Red Handed (Minho)
Protecting Steel Hearts
Minho scrubbed his hands furiously in the sink. It was at least his sixth round of applying soap, his skin rubbing raw and burning to the point he knew he'd done enough.
He was through with this; with himself, really. He thought if he opened his mind to new things, to prove it was all okay, in the end he would be rewarded with relief.
But relief was nowhere. It was either a long, long, long distance away, or it was all made up in his mind.
Everywhere he'd gone, his father was in the back of his mind, hurting him, spitting at him, neglecting him, cursing at him, and throwing him out of the house to rot. Only because he was like his mother. The sin of all people his father knew; his father's betrayal.
Minho was always so glad, so thankful that his father never treated him unfairly. He would've expected his father to call Minho the sin child, even the Devil's child, for being born from a wrongful woman's womb. To torture him day by day and hate his guts but still have the will to keep Minho in the house.
But as long as Minho's father knew he wasn't like his indecent mother, Minho was his father's favorite person in the world.
His skin, crawling with burns, was hurt too much to dry and dry off. Tears in his eyes, he sat on the toilet seat, limply keeping his hands out as he held back cries and let the tears fall to his lap.
He tried. He tried so hard to put effort into moving forward. Effort into avoiding his father from knowing. Effort to find the truth.
But the longer he put the effort in trying, the more and more his efforts went to Hell.
Jinki's smile. All the time Minho watched Jinki smile in the midst of every pain the elder dealt with. A smile that showed every strain, every moment of saddness he endured, but lit up at the sight of Minho.
Even that saddest smile made Minho feel this . . . attachment to Jinki, but he couldn't just burst out into positivity. He just wanted to latch on to Jinki, give him some sort of reassurance that he was there and help tough it out.
"How do you feel?" the elder ask, his hand reaching over to Minho's wrist.
Minho flinched away, eyes staring at the floor, "No better."
Jinki kept quiet, a small smile in hopes of trying to light Minho's mood, "I promise, Minho. I promise it'll be okay. You'll get through, and I'll be there."
Minho muttered too low for Jinki to hear, not even comprehending what he even tried to say, but it wasn't something complicated. He was most likely insulting Jinki under his breath, wanting to possibly lash out.
"If you want, we can go into a different classroom. It's stuffy in here, anyway," Jinki offered.
Minho said nothing this time.
It wasn't getting better at all. His dad was insanely suspicious of where he's been going. His father sees Jinki a lot, probably much more than a normal kid would bring over a friend in his eyes. He stares Jinki down with hostility, and would look to Minho with warning.
His father said he never thought Jinki as an odd being, but the warmth of Jinki was apparently 'Unnatural'. Knowingly, Minho knew why Jinki was so warm, so careful. Just because he taught himself for the sake of Taemin.
His father wasn't necessarily approving of Jinki, but neither did he ban him from seeing Minho.
But quickly, the more and more Minho was with Jinki, the more and more Minho was feeling the need to flee from him.
Everything was disgusting him about Jinki. Jinki's smile, Jinki's voice, Jinki's body, Jinki's laugh, Jinki's wavering hand . . .
Was Minho really . . . a homoual?
He really thought he liked Jinki; enough to want to go out with him to try and try to . . . confirm he did?
Sometimes when Jinki held his hand (or at least tried), Minho was perfectly fine with it. Not in public, and sometimes, he just never really wanted to even touch him at all. Jinki was good enough to be with, but a lot of times Minho just found it too confusing to come to conclusions.
Sometimes he could be around Jinki, other times he was repulsive.
More or so, he was repulsed by himself.
How could he even try? How did he come up to conclusion that he could've even been homoual? Was he just being too open-minded?
He couldn't ever be like his mother. Never. No. Nothing like her.
"Minho, how about--" Jinki touched his hand.
Minho reacted fast and pushed Jinki away, letting him stumble off the desk and on the floor, startled.
"Minho?" Jinki slowly asked.
Minho's hand burned badly. He was touched by a wrongful person. Jinki was not okay. Jinki was different. His father said people like Jinki didn't belong. Minho didn't belong to be around Jinki.
He was growing even more disgusted that he let Jinki be touchy around him, even though it was hesitant.
Jinki may be the most caring person on the planet, but it didn't matter. He was a wrongful being.
"Don't touch me ever again," Minho kept emotion out of his voice, "Don't ever touch me, look at me, think about me, or come up to me. I'm done doing this."
Minho got up from the desk and started walking out, leaving Jinki in the abandoned room.
"I'm sorry," Jinki lowly called as Minho left the room.
If Minho was so done with it, then why did he feel regret? Why did he feel like a jerk? He shouldn't; it was only right. It was only fair!
Jinki was a plague to Minho! Trying to spiral him down into sickness of his own self. To make Minho consumed by this wrong. Minho did the right thing to forcefully free himself.
Why did he feel the need to say he was sorry, when he didn't want to?
He was so confused. What was right and what was wrong? Was to make him cry right? Was to not walk out wrong?
Why was he given this life only to torture himself? Was his purpose to grow up with a fragile sense of mind and wait for the right moment to end it all? Was this sickness of confusion going to make him leave one day?
Minho looked at his red hands; hands ridden of the elder's touch. The elder's plague.
Did he want that?
Does he even know what he wants?
The future was never a long distance away, so whatever decision made the next second could affect the next minute, the next hour, the next day, week, year, decade . . .
The only way one would know what decision was right is when their future self could nod their head and tell themselves it was worth it to make that choice.
Sometimes, choosing wisely took a lot of thought, a lot of questioning, and even a lot of time.
----Note~-----
... Again, long time no see.
I haven't had internet on my computer, so I've been resorting to my phone. But Heeeelll no am I posting through my phone. It's hard to type on that thing, there's no font changing, and there was absolutely no spacing. =.=
I just wanted some insight on Minho for a bit, producing more of the angst, and don't be angry at me for breaking OnHo, please?
Not everything is easy, and we all know that. But look forward to it.
I want to share with you now that soon, not now, probably a little further away, there's going to be a time lapse: Where they all get older.
Originally, the Jongkey was inspired by some issues, but a lot worse than it actually is. So, whenever something happens here or around, I usually get inspiration to write the Jongkey brothers.
So, with OnHo, my main concern was going to be the couple, and a big chunk was me being Minho (but not fearing uality and parents, of course), but when I started writing out OnTae, it turned out that I put myself into Taemin much more than I intended. In this story, I put myself into every character in different perspectives, but Taemin's role was really unplanned; he was supposed to have a smaller role. So, now I want a lot of focus on Taemin as well because I'm putting another part of myself into him, and it may even be the biggest part of me.
(Gosh that sounded so CLICHE. GROSS.)
So, all in all, the time lapse: everyone's gonna get older. Taemin's older self will be important. And Jongkey... Well, Jongkey's gonna take sort of an unsuspected turn. I mean, at first, I didn't think I'd make them go through more but... you'll see how different it gets. :P
But the time lapse is a loooooooooong way from here, don't worry.
(I tried to make that as vague as possible. xD )
I'M AN ANGSTY MEAN WRITER, YEAH?
So yeah, I'll see you all whenever I do!
Thank you to every one of you, and apologies for not commenting back on comments. I don't like using the phone, but now I've got my computer up! <3
~FlaMinhoe
(Not edited)
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