Ghostly Beauty - Minsung

Chapter 18

Minho sat on his bed with a large bruise on his face. His cheek had swollen completely and he had a trickle of blood running down his chin from his lip.

He wiped it away and winced at the pain. His father had beat him up when he came home. Not too bad, not anything to his body. Just his face. Just two punches. But the two punches held everything Minho needed to know. They held all the hatred his father had for him, and he was helpless against it. He had nowhere to run. He couldn't live in an abandoned ice rink with a ghost, there was no food, no money, no comfortable place to sleep. He couldn't tell his friends, he'd tried before, but he just couldn't. He felt completely alone.

Jisung had told him to at least tell Chan because he seemed like he was the most trustworthy, but Minho didn't want to burst his happiness, since he'd got in a relationship, he was so happy, and Minho didn't want to ruin that. Jisung, of course, told him that if Chan was a real friend, then he wouldn't care about his little bubble of happiness being burst and he would only care about what's happening with Minho.

Minho sighed, weighing the pros and cons.

Eventually, without really processing what he was doing, he picked up his phone and called Chan.

"Hi Minho, what's up?" Chan answered the phone.

Minho felt like crying. He was crying.

"Ch-Chan." He sobbed softly.

"Minho? What's wrong? What's going on?" Chan's worried voice was evident even through the crackle and terrible quality of the phone call.

"Chan, can I come over, l-like right n-now?"

"Of course, of course." There was some rustling on the older's line before he spoke again, "do you want me to stay on the phone with you until you arrive?"

"N-no it's okay. Is Jeongin there?"

"Yes, would you like him to leave?"

"If it's n-not too much t-trouble, this is k-kind of personal." He sniffled lightly.

"Okay, okay."

"I'm on my way now."

"Stay safe, okay?"

"Mhm." Minho hung up and grabbed his shoes out his closet. They were new so they weren't dirty because he hadn't worn them before and so they were still in the box in his closet, he decided he will always keep some in there for when he has to sneak out in the future.

He jumped out the window and onto the tree outside his house. He slowly climbed down and sprinted off towards Chan's house.

~*+*~

"Sweetie, Minho is coming over and he says it's personal, so..." Chan didn't know how to ask his boyfriend to leave, it was kind of rude.

"Oh, don't worry, I understand, I'll get going then." Jeongin beamed happily at him.

"Thank you, baby." He kissed Jeongin on the lips softly and waited for the boy to put his shoes on.

"I would drive you but..."

"You've got to be here when Minho shows up."

"Yeah." Chan looked at Jeongin with a guilty expression.

"Don't be guilty, Minho needs you and that's okay, I don't mind." He kissed Chan's nose and giggled quietly.

Chan gazed at him with a love sick expression.

"M'kay, thank you so much." He hugged the younger tightly, kissing all over his face before he finally let the boy open the door to leave.

"Get home safe. Text me when you get there." He called to his boyfriend who was halfway down the driveway towards the gate of the house.

"I will! Thank you for today, Channie." He sent a flying kiss and Chan caught it and placed it on his cheek.

"Bye bye!" Jeongin called.

"Bye, sweetheart!"

To everyone watching, they would look absolutely disgustingly in love and probably make you cringe, but to them, they were in their own world of utter happiness and that's all that mattered to them.

A little while later, Minho knocked on the door, out of breath with beads of sweat dripping down his forehead.

When Chan opened the door, he was extremely shocked.

A bruise resided on his cheek and dried blood gathered around his lower lip.

He let him inside and sat him on the sofa.

"Are you okay?"

That's all it took for Minho to once again break down crying. Chan had never seen Minho cry and he was very surprised when he heard him crying over the phone, but seeing it shattered his heart even more.

Chan quickly brought Minho into a hug, "Hey, hey, it's okay. Let's clean your wounds up. Do you want a shower?" Minho nodded against his chest.

They made their way over to the bathroom and Minho took a quick shower and changed into the clothes the older had offered him.

When he gave the okay for Chan to enter, he got the first aid kit out and started to treat the wounds. Applying cream to the bruise and disinfectant to the cut. Minho hissed and squeezed the stress ball Chan had given him.

Once the wounds had been treated, they went back down to the living room and got comfortable.

"If you're comfortable with me knowing, what happened?"

Minho took a deep breath, getting ready to respond.

He explained everything. He explained Jisung, his father, his father's involvement in Jisung's untimely death, Jisung's dreams, his father's abuse and everything in between.

He just rambled everything and he couldn't seem to stop, no matter how much he felt he was spilling too much, he couldn't stop the words flowing out of his mouth and with every word his voice became for unstable, quivering more and more.

Once he'd finished Chan didn't know what to say. This had been going on for months and he had no idea.

"A-and I'm not insane Chan! H-he's real! I c-can touch him! P-please don't s-send me somewhere." He practically begged, "he's my o-only comfort right now a-and y-you know h-he can't l-leave the i-ice rink." Tears ran down his face leaving streaks and stains over his flushed cheeks.

Chan put his hand on Minho's, "I won't tell anyone about this, I'm glad you came to me. It's okay. I'm glad you got it off your chest."

Minho exhaled slowly.

"We don't have to talk about it anymore, okay?" He brought Minho into his arms and smoothed his hair.

Minho nodded. He felt happy that he didn't have to carry this burden himself.

"Do you want to stay here tonight to get away from your family?" Minho nodded.

"You can stay here whenever you like, okay?" Chan smiled comfortingly at him.

Luckily, Chan had a spare bedroom which he set up and made the bed so Minho could sleep on it.

After they ate, they both made their way to bed, but Minho didn't sleep that night. He wished Jisung was here in his arms.

A//N: I feel like Chan sounded like he had bad intentions, but I promise he was just comforting Minho lol 😭