her slinthead, and they would be even like they always did.

"Wait, Frankie!" Minho hopped over his bench and jogged after her towards the Map Room.

("Did I hear right?" Nick blinked, "Minho caught her crying?"

"Um..."

"It's too late, Newt. You can't take that back and we already know, so tell us. Minho caught her crying?"

"Well. Yeah, that's what he said."

"Actual tears?"

"Exactly his words."

"I always thought she's uncapable of anything more than facial contortion," Gally said, clearly amused.

"Then? And then?"

Newt raised his eyebrows. He expected the others to be speechless or emotional like he did, but acting like eager gossip girls did not entered his mind at all.

"Beats me. Gotta ask him yourself. But now that you've mentioned it, I wanna know what happened after that, too.")

"Frankie!"

Frankie stopped and turned around, facing Minho. He raised his arms in a surrender-like manner, "I'm sorry."

"Are you, really?"

Minho paused. "Well, since there's no way to fool you, no. Nearly everybody here cried more than once. I don't see what the big deal is."

Despite everything, deep down, everybody still thought that I'm naturally weak, she thought, created as an emotional, unreliable, inferior being, so upholding this strong image is really all I can do to prove myself to the Glade.

"Just, leave me alone, Minho."

I know you. The old you would never ask if my head was hurting, or assign a partner to accompany me, or bench me. The old you would never let me tug your hair without you tugging mine back painfully. We were equal.

"Frankie—"

"It's the least you could do to me right now. Really."

She turned the huge round handle until she heard a click and went inside, leaving him confused and alone.