Hakyeon and Taekwoon lie in bed that evening, just holding each other’s hands.

Taekwoon’s fingers are twitching, spasming, desperate whimpers of the words he doesn’t want to say. Hakyeon leans over to press a kiss against the side of his forehead, and when that doesn’t work, when Taekwoon’s eyebrows still remain knitted, eyes screwed shut, Hakyeon presses them down his lover’s face and into his neck. Butterflies. No one is better than Hakyeon at reading Taekwoon;

“I love you.” Hakyeon presses another kiss into his collar bone. Then another into his chest. Another on his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Taekwoon whispers, lips whistling as a sigh escapes. “Me too.”

“Please look at me. Please,” Hakyeon traces the side of Taekwoon’s face and puts just enough pressure beneath his fingertips to beckon Taekwoon towards him. “Please. I love you.”

Taekwoon turns over, bedsheets shifting with a crisp rustling, to face Hakyeon. He opens his eyes and shifts closer, then closer yet still, almost as if he can’t get enough of Hakyeon’s touch, as if he wants to crawl straight into Hakyeon’s skin. Taekwoon is wearing one of Hakyeon’s old college sweaters and he catches on to the way his boyfriend presses his face desperately into the scent, almost as if he’s wanting something but doesn’t dare to ask.

“You okay?” Hakyeon shifts so they’re facing each other, sharing air, sharing space. 

Taekwoon just releases a noncommittal hum (coming more from his body than his heart – bland and monotonous), moving until his head fits perfectly in the crook of Hakyeon’s shoulder. Trembling hands slide across Hakyeon’s torso. Goosebumps rise from the coldness of hands on warm skin, but Hakyeon doesn't shy away.

“What’s wrong?”

Taekwoon gives an almost-amused huff, “I was supposed to look after him.”

“Who, Sanghyuk?” Hakyeon runs his palm across Taekwoon’s cheek. “But he’s okay now, though, right? We found him. You found him.”

Taekwoon gives a small nod, but they both know it’s not fooling anyone. Hakyeon runs his hands in slow languid across the expanse of Taekwoon’s back. His boyfriends’ years as a soccer player really didn’t amount to nothing. He feels the muscles shifting beneath his hands, tensing up then relaxing, tensing relaxing. 

The waiting air grows toxic and hard-to-breathe, until Taekwoon’s heart shrinks so much that it has to go somewhere, has to implode somewhere. Hakyeon just waits patiently. 

It does implode. 

“…I wasn’t supposed to let him out of my damned sight in the first place. I messed up so bad this time. He could’ve died, you know? Like, I could've...” Taekwoon’s eyes scrunch up, like it’s a dam, pressure building up behind it, up up up until it gets too much and when he opens his eyes a fat tear rolls down his cheek. “I messed up, Hakyeon-ah. I messed up. I messed up so badly where I could’ve not messed up.”

Hakyeon shushes him, making soft gentle-sea sounds; Taekwoon’s eyes look like a tempest. “We all mess up, babe. It’s not something that can be helped.”

Taekwoon buries his face in Hakyeon’s chest, and for a moment Hakyeon wants to stay suspended in this second forever, because he really doesn’t want to mess this up. Too many things have already gone wrong. Taekwoon feels almost sick from the thought of him completely ruining someone’s life, of him being right in the center of a disaster, of Sanghyuk being hurt again. There’s something that catches in his throat, or in his heart he doesn’t even know anymore, and he just wants to lose control from the stress of the day. He knows everything is okay, but his body can’t stop feeling like it’s a statue, stiff and joints ramming into each other at the same time, cold and bubbling over with hot tears simultaneously. He can’t stop thinking about the: what ifs, should haves, and he feels like he has been hollowed out – flesh separated from skin, mind separated from body, heart separated from emotion.

Hakyeon just holds him tighter (holds him together) as he falls apart, fingers running through his hair and massaging the back of his neck.

“It’s not your fault, babe.” Hakyeon murmurs on repeat. “It’s not your fault, it’s going to be okay.”

The pillow slowly stains with the moistness of tears, and Hakyeon knows why Taekwoon is so upset. Having to witness the scene today, of Hongbin having to forcefully restrain Sanghyuk, of Sanghyuk losing where he is – or even what he is – It really scared his boyfriend. As much as Taekwoon looks dark and scary, his heart really is just flesh like everyone else.

 “Sanghyuk probably needs us right now, okay? You know how comfortable he is around you.” Hakyeon reaches up to brush away his boyfriends’ tears.

Taekwoon lets out a miserable sob, as if he’s genuinely grieving for the loss of a person. “And he’s not going to trust me anymore after this.”

“You don’t know that.” Hakyeon says firmly. “You know what? We’ll take a break tomorrow – you, me, Hongbin. Sounds good? I know you want to apologize to Sanghyuk. You can do that tomorrow, so don’t beat yourself up tonight, okay?”

Taekwoon curls up into a smaller ball and waits until Hakyeon grips him tighter before he nods.

Slowly but surely, Taekwoon’s tears slow, his breaths stop stuttering, and they both fall asleep holding each other as tight as they can, cradling the knowledge between them that all will be forgiven.

***

Sanghyuk cannot stop crying.

He literally cannot stop crying. After Hongbin finds him he is completely catatonic during the car ride, but once he steps through the doors of the house, he loses it. He pretty much kneels over in the doorway with how hard he’s crying, palms flat on the floor. 

“Oh my god,” Hongbin holds him up as much as he can. “What’s wrong? Does something hurt?”

Hongbin looks him over and he can’t find anything other than skinned palms, scraped elbows, and muddy jeans. Sanghyuk shakes his head, shoulders shaking with a force so hard it sends entire earthquakes down Hongbin’s arms.

Hongbin guides him over to the couch, takes off his jacket and the scarf that Hakyeon had lent him. “Sanghyuk-ah, what’s wrong?”

Sanghyuk just cries, cries into Hongbin’s shoulder. His fingers are reaching out at the fabric of the couch, desperate to touch something with heat, but he doesn’t dare to ask for something he might end up not liking. He needs to – touch – a person, just not, just not in that way.

Hongbin watches helplessly as the tears roll off Sanghyuk’s cheekbones, onto his chin, and splat splat splat onto the dark of his jeans. He has never seen Sanghyuk looked so pained before, which is a real feat considering the circumstances.

The boy is sobbing like his life depended on it.  The posture that Sanghyuk had painstakingly learnt to adopt (shoulders square, back straighter, ‘you deserve to exist, Sanghyuk-ah, you’re not a waste of space’) is completely gone. All that’s left is a defeated slouch, and Hongbin might be mistaken but Sanghyuk's thousand scars look angrier than usual.

“Can you look at me, please?” Hongbin slowly, carefully slides his hand across Sanghyuk’s knee – quickly retracts it when Sanghyuk moves away like he’s been shocked.

Sanghyuk looks at him with a red-rimmed look b with so much emotion that Hongbin wants to look away from the sheer intensity of something he just can’t put a finger on. He can tell Sanghyuk isn’t looking at him because he wants to, but because he thinks it’s an order. And Hongbin can’t do that to someone.

“Do you want to talk?”

Sanghyuk just shakes his head, throat working to quell the intense ache in his neck, doesn’t even bother to wipe his tears away.

***

Sanghyuk continues to cry – in the shower, over dinner, he just doesn’t stop. When he tries to read the tears just come right back, so he curls up after a while in the beanbag just so he can cry in peace. And even when the night rolls around, his body still feels like it’s bursting with uncried tears.

Hongbin sits on the corner of his bed and rubs circles on his back, but Sanghyuk’s body cannot stop purging out the tears. There’s nothing he can do, but let it.

Let it, and hope everything becomes better. 

***

When Hongbin wakes up the next day, Sanghyuk is gone.