Yugyeom had decided that jealousy was the worst, most disgusting emotion.

He hated how distant it had made him, having created a rift between him and BamBam.

And he'd tried to get rid of those useless emotions, but to no avail. He'd then tried ignoring them completely, being his usual kind self, but that too was useless.

And Yugyeom was left with a gaping hole in his heart that despite its emptiness managed to make him feel so heavy.

He knew that it was absurd – jealousy knew not of rational thinking – but Yugyeom felt like BamBam was stealing his spot.

His spot as the cute, small member who gets held and cuddled, who gets his hair ruffled and his cheeks pinched and then pretends to be annoyed by it.

Even though age made it impossible, Yugyeom felt like BamBam was stealing his spot as the maknae.

How absurd.

Yet true.

It should have been Yugyeom getting those kisses, having his hand held in tense moments, getting to sit in his hyung's laps.

And he knew it wasn't BamBam's fault; he was just being himself and he only happened to get everything Yugyeom wanted because the universe was cruel.

There was nothing he could do about it and it hurt.

 

They were having a movie night.

Yugyeom was sitting at the edge of the couch, curled up, somehow trying to shrink. He was hardly paying attention to the movie, spending most of his time looking to BamBam with envy.

BamBam, whose head was rested in Jinyoung's lap, with Jaebum snuggled close to the both of them. Jinyoung was playing with BamBam's hair and keeping Jaebum in control not to do anything too inappropriate while they were having family time. Jaebum was planting kisses to BamBam's cheeks, down his jaw and neck; his lingering touches often making the younger giggle.

And watching that delightful scene made Yugyeom crack. That had to be the peak of his jealousy so far, where he felt so sick that he had to leave.

He stood up slowly, trying not to make a sound.

“Yugs, where are you going?” Mark called, frowning.

Yugyeom had honestly not expected anyone to notice or care about his departure. He was standing in the corner of the room and he felt trapped, as all eyes were on him now; even Jaebum and BamBam’s playfulness had stopped for the moment.

“I’m tired,” he said at last, shifting from foot to foot. Just to emphasize his point, he rubbed his eyes with a sweater-paw.

“If you fell asleep here we would have taken you to your bed,” Youngjae said in a tone soft yet still laced with concern.

You’d think that this sudden surge of gentleness would make Yugyeom feel better, but no. If anything, it made him feel more upset. It felt like pity.

“I’m just tired,” he said in a small voice and his heel, trying not to let on how upset he was in the way he walked away.

He packed himself into bed slowly as if waiting for something to happen. Like someone would come to him, soothe him, but of course no one came.

No one ever did.

Yugyeom curled up under the covers and cried. Not too loudly not to let his boyfriends hear, but loudly enough to hopefully ease the pain.

It didn’t really work. All the crying did was made him feel more pathetic.

And it brought attention to him. That had to be the worst part.

The knock mortified him. The last thing Yugyeom wanted was to disturb the others. He curled up more and bit down onto his bottom lip to stifle any sobs that threatened to spill.

Maybe if he stayed quiet, the person at the door would go away, thinking that he was asleep.

Another knock.

Go away.

“Gyeomie?” It was Jackson.

Go away.

“Please open up, I wanna talk.”

There was no longer a way out. Yugyeom stood, trying to brace himself on his way to the door, trying to decide between silently listening to what Jackson might have to say and reassuring him, and denying everything and shutting him down.

In the end he came to no conclusion and when he opened the door, Yugyeom was by no means ready for the confrontation.

“Hey,” Jackson greeted, walking inside and closing the door.

“Hey,” Yugyeom responded cautiously. He felt like he was walking on thin ice, not sure what to expect and scared that everything would go very wrong very soon.

Jackson went over to sit on Yugyeom’s bed with no invitation to do so, and the younger was in no position to argue.

But he didn’t like it, how comfortable Jackson was getting – with his legs crossed at the ankles, hugging a pillow to his chest and leaning against the wall – as if he was planning to be there a long time.

Yugyeom cleared his throat. “I’m really tired,” he said, hoping to get his point of not wanting to keep this up too long across.

“I know Gyeomie,” the elder sympathized, “But this talk is long overdue.”

No way out. Yugyeom reluctantly made his way over, taking a seat on the opposite end of the bed.

He didn’t dare say anything, he want to be the one to start. He didn’t want it to start at all.

“You haven’t been well,” Jackson spoke.

“No, I’d say I’ve been...” Yugyeom started to answer.

“Love, that wasn’t a question,” Jackson said softly, maybe a little apologetically.

Yugyeom went quiet. He didn’t want to speak, he knew he’d say something wrong.

“Gyeomie... I can see that you’re hurting, we all can. And we can’t just sit in silence while you’re feeling that way.”

You’ve been fine with it so far. He didn’t say it. He just wanted it all to be over.

“If you keep quiet about it, it’ll only get worse,” Jackson tried again.

Yugyeom kept curling in on himself, hugging his knees, trying to shrink, to disappear.

“Gyeom, this is something we have to settle. You’re clearly upset and it really breaks me – us – to see you like this.”

Maybe Yugyeom was already sensitive, maybe he’d been shaken up by everything so far, maybe he’d thought himself into a horrible state of mind; maybe that was why he couldn’t stop himself from commenting,

“It breaks you,” he muttered.

Jackson blinked, not having heard him well and not having fully understood. “What?”

“It breaks you. It bothers you. Don’t pretend you care about how I’m feeling. You care about my feelings only when they start hurting your comfort,” Yugyeom mumbled, burying his face in his knees.

A part of Yugyeom felt bad for accusing his hyungs of not caring about him, but the irrational part of him prevailed, since he was already quite upset.

“That isn’t true,” Jackson said, if a little defensively. He continued, however, in a much softer tone. “I worded that badly, I’m sorry. What I meant is – I feel your pain; we all do. We can all sense that something’s wrong. And the worst part is that we can only see as far as you let on. Just thinking about how much worse it really is, that’s what breaks us.”

Jackson’s gentle tone as well as the sincerity of his words was what managed to slip past Yugyeom’s protective barriers.

The uncertainty was still at the back of his mind, the dread and the pitiful awareness of his own insignificance, but for that moment at least Yugyeom knew he was safe to cry. Not only that, but he’d be able to cry and be held and comforted.

He’d wanted nothing more.

Yugyeom didn’t trust himself to let out a sound before he was in Jackson’s arms.

The way Jackson was holding him, completely engulfing the younger in a tight embrace with his head tucked under Jackson’s chin, he really did feel small – and he was thankful for that.

Unfortunately, the moment couldn’t last forever.

The door opened way too soon and Yugyeom’s heart leaped out of his chest at the mere thought of anyone else seeing him that miserable.

Fortunately, since cuddles were nothing odd amongst the boyfriends, Jackson used that to shield Yugyeom, to make it seem like something regular. Yugyeom buried his face in the crook of Jackson’s neck, well hidden in the embrace.

It was BamBam who was at the door. He was hiding his concern with a smile – well, trying to anyway.

“I just came to check up on you. Is everything okay?” He asked.

Jackson glanced down and pecked Yugyeom’s forehead. “We were just talking. Gyeom’s sleepy.”

BamBam nodded, relieved to hear that everything was fine. And, being the lover of all things soft, he came in to take a chance and kiss the sleepy boy.

However when Bam approached, Yugyeom curled up more into Jackson, not letting Bam get too close. This was quite the surprise.

Jackson and BamBam exchanged worriedly confused looks, the elder placing his hand on top of Yugyeom’s head. BamBam slowly sat down on the bed near the two, but he wasn’t sure what to say or how to address the issue, especially since he didn’t know what the issue was.

“Baby what’s wrong?” Jackson whispered, threading his fingers through Yugyeom’s hair.

Yugyeom was shaking. He couldn’t tell the truth, which was that he simply couldn’t be around BamBam at the moment. He couldn’t even look at the elder without getting frustrated – not with Bam, but with himself for being as faulty as he was.

“Are you mad at me?” BamBam asked, his own voice trembling.

“No,” Yugyeom said. His voice came out whiny and pathetic.

“Then why are you...” Jackson trailed off, not sure how to word the problem. But Yugyeom understood.

“I just—” And he made the mistake of looking up at BamBam. Yugyeom, then, completely broke.

“How do you do it?” He whispered. “How do you make everyone love you?”

Jackson and BamBam exchanged looks again.

“What do you mean?” BamBam asked.

“Just... You’re so loveable and charming and cute... You don’t need any guilt-tripping to have everyone fussing over you. You’re just – perfect – in every way I’m not. I wish I was more like you. Then maybe I’d get treated like the maknae.”

BamBam had expected everything but this, and so did Jackson. Bam, however, was much more affected, not having expected to take on such a heavy burden of guilt so suddenly.

“Oh, Yugyeom,” he uttered, voice cracking. He was on the verge of tears.

“It’s not your fault!” Yugyeom insisted hastily, suddenly sitting up from Jackson’s hold. “Please, it’s not your fault, you are who you are and I am who I am and there’s no helping it, but...’

Yugyeom’s lip was quivering. There was no going back now, he was about to spill it all no matter the consequences. At that point, he couldn’t stop himself if he tried.

Jackson sat between the two of them as the only one not about to burst into tears, knowing he’d have to be the one to help them both calm down.

“It’s not your fault, I love you, I really do, I’m happy that you get so much love from everyone but I just can’t help wondering if I would too if I was smaller or cuter—” Yugyeom had tried to stop the tears while he was speaking, but now a sob escaped him and he just barely managed to get out the end of his sentence, “—if I was less awkward and dumb—” before he started sobbing.

Bam threw himself at Yugyeom, crying just as hard as the younger boy. Jackson held them both, trying his best to soothe them but for the moment he had to let them cry it out before they could listen to reason.

It took them a while; helped by Jackson’s kisses and whispered reassurances they managed to settle down enough to hear him out.

Jackson cupped Yugyeom’s cheeks – while Bam was still clinging to the younger – and kissed his nose.

“Gyeomie, love, you do realize that we’d never love you any less because of what you’re like, right? Baby, who you are is exactly why we fell in love with you in the first place and we don’t want you to be any different.”

Yugyeom was drawing quick breaths, trying to blink his tears away because he felt it would be too pathetic to burst into tears again. He was looking at Jackson like he was his entire world (which wasn’t far from the truth).

“You don’t need to change, we all want the Yugyeom we’d fallen in love with,” he added, softly.

Yugyeom’s lip was quivering again.

BamBam tried to kiss it better, even though he himself was still sniffling.

“Baby—” Bam said, trying to find his voice again, “Baby, I’m sorry. We both, we all are – b-because, if you’re feeling this way there must be a reason. You’re not the reason, you’re perfect, you’re—” a sniffle, “—but it’s us. We must have been negligent of you, we must have made you feel alone or like you need to be different in order to get the love you already deserve—I’m so sorry.”

“Bam’s right,” Jackson said. “It’s our fault and the way we’d treated you had been unfair and just... Bad. I’m really sorry... But it’s something we’ll clearly have to talk about; this isn’t only a matter of the group, but our relationship too.”

Yugyeom curled up again, nearly disappearing between his two hyungs. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want this to be a big deal,” he mumbled.

“But we really should,” Bam said softly, trying to make the thought less scary, “Just to let the others know how you feel and how things should change.”

Yugyeom kept shaking his head. “It’s not that important, please, don’t upset the others.”

“But it is important,” Jackson assured. “It’s important for all of us to feel comfortable, you know. I don’t want to let anything slip and this is clearly something that bothers you and we can’t let it continue bothering you. Don’t you think so?”

Yugyeom closed his eyes tightly. “I’m not that important.”

“Don’t say that,” BamBam shot; he was faster than Jackson to say so. “Don’t even say it. We hate it when you’re feeling down, it’s just—it’s just—our fault for not having noticed—”

“It’s okay hyung,” Yugyeom muttered, “You couldn’t have known, I—I made sure to hide it.”

“It’s true,” Jackson agreed. “But we do have to pay attention to cues and just be more sensitive. We really are sorry, baby.”

Yugyeom sniffled, already dreading how much drama he’d be causing – hell, he’d caused this much already. But clearly Bam and Jackson weren’t going to give up. At that point he just wanted it to end quickly.

“I—yeah, okay,” he murmured.

“No one will mind, love. Your feelings aren’t a burden.” Bam whispered. “And the others will want to know because we all want you to be happy.”

Yugyeom nodded, yet he still had trouble letting his walls down, letting his hyungs take care of him as they clearly wanted to.

But it was easier, now that he’d said it all, that he was being held, that there was hope for things to change.

And it all hit him at once; BamBam’s hands holding his own, how warm and safe he was in Jackson’s arms, how genuinely sorry they both were and he felt, at least for the moment, Yugyeom felt loved and cared for.

He wanted to cry again, but those tears would have been different to the previous ones, they’d be tears of relief. Still, he didn’t allow himself that since he’d already cried enough.

He only uttered a little, “Thank you.”

And again, “Thank you.”

“We’ll do better,” Jackson promised.

Yugyeom nodded. “It’s okay. It’s... I know it’s pathetic, but it’ll be okay as long as you love me—” he cut himself off, feeling stupid for even having said the words.

“It’s not pathetic,” BamBam reassured quickly. “And we do love you. But words aren’t enough, we know that, so we’ll do better.”

Yugyeom gave a small nod and shyly looked up at Jackson, then Bam, not really wanting to say out loud what he wanted; to seal the moment.

Thankfully, they understood.

Bam cupped Yugyeom’s cheeks, squishing him a bit, then gave him a kiss on the lips. Jackson’s was a small peck, gentle as if to not hurt Yugyeom – although they all knew he never could.

“Can we please sleep now? I don’t wanna think too much about all this right now, I really am tired. And... I feel nice like this,” he mumbled the last bit.

BamBam and Jackson were understanding as ever. They gave Yugyeom another kiss each before repositioning for a comfy sleep.

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After all that I just wanna say I lowkey find it really upsetting when fans make jokes about got7 hating Gyeoms... Please don't do that. It's not true.