Honesty

You got that James Dean day dream look in your eyes   Min was impressed that her ears didn’t bleed at how loud she listened to her music. Quietness was never something she found soothing, despite growing up with constant yelling and loud stomps. Quietness didn’t drown out the insults her parents threw at each other, but music did and it became her best friend. So it was no surprise that she was out on her front porch stairs listening to music at midnight after her parents went at each other again. Sure, after the front door was shut she couldn’t exactly hear them, but that didn’t stop the fact that music comforted her and her previous annoyance was finally dissipating.   A small sigh escaped her lips when the indoor lights behind her turned off.   When they fought like that, they never noticed she wasn’t in her room. The thing with her parents was that, they did care and she knew they did, but they also thought very highly of her and trusted her more than a parent should. Having parents that were always so focused on work and each other (not in a good way) would be the perfect situation for a teenager. She could sneak out of the house and go have fun with her friends without the constant nagging or getting in big trouble and while she didn’t really do grand things to break the trust they had for her, she sometimes wished she would’ve gotten caught sneaking out of the house or something. She was raised in a household that didn’t openly discuss feelings or emotions they were feeling and so, they somewhat expected Min to develop that tough skin. She did, but she still needed some comfort and that loneliness was inevitable.    As another cricket began to play it’s tune, Min sat up straight from her hunched over position and stretched her arms upward, her gray t-shirt crop top rising to expose the rest of her toned stomach. After letting her arms fall, she prepared to get up and go back inside, but a familiar car merging into the driveway from the house across from her caught her attention. While her brain was telling her that she should just go inside right now and avoid him, her body wasn’t budging. Instead her eyes followed the young man jumping out of the car with a duffle bag over his shoulder. During the moments that he closed his car door and proceeded up the path to his front door, Min held her breath as if releasing a sigh would get his attention, but in the end she didn’t need to do anything since Suho had unconsciously looked over at her house and noticed her sitting on the porch stairs. She released a long breath and began to panic internally, though she shouldn’t be so embarrassed at having him seeing her in any form of emotional state since Suho has already seen her cry, yell and pull her hair out of frustration. Min’s heartbeat pounded rapidly in her chest as her eyes followed him as he crossed the street towards her.    “Hey”    “Hi”    “Mind if I sit?” He asked, nodding to the steps next to her, Min simply shook her head. Suho gave her his famous smile that matched his kind eyes and sat down next to her, unaware of the frown on Min’s face. Normally he didn’t have to ask. He would just make his way over to her and sit next to her ready to hear about the reason she was out there or sometimes would just accompany her silently whenever she didn’t feel like talking  Him having to ask meant that things had definitely changed between them. Then again, how could they have not when they did that.   “It’s late. Why are you out here?”   “It’s a nice night”    Now it was Suho’s turn to frown.    That had been her the answer she gave him when he decided to go up to his neighbor to ask why she was outside so late at night for the first time. It took her a while to finally give him an honest answer, but Suho was patient and waited for her to open up to him. Honestly, it wasn’t like they weren’t friends before. She and her parents moved to that suburban house when she was 2 and Suho, who was a year older than her, had always been in her life one way or another. They talked and played together along with the rest of the kids, but it wasn’t until Min’s treehouse in the backyard was cut down that she decided the front porch was a comfortable replacement. Suho normally stayed up later  due to the fact that their school was literally a block away and caught Min sitting there one night while he was locking his window. At the time she had her earbuds in her ears and her homework in front of her, so he decided to bother her. He caught her a couple more times and mostly she was always doing something. Either writing, reading or studying, but one night he spotted her staring blankly at the road, her earbuds in place and her arms hugging her knees. He knew something wasn’t right and went to investigate. She didn’t open up to him the first time, nor the 5th, not even the 10th, but finally one night she had been so stressed with school and home that she just ended up crying. Suho didn’t catch all the words, but he did end up deciphering that she was tired of the yelling and sick of having to stress out over advance classes that she wasn’t ready for and all because her parents believed that monitoring her education was the only thing they decided they both cared passionately about. She had always been a good student and thus her parents trust began more tempting to break as the time went on. She never did something over the top like fail a class or ditch school, but it was scaring her about how constant she was beginning to think about doing it.     What would they do if they caught her drinking or smoking or taking drugs?    What would they do if they caught her in bed with a guy?    What would they do if she stole a car and drove it on the beach like Leonardo Decaprio did in Marvin’s Room?    Would they care?    She asked Suho all of those questions and he did his best to talk her out it. He didn’t have deep advice, but his soothing words and hugs definitely became something Min came to rely on.    But it all change weeks before Suho’s graduation and after he left for college, they hadn’t truly patched things up, though they would probably tell you otherwise.    “So we’re back to this?” Suho asked quietly after a few moments of awkward silence. Min began to roll up her earbuds around her iPod and stood up, then gave him her best reassuring smile. “We already talked about this, Suho. We’re fine. Welcome back” She said, then went up the stairs. “I’m here until the school year starts. We should hang out”    “Sure. Goodnight” She answered without thinking, then went into her house. Right after closing the door, she leaned on it and messed up her hair in frustration. “You just had to come back didn’t you?” She mumbled to herself then stalked upstairs to her room to hide under the covers.    ▲   “Is that Suho?” Min glanced over to the direction Key was looking at, then went back to her book in front of her.    “Did you know he was coming back?” Soyou asked, looking at Min with suspicion.    “Nope”    “You live right in front of him, you didn’t notice he was back?” It was Jinwoon’s turn to ask, to which Min responded with a shrug.    "I'll be back. I'm going to go say hi" Key said, standing up and walking over to Suho and his friends.    “Hey, we’re out of soda, its your turn to get some” Nicole said to Jinwoon and Mir, who both groaned, but stood up. “All right. You guys want the same thing?” After giving them their preferences and watching them walk away, Nicole and Soyou turned to Min.    “Okay, there is obviously something you’re not telling us” Nicole said, sitting up from the lounge chair by the community pool. Soyou got up from hers and went to sit next to Nicole, “Yeah, spill it” Min closed her book and set it to the side, then turned to look at her friends. “I saw him arrive last night” “And did you two talk?” “Apart fr