JISUNG DIDN'T know what came over him at that moment. all he knew was that as soon as minho left, every instinct in his body was telling him to go after him. so, he mumbled out some stupid excuse to his friends before booking it in the direction minho went in, praying to god that he would be able to catch up to his longtime crush.

jisung soon caught a glimpse of a familiar leather jacket rounding a corner and he picked up the pace. it seemed that minho was also in a hurry— he was walking rather briskly and often glanced side to side in an anxious manner. his face gave nothing away, though, so any uneasiness he might have been feeling was perfectly hidden under a calm and collected mask.

as he tailed the biker, jisung found that the landscape was becoming more and more familiar to him, as if he had walked it a hundred times. then it hit him: minho was going to the alleyway that he cared for the kittens in! that makes this so much easier, he thought relievedly, choosing to slow down and catch his breath. he couldn't even count the number of times he had come to this location in hopes that minho would be there. if he was, he would hide behind the corner and try his best to snap pictures on his polaroid (he and seungmin often got into debates about which camera was better: digital or polaroid); if not, he would take some time to visit the kittens, giving them scraps of food and, once, a little toy. the animals had grown accustomed to his presence, although jisung had seen firsthand how much they adored minho in comparison.

he couldn't blame them. he was under minho's spell, too.

the sound of gravel crunching underfoot shook him out of his thoughts. who's making that sound? he mused to himself, only to freeze in fright when he realized that it was he who was being so loud. the surfer cursed under his breath when he looked up and saw that the alleyway was right there.

damn, he thought, i came here intending to be as quiet as a ninja, but instead, i ended up being as loud as a whole-ass circus.

he didn't know if minho had heard him or not— frankly, he'd be surprised if he hadn't— so jisung stayed still for a few seconds, breath held, heart thumping wildly in his chest. when minho didn't come into sight, he exhaled and tiptoed to the corner of the alley before poking his head around the corner. what he saw made him scream in fright.

standing there was minho, arms crossed, clearly waiting expectantly. as soon as he saw jisung, his eyes widened slightly. "you!"

this was it. jisung was going to end his life right there, right then. a load of emotions crashed down on him at once: humiliation, embarrassment, mortification, horror, and many others that he couldn't care to think about. all he cared about was the fact that his crush had just caught him in the act of kind of-sort of stalking him, which was his greatest fear come true.

"i—" he started, but minho cut him off.

"for the past two years, i had the strangest feeling that somebody was following me around." his tone was a mixture of anger and bafflement. "i thought i was going crazy, but then i would notice little things that weren't normal. small pieces of cat food left by someone other than me. a tiny toy that i never gave them. my orange sweater, somehow missing. that's how i knew." 

with every remark, jisung felt like he was being punched in the gut. how could i have been so stupid? he thought. all this time i thought i was being careful when in reality i was leaving him a trail of breadcrumbs to find.

"so today," he continued, "i decided i would try and find who had been following me around. i figured it wouldn't be too hard— after all, whoever it was wasn't exactly the quietest person in the world— but i never would've guessed it was one of jeongin's surfer friends." his sour expression was like a knife to jisung's heart. "i always knew your kind was terrible. i was willing to give you and your friends a chance for jeongin's sake, but after finding out that one of you is a fucking creep, there's no way in hell i'll make that mistake again."

it was at that moment that jisung's heart shattered completely. he couldn't bring himself to even blink when minho brushed past him, leaving him alone in the alleyway. he stood there, wide-eyed, as everything that had just happened fully processed in his brain, and when it finally did, he crumpled to the ground. he brought his knees to his chest and pressed his palms to his eyes until they hurt, unwilling to let the tears beginning to form slip past his hands. he dug his teeth into his bottom lip so that he wouldn't make a sound, but when it began to ache, he let a quiet sob escape.

how could he have been so stupid? why had he thought following minho was a good idea from the start? he had chosen to ignore to what he was, which was a creep and a stalker, and instead focused on what he was doing, which was (in his eyes) simply taking pictures of someone he admired. 

idiot. this is what you get for being a lovestruck fool and believing in fate. he pressed his lips together tightly, trying to force his whimpers down. what did you think would happen, anyway? he wouldn't find out and you'd date him and get married and live happily ever after? real-life doesn't work that way. it's a shame you had to find out like this.

when he had calmed down enough, jisung stood up and wiped his face, praying that he didn't look like he had just had a complete meltdown. when he opened his front camera, he realized that his eyes were completely red, making him look more like a stoner than someone who had just gotten their heart crushed. well, what's worse? a stoner or a fucking stalker? he thought with a small self-deprecating smile. trick question. they'd both make you look bad in minho's eyes. 

even just thinking about him made jisung want to cry, so he tried his best to distract himself by blasting music from his phone. he didn't care if people looked at him oddly when he passed by or if he was being a nuisance. he just wanted to feel better.

jisung knew exactly where to go.

☀☀☀

stey was dealing with an angry customer when the door to jyp café burst open. when he looked up and saw the expression on jisung's face, he immediately dropped his pad of paper and rushed to his friend's side. "hey! where are you going?" the customer shouted, to which stey waved him off.

"find someone that cares about your sugar allergy to help you!" he yelled back before turning to jisung. "something tells me you need a lot of apple juice right now."

jisung nodded. "are you busy?"

stey glanced at the angry customer. "no."

"good, because you're gonna be here for a while."