"Hyung?"

Byunghee just opens the door wider, and Cheolyong accepts the gesture, shuffling into the room and closing the door behind him. The lights are off, but the desk lamp is on, a faint, yellow light spilling over the floor and the walls. "Can't sleep?" 

Cheolyong shakes his head, and the elder boy sighs. "Me neither. But we should, you know." He switches off the lamp, so the room is bathed in the muted city lights that stream in from the window, and sits down on his bed and pats his side. "Here." 

The maknae only hesitates for a split second before sitting down, and he can't help the small sigh that escapes his lips. Byunghee watches him for a while, quietly, not quite sure how to speak anymore. "It's hard, huh?" 

"It is." There's nothing more that needs to be said, the thick blanket of numbness that always seems to muffle out the world. "I wonder why this keeps happening to us? Were we really bad people in our past lives?" 

"Don't be silly," a small laugh escapes his lips. "Bad things happen to everyone at some point. Nobody has a perfect life, and nobody should try to. A good life is enough, we should just learn how to ... how to fix what went wrong and continue on." 

Cheolyong fiddled with the bedsheets. "Fix," he murmured. "How do we fix the things that went wrong?" 

He didn't say the rest of what was on his mind, but the implications were there, and Byunghee understood them. 

"Broken things are hard to fix," he admits. "Especially if they are severely damaged, and have been for a while. But I still think everything can be fixed, eventually. Forgiveness, patience."

"You could also stop things before they become broken, too." The maknae is now watching him with a different look in his eyes. "Couldn't you?" 

Byunghee once again presses down the overwhelming emotions that are constantly threatening to spill over. It's getting harder to keep his mind from flooding. "Yes." 

"If I take the strain off, even for a little while, I can stop the breaking." 

Part of him wants to break. The burdens are sometimes too much to bear, and sometimes Byunghee wants to break, open and let the compressed, silenced emotions come pouring out. But he can't, because now, more than ever, there is only him who must hold everything together, trying to smooth over the fractures as much as his broken self can allow him to. 

"You could. If that's what you wanted -" 

"Then," Cheolyong interrupts, his voice soft and soothing in a way that he's only heard a few times before, "may I?" 

Don't, a part of him says. If you let go now, you'll be spreading the burden when you don't have to. There is nobody else now. It won't be fair to let the younger member, the one who he needs to protect, take part of the burden that isn't his to carry.

The other part of him is tired. 

Tired, of the responsibilities he brought onto himself, tired of the suffering, of the pain he didn't know why he had to have. 

His voice is thick with the emotions he's decided to let loose when he replies, "Okay."

And a part of him still feels ashamed when he cries, though he doesn't quite know why; is it shame of showing his weakness? Shame of letting the younger boy take part of the burden that isn't his? Shame for not being able to hold himself back? 

Or something else entirely? 

Cheolyong doesn't say much, offering the same king of quiet comfort that Byunghee has seen several times in the past. It hurts to let everything out, his throat already starting to burn from his ragged sobs, but a small bubble of relief forms inside his chest. And really, if he were to be honest, it feels better, not forcing himself to be empty all the time.

"It's not good to keep it all in, hyung," the maknae says, hands patting Byunghee's back soothingly. "It will only get more painful if you leave your feelings to fester over time. It'll hurt more; I know. You let me cry in front of you. At least let me do the same." 

And if there were words that Byunghee could have said to Cheolyong at that moment, words that could have shown his gratefulness, guilt, assurance, words that could have said everything that he ever wanted to say, Byunghee did not know those words. But it didn't seem to matter; because somehow, Cheolyong seemed to understand. 

[A/N]: if i said that this chapter was going to be longer, im sorry, i lied ㅠㅠ its shorter 

but I couldnt figure out how to lengthen it or ??? add something else?? so I think I will publish this now and continue the story in the next chapter ;_; please forgive me 

also i think all this angst im writing is getting to me ㅜㅜ oops 

anyway, if anyone is even reading this I hope you are having a good day or night :))) ♥