Chapter Text
♾️
There are things Sieun remembers. Then there are things Sieun wishes he didn’t remember.
Hands. Blood. Dirt. He remembers the hospital chill but not being in the hospital. Sleeping and waking in a home that was always dark. Not-sleeping in an apartment so cold he aches all over.
Loud crying. Running by himself in the later afternoon with his phone to his ear. An old grandma holding her face in her hands. The vindication of pushing some bastard’s face to the ground.
He’s been cold for a long time.
Sieun doesn’t exactly remember when it becomes something more. Still unnamed. Still floating in that blurry space in his head. It’s been lingering since that day he bashed Hyoman’s entire group to the ground with a crowbar and made some of them eat shit on the pavement. Eunjang has been a trip, but Sieun can’t say he minds it much after meeting Baku and the guys. They got each other’s backs. And as much as he wants to deny it, the adrenaline is sweet. Lifeline in his veins. It’s what he’s been holding onto since two years ago.
Suho’s back is to him as he rummages through the medicine cabinet. It’s his new designated spot whenever he visits now, it seems, and Sieun can’t help it. He sits and watches from the couch–following the lines of Suho’s back.
He looks good. That’s the thing. It’s crazy that Suho fucking looks fine. Like, it’s criminal waking up from a year long coma can look this good. He’s way too skinny, sure, but Sieun could probably still suffocate himself in Suho’s biceps. For all the weight that Suho has lost, it’s clear that what’s left is pure muscle. He has a wiry sort of strength now—the kind that feels a little less steady, a little more dangerous. He looks good, yeah, but…it’s still a little unsettling. Suho used to hold his stance like a brick wall. Now, he feels more like a glass case.
It’s like seeing a fucking ghost. His presence ringing as loud as death. Through his oxygen deprived brain, Sieun has to steady his breathing for what’s to come.
“I’ve been following you for a while.”
Sieun exhales. “Is that all you have to say?”
“Depends on if you wanna hear the rest.”
Suho approaches, sitting down with arms crossed in front of him. Sieun knows by the delicate arch of his brow, his small laugh, coming past him plucking its thin, blue notes.
From the window, moonlight touches him and the sharp line of his jaw, cutting him by the corner of his eye. His hair is longer now, but still neatly shaved at the sides, violent like a punch. He’s still got that sharp nose, small, squinty dark brown eyes—a hint of the boy Sieun once knew, but his shoulders have filled out even more now, broad and cut and straining against his suit jacket.
He’s nothing at all like how Sieun remembers him. He looks at Suho and feels just the smallest note of the fondness, a faded tune of the longing he’s felt over the past months. The tender burn of guilt burns hotter in his veins, ripe as a fresh wound.
Suho is still just looking.
“What?” he asks.
Suho drags a hand through his hair, tips his head back against the chair, squeezes his eyes shut. There’s a harsh stutter to his breathing. The pale curve of his neck sheens over with sweat.
Repeat. “Suho?”
"You want to talk about it?" Suho begins.
"I want to hit someone," Sieun curtly replies, low in his throat. "Is that the same?"
"For you or for sane people?"
Sieun’s mouth twists. It feels like he's admitting a weakness he'd rather have kept hidden, and Sieun hates himself. Because he's known, he's known when he woke up alone the morning after Suho went into a coma that Suho needed a trigger to follow, and he had fucking sprinted the moment Sieun pulled the gun. He’d thought they would be safe if he had just kept to himself, if he’d just not exploded into a mess of fury and violence.
He didn’t know himself as well then, hadn't understood that ‘Yeon Sieun’ never asks for the things he fucking wants, but he’s ignored his instincts and turned out this way, here, where everyone treats him like a pariah, like a disappointment.
It's all Sieun can do not to set something on fire. It's all he can do not to run.
“You haven’t seen me in months.”
“I see you every night.” Suho snaps, and the words sound like they’ve been pulled syllable by syllable out of the depths of him. They land like a blow to the ribs. It freezes Sieun in his spot. “Sieun, when I woke up you were the only person I thought of other than my own fuckin’ family. And that’s saying a lot when it’s literally only my grandma. The last thing I’d want for you is more blood on your hands. But look at you now.” Suho’s eyes sharpen, and they claw over him. “Yeon Sieun. Top of the class. Bookworm. Since when are you such a punk?”
“Since when are you so righteous?” Sieun fires back, barely aware of what’s coming out of his mouth. “It’s been a long time Suho. I’m no longer that stupid kid—”
“I’ve missed you.”
It punches the air right out of his lungs. “You might not even know me an…”
Suho lets out a low, frustrated growl. “But you know me,” he says. “You know me better than anyone else and that will never change. It’s you, it’s always been you, ever since Byucksan—hell , since the first time I saw you, in that classroom, do you need me to say it—” His voice changes, turns rougher, raspier. He leans forward, shifting closer, and Sieun should move away, but he doesn’t. “That we both know you missed me too—”
“Don’t,” Sieun says, though part of him is electrified by want, throat drying up just from the sound of Suho’s voice laying out everything he’s apparently thought about him, wrong as it is when they’re both so obviously compromised. Split by a world apart. Still—he’s probably as red as Suho by now.
“Yeon Sieun.”
A hand closes around his nape.
He isn’t blind. He can tell Suho reserved him a spot that’s a little more special than the others, though there’s so much he still keeps locked up, and Sieun’s fine with it; everyone is entitled to their own secrets and he has never been the type to open up until someone can pry by force, which is probably why they got along so well. But it’s because Suho always maintains a perfectly crafted sense of control over himself that it’s exhilarating seeing him cracked open like this. The only other time he’s ever been this enraged, Sieun remembers, is that day when he almost died. Glassy-eyed in front of the door of Sieun’s house. Lifeless in the ring after a fight he shouldn’t have joined.
Suho could’ve died, but he’s here. Sieun should’ve died, but he didn’t.
Whatever was in between them a long time ago has come back by ten folds—clearly smashing through Suho’s filter, if not yet his self-restraint. Sieun bites his lip and regrets it when Suho’s focus lasers in, snapping to his mouth with an abrupt intensity he’d find stupid in any other circumstance.
“Don’t you ever think about it?” Suho says. His jaw works, tensing as he speaks, a nervous tic Sieun notices he’d never normally let himself show. “Sometimes you look at me and I’m sure—but I can never tell. With you.” Suddenly he’s almost shy, and that’s worse, somehow, so agonizingly sincere Sieun’s chest hurts with it. He has thought about it. Of all the things that could have happened since they met, of course he wants Ahn Suho; the entire world wants him. When Sieun figured it out—that what he felt for Suho was longing, plain and simple—he’d accepted it as a fact of life and moved on. There was no space for that kind of emotion with the life they were living. Suho barely out of a coma and a crutch. Sieun barely out of the violent haze in his head. It’s not supposed to change anything, except now Suho is in front of him, angry and upset and telling Sieun he wants him.
Sieun’s heart feels like it’s about to explode. Another firecracker lit in the cavity of his chest, and when he opens his mouth he breathes sparks. Adrenaline bursting through his veins.
“You’re crazy,” he says.
“Maybe.”
Suho agrees, and sucks in a deep breath. Sieun’s palms feel clammy. The way Suho stares at him makes him feel short of air.
The truth is the things Sieun wants most desperately he’s shoved them down so deep inside that they cannot be removed from him, surgically or otherwise. As an analogy, it might not make sense, but sometimes you don’t make sense when the feelings that pour through your throat are things you can’t voice otherwise. Sometimes you say stupid things. Sometimes—
“I wanted to go see you too, back then.” He confesses. “I thought about it for weeks—”
But I was afraid.
“Suho,” Sieun says desperately, not sure where to even begin explaining, but even as he says it Suho is already surging forward, pulling him into his lap, mouth finding Sieun’s, clumsy and demanding. His teeth catch on his lower lip, fingers pressing into the back of Sieun’s neck to angle his head up the way Suho wants. All veneers of silence abandoned in an instant. For a moment he’s too stunned to do much more than let Suho kiss him, lick into his mouth. Sieun brings a hand up between them, but his thumb catches on the swoop of Suho’s cheekbone and Suho turns his head into the cradle of his palm, tongue swiping over his bottom lip, and that train of thought short-circuits.
“Sieun-ah,” Suho calls, all breathy, pulling away to nudge his face into the crook of Sieun’s neck. He yanks Sieun’s shirt free from where it’s tucked into his pants and slides his hand underneath, presses his palm flat to Sieun’s stomach. His skin is scorching. “I know what you did.”
It’s incredibly hard to think with Suho mouthing at the line of his throat. “Hah,” Sieun manages. “What—?”
“Bashed Youngbin’s face in,” Suho grunts out in reply. “Broke Wooyoung’s ankle. Stabbed him. Beaten them up. You’re so fuckin’ awful, Yeon Sieun.”
Fleetingly Sieun wonders if Youngyi has contacted Suho back, if anyone has blabbered to let Suho find out, before Suho pushes against him again, more insistent this time, the friction even through the fabric of their clothes sparking jolts up Sieun’s spine. “That’s not—ah, hold on,” Sieun says, biting back a moan. “What did you do—?”
Suho chokes out a laugh, breath heavy against the thin skin of Sieun’s neck, and clambers up until they’re face to face. He looks halfway wrecked already, hair all mussed, the gleam of his exposed collarbone where his t-shirt has fallen open nearly indecent in and of itself. Eyes shuttered as he bends his head forward until their foreheads touch, curling them together, and the strange incongruent softness of the motion nearly undoes Sieun.
“I lined them up and beat them one by one.” He admits breathlessly. “Stepped on Youngbin’s hand and broke his finger. Because he broke your arm.”
For a moment, he shuts his eyes, inhaling softly. Suho hovers above him, blotting out the moonlight. At this distance he is all blurred—far gone in the impenetrable dimness—but in his eyes there is a bright glimmer of light. In Suho’s eyes, Sieun sees the reflection of himself.
“I’m sorry.” He says. It’s an encompassing sorry. A sorry that’s supposed to represent a multitude of sins and wrap them up into a ball, thrown into the abyss so they’ll never have to feel the pain again.
Light in the room shifts. A tilt in the earth’s axis. Sieun sees it disappearing from Suho’s eyes as it turns glassy.
“Me too,” Suho says.
They fall.
There’s something to this—just one body against another, no barriers between them, just one pair of lips on another, the distant city sing-songing in the background. Suho’s hands wrapping around Sieun’s tiny waist, Sieun’s hands curled against Suho’s jaw. Sieun’s cold, smaller feet brushing against Suho’s calves—this is intimacy—Sieun learns, swelling like molten lava in his stomach, and it’s real.
And then Suho is pushing him further into the couch. Their next press of mouths is more aggressive, Suho sucking at Sieun’s lower lip like a man just on the verge of dehydration.
Like everything else in his infuriating existence, Suho is very good at kissing. Against his better judgement, Sieun feels himself letting Suho pull him down, braces an arm beside his head and runs his hand down his side, rucking the Eunjang uniform shirt out of the way so he can close a hot palm around his waist again. Suho is such a stupidly good kisser , Sieun feels a bit dizzy with it. He’s got good breath control—years of MMA and being a popular hot guy in school will probably do that to you, and here in this little coalesced space Suho seems no less intense. He pries Sieun open with long, deep kisses, interspersing with soft pecks, licking into Sieun’s mouth whenever he gasps for breath, grinding down on him and inching closer when Sieun tries to inch farther. A flash of teeth peeking out as he sinks them into the hollow of Sieun’s collarbone, as if his new mission is to make Sieun the latest victim of a vampire.
“Shit,” Sieun curses up at the room ceiling. “You freak.” Suho just hums into his neck, licking the bruised skin as if to soothe, and making Sieun shudder with it. His weight sinks a little lower onto Sieun and Sieun grabs him before he can nestle in even further, tightening the hand he’s got around Suho’s bicep.
The move startles Suho, making him pause, and Sieun takes the chance to push him back by the chest, creating some space in between so they can catch their breath. It’s interesting to watch Suho, though—his cheeks flushed and lips wet with spit, trying to blink away the dazed look in his eyes, like he’s just coming back down to Earth. Especially this close up. Sieun drops his head on the couch headrest, warm but not yet sweaty forehead exposed with his hair raked back. They’re both getting so turned on. The room is heady and hot with intent.
Fluorescent lights stutter above their heads.
Even still in his thin socks, Sieun’s feet are cold against the couch. It’s starting to get chilled again, the window above the sink popped open. He shivers involuntarily, chest heaving and trying not to think about how the cold is getting to him because Suho is moving away to sit back. The collar of his tee is tugged all the way down, and when he tilts his head to rest against the couch his neck looks like it was carved from marble—like it was made to fit in Sieun’s mouth.
Outside, the moon wanes.
♾️
It’s two in the morning when they finally settle and find their footing again, chests heaving in. There’s spit on Sieun’s lips, shiver at the tips of his fingers, and bruises on his neck. Suho’s hair is unruly and flattened at where he ran his hands through, and Sieun can’t help but stare, wondering when he can do it again, if he can do it all the time now.
“How—” he begins, then stops to clear his throat—a feeble attempt to ease the hoarseness from his voice. “When did you remember all that?”
Suho clicks his tongue and Sieun is thrown back into reality. “So now we can talk.”
He’s not gonna dignify that with an answer, not after getting kissed out of his breath, and Suho knows it too. He sighs, and crosses an arm over his eyes.
“I guess we’re both just equally as bad.”
Suho’s never talked in many words, but Sieun knows him. And Suho is probably the most selfless person he knows. Case in point—their predicament right now is one hundred percent Ahn Suho. The stubborn guy just doesn’t know when to give up and one of these days it’s going to get him killed, hell, it almost did, once. And Sieun also knows that had it been Beomseok, or even Youngyi, he wouldn’t have made the same decision going after Wooyoung and the others, and let the bloodthirst consume him. And he certainly doesn’t regret it, but he can’t say the same for Suho, and he wonders.
“Do you regret it?”
It’s silent except for the soft sound of Suho’s breathing beside him, waiting for a response.
They’re lying in Sieun’s bed, the blanket and pillows thrown askew. The bedroom window is directly above them with only a slight curve of the outside street lamp visible and just endless night sky, lit up by the crescent moon for them to admire.
“Do you?”
He huffs out a soft laugh. “I’m the one asking the question, Sieun-ah. Stop dodging.”
Sieun shakes his head, and the movement brings him a little closer. He tugs on the blanket and pulls it to his chest.
“No,” he breathes out.
It's a type of love that exists even between chest kicks and hard knuckles to the face. A kind of love that only works through blood and bruises, through sweat and tears. A love that can work even when you are sharing a meal with a boy that blurs your definitions of admiration and envy. A love that’s only shown through fighting every conflict for each other. A type of love where you hate the fact that you know he could kill someone else for you. And the idea of admitting anything at all is much scarier than getting punched in the face.
It sounds simple but sometimes, it's really not. This must be adolescence. It means confronting feelings you never even knew existed. They love each other, really. They just don't know what to make of it.
“Why?” There’s a certain sense of urgency to Suho’s question, as if he’s desperate to make some point to him.
Sieun blows out a breath but doesn’t answer.
Suho finds it anyway in his silence.
“Oh okay, so you can care about me, but I can’t care about you? Is that how it works, huh?”
“That’s not what I meant,” he defends. “You’re just—you have Grandma, and your future.”
Suho turns over to look at him, but Sieun’s eyes are fixed on the window, reflecting moonlight.
“You know that’s not all, right? There are a lot of people who care about you.”
And the words are like a vice grip around his heart and he stands his ground, tries not to believe them for a second. He can’t. And so, he does what he always does—builds a wall around him and fires back with arrows aflame.
“I’m not close with them.”
“Sure you are, that’s why you clearly got a death wish throwing yourself into all these fights with them.” Suho scoffs, reaching out to probe a finger at his cheek. “I mean, shit. If you really wanted to die all you had to do was tell me. After that damn coma I’ve been thinking a suicide partner doesn’t sound too bad, you know.”
And he really can’t help it. Sieun lets out a laugh that sounds more like choking than anything, and they both seem stunned by it. Suho lets out a quiet laugh of his own, surprised that someone even found him funny. God only knows no one else does. A look almost akin to guilt crosses his face and he’s about to try for another joke when Sieun bursts into tears.
It startles Suho so much he jumps up from his lying position and hovers over him. He pushes the blanket out of the way, runs a hand through his hair, cups his face, and Sieun blinks through the tears to look at him—really look at him—the blown pupils, the short unruly hair, and slightly swollen lip. Suho looks like he just crawled through a fight. He looks like he just came out of Sieun’s dreams.
A suicide pact, huh?
“No,” he says, “it’s easier with you.”
“What’s easier with me?”
“Being alive.”
♾️
“How is he?”
Sieun blinks, and looks up. Baku hovers over him, a basketball on one arm, the other scratching at the base of his neck, almost bashfully. He straightens up when he finally notices Sieun’s stare, or just the silence that has washed over them when Suho’s name comes up. The topic never gets any easier.
“It’s okay if you can’t tell us haha…I mean—he woke up, and that’s what matters m—”
“He’s okay,” Sieun says. “Suho—Suho’s okay.”
A vibrate in his phone catches his attention, and he looks down. A small smile he can’t contain breaks out between his lips, watching the screen light up with the sender's name. He looks up, and catches Hyuntak and Juntae on the court, looking anywhere but them, trying and stupidly failing not to eavesdrop. It's so endearing. It also feels reminiscing, and bittersweet.
The world moves on, and maybe so will they.
“Actually,” he clears his throat, and draws all their attention to him. “You want to come with me later?”
The sun shines over them, burnt and honey warm.