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Gyu-hyuk looks decidedly out of place in the shabby flat. He moves around tidying various things that had been left out of place a month ago and it's Do-yoon that stands there watching absently as if he's the guest here. Maybe before he would've been uncomfortable with that. He would've sat Gyu-hyuk down on the old, lumpy couch and instructed him to not lift a finger while Do-yoon organised everything (—the same couch that he and Woosuk, drunk, had long in the past managed to smuggle out of a shitty live house that tried to get away with pilfering most of their ticket sales. They had to pay damages anyway when they were obviously caught on camera and only kept it out of spite—now from the sentimentalism he hasn't managed to abandon yet). Or, more realistically, he wouldn't have let Gyu-hyuk invite himself over in the first place, firm in his insistence that he could handle it alone.
Now it's not just being a guest in his home; Do-yoon feels like a guest in his own body. A month later, his best efforts still only feel like he's being dragged along by the decision he made. That moment is what rules his body instead—that moment is what occupies his every thought, word, and action. Every breath he takes comes with a reminder of those it's been robbed from and he keeps taking them even if only to prove that the choice he made was the correct one. He is alive, and Juyoung is alive, and Gyu-hyuk is alive and in his apartment now, and it's all because of him.
“Do-yoon.” It comes from far closer than he expects—Gyu-hyuk suddenly stands right in front of him rather than across the room. His hand has taken its strangely normal place on Do-yoon’s shoulder, the trigger for finally catching his attention rather than however many times his name had been called beforehand. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I just…” He shakes his head in lieu of an affirmation he never knows how to finish. It's become harder and harder to say anything that isn't the words that ring through his head with more frequency each day, and now, alone together in his flat, Do-yoon stares at Gyu-hyuk and hears them finally spill from his lips, beyond his power to stop them. “…I killed Inha.”
Gyu-hyuk’s face falls—in disappointment, he imagines for a moment despite knowing it's not true. He's concerned, as usual. They all are. Just like Juyoung’s text earlier that day, congratulating him on being discharged and stressing no pressure, but she hopes they can visit Inha’s grave together soon. As if she's not putting herself under pressure just inviting him to disturb Inha’s spirit like that. Gyu-hyuk's thumb rubs circles against Do-yoon's shoulder, telling him no pressure with his downturned, warm brown eyes and careful frown.
“It's not your fault,” he murmurs. “We all did everything we could.”
But now Do-yoon has said it and the thought swells with a wave that threatens to pull him under if he doesn't follow it through. He grabs Gyu-hyuk’s wrist with a drowning man's desperation, fingers digging in despite the final logical part of his brain telling him to stop. “I killed Inha,” he reiterates firmly, “so you could get away.”
Gyu-hyuk freezes and it doesn't have to mean anything. He could just be thrown off by Do-yoon’s sudden aggression—uncharacteristically, but not impossibly, at a loss for words on how to calm him down. But Do-yoon, expert in seeing exactly what he wants in people and ignoring (betraying) what might really be there, only sees it as a confession. And, inexplicably, Do-yoon’s response is to kiss him. He doesn't know why he kisses him and he doesn't know what he expects to come from this—or wants. He just presses their lips together with more urgency each time, as if doing so will give him the answers he needs.
When he pulls back Gyu-hyuk’s eyes are blown wide with unmistakable fear. His fingers are curled as if he went to grab Do-yoon, but the furthest he got was a weak pinch at his sleeve. He's a better actor than this. His mouth shouldn't be dropped open in an aborted protest; it should pull into a crooked smile, a mix of comfort and pity as he reassures Do-yoon of the opposite, endlessly repeating his promise that he would never betray Do-yoon.
The police had looked at the mark on Seil’s neck that failed to align with how his body had hung and agreed with the verdict of suicide. Everyone had looked at Hyesung’s last post on Phater, exactly 40 minutes past the hour, and accepted that he had been alive at that time. Seungyeon had been hit twice with the one piece of falling debris.
The door to the dressing room from the staff corridor was suddenly able to be opened without taking down the whole roof with it.
Facts that Do-yoon had doubted at the time, yet—it wasn't enough. He wasn't enough. He couldn't (wouldn't) piece together the chilling truth behind the string of deaths and now it was too late. No matter how much he agonised over the clues every single day after escaping that buried stage, no matter how much the nauseous feeling of acceptance sank in after the fact, it couldn't change anything anymore. Not with Inha’s blood on his hands. His accusation against her was something he could never take back, permanently dyeing his hands red, a brand against his skin to ensure he never forgets his title of the betrayer.
He betrayed Inha. He betrayed Hyesung and Seil. He betrayed Seungyeon just as she had taught him to. He betrayed Juyoung and the doubt in her eyes that she had to cover up with a kind smile and a promise that he wasn’t at fault for what happened. All he has ever done is betray people and it is all he will continue to do. Only Gyu-hyuk stands above that. Only for Gyu-hyuk would he betray himself before ever allowing himself to even consider the other man as the culprit. His determination to see things through could only last as long as the answer he found was one he could accept.
So he kisses Gyu-hyuk again and stops thinking about it. Gyu-hyuk shudders and the motion seems to finally bring him to life. His lips move back against Do-yoon’s, slowly, still hesitant, but at least reciprocal. It’s an awful kiss that he isn’t sure if either of them even want, but neither of them try to stop it. He moves his grip to pull at the lapels of Gyu-hyuk’s suit, trying to bring him impossibly closer, desperately chasing that warmth as if its heat will be enough to sear away the terrible parts of him. Maybe Gyu-hyuk wants the same. Maybe if Do-yoon kisses him enough it’ll take the traces of his sins in a blaze.
His hands brush Gyu-hyuk’s tie and for a moment he fantasises taking that in his hands instead, pulling, pulling, pulling tight, lips swallowing up the last breaths Gyu-hyuk ever takes. How would it feel, he wonders, to use his own hands to kill someone who saw him as their saving grace in the darkness and then display their corpse like it had been their own will? He can almost picture the result: Gyu-hyuk’s body hanging limply from a steel girder, his tie wrapped lovingly around his neck as a noose—
Do-yoon pushes back roughly. He separates them with panting breaths and swallows back the nausea that wracks through his body at the thought. The only thing that could have made that kiss worse, he thinks, almost hysterically, is if he actually had vomited.
“Do-yoon,” Gyu-hyuk gasps frantically, but the question that follows isn’t the one he expects. Why? Why did you say that? Why did you do that?— “Are you okay?”
He can’t help but laugh, and with it goes the last remnants of strength from his body. It's with a herculean effort that he manages to restrict his collapse to just his head rather than giving in to the need to sink to the ground, leaning it against Gyu-hyuk’s shoulder like a lifeline. What answer could he possibly give? The truth isn't something either of them want.
“You can't think about it like that,” Gyu-hyuk tells him softly, voice steady as if he had never faltered. His hands have found themselves holding Do-yoon's waist and the reassurance in his touch is almost enough to cover the desperation behind it. “You didn't do anything wrong, Do-yoon… I should have stepped in when things went too far, but instead I left it all on your shoulders. If you need someone to blame for that night… it should be me.”
Do-yoon stays silent. The words are too bitter to swallow, but said far too earnestly to deny him. The closest he can get to a response is pulling himself upright to take a step back, and Gyu-hyuk's hands fall without resistance, only leaving a small chill in their place. The expression on his face is familiar again: a smile that lures Do-yoon in and disarms him with frightening consistency despite any defence he tries to put up against it. The pathetic truth may just be that he really never bothers to put up a defence in the first place.
“How do you not see their faces?” he asks now, daring to push the limit of what Gyu-hyuk will let him get away with. How do you escape the long, sleepless nights, haunted by the lives that are lost because of you? How do you close your eyes and not find yourself trapped in that building again and again and again and again?
Gyu-hyuk is quiet while he stares, pursing his lips. He barely parts them when he next speaks—softly, carefully, cradling the words to protect them from their own fragility. “I think of you.”
It's a confession of a different kind, and yet one that leaves Do-yoon equally tense and unsure of how to respond.
“You saved me, Do-yoon,” he continues, and he repeats it like a mantra. “You saved me. I'm only here now because of you.”
He reaches up to the back of Do-yoon’s head, fingers threading through his hair, and pushes lightly. It’s light enough that he could ignore the prompt, but he doesn’t. He lets Gyu-hyuk bring him back into another kiss, lets it try to ground him in this moment. He was the one to initiate this first so it only makes sense that it would be something he wants. At least this is comfortable—this is something he doesn't need to have any doubts of, something that won't hurt anyone, that won't suggest that either of them being alive now is a mistake. Gyu-hyuk’s tongue slides along the seam of his lips and Do-yoon greedily accepts, meeting his tongue with his own, shivering when Gyu-hyuk licks into his mouth, and letting the heat rush through his body like a cleanse. When Gyu-hyuk finally pulls away, for one pathetic moment Do-yoon tries to follow.
Gyu-hyuk’s smile is fondly amused. He runs his fingers through Do-yoon’s hair with an unbearable amount of affection.
“I’ll never leave you,” he promises, close enough that the breath warms Do-yoon’s lips in the absence of his own. Do-yoon parts his lips and imagines he swallows it—that his lungs are fueled by the air Gyu-hyuk gives him alone.
And like the seal for the promise, Gyu-hyuk kisses him again.