#ryul

The room smelt of sadness and despair.

That was the first thing Ryul noticed when he'd dragged himself back through the front door, suitcase in one hand, pride somewhere on the floor of Y/n's kitchen and heart absolutely destroyed. His old room smelled exactly the same way it did before he moved in with y/n and changed his life for the better.

A change that only lasted a few months before he started acting stupid.

He'd stood in the doorway for a full minute before sitting down on the edge of the bed. staring at the wall.

He was doing a lot of that now

—

Ohyul's apartment had an air to it that Ryul had forgotten about. 

Sure, since he’d left Woojin and Louis had moved in, but even then it still felt the same.

Woojin did the dishes every morning without being asked, he always said he needed something to do while coming up with beats and editing their videos. Traces of Louis could be found all over even though he’d only been living there for a few months. Empty pokemon card wrappers in the garbage, his giant sneakers scattered in front of the door, his hat rack that took up mega-space in the halls. 

Then there was Ohyul, the man who technically owned the place, not that you could tell. His presence was visibly non-existent but you could literally feel him everywhere…. Especially the fridge, it was fully stocked constantly.

Ryul moved through it like a ghost. Showed up to the kitchen when he was hungry, disappeared back into his room when he wasn't. 

The others gave him space without making it weird, which he was grateful for, not that they could tell. He wasn’t really speaking to anyone.

His phone rarely left his hand.

He'd texted her twice. The first one the night he got back, sitting on the edge of his old bed at 2am as he tried to come up with some excuse.

‘I know you don't want to hear from me baby but I just need you to know I'm sorry.’

No response to that.

The second one was sent the morning after, because apparently he hadn't learned anything.

‘Please just let me know you're okay.’

Still nothing.

He'd even called once. It rang four times and went to voicemail and he'd listened to her recorded voice telling him to leave a message and then sat there with the phone pressed to his ear for an embarrassingly long time after the beep, saying nothing, before hanging up.

He didn't call again. 

—

"You look terrible," Louis said, not looking up from his phone, when Ryul emerged on the fourth day at noon.

"Thanks Louis."

"Just saying." He gestured vaguely at the kitchen. "Woojin made eggs."

Ryul made coffee instead. Black, out of habit, and then stood there holding the mug and hating himself for the half second it took him to remember why black coffee felt like a bad idea right now.

He drank it anyway.

—

After days of repeating the same schedule, he began to obsess over the photos.

Who sent those texts?

He kept coming back to it. Not because it changed anything or because knowing would undo what he did, but because his brain needed somewhere to put the anger that wasn't directly at himself, and the person who sent those texts was a convenient victim.

It needed to have been someone who was at the concert that night. Someone who knew enough to know what they were looking at when they saw him in her car.

He'd run through the list in his head approximately forty times. 

It couldn’t have been staff, none of the other artists on the set cared enough to do anything, it could've been someone in the crowd who recognized him, but even at that, how would they have had her number?

He'd mostly ruled out the band. Woojin was loyal to a fault and Louis stayed out of personal business on principle. Ohyul would never do something like that to him.

—

The TV played quietly in the background, some reality show Louis had put on that nobody was actually paying attention to. Woojin sat on the floor with his laptop balanced on the coffee table, headphones around his neck while he messed around with one of their demos. Louis was sprawled across the couch opposite Ryul, scrolling through videos with the volume low enough that every few minutes a laugh track would slip into the room before disappearing again.

Ryul had opened his messages with Y/n seven times in the last hour.

Louis noticed immediately, it wasn’t like Ryul was trying to be secretive about it anyways.

"You know if you keep opening that chat it's not suddenly gonna have a reply."

Ryul locked his phone without looking up. "Wasn't expecting one."

"Mhm."

"I wasn't."

Louis snorted quietly but let it go.

Another minute passed before Ryul spoke again.

"...You think she's alright?"

Woojin looked up first.

Louis glanced over the top of his phone.

Ohyul answered before either of them could.

"I'm sure she is."

Ryul nodded absently.

"I hope so."

"She'll be alright."

There was something about the certainty in his voice that made Ryul look over.

"You sound pretty confident."

Ohyul shrugged.

"I mean... she's got people."

"What people?"

"The people around her."

Ryul frowned.

"You don't even know who's around her."

"No," Ohyul admitted. "But I know her."

"You barely talked to her."

"I talked to her enough."

The words sat strangely in the room.

Not because of what he'd said.

Because of how he'd said it.

Ryul looked at him properly for what felt like the first time in days. Ohyul was still watching the TV, though Ryul doubted he could've told anyone what was actually playing.

"You talked to her enough," Ryul repeated slowly. "Enough to know she's okay?"

"I just meant she'll have people looking after her."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't."

"You literally just said you did."

"I said she'll be fine."

"No," Ryul shook his head. "You said she's got people."

Nobody spoke.

Even Louis had looked up from his phone now.

Ryul's stomach twisted.

"You left early that night."

Ohyul's jaw tightened.

"So?"

"So you weren't at the afterparty."

"...No."

"But somehow you're talking like you know what happened after the concert."

"I don't."

"You do."

"Oh my god, Ryul," Ohyul sighed, his eyes closing in frustration

"No."

He sat forward, elbows resting on his knees as he stared across the room. "No, because you've been weird ever since I got back."

"I've been normal?"

"You've been avoiding me."

"I've been giving you space. We all have." Ohyul reminded him, referencing the two other boys in the room.

"You've been acting guilty."

That finally got Ohyul to pause.

Only for a second but it was enough.

Ryul remembered the photos y/n showed him, of him making out with some girl by the photo booth and in her car.

And suddenly, he realized, whoever took it needed to have access to those restricted area.

And someone who had Y/n's number.

"...You."

Nobody spoke.

Ryul stood up slowly, disbelief flashing across his face. "It was you."

Louis slowly lowered his phone, sensing the conversation had taken a deeper turn.

Ohyul rubbed a hand across his face. "...Yeah."

Ryul shut his eyes, hoping to wake up from a dream. “Tell me you’re lying.”

“I can’t.”

That was all he said.

Ryul didn't remember crossing the room.

One second he was standing beside the couch and the next his fist had connected with Ohyul's jaw hard enough to send him stumbling backwards into the dining table.

One of the mugs tipped over.

Coffee spilled across the wood before the mug rolled off the edge and shattered across the floor.

"Ryul!"

Woojin caught him before he could swing again, grabbing him around the shoulders while Louis shoved himself between the two of them.

"The fuck are you doing?"

"He sent them!"

"Yeah," Ohyul answered, wiping the blood from the corner of his lip. "I did."

"You had no fucking right."

"I know."

That wasn't the answer Ryul expected.

"I knew exactly what would happen if I sent them."

"And you still did it?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because she deserved to know."

"You don't get to decide that!"

"No." Ohyul looked tired as he spoke. "But you don't either."

The apartment went quiet again.

"So that's it? You got to play the hero and expose me?" He laughed bitterly, "What, you think you're a good person now?"

"I don't think I'm a good person." Ohyul leaned down to pick the broken mug up before Louis stopped him, blood staining his teeth. "I think I did the right thing."

Ryul tried pushing past Woojin again.

"You should've minded your own business."

"I tried."

That made Ryul stop struggling. "What?"

"I minded my own business for months." Ohyul shook his head, looking somewhere past Ryul instead of at him.

"I watched her come to rehearsals after working all day because she wanted to support you. I watched her sit backstage for hours just to spend twenty minutes with you after a show."

"I even watched her bring food because she knew we'd all forget to eat."

A small smile crossed Louis' face at Ohyul’s words despite himself. "She always brought me that strawberry milk."

"Yeah," Ohyul nodded. "She did."

"Woojin liked those stupid rice crackers," Louis added.

"They weren't stupid." Woojin scoffed, that being the first proper thing he’d said since they’d started arguing

"They were." Ohyul rolled his eyes.

Woojin rolled his eyes harder.

"They're good."

"They're dry as fuck."

"They're healthy." The blonde grumbled.

"They're dry."

For half a second the room almost felt normal.

Then Ryul spoke.

"You noticed all that."

Ohyul looked back at him. "Yeah."

"And you never said anything."

"What was there to say?"

Silence settled again.

Ryul looked at him for another long second before something crossed his face.

It wasn't anger.

Not entirely.

More like recognition.

"...Since when?"

Ohyul frowned, brows furrowed in confusion. "Since when what?"

"Don't do that." Ryul laughed once.

"You know exactly what I'm asking."

Nobody moved.

Louis looked between the two of them.

Woojin slowly let go of Ryul's shoulders. "Ryul..."

"No."

His eyes never left Ohyul.

"Answer me." 

Another long silence.

Then Ohyul let out a slow breath.

"For a while."

Louis blinked.

"What is going on?” Woojin mumbled.

"I never wanted anything to happen." Ohyul's voice stayed calm. “I never would have, because you were with her." He swallowed hard, "You were my best friend. I respected your relationship."

Ryul felt something sink in his chest.

Not because Ohyul liked Y/n.

Because he'd respected a relationship that Ryul himself hadn't.

"I would've sent those photos whether I knew her or not," Ohyul continued quietly. "If she'd been dating Louis, I would've sent them. If she'd been dating Woojin, I would've sent them. I don't care who it was. Nobody deserves to spend their anniversary waiting for someone who's at a party kissing somebody else."

Nobody argued.

"If you're asking whether I think she deserves better than what you gave her..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. I do."

Ryul looked away first.

"And if you're gonna spend the next however many months sitting in your room feeling sorry for yourself instead of actually becoming someone she'd have been proud to love..." He shrugged weakly, choosing his next words carefully. "Then get out of the way."

Ohyul wasn't threatening him. He wasn't trying to steal Y/n. He honestly sounded almost frustrated that he'd had to admit any of this at all.

Nobody laughed and the apartment was filled with a painful silence.

Ryul couldn't stop replaying one sentence over and over in his head.

“I respected your relationship.”

It was such a simple thing to say.

Yet somehow it hurt more than being punched would've.

Because for months, without Ryul ever noticing, his best friend had been respecting something that Ryul himself hadn't cared enough to protect.