Chapter Text
"And the last thing I would want is for you to end up hating me, or feeling bad, or..."
The hands gripping his take him by surprise, cutting off his breath in a sound Jeonghan doesn't know if he could replicate under any other circumstance.
"Han-ah, trust me a little more."
Someone once said he was a terrible liar; that his mouth often forms involuntary smiles or a grin while he speaks, that his voice becomes a little more nasal and his eyes take on the shape of crescent moons. But it must be a lie, because Jeonghan holds the title of world's best liar, and always carries a comment section full of people reiterating it.
He must be so good at deception that he can convince himself he's laid his heart on the line; that he hasn't held anything back; that he's spelled out every warning, every flaw.
"You're supposed to know this”, “even if you're not bad, I've been waiting for you to start treating me like more than a friend”, “how can I not feel bad and act like this if I can't even tell if you have feelings for me?” He doesn't want to hear anything like that again.
Jeonghan doesn't even know how much time went by with him baring his concerns, but he stands there at the end: his voice slightly strained, eyes moist, the breath shaky as he finally agrees. The months he delayed this decision with the help of a tour, recordings, and photoshoots are now devoid of purpose.
>>"How much we could’ve avoided by being braver, right?"
There's a bit of reproach there, underlying, and for a second he remembers why the term 'conquering' someone exists.
As those lips crash into his, it's impossible not to think that he didn't make himself clear again.
☆
Seungcheol's fingers delve into his hair. This year Jeonghan has bangs, so every now and then the other plays with it, tousling it until it covers his eyes and brushes his eyelashes. It's a simple game, but entertaining enough for two twenty-something who already drank more than a bottle of soju. The younger one laughs softly, occasionally grabbing the other, but doesn't move away.
The silence is comfortable, if not a little nostalgic, after Jeonghan begins to confess, anecdote after anecdote, about a series of situations that Seungcheol says he wants to know even as his brow furrows and his lips become pouty.
"I think you should leave him".
The advice irrupts, but instead of shaking him, Jeonghan finds himself resigned. He tastes guilt, frustration, and sadness in an inaudible sigh.
"You should have seen me too though."
Despite letting out a small laugh, Seungcheol doesn't reciprocate. Instead, he slides his hand down to his neck and begins playing with the hair near his nape, the worried expression never changing.
"I don't think you deserve this".
But Jeonghan isn't so sure. It's no secret that he's difficult to deal with; with his obsessions and insecurities, with his need to let others handle certain things, with his eternal tiredness that limits him from one moment to the next.
Whenever he wants to hold onto anger and indignation, whenever he wants to aim for humiliation or straight up pain and annoyance, he can't help but justify it all.
Maybe if he didn't make others feel insecure, maybe if he knew how to act the way he should, maybe if he could change the way his brain is wired enough so that other people's love wouldn't mutate into resentment and boredom.
Maybe if he could stop thinking about it so much and just let himself go, he'd be happier.
But he's too focused on his discomfort to make anyone else happy.
"You know," he murmurs, like another confession, almost out of his body, "we even used to talk about marriage." Seungcheol simply decides to take his hand and give it a gentle squeeze.
★
One of the many times he could have acted better, Jeonghan is soaked. He is holding his arm as they try to get to a themed cafe far enough from Hybe's building—"something new for a change", the other had pointed out earlier, as if it were only his fault they always end up in the same places— and the umbrella isn't enough to cover them both.
He can't help but choke under the mask he can't remove for fear of being recognized, and under that feeling of frustration and irritability that fills his aching, trembling body.
He's freezing, but he can't help but feel guilty every time the other clings to his arm more tightly to walk closer together in the rain despite the earlier detachment, like in the drama Seungkwan finished watching last week where a bit of miscommunication could be solved with proximity.
In real life, Jeonghan has no idea what's romantic about the throbbing in his bones, the sweat under his clothes, and his shortness of breath.
When the two finally decide to stop under the awning of a closed business, they're like a poorly rehearsed choreography; like members accidentally meeting halfway across the stage, shoulders colliding with a loud thud that sends one of them face first to the floor.
Figuratively, Jeonghan is on the floor, and yet he feels guilty for the one that remains standing.
His hands are over his face, his shoulders tight and tense. He can't move, he can't hear or see properly in the rain, and all he can think about is Seungcheol, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi,...
"Are you okay?"
The other hugs him, squeezes him, and Jeonghan stifles a cry in the back of his throat. It's not fair, but he still gets frustrated.
The other's indifference, the reproach, the annoyance from a few hours earlier —and that he perhaps been carrying for several days— the actions and attitudes that pilled up and made him feel small and insecure, echo and collide with the soft tone, the hot breath against his cheek, the limbs wrapped around his waist in the present.
He's so tired of only being loved when he's at his breaking point, when they can pull that story in which he's an unstable creature who squirms at any display of affection.
“I'm not like this”, the protest gets stuck in his head. Pointless when he can even begin to justify why he can feel so much for everything and everyone but for his partner.
It's like a switch going off, like a void that eats all the love he has for a person bit by bit as he fails to switch between tags. Friendship, romance. At the end it doesn't matter if he thinks he's doing it right, it doesn't matter how strongly he cherishes someone if he can't convey it in a way that could be appreciated. It's like screaming in space and getting angry for not being heard while someone gets progressively more exasperated waiting for his voice to reach them.
In the end it's probably not anyone's fault, but it doesn't stop the resentment from growing and for Jeonghan to want to escape and start all over in hopes of making it right a second time.
That's just wishful thinking though, now in between this embrace he wants nothing to do with doing a once over. Selfishly, he just wants to call Seungcheol to pick him up, ask a manager for an excuse to leave, run off on his own in the rain, ask Joshua to replace this hug with his own.
He feels no comfort in these arms, only pressure and many fingers accusing him for not feeling loved between them.
>>"Do you want to leave?"
Jeonghan nods, holding back tears, but it actually takes him a long time to start moving under the other's ill-disguised grimace and that foreboding silence.
When he finally does, those hands don't want to let him go and Jeonghan feels himself drawing in guilt.
☆
"JjongJjong?"
Jihoon appears in front of his face.
☆
“Are you coming or not?”
Jeonghan plays with his hands, curling his fingers in that exaggerated shape that usually unnerves his fans and members, and that the doctor asked him to avoid. The other stands in front of him, but barely spare him a glance before turning his attention back to whatever he's looking at on his phone. The vocalist feels his cheeks heat up along with a kind of cold sweat on his temples and the back of his neck.
>>”So?”
He scoffs, lowly, and Jeonghan presses his lips together, uncertain. His eyes wander a few feet to the entrance; the host guides another person to their table.
There are only about three people in front of them now.
"You could have let me know you didn't want to come", "I asked if you were busy", "I know the trip was my idea, but..."; his thoughts trip over each other.
He doesn't know what to do.
"But I can't let you go alone", he finally settles.
In another country —he wants to add—, in a place with a different language, in the middle of the group's activities, when he wouldn't be able to keep an eye out if something were to happen. The look Seungcheol gave him when he decided to reveal that he planned to catch up with them in Osaka was enough.
“It’s only a couple of days,” but Cheol remained silent, and Jeonghan didn’t dare confirm that he was right when his partner left him waiting for an hour without an actual reason.
Now, even a day later, Yoon Jeonghan doesn’t think he can bear the look of disappointment from anyone else during this trip, much less the guilt that comes with feeling like he made the wrong decision.
“I’ll come with you,” he’s about to concede. “I wasn’t that interested in this place either,” he wants to lie.
“It literally doesn’t change anything whether you come with me or not,” the other interrupts his thoughts without looking at him.
Jun is recording when he finds Jeonghan silently playing with a fishing rod in the middle of the restaurant. It’s doesn't go unnoticed how he tries to keep the camera pointed at himself for a big part of their conversation, conveniently avoiding his watery eyes.
★
Woozi’s hands press against his bony shoulders, trace his collarbones, and linger on his neck.
“JjongJjong?” His voice always sounds slightly raspier when they're silent for too long, as if his vocal cords are protesting the fact that he's not singing.
"Jihoonie."
"Hmm?"
Jeonghan ends up hiding his face against the other's chest, nuzzling his nose, pressing his mouth against the shorter man's shirt.
He wants to talk, and he doesn't want to either; to cry and scream, but also to laugh with resignation; to admit that, even though it terrifies him, he might be doomed to loneliness and hurting others, but still remain in love with the idea of finding someone who can love him or at least understand the way he shows it.
Jeonghan is used to seeing comments highlighting what a good liar he is, how easily he handles his discomfort, his pain; however, at this moment, he doesn't think he can hide even a little from his dongsaeng's gaze.
"Everything will pass, this will pass," he repeats to himself like a mantra while trying to breathe through his hot nostrils. He just has to forget Hoshi's knowing smile; Seungkwan's excitement in front of the TV; what fans and the media read between the lines; his need to rephrase the love songs In order to perform them.
He just has to forget about himself, and he'll be just Yoon Jeonghan again.