They stay that way for a while, until Sanghyuk’s teeth stop chattering and he no longer feels an intense need to get on his knees, like an iron band is pushing into the back of his neck, yanking at the short hairs that grow there. Hongbin asks for a hot drink somewhere along the way and Sanghyuk lets his hands be guided to the mug, allows his fingers to wrap around the warm plastic.

As much as he ever does, allows himself to have something nice for once.

Except… no.

He has done something nice for himself.

He contemplates, something brewing beneath his skin (good or bad he does not yet know), and as Hongbin adjusts slightly to hold him even closer, “I’m finished with being scared.”

“Mm?” Hongbin bends down, resting his chin on the peak of Sanghyuk’s head.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“You don’t want to be scared anymore?” Hongbin straightens up, holds Sanghyuk’s face in his hands, and he sees grace, so much grace, behind the tiredness. “Is that what you just said?”  

Sanghyuk smiles a tiny smile and doesn’t say a word, just sips from the mug.

And he’s right. There’s no fear in his voice at all, not like it usually does whenever he comes down from the clouds. Hongbin raises his head to the ceiling with an ineffable grin, and his chest glows with a glorious heat.  

***

Sanghyuk cannot let go of Hongbin.

Every cell in his body is screaming out for touch, and so they sit in the backseat as Hakyeon drives, Sanghyuk’s head on Hongbin’s chest. A few times Sanghyuk tries to move away (when his brain gets too loud with thoughts of being too unworthy for Hongbin) but Hongbin always pulls him right back, like he doesn’t even mind. Sanghyuk’s breathing gets shallow sometimes, almost like he can’t breathe, and the support beneath him always remembers to make especially deep breaths, air rushing through his chest and lulling Sanghyuk’s head when that happens. For purely selfish reasons, Sanghyuk hopes that Hongbin stays a safe harbor for him.

When they get back to the building, Sanghyuk tries to settle for a supportive hand on the shoulder, but an extended lack of sleep and food, coupled with anxiety for hours on an end, has his legs weak. He only makes it to the entrance of the building before his head starts to spin and his chest starts to hurt and he sags back into Hongbin’s arms.

Wordlessly, Taekwoon removes Sanghyuk’s arm from his shoulder to step in front of him.

“Get on my back.”

No one says a word until Sanghyuk actually moves to do it, and then Hongbin is helping him on, Taekwoon readjusts so they’re both comfortable. He trudges forward, up the stairs, before either Hakyeon or Hongbin have the time to react.

They’re halfway up the second flight when Taekwoon grinds out, soft and low like it’s coming up from somewhere intimate, “I’m sorry. I messed up and never got to say sorry yesterday.”

Taekwoon feels a timid, miniscule movement on his shoulder before a whispered, “It’s okay.”

He grunts. “You don’t have to say that just because I’m a hyung.”

Sanghyuk smiles cautiously. “I’m not.”

“I shouldn’t have brought you somewhere you didn’t want to go.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “I put you in danger.”

There’s a pause, and a million things flash through Sanghyuk’s head at once.

“T – Hyung, remember that time… when you and I were in the studio and that man came, the one that tried to give me that name card?”

Taekwoon doesn’t reply, so Sanghyuk continues, clenching his feet (he left the house without shoes, which wasn’t the best thing to do, but at that point in time he couldn’t remember if Hongbin even let him wear shoes), the slight burn reminding himself that he’s indeed where he is.

They’re in a dingy apartment building, the lights above them are flickering, he’s on Taekwoon’s back, everything is scary but nothing stings.

“I was scared, and you protected me, and… and” He stops. “What I’m – trying… trying to say, is that – I don’t blame you, hyung. Because I trust you, and – and I know you didn’t mean for it t – to happen.” 

Sanghyuk fights the urge to say sorry, has to punch the part of his brain that tells him he has to. It feels weird, having to forgive someone. Worse still, having to forgive someone that has never even tried to hurt him. It makes him feel all too uncomfortable, almost like he’s… a person.

“Okay, fine. We’re even.” Taekwoon says softly, like he has no idea how to reply. “You’re too light.”

And that’s the end of it.  

***

When they’re back in the apartment, Hongbin makes Taekwoon sit Sanghyuk down on the cover of the toilet bowl. His head tips to lean on the sink and he’s dozing off, when the tap turns on. Sanghyuk watches the basin in Hongbin’s hands fill up with water, blinking sluggishly.  

“Hyung,” Sanghyuk mumbles. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to wash your feet okay?” Hongbin finds a seat on the toilet tiles.

Sanghyuk’s chest starts to hurt, fluttering with start-stop breaths. “Wha – No, n – no, you don’t have to, I’ll just –”

“Hyuk-ah,” Hongbin rests a hand on the peak of his knee. “Calm down. It’s okay. Just let me wash them, they’re all cut up.”

Sanghyuk looks down at the soles of his feet and sees there purple cuts with raw-red sores. His foot doesn’t look like it belongs to him. He feels like puking, because his Sirs are miles away and yet they can still hurt him like this – in his nightmares, crawling into his brain through his ears when he doesn’t notice.

“Hyuk-ah,” Hongbin says, tapping lightly on his knee. “Focus please? Then we can get you to bed.”

Bed.

Sanghyuk forces a nod out of himself.

“Has anyone washed your feet before?”

He shakes his head. “You’re the first, hyung.”

“I’m honored,” Hongbin looks up and smiles, a genuine pride in his eyes. “Please say something if you’re uncomfortable.”

He picks up Sanghyuk’s left foot, sets it in the basin and waits for the boy’s hands to unfurl at his sides, no longer clenched into fists as if he has something to protect himself from. He rubs hard at the parts stained black, then rubs soft over the wounds and sensitive skin, almost cradling Sanghyuk’s foot. Hongbin erases the blood smeared there and changes the metamorphic water in the basin before moving on to the next foot.

When Sanghyuk walks out of the toilet, the soles of his feet feel every crevice in the floor, as if they’ve been replaced by a whole new skin entirely. He wonders what immense good he did to go from having no shoes of his own to having his feet washed so tenderly, and he closes his eyes to make sense of it.

***

Taekwoon cooks up mushroom soup, and it’s quite easily the most delicious soup Sanghyuk has tasted. They sit around the table; the conversations are easy-going and no one talks about the police station. It takes a while for the lethargy to set in again, for his people skills to disappear beneath the tired. His mind slides below into something darker, as perfectly dark as he remembers the high that led him to leave the house was. Slowly but surely, he drifts and drifts, and it’s terrifying how not terrified he is that he’s able to do that with them – just let himself go, relax every muscle.

Then Hakyeon is the first to notice.

“Sanghyuk-ah.”

He jumps, and his brain is on high-alert for a split second.

“I think you should go take a nap.” Hakyeon continues. “You look really tired. Like, really tired.”

Taekwoon nods in agreement and Sanghyuk is too tired to care about rules. He starts towards his room and tries to walk in a straight line after giving them a sloppy bow, teeth clenching so hard with focus that his jaw aches.  

A few minutes after getting under the covers, he hears Hongbin come in to place a water bottle on his bedside table and he holds his breath, waiting for something bad to happen. But Hongbin just says ‘rest well’ and closes the door after him.

And because he’s so small, and vulnerable, and lonely, he lets himself.

***

When he wakes up it’s because of a nightmare. (He dreams of uncomfortable faces and a little boy whimpering. Of falling and pain.) His eyes open and it’s dark – for a moment he truly believes that he’s in a box again, until he sits up and realizes that if it’s really a box it must be a pretty darned huge box.

The curtains are closed and outside, he can hear words blooming. They’re quiet, hushed. Sanghyuk wipes the sweat from his neck and tries to listen closely. It’s Hongbin, Taekwoon and Hakyeon. He could recognize their voices anywhere, no matter the decibel. Some part of his mind wonders if this is going to be it – after all, if they’re going to do something, it would probably be right now. When he’s sluggish, touched-starved and so dependent he’s ready to do anything for them. Then he remembers.

He remembers the kindness and the brightness of it all – this house, the way Taekwoon carried him up the stairs, how Hongbin has been nothing less of a savior; he has been safe for the most part.

He steadies himself on his feet (remembers that Hongbin washed them for him) and walks out of his room, body throbbing gently with defiance.

Because he’s so small, and vulnerable, and lonely, he lets himself trust.

Merry Christmas!

xx, luneboy