Minho trudged into McDonalds at around 7. He had just finished soccer practice and was starving. It had been - well, for lack of a better word - an absolute day. First, he had woken up late, so he didn’t have time to eat breakfast. Tired due to lack of energy, he had fallen asleep in Mr. Erickson’s class and had gotten yelled at by the prick- er, teacher. To make things worse, he had continued to feel down even after school and had underperformed during soccer practice, missing tons of shots and getting lectured by his coach.

Though the day seemed pretty terrible, the worst part of it all was that Jinki hadn’t been at school today, nor had he responded to any text messages. Jinki, his best friend, seemed to always be able to cheer him up. His awkward jokes and bright smile could make even the most abysmal situations not so bad. However, Minho’s personal ball of sunshine wasn’t available, so he had been broken down and pissed off the whole day.

Having eyes for only the menu in front of him, Minho glanced at the items before stepping up to the cashier and making his order of 2 double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a Coke. After paying, he stood off to the side in silence while his food was prepared, not bothering to go and look for a table yet.

Soon enough, he had his meal and he finally turned and went into the dining area. It was pretty empty at the moment, though one table in the back corner caught his eye.

There were boxes of Chicken McNuggets piled in a semicircle, making a sort of wall around the only occupant. Said occupant was sitting in the booth, making their way through the mass of food, taking a nugget and dipping it into ketchup, biting it in half, and then dipping the remainder into barbeque sauce and eating the rest. Though the person was slouched down, had a baggy sweatshirt on with the hood up, and had wide sunglasses covering their eyes, Minho could recognize that unique eating habit anywhere. It could be none other than…

“Jinki?” Minho called out.

The person at the table froze, nugget halfway to their mouth.

“Minho?” came the quiet response. “What are you- What are you doing here?”

“I could be asking you the same question,” Minho said icily, setting down his food tray on the neighboring table and stepping forward a bit. “Or maybe I should ask where you were earlier. Why didn’t you come to school today?”

“Oh, I…I-“ Jinki began nervously.

“Do you know how much of a crap day I’ve had today? Huh? I woke up late and both Erickson and my coach yelled at me. You know what I needed today? My best friend. But nooo, you were just too busy dicking around to be bothered to be there,” Minho’s voice raised with very word. “You didn’t even answer my texts. Guess I’m not even worth a quick ‘fighting!’ through SMS anymore. I can’t believe that you would just skip and then- Jinki? Jinki, what the hell?!”

While Minho had been ranting, tears had begun to drip down Jinki’s face. Minho was only noticing it now, as it was harder to see the other with the sunglasses.

“, Jinks, what’s the matter with you?” Minho had immediately lost all steam when he realized something was obviously wrong with his friend. He sat on the booth next to Jinki, putting his arm around his shoulders.

“Ah, it’s just…aish, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Jinki said shakily, his voice nasally due to the tears.

“It’s obviously not nothing if it has you crying, hyung. Here, I’m gonna take off your glasses, okay? Just relax. I’ve got some napkins here for you to wipe your eyes,” Minho softly said, worried for his friend.

“Please don’t take them off, I’m really okay just like this,” Jinki’s voice was pleading. Of course, that just made Minho more worried, so he coaxed Jinki into removing the sunglasses. Though reluctant, Jinki agreed, the compromise being that as soon as they were off, he buried his face into Minho’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong? Are the lights too bright since you’ve had those on inside?” Minho questioned quietly.

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not the only reason,” Jinki whispered into Minho’s jacket.

“The other reason being…” Minho deadpanned.

After a moment, Jinki slowly raised his head up to look at the other, his hand cupping around his eye to shield it from both the light and anyone other than Minho. Looking into each other’s eyes, Minho let out a small gasp. Jinki’s eyes were tearstained and tired looking as expected, but worst of all was that the left side had a nasty black eye, the bruise extending from just above his eyebrow to his cheekbone.

“Jesus, Jinks, who the hell did that to you?” was Minho’s astonished question.

“It was...it was Taemin,” Jinki finally replied.

“Taemin? You mean the kid next door to you that you used to babysit when we were younger?” Minho asked.

“Yeah. I’ve- I’ve been worried about him lately, you know. He’s been hanging out with some…questionable people recently, and I didn’t…didn’t want him to fall in with the wrong crowd. He was always such a good kid growing up, and I’d hate to see his talents go to waste. I saw his friend…ah, what’s his name again…Kai? Yeah, Kai. Well, you’ve probably heard that our school’s resident troublemakers had picked up some “new blood” to help distribute goods at the middle school so they could get lots of freshman clients,” Jinki relayed his story quietly, laying his head against Minho’s shoulder again as he spoke.

“And this “new blood” happens to be Taemin’s best friend,” Minho muttered.

“Yeah. So, sometimes I still come over to watch Taemin’s little sister on the weekends when everyone else is busy. When I went on Saturday, Taemin had been out with friends but he came back around four or five. He smelled like cigarettes, so I...I confronted him about it. I told him that it wasn’t a good idea to smoke so young and that he should be more careful to set a good example for his sister. Of course, he got upset and we ended up fighting. I said something tasteless about his choice in friends and he punched me. Twice.”

As Jinki said that, Minho’s arm tightened around him.

“And…and I get that he was upset; I mean, I would be too if someone had said that to me. But, I’m worried that he- that he’ll hate me forever now, and he’ll rebel even more and really get hurt and it would be all because of me and…and…” though Jinki had been mostly collected throughout his monologue, at the end he began to cry again, rambling on.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Minho comforted his friend, rubbing up and down his back. “If Taemin decides to go down that path, it’ll be nobody’s fault but his own.”

“But…but I don’t want him to get hurt! I can’t just sit back and let it happen, so what can I do?” Jinki cried.

Minho’s heart ached at the words. Seeing Jinki so distraught, not over the fact that he had gotten into a disagreement with Taemin, but at the fact that Taemin’s future may be darker, showed how selfless his friend truly was.

“I guess,” Minho started gutturally, “the only thing you really can do is support him. Make sure he knows that you’ll be his friend no matter what. Do that and hope for the best, and Taemin will choose what he believes is right for him. If you support him, if and when everything falls to you can be there for him. I know that when I’m feeling down you’re the one that can always cheer me up. I bet that you can do the same thing for him.”

“You really think so?” Jinki looked up at Minho once more, tears still b in his eyes, but with a small, hopeful smile.

“Of course I do. After all, there’s not much else your lazy dubu can do, is there?” Minho smiled back at Jinki. Hitting the other, Jinki muttered, “Jerk,” ducking his head to hide his growing grin.  

The two continued to joke, poking at one another until they were interrupted by Minho’s stomach growling.

“Ah, you haven’t eaten yet have you? And the food’s probably cold now, too. Sorry,” Jinki apologized.

“It’s fine, didn’t you know cold French fries are my favorite thing to eat?” Minho joked.

Though cold French fries were in fact one of Minho’s least favorite things to eat, with Jinki there next to him smiling, even they weren’t so bad.

Meow

          -Nightbls 2016

Please comment and tell us how we did! First ever story, so we're kinda nervous lol.