Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hyungseok hadn’t been able to weather even a glare when they’d first met. 

Jinsung had taken one look at that steady frame and pretty face and he had already been damn uncomfortable with his docility—because he had known, certain, that the bastard was weird. Wired wrong. Or some B-rate actor into sick shit.

You don’t get to look like that and crawl out the bad end. People like that lived in a reality where spitting into a bottle would fund a living and Hyungseok shied away from him with this pulse-shitting look, uncertain if Jinsung would spit on him. But that hadn't been unwelcomed, really: in a school overrun with posturing and dogfights over being the biggest dick, the intrusion of a transfer who misread himself as a victim wouldn't budge the feet on a flea.

“Stay away from Mijin,” Jinsung had warned. A declawed beast, whatever the circumstances, was a beast all the same. Hyungseok had no spine but he had a face that Mijin had made eyes at, and that had been it, that had been enough to strike the fuse.

Hyungseok had looked at him, eyes round and dark. He was careful back then, Jinsung can recall, his shoulders bowed and his smile meek as if he could still owe anything to anyone. The fuse was lit and it nursed a quiet simmer.

He had asked, “What?”

Later, forehead to the floor and the tattoo of Hyungseok’s knuckles hot in his gut, Jinsung ran through the conversation over, over again in his head: it was a reel of film comprised of few words and an uncallused hand and the mellow line of an untrained body. The metal taste of his overconfidence. The tremble of Hyungseok’s throat as he had swallowed. As he had said, gaze averted: “Jinsung. But I don’t want to fight.”

“Jinsung,” Hyungseok says, exasperated. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Friendly match,” Jinsung announces. “Call it a friendly match.”

Fight, Hyungseok mouths, and shakes his head. His fringe falls in damp curls over his brow. 

There’s those waves he’d returned with after his bout with Hostel, and what his hairstyle had to do with crew business Jinsung doesn’t fucking know—but it’s done him a few favors, tugged him out of that J-High prince-fashioned flag, offered him a darker, boyish shine. 

“It doesn’t suit you,” Jinsung comments. He yawns, points.

Hyungseok's smiling. “What, you’re mad at me? I think it’s a bad time for you to bring up my hair.”

“I'll show you a bad time. C'mere.”

“It's shining, Jinsung. Didn't Haneul do the spray? Do wigs need that too?”

“I didn’t let her do shit, she’s just a dick.”

“Don’t call her that,” Hyungseok says, easy, and doesn’t move closer. 

He must have been on a run before their encounter because he peers out at the trail, his breathing uneven, his collar slick with sweat. Maybe it won’t be fair—Hyungseok doesn’t play by the same rules as he does, and to him a morning jog might not mean warm-up but rather disadvantage. 

Jinsung looks at him and daybreak washes his skin golden and Jinsung thinks of the moment in that dim hall before that Kwon Jitae. A colder kind of fury, a blow meant for someone else. Thinks that someone like this, who does these unheard of things, disgraces his opponent with lame charity: someone like this doesn’t deserve to demand fairness either way.

He yawns into his palm again until his jaw creaks. “Listen up,” he mutters when his ears clear, and Hyungseok turns. “I lied to you, you get that. I don’t want to be friendly.”

“Again?”

So Hyungseok’s got that tone to his voice. He can play hard to get if he likes, he had made this same face over the staircase that night, knuckles white on the railing; resigned, bitter. Jinsung has taken it to be a go-ahead. The situation’s changed, the stakes skirt at what a body can remember. There’s no third party: just the two of them in an empty park.

“Yeah. We didn’t have a winner.” Bone under fist, the furrow of teeth. “Not with the big bald guy barging in.” Not with what you became, after.

"Some other time."

Hyungseok looks away and Jinsung’s pulse sours.

He hates this about him, how he's always gagging to stay blameless. It’s times like these that confirms they speak in different dialects and Jinsung’s no fucking translator, so he thumps him on the back once and huffs when Mr. Prince winces over a tap. 

“Jinsung,” he snaps. He manages to be graceful about it. He peers at Jinsung over his shoulder with an angle that plays at tolerance.

“What,” Jinsung says.

Hyungseok holds his stare. His having big eyes should make him easier to read; Mijin has the biggest eyes and Jinsung knows her better than anyone, but Hyungseok looks at him with his face a little sad and Jinsung can’t tell what the hell he’s trying to communicate.

“What is it,” Jinsung says. “Spit it out.”

“You always want to fight me.”

“Is that news to you?”

“No,” Hyungseok says. “But you know that I don’t want to.”

“Like hell. Come on, let's do it, proper gear and all.”

He jabs him again, a hint harder. Hyungseok stumbles into it with a failed sway. One of his eyelids jump and he doesn’t make a sound.

“Come on,” Jinsung says.

“Can't we be done with this?” Hyungseok asks. 

He opens his mouth but Hyungseok hasn’t finished. Jinsung’s old frustrations settle under his skin, sluggish and thick like syrup. 

“Heo Yeongmi. When we were looking for Heo Yeongmi and her father was begging us for our help. We were at her door and you decided that fighting me was more important.”

Jinsung pulls his tongue across his teeth.

“I told you I had a reason,” he says. 

“A reason,” Hyungseok echoes. His gait slows and Jinsung slows with him. They’ve walked far enough to reach a bench, but Hyungseok doesn’t move to sit, so Jinsung takes the initiative and sprawls himself over it. The wood smells like wet morning. “You didn’t tell me at all, actually. How about now? What is it?”

“I still can’t.”

“I think that's because you never had one,” says Hyungseok. 

Jinsung tips his head back, eyes him—his stance, set to balance—this is the way he’s been standing lately. A few months ago he would have only been mistaken for confident, but the sharp slant of his shoulders now lends him something deliberately brazen; it's material on most of him, how he's learned to let his arms hang lax, in his hair loose over his forehead where he used to shove it away, skittish. So. See, Jinsung isn’t pressuring him. Not in the way he used to try .

He’s taken to searching for these useless details: Heo Yeongmi walked like her footsteps couldn't echo through an empty home. Jiho had a thin white scar on his forehead from the time Hyundoo aimed the open score of a soft drink can at his nose. He had that scar up until the end. 

Jinsung says, “If you’re pissed about it, come at me.”

“No thanks.”

“You’ll get into it with any thug shitting around you but I’m the exception?”

“I’m busy. I’m on a run.”

“And I’m sitting down, but I can get up.”

“Stay there,” Hyungseok says flatly.

Jinsung snorts. “Those are fighting words, dipshit.” 

Hyungseok nears him and Jinsung holds his fist out, unapologetically designed to mock. Hyungseok lets it bump his arm, though his mouth twitches as if he feels it—that’s kind of rich, so Jinsung twists his wrist, presses. Hyungseok jerks his arm away. 

“Fuck off with that,” Jinsung sighs. “You’re no pansy.” 

Hyungseok smiles a half-hushed sort of smile. He slides Jinsung’s legs off the right side of the bench by bumping them with his hip—god, the balls on this guy, now—and sits. The air’s been crisp, the heat of Hyungseok’s body softens the space beside him. Jinsung’s head lolls over the bench crest and he shuts his eyes, basks in the broad strokes of sunrise. 

“That was urgent. The business with her father.”

“Yeah.”

“He came to school and our classmates laughed at him for caring about his daughter. We didn't have time to mess around.”

Caring about his daughter. The swell in Jinsung’s chest is foul. Hyungseok’s earnesty occupies too much of him. He’s uncomplicatedly present to the distress of other people. Other people: they aren’t as uncomplicated.

“I’m no amnesiac. You weren’t that good.”

“No.” Hyungseok laughs. “I know. I think I’m the one who blacked out.”

“That wasn’t me,” Jinsung says. “The bald…him. We both thought he took you down.”

Hyungseok thinks he’s being slick when he glances over with this sorry look. Jinsung has mastered the art of slitting his eyes; he sits behind Mijin, after all. He likes looking at her, the curl of her hair at her nape, the sharp scritch of her penmanship. And his life is easier when everyone thinks he’s sleeping, damn Hyundoo.

Hyungseok can be sorry all he wants. The separation of what they were distilled the terms of the gap, unspoken, still unspoken, halfway there between the cost of hard work and the affinity for the fight and what, the hunger to be better. The span of it threatened to split them further than physically that night, but if Hyungseok does know what he had looked like, then—what Jinsung had caught a glimpse of, whatever it was, wrenching its way out from Hyungseok’s insensibility—then they really are split, even now.

Another chance to check, that's all he needs. If he’s enough. If Jinsung is enough to trigger that instinct from Hyungseok too. But it's hard to convince him, even harder to provoke him, and Jinsung isn't into goddamn sucker punching.

“I did want to say something,” Hyungseok murmurs. “Didn’t have the chance before, since we were interrupted, then, ah, swarmed. I’m embarrassed that I was so surprised. Really.”

“By?”

“Our...fight?”

Jinsung waits for elaboration and Hyungseok provides none. Amused, he cuts his gaze down. 

“Figured so. You went for the gutshot. Just as cheap as the first time you got me. Thought it’d work again, didn’t you.”

Hyungseok nods, sheepish.

Jinsung slaps his arm a few times, grinning. “Ah, fuck. Fuck. I’m fucking badass.”

He’s ribbing, but Hyungseok doesn’t laugh along, just smiles. His eyes are doey, the rest of him stiff under each strike. Jinsung curls his fist and lands it, experimentally—Hyungseok recoils and Jinsung is reminded of the gimmick shameplants that litter the street stalls in his neighborhood.

Okay. 

Jinsung hooks his elbow into Hyungseok’s and pulls it toward himself, jerks the both of them down when Hyungseok startles. He gets his grip good into his cuffs and tugs Hyungseok’s sleeve up, and though Hyungseok winces at the catch of his nails Jinsung’s already tearing past the thin layer of his friend’s stupid school button-down, thank fuck Hyungseok learned to stop wearing his blazer on runs. 

Jinsung cinches his sleeve under a thumb and his other holds the base of Hyungseok’s palm, pad against bone and the thin swell of a pulse. Hyungseok’s forced to keep his elbow straight. Jinsung coils close on the chance that Hyungseok tries to squirm but he doesn’t, just folds and lets Jinsung contain him.

Should’ve been an easy guess. As if Hyungseok ever breaks a sweat, of course something’s wrong. There’s no excusing his physicality, delicate face be damned—Sports Day was evidence enough. 

This dumbass. From his wrist-up his skin is knotted with dark bruises. 

“Seriously,” Jinsung hisses.

“Seriously what? And don’t be so rough, I only have one uniform.”

“Moron. Look at yourself.”

“My uniform,” Hyungseok says, ever the fool.

Jinsung hates it, how Hyungseok can sound almost imploring, like this. Shame paints his stare soft, his open palm presented to Jinsung with some sort of curious vulnerability. Like Jinsung’s already forced his way through the lobby: the elevator doesn’t need keys, how about that?

He drops Hyungseok’s arm. Hyungseok brings it into his own lap, tugs his sleeve until the cuff rests on the curve of his wrist. Jinsung still sees phantom bruises blooming into the fabric, purpled and fresh: they vary in richness, pooled thick like a daisy chain up Hyungseok’s body, and then Jinsung is seeing them all over him: the bruises are a live pulse, hungry. Eager.

The hew of them drag in as an afterthought, just as Hyungseok’s expression mutes itself. These bruises aren't what he knows: they don’t frame the clean snap of the knuckles, a buried heel—they’re the details of something else. Something filthier. Messier. The intimate press of fingerprints.

Jinsung says, on reflex, “I didn’t do that.”

“No,” Hyungseok agrees. “Of course not.”

His instinct is to congratulate him. 

If this were Hyundoo, he’d be flaunting every token of his getting some. Jinsung would ask him where he found a prostitute willing to wear a blindfold.

But this is Hyungseok. Hyungseok. The girls in the school bloom up like sunflowers just to get a look at him, and he's never once looked back, always stumbling, stumbling through his words like they'll split his teeth if he's too mean, like his mom would castrate him if he looked at a woman wrong, like Hanuel's affections are chaste and friendly and what can a touch on the arm mean, anything like that. And so Jinsung takes it upon himself to shove him around some, teach him how to hunger for himself a little.

And they've been that way for how long, from when Haneul had first sighed over him, sighed about how, oh, he really might be a ditz, and Jinsung had sneered, what, don't you like him? And Haneul, cheerily, earnestly: more than anything. And Jinsung had never been so glad that Mijin was the way she was.

But this is Hyungseok. Hyungseok, who's permed his hair, pierced his ears, Hyungseok who staggered into school fever-drunk without flush like he was built to take it and from the start Jinsung had had his doubts, shook it off with who gives a damn, nothing to do with me; Hyungseok is thoughtless and warm and sometimes he's less idle, less pretty face and more irreverent with strange untouchability, and sometimes Jinsung gets it, gets that he doesn't really know him at all.

It's like he's never considered it possible, so maybe it's odder that he's jumped to this conclusion. The alternatives are ugly to think about, because Hyungseok wears shame well. And that isn't the reaction you'd pull from the aftermath of something as simple as a fight- or maybe it is? He loves to entertain that he's a pacifist.

"Jinsung?" Hyungseok asks. 

Yeah. It must be that. 

Jinsung's under some compulsion to make conversation, to say, sorry, for a moment I assumed you had some shitty violent sex, you'd quake if I told you that. Is this what you're pulling in your free time, so what was that about not wanting to fight. But his tongue is heavy.

"So what'd you learn from this?" he asks. "I don't recognize this style. This wasn't when we were ganged up on by Hostel, was it? Or was it? Those twin freaks- knew they had something up their sleeves."

"Twin freaks? No- no."

"After, then."

Hyungseok shakes his head. "Sure."

And what's that supposed to mean. Jinsung's still thinking about it, still seeing that sprawl of discoloring- how far up do those bruises go, Hyungseok's shirt is white but dry and Jinsung has hit his injured friend enough for the day, really, there's no other way to figure it out? He feels like he's doing the math backwards: that night by the stairwell, outside Heo Yeongmi's door, he'd gripped Hyungseok by the wrist. No wincing. No bones creaking.

Their standoff, being thrown down the stairs, once, twice. A knockout. The appearance of Kwon Jitae and what came after. No, not then, either. Jinsung had watched that fight with his eyes seared open, there's nothing he could have missed.

Before that, the warehouse. Coming across Hyungseok being tag-teamed, teaching Hyungseok how to move, fight in a pair. A goody-goody like that and two street thugs and something had flared up in Jinsung, and maybe it was the band on his finger or the earring or the turtleneck damp with blood, or maybe it was how his eyes cut dark, assessing, and then he'd been so pliant, so easily led through Jinsung's instruction. And Jinsung, before the truck, before Hyungseok's palm pressed into his back and before, before the rest, he'd thought, okay, fine, why don't you take that too.

He says, after he relaxes his mouth, "It's not stronger than boxing though, yeah? Looks like some sort of grappling knock-off."

"The- style? I don't know what it's called."

"You wouldn't," Jinsung says.

Hyungseok's looking at him again. Jinsung hadn't realized he hadn't been.

"It's whatever," Jinsung says.

Like fingerprints. And so many, curled tight into his skin. What the hell kind of fight requires that much touching, Jinsung doesn't know, but.

The alternatives are ugly. The dark ring around Mijin's wrist wouldn't soothe for a month after the camp, and Jinsung knows, he knows, he'd watched it darken and yellow when Mijin was distracted with the spoon in his mouth, so mindful of his broken arms- and in the instances where he wasn't too besotted with her nearness his heart would be rattling, terrible- so sorry that she had to fear, so sorry that that scumbag had tried to do that to her, that Jinsung had almost been late, that he was late, that, that.

But Hyungseok is different. He doesn't need this kind of fuss and Jinsung doesn't think he can give it to him. And whatever happened, it wasn't like that since Hyungseok can hold his own. Jinsung knows this intimately. So it was a fight. Not Jinsung's knee-jerk conclusions or uneasy thoughts and whether Hyungseok lost or won he still wins so long as he survives because the caliber of his talent is so keen it's thievery. Mijin won't take class jobs where she needs to assist a teacher alone anymore and what's happened to Hyungseok?

Nothing, Jinsung knows, but in his mind's eye he still sees that first face he'd made, and what was that. What could that have meant. Why was he ashamed.

Jinsung's least disturbed by what must be the truth. His earlier instinct nettles him. He thinks to do it, for a moment, thinks to toss an arm around Hyungseok's shoulders and ask him who he had fought, ask him if it shook him too badly because those look nasty, did you really not lose? Or to be a proper friend and offer teasing for something he's never experienced himself, to say, don't order XL if it doesn't fit you, whoever you're fucking will just laugh. 

But what if that isn't it, either, and when he asks Hyungseok isn't honest? What if Hyungseok is, and Jinsung's misgivings are perceived, definite. Made real?

Hyungseok stands.

Jinsung glares up at him, startled, and Hyungseok answers, "School starts soon."

Oh. "Right."

"I have to change before class."

Jinsung waves him off. He's running away. Jinsung will let him. Okay. "Yeah, see you."

But Hyungseok doesn't leave. He peers down. He isn't sweating anymore, and he's that straightforward Hyungseok-type of unreadable. 

"You aren't going?"

"You can have the park to yourself in a moment," Hyungseok says. "Can you do me a favor?"

"You won't do me my favor," Jinsung drawls, but waits.

Hyungseok smiles, points at his ear. Taps the little golden hoop. "I'd ask Jaeyeol, since he set this up, but he's always doing so much for me, I don't want to bother him. How do you take yours out?"

"The earrings?"

"Yeah. You've got one too- unless, you. You don't know how to take it out either? It's fine if you don't, I can ask Bumjae, maybe, his ears are pretty big."

"For fuck's sake," Jinsung says. "How do you keep yourself alive."

He gestures for him to sit back down. Hyungseok does, as unoffended as he always is, and Jinsung doesn't speak until he's settled. He says, "Mine are studs, by the way."

"So you don't know? You won't tear my ear off, will you? I only have two pairs."

Jinsung scowls. "Just for that, I might. And pair already means two, how old are you, seriously?"

He doesn't demonstrate on himself, since his own unlatch differently. He doesn't bother explaining and just pulls Hyungseok closer by the ear- unbruised, and Hyungseok winces but side-eyes him, imperturbably like he would like to laugh. Jinsung pinches the gold and tugs it open, his knuckles brushing into the skin of Hyungseok's neck, and Hyungseok kind of shivers.

"It's out?"

"Don't move," Jinsung says. Then he thinks it over. "No, turn your head. I'm not getting up."

Hyungseok does laugh at that. He stands and moves to Jinsung's other side, nudges him over for space. There's a quiet draft, Hyungseok smells like the park, an empty classroom. Jinsung feels like a creep for knowing how he smells; and works the other hoop out, drops it into Hyungseok's open palm.

Hyungseok tucks them carefully into his pocket and grins. And Jinsung can see it, how Hyungseok's gone and assumed that Jinsung's already forgotten about the bruises, assumed that Jinsung just doesn't care.

Like hell. Like hell, Jinsung wants to sneer, but he just swallows. 

Chapter Text

Lee Taesung stormed into J High with the status of newest transfer and no merits at his heel because there was no fucking way that asshole had anything but a rap sheet in print. 

All Jinsung can remember is Mijin's small back and the steady drip of her hair, her arms thrown out in front of Jinsung. 

"You can't stand that transfer either," Jinsung had prodded.

"No," Hyungseok had said, and hadn't met his eyes, the curve of his mouth wan. "Not really." And after Hyundoo complained about Lee Taesung's lard ass playing mall cop in the halls Hyungseok quietly offered to take over the class rep's after-class duties for the day- he'd been praised for it, these ass-kissing bastards, and Haneul was a curious touch on his shoulder, asking: "Are you okay," and Hyungseok, who'd said, "Of course, yes, I'm just leaving later today," hadn't seemed okay at all.

"Hyungseokie here could probably take him on."

Hyungseok laughed, strange and reserved. There wasn't even his habitual don't call me that, Hyundoo.

"I doubt you could," Jinsung later told him, because the look on Hyungseok's face seemed to be certainty. "Weight class be damned, he's half-elephant."

"Okay," Hyungseok said. There was that look again. "I know."

Vasco had gushed about Hyungseok's growing nerve to him, once, during an early bird encounter at a convenience store. "He's becoming cool," Vasco raved, unnaturally enthused for four in the morning. "When he saw that kid from the music department, he jumped right in to help! Jinsung, did you hear me?"

Jinsung hurled a milk carton at his head and placed a lighter on the counter, said, "Is he your toddler or something," and Vasco caught it, popped it open before Jinsung could tell him he needed to ring it up first, and guzzled it down. 

"I'm just glad," he'd replied, holding the box over his head checking for droplets, and yelped when some dripped into his eye. And despite the milk mustache and the fact that Jinsung had to dodge the panic toss of the carton- crushed into the wall by the cashier's head- Jinsung had been able to see it, that earnest, level certainty. This was Vasco, after all.

So. It was only a few weeks later: after the entrance of Lee Taesung, that Jinsung watched Hyungseok skirt the walls with his shoulders carried low. Watched him pile on the class duties to avoid the halls for days on end. And Vasco's words cultured a different weight.

But it wasn't Jinsung's business. It wasn't.

"Park Hyungseok," Jinsung says to the stall door. The sound of the running sink outside tucks his voice inaudible. "I'm going to kill you. You're going to die."

Before he kills Hyungseok, however, he'll need to pull up his pants. Open the door. Walk out with his head high and it all banks on his ability to recognize Hyungseok's voice: that has to be him, because if it isn't then Jinsung is going to commit real murder for the preservation of his dignity. 

Hyungseok doesn't respond. Jinsung assumes he's been heard, so he stands, begins to tug his belt into place. That moron, seriously, filching habits from every thug he meets- why the hell does he feel the need to confront someone in the same bathroom Jinsung needs to use. He hadn't heeded their conversation before he'd come to the realization that oh, that's fucking Hyungseok, what the hell is he doing, so he doesn't know what they're discussing and he really doesn't care.

At least he hadn't been at the urinals.

Then the other person speaks. Jinsung doesn't know this voice. "But you had a good time, didn't you?"

Those words lose every assumed context when Hyungseok says, dispassionately, "I just lost control. "

Jinsung's belt clicks. 

He isn't curious. He really isn't.

The other voice hums. There's something dry about the way he makes conversation, rumbling with civility, and Jinsung's hit with a quiet wave of nostalgia: it's reminiscent of his father's subordinates- the kind of dry assembled from hours and hours of only paperwork for company. "Hyungseok, you knew what you were doing. Didn't it feel great?"

Jesus fuck, he's stupidly curious.

He's sure they're aware of his presence- he'd spoken, after all, but Hyungseok still hasn't acknowledged him. He's better off not revealing himself; if they don't have the decency to keep this public bathroom operational for the public then he's not killing himself over a bit of eavesdropping. 

The slip of space between stall and door is wide enough for Jinsung to squint and catch the line of Hyungseok's jaw. Stood against the wall, shoulders back and tight, he looks like he's bracing himself. That caution has always been a facet of his resting expression. It's just, Jinsung hasn't seen it on him for a while.

"How did you find me," Hyungseok says.

"You've made a name for yourself. You can't barge into my business and expect me to leave you alone. The people out here, in the outskirts of Seoul- they aren't all tight-lipped." 

"You didn't," Hyungseok starts, his step momentous, because he's so easily tided over with key words like that. 

"No. No one you know." Jinsung hears a smile. Polite. Paperweighted white-collar kind of polite. Hyungseok looks like he's staring into the maw of a starved dog. "If I did that, you'd be the one coming to me."

There's a rattle, and Hyungseok's eyes narrow. Jinsung's feet remain rooted where he stands but he twists, palm braced against the stall door to peer through the other gap. The man stands halfway just out of sight- he's tall, broad. Sharp. The neat hem of a suit curtails the thick muscle in his forearm as he combs through what must be a pocket, says, "Oh," and then there's the distinct ring of metal hitting tile, but Jinsung can't see what he's dropped. This guy, though, has to be an adult. A real one, high work and everything. Hyungseok gets himself into so much weird shit, making an enemy like this. If not enemy then stalker, by the sound of it.

The man doesn't reach down. "That's for you," he says. He adjusts his tie, languid, his arms a perfect shield against his sternum. 

"For you," he repeats, when Hyungseok says nothing. "Come get it."

Hyungseok says, "I'm leaving," and Jinsung's more than a little relieved. The bathroom is rank. "We don't have anything to discuss."

But he doesn't move.

"Park Hyungseok," the man says, wry. "Come here. Pick it up. Just like you did the first time. I thought you'd be drawn to the kick, but I can barely recognize you."

Jinsung opens the door. Hyungseok whirls to face him, and Jinsung can see movement in his peripherals but he wills himself to focus.

"Drugs?" he demands. "You're kidding me."

"Why are you here?" Hyungseok squawks, which is real flattering, yeah, exactly the reception he'd like to receive from the bastard he's trying to liberate from a ratty bathroom. Look at him, shit, suited up for this too, middle part and everything. Halfway between model and salaryman, it's awful. Fashion department his ass.

"Are you hooked on ice," Jinsung asks. He offers him no room to respond. "Don't, man. Don't get into it. Look, our school's dogshit enough that it's near-impossible to drop out, but when there are dropouts, you know what they were caught doing. Everyone knows, okay?"

"I'm not," Hyungseok says, eyes round. "Um, no."

"Can't even take a peaceful shit without being forced to listen to you half-assing your way through a drug deal. Come on." Jinsung grabs his arm, pulls, and Hyungseok falls into step behind him. This isn't his style at all, no, but there are too many factors too ambiguous, and Hyungseok never tells him shit so his own conclusions birth their own consequences. No reaction when he tightens his grip, no wincing or shying back or anything like that, and Hyungseok's sleeves have cuffed up to his elbows- his skin unmarred beyond a yellowing trail of knuckle-made bruises.

"You're leaving," the man says. 

Jinsung finally gets a good look at him. Glasses. Rimmed and clean and perched on the bridge of his nose. With his luck, Vasco would burst into the bathroom the moment he strikes those glasses off that stern, smiling face. 

The man winds long fingers into his tie. "I was wondering who was hiding in that stall. It was a friend of yours. Were you expecting me, then?"

"I'll snitch," Jinsung threatens. "I might not look like the type but I'll snitch."

"Jinsung," Hyungseok says. Jinsung has no expectations and he's permitted his vindication when Hyungseok opens his mouth again. "The police might indict you for a false accusation."

Jinsung flicks his forehead, right between that middle part. He'd like to leave a mark. "They might indict me for braining you first."

"Nice friend," the man drawls. "You're birds of a feather."

This one might be slow on the uptake too. That's just as well.

"I'm just preserving his school career," Jinsung says, stepping past the sinks- he recognizes the object on the ground as he kicks it underfoot with a gentle clang, and something in his throat tightens like a cord, knotting thick down his chest. "He's not very promising, but there's a girl who'd beat my ass if I let him flunk."

"Park Hyungseok."

The man has dropped the wry quality. He's smiling, still, but there's too much teeth in it. Jinsung doesn't avert his eyes when that gaze flickers, idle.

Hyungseok stops. He slips his arm from Jinsung's grasp and Jinsung half-lets him, tugs first, gives him a look that's meant to read are you sure and Hyungseok won't look back. What was safe distance is now, now isn't, and it's a ridiculous spectacle: this dirty bathroom, the dark sprawl of mold on tiles; these two bastards, dolled up in dress shirts, one with a tie.

And it's those teeth arranged primly in a mouth that seems ripped open- without wound, the slow trickle of water from the tap that's found itself running dry, that scrap of corrugated metal, bruised brown from old flesh, Jinsung's fucking seen those things- in movies, in comics, whatever, but this- all of this, it's filthy. Jinsung's stumbled into something filthy, adult- and worse, he's done it of his own volition, his own two feet, because Hyungseok was getting himself harassed and Jinsung scraping his shitty little braincells from his skull is preferable to scraping them off a bleached chalk outline.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Hyungseok says. Jinsung doesn't know what this is about but Hyungseok is a shit liar through and through. 

He backs him up anyhow, jaw jumping. "Hear that? Lay off."

"That's fine," the man replies. "But I have words for you. Communicated from a," and his lips do an odd twitch, "special friend. He says you rejected his offer."

"He," Hyungseok starts. He opens his mouth, says, "My coffee, he..." Then he quiets. Says, "So what."

"He's offering again. Frankly, I don't care if you join hands with him."

"Then we're done here."

"So cold," the man says without humor. "Just a while ago you were burning. What's changed?"

Hyungseok's eyes dart down to the brass knuckles. Jinsung follows the slow curl of his fingers by his hip. 

"How about this friend?" the man asks. He stands back, the tap of his shoes firm and mild. The brass knuckles glint, freed from the mass of his shadow. "You had one with you last time- they don't seem like the same type. This one's less for the streets."

That, he's more familiar with. "Bet my jockstrap covers your annual salary," Jinsung snaps. 

There's a push at his shoulder. Hyungseok's eyes are still trained on the brass knuckles. "I think you should go, Jinsung."

Jinsung snorts. "Fuck you, don't kick me out. I was here first."

"This is Seo Seongeun," Hyungseok says, after a moment.

Seo Seongeun smiles agreeably. 

"If I disappear, tell the police that name, alright? He'll lose some money."

Seo's mouth twitches. 

"Let's just go," Jinsung says. Hyungseok speaks blandly. When he gets like this it's difficult to discern whether or not he's playing the fool.

"I'll see you at school," Hyungseok replies. 

That means tomorrow. 

"The hell you will! Why do you want me gone so badly?"

"There's too much you don't want him to know," Seo says.

Jinsung flips him the bird and cuffs Hyungseok's back. Hyungseok doesn't have the decency to even look at him. It's like he's fallen head over heels for those brass knuckles. From this angle, his dark eyes almost seem bored.

"Am I right?"

"I guess," Hyungseok says, without contrition. "But I can tell you later, Jinsung. Just let me talk to him for a few minutes."

"You won't tell him anything."

"Everything," Hyungseok mutters, and finally he faces Jinsung. "Or- as much as I can."

Hyungseok really. Can't lie for shit. 

Jinsung nods. Reads the naked relief on Hyungseok's face, and maybe that's what he knew he'd find there. Says, "Asshole," loops his elbow into Hyungseok's and makes to pull him out forcibly- and here, two things happen at once. Hyungseok jerks forward, and Jinsung rolls with it, his weight centered easy. In the second between the odd twist of Hyungseok's waist, a hint too low, too far, Seo is there, arm outstretched, his prim face strange with triumph.

"You healed up nicely," Seo laughs, looming into contact, and Hyungseok's heel turns upward in a sharp curve. Seo's head snaps back. His reach is undeterred by the strike to his chin, and Jinsung is crushed into the sink as Hyungseok tangles into Seo's grip, caught between them. 

Jinsung curses, swivels out, but this was purposeful; Hyungseok's always pulling these idiot moves, as if Jinsung needs a meatshield, damn him. 

He jabs at Seo, lands it, and Seo takes it, his glasses hitting the dirty floor and skidding to a stop by the knuckles. He's focused on Hyungseok, the exposed skin of his wrist. It's- it's somewhat like how Jinsung had...

"Creep?" Jinsung hisses, and Hyungseok side-eyes him, says, "Not exactly," and Seo's speaking too, lips stretched into a grin, the blood already crusting. It's a wonder he can talk at all.

"I can still feel what you did," he says. His voice is a drumbeat. Low and hungry. "I still have some of the bruises."

"So what does exactly mean," Jinsung asks.

Hyungseok lurches sideways just as Jinsung surges in and Seo takes both strikes without flinch, and Jinsung almost wishes that he'd kept his glasses on, let the shards crumple into his face and eyes because the look of him now is bizarre. He's leaning into the blows, savoring something foul. His attentions are anchored to Hyungseok, how Hyungseok practically skitters to the sinks, how he lingers by the brass knuckles.

He's waiting. Waiting for Hyungseok to make a move- Jinsung's waiting for that too. And if this is somebody that Hyungseok won't, can't fight, that's fine, he has Jinsung here for that- but Jinsung's presence doesn't count for shit if Hyungseok won't take the chance to haul ass. No, he just stands there, intentions indeterminate. 

"Go," Jinsung urges, at Seo's first stagger back. Hyungseok glances at him, between them, his stance shaken. Jinsung's patience is running thin.

Seo's built like a truck. Jinsung's looked him over and knows to strike only where it hurts, but with a physique like this he'd need a weapon, need a perfect shot across the chin. And he isn't willing to make a play for it- there is a weapon in the room, the filthy thing at Hyungseok's feet- and Jinsung knows dirty and base like the back of his hand, has long since swallowed his decency; and still the furrow of bone beneath fist is absolute. Basic, binding.

Seo drives a blow into his side, Jinsung bends double and bites through the flesh of his mouth- he hits like a truck, too. The bathroom space cramps them in. Only the pace is in Jinsung's favor- he's faster, smoother, and he takes the ones that'll bruise but won't end in his head split open in the sink.

"Good," Seo says, to him. Jinsung lands another and Seo laughs, teeth ground and cheeks full like the laugh is prisoner beneath his tongue- there's this demented shine to him, painted over the dress shirt and tie and discarded glasses. Adult, Jinsung reminds himself. An adult world.

"Hyungseok," Seo croons. His head snaps to the left and one of the tiles blooms red. "Nice friend you have here! When are you joining in?"

Hyungseok, that moron, he's still eye-fucking those brass knuckles. As if he's never seen them before. Any man worth their salt knows to watch for those.

"Hyungseok!" Jinsung snarls.

"The special friend offer," Seo says, lilting like a reminder. "How do you feel about extending it to him?"

"Maybe he doesn't know what we're talking about," Seo continues, unbothered when blood dribbles from his nose with a crack. "Do you? You know what Hyungseok's been up to in his spare time?"

Jinsung's head spins before he feels it. Something in his throat flexes inward as Seo barrels into him from below with his skull. Jinsung's knocked back, limbs limp for a single useless moment, and his knees burn as he wrenches himself into a crouch, steadied against a swinging stall door.

Seo asks, "Do you?"

"Yeah," Jinsung grits out. His mouth feels pulpy and unskinned. He smells metal more than he tastes it. "He loses his dog every other week. Makes me look for her with him."

"Sorry," Hyungseok says, sheepish. 

He's at Jinsung's side in an instant, warm palm at his back. Seo peers down at them, smile peeled from his face. Abrupt. Hyungseok pulls Jinsung to his feet and oddly, Seo waits.

He asks, after Hyungseok's extended arm stops Jinsung from stepping forward, "What's wrong with you?"

"I already gave him my answer," Hyungseok says.

"Not that. You."

"I'm already someone else's," Hyungseok pauses, seems to struggle. Hesitant, uneasily: "Special friend."

"Not that," Seo says. "No one's talking about that anymore."

His eyes slide over to Jinsung. There's a shine to them. He says, "But I was told about that. He gave you that VVIP badge, didn't he? Let you sneak through my building like a little rat."

"He didn't let me do anything."

"No. He did. You couldn't have gone far without it. Couldn't have gone anywhere near me without it."

"I would have." Hyungseok sounds bland again. Jinsung can't quite see his face with how they stand, but his shoulders lie a flat, tamed line. "You locked them up. It might've taken me weeks. Months. I would've gotten in eventually."

"No," Seo says. "You wouldn't have."

He moves, and Jinsung flinches forward but Hyungseok leans back into him, still. Seo reaches for his glasses. He swipes the pad of his thumb over the wiring. The dripping sink he shuts off, and uses the next one over. His glasses are wet when he slips them back onto his nose, and the red mottling his face mellows out with water.

"Gun."

Seo directs his words at Jinsung. He's smiling. His voice isn't. "We're talking about a man named Gun. That's his special friend."

"Why do you think he knows who that is?" Hyungseok asks. He thinks he's covering for him. He thinks, he thinks Jinsung would want to dodge his involvement.

Fuck that.

Jinsung knows who Gun is. Knows him in the shudder of Yohan's beaten shoulders. 

"He does," Seo says, light. "You were in my room, Hyungseok. You saw. You know what I know."

"You," Hyungseok starts.

"I keep tabs on all crew relations. God Dog has only one friend."

Hyungseok shifts his feet like he doesn't know what to say. Jinsung has many words in mind and he's more than happy to supplement- and then Hyungseok raises his hand to tug his collar, his sleeve ridden up to his wrist, and Jinsung's seeing, seeing it all again.

Gun.

He'd watched Yohan's bowed back cease in the dark. That had been him. Gun had done that.

"God Dog," Seo repeats, like he's appraising how a zoo animal reacts to a perceived slight. "I've heard little from him, lately."

"We're done talking," Hyungseok says.

"You're always saying that. You were pissed when I interrupted, I think you should understand."

"I know what you want."

"And you don't mind it at all," Seo hums. 

Jinsung presses the stall door back into place. Hyungseok refuses to budge, unreceptive to leaving- he doesn't want to be here, he shouldn't- but he faces Seo and he's displaced in a way that makes Jinsung itch, must make Seo itch too.

"I'll drag you out of here," Jinsung tells him. There's a hint of a tremble in Hyungseok when he turns to look at him, like he wants to laugh. 

"Soon," he's promising, which makes no sense. 

Seo leans into a sink. "It's like you're taunting me. You don't want to talk. You're playing at being reluctant. But you aren't leaving."

"Or maybe you," Seo coos, chin tucked low, "Want to fight?"

"Tag-team," Jinsung whispers. Hyungseok shakes his head. He answers neither of them.

"You do miss it," Seo says. "You're so obvious. You picked it up, after all."

Picked it up.

"Can you leave, Jinsung?" Hyungseok asks.

Jinsung's heard that- he'd heard- he grabs Hyungseok's arm, the one he's kept at his front, and Hyungseok's quiet eyes pin him as Jinsung pries his hand open. There, gleaming guilty and flaking with blood. The brass knuckles. Warm with Hyungseok's touch.

A huff rushes out his mouth, and it stings but he's incredulous. "Do you- you don't even know how to use this, what are you doing?"

"But he does!" Seo guffaws. Jinsung stares, at him- or between them, he doesn't know. Look at that, the lines of his face, his ripped-open smile, he's a lunatic. His laugh is low and unrestrained, and Hyungseok's jaw is set against his shoulder, his eyes on Jinsung. 

"He stole it from my room! I was wondering, Hyungseok, I was- you're acting so soft, and I was thinking you were sick- but you're just waiting? You're waiting for him to leave?"

He doesn't wait for a response.

"Some other time, then, when you shake him off. I'm not unreasonable."

Jinsung's head spins.

"Seo Seongeun is not a good person," Hyungseok says. To him. Like that would matter when he denies nothing.

"I told you to call me hyung," Seo says. "You're a year younger than me."

Hyungseok's palm is still open under Jinsung's fingers. The metal's started to cool, no longer cocooned under fist. Jinsung takes the filthy object and hurls it at the sinks. Seo smiles when it clips his shoulder and lands, harmlessly, at his feet.

Chapter Text

“You’ve never been honest with me,” he says. “Not even once.”

Hyungseok stares at him, expression bruised.

“Let me tell you,” Hyungseok laughs. He’s close. They’re face to face. All the sense in his eyes has sloughed away and something wild has fouled him into this frantic, hostile creature, fingertips gripping Jinsung’s shoulders, coiled, heavy in his lap.

Jinsung stares at him, nape backed into the dirty cushion. He can shove him off. He can slug him. His arms are free and unbroken. The chains he’d used are on the floor, rolled beneath the sofa. Hyungseok’s hair is in his eyes and he releases one of Jinsung’s shoulders to run his hand up, slick back his fringe. That bares his neck to Jinsung. The split yellow light catches the soft tremble of his throat.

“It was like this,” Hyungseok is saying, saying with Hyungseok’s voice, says it like he’s marveling at his own words. Nothing he says sounds like Hyungseok. Jinsung is looking at a stranger. “That pilates fucker, him, I don’t know where he’s gone. I didn’t back out, you know?”

Jinsung doesn’t know. He doesn’t.

“I opened the door and he told me to strip.” Hyungseok looks down at him and Jinsung doesn’t know what face he’s making himself. “For the interview for Bumjae’s plan. I didn’t do it.”

“And,” he says, closer again—and Jinsung has been this close to him before, the proximity is nothing new—but still his flesh prickles: there’s blood in Hyungseok’s teeth and his eyes are damp with temper. Jinsung hoods his eyes to curb his unease but Hyungseok’s glare is blown wide.

“Then he tells me to sit. And I do it. I sit where he tells me to, like this—and he asks if I play the piano.”

Hyungseok’s laugh jerks out of him and Jinsung’s pulse jumps. Hyungseok sits like he’s crouching by the curbside for a smoke but he’s in his lap, and Jinsung hears like this, skims the heat of Hyungseok’s fury, the only other breathing body in the room—haven’t you faced this before, he thinks, dizzied with dread—you’ve always gotten away. What’s happened to you. What’s wrong with you. Who did this to you, he thinks, but; but what he asks, stiffly, is: “What did you do after?”

Hyungseok shifts. Jinsung stills, glancing down. That just brings his attention to Hyungseok’s missing belt. 

“I stood up,” Hyungseok drawls. “I got jumped. I’m at the door and this bleach-head walks in and I, I lose. Lose to that . Ah, shit, no I don’t, I get him after. Pilates guy, he stands over me and says, he said.”

He releases Jinsung’s other shoulder, drops his hands onto the cushion top. He leans back, the twist of his body slotting easy between Jinsung’s thighs and Jinsung doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare for reasons he’ll never explain. Hyungseok peers down impassively, elbows held by his knees, at his beltless waist now level with Jinsung’s. “He said he’d run a train on me.”

Jinsung’s head is cold. 

“So then,” he croaks, throat tight as a drum. He can’t swallow. This is Hyungseok he’s looking at. Just Hyungseok, still Hyungseok, only drunk on the dark beat of hysteria. This is still the Hyungseok who would have died in his place, that night in the warehouse. So why. Why can’t he. Why is he. 

“You wouldn’t have let him. You wouldn’t let him do that to you. You didn’t.”

“Let,” Hyungseok echoes.

Jinsung should push him off, push him down. Drag him out of here by the legs even if he kicks and screams and wins because of course Hyungseok will win when Jinsung has only ever known loss, has carried the taste of it so far it flavors his resolve—has only momentarily stowed that round of his away. None of any of that will matter if Hyungseok loses himself to what he is in this moment: a depraved impression of the man most wanton for his violence. He should, he should. Jinsung needs to stop him. Needs to quench this Hyungseok where he stands before he can be seen this way by anybody else. Before he leaves to find Jiho and two more of Jinsung’s failures converge.

Hyungseok tips close. On a face like his a smile would never be able to go wrong. It mars him and Jinsung feels like he’s been dislodged.

“No,” he’s saying, so close Jinsung should feel his feverish breath; he feels nothing but the drag of his own heartbeat. Maybe that’s Hyungseok’s too, rabbit-like and rippling, sitting somewhere within arm’s reach, or maybe that’s the both of them yielding to exhaustion. Hyungseok’s shirt collar is wet and red-brown, his collarbones bared, the upper buttons half-hurried. Jinsung should shove him off. He should. “I bet I killed him. I bet he’s dead, I don’t give a damn about him. That bleached—Ansan, the one from Ansan. Said he’d get the crews under his thumb, a wimp like that—I didn’t lose, I went back for him. We…went out a window.”

“Nothing happened,” to you, Jinsung tries to confirm, so that the way Hyungseok says window can mean less, and Hyungseok nods, his grin a sharp arch. Perfect teeth, the straight line of a perfect nose, a perfect face; Jinsung’s old defiant interest in seeing him disgraced has never left him but now he thinks he might never hope for this again—the man in his lap is Hyungseok, burning, hateful, unrecognizable. Ugly as the blue line that brands Jinsung’s chest, as Jinsung’s reflex to his flensing, the minute where his flesh zippered and ink had milled forward, unflinching; and he can’t read the vicious gleam in Hyungseok’s eyes, can’t know, really, which bastard Hyungseok has become this for.

He doesn’t know who Hyungseok’s next words belong to, either. 

“To me. You think I’d fucking lose?”

Jinsung whips to the left just as Hyungseok surges forward. He’d seen it, he’d seen it—the twitch of Hyungseok’s grin, there’d been no other signal and that had somehow been more warning than threat.

"Look at you," Jinsung says. "I'd say it's ice after all."

Chapter Text

The warehouse. Hyungseok's palm at his back.

Jinsung does wonder about it. What could have been, had Jaeyeol been a moment late.

It's something rotten, this alternate version he conjures, but he imagines it only at night: in his bed, when the rest of the world has grown silent, when Vasco's relentless torrent of ugly dog pictures has petered off into a goodnight text, when it's harder to think of Mijin, of her smile, because there's little to look at beyond the dark ceiling or the callus at his knuckle that split open into his glove, and Jinsung doesn't want to mix her into strange things like that.

The warehouse was dark. Hyungseok had pushed him out of the way, Jaeyeol had ridden in. Hyungseok hadn't been crushed into the wall, Jinsung never heard it- the ugly crackle of a body succumbing to, to. Because infallible as he is, that fucking Hyungseok- who could have survived that?

So Jinsung does think. About that.

A version of the warehouse where Hyungseok hadn't.

If it had been like that. If Hyungseok had ended there.

Maybe Jinsung would've felt right, that day. Would have understood what had happened in its entirety. Would have known how to feel grateful.

"You're fucking messed up," Jinsung says. It sounds useless. Useless words for the both of them, when Hyungseok isn't listening and Jinsung knows he can't tame him into doing so. "Were you drinking? Were you doing shots?"

"What happened," Jinsung says, voice strange and high and pinched in the junction between tooth and tongue. "You jerk off with that weirdass from the bathroom? He's rubbed off on you, hasn't he? You, you," It wheedles out of him, his laugh, and it's an odd one like he can't really hear himself.

"I don't do things like that," says Hyungseok, boredly. 

"What's your fucking problem," says Jinsung, means, you're not like this, you don't talk like that. You don't do things, say things like this, you wouldn't.

Hyungseok's eyes scrape over his face. Dark stones in a warm face, same as he's always been - but he's advancing, shoulders loose, and that smile of his is bleached clean of any of the decency that was always so Hyungseok. "Right now? Jiho. But you're blocking the door."

"You can't go," says Jinsung. "And you know it."

"I know what," says Hyungseok, and swings.

The moments pass in a red blur. Jinsung's spit is hot in his mouth. He lashes back, tries to stun him, Hyungseok swerves, and Jinsung doesn't recognize him, just for a second. His mouth is stretched, there's something under his skin that just isn't right. He's repulsive, Jinsung thinks; startles himself with that thought, and doesn't dodge the next blow to his sternum.

He has the same face. That's the same face that had stared back at him in the burning yellow trucklight, the same eyes. That expression: were you curious, Jinsung thinks to ask sometimes. Did you think yourself so infallible. Was it worth it? To discover how surely you aren't.

"Fight back," Hyungseok says.

"Fuck, I am."

But the Hyungseok of now, this person, eyes shining like slick oil - there's no curiosity there. Like he knows the outcome of this fight, knows it as surely as he knows the weight of his fist - there was a time when Jinsung thought it was some sick joke that a person like this was always learning about himself - a person like Park Hyungseok, shit, what was there to ever be unsure about!

A hard lurch in his stomach. He lands on the couch and rolls, Hyungseok's fingers flex, empty, against the cushion. "You're always provoking me, Jinsung."

Hyungseok's voice drags, and there's an echo of irritation to it: something of the wet morning at the park, of some molding public bathroom, of the night at that warehouse, the clip of heels on concrete, Jinsung's fingers around Hyungseok's wrist, those sprawling bruise-prints, and now his eyes cut this knowing, mocking look at Jinsung like Jinsung's just supposed to take it.

"You're no goddamn pacifist," Jinsung says.

Hyungseok's head tips. An open path to his throat. Hyungseok's watching him, body language hideously yielding. 

"No," he acknowledges. "I'm not. Winning feels too good."

"Fuck you," Jinsung spits.

"What," Hyungseok sneers, "you too? Maybe if you can knock me out."

Jinsung rears back. "That's not - don't say shit like that!"

Hyungseok watches him, eyes narrowed. The silence is a steady thing. Jinsung's breath comes too fast up his chest. Hyungseok's arm pulls against the cushion, and a burst of cotton cuts up into the gaps between his fingers.

Then Hyungseok pops his cheek, loud, and Jinsung will never forgive himself for the way he shudders, alarmed. "Kidding!" Hyungseok jeers, and Jinsung's skull shakes, because Hyungseok smashes into him forehead-first and crowds him down, down back into the couch.

Bleary vision and all Jinsung rocks his knees up, drives them deep into the hard plane of Hyungseok's abdomen, and it's Hyungseok's turn to cough, Hyungseok's turn to shiver. There's blood pooling under his nose, a dark color. Brown stains on his blue shirt. Jinsung can feel him tremble, the jump of muscle when he struggles to end a breath, the weight of him sprawled over Jinsung's body,

“Grit your teeth,” Jinsung snaps. Hyungseok's head lolls; he licks the blood from his upper lip and laughs.

"You're always getting in the way like this," he says. "I have things to pay Jiho back for, you know? No time for a fight with you."

"I'm," Jinsung says. "Damn you, I'm not picking a fight."

Hyungseok's hands fist into his lapels. His elbows brush the torn fabric, edge hard lines into Jinsung's exposed skin. Jinsung's throat burns. 

"You should've just let me pass," Hyungseok says. "But I don't really mind this."

Another blow lands. Jinsung's arms struggle at his side but Hyungseok is better, of course he is, and meaner with his grip, and so Jinsung's arm is numb elbow-down. 

"I can't let you," he says.

"It's pretty easy," Hyungseok tells him. "Just don't try and stop me when I walk through that door."

"I can't," says Jinsung. Hyungseok's fingers unclench. "It's a trap. You know it is."

"I know, yeah. There's a lot you don't, though."

"That isn't fair." Jinsung swallows. Hyungseok's eyes are lidded, so blatantly exhaustion. His lashes cast soft shadows over his cheeks when he leans back to roll his eyes. "Look what he did to you before. Look, you're not telling me shit, I get it, but that Jiho - don't do what he says."

"I'm not going to die," says Hyungseok.

"That's right. You'll just fly out another window. Fly into another coma."

His head snaps to the left. Hyungseok grinds his knuckles into his cheekbone. Beyond the initial blow, the touch doesn't hurt.

"And you're going to tell me I don't know enough," Jinsung coughs, "like I don't give a damn just because I wasn't there."

The next hit is more like a cuff. Hyungseok's expression could almost be interpreted as exasperated. Then he shoves him, and Jinsung crumples into the cushion, graceless. Hyungseok's on the other end, in equal parts careless. 

"Get up," Hyungseok says. "You're not fighting back."

But standing up, what's the difference?

"Should I have been there," Jinsung asks, a right hook plasters itself into his cheek. His head rocks, he swivels, and Hyungseok is eyeing him, eyeing the doorway, and Jinsung's pulse in his ears is a trapped animal. He talks through the ache - it's a distraction, isn't it, Hyungseok's not yet lost himself the way he had outside of Heo Yeongmi's door - he can still answer questions, he can. "When Jiho did that to you. When that fucking gangster got his hands on you. Was I supposed to be there when you were fuck-knows-where, out on the streets and dolled-up in a suit and playing with dusters,"

"Not really," says Hyungseok. "I never told you where I was."

"You could have!" Jinsung's voice betrays him. "I would've, I always - all you had to do was call, asshole!"

"It wasn't your business."

"How?" Jinsung asks. He's kneed in the gut, his throat swells. He jerks into wet, hacking coughs, and Hyungseok's indeterminate stare drifts to his mouth, where he feels spit or salt or blood drip down to his chin, and he swipes, his fingers come off red. "Why wasn't it? You call and I come, that's how it's always been, I go wherever Vasco calls me now, for fuck's sake, I've gone soft like that, so."

"Soft!" Hyungseok echoes. "Soft for who! Jiho?"

Jinsung snarls, "Don't even start. You're my," and friend strangles itself in the soft part of his throat.

Feels filthy. A filthy word, because he's done a helluva lot to demonstrate his friendship, hasn't he. 

Hyungseok studies him. Whatever the closest thing to studying he can get while high or drunk or pissed beyond belief. Jinsung's been holding out hope for his calming down, stalling him, because it's seemed like Hyungseok's been stalling, too. Any careless motion on Jinsung's part might have seized him and sent Hyungseok spiraling and Jinsung feels like he can't be anything but careless, handling him here. Here, offered to him by his own open palms. The most careless mistake of all.

But Jinsung still. Can't say it.

Hyungseok's been there with him through most of it. Hyundoo, who he likened to a parasite. Jiho, who'd been made his bitch. Vasco in all his nagging earnesty and Haneul, who kicks his heels because she knows she's the only one who can get away with it. Even that other Hyungseok, the one he'd...

Mijin had watched him, the night after Hyundoo, with that same soft look on her face, it's better, isn't it? 

Not really, he'd said, because the unwelcome warmth in his gut was something like hunger, and it hurt. Ridiculously, it hurt. 

Hyungseok speaks, now. Breaks the silence on his own. "None of it was your business." The way he says it lilting, strange: almost like it's meant to be a reprieve for Jinsung. For Jinsung's sake.

But to hear the same excuses he'd made for himself parroted back at him, the same filthy, worthless words... "It wasn't my business," Jinsung echoes, and his stomach hollows at the sound of his own voice. 

("Give me your word. You won't pull that shit again."

"You would've done the same for me."

Hyungseok's eyes are on him. They're sickeningly round. They were round earlier, too. Bloodshot.

But no.

Jinsung wouldn't have. Hyungseok needs to understand.

"I don't like you enough for that," Jinsung murmurs, and thinks he might fucking hurl. Because he means it.

"There was one day," Hyungseok replies, unconcerned, "that I wished I could kill you."

Jinsung shoves his shoulder. Hyungseok leans into the touch and he's grinning like this is some goddamn joke. Maybe it is, fuck. Hyungseok shouldn't ever play poker and it's for all the wrong reasons. The worst of it is that Jinsung doesn't know, can't tell if he's even trying to be fake. His eyes are too dark.

"Today?"

Hyungseok's teeth are more white than red. "When we first met."

"I didn't land shit on you," Jinsung reminds him, and reminds himself that Hyungseok isn't entirely himself at the moment, that he's never known the whole of him, not really, and that it's reasonable to be tense around him. That there's no name for the odd hurt creasing his throat, just that little bit - because that's just bitterness, maybe, or the same old itch of loss.

"You think so?" Hyungseok says, and laughs.)