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The nightmares were inevitable.
Gunwoo's read somewhere that they are the brain's emotional response to fear and trauma processing, which means that nightmares, while heartwrenching to witness and traumatic to experience, are ultimately good for relieving a person's mental burden.
Woojin never spilled anything on what went down that day to anyone. His response was defaulted to a breathy chuckle and a "Hyung's more than okay now, Gunwoo-ah". Gunwoo stopped trying to dig information the fourth time he asked.
The fact is: Woojin's a bad liar.
He always got quieter after that, his eyes losing their focus more often than not, glazed and hollow. It takes a lot within someone to truly hate something. Gunwoo loathed the lies and the facade with his heart and soul, despised the people who made Woojin become a shell of a man, but above all, he hated himself for not saving them sooner. He never brought it up to Woojin, he didn't know how.
The ones at the hospital were the worst.
Maybe it was because Woojin stubbornly kept all his thoughts within the confines of his mind, even when the walls turned brittle as glass; they were inconsistent in frequency, duration and intensity. Gunwoo hated that he had to hear Woojin's cries first before his sleep-muddled brain would tell him to move his limbs. He was always three steps behind.
The better ones lasted for less than a minute, with Woojin eventually succumbing to the drugs. The bad ones, Gunwoo would hold him to his chest, feeling the sobs rattle his bones and puncture his core. The bad, bad ones had Gunwoo pinning Woojin to the bed by force, palm over his mouth, praying to whoever is above that the nurses wouldn't run in and see the mess they've become. Woojin would thrash and scream until he went limp and lifeless beneath him(like that time Gunwoo found him in the burning house, soaked in red).
Gunwoo never looked him in the eyes during those episodes. He didn't think he could survive that, to have his world ripped and slashed into shreds because his hyung was hurting and he had no way to heal him. Perhaps he was, indeed, selfish enough to want to protect himself from the guilt when Woojin was the one who took the brunt of it all.
(But that's just who he is, isn't he?)
He would wait until the breathing slowed and the lines on his face smoothed before leaving the room. Then, and only then, would he finally allow the world to cave in on him. He'd slump to the ground and let the tears blur his vision, the ache in his lungs burning a hole through his chest, smoke billowing up his throat until he couldn't breathe. When he finally fell asleep on the plastic seats, he would dream of flashes of fire and blood, blood, blood on his hands, blood everywhere. Death in his arms. It was the same thing everytime.
He never told Woojin. He didn't need another burden to shoulder on top of his own.
It was the least Gunwoo could do.
_____________
Here's the thing about survivors.
They have a goal in mind from the start. They always believe time and change will heal the wounds. That's what makes them fight.
("That's some great bullshit you're spewing, Gunwoo-ah. The beatings must be getting to your head. 'Course I'll get better, I'm not going to lie here like a good-for-nothing forever.")
Woojin has always been a fighter. He wasn't fazed when he was told he could no longer consume alchohol. He was on track with rehabilitation, downed all his prescribed medication, finished every meal and went to all his therapy sessions. He even let Gunwoo attend a few with him. He bit the bullet better than Gunwoo ever would, ever could.
When Gunwoo cries outside of the room, it's with relief. Woojin doesn't hear him.
The nightmares subside. They occur once in a while, but rarely. Rare enough for Gunwoo to let it slip from his mind when they move to the safe house by the beach, just the two of them in a two room apartment. It's too small for proper beds, so they sleep on the floor, with thin mattresses and thinner blankets. Woojin insists that Gunwoo takes the softer pillow. ("I slept on slippery rocks all the time in my marine days, you idiot. These cotton lumps make me uncomfortable.")
As if to spite Gunwoo, Woojin sleeps like the dead, bamboo pillow barely budging beneath his head. Gunwoo hasn't had a full night's rest since they moved in. He doesn't tell him about this either.
Today is another one of those particularly listless nights.
They've trained the whole day. His eyelids feel like the sandbags he punches back at his gym, but each time he closes them, his heartrate speeds up and his senses heighten. One creak from the ceiling and he's wide awake again. Gunwoo wants to sob and heave until he falls asleep from exhaustion, but the tears never come, so he waits, and waits, and waits.
The sound of waves washing up the shoreline reach him, quiet and muffled, pulling him out of a daze. Gunwoo tosses the blanket off, slips on his jacket and shoes and treks down to the beach. The air is just on the verge of chilly as another wave dissolves against the rocks. Gunwoo zips his jacket to the top and walks.
It's therapeutic.
The chaos in his head is reduced to static, replaced by the smell of seasalt, the crash of the tides. The sand beneath his feet is wet and soft, making him sink beneath ground a little. Gunwoo lets his legs lead him around, wandering aimlessly until his feet are sore. He recognises this part of the beach. They make a right turn some twenty meters before here on their usual running route. The ground is dry, more sand than rocks, more cave than sea.
He drops onto the ground and counts the stars in the sky. There are many more of these here than in Seoul, like pearls littered on the seabed, unobtrusively radiant. Gunwoo counts until he loses track, so he settles for staring into the ocean instead. It's mostly black, without the sunrays reflecting off of the surface. The moon is clouded today, shining weakly over the waves, ivory on obsidian.
Gunwoo doesn't know how long he's been sitting there, keeping his mind blank and chest loose. He only knows it's long enough for the sound of the sand crunching beneath footsteps to grow in volume, until they stop somewhere behind him. Gunwoo doesn't have to look to know who it is, he'd recognize them anywhere in a heartbeat.
When Woojin sits down, Gunwoo can feel the heat radiating off of him. Woojin smells like fabric softener and green tea bodywash. It's too close for his liking. He doesn't move.
They stay like that for a while, shoulders brushing. Gunwoo matches his inhales with Woojin's exhales.
"Can't sleep?" Woojin mummurs. It's soft, tentative, like Gunwoo is a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum. They both know it's a stupid question. Gunwoo sucks in a breath, and nods. He doesn't trust that his voice would come out the way he wants it to.
"Nightmares?"
Gunwoo shakes his head.
"So it's just stuff on your mind, hm?" Gunwoo pauses, feels the familiar tightness in his chest, his throat, the burn in his eyes. Woojin speaks like he can see each and every thread of the mess circling around in Gunwoo's head, like he has all the time in the world for Gunwoo to open up to him. No one should be able to speak to him with such patience, such comfort and understanding. They usually give up on him halfway and in between.
He pushes everything back down and shrugs.
Woojin doesn't probe him any further, and they lapse into silence again. Gunwoo is thankful he doesn't. The next time Woojin speaks, it's conversational.
"Dude, do you think the stars are yellow or white?"
Gunwoo gives it a second to wonder.
"White."
"Then why are the stars in cartoons and stickers yellow?" Gunwoo turns to look at Woojin. He's still staring at the sky, head angled up. The moonshine softens his angular features, puts stars in his eyes. He's right there, breathing and alive and real. Gunwoo's heart trembles. Woojin turns to face him.
"I don't know. You can't have white stickers." He looks away.
"Ohh," Woojin utters, "right. Wow. I didn't think of that. "
Something pops up in Gunwoo's mind, something he read from an astronomy book a long time ago.
"The coolest stars are actually red. Their surface temperatures are around 3000 degrees celsius, I think. Blue stars are the hottest, so their colors range depending on their temperatures."
Woojin's answer doesn't come. When Gunwoo looks at him again, he's gaping, open-mouthed and brows furrowed. He sort of looks like a fish. It startles a laugh out of Gunwoo.
"What?"
"You could've just told me that you were smart and I was dumb to my face, right? Now I feel even dumber."
Gunwoo shakes his head, another giggle spilling from him. He feels lighter.
"You're not dumb, hyung. You know more about the world than me."
"Hey, then why did you one up me like that? You rude brat."
"I didn't, though."
"And now you're lying through your teeth. Wow, I really raised you wrong." Woojin throws an arm around Gunwoo's shoulder with practiced ease and pulls him in, jabbing his forehead until Gunwoo relents, breathless from laughing and a weight off his chest.
Woojin doesn't pull away, Gunwoo doesn't either. He misses this, he realizes with much less repulsion than he expected to. When the world hadn't went to shit, when the smiles came easy and the only thing he worried about was winning his next boxing competition.
Woojin seems to have understood that, too.
"Gunwoo-ah." Woojin says, after their banter has died down and the waves fill the silence. He still has his arm around Gunwoo, the younger's head on his shoulder. Gunwoo's inhales matches his exhales, slow and deliberate. The universe is calm. Gunwoo hums.
"You know," he begins, gentler than before, "I can tell when you cry."
Gunwoo's blood goes cold.
His head is spinning in cruel, cruel circles. Woojin's arm is firm around his shoulder, but Gunwoo feels more trapped than grounded, all of a sudden. He forces himself to take in air, lips sticking to each other as he parts them.
"You do?" He whispers. It's shaky. He doesn't think he can go any louder even if he tried. How does he know? He can't possibly- no- does he know? He can't-
"Mhm," Woojin's voice rumbles beneath his head, "caught you the second time, when you came back into the house with that hundred million won in your hands. Your eyebags aren't usually red, they're just darker."
Gunwoo feels like his head's been dunked underwater for minutes and they finally pulled him out.
"Oh."
"Your eyes were always red at the hospital," Woojin continues. There's that tone again, like he gets it, like he knows how to save him. Gunwoo needs to leave, right now. "At first I thought you just weren't getting enough sleep. That was bad enough. Then I pieced things together. Took me quite a long time, so I guess I am quite dumb, huh?"
"Stop saying that," Gunwoo protests, hearing his voice crack. It's weak, exasperated. "You're not dumb."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Woojin's voice finally shakes. He's beginning to sound as broken as Gunwoo feels. Gunwoo doesn't answer. He has never been exceptional with words. How people like Woojin can express their thoughts so seamlessly and fearlessly, he will never know. They're worlds apart, but Woojin holds him like Gunwoo's always been a piece of him.
It terrifies him.
"Gunwoo-ah, you know I'm your hyung, right? You know I hate seeing you cry the most." Woojin asks. Pleads. "Whatever it is, we'll solve it together. You don't have to tell me anything, but just-"
He cuts himself off. The sound he makes is broken. Wet. Airy. Gunwoo never wants to hear that from him again. "-just don't deal with everything by yourself, alright? Promise hyung you won't."
Please stop comforting me. It should be the other way round. How am I supposed to tell you that I'm the issue? That I'm the one causing this hell upon you? What if I sent Mom to the orphanage earlier that day? What if I had come back home in time to stop them from getting in?What if we had fought together? I can't get these possibilities out of my head. How can you ever help me with that?
"Hyung, I-"
"Gunwoo-ah," the bleeding pain in Woojin's voice stuns him into silence. It's raw and begging, yanks out a memory of Woojin in the hospital that Gunwoo had buried deep into the back of his mind a long time ago. He lifts his head and meets Woojin's gaze. They're wide and erratic, searching for something. His face is twisted in barely concealed agony. The stars in his eyes are shallower, dulled. Gunwoo has his heart on a platter.
"C'mon, hm? Promise me."
There's a log wedged into Gunwoo's throat.
"Gunwoo-ah, please." He tries. "For me. Just for me."
Gunwoo swallows painfully, wets his lips, forms the word in his head. The waves crash against the shore.
"Okay."
It's barely there, drowned out by everything. He feels like he just downed a mouthful of sand.
"Okay," Woojin repeats, equally hushed, relief taking over his face, his shoulders slumping. It makes him look tired, aged. There are hands on Gunwoo's face now. Thumbs, he processes sluggishly, swiping at his cheeks.
He's crying. Has been for God knows how long. Woojin's expression is sad and tender. He brushes away a tear with the back of his finger.
"It's okay." Woojin whispers. His smile is soothing. Everything Gunwoo isn't. "It's okay."
Gunwoo cries harder.