Sanghyuk had actually met Moonhyuk and Soojin at a party. They had touched him gently, kissed his neck, his skin like he was a little bit more than just something to be used. Maybe not enough for him to feel more than an animal, but enough to make him want to lean into the touch.

Moonhyuk later jerks him off until he comes and it’s the first time he’s allowed in two months so he takes it, thanking Moonhyuk incessantly as he does; like the he is. His knees are bruised and his s are burning but his pride still the same. Later, when Moonhyuk and Soojin ask – they asked, which Sanghyuk knew was a front but they fact that they did was enough to make him forget for a second – if they could bring him home with them, he does not fight. He kisses Jooncheol’s feet, and thanks him for his care, and allowed himself to stay alive for the next three days of torture before Moonhyuk and Soojin were ready to take him in. Jooncheol had left him in ropes, with things inside him that had made him bleed, and Sanghyuk was so desperate to please that he bit huge chunks out of his arm to stop himself from screaming.

He had thought Moonhyuk and Soojin would be better.

Jooncheol was violent, always angry, and over the course of being Jooncheol’s, Sanghyuk had been ignored in every way there is – He had thought anyone at all would be better. But under the hands of Moonhyuk and Soojin, Sanghyuk had been slowly erased from the world. They wanted him to scream, and to moan, but never to speak. They were harsh and unforgiving, punishing if he was ever off by a minute with their morning routine. They used food and clothing and loneliness as tools to control him. They didn’t care that he was a kid – they held him to impossible standards and later beat him as they saw fit. They took everything that made Sanghyuk a human away and made their beloved pet something else.

People think Sanghyuk was abused, but it was more than that. He had been broken. Completely. Perhaps irreparably.

***

It’s been three months and they’ve been busy moving houses.

“Hyuk-ah, should we get new sheets, or should we just bring our old ones over?” Hongbin shouts from the living room. It startles Sanghyuk a little, but not so much that he loses a grip on himself.

“I’d like to bring the ones I’m using now over, if that’s okay.” So he replies and continues working, stacking his books nicely into labelled boxes. He had packed his books last, because he’s been busy studying these days. Wonshik hyung used to give him tests every month but there hasn’t been one the past three and he just knows one is coming soon.

“Alright,” Hongbin says. “But you’re hugging them on the way there.”

Sanghyuk smiles to himself. “I will.”

They’re moving to an apartment about 40 minutes from Seoul. Hongbin had dragged Sanghyuk to see the house and Sanghyuk really likes it – they both do, but doesn’t mean they’re not both a little sad about moving out from their current one. Everywhere he looks, there’s something wrong with the current house. The floor heating is non-existent, and the installed heater is so overworked, it rattles every time they turn it higher than a barely bearable temperature. There’s a leak in the toilet and the water dripping from it is almost drilling a hole into the tiles. There’s a gap in most of the windows, and it gets either too hot or too cold if the weather outside is anything but neutral.

Even still, it’s the first home Sanghyuk has ever known – or at least it’s the only one he remembers. It doesn’t matter that he’s had a breakdown in every visible corner of the house. For every bad memory he has in this space, he has had many more warm showers and hot soup and nice touches.

The new apartment is great. They have top-grade floor heating. There is a sleek perfection in the way the house is designed – sharp edges and marble counter-tops. Nothing in the house is leather. There’s a balcony, which Sanghyuk really appreciates. Hongbin had chosen this flat over the other one solely for this reason.

Most of their furniture is already there; all they have left to do is pack their belongings and say goodbye. Sanghyuk takes his time with that, as does Hongbin.

Hongbin had bought this apartment from what little money he had after running away – his pay from part-time jobs at the company and from his secret job as student manager of the University’s basketball team. This house means so much more than an apartment located in a bad part of town. This house is his first independence, his first breath of non-stifling air, the holding place of all his dreams. As he finally takes a last look at the house – everything already loaded into the car – he realizes just how much of his youth was spent yearning for a safe space like this. Nothing better, nothing worse. The terrible heater is part and parcel of the reminder that he is more than just his family status. He’s just a person trying to find his place in the real world – not some made up, fantasy one where everything is solved by money.

And not only that, this house is where he nursed Sanghyuk back to health. As they lock up the house for the last time, he really, really looks at Sanghyuk, and marvels at just how far the both of them have come. Sanghyuk is almost taller than him now if his back is anything less than straight. He’s starting to put on some noticeable weight, and it’s so… amazing, how much time can change a person.  

He’s made so many goddamn right decisions with Sanghyuk, and so many wrong ones as well, but here they are. They survived. One can almost say they thrived.

Hongbin turns the engine on. “You ready?”

Sanghyuk, while trying look at Hongbin over all the sheets he's swallowed up in. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

***

Jaehwan’s MRI scan wasn’t optimistic three months ago, and it still hasn’t changed now. Nakhun goes over the semantics with him, but his brain doesn’t get past the words after “permanent damage” no matter how hard he tries.

“So… what are my options?” Jaehwan’s fingers tap restlessly at the cigarette pack in his pocket. He’s been trying to quit his alcohol (sober for a day and a half and counting), but that just means he’s smoking more.

Nakhun packs his scans into a gigantic brown paper envelope. “You’re long past the period for surgery. But what we can do now is check you into a rehabilitative facility right here in the hospital.”

Jaehwan almost scoffs. “You really think I have a place in rehab?”

“Why not?” Nakhun frowns.

“I’m never gonna stick it through.” Jaehwan shoots back. “I’ve been to AA, drug rehab, all that stuff. I’ve never completed a single course.”

“Well, if you check in as a patient, you need a doctor to sign off on your release papers if you want to leave.”  

“What… the heck.” Jaehwan’s raises his eyebrow. “That actually sounds so terrible.”

Nakhun sighs. “It’s your best bet now, Jaehwan-ah.” 

“Okay..." Jaehwan leans back in his chair. "But what’s my other best bet?”

“I told you, there is no other –” Nakhun sees the smirk on Jaehwan’s face and gives up. “Yeah, we can get you to pee in a cup and see if that helps.”

Jaehwan actually laughs. “Nice one.”

Nakhun holds back a smile, rolls his eyes and slides a few pamphlets over. “How about I give you some time to think about it? My experience with TBI is that time doesn’t heal it.”

“Fine,” Jaehwan says too-begrudgingly, because he knows he’ll look at the information the moment he gets out of the building and he’ll officially admit himself into the hospital by the end of the week.

It’s too tiring living like this.

It’s not because he doesn’t think he can survive another winter on the streets. It’s because he doesn’t want to. He wants his life to be over. There’s so much crushing him – the guilt of what he has done to the people around him, to Sanghyuk, to his own body and pride, shame of just how many things he could have done better; could have done right. His head hurts all the time, his body craves alcohol and drugs almost as much as he craves good sleep, and nothing has ever helped any of that.

He hasn’t wanted this life for a long time coming. But every time he tries to end it, there was always something bigger, more compelling, to pull him in another direction. Call it his humongous ego, or call it his undying shamelessness. He has secretly been holding out for a life better than the one he has right now.  

So he’s going to give it another shot. It’s his resolution for the year. At least this time, he doesn’t have to sacrifice a day’s worth of meal money for a bus trip down to the AA centre.