Being in the new apartment means being closer to Hakyeon, Taekwoon, Nakhun, Yoon, Daewon and Byungjun all at once. He’s further away from Wonshik, which is unfortunate because they have to shuffle their usual schedule – which gives Sanghyuk a lot of anxiety. 

But for the most part, Sanghyuk is happiest that he only lives 10 minutes from Taekwoon hyung now. Out of all their friends, Taekwoon is the most familiar with handling him when he’s struggling. He seems to know exactly when Sanghyuk needs help, and when he is not-okay-but-hanging-in-there.

Hongbin had recently gotten a promotion, and he’s really dedicating the new year to furthering his career. Longer hours at work and more time overseas would mean more hanging out with Taekwoon, who is apparently holding out for Fall Fashion Week.

Sanghyuk came up with a secret list of goals for himself this year too. He doesn’t want to pin it to the new fridge like Hongbin did, because his only goal seems completely, utterly impossible – to get a GED. He also needs a job, and for anyone at all to hire him, he needs to show them that he’s capable of doing something meaningful. That he’s not stupid; that he really can mean something to somebody if he someone could just let him work hard enough. 

But he has nightmares of people laughing at him for even trying to study, and he waits for them to come true. There’s a crippling fear that he’s a cheat. He’s not smart enough to pass anything, especially when he’s so many years behind his peers. Working hard won’t be enough to hide the fact that he’s simply stupid. He had briefly wondered what the qualifications were to be a phone operator, or to work in ography – but he doesn’t think he can do that anymore. Just thinking about doing all of that again – all that grovelling and pain – makes his skin crawl.

That would be a last resort, if he really cannot find anyone who wants to hire him.

He needs to find a way to pay all his debt back. Most of the lawsuit money has yet to come in, but he’s planning to give all of that to Minki and Hongbin. And there must be more that he owes – he had googled how much it costs to hire a lawyer, and he’s very sure the money he has is only just enough to cover it after paying Hongbin back. Then there’s Wonshik, and his clothes, his things.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and Hongbin has done so much more than give him a meal when he was starving and begging. It doesn’t matter that maybe in Hongbin’s world, favours can exist without any pay back. Things don’t work that way, and certainly not in his world. He cannot live knowing that he owes somebody something. He doesn’t know how they might use that power over him.

Hongbin would never press him to his knees and put hands around his neck because he hasn’t paid everything back fast enough. But he might, and it’s enough to keep Sanghyuk on his toes whenever he asks for anything at all. So when google doesn’t come up with any helpful advice (how does he write a resume when he doesn’t even have the name of an elementary school?), he resolutely decides to consult Taekwoon hyung the next time he goes over.

***

“Taekwoon hyung,” Sanghyuk asks, the moment Hongbin leaves the house. He’s trying to keep his plan a secret, but he’s sure that Hongbin could easily find out – Taekwoon is Hongbin’s friend before he is Sanghyuk’s. “How do I… get a job?”

Taekwoon frowns deeply. “What the heck do you need a job for?”

“I’m behind on so many favours.” Sanghyuk says earnestly.

Taekwoon pauses. “They’re favours for a reason.”

Sanghyuk doesn’t know what else to say. The frustration he’s tried to keep a lid on for months is threatening to bubble out. No one understands what he’s trying to say. This is not a matter of choice, this is not a matter of being a insolent child, this is a matter of survival. How does no one get that? Everybody has someone they’re responsible to – and how do you not repay them in some way? How would that ever work? Even the most parental figure in his childhood had wanted him to dress nicely to class and do his homework and not be too loud and be adopted.

“Have you talked to Hongbin about this?” Taekwoon gives him a strange look.

“Yeah, I have,” Sanghyuk says and tries not to sound impatient, because he has no right to be. “And he said to pay him back by getting better and doing chores, but that’s not enough for me. There has to be something more than that – something that he wants – I can’t – I don’t know how he wants me to pay him, and it’s – it’s really throwing me off, hyung.”

Taekwoon has a look in his eyes that Sanghyuk cannot decipher and says, “I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.”

Sanghyuk lets out a little bit of the breath he had been holding. Finally, someone is teaching him something that really matters. It’s a whole new social game out here, and he feels so lost. He can’t gauge what people need and in turn, he doesn’t know what he has to offer them. Before this, he always had someone to teach him how to survive – Minhyun, in a faraway painful memory, had told him to smile, no one wants a sulky kid with no parents, just keep quiet if you don’t want them to see your weaknesses, and his Sirs had always told him what exactly was expected of him. In painful ways he doesn’t want to admit (and he also does not mean), out here is sometimes harder than back there. There were rules out there – stay down, shut up, know your place. 

But because he likes his current life, he really doesn’t want to mess it up. He wants his friends to continue to like him (even if means letting them like him too much) – even if they’re just pretending – and he doesn’t want Hongbin to get sick of him. For that to happen, he has to learn the new game and adapt as fast as he can. There’s no time to do anything else.

***

Sanghyuk hasn’t gotten better over the past three months. In fact, he’s almost regressed in certain places if you look closely.

Sure, his wasted hand has gotten a little better as the muscles grow back strong with all the food (real food, not just porridge and pickled radish) that he has been eating, but his nightmares come back in full force and then some more. He’s waking up at least twice every night – five times on some. His fatigued memory has gotten so bad that he uses his post-its obsessively, but then forgets where they are. He switches to writing the lists on his hand with a black marker again – it started out being dorky and a little cute, but now it’s worrying and truthfully sad. Sanghyuk has to remind himself to shower and eat, even though they both thought had managed to move on from that a couple of months before the trial. On some days, Sanghyuk has to eat over the sink because he can’t stop gagging.

But these are all things they expected. Hongbin hadn’t been so naïve to think that the trial would keep things the same way. The months leading up to the café incident were so good. Sanghyuk had gotten better exponentially – it was too unbelievable, how quickly he improved. Sure, there were setbacks and bad days, but nothing that really kept him down.

But now, Sanghyuk no longer tries to fix his problems. He considers them fixed by finding ways to cope, but he no longer challenges himself to get rid of them the same way he got rid of his fear of people by going to gatherings with Hongbin.

This inertia to do anything real about his problems has made things tense. 

So when Hongbin suggests for them to go out after Sanghyuk struggles to pull himself out of a panic attack for 40 minutes and Sanghyuk refuses, instead going back to his stupid math, Hongbin kind of loses it. 

“Why don’t you want to go out?”

Sanghyuk sits up from where he’s lying down on the floor and gives Hongbin a confused look.

“It’s 11pm, Hyuk-ah. If we go to that café, there won’t be anyone there. And coffee makes you feel better, you know all of that.”

Sanghyuk wants to interject and say no, he didn’t know it was 11pm. He had been so focused on studying that he thought it was 8pm, but he doesn’t think that point is relevant right now.

“I’m okay, though,” Sanghyuk says neutrally.

“That was the third attack today, Hyuk-ah. And you know you’re gonna have nightmares if you don’t relax a little bit.”

Sanghyuk flinches, thinking that maybe he had hidden them well enough for Hongbin to not notice.

“I’m okay, hyung. Really.”

 “Can you just let me know what’s going on?” Hongbin says, and his voice is so tired and… lonely, that Sanghyuk is shocked. “You’ve been studying so much, we never talk anymore.”

Sanghyuk’s brain creaks a little under the pressure – for a moment, he sees Moonhyuk instead of Hongbin and his breathing stutters. “I’m sorry?”

“No, I mean, it’s – well, it’s not fine, but I’m just worried,” Hongbin says, standing up before Sanghyuk is ready for it, and Sanghyuk thanks the heavens that their new house has carpets wherever there is furniture, so things don’t screech and drag on the floor. “What’s going on? You seem… off.”

“I’m okay, hyung.”

“You’re not.”

It’s such a petty thing to reply that Sanghyuk almost wants to shoot back that if he really wasn’t okay, he would be wetting his bed again or sitting on the floor instead of furniture or seeing people that aren’t there. The first one hasn’t happened yet, and the next two haven’t been bad enough that he couldn’t conceal them. Then he recognizes that he’s 16 years old. These are not problems a 16 year old would have. These are problems children would have – only kids can’t control their pee – and he’s almost sick with the disgust that sinks down into his gut like a brick.

“You’re busy, hyung.” Sanghyuk whispers after the worst of the nausea passes. “I don’t want to bother you.”

“How do I make you understand?” Hongbin’s winces when he sees Sanghyuk stiffen.  “You don’t bother me.”

Sanghyuk doesn’t reply. His body wants to listen to Hongbin – he wants to go to that damned café, but the words don’t want to come out.

Don’t give in, Hyuk-ah. This is what you need to do, he thinks. He knows he’s going to get nightmares later, and he’s terrified of those – but he’s even more terrified of relenting and watching his debt to Hongbin grow larger. Maybe if he’s difficult, Hongbin will stop pushing to give him things he doesn’t need. Maybe if he forgets what it feels like to always get the things he wants, he won’t be shocked again with how little he deserves in this life. Maybe if Hongbin gets angry at him, Hongbin will tell him how much he needs to return before he can be free. Maybe Hongbin will order him to get out of his life, and that sounds so much better than just being asked.

On some days, he really hates Hongbin for making him think. Before this, he hadn’t had to realize how pathetic and different he was.  

Hongbin sighs. “Friends aren’t supposed to owe each other anything.”

“How?” Sanghyuk replies in a broken, bitter voice, when he plucks up enough courage.

Hongbin frowns. “How… what?”

“How do I learn how to understand that?” Sanghyuk asks, but it sounds more like a statement; the question mark morphing unsurely into a full stop.

When Hongbin cannot reply – whether its because Hongbin just doesn’t have the answer, or he’s taken aback by the resentment in Sanghyuk’s voice, Sanghyuk doesn’t care. He just goes back to his textbook and continues studying. He needs that GED.