Chapter Text
{❤️🔥}
Hongjoong knows it's bad. Despite what a handful of sympathetic people have claimed throughout his life, and in spite of his kind-hearted members, who are always generous to a fault.
The unfortunate truth is that his thing, that feeling that festers inside of him and never surrenders, it ruins him. Hongjoong knows it does. It spoils who he might have otherwise become. It warps all of his best intentions and disfigures his humanity. It makes him seem aloof and detached in a way he simply isn't. But, no matter what he says, and no matter how he behaves, he knows the iron-clad walls he builds around himself must appear so cold and unfriendly to others. From the outside, his hesitancies and anxieties must seem like arrogance and conceit. It's a miracle that, so far, he has been able to escape industry-wide contempt – especially given that their world is so prone to hate and drama. And it's an incredible testament to the grace and loyalty of those around him. To his members and their managers, who tirelessly protect him and shield his weakest parts from the watching eyes of the world. It must feel like such a burden sometimes.
Hongjoong can't stand being touched — that's the heart of the matter. He loathes it, actually. It makes him feel physically ill in a way he can barely explain; in a way he only ever tries to explain when he senses that his thing is deeply upsetting someone he loves. And, even then, he'll stutter through his explanations and mumble words like 'overwhelmed' and 'gut-punched' and 'nauseated' as if they're dishonest. But they're not. They're Hongjoong's absolute truth, in all of its humiliating reality.
When you touch me, I can't stand it.
I love you, but I hate that.
He's been this way for as long as he can remember. Touch averse. That's a term he found online, on an old library computer back when he was ten years old. He’d wanted to understand why people interacting with his body made him recoil, why it made him feel more nervous than anything else in his life.
It was just becoming an issue for him at the time. And the older he got, the more isolating it had felt, and the more obvious it seemed for others to spot. It made him strange. Odd. Other. Opposite. It made him stand out when all he wanted to do was blend into a crowd and hide himself away.
It's amazing how much you not wanting to be touched can upset other people. It's extraordinary how offended and angry they can become when they don't have automatic access to your body; when you actively deny them it. Hongjoong has never understood why other people find it so offensive, nor why they assume he's doing it to personally spite them. And it's not like strangers are the only ones who misunderstand him. His own family have never really understood.
'Stop it right now!' His mother had screamed at him once, when he was eleven, after he'd jerked away from her fingers in a clothes shop.
They'd been buying him a new school uniform when she'd brushed a bit of lint from his sleeve and he'd... well, he'd reacted how his body always reacts. He'd jerked away from her like her fingers were made of shards of jagged glass. As if she were a monster disguised as a mother.
Her face was a picture. Hongjoong still remembers it perfectly. She was absolutely furious with him; her cheeks bright red as she grabbed the back of his coat and dragged him outside. Away from the other mothers and sales assistants. Pushing him into the mouth of a shadowy alleyway so she could glower at him with a semblance of privacy. She was embarrassed. Hongjoong’s thing had humiliated her.
'Why can't you just be normal for once, Hongjoong-ah?!' She'd screamed at him, while he was still trying to process the way her making contact with him, even over his clothes, had made his heart start racing.
'You can't go around acting like this at the slightest touch! People are going to think your father and I beat you! Is that what you want? Is it?! Do you want other people to think we're bad parents?! Do you want everyone in this city to be talking about us behind our backs?'
'N-no,' Hongjoong had stammered, his fingertips pressing against the brick wall behind him. Even now, he remembers finding comfort in the cold, lifelessness of it. In the way it couldn’t touch him back. 'It's just... it just feels like too much, eomma.'
'Sometimes... sometimes I wish we did hit you. Maybe then you'd learn how to behave a little better,' she'd almost growled at him, all of her frustration ebbing away as soon as she really looked at him — the soft trembling of his small shoulders, the weary expression on his face.
He hadn't meant to be melodramatic; he hadn't meant to overreact or cause a scene. And he was suddenly terrified of being beaten, even though he knew, and had always known, that his parents were strictly against that kind of thing. He was afraid of it, not because of the pain, not because of the beating itself, but because of the sheer volume of skin a beating might involve. Fingers and fists raining down all over his body. Touching, prodding, pinching, grabbing him. Hongjoong had bent over in the alleyway and vomited just thinking about it. His sick was a bright, sickly blue due to the slushie his mother had bought for him an hour earlier.
'Hongjoong-ah!' his mother had exclaimed then, equally horrified by his reaction and by her own behaviour. 'Joongie? Are you okay?'
She'd stepped closer to him, and he'd pressed himself harder against the brick wall. Hongjoong wasn't afraid that she might attack him; he was afraid that she might try to do something much worse — something soft and lingering, something like caress his cheek or ruffle his hair. But she didn't. Instead, she stopped herself short and seemed to briefly stroke the air, like she was caressing the ghost of the child she'd wanted once and continued to want. Both of them understood that he would never be that child, his thing would never allow it.
That same day, alone in his bedroom, Hongjoong had privately forgiven his mother for her outburst. But she didn't seem to forgive herself for a very long time. Although, at some point, she decided to hug him and hold him, regardless of his obvious discomfort and disgust. But maybe none of that really matters when you're no longer a child. Adults bear unpleasant things every day. Some adults build their entire lives around doing things they'd rather not. Hongjoong's not special in that regard.
Besides, if it makes his mother happy, even for a while, shouldn't he do it? Shouldn't he suffer through the unpleasantness a few times a year? What does it matter if it's for her? If it's for the woman who raised him and loved him, even if she could never understand him.
These days, despite the years that have passed, the sensation of fingers on his body still makes Hongjoong's skin crawl. But he's more accustomed to it now. He doesn't flinch when strangers, when those who don't know about his thing , touch him. He doesn't visibly recoil. He doesn't whine. He doesn't back away. He just grits his teeth and internally pleads for it to end before he loses his mind. The members are always so helpful in that regard – intervening subtly or shifting focus away from him like it's nothing. Taking the touches that were destined for him, and then saying nothing about it.
Still, the members are human and they forget sometimes. Every once in a while, they’ll get caught up in a moment, and they’ll practically barrel into him. When even their playful shoulders bumping into his continues to fill him with rage. He’s always deeply apologetic and incredibly upset with himself when he snaps at them.
His job, his career as an idol, which occasionally demands he smile and stand in a row to high-five over a hundred people in fifteen minutes, remains an uncomfortable reality. He's not made for this life, he’s not compatible with its constant demands, but he loves music, he loves creating, and he loves connecting with others in a language he always understands.
The more he considers it, the more he despises what it does to him, his thing, and the more he hates how it hurts those who try so hard to love him, despite it all.
Hongjoong isn't an idiot. He considers himself to be reasonably intelligent and emotionally attuned to those around him. He knows touch aversion exists on a scale. Even within Ateez, even amongst their own little family, there's a broad spectrum of tolerances when it comes to things like intimacy and physical touch – ranging from those who regularly seek it out to those who'd rather not partake in it, unless there's a very particular set of circumstances. And Hongjoong knows they're all regular, normal responses. In the same way he knows that his feelings on the matter aren't. Because the circumstances don't seem to make any difference when it comes to him. It doesn't matter how he feels. It doesn't matter what he's trying to express. And it's not like he gets pleasure out of denying others access to his body. It's not that he doesn't wish he could just do it. He has absolutely no leeway when it comes to how he feels or how he reacts. It just happens, and he never gets a break from it. It's just a constant, unpleasant state of being. And he doubts that that will ever change. He believes that his thing will always be his burden — his boulder to push uphill.
Take now, for instance, he's sat in the dorm, resting on the sofa on a random Wednesday evening, and his teeth are clamped together so hard he swears he can hear his jaw creaking like the overburdened branches of an old tree.
He's just caught himself scowling at Wooyoung and Jongho as they play fight on the floor in front of the television, the television he's not even watching. His dorm mates, his friends, are all wild exasperations and boyish shoving. A sharp jab in the side. A quick slap to the butt. A cry of anguish as they wrestle for victory, pushing each other down to the ground and struggling back up again.
Their touching each other, their pushing and hugging endlessly, makes Hongjoong want to scream at them. It makes him want to lay into them for daring to touch each other in his presence, and he feels repulsed by his own train of thought. In all honesty, he's completely horrified by it. By the audacity and the vitriol of it. Who does he think he is? What right does he have to be such a terrible, irredeemable bastard?
Shame roots and rots inside of him. It feels insidious and twisted, like it's infesting the very marrow of his bones and corrupting him even further. Because he knows, without a doubt, that they're doing nothing wrong. They're not even being particularly loud tonight. Hongjoong knows it's all him. He's the one that needs correcting. He's the one that needs reprimanding for his unacceptable response to something so harmless and normal it's astonishing.
Hongjoong forces his gaze away from them, so he's glaring desperately at the ceiling instead. He knows they haven't noticed yet. And thank God for that, because he couldn't explain this. He couldn't explain why other people touching is infuriating him so much today. He could never force those words out of his throat. How could he look at Wooyoung, at Jongho — who is usually so guarded with his own touches — how could he look at either of them, at their happiness, at their rare unfiltered existing, and demonise it? How could he criticise them for it? How could he make them doubt it, even for a moment?
No, there's only one person who needs chastising in this scenario. and it's him. It always comes back to him.
Hongjoong forces his eyes back down, so he can watch them. As if he's punishing himself for his terrible indiscretion. His vision is a little blurry. He feels deeply uncomfortable — both with what he's seeing and with how he's feeling. But he makes himself look. Wooyoung's hands pull at Jongho's arms. Jongho tries to tickle Wooyoung. Their bodies meet and part like the tide caressing the sand. Over and over again in a ceaseless wave.
And then, all of a sudden, Hongjoong feels something new. Something new and incredibly unexpected. He feels entranced by how the two move together. He feels confused by it. He feels conflicted. He feels like an outsider. And he feels suddenly, horrifically heartbroken.
They are being so free with each other. They don't worry about fingers or closeness or too much pressure. They simply are. They simply exist. And Hongjoong craves that. He wishes he was capable, for once, of experiencing something that comes so easily to others — even to those like Jongho, who can find it much harder. Because this feels human. The way they touch feels so beautifully human that tears flood Hongjoong's eyes. Because, if he can’t do this, what does it make him?
Am I such a deviation of nature?
Am I so wrong?
Am I so abhorrent?
Am I so inhuman?
Overwhelmed, Hongjoong pushes himself up off the sofa in a panic and flees to the bathroom. He slams the door shut with so much force the pictures shudder and slant on the wall. He locks himself in, then he marches over to the sink, grips the porcelain, and summons the strength to look at himself in the mirror.
He looks awful — his eyes are wild, and wet, and lost.
He sees far more pain in himself than he'd expected to see. He'd half-convinced himself he was the devil. Some dark creature who sneers at the joys of others. A soulless shell haunting the earth. A ghoul who wails in the face of humanity. But now, looking at himself, observing himself, he knows it's much worse than all that. He sees that he is scared. He recognises his own fear. He witnesses the desperation in his eyes. He sees the grief on his lips. And he barely has time to comprehend any of it, and what it means, before he's interrupted.
'Hyung?' Wooyoung calls through the door, his knuckles softly tapping against the wood as he speaks. 'Are you okay in there?'
Hongjoong could laugh, he really could, but he doesn't. He stays silent, his lower lip trapped harshly between his front teeth, his knuckles turning white where they grip the sink, a hot tear sliding down his cheek. The tear makes him shudder as it carves its path beneath his chin and down his throat.
'Hyungie?' Wooyoung tries again. He sounds so concerned. So sincerely worried for him. Hongjoong can hear his anxiety as it springs to life and grows.
'Joongie-hyung?' Jongho asks quietly. Hongjoong hears the metal of a zip hitting the door, as if one of them has their chest pressed against the wood. They're listening, Hongjoong realises, to make sure he's okay. And somehow, their care for him makes Hongjoong feel even worse. How can I be so monstrous? How can I have had such wicked thoughts about my own friends?
'Kim Hongjoong!' Wooyoung shouts suddenly, almost like he's scolding a child. 'Answer me right now. Are you okay?'
'I-'Hongjoong manages pitifully. Where can he even begin? Is there a beginning?
'Oh, thank god,' Wooyoung exhales, all of his previous harshness vanishing in the blink of an eye. 'Are you not feeling well, hyung?'
'I-'Hongjoong practically whimpers, before he picks up a half-used tube of toothpaste and throws it against his face in the mirror. It bounces, spins, and slides down into the sink.
'Hyung?' Jongho calls out urgently. 'Shit, did he fall?'
'Hyung?' Wooyoung adds, knocking on the door again. His hand pressing the handle down. He shakes it a few times when he realises it's locked, as if that might be enough for it to open.
'I didn't fall,' Hongjoong says dispassionately.
Wooyoung lets go of the handle and stops trying to break in.
'Do you need me to get you some medicine and a blanket? You sound awful. We can set you up in the living room if you'd like, or in your bed if you're too tired to stay up with us?'
'I'm not...' Hongjoong begins, but he doesn't know how to explain. His brain isn't thinking clearly enough for him to construct a functional lie. Not one they'd ever believe, anyway.
'I don't think he's sick,' Jongho says quietly. 'We'd have noticed if he was. And we all ate the same food today, so it's not that either.'
'Well, he's obviously not okay, Jongho.'
'I know that!' Jongho hisses back, perhaps a little too sharply. Hongjoong doesn't want them to fight, not over him. The idea of that happening makes his heart ache so much he feels ill. 'I think maybe it's the other kind of sick. You know? Like his brain is not feeling well.'
'O-oh,' Hongjoong hears Wooyoung exclaim quietly. 'Oh! I think you're right.'
Hongjoong closes his eyes and squeezes them tight. He hates the way he can't deny it, and he hates the way he knows they're about to be so kind to him about it. He doesn't deserve that, not after what he's done.
'Hyung,' Wooyoung begins softly from behind the door, like he's handling something precious. Like he's holding treasure in his hands. Please, don't touch me. 'How can we help you? What can we do? You can talk to us, you know? Me and HoJongie, we're really good at listening. You can tell us anything, anything at all, and it'll stay between us. I promise. We just want to help you. We just want you to feel well, hyung.'
'I can't,' Hongjoong whispers, the sadness in his voice resonating. He throws his hand over his mouth. He doesn't want to upset them, or offend them, but as their hyung, and because of what happened, he'd never dream of opening up to them about this. Never in a million years. He wouldn't be able to stomach their betrayed faces if they found out the truth of the matter. He'd really have to leave — them, the life they've built, and the dreams they've been chasing.
'Okay,' Jongho says calmly. Always even. Always reliable. Always soothing. 'That's okay, hyung. I know it's hard to talk to certain people about certain things. I feel that way, too. Would you prefer it if we called Hwa-hyung for you? Would that feel better? I really think you should talk to someone. We can ask him to come over. I know he'd be happy to. He cares about you so much.'
'Or,' Wooyoung adds helpfully. 'We can ask him to phone you? If you'd find that a little easier. Whatever you need, we can make it happen. Do you have your phone in there with you? I can call him right now. I know he won't mind.'
'But I...' Hongjoong starts uncertainly. He knows he needs help; he doesn't know how he'll leave this bathroom on his own. It feels impossible. It feels way too big. 'I don't... I don't want you to hear. I'm so sorry.'
'That's alright, hyung,' Wooyoung says quickly, sounding totally sure of it. 'We can go over to one of the other dorms for a little while, and you can talk in peace without having to worry about us hearing anything.'
'But...' Hongjoong frowns, bewildered by their kindness, as another tear slides down his face. The way it slips over his skin makes him shiver. 'But this is your home, too.'
'It is,' Wooyoung agrees, his voice light despite the gravity of their conversation. 'But you're our hyung, and you need some space, and that's okay. You never ask us for anything. Not ever. Besides, it’s not hard for us to spend a little more time with the others. So, don't worry about it, okay? Shall I call Hwa-hyung for you?'
'Y-yes...' Hongjoong stutters, before his brain can catch up and stop him. Before he can overthink and back away from getting the help he knows he desperately requires. 'Yes, thank you, Wooyoungie.'
'Alright, I'll go and do that now, and I'll unlock the front door for him,' Wooyoung says, sharing his plans. 'Even if you don't want to see him, I'm sure he'll want to be as close to you as he can be anyway.'
Not too close.
Can't you come any closer?
Please, stay there.
Why won’t you hold me?
Hongjoong listens to Wooyoung's footsteps fade as he walks away. He listens to the soft flip-flop-flip-flop of his slippers. He wipes at his eyes with his sleeve and sniffles to clear his nose. This is good. He's getting help. Finally. After weeks — no, after months — of feeling worse about everything, about himself. About his thing .
'Hyung,' Jongho calls to him through the door. 'I'm sorry I don't say this as often as I probably should, but I love you very much. And I hope you know that.'
Hongjoong's vision instantly blurs with tears; he grits his teeth, feeling overwhelmed by the tandem waves of love and guilt that he feels so keenly.
'Jongho...' Hongjoong whispers helplessly, almost apologetically.
'It's okay. I know, hyung,' Jongho offers calmly, never making it clear what it is that he knows, although Hongjoong doesn't doubt him. He believes in Jongho so strongly. 'Everything will be okay, I promise.'
And then Wooyoung's voice is back, just beyond the wood, just beyond the domestic barricade, 'He's already here, hyung. Don't rush yourself, alright? HoJongje and I are taking our pyjamas with us, so take your time. Take all night if you need it.'
'Thank you for calling me,' Seonghwa says to the others, before Hongjoong's dorm mates start gathering up their belongings.
And, even if he feels like a burden, he’s thankful, too.
He knows that being loved so openly is no small thing, and he won’t take it for granted.
{❤️🔥}