Part Seven of (we made it!) Seven: In which, for a clever dude, Park Kyung can be a real idiot sometimes.

Contains much swearing, Kyung using a lot of emphasis and potentially heartbreaking scenarios between two adorably stupid best friends.

So I made it to the last chapter! I had a lot of fun and a good challenge writing this series, and I hope I'll continue to write for this fandom. Thanks for all the lovely comments. Writing this chapter broke my heart a little bit (I have an awful lot of feelings about Kyung for various reasons) so please exercise caution when reading it. Hopefully I'll be posting here again soon!

They never talked after those lost nights. Tackling whatever deep seated emotions found him, at midnight, kissing his best friend pressed up against the wall of a dive bar for half an hour, was not the sort of thing Jiho even considered attempting. It could only end in uncomfortable silences and bruised feelings. Kyung knows this well - if he hadn't been able to extrapolate it from their ten years of friendship, he would have figured it out the first time it happened, when Jiho got up earlier than he had all year to be sure of leaving before Kyung woke up and didn't return all day. It only ever took a couple of days before normality reasserted itself, the inevitable necessity of their closeness overriding whatever shame or embarrassment either of them felt. Once again, Kyung would pack the memories into the back of his mind, where they became no more than shadows on the wall, and be satisfied with the fact that Jiho had stopped avoiding his eyes. This time they don't even get a couple of days' grace; everyone's nerves are too strained by their relentless schedule and Jihoon couldn't wait for things to clear up naturally. They shove him off them and mumble awkwardly for a couple of hours about how they shouldn't hit it so hard when they go out, and then Jiho grabs Kyung by the waist and drags him off to the television with a look of slightly frantic relief.

Things don't go back to normal this time though, not for Kyung. It takes him a few days to realise it, because at first he doesn't even consider that his sudden irritability and the cringing feeling he gets when someone touches him might be anything to do with Jiho. He tells everyone he thinks he's coming down with the flu, so they all keep their distance for fear of catching it - except Jiho, of course. He's back to acting like nothing ever happened, like he's lost all memory of that night (everyone has the impression that Jiho is a lightweight due to how often he seems to black out after nights with Kyung) and continues to bother him as usual, pressing up next to him in the back seat of the car and trying to tangle their feet together while he shoves his phone in Kyung's face to show him a video his brother sent him.

Kyung kicks his ankle, a lot harder than he'd meant to, and coughs loudly. "Stop smothering me, I'm sick," he says, and turns away to stare out of the window. He can see, in the reflection on the glass, a tiny hurt frown flicker at his friend's eyebrows before he shrugs it off and turns to Kwon beside him instead. Kyung bites the inside of his mouth for the entire journey, the realisation dawning on him slowly and sickly.

It isn't even the kiss that's the problem - he tells himself the same thing he imagines Jiho does, that they were drunk and comfortable with each other, and sometimes it's just nice to have someone to kiss, intentionally forgetting the girls whose numbers lie abandoned in his phone, who would almost certainly have kissed and maybe more. What's gnawing at him still is the complaint which kicked it all off, Jiho's stupid crisis of authenticity which he has about three times a year. Usually he'd laugh at him, pack him off to the studio and wait until he'd mixed and balanced enough to soothe the bite of having so much else decided for them. But usually, Jiho's diatribes against the superficiality of the industry don't leave Kyung feeling so bruised. Jiho is blunt, and says things without thinking; he's not normally deliberately vicious, but there had been barbs in his words that day which Kyung can't brush off. It is partly his own mood: the worry and vulnerability that come with every comeback; the emotions which are already stretched thread thin by the time they take to the stage by endless arguments over songs and choreography and concepts. Their skins are thinner at times like these, which is probably why Jiho blew up so easily in the first place. Along with everything else he said about fraudulence and sell outs, the couple of pointed comments aimed at Kyung seemed more telling than they really were, and he was so busy trying to soothe Jiho's conflicted mind that he didn't notice how much it stung.

By the time they leave the car, Kyung has reasoned this all out in his mind, but the aching in his chest has still not receded.

He worries about these things himself, but it isn't something he feels he can afford to complain about. Being part of the band - the band which is on their third comeback with a song they all adore and fans so dedicated that they had only rejoiced at their return without a word about what had kept them so long - that on its own is more than he had ever hoped for when he asked Jiho to get him an audition. Because he wasn't like Jiho, never had been; he had to suffer for everything he had during that agonising month while his father told him that it was better this way, that he would have regretted throwing his future away. As Jiho was head hunted, picked specially and named leader, he had been all but pitted against his best friend, had to spend months training himself to step back and keep quiet the way the others did, even though he knew that on their own Jiho would listen to him more intently than he would to any CEO or manager. He still remembers that first day when Jiho sidled up to him in class and placed two Pepero on his otherwise empty desk, and Kyung looked up at him with owlish eyes behind his kiddie glasses, totally bemused. Jiho was loud in class and ran too fast in the playground and always had scabs on his knees; he was bright and boisterous and friends with almost everyone. "You need to get taller more than anyone else," Jiho grinned, and poked the sweets towards him with one finger. Kyung said nothing, just watched him walk back to his other friends while he nibbled at one stick, but already he could feel something connecting the two of them, something that brought Jiho bouncing back to his side when school was over, walking by his side all the way home and promising to call for him the next morning, and on and on until they were twenty one years old and all but glued to one another. They had a lesson about the solar system when they were twelve, and later that night Kyung lay in bed looking at the wavering halfway there moon, which only had the light that was reflected off the sun, feeling some sympathy for it. Did Jiho burn that much brighter than him, or was his own light simply being eclipsed?

He never mentions any of this; not to Jiho, not to their other band members. How could he, when it would sound so ungrateful? Yet they both know it's there, in a barely plastered over place in his heart. Hearing Jiho deride their achievements, paint their success as fake and worse, take a swipe at Kyung for apparently buying into it was like having someone rip the plaster off the wound and punch it just for good measure. He understands now why he felt his pulse thudding so hard out of nowhere earlier that day, watching Jiho fooling for the cameras. Leaving his best friend standing in the hallway debating with Taeil about what to have for dinner, Kyung ducks into one of the bedrooms, kicks his shoes off and collapses onto the nearest bed. He presses his face into a pillow which smells of that girly raspberry shampoo Kwon likes so much and lets out a long breath.

"That's my bed. Why can't you ever lie on your own bed?" He pulls his face out of the pillow enough to see Kwon's blurry figure in the doorway with his arms folded. He can't make out his face but he knows exactly what expression will be on it.

"Go away," he says lamely, but instead Kwon shuts the door and sits down next to him with a sigh of his own. He bends down and unlaces his shoes methodically while Kyung tries to ignore him.

"So what's happened with you and our glorious leader?" he says eventually, when Kyung shows no signs of giving in. 

"Nothing."

"Bull," he says lightly. "You've been ratty as hell with him all week. Did you guys get drunk and make out again?"

Kyung has no idea how Kwon knows that has happened - still less how he knows it's happened multiple times - but then, he knows there have always been mutters among their members about he and Jiho's relationship and exactly how deep it goes, just like they can't help but speculate about Jihoon's endless adoration of their eldest member. He walked into the living room once to find Minhyuk saying flatly, "If you try to tell me those guys haven't experimented with each other..." only to hurriedly shut up as soon as Kyung appeared. Kwon neatly avoids the kick Kyung aims at him, grabs his foot by the ankle and prods him in the back of the head.

" off."

"Nope." He shakes Kyung's foot about idly, his tone half amused, half exasperated. "Shame you didn't get as drunk as he did, really. Then maybe you wouldn't remember it either." There's a snide little edge to his voice that suggests he knows damn well that Jiho's stories about alcohol induced blackouts are total rubbish. Kyung uses his other foot to kick this time and manages to connect with something - the wall or Kwon's shoulder, he's not sure.

"It's nothing to do with that, okay? So out."

"Not as long as I have to entertain Jiho during car journeys. He showed me, like, ten different versions of the same song, just cut in different ways. I don't know how you stand it."

"I'm just sick. I don't feel well. You're making me worse and I'm going to cough on your pillow and give you my germs if you don't go away."

Kwon snorts impressively. "You're not sick, you're a hundred times more pathetic than this when you're actually sick. Tell me what's going on."

Kyung lies there for a few more seconds with anger and shame burning up his spine before he finally gives in, mumbling his way through what he feels too ridiculous to say in plain language. "I was just trying to make him feel better. He was having another one of those stupid - you know, where he gets all, 'this is all fake, I wish I was still performing in ty bars, I'm too real to be an idol'. I made him go out to take his mind off it - I just, I can't stand hearing that sort of thing. Not now, not when we've just managed to pull everything back together. How can he work so hard on this and then run it down so easily?"

"Oh. That." Kwon contemplates for a few seconds and then gives Kyung an encouraging pat on the thigh. "You know he doesn't mean it though. It's the lack of creative freedom, it gets to him. We're all stressed right now."

"He didn't have to be a to me though," Kyung mutters, and regrets it instantly.

"Oh," Kwon says again, in a far more sympathetic tone. "Oh, okay. What did he say?"

Finally capitulating to Kwon's completely impatient patience, Kyung rolls over and sits up, cross legged with his chin propped in his hands, staring down at the ugly duvet cover. "He - it doesn't even matter, just - just, he has no right to be pointing out stuff I've done. We all do the same, we all buy into this to an extent. We have to, to get along. We're as genuine as we can be under the circumstances, right?" He lifts his hands with an empty gesture, feeling his back teeth beginning to grind together as soon as he recalls their conversation. "He kept saying it wasn't real. What the is that supposed to mean, anyway? He's got less right than anyone else to be complaining about that, considering how much he gets to decide - "

The emphasis was unintentional, as was the awful whiny note entering his voice towards the end, but it's too late to shove the words back into his mouth, and he watches Kwon's eyebrows rise as his heart sinks.

"Right," Kwon says softly. 

"I just mean..." Kyung doesn't bother finishing, because they both know exactly what he meant, and the freshly opened wound somewhere in the middle of his ribcage is throbbing with pain.

"You have to talk to him, you know. It's not fair to be angry with him about something you haven't explained."

Underneath the sore pride and tangled nerves Kyung somehow finds a place for a swift stab of fresh anger. "I shouldn't have to ing explain that sort of thing, I'd have thought it would be really ing obvious by now."

"Jiho is dense as pig ?" Kwon reminds him. Kyung wants to say that he's not, he just pretends to be that way because it's easier, but he knows that's a lie; if anyone's guilty of avoiding emotional issues by pretending not to see them, it's him. He just grunts and leans further forward, playing with his shoelaces so he doesn't have to watch Kwon's face go from awkward empathy to flat scepticism. "Don't make me pull a Jihoon on you and lock you both in the toilet until you make up."

"You'd probably just wait outside to see if you could hear us ing," Kyung snipes, and with a loud and exasperated groan Kwon throws himself forward and slings his arms around his neck. Kyung half expects a hug, but he's not that surprised to find himself, instead, wriggling in a painfully tight headlock while Kwon drives his knuckles into the top of his head.

"You - are - a - stupid - bastard," he says, punctuating each word with a precisely timed noogie.

"Get the off me," Kyung gasps.

"Not until you say you'll sort this out."

"Fine! ing fine!" Released, Kyung makes a big show of catching his breath and rubbing his neck, which has absolutely no effect on his maddening friend. The phrase, 'the cat who got the cream' has never been more appropriate, he thinks sourly. Kwon pinches his cheeks with a smug smile and a wink.

"You know Kyung, for such a clever dude you can be a real ing idiot."

"For someone who's supposed to be so lovable you are surprisingly easy to hate." He glares at Kwon as he practically dances out of the room.

He waits there for about five minutes before the door opens again and Jiho steps in, with an expression that suggests he's worried Kyung might attack him. "Kwonnie said you wanted to talk to me."

"Not really. Kwon told me I have to." Kyung pinches the bridge of his nose for a second and breathes out slowly as Jiho sits beside him, a good distance away. It feels strange and wrong for him to place himself at a distance so intentionally, but he can't say he blames him for it. They sit there in silence for a few moments and then both go to speak at once.

"Look, if this is about the other night - "

"I'm sorry I've been grouchy but you just don't get it - "

They stop at the same time as well, and lock eyes for a split second before Jiho cuts his gaze away and waves his hand. "Go ahead."

Kyung lowers his head, hands between his knees, picking at his fingernails and squirming as he tries to explain himself, feeling smaller and stupider every minute. "It was just - when you kept saying, about things not being real, implying we were all being fake - implying I'm fake, I mean - I get it, I know why you feel like that sometimes, I feel like that sometimes. But - but I wouldn't keep saying it like that, I wouldn't sound so - so ing ungrateful about it, I can't afford to."

"What do you mean, can't afford to?" Jiho asks, heavy brows furrowing together. He mimics Kyung's emphasis, piecing the words together like he thinks it will make their meaning clearer. Kyung suddenly feels unutterably weary.

"You know what I mean. How could I complain about something that's more than I ever hoped for?" He rubs his hands over his face, shoulders sagging inward; the mattress dips as Jiho pulls himself closer abruptly. One hand hovers out near Kyung's arm, not quite making contact.

"I don't - Kyung, come on man, what are you talking about?" His voice is soft and bewildered and ever so slightly hurt. It takes all of Kyung's willpower not to lean into his touch or shy away from it, but just to stay exactly as he is, fingers winding into his own hair. He hates being this way; he hates that Jiho can be nothing but honest while he's still lost in the bruises of the past which Jiho doesn't even know he inflicted; he hates how much he wants to hurt back.

"I - I wouldn't ever want things to be different from this. If you weren't here, I wouldn't be here either, you know that. And then you say that you hate it, that it feels fake to you - so what have I been working for this whole time? I thought we were in this together," and he stops there, feeling like his voice might break if he goes any further. He doesn't speak these thoughts out loud, not to Jiho, not to anyone; he doesn't admit even to himself that he sometimes thinks this way, that he's not there for himself half as much as he's there for Jiho. Only in those darkest times - when he watched Jiho celebrate and forced a smile so hard that his cheeks ached, and spent the next month staring out of his bedroom window feeling like an anaesthetic had been injected directly into his heart - had he ever allowed himself to think of a life without his stupid, too loud, not at all cute best friend who is impossibly talented and irresistibly magnetic and everything Kyung ever wanted to be, or to be near to. If Jiho doesn't want to be there, then he can't be there either. And if Jiho thinks he's there for anything else - for the girls, the praise, the attention - then somehow, without ever knowing it, they have become strangers to one another.

He can't look up. He can't face the challenge of meeting Jiho's eyes. He fixes his gaze on a stain on the carpet, thinking about all of them, the five boys who are like brothers to him and Jiho, who filled a gap in his life he never even knew was there. He thinks about the empty black pit that threatened to swallow him up when he thought he was going to lose him forever to a world he could never hope to be a part of. He thinks about their reasons for being here: Taeil's undeniable natural talent that he's happy to employ for as long as it will serve him; how Jaehyo has filled out and become such a real, solid person since they first met and Kyung dismissed him as just another pretty boy getting by on his looks; how Jihoon just wants them all to be together and happy and how that seems almost more important to him than any success they might have in their careers. He thinks about Minhyuk's solid, understated strength and how lost he would be without someone to lend it to. He thinks about how Kwon dashes off to see his girlfriend but always returns to them, always, because they are a family and they are in this together.

"We are in this together," Jiho says quietly, and this time he doesn't hesitate, just slips Kyung's fingers out of his hair and into his own hand. "I know I get frustrated, and I say dumb like that, but - but it's like you said. I don't hate anything about us, about this band. I just hate the industry. And we'll get away from it, somehow, but - " and he shoots Kyung a sidelong look from underneath his eyelids, sounds like he's choking on his own words but it's just how his voice sounds whenever he says anything really important, "- you should know by now that I'd never be able to do it without you."

Kyung just shakes his head, still not trusting his voice not to betray him. Jiho tightens his grip and shifts closer.

"I mean it. I wouldn't be here if you weren't either. I thought you knew that." He opens his hand, presses their palms together and locks their fingers tightly. "We're like this, see? Two halves of the same thing. Like I'm the sun and you're the moon. You don't get one without the other."

With a deep breath, Kyung lets his eyes travel upwards: Jiho's big square hand pressed against his smaller one, the bitten down fingernails he's had to slap out of Jiho's mouth more times than he can count and that ugly silver thumb ring he stole from a photo shoot because Jiho liked it so much. His face has that unconsciously and childishly wide-eyed expression it always has when he's speaking straight from the heart. He shifts around, hooking one leg up on the bed so he can get even closer and take up Kyung's other hand in the same grip.

"I know I can be an awful sometimes. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry if I ever made you think you're not - not - " His lower lip trembles for a second while he tries to find the words. Then he just shakes his head gently and squeezes Kyung's hands. "I just mean, I need you. Always have."

With nothing to say, Kyung squeezes back, ducks his head, peers up at his stupid wonderful best friend through his eyelashes which are definitely not even the slightest bit spiky with tears. The pressure that has been building up inside him ebbs away quite simply and gracefully. When he finally breathes out again it doesn't sound like a sigh any more. He attempts a clumsy smile, which won't quite come out right because with a hum of uncertainty Jiho has pulled him forward by their clasped hands and pressed his lips onto his. It's brief but warm; Jiho pulls back with his eyebrows knitted, looking like it will kill him if Kyung doesn't believe everything he says. "I do love you, really," he says. Why it should be harder to say in private than in front of a camera, neither of them know.

"I love you back," Kyung says, and Jiho's smile grows and he yanks Kyung forward again until he tumbles into his lap and curls his arms around him.

"Kyungie, for a clever guy you can be a total ing idiot sometimes."

Kyung manages to bite Jiho's stomach through his hoodie and offers back a watery grin. "Funny, that's the second time I've heard that today."