hold me ♡ minsung

38. a real journal (lol sike)

♡

FEBRUARY 9

   After the ordeal with Hyunjin last night (in other words, after he threw up), an already-tired Minho was absolutely spent, and that's the only reason he was able to get to sleep at all. Were it not for that, he would've spent the whole night torturing himself inside his mind.

   Afraid he would puke a third time should he come into any sort of contact with anyone, he'd refused when Jisung offered to help him up after he caught his breath and was no longer gagging. He begged for Jisung to just leave him, because he knew that nothing about him was stable enough for him to feel comfortable being anything but alone at that point, but Jisung was insistent that he wouldn't go until he saw that Minho could keep down a sip of the water from the bottle he ran out to fetch for him as soon as Minho pulled his head away from the trash can and attempted to prop himself up against the side of the bed.

   Minho forced himself up eventually, to get rid of the putrid-smelling contents of the trash can— thank goodness his roommate remembered to replace the trash bag after he'd taken it out the last time— and to brush his teeth.

   ...But before that... right before Jisung left, something else happened.

   Jisung was looking at Minho with those sad, concerned eyes (the same ones Minho always assumed were looking at him with pity) as he finally got up to leave, having watched Minho stubbornly chug half the water in the plastic bottle he'd put in his hands a moment ago (which was definitely not easy on his stomach). One last look before he disappeared behind the shutting door. And before it closed, he said something.

    "...Hyung? If it ever takes you more than an hour to fall asleep, you'll text me, right?"

   Now, mind you, Minho was already a complete, total mess, emotionally and physically. He was still huffing out labored breaths, his stomach was still churning, his throat was still burning, and his head was still pounding. His heartbeat was loud and heavy in his ears. The thoughts running rampant in his mind were of two opposite sides, and he had no idea whether to listen to the side that begged him to say 'yes', or the side that insisted he say 'no'.

    "I... well... M-maybe," Minho had answered, in an unsure, unstable kind of voice.

      That's what happened last night. What was happening now was—

Thump. Thump. Thump.

    Minho's forehead hit the desk repeatedly.

   It was Sunday morning, which meant there were no classes to drag him out of that room. He wouldn't go down for breakfast, either, because when he thought about last night, he lost any traces of an appetite and felt that anything he shoved down his throat besides water would immediately come back up. There was absolutely nothing that would force him out of his isolated dorm room (save for Hyunjin deciding to actually use his own room for once— that would've had Minho rushing to get out to avoid being anywhere near him). Nothing that would force him to face a crowd of people that might have potentially heard rumors, if a certain someone was actually blabbering about what he saw last night. Minho shivered, imagining Hyunjin telling the boys about it while they scarfed down their breakfasts that morning.

    ...Why did he have to do any of the things he did last night?

THUMP.

   His plan wasn't working.

   If anything, things had only gotten worse since he started trying to fix his body's weird urges...

   Desperate to get back to some sort of normal, where he didn't feel so lost and confused about what to do, he was starting to go back to thinking he could do it— survive long enough to become the person he wanted to be— if he just went on enduring it. Enduring the misery.