#askowl

in my opinion, anon, if sieun ended up in a coma, suho wouldn’t fall apart the same way sieun did. he wouldn’t send desperate texts begging for him to wake, nor would he break down visiting with grief in his eyes. he wouldn't stop eating, he wouldn't lose sleep. no, suho’s way is different.

he’d show up every day like clockwork, sliding into sieun's hospital room with a kind of casualness that almost feels like denial. he’d drop his bag, pull up a chair, and start talking—about the cafeteria food, the ridiculous homework, some customer at his delivery job? things he used to talk to sieun about. things that kept the world tethered.

“you're still not talking to me? rude,” he’d say with a mock-annoyed voice, though no one’s there to hear it.

he’d fill the silence with his voice, like they were just hanging out; suho yapping, sieun quiet — their usual dynamic. like nothing’s broken. maybe he’d bring snacks, or games, or books sieun liked, but mostly, he’d just be present. no tears. no desperate pleas. just steady, stubborn presence.

because for suho, absence probably wouldn't be about waiting for a miracle. it’d be about holding the space where sieun used to be, refusing to let it vanish.

HOWEVER, the other side of suho? the side that wants revenge? what would he do? he wouldn’t lose control like sieun did. there’d be no blood trails, no shattered windows, no violent echoes through the halls. no screams, no raging outbursts, no expulsion letters from school. because suho doesn’t erupt like sieun.

think about the last time sieun got hurt? suho didn’t rage. he didn’t scream or flip desks or smash a dumbbell on a foot or stab pens into arms. he gathered names like pieces on a chessboard, lining them up on a rooftop like a teacher calling roll. then he broke them — one by one — methodically, like ticking off errands. when it was done, he took a photo. less of a threat, more of a proof. and sent it to beomseok with one cold line: answer the phone or i’ll kill your friends.

he learned that youngbin hurt sieun’s hand, so suho found him, pinned him down, and crushed his fingers underfoot—not with anger, not with haste, but with a casual quietness, like putting out a cigarette. like procedure.

so if sieun were taken from him — if sieun were lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and unreachable — suho wouldn’t collapse. he’d organize.

a car sliding off a road in the rain. a bottle of pills emptied too suddenly. a missing poster curled at the corners, fluttering on a telephone pole. there would be no pattern. no evidence. just absence. and suho would still be at school—on time, composed, making eye contact in the hallway. like everything's normal.

because this wouldn’t be revenge. it would be removal.

sieun fights like something cornered: raw, furious, desperate to be seen. suho cuts like frostbite. he's silent and precise. by the time you notice, it’s already done.

suho would always say "let's not cross the line," but he would, for sieun. and the most insane part is that suho wouldn’t even think he crossed a line. he’d believe there was no line left to cross.

because sieun was the line.

this ask genuinely moved me, anon, because what makes suho’s tragedy even more devastating is that he wasn’t just sieun’s first friend. sieun was his first friend too, atleast in a long time. maybe suho had friends when he was younger, back when life hadn’t yet asked so much of him. but growing up fast means growing apart. while other kids were playing after school, suho was working. moving, delivering, waiting tables. taking care of his grandmother. holding the world together with bare hands and no safety net. when you’re always rushing between responsibilities, it’s hard to linger in hallways, to sit and eat lunch with someone, to build friendships that aren’t transactional.

so you're right. when sieun offered to buy him a meal as an apology, something cracked open. that small, quiet gesture led him into something bigger: friendship, belonging, love.

and then it was taken from him.

when suho wakes up, he’ll know things can’t go back to the way they were. his body might not be able to handle the jobs he once took pride in. he might not be able to run, to lift, to provide in the ways that once defined him. and for someone who’s spent so long defining his worth through what he can do for others, that will hurt. there’ll be guilt, deep and cruel. self-loathing, too, because he never learned to forgive himself for needing help.

but a small part of me wonders (hopes, even) that amid the pain, there’s a strange kind of stillness. that when people fuss over him, when someone brushes his hair back or tucks a blanket over him or sits at his side and tells him it’s okay to rest, he might feel something he never knew how to name: relief. because for once, he gets to be the one who’s taken care of. not forever. not in a way that erases his strength. but just long enough for him to feel safe. to be safe.

i'm so glad you enjoy my long ass rambles because i always assume people scroll past thinking "i ain't reading all of that" when they come across my posts. but thank you for asking me about baekjin and beomseok because i've always thought they reflect each other in eerie, heartbreaking ways.

do they deserve the same treatment? no. but they deserve the same understanding. and that’s not the same thing.

beomseok and baekjin are two broken instruments, each playing their damage differently. beomseok is like a violin with a frayed string. he's unsteady, emotional, always on the verge of collapsing under the weight of what he feels. baekjin is more like a piano played with accurate precision, but no warmth. he's measured, controlled, and sharpness to make himself heard. one aches to be understood, the other demands to be obeyed. both were shaped by neglect and abuse, but they respond to it in ways that couldn’t be more different.

both were failed by the very hands meant to guide them. both were left to fester in silence, learning that power speaks louder than kindness – and that love must be earned through pain or fear.

the thing is, beomseok feels too much – guilt, fear, betrayal – and he lets them twist his judgment until love looks like a threat. he lets pain and shame drive him off cliffs he swears were roads.

on the other hand, baekjin doesn’t know how to feel at all, not in ways that make sense to him. he was never taught how to name his emotions, only how to command them. so he masked vulnerability with power and closeness with possession. this is why he to harms baku's loved ones just to keep him near.

they are both tragic. but tragedy isn’t an excuse, it’s a lens.

so no, they aren’t the same. and shouldn't be treated the same either.

beomseok needs someone to gently interrupt his spiral, to hold up a mirror and say, you’re not your fear. baekjin needs someone who won’t flinch at the walls – to say, you’re not unreachable just because no one ever showed you how to be reached.

and while accountability matters, they’re not strangers to consequence.

neither escaped unscathed: beomseok's fate was sealed by the very man who raised him; baekjin was finished off by the system he tried to master.

- 🧛🏻‍♀️🖤