Chapter Text
“Thomas… He’s dead.”
Minho’s voice was hollow, completely devoid of emotion. The phone crackled, and a beat of silence passed as Newt’s brain caught up with his ears.
“What? Minho, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s just… dead. I don’t– I don’t know… We were just… laughing.” His voice was quick and panicked and frantic. How could he have let this happen? They were just going on a walk in the city. What… How could he have let this happen?
“Minho, I swear to God, if this is some stupid fucking prank–,” Newt’s voice cut off, emotion clogging up his throat. Minho wouldn’t joke about this. “You can’t–, you just can’t! You can’t be fucking serious! You can’t be serious…”
“Thomas…” Minho was crying, Newt could hear it over the phone. Big, ugly tears, and probably a snot filled nose. He could hear the phone being shook, and the heaving breaths as Minho tried desperately to just tell Newt but Thomas was there, he was right in front of him, he was just on the road and he was dead. And he was still smiling. Why was he still smiling? Dead people don’t smile. He was dead. Thomas was dead and he wasn’t alive. “Thomas…”
“No, no, Minho please,” Newt breathed out, tears welling in eyes. He could hear the jagged lungfuls in between sobs on the other line. He had to distract Minho, he had to get to him, he wanted to be with him. “No, you have to tell me where you are. Where are you, Min?” He asked softly, not wanting to overwhelm him.
“I don’t know Newt,” Minho sobbed, “He’s just on the road… I can’t look away, Newt. What do I do? Oh my God, what the fuck do I do?”
“Is there anyone around you?” Newt gently questioned, still holding back his own tears. For Minho. For Thomas.
“There’s a crowd around me,” Minho whispered over the call, “Somebody is calling the police. We were… we were just about to cross the street. We were gonna get pizza…” his voice cracked, “Somebody… somebody pushed him into the road, Newt. I wouldn’t– It wasn’t my– I swear it wasn’t– Newt he’s dead. Newt he’s fucking dead.”
“Minho, please, just breathe,” Newt was crying too now, his voice trembling as he leaned against the bed frame. The bed frame in their dorm. That they shared with Thomas. That Thomas would… never come back to? That just didn’t sound right. It wasn’t… right. Sirens. There were sirens. “Minho? Is that the police?”
“Newt, they’re saying I have to go,” his voice was clear now, but it felt like it was a thousand miles away. “I have to. The police. Are here. Thomas.” The phone wasn’t cutting out, but his sentences were all over the place. Like his mouth and his head disconnected somewhere along the way.
The call ended, and Newt slumped onto the bed, tears streaming down his face as it hit him like a truck. Thomas was dead.
– – – –
Minho was finally back at the dorms. Standing in front of their door. Not crying. Not looking around. Not moving. Just standing. It was all a blur to him, their walk, their jokes, the truck, Thomas. He could… vaguely remember telling the police what happened, how somebody just pushed Thomas into the traffic. How he just… lay there. On the floor. Eyes glassy, blood and guts and organs and–
They just wanted pizza. Well, Minho did. Thomas wanted to go to the comic book store. What if I had just said yes? What if I had just gone with him, instead of dragging him to get fucking pizza. Pizza. He doesn’t even like pizza that much. Not as much as Thai food. Or pasta. Or Fry’s cooking. What if I just took him home? Would he be alive? His thoughts were beyond control, going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. What if took over his mind, silently torturing him as he just stood there. Just standing. What about Newt? What did he look like when I told him?
Newt opened the door, eyes bloodshot and tear tracks lining his cheeks. “Oh Minho,” he sighed, spreading arms. His friend, his best friend, slumped forward and buried himself into Newt’s arms, clutching his arms as he sobbed, his cries muffled in Newt’s shirt. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Minho looked up, and the two were sitting cross-legged in Thomas’s bunk, his cheap bedside lamp illuminating the room in a warm yellow glow. The blinds were half-opened, and the moonlight filtered through and lit up Newt and Chuck’s side of the room, as if the colors couldn’t decide between blue or orange. Or maybe it was just Minho? Maybe it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
“It’s too pretty,” Minho whispered, his voice sounding distant to his own ears too. “Thomas is gone, forever, and it’s pretty. It’s so pretty it’s ugly. Like it– it’s unnatural for it to be pretty without him around.”
Newt looked at him, his brown eyes deep and sorrowful. “I’ve told Chuck and Teresa,” he whispered, leaning against the wall. “Chuck’s just trying to be helpful, so he might come around with some food soon. I don’t think he quite understands what’s going on, not until he actually sees Thomas at the very least. Teresa told his family, and she said she wants to handle the funeral stuff.”
“Okay,” he murmured, staring holes into Thomas’s pillow as he squeezed it. In the back of his head he could just see him, still on that same road, the sirens painting him in red and blue with each second. Why did it have to be him?
“I know how close you two were, Minho.” Newt reached for his hand, looking into his eyes with a hard look. “I know what you might be… thinking of doing. Please. I’ve been there. Just… Please don’t do it man. I can’t lose you too.”
That was it. Minho finally looked up, face perfectly blank. He nodded slowly, “Okay.”
Newt didn’t believe him. Not one bit. But for his own sanity, he tried to.
– – – –
Word spread quickly through the campus, and in the following days those close to Thomas were given the option of time off school as a courtesy for their loss. Teresa threw herself into work, any time she wasn’t studying, you could find her preparing for the funeral and taking care of Chuck and Thomas’s parents.
Chuck just… floated around aimlessly, going in and out of classrooms, not really paying attention to anything. He knew what happened, he had seen the photos of Thomas’s… body. But it didn’t feel like he was gone. It just felt quiet. Too quiet. Quiet because no one sat with him while he carved anymore. Quiet because nobody watched shitty movies with him before bed anymore. It was just… quiet.
Newt was the same as Teresa, throwing himself into work and trying to help out everywhere, practically wearing himself thin as a wire. If he wasn’t working, he was chatting with Minho, or at least trying to. Nobody really saw or talked to Minho anymore.
The school itself had a melancholy atmosphere, and the boy’s dorms were much more… somber. No more flying toilet paper. No more rowdy Friday dinners. Not for a fair bit of time at the very least. Boys left flowers outside Thomas’s dorm room instead, and girls left candles. Everybody felt horrible, even those who didn’t know him well. Gally put up a picture in respect, overtaken with guilt over the boy he fought with so much. What the hell was wrong with him? Thomas was just slightly annoying, but now he wasn’t even that. He was just gone.
And Minho… Minho spent his days in Thomas’s bed. Breathing him in until the scent of him was replaced by his own. Remembering. They had always been together. Thomas and Minho. Minho and Thomas. And Minho… Minho loved him. He was going to ask him. He was going to tell him. But he can’t. Because Thomas is dead. Beautiful, smart Thomas. Gone. Dead. What was he even supposed to do now? Without him? They were going to graduate together. They were going to… go to college together, find an apartment together, get jobs at the same time. What the fuck were they supposed to do now?! How were they supposed to do anything together if one of them was in the ground, and the other was brain-dead in bed. I’m not built to live… without Thomas. The thought echoed through his head, no matter the hour, the day, the month. How long had it even been?
– – – –
“Minho,” Newt’s voice trembled with desperation. “Please, get out of bed. Please, I’m fucking begging you. Thomas… Thomas wouldn’t want this shit.” He was sobbing, clutching onto Minho’s shirt like a lifeline. “Please, get up, take a shower, eat, smoke a cigarette, do drugs, beat someone up, do the worst, I don’t care, just get up! Please, Minho, get up,” he practically wailed, shaking Minho like a ragdoll.
Nothing he had tried these past few weeks had worked. Minho would barely eat, he’d get up to go to the bathroom at a maximum. The only time you could find Minho out of Thomas’s bed was if he was going through Thomas’s wardrobe for another shirt that smelled like him, and even that took a few seconds. It was getting out of hand, and Newt was being driven up the wall seeing his best friend reduced to such a… shell of himself. No matter what he tried to do, Minho would just stare at the wall, eyes empty. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t laugh.
“Minho,” Newt heaved. “Thomas– Thomas wouldn’t be able to stand you like this. Please, Minho. It’s been fucking weeks. Please.”
Nothing. Not a single response. Not even a blink.
– – – –
“He’s up! Minho’s up!” Frypan jogged up the stairs to Newt. “He’s in the cafeteria for dinner!”
No fucking way. "What?" And he was, albeit quietly and completely without his old personality, just sitting in the cafeteria. Slowly chewing his sandwich. Sandwich for dinner. I haven’t seen him do that in a while, Newt thought, bemused and slightly giddy over it.
It wasn’t that he had magically gotten over Thomas’s death. He still had nightmares about the call, and didn't go a day without crying, let alone thinking of him. But he, and most others, were finally accepting the situation. Slowly. Not moving on, not at all, but accepting that he was just… dead.
Minho was still stuck though. Every night, there was a nightmare. Everyday, all anyone would see was a blank stare. But he was right there. Sitting. And it was such a relief to see that Minho might be starting to accept it too.