(fic)
꼭 깨져봐야 아픈 줄 알지
(you only find out that it hurts after it's already broken.)
sunggyu, dongwoo and woohyun in every permutation | nc-17 | part 9 of 9
Woohyun wakes up late the next afternoon, his sleep dragged out by exhaustion and the weight of stress, and the apartment is quiet. It's strange-between the seven of them, someone is nearly always making noise, whether it is Hoya tinkering with something in the living room or Sungyeol and Myungsu laughing to themselves about some joke Sungyeol has told. But now, in the lull of the heat-heavy late afternoon, the stillness in the apartment is almost disconcerting, and if it weren't for the low murmur of voices from the room across the hall, Woohyun would almost believe he was alone.
Dongwoo is back, he thinks. Dongwoo is alive.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position, his joints protesting the movement, and braces his elbows on his knees to stare at his hands. In some ways it seems too good to be true, the idea that somewhere in this house, Dongwoo is repairing himself-that his brain is starting to reset, neurons growing, extending into the parts of him that the city had damaged. Somewhere, new connections are forging, burning bright with electric purpose.
In the stillness Woohyun hears Dongwoo laugh, and the sound is so beautiful that it breaks Woohyun's heart.
Flopping back onto the pillow, Woohyun stares up at the bottom of Hoya's bunk above him and takes a deep breath, calming his restless breathing. In, out. Inhale, exhale. Woohyun patterns his breathing after the rhythm of his heartbeat, listening to the low murmur of voices from Sunggyu's room-Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room, now. Now that Dongwoo is back, there's no reason for it not to be.
"Get up, Nam Woohyun," he murmurs to himself.
When Woohyun appears in Sunggyu and Dongwoo's doorway, they're sitting on the bed, and Sunggyu is holding onto Dongwoo's left hand. It's the first thing that Woohyun notices, and the thing that burns itself most brightly into his consciousness-such a small gesture, but so heavy. It's felt like an eternity where Dongwoo was too volatile to touch, and now, of course Sunggyu would be the first to touch him. How could he have expected anything different?
"Hey," Woohyun says. When he meets Dongwoo's eyes, the smile comes easily. "Feeling better?"
"A little dizzy," Dongwoo says. He glances at Sunggyu, grinning, and then back to Woohyun. "But better. A lot better."
"Stay in bed," Woohyun begins, but Sunggyu is already shaking his head, and even though he doesn't look away from Dongwoo it's hard to brush off the way he speaks over Woohyun's voice.
"Chorong made that much clear," he says, and after a moment he glances up at Woohyun, casual. His smile is a little tight in the corners, but there is nothing in his eyes to suggest anything other than happiness. Woohyun isn't sure why that stings so badly. "She's in the kitchen, by the way. In case you wanted to talk to her."
Maybe it isn't meant to be, but it feels like a dismissal. Woohyun forces a smile and offers a thumbs-up. "Good idea," he says, avoiding Dongwoo's eyes, and closes the door behind him when he leaves.
It's silly, Woohyun thinks, that he had expected more. That maybe there would be-well, something, a reunion, a chance for Woohyun to apologize to Dongwoo for all of the ways in which he's been hurt, all of the things Woohyun wishes he could have prevented. That maybe he would at least be able to hold Dongwoo, touch him the way they used to before all of this, when it was easy to be casually affectionate with one another-that maybe, Dongwoo would kiss Woohyun the way he had kissed him what feels like forever ago, that day that they sat in the living room and Dongwoo had called him strong. But in the end, isn't this how things should be? Sunggyu and Dongwoo, whose love for each other is so strong it hurts to look at, sometimes. Sunggyu and Dongwoo holding hands, laughing together, with eyes only for one another the way it has always been-the way it always will be.
Chorong is in the kitchen when Woohyun comes in, and she looks immaculately put together for someone who Woohyun knows slept on the couch in the living room. "Good morning," she says, and then pauses for a moment before amending, "Good afternoon. Did you sleep well?"
"Too long," Woohyun says. "But yeah, mostly. You? I know our couch isn't that comfortable."
"It wasn't bad." Chorong shrugs and offers a smile, the serenity of her expression belied by the way she carries herself-the I've slept on worse is implied, but Woohyun hears it loud and clear nonetheless. Doctor's assistants, he knows, can come from the Outside. It's rare, but it happens.
After a moment of silence, Chorong turns back towards the dishes she had been cleaning when Woohyun walked in. "Do you want something to eat?" she asks, over her shoulder. "There's rice in the pot, and kimchi. Bean sprouts, too, if you want those."
Truthfully, Woohyun doesn't have much of an appetite, but he's gone hungry enough to know not to waste food when it's offered. "Thanks," he says, coming around the counter to look into the pot still sitting on the stove. "You didn't have to cook, you know. I mean-we can, we do. You're-"
"I'm not exactly a guest," Chorong says, the correction gentle.
Woohyun smiles down at the rice. "No, I guess not."
The silence settles heavily between them, until Chorong puts the last bowl on the counter and says, "Is everything all right, Woohyun-ssi?"
"What?" Woohyun glances back, blinking. "Yeah, it's fine. Why?"
"You've been staring at the rice for ten minutes." There's no amusement in Chorong's voice, but no judgment either. Woohyun wonders how many of these situations she's seen, how many families destroyed or brought back together, the wounds left to heal. Wonders whether this is her attempt at healing some of his. "He will be fine, you know," she says after a moment. "Dongwoo-ssi. He's very resilient. Dr. Kim was impressed by how much repair his brain had already done."
"He's a strong guy," Woohyun agrees, scooping some rice into a bowl. He takes a bite of it, and it is warm and comforting in his mouth, but tasteless-or maybe he just has less of an appetite than he thought. "He'd have to be, to come out of this alive."
"You're all very strong," Chorong says, and then bows slightly. "Excuse me."
She leaves Woohyun standing alone in the kitchen, holding a bowl of rice and wondering when he became so totally transparent even to strangers. Woohyun has always thought of himself as good at hiding what needs to be hidden, good at keeping himself under wraps-capable of vulnerability, certainly, but with armor built up by years of hurt and hunger. They all have shells, in their own ways-even Sungyeol, cheerful, charming Sungyeol whose best form of defense has always been his own charisma. A good offense, so to speak. Hoya hides behind his stoicism, Sungjong behind his wit, Myungsu behind his icy stare. And Sunggyu hides behind his sharp words and cutting glances, the easy way he has of cutting Woohyun to the core.
Of all of them, it has always only been Dongwoo whose tender and soft inner core has been most visible. As long as Woohyun has known him, Dongwoo has only ever been the same genuine, beautiful person, thoughtful and sweet and forgiving-has only ever been this quick to laugh, this quick to show affection and soothe hurts when the need arises.
It makes sense, that Sunggyu would fall in love with Dongwoo. Who wouldn't? And Dongwoo has also always been the only one who can soften Sunggyu's sharp edges, who can balance him out the way Sunggyu needs.
And Woohyun? Woohyun loves them both, for different reasons and in different ways, but it hardly matters now. And if he breathes deep enough, Woohyun can almost convince himself that it's okay.
It takes four days before Dongwoo can get out of bed without help, and another two before he can do so unassisted, but every day is a step forward and Woohyun is thankful for what they have. It makes something warm and heavy settle behind his lungs whenever he looks over at Dongwoo and catches him laughing, mouth open wide and eyes crinkled, laughing the way he laughed before any of this-Woohyun has always found Dongwoo's laugh charming, silly though it is, even when there wasn't much to be laughing at.
Things between Dongwoo and Sunggyu, too, take the same slow steps forward. Woohyun wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to the bathroom, and on the return passes by the cracked-open door of Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room-there's a low light beaming from the space, so he pushes the door open slightly and sticks his head inside.
"Hey," Dongwoo says, his voice soft. He's sitting in bed, leaning back against the pillow, a book in his hand-but that isn't what Woohyun notices. What he notices is Sunggyu asleep in the bed next to him, his head on Dongwoo's lap, fingers curled gently in the fabric of Dongwoo's pants. He looks so much softer in sleep, so much more vulnerable, and Woohyun is struck by the immediate and curiously painful realization that he's equally jealous of Dongwoo, for being so close to Sunggyu, and of Sunggyu for being in a position to let himself be open to Dongwoo this way.
"Hey," Woohyun replies. He smiles a little, softly, although even as he does he's aware that he can't keep all of his emotions out of it. "Can't sleep?"
"I've been sleeping for pretty much a week straight," Dongwoo points out with a grin, folding his book over his finger to hold his place. He looks at Woohyun for a long moment, his smile fading slightly as he does-and Woohyun tries to school his expression into neutrality. "Woohyun-ah…"
"Yeah?" It has never before bothered Woohyun how easily Dongwoo can read him, but now all Woohyun wishes for are walls to keep himself contained. "What's up?"
"Remember, I promised I would tell you a story if I made it out alive," Dongwoo says. "Do you still want to hear it?"
"I'll listen to anything you want to tell me, hyung."
For all that Woohyun feels like an open book to Dongwoo, sometimes Dongwoo feels like an impenetrable fortress to Woohyun. He smiles a little, soft and gentle and full of something Woohyun can't name, and reaches out a hand for Woohyun-careful, so as not to disturb Sunggyu, still asleep on Dongwoo's lap.
Woohyun comes into the room, sits carefully on the edge of the bed. "I'm really glad you're okay," he says, quiet and more honest than he wants to be, his voice so low it's almost a whisper.
Dongwoo's fingers curl against Woohyun's jaw, trace the line of his ear, thumb brushing over the rise of Woohyun's cheekbone. "You're so skinny now," he says, and Dongwoo's still smiling, but there is something sad there, too. "You've been working hard, haven't you? To make sure we're all okay."
"Not that hard," Woohyun begins, but Dongwoo shakes his head.
"You've been doing all the planning, all the logistical stuff. Helping Hoya and Sunggyu with their deliveries, switching off with Myungsu to give him time with his sister… isn't that right?" It is, so Woohyun stays silent, and Dongwoo slides his palm down the side of Woohyun's throat and curls his fingers behind the back of his neck. "I know you would work yourself to death if it meant keeping us safe," Dongwoo says, and it cuts Woohyun to the core. "I wish you would let us take care of you a little."
"I'm fine," Woohyun says, and he means for it to be true, but as soon as the words are given voice he knows it's a lie. "I'm pretty strong, hyung."
"Being strong has nothing to do with it," Dongwoo says. He threads the fingers of his other hand through Sunggyu's hair, stroking gently against the nape of his neck, and Woohyun's stomach clenches painfully. "Sunggyu is one of the strongest men I know, and even he needs someone to watch out for him. We're family, Woohyun-ah, that's what we do for each other."
What Woohyun wants to say is that he's afraid to let himself be vulnerable-that he's afraid to take the latch off of the cage of emotions he's keeping contained inside him, because once that box is opened, he won't ever be able to close it. Being in love with Sunggyu is a wound so old it almost doesn't hurt anymore, but being in love with Dongwoo is not, and the scar still aches with remembered agony every time Woohyun sees Dongwoo smile, every time he sees Dongwoo and Sunggyu lace fingers as easy as breathing. Woohyun has too much hurt and fear and loss and love tangled up inside of him to be willing to let someone else take care of him-how could he ask anyone else to shoulder that burden?
But he can't say any of that to Dongwoo, so instead Woohyun just looks down at the cover of Dongwoo's book and says, "I'll try to do better, hyung."
"I don't want you to do better," Dongwoo replies. "I just want you as you are."
It's so uncomfortably close to a confession that Woohyun has to fight back a flinch, and he closes his eyes against a rush of emotion. "Okay," he says, as though that's something he can give-as though he even understands what Dongwoo is asking. Or maybe it's Dongwoo who doesn’t understand what he's asking, doesn't know that Woohyun is already his.
Dongwoo lets go of him, hand coming to rest next to Sunggyu's on his lap. He smiles at Woohyun, his eyes bright but a little sad-oh, and doesn't it sting that there's nothing Woohyun can do? "Go back to sleep, Woohyun-ah," Dongwoo says. "I'll see you in the morning, okay?"
"Sure," Woohyun says, his stomach tight. "Goodnight, hyung."
When a week passes and Hoya takes Chorong back to meet Dr. Kim at the edge of the Outside, Woohyun takes advantage of the moment to go visit Key. Seohyun knows him well enough by now to send him up without question, if Key is not with a client, but the look she gives him when he waves at her is curious-a combination of frustration and affection that bewilders Woohyun. She has never looked at him that way before, and if anything, Woohyun had expected pity.
He finds Key in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. Everything is different than the last time Woohyun was there-most of Key's things are gone, the room so bare it seems impersonal, and there is nearly nothing to suggest it even belongs to Key. "What's this?" Woohyun asks, running his palm along the flat top of a table. "Going somewhere?"
Key looks up and smiles, although it's quieter than the smiles Woohyun is used to receiving from him. "Yeah," he says with a simple nod. "Somewhere more-permanent."
The words draw Woohyun up short. When they were younger, although not by much, Key used to joke that one day, he would find a real job, a job that didn't involve letting strangers touch him for money. He was smart, Key said, and he was resourceful-if any of the whores could do it, it would be him. Woohyun had wanted to believe him so badly then, but they had both been old enough by then to know that there were lines that Edgedwellers couldn't cross. Especially not Edgedwellers like them. Now, for a split second, Woohyun almost wonders if Key has made good on that promise, but there is something fragile about the rise and fall of Key's shoulders that tells him it's not so.
"Where?" Woohyun asks. The words are abrupt, bitten off.
"I'm…" Key pauses, thinking. Searching for a way to say it, maybe. "I'm going to the Inside. To be a personal… assistant."
Some Insider's sex slave, then. It happens, occasionally, Woohyun knows that much-Insiders with too much money and a great deal more loneliness will buy Edgedwelling prostitutes, take them into the Inside and groom them into pretty little toys. In some ways, it's a good deal-the Inside is lavish and decadent even compared to the Outside, let alone to the Edge where Key and Woohyun grew up. But in others it's more dangerous, because at least with Seohyun there are rules, boundaries, and guards to enforce them. Inside, the only rules are the whims of one's owner. Woohyun would not see Key broken.
"Were you going to tell me?" Woohyun asks. He doesn't mean for it to be an accusation but Key flinches like it is, his fingers curling in the fabric of the bedspread. "Or were you going to leave in the middle of all of this and hope it took me a while to notice?"
Key looks up at him, unapologetic and proud as always. "I wasn't going to make a scene," he says. "You wouldn't have been any the wiser until I was long gone."
Carefully, Woohyun sits on one of the delicate wooden chairs that still decorates the room. "Why?" he asks, hands folded against each other, watching Key. "We've been friends for years. Why would you just leave without telling me?"
There is a long silence, and then Key exhales. Woohyun has known Key for a very long time-he has seen Key fight and kill and fuck and commit acts that Woohyun guards like secrets under his tongue. But he has never seen Key cry. And now, in this room, Key looks up at him and his eyes are too bright, shining with moisture, and it feels like a hot knife sunk into the pit of Woohyun's chest.
"I think it would have been easier," Key says. "If I hadn't seen you before I left. Seeing you makes me want to stay, but-"
"Then stay," Woohyun says. His throat feels thick, like it takes too much effort for each word to push forth.
"It's not that simple." Key draws a knee up and rests his chin on it, looking at the floor between him and Woohyun. "This man-he… I owe him. I owe him so much I'll never be able to repay it."
"If it's about money, Kibum-"
"Don't," Key says. "Don't call me that. And it's not about money. It's a bigger debt than that."
He looks up at Woohyun and, in a startling moment of ice-cold clarity, Woohyun understands.
After a particularly nasty fight, years ago, Woohyun and Key had crouched in the shell of an abandoned warehouse, and Key had bled all over the floor from a deep, vicious gash near his ribs. His blood had been hot and sticky on Woohyun's fingers, and Woohyun had pressed one palm to the wound and another to Key's face and said, "Live through this, you asshole. You live through it and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you can be-you have to live through it-"
Key had laughed, and a fresh surge of warm blood had spilled beneath Woohyun's hand. "I've been spending my life trying to make you happy for years already," he said, grinning with teeth stained red. "It's about time you made that promise back."
Later, when Key was stitched up and recovering, Woohyun had pulled every string he had tied to his fingers and had Seohyun take Key in. He hadn't known, then, that it would come to this. Hadn't known that Key would still remember, years later-that Key would still love him enough to do even this.
"You asshole," Woohyun says. In an instant he's closed the distance between them, pulling Key close despite his halfhearted protests. "You complete asshole. How could you do that-?"
"For you?" Key struggles for a moment more and then gives in, resting his cheek against Woohyun's shoulder, his arms loose around Woohyun's waist. "You've always known, you idiot. That I would spend my life to make you happy."
"Asshole," Woohyun repeats, closing his eyes. The breath he takes is shaky, but it'll do. "Kim Kibum."
"Don't."
"Kibum-"
Key punches him in the thigh, then kisses him, not like the chaste kisses they're used to sharing-something else, something desperate and hurting and bitter, his fingers tight in Woohyun's hair, all teeth and slick tongues until Woohyun is panting, all of the oxygen torn from his lungs. Only then does Key pull back, lips swollen and eyes dark, to look at Woohyun with something incomprehensible in his gaze. "Something to remember me by," he says, his voice rough, and for some reason all Woohyun wants to do is cry.
"I love you, Kim Kibum," Woohyun says, pushing his fingers back through Key's hair. "Tell me where you're going. At least I can come see you-"
"You know I can't." Key shakes his head, pressing his fingers against Woohyun's mouth. "Discretion is the point of my job, and even if it wasn't, it's too dangerous. In the Outside, maybe, but Inside? Woohyun, you would die before you even made it to the house."
It's the answer Woohyun had been expecting, but it doesn't hurt any less.
He kisses Key again before he leaves, softer this time and much sweeter, and they don't say anything. What is there to be said? They won't see each other again, Woohyun knows, and he knows it is his fault-but he also knows that Key has already forgiven him, and so there is no point in apology. Just another ache to hug home.
"Thank you," Woohyun says, when he runs into Seohyun on his way out of the building. "For keeping him safe. If there's anything you need, ever-"
Seohyun shakes her head gently, touching Woohyun's upper arm. "Just be good to yourself," she says with a soft smile. "Stay alive. That's all I want, and all he wants."
Woohyun makes it halfway home before he cries.
Sunggyu finds Woohyun that evening sitting on the balcony with a cigarette in his fingers, the remains of the rest of the pack littering the cement around him. "I thought you quit," he says, leaning on the railing with his back toward the city.
"I thought I did, too," Woohyun says, and takes a deep drag.
The last cigarette he had smoked was with Key, the night before he had moved into Seohyun's for good. It seems appropriate to smoke one-or twenty-on the night before he moves out.
"What happened?" Sunggyu asks, watching Woohyun with an incisive gaze.
It takes Woohyun a long moment to sort out his thoughts. "I've always been a selfish person," he finally says, tapping his ash out on the arm of his chair. Propping his feet up on the railing next to Sunggyu, Woohyun tilts his head back and exhales upward. "You have to be a little selfish to survive out here."
"That's true enough."
"I should have known," Woohyun adds. "No city-employed neurosurgeon agrees to do an expensive and complicated operation on an Edgedweller in unsupervised conditions just because he likes an Edgedwelling prostitute. I knew there had to be a catch that Key wasn't telling me about. I just didn't want to think about it, because I wasn't sure if the cost would be worth it and I was scared of losing Dongwoo hyung."
Sunggyu stays silent for a moment, his breathing even, before he asks, "What was the cost?"
"Key is moving into the Inside," Woohyun says, his voice like acid in the back of his throat. "He's becoming someone's personal whore. No matter how much the doctor likes him, he'll be dead within a year. They always are."
"Woohyun-"
"I should have known."
They all should have known.
There isn't much to say, so Woohyun is not surprised by the silence. He is, however, surprised when Sunggyu moves, taking the cigarette out of his hand and taking a drag of his own before stubbing it out and throwing it over the railing. "That was my last one," he says, with irritation that he does not really feel.
"I know," Sunggyu says. "I doubt you're going to miss it."
When he kisses Woohyun it's gentle, much gentler than Woohyun ever thought Sunggyu could be. The last time Sunggyu had kissed him, it had been all barely-contained anger, frustration channeled into their mouths, but this is something else entirely. This is so sweet that it feels almost loving, and the suggestion-even imagined-is enough to choke Woohyun, to have his breath catching in the back of his throat as he tries to kiss Sunggyu back.
No.
"Stop it," Woohyun says, pushing Sunggyu away. It is the hardest thing he thinks he's ever done, but he has to, because this gentleness is breaking his heart and Woohyun doesn't know how much heart he has left to break.
"Woohyun?"
"You can't be like this." The words catch on Woohyun's tongue, but he forces them out anyway, standing up to put some distance between himself and Sunggyu. "You can't just come to me when you want something because you know I'm easy."
"Easy?" Sunggyu repeats, and there is so much bewildered hurt in his expression that Woohyun almost wants to stop.
"Isn't that what you said? That time that you fucked me because I was there and Dongwoo hyung was on the couch. 'You've always been so easy.' I didn't know what it meant then, but I'm pretty sure I know now." That Woohyun is the easy choice, because Sunggyu knows he will always be there. "Fuck you, hyung. You can't play with me like that."
Sunggyu's mouth snaps shut, and he just looks at Woohyun for a long minute before speaking. "You're an idiot," he says, and he doesn't say it in the way that Dongwoo does, teasingly and affectionately-he says it like he means it. Like there are words climbing up the back of his throat, too. "You're an idiot who doesn't see anything. I trusted that you knew better, but-I was wrong, I think."
"When did you trust me?" Woohyun says with a bitter laugh, his pride stinging. "When did you ever trust me as an equal instead of as a peon?"
The way that Sunggyu recoils makes it seem like Woohyun has struck him. Maybe he has. Maybe his words are cruel, and Woohyun is speaking them only out of fear and hurt and love. "Is that what you think of me?" Sunggyu asks. "That I think of you as a peon?"
"I don't know." In a moment, it feels as though all of Woohyun's anger has drained out of him. "I don't know what you think of me, hyung. I don't know anything. I just-I have to go."
He doesn't let Sunggyu say anything-just turns and walks away, barely pausing to pick up his things before he makes his way out of the apartment. Woohyun can feel the lock on that metal cage rattling, shaking its way through his insides, the angry, jealous creatures inside clawing at his ribcage. There was a story he heard once about a woman who opened a box and unleashed all of the bad things in the entire world, and at the bottom of the box was hope-but there is no hope at the bottom of Woohyun's box, and that realization is terrifying.
It's just that he can't let himself be Sunggyu's plaything. He loves Sunggyu deeply and desperately, in a way Woohyun does not know if he will ever be able to walk away from-but he loves Dongwoo too, just as much, and so Woohyun cannot touch either of them. He will not.
Sunggyu and Dongwoo fit together in ways Woohyun can't even imagine, and his place is not in the middle of that.
He finds himself in a park, the wreckage of a jungle gym rising out of the overgrown grass. Woohyun takes a seat on one of the platforms and presses his fingertips to his temples, trying to massage out the tension headache that grows there, ceaseless-but it will not relent, and Woohyun cannot calm it. He wants to find it terrible, that they gained so much only to lose even more, but Woohyun cannot bring himself to think of Dongwoo's recovery as anything less than the miracle it is. And besides, only Woohyun has lost. Everyone else has only seen the gains.
"Woohyun?" A voice-Dongwoo's, from the edge of the playground.
Woohyun's head snaps up, and he looks over at Dongwoo through eyes narrowed against the light. "Hyung," he says, his voice raw-too many cigarettes. "What are you doing here?"
"Sunggyu sent me after you," Dongwoo says. He crosses the grass field of the playground and leans against the platform next to where Woohyun is sitting. "He was scared. That you'd left for good, or something. He said it was his fault, but wouldn't say why."
"It's not his fault." It is his fault, in some ways, but it is Woohyun's fault in more, so he can't allow the blame to fall entirely on Sunggyu. "It's my fault."
"I figured you'd say that."
Woohyun looks up. "What does that mean?"
"You're always trying to protect us." Dongwoo smiles a little, shaking his head. He looks out over the playground, surveying the overgrown grass and the remains of a merry-go-round a short distance away. "Trying to take all the blame onto yourself. I bet it was actually his fault, and you just don't want to admit to it because you're in love with him."
"That's not how it is," Woohyun begins, before the rest of Dongwoo's words catch up to him and he chokes on himself. "I-hyung-" He should deny it, he knows, but Dongwoo had said it with so much certainty and so little anger, and Woohyun feels a little like the world is spinning and he can't quite catch a breath.
"I think I'd like to tell you that story now," Dongwoo says, looking up at Woohyun. He's still smiling. There is no artifice in it. "If you'll listen."
"…I'll listen."
Dongwoo nods and turns, leaning his hip against the platform so he can talk towards Woohyun. "When Jaehyun hyung brought you home, Sunggyu told me that he couldn't get a good read on you," he says, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips. "He's always been good at reading people, so I think it bothered him. I'm sure you noticed how wary he was, for the first couple of months-Jaehyun hyung was always so trusting, but Sunggyu… you have to earn his trust, and it took you a while to do that."
"I remember that," Woohyun says. "There were a few times I thought he was going to throw me out."
"It wasn't that bad. But it took Sunggyu a long time to learn that the reason you never opened up to him is because you don't open up to anyone. You worked harder than anyone, but you never let anyone else support you." Dongwoo reaches out and brushes a dead leaf off of Woohyun's knee. "Not for a long time, anyway."
At the very beginning of things, Woohyun remembers, when Jaehyun hyung had brought him back, he had been half-wild and distrustful of everyone. "I was such a hateful little shit," he says to Dongwoo, although he can't quite bring himself to smile yet. "I don't know how you put up with me."
"Personally, it's because I never run out of patience," Dongwoo says with a laugh. "Sunggyu… He's not so patient, you know that. But there was one time-when the peacekeepers were cleaning up after one of their 'riot control' massacres, and you were watching the group of scavengers who were circling around and waiting for the crowd to clear." Woohyun remembers this, too. "Sunggyu asked what you were looking at with that expression and you said, 'I used to tear the throats out of people like them.'"
Even when Woohyun had been at his wildest, his lowest bottom, he had still carried inside him a fierce hatred for people who preyed on the weakness of others. It was for that reason that he had decided he would never, ever be vulnerable-he could never protect anyone if he was being preyed on himself. "I never did figure out what Sunggyu hyung made of that," he says, tilting his head back and looking up to the sky. "I'm pretty sure he thought I was nuts for a minute though." Woohyun had never intended to tell any of them about the person he was before Jaehyun hyung had found him; Jaehyun hyung had never mentioned it, and the secrets had died with him.
Even now, Woohyun isn't sure what made him say that, then.
"I think that was when he fell in love with you," Dongwoo says.
It's the absolute last thing that Woohyun ever expected to hear, and he almost falls off the platform. "If that's what you think of as a joke," he begins, voice shaky, but Dongwoo shakes his head a little and looks up at him with an open, honest gaze. Woohyun knows how to read Dongwoo.
"That was only a month before they took me," Dongwoo says with matter-of-fact frankness. "He told me, a week before-he was scared, Woohyun-ah. Of what you would think of him, if you knew. Of what I would think of him, because we've been together for so long and now he's fallen in love with someone else, too."
Woohyun can barely swallow around his heart beating in his throat. "…What did you think of him, hyung?" he asks.
Dongwoo is quiet for a moment, contemplative. "I was jealous," he says, running his thumb along a sharp edge of metal. "Remember when Sunggyu and I broke up, and I said it had to do with you but not in the way you were thinking?"
"I remember."
"I wasn't jealous because I wanted him to be in love with only me," Dongwoo says. "I was jealous because I didn't want to share you."
For a long moment, there is silence between them. Woohyun doesn't know what to make of it-how to make space for that inside himself. The idea that Sunggyu feels the same way-or even close to it-is strange enough, but the idea that Dongwoo, too… And yet, a part of Woohyun cannot immediately say it's a lie. He thinks about Sunggyu's strange, incomprehensible looks, the way Dongwoo had kissed him soft and sweet and gentle. About the way that Sunggyu had felt moving inside him, and the quiet weight of his voice and his arm when they lay together afterwards. The way that Dongwoo would touch him, casual, possessive in ways that Woohyun had always just taken as a mark of his friendship.
He thinks about Sunggyu kissing him on the balcony, and the look of deep hurt on his face when Woohyun had told him to stop playing.
Dongwoo is still watching him, and Woohyun forces his mouth open even though no sound wants to emerge. "Hyung," he says, his voice rough and raw and much more vulnerable than Woohyun had ever wanted to allow himself to be-only he knows that he can trust Dongwoo not to hurt him.
"Come back with me," Dongwoo says, reaching out. "I can think of somebody who's dying to set the record straight with you."
This cannot be easy, Woohyun knows. But nothing worth having ever is.
"Okay," he says, and takes Dongwoo's hand.
part eight | part nine
note: Ah! Done! After so much time... I think at one point, I had thought this would be very short! But as usual, I lied to myself. ㅋㅋ Thank you especially to jjang and mworani for letting me bounce ideas off of them and torment them endlessly on Twitter until they threatened my life! ^^ It would not have been possible without you!
(you only find out that it hurts after it's already broken.)
sunggyu, dongwoo and woohyun in every permutation | nc-17 | part 9 of 9
Woohyun wakes up late the next afternoon, his sleep dragged out by exhaustion and the weight of stress, and the apartment is quiet. It's strange-between the seven of them, someone is nearly always making noise, whether it is Hoya tinkering with something in the living room or Sungyeol and Myungsu laughing to themselves about some joke Sungyeol has told. But now, in the lull of the heat-heavy late afternoon, the stillness in the apartment is almost disconcerting, and if it weren't for the low murmur of voices from the room across the hall, Woohyun would almost believe he was alone.
Dongwoo is back, he thinks. Dongwoo is alive.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position, his joints protesting the movement, and braces his elbows on his knees to stare at his hands. In some ways it seems too good to be true, the idea that somewhere in this house, Dongwoo is repairing himself-that his brain is starting to reset, neurons growing, extending into the parts of him that the city had damaged. Somewhere, new connections are forging, burning bright with electric purpose.
In the stillness Woohyun hears Dongwoo laugh, and the sound is so beautiful that it breaks Woohyun's heart.
Flopping back onto the pillow, Woohyun stares up at the bottom of Hoya's bunk above him and takes a deep breath, calming his restless breathing. In, out. Inhale, exhale. Woohyun patterns his breathing after the rhythm of his heartbeat, listening to the low murmur of voices from Sunggyu's room-Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room, now. Now that Dongwoo is back, there's no reason for it not to be.
"Get up, Nam Woohyun," he murmurs to himself.
When Woohyun appears in Sunggyu and Dongwoo's doorway, they're sitting on the bed, and Sunggyu is holding onto Dongwoo's left hand. It's the first thing that Woohyun notices, and the thing that burns itself most brightly into his consciousness-such a small gesture, but so heavy. It's felt like an eternity where Dongwoo was too volatile to touch, and now, of course Sunggyu would be the first to touch him. How could he have expected anything different?
"Hey," Woohyun says. When he meets Dongwoo's eyes, the smile comes easily. "Feeling better?"
"A little dizzy," Dongwoo says. He glances at Sunggyu, grinning, and then back to Woohyun. "But better. A lot better."
"Stay in bed," Woohyun begins, but Sunggyu is already shaking his head, and even though he doesn't look away from Dongwoo it's hard to brush off the way he speaks over Woohyun's voice.
"Chorong made that much clear," he says, and after a moment he glances up at Woohyun, casual. His smile is a little tight in the corners, but there is nothing in his eyes to suggest anything other than happiness. Woohyun isn't sure why that stings so badly. "She's in the kitchen, by the way. In case you wanted to talk to her."
Maybe it isn't meant to be, but it feels like a dismissal. Woohyun forces a smile and offers a thumbs-up. "Good idea," he says, avoiding Dongwoo's eyes, and closes the door behind him when he leaves.
It's silly, Woohyun thinks, that he had expected more. That maybe there would be-well, something, a reunion, a chance for Woohyun to apologize to Dongwoo for all of the ways in which he's been hurt, all of the things Woohyun wishes he could have prevented. That maybe he would at least be able to hold Dongwoo, touch him the way they used to before all of this, when it was easy to be casually affectionate with one another-that maybe, Dongwoo would kiss Woohyun the way he had kissed him what feels like forever ago, that day that they sat in the living room and Dongwoo had called him strong. But in the end, isn't this how things should be? Sunggyu and Dongwoo, whose love for each other is so strong it hurts to look at, sometimes. Sunggyu and Dongwoo holding hands, laughing together, with eyes only for one another the way it has always been-the way it always will be.
Chorong is in the kitchen when Woohyun comes in, and she looks immaculately put together for someone who Woohyun knows slept on the couch in the living room. "Good morning," she says, and then pauses for a moment before amending, "Good afternoon. Did you sleep well?"
"Too long," Woohyun says. "But yeah, mostly. You? I know our couch isn't that comfortable."
"It wasn't bad." Chorong shrugs and offers a smile, the serenity of her expression belied by the way she carries herself-the I've slept on worse is implied, but Woohyun hears it loud and clear nonetheless. Doctor's assistants, he knows, can come from the Outside. It's rare, but it happens.
After a moment of silence, Chorong turns back towards the dishes she had been cleaning when Woohyun walked in. "Do you want something to eat?" she asks, over her shoulder. "There's rice in the pot, and kimchi. Bean sprouts, too, if you want those."
Truthfully, Woohyun doesn't have much of an appetite, but he's gone hungry enough to know not to waste food when it's offered. "Thanks," he says, coming around the counter to look into the pot still sitting on the stove. "You didn't have to cook, you know. I mean-we can, we do. You're-"
"I'm not exactly a guest," Chorong says, the correction gentle.
Woohyun smiles down at the rice. "No, I guess not."
The silence settles heavily between them, until Chorong puts the last bowl on the counter and says, "Is everything all right, Woohyun-ssi?"
"What?" Woohyun glances back, blinking. "Yeah, it's fine. Why?"
"You've been staring at the rice for ten minutes." There's no amusement in Chorong's voice, but no judgment either. Woohyun wonders how many of these situations she's seen, how many families destroyed or brought back together, the wounds left to heal. Wonders whether this is her attempt at healing some of his. "He will be fine, you know," she says after a moment. "Dongwoo-ssi. He's very resilient. Dr. Kim was impressed by how much repair his brain had already done."
"He's a strong guy," Woohyun agrees, scooping some rice into a bowl. He takes a bite of it, and it is warm and comforting in his mouth, but tasteless-or maybe he just has less of an appetite than he thought. "He'd have to be, to come out of this alive."
"You're all very strong," Chorong says, and then bows slightly. "Excuse me."
She leaves Woohyun standing alone in the kitchen, holding a bowl of rice and wondering when he became so totally transparent even to strangers. Woohyun has always thought of himself as good at hiding what needs to be hidden, good at keeping himself under wraps-capable of vulnerability, certainly, but with armor built up by years of hurt and hunger. They all have shells, in their own ways-even Sungyeol, cheerful, charming Sungyeol whose best form of defense has always been his own charisma. A good offense, so to speak. Hoya hides behind his stoicism, Sungjong behind his wit, Myungsu behind his icy stare. And Sunggyu hides behind his sharp words and cutting glances, the easy way he has of cutting Woohyun to the core.
Of all of them, it has always only been Dongwoo whose tender and soft inner core has been most visible. As long as Woohyun has known him, Dongwoo has only ever been the same genuine, beautiful person, thoughtful and sweet and forgiving-has only ever been this quick to laugh, this quick to show affection and soothe hurts when the need arises.
It makes sense, that Sunggyu would fall in love with Dongwoo. Who wouldn't? And Dongwoo has also always been the only one who can soften Sunggyu's sharp edges, who can balance him out the way Sunggyu needs.
And Woohyun? Woohyun loves them both, for different reasons and in different ways, but it hardly matters now. And if he breathes deep enough, Woohyun can almost convince himself that it's okay.
It takes four days before Dongwoo can get out of bed without help, and another two before he can do so unassisted, but every day is a step forward and Woohyun is thankful for what they have. It makes something warm and heavy settle behind his lungs whenever he looks over at Dongwoo and catches him laughing, mouth open wide and eyes crinkled, laughing the way he laughed before any of this-Woohyun has always found Dongwoo's laugh charming, silly though it is, even when there wasn't much to be laughing at.
Things between Dongwoo and Sunggyu, too, take the same slow steps forward. Woohyun wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to the bathroom, and on the return passes by the cracked-open door of Sunggyu and Dongwoo's room-there's a low light beaming from the space, so he pushes the door open slightly and sticks his head inside.
"Hey," Dongwoo says, his voice soft. He's sitting in bed, leaning back against the pillow, a book in his hand-but that isn't what Woohyun notices. What he notices is Sunggyu asleep in the bed next to him, his head on Dongwoo's lap, fingers curled gently in the fabric of Dongwoo's pants. He looks so much softer in sleep, so much more vulnerable, and Woohyun is struck by the immediate and curiously painful realization that he's equally jealous of Dongwoo, for being so close to Sunggyu, and of Sunggyu for being in a position to let himself be open to Dongwoo this way.
"Hey," Woohyun replies. He smiles a little, softly, although even as he does he's aware that he can't keep all of his emotions out of it. "Can't sleep?"
"I've been sleeping for pretty much a week straight," Dongwoo points out with a grin, folding his book over his finger to hold his place. He looks at Woohyun for a long moment, his smile fading slightly as he does-and Woohyun tries to school his expression into neutrality. "Woohyun-ah…"
"Yeah?" It has never before bothered Woohyun how easily Dongwoo can read him, but now all Woohyun wishes for are walls to keep himself contained. "What's up?"
"Remember, I promised I would tell you a story if I made it out alive," Dongwoo says. "Do you still want to hear it?"
"I'll listen to anything you want to tell me, hyung."
For all that Woohyun feels like an open book to Dongwoo, sometimes Dongwoo feels like an impenetrable fortress to Woohyun. He smiles a little, soft and gentle and full of something Woohyun can't name, and reaches out a hand for Woohyun-careful, so as not to disturb Sunggyu, still asleep on Dongwoo's lap.
Woohyun comes into the room, sits carefully on the edge of the bed. "I'm really glad you're okay," he says, quiet and more honest than he wants to be, his voice so low it's almost a whisper.
Dongwoo's fingers curl against Woohyun's jaw, trace the line of his ear, thumb brushing over the rise of Woohyun's cheekbone. "You're so skinny now," he says, and Dongwoo's still smiling, but there is something sad there, too. "You've been working hard, haven't you? To make sure we're all okay."
"Not that hard," Woohyun begins, but Dongwoo shakes his head.
"You've been doing all the planning, all the logistical stuff. Helping Hoya and Sunggyu with their deliveries, switching off with Myungsu to give him time with his sister… isn't that right?" It is, so Woohyun stays silent, and Dongwoo slides his palm down the side of Woohyun's throat and curls his fingers behind the back of his neck. "I know you would work yourself to death if it meant keeping us safe," Dongwoo says, and it cuts Woohyun to the core. "I wish you would let us take care of you a little."
"I'm fine," Woohyun says, and he means for it to be true, but as soon as the words are given voice he knows it's a lie. "I'm pretty strong, hyung."
"Being strong has nothing to do with it," Dongwoo says. He threads the fingers of his other hand through Sunggyu's hair, stroking gently against the nape of his neck, and Woohyun's stomach clenches painfully. "Sunggyu is one of the strongest men I know, and even he needs someone to watch out for him. We're family, Woohyun-ah, that's what we do for each other."
What Woohyun wants to say is that he's afraid to let himself be vulnerable-that he's afraid to take the latch off of the cage of emotions he's keeping contained inside him, because once that box is opened, he won't ever be able to close it. Being in love with Sunggyu is a wound so old it almost doesn't hurt anymore, but being in love with Dongwoo is not, and the scar still aches with remembered agony every time Woohyun sees Dongwoo smile, every time he sees Dongwoo and Sunggyu lace fingers as easy as breathing. Woohyun has too much hurt and fear and loss and love tangled up inside of him to be willing to let someone else take care of him-how could he ask anyone else to shoulder that burden?
But he can't say any of that to Dongwoo, so instead Woohyun just looks down at the cover of Dongwoo's book and says, "I'll try to do better, hyung."
"I don't want you to do better," Dongwoo replies. "I just want you as you are."
It's so uncomfortably close to a confession that Woohyun has to fight back a flinch, and he closes his eyes against a rush of emotion. "Okay," he says, as though that's something he can give-as though he even understands what Dongwoo is asking. Or maybe it's Dongwoo who doesn’t understand what he's asking, doesn't know that Woohyun is already his.
Dongwoo lets go of him, hand coming to rest next to Sunggyu's on his lap. He smiles at Woohyun, his eyes bright but a little sad-oh, and doesn't it sting that there's nothing Woohyun can do? "Go back to sleep, Woohyun-ah," Dongwoo says. "I'll see you in the morning, okay?"
"Sure," Woohyun says, his stomach tight. "Goodnight, hyung."
When a week passes and Hoya takes Chorong back to meet Dr. Kim at the edge of the Outside, Woohyun takes advantage of the moment to go visit Key. Seohyun knows him well enough by now to send him up without question, if Key is not with a client, but the look she gives him when he waves at her is curious-a combination of frustration and affection that bewilders Woohyun. She has never looked at him that way before, and if anything, Woohyun had expected pity.
He finds Key in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. Everything is different than the last time Woohyun was there-most of Key's things are gone, the room so bare it seems impersonal, and there is nearly nothing to suggest it even belongs to Key. "What's this?" Woohyun asks, running his palm along the flat top of a table. "Going somewhere?"
Key looks up and smiles, although it's quieter than the smiles Woohyun is used to receiving from him. "Yeah," he says with a simple nod. "Somewhere more-permanent."
The words draw Woohyun up short. When they were younger, although not by much, Key used to joke that one day, he would find a real job, a job that didn't involve letting strangers touch him for money. He was smart, Key said, and he was resourceful-if any of the whores could do it, it would be him. Woohyun had wanted to believe him so badly then, but they had both been old enough by then to know that there were lines that Edgedwellers couldn't cross. Especially not Edgedwellers like them. Now, for a split second, Woohyun almost wonders if Key has made good on that promise, but there is something fragile about the rise and fall of Key's shoulders that tells him it's not so.
"Where?" Woohyun asks. The words are abrupt, bitten off.
"I'm…" Key pauses, thinking. Searching for a way to say it, maybe. "I'm going to the Inside. To be a personal… assistant."
Some Insider's sex slave, then. It happens, occasionally, Woohyun knows that much-Insiders with too much money and a great deal more loneliness will buy Edgedwelling prostitutes, take them into the Inside and groom them into pretty little toys. In some ways, it's a good deal-the Inside is lavish and decadent even compared to the Outside, let alone to the Edge where Key and Woohyun grew up. But in others it's more dangerous, because at least with Seohyun there are rules, boundaries, and guards to enforce them. Inside, the only rules are the whims of one's owner. Woohyun would not see Key broken.
"Were you going to tell me?" Woohyun asks. He doesn't mean for it to be an accusation but Key flinches like it is, his fingers curling in the fabric of the bedspread. "Or were you going to leave in the middle of all of this and hope it took me a while to notice?"
Key looks up at him, unapologetic and proud as always. "I wasn't going to make a scene," he says. "You wouldn't have been any the wiser until I was long gone."
Carefully, Woohyun sits on one of the delicate wooden chairs that still decorates the room. "Why?" he asks, hands folded against each other, watching Key. "We've been friends for years. Why would you just leave without telling me?"
There is a long silence, and then Key exhales. Woohyun has known Key for a very long time-he has seen Key fight and kill and fuck and commit acts that Woohyun guards like secrets under his tongue. But he has never seen Key cry. And now, in this room, Key looks up at him and his eyes are too bright, shining with moisture, and it feels like a hot knife sunk into the pit of Woohyun's chest.
"I think it would have been easier," Key says. "If I hadn't seen you before I left. Seeing you makes me want to stay, but-"
"Then stay," Woohyun says. His throat feels thick, like it takes too much effort for each word to push forth.
"It's not that simple." Key draws a knee up and rests his chin on it, looking at the floor between him and Woohyun. "This man-he… I owe him. I owe him so much I'll never be able to repay it."
"If it's about money, Kibum-"
"Don't," Key says. "Don't call me that. And it's not about money. It's a bigger debt than that."
He looks up at Woohyun and, in a startling moment of ice-cold clarity, Woohyun understands.
After a particularly nasty fight, years ago, Woohyun and Key had crouched in the shell of an abandoned warehouse, and Key had bled all over the floor from a deep, vicious gash near his ribs. His blood had been hot and sticky on Woohyun's fingers, and Woohyun had pressed one palm to the wound and another to Key's face and said, "Live through this, you asshole. You live through it and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you can be-you have to live through it-"
Key had laughed, and a fresh surge of warm blood had spilled beneath Woohyun's hand. "I've been spending my life trying to make you happy for years already," he said, grinning with teeth stained red. "It's about time you made that promise back."
Later, when Key was stitched up and recovering, Woohyun had pulled every string he had tied to his fingers and had Seohyun take Key in. He hadn't known, then, that it would come to this. Hadn't known that Key would still remember, years later-that Key would still love him enough to do even this.
"You asshole," Woohyun says. In an instant he's closed the distance between them, pulling Key close despite his halfhearted protests. "You complete asshole. How could you do that-?"
"For you?" Key struggles for a moment more and then gives in, resting his cheek against Woohyun's shoulder, his arms loose around Woohyun's waist. "You've always known, you idiot. That I would spend my life to make you happy."
"Asshole," Woohyun repeats, closing his eyes. The breath he takes is shaky, but it'll do. "Kim Kibum."
"Don't."
"Kibum-"
Key punches him in the thigh, then kisses him, not like the chaste kisses they're used to sharing-something else, something desperate and hurting and bitter, his fingers tight in Woohyun's hair, all teeth and slick tongues until Woohyun is panting, all of the oxygen torn from his lungs. Only then does Key pull back, lips swollen and eyes dark, to look at Woohyun with something incomprehensible in his gaze. "Something to remember me by," he says, his voice rough, and for some reason all Woohyun wants to do is cry.
"I love you, Kim Kibum," Woohyun says, pushing his fingers back through Key's hair. "Tell me where you're going. At least I can come see you-"
"You know I can't." Key shakes his head, pressing his fingers against Woohyun's mouth. "Discretion is the point of my job, and even if it wasn't, it's too dangerous. In the Outside, maybe, but Inside? Woohyun, you would die before you even made it to the house."
It's the answer Woohyun had been expecting, but it doesn't hurt any less.
He kisses Key again before he leaves, softer this time and much sweeter, and they don't say anything. What is there to be said? They won't see each other again, Woohyun knows, and he knows it is his fault-but he also knows that Key has already forgiven him, and so there is no point in apology. Just another ache to hug home.
"Thank you," Woohyun says, when he runs into Seohyun on his way out of the building. "For keeping him safe. If there's anything you need, ever-"
Seohyun shakes her head gently, touching Woohyun's upper arm. "Just be good to yourself," she says with a soft smile. "Stay alive. That's all I want, and all he wants."
Woohyun makes it halfway home before he cries.
Sunggyu finds Woohyun that evening sitting on the balcony with a cigarette in his fingers, the remains of the rest of the pack littering the cement around him. "I thought you quit," he says, leaning on the railing with his back toward the city.
"I thought I did, too," Woohyun says, and takes a deep drag.
The last cigarette he had smoked was with Key, the night before he had moved into Seohyun's for good. It seems appropriate to smoke one-or twenty-on the night before he moves out.
"What happened?" Sunggyu asks, watching Woohyun with an incisive gaze.
It takes Woohyun a long moment to sort out his thoughts. "I've always been a selfish person," he finally says, tapping his ash out on the arm of his chair. Propping his feet up on the railing next to Sunggyu, Woohyun tilts his head back and exhales upward. "You have to be a little selfish to survive out here."
"That's true enough."
"I should have known," Woohyun adds. "No city-employed neurosurgeon agrees to do an expensive and complicated operation on an Edgedweller in unsupervised conditions just because he likes an Edgedwelling prostitute. I knew there had to be a catch that Key wasn't telling me about. I just didn't want to think about it, because I wasn't sure if the cost would be worth it and I was scared of losing Dongwoo hyung."
Sunggyu stays silent for a moment, his breathing even, before he asks, "What was the cost?"
"Key is moving into the Inside," Woohyun says, his voice like acid in the back of his throat. "He's becoming someone's personal whore. No matter how much the doctor likes him, he'll be dead within a year. They always are."
"Woohyun-"
"I should have known."
They all should have known.
There isn't much to say, so Woohyun is not surprised by the silence. He is, however, surprised when Sunggyu moves, taking the cigarette out of his hand and taking a drag of his own before stubbing it out and throwing it over the railing. "That was my last one," he says, with irritation that he does not really feel.
"I know," Sunggyu says. "I doubt you're going to miss it."
When he kisses Woohyun it's gentle, much gentler than Woohyun ever thought Sunggyu could be. The last time Sunggyu had kissed him, it had been all barely-contained anger, frustration channeled into their mouths, but this is something else entirely. This is so sweet that it feels almost loving, and the suggestion-even imagined-is enough to choke Woohyun, to have his breath catching in the back of his throat as he tries to kiss Sunggyu back.
No.
"Stop it," Woohyun says, pushing Sunggyu away. It is the hardest thing he thinks he's ever done, but he has to, because this gentleness is breaking his heart and Woohyun doesn't know how much heart he has left to break.
"Woohyun?"
"You can't be like this." The words catch on Woohyun's tongue, but he forces them out anyway, standing up to put some distance between himself and Sunggyu. "You can't just come to me when you want something because you know I'm easy."
"Easy?" Sunggyu repeats, and there is so much bewildered hurt in his expression that Woohyun almost wants to stop.
"Isn't that what you said? That time that you fucked me because I was there and Dongwoo hyung was on the couch. 'You've always been so easy.' I didn't know what it meant then, but I'm pretty sure I know now." That Woohyun is the easy choice, because Sunggyu knows he will always be there. "Fuck you, hyung. You can't play with me like that."
Sunggyu's mouth snaps shut, and he just looks at Woohyun for a long minute before speaking. "You're an idiot," he says, and he doesn't say it in the way that Dongwoo does, teasingly and affectionately-he says it like he means it. Like there are words climbing up the back of his throat, too. "You're an idiot who doesn't see anything. I trusted that you knew better, but-I was wrong, I think."
"When did you trust me?" Woohyun says with a bitter laugh, his pride stinging. "When did you ever trust me as an equal instead of as a peon?"
The way that Sunggyu recoils makes it seem like Woohyun has struck him. Maybe he has. Maybe his words are cruel, and Woohyun is speaking them only out of fear and hurt and love. "Is that what you think of me?" Sunggyu asks. "That I think of you as a peon?"
"I don't know." In a moment, it feels as though all of Woohyun's anger has drained out of him. "I don't know what you think of me, hyung. I don't know anything. I just-I have to go."
He doesn't let Sunggyu say anything-just turns and walks away, barely pausing to pick up his things before he makes his way out of the apartment. Woohyun can feel the lock on that metal cage rattling, shaking its way through his insides, the angry, jealous creatures inside clawing at his ribcage. There was a story he heard once about a woman who opened a box and unleashed all of the bad things in the entire world, and at the bottom of the box was hope-but there is no hope at the bottom of Woohyun's box, and that realization is terrifying.
It's just that he can't let himself be Sunggyu's plaything. He loves Sunggyu deeply and desperately, in a way Woohyun does not know if he will ever be able to walk away from-but he loves Dongwoo too, just as much, and so Woohyun cannot touch either of them. He will not.
Sunggyu and Dongwoo fit together in ways Woohyun can't even imagine, and his place is not in the middle of that.
He finds himself in a park, the wreckage of a jungle gym rising out of the overgrown grass. Woohyun takes a seat on one of the platforms and presses his fingertips to his temples, trying to massage out the tension headache that grows there, ceaseless-but it will not relent, and Woohyun cannot calm it. He wants to find it terrible, that they gained so much only to lose even more, but Woohyun cannot bring himself to think of Dongwoo's recovery as anything less than the miracle it is. And besides, only Woohyun has lost. Everyone else has only seen the gains.
"Woohyun?" A voice-Dongwoo's, from the edge of the playground.
Woohyun's head snaps up, and he looks over at Dongwoo through eyes narrowed against the light. "Hyung," he says, his voice raw-too many cigarettes. "What are you doing here?"
"Sunggyu sent me after you," Dongwoo says. He crosses the grass field of the playground and leans against the platform next to where Woohyun is sitting. "He was scared. That you'd left for good, or something. He said it was his fault, but wouldn't say why."
"It's not his fault." It is his fault, in some ways, but it is Woohyun's fault in more, so he can't allow the blame to fall entirely on Sunggyu. "It's my fault."
"I figured you'd say that."
Woohyun looks up. "What does that mean?"
"You're always trying to protect us." Dongwoo smiles a little, shaking his head. He looks out over the playground, surveying the overgrown grass and the remains of a merry-go-round a short distance away. "Trying to take all the blame onto yourself. I bet it was actually his fault, and you just don't want to admit to it because you're in love with him."
"That's not how it is," Woohyun begins, before the rest of Dongwoo's words catch up to him and he chokes on himself. "I-hyung-" He should deny it, he knows, but Dongwoo had said it with so much certainty and so little anger, and Woohyun feels a little like the world is spinning and he can't quite catch a breath.
"I think I'd like to tell you that story now," Dongwoo says, looking up at Woohyun. He's still smiling. There is no artifice in it. "If you'll listen."
"…I'll listen."
Dongwoo nods and turns, leaning his hip against the platform so he can talk towards Woohyun. "When Jaehyun hyung brought you home, Sunggyu told me that he couldn't get a good read on you," he says, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips. "He's always been good at reading people, so I think it bothered him. I'm sure you noticed how wary he was, for the first couple of months-Jaehyun hyung was always so trusting, but Sunggyu… you have to earn his trust, and it took you a while to do that."
"I remember that," Woohyun says. "There were a few times I thought he was going to throw me out."
"It wasn't that bad. But it took Sunggyu a long time to learn that the reason you never opened up to him is because you don't open up to anyone. You worked harder than anyone, but you never let anyone else support you." Dongwoo reaches out and brushes a dead leaf off of Woohyun's knee. "Not for a long time, anyway."
At the very beginning of things, Woohyun remembers, when Jaehyun hyung had brought him back, he had been half-wild and distrustful of everyone. "I was such a hateful little shit," he says to Dongwoo, although he can't quite bring himself to smile yet. "I don't know how you put up with me."
"Personally, it's because I never run out of patience," Dongwoo says with a laugh. "Sunggyu… He's not so patient, you know that. But there was one time-when the peacekeepers were cleaning up after one of their 'riot control' massacres, and you were watching the group of scavengers who were circling around and waiting for the crowd to clear." Woohyun remembers this, too. "Sunggyu asked what you were looking at with that expression and you said, 'I used to tear the throats out of people like them.'"
Even when Woohyun had been at his wildest, his lowest bottom, he had still carried inside him a fierce hatred for people who preyed on the weakness of others. It was for that reason that he had decided he would never, ever be vulnerable-he could never protect anyone if he was being preyed on himself. "I never did figure out what Sunggyu hyung made of that," he says, tilting his head back and looking up to the sky. "I'm pretty sure he thought I was nuts for a minute though." Woohyun had never intended to tell any of them about the person he was before Jaehyun hyung had found him; Jaehyun hyung had never mentioned it, and the secrets had died with him.
Even now, Woohyun isn't sure what made him say that, then.
"I think that was when he fell in love with you," Dongwoo says.
It's the absolute last thing that Woohyun ever expected to hear, and he almost falls off the platform. "If that's what you think of as a joke," he begins, voice shaky, but Dongwoo shakes his head a little and looks up at him with an open, honest gaze. Woohyun knows how to read Dongwoo.
"That was only a month before they took me," Dongwoo says with matter-of-fact frankness. "He told me, a week before-he was scared, Woohyun-ah. Of what you would think of him, if you knew. Of what I would think of him, because we've been together for so long and now he's fallen in love with someone else, too."
Woohyun can barely swallow around his heart beating in his throat. "…What did you think of him, hyung?" he asks.
Dongwoo is quiet for a moment, contemplative. "I was jealous," he says, running his thumb along a sharp edge of metal. "Remember when Sunggyu and I broke up, and I said it had to do with you but not in the way you were thinking?"
"I remember."
"I wasn't jealous because I wanted him to be in love with only me," Dongwoo says. "I was jealous because I didn't want to share you."
For a long moment, there is silence between them. Woohyun doesn't know what to make of it-how to make space for that inside himself. The idea that Sunggyu feels the same way-or even close to it-is strange enough, but the idea that Dongwoo, too… And yet, a part of Woohyun cannot immediately say it's a lie. He thinks about Sunggyu's strange, incomprehensible looks, the way Dongwoo had kissed him soft and sweet and gentle. About the way that Sunggyu had felt moving inside him, and the quiet weight of his voice and his arm when they lay together afterwards. The way that Dongwoo would touch him, casual, possessive in ways that Woohyun had always just taken as a mark of his friendship.
He thinks about Sunggyu kissing him on the balcony, and the look of deep hurt on his face when Woohyun had told him to stop playing.
Dongwoo is still watching him, and Woohyun forces his mouth open even though no sound wants to emerge. "Hyung," he says, his voice rough and raw and much more vulnerable than Woohyun had ever wanted to allow himself to be-only he knows that he can trust Dongwoo not to hurt him.
"Come back with me," Dongwoo says, reaching out. "I can think of somebody who's dying to set the record straight with you."
This cannot be easy, Woohyun knows. But nothing worth having ever is.
"Okay," he says, and takes Dongwoo's hand.
part eight | part nine
note: Ah! Done! After so much time... I think at one point, I had thought this would be very short! But as usual, I lied to myself. ㅋㅋ Thank you especially to jjang and mworani for letting me bounce ideas off of them and torment them endlessly on Twitter until they threatened my life! ^^ It would not have been possible without you!