Chapter 4 - Wednesday again

Before I knew it, it was Wednesday.

And you know what Wednesday is? It's the day BTS was waiting for every week: Minhyuk would come by in the evening.

I had made up my mind during my hour long shift at the convenience store the day before and I was almost sure about it now: I'd ask for a dose of those flowers. I know, I know, don't go back to have a look at what I said about that before, I'll quote it for you: “I don't think of what I've done as a sin”, right? I still don't. But if there's any way to stop those damn nightmares from haunting me every night, I'll take it. Minhyuk said everybody takes the drug to forget. Wasn't that what I wanted to do? Forget? I had the right to try, didn't I? But what if it didn't help much and I got addicted nonetheless, like Seungcheol? What if I 'didn't take it as well as him' as Minhyuk described it the other day?

There were so many different outcomes for what I wanted to try in the evening that I was beginning to feel more and more anxious about this whole thing. To find out more about the possibilities, I settled with observing BTS to distract myself a little.

Namjoon got furious at the tiniest issues.

Suga became more grumpy and even lazier than he already was.

Seokjin and Jimin would pretend not to care, but their gazes were restless, not knowing what to look at while they were waiting.

Taehyung was zoning out, staring at a wall and Hoseok and Jungkook couldn't stop jumping around, getting on everybody's nerves.

It seemed to take them forever to get going and time passed so slowly that I was beginning to wonder if I had become addicted to going to the Wednesday meet-ups without having taken anything. Not to mention that I had only been there once and still couldn't bring myself to completely trust the people I was surrounded with. It was somewhat unsettling.

After half an eternity, when we finally reached our destination, I could spot a certain white head of hair right away. He's here already. I took another deep breath as we walked up to the fire in silence and Woozi turned to wave at me. “He went down with the price, he only took two thousand Yuan this time!”, he exclaimed, unable to stop a wide smile from breaking out on his face. I didn't miss out on the fact that his pupils were just slightly larger than they should have been.

“Oh, that's good, isn't it?” My opponent nodded, but I was pulled away from him before I could add anything else, a cold hand wrapping around my wrist.

“So, Chae Hyungwon came back again.” I didn't have to look at him to know that it was Minhyuk and searched for the bowl of cooked flowers instead. The hand tugged at my arm once more. “You're not even going to look at me? I should start calling you Chae Hyungrude.”

I raised an eyebrow and allowed myself to glance at the bright boy next to me. “You're really using my full name?”

“Well, you told me about it, didn't you?”

“I know, but, well, they forbade the use of surnames a while ago and-”

“Yet you told me yours last week. If you want to stick with yours so bad I don't care, I move on. But if you did it in order to get to know about mine, I'm a Lee. Lee Minhyuk.” I my lips, not knowing how to react to that statement of his, because he behaved as if there was nothing to surnames. As if they were neither a link to our past nor something hideous to our current rulers. All I could do was nod in pretended comprehension. Just when I was about to speak up again, Minhyuk's fingers slipped from my wrist down to my hand and squeezed it, causing me to tense up again. Don't touch me. “So, what brings Hyungrude here today? How's fate doing?”

I untangled my hand from his grasp, eyes set on the basin filled with blue liquid, which is why I missed out on the way Minhyuk's eyes narrowed for a split second. “I have to fail you, Lee Minhyuk. I'm probably going to be weak today.” The dealer followed my gaze and I could see the way his eyes widened from the corners of my peripheral vision.

“Wait, did you think this through? I mean, nobody can tell what kind of effect this has on you and I'm sure you're just acting like this because you're curious, but I swear this is not worth it. You should think this through for at least another week, because, you know, if you-” He was blabbering, it was funny how a tiny statement of mine could make him drop that mysterious facade he liked to put on.

“I've been having countless nightmares for the past days. I think it's okay to-”

“No. No it's not.” He grabbed my wrist again. “Nightmares aren't a reason.” The sharp tone of his voice attracted my gaze and I saw his eyes burning with a cold fire as he tried to stare me down, but I was unfazed by it. “Look, I know you shouldn't think about whatever might have happened in the past, but trust me when I tell you that trying to completely forget about it isn't good either.”

“Oh and you know about that? Would you be better off if you had nightmares that cause you to wake up with a racing heart? Nightmares that make you think about the past, no matter how hard you try not to?”, I snapped and by the way Minhyuk's eyes clouded at that for a split second made clear that I had struck a chord.

Still, his reply was different from what I expected and my breath got stuck in my throat for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I wish I could remember.” So he had actually forgotten all about it? Doesn't sound all that bad to me. “I want to know so that I can learn from it and become stronger.”

His eyes didn't falter and I did as I always do when feeling my back up against a wall: I get more defensive. “I don't need to become stronger and I'm ninety-nine percent sure of what I want. Are you mad because I'm not as strong as you thought at first?”

“Mad? Hell, no, I can't blame you.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and took a step back while shaking his head. “I'm just a bit disappointed because you're being selfish. You should go with the one percent that could stop you, because it's actually reasonable.”

You disappoint me. Something clicked and a fire flared up when I heard him say that. Look at what you've done. “You don't have the right to say that”, I hissed before pushing him out of my way and walking up to the group where the bowl was making its way round. Such a shame. Just as fast as the fire inside of me had appeared, it got weaker with each step I took. Why was I so sensitive, I shouldn't let what he said get to me, right? It's just words and he didn't know a thing. Not a thing.

“Hyungwon, have some”, a boy whose name I forgot said, giving me the warm metal bowl with a dazed smile.