Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jaewon had hated it, the lies and the face that wasn’t his. But at first, he understood it was his duty. There’s a punch in his arm that’s a little too hard, a foot in his hair-

”Beg,” Park demands.
Hands shaking against the carpet, he begs.

He grins and bears it, most times. He drifts so far out from the others that they’re strangers on team. Their rise is his fall. Equivalent exchange, and he’s plummeting.

”Wyld of idol group MAYHEM seen exiting a club-“

He turns off the television.

When did falling become floating? When did the baleful glares become a sign that he’d done right? When had he become so numb to attacks that never really were aimed for him?

He leaves separately. The look Dongho sends him is enough.

It’s a sickening kind of love, in a way. He tears himself apart and sticks the pieces back all wrong and what doesn’t fit is scrubbed off and stains his shower tiles pink.

There’s another person who put her hands all over him and he’s dirty dirty dirty

There’s hair he doesn’t recognize against the tile.

He’s going to be sick.

It’s a distanced kind of love, where he feels and something is taken from him until he can no longer give. An unfeeling mistress, who, in her terrifying looks, is a beauty. Pain does not love him back. Pain is a concept.

“Wyld has no attachments,” a fan hisses at a fansign. “You don’t care about us.”

That’s a lie.

All of this is for MAYHEM and Mayniacs. And when he sees a fan, giddy to see the other members? There’s warmth in the ice that comment left.

It was worth it.

But pain gives him. It protects him- them- and winds itself into a fervent love because Jaewon would do anything for  them. That pain was a kiss and a reminder. It was the squeeze of a hand on his shoulder.

He’s so very tired. Why is he so tired?

Get up. Dance practice. And then you have places to be.

It hurts, so bad. It’s terribly painful. He lies and the chasm with his brothers is more a void than a canyon. People say terrible things about him and he’s so very lonely. Whatever variant of insane he was, he was certainly the willing marionette. What does it say, to see the strings being pulled and to raise your arm willingly?

He sees Daehyun torn up, Dongho shutting himself off. He sees Minsoo’s desperate grip on cheer.

He doesn’t claim to know them. But he loves them. And he’ll do anything for them. 

He walks into the bar.

It’s a godly power, speech is. But manipulation is so mortal and dirty that it’s so human to combine the two. It hurts but he loves the sign that he’s finally doing something right.

“I’m impressed, you’ve been appearing in these scandals well.”

”How are the others?”

”Their ratings are booming!”

It’s extraordinarily dark, not really like him, to love being hurt so much. But it’s not about the way he hurts. It’s because he loves. He loves so much and it drowns him.

“Jaewon hyung?”

”Yes, Daehyunah?”

”Um... how was your day?”

And everything is alright.

He doesn’t think they know it’s for them. He knows they don’t know. Words cheapen what he feels and it’s a mad and passionate love and he is devoted like a servant to a god. Flagellation is not fun or desirable, but if it’s a step to take for Dongho, Minsoo and Daehyun?

Jaewon is not a masochist. But he’ll let anyone tear him apart if it builds up the people he cares about. It’s his own act of love.

Everything is irrelevant if it’s all part of love.