Chapter Text
The dorm had grown quieter than usual, but the silence wasn't peace - it was heavy, like an invisible fog choking the air. The scandal had painted itself across every screen, every feed, every whisper outside their walls. Each time Leo's name appeared, it was paired with venom, accusations, disguised as righteous fury.
The members had tried everything. Yorch would sit beside him, nudging his shoulder with small jokes, his laughter forced but desperate—like a candle flickering in a storm. Jihoon tried to reason with him, leaving little notes of encouragement on Leo's desk, folded like prayers that hopefully might one day reach him.
James, one of the maknaes, had become a shield on social media, deleting what he could, defending Leo in spaces where his voice would only get drowned. Woochan—though younger—stayed close, hovering like an anxious younger brother, his presence wordless but full of pleading eyes. Hopeful that his presence will at least bring a little bit of comfort to Leo, someone he considered his own older brother.
But none of it mattered. Leo scrolled endlessly, eyes hollowing with every hateful comment that carved itself into him like shards of glass. His thumbs moved against the screen as if possessed.
Every apology they drafted—both formal statements through the company and shaky, trembling words forced out in videos—collapsed beneath the weight of rage that could never be satisfied. Forgiveness was never offered. Redemption never arrived. Instead, every attempt only fed the fire.
'They hate me. They'll always hate me. No matter what I say... It's never enough.'
Sangwon had watched him from across the room that night, Leo's figure slouched on the bed against the dim light of his phone, face bathed in blue and white glow like a ghost haunting itself. His fingers tapping and scrolling relentlessly through the endless flow of hate and resentment that seems to refuse to stop.
Sangwon clenched his fists in silence, nails digging crescents into his palms as if pain might anchor him from the helplessness. He wanted to shout, to plead him to stop. To stop caring about whatever nonsense the strangers who don't even know them are spewing online.
But he can't reach him.
No matter what he does...
He can't seem to pull him out.
And that fact made him suffocate even more.
The practice room was even more suffocating. Mirrors lined the walls, reflecting the boys back at themselves—fractured versions of a group trying to hold together something already breaking. Sweat stained the floor, but the exhaustion wasn't from the dance, nor from the intensity of the choreography. It was the exhaustion of hearts crumbling under words they couldn't escape. The music had stopped, yet the ringing of silence felt louder than any beat.
Leo stood in the middle, trembling hands gripping the hem of his shirt. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath jagged, as if his lungs refused to carry the weight of the air. As if the air itself is strangling him.
The others circled him instinctively, like planets trying to shield their sun from imploding. Sangwon stayed closest, every muscle in his body taut, watching for the inevitable collapse.
"I... I can't do this anymore." The words left Leo in a whisper, but they sliced through the room sharper than a scream. His voice cracked, eyes brimming though no tears had fallen. "Every step we take, every stage we dream of... I felt like I was pulling all of you down with me. My mistake... It's chaining all of you."
"Leo hyung—" Jihoon's voice broke, raw with panic, but Leo shook his head violently, the movement desperate, frantic, like a bird thrashing against its cage.
“No, you don’t understand. I’ve tried. I’ve apologised until my voice gave out. I’ve worked harder than ever—trying to prove my worth, to atone for what I’ve done, to earn forgiveness. To show that one mistake doesn’t define who I am. But they won’t stop. And because of me… they won’t stop hating you either.”
His voice trembled, eyes flickering between the members as if he were trying to memorise them—etching their faces deep into the ashes of his guilt. "These days, it's been mentally so hard for me. To breathe. To keep myself together. And frankly, I just... I really can’t do it anymore. I know it’s been hard for all of you, too, and I can’t keep dragging you down with me.”
He drew a shaky breath, the final words breaking on his tongue. “So.. I’m… I’m quitting.”
"... I'm quitting... so that my stain won't tarnish the dreams that all of you had been working for"
The air froze.
Sangwon felt the words like a guillotine blade, severing something deep inside him. His heartbeat thundered, but his body refused to move, as though his foot was chained to the spot he was standing on.
'No. Not like this. Don't say it like it's mercy when it's destruction.'
James stepped forward, shaking his head so hard his hair clung to the sweat on his forehead. "Don't. Don't do this to yourself, hyung. To us." His voice cracked into silence. Woochan, tears already streaking his face, clutched Leo's sleeve, his hands trembling as if his grip alone could tether him in place. Yorch clenched his jaw, pacing, fists balled like he was searching for a solution that didn't exist.
But Leo only pulled away, every gesture lined with sorrow. Voice on the brink of breaking as he spoke. "I've already discussed with the company. They'll release the statement soon... but I want you guys to hear it from me first."
Sangwon said nothing—he couldn’t. His throat was closing around words that refused to form. He wanted to grab Leo, to shake him, to scream no. But the look in Leo’s eyes—resigned, broken, empty—froze him in place.
Leo bowed then, a deep bow that seemed to carve itself out of his bones. “I’m really sorry for everything.”
The room broke. Woochan sobbed openly. Jihoon turned his back, covering his mouth with his hand to smother the sound tearing from his throat. James sank into the couch at the corner of the practice room, head in his hands. Yorch slammed his fist into the wall, the dull thud echoing like a gunshot.
And Sangwon—Sangwon stood frozen, his vision blurring as if the mirrors themselves were shattering around him. He had thought that he knew what anguish was before, but watching Leo surrender felt like witnessing the sun extinguish itself before dawn.
The company released the statement days later.
Official. Cold.
“Lee Leo will be withdrawing from the project due to personal reasons.” It was printed on screens, reposted by fans, and torn apart by critics. And no apology, no explanation, no truth, could wash away the poison of the accusations.
The hate didn’t slow—it only sharpened.
And Leo’s hope dissolved with it.
The dorm that night was hollowed. Leo's bag sat half-packed, clothes folded with a mechanical precision that betrayed the trembling of his fingers.
One by one, the members came to him—soft goodbyes hidden under forced smiles. Woochan wrapped his arms around him, refusing to let go until Yorch gently pried him away. Jihoon whispered something against his shoulder, words drowned by tears.
James lingered at the door, his hand pressed briefly to Leo's back, like he wanted to say everything but knew nothing would suffice. Yorch gave a sharp nod, eyes glassy but resolute, then stepped away quickly before the cracks in his composure spilt out.
And then there was Sangwon. He stood longer than he should have, his throat a desert, his hands itching to reach out. Leo looked up at him, their eyes locking—an ocean of guilt meeting a storm of anguish.
Neither spoke.
Neither dared.
'If I open my mouth now, I'll fall apart. If I touch him, I'll never let go.'
And so, silence became their farewell, heavier than any words could bear.
He watches as Leo’s palm brushes the frame of the door—one last touch, one last memory carved into skin. And then he left, the door closing like a coffin lid.
The old studio was no longer a sanctuary. It had become a graveyard of empty bottles, shattered dreams, and words that refused to die. The air was thick with the bitter tang of alcohol—sharp, cloying, suffocating—clinging to the walls like mould, as if even the room itself had learned to decay.
Once, this place had pulsed with life. Melodies had spilt from tired lips, laughter had echoed between takes, and light had poured through the curtains like a promise. Now, silence sat heavy in its place—dense and unmoving—broken only by the dull, hollow thud of an empty bottle rolling across the warped wooden floor.
When Sangwon visited for the first time since Leo’s disappearance from the world, he found him hunched over the desk—an outline of the boy he once knew. His chin rested on folded arms, the bluish glow of the monitor casting deep shadows beneath his eyes. He was scrolling endlessly, each flick of his finger almost mechanical, like he’d forgotten the difference between movement and meaning. His eyes—bloodshot, unfocused—tracked the hateful words as if they were scripture he needed to memorise.
Sangwon stood there, frozen in the doorway. A lump rose in his throat, the kind that burned more than it blocked. There was something unbearably fragile in the way Leo sat—like if Sangwon were to speak too loudly, the boy might splinter right before him. He wanted to reach out, to shake him from whatever trance he’d fallen into, but all he could do was breathe through the ache in his chest.
Quietly, he set a takeout box on the desk beside him. The faint rustle of plastic seemed to echo too loudly in the silence. Leo didn’t look up. Not even a flicker of recognition. It was as if his eyes were welded to the screen, as if his entire being had been swallowed by the endless stream of venom on it.
Sangwon lingered for a while—minutes, maybe hours, time meant nothing there. He watched the gentle tremor in Leo’s shoulders, the way his fingers tightened around the mouse as though it were the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. He thought about all the nights they’d spent in this very room, building songs out of exhaustion, hope and laughter, and how that same space now seemed to echo with the sound of something quietly breaking.
When he finally turned to leave, the air felt heavier. The door closed behind him with a muted click, and the silence that followed was almost merciful. Still, the image stayed with him—the boy at the desk, swallowed by his own grief—and it haunted him long after he stepped out into the night.
The second visit was worse.
The screen still glared, a cold, merciless light that carved shadows into Leo’s face. But now, the desk was a battlefield—half-emptied bottles strewn across it like fallen soldiers, their glass necks catching the light with a mocking glimmer. The air reeked of stale liquor and sleepless nights.
Leo’s laugh shattered the silence—bitter, sharp, and wrong. It wasn’t a sound meant to exist in his mouth.
“They’re poets, aren’t they?” he said, voice slurred but eyes alight with a kind of manic clarity. “Look at how creative they get with their hate.”
The words stumbled out, half-choked, half-defiant. His hand gripped the bottle tightly, knuckles white, the glass trembling under the force of his need. The burn of alcohol was his anchor now—each swallow a punishment, a desperate attempt to scrub the poison from inside his head.
Sangwon moved before thinking, crossing the room in a blur, his hand darting out to snatch the bottle away. The sound of it scraping against the table made his heart lurch. But Leo didn’t stop. He reached for another—hands shaking, movements unsteady yet determined. His defiance flared through the haze like a dying flame refusing to go out.
“If I can’t erase their words,” Leo murmured, voice cracking, “maybe I can drown them.”
Sangwon’s chest clenched so tightly it hurt to breathe. He wanted to shout—to break through the thick fog swallowing Leo whole. To tell him that he didn’t need to drown anything, that he wasn’t what they said he was. But the words refused to come. They lodged somewhere between his ribs, raw and useless.
Instead, he sank down beside him, the weight of the room pressing against his back. He held the bottle he’d taken like a useless weapon, as if clutching it might somehow protect the boy beside him. His throat burned, not from drink but from the things he couldn’t say.
He watched Leo’s profile in the screenlight—the trembling jaw, the hollow eyes—and something inside him cracked with quiet despair.
His thoughts echoed, voiceless and splintering:
How much longer can I watch him do this to himself?
How much longer until he disappears completely…?
And then, softer, almost a whisper that frightened him—
…until I lose myself too?
By the third visit, Leo was no longer at the desk.
He was sprawled across the couch, his body slumped in surrender, an open bottle dangling loosely from his hand. Liquor seeped from its mouth, bleeding into the carpet in slow, amber veins. In his other hand, the phone remained—his last tether to the world that had turned against him. His thumb moved in a ceaseless rhythm, scrolling through the pit that others had built for him with their words.
His lips moved, barely forming sounds—whispers that trembled through the still air.
“Hateful. Worthless. Vulgar. Ugly.”
Each word slipped out like a confession, or maybe a curse.
They fell one after another, soft yet merciless, like prayers offered to some god of cruelty who demanded self-destruction as devotion.
Sangwon stood frozen, every breath cutting like glass. His chest cracked open with every word Leo uttered, each syllable carving something raw into him. His hands trembled at his sides before curling into fists. His nails dug into his palms until the sting grounded him, a poor substitute for the pain he couldn’t name.
They’ve made him believe them.
They’ve taken everything from him.
And I’ve just been standing here… watching.
The thought hollowed him out.
Helplessness had never felt so heavy—like a chain around his throat, like the silence itself was accusing him for not being enough. He hated them, every faceless voice behind the screen. But more than that, he hated himself—for being there and still unable to save him.
With a ragged breath, he moved. Not because it would fix anything, but because doing something felt less unbearable than doing nothing. He bent down, hands shaking as he picked up the debris of another night gone wrong. The faint clink of glass was the only sound between them.
One by one, he gathered the bottles, lining them neatly in the corner of the room. They stood in rows, solemn and silent—gravestones for the pieces of Leo that had been lost. And as he stared at them, the weight of it pressed down until even breathing felt like grief.
The fourth visit didn’t just unsettle Sangwon — it splintered something inside him.
Leo wasn’t on the couch, nor hunched over the desk, drowning in the glow of the screen. He was on the floor this time — knees pulled tight to his chest, body folded in on itself like he was trying to disappear. His head was buried in his arms, as if the smallest motion might make him crumble to dust.
The studio around him looked like the aftermath of violence.
Bottles toppled and rolled, their contents bleeding dark and sticky into the wooden floor. Shards of glass lay scattered like frozen lightning, catching the dim light in cruel flashes. And in the centre of it all sat Leo — small, shaking, unravelled.
Beside him, his phone glowed faintly. The screen was cracked into a spiderweb of fractures, yet still alive, spilling hateful words across his skin like a cruel spotlight.
His hands were cut and trembling, blood trailing down his wrists in thin, fragile rivers. Yet he didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Only trembled — shallow, uneven breaths making his ribs quake — like a marionette whose strings had been severed, body moving only because despair refused to let it stop.
Sangwon stopped cold in the doorway. The air punched out of his lungs; his heart thundered so violently it felt like his body might split from the inside. He had seen Leo tired, drunk, silent, furious — but never this hollow. Never so emptied that even his shadow seemed to curl inward, as though it too had given up.
I’m watching him rot alive, Sangwon thought — no, screamed inside himself — and I can’t… I can’t do nothing anymore.
The smell of spilt alcohol burned in his nose, thick and sharp. His throat constricted with a cry he swallowed down, his fists shaking at his sides. His knees nearly buckled, but he forced himself forward, one step, then another, crossing the shards with careful, trembling precision — terrified that even the sound of his movement might shatter Leo further.
He knelt down. Reached out. His fingers brushed against Leo’s arm — the skin cold, too cold.
Leo didn’t look at him. His gaze was fixed somewhere past him, into a void that reflected nothing. His eyes were glassy, the cracked screen’s light washing over them until they seemed almost inhuman.
When he spoke, his voice was barely there — not a whisper, but the echo of one.
“If I drink enough…” His lips cracked on the word. “…maybe I won’t hear them anymore.”
The sound struck Sangwon harder than any scream ever could. The words burrowed through his ribs and sank deep into his chest, gnawing at his heart like teeth. He felt it — the pain — physically. A sharp, cold ache that made his vision blur. For a moment, he thought he might crumble right there beside him.
He imagined it — falling next to Leo, burying his face in his hands, letting the same darkness swallow them both. It would be easy. Quiet. Final.
But then he saw it — the image of Leo disappearing completely. Of this fragile body going still. The thought hit harder than the despair, harder than the hate. It was a vision of absence too unbearable to survive.
If I crumble… Sangwon told himself, every word a drumbeat against his skull, he will vanish. If I fall now, he will be gone.
He swallowed the tears burning in his throat, gripping Leo’s shoulders with hands that trembled but refused to let go.
I can’t crumble yet. Not now. Not when he needs me the most.
The resolve tasted like iron, bitter and warm, but it steadied him. He gathered Leo into his arms, the boy frighteningly light — as if grief had hollowed out his bones. Shards dug into Sangwon’s knees, cutting through fabric and skin, but he didn’t care. He’d rather bleed than loosen his hold.
He pressed his forehead against Leo’s hair, breathing in the mingled scent of alcohol, salt, and despair. Words failed him, so he whispered sound — a low, steady hum, a tether in the dark. His hand moved over Leo’s back in slow circles, smearing blood and tears and spilled liquor into one indistinguishable stain. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except this: holding him, keeping him here.
Inside Sangwon, fear and anguish tangled with something deeper — something immovable. Love, not the fragile kind that flutters, but the kind that endures — heavy, rooted, defiant. The kind that stays even when everything else burns away.
And in that moment, on that floor littered with glass and ghosts, Sangwon made a silent vow:
If Leo burns, I will be the water.
If Leo drowns, I will be the shore.
If Leo shatters, I will be the hands that gather the pieces, even if they cut me open.
He closed his eyes and drew Leo closer, whispering hoarsely into his hair, voice breaking under its own weight.
“Not like this,” he breathed. “Not alone. Not ever.”
Each visit had been a cut.
Small at first — shallow enough to endure — a tremor here, a bruise there, a silence that stung but didn’t bleed.
But pain has a way of accumulating, quiet and patient.
By the fourth, Sangwon was already bleeding inward, the wounds invisible but deep — the kind that no one sees until they ache with every breath.
And by the fifth, his restraint had thinned to almost nothing — a trembling thread stretched across a widening chasm, holding back everything he didn’t dare feel.
Tonight, that thread snapped.
Cleanly. Quietly.
And something inside him went with it.
Sangwon stood in the doorway longer than he ever had before. The apartment was no longer just dim — it was cavernous, a hollow chamber filled with ghosts of music and laughter now turned to ash. The air was heavy with the stale sting of spilt alcohol, with silence so sharp it pressed against his lungs like glass, splintering every breath.
His fingers curled around the key still warm from the turn, white-knuckled. He did not move immediately. He let the moment hang over him, heavy as iron, while his eyes adjusted to the fractured world Leo had built inside these four walls. It was all in ruins now: bottles like shattered constellations, notebooks torn apart and left like dead birds on the floor, pages filled with frantic scribbles — maps that led nowhere.
And there — at the centre of this quiet apocalypse — sat Leo.
On the couch this time. Not on the floor, not at the desk. Slumped like a man whose bones had given up, head lowered, eyes fixed on nothing. In one hand, a freshly opened bottle of soju, its neck gleaming faintly under the weak light.
This time, he wasn’t scrolling. No blue glow of the phone casting shadows under his eyes. Only the stillness of a body eroding from the inside. Around him, the bottles had spilled their contents, rivers of liquor tracing crooked paths across the wooden floor like veins, like tributaries feeding some unseen ocean.
Leo’s face had lost its colour — ghost-pale, lips cracked and dry as forgotten earth. His eyes were swollen, rimmed in furious red, the skin beneath shadowed like bruises of grief. Dried tear tracks marked his face in faint silver lines — scars carved not by knives, but by despair itself.
He raised the bottle to his lips, but his hand trembled — not the tremor of nerves, but of a man unspooling at the seams. It slipped. The liquor splashed across his shirt in a cold bloom. He didn’t even flinch.
Instead, a laugh escaped him — hoarse, jagged, broken. It wasn’t laughter, not really, but the echo of it — a sound left behind when joy dies, hollow and inhuman, caught between a sob and a scream. A sound that made the air itself recoil.
The sound echoed through the studio, sharp and merciless. To Sangwon, it felt like a thousand blades slicing through the fragile cage of his chest.
His fists clenched at his sides until his nails carved crescents into his palms. His pulse roared in his ears — a violent, grieving drumbeat threatening to split him open. He couldn’t bear it any longer.
He crossed the room in a blur, his movements no longer careful but desperate, and wrenched the bottle from Leo’s grasp. Without thinking, he hurled it across the room. The shatter of glass was thunder — shards rained down like murdered stars, fragments of a night sky torn apart.
“Enough!”
The word tore from his throat, raw and frayed, louder than he had ever spoken in his life. It was not just a sound — it was the sound of something breaking, of a heart choosing to scream rather than stop beating. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, each one scraping against his ribs like sandpaper.
And then — his hands. They found Leo’s shoulders, trembling, frantic. His fingers dug in as though to carve warmth back into cold skin, to tether him to life through sheer touch alone. He shook him, desperate — pleading for him to look up, to see, to feel.
Leo’s head lifted slowly, eyes glazed, pupils drowning in alcohol and grief. When they met Sangwon’s, they didn’t spark — they didn’t even flicker. They were voids, two mirrors reflecting nothing but ruin.
Sangwon’s heart broke so violently he swore he could hear it — a dull, inward crack, like ice fracturing beneath his feet.
This was not Leo. This was a ghost wearing his face.
And Sangwon knew then — if he didn’t reach him now, he would lose him.
Not to the world.
Not to their hate.
But to himself.
Sangwon leaned closer, voice trembling, every breath a prayer torn between fury and love. “Do you even realise what you’re doing to yourself? To me?”
Leo’s gaze drifted, drowned, his eyes glassy and unmoored. His words slipped out like wounded breaths, fragile and dissolving before they reached the air. “I’m just… giving them what they want,” he whispered. “Isn’t this what they wanted? Isn’t this... what redemption is? To be hated until nothing’s left of me…?”
Sangwon’s breath stuttered. His knees gave way, as if the weight of Leo’s words alone had crushed him, and he sank to the floor before him. His hands still clung to Leo’s shoulders, shaking. If he let go, he feared Leo would vanish — not in body, but in soul.
He leaned in until their foreheads touched, his tears spilling freely, falling between them like offerings to some cruel god. The tear in his chest stole the air from his lungs, but still — his voice came, quiet and trembling. “You think this is redemption? You think destroying yourself will save us?”
Leo’s lips parted to speak, but the words failed him. And Sangwon — broken open now — could no longer hold back.
“I’ve been here every damn day,” he said, his voice cracking, “watching you die a little more each time. Watching you scroll until your eyes turn hollow. Watching you drink until you can’t even feel. Watching you burn yourself alive just to silence their words. And all I could do was sit here —” his voice fractured, “— watching you collapse while I stood powerless.”
His next words came out as a whisper — not to be heard, but to be understood. “Do you even see what that’s doing to me? To you…?”
He choked, the last word barely making it out. “…To us?”
Leo blinked. His face contorted — not from anger, but from pain so deep it twisted his features into something unrecognisable.
Us.
The word hit him like a blade. His voice trembled, soaked in guilt. “I thought… if I carried the hate alone, you’d all be free. But I chained you to me instead. I ruined everything, Sangwon. The group. The dream… You.”
Sangwon’s grip tightened, trembling. Inside, love and anguish collided until there was no telling one from the other. How can he not see? he thought. He was never the ruin — he was the heartbeat.
“No,” Sangwon said, voice raw and trembling. “The only thing you ruined was yourself.” He swallowed hard, his throat closing around the words. “Because you wouldn’t let us share the weight. You locked us out, Leo…”
He hesitated — the truth bleeding through his voice. “…You locked me out.”
His breath trembled. His lips quivered as the confession clawed its way out. “And I can’t take it anymore. I can’t keep watching the person I—” his voice broke, his body shaking, “—the person I love destroy himself in slow motion.”
Leo froze. His eyes widened, tears welling, trembling at the edges. His lips parted as though he might speak, but only a breath escaped. “You… you love me?”
The question was a whisper — a wound that dared to hope.
“I always have,” Sangwon breathed. His voice was both confession and collapse. “And it hurts, Leo. It hurts to sit in that doorway night after night, watching you unravel while knowing I can’t piece you back together.” He inhaled sharply, a tremor running through him. “Do you know how helpless that feels? How many times I’ve wanted to rip the phone from your hands, to throw every bottle out the window, to scream until you finally hear me? But I didn’t. I was scared. Scared that touching the fire might break you worse. But I was wrong. I should’ve burned with you if it meant keeping you alive.”
That was when Leo broke — truly broke. His body convulsed with sobs, violent and unrestrained, years of silence and shame tearing out of him at once. He buried his face in Sangwon’s chest, clutching at his shirt like it was the only thing keeping him from being swallowed whole.
“I don’t know how to stop,” Leo cried. “Every word—they’re inside me. I drink, I scream, I try to burn it away, but it doesn’t leave. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I didn’t want you to hate me, too.”
Sangwon’s eyes blurred. He wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close until their heartbeats stuttered in sync. His voice was hoarse but unwavering. “I could never hate you. I hate what they’ve done to you — how they made you believe their poison. But you, Leo… I love every broken piece, every scar, every shadow you carry.”
He pressed his cheek against Leo’s hair, whispering through tears. “Because despite everything, you’re still you. The boy who stayed up till dawn chasing melodies no one else could hear. The one who laughed until we all got scolded. The one who never let us fall without offering a hand.”
His voice cracked, softer now. “You’re still Leo. The imperfect, relentless Leo. The one I’ve fallen in love with — over and over. And I’ll keep pulling you back from whatever abyss you fall into, even if it tears me apart.”
Leo’s sobs deepened, his whole body trembling, but his grip on Sangwon never loosened — as though letting go meant vanishing for good. “I don’t know if I can be fixed,” he whispered. “I don’t know if there’s anything left of me worth saving.”
Sangwon pulled back just enough to see him — their tears mingling, breath trembling between them. His hands came up, cupping Leo’s face, thumbs brushing over the wet trails on his cheeks.
“Then let me be the one to decide that,” Sangwon whispered. His voice was fire and devotion. “Let me prove you wrong. Because as long as I’m breathing, you won’t face this alone. And if you fall, I’ll fall with you.”
In that small, broken studio — surrounded by shards of glass and rivers of forgotten bottles — Leo broke.
Not into despair this time, but into the safety of arms that refused to release him.
His sobs tore through the air — raw, aching, alive — like prayers from a soul that still wanted to stay.
“It’s okay,” Sangwon whispered against his hair, voice trembling like a vow. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”
He pressed soft, desperate kisses to the tears on Leo’s cheeks, as though trying to drink the sorrow away. Then he gathered him closer — tight enough to hold him together, gentle enough not to break what remained.
And for the first time in endless weeks, Leo let himself collapse completely — and for the first time, he was caught.
Not by guilt. Not by hate.
But by love — fierce, human, and unyielding.
The silence that followed was fragile—delicate as glass barely set back onto the shelf after a storm.
Leo’s sobs had thinned into fractured breaths, each one quivering like a candle trying to hold its flame in the wind. His body no longer convulsed, only trembled—fragile, flickering, on the edge of vanishing.
Sangwon stayed there, still kneeling in the debris of their night, arms wound tightly around him, his forehead pressed to Leo’s temple as if sheer nearness could mend what grief had undone. His knees screamed from the hard floor, but he didn’t care. What hurt more was the weight of Leo’s exhaustion—the way his body leaned, heavy with surrender.
Slowly, carefully, Sangwon loosened his hold. His voice came out raw, the edges sanded thin. “Come… let’s move.”
Leo blinked sluggishly, lashes wet, skin streaked with the salt of his tears. His eyes were dazed, as if waking from a dream that had tried to kill him. When Sangwon rose, Leo followed, wordless and pliant, letting himself be gathered up like something fragile that might crumble if touched too roughly.
Each step toward the bed felt deliberate—like crossing a battlefield after the smoke had cleared, careful not to disturb the bodies of what was lost. The air still smelled of alcohol and sorrow; the shards on the floor gleamed faintly, like ghosts of the night refusing to fade.
Leo’s legs dragged, but Sangwon bore his weight without hesitation—steady, unwavering, a quiet defiance against despair.
When they reached the bed, Sangwon eased him down. The sheets were rumpled, cold, indifferent, but none of that mattered. What mattered was the way Sangwon sank beside him and drew Leo close again—this time not in desperation, but in quiet insistence. A promise that said, I’m still here. Leo buried his face in Sangwon’s chest, the fabric beneath his cheek darkening with damp heat.
For a long while, neither spoke. The only sound was the slow, tentative rhythm of breath—two heartbeats learning to sync again. Sangwon’s hand moved up and down Leo’s back, tracing slow circles like small prayers, his touch both anchor and benediction.
He bent his head and pressed a trembling kiss to the crown of Leo’s hair, a kiss so light it might have been imagined. But Leo didn’t pull away. If anything, he drew closer, a quiet gravity in his motion—like a child reaching for warmth in the ruins of winter.
‘How could anyone hate him this much?’ Sangwon thought, the question aching in his chest.
‘How could they not see what I see? The gentleness in his fury, the way his heart bruises easy and still beats with kindness. If pain were transferable, I’d take it all. Burn it in myself until there’s nothing left to touch him.’
Leo’s voice broke the silence—hoarse, hesitant, cracking at the seams. “I… I don’t deserve this.”
The words hit Sangwon like a blow. He closed his eyes briefly, his arms tightening around him, as if trying to shield him from his own self-loathing.
“You deserve more than this, Leo,” he murmured, voice trembling but sure. “You always have. The world sees only what it wants to break—but I see you. The hours you don’t sleep. The things you carry in silence. The way you bleed and still call it living. You don’t have to hold it alone anymore. Let me hold it too. Please.”
Leo shook his head weakly, denial written in the small motion. But his fingers betrayed him—they clung to Sangwon’s shirt, desperate and trembling, as though his body refused the lies his mouth still believed.
“What if I break again?” His voice cracked, barely air. “What if I pull you down with me?”
Sangwon tilted his head, one hand rising to cradle Leo’s jaw, thumb brushing over skin still flushed and raw. He lifted Leo’s face until their eyes met—two mirrors, red-rimmed and wet, reflecting the same ache.
“Then I’ll break with you,” he whispered. “And I’ll keep breaking, if that’s what it takes. I’d rather shatter holding you than stay whole watching you drown.”
Leo’s lips parted, trembling, a breath caught between disbelief and longing. No words came—only a soft, broken sound that was part sob, part laugh, before he collapsed forward again, burying himself in Sangwon’s chest.
Sangwon leaned back slowly, drawing them both down until the bed cradled their weight. The blanket rustled as he pulled it over them, one arm looping around Leo’s waist, the other threading into his hair. Leo’s breath hitched once—then again—before finally evening out, each exhale softer than the last.
Even broken things deserve rest, Sangwon thought, staring at the ceiling as his throat tightened. Even shattered glass catches light when morning finds it.
He stayed awake as Leo’s eyes fluttered closed, watching the faint tremors in his lashes fade into stillness. Now and then, Leo’s hand would tighten on his shirt, as though his dreaming self feared abandonment. Each time, Sangwon answered with a firmer hold, a soft murmur—words too quiet to hear but loud enough to exist.
To remind the darkness that it had not won.
And when the night finally began to pale, dawn crept in through the curtains—a fragile gold bleeding into gray, painting the room with the timid glow of survival. Sangwon bent forward, pressed one last kiss to Leo’s temple, and finally let his eyes fall shut.
The night had not saved them. It had not healed what the world had broken. But in the quiet aftermath, Leo slept—tangled, breathing, alive. And in the fragile rhythm of that breath, Sangwon found something small but stubborn stirring inside him.
Hope—frail as light after rain, but light nonetheless.