Work Text:
There’s something incredibly frustrating about feeling nothing.
The gentle wash of light from Hoseok’s phone screen does nothing to restore the shattered pieces scattered within his chest, glistening sharply, tauntingly, while he shifts and hears them twinkle.
He huffs, peeved, and scrolls further down his screen. Near-familiar pages of the manga he’s reading begin to bleed and blend into one soppy, slippery mess, gliding through the weak clutch of his mind as they flow from one ear and out the other; the perfect compliment to the buzzing of thoughtlessness echoing in the dark chamber that is his bedroom, illuminated by nothing more than faint moonlight filtering through white-translucent curtains.
He shifts and rolls to his other side. The active silence follows, and his teeth grit harder together.
His eyes are stubbornly dry, wide open and far too alert for three in the morning. Despite his free schedule tomorrow, he knows he should be asleep; Jimin has been planning to go shopping with him, and he’s warned Hoseok that they need to avoid excessive attention and go early rather than late.
The hours dwindle away from him, and Hoseok struggles to find a reason to really care. What’s another morning of exhaustion? His head has been so foggy as of late, and he’s felt almost stupid with how long it takes him to process basic requests. Namjoon has given him his fair share of odd looks throughout the week, citing Hoseok’s “weird tone” as the reason for his reaction, but it’s not his tone, it’s his delivery; namely, the glaring delay of it.
(“Hey Hobi-hyung, can you pass me that book?”
A blank stare. Rapid blinking. “...Uh, sorry, what? The book?”
“...Yeah.” Hoseok never picks up on the confusion, always too dumbfounded while considering his own. Namjoon, graciously, chooses to turn a blind eye.)
Something’s wrong. Hoseok snorts, half-amused. No shit.
He sits up and leaves his phone on his pillow, screen facing up. He barely registers slipping into the bathroom, but he does remember flicking on the lights and just staring at himself in the mirror, watching his pale skin and his sunken eyes and feeling the aching, vibrating buzz of absolutely nothing. He blinks and nothing changes, and that’s the worst he’s felt all night.
He leans back, avoiding the mirror now, and slides his feet further down the bathroom to take a piss. He washes his hands after with icy water, half-heartedly drying his hands on his pants, and when he pulls the door open, he nearly shouts.
Jeongguk is squinting through the bright lights of the bathroom highlighting Hoseok from behind, but there’s a strange quirk to his lips that feels out of place among the exhaustion all over his face; that teasing smirk is usually paired with glinting eyes and cherry-red cheeks, but neither is present in Jeongguk now, leaving behind just a hint of its usual glory.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks.
“Can’t feel,” Hoseok replies simply. Jeongguk’s smile sobers, knowing, and he gestures Hoseok closer with a wave of his wrist. Hoseok steps forward and slumps into him, hooking his chin over his shoulder and fastening his arms tight around his waist. That gaping hole is still buried deep in his chest, sending a heavy tingle through the rest of his body. It’s not quite sadness, not yet, but it’s something uncomfortably close; regret, or perhaps longing, but he’s not sure what or who it’s even directed towards. He squeezes closer, licking up the heat dancing across Jeongguk’s body like he’s trying to melt open his tears, like he's trying to force them to drip down his cheeks until his chest stings-not-aches.
“Can I talk to you?” Hoseok nods once, and Jeongguk hums into his hair. “We should lay down first.”
It's a clear instruction to go back to bed, and Hoseok’s not inclined to oppose his judgement. With one last squeeze, Hoseok detangles himself from Jeongguk’s grip and leads him back to his bedroom, letting him slip into bed first before following after him, slithering against his side and curling close. He’s older than Jeongguk, always will be, so it’s not that he feels younger now; he just feels small.
Jeongguk pulls him flush to his chest and traces senseless patterns into his scalp, silent until Hoseok’s heart turns a listening ear and his entire body quiets to hear what Jeongguk has to say. It’s only then that Jeongguk even speaks, soft and sweet and low enough that even Hoseok can barely hear him.
“I love you, hyung. Did you know that?” There’s a pause that Hoseok doesn’t mean to give. That ugly feeling is back, heavy in his throat and coiled tight around his heart. It’s not bad, not meant to be bad, but it feels like the precursor to something significant; like the beginning of a means to an end. Jeongguk tugs him closer.
“I love you,” he says again, harsher. “I love you so much, and I’m sorry that your body is causing you so much grief. I’m sorry that you’re being blinded by your own thoughts, and I’m sorry that the only one allowed to stand on this battlefield is you. But,” he adds, quieter this time, “that doesn’t mean you’re alone.”
There’s a message in Jeongguk’s words, and it takes him a few deep, slow breaths to find it. His memory is spotty for a reason unknown, and he finds his thoughts drifting towards wondering how Jeongguk got into his bed, and how he’s managed to become such an important person in the eyes of so many others, and how he’s won the affection of five other human beings over the course of a few years. It’s incredulity that colors his cheeks and scrunches up his nose, eyebrows furrowing, but Jeongguk is patient and steady and unfaltering even under the weight of Hoseok’s numb response, waiting with warm skin and pink lips while Hoseok processes and reaffirms and wakes up in his own time.
It’s hard. It’s unbelievably hard to allow the horrible feeling to swamp his body, settling heavy on top of his lungs and choking him softly. It aches something fierce and he doesn’t cry because his eyes are still wide open and alert and stubbornly dry. No amount of thinking is letting him climb that impossible wall to drown in the sea of emotion and feeling and pain he so desperately needs to feel. His frown morphs into a scowl, twitching with irritation and jagged around the edges with something nearing desperation, coloring the shades of grey with the first splashes of color since his world had started to go monochromatic, bright and the worst form of dramatic.
“Please.” He’s not sure what he’s begging for, and it makes everything so much worse (better?) when he can’t find words to fit the long blanks. “I can’t. Gguk. I can’t--”
“It’s alright.” And that hurts; it’s sharp and unyielding and the first thing that hits him that deep in weeks, and he can’t hold back the whine that punches its way out of his throat.
“Jeongguk,” he moans, wavering into nothing.
It’s hard. It’s unbelievably hard to let go in that moment, to slump back and hope that he will be caught and held, but it happens just as he hopes it would. Jeongguk doesn’t move, doesn’t shift a single muscle, but Hoseok feels everything change.
It’s like hitting the water after a long fall. Everything goes muffled, too-quiet as reality rushes past in one rapid pulse, and then everything goes deathly calm and all that’s left to consider is the quickening of his breath and the warm furnace plastered along his side, arms locked protectively around his body and holding him tight, holding him together.
The pain melts into something sweeter, thick like honey and gentle like a warm glass of milk, and Hoseok--
Hoseok laughs.
He’s crying.