here we are,

wooseok still cries, and seungwoo can’t help but pull him closer, into his chest, like he can protect him from something– whatever plagues him now, if it’s pain, or something stable of it’s not. strange, seungwoo being the stable one, but maybe it’s about time wooseok cries. he has been so strong for him for so long; seungwoo has never once seen him cry. he understands why; everything about wooseok explains it, but he deserves this, so he doesn’t judge him for it for a moment. seungwoo just stays there for the support.

seungwoo doesn’t know what he expected, but it’s not a declaration of love in return, at least not now. part of seungwoo might’ve always known, maybe from that first day, in jokes of wooseok having a crush on him and wooseok’s rosy cheeks. a small part of him feared it was just him– that he would tell him he loved him and wooseok would see him as nothing more than occasional entertainment, mostly a burden. but wooseok loves him, and he loves wooseok, so a smile blooms on his face until he beams. “yeah?” the grin stays on his face too long, or maybe, in situations like these, nothing is long enough. “you should say that again, once you can properly talk,” he teases him. he does want to hear it again. he ways to say it a hundred times and hear it just as many.

he realizes then that he can’t remember the last time he heard those words from the mouth of someone honest. there were a couple clients at the grotto convinced they were in love with him that told him as much, and it just left a pit in his stomach. wooseok is the only one he can believe; wooseok has seen everything, and yet he’s full of awe. it doesn’t make sense, but instead of agonizing over it, this time, he accepts it, and treasures this love. he wants to meet wooseok’s love with his own. he hopes he can pay him back with it.

“it’s okay,” seungwoo reassures him with a hum, and he runs a hand through wooseok’s hair. “i don’t cry either, but you saw me cry. now we’re square,” he laughs, as he always does, but he’s relieved when wooseok comes back to earth. he listens to him, and then nods. “i don’t remember the last time someone told me they loved me either,” he confesses. “i realized it just now. does that make us perfect for each other?” it’s another joke– more laughter, and he can’t wipe the smile off his face. eventually, it fades into something softer, warm, still glowing, and seungwoo feels it all in his chest in the best possible way. 

“it is a long time,” he agrees, and he nods, understanding, but maybe a little sad. still, his soft smile returns. “i’ll tell you i love you a lot to make up for it. i’ll never really be able to make up for the years you went without hearing it, but it’ll be a start.” he wants to. maybe the promise of telling wooseok he loves him every day will make the days easier to get through– something to look forward to, some rare positive energy he can put into the world to offset all of his dark that wooseok tries so hard to rid him of every day. seungwoo believes, maybe for the first time, that he’s succeeding.

“can i kiss you?” he asks. he doesn’t want to presume; the moment is already overwhelming enough. the last thing he wants to do is ruin it with something wooseok isn’t ready for. after last time, he knows better than to make the same mistake twice.

when he laughs it’s still a little wet, still a few stray beads running down his cheeks. but he can’t help it; seungwoo makes him smile. he always has; something about his sense of humor just clicks with wooseok’s. it feels good to be close, to be loved, and to have someone to give his love to. suddenly he has that, all of it, and it’s still a little overwhelming. in a good way, of course, but overwhelming nonetheless.

“i love you,” he says it again, as requested, in a hoarse voice, a little raw from the tears. he’s thought the words before, felt them in the deepest pits of his heart, but speaking them is a whole new experience. it’s euphoric, it’s liberating. the words feel like honey on his tongue, a little heavy but so incredibly sweet. the hand that runs through his hair feels like it’s electric, a little warm and sending pleasant tingles down his spine. wooseok embraces the physical closeness, snuggles his way in even closer, and closes his eyes. he needs to just breathe this in for a moment, remember this sort of peace and comfort forever.

he doesn’t have a lot to say. not many words seem appropriate for what he’s feeling other than what he’s already said. it’s more comfortable to just listen, to laugh with seungwoo when he says they’re even now, seeing each other cry. wooseok finds his hand to hold, squeeze a little tighter. he laughs again too, still a little damp, but the stray tears have slowed down considerably. he feels less like an overwhelmed puddle and more and more like a functional person again.

“thank you,” he half-whispers, as if not trusting his voice if he says the words any louder. thank you for loving me, thank you for letting me cry about this, thank you for telling me what you feel. there’s a lot to be grateful to seungwoo for, a lot that wooseok still can’t find the words to say. but that’s okay, he doesn’t have to get them all out right now. he can take his time, tell seungwoo he loves him a hundred more times, and get so used to hearing the same words that he won’t so much as flinch when he hears them. he feels like he still might smile every time though.

it’s not wooseok’s fault. seungwoo doesn’t know where any of it comes from: this overwhelming weight and sense of failure– this worthlessness and hopelessness. maybe it’s just a reminder of how shameful his life is. maybe it’s a reminder of his incompetence and total lack of value– of how little he matters and how little he cares for himself and his own life. it’s not wooseok’s fault. wooseok just stumbled upon it– on his true occupation, his dark secret that he was so afraid for wooseok to know. maybe some of the tears are relief, too, all of the conflicting emotion too much, and seungwoo would never claim to be able to work out his feelings, or separate them, or cope. he hopes wooseok knows it’s not his fault that he’s still so damn sad. it’s his fault– seungwoo’s only. maybe he’s not trying hard enough. if he tries hard enough, and if he really wants it, will he be happier?

he doesn’t really know how he cries, but the tears come and they stay, and they pour and pour and he can’t stop them. he feels so powerless to do anything, like he’s trapped in some kind of glass box, like he’s inside and outside of his body at once; he can see everything but can’t move. he has no control, just spinning, impending downward spiral if not for wooseok. of course, wooseok has to bail him out– always. always. it’s bitter. why can he not just stand on his own two feet? why is he not even enough for himself?

it’s not enough to push wooseok away. instead, he melts into him, and he cries more, still quiet, an art perfected as an anxious and overwhelmed teenager, in high school bathroom stalls and hiding his fear anywhere wonwoo might see. he hugs back, clinging too tight, in need of leverage or some anchor, and of course it’s wooseok. no one else could be. his words are such a lie, though. nothing about him is okay. wooseok deserves a hundred apologies. he will never be able to apologize to him enough, and he’ll never deserve wooseok in all of his forgiveness.

he stays there, holding onto wooseok, and this reminder that he isn’t alone anymore. sometimes he wishes he was. he wishes there was no one to remember him– no one that cared enough to bat an eye –and that he could just disappear. he never wanted anyone to miss him. he never wanted to them of after, he just wanted to evaporate, and to be gone. he wonders if there’s part of him that will always ache for that, even if he won’t try to bring it about himself anymore. it’s different now, though; here is this person, so desperate to save him, and seungwoo cares so much for wooseok, too. he doesn’t want to hurt him anymore, but he doesn’t know how to stop. 

he doesn’t know how to stop crying either, and when wooseok rattles off the reasons he cares– why he likes him –he cries harder. part of him thinks it’s stupid, and that it sounds like something someone would say if they had no good reasons for liking someone. most of him, however, can’t shake the fact that he has never had someone care about him so much in his life. he can’t remember if anyone ever cared enough to tell him anything he did to help them outside of something related to his job. this is about seungwoo, not one of his many names. wooseok knows every part of him now, and still only has good things to say about him. it doesn’t make sense, but this time, he doesn’t question it, and tries to rest in it instead.

“tell me about one of the good days,” he says, and it’s almost a question, voice soft. sometimes it’s hard to remember. sometimes the sadness is so overwhelming it feels like it will last forever. he didn’t expect today to be one of those days, but sometimes it changes– sometimes it sets in suddenly, empty to overflowing and vice versa. “i want to remember, but it’s hard.”

it’s funny how it starts to come back to him, the days when he was just waist-high and crying was the only way he knew how to deal with what his father demanded of him. he remembers her, her gentle smile and even gentler hands. wooseok knew the strength in them even then and marveled at how they could be used to both hurt and heal. his father only knew hurt, and he was training wooseok’s hands to be the same.

he remembers her fingers coming through his hair, pushing the stray wet locks away from the tears on his cheeks. he remembered how she’d let him bury his face in her shoulder, wrinkle her dress, dampen her shirt. he remembers the love in her fingertips and he wonders if seungwoo can feel it through his as he mimics his memories. he lets seungwoo cling close, let’s him hold on until his grip teeters on uncomfortably tight. he runs fingers through his hair, wipes quiet tears off his cheeks. it’s okay, he tries to say when the words weren’t enough. you’re okay.

seungwoo just cries harder, but somehow wooseok knows not to be too alarmed. he knows, perhaps instinctively, that it’s a good thing for seungwoo to get everything out. if he can cry away all the pain, maybe it’ll be easier to coax another smile out of him afterwards. wooseok just holds him a little more firmly, a little more tenderly. he turns swungwoo’s head down, towards him, and presses his lips against his forehead. kisses take away pain, he remembers his mother saying. maybe it was only mom’s kisses that did that, but what can it hurt to try?

one of the good days. wooseok can’t help but smile already, sifting through memories until he finds a good one for right now. some of them might’ve been better for wooseok than seungwoo; sometimes he still can’t tell when the other man is actually doing well or if he’s just faking it. but this day was good, he’s fairly certain about that.

“you kicked me out of the kitchen,” he grins, he can’t help it. it’s still funny in retrospect. “i think you were sick of my frozen meals and you decided to cook. i tried really hard to help, we both thought i could handle chopping up some vegetables. i was too slow.. too sloppy.. kept getting distracted by watching what you were doing and nearly taking off my fingers. you couldn’t even trust me to boil water without burning it.” it’s not an experience wooseok’s likely to repeat again, he’s learned his great weakness when it comes to cooking, but it was fun. the banter in the kitchen, seungwoo’s playful threats and wooseok’s eagerness to try everything, anything.

wooseok still looks worried. seungwoo wonders if he’ll always treat him like he’s fragile– always look at him like he’ll break at any moment. he knows he did it to himself; it was his own choice that led them here– to a wooseok on edge, just moments ago, inches from his own kind of falling apart. seungwoo said, on the night that they met, that he would never forgive wooseok for not finishing the job he paid him for. instead, it’ll himself that he’ll never forgive. 

sometimes he still wonders, though, how much less he would’ve suffered if he refused to get dinner with wooseok that night. he wonders what would’ve happened, and if wooseok would’ve followed him around like a lost puppy anyway, and it was just some twisted destiny that they ended up here, wooseok in all of his worry and seungwoo’s undeniable urge to kiss him. (not anymore though. he doesn’t want to kiss him now...)

strangely, at least in this moment, seungwoo thinks things didn’t turn out so badly. maybe he likes this part of fate, if that’s what it is.

he lets out a long exhale, more a tired kind of relief than anything else, because at least wooseok believes him when he says he’s trying. he says he knows, and with it comes some comfort that his efforts might be recognizable. maybe he’s not as stuck and helpless and hopeless as he so often feels, if wooseok can tell he’s trying. he shakes his head. “you do a lot. too much,” he smiles softly, and he thinks he’ll always feel guilty that wooseok spends so much of his time on him. it doesn’t matter what else he would do, and that wooseok would claim there’s nothing better; he should get all of this time to do something different. he wants to ask him: are you tired? don’t you get tired of it? but he knows it’ll only further worry wooseok, so he doesn’t. his gaze gets distant voluntarily though, away from wooseok, off at some distant point on the wall. he realizes soon enough, and looks back at him. (surely that’ll worry wooseok too. shit. is there any avoiding it?)

wooseok smiles, so seungwoo does too– more relief, both that he succeeded in lightening the mood and in steering them away from sincerity seungwoo doesn’t know how to voice or that would feel too strange and serious leaving his lips. still, there might always be a corner of his mind dedicated to it now: that vision of wooseok, and the knife, and the ease of it all. this time, it’s a long inhale; yeah, who is he kidding, he would kiss him again.

wooseok doesn’t agree to let him come on a job with him quick enough for seungwoo’s liking, so he falls on the art of persuasion (see: pouting) to convince him. sure enough, he agrees, and seungwoo beams, excited. “okay!! great!” seungwoo has been on joint jobs with people in hydrus before, of course, and he’s always liked them better than going solo, extrovert that he is, but this is wooseok. with all of his wanting to see him in action aside, continuing to do one of the only things he’s half decent at with his best friend sounds like a life seungwoo might be willing to live. thus far, they’ve made a pretty good team. 

he laughs. i guess i sorta am. maybe it’s because even for as well as seungwoo thinks he knows wooseok, he still surprises him sometimes. he doesn’t know how to express why he thinks he’s amazing; it’s a combination of a lot of things, surely, but one thing he can say is, “just how– you were really stressed out and upset, and you still came up with comeback when i joked about kissing you again.” yes, a joke. “and how i was begging you to fight me and you acted like you wouldn’t and then just attacked me. i didn’t expect any of that. i like that about you.” he doesn’t intend to sound so reverent, but it’s not like it’s the first time.

he flops onto his back next to wooseok, laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “shit,” he sighs, and it shifts into a laugh. “i’m tired. who knew violently kissing your best friend was so tiring.” of course, he knows that’s not why he’s tired, though the tension of it all probably didn’t help. he just can’t resist joking about it, even if it would be more reasonable to ignore that it ever happened.

he might always worry about seungwoo, even when he doesn’t have to. and wooseok is certain that a day like that will come; seungwoo will be better, happier, and won’t need someone like wooseok anymore. there should be some wistfulness, some apprehension of that time when his presence could become disposable and inconsequential. but wooseok will still be there whether seungwoo needs him or not. he fought for his place to be here when he wasn’t wanted, has done his very best to keep his friend alive and breathing every step of the way since that first face to face meeting. maybe they’re just bound together now, by fate or something bigger. wooseok leans into his own certainty of their future, leans into the relief of the moment. maybe he’ll never stop worrying about seungwoo, but what are friends for?

the smile on his lips doesn’t fade too much, just grows a little softer, a little fonder. seungwoo’s excitement to go on a job with him seems so sincere, almost childlike in his exuberance. if wooseok were another person, he might find it a little weird, a little concerning at his enthusiasm for murder. but this is wooseok, whose childhood was decorated with blood, and he doesn’t think twice about it, except maybe to purposely drag it out long enough that seungwoo always has something to look forward to.

“i’m serious though,” he warns, expression suddenly a little intense, a little grave. “i’m not used to working with other people. i’m gonna be awful. if i say jump, i’m not even gonna want you to ask how high. you just have to read my mind and do it.” there’s mild worry, a slight fear that he’ll really make seungwoo hate him if he sees what he can be like on his own missions. tonight was a little different. sure, wooseok did the killing, but none of it was on his own terms. he’s impersonating seungwoo, easing the other back into this facet of his life as they went. it’s not like this was a contract he took himself.

his good humor returns quickly enough though, the moment of gravity passed. wooseok smiles again, lets himself bask a little bit in seungwoo’s admiration. he’s proud to be unpredictable, that even if seungwoo sees him pretty much every day he still is shocked by some of the things he says and does. it’s validating, in a sense. wooseok’s survival often depends on not being able to be known fully. “thank you,” he grins, and his entire body feels pleasantly warm from leaning into the praise as if he had been laying in a sunbeam despite the moon being well up into the sky. he tries to return the compliment. “i didn’t expect you to kiss me either.” but then again, why would someone like wooseok ever expect that?

he doesn’t know if there’s anywhere he feels safer. it’s not just because he knows they can both hold their own against any physical danger, but because wooseok fights so hard to chase away seungwoo’s grimmer thoughts. like this, he thinks it works, because a world with wooseok, emanating love and warmth, and his his hands in his hair, is surely a world worth living in. it’s so freeing now that he knows, and it’s like a tidal wave in his chest, absolute adoration and sheer serenity all at once. 

he doesn’t expect any disruption. somehow, he expects to drift back off, into wooseok’s reliable support and all the comfort he brings. yet wooseok’s what? comes, and it wakes seungwoo up, slowly at first, until he realizes the tears, and he practically lurches forward, out of his lap, into an upright position. he swings his feet around so he can face him, and tentatively holds his hands out, lingering in wooseok’s space but not pulling him close to him, unsure of what will help. his mind is still drowsy, powering up and immediately kicking into gear, something like adrenaline, and it’s a little disorienting.

in the months seungwoo has known him, in all of its trauma and turbulence, he has never once seen wooseok cry. he hoped this would be a happy moment– maybe that he would hear it back. he knew for months that wooseok loved him. he just didn’t know how, and didn’t know what would happen if it was the same kind of love seungwoo felt for him. he realizes now how little he thought this through, as usual, but surely bursting into tears is a peculiar reaction to a confession of love.

“i love you…?” he replies, and it comes out as a question. he laughs at himself, and at the situation, unsure of what else to do, and when all else fails, he always laughs. “no, sorry,” he corrects himself. “i love you. i’m sure.” it’s preemptive, in case wooseok doubts it, like seungwoo would in his position. he wants to tell him how much he loves him, and all the reasons why, and how stupid he was for not realizing sooner. he wants to hold him close and dry his tears but he doesn’t know where to begin. seungwoo doesn’t know if this is like when he kissed him– overwhelming, crushing fear. he doesn’t know if the tears are because he’s afraid seungwoo won’t be alive tomorrow, or something else.

he rakes through possibilities in his mind, until he remembers how little wooseok has experienced, and where he came from, and he wonders if this is the first time anyone has ever told him they love him. it propels him forward, reaching out to rest a hand on wooseok’s back. “are we okay?” he asks, second person, and it could mean anything: like it just slipped out in grogginess and muted panic– like he and wooseok are a unit now, tied together through some kind of extreme love– like he doesn’t know if their very relationship is precarious now, feelings entirely unreturned and unwelcome. i love you. he has to hold himself back from saying it again. he hopes, perhaps for the first time in a long time, that he’ll have so many future chances to say it again.

seungwoo says it again. and again. and wooseok still can’t quite believe he’s hearing it correctly. he doesn’t know when he stopped believing he was something that could be loved; he knows he used to know it. his mother used to tell him so every night with a kiss on his forehead as she pulled the blankets up to his chin. his father had made it very clear that he did not share the sentiment; there was nothing sentimental in that man at all. he was a tool, one made to shape wooseok into the same thing. she was beautifully human, fighting a desperate battle to keep wooseok in her world as well.

i love you too, he wants to shout it, wants to make sure seungwoo knows just how immensely wooseok cares for him, how long he’s cared for him in this way. but tears make his throat tight and the words, despite the struggle they put up, can’t make it out of his lips. he shakes his head as if trying to knock something loose, trying to clear the path. he wipes furiously at his eyes, as if hiding the tears will make them stop. he doesn’t like crying. it’s a vulnerable action, loud and debilitating. if an animal does it, then it’s almost certainly a death sentence. he may as well be screaming come and kill me! i’m helpless and hurt!

he gasps, tries to choke down his sobs into something more manageable. he finally gets it out “i love you too!” desperately, so much that he can’t even put it into words more lengthy or eloquent than just that.

it takes several long minutes to get himself back, still sniffly and puffy-eyed and breathing a little too shuddery to be totally back to normal, but closer to it than he had been. perhaps it was the years he’s gone without crying, those moment never fully forgotten and spilling out all at once as soon as they were given the opportunity. he leans into seungwoo’s touch, lets himself rest in the comfort of it, lets himself actually believe his words. i love you. they still sound foreign to his ears, like a language he doesn’t quite grasp.

( tw: depression )

seungwoo closes his eyes, more prepared for wooseok’s touch this time, but still not understanding. confusion permeates everything, and it mostly just makes him tired. he wants to go home and sleep– doesn’t want to talk anymore, or think anymore. he can tell wooseok cares, but he still doesn’t know why. he doesn’t understand how he’s someone worth caring about. it repeats over and over again: what has he ever done for wooseok other than cause him pain? what is he good for? why, if not because wooseok doesn’t know any different? part of him thinks it would be easier if wooseok didn’t care. there’s a part of him that wants to be alone– wants some kind of excuse for why he isn’t better, and why he still doesn’t love his life, even as wooseok smothers him with so much tenderness and affection. 

wooseok is so full of love, and seungwoo can’t help but think he must be draining him of it. isn’t he exhausted? will wooseok end up empty for how much he puts into him? 

wooseok smiles, and seungwoo lets out a slow exhale. he hums in acknowledgement. “ghosty,” he confirms, tiny nod, and maybe there’s the slightest ghost of a smile on his lips, too. wooseok has put himself in so much danger for him– compromised his entire identity (or lackthereof) for him. wooseok does so much for him. it’s almost painful, looking at him, and any hint of a smile disappears quickly in favor of returning, muted agony. 

wooseok’s joke falls a little flat for him, though seungwoo still appreciates the effort. it’s the sincerity at the end that gets him, and seungwoo knew. he doesn’t know why he had to ask, or why he can’t believe it, or why all of this is so hard. it’s like a resurgence of every choked back emotion of the past few months, triggered by the revelation of his one remaining secret and love. it doesn’t make sense. none of it does; it’s infuriating, and it’s the frustration that makes his vision blur. he shuts his eyes tight, but when he opens them, tears glisten in them, and he can’t force them back. he raises a fist to rub at an eye anyway, and tries to cry silently for the sake of his dignity.

“i’m sorry,” he croaks regardless, voice already ragged. maybe it’s an apology for the crying, or maybe it’s “i want to be better than this.” maybe he can blame his parents for this deep-seated belief that he will never measure up– that he will never be good enough, better enough, and he doesn’t know if wooseok could say it a million times and actually make him believe he it. it must be excruciating, at least sometimes, to shower someone in so much love and see such little progress. he knows wooseok wants to fix everything, and seungwoo wishes he could, even if just for his sake. 

“i feel like all i do is hurt you.” a more rational seungwoo could persuade himself into believing otherwise– could logic his way out of the dark clouds. “i don’t understand…i haven’t done anything. i haven’t done anything good. i don’t know why i’d be special to anyone,” let alone you. he grows progressively more frantic, and with each passing second he can breathe a little less. “have i ever been better at all?” it’s a rhetorical question, sobbed against his will, ultimately the root of anything. i don’t know how. i want to be better for you but i don’t know how.

he thinks they’re past the worst of it, that the little smile he managed to pull out of seungwoo was the turning point, and that the heavy mood would only slowly start to clear thereafter. wooseok couldn’t have been more wrong. he doesn’t know what it was, if it was something he said, some word misspoken, some gesture misunderstood. when seungwoo closes his eyes, wooseok can feel the little light he had kindled flicker and die out. his face falls, goes serious in return. brow knit together, lips tight as he tries to figure out how to undo this, how to bring seungwoo back to himself.

wooseok doesn’t expect the tears. he doesn’t know what to do; he doesn’t know when the last time he’s seen anyone cry if it hadn’t been while begging for their life. all he knows is that he wants it to stop, he wants to take the pain, fear, whatever it is seungwoo is feeling away. flusteredness makes him stupid, his hands hovering, not quite touching, not knowing exactly what to do or where to go. it takes until seungwoo croaks his apology for some deep, forgotten instinct of compassion reminds him how to handle this sort of situation.

hands reach for seungwoo, feet take a step in. wooseok wraps his arms around him as best as he can, tries to use his smaller frame to shelter the other from whatever plagues him, to use the warmth in his own body to warm up the other. he hugs him, tight enough that there’s no questioning he’s there, loose enough that seungwoo can easily break free if he wants space instead of touch at this moment. “don’t be sorry,” he tries to convince the other, his voice as steady and soothing as he can possibly make it. seungwoo’s tears sorta make him want to cry too, but wooseok doesn’t cry. he hasn’t cried in years. “it’s okay, you’re okay.”

it feels like it’s breaking his heart just a little bit. it’s like a slap in the face, that no matter what wooseok does, seungwoo will still be just as sad and desperate to end it as the day they met. wooseok doesn’t want to believe that, he wants to believe that with enough love and trust, seungwoo really will get better. someday all of this heartache will be just one bitter memory and his smiles and laughter will far outnumber worries and tears. he wants to say that seungwoo has never hurt him, but it’d be a stretch of the truth. there are days that wooseok is tired, frustrated, scared. there are days where he doubts both of them.

( tw: suicide, depression )

he can feel wooseok’s gaze on him even when he doesn’t look: hypervigilant, probing, and seungwoo can’t blame him. he knows, were their positions reversed, he’d be the same. in a universe where seungwoo’s world isn’t constantly swinging on breaking hinges, where he is just a very good, non-messy hitman, and it’s wooseok instead that can never find himself close enough to death, he knows he would hold him close and never let go. sometimes when he closes his eyes he still sees wooseok’s tired, desperate, overjoyed eyes beside his hospital bed, and sometimes it still makes him sick. he wants to say i promise i’m okay. i promise i won’t do it again, but it’s a promise he could never forgive himself for breaking, even in death. there would be no peace there, but in this, his stomach twists with the realization that without even realizing it, part of him is still preparing to die. why can he not say it? i won’t. i won’t do that to you again. why can he not?

suddenly, it’s hard for him to breathe too, like he got the wind knocked out of him, but slower seeping in. “i’m trying,” he sighs, an honest admission, maybe too honest, if he wants to reassure wooseok. maybe sheer honesty and vulnerability is what wooseok needs. seungwoo doesn’t know. “i want to get better. it’s hard, but…do you believe that?” now, it’s seungwoo’s turn to search wooseok’s face. he would understand if he doesn’t, but he wants him to trust him, and hates how he destroyed that possibility himself. he doesn’t want wooseok to hurt every time seungwoo seems brighter, or every time he kisses him– not that he’d actually kiss him again. no, not after this. (he still wants to, though. he just doesn’t want to make him sad.)

of course, wooseok asks. seungwoo doesn’t even have time to smile at wooseok’s agreement to stay over before he asks why, and seungwoo looks away from wooseok’s eyes, down at his lap, legs crossed. seungwoo doesn’t have an answer to why, he just did it. no, maybe he knows, though it all seems long-forgotten now, even though the feelings were all so rampant and overwhelming mere moments ago. “i don’t know,” he answers, and it’s honest enough. he doesn’t know how to explain the instinct, or the driving feeling of it all. “i’m impulsive, you know, i just kind of do stuff,” and he laughs, though it’s not as heartily as usual, skirting the edge of nervous. maybe, if seungwoo was the type, he would blush, but he doesn’t. how does he say it? does he say it? will he risk his status of potentially tailing wooseok on a job if seungwoo might want to do this every time he so much as sees him holding a gun, and wooseok knows it? will he want to, or is it just some initial shock, sure to wear off?

“i just never saw you like that. not sparring, just– today. you looked…” his voice trails off as he tries to find the words to explain yet again. all he can think is beautiful, and he decisively does not want to say that. he finds something, however, and it makes him grin, then finally look up at wooseok again. “like you were born to do it.” it’s a joke, but also the wholehearted truth, just as seungwoo likes it. “you’ll let me go with you next time, right?” he asks, though maybe the timing is wrong, too indicative of the likelihood that seungwoo will want to kiss him again, giving away his need to see wooseok in his element again, lingering curiosity and desire. “you said, if i can beat you in a fight again,” he reminds him, and smiles.

wooseok’s comeback, even in his frazzled state, makes that grin widen. “yeah?” he raises an eyebrow, but can’t keep it up, and ends up laughing. of course, he would kiss him again, if wooseok actually wanted him to, but surely it wouldn’t really ease his nerves. in fact, he suspects the opposite, but seungwoo can’t help but feel a little impressed, and that smile stays on his face. he tilts his head to the side and looks down at a wooseok still on his back. “you’re kind of amazing, kim wooseok. do you know that?” he probably doesn’t.

he wishes he could do more, always. in his imagination he can. with just a touch of his hand he could clear away the demons that chase seungwoo wherever he goes, with a few soft words he could banish the dark clouds that hang around his head. but wooseok can’t. he can barely do anything other than just be there to make sure that seungwoo’s still breathing every time he sees him. it’s frustrating, it’s horrible. sometimes wooseok wonders if it’s worse for him than for seungwoo, and immediately he regrets those thoughts. yes, sometimes he gets tired, sometimes he wishes this wasn’t an issue at all. but it’s never driven him to that edge that it’s taken seungwoo. he’s never hated seungwoo for it either.

“i know,” he says finally, expression still heavy with worry. seungwoo is trying, and that’s why wooseok keeps doing this. he wants to get better, maybe some days more than others, but the effort and care doesn’t go entirely unnoticed. wooseok wouldn’t be able to do this if it was all entirely one-sided, if he was fighting this battle all alone. seungwoo had already told him to fuck off enough times that if he had to hear it indefinitely, he might actually listen to the request. “i want you to get better too. i wish.. i could do more.” he sighs, a little of the tension leaving his shoulders as he does. he still won’t sleep a wink tonight, but at least he knows seungwoo is trying. if something goes wrong, it was a relapse, an accident. he’ll keep believing they’re making forward progress overall as much as he can.

wooseok doesn’t always understand it; his darkest moments were filled with hurt and anger. but he’s seen enough people to know that they’re all different, and that the burdens they carry are often much heavier than they appear at a glance. it’s amazing what some people tell you when they know they’re dying. sometimes wooseok thinks he knows humanity better than anyone else, despite living in such isolation from most of it.

seungwoo’s still acting a little weird though. it’s enough to make wooseok watch him carefully again, to try to figure out why answering his question seems to be such a struggle. he’s already decided not to push it any further. if this really is a bad day, one of the ones so bad that seungwoo doesn’t even let on what’s going on, then he doesn’t want to layer too much extra stress onto him. and if it’s genuinely a good day, he doesn’t want to ruin it. he finds himself clinging to every word anyways though, subconsciously leaning into them, digesting them, holding them close. i just never saw you like that. not sparring, just– today. you looked… seungwoo smiles in a way that makes wooseok almost worry about what’s going to come out of his mouth next. like you were born to do it. wooseok smiles despite himself.

“yeah,” he’s able to relax into the humor a little bit more, to cling to this normalcy. “i wonder why that is.” they both know the punchline: he was. he pretends to think about seungwoo’s request, pretends that he needs to think about what answer to give him. he already knows it; for an assassin since birth, wooseok does have some decent morals at time. keeping a deal is one of them. plus, as sloppy as seungwoo is, there’s things he’s more than capable of. wooseok wouldn’t mind some well trained backup, provided he’s actually willing to commit to his full capability there. “okay. when i have a good job to bring you on, i’ll see.”

february 15th

valentines day sucks. seungwoo has known this for years, but there’s some new, deep-seated hatred he feels after working valentines day at the grotto, six hours straight of being at the beck and call of every lonely person in myeongcho. well, every lonely person willing to pay for him, anyway. he told weijun he would work it, thinking it wouldn’t be that bad– fun even, and the dancing part was, at least. it was clear there were quite a few groups of girls out to celebrate their lack of anyone to give chocolates to. from his observation, there were even some couples; strange choice, if you asked him, but nobody asked him.

maybe it wasn’t that bad.  just a couple clients giving him chocolate because they were convinced they were in love with him– well, one of them was. he’s pretty sure the other was a joke, which he can appreciate. it could be a reminder of how good at his job he is, or a deepseated feeling of playing with others’ emotions, and seungwoo, in all of his optimism, naturally fixates on the latter. maybe it wasn’t that bad, but about two clients in he just wanted to go home. he wanted to go home to his cat and wooseok and watch one single awful romantic comedy for the sake of the holiday, and fall asleep knowing for the first time in years, he wasn’t alone– for valentine’s day, for anything.

he used the promise of seeing wooseok to get through the rest of his shift, and by the time it was finally over, and he was home, he called wooseok right away. of course, reliable as always, wooseok came, and just as seungwoo wanted, they found some shitty movie on tv that wooseok would inevitably get too invested in and that seungwoo would use as white noise to fall asleep to.

he whined about his day to wooseok, and realized, with it all behind him and wooseok next to him, it was more funny than anything else, even with its tinge of sadness.

he lays now, head in wooseok’s lap, blinking sleepily at the tv screen. eventually, he keeps his eyes closed, and lets himself drift a little, into the depth of the comfort that comes with wooseok’s presence. it’s so simple, but his very existence satisfies the longing of the entire day. he feels utterly at home, and his apartment doesn’t feel like that without wooseok.

maybe that’s when it clicks, or maybe it’s the slow, drowsy question of what it means to want nothing more than to spend valentines day with a single person. either way, he finds the answer; it sinks in naturally– easily, and maybe it’s even comforting to know. everything falls together in his mind, and its the answer to every ignored, repressed question he ever wondered when he held wooseok’s hand, or beat him in a fight, or laughed at his weird humor or looked at him.

“hey wooseok,” he pauses to yawn, and then, like there has never been anything more true– like it’s always been true, and this is the fiftieth time saying it, so casually, almost like it’s familiar: “i love you.”

wooseok is still getting used to the new phone, to having something so permanent in his life. but it’s permanently turned on, and the nights that it rings are always just on the brink of morning as they wake wooseok up. it’s not so bad, he’d be awake in another hour or two himself anyways. but sitting here with seungwoo, watching a movie (that he’s accidentally invested in, despite knowing consciously that it’s not something to brag about) in an otherwise quiet environment is such a convenient sort of lull.

seungwoo talks, and wooseok listens. he understands half of he says, can relate to even less, but he’s there for him. if wooseok can only ever be one thing for seungwoo, he wants to be reliable. he hums, acknowledges, and he really is listening despite the few words he has for himself. but this is early morning for wooseok, not late night. his mind is still back in an apartment barren except for the essentials and a spoiled kitten, tucked under blankets and resting against a pillow.

fingers trace idly through seungwoo’s hair, curling around a lock every now and then before smoothing it out again with the rest. it’s mindless, comfortable, and seungwoo always feels so soft under his fingers. wooseok doesn’t take his eyes away from the screen, but oh does he adore this. even when they’re both tired, when the conversation goes quiet and they’re both on the verge of dozing off for another hour or two for wooseok, for the rest of the day for seungwoo, he doesn’t know just how to say how special this all is to him. how special seungwoo is to him.

and seungwoo speaks again, so wooseok listens. it always starts exactly the same, hey wooseok. he smiles, glances down at the head in his lap.

what comes next makes him stop short, frozen.

his whole body stiffens as if scared, as if he were a helpless rabbit running right into the face of a starving lion. “what?” he manages to say, his voice sounding distant and hollow, verging on robotic, even to his own ears. he understood seungwoo’s words perfectly though. so simple, perhaps overused if the movies they were watching were anything to judge by.

but they take wooseok back to the only other person who has said them to him. it’s been years since he’s heard them now, long enough that sometimes, when he’s very tired, he can’t recall her voice in his head anymore. he has no trouble now, seungwoo’s words echoing in his head until they’re coming out of her lips. until he can only remember his mother, the way she smiled, the gentleness she kept in her hands despite the strength he knew she had. he almost doesn’t believe it, as if after years of those three words being kept from him he doesn’t think he’s able to receive them from anyone anymore.

wooseok is still frozen when his eyes go red, when they become more and more watery. he starts to shake, first his hands, then his whole body when he tries to breathe. he hasn’t cried since he last saw her either. she was pale, translucent, and even though he was fairly young, wooseok knew what a corpse looked like. but now the tears spill over and a choked sob forces its way out of his throat, unwilling to be contained any longer.

“you what?”

( tw: depression )

“it’s okay,” seungwoo mutters back when he hears wooseok apologize. the touch wasn’t unwelcome, just surprising, catching him off guard with the kindness of it after enduring hours of contact with far less care. maybe it was puzzling more than anything, still not coming together in his head, still not understanding. he circles back to what he always does with wooseok in the end: why does he care? it’s the same as it was since the beginning, when he couldn’t finish the job seungwoo hired him for. he fought so hard for seungwoo’s life, and still does every day. why, when seungwoo is nothing? he has nothing for him. he’s given it all to strangers; he’s like a wasteland, and it is so hard to survive here. he could never wish it upon wooseok.

but he’s still here, and so is his hand, his own palms sweaty from the stress. he looks back at wooseok’s smile with more sadness, even if he’s grateful, too. he just can’t shake it. of course seungwoo is still human; of course wooseok believes it to be so. wooseok knows, seungwoo is so painfully human; he could never raise him to higher, so maybe he can’t reduce him to anything less either. wooseok calls himself a nobody, and seungwoo lets out a long, slow sigh, but his lips might quirk up in the slightest smile, even as the turmoil still lurks in his eyes. “you aren’t nobody,” he replies, voice soft. maybe wooseok is more important than anyone. maybe wooseok could convince him he’s worth something after all.

you’re special sounds like something someone would say to try and reassure someone that doesn’t deserve it. it’s so vague, potentially good or bad, so he knows what wooseok means even less– understands him even less. he thinks of wooseok, and the glint of his eyes when he draws blood with well-practiced ease, meticulous and uncompromising. then there’s this wooseok that refused to kill him, voice gentle, touch even moreso, handling seungwoo with such care, and he wonders if he really does mean it. it’s so hard to believe he wouldn’t be like this with everyone. of course he’s special to wooseok. he’s probably the first friend he’s ever had, and maybe for that reason, he’ll always come back to him, no matter how many people he meets. maybe he’ll leave him in the dust once he finds how wrong he is in this. seungwoo almost wants the latter. wooseok deserves better than seungwoo constantly overloading him, taking advantage of him just because wooseok doesn’t know friendships aren’t supposed to be so lopsided. friends are supposed to help each other. what has seungwoo ever done for wooseok?

he stands there in silence, looking at wooseok, winter wind buffeting against him, still full of gloom. for some reason, he thinks of jeongwoo, and almost dying, and the dream he saw him in, and what better means. how does any of this get better? can he ever be better for wooseok, or at all? even with how little he believes, there’s a part of him that wants to– that he can get better, that he’s special, that he’s good enough for anyone, let alone someone like wooseok, to care about so much.

“do you mean that?” he asks at last, still quiet, eyes imploring, precarious, hopeful yet doubtful all at once. “about me being special. are you just saying that to try to make me feel better?” he’s still heavy with unhappiness, and he wonders if all he’s done is fake it since december. 

it’s so slight, so brief that if he blinked he could’ve missed it. seungwoo’s little smile puts a little more ease into wooseok’s shoulders, a warmer, more genuine smile on his own face. he takes comfort in this, in the little effort that the other man makes to be okay, even if he’s not. you aren’t nobody, seungwoo says, and wooseok feels like he may as well have just been given the greatest superlative imaginable. it’s not that the bar is set so low, it’s just that he can appreciate the effort that it might’ve taken to give back even that much.

he pushes seungwoo’s hair out of his face again, this time a little less hesitant now that he’s been given the okay once before. it’s gentle, caring in a way that borders on parental. wooseok has half a mind to lean in and kiss seungwoo’s forehead, as if he can take all the pain that manifests itself inside of there away with just that much. but he knows he can’t, so he doesn’t.

“thank you,” he smiles softly instead, basking in the warmth of this one small oasis. “i am a nobody, though. that’s kinda the point.” lips split into an open grin, the half-joke dropping from them a little more easily now. it’s nice to know that he’s somebody to one person though. someone will remember him should he make a mistake and die young, or after he’s old and gray and ready to lie down to sleep in his grave. history will not recall him; he doesn’t exist on paper. and with the way he’s ostracized himself from his family, he’s all but certain they won’t keep him alive in memory the same way they do all his ancestors. but seungwoo might, even just for a little while.

wooseok doesn’t know how many times he will have to say it. he’ll tell seungwoo until he runs out of breath ten times over if that’s what it takes, and he’ll never get tired of it. seungwoo is his best friend, his first friend outside of the little bubble that his family kept him in through his youth, and the first person he’s been certain that he loves. not that he’s told him that last part, but judging by tonight alone, wooseok doesn’t know if he ever will. he doesn’t want to see seungwoo so upset like this when he’s trying to give him kindness. he doesn’t know how he’ll feel if he tells him he loves him only to hear that he shouldn’t, or he couldn’t.

( tw: allusions to suicide and depression )

he finds the desire isn’t really gone. in some ways, it’s worse, having gotten a (literal) taste of wooseok, and all he really wants to do is kiss him more. he wants to–

wooseok snaps him out of his fantasy quite quickly, and soon, seungwoo’s eyes widen to mirror wooseok’s panic. oh no. did he hate it? he kissed him back though, didn’t he? oh no. did he just ruin their friendship? he wasn’t thinking. he’s so stupid; he feels it in his bones, accompanied by a deep sense of dread, and he becomes keenly aware of his current position suddenly. “i’m sorry,” he says. “shit, i’m– really sorry.” he scurries off of wooseok to sit next to him on the floor, a little further away than usual, and a little more anxious than usual, too.

why’d you do that? it almost sounded accusatory, and it’s worse because seungwoo doesn’t have a good answer, other than that he wanted to. i wanted to. i wanted to for hours. you looked so good today. everything about it was beautiful; you are too. he can’t say that, though, in a moment like this, if he ever could. it doesn’t seem like a good enough excuse where wooseok demands explanation, but he tries to summon up some much needed, difficult courage to say something close.

wooseok speaks before he can once again, and the understanding sinks in. “oh,” he breathes, and there’s another apology on his tongue before he falls silent. is he okay? he takes this moment to  turn inward for a moment, and make sure he doesn’t tell wooseok any lies. “i’m okay,” he decides. “today was really good. one of the best days in a while,” he assures him, and hates that it sounds like something he would say if he was trying to persuade wooseok into letting him die. he hates that he set that precedent, even if he never really lied. he just faked it.

“i’m sorry,” he sighs again, and he stares down at his lap, unable to even bear looking at him for a moment, dejected, but he realizes it’s probably worse for wooseok. it was probably terrifying, with this association and seungwoo kissing him so hard, undoubtedly overwhelming him. god, he feels so bad. his teacher from henan would scold him for his complete lack of self control if he were here. it will always get you into trouble. you must practice discipline. apparently that includes being bewitched by a certain look in your best friend’s eyes– maybe especially that. it seems so stupid now, like chasing a high with its crash leaving you feeling twice as low as before. (seungwoo used to do that too.)

he looks up at him again, and repeats, “wooseok, i’m okay,” with quiet conviction, in case he doubts it. if he knows wooseok well enough, he’s probably doubting it. seungwoo pauses for a moment, idea suddenly coming to mind. “do you want to stay over?” chances are he would’ve anyway. “would that make you feel better?” he doesn’t know if he could ever apologize enough, but he holds back his urge to. the last thing he wants is his guilt adding more weight on wooseok’s shoulders. another apology won’t help anything.

maybe some elaboration would help, though. he scoots a little closer. “i did it because i wanted to, not as another bucket list thing,” he swears, but he’s calm now, panic ebbing. he was going to say that’s all, but it felt too close to a lie, because there was more he could say, and seungwoo doesn’t want to lie to wooseok, of all people. there are still things he hides from him, even now; he knows, but he tries not to think about it. he wouldn’t lie about them if wooseok ever asked. 

“i could kiss you again, if that would make you feel better too,” he jokes with a grin he hopes is reassuring; maybe wooseok will see the sincerity in it and believe he’s alright. he’s not perfect, and it’ll probably take a frustratingly long time to ever feel as okay as anyone else, but today, right now, with wooseok, he feels okay. “i’m just kidding,” he adds, but is he really? no, not really. maybe he shouldn’t have said that, if he doesn’t want to lie to wooseok.

don’t, says some tiny voice in the back of his head, stay here. kiss me more. but it’s too small, unheard by even wooseok who consciously hardly registers anything more than the feeling of relief when seungwoo is finally off of him. he had started to feel trapped, fear fluttering around in his chest like a caged bird made all the worse by the tangle of body and limbs they had found themselves in. he needs this space to breathe after seungwoo kissed him breathless, needs some quiet to think so he can clear his head and understand what the other man is saying to him now.

wooseok hears the apologies. he finds seungwoo’s face, studies his expression with a desperate sort of attention. any little sign, any tell, any trick he knows about reading people or just the things he knows about seungwoo now from months of pure exposure. he needs something to take comfort in, something a little more solid than just words. wooseok is struggling to find anything he can trust.

guilt finds him not long after terror settles itself into something more like general anxiety. his brow still furrows together, his eyes are still clouded and distant with his worry, his frown only deepens slightly. it’s not fair of him to hold seungwoo’s attempt against him, to always expect the worst out of the other man, or to bring it up too much. wooseok has been as good as he knows how to be. the days that seungwoo calls him, he does everything he can to keep a bad day from being the worst day without saying so outright, without telling seungwoo that he counts his breaths when he sleeps later than normal.

he hates the way his outburst of fear has made seungwoo go so quiet now. wooseok feels like he’s done something exceptionally wrong.

it’s hard to believe seungwoo when he says today was a good day, one of the best days even. it’s how he was right before too, as if he was getting better. those weeks leading up to that, wooseok had convinced himself that he was making a difference, that his friend actually was getting better. he’s terrified of that lie sneaking past him again, no matter how desperately he wants to believe it. so he’s quiet as he studies seungwoo’s every word, watches his face for any little sign of deceit. seungwoo wants wooseok to believe him so badly, and wooseok can tell, and it makes him all the more hesitant to do just that.

words still can’t find their way to his lips. he drops his eyes when seungwoo asks if he’ll stay over and nods his head. it’ll help. he won’t sleep a wink tonight but at least he’ll be sure that seungwoo will wake up in the morning. or afternoon. whenever it is that he finally joins the waking world.

“why?” he manages to croak at last; he still doesn’t quite understand the other’s actions even with explanation. “why did you want to?”

wooseok doesn’t believe himself unattractive. he hasn’t been so sheltered not to understand his own objectively good looks. but he just doesn’t... understand. he knows enough to know that life is not like the movies he’s seen, that the kisses people share sometimes don’t have any deeper reason than just that they feel good, physically. and seungwoo’s lips on his did feel good, but it also made wooseok’s heart beat as if he had just sprinted a mile. and seungwoo has never done that before, never kissed him like he couldn’t bear to do anything else in that moment, like he needed it.

or maybe wooseok is just interpreting everything all wrong. he knows that he has no clue.

( tw: depression, negative self-talk, absolute zero self worth )

wooseok treats him so tenderly, even still. when wooseok brushes his hair back, seungwoo stiffens at first, for reasons unknown to him, too on edge to expect anything good. yet here wooseok is, always full of love and so incomprehensible. it’s okay, wooseok says, but there must be a but. he can see it written on his face. it’s okay, but why? it’s okay, but i wish you wouldn’t. it’s okay, but i thought you were different.

in the end, he owes wooseok better than expecting so little from him. in the end, he misreads him, even with the way wooseok so softly yet so reliably holds onto his hand. seungwoo should know better, yet even as wooseok reassures him yet again, he’s so reluctant to believe it. it’s not wooseok now, though; he hears wooseok’s sincerity, but is it really okay? is anything about it okay? does he think it’s okay? seungwoo thought so. most days he could fool himself into thinking he was happy working at the grotto– that weijun and yuyan were enough reason to endure what he did. he could pretend he was there because he wanted to be, and not because he knew he wasn’t worth any more. if it’s his choice, he does want to be, right? it’s his choice. it’s his own fault. (sometimes he still thinks it was all his fault.)

but it’s okay to wooseok, so maybe it really is. his throat feels tight again, eyes watery, but the tears don’t quite come. they just stay there as a prickle. “i don’t know,” he breathes, and he drops wooseok’s hand to rub his face. there’s so much relief, but so much confusion. “i just thought…” what? why did he think wooseok, who knew nothing but murder until he knew seungwoo, would think so poorly of him for this? “nobody has ever known and still…treated me like i’m human.”

they treat him like he doesn’t have power, at least. there’s a certain lack of respect that he’s sure wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t what he is– if he was just a hitman, and it was just the blood on his hands, not the fingerprints of countless strangers all over his skin. the latter is worse in the lives they lead, but wooseok claims otherwise so easily, and he makes it make sense. seungwoo isn’t hurting anyone other than himself here. he’s just reducing himself to rubble, destroying his own dignity. maybe he’s more embarrassed than anything, for this light to be shown on how inferior he is to someone he was almost on equal footing with. 

yet wooseok is still here, meeting him with kindness, and he doesn’t seem ashamed of him. he doesn’t seem disappointed, or like he thinks any less of him, and as is so often the case with wooseok, seungwoo can’t wrap his head around it. maybe it’s just something he won’t understand, and that he’s best off not dwelling on– accepting it for what it is and not thinking anymore. wooseok smiles, and seungwoo finally feels his body relax.

he could almost laugh. instead, wooseok’s find their way past his lowered defenses to prick further at his insecurity, his own doubt and ruptured self-esteem twisting them. they both know he’s far from great with fred, even now; it took months for him to even be a half decent cat dad. fred would still be better off with wooseok, or countless other people. wooseok would too. surely there’s some ghost hunter out there that would be far less of a burden and so happy to see him. 

“you don’t know anything else,” he says without explanation, and he doesn’t know how to find the words to. maybe the agony painted on his face is enough. “there’s so much better than me. anybody is better than me.”

he almost pulls back. he feels seungwoo stiffen under his touch, and it doesn’t occur to him until just then that maybe physical contact isn’t what he needs right now. it could be the opposite. seungwoo has had enough contact that right now he may just need his space.. which wooseok is currently encroaching on. he feels bad, so he whispers an apology and draws his hand back. not the one holding seungwoo’s, though. that one seems to be okay, a less intimate form of contact; friendly enough to be reassuring rather than stressful.

“‘course you’re still human,” he manages a gentle smile, a little sadder now that he has more of the story. who are these people who treat seungwoo so poorly? wooseok can’t believe that no one else treasures him the same way he does; surely there’s someone out there? maybe he’s more human than any of them, though wooseok doesn’t know enough about gods and deities to make any sort of comparison. all he knows is that if he had to choose between a shot at immortality or a short life on earth with the other man, he’d make the most out of every minute he could as a mortal, so being human can’t be all that bad. “hey. i’m a nobody, remember? you should’ve known i’d be like this.” it’s another gentle joke, another attempt to get a smile on that face, however weak.

wooseok doesn’t understand all of it. he can’t pretend to. his points of reference are all messy and muddled, strange compared to what most peoples’ experiences probably look like. his first interaction with a prostitute that he can remember was at the tender age of sixteen, the blood of his first unassisted kill still on his fingertips as his father tried to “celebrate” in the traditional family way. make his son a man. the girl he had bought the boy for the night was pretty, obviously knew what she was doing, but wooseok... didn’t want her. they talked instead, and then just slept. he wonders how she’s doing now, thinking about her for the first time in years. he hopes that she’s healthier than she was then, that her face has filled out and her eyes look a little less large and round. he supposes he has no way of really finding her; he doesn’t even know her real name.

memories are better left in the past. in the present, wooseok sees the way seungwoo almost relaxes, almost smiles enough to ease wooseok’s growing concern as well. but that halts abruptly. wooseok made a mistake, he said something wrong, and god does he wish he could take whatever it was back and let seungwoo be happy.

“you can sleep for 12 hours too then,” seungwoo offers, smile bright, but a little lopsided. he doesn’t know whether wooseok is staying over tonight or not yet, or where he’ll sleep if he does, but seungwoo knows, if he wakes up before his decided 12 hour quota and knows wooseok is awake, he’ll tell him to go back to sleep.

(he’ll probably sleep in seungwoo’s bed, as has often been the case since that first night out of the hospital, and seungwoo might claim it’s because he doesn’t want wooseok to be uncomfortable on the couch. in reality, it’s because sleeping next to a breathing body makes living a little easier for him; it’s always been the case, and wooseok is a little warmer than all of the others.)

of course, seungwoo realizes the difficulty that comes without a gang backing you up. he’s sure there are benefits, too, but seungwoo sought out hydrus intentionally. he needed the resources, and he needed more information. he figured the biggest gang in all of myeongcho had many enemies, and had much experience in dealing with them. seungwoo needed a little of that magic to deal with his. “i know,” seungwoo hums in response, smile just a quirk of his lips. he kind of loves that, though: the risk. he doesn’t say it though, knowing it won’t go over well with wooseok, and make him seem like more of a danger to their mission and their lives. “we could do it,” he assures him. “you do the boring parts, i do all of the parts that are cool but impractical.” he flashes another smile.

maybe it’s seungwoo’s natural perception mixed with his desperation to see it again that helps him catch that glimmer of something different in wooseok’s eyes. it’s a split second before the shift happens, and wooseok very quickly stops making excuses. seungwoo just barely more prepared, with that potentially offset by the haze of his returning admiration. their collision is somehow entirely expected, but still takes him off guard. he stumbles backward a few steps, but stays sturdy, automatically falling into his own fighting stance. he withstands the attack and side-steps wooseok in the end.

there it is again: that look in wooseok’s eyes, and it ignites him again. maybe there’s something wrong about it: the way seungwoo loves this wooseok, all wicked muscle memory, all ingrained instinct. he loved it from the start, back when he questioned wooseok’s occupation as a hitman, and he saw a flash of darkness that made him want to believe. now he’s believed and seen, and he is so captivated. 

seungwoo smiles, crooked and sinister, and makes his attack; of course, wooseok counters him, not so easily taken down, and as always, it’s a fair fight. seungwoo wouldn’t have it any other way, and he doesn’t care as much as he should about who wins. he just wants wooseok closer. there’s a part of him that wants to end up on his back, pinned underneath wooseok, looking up into the razor-sharp eyes of his victory.

what wins out instead is the greed, and the desire for everything: more jobs with wooseok, more of his murder and hypnosis, wooseok closer. it makes his determination build, as well as his impatience, and he knows wooseok could take advantage of it. his strategic mind is fuzzy, too infatuated, and it makes him less graceful– blunter and more aggressive.

maybe that’s it. maybe his style is just different enough tonight, just a little unexpected and unfamiliar, and that’s what takes wooseok down. it’s rough when he does, a clearer-headed seungwoo likely to be gentler even with his carpeted floors. seungwoo is rash enough in his normal state, but this is a seungwoo blinded by attraction, and it’s this seungwoo that straddles wooseok and kisses him like he needs it to live. 

it’s all fierce desperation, the culmination of hours of building tension. he kisses him until he can’t breathe, and pulls away just barely– just enough to get some air before he sighs it into wooseok’s mouth again. it’s finally; finally some relief and satisfaction, craving finally sated– mostly. he knows he could take this further, indulge more, but some newly formulated common sense kicks up something in his brain.

he breaks away from him, only to lean toward his ear and whisper, “you would be so dead right now.” his lips already curve upwards when he presses a quick kiss to the skin beside wooseok’s ear. when he sits up, it’s with a full-fledged mischievous smile.

wooseok is tired, he knows seungwoo is too, but they’ve sparred while tired before. they’ve sparred in the middle of the night with some stranger’s blood all over seungwoo’s ass, so really there’s no excuse for either of them to be off their game. and they’re not, not really. wooseok almost expected seungwoo to be able to weather his first blow, for the fight to not be so easily won that it only takes one move to earn his victory. they’re still evenly matched as they duel through the apartment.

later, wooseok might feel bad for starting this. surely the neighbors hate the thumps and bumps going on from this unit. even worse, what would fred think? the humans are acting like fools, making a racket and a mess of the place for some game that’s much better played in the safety of a gym. the poor thing has probably gone to hide in the safety of under the bed or behind the couch or some other nook inaccesible to the humans.

seungwoo feels different. wooseok knows this almost immediately, though he doesn’t waste time trying to figure out exactly why. it’s not relevant to the fight, so it’s immediately forgotten from his mind. what he focuses instead is how to counter this new style, this clunky, aggressive version of his usual sparring partner. he thought that he knew most, if not all, of seungwoo’s best tricks by now. maybe not how to replicate them himself in the heat of battle, but at least how to counter or parry them. this is something different and unfamiliar, and wooseok’s own movements grow hesitant, testing the waters as he tries to figure this out.

in the end, it’s his hesitancy that’s the end of him. seungwoo knocks the air out of him yet again, pinning him flat on his back none too gently. wooseok’s about to give in, to admit his defeat with a little smile and a promise to take him on a job when he has a good one to introduce seungwoo to his world through. but he doesn’t get a chance to. before he can even think, there’s lips against his. crushing, suffocating, and wonderful. time stops and everything turns electric, as if wooseok can’t bear to be so close, yet can’t bear to break away.

he’s short-circuiting, but he’s not totally unresponsive. instinct kicks in where experience fails him, and he’s holding onto seungwoo for dear life, fingers balled tightly into the man’s shirt. he feels like he’s on fire, his lungs screaming from the harsh impact and the breathless kisses that follow. he gasps when seungwoo finally breaks away and leans in, impossibly closer. his breath comes in quick, short pants, a little painful but dulled with this exhilaration. he’d hold his breath if he could when seungwoo speaks into his ear, and he can’t stop the little groan that escapes when he feels lips press against the sensitive skin there.

and then, like a bucket of ice being thrown over him, wooseok is brought back to reality.

all it takes is the word ‘dead’, and he’s reminded. the associations he has with seungwoo’s lips, what happened last time seungwoo kissed him, and the weeks that followed. seungwoo sits up and wooseok is frantic trying to wriggle out from under him, fear now fueling his veins instead of whatever that other unknown fire had been. “why’d you do that?” he demands it, his breath still a little short, maybe even shorter now that his heart has started to race uncomfortably. “you’re okay, right? last time you kissed me-”

( tw: references to depression and forced prostitution )

the fresh air always wakes him up– brings him back to life when he shuts down. before wooseok, there were days he couldn’t sleep despite his exhaustion, and he would heave himself out of bed and walk. he wouldn’t wear a coat on the cold days, and let the wind beat against his back or resist him, let the rain soak him, consider running out into traffic. it’s different now, though: after wooseok, after hospital, and even if the desire is still there, he fights it harder. maybe one day it’ll just be a repressed feeling he doesn’t even notice anymore.

he walks now, too, but it’s wooseok’s fingers so softly curling around his own that keeps him from getting lost somewhere out in space, drifting, aimless. he ultimately is so: still puttering along, a being without a purpose, but with wooseok, who makes him believe he’ll find one sometimes. wooseok’s hand grounds him a little, so he holds on, too, and he thinks over how to fully expose this secret so heavily guarded in his heart when he can’t even speak it aloud.

in the end, he doesn’t have to. he doesn’t remember any of the times he ever told anyone; it always seemed like everyone just knew. wooseok, too, just knows. the question he asks is a good one, but not the first response seungwoo expected. wooseok is so kind, and selfless, and wholesome, and seungwoo is not that. even with the shared blood they bear on their hands, this is where they markedly differ, and where seungwoo sets himself apart in myeongcho’s all-consuming evil. it makes his throat tighten, because he isn’t good enough for wooseok, and it is more abundantly obvious now than ever, all set out in front of them.

“now,” he replies, barely avoiding a crack in his voice, and he swallows thickly. “it’s my choice now,” he clarifies. once he just barely cracks open the door, it bursts open, more and more escaping, only ever really spoken once before. “it wasn’t. before, when it started.” there’s so much more to the story, but he needs a moment to collect himself, and gather the words to a story he has never told, but that wooseok is more than worthy to know. “that’s why i went to china,” and his voice is so quiet. “part of the reason,” he corrects himself, because the rest of it was in his pursuit of strength, which sparked the idea in the first place. it just happened that his growth and freedom went hand and hand, and maybe that’s why he will probably always love that part of his life more than anything else.

he can imagine wooseok’s next question, and the impending judgement: then why are you here now? why are you here again? “i can’t do anything else. i’m not good at anything else. i don’t know– how…to do anything else anymore,” he answers without being asked, and his voice sounds too ragged. he inhales more cold air, like having more in his lungs will cure the persistent pit in his stomach, and the tension in his chest.

he lets seungwoo talk. he stays quiet, holds his hand gently enough that the other can pull away at any time, firm enough to be a solid presence. he doesn’t mind being seungwoo’s anchor. it doesn’t do him any harm to be there, to be steady, reliable, quiet. wooseok could almost say he likes it. he likes feeling needed, like he’s doing something important. he likes caring about someone and caring for someone. so much of what he does requires him to distance himself from his feelings and humanity. he doesn’t have to hide anything from seungwoo, but he can also just be there for him.

wooseok’s heart aches for him though. it’s not just the words, it’s his tone. he hears that voice, low and a little husky, like seungwoo might be on the verge of some big emotion that may not yet have a defined name. what are you so scared of? he wants to ask. don’t you know? there’s nothing you could do that would make me love you any less. certainly not this. it wasn’t seungwoo’s choice at first, and wooseok runs his thumb along the back of the other man’s hand to keep from tightening his grip. if he knew who it was, who did this to him originally, he would kill them. free of charge too, since he sorta owes seungwoo a kill. but he’s not going to pry, and chances are that in this city, the bastard is already dead.

seungwoo sounds like he might sob if he has to speak another word by the time he finishes, by the time he confesses what is likely one of the thoughts kept in the darkest, most private spaces of his heart. wooseok isn’t sure what to do at first. he doesn’t know what to say to take away this pain. he never really does, but every now and then he seems to get something right. he hopes this is one of those moments. with his free hand he brushes seungwoo’s hair out of his face. he wants to see him. even now, even broken and scared, he’s still so lovely.

“it’s okay,” wooseok finally speaks, his frown more sympathetic than personally upset. “as long as it’s your choice, it’s okay. what did you think i was gonna say? we kill people.” he lets out a little laugh, breathy and shallow and hoping it will get even the slightest smile out of seungwoo as well. there’s so much worse a person can do than sell their body, and wooseok does one of those worse things. they hurt people, and furthermore the families and friends of those people. what seungwoo does here is just deals in pleasure. it’s not so bad, though wooseok can’t see himself enjoying this line of work personally. that’s okay. they don’t have to be the same person, he doesn’t want that.

the heat slowly cools, moving to lay dormant somewhere seungwoo can forget about, something that may or may not haunt him again later. it would be fitting for a ghost (that he wants to kiss so badly.)

he tries to steer himself away from the impending trajectory of that thought alone, and instead, he laughs, “i never need your forgiveness to sleep for 12 hours.” there’s something pleasing about having wooseok’s permission, though, and knowing he might not be cruelly awakened before noon, or something of the like. “you’d really let me?” he asks more seriously, blinking in disbelief. this fact, he needs to confirm, since it’s paired with a joke. sleeping a day away seems like something a depressed person would do, and that still is very much seungwoo, but they probably want to try to keep him out of the habit of acting like one. sometimes he can force it.

he doesn’t have to force it now, though, with adrenaline still pulsing through his veins, full origin not entirely known. some of it seems new. he wonders if wooseok feels it too, or if it’s his imagination again, or it taking longer to come down from the post-kill high since he’s been out of the game for too long now. he blinks in disbelief at wooseok again. “easier?” did he imagine wooseok saying that? “do you know who you’re talking to?” he bursts into laughter then, imagining himself scrubbing down a crime scene. he doesn’t have the patience. “we just have different methods. it could make us an even better team, if you ask me,” he lets the last word drag on a little long, says it like it’s innocent, just an edge away from begging wooseok to let him go with him soon.

he knows what he’ll really need to prove is that he can be less…chaotic. wooseok will require order, and that goes against seungwoo’s natural one. it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for seungwoo to learn that either, though.

he still takes note of wooseok’s rosy cheeks, and watches for any change, but to wooseok’s credit, he stays calm. seungwoo almost pouts for not getting a greater reaction out of him, but he got a good blush to begin with. no reason to get greedy (but he is, almost insatiably so; he tries to practice what little self control he possesses.)

“yes,” he replies with a grin. he would make a good guard dog. a human version, of course. “anything for you, wooseok.” that’s a joke too, presumably. wooseok ruffles his hair, and seungwoo puts on a fake pout. he could go full puppy dog eyes just to keep up with the analogy, but he doesn’t have confidence in his ability to sell that. innocence is more wooseok’s thing– never seungwoo’s.

wooseok’s laugh is so bright and so spectacular, and if it didn’t somehow make the very air so much easier to breathe, it might make seungwoo sad. instead: “that’s my secret, wooseok…i’m always tired,” he quotes the hulk from the avengers movie, like he’s serious once again, and even more seriously, he rolls up his sleeves like he means business. he does, really, if he can convince wooseok to spar with him again. “home turf,” he says again, screwing up his face, reconsidering, before he ends up shaking his head and grins. “my apartment is basically your home turf. don’t act like it’s not. quit making excuses. if i lose, i lose, and if i win, then you know i’m really ready.” it seems fair enough to him.

would he let seungwoo sleep for twelve hours? wooseok needs to think about it, but he keeps the joking smile on his face as he does. it’s not great for seungwoo, or any human person, to fight the natural clock and sleep and wake opposite of what the sun tells them to do. but every once in a while... what harm can it really do? “just this once,” he turns mock-solemn, though there’s truth to his words anyways. “‘cause i’m tired too and i don’t want to fight you to get you out of bed. it’s hard enough when i’m running on full charge.” he pokes at seungwoo’s side teasingly. the man is stubborn; he knew that from the first time they met and it hasn’t faded even a bit since then.

he laughs again, shorter and softer, yet somehow easier. of course seungwoo wouldn’t agree that wooseok’s way of doing things is easier. maybe it’s just less stressful for wooseok. he can walk away from the scene knowing he’s done everything, taken care of every detail from start to finish. if someone can link the crime to a man who doesn’t exist, then he made some sort of fatal mistake. it hasn’t happened so far, and wooseok feels pretty good about keeping his record going. “i know who i’m talking to,” he grins. “i hope that the person i’m talking to knows that if he goes on a job with me, there’s no clean up crew. or gang to hide behind. we’d be entirely at risk.”

if he takes a moment and stops focusing on how everything is so likely to go wrong on a job with seungwoo, he can appreciate how it might be a little bit fun. tonight wasn’t so bad. it was exhausting and stressful for wooseok to try to imitate another hitman’s m.o, but seungwoo being there made it better than the first two times he did it. not easier really, maybe even a little harder since he had to be thinking about him and how he might get them into trouble, but less lonely. there was someone who understood, who knew the job inside out and backwards the same way wooseok does. maybe it’s just... comforting.

“good boy,” he praises his puppy dog seungwoo with a grin. maybe he will let seungwoo come on a job with him. an easy one, something so routine that it’s practically boring. if he does prove to be a good partner, then maybe wooseok should consider raising his rates. he almost laughs aloud just thinking about a ‘we’re expanding!’ sign on the deep web forums he gets his contacts from, as if he’s running a corner store.

it’s incredibly unsettling. these are two worlds that seungwoo could never merge together in his mind, and never really thought he’d have to. maybe he didn’t think he could keep the other half of his occupation a secret from wooseok forever, but part of him hoped he could, and this is far too close for comfort. wooseok doesn’t fit here, either, too bright in this kind of darkness, wooseok’s own piece of the shadows somehow a vast contrast from what goes on here. there’s some power in taking a life, and this is entirely different. there’s no real power here, yielding his life for others to do what they will with. here, he is nothing.

maybe that’s why he’s the most afraid for wooseok to know. he can count on one hand the people that treat him like he’s worth more than his body, and some of them are arguable and uncertain– choices if seungwoo is optimistic. wooseok is the only one he’s certain feels differently about him, because he doesn’t know. what if, when he knows, he looks down on him like everyone else, and suddenly sees him as nothing? he’ll see him as someone with no dignity, at the very least (a correct assumption, really.) maybe he’ll be disgusted.

his hands start to shake. he clasps them together tightly in front of him to stop it.

he nods slowly along with wooseok’s reasoning for being here. he doesn’t know if it comes as a relief or not to know wooseok isn’t just here to see him. maybe it’ll be less disappointing for wooseok this way, if he found out. he didn’t come to see someone tainted by countless hands, then cast aside, over and over and over. he came for the sake of murder, and somehow, that is comforting. he doesn’t consider the mess it would be if wooseok succeeded in that– if he intended to kill in the grotto or it was just for reconnaissance. his mind was far into elsewhere.

it’s the hey that makes seungwoo’s heart skip a beat, and not in any cute way, like wooseok took his breath away with some kind of beauty. it’s bone-chilling fear. he knows what the something wooseok heard is before he even has to say it, and of course, wooseok wouldn’t say it. “fuck,” seungwoo breathes and he breaks eye contact. “i’m gonna kill her.” he meets wooseok’s eyes again before long, a half-pleading, half plainly sad look in his eyes. please don’t ask that. please don’t make me say it.

he knows it’s answer enough. the frown stays on his face, even as he mutters, “i don’t want to talk in here,” and grabs wooseok by the wrist, pulling him, albeit lightly, toward the door. even though there’s no better place to keep the fact that he’s a prostitute than within the walls of the grotto, he can’t take wooseok being here. he doesn’t belong here, in a house of low-lives, when he is who he is, and seungwoo’s mind keeps malfunctioning having to process it. besides that, he needs air. 

once they’re outside, seungwoo gingerly lets go of wooseok’s wrist, and inhales deeply. he still doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t want to lie to wooseok; the last time he did was probably the hours before his near-death. he doesn’t know if he even could if he wanted to. he still can’t bear to say it, though. surely wooseok will find the meaning in seungwoo’s silence when he is otherwise so boisterous.

he sees it and it makes his heart ache. seungwoo, confident, beautiful seungwoo, practically wringing his hands, eyes half-wild. he looks smaller than usual, like his entire presence is deflated, scared, rabbit-ish in his skittishness, and not at all what wooseok is used to. he holds back, doesn’t make any move as if not to startle his suddenly tender friend, but god does he want to reach out, to steady those shaking hands himself. wooseok wants to kiss his hair, to soothe the anxiety away in any way he can, and assure seungwoo that whatever it is, whatever exactly is bothering him, they can take care of it.

“i mean, if you want her dead i could help.” he tries to joke, tries to put a smile that he so loves back on the other man’s face, but it falls flat. his own face falls, scowl concerned and uneasy. maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. maybe he should have left and pretended he was never here.

but no, something about this unnerves wooseok too much. what’s wrong with seungwoo? what is he so afraid of that he doesn’t bother to hide the fear and sadness in his eyes? wooseok knows him better now than he used to, knows how rare it is for him to show what he’s feeling deep down inside now that he’s back on his feet and out in public. he sees it at home, in the safety of seungwoo’s apartment where no one but the two of them and fred can see the funny guy mask some off, where the real seungwoo sheds his costumed skin and becomes plainly and truly himself.

his mind jumps to the worst. seungwoo is being forced to do this. seungwoo doesn’t want to do this and can’t get out on his own. seungwoo owes someone something that can’t be paid in blood, and he’s ended up here. it scares wooseok now too. because he knows. the silence is louder than any confirmation seungwoo could have spoken.

seungwoo takes his wrist, gentler yet firmer than wooseok expects him to in this state, and there’s no resistance at all on his end when he's lead out into the night. or early morning. whatever time it is by now. there’s quiet between them, so soft that wooseok swears he can hear seungwoo’s rapid heartbeat, or maybe that’s just his own. the winter air turns their breath to ice, small clouds puffing out between them as they get their bearings out of doors. wooseok wants to take seungwoo’s hand again as soon as his wrist is released, so he does. slowly, gently, and haltingly as if offering seungwoo the option to pull away.

seungwoo might imagine it: a brief flicker where wooseok’s gaze is like looking into a mirror, a reflection of that same undercurrent of dark curiosity. it’s gone in a flash, however, like it was an illusion, and it throws him a little off balance, like he was just leaning on something that vanished, or somehow was never there in the first place. instead comes the usual wooseok, sincere, a little innocent, a lot worried. seungwoo isn’t disappointed, exactly, it’s just different, and an adjustment he’s still too slow and too hesitant to make. he likes this version of wooseok too, though, in all of his softness and kindness.

“i’m good,” he answers with a grin to prove it. “i am a little tired,” he admits after. “but that’s not unusual. i was just thinking,” about you, and me, and if i can bring that out of you by myself. he wonders if kissing him now would do it, while he still feels the electricity, before it turns into a more muted static that could’ve been there the entire time. sometimes there are the slightest shocks, he realizes, but nothing compares to now. would wooseok kiss him back if he did it, or would he panic, overwhelmed by the tension seungwoo could very well be imagining– that could very well be one-sided? this is the wooseok he couldn’t believe was a hitman, in all of this purity that somehow isn’t feigned, so seungwoo smiles at him again, and tries to decompress.

“you’re telling me,” he responds. “now you know why i prefer to sleep for 12 hours a day.” now, it’s typical seungwoo, with the jokes that could be true, always toeing that line, but his smile is an amused one regardless, and light laughter follows before long. he watches as wooseok’s face turns pink, and that smile remains, but shifts into something a little more mischievous. 

maybe seungwoo has two sides, too, one dark and one light: the seungwoo of joking and smiling and flirting like it’s easy, all confidence, and the seungwoo that never wants to get out of bed. neither of them are the same as wooseok, though, and there’s something fascinating about him– how he can so drastically change, like he’s someone else entirely. he likes both wooseoks, but the one he sees now can almost make him forget the wild attraction he felt earlier in favor of a teasing fondness. “you’re cute,” he observes, grin devilish once again, but it’s not like he doesn’t mean it.

wooseok, at the very least, considers letting him go on one of his jobs, and that’s all he really needs. he can prove he’s capable for the rest of the way. he nods along solemnly to wooseok’s terms. “i won’t get in your way,” he assures him. i just want to see. “unless i like, think somebody’s gonna kill you. then i will. it might be nice to have some back up, you know?” wooseok probably doesn’t know. he probably never had backup in his life, but it’s not such a bad thing to learn. “i’ll prove i’m worth taking,” he declares with another grin. “and that i can take on my jobs again. i’ll fight you right here and now. no feng shui advantage, your home turf.” 

“you can sleep twelve hours tonight. i’ll forgive you.” he’s able to joke, able to smile back at seungwoo like nothing had ever happened, like nothing different had ever been between them for even half a second. “maybe if you tried things my way it’d be easier.” probably not. wooseok already knows that. it’s much harder to do this job by himself, to not have a second set of eyes looking out for things he might have missed. it’s more to his family’s credit than his own that he’s got such solid failsafes in place, though wooseok can give himself some credit for maintaining them as well as he has. his dna shouldn’t be in any police database, his dark web operations are as secured as he knows how to get.

there it is wooseok knows that smile, he’s seen it on seungwoo’s face before. he knows it well enough to brace himself, to try to prepare his heart and expressions for whatever is going to come out of his friend’s mouth next. sometimes he swears that seungwoo knows. he’s kept the secret since he realized it himself, but there’s some things he just can’t hide. for how well trained wooseok supposedly is, seungwoo can put a blush on his face as easily as an old master painting a canvas. you’re cute is all he says, but it makes something flip over in wooseok’s stomach, like his organs have taken up gymnastics in their spare time.

he hums his acknowledgement, pretends like he didn’t really hear it. maybe seungwoo will lose interest. he usually does.

“okay, i think i can give you permission to break my rules if it saves my life.” he says it solemnly, even though the next thing out of his mouth is a little silly. “it’s how they train working dogs, y’know. intelligent disobedience. i watched a video on it once. you can be my guard dog if you want.” he grins again, a little playful himself, and reaches up to ruffle the hair on seungwoo’s head like one would pet a good dog. it’s all teasing anyways, and if wooseok gets punched for this then the joke was still worth it.

jan 22nd

( tw: mentions of prostitution and related themes )

seungwoo doesn’t always hate his job. if he did, he probably wouldn’t still be doing it– well, maybe. sometimes it’s just lonely women who spend most of their time with him lamenting over their lives and how lonely they are. they’re the times that almost make him feel like he’s worth more than his body– almost convince him he’s doing something good here, and that part of this is his company, and not just how good he is in bed.

then there are the times they reduce him to nothing, and they don’t let him forget it. they tell him so, and seungwoo takes it. it’s the grotto’s policy that their prostitutes don’t have to do anything they aren’t okay with, but seungwoo might like them better. they’ve trained him to. someone has to accept the clients no one else wants, and for as often as seungwoo cracks everywhere, this is somewhere he doesn’t. he endures, and sometimes like this, he convinces himself he’s useful, if only because he keeps some of the worst of them away from everyone else. with as much as he wanted to die, it’s better to be a martyr.

it feels a little different now, because back after his self-imposed (wooseok imposed, mainly) bedrest, or what have you. he’s a little more aware of the dangers, and a little more conscious of how he sets himself up to be demeaned here (and more aware of how little he cares.) in the end, it’s good to be back, if only because he missed everyone. well, not everyone, but weijun and yuyan, at least, and they’re all that really matters to him at the grotto.

he spits his mouthwash out into the sink, a nightly ritual after his shift to rinse away all of the grit and grime of the hours prior. he makes his way to the front of the grotto, and then stops dead in his tracks when he sees him.

he thinks his eyes are deceiving him. for a moment, he wonders if someone drugged him somehow, and if he’s just bound to think of wooseok whenever he’s being poisoned, but no. he blinks once, twice, three times, and there wooseok still stands, and he’s looking right at him.

well, at least he didn’t catch him taking his clothes off, which is a bonus, though stripping is far from the worst thing he does here. that much, he could own up to with only the slightest amount of peculiar and uncharacteristic shame. the rest is another story, but he rests in the fact that if wooseok didn’t already know he was a prostitute, being here won’t necessarily tip him off. it’s an unassuming enough establishment, at least as much as a club could be.

“hey,” he greets him, and he feels a little out of breath, and a little nervous. “what are you doing here?” he hopes it doesn’t sound accusatory.

if this had been an ideal world, wooseok wouldn’t have gone into the grotto at all tonight. but he’s got a job from who he can only assume is a spurned wife seeking revenge on her cheating son-of-a-bitch husband, and the target is most easily found with his pants down in the dark of the back rooms of the nightclub. it’s for this reason and this reason alone that he ventures into the grotto on a night seungwoo is supposed to be working. he did say he wanted to join wooseok on one of his jobs anyways.

he had thought that seungwoo worked security, maybe behind the bar. wooseok never asked; it had seemed so obvious that it’d be where someone like seungwoo belonged. charismatic, handsome, physically strong in a way that isn’t always apparent at a first glance. surely he’d be charming tips out of drunk patrons or throwing them out when they’ve had too much. but no, that’s not where wooseok finds him. he’s confused at first, wondering if he’s on lunch or something, so he asks the girl at the bar where he is (she’s beautiful too, just like everyone else here). her smile turns mischievous, her eyes seem knowing, and wooseok wonders if lowkey being an ass is part of the requirements for hiring at this establishment. it’s this girl who tells him he’s with another client right now, someone who wouldn’t want to be rushed or interrupted, but she can let hun know he has another interested guest when he’s done.

wooseok isn’t stupid. he can put two and two together. he just wonders how he had never even thought about this before now, since the fact that his best friend in the whole world is a prostitute is big news to him. he politely tells the bartender not to bother seungwoo, he’ll find him later, and takes a perch near the exit to wait the night out.

stragglers are filing out and the music has ended by the time wooseok sees seungwoo. this is late for wooseok, usually an early riser, but the dark circles under his eyes do little to hinder the brightness in his smile as soon as he sees the other man. what are you doing here? seungwoo asks, and even if it was an accusation, wooseok couldn’t feel a bit of guilt. he wasn’t here for seungwoo really after all. “i was supposed to kill someone,” he answers, smile fading into a frustrated scowl and a shrug of his shoulders. there will be other opportunities, but he could’ve used the second half of his payment sooner than later. “but i never found him.” sort of true; the target might’ve been with seungwoo for all wooseok knows. there’s a new rule suddenly added to his personal code: no murdering unless all hitmen in the room are wearing pants.

( tw: blood, death, gore? seungwoo is so messed up )

he can’t stop thinking about the way wooseok moves. it’s not the same way as he does; everything wooseok does is more straightforward and practical than anything seungwoo could. if it was one of wooseok’s jobs instead, it would be the way he holds the gun. it’s captivating. it’s the way he changes: when the wooseok he knows, all gentle and warm and light like air, shifts into something darker– the tendrils of confidence, the organized violence in his eyes. it makes seungwoo feel like he’s on fire.

he watches with rapt attention as wooseok washes the remainder of the blood away, all evidence of gore and death gone with it. he can’t stop thinking about the way wooseok holds a knife, either, and how he can cut a throat open and make it look clean. it’s so unmistakably easy for him, like every possible kill is second nature, and seungwoo thinks his perfect angle is the one with a backdrop of blood. this isn’t even wooseok in his own element; it’s wooseok in his, and seungwoo can’t imagine the beauty of a wooseok in total control– a wooseok that relaxes into it and doesn’t have to think at all. it must be like art.

it takes a little too long for wooseok’s words to settle in, like he’s underwater, or too distant, stuck in a past that’s close, but not quite close enough. wooseok turns toward him, and seungwoo stares, eyes dissecting him, marrying the wooseok he knows to the wooseok he’s seen tonight. he can feel his own pulse without even touching his skin; he can hear his heartbeat. he vaguely registers his lips moving, and then finally, “wait, what?” 

he smiles sheepishly, but he’s not really embarrassed, just apologetic. he hears the rest of it, though, and he grins. “yeah, i want you to. i miss it.” it would be such a strange, demented thing to say between anyone but them, and it probably is still the latter, but it’s…normal. “i want to see you when you don’t have to be me, too,” he adds, and the smile that accompanies it is slow, and a little crooked, but sincere nonetheless. “i bet it’s stunning.”

he didn’t notice it at first. wooseok’s eyes can only look in a single direction at a time, and the last couple minutes were spent polishing every inch of visible skin. like a doctor going into surgery, two full minutes of scrubbing before he can be decidedly clean. but he looks at seungwoo now and realizes he’s been looking at him like that this entire time.

there’s some sort of intense look to the other man’s eyes. some sort of wildness barely tamed, kept inside. something dark, primal, burning red-hot in a terribly tempting way; you know that if you touch it, it will burn, but you can’t help but want to find out what will happen if you do. wooseok, however, has spent his entire life not falling prey to foolish temptations, and it’d be a shame to break his record now. despite that look, the something that reaches out and stirs something inside wooseok as well, absolutely nothing happens. wooseok’s ears grow a little warm, perhaps a little pleased with the attention, perhaps a little flustered. probably both.

“are you tired?” he asks it with genuine concern, his eyes searching seungwoo’s face now for dark circles, translucent skin, any sign of physical stress. it’s not unheard of for him to zone out, he supposes. he’s trying to fret less; he knows it’s stressful for the both of them. “yeah, i’m happy to return the mantle to its rightful owner. it’s exhausting pretending to be you.” he keeps his grin, his good natured joking, and nudges seungwoo with his elbow.

seungwoo’s smile and the words that follow take him by surprise. they shouldn’t really, all things considered, but it’s something in seungwoo’s voice. wistful, almost longing, a touch too sincere not to make wooseok’s expression stutter. that warmth from his ears travels down his neck, across his face. i bet it’s stunning. the way seungwoo says it.. wooseok doesn’t know how to process it, let alone explain. he’s called his own work art before, but he’s never been so praised for it. isolation will do that to a guy, he supposes.