Work Text:
It always ends the same.
Hyuntak, breathing hard. Seongje, not even flinching.
Glass shattered on the floor. Air thick, waiting, like the seconds before a storm.
"You're not going to change, are you?" Hyuntak's voice is low, almost tired. His fists clench so hard they tremble at his sides— shaking with the last of his control.
There is blood on Seongje's lips. His eyes, sharp and mocking. That twisted, careless half smile on his face is the same one he wore the first time Gotak met him— like he's constantly calculating who is worth breaking and who is worth keeping.
Apparently, Gotak has always been both.
Seongje wipes the blood with the back of his hand. The smile stays. Like nothing matters. Like this was just another one of his games— one he'd already won.
"You done?" he asks, voice dry.
Hyuntak hates him most in these moments because no matter how hard he hits, Seongje never hits back. He just stands there, taking it all, like it's proof he's untouchable. And that makes Hyuntak hate himself even more.
But it still doesn't knock Seongje out of his system.
"Change into what?" Seongje continues, slipping a cigarette out of his pocket. "Someone you can fix?"
"I never wanted to fix you," Hyuntak snaps. His voice cracks more than he wants it to. "I just wanted you to meet me halfway."
Seongje gives a humorless laugh, blowing smoke into the cold night. "This again? You knew who I was when we got into this. Don't act surprised now."
"Yes, I knew." Hyuntak whispers, chest tight, eyes burning. "But I thought if I stayed long enough, if I loved you enough... maybe I could matter to you more than your goddamn pride."
For the first time that night, those cold eyes flicker with something other than constant craze. Something unspoken. Something tender.
"You do matter," Seongje says quietly.
Hyuntak swallows, looking away. "Then why does it feel like I'm the only one bleeding for us?"
He should walk away. He should've walked away months ago.
But he doesn't. He can't.
"Say it, then," Seongje says. His eyes gone lazy again, bored, like the conversation is beneath him. As if he would rather be somewhere else— smoking on the terrace of an abandoned building, or fighting roadside goons in some shady alley. "Tell me you're done. Say you hate me. Say you never want to see me again."
Hyuntak throat tightens. His body moves before his mind catches up, one step closer instead of away.
"You ruin everything you touch," he says, barely above a whisper. His finger presses against Seongje's chest, but there's no strength in it.
Seongje tilts his head, the way he does when he finds something amusing. "And yet you keep coming back."
That's what cuts the deepest. Not the manipulation. Not the bruises. Not the way he tears Hyuntak down and builds him back up, only to tear him down again.
It was that he is right.
Hyuntak does keep coming back.
So he says the words anyway, just to hear them out loud.
"I never want to see your face again."
In that moment, he means it. He definitely means it.
He pulls his hoodie over his head and storms out. Slams the door so hard the frame shakes. Walks down four flights of stairs because he doesn't want to wait for the elevator, because he needs to feel like that he's doing something right for once.
He doesn't look back.
Not then.
Because if he doesn't go now, he never would.
---
The night air hits him like ice when he steps outside. Hyuntak pulls his hoodie tight around himself, but it doesn't stop the trembling. His fists, his chest, his thoughts—everything shakes. The streets are quiet, but his mind roars.
Every step away from that apartment feels like peeling skin from bone. He tells himself this time was final. He tells himself he wouldn’t go back.
But Seongje’s voice won't leave him.
"And yet you keep coming back."
Hyuntak curses under his breath, kicking at a loose beer can on the pavement. The metallic clatter echoes through the alleyway, louder than it has any right to be.
He stops walking. His throat burns. His vision blurs.
He hates this part most— the silence after the storm. When all the fury drains out and leaves only emptiness. When he isn't sure whether he’s broken free or just carved another scar deeper inside himself.
He tells himself he hates Seongje. He’d told himself that a hundred times before. But the problem is, every time he tries to summon hate, his mind betrays him with the memory of something else— something softer.
---
Back then, they weren't anything close to this. They weren't even friends. Only blood, bruises, and rage. They fought like it was survival, and maybe it was. Gotak could never beat him— no matter how much he trained, no matter how many times he tried. Seongje always stood there at the end, steady and grinning through split lips, as if defeat didn’t exist in his world.
He was chaos, a storm no one could control. One who didn't do things for a purpose— he did them because they made him feel alive. He ran on adrenaline, yet there was calculation in his every move, a twisted rhythm Gotak couldn’t help but recognize.
It should have stayed like that. Enemies until one of them broke. That would’ve made sense.
But somewhere along the way, something shifted.
Gotak didn’t know the exact moment. Maybe it was the night he watched Seongje stumble out of a fight, laughing with blood dripping down his chin, and realized it wasn’t bravery keeping him on his feet— it was loneliness. Maybe it was when he caught him smoking alone on the rooftop, eyes sharp but empty, as if he had no one waiting for him anywhere.
Maybe it was those small moments, like the time a pipe swung toward Gotak’s head in the middle of a group fight, and Seongje’s hand shot out— not to save him exactly, but to block the blow like it was nothing. He never said a word about it, just shoved Gotak back into the fray like nothing had happened.
Or the night after one of their worst fights. His lip was split open, ribs aching every time he breathed. He’d expected Seongje to mock him, call him weak or worse his playmate. Instead, Seongje had crouched down in front of him, cigarette dangling from his lips, and reached out. Rough fingers brushed against his cheek, tilting his face toward the dim streetlight.
“Ugly,” Seongje muttered, but his touch lingered longer than the insult did. The pad of his thumb pressed lightly against the cut, careful in a way his fists never were. And in his eyes— sharp, mocking, unflinching, Gotak caught something different. A flicker that felt dangerously close to tenderness.
He should have shoved him away. Should have cursed him out. But instead, Gotak froze, heart pounding louder than the throbbing in his jaw. For the first time, Seongje’s smile wasn’t cruel. It was crooked, yes, but softer, as if it belonged to no one else but him.
After that, everything shifted.
Gotak started noticing the way Seongje looked at him sometimes, like he wasn’t just another opponent. When they fought, Seongje still hit hard— but never hardest. When Gotak staggered, Seongje steadied him just enough to keep him on his feet. When Gotak’s rage burned out too fast, leaving only silence, Seongje would light a cigarette and sit by his side, like it was the most natural thing in the world. There was a strange safety he felt when Seongje was near.
And those weren’t the gestures of an enemy. They were something else. Something more dangerous.
And Gotak hated himself for noticing. Hated himself more for wanting it.
Because he knew, deep down, that Seongje’s chaos would ruin him. And still, every time their eyes met in the quiet after a fight, Gotak swore he could feel it, whatever this was— pulling him under.
He knew better. He knew he should’ve stayed away. It should have stayed hate. Enemies until one of them broke. That would’ve been simple.
But it didn’t.
And Gotak, for all his pride, for all the hate he swore he carried, couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop coming back.
His friends noticed first. Baku shoved his shoulder one day after a scuffle and muttered, “You’re getting too close. He’ll wreck you, you know.”
And Gotak had no answer, because he already knew it was true.
That was when hate blurred into something else. Something reckless. Something dangerous.
Something that felt like love.
That was the risk. And Gotak took it. He let himself fall.
And in Seongje’s eyes, just for a moment, he saw that fall returned.
---
The sound of passing car pulls him back to present. Hyuntak stands there frozen under the dim streetlight, hoodie pulled low. His breath comes ragged, clouds forming and breaking in the night air.
He wants to run until his lungs burn.
He wants to go back upstairs, slam Seongje against the wall, and beg him to mean what he said— just once.
Instead, he keeps walking away. Trying to erase everything behind.
---
The days blur.
Hyuntak found himself studying more, fighting less. He laughed more too— helping his mother with dinner, trading jokes with his father over late night comedy shows. He felt good meeting his friends without checking if Seongje would show up to ruin it with his knowing smile and sarcastic digs. The air felt lighter without him.
But not better.
Every time his phone buzzed, his heart jumped. Every time he walked past their old hangout spots— the corner by the abandoned gym, the train tracks at sunset, Seongje's shitty apartment, he had to force himself to keep walking, as if pausing might pull him back in.
But when the house fell quiet, when he was finally alone in his room, he would like awake and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the weight in his chest to ease.
Seongje doesn't love the way normal people do.
He loves like a scientist pulling wings off butterflies, like a boy watching a fire he lit grow too big to control. He does ownership. Obsession. And he knows how to make you crave it how to dangle just enough warmth to keep you coming back, then rip it away like it was never there.
He never called Gotak his. Never had to.
It was in the way he kept him close in crowded place. It was in the way he nuzzle into Gotak's neck and told him how pretty he was. The way he stared too long while Gotak worked. The way he made it clear to everyone that messing with Hyuntak meant messing with Seongje himself.
Gotak hated him for it.
He tried to leave him four times.
The second time, he punched a wall so hard his knuckles split open. Told him he wasn't human. That he was a monster. That he made him worse. That he didn't deserve loyalty, or love, or anything at all.
Seongje just blinked at him. Then he went and brought out the medical kit and started bandaging his hands. But never gave Hyuntak a reply. This pissed him off even more.
So he ran out mid bandaging.Slept in a gym locker room. Went three days without seeing his face.
And then...
He was back.
Because even when Seongje was cruel, he looked at him like he was his favorite thing to ruin.
---
Two weeks. That's how long it takes.
It is 2:16 a.m. when it happens.
No drama. No trigger. No breakdown.
Gotak tells himself he's just going for a walk. But when he passes the alley near Seongje's place, he stops. Just stops. Like his body betrays him before his brain can scream don't.
He tells himself he's just checking if the light is on. Nothing more.
The light's on.
Then he tells himself he'll just leave something at the door. A message. Closure.
But before he can stop himself, his knuckles are already rapping against the wood. Three knocks.
And the door opens.
Seongje's face is bruised but still beautiful. He doesn't look smug. Doesn't smile. Doesn't gloat. He looks like he knew Gotak would come, and was waiting.
"I missed you," Seongje says. No apology. No shame. Just soft, like he means it.
Gotak says nothing. He quietly step inside.
The door clicks shut. Lock turns. Gotak turns back to face him. In the full light of the hallway, he sees him clearly. Bruises all over his face. Knuckles raw. A cut near his eyebrow. A limp in his walk. Not fresh wounds— healing ones.
"What happened?" Gotak asks, voice cautious.
A long pause. Then Seongje exhales. "I got into a fight."
"You always do", Hyuntak snaps, because that's all it ever is with Seongje— fight after fight, no matter how much Gotak hates it.
"Yeah. But this time, I didn't win." His voice is soft. Resigned.
That's new.
Seongje doesn't lose fight. He only fights because he knows he will win.
Hyuntak straightens. "How?"
Seongje's eyes flicker. "Didn't have you in my corner."
It isn't an apology. But it's the closest Seongje ever got.
They stand there, inches apart, in silence, soaking each other in.
Finally, Hyuntak reaches up, brushing his fingers gently over the cut near Seongje's eyebrow.
"We'll ruin each other."
"Yeah," Seongje whispers. "But at least it's us doing the ruining."
Gotak presses his face into Seongje's collarbone. "You make me sick," He whispers.
"I know," Seongje murmurs, lips brushing Gotak's skin. "Still you love me."
This time Gotak doesn't move away. He stays. Because this is them.
Not good. Not healthy.
Seongje lifts his head, fingertips grazing Gotak's jaw— gentle, like he knows Gotak has already given in.
And Gotak lets him.
Because no matter how much it breaks him.
No matter how many times Seongje turns love into a weapon and wraps it around his neck.
He's still the only place he feels real.
Seongje kisses him— hard, all consuming. Bruising. Thrilling. Burning. Just like he loves. And Gotak kisses back with equal fervor, because in the end, it's always been this. These little moments where he feels he has control.
Some people love to the edge of reason.
They love past it— wrecked, ruined, and reaching for the match even as they burn.
And no matter how many times Gotak swear he won't come back—
He does.
Because this isn't a love story.
It's a tragedy.
Seongje's toxic.
But so is Gotak.
And maybe that's why they fit.
Toxic till the end.