Work Text:
The first time Gaon asks for old videos of Isaac, Yohan doesn’t put it together. It’s just another moment of Gaon trying to understand him, something he should have long since given up on. Yohan doesn’t say a word; he leaves the room in silence and fights the smallest hint of a smile when Gaon yells after him in a tone that’s less frustrated than he probably realizes.
Yohan doesn’t put it together until two weeks later. There’s laughter from outside, Elijah’s laughter, and Yohan can’t help himself, but moves to the window to peek out. Elijah and Gaon, sitting in the grass together, and that damn cat that liked them more than him- the traitor. Elijah is smiling, laughing.
Yohan can’t remember the last time he saw her smile at him.
He overhears them, a few minutes later, when they come in, and Elijah chases after Gaon, yelling “I’ll kill you!” at him for something. It takes a long minute to process, when Elijah finally does slip up. Longer still to react. Yohan is still, frozen in place. Her words echo, bouncing back and forth in his mind. “Oppa!” she yells after him, “I’ll kill you!”
Gaon still just laughs as he runs down the hall.
Yohan sees it in action that night. Elijah is in her room, either working on her assignments or sleeping- he hasn’t gone to check but it’s no doubt one of the two- and Gaon is on the couch in his office, a book open in his lap. Yohan spares a brief glance up, and then a second, and then a third. The image is familiar, too familiar.
Gaon sits, leaning against the left side of the couch, his legs crossed and underneath him, and the book held up to his eyes. His hair, freshly washed, isn’t parted as Gaon usually wears it, but closer to Yohan’s own preferred style of leaving it down in his eyes at home.
Gaon is the spitting image of Isaac. The way he holds himself, the way he holds the book, his hair.
It’s purposeful. Yohan knows it is. He looks away, back to the documents on his desk, but when he glances up, again, for just one more look , Gaon is smiling.
Smug bastard.
It’s purposeful, Yohan knows for absolute certainty, three days later, when Gaon walks into his bedroom without knocking and speaks without hesitation, clearly, with no trace of the accent that often creeps into his words. “Yohan-ah,” he says. Yohan stares at him impassively; if he blinks, he knows he’ll betray any number of the emotions stabbing at his heart right then.
“Yohan-ah,” Gaon repeats in a softer voice and damn him for learning so quickly how to mimic from old videos alone. Gaon sits down on the edge of the bed and he drops his hands into his lap. Yohan watches carefully. They don’t bounce; there is no video that exists of the habit, of Isaac bouncing his hands in his lap when he drops them. It is Gaon .
“What is this,” Yohan says in a softer voice still.
“Yohan-ah,” Gaon says again and he reaches out.
Yohan hates being touched. He closes his eyes and leans into it when Gaon’s fingers touch his cheek, and he pretends the breath that leaves him isn’t shuddering, that he isn’t clinging to the last semblance of a wall. “Yohan-ah,” Gaon whispers, the last smash of the hammer against the old bricks, and Yohan crumbles against him, breaths shuddering and gasping. Gaon’s arms wrap around him, holding onto him and Isaac holds him, shushing him in the dimly lit basement. “It’s okay, Yohan-ah, it’s okay,” Isaac murmurs, soothing his hair back from his face. “It’s okay, it will pass. I don’t know why he hates you so much, Yohan-ah. It’s okay.”
“It’s okay,” Gaon whispers. Yohan screams and pulls back and grabs the nearest object, a pillow, and swings it at Gaon.
“Do you think this is funny?”
“It’s okay, Yohan-ah,” Gaon repeats in that same, soft voice. He doesn’t move, not even to defend himself, as Yohan lets go of the pillow and hits him with his bare hand.
Gaon isn’t bleeding, isn’t bruised, isn’t visibly hurt, when Yohan finally loses what little energy he has and sinks down onto the bed, onto his back. Gaon doesn’t move, not until a small voice, barely recognizable as Yohan’s, whispers, “Thank you.”
Gaon leaves in silence.
Things return to normal after that. They pretend it never happened, not until Yohan finds himself kidnapped and though he successfully covers up the unnerving realization that he has found himself in deeper waters than he had thought, and in waters he had thought himself well past.
Gaon’s ability to see through his masks is uncanny, unnatural, and Yohan tells himself he hates it in a desperate attempt to convince himself of it. Every argument he makes is gone when he sits in the study later that night and thumbs through one of his books. The door opens and Yohan, without raising his head, speaks. “It’s rude not to knock.”
“I did,” Gaon’s voice is different. Yohan places it immediately and his head shoots up.
Gaon watches as emotions flitter across Yohan’s usually impenetrable expression, like an old TV searching channels. Anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, longing, hope. Each moment is just another reminder that Yohan is human, human , no matter how much he pretends to be above it. He eats, sleeps, and feels like any other human.
It still surprises Gaon to see Yohan close his eyes, to take a deep breath, and in what appears to be a moment of weakness, to speak. “Hyung.”
Not weakness. Vulnerability . To see Yohan somewhere close to breaking, to snapping, to falling, to see him put himself so fully in Gaon’s hands. It is a moment of pure, blind trust, and Gaon knows he has to pretend it never happened.
“Yohan-ah,” he murmurs back. Yohan’s breath hitches, stutters. His eyes are still closed. Gaon hesitates before he steps forwards, walking across the floor, silent save for the sounds of his footsteps, and he kneels down on the floor. He has to look up to look at Yohan’s face, where Yohan' won’t open his eyes, won’t look at him. When Gaon reaches for his hand, Yohan surprises him by clinging to the touch, leaning into it.
He doesn’t let anybody touch him , Gaon remembers. Yohan shrugs off touch, leads everything with every ounce of control, never puts himself in other people’s hands. He doesn’t trust easily. He trusts me.
“What happened today?” Gaon asks softly. It’s another surprise when Yohan takes another breath, shaky and wet-sounding.
“I hate her, hyung,” Yohan whispers. He sounds years younger, in that moment, uncertain and scared and confused, and Gaon wants to wrap him up tightly before he reminds himself that this is Kang Yohan and he’d probably have Gaon killed for doing that.
“I’m not some precious thing for her to steal,” Yohan continues, oblivious to Gaon’s inner turmoil. “She would do better to get your attention if she wanted that, hyung. I don’t know why she wants me.
“She kissed me,” Yohan says after a minute of silence. “I feel- dirty. I feel dirty.” The admission is something of a revelation, as becomes obvious when Yohan’s breathing turns shakier and a stray tear escapes from under his eyelashes.
“You’re not,” Gaon says softly. His hand moves seemingly of its own accord and brushes the tear from Yohan’s cheek. His breath is stolen away when Yohan leans into the touch, practically nuzzles up to his hand. In that moment, however brief it is, Yohan’s similarity to a cat is unbelievable, nearly startling a laugh out of Gaon.
“Leave,” Yohan whispers without moving, seconds later. Gaon leaves.
Gaon ruins their home, with his meals that he drags them all to, with his ability to pull smiles and laughter out of Elijah like he’s a magician. He ruins their home because there is no denying that he is Kim Gaon.
Yohan has long since stopped seeing the resemblance between them. Gaon and Isaac exist as two entities in his mind, except for the few minutes every so often, when he lets go, when Gaon sees through him, when they play pretend and don’t talk about it.
Gaon has seen Yohan crumble more times than Yohan cares to admit. Gaon has sat by his side, silent, nothing more than a presence, a ghost , as Yohan broke himself down and built himself back up again.
They don’t talk about it until they do. It’s another long drive, with unnecessary traffic, and the silence in the car is making Yohan’s skin crawl, where it would normally be nothing more than comfortable. He would put up with it, the discomfort, but seeing Gaon surprisingly at ease with the silence puts him off far more than he anticipates.
“Why?” Yohan asks before he can help himself. He stares straight ahead at the road, even when he knows Gaon is looking at him. Somehow, Gaon understands him.
“Everyone needs someone to confide in. Elijah suggested I try,” Gaon says. He presses his forehead to the window of the car. Yohan resists the urge to lower the window suddenly.
“How?”
“I found videos,” Gaon admits. Yohan has to try harder to not lower the window. His fingers twitch against the steering wheel. “And I watched them until I could do it. Elijah helped me.”
Of course she did. She hated Yohan as much as she loved him; he couldn’t understand it.
“Does it help you?” Gaon asks.
Yohan hits the button to lower the window. The corners of his lips twitch up into a slight smile when Gaon bangs his head and mutters a curse, probably directed at him, under his breath.