begin again | woosan

- nineteen -

tw / mention of suicide & self harm

san grew incredibly angry when he was deleting everything relating to wooyoung's ex off that phone. in fact, he was so angry that he grew afraid of himself again and refused to let wooyoung see him when he was going through everything.

"san..." jongho said softly on the opposite side of the door, worried for his best friend.

"what, jongho?"

"i know you're trying to help wooyoung, but you need to stop for right now. i haven't seen you like this in a long time and i'm worried..."

"but—"

"i'm not taking no for an answer, san. come out here and leave the phone in there."

san sighed and shakily put the phone down, grabbing his own phone and meeting jongho at his door.

"he's awful, jjong... he hurt woo so much..." san muttered.

"i know... i've heard a lot about him, san... yeosang has told me a lot. but i can't let you do this by yourself... i haven't seen you this anxious in a while and i know it's because of how angry this is making you but that doesn't mean i'm not going to worry about other things too..."

"i'm not going near him like this, jjong..."

"san, i know you don't want to, but it might actually help you to see him."

"but i-i don't want to hurt him... w-what if i accidentally—"

"stop it. stop this, san. you never hurt anyone in the first place! no one who was innocent, anyways. who were you to know that junseo was planning on killing himself?! all you did was defend jiseok. you were sick of watching that poor boy get bullied, and you stood up for him. junseo picked the fight and you fought back. no one had the fucking right to blame you for his choices. duri, seojun, all of them... they had no fucking right to say you were the reason that junseo killed himself when all you did was stand up for our friend."

"but they're right, jongho. he wouldn't have killed himself if i hadn't pushed him to. i was the final straw for him... what if i could've protected jiseok and still saved him? he didn't deserve to die, jongho... he was just insecure and took it out on other people."

"stop it, san. he wasn't innocent. he fucking bullied jiseok into trying to kill himself. if we hadn't caught him that one night, he would be gone too. jiseok shouldn't have scars on his arms because of how junseo made him feel. junseo deserved the beating you gave him. sure, he didn't deserve to die, but clearly his guilt got to him. you can't excuse bullying just because he chose to end his life, san."

"but—"

"you didn't deserve to take the blame for his death, san. stop it. no one is to blame for that. if his friends cared so much about him, they would've been there and he wouldn't have felt like death was the only option. i will tell you again and again that you did the right thing, that you didn't deserve the blame that those guys put on you. i'll tell you until one day, you finally believe me. understand?"

"fine..." san sighed, blinking back tears.

"you did well, san. you protected jiseok and that's what matters."

"h-how is he?"

"he's been good... last time we talked he said he likes america a lot and it was the fresh start he needed."

"good... i-i'm glad he's doing better."

"san... it's okay to cry," jongho whispered, gently moving forward and rubbing san's back.