Sanghyuk doesn’t know why he’s crying. He really doesn’t.

It just feels like something his body wants to do against all wishes. When the tears come they don’t bring memories along with them like an uninvited friend to a party, nor does it make him see the ghosts of people at the corner of his sight. The tears are, just, tears. Simply a biological function. Like wringing out water from a wet towel.

He doesn’t remember the car ride (he keeps his head high, hands stable), but the moment he smells the comfort of the apartment, his legs just collapse on him. He almost lets himself fall flat, but he feels hands holding him up, and it takes a second for him to make the connection between Hongbin’s cologne and Hongbin. Hongbin’s asking “What’s wrong?” repeatedly, but Sanghyuk can’t tell him that nothing is wrong, even though it’s the truth.

It would sound weird, and Hongbin wouldn’t understand him any better than now. He doesn’t really explain things to Hongbin – one part because he doesn’t know how to, and another part because he knows his brain doesn’t work right. His emotions, all fundamentally the same as everyone else, but twisted so cruelly that it doesn’t even look the same anymore. Hongbin tries to understand on the rare occasion that Sanghyuk wants to talk, but no matter how hard he tries, there is always that bloom of confusion behind his eyes.  

Between being misunderstood and not being understood, Sanghyuk would rather choose the latter.

So he can’t tell Hongbin that nothing is wrong. That sounds crazy (or sounds like he’s crazy). He’s back home in this apartment, he’s not in pain, and he’s not dissociating. He was scared out of his mind, but he isn’t scared anymore. There are hands holding him up – they don’t pinch nor hit. Maybe it’s not just Hongbin that doesn’t understand him – maybe no one can ever understand him, not even himself. He’s crying and, yet, he… hasn’t felt this safe in a long time.

And that’s when it hits him.

He’s crying because there’s nothing wrong. 

That’s why he’s crying.

***

When Hongbin wakes, his heart feels like it’s wrapped in cotton, released so suddenly from so much shock yesterday that it’s a little numb from the over-stimulation. He takes a couple of small breaths to calm his system down, releases the pressure in his joints that remind him he's no longer eighteen. The pull of his scabs from diving into the gravel stings as he stretches out. 

He hardly sees Sanghyuk cry. When the boy gets jolted awake from a nightmare, his eyes are always shining wetly but he never lets the tears flow. His words are watery, like he’s always straining away from his emotions like an animal anxious against a gate, but he still never cries. Never, ever cries. Hongbin doesn’t think it’s because he’s kept a lid on it or whatever – the tears were going to come, sooner or later. But it took so many weeks for them to get to this point that Hongbin almost thought he was wrong.

He’s ready to handle it – the breakdown. But when he gets out of bed there is a small nagging at the back of his spine telling him that something is wrong. Kind of feels it like a thunderstorm hanging about his head even before he steps out of the room. 

And he's right. The door is unlocked.

***

Sanghyuk knows Hongbin doesn’t understand what’s happening. He knows that hyung probably thinks it’s another breakdown, that he’s crying because he can’t laugh anymore. But that’s not true. He has never been more determined about something (no matter what the thing is) in his life and he has never felt so full of purpose, as if his heart and mind are joined together by ropes of steel (unbreakable, infallible).

His entire life, he has never felt normal, but it has never been something that he could change.

From being an orphan, to being some kind of damned object to be violated time and time again, Sanghyuk never thought there would ever come a day when he could claim to be normal. The closest he can ever get to normal is pretending like he’s actually functional with his training chopsticks. But today, when his palms are flat on the floor because that’s damn well where he wants them to be; when he’s crying, eyes puffy, face sore from being slammed into the ground, but he refuses to hear anyone screaming at him, he realizes that his mind had blocked out the idea of being normal so early on that he’s just… stuck. In a regressive cycle of abuse.

But he’s sick of it.

He’s sick of feeling like he’s trapped in this life – as if he can’t end it on his own accord – in his shell of this body so barren that nothing can grow from it. He’s so pissed off that he can’t remember when exactly he made hell his home, when exactly he convinced himself that it was okay to make hell his home. He packed his rage, his tolerance, his poison, into a tiny box that he had slotted very carefully in between his ribs. It has been spilling over for years and years, and he never once thought that it was leaching into his blood.

And it wasn't his fault. Because he couldn’t do anything about it. Because he had to stay down, keep his head down, knees steady, and bite his tongue just to survive, even if he had to bite so hard it’s hard to speak now.

But it’s his fault he let himself be so scared for so long after – running away the first time was because there was just a lucky window of opportunity that opened itself like a miracle and he had a feeling he would regret it forever if he let that window disappear. Running away the second time – it’s the first time he grabbed that opportunity for himself. He let himself be so scared, until today, and that’s what really breaks his mind.

He’s not owned by anyone now. No one can tell him what to do, or feel. He can’t let himself be scared anymore. All the tears from last night has cleansed him from the overdue poison between his ribs and the leftover blood from biting down on his words. He feels clean, finally.

He can be angry. He’s allowed to.

He’s going to.

***

Taekwoon, Hakyeon and Hongbin are in the car again. Same car, same smell – it feels like a crazy video game where you start from the last checkpoint. Except, Hongbin doesn’t feel the same. Anger and rage courses through his blood, his fingers are shaking from where they grip the seatbelt.

Hakyeon took over when Hongbin got too enraged to drive, all cursing at the car in front of him, unforgiving insults and unleashing a person his friends had never seen before. At this point in time, Hongbin is in no position to search for a lost boy in the middle of a big town. He feels like his mind is swimming in a pool of frustration and he’s too tangled in a temper so out of control to even breathe properly. His heart is hammering in his chest, and he can’t even tell who he’s mad at.

Him, for leaving Sanghyuk last night unstable? Or Sanghyuk, for leaving the house on his own accord after what he did to them yesterday? Because there is no other logical explanation. No signs of break-in, just Sanghyuk’s bed neatly made as usual, door unlocked and phone gone.

“Bin-ah, calm down,” Hakyeon says, not daring to reach over with one hand to comfort his junior. “There’s no use being angry, just look for him. We’ll find him again.”

Hongbin almost reaches out to punch the dashboard, to keep his emotions in check. 

Then his phone rings.