Dear Diary,

When Minhyun excused himself to ‘take a walk’ again today, I decided to follow him in secret. I was curious about this “girl” that I thought had existed. Turns out she doesn’t.

He walked for about five minutes and then looked around, where I was strategically hidden behind a bush. When I saw him take out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket, I was shocked. There was no girl. The reason Minhyun was being so secretive is this.

Minhyun, my pure-hearted and innocent boy was smoking. Seeing the smoke come out of his precious mouth, seeing him ever-so-skillfully hold the cigarette between two fingers, seeing him lean casually against the wall as he does it, like he’s been doing it all his life: it was shocking. He used to be so… so pure. This just ruined him. The purity that I once thought he had was just gone in an instant.

I smoked when I was in the States a few times. Baekho and JR have admitted to have smoked at least once. But Minhyun smoking is different then me or Baekho or JR smoking. Minhyun is supposed to be uncorrupted. That cigarette in his hand just didn’t belong there. It was just incongruous with what Minhyun is supposed to be.

I know I’m ranting, but this just didn’t make any ing sense. Minhyun was smoking, and he seemed ing experienced in doing so. I was angry with him. He just ruined everything. I appeared from behind the bushes and snatched the cigarette away from him, fuming.

He was startled to see me, and when he saw the look on my face, he was scared.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at him as I threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it.

“Why did you follow me?” Minhyun responded, trembling a little, but he kept a strong face.

“How long have you been smoking?”

“Hyung, just leave me alone. I’m legally old enough to smoke. I’m no doing anything bad.”

“Minhyun, what the hell? You’re so different. You used to be so innocent!”

“Aron stop it already! I’m not innocent! I hate that you take me for a child. I’m not a little boy, okay? I want to smoke; it’s my choice. Leave me alone.” He took out another cigarette from his pocket and my jaw dropped.

“Minhyun. If you don’t drop that cigarette right now, I swear I'll tell manager-hyung.”

“Just go away Aron!” he yelled. He never raised his voice at me like this. He lighted his cigarette and began smoking away right in front of me, like it was the most normal thing in the world. I couldn’t close my mouth. I stormed back towards the dorm, towards Minhyun’s room. I forced his locked up drawer open, breaking it in the process.

Like I expected, it was filled to the top with cigarettes. . Minhyun was now addicted to this . I stuffed all of the cigarette packs in a plastic bag. He literally had near one hundred packs; I was revolted.

I took the bag outside and walked two blocks away and threw them away in the nearest public garbage disposal. As I was walking back towards the dorm, Minhyun was walking back too. I threw him the coldest look, probably making him feel guilty, but I didn’t care. The boy needed some sense knocked into him as soon as possible.

When Minhyun saw his broken lock and lack of cigarettes, he came up to me furiously and confronted me about it. I ignored him, which only made him angrier. He was literally yelling at me, and I literally pretended he wasn’t there. Him yelling at me prompted JR, Baekho and Ren to come see what was up. When they were there, Minhyun stopped mentioning the cigarettes but kept yelling at me.

“Where did you put them!?” he screamed. I crossed my arms sat back casually looking at the wall. “Talk to me!” “Stop ignoring me!” “Aron!” He hit me a couple of times on my arm. The other three also asked me why I wasn’t answering him, but I just ignored everyone. I was just so angry with Minhyun.

When Minhyun had enough, he began hitting me harder and harder to the point he actually began hurting me, and JR began pulling him away, trying to understand what was wrong.

“It’s none of your business Jonghyun!” Minhyun yelled at JR, and JR was taken aback. It was so unlike Minhyun to raise his voice like this. He was so angry, he began tearing up and gritting his teeth and he resumed hitting me until Baekho forcefully pulled him away.

Minhyun then bawled loudly, his tears running down his face, “I hate you Aron!” he screamed and then stormed into his room and slammed the door behind him.

So. Those words hurt. They struck me so hard, I actually felt physical pain in my chest. Minhyun telling me he hated me when I still liked him so much. ‘Hate’ is such a terrible word; it encapsulates the worst emotions one can possibly have for another person. My heart felt heavy and I began breathing deeply; I was just so angry and miserable at the same time and the overload of feelings was just too much for me to handle.

JR, Baekho and Ren asked me what had happened, but I calmly asked them to leave me alone and they complied. It took me a while to get over the strain that Minhyun’s ‘I hate you’ inflicted onto me. I was truly wounded emotionally; I don’t think he realized how much those three words hurt me.

I sincerely hope this was just a slip of the tongue, and that Minhyun didn’t mean it. I hope he was temporarily overly responsive and that he’d apologize for saying it tomorrow. I also really hope he’d quit smoking.