Chapter Text
The video is blurry, as many of them have been, taken with shaky hands on a camera with insufficient zoom. There are others, more than one would have guessed, maybe. This must be the eleventh or twelfth that he's watched in succession. There are clearer ones, taken on a telephoto lens, held in steady hands that only began to shake half way through, the perfectly framed shot dropping out a little in surprise but somehow, not stopping. Then there are the ones like this, taken on something far less professional— someone's second-or-third-hand last generation i-phone that they've dropped a few too many times, perhaps. Some start halfway through, scrambled for after the surprise, and some swing from the face of another in the audience to the stage, and some are on them from the start. None so far, for all they've captured that they probably shouldn't, have shown him what he's searching for.
Getting used to seeing yourself through the pixels of a screen and hearing your voice through the false clarity of a recording is all a hazard of the job. It's not as bizarre now, in fact, it's almost clinical the way Sunoo clicks through the videos, studying them, watching and waiting for the moment that so far none have captured. He's so used to the image now, to the sequence of events, that he finds himself thinking it's a pity he couldn't sit and do this before he gave his statement to the police. It would have been much clearer, he imagines. He doesn't even remember what he said, but it can't have been half as accurate— he barely remembered any of it when he watched the first video, or at least, not how it really happened. It was like watching a stranger, or an episode of television. It all seemed slower, in the moment, and then quicker, and so much louder. It had felt like the whole arena had been silent, like you could have heard a pin drop in the space. He would have sworn every person in the venue had heard every word.
He knows, now, that isn't true. You can't hear anything in the videos once their microphones are switched off besides the gasps and the whispering from the people behind the cameras.
This one cuts off as Sunghoon starts to run, so he exits from full screen and scrolls down to click the next. It's another of the would-be fancams, a little steadier than its hastily grabbed counterparts, and he zooms through them rising from their seats and climbing the stairs to the stage. He thinks the angle of this one seems different. He drags the video on, skipping thirty seconds or so at a time, seeing the events again in frozen unfocused flashes: the figure running up the stairs; the shock on Heeseung's face, arms stretched out in front of him; himself, standing, head tilted up to the ceiling as he tries not to move, the knife at his throat invisible at this angle. He skips past the desperate negotiation, Sunghoon with his hands raised in surrender above his head, talking softly and intently with his eyes fixed on Sunoo's neck all the while. He skips past the moment he was flung to the side, pushed to the edge of the stage behind her and grabbed before he could turn back around. He skips past the long, terrifying walk she and Sunghoon took towards the exit, and past the moment she kissed him, the moment she dropped it, the moment he ran, the moment they tackled her. He lets the video play then, and it tracks Sunghoon as he folds over, hands braced on his knees while he spits on the floor. It follows him sprinting across the floor of the arena towards the camera, flinging the bottle of water Wonyoung had pushed into his hand aside, barelling towards the crush of people on a far sofa that Sunoo had been contained within. It follows him as he pushes his way through, and Sunoo holds his breath, leaning in, squinting at the picture too pixellated to separate limbs from jackets, as Sunghoon is absorbed inside, as the ranks close around him and they are both once more shielded entirely from view.
Another fruitless exercise.
It's hard to know which is greater— the relief or the disappointment. As much as the fear of what he might see grips him, as much as the sickness lies waiting to surge up his oesophagus if he finds it recorded in plain sight, he just wants to know. He wants proof, one way or the other, of what happened. Of whether it happened.
"Please stop watching those."
His father sounds tired. Stood at the doorway to his bedroom, he's silhouetted by the light in the hallway- the light outside is gone, now. It faded before Sunoo even noticed it. For all the times he's watched it back on a little black rectangle, he has avoided thinking how it must have been for them, watching on the TV on the wall of the living room.
"There's dinner, you should come and eat. And please— please put your phone away. It does no good reliving it."
He can't tell him the truth of what he's searching for, not when he doesn't even know the truth himself.
"Sorry, dad."
He follows him through to the kitchen, where his mother is bustling around, piling uneccessary amounts of unecessarily fancy food on the table, which he knows better than to comment on. The muscles under his ribs ache from being shoved into a bony shoulder and jostled up and down as Kei ran with him, which he knows better than to complain about, and there's a stinging itch under the dressing at his throat that he knows better than to scratch. Being an idol is a great school in how not to do things. He already knows how not to sleep when he's tired, how not to eat when he's hungry, how not to wince when dancing on torn-up feet and how not to cry when he's heartbroken. All restraint is the same, really.
He doesn't feel much like eating, but he piles his bowl high anyway, pretending not to notice the look of relieved approval from his mother as he picks his way through all his favourite banchan and expensive cuts of meat and seafood.
His parents talk around him, about anything and everything that isn't the reason he's here eating with them instead of back in the dorm. About their work, their neighbours, his cousins, kids he went to middle school with who he can barely remember who are getting married or doing their service or having babies or graduating from law school. All of the things that Sunoo, for all the success he has found, will never give them reason to brag about.
The doorbell rings. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that around the table they all freeze, staring the direction of the hallway. Sunoo slips his phone out of his pocket, hands trembling a little, to check if he has any notifications, anything to suggest prior warning or a delivery or anything, but theres nothing there. He's not sure what he's frightened of, exactly, what he fears coming to the door. The police said they didn't need anything else from him. The press don't know his family's address, and surely no journalist would be stupid enough to risk their outfit being blacklisted by hybe to come even if they did. Presuming, of course, the company would make good on that promise of protection.
"It's probably a delivery, I ordered some things, I'll go and answer," his mum says, rising from the table, chopsticks laid neatly beside her bowl.
The Stay here remains unsaid, but Sunoo hears it loud and clear. The cut on his neck stings every time he moves his head.
His spoon rests uselessly in his hand, a tight, mild nausea that sits in his throat making him unable to keep eating as they listen to the shuffle of his mother's slippers down the hallway, the pause as she looks at the video feed from outside, and the gasp, her scrambling to undo the lock and pull the door open.
"Oh, come in, come in, oh dear."
There's no other voice, and Sunoo's neck fucking hurts as he twists to try and see, so much he worries he might have split it open again. He pushes his chair back and walks into the hallway and locks eyes with Sunghoon.
His hair is a mess. He is a mess, sliders and sweatpants and a hoodie zipped over what looks like a bare chest, padded coat on over the top but not fastened even though its mid-January and fucking freezing outside. At first Sunoo thinks he has, despite everything else about his appearance, put make-up on to come here and put it on badly, and then he realises. It isn't that he's put it on. It's that he hasn't taken it off.
"Hyung? How did you get here?"
"Taxi." His voice is raspy, and he's staring at the dressing on Sunoo's throat, eyes unwavering. "Does... does it hurt?"
Sunoo winces, pulling what he hopes is an explanatory face. He doesn't know how to treat this person, this wild, frightened man in his hallway who he feels like he's never met before. He settles for honesty.
"It stings, a lot," he says. "Like a papercut. But its not serious. It won't scar. Hyung have you- you look awful. Have you eaten? Have you slept?"
"I can't." His tone is flat, miserable. "I tried, and I— everytime I close my eyes, you die."
The guilt is like a tidal wave, rushing in, ready to knock him off his feet. He sways on the spot, eyes hazy, until he can concentrate on anything other than holding himself upright.
"I'm not dead." It's a stupid thing to say. Sunghoon knows he isn't dead, he can see him, had seen him already before they were seperated, had felt his pulse and his breath and his shaking, very much alive body pressed against his. "Look, here, feel my pulse. I'm not dead."
"I know."
He shuffles forward anyway, like a magnet pulled, and lifts a trembling hand toward Sunoo's throat. His knuckles graze the edge of the dressing there and he flinches, nearly withdrawing his hand, before he slides his fingers to the side to hover over his carotid artery. Sunoo can feel it like a livewire, the tiny point of connection drowning out all other sensations his body is trying to throw at him. His touch is so light. It's too light, too delicate, he isn't pressing down on the vessel enough to feel his pulse, and Sunoo can see it in the way his body stiffens and how the breaths he's taking get more shallow and he can't bear it. He grabs his hand and pulls it down, shoves it up underneath the hoodie and the tshirt he's wearing to press on the bare, unscarred skin above his heart. He holds it there firmly even as Sunghoon startles, until he can feel his own heartbeat echo through their hands and watch his shoulders inch downwards with every thump.
"Not dead," he says, as firmly as he can. "And you need to eat."
Its a trial getting Sunghoon to even put anything in his mouth. He obviously doesn't want to, chewing at it like its glue, or dirt, like it tastes of nothing. It doesn't. Sunoo's mother cooks when she's anxious, and she's a very good cook, and she's had good reason to be very anxious. The food is delicious, but it's clear that Sunghoon can't taste it.
He manages half a bowl of rice, a little bit of meat and a few half-hearted nips of some of the banchan before he lays his spoon and chopsticks down. He doesn't say anything to any of them, besides quietly thanking Sunoo's mother when she first hands him a bowl. His lips are chapped, bitten red, and the skin around his mouth looks raw and tender over the beginnings of his stubble. It looks bizarrely like beardburn, but it doesn't take long for Sunoo to realise the foundation there is mostly gone too, and he's probably scrubbed at his mouth over and over to the point of irritation.
"Do your parents know you're here, Sunghoon-ah?" Sunoo's dad asks gently.
He nods.
"I messaged them."
Sunghoon's voice is tired and monotone.
"Well I don't want to send you back accross the city." He's gruff in his decisiveness. "You can stay here tonight, we can make up a spare—"
"Oh, darling, I'm sure the boys don't mind sharing, do you?"
Sunoo blinks, and then shakes his head as prompted by the frankly crazy eyes his mother is sending him. It's automatic to try to clear the table, but he finds them both shooed away.
"You had a long night," she says. "You should wash up and rest, you need your sleep."
Sunghoon trails him like a ghost out of the kitchen and to his bedroom, hovering while Sunoo digs out the largest pyjama-adjacent clothes he can find. He finds a spare towel and leads him to the bathroom, sits him on the toilet while he goes to fetch his skincare stuff.
There's an obvious change when he returns. That wound up, frightened animal look is back, and a hand clutches at his wrist when he lifts the cotton wool soaked in make-up remover. Sunghoon's hand wraps around, and he's convinced he must be able to feel his pulse again through his fingers. He momentarily considers detaching from him, but continues with the shackle instead, until Sunghoon's face is free of all traces of yesterday's make-up and he can push a spare toothbrush into his hand and point at the sink.
Afterward, Sunghoon sits back down on the toilet and Sunoo finds himself opening his bag again and tending to his face until it has been gently cleansed, and toned, expensive, sensitive moisturiser applied with special attention to the irritation around his mouth. Sunoo pictures for a moment getting a razor out of his toileteries bag, of lathering Sunghoon's face up and putting blade to skin. He would let him. He would sit, as he is, eyes trained flatly on the bandage over Sunoo's Adam's apple, obedient and still.
He leaves his razor where it is, contained safely in its case.
He tries to leave Sunghoon in the bathroom too, but that plan doesn't work out. The hand that has returned to grip his wrist refuses to let go, and it twists awkwardly when he tries to turn and leave Sunghoon to shower in peace.
"I do— "
"Hyung," he says quietly, calming a spooked animal. "You still have product in your hair. You need to wash up."
"I know, I know I just… please, can you— will you—" Sunghoon breathes in, loosening his grip. When he speaks again its quieter, embarrassed. "I think I'll freak out again. If I can't see you. Can you stay? It'll just be, be like when we were rookies."
Sunoo never shared a shower with Sunghoon when they were rookies. He'd never shared a shower with any of them if he could avoid it, because there were things a seventeen year old gay boy simply did not do with attractive older boys. He knew the others did, and occasionally one of them might hop in with him if they were really pushed for time, and they had all dipped in and out to pee or brush teeth when it had been one open bathroom between seven. But he had always managed to swerve around sharing with Sunghoon, avoided the skin and water and reasonless teenage hormones clouding in the steam. He would have borne it, as he has borne every other difficulty, but it would have been so hard, especially in those earliest days when Sunghoon couldn't seem to decide how to feel about him, or fame, or himself, or anything at all really.
He had been so hot and cold, clinging and teasing and running away, never seeming to know where the line was, never knowing whether he wanted to freeze underground or burst from his own skin. The first time they got drunk together, a year or so after debut when things were easier between them, Sunghoon had mumbled out a confession that Sunoo scared him, sometimes. Sunoo has never asked what he meant.
Being eighteen is a condition curable only by time. Being unsure of yourself is similar affliction, but one much less consistently remedied. Sunghoon managed, somehow. He's settled now, gentler and sillier and confident, he knows how to balance the matryoshka doll layers of the old man and the daft little boy and the dedicated athlete and the handsome suave idol. He's so much less afraid of being seen through.
Sunoo sits on the closed lid of the toilet and collects Sunghoon's clothes as he sheds them, folding them neatly in his lap for want of anything better to do. They're warm and crumpled, with little white flakes of dead skin inside from wearing them too long without showering and smudges of foundation on the sleeves of his hoody. He stares at the tiled wall, ignoring the flesh in his peripheral vision as the water turns on. It doesn't move for a long time, and he sneaks a glance to the right to find Sunghoon stood still under the downpour with his eyes open but unfocused. His hair drips over his face like weed along a waterfall, but Sunoo knows if he were to run his fingers through it it would still crunch with product.
"There's shampoo on the shelf," Sunoo says, so as not to offer something he shouldn't. "Conditioner and soap, too. Use anything you want."
He's not sure Sunghoon needs the permission so much as he needs a reminder that he's awake. Sunoo is too tense to be sleepy yet, but the exhaustion is there. He too was in a hospital and then a police station most of the night, and found a difficulty in staying asleep long enough to feel rested, but he got a few hours in, at least. He's fairly sure Sunghoon hasn't even had that.
Sunghoon moves his hands like he doesn't remember what they are, like the whole process of lathering and running them through his hair, of pushing it away from his face is alien and new to him. He does it all but jerkily, uninstinctively, a second or two behind. Sunoo looks away again, and keeps his eyes on the tiles until the water shuts off. He stays that way even as Sunghoon crosses in front to retrieve the towel, as he halfheartedly dries himself off and pulls the clothes on. Only then does Sunoo dare move his head, or let his eyes focus.
The legs of Sunoo's sweatpants are too short for him, hovering around his ankles and exposing the round bone and the thick, dark hair that juts off at sparse angles. He looks at Sunoo when he's finished, hair dripping onto his shoulders. His skin is pale, the bags under his eyes purple as a bruise, and its like he's just… run out. Come to a stop, no more coal in the engine.
There is no protest as Sunoo takes the towel from his hand and sets it to his hair, rubbing and squeezing until the dripping stops. It's uncomfortable to turn his back on him, somehow, but Sunoo needs the routine of doing his teeth and his skincare, needs to claw some semblance of normalcy back into this bizarre, upturning stretch of time. He forces himself not to rush, to be as meticulous as he always is, going through every step at the right pace and waiting for each product to do its work before moving on. The only thing he neglects is a mask, sure that if he stops and stays still, even for the necessary ten minutes, the exhaustion is going to take over. So he smoothes his night cream into his face, letting it sit and absorb, and then carefully packs his products up into their bag, before turning back to Sunghoon.
He's still standing there, in the same position, eyes stubbornly propped open. He says nothing as Sunoo takes him gently by the wrist and guides him back out of the bathroom and towards his bedroom, when he's pushed down to the mattress. Sunoo climbs in after him, too tired to try to argue or find a mat for the floor. Sunghoon curls into him, on his side, and presses his ear over Sunoo's chest, not-quite-dry hair dampening the cotton of his tshirt.
Sleep has loosened the bindings in Sunoo's mind where he usually locks such thoughts away, so he finds himself idly musing over how this is not the arrangment he's ever pictured for them, were they to end up sleeping tangled in this way, but that he isn't sure he minds it, until the heat of Sunghoon's body and the weight of the exhaustion pull him down.