PLUGGED IN | minsung

part 4

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"Come home. Now. If you're not back within the hour, he'll never let you into this house again."

The voice on the other end of the line cut off with the end of the sentence. Minho glared at the phone in his hand, the cracks in the screen blurred by a mist of badly concealed tears. He hated crying. 

Another call flashed up on the screen. He winced slightly before he answered it.

"Don't bother listening to your mother," said the voice on the line. The bad connection made the voice sound tinny, almost robotic, but the cruel intonation of the speaker's voice was clearer than ever. 

Minho tugged at his lower lip with his teeth until he could taste blood on his tongue. His free hand curled subconsciously so his nails were digging sharp crescents into already scarred palms. 

"And don't bother coming back. How much clearer do we have to make it that we don't want you here? Must I brand it on your forehead? Will that make you finally understand? Lee Minho, not fucking wanted." 

"Dad-"

A loud bang against the door to his shared dorm room woke Minho with a start, and he bolted into a sitting position, the sheets that had covered him falling around his waist. His skin was slick with a light layer of sweat and he struggled to swallow a breath. The nightmare was all too familiar - but it was a relief, at least, that this time he didn't have to live it out till the end. He was almost thankful to whatever had woke him up.

That is, until he heard two voices drift through the now open door. The first one belonged to his roommate - Jihyung, was it? No, Jisung, right? Minho wasn't all too sure. The second was another boy, fluffy blonde hair contrasted by the sharp angles of his bone structure. Minho felt as though he'd seen him somewhere before.

"Oh, my God, hyung, I'm so sorry!" Jisung cried out as his eyes fell onto Minho's figure in the corner of the room, his lower half still covered by the plain bedsheets.

At first, Minho wasn't sure why Jisung lifted a hand to cover his eyes, or why the other kid had turned to stare seemingly in wonder at the bare wall behind him. Then, he looked down and noticed that he'd fallen asleep wearing only a pair of boxers. Minho glanced up at Jisung who was still stood with his eyes covered - was he wrong, or had he caught Jisung peering for a millisecond through the gap between his index finger and his middle finger? Minho frowned slightly and grabbed his hoodie from where he'd thrown it to the floor before. He pulled it on over his head before he spoke.

"Don't be," he said shortly. "You live here too. My fault for sleeping in the middle of the day."

Jisung pulled his hand from off his eyes and tapped the other boy lightly on the shoulder. He paused before he replied, glancing once between the light switch beside him and Minho. The older boy had drawn the curtains when he came in so the room was, as it always seemed to be, veiled in dark shadows.

"You can turn on the light," Minho said. Jisung did.

"Sorry. Erm, Felix, this is Lee Minho, my roommate. Minho, this is... Oh! Lee Felix! Same name!" Jisung smiled when he realised. A brief glance at the unamused look on Minho's face sent the smile running quickly.

"It's a common name here." Minho's voice was low and he was blinking slowly.

"Oh, wait, you're... That Minho? The dancer, right?" Felix asked from where he was still stood behind Jisung. 

Minho just nodded.

"That's so cool! I've heard all about you. Even my dance teacher knows who you are. It's cool that you live with Jisung, too! Maybe we can practice together sometime?" Felix seemed overexcited. Minho would've been a lot more annoyed if the blonde boy didn't remind him so much of Jeongin. 

Still, he didn't bother to reply. He just stood up from the bed and snaked a pair of black joggers over his hips. Jisung averted his eyes again, albeit a second too late. Minho wasn't sure why his cheeks felt like they were flushing pink. 

"Are you leaving?" Jisung asked. He seemed disappointed. "We aren't staying. I only came back to grab my laptop, so you can go back to sleep if you want."

Minho flinched at the thought. With sleep came bad dreams. He'd gotten a few hours, at least, and that would have to be enough to last him a few more days. 

"No, I won't. I should get to work." Minho gathered up his jacket from the end of his bed. 

He noticed that Jisung watched his every move, his eyes in complete synchronisation with the fluidity of Minho's natural dancer's movements. Minho took a second to watch him back. He didn't usually look at people, or at least he didn't ever seem to notice them, but there was something about Jisung's eyes, the irises dark as black ink in water yet still so open. 

"Hey, do you know Hwang Hyunjin, by any chance?" Felix asked suddenly. 

Minho shot a pointed look at Felix. Just like the first time Jisung had met him, his face was completely blank apart from one arched brow. 

"Oh, he's my roommate. We just had a dance class together and he said that he'd danced with you before, when our teacher mentioned you," the younger boy explained.

Minho just shrugged. "I don't recognise the name. I've danced with a lot of people." 

Felix frowned but nodded. Jisung glanced between them and then moved out of the way of the door so that Minho could leave. Felix moved with him and Minho bowed his head at them both as he went to leave. 

"Oh, Minho? We should maybe get a sign for the door or something. Just so we can put it up if we're sleeping so the other knows to be quiet. I sleep through the day too, so it might make sense, you know? So I don't wake you up again." Jisung's eyes were wide and staring straight into Minho's as he spoke. 

"I don't care. Do what you want," was Minho's only reply as he brushed against the younger boy and left, pulling the dorm room door closed behind him as he went. 

He paused for a moment in the corridor. It was a long white passage, the wall broken up at intervals with identical looking doors. Minho wasn't sure where to go next. On the one hand, there was no way he was going to go back into the dorm room. But he didn't want to go back to Chan's, either. The thought of human interaction was making him feel queasy and he just wanted to be alone. 

For a moment, he considered dipping into his accommodation money and booking a hotel so he could knock back some sleeping pills and maybe sleep uninterrupted for once. He only did that when things got unbearable. It never made him feel good when he woke up, usually days after he'd fallen asleep. 

So instead he dragged a hand over eyes sore from lack of sleep and followed a path he knew all too well, looping his way through the dorm building to the dance studio that he knew he would be able to intimidate anyone into letting him have to his self. 

Thankfully no one was there when he arrived and Minho locked the door behind him. He thrived in the empty space, loneliness the only feeling he truly craved right now, as he plugged his phone into the speaker against the wall and started to dance. 

The music ran through his body far quicker than any pill would have and brought a sense of relief that he'd never been able to find anywhere else. 

It was brief, but it was peaceful all the same. 

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o.o sorry im bored so im on a posting rampage hehe