the knife addict {minsung} DISCONTINUED

seven.

Jisung sat silently, lost inside his own head, as his friends argued about whether or not penguins had knees.

"They literally have knee bones!" Seungmin yelled, his eyebrow furrowed and a vein in his forehead bulging.

"Yeah, but my knee bone isn't my knee," Chan shot back. "My knee bone plus my skin plus my tendons plus my other body stuff is my knee."

"Cake has flour in it but flour is not a cake," Hyunjin agreed passionately.

Changbin frowned. "But penguins have skin stuff? And tendons and all the other knee ingredients. Cakes come in lots of different shapes and sizes, you know. Your cake doesn't have to look like everyone else's cake."

Seungmin scoffed. "I've got nice cake." 

Hyunjin whistled. "Yeah, you do." 

Seungmin smiled and stood up, doing a little twirl to show off his cake. 

Jisung didn't normally engage too much in conversations with this friends. Sure, he loved his friends to death, but he tended to just stay quiet, observing with small smiles and giggles. He had never been much of a talker, even around people he was close with. And what he loved about these beautiful humans is that they respected that. 

Hyunjin was holding Jisung's hand as Hyunjin engaged in the conversation with their friends, a silent reminder that Jisung was still important, still a vital part of the friend group, despite mostly remaining quiet. 

Suddenly, Jisung felt eyes on him. He frowned, turning around, scanning the tables of students until they fell on one person, standing alone by the back wall of the school. 

Minho smiled a little and sent Jisung a small wave. 

Jisung's eyes widened and his cheeks heated up as he quickly spun back around, his eyes glued to his lap. 

Hyunjin noticed Jisung's little mini freak out and looked at him, his brow furrowed.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. 

Jisung quickly nodded, his cheeks still dusted pink. "Yeah. I'm all good," he squeaked, but then he glanced behind him and Minho was still looking at him. Minho waved again and Jisung died again. 

Hyunjin followed Jisung's line of sight until he saw Minho leaning against the wall, looking their way. 

Hyunjin frowned but said nothing, turning back to their friends. Jisung watched the frown develop on his friend's face, and unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

And that unsettled feeling morphed suddenly, twisting around inside of him until it turned into something a bit darker. 

That dark feeling being anger, specifically. 

Jisung was angry. 

At himself. 

Jisung had always been timid. He had always been shy and quiet and a people-pleaser. But recently, the thoughts running through his head- they were fucking stupid, even he had to admit that. 

'You can't let people see you talk to Minho.' 

'You have to pretend you don't know him.'

'You have to protect your image.' 

Watching Hyunjin frown from nothing but laying his eyes on the boy made Jisung's body burn with a familiar feeling of disbelief and anger. 

He stood up abruptly. 

Hyunjin looked up at him quizzically, still holding his hand. His other friends stopped talking for a moment. 

"Ji? You good?" Hyunjin asked, his voice tender, his hand giving Jisung's a little squeeze. 

Jisung looked down at Hyunjin, watching as Hyunjin frowned, his face written with concern. 

Jisung sighed, sitting back down. 

"Yeah," he mumbled dejectedly. "Fine. Just stretching." 

Chan laughed. "Damn. Aggressive ass stretching." He then got up abruptly, everyone watching him, as he then just stood there like a sims character. 

Seungmin snorted. 

Chan nodded surely. "That felt pretty fucking good. All stretched out now, I'd say." He sat back down, shooting Jisung a little smile, who smiled back- but the smile never quite reached his eyes, because he could still feel Minho's gaze on his back. 

Jisung slowly pried his hand out of Hyunjin's hold, making Hyunjin's gaze snap down to their now separated hands. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, only loud enough for Jisung to hear. 

Jisung nodded, smiling shallowly at Hyunjin. "I'm just gonna go to the bathroom, okay?" 

Hyunjin frowned but nodded. "Okay." 

Jisung got up without a word, sending a little wave his friends' way, then grabbed his backpack and shuffled away from the table. He aggressively stared down at his feet as he walked, embarrassed because he knew Minho was watching him. 

Jisung weaved around tables, keeping his head hung low and his gaze on the floor until he found himself standing in front of Minho, his eyes still on the ground as he was now staring at not one pair of shoes, but two. 

He watched as Minho's foot nudged his, making his lips upturn a little. 

Suddenly, Jisung's phone vibrated in his pocket, then vibrated again. He pulled it out, holding it in front of him as he turned on the screen. 

The first notification was a text from an unknown number. 

Unknown number: tf you doing?????? 

Jisung sighed, but ultimately paid the text little mind because the second notification- the second text was what bothered him the most. 

hyunnie: you said you were going to the bathroom... 

Another text shortly followed. 

hyunnie: come sit with us again?? u know i just want to keep you safe ji 

Minho sucked in a sharp breath from where he was standing across from Jisung. Obviously he had read the texts that blared in bloody, judgemental letters on Jisung's lit up phone screen. 

Jisung glanced up at Minho to find the same anger he had seen that first time in the bathroom glowing brightly in Minho's eyes once again. 

Jisung took a deep breath, turned off his phone, and tucked it away back into his pocket, despite the self-preservation alarms ringing in his head to just listen to Hyunjin and step away from the danger. 

But the danger wasn't Minho. 

The danger was Jisung- or, rather, it was in Jisung, in his head. These constant thoughts telling him to stay away from Minho, they weren't Jisung's thoughts. They were the student body's thoughts, they were Hyunjin's thoughts. 

And Jisung was fucking done with them. 

"Hey, uh, could I talk to you? Just for a second?" Jisung said quietly, eyes landing on Minho's shirt but traveling no further because he fucking hated eye contact. 

Minho nodded. "Sure, yeah- yeah. Sure." 

Jisung nodded back, and they both stood in awkward silence for a moment. 

Minho cleared his throat. "Uh, like right here? Or somewhere else?" 

Jisung glanced behind him, finding not only Hyunjin's, but multiple students' eyes trailing on him and Minho. 

And something in him ignited. 

Jisung turned back to Minho and smiled shyly. "Here is good."