After Dark 》Minsung

32》The Cat That Loved the Moon

Jisung pressed away from him.

His eyes going wide with a subtle terror.

"What?"

"Okay, wow! I am so sorry, I did not mean to start off that strong right off the bat," Minho recoiled at his own words. Half stuck between wanting to throttle himself for the uncontrollable slip of the words and wedged next to the overwhelming realization that Jisung was backing away from him. Shrinking as those glimmery eyes look at him with a terror, hardly controlled by the curling of those sweater paws tucking into his chest to retreat away. Doing his utmost to maintain that space to not frighten the camboy anymore than he already had been, Minho carefully bordered his hands between them, splaying wide in his panic to spew to him,  "Pause. Pause, pause, pause. You are not in danger. I am a singular isolated mess. I am a closed system at entropy, if you took chemistry."

"I flunked chemistry," Jisung said to him as he stumbled backwards over his feet, knees knocking into the armrest of the couch behind him. His tear-stained eyes rapidly flickering through the hacker to scan him over. Up, down, each check of his existence another reason to shuffle himself away from what threats may be lurking underneath that skin.

Minho quickly caught his arms as he nearly tripped again, steadying Jisung's staggering steps to not suddenly tumble and hit the back of his head on the couch. Even if the camboy cringed up at the touch clustering them together, his body tensing underneath his palms burning at the connection to the person he desperately wanted the most, the subtle terror in his eyes growing deeper within the trembling of his pupils seeking for a way to escape from him. Despite Jisung turning his hands to clench the support of Minho's elbows back, despite allowing the hacker to gently guide him to sit on the couch seats so he wouldn't trip. Minho kneeled in front of him, clutching tighter at Jisung's hoodie (His hoodie) to hold him while he spoke, "Okay, well, you're not going to catch what's going on with me, it's a genetic thing."

He continued those gentle rubs of shapes traced unnoticed by his mind through the younger's arms, allowing him to settle on the catching couch cushions for a moment. Allowing the other's fragile shivering to steady themselves to unnoticed blips on a Richter scale, not the earthquakes which coursed through him in time to the cascading tears. Slowly doing his best to catch the camboy's hiccupped tears with his fingers, holding him as delicately as he could manage to hold him while he fell. His own hands, how they shook gently against the younger's warm skin with an anticipation. A dread with the oncoming words he knew he would have to slip from his lips. His own cesspool pit of that horrible feeling wished to be spilled from his eyes.

You have to tell him now, nice going you stupid idiot.

And knowing, if he did tell him, this wouldn't end well. Telling Jisung of the episodic ataxia would lead to the same situation, the same break in relationship which scarred his heart with their demure edges piercing through him, the same disgust he was often met with when people knew he was imperfect. The same reason he didn't tell the rat boys, as much as he loved them in all their messed up antics and degenerate conversations; They wouldn't accept him for the ataxia, they'd think he was a freak. They'd leave him. Jisung would leave him, let him go as if he was nothing more than chewed gum which lost it's flavor along ago. Maybe he had. Maybe Minho did lose his flavor, maybe that's why...

Then again, he was in the same situation without telling Jisung of the ataxia.

So, with a deep breath, Minho looked Jisung in the eye to tell, "I have episodic ataxia."

The hacker steeled his heart, hiding it behind the thorned garden he grew for himself as he prepared for any response he may have been given in the next few minutes.