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SEPTEMBER 2.

   And then there was less than a week left before college.

   Minho watched his feet as he followed the stone path to Bang Chan's front door, pulling his phone out to make doubly sure he was at the right place. The house was familiar and he was fairly certain he'd been to it at some point, probably to work on some group project, but he would absolutely hate to end up knocking on the wrong person's door.

    After confirming the address, he knocked firmly on the dark, wooden door and waited amongst the colorful pumpkins adorning the porch. It was pretty early for pumpkins, but no one could stop Bang Chan from being festive. He was the one to wear a Santa hat to school for Christmas in July.

   Chan was not the one to open the door.

    Even with the door just being open a crack, noise poured out into warm September air eagerly, as though it were trying to escape. Laughter was playing like a background track as he found yet another familiar face he hadn't seen in more than a year. 

   One of his old underclassmen was tugging at the knob, but he wasn't looking at who he was letting in. His face was pointed up over his shoulder as he carried on a conversation with someone behind him, giving Minho a very clear view of his side profile. Minho almost felt like he was on hold, despite it only lasting about two, maybe three seconds. It was interesting.

    And then, he ended the conversation with a laugh, and turned his attention to the door. With an excited eyebrow twitch and a mouth slightly open in pleasant surprise, Han Jisung greeted Minho. "Minho hyung!" Jisung threw his arms around Minho for a hey-it's-been-a-while-nice-to-see-you hug.

    Minho saw it coming, but too late to stop it. He stood stiffly in Jisung's embrace; lips pressed firmly together, then set to trying to pry his arms off of him in the most polite way possible.

    There were often times in Minho's life that incredibly strong emotions hit him all at once, and they buzzed around his mind almost unbearably. This was one of those times.

    He remembered his sisters writing journals and hearing that that sort of thing was helpful to deal with emotions, but as he got older, his feelings only disgusted him more. They were too private; too weird; too unnatural to even be written down. He would have rather pretended they didn't exist than write them down, and thus acknowledge their existence, so he did.

    And yet, all the feelings still remained, caged up in a hidden, forbidden corner of his mind where he kept everything he could never have written down, like a journal he never wrote.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ THE JOURNAL I NEVER WROTE

oh boy. arms are coming closer, closing around me like a cage- how do i escape before they touch me-

nevermind, it's too late.

 gosh, i hate this. his arms are brushing against my skin, and it feels just as strangely sickening as it always does. i can't help but grimace.

too close; it's too close. please go away, i don't like this. don't touch. go away.

i don't know why, but this kind of thing- it makes me feel so embarrassed; so violated; so sick to my stomach. how do people enjoy hugs?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥  』

    "Woah, Jisung, you better not touch Minho hyung. He'll kill you," Hyunjin's voice called out from where he sat on the stairs. His hair had grown out to his chin. He'd made the choice to let it grow out after getting a particularly short haircut he wasn't a fan of, unfortunately close to graduation. Annoyingly, he also seemed to have gotten even taller. 

  Jisung heard Hyunjin's warning and immediately retracted his body, and Minho let out a discreet sigh of relief. "Oh- You don't like hugs, Minho hyung?"

    "No." Minho had the impulse to tack on an 'especially not from people that I've only spoken to like, once before', but he had been trying out a thing where he tried to not be so snarky all the time. It got him promotions at his minimum-wage diner job; he figured it could help in other areas of life, too. So he left it at a simple "no", with quite a lot of strong feelings behind it that both he and Jisung were aware of, but neither fully understood at that moment. 

    "Sorry." Jisung had opened his mouth again to start speaking, but the door flew open again behind Minho. It almost hit him. Felix was there, apparently. The blond-haired boy pushed the door open with his extended leg, and headed straight for the kitchen. His hands were covered with oven mitts and he was holding a steaming pan of brownies.

    A very Australian-accented "BANG CHAN HYUNG!" ripped out of his mouth, and as soon as he'd dumped the pan of brownies on the countertop, he was grinning and giggling as he was affectionately lifted off the ground and into Chan's arms, then spun around. Someone clearly missed his high school buddy. Minho averted his eyes, because he felt like it'd be weird if he was watching.

   Minho remembered the two being particularly close, while the almost everyone else hadn't been too much more than acquaintances. They bonded over their shared origins and accent, and, mostly because Felix was quite clingy and touchy, hung around each other a lot more often than the rest did. Felix almost cried when Chan graduated, and had to go on to college while he stayed in high school another year.

   Minho found himself fading into the background as the rest of the boys gathered.  That was how it was in high school, too, though most of these boys were actually quieter and shier back then and blended in with the other students. Now, most of them had found their confidence and learned to be louder and more lively than Minho.

   He was a bit surprised about how many there were, as he hadn't expected so many (though six wasn't really that many if he thought about it) of his classmates to pick a college so far away. But he hadn't really thought about anyone he wanted to be there... if he had to pick, maybe it would've been Yeosang or Dowoon or maybe Chaeyoung, even. Of course, Hyunjin had to be there. It probably wouldn't be that big of a deal, though.

    Minho was quietly eating a brownie while a rendition of TT was happening by the front door, led by Felix and Hyunjin. Chan sat on the counter and laughed as he watched. Changbin had pretended he wasn't going to join, but ended up going harder than anyone but Felix, who was singing his little heart out and shaking his butt every time he went "like TT".

   The thought 'why am I even here' had entered into Minho's mind, but maybe he was actually kind of enjoying himself. It might've been kind of nice to spend a few hours being entertained by a house full of goofs who were definitely still just kids, like he remembered.

    That's all he really remembered of most of them, anyway. Being a senior, back then, he had minimal contact with all but Chan, Changbin, and Hyunjin (who, being among the oldest of the underclassmen, gravitated toward the older kids in the next grade), and he hadn't even exchanged too many words with them, either. The other three were mostly just underclassmen he remembered seeing around, and being in a class or two with here and there. 

   College didn't seem quite as intimidatingly new as it had, knowing that these high school idiots would be there too. It was like taking a piece of scenery from home with him. It made him feel like his youth; his high school days; his home was following him to an unfamiliar place in the bodies of six kids he'd happened to grow up alongside, mostly silently, like a tree or a building you see as you walk to wherever you're going every day. It was just that he knew their faces; they weren't strangers. That was enough to be slightly comforting. 

    And they all seemed to get along quite well, given how at this very moment they were all busting a lung after their dancing had dissolved into wiggling. Chan had joined in by then. 

   Maybe Minho could get along a little more, too?

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