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Minho will admit that he has been avoiding Gally for a few days now, but things just don't feel right. Gally's eyes linger, as does his touch. It sets off alarms blaring in Minho's head, sirens that scream leave now.
Unfortunately, Gally is persistent. Minho rubs his hands over his face, muffling a small groan as Gally's shadow descends upon him, "Go away."
Water curls around the rocks down the end of the beach, small cities inside of rock pools never ceasing to create and restore life. The sea turns to foam as each wave rolls over the stones, blue blending into white drying out into grey. Minho is sat on a boulder, one dragged up from the shoreline by Vince to be broken into a thousand small pieces by next week.
At this time of day, the beach looks dim. The golden coat of light that bathes the sands during the daytime has slipped away, replaced by a murky grey colour that night will soon erase to be replaced by moonlight-stricken blues. The tide is creeping closer with each lap of the salty water against the ground, and soon enough, Minho's boots will be submerged.
"What did I do?" Gally blurts out, not going away like Minho would've preferred.
"Nothing. Now, go."
"I don't want to."
"I'm telling you to go. Go."
The waves crash against the shore all down the beach, a never ending cycle that goes on and on. Gally's voice drops, threaded with guilt, "..Well… I'm sorry, for whatever I did."
A gull cries in the air above, soaring over their heads in the last few streaks of generous sunlight. Minho can't help but feel irritation flare up within him, "You didn't do anything. I already said that."
"Then what's the problem?" Gally's voice becomes chipped, bottled up confusion pretending to appear like distaste. What Gally has asked is a fair question, but Minho balls his fists.
"I want to be alone right now. Am I not allowed that?"
"No, it's just—"
"Go away!" Minho yells this time, patience gone, "Why won't you go away?"
"I…"
Rising to his feet, Minho swivels to face Gally, finger jabbing in front of his nose, "You what? You what—"
"I love you, Min. Isn't it obvious?"
There is no harmonic moment of realisation, nor is there a cacophony of sound and colour. "It is!" Fingers rigid, Minho grabs at his head with a shout, eyes squeezing shut, "Which is why I'm trying to—"
"Run away?"
Gally's tone is accusatory, as if prompting an argument to explode from the tense atmosphere Yet, it also leaves no room for excuse. Afterall, Gally is correct. Eyes opening in shock, Minho's body remains tense. He stares at Gally's face, trying to decipher his expression. Is it anger? Disappointment? Resentment? Hope? It makes Minho feel sick to his stomach.
"Because that's all you ever do, isn't it." Words flat and eerily calm for a man so passionate only a minute ago, Gally breathes in and out. In and out. Through a chest that biologically shouldn't be moving, but is. If Minho didn't know any better, he would argue that Gally sounds almost broken. Then again, he barely knows Gally anymore. "It's what you're best at." Gally scoffs.
Forcing himself to relax, Minho lowers his hands, letting them loosely drop to his sides. "So what?"
Eyes deep, Gally's brow furrows in complete desperation, unable to grasp meaning from Minho's words, "Then I'll wait for you."
"Can't you understand? I don't want you to! This isn't the Glade anymore, Gally. I'm not coming back from the Maze, and you're not stood watching the doors like an idiot. This is real life now." Minho's voice breaks, and Gally barely hears his echoed whisper of, "Real.."
"Real life? Are you saying what we had was never real?"
"What did we have? Care to enlighten me? What did we have?"
Gally's mouth opens, then closes again. Minho grabs at the glimmer of triumph, exhaling out of his nose as he watches Gally struggle to answer him. "All the nights we…" Gally's voice drifts off, "they meant nothing to you?"
The air of the Glade against their skin. Two jars of moonshine no one was going to miss. Minho's back against the cool grass in the dead of night, with only Gally's hands to warm him. They would hide with the shadows, alone, sharing a breath and a moment.
It was a way to keep busy. It was a way to calm down. Once upon a time, maybe Minho would've wanted it to mean more than it did, but those years are long behind them now. The Gally that Minho grew up with is buried beneath rubble in an eroding monument of Wicked-made concrete, and the man who haunts his days is a replacement Minho will never quite figure out.
Nostrils flaring, Minho shrugs, "Yeah."
"Okay, fine." Gally swallows, eyes misty, "Why don't we go back to that?"
"Gally." Minho warns, stepping back.
"Well, I'd prefer some of you over this wall you're building." Gally follows. He steps forwards, looking down at Minho with a keen focus.
Clenching his jaw, Minho doesn't break eye contact, huffing out a heavy breath. The sea continues churning to the side of them, blue water always in motion, always rising and falling and hugging the warm sand and soil of the earth.
"Please?" With a tender hand, Gally reaches out, palm hovering beside Minho's cheek. Gently, he cups Minho's face, eyes glistening with relief. Minho can't take it.
Ducking away from Gally's hand, Minho looks toward the sea, avoiding Gally with his eyes again, "You don't know what happened to me, so I want— I need you to listen when I say this; I'm sorry. No"
Gally nods, as if he had been expecting that answer, and his hand slowly drops from the space it had been cradling Minho's face in, "Go on then. Tell me."
"Huh?" Eyes dropping to his boots, Minho stuffs his hands into his pockets.
"Tell me what happened." Gally watches Minho, his expression betraying how he probably has a good enough idea already.
Just short of a laugh, Minho kicks a pebble on the ground, pulse beating in his ears whilst the stone sprays sand as it travels, "I'm not telling you shit."
"You say his name in your sleep." Gally murmurs, "Janson."
"You won't understand."
Putting a hand on his face, Gally wipes at his eye in part disbelief, "Try me!"
Minho wants Gally gone. If he could find the strength inside of him, he would whip around right now and punch him as hard as possible and not stop until Gally's illusionary heartbeat stopped short. And yet he folds beneath the memories, "Having no control.. no say…" Minho shivers, "it's that what drives you mad. Wicked knew it."
Blue flashes before Minho's eyes. The walls, the serum, the lighting and the floors. He sees Teresa watching him with a gaze so bright he thought he was the one, and that the Flare was cured. In his mind, her irises melt into Gally's. Blue. Circling him. Sticking to his body and drowning him beneath waves of topaz and saphire.
Another gull bellows up above, yanking Minho from his trance. He stands, feeling bare, the world around him returning. Other colours settle. Yellows, greens. Nothing as dangerous as blue. Minho looks up at Gally's face, head buzzing. Those memories of Wicked never left him, they just laid dormant until now, resting safely where he could ignore them. Now, Gally has the nerve to throw them right back at him. Oh, Minho could smash his brains out—
"Rough hands." Gally offers.
A bell tolls far off in the Haven, signalling how the dinner rush has begun. Minho doesn't hear it. All he is capable of is staring at Gally, bewildered.
"Hot breath. Touch you can't fucking wash off. The pain, and the humiliation that cuts even deeper."
"How.." Minho winces, heart frantic within his ribcage. The way Gally talks about it like a nightmare having plagued him too... Minho doesn't know if he wants to ask. However, Gally gives him an answer nonetheless.
"Both sides of the wall are the same."
In an ideal world, Minho would let himself process those words, but his soul rejects them, ears trying to pretend Gally never opened his mouth at all. But he did. And Minho feels a rage like nothing else until it is smoothed over by worry. "Then… then why aren't you with me here. Tying to avoid the friction and that world of misery on a bed of discomfort." Minho's frown deepens, "Don't tell me you miss it."
"No, never. I just.. I guess I want.." A pause, Gally's eyes losing their light, "I don't know what I want."
"You don't want me. You want to feel needed." Minho states this simply, as if it's something he has always known, "I only know what I don't want."
A whisper on his lips, Gally chokes out, "I'm sorry."
"And quit waiting around." Voice venomous, Minho cannot afford to shove his pity Gally's way. Pity always leads to pain. Gally understands him. Bowing his head, he thinks for a moment, tracing Minho's figure with a stern gaze — that chills Minho to the bone — like he is trying to memorise it, then he is off. Minho tracks him with his eyes until Gally has vanished into the bustle of the Haven, each movement noted and stored somewhere in his mind for another time.
Listening to the roar of the sea, suddenly so loud without a voice in his ear, Minho sinks back down onto the boulder.
He remains unmoved until morning.