이젠 다시 돌아가고 싶지 않아

[beklemmt]

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.

Comments

[beklemmt]

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."

[hismelody]

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."

[beklemmt]

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.

[hismelody]

Even as J says that he doesn't mind it, S finds that he does, unsettled by the very idea of it. Even just considering it in those terms feels wrong somehow. Better, he thinks, shouldn't have to enter the picture at all. Of the two of them, he's always thought J was the more talented anyway, but never to the point of doubting himself the way J did. They wrote different music, that's all, and had different strengths. There should have been room for both of them to be great. The fact that J already seems to be thinking about it in those terms, talking about it like a competition despite saying that he doesn't want it to be one, mostly just leaves S certain that stepping away is the best idea for him, helping to ensure that J won't approach it the way he did back then. Maybe doing so will even help S love it more again, too, if it won't just be a source of conflict between them like it became near the end of their relationship before.

"I'm sure you haven't forgotten everything," he says with another slight shake of his head, fond despite the weight of all of this. "It'll come back to you when you start to play again. And there won't be anyone you'll need to impress, or who'll tell you you're not good enough. Just me." Just J himself, for that matter, but S doesn't think he needs to point that out.

Unsure how to say the rest of what's in his head, he frowns, quiet for a moment. "I don't want to play and have you think I'm better than you," he continues, voice a little softer, almost self-conscious. "Part of what I loved about it so much was... that it was ours. I think maybe that's why I stopped feeling about it the way I did. It wasn't anymore."

It felt like it was again for a moment, that night. J telling him to play a piece that inspired him seemed like the perfect way for S to try to remind him of what it once was for them, and for that brief while, just a few measures' worth of music, it seemed like he might have succeeded, that they might have recaptured a little of that spark again — with music, and with each other, regardless of what capacity that might have been in. That only made it all the more painful when J shut down again, dismissing him and them and that song's significance. Given everything else at hand, though, S isn't sure he can bring himself to say that. They've spent enough time tonight already going back to that last meeting they had.

[beklemmt]

A small, stubborn part of J wants to double down and insist. It's simply objective fact that he is going to be, at best, incredibly rusty. The thing is, that's not what S is saying. He knows that. And with the way S is opening up now, he owes it to him to listen, the way S always listens for him.

It hurts to hear, but in a quiet way, like an old bruise. He knew it already, really. It's hard not to. Even if S says J didn't take it from him, he's pretty sure he sort of did. He didn't help, certainly. But this is exactly why, he thinks, this is why it fell apart like it did, why music stopped bringing them together. He stopped letting it. S has never asked him to play better or write more, just supported him, whatever he chose to do, and J repaid him with vicious insecurity.

"I miss that too," he says. He was, he thinks, at his best back then anyway, when he was playing just to play with S or for him. "It was a lot simpler then. And better. I'm sorry, I don't mean to make it a competition. It's not fair of me. I never should have, I just..." He makes a small, helpless sound. "I was scared then and it's a habit now. I really don't like that. It comes back too easily."

He almost asks if S is sure it's a good idea for him to try this, but he bites it back. It's not a decision he has to make right away regardless, and talking about this is good. There's a lot he's done his best to ignore, and he doesn't like feeling like he's figuring his way through this, but maybe that's for the best. It's harder to hide things if he's not sure himself what he'll say.

[hismelody]

His memories of that night are so strange, somehow at once both faded and vivid, parts of it still so present that he can feel them, others lost in the tangle of emotions of it and the shock of how it ended. S knows that he fucked things up from the start, and he knows that there was a moment at the piano when he thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd begun to put things back together, and he knows that they fought, an argument both familiar and new. They'd never talked about the Gloria Artis; he hadn't known J was so hung up on it. The rest, though, was a variation on a theme, and he remembers both that this was part of it and that he was so frustrated even while calm. Back then, they weren't talking like this. Hell, that one phone call aside, they hadn't talked at all in almost a year. S doesn't know when that changed, either, but he would hazard a guess that they nearly coincided, the distance between them growing as J increasingly pit them against each other.

Now, it feels so fucking stupid. He should have walked away a long time ago. Again, S reminds himself that he doesn't actually know what would have changed if he did — the professor would still have been in the picture, after all, and S can't help but wonder now if he was part of the reason for that new competitiveness, making J want to be better instead of just doing what he loved — but he regrets it a little all the same. It isn't that he loved it less, he thinks, but he would have been happy to continue doing it without awards or recognition, much like he was as content as he could be to love J even when they had to keep their relationship a secret.

"Please don't apologize," he says, mouth curved in a faint, sad smile. "I just... I don't want that. I played because I loved it. And when it came between us, I stopped loving it. If you already think that I'd be better than you... then it's still there, and I don't want to be on the other side of that. Not again. I can still play a little at work when I feel like it."

[beklemmt]

This feels wrong, too, in a way J doesn't know how to express. It's not that what S says is entirely wrong. In all honesty, that's probably the problem, that there's really nothing J can refute, and he doesn't know how it got that way, but it's upsetting. "I'll apologize if I'm sorry," he says, a little petulant. S always tells him not to, and he understands that there are things where he does it too much or S feels it's unwarranted, but he can't go through life simply never apologizing or assuming he knows when it's called for and when to hold it back. And he is sorry. None of this should be this way, and he knows it's because of him, because he let his insecurities get the better of him, because he was trying to find himself again when he didn't know who he was, because he let his ambitions grow too big, let someone else tell him what to do and who to be. And there's not much of anything S could have done, because J never gave him the chance to.

"That isn't what I meant," he says, sighing. "I think. It wasn't really about how good you are or aren't, just knowing I can't expect to be as good as I was after being out of practice so long. But if it's like that, if it turns into that, then that's why I shouldn't do it. It brings out bad parts of me, and I don't want to do that again either." It started with uncertainty, after all, with jealousy, and grew into something terrible he didn't know how to control. That isn't a risk worth taking. Even if it never got that far again, he couldn't bear if it damaged what they have now. Whatever S might say about not loving it anymore, it feels too much like he's stopping for J's sake, and that's unbearable too.

Frowning, he keeps plucking at S's shirt for something to do with his hand as his mind spins. "I have to figure out who I am without it, that's all. I already decided to stop months ago. It isn't worth it." Giving up music seemed like the only sensible course of action from the minute he arrived here. It's hard to face the possibility that wasn't entirely his fault and that maybe he can try again, and still let it go, but he'll do it if he must. It just isn't worth the risk or any friction when he already feels a little frustrated just talking about it.

[hismelody]

At first, S isn't quite sure how to respond, not wanting to rush into doing so and risk making this worse in the process. Now perhaps more than ever — in the middle of the night, when they've shared so much — he doesn't want to fight. And he doesn't think they're fighting now, but he feels like they could be, like they're approaching the edge of it. For all he knows, it could just be in his head, an instinct that he absolutely hates having instilled in him, but it isn't worth the risk, the very idea making him feel a bit uneasy. They've done so well, both the last few months in general and tonight, venturing into subjects that, once, would almost certainly have led to arguments. It isn't that he expects them never to disagree, or even never to fight, because that would be ridiculous. This, though, would be too familiar, even in an entirely different form. As awful as it is for something that they both loved so much, that helped bring them together, to do damage to their relationship now, they've had more than enough of that already.

"It didn't always bring out bad parts of you," he says, noticeably a little cautious. He doesn't even consider them bad parts, really, having some idea of how rooted they are in insecurity. They've contributed to bad things, but who and what hasn't, really? He knows he has, which is part of what keeps him so careful now, not wanting to say anything he regrets or that comes out entirely wrong. "It brought out some of the best parts of you, too. Not... that you don't have those without playing or writing, because you do. But it wasn't always like that. It doesn't have to be now."

S doesn't laugh; he's much too worried for that. He just huffs out a soft breath, watching J as best he can in the dim light of their bedroom, trying to tell himself that this will still be alright. "I decided the same thing months ago," he admits. They've been so honest tonight. That isn't something he wants to give up, even as this seems increasingly dangerous for them. "I should've decided it a long time before that. So... you don't have to play if you don't want to. Or if you aren't ready. I will love you no matter what you decide to do, and I will help you figure out anything you need to. But there was a time you played, and wrote, and loved it. You shouldn't have to feel like you have to give that up."

[beklemmt]

It's probably how tired he is, that strange wrung-out feeling of being awake in spite of exhaustion and knowing he won't sleep again soon, but somehow that makes J feel sad in the other direction, tears springing to his eyes again. That's tiring, too, but it draws the fight out of him, though the petulance remains. There was a time, he knows, when it's true, music was where he thrived. It felt like home, like somewhere he belonged in a world where he was welcome very few places. Being able to share that with S felt so precious at the start. And now they might never share it again, and it's entirely his fault, and he misses that, too, how easy it was, how happy they once were when they played together.

It's awful to have lost it, awful to miss it, awful to think of never having that again. But there's a sort of relief, too, in S's words. J hasn't thought, since he got here, about how S might love him less without music. He couldn't. But he knows there was a time when that worried him, too, and he's felt so often over the years that it was the only thing of value he had to put into the world, and to be reminded that isn't so, that there are no conditions on the love that matters most to him, is comforting and overwhelming all at once.

He doesn't quite realize he's started crying again, though, until he sniffles and hears the way his voice sounds, watery and wrecked, when he speaks again. "I thought I had to — yah, why again?" He sniffs again, indignant, and shakes his head. "Always crying. Big dumb baby. I thought I had to, though. Give it up. When I — before. And when I got here. And for months, it just seemed better. Safer." It's incredibly annoying, he thinks, to cry at a time like this, when it's hard enough to express himself without babbling incoherently. "I already felt like I had to, not because of you. But I don't wanna do it if you don't wanna do it because of me or if we're going to fight about it. If you really don't love it anymore, that's different, but it was supposed to be ours, and I broke it, and I don't know, I don't wanna break it again. I love you too much, I don't want to do that again."

He makes a tiny whimpering sound, exhaustion and frustration and despair all at once, though more than anything, he's irritated that the tears keep happening and he ended up sounding mostly incoherent anyway. Tugging at S's shirt once, he clings to him, huffing out an indignant sigh. "I don't know if I'm making sense."

[hismelody]

It's strange how he can feel at odds even with himself, part of him aching when he hears J start to cry again, part of him guiltily relieved that at least he doesn't seem angry. S hates that, too, that it even has to be a consideration, that part of him braces himself for it. Even with as much of it as they've both already done tonight, it always hurts when J cries, but it's still preferable to a full-blown fight, easier to respond to, something he's just a little less helpless in the face of. Instinctively, he draws J close again, holding him gently but securely, his breath hitching, though he doesn't start to cry again himself, at least not yet. With as fraught a subject as this is, with as long as they've put off having any sort of conversation about it, he half-suspects that it might only be a matter of time. He's never said any of this, for that matter. Back in Seoul, there was no one for him to say it to.

"You are, I think," he murmurs, because it's really all he can say. It's not the most coherent, but S is fairly sure that he can piece all of it together even so. Like he was thinking just a few moments ago, it seems again like they're approaching the same thing from entirely opposite perspectives, both not wanting to let their relationship fall apart like it did before, both not wanting to pursue music if it will mean winding up where they did before. S doesn't really think he would anyway. Before he got here, he sort of suspected that he would get back to it eventually, but it would have been for both of their sakes then, with him continuing largely because J couldn't. His heart wouldn't have been in it, though. He would never have felt about it like he did in the early days of his and J's relationship, when it was something that brought them together, that they shared, when everything seemed as full of promise as it could for people like them, despite the awful circumstances at the time.

Although it's easier to speak his mind when he's less worried about provoking an argument, it still isn't easy to make sense of his own thoughts, at least in any way that he could articulate. Maybe that's why he thinks he can follow J's, because his own are likewise somewhat incoherent. Taking as deep a breath as he can, he hums thoughtfully, considering his words again for another moment. What comes out instead of anything he intended, though, is a whispered "I want to love it again." Caught off-guard by his own words, the weight of it hits him hard, something he has to sit with for a beat before he continues. "But I think... stepping back is maybe the best way for me to do that. And I don't want to do it if we're going to fight about it, either. I feel like I broke it, too, you know? Like if I'd realized the damage it was doing... if I'd had the sense to walk away sooner... maybe things wouldn't have gotten as bad as they did. Like maybe you would still have loved it, too, if it weren't for me."

This, too, must be a thought he was just barely holding back, something vaguely present but unformed, clearly making itself known as he puts it into words. Doing so, though he doesn't actually start crying again yet, prompts an unintended sniffle from him, shoulders tensing like he's half-expecting this, too, to go over poorly. "I don't want you not to do it because of me. I really don't."

[beklemmt]

This is, J thinks, one of the hardest parts of what he's gone through these last couple years, the way it ripples out. It's hard enough to bear on his own, but knowing that, whatever the fuck is wrong with him, it impacts the people he loves only makes it worse. S has spent a lot of time telling him that it's okay, that he's worth it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, hearing S blame himself even a little, knowing something that used to be theirs is just gone.

"That's not true," he protests, though it's quiet. He doesn't want to fight or make a lot of noise, and S holds him so tenderly, so close, that there's no need to raise his voice. "It's not your fault. You weren't doing any damage. It's not like you were trying to make me feel bad, and it's not — I did that. I made myself feel bad and I took it out on you." His anger and resentment back then, he thinks now, was around S, not really about him. It was just him finding an outlet for a pain that was otherwise tangled too tightly around him. He could have just done this instead, talked, but no, he had to turn everything into a fucking fight or silence. "I would have felt bad if you stopped because of me then too."

Maybe some part of him would have been relieved, but he doesn't think it would have been enough. If not S, he would have found something else to compete against. For a year at least, it was himself, no one else, and that's an impossible fight to win. What went wrong, he thinks now, is that he was lost, and he wouldn't let S help him, and he got mad at S for not being able to help or knowing what was wrong. He was less coherent then than he is now, and, guilty though he feels about the way he was, he's not sure that's anyone's fault, but it's certainly not S's.

"You didn't make me like that," he continues, still petulant, still sniffling between sentences. "You just did what you could. And if I don't ever play again, it won't be because of you alone. It'll be because I don't want to hurt anyone ever again, especially you." What he wants, what he's wanted for so long, is exactly what S has said — to love it again, for S to love it again, for them to have that to share. They've done well these last months, been happy and gotten through the days without that to bond over or argue about, but he misses those days before everything fell apart. Before he fell apart.

[hismelody]

On one hand, S knows that he couldn't really have caused the insecurity that grew so heightened in that last year, that played such a role in their relationship unraveling. On the other, it's hard to see how he didn't at least play a part. He saw what was happening, to an extent. He knew that J was jealous of him, and angry about so much; he heard it often enough. Even then, he was afraid of this, enough so that he couldn't bring himself to face it entirely. It stayed there in the back of his head, quiet but present, as he got everything else all wrong anyway. While he knows it wasn't all really his fault, he feels certain that he must have exacerbated how it all deteriorated. Music may have helped bring them together, but it also helped tear them apart, and he wasn't just a bystander in that. It's impossible to see how he could have been, no matter what J says now. For that matter, despite how good the past few months have been, despite the unfaltering trust and love he feels, it's impossible to forget what he spent months hearing before J moved out.

Besides, in an odd, uncomfortable way, it's harder to accept the idea that there really was nothing he could have done one way or the other than to shoulder some of the guilt for it. He's never done well with that sort of helplessness. If it was on him to any extent, then he can try to keep in mind what to do differently this time to avoid falling into the same traps they did then. It may be a lesson learned too late, but at least he'll be doing something, not waiting to see what happens and just letting it all do so.

"I feel like I did," he admits, and now his eyes do fill with tears again too, though he does his best to try to blink it back. His breath hitches, and saying this hurts, but having said so much already, he may as well say this now too instead of letting J take all the blame. "Do damage. I know I wasn't trying to make you feel bad, but I could see that I was. You were so jealous. At least, maybe if I'd stopped, you wouldn't have been anymore. I just..." He gives a quick little shake of his head, quieter despite his unsteady voice when he continues. "It was ours. I didn't know what changed, or when, or why, but I wanted it to be ours again. But now..." Again, he sniffles, swallowing before he continues. "This, here, this is ours. That's what matters to me. I don't want you to feel like that about me anymore. Especially not over something that I haven't even been able to do anyway."

[beklemmt]

There's an awfulness in knowing how much damage he's caused. If even a fraction of the blame is on S, the vast majority of it must be on J himself, and it's horrible. It is, though, a kind of awful he's familiar with. Thinking about how it was back then, though, how much worse it was in Seoul, when he felt he was grappling with it so entirely alone, is something he hasn't done as much of lately. He would have been content to keep it that way.

What's out is out, though, and it's better like this, better than making himself pretend it away. That's never worked for long with them. "I don't feel like that about you," he says, sagging against S, slipping his arm more fully around his waist, though the angle is awkward. That doesn't matter now. He just wants to keep S close — not even that, really, since they're already very much so, but to show him that's what he wants. "This is what matters to me, too, Sihyun-ah. This, you, that's enough. More than enough."

That's the easy part, both kind and deeply true. The rest is harder, parts of it still knotted up in his chest, bits of himself he tries not to look at if he can help it, a past he doesn't want to repeat. "I wasn't just jealous of the music," he continues, voice clearer, if still a little wobbly. "I was jealous you didn't feel like I did, and angry at myself for thinking that, and... I don't know. Maybe it would have helped if you'd stopped. But maybe I would have just found another thing to be jealous about."

That is, perhaps, another way he's doing better now. He may not know precisely what is wrong with him, and maybe he never will, but at least now he knows it's there and he has to live with and around it, not just try to hide from it. That isn't always the easiest thing to face, but it's helped, at least. "I don't know," he says again, a sigh muffled into S's shoulder. "Maybe it's because we shared everything until then, and suddenly I was falling apart and you weren't or didn't seem to be, that made me so jealous. Music was just the part that was most us, and then it wasn't mine at all."

[hismelody]

Again, S finds that the thought that instinctively crosses his mind is one that feels painfully unfair, albeit not entirely baseless. It isn't even the first time that J has said something to that effect, and it's not like S thinks he's being intentionally dishonest. He just has a hard time seeing how it could be true. A lot has changed since they were together before, and yet he knows it was never enough then. He was never enough. No matter how different things might be now, it's hard not to fear that that will be the case again — that J will mean it now, but as time wears on, they'll wind up back where they were, with him inadequate to help J and disposable in pursuit of something bigger. If anything, that's all the more reason to encourage J to play if he wants to. They'll probably rush towards that much faster if J doesn't let himself have music again too. He is, at least, a mess now too in a way he wasn't before, if more quietly so, with nothing left to be jealous of if he won't be playing much or composing at all, but J is right. Maybe there will just be something else. Maybe it won't be enough to make a difference.

With J clinging to him like this, S can't curl in on himself the way he suddenly wants to, tired and emotional and scared, the first two enough to make it impossible to drown out the last now. He hates it, more, he thinks, at times like this than any others. J is the one who woke up crying, J is the one who had such a horrible dream. The last thing S wants now is to need to be comforted instead of comforting, or to seem distrusting or like he holds a grudge when he isn't and doesn't. He just can't stand the thought of losing this again. The past few months have been so good — not without their share of emotional turmoil, of course, but still better than they've had in ages — and yet it was a year, more than, that he watched their relationship fall apart before, helpless to do anything about it, except when he was inadvertently making it worse. After everything they've been through, after being reunited even after J's death, it hurts too much to think about the idea of winding up back where they were before.

"It wasn't mine either," he points out, voice soft and shaky. "After you left... Even before that, I was losing it. When it started coming between us, when so much of what I wrote... Not even the music that was mine was mine. What I still had was how it was something we shared." Of course his heart wasn't in it anymore after he lost that, too. Of course he doesn't want to go back to it now, when it ultimately wound up only coming between them. He doesn't love it enough anymore for it to be worth that risk, but maybe, if he's not worried about J making it a competition again, he'll be able to get a little of that feeling back. "And then I didn't have that anymore, either."

[beklemmt]

"I didn't know that then," J points out, shaking his head slightly. For as much as he's tried to leave that time behind him, it just isn't possible. Back in Seoul, he let himself continue to cloud those memories and warp them — fueled by the professor's encouragements, he thinks now, though he didn't see it that way then. Here, though, all he did and saw and felt, dying and finding himself here, it's given him some clarity. In the times when he lets himself really think about it, rather than the memories darting in and him trying to chase them out, he sees things a bit better than he did then. He hopes he does, at least. "I was so fucking caught up in my head and all the things I was scared of, I don't think I really saw anything right. I didn't know you felt any of that. I misread everything, and I don't know, maybe I meant to. I really don't know anymore. I can't always tell what was real and what was just my head making things up."

He hates that more than he knows how to express, not least because he doesn't know if that time is really over. Just because he's doing better doesn't mean it's all gone away. He doesn't know if and when it will get worse again, or if he'll even notice it happening until it's too late. He still second-guesses so much. Still, right now, he's painfully aware that S is scared and upset, and he's not sure how to help with that. Maybe the right thing to do would be to shut up and soothe him, reassure him that none of that will ever come between them again. He doesn't really think it will. But when he can't always trust his own perception of reality, how can he possibly tell S that everything will be okay? It would be too big a lie. He can't do that.

All he can really do is try to be as honest as possible. He kept S too much in the dark before. It's better like this, if he knows everything, even if it hurts. S has told him as much many times now, and he does his best to believe it. That doesn't make it easy when he can hear the way S's voice trembles when he speaks. "That's the thing," he adds. "I just don't know. I think I learned a lot and that I won't do any of that again, but I don't even know what happened to me, why it started, why I got that way. So I don't know if I will or not. And if I started acting like that again... I didn't know how to stop before. I didn't know how to change it, and I'm not sure I do now either, and I just... I don't want to go back to that. Ever. Any of it. I don't want to be like that or hurt you or feel that way. I love you. I don't — I can't do that to you again." If that means he doesn't play again, well, he decided he wouldn't anyway, months ago. However much he might miss it at times, maybe it just isn't worth the risk.

[hismelody]

As much as it isn't exactly pleasing to hear something so far from definitive, it's reassuring because of that, too. S wouldn't want to be placated now. He would much rather have honesty, when they went so long apparently having so little of that, something for which he blames himself, too. The things he held back, he had to, like the professor finding out about them and blackmailing him, compositions in exchange for a scholarship, and like how much he was hurting, too. It isn't, he knows, anything like what J was going through, but he could hardly be happy while their relationship was falling apart. J was so angry at him for so much back then, or at least taking that anger out on him. How could he possibly have talked about how hurt he was? How could he have tried to say that he missed what they used to have, or how hard it was for something that was once theirs to start coming between them instead? The less J talked to him, the harder it was for him to talk to J, too. He tried, but it didn't exactly work back then. To him, at least, that's as much on him as on J, when he knows he got everything hopelessly wrong, but it felt impossible then. Just one more loss, really. J has always been the only person he's ever been able to be so open with, and for a while, he didn't have that, either.

Whatever else happens, at least he does again now, even if there are things he doesn't quite know how to say or wants to ease into, even if it also doesn't seem worth it to talk about just how hard it all was for him. He knows — well, he knows now, anyway — that at least part of the problem was that he seemed fine, no matter how much he was struggling, but that last year was awful for him too, and the one that followed was even more so. It was just a different sort of awful. Talking about it would feel like trying to make it too much about him, or equating what they were going through when it was very different; he suspects that it would only hurt J, too, and it's clear that J already blames himself too much.

"I don't want to go back to that, either," he admits, head ducking. That's all that's really necessary to say on that front, he thinks, given the state they're both in already. "I don't want you to have to feel the way you did then. I don't want to... make any of that worse." He closes his eyes for a moment, a few tears spilling over when he does. "For me, there just... isn't any reason to go back to playing more than I do. You're here, so it's not like it's something I would be doing for both of us. I can't afford a piano, so I couldn't play at home even if I wanted to. I wouldn't want to play at home, if you weren't playing. I haven't wanted to write in months. My heart's not in it anymore, I guess. I don't think it would be, having it be... separate, for us." He loved it when it was theirs. Even with both of them here, if still music wouldn't be something they shared, he doesn't know that he would get any of that drive back.

The breath he lets out is slow and unsteady, giving him a chance to try to collect himself a little. He doesn't succeed, but it seems worth the attempt. "You loved music before you loved me," he continues. "Before you knew me. I loved it, too, but... never as much as I loved you. I don't want to keep you from it and I don't want it to come between us again."

[beklemmt]

For a moment, J just stays where he is, quiet, thinking about this, and then he's moving, wriggling around in S's grasp so he can sit up a bit better. As much as it helps to hide a little when he talks about these things, he also can't stay tucked away, taking S's comfort, when S sounds like this. He has to face him, to look at him, propped up enough that he doesn't have to rest on his hands or hold onto S, so he can reach up and touch S's cheek.

"It doesn't have to," he says. "I miss that, too, you know, when it was ours. I miss when it felt right at all. But just because I loved it first doesn't mean it's more important than you." There are, he's pretty sure, plenty of things he loved as a kid, well before he met S, that don't much matter to him anymore or that, regardless of interest, still matter a hell of a lot less than S does. There's a lot more mixed into music, and some of it is still too hard to talk about much, like how it makes him miss his mother, too, but he's pretty sure the point remains the same. "Nothing is. Nothing could be. And if I decide not to play again —"

Granted, it's still hard to say that. Even having made up his mind long ago, having the possibility slip back into existence makes it difficult to give up all over again, but that doesn't have to be forever either. He lets out a little sigh and shakes his head, thumb stroking along S's cheek. "It won't just be about you or us," he says. "I didn't say anything for a long time about it because it scares me. I scare me. But whatever happens, whatever I do... I don't want to let anything come between us again, okay? Me playing or not playing or whatever else, I won't let it. And if I stop for now, I can try again later, or I can stop if I need to, I don't know."

But if S already sees in him that spark of competition that contributed to his madness, then J doesn't see how it could possibly be worth the risk. Not, at least, now. Maybe eventually, he'll find his way back into a frame of mind where he can handle it, but it seems too much like trouble now. If it weren't for what he learned tonight, he doubts he would have brought it up anytime soon anyway. A longer wait is probably a good thing.

[hismelody]

Even with J in front of him now, hand on his cheek, S can't quite look at him as he hears this. It isn't that it's bad, exactly. It just hurts to hear, both J saying that he misses it too and that music isn't more important than him. Maybe that's true now, but S is sure that there was a time when it wasn't. He was alright with that, too, until it took J away from him entirely. For J to be with him but prioritize his ambition was one thing. J moving out in the name of pursuing his music, though, broke S's heart. He knows now that the professor's logic probably had a hand in that, too, but that doesn't make the fact of it hurt any less, and it doesn't quiet the very, very small part of him that's skeptical that this will remain the case now. That, too, he could be alright with as long as they didn't wind up in the same state they were in before. He doesn't need to be the most important facet of J's life. It's just a little too straightforward for him to be comfortable with now, too close to what at least feels like a different truth.

And still he feels so fucking guilty for being upset at all, for thinking such things. Despite the fact that it's simply what he believes, it seems horribly unfair. None of it negates how entirely he trusts J. They've been together again for months now, and he thinks they've been as happy as the circumstances that preceded both of their arrivals here could allow. This, too, he doesn't want to be a competition. It doesn't have to be him or music. For a while, when they were younger, it was both. He can't speak for J, but at least for him, it was the happiest time in his life, even when it should have been the worst. Pitting himself against the piano now won't do either of them any good, especially not when he does want J to be able to play again. Having this subject at hand after so long is just hard.

Despite his determination not to say as much, the hurt in his expression might give him away anyway, though the darkness still provides a welcome shield. It would be all the more reason to comment on the rest, except S couldn't hold this part back if he tried, his gaze finally lifting a bit again, tentative but earnest. "You don't scare me," he replies quietly, and he'd shake his head if he didn't want J to leave his hand where it is. "And I think you should try it if you want to. If you don't, or you aren't ready, that's fine, too, but I'll be there for you if you do."

[beklemmt]

J leans forward, pressing a kiss to S's other cheek before he rests their heads together. There's a part of him that wants to say something stupid and dramatic like Maybe I should, because there's also a very real part of him that believes it. And the thing is, as important as it is to him that S feels this way, it doesn't change J's own fears. It's somewhat reassuring, not least because he's pretty sure that S's judgment of character is better than his own these days, but he still worries, still thinks he's somehow inherently broken as a person. That's a thought he's going to have to reexamine with this new information, the probability he didn't come to those conclusions and decisions on his own, but until he's had time with that idea, it's hard to shove the old notions aside.

"I love you," he murmurs, and he's utterly wrung out, but gentle, grateful, all the same. It's late and they're exhausted, and S is handling this with far more grace than J could in his shoes. He's been so thoughtful — always, really, but even more so this time around. It's clear to J that he's taken to heart the things he said in those first days when they were reunited, his fears and concerns. That's all the more reason, J tells himself, that he needs to do the same in return. It would be the right way to treat S regardless, but S gives him an example to follow.

"I don't know what I want." He purses up his lips, thoughtful, still leaning into S. "I know some things, but... I don't know. If I don't at least try, I'll probably always wonder, but..." Sighing, he shrugs, nudging at S's nose with his own. "I don't know if I'm ready. And I don't know if I'm just talking myself out of it because it's scary. If I try..." He eases back just a little, trying to meet S's gaze. "Will you tell me? If I say something that worries you or doesn't seem right? Even a little?"

[hismelody]

That much, at least, is easy to respond to, easy to agree with. Emotional as he might be, as much as he might be holding back, though nothing important, there's no question or debate in this. Without pulling back at all or any hesitation, S nods, glancing up at J again. There's still something a little uncertain in the way he does so, but not because of what J has asked. It's just hard, even now, to be in a state like this, incapable of keeping it together, trying not to say the worst things that cross his mind, resisting the impulse to draw entirely in on himself. They've had months here, but he had months on his own before that, and some of the instincts from it have remained. Through all of that time, there was no one who could comfort him, who even knew what was going on. He still remembers thinking the day J got here that he couldn't remember the last time he'd been held before that. That is, of course, far from true now, the two of them holding each other often, but he's still, in a way, used to what it was like when that wasn't the case.

He stays put, though, not looking away this time. He doesn't want to leave any doubt that he means this. Difficult as he's sure it would be to do so, if J is going to try to play again, S knows that it won't work if they aren't honest with each other if there seems to be a problem. Besides, it would be better to do it sooner than later, better to avoid even beginning to head in that direction again. Even if it hurt, it would hurt far, far more to wind up in anything like the situation they were in before.

"Of course," he replies, voice a little hoarse despite his best efforts. "If anything worries me at all, I'll tell you." He won't so much as touch a piano key while they're there, too, he decides. Whatever J has said tonight, S knows that it wouldn't be worth it. If he isn't playing, there won't be anyone to be jealous of, anyone to compete with, or if there is, it won't be him, and so it won't get in the way of what they have here. He can, like he's said, play a little on his own time. Anything more wouldn't be worth it. This way, he might even stand more of a chance of being able to love it again. "And if you don't feel ready after all, if you wind up feeling uncomfortable, you can tell me and we'll come right home."

[beklemmt]

What this feeling is, J isn't quite sure — relief and worry all mixed together with fatigue and love, something like that, with a heavy dash of uncertainty and a little more of longing. It's a lot, is what it is, but in a quiet way, where all he can do is take a slow, steadying breath.

"Anything," is what he winds up saying, soft but emphatic. "Really anything at all. Even if you think you're imagining it." He can't go back to how things were. There are already days that are hard enough to get through, and he's doing well now — maybe not by other people's standards, but by his own, certainly, steady enough not to be overtly worrying most days, to keep breathing through the bad ones. It's not always enough, and there are nightmares and bursts of panic and self-loathing, but he survives because he has S to help him through it and because he isn't trying anymore to pretend it isn't happening. Of course, he wouldn't tell anyone else about all of this, but he hardly speaks to anyone else anyway — nothing more than passing commentary at a store or café, nothing where his feelings or the frightening way his mind can ricochet six different directions at once ever has to come up. But S knows, and S is here, and not having to pretend goes a long way even when S is at work.

If he lost any of that, if he started to close in on himself again, if he started hiding things, if he pushed S away, he doesn't know how he'd get through it again. Last time, he hated himself for things that even he knew he was exaggerating — not all of it, but some of it — and for things that he now has reason to doubt. This time, his mind has more ammunition by far. And much, much worse. Besides which, the idea of putting S through any of that again is terrifying. No matter how patient or loving S is, there's some strange part of him that is convinced — or, at least, tries to convince him — that S will finally realize he's more trouble than he's worth if he starts getting worse, which he knows is stupid, because S has stuck with him through murder.

His mind is going a little bit too fast now. He moves his free hand a bit awkwardly, looking for somewhere steadying before settling on cautiously resting it at S's shoulder, trying to make himself breathe a bit more evenly. "I just can't do that again," he says, quieter than he means to. "Feel like that or make you feel like that, I can't. And I want to play but what if that just means I'll get like that and wreck everything again? Maybe whatever broke in me is telling me I want it and it's okay so it can start all over." He ducks his head, embarrassed and sniffling, and shakes it quickly. "I know that sounds crazy."

[hismelody]

More than anything right now, S wishes that there were some definitive reassurance he could give, a way of guaranteeing — for J's sake more than his — that that won't happen again. He can't, though. He was powerless against it the first time around, which only made it that much worse to watch his relationship slip away from him, any attempts he made to intervene just adding to the problem instead, and things wound up being even worse than he knew. Though he has much more awareness now, that's the very reason why he knows he can't offer any concrete, inarguable promises that J won't do any of that again. Somehow, he knows at once too much and not enough for that — far more aware now of what was going on with J back then, clueless as to where it came from or why. He still doesn't know what changed between them, only that it did, and then they were too far gone to try to pull any of it back.

That, though, is where he has an edge now that he didn't before. Back then, he didn't see it happening until it had already happened. Now, he at least has some idea of what to look for. They both do, he thinks, however much might still be unknown, might always be.

"It doesn't sound crazy," he murmurs, as understanding as he can. It may not make sense to him entirely, but he thinks he can understand that worry all the same. The fact that J has commented on it himself, though, and clearly isn't taking any of this lightly, gives S all the more faith that it might not be a terrible idea. If it is, they'll probably find out in short order, but they've been through so much since then, survived things that shouldn't have been survivable in both a physical sense and a metaphorical one, where their relationship is concerned. They're talking now in a way they'd stopped doing before. If they're both keeping an eye on things, if they're both trying to avoid the same thing, then they must at least stand a chance, even if what J is worried about is true on any level. "But even if that is the case — and I don't think it is, but even if — then we won't let that happen, right? We'll stop it before it does. We'll be careful. It won't just go from... this to that overnight. It didn't before."

He's pretty sure it didn't, anyway. More likely, he thinks it was insidious, so slow and gradual that it happened before either of them realized it. This time, if it comes to that at all, will be different. They'll both, he thinks, be aware of any shifts, anything that seems like a return to the way things were before J left him. It takes him a moment to realize it, but the rest of what J has said seems quietly promising, too, albeit in a way that S isn't quite sure how to articulate. He's thought about that particular aspect of things for a long time, actually, but without knowing the best way to discuss it. Part of that, though, was not knowing how to get into this subject at all, and they're here now, which makes it easier. "I think that's a good sign, anyway, isn't it?" he asks, a little quieter, something sadly, cautiously hopeful and so uncertain in his voice. "That you want to play."

[beklemmt]

J's breath hitches, as if S's reassurances give him license to feel what he's feeling instead of trying just to push through it. He's made S sad, he knows that, and he tries hard to remind himself that's normal now and then, especially in their abnormal circumstances, but he still doesn't want to make it worse. That's the impulse he obeys without thinking, the one that has him trying not to cry even when he keeps sniffling and his throat feels too tight, and it's the one he pushes aside now.

Or, well, he can't entirely obey it anymore, but S makes it seem okay that tears are spilling over again, leaving J shaking slightly, trying to keep it, at least, relatively contained. He knew he was worried about these things, but it felt theoretical. He could think about it, but it had to be cast aside. It wasn't reasonable to think of trying again. And now there's all this stuff he didn't know, and S is giving him a chance he's been denying himself, and all that worry is bubbling up.

But it's not his fears that are doing all the overwhelming right now; it's the way S responds to them. There's no dismissal of what he's pretty sure is absolute lunacy — he's all fucked up inside, but that's him, right? It's not like he's fucking possessed, nothing's pulling the strings, it just feels that way sometimes — just gentle reminders they're in this together. That they can fight together. It's hard, sometimes, to know how scared he is until he's told it's okay that he's scared.

"I think so?" he echoes, voice wobbling embarrassingly. "I don't know, maybe it's a trick." He forces a shaky breath out, another one in. S is right. Last time was a slow, painful descent, not a sudden fall. That's one of the worst parts about it. Some of it was just stuff he'd been thinking for years, things he'd once been able to dismiss as idiocy or insecurity and wave aside to some degree, except it just got worse, harder to ignore. Some of it was new, but started either so small he didn't notice or so intensely, he didn't know what to do. It was just bit by bit, big enough to make him worry, small enough to make him feel paranoid. But this time, he knows he has serious problems to keep an eye on, and he knows what those look like — some of them, anyway, barring anything new that pops up. He knows he has to take it seriously. He knows he has to talk about it.

So he does, pushing another sharp breath out, dragging a deep, if unsteady one in first. "It's just hard," he explains, "trusting... me. What I want, what I think, what I see. It's so much better now, but... You're right, though. We won't let it happen. If — if — I do play and I-I want to keep playing, then fine, but if it seems like things are... changing again, I stop. That's it." He wants this badly, more than he's let himself think about for months, more than he realized he did, but he's not ready to pay such a cost again. He won't risk this, not his sanity, not the love of his life, for something that might destroy them both.

[hismelody]

It's probably a little strange, how hearing J talk about not trusting himself just makes S trust him more. It does, though. As much as he hates seeing J upset like this, hearing the waver in his voice that gives away the fact that he's in tears again, there's something soothing about how obviously he isn't being dismissive of any of this or acting like it will just be fine. S wishes that J didn't have to doubt himself, but even if he can be a little naïve where J is concerned, he knows that it's not without reason. He'll just have to have faith enough for the both of them. After all, for his part, he wouldn't be encouraging this in the slightest if he thought things were likely to revert to the way they used to be. There's a element of worry to his deciding to step away from piano, but it's not as if he hadn't already done that. If he were as passionate as he used to be, as driven in his own less ambitious right, it might be different. As it is, for him, that's the part that doesn't seem worthwhile, a chance not worth taking. Without him there for J to compare himself to, maybe they'll both be better able to love it again.

"I think," he starts, taking a breath before he continues, "this seems like a good way of trying it." Shaken and emotional though he still feels himself, he means it entirely. J should be able to see how he feels about it, at least, and he doesn't think they'll come up with any better approach than this. Maybe things will start changing again, maybe it won't wind up working after all, but they'll never know unless they give it a shot, and he has to believe that they won't wind up in the same place they were before. They've come much too far for that, the belief a half-desperate one but present all the same. "We're actually talking now, right? So it's already different. As long as we keep doing that, we'll know if it seems like there's a problem."

After all, it wasn't the piano itself that was the root of the problem, or at least S doesn't think it was. The professor probably wasn't either, really, but he certainly didn't help, and he isn't here now to encourage all of J's worst impulses. There's no competition with him, no award to fight for, not even a piano in the apartment. Without that, he hopes, at least, that it won't seem like as much of an obligation as it seemed to become before, something J can't be consumed by simply because that isn't an option. That's the part that S doesn't quite know how to put into words, not least because there have been so many heavy revelations so far tonight. "And you'd be playing for fun now."

Maybe that's the problem in his case, too. When it became so emblematic of all that he'd lost, when J spent so long comparing the two of them, when it was something they'd once done together that wound up tearing them apart, of course it wasn't remotely fun anymore. S doesn't think it would be now, either, if he had to worry about it becoming a competition again, as he knows he would. It would be hard to play in front of J when he doesn't know if J would become convinced of S somehow being better than him like he did before.

[beklemmt]

J hadn't thought of it quite like that until S said it, but it's true. If he plays now, whether it's once or he goes back to playing regularly, it won't be like before. He has no intention of going back to school. If he did so, he wouldn't permit himself to study music again, and there really isn't anything else he wants to pursue. Maybe one day he'll change his mind and find a worthwhile path to take, something he'll enjoy without devoting his entire life to, something he can do that will help make a life for them. It just can't be music. There can't be any awards or competitions now, no scholarships, no prizes or benefits of any kind. If he plays, he'll do so simply because he wants to. No audience either, just S. It's the only safe way to proceed.

Because, for a long time there, that was what he played for — accolades, attention, the faint hope of praise, the desire to be told he was doing well. A professor who never cared about him, even as a teacher should care about a student.

A desperate grasping after the chance of knowing who he was again.

He's already said tonight that he's lost. That's part of what scares him. Figuring out the answer to who he is can't lie in music, which is where he long thought it was. He can't let himself go that way again. If he plays, he plays for fun, and god, it's been so long.

"That'll be different," he says, a bit more mumbled than he means it to be as he lets go of S's shirt to wipe his eyes. "I think you're right though. If we talk, it'll be okay, won't it? I'll tell you if it starts to feel wrong or I think about it like I used to, and you tell me if anything worries you, and we'll talk." He leans forward to press a kiss to S's cheek again. "I need that. Please. Even if I don't want to hear it, I won't get mad."

He's pretty sure S is still worried about that, and he has plenty of reason to be — enough that J reconsiders his own words. "I might be mad," he amends. "Or unhappy. But I'll try not to be and I want to hear it anyway." No matter how it will sting if it comes to that, it will be worth it if it keeps him from ruining this.