Before the accident (this is gonna be a long ass chapter):

Minho was busy feeding his cats after several unsuccessful attempts to make a phone call to Jisung. The three cats seemed rather peaceful unlike the owner. Minho recalled his struggles upon taming Soon-ie and Dong-ie who kept yearning for Dori's attention every single hour. Both cats adored the cute maknae: Dori, as though Dori was more interested in Minho than the lousy cats.

This night though, was different. The trio immediately dozed off after being fed by Minho: the responsible cat dad. How he wished to have the ability to read their deepest thoughts as they lied peacefully on the carpet. Perhaps they're judging Minho, or maybe they didn't like the new carpet. Who knows? They're just cats; unable to emphasize with Minho's abrupt state of mind, nor give him advice. Though the thought of Soon-ie, Dong-ie, and Dori giving him advice sounded somewhat terrifying and fascinating in his head at the same time.

Minho was feeling lonely; painfully, thoroughly, excruciatingly lonely.

He hated it when the loneliness started to merge into his body, taking control. Every once in a while, all those memories flashed before his eyes. The beautiful ones, of course. But the most beautiful one comes in with the most hurtful truth. It reminded him how empty his heart has been ever since the accident.

Usually on nights, Minho would check out the flowers in his garden which were all planted by his father. Thrilling was the perfect word to describe the flowers. They're all arranged in a way that made their house looked like Barbie's garden. Not to mention that the night sky made the flowers looked prettier, as the moonlight illuminated each petals, making them looked more vibrant, especially in the eyes whom appreciate nature's beauty.

In the afternoon, he usually watched as his mother tried to communicate with bees, telling them to suck the nectar inside each flowers. The bees somehow understood her, although she was practically using obscure language. Translation's still needed, or so his father said. Minho would've just laughed it out whenever his parents' natural science knowledge collided with each other.

However everything changed. It was all because of a drunk truck driver whose truck literally crushed his parents' car and killed them right before they're about to have their romantic anniversary dinner. Everything went wrong on that night. The night that was supposed to be beautiful changed Minho's life forever in the most terrible way.

Minho remembered seeing an uninvited woman knocking on his front door instead of his parents. Minho recognized her face as she used to hang out with his mother. She claimed herself to be his mother's best friend and the moment she told him the news, he could only stood frozen with wide eyes. He was only eleven years old when he realized that he's going to be an orphan.

Everything felt different with his parents' absence. His grandparents took him after since. However, that woman who came to Minho's house at the saddest day of his life helped his grandparents raised him because they're unable to raise him. He started calling her 'Auntie', though they're not blood-related. She wasn't his legal guardian, yet he cared so much about him. She fed him, taught him everything he needed, gave him enough affection, also bought him three cats to accompany him. She said that animals can sometimes be better than humans; they would listen to their owner without giving judgment. And she's absolutely right about that.

Just thinking about the past, he felt both anguish and asphyxia-the anguish of sinking into depravity, and asphyxia because he kept pretending about his wellbeing.

Minho didn't realize how much he needed comfort until his fingers trailed themselves to reach his phone, contacting the only person who would pick up at this hour.

"Hello." A voice greeted him from the other line.

"Hi, Auntie." His voice was weary, yet still clear enough for the other party to hear. "I miss you."

She let out a small laughter. "Minho, I can simply go home."

"Don't," he interrupted. "I'm the one who encouraged you to live the way you wanted. I'm eighteen anyway, which means I can live by myself," he insisted.

True, Minho was the one who encouraged her to live the way she desired, instead of being overly attached to Minho. He afraid that he may not be able to let go if he's grown too attached on people who doesn't deserve him.

"I have a boyfriend," he changed the topic. "He is very eccentric; dyed his hair blonde, wear mismatched clothes, but somehow rocking it in every pattern. I'm so jelly."

She chuckled. "Oh, really? I'm happy for both of you then." Minho's mood suddenly changed. He knew she would accept him for who he truly is. However, experiencing the actual thing felt way better than expected.

"I'm luckier though. I've never met such a nice person. Well, he uses violent language on daily basis, but he's actually very kind. I guess he's kind of quirky. Maybe he's trying to hide his insecurities with such attitude or maybe it's just his personality. One thing for sure... I'm whipped," he bragged like he's the proudest boyfriend ever.

"I'm so jealous..." she whined teasingly. "What's his name? I need to know his name since I'm planning to be your wedding organizer."

"Jisung." The corner of his mouth moved upwards just by breathing out that one name.

"That's a pretty name," she commented.

"I know you're trying to be nice and dandy, but isn't Jisung a very common name in Korea?"

"So is Minho."

"So that makes us a common couple." He laughed it out. "Auntie, I miss you, but I wish you to stay where you are now. Now I gotta buy cat food, so please excuse me." He glanced at the clock.

"Bye-bye, don't forget to send my love and affection to Soon-ie, Dong-ie, and Dori." The call ended shortly after. Minho stood up to grab his coat and went outside.

┉┉

The wind was breezing. His car was out of fuel, thus he decided to use his legs. It wasn't a long trip to the convenience store. However, it kind of felt like so due to electricity problem which occurred around the neighborhood.

He finished buying enough cat food and proceeded to walked back home. Nonetheless, he had absolutely no idea about what tragedy was ahead of him. He wasn't so lucky that day.

On his way, three unknown faces stepped on Minho's sandals, which resulted in him losing his balance and fell onto the hard concrete. His right cheek made contact with the uneven surface, while the cat food fell forward, near the stranger's shoes.

He felt like shit. It didn't took him long to regain his composure and stood back up, bowing to the three strangers in the most apologetic way as possible. Sometimes it's better to take the blame in order to run away from an unexpected situation. Especially when the strangers are two large men whose eyes looked like they've just smoked weed.

He was about to walked away when one of them pulled his shoulder to face them. Well shit.

"Hey," said the one with red locks. "Where do you think you're going?"

Minho scratched his nape. "Uhh... home?"

"Who said you can go home?" The red locks eyed him up and down. "Oh, look! It's you."

"You know me? Are you sure you're not mistaken by any chance?" Minho couldn't recognize the two of them.

Another guy, the one with Elvis Presley's hairstyle approached him from the side. "You're the guy from the news. The Han's boyfriend, aren't you?"

Minho gulped hard, his heart beat quickened. He thought the scandal was all about Jisung being gay without any evidence, yet somehow an Elvis Presley impersonation recognized him. Even so, what's his deal? It's not like Minho's doing them any harm.

Elvis lookalike laughed. "I'm not surprised if the Han's family are a bunch of gays, but I can't believe the only son of CEO-in-line chooses this sappy looking dude."

What the fuck.

The red locks which reminded Minho of gender-bent Ariel from The Little Mermaid added, "Ah, no wonder he likes you... you bought cat food. And everyone knows that Jumin Han loves cats more than anything."

Minho didn't like where this is going, especially when the scent of liquor started to linger in his nostrils, climbing up to his head. They were definitely drunk and out of their senses, which made the situation more dangerous and also more difficult to commit a successful escape plan.

"So tell me, young man... did you purposely bought cat food to please Jumin Han? I mean you've captured his son's heart, and now what? You're gonna bring cat food to his house and give him a blowjob or something afterwards? Aren't you just another unsatisfied gold digger fag-"

"Stop!" Minho raised his voice. This was getting out of hand.

"So you got an attitude, huh? I know what's going on inside your sick head. You're taking advantage of Jumin's hatred towards women for your own pleasure. Then what? After you've gained all of that, you're gonna suck more dicks, am I right?" He was getting unstable. "I know you disgusting homosexuals are fucking sick!"

"Why are you dragging Jumin Han into this conversation? You have problems with him, don't you?"

"Bingo!" Elvis impersonation snapped his fingers. "This guy used to work in C&R company before Mr. Chairman retired. He was one of Jumin Han's subordinates."

Gender-bent Ariel nodded. "Us employees were divided into several divisions and I got to work under Jumin." His eyes were fiery. "I thought I was lucky to work under Mr. Chairman's son, especially knowing that I was the youngest employee that time. Despite I've been working my ass off while still also struggling with college assignments, Jumin was never satisfied with my reports."

"Well isn't it normal? Every employees have had their work rejected at least once in a lifetime."

Oh wow, he almost forgot that he was having a conversation with stronger looking strangers. Better not let his guards down.

"Yes, I thought so too. But then, I saw a tall looking guy with mint hair walking inside the office, approaching Jumin. I assumed him to be a guess or another client, yet he only gave him documents, praised him as a good cat owner he is, then left. I was weirded out, mostly because the documents were not arranged based on alphabetical order."

Elvis impersonation helped him finish the story. "Jumin Han is crazy when it comes to details. He wouldn't allow anyone to submit anything when it's not right in his eyes. And this mint haired guy somehow manage to do the most dangerous thing without being killed on his way out."

Minho tried to lighten their mood. "Maybe he's very dependable."

"No. I heard they were past lovers. That mint haired guy was no longer dating Jumin. In fact, he got himself a girlfriend." He felt his blood boil. "I bet he was still chasing that guy and caused more scandal. True, there were scandals. Those scandals caused me to lose my one and only job. He fired me without specific reason. He..." He hadn't even finish his explanation and the next thing Minho received was not an explanation, it was a punch on the face; a hard, sharp punch to his cheekbones.

They're absolutely drunk.

"Fucking gays! You guys are sick, SICK!" He landed another punch. This time's harder, slower, and more painful.

Minho would like to put up a fight, that's until the other guy kicked him to the ground. His body wat slammed once again to the rough concrete. Blood sputtering everywhere from his body. With Minho lying on the ground, they took this opportunity to release all their life burdens to Minho's helpless body. It's two versus one: a losing battle to Minho from the start. Not to mention they're freaking huge.

The two drunk men played pretense artists; roughly painting Minho's body with his own blood, giving him distasteful looks, and such. Basically treating him like a failed artwork.

The fight didn't last long. The moment they realized what kind of trouble they've caused, they ran away.

┉┉

"Come h-here... alone!" Then the voice disappeared.

"Minho, what happened?" Chunhua didn't waste anymore time. He told his his boyfriend: Jiwoo to give her a ride to Minho's location. Apparently Minho turned on his location for them to track.

Everyone in the house were fast asleep. She didn't dare to wake them up, not until it's been settled. It's been two months since she's officially became Hyunjin's sister, and the last thing she wanted was to worry his brother. (ik y'all probably forgot about this)

Chunhua and Jiwoo took a shortcut and arrived on time. The moment they found Minho, he was in a verge of entering his unconscious state.

"Oh my..." Chunhua took off his scarf and put it around Minho's legs. "Who would do this to you? Why didn't you call 911? Why me?" Chunhua's head was bundled with unanswered questions.

Jiwoo dialed the ambulance and the police. He then helped Chunhua treating Minho's wounds with whatever first aid treatment they could have done.

The ambulance arrived faster than expected. Though Minho began to lose consciousness, she could catch what his lips were trying to say. He breathed out Jisung's name before he finally lost consciousness. Then he was taken to the hospital.

Jiwoo was busy dealing with the police as they parted ways. Jiwoo went with his car to the police department, while Chunhua was heading to the hospital using the ambulance. She was puzzled.

It's been a while since Chunhua was able to decipher one of Minho's recapitulative statements. She knew Minho was bad stating what his heart says to him as much as figuring people's feelings.

Or perhaps it's just another Minho things? Even Minho knew about his two obvious weaknesses. Maybe Jisung was the only one to answer him. Not maybe-she's certain about this. He must be the answer.

Eventually she called Jisung. Deep down, she knew that it's time for Minho to fully embrace the true meaning of love that she wasn't able to give him during their time together. Minho taught her about love, but never received one. The word love was dead in Minho's dictionary, just like his parents. Minho deserved love, he deserved it so much.

And she's completely right, because as soon as Jisung's hand met Minho's, he said the word "I love you" without hesitancy. Not more, not less, just perfectly worded.

┉┉

Thank you for 35K reads!!