nightfall || minsung

Chapter 18

I swear I wasn't actively trying to snoop.

The night had been long and quiet and boring. I'd counted the cracks in the wall, the threads in his pillowcase, the grasshoppers singing outside. I had decided to start again once I'd made it into the millions of dust motes floating in the air.

I got up to take a closer look at the drawings on the wall. Each was dated and signed in a scribbly handwriting — Minho Lee, 1994, etcetera. It felt like a look into his past, the thick crayon lines and splotches of what smelled like applesauce. I paced the room and picked up a book from his nightstand. Harry Potter. Was that the one about witchcraft? I read a few paragraphs and set it back down.

There was a sleeve falling out of the open drawer of his dresser. I picked up the shirt — it smelled so much like him — then folded it and put it back. I lay on my stomach and reached under the dresser. Nothing. Just more dust motes. I added them to the tally.

I paced the room again. I heard the quiet hoot of an owl outside. I opened the window, leaned out and replied with a hoot of my own. Across the street, the owl's head swivelled — its eyes locked on mine. I retreated when the eye contact became unsettling.

I knelt next to Minho's bed. He was sacked out, lying on his back for once, arms above his head. I kissed his hair.

"Have I really told you anything?" I whispered. "About me? How I feel about you? That I love you more than you can imagine? And I'm... a little bit scared to tell you?"

He snorted softly, turned on his side.

I sighed. "I know, it's pathetic."

I ducked down and felt around under his bed. My hand came back with a couple of Lego bricks. I stuck them together and left them on his desk.

I lay down next to him again and counted his breaths.

~ * ~

"What's up?"

Minho — bacon-covered pyjamas askew, hair flat on one side — was sleepy and smiling, sitting close in my arms. I couldn't keep it in, those words that I had implied but not outright said. It was kind of killing me. It felt like the right time to say it.

"Oh, nothing. I just love you."

There might have been a better time to say it, honestly. Maybe in a car, so I wouldn't have to stare at him while I waited for his answer. A moment of silence. I got worried. What an amazing time for him to reveal he was just kidding and never really liked me and wanted me to leave and never come back.

"Sorry," he said on a breath. "I forgot how to do words. I love you, too, Jisungie. I'm in love with you."

I threw my arms around him and hugged him too tight. "You're my entire world, Minho."

We stayed in bed for a little while longer, talking, bickering. His stomach was starting to growl — I had to bug him about it. He grudgingly took my hand, led me out of his room and downstairs. I craned to look at the framed photos on the wall but he didn't give me any time to peruse.

He scrounged around in the refrigerator as I sat down at the table. There was a newspaper clipping taped to the wall. 'Charlie Swan — leader of Forks' finest — enters 'fishing for charity' contest, aiming to raise money for summer camps, and snatches up the largest fish ever reaped from local waters. But wait, that's not a fish! It's a dogfish, and Chief Swan is falling backward off the dock! Maybe he should stick to catching criminals...'

Minho dropped down in the chair across from me, an apple and a granola bar in his hands.

"I thought humans needed more filling foods," I said. Now that I thought about it, his eating habits were concerning — even to me, a guy who killed my food and sucked it to a husk on the spot.