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stinky-and-the-pain · 4 years ago

Text

& then there was one

my parents finished renovating our house my freshman year of high school. i was 14 and finally had my own room...a place i didn’t have to share with my 11 year old brother or my 3 year old sister. i painted it green & a couple of months later painted a tree on one wall and filled the branches with lord of the rings quotes. it was my sanctuary.

my grandma gifted me my first laptop around the same time. she won it in a company sweepstakes and gave it to me because she had one already. it was the coolest thing. we had a family computer in the office (nee playroom) that i had played both sims 2 and 3 on. but now i could take the sims to my room!

amongst other things.

i played skyrim religiously after my brother got bored of the xbox, as he was also gifted a playstation 4 along with GTA V. i also adored several creators on youtube, at that time a bastion of comedic skits and random tangential clips lasting no more than 6 minutes or so. i felt deeply invested in the community -- not so much with fellow audience members but with the youtubers themselves; as if these videos were a two-way conversation. shane dawson led to desandnate led to smosh led to kalel cullen led tobuscus led to pewdiepie led to cryaotic, etc., etc. they were great!

forget the boy bands of the 90s and early 2000s....which youtuber did you want to date? SMASH + fuck, marry, kill in the back of the chilly and damp bus driving home from a scholastic bowl meet. my heart ached for these people. they appealed so deeply to me and i fell madly in love with them all. and i wasn’t alone; we all fell in love.

i’m not sure how i found out about omegle. at a slumber party or birthday, someone pulled out their laptop & we could see and chat with strangers. live. no supervision. we were...14? 15? had to be 14 because i succinctly remember laughing a while later when i told a grown man i wasn’t 18 but actually 14 after he had finished for me. all while sitting in my new green bedroom.

for the longest damn time i thought i had an extremely average adolescence. i was lauded as independent and mature, and took pride in that. maturity meant i was better but also inherently prepared for what life was throwing at me. plus independence meant that i could effectively do whatever i pleased. and to that extent, i never attended a party (though i did sneak over to a boy’s house when i said i was going to a friends’ but that was later figured out and actually excused) but i pursued other exploits.

another piece of the puzzle is that youtube around 2010 appealed to people exactly my age. and was simultaneously extremely sexual. the mass cancellation of shane dawson is ultimately rooted in his behavior around this time. and this behavior was broadcast to us, 12-14 years old, which signaled to us what could be deemed appropriate. queue me believing that men around the ages of 19-25 could find me, a barely there 14 year old, attractive. and boy did i run with that.

i spent immeasurable time on omegle. it was thrilling, especially when men’s faces would light up as my video appeared. “finally, a real person and not just a dick!” i remember one, zach herzog (sp?). he was so kind, introducing me to imgur which rounded out my early internet diet. he had a girlfriend but at one point admitted to me that she was not as pretty as i was. we would message on kik for hours. he graduated college a year after we met (my junior year of high school). jake was around that time too. but honestly jake was special in that we met through omegle chat (no video). and we actually chatted for about 3 years, at one time making sure to watch the weekly game of thrones episode (freshly downloaded off pirate bay) together and discussing what went down afterwards. after we skyped with video on, we slowly stopped communicating.

another, stephen i believe. he was from the UK and i only remember that because of his accent and that i had him say my (fake) name multiple times. i never once used my real name nor talked aloud to these men. always text. but does that matter? over skype, he would send videos of himself jacking off...which would have been pleasant save for the fact he liked smacking his penis near the end and i couldn’t take that seriously.

the first man i reciprocated for -- that is, i obliged requests to show parts of my body -- was sam. i don’t remember anything too striking about him save he did his business to me while we were still on omegle (only strange because the fashion then was to move to somewhere more ‘private’ and stable like kik or skype) and then promptly ghosted me. somewhere in my hs junior year planner, there are notes to sam asking him if he would ever come back.

then senior year. so stressed with college applications (i applied to one school) i spent most of my time in my bedroom alone, indulging in a healthy diet of top gear and youtube, by this point dominated by cryaotic and pewdiepie. but i always had time for my dear favorite, capndesdes (of desandnate fame who later made his own solo channel where he published several q&a’s and apartment vlogs). october 2013 and i was wearing his blue ‘crescent moon face’ shirt (referencing the photo booth video). i met Anthony, Mike, and David on omegle. i immediately picked out Anthony and sure enough he was interested. him being in a group, i knew we wouldn’t be doing anything that night but the video chat was fun. the connection even died at one point but we got back in contact as i had shared my twitter (and my real name, though for months he believed my fake name was my middle name because i felt bad telling the truth). i guess i should’ve known this time was different when he insisted on skying the next morning before i went to work. i felt embarrassed for how i looked but he said i looked beautiful. and was so earnest i had to believe him.

we skyped everyday. every day. essentially right as i got home from school because that’s conveniently when he got off work. oh and i eventually had to admit that my microphone was not in fact broken. we played minecraft and gta on the xbox. he said he planned to visit me one day. but that’s absurd, right? i would laugh and say ‘you’re too much.’

he visited november 9 2013. drove all the way up. i was at my friend’s birthday party. we had just woken up and he revealed he was in our town. i gave him directions to the park so we could meet. i remember running to him from my car, friends sitting in the back seat. we walked about two miles around the park, chatting. he was even more beautiful in person. the sight of the freckles on his nose are still so vivid. even after all these years remembering, my naiveté still strikes me. a day later, he asked me to be my girlfriend as we walked to his car after dinner. i said yes, that i would do him the honor of making him the happiest man on earth. a day later, he took (but i also gave) away my virginity. he met my friends and then we said goodbye on a rainy and cold afternoon. i still sometimes smell the sweet mustiness of that room.

a handful of memories that are still striking after 7 years:

washing the strawberry lube off myself in my parent’s bathroom, praying they did not ask why i had spent the last 5 afternoons and evenings staying so late at a friend’s house; forcing myself to connect to Lorde’s music after he said he enjoyed her first album; saying that thin mints were my favorite after he admitted to buying too many; taking my adventure time backpack to the hotel room and filling out my cheatsheet for my physics test the next day while he watched and eventually rolled me over to kiss me; feeling too insecure to lead him around town so instead opted to stay silent as he chose what to have for dinner; eating at my favorite local mexican restaurant after losing my virginity; showing my friends the pictures we had taken in the hotel room and them losing their minds.

after he left, i was devastated. and essentially remained devastated for the next 7 months. i cried the morning after he left, while driving to work and listening to ribs.

there’ll be more, when i have strength.

#omegle #youtube #grooming

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honeyvoicehwang · 5 years ago

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Stupid

pairing: famous!jisung/non famous!minho, famous!jisung/famous!changbin

ship: minsung, changsung

genre: ANGST, sad, bitter

plot: jisung and minho broke up and minho isn’t over it yet. based on the song Stupid by Brendan Maclean

word count: 4,964

warnings: implied/referenced alcohol abuse, lots of crying, insults, language

also posted on my ao3, InsecurelyPerfect (link in bio)

He slams the glass down on the wooden counter top. The beat pumps through his ears. It makes him shudder. Coming here was a mistake, he thinks. He knew what he would see, yet he still came, and he's never regretted it more.

It’s been five months since Han Jisung tore the heart out of Lee Minho and stomped on it in front of Jisung's friends, and Minho (apparently) still isn't over the breakup. It has been the worst breakup he's ever experienced in his life.

"If you weren't so stupid, I could have loved you..."

Jisung didn't like to admit defeat. It was one of the things that made Minho fall head over heels in love with the younger boy. The way he got so into it when he played video games or how competitive he got when they were racing or biking or working out together. He loved the way that Jisung got so into the music he was writing or producing or performing. Hell, it was how he'd met the boy.

One of Minho's friends was good friends with some guy in an underground rap group called 3Sauce or something? (Later he learned it was 3RACHA.) He didn't really want to go, but he promised the friend he wouldn't make him go alone.

He wasn't really into any of the acts, but when Seungmin's friend's group got on the stage, Seungmin nearly ripped his arm off, screaming bloody murder about how that was his friend up there on the stage.

Minho rolled his eyes at first, it was just a rap group. He didn't really see the appeal.

That was until the youngest of the three started jumping about, his eyes lit so brightly that Minho could see it from where he was standing fifteen feet away. His light brown hair moving perfectly as he jumped and crouched, spitting raps faster than he'd ever heard (until he heard Changbin, but that was a different story), changing the flow every so often.

It was then that Minho knew he was fucked.

As soon as he wanted to learn his name, his personality, his favorite food, color, scent, he knew it was all over. He practically had to grovel at Seungmin's feet to get him to take Minho backstage to meet them. "I thought you said this was stupid?" he teased. "I wonder what changed your mind."

It was all too obvious that he knew what changed Minho's mind and it was just an attempt to get him to admit it, but he wasn't sure that it would work. No way it would. And it didn't, but Seungmin did eventually agree to take him backstage.

Minho could barely contain his excitement when he saw the soft, doe-eyed boy staring at him and smiling while Seungmin talked to Chan and Changbin.

Jisung. His name was Jisung.

"And if you weren't so stupid, but you're pretty stupid..."

Getting to know Jisung felt like it could have been an Olympic sport in and of itself. He had so much energy and the ability to be really loud and it honestly kind of scared Minho a little bit.

But seeing Jisung hyper also meant that he was comfortable with Minho, and that was all he'd wanted. The boy was so much more chaotic and a little stupider than he could have realized, but the way he rapped... he was just so passionate and that was what had drawn Minho in, to begin with.

He didn't mind putting up with Jisung's stupid questions or random thoughts at four in the morning when he couldn't focus on the rap he was trying to write at that given moment.

It all just made Jisung that much more endearing to Minho.

It was around then that he felt himself falling harder.

"And if you weren't so busy, I could have loved you..."

Minho had known it would be hard.

Jisung was going on tour soon, after all. He would be traveling, leaving Minho alone in Korea, different time zones, and performing. He would be pouring all of his energy into the concerts and shows, he wouldn't always see Minho's texts.

Minho knew that. He tried to reason with himself that it was what Jisung loved to do so he should be supportive, and he really wanted to be, but he couldn't help but feel the slightest bit upset when the texts got slower and slower.

It started with them texting all plane ride, to hours between poorly timed texts, to missed good night messages with a kissy face in the morning, to missed morning texts as well, to broken FaceTime promises, to not talking for two weeks. Minho would be lying if he said it didn't crush his soul a little bit every time Jisung didn't even read one of his messages. He tried to tell himself that Jisung was busy doing what he loved, but that didn't make it easier.

Especially since their relationship was so new. They'd known each other for several months, and Jisung had asked Minho to be his boyfriend one drunken night during karaoke three weeks before he left for tour.

They'd talked about it the following morning. After three hours of soft kisses and tears, they'd agree that they would both try their hardest and knew that it would be a strain. In the end, Minho agreed, just to kiss his boyfriend once more before pulling him back down to cuddle.

It was hard to keep away the thoughts telling himself that if he'd just waited it would have been easier for both of them. He couldn't do that. It wasn't fair. Not to Jisung, not to himself.

He felt like a jerk.

Minho threw his phone on his bed, rubbing his face with exhaustion.

"But you work in an office... and you've got other offers..."

His jealousy wasn't valid. It was misplaced and he just missed Jisung. He wanted to be the first person that Jisung had wanted to see when they got back, but the next day, he was already back in the studio, texting Minho videos of him and Changbin goofing off together.

He tried to push it away, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was persistent, refusing to give way, only showing that it was going to get worse.

having fun? he'd asked, hoping that he didn't sound too bitter through his text.

Jisung didn't respond until three hours later, which ended up just being a Snapchat that Chan had sent of Changbin pretending to ask Jisung out and the two of them doing some sort of star crossed lovers skit.

looks like fun...

No response. The jealousy got worse.

Their relationship was so new, barely had its training wheels, yet it was already starting to fall apart, and there was nothing that Minho could do. He had no right to feel the way he did.

Jisung had been friends with them for much longer than he'd known Minho. He was allowed to joke around with his friends.

But Minho couldn't help but shake the feeling that it was a joke that wasn't entirely mutual.

"Tell me what is his name now, what is his name?"

His eyes slide over to the stage, where he can see Changbin spitting rap into Jisung's face, and though the rap sounds intense -- he wasn't listening to the lyrics -- Jisung had a stupid grin on his face, looking entirely unbothered.

Minho groans, allowing his head to fall onto the countertop, trying to avoid the sticky puddle of alcohol next to him. If he were, to be honest, he would admit that he feels just as stupid as the shit Jisung would text him when he missed him for not being more worried about Changbin when Jisung started pulling away.

He wonders why he didn't worry more, and if he had, would anything be different? Or would he just have lost Jisung sooner?

He looks away, unable to think about Jisung smiling at Changbin how he used to smile at Minho.

"I'm excited to hear the news. Tell me what is his name now, but what does that say about you?"

All he can bring himself to do is to pretend. Act like then when Seungmin drags him to Chan's house the following night that he's happy for Jisung and Changbin when they announce their relationship.

A jealous fire burns the lining of his stomach. Where did I go wrong?

Despite everything that's happened, Minho still can't help but blame himself for everything that went wrong. He knows deep down that it was a mix of the two of them, Jisung not putting in the effort and Minho's jealousy, but he still can't shake the guilt that he was mostly the reason they split.

Minho sips the beer Seungmin passed him fervently, barely giving anyone else a second look. He focuses his gaze on a spot in the corner of the room, unable to do anything without getting irrationally angry.

The most he can do is half-ass a smile when anyone tries to get his attention and nod once before returning to his zombie-like state.

"But let's not be friends, or else this will never end..."

No matter how hard Minho tries not to think about that night, he still ends up curling against the extra pillow he never got rid of, pretending he was smelling Jisung's freshly shampooed hair, rather than a pillow he'd never bothered to wash. It was a miracle that his tears hadn't washed the scent of his ex-boyfriend away yet.

Jisung stood in front of him, shoes pointed to where they were facing each other, something they never did unless he was nervous. Minho wondered what could be bothering him so much.

There wasn't much that could ever get to Jisung, at least, not that he let show, but they'd been together for four years. Whether he liked it or not, Minho knew all of Jisung's tells.

"Baby," Minho said quietly, reaching his hand out to run it down Jisung's arm lovingly. "What's wrong?"

Jisung gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing, tears pooling in his eyes. "Uh, I, um," he choked as a sob escaped his mouth, "I think - I think we should, uh, maybe take a break?"

That was the last thing that Minho had ever wanted to hear from the one person that he loved more than his childhood pets. He felt his breath catch in his throat. No, this can't be happening. NO, NO, NO, I am not losing him, no, this is just a dream.

"M-Minho?"

Minho refocused his gaze on Jisung. "W-what?"

Jisung pulled out of Minho's touch. Minho felt his fingers grow cold. "I don't--I don't know. I just... need some time..."

"Was it..." Minho licked his lips, "was it something I did?"

Jisung's eyes widened. "No, I just... everything's getting to be really hard for me and I just kind of need to take some time away from everything... in-including you," he mumbled. He looked back up at Minho. "We... we can still be friends?"

Minho smiles tight-lipped and tries not to cry. He should have pushed Jisung's hand away, told him that he didn't want to, that he didn't think it would be a good idea.

Instead, he extended his hand and quietly said, "sure."

"Let's not be friends. For sure, for sure..."

Time was supposed to heal all wounds, right? That was the saying?

For Minho, it seemed to be more that it was making everything worse. Seeing Jisung slowly get closer and closer to Changbin from afar, while he wasn't allowed to hold his hand or press a gentle kiss on his cheek and remind everyone that he was Minho's. Couldn't protect him or listen to his heartbeat to fall asleep anymore and it just about tore Minho in half.

That feeling never went away. Six months later and he sees Jisung and Changbin sneaking kisses behind the stage, out of sight of everyone who doesn't know that you can see them from the right angle.

He shakes his head. He's supposed to be supporting them. He and Jisung are still friends, after all, he thinks mockingly. Friends. That word taunts him. Puts up a barrier between him and the love of his life.

He watches them exchange one more kiss before coming out and leaves the bar before any of them catch a glimpse of Minho in the audience.

"And if you weren't so ugly, I could have loved you. It's something I tell myself when I'm down, to get high..."

Jisung had been the most beautiful person Minho had ever seen, he still is. Now that he sees that smile lighting up his face every time he looks at Changbin, and Minho's heart leaps into his throat.

He tries telling himself that Jisung looks like a squirrel. A dirty squirrel, one roaming through the streets that probably had, like, diseases or some shit. Just... fucking anything that he could say to himself to not want to kiss Jisung's full cheeks.

But even that didn't work. No matter how much he tried to think of Jisung as the vilest person he'd ever seen, he always ended up thinking Jisung looked like an angel, and, well, it's because he is one.

It only complicated things every other day.

hey, it's been a while, his text read. can we meet up?

Minho ponders what Jisung could possibly want to talk to him about, but he thinks of seeing Jisung again and quickly agrees.

The wind whips around him as he waits in the park for Jisung to show up. As soon as his eyes land on the boy, he smiles instinctively. He has to bite his tongue so he doesn't say "I love you."

The smile fades when he sees the serious look on Jisung's face. He gulps, balling his fists to keep himself from hugging Jisung. "What, uh, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Jisung shakes his head. "Look, Min, I know that we had a pretty rough break up, but you need to move on. I don't see it, but Changbin's told me that he's uncomfortable with how you're looking at me and wants you to stop."

It’s then that Minho looks over to the parking lot and sees Changbin sitting in the car, playing on his phone, looking up occasionally. When the two of them make eye contact, Minho turns his attention back to Jisung.

"I see." His voice is ice cold and rigid. It's a tone he never used with Jisung. Only the boys that would try to flirt with him after 3RACHA's sets.

He sees the shift in Jisung's eyes as the tone of voice sinks into his brain regurgitating memories he's kept buried for so long.

Then, something snaps inside of him, and the words come tumbling out in an angry rage before he has time to even think about what they are. "You know, I'm not looking at you because I still love you, Sung. Get over yourself. I'm looking at you and wondering how I ever thought someone as ugly as you was beautiful." He pants as the words finish, his chest heaving heavily and his heart aching.

Jisung's attention is immediately shifted towards the ground. "I think we're done here," he says in a rush, turning away from Minho, but not before Minho watched a tear roll down Jisung's perfectly tanned cheek.

As he watches Jisung walk away, he can't move. His body is frozen in place, but he wants nothing more than to chase after Jisung.

No, stop, I didn't mean it, I'm so sorry.

But he's stiff. And Jisung walks back to the car with Changbin already starting the engine. And they tear away, leaving Minho crumbling to the ground, wondering what the fuck just happened.

"If you'd made me a coffee, I could have loved you. And I'd make you hot chocolate, and anything you could have wanted..."

Jisung was the best boyfriend Minho had ever had. They got along so well and Jisung was always doing everything that he could for Minho, without him even asking.

That's why Minho firmly believes that it's his fault they didn't last. He curls up against Jisung's pillow as the show he's watching plays indistinctively in the background. The only light came from the screen of his laptop. The couple in the show do everything for each other, no matter how small and Minho's mind wanders.

He thinks back to the time that Jisung asked him to grab a cup of coffee for him on his way to the studio. Minho had meant to, he really had, but he had gotten too distracted, thinking about giving Jisung the biggest hug that he forgot to stop by the coffee shop.

He tries to pinpoint the moment that things started to go wrong. If he can tell when Jisung started pulling back and stopped texting him so much. He tries to imagine the scenario where he does bring Jisung the coffee and he sees Jisung's eyes light up as he regains the energy he lost from traveling.

He wishes he could turn back the clock and just get that fucking coffee for Jisung. He wants to do anything he can. Everything he never did. Everything he never got the chance to do, and now never will.

He curls into the pillow more, hugging it tighter as tears begin to flow down his cheeks, blurring his vision and soaking the pillow.

Minho stops crying almost abruptly as it had started and sits up. He looks around the room briefly before going to get a glass of soju. He needs it. Something. Anything to take his mind off of the mind-numbing what-if scenarios and all the things he would have done differently if he could. He can't change anything now, so what was the point in thinking about it?

“Tell me who is invited, so fuckin’ delighted to see all the boys you see…”

At the same time that Minho wishes he would stop getting Chan’s invites to hang out after 3RACHA’s sets, he knows that if they really stopped coming, he would have a mental breakdown.

He arrives, already dreading being around the couple. He looks around for anyone that he can take into another room and make out with for a bit. Woojin, Chan, Hyunjin, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin. No, no, no, no. no, no. He doesn’t know any of them aside from Chan and Seungmin well. Just that Chan hangs out with everyone there as often as he can, meaning Jisung also saw them a lot, too.

He wonders why, why out of all of the people knew, why it had to be Changbin.

Minho grabs a second beer, which quickly becomes a third, fourth, fifth. Soon enough Seungmin has Minho flung over his shoulder, shouting an apology to everyone and places Minho in the passengers' seat, grumbling about how he needs to stop coming if he’s just going to get blackout drunk, knowing Minho won’t remember his lecture in the morning.

Minho wakes up the next morning to a post-it note on his bedside table.

Stop coming, you know you don’t want to see them together.

Asprin’s in the kitchen.

x - seungmin

“Tell me why I don’t fight it, what does that say about me?”

Minho wakes up the following morning to weight at the edge of his bed. He lifts his head slightly. Seungmin.

Seungmin is sitting on Minho’s bed, running his hands through Minho’s hair.

“Min, what are you doing?” Minho’s voice is loud and gravelly as he pushes his throat against his pillow. He tries to twist his body to get a better glimpse of Seungmin, but the way Seungmin’s sitting made it difficult for him to do so.

Seungmin continues running his hand through Minho’s hair. “Hyung, I know that you and Jisung hyung had a pretty rough break up, but you need to do what's best for you.”

Minho tries to twist again. Seungmin sits up a little more so that Minho could actually turn around. When Minho is situated and comfortable again, Seungmin goes back to stroking his hair. “I don’t know what you mean, I am doing what’s best for me.”

Seungmin shakes his head. “No, hyung, you’re not. If you really were, you would have stopped talking to Jisung hyung back when you knew that it was still hurting you. I can see that you seeing him with Changbin hyung hurts you. So, please, just do what’s best for you.”

Seungmin’s words ring through Minho’s entire body, stirring an emotion that Minho can’t quite distinguish within his mind. All he really knows is that he’s left with a strong desire to text Jisung.

“And let’s not be friends, otherwise this’ll never end…”

jisung, please. we need to talk about this.

Minho slams his phone on the counter, shattering the screen. He curses himself.

His feet start moving before he knows what he’s really doing. His body moves without control, almost as if it was on autopilot, and had done this hundreds of times before.

He stops in front of the all too familiar white cabinets. He knows what’s behind them even before the scent reaches his nose. It’s pungent, too hard to ignore, to pretend. Minho doesn’t try to stop himself even after the cabinet door is open and he’s faced with sticky glass necks and fallen bottles and begins sipping from the bottle, not even bothering to get a glass to drink from.

It burned as it slipped down his throat.

“Let’s not be friends, for sure, for sure…”

minho... i dont think this is such a good idea…

Minho feels his breath catch in his throat. His eyes burn. He doesn’t even know what time it is and he can’t be bothered to look up and figure it out.

He knows it’s way past midnight, and why Jisung would be texting him this late, he doesn’t even want to think about it. What Jisung got done doing, what he was thinking about. It’s too much for Minho to handle.

He pulls his knees to his chest, trying to calm the buzzing in his head, the alcohol finally kicking in. This couldn’t have been a worse time for this to happen.

Minho isn’t exactly known for making the best decisions while drunk and certainly has a habit of texting the wrong people; Jisung being one of them.

He chokes back a sob as his vision blurs over and his shaking fingers hover over the keys.

yeah, youre right, my bad.

sorry to have bothered you. have a good night.

“We’d adopt… we’d adopt…”

If Minho really thinks about it, he can see the probability of Jisung and him getting married was pretty low, but it didn’t stop Minho from imagining the two of them living together and adopting some pets.

It was something Jisung always used to talk about with such a fondness in his voice, lights sparkling in his eyes, his entire demeanor changing with just a few words. According to him, Jisung had never gotten the chance to grow up with pets around, but he’d always wanted a dog.

Minho was a cat person and had three back at home with his parents, but he figured that he could make that sacrifice for the guy he was kinda falling in love with.

If it meant that he would get to see Jisung’s smile that took up his entire face and showed off all of his teeth, then Minho would give anything to see that.

That night, he had started looking at adoption agencies that had rescues.

“I’d have all the things he’s got, but I’m not. So let’s stop. Pretend that there’ll be a happy end…”

It has been ten months since Minho received the worst text he’d ever gotten.

Since then, he’s stopped going to Chan’s after-parties, however, he still can’t seem to stop himself from going to the bars where they perform. He watched Jisung and Changbin get close. He sees how they kiss when they think no one can see them because he knows where to look.

At this point, Seungmin’s hand on Minho’s shoulder has become somewhat of a coping mechanism for him. It was comforting for Minho to know that his friend is always right there beside him as he lets it all go.

“You know you shouldn’t be here,” he says, his voice non-confrontational. He never is.

It’s too much to know that Jisung has moved on, leaving Minho alone, on read, and defending his broken heart.

Minho bites his tongue and knocks another glass of vodka back, tears brimming his eyes as his mind goes fuzzy.

“Let’s not be friends, for sure (for sure)...”

It’s about two months after the last bar incident that Chan sends another invite to Minho. This time, it’s worded differently. Like there’ll be more than just the usual nine of them. Maybe it’ll give Minho more of a way to avoid Jisung?

He toys with his bottom lip between his teeth, sliding his hands over the paper invitation gently, almost as though it could explode if he touched it wrong. He can’t help but take a second and chuckle to himself. Chan was always so formal, sending out paper in a time of technology where texts are almost faster than light.

He reads the invitation carefully. Eyes sliding over every letter with intent, not wanting to misunderstand anything or read too deep, even though he knows that’s already what he was doing.

House warming. Eight pm. Bring food. A new address.

That definitely seems like he’ll be able to avoid Jisung. Minho’s finally been doing well and starting to move on for himself.

“We’d adopt, we’d have dogs…”

“Just-- keep your eyes closed. I promise you won’t regret it, okay?” Minho laughed, shoving the blindfold into Jisung’s hands. The car was cold, yet warming up, but it would go a whole lot faster if Jisung would just listen to him.

“And how do I know that you aren’t going to kidnap me or bring me to a secondary location?” the younger retorted.

Minho rolled his eyes, “You’ve been watching way too much John Mulaney lately. I swear, I’m going to kill Chan for insisting you improve your English. Now you’re just going to talk to me in John Mulaney quotes and I’m not going to understand anything.”

“Honestly, that kind of seems like a you problem, Hyung,” Jisung said, his signature heart smile plastered all over his face and even Minho’s mind. Minho lightly shoved his shoulder and Jisung finally obliged, putting the blindfold on sloppily. “You really aren’t going to tell me where we’re going are you?”

“Nope,” Minho said, putting the car in gear.

“You’re annoying.”

Minho just hummed, turning the music louder, attempting to cover the sounds of the tires on the gravel road to the rescue shelter. When he finally put the car in park, he turned toward Jisung, who was sat beside him, clueless as ever.

“Okay, you can take the blindfold off now.”

He watched with intent as the blindfold slipped off of Jisung’s eyes and how his face lit up and he couldn’t sit still, bursting when he realized where they were.

“Oh, my God! Are you serious?” Jisung whipped around to face Minho, eyes searching for a hint of a bluff in his boyfriend’s face. To his surprise, there was none.

Minho reached for his smaller hand. “I mean, we live together and you’ve been talking about it forever, I don’t see why we shouldn’t. But I didn’t want to just do it without you, so I figured I’d bring you along and you get to choose the dog you connect with the most.”

Jisung flung himself into Minho’s arms, latching his arms around Minho’s neck, pressing furious kisses wherever he could reach. “Lee Minho, you are the best boyfriend anyone could ever ask for.”

“I’d have all the things he’s got, but I’m not.”

Minho squeezes the soju glass in his hand, nearly hard enough to smash, riddled with anxiety and panic as his eyes frantically scan the yard for Chan’s other two members.

He promised Seungmin, Hyunjin, and Chan that he’d be good and not intentionally get into any trouble, and he plans on abiding by that. He wants the Jisung chapter of his life to finally close, be over with, something he can think of fondly and not remember the sleepless nights, drunk nights, or sad nights.

And.. maybe... Just maybe if he can prove to Jisung that he’s worth it, they can have another go at them together?

He can show Jisung that he has everything Changbin has and so much more. That he can do everything that Changbin can do, so why not be with Minho?

He is just about to get up from his spot against the fence and find Jisung, soju in hand, when Jisung walks out of the house, laughing at something.

Speak of the devil, he thinks, almost bitterly. Now’s my chance, when Changbin isn’t around. Except, he spoke too soon because immediately following Jisung is Changbin.

They’re holding hands and Minho is close enough to catch a glimpse of something shiny on Jisung’s hand.

I’ve got everything he has… except for you…

Minho sets his drink on the nearest table and ducks behind some people he’s never seen before, making a quick exit without saying goodbye to anyone.

He’s just about to leave when he turns around and sees Changbin pulling Jisung in for a passionate kiss.

Minho turns away, a tear rolling down his cheek, and not looking back as he walks away from Chan’s house.

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