When Minho Was There • Minsung

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Seungmin made himself comfortable in bed, snuggling his sheep plushie and tucking himself in under his comforter. The sky was pitch black, but the glow of the lamp on his bedside table helped him see a lot more clearly. On one hand was Minho's diary, and on the other were the missing pages he'd collected. He was finally going to solve the mystery of who Minho really was. The excitement of it all made his eyes buzz with joy and his toes wiggle in his socks.

He read the same name over and over again, repeating it out loud. "Bang Chan...Bang Chan" he whispered, flipping back and forth between all the entries. "Bang Chan's all over this diary."

Did he know who Bang Chan was? No, but he knew that whoever he was, he was crucial to the Minho lore. "Bang Chan is trying to take me to the silo." Seungmin read. A thought emerged from the back of his mind. "Silo..." Ah, that's where he saw Jisung!

That's a coincidence for sure.

A loud knock on his door made Seungmin scramble, shoving the diary and pages haphazardly under his comforter. Just in time too, because the door swung open and his older brother's face popped out from the side. "Yes?" Seungmin asked, trying to reply nonchalantly, but to his dismay, he truly sucked at lying, and so it didn't surprise him that his voice twinged a bit too high.

His brother raised an eyebrow. "Are you reading those magazines again?" Seungmin growled, throwing one of his pillows at the boy in the doorway, who ducked out of the way before it could hit him. "No!" Seungmin shouted at him a bit too loudly.

"What do you want?" He cleared his throat.

"Mom cooked some corn." The boy shrugged, waltzing away without shutting Seungmin's door. "Hurry, or it'll be gone." His brother added, but it was muffled since he was already half way down the stairs.

Seungmin scrambled upwards, completely abandoning his plans to read the full diary. "Wait!" he called after his brother, rushing out into the hallway.

✧

Seungmin rested the handle of his umbrella on his shoulder. His arms were growing tired. Who could've guessed that umbrellas were so heavy? Raindrops splattered against the road he was walking along. His brother had accompanied him because he was afraid of wandering out in the dark alone.

Seungmin hummed a soft tune, drumming his fingers along the plastic handle. In his brother's hand was a boxy flashlight and, of course, his own umbrella.

"Why go out on a night like this?" His brother asked, pointing the flashlight directly in his face. Seungmin squealed, shielding his eyes from the blinding white light. "My friend might be caught in the rain," Seungmin pouted, kicking a pebble into the run-off water ditch. "What if he gets pneumonia?"

That was a good enough explanation for him, and so he redirected the flashlight to span across the road when his breath hitched in his throat. "Is that...?"

"Jisung-kun!" Seungmin cried out, immediately rushing over to aid his friend. Jisung was absolutely out of it; dirt coated every surface of him, and his clothes had soaked through entirely. "Are you okay?"

He rubbed Jisung's back in hopes of providing some warmth to get his body moving again. Jisung let out a strangled cry as he attempted to sit up. His knuckles were scraped and bruised, but it didn't look like any other part of him was injured.

"So cruel..." Jisung whispered, his nails digging into his palms.

"Jisung-kun?" Seungmin asked again, clearly confused. He glanced up at his brother, who shook his head, as if to say he too had no clue what Jisung was saying.