Nearly three months after his flight from Seoul, Jonghyun still found that Minwoo was on his mind a lot. Not that it was surprising, Minwoo was his best friend, had stuck by him the longest. Even in the hospital after the accident, when they’d both been comatose, their beds had been placed next to each other at both of their mothers’ insistence. To say Jonghyun missed him was an understatement. It hurt not being able to talk to him every day like they’d had before, but it was a small price to pay to keep Minwoo safe.
Skulking around the convenience store nearest to his apartment, Jonghyun couldn’t help but laugh to himself at the stand of new instant ramyeon, wondering if his friend had tried this particular brand.
Then he felt the object dig into his back and his heart stopped for a second. Shit, who had he managed to piss off in order to be targeted like this? He’d only been here for three months! Sure he’d helped out on some hits, but… There was no time to wrack his brains however, too stunned to recognize the voice that ‘threatened’ him.
Automatically his hand went to the knife he kept covered on his belt, silently praying that the clerk was still too invested in dealing with a little old lady’s purchases to notice them and grateful he’d kept his mask on. With a snarl, Jonghyun spun around, knife angled upwards, about to thrust forward.
“Who the fuck do you think–?! ……Mi….Minwoo-yah?”
The blood drained from his face so quickly that Jonghyun almost felt light-headed. Taking one shaky step backwards, then another, he stared at the younger boy, his unconcealed eyes showing horror and shock. Then despair. What was Minwoo doing here?! How had the younger boy found him?!
Without another word, Jonghyun quickly resheathed his knife and turned his back on his friend before briskly making his way to the door of the store, heart hammering in terror. Minwoo couldn’t learn the truth about him. He just couldn’t.
Not for a second had he expected the other to react in such a way. Maybe he was half anticipating to have his arm twisted to his back in overconfidence before Jonghyun realised it was him, but seeing the figure visibly jolt in surprise and become wary was entirely unexpected and -- wait, was that a knife?! The metal colour was only visible for a small moment before it was hurriedly retracted, so Minwoo wasn’t entirely sure what he had seen: surely his mind was playing tricks on him?
Although deciding to shrug it off, the pianist still couldn’t help but let his goofy smile be tainted with a bit of worry and wonder at the amount of shock -- not surprise -- present in Jonghyun’s voice and expression. “Surprise!” he beamed although not as happily as he would have liked to. Then came a lecture complete with a lifted index finger “You disappear for months and the first thing you do after I find you is swear at me? That’s so rude!” Sticking his hands to his sides and letting out an exaggerated sigh, Minwoo looked up again only to see that his friend was not at all listening to him and was, in fact, retreating.
Suspicious. Jonghyun would never avoid talking to him unless he felt guilty about something because they both knew that they sucked at lying to each other. In fact Minwoo was incredibly surprised that he had managed to keep his marital status hidden even to this date -- maybe simply because women was never really the topic of their conversation for many minutes at a time.
Of course he was not going to let the guy go so easily. Jonghyun was an idiot, he thought to himself, for had he been just a bit smarter in wanting to hide whatever he wanted to hide, he wouldn’t have run away like this. The guy was short, but never ceased to impress Minwoo with how fast he walked -- in fact the pianist had to enter a small sprint to catch up all the while calling out his name. “Jonghyun ah! Jonghyun ah, wait! Moon Jonghyun!”
Finally he caught up and let his hand run up to grab hold of the other’s shoulder; in the process his sleeve slid up, revealing the scarred skin that Minwoo hated to look at, and with a frown he pulled the cloth back down again as much as possible. This time what met the other wasn’t a goofy smile, but instead a pout and the best attempt at a puppy face he could possibly muster. “I came all this way to see you, don’t just walk away from me you meanie...”