Chapter Text
" Sieun-ah?" his hazy ears picked up an equally hazy and distant voice, the tone sweet and content despite the obvious exhaustion in it.
"Go back to sleep, its early.", followed a much more familiar one, melodic and soft in ways Sieun usually tended to reserve for moments where no one was there to witness it.
More words were exchanged, but he couldn’t hear the rest of the quiet conversation, not when a hand was brushing over his head, fingers gently raking though his hair and nearly lulling him back to sleep.
The curtains were still closed, but the room was dimly lit by what could only be the morning sun just then rising.
" Hey there." , Humin spoke quietly and that’s when Hyuntak managed to really process the tender touch on his skin.
" Why aren’t you at school?" , he questioned and despite the playful threat he had made the previous day, he merely melted against the warmth of the other’s presence alone, uncaring of how early it was or how much his entire body ached.
"Hasn’t started yet." , was the simple reply,
" Don’t worry, Sieun wont let me skip." , Humin added before the other could even attempt to scold him.
"Good." , he hummed.
" Did you sleep well?"
At that Hyuntak’s hum turned into a drawn out grunt which initially earned a chuckle.
"I figured.", mumbled Humin.
" I'll bring you some magnesium.", Sieun's voice sounded from across the room.
" I don't need sleeping pills, I need a pillow that isn't as stiff as cement.", he slurred out, but his groan was interrupted by something landing on his chest.
" Stop whining. ", Humin teased easily and the rain of insults got trapped behind Hyuntak's teeth the moment he recognised the object as a lunch bag, warm to the touch as the familiar scent that wafted through the room instantly made his shoulders relax.
There was an other identical bag on the nighstand of the other's bed, merely placed there without a word.
" Made you breakfast.", he smiled proudly while his thumb reached to brush on the boy's upper cheek, right over one of the blooming bruises.
The melancholy his eyes held as he stared at it didn't match with his upbeat tone.
" You don’t have to admit that I’m the best, but I’m pretty sure you’re thinking it." , the smug and satisfied voice that would usually irritate Hyuntak to no end was suddenly far too endearing.
Inevitably there was also guilt among the boy's full of awe features.
That aching urge he had to make up for everything that wasn’t his fault, that apologetic glint in his gaze that yearned for approval, to be helpful in any small way.
But it was all overshadowed by pure endearment, an unspoken This is all I can do for now.
" You’re so dumb." , grinned Hyuntak, an almost unbearable amount of fondness overspilling from his half lidded eyes as though he was entirely unable to hide even a small portion of it behind his signature annoyance.
" I'll save it for later."
And Humin let himself be pulled down by his sleeve and merely huffed against the peck placed on his cheek.
"That's a rather odd way to propose. ", Suho’s voice came out of the blue.
He wasn't looking at them, instead his gaze was locked entirely on Sieun and his smirk widened when Hyuntak scoffed in disbelief. Though something entirely too soft and wistful had appeared in his gaze.
The boy standing over him shared it too, his just a slither more saddened than Suho's.
Hyuntak knew that look, or at least a different variation of it. He had received it from Sieun countless times, had watched him offer it to Humin and Juntae too.
The two boys across from him exchanged a glance and Sieun's eyes spoke.
You see it too now?
And Suho did.
Like there was a part of the small and foolish gesture that had brought them to their past, had manifested that melancholic glint appear in their eyes.
Hyuntak felt invasive for being able to read all that, like he wasn't supposed to feel welcome in such an intricate moment, like he should momentarily forget the language he'd been long fluent in.
" Will you propose too? Maybe with some soup?", quipped Suho with a gentle grin.
Sieun rolled his eyes.
" Later.", he smiled, a hesitant and almost shy thing, before looking away and facing the other.
" Huminie.", he then called as he glanced at his watch and the latter simply nodded and turned back towards Hyuntak.
"Get some more rest. I'll see you later." his palm brushed over the bruise on his cheek one more time before he pulled back.
His eyes didn't meet Suho's. Couldn't.
They never truly had, not since the moment they all started visiting, not since he realised how correct Sieun had been to compare him with Hyuntak.
But he tried. He nodded towards him with a familiar look that brought shivers up Hyuntak's spine, made the look of subtle hurt that flashed by Suho's face feel heavier, dropped a lump down Sieun's throat.
" You too.", he eventually muttered at him with a small smile before following Sieun out of the door.
Suho waved back, unwilling to hide his puzzled frown at the way the boy entirely avoided looking at him.
It always felt weird to watch such an out there and audacious person duck away from his gaze like it burnt him.
" Don't think about it too much. ", Hyuntak interrupted his thoughts with a soft sigh, sorrowful and tired as he buried his face in the pillow.
"Just give him some time."
Because once again, Hyuntak knew that look, he knew it far too well and he'd hate to let Suho find himself in the same place he had been months ago.
" Got it.", replied Suho, calm and casual. Maybe it was truly as simple as that, or maybe he was far too tired to really dive into it.
Eitherway he was out like a light within minutes.
"Go Hyuntak?" , a hoarse voice sounded from his right, hazy and unsure.
Hyuntak smirked at the familiar greeting, at the way the previous day felt like it was being repeated from the start.
"Ahn Suho." , he called back, the name coming out a bit softer than he expected.
The other groaned as he tried to turn more to the side, blinking slowly as he scrunched his nose in confusion and looked around only to find two chairs and an empty food bowl on the other's nightstand.
" Where's Sieun?", he questioned, still searching for the familiar figure he was sure had been standing over him not too long ago.
" He left a few hours ago.", was the casual response, not overly gentle or pitiful in the slightest. Just understanding.
" Right."
"Don't fret. They threatened to come back."
Hyuntak's grin was wiped away by a hiss and that's when Suho really noticed that the boy was sitting up with his left leg dangling freely from the bed and his right held between his hands as he slowly moved it back and forth.
" What are you doing?" his tone was intrigued and interested rather than panicked.
"Just stretching it a bit.", the other said behind gritted teeth.
Suho hummed.
" Be careful."
"I am.", Hyuntak hummed right back.
And Suho waited, watched as he finally let it rest on the bed and pulled his hands back before he spoke.
"So how did it happen?"
Hyuntak froze slightly, stunned by the casual tone and the blunt question, the question that carried enough weight to make his heart drop.
"What?"
"Your knee.", Suho nodded towards it.
Not even Juntae or Sieun had asked about it like that. The only thing they knew was who did it and they had earned that knowledge themselves by context clues.
"Straight to the point, huh?", Hyuntak muttered quietly, not uncomfortable but rather appalled by the situation.
"I thought we agreed that small-talk is awkward."
He wasn't disregarding the incident or attempting to ignore its importance. It was just easygoing, welcoming and curious, while still wordlessly giving Hyuntak the choice to decline.
And for some reason Hyuntak didn't want to.
"Did Sieun tell you what the Union is?", he found himself asking, pulling the beginning of a tangled up and forgotten thread and unravelling it slowly.
Suho's face soured at once.
" Gang, violent teenagers, money laundering and all that?", he scowled deeply, evident distaste and disgust layering over every word.
Hyuntak nodded before taking a deep breath.
"Their previous leader, Na Baekjin, used to be mine and Baku's childhood friend." a heavy confession that made Suho's eyebrows raise in surprise both at the revelation and at the somehow familiar name.
He could vaguely recall Sieun stumbling back in the room, dressed in black with puffy eyelids and tear tracks on his cheeks.
It had been merely weeks since Suho had woken up, his head was still an entirely too unintelligible mess, but for some reason he still remembered Sieun's voice, his words and small tearful rant about how he could've tried harder to help a boy named Baekjin.
The leader of a violent gang that Sieun mourned not because he was a friend or a good person, but because he was human.
By the look in Hyuntak's eyes, he had also mourned for him, maybe still was.
"He was obsessed with Baku, didn't try to hide it even after we cut him off." there was a knot on the thread and it was almost enough for Hyuntak to give up on it, to shove the little progress he had made back into the tangled mess that was his past.
But there was no going back. There didn't need to be.
" In his eyes, I was the problem. My best guess is that he thought it was a competition, that I was controlling Baku and keeping them apart.", he continued with a huff, a bitter and cruel thing that didn't match with the sorrow and remorse in his eyes.
"So the threats started arriving. Messages piling up telling me to stay away if I valued my life, his lackeys following me when I was out alone and trying to intimidate me. I didn't give a shit, until he made a threat I couldn't ignore.", he rambled, surprising himself by giving out a lot more details than he thought he would.
"I knew it was a trap, that Baku was home safe and sound, but I still went like an idiot."
Too anger driven and full of pride to let them think they could use his other half as a bait and too fed up with everything to just move on without a care.
"And then it just happened." he murmured as he finally looked up and faced the other.
Suho, who was frozen as something unreadable slithered through the cracks of his signature neutral expression.
Who was staring back at him without truly looking at him, his gaze almost going through him while his slowly widening pupils shook slightly with what looked like recognition and something else.
It wasn't exactly fear, but Hyuntak could swear it was something achingly close to it.
"The bastard didn't even have the balls to do it himself. He paid one of his lunatic lapdogs to take care of it.", Hyuntak finished with a bitter smile, punctuated the obvious ending of his story by rubbing his palm over his right knee.
For reasons he didn't know, Suho seemed to freeze even more, his mind racing with the countless thoughts and realisations that flashed by his eyes too fast for Hyuntak to catch.
" That's-" he stopped and Hyuntak rushed to look away without really meaning to.
There was something about the way Suho's demeanor had changed completely, something that made shivers travel up Hyuntak's spine
Maybe it was due to the fact that he had never seen Suho look as distressed as he did at that moment. Maybe he suddenly felt far too exposed, or maybe he simply dreaded the chance of seeing pity aimed at him.
"I'm fine with the injury.", he rushed to say, honest but melancholic in a way that had Suho blinking in surprise and wonder.
"It's annoying and I had to wave goodbye to the taekwondo career, but I can deal with that." they weren't just empty words, weren't said just to make him appear less weak.
Of course it hadn't stopped hurting entirely, but he had long accepted it and left it behind.
"I just wish the mental toll of it all would be less severe." it was only then that his voice wavered dangerously.
"I wish he'd stop blaming himself." the name was left unsaid, but Suho heard it, heard the way it cracked around the edges.
An entire retelling of his life turning incident was accompanied by sour smiles and bitter huffs, but the reminder that he wasn't the only one affected was what managed to yield tears in his eyes.
Suho looked away. Whether it was out of respect or if he simply couldn't look anymore, he didn't know.
The cracks in the mirror started aligning more and more, most of them blending into deeper and more prominent ones.
He wasn't sure if what he felt was respect, or plain terror towards fate.
Maybe it was a mix of both. Maybe the way he viewed the other boy had changed for the better, maybe the way he carelessly dealt with the physical damage as if it didn't matter was far too admirable and familiar.
"You can ask the question back, you know.", he muttered when the lonely sound of their breathing became far too overwhelming in his ears.
"It's only fair that way."
The other already looking back at him, traces of his sorrow still evident on his face from the way his tearful eyelids glimered through the glass.
"I'm not sure I should.", he murmured eventually, after he seemed to have spotted what he had been searching for in Suho's features.
"You're not curious?", retorted Suho with raised eyebrows and a curious frown.
"I know enough.", came the simple response.
"Plus, it's not the same."
"What do you mean?"
Hyuntak tilted his head slightly.
"I spent six months in physiotherapy, you lost almost three years of your life.", he uttered hesitantly with a straight face.
Suho scoffed in amusement.
"No use in comparing. We both lost something from our lives.", he waved it all off, the familiar casual and uncaring tone returning on his voice as if it had never left.
When the other made no move to continue the conversation, Suho spoke again.
"I used to be an athlete too.", he offered a subtle shift to a more light topic, while still not willing to entirely move away from it.
"Mma.", he elaborated when the other raised an eyebrow in interest.
"Sieun hadn't mentioned that.", Hyuntak observed curiously,
"Though you strike me more as a judo type of guy.", he bit back playfully and Suho merely huffed at first.
"Did he talk about me?", he found himself questioning, his heart slightly stuttering when the other merely gave him an unimpressed look at first.
"You know him, he doesn't speak unprovoked." a light response accompanied by a tender grin.
"I did ask him once though."
"What did he say? ", Suho inevitably asked, his attention zeroing on the other as he hummed in thought.
"That you're hardworking, kind."
An other huff, this one fond and exasperated.
"That you have a hero complex.", Hyuntak added with a teasing smirk and watched as the other's features contorted into disbelief and confusion.
"Like he's one to fucking talk. ", a quiet mumble, tone offended and salty in such a comically familiar way that reminded Hyuntak of yet an other thing to add.
"He also told me that we're very alike. Didn't specify how or why. ", he flipped his pointer finger between the two of them.
And Suho hummed in agreement with no hesitation, his shoulders tensing just enough for it to be noticeable.
"I can see it, yeah.", a quiet murmur, half intruiged and half sorrowful,
"A bit too much."
"A bit too much?", mimicked the other in disbelief.
Hyuntak would be dense to claim that he didn't see it at all, but it was evident that Suho saw it a lot more, that he knew more.
Before he could ask, Suho had followed up with a question of his own.
"How much do you know about how I ended up like this?", he waved his hand over the various machines around him.
"Almost nothing.", admitted Hyuntak like it was both a sin and a relief.
"Sieunie said that it happened when you fought for him."
"Ah, that punk made me look like a saint.", snickered Suho, though it was bitter, filled with hurt and remorse.
Hyuntak perked up.
"So what's the story?", he heard himself asking, not even a tiny bit surprised to hear that familiar blunt casual tone reflected into his own voice as their conversation circled back once again.
"I thought you knew enough." the other offered a sly smirk and Hyuntak rolled his eyes.
"You've made me curious now.", he grunted, unaware that the playful colours of their mood would be wiped away within the next few seconds.
"Funnily enough an old friend of ours paid someone to beat me up.", it was said with a forcefully easygoing huff, but Suho appeared to be just as frozen as Hyuntak, as though the foggy mirror had entirely cleared from both sides and allowed them to fully peak in and see each other's oddly shared past.
" Oh. ", was all Hyuntak could muster to reply, his widened eyes falling gradually with the chilling weight of it all.
" Though I can't give you the details. I don't remember half of it and I'm still not sure whether I should be glad or angry at that. ", he scoffed, fragile while somehow still managing to keep his signature attitude in tact.
" Some people just have ego issues and too much money to spare. "
It was strange. It made Hyuntak want to find Sieun right then and there and apologise over and over.
Because this wasn't just a similarity in their personalities, it was a twisted game of fate that was created to torture more guilt out of people who couldn't possibly handle more.
It must have been like a taunt from the moment Sieun met his eyes, his subtle limp was a painful reminder of not just his own unfortunate story.
Just when the words I'm sorry were about to escape his lips, his vision focused back on the boy in front of him.
To anyone else Suho would look unbothered, like he was a prime example of getting over your trauma, or like he was retelling a story from a book rather than his own.
To Hyuntak that indifference looked familiar, forced. It wasn't a show put on to convince Hyuntak that he wasn't weak, it was Suho trying to convince himself that he could get over it, that he could think about it all one day without his hands quivering by his sides.
" I don't even know where that fucker is right now. Sieun won't tell me anything.", he spoke again eventually, melancholy weaving itself within the bitterness without his will.
"Oh Beomseok.", he then uttered, almost as if to make sure he knew it, to remember what it sounded like in his voice.
He made the simple name sound like a curse and a blessing at the same time, like it was both a fond and poisoned memory.
"Sieun hasn't mentioned him. ", Hyuntak commented out loud, just a simple observation, a realisation that Sieun had never even mentioned that a second person had been in his life at some point.
" Good. " it was harsh, nearly sounding like a growl and it matched so horribly with the way his hands twitched against the mattress.
"Sorry." he then rushed to say after his features had softened a bit again.
"Being bitter is the most normal reaction.", shrugged Hyuntak, though he could still see the pity in Suho's eyes, the regrets spelled out one by one.
Had he also looked like that at Baekjin's funeral? Was it as obvious and conflicting as it looked on Suho?
" I'm not bitter about what happened to me." I don't mind the injury.
"He hurt many people before he managed to hurt me." I just wish the mental toll of it all would be less severe.
" He hurt him and he's still hurting him to this day." I wish he could stop blaming himself.
Like an echo, a hidden harmony in a song that was only truly audible in the last chorus, right before the last note could drop.
Because Yeon Sieun and Park Humin were still paying the mental price while Ahn Suho and Go Hyuntak were stuck with the physical ones.
Because everyone was still rushing to pay and keep up while the ones who had caused everything were in places unknown and unreachable, drowning in late blooming remorse that wouldn't solve a single thing.
And then, like a switch, a smile tugged on Suho's lips, tearful but genuine.
" It doesn't matter now. Point is that we're quite similar after all.", he noted before finally looking back towards the other, only for a scowl to bloom over his features at the sight of tearful eyes and furrowed eyebrows.
"Aye, wipe that off."
Hyuntak recoiled with a questioning sound.
"What?"
"The grimace.", remarked Suho at once,
"It's patronising and it's creeping me out."
Maybe because he himself had been wearing it just minutes ago, because it was too weird to be looking at his scarily accurate reflection while speaking.
"Sorry.", huffed Hyuntak while raising his hands up in mock surrender,
"I didn't know I was supposed to be grinning while listening to this shit.", he then muttered under his breath, loud enough for the other to hear and let out a scoff.
"I wasn't look at you like that when you were speaking."
"You totally were.", came the immediate snappy response that brought back Suho's smile, this time a softer version of it, more tender.
"My bad.", Suho huffed right back with a small smirk.
"It's guilt, not pity.", he tried to elaborate, despite knowing he didn't have to.
"I know.", Hyuntak replied at once.
"I see it everywhere around me, it's hard to not recognise it."
A weight that he didn't mind carrying, but one that shouldn't have been there in the first place, that their shoulders shouldn't have been burdened with.
"Humin? ", the other asked rhetorically, just to get the boy's attention entirely.
"He seems far too kind for his own good.", he then observed.
"He is." the corners of his lips tugged upwards only for a few seconds before the weight of the pain in his eyes drew them back down.
"He still looks at me as if he was the one who did everything, as if it was all his fault."
And in a way Hyuntak blamed himself for that, for getting into situations where the reminders would be unavoidable, for forcing Humin to see that it still hurt, that it would never stop hurting.
The way the other boy glanced around him, at the tauntingly white walls, for a moment told him that they shared that feeling as well.
"Sieun too.", Suho shamefully admitted.
"I know."
He used to aim that look at me as well, he wanted to add, just like how Humin is aiming it at you now.
For a moment Suho merely blinked at him, his mind visibly racing as he contemplated between blissful ignorance and the painful truth.
"He hasn't been kind to himself, has he? ", he managed to ask eventually.
Because Sieun had been hurting for far too long for him to now shy away from the mirroring pain of knowing.
"Not at all."
Suho's face dropped and Hyuntak's heart followed swiftly as he watched the boy's eyes water, as the raw guilt and regret started flooding his eyelids.
It was an odd sight, one he had never expected to be able to see so freely.
"I can't account for the first year, but we've kept him company these past months.", Hyuntak noted, voice gentle and reassuring,
"He wasn't alone."
Suho didn't shy away from the tear that rolled down his cheek, didn't bother to wipe it off or hide it away.
Instead he let it be joined by a wet chuckle, a bittersweet thing that echoed across the room.
"I hate to be sappy, but I really owe you my life for that.", he mumbled,
"For everything you did for him while I couldn't be there." it was drowning in shame and pride at the same time, the different tone of each word conflicting against each other.
"I'll repay you all in someway."
A deep frown slashed the tender expression off of Hyuntak's face.
"We didn't do it out of pity or in hopes for a reward, you jerk.", he retorted, playfully offended
"We did everything we could just because we care, because he deserves to be surrounded by people who love him. "
And as if the heavy four letter word was a trigger, Suho's eyes watered once more.
" He thinks I hate him.", Suho uttered with a huff of pure disbelief
"That I should hate him.", he then corrected.
"And do you?"
"No.", he cried out the word, his voice carrying more emotion than Hyuntak had heard since he met him.
It almost sounded offended that Hyuntak would even suggest it.
"That's exactly what I've been telling him. Now you can tell him yourself.", was the half smug half adoring response, determinted in such a sweet and hopeful way that didn't at all match with the indifferent image the boy wanted to portray most of the time.
"Is it still the same with Humin?"
Hyuntak nodded with a hum, a pained and remorseful thing.
"So it can't get fixed?", wondered Suho and Hyuntak could only reel back at first.
It sounded desperate in a way that didn't suit the boy in the slightest, like a child begging for help, or a teenager finally allowing himself to show true fear.
"I'm not sure.", was the shaky answer, genuine sorrow coming through instead of the cruel hopeless optimism anyone else would choose to offer.
"I don't think it will ever fully disappear."
Because guilt was a curse, an invasive plant that once it grew roots wouldn't wither away even if the ground beneath it was lit on fire.
"I hate it." an understatement, one that Hyuntak felt to his core, that he didn't need to verbally agree for the other to know that the feeling was mutual.
"It gets better.", he chose to add after a few moments, punctuating it with a gentle, bittersweet smile.
"You're here now. You can help him more than any of us could."
How?, was all Suho's eyes spelled, glimering with both hope and despair.
" Time, patience, subtle reminders.", Hyuntak listed off with a sigh.
"If you're not good with words, use actions and if you're not good at that either then learn how to be.", he then shrugged, not as if it was suppose to be something simple and easy but rather as if he was certain Suho would find a way of his own, something that would work for a boy as stubbornly closed off as Yeon Sieun.
The silence that followed was a lot more welcoming, familiar and bittersweet.
There was mutual understanding, respect and empathy flowing through the air, heavy in the most intricate and intriguing way possible.
"Suho," the name eventually echoed across the walls despite the quiet and hesitant tone used.
"If our places were switched I'd expect you to be there for Humin." it was worded like a command, but sounded more like a plead.
It was childish, Hyuntak knew. They were both here now, this promise didn't need to be made.
But he suddenly needed it, needed something, just to be sure. A comforting reassurance that if something were to happen to him in any of the many alternative universes, someone would stand guard between Humin and his guilt while he fought his way back.
Suho offered a smile, not a mocking one, not condescending in the slightest.
Just content, knowing, understanding.
"I'd most likely be terrible at it, but sure. I would."