Chapter Text
In every story, there’s a hero. The hero can take any shape or form, but the three common denominators between all heroes are their selfless nature, sunny disposition, and almost overbearing empathy. With these combined traits, the hero always saves the day and brings a smile to everyone around them.
Youngjun isn’t a hero, not even in his own story. If anything, he’s just some background character that no one gives a second thought to, often ignoring him and even going as far as to shove him out of the way without a second thought as though he's not even worth another thought. No one knows who he is and no one cares enough to try to know who he is.
That’s why, when he sees the new duo transfer students from Japan, bright and full of life in their eyes, he thinks nothing of it, simply returning to scribbling nonsensical doodles into his notebook. There’s no way they wouldn’t simply write him out of their stories as well, because there’s absolutely no reason for them to get involved with his nonexistent story— and that is how it is for the next several days. They take in the spotlight while Youngjun quietly blends into the background.
So color him surprised when Youngjun gets shoved off to the side one day and one of them rushes in to intervene for some reason. When he offers him a hand to help him up, an innocent and worried expression shows instead of his normally happy expression. He asks, “are you okay?” and Youngjun is suddenly hit by the realization that the bright blue beanie with floppy ears on his head make him obnoxiously hero-like. Truly the epitome of a hero to every piece of work. He doesn’t say anything though. He simply accepts the hero, Hagiwa’s, assistance and proceeds to move on with his day as a background mob.
Youngjun moves on, but Hagiwa doesn’t.
For some reason, Youngjun is suddenly orbited by Hagiwa by their next class period. He pulls up a chair next to his desk and grins, “hey, I never got your name by the way. Mine is Hagiwa!”
“It’s Youngjun…” he mumbles back, acutely aware of the pointed stares from everyone in their classroom. He knows and understands that he shouldn’t be here. This has to be charity work at best, right?
“Younjun?” Hagiwa tilts his head, an ear flopping over and making him extremely puppy-like in Youngjun’s eyes.
“No, Youngjun.”
“Younjun.”
“There’s an ‘ng’ in my name. You–ng–jun.”
“Yo–un–jun…” Hagiwa blinks one, twice, before letting out a frustrated whine, “man, Korean is so diffilcult some times!” He stops, realizing his slip-up, and tries to enunciate again, “Di–ffi–cult. Younjun, Korean is difficult.”
“You still didn’t get my name right.”
“Ah! I swear, I’m trying!” Hagiwa whines, childishly stomping his foot, and at that moment, he looks exactly like an angry bunny.
Not very hero-like. Maybe more like the mascot to a cartoon. The correlation made in his head makes Youngjun chuckle.
“Hey, Younjun laughed!”
“No I didn’t.”
“It’s okay, Younjun has a really pretty smile.”
The compliment feels a little out of nowhere, but when Hagiwa is smiling so leisurely at him, Youngjun can’t help but blush and look away.
And that’s how Hagiwa worms his way into his life. Every morning, he would pull up a chair to Youngjun's desk to talk to him, or when he sees Youngjun from a distance despite hanging out with his friends, he'll give such a bright smile and excitedly wave at him. At one point, he starts going out of his way to sit with Youngjun during lunch or inviting him to a study session at the library or to go to the local snack shop after class that day.
The eccentric boy keeps putting a mob character like him on his radar, and for some reason, he doesn’t leave. If anything Hagiwa seems to genuinely enjoy Youngjun’s presence, and with the way that he continues to play nice with everyone else but always returns to Youngjun, it makes him wonder if Hagiwa is possibly his hero. Maybe, instead of a faceless background character to save, Hagiwa is trying to bring Youngjun into his story.
The idea warms his heart. With every hug and hand hold that Hagiwa shares with him, it makes him wish for more. Even when Youngjun leans his head on his shoulder, Hagiwa doesn't comment on it and instead lays his head on top of his and continues to talk about everything and anything. He gives so much to Youngjun, and that nurtures within him a type of bottomless greed where he wishes the rest of the world would disappear and leave only the two of them behind.
“Hagi-chin!”
“Kei-chan!”
Hagiwa gets up from his spot next to Youngjun and runs over to hug Keiten, letting the other transfer student pick him up and spin him around. Once they settle, Keiten looks up and smiles at him, “oh, hey Youngjun! Sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere, but my mom wants Hagi-chin over for dinner as soon as possible.”
“Oh. Okay.” was his automatic reply. Habitual, if anything, for an NPC like him.
Youngjun hates having to exchange his goodbyes with Hagiwa. He wishes Hagiwa chose him again instead of choosing to go with someone else. He needs Hagiwa to stay with him. He understands that the hero is shared by everyone, but he hates it.
The world is no long that vibrant sky blue and everything feels so dark and murky.
These feelings only worsen for Youngjun as time goes on, taking notice to how often Keiten would practically spirit away Hagiwa from his side. Hagiwa would always share that smile to everyone, but that pure joy that he shares with Keiten is different, and the jealousy in his already paper-thin heart stains it like an ugly coffee stain haphazardly spilt without a second thought.
He didn't mean to become attached to Hagiwa, the hero that kept inserting him into his story, but he did, and that was all his to fault, because now Youngjun feels absolutely sick whenever he isn't by his side. The empty spot besides him ate away at his core and he hated it. He hates it. He feels disgusting. This is all Hagiwa's fault for making him feel like he matters when he isn't meant to be anything more than a silhouette in the background.
"Youngjun?"
Youngjun stops a step before the stone staircase and turns back to Hagiwa, the sun setting behind him and giving him an almost angelic glow. The leaves of the trees around them gently rustle with the wind, and the birds chirp peacefully as if all is right in the world. How fitting for the main character of his world.
"Hagiwa… do you like me?" A shameless question, really, but Hagiwa doesn't think anything of it.
Like the ever-so optimistic hero he is, he gives a bright grin, overflowing with love and happiness. "Of course I do!"
"And you like Keiten?"
"Well, yeah. He's my first friend since transferring here. I guess that makes him kinda special?" And Hagiwa lights up like the way he always does whenever Keiten is involved. "Oh! That reminds me, I gotta head over to Kei-chan's place today, so I guess this is as far as I can go with you."
It hurts. It's gross. He wants to rip up these pages until they're nothing but scraps.
Hagiwa stops smiling and a more concerned frown appears. He slowly takes a step closer to Youngjun and reaches for his hand. "Hey, is something wrong?"
Everything is wrong. Youngjun was never supposed to be anything more than a nameless background character. He was never supposed to have special interactions with the hero. He was never supposed to have developed as a character with feelings that ate away at him like maggots to a corpse.
"Why do you keep hanging out with Keiten." Not a piece of dialogue befitting an NPC like him. It's an accusation. A demand for an answer.
And Hagiwa, with all of his feelings worn on his as sleeves, looks surprised, before his expression softens to that of understanding. "I'm sorry, Youngjun. I didn't mean to make you feel this way."
But he does feel this way. He wants more, more, and more because Hagiwa keeps giving everything to him. Youngjun feels disgusting and the disgust always worsens whenever Hagiwa is gone. Does Hagiwa even understand this feeling? There's no way he does, right? He's the hero after all— all sunshine and rainbows without a care for what kind of aftereffect they could cause to those around them. How horrible. Being thrown aside by the hero is so much worse than being tossed to the side without a name to attach to his face.
"Then what am I supposed to feel?"
He pauses, and then softly shakes his head. "I can't tell you how you're supposed to feel."
"Why not? If you can make me feel I certain way, you should be able to tell me how I should feel." Youngjun couldn't help the bitterness seep into his tone, wondering why the hand that reached out to save him is the same hand that's being used to reach out to others. Why couldn't it just be him? Hagiwa has thrown others away before just to come to him, so why is Keiten different? Why is it that Hagiwa has the agency to pull Youngjun into his story and then throw him back into the background for someone else?
"That wasn't what I meant and you know that Youngjun."
"Do I?"
When Hagiwa realizes that trying to talk to Youngjun is like talking to a wall, he can't help but frown, looking a little upset with the situation.
“Listen, I can't force you to feel or think a certain way, but I promise that you’re important to me and I care about you, okay? I know you're upset, and that's perfectly fine, and I want to help you and make you feel better and heard, but I'm not… quite sure how I can comfort you right now. Let me think over how best to make it up to you.” Hagiwa squeezes his hand, obviously meant to be a comforting gesture but to Youngjun, the gesture couldn’t be any more empty, especially when Hagiwa lets go, turns his back to Youngjun, and barely spares another glance back. “I’ll make sure to call you after dinner, Youngjun.”
For the first time in his life, Youngjun hates that he’s the background character. Always the background character, never by the hero’s side. Not the best friend, not the love interest, not even the villain. He just isn’t the priority in the hero’s life other than some nobody to be meshed with the collective populace in need of saving. There's nothing of substance in him and he can be tossed aside at any moment. Another footnote in the margin to be ignored. How fucking pathetic.
“Hagiwa.” Youngjun reaches out and grabs a hold of Hagiwa’s arm, pulling the latter into a screeching halt. “I don’t matter in your life, do I?”
The question causes Hagiwa to swivel his head quickly, eyebrows furrowed in pure confusion and shock. “What?”
“I was just someone to pass time with, right?” He could feel his world falling apart like paper that's been drowned to the point of melting, and in reaction, he could only clamp down harder onto Hagiwa’s arm to at least hold onto the most important thing in his life. “It didn’t have to be me. It could’ve been anyone, but I was the easiest backup option.”
“What?! No! That was never the case. You are important to me. Why do you think—?” Hagiwa winces, glancing down as Youngjun’s nails begin to bite into his arm. “Youngjun, let go. We can talk this out—”
Youngjun digs his fingers down further, the skin underneath his nails turning redder by the second as he takes a step forward. “If I’m so important to you, why do we have to talk it out? You should just stay here by my side instead if I’m that important to you. See? The fact that you’re trying to run away is just proof of how worthless I am to you.”
“That’s not—!” Hagiwa whimpers out a cry of pain, looking down to see that Youngjun’s nails have dug so deep that he’s drawing blood out. He looks back up to Youngjun, eyes watering as he weakly tries to tug his arm away— but that won’t happen. Youngjun decided that he’ll never let Hagiwa leave him again. “L-Let go, you’re scaring me.”
"'Let go'?" A rather cruel chortle leaves Youngjun's mouth. "And then what? You can go off to Keiten and pretend that I don't exist anymore? I bet if I died, you wouldn't even care. I could be torn limb to limb and you'd just go cry in his arms, wouldn't you?"
“Youngjun, let go!” and in a fit of disturbed upset, Hagiwa abruptly flings Youngjun’s hand off, but despite his smaller stature, he always underestimates how much strength he actually possesses, because he ends up hitting Youngjun’s chest, causing him to stumble back and lose his footing.
As he fell backwards, looking up at Hagiwa's horrified expression, Youngjun thought that this wouldn’t be too bad of a death because then, he could be immortalized into Hagiwa’s memory, like a scar that could never be removed. Forever ingrained into Hagiwa's every waking moment. The thought is rather pleasant to Youngjun, and he likes the idea that no matter what friends or people Hagiwa would meet, he would always remember how he couldn’t save Youngjun instead. However, just as he accepted such a wonderful outcome, Hagiwa leaps forward and hugs Youngjun tightly, trying his best to shield Youngjun as they both tumble down the stone stairs.
When Youngjun comes to, he's staring up at the indigo sky, the back of his head aching and his body feeling like lead. His face stings with various new cuts and his body is full of bruises, but all of the physical hurt is much too easy to ignore with a familiar body laying on top of him, silently sobbing into his chest.
"Hagiwa…?"
He couldn't have said it any louder than a whisper as he feels like the wind got knocked out of his lungs, yet Hagiwa jolts up as if he yelled at him.
Seeing as how the boy's hat had been knocked off and he looks much worse for wear, Youngjun can easily assume that Hagiwa, being the hero that he is, dove head first into danger and tried to protect Youngjun the entire fall down the stairs. Obviously, with how Hagiwa took the brunt of the fall, the boy looks extremely disheveled, cuts and bruises scattered across his face and arms— and yet, his expression is the one that absolutely crumbles, hot tears dripping down onto Youngjun’s face. He looks absolutely mortified as though Youngjun was the one that somehow came out more beaten up than him.
“I—! Oh m-my God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—! Y-Youngjun I’m so sorry, I–I didn’t—!"
And he cries, and sobs, and the only breaths he's taking is when he's apologizing to Youngjun. His poor little hero's face is all scrunched up into ugly despair over having hurt him and the hot tears continue to pour down to hit his face.
The absolute love he feels is almost unbearable. All of the pain and ache felt throughout his body pales in comparison to the suffocating ecstasy he feels. Ah, Youngjun feels so loved, and he loves his pathetic little hero so much, so desperate in trying to save him that he breaks down into an inconsolable mess if he causes hurt instead.
Youngjun feels his face flush and he can't help but smile. He reaches up and gently pulls Hagiwa's trembling figure closer to him, letting him cry his heart out into the crook of his neck.
"It's okay, Hagiwa. I'm okay as long as you're here." Youngjun comforts him with a happy hum, his heart practically overflowing with love and adoration for Hagiwa, who won't stop apologizing and crying a river for him.
He loves him so much. His oh-so gullible hero with a bleeding heart. Youngjun feels so loved too, knowing that he's the one who has the ability to absolutely crush Hagiwa and piece him back together.
Oh, what a happy revelation.