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Days, weeks, months have passed since Saeran has left the Mint Eye.
Since Saeyoung finally returned to him and took him to what he supposes is home now.
They’ve had a lot of time to talk, although most of the time it’s Saeyoung doing the talking, explaining everything that’s happened as good as he can.
Explaining why he had to leave him, abandon him.
Betray him.
He understands, but does that make it any better?
He understands, but at the same time he does not.
Not at all.
He gets why his brother had to do it, why he felt like there was no other option, but that doesn’t change the pain he’s felt his entire life. It doesn’t heal any of his wounds.
All throughout his childhood he’d relied on his twin, every day of his life he’d been told they’d always have each other.
And then Saeyoung had disappeared.
Now, years later, he knows the reason, but his memories are still there, memories of all the punishments he got for it, all the days and nights chained to the wall.
All the years spent in front of a computer screen, fingers raw and bleeding from typing too much, the only thought in his mind the one that he had to destroy the traitor, make him pay.
Now he finds out that it wasn’t really Saeyoung’s fault. Or at least not his will.
He understands him, but understanding doesn’t free him of his past, it doesn’t help the nightmares that still haunt him every night.
The nightmares that are really just his memories, replaying over and over no matter if he’s awake or asleep.
Understanding doesn’t heal the wounds all over him, doesn’t heal the bleeding on the days when he can’t take it anymore and just needs to feel /something/ other than internal pain.
Could there not have been another way?
There wasn’t, he knows that, yet a part of his mind keeps telling me they would’ve found one if only they’d tried.
If at least he’d known why Saeyoung had left, maybe he wouldn’t have missed him so much.
Maybe he would’ve at least not grown to hate him.
He understands now, and he wants to forgive him.
He wants his brother to hold him in his arms like he used to do, to just keep him close and make him believe everything’s alright, if only for a few moments.
He wants to feel like brothers again.
But every time he looks at him his memories well up, like scrambled voices screaming in his head from all possible directions, making everything hurt yet nobody else can ever hear them.
He understands why Saeyoung left, he knows he never mean to lie to him or to betray him.
But his body doesn’t know that yet, he’s spent too long hating him to just let everything go at will.
That’s not how it works.
As much as he wants to love his brother, as much as he tries.
On some of the really bad days he’s truly afraid it will end with one of them dead.
And either way, as much as he hates the thought, it will be from his hand.
Because there are still so many days where his mind loses to his body.
And even though he understands, he can’t control his actions.
Not anymore.
It’s too late for understanding.