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이젠 다시 돌아가고 싶지 않아

It's a dream. It has to be. J knows that, tells himself that over and over until he can't make his mind form the words anymore. At a certain point, the fear and the horror are too much. That's how it always is. He never feels entirely in his own control when he does it, though he knows he is, he must be, to make these kinds of choices. Still, it feels — felt, really — like his hands do the work on their own, like he's watching from afar. It's a terrible contradiction — to need to be far enough removed from it to keep from losing his nerve, to be enmeshed enough to feel it so it has the required effect. To know the fright in the eyes of someone dying at his hands, palpable enough that he takes what he needs from it, held enough at bay he could keep himself from falling apart after the fact or from stopping before he was done.

It's a little bit different tonight. He sees them in the shadows, hardly more than shadows themselves, hovering at the edges of his vision, but there's no victim before him tonight, no murder to relive. There's just a visceral wrongness, like he's hovering on the edge of understanding, aware they're here and that they aren't. He forgets things even as they happen, and it's the last of it he'll remember when he wakes.

There's a car. It's a worn-down old thing, the best he could afford, but it keeps running in spite of that and the damage he's done to it — did to it, that night, going too fast — but it's not moving now. He's sitting behind the wheel and it's quiet and it's dark, and something is very wrong. It's the smell, he thinks, and it takes him a moment for it to click before he realizes he knows it very, very well. It's been a long time, though, since he smelled it so strongly, the sour metallic bite of blood in the air, flooding the car, inescapable. The window won't roll down, and he leans across the seat to try the other (and he wonders, in the back of his head, why he doesn't just open the door, but he doesn't), but his hands slip, the handle slick. The blood was already there, though. He knows that when he sees it, that it isn't touching the door or the seat when he slips that does it. It was already there — is still there, on his hands, on the steering wheel, mottling the passenger seat. He knows it's there when he turns to look at the backseat — too much, more than there should be, more than there was, and it won't come out, it won't ever come out. It's happening now, but when it happened before, he scrubbed at it until his hands were red, his cheeks and eyes were red, and still he felt sure it was everywhere, seeping between the fibers until the seats were soaked in it. And it's not real, it can't be real, because this didn't happen. S didn't die, he knows that, he's sure of it, but he must have, because no one can bleed that much and live.

That's the part that cuts through the panic, slices so sharp he can feel his skin crawl, his breath stop in his throat. There's too much. Is this a dream or was it a dream to think he fixed things somehow? Was he too late? Did he go too far after all? He's faintly aware of the sounds he's making, sharp gasps as he struggles to catch his breath, high-pitched whimpers of protest. When he leans further into the backseat, he's afraid he'll find a body still there, though he should be able to see it from the driver's seat, but he can't stop himself pitching forward, clutching at the armrest. He never got used to this smell. It grew familiar, but he hates it — in the same faraway manner in which he feels everything but abject despair — and he can't get away from it. The knife shouldn't be here, he knows that, he's absolutely certain of it, but then he's not really sure of anything. He left it in his rooms, he knows he did, but maybe he didn't. There's too much that he's can't say with any real confidence, too many patches of time he can't account for, too many memories he might have made up.

It's dark still and he can't breathe, bent forward instead of back, leaning over the blanket and draped over the knees he's pulled up to his chest. Clutching at the sheet, the sounds he makes are incomprehensible even to himself, almost inhuman, harsh, panicked breaths punching out of him as he struggles to get air past how tight his throat has become, past the sobs that start to shake him as soon as his body is alert enough, well before his mind catches up. He tries to call S's name, terrified he isn't there to respond, but he can't make it come out, can't force his body to turn. If he's alone, if it was real, if it's true, then he'll die like this, struggling for air like some of them did. The thought of that is enough to make some part of him want just to give up and let darkness take him again. "Please," he mumbles, desperate, unable to manage anything else. It's hardly the first time he's woken up (he is awake, isn't he?) in a panic, but not like this, rarely so pronounced and all-encompassing.

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Put like that, J sees the past with small patches of new clarity. He made his choices, but wasn't something taken from him, too? His trust traded on, his desire to improve twisted, his ambitions bloodied. The person he used to be was already fading by the time he moved onto campus, but it's hard to know how different things might have been if he'd listened to S or persuaded some other professor to take him on, to believe in him.

That, too, has been taken from him. He'd rather know the truth than take on one more delusion, but it's difficult all the same, realizing that what he perceived as someone seeing his potential was just his being assessed as useful and malleable.

"It would have been safer," J points out gently. "But, no, I know you. Of course you couldn't." He wishes so much that it wasn't an undertaking S needed to assume, but he's thankful for it all the same — a reminder both of how loved he is and how well he's chosen. He doesn't know what their future would have looked like had he steered clear of the professor. He knows he was already having trouble, but it would have turned out differently, he's sure of that. But they have this, and maybe that's better. He smiles, small though it is. "You're too stubborn for that. I love that about you."

He's too kind for that, for that matter, and he loves J too much, but the way J sees it, both of those require a certain degree of stubbornness anyway.

It's there, he thinks, one of the few things he hasn't yet worked up to addressing directly. For J to determine that doing nothing would have been safer at least seems like an implicit acknowledgment of the reasons it was dangerous, and it's almost a relief. Having made a point of not talking about it for months, S would rather it simply be understood like this than anything else. Granted, with the weight of everything and the way his head aches from crying and lack of sleep, there's every chance that he's misunderstanding, too aware of what he hasn't mentioned directly that he hears it somewhere it's not. At their best, though, he thinks they've always been able to read each other remarkably well, to pick up on what the other was saying. At their worst, everything came out wrong and was interpreted even more so. He's still, even now, haunted by that last day he went to see J, how his worry came out as control, making J think that he didn't care about his will and pushing them even further apart. Now, at least, there's nothing like that. Despite their tears, this whole conversation has gone better than he anticipated, or maybe just feared, that it would, one more reason to be quietly grateful.

"I know it would have," he murmurs, gaze dropping, though his hand doesn't. "But it was worth it. Whatever he could have done to me..." S shrugs again, letting out a slow exhale. "It didn't matter. I didn't care." When he glances up again, it's hesitant, almost apologetic. He doesn't want to say this. But he's the one who just said they should have no more secrets, and J has told him multiple times since he got here that he wants to hear these things, for S to be able to talk to him. If he doesn't say it now, S isn't sure he ever will. "I had nothing. No one. My parents were gone. You. I might've lost my scholarship for it, but I'd all but dropped out anyway." He pauses for half a beat. This, too, he's resisted saying outright. "I don't write anymore. I haven't in a long time. I barely play. So..."

He doesn't have it in him just to leave it at that, wanting even now not to upset J too much. "And you said it yourself, I'm stubborn. I couldn't just walk away. At least I got the truth out. No matter what it took."

It's a surprisingly difficult thing to hear. Deep down, of course — not even, really, that very far down — J knew that was the case, but it still hurts to hear finally put into words. Of course S doesn't write. They don't have a piano, for one thing. For another, he hopes that, with as far as they've come, S would still play for him whatever he wrote. But as long as S went off to work all week and never mentioned it, there was a chance in J's mind that he wrote there and was simply being very cautious. It would have made sense, given their history.

This, instead, is awful: S alone, entirely so, no music, no longer caring. J isn't sure how he feels now, struck both by the bravery and the desperation of that, and by how utterly awful it is that music has been taken from both of them. It's frightening, really, to think of his beautiful, passionate boyfriend, so alone he no longer cared what risks he ran. J wants to scold him for it, but his heart aches too much. It was, now, a long time ago, another world, another life, but it's still sad.

"It took too much," he murmurs, lifting a hand to S's cheek, voice steeped in sorrow. There's so much he wishes he'd done differently, so much he wants to change, but it's too late by far. "I —" His voice wobbles again, surprising himself. It's so stupid, to be emotional about saying something they both already know, but it's not like he's let himself talk about it. And like this, knowing that he was coaxed and prodded into the position he found himself in — it'll take some time for him to grasp it entirely, but already it hurts terribly, a gnawing ache in his chest, a feeling of falling. "I haven't either. Since I finished writing it. I can't." It's a different sort of can't than before. He's not sure if he'd have anything now if he tried, but he doesn't dare.

"I haven't played at all — not even when you're at work, if I go out, I — there's nowhere I'd go anyway," he says, and he feels incredibly foolish, certain he's making this about himself when they were talking about how lost S felt. "I haven't gone this long since before I could play. We learned together, and now..." He shakes his head, small and quick, as if he might shake himself clear of the threat of getting overwhelmed again. "You have me again, though. You always will. We're here, we don't have to hide." He sniffles and lets out a small, watery laugh. "Or go to school."

Of the two of them, S is sadder by far for J's losses than his own, even the ones coming after the fact. It's better, he thinks, for the truth to be out there in the open, but it can't be easy to have that whole stretch of time recontextualized, a trusted mentor really a manipulative thief. J may think that it took too much from him, but S disagrees. There was nothing for it to take, really. No one but him would have been hurt by his being outed. He had no career he meant to be pursuing anymore that he was putting on the line. For him, that part, too, just makes sense. J was always the more ambitious of them, ultimately putting music first. S was less so, prioritizing their relationship. Even in J's absence, with J dead, he did the same.

It's different now, in ways that are both wonderful and terrible. Being back together, on the same page again at last, newly devoted to each other, is so much better than anything S expected he would get. However obvious it may have been, though, when they haven't talked about this at all, it hurts to hear J say it outright, that he doesn't write anymore, that he doesn't play. S understands it, he thinks, at least as much as anyone would be able to without having been in J's position, but knowing how much J has always loved it, it's still painful to consider, maybe even more so because he gets it.

"Fuck school," he mumbles, because it's the easiest place to start, and he thinks they need a moment of levity, leaning in to press a soft, brief kiss to the corner of J's mouth. "And fuck hiding." He knows why they did, of course. Futile as it may ultimately have been, he doesn't regret doing so, either. Now that they don't have to, though, he has no intention of ever going back to that. Maybe it will take them a while still to work up to doing things openly that other couples do, but he's not going to pretend anymore that he doesn't feel about J the way he very much does. For now, though, his expression softens to a sadder one, the tip of his nose brushing against J's before he draws back a little. "You have me again, too. No matter what. Whether... you ever decide you want to try writing again or not."

There's more he wants to say on that subject, too — the simple fact that's rattled around his head for months now, that he'll give up playing entirely if it keeps J from being so jealous of him again, that he should have done so years ago. With J having alluded to the sonata, though, S knows that he should say this now, while he can, rather than circling back to a subject that's already painful later. "Jae-eun-ah... that last piece you wrote, your sonata..." He winces, closing his eyes again for a moment. "That was what I meant, before. The professor... he took it. Said it was his." When he looks at J again, it's with sadness and worry and regret, but something a touch bittersweet, too. "It won."

He's ready to protest, to tell S that he won't write again, not ever. It's something J has been thinking about more lately, a quiet note of not quite right in the background of his daily life, but he knows he shouldn't do it. The cost was far too high and he can't be trusted not to do something reckless and wrong.

Before he can, though, he can feel it, the slight shift that tells him S has something else to say, even before he says his name.

He's not expecting that, though. He didn't think that far ahead or back, whichever it might be. It isn't as if he had any other music to steal, by the end, but he's been so swept up in these changes that he didn't consider that. Everything goes a little bit fuzzy, then, even the distant ringing in his ears and the warmth of tears spilling down his cheeks again.

So maybe it wasn't that the professor chose him solely for his weakness. His potential played a part after all — a big one, in fact. There's too much churning inside J's chest, a sharp surge of fury chased by dawning horror. He should be proud, probably. There was a time when he would have been, grateful and relieved to have done well. Given the circumstances under which he wrote the sonata, he would have been so thankful to have it well-received, to be able to tell himself that he'd made art of his victims, that it wasn't in vain. How stupid he was, how naïve. All the despair and the bloodshed, for what? To fuel the ego of a thief?

"I thought," he says, slow, and his words feel too thick in his mouth, "that I was disappointing him. That I wasn't good enough. Never enough. And it won?" He'd wanted that, once upon a time, desperately, and now it infuriates him. Another accolade in the professor's storied career — how many of those were lies? "All those months — all those people —" His voice breaks, and when he swallows hard, his throat feels too sharp, but it's not enough to stop him. "How can he be satisfied like that? With something that isn't even his? With all I did? All the times I thought he was pushing me to do better, that I just needed to work a little harder —" He presses his lips into a line, shaking his head. A moment later, he lowers it, leaning back into S's chest. It's so painfully unfair, J doesn't know what to do. He knows that, for all the crimes he committed, he deserves some form of punishment, but this must be too far. Some quintessential part of what made him him, he can't have for himself anymore, and the professor gets a fucking award.

Expected as it might be, it hurts terribly, leaving S uncertain how to proceed, instincts at odds with each other. Part of him wants to tell J just how bad it was, all the vile, heartless things the professor said that day S went to confront him. Part of him can't bear to make this any worse than it already is. He remembers dimly, so much of their conversation a blur, when J arrived here, pointing out that part of why he could trust J after everything is because of the toll it so clearly took on him. That was especially true because he'd heard how the professor spoke about it, so cold and conscienceless in contrast to J's guilt and remorse. Under everything, it makes him angry again now, too, quietly simmering below the surface. It isn't fucking fair that J should have to carry this burden while the professor goes on thinking he did nothing wrong. There is, at least, no small amount of comfort in knowing that he succeeded in what he set out to do, that it won't matter what the professor thinks of his own actions when he's certain of what the court will think, but it's awful all the same.

"Shh, shh," he murmurs, as soothing as he can sound under the circumstances, drawing J close to him as if in another belated bid to keep him protected. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Hearing J cry, it's hard not to feel like he could cry again himself, vision blurring a little with it, and maybe a little, too, with the relief and shock of having this all out in the open at last. Most of it, at least, he's known he would tell J eventually, or that he should, that it would just be a matter of finding the right time. Actually saying it, though, is very different, somehow both heavy and a weight lifted off his shoulders at once.

Taking a shaky breath, he brushes another kiss against J's hair. "You were never not good enough," he says, just as quiet as a moment before. "He just wanted it for himself. Didn't care what it took to get it." That is, he decides, the most he should say about it for now. If J wants to hear more, or if it comes up, then he can get further into it, but right now, comforting his boyfriend is his top priority, no matter how furious he might still be. "He won't get away with it. I made sure of that before I wound up here. Everyone will know that he stole it. That his career was a lie. He didn't... It wasn't a confession, he didn't care, but he acknowledged all of it while I had a mic on."

J clings to him, letting S's words wash over him as he focuses on steadying his breath, taking it in without fully processing it. He needs a moment just to get some air, even if hiding against S's shoulder doesn't much allow for that. It's hard to understand how much of it was just himself and how much was what he was pushed and prodded into believing. Whatever the difference is, he's not even sure how much it matters. All of it stuck with him. He struggled with how he saw himself for a while, and that can't all have been the professor's doing, but certainly he didn't help, and now he carries it with him, this constant fight to convince himself of what he once knew with ferocious clarity, his own worth, invisible to so many. He worried for so long, fretted over whether his skills were real, whether he was a waste of time, whether he was a failure. Maybe he'd simply peaked earlier than he'd expected to, maybe he was letting the professor down. And every piece that was met with disdain or comments that he could do better made him spiral further, and all along — no, he knows he had trouble writing. That was real. But part of it was how much he worried about it, fussing over every phrase, unsure whether or not it worked after all. When he was younger, he wrote freely, improvised at play with S, laughed off mistakes — always passionate, dedicated, but less precise. When did he lose the ability to let those things go?

"I can't believe I never saw it," he murmurs, eyes firmly shut. "I — good. I'm glad everyone will know. But —" He shivers a little, breath catching. "What do I do now?" These last months, he's been able to console himself that, if nothing else, in avoiding music, he was doing the right thing, and that it was better not just for the safety of others but because he had no skill anyway. He'd simply flail around and fail and get desperate again. And maybe that's true. He has trouble imagining having such confidence in his work again. But he doesn't even dare try, and now it turns out he never lacked as much as he believed.

"I miss it," he whispers, a pained confession, though S knows him so well, he must have known this long before J even allowed himself to think it. "Sometimes it's okay and sometimes everything feels wrong. And I don't think — that wouldn't fix it, not everything, I know that. It's not just that, it's me. I just... it's been so long."

They've never talked about it. In all the time they've been together here, S thinks he can count on one hand the number of times they've talked about music and composing at all. He's been aware of it, but he's also felt like it hasn't been his place to broach the subject, given everything that happened and the costs of J's last piece. He isn't worried, not about that happening again, but mostly he just figured that J would bring it up when he felt ready. Everything tonight has been more unexpected, however inevitable. What J says now shouldn't be, really. It isn't as if S isn't aware of the fact that J hasn't been playing or writing. That first day he brought J back here, he felt self-conscious for his lack of a piano, but when it went unremarked on, he let it go. Talking to J about it would have had to mean admitting that he'd essentially given it up, anyway, and that, too, he could never quite bring himself to do, too convinced that it would only hurt J to hear.

Now, at least, it might be the least upsetting aspect of this. To him, anyway, what J says is far worse, the quiet anguish in his voice more devastating than giving up the piano has ever been for S. He plays a little at work sometimes, anyway, when there are no customers in the store, and that's enough for him, far more comfortable than playing here would be even if he could afford a piano for them. He misses it, too, or at least the way it once made him feel. Everything was so beautiful back then, even when it was terrible. He'd always liked playing, but he fell for it in earnest as he fell for J, and he lost one when he lost the other. Having J back, though, hasn't restored the passion he once had for music, how he used to feel like he'd found what he was meant to be doing, as natural as becoming more than friends with J was. Maybe that's for the best, even if it's also, at least in part, because of what he decided months ago. J should be able to play again if he wants to, and S doesn't want to stand in his way, to let it erode their relationship like it did the first time.

"Do you want to try it?" he asks, soft, a little hopeful, if uncertain. "If you do..." He trails off for a moment, lifting one shoulder without pulling away at all. "I'm calling out for the next few days, but you could come to the store next time I close. Play a little before I lock up. And if you don't feel good about it, it's not like we can afford a piano anyway. There wouldn't be one here for you to have to look at."

For a moment, he's confused, because he doesn't remember S having mentioned before that he'd be calling out. It's only a moment, though, before it makes sense, and he's thankful for the flush of warmth that brings, the comfort of knowing S won't leave him to himself tomorrow. He hadn't thought that far ahead. After all of this, though, he doubts he'll sleep well, and this is a lot for him to have to think through on his own.

The rest makes him more hesitant. He knows, of course, what he wants. Everything else is more complicated. S knows him so well, even without their having discussed this, and he's grateful for that, too, but it still hurts to think about, hurts to have the possibility in front of him. "I don't know," he says, almost breathless with uncertainty, with despair.

In all the months he's been here, he's never felt like he might hurt someone, except, occasionally, himself. He's never acted even on that, beyond losing track of himself and scratching his arm too hard or digging his nails in too deep, and he's sure he used to do that before, too, didn't he? But back in Seoul, it isn't like he wanted to hurt people, let alone kill them. He has a temper, but not like that. He didn't actively desire to do any of that, but he still did it, and he doesn't know if that makes him more or less of a threat now. The professor urged him on, he can see that, even if the pieces are still a bit hazy, and he's not here to do that, but is that a big enough difference for it to be safe?

"I do," he admits, quick, though he's shaking his head. "But I — I'm scared." That hurts as much as anything else he's learned or done, knowing that the thing which once gave him more joy than almost anything else in the world has been so utterly corrupted that he's afraid of it. Of himself, really, but it amounts to the same thing. For a while, it didn't matter. He was so tired, so burnt out, he couldn't imagine ever writing again, or even wanting to play. "Even if I just play... what if I want to write then? I can't do that."

Maybe, S thinks, this is why it's been easier — not easy, but easier — for him to walk away from what he once wholeheartedly meant to pursue. The spark was just gone. In J's absence, he couldn't really stomach it anyway, the piano that they spent so many hours playing and writing at together, the one that was his family's, brought to their studio when they moved in, only a reminder of all that he'd lost. Even before J died, that apartment was full of ghosts, feeling exponentially bigger than it actually was when he was living there alone. That only got worse when he came home from the hospital, the studio somehow at once cavernous and confining. Giving it up now, he would be doing so wholly of his own volition, for the sake of something that matters to him far more. The love he had for music has faded — still present, in a sense, but distant, far-off, something he remembers feeling more than he actually feels. The love he has for J has never waned in the slightest. He won't do anything now that might jeopardize what they've rebuilt.

There's so much in what J says, though, just I'm scared telling enough on its own, suggesting that he's walked away from it because he feels like he has to. It makes S's heart ache, frowning as he looks down at his boyfriend, though he doesn't have much of a view with J curled so close. He hardly minds, more than willing to do whatever it takes to try to comfort him even just a little.

"You won't know until you try," he points out gently. "If you do, we can figure out what to do then." The rest of what he wants to say, he bites back. Once again, there's only so much he can or should say at one time, and he doesn't want to overwhelm J too much. Pointing out that J wanting to write would be very different from the way things were back in Seoul seems like it would probably be crossing that line, however true it might be. That, too, he can ease into. For the same reason, in a way, it feels important to add on to his statement. "You don't have to, though, if you don't feel ready. There will always be some piano somewhere."

That's true, J has to admit. If he can't work up the courage now, there will be other chances. It's not something he has to rush into. Even so, the idea of it is overwhelming, both because of how much he wants it and how much he's afraid of it. It used to be so normal. It all got so twisted up, and he doesn't know how to fix it or if he even can.

"I thought it would be okay," he says, quiet, plucking at S's shirt for a way to keep his hand busy. "I finished it, I was done. It was weird not to play, but I didn't... it was better. I thought it would stay like that, but it didn't. I just don't know if I should." He might have left it like that, at least for a while longer, keeping those thoughts pushed down, something to be dealt with when and if he ever felt more equipped to handle them. Right now, though, in the wake of what he's learned, he's both bitterly sad and deeply angry, though the latter feels more like sorrow, too, than it usually does. It feels wrong. He keeps wanting to say this was taken from him, too, but he's not sure that's fair. Even if he was manipulated, he still did the things he did. He was still capable of that. If anyone took this from him, it was himself.

He draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It's hard to talk. He's not tired in the way he was earlier, but he's fatigued, his head running along too many tracks too quickly too soon after waking. And because the thoughts are whirring so quickly, it's hard to process or share them, but he's also somewhat aware that he's thinking — or trying to think — through a lot of things without saying them. Some of it is hard to put into words or to say directly, but he should, perhaps, at least try. If nothing else, it might force his mind to slow down.

"I know," he says, feeling it out as he goes, "that – what you said. He — I wouldn't have done those things if I hadn't been... encouraged. But I did them." He shakes his head, helpless, and leans it against S's shoulder, his head tipping up though his eyes don't lift. "I don't want to hurt anyone. But I keep worrying I might." What he wants is to be able to say it isn't worth the risk. What troubles him is that part of him thinks it very much is.

Nothing about this is easy to navigate. The things S wants to say, he knows he can't, not with any sort of certainty, no matter how sure of them he feels. When it comes just to himself, it's different. That first day he brought J back here, he decided quickly that he felt safe, and since then, he's never once felt threatened. No matter how trusting he may be, though, he isn't actually in J's head and can't speak for him. He knows that he doesn't think J will hurt anyone now, whether or not he goes back to playing the piano, to composing. It's just not his determination to make. He wishes it were, wishes there were some easy answer he could give, some way of promising J that it won't come to that again. All he can do instead is tell J how he feels, the reasons why he doesn't think that will be the case; all he can do is offer the support and encouragement that J went without for so long, no matter what he decides to do.

"You've been here months," he says, his hand slipping up to cradle J's head again, "and you haven't hurt anyone." Even now, S finds himself tempted to make a joke, to try to ease some of this tension — unless there's something you haven't been telling me on the tip of his tongue — but he can tell that now isn't the time, if there ever would be one at all. Instead, he offers another quiet truth, one thing he can say with utter certainty. "I've never felt worried, or like you might. And... yes, you did those things, but you also had no one with you but the person who was telling you to do them." Of course his sense of reason got all skewed. It doesn't remove the responsibility of it from J entirely, but it does, he thinks, alleviate it somewhat.

His other arm still wrapped around J's waist, he curls his fingers absently in J's shirt. With as focused as he's been on J, it's been easy to lose sight of how shaken he's been tonight, too, but the proximity of J is comforting, as is the fact that they're facing this together. They should have been from the start, but at least they can try to make up for it a little now. There's more, too, that he should probably say, but all of it matters less than this. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you."

J tries not to think about all of that very much, but it's impossible to avoid, and he circles back daily to those months he spent on campus, the things he did, the despair he felt. Even on his absolute worst days here, it's a little better than it was there. He still has the shame and the guilt of his crimes on his shoulders, and he always will, but it's a bit like letting in light and fresh air after staying cooped up indoors for months with the curtains drawn. He doesn't have to face it entirely on his own. He doesn't have anyone telling him how he's faltered, how he's failed. Instead he has a sounding board and encouragement and quiet, loving support. Even with all that, it's difficult to think about what he did back then, difficult to process, and the new light S had shed on that time makes things more confusing and less so all at once.

He never really felt like it was a problem, not knowing many people. Hardly anyone seemed interested in knowing him and he's always been something of an introvert anyway, and so as the circle of people he could go to diminished and faded just to one, he explained it all away so neatly, he didn't think about how much it affected his thinking, to be trapped so much in his own head. He's told himself again and again that he knew what he'd done was wrong, and he did, until he found ways to smooth that over — until the professor gave him reason to see it otherwise. But he was desperate, and that isn't the case anymore. He was alone, and he isn't now. S feels safe with him and no one, no one else ever has to know.

Licking his lips, he sighs quietly, settling into S's embrace, thankful for the stability he provides, both physically and emotionally. "I know," he says softly, a bit delayed, but earnest all the same. "I know you are. I'm so glad that you are, darling." He wouldn't be here otherwise, he's almost certain of that. It's just hard to imagine carrying all this alone anymore, the paranoia he would feel if absolutely no one knew what he'd done. He'd never stop thinking about it. With S at his side, there are long stretches of time where life feels more or less normal. Wonderful, actually. "I want to." It comes out more of a question than he means it to be. "I — no one else would be there?"

If he starts to feel poorly, whether from panic or hurt or even passing thoughts of causing harm to anyone at all, himself included, then he doesn't want anyone else around to see it. But he hates so much that even the idea of playing unnerves him this badly. For so long, he's placed the blame for that entirely on himself. Now that it turns out to be at least a little bit shared, he's determined at least to try, not to let one more thing be taken from him.

Of all the things that have been said tonight, S knows that this is probably a good one, really, a positive development. Still, hearing the question in J's voice, the uncertainty, hurts in its own right. Closing his eyes for a moment, he nods, though it's not much of a response with J tucked against him like this and the light still off. This feels like the least he can do, really. As soon as he thinks so, he's all but sure that if he said as much outright, J would disagree, but certain things for him are simply a given, entirely self-explanatory. Supporting his boyfriend in whatever way he can is one of them. His best friend, really. J has long since been both, but S knows he would do the same even if J hadn't wanted to get back together months ago. He would be just as devoted no matter what their relationship looked like. Granted, there probably aren't any other circumstances anymore under which they would be wrapped up in each other's arms, in bed, in the dark like this, but for a moment, he thinks it all the same, that he would want just as much to help regardless, like that first day he brought J back here, not having any idea what would happen.

He just likes this best, the steady warmth of J in his arms, the lilt of the familiar endearment when J calls him darling. It's soothing in a way he keeps forgetting and then remembering again that he needs, too, his focus having shifted so fully to J that it catches him off-guard every time he realizes how worried he still is, how rattled, how moved. Really, it's probably going to take a while for all of this to sink in, both the fact that J saved his life, whether or not J would see it that way, and the fact that he has said all of these things now. He's meant to for ages, told himself that he would eventually, but actually doing so is one hell of a change. It has to be for the best, though. Just this conversation has gone better than he would have expected it to, despite all the crying. He snapped and scared himself in the process, blurting out something he'd kept secret for so long, but they've talked through everything instead of fighting. J was right, he thinks, months ago. Stubborn as they both are, when they face something together rather than at odds, no one else could stand a chance.

"No one but me," he confirms, voice still soft. "It would be after hours, no one could get in. And I'd be right there with you the whole time." As soon as he says it, he wonders if that might make it worse instead of better, but S pushes that thought down, trying to tell himself it's irrational. He can't take the words back now anyway. "If you got uncomfortable, you wouldn't have to play for a second longer than you wanted to."

Edited 2021-08-26 12:11 (UTC)

Soothing though it is to hear, there's an awfulness in it, too, in the need to be soothed. Music was like breathing to him for so long, another language he learned swift on the heels of Korean and every bit as natural. More so, sometimes. He's tried to ignore the ache that comes with having pushed that out of his life. Facing it stings. He prods at the pain sometimes, listens to whatever comes on the radio or on TV, because it's hard to live in silence, but looking at it head-on is something he avoids. In this new context, he can't tell if it's better or worse. He did this to himself, but not by himself.

It's going to take a long time to get past that particular hurt. He's not sure how he ever will, for that matter, how it could be possible. The betrayal is too great to comprehend yet.

Still, the way S holds him, the gentleness with which he speaks, softens it some, at least for now. He remembers with painful clarity how it felt to be utterly alone; this is staggeringly different. If something goes wrong in any direction, S will be beside him, and he trusts S far more than he trusts himself. Besides, alongside the hurt and the fear and the faint prickle of panic, J feels a longing stir, a bit of wanting he's tried hard to push aside. That hurts, too, but not enough to hold him back entirely. If anything, it makes him feel all the more defiant, further inclined to try, however scared he might be.

"Okay," he says, firm, nodding once. He can change his mind if he needs to, if the time approaches and he doesn't feel right. This doesn't have to be absolute. But he wants it to be. "Yes." He wants to hold S's hand, but he can feel both of them in awkward to reach places, so he settles for resting a hand at S's arm instead, squeezing gently. Already he's a little unnerved by the prospect, but he won't back down unless he has to. "And I'll tell you if — I don't know, if anything feels wrong." He draws in a sharp, quiet breath between his teeth, huffs it out in a sigh, a commitment made. "As long as you stay with me, it'll be okay."

That much, as far as S is concerned, as long as J wants it, is an absolute given, and not just because he'll be the one providing access to a piano. J was, as they've both just talked about, so alone for so long. He shouldn't have to face this alone, too. So often, S has felt useless when trying to help J, wanting to offer support but knowing it was inadequate, This, at least, is something he can unquestionably do. As strange as it is for something that used to be such a standard part of both of their lives to be so significant now, it very clearly is, and with good reason. The least he can do is be there if J wants him to be. Maybe it will be better, too, now that there hopefully won't be any sense of competition between them. He can stick to playing a little at work when it's quiet and the mood strikes, and with any luck, that will make J less likely to compare them and always think himself lesser. S isn't sure how else he could try to convey how extraordinary he thinks J is, but he knows it to be true all the same. Whatever cruelty the professor flung J's way to try to coax more music out of him, the fact still remains that he wanted J's music, which speaks volumes in itself.

"Of course," he says without hesitation, still gentle. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. It's you and me, right?" It won't matter if he isn't writing or is barely playing. They can still face this together; it will just take a different form than it did before. "If it doesn't work, if you don't want to, then we'll leave, and if it does and you do... then you'll know. And it isn't like it has to be now or never."

There's more that he wants to say, to ask, but he can't bring himself to quite yet. It isn't as important as the rest of what they've discussed tonight, and he doesn't want to ruin this moment and the quiet sense of hope in it. Whether he says it now or later, it will be true all the same. He just wants J to be able to enjoy the piano again, if he can, fairly certain, based on his writing, that he hasn't in a long time.

J nods, mostly to assure himself of the truth of that. "If I change my mind, I'll tell you," he says, "and try again later." This is going to work, he tells himself. And if it doesn't now, it will some other time. Maybe. Probably. Possibly.

He softens again, shifting in S's grasp, leaning his head against S's shoulder again and gazing up at him. Even mostly in shadow, he knows that face so well, the particular lines and curves of his silhouette, the gleam of his eyes in the dim light. It's one thing to coax himself into boldness, another entirely to believe it. When he's lucky, both are possible. He's very rarely been so lucky in a long time, though. "It feels strange," he admits quietly. Better out than in, better shared than drifting through his head only half-formed in perpetuity. "All of it. Missing it. Not having played in so long. And that was okay for a while, like I said, and that was weird too. And being scared... It's all a mess."

For a while, he just didn't have the space for that. He was far too busy, even when he was doing nothing, adjusting to everything — to life in another time and place, life after killing himself, finding some way to live with the things he's felt for a long time and the new feelings the last months of his life brought, making himself accept S's forgiveness, dealing with the fact he doesn't have to worry about being out anymore. Quiet though his days have mostly been, a lot has been going on under the surface, and it's taken time, he supposes, for all of it to settle. Not entirely, of course, and he's not sure it ever will, but enough for him to face this, too. It's been there for a few weeks now, maybe longer, continuously tucked out of sight, but this conversation means he can't hide from it anymore.

And maybe that's for the best. He spent a long time alone and in darkness. It's helped, bringing things out into the light.

"It's like I've spent this whole time trying to figure out who I am now," he says, "and I'm still not completely sure."

As tired and emotional as he is and as rough as tonight has been — not bad, not all of it, but difficult, taking a hell of a toll — S still finds it nice, comforting, just to sit together and hold J like this. He keeps touching him as he speaks, absent and affectionate, arms around him, fingers brushing through his hair, down his back. Whether or not it will help J too, he can't be sure, but while J is willingly staying this close to him, it probably can't hurt. What they'll do after this, he can't even be sure now, exhausted and yet awake. He thinks, though, that despite the strain of all of it, this is a good thing. The secrets he never wanted and was forced to keep are out in the open now; he's no longer holding the rest back just waiting for the right opportunity. Tonight, he's pretty sure, is the best he could have done in that regard anyway, getting it done while they were both already a mess and yet not so upset that it would be harmful. Above all, first and foremost — more than any relationship they could have, certainly more than playing again and loving it the way he used to — he just wants J to be safe, holding him now as tenderly and securely as if he could actually make that happen.

"It's alright not to be sure," he says, watching J in the dark, impossibly fond. He doesn't want to say that he knows who J is; that seems too likely to sound too presumptuous in exactly the way that used to piss J off before. S knows enough, though. He read it in J's journal, he saw it the first day he brought J back here, and he's seen it every day since. Maybe some pieces are still uncertain, but as sentimental as it would sound to say so, he knows J's heart, and every moment that they've spent together here has proven him right in wanting to give this, them, another chance. "I'll be with you while you figure it out."

He intends to leave it at that, but having spoken, it suddenly doesn't feel like enough. Pausing for just a moment, he takes a breath, considering how best to say what he wants to say. "And of course it's strange," he continues. "Everything got so turned upside down... You already loved piano by the time I met you all those years ago. But... I don't know. Maybe you'll be able to again. Maybe it'll be good to start fresh after getting some distance."

J considers that, nodding slightly. When he closes his eyes for a moment, he's aware that he really is very tired, but with the number of thoughts bound to cross his mind if he tries to sleep, that seems a way off yet. But S might be right, and he tries to focus on this moment, now, so he can stay anchored. The gentle brush of S's hands help with that too. "Maybe," he says slowly. By the end, the pressure was enough to prompt him to horrific acts. He's not sure that this will be an attempt without pressure, since he badly wants to be able to play again, if only to prove he still can. Still, it's a different sort, so maybe it'll be okay. Maybe — definitely it'll be better, with S there to encourage him and support him, no one else to play for or think about. It's the safest possible way to test this, provided neither of them say anything that pisses the other off, which doesn't happen much these days. When he looks back at that night, when he lets himself, he knows precisely what went wrong. It feels absolutely horrible to contemplate, but knowing, at least, will keep him from doing anything stupid. Granted, he's fairly certain, even if that weren't the case, he's not a threat to S, but these are the things he has to consider now.

"It's good, probably," he muses, "that I want to. It's not that I wanted not to play since I got here, I just... even when it felt weird not to, I didn't want it very much." There have been times he even felt guilty about it. After everything his mother did to give him opportunities, after all he did to keep them, it felt like a waste to stop, though the danger outweighed the guilt. He thought it did, anyway.

With a quiet sigh, he tips his head up again, brushing a kiss against S's neck. "That's the part I am sure about, though. You." It can't have been easy, he thinks, to have kept all that inside so long. Even the mildest of secrets can quickly become a burden, and that was far from mild. Maybe it burst out of S without forethought, but even so, J knows he kept it quiet for a reason before now. He must have wanted the right time for it, to wait until J could hear it, or else to protect him from it entirely.

S feels oddly guilty about the fact that his first thought is that it once would have been entirely the opposite. It seems uncharitable, even cruel, though the way things fell apart the first time around seems like proof that it's true. J left him to chase music. Everything was already such a mess by then, without the warmth of the early months of their relationship, with everything wonderfully, inextricably intertwined, the two of them and their music an odd unit of sorts, all inseparable. S still doesn't know when that began to change; he sort of guesses that if he asked, J wouldn't, either. It just happened, and he knows the award didn't help in that regard, but he's also pretty sure that things were already fraying before then. What J perceived as theft just accelerated it, even if S never saw it that way himself.

That slight sense of guilt is easily overridden, though, by how much it means to hear that when he could unhesitatingly say the same. He leans into J a little in turn, humming absently, nose brushing his cheek. "Me too," he agrees, soft, and since they've been so honest tonight already, since this is one of the less painful truths he could give, though still perhaps important, he circles back to what he was considering a moment ago, his words slow and careful when he starts to try to explain it. "I was just thinking about how... I fell in love with it as I fell in love with you. I always liked it, but it changed at the same time, I think. And then I lost you, and I lost that, too." This is the part he won't say: how painful it was just to share a space with the piano that was theirs, a constant reminder of all he'd lost, how he could barely stand to look at it, never mind use it. Then, here, he couldn't have afforded one even if he wanted to, and he didn't want to, first because this place didn't feel like any kind of a home, then because he all but decided to give it up for J's sake and J never expressed interest anyway.

"But you... I never loved you any less. And when I got you back, I didn't get that back with it." He lifts the shoulder that J's head isn't resting against, a lopsided shrug. Maybe, he thinks again, that's his own doing, the result of the enforced distance between himself and music, at least compared to how significant a part of him it used to be, but it's true all the same. "But I would so much rather have you back anyway. Without question. No contest."

J breathes him in, the soft, familiar warmth of him, the way every little detail about S feels like home. He still considers himself lucky that that's true, that S never stopped loving him, that it never faded. J never could have faulted him for it, even if it would have hurt. This is better by far, though, knowing S never faltered. He did. As much as he wishes it hadn't come to that, though, he can't change it, and he knows it's not a mistake he'll ever make again.

"No contest?" he asks, lightly teasing, but only because he knows the answer. He doesn't draw back much when he speaks, letting his lips brush S's neck, feeling a little more relaxed. It helps, being all curled up like this, which is good, because he needs that as he wraps his head around S's words. When he speaks again, it's much softer, more serious. "I'd rather have you, too. But I..." He breathes in, slow, steadying. It's only by sheer force of will that doesn't lead with another apology. He knows what S will say if he does. And there are things that deserve that, that merit his apologies, but something he feels doesn't, right now, have to be one of them. "I feel like I took that from you too. I... honestly, I didn't know."

It still feels worth saying he's sorry now that it's out, but he refrains. Instead, he bites his lip, giving a tiny shake of his head, a little embarrassed. "I thought you were just... being quiet about it for my sake. Not like I thought you were keeping a secret, just not bringing it up." It feels, now he's said the words, shamefully self-absorbed. S has been careful with him, taking care of him these last several months, but he hasn't done things like that, J is pretty sure. But then, maybe it's just easier to imagine S being over-cautious than it would have been for him to assume that S lost something that was so much a part not only of them as individuals but as a pair.

Not for the first time and almost certainly not for the last, it strikes S as almost funny, how they can be so much alike and yet see things in such opposite ways sometimes. If only because of everything else they've discussed since J woke up, though, at least this doesn't feel as heavy as it could. It makes him sad, a little, both for what J thought and for what the truth is, but it's a far-off sadness, much like the love he has for playing and composing is a far-off love. At least with the former, that's come back a little since he and J got back together, and since he got a job that has him around instruments all day. It's still not what it was, though, if only because he hasn't let it be — not being quiet about it for J's sake, but not feeling it at all, that passion dimmed. He was never as ambitious as J, anyway. Even when the two of them were at their happiest together, he thinks J had bigger dreams than he did. He, too, loved the idea of them being great pianists together, but that's one more thing he's pretty sure they approached from opposite directions, at least back then. The more important part for him was together, something that would just have been part of the life they shared, an idealistic notion of success. At some point, it at least came to seem like the more important part for J was being a great pianist.

Either way, they're in such a different place now than they were then, and not just in the physical sense. And perhaps honesty begets honesty, because the more he hears, the more he says, and the more he says, the more he finds himself wanting to say. It isn't that he's kept secrets — not beyond the ones he's finally shared tonight — but just treated some subjects with a particular caution, not wanting to set J off when he remembers too vividly how fragile J's very presence here seemed to be at first, not wanting J to wind up blaming himself when S doesn't blame him at all. He never realized how J would see it instead.

"It's the other way around," he admits with a tiny, bittersweet smile. "I was being quiet for your sake about the fact that I just... don't feel what I did for it anymore." With J still close, S lets his head tip a bit to the side, a tacit approval. Anything that involves having his boyfriend close right now, anything that involves this casual sort of intimacy, he'll take in a heartbeat. "You didn't take it from me. I just didn't know how to tell you. I was embarrassed, I think. You were always so driven, and I..." Trailing off, he lets out a quiet sigh. "It's not that I don't still like it. I play at work sometimes. And before, I figured I would at least get back to playing more eventually, but it's just not what it was."

His fingers comb through J's hair again as he closes his eyes for a moment. "But you didn't take it from me. Here... That's the other way around, too. I don't want to want it if it would make you jealous again. Being with you matters more to me. So you can't take something that I'm giving up."

J shifts slightly — he would move away, except he doesn't want S to stop playing with his hair, but it's his instinct, a desire to look at S head on in the wake of this. The flash of indignation he feels is somehow for both of them. In lieu of moving further, he makes a small, petulant sound and tugs at S's shirt. "Sihyun-ah," he whines, craning his head back a bit, and he feels sort of awful and a little bit moved and a lot sad. He just doesn't know how to express that properly in words yet, beyond saying S's name.

Because it stings, but it's warranted. Because there's a strange sort of relief in evidence he fucked something up, no matter how much S forgives him. Because he hates that S has every reason to worry about that. Because J isn't quite sure if those reasons still exist.

"If you don't want to anymore, that's one thing," he says, "but if you're only worried about me..." That isn't fair, he decides, even as it's perfectly fair. "Yah, I don't know, maybe I will — I was a little jealous because I thought you were still playing and I didn't feel like I could be trusted with a piano anymore, but —" He shrugs and sighs heavily, more dramatic than he means to be or realizes. It's hard to say everything he's thinking because he can't keep up with it, and it's difficult to express things he hasn't fully realized. "Aigoo. What do I even have to prove anymore? Of course you play better than me now. I haven't even been near a piano in half a year; I probably played better when I was a toddler."

The way J sighs is more endearing than it probably should be, if only given the subject at hand. Still, this, too, hasn't gone quite as poorly as he would have worried it might. S doesn't quite know how to articulate what's in his head — how to explain that he doesn't, right now, want it enough to pursue it, that this is his choice, nothing he feels like he has to do — but even so, the fact that they're both reasonably calm now is relieving. Even if it's just because this is coming on the heels of so much that's heavier and worse, at least a little of that concern can be alleviated now. Especially with as good as the last few months have been, he isn't actually sure that he realized how uncomfortably accustomed he'd become to fighting, having all but braced himself for J not to take this well now.

There still isn't much comfort in what he says, but it could be worse by far. S shakes his head, though, something a little sad creeping into his expression. "I don't want to play better than you," he replies. "I don't... I never wanted it to be a competition." For that matter, he isn't sure if it became one. More times than he would care to admit, he's thought back on that last conversation they had when they were still in Seoul, the night he went to see J, and how J brought up a story from their childhood, so early in their friendship. He can't be sure now if J was filing such moments away, letting resentments build and build and build until they simply overflowed, or if it was the jealousy itself that distorted those memories or brought those past conversations to mind. He doesn't think he would want to know for sure one way or the other.

Besides, there are more important things at hand, like countering some of J's other points and continuing just to touch him as he does. "It's not only that I'm worried about you, either," he says. "I meant it, I just... don't really feel what I did anymore. At least not as much of it. And you were always more ambitious than me, Jae-eun-ah. So much more."

That, of course, J knows with uncomfortable clarity. Even half-joking, he's turned it into a matter of which of them plays better, when that isn't even the point. He just got so used to having to prove himself to everyone else, and then his world kept shrinking until he shut even S out of it. Those habits die hard, apparently.

This time, he's quiet a little longer, toying absently with S's shirt. "I know," he says after a moment. "I wanted so much, and now..." He shrugs. There are still things he wants and idle dreams it would be nice to fulfill, but it's not like before, where it went from passion to obsession. "It's hard to be so ambitious, I think, when I don't even feel like I could hold a job still. But that's what worried me, too. If I play again, will I become that way, like before?"

It's not a question S can answer for him, he knows that. Only trying will tell him how it goes, and that's precisely why the idea of it frightens him. Even having made up his mind to do so, it's scary to imagine where that might lead. He sighs again. "I don't need it to be a competition. I don't want it to be. But you will be better than me for a while." His stomach twists a little as he realizes how true that must be. "I don't mind that, really. It's only that..." He makes a small, helpless sound, faintly bewildered. "I don't think I've ever gone this long without playing. I haven't. I've probably forgotten everything."

That's the thing he's hungry for, he thinks — not to be the greatest, just to make things feel right again.

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