Round 25: Nothing Worse Than Too Late
Title: Nothing Worse Than Too Late
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: R
Fandom: BTOB
Pairing: Hyunsik/Ilhoon
Summary: "I traded with Peniel," Ilhoon says as he tosses his suitcase onto one of the beds. "He'd rather room with Sungjae anyway." Turning back, a catty grin spreads over Ilhoon's face. "It's better this way, isn't it?"
Hyunsik doesn't say what he's thinking, which is no, not at all.
Author's Note: WARNINGS: mental instability, emotional manipulation, dubcon, implications of suicide. This is not very happy. (Also, Team Cry, you are the bizzomb and ilu)
Prompt Used: Spica- Russian Roulette
Honestly, when it starts, it's so completely normal.
Hyunsik doesn't really know what wakes him up. It's early, way too early if he's judging by how dark the room is, how loud the snores and snuffles around him are. By all means he should be knocked out; he’s just as exhausted from the adrenaline ride of their bungee jumping experience as everyone else. He has half a mind to roll right back over and lose himself to sleep again, but his dry tongue and parched throat are a little too annoying to ignore.
Months and months of shuffling around their tiny bedroom is the only thing that keeps Hyunsik from tripping over Eunkwang's bed on his way to the door. Hyunsik almost heads straight for the kitchen when something catches in the corner of his eye, at the far end of the living room, slumped in front of a window.
He doesn’t even need the sparse moonlight filtering into the room; Hyunsik recognizes that hunched frame in an instant.
Ilhoon's gaze shifts over to Hyunsik approaching, and there's something in his eyes. Hyunsik doesn't know what to call it, but it's clashing and crashing and quaking, it's almost alive, and Hyunsik realizes he's seen Ilhoon with this look before. Not like quite like this, though. Not this violent, not with that downturned mouth, not with that expression, slack and flat and wrong.
"What are you doing up?" Hyunsik's voice is husky with recent sleep, and he keeps it at a murmur, though he doubts they're in any danger of waking the others up.
"What are you doing up?" Ilhoon retorts, his tone low, but without the care Hyunsik is taking to keep so quiet. Ilhoon's eyes are locked on Hyunsik as he crouches down to the floor, and Hyunsik doesn't know why he expected a straight answer.
"I was getting some water." Hyunsik pulls one leg up to wrap his arm around and peers out the window, up at the stretches of moon visible between the roof of their apartment building and the gap of the next roof. He moves his eyes back to Ilhoon, whose own gaze is hovering on something out the window.
"Why are you awake? Are you okay?" Hyunsik has a hunch that Ilhoon's reason isn't innocuous like his, isn't as simple as I was thirsty or I had to pee.
Ilhoon's gaze flickers to Hyunsik for the barest of seconds before it's back out the window, eyes glinting with the moonlight spilling in. "I don't want to bug you with my stupid problems," he mutters after a moment, his arms drawing up, pulling his knees even tighter against his chest.
Sympathy twinges in Hyunsik's chest; his eyes wander over Ilhoon's fingers, clenched in the fabric of his pajama pants. "You won't bug me, I promise. What's on your mind?"
Ilhoon chuckles at this, quiet and with an unsteady edge, but sincere. And it strikes Hyunsik as strange, off, because that's not a sound that comes from Ilhoon. Ilhoon is bursting peals of high-pitched laughter and sarcastic guffaws and lukewarm almost-grins that look more like he's trying not to roll his eyes at what everyone else is dying over.
"What's on my mind? Way too much shit that you don't want to know, trust me." Ilhoon is staring at his knees now, sounding just casual enough to be joking, but his palms are curled so tightly his knuckles are straining. Hyunsik tries again.
"Why don't you just tell me one of those things, then? That's not so bad, right?"
Ilhoon raises his eyes out the window again and says nothing. The silence stretches between them for an impossibly long time, punctured with faint snores from the bedroom, the hum of delivery trucks and late-night taxis out in the street, and Hyunsik thinks that maybe he pushed when he shouldn't have; he wonders if it's too late to apologize, opens his mouth to do so, but Ilhoon beats him to it.
"It's just-- why am I here?"
Ilhoon's voice is softer than it's been this whole time, and it's still not with any care to actually keep quiet. "I don't deserve to be here, hyung." He pulls into himself even more, small, hunched, and Hyunsik is jarred with the reminder of how young Ilhoon is. It's easy for them to forget that Ilhoon is barely six months older than Sungjae, and Hyunsik knows why.
Sungjae is still toeing the line of childhood; still immature enough to be a little annoying at times, still ridiculous enough to smash his forehead into a watermelon just to see if his skull is really thick enough to crack it, still innocent enough to turn red when one of them shares a dirty picture.
Ilhoon has crossed that line. Hyunsik isn't sure how to explain it, but there's a sharpness to his tongue, a quick, dangerous edge to his wit; there's something inside him that's hard and indefinable and it shows through his eyes sometimes, looks more world weary than all of the rest of them put together. And now, Hyunsik is reminded that there's also something small and unsure and vulnerable in there, too, hidden so well that he barely believes it exists.
He leans over and knocks his shoulder into Ilhoon's. "You deserve to be here just as much as any of us, okay?" Hyunsik half-turns, staring at the profile of Ilhoon's moon washed face until Ilhoon gives in and looks over.
"You're just as talented, and you work just as hard. You're just as much a part of this group. If you don't deserve to be here, then none of us do. And that's the truth."
Ilhoon breaks their gaze to stare at his hands, and the corners of his mouth quirk up, just a tiny bit. It's not a smile, but Hyunsik will take what he can get. Ilhoon peers up again after a long moment, and this time Hyunsik notices the difference; the rocking, crashing waves in his eyes have lulled, and suddenly Hyunsik finds it a little easier to breath.
"Thanks, hyung," Ilhoon murmurs, slouching forward just a bit, his grip loosening to smooth his fingers over the fabric of his pants, and Hyunsik can't help bumping shoulders with him again. "Whenever you feel like this, you can come find me, okay? Even if I'm asleep, or even if you just wanna sit here. But if you want to talk, I'll listen."
Ilhoon flicks one of his eyebrows up and purses his lips and sounds almost painfully dry when he says "You'd let me wake you up at three in the morning just to sit here and do nothing?"
Hyunsik lets the grin stretch over his face in full view. "Sure. Whatever you need, I'll try my best to provide." And he means every word of it.
For a while, it kind of becomes their thing. Soon after that first moonlit encounter, Ilhoon really does shake Hyunsik awake at three in the morning, and Hyunsik thinks it's Ilhoon's way of testing whether Hyunsik is serious or not; except there's that crashing, clashing look in his eyes and it's mostly about that.
For some reason Ilhoon opts to huddle in the dark kitchen instead of sitting at the window, and Hyunsik can barely see his face. Maybe that's the point. "Don't tell the others that I...get like this." Hyunsik watches the bare movements of Ilhoon crossing his arms over his chest, hears that tiny, quivering fleck in his voice. "Please don't."
It’s then that Hyunsik understands what a big deal it is for Ilhoon to show this side of himself at all. Not that Hyunsik ever planned on blabbing about this anyway, but now Ilhoon's trust is on the line and he isn't going to break that. "My lips are sealed, promise." He leans against the counter beside Ilhoon, and Ilhoon shifts so that their arms are brushing, just barely.
Ilhoon does seek him out, sometimes, but just as often he doesn't. Hyunsik will blink awake to the sounds of Ilhoon clambering down his bunk, and he'll slip outside after Ilhoon. Hyunsik thinks Ilhoon feels a little too guilty to always be waking Hyunsik up himself, but he never objects to Hyunsik's company.
Before long, Hyunsik realizes he's always watching for that look in Ilhoon's eyes. He calls it the drowning look.
Ilhoon doesn't let it come out often around the others; but sometimes, after repeating the same moves over and over in the practice room, or trudging back to the dorm in the early hours of the morning after being stuck in the van for hours, or even when they're all crowded in front of the t.v., stuffing their faces with pizza, Hyunsik will spot Ilhoon hanging back, just a little, his eyes jumping with that unnamed thing.
Hyunsik will scoot closer and sling his arm over Ilhoon's shoulder and talk about the most idiotic thing he can think of until Ilhoon is no longer drowning, until that look pulls back like the tide and the corners of his mouth are turned up and he's telling Hyunsik to go bother someone else, and a little bit of pressure deflates in Hyunsik's chest.
One night they're sitting in front of the window again, and Ilhoon's pressed against Hyunsik shoulder to knee. For all that Ilhoon claims to hate skinship, he's initiating it more and more when it's just the two of them.
"I'm jealous of you and Minhyuk," Ilhoon pipes up, and Hyunsik doesn't mean to, but he chuckles a little. "Why?"
"You both look good with your shirts off." Hyunsik feels Ilhoon's fingers slip between their bodies, crawling under the hem of his tshirt to slide over his stomach. Ilhoon's fingers are warm, and a shiver runs down Hyunsik's spine.
"I wish I had a body like yours, hyung," Ilhoon's sigh is curt, suffering, his fingers dancing over the grooves of Hyunsik's abs.
Hyunsik tries to imagine Ilhoon with bulky shoulders, defined pecs, the hard ridges of a six pack, and it's so strange that he can't. His mind jumps to Ilhoon's actual body, his flat stomach and the dip of his collarbone and his sleek biceps, and a weird feeling is burrowing down in the pit of Hyunsik's stomach but it's too late to push the image from his brain.
"I think you look fine the way you are."
Ilhoon doesn't say anything, but his fingers retreat from under Hyunsik's shirt, and Hyunsik peers out the window, hoping the moonlight will flush out his thoughts if he stares long enough.
It's sometime after they wrap up the video diaries but it's not quite December, and Hyunsik is holed away in the tiny practice room with the piano, the old, sturdy one with heavy keys that are so much more satisfying to run his fingers over than any keyboard. It feels like forever since he snagged this room for himself, and each note he plays flows through some deep part of him.
He already knows who it is when his phone chimes with a new message, and he tries not to feel too disappointed as he types out a reply, because it's been so long since he's gotten to play the piano, to unwind with nothing but his music.
As soon as Hyunsik sends the reply he almost wishes he hadn't, but it's too late and he feels more than a little terrible for thinking that way. If Ilhoon needs him, he needs him.
There's no moonlight to guide him as he makes his way back to the dorm, but Hyunsik has walked this path so many times he could find his way back with his eyes closed. Hyunsik spots Ilhoon perched on the bottom steps of their dorm building, the stairwell lights at his back, and Hyunsik is immediately on edge.
Ilhoon has a coat on, but no scarf, no gloves, not even a hat, and even if it wasn't freezing, Ilhoon's not the type to come outside without a reason. Hyunsik steps closer, Ilhoon looks up, and Hyunsik knows that this is different. The drowning look is absolutely roaring, tumbling, and Hyunsik's stomach twists.
"What are you doing out here? Let's go inside," Hyunsik urges, moving closer to put his hand on Ilhoon's shoulder, but Ilhoon doesn't budge. "I don't think anyone would really care, hyung," Ilhoon mumbles, and his nose is bright red, his frame is wracking with tremors, but he doesn't even seem to notice.
Hyunsik dips down to sit beside Ilhoon, unwrapping his own scarf from his neck to drape it around Ilhoon's. Ilhoon makes no move to pull it tighter. "No one would care about what?" Hyunsik's voice is soft in the biting air around them, and Ilhoon continues to stare at his bare hands.
"I don't think anyone would really care if I was gone," Ilhoon repeats, his fingers just barely flexing over his knees. "I mean, maybe a little bit. But the company would probably find a replacement for me, and everyone would forget soon enough."
Hyunsik has stopped trying to understand Ilhoon's thought process in these moments a long time ago, but that doesn't mean he isn't still baffled by some of the things rolling around in Ilhoon's head. "What are you talking about? We couldn't replace you, and of course we'd all care if you left-"
"No," Ilhoon interrupts, and he exhales a foggy breath, slow and stilted. "I'm talking about if I was...gone."
Hyunsik's heart strikes a hard beat against his chest. "Jung Ilhoon, what are you thinking about?" is voice is louder, sharper than it's ever been towards Ilhoon, and Ilhoon jerks in surprise, finally peering up at Hyunsik. The screaming, jumbled mess in his gaze has quieted, just a little bit.
"....Nothing." Ilhoon mutters after a while, watching a car rumble by out in the dark street, and something that's not quite a chuckle escapes him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, hyung."
At that moment, Hyunsik figures out that nameless feeling, the pressure that builds up in his chest whenever he sees the drowning look. He knows what it is now.
Fear.
Hyunsik tries not to, but he watches Ilhoon like a hawk during their trip to Singapore. The drowning look doesn't make an appearance, but Hyunsik tries to talk to Ilhoon anyway. As expected, Ilhoon shuts him down, changes the subject, tells him to forget about it, like it's a simple fucking thing. They fly back after barely two days, anxiety coiling hot in Hyunsik's gut the entire time.
In between their filming for the plus diaries, Changsub asks him if he wants to go check out the new indoor skate park in Hapjeong-dong, and the first thing Hyunsik does is calculate how far away it is from the dorm.
"Sorry, I was hoping to get some practice time in today, but I'll go with you next time, okay?" Hyunsik says, feeling like absolute shit when Changsub buys it with a small grin.
"That's fine, I'll just go scope it out, see if it's worth it."
Hyunsik wants to take it back, wants to hurry out onto the city bus with Changsub and spend hours falling on his ass off a skateboard and not worry about anything more than making it down the kiddie ramp, but it's too late. He finds himself wishing there was someone else who knew about Ilhoon, someone who has a clue of what to do, because Hyunsik sure as hell doesn't. In the end, it just makes him feel worse.
Two days before they're scheduled to fly off to Malaysia, Hyunsik gets a text from Ilhoon. It's well past midnight, and Ilhoon says he's in one of the practice rooms in the main building. Hyunsik is grabbing his jacket and toeing on his shoes before he realizes it, barely remembering to throw an answer over his shoulder when Eunkwang asks where he's going.
Ilhoon's in the room with the wide mirror on the wall, sitting slumped on the counter when Hyunsik slips in and closes the door behind him, and Hyunsik doesn't know how bad it is until he sees Ilhoon's face.
This is different from the stairwell. Ilhoon's eyes aren't just drowning, they've got a wild edge he's never seen before, they're desperate, they're an animal backed into a corner; Hyunsik feels dread spike deep in his chest.
"Hyung," Ilhoon croaks, sounding nearly ragged, "I need you."
"What do you need?" Hyunsik mumurs, approaching the counter, his stomach curled into knots. As soon as he's close enough Ilhoon grabs him by the jacket, hauls him forward, crushes their mouths together, and Hyunsik's heart plummets.
He wants to say no, but Ilhoon's legs are wrapping around his thighs; he wants to say stop, but Ilhoon's tongue is already invading his mouth, his fingers are already fighting past Hyunsik's waistband; he wants to say we shouldn't do this, anyone could walk in, we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't, but it's too late. It's way too late.
And besides, if Ilhoon needs it, how can Hyunsik refuse?
On their trek back to the hotel after the showcase, Hyunsik is aiming to crawl into bed as soon as he can. He hasn't slept well the past few days (always waiting for someone to shuffle down from their bunk), and coupled with jetlag, he wants nothing more than to pass out cold til the sun rises. His hopes are buried in the dirt when Ilhoon follows him into his hotel room instead of Peniel.
"I traded with Peniel," Ilhoon says as he tosses his suitcase onto one of the beds. "He'd rather room with Sungjae anyway." Turning back, a catty grin spreads over Ilhoon's face. "It's better this way, isn't it?"
Hyunsik doesn't say what he's thinking, which is no, not at all.
He ends up with Ilhoon on top of him, their boxers hiked down, rutting and gasping until they both come, and Hyunsik doesn't get any sleep that night.
In Thailand, Hyunsik hangs out in Eunkwang and Minhyuk's hotel room for far too long, even though exhaustion is aching in his bones. When he does pad back to his own room, he finds Changsub snoring in the bed closest to the window, and Hyunsik can't help the relief flooding through his limbs that his roommate hasn't switched again.
He's pulling his pajamas out of his suitcase when the hotel door clicks behind him, and Ilhoon slips into the room, a cardkey between his fingers.
"What are you doing?" Hyunsik whispers, the pit of his stomach already roiling. Ilhoon almost rolls his eyes. "What do you think I'm doing?" He shoots back, not nearly quiet enough; Ilhoon has been more himself in the past few days than he's been in weeks, and Hyunsik is finding he doesn't know how to handle it.
"We can't, Changsub is right there," Hyunsik tries to reason, jerking his head in the direction of Changsub's form buried in blankets on the opposite bed. "Plus I'm about to shower, okay?"
That's how Hyunsik finds himself with his back up against the shower stall and Ilhoon kneeling in front of him, wet hands on his thighs and mouth on his cock, and Hyunsik's stomach is churning so hard he thinks he might be sick.
Back home, Hyunsik realizes his lack of reciprocation is a problem.
Not that Ilhoon's said anything, but their encounters are hardly mutual; it's not normal, it's not right, and Hyunsik is a little desperate to have something resembling normalcy.
So when Ilhoon has them locked in the bathroom together, his mouth on Hyunsik's throat and his fingers working the button of Hyunsik's jeans, Hyunsik lays his hand on Ilhoon's wrist. "Hey," he murmurs, "How about you let me take care of you first?"
Ilhoon snorts, like Hyunsik just made some kind of joke, and shakes the hand off. "Don't say stupid stuff, hyung." He yanks down Hyunsik's zipper. "I wanna make you feel good."
"It's not all about me, you know." Hyunsik slides his hands over Ilhoon's shoulders and flips them around so that Ilhoon is pressed against the sink, and Hyunsik is looming over him.
"Stop," Ilhoon gripes, and if Hyunsik was listening more closely he would have heard the hard edge creeping into Ilhoon's tone, but he's desperate, so desperate.
"It's alright, just let me," Hyunsik whispers against Ilhoon's ear, his fingers nudging past Ilhoon's waistband, sliding down to wrap around his cock.
"No!"
The next thing Hyunsik knows he's being shoved sideways into the toilet and Ilhoon is stumbling away, knocking into the door. Ilhoon just about has the drowning look, but it has a new element; instead of just looking like an animal, he looks like a scared animal.
They stare at eachother, unmoving, their uneven breathing the only sound in the small room. Finally, Ilhoon scrubs a hand through his hair and refuses to meet Hyunsik's gaze anymore. "I'm just gonna go to bed, okay?" He mutters, fumbling with the doorknob and slipping out into the hall without another word.
Hyunsik sits there for a long time, hands shaking in his lap, gut turning and flipping and twisting with a sick kind of heat because this isn't right, this isn't right at all, and it's too late to do anything about it.
Ilhoon gets even more reckless after that, holding the gun in a game of russian roulette Hyunsik should have seen coming.
The next night, Hyunsik is jostled awake by something clambering into bed with him, and he creaks his bleary eyes open to see Ilhoon hovering there. A fan's present is draped over his shoulders, and obnoxiously yellow Pikachu blanket that's visible even in the near pitch darkness of their room, and Hyunsik keeps his voice as low as he possibly can when he hisses "Ilhoon, everyone's here."
Ilhoon wiggles under Hyunsik's comforter, pressing full into Hyunsik's side, and Hyunsik can practically hear the smirk in Ilhoon's voice as he retorts, too loud, always too loud, "Well, you'll have to keep extra quiet then."
A few nights later they're a breath away from getting caught in the kitchen; Ilhoon shoots to his feet in record time, and lucky for them Peniel isn't aware of much when he's half-asleep, anyway. But even so, Hyunsik isn't sure how much more he can take.
He doesn't have a choice, though, when he doesn't know how to stop this.
In Japan, Hyunsik at least doesn't have the anticipation bubbling inside him in an uneasy mess over the possibility of Ilhoon secretly switching out with his roommate, or sneaking into his room in the late hours; as it turns out, Ilhoon is his roommate to begin with.
Hyunsik can't appreciate the awesome sushi they had for dinner when his stomach is clenched so tight; Ilhoon doesn't seem to be having the same problem, but then Ilhoon hardly touched any of his food all day. And Ilhoon is never really afflicted by this anyway, not in any of the ways Hyunsik is.
Ilhoon is on top of him again, but this time they're both naked from head to toe, and Hyunsik isn't sure how they got that way. He's mostly thinking about how much sleep he can force himself into after this is over, but that process grinds to a halt when Ilhoon leans over the side of the bed, rummages around his bag, comes back with a condom in a shiny foil wrapper, and where the fuck Ilhoon got that, Hyunsik has no idea.
"I know you've never fucked a guy before," Ilhoon says as he tears the wrapper open, as casually as he would point out something like I know you've never tried chonggak kimchi, and Hyunsik is absolutely speechless.
"But don't worry, it's not that different from fucking a girl," Ilhoon continues, his deft fingers rolling the condom down Hyunsik's dick with ease before he reaches out to grab the tiny complimentary bottle of hand lotion from the nightstand. "Or that's what I've heard, at least. You've been with lots of girls, right hyung?"
And no, Hyunsik hasn't, he hasn't been with many girls at all, at least not this far, because it's not supposed to be like this; it's not supposed to be Ilhoon carelessly chatting about who else they've fucked, it's not supposed to be Ilhoon slicking Hyunsik's cock up with such efficiency that he's almost detached. It's not supposed to be about them doing this just because they can, and jesus, Hyunsik just, just--
"Wait," Hyunsik breathes out, just as Ilhoon grabs his dick, positions himself over it, and what Hyunsik means is I can't do this and please stop, we have to stop.
But Ilhoon grins that sly grin of his and says "It's okay, I know what I'm doing." And by then it's too late, far too late.
When Hyunsik comes, something else inside him goes with it. He doesn't even know what to call it, but he knows it's not there anymore.
Ilhoon rolls off him, snags a few tissues to mop his own come off Hyunsik's stomach; he pulls the condom off Hyunsik's spent dick before he wanders into the bathroom to clean up, and Hyunsik has never felt so empty in his life. He hears Ilhoon idly sigh about how he'll shower in the morning, and Hyunsik wishes with all his heart that he was somewhere, anywhere else, anywhere at all.
Hyunsik shucks his boxers back on as Ilhoon burrows under the covers, mumbles out a goodnight. When Ilhoon is breathing out snuffling little snores, Hyunsik gets up and pads to the bathroom, and only once he shuts the door behind him does he slide down to a crouch.
The tears sting hot in his eyes and his throat closes up tight just as a sob wracks through him, and the first thing Hyunsik thinks is how long it's been since he's cried like this. The second thing he thinks, and the third thing, and everything after is that he can't do this anymore, he can't, he can't, he can't.
And until he finds the way out, all Hyunsik can do is wipe at his wet cheeks and bury himself in his arms and hope to whatever's still listening that he's muffling his sobs enough so Ilhoon won't hear them.
In the end, Hyunsik realizes that the the only way to end this thing is to do just that: end it, and hope it's not too late to do so.
He waits until he and Ilhoon crowd into the tiny practice room at the end of the long hallway of practice rooms, the one with the keyboard that has two busted F keys that no one ever wants to pick. Hyunsik stops Ilhoon before he can move two steps in.
"We shouldn't do this anymore," he says, and his voice is surprisingly clear for how much he's quaking inside.
Hyunsik watches Ilhoon's shoulders go stiff, his rolling grin drop like a hot coal from bare hands. "I don't know what you're talking about." Ilhoon's tone is something Hyunsik hasn't heard in a long, long time, it's more than just closed off, but Hyunsik has to keep pushing on.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. And it has to stop." Hyunsik tries to tell himself that he's prepared for any of Ilhoon's reactions, but really, how can he be sure of that? How can he tell himself that he's ready to take whatever Ilhoon can dish out, when the last few weeks have been a glaring reminder of the opposite?
"Why?" Ilhoon demands, and he's staring hard at Hyunsik but Hyunsik refuses to look away.
"Because it's not good for either of us, and we shouldn't have started it in the first place." Hyunsik watches the twists and flickers across Ilhoon's face, the fighting, leaping things in his eyes.
"I know how this goes. Just say what you really mean-- you're tired of me." Ilhoon breaks his gaze to stare off at the wall, brows knitted and mouth bunched in a scowl, and Hyunsik is still dumbfounded by the way Ilhoon's mind works.
"I-- what does that have to do with anything? I'm not tired of you, but you're--" Hyunsik fumbles with his words, and Ilhoon takes the opportunity to strike again.
"But I'm what? A stupid slut? Not worth the trouble? You've gotten your use out of me?" Ilhoon's voice is whip-sharp, and he lashes his gaze back to Hyunsik. "I've heard it all before, try again."
Hyunsik doesn't even know how to respond to that; it's like Ilhoon's living in a separate reality, one where Hyunsik told him to crowd against walls and sinks and shower stalls and get down on his knees and touch Hyunsik everywhere he can and not listen, never listen.
"Ilhoon, it's not about getting rid of you, it's not anything like that--" Hyunsik stops, reaches up to scrub a hand through his hair as he paces through the tiny space, Ilhoon's eyes following him. "It's just-- this thing. I can't do it anymore, I don't want to-- and, and I don't think you do, either." Hyunsik thinks back on that night in the bathroom, thinks of Ilhoon's panic, thinks of how monumentally fucked up this whole thing is.
Ilhoon's eyes flash with something hard, and his jaw flexes. "Don't tell me what I do and don't want." He turns, half-facing the wall so Hyunsik can't look him in the eye anymore. After a short, tight silence, he speaks again.
"You were supposed to be different, hyung. I thought you wanted to help me!" Ilhoon's voice breaks, just a little bit, and guilt flushes through Hyunsik's veins. How the hell did they get here, when they started out just sitting under the moonlight all those nights ago?
"I've always wanted to help you, but this thing? It's not helping, not at all." Hyunsik sucks in a shaky breath, his heart beating hard against his chest, and says what he's been thinking for far too long.
"You need help, Ilhoon, and I mean that. You need something more than what I can give you. You need someone who knows what they're doing."
Ilhoon looks back at him, finally, and no, oh no, the drowning look is coming. "Don't do this to me, hyung, please," It's the closest to pleading Hyunsik has ever heard from Ilhoon, and Ilhoon steps closer, reaching out to anchor his hand to Hyunsik's shirt, like he's in danger of floating away.
"You can help me, you can, just don't-- please don't--" Ilhoon can't seem to get the rest of his words out, and he's staring at Hyunsik with those eyes and god, Hyunsik realizes, the whole time he's tried to pull Ilhoon out of those crashing waves, all he was doing was getting dragged under himself.
"I wish I could help you, I really, really wish I could, but I don't know how, okay? I want to get you get some real help, someone who can actually do something, but as for me-- I can't."
Ilhoon stops pleading, stops holding his mouth open for words that won't come, and finally, drops his gaze too. He pulls his hand back, too, and stands there for a long moment. When he looks back up, The drowning look isn't just dulled, it's gone, all gone, and Hyunsik's never seen that before but it sends a jolt of something straight down to his gut.
"I understand," Ilhoon mutters, his voice low, and still not with the intent to actually be quiet, but more like he can't get his words to come out any louder. He turns away from Hyunsik and steps over to the door, reaching out for the handle, pausing.
"I'll see you later," he says, and he doesn't turn back to look at Hyunsik before he opens the door and slips out, closing the door softly behind him. For some reason, a shiver tremors through Hyunsik.
Hyunsik stays there for what feels like an eternity, and he mostly can't believe that this is actually over, that really, it wasn’t too late; he should feel elated, should have the relief bringing him to his knees. But he's still worried about Ilhoon, and every word he spoke was the truth. He thinks about what the next step is, thinks about finding Ilhoon again, talking to their manager, figuring out where they can go from here.
Eventually he slips out of the practice room and main building, heading back to their dorm in the chilly late winter air.
Minhyuk is cooking ramyun in the kitchen when Hyunsik shuts the door behind him and toes his shoes off. "Hey, have you seen Ilhoon?" He asks, padding over to the stove to peer into the bubbling pot, and Minhyuk swats at him with the chopsticks in his hand.
"Mm, no. He hasn't been back since he left earlier," Minhyuk says, and though it's not that strange (really, did he expect Ilhoon to come back here so soon?) it sets an uneasy feeling burning low in the pit of Hyunsik's stomach as he heads back to the changing room.
It's just after he hangs his coat up that he gets the text message.
I can't either, hyung.
Hyunsik knows what it means. He knows exactly what it means. And just like he knows what it means, just like the floor is dropping out beneath him, just like all the sound is rushing out of the room, he knows that he is too late.
And Hyunsik knows by now, knows all too well, there's nothing worse than too late.
Poll Round 25: Nothing Worse Than Too Late
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: R
Fandom: BTOB
Pairing: Hyunsik/Ilhoon
Summary: "I traded with Peniel," Ilhoon says as he tosses his suitcase onto one of the beds. "He'd rather room with Sungjae anyway." Turning back, a catty grin spreads over Ilhoon's face. "It's better this way, isn't it?"
Hyunsik doesn't say what he's thinking, which is no, not at all.
Author's Note: WARNINGS: mental instability, emotional manipulation, dubcon, implications of suicide. This is not very happy. (Also, Team Cry, you are the bizzomb and ilu)
Prompt Used: Spica- Russian Roulette
Honestly, when it starts, it's so completely normal.
Hyunsik doesn't really know what wakes him up. It's early, way too early if he's judging by how dark the room is, how loud the snores and snuffles around him are. By all means he should be knocked out; he’s just as exhausted from the adrenaline ride of their bungee jumping experience as everyone else. He has half a mind to roll right back over and lose himself to sleep again, but his dry tongue and parched throat are a little too annoying to ignore.
Months and months of shuffling around their tiny bedroom is the only thing that keeps Hyunsik from tripping over Eunkwang's bed on his way to the door. Hyunsik almost heads straight for the kitchen when something catches in the corner of his eye, at the far end of the living room, slumped in front of a window.
He doesn’t even need the sparse moonlight filtering into the room; Hyunsik recognizes that hunched frame in an instant.
Ilhoon's gaze shifts over to Hyunsik approaching, and there's something in his eyes. Hyunsik doesn't know what to call it, but it's clashing and crashing and quaking, it's almost alive, and Hyunsik realizes he's seen Ilhoon with this look before. Not like quite like this, though. Not this violent, not with that downturned mouth, not with that expression, slack and flat and wrong.
"What are you doing up?" Hyunsik's voice is husky with recent sleep, and he keeps it at a murmur, though he doubts they're in any danger of waking the others up.
"What are you doing up?" Ilhoon retorts, his tone low, but without the care Hyunsik is taking to keep so quiet. Ilhoon's eyes are locked on Hyunsik as he crouches down to the floor, and Hyunsik doesn't know why he expected a straight answer.
"I was getting some water." Hyunsik pulls one leg up to wrap his arm around and peers out the window, up at the stretches of moon visible between the roof of their apartment building and the gap of the next roof. He moves his eyes back to Ilhoon, whose own gaze is hovering on something out the window.
"Why are you awake? Are you okay?" Hyunsik has a hunch that Ilhoon's reason isn't innocuous like his, isn't as simple as I was thirsty or I had to pee.
Ilhoon's gaze flickers to Hyunsik for the barest of seconds before it's back out the window, eyes glinting with the moonlight spilling in. "I don't want to bug you with my stupid problems," he mutters after a moment, his arms drawing up, pulling his knees even tighter against his chest.
Sympathy twinges in Hyunsik's chest; his eyes wander over Ilhoon's fingers, clenched in the fabric of his pajama pants. "You won't bug me, I promise. What's on your mind?"
Ilhoon chuckles at this, quiet and with an unsteady edge, but sincere. And it strikes Hyunsik as strange, off, because that's not a sound that comes from Ilhoon. Ilhoon is bursting peals of high-pitched laughter and sarcastic guffaws and lukewarm almost-grins that look more like he's trying not to roll his eyes at what everyone else is dying over.
"What's on my mind? Way too much shit that you don't want to know, trust me." Ilhoon is staring at his knees now, sounding just casual enough to be joking, but his palms are curled so tightly his knuckles are straining. Hyunsik tries again.
"Why don't you just tell me one of those things, then? That's not so bad, right?"
Ilhoon raises his eyes out the window again and says nothing. The silence stretches between them for an impossibly long time, punctured with faint snores from the bedroom, the hum of delivery trucks and late-night taxis out in the street, and Hyunsik thinks that maybe he pushed when he shouldn't have; he wonders if it's too late to apologize, opens his mouth to do so, but Ilhoon beats him to it.
"It's just-- why am I here?"
Ilhoon's voice is softer than it's been this whole time, and it's still not with any care to actually keep quiet. "I don't deserve to be here, hyung." He pulls into himself even more, small, hunched, and Hyunsik is jarred with the reminder of how young Ilhoon is. It's easy for them to forget that Ilhoon is barely six months older than Sungjae, and Hyunsik knows why.
Sungjae is still toeing the line of childhood; still immature enough to be a little annoying at times, still ridiculous enough to smash his forehead into a watermelon just to see if his skull is really thick enough to crack it, still innocent enough to turn red when one of them shares a dirty picture.
Ilhoon has crossed that line. Hyunsik isn't sure how to explain it, but there's a sharpness to his tongue, a quick, dangerous edge to his wit; there's something inside him that's hard and indefinable and it shows through his eyes sometimes, looks more world weary than all of the rest of them put together. And now, Hyunsik is reminded that there's also something small and unsure and vulnerable in there, too, hidden so well that he barely believes it exists.
He leans over and knocks his shoulder into Ilhoon's. "You deserve to be here just as much as any of us, okay?" Hyunsik half-turns, staring at the profile of Ilhoon's moon washed face until Ilhoon gives in and looks over.
"You're just as talented, and you work just as hard. You're just as much a part of this group. If you don't deserve to be here, then none of us do. And that's the truth."
Ilhoon breaks their gaze to stare at his hands, and the corners of his mouth quirk up, just a tiny bit. It's not a smile, but Hyunsik will take what he can get. Ilhoon peers up again after a long moment, and this time Hyunsik notices the difference; the rocking, crashing waves in his eyes have lulled, and suddenly Hyunsik finds it a little easier to breath.
"Thanks, hyung," Ilhoon murmurs, slouching forward just a bit, his grip loosening to smooth his fingers over the fabric of his pants, and Hyunsik can't help bumping shoulders with him again. "Whenever you feel like this, you can come find me, okay? Even if I'm asleep, or even if you just wanna sit here. But if you want to talk, I'll listen."
Ilhoon flicks one of his eyebrows up and purses his lips and sounds almost painfully dry when he says "You'd let me wake you up at three in the morning just to sit here and do nothing?"
Hyunsik lets the grin stretch over his face in full view. "Sure. Whatever you need, I'll try my best to provide." And he means every word of it.
For a while, it kind of becomes their thing. Soon after that first moonlit encounter, Ilhoon really does shake Hyunsik awake at three in the morning, and Hyunsik thinks it's Ilhoon's way of testing whether Hyunsik is serious or not; except there's that crashing, clashing look in his eyes and it's mostly about that.
For some reason Ilhoon opts to huddle in the dark kitchen instead of sitting at the window, and Hyunsik can barely see his face. Maybe that's the point. "Don't tell the others that I...get like this." Hyunsik watches the bare movements of Ilhoon crossing his arms over his chest, hears that tiny, quivering fleck in his voice. "Please don't."
It’s then that Hyunsik understands what a big deal it is for Ilhoon to show this side of himself at all. Not that Hyunsik ever planned on blabbing about this anyway, but now Ilhoon's trust is on the line and he isn't going to break that. "My lips are sealed, promise." He leans against the counter beside Ilhoon, and Ilhoon shifts so that their arms are brushing, just barely.
Ilhoon does seek him out, sometimes, but just as often he doesn't. Hyunsik will blink awake to the sounds of Ilhoon clambering down his bunk, and he'll slip outside after Ilhoon. Hyunsik thinks Ilhoon feels a little too guilty to always be waking Hyunsik up himself, but he never objects to Hyunsik's company.
Before long, Hyunsik realizes he's always watching for that look in Ilhoon's eyes. He calls it the drowning look.
Ilhoon doesn't let it come out often around the others; but sometimes, after repeating the same moves over and over in the practice room, or trudging back to the dorm in the early hours of the morning after being stuck in the van for hours, or even when they're all crowded in front of the t.v., stuffing their faces with pizza, Hyunsik will spot Ilhoon hanging back, just a little, his eyes jumping with that unnamed thing.
Hyunsik will scoot closer and sling his arm over Ilhoon's shoulder and talk about the most idiotic thing he can think of until Ilhoon is no longer drowning, until that look pulls back like the tide and the corners of his mouth are turned up and he's telling Hyunsik to go bother someone else, and a little bit of pressure deflates in Hyunsik's chest.
One night they're sitting in front of the window again, and Ilhoon's pressed against Hyunsik shoulder to knee. For all that Ilhoon claims to hate skinship, he's initiating it more and more when it's just the two of them.
"I'm jealous of you and Minhyuk," Ilhoon pipes up, and Hyunsik doesn't mean to, but he chuckles a little. "Why?"
"You both look good with your shirts off." Hyunsik feels Ilhoon's fingers slip between their bodies, crawling under the hem of his tshirt to slide over his stomach. Ilhoon's fingers are warm, and a shiver runs down Hyunsik's spine.
"I wish I had a body like yours, hyung," Ilhoon's sigh is curt, suffering, his fingers dancing over the grooves of Hyunsik's abs.
Hyunsik tries to imagine Ilhoon with bulky shoulders, defined pecs, the hard ridges of a six pack, and it's so strange that he can't. His mind jumps to Ilhoon's actual body, his flat stomach and the dip of his collarbone and his sleek biceps, and a weird feeling is burrowing down in the pit of Hyunsik's stomach but it's too late to push the image from his brain.
"I think you look fine the way you are."
Ilhoon doesn't say anything, but his fingers retreat from under Hyunsik's shirt, and Hyunsik peers out the window, hoping the moonlight will flush out his thoughts if he stares long enough.
It's sometime after they wrap up the video diaries but it's not quite December, and Hyunsik is holed away in the tiny practice room with the piano, the old, sturdy one with heavy keys that are so much more satisfying to run his fingers over than any keyboard. It feels like forever since he snagged this room for himself, and each note he plays flows through some deep part of him.
He already knows who it is when his phone chimes with a new message, and he tries not to feel too disappointed as he types out a reply, because it's been so long since he's gotten to play the piano, to unwind with nothing but his music.
As soon as Hyunsik sends the reply he almost wishes he hadn't, but it's too late and he feels more than a little terrible for thinking that way. If Ilhoon needs him, he needs him.
There's no moonlight to guide him as he makes his way back to the dorm, but Hyunsik has walked this path so many times he could find his way back with his eyes closed. Hyunsik spots Ilhoon perched on the bottom steps of their dorm building, the stairwell lights at his back, and Hyunsik is immediately on edge.
Ilhoon has a coat on, but no scarf, no gloves, not even a hat, and even if it wasn't freezing, Ilhoon's not the type to come outside without a reason. Hyunsik steps closer, Ilhoon looks up, and Hyunsik knows that this is different. The drowning look is absolutely roaring, tumbling, and Hyunsik's stomach twists.
"What are you doing out here? Let's go inside," Hyunsik urges, moving closer to put his hand on Ilhoon's shoulder, but Ilhoon doesn't budge. "I don't think anyone would really care, hyung," Ilhoon mumbles, and his nose is bright red, his frame is wracking with tremors, but he doesn't even seem to notice.
Hyunsik dips down to sit beside Ilhoon, unwrapping his own scarf from his neck to drape it around Ilhoon's. Ilhoon makes no move to pull it tighter. "No one would care about what?" Hyunsik's voice is soft in the biting air around them, and Ilhoon continues to stare at his bare hands.
"I don't think anyone would really care if I was gone," Ilhoon repeats, his fingers just barely flexing over his knees. "I mean, maybe a little bit. But the company would probably find a replacement for me, and everyone would forget soon enough."
Hyunsik has stopped trying to understand Ilhoon's thought process in these moments a long time ago, but that doesn't mean he isn't still baffled by some of the things rolling around in Ilhoon's head. "What are you talking about? We couldn't replace you, and of course we'd all care if you left-"
"No," Ilhoon interrupts, and he exhales a foggy breath, slow and stilted. "I'm talking about if I was...gone."
Hyunsik's heart strikes a hard beat against his chest. "Jung Ilhoon, what are you thinking about?" is voice is louder, sharper than it's ever been towards Ilhoon, and Ilhoon jerks in surprise, finally peering up at Hyunsik. The screaming, jumbled mess in his gaze has quieted, just a little bit.
"....Nothing." Ilhoon mutters after a while, watching a car rumble by out in the dark street, and something that's not quite a chuckle escapes him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, hyung."
At that moment, Hyunsik figures out that nameless feeling, the pressure that builds up in his chest whenever he sees the drowning look. He knows what it is now.
Fear.
Hyunsik tries not to, but he watches Ilhoon like a hawk during their trip to Singapore. The drowning look doesn't make an appearance, but Hyunsik tries to talk to Ilhoon anyway. As expected, Ilhoon shuts him down, changes the subject, tells him to forget about it, like it's a simple fucking thing. They fly back after barely two days, anxiety coiling hot in Hyunsik's gut the entire time.
In between their filming for the plus diaries, Changsub asks him if he wants to go check out the new indoor skate park in Hapjeong-dong, and the first thing Hyunsik does is calculate how far away it is from the dorm.
"Sorry, I was hoping to get some practice time in today, but I'll go with you next time, okay?" Hyunsik says, feeling like absolute shit when Changsub buys it with a small grin.
"That's fine, I'll just go scope it out, see if it's worth it."
Hyunsik wants to take it back, wants to hurry out onto the city bus with Changsub and spend hours falling on his ass off a skateboard and not worry about anything more than making it down the kiddie ramp, but it's too late. He finds himself wishing there was someone else who knew about Ilhoon, someone who has a clue of what to do, because Hyunsik sure as hell doesn't. In the end, it just makes him feel worse.
Two days before they're scheduled to fly off to Malaysia, Hyunsik gets a text from Ilhoon. It's well past midnight, and Ilhoon says he's in one of the practice rooms in the main building. Hyunsik is grabbing his jacket and toeing on his shoes before he realizes it, barely remembering to throw an answer over his shoulder when Eunkwang asks where he's going.
Ilhoon's in the room with the wide mirror on the wall, sitting slumped on the counter when Hyunsik slips in and closes the door behind him, and Hyunsik doesn't know how bad it is until he sees Ilhoon's face.
This is different from the stairwell. Ilhoon's eyes aren't just drowning, they've got a wild edge he's never seen before, they're desperate, they're an animal backed into a corner; Hyunsik feels dread spike deep in his chest.
"Hyung," Ilhoon croaks, sounding nearly ragged, "I need you."
"What do you need?" Hyunsik mumurs, approaching the counter, his stomach curled into knots. As soon as he's close enough Ilhoon grabs him by the jacket, hauls him forward, crushes their mouths together, and Hyunsik's heart plummets.
He wants to say no, but Ilhoon's legs are wrapping around his thighs; he wants to say stop, but Ilhoon's tongue is already invading his mouth, his fingers are already fighting past Hyunsik's waistband; he wants to say we shouldn't do this, anyone could walk in, we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't, but it's too late. It's way too late.
And besides, if Ilhoon needs it, how can Hyunsik refuse?
On their trek back to the hotel after the showcase, Hyunsik is aiming to crawl into bed as soon as he can. He hasn't slept well the past few days (always waiting for someone to shuffle down from their bunk), and coupled with jetlag, he wants nothing more than to pass out cold til the sun rises. His hopes are buried in the dirt when Ilhoon follows him into his hotel room instead of Peniel.
"I traded with Peniel," Ilhoon says as he tosses his suitcase onto one of the beds. "He'd rather room with Sungjae anyway." Turning back, a catty grin spreads over Ilhoon's face. "It's better this way, isn't it?"
Hyunsik doesn't say what he's thinking, which is no, not at all.
He ends up with Ilhoon on top of him, their boxers hiked down, rutting and gasping until they both come, and Hyunsik doesn't get any sleep that night.
In Thailand, Hyunsik hangs out in Eunkwang and Minhyuk's hotel room for far too long, even though exhaustion is aching in his bones. When he does pad back to his own room, he finds Changsub snoring in the bed closest to the window, and Hyunsik can't help the relief flooding through his limbs that his roommate hasn't switched again.
He's pulling his pajamas out of his suitcase when the hotel door clicks behind him, and Ilhoon slips into the room, a cardkey between his fingers.
"What are you doing?" Hyunsik whispers, the pit of his stomach already roiling. Ilhoon almost rolls his eyes. "What do you think I'm doing?" He shoots back, not nearly quiet enough; Ilhoon has been more himself in the past few days than he's been in weeks, and Hyunsik is finding he doesn't know how to handle it.
"We can't, Changsub is right there," Hyunsik tries to reason, jerking his head in the direction of Changsub's form buried in blankets on the opposite bed. "Plus I'm about to shower, okay?"
That's how Hyunsik finds himself with his back up against the shower stall and Ilhoon kneeling in front of him, wet hands on his thighs and mouth on his cock, and Hyunsik's stomach is churning so hard he thinks he might be sick.
Back home, Hyunsik realizes his lack of reciprocation is a problem.
Not that Ilhoon's said anything, but their encounters are hardly mutual; it's not normal, it's not right, and Hyunsik is a little desperate to have something resembling normalcy.
So when Ilhoon has them locked in the bathroom together, his mouth on Hyunsik's throat and his fingers working the button of Hyunsik's jeans, Hyunsik lays his hand on Ilhoon's wrist. "Hey," he murmurs, "How about you let me take care of you first?"
Ilhoon snorts, like Hyunsik just made some kind of joke, and shakes the hand off. "Don't say stupid stuff, hyung." He yanks down Hyunsik's zipper. "I wanna make you feel good."
"It's not all about me, you know." Hyunsik slides his hands over Ilhoon's shoulders and flips them around so that Ilhoon is pressed against the sink, and Hyunsik is looming over him.
"Stop," Ilhoon gripes, and if Hyunsik was listening more closely he would have heard the hard edge creeping into Ilhoon's tone, but he's desperate, so desperate.
"It's alright, just let me," Hyunsik whispers against Ilhoon's ear, his fingers nudging past Ilhoon's waistband, sliding down to wrap around his cock.
"No!"
The next thing Hyunsik knows he's being shoved sideways into the toilet and Ilhoon is stumbling away, knocking into the door. Ilhoon just about has the drowning look, but it has a new element; instead of just looking like an animal, he looks like a scared animal.
They stare at eachother, unmoving, their uneven breathing the only sound in the small room. Finally, Ilhoon scrubs a hand through his hair and refuses to meet Hyunsik's gaze anymore. "I'm just gonna go to bed, okay?" He mutters, fumbling with the doorknob and slipping out into the hall without another word.
Hyunsik sits there for a long time, hands shaking in his lap, gut turning and flipping and twisting with a sick kind of heat because this isn't right, this isn't right at all, and it's too late to do anything about it.
Ilhoon gets even more reckless after that, holding the gun in a game of russian roulette Hyunsik should have seen coming.
The next night, Hyunsik is jostled awake by something clambering into bed with him, and he creaks his bleary eyes open to see Ilhoon hovering there. A fan's present is draped over his shoulders, and obnoxiously yellow Pikachu blanket that's visible even in the near pitch darkness of their room, and Hyunsik keeps his voice as low as he possibly can when he hisses "Ilhoon, everyone's here."
Ilhoon wiggles under Hyunsik's comforter, pressing full into Hyunsik's side, and Hyunsik can practically hear the smirk in Ilhoon's voice as he retorts, too loud, always too loud, "Well, you'll have to keep extra quiet then."
A few nights later they're a breath away from getting caught in the kitchen; Ilhoon shoots to his feet in record time, and lucky for them Peniel isn't aware of much when he's half-asleep, anyway. But even so, Hyunsik isn't sure how much more he can take.
He doesn't have a choice, though, when he doesn't know how to stop this.
In Japan, Hyunsik at least doesn't have the anticipation bubbling inside him in an uneasy mess over the possibility of Ilhoon secretly switching out with his roommate, or sneaking into his room in the late hours; as it turns out, Ilhoon is his roommate to begin with.
Hyunsik can't appreciate the awesome sushi they had for dinner when his stomach is clenched so tight; Ilhoon doesn't seem to be having the same problem, but then Ilhoon hardly touched any of his food all day. And Ilhoon is never really afflicted by this anyway, not in any of the ways Hyunsik is.
Ilhoon is on top of him again, but this time they're both naked from head to toe, and Hyunsik isn't sure how they got that way. He's mostly thinking about how much sleep he can force himself into after this is over, but that process grinds to a halt when Ilhoon leans over the side of the bed, rummages around his bag, comes back with a condom in a shiny foil wrapper, and where the fuck Ilhoon got that, Hyunsik has no idea.
"I know you've never fucked a guy before," Ilhoon says as he tears the wrapper open, as casually as he would point out something like I know you've never tried chonggak kimchi, and Hyunsik is absolutely speechless.
"But don't worry, it's not that different from fucking a girl," Ilhoon continues, his deft fingers rolling the condom down Hyunsik's dick with ease before he reaches out to grab the tiny complimentary bottle of hand lotion from the nightstand. "Or that's what I've heard, at least. You've been with lots of girls, right hyung?"
And no, Hyunsik hasn't, he hasn't been with many girls at all, at least not this far, because it's not supposed to be like this; it's not supposed to be Ilhoon carelessly chatting about who else they've fucked, it's not supposed to be Ilhoon slicking Hyunsik's cock up with such efficiency that he's almost detached. It's not supposed to be about them doing this just because they can, and jesus, Hyunsik just, just--
"Wait," Hyunsik breathes out, just as Ilhoon grabs his dick, positions himself over it, and what Hyunsik means is I can't do this and please stop, we have to stop.
But Ilhoon grins that sly grin of his and says "It's okay, I know what I'm doing." And by then it's too late, far too late.
When Hyunsik comes, something else inside him goes with it. He doesn't even know what to call it, but he knows it's not there anymore.
Ilhoon rolls off him, snags a few tissues to mop his own come off Hyunsik's stomach; he pulls the condom off Hyunsik's spent dick before he wanders into the bathroom to clean up, and Hyunsik has never felt so empty in his life. He hears Ilhoon idly sigh about how he'll shower in the morning, and Hyunsik wishes with all his heart that he was somewhere, anywhere else, anywhere at all.
Hyunsik shucks his boxers back on as Ilhoon burrows under the covers, mumbles out a goodnight. When Ilhoon is breathing out snuffling little snores, Hyunsik gets up and pads to the bathroom, and only once he shuts the door behind him does he slide down to a crouch.
The tears sting hot in his eyes and his throat closes up tight just as a sob wracks through him, and the first thing Hyunsik thinks is how long it's been since he's cried like this. The second thing he thinks, and the third thing, and everything after is that he can't do this anymore, he can't, he can't, he can't.
And until he finds the way out, all Hyunsik can do is wipe at his wet cheeks and bury himself in his arms and hope to whatever's still listening that he's muffling his sobs enough so Ilhoon won't hear them.
In the end, Hyunsik realizes that the the only way to end this thing is to do just that: end it, and hope it's not too late to do so.
He waits until he and Ilhoon crowd into the tiny practice room at the end of the long hallway of practice rooms, the one with the keyboard that has two busted F keys that no one ever wants to pick. Hyunsik stops Ilhoon before he can move two steps in.
"We shouldn't do this anymore," he says, and his voice is surprisingly clear for how much he's quaking inside.
Hyunsik watches Ilhoon's shoulders go stiff, his rolling grin drop like a hot coal from bare hands. "I don't know what you're talking about." Ilhoon's tone is something Hyunsik hasn't heard in a long, long time, it's more than just closed off, but Hyunsik has to keep pushing on.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. And it has to stop." Hyunsik tries to tell himself that he's prepared for any of Ilhoon's reactions, but really, how can he be sure of that? How can he tell himself that he's ready to take whatever Ilhoon can dish out, when the last few weeks have been a glaring reminder of the opposite?
"Why?" Ilhoon demands, and he's staring hard at Hyunsik but Hyunsik refuses to look away.
"Because it's not good for either of us, and we shouldn't have started it in the first place." Hyunsik watches the twists and flickers across Ilhoon's face, the fighting, leaping things in his eyes.
"I know how this goes. Just say what you really mean-- you're tired of me." Ilhoon breaks his gaze to stare off at the wall, brows knitted and mouth bunched in a scowl, and Hyunsik is still dumbfounded by the way Ilhoon's mind works.
"I-- what does that have to do with anything? I'm not tired of you, but you're--" Hyunsik fumbles with his words, and Ilhoon takes the opportunity to strike again.
"But I'm what? A stupid slut? Not worth the trouble? You've gotten your use out of me?" Ilhoon's voice is whip-sharp, and he lashes his gaze back to Hyunsik. "I've heard it all before, try again."
Hyunsik doesn't even know how to respond to that; it's like Ilhoon's living in a separate reality, one where Hyunsik told him to crowd against walls and sinks and shower stalls and get down on his knees and touch Hyunsik everywhere he can and not listen, never listen.
"Ilhoon, it's not about getting rid of you, it's not anything like that--" Hyunsik stops, reaches up to scrub a hand through his hair as he paces through the tiny space, Ilhoon's eyes following him. "It's just-- this thing. I can't do it anymore, I don't want to-- and, and I don't think you do, either." Hyunsik thinks back on that night in the bathroom, thinks of Ilhoon's panic, thinks of how monumentally fucked up this whole thing is.
Ilhoon's eyes flash with something hard, and his jaw flexes. "Don't tell me what I do and don't want." He turns, half-facing the wall so Hyunsik can't look him in the eye anymore. After a short, tight silence, he speaks again.
"You were supposed to be different, hyung. I thought you wanted to help me!" Ilhoon's voice breaks, just a little bit, and guilt flushes through Hyunsik's veins. How the hell did they get here, when they started out just sitting under the moonlight all those nights ago?
"I've always wanted to help you, but this thing? It's not helping, not at all." Hyunsik sucks in a shaky breath, his heart beating hard against his chest, and says what he's been thinking for far too long.
"You need help, Ilhoon, and I mean that. You need something more than what I can give you. You need someone who knows what they're doing."
Ilhoon looks back at him, finally, and no, oh no, the drowning look is coming. "Don't do this to me, hyung, please," It's the closest to pleading Hyunsik has ever heard from Ilhoon, and Ilhoon steps closer, reaching out to anchor his hand to Hyunsik's shirt, like he's in danger of floating away.
"You can help me, you can, just don't-- please don't--" Ilhoon can't seem to get the rest of his words out, and he's staring at Hyunsik with those eyes and god, Hyunsik realizes, the whole time he's tried to pull Ilhoon out of those crashing waves, all he was doing was getting dragged under himself.
"I wish I could help you, I really, really wish I could, but I don't know how, okay? I want to get you get some real help, someone who can actually do something, but as for me-- I can't."
Ilhoon stops pleading, stops holding his mouth open for words that won't come, and finally, drops his gaze too. He pulls his hand back, too, and stands there for a long moment. When he looks back up, The drowning look isn't just dulled, it's gone, all gone, and Hyunsik's never seen that before but it sends a jolt of something straight down to his gut.
"I understand," Ilhoon mutters, his voice low, and still not with the intent to actually be quiet, but more like he can't get his words to come out any louder. He turns away from Hyunsik and steps over to the door, reaching out for the handle, pausing.
"I'll see you later," he says, and he doesn't turn back to look at Hyunsik before he opens the door and slips out, closing the door softly behind him. For some reason, a shiver tremors through Hyunsik.
Hyunsik stays there for what feels like an eternity, and he mostly can't believe that this is actually over, that really, it wasn’t too late; he should feel elated, should have the relief bringing him to his knees. But he's still worried about Ilhoon, and every word he spoke was the truth. He thinks about what the next step is, thinks about finding Ilhoon again, talking to their manager, figuring out where they can go from here.
Eventually he slips out of the practice room and main building, heading back to their dorm in the chilly late winter air.
Minhyuk is cooking ramyun in the kitchen when Hyunsik shuts the door behind him and toes his shoes off. "Hey, have you seen Ilhoon?" He asks, padding over to the stove to peer into the bubbling pot, and Minhyuk swats at him with the chopsticks in his hand.
"Mm, no. He hasn't been back since he left earlier," Minhyuk says, and though it's not that strange (really, did he expect Ilhoon to come back here so soon?) it sets an uneasy feeling burning low in the pit of Hyunsik's stomach as he heads back to the changing room.
It's just after he hangs his coat up that he gets the text message.
I can't either, hyung.
Hyunsik knows what it means. He knows exactly what it means. And just like he knows what it means, just like the floor is dropping out beneath him, just like all the sound is rushing out of the room, he knows that he is too late.
And Hyunsik knows by now, knows all too well, there's nothing worse than too late.
Poll Round 25: Nothing Worse Than Too Late