hold me ♡ minsung

22. an unpleasant realization

♡

DECEMBER 8

    Having showered, eaten (a little), and taken a nap, Minho felt mostly better. Mostly.

   The next item on his agenda, as he tried to get his first day of Christmas break on track, was to see his children. His room was so lonely without them. They were his perfect companions, he'd always thought, because they were animated, living things that made him feel like he wasn't entirely alone, while keeping all the huge perks of being alone intact (namely: being comfortable, and not feeling the need to keep up appearances, or overthink the appearances one was trying to keep up). He missed them, and he hadn't remembered a time when he was so desperate to feel their soft fur under his palms before now.

   It was only a ten minute drive to his cousin's house, where his cats had been living while he was at college. He grabbed a bag of treats that he'd left on his dresser before he left for college, put his coat back on, and got into his car. Unfortunately for him, his mother and oldest sister were home by then and milling around, so he bumped into them on his way out— not literally, thankfully.  Their meeting was rather uneventful, and if Minho weren't entirely preoccupied with overwhelming relief that no one had even tried to touch him while he made his way to the door, maybe he would've even been the tiniest disappointed that they seemed almost indifferent.

    Once he got into his car, his body melted into the seat as he breathed out a relieved sigh. He was gonna be fine for the rest of the day. No one would disturb him for the rest of the day, and in a few minutes it would just be him and his cats.

   The sun was starting to dip into the bare trees off to Minho's right. A chilly December wind nipped his nose and ears and stung his eyes as he stepped out of the car and headed to the door. It was winter, alright. Bitterly cold already, making Minho shift from side to side on his cousin's porch after he rang the doorbell.

    "If that's Minho, it's not locked! If not, go away!" An impressively loud voice that penetrated the wooden front door called from somewhere inside, and Minho chuckled while he turned the knob and stepped inside.

    "It's me. Hi, Danbi," Minho called back, though not nearly as loudly, as he stepped out of his shoes and neatly set them by the door (despite the fact that Danbi's shoes were littering the entire front rug). Hardly using his voice on the daily made him pretty bad at yelling (even though he'd stupidly, impulsively tried doing that the other night— please let him forget about that already)

       Heading into the kitchen, he first noticed that Soonie, on the counter, and Minho immediately scooped up the mewling cat without and pressed his face into its soft, orange fur. It felt so good. He missed his cats so much. Evidently, Soonie missed him, too, as the tabby crooned back in response to the groan Minho muffled in the fur of its shoulder. Minho felt genuine peace, and he hadn't felt that in months.

    He was too engrossed in feeling the comfort of the warm little body in his arms to notice, or maybe to calculate a correct-seeming response to the quick footsteps of his cousin bounding down the stairs. "Welcome back! How's college been?" As soon as Danbi poked her smiling head into the room, Minho felt the need to remove his face from his cat's fur and straighten out the wrinkles of his scrunched up expression as fast as humanly possible.

   He realized that... he didn't want anyone to see him hold the cat, for whatever reason... it just felt weird. And, in a way that seemed almost robotic, as if you could hear his arms creak like squeaky hinges, he set the tabby back on the counter and gave its head an apologetic pat.

    "Thanks." That was the first welcome-home he actually appreciated. "..Good, it's been good," he lied. Why would he tell Danbi about something he didn't want to think about and probably couldn't even put into coherent sentences? That would be shockingly out-of-character.