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like when we first met, i hate you and i love you | beomgyu

beomgyu x fem!reader | playlist

୨୧ word count: 6.8k ୨୧ genre: angst, slight smut ୨୧ warning: non-explicit sex (or so i think), unspecified mental disorders and illnesses, depressive thoughts, thoughts of death, thoughts of loneliness, verbal incitement to suicide, very mild violence (not dating violence), unstable and unhealthy relationship, emotional dependency, mild family strife, and lots and lots of anguish. i don't suggest reading to anyone under 18, in fact don't read it if you are under 18. ୨୧ a/n: writing this was a challenge, but i consider it to be one of the writings i put more of myself into. thank you in advance to the people who are encouraged to read, and i hope i will not disappoint you. my native language is not english, so i apologize for any errors or inconsistencies in the text. have a nice weekend!

It was easy for Beomgyu to feel trapped in his own mind, to mourn the days that were more than just lost; he swore that he remembered nothing of them, and yet they could bring him down at any moment.

He had spent nearly a quarter of his life living in hospital rooms, moving from one to another, but in the end remaining within the same four plain, pale walls. No matter how many times the morning came to him, or how long the night before, they meant nothing when all he could see was a ceiling that could only be distorted in the recesses of his mind.

On this particular morning, the ceiling he saw as he lay sprawled on his bed was not the usual one. The sun's rays struck him from a different direction, the comfort of the mattress was not what his body was accustomed to, and the gentle puff of your breath beside him sent his mind wandering to alternatives that would save him from his growing need to flee your uncomfortable presence.

Your situation was not entirely unfamiliar to you. You knew him too well to have any idea what was going through his mind. The guilt overflowed from the brown of his eyes and hit you almost as hard as the reality of waking up in the same situation again. As you felt the warmth of his body next to yours, you wished bitterly that he was a stranger, that way you could let him go without claiming the warmth you lost the moment nakedness stopped meaning anything.

"Beomgyu," you called him with an uncertain tone. You slid your head from the pillow to his chest and let his heartbeat against your ear flood your mind with fear. You wished you could control it and make it keep beating even if it wasn't for you. "Promise you won't let this happen again."

Beomgyu closed his eyes. The yellow color of your walls was too cheerful and always made him feel depressed.

"I'll visit you tomorrow," was his answer. He gently put your head back on the pillow and started to get up.

A lump in your throat kept you silent as the raw fragility of his nakedness escaped the sheets. Even as she finished dressing and turned to look at you, you kept your attention on the place farthest from her eyes, afraid to get too close and discover that there were demons lurking there.

You and Beomgyu met in seventh grade, in the fall of 2016, under the rays of a bright sun and the orange hue of the leaves of an old oak tree. He had just transferred to the same school as you, but with his bright and enthusiastic personality, he had no shortage of friends, attention, or the furtive glances your curiosity encouraged you to give him. The first time you spoke to each other was after an embarrassing skateboard fall at school, but a handshake and a few awkward smiles sparked a bond that made you inseparable.

Aside from similar musical tastes and an interest in hiking, you didn't have much in common and were constantly having not-so-serious discussions about your differences. It was this contrast that made Beomgyu so eager to spend time with you. You were the respite from his usual routine, the color that was missing from the memories in his mind; the shade that waited to protect him from the sun, even though you were completely unaware of his difficulties. And things should have stayed there, in an innocent and uncomplicated friendship, but your childish need for romance and his urge for compression turned you from friends to lovers in a matter of months.

It was an inevitable fact from the beginning. He was a young man full of life carrying a heavy secret, and you were a naive young woman who didn't know what she was getting into when he opened the doors of his heart and you walked right in. By now, after six years of relationship, both of your hearts were worn out and the constant barriers that Beomgyu's unstable mental health put between you widened a distance that even monotony could not close. Beomgyu felt his soul heavy and dirty even when he was near you, the color of your life itself made him feel like a gray stain, and the shadow that once comforted him now burned him every time he tried to cling to its coolness.

"If I don't come tomorrow, don't go to the hospital until you've finished your homework, okay?"

The pain hidden in your silence made Beomgyu feel miserable and almost made him give in to your earlier request. Promising you was the right thing to do, but with him being meaningless, purposeless and pretending, how could he control himself not to come back here?

"You'll be all right, won't you?" he heard you say in a weak, languid voice.

He couldn't do anything but look at your grieving body under the sheets. He felt terrible, like a piece of trash. Every time he looked at you, he realized how disgusting he was for coming here and making you do all those things. He wanted to get down on his knees and beg for your forgiveness and at the same time berate you for letting him do it, for giving him your body even though it made you both feel dirty.

"I love you."

He wasn't sure if those words came out of his mouth and reached you, maybe he had buried them, forgetting their meaning and now they were just a broken compass. What day was it, could he go on or back? Was this the end of the story or had it just begun?

He hated himself so much.

A small smile that didn't reach your eyes spread across your face, you pressed the sheet to your body and propped your knees up on the bed so you could touch him. "Will you be okay?" you repeated as you traced the softness of his cheek with your fingers.

In a losing battle against despair, Beomgyu leaned his face into your touch and closed his eyes. He could not stop pretending that you were not the vessel into which he poured his misery. Every word out of his mouth seemed to weigh tons and lying was the only way to be with you more than just physically.

"I'm trying."

"How long will you keep running away?"

Hearing you, Beomgyu opened his eyes and you sighed as the familiar feeling of fear and uncertainty washed over you as you looked into them. There was a heartbreaking fragility and desperation in them, the same one that was present every time he touched you and made love to you; the same one that remained when his lips moved slightly upward, giving you a faint glimpse of the hidden dimple on his cheek.

"I'm not running away, the hospital doors are always open."

"Beomgyu." You tried to sound stern, but the quiver in your voice at the mention of his name was noticeable.

"Don't worry," he murmured, putting his hands over yours to pull them away from his face. "You have enough burden with school, so avoid distractions and study hard, okay?"

"Then don't come back here, please."

"I'm so sorry." Beomgyu, with his eyes closed and a lump in his throat, placed a hand on your head and pulled you close to him to plant a kiss on your forehead. "Get some sleep before you go to school."

A helpless expression appeared on your face as Beomgyu gently stroked your hair before pulling away. You closed your eyes and bit your lower lip to stifle any more pathetic pleas from your mouth, listening to his every footstep taking him away from you.

An impulse made Beomgyu turn on his heels and look at you again. For some reason, when he saw the way you hugged yourself and closed your eyes tightly, a deep urge to die washed over him from head to toe. He thought he owed it to you after all he had put you through, that there was no other way to give you a chance to escape him.

With a sigh, he took one last look at you and turned his feet toward the exit of your room, offering you the only comfort of his absence and his silence.

And as every time you watched him leave, you felt that he took a piece of your soul with him.

"You have to stop for a moment." You heard Hanna say as you both walked to your next class.

Walking across campus carried a weight that felt thicker in that moment. The weight of the morning was reflected in every step you took, shuffling your feet with the characteristic reluctance of one who has crossed an already too long college day.

Your path to your next class is a routine one, but you have never been able to get used to the distance between one classroom and the next. As you made your way along the path of worn bricks and open spaces where the bustle of students mixed with the sound of car engines, you felt overwhelmed and anxious to get home as soon as possible.

"Take a break." Despite the weight of her guitar on her back and the art portfolio occupying her hands, Hanna moved forward beside you with lighter steps, keeping a calm tone in her voice. "You're starting to rub off on me with your negativity, if you're too tired to study then rest."

You sighed and looked at the time on your watch, your class had started five minutes ago and you still had a long way to go to get to the building where the class was.

"You just don't get it, I rest every day even when I shouldn't," you said as you picked up your pace and Hanna mimicked you without any difficulty.

"Procrastination is not rest, you have to really relax."

If your breathing hadn't been so fast due to the intensity of the walk, you would have sighed. From your perspective, the situation was more complicated. Your current emotional state was beginning to affect your academic performance, and you hated it. As a student of letters and a lover of reading, you had never fallen so far behind in your academic reading and homework. You were used to reading for school as much as for yourself, but in the last few weeks, it was impossible to even hold a book without being a matter of time or will. You couldn't find the concentration to be yourself anywhere, and you feared that if you didn't overcome the block and regain some focus, you would have to drop out of your classes before you failed.

The thought of doing poorly in school made you feel absolutely worthless and nervous.

"I'll try to change, just... don't tell Beomgyu. He's been a little intense lately about the idea that I'm doing well here."

"Why, is he pressuring you or something?"

You paused and thought about all the times Beomgyu told you to stay focused in school, to study hard and get the best grades. It always seemed to you that he said it in a sad rather than a demanding way.

"No, but the situation has been difficult since his relapse," you replied.

Hanna looked at you for a moment with her big, thoughtful eyes before she let out a sigh. "Y/n, since I met you your relationship has been difficult."

"As long as he was under observation he would study online, but he became an irregular student. I guess that's thwarted his plans a lot and knowing my current situation will probably make him sensitive..." you tried to explain in a hurry, but stopped yourself when you couldn't ignore the little conviction in your words. Hanna gave you a reassuring smile and maneuvered her hands to free one of her arms for a few seconds and wrap it around yours. Both your legs slowed in unison and your body relaxed as you tilted your head and rested it on her shoulder. "Do you love him?"

Her question didn't surprise you, but you let a few minutes of silence pass between you before answering. For some reason, it was always difficult to talk about your relationship with Beomgyu; either they didn't understand it at all, or they understood it too much that you started to get the pity treatment.

"Of course."

"As a boyfriend? I mean, do you love him romantically, not as a person you've known since puberty?"

You turned your head away from Hanna's shoulder and brought your gaze to an imprecise point in front of you. It wasn't always up and down with Beomgyu, the stability you both once had and kept you both so alive was as tentative as the current instability, the love manifested was as strong as the doubts. What did it matter how you loved him now, there was no way to know that it would make a difference. The two of you were bound together by more than love, you had a history with too many loose ends to tie up, words whispered in silence that needed to be heard and answered, wounds deep enough to choose to bleed without trying to close them. Yes, the distance was frightening, but you weren't defeated, you could take what you needed from each other to survive, and that wasn't necessarily wrong.

Except for the fact that neither of you were alive.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Hanna's voice broke through your thoughts and brought you back to reality. You let out a sigh, each question weighing you down with exhaustion. "I just... I want to understand you."

"Does he seem bad to you?" you replied without a hint of anger or concern.

"No, I like Beomgyu, I just... since I know him, he's kind of scary to me."

"No, gosh... He's... the nicest, most sensitive guy I've ever met."

"Not that type of scary."

When you heard these words, you felt frustrated. You didn't understand, even though you were also scared, you didn't understand what it was that Beomgyu reflected when he was with you that you couldn't see; because you were also absolutely terrified and couldn't identify the cause.

"He's fine, Hanna."

"And I'm so glad, but what about you?

You wished you could answer that question without your heart trembling with hesitation, but you were at a point where you doubted even your own words. What your mouth was saying and what Hanna could surely read in your eyes were contradictory things. If only you could have at least known which was true...

"I'm fine, okay?"

Your eyes glided over each word on the page with an almost exaggerated slowness, you had read the same paragraph over and over again in the last few minutes, your head was throbbing and fatigue irritated your eyes, but they were not the reason for your lack of concentration, at least not the main one.

Beomgyu sat a meter away from your desk, and you could feel his attention on every twitch of your facial muscles, on the movements of your hands, on the restless tapping of your foot on the floor. Those silences were the ones you hated the most to share with him, they made you insecure and any chance to approach him in a way that didn't make you feel suffocated slipped through your fingers.

You closed the book with a sigh and turned in your chair to look at him. The dark circles under his eyes hardly surprised you, they seemed as dull as the last times you saw him, barely a spark to show they were still screaming inside.

"Are you done?" he asked, slurring his words, but you were sure he already knew the answer.

"I'm tired," you replied instead as you stood up and sought a safer position on your bed, away from his eyes.

"Me too..."

You sighed as you saw him shrink back into the chair and averted your eyes to the floor. You couldn't shake the desire to be silent that came over you every time you saw him, even you couldn't describe the feeling, it made you sick, afraid to say the wrong thing, to push down the hopes he could barely hold in his hands. You were so afraid of breaking him. Despite your caution, you admitted that you were one of those guilty of endangering the stability of the thin rope he was walking, because as long as you were together, you would be the person Beomgyu held his hand and led him to discover the worst ways to sabotage him. It was as if he was testing your criminal mind and inviting you to watch from the front row as he murdered his own dreams and hopes for life.

You snapped out of your thoughts as you felt the weight of his body sink into the mattress. You turned your face in his direction, slightly dazed as you watched him kick off his shoes and curl up into a ball under your sheets. You sighed, not resisting the urge to bring a hand up to his face and caress his cheek, the way you knew he liked it.

"Lie down," he asked you in his little whisper.

There he was, like a ghost in the darkness, looking at you with a longing that made your body tremble. Though he was overflowing with an inexhaustible weariness, and his features bore the nostalgia of the stars that once shone, he was heartbreakingly beautiful. His smooth skin had the feel of a misunderstood canvas, his eyes, deep and enigmatic, carried unreadable pleas. It was sadness embodied in the skin of an ethereal being, unable to be torn away.

Your eyes closed unconsciously as Beomgyu leaned towards you after you obeyed his words, hiding his face in the curve between your neck and shoulder. The warmth of his body was always overwhelming, but his words had the power to slip between the trembling crevices of your heart and freeze its beating at will.

"I miss you..." he murmured against your skin, the roughness of his fingers clinging to your hips and his nose sliding along your collarbone, enveloping your skin with his breath and stealing layers of your scent. "I miss you so much."

How many times had he said those words to you? You wanted to scream at him that you were here, that you hadn't gone anywhere, that he had you, that nothing would tear you from his side, but even you weren't sure of that anymore.

"Me too, babe," you replied, lowering your face to his as his eyes sought yours. Damn it, you thought, it will happen again.

Within minutes, Beomgyu's lips left your neck and traced a path down your belly. Silently, you gave his hands permission to roam beneath your clothes, to trace the curves of your breasts and massage your soft flesh. More than one sigh was stolen from your mouth as his fingers slid to the pointy centre of your breasts, sending a stream of emotion through the gentle pressure. You couldn't explain the emotion that was marked by the trace of his touch on your skin, it wasn't lust, it wasn't need, it wasn't passion, but it was soft and comfortable, just enough to seem like love, just enough to reduce the agony and inappetence of longing to something subtle.

You whispered his name and cupped his face in your hands to draw him to you. Despite the suffocating emotion in the air, your bodies met in an anxious embrace, seeking solace and a cure for the raw hopelessness they could only express through gestures and silent caresses. The weight of his lips against your forehead made you close your eyes, almost begging him to never let go. Your lips ached with the need that filled them as the cold enveloped your body and replaced your clothes. But he did not kiss your lips, though they cried out in supplication, nor did you kiss his, knowing you would find the bitter taste of apology in them.

You also helped him get rid of his clothes. You imitated his lack of shame and suppressed any negative emotions that would make you believe that seeing and touching him as you did was wrong. How could it be so wrong when you had Beomgyu in your hands, gentle, vulnerable and intense? Trembling sounds escaped his throat and bound your hands, begging for more. His hands tightened around you, his fingers sliding down each side of your neck and his thumbs pressing against the softest, most vulnerable part of your shoulders. You leaned into his direction, letting his warm breath brush against your ear.

"My sweet Y/n..." Despite your skepticism that such a thing was possible, the sweetness in his voice made you believe that he really could feel the lost, that your body and voice could soothe his pain.

You kissed his hips with your fingertips, touching the roughness of his bones, holding him close as he wriggled against your touch. He responded just as sharply and slid one hand over your belly and the other between your legs where he pressed his fingers to your most sensitive spot, where pain and pleasure intertwined and sent a tightening sensation to your chest. "Beomgyu..."

"Shhh... it's okay." He took hold of your knees and, as if he had forgotten his own frailty, he exposed you and adjusted your position for him. Your eyes sought his, eager to hold on to something, to reassure you that it wasn't a stranger touching you; to remind you that all was well, that you were safe. You wanted to find security and familiarity away from this quiet, reserved, sleepy version of himself, you wanted a smile of encouragement, one that would light up the night but not set the moon on fire.

Beomgyu held your waist, preventing the involuntary, violent jerks of your pelvis. You swallowed saliva, dizzy and anticipating the raw invasion of his being inside you.

"What's wrong?" you asked as you watched him look at you motionlessly.

"You're not wet enough."

"It's okay, just do it."

Beomgyu's lips brushed your cheek, his voice a whisper in your ear as he leaned closer. "I just want you to relax," he said. "Let me take care of everything."

With a gentle tug around your waist, he sank you deeper into the bed, your head back against the softness of the pillow as he parted his body from yours to give him an open path for his hand to the shy, sensitive place between your legs. His fingers traced the inside of your thighs and slid down to the slit of your crotch, where he made circular motions with his fingertips for a few seconds before penetrating you.

You closed your eyes and gasped for air. It was as if he was lulling you and slapping you at the same time. Part of you wanted to take it with or without pain because you didn't think you could take it much longer; another part of you, the more disillusioned part of you, wished it was him who gave up and ran away. You tried, you really hoped it would work. For a while, sex had been the relief for this raw ache, but nothing really cured it. No matter how many nights you devoted your body to Beomgyu's desires, there would always be a night when you would lock yourself in your room and cry for all that he lacked, for all that you couldn't give him, for all that you didn't want to give him. And he would know, he always noticed these things, the tears burning under the flesh of your cheeks. But he would not caress your heart as you cried, nor would his hands wrap around you as your mind and soul had done a thousand times with him. For Beomgyu would still be miserable, and neither you nor he was ready for him not to drag you down with him.

Your body responded to the demands of Beomgyu's fingers and gave him what they were looking for. He clung to you as if he didn't want you to escape. You could feel his muscles tense and tremble, his breath in your ears, his heartbeat and breath on your skin. It was the only thing you could hold on to so that you wouldn't collapse right there.

Beomgyu slid back, his fingers suddenly far away from the spot between your legs. The feeling of his emptiness inside you was such a familiar pain that you almost reached out for him for a moment, but the caress of his lips on your shoulder and that voice you missed so much brought your focus back to him.

"You're not leaving, are you?" he asked as he slid slowly and carefully inside you.

You didn't answer, you both already knew the answer.

The silence in the room was overwhelming. You were lying on the bed, minutes had passed since your breathing had returned to normal, and now the only sound in the room was the pattering of the rain against the glass of your window. The sweat had dried on your skin and the sheets; your muscles, now relaxed, felt a slight sense of fatigue that made you want to stay in bed.

You looked at Beomgyu's back and traced the curve of his posture with the pad of your index finger. The delicate contours of his vertebrae were illuminated under the dim light of your desk lamp, lacking muscular strength, with a fragility palpable in every stroke your finger outlined.

"Don't come back tomorrow."

"Y/n..." he said in a vague form of protest, but you cut him off before he could say anything else. "I have an exam and I really need to study.

I'll visit you on Friday." There was a minute of silence in which you thought he would try to protest, but he just nodded.

"Well, uhm... Are you hungry?"

"Not really."

"You're thinner."

"Maybe."

"Have they been feeding you well?" He gave you a sideways glance and raised his shoulders reluctantly. "It's hard, I have no appetite."

"Hospital food is terrible, isn't it?"

"I guess."

You sighed and looked at the back of his head as if you could see through it.

"It's not the kind of food we were made for," you replied, trying to lighten the mood. Beomgyu finally moved, turned around and his head landed right on your chest. You could feel his hands touching your ribs, his lips in your hair, your feet on his. "I could make you some fried rice," you continued. "So you can eat something."

"It's okay, just stay with you. I don't need any-"

Your eyebrows furrowed as he interrupted himself. He had raised his gaze and was now staring at you.

"What's wrong?"

"You look pretty."

Pretty.

The mood in the room changed when he said those words. You held your breath. Everything around you seemed weaker, as if it would fall apart at the wrong sound. You wanted to speak, but you dared not, out of weakness, your absurd cowardice, to show what you were thinking inside. You didn't feel beautiful. You didn't feel loved. Oh, what a relief it would have been to be able to express it to him at that moment, what a different and less complicated way it would have been not to wait for your surroundings to collapse in order to tell him all that you were hiding inside. Maybe if habit did not keep you silent when misery hovers around you, maybe if darkness was not the only stimulus urging you to seek the light, maybe you would have said it.

I feel lonely.

"Let's cook something, you know, like old times, but this time without burning anything. Let's make gimbap, but not just any gimbap. We can look up my grandmother's recipe, remember? I made it once for your birthday, haven't made it since, but I don't think I've lost the touch. The recipe has to be out there somewhere. My mother..."

"Okay," he interrupted, surprising you with a kiss on the cheek. "Forget the gimbap, fried rice is fine."

"Do you... do you want to join me or would you rather stay here and rest?"

"It's okay, your sister could meet me any minute."

"I'll be back in a few minutes."

With an overwhelming hope growing in your chest, you left your room and went to the kitchen. The house was plunged into a terrible silence and you had to fight the urge to return to the room, knowing that you would not find a warmer atmosphere inside. But the silence didn't last long, just as Beomgyu had predicted, Leah, your older sister, closed the front door as you finished descending the last flight of stairs. You were wearing only a plus size t-shirt and your panties, so you weren't surprised by the annoyed look she gave you.

"Looks like the rain caught up with you after work."

"He's here, isn't it?"

You weren't even surprised that she ignored your attempts to start a conversation away from Beomgyu. You rolled your eyes and headed for the kitchen without looking at her. "Oh, not again, Leah."

"That bastard," you heard her curse as she nipped at your heels. "He thinks he can do whatever he wants to you because of his illness?"

"He didn't do anything to me."

"That's the problem, y/n. In your opinion, he never does anything."

"Mind your own business, Leah." You told her as you tried your best to look busy, moving your hands around the closet, but the truth was your hands couldn't even remember what they were looking for. You opened one of the cabinets, then another. By the third, you felt a little discouraged, so you opened the fourth. Your hands began to despair, until finally a small package of rice wrapped in plastic caught your eye. You gently picked it up and placed it in your lap as you pulled a wooden stool closer to the side of the counter and sat down.

"I'm minding my own business." She replied, standing behind you for a few moments, a tense silence settling between the two of you, and you didn't dare look her in the eye. You felt a pang of embarrassment.

"Leave me alone."

Leah took one of your hands and forced you to face her. "You know I don't like to keep quiet when it comes to this, I didn't before, I won't now. Even if my words are in vain, even if I don't have the right to tell you what to do, I won't swallow my disapproval of you continuing this story in which you are clearly not a heroine. You are a fool, just like mom, don't you see? You witnessed her long years of misery for what? To repeat history? What is broken only hurts."

"Stop." You pulled her hand hard. "This is between Beomgyu and me, no one else has any part in this. How many times do I have to explain myself to you?

Leah let out a frustrated sigh, she seemed to be debating your words and your back stiffened as you waited for her next attack, but the tension in your body turned to surprise when you felt her hand tugging at the collar of your shirt.

"Leah!" you screamed, but your attempts to push her away faltered as you became aware of what she was looking at with such displeasure. You didn't even remember the purple marks on your collarbone, they were old and therefore barely noticeable, but her sharp eyes hadn't missed them and her expression made it clear that he knew who the culprit was; which was just one more reason to increase her displeasure.

"I'm going to... God, that idiot..." After a few seconds of silence, you heard her sigh and turn away. You felt your stomach sink. "Is he upstairs?"

"Leah, don't..."

Your reflexes were fast, but not fast enough to catch her before she came out of the kitchen. Less than a meter from the stairs, your fingers clutched at her clothes, perhaps too tightly, perhaps so desperately that it left your sister and you in disbelief.

You thought of Beomgyu waiting for you in your room, vulnerable and feeble with his own thoughts. Maybe he agreed to let you cook for him because he wanted to be alone, maybe he called you pretty because it was easier than saying anything else. Maybe you loved him and it wasn't right. Maybe you hated him and he knew it. Maybe you took his sadness for granted, or maybe you should have understood that he wasn't worth it. But there was more, something darker than all possible answers, something you suspected but were afraid to admit to yourself, afraid to face it.

Beomgyu didn't need you, it was you who needed him.

Your hand loosened its grip on Leah's clothes and you stepped back. A tremor went through your body as you looked down at your hands, suddenly afraid of yourself, your own demons. "I'm sorry, just... leave him alone."

For a few seconds you thought she would say something, argue, scream, or just try to move on as if she didn't hear you. She did none of these things, instead she turned back to the stairs and said those words that hit every sensitive nerve in your body.

"If your disease doesn't kill you soon, you should kill yourself."

At first, her words were like an attack that you couldn't digest for the first few seconds. They hurt, they stole your breath, and you heard the crackling of something weak, something sensitive breaking; but it was only when you saw where the attack was directed that fear and a searing anxiety invaded your body and made your knees fight against a wrenching weakness.

"Leah!" the scream tore at your throat.

Beomgyu was standing on the stairs when he met your sister's gaze. His jaw was clenched, but his tired expression made him look almost expressionless. But he wasn't. He was shaking, more than you. He was suffering, more than you. He had never looked so small, so fragile, so far away. And you had never felt so helpless, so frightened, so unaware of your impulses.

"How... how can you say such a thing?" Your palms slapped Leah's back, once, twice, three times, as if to force her to spit out an answer. You were distraught, desperate, about to burst into tears. "How can you be a human being and say such a thing? How can you be my sister and..."

"'Whoa, whoa, take it easy... Just calm down..." Beomgyu's arms, who seemed to have rushed down the stairs at full speed at the first of your attacks, wrapped around your waist and pulled you back. You tried to pull him away, even though you had no intention of returning to your sister, but he clung to you tightly. "Come on, outside."

You didn't resist as he led you outside your house. His hands released you only when he closed the door behind him and you turned to him with a pleading expression. Beomgyu said nothing but shook his head in a gesture you could not decipher and the fear that shook every part of your body could not have been worse.

Silence.

You parted your lips, desperately wanting to say something, anything, but nothing came out. Beomgyu gave you a dejected smile and shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he always made when he wanted to play things down and cheer you up. You had to look away to keep from collapsing.

The raindrops on the pavement were bright white under the streetlights. The streets were empty, the only sounds being your accelerated breathing, the pattering of the rain, and the rustle of the trees in the wind. The air was tinged with damp bark and earthy moss, a smell that for the first time you found more devastating than comforting.

"I'm going home, back inside."

Your breath caught in your lungs and you made an incredible effort to get the words out of your mouth. 'If your disease doesn't kill you soon, you should kill yourself'. These words kept going over and over and over in your mind. How could your sister tell him that, how could she even think about it? Beomgyu, who had lived in a body full of anxiety, instability, impulsiveness, confusion, and paranoia since he was sixteen. Beomgyu, who had to live with an incurable diagnosis and inexhaustible medication. Beomgyu, in whose confused mind, behind a thick layer of emotions, there was only a genuine desire to be loved, accepted and valued by himself and others. Beomgyu, insecure, bright, dull, happy, depressed, who started a new war against himself every day. If your sister had known all this, would she have said those cruel words? If your sister had seen the sharp, cutting impact that melted into Beomgyu like a heavy anchor that prevented any hope from floating, would she really have stayed at home so calmly?

"She doesn't know what she said," you whispered, lifting your gaze from the floor to look deep into his eyes. "She's... selfish, arrogant, completely irrational. She thinks she knows you. They think they know you. But they don't know anything about you! They don't know you like I do, no one...no one..."

"It's okay."

"Nobody does."

"I know." Beomgyu took your face in his hands, his intense eyes never leaving yours. "You know me better than anyone."

"Stay."

Beomgyu shook his head sadly.

"No, I..."

"I love you."

Your interruption seemed to shake the ground beneath Beomgyu's feet. The boy sighed shakily and leaned his forehead against yours. His eyes, now wet and shiny like the concrete of the long avenue, were hidden under his eyelids and closed with the force of something burning to be seen.

"Do you sometimes... do you sometimes not have the urge to die together? To throw us in a lake and drown? Something like that?"

A sob escaped your throat and your hands cupped his cheeks, almost as if you were holding his heavy soul with the edge of your fingernails to keep him from slipping from your grasp. Nothing was ever more frustrating. "No, God, of course not, how can you say such a thing? I want nothing more than to live by your side, to synchronize your heart with mine, to hear you breathe, to see you smile... I want to calm you down and for you to calm me down. I want to survive with you.

Beomgyu let out a soft snort that resembled an attempt at laughter. "Always giving me the cold shoulder. Go back inside, you'll catch a cold."

Your hands grabbed his clothes. You didn't want to let go, your whole being told you not to, not to let him go, not like that, not with those words still echoing in his head. Beomgyu gently pushed your hands away and you trembled. You were afraid for everything, for him, for yourself, for the future. You feared his departure and that he would become unreachable. For the first time, you feared that you didn't love him.

Beomgyu's breathing was steady now, only the faint, clear outline of his body pressed against your chest told you that he was still there, still present. "I'm scared," you whispered.

"Me too."

"Will I see you tomorrow?"

"Friday, I'll see you Friday."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Finally, you stepped back, still wanting to say many things, but lacking the right repository of words to get them out. Beomgyu hesitated for a moment, his mouth opened slightly as if he wanted to speak. But he didn't. You took a deep breath and stepped back again, your face blank and your hands hanging limply at your sides. Your lips trembled, but then, almost out of nowhere, you smiled. It wasn't a happy smile, nothing like that, given the situation. It was desperation eating away at your life, the wind hitting your body and telling you how empty your hands were now. It was Beomgyu, tired and in pain, making his way into the distance.

You smiled even more when the sky began to rain.

masterlist - txt

#god I love me some good angst #might be the best thing I’ve ever read #I’m in tears as we speak #listening to bag of bones while reading was a mistake I’m devastated..

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