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]

"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.

[hismelody]

The words that first come to mind upon hearing that are ones that, not wanting to make this any worse than he has already, S has to fight hard to hold back: I don't know if you loved me anymore either. J has said he did, that he never stopped loving him, but it's one thing to be told that, another entirely to actually feel it, and S spent a long time having every reason to believe that wasn't true anymore. He knows J does now — has known it, in fact, since well before they got back together. The writing in J's journal made that heartbreakingly clear enough. In the time before J left, though, while he might have said the other day that he didn't hate him, it certainly seemed like he did, a fact only emphasized by his giving up on them and refusing even to speak to him for almost a year. If nothing else, it didn't seem very much like love anymore, and it hadn't for a while, even if S stubbornly tried to hold onto what they had.

If just thinking so feels cruel, though, then saying so would be even worse. So would pointing out that if J was fighting everything else, it still means he came last. Even the way J phrases it as having wanted music back — it's hard to hear that and not think that J didn't want him back, at least not enough to measure up to that, and S feels awful for even considering it. It doesn't matter now, it can't matter, and hurt as he might be, it isn't as if he holds a grudge. He wouldn't have spent so long attempting to get J back if he did. With what he knows now, he understands it far better than he did back then anyway. He just can't change how much it stings.

But then, so does the way J sounds now, making S feel a surge of guilt. It has to be better, he thinks, or at least hopes, to say it rather than holding it in, but J seems about as hurt for having left as S was — is — by J's leaving. "At least I know now," he murmurs, though he's not sure how reassuring it will be when he still can't manage to stop crying. Still, he can't help the impulse to try to make this better somehow, though he's not the one who walked out on what they had. "Anything you ever want to tell me... I promise, I'm here. I'll listen."

[beklemmt]

J's instinct is to get up and move, but he can't do it. His mind wants to pace, can't stop circling; his body is frozen. S is hurting and he wants more than anything to fix it, and he can't. He can't undo any of the things he did. He can't make it better. He fucked up, and they can do better now, but they can't change the fact that he did. Even if he could find a way to explain the things he did, the choices he made, in a way that's clear and concise, it probably wouldn't help. As badly as he wants S not to be upset, that isn't possible. He can't ask for it either. That S has forgiven him — seems to have, at least — is more than J could really have asked for. He can't expect him to forget, too.

None of that makes J any less frustrated, both with himself and, a little bit, with S. "You can be mad at me," he says, almost pleading for it. He reaches for S's hands, grasping them tight, as he leans toward him. "I know — I know now, I can talk to you, and I will, but you don't have to just support me all the time. I was horrible, you can say that."

He doesn't actually want that to be the case, but after everything he did to S, a part of him wants to hear it anyway. It isn't right that he kept hurting S again and again, that he's doing so now, that there's no excuse for the fact that he gave up on them. He had reasons, but that doesn't mean they were good ones. S can be angry with him for it. He must be, or must have been at some point, and yet here he is, crying over it and still being so sweet and thoughtful. Maybe what J deserves has nothing to do with what he can get or will accept, but he'd deserve it, too, if S yelled at him a little for the way he fucked up. Neither of them can just pretend it away.

[hismelody]

This, S finds, hurts nearly as much as any of the rest of it, his expression turning slightly bewildered as he shakes his head. It isn't as if he's never been mad at J. When they fought, he could hold his own; he's incredibly patient, but short-tempered, quick to snap, when that patience finally runs out, just one of many flaws that he's sure contributed to the way everything fell apart. For this, though, he doesn't feel anything even resembling anger, and he hasn't in a long time. He wouldn't want to, either. Maybe it would be warranted, given everything, but it would also be such a fucking waste. He's too relieved to be mad now, and even when he was before, it was short-lived, as much with himself as with J, if not more so. Now, even more than after it first happened, he can hardly blame J for leaving. He wishes desperately that J hadn't left, but they hadn't been happy in a long time before then, and J hadn't seemed able to write for nearly all of that time. It's so easy now to think back on things they could have done differently, but it isn't as if they could have known then how things would turn out.

"I'm not mad," he says slowly, mouth curving into a deep frown. "I'm... hurt, but I'm not mad." Even that feels uncomfortable to say, but it is, again, the only truth he has here, and if J wants him to be able to turn to him, then he has to be able to say such things. Ignoring the worst parts of their past won't do either of them any good. They both know what happened, though. It's painfully apparent that J feels guilty enough as it is without S pouring salt in that wound. He's had a long time, anyway, to try to come to terms with all of it, though he didn't really understand until the other day, though he's still not sure he entirely does. If he was angry, though, it's long since burned out. All of it just makes him sad, really — not just for himself, and for what might have been, but for J, too.

Sniffling again, he turns his head towards his shoulder, trying to wipe away some of his tears with it, not wanting to pull his hands away from J's. "And you don't need me to tell you what things were like before you left," he adds, quiet, a little unsteady. Horrible is J's description for it, not his. S can't argue that, really, but he doesn't feel like he needs to say it when J has done so more than once already. "But... you weren't happy. You hadn't been, for a long time. I can't be mad at you for that. Or for feeling like you couldn't talk to me." If anything, the latter feels more like his own fault than J's, but he can't imagine it would do any good to add that.

[beklemmt]

That's worse, really. He deserves that, J thinks, but S doesn't. It would have been easier if S were mad at him. He can handle that, has done so before, but hurt is harder to push against, harder to fix. Hurt is harder to reason with, and J doesn't have reason on his side to begin with. It was all so stupid and senseless. No matter how much time he spent trying to force it into something rational, he knows now how what an idiot he was to think he was doing the right thing. And still, it isn't like S is wrong. He wasn't happy back then. Something had to change, and he knows he was hurting S by staying, too.

He wants to pull his hands away and wipe S's tears. Instead he just squeezes them a little more tightly, lifting their hands to hold to his chest. "I'm mad," he says, not realizing that he's going to say so until he does, or even that he felt that way. "I was so stupid and I fucked everything up, and — I thought it made sense and it didn't. Just like — fuck, everything." He can't say it. Even now, he can't make himself say what he did, though they both know. Somehow he managed to rationalize murder, and he knows, he knows, it made sense. A part of him still understands that, and that scares him, but not being able to understand his own actions would be just as frightening.

"I don't know," he says, quietly helpless, clutching S's hands close, though he only half-notices that he's doing so now. "Even when I wanted to talk to you, it was like everything got stuck in my throat. I wish I'd made myself."

[hismelody]

S doesn't need to hear anything more specific than everything to be pretty sure he knows what J means. But that, too, he sees no reason to say. They both know what J did, just like they both know what their relationship was like in the months before J decided to leave. Spelling it out in detail wouldn't do any good now. He's enough of a mess as it is, anyway, almost like a belated reaction to the intense panic he felt earlier, as if now that he's started crying, the weight of all of it has caught up to him and he can't stop, too worn down and vulnerable to turn it off. He doesn't need to go making it worse, or to set J off any further.

Letting his eyes fall briefly closed, he takes as deep a breath as he can manage, not pulling away from J in the slightest. "I wish you had, too," he replies, barely above a whisper. Even that feels a little like too much, but it's one more thing he can't pretend isn't different. "I wish... so many things." Though there's little he can say that he actually regrets, there's still so much he would change if he could go back and do it all over, knowing what he knows now. No matter how happy he is to have this second chance together, it hurts more than he could put into words to consider that they weren't supposed to get this. That, despite how much they love each other, everything went as wrong as it possibly could have, and they didn't stand a chance.

They can't undo any of it, though. They can only try to do things differently now, to get it right this time. "But you can talk to me now," he says again, an attempt at optimism, quietly encouraging. "We're so lucky, aren't we? We get to try again."

[beklemmt]

J can't argue with that. That doesn't stop some small part of himself from trying to do so anyway, an argument bubbling up, an old war with himself. They shouldn't have to be lucky. They shouldn't need that, because he should have done something sooner. If he'd been stronger, if he'd made himself do the smart thing and talk to S, if he could have pushed past this same stupid voice in his head and opened up then like he has now, if he were tough enough to push it out entirely, they wouldn't be here. If he weren't a pathetic coward.

That he's the one who was angry is stupid, but he supposes he should have understood that sooner too. S is perfectly capable of fighting if he wants to. He held his own back then, and he let it go. J was angrier with himself than with S this whole time anyway. Of course he's still mad at himself now.

He fucked up so much.

And now S is crying, still crying, and J is, too, though much less so than he was earlier. However much J can't help that he can't wholly accept their good fortune for what it is without pushing back, he won't let it out either, not now. He's hurt S enough. Instead, he lets go of S's hands to reach out for him instead, wrapping his arms around S's shoulders and pulling him close. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, kissing his cheek. "No, we are. We're so lucky. I never thought I'd even see you again..." In his last hours, he wasn't even sure if S still lived at all. "I'm sorry, darling. We are trying. And I will talk to you, I am talking to you. I know better now. I was so fucking stupid, but I'm here now, and I love you so much. I love you more than anything, Hyunie. I'll make sure you know it this time."

[hismelody]

This time, when J pulls him close, S holds him in turn, though he's not sure if it's meant to be for J's comfort or for his own. He's not so worked up that he can't see that J is in tears, too, and it's hard not to feel guilty for having gotten him started again, though S knows he couldn't really have said anything other than he did. It wouldn't have been fair — might even have been cruel — to have J ask him to turn to him, to promise to try to be more open, and then to hold back a truth so significant. Being left would have hurt anyway, but it was so much worse for knowing how stubborn J is and having never seen him give up on anything else before. Even knowing now that it was far more complicated than it seemed at the time, that doesn't diminish the sting of it.

He doesn't want to think only about the past, though. He doesn't want to ignore it, either, but getting lost in old hurts and regrets when J being here is downright fucking miraculous would be such a waste. Maybe everything was fucked up before, but it doesn't have to be now. They should, instead, make the most of it, make this last, he thinks — learn from what they got wrong before, but move forward, too. These past few days have turned everything on its head. He could say the same thing to J, after all, having been certain that they would never see each other again; he thought, really, that there was at least a good chance he would spend the rest of his life alone. No one could ever come close to J for him, after all, and no love could ever compare to this.

"Please stop apologizing," he mumbles, pathetically sad, as he clings to J, letting his head rest on J's shoulder. It's all he can get out at first, his breath quietly hitching. He's not even entirely sure why at first, until he finds himself reminded of the time after his parents died, when they did plenty of this — him crying, J holding him. Then he realizes that it's probably grief, still, at least in part, the sort of thing that, once set off, is hard to stop. That mingled with everything else — his panic from earlier, the sadness and hurt for how wrong things went before and how they nearly lost each other, the sheer overwhelming relief at having J here, safe, at least for the time being — is a staggering combination. "I never thought I'd see you again either," he says into J's shoulder, trying desperately to collect himself. "I love you more than anything, too."

More than piano, more than the shell of a life he left behind back in Seoul, more than enough to counter the ways in which J has hurt him, physically and otherwise. The words he finds on the tip of his tongue are none of those, though, and he can't see any reason to hold them back. "You're my best friend, you know."

[beklemmt]

J turns his head, pressing a kiss into S's hair, holding him tight. Even when he doubted, when he let whatever cruel thing wrapped itself around his mind persuade him that S didn't know who he was, he didn't doubt that. It's a strange distinction, to have known that S loved the person he thought J was more than anything and still to have let himself somehow believe that S didn't know him anymore. But S had to doubt. S had ample reason to. J doesn't know if he can say he loved music more than S, but he loved it as much at some point, before it started to unravel him, until his desperation outweighed his love. S can forgive him, S can move on, but J doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forgive that in himself.

"You're my best friend, too," he murmurs, eyes shut tight, then lets out a hiccuping laugh. "My only friend, but you'd be my best friend even if I had a hundred others." He wouldn't want even a quarter as many, but the point still stands. No one could compare to S. No one ever has or will. "I'll try to apologize less. And to be better. I don't want it to get like that ever again, even close to that."

It isn't just the way he treated S, though that is a key reason to want things to change. The way he felt back then, though, was so overwhelmingly painful and frightening, he would have felt suffocated even if he hadn't decided that S was trying to baby him or expected him to get better. Maybe talking about it won't stop things from getting bad again, but he has to try. "I'm right here, darling. I've got you."

[hismelody]

S lets out a little laugh of his own, soft and helpless and watery, in response to J's, face burrowing into his shoulder. "That too," he agrees. Before J, he never really had other friends. He got by well enough with the other kids, wasn't excluded or bullied the way J was, but he never made real connections, either, always too aware of being out of place, even if no one else saw it. After J, he didn't see the need for other friends. Any others would have paled in comparison, anyway. There could never be anyone else he would be so comfortable with, so himself. Around people, he's good at being friendly, seeming open, and it isn't that it's disingenuous, exactly, but it's not wholly real, either. No one has ever known him, has ever seen him, the way J does. That would be just as true even if they'd never been anything more than friends.

He falls silent for a moment then, or as close to it as he can get when he's still a crying, sniffly mess, letting J hold him, trying to keep his breathing deep and steady. It seems both incredibly strange and not strange at all, how safe he feels, curled close against J's chest, wrapped up in his arms, his embrace as familiar as it ever was, even after all this time. Like this, no matter how shaken he might be, he believes it, too, that things will be better this time, that it won't be like it was before. They love each other too much and came too close to losing each other for good to let things fall apart the way they did back then. Of course, that's entirely dependent on whether or not J can stay alive, which S knows isn't guaranteed. Right now, though, he's here, and that means more than S would ever know how to say.

Instinctively, he wants to apologize, but having just told J not to, he's sure it wouldn't be particularly well-received. He makes a small, grumbling sound instead, too soft to sound very self-conscious. "And you think you cry too much," he says, a little wry. "Ah, I can't stop."

[beklemmt]

J huffs out another tiny laugh, pressing another kiss to S's hair, ducking his head to brush his lips against S's neck. "It's the worst," he says. Once he gets started, he struggles to stop, too, though at least he has now. That could change at any moment, he knows, the both of them extra emotional tonight, but at least it feels like some of that is starting to break up, the mood softening again.

"But it's okay," he adds. "Cry as much as you need." It was like that before, in the early days after S moved into the tiny apartment with him and his mom, wanting S to let it out, not to feel self-conscious about it. If anything, J felt insecure, not knowing how to help, but he knew that much, that S should get to feel what he felt. This isn't the same really, but that part is still true. "I do cry too much, but that... you've been through a lot, Hyunie. And that kind of panic earlier is exhausting."

It's hard to keep up one's guard after having felt that. He can never manage it. He always spends the rest of the day nervous and on edge. The pair of them have always been pretty emotional and open with each other in a way they can't be with anyone else, but it seems all the more warranted after that.

[hismelody]

It isn't that S doesn't know that, at least on some level. It's just that it's strange to hear it, especially coming from J. He's gotten through it all because he had to, too aware of the weight of all of it and how awful the last few months have been, but persisting because there was nothing else to do. Given that, he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it in those terms, as going through a lot, even when he's considered his lingering grief. Or maybe he's just gotten too used to loss. Either way, having it put like that now gives it an unexpected perspective, his brow furrowing slightly, though he doesn't lift his head yet. He almost wants to protest — that he's the one who lived, that while he might have been alone for months, at least he wasn't carrying the guilt and deep-rooted unhappiness that J is, that at least he got closure that didn't end in fire and ash. At least he got to know he was loved, even if it came too late. He's not sure if, at the end, J would have known the same, that S loved him still, not even a knife in his chest able to make him stop.

But it is a lot. New grief built on old grief, an empty life made even emptier, trying to process having been almost murdered, and then why, a slow, painful recovery from his near-death, attempting to see some meager shred of justice done — none of that was easy in the slightest, and that's all without getting into the events of the last few days. Those have been better, but still incredibly draining, all the more so for his not having slept. It's no wonder, really, that he's such a fucking mess, as if all of it has caught up to him now that he has a chance to breathe and feel anything resembling content. It doesn't seem entirely fair, especially when he doesn't really want to say any more than he already has about how awful things have been, but it does make sense.

Coming from J, it's just hard to accept. S has no doubt that he means it, but while he meant what he said a few minutes ago about it not being a contest, J has had it so much worse. It was one thing to lean on him after his parents died, when he had no one else. He shouldn't need to be held together like this now.

"You've been through a lot, too," he murmurs, the closest he can get to saying that, fingers curling in J's shirt again. "If I don't cry too much, then neither do you."

[beklemmt]

J inhales, sharp, cutting off a protest of his own. He's already tried to make his point on that front, and he's trying hard to take in what S has to say about it. It might be a while before he can see it that way, if he ever can, because it's hard to get around the fact that he caused most of his own problems. It feels like that should invalidate all the pain and terror he endured in so doing, but he tries, keeping quiet, telling himself it still happened regardless. Even if he's at fault, it wasn't easy. And even if he doesn't think he deserves sympathy, he knows perfectly well he won't be able to keep S from extending it all the same.

It's territory they've already been over tonight anyway. There's no point in going in circles over it. S isn't wrong — not entirely, at least — and J will just have to sit with that and try to see if he'll ever be able to believe that.

For now, taking care of S is more important by far. That kind of existential agony can wait. When S has clearly been afraid he might kill himself, J figures waxing on about his guilt isn't likely to help right now. "Fine," he sighs, leaning his head against S's. "I'll just keep crying then." He hopes not to, really. If nothing else, he wants to pull himself together before the food arrives, because one of them will have to answer the door. He's barely spoken to anyone but S since he got here, but he's not about to make S handle it. He has enough to deal with now as it is.

"Is that why you were so tired?" he asks as it occurs to him. "Not sleeping well because you're worried about me?"