hiding, lurking » pentagon

07

❝ S E V E N ❞

━ watching you is proving to be quite entertaining.

When Hongseok turned on the morning news, protein shake in hand, ready to go for a morning run, his day went slightly off-kilter. Not enough to notice right away. Just enough to look back on and think, I should've realized that everything would change.

The news anchor was reporting a story about someone who had gotten jumped in the middle of the night. It happens, Hongseok thought, the world is a terrible place.

But then she went on to say the name of Hongseok's home town, and that the body was found in the woods. Of course, she didn't call it the woods - she called it the countryside, but to the inhabitants of Hongseok's town, it was simply the woods. Every kid had played make believe in those woods, and every teenager had gotten drunk in those woods. They were huge, but they were also home.

So to think that someone had gotten jumped there - severely beaten beyond recognition, in fact; even more disturbing - was nearly unthinkable.

Hongseok's mother came into the living room, where Hongseok was standing stock still, protein shake forgotten in his limp grasp.

"Terrible, terrible," she mumbled in her typical disapproving tone. Then, "I hope you're not going for a run alone. Not after that." She nodded to the television.

So that was how Hyojong found himself at his least favorite place with his most annoyingly supportive friend. The gym, and Hongseok, respectively. He had just wanted to wallow in his room in self-loathing and discarded food wrappers and dirty glasses, but Hongseok had showed up at his house without warning, in typical Hongseok style, and forced Hyojong to "be a real human being." Well, what if he didn't want to be a real human being? What if he wanted to wither away in his coffin of a room, full of guilt and pain? What if he fantasized about the cough rattling in his chest killing him in sleep? He didn't have time to go to the gym, of all places; on a good day, he wouldn't be able to work out for longer than ten minutes.

So yes, he was quite annoyed at Hongseok.

But when was he ever in a good mood? Everyone joked around, called him an old grandpa because he was always complaining, but it was never heartfelt. Everyone used to joke around. Not anymore, because it wasn't funny because he wasn't trying to be. No one joked around anymore. It was suffocating. If they were all miserable all the time, how were they going to get better? They were constantly picking at an oozing scab, and it would never heal at this rate.

But Hyojong had always been hypocritical. He was mostly clueless when it came to himself, and only observant when he wanted to be. But it was hard to not be observant to sorrow. Pain had a way of feeding and feeding off hearts and still being hungry. So it went after whatever was nearby.

He was never in a good mood.

Especially not after—

No. He'd rather think about how miserably out of shape he was; how his thin, pale legs were trembling as he did some half-assed squats, mostly to appease Hongseok, who appeared to be absolutely thriving. Figures.

"I don't see why you couldn't have brought, like, Changgu with you instead of me," Hyojong grumbled at Hongseok, who was running away happily on the treadmill. Disgusting. He wasn't even going anywhere; how was running on a treadmill any better than a hamster pathetically scrambling inside its wheel? Life, it seemed, was a lot like running on a treadmill: repetitive, pointless, with no worthwhile ending in sight.

"Because I wanted to make sure you were doing okay," Hongseok said, giving him a look from the corner of his eye. It reminded Hyojong of his mother, which was rather unpleasant. Maybe the look and the fact that Hongseok was treating him like a hapless baby were what made him say it.

Or maybe the constant fear and acidic guilt just became too much - it kept rising; it was bound to boil over at some point.

"More like, you feel guilty that Yanan cracked up and you're trying to make yourself feel better because genius Hongseok's genius mind couldn't work out a way to fix Yanan. News flash: you can't fix a problem when that problem is a dead fucking friend!" Hyojong's voice built to a shout, and he didn't care that the whole gym was looking at him and Hongseok was too, turning off the treadmill with a cold rage in his eyes. Without a word, his hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Hyojong's shirt, then dragged him outside and around to the back of the gym, where no one could see them.

"What's your problem, huh?" Hongseok said, eyes flashing. For a second, Hyojong thought he was going to punch him; would've welcomed it. He deserved it; God, he deserved it so much. He couldn't keep doing this to the people who cared about him. Then Hongseok took a deep breath and let go of Hyojong. "We're friends, Jongie, not enemies. Which means that when we try to help you, we don't have an agenda. We just care about you. It hurts all of us to see you like this."

Hyojong was not swayed. His skin was not porcelain, his bones not glass.

"And yeah, I feel awful because Yanan's in a goddamn nuthouse and Changgu called me for help and I didn't know what to do besides put it out of my own hands. Do you know how hard that was for me?" He pushed both his hands through his hair, clutched at the strands. He breathed harshly through his nose, feet restlessly shuffling back and forth. In a whisper, he said, "Do you know how hard it was to deal with the terror I felt when I realized that I couldn't save Yuto and I couldn't save Yanan? When we were younger, Yuto's parents divorced, remember?"

Hyojong nodded, feeling slightly stricken by the oncoming emotional breakdown of the most composed person he'd ever met. When Yuto's parents divorced, he was around twelve or thirteen, and he became closed off and distant, like his face was a stage and all his emotions were bleeding out on the floor behind the curtain, unable to even pretend they were okay.

"He came to me, and I suddenly had the best advice anyone could give him. I didn't know where it came from; I'd never experienced anything like his situation before. He was so upset, but I somehow knew how to comfort him. And I realized that I was good at advice. We helped each other, then. I stayed with him and helped him through the divorce, and he showed me that I wasn't just - just a nothing person, one who wouldn't do much and wouldn't amount to anything. And now, well, I feel like - like -" Hongseok visibly swallowed, struggling to breathe.

"Like a nothing person," Hyojong supplied. So it hadn't been about his porcelain skin. It had been about Hongseok's.

That was a strange thought.

Hongseok was quiet - also strange. Deeply unsettling, in fact. He was staring at the backs of the houses on the street behind the gym, stock still. As if frozen by the turmoil visible behind his eyes. To anyone else, he would look calm. Serene, if not bored. To Hyojong, he looked sad; a kind of sad that was gently sweeping, crumbling, like a sand dune sighing away into nothing.

There it was again. Nothing.

"Hongseok, I'm sorry," Hyojong said. His voice sounded like old leather: stiff and cracked. Dry. His throat even drier.

"Don't apologize."

"No - I'm really sorry."

Hyojong turned and began to walk to his house, leaving Hongseok behind. When Hyojong spared a glance, he was still staring at the houses, as if contemplating the normal lives carrying on behind the walls. Normal, happy lives.

a/n: i thrive off of writing hyojong

basically, we've got unstable hyojong, gym rat!hongseok and a thiccening plot. this chapter also has 1.3k words hot damn
welp, time for me to not update for another month