Ch.9
To Whom it May Concern
They were a tangled mess of limbs that morning, sweaty skin clung to wrinkled clothing as they both groaned aloud at the sunny intrusion pounding through Minho's bedroom window. Jinki's head throbbed worse than he could probably ever imagine in his short life span. There was this almost sickening roil in the pit of his stomach that wouldn't calm down no matter how much he tried not to focus on it. He tried to focus on figuring out what was his and what was Minho's as far as body parts went, Minho had an arm slung over his waist the other was parallel to Jinki's own, fingers were potentially laced together, but Jinki's fingers on that hand were too numb to tell. Jinki's thigh was wedged between Minho's own.
Minho moaned in discomfort as he rolled away from Jinki, " God, what happened last night?"
Jinki's brain fought to think, it was all a semi blur that he was trying to recall. Drinking, a way too touchy tickle fight , drinking, ending up in the floor, drinking, that stupid cry-sing guy, drinking...It hit him hard, everything flooding back all at once. Those clinging fingers that wouldn't let go of his thighs even if they had to, the way he rocked into Jinki, only stopping once he hit completion; Jinki's own bold move that resulted in those same long fingers wrapping around him, he flushed at thought of it.
Minho groaned again, " Where did my shirt go?"
Minho had quickly stripped himself of his shirt when they had enough strength to remove themselves from the floor and stumbled to his room, Jinki's eyes traveled to the hamper that it lay half out of, darken patches across it's front hardening over night. His heart dropped, did Minho really not remember? All those drunken kisses after they'd laid down for the night burned on Jinki's now chapped lips, words whispered in the dark making his heart catch in his throat. Would you think him a fool to hope that this morning Minho would grace him with another one of those perfect kisses, recalling everything from the previous night and reassuring Jinki he'd meant every word of it.
" Hyung, are you awake?"
Jinki cracked his swollen eyes open, Minho was blurry and out of focus before him. " Y-Yeah..." He swallowed hard, " I-I don't know what happened...last night." It hurt to say that when the memories stuck in every crevice of his memory, that 'remember to forget' box he'd so carefully constructed was blasted into pieces. He would have to start picking up the shrapnel when he had the strength, if he tried now it would just crumble under his weak mind.
Minho sighed, " I'm glad, I would have felt horrible if I was the only one who got that drunk."
Jinki felt so sick, physical need to vomit was overwhelming even his emotions. He had to make it out of there before he lost it, " I'm...I gotta go."
He stumbled out of the bed, vision still so blurry as he searched for his clothing. He tripped over his bag, catching himself on the desk before him. " Damnit..." He grabbed up the bag, deciding against changing completely; he just had to get himself out of there, like right now.
" Hyung? What are you doing?" Minho's lost puppy voice hit his ears so hard he froze. Bag slung over his shoulder, he turned to look at the other. Minho lay there, cushioned in a sea of blankets as he stared Jinki down, an almost wounded expression reading in his eyes.
Jinki's stomach lurched forward, " I have to go..."
He stepped for the door, Minho shuffled around behind him. " Why?"
Minho's bare feet hit the floor, and Jinki's pace increased. " I-I just do..."
He booked it down the hallway, the house was still empty, too early for even his own parents to be awake in reality, which worked well in his favor. He didn't even stop to properly put his shoes on, flattening the backs with the heels of his feet as he rushed out of the house. The cold air hit him hard, crisp and cutting straight to his core.
He kept his head ducked low against the wind, but it wasn't enough to drown out Minho. " Jinki?! What the hell?" Jinki kept going, leaving a shirtless Minho to stand hungover and confused on the sidewalk.
He almost made it home when his stomach lurched that one last sickening time, hunched over to vomit down a drain at the edge of the street. He spit as his stomach finally calmed itself, left numb of everything that was previously rocking his insides.
He crawled into bed when he got home, not even bothering to brush the disgusting taste out of his mouth as he stared up at the white ceiling. He should have known better, he really should have, but he was so foolish. Jinki never claimed to be good at dealing with people, with seeing things the way they were going to be before it even occured, but he didn't think he was this bad. The thought of falling for someone male or female, had never really crossed his mind even once until this last year. This was new to him, and it terrified him even more now than it ever had. What do you do with feelings like this, how do you bottle them away so the hurt can't reach you anymore?
How do you make yourself not love the person who takes up more brain space than even the need to keep yourself happy? The person that hung to everything you did, thoughts always coming back to them even when what you did had nothing to do with them. You wondered what they looked like when they first woke up, how they brushed their teeth, whether they put their shirts on arms first or head first; these silly little things that made up who they were almost becoming more precious than what attracted you to them in the first place.
His phone buzzed by his head, Minho was calling him again, but he couldn't will himself to answer. He flipped open the phone, reading through the messages the boy had left as well:
'Hyung, why'd you leave like that?'
'Are you ok? Please pick up."
'Did you make it home ok? I'm worried.'
He responded with a simple, ' I'm fine, I'll see you on Monday.'
When Monday came he avoided Minho with every bit of strength he had, ducking into bathroom when he saw that tall mop of hair coming down the hall. He'd even opted to spend his lunch time on the roof of the school, peering down through the tall metal fence that incased the perimeter of the roof. He could see Minho standing in the courtyard, eyes searching for what he assume to be him. After a few moments he shook his head and went back inside and Jinki felt his heart drop once again, feeling just as painful as it always had been.
He sighed, forehead pressed into the cold metal of the bars he held to for support, that sting he felt across his skin for the forth time that week becoming less painful. It had been three days since Monday and Jinki still couldn't bring himself to face Minho. It hurt too much to even look at him from across a room, he would fall apart if he had to face the other boy. His mental box was still too fragile, only having just picked up those last few pieces of memory and locking it tight again. He could face Minho one day, just not today.
___________
In went on for weeks like this, Jinki was so worn down with having to avoid Minho he'd almost forget to keep up with his school work. So consumed with keeping away from the boy who overtook his need to live for himself and no other. The boy who sent tears streaking down his cheeks at times when in seemed he had no more to give. He just wanted to hold Minho, to take him by the shoulders and shake that drunken memory into his brain, making it rock his mind the way it did Jinki.
Minho still texted him everyday, asking to meet up for a while, saying they didn't even have to play soccer. That had almost made Jinki laugh, but it caught in his throat and morphed itself into another sob. Soccer, he'd take soccer any day over this constant pain in his heart that was tearing through his chest cavity. He'd even screamed himself hoarse, music up to an obnoxious level when he was alone after school; it had been animalistic and raw, leaving his throat rough and broken. He screamed until he collapsed into a heap in the middle of his floor, numb limbs stretched at dead angles from his body as his chest heaved. Minho was a constant flash across his brain, flickering over and over like a stop motion film.
His phone buzzed once more, on autopilot he actually answered it. " Hello?" He croaked.
" Jinki-hyung?" Minho responsed, concerned.
Jinki's eyes closed, " What?"
" I-I...How are you? I haven't seen you in a while."
" I'm fine." His tone was blank. " What do you want?"
" Well, I thought maybe...we could hang out for a while."
Jinki's brows converged in the center, " I'm busy."
" Ok, well maybe-"
" Minho! Just stop! Don't you get it? I don't want to hang out with you anymore. We...We were never friends in the first place." Jinki was an idiot.
" What? Hyung, I don't understand...I thought-"
" Well, you were wrong. You're just a stupid kid. I don't have time to deal with someone that immature..." Jinki wanted to punch himself.
" What did I do? I don't understand...Please, I can fix it. Just tell me what I did wrong! Is it because of the other night? I think I might remem-"
" Just shut up! I don't want to hear it, ok? Just leave me alone..." Jinki couldn't fight back the sob that clawed it's way out of his throat.
He closed the phone, turning it off, even going so far as to remove the battery pack. It was stupid and irrational, but he just couldn't stop the words from coming. Those cruel words he didn't mean a single bit of, yet he spoke them as if it was something he had always wanted to say. He curled up in the floor, knees huggging his chest and sobbed, probably harder than he had thus far.
Comments