title: you cheated

genre: hurt/comfort? (only the hurt part though)

words: 1.1K

Minseok was waiting for him.

He pretended to himself that he wasn’t. But as he watched the news, his ears waited for the sound of the door opening.

He’d been doing it for nights.

“Were you waiting for me?”

That was Sehun’s questions when he found Minseok sitting on the couch. Guilt was all over his soft voice, all over his downcast face, that it’s as if he said, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

But of course he might have doubted that, no, he was hoping that Minseok didn’t wait. So he can easily rid himself of the guilt.

“Yes,” Minseok answers truthfully, cruelly.

Sehun grimaces, very very subtly. Then he opens his mouth to probably say, “You shouldn’t have,” but Minseok beats him to it, “Are you hungry?”

Sehun is taken aback.

Why should he be? This is their thing. Sehun being the broke college student who leaves in a dorm and thrives off fast food and noodles while Minseok being the salary worker and has taken to feeding Sehun properly, properly with his own home-cooked meals.

Minseok has been cooking for two people for almost a year now and he doesn’t know which is more sad, going back to cooking for one or cooking for someone who he’s not sure would turn up.

Not waiting for any answer, Minseok stands from the couch and walks to the kitchen. There is really nothing left to prepare, the dinner is already there, laid out and getting cold. It is probably already cold by this time.

“Wait, let’s heat it up first,” he says, scooping up the bowl. His voice sounds like their usual when around Sehun, kind and gentle, although now, it’s purposely so. He’s punishing Sehun with it.

“Hyung,” Sehun says stopping his arm. “Hyung please.”

Please stop it.

“Why?”

“I---“

“You cheated,” Minseok provides for him. Simple and clear. It’s the only thing that would explain this behaviour.

All those nights of waiting, he spent hoping Sehun would come and prove his suspicions wrong. That sounds ridiculous now, looking at Sehun’s broken look, the shame, the regret, the guilt.

This is Sehun, who knew, who very well knew of Minseok’s experience with infidelity, of being lied to, of being cheated on. Sehun who knew how Minseok felt utterly worthless because of it, Sehun who saw Minseok cry because of it.

Minseok swallows back a “how could you?”

No point in asking.

He knows the answer anyway---but he doesn’t want to hear it. Not from Sehun himself. He doesn’t want to hear how Sehun, the young and careless and liberated dancer cannot settle for Minseok with the boring job and a boring life.

How could you? how could you? how could you? how could you?

The question plays in a loop, plays angrily inside his head as he stares at Sehun’s anguished face, taking in his silence.

“Hyung,” Sehun says tentatively, tries to reach out, but Minseok jerks back and Sehun withdraws his hand slowly, lets it fall to his side, defeated.

 How could you? The question becomes, less angry more regretful, the question becomes for himself. How could you let Sehun become your everything?

Sehun is his everything and the part that hurts the most is that Sehun knows it. He told Sehun because Sehun loves a little too aggressively, a little too demandingly, a little too “hyung, do you love me? you must right? I mean who doesn’t?”  A little too secretly insecure.

So Minseok told him, reassured him, and Sehun looked so happy as if Minseok just offered him the world.

Sehun asked for this kind of love, Minseok gave it to him, Sehun accepted it and still---this?

Why Sehun? realized I’m not someone you want?

There’s the anger, the anger at the top of it but below everything else, here it is again, the feeling of being worthless, of having failed, of giving your so much but still it’s not enough.

He should stop feeling like this. He should stop.

Minseok goes back to his soft voice, “Eat, then leave, leave your key, never come back.”

-

Sehun lets Minseok walk away, hears his bedroom door opening and closing. He stares at the prepared dinner in front of him, feeling like a complete and utter bastard, thinking of Minseok’s other prepared dinner that Sehun didn’t come for, thinking of how Minseok was left to throw away the left-overs.

His throat is painfully tight, he’s not sure he can force food down through it, and it feels that his stomach has dropped or swelled, making him full and empty at the same time. He’s not sure he can eat.  But he’s not going to leave Minseok with another left-over to throw away. If he’s going to leave, he will not leave Minseok a reminder.

With shaking hands, he picks up the chopsticks and decides to shove everything that he can fit in his mouth before worrying about swallowing.

He stuffed his face, tasting only the cold and bitterness, chewing so fast and so forced and thinking of when Minseok joked so if you cheat on me Sehun, we’re done, no questions asked. It wasn’t a joke he knows it. He knows forgiveness is out of the question. He knows, he knows, and never in his mind did he think of asking for a second chance. He knows he doesn’t deserve.

When his mouth feels full, he takes a huge swallow. It burns and burns and he can’t breathe, he doesn’t reach for water. He willed it down, willed it, willed it, until air comes rushing harshly back to his lungs, the relief of it also burns.

He finished everything in a minute and he brings the dishes to the sink, washing them meticulously and wiping them dry before putting them back to place. The way Minseok likes.

He takes one last glance at the kitchen to make sure he doesn’t leave a trace. He puts the key back into a ring of all Minseok’s spare, so Minseok won’t notice it’s back, won’t notice it’s even gone. He walks across the living room, to the hall, and out the door, silently bidding the place goodbye. Only when he hears the lock click, he feels, that place was home.

He walks fast out the building, out into the streets, out into the cold night air, when a particularly strong and cold gust of wind hits, his face, he doubles over and vomits all over the stone pavement.

Whispering, “I’m sorry hyung,” before his chest heaves to let out more of his stomach’s contents, “I’m sorry hyung I love you,” eyes watering at the sting and the effort, the strain of his stomach muscles to force up everything that’s left.

 Until he feels completely empty.