Archive of Our Own

your hunger hurts you awake. The sin is not

the wanting, it’s the wanting more.

   The sun sets a little after seven o’clock and Jay is drinking a cup of tea on his porch.

 Jungwon notes these things. The time of the clicking clock that Jay leaves outside behind the railing, the way his mug steams with still-warm tea, the way his chair rocks back and forth. Jungwon takes note of every last detail from afar, endeared endlessly in the same way he is distraught. This is a sight so familiar it makes his sore eyes rest even as they remain open. There is no new information to be taken in. Nothing to be thought of.

 The sun sets a little after seven o’clock and Jay’s tea break always ends twenty minutes after he comes outside. The clicking clock has just clicked its way past five minutes. Jungwon waits with bated breath in the shadows. Do I approach him now? Do I wait for his tea time to end?

 The choice is made for him. By some strange design of fate, Jay perks up at the slightest rustle in the forest that embraces a single side of his two-story home. His eyes snap this way and that in alertness, trying to find the enemy.

 When they settle on Jungwon, they soften considerably. No enemy, Jungwon can see in his gaze. Just my little Jungwon.

 It makes his heart ache as the older beckons him with a hand. Another familiar sight— Jay encouraging Jungwon to move closer. Always closer.

 An unfamiliar detail— Jungwon stepping out of the shadows to reveal hands covered in blood. Whose blood, he doesn’t know. His memory stretches only over twelve minutes. That’s how long it takes to pick your body up from just off the path and drag it all the way to safety.

 Jay’s eyes widen again, back to alertness. They still say ‘Just my little Jungwon’ , but now they’re clashing against one another— a separate chiming voice that says: ‘Our little Jungwon is covered in blood.’

 Jungwon supposes both are true and can co-exist. He also supposes that it’d be more helpful to step forward and onto Jay’s porch than standing awkwardly before it like he’s bearing himself to god.

 (He could be, but that’s really a thought for another day. Judgment aside, he just wants to take a shower and a nap.)

 “Jungwon,” Jay finally croaks. It carries a tune alongside the younger boy’s shoes knocking on the wooden steps as he climbs up. Each dull thud matches Jay’s racing heartbeat that Jungwon nearly thinks he can hear with his own two ears. Then again, there’s been a throbbing march of a headache inside his temples since he woke up, so it could very well just be that.

 “Hyung,” he calls back— more a greeting than anything else. “I don’t…”

 There is no real way to say ‘I don’t know what happened to me’ , but Jungwon thinks that Jay is one of the very few people in life who can understand him with minimal words and gestures. It’s his strong suit. It’s also the only reason Jungwon would ever come to him while covered in a mysteriously large amount of blood.

 Jay says nothing, but he does set his mug beside the chair on the wooden slab of the porch. He offers his palms up for inspection, and Jungwon stands awkwardly between his open legs as the elder carefully grips his sides.

 For a moment, he isn’t sure what Jay is planning to do. They’ve been in this position many times before— with Jungwon hovering over him and Jay accepting the lack of space between their shared existence. Jungwon is comfortable with Jay’s touch enough to seek it, although rarely outright, and he knows the elder is no different.

 But of course, all of those times are sans blood. Now, as Jay holds onto his jacket and stares sternly at the blood splatters that run in a pattern up his arms, he couldn’t say with confidence that the elder wasn’t going to do something drastic like get up and run away.

 (He could say it with confidence, though— if he wasn’t holding himself down, he knows he could say that Jay would never run away. They’ve talked about it before. They’ll talk about it again. Jungwon is just a hard denier of the truth, sometimes. Mostly because the truth scares him, like right now.

 Maybe a part of him wants Jay to run away.)

 “Hyung?”

 “Does anything hurt?” Jay asks him. His eyes continue to roam, making it obvious that he’s looking for a source. Jungwon can feel his throat close up. Jay has seen him covered in blood and his first response is to figure out whether or not Jungwon is okay. He’s going to throw up, maybe.

 “No,” he whimpers out. It’s pathetic and small and he doesn’t care. “Hyung, I—”

 “Would you mind if I took your jacket off?”

 Jungwon’s cheeks go crimson. “We’re outside. It’s cold.”

 At that, Jay makes an expression of slow realization. He’s at least courteous enough to turn a similar color in his face and ears. Unlike Jungwon, his blush travels upwards— never downwards. Jungwon can feel his own flush wrapping around his neck like curling fingers.

 “You’re right. Come on, let’s get inside. I’ll start the fire for you, okay?”

 Jungwon, in all his gloss and slickness, can only nod. He allows Jay to take his palm— unmarked skin sliding into the slow-drying coat of blood, cupping him tightly as he pulls him inside. Jungwon’s eyes follow the abandoned mug, purposefully avoidant of the way Jay does not shy away from him even when he’s dirty.

  The fire is set with careful hands and thick pieces of wood that Jungwon knows Jay has chopped himself. The house smells delightfully like cedar and peppermint— the latter being from the candle that remains lit on the coffee table.

 “Your jacket?” Jay offers, hands outstretched once they’re free from the bark. Jungwon takes his time in slipping it off, cringing when he feels the dried patches of liquid hardening the fabric. He manages to tug his arms out after a slight struggle, plopping the weighed-down coat into Jay’s awaiting hands. The elder doesn’t waste a second before draping it over one of the chairs that linger near the entryway of his connected dining room. Jungwon still feels like he’s going to puke, but it becomes more pronounced with the way Jay carefully arranges each sleeve so that the chair’s back is hugging the shoulders of his clothing.

 He walks back to Jungwon in nonchalance, now offering his hands up to inspect the younger boy’s arms. He allows him without thought— mostly because he has no idea what to do with himself, and because he trusts Jay to figure that out for him.

 “No wounds,” Jay notes. “How did you get here?”

 The question hangs awkwardly— here could be anything. Jungwon knows what he’s asking, because he’s Jay and he’s nothing if not mindful of boundaries— but it still makes his stomach twist. The feeling of bile is in his throat by now.

 “Um.”

 Jay glances up, a thumb pressed against the bend of Jungwon’s arm, and the younger’s breath skips a couple hundred syllables before it settles again.

 “It’s okay,” Jay’s words shake on the exhale. Maybe ‘okay’ isn’t the word either of them have in mind. “You know I could keep a secret, right? No matter how deep.”

 The thing is— Jungwon does know. Jay is the sort of friend who could find Jungwon guilty of a murder and only ask him where to bury the body. He’s an endless sort of pit like that— a trench without a floor. Jungwon’s envious of how much he can hold inside of himself, if not a bit irked by the thought that Jay would choose him over justice.

 “I walked,” he says in lieu of anything else. “For twelve minutes. I don’t know. I woke up on the side of the road.”

 “On the—” Jay sucks in a breath, lungs aching in his chest. His hand slides further up Jungwon’s arm to land on his cheek, eyes inspecting his face with something like remorse. “Were you walking alone? This late at night?”

 “The sun hadn’t set after I left…” Jungwon pinches his bottom lip between his teeth. He can’t truly say that with any certainty, and in a way, it kills him. He doesn’t even remember leaving his house. He doesn’t remember much of anything. “I don’t think the sun had set yet, at least.”

 “It’s still not safe,” Jay frowns, hand cupping Jungwon’s cheek even more. Like he was trying to hold the entirety of his confused expression in the center of his palm. “You know that. You’ve always— I told you not to do that. What if someone were to hurt you?”

 The ‘look at you now’ remains unsaid. Jungwon lets out a humorless snort.

 “I’m pretty sure this blood isn’t mine,” he says— and it’s supposed to be a half-joke, but when he whispers it out and his voice cracks, it feels a lot more like a terrified confession than anything else. His eyes follow suit, brimming with tears. “I don’t know— Hyung—”

 Jay is quick to hush him, drawing him in for a hug and allowing Jungwon to start dissolving in the crook of his neck. He pets the boy’s dark hair with practiced fingers— a dozen nights and a thousand instances of this exact motion. Jungwon wishes it were any other time. Any other moment, he would spend it red-cheeked and grateful that Jay could read his need for contact without words. Now, even if it’s still to soothe him, Jungwon feels undeserving.

 The elder boy only hums when he sobs, trying to coax him into a state of calm. Little whispers of ‘it’s okay’ and ‘Hyung is right here’ filter through Jungwon’s ears.

 The steady thump is still loud, but in a way, it’s calming. Combined with the vibrations from Jay’s low, loving tone, he feels safe here.

  It takes an overwhelming amount of convincing before Jay allows Jungwon to retire to the bathroom for a much-needed shower. The younger is quick with it— avoids his face in the mirror and the way crimson pools at his feet before sinking down the drain. The shower is clinical and detached; by the time Jungwon gets out, his stomach is grumbling and his chest is tight.

 He enters the kitchen to find Jay at the stove, steadily stirring a pot full of creamy soup.

 “I thought you might be hungry,” he says when Jungwon settles at the dinner table. “I didn’t want to make anything heavy, but I thought something like soup might be calming; is that okay?”

 Jungwon settles his chin onto his crossed arms, eyes as glossy as they’ve been all night, ever since Jay let him into his home. No questions, no demands— he’d opened his doors and his arms and let Jungwon slink right in.

 Nausea continues to build like a rising tide, but Jungwon swallows it down in favor of humming his affirmation. It’s more than okay, he wants to say. His mouth doesn’t corroborate more of what lies in his chest than the surface level gratitude, but he hopes Jay will believe in it nonetheless.

 “Good.” He turns around to set his palms on the counter beside the stovetop, leaning back. “How’re you feeling?”

 Truthfully, Jungwon doesn’t know. His throat feels more like a sunken tunnel than it does a throat, and his lungs have only followed the pattern of feeling like they’ve collapsed. He isn’t sad, or anxious— but he does feel incredibly nauseous and tired. He could probably sleep for at least ten hours if he were to lie down now.

 “Sick,” is what he settles on. Jay nods before crossing his arms before his chest. He looks at Jungwon like he’s something worth studying— like he’ll find anything at all if he does. It almost makes the smaller boy want to shy away.

 He doesn’t. Instead, he lets Jay come closer— sitting in the seat beside him, a palm gently tracing the shell of his ear before it dips down his jaw. It continues to trace his figure until he shivers— and then it slithers down the slope of his neck and rests just before the dip of his shoulder.

 “Did you know you have a bite here?”

 Jungwon tenses. “What?”

 “On your neck,” Jay says, thumbing something that feels awfully sensitive. Jungwon shivers harder, going light-headed. Jay moves his finger away and the swaying world stills. “At the base, there’s— they almost look like…teeth marks. Were you attacked by an animal?”

 “I-I don’t know,” he croaks out. “I don’t remember.”

 “Maybe I should take you to the hospital in the morning. It’s a little ways in town, but I don’t mind the dri—”

 For some reason, that makes Jungwon lunge. He clings to the hand on his neck with a force that feels unnatural to him; if he were in his right mind, he would never touch Jay like this. Never even try to.

 When he glances at Jay, the elder looks stunned. Jungwon can feel the wildness in his gaze when he murmurs: “Don’t do that. It’s fine.”

 A long bout of silence and Jay’s expression are enough to make Jungwon feel sheepish. As his self-awareness settles back in, he lets the elder boy’s hand go. The flush of his skin expands onto the area where Jay’s fingers had been.

 “...Okay,” Jay agrees. His voice doesn’t sound anything other than calm. Jungwon still wants to throw up. “But I’ll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get infected. It looks like a rabid dog bite.”

 Jungwon closes his eyes and leans his chin back onto his crossed arms. He doesn’t want to know what Jay is talking about. He doesn’t want to look— doesn’t want to see.

 It’d kill him, he thinks. If he were to get a glance at his own desperate face and the evidence of something that still remains so intangible, it’d definitely kill him.

  The soup goes down smoothly and sweetly. It tastes like home. Like the warm embrace Jungwon’s been waiting for ever since he found his feet carrying him all the way here. He asks for seconds and Jay obliges with the warmest smile he’s ever seen. Food is something special to Jay, Jungwon knows. It’s why he treasures their time spent eating together all the more.

 After the second bowl is scooped clean, Jungwon leans back and dabs at his mouth with the napkin Jay offers. He only goes the slightest bit red in the face when he realizes that there’s glistening droplets still clinging to the edges of his lips.

 The soup sits in his stomach like a blanket for a whole of two minutes before it comes surging right back up.

 It catches them both off guard— one moment he’s smiling with the napkin covering the length of his mouth, listening to Jay ramble on— and the next he is bent over the sink, throwing everything back up.

 His body seizes. The constriction in his chest pulls itself taut, like a rope threatening to snap. Each dry heave feels like the inner lining of his stomach is scraping itself bare. He almost passes out, if not for Jay’s warm hands settling over his abdomen and keeping his body upright.

 By the end of his uncontrollable gagging, Jungwon slumps against the strong body behind him and mumbles about how tired he is. 

 “You need rest,” Jay says, voice soft and sorrowful. It sounds to Jungwon like he’s talking to a stray cat— and he supposes, with the way he showed up today, it wouldn’t be far off to say he was one. “You’ve had a long day. Let’s get you into bed.”

 Jay brushes his bangs out of his face and leaves a chaste kiss on his heated forehead, trying to coax him into a position that is easy to carry to the bedroom. Jungwon sniffles against his shoulder, hoisted up onto his back and clinging around his neck.

 “Hyung,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t have the strength to say anything else. Jay seems to understand even without words. As they climb up the stairs to the bedroom, his face turns to the side and he nuzzles Jungwon’s damp cheek with his sharp nose. He hadn’t even noticed when he started crying.

 It’s hard to stay awake the entire time. By the time they get into the bedroom, Jungwon’s view of the world is in a daze: Jay’s hands are blurred sources of warmth, cupping Jungwon’s shivering form and soothing it. A blanket is placed over his body before a solid weight dips onto the mattress, Jay sliding in beside him. Jungwon only feels comfortable enough to fall asleep because Jay wraps him into a tight embrace, keeping his empty stomach and his swollen throat close. He wipes the tears off of his face in a slow, rhythmic motion, lulling him closer to nothingness.

 As he drifts off, Jungwon presses his ear right over where Jay’s heartbeat is the loudest. It’s the only thing that reminds him he is alive.

  “Hyung.”

 “Hm?”

 “Hyung, I’m hungry.”

 Jay grumbles in his sleep, eyes slowly blinking open to find Jungwon already waiting for him. He smiles lazily, brushing Jungwon’s bangs back again before dropping another butterfly kiss onto his skin.

 “How long were you out?” Jay asks, voice dragging and stumbling with the weight of sleep. Jungwon giggles without any force.

 “A few hours. I feel better, but I’m hungry.”

 What Jungwon doesn’t voice is how the hunger makes his intestines twist. When he says he’s hungry, he means it with his entire body— his stomach is hungry, but so is his chest and his head. His mouth is desperate to gnaw on something. He’d only woken up from his hunger because he’d been softly nibbling on his own hand in his sleep.

 Jay watches him carefully, the room quiet aside from the occasional owl cooing outside the window.

 “Hyung?”

 Knocked from his stupor, Jay’s delicate expression smooths out again. He’s all lazy lines and half-opened eyes when he asks: “What do you want to eat?”

 “I don’t know,” Jungwon admits. This type of hunger is one he’s never felt before. He doesn’t remember if he ate the day before at all, and he’d puked up everything else he had— but it doesn’t feel comforting enough to chalk up the desperate hunger to how long it’s been since his last meal. For some reason the hunger settles into his bones deeper, like it’s intertwined with the marrow. It almost makes him sick on its own. “Whatever sounds good?”

 Jay doesn’t seem deterred by the vague answer. When he finally lifts himself into a seated position, he smooths his own dark hair down gently, contemplating in the now-cozy silence that falls over them. “We’ll get down and check, then? See what makes your stomach grumble?”

 Jungwon nods, hair bouncing. One of his favorite things about Jay is this: The slowness to rage. Anger and annoyance were little things— he has a bad habit of setting off small sparks in his day-to-day, easily agitated. It doesn’t take much to rile him up and get him hotheaded.

 But rage is a different thing. Jungwon sits in his room, sharing half his bed and waking him up at absurd hours to share half of his food, too— and he only nods his assent. He is gentle, and endlessly patient. When it comes to the things that really matter— when it comes to Jungwon— Jay’s anger and annoyance are nowhere to be found. His rage is a feeling only felt by its absence.

 Jungwon wishes he could explain his gratitude for this night with his own two hands and lips, but he can’t. He’s diligent, but not particularly well-versed. It’s hard to explain the way he’s feeling most of the time.

 He reaches over and squeezes Jay’s free palm. The elder squeezes back, and Jungwon knows that he knows. As difficult as it is to explain, Jay seems to understand just fine.

  When they get down into the kitchen, all bare feet padding against cold wooden floors— Jungwon smells something delicious permeating through the still air.

 “Hyung,” he sniffs like a dog, cheeks rosy when the elder laughs. “Something smells so good.”

 “Really? Maybe it’s something I left in the fridge—”

 Jungwon doesn’t wait for a second before finding his hand on the refrigerator’s handle. He’d feel more embarrassment if he wasn’t so curious about the source of the smell, but it overtakes his mind and tunnels his vision. He can barely comprehend how something can smell so good, let alone how he hadn’t smelled it earlier.

 When he tears the fridge open, the scent hits his nose with a violence that can only be rivaled by his roaring hunger. He feels like he’s going crazy with it, hands shaking as he tries to carefully push Jay’s meticulously sorted ingredients aside.

 The smell is coming from a slab of raw meat. Jungwon frowns.

 “It’s—”

 “Oh,” Jay hums when he notices Jungwon’s stillness. “What’s wrong? Is it the meat? It’s not putrid by now, is it?” He sounds more like he’s mumbling to himself than to the younger boy when he comes closer, but for some reason the gentle whisper rings loudly in Jungwon’s sensitive ears. “Maybe I should toss it out…”

 “No!” Jungwon is quick to lean forward and drag the wrapped meat out with his own two hands, borderline throwing it onto the dinner table. “Hyung, this is what smells good.”

 Jay doesn’t look disgusted. More so, he looks confused. As he leans with Jungwon over the table, inspecting the meat, his face wrinkles up.

 “It hasn’t gone bad, but it has no smell. What are you…”

 “It smells good to me,” the younger sniffs again. “Like— I don’t know. Just…good.”

 “Are you sure?” At his nod, Jay hums softly. “I can cook it, if you want. Maybe we can have steak.”

 “At this time of night?”

 “It’s practically morning anyway,” he snorts. “How’s about a late dinner and early breakfast in one?”

 Jungwon pouts. Eating so heavily after he threw up something as gentle as soup doesn’t seem like a good idea— but then again, neither does not eating at all.

 Obviously it smells good for a reason. He decides to give it a shot, nodding slightly.

 It irks him that when Jay pulls the meat away, Jungwon’s heart aches.

  “It’s starting to smell so good,” Jay sings as the meat cooks. Oddly enough, that particular smell has started to fade away for Jungwon— the moment the blood began to evaporate and the pink flesh started to darken, his nose had twitched in loss. His appetite is still as ravenous as it was before, but he no longer feels all-consumed by it.

 He hums distractedly. The meat does still smell good— anyone with a working nose could probably make out that Jay is nothing short of heaven-sent in the kitchen— but it’s not the same as before. It doesn’t make Jungwon want to shove his fingers into the pinkness. It doesn’t make him want to lean over the slab like a slobbering dog, bearing his teeth to protect it.

 By the time Jay places it in front of him, Jungwon feels the telltale dread of boredom. Disinterest. Jay has just set down a finely-made dish that’s the direct result of endless love pouring out, and all Jungwon can think is that he doesn’t want to eat this. It smells good, but that sentiment of good is practically nothing in comparison to the way his mouth had twitched for the scent that lingers in the back of his skull.

 He eats the steak anyway.

 He throws it right back up.

 In Jay’s bedroom, with the elder boy’s hand tracing careful shapes over the expanse of his back, Jungwon realizes that he can no longer ignore the fear gnawing on the back of his brain: Something is wrong with him, and he’s unsure of how much longer he can keep running from it.

  “I should probably go home,” Jungwon says when they wake up. It’s late afternoon, their bodies warmed up now by the sunlight that streams through Jay’s sheer curtain. Jungwon thinks he looks prettiest like this; Jay is naturally sunkissed, always has been in all the years they’ve known each other— but there’s something different about him in the sun. It’s like he’s come home.

 “You don’t have to go,” Jay mutters. His eyes are a unique color in the golden light, little flecks of honey scattered about here and there. It suits you, Jungwon wants to say. Everything about the day suits you. He doesn’t say anything at all. “You can stay here, at least for a little while. I mean, we don’t even know what happened yesterday; I still need to monitor that bite.”

 “I feel fine,” he tries to break away, but the elder still holds onto him. “The bite is probably just— it might’ve just been a dog, like you said.”

 “A rabid dog, Jungwon. We don’t know what it could’ve had—”

  “Hyung,” Jungwon stresses. “Please. I’m fine, okay? Don’t you trust me?”

 It’s a lowly move, and Jungwon knows it. He knows by the way Jay’s face falls that the elder knows it, too. It’s hard though, to have avoided it forever— as much as Jay’s endless pit of attentiveness is perfect for throwing the darkest secrets down, Jungwon’s not going to let himself fall in with it. He’d never stop falling if he did.

 “Of course I trust you,” Jay says, more a whisper than anything. “But you can’t even hold your food down. I don’t want to send you home on an empty stomach.”

 Food is a form of love for Jay, and Jungwon would be a fool to try and ignore that truth as it stares him in the face now. Jay says ‘I don’t want to send you home on an empty stomach’ and Jungwon can hear exactly what he means. The way his fingers flex along the small of his back, the way those sharp eyes round themselves out for him— the way even Jay’s rough tone finds a way to be smooth when it’s spoken for his ears. He knows it, without words. Food is a form of love, and Jay would rather die than let Jungwon be hungry for it.

 (And that’s— that makes Jungwon’s stomach hurt. They’ve known each other for too long now, for this sort of thing to be spoken about. They’ve grown into each other so tightly that mentioning one without mentioning the other is like a sin. For Jay to ever think that Jungwon would have to starve while he’s in his life, cooking his food, keeping his doors open— it makes Jungwon want to cry, for some strange reason he can’t name. Jay is love in its rawest form, and everything he does is merely an echo of that. Love in his hands and his eyes and his steps. Love in his smile and the way he says Jungwon’s name. Love in the way he calls Jungwon his ‘best friend.’

 They’ve known each other for too long now, for this sort of thing to be broken open.)

 “Let’s have some fruit,” Jungwon settles on. It’s apparent that Jay will never give up when it comes to this, and it’s not like the younger boy will do anything to make him. Jay has his ways and they work— Jungwon wouldn’t be his closest thing to a constant if he couldn’t respect that. “We’ll have some fruit and tea on your porch before you send me home, deal?”

 Jay looks conflicted, but in the end, he settles for a single, rigid nod.

 “Come on,” Jungwon coaxes him up— a ghost of mere hours prior, when the sun was still mostly coy. “Let’s go get some fruit, Hyung. Your porch looks lonely with that other chair always empty.”

 Jay at least has enough energy to laugh. They both know the chair had been left mostly empty because of Jungwon’s busy schedule. These days, his job has become far more demanding— he spends days on end cooped up in his apartment, papers scrawled across his floor as he attempts to scrape together results worth showing to his bosses. He’s barely seen his street, let alone made it far enough to end up on Jay’s.

 (Of course, that’s with his eyes half-closed, pretending not to see the silhouette still standing in the room. The forest, the bite, and the fact that Jungwon’s stomach is still dangerously empty.)

 “Yeah, yeah,” Jay shoos him away, stretching his long arms over his head as he makes his way to the door. Jungwon follows him out into the hall, eyes tracing over the ripple of his muscles as they pull themselves taut and snap back into place.

 It’s odd— the way the movement feels so surreal to Jungwon is odd. He’s seen Jay stretch like this a thousand times; has seen him rise from a nap enough to know the exact way he crosses his arm over his chest and hooks it with the other, trying to loosen up his body so he can move with the fluidity that naturally lingers around his name. Jungwon knows all of that.

 But seeing it now, it’s like his eyes are able to trace every single wrinkle in the skin. Every push and pull is easy to spot, easy to trace— easy for Jungwon to get lost in. Jay is naturally golden and freckled all over, and Jungwon can’t help but think he was designed to be distracting.

 “—Watermelon is great for hydration too, so I see no issue with…Jungwon-ah? You alright?”

 “Hm?”

 “You looked spaced out for a minute,” he frowns. “Are you feeling okay?”

 Jungwon nibbles on his bottom lip, teeth pressing too hard— he feels the exact moment his teeth push past the point of no return, slicing the plush skin open. It makes him yelp.

 As soon as the sound manages to escape his mouth, three things happen at once:

 Jay lunges forward.

 Jungwon lunges back.

 Somewhere in the middle, Jay’s hand is roughly cupping his jaw and his thumb accidentally slips into his mouth.

 There’s a fourth thing that Jungwon notices in the silence that stuns the both of them: Jay’s skin tastes like caramel. Jay tastes like all sweets combined, but not overly so. He also tastes like fruit, and tea, and everything else that probably has a spot in his kitchen. Jungwon’s tongue circles the digit while Jay is still frozen stiff— it’s only when his teeth graze his nail that the elder snaps back into action.

 He presses up against Jungwon’s lip, tugging it up.

 And then, of all things, he gasps.

 “Hyung?” Jungwon tries, but it’s wet and slippery with the way his mouth is being held open. It sounds more like a muffled gurgle than it does an actual word.

 Jay’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates, and Jungwon feels the vibrations through his fingers when he mumbles a very quiet— “Won. Your teeth. ”

 “M’ teeth?”

 “They’re…” Jay lets go, hands darting to Jungwon’s shoulders. Without having time to process, the younger is spun around and forced to walk towards the direction of the downstairs bathroom. He’s dizzy with the directions by the time he reaches the door, his steps tottering towards the mirror.

 In front of it, Jay tugs his upper lip so high it nearly touches his nose. “Won-ah. Look.”

 Disoriented, Jungwon’s eyes dart to a dozen things before they even make it over his own face. He stares at Jay first— makes note of the way his blush also hugs the tips of his crooked fingers the way it does his ears. It’s almost funny enough to make him laugh, but then his eyes are protruding the same way the veins in the older boy’s arms are. He follows his sturdy wrists up to his flexed arms, and then lets his eyes soak in the sight of his chiseled chin hanging over his shoulder. Tall, gorgeous nose; pretty pronounced lips with a deep divot in the center that parts them like the ocean. For a few long and languid moments, all Jungwon can bring himself to do is admire the warmth of Jay’s presence and the way it hugs him.

 And then his eyes glance over his own pale face, and he sees it.

 All of his teeth have sharpened out. Miniature razors dragging themselves along thin slabs of ivory— each tooth a dagger, with his canines elongated past their natural point.

 They’re the teeth of a predator. Of a rabid animal. When he takes it all in, his eyes grow to match the size of the elder still standing behind him. It’s only then that Jay lets his lip drop, but by then it doesn’t matter; Jungwon is darting forward himself, hanging over the sink and tugging his mouth open by the corners with both hands. He closes it, opens it again, and repeats.

 Over and over and over. Those teeth are still there. Over and over and over. They don’t go away.

 “Jungwon.” Jay’s face in the mirror is equal parts beautiful and haunting. “I don’t think you were bitten by a dog.”

  Jungwon remembers meeting Jay during the second semester of Freshman year. He’d transferred from his old hometown to live full-time with his grandmother after spending multiple Summers under her care.

 Jay— then a Junior who’d been nothing but friendly to Jungwon— had invited him out to hang out in the woods by his house.

 “It’s nothing dangerous, I promise.” He’d said. “I know there’s this stereotype— that upperclassmen invite new, younger students out to places to pull pranks or heckle them— but this really isn’t that, I swear!”

 Jungwon had found it almost endearing how much Jay was willing to try and convince him. The warmth had sat in his stomach awkwardly— on one hand, Jay’s open sincerity resembled the imaginary person Jungwon had spent the majority of his young life chasing. A person he couldn’t find in the silhouettes of his own parents, nor his sister. A person only his grandmother had taught him to be— one that required years of wisdom for her to become on her own. Jay felt like that even through a lopsided smile and a kind gesture. On the other hand—

 “If you’re not going to drag me out into the forest to mess with me, then why are you taking me?”

 That was the first time Jungwon had ever seen Jay’s flush— the first and last time he’d had to memorize the fact that it travels up instead of down.

 “I just want to show you the place where I go to relax,” he shrugs. “I know it might sound a bit strange, or stupid— but when I met you, I thought you might be someone who’d appreciate it like I do. The natural silence of the world. You know, where it’s quiet but not—”

 “So quiet it scares you?”

 “Yeah,” Jay breathes. It sounds like he’s winded. “You’d get it, I think.”

 (It takes years for Jungwon to look back with clear eyes. It takes years for Jungwon to realize that Jay’s outstretched invitation is an outstretched hand— that his implications that Jungwon understands the forest extends to himself. To everything.)

 “Okay,” he says, mouth wobbling in an attempt to hide an amused grin. Jay’s fumbling is his strength, in a way. Jungwon doesn’t know it then, but he’ll think the same thing even years later, when Jay is fully graceful and yet still has moments of bizarreness. “I’ll go hang out with you in the woods, then. Sure.”

 “You— You mean that? You’ll come with me?”

 “Why wouldn’t I? You already said you’re not going to pull anything funny, and I trust you.”

 Looking back, Jungwon thinks it might’ve been that exact moment where Jay’s expression had truly softened. The words ‘I trust you’ had left his mouth and could never be taken back.

 It doesn’t require any reminiscing for Jungwon to know he would never take it back, anyway. Once it was said, it was true— the sort of truth that never dies. The sort of truth that’s even more long lasting than its memory.

  “You wanna know something?” Jay asks him in the glade, their eyes tracing over the hole in the silhouette of the forest. Here, nothing obstructed their view of the stars. The night sky is a pocket— a little rip in the fabric of mother nature, which had created a picture frame just for them out of trees far taller than anything they could ever dream of.

 Jungwon hums. “Sure, what is it?”

 True to his honesty, Jay had taken Jungwon here solely to enjoy the respite. Now, even as the dark falls, Jungwon feels nothing but safe. The owls gently croon and the trees rustle with a breeze that catches on Jungwon’s hair and Jay’s necktie. I should go home soon, Jungwon thinks. It’s quickly overrun by a stream of other things— Jay’s freckles are accompanied by a scar on the bridge of his nose. Jay’s fingers are crooked. Jay’s smile is split in the center by a divot.

 Jungwon hums. I can stay a while.

 “When I was little, my mother told me a story about these woods.” Jay flops onto his back, the grass cushioning him like he’s always belonged there. “There are creatures who roam in the darkness, looking for prey.”

 Jungwon swallows. Oh, maybe not.

 “Why are you—”

 “I’m not telling you to scare you!” Jay shoots up, belated realization painting him a ridiculous shade of crimson that burns even in the oncoming moonlight. “I didn’t— I just thought of it. I used to be scared of the forest when I was a kid because of it. I thought the stories held weight, but I’ve accidentally fallen asleep in this very spot enough times to know that none of that stuff is true.”

 Jungwon snorts. “You fell asleep in the woods?”

 “Hey,” Jay says, voice soft and shy. Jungwon thinks it’s the youngest he’s ever looked. “Junior year is tiring, alright? It’s not voluntary.”

 When he says it like that, Jungwon can practically see the blur of dark under-eye circles come into the limelight, just as purple and blue as the rest of the forest. He nods in sympathy and lets himself fall back onto the grass beside the elder boy.

 “Tell me about these creatures who roam the darkness.” He pats the ground beside him until Jay settles once more. “What sort of stories did she tell you?”

 “Mostly old cautionary tales,” he says. “It might’ve just been to persuade me to come home before dark. My parents have always had a thing with indirect discipline— insinuating to do this, not that. I guess they sometimes had a hard time telling me outright if they didn’t think I’d totally follow it, so they’d find a way to make sure I did. The tales were just one of those ways.”

 “Tell me one of the stories she told you.”

 “Right now?” When Jungwon glances to the side, Jay is already looking at him. Two seconds of silence are followed by a hearty laugh. “Are you crazy? What if you get scared?”

 “Why would I be scared? You’re here with me.”

 Jay’s smile drops into a small ‘o’ and the blush coloring his ears darkens. Jungwon would almost tease him for being so easily flustered if it weren’t for the fact that his words registered in his own ears only moments later.

 “I— I meant as in…all I have to do is outrun you, if something were to happen. They’ll get to you before me.”

 Jay’s smile looks more like a pained grimace, and this time Jungwon is the one left laughing. The elder shushes him with a half-hearted nudge to his thigh.

 “I don’t know that there’s much to tell,” Jay says. Owls croon, the breeze rustles the leaves of the trees— and for some reason, all Jungwon can truly focus on is Jay’s gentle voice. “They’re these blood-thirsty monsters. They find lonely joggers or night time walkers and when they’re alone and helpless, they maul them, I guess. Rip open their stomachs and eat their large intestine. Those are just the sort of things I’ve heard.”

 Jungwon shudders. “That’s it? Nothing else?”

 “I’m pretty sure my mom was making everything up, so no.” He sits back up, stretching his arms overhead. “We should probably start heading back.”

 “Really? Right now?”

 Jay gives him a stern look. “I told you I didn’t want to make you scared.”

 “I’m not scared,” Jungwon assures him, smiling softly. He thinks it’d hurt Jay more than it would him to go on thinking he might be a bit scared. “That was so vague and you practically said nothing.”

 “I told you, there isn’t much more to say. They find lonely people in the dark, they eat them. Not a lot to think about otherwise.”

 “I guess.” Jungwon takes Jay’s hand when it’s offered to him, rising to his feet and patting the grass stains away from his uniform slacks. “Your mom couldn’t have just told you about random strangers or the general dangers of going outside in the dark alone? Not even something like Poison Ivy? She really decided to go with inside-eating monsters?”

 “Well, it worked.” Jay grins.

 “Not enough, considering you brought me here.” Jungwon grins right back.

 As they walk back to the neighborhood, Jungwon swears he hears a rustling in the trees that goes against the rhythm of the breeze— he almost swears he feels a chill run along the length of his spine, too.

 It doesn’t matter, though. Jay is beside him and he’s smiling widely about whatever’s on his mind. Jungwon knows there’s no reason to be afraid.

  The clock is ticking on the wall and Jungwon is staring at the window above the sink in the kitchen with tired eyes. Sunlight is streaming in like it does from every other glass pane in Jay’s house— a direct consequence of the sheer curtains the elder boy had hung around to brighten the place up when it became his.

 Despite this, it feels like it’s nothing but night. Darkness crowds the room like it belongs there, parading itself proudly and with little remorse for the lack of space it leaves in Jungwon’s blurred vision.

 Jay places a cup of tea and a plate of cubed watermelon chunks in front of him.

 “I prepared something light,” Jay says softly. “The tea— I once read somewhere that melons pair well with it. It’s good for you.”

 Jungwon smiles as best he can. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but he digs one of the offered forks into a chunk of red and pops it between his teeth.

 It’s refreshing. It makes him nauseous. It tastes good. It tastes rotten. He places the fork back down and swallows an oncoming gag— exhaustion bleeds into the fabric of his bones, and the night coats them in tender, aching muscle. His body feels like it’s composed of lesser things; things that kill, things that throb.

 His mouth opens, but the only thing that comes out is a choked gargle. The singular piece of watermelon is already making its way up his throat, and if he’s not careful, it’ll end up on the table with the rest of the fruit.

 Jay guides him to the sink. He spits, he swallows the remaining saliva, he collapses into the chest behind him.

 Jay clutches his forearms and Jungwon can hear the moment he swallows.

 “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  The drive into town is forty-five minutes long. The drive to the hospital in town is an additional ten.

 Somewhere between minutes thirty and forty, Jungwon starts reaching for the handle of his door. Jay’s locked the car— of course he has, he’s the safest person Jungwon knows— but the passenger seat’s lock is right there. They’re on the longest, emptiest road Jungwon’s ever seen, and something in the back of his mind tells him he needs to pry the door open and throw his body right out onto it.

 It’s driving him insane. Between minutes thirty-five and forty, Jay notices his hand shaking on the handle. He also notices the other one on the bottom of his seatbelt.

 Jay, for all of his safety, slows to pull over.

 “Feeling sick?” He asks, too normal for the look Jungwon can feel himself giving him. “Do you want some fresh air? Do you need to throw up again?”

 Jungwon feels his eyes dilate, and it’s the strangest thing he’s ever experienced. When he blinks, it’s like the moon itself is embedded in his eye— it’s moving through phases. First quarter. He’s clicking the belt off. Waxing. He’s pushing the car door open. Full.

 There’s the smell of something in the forest lining the road, and Jungwon doesn’t think before following it.

 If Jungwon pretends hard enough, they’re in high school again and Jay is following him as he tries to make sense of the provisional map in his hands. It had a ring-of-saturn shaped stain from a soda can on the bottom left corner. Jungwon thinks it might’ve been a napkin, looking back. Jay had drawn on it with a permanent marker and crude, sloppy handwriting. The only point was to get to the glade.

 The smell is the glade. Jungwon’s nose is the map. Jay is still Jay. If he closes his eyes and casts shadows of so-called animals on the wall now, he can call this the same thing it was before. The thing it was supposed to be.

 Instead, Jungwon is faced with the shape of a deer, hind leg broken and bleeding. This is the clearing, he thinks. This is it.

 He takes one look back at Jay, and for a moment, time is nothing. This could be years in the future or the past and still concurrently be the present. It’s a prophecy, it’s a memory— it’s a dream, for all he knows. The only thing that exists is the silent question in the air: Can I do this?

 Jay takes neither a step forward nor a step back.  When it comes to him, sometimes the admittance is delivered through the dismissal— Jay’s lack of an answer is the answer itself, and Jungwon knows that he knows it, too.

 The deer’s eyes are already blinking slowly. It doesn’t look terrified as Jungwon approaches— rather calm, when his palm grazes its side. He sinks to his knees, bowing before it, waiting for its gentle gaze to seal itself away for good.

 The deer closes its eyes and lays its head on the grass. Jungwon’s fingers dig deeper, and it does not struggle.

 In the silence, between the trees, Jungwon tears through the muscle of an overwhelming truth. He sinks his teeth into the meat of it— into fear, delight, and ecstasy. Realization stains his clothing and his chin when he’s done.

 The rawness of reality goes down his throat easier than any lie. For once, it doesn’t come back up.

  It strikes Jungwon when Jay carries him back to the car in his arms: Things should not be this way.

 It’s not that life is unfair. Life would be so, anyway; even if nothing had happened to him, it’d still have its telltale quality of being unrefined and unbalanced. That’s a very simple thing to understand about life, and Jungwon would rather be realistic than get hurt.

 It’s more so the fact that Jay is here in it. The fact that Jay is cleaning up the blood and brushing Jungwon’s sharp teeth with care. The fact that some of Jungwon’s bloodstained clothes go in the washing machine and what he deems unsalvageable goes in the garbage can. The fact that Jay still makes dinner and makes Jungwon a portion, however small.

  Things should not be this way, Jungwon thinks. Jay is eating his dinner in silence, slurping up the broth of a stew. Jungwon is leaning over his own bowl, lips quivering. Things should not be this way.

 He lets out the first sob when Jay’s spoon clinks against his bowl, signaling a meal well-finished. The second follows immediately— and the third, fourth, fifth. It’s a dam that breaks and Jungwon is overflowing. Jay had so carefully scooped his face up earlier when he held it low, wiping away the dried flakes of red on his cheek with a warm wet towel. Jay had done that. Jay had seen him and still done that.

  Things should not be this way.

 Jay comes around the table, sinking onto his knees, and cups Jungwon’s cheeks. He’s shushing him gently, lips downturned. In the entirety of the time between the drive back and the cleanup process, not once had Jay frowned at him in anything but concern or concentration.

 Jungwon sobs into his hold, and Jay just keeps holding him.

 “It’s okay,” Jay says when the hushing doesn’t work. “It’s okay, Jungwon-ah.”

 Jungwon shakes his head like a man possessed— and he supposes he is, considering the things he’s done today alone. In the sunlight, between the trees, witnessed by everything that calls itself raw and wild. The thought alone makes him cry harder, unable to speak.

 “Jungwon,” Jay calls softly. “Jungwon, look at me. Come on, darling. Please look at me. Please?”

 Jungwon caught a glimpse of his own eyes in the mirror earlier, when he’d been sat down on the counter in the bathroom and held gently to be cleansed. His pupils had blown to the size of nearly his entire eye— small rings of brown accompanied by small rings of white, but for the most part his eyes were a pure and desolate black. They were horrid. Like nothingness swallowing whatever is.

 Jay doesn’t seem to think so. He coaxes Jungwon more, with eager eyes of his own— “Come on. For me, honey? You’ll do that for me? Just a little glance, hm?”

 Jungwon does glance at him. It’s for a second that stretches into more, overlapping like tripped up words. When Jay’s eyes meet his, Jungwon watches relief stretch across his frown, tugging it upwards the slightest bit.

 “There we go,” he says. And as if Jungwon needed any more prompting to break down into his arms, he tacks on: “There are those pretty eyes I know and love.”

 Jungwon cries like he’s dying. For a moment, he thinks he might be. He’s dying and this is the purgatory, the in-between, the sins absolved before the saint’s arrival. Maybe he’s paying dues in the form of tears and raw carcasses of gentle creatures and Jay’s endless kindness dragging him closer to the point of insanity. Maybe there’s a point to all of this.

 But if there is one, Jungwon can’t find it. He cries like he lacks a purpose beyond crying, because he does. He cries like he’s the one who’s been eaten alive, because it feels like he has been. He cries into Jay because, despite all of that, the elder still tries to make him feel loved. He looks into eyes that he doesn’t recognize and calls them lovely and familiar. Jungwon would call him a liar if he didn’t speak every word like it was the gospel.

 “There we go,” Jay repeats. “Let it all out on Hyung. It’s okay, honey. Hyung is here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Things should not be this way. Jungwon cries harder, his lungs constricting. He can’t breathe. No— in the back of his mind, he’s aware he’s choking himself on purpose. He took a deep inhale and is holding it there. He’s trying to stop. He doesn’t want to breathe.

 Jay taps the space between his scapulas like he’s reminding Jungwon of his own lungs. “Breathe, darling. Let it out. You need to breathe.”

 Jay’s voice isn’t filled with any certain emotion, and for a moment, it’s the only indication that he’s feeling anything at all. When Jay is overwhelmed— can’t find something to grab onto in the storm— he goes still. He doesn’t fight against the waves, he lets them carry him. Right now, this must be scaring him, Jungwon thinks. It’s scaring him too, but he’s here.

 Jungwon breathes. He breathes, and the resulting sound is something like a wail and a gasp of Jay’s name. In response, the elder hugs him closely, nuzzling into his cheek, softly letting out ‘yes, yes, yes’ like it’s the only word he knows.

  Things should not be this way, Jungwon tries to mumble.

 Jay nuzzles into his cheek harder. “I know, darling. But this is how it is.”

  Jungwon sends an e-mail to his boss in the morning, explaining that he had gone on a trip somewhere remote and fractured a good portion of his bones in a hiking accident. He didn’t attach any images— calls it ‘too gruesome of an event to relive more than once’ in the message— and sends it off with a promise to return when the healing process was majorly over. For accuracy purposes, he had typed, I can’t confidently say when that will be. My estimate is a little over five months, but an estimate is only that.

 His boss’ reply is clipped and emotionless. A simple agreement. Jungwon works remotely, and on a free schedule— perks of an unconventional career path. While he admits that he’s an exceptional employee, he also admits that his position is very capricious in nature. Maybe it’s a relief knowing they can take this newfound opportunity to replace him with something more resolute, however temporary that steadiness would be.

 He snaps his laptop closed and watches Jay lug the rest of his belongings into the bedroom. A duffel bag and a rolling suitcase. They’d both been packed haphazardly in the middle of the night, when Jay had managed to convince him in his half-conscious state to drive back to the younger boy’s apartment and gather some things so he could stay at Jay’s house more comfortably.

 The duffel bag fits next to Jay’s dresser. The rolling suitcase is gently pressed beneath the bed frame, hidden by the blanket that spills over the edges of the mattress. Jungwon could almost pretend those things have always been there, and he’s visiting Jay’s place to stay for an extended sleepover like he did the Summer before the elder left for college.

 “I put your toothbrush in the bathroom,” Jay yawns out once he’s done. He sits at the edge of the bed beside Jungwon’s outstretched legs and sock-clad feet. “It’s in the cup, with mine. I also put your shampoo and conditioner next to mine. You were out of body wash though, so we’ll have to share.”

 Jungwon wants to say ‘it’s fine, we always do anyway’, but instead his mouth opens before his brain can process what’s going to spill out of it.

 “Why are you doing all of this?”

 Jay blinks, staring at Jungwon like he’s grown a second head. “Doing all of what?”

 “Not questioning any of this. Helping me. Treating me like you always have. You saw me— You saw it.”

 Jay purses his lips, confusion evident in his eyes.

 “Hyung,” Jungwon whispers, “you saw it. You saw me do it. Why are you doing this?”

 The ‘why are you doing this to me’ goes unspoken, but it’s evident in the way Jay’s face falls that he hears it loud and clear.

 “I don’t know what you think it is that I’m doing, but it’s not by force.” Jay draws his legs up, crossing them. “I’m doing what I’ve always done for the same reason I’ve always done it. I want to be there for you, you know that.”

 “I—” Jungwon has to swallow to say the next words, because for some god awful reason they won’t sit anywhere but in his throat. “I killed that deer and ate it, Jay. I tore it open with my bare hands. I ate that poor animal’s organs. You saw it. You watched me. You cleaned me up.”

 “I did.”

 Jungwon feels like tearing his hair out. His eyes feel with tears of frustration, sharp teeth baring themselves as he grimaces in a pain he can’t describe.

 “Why are you doing this?”

 “I told you,” the elder says, smooth as he always is. Naturally graceful and fluid and good. “Because I want to.”

 “I’m a mons—”

  “Don’t.” Water hardens into ice. What was grace a mere second ago is agitation, now. It’s only in moments like these that Jay is capable of becoming stern with him. “Don’t say that. I already know what you’re going to say. Don’t do that.”

 “You know it’s true.”

 “It isn’t,” he runs a twitching hand through his hair. “It isn’t. You’re right, I saw you. I saw it happen and I watched. I waited until it was over and I carried you to the car and I cleaned you up and let you sleep in this very room. I did all of that because what you were doing in the woods wasn’t…” His eyes flick up only to fall back down, crooked fingers picking at the thread of his bedsheets. It takes a strong breath in through his nose for his eyes to snap back up again, more sure of themselves than the first time. “You weren’t monstrous then, and you’re not monstrous now. You were hungry, and I couldn’t feed you. That bothered me. More than anything else, the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to help you bothered me. But you found a way. You did what you had to. So yes, I saw it. And yes, I let it all happen and cleaned up the consequences. I did that because I know you’re strong, but you’re not invincible. You can only carry so much weight. I just wanted to carry the rest of it for you.”

 Jungwon’s lips seal themselves, tears spilling over silently. When he manages to form any words, they’re short and flat. “Don’t overwhelm yourself for me.”

 The corner of Jay’s lips quirk up. “I won’t.”

  In the middle of the night, Jungwon’s stomach begins to hurt. He shakes awake, clutching at his abdomen, eyes chasing the shape of Jay beside him in the dark.

 (“You can keep sleeping here, next to me.” Jay pats the pillow, his smile small and warm. Jungwon swallows hard enough that he swears it’s audible.

 “I should take the guest room. It’s not— It’s not…” It’s not safe for me to be in here with you, he doesn’t say. He knows Jay hears it.

 “Don’t be silly. If you sleep next to me, I can look after you even in the middle of the night. It’d be good for me to keep my eye on you so I can help you as soon as possible.”

 When Jungwon slides in beside him, Jay’s arms wrap around his body tightly. A nose nuzzles into his hair, and Jungwon listens to the slowly-increasing heartbeat beneath his ear. It makes him grin.)

 “Hyung,” he whispers, voice desperate. “Hyung, please…”

 One nudge and a whimper are all it takes for Jay’s eyes to snap open, moonlight catching on his irises like gemstones. Jungwon would admire his beauty if not for the pain shooting through his abdomen.

 “Hyung,” he cries. “I’m hungry.”

 Jay stares at him for all but three seconds. A hand places itself beneath his bangs, brushing them away and cupping the skin of his face. “You’re burning up, Wonnie. Can you stand?”

 Jungwon, to his credit, does try. He rolls far away enough to sit upright, feet planted on the cold hardwood floor.

 When he pushes his body up, his knees don’t waste time before buckling. He falls to the ground, palms catching the brunt of his fall. Jay’s hurried shuffling rings through one ear and travels out of the other before warm hands are helping him up, keeping him upright. He’s hoisted into the air— feels the world swaying violently before it settles. He presses his tightened chest to the expanse of Jay’s back and allows himself to be piggybacked out of the darkness of the room into the dimly-lit hallways. Light is everywhere around them, however small, and Jungwon tries to cling to it in an effort to ground himself.

 “There’s some—” Jay hoists him higher, the jostling making Jungwon squeeze his eyes shut and grunt minutely. “Sorry. There’s some raw meat in the freezer, but it needs to be thawed before you can eat it. Is that okay?”

 Jungwon’s stomach lurches at the mention of raw meat, but whether that’s because he’s excited to get his teeth on it or because he’s disgusted by it, he can’t tell. He nods anyway. Another half-hour would be nothing in comparison to the euphoria of having his own head back on his shoulders.

 “I’m gonna set you down,” Jay tries to coax. He settles Jungwon’s body on the countertop in the kitchen, darting towards the fridge. In his blind state of discomfort, the younger boy reaches for him and clings to the fabric of his sleep shirt. “Darling, I need to get the meat out so you can eat it later.”

 Jungwon shakes his head. His throat hurts, and trying to speak makes him feel dangerously close to gagging, but he can’t help it. “Don’t go. Hyung— Hyung—”

 “Hyung isn’t going anywhere.” Jay comes closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Hyung isn’t going anywhere far. You’ll see me. I’m just going to the fridge. I’m not leaving you, okay? I promise.”

 Jungwon squeezes him together, starting to sob. “Hyung.”

 “I’m right here, Jungwonnie. You don’t have to cry, baby; it’s okay. It’s okay. Hyung still loves you the most in the world, okay? That’s not going to change. You’re safe and I’m not leaving you.”

 Jungwon takes a breath at Jay’s words, letting it settle in. He’s safe. He’s loved. He’s not going to be left behind. Jay doesn’t think he’s a monster. Jay doesn’t think he’s disgusting. Jay doesn’t blame him for the things that have happened.

 He nods, fingers loosening their grip. Jay doesn’t move from him right away— instead, he cups his cheeks and kisses his tear tracks. Jungwon’s mouth twitches. Kiss me here, too. Kiss me.

 Jay kisses the corner of his lips and the cupid’s bow above them. Jungwon’s fingers flex loosely over his shirt. Please, please, please. Here, too. Here.

 Jay rubs their noses together before moving away. Jungwon has to pretend that the loss of warmth has nothing to do with the tingle on his tongue— that it’s all hunger-driven, and nothing else.

  Raw meat is set out onto a plate with care. It’s cut into cubes, paired with a fork and a couple of napkins. Jay even pours him a glass of water.

 “Here you go,” he smiles. “Hope you enjoy it. It’s beef.”

 Jungwon swallows. If he thinks too hard or too long, the human part of his brain will cause him to look away in disgust. The whatever-else part, though, doesn’t give him the chance. His fingers move on autopilot, mindlessly stabbing into the meat and putting it in his mouth.

 Blood explodes in between the cavern of his closed lips, each chew dampening his throat with thick fat and slick red. It tastes like home.

 Jungwon can’t get himself to be disgusted. It tastes like home. Jay is in front of him, smiling wide as he rests his cheek on his palm, watching Jungwon eat. Everything is okay. Jay doesn’t blame him. Everything is okay.

 He eats it like he would any other meal Jay prepares for him— a soft hum of enjoyment, a full-cheek smile and a stain on his lips. He’s content to let the elder grab one of the handful of napkins, rubbing away the blood in between chews. Jungwon clears his plate in record time, his stomach settling with a warmth that consumes him in a blanket of safety. His head is clear and he can think straight enough to lean forward, thanking Jay in a squeeze to his free palm.

 “It’s no problem,” the elder shrugs. He takes the plate to the sink and begins to wash it. His back is turned away from Jungwon when he starts talking again. “We’re out of meat now, though. I was going to go into town tomorrow to get more. You wanna come? I don’t know what…your preferences for meat might look like, so it’d help for you to be there and choose alongside me.”

 Jungwon swallows. The warmth gives way, blanket pulled to reveal an endless pit of anxiety. Being around Jay is one thing, but being around other people…

 “Would that even be…” He gathers himself, clearing his throat. “What if it’s not safe?”

 Jay pushes the faucet’s handle downwards, water shutting off. In the silence of the kitchen, all Jungwon can focus on is the loud heartbeat coming from the elder and the clink of the glass plate being settled onto a rack to dry.

 “You haven’t tried to hurt me even once.” Jay turns around to face him. The look in his eyes is trustful— so much so that Jungwon nearly shies away from it. He’d shrink into his seat if it weren’t for the fact that this conversation needs to be had at one point or another. “I don’t think you’d hurt other people, Jungwon-ah. You’re too in control to let something like that happen.”

 “We don’t know that,” he says. His tongue feels dry and thick in his mouth, his words dragging in all the wrong places.

 “Maybe you don’t,” Jay doesn’t look away, “but I do.”

 It doesn’t take a lot to push the incessant thought of his mouth. “You trust me too much.”

 “You don’t trust yourself enough.”

 “Hyung,” Jungwon’s mouth twitches. “What if you woke up in the middle of the night to my teeth sinking into your neck?”

 Jay doesn’t seem taken aback by the sudden scenario. “Then I’d let you eat me.”

 “That.” Jungwon points a finger at him, lips full-on wobbling. “That’s it.”

 “If you’re implying that me letting you eat me is proof of me being too trusting, then I suppose I am. But it’s nothing you haven’t rightfully earned.” Jay leans off of the sink, coming close enough to sit on his haunches in front of Jungwon’s pulled seat. He places a warm palm on the younger boy’s lap. “I know you, Jungwon. If you were ever to do something like that to me— or anyone, for that matter— I know it would only be because you have to. Because of the way things are. That’s not your fault and I would never hold that against you.”

 “That’s the problem, too,” Jungwon whispers. “Maybe you wouldn’t, but I would.”

 Jay’s eyes search his. Wide, blown pupils that have exploded meeting ones that are swallowed by rings of brown with flecks of honey. Moonlight, daylight. Guilt, forgiveness. Jay lets out a soft sigh.

 “Eventually, you’re going to have to stop fighting it,” he says. It sounds less like a command and more like a soft suggestion. “Maybe my mother didn’t lie, Jungwon— but you’re alive. For some reason, you’re alive. They left you that way on purpose, don’t you think?”

 “They—” Jungwon doesn’t look at Jay when he whispers: “They should have killed me.”

 Jay makes a wounded sound. It doesn’t take Jungwon looking up or responding to the hands that grab his face to know his words cut Jay exceptionally deep. When someone feeds and feeds and feeds, the thought of having no one there to devour that love probably kills him more than anything else. Jay is love everywhere, all the time. To imply that he wouldn’t want to be there to receive it probably drives the elder wild.

 “No they shouldn’t have,” Jay cries, like a plea for Jungwon to change his own mind. “You’re alive, and you’re here with me. You’re here.” Jungwon looks up into tear-filled eyes that widen. Jay licks his lips, a realization dawning on him as he speaks. “You’re here.”

 Jungwon nods, wordless. He’s been here. Had Jay only just noticed that? But then— his brain realizes what Jay is saying in between the words. What sort of realization he’s actually making, face to face with his best friend saying he wishes he were dead.

  “Oh my god,” Jay whispers. It’s breathless and tight and somehow still too gentle. “I could have lost you.”

 Jungwon stares at him, mind running a mile a minute. He had shown up covered in blood, and Jay had asked if he were okay. He threw all of his food up, and Jay had made him more. He tore a creature apart in front of him, and Jay had carried him back to safety. He told Jay he should have been killed, and all the elder says is ‘I could have lost you.’

 Jungwon surges forward and kisses Jay with lips that taste like raw bodies and dirty blood.

  When Jungwon was in Junior year, he met a boy named Sunoo.

 Sunoo was nice. Sunoo wore lip gloss and had really good grades in most of his subjects. Sunoo liked strawberry milk, collecting stickers, glitter pens and taking walks with people he cared about.

 But more than anything else, Sunoo liked Jungwon.

 “You’re single, aren’t you?” He asked one day over lunch. Jungwon remembers poring over his textbooks, lips bitten halfway to rawness. Jay hadn’t lied— Junior year being tiring enough to knock even the toughest soldiers down.

 “Um.” He’d been wearing his glasses then. The thick, black square frames that he and Jay both bought together when the elder had visited home over one of his college breaks.

 (“How’s university?” Jungwon asks, lips pulled in by his teeth. What if Jay says it’s the most fun he’s ever had? What if Jay says he doesn’t want to come back to this boring town over break? What if Jay—

 “Boring without you.” He gives Jungwon a sweet smile, thumbing one of the black frames on the rack. “I mean, it’s okay, but it’s nothing like being here with you. I have more fun just lazing around with you than I do going out every weekend there, anyway.”

 Jungwon smiles, trying his hardest to hide it. So I’d been worried for nothing, after all. )

 “So you are!” Sunoo smiled. “I knew it. You never go out anywhere with anyone and you don’t— I mean, yeah, you look at your phone a lot— but if you had someone special then I’d have known by now, wouldn’t I?”

 Jungwon had shrugged in response to that. At the time, it didn’t cross his mind that Sunoo was asking for a reason— after all he hadn’t been wrong. The extent of someone special was someone a fairly expensive train ride away. And he and Jay weren’t…

 “Why do you ask?”

 “Why else?” Jungwon should’ve known by the tone. “Go out with me, Yang Jungwon. Even if you don’t like me now, wouldn’t it be fun to try and make it work? I already like you a lot.”

   ‘Making it work’ with Sunoo lasts a season and a half. Jungwon never tells Jay about it. For some reason, that feels like sacred ground he’s not allowed to tread— like crossing that line would do irreparable damage. Jungwon couldn’t even stomach the thought of telling him at the time, much less try to approach the subject at all.

 It only ends because Sunoo is roaming through his phone, staring at the camera roll post-school break. Jungwon already knows what it’s full of when his phone is silently handed back to him.

 “You like him.”

 “Hm?”

 “That guy that came home over break,” Sunoo mumbles, voice soft and dispirited. “You’re terrible at hiding it, even in pictures. You must like him a lot.”

 “Jay-hyung?” Jungwon blinks at him like he’s said something absurd. “Of course I like him; he’s my best friend. I don’t get to see him much since he’s in college, but…”

 “That’s not what I mean.” Sunoo’s eyes are full of tears, and Jungwon wants to ask him what’s wrong, but he feels like doing so would be another line crossed. “You know that’s not what I mean, Jungwon.”

 “Hyung—”

 “You should’ve just told me!” Sunoo cries. His sleeved hands come to rub at his eyes, brushing tears away. “If you loved someone, you should’ve told me. God, I can’t even believe I went through with all of this when you had some older boy you were secretly pining over—”

 “That’s not—”

 “I’m not even mad at you,” Sunoo sighs. “How could I be? You look at him like he’s the fucking moon or something— it’s actually so gross how sappy you look in all your pictures. It’s even grosser that he looks at you the same way. You two look so good together. I think I’m going to be sick.”

 “I’m—” Jungwon’s at a loss, lips popping open and closed like he’s blowing invisible bubbles. “I’m confused.”

 “What’s confusing is that you didn’t know you had a crush the size of the fucking continent on this ‘Jay-hyung’ of yours.” Sunoo snickers, voice sounding a lot lighter than it was mere seconds ago. His stuffy nose makes the tone thick with grief, but Jungwon knows he really isn’t angry. It’s evident in the glowing smile he gives him, however lopsided. “If anyone asks, I dumped you, okay?”

 “You’re dumping me?”

 “That’s it, Yang Jungwon,” he coos. “You’re such a nice person, even if you’re the most oblivious boy I’ve ever met. It’s what I like about you.”

 Something about the way he says it resembles Jay. You’re so kind, the elder has always said. Sometimes a bit hard-headed, but that’s what I like about you.

  Oh. Looking back, maybe Sunoo always had a point. The world has always revolved around Jay a lot more than he ever planned for it to.

  Kissing Jay is hard, with these teeth.

 He can feel the moment the elder tries to lick into his mouth— his body’s been hoisted into the air, legs wrapped around a strong, tapered waist. Jay might be carrying him somewhere. Jay could be dragging him to the police to turn him in, for all he knows. It doesn’t matter. He’s focused on the fact that Jay’s tongue is trying to enter his mouth, and the addendum that said mouth is filled with teeth that will most likely cut Jay’s tongue up into bits.

 It doesn’t seem to matter to the elder. He licks at the ridges of Jungwon’s fangs and smiles against his mouth, tongue retracting to give him a chaste kiss in the shape of a cheeky grin.

 Jungwon’s back meets a flat surface by the time he’s able to get a hold of his surroundings. The wall is a pale yellow— the same shade he sees everyday when he wakes up. They’re in the bedroom now, he realizes. He’s pressed up against the wall in Jay’s bedroom, making soft sounds into the tunnel of that exact mouth. Jay’s hands slide over his thighs, gripping him through the fabric of his pants and feeling his muscle as it flexes in response to his touch.

  He doesn’t blame me. Jay’s hands trail up higher. Jungwon’s lifted from the wall and laid on the bed with gentleness— those hands on his thighs become hands on his waistband.

 He trusts me. Fingers push the hem of his shirt up, caressing the bare skin of his lower stomach. He feels it tremble beneath the touch, breath stuttering.

  He loves me. Jay allows Jungwon to move his mouth away, trailing down his jaw with sloppy kisses. Jay’s calloused palms are pushing their way down the elastic of his sleep pants, allowing the fabric to move lower along with his mouth. Jungwon’s kissing the base of his golden neck, where it bleeds into a broad shoulder.

  He loves me.

 Jay grips Jungwon’s cock. Jungwon gasps and— in a moment of pure reflex— bites down hard.

 It takes a long moment for his ears to stop ringing. Pure bliss fades into vivid color, violence pouring itself into every available orifice, filling him up until he’s spilling out. When his mouth dislodges itself from the junction of Jay’s neck and shoulder, it’s with a sick squelch that hits him so hard it nearly punctures his ribcage.

 Jay is shouting, he thinks. Jay is shouting and it’s out of hurt. Out of the pain that Jungwon must have inflicted on him somehow.

 He doesn’t realize what’s happening until he tries to ask what’s wrong. Only then does his mouth gurgle, a pool of Jay’s blood on his tongue.

  Jungwon’s hands are shaking as he helps Jay scoop up the hem of his bloodied shirt. The bathroom is silent save for the sounds of their hands working over the slowly-sodden fabric, careful to take it off in a way that won’t aggravate the wound any more.

 The bite mark left behind by Jungwon’s mouth is small, but no less ugly than he’d anticipated. The shirt was an old and worn one— fabric thin and flimsy, it could only prevent so much of the puncture. Jungwon’s eyes fill with tears at the sight of it, mouth still stained with the blood he hadn’t managed to swallow.

 To his credit, Jay doesn’t look alarmed as he inspects the damage in the bathroom mirror. He gives it a once over, the untouched side of his body rippling as his arm pulls itself up, trying to assess it with a careful hand.

 When he turns around to Jungwon, he gives him a watery smile.

 “It’s all good,” he hums. “I don’t think it’s going to need any stitches.”

 “Hyung,” he tries, voice wobbly. “I’m so sorry.”

 Jay doesn’t say much else, instead heading for the first aid kit beneath the sink. It’s quiet between them— a mutual understanding that the moment is too heavy for words. Jungwon’s cries are silent and Jay’s hisses of pain are the same. They’re both poorly hidden, and they know it. Neither of them address it.

 The bandage that sprawls across his shoulder only serves to highlight the damage Jungwon had done. Pure white against the fluorescent light makes it look sickly and bright— when they move into the darkness of the hallway, Jungwon swears he can trace the outline of the wound. It’s almost like it glows. Like it wants Jungwon to see and to notice, as if he could ever let it leave his mind for even a second.

 They lie in bed together despite the itch in Jungwon’s body that tells him it’s a terrible idea. Jay is ever-welcoming, cradling him as best he can given the discomfort in his left shoulder. With their skeletons intertwined like this, Jungwon’s mouth rests close to Jay’s clavicle, almost near the wound.

 He swallows. All he’s done these days is cry and feel hunger. Everything loops over— this, that, this, that. Endlessly, he falls into the nothingness that he’d been trying so hard to stray away from.

 Jay runs a hand through his hair and speaks into the dark: “You need to know that I don’t blame you.”

 When Jungwon finds his voice, it’s hollow and dry. “Of course you don’t blame me.”

 “No,” Jay sighs. “Not like that. I wouldn’t blame you even if I were someone else besides myself. What you made was a mistake, not a decision. You weren’t trying to hurt me, so I do not blame you, okay?”

 Jungwon hums, passive.

 “Jungwon.” Jay squeezes him with one arm. “I do not blame you.”

 “I know.”

 “I don’t blame you.”

 “I know that,” Jungwon tries, wrestling against his hold. It doesn’t work.

 “Jungwon.”

 “Stop!” He pushes back hard enough, feeling his heart drop to his stomach when Jay winces quietly. “ Stop, please. I already— I know you don’t blame me. It’s not going to stop me from blaming myself. Whether or not I meant to, I still hurt you. Don’t you see the problem? It doesn’t matter whether or not you trust me, or whether or not I can get it under control. I can’t change whatever it is that I’ve become. I can try as much as I’d like, but you’re right, eventually I’m going to have to stop fighting it. Who’s to say that when I do, I won’t hurt you more? Really hurt you.”

 “Are you scared of that happening?”

 “Of course I’m scared,” Jungwon whispers. “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.”

 Jay’s smile in the dark is brighter than any bandage. He is the moon, and the sun, the center of the universe. Maybe even the entire universe itself.

 “It’s the same to you,” he says back, just as soft. When he moves in close, nuzzling Jungwon’s nose with his own, Jungwon has to stop himself from colliding with him again like a body made of stars. “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. I want you to hurt me. If you become something that’s going to hurt me, then I want you to. Love knows better than anyone what sacrifices look like.”

 “I don’t want to sacrifice you for my own sake,” Jungwon sighs out. It’s practically into Jay’s mouth. “I love you so much that I know I would want to eat you. But I don’t— I don’t want to lose you.”

 “You won’t lose me if you love me.” Jay kisses him sweetly, right over his cherry-stained lips. “If you love me, I’ll be alive forever. If you eat me, I’ll become a part of you. If you sacrifice me, you’ll sacrifice yourself. That’s love, darling. You die a thousand deaths and yet you never die.”

 “You’re taking this too lightly,” he sniffles. “Don’t you think?”

 “I think that you let it weigh too heavily on your shoulders.” A hand brushes his hair away. Eyes bore into his. “Eating is a form of love, too. It’s my favorite form. I take this with as much lightness as anything else revolving around hunger— if we’re together, then I’ll make sure we never starve. Eat flesh, or meat, or food. All that matters to me is that you are alive, and I am going to keep feeding you to make sure you stay alive. Maybe it’s selfish, but…I want to do anything I can to keep you.”

 “Even if it means I’m never going to be human again?”

 “Even if you were some sort of spirit no one else could see,” Jay shrugs. “Even if you were a figment of my imagination; I would do anything for you. There’s nothing light about that. I love you. I want you to eat well and be healthy. I want to know you’re there and that I can take care of you myself.”

 Jungwon kisses the slope of Jay’s jaw and says: “You’re too good to me. You always have been.”

 Jay kisses right between his eyes and says: “I found something better than I ever could’ve dreamed of. I’m just doing whatever I can to protect it.”

 (When they fall asleep, Jungwon dreams of eating Jay alive. He’s sprawled out on the mattress, stomach torn open, and Jungwon is drinking from him like he’s the mirage of a lake in a desert.

 “I’m sorry,” Jungwon says, even though he’s chewing through the fat. Jay’s smile is nothing short of dazzling.

 “Don’t be.”)

  Jay coaxes Jungwon into the car long enough that he’s able to start it up. Pulling out of the driveway is hard— Jungwon can’t stop fidgeting in his seat, terror evident along his facial features as the road expands into familiar territory again. Last night’s dream haunts him. Last week’s memory, even more so.

 Jay holds his hand over the center console and the need to worry becomes obsolete. The radio plays a tune that they used to sing to in high school— as it turns out, some of the most important things do not change even in the face of the inevitable. Jay’s low tone still sounds beautiful stretched between the notes of Jungwon’s reedy voice. Their hands still slot together like puzzle pieces. The sunlight still warms rather than burns.

 For a while, Jungwon feels okay. Okay in the sense that the world’s falling apart slow— like everything’s always been ending since the beginning of time, and nothing could stop them from still loving each other in the long while between. Jungwon doesn’t feel like he’s dying any more than he did when he was sixteen.

 “The weather is good today,” Jay notes lightly. He squeezes Jungwon’s hand and leans into his seat with a practiced sort of ease. “I’m happy you’re here.”

 Jungwon squeezes him back. The words don’t come, but the look he passes— blown eyes, sharp teeth, pink cheeks— says more than enough in its place.

  “It’s sunny, so people won’t question some sunglasses.” Jay says. He hands Jungwon a square pair that’s reminiscent of the ones they used to share when he was still in high school. “Want to try the outdoor market?”

 The outdoor market is beautiful, much to Jungwon’s delight. There’s color everywhere— people laughing amongst themselves, each stall glittering with promise. Children cling to their parents, lovers cling to one another. Everywhere he looks, Jungwon sees life.

 He takes a deep breath in and his nose begins to sting. Life smells like something waiting to be devoured, but in his conscious state, Jungwon is more disgusted by it than anything else.

 He tugs on Jay’s hand. “It’s…a lot.”

 “Is it?” Jay tugs him to the side, trying to skim the stalls briefly to not waste their time. He’s murmuring low, though with the way people sing and shout over them in all their liveliness, Jungwon doesn’t think it’s really necessary. “I’m sorry, Wonnie. We’ll be quick.”

 “It’s okay,” he shakes his head. “Not your fault. Just…the smell—”

 Someone comes running towards them, barely skirting around Jungwon’s frozen body. The path is too narrow to completely avoid missing each other, and in their haste, they accidentally shove him to the side.

 Jay catches him like it’s a natural reflex, hands tugging him into his chest and settling over his hips. Jungwon’s surrounded by the smell of Jay, and it’s by far the strongest of all the scents combined. This place gives him a headache, but within the confines of Jay’s embrace, it’s like it doesn’t even exist. Everything smells like Jay. Jay’s blood, Jay’s muscle, Jay’s skin. Last night’s dream plays like a burning memory behind his eyelids, and Jungwon has to breathe out through his nose to avoid opening his salivating mouth.

 “Sorry,” Jay whispers, voice meant only for his ringing ears. “It’s packed today. Do you want to wait in the parking lot?”

 Jungwon shakes his head vehemently, throat clogged with too many feelings to voice any of them properly. Jay hums in recognition, but he doesn’t make an attempt to force the younger man away from him. For a while, they just stand there— in front of a fruit stall, pretending to survey the selection as Jungwon tries to convince himself to move. The world is mostly white noise save for Jay’s low laugh. When he comes back to himself, Jungwon realizes he’s making light conversation with the stall’s owner. She’s a nice old woman with a frail grin, shaking fingers pointing to the grapefruits she says will taste the best with Jay’s morning coffee.

 He buys a couple, if only because Jungwon’s still trying to get the feeling back in his fingers. By the time he does, Jay’s lugging around a bag of grapefruit and they’re slowly tottering their way towards the meat stall.

 Jungwon almost collapses in front of it. The primal, other part of his brain is chanting to take it all— to gorge until he can no longer handle it, spilling at the seams. The tantalizing opportunity to devour until it consumes him stands before him in the shape of an awkward, boxy smile and an equally shiny pair of eyes.

 “Hey there,” the man grins. “Long time no see, Jongseong!”

 “Hey Heeseung-hyung,” Jay smiles. He still has one hand around Jungwon’s waist, encircling and squeezing the other side. Jungwon smiles at the stranger from behind his sunglasses, hoping that they’re dark enough to hide the constant darting from one slab of red to the next. “Your selection looks great, by the way.”

 “It’s all thanks to Jaeyun,” Heeseung whistles. “Ever since we got him on the farm… I don’t know, it’s like the livestock just glows. He’s a natural at hunting, sure, but he’s even better about keeping all of our animals happy and healthy. You can really feel it, you know?”

 “Looks like the animals aren’t the only thing he’s good at keeping happy and healthy.” Jungwon can tell from the tone of his voice that Jay is doing that horrendous thing with his mouth— lips attempting to side smirk, eyebrows waggling. He doesn’t blame this Heeseung guy for the way his smile immediately falls into a deer-eyed grimace. “You look better though, Hyung. Last time I saw you… Well, you know.”

 “Yeah.” Heeseung doesn’t say anything else, and Jungwon has a feeling it’s both because this is a public space and because he’s a stranger listening in on their conversation. He’d feel worse about it if half of his brain wasn’t taken up with the incessant need to shred through Heeseung’s chilled cases of meat. “Who’s your friend?”

 “Oh! This is Jungwon. He’s my…”

 Jungwon snaps up, peering at Jay from behind his sunglasses. The elder, for once, looks like he’s at a loss for words.

 Jungwon smiles, placing a hand over the one still digging into his side.

 “Sorry,” he smiles. “I was busy looking at the food. I’m Yang Jungwon; Hyung’s partner.”

 “Oh, really?” Heeseung’s eyes glow with something like surprise, and Jungwon has half a mind to ask what’s wrong. He doesn’t, though, because those eyes are paired with a very sly grin. “So you’re the infamous Yang Garden. ”

 “Hyung,” Jay tries. “Now would really be a great time to let us buy some of your meat.”

 “Jay used to blab about you so much in college!” Heeseung laughs. “I always wondered what it was that kept him from permanently living the city-life; he was always so much better at it than I was. Every break he’d go home without fail— never even tried to entertain my pleas for him to stick with us for just one holiday.”

 Jungwon can hear Jay’s heartbeat spike, and it makes him grin widely. “Did he, really?”

 “Of course.” Heeseung’s smile is so bright that Jungwon can feel the sincerity in it. Jay’s hand on his body is fidgeting. “I actually moved out here because I was curious— what was so good about the place? Then I visited and fell in love with it enough to pack my things up too.” He gives them a very sleazy wink, and Jungwon has to suppress a snort. “Now I see that it’s not really a matter of what for Jongseong, but who. ”

 “Alright,” Jay clears his throat. “If you’re trying to embarrass me by explaining to Jungwon how much I love him, it’s not going to work.”

 “You’re bright red, though?”

 “Heat from the sun,” he deadpans. “Can I buy some of your meat now, please? I’m sure you’d like to take home some money for Jakey, wouldn’t you?”

 “You know he can eat his weight in our farm’s products,” Heeseung shrugs in response. “But bringing home money is just as good as any meat, so be my guest.”

 Jungwon doesn’t pay much attention to anything about the trip after that— once they’re hoisting an entire cooler’s worth of raw meat into the back of Jay’s car, almost everything else becomes superfluous. Jungwon is just happy he can take his sunglasses off, though the reflection in the car’s rear view mirror reminds him why he had to wear them in the first place.

 It’s a crushing weight, but it’s one he has to bear. Being around people had already been a struggle enough with all of the scents. He can’t even begin to imagine having to go out in a state of pure hunger.

 And then there’s Jay— the fact that he smells better than anyone else. The fact that he smells like the perfect meal. Jungwon wonders if it’s because of love, or if it’s just the fact that Jay is special even in comparison to other humans on a base level. It hurts that there’s that divide now; that Jungwon call’s them humans from the outside because he isn’t one anymore. If he is, it’s only half so.

 (And that half hardly matters. All it does is make his stomach lurch and his fingers curl. Maybe he’s not entirely a beast, but does having sanity do much else to quell the urges aside from reminding him over and over again that they’re disturbing to have?)

 “You did a good job today,” Jay tells him on the drive back. He rolls the window down and the forest smells of comfort and home and hunger. Jungwon’s slowly becoming more accustomed to the empty ache that never fades. He doesn’t know if he could ever be happy, or at the very least at peace. It’s only for moments at a time, and it’s never potent enough to will away the psychological hurt that remains from his deeds. It’s slowly swallowing him from the inside out.

 “Thank you,” he says anyway. It’s not Jay’s fault. Even if it isn’t his, either, Jungwon doesn’t really care. The truth is still the truth no matter the color of the lens, and Jay is still going to be Jay even if Jungwon were to lose his mind tomorrow and turn into some harrowing beast that’d climb its way back into the outdoor market just to tear everyone in it apart.

 “You feeling okay?”

 Jungwon’s mouth opens, the air from outside catching on his teeth and tongue. It closes.

  How do you tell someone that you don’t think you’ll ever truly be okay again?

 “I’m trying.”

 “I know,” Jay doesn’t waste a moment before placing a hand over the center console, palm up and offering himself. “And I’m really proud of you for that.”

 Pride, love, care, comfort. Those things come from Jay with great effort that feels effortless. Those things come not despite, but in embrace of. Jay’s a never ending pit.

 If Jungwon were certain he could fall without taking anything down with him, he would. But because he can’t— because the only thing that carves itself out as a definite in his future is this endless ache— he grips the hand in his and interlaces their fingers. The squeeze he gives, for once, is not a ‘thank you.’

 It’s an apology. Because if Jay’s love layers itself onto Jungwon’s bones in the form of a protective cocoon, Jungwon’s razor sharp teeth are incapable of doing anything but cutting straight through it. 

 Jungwon says I’m sorry with his hands because he owes Jay a lot of things— but this is the only one he can safely give him right now, without his teeth.

  “My partner,” Jay sighs, happily watching Jungwon rip his fingers through the raw meat. He’d forgone the very flimsy formalities of having table manners the moment the blood started spilling over the plate. He hasn’t eaten all day, and it’s starting to catch up to him now. He only stops to chew on what’s in between his teeth, eyes tracing Jay curiously as the elder takes a bite out of his warm sandwich. Melted cheese spills from the edge the same way blood spills from the meat. Jungwon hides the cringe behind another slow chew. “You called yourself my partner, earlier at the market.”

 “So I did,” he tries to say. With all of the food in his mouth, it sounds more like a garbled string of a phrase. Jay hears it clearly anyway, no less proud to repeat the words below his breath. Jungwon can hear that clearly, too— though his ability to is less from attentiveness and more the fact that his ears have become sensitive to sound ever since the incident.

 “It’s good,” Jay lingers with his hands in the air, sandwich hanging sloppily. Jungwon weighs the meaning behind the words with a careful look.

 “San’wich?”

 “You,” he grins. “And the sandwich, too. But I think it tastes better because you’re here to share it with.”

 It’s funny— there’s blood on his table, and on Jungwon’s hands and lips. Jungwon’s dreamt of eating the very man sitting before him. Jay has a bandage beneath his shirt that covers a wound shaped exactly like Jungwon’s mouth.

 And yet he’s happy because they’re partners. He’s smiling warmly and chewing happily because he has someone to share his sandwich with, and that someone is Jungwon.

 “Hyung.”

 “Yeah?”

 “I love you.”

 Jay swallows his mouthful. Hearing those words doesn’t seem to shock or terrify him. His smile never falters, instead only growing wider by the second. It stretches so far across his face that Jungwon could almost swear he’s the one with the sharp teeth— that his jaw could unhinge and he could eat Jungwon whole instead of the other way around.

 “I love you too,” he says. “And I’m so happy that you love me.”

 “I’m also sorry, Hyung, but I know that you know that.”

 “And you know that I think you have nothing to apologize for, right?”

 “I do,” Jungwon shrugs. His fingers are hovering awkwardly above the plate, the slab of meat half-eaten and begging to be carved further. He only refrains because his cognizant side has acknowledged this conversation as important. “And you know that I won’t stop blaming myself.”

 “I do. I’m willing to sit with you through that. I want to help you feel better.”

  Maybe it’s now or never.

 “I don’t think…I can.”

 “Feel better?”

 Jungwon nods. “I don’t think— I don’t think I can be okay again, Hyung. I love you, and I should be happy, but…”

 “But all of this weighs on you and makes you feel empty, right? Is it too much?”

 In a perfect world, Jungwon might be able to get by just fine knowing he’ll have to live the rest of his life eating blood and fat in equal parts. He’d look at the bite mark on his neck in the mirror and acknowledge that even if things are nonsensical, and harrowing— he still had his own body and his mind. He’d be able to brush off the hunger and settle into Jay’s hold when they lie together in bed. He wouldn’t dream of eating the love he’s spent so long carrying warmly in his heart. He wouldn’t cry as much as he does.

 But nothing is perfect. Perfection is a construct designed by people who are incapable of grasping it, and Jungwon isn’t one to fool himself for too long. He loves Jay, and that is not enough. He wants it to be, but the truth is that it just… isn’t.

 “It’s not safe,” he swallows. “And I know what you’ll say. I know you’d try to make it work no matter the situation. Even if I went fully feral and became inconsolable, I know you’d still try to do whatever you could to take care of me. I know you do that because you love me, and no other reason. But it’s just not safe.”

 “What isn’t?” Jay moves forward, offering his palms. Jungwon doesn’t think before sliding them together— only notices his mistake when his bloodstained hands sit in the center of Jay’s. It’s a ghost of the first time he’d shown up here.

 (What a mistake, a strange voice hisses in the back of his mind. That had been the crux of it all— you called. If you had not called, he would not have come.)

 “All of this. Me. You and I, too— it’s not plausible. You have your shoulder to show for it.”

 “I have a bandage to show for it,” Jay corrects. “A bandage you helped me put on. You were careful and felt remorse— it was an accident, Jungwon.”

 “I told you that it doesn’t matter whether it was an accident or purposeful,” he stresses. “A bite is a bite. A meal is a meal. No matter the reasoning or the logic behind it, the fact is that it still happens, and it still hurts. Knowing I hurt you hurts. You might be ready to give up everything and lay your life on the line— but I can’t do that. I can’t put myself through that every single day knowing all I can give you is a threat to your life. You’re good to me and in return, what do you get? You get me fighting myself off just to be with you. You get me warring with myself in an attempt to be more human than whatever else I am.”

 “But I get you,” Jay says, voice weak. “I get you.”

 “And I don’t get you.” Jungwon doesn’t tug his hands away— it’s too slow a moment, retreating like he’s shrinking down in his size. “I love you, but I won’t ever get you fully. You’ll have to take care of me for however long this lasts, and I will never be able to take care of you in return.”

 “I don’t need everything. Allowing me to take care of you is already a way of taking care of me. You know how I feel— about feeding you, and sleeping next to you. All of those things might seem small, but they’re all I need. I don’t need everything. I just need to know you’re okay.”

 “But I can’t give you that. I can’t be— it’s never going to work out like you want it to. I’m never going to be well-fed or say I slept well or that I feel comfortable. I was in your arms today and all I could think was how nice you smell. How much I wanted to sink my teeth into you. I didn’t want to think about any of that. I don’t want to keep thinking that, but as long as we’re together, I will.”

 Jay moves forward, still. Opened palms, sad eyes, a hopeful twitch of his mouth. Jungwon wonders how it’s possible for a person to welcome so much into themselves without remorse or shame. “Then what do you want to do? How can we make it work?”

  It can’t.

 But Jungwon knows that there’s only one way out, and right now, it’s not honesty.

  I’m doing this for you.

 “I don’t know,” he lies. “You were right, all of this is too much. Will you give me time to think about it?”

 “Yeah, of course.” Jungwon feels self-hatred ricochet through his bones when he sees that determined look on Jay’s face. Being told that he wants time implies that it will end eventually— that he’ll have an answer. That they will work it out. “Take all the time you need.”

 “Thank you,” Jungwon says.

 He means it more than words.

  In the dream he has that night, Jungwon eats Jay’s heart out in the center of the market. A crowd of terrified passersby look on— people are shouting, trying to get him to stop, but no one takes the risk of approaching him. Jay’s body is lifeless and still, and yet Jungwon keeps going. It feels like it’s not enough. Another bone breaks beneath his rough touch, trying to claw his way in.

 He makes eye contact with Heeseung among the sea of people, and for a split second he stops mid-chew to assess him.

 Heeseung mouths words at him— through his haze, it’s hard to see. The dream is tinted in red and green and the pale shade of orange that falls over Heeseung’s bronzed skin when his eyes dim and the words do Jungwon in.

  You couldn’t have stopped yourself from becoming this? Not even for him?

 Jungwon looks at the body beneath him. Jay isn’t smiling— his face is hardly recognizable. The entirety of his body is hardly recognizable after what Jungwon’s done to it.

 He tastes like love. Jungwon cries furiously, allowing hands to grab at him. They pull him away from Jay, and for a moment, that’s the only thing that prompts him to fight them. He doesn’t want to be away from him— he wants to apologize, wants to take it all back. His throat gags in an effort to throw it all back up, like he’ll be able to put the pieces together again if he just manages to get them all in the same place at the same time.

 The farther away he gets, the more Jungwon’s mind settles. He’s thrown onto the dirt of the parking lot and there are shoes and fists digging their ways into his sides. Scared people are conquering their fears all around him, trying to protect themselves. Mothers and lovers and humans. Little explosions erupt over his skin here and there, bruises blooming in the wake of each strong impact. Maybe they’re cracking his bones with the blows, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t really care.

  You couldn’t have stopped yourself? Heeseung’s blurred image burns in his eyelids that force themselves closed. Blood starts to fill his mouth, and for once, it’s no one else’s but his own. It tastes like regret.

 It’s the most relieving thing he’s felt in a long, long time.

  I guess not.

  Jungwon wakes up in the middle of the night from his dream. Jay’s uninjured arm is slung over his stomach, keeping him safe.

 He tries to crawl out from underneath it, but it tightens by instinct. A low grumble is followed by Jay’s exhausted hum.

 “‘S wrong? Hungry?”

 Jungwon shakes his head in the dark, trying to swallow the sobs on his tongue. He stills himself enough to try and sound steady.

 “No, I think I just need a glass of water.”

 “Wan’ me t’ go with you?”

 “No, Hyung, it’s just a glass of water.” He tries to laugh, weak and hollow. Jay’s too tired to do much else but hum again in response. “I’ll be back in a bit, okay? Go to sleep.”

 He places a kiss to Jay’s jaw, and the elder lets out a small sight of contentment before nodding into the pillow sluggishly. Jungwon listens to his breath even out as he slides out of the bed, dragging himself to the door with more effort than he’d like to think about.

 Once he’s downstairs, he skips the kitchen altogether. He tugs his shoes on as quietly as he can, surveying the dark circles under his eyes when he stares at his reflection in the entryway’s mirror.

 Same blown pupils. Same long-lasting dullness to his skin. He looks halfway to death and even closer to something that can’t be named. It doesn’t bother him as much as it would if he weren’t doing what he’s about to do.

 He ties his shoelaces tight, unlocks the front door, and lets the wind caress his skin as he closes it behind him.

 Jungwon takes a deep breath and smells all things familiar: Comfort, home, hunger.

 (It does not matter that he can’t smell Jay out here, he tells himself. It does not matter that comfort and home are words which have become infinitely more synonymous with a man sleeping in his bed in the house. It does not matter that hunger has become synonymous with him, too.)

 He takes his first step off the porch, and makes his way towards the darkness that calls out to him.

  Jungwon finds himself on the exact road he’d once woken up on the side of.

 Here, things are slowly starting to bleed back into his memory. He’d been visiting Jay on foot because his car had broken down somewhere nearby— now that he thinks about it, his car might still be there, if it weren’t already towed.

 That day he chose to visit Jay, he was desperate. The world felt like it was closing in. Work was too much, the city was too much— even the fact that it was barely an hour and a half drive away from Jay was too much. He couldn’t handle it.

 The last thing Jungwon remembers thinking before blacking out was ‘I wish it would all just stop for a while.’

 Maybe, in some sick way, his prayers were answered. The scar on his neck throbs dully with phantom pains, but Jungwon can’t remember what it felt like to be bitten. Was it similar to what Jay had felt? Did he feel like that at one point, too? If he had managed to sink his teeth a little harder, for just a second longer, would Jay have ended up like him now?

 The thought makes him shudder. Maybe, if nothing else, he could at least take pride in the fact that he’d managed to escape before something like that could happen.

 While his mind rejoices in the fact that he’d managed to avoid such an outcome, his stomach roars at the thought of sinking his teeth into something. Waking up in the middle of the night after all of the anxiety he felt in his dream feels like a strong punch to the gut, and in response, it's awoken with a cry. He doesn’t truly understand it. If he were any more sensible, he might be able to ward it off with a bout of conscious nausea— but now that Jay is not in his vicinity and his body is truly learning what it’s like to be alone in the wild, he has been left with no inhibitions. The pain is free to steer him, and it does.

 It drives him deeper into the black, trees whistling and a chill playing on his spine. He spots a rabbit darting about in the moonlight.

 Jungwon likes rabbits. It’s not a big thing— has never truly been— but when he looks into its eyes he’s reminded of the time he and Jay went out into the dark with their flashlights to look for wild bunnies. He’d been so excited at the time, kneeling in nothing but a pair of slippers that weren’t fit for outdoor exploration. Jay had held him with a firm hand, flashlight careful not to whip around like the rabbits crawling about in the dark. Jungwon was elated to pet one with his own hands, cooing at the creature to assure it he was posing no harm.

 The rabbit’s nose twitches, sniffling like a harmless child, and Jungwon breaks. He lets it hop away, stomach crying out in protest as the smell of meat lingers in the air. By the time he’s able to feel remorse for his needs, it’s completely gone.

 Something ruffles the trees. He glances in the direction of it, but there’s nothing in the weaving path of the trees.

 Another chill. The whistling that travels through the branches gets louder, like it’s coming from a person rather than the wind. Jungwon stands deathly still.

  Jungwon, something says. Or does it? He can’t tell— the words are there, in his mind and singing through his bones, but the woods only continue to whistle louder and louder.

  Jungwon, come closer. Jungwon, come here. Jungwon, Jungwon, Jungwon.

 Is it one voice? Many? Has Jungwon finally been driven to the point of insanity by his own desire to make it all stop? He can’t answer anything. He feels completely dumbed down by the voice that beckons him. He listens to the commands like he’s in a daze— the forest is an endless fog and he’s stumbling through it, sneakers colliding with a rocky pathy and occasionally slipping on loose soil. He doesn’t care.

 Jungwon, come closer. Jungwon, come feed.

 He nods wordlessly at the voice. It’s familiar. It’s sweet and light in tone; it could almost be playful if not for the way the words curl at their edges. These are not well meaning words, Jungwon thinks, but that doesn’t matter very much in comparison to the hollow ache slowly growing in the pit of his belly.

  Jungwon, follow me.

 He walks for what feels like miles. In between long bouts of wind-whistling and natural silence, the voice continues to beckon him. It’s like a compass constantly pointing towards the right direction, and if he slips for even a second, it tugs him right back. He walks the right path with the help of this smiling voice, making it out of the forest and into a field.

 There’s a house. He doesn’t know how far out he’s managed to walk, but there’s a fenced-in patch of land and a rickety barn. It dawns on him only when one of the lights in the main house turns on that he’s been led to a farm.

 He blinks out of his stupor, the back door of the house opening. A dog hops its way out happily, trotting into the grass and yipping at the man behind it to follow.

 “Good girl!” The man laughs. “Layla, don’t go too far, okay? We’re just going to check on the mama cow.”

 The dog— Layla— makes another happy sound, and the man quickly makes his way to her side so they can cut through the greenery and pry open the barn’s door.

 Jungwon is too caught up in the scene to notice the voice is breathing along his shoulder, lips smiling so wide that every word is curled too far to go unnoticed.

  You see it, right? You can smell it, too.

 Jungwon does. He smells all of the life that resides in the barn— the potency almost makes his nose feel like it’s going to bleed, but he isn’t allowed to ruminate on it long enough for that to happen.

  Not that, Jungwon. Focus.

 He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be focusing on. The phantom sensation of hands on his shoulders steers him, and he walks close enough to press his fingertips over the wooden fence.

 It feels like merely seconds later, the man and Layla come back out. He’s cooing to the dog, sending her up the steps.

 The phantom hands push Jungwon until his stomach collides with the fence. A sharp pain ripples through his body, and he lets out a pained yelp.

 The man stops, eyes blown wide as he searches in the dark for the source of the sound.

 “Layla, go inside!” He calls out to the dog. Layla looks unhappy about the distance, but his voice comes out a little smaller when he talks next: “Go get Hyung.”

 Layla follows him, quickly bending down with her front paws and barking in a sign of understanding. She’s twisting on her paws then, trotting back into the house. Jungwon hears her loud barking through the walls, probably alerting whoever else is inside.

  Jungwon, the voice hums. Go on, Jungwon. Go on.

 He digs his sneakers into the dark and whistles. The man’s head perks up at that, the flashlight at his side flickering. He slaps it with his hand until the beam steadies, pointing it up into Jungwon’s direction.

 It’s too far to illuminate where he stands. It falls short in its dimness, batteries clearly needing to be replaced. Jungwon would mourn the man’s unfortunate fate if not for the fact that it serves him well. The dimmer the light, the closer he has to get to inspect the source of the noise. Jungwon whistles again, louder and far more desperate, before the man succumbs to his own curiosity and draws nearer with each step.

  There we go, the voice laughs. Go on, go on…

 He smells delightful. His fear is strong, though he tries hard not to show it on his scrunched face. Through the darkness, Jungwon can make out the way his brow furrows and his bottom lip is caught between his teeth. He’s trying so hard to be brave, the human part of his brain manages to think. It’s overrun by the fact that his scent is thick with nerves, which only sweetens it more. Fear smells delicious, the other, stronger part of his brain hums.

  Go on… Go on…

 “Jake?” Someone calls. The man turns around on his heels. Jungwon laments it, fingers pressing so hard into the barricade between them that his fingers are starting to bleed onto the wood. The voice in his ear is the loudest it’s been all night.

  Now, now, now now now now—

 “Heeseung-hyung! I think there’s somethi—”

 Jungwon lunges.

  (There’s a memory Jungwon has— quick and fleeting and gone before it comes.

 “What’s out there in the woods?” Sunoo asks. Jungwon had told him only once that it was the place he disappeared to after school, because, in Sunoo’s words: I’d at least like to know where you spend all of your time.

 “I don’t know. Peace, I guess?”

  Remnants of Jay. Good remnants. Rabbits and deer and pretty flowers that grow on unsuspecting bushes. Quiet and quiet and more quiet, still. The good kind that lets you sleep. The good kind that feeds you full when you are empty and aching and wanting.

  When I close my eyes, Jungwon will not remember thinking, I am on the forest floor and Jay is beside me and everything is okay. I am safe. I am saved. I am loved and good and the day is long enough that the night is just another party to be had.

 “Peace?” Sunoo blinks at him. “Peace from what?”

 “From everything?” How do you explain that all the good in the world can sometimes be captured in the stillness? That the wild has its own moment of pure tranquility brought on by practiced patience? How do you tell someone that it reminds you of callused hands so gentle they’d do nothing but cup you just right?

 “Everything.” Sunoo repeats the word like it’s the missing fragment to the puzzle he’d been trying to picture all together, full. “I want to try and visit there sometime. You and I should go on a walk through the woods, together. Holding hands.”

 “Okay,” Jungwon nods. Inside his head he is thinking a river’s stream of no, no, no. The forest is Jay’s. It’s not that he owns it, no— nature belongs to no one. The world is too big to be one person, and Jay is too big to be the world. It’s not that.

 But when he lies on the floor and the whistling is cradling his ears, it’s the closest thing he can feel to Jay when he’s gone. Monsters be damned. The only monster here is Jungwon and his aching heart. The only monster here is Jungwon and the fact that he closes his eyes and dreams of Jay. The only monster is the wind and the wood and the vines that slither around his feet when his eyes close.

 The monster, later, is the fact that he does not hear anything from Sunoo after they graduate high school.)

  Jake’s body is damaged.

 It’s not terrible— Jungwon had carved his fingers through the flesh of his chest, but it was neither permanent nor concerningly huge. It doesn’t require much more than disinfection and a sturdy bandage to cover the length of the claw marks.

 Heeseung stares at Jungwon sadly, fingers still working over Jake’s wounds while the younger man tries not to hiss. Jungwon squirms in discomfort, but says nothing else.

 “Are you sure that tying you to the chair is the right idea?” Heeseung asks, voice as steady as he can get it in the face of a crying boy in his kitchen strapped to their dining table’s furniture.

 Jungwon nods through his sobs, fingers flexing beneath the rough rope that he’d told Heeseung to bind him down with.

 (Jake’s fear had tasted amazing for all but two seconds— and then he smelled it.

 Heeseung’s fear, accompanying it. The kind of fear one has for a loved one does not make Jungwon feel delighted or hungry. He knows it should, but something in his humanity— or what’s left of it, anyway— steers him into the proper direction. It grounds him instead, bringing him back to Earth in discomfort. He’d let go of Jake long enough for the man to scramble to his feet, collapsing into Heeseung with a scared shout as the elder boy clung to his waist.

 Through his tears, Jungwon yelled at them from the floor. His words sounded like cotton to his own ears— he’s unsure if he was even getting them out— but he at least had to try.

 “Tie me up,” he remembers gritting out. “ Please, I don’t want to hurt anyone. Just— hold me down.”

 So they did.)

 “It’s a good thing Layla’s so well-trained,” Jake hums, giving Jungwon a smile he does not deserve to see. “You almost got me there, buddy. But it’s okay, see? I’m alright. You don’t have to cry.”

 Jungwon only cries harder at that. How is it that he could possibly run into so many kind people? Why couldn’t Heeseung have come out of that house wielding a gun? Jungwon could be on the floor of their farm by now, bleeding out in the pale moonlight. It’d be a good death to go by— to be stopped in his tracks. He’d rather be a creature killed than a living legend that scares boys just like him into closing their curtains at night.

 “I called Jay,” Heeseung says softly. “He was— he didn’t sound good over the phone. I’m sorry, Jungwon.”

 Jungwon kicks listlessly at the wooden floor, tears blurring his vision to the point where he can do nothing but stare at the sterile kitchen light. It blinds him, and he doesn’t mind it.

 A palm taps his knee until he tilts his head forward. Gentle fingers run beneath the expanse of his eyelashes, wiping away his tears. He blinks to find Jake looking at him with something like warmth in his eyes. Heeseung must’ve left while he was staring at the ceiling, because it’s only the two of them in the kitchen now.

 “Thanks for not killing me,” Jake says. The words would be a joke in any other circumstance, but he’s not smiling and Jungwon isn’t, either. “I know that must have been hard.”

  “Hard?” He snorts, it’s humorless. “Why are you thanking me? I almost took your life.”

 “But you didn’t. You chose not to. I saw it.”

 “What are you—”

 “You know, I moved out here to look for something.” Jake tugs his shirt back on, swallowing his small waist in plain white. “Or, rather, to prove something. Did Heeseung-hyung tell you I was a hunter before I ever started taking care of the animals on the farm?”

 (In the back of his mind, Jungwon remembers Heeseung’s words: “He’s a natural at hunting, sure…” )

 “I guess? What does that…”

 “I used to hunt animals, for sport and for food. My dad was really big on it, and it was the only way we knew how to bond, so I cherished it in its own way.” He swallows, licking his lips and making eye contact with the wall behind Jungwon’s head. “I haven’t— I haven’t done it in many years. Not ever since we went out into the woods to hunt what we thought was a deer. It wasn’t. They found me in the morning beside his body, shaking and crying my heart out.”

 Jungwon’s stomach lurches. He couldn’t imagine being in that situation now, much less as a child. It’d drive him to the point of no return.

 “I did my digging for some years. At first, I think I wanted to get revenge of some sort— but I see the pointlessness in that now. I’m happy here. I’m on this farm, with a dog and a man that I love. Not the life I would’ve viewed myself having, but I enjoy every last bit of it. I would’ve died another death if that were ever to be taken away from me, and I’ve already died once. I don’t need to experience it again.”

 The younger boy swallows, tears still overflowing. Jake keeps wiping them away.

 “You stopped,” Jake says. “You saw his fear and you stopped.”

 “What?”

 “Heeseung-hyung.” The hand on his face leaves, instead coming up to Jake’s own. He’s wiping his tears away now, Jungwon can tell from the way he clears his wet throat. “I know they can smell fear. I was trying so hard not to show it— not to feel it— but I’m only human. When you jumped me, I didn’t even care about dying that much. All I was hoping was that you wouldn’t leave Hyung traumatized, the way it left me. I couldn’t do that to him. When you love someone, you can’t do that to him.”

 (Jungwon ran away because he loves Jay too much, isn’t that it? Hasn’t that always been it?)

 “But then…you stopped. I saw it in your eyes, and I heard it in your mouth after. You don’t want to hurt anybody. You don’t wanna be hurt, either. You’re good. You’re not like those other ones, I don’t think. Something about your light is still burning, and I don’t want you to carry on thinking it’s been totally put out.”

 You don’t want to hurt anybody.

 You don’t wanna be hurt, either.

 “I’m a danger to the people and the things that I love,” Jungwon sobs.

 Jake doesn’t seem perturbed. He smiles, extra wide, and says— “Isn’t everybody?”

 Heeseung comes back into the kitchen with a wry smile, doe eyes as apologetic as they can get. “I tried to stop him, but he’s probably going to barge into the house any second now. You mind if I untie you?”

 Jungwon spares Jake a careful, calculated glance. He’s met only with a gentle nod.

 As Heeseung works on the knots behind his back, Jake leans forward to ruffle the young boy’s hair.

 “Humans are all monstrous creatures,” he says. “The only thing that separates something horrible from something heroic is what they choose to do with their power. Some don’t stop, and some do. Everyone is capable of hurting everyone; it takes effort to love the right way.”

 “And the right way can look like anything,” Heeseung pipes up from behind his back. Jungwon much prefers this voice over his shoulder than any of the other ones. “Sometimes the right way to love is just choosing not to hurt, again and again. The only thing that makes a person good is the conscious choice to be.”

 “You’re good,” Jake says. “Because you want to be.”

 The sound of the front door banging open rings through the house. Heeseung sets Jungwon free.

  The sun sets a little after seven o’clock and Jay is drinking a cup of tea on his porch.

 Jungwon notes these things. The time of the clicking clock that Jay leaves outside behind the railing, the way his mug steams with still-warm tea, the way his chair rocks back and forth. Jungwon takes note of every last detail from afar, bated breath held deep in his chest as he looks on.

 The sun sets a little after seven o’clock and Jay’s tea break always ends twenty minutes after he comes outside. The clicking clock has just clicked its way past five minutes. Jungwon’s shoe taps against the wood of the kitchen floor. Do I approach him now? Do I wait?

 “Jungwon!” Jay calls sweetly from outside the house, and Jungwon startles. Caught red-handed. He meets the eyes through the window, pleased to find Jay’s sly smile looking at him with nothing but amusement. “Are you done in there? Your tea is getting cold.”

 “Sorry, Hyung. I was looking for the forks.”

 “Really?” Jay rises from the porch’s chair, approaching the window with gleaming eyes. “The forks that are in the same drawer as they were yesterday, and the day before that?”

 “...Yes.”

 “You were watching me,” he clicks his tongue. “I could feel it.”

 “Sorry. You’re too—” He snaps his mouth shut, cheeks a bright red. Jay laughs loudly, eyebrows pulled up in a way that creates small waves of wrinkling in his skin.

 “Too what?”

 “Nothing, Hyung. Never mind.”

 “No, no, I want to know. Too what?”

 Jungwon has half a mind to lean over the sink and slam the window shut. He doesn’t.

 “Too handsome,” he mumbles. “Can I come outside now?”

 “Of course, honey.” Jay leans close, palms pressed against the white of the windowsill. “Come out here so I can kiss that blush right off your pretty face, hm?”

 Jungwon does slam the window shut this time, but only because he can’t bear to look at that sly grin a moment longer.

  Yang Jungwon is half human.

 Not fully, anymore— but that isn’t something so concerning to him. Aside from heightened senses and the diet of pure, raw flesh, his life is rather normal. He works from a pretty, two-story home right by the woods. He walks into them at night and converses with an old friend about new topics— he makes new friends, too. With the ones who are conscious like him. He meets the one who sunk his teeth into his neck.

 (“His name is Sunghoon,” he tells Jake over dinner one night. Heeseung and Jay had gotten up to check on a broken portion of the fence. It was old and rotting, anyway; the winds these days were enough to knock it over. “He’s the one who— your father—”

 Jake places his fork on the table, breathing out as slowly as he can. The information is, admittedly, a lot. Even for Jungwon, who doesn’t have to bear the weight of that sort of thing crawling around behind his eyelids. “He didn’t kill you?”

 “It scarred him, too. He was young and scared. I know it probably doesn’t mean anything, but— he’s sorry.”

 “It means a lot,” Jake says, voice watery. “I want to meet him.”

 Jungwon nods, stilted. “He wants to meet you too.”)

 Lots of people in these parts disappear into the nothingness, he finds. Lots of them show up as mere flashes in the crackles of lightning, or the occasional hurried point of a flashlight. Lots of them are still missing posters on walls with sobbing mothers. Lots of them are boys who can never go home.

 Jungwon is grateful, at the very least, that he is not one of them. He isn’t okay, and he knows he won’t ever be, but he’s alive. Whatever it means to be alive, he’s it. More than Sunoo, who’d succumbed to darkness and tried to get Jungwon to do the same. More than Sunghoon, who lives every day with a soft tremble to his speech. Who meets Jake in the shadows and cries enough to make the whole forest’s whistle sound like a scream. More than any of the others who come and go, mere fragments of humanity and memories and things they lost to the consequences of their pain. Jungwon is half human, but that half is important. It matters. It always has, and it always will.

 At the end of the day, he crawls into bed with someone who loves him. Someone who acknowledges that he is sick and will always be sick, and loves him no less for it.

 Each night, he curls himself into a body that cocoons him in safety. Each night, his sharp teeth cut straight through it. Jungwon will always be hungry and Jay will always be there to eat, in his own way. He lets Jungwon devour his heart a thousand times a week, like his very own make-shift prometheus.

 Jungwon loves Jay, and he chooses that love as many times as that heart offers itself up to be eaten. A good love makes someone good. A great love makes someone want to be good.

 In a perfect world, love heals everything. In this one, love only has to be what it is: enough to split the darkness in half with a soft beam of light. It doesn’t eradicate it forever— doesn’t keep it all at bay— but it makes it easier. Jungwon takes that beam of light, splits it in half, and shares it with Jay. Like dinner and tea and the bed.

 Yang Jungwon is half human and half a conscious effort to live well. He is also living proof that things do not have to get better to be good. That people do not have to be perfect to be well-loved. He is not okay, and that, in of itself, isn’t such a bad way to be.

 He is capable of loving in the darkness as much as in the light. He is capable of kisses when he’s hungry just as much as when he’s satiated. There are people and voices and reflections in the mirror that like to remind him of his constant state of self-regulation, but it doesn’t dissuade him. He can see in his life that the efforts to be good and do well aren’t to his detriment. It is exhausting and oftentimes unrewarding, and the ache never fades— but that’s life. Whether he were spending it hungry or full, life would continue to need work put in for results to come out. He’s always been practical enough to understand that. It is beautiful not because it is hard, but because he has made it with his own hands.

 So maybe Yang Jungwon is only half human— but he is also fully, truly, deserving of every last bit of his humanity. He is a product of love. He is a survivor constantly saving himself over and over. Everything he does makes him stronger, and every last struggle doesn’t have to harden him.

 Just because he is half human does not mean the other half of him is a monster. It is a half he splits with Jay. It is a half he splits with himself and the rest of the world. It’s a half that greets him in the mirror, reminding him he is doing well.

 Perfection is a concept created by people who cannot even grasp it. Jungwon doesn’t try to be one of those people. He likes this life as it is now— because no matter how much the ache tries to consume him, Jungwon won’t let it.

 Jay loves Jungwon, and Jungwon loves him.

 Together, they chase the dark out. Jungwon doesn’t mind that it will come back. When it does, he’ll be waiting with blown eyes, sharp teeth, and open arms.

  (“Oh god,” Jay cries, eyes wild and pouring over when he finds Jungwon in Heeseung’s kitchen. It doesn’t take much for the other two to give him a nod of courtesy, leaving their own house for the sake of privacy. Jay’s grateful.

 “Hyung,” Jungwon says, voice unsteady. He’s beautiful. Jay would have swallowed Heeseung’s hunting rifle if anything were to ever happen to him. “I’m sorry. I ran away.”

 “I know,” he nods. It doesn’t matter. It does, but it doesn’t. His head is screaming with a thousand different things. Maybe if the consequences were different, he’d be able to get angry with Jungwon— shout at him, even. It’s damn near impossible, but if anything were to ever cause it, this might’ve been it.

 He can’t will himself to express that, though. Not when Heeseung had called and explained to him that Jungwon himself had wanted to be tied down.

 “I failed you,” Jay says, swallowing the bile in his mouth. He’s never, ever wanted to utter those words. If he were any better— if what he gave was ever enough— then he wouldn’t have had to. “I failed you, Jungwon-ah. Hyung is sorry.”

 Jungwon shakes his head, eyes wide and round and trusting in a way that Jay doesn’t feel he deserves. He’s beautiful. He’s alive. Those words keep replaying in his head. Waking up alone had nearly made him collapse on the spot, but that feels like a distant memory now. He’s beautiful. He’s alive. I’d do anything to keep him that way.

 “You can’t protect me from myself,” Jungwon says, attempting to smile. It’s barely there and hardly works to soothe Jay’s nerves. He falls to his knees in front of the chair, palms on Jungwon’s shaking knees. “I was the one who had to learn how to do that. It’s my fault.”

 “It isn’t. I could have— I should have been there. I should’ve seen the signs. I could have… I could have…”

 “You’re strong, but you’re not invincible.” Jungwon says, parroting his own words back to him. “You can only carry so much weight. Let me carry this for you. I want to carry this for you.”

 “Hyung is sorry.”

 “Hyung shouldn’t be.” Jungwon leans down, cupping Jay’s face. He feels loved, feels seen. Jungwon probably doesn’t even know how one touch from his fingertips could make Jay feel human. He comes alive in between his palms, in the reflection of his eyes. He’s half a man without Jungwon— as much a monster as anyone, if not more so when he’s being consumed by his loneliness. It’s his own form of selfish hunger. It’s a thing he feeds by nuzzling into the touch. “You have done so much to protect me. Now, it’s my turn. Let me protect you, too. Let me make this work.”

 “Whatever you want,” Jay says, earnest and open. He’s a bleeding, raw piece of meat held up for Jungwon’s appetite. He’s a starved thing, too. They’re not much different from each other, he thinks. They never have been. “I’ll give— whatever you want, I just…”

 “I just want you,” Jungwon says. “I just want you.”

 “Then have me.”

 Jungwon’s kiss is sweet and salty. The taste of his tears mixes with the giggle on his lips, and Jay has never been happier.

 This does not scare him. Jungwon does not scare him, and he never will. Maybe the entirety of the love in his heart will frighten Jay on some days, because he has more of it than he knows what to do with, but it will never be Jungwon that strikes terror into him. He could tear Jay apart, but he could put him back together. The only monster that exists between the two of them is the wanting. The wanting that is never truly satisfied.

 And Jay thinks, kissing Jungwon so hard he swears he tastes blood— isn’t that a good sort of beast to leave forever wild, impossible to tame?)