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He woke up in a large grassy field surrounded on all sides by giant stone walls with about 10 other boys. After an initial burst of confusion, panic set in. It seized his heart first, making it skip a few beats, then it traveled up his throat and made it hard to breathe. His first coherent thought was that he couldn’t even remember his own name. He had no idea who he was in any aspect, and he certainly didn’t know any of these other strange boys. They were all sat, spread out in the grass around a hole in the ground that he would later know as the box.
Only thoughts of fear and panic were taking hold in Minho’s head, swirling around like they were trying to get out, and he wanted nothing more than to let them. It wasn’t until about an hour after he regained consciousness that someone spoke. It was a tall, muscled guy with dark skin and a serious face. His voice was low and had an aura of command to it, and Minho felt himself listening.
Several months had passed, each sending up a new greenie to the Glade. They had established a kind of order, they had jobs and a functioning court like system, they were mostly stable. Even though Minho felt somewhat at home in the glade and even eventually the maze itself, he never truly know what home felt like. Until, that is, a greenie with short cropped brown hair and hazel eyes made his way up from the box. Minho locked eyes with him, and he felt the air leave his body on no accord of his own. When Minho helped the greenie from the box, grabbing his arms to haul him out, they felt familiar beneath calloused hands and for the first time Minho got a taste of what the word home really meant.
It had been a year since Minho had woken up in the Glade, disoriented and panicking. It had been 6 months since Gally woke up in the box, probably scared out of his mind with no idea what was going on. It had been 3 months since Minho noticed the way Gally looked at him when he thought he was unseen, glances lasting much too long for just a sweeping look, 3 months since he noticed the way they both lingered during touches, the way the both walked so close together their shoulders brushed.
It had been 2 years since Minho arrived in the Maze. 2 whole years and he still hadn’t stopped running, still hadn’t lost his hope, his fire. It had been almost 2 years since Minho got his first taste of home, and he had spent every chance to feel it again, to understand. Late nights staying up with Gally talking and talking and laughing until someone eventually told them to shove it. It had been almost 2 years and Minho was so desperate to feel at home but so afraid of ruining the glimpses he got, instead resigning himself to the fleeting moments of too long held stares and too long lingering touches, letting the words sit unspoken between them.
3 years. Minho was still running, still searching for a way out, for a home. Still stealing glances and touches and soft words whispered under the protection of the moon, a soft and much too short kiss shared under the trees and the stars, hands immediately finding their places like they had known where they had always belonged and Minho knew that even if they never made it out, he didn’t need to find home because he had it, had had it all along in the glances and the smiles and the touches.
There had been no time for any stolen moments, chaste kisses and tender touches. So much was happening and there was so much to do after everything started changing. Minho still ran, on and on and on to find a way out, to safety. He had forgotten that he ever thought his home existed someplace far away from him instead of in a boy who had given him true hope.
Minho was running, running to the Cliff, shouting a battle cry at the top of his lungs, his wickedly sharp knife raised above his head, glinting and pointed at the Grievers. Then he was fighting. Fighting for freedom, fighting for his friends, fighting for his home. Then they were in a laboratory, and Minho was holding his breath.
All he could think was how he hadn’t noticed when it happened. How he hadn’t seen the way his eyes changed, the way his skin paled and his veins came closer to the surface, how quiet he had been. How the knife had been clutched by a white knuckled hand. Minho’s hand gripped the shaft of a spear and all he could do was pray and hope that he wouldn’t have to use it. All he could do was scream, a sound of such raw despair and sadness ripping through his throat. All he could do was watch as the knife left the white knuckled, thick veined hand and found a home, sinking into the flesh. Could only watch as the spear left his own hand, finding its own home in what had been his.
Minho was running again, acrossed a scarred, cracked earth, his friends around him, lightening around them. The ground shook with every flash that blinded them. The heat from the bolts was increasing, becoming unbearable the closer to him they struck, until all he could feel was heat on his side, all he could hear was a sharp ringing and all he could see was a figure, reaching down to him and telling him to come home.
Minho can’t breathe. His legs are shaking and his heart is pounding and he can’t breathe. His name was on the note. His name, Gally. On the way to the address, Minho kept telling himself it was a coincidence, not giving himself hope. But he was in the front when the door opened, was in the front when he saw him, his hair longer and shaggier, his face scarred, but it was still him and Minho clung to him like he was the only thing keeping him alive and he felt so much like home that Minho laughed and cried and didn’t let go of him because home was never a place for him.