Minho didn't sleep.

He didn't sleep that entire night, simply holding Jisung close to him while he fell deep into his own dreams. Simply, embracing him within the tight envelope of the arms he looped around the trembling body he laid with, holding him tighter when he stirred with whines and the constant flow of tears that didn't give rest to their descent down that camboy's cheeks, down to soak warm puddles on his pillow. On the hoodie Minho wore, pulled over to rest against the older while he was serenely unconscious underneath those bedsheets. Tranquil in the twitching of his eyebrows and the flinching of his nose, seeming to shy from what haunted him even in his dreams. His nightmares, maybe. Whatever lurked behind the mind Jisung closed off to Minho, trying to understand why he could feel the heart bleeding while it beated against his chest.

Trying to understand why, even as Minho softly wrapped his hand around the younger's head, tenderly brought him in, steadying the swaying of the even breaths tumbling onto the thick fabric folded on his collar, Jisung didn't ease. Why, despite doing his most to hold him as close as he could possibly manage, to keep him binded in the faint warmth his hands could give to that sunlight in hopes that sparked fire wouldn't dim out, to ensure their legs  knotted in tied tangles didn't slip from their hold, Jisung still tried to peel away from him. Jisung still tried to cluster his hands in fists on the white fabric to push Minho away from him. Jisung still choked softly in his dreams, and Minho could do nothing more than hug him a little tighter than he was before. Embrace him a little closer. Nuzzle him with sweet whispers to reassure him against the dark.

Minho kept him close, even when the sun rose through the sheer curtains blocking it's rays from welling into the sleepy bedroom. Watching him through the faint glow of the early morning; The squish of the camboy's cheek puffed against the pillow uplifting that beautiful feature, how they seemed to swell and flush with the furrowing of his eyebrows scrunching him into closer curls, fastening him down into the balled kitten he had become during his restless dreams; The escape of breaths which found their rhythm once again, inhales which lifted the sheets bundled around his shoulders, mewling exhales that stood steady in their patterns; Minho didn't let himself sleep. No matter how his eyes wished to close, no matter how he wished for a second to sleep, he pinched his arms. Bit his cheeks. Shook himself back awake.

Gingerly, Minho fished a hand free from the sheets they were bundled underneath and came to Jisung's tear stained face. Even as he tried to swipe their remnants away with the pads of his thumb, cupping his hand on his cheeks while the sleeping camboy melted into the warmth of his touch, those blighted streaks didn't clear from his face. They didn't void him of their marks, they didn't release him from the sorrows they proclaimed, they didn't free him of the weight which shrugged that deities shoulders to ball up underneath the comforters.

I should make breakfast for him.

He gently brushed the few stray strands of hair which disturbed him of his rest back. Casting them away before pressing a soft kiss to where their threads twisted through, lingering against the melancholic warmth of the skin on his lips in hopes his touch could be felt. His presence could be felt, received through the layers of rest he was stacked beneath, reciprocated by the content breath he was given in return to that gentle motion and the tightening of that kitten-like curl as Jisung snuggled deeper into the cozy sheets Minho tucked him into. He could be given sanctuary against what plagued him, while Minho slipped out of the bed and snatched his phone up. Ensuring Jisung would be warm without him.

He didn't forget to grab Strawberry the dinosaur and tuck the stuffed animal into his arms in place of Minho. The glass pieces of his broken heart shattering again to splinters while it tried to repair itself, slammed by the metal alloy of a hammer mercilessly annihilating the pieces to dust while he watched Jisung nuzzle into the stuffed animal.

I'll leave once I know he'll be okay.

With that notion, Minho snatched his phone up from the nightstand and left the bedroom. Once sealing himself off with a soundless click of the door handle, turning the device on to thumbed through the obnoxiously loud screen beaming into his retinas like a lasor. Exhausted stumbles quietly sneaking him from the stilled dim of the bedroom to the wide living space of the apartment. Uneven feet placements trudging him along in the early morning lighting leaving him to stagger worthlessly, stubbing his toes on the furniture while he yawned his way to the kitchen, his hip hitting hard enough on the marbled top of the kitchen counter to collapse Minho with a sharp protest. He shook it off, quickly continuing on as he scrolled through the recipes he saved for personal necessity.

Dinners, breakfasts, lunches, snacks, organized into neat files in his search engine. Saved especially for moments he would need to whip out an impromptu meal for someone. And in this case...

Minho went straight to his comfort food tab.

Hurriedly thumbing through to find a recipe which could double as a breakfast and a touch of coziness to ease the other's tears, eventually, settling on sweet pancakes. Crispy casing of doughy warmth around the molasses goo of cinnamon brown sugar and the crunchy hints of crushed walnuts, what better way to start a fresh day after a rough night than with that nostalgic radiance of autumn hues melting on taste buds?

With that decided, Minho got to work. Hurried, but not sloppy in the precise movements he made within the kitchen. Another domain. Another realm he could reign as king over, similar to those winding paths hacking provided him through a kingdom fit for only the bravest of hearts to forge through, this world so much more different yet intrinsically the same. Same in the cautious decisions brewing convictions on the horizons, lines of code on his computer, or the correct amount of flour to sugar in the dough. Same in the branching of artistic display, routes he took within his keyboard, particular adjustments to add less cinnamon to satisfy a perfect balance on taste buds. Same in the tired hanging of his eyes, while his energy drinks powered him through all nighters, Minho only had himself to keep going on through the want to curl up and sleep on the tile flooring.

Himself, and the thought of Jisung. This is for Jisung. If he fell asleep, no one will be there to greet the camboy with assurances and embraces when he finally wakes up from the deepened slumber growing rooted into the mattress moment by moment. If he fell asleep, no one will be there to finish folding the gooey cinnamon mixture into the balls of dough he separated out to make the individual pancakes, no one will be there to flatten them out against their palms and set them underneath the cloth so the treat wouldn't dry up. If he fell asleep, no one will be there to fry up the pancakes and pull them off the burners when they're ready, no one will be there to set a plate down for Jisung and sit with him while he eats. No one will be there for him while he needs it.

With another yawn, Minho prodded at the pancake frying in the pan. Bubbling pops of cooking oil simmering the dough into delicious smells which made him salivate within his mouth. Almost drooling with those incredible scents wafting up from the pan, while he folded his arms over the counter and lowered his head into their pillow. Burying himself away inside the crux of their support to close his eyes. For a few minutes. Only a few minutes. He couldn't let himself fall asleep, not yet. Not until he saw for certain Jisung was alright. Not until he tried to talk with him face to face, and understand why the younger had become so unstoppably upset within the last few weeks.

Nothing but the sizzling from the frying pan on the oven beside him.

The quiet song from the early morning city outside drifting it's way through the closed windows sealing them off inside this tombed apartment.

His own breath. His own heartbeat. Exhausted in every shape, but he couldn't let it's wear on him show.

And the quiet click from a door inside the apartment.

Gentle. Barely audible in the cautious opening, the trudged footsteps and the adorable little huffs that followed afterwards. Barely loud enough for Minho to detect from the muted silence of his arms, but enough for him to perk his head up. Sobering from the drunken stupor that came with the lack of rest in an instant, snapping to where a figure was shuffling toward the living room. Hesitating in the open space. Before finding Minho. Finding him within the apartment. Shuffling over, with the knotted mess of his hair strayed everywhere as if he was lost in a haystack and the clear redness dehydrating the whites of his eyes, to where the older watched him with a crumbling heart. To where Minho scooped up the warm glass of milk he had been keeping heated, to pass it off to the camboy in a quiet, "Good morning love."

Jisung took the ceramic mug from his hands.

Blankly looking down to the liquid inside with those glossy eyes.

Before coursing to the sweet pancakes in the frying pan. A stack of that breakfast already set off on  a plate Minho especially selected to move the breakfast too. Glancing the messy arrangement up and down with more of that vacant stare. As if he was seeing, but not understanding. Gazing, but not dissecting. He looked. Nothing more.

Nothing more to the glazed glass staining his eyes and his cheeks. The beginnings of those tears swelling in the dancing dim of the waking apartment.

Minho's heart kept breaking apart. He wasn't sure if there was anything left to break, but if there was, it did.

He reached forward, trying to gently wipe the tears away with the curl of his hand.

But Jisung stepped back.

He recoiled from him, turning his head away from the hacker, to accuse, "You have feelings for me, don't you?"

Minho locked up. Freezing beneath the frigid response he was given. Barred off from ever reaching down into the perfectly unsaid words stuck within the camboy, and persecuted for the plummeting of his crumbling heart at that simple question. Stuck between the simmering of the pancakes he was baking for that same deity who now refused to see him within those glittery eyes he adored, and the want to excuse himself. Excuse himself from everything he did for the younger, everything he said to him while he slept, while they cuddled together on the couch, in his bedroom, play his actions off as nothing more than teasing falicy. Nothing more than a joke, meant to lure his prey into his hands. Nothing more than the same sizzling taunts from the frying pan behind him.

But how could he? How could he begin to pretend he didn't mean every word he said, he didn't mean the late night talks, the admittance of his heart pounding when Jisung was with him, every kiss he pressed to his lips, his nose, his neck, every giggle, every embrace, how much they meant? How could he say the adoration he had for Jisung, the untouched devotion he wanted to present in honor to that astounding being, the imploring urges to grant him even a moment to hold that atrocious gold within his hands, that precious godliness Jisung possessed? How could he brush off the worry gnawing at his gut while he looked to the saddened gloss to his bright eyes, how broken he look, the upset that clear sorrow stirred within Minho? How could he say he didn't love him?

His throat couldn't manage to squeeze a lie free. His mind couldn't manage to fib his tongue to spill playful lies, no matter how badly he wished those words to run without filter. For once, when he desperately needed his ability to come up with utter bullshit on the fly, he couldn't.

Not this time.

"We should end this," Jisung whispered against the snapping of his voice. That splintering, spreading of glass spiderwebs within the pained throbbing of his heart, came clear as he stepped back again. As the tears budding in his eyes swelled up once more as he set the ceramic mug down on the marble counters. As Minho watched him carefully with his own body beginning to break and snap with those futile words ripping him at the seams holding him together, observing the hand that gestured between them as Jisung trembled, "Whatever this is. You deserve someone who can love you too. That person isn't me. I don't feel anything for you. I don't..."

Minho set the spatula in his hands down, finally managing to make himself work as he started softly, "Love...?"

Even if he tried to take a step closer, tried to reach for him to bring him close into an embrace. Trying, hopelessly, to bridge them once more even with the distance created between them,

Jisung retreated.

Curling himself away to the downcast of his eyes and the hunch of his shoulders dragging him downward. So small against a vile world. So small, lost within an inescapable wonderland twisted into fields of horrors on skittering legs crawling up  his spine, looped with chains that claimed him as a product of that living beast's own desires. Alive in that borderline walked from paradise to paradise, yet deadened now as he stood in front of Minho. As he fell apart in front of Minho, and refused to let the hacker catch those crumbling parts in his hands to piece back together.

"I'm a camboy, Minho. That's all. I use you for my own desires and I capitalized off of your feelings for me," Jisung shied himself away. Withdrawing farther to the unbreakable shell he encased himself within, hidden behind the flow of that uncharacteristic solemnity causing him to shrink down. To be suffocated behind the weight of his falling body, collapsing down from his sagging neck, his quivering shoulders unable to find their solid state against the sharp inhales he forced through his body, every sound blasting horns to Minho's ears. Every small sniffle and wipe to his cheeks, causing the hacker to hold back his own swelling warmth in his eyes building up. Threatening to force their way through him while he listened to thosr timid proclamations, "I come and go as I want, smiling all the way. I rip and destroy for my own pleasure, that's all I can ever do."

Regardless of if, he thought the shaking in his voice rattling Jisung to nothing more than a trembling autumn leaf curled in to itself on a the grey wind of a strong day, didn't sound truthful. Even if Minho could hear the aching in his throat which locked, suffocating in those words presenting themselves as so certain, so assertive, so finalized within their quivering. Even if Minho knew, none of those words sounded honest. None of those words sounded as if they went deeper than the surface chime fluctuating as a concealing mask to hide what he may have truly felt within the scarlet tint of his skin flushing their shameful color. How beautiful that hue may have looked while he was beneath the hacker, now only causing a blade to rip through Minho's chest. A knife, held by the camboy's own hands, driven between his ribs.

None of it sounded true, yet Jisung didn't say otherwise. Jisung didn't do more than turn his head away, and hide himself.

Dissolve farther within the shell he encased himself inside.

Even as tears spilled again from his eyes. Pouring down as Minho took the frying pan off of the burner so the pancake wouldn't burn and hurriedly stepped in to Jisung again, trying to cup his cheeks gently to wipe those glossy drops away from staining his cheeks. Trying to bring those eyes back to him as he blubbered, "I love you for your body, Minho. Nothing else."

No.

Wordlessly, Minho shook his head in protest. Swallowing down the hitch in his throat to keep clearing those tears from Jisung's face. To keep him held gently, to hold him for a moment more.

But Jisung pulled himself away.

Gently removed the older's hands from his face while Minho's own sobs wanted to rip through him.

Gently pushed the hacker away from him as he finished, "Please go. Don't ever come back."

Minho's hands fell to his sides. The feeling in those unmoving joints coming too gummy, too loose, too weak to do more than allow them to sink with the falling of his heart drowning inside the turmoiled ocean inside his chest. He couldn't do more than let himself break apart to the reduced pieces he already was, let the pain violently throbbing through his chest like the coursing waves of a wildfire burning everything those flames touched within his veins, let himself be turned to the gray dust of ash blown away in the thermal gusts shooing all those who didn't belong away. He couldn't do more than listen as his heart wanted to sob in time to the other's gentle cries, wanted to wrap him again in an embrace and hold him until they could calm the pain in his glass heart, wanted to, even if he knew Jisung would step away from him.

He couldn't do more than look back to those eyes, their tears and the ache which caused them to hiccup. What could he even say to take back the mistakes they made now? What could he do?

Without knowing the right answer of how to proceed from here, without knowing if he should confess everything he felt despite Jisung knowing and the intention towards those feelings being clear enough on their own, without knowing if he could keep going, keep trying. Keep wanting to hold him, wanting to kiss him, wanting to love him for who he was, for everything he was, even if Jisung couldn't in the same way. Even if Jisung didn't in the same way. Reluctantly, Minho peeled his eyes to the coiled stove top beside him. The frying pan. The pancake cooking gradually inside the buttery goodness he was frying the dough inside. The delicious smell from that sweetness still flooding through the apartment.

Minho looked back to Jisung, watching the small curve of his back disappearing from the kitchen as he uttered, "Can I finish making your pancakes? They're going to burn."

"When I wake up, if you're still here, I'll call the police on you," Came the quiet response.

Despite knowing that Jisung wouldn't turn around, Minho offered a nod back. Offered the last response he would ever give to that stunning sunlight, before the bedroom door clicked close again. Sealing them both off to their own worlds.

In the overwhelming silence of that familiar apartment, Minho finished up the last of the pancakes. Carefully setting them to the side, covered with another plate so their warmth would linger in the quiet, so they wouldn't lose their vigor of bronzed paradise when Jisung woke again. Even if, when he shuffled to knock on the locked bedroom door with the near whispered statement he would be leaving now, he heard the muffled sobs from inside the room. Regardless of if he voiced his concern, questioning if he was alright, he wasn't given a response back to him. He wasn't given more than the snapping of his breaking heart and the death of his mind escorting him from that sanctuary.

He still didn't know what was wrong.

While he drove away from the apartment, an odd daze fuzzing him to the pain in his heart, he realized he didn't know why Jisung was upset. Was it because he wasn't in love with Minho? Was it because he had to end things with him, he had to end their arrangement of lust and nothing more? Was he that gluttonous? Was he upset because he really was, just using Minho even after all the nights they spent together, being together, relishing in the radiance the other gave them? Was he the only one that felt that way? That felt as if he could give his heart, his mind, his body to him? That felt as if he could take every ticking second he had remaining in his waning life, he could pile them all into a box, and gift them to that man if it meant he could thrive for even a minute longer than he was destined to.

Right.

No feelings.

It didn't mean anything.

It never meant anything to Jisung, it only meant the world to Minho.

He set his car into park and turned that weapon of a vehicle off. Hesitantly stepping out to the familiar driveway with shaky legs, unsure steps that shuffled against the concrete to the front door of the home he sought comfort from. Dragging in every movement carrying him away from vehicle to the front door. Heavy while he raised his hand to the wood. Weighted while he knocked gently, the lack of energy allowing him to forget the doorbell he could've run. The lack of sleep hauling him down to drop his head against the support of the door frame, the aching in his heart which made him want to choke with tears from that soft interior he held inside, all voiding his mind of the house key attached to the metal comfort of his key ring.

The front door ripped back. Familiar NPC stand staring him down as Minho forced himself to stand upright again.

Before Felix could spout some type of sneaky comment jabbing at the older from the slicked simper tipping his lips up, Minho interrupted him, "Jisung ended things."

Felix's smile dropped.

"Oh."

Not even five minutes later, Minho was curled up on his little brother's couch with a puffy blanket, a bowl of strawberry ice cream which froze the warmth in his hands as he nibbled away at the dessert, a heating pad scalding him to add another layer of coziness to the sheet wrapping him into a tasty little burrito on the couch, and some type of stupid movie playing. Some summertime movie Felix had been watching before he invaded on his life; Two prominent figures in international sports who used to be an item, partnered off and dating, promised to be by one another's sides now split as one was married, and the other was forced to see him again, plus the complete mess of a situation which followed their eventually reconnection. Though, as Minho only became more upset with watching the movie, they quickly changed it to some animated children's cartoon with vibrant pictures. A clear contrast to the surefire emptiness wanting to gut Minho out.

That already emptied him out. At least the ice cream and the children's movie distracted him enough. Though those both quickly ran out. Ended their time too, while Minho scraped the last of the pasteled melt from the strawberry ice cream out of the bottom of his bowl and read the titles from the movie's ending credits.

A ringing pressed into his eardrums.

Causing him to gently set his bowl down and snuggle into the blanket a little deeper, pulling the warmth closer to him as the weight by his feet finally spoke up, "Episode?"

"Yes. I'm stressed and emotionally overwhelmed and my medication is wearing off," Minho slurred back to him as he felt the start of the attack building in his body, quietly watching as Felix devoured his second bowl of stacked ice cream at the other end of the couch. Quietly allowing the warmth from the heating pad to melt his own frosted exterior frozen at the tips of his needling fingers going numb with the typical tingling, that ice thawing away. Turning back to the liquid they originally came from as they swelled behind the dams wanting to burst in his veins, waters shoving themselves with lapping waves in the shaking of his voice, until they finally dared to push their drops from his eyes. Not a spill, not a waterfall, but an annoyance nonetheless, as Minho wiped his face off on the blankets, "I love him, Lix. I love him so much."

Almost stunned in the height of his voice, Felix wondered, "Are... Are you crying?"

"I'm in pain."

"Where?!"

"Here," Minho slapped his own chest, "My heart. My heart hurts. He only loved me because I fucked him."

Felix just rolled his eyes, the whites of his eyes proving a wide disbelief to Minho as he set his ice cream bowl down on the carpeted floors, "That boy is a liar."

"Lix, I feel like..." The hacker started, slurring off as he started to feel the weight in his tongue going floppy. The discoordination tingling through the numbing nerves as they lost their power to disconnected gelatin. A lack of bone, a lack of feeling, a lack of the warmth he felt from Jisung, a lack of the love for him which floated him on the highest silver linings strung along to outline clouds in the daytime. A lack of his senses coming while his eardrums came fuzzy to him, and the only thing he could do, was try to ramble off to the popcorned ceilings of that familiar home, "I feel like I'm always running out of time. Like I'm always running and running but I'm never fast enough. I want to be in love. I want to grow old with someone I love. And I don't think I ever can, I'm running out of time." 

"You're fine, Minho. You're going to be fine," Felix answered him. The sound of his voice coming strained to him. Warbled and muted through the sea he was drowning within as he slotted his eyes closed to stop the saccadic dizziness from throwing up the ice cream he stuffed into his stomach for comfort. The touch of the hand that came to Minho's ankle through the layers of the loaded blanket coming even fuzzier, even farther away from where that rabbit fell deep to the rabbit hole of his own caverns dug from his chest, where his heart should have belonged.

Still, through the dragging of his tongue, Minho argued back to the darkness of his eyelids, "But what if I'm not, what if this doesn't go away, and it progresses, and... And I'm just... If Dad's ataxia is progressing, I'm on a time limit too."

"Minho, Dad is almost in his sixties. He's still kicking ass. It's going to resolve out, it'll stay as it is and you'll be okay, or it'll progress much, much later in your life. You'll have time to fall in love," Felix finished off, "Is there anything else you want? Some water, more ice cream, another movie?"

Minho whispered softly, "I want Jisung."

"You're..." His younger brother trailed off before he could finish his sentence, his words seemingly disappearing within the caverns of his throat to be lost forever within their abyss. Behind the curtain of the draped arm, Minho could see him shifting at the edge of the couch, moving about while the lights of that comforting house invaded halos around him, while his own lost breaths sucked in the homely scent of his childhood.  Neither of those figures which remained constant in his life, offering him any type of comfort in the upset raking through his nerves. Neither offering him assuage against the assault of tears wanting to pour through to his cheeks. Though, Felix continued to try, the utter meeting his ears, "You're very distressed about him."

Minho didn't offer a response back to him. He didn't need to.

Minho loved Jisung.

And Jisung didn't feel the same.

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