‘Hyung, we need to stop.’

Yonghwa waits for the next blow.

‘I can’t—do this, I can’t do us anymore.’

His world is falling apart, cracking at the seams, and all he can do is stare at the boy who had done this to him; the same boy who had slipped into his life—seemingly innocuous—this boy who is his world now.

‘Hyung? Say something, hyung, I can’t—I don’t know—I don’t know, I’m so confused, and scared, and I don’t know what to do about this or us, and I hate—having to hide how happy I am when I am with you but I am afraid, God, I am so afraid—‘

Yonghwa crushes his lips against Jungshin’s, anything to stem the tirade of words pouring out of Jungshin, pulling him into the whirl of desperation they were both so familiar with in recent months. ‘Stop?’ he hears himself say. ‘How do we stop this?’