✄ ───

Minho doesn't show at the club that night.

So Chan throws back a couple shots and tries to find someone else to take up the hours of his night. But nope. Once again, no one is as interesting, as daring, or as straight up hot-'n'-sexy as Minho.

Why does everyone else have to be So. Damn. Boring!?

'Boredom' is what is titling the sinking feeling in his stomach, tonight.

Images flash through his head: The lonely tear running down Minho's cheek. Red cuts slashed across Minho's forearm. Minho's icy glare in the morning. A drawing of a noose. A... bloodstained razor blade.

...Being concerned is the worst possible thing that can happen to Chan. Attraction is fleeting and fickle. Love, he can ignore— he has a special knack for convincing himself it's fake, insignificant, and unrequited. But concern?

Concern will take control of his brain and have him coming back again and again until he's sure that whatever's worrying him has been taken care of. And the more he ignores it, the crazier he'll get.

Chan slides his hand into his coat pocket and feels the small blade, still there. Whoops. He forgot about that. Not that the underpaid bouncers cared enough to check him. There's an uneasy feeling inside of Chan that's done nothing but grow and grow since this morning. It turns the bitter in Chan's hand sour on his tongue.

He keeps drinking, but it's not going away. Why the fuck does he have to have such a high tolerance for alcohol?

Where is Minho right now? What is he doing? Is he hurting himself?

No, dammit! Chan doesn't care.

He really doesn't care— he's calling a cab to take him to Minho's apartment because he's bored. And Minho's a surefire way to fix that.

One knock. No answer.

Another knock. Chan cranes his head toward the door to hear a creaking sound. Footfalls; sloshing liquid. Once he hears the knob turn, he pulls his head away. He's not greeted by Minho, but by a puff of smoke.

Once it wafts away, that perfectly gorgeous face comes into view... Oh, but... it's not looking quite so... perfect, at the moment. Or gorgeous. Frankly, it's a mess. Covered in hastily-wiped traces of mascara; red and puffy. He's barefaced. Perhaps Chan only just realized that Minho has been wearing makeup every time he's seen him.

In one hand, he holds a cigarette. In the other, a vodka bottle.

Chan only gets the opportunity to observe him so thoroughly because Minho is 100% caught off-guard.

Minho's bloodshot eyes are blown wide open as they stare in disbelief. The warmth pooling in them is the flame; the shock of seeing Chan at his door is the wind that fans it. It grows warmer. Stronger. But it flickers, flickers, flickers... and poof.

It goes out. He's all cold again.

Chan was just here, what... 12 hours ago? But still, it's as if Minho never would've dreamed that he'd come back.

"The fuck are you doing here."

"Didn't see you tonight, so I just..."

"Just?"

"Just wondered." He shrugs. "Got bored without you, I guess."

That seems to spark the dying embers in Minho's eyes once more. But all he does is mutter: "...I'm not in the mood to entertain you."

So leave, idiot. LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE.

But Chan has been very bad at listening to himself recently. Instead, childishly, he lets a puff of air escape his lips. "Fine."

Minho narrows his eyes in suspicion. "Don't you have people to fuck?"

Chan shrugs again. "I take a night off from time to time."

Unexpectedly, Minho doesn't slam the door in Chan's face. He doesn't  force Chan out as Chan slips inside.  All he does is turn his back, plop  on the bed and down the last sip of his vodka. ...And then he pulls out  an entire other bottle.

Just how screwed is his liver? That'd be at least two liters in one sitting.

The foot of the bed is occupied by the outfit Minho  had obviously laid out since he'd been there this morning— another variant of the classic Minho-club-outfit: longsleeves, tight shorts... even though Minho looks like he has no intent of going anywhere tonight. That, and faint traces of suspicious white powder at one corner of the sheets.

So Chan just stands next to the bed as he admonishes, like a saint: "Holy  shit, Minho, put that down. You're gonna kill yourself."

Minho seems to find that funny. "Just last night you were tryna' buy me drinks at the bar. Now you're  telling me not to drink?" His eye roll defiantly as he  takes a long, exaggerated swig of liquid organ failure. Gradually, the  tension in his eyebrows morphs from an expression of exasperation into a display of confusion.  "And... and how d'you even know my name?

"Just last night you brought me to your apartment," Chan counters, scoffing. "Don't try to make me sound like the bipolar one here."

Minho's face burns redder than roses at that. Angry, embarrassed, everything. He repeats himself.  "How do you know my name?"

"I got it from a friend, okay? And while we're at it, hi! I'm Chan! Nice to meet you," Chan spits.

That takes Minho to a whole new level of incredulous. Now he's fuming. "Are you seriously pissed that I didn't ask what your name was? All you wanted to do was fuck me."

"That's generally what happens at a nightclub, sweetheart. What were you expecting?"

Minho just closes his eyes and shakes his head. Takes a nice, calming drag, so as to not lose his damn head. His answer comes through a cloud of smoke, both that and his cooling tone doing an excellent job of distancing him from Chan. "You got  what you wanted, okay? You said you were gonna leave."

A second passes before Minho's back at it with a  crackling laugh. So much for calming down. He can't let it alone, either. "That's your thing isn't it? Certified Fuckboy?"

"Look," Chan starts. "I made it very obvious what I wanted." It stings his poor little pride like a swarm of wasps to admit: "...And I didn't get it, okay?"

"What?" There are Minho's wide eyes again.

"You were asleep," Chan explains. He's not sure whether the flame is alive in those eyes again or not, because it's too awkward to chase eye contact as he says, "I didn't do anything."

    "Oh..." It comes out quiet; quiet enough for Chan to brave a glance back up into those eyes. Indeed, the fire is alive again. Fire but no warmth. Cold blue flame. It's in voice, too, as he yells, "So that's why you came? You just won't leave until I let you go down on me? Piece of shit," Minho spits, throwing himself to his feet. Finally, he puts the bottle down.

Chan groans. Make it make sense. "I don't fucking understand you— you keep acting like you wanna fuck and then slamming doors in my fucking face."

Concern,  confusion, curiosity... they were all turning into the same thing. The  same thing that made it impossible to leave before he got his answers  out of Minho, whether Minho liked it or not.

"And you keep barging through them!"

"Yeah, 'cause you don't really want me to leave you alone."

"That's not true..."

It is.

"It is. How do I know? 'Cause I did leave you alone and you came right fuckin' back!"

"You don't fucking know who I am, Chan! "  Minho advances; pushes himself in closer.  Pushes Chan back toward the door with each step. "YOU'RE JUST A FUCKING ASSHOLE WHO  CAN'T KEEP HIS DICK IN HIS PANTS."

He's screaming at the top of his  lungs. It makes Chan wince and shrink away for the sake of his  ears. And the  cigarette he's wildly gesturing with is getting uncomfortably close  to his face.   Chan brushes Minho's hand away to say back off, but while  his hand flops weakly back to his side, leaving ashes to sprinkle down to the floor from the  cigarette butt, Minho's glowering face remains up in Chan's space. "And what's that about 'put that down; you're gonna kill yourself'?! I'M A FUCKING TOY TO YOU! AS  SOON AS YOU FINALLY GET TO FUCK ME, YOU WON'T GIVE A SHIT IF I DIE!"

"Well then WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, MINHO?!" Chan's voice explodes, crackling like thunder; striking Minho like lightning.

"I want you to hit me!" Minho blurts. It might be the first time he's been completely honest with Chan all night. No, since they met.

Chan lets a blank stare settle on Minho for several awkwardly silent seconds. All the anger leaves him like a deflating balloon; replaced by yet more confusion. He tries to size a panting and crazed-eyed Minho up, but he draws a huge blank. And it's all he can do to insist, "...No, I'm not gonna hit you," with a tone of utter confusion.

Cigarette dropped at left to burn out on the floor, Minho falls into a crouch, head in his hands, fractions of whimpers escaping him pitifully shaking figure that make it sound like he's about to full-on sob.

Chan's voice goes soft. "Hey... come here."

He lowers himself down next to Minho and brings him into his arms.

Unexpectedly, Minho shoves him away in an instant, grunting, "Get OFF me!"

Chan  falls back onto his butt, stunned and unsure of his next move.

But  when Minho's breath starts to pick up speed and he starts raking his  nails over the skin of his arms, Chan just goes for it. He throws Minho  over his shoulder and carries him toward the bed.

And what does Minho do?

He squirms and  fucking bites him.

Chan  winces hard but doesn't make a sound; doesn't stop his steady footsteps  until he's letting Minho flop off of his shoulder and onto the  mattress. He gives Minho no more chances to hurt either of them as he takes both of his wrists in one large hand. And immediately, he lays down beside him and traps him in his  arms, shushing him softly.

"Shh," he murmurs, lips next to Minho's ear. They press a gentle kiss to his temple. "You need to calm down, baby."

Chan would like to pretend he has no clue why on earth he's doing this. As we know, usually, even before  anything as crazy as this shit, he wouldn't stay so long. One night, one fuck, then he'd be onto the next  cute little thing to prey on. He certainly wouldn't usually be sitting  through a panic attack (if that's what you could call this) with  someone.

But for some reason, though Minho does more avoiding him, disappointing him, screaming at him,  and hurting him than kissing him, fucking him, or anything of the sort... he can't bring  himself to leave Minho.

Because he genuinely cares. About Minho. About anyone who he allows himself to know deeply.

And he's tired of being selfish.

That was never him. And it's been a long year of pretending to be someone else for the sake of not getting hurt.

It only takes a few minutes for Minho to stop fighting him. A few minutes until there's no more thrashing, no more wailing like a wounded animal, and thank God, no more biting.

Chan might as well stop beating around the damn bush. He turns Minho's face toward himself with a gentle hand. "Minho... What... what happened to you? Something's wrong."

"Nothin'," Minho giggles drunkenly. "Nothing happened to me, see, I'm just like that. Always been fucked in the head for no reason." He says it like it's a damn hilarious joke; like Chan is the crazy one for not seeing the punchline. But by the end, he's breaking into back into sobs.

Sigh.

"No. Bullshit. Something happened to you. There has to be something— maybe your childhood. What were your parents like?"

Minho stops crying just to snap, "Playing therapist, now, are we?"

"Come on, babe, I just—"

"What about you, Mr. Commitment Issues?" Minho laughs. "Where'd that come from? Did Mommy and Daddy scare you away from it?"

Chan's eyebrows furrow. His grip on Minho loosens. "Okay, cut it out."

"Somebody break your heart? Now you just fuck your feelings out of existence? Run away from 'em?"

Maybe it's the jeering tone Minho uses. Maybe it's the time of night. Maybe it's the throbbing bite mark on his shoulder. Maybe it's the alcohol in his system, but for some reason, those words are the ones that set Chan off. They make him fucking angry. He throws himself up to a sitting position, jostling Minho carelessly in his wake.

"I SAID CUT IT OUT." Chan shouts. He backs away from Minho, whose big doll eyes form when his hurtful mouth shuts.

It's twisted, the way Minho's chest deflates when he realizes that nothing more will come of it. That Chan's fists won't come down on him.

"You know what, fuck it."

     It's not worth it. He kicks the sheets away, peeling himself right off the bed.

"I'm done with you. You're fucking crazy. Why'd I even come here for a crazy ass bitch?"

Chan digs into his coat pocket and slams the small blade onto Minho's nightstand. "Take your fucking razor back."

Chan's gonna take that concern and drown it in sea of alcohol and sex. Maybe he'll fuck around and pick up a brand new addiction while he's at it, just to mix things up.

He only looks back over his shoulder once. Just to catch a glimpse of Minho's face as he goes.

Minho is smiling.

─── ♡︎

is it still fuck chan? :)

who's worse?