UNTOUCHABLE YOU | MINSUNG

11

"Yeah I sing for pleasure
I've sung for pain
I'm still halfway to nowhere
I'm still nothing today."
-halfway to nowhere-

A sharp beeping sound pierces through Jisung's ears as he grows back into consciousness, his eyes are met with a white screen of light, his head is throbbing in horrible pain, and he can almost hear his own heart beats in his chest.

"Jisungi." The voices are still interpreted as murmurs in his brain, but it all starts making sense with every second that is passing by. Jisung can feel a cold plastic tube pressed past his dry lips as he automatically inhales whichever gas is transferred to his lungs, feeling how his lungs slowly open and unclench. The relief is so sudden he feels almost high in comparison to the hysteria he was in only minutes ago.

Jisung's eyes open slowly to see Chan's face above his own, his face displays both worry and relief. The feeling of the cold tiled floor under his tired body makes him aware of the situation he is in, and he suddenly notices the amount of people surrounding him from above; Chan, his dad, Keeho, Haewon, Beomgyu, Nayeon, a few other employees, and Minho.

All eyes are glued on him and his loose body, filled with worry. Jisung secretly wishes he could pass out once again and hopefully forget the embarrassment.

"Are you okay now?" Chan questions him, sounding clearer than before. Jisung cannot form any words out of his sore throat, he only nods as he tries to lift his torso from the ground with the support of his elbows, only to get dizzy and forcefully fall back on his back.

"Take it easy buddy, wait a few seconds." The low, soothing voice of Youngseok comes from his left side. He can't turn his head because his neck is so sore.

Jisung does what he is told and after a moment he can almost sit fully. A bottle of water is pressed to his lips but he only takes a little sip, feeling like he was going to throw up if he'll drink too much.

"Where did you find my inhaler?" Jisung asks faintly. his voice sounds rusty coming out of his throat as a result of all the coughs.

"It was somewhere in the pile over there," Chan points across the room to the pile of bags "It must have fallen out of your backpack. Nayeon found it a few seconds after you passed out." Jisung's gaze drifts away in search of the spoken woman.

"Thank you." he manages to mumble out.

"Don't worry about it, all that matters is that you're doing well now," Nayeon reassured him with a warm bunny smile, making Jisung flustered from her kindness.

After about ten minutes in which Jisung asks to stay alone in the backroom, Chan enters and tells him that Minho is going to drive him home; And Jisung wants to fold into himself, after a couple of weeks of knowing the black-haired boy, he could feel that the feeling he feels towards him is not so platonic at all, but he wouldn't admit it to anyone but himself. Jisung had a crush on several people in his life, but it was never anything more than a little secret that he kept to himself.

He doesn't like that feeling at all, the feeling of being so devoted and vulnerable towards someone who can't give a single shit about his existence. Whether it's a girl or a boy, he didn't like being exposed and in his point of view, this is exactly what having a crush is.

He wants to protest against the idea of Minho driving him because a) he doesn't want Minho to know where he lives, and b) because his late realization will make him nothing but a swampy blob of blush and flusterdness and he prefers to keep a decent distance of at least one mile away from Minho at any given moment. but the lack of power overtakes him, he has no energy to argue with anyone at the moment, but he's at least reassured by knowing that at the end of the day, he will curl up on his bed between warm covers and drift into dreamland.