Hongbin watches as Sanghyuk drops his chopsticks continuously throughout breakfast. He’s aware that he has been trying to mirror how Hongbin uses the chopsticks – even though Hongbin is left handed – but it never really seemed to work. Sure, he had gotten better over the days, but there was always a slight quirk that prevented Sanghyuk from using them properly. Too much strength somewhere, and too little somewhere else. Hongbin hasn’t found out what it was exactly, but it had never been as bad as today. He tries not to out rightly stare, but it’s hard to not notice how much Sanghyuk’s hands are shaking. A few times, he puts his chopsticks down and gives his hand a couple of shakes, looking down in his lap in frustration, before picking it up again, only to have it jerk out of his hand after a while. 

So Hongbin gets up to go to the kitchen without a word, opens the boxes of forks he bought yesterday during work, and wordlessly places one in front of Sanghyuk. Strangely, it feels like the sort of time where word choice is, or will be, the most important thing.

Sanghyuk feels nauseous as he picks up the fork, but also immensely thankful for the subtlety of the action and grateful for being spared of the need to explain his own body’s betrayal because he himself doesn’t even know why he’s still toeing the line of hyperventilation hours after the dream. It has never been this way.

“Hyuk?”

“Yeah, hyung?”

“I… was asking you a question.”

“Oh,” Sanghyuk says, not understanding. He genuinely didn’t hear anything. “Sorry.”

For a moment there is a huge, filling, silence that occupies the space between them. A straight crease of worry and confusion appears between Hongbin’s eyebrows.

“Anyway, I was asking if you would come somewhere with me in the evening? No one’s going to be around the area. It’s really quiet there, I think you’ll like it.” Hongbin picks at his food, then looks up. “Just thought we both needed some fresh air.”

Sanghyuk’s brain is a tangled mess of misperceptions, reality jumbling together with a past. So he doesn’t know what he’s actually doing when he says, “Sure, hyung.”

“Yeah?” There is a huge, genuine smile on Hongbin’s face and Sanghyuk thinks that maybe it’s the first time he’s seen it.

And just because Hongbin is smiling, and because he doesn’t want Hongbin to think that he’s a) crazy enough to lose focus to the point where he doesn’t hear or b) a weight that will tie him to the house for the next few years, Sanghyuk smiles back. Not necessarily a real one – more like a cautious one, like he’s already pulling on a loose thread and if he continues to pull, the entire universe will unravel, taking him along.

***

The phone rings right at the of noon. Sanghyuk watches (after setting his breathing right because he’s still on edge) as Hongbin picks it up from the green beanbag, concentrating on his book. He’s not very good at it, though – his eyes constantly lose focus, blurring the words into strips of black, and he often snaps out of dazes only to find that he’s still on the same page even after 15 minutes.

It further confirms his suspicion that he’s too stupid to ever get into normal school. CSATs? Tutoring? It’s all going to come to naught. He can’t really fathom why Hongbin has so much faith in him when he doesn’t even have faith in himself.  

“Hyuk-ah!”

His heart pounds painfully in the broken nest of his ribs.

“It’s Nakhun hyung – the doctor? Do you wanna come listen?”

Sanghyuk doesn’t know what the correct answer is, so he just walks to Hongbin.

“Hi, Sanghyuk!” Nakhun sounds like he’s smiling fondly even through the speakerphone.

“Hello.” Sanghyuk says softly.

“How’re you doing?”

Sanghyuk glances at Hongbin, who just gives him an approving look.

“I’m okay.” He sounds almost as convincing as he feels, which is not very. And if Nakhun picks it up, he doesn’t say anything out of turn.

“No particular areas of pain?”

“No.” Sanghyuk doesn’t even take the time to think – even if there were places of pain, he wouldn’t admit it. He’s not allowed to demand things like that.

There’s a small, tentative pause. “Great then!”

A soft sound of rustling papers travels through the line.

“So anyway, about the blood test, everything seems to be fine. Have you been eating well?”

Hongbin answers it for him. “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

“Come on, Lee Hongbin. You can’t even cook!”

“That is an unfair accusation. You’ve only ever seen me cook once, hyung.” Hongbin smirks.

“Your fridge is still full of microwavables isn’t it?”

Sanghyuk smiles. “Yeah it is.”

Then his face flushes, heat spreading through his cheeks and pink catching onto the tips of his ears. A swelling second of silence passes.

“Thank you, Sanghyuk. See?”

Hongbin looks straight at him and smiles, an unrecognizable emotion flashing through his eyes. “Thank you, Sanghyuk.”  

And all three of them know that they’re no longer on the topic they started with.

***

They take an hours’ drive to get to the place Hongbin talked about, which is a major accomplishment for Sanghyuk considering that he only freaked out once in the whole time spent in an enclosed space being restrained. But Hongbin is right. The further they drive, the more remote the scenery gets. When they get out of the car, it’s just a whole field of tall grass, yellow from winter knocking on the door.

Except there are two people sitting in that field, small specks of color in an otherwise gorgeously golden canvas.  

Hongbin doesn’t notice, but turns to look as Sanghyuk absentmindedly accepts the scarf, staring into the distance.

“Are you kidding me?” Hongbin says incredulously, then shouts. “Why are you guys here!”

The figures turn back and Sanghyuk steps to the side to hide behind Hongbin in habit.

“Kong!” Hakyeon bolts up, spilling the crumbs in his lap as he rushes towards them.

Hongbin turns around to do a dramatic roll of his eyes at Sanghyuk, which earns him an amused, shy grin. By the time he turns back, Hakyeon launches out and gives Hongbin a hug so tight that Sanghyuk is sure Hongbin’s face of annoyance is starting to morph into true discomfort.

“This is fate, let me tell you!” Hakyeon pulls back. “We haven’t been here in months.”

Hakyeon waves at Sanghyuk and he gives an embarrassed smile. Hakyeon’s hands instinctively reach out to coo over him but stop in time. Sanghyuk notices, but Hakyeon doesn’t know that.

Hongbin scoffs. “You’re such a sappy old man. Embarrassing.”

Hakyeon hits him on the shoulder – hard ­– and Sanghyuk flinches. They both give him an apologetic grunt simultaneously, even though the interaction is more fascinating and foreign than scary. His mind has gotten around the idea of Hakyeon being violent with his actions, it’s just his body that hasn’t memorized it yet.

They begin to walk towards Leo, all the while Sanghyuk forcing the words “sorry”, or “I didn’t mean to” from crawling out through his teeth, because it doesn’t sound right. Not now.

Hakyeon takes his seat next to Leo and Hongbin next to Hakyeon pats the space beside him. Like that, they sit in a row, talking about things that are light, things that are happy. Hakyeon keeps talking about rumors he has heard recently, Hongbin talks about the bratty interns on set, Leo, like Sanghyuk, just listens and passes everyone food. They can’t see the sunset from over here, but they can watch the sky turning from blue, to red, to purple, then to embracing the stars as it lulls itself to sleep.

A few cars pass behind them but other than that, the evening belongs to them. And Sanghyuk thinks he just might want to do this again.

He wants to do this again.

***

Alas, problems don’t go away if you eat breakfast or sit in a field with people in place of actually fixing them. Sanghyuk already knows, but he doesn’t do anything about it – it’s a survival instinct to compartmentalize problems, chuck them into drawers of forgetfulness, because there are other things to worry about. But that was then. And this is now. Now, he has nothing to worry about except actually fixing his problems so Hongbin wouldn’t have to bother about them.

So when he wakes up screaming and gasping and feeling like his ribs have once again been shattered by a foot coming mercilessly down on his chest, it’s no wonder. He doesn’t remember exactly who it was but he knows the dream is worse than usual because Hongbin is awake and standing at the door.

It seems like forever but it’s probably only a few seconds before he realizes that no one is touching him at all. The boy in the dream – him – isn’t screaming anymore, no one is screaming, no one is being hurt. And yet, his ribs throb like never before.

He presses his forehead into the bed, closing his eyes and just trying to breathe. Ruffled hair is in his face and even though the fan is turned up high, he can feel so obviously the sweat mottled on his back. He’s so exhausted and humiliated (scared) that he doesn’t think he can move an inch even if there was a fire in the flat. Or if the whole goddamned building decides to collapse. Hongbin can see the shadows under Sanghyuk’s eyes even from the distance. He knows the boy hasn’t been sleeping much – only managing to fall into a decent sleep in the wee hours because he’s so scared of the terrors in his own sleep and waking up at 4 or 5 everyday no matter how many nightmares.

Watching Sanghyuk scream like that – it’s almost as if he’s watching a wounded, feral animal squealing in the jaws of a predator and if he feels horrible watching it, he can’t imagine how Sanghyuk must feel.

Sanghyuk fights to keep himself from begging Hongbin not to hurt him, but in the end, he doesn’t have to, because Hongbin just turns on the lights and asks, “You alright?”

“I’m okay,” Sanghyuk says, even though it’s taking all of his willpower to keep his hands as still as possible.

“You need some time alone?”

He nods. Then he shakes his head. Confused. Hongbin gives him a sympathetic nod.

“It’s okay, hyuk-ah.” Hongbin says gently. “Let’s go outside, hm?”

Panic seizes him for a split second – his messed up brain does not recognize that outside means the living room, then berates himself for being so stupid – like why the hell would Hongbin suggest going out of the house now when the both of us are still in our pajamas? He's not bat crazy, Sanghyuk. You are. 

He stands up jerkily on his shaky legs anyway, desperately willing for his body to quickly awaken and start functioning again. It feels he’s missing a sense of self – the most apt way to put it is that it feels like some parts of his body are missing.

The tutor is coming soon and the both of them know it’s why Sanghyuk is feeling kind of – sort of – terrified. Hongbin also knows that he can still be secretly scared even if he shouldn’t be. Scared that the tutor might find Sanghyuk too all-over-the-place to handle (even though he has been friends with the tutor for his entire ing life), and that Sanghyuk might not like the tutor enough to be comfortable learning around him. But they don’t talk about it, or try to do anything special to lie to themselves that nothing’s wrong.

Because Hongbin knows that life isn’t like a test you can study for. At the end of the day, there is really only so much they can do.