DON'T TELL // MINSUNG

3

I still remember your warm touch

Put your two little hands on top and look back

In the days when every moment was beautiful and splendid

- Han Jisung, Wish You Back

// internalized homophobia, anxiety disorders, yelling, food, disordered eating

Three weeks earlier.

Jisung came into the dance room that he normally met Minho at after their afternoon classes ended.

Minho usually finished talking to his fellow dancers, usually just the long-haired Hyunjin and Felix, and then he and Jisung were left alone to hang out.

But this time, after Jisung came in, Minho didn't even look up, so the younger's eyes shifted to the person he was talking to.

A pretty girl with cheekbones that were chiseled from stone and eyes that crinkled cutely when she smiled.

Jisung felt a familiar sinking feeling. Minho was much too close with this girl, touching her shoulder and staring at her for this to just be friendly banter.

The squirrel-like boy knew that it was irrational, but he felt abandoned. He knew that his friends loved him, but he often felt that he loved his friends more than they loved him. Like he was no one's first choice.

His mind quickly spiraled into the feeling of being unloved, and when the other boy left and Minho finally came over to him, he didn't bother hiding his resentment.

"Jisung?" Minho poked his arm and the the other irritably pulled his arm away.

The blue-haired boy turned to him with flaming eyes. "What?" he snapped, and immediately regretted it. He knew that he was being toxic, and he knew that the stress of hiding his identity was getting to him. He felt like he was constantly on the verge of tears but almost never cried, having been taught that it was shameful for men to cry, which meant that his emotions stayed suppressed and festered. and the slightest setback could set him off.

Minho could immediately tell that something was wrong, but had no idea what the problem and whether it had to do with him. Anxiety began to rise in his chest at his friend's tone. "What's going on?"

"It doesn't appear that you'd be capable of understanding," Jisung said much too harshly, trying to compensate for the pain he was in.

The orange-haired boy stared at him. He could logically understand that Jisung was throwing words at him like knives only because he was in some sort of pain he didn't know how to handle.

He tried to hold it together for the two of them. He felt his voice grow small. "Okay, well could you please try to explain to me?"

To Jisung's own horror, tears began to drip down his face. "How could you be so clueless? Why the fuck don't you care about me?"

Minho just stood there with his mouth agape. He could logically understand that Jisung was throwing words at him like knives only because he was in pain he didn't know how to handle.

But he felt betrayed. It still hurt to know that his friend would think something so awful about him.

Minho knew that he would start crying and yelling if he stayed. It had been an exhausting week and he knew that he couldn't handle this right then. "How could I let myself like you when you act like this? Jisung, I love you, but I can't deal with this right now."

Jisung suddenly took a steadying breath, as if he had just realized something. It seems like you'll never like me, he thought, before felt a wave of shame overtake him.

Though this feeling evaporated for a moment after Minho couldn't help but snarkily add, "I think it would do you some good to make some other friends."

Jisung felt a stab to his heart, his insecurity about not being able to make friends flaring up. 

But his urge to scream something back dissolved into pain that he himself had ruined all of his dreams of being with Minho.

The last thing Minho saw was Jisung's face crumple, a mirror image of the elder's emotions, before he fled.

He ducked his head down as he ran, trying not to let passing students and staff see his puffy face until he could slip into an empty bathroom to cry and wait until the hallways cleared out to go home.

The thought crossed Minho's mind to go after the younger boy, but it was immediately squashed by tiredness, a fear of confrontation, and plain anger.

So he just stood in the empty room for a while, his mind still processing the events that had occurred in only the last few minutes.

Minho felt a dull throbbing in the empty space where his heart was supposed to be. He wanted to collapse on the floor and lay there forever, but he forced his feet to move and go home.

When he arrived after a short bus ride, he dropped his bag of homework without a second glance and headed straight for the kitchen. He had both physical and emotional hunger to tend to.

He felt his pounding headache worsening and tried to deal with it by painfully stuffing his feelings away.

He ate foods that he didn't even feel like eating just to have something to do to distract himself. He ate foods that he would've normally loved if he wasn't using them to stamp down his emotions. It was all unsatisfying as he just tried to use them to fill a never-ending void.

Though it seemed irrational, he was taking care of himself in the only way he knew how, with the limited knowledge he had about mental health.

When he was done in the kitchen, he collapsed on his bed. He didn't let the dreadful feelings start to build up again for too long and opened his laptop. He watched too too many videos and switched between multiple forms of media, hardly moving from his spot on the bed as the sky darkened. His eyes felt weighted down, but he didn't let himself sleep, wanting to distract himself for as long as possible.

He knew he was being self-destructive. He knew he wasn't actually addressing the issue.

But he just wanted to numb the pain from Jisung yelling at him and everything it implied. That Jisung had no idea how much Minho loved him.

In a way that was more than Jisung could hope for.

In a way that Minho wouldn't allow himself to believe because he hated what that would make him.

After many hours, he finally left his eyes droop shut, and he finally fell asleep at four in the morning. He was so exhausted that he immediately fell asleep, and didn't have time to fantasize about Jisung as he usually did.