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The strangest part about traumatic experiences is that sooner or later, they end.
Often suddenly.
After being unable to see any way out for his entire life, suddenly being cut away from Mint Eye, as if he was holding on by merely a thread, and being thrown into a life he’d never had the privilege of knowing is nothing short of dizzying for Saeran.
To have his brother with him, patient and understanding even when he snaps, friends surrounding him, it all feels as foreign as he’d felt standing before her that day.
A woman who had initially held promises of escape, truth, safety, had quickly corrupted into a shell of that image, all that bright hope burned away into someone whose name now makes his heart pound in his chest, shoulders shaking.
Rika hurt him. That was something he was still coming to terms with.
Even when he feels like he’ll pass out from catching someone with the same flowing blonde hair in the street, or he catches the sound of a laugh that sounds eerily similar, he tells himself that she saved him, reminds himself to be grateful to her.
It wasn’t until he was talking to his therapist, telling her what he remembered as a happy memory, and looking up to see pure shock and pity in her eyes that he even considered how much he’d been lied to.
Of course, people in clean white clothes had told him, when he’d been taken away from her, and the days were a blur of blood tests, tasteless meals and sitting in circles. But he’d been taught how to deal with non-believers. They weren’t supposed to be right. He’d been so caught up in just following the routine, like usual, he’d never thought about what comes next, what would change.
In his mind, Rika has become a rotting corpse of a human being. She’d taken the sun in her spiteful grasp and turned it to ash.
That’s all she ever did; take.
Years of Saeran’s life, his freedom, his understanding of the world.
His trust.
Despite this, a certain blond boy has managed to make his way into his heart.
He’d climbed those walls built up with years of mistreatment and rage, even when Saeran tried to drag him back down, thorns pricking his gentle open hands, all with a smile of understanding.
He feels the boy stir in his sleep next to him, before settling down again and sighing.
It’s like he’s practiced at it; he doesn’t need to say a word, Yoosung will silently take his hands in his own, simply be there, without restraining him.
Saeran is able to be safe, alive, and know that he isn’t alone.
At first, it had infuriated him.
How dare an outsider treat him as if they could understand? As if they’re worthy of trust, when the rest of the world has spit it back in his face.
What gave him the right to think he’s different?
But he is.
He’s so different to anything Saeran has ever known before, and so caring it sometimes makes him want to run the other way.
Yoosung is everything he isn’t, more genuine than he believed the world to be capable of.
The others do try; Zen starts conversation when he visits, Jumin seemingly stays out of his way, Jaehee offers polite smiles, but it’s all forced. Saeyoung and MC, well meaning as they are, can occasionally be too much.
It’s hard to look into his brother’s eyes without seeing the boy that left him behind, left him to suffer for so many years, simply for being born.
It’s hard not to feel smothered.
He’d grown used to being held at arm's length, treated more like a feral dog than a human being.
Yoosung treats him as an equal.
He’s gentle without treating him like he’s broken. Because of this, Saeran can’t help but allow him to stay. He’s tired of running away, and it’s getting increasingly more difficult to push the other man away instead.
So maybe Yoosung is still infuriating, but more in the way that makes his cheeks warm up with a stupid giddy smile across his face.
Maybe he’s gotten too comfortable, but he’s spent twenty four years without comfort, and it’s addictive.
Each time he tries to tear himself away, he can’t.
Rika had described love as something destructive, something that tears up all life and leaves no survivors. He’d been told it was nights filled with screaming, and days filled with wiping tear stained cheeks; the most horrific, painful expression of self, suffocated by a pathetic attempt to extinguish it with torrents of light, to hide it away in the name of love.
When she said the words “I love you”, they held a promise that she would ruin him, again and again until she was satisfied.
That she would fill the role his mother had left.
Saeran watches the boy beside him, the gentle rising and falling of his chest, the way his blonde hair falls over his eyes, and his heart soars.
This can’t be love. This is pure, still and safe.
It doesn’t ask for anything in exchange. Not even those words.
Maybe it’s because it’s left unsaid that it stays so perfect.
Life moves on, regardless of the pain he’s holding onto, but Yoosung is there, and he isn’t leaving any time soon. And that’s what he’s wanted to be sure of, his entire life, really.
He allows himself to be drawn in.
The moment he pushes closer to the taller boy, his breath stills for a second; as if expecting Saeran to pull away, before an arm wraps carefully around him. His heart beats into his ear, steady and soft with sleep.
If time could stretch on forever, he’d never let this go, but he’s growing more content with the fact that not everything lasts forever.
It’s all the more reason to stay, to ignore that selfish part of him that wants to burn it all up; if he stays for now, he can take that care for everything it’s worth, and with time, he can express it back, because Yoosung needs to know how much he cares.
He needs to know that he occupies his thoughts even when he isn’t there physically. He needs to know that his very presence is so beautiful, and that in every sense of the word he is enough.
He needs to know that Saeran wants him by his side, rather than needs him.
That’s yet another area where Rika was wrong, he decides.
If this is love, then love isn’t supposed to be needing to stay, it’s wanting to. When things seem impossibly difficult, or mistakes are made, it’s choosing to stand by them regardless, because you know it’ll return to that ridiculous bliss once again.
Everything returns to a middle ground.
It’s embracing each other’s flaws while working through them, instead of encouraging them.
If this is love, then Yoosung loves him too.
That is the last thing he registers, before succumbing to sleep, plunging into his swirling mess of thoughts.
He sleeps better than he has in months.