someday you will ache (like i ache) ⸻ yeonbin ; tw
the mall was a sanctuary of sterile disarray, a liminal space caught between anonymity and the banal clamor of human life. voices reverberated against the slick, polished tiles, an unceasing cacophony of meaningless chatter and incidental collisions. bodies moved like a tidal surge, ebbing and flowing in incomprehensible patterns. under the artificial glare of fluorescents, every surface gleamed unnaturally bright, as though striving to conceal the abyss lurking beneath the surface of it all.
yeonjun drifted through this insipid chaos, a specter adrift in his own interior storm. it had been a year since his mother's death, though time had done little to salve the gaping wound her absence left behind. her memory clung to him like a phantom limb—aching, ever-present, but never whole. he had tried to navigate his grief, but it was a labyrinthine thing, twisting and knotted in ways that defied understanding. and when he failed, when the weight of his sorrow became unbearable, he had turned his anguish outward, seeking to dismantle someone else's fragility in place of his own.
that someone had been soobin.
yeonjun had neither the courage nor the inclination to recall the exact genesis of his cruelty. perhaps it had started small—an offhand remark, a shove in the hallway. but like all festering things, it had grown, proliferated, consumed. soobin, with his reticent demeanor and spectral quietude, had been the perfect canvas for yeonjun's malevolence. the punches, the derisive words, the bruises that mottled soobin's pale skin like inkblots of shame—it had all been yeonjun's attempt to exorcise his own demons. to siphon the darkness that gnawed at his core into another's heart.
the rumors that soobin had been hospitalized had only reached yeonjun in whispers. bones fractured, psyche fractured—yeonjun couldn't be sure which had broken first, or perhaps they had both crumbled simultaneously, under the relentless weight of his vitriol. he had ceased his torment then, though not out of guilt, not at first. it was fear that had gripped him—fear of being held accountable, of confronting the monstrosity he had unleashed. and so he had fled, retreated into his own cocoon of misery, pretending soobin's suffering was a distant echo he no longer had to acknowledge.
until today.
yeonjun spotted soobin across the bustling expanse of the mall, standing beside a woman—his mother, presumably. they were absorbed in conversation, their voices lost to the clamor surrounding them. yeonjun's pulse quickened, a sudden spike of adrenaline coursing through him. he hadn't expected to see soobin again, hadn't prepared for the surge of recognition, the flood of guilt that now roared to life in his chest.
he could have turned away, could have disappeared into the crowd and avoided this confrontation altogether. but something—curiosity, or perhaps the jagged edges of his unresolved guilt—propelled him forward. he approached with a smile that felt grotesque on his face, a mask that barely concealed the roiling storm beneath.
"soobin," he called out, his voice casual, feigning familiarity.
soobin's shoulders tensed, a barely perceptible shift, and slowly, he turned to face yeonjun. his expression was inscrutable, his eyes dark pools of unreadable emotion. yeonjun felt a momentary flicker of unease, but he tamped it down, directing his attention to soobin's mother.
"sorry to interrupt," yeonjun said, voice unnervingly light, "i'm a friend of soobin's. do you mind if i borrow him for a minute?"
the woman—soobin's mother—smiled with unsuspecting warmth, unaware of the dissonance beneath the surface of her son's silence. "of course," she replied kindly. "just don't keep him too long."
