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Sieun has had this dream before.
He’s seen the boy in front of him wake up from his coma a thousand different times. Seen him crack open his eyes and smile that too-wide cocky smile. Seen his face contort as he screams that everything is Sieun’s fault. Seen him blink warily and look at Sieun’s face without recognition. He’s seen a thousand different versions of this moment every night in his sleep.
But Sieun doesn’t think he’s dreaming right now.
The air is warm and humid on his skin. His hair, damp with sweat, tickles his forehead. The grass is spongey and uneven beneath his feet. And his heart. He can feel it beating. Fast.
Too fast.
Because this is real. And the boy in the wheelchair before him is awake.
Ahn Suho.
His best friend.
But he’s not looking at Sieun. He’s gazing off to the side, staring into the distance. His chestnut hair rustles in the warm breeze, trimmed slightly shorter than Sieun last saw. Someone must have cut it, Sieun thinks distantly.
And he’s wearing a jacket over his hospital clothes. A familiar jacket. A gray jacket.
Sieun’s jacket.
Sieun doesn’t know what to do. The calm logic that usually influences his every waking moment has disappeared, leaving nothing but the feeling of his heart thudding in his ribcage and the person in front of him. And he doesn’t know what to do with that.
What can you do in a moment like this?
Suho’s head shifts slightly, and it sends a spike of panic through Sieun. He has the sudden desperate thought that he doesn’t want Suho to look at him. He doesn’t want to see the thing he dreads most—the thing he’s seen in his nightmares. He doesn’t want to see this boy’s face twist into hatred at the sight of him, blaming Sieun as much as Sieun blames himself.
But then Suho’s head really is turning. Turning to face him. To see him. And his eyes land on Sieun’s like a magnet connecting.
It’s like a punch to the chest. A physical blow that sends a small burst of air from Sieun’s lungs. Joy and hysteria and panic and relief, so so much relief, well in him so rapidly he thinks he might fall over. Or start crying.
It’s really him.
He looks different than the time Sieun last saw him awake. Older. Thinner. But some things haven’t changed. Golden tan skin. Warm brown hair. Dark eyes. Familiar eyes. Eyes that are looking at him for the first time in three years.
This time Sieun really does feel heat start to build behind his own eyes. Because the gaze focused on him is not directed at a stranger. It holds recognition and life and a warmth that makes his throat swell.
Suho has not forgotten him.
For a moment they just stay like that. Staring. Breathing. It's like everything falls away except the two of them standing ten feet apart, a distance torn by time and tradgedy.
Sieun wants Suho to say something. He doesn’t want him to say anything. He wants to stay like this, freeze this moment and soak it in until he knows he isn’t dreaming.
But Suho speaks anyways, voice warm and scratchy and so painfully familiar that it slides a hot knife into Sieun’s gut.
“You been doing alright?”
A simple, casual question. Like they've been apart for three days instead of three years.
Sieun's eyes sting.
It takes a few tries for him to respond. Finally, he manages a noise of assent around the lump in his throat. “Mm.”
Suho’s eyes drift from his, moving several feet behind him to where Baku, Hyuntak, and Jun-Tae are watching silently. He makes the smallest jerk of his chin. “Who are they?”
Sieun doesn’t follow his gaze. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. He’s afraid that if he does, Suho will disappear and this all will have been another dream. “My friends.”
More relief. But this time, it’s Suho’s. Sieun sees it wash across his best friend’s face, down his shoulders. The corners of Suho’s mouth twitch up as his eyes return to Sieun. “That’s good to see.” His words are heavy with emotion. Relief. Hope. But there’s something else in his tone too. And Sieun recognizes it. It’s something Suho used to direct at him all the time.
Pride. He’s proud.
Of Sieun.
And Sieun really lets himself believe what’s happening for the first time.
Suho isn’t mad at Sieun. There is no hatred in his eyes. No blame.
He’s not mad at him. He’s not mad at him. He’s not mad at him.
He’s happy for him.
And Sieun feels his eyes begin to burn in earnest. Hot tears pool, blurring his vision, threatening to spill, but he can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed. Because this is Suho. His first friend. His best friend.
And he’s awake.
Sieun lets out a small, sharp breath he didn’t know he was holding, a watery-eyed smile of utter relief and adrenaline and joy cracking across his face.
Suho watches him, dark eyes rapt as he takes in the uncharacteristic expression. But he doesn’t look surprised. Doesn’t crack a joke about the rare occurrence. Not now.
Not like this.
It seems like years pass before Suho finally lets the corner of his mouth twitch up again, eyebrows pulling together and up in a way that tells Sieun he doesn’t know what to do either. “You aren’t gonna come give me a hug or something?”
Sieun lets out a choked noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and sob, legs already moving. He stumbles forward, landing on his knees by the wheelchair, head crushing against Suho’s chest as he throws his arms around the older boy.
The force of it sends a small breath whooshing from Suho’s lungs, but he doesn’t complain. One of his arms lifts, uncoordinated and heavy, and falls across Sieun’s back—a familiar warmth.
Sieun lets out another strangled noise.
He’s not mad at him. He’s not mad at him. He’s not mad at him.
But he should be mad at him.
Three years.
Three. Years.
Three.
Years.
Three years of Suho's life. Stolen.
Three years of grief and guilt, momentarily driven away by the relief of Suho's recovery, now return tenfold. And it overwhelms him.
It's like a ton of bricks falling onto Sieun's chest, crushing his lungs, forcing another mangled sound from his throat. And another. And another. He's rapidly losing what little control he had left. It's sudden. Too sudden. Panic wells in him. He needs to get a grip. Now. Before he does anything truly embarassing.
But something is wrong. His thoughts are too jumbled. His body won't cooperate.
". . . Sieun-ah?"
And Yeon Sieun begins to cry.
Yeon Sieun does not cry in front of people. Not like this.
He once cried in a hallway full of students after Suho was attacked. He was screaming then—covered in blood that wasn't all his and half out of his mind with desperation and helpless fury.
Not long ago, he cried in the airport after a phone call with Jun-Tae where he heard words that he desperately wanted to believe. The kind of crying that has silent tears and a slight tremor in the voice.
There's been other times too. In his room or at the hospital where there was nobody to see the evidence of his brokeness in gleaming streaks down his face.
But not like this. Not out of pain or grief. Not in someone's arms. Not in front of his friends.
Not in front of Suho.
It’s so out of character for him. So abrupt and full of transparent, unrestrained emotion in a way he never lets himself express. But he can’t stop himself. All the fear and pain and crushing guilt he’s felt these past three years overwhelm him, tearing shredded sobs from his chest as his hands tighten in Suho’s shirt who has gone suddenly tense.
Ahn Suho. This boy. Sieun stole three years of his life from him. He was the first friend Sieun ever had. He taught him what friendship was. What belonging was. What it was like for someone to have your back. What it was like to be loved. And what did being in Sieun’s life give Suho in return?
Pain.
He was attacked. Put in a coma. Drained of life. And left as a shell for three years. His youth stolen. Sieun did that. It was Sieun’s fault. Sieun’s fault. Sieun’s fault.
“I’m—sorry,” he sobs, his tears beginning to soak through the front of Suho’s hospital shirt. He clings to him like a child. He feels like a child. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words tumble from his lips again and again, hardly comprehensible.
“Sieun-ah.” Suho’s voice is quiet. Utterly lost. Never once in his life has he seen Sieun express himself like this. Break like this. “Sieun-ah. What? Sorry for what?” He tries to push Sieun off to look at him, but waking from a three-year coma doesn’t come without side effects, and he can’t get his limbs to cooperate.
Sieun tries to get ahold of himself but he can’t. The weight that has been on his shoulders for three years has come to a head and is crushing him, driving him further into Suho’s chest as he cries. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop,” Suho says, concern bleeding into his tone. “Stop. You’re scaring me. Do you—do you think this is your fault?”
There’s no response, but the way Sieun’s fingers dig into his shoulders, the way he pushes his head harder into Suho’s chest—that’s answer enough.
“Yah,” Suho says, voice suddenly panicked. “Sieun-ah. Sit up.”
Sieun doesn’t move. Fresh tears are squeezed from his eyes as he screws his face up, clenching his teeth as hard as he can to stop the way his body is shaking.
“Yeon Sieun.” Suho’s scared voice takes on a hard edge that Sieun can’t ignore.
The damp fabric of Suho’s shirtfront sticks to his cheek for a moment as he draws back, and through his mess of emotions he feels an abrupt rush of embarrassment warm his ears. But he doesn’t have time for that.
He sits back on his heels, grasping fistfuls of fabric on both sides of Suho’s arms. He meets Suho’s eyes with desperation. He needs Suho to understand. He tries to say the words again, tries to tell him he’s sorry, but his throat seems to have closed.
In any other situation, Sieun might not care. Communication has never been his strong suit, but this is different. He needs Suho to understand.
But Suho doesn’t look like he understands. He’s blinking slowly, eyes roaming across Sieun’s face, observing in every ounce of Sieun’s despair with something that looks very much like horror coloring his features. “Sieun-ah.”
Sieun holds his gaze, face wet with tears as he takes deep, shuddering breaths. He tries again to speak. This time he gets the words out, barely squeezing them past the tight constriction of his throat. “I’m—so sorry.”
Suho’s horrified expression doesn’t change. “Yah. Are you an idiot? What do you have to be sorry about?”
When Sieun can’t answer, Suho lets out a disbelieving breath that sounds like almost like a scoff, eyes wide and searching. “Yah. You— None of this was your fault. Have you been blaming yourself for this?”
These words.
Fresh tears leak out of Sieun’s eyes, and he has to look away.
It hurts. Hurts in his chest like a knife being twisted.
Because these are the words that Sieun barely let himself dream he might hear Suho say.
Because they’re the words he couldn’t let himself hope Suho would say.
Because they’re the words he never expected Suho to say.
Because they’re the words that deep down, he knew Suho would say.
Because that’s who Ahn Suho is.
So, to Sieun, these words barely matter. Because Suho saying them doesn’t make them true, no matter how badly Sieun wants them to be.
But Ahn Suho knows Yeon Sieun. Knows him better than anybody else has ever known him.
They weren’t friends for a long time before Suho went into his coma. Barely more than a month, actually. By all logic, their relationship should not have had such a strong impact on either of them.
But there was something different about their friendship. The people around them knew it. And on some level, they both knew it too.
They didn’t know why.
Sieun always thought it was a natural human reaction to bond with those you’ve experienced trauma with. And maybe he was right. Maybe that really was part of it. Maybe it was the danger they faced together. The fights they fought for one another.
But maybe it was more than that.
Maybe there are just people who were always meant to find each other. Who balance each other out. Who understand each other in a way other people can’t. Who meet one another like they’ve been waiting their whole lives for it. And when they do, everything else clicks into place.
So Suho knows Sieun. He knows him. He knows the way that he thinks. And knows what Sieun is thinking right now.
“Look at me”
Sieun doesn’t.
“I said look at me, punk.”
Sieun looks, dark eyes meeting dark eyes. He feels raw. Exposed. Embarrassed. He suddenly doesn’t want to talk about this anymore.
Suho looks between his eyes with painful intensity. “This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t, you hear me? Yah.”
Sieun, who had started to look away again, reluctantly turns back to Suho, who waits until he has his focus before continuing.
“I mean it. None of this was your fault. Are you stupid?”
Normally the jab would have made Sieun inwardly amused. Maybe annoyed. But right now he just feels more pain. Because he needs Suho to understand. But he can’t. He wouldn’t understand why it’s Sieun’s fault.
Sometimes Sieun doesn’t quite understand why it’s his fault.
But he’s just always felt like it was. No, known it. Known it in a way that made steel bands tighten crushingly around his chest every time he looked at his best friend’s lifeless form in a hospital bed. Felt it every single waking moment like a rock in his gut that never went away. Never eased. Never lightened.
Not until this past year had anything changed. Not until he made new friends that cared for him. That he cared for. Not until they told him the same thing—that it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t believe them—not really, but he wanted to. He felt like one day he might be able to. And it made that rock lighten just a little.
But this is something else. This is the real thing. The embodiment of everything he failed to protect. This is Suho in front of him. Suho, with the glow of life in his face reminding him of every time Sieun saw him without it.
“Sieun-ah.”
Sieun lifts his gaze. He didn’t remember dropping it.
Suho's eyes bore into his own, pinioning him. “Listen to me. None of this is because of you, you hear me? I made my choice. It was a stupid choice, but it was my choice. Mine.”
Something is different this time, in this moment. Sieun sees his own desperation reflected in Suho’s expression. It’s the same need that Sieun has been feeling—the need to make Suho understand.
“There was nothing you could have done. You couldn’t have stopped me. I didn’t want to be stopped. You didn’t know where I was headed that day. What could you have possibly done any differently?”
Every word in his achingly familiar voice cuts into Sieun, sinking straight through all the walls and barriers he’s made to keep himself from being affected by the things people say. He feels like something inside him is cracking.
And Suho keeps talking.
“I went there that day of my own free will. It was my fight. They wanted me, not you. There was nothing you could have done to stop it. If it hadn’t been that day, it would have been another. What kind of idiot do you have to be to try to blame yourself for that?” His arm slowly slides forward in his lap, knuckles coming to clumsily nudge Sieun’s shoulder. He seems to be staring straight through Sieun when he speaks again, this time slowly, gently, enunciating every syllable. “It wasn’t your fault.”
And inside, Sieun feels something break.
Then he’s crying again, silent tears sliding down his face. His chest jerks spasmodically with the effort of keeping in the noises trying to escape his throat. He looks away, and this time, Suho lets him, straining with the effort of speaking for so long after years of disuse.
“Do you know what I was thinking about in that ring? I was thinking about how I was glad you’re not like me. About how I was glad I was the stupid one who had caused all the problems with Beomseok instead of you, because that way he could take his anger out on me and leave you out of it. So you wouldn’t get hurt any more because of me.”
Sieun screws up his face against the sob trying to threatening to break free from his chest.
Suho presses on, his voice breaking. “Do you know how I felt when I heard about what happened to you in my place? How I felt when I saw your arm in that stupid cast? When I saw you try to hide it from me? Do you know how mad I was? How guilty I felt? I basically forced you to be my friend in the first place, you stubborn little shit.” He laughs tiredly, and there’s affection in it, but something broken too that Sieun recognizes right away. He’s heard it a million times in his own voice—guilt. “You didn’t want anything to do with me at first and I kept dragging you into trouble. Because I was lonely. Because I liked you. I thought you’d be a good friend. I didn’t stop to think about what you wanted. Do you know how much I blame myself for that? For every bad thing that happened to you after I decided I wanted to keep you?”
There’s a long stretch of silence before Sieun looks back to meet Suho’s eyes. He blinks when he sees tears there, shining in wet tracks down the older boy’s golden brown cheeks. He’s never seen Suho cry before.
Sieun feels slow. He didn’t know. He didn’t know Suho felt like that. He knew he’d be mad, of course, that Sieun took a beating meant for him, but he didn’t realize until now the guilt Suho carried toward him. The same guilt Sieun has been carrying. Did Suho lay awake at night the same way Sieun does, wondering if the other’s life would have been better without him?
Suho is the one to look away this time, clearly embarrassed.
It’s so ridiculous to Sieun. Ridiculous for Suho to be embarrassed by a few tears when Sieun’s been having a borderline meltdown practically in Suho’s lap. So ridiculous that a choked scoff escapes his throat.
Suho’s eyes fly back to Sieun, wide and indignant. “Yah.”
And then, bizarrely, Sieun starts to laugh—really laugh. It sounds so foreign to his own ears that he barely recognizes it. How long has it been since he laughed?
Suho seems to be thinking the same thing because he’s staring at Sieun like he’s sprouted a second head. “You’re laughing? Is it funny?”
Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the high emotions or the embarrassment, but that only makes Sieun laugh again. It feels strange. Like his face isn’t used to moving that way.
It feels good.
“You didn’t force me to be your friend,” he says hoarsely once he’s regained control.
Suho, who had still been gawking at him, sobers at his words, something shifting behind his eyes.
Sieun continues slowly, struggling to find the words. He doesn't know what the right thing to say is. It's not like his equations where there's a set correct answer. He's bad at this sort of thing. “I wanted to be your friend. I’d never—I’d never had a friend. I was—happy when I was with you. I never regretted it.”
Suho stares, brows pulled together tightly, gaze searching Sieun’s like he’s sure he’ll find a lie there. But he doesn’t. His eyes suddenly look wet again, and he turns away quickly. “Wahhh,” he sighs disbelievingly, angling his head awkwardly in an attempt to keep Sieun from seeing his face.
Sieun looks away, feeling awkward. Neither one is acting like themselves. Neither one is a crier. Neither one is particularly open about this sort of thing, Sieun especially. This is so unlike Sieun. To be voicing his emotions like this. To be so vulnerable. It’s weird and uncomfortable and Sieun really doesn’t like it.
But.
But something has shifted. Sieun can feel it between them. He’s sure Suho can feel it too.
He feels lighter. The weight on his chest has retreated. But that isn’t the most remarkable thing.
With something akin to shock, Sieun realizes that the stone that’s been in his stomach for the past three years isn’t there. It’s gone. Like Suho picked it up and threw it out.
Or maybe like he taught Sieun how to do it himself.
Something has been fixed between them that neither knew was broken.
When they lock eyes again, there are fresh tears spilling down Sieun’s face.
“Stop crying,” Suho says with something close to exasperation. “I don’t know what to do when you cry.” This makes Sieun laugh, and Suho releases a startled noise from the back of his throat. “That’s even weirder.” But he smiles too. Smiles like he can’t help it. Smiles like he used to.
And it’s like no time has passed at all.
Suho is back. He’s really back.
A booming voice approaching from behind draws both boys’ attention. “You gonna introduce us, Sieunnie?”
Sieun turns to see Baku approaching with a grin, hands in his pockets as he observes the scene. The other two boys trail behind, Hyuntak looking around awkwardly and Juntae very pink in the face.
Sieun had forgotten they were there.
He turns away, embarrassed, and roughly mops his face with the back of his sleeve. He glances up at Suho’s uncomfortable expression, seeing the streaks there, and remembers that Suho can’t move, so he reaches up to thumb the tears from his friend’s cheeks as best he can, squishing his face around and eliciting a surprised, indignant noise from Suho.
It’s not subtle, but it isn’t like his friends haven’t been watching the whole show anyways.
“I’m Baku,” Baku says, puffing out his chest and paying absolutely no attention to the heavy emotions hanging leftover in the air around them. He starts to offer a hand to Suho but thinks better of it, clapping down on Sieun’s shoulder instead where he’s still kneeling in front of the wheelchair. “That’s Gotak, and that’s Juntae. You’re Suho.”
It isn’t a question, but Suho still grins and nods. “The one and only. Bet you’ve heard a ton about me.”
“Actually, no,” Baku says, scratching his jaw. “Sieunnie here isn’t the most talkative one in the bunch. But any friend of his is a friend of ours.”
“Does he have many friends?” Suho asks, looking so surprised that Sieun sort of wants to smack him.
“Nope. We’re it,” Baku boasts, before adding as an afterthought, “He’s kind of mean, actually.” Maybe Sieun will smack both of them.
“Not very friendly,” Hyuntak agrees, coming to stand next to Baku. “It was sort of like trying to make friends with a radish at first. A scary, moody radish.” Make that three of them. Three people getting smacked.
“But he’s really sweet deep down,” Juntae adds, coming to his defense, still red-cheeked and not meeting Sieun or Suho’s eyes.
“That’s our ice princess,” Baku says affectionately, ruffling Sieun’s hair with so much force his neck is pushed down into his shoulders.
Suho’s eyebrows disappear into his bangs, his gaze going to Sieun as a shit-eating grin splits his face. “Ice princess?”
“Yeah, that’s what we—”
“Okay,” Sieun snaps, cutting Baku off. “That’s enough.”
Suho’s smile is slowly turning into something wickedly delighted.
Sieun is about to drag all three of them away from Suho so they can stop embarrassing him but Suho interrupts.
“So has our ice princess been staying out of trouble?”
Sieun looks up at Baku, warning him down with his eyes using the bone-chilling stare that he’s seen bullies twice his size flinch away from.
Baku ignores it completely.
“Hah! It’s a miracle this guy isn’t in jail! You should’ve seen this one fight—”
Sieun elbows Baku hard in the shin.
“Yah! Watch it! Anyways, let me tell you the story of how we first met. This little psycho was getting ready to take on thirty guys by himself—”
“It wasn’t—”
“Shh, I’m telling the story. So there he is in an alley…”
Baku goes on to weave a highly dramatized version of their first meeting in which Sieun is some sort of ninja who single-handedly takes down fifteen trained fighters before being overwhelmed, at which point Hyuntak and Baku swooped in to save the day.
The whole time he’s talking, Suho is looking between Sieun and his friends like he couldn’t be happier, gasping and laughing and shouting in all the right places, and Sieun feels his heart swell to the point of pain.
This is real. It’s all real.
It feels like everything is right with the world, if only for this moment.
Sieun knows there will be more trouble down the line. There will be bullies who don’t know when to quit. Baku and his big mouth are going to start fights the others will get caught up in. The Union is going to cause more problems. Old enemies will undoubtedly resurface.
But he isn’t alone. Not anymore. He hasn’t been for a while, but now he truly feels it. He feels the truth like it’s a part of him.
And he knows they’ll be ready for whatever comes next.