Minho looked down, walking into the school courtyard with his bag over his shoulder, tightly in his grip. His hands were burning, his head was spinning, and with every step he took, he wanted to take in the opposite direction.

The struggle every day was seeing him wherever he went. He was so used to Jinki looking at him walk, stare at him when he walked past, or even tried to talk to him with just a simple hello. He was so used to being ignorant to the innocent human being. He was so used to feeling like he had the upper hand on someone's feelings. Like he had some sort of control over it, and taking the masochistic approach to it by giving Jinki the cold shoulder.

But after all this time, Jinki stopped looking at him. Jinki stopped walking anywhere near him. Jinki no longer gave Minho the time of his day to even try greeting him.

This bothered Minho. Severely.

Where was his control? Where was his obvious independent stand? Where was his power to say Jinki was a disgusting, worthless person?

Why did he long for his attention when he was the one who shunned it in the first place?

Minho gripped harder on the strap of his bag, trying to do away with the thoughts. No, he wasn't allowed to have these questions. He wasn't suppose to have these longing wants. They were wrong, gross, unnatural...

His head pounded in confliction. He hated this. He was so tired of being so wishy-washy that he looked stupid for it. He felt stupid for it.

He felt like nothing. He was a mere existence in this world that no one really knew. It was hard to let anyone in; he couldn't express himself like other could normally. He was closed in by his own world that the real world outside of his seemed like a distant dream. It was scary and something to run away from.

Minho bumped into someone's shoulder, reminding him he was a physical existence in this world. Without stopping, he quietly apologized to the person, hearing a squeak of a girl's voice saying it was okay.

 When he entered inside the school, sounds of chatter pounded in his ears. He cringed noticeably, only wanting to find his way out of the noisy mess into his classroom. He couldn't even continue to think for himself because the noise blocked out any of his own voices.

Slowly trudging up the stairs to the next floor, Minho took a left into his wing. He wished the day was already over. He wanted to go home and sleep the day away. He wanted the lack of human interaction; he wanted the lack of human existence, period.

He tilted his head up, ready to face the interior of his classroom when he saw someone two classrooms down, leaning on the wall with someone.

Minho looked down again and his heart beat in his chest. All of those longings started to resurface again. It suddenly made him angry; like he wanted to walk up to Jinki and beat him to the floor.

Daringly looking up again, he watched Jinki smiling brightly with his best friend, Joon. Jinki was having a casual conversation and not once looked at Minho coming down the hallway.

Minho thought for sure in human's natural curiosity that Jinki would at least side glance, but he didn't. Maybe he really didn't notice.

Or maybe he was really ignoring Minho altogether.

  "Tch..." Minho looked away and opened the door to his classroom. No, it didn't bother him. It didn't bother him.

It didn't bother him.

He let his belongings drop on his desk as he sat down. Putting his head down, he resigned from caring about who entered the room or what time it was for class to start.

Jinki was ignoring him, so what? What was the big deal? Minho really didn't care. Jinki was a bug. Worthless. Squishable. Easy to ignore.

So get out of my damn head.

Or maybe Jinki was the bug that crawled himself into Minho's head and nestled inside to torture him. That was the only logical solution as to why Minho was still conflicted with the thought of him. Jinki planted himself inside Minho without escape, leaving Minho to endure as best he could.

This is all your fault, Mom.

Oh, this had to be her fault. She was a sinner, so he was born to sin. That woman ruined his life. He had sin running through his DNA. Right now, he felt so glad she wasn't in his life. He hope she burned and died. She did this to him. She made him like this. She made him this disgusting mess of a boy.

Shooting him out of his hateful spite, someone grabbed his wrist forcefully. He swore to God, if it was who he thought it was...

  "Minho," the voice was feminine and soft.

Finding the culprit was his own classmate slightly calmed him. But at the same time, filled him with anxiety about her grip.

Yuri's thumb resigned from his wrist and opened his palm, exposing the red marks and blisters on his hand. She stood in front of his hand, seemingly shielding his little secret from everyone else, respectively.

  "Why are you talking to me?" Minho barely made out, eyes bugging, "Why are you--"

  "Bumping into me this morning," Yuri stared at his hand, "I may have said it was okay, but I didn't accept your apology."

Minho didn't understand and took his hand back, almost becoming snarky, "What do you want?"

Yuri didn't look the slightest bit fazed by his tone, the soft concern still written on her face, "Don't be afraid."

Taken aback, Minho stared at her, not exactly sure of what she meant, but at the same time, knowing multiple ways her words could be towards.

  "Bruises can heal like nothing happened," she gingerly took his hand again, his shock allowing her to, "But they always leave a mark of disappointment," she stared at the angry red marks on his hand again.

Minho said nothing. His mind was blank.

  "You're having trouble in math, right? How about Thursday I come over and help?" she looked at him, closing his hand, "That way you can still study in the comfort of your own home."

Minho continued staring at her as if he couldn't understand her -- which wasn't exactly a lie. He didn't understand where she was coming from all of a sudden.

  "It's settled then," she smiled softly, "I'll walk home with you. You don't even have to feed me, I'll come prepared."

With that she turned to walk away, but slightly ce more to tell him, "And let your hands heal. At least until I leave your house."

Minho looked down at his bookbag in complete confusion of what actually had just happened. But apparently he had a study date with Yuri now.

The anxiety welled up inside him and he put his head back down, wanting to groan in frustration.

Little did he know, Jinki was outside his classroom door, eyes on Yuri, just as confused as Minho.

----Note~----

Holy I didn't know it's been a year since I last updated this.

I am hellaaaaaa sorry. I guess my senior year of high school really did distract me from writing.

But hiiiii! I decided to write something a little short for you guys, in apology ofc.

Please forgive me. My life is kinda a liiiitttle mess, so writing isn't the top priority. College starts again next week too uuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhh.

But yeah, thank you for anyone who stuck around for this. You may as well have forgotten about it, and I don't blame ya.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed. <3

~FlaMinhoe