(lost) in the heat of it all

[thenewlondoner]

Title: (lost) in the heat of it all
Pairing: Jaehyo/Jiho
Group: Block B
Rating: PG we back to PG people or basically G lets be real
Notes: Based on the clusterfuck that was Hyomin blatantly stealing lyrics and not acknowledging it until she was called out. This is kind of a confused mishmash of things and ideas.
Summary: Jiho wonders when he stopped working for what he wanted, when he started to go for the easy option.



so we lay in the dark
cause we've got nothing to say
just the beating of hearts
like two drums in the grey

i don't know what we're doing
i don't know what we've done
but the fire is coming,
so i think we should run

daughter - run

Jiho slams the door behind him and comes to a stop in the entryway, feeling cold. His thoughts swarm around him in a low, nearly incomprehensible rush that he can’t find footing in. It’s like a buzzing in his ears, on the edge of inaudible. Every time he thinks he’s found something to focus in on, something to keep him grounded, it slips from him just as abruptly as it came.

His mind feels cold, but his body, he knows, is warm, still warm with the touch and pull of someone else. Taking a light, sharp breath, he swears he can still smell her on him. That low sweetness and musk of a woman’s skin that seems too familiar, too much now.

His stomach pulls taut, dipping towards his toes and bile burns at the back of his throat. Thoughts clamor closer, how could you, how could you, what did you just do- he raises a hand and presses it to his forehead, blocking out the light in the entryway. He’s not even sure what time it is, or how long he’s been gone.

It had been dark when he left, and climbing out of the subway, he had found his way through the darkened streets without thinking. Has it been a full day or just hours?

“Jiho-yah?” a voice cuts in from over the couch.

Jiho looks up, caught out. His heart shoots up his chest, fast and nearly making him sick.

It’s Jaehyo, his dark head bobbing over the back of the leather couch. He stares at Jaehyo for a long moment, uncomprehending. Jaehyo, with those big, dark eyes, just stares back.

A beat of silence passes. “Are you okay?” Jaehyo tilts his head and his words are soft, like he knows.

Out of seven emotionally stunted boys, Jaehyo is the most perceptive. He has some odd, deeper perception that tells him when someone is upset, and Jiho knows he’s not good at hiding things. Right now, it’s a skill that will lead to disaster.

Because not only is Jaehyo perceptive, he’s also unable to let people work things out on their own.

“I have to go shower,” Jiho says, voice trying to catch up and sound normal, and saying it makes it true. He licks his lips and he knows it can’t be possible, but he swears he can still taste her on his lips.

His skin flushes with the memory, and he feels overly aware of every plane and crease of his skin, how he must smell, even now. He didn’t have time for a shower earlier, before his phone had buzzed with a call from his brother, and his skin still feels coated with it. That sickness crawls up his throat, makes a bid for his mouth.

It’s probably no worse than normal, but he feels like he’s radiating it everywhere, like everyone can read it on him and they’ll know what it means- the sweat-heavy scent of sex and the sweetness of a woman’s perfume- and, the worst part, even what it covers up.

He wonders what his brother must have thought, sitting across from him in that studio as Jiho curled up on the couch, feeling small and awkward. The softness of Jiseok’s normally-caring face had been shaded with something harder, something more calculating than normal, and it hadn’t been anything Jiho had been able to read. Shame presses flat against his lungs.

Did Jiseok know?

Kicking off his shoes, Jiho throws his jacket in the direction of his clothes rack and heads straight for the bathroom. He can’t do this in front of Jaehyo.

“Jiho?” Jaehyo asks again, and this time the concern in it is unmistakable. ”Did something happen?”

The concern pings sharply at something in Jiho’s chest, like he’s been holding his breath for the past hour, for the past two, since that phone call- and now he’s breathing again but it hurts him to do it. Like he’s forgotten how to let someone care for him, forgotten that people do.

“No, it’s okay,” Jiho mumbles, because he has made himself forget, hoping Jaehyo hears him, hoping he can’t, before he slams the bathroom door behind him and the silence of the tiled room echoes back at him.

-

He takes a short shower, trying to concentrate on the blur of water over his face, rather than the insistent pressure of his thoughts. If only he could find a way through them, but he can’t even see where they’re coming from, much less how to find a clear path.

It’s okay, it’s over now- he tries to remind himself, but it’s small comfort. He coughs hard at the tightness twisting at his throat, and then harder, until he nearly gags with it.

Coughing uncontrollably, he bends over under the spray of water until his forehead touches his knees. The coughs press down in his chest, falling silent. He watches the fall of droplets over the ridge of his eyebrows, the fall of his hair. Thoughts spin. He blinks.

It’s over, now.

Still, his skin burns with something like shame.

-

By the time he emerges from the bathroom in just a towel, Jaehyo has sprawled himself over the couch, arms tucked up this chest. Jiho had hoped he would leave him, or at least go into his own room, but of course not. This is Jaehyo, who followed Jihoon around for days when he got angry last time, trying everything in his limited arsenal to make that trademark smile form again. This is Jaehyo, who Jiho can’t talk to about this, for so many other reasons than the obvious.

“Hey,” Jaehyo says, softly, when Jiho makes no effort to speak to him.

Jiho can’t quite manage a smile, something to assuage Jaehyo and make him leave. All he can do is meet his gaze for a moment before turning to dig through the clothes rack.

“Hey,” he says, glad his voice has kept its normal tone, and his face is turned away from that dark gaze. Maybe he can convince Jaehyo that he’s just tired. It’s not entirely a lie- he feels weary, down to his bones, and not in the sleep-deprived way of idol life. It feels more complete than that.

He finds a pair of sweatpants and a faded t-shirt one of their fans had given them back when they first debuted. It smells like nothing but his own detergent and the forever-lingering smell of hairspray, and it’s something of a relief to pull the cool fabric over his head and only smell himself.

When he emerges from the neckline, Jaehyo is still watching him, silent. Jiho tries to raise an eyebrow in recognizable snark as he plops down on Jaehyo’s legs stretched out on the couch, but he’s not sure it comes off in the right way.

Jaehyo shifts backwards, pulling his feet from behind Jiho’s back and pressing them into the rise of Jiho’s thigh instead. It should be a comforting touch, but the press of his feet feels accusing somehow, or pushing, as though Jaehyo is just waiting for him to spill.

But Jiho can’t find it in himself to speak about anything. The words have crawled down from where they’ve started to form in his mind and found something of a shelter in his heart, letting their slight weight hold down the beat of his blood. They want to stay, and Jiho has no energy to push them out.

Momentarily, he wishes he went home, instead, found something of a comfort in his bed there, the smell of his childhood detergent. His mother would have been in bed, nothing questioning in her gaze or the tilt of her mouth. But there was no way the risk was worth it. Jiseok could have been there.

Jiho stares at the flickering lights of the TV, letting the exhaustion pin him down for a moment. Maybe he should just go to bed. He doesn’t know why he’s sitting here.

“Your brother called,” Jaehyo says, before Jiho can make himself rise. He opens his hands to reveal Jiho’s phone, pressed against his chest.

A jolt shocks through Jiho, anger he has no energy for. He can’t even be mad at Jaehyo, who knows Jiseok, has met him. After so many years of idol life, Jiho barely has a sense of privacy anymore.

“What did he want?” He puts his hand out unceremoniously for the phone and Jaehyo drops it into his palm. His long fingers are warm as they brush over Jiho’s palm, despite his bad circulation. Jiho wonders how long he’s been out here, waiting for Jiho.

If it had been any other night, Jiho might not have even come home. What would have Jaehyo have thought? That he was at the studio? Guilt sends a sharp stripe of heat over the rise of his spine.

Jaehyo’s eyebrows furrow. “He wanted to know if you were alright,” Jaehyo repeats, slowly, as if he’s not sure what Jiho’s reaction will be. He’s watching Jiho closely, and Jiho wishes that he had Kyung’s nosiness or Yukwon’s non-judgmental almost-apathy. He knows how to deal with those, not with the quiet way Jaehyo presses his fingers together and watches him.

Jiho opens his mouth to respond, but the words stick in his throat.

“And he wanted to know what you were doing,” Jaehyo continues.

Jiho slumps back on the couch, unable to sit up straight anymore. Water from his damp hair trickles cooly down his neck. He can’t look straight at Jaehyo, and can’t concentrate on the muted activity on the TV. “What did you tell him?”

He can tell Jaehyo’s gaze flickers over him slowly, and has to remind himself that it’s because Jaehyo is concerned. Not that he’s interested. Jiho closes his eyes.

“I told him that you were taking a shower. I asked if he wanted you to call him back, but he said no.”

Jiho frowns, wondering if it confirmed what Jiseok had been thinking. He feels sick, still, like he wants to throw up, but he hasn’t eaten in hours. He feels like he hasn’t slept properly in days.

Jaehyo gives an uncomfortable little laugh, able to read the displeasure on Jiho’s face. “Should I have said something else? Was it a secret?”

That’s not the secret, Jiho thinks. “No.”

It’s not a secret anymore, at least.

There’s a short, awkward silence. Jiho tries to concentrate on the rise and fall of his breathing, but it feels short.

“Is there something- are you fighting with him?” Jaehyo sounds so concerned by this that Jiho opens his eyes and peers over at him, feeling a sharp pang of guilt in his stomach.

Jaehyo shouldn’t be in the middle of this. He shouldn’t even know, except Jiho wants to tell him, to stop this sick lurch in his stomach like he’s culpable for some great crime. He keeps thinking that telling Jaehyo would help, somehow, spread his guilt a little further out so he wasn’t completely alone in it, drowning.

But he can’t say it. “He just wanted me to help on this new album he’s producing. Give it some Zi-a-co guidance, you know?” He tries to make the words light, to ease up a little of the darkness pressing in on Jaehyo’s expression, but Jaehyo’s gaze only tightens further.

There’s something of confusion, or accusation, under the words when Jaehyo repeats, “He wanted your help? On an album?”

Jiho swallows, the near-lie having spread a bitter taste over his tongue. It is, as Jiho thinks, weird. Jiseok has never wanted help from him before, at least not in a real, clear-cut producing way. Woo brothers have always been too independent for that, and Jaehyo knows that.

“Is SPEED coming out with new stuff, then? Or Royal Class?” Jaehyo’s toes curl into Jiho’s thigh, and Jiho wants to wrap his hand around Jaehyo’s ankle, to find some semblance of grounding in this. It’s too personal, and it’s too much. Jiho always wants too much. So he keeps his arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked securely under his armpits.

“No, no, it’s for some other artist on the label,” Jiho says. He knows he shouldn’t have said that, because while CCM isn’t tiny, there are only a couple of artists that Jiho could mean.

The doorbell buzzes loudly through the apartment and for a moment, Jiho is consumed with hot panic. What if it’s her? Does she know where the dorm is?

He swivels around in his seat, but Jaehyo is already standing and striding towards the door.

“Hyung!” he calls, mind racing with how he could stop Jaehyo from opening the door. “Don’-!”

Jaehyo doesn’t even check the security screen first, but opens the door. Jiho’s brain whites out with hard panic. Out of all of them, Jaehyo can’t know. He can’t walk into the situation without Jiho even starting to explain-

“Chicken order?” a low voice from outside asks. A man. Jiho’s heart drops so quickly in relief that he has to blink to recover his sight. He slumps against the couch, heartbeat slamming through his veins.

Jaehyo comes back around with a bag of chicken and another of beer, setting them on the coffee table. He folds himself onto the floor in front of Jiho and starts opening up the bags.

The familiar smell of fried chicken fills the air as Jaehyo opens the steaming packets. Jiho’s stomach clenches and then growls with hunger.

“Are you going to eat?” Jaehyo asks, not looking up at him. He wonders if he’s pale from the panic, if Jaehyo could tell.

Jiho slides to the floor, adjacent to Jaehyo. Their knees brush, slightly, and Jiho shifts back, folding his knees further under himself. This is the closest they’ve been since Jiho got home, and Jiho wants to climb into Jaehyo’s lap, press himself up against Jaehyo’s soft chest and press his face into the curve of Jaehyo’s neck. Jaehyo would probably let him. Jiho wonders how he would smell, how warm he would be all wrapped up around Jiho.

But Jiho can’t do that.

“I thought, if you’ve been in the studio all day, you’d be hungry,” Jaehyo says, when Jiho still hasn’t picked up his chopsticks. Jaehyo looks up at him and smiles. Jiho’s heart is still racing from the near-miss at the door, and the look makes it ache. Jiho wants him to stop.

“I wasn’t at the studio all day,” Jiho says quietly, choosing a leg of chicken from the pile. Jaehyo, who is opening up other containers of fries, mashed potatoes, and even a little one of kimchi, just hums in recognition.

Are we avoiding the issue? Does he- does he already know? There’s no trace of expectation in the look or in Jaehyo’s voice, like he’s waiting for Jiho to suddenly confess, but Jiho can’t help but worry. What if Jiseok said more?

Jaehyo pops two beers free from the six-pack and sets one in front of Jiho, before opening one of his own. He sips at the top of it and hisses in satisfaction, before he reaches out for his own piece of chicken. Jiho watches him, but Jaehyo seems to have forgotten about it, for now.

Jiho taps at the top of his own can of beer with one fingernail, before popping it open. He’s not thirsty, and he thinks even one beer at this time of night would knock him out.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Jaehyo asks, arranging the plastic tops oft he containers into a neat pile.

Organized. Precise. Jiho wants to flick them over, but settles for tapping slightly at the top of his beer can.

“What?” He tries to laugh, but it hurts his shoulders.

Jaehyo takes a bite of his chicken. His long fingers are so pale, and Jiho wants him to stop whatever he’s doing and just put his hands over Jiho’s face, hold him there.

“Well, when the door went, you looked really worried,” Jaehyo says.

“I thought…” Jiho should just say it now, but- “maybe, the fans?”

Jaehyo frowns, dropping the piece of chicken and grabbing a napkin to rub at his fingers. His gaze flicks between the door and Jiho. “Do they know where the dorm is? Did they say something-?”

“No,” Jiho admits, trying to assuage the suddenly hunted look on Jaehyo’s face. “I mean, they might. I don’t know, but they never come up. I just worried, or something.”

“Ah, okay,” Jaehyo says, and he dips his head so Jiho can’t see his face. That should be a tell, but Jiho doesn’t catch it in time, before Jaehyo continues in a casual tone, “I thought it might be your girlfriend.”

The bite of chicken in Jiho’s mouth gets stuck as he tries to swallow it, and he coughs, suddenly. He feels blindsided. “Girlfriend?” he gasps out, and his mind spins.

He knows. He definitely knows. He isn’t sure if he feels better, because Jaehyo can’t know much beyond the basics because even that word, girlfriend, isn’t right. Wouldn’t have been right, even then. He needs to explain.

“Yeah, but Kyung said maybe you broke up?” Jaehyo says, but there’s something in the tilt of the words that implies a question. When Jaehyo looks back up at him, Jiho can’t look away. He doesn’t want to give Jaehyo any reason to suspect he’s lying.

“Kyung?” Jiho repeats, trying to put things together in his mind. Kyung doesn’t know shit, not this time.

He wonders if that’s telling, if he wasn’t even able to tell his best friend. Not even about when it started and it seemed so much more simple. Before it turned into such clusterfuck.

“Yeah, he said you might be upset because your girlfriend broke up with you,” Jaehyo says, and there’s something else beyond the shadow of concern on his face. Something like reluctance that he tries to hide. Something like hurt. Jaehyo looks away, expression shuttering slightly.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Jiho says, decisive and sure, even as the words pull at his heart. It’s not that he hadn’t- he had wanted one, and look where that had gotten him. He’d been so close to- something snaps him back, that moment when he’d realized she’d broken his trust that he’d given so freely, so soon. He feels so young, and kind of stupid.

He can almost hear Kyung’s joke: “Well, you wouldn’t have a girlfriend now, if she broke up with you,” and is suddenly glad that Kyung isn’t there.

Jaehyo is pushing the fries towards him, sympathy clouding his face. The shadow of hurt is gone, or maybe Jiho just imagined it.

“Okay, sorry,” Jaehyo says, sounding slightly abashed. And Jiho is reminded, somehow, Jaehyo has had his heart broken before. The tattoo on his wrist must be a constant reminder of that breakup, the girl who had been so close to him that he’d decided to get her name tattooed on his skin, where he’d always see it.

His heart clenches as he wonders, not for the first time, if Jaehyo had thought about something more permanent with her. He wonders if Jaehyo made plans about their future, saw their children before he fell asleep with her curled up next to him. Saw himself as an old man, her at his side, only to have those dreams fall to dust around him.

Nothing that Jiho has ever had has ever come close to that, and yet here Jaehyo is, holding a fry up to him and looking at him like he’s made a mistake even mentioning a girlfriend. He wonders how Jaehyo can stand seeing her initials, every day. Big-hearted Jaehyo, still so kind.

The memory of his own cruelty tightens the guilt over Jiho’s skin, holds him fast. He wants to confess. Even the slight memory of her makes Jiho’s stomach lurch, like he’s eaten something poisoned. He doesn’t deserve Jaehyo’s sympathy, not at at all.

“Hyung,” Jiho starts, his throat sore. He doesn’t want to speak but here he is. “Have you ever-”

Everything seems to cloud up his thoughts. Jaehyo is just looking at him, but it’s hard to match his gaze for any longer. As if sensing this, Jaehyo looks down at his chicken, peeling it off the bone with his long, pale fingers.

Jiho wonders if Jaehyo’s hands are still warm now, if they’d warm up Jiho’s hands if he slid his fingers into Jaehyo’s. Jiho is still so cold. He wonders if Jaehyo would squeeze his hands, comforting.

He wonders why he’s never courageous enough to find out.

“Do you ever want to hurt people, people who have hurt you?”

Thought crinkles Jaehyo’s brow, as if he’s trying to place his words into a context that Jiho hasn’t given him.

After a long moment of thought, Jaehyo replies slowly, but without caution, “Yeah, of course.” He raises his eyes again to Jiho, and it’s easy to see the question there. Why?

Jiho breathes deeply through his nose, but his heart is still picking up in his chest. Panic claws at him, tells him to stop here, where he’s still safe.

“Have you done it?” Jiho knows that this is a bad idea, but he can’t take it back. He can’t live with this, alone.

“Hurt someone?” Jaehyo asks, and his dark eyes are black, huge. Guileless, somehow, like he’s innocent, though Jiho knows it isn’t precisely true. “Hurt them how?”

“Like,” Jiho pauses, scratching a line down his neck in thought. The stripe of pain focuses the panic a little, draws it away from his voice. “Tried to make their life difficult.”

Jaehyo bites his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth. Jiho wants to reach out, press his fingers against the plush of skin until he stops, but his hands fall to his lap. He’s afraid Jaehyo is going to say no, or look accusingly at Jiho. But his brow just furrows, a dark line across his forehead.

This is a mistake. Jaehyo, more than anyone else, always sacrifices himself for Block B, for his friends, for his ex-girlfriends. He is, more than any other member, nice in a way that Jiho has never let himself be.

“Maybe,” Jaehyo prevaricates, after a moment. “I probably have. I can’t think of a time, but I probably have.” He seems to genuinely consider it for a moment, and speaks with such sincerity, even at that, that Jiho’s heart folds. He doesn’t deserve this, and that’s something he’s never told himself before.

“Hyung,” he says, a little sharper than he intends. His heartbeat thrums in his ears, painful.

“Hmm?” Jaehyo looks straight at him, hands stilling on the chicken in front of him.

Jiho shouldn’t say this. He should just stop now. But Jiho wants Jaehyo to forgive him, even though it’s not his forgiveness that Jiho needs or even wants.

“I did something.” It’s extremely anticlimactic, but Jiho doesn’t know how to start. How much to tell, so that Jaehyo won’t be sickened by it, but enough that he'll understand how far Jiho would go.

“I’m sure it’s not bad?” Jaehyo reaches out for him, but seems to remember that his hands are covered in grease, so he grabs a napkin and wipes it off before reaching out for Jiho’s wrist.

His fingers are slightly hot over the rise of Jiho’s pulse, comfort and interest warring in response. Jiho’s heart speeds in his chest.

“It is,” Jiho manages. Why can’t he speak?

Jaehyo’s fingers squeeze his wrist. He looks a little awkward, but he holds on. Jaehyo doesn’t protest Jiho’s words, because he knows Jiho is stubborn, in a way. In this way, in judging himself. Jiho almost wants him to protest, fight, because he knows Jaehyo doesn’t think Jiho can do anything terrible, at least not anything truly terrible. He knows Jaehyo believes Jiho is not as bad as he really is, and Jiho is torn between wanting Jaehyo to realize the truth, and for Jaehyo to continue to fight for whatever goodness he still sees in him.

“It was a mistake,” he starts.

Relief cuts into Jaehyo’s face. “Oh, well-“ but Jiho shakes his head, cuts him off.

“The beginning was a mistake. I mean,” but he cuts himself off this time, running through the past in his head. It wasn’t a mistake, any of it. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t a mistake at all. I wish it was.” He takes a deep breath, his gaze shifted somewhere off of Jaehyo. “I went in to help, sort of.”

“That’s good,” Jaehyo says, and he sounds decisive about it.

Jiho shakes his head, unaware of what he’s really protesting. “But I didn’t really go in to help,” he admits, aware that he’s only turning himself in circles. “I went in because the opportunity was good for me, pretending it was just to help.”

Jaehyo looks slightly confused, but his hand hasn’t moved. “Okay.”

Guilt tightens Jiho’s breath and he wants to stop now, stop talking, just forget about it. But Jaehyo is just looking at him, not speaking, just watching, aware and waiting for Jiho to unburden himself from the pressure that’s suffocating him.

“I was supposed to help someone, but I fucked up.” But those aren’t even the right words, because it still sounds like a mistake, like Jiho had no idea what he was doing when he let it all go to shit. “I complicated it.”

Jiho’s eyes slide over to Jaehyo and he wonders how he’s so open, even now. Jiho feels twisted up and fucked all over, like the years intervening between him and the boy who joined the company have pushed and pulled and scratched away whatever he thought he was, to mold him into someone else. Someone colder, and more calculating, more willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted, or was told that he needed, fuck his sensitivity and the beat of his hot heart underneath all of that growing acumen. And here is Jaehyo, who went through almost everything that he did, who trained for almost as long as he did, was probably prepped for a long time to be a leader because of his age, and yet is still someone who can’t even think of a time he deliberately tried to hurt someone close to him, never developed that sharp calculation to his actions.

Jiho feels like a coward. About this, and about how it all started. How she had smiled at him, and been sweet and inexpertly trying in her words and so beautiful, curled up against him. And it had seemed easy to do, then, so much easier than the way that Jaehyo looks back at him, watching and open, with no calculation in his expression.

Jiho doesn’t know when he had gone from fighting until he got what he wanted, waiting, holding off until it worked itself out in his favor, to just allowing himself the easy stuff. Things he didn’t have to work so hard for, or wait for, but didn’t satisfy him, either. What was the point of learning how to fight and become cold and planning and aware, if he no longer went after what he wanted?

Jaehyo smiles at him, a soft, small thing, and rubs the pad of his thumb over the rise of Jiho’s wrist. Something catches in Jiho’s throat that he can barely breathe around.

“I trusted them,” Jiho says, voice smaller than he wants. “I trusted them, and they went behind my back. Lied to me, so I--.”

Annoyance tightens Jaehyo’s expression, and he presses his lips in a thin line. “They lied to you?”

“Yeah, but I think what I did was worse.”

“How?” Jaehyo sounds like he can’t believe there’s anything worse than someone breaking their trust.

Jiho doesn’t even know how Jaehyo trusts anyone at all, and it should be impossible, in this industry. But maybe that’s why it’s hard for Jaehyo. He always wants honesty, before anything else, and Jiho has always tried, tried his hardest, to be that for him, to tell him the truth, even when things were at their worst, because Jaehyo needs that from him.

Jiho wants to lie about it, to hide behind some semblance of the truth, but he won’t. “They asked for help, and I left them in a bad place. I knew what I was doing and I gave them bad help. It wasn’t even help, it was just- something that would get them in trouble.”

“Legal trouble?” Jaehyo has shifted closer, his fingers tightening over Jiho’s wrist.

“No,” Jiho won’t let it get that far. But he knows he doesn’t need to, which is the brutal beauty of it, the calculation in Jiho’s head that would come true without Jiho needing to do anything more. “Public trouble. People are going to get mad at- they’re going to get mad, and I’m going to-“ and it’s the worst part, too, because he knows he’s not going to change his mind, even though the moment might be months away. “I’m going to look good because of what happens. Or, at least not at fault. Because of their trouble, and what they did, what I did.”

Jaehyo is watching him carefully, his own expression hard to read. “Is this what they lied to you about, though?”

Jiho nods, aware of how strung-out he feels, how much he’s waiting for Jaehyo to say the cutting words. He just wants Jaehyo to say them and let him go. “Yeah.”

Jaehyo just looks at him, though, sitting in silence for a long moment. Finally, he speaks, and his voice is softer than before. “What happened, Jiho?” His thumb draws circles over Jiho’s wrist.

He takes a breath that doesn’t seem to fill his lungs. “Someone stole my lyrics.”

“Someone stole them?”

It doesn’t seem to make sense, and he can see the confusion clear across Jaehyo’s face. “Yeah, only, only I let them do it. I let them take the lyrics, because I was angry at them.”

Jaehyo blinks and looks away, and it seems like things are starting to click together in his mind. He thinks Jaehyo will finally tell him that he’s an idiot, or that he’s cruel, but Jaehyo just says, slowly, “And you know that the fans will notice the lyrics were taken.”

Jiho nods, not proud, but strangely unrepentant. There’s still time, he knows, to change his mind, but he can’t see that ever happening. Even if Jaehyo told him to.

Jaehyo shakes his head, just slightly. “So, you gave them your lyrics, or let them take them, so they’ll get in trouble.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes seemingly far away. It’s now. “But they lied to you?”

Somehow, Jaehyo makes that sound like the worse crime. Jiho nods.

“Was it to do with your brother?” Jaehyo turns back to him. “Is that why he called?”

Jiho shakes his head quickly, not wanting Jaehyo to get the wrong idea about his brother. “No. I mean, he set it up, in the beginning, in a way. And he told me what was going to happen, what I kind of already knew, about the lyrics being taken. But he wasn’t a part of it, not beyond that. He told me, in the beginning, that it was just- that it was just a casual consult thing. I just didn’t think… I don’t know,” he admits.

What did I even think was going to happen?

“It wasn’t just that, after a while.”

There’s something of fury in Jaehyo’s expression, something that rarely happens. Calm Jaehyo, who smiles when the other members make fun of him, who laughs when they prank him, who has so rarely ever seemed resentful of their failings as a group, of himself as a singer, of his life. He shouldn’t take any perverse pleasure in being able to provoke a sharp reaction from him like this, there shouldn’t be an odd sense of hope in his heart at the way Jaehyo looks ready to spring to his defense.

Jiho hastens to assuage that building fury, turning his hand over in Jaehyo’s grip, until he can wrap his own long fingers around Jaehyo’s racing pulse. “She was going to use the words, regardless of what I said, anyway. And it was me who gave her the ideas at first, just stuff that I had done before, and she was supposed to change it, make it her own, only it never happened.”

He shrugs, like he’s unaffected, though that’s the farthest emotion from the way his skin is glowing hot with anger or shame or something in between. Jaehyo’s gaze sharpens over him. “She submitted it all under her own name, no mention of my name or that I’d ever spoken to her. Only- only my brother noticed the similarity.”

It feels petty, but they were his words. They are his words, even now, though they’ve been stolen and twisted and used by someone else, and Jiho’s not even sure that he wants them back, or to ever say them again. She didn’t have to fight for those words like he did, had no idea what they worth, to him. That’s where he knew the break was, between them. He had thought that she had understood, or cared enough to try, but there was that chasm slowly splitting between their understandings, telling him so differently. There were her lips against his, saying it, and the division between words and her actions.

“I could have told him to change them. He’s the producer, and he has some sway over them, but I just- I thought about it, and I didn’t.” I wanted to punish her, somehow. “She wanted to use my words so I just… let her use them.”

“She hurt you,” Jaehyo says, certain. As if that explains everything. As if that’s enough.

“Yeah.” And it’s stupid, because he never expected it to get that far. Jaehyo is the one who falls in love so easily, ‘six times a day,’ and yet here Jiho is, feeling softhearted and vulnerable and so stupid.

The worst part was less this, less that he had deliberately struck out to hurt her and more that he felt sold-out, now. That she had pushed him into doing something that made him feel sold-out. He had helped her less because she needed help and more because? Because what? He had expected their relationship to happen?

And yet she had taken things, things that Jiho had put into her music as temporary markers, stuff mixed between his old mix tapes and newer songs, even some of Kyung’s old stuff. He hadn’t thought that would be permanent, so he didn’t know why he expected their- time together to be any different.

They were fucking. Just fucking, only he had thought it was something more. He thought of her lips, pink from kisses, and the smooth skin over the backs of her thighs. And he wanted desperately, even now, to believe it wasn’t calculating, the way she reached out for him, but he was calculating, wasn’t he, and how could she be anything less?

“Why did you want to hurt her?” Jaehyo asks.

Because she wasn’t you, Jiho wants to say. Because you would never ask for my words and even if you ever did, you wouldn’t ever do it this way. So backhandedly, so deceitfully. And he knows that it would hurt even more if Jaehyo were the one to do something like this, if Jaehyo were the one to steal and lie about it through omission, through his lips on Jiho’s and long conversations where she said everything but what she planned to do. But maybe that’s why Jaehyo has never done it, or at least Jiho hopes.

“Because I’m cruel,” he says, instead, trying for a smile but failing. He does feel cruel, this time, down to his bones.

“No,” Jaehyo immediately says, reaching out and pressing his other hand on the curve of Jiho’s face. It’s warm against his skin, and so soft, like he’s waiting for Jiho to pull away.

“Yes, I am,” Jiho says, softly, but tilts his head into Jaehyo’s touch.

She had taken the lyrics and he hadn’t thought to protest because it had become more and more obvious that she wasn’t into him for his jokes, or their conversation, or even for the sex. And even if they were just fucking, maybe he could have been okay with that, because maybe he had imagined the rest of it, the part where he thought they were both falling into something more, but it was so obvious that it wasn’t like that anymore. Today, on the other side of things, it seemed so much more obvious what she wanted, how she had set it up.

And so he had thought, “Fine, take them,” when there was no mention of him on the song writing credits, no mention of him anywhere at all, and it was just her, and those were still his words. So he had been silent when Jiseok asked if it was alright, because she’d get caught out eventually, he knew. And he’d let her, because he was cruel and he couldn’t even regret that, despite what Jaehyo thought.

“It’s not your responsibility to protect her, Jiho,” Jaehyo says, sliding his hand up to trace through the light hairs curving around his ear. Jiho has to stop the shudder that radiates down from the point of contact, and tamps down on how much he wants to press into that touch. “You can’t stop her from making horrible decisions, and it sounds like she knew what she was doing.”

Jaehyo’s fingers pull down, along the ridge of his chin to the point, where they come to a rest. Jiho knows that this is what he wanted: Jaehyo’s mouth pressed in a plush line and him looking straight at Jiho and saying ‘yes’. Him looking at Jiho fiercely and seeming like he wants to protect him, somehow, keep him safe, but also as if Jiho has done alright on his own.

Maybe all he wants is for Jaehyo to look at him, to see everything he wants to hide and lie about, all of those cruel, sharp points of his personality that no one ever wants to see, and to not look away. To not walk away, but to move closer and say Jiho has done alright, that he has no need to change.

His chest compresses with unexpected heaviness as the reality sinks into him. Even if Jaehyo knew how that honesty worked for him, even if he was aware of how much Jiho never wanted to hide from him, he would never think of the right question to ask. If Jaehyo asked, Jiho would never deny the way he wanted to lean across the short space between them and kiss Jaehyo’s drawn lips, but- Jaehyo would never think of the question in the first place.

It’s something he’s known for a long time, but it seems heavier, now. It’s Block B before anything else, it’s the other band members before himself and that’s always been fine, but everything with Hyomin could have been stopped if Jiho had just- if he hadn’t turned away from what he really wanted and went for the easy choice.

Jiho must show something that he can’t say, because a moment later, Jaehyo slides closer and presses into him. Jiho’s breath catches in the back of his throat and he hopes, wildly, that Jaehyo can’t tell.

Jaehyo’s long arms pull over Jiho’s shoulders and he smells like chicken and sleep and that cologne he sometimes wears, something Jiho has missed after a year of living apart. It’s not home, exactly, but it’s a part of it, Jaehyo’s warm body crushing into his in endless backstage confusions, studios, living rooms.

Jiho had felt suffocated in dorms, surrounded by people all the time, and it’s not like he doesn’t have friends, but it’s not until now that he feels the loneliness of this last year crush in.

A protest forms in his throat, and Jaehyo murmurs something, so quiet it can’t be discerned. Jiho takes a deep breath, burying his face in the crook of Jaehyo’s neck. They don’t touch much, Jiho and Jaehyo, at least not in any more than a joking way because there’s a fear that settles in the space between Jiho’s shoulder blades, something sharp, that keeps him back, keeps him from getting too close. So he takes this chance.

He can feel Jaehyo shift a little, like he’s going to pull away with that awkwardness and make a joke, so that Jiho can laugh and forget about his problems, that Jaehyo just hugged him, that they’ve even made an attempt at a good friendship. Jaehyo always does that, and Jiho doesn’t want that. So he wraps his arms around Jaehyo’s middle and pulls him in, until Jaehyo is nearly in his lap, held between the spread of Jiho’s legs.

Jiho can feel his heartbeat settle down, the itch over his skin starting to fade under the warmth of another person’s skin. It would be easy, right now, to turn his head and kiss over the rise of Jaehyo’s neck, the soft skin at his hairline, feel his breath hitch against Jiho’s chest. Jaehyo’s breath is already fanning over the nape of Jiho’s neck, sending his hair in a rise over his spine. He could, he-

But these are the things he needs to wait for.

Jaehyo runs his hand over Jiho’s back in a slow, warm press, tracing heat up his spine. Jiho’s fingers tighten in the sides of Jaehyo’s shirt, and he wants to shift closer, be pulled more completely into the fullness of Jaehyo’s scent, the way his body curves around Jiho’s.

Jaehyo pulls away slightly, arms still pinned around Jiho’s waist. His eyes are bright and flick down Jiho’s face for a heart-splitting second, lingering on Jiho’s lips. Something shadows the corners of Jaehyo’s gaze for a moment, an intensity in his expression that Jiho can’t quite explain, but his heart shifts just the same.

“You’ll be okay,” Jaehyo says, quiet and close. That overwhelming sincerity of his personality is clear on his face. He hasn’t moved away, and seems to be waiting for something, his hands pressed tightly against Jiho’s waist.

The closeness thrills Jiho, but he keeps from showing it, afraid Jaehyo will shift back. “Thanks,” he says in a soft voice, meaning it.

Jaehyo’s returning smile is something he’ll wait for, something he’ll work for, even though the thumbs that press slow circles into the indent of his waist tell him that perhaps, he won’t have to wait long.

END

A/N: ? hm