I'm on waves, out being tossed

[hismelody]

Eventually, the lack of sleep was always going to catch up to him. Through three sleepless nights, or at least mostly sleepless, S knew it, exhaustion increasing, though easy enough to push past with so much else to focus on. Still, it was only ever a temporary solution at best, nothing that could have lasted much longer than it did. With that being the case, it shouldn't be such a surprise when, after that third night, on their third full day together, he hits a wall, no longer able to keep his eyes open, drifting off while sitting on the couch. He isn't expecting it all the same, though even that, he barely registers, just as he's only half-aware of J ushering him back to bed, too tired to protest or to focus on why he should.

It's different when he wakes up. S grew accustomed a long time ago to sleeping and waking up alone, though it was one of the most difficult things about all that solitude, no longer having a warm body beside him at such times. He and J shared a bed for years, even before their relationship became more than platonic, cuddling together for warmth in the one bed in their small studio when the weather began to change. Of course, he felt it then, the beginning of something more, and it wasn't all that long after that they admitted their feelings for each other, but they spent ages like that. Even when they fought, even when J would barely speak to him, he still had the anchor of J's presence at his side, the distance sometimes easier to breach that way. It was comforting, always, but like so much else, he never thought he would lose it until he did.

He had months, though, after J left, after J died. At some point, following the former, it just became routine, as sad and empty as everything else about his life, J's absence as tangible as it ever was to be with him. It shouldn't, then, have taken only three nights to change that. They've hardly been apart in that time, though, save for brief moments of one going into another room for something or other. He's spent every night holding J as he slept, so overwhelmingly grateful to be able to do so, determined to do anything in his power to keep him safe.

So, when S wakes up distinctly alone, disoriented and unaware even of how long he's been asleep, the first thing he feels is cold, sheer terror.

For moments — sometimes hours, even — at a time, he's managed not to dwell on it. It's always been there, though, never too far from his thoughts, always ready to creep back in, the memory of how J sounded that first day on his couch, what S was so fucking scared he might do, J's promise not to stay, but to try. Even that was more than S could have asked for, and yet he knows it's not a guarantee, either. And while the past couple of days have been good more often than not, there's no telling what might happen with J alone, left to his own thoughts. Believing that a couple of decent days would be enough to override all that darkness would be entirely too naïve, even for S; it isn't as if he ever stood a chance against it before, and things are far worse now than they ever were then, even if, in some ways, they're better, too. He doesn't know how long it's been, he doesn't know what might have happened, and it's too much, his chest so tight that it feels like he can't breathe. Despite still being tired and out of sorts, it takes him only moments to pull himself out of bed, trying not to move quite as frantically as he feels but unable to take his time about it.

Not so very long ago at all, he woke up to find out, not very long after, that J was already gone. Now, as he moves out of the bedroom and down the hall, he silently prays to whatever deities might exist that he won't be too late again. He only just got J back. He isn't at all ready to lose him again.

He's dimly aware of a few things — muffled noise that he can't distinguish, the fact that the bathroom door is still open and the light off, which is something of a relief in its own right, though he doesn't really feel it until he rounds the corner and sees J sitting on the couch, watching TV. Overwhelmed and breathless, trembling with worry, he presses his free hand to his chest, the other resting against the wall for support he's surprised to realize how much he needs. "You're alright," he finally manages to say, though it's more to himself than anything else, his voice so small he's not even sure it will be fully audible over the sound of whatever J is watching. He doesn't care, just taking in the sight of him, mercifully alive and alright, relief mingling with the panic he can't yet shake off.

Comments

[beklemmt]

He feels so incredibly stupid right now, tears spilling over as he closes his eyes. He really thought he was doing so well, able to help S through that haze of panic, and it's frustrating to feel that certainty fade so quickly, and to think that he has to be the one looking for comfort now. It's just so hard to see S hurting and think he can't offer him the support he wants to give, and worse for thinking it would be his own fault if that proves to be the case. If S doesn't come to him with his problems anymore, it will be because J is too weak to handle it, he knows it.

He believes S, though, when he says that isn't the case, which is part of why he can't help crying a little, worried he'll prove that faith wrong, relieved to hear S say it anyway. He nods a little, taking a moment, to try and steady himself so it doesn't get any worse. "Sorry," he murmurs again, biting his lip, and reaches up to wipe his eyes before he looks at S again. "I love you too. And I'll tell you." He's tired of not saying things. Now that he knows again that he can, now that he trusts S will hear him and be able to bear it regardless of the hurt it causes, holding back is too painful. He spent far too long unable to share his thoughts and feelings with anyone, let alone the person he most loves. There are still things that are hard to say, but to go back to saying nothing at all would be unbearable.

"I..." He swallows hard, sniffling in spite of his best efforts. "I love you," he says. "And I know... this isn't easy. I don't want it to be worse for you either. I don't want you to hurt by yourself." He's experienced far too much of that to wish it on S. If they both have to feel these things, at least they can help each other carry it.

[hismelody]

"Please don't apologize," S murmurs, what feels like the most important part to address of what J has said. Though he would probably be doing the same thing if their positions were reversed — though he was just a little while ago, fairly certain he remembers apologizing as he trembled with panic — that doesn't mean he wants J to feel like it's necessary now. Tipping his chin up, he presses a soft kiss to J's forehead this time, his touch still gentle as he tries to brush away those tears. "You don't need to be sorry. I'm right here." If anything, it's easier to try to be steady on J's behalf than on his own, guilty though he feels to see J upset and know that it's at least partly his fault. In an awful sense, it feels like there's no way to win. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. Whether he talks or he doesn't, J will be hurt by it. All he can really do is take J's word for it — trust that anything he says won't be too much, and that J will tell him if that changes. It's what he's asked for, too, to hear even the worst of it, even the things that hurt. He has to let J choose the same.

Still he hesitates before he continues, unsure how to put what's in his head into words, wanting to do so as delicately as possible. "I've been hurting by myself," he says, slowly, reluctantly, almost like he doesn't want to be saying so even as the words leave his mouth. "For a long time now." For the most part, these past few days, he's tried to talk about the time after J left — after J died — as little as possible, alluding to it only briefly and only when it seemed unavoidable. Now is one such instance, his gaze dropping for a moment, though he stays close, his hand still resting against J's cheek. "It's not that I don't think you can handle it. It's... at least partly that that's all I'm used to now. And I could deal with that, because I had to, so it... feels like I should still be able to."

Of course, there's also the fact that he badly wants to protect J from whatever he can, to avoid giving him more to carry when he has so much of that already, but none of it is because he doesn't feel like he can talk to J. There's no one else he's ever been able to open up to the same way. It's been such a long time, though, and so much has happened, and it's that much harder to be upfront about any of it when he doesn't want J to blame himself for it.

[beklemmt]

J nods slightly at S's reassurances, though he mostly tries to stay still. S's touch is comforting and he doesn't want to pull away from that. Blinking away tears, he sniffs, trying to steady himself, letting S wipe them away. After a moment, though, his hand comes up, too, to cover S's, his other squeezing the one he holds. It's incredibly painful to think of S on his own like that. Knowing it's his fault makes it so much worse; he left the man he loves behind, knowing he had no one else, even before he attacked him and left him again. If S had nowhere else to go and no one to turn to these last couple years, it's because J stole that from him. Even if that weren't the case, though, it would hurt. As horrible as he was to S, he loved him fiercely back then, and let himself be overpowered by his bad judgment. He loves him even more now. He spent such a long time trying to do his best to protect and comfort S. He's never wanted to see him in pain.

In some strange way, though, he's grateful to hear it. There's a lot they still haven't talked about, a lot J still isn't sure he's ready to discuss, but it hasn't escaped his notice that S has spoken little of the time after his death. He's not about to push him to do so, but it helps, even as it hurts, to hear it acknowledged, not simply swept aside in order to shield him.

Again he wants to apologize, but he bites it back, literally, worrying at his lower lip for a few moments before he can answer. "Even if you can, though," he says, frustrated by how wobbly he sounds but pushing through it, "you don't have to. You don't need to." He takes a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh. "I wanted to be here for you and now you're trying to make me feel better. But I still want that, to be a comfort to you when I can. Maybe you should be able to do it alone, but you should be able to rely on your boyfriend too." He hesitates, not sure if this comes too close to apologizing when S has just told him not to, but it feels warranted, even if he can't quite look at S as he says it. "I know I made that hard. So I get it if you can't yet. But I want it to be like that again."

[hismelody]

Hearing that, S can't help the way he winces, trying hard not to let himself get too emotional in turn. Chances are, he's fighting a losing battle, but he has to try, at least. He's already needed too much comfort when he shouldn't have, and whatever started this — whatever J is saying now, for that matter — it wouldn't seem fair to fall apart again when J is already sitting here in tears, no matter how much it hurts to hear him say such things. With a quick little shake of his head, he tries his best to meet J's gaze again, looking nothing short of stricken.

It's not untrue, necessarily, that J made it hard. Those last months before he left, S could feel it becoming increasingly difficult to be able to talk to J, to turn to him with anything, and that hurt as much as any of the rest of it. They both know how bad things were, though. It wouldn't do any good to hold it against J now, to keep him at arm's length when he's wanted to be close again for so long. All that time he was alone, he missed his best friend as much as he missed his boyfriend, if not more. Every time he wanted to talk to someone, it was J he thought of, J he wished were with him, even when it was J who left him closer to dead than not in a hospital bed. Pushing him away now would feel pointless, and only hurt them both.

"It's not like that," he says, soft. His voice isn't quite as steady as he would like it to be, but it has to be good enough for now. "I..." He huffs out a quiet little sigh of his own, attempting once again to find the right words to say what he's thinking, too aware of how often he's made things worse by saying things wrong. "I wouldn't be here," he settles on, still speaking slowly, but measured this time, careful rather than reluctant, "if I were only in this halfway. If I didn't trust you. I wouldn't... want to be in a relationship with someone I didn't feel like I could talk to."

Even this doesn't seem entirely right, feels perhaps too blunt or too dire, but it's not untrue, and once said, he can't take it back. He can only press on and hope for the best. "Of course I'm worried," he continues, exhaling slowly and heavily. "Like I said the other day, that... the things you couldn't stand about me before, you won't be able to now. But I promise, I wouldn't be doing this if that were holding me back."

[beklemmt]

S was in such a relationship, J nearly says, for far longer than he should have had to be. It's all the more reason, though, why he wouldn't want that now. If he's here in spite of that, J has to make himself believe it. It's not that he thinks S is lying anyway. It's just hard for him to believe he won't end up letting S down.

It's stupid, really, enough that J lets out a small, rueful laugh, sniffling again. "And I'm worried," he says, "that I won't be any better to you than I was before." He wants to be. He wants that desperately, to be able to be here for S, to love and support him, to listen to him the way he should have back then. But it isn't like a time came when he abruptly decided he didn't want to be a good boyfriend anymore or that he disliked all these things about S. Things that never bothered him before did so gradually, and things that bothered him a little became like thorns under his feet. S never deserved to have to put up with that, or to bear the outcome of it, the worry that ripples through their relationship because of it.

It would be better, all of this, if he could just promise these things won't happen, that he won't hurt himself or lash out at S. To do so, though, would be a lie, and he's done bad enough things without adding to it. Instead he squeezes S's hand again, a signal to shore. "Even if I get mad," he says, "even if things bother me... I love you. No matter what. I —" He sighs again, pulling a face. "I didn't just leave because you made me angry or I couldn't stand you or anything like that." He's getting off track, he realizes. As bad as he feels, as bad as he'll probably always feel, his guilt isn't the point. Setting his shoulders, he shakes his head. "But okay. Then... I guess it's just something we both need to get used to again. Talking."

[hismelody]

S nearly smiles at that, small and sad and apologetic, squeezing J's hand in turn. It hurts, really, to know that J is worried about such things, despite the worries he still has himself. There's only so much reassurance he can give in this regard, not nearly as much as he wishes he could. Rather than risking dishonesty, then, knowing that J would see through it anyway if he made promises he couldn't actually be certain of, he tries instead to focus on what he already knows to be true, ignoring the way his chest aches. "You're already better to me than you were before," he says gently, though he's uncertain, too, if this is the right thing to say or not. Somehow, despite how awful things were at the end, despite how unhappy they both were, it's harder for him to frame it the same way J does, as J treating him unfairly. He's not convinced that at least some of it wasn't deserved, all the more so for what J has said about it when the subject has come up before, though he's never seemed to think so himself. S knows, though, that he must have gotten something — many things — so, so wrong for J to have felt the way he did, and that, too, he's worried about, that he will again. When he's not sure where he went wrong before, it's hard to know how to avoid repeating those mistakes. That, though, seems beside the point right now when he wants so badly to comfort J. "We're both doing better, aren't we?"

That much, he has to believe. They've talked more, really talked, in the last two days than he thinks they have in the last two years. Maybe it is something they still both need to get used to, being able to do that at all, but he's certain that it must be a good sign, stubbornly determined to get it right this time. At least, no matter how much it hurts, they're saying this instead of holding it in. If they're going to get used to talking again — to leaning on each other after both going so long without anyone to lean on at all — they have to start somewhere.

"If there are things I don't know how to talk about..." He trails off, but only for a moment, what J has said helping him to put this into words. "It's not because I don't feel like I can talk to you. You're the only person I would talk to." At that, he has a thought, a better, if perhaps riskier, way of explaining himself, the same almost-smile on his face as he continues, thumb idly stroking the back of J's hand where their fingers are entwined. "I don't know if you remember what I said the day you got here," he says, a little softer than a moment before. "We were both so upset. But after —" He doesn't say it, after I almost died. It wouldn't do any good to spell that out. "I kept thinking about how much I wished you were with me. Even then. The one person I would've wanted to turn to was you."

[beklemmt]

J nods a little at S's question, slightly relieved to be able to agree. They are doing better. However worried he may be and whatever the future might hold, they're doing better now, trying hard to get things right. S may not always know the right thing to say or do any more than J does, but he's trying, and that effort means everything to J. To be able to confide in him again, to feel safe to do so, and so to give S the chance to be there for him, it helps in ways he didn't allow for so long.

The satisfaction of that is short-lived, though, forgotten in the face of what S says. Now that he mentions it, J vaguely remembers him having said so, but that whole day is a blur now. He was so, so tired and distraught, and he recalls feelings more sharply than any specific details, the intense pain and the dizzying hope. Some parts of their conversations linger, but not much. Hearing it again now, he is, at least, in a better state of mind to do so, but it still hurts. It's meant to be comforting, he thinks, and it is, but it's awful, too. He's still not entirely clear on the details, but he had no word of S in those last days and no real way to find out how he was, no courage to try to do so even if he could. He's pretty sure that, by the time S is talking about came around, he was already dead.

It's hard to fight the fear that bubbles up at that, the accusatory refrain in his head that it's his fault S was alone, the terror that comes with the very real possibility he'll leave him alone again. He has to work to steel himself against it, to steady his breathing, holding S's hand more tightly without realizing. He knows what S is saying, he understands, and he knows, distantly, that it's a good thing in some way, but it still hurts. "Me too," he says, almost a whimper, not having understood that was part of it until he said it. "Every day after. That last day." He clenches his jaw, trying not to let it drag him under. He really thought S would never be beside him again. Whether S lived or died, he didn't think they could have anything close to this. He was so sure he'd ruined everything — their connection, both their lives.

It is, he thinks, the closest he's come since that first afternoon to talking about what he did to S. It's still more than he can really bring himself to discuss, but maybe it's a good thing to get closer to it. He forces himself to lift his gaze again, though he can't keep the guilt from his expression as he does so. "I never had anyone else," he murmurs, though he knows S understands that better than anyone else could. "I never wanted anyone else. I didn't want you to know either... what I'd done, what I'd become. But I still wanted you there."

[hismelody]

It's strange, maybe even a little nonsensical, how S's instinct upon hearing that is to apologize, as if he could have helped being unconscious for days after the fact, as if he would have had any reason to think that J would want to see him again at all after what happened. Until getting and reading J's journal, once he was released from the hospital and able to go back to his apartment and the stack of mail waiting for him there, he had no reason to believe anything other than that J must have hated him even more than he thought, enough to want him dead. He couldn't have guessed at the truth of it, somehow both better and worse all at once. Even if he could have, it wouldn't have made a difference when J was already gone by the time he woke up. So there shouldn't be anything for him to be sorry for, not in this particular instance, and yet he just barely swallows back the impulse to say he is anyway.

It just hurts, knowing that through those last days, at the end, J was longing for him, too. Knowing, too, that even if he'd been there — woken up sooner, found a way of reaching out — it probably wouldn't have made much difference. The others would still have been dead, the sonata still unfinished, the professor still with the same hold over J. More likely than not, they wouldn't have stood a chance. That breaks his heart as much as any of the rest of it — that they could love each other as much as they do and still have had no way to make it work, no outcome that would let the two of them be together, if not for a place as impossible as this one.

Reading about it — finding out after the fact that J loved him all the while — was devastating enough. Hearing it is so much harder. S has to close his eyes for a moment, trying to breathe through it, not wanting to fall apart when he's been trying to comfort J. Too many times in the past few days, he's done that, and no matter what J has just said about wanting S to be able to turn to him, S doesn't think he would have it in him to say much more about the time after J died. J doesn't need to hear about how hard it was for him in every way possible, or about the grief he feels like he carries around with him still. There's enough else he feels guilty for already.

"I wish..." S starts, but he doesn't even know what he means to say, really, and he trails off before the waver in his voice becomes too noticeable, or at least he hopes so. He wishes a lot of things, and none of them would change anything. It doesn't seem right to dwell on that when they're here, anyway, and this is so much more than he thought they would be able to have. "You have me now. I promise. I'm here, and I do know, and I'm not going anywhere."

[beklemmt]

It all hurts so much, but there's something clarifying about the pain. J doesn't know if it's the ache that comes with healing or that it's just that he doesn't have to bear it alone, but he feels, at least, a little more focused than he ordinarily might in the face of hurting so much. Still guilty, yes, for making this about himself when he meant to take care of S, but he feels better all the same than he would have expected under these circumstances. Maybe it just all needs to be said.

And it's not like it's only pain. Even if he's already heard S say as much repeatedly these last couple days, the reassurance is still helpful. It's just that hearing this, hearing his own words, things he hasn't wanted to think about, it's hard not to think, too, about how it ended. About how he was alone.

He isn't now, and the fact of that in such stark contrast to his hazy last hours in a previous life comes crashing over him, driving him forward to pull S closer into his arms. It means letting go of S's hand, but it's worth it to wrap his arms around his waist instead, leaning close to rest his head against S's shoulder, worth it to feel him pressed against J's chest, solid and warm, the only real thing he knows. He wants to say it back, a desire so strong and sharp that the words claw at his throat, but he can't do it. He won't. He won't lie again, not like this, not about something that matters this much.

"I love you," he mumbles instead, brushing a kiss against S's neck. "I don't want to go anywhere either." It's the best he can give. It doesn't feel like enough, and it feels like too much, and he makes himself focus instead on S — the way he smells, the way he feels in J's arms. "Yah, I didn't mean to make it about me again. I just... we'll work on it. Both of us. Talking. Being here for you. Even if I start crying, my ears still work."

[hismelody]

As soon as J pulls him closer, S does the same in turn, arms wrapping around him, fingers of one hand sliding up into J's hair, cradling J's head against his shoulder. Pressed close like this, it's probably harder to hide how shaky he feels, too, a little hitch in his breath again, but it's worth it. His composure matters far less than being close right now, this subject one that will probably never be easy to talk about. It is, at least the way he sees it, like he said to J the other day. They're together now, yes, and that's incredible, but that doesn't erase the past any more than it erases the scars on their bodies. The things that happened still happened. That damage has still been done. And as much as there's a part of him almost relieved to know that, at their worst, they both longed for each other, it hurts terribly to think about J alone and to know that there likely wasn't anything he could have done even if he had been conscious and able to get word to J. With all the history and all the love between them, it doesn't seem fair for them to have been so torn apart, for their only chance together to be one this fragile.

"I love you," he echoes, soft and unsteady and a little desperate, holding onto J like it might be the only way to keep him here, alive. "I love you so much." Over and over he's said it, and still it doesn't quite feel like enough. There aren't, he thinks, any words for what he feels, the sadness mixed with relief, the adoration, the yearning despite J being right here in his arms, the way J breaks his heart and puts it back together at the same time. He loves J, but it runs so much deeper than that, too. Before J, he never knew love could be like this. No matter how much it hurts, he wouldn't have it any other way.

His chest feels a little tight again, his other hand curling in J's shirt like before. "I'm sorry," he finally lets himself add, unable to hold it back, though he isn't really even sure what he's apologizing for until he continues. "For everything you had to go through... I'm so sorry, Jae-eun-ah."

[beklemmt]

J starts to protest, nothing more than a soft sound, instinctive when S says he's sorry. He falters, though, throat tightening, as S continues. It isn't something S did, something he's apologizing for having done or even for having not done. He's just sorry, and J still can't quite wrap his head around that idea, the notion that he went through something. That something happened to him when he still feels like he happened to everyone else. It's impossible to keep himself from thinking S shouldn't say that, because J brought all of it on himself.

He didn't, though. A lot of it was his fault. As hard as it is to face, he'll admit it willingly. But there's so much he didn't ask for or cause. The same kind of panic S just fought through, the despair, the numbness — he didn't create that. If he'd known any way to stop it, he would have. The only answer in the end was to take his own life. It was the only effective way to put an end to it, he'd thought.

He can't blame any of that for what he did. He made his own choices. Blinded though he was by fear and pain and desperation, he still made them, and he knew the cost. But he doesn't know if he would have made those choices had he not hurt so terribly. It's a question he might never be able to answer, and maybe not worth the hours he could spend pondering it. He's not even sure how to respond to what S has said, just holding onto him, fingers curled tight in his shirt as J fights to steady himself.

Maybe he should say it, he thinks. All of it. It's hard to put into words and then to speak those words aloud, but it hurts him, all of it. He made a promise.

"But a lot of it," he says slowly, "was my own fault. I brought it on myself." He closes his eyes, letting out a slow, careful breath. "I don't know. If I hadn't felt the way I did, I don't know what I would have done differently. But I'm sorry too. For what I did do. And for leaving you alone."

[hismelody]

Even in his own head, it's hard to know quite how to make sense of his thoughts on the matter, never mind how to put them into words in a way that would be clear to J. Besides, whether or not he managed it, it seems fairly likely that J wouldn't agree with him anyway. S still can't just leave it at that. He can't downplay the things J has done, either, knowing it wouldn't be fair to either of them if he tried, but as far as he's concerned, it isn't nearly as simple as writing it all off as J's fault. Not all of it even was, not entirely, and the things that were still took their toll on him, too. It isn't as if he did what he did without a second thought, unbothered by the turn he'd taken.

Despite having just said he would try to be more open, though, S knows that there are things he can't say right now. It takes actual effort to bite back a comment about the worst of the things J has done not even having been his idea in the first place. Eventually, it's going to have to come up, but he can't let himself go there right now. There's too much else at hand and too much he would be in danger of saying if he let himself mention the professor and the role he played in J's crimes now. Even if it weren't for that, S thinks he would still feel the same about this, anyway. While the professor's involvement — instigation, really — is no insignificant detail, it's the toll all of it took on J that matters right now.

Still clutching J's shirt with one hand, the other, entirely at odds, smooths gently over his hair, a gesture that S hopes might be a little comforting. For his part, it's enough just to be touching J, to hold him close enough to feel him breathing. "Just because you did those things," he says, slow and careful and a little uncertain, still not even sure if this is the right approach. It's the best he can come up with, though, and he at least has to try. "It doesn't mean they didn't hurt you too, or that you weren't hurting already. It doesn't mean it was easy to carry that."

He knows, after all, what J was feeling throughout those last months, perhaps better than he should. It was one thing to read J's journal after J was dead, knowing it held the only answers, the only insight, he would ever get. That isn't the case now, and it feels far more intrusive to have read something so personal now that J is alive again. He feels all at once the impulse to apologize for it. Instead, it seems better not to draw attention to that fact again at all, especially having just offered a different apology.

[beklemmt]

"They hurt other people more," J says, the fact of it too stark for him to hold back. Hearing the anguish in his own voice, though, startles him. He knows how badly it hurts to cary this, the pain of it unavoidable, and he knows how he ached and stung in the months before it began, in all the months after. He knows the storms that stirred him and the weight he bore, and it's not the first time he's said anything about it. With S holding him, though, stroking his hair, so gentle and understanding, it feels like the first time he's heard himself.

He doesn't really know what to do with it. It's not like he can pretend he doesn't feel it. It's been eating at him for so long. They both know the toll it took on him, how it ended, how he could never have anticipated having to face it again. That's so much a part of the problem tonight that it would be cruel to pretend otherwise. He draws in a deep, shaky breath, steadying himself, letting out a sigh. "It wasn't easy," he admits quietly. "It isn't." He deserves that, he's sure. It shouldn't be easy to live with what he's done. But if he lets himself feel the full weight of it all the time, he'll never make it. He's not sure how to reconcile these things.

"I don't know." He shifts in S's grasp so he can better lean his head against S's shoulder. "I can't make any sense of it yet. How I should feel. What I should do with what I do feel. I can't just let it all go, but I can't carry it like this forever either."

[hismelody]

Just the way J sounds is enough to make S's heart ache, chest constricting painfully. Just what J says is enough to send a thin current of that fear that overtook him when he woke up a little while ago through him again. He's still too close to that feeling, more settled but not yet having gotten much distance, not to follow that last statement to one possible conclusion — that if J can't carry it like this forever, he'll decide he can't carry it at all and seek the same reprieve that this place spared him from.

That alone keeps S quiet for a moment, partly because he's considering his words, mostly because he doesn't trust himself to speak. Earlier, he was too panicked even to cry. Now, he hasn't quite started to, but he feels too close to it, perilously emotional. For so long, when they were still together, before J left, before they fought more than they spoke, he tried to be steady for the both of them. These past few months, with J gone and himself so alone, it's been different. He wants to be that again now, he's trying to be, but he's carrying a lot now that he wasn't before too, even as he knows that it doesn't compare to the weight on J's shoulders.

There is, perhaps, some irony in the juxtaposition of that thought with what he finally says, but it's different, or so he tells himself. He can try to get better at letting J be here for him too, but he's held onto this for a long time now. He has to be able to bear it, to push through it.

"It's not a contest, you know," he murmurs, mouth against J's hair, though he's careful not to let the words become too muffled. "What you felt, what you feel... doesn't not count just because other people were hurt too. Both things can be true." He sighs quietly, still holding J close to him, still trying to keep him here. "I'm not sure how you should feel, either. I'm not sure there is a should for this. But I do know that you were in pain, and still are, and that matters, too."

[beklemmt]

It's such an unexpectedly apt way to put it. J has, he thinks, been treating it like something of a contest — the first in his life he's been willing to lose. It's enough to throw him for a moment, blinking into the shadows where he hides his face against S's neck, letting his words register because he's caught too much off guard to fight them off immediately.

He wants so badly to be stronger than this. For what he did, pain seems apt, something he deserves to feel, and maybe it should be more than he can bear. Maybe that's a small piece of justice. But suffering under the weight of it isn't something he can hide or sustain. Staying alive means finding a way to live with it, and that's hard to do when part of him isn't sure it's right to be able to live with it. But he saw S earlier, not very long ago at all, felt how he trembled, heard him gasping. He hears him now, S's voice soothing but a little tight with the effort it takes for him to keep it steady. Maybe it is right that he should feel the pain of what he did and carry that guilt, but if he can't bear that, if he dies — if he kills himself — he won't be the one who has to carry it. He won't be the one who suffers.

Except now he's the one shaking a little, breathing a little too quickly, a little too shallow, trying to steel himself against the hurt that threatens to crash over him and pull him under. S is the only person who's ever really seen him for exactly who he is, who's known every part of him. He's the only person who's ever looked at J and known what he was feeling, who knows his thoughts almost before J knows them himself. For months, for years, he's pushed back against the fear and the panic, then the despair, the desperation, and then against nothing at all, the absence of anything. For much of that, no one seemed to see it or, if they did, if S did, they didn't understand. S is the only one who's ever said these things, who's said what you're feeling hurts, and it's still so new to hear that it sends another ache through him, sharp in his heart, the agony and the relief of being recognized.

He spent a long time, too long, being told he didn't matter. That it is, in fact, an intrinsic part of his identity, his not mattering, and that there isn't anything he can do about it. He's spent every part of that time, every moment, even before he really understood, fighting that, and it's exhausting. With this, with all he's done, maybe he started to believe it.

Though he wishes he could, he can't keep himself from crying, sniffling quietly as the tears start to fall again. It's hard to know how to explain any of this or put any of it into words, hard to know what he wants to say until it slips out of him. "I am happy," he says, small against S's neck. "It does... it hurts. But I'm happy too. I know you're worried." He doesn't want to make it worse. Acknowledging it is one thing, but to do so like this, curled up like he can hide if he gets close enough to S, already half-blind through his tears, feels like too much. He wants to be honest with S, but he doesn't want to scare him. Like this, doing so feels unavoidable. "I'm going to figure it out. I will. I—" He lets out a frustrated sigh, making himself lift his head, reaching up to wipe his eyes. "Really. Ah, I cry too much. I don't know. It feels selfish to say it hurts. But it's not all pain."

[hismelody]

Why it is that hearing J say that he's happy is what finally breaks S's composure, he doesn't know. It does, though, and he can't hide it, trying to stifle a quiet whimper, his head ducking as J's lifts as if that might somehow hide the tears in his eyes. With J crying, too, it probably shouldn't matter, but despite his own words from just a moment ago, he still feels like he shouldn't make this about him, like it isn't fair to be upset when he's trying to comfort J. Just having J say this, trying to make him feel better, hurts terribly. There's reassurance there, too, but not enough to quell his fear that any happiness J feels won't be enough to counter the sadness and worry and guilt, the weight of everything that happened these past months and everything that was wrong before then too. S has never wanted anything as much as he wants to hold onto this now. The very fact of that feels infinitely more selfish than anything J has just said.

Shaking his head, he lets out a slow, tremulous breath. "It's not selfish," he says, the hand in J's hair falling to his shoulder instead. "It's just honest. I asked you to tell me, remember?" Even though it hurts him, too, he would so much rather know than not. No matter how hard it is to hear, no matter how much his heart breaks, he wants J to be able to tell him these things. It would probably help if he weren't always such a mess about it, and he hates that he is again now, but there's nothing to be done except try to push past it. At least he hasn't fallen into as intense a panic as he felt a little while ago. He still feels too close to it, on the edge of a precipice, but for now, he's managed to keep his footing, however tenuous it might be. Granted, given the way the past few days have gone, he may still be fighting a losing battle on that front, but that's no reason not to try. He's made J worry about him more than enough for one night.

"I am worried," he adds, softer now, though no steadier. The fact of that is far too obvious for him to try to deny it. "But I would probably worry more if you didn't say it." Whether or not J said as much, S would know that this sort of thing doesn't just go away. J killed himself before, just days ago, and while there may have been other contributing factors, too, like that fucking sonata, the guilt couldn't have helped. There's no way that could just go away. If anything, in a strange, awful way, it's part of why S can be so comfortable here. For J not to care about any of the things that happened or the people who were hurt, to face it all remorselessly, would be worse by far. For it to be unbearable, though, wouldn't do any good. With no easy solution and no advice he can give, all he can do is be here, and he can't see how that can possibly be enough to make any real difference.

Leaning forward, he presses a soft kiss to one tear-stained cheek. "You don't cry too much. It's alright."

[beklemmt]

"I cry more than I want," J amends, sniffling again, petulant. It's easier to lean into pouting right now. If he really lets himself feel the weight of everything inside of him, he'll lose it, and he can't do that. There is, if nothing else, someone supposed to deliver them food soon enough, and he can't answer the door like this.

But S is crying, too, even if he tries to hide it. That's one of the hardest parts of all of this. If it were just him, he thinks, he probably would give up. None of this would be worth it for him to keep on living alone, nothing left but the fear and the guilt. For this, though, for S, for love — he has to try. He has to win. But just as S is the one who would be left behind if he's unable to carry on, S is the one who has to bear witness to all of this now. Either way, J knows, he'll hurt him. But like this, at least, he can offer some comfort in return.

He ducks forward, brushing a kiss against S's cheek in turn. "I mean more... I feel selfish saying it hurts at all," he says, "when... I know you're right. It's... hard. It has been for a long time. But with what I did — it feels wrong to say so." He worries at his lower lip, shame creeping into his expression. "I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out. It's not fair to whine about how much it hurts that I have to live with what I did when other people don't get to. But it's not fair either if I get the chance and I spend all of it being sad and guilty. And I want this. I'm so lucky..." His voice wobbles a little and he frowns, nose wrinkling, at the sound of it. "I am. And then I feel guilty for being lucky and getting what I want. For being... relieved."

It's a horrible cycle. It gets better sometimes, the reality of what he did fading into the background, but that makes it worse when he remembers. Maybe as time goes on, all of it will be easier, or he'll figure out some philosophical stance that lets him get on with his life. Right now all he knows for sure is that it's worth it regardless. This time, he kisses S on the lips, soft and brief. "I know it sounds bad," he says. "I promise, I'm telling you. Maybe not every time I think about it, but... when it's more than a passing thought. I'm... mostly trying not to think about it."

[hismelody]

It does sound bad. No matter how much S has meant everything he's said about wanting to hear these things, he can't pretend that it doesn't, or that it hurts any less to hear than it actually does. He stays quiet, at least, but his tears come steadily now, his head still lowered, though it hardly makes a difference. Just like he couldn't conceal the way he trembled and gasped for breath earlier, neither can he hide this, too close to J for that and too unwilling to pull away.

He does, though, drop his hand from J's shoulder so he can wrap his arms around himself instead, as if physically trying to hold himself together. It makes little real difference, but it's the best he can do. He can't fall apart like this, he can't. If he wants J to be able to talk to him about this, and he does, then he has to be able to bear it. That doesn't make it any easier, though, to consider J feeling that way and to know that there's nothing he can do but be here, which has only ever been inadequate before. How could he even hope to stand up to all of that? What difference could he possibly make? He never could before, and things weren't nearly as bad then as they are now.

All he can do is try, taking a breath that's shallower, shakier than he would like it to be. If nothing else, there are things he knows he needs to say here, small truths that J should know. "I don't think it's wrong," he murmurs, his voice wavering, "or unfair. I think how you feel matters, too. And you aren't telling anyone but me, so..." Trailing off, still all drawn in on himself, he shrugs. Maybe it won't change anything about how J sees it, but J should at least know how he feels about it. J did horrible things, yes; S can't and wouldn't try to deny that. But that doesn't make him any less deserving of sympathy, too, or lessen the extent of his suffering. Nothing could change his mind about that. He knew how he felt even before he saw J struggling with it in person. Everything that's happened in the last few days only makes him more certain that he's right about this, whether or not J ever agrees with him about it.

"I know you might not ever see it that way," he adds, quieter still. "But I made up my mind a long time ago."

[beklemmt]

It's a strange cycle — an inconvenient one, really. Every time S starts to cry, J can feel himself steadying, forcing himself into some semblance of calm, needing to protect him. Every time S puts himself back together, it's like some part of J's mind takes that as permission to fall apart again. He stays close now, holding S to him, hand rubbing circles into S's back.

It helps, a little, to hear S acknowledge that, knowing that J might never be able to see it the way S does. Neither of them wants him just to wipe this away and pretend nothing happened. No one else ever needs to know, but the one thing J is certain of is that he can't just will himself to forget. It would be like killing them all over again, denying what he did, a further step from goodness.

It helps, too, to hear how certain S is, in spite of how softly he speaks and the way J knows he's still crying. Truthfully, though guilt plagued J for a long time before he stopped, though he knew in that last week that he couldn't continue, it was only in his final hours that he really came to grips with what he had become. It was as if his mind protected him from this one thing, shielding him from that word until the professor used it, called him what he was in clear and unyielding language. Murderer. As if that unlocked the door his mind had kept so carefully closed, it wasn't far from there to monster. He isn't well. He's known that for a long while now, though only in fits and starts, gaining a more solid form in only the last few days. But that hasn't seemed to him like cause for sympathy. Once he thought himself a monster, he began to lose his sense of himself as a person, not some terrible creature; it's S's love and tenderness, his persistence in seeing it for J, that's helping to keep him aware of himself as nothing more or less than human.

Again J lifts his head, again he presses a kiss to S's cheek. "I love you," he murmurs. He knows what S will say if he tries to thank him; this is the best he can do, inadequate though it is. It's also the only thing he knows how to say at first, S's words tumbling through his mind. "I think... maybe that's something else you'll have to keep telling me. Until I can think it for myself." He bites his lip, thinking. "It's like hearing it gives me permission. I don't know if that makes sense. As if I can't permit myself to feel I get to have those feelings, but if you say it's okay... I don't understand it, but it's true."

[hismelody]

All S can do, really, is keep holding onto himself and let J keep holding him, unable to bring himself to lean into the embrace or to pull back from it. He shouldn't need this. It feels ridiculous, unforgivably selfish, to be brought to tears this way when they're talking about the pain that J will have to keep living with if he's going to keep living at all. Now that he's started, though, he can't bring himself to stop, too much of that fear from when he woke up still too close to the surface, what J says too heartbreaking, even as S knows that it is, in a way, a good thing. At least it's one small bit of difference he can try to make. He wishes that it weren't even necessary, but it's something. At least, too, he manages to keep himself from breaking down entirely, still crying, but stopping short of devolving into sobs. He's been more than enough of a mess for one night as it is.

"I'll tell you," he replies, his voice breaking. "I will. As many times as you need to hear it." It's the least he can do, really, what he's felt since he first got and read J's journal, long before he had any reason to believe that they could be reunited like this. The pain he felt was there in every word, the depth of it learned about too late for S to do anything about it. He worried, and he knew something must have been wrong, but he had no idea the extent of it until J was already gone. That is, at least in part, exactly why he wants J to be able to turn to him with these things, afraid now that that won't happen if he just starts to cry every time the subject comes up.

He wants to apologize, but he's sure J wouldn't want to hear it. He keeps trying to breathe instead, desperately attempting to get himself under control, trembling a little with the effort it takes. Even now that J is alive again, grief isn't so easily quieted, that much stronger when crossed with worry this intense. Losing J once very nearly broke him. He can't bear the thought of losing him again, of J being so unhappy and so guilt-ridden that he won't feel like he can stay alive; he can't say that, not wanting to give J one more reason to feel guilty if it does come to that, even as a part of him wants, as he did a couple of days ago, to beg J to stay. Instead, he says just, "I love you so much."

[beklemmt]

There's a little voice in J's mind, soft in the background but intent all the same, that wants to protest. He's not dead yet, he wants to tell him. He doesn't intend to be. It might yet come to that, though, and he's not prepared to swear it won't. As long as he has any belief it might, he can't say otherwise. Still, he's seen S grieving and he hears the ache in his voice, the way it cracks, and it leaves J feeling like he's halfway in his grave already.

"I love you, too," he murmurs instead, reaching up to stroke S's hair. "More than anything, I love you." He isn't going to make promises he isn't certain he can keep, but in this, too, he can try to be honest. "I love you more than I hurt. I don't know if it'll ever stop hurting, but I know I want to live. You make me want to live. I don't think I was before, not for a long time. I just... was. And now... this is all I want. Just to be here, alive, with you."

Hand dropping to S's cheek, he runs his thumb gently over it, swiping away tears even as they keep falling. As badly as it hurts to see S like this, there's a strange kind of relief in it, too, almost a catharsis. They haven't been able to be this honest in a long, long time, not like they have been the last couple days. This, he thinks, is the kind of thing he'll need to keep reminding S of, too. "Have you ever seen me give up when I want something?"

[hismelody]

Like so much else, it's as painful to hear as it is relieving. For J to want to live is a start — a necessity, if he's going to manage to do so — but S hears what isn't said as clearly as he does what is. And that, too, is a good thing, in a way. He wouldn't want J to make empty promises to stay alive if he wasn't certain he could do so, would much rather know where they actually stand, but that doesn't make it any easier to consider that they might both want this so much and still not be able to make it last.

J does raise a good point, though, prompting a faint, watery almost-laugh from S, followed by a sniffle. "Never," he says, all fond, even adoring, despite his tears, though it's only a moment before his expression turns bittersweet, tinged with an apologetic self-consciousness. "Except me." There's nothing accusatory in it, just a little sad. When J is so stubborn — when he really never does give up when he wants something — it stung that much more to have J walk out on him and shut him out entirely for so long. It makes him worry, too, that if he wasn't enough before, wasn't worth fighting for, then he won't be again. Even that, though, he could live with as long as J stayed safe and alive. If happiness for him lies elsewhere, if that last part of what he's just said he wants changes, then S can't make him stay. He can only hope J will want to.

"It's all I want, too," he adds, voice dropping to a mumble, eyes closing for a moment as he tries to memorize the soft touch of J's hand against his cheek. There were so many details he couldn't remember clearly before, things he never expected to lose until he'd already lost them. Fragile as this is, he won't make that mistake again this time.

[beklemmt]

J only half-hears his last words, tears springing to his eyes again, his own attempt at confidence faltering. He knows with absolute certainty that this, now, what they have is something he won't give up on unless it's literally the last thing he does. But S is right. He thought the same thing before, after all, that he would never give up on them, that they would spend the rest of their lives together. And then he left.

It isn't like it was an easy decision. It was a burst of desperation, of guilt and pain, struggling for any kind of exit, but it wasn't simple, no matter how bad things were. Or, in a way, it was — something that circled through his mind for a while, an erratic rhythm creeping in and out, taunting and cruel, a possibility that felt sharp as a knife, terrible and impossible to ignore. He pushed it aside again and again until he couldn't. Until, as with so much else, he simply snapped. And none of it makes it okay, and none of it makes it easy to explain. He's not sure he can, not sure anything could justify hurting S the way he has, even as he knows S isn't looking for an apology. That isn't why he said it, and J would rather hear it than not, but it stings terribly.

"I should have fought harder," he says quietly. He had a lot of reasons. Few of them made any sense at all. At least, looking back now, he doesn't think they did. "I told myself it would be better for both of us if I left, but... I was just being selfish. Wanting to be able to compose again..." That hurts, too. There was a time he loved music with all every bit of his being, loved it as much as he loved S, thought he'd devote his life to it. There was a time when that was what made him feel alive, one of the only things that could really light him up. Now there's nothing left of it but ashes. "I was stupid and selfish and scared. And wrong — Sihyun-ah, I swear to you, that won't ever happen again. I promise."

[hismelody]

There are a lot of things S knows he should say to that. Really, he probably shouldn't have said what he did in the first place, except it was the only honest answer to J's question, something that has been and would have remained on his mind anyway. Of course it hurts, when J is so unfailingly stubborn, so persistent, to have their relationship be the only thing he's ever seen J give up on, the only thing that he wouldn't fight for. It isn't that he wants to make J feel guilty for it, or guiltier; nothing good would come of it. When J has just told him that he wants to hear things, though, even when they're painful, S isn't sure he could have held it back. Whether now or later, it was bound to come up at some point, anyway, too true not to. Still, it isn't easy to see J in tears again over it, or to figure out the best way to respond when his own head is spinning from crying so much.

He couldn't have asked J to choose him over his music. He wouldn't have expected that. J was always the more ambitious of the two of them, and S can only imagine how miserable he would have been, how much a different sort of resentment might have built instead. It should never have had to be only one of them or the other, but he doesn't know how to say that any more than he knows how to say that he should have given up composing instead. However much it would have hurt, it would have done so less than losing J and everything that happened after, and maybe then, J wouldn't have been so jealous or felt so unable to write. Part of why S loved it so much was because it was something they shared, but it wasn't worth holding onto it to the point of driving them apart, especially when he wound up losing his own ability to write anyway.

"It wasn't selfish to want to keep doing what you love," he says, quiet, a little reluctant. By the end, he's not sure J did love it anymore, but S is likewise unsure how to bring that up. Despite this being one of the first times they've spoken about it, the moment doesn't seem quite right for it anyway, at least not yet, when it feels more important to try to mask the implied truth in his own words: that J loved music more than he loved him. S believes that, and he's alright with it, but he doesn't want to hurt J even more by making it too clear. "It's just... That was the only time. That I've ever seen you stop fighting."

He wants to believe J now. And he does believe that J means it, but deep down, he still worries that it will come to that again, that all of the anger and resentment will come back, that everything that drove J crazy about him before will do so again. Things were so bad for so long, and they've only just gotten back together, making it hard to say what will happen when the rush of so impossibly reuniting wears off.

[beklemmt]

J bites his tongue, trying to get some control over himself, to give himself a moment to keep from blurting out something stupid. He doesn't know what it would be, only how prone he is to saying things he'll regret. It's hard to know how to say anything at all, just as hard to stay quiet.

He loved music before he loved S, before he even knew who S was. It's been a part of him for as long as he can remember. Even when he couldn't make himself write, even when every note sounded wrong, there was hardly a day that went by that he didn't try. This is the longest he's gone without touching a piano since he first got one of his own. What he hates about that, more than its absence, is that it's a relief. He misses music in a distant, background way, but for the first time in months, he has room to breathe.

"I don't know if I loved it anymore," he admits quietly, his voice tight. Just saying it is terrifying, and he shrinks in on himself, pushing himself to keep talking, to say anything that isn't that. "I just... wanted it back. I didn't know who I was anymore. I was scared and confused — I was fighting everything else, Hyunie." It sounds like an excuse. He hates that. It is an excuse, a stupid one, and he didn't want to try and defend his behavior when he knows he was in the wrong. It spills out of him anyway. There was only so much he could handle, and, back then, he didn't know how to handle any of it anyway. "I was fighting to feel like I was anyone at all. It was the worst mistake I could have made, not staying. I should have just told you everything."

He doesn't know how to say it more clearly. He might have the other day — he really can't remember — but it's hard to put into words without making things worse. In the end, his leaving wasn't about S at all, but that sounds horrible and he knows it. It should have been. Like everything else about their relationship, it should have been, and they should have talked, and he should have ignored the paranoia and trusted S instead, but he doesn't know how to explain any of it right.