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Hear those bells ring deep in the soul
Chiming away for a moment
Feel your breath course frankly below
And see life as a worthy opponent
Minho tries not to move, clasping his hands tightly between his thighs, head low as he hunches and listens.
"He should be back by now."
Yongbok stumbles in, hair wet and dripping from the pool, bare feet slapping against the floor. His laughter dies a slow death, Seungmin falling silent when he catches himself at Yongbok's back.
"Where's Jisung?"
Chan looks guilty, as if he personally shoved his friend out the door and locked it behind him. Changbin's face is lit up by his phone screen. He hasn't looked up from the text message screen since they realised.
"Felix," Hyunjin calls softly, holding his hand out. Yongbok crosses the room and folds himself into Hyunjin's lap on the armchair, leaning his head back while Hyunjin rubs a towel over his bare hair. Minho envies that Hyunjin has someone he can take care of in this moment. Minho's source of comfort is the reason he needs it right now.
He wants to run, smash the pretty vase by the door on his way out, rip the front gate off its hinges and scream into the night to return Jisung to him. He wants to bury his face in a warm neck, wipe away the makeup covering the marks he sucked into the skin there, and hold his Jisung so tight it hurts, just to make sure he can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.
"Should we..."
Jeongin's lip is trembling. He's been worried, even if he doesn't know the half of it. He's an empathetic person and nobody had needed to tell him that something was wrong before they came on this trip.
"No, if he wanted someone with him, he'd—"
"No he wouldn't," Seungmin interrupts. "Jisung doesn't ask."
He does. Sometimes. Not with so many words, but Jisung reaches out when he's in need, and Minho always answers. He sees the question in the bedroom door left ajar, the second box of takeout left out when he comes home, the emails, with no subject line or text, containing instrumental files. But he supposes the others don't see that. He doesn't resent them for it.
"Min?"
Only Chan would call him so casually. It's right for him to respond, though he doesn't want to. He lifts his head and makes eye contact, then hopes his own feelings aren't showing on his face the way Chan's are on his.
Chan waits expectantly, not needing to ask the question, but Minho doesn't have an answer this time. He doesn't know where he is, why now, or what to do about it. Chan looks away first and Minho returns his gaze to the floor.
He's not naive or dumb, he knows that they suspect it. That Minho and Jisung maybe don't use the second bedroom in their two-bed apartment, that Minho isn't always alone when he visits his parents back home, or that their dance leader and ace might not just be friends with each other. The other members suspect but they don't know the deep canyon Minho lies at the bottom of, having fallen so far and so fast, he hadn't stood a chance. He'll never resurface from the depths, even if Jisung never came back. He lives here now, only holding one half of his own heart, freely surrendering the other without waiting for one in return.
Hyunjin and Yongbok stand up. Hyunjin crosses the room and collects Jeongin from his seat, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and the three of them leave in the direction of the bedrooms. Minho feels the weight settle more heavily on those who remain in the living area, redistributed with added concentration.
"You can go if you want, Seungmin. We'll stay up," Chan offers. Seungmin takes the chair vacated by Jeongin quietly and lifts his feet to perch on the edge, fingers fidgeting around his ankles. Chan sighs.
Changbin curses under his breath, finally tearing his eyes away from the phone screen and rubbing a hand over his face.
"We shouldn't have filmed today," he says with frustration strong as anger.
"It's fine, Bin," Chan says.
"No, it's not! Aren't you scared?" Changbin shoots back. It's a stupid question and Chan glares up at him from the floor. Changbin apologises.
Is Minho scared? Is that the feeling twisting his stomach in two?
"I'm going out," he says, and it must be the gut reaction from fear, because he hadn't known he was going to speak before he did.
Three pairs of eyes turn on him but Minho doesn't care to return their looks, because he said he was leaving so now he has to leave, and he isn't sure if he wants that. He stands and moves with more confidence than he feels to the front door, exchanging his slippers for shoes and finding his jacket on the coat hooks.
"Text us, yeah?" Chan speaks up, rising to his feet and coming to Minho's side. "You won't stay out all night though? If you don't... you know," he adds quietly.
Minho nods to appease his hyung, shoving his phone in his pocket. He pauses at the door and turns. "Send me the code for the door."
When Chan leaves to fetch his phone, Minho notices Changbin has left and Seungmin's seat is also empty. It weighs on him that maybe they'd just been waiting for Minho to do this, the implication of trust heavy on his shoulders. He tries not to imagine the reality that Chan will wait up, though, for as long as it takes to hear good news or see it for himself. The burden of responsibility makes him want to disappear, too.
"Okay. Sent."
Minho's phone vibrates in his pocket and he turns without another word, stepping out into the night.
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Jisung could hear string instruments on the wind. A haunting melody carrying through him, vibrating his bones with its low register, a melancholy solo to sober the night and strip it back to the rhythm of his heart, beating far too fast.
The problem with music is that you can take the same chorus and assign the words to lift you up and fly you over the reach of the world, far above the hands snaking up from the street to bring you down, or you can do the opposite. To work with the futility of all endeavours and choose not to oppose the depression such a philosophy brings, and write it into a song, that someone else might give up, too, with you.
There's no right or wrong when it comes to expression. Jisung found freedom in that in the past. Now it only emphasises the lack of purpose in creating. What hasn't already been said or done? By greater people with greater gifts? He knows the artists who paved the way had struggles of their own, people outside of their art they were coerced into bowing to before, but he can't help but be self-absorbed; when he compares the romantic vision of composing at a piano to release sheet music and perform in parlours, to the overwhelming pressure and expectations of the current era of composing, writing and producing, he wonders if it's a past life calling to him from the longing he feels for a simpler world.
Perhaps then he would be able to see in colours again, instead of the bleak grey in everything around him.
He hums to the tune of a lone cello, pleading with the wind to bring meaning to his song, something with more objective value than the words from his heart.
“Jisung-ah!”
The scream from the street below him shocks Jisung back into his body from wherever he'd drifted to, knocking him back from the roof’s ledge. His head swims in the hindsight that he could have fallen, toppling right off the edge without any way to break his fall or slow his descent. It's just him and the ground staring at each other—and Minho.
Minho is looking up at him. And oh, fuck. He's standing on a roof—Jisung ran away and now he's looking over the edge of a four story building and Minho is screaming at him from the street. Jisung stumbles backwards, shoes skating over the loose gravel and lands on his back looking up at the sky. The sound of his heaving breath and racing heartbeat compete for dominance in his ears.
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Minho sees Jisung disappear and runs faster than he ever has, racing into the skeleton of a building developers had long since abandoned. He finds concrete stairs with little trouble, only the pillars and floors of the building standing between him and his way up to the roof. He takes the stairs two at a time, his legs burning and a metallic taste at the back of his throat by the time he reaches the fourth floor. There's scaffolding in a corner leading to the rooftop and he wills his body to make one last leap until there's nothing but the sky above him. His palms hit the ground, gravel and stones cutting into his skin, but his gaze lands on a prone figure across from him and breathes strength into his bones.
His heart cries for its missing piece, pulling him across the ground and away from the edge. He thought he'd been scared before but he had never known terror like the sight that had turned his blood ice cold minutes ago. The light from the street lamps is barely enough to see the other side of the rooftop, yet it catches on the tear tracks over Jisung’s cheeks and the silver of the ring he wears on his fourth finger as his hand shakes.
“What were you doing, Jisung?” he asks in fear, pleading for a better answer than what his eyes gave him.
The question has only just left his lips when Jisung’s chest jumps, when he chokes on a sob, and then Minho doesn't need the reflection to see the tears he cries. Minho crawls over to him, pain in the heels of his palms and his knees a grounding force against the whirlwind of emotions threatening to drag him away. He wants to be level-headed for this—for Jisung.
He hears the broken, whispered chant as he comes closer. “I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to, please, I—I wasn't going to.”
The sight of Jisung blurs while Minho's eyes fill with tears. He tries not to blink to not let them fall, arrest his heart before it beats out of his chest, but it's hopeless. He already knows who owns his tears and his heart. He couldn't hold them back from Jisung if he tried.
“I could see the soles of your shoes, Jisung. Under your toes.” Minho gasps for air, his arms shaking as they hold him up. “You were so close. I thought—” finally, his voice fails. It cracks and gives way to a choked sob that wracks his chest, hurts his ribs as they cave to the memory replaying in Minho’s head. Looking up to the sky in frustration of searching for so long without finding him, only to see him then— “I thought I was going to have to catch you.”
Jisung turns his head then and even through his tears, Minho sees his wide eyes and upturned brows, his mouth open but his lower lip trembling. “No. No, no, Minho.”
His hand turns over and drags along the gravel towards Minho, palm up and fingers reaching. Minho doesn't take it—he can't, because his own hands are numb and his locked elbows are the only reason he hasn't collapsed on the floor.
Minho hangs his head between his shoulders and starts trying to get himself under control. He can't think straight while everything he feels is being expressed through his body. It's overwhelming and suffocating, and he needs his words now, so he stays quiet until he has agency to choose them.
Minutes pass before he drags his knees under him and sits back on his heels, pulling his hands into his lap and thumbing away the small stones sticking to him. Jisung’s eyes are closed, the skin around them and his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and his lips are red and glistening. His fingers have curled into his palm in the absence of Minho’s hand in his.
“You don't have to do anything alone. You can take me with you,” and it's supposed to be for Jisung, but even as he speaks he realises it might just be for him. So he says what he wouldn't if it were only for Jisung, and he says it for himself. A selfish plea. “Don't run without me. Don't leave me.”
Jisung’s throat bobs with a swallow that Minho can hear, before he opens his eyes. He doesn't look at Minho. “I couldn't.”
Minho waits for him to clarify—couldn’t take him with him, or couldn't leave him?—but it doesn't come, and he can't afford the vulnerability it would take to ask. He's already worn down.
“I heard music. I didn't mean to step so close.”
Minho has to take a deep breath. Because Jisung always hears music, he hears it in everything he does, and the songs he writes hear him in return. Everything he writes but doesn't publish, and a small number of what he does, listens to Jisung in return, and that used to bring him comfort. Minho doesn't know how to replace that comfort if Jisung loses it. His own words can't speak to the depths Jisung feels, and he feels so deeply. Minho doesn't see the same world Jisung does, but maybe there's strength in their disparity.
“I don't think it would change anything, though.”
Minho blinks, the absurdity of the confession bringing him wholly into the present.
“It would change everything,” he says with incredulity.
Jisung's lips fold in on themselves before he speaks again. “If I did—and I wouldn't, but if—then there would be no point. I know why people do. It's a consequence. But I have no catalyst and it wouldn't serve a purpose, and isn't all that true about my living as well as my dying? So it wouldn't change anything if I lived or died. There isn't a reason to do either.”
He can't understand. Minho… doesn't look for meaning, not in his life or his career or the things he wants and seeks. He finds pleasure in what he chooses to pursue and holds close the things that make him feel happy and fulfilled. There is reason in that, at least.
“Then make one,” he starts. “Make a reason to live. If the universe won't give you one, if you can't find it, then you can make it yourself. You can exist by accident but you live on purpose, right? Because you choose to. It's your life, Jisung.
If you don't want to stay with the group or in this job or in this country, you don't have to. We love you,” he adds quietly, “they'll let you go.”
Jisung finally lifts his eyes to meet Minho’s. “But not you?” he asks, just as softly.
Minho's smile is small and tainted with a sadness that he accepts for the other truths it holds. “Probably not.” He lets the smile widen, fighting to relieve the ache in his chest. “I'd put a tracker on you next time, though. Maybe even an implant.”
Jisung coughs when he tries to laugh and Minho relishes the smile that lingers in its wake. “I think you're already under my skin.”
Minho purses his lips and pushes Jisung's side. “Don't be cheesy.”
Jisung doesn't react the way familiarity with Jisung’s behaviours tells Minho he would normally, and it makes him want to push harder and pressure the numbness out of his body. It's not the time for Minho to set his teeth into Jisung's skin the way they both like, Minho marking his body in places nobody else will see in rooms they're not supposed to share, but there will be time, and he realises now how important that is to him.
The thought sobers him, and he thinks it shows on his face, because Jisung frowns. Minho softens the blow by running his fingertip from the crook of Jisung's elbow down, pausing at his pulse point. He takes Jisung's hand into both of his, pulling it into his lap so he can trace the lines of his palm.
“We can go back now,” Jisung says.
Minho is still running the tip of his thumb over the fate line in Jisung's palm, deep and clear, when Jisung sits up. Jisung's thumb taps Minho’s to get his attention. Minho looks up and stares into Jisung's eyes. Turned sideways like he is, one of them is lit up, a rich brown ringed with colour so deep it looks black, while the other is dark with shadow. He breathes deeply and exhales slowly, lifting Jisung's hand and pressing a kiss into his palm. Then he curls Jisung’s fingers over into a fist and lets go, stands up, and determinedly doesn't look around them.
Minho hates heights. Now that the greater danger has receded, he's increasingly aware of the open air around them. No walls, no barriers, nothing to anchor his sense of stability to the ground apart from the crunch of his footsteps, and he feels unmoored. The hole in the roof feels more like a leap of faith when he stops at its edge. A warm hand slips into his.
Jisung sits and hangs his legs off the edge of the opening, tugging Minho to do the same, and now he can see the scaffolding below and just how close it is. He offers Jisung a grateful smile before sliding down first, a momentary panic gripping him before his feet hit wooden planks, and then he can climb down quickly. He reclaims Jisung's hand as they take the stairs back to the street. When the buildings crowd him in and the street light is shining over them, they turn to each other, and Minho’s chest feels lighter. He wonders if Jisung's does too.
“I'm not leaving. I think…” Jisung's expression twists and Minho sees the conflict but with strength and a presence that Jisung hadn't had when he'd talked earlier. He thinks being on the ground is best for them both. “I think it would be worse if I left.”
“It's better,” Minho rephrases gently, “if you stay.”
Minho steps forward. He cradles Jisung's jaw like he's precious, strokes his thumb over his cheek like he's his, but when he leans close, Jisung stiffens. Minho pulls away and waits for an answer.
“I don't deserve this,” Jisung says quietly.
He looks more upset by this than when he told Minho he had no purpose in life, but it's okay, because Minho can't give him the meaning of life, but this is his to give.
“After all this time?” Minho smiles, watching his thumb tug at the corner of Jisung's lips. “You don't have to earn this, Jisungie. You have me.”
He feels hands slightly larger than his own grip at his jacket. He moves Jisung's arms further and closer until they wrap around him, and circles his own over Jisung's shoulders, one hand threading into the hair at his nape. Jisung's resolve cracks and he pushes forward, his forehead on Minho's shoulder as he squeezes them closer together, arms locked and firm around him, and Minho presses his kiss above his ear. Jisung returns it with his lips against his neck, Minho counters with his to Jisung's cheek, and they slowly make their way up inch by inch until they meet in the middle.
Jisung kisses him with desperation and impatience, parting and reclaiming Minho's lips over and over while Minho stays firm and sure, a rock in Jisung's sea as he lets the waves crash over him. He lets him but when Jisung starts to lose breath, he guides him to be slower, pushing forward when Jisung pulls away, anchoring him with his teeth and drawing him closer with his tongue. He doesn't let Jisung continue to grapple like he's going to lose Minho, because he's right here and he's not going anywhere, and he wants to prove that to him more than anything.
When their movements become lazy and indulgent, he finds the time to let go and allow Jisung to fold into Minho's embrace, head tucked in his neck while Minho strokes his hand through his hair and lifts his eyes to the sky. It's safe to look up now and see the stars now that Jisung is down here with him, pressed close and breathing softly against his chest. They'll go back to the house and Minho will hold him like this all night until morning. He can't protect Jisung from his own thoughts, but if there's nothing else, he can make sure he's never alone.