Life wasn't easy.

It never had been for him. For any of them.

The memories haunted them, tugged at their brains as a nagging fear, making them question and paranoid about anything and everything. 

Is WICKED still out there?  Was a regular thought they all had. How am I alive? Are WICKED going to suddenly kill us all? 

None of them spoke about these questions or their past struggles. Some of them might have in private, but not publicly. No, they believed that being quiet and sucking it up was the way to go. Try to forget everything and get on with what was your new life.

Some of them had it worse than others.

Minho's best friend had died. His best friend who had stuck beside him the entire time, told him to, "Stop badgering me and messing around like a bloody shank, Minho!" and instead to, "Get on with your work, slinthead.".

He missed the banter. Sure, he messed around with the other survivors, but nothing, and nobody, was the same.

Especially Thomas.

He was quieter, more reserved. He broke away from the comfort of others and instead became well-acquainted with the silence when he was alone.

Minho sometimes wondered whether that was Thomas' coping mechanism. Maybe to him, getting away from others was the way he tried to accept things. Instead of, like Minho, acting somewhat the same and trying to get some normality with others who just wanted to forget everything.

But most of the time, Minho doubted that isolation was his form of coping. He knew Thomas like the back of his hand. 

When Chuck died, Thomas welcomed the comfort that Newt and Minho brought to him in quiet whispers and sweet kisses on his forehead.

When Minho got struck by lightning, he later found out after being told by Aris that Newt and Thomas had told each other that "Everything is going to be okay, love. He'll wake up." and "Minho's strong. He's a shuckface, but he's definitely strong.".

Frypan had told him that, when Thomas found out about Newt's flare, he had completely broken down in front of him. He accepted Frypan's comforting, but he could tell it wasn't as strong as Minho's or Newt's.

The point is, he'd always welcomed, and appreciated, consolation. So for him to not even let Minho talk to him without rushing off? Well, something must've been enormously wrong.

Minho just didn't understand what was going on. It had been around 7 months since they arrived at the Safe Haven. It took them all months to get used to the situation, but even then they were messing around in an attempt to ignore everything else.

Before, everyone used to love Thomas straight away.

Now, people were annoyed with his lack of work.

(Minho shut them up quickly enough.)

Minho didn't know what he was doing wrong.

His eyes drew themselves over to where Thomas was sat - on a large rock overlooking the sea with his legs tucked up under his chin. He looked more alone than usual.

"Stop playing with your food, Minho." Frypan scolded, rolling his eyes. He hadn't noticed what Minho's eyes were stuck on, clearly.

Minho whipped his head around and covered up his slight panic with a sneer. "Maybe my lack of eating says something about your capability of cooking, Fry."

Frypan raised an eyebrow. He was a good cook and everyone knew it. Including himself.

"Shut up, slinthead." He grinned and pushed himself up off the seat. "I'm taking something over to the shuckface." He nodded his head towards Thomas.

"Oh." Frypan's face softened slightly. "Do you want another portion?"

"Nah. I'm not really hungry. He can have mine."

Minho picked up his plate and hooked a leg over the bench seat to get out. Absent-mindedly, his eyes scanned the sky. The sun was just setting, giving their world a nice, golden tint that reminded him of the Glade. 

Sometimes, he missed the Glade. The sun he'd found out to be fake always shon down on him whilst he was running in the Maze, and it wasn't unlike the real sun. The real sun shon down on him now, when he was helping the other survivors or going for a peaceful jog. It felt like the Glade, and the Glade used to be home. But sometimes he thought, and he would never admit it, that the Gladers were home, not the Glade itself.

Minho saw Thomas' face spin around when he kicked a rock once nearby, and he smiled softly. A smile that was only reserved for the closest of the closest people to him. "Hey, shuckface."

Thomas offered a weaker smile back. "Hey, Minho. What're you doing here?" He murmured, moving up to the left to allow his friend to sit beside him.

"I brought you some food." Minho shrugged like it was nothing - like he hadn't worried about Thomas eating and like he hadn't stressed about embarrassing himself. "You didn't come to get anything." He sat down on the rock, handing him the plate.

It was a hidden question, Thomas could tell.

Why didn't you get something? Have you eaten? Why are you pushing me out?

Thomas didn't answer with words, though, and instead hummed. and shut his eyes, taking in the warm glow of the sun on his skin.

"Thomas." He risked. "Why won't you eat with us?"

The brunet opened his eyes and turned to look at Minho. He looked at the ground. "You know... You know when you just sort of..."

Minho made a gesture for him to continue.

"I don't know." He muttered. "I feel guilty all the time." He put the food beside him. "Like I don't deserve anything, y'know?"

"You've been ignoring me because you felt guilty?" Minho bit out, shaking his head in disbelief. "Shank, we all feel guilty! Do you think I sleep all peacefully like a shuckin' Princess without any nightmares or doubts? God, Thomas."

Thomas looked up at Minho, then back at the ground. "You don't know what I did."

"You saved us, is what you did! You saved my sorry-self when I was boo-hooing about everything like a stinkin' Greenie and you told me to stop being such a slinthead. You blame yourself for Newt's death, but, for crying out loud, if you hadn't come to get me, he'd still be alive." Minho stood up and folded his arms. His voice was raised but he couldn't bring himself to lower it. It was his fault. It was his fault that Newt was dead because he wasn't fast enough.

"That's what you believe?" Thomas furrowed his brows and also got up to look Minho in the eyes. "If you're going there, then it's my fault that everyone who's dead is because I worked for WICKED."

"What?" He exhaled a sharp breath that was halfway towards a mocking laugh. "You were a kid."

"We were kids when we were in the Glade. Didn't stop us from knowing what was right and wrong."

Minho pinched the bridge of his nose. Was his friend stupid? "Listen to me, shank. You saved us. I'd be dead without you."

"Well, I didn't save Newt, did I?" Thomas let out an irritated noise and began to pace around a bit. He didn't save Newt. He wasn't good enough in his mind if he couldn't have saved their Glue.

"Neither did I, Thomas!" Minho yelled. 

"You didn't kill him, Minho!" Thomas snapped. "You didn't put a gun to his head and shoot him when he begged you to!"

They flinched away from each other at the outburst. For a second, neither really processed the confession, but when they did, Thomas' hand slapped over his mouth as he stifled a sob, and Minho stumbled backwards a step.

"You did what?" 

"I killed him." His voice lowered to a whisper, and he looked at the ground in shame. "He begged me to. I swear. He-He gave me a note. Asking me to kill him."

Minho's eyes stung with tears but he blinked them away, angrily. No. He was not going to cry in front of this monster. "And you killed him? You didn't even think to tell me that you shot a bullet through my best friend's head?"

Thomas winced at the words as if they hurt him physically. "I tried to, Minho! I tried to tell you but I knew you'd respond like this." Shakily, he sighed. "He should've given the note to you."

Deep down, Minho knew why Newt gave it to Thomas instead of him. He never would've done it, and he guessed that if he were a Crank, he'd want to go out whilst he had some sort of sanity. "Yeah. He should've. Maybe then he'd still be alive." But, he was stubborn and ratty and upset and all the things he was when he first arrived at the Safe Haven, hand in hand with Thomas' body that had been lying beside him.

Thomas eventually gave into the dam holding his tears back and his hand dropped to his side in defeat. "I'm sorry." He whispered. 

Minho wanted to do nothing more than reach out and pull Thomas' body into his, something he'd wanted to do since he started pushing the survivors away, but he didn't. "Yeah." He bit out, scornfully. "You should be, shank."

A sob left the brunet's lips, and Minho tried, tried, tried to block his ears from hearing Thomas' cries as he took a step back. His attempt was futile, though, as somehow he knew that the noises were going to haunt him forever because he didn't try and comfort.

No, instead, he took another step back, shaking his head in disbelief and looking through teary eyes. 

He turned around and did what he knew how to do.

Not comfort, not kiss, not love. That was Newt's job.

He ran.

guys i just know im never gonna add anything onto this so im ending it here xx

plus i havent updated anything in centuries so sorry </3