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It’s not that Myungsoo hates going out, but too much excitement gives him a headache. Or - maybe it does for anyone. Myungsoo doesn’t know, really, because he has no frame of reference for “normal”, but he does know, primarily, that he needs to be alone.
He doesn’t really excuse himself when he heads out. He notices Sungyeol noticing him leaving, but Sungyeol doesn’t say anything; he understands, at least slightly more than everyone else, which counts for something.
Outside seems like the safest option. At least outside all the people are distant enough that he can’t feel them so… loudly.
He isn’t alone, though. Sunggyu is already out here, and Myungsoo thought - he was pretty sure - that all his friends were still inside, but it’s hard to keep up with a crowd that big. He feels a little bad for not paying enough attention to notice that Sunggyu had left. “Oh,” he says, quietly, “hi.”
Sunggyu looks at him (he’s concerned - maybe Myungsoo looks sick or something - but only for a moment). “Leaving alone?” he asks.
Myungsoo shakes his head. “I just needed some fresh air.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He doesn’t, not really, but it’s close enough. Myungsoo smiles.
It’s not what he was looking for, but Myungsoo doesn’t mind that Sunggyu is there. He’s quiet and calm; where anyone else might try to make conversation, for the most part Sunggyu just watches cars. Myungsoo gets tired of that pretty quickly and starts watching Sunggyu instead, surreptitiously.
It doesn’t last very long. Sunggyu sighs and says, “I think I’m just gonna go. It’s late. Are you-” He looks at Myungsoo again. “Are you staying?”
Myungsoo laughs a little. “What, are you trying to take me home with you?”
The brief flash of surprise is satisfying. “No,” Sunggyu says quickly, “I just thought if you were going to head home too, we might as well leave together.”
“That sounds good, actually,” Myungsoo says, although he’d been planning on heading back in. Walking home with Sunggyu sounds more appealing than spending any more time in a crowded club (it had been Woohyun’s idea, his invitation, and those always end badly, or at least uncomfortably). He pulls out his phone to let Sungyeol know he’s leaving; he kind of figures Sunggyu plans on disappearing without telling anyone. “Thanks.”
Sunggyu walks all the way home with Myungsoo, which is a little unnecessary, because it’s out of his way, and Myungsoo would have been just fine walking the last few blocks alone. Myungsoo doesn’t know what this means, but he is content with the knowledge that Sunggyu expended that effort on him, and might not have done it for just anyone.
Maybe he’s still worried - it’s hard to say. Most of the time, Myungsoo would know, but it doesn’t work flawlessly. Some people are harder to read than others. It’s not that Sunggyu doesn’t have feelings, or even that he has less feelings than everyone else, but Myungsoo suspects that maybe he thinks more than he feels, or tries to, and everything gets a little obscured.
And - here’s the thing - even if he knows, sort of, what people are feeling most of the time, that doesn’t mean he understands them. The emotions or the people. He really, really doesn’t. So - knowing is hard enough, not knowing is impossible.
Here, now, there’s really nothing to know. They say good night and Myungsoo only looks at Sunggyu for a second too long before he leaves, like a few moments of staring at him will communicate something like yeah, I was totally joking about going home with you, but, you know, I wouldn’t turn it down, and he can’t really blame Sunggyu for not picking up on it. He’s not a mind reader, after all.
Sunggyu doesn’t know.
The only one who does is Sungyeol, and Myungsoo sometimes wonders why he told him at all, but - it’s good to have someone who knows, he guesses. Sungyeol isn’t protective, which Myungsoo appreciates, but he does try to drag him out of difficult situations when it gets too hard. And it does, sometimes. Myungsoo likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at dealing with this - this thing - but other people’s emotions can be difficult to cope with.
Sungyeol’s preferred method of helping tends to be distraction. In Sungyeol’s hands, a distraction can be a dangerous and unpredictable thing, but usually, no one ends up on fire or anything, so Myungsoo is grateful.
There’s no one else who knows. Everyone who’s known him long enough has adjusted to his occasionally strange behavior. He affects non-expression to overcompensate. It works.
Sometimes, he thinks, maybe it doesn’t. Like when he goes with Sunggyu to get groceries and there’s this woman, standing against a wall and crying on her phone, and Myungsoo is suddenly just so - so sad he can’t walk straight. So he tugs Sunggyu closer and leans on him for a second, burying his face into Sunggyu’s shoulder. Sunggyu startles and gives him a half-second before he turns around and grabs Myungsoo by the arm, staring at him hard. “Are you okay?” he says. His expression is so serious.
Myungsoo nods, weakly. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sick or something?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. He still feels unsteady and upset over - nothing. Something, to someone, but not to him. “No, it’s - it’s nothing. Don’t worry.”
Sunggyu isn’t the type to fuss over him, anyway, so he eventually stops giving Myungsoo that suspicious look and focuses on shopping. He doesn’t try to stop Myungsoo from touching him or staying close, but Myungsoo, embarrassed, tries to keep his distance.
Sunggyu loses his job. It isn’t his fault - it has nothing to do with him, really, the old store just couldn’t stay afloat any longer. He blames himself anyway. At least, this is what Woohyun says, and Woohyun knows Sunggyu better than Myungsoo probably ever will. Myungsoo doesn’t really know what to do about it, so he assumes he shouldn’t do anything.
It’s not like he’s expected to - or like Sunggyu would want him to. Sunggyu doesn’t like when people interrupt his self-pity. Those were also Woohyun’s words.
Myungsoo still wants to make the effort. It surprises him. He’s spent more time avoiding people’s unhappiness than trying to make them feel better. When he was in high school, a classmate had died and Myungsoo had barely been able to go to school - he hadn’t even known the guy very well, but the weight of everyone else’s grief was too heavy. It had been selfish.
But, usually, it’s smaller than that. Isolated pockets of sadness. Sunggyu, sulking on his couch. And Myungsoo thinks, maybe, maybe it’s time he tried.
“I’m fine,” is what Sunggyu says as Myungsoo sits down. He’s close enough that Myungsoo could touch him if he wanted to, but he leaves Sunggyu the space.
Upon reflection, this was a stupid idea. Myungsoo doesn’t know how this works, has no idea what he’s doing, but that’s nothing new. He’d imagined himself having something to say, something that would help, but - “I wasn’t going to ask,” Myungsoo says.
“Well-” Sunggyu is a little thrown off by the response. “Don’t.”
Myungsoo almost laughs. “Okay.”
Sunggyu looks at him for a second, then looks back at the TV. He sighs. Myungsoo doesn’t feel any violent waves of sadness or anger, just - something quiet, a low, staticky hum, bitter and guilty and a little lost. He wants to wrap his arms around Sunggyu and squeeze it out of him, but he’s pretty sure that would just piss him off. So - Myungsoo stays on his end of the couch, curling and uncurling his hands over his lap.
“Do you… do you need anything?” he asks, hesitantly, unsure if the question is overstepping.
“No,” Sunggyu says, without bite.
“Okay.” Okay. Maybe this was a failed mission, but at least he tried. “Is it okay if I sit with you?”
Sunggyu turns his head and looks at Myungsoo for an excruciatingly long moment. Myungsoo, somehow, doesn’t break eye contact, and nothing he’s getting right now is helping him interpret that stare. His stomach does an uncomfortable backflip. Sunggyu blinks. “Yeah,” he says, finally, his expression softening. “Stay.”
Myungsoo stays. It takes almost an hour of shitty television before Myungsoo has shifted close enough, unconsciously, to lean against Sunggyu a little, and Sunggyu, in what feels like a miracle, lifts his arm and drapes it around Myungsoo’s shoulder, letting him lean closer. The nastiness that’s settled over his mind feels a little distant, now - not like it’s gone, but like he isn’t paying it as much attention. Myungsoo thinks that’s something. It might be more than he’s ever done for anyone else.
Sunggyu manages to find a new job within the next three weeks, and he hates it. He doesn’t say that, but when Myungsoo convinces him to get dinner after work, Sunggyu is seething, exhausted. It lays over both of them like a fog, but Sunggyu doesn’t acknowledge it.
“You never used to try to hang out with me this much,” Sunggyu says. “You’re a regular social butterfly now.”
“Only with you,” Myungsoo says, and then regrets it. Sunggyu’s head tilts at a near-imperceptible angle, considering him. “I always wanted to,” he continues, which isn’t much better. “I just never asked.”
“Ah. What changed?”
“I don’t know,” Myungsoo admits, “but it’s okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Sunggyu says. “It’s good.”
They’re walking home before Myungsoo asks, “Hey, is work going okay?”
Sunggyu turns his head for a fraction of a second, then looks away again. Myungsoo isn’t watching him; he only sees the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. “Work’s fine.”
“Don’t lie,” Myungsoo says, frowning. Now, he turns to look. Under the streetlights, Sunggyu looks so tired. “I can tell, you know.”
Sunggyu raises an eyebrow. “What, you can read my mind now?”
Myungsoo opens his mouth, closes it again, and makes a questionable decision. “Something like that,” he says, quietly.
“What.” Sunggyu’s steps don’t falter.
Myungsoo knows he probably shouldn’t tell him - Sunggyu isn’t very likely to believe him in the first place, and even if he does - it’s weird. It has to be weird, knowing. But Myungsoo wants to tell him. Maybe it’s just the stupid crush, but it seems important that Sunggyu should know. Myungsoo wants, for whatever reason, to let him into this small, guarded part of himself.
So he tells him. It’s not easy to explain, and it takes a lot of hand motions and awkward pauses, but he gets the point across - what it feels like, how he’s dealt with it. Somewhere in the middle of it, they both stop walking, Myungsoo’s voice dropping whenever someone walks by.
Sunggyu lets him finish, staring at him quizzically. After a moment’s silence, in which Myungsoo has to stop looking at him and stare at the ground, Sunggyu says, “So - you’re saying you’re some kind of psychic.”
“Not exactly,” Myungsoo says, shrugging. “Kind of. I don’t know. It’s not - um.”
It’s sort of uncomfortable, Sunggyu appraising him like this. His head is tilted in contemplation, like he’s trying to decide whether or not to believe it. It doesn’t matter what he decides - it’s out, Myungsoo’s already said it, he can’t take it back now. “You know that’s kind of hard to believe, right?”
Myungsoo laughs out loud. “I know. I… you don’t have to believe me.”
“It would explain a lot,” Sunggyu says thoughtfully.
Silent, Myungsoo rubs the back of his neck.
Sunggyu suddenly looks mildly alarmed. “So you know what everyone is feeling… all the time?”
“Um,” Myungsoo says, “mostly? I mean, only when I’m near them. But, yeah, I can sort of feel - all of it? Sometimes it’s not as clear, but…”
“So did you - shit.” Sunggyu squeezes his eyes shut. “You know that I - fuck - you never said anything about it.”
Myungsoo is very confused. Sunggyu may be about to have an aneurysm. “What?”
“What?” Sunggyu frowns.
“I - I have no idea what you’re talking about, seriously.”
“Really.” Sunggyu is looking at him suspiciously now. Myungsoo is still confused, wracking his brain for anything he could have picked up on that would be enough to get Sunggyu this worked up. “Okay…”
“Uh.” Myungsoo turns his hands palm-up, as if to say, I’ve got nothing. “Yeah.”
Sunggyu nods, slowly. “Okay. Thanks… for telling me, Myungsoo. I believe you… I think.”
That’s comforting. “Yeah,” Myungsoo says again, smiling softly. “Yeah, thank you.”
Myungsoo wonders, sometimes, if it’s all some kind of cosmic joke. He should, in theory, be fucking great at understanding people, but he’s pretty sure he understands less than anyone else he knows. What he can feel doesn’t matter; it’s interpretation that counts, and that - that is where he falls short.
So maybe he is kind of an idiot. People still have to explain things for him. Like when Woohyun squints at him and says, “You know, Sunggyu hyung really likes you. It’s weird. He wouldn’t put up with half of that shit from me.” Myungsoo is, at first, tempted to point out that that’s because Woohyun is Woohyun and, by default, at least six hundred percent more difficult to put up with than the next person, but then he thinks about it, and thinks about it, and - oh. Right.
Myungsoo pulls out his phone. He’s making all kinds of bad decisions lately.
sunggyu hyung can i come over. it’s important, he types, because there’s no way he could get Sungyeol out of the way long enough to stage this conversation at his place.
Sure, is all he gets in response. He doesn’t remember to feel nervous until he’s at Sunggyu’s door.
“What’s up,” Sunggyu says when he sees Myungsoo. He’s a little worried; Myungsoo could probably have phrased his message a little less ambiguously.
Myungsoo shuts the door behind him. “Nothing,” he says. “I mean, um.”
Sunggyu rolls his eyes. “I thought you said it was important.”
“Sort of,” Myungsoo says. He stops looking at the ground and moves forward in a surprisingly fluid motion. He still sort of aims poorly and ends up kissing Sunggyu on the corner of his mouth, so he pulls back quickly. His whole face is burning up.
Sunggyu is - surprised, but not angry, maybe even pleased. It’s hard to tell - Myungsoo is so deafened by his own nerves - but he doesn’t think he’s misinterpreted this time.
“I knew you knew,” Sunggyu says after a second. He’s smiling now, and Myungsoo feels like his chest is going to explode. “You shouldn’t lie.”
“I didn’t,” Myungsoo says, raising his hands. “I didn’t know.”
“How’d you miss that?” Sunggyu rests his hand on Myungsoo’s chest, wrinkling the fabric of his shirt. Myungsoo thinks of all the moments it should have been clearer, flashes that he refused to acknowledge, that had been buried too quickly to feel real. But Sunggyu feels so fond, suddenly, it’s unmistakeable. Finally.
“Don’t know.” Sunggyu can probably feel Myungsoo’s heartbeat. That’s embarrassing. “You make things difficult.” It’s the truth, but he wants to say, you make things easy, too, it just sounds too stupid. He wishes it worked both ways, that if he could just feel things hard enough, Sunggyu could tell.
Sunggyu laughs. “Then I guess you’ll just have to figure it out yourself,” he says, and he kisses Myungsoo for real, soft but focused. Myungsoo has lost the ability to compartmentalize, can’t tell which feelings are his own, the fireworks or the floating, but it doesn’t matter, really, if he doesn’t know how to differentiate.
Here’s how it goes: things don’t change much for either of them. Myungsoo just finds himself, even more often, wrapped around Sunggyu, or burying his face in Sunggyu’s neck, and Sunggyu keeps him there. It feels like peace, the safest place he can find. It feels nothing like running away.
“Do you know how much I like you?” Sunggyu says, quietly, like a secret. He might be a little drunk. But he’s warm, solid, holding Myungsoo to him. Myungsoo will take it.
“Not really,” Myungsoo says, grinning against him. “I guess you’ll just have to tell me.”