The November winter creeps up on the house. Daewon turns up the heater in a sleepy blur and makes himself a chrysanthemum tea.

He opens his laptop and goes to his email. There is a new inbox waiting for him.

This one maybe?                                                        

He steels himself before he clicks on one of the links – takes a breath, relaxes his shoulders, warms his hands.

A window pops up, and there’s a firewall. But he easily breaks through it.

Then the video plays, and his heart drops all the way down to the floor.

***

Hongbin is supposed to come and pick Sanghyuk up at 4pm, after he’s done at the office. Sanghyuk thinks its way too long, but maybe it’s all the better, because he has something he wants to do.

“Hyung,” Sanghyuk says softly, because maybe if Daewon doesn’t hear then he can take back his question.

But then Daewon turns and Sanghyuk says a bad word in his head – damn – well Ravi technically taught him so he blames Ravi.

“I –” Sanghyuk scratches the back of his neck. “Um, d’you think I could get someone over to cut my hair? Like, maybe, Hakyeon hyung? If you don’t mind?”  

It had gotten tiresome to tie his hair up, but mostly he couldn’t stand looking in the mirror anymore. Every time he looked there Jaehwan was always waiting, staring back. He had spent so long trying to make himself into another person, had tried so hard to reclaim his name as something that belonged to him. But every time he so much as passes the mirror, it all somehow comes crumbling down: his tower of a feigned self. He’s hated himself for so long, Sanghyuk really doesn’t need this to make it even worse.

Hakyeon comes over without a question (says he hasn’t cut hair in a long time but swears he still has his skills) and they set up makeshift barber chair in the middle of the kitchen, really just an office chair and a towel that drapes across Sanghyuk’s shoulders.

It’s not until Hakyeon takes out his supplies that Sanghyuk starts to panic. His breath rises in his throat like a bird fluttering upwards in fear, screaming the only way it knows how, trying to find an escape in a pitch dark room. The adrenaline kicks in but it can’t go anywhere, so it builds up in his muscles as a violent shake.

“Okay, hold on,” Sanghyuk mumbles. “Sorry, I, just – I need a moment. Hold on. Sorry, sorry.”

His hands go to grip the armrest as he closes his eyes and tries to breathe, so acutely aware of the eyes on him. He’s okay, this is his one chance to prove he can be normal. He just needs to, get over himself, for once. He can choke down this irrational anxiety. He can. But maybe he should’ve thought more about this before asking. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Han Sanghyuk you’re so stupid. You’re not ready.

“You alright?” Daewon asks, and Hakyeon stills, holding a comb in his hand, feeling stupid but also not daring to move.

“Yeah, I just – I – Bad mem’ries.” He screws his eyes shut tighter.           

Daewon moves in front of Sanghyuk. “You here with us? Do you need touch?”

Sanghyuk opens his eyes and nods. He knows how strange he must look now, all on the verge of sweating and trembling, flanked by two strong, capable men. He must look pretty pathetic.

“Use your words.” Daewon reminds softly.                             

“Yes.” Sanghyuk’s fingers curl into a tense fist. He doesn’t want to mark up the armrests. “Please. I – Yeah. Touch. Please.”

“Okay,” Daewon reaches out and plants the back of his hands firmly on Sanghyuk’s thighs. “Here.”

Sanghyuk quickly slips his hands into Daewon’s and squeezes. He forces himself to breathe even though its hard as hell and he wants to just tell Hakyeon it’s a mistake asking him here.

“You’re doing so well. Such a brave boy. Just keep your eyes on me, okay?” Daewon holds the eye contact. “You good to go?”

Sanghyuk’s body shivers at the praise and he makes a sound of assent. Reckless courage seeps into his body again and it hurts – after all the only way it can seep in is through the cracks in his mind. But it’s better than feeling numb. He’s doing this to make Hongbin proud, as a surprise; he can’t forget that.

He holds his gaze even when Daewon breaks it to give Hakyeon a nod.

Hakyeon cuts away behind the hair tie and Sanghyuk can feel the weight starting to give. He doesn’t flinch, just stares resolutely at Daewon’s face, until the crisp snip of the scissors break the air near his left ear and he instinctively moves to escape pain, blood, hands, he cannot see.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” The apologies spill out of his mouth as his gut twists painfully. “Okay, sorry – I’ll – I’ll keep still.”

He shifts lower in his chair, tries to find a position where his flinching won’t make the rest of his body jerk.

He feels Hakyeon get back to work, and he can tell Hakyeon tries his best to not make it loud, though its not something he can necessarily help. He holds eye contact like his life depends on it, and grounds himself by tracing the features of Daewon’s face, moving from his hairline down to his lips then back up again, continuously chanting to himself I’m okay, this is Daewon hyung. He’s watching me. He’s watching me. He’s not going to hurt me.

Until Hakyeon brings scissors close to his face, blocking off his vision, to work at his fringe and his heart rabbits in his chest.

“Wait. Wait.” Sanghyuk breathes out in a panic. “Wait.”                                                     

Hakyeon immediately pulls back, his eyes getting wide.                               

“Okay, too – Too close.” He chokes out. “Is it okay if you – If you –”

Hakyeon nods and smiles like Sanghyuk is not asking for too much. “Sure, no problem.”

Hakyeon just pulls the section of hair back and cuts it from the top, though it takes him more time to make sure the cut is of even length. Everything else is marginally better after that, Sanghyuk tries his best to keep still and he is almost capable of it,

Until it happens.                                                                                              

“I’m gonna need your head down for this one.” Hakyeon explains. “Just try and tolerate it, okay? We’re done after this.”

Sanghyuk nods as he lets out a sigh of relief, and he thinks he’s good now, its over now, but his last clear thought is, thank goodness before his mind suddenly shifts and then everything goes wrong in his brain. A hand gently presses the top of his head downwards and he lets his neck go slack. It doesn’t hurt but its still pressure, and it feels familiar. It feels like someone positioning him. He doesn’t remember anything after that – everything is just in a haze, except it sounds like air raid sirens. He feels his head get tipped forwards, then to the right, then to the left, and he just lets the hands guide him. They’re everywhere; his chest, across his back, down the insides of his thighs. His throat coils up but he doesn’t move. He waits to be told what to do.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, chin to his chest just staring at his hands in another’s – someone he doesn’t know, being held down – before he hears a worried voice.

“ – nghyuk? Sanghyuk?”                                                           

Sanghyuk looks up, away from where his hands are kept still. And he sees only the face of Daewon.

“Hey,” Daewon’s eyebrows are knitted. “Welcome back.”                  

He feels his hands being released slowly, but he doesn’t move. His body is filled with rust. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the person holding his hands is Daewon. And he suddenly remembers that he wanted Daewon to touch him. He had asked for it, with words.  

“Go to the bathroom and see. I promise I didn’t wreck it.” Hakyeon unclips the clothes clip holding the towel together and pulls it away from Sanghyuk. “Promise.”

Slowly, he peels himself off the chair and walks to the bathroom, not sure if his mind even understood the words or if his body is just working to carry out an order. But he gets there. He doesn’t recognize who he’s seeing in the mirror.

The person he’s looking at looks… almost, nice. Looks not like him. His fringe is short, and the sides are trimmed, buzzed so he looks neat. He turns to examine it further, bringing his hand up to run through new hair just to be sure its, actually, him. Every movement in the mirror matches and he still can’t really believe it.

He nervously runs his fingers down the trimmed sides near his ears and towards his neck. He can feel the scars there from where Moonhyuk Sir had purposely cut him, and he’s sure Hakyeon and Daewon can see it – it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care about that. (Or maybe he does, a little bit, but.)

He steps back and really, really looks at himself.          

He smiles, tears almost welling in his eyes, turning back to smile at Hakyeon leaning against the toilet door. “He’s gone.”

***

Sanghyuk is almost vibrating with anticipation when 4pm rolls around, bouncing about the apartment like he’s five. He runs his fingers through his hair restlessly, pacing the living room, not used to the lack of length, but relishing in the coolness on his neck. He really, really wants Hongbin to like it, though a small part of him is nervous because he hasn’t gotten permission to get his hair cut and Hongbin might get angry.

Daewon chastises him for it when he makes his concerns heard, saying please, this is Hongbin we’re talking about here.

But he’s not fighting to stay present in his body, unlike the previous times of having to wait. He’s ready to go back to Hongbin, ready to move his things back into the – his room, with its blue walls and night lights that Hongbin had so patiently installed. He hasn’t felt so… excited, since he was a kid – maybe not ever. It’s a strange feeling that blooms in his chest, like it’s the first time he’s holding his breath for a good reason. It’s cold outside but he’s warm. Daewon tells him there might be heavy snow this year, and he can’t help thinking if this year is finally going to be the year he wakes up to snow fall feeling happy.

He doesn’t quite want to push that hope too much, in case it all turns wrong, but he knows he might definitely get the chance to, as long as he finds the reasons to get out of bed and look outside.  

When Daewon goes to answer the doorbell, Sanghyuk trails behind him, heart pounding in his chest, until he hears Hongbin’s voice, a “Hello!” and everything melts away; so natural, Sanghyuk thinks he might have felt this way about Hongbin even before they met.

He steps out from behind Daewon, and when he meets eyes with Hongbin there is a smile that finds its home so easily on his lips like it never left. He knows this smile is different, even if he also knows he hasn’t smiled quite often enough for him to know the kinds of smiles he has.

“Wow, your –” Hongbin starts.                                                        

“Hug?” Sanghyuk cuts him off, because he’s more than sure he’s going to fall apart if he doesn’t feel Hongbin closer than this. He needs to be able to touch, to make sure this is not a dream. “Sorry.”

Hongbin’s eyes widen in surprise, like he’s not sure if he’s hearing correctly. “Y – Yeah. Sure! Of course.”

Then he opens his arms and steps in front of Sanghyuk the way he usually does, the way he always does, and all Sanghyuk has to do is accept it. (Daewon tells him, it’s not weak to ask for help. It’s completely okay to want help. The truly weak people are the ones that don’t ask for it.)

Hongbin is cold from the walk into the apartment building, but there’s nothing cold about it. It’s a little awkward, maybe, because of how long they haven’t seen each other, but Sanghyuk finally feels like he’s back at that one little corner of the universe that belongs to him.

“Your hair,” Hongbin says, reaching up to the back of his head, almost as if he can’t believe he’s not seeing the boy with some sort of shag. “It’s short.”

Sanghyuk steps back and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I got it cut today. Hakyeon hyung came over.”

“He didn’t even tell me!” Hongbin pretends to sulk but his eyes give it away.

“I know, I told him not to,” Sanghyuk says. “Do you, um, do you like it?”

“You look really, really good. I love it.”               

“Come in, you two.” Daewon interrupts their little bubble, making a small sound of fake irritation. “Making me feel all weird.”

Hongbin casually puts his hands on Sanghyuk’s shoulders and squeezes, kicking off his shoes and leading him into the house.

“This is not over yet, by the way,” Daewon closes the door behind them, shaking his head. “I need to talk to the both of you separately. Debriefing. Hugging can come later.”

Then he looks up and the both of them are already not listening to him, Sanghyuk showing Hongbin the worry stones shelf animatedly.

Daewon sighs. “Okay I guess hugging can come now, then.”

***

Eventually, Daewon manages to separate the two, and he sits Hongbin down at his work table, out of earshot where Sanghyuk is doing his history work.

“Let me just catch you up on the major milestones,” Daewon shuffles through his papers and Hongbin bites back an urge to tease, considering Daewon’s line of work and how… business-like Daewon makes it to be. “Sanghyuk had some trouble eating and sleeping when he was first here. But we solved the sleeping problem by changing the sleeping arrangement, though I think you still have to work on getting him to feel comfortable with furniture – is he using the bed at home?”

“First few weeks he slept on the floor and thought I didn’t notice, but he’s sleeping on the bed now.” Hongbin says, tapping his pen on the file of resources Daewon had given him. “Doesn’t really sit on the couch though, just the beanbag.”

“Try and get him to sit on the couch with you, or discourage him from sitting on the floor. I don’t suspect it might be a big problem, but it might make him more comfortable with the idea that he’s equal with the rest of us.” Daewon nods and Hongbin writes it down. “Eating… that was a big problem. But he’s only ever had one incident with food since the first week. He wasn’t eating the first few days so I brought him down into subspace and fed him by hand. Worked after a few meals, and now he’s eating fine.”

Hongbin is almost stunned at the ease with which Daewon had seemingly solved the problem. He had to try several months to get Sanghyuk to eat properly again, and even still, he was so sure the boy had started regressing before he left the house. Daewon clearly picks it up and raises his eyebrows.

“How does, that… you know – that whole thing work?” Hongbin admits. “I tried reading up on it but I still don’t really get it. You just, you order him around? And it works?”

“Putting a sub in subspace works in some situations and not in others. It works, when they need to be taken out of their heads for a while.” Daewon leans back in his chair. “Sanghyuk thinks too much when he has to eat. He thinks about whether he’s deserved the food, or whether it’s going to be taken away, or whether he needs it. If you take that anxiety away, he’s going to trust that you’re doing the right thing for him. Once he realises that food isn’t going to hurt, or isn’t going to hurt him, it becomes easier for him to rationalize the fact that food is necessary for survival. But first, you have to get through that door of him over-thinking. Most submissives find it therapeutic to surrender their choices.” Daewon glances up. “You know how it gets really loud in your head sometimes?”

Hongbin does a subtle, internal, carefully concealed flinch. Daewon doesn’t know about his little problem. “… Yeah?”

“When it gets like that in Sanghyuk’s head, he’s craving for someone else to quieten it because he doesn’t know how to do it himself.” Daewon passes something to Hongbin. “If he isn’t naturally submissive, then this will usually pass. He won’t need someone else to help him, he’ll learn to deal with it, and come up with independent coping mechanisms. But until then, don’t freak out if he needs to be subservient to calm down.”

“If he seems like he’s having a bad day, or if he seems like he can’t calm down no matter how hard he tries, maybe you might want to try these things.” Daewon points to a few bullet points on the sheet of paper. “Kneeling is a little bit extreme, but always leave it as an option if he gets too stressed. He can kneel next to you when you work. Or you can give him instructions to carry out – like cleaning up the house, or filing his schoolwork, or something even as simple as taking a shower.”

“You think it’s going to help?”                                                                         

“I know its going to help, if you do it right. When Sanghyuk gets stressed, he paces, or he gets very still, or he bites his nails. If you could, just, give him something to focus his energy on, it might calm him down. Stop him from feeling like he’s going everywhere at once – Won’t work all the time, of course, but hey, if he needs it, we gotta give it to him.”

Hongbin nods. He gets it, he really does. It’s the first time he’s considering the fact that maybe Sanghyuk feels the same way he does right before he has to resort to things he doesn’t want to do; but it makes sense. He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of it earlier, because all the signs are there.

Hongbin has felt helpless before: when Sanghyuk screams night after night and ends up so exhausted in the mornings that he looks twice his age, when Sanghyuk has to lie down on the toilet floor, hugging a pail to himself because he can’t stop vomiting from the anxiety. But there’s one thing Hongbin is sure of – he’s not going to give up. 

He’s an awkward person – doesn’t know what to do with his hands most of the time when he’s not holding a camera – but saving Sanghyuk would, to some extent, mean saving himself.

***

“What does a ‘good life’ mean to you? What does it mean to you to be… let’s say, normal?”

Sanghyuk stares at the worry stone he squeezes in his hand. He hasn’t really thought about it calmly. Whenever he thinks about being normal, its usually just his brain shouting at him to “be normal, Sanghyuk”, and not actually coming up with specific things to do. It’s counter-productive, but he has no idea how to go about it.

He tries to mimic Hongbin, mostly, though he’s been observing Hakyeon hyung and Niel hyung as well. He tries to use the same emojis they use, and he watches himself pick up slang to make himself sound more casual – more easy going, and less like himself.

But it’s always a little sad when he looks at everyone else touching each other – hi-fiving, fist bumping, hugging – because he can’t do it with the same ease that they can. A part of him thinks he doesn’t deserve the sort of love and happiness that seems to come with touch (Taekwoon hyung pretends to beat Hongbin hyung up, but Hongbin always laughs and it throws him off), because he’s not like everyone else. He can’t remember to function without reminder, and he still doesn’t quite know if he’s supposed to make himself heard in this world or not; in that sense, is he even really human? If his body can’t even remind him that he is?

“I guess,” Sanghyuk starts blindly, hoping as he goes along he’ll find the words. “I just, want to be – Like, everybody else. Like Hongbin hyung, or just – y’know, like – do, things. Without wanting to freak out. Or have to take breaks.”

Daewon doesn’t reply for a long time, and Sanghyuk is starting to feel like maybe he’s said the wrong answer.

“Does that maybe mean you want to pretend like you’ve never been hurt?” Daewon asks softly, as if he wants to let Sanghyuk down as gently as possible.

Sanghyuk nods his head, but miserably, because even with his efforts, he knows it’s not possible. “I guess.”

“Sanghyuk-ah,” Daewon hums. “You’re going to be different from the rest of your peers in some way or another for the rest of your life, you realise that right?”

He hates to think about it, but its not something he can lie his way out of. He just gives a sigh.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re different. It just means you do things differently.” Daewon reaches out to place his hand on Sanghyuk’s. “I’ll say it again so you get it. You’re the same as everyone else, you just do things differently.”

“But I don’t want to,” Sanghyuk says, not looking up. It would sound petulant, almost bratty, if he didn’t feel so desperate and trapped, like he’s right in the middle of a collapsing world.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Daewon tilts his head until he’s sure Sanghyuk is kind of still present. “Disabled people can do the same things we do, they just do it differently, because they have to. Hongbin is left-handed, so he needs to accommodate to the right-handed world simply because it wasn’t built for him. He has to play the right-handed guitar unless he buys a left-handed one.”

“But that’s – that’s not – they couldn’t help it.” Sanghyuk tries not to sound frustrated, but hardly anyone understands how important this thing – being normal, is to him.

“Well, listen. How come it’s acceptable for any part of the body to get hurt except the brain?” Daewon doesn’t raise his voice, just keeps it firm like he’s just stating logic as common as table salt. “That’s ridiculous isn’t it? The brain is an organ too.”

“You got ed over in the head by other people, Sanghyuk-ah.” Daewon taps the side of his head with two fingers. “That doesn’t mean you get to feel sorry for yourself. If someone breaks an arm, he rehabs to get it to the best it can – maybe never 100% ever again, but an 80% is better than nothing. It’s the same thing with your brain. Don’t let it control what you can or cannot do. You take control. You use your post-its, and the breathing exercises, and you ask for help to get it back to an 80% again, because you’re not alone.”

“And you wanna know what I think your strength is? You have an unbelievable ability to think about things no one else your age can. Precisely because you’re in your head so much of the time, you understand things. So use that to your advantage, Sanghyuk-ah. The next time you think you can’t do something, realise that you’re in control of your brain. You can do anything you want, as long as you want it 100%.”

It’s a lot to take in, Sanghyuk feels like he’s heating up, and he can’t tell whether its because his body is trying to reject this new information, or if its because hope is swelling in his chest. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. And he feels like a blind man trying to describe the colour red.

He brings his knees up to his chest, squeezing into the small chair, and moves his thumb over his forearm gingerly, trying to focus on his breathing. 

Later, Daewon tells him that he can ask Hongbin if he needs to be taken down because Hongbin is willing to learn, and Sanghyuk starts shaking with relief. He was so scared that his streak of doing well would end at Daewon’s house, and that he would disappoint Hongbin with his lack of progress, but now he knows that he just needs to ask for it if he needs something. That in itself is another problem, but he doesn’t feel like he’s hitting a wall anymore. He feels like he’s finally, finally moving forward, just clearing obstacles as he goes along, cutting through the thorny path as he finds a route to survival as clear as day.

There’s a proverb that says: you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

But for Sanghyuk, he never really knew what he lost until he’d gotten it back.

***

Hongbin holds Sanghyuk close to him as they cross the apartment grounds to the carpark after a lengthy goodbye. They meet eyes in the frosty air and for the first time, they both laugh. They can’t stop, to the point where they stay in the car longer than they need to, just catching their breath, and Hongbin fuels it with funny stories of Hakyeon and Myungsoo. Hongbin takes a selfie, both their eyes sparkling, and he puts it in a new folder titled ‘Hyoggie’. It’s the first photo of them together, and its probably going to be their best one.