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July gives way to August, and with it, though the muggy weather is no less oppressive, S finds his mood lightening a little. It's strange, probably, associating summer with death. It also can't be helped. He's not half as far gone now as he was in those first couple of years, but the loss of his parents is never going to be an easy one to bear, and the days and weeks around the anniversary of their deaths are always going to hurt. Likewise strange is how grief begets grief. For that, he always feels guilty. J is here, after all, alive and well. They've had nearly a year and a half together now that they weren't supposed to have gotten, and S really is, he thinks, the happiest he's ever been. But when that loss rears its head, even happiness hurts. He never got to come out to his parents, never told them how he felt about J. They never got to see him as he is now. They weren't there when he lost the love of his life, a storm he weathered entirely on his own, and something he'll always carry with him. At times like this, it's just a little closer to the surface than usual.

He tries not to let it emerge completely, holding it at bay as best he can. It's a hard time of year, that's all, and at least J knows that already. It makes him a little quieter than usual, and a little more inclined to bring up his parents, something he doesn't typically do all that often, especially knowing that can be a difficult subject for J in different ways. Like a dark cloud slowly but inexorably passing in front of the sun, though, it starts to ease — not like the flip of a switch, exactly, but a more gradual, less noticeable change, some of it lingering still, some of it substantially better. He's still a bit distracted, but he also has a chance to start catching up on the things he didn't feel up to a couple of weeks ago. It's something.

It lets him do more with J, too. Not that he was distant before, but they're both introverted by nature, and with the weight of all that grief, he's more inclined to want to stay in with the one person who understands it, who saw him through it back then. He's tried before, more than once, to try to tell J just how grateful he is for that, how much it meant and still means to him, but there are never the words. All he can really do is attempt to make it up to him in any small ways he can, smiling faintly as J suggests plans, only for him to realize that's the one day he'll be otherwise occupied. "Ah, maybe the day after?" he offers instead, just distracted enough that he doesn't really register what he's saying until the words are out of his mouth. "I have a doctor's appointment that day."

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Normally, S thinks, he would be the one saying that — that they make a mess of a lot of things, that they're figuring it all out. It's not as if he thinks J is wrong, anyway. Everything just feels so heavy right now, and like it's all on him. He's the one who kept something from J, even if it really wasn't something he thought would matter all that much, he's the one whose body bears such a permanent reminder of what happened that night, he's the one who's falling apart now when, once again, he meant to be trying to make J feel better, not needing to be comforted himself. It doesn't seem fair, but the thought of it does nothing to stop him from crying, punctuated by occasional little sniffles, head resting against his knees again. At least it helps to have J hold him like this, when part of what set him off, however irrationally, was the distance between them and feeling like he didn't get to close it. There isn't much he can do from here, but he holds onto J's shirt and leans into his chest, and, fuck, at least it's something.

"You didn't snap, really," he says, having the sense enough not to say what threatens to follow, that he deserved it anyway. He knows that just the idea of his possibly thinking that has upset J before, and while, in this case, it seems true, he's fucked this up enough without making it worse now. "I wasn't looking at it like... like hiding something from you." He doesn't know what he would have done if he'd considered it that way. As much as he likes to think he would have said something, he still can't be entirely sure of it, given the rest. If nothing else, he might have been a little more careful not to just blurt it out. Then he might have had a chance to tell J on his own terms, to bring it up in a way that could hopefully minimize the damage he's just done. Maybe that way, J wouldn't have to think about that time before and how hard it was on him.

Even that doesn't seem fair, in a way. J is the one who was actively suicidal; S shouldn't be the one so shaken by that memory now. He was then far more so than he is now. That moment, he's pretty sure, was the most scared he'd ever been in his life, and that's saying something. It's probably all sorts of screwed up, too, that he was more frightened by the prospect of losing J — again — than he was in those few instants he thought he was dying, but it's true, and he can't change the fact of it.

"I think about it," he mumbles, simply because it must be very, very obvious now. "That day. Before. Not — not like you might... now, but..." He shouldn't have brought any of this up. He shouldn't be laying this on J. It's too late, though, to take it back. "I'm okay, though. I promise I'd say if I wasn't."

J sighs, eyes closed, keeping S close. If there's more he can do, he can't think of it, his nerves still pulled too tight and mind fuzzy at the edges from upset and panic. They're different and the things they feel are different, but often the best J can do, when at a loss for how to help, is try to imagine what he'd need, and he doesn't know. Sometimes there just isn't anything that can be done except to sit and wait and hold him. He's not sure arguing — even very gently — would be at all helpful here.

"Are you sure?" he asks anyway. He can't pretend he's not thinking this. It wouldn't be fair, and it would definitely be hypocritical right now. Not that he hasn't been both unfair and hypocritical on any number of occasions, but he's trying. "It doesn't... seem fine, Sihyun-ah." It makes sense that S would think about all that; in a way, J is grateful. If S is thinking about what J did and what he almost did, but says he doesn't think J is in imminent danger of killing himself again, then at least the fear, however potent, is a past one. It's less an open wound than a bruise. J doesn't know how to begin to explain the truth, how it still occurs to him sometimes, in the same way it might occur to him that he could get a haircut. It's there and then it's gone again, sometimes vague and sometimes vivid, sometimes brief and sometimes lingering. Sometimes it leaves him shaken; most of the time, it's just an awkward uneasiness that he's almost accustomed to. There's no bite to it, no desire to follow through. It's just a thought.

"If it were," he continues slowly, gently stroking S's back, "you would have told me sooner, wouldn't you? You wouldn't have had to decide it wasn't worth it. Do you — do you think if we talk about it, I —" He winces. Even now, it's hard to speak directly about what he did. It feels too blunt just to put it out there, even though they both know in painful detail. He sucks in a sharp breath. "Ah, darling, I... I can handle it. I think I can. We've talked about it before, haven't we? I'm still... here."

It's not quite the same, he knows. That day, it wasn't because they talked about it; it was what he saw. Even so, he thinks, he saw those scars without any preparation for what would happen, without much if any chance to calm down from everything that had happened earlier. If they'd had the time and sense and presence of mind to slow down and talk first, to wait a couple of days until he'd slept some and recovered a little, he might not have reacted anywhere near so poorly. Fragile as he was in those first weeks, he could have managed that, he thinks. Instead, he botched everything. A year and a half later, and it still haunts them.

It's not really what he meant, S thinks, though it's no surprise that he didn't manage to get the words out right. Even at the best of times, he often inadvertently twists his words, makes things sound like he didn't intend them to. In this case, it makes no real difference, anyway. All of it leads back to the same thing, the various pieces of this all woven together. Physically speaking, he's fine. He has these appointments once or twice a year, but none have come back with anything concerning so far. If he thought there were even a chance of that no longer being the case, he would have found a way to bring it up ahead of time, not wanting J to be blindsided. Instead, it just seemed unimportant, and that's how they've wound up here. This specific appointment simply didn't feel worth bringing up; the very fact of his needing these continued check-ins, that seemed like a reminder of something too painful, too likely to set J off the way the scars did back then, too present a sign of what could have happened to him and what did happen.

The scars, the surgery, the recovery — none of it was as bad as what he woke up to, the news that J was dead. Of course he wouldn't have wanted to bring this up. Most of the time, he really doesn't worry about J becoming suicidal again, at least trusting that he would pick up on signs of something being wrong beforehand if J were going to go down that road. Every single day since that first time he found J out on the sidewalk here, though, he's had to think about how J reacted to the sight of him without a shirt. Doing so is inevitable, given how he has to go out of his way to keep them covered. He really doesn't mind doing so — would do far more than that for J's sake — but it still hurts to think about that response, and the fact that he caused it with simply the state of his existence.

"I know you are," he murmurs, back curving a little under J's touch, gently pressing into his hand. "I do. If I were worried about it, I would have told you that." He doesn't know how he would begin to bring it up, but that much, he still can say for certain. If he thought J was anywhere near that point, he would try to intervene. That first afternoon, he told J that he couldn't ask him to stay, agonizing as that was for him, but he meant it. He couldn't in good conscience ask that. That doesn't mean he could just sit back and let it happen. He's much too stubborn for that.

Sighing, his shoulders rising and falling with it, he shuts his eyes for a moment. Even though he's breathing a little better now, he still can't stop tears from coming, and that makes it difficult to try to say very much at once without getting himself all worked up again, still perilously on the edge of it. However clueless he may be, though, he has to try to fumble through this somehow, to fix what he's fucked up.

"I just..." He swallows hard. "I don't want to be what pushes you toward that again."

The words are almost out before J pulls them back. It wouldn't be wrong for him to say that isn't true, that S was never at fault. It just also doesn't seem fair to blurt that out without some consideration or the tiniest bit of tact or even thought.

And, really, when he does stop to think about it, he finds he has what he thinks is a slightly better grasp on the situation. It's incredibly difficult to articulate this, because he knows, were their roles reversed, he very much wouldn't see the difference. He doesn't expect S to either, stubborn as he is. How S ever has the patience and presence of mind to explain things to J when he's upset and out of sorts and not understanding things that surely seem very obvious to S, J will never know. That J only sort of understands these things for himself makes it that much harder.

Pressing a kiss to S's hair, he squeezes him a little. "You won't be," he says. It seems the simplest, most honest way he can say it. "You weren't." As much as he doubts S will believe him, as awkward as it is to say, he has to find a way to do so. Complicating matters is the way he can feel the sharpness at his eyes before he's even figured out the words. It's not easy to talk about this. It never will be. "It's... I can't say that... you don't have an impact. You do. But I — it's not something you do or say. When I... when I did it... before..." He huffs, small and sad, shaking his head. "I don't know, truthfully. But I think it wasn't you exactly? It was the idea that I could have done that. That I'd... fallen so far. Become so awful."

Though the words come a little more easily as he speaks, they still send a tiny shudder through him. He's gotten to a place where he doesn't think quite so terribly of himself most days. He's had to, needed to learn to live with it all in order to stay alive at all. Even so, he's keenly aware of how he felt then, and how those self-recriminations echo through his head still. "Coming here after that," he says, "exhausted and nervous and afraid... seeing — seeing the scars I made —" He bites his lip hard, staring down into S's hair to keep from closing his eyes and reliving that moment. "I saw how badly I hurt you, and I thought I really must be as monstrous as I'd thought earlier."

He doesn't know if S will see the difference here. Admittedly, J's not sure it's a very obvious one to anyone but him or that he's done a good job of explaining it.

S shakes his head in turn, the motion slight and gentle mostly because of how good it feels to have J holding onto him like this. No matter how miserable he might feel, and guilty for the very fact of that, he doesn't want to do anything that might push him away again. That, too, is what makes him wait before he attempts to respond, trying to make sure that the words that come out are the right ones. He's already gotten this wrong in so many ways, their meanings just missing each other even now. This is enough of a mess as it is. He should have just kept his mouth shut, though the thought of that doesn't make him feel particularly better, considering how upset J was at the prospect of him keeping something like that to himself. It might have been easier, though. At least he wouldn't have dragged J into talking about this, into having to comfort him when J is the one who was unhappy enough to kill himself.

"That's what I mean, though," he settles on, a quiet, sad protest. "That was me. You saw me, and then you wanted to..." Whatever differentiation J might try to put on it, S doesn't see it that way. The scars on his chest, the damage he lives with, the doctor's appointments, those are part of his life now. If hiding that part helps ensure that J will stay alive at all, he'll do it without hesitation, no matter how much it stings sometimes, no matter what trouble it causes. It's infinitely better than the alternative. Distraught as he's been for these past few minutes, it's still nothing compared to the ice cold terror he felt when he thought J was going to take his own life again. He can't separate those things from himself, though. They're the state of his being, irreversible facts. "Of course I wouldn't want to bring that up."

Even having accidentally done so now is unnerving under all the rest of it. A lot has changed since that day, like J said, and S isn't so worked up that he can't tell that J sounds immeasurably more composed and grounded than he did then. He doesn't think anything is going to happen; it doesn't seem at all like he's woken up whatever awful impulse made J feel like that was the path forward to take. After so long spent carefully avoiding this particular topic, though, he can't help if it doesn't sit well with him.

Edited 2022-08-28 06:37 (UTC)

J frowns, trying to figure this out. He knows what he means and he sees what S means, and he can see how they're the same thing even as they entirely disagree. He just doesn't know how to put that right. A soft laugh punches out of him, hushed and surprised. "Yah, is this how you always feel?" he murmurs. He's not exactly at his best or happy, but having S to focus on has helped him calm down enough that moving doesn't seem so impossible now, and he lifts his other hand to brush back S's hair, fingers trailing down to his damp cheek. "When I'm very wrong but I can't see it? Ah, darling..."

Sucking in a sharp breath, he hurries to add, "I'm not saying — I know you feel that way, darling. We just see it differently." He bites his lip, uncertain. "I don't remember a lot of that day. But I think, actually, for a moment... I didn't see you. I saw myself, what I'd done. I was... ah, distressed is putting it mildly, Hyunie. I didn't know yet. It wasn't real yet, you being safe and alive, only the idea that I couldn't do anything good."

He's not always convinced that's untrue. The days when he can't stop thinking all he can do is cause S pain in some form or another have dwindled, but they haven't entirely stopped. But he also has a lot more help to counteract that, including S himself. The trouble is, he doesn't know how to explain it, that all these things can be true. He was in danger then and he can't promise he won't ever be again and he can't say S's worries are wholly unfounded. At the same time, with time and distance and all he's learned and how much has changed, he thinks he's much better equipped to handle it — and that, quite possibly, no small part of his distress that day was that he was fucking exhausted on every level. He still has nights when sleep is hard won or too brief, but it's never again been that bad, not even close.

"I was very tired," he says simply. "And I didn't know I'd... I'd also... saved you." It still feels intensely difficult to say that. Knowing how S sees it helps a lot, and he knows it's made a big difference, but it's still hard to put it that way on his own, hard to drown out the voice that still wants him to know he wouldn't have had to rush to the hospital if he hadn't hurt S first. "I didn't know a lot of things. And it was so much more damage than I would have expected."

At J's question, S huffs out a breath, one too soft and watery to be much of a laugh. Even so, it takes about every ounce of effort he has in him not to simply respond that he isn't wrong. That, too, he's pretty sure, would be yet another instance of him doing exactly the things he does that J hates. It still wouldn't be his place if it weren't for that. He doesn't get to tell J how he felt in that moment or what he was responding to. That his being alive didn't yet seem real to J is reasonable enough, too; the same was true for him in turn, and it was, he thinks, at least in part, the terrifying prospect of losing J all over again that made it start to sink in. For him, though, that line just doesn't exist. For him, the sight of him made J want to die again, making an already painful situation even worse. That they've gone this long without talking about it has only convinced him of it all the more. However much has changed, if anything had changed in that regard, he would have thought it would come up before now, and on purpose, not because he unwittingly, stupidly dragged them into it.

"It's what it felt like," he points out, his voice lowering a little further, tears still falling, though at least he's quiet about it now, not unable to get a breath in like a few moments ago. This seems fair enough, he thinks, the only rebuttal he can give that wouldn't be overstepping or making decisions for J. For him, they're the same thing, and he doesn't know how else to explain it. The only other thing that crosses his mind would be to ask J how he would have felt if their positions had been reversed, and the very idea of that makes him uncomfortable. It would be too cruel, too accusatory, when it isn't as if he can fault J for his reaction at all. He gets it, at least as much as it's possible to without having dealt with everything that J has. It's just a painful thing to have been on the receiving end of.

"For me," he adds, wanting at least to be clear about that. "It's how it felt. And..." Trailing off, he sniffles. More than anything, he would like to go back to fifteen minutes ago or however long it was that they were just sitting here contentedly making plans rather than revisiting one of the most upsetting moments they've shared. As usual, though, he's gone and fucked this up, leaving him with little to do but try to say what he means without making it worse. "A lot has changed. But that hasn't. You still can't..."

J waits, the brief burst of amusement entirely dissipating as S speaks. It hurts to see him like this, so small and upset, and to know that it's as much his own fault as S's, maybe more. He shouldn't have reacted as rashly as he did, he knows that. Sometimes it's hard to fight those impulses, but he should have done better. Still, he thinks, they're getting through it. At least they're talking now, not fighting, and S seems to be settling a little.

He waits, too, to see if S will finish that sentence, just in case his own assumption is wrong. When nothing more comes, he's fairly certain he understands anyway, and that hurts too. This, he thinks, is entirely his fault. He should have said something sooner, or at all, instead of letting things go on as they have. It's just that it's a difficult conversation to approach, not least when talking about what he did is still upsetting, no matter how much better things are. Every time he's wanted to talk about it has been inconvenient — a moment he didn't want ruined or somewhere too public or a time when he was already upset about something else. Bringing it up out of nowhere felt jarring, too. He should have done it anyway.

"You don't know that," he says after a moment. There's no heat or hurt in it, just a simple fact, uncertain though he is about voicing it. Keeping it back wouldn't be fair. "I haven't tried. I... I want to. I think about that a lot. We just... never talked about it. Kept putting it off, and then it always seemed like the wrong time... That's not the same thing as can't." It isn't like he can avoid it, after all, the thought of it. All the times when he should be able to undress S or when he simply ought to be — the way he stays half-clothed for sex or in the shower together, or turns away or leaves to change — they're starkly obvious to J. He's gotten used to it, but he still takes note of it, still finds himself reminded constantly of why that's the case. If anything, he thinks he probably thinks about what he did more for not having had the chance to become accustomed to the sight of it, like he's done with his own scars. He still doesn't like the writing on his arm, and he takes pains to cover them when he goes out, but he sees it often enough at home that it doesn't bother him most of the time. He's never been able to do that with S. Maybe he can't guarantee he'll react well or that it won't take time to adjust, but he's never tried.

S does his best to stay quiet, aside from the occasional sniffle, listening as J speaks. However much he might want to cut in, however differently they may have been looking at all of this, it seems like the very least he can do. He can get this piece right, or do his best to attempt to, with as badly as he fucked up a little while ago. Still, he's not sure they're going to find any agreement here. After a year and a half of apparently seeing the same thing in completely contradictory ways, S can maybe recontextualize some of it, but hearing this now isn't going to change what he's been feeling for months, at least not this quickly. In a strange way, he realizes, J might want to try, but he doesn't. No matter how much it hurts, it seems better, safer, to make sure J doesn't have to see the physical remnants of that awful night. He should've had the sense to keep it covered in the first place. Maybe none of this would be happening now if he had.

"It's okay," he murmurs, shaking his head again, sounding counterintuitively a little calmer now. He wants J to know that he means this; it's the least he can do. "I get it. I... I don't mind. Really." He wants, too, to say that he does know, but he's aware of how unfair that would be, exactly the shit he's trying to avoid. He just has to find other ways of conveying what he means instead. "I figured you'd bring it up if you felt like you could, and... I don't want you to feel like you have to for my sake."

It's a strange, horrible position to be in, trying to protect J from the very fact of himself, hating that he can't be shirtless around his boyfriend but not wanting to risk doing otherwise. Even if it went well, he's not sure he could bear seeing J's face in response to the scars on his chest. Keeping his shirt on may not be comfortable, and it may not keep them from thinking about it, but at least J doesn't have to look at all of that whenever they shower or have sex or get changed. There's no way to win here, but this just feels safest. And he knows that J hates when he makes all the decisions, but S doesn't feel like this is that, and he doesn't think it's just for J's sake, either. That first day he brought J back here, when they were both out of their minds and frantically trying to get their hands each other on this couch, he simply wasn't thinking when he took his shirt off. He should have been, but he wasn't. Now, though, he's not sure there's any way for him to be anything other than hyperaware of the state he's in, self-conscious in a way he isn't used to being with J, at least not when it isn't on purpose.

It's strange. He should feel a little more at peace, hearing S regain some calm, but he doesn't. Instead J can feel the threat of tears again, his heart breaking a little. He hasn't just made a mistake — he's made a long series of them, day by day, not saying anything when he should have. It likely won't be the last time he's a coward, he knows. How he doesn't learn when it hurts every time to find he's hurt S, he doesn't know. He can see it, though, in that placid quiet, the reassurance, the demurred sacrifice. S does so much for him, for the sake of him, and J stayed quiet, selfishly afraid of one burst of upset they could have moved past by now if he'd spoken up.

"I don't feel like I have to," he says, a little wounded in spite of himself. He would have thought S would want to be done with this. "I don't want you to feel like you have to — either way. But I want to. I want to so much, I just —" He sighs, eyes closing tight. Though he's managed to stay reasonably subdued, it's still difficult. He's not sure it will ever stop being difficult.

"I knew," he continues after a moment, "that bringing it up would be upsetting. Talking about it always is, even when it's a good thing. And a lot of the time when I want to say something, we're already... getting undressed." He rolls his eyes at himself. "And I don't want to derail things, so I don't say anything, and I should, I should have. It was selfish of me. You've been so — so patient and thoughtful and I just kept quiet because I thought I could bring it up later, and then I never do." He doesn't even have a good reason for that. He just hates getting like this, agitated by the past, likely to start crying, even as he's constantly reminded of it regardless by the very fact S is half-clothed at those times. It's all he can do to keep from apologizing. The only thing that keeps him in check is knowing he couldn't handle S telling him not to.

It is, really, the very last thing S wants, to hear J start to sound more upset again. He'd hoped to accomplish the opposite, if anything — to take any lingering pressure off, to make sure J knows that it isn't needing to stay covered in itself that prompted this burst of emotion from him. After all, it's a minor thing, a tiny inconvenience at the very most. He's long since figured it would just be part of being with J again, and considering how much that impossible chance means to him, wearing a shirt at all times is nothing. He really does understand it, and he really doesn't mind; he wouldn't have brought it up at all had it not been for his accidental mention of the appointment he has to go to. Somehow, though, once again, by trying to make things better, he's gone and made them worse instead, frowning to himself as he tries to consider how to respond, still holding onto J's shirt like an anchor.

"It wasn't selfish," he says, a soft protest, the one thing he can say for certain right now. Considering how well it went the last time he took his shirt off in front of J, of course it wouldn't be selfish not to bring that up. It would be upsetting, as they've just gone and proved, and he can't blame J in the slightest for not wanting to see the scars that night left him with. As bad as this has been, it would doubtless be worse to go that route, a chance that simply doesn't seem worth it to take.

After all, S doesn't think he wants J to see them. He doesn't know how to say that without it sounding horrible, like it's one more way in which he's keeping J out, but it's true all the same. It isn't that he feels like he has to, either. If it were purely obligation, he would at least have grown more tired of it by now. "And it's okay that you didn't bring it up." He sniffles again, but tenuous as it might be, he does at least manage to hold onto this one thread of composure, at least for a moment more. "I don't feel like I have to. I was the one who suggested this, remember?" He summons up the barest hint of a smile, though it takes a lot of effort, and though he's not sure it will even be visible with the way they're holding onto each other. "That's not why I did bring it up. Really."

Edited 2022-08-31 07:08 (UTC)

"You suggested it as a temporary measure," J counters. At the time, he really believed that was all it would be. It was better in the early days, he agrees. When he was newly arrived, still recovering from months of delusion and self-neglect, he didn't have the wherewithal to handle it. Even then, though, he thought there would be an end to this. "I thought it would be temporary. I needed time, and I've had time, Sihyun-ah."

Now that they're talking about it, he can't help the knot of stubbornness in his chest, the desire to undo what he screwed up. It was selfish, he knows it was, to put this off. Maybe they wouldn't be upset if he'd brought it up sooner. Maybe there wouldn't have been any need for S to keep his appointments secret. And, anyway, he means it emphatically, jaw set even as he continues to stroke soft circles against S's back. S has learned to live with the scars on his arm. J's never had the same opportunity. He's gotten to this point in his existence largely because of that stubbornness. He's gotten into a lot of trouble because of it, too, but he wants to trust that won't be true now. If S really doesn't want to change this, he'll have to accept that, but he won't let it be just because of him.

"I want to see you," he murmurs, "all of you." He'll never entirely get past what he did, he's sure of that, but he's learned to accept that he can't change it — most of the time at least — and to cope with the fact he did it to begin with. On his better days, he knows he was a different person in that moment, not at all lucid or rational, and that he's in better control of himself now, that S is right about J having also helped him that night. If anything, now, intent on getting this if he's permitted it, he's all the more defiant in telling himself these things. He won't hurt S again, not like that, and he won't hurt himself, not if he's prepared this time. Worrying at his lip briefly, he then adds what occurs to him next. "They wouldn't be there if you hadn't survived. Not like that. In that way, isn't it a good thing that I could see them so well? Mine were already faded and healed when I came here, like magic."

At the time, when he suggested it, he meant for it to be temporary, too, or he's pretty sure he did. Everything about that first day was so much, all emotions heightened in every possible direction, such that it's hard to be sure now about much of it. What S does know is that, with J having said that he couldn't handle it then, he first figured that J would bring it up again when he did feel ready, and the more time passed, the more it came to feel like that point would never come. To him, the prospect has seemed reasonable enough. If anything, it didn't take very long for him to start to feel like it would be better just not to go there. He doesn't know how to say that in a way that wouldn't just make all of this worse, when he knows how much J hates when he just decides things like that — it is, in fact, the very thing that started them off in this direction now — but he's still not sure he was wrong about it. Keeping his chest covered in front of J is a minor inconvenience at worst. He can't think of any good reason to do otherwise.

Even hearing J say that he wants to see him doesn't make him feel relieved, just kind of sad, and the guilt he feels for the fact of that doesn't help. Frowning, he shakes his head a little, though it takes him a moment to find any words. This, too, he doesn't know how to say: that he doesn't see how there could be anything good in it with the reaction that the sight provoked in J once before. At first, he didn't mind the scars. He had no reason to, living on his own and having no particular investment in his own appearance. It isn't as if he looked good in other ways, anyway. Back then, when the wounds first healed, he was much too skinny, too, pale and dark-eyed from lack of sleep, utterly miserable in a way that made it difficult to do anything. With J, though, and given what happened before, he's convinced now that they're horrible, hideous. J might think he wants to see, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still end badly.

"I don't know why you would want to," he mumbles, a truth that feels unavoidable. "It still looks like it did that day. They aren't any, I don't know, better."

J shakes his head, uncertain. He has to admit it's a reasonable enough thing to say. S has no cause to think he'd want to see, given how he reacted before, and it's not like J really expected there would be much of a change. However he plays off his own scars, they're still there, still too visible, enough so that he keeps himself covered when he goes out, no matter how hot it gets. He doesn't want to deal with strangers or minor acquaintances asking questions he can't answer and which he knows would send him spinning off course. And his, at least, he has the advantage of their having healed so abruptly, as he said, as if they've been on him for years, not months, not the scant hour or less it had been when he arrived. S doesn't have that, has healed for less time, and what J did to him was ferocious and terrible. Of course there hasn't been much, if any, physical change.

"I wouldn't think so," he says simply. "But I am. Aren't I?" There are so many reasons for him to want this, more than there are for him not to. He's pretty sure of that much, though he's not exactly sure S wants him to run down a list. "It's not like I don't know what's there or how it happened, even if you stay covered up. I didn't have a breakdown over how it looks." Granted, in retrospect, he thinks he might easily have had a breakdown about nearly anything. If it hadn't been the sight of S's scars, he probably would have wound up on top of S and freaked out. What they can do now would have torn him apart then. But then, it doesn't seem like pointing out how on edge he was then is doing much good, even if he thinks it was responsible for a lot of how he reacted.

Shrugging, he rests his hand at S's waist, tugging him close, though there isn't really anywhere for him to go now. "If you don't want to," he says slowly, "then... then okay." J knows his own reaction, however intense, was understandable at the time. It can't have been easy for S to get used to it either. Maybe he's more self-conscious than J thought about this, and J can't ask him just to get over that if it's the case. Maybe they can work toward that, if S wants to and is willing, but maybe he isn't. The only way they can know is to talk about it. "But if it's okay... you know I think of it anyway, right? Because I can't see your chest, it reminds me why that's so."

He's more or less grown accustomed to that. It's not like he's going to forget any time soon anyway. But if he can adjust to that constant reminder, then, he thinks, it seems just as possible he can adjust to the actual sight, given the chance.

Quiet for a moment as he turns J's words over in his head, S is struck again by the thought that he doesn't even know how they wound up talking about this. He didn't mean to bring it up; he definitely didn't want or intend to need consoling over it. The whole thing seems bigger now than it should. Of course, he thinks about it, too, the thought always there in the back of his head that J couldn't bear the sight of him. Sometimes — very rarely, but sometimes — he finds himself wishing not that he could undress more fully in front of J, but just that he could talk about it. Those last few months back in Seoul were the worst of his entire life, which, really, after the loss of his parents and then J breaking up with him, is saying something. But he had to weather that recovery alone, grieving his boyfriend and wishing he had J by his side to help see him through it and still grappling with what happened that last night. He wants to have someone to turn to with all of it. He's just also terribly stubborn in his own right, and having dealt with it all alone before, part of him feels like he should be able to still.

Even if it weren't for that, he still wouldn't have wanted to bring it up, to make J think about it in any kind of detail. It's one thing to know those scars are there, to have to think about them. It's another entirely to have to see the damage done, or at least that's how S has been thinking about it. With the subject out in the open now, he really doesn't know the best way to move forward. He hates keeping things from J; he has ever since they were young. Not mentioning his appointment ahead of time wasn't something he thought that much of, but now that they've talked about it, it would feel uncomfortably dishonest to keep J on the outside of all of it. He has no idea how to move forward from here, though, unable to shake the thought that it would only hurt J for him to have to be confronted with that so directly. Maybe he doesn't get to decide that, but he also can't disregard it. Less important but still persistent in his head, too, is the belief that there's no way J could be attracted to him with the way he looks now. It would kill the mood for sure, just like it did J's first day here.

He doesn't know, he doesn't know, stuck with every option seeming like a terrible one, shaking his head again just because it's the only thing he feels like he remembers how to do. "I don't know what I want," he admits, forlorn and sniffling again. "Thinking about it... isn't the same as seeing it. You shouldn't have to. See it. I guess it's... it's not that I don't want to, but... it just seems like so much, now."

It's a start, enough to make J feel heard and a little relieved. They're talking. With how long he's been here, it's easy sometimes to forget what a big difference that makes, but it does. They don't have to keep these things hidden. If they both have thoughts they don't share, he figures that's normal, and he prefers to have some measure of space and privacy, but he's more comfortable with it now when he has things to say. For a long time, it wasn't difficult at all to talk openly with S, but he's had to relearn how to be open at all. Even so, they're talking. J squeezes S slightly again, kisses his hair once more.

"It does," he agrees. They have a bad tendency, he knows, to let things sit too long. That's mostly on him. He can't fault S for being worried about how he'll handle things, even if J's said before that they both have to talk. It can't be easy, dating him. He knew that from the moment that first day here let him start to settle a little, when he promised to try. "Every time we... leave things out, it builds up so big. If there's anything else we're avoiding, we should really just have it out now and get all the crying over with."

It comes out wry, which is how he intends it. There probably will always be something. Their lives have been too complicated for anything else. Still, his voice softens. "Hyunie, I know I don't have to. I wouldn't say I want to try if it weren't true. That wouldn't be fair. And it doesn't have to be all at once, if you're... worried about how I'll react." It's fair. It hurts to think of S feeling that way, not simply because it's justified, but because it sounds to J like a lonely way to feel. Even so, he knows it's fair. If S hadn't talked him down that day and if he hadn't been too frozen with panic to do anything but stay put, he might not be here right now. For the most part, his existence hasn't felt quite that tenuous in a long time. Even in the late winter, when he felt like a numb and empty shell again, he didn't so much want to die as feel like he didn't quite exist and, occasionally, like it might be alright if he didn't. It won't be as bad as it was, he's sure of that. If he thought it would be anything like that, he would agree to keep things the way they are and stop pushing. But now that he has some idea of how S must be feeling about this, he's all the more intent on making this happen. He's left S alone too many times; he won't do it again, not when he's painfully familiar with how much it hurts to feel alone even beside the person he most loves.

Until today, S wouldn't have thought he was avoiding any of this, exactly. The way he saw it, he was just following J's lead where the matter of his keeping his chest covered is concerned, and the appointment simply wasn't worth bringing up, especially in that context. At least, that's what he's been telling himself this last while, though he thinks he sees that now for what it really is. He was avoiding it, but not just with J; he was avoiding it with himself, too, not wanting to dwell on the lingering fear or the self-consciousness, the odd sense of shame that took root the day that J first saw the scars and has only grown since then. He knew then, remembers telling himself, that it wasn't about him or how they looked. As with so much else, though, knowing that and feeling it are two very different things, and as more time has passed, little by little, the latter has eclipsed the former, making it difficult even just to think about taking a step in that direction. He really did think they never would. He really did think he would prefer it that way.

He hadn't expected this — the way the subject has come up at all, or his own reaction to it, breath still shuddering intermittently as he tries to pull himself together. Now, he can see it, how it must have weighed on him far more than he realized, until he just couldn't hold it back anymore. That, too, he feels guilty for, but he at least has the sense not to get too caught up in it now. He's too much a mess for that, his thoughts a jumbled, fuzzy tangle, more emotion than sense. It feels good, at least, to be held, even if the position is still slightly awkward, even if he still thinks he shouldn't need comforting.

"I am," he admits, apologetic even in doing so, fingers grasping at J's arm for something sturdier to hold onto. "I still... I remember how you looked at me. How..." Just the memory of it makes him feel a little queasy. For a moment, everything felt almost right again, and then it so quickly fell apart. They've come such a long way since then, but the sheer terror of those few moments left a mark as indelible as the scars themselves. S doesn't want to talk himself in circles, though. He doesn't have the energy for it, and the more he says in that regard, the less willing he is to try taking that step. Better to shift his focus, to find a reason to do it instead of yet another one not to, something to try to balance it out a little.

"I know I've said it before," he adds, quieter now, his eyes brimming with tears all over again, despite his best efforts. "But after it happened... I really wished I had you with me. It was a lot to take alone."

J closes his eyes, heart aching. There's a small measure of relief, actually, in S's saying that he's afraid. It's a reason J understands, even if he hadn't entirely considered before just how long-lasting that fear would be, too accustomed himself to the desire to stop existing for it to worry him as much now. Guilty though he feels for not seeing how much this has shaken S or how hurt he must have been by J's reaction, at least he thinks he understands it.

But the idea of S alone, that always breaks his heart, a sharp pain in his throat as tears well up again. It feels wrong. He left S too many times before. For a while, it felt to him like the most important thing in his world was being at S's side, caring for him when he was otherwise alone. Protecting him from all the pain J ultimately left him with. "It must have been," he murmurs, voice soft to keep it from breaking. He needs a moment to hold himself together. It wouldn't be the first time they both started sobbing, but right now, he wants to stay steady. He needs S to see he can handle this. "I wish you'd had me with you too."

He wishes so fucking much. There's too much that would have to be undone to put things right in the past, and so starting fresh has been the only way, pushing forward instead of reaching back. But that doesn't keep them from their memories and their regrets and the history that shaped them. "You have me with you now, darling," he adds, still gentle but not quite so hushed. "I don't want you to be alone. Even if things don't seem important or worth it... let me?"

He can't fairly ask S to tell him everything all the time. He wouldn't, any more than he shares every passing thought of his own. It matters to him that he maintains some degree of privacy even from S. But there's a difference between keeping tiny unimportant things to himself, like not necessarily telling S everywhere he wandered or idle thoughts he's now able to recognize as more reflex than truly felt, and keeping things to himself because he thinks he has to or should or has to weigh at all whether or not it's worthwhile. Even if he understands better now why S did so, there's no good reason he should have to, and he's worked so hard to make J feel less alone, given him all the love anyone could ever hope for. It doesn't feel right for J not to have the opportunity to do the same.

S trembles a little, pausing before he speaks not because he doesn't want to answer but because he doesn't want to risk falling apart all over again. Already he feels perilously close to it, thinking back to those empty months when he was all but bedridden, when he wanted so much just to have J there to hold him, or his mother to cook for him like the times he was sick as a kid, his father to help support him when he shakily tried to cross the studio. That was when he couldn't help wishing that J had finished what he started, unsure what the point of his still being alive was, certain that being dead would have been better than living with the aftermath and the weight of all that grief. He never sank quite as far as J did, never really entertained the notion of taking his own life, but there was still a point when he very much would rather have lost it.

Despite everything they've just said, that's one thing he still thinks it would be better not to say. He doesn't want to make all of this worse, doesn't want to give J something else to feel guilty for. Right now, it's not really the point, anyway. That time passed soon enough after he got J's journal and found a purpose within its pages, a desperate need to exact some sort of justice keeping him going when nothing else could. Even if they would have wound up here anyway, he prefers it like this, being able to assure J that whatever he did beforehand, he saved his life, too, that he survived even when he shouldn't have. Simply contemplating taking this step would, he's sure, be infinitely more difficult if those wounds had been fatal.

"If... if it does wind up being too much," he starts, a roundabout agreement, even if he has to pause to swallow hard, "please say so, okay? I'll understand, I really will." After so long spent convinced they would never do this, it isn't something he can just throw himself wholly into at a moment's notice. He still isn't convinced that this will work. But somewhere in him is still the part of him that wanted nothing more than to have J by his side as he recovered, that's hated not being able to talk about what happened to him and what that's involved, and especially when J sounds like this, S can't bring himself to turn him down, to draw that line. He can, though, make clear that he has no expectations, that it isn't something he'll push. He couldn't bear it if he prompted the same sort of reaction again that he did the day J first got here.

Letting out a small, shaky sigh, J nods. He doesn't want ever to have to tell S to keep things to himself. He'd rather bear it, whatever comes, and give S the support he should have. It's just that, after all they've endured, J knows it wouldn't be fair of him, either, if he pushed on through something unnecessarily difficult. It would only hurt S, too, as much as it would himself. For all his big words and soft pleas, there's a chance that he really isn't as ready as he'd like to be to take this on. Even if he can handle listening, being present, actually seeing the scars still might be too much.

Despite a bad spell earlier this year, though, he feels so much stronger than he did when he came here. In a lot of ways, he thinks he might be almost as different from the person he was that day as he was, when he arrived, from the person he was when they moved in together. If he feels more sure of his own strength now, more capable of handling worse, it's in no small part because S was here, holding his hand, reassuring him and helping him to see the world and himself differently. They've taken back so much of their life, their happiness, things they once took for granted. There's no reason they can't try to get back these things too.

"Okay," he says. "I'll say so. Even if it's too hard in that moment and not forever, I'll tell you that." It won't be easy for him to admit, but it'll be worse if he lets himself get worked up, dragged under by his despair. "And... your chest, the scars, if it's too difficult after all, I'll say it. I'm sor— ah, I wish you didn't have to remember that." No matter how much better he's doing now, after all, and what they've overcome, it's not like he's forgotten how S looked at him that last horrible night. This may not be nearly the same thing, but he knows how hard it is to shake being looked at with horror and fear, the way he must have, even if it was all self-directed. "I really do think I can handle it, darling. I want to. I — I want every part of being with you."

Put like that, at least, S can almost understand it. He's said the same thing to J before, or close enough to it. This still seems different, but he tries to tell himself that it isn't, not really, not in any substantial way. He's seen the very worst parts of J, and still he accepts all of it and wants to be here; faded though they are, he's learned to live with the scars on J's arm, even if it turns his stomach to think too hard about them. Even now, he wants to insist that it's different — J put those scars there himself, so it isn't on S to decide it's too much for him, and more than anything, they make him sad for J's sake — but the semantics aren't as important as the principle of the thing. He wants every part of being with J. He's known that for a long, long time now. So if J thinks he can handle it after all, it wouldn't be right to deny him the chance to figure it out. If it doesn't go well, at least they'll know, and hopefully it won't be as bad as it was last time.

The thought alone makes his breath catch, but he nods, slight, just enough to be visible, still leaning into J. This is what he wished he'd had then, J with his arms around him, helping him to weather that storm. Though the damage has healed, even with the scars visible still, maybe he can actually get a little of that now. Of course, the thought of that feels horribly selfish, a burden he shouldn't lay on J's shoulders, but that doesn't mean they can't find some middle ground. Even having been so sure that it was the right thing simply to keep this subject buried, it's been hard at times, not being able to talk about it at all, especially with the person closest to him, the one he's spent so long telling just about everything.

"Okay," he murmurs, almost inaudibly quiet, still sounding fairly miserable. He means it, though, holding onto J as if to try to convey as much, curled up small in his arms. "If you think so, then... okay."

It's a familiar feeling, the desperate urge sweeping over J, the plaintive desire to keep S safe. He spent so long trying to protect him, knowing there was nothing he could do. There were things he was capable of to make things easier. Moving out of his home and into the studio with S, anything to keep them together, that was simple. But nothing could undo his grief, and J knew better than to try, even if he'd never felt that himself. They spent their childhood and adolescence fighting for each other. He failed for a long time. He doesn't intend to now.

It's hard to feel anything else when S is like this. All J wants is to make it go away, anything that hurts S, and he can't. In the end, after all, he's the cause of it now — the reason S was injured, the reason S was alone, the reason he thought the sight of himself cause for despair. He just has to try again to content himself with being the one who soothes that hurt, if he can.

"If you think so, too," he says. "If it's too much for you, that's it, okay?" It's not entirely the same, but it's close enough he can't help thinking again of his birthday last year, the careful process of moving past his fear of how S would look at him. It wasn't nearly as difficult as he would have feared, and, in the end, all they'd really needed was to ease into the first time in order to reclaim that part of their sex life. This might take a little more getting used to — for both of them — but it's a relief they'll try. The idea of S staying dressed the rest of their lives because he thinks the sight of himself would hurt J — he should have spoken up sooner.

With a small, soft sound, he nuzzles into S's hair. His legs are starting to hurt, tucked under him at this odd angle, but he's reluctant to try and stand. For one thing, he's not sure they'd hold him yet. More importantly, he doesn't want to let S go. "I love you so much," he murmurs. "I never, never thought you were anything but beautiful, darling. I thought I was the ugly one. Inside. You taught me better." He's hardly a saint, and some part of him remains disturbed and uncertain by the idea he could be good in any way, given what he did, that someone who did such terrible things might not be all bad. In some ways, it was more comfortable to think that he'd become a monster, that he couldn't possibly be who he was. Even with that being true, he's not sure he could have lived this long if he still believed that. If he still felt as irredeemable as he did in that moment, it would break him. It's only having S in his life that's let him see that even the worst parts of him are just part of him.

Try though he might, S can't help beginning to cry again in earnest at that. At least it's quiet this time, just tears sliding hot down his cheeks, but he hates it all the same. Crying is never exactly pleasant, of course, but it's never as bad as in moments like this, when he can't help the continued thought that he wasn't supposed to be upset here, that he meant to be comforting J after fucking up yet again and upsetting him. It's far too late to take it back, though, as if getting this out in the open has not only made him aware of how much it actually has weighed on him, but also caused him to feel it all the more acutely. This, too, is more of the same, even though he doesn't really even know why. J has called him beautiful countless times over the last year and a half, and he knew even in that moment, that day, that J's reaction wasn't because he thought otherwise. S has just felt otherwise, increasingly convinced every time he looks at himself that the sight of those scars is hideous. Usually, with such compliments from J, he'll tease or shrug them off or turn them back on J himself. The truth is, though, that any of those options are easier than thinking about how very much he doesn't see himself that way.

"I'm not," he protests, muffled against his knees. The sight of the scars is horrible, but he doesn't want to say that. J put two of them there, after all, and the last thing he wants is for J to feel like he's the cause of this. S knows far too well that when J plunged a knife into his chest, then drove him through the snow to the hospital, he couldn't have been thinking about how it would alter his appearance. That was never the point.

It isn't now, either, hardly the sole or even primary reason S has been reluctant to want to change the way they've been doing things. Still, the insecurity is there, set aside only because it's difficult to hear J say something like that and not respond to the rest of it. Again and again, he tells himself this wasn't meant to be about him, and somehow he keeps drawing the focus anyway. He can at least try to shift it back now to J in some capacity.

"But I never thought you were anything else, either," he adds, a little quieter now, but clearer, too, these words deliberate. S is far too out of sorts to know if he's actually making sense, but he figures that J will probably understand what he means regardless. Even when J was gaunt and pale that last day in Seoul, even covered in ash and with scars on his arm, even reading every sickening detail in J's notebook, S never saw him as anything but beautiful. "I still don't. I never will."

Squeezing his eyes shut tight, J gives himself a moment of not trying to say anything at all. As much as his instinct is to protest that, he tells himself he can't. It's not a matter right now of whether or not it's fact, only that it's how S feels. J can disagree all he wants. He doesn't get to tell S he's wrong, though.

"Well, you're the only one," he says, trying not to let that sound as dire as it feels. He wants to believe that his mother felt — feels — the same, but in her absence, he'll never be sure or able to shake the part of him afraid it isn't true. Letting out a shuddering sigh, trying to resist the tears starting to well up, he shakes his head. "You are. To me, you are. You can't argue with me on this. I won't give in."

Still, he senses it's more than that. The way S tucks into himself, the way his voice made J's heart ache, it's a hurt that runs deep, and it appalls J to think he didn't see it all this time. If he'd had any idea this was the case — as, at least, he thinks it is — he would have found his courage sooner. "Darling," he murmurs, soft and gentle, "did you think I — I thought anything different?" Even though it stings to imagine that, he also has an uncomfortable understanding of how easy it is to persuade himself of things that aren't true, that he knows aren't true. He still hates the idea of S dealing with that disconnect or feeling — feeling like what? J searches for it in his head, uncertain. Ugly? Unappealing? That J would think so? Tangled up as that must be in his keeping covered up, it's no wonder he wouldn't have said anything, but J wishes desperately that he had.

It doesn't matter to S if he's the only one — or it does, but in a different way than the words themselves might suggest. Ever since they were children, first befriending each other, he hasn't been able to understand why other people couldn't see in J what he has from the very start. His own opinion won't be swayed by what anyone else thinks, but he does think it's painfully unfair that J spent so long cast aside for the flimsiest of reasons. If he's the only one who sees how beautiful he is, then it's because no one else ever bothered to really look, and they'd be wrong anyway.

At any other time, S would say something to that extent. Instead, now, jaw trembling slightly with the effort it takes not to fall apart completely again, he can only try his best to answer J's question, wanting if nothing else to assure him that the last part isn't true. "No," he allows, sounding just deeply fucking sad. He knows that, for J, it hasn't been about his attractiveness, or lack thereof. He knows, too, that J wouldn't say such things to him if he didn't mean them. The problem lies with him, and with what he hasn't let J see again. Of course he doesn't think J thought anything different, but that doesn't mean J wouldn't.

"It's me," he says, fumbling to try to explain it even as he doesn't want to talk about it at all. He hardly understands how they even got to this subject. They're here now, though, and considering that it was his holding something back that ruined the mood in the first place, the least he can do is try to be honest now. "You might not think anything different, but I do." At least hunched over his legs like this, he feels somewhat shielded, a little less laid bare by all these truths and in no position to take the step that they've just talked about taking. "It's not like I can blame you. For reacting like you did. It looks horrible. I don't know why you'd want to — to look at me like that."