Tequila || lee minho ✓

18

I drove to Minho's house in silence, my own thoughts filling my head. I took a few seconds to gather myself, taking in a deep breath.

As soon as I rang the doorbell, Minho opened the door. He stood in front of me, beautiful as ever. His hair was a mess, going in all different directions. He wore a random t-shirt along with some black sweatpants, clearly tired.

"Hi," he said, voice small and almost fragile. "Come in."

I simply nodded, following him to the living room. He sat down on the couch and I sat on the far end, distancing myself from him as much as I could.

"You have 30 minutes, go," I narrowed my eyes. Minho already wasted enough of my time and I wasn't going to let him waste any more.

"Okay, okay," Minho said, nodding his head quickly. "I know you're angry, and you have every single right to be.  I just need you to understand why I did what I did."

"Didn't you already tell me?" I scoffed.  "You and your stupid assumptions."

"I'm ready to tell you the full story now," Minho said rather coldly, looking into my eyes.  It felt as if he was staring right into my soul, sending shivers down my spine.

"The truth is, I myself didn't even realize how much you meant to me Hana.  It was only after I pushed you away did it finally hit me that you mean way too much to me to just disregard whatever we had like that.  To be honest, I did a lot of self reflection that past few weeks, wondering why I was holding myself back so much."

I tried to keep my face emotionless as I let Minho continue.  I was still unsure of where he was going with this so I refused to let myself feel any type of way just yet.

"My experiences with relationships in the past have been beyond horrible.  My last serious relationship happened a few years ago and she left me completely broken.  We met in college and immediately hit it off.  I surprised even myself at how much I was willing to trust and just be with her, especially considering we haven't known each other for that long.  Everything was so so perfect, we moved in to the same place after college, my friends and parents all loved her, and there were just no problems at all.  That was the first time that I really fell in love, not just some cheap high school relationship.  Like I was head over heels for her, Hana.  She was always on my mind and she was just so so perfect."

As Minho continued talking about how great his ex was, my blood began to boil just a little.  Did he really drag me all the way to his home just to talk to me about this?  Nevertheless, I kept quiet, letting him finish.  I did give him 30 minutes, after all.

"I guess her feelings for me weren't as strong as my feelings for her since one random night, I caught her cheating on me.  With my best friend."

There was complete silence in the room as I processed what Minho had just said.  It took a while for my mind to finally wrap around how devasting it must've felt to have found your girlfriend cheating on you with your best friend.

"What did you do?" I asked, the question coming out as a soft whisper.  I was now invested in the story, amazed at how Minho was able to go through that.

"I left both of them," Minho replied, his jaw clenched.  "It took me months to get over what they did to me.  It was just the fact that I never suspected anything before that made it even worse.  It just happened out of nowhere, which made me question if I was really just that fucking stupid to never notice.  From then on, I had a hard time trusting anyone, especially if we were getting closer.  Except, of course, after I met you.  I surprised myself when I didn't push you away like I did with everyone else.  It was hard, but I ultimately decided to force myself to do so, to prevent a repeat of last time."

I finally felt like I was getting the complete picture, and I was grateful for Minho for telling me.  However, that didn't mean I was willing to "accept" him with open arms again.

"I understand why it's hard for you trust people," I began, taking in a deep breath.  "But it was the fact that you threw all of this away without even knowing what it could become.  Never have I shown that I'm someone who shouldn't be trusted and yet you still went on to push me away like it was nothing.  So now what were you planning to accomplish by bringing me here and telling me all of this?"

My words seemed to have had a big effect on Minho as he shut his eyes closed and let out a shaky breath.  It almost made me feel bad for him. Almost.

"I think both of us know," Minho responded, in a whisper.  "I want you to understand my thought process behind what I did.  While it probably wasn't the most logical or smart, I wanted you to at least see where I came from.  I understand if you can't ever look past what I did to you but I realize now that it's not worth pushing you away because of some incident that happened in my past.  I guess all I'm asking for is to start over?  We had a pretty rough start and I want to redo it all."

I took Minho's words into careful consideration.  There was no doubt in my mind that he was being beyond genuine.  A new start also didn't seem too bad to me, especially after everything we've been through.  All I knew was that I couldn't commit to anything right now.  I was done with having my feelings toyed around.

"Okay," I nodded uneasily.

"Okay? Just like that?" Minho asked, sitting up a little straighter.  His eyes widened as he brushed a few strands of hair away from his face.

"Yeah, just like that," I shrugged.  Minho studied me intently, as if he was trying to decipher my actions.

"But...?" Minho trailed off, knowing something was coming next.  I couldn't help but smile at his ability to read my body language and tone.

"But, no strings attached," I said firmly, leaving no room for argument.  "Yes, we start over, but as friends.  I don't want there to be any confusion between us anymore, Minho.  Whatever happens, we take things slow."

"Okay, I can definitely do that," Minho nodded slowly, before finally breaking out into a big smile.

"Good," I said, still unsure of what I just got myself into.

"Okay, let's start over then," Minho said, positioning himself so his body was facing me directly. "Hi, my name is Minho and I have three cats."

He held out his hand for me to shake. Carefully, I took it and his hand enveloped mine in a firm handshake. I then looked at him, unable to keep the smile off my face.

"Hi, I'm Hana, and I love cats."

"Well would you look at that, we'd get along perfectly!" Minho exclaimed, as if this was the first time he discovered my obsession for cats.

"Looks like we will," I smiled, the butterflies already starting to form.