EX // Minsung

28. The story's out

"Seriously, you should probably stay away from him." Yeonwoo advised. "He's really weird."

"I don't know what exactly happened between the two of you, but Minho's different now." Even though they just fought, Jisung still wanted to defend his boyfriend.

"Did he ever yell at you though?" Yeonwoo pushed.

"Minho would never do that to Jisung, he's very gentle with him." Sam tried to help Jisung out.

"Actually... he did. He did just now." Jisung couldn't look Sam in his eyes.

"Hm, that's what I thought. He's still the same." Yeonwoo let himself fall back into the soft cushions of the couch. "You better be alone, it hurts. I've never been hurt as much as with Minho."

Jisung's stomach tied into a knot and his head felt heavy. The ache in his stomach pulled down his throat and his tongue was tied. What if Minho isn't who I think he is?

Jisung tried his best to mumble out some words about going to his dorm and then quickly left. His head was spinning and he didn't know who's side he should be on. I mean, it should be Minho, of course. Minho is his boyfriend after all. But then again, Minho was strangely not telling him about what happened and Yeonwoo had a clear warning. But so did Minho. But neither of them explained their story.

What if Minho is actually is a bad person?

Jisung's hand weakly fell onto the doorhandle and he used all his energy to push down the heavy handle. The spiraling thoughts in his brain were draining him. Maybe he was also still tired from class.
What if Minho hurts me?

"Before you leave again Jisung, please hear me out." Minho desperately said. He had been waiting for Jisung to come back to his dorm.
For a second Jisung wondered if he had wandered into the wrong dorm, but then he realised Lewis must've let Minho in.

"Later ..."

"Jisung, please, I need to make things right."

"Later, please ..." then Jisung's world went black.

When he opened his eyes again, blinking against the bright light, he was in his dorm bedroom.
Minho was sitting next to the bed, holding Jisung's hand. Minho's other arm was propped up under his head, his eyes were closed. Jisung wondered if Minho was asleep.
He had to wake him up if he wanted to know what happened, but Minho looked so peaceful.

Luckily for Jisung, Minho opened his eyes on his own. Jisung felt Minho's grip around his hand tighten.
"Jisung, you're awake. What happened?"

"That's exactly what I wanted to ask you... The last thing I remember were my thoughts going crazy and then I saw you. Everything just went black after that."

Minho nodded as if he was trying to make sense of the situation. "I'm sorry I yelled at you and I'm sorry I caused you so much stress. I never wanted to hurt you and definitely didn't want to stress you out to the point of you fainting." Minho caressed Jisung's hand with his thumb, slowly tracing circles on the back of Jisung's hand.

"It wasn't all you. Yeonwoo said some things and I got all confused, I just need some time to think about everything."

"Whatever he said, isn't true. I don't want to victimise myself, but Yeonwoo definitely is not the hurt one in this situation." Minho sounded offended and for a moment Jisung thought Minho might yell again. Luckily he didn't.

"I just... I just need to think about it okay?" Jisung desperately wanted some time to himself, but at the same time he didn't want Minho to leave. "How long was I out? Why didn't you take me to the on campus nurse?"

"It was just five to ten minutes. And I don't know why I didn't, I'm sorry. It just didn't seem severe enough for the hospital and I don't trust the nurse here." Minho wrapped his other hand around Jisung's hand as well. "Lewis is here too, he's in the shared living space. I told him I wanted to be alone with you."

Jisung didn't want to ask about it, but he couldn't help himself. He was curious, but he also felt like he owed it to Minho to ask.
"What were you going to say before I passed out?"

"Well first of all, I was going to apologise to you for yelling, I'm an idiot, I'm so sorry." Minho sighed tiredly. "But also, I owe you a proper explanation of what really happened between Yeonwoo and I."

Jisung could tell it was a heavy topic for Minho. He tried not to be judgemental, and allowed Minho to freely talk about it. It seemed like the more Jisung got to know Minho, the more trauma was being digged up.
Jisung was grateful that Minho felt so safe to share everything, despite being together for such short time, but sometimes it could be a little burdensome as well. Mostly because Jisung's heart felt heavy hearing these stories and not being able to do anything to make it better.
Jisung tried his best to make room for these kind of conversations, even if he wasn't feeling too well himself.

"It's a little ironic," Minho started, trying to not make the conversation seem so heavy, "remember when I told you about the scars on my hand this morning?"

Jisung nodded, he felt bad for Minho.

"Well, Yeonwoo is kind of the reason I got them." Minho saw Jisung's eyes widen. "Not like that! It's not like that, he didn't hurt me!"

"Then what happened?" Jisung held Minho's hands tightly, but still minding the scars. The scars were old and healed, so it probably wouldn't hurt anymore, but Jisung still felt like maybe he shouldn't touch them.

"Yeonwoo and I used to be in a relationship." The words tasted like poison in Minho's mouth. To Jisung it wasn't like music to his ears either. "Everything had to be very secretive, I couldn't risk my dad finding out. But Yeonwoo got needy. He kept pressuring to visit my home despite the many times I said that it just wouldn't be a good idea."

Jisung was starting to sense where the story might go.

"After a very long time I finally gave in, but I made it very clear to him that we can't act close and that he couldn't stay for dinner. Well, my dad thought he was just a close friend and since I hadn't had friends over since mom passed away... my dad just thought it was nice to invite him for dinner." Minho looked at his hands wrapped around Jisung's small hand like he suddenly realised how fragile his boyfriend was. "Yeonwoo accepted of course. God, stupid, he shouldn't have done that. It went alright, but stupid, stupid Yeonwoo had to blab his mouth during desert."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't want to be a secret anymore. Which I understand. But he had to do it in the most dumb way. When we were finishing up he suddenly turned to my dad and said 'Minho is actually my boyfriend, we've been together for a couple of months now'. And that's where it all went south." Minho was tightly squeezing Jisung's hand now.

"If it's too painful... you don't have to tell me, I understand." Jisung took his free hand and pressed Minho's head against his chest.

"It's... I want to, it's hard but I want to tell you. I can't risk Yeonwoo lying to you either."

Jisung nodded, "then come a closer and tell me like that," Jisung scooted over and patted the empty space next to him in bed.
Minho accepted and climbed into Jisung's bed. He couldn't bear to look Jisung in the eyes, so while Jisung sat up, Minho placed his head on Jisung's chest and wrapped his arm around Jisung's waist.

"So, yeah... my dad immediately kicked Yeonwoo out of our house, his house, and had a word with me. Well, it were more bottles than words. My dad always likes to have a couple of beers during dinner. So the empty bottles were right there. The shards cut my hand and a bit of my arm." Minho paused to look at his scars for a moment. "I broke up with Yeonwoo through text and never spoke to him again. When he did try to talk to me I just yelled for him to go away."

Jisung wanted to say something, but there were no words he could possibly say that had any significance.

Jisung felt bad for Minho. Feeling guilty for being able to have lived such sheltered life. While Minho had to experience these things all by himself.