“It started off as wanting to get my abs more defined. You know the fans loved that during Be Mine right?” Woohyun began.

            Sungyeol furrowed his eyebrows, not liking how this story was going. He refused to believe that Woohyun started this mess because he wanted to have abs.

            “Woohyun, your fans love you no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you have abs or not.”

            Woohyun brought his hand up to stop Sungyeol. The younger got silent immediately.

            Woohyun shook his head.

            “No, I’d lose a lot of fans if I lost my abs, and you know it. Stop with the lying,” he replied.

            Sungyeol opened his mouth to argue, but Woohyun put his hand back up again, a little more slowly since he was still feeling unwell.

            “That wasn’t the reason why I started purging though. It was something else.”

            Woohyun paused and looked at Sungyeol. He stared into his eyes and felt like drowning in them. They were so full of worry, worry for only Woohyun. He thought if he looked hard enough he might actually be able to find love in them. Sadly the moment he did, it wasn’t the love he wanted to find—the love of a brother, the same kind of love he gets from Dongwoo, Hoya, Sunggyu, the rest of the members. It wasn’t what he wanted to see at all.

            “S-so, why did you start to purge?” Sungyeol asked, interrupting Woohyun’s thoughts.

            Woohyun snapped out of it and shook his head slightly. He brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them.

            “It was because of a person I fell in love with,” he stated.

            Sungyeol’s eyes widened and suddenly, his soft eyes turned into a glare.

            “What happened?” he hissed, “What did that person do to turn you into someone that threw up everything they ate?”

            Woohyun chuckled bitterly.

            “That person didn’t do anything. I did this to myself.”

            Sungyeol’s glare faltered and the look of worry came back. He put his hand on top of Woohyun’s.

            “W-What happened? Why did you do this to yourself if that person didn’t do anything to you?” he asked.

            Woohyun looked down at the hand and stared at it for a little bit. He looked at the soft fingers on top of his, and he almost smiled.

            “I-I don’t know anymore,” Woohyun said, his voice cracking.

            A tear fell down his cheeks, and they just continued to come steadily after that. He let out soft sobs, slowly moving away his hand from under Sungyeol’s to wipe some of them away from his face. He held his other hand in front of him mouth, trying to muffle his sobs as much as possible to not wake up the rest of the members.

            Woohyun managed to look up, and just before his tears blurred away his vision, he saw a glimpse of Sungyeol. The look on Sungyeol’s face just made him want to cry harder.

            He knew at the moment that he would never be able to tell Sungyeol the truth. He would never be able to tell the younger that he had fallen in love with him since a while ago. He would never be able to tell the younger that he had accidentally kissed him when they were drunk after getting their first win with Be Mine. He would never be able to tell Sungyeol that it was after that night that he started to purge.

            Woohyun was surprised that night. He had kissed back immediately, thinking that Sungyeol was finally returning his feelings and that he wouldn’t have to tell the younger straight out that he had loved him. He thought that the kiss from Sungyeol meant that Myungyeol wasn’t real and that Sungyeol understood Woohyun’s feelings.

            But that obviously was not what had happened. Sungyeol was too drunk and didn’t even remember anything the next day. Woohyun was actually excited to go to sleep holding Sungyeol in his arms, hoping that when they woke up, Sungyeol would tell him that he loved him, but he ended up waking up to Sungyeol hugging him in the middle of the night, murmuring Sunggyu’s name. That was the night that broke Woohyun, the night that made him believe that if he wasn’t as skinny and pale and perfect as the leader, Sungyeol would never bat an eyelash at him.

            In the end, Woohyun’s thoughts had driven him to do this to himself.

            I did this to myself.

            Sungyeol’s heart broke at the sight of seeing Woohyun like this. He had always seen Woohyun as someone to look up to. He thought of Woohyun as a brother, someone that Sungyeol could come to talk to whenever and get advice, someone who was perfect in his eyes. He didn’t realize that the person he thought he knew so well was actually so broken on the inside. He leaned forward and tried to hug the crying elder into his arms. He felt Woohyun’s too hot body, and he knew that this extra stress wasn’t going to be good for Woohyun’s condition. He felt Woohyun’s body shake in his arms, and he was worried that the elder would faint again.

            He rubbed Woohyun’s back up and down, hoping to calm the elder down.

            “I still don’t know what cause you to do this to yourself, Woohyun,” he muttered into the elder’s ear, “and I don’t know why I didn’t notice this before, but I want you to know that I love you.

            Woohyun dropped his head down to Sungyeol’s chest and just cried harder into the younger’s t-shirt. He felt pathetic. Sungyeol was finally saying that words that Woohyun had longed to hear for so long, but he knew, he just knew, it wasn’t the kind of confession that he wanted. His I love you was the same one he’d get from Dongwoo, from his older brother, from his mom. It wasn’t the one he wanted.

            “I-I don’t know what else to say, Woohyun. You know I love you and all of Infinite loves you. The members and I would do anything for you. Why didn’t you tell us what was happening? Why did you hide everything from us?”

            Woohyun wasn’t able to stop crying to answer, so Sungyeol just continued to hold the elder in his arms. He continued to rub his hand up and down on Woohyun’s back, whispering I’m sorry and I promise things will get better into his ear again and again.

            Eventually, Woohyun’s body couldn’t take the extra strain any longer, and he had fainted in Sungyeol’s arms. The younger the dampness of his shirt, and he wondered for a moment how the rest of the members were able to sleep through all of this. He gently lied Woohyun back down so that the elder was lying down on the couch again, and he moved back to the ground so that he could continue to watch and take care of him.

            Sungyeol sat there and put another cold towel onto Woohyun’s burning up forehead. He wiped away one last tear and placed his hand on top of the sleeping Woohyun’s again.

            I’m sorry that I didn’t notice enough before. I’m sorry it had to come to this. I’m sorry Woohyun.