beklemmt | 지독한 고통 악몽뿐이지만; 오직 내 꿈은 너뿐야, love or die

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지독한 고통 악몽뿐이지만; 오직 내 꿈은 너뿐야, love or die

Jae-eun's heart doesn't race; it thuds along, heavy against his ribs, sharp and hard as stone. The jagged edge of it claws at his throat, the siren ringing in his ears. Some time has passed since it went off, and he knows, logically, it's unlikely anyone is going to come to their apartment and cause trouble. They've locked and barred the door, and they're not on the first floor, readily accessible. People are more likely to target stores than homes, or at least to go to the wealthier parts of town than to come to an apartment complex. Chances are they're completely safe as long as they stay inside.

That doesn't make it too much better, really. Even if it's unlikely, it's not impossible that someone might come here. More than that, the very fact of this Purge scares him, skin prickling with anxiety and repulsion. Every now and then, shouts and the sounds of glass breaking or tires squealing cuts through the darkness and he flinches. He's done terrible things. Perhaps he has no right to judge. But he didn't enjoy them. He can't say that there wasn't a certain thrill in killing, sick though it makes him feel even to think it; but that was the point, really, if one ever existed, a way to jolt his creativity awake. It was cruel and meaningless, but he had a reason, however deluded it may have been. This... he can't say this does. This is just people taking pleasure in harming others for no reason other than because they can, and it makes him feel like his insides are trying to fight their way out through his skin. And to think that someone could go out on a night like this and hurt people and then go on with their lives like nothing happened — it upsets him on a fundamental level and it pisses him off, too. He can't imagine it. He can't even begin to imagine how anyone could walk away unscathed by having committed such violence. He carries it with him every fucking day, nearly every moment. He'll never be fully cleansed of it. How could anyone choose it so deliberately?

He sits in the living room curled against Sihyun's side, the lights out to avoid drawing attention to their home, his eyes shut tight. If he's quiet and still, maybe he can will peace into his body. Maybe he can keep himself breathing somewhat steadily. Maybe they should have gone out to the countryside; there was a nice woman at Pride who offered them refuge, but in the end, leaving this home had felt frightening too. Was that a mistake? But they're safe here probably. He doubts anything will hurt them here.

But tomorrow they have to go back into that world and not know which strangers they encounter will have done what terrible things. Maybe that's just. No one here knows what he's done, after all. He's not much better, whatever he wants to believe. It's wrong to try and cut himself some slack just because others do terrible things. People are no less dead at his hands just because others will die tonight at someone else's.

"I hate this," he murmurs into Sihyun's shoulder, so agitated he's already become exhausted. "Ah, what to do?" He doesn't want to just sit here for hours, paralyzed, but he doesn't know how to do anything else.

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Sihyun isn't scared, exactly. Ill at ease, certainly, and tense even as he tries to keep his body relaxed where he sits curled up with Jae on the couch, but he doesn't actually think they're in any significant danger here. Even with the whole city gone mad, it seems unlikely that anyone would come into their building, up to the fifth floor, and then specifically to their apartment when there are so many easier targets throughout the city. He just hates that that's the case, hates that it has Jae so obviously on edge too. Really, underneath everything, there's anger, a little spark that he knows better than to act on now. Darrow has been good to them; they've been safe here. It isn't without its problems, of course, and he's heard stories of worse things than he's seen, but the disruption of their peaceful little life for no comprehensible reason is quietly infuriating.

That just also has to be the least of his concerns right now. He can let himself be angry once they've made it through the night. It won't do either of them any good for him to get worked up about it now, when there's nothing they can do to change it. That sense of helplessness doesn't exactly sit well either, but that's one more frustration to temporarily bury.

He tries to focus instead on Jae, hand idly smoothing along his spine. It's as much a comfort for him as he means it to be for Jae-eun, a way of trying to keep them both steady. "I hate it, too," he says quietly, just enough of a hint of tension in his voice that it will likely be clear just how much he means that. "And I don't know. I wish I did."

Jae-eun shivers, eyes still shut but less firmly, the gentle touch continuing to ground him as much as anything could now. There was a time when it would have felt smothering, when anything would have been too much, but that was a time when he didn't see things clearly. Now, Sihyun touching him, holding him, is one of the only things that consistently makes him feel real and whole and present when his mind starts to rebel. That's not what tonight is; he's pretty sure he feels almost too sane at the moment. But he needs it for nearly the same reasons, mostly to keep him from acting on any of the stupid impulses circling his head, like the desire to claw at his own skin as if that might ease some of the tension.

"I feel... very naive," he admits quietly. "I thought..." He digs his fingernails into the back of his wrist, not too hard, just enough to feel the bite of it. "I really didn't think people would do things like this so lightly." How can they go on with their lives after like nothing has changed? Some people seemed excited, and those are the obvious ones to avoid, but how can they be? They don't know the weight of their actions, the toll it will take. But then maybe the people who look forward to something like this won't feel the weight of it on their souls as keenly after all.

"If it helps, I didn't, either," Sihyun admits, the barest hint of a rueful smile curving his mouth. Even in the months leading up to it, hearing people talk about the Purge, some with obvious eagerness in their eyes and voices, he didn't think it would be like this. He isn't entirely sure what he thought, maybe because the whole concept is so unimaginable in the first place. Some vandalism, perhaps, some thefts. Not the gleeful chaos he can hear snippets of, enough to leave him grateful again that they're several stories above the ground, away from the worst of it. He knows better than to let his guard down completely, to believe that they'll unquestionably be safe here tonight, but there's some comfort in knowing that they're away from the worst of it, that the chances of anyone bothering to come into their building, up to their floor, and to their apartment specifically are slim when there are so many easier targets.

He would say so, but he doubts that's what's weighing so heavily on Jae-eun, at least predominantly. It isn't too difficult to guess at what it might pertain to. He's seen Jae in the aftermath of other violent incidents here, remembers a different Halloween when he was bloodstained after getting someone to safety, and in that instance, it wasn't a whole city seemingly turned on its head. Sihyun just isn't sure whether it would help or hurt to give voice to it. Leaving that determination to Jae seems like the wiser course here. "Not so many of them. Not like this."

Jae-eun blinks hard, surprised and frustrated to find himself tearing up. He cries too easily. When he was a kid, he hardly cried at all, but he's changed so much since then. Somehow tears fall more easily now, even when he's feeling more stable. He was always too soft, but it's harder now to keep it from showing.

Snuggling closer to Sihyun, he presses a kiss to his jaw, closing his eyes. "I don't know," he murmurs, voice thick, "if they understand... how it feels. How it will feel. Or if they just don't care. Maybe there are people it doesn't matter to." The most frightening part of it all is that, tomorrow, next week, a month from now, he won't know which of the people he meets were a part of this and which ones hid like him. He won't know who carries their mistakes and their shame with them and which of them wear them with pride. Anyone could be a monster. He's always been slow to trust others, but it's hard to imagine trusting anyone now but the very few people he already knows. He hopes they're okay, that those very few people are somewhere safe. "How could it not matter?"

At a loss, Sihyun just shakes his head. He has no idea how it doesn't matter; he's painfully aware of how much it has mattered and always will matter to Jae. Sitting here curled together on the couch now, talking in hushed voices about the violence outside, it's hard not to think about the day Jae-eun arrived, soot-stained and tearful. Even then, it had been so apparent how wracked with guilt he was. Mostly Sihyun tries not to let himself remember it too vividly. He'd been a mess that day, too, so afraid that he might lose Jae all over again, all his grief brought back to the surface. Through all of it, though, the panic and concern and sadness, he'd known as sure as anything how deeply fucking horrible Jae felt about the things he'd done. It's why Sihyun has never once second-guessed his own being here now. As much as he hates the burden it means Jae has to bear, it's better than the alternative.

And still, he feels equally certain that none of it would have happened at all if not for outside influence and the perfect storm of circumstances. Meanwhile, on the streets below them, there are people reveling in trying to do things far worse, and every chance that come morning, or when they've had a chance for it to sink in, that they won't care at all. It's sickening, and it's hard to even know what to say about it, how to assign logic to something so deeply fucking illogical, among other things.

"I don't know," he says. "Maybe it's better not to know. I wouldn't want to feel like they feel."

It's tempting to give into the urge to simplify things, to make it one thing or another, us or them. Jae-eun wants to. He wants fervently to believe that he's different from that. Actually, he knows he is, so maybe that's not what he wants to make simple. Maybe it's just that he wants to believe that, because what they're doing out there is horrible, he's not quite as awful, because he's separate from that. It worries him, though. Though he knows he can't allow himself to let his past swallow him up again, if only for Sihyun's sake, he can't let it go either. It wouldn't be right. He wants badly to learn how to live with it. He tries hard to do so. Some days, he's okay at it. Others, it feels like he'll never be able to manage it. Carrying a terrible wrong inside of him, admitting it without letting it kill him, it's a battle every damn day. He wants to let it go. He wants to let it kill him. Instead he struggles to fall somewhere in the middle, because not feeling that pain, that guilt anymore, would be more monstrous still. It can't ever be something okay, something he can be truly at peace with. If it were, he'd be afraid again. Some days, the guilt is still absolute agony, but he reminds himself it's necessary, too. It's the least he can give his victims, the understanding that what he did has weight, that it can't ever be made right.

He wants to hide in the shadows, curled up in a ball, sleep until this is over. He wants to kiss Sihyun until he doesn't have to think anymore. He wants to lean out the window and shout at this people that they're fucking up even more than they understand. He wants it not to be happening at all.

He draws back enough to meet Sihyun's gaze — he's trying, he's always trying. Part of him wants to flinch away instead, both from his fiancé's eyes and what's happening below, to try and sever himself from connection to such brutality, but he can do this. He can be here, existing through it. "Me neither," he mumbles, finding Sihyun's hand in the dark, twining their fingers together. They could have the lights on and, honestly, they'd probably be okay all the way up here, but he finds it soothing. He squeezes Sihyun's hand. "I'm okay. Just... overwhelmed."

It's a horrible feeling, this helplessness. Granted, Sihyun knows this is probably the least horrible possibility for an occasion like this. He doesn't have the guilt that Jae-eun carries, brought to the surface by an inexplicably heinous turn of events; he isn't overly worried about either of their safety; he has no interest in using the occasion to wreak havoc as so many others evidently do. There are no positive outcomes here, but at least his isn't as bad as it could be. Still, it makes him uneasy, claws at the inside of his chest in a way that's impossible to ignore. He can't change what's happening, nor can he take away what Jae is feeling, though he would readily shoulder that burden instead if he could. All he can do is be here — and while he knows that's not nothing, it feels painfully insufficient.

He doesn't want to say any of that, though. Later, maybe, there will be a time for it, but not tonight. He has to see them through this first. Instead, he squeezes Jae-eun's hand in turn, hoping that he can give as much comfort as he takes from it. Dimly, he wishes they could do something more, even just as simple as watching TV to pass the time, but safe as he might feel they are, he doesn't want to take unnecessary risks, either. Anything that might draw attention isn't worth it. Neither is anything that would leave them unaware on the off chance that anyone were to try to break in. That leaves them just to sit here. At least, though, he thinks, they can weather this together. They've gotten through worse.

"Can I do anything?" he asks, soft and steady. He doubts he can, but it seems better to ask than to sit here convinced that he can't, better to let Jae know that he would if he could, however self-explanatory that might be.

Jae-eun makes himself think, gaze dropping as he considers that question. It's still instinct to say no, there's nothing, or else that Sihyun is already doing enough. He is, right now; just being here with Jae, holding his hand, listening to him, it helps probably as much as anything could. But he's learning to make himself try harder, because if he can think of something, it's good for both of them.

It helps, thinking of it like that. If he reminds himself that the effort is for Sihyun as much as himself, it makes it feel worth trying. He's always been too impulsive. Learning to slow down is hard, but he's trying.

"I don't know," he says after a few moments. "You're already helping." He worries at his lower lip, looking up again. "If anything, I feel bad I'm not helping you more." Just because this is hard on Jae doesn't mean it's easy for Sihyun. It's different, but he still has to be worried, and Jae knows his mental state is one more worry for Sihyun to carry through this. "I wish I could be sure everyone's safe." He doesn't have many people in his life outside of Sihyun, but it still makes him uneasy to think of those few out there and in danger.

At Jae's comment about not helping him more, Sihyun shakes his head just slightly. He's all right. He hates this, but he's all right, and the way he hates it is different entirely from what this must be like for Jae. All there is to do is get through it. A part of him wishes they had planned to be somewhere else after all, but ultimately, he's not sure it would have made all that much difference. They would still be worried no matter where they were spending the evening; Jae would still have this weight on his shoulders that Sihyun knows he'll never fully be able to alleviate and probably shouldn't be.

They're together, and that's the important thing. At least for him, that is the only thing that would help. There are others he's worried about too, but not very many, and none who matter half as much as the man beside him. Maybe that's callous, but it's just true. It has been for a long time now.

Still, that doesn't mean they should just ignore anyone else. It feels like one small thing they can do, actually, rather than just sitting here helpless, and that in itself must be worthwhile. "Is there anyone you want to call?" he asks, fingers combing idly through Jae's hair. "Phones should be working fine. We can check in, make sure anyone we know is safe."

For a few moments, Jae feels himself relax into Sihyun's touch, lets himself be distracted by the familiar gentle sensation of Sihyun's hand in his hair. Little things like that, simple and ordinary, are still what he holds onto to keep him here, and they're also what let him take a few seconds to float away from this too, grounded but not mired. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths.

"Maybe," he murmurs. There's almost no one he'd say he's close to, hardly anyone he'd call a friend, but his social circle has grown, certainly. The friends he does have are all the more precious for being so rare. "I don't think I need to call, just text maybe." He doesn't have the wherewithal for phone calls right now. He barely has it in him even to look for his phone.

"That's a good idea," Sihyun says, nodding lopsidedly, mostly because he doesn't want to pull away. Texting is probably safer than calling at a time like this — a thought that's strange and a little horrifying to have, but also true. The less noise they can make, the better. Granted, the two of them are still fairly safe in here, enough that he's not worried about having a conversation, albeit a hushed one, but that might not be the case for someone else. Better to keep it quiet.

"It'll be a long night. We'll get through it more easily if we don't have to wonder where anyone is or if they're okay, I think."

It's a good point, Jae-eun knows. As little as he wants to get up and find his phone, it's better to get it over for whatever peace of mind he can get tonight. After that, he can still curled up against Sihyun like this, or possibly pursue more pleasant distractions, if he can pull his thoughts away from their current churning turmoil.

Tipping his head back, he presses a soft kiss to Sihyun's jaw before carefully getting to his feet. He's been so tucked in on himself that his leg is nearly asleep, and moving even a couple feet away from Sihyun makes him feel a spike of anxiety he knows is absurd. It does nothing to lessen the fact that he's painfully on edge. When people are out there doing terrible things, entirely in their right minds and reveling in the destruction, it's hard to stop thinking about himself, his past, wondering if maybe he's not quite as monstrous as they are, unnerved by those thoughts. Whether it's true or not, he doesn't know, but he can't let himself think like that.

"Do you have yours?" he asks. He has a small, haphazard stack of books — novels and notebooks mostly — on a side table he has to shuffle around in search of his phone, but it doesn't take long once he actually makes it there. If Sihyun doesn't have his, though, he'll grab that, too. "Anyone you should text?"

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지독한 고통 악몽뿐이지만; 오직 내 꿈은 너뿐야, love or die

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