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Minho finds him in the Map Room.
It’s past dark and most of the Gladers are already asleep leaving only the oldest boys to meander around Frypan’s fire for a few more hours, sharing a few last laughs before they have to go face their night-time fears alone.
It’s neither hot nor cold in the room, as the weather always seemed to be in the Glade, the temperature so regular it causes a slight discomfort over Minho’s skin, as if he should feel something, but doesn’t.
He rubs his bared arms, eyes adjusting to the sudden increased lighting after having wandered around the darkened Glade for several long minutes looking for Newt.
If Minho had stopped to think, he would have known that there was only one place Newt ever visited anymore.
It’s quiet when Minho sees him, the single bare light bulb casting a glow on one side of his figure so only half of him looks solid. The other half is lost to the fuzzy darkness that coats a quarter of the room in black.
For a moment, he doesn’t say a word. They are both aware of the other’s presence but for just a short moment, they pretend that they don’t and Minho gets to see Newt take a step, one hand braced against the back of a chair and the other clenched in pain.
A second later, he’s gritting his teeth and collapsing onto the ground and Minho is already running over to catch him before he can fully fall.
“You shuckface,” Minho snaps without much bite. “What stupid thing are you trying to do now?”
“Walking,” Newt snaps back and he does mean it. They’re both sitting on the ground, awkwardly, and Newt holds his injured leg up to keep the pressure off his ankle. Minho grabs it, pulls it down to rest on his lap and earns himself a scowl for it. “I was trying to bloody walk.”
“You mean you were trying to break your leg again?” Minho shoots him an uncertain look because it feels very much as if Alby should be here instead of Minho. Alby should be the one to say these things to Newt like how Minho wanted to say them, and Alby should be the one to touch his leg like Minho is touching his leg right now.
Suddenly, Minho feels a strong urge to run, far away and into the Maze. Guiltily, he thinks that he’d rather face down a Griever than face Newt right now, like this, with his hands moving over Newt’s bandaged leg, smoothing down the irate gauze gone brown from the dust kicked up around the Glade or just a lack of attention, Minho isn’t sure.
He has a feeling that Newt just doesn’t care.
“I’m fine,” Newt glares at him but it’s weak. In the dark, his eyes look like drawn ink that has been continuously rubbed at by a spit-slicked thumb, two smudged smears of watery black that makes him look so much younger than however old he actually is. “I’m buggin’ fine, alright? So you can go—running or whatever.”
“Slim it,” Minho doesn’t hesitate to reach over to punch the other boy’s arm. It’s a good punch, not hard but enough to bruise. Newt swings back and then suddenly, Minho doesn’t want to be anywhere else but here and feels surprisingly glad that Alby’s too busy playing big brother to the rest of the Gladers to follow Newt around this time of the night and too busy to see the way Minho takes as many chances to look at Newt as possible.
He likes to think that he can feel the inky black bruise spread over his bicep when Newt catches him with his own fist, staining and marking his skin.
In a blink, he finds himself remembering when he and Newt would stay behind in the Map Room, after all the other Runners had left and Alby had to run off to take care of yet another order of business, and it was just him and Newt and the smell of maps and sweat, left to collect dust if they wished.
They never did, of course. Rather, they sat like they did now and spoke of things neither would ever speak of beyond the single bare light bulb hanging above them.
“As if I’d go running without you, shuckface,” Minho retorts.
As soon as he says it, he wants to grab it back, mid-air. He didn’t mean to say it. He doesn’t mean a lot of the things he says but this time he does, just that he didn’t mean for Newt to hear him say it.
Newt looks up at him from behind his fringe of hair, the long ends brushing the tip of his nose and Minho feels a strong urge to move it away for him. He waits too long though, and Newt is already tucking it behind his ear, still staring at Minho with an intensity that Minho recognizes from when he talks about the rules of the Glade, back when he still believed in them.
“That’s a klunk joke,” he finally scoffs and drops his head and Minho doesn’t correct him, just watches Newt pick at his nails.
For a while, neither of them say anything and they both pretend that they’re aware of each other’s existence even though each of them have already withdrawn into their own circle of light.
Minho never knew he could feel so alone sitting next to Newt, the boy he’s been running with since they arrived here at the Glade together, a little more than a year ago and he thinks this must be what the cold feels like.
He looks down at the bandaged ankle in his lap, barely healed, and he looks at the bared feet, Newt’s ratty old running shoes tangled and abandoned beneath the map table.
Minho wonders if Newt resents him, just a little.
But when Newt leans over, hesitantly and smelling of salt, Minho immediately closes his arms around his shoulders and he thinks that this must be what a hot summer day feels like, that feeling spreading inside his chest when Newt finally exhales against the side of his neck in a dry, shuddering sob.
Or maybe, maybe that’s just what the love he has for Newt feels like.