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i hate that i'm still up (4:00 a.m.) [1/2]
title: i hate that i'm still up (4:00 a.m.)
pairing: heeseung & jungwon, heeseung/sunghoon
rating: mature
summary: heeseung is twelve when he finds out he likes how pretty jungwon looks when he cries.
heeseung is thirteen when he finds out just how pretty jungwon could be, with bruises painted on his skin.
heeseung is nineteen when he finds out the object of his affection never loved him back.
notes: please! please! please! heed the torture tag. there's a lot of violence in this part. you've been warned. if it makes you too squeamish, please skip for the sake of your mental health. this part is mainly just backstory. it's shorter than the previous part, but i don't think dragging it out would make it any better.
title is from this damn song by pecos & the rooftops.
"what are consequences when the end justifies the means?" heeseung's head is craned back as far as it can go. somehow, he manages a chuckle, wincing lightly at the sharp stabs of pain in the soft flesh under his chin and the top of his chest where his collar bones meet his breast bone. his words disappear into the darkness, and he's left to wait again.
"what was the end then?" sunoo appears out of the darkness, hands in his pockets. he walks a slow circle around the other man, surveying his brand new canvas.
heeseung smiles. the streaks of blood and spit dripping from his mouth have long dried, twisting his features into something sinister. his legs are bound so tight to the table he's kneeling on, he's long lost feeling in them.
when he tries to pull himself up by his arms, the rope around his wrists give just enough slack for him to slip forward and jam his chin down on the two metal prongs secured around his neck with a leather collar. the table wobbles underneath him dangerously.
his fingers and hands start throbbing again. they're bruised beyond recognition, if not broken, judging by how tight sunoo turned the thumbscrew device when he first woke heeseung hours ago. belatedly, he thanks the cold for numbing most of his body.
heeseung sucks in a shallow breath and tries not to laugh. "aren't you supposed to have all the answers to everything?"
sunoo doesn't respond this time, instead, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. "heard from wonnie you smoke. interested in a light?" he slips the cigarette between heeseung's lips and lights it, watching as heeseung instinctively takes a drag. a moment of silence stretches between the two of them.
"you wanna know something funny, heeseung? this position you're in? you look like you're on your knees, praying. but i'll tell you this: even god can't save you now." sunoo plucks the cigarette from heeseung's lips and presses it into the base of his neck, smiling when he hisses and tries to flinch away. the cigarette leaves a nice round burn on his skin that slowly fills with blood.
sunoo sighs. "i don't know why they don't use the heretic's fork more often. this was used primarily during the spanish inquisition." he flicks at the metal prongs before reaching around to pull at the back of the leather collar, burying the tips of the metal into his skin again. "it won't kill you. and as long as you look like you're repenting your sins with your eyes on the sky, it won't hurt as much. hurts enough to keep you awake, though, right? not that you've ever had any trouble staying awake."
sunoo grabs a chair and pulls it over to the table, sitting down and propping his feet up next to heeseung's legs. he shakes the table, laughing when heeseung cries out in pain when the fork opens new wounds.
"i'll ask you again. what was the end that justified the means?"
it starts off as a snort. then heeseung chuckles. his chuckles evolve into laughter. he doesn't feel the pain from the device strapped around his neck anymore as it spills rivers of blood down his chest.
"i wasn't talking about me. don't you see? i'm not the bad guy here. the real mastermind behind all of this has all of you wrapped around his little finger." heeseung stops to catch his breath, vision blurring from blood loss. "yang jungwon. isn't he so much prettier when he cries?" heeseung's voice is barely a whisper, but his lips quirk into a smile when he hears a growl rumbling from sunoo.
then everything goes black.
heeseung is two years old when his father brings home a woman and wants him to call her mom. he stares at her, not quite sure what to make of the situation. at two years old, he’s already considered a bit odd. he doesn’t smile or laugh like the other kids, which prompts his father to think that maybe he needs a motherly influence.
nothing changes, though. he does as he’s told. he responds with answers his parents want to hear. he tries to be whatever they want him to be because he doesn’t know what else to do.
heeseung is turning three at the end of the year when his little brother is born. he remembers his parents telling him there was a baby growing in his new mom’s stomach, and he was perplexed. how does someone grow a baby? were they like the flowers in the garden?
he stares at the little baby wrapped in blankets in his mom’s arms. honestly, heeseung thinks it’s a little ugly.
"do you wanna hold him, heeseung?"
the boy blinks a few times, unsure of how to answer. "... do i have to?"
his mom chuckles, bouncing the baby in her arms. "you don't have to, if you don't want to."
heeseung stares again for a moment before nodding. he holds out his arms, and his mom gently places his brother into his arms, adjusting his arms to hold him correctly.
"be careful with him, heeseung. he's just a baby."
be careful. he’s just a baby, heeseung repeats to himself in his head. then, his brother yawns, and the corner of heeseung’s mouth twitches up into a small grin.
“honey, look! don’t heeseung and jungwon look adorable!” he looks up to see his parents fawning over both of them, and a genuine smile appears on his face for the first time in his life.
--
heeseung’s been told that he’s good at everything. he’s good at sports, he’s good at games, he’s good at school, and lately, he’s been hearing more about how he’s a good brother.
the more time he spends with jungwon, however, the more he wonders why everyone coos over him like he’s the most precious thing they’ve ever seen. what is it? why do people like him so much?
heeseung doesn’t understand. what he does understand, though, is that when he’s with jungwon, he shares the attention the adults give him. so heeseung will sit there, watching jungwon roll around and make random baby noises. all he does is poop, cry, laugh, and sleep.
heeseung will watch the adults pass him around while he pretends to play with the other kids. the other kids don’t seem to like him very much, but he doesn’t mind. they don’t mean anything to him.
he’s heard the things they say about him behind his back, about how creepy he seems because he never smiles, or how awkward he is because no one understands the jokes he makes. he’s still the best at everything else, and that’s all that matters to him.
still, it bothers heeseung that he’s lacking in something. so, sometimes, when he’s finished brushing his teeth at night, he stares at himself in the mirror. he thinks of the way jungwon smiles and laughs, and he tries to copy the same expressions in the mirror.
he practices until the muscles in his face hurt. it still feels too awkward on his skin, and heeseung always goes to bed disappointed in himself.
--
heeseung is eight when jungwon starts showing up in his room in the middle of the night, terrified by the sounds of their parents fighting. jungwon never questions why heeseung is always awake when he comes to him, no matter what time of night, so he lets jungwon sleep in his bed those nights, curled up against him, small body trembling.
be careful. he’s just a baby, his mind tells him again, repeating his mother’s words over and over again. his brain doesn’t let him sleep at night, thinking about everything and nothing all at once.
now that jungwon is five, he spends nearly all of his time stuck to heeseung, following him around with stars in his eyes. heeseung’s gotten better at pretending to be exactly what he should be, so he dotes on his brother in public, playing with him and keeping an eye out for the other adults to make sure they can see how good of a brother he is.
he's the one that encourages jungwon to draw, showing off his brother’s art with pride, just like he’s supposed to. look what jungwon drew! and it’s always a picture of heeseung. even at that age, jungwon’s figured out his brother likes seeing drawings of himself, so pictures of heeseung, no matter how crudely drawn, are what jungwon draws the most.
but when no one is watching, heeseung doesn’t want anything to do with jungwon. he’ll wander off on his own to find something else to do, leaving his younger brother to his own devices.
jungwon is too curious for his own good sometimes, and he’ll get himself into trouble or end up hurt somehow. then, heeseung gets scolded while jungwon cries.
heeseung hears those words in his sleep.
heeseung wakes up to another press of a lighted cigarette into his skin.
“pretty. it looks like a pearl necklace. hoonie ever give you any of those?” sunoo asks, sweet smile on his face. he pokes at his cheek, and heeseung makes the mistake of trying to bite him.
“ah, ah, ah! can’t have that, now can we?” a pair of pliers appears in his hand, making heeseung’s eyes widen. he shuts his mouth, but sunoo easily wrestles it open, shoving a piece of wood between his teeth to keep him from clamping down.
“you have really nice teeth.” sunoo knocks the pliers against his teeth, one tooth at a time, before stopping at one of his canines. “it would be a shame if, oh, say, i removed your canines. you won’t be needing them. you’re an omega, after all. you won’t be making any mating marks.”
sunoo holds heeseung’s head still with one hand, pliers clamped around the tooth. heeseung tries to struggle against him, but the more he moves, the more his body protests, pain throbbing so intently under his skin, tears start welling up in his eyes.
sunoo makes it slow. he twists the pliers to the left. then he twists it to the right. heeseung starts to sob, the welling tears falling fresh, his struggles becoming weaker. he chokes on the blood pooling in his mouth.
“you’ve got a pretty face. i’m sure you could find someone to pay for implants, if you really have to have them. but you know who has really nice canines? hoonie.”
and in one swift motion, sunoo rips his tooth out, cutting heeseung's lip in the process. he lets go and takes a few steps to let heeseung scream, coughing out the blood in his mouth.
sunoo drops the tooth on the table, wiping off the pliers before coming back, scooping up the piece of wood from the floor. heeseung coughs again, trying to spit out his blood at sunoo, but he steps out of the way and laughs. “this suit is designer, darling. i’d prefer not to get bloodstains on it. jay would kill me.”
this time, when sunoo reaches for his mouth again, heeseung doesn’t have enough energy to fight him. what would've been a scream turns into a low gurgle as his voice cuts out. sunoo wrestles the other canine from his mouth, satisfied smile on his face.
then, heeseung cries. he cries until his tears mix with blood and split, dripping down his face.
sunoo thinks he's his best work of art yet.
"heeseung, has anyone ever told you, you're pretty when you cry?"
heeseung's vision goes black again as he hears his teenage self sneer at his brother.
heeseung is eleven when jungwon starts coming to his room, crying. their dad’s picked up drinking again, and their mom is gone a lot more often.
jungwon comes looking for heeseung for comfort, and heeseung only loosely wraps his arms around him in what barely constitutes as a hug because it’s what jungwon wants. deep down, heeseung thinks, what happened to being careful with him because he’s a baby?
their family has become awkward now. dinner is quiet, no longer filled with soft talks and laughter. heeseung eats everything on his plate like he’s supposed to, letting jungwon steal his favorites from him.
it doesn’t affect heeseung as much as it affects jungwon. heeseung can see the sadness in his eyes when he looks at their parents. he spends more time drawing the whole family together doing different things. he tells heeseung stories about what he hears the other kids doing with their parents.
he asks heeseung why their family doesn’t go out together anymore, but heeseung doesn’t have any answers for him other than his standard, carefully crafted answer.
the answer never fails to put a smile on jungwon’s face as he bounces away, satisfied. heeseung realizes then, that’s his way of being careful with jungwon.
when heeseung turns twelve, seeing jungwon in tears becomes a regular thing. however, these aren’t tears of sadness. they’re tears of anger and frustration.
you know he’s going to take you away from the family, right? that’s what he means when he says he wants you, heeseung tells him after jungwon asks him what it meant when someone claims someone else.
jungwon sobs into heeseung’s chest, yelling about how he already has his own family, about how he doesn’t want to leave, how he can’t leave his big brother behind just because some boy said he wanted him.
heeseung listens to jungwon’s hiccupping sobs and gently runs his fingers through his hair.
be careful. he’s just a baby, he thinks again, but when jungwon sits up, anger etched into his features, heeseung can’t help but think his brother is much prettier when he’s crying.
--
when jungwon starts pulling away from him, heeseung doesn’t notice until he realizes it’s been almost a week since he last spoke to jungwon.
he finds him in his room, drawing furiously at his desk, eyebrows furrowed. heeseung leans against his doorway for a moment before making his way inside and ruffling jungwon’s hair.
jungwon stares up at him with wide eyes, like he’d forgotten all about heeseung’s existence. heeseung spots dark drawings of jongseong, the boy that claimed him and gives jungwon an amused smile before jungwon starts spilling everything about jongseong.
don’t make it easy for him, wonwon, he tells him. kids like him are used to having everything handed to them on a silver platter.
heeseung smiles when he sees jungwon clench his fists.
--
heeseung is thirteen when he finds out just how pretty jungwon looks with bruises painted on his skin.
he makes no motion to help his younger brother when he hears his father’s drunken slurring down the hallway in the middle of the night mixed with jungwon’s pleas for him to stop.
heeseung waits until the noises stop, knowing that jungwon will be at his door soon. when he appears, in tears with fresh bruises, heeseung pulls jungwon into his arms and hugs him close.
he’s not comforting him, however. heeseung just wants to get a closer look at the way jungwon’s tears collect on his eyelashes and stain his face. he runs his fingers softly over jungwon’s bruises, and when he presses into one out of curiosity, jungwon flinches with a soft cry, so heeseung apologies.
be careful. he’s just a baby, his mind reminds him. but how much longer was jungwon going to be a baby?
heeseung watches as jungwon retreats into himself. he no longer smiles at much, and the sound of his laughter becomes a distant memory. he pulls away from heeseung, hiding in his room, his books, and his drawings. the adults talk about him in hushed whispers now, but they never use his name. they call him jongseong’s.
their family slowly falls apart. dad is almost never home now, and mom is like a ghost in the house. they show up to the rich dinner parties and act like a family, but jungwon always hides away as soon as he gets the opportunity.
heeseung is fourteen when he presents as an omega, and suddenly, the adults have thrown him onto a pedestal. he preens under the attention. now, jungwon is long forgotten until he wants to hear compliments of him being a good omega because of his nurturing instincts when it comes to taking care of his brother.
jungwon looks almost like he used to as a kid, laughing and smiling with heeseung, until the eyes of the adults are off of him. then, heeseung drops jungwon like a sack of bricks, leaving a very confused, very sad jungwon because he loves his older brother.
--
heeseung is fifteen when he stops being careful with jungwon.
his younger brother still searches for his company and approval, showing him his latest works, but heeseung casts a bored glance at them, answering with a shrug, if he even bothers to acknowledge jungwon in the first place.
every now and then, jungwon will ask him how school is going, or what he’s doing now, or if he can hang out with him, but heeseung gives him a disgusted look for even suggesting the idea in the first place.
jungwon deflates, and he’ll mope about it for a few days before everything goes back to normal.
but then, on a day where heeseung is in a particularly bad mood, he snaps at jungwon and hits him, making jungwon cry. heeseung’s eyes go wide, the words be careful, he’s just a baby echo louder than he’s ever heard them in his mind until he feels tears pricking at his own eyes.
he apologizes, he apologizes to jungwon until he stops crying, and he makes it up to him by letting jungwon spend the night in his room, talking about anything and everything. heeseung feels a sense of pride that jungwon still idolizes him as a prince in his art.
the affection is always short lived, however, because heeseung goes right back to being cold the next day.
it becomes a vicious cycle of pain and comfort, and at the end of it all, jungwon wonders what he did to make his brother stop loving him.
when heeseung wakes up this time, he’s sitting in a chair, bound with ropes. someone’s cleaned the blood from his face and bandaged his hands. he can feel his skin aching from the cuts made by the heretic’s fork, and he can’t move his fingers, confirming his suspicions that his hands and fingers are broken.
most of all, his mouth burns, especially the holes where his canines used to be. he can tell his face is swollen.
heeseung’s throat is dry, his entire body feels like it’s on fire, and fuck, how long has he been here?
“the prodigal son awakens. did you get enough beauty rest?”
heeseung sighs and closes his eyes again. sunoo’s voice grates at his mind, and the feeling is reminiscent of when the words, be careful. he’s just a baby, won't leave him alone.
“fuck you,” heeseung whispers. he doesn’t have enough in him to make the words bite like he wants.
“no, thank you. i’m not interested.”
when heeseung forces his eyes open, he sees sunoo sitting in a chair across from him, legs crossed, elbow on an armrest, grin on his face.
“hoon was interested.” heeseung sees the way sunoo’s eyes go dark, satisfaction welling up inside of him until sunoo speaks again.
“ugh. really, hoonie? was he that much of a good fuck you had to keep going back to him?”
heeseung’s eyes dart towards the darkness when he spots a figure moving, and sunghoon appears next to sunoo, bemused expression on his face as he sits on the empty armrest of sunoo’s chair.
“mm, more like he was there. you’re not really my type, to be honest with you, heeseungie.” sunghoon shrugs at him, and heeseung is staring at him like he’s grown a second hand.
“everything i’ve ever done, i’ve done for sunoo. even if he doesn’t think so,” sunghoon adds when sunoo scoffs from beside him. “you were just… practice, i guess, for the real thing.”
“i’m offended you’re comparing me to him in any way, shape or form. do you let him call you hoonie, too?”
“no. just you, love.” sunghoon leans over and noses at sunoo’s hair.
sunoo looks over at heeseung and tries not to laugh when he’s met with nothing short of absolute loathing on his face.
sunghoon smiles before lacing his fingers together in front of him. "you know what jungwon asked me once? he asked me if i knew how to kill someone."
heeseung's eyes are trained on sunghoon now.
"he asked me if i knew how to kill someone. then he said, all you have to do is fill them with love, then leave."
heeseung goes unnaturally still.
"it was never about you, heeseung. i never loved you. i couldn't love you because my heart, my soul, my entire being belongs to kim sunoo."
prev | next
pairing: heeseung & jungwon, heeseung/sunghoon
rating: mature
summary: heeseung is twelve when he finds out he likes how pretty jungwon looks when he cries.
heeseung is thirteen when he finds out just how pretty jungwon could be, with bruises painted on his skin.
heeseung is nineteen when he finds out the object of his affection never loved him back.
notes: please! please! please! heed the torture tag. there's a lot of violence in this part. you've been warned. if it makes you too squeamish, please skip for the sake of your mental health. this part is mainly just backstory. it's shorter than the previous part, but i don't think dragging it out would make it any better.
title is from this damn song by pecos & the rooftops.
"what are consequences when the end justifies the means?" heeseung's head is craned back as far as it can go. somehow, he manages a chuckle, wincing lightly at the sharp stabs of pain in the soft flesh under his chin and the top of his chest where his collar bones meet his breast bone. his words disappear into the darkness, and he's left to wait again.
"what was the end then?" sunoo appears out of the darkness, hands in his pockets. he walks a slow circle around the other man, surveying his brand new canvas.
heeseung smiles. the streaks of blood and spit dripping from his mouth have long dried, twisting his features into something sinister. his legs are bound so tight to the table he's kneeling on, he's long lost feeling in them.
when he tries to pull himself up by his arms, the rope around his wrists give just enough slack for him to slip forward and jam his chin down on the two metal prongs secured around his neck with a leather collar. the table wobbles underneath him dangerously.
his fingers and hands start throbbing again. they're bruised beyond recognition, if not broken, judging by how tight sunoo turned the thumbscrew device when he first woke heeseung hours ago. belatedly, he thanks the cold for numbing most of his body.
heeseung sucks in a shallow breath and tries not to laugh. "aren't you supposed to have all the answers to everything?"
sunoo doesn't respond this time, instead, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. "heard from wonnie you smoke. interested in a light?" he slips the cigarette between heeseung's lips and lights it, watching as heeseung instinctively takes a drag. a moment of silence stretches between the two of them.
"you wanna know something funny, heeseung? this position you're in? you look like you're on your knees, praying. but i'll tell you this: even god can't save you now." sunoo plucks the cigarette from heeseung's lips and presses it into the base of his neck, smiling when he hisses and tries to flinch away. the cigarette leaves a nice round burn on his skin that slowly fills with blood.
sunoo sighs. "i don't know why they don't use the heretic's fork more often. this was used primarily during the spanish inquisition." he flicks at the metal prongs before reaching around to pull at the back of the leather collar, burying the tips of the metal into his skin again. "it won't kill you. and as long as you look like you're repenting your sins with your eyes on the sky, it won't hurt as much. hurts enough to keep you awake, though, right? not that you've ever had any trouble staying awake."
sunoo grabs a chair and pulls it over to the table, sitting down and propping his feet up next to heeseung's legs. he shakes the table, laughing when heeseung cries out in pain when the fork opens new wounds.
"i'll ask you again. what was the end that justified the means?"
it starts off as a snort. then heeseung chuckles. his chuckles evolve into laughter. he doesn't feel the pain from the device strapped around his neck anymore as it spills rivers of blood down his chest.
"i wasn't talking about me. don't you see? i'm not the bad guy here. the real mastermind behind all of this has all of you wrapped around his little finger." heeseung stops to catch his breath, vision blurring from blood loss. "yang jungwon. isn't he so much prettier when he cries?" heeseung's voice is barely a whisper, but his lips quirk into a smile when he hears a growl rumbling from sunoo.
then everything goes black.
heeseung is two years old when his father brings home a woman and wants him to call her mom. he stares at her, not quite sure what to make of the situation. at two years old, he’s already considered a bit odd. he doesn’t smile or laugh like the other kids, which prompts his father to think that maybe he needs a motherly influence.
nothing changes, though. he does as he’s told. he responds with answers his parents want to hear. he tries to be whatever they want him to be because he doesn’t know what else to do.
heeseung is turning three at the end of the year when his little brother is born. he remembers his parents telling him there was a baby growing in his new mom’s stomach, and he was perplexed. how does someone grow a baby? were they like the flowers in the garden?
he stares at the little baby wrapped in blankets in his mom’s arms. honestly, heeseung thinks it’s a little ugly.
"do you wanna hold him, heeseung?"
the boy blinks a few times, unsure of how to answer. "... do i have to?"
his mom chuckles, bouncing the baby in her arms. "you don't have to, if you don't want to."
heeseung stares again for a moment before nodding. he holds out his arms, and his mom gently places his brother into his arms, adjusting his arms to hold him correctly.
"be careful with him, heeseung. he's just a baby."
be careful. he’s just a baby, heeseung repeats to himself in his head. then, his brother yawns, and the corner of heeseung’s mouth twitches up into a small grin.
“honey, look! don’t heeseung and jungwon look adorable!” he looks up to see his parents fawning over both of them, and a genuine smile appears on his face for the first time in his life.
--
heeseung’s been told that he’s good at everything. he’s good at sports, he’s good at games, he’s good at school, and lately, he’s been hearing more about how he’s a good brother.
the more time he spends with jungwon, however, the more he wonders why everyone coos over him like he’s the most precious thing they’ve ever seen. what is it? why do people like him so much?
heeseung doesn’t understand. what he does understand, though, is that when he’s with jungwon, he shares the attention the adults give him. so heeseung will sit there, watching jungwon roll around and make random baby noises. all he does is poop, cry, laugh, and sleep.
heeseung will watch the adults pass him around while he pretends to play with the other kids. the other kids don’t seem to like him very much, but he doesn’t mind. they don’t mean anything to him.
he’s heard the things they say about him behind his back, about how creepy he seems because he never smiles, or how awkward he is because no one understands the jokes he makes. he’s still the best at everything else, and that’s all that matters to him.
still, it bothers heeseung that he’s lacking in something. so, sometimes, when he’s finished brushing his teeth at night, he stares at himself in the mirror. he thinks of the way jungwon smiles and laughs, and he tries to copy the same expressions in the mirror.
he practices until the muscles in his face hurt. it still feels too awkward on his skin, and heeseung always goes to bed disappointed in himself.
--
heeseung is eight when jungwon starts showing up in his room in the middle of the night, terrified by the sounds of their parents fighting. jungwon never questions why heeseung is always awake when he comes to him, no matter what time of night, so he lets jungwon sleep in his bed those nights, curled up against him, small body trembling.
be careful. he’s just a baby, his mind tells him again, repeating his mother’s words over and over again. his brain doesn’t let him sleep at night, thinking about everything and nothing all at once.
now that jungwon is five, he spends nearly all of his time stuck to heeseung, following him around with stars in his eyes. heeseung’s gotten better at pretending to be exactly what he should be, so he dotes on his brother in public, playing with him and keeping an eye out for the other adults to make sure they can see how good of a brother he is.
he's the one that encourages jungwon to draw, showing off his brother’s art with pride, just like he’s supposed to. look what jungwon drew! and it’s always a picture of heeseung. even at that age, jungwon’s figured out his brother likes seeing drawings of himself, so pictures of heeseung, no matter how crudely drawn, are what jungwon draws the most.
but when no one is watching, heeseung doesn’t want anything to do with jungwon. he’ll wander off on his own to find something else to do, leaving his younger brother to his own devices.
jungwon is too curious for his own good sometimes, and he’ll get himself into trouble or end up hurt somehow. then, heeseung gets scolded while jungwon cries.
heeseung! you were supposed to be watching him! oh, poor baby. it’s just a scratch, wonwon. don’t cry. you really need to be careful. he’s just a baby.
heeseung hears those words in his sleep.
be careful. he's just a baby.
heeseung wakes up to another press of a lighted cigarette into his skin.
“pretty. it looks like a pearl necklace. hoonie ever give you any of those?” sunoo asks, sweet smile on his face. he pokes at his cheek, and heeseung makes the mistake of trying to bite him.
“ah, ah, ah! can’t have that, now can we?” a pair of pliers appears in his hand, making heeseung’s eyes widen. he shuts his mouth, but sunoo easily wrestles it open, shoving a piece of wood between his teeth to keep him from clamping down.
“you have really nice teeth.” sunoo knocks the pliers against his teeth, one tooth at a time, before stopping at one of his canines. “it would be a shame if, oh, say, i removed your canines. you won’t be needing them. you’re an omega, after all. you won’t be making any mating marks.”
sunoo holds heeseung’s head still with one hand, pliers clamped around the tooth. heeseung tries to struggle against him, but the more he moves, the more his body protests, pain throbbing so intently under his skin, tears start welling up in his eyes.
sunoo makes it slow. he twists the pliers to the left. then he twists it to the right. heeseung starts to sob, the welling tears falling fresh, his struggles becoming weaker. he chokes on the blood pooling in his mouth.
“you’ve got a pretty face. i’m sure you could find someone to pay for implants, if you really have to have them. but you know who has really nice canines? hoonie.”
and in one swift motion, sunoo rips his tooth out, cutting heeseung's lip in the process. he lets go and takes a few steps to let heeseung scream, coughing out the blood in his mouth.
sunoo drops the tooth on the table, wiping off the pliers before coming back, scooping up the piece of wood from the floor. heeseung coughs again, trying to spit out his blood at sunoo, but he steps out of the way and laughs. “this suit is designer, darling. i’d prefer not to get bloodstains on it. jay would kill me.”
this time, when sunoo reaches for his mouth again, heeseung doesn’t have enough energy to fight him. what would've been a scream turns into a low gurgle as his voice cuts out. sunoo wrestles the other canine from his mouth, satisfied smile on his face.
then, heeseung cries. he cries until his tears mix with blood and split, dripping down his face.
sunoo thinks he's his best work of art yet.
"heeseung, has anyone ever told you, you're pretty when you cry?"
heeseung's vision goes black again as he hears his teenage self sneer at his brother.
wonwon, has anyone ever told you, you're prettier when you cry?
heeseung is eleven when jungwon starts coming to his room, crying. their dad’s picked up drinking again, and their mom is gone a lot more often.
jungwon comes looking for heeseung for comfort, and heeseung only loosely wraps his arms around him in what barely constitutes as a hug because it’s what jungwon wants. deep down, heeseung thinks, what happened to being careful with him because he’s a baby?
their family has become awkward now. dinner is quiet, no longer filled with soft talks and laughter. heeseung eats everything on his plate like he’s supposed to, letting jungwon steal his favorites from him.
it doesn’t affect heeseung as much as it affects jungwon. heeseung can see the sadness in his eyes when he looks at their parents. he spends more time drawing the whole family together doing different things. he tells heeseung stories about what he hears the other kids doing with their parents.
he asks heeseung why their family doesn’t go out together anymore, but heeseung doesn’t have any answers for him other than his standard, carefully crafted answer.
every family is different, wonwon. but we’re still a family. mom is still mom, dad is dad, and i’m your brother.
the answer never fails to put a smile on jungwon’s face as he bounces away, satisfied. heeseung realizes then, that’s his way of being careful with jungwon.
when heeseung turns twelve, seeing jungwon in tears becomes a regular thing. however, these aren’t tears of sadness. they’re tears of anger and frustration.
you know he’s going to take you away from the family, right? that’s what he means when he says he wants you, heeseung tells him after jungwon asks him what it meant when someone claims someone else.
jungwon sobs into heeseung’s chest, yelling about how he already has his own family, about how he doesn’t want to leave, how he can’t leave his big brother behind just because some boy said he wanted him.
heeseung listens to jungwon’s hiccupping sobs and gently runs his fingers through his hair.
be careful. he’s just a baby, he thinks again, but when jungwon sits up, anger etched into his features, heeseung can’t help but think his brother is much prettier when he’s crying.
--
when jungwon starts pulling away from him, heeseung doesn’t notice until he realizes it’s been almost a week since he last spoke to jungwon.
he finds him in his room, drawing furiously at his desk, eyebrows furrowed. heeseung leans against his doorway for a moment before making his way inside and ruffling jungwon’s hair.
jungwon stares up at him with wide eyes, like he’d forgotten all about heeseung’s existence. heeseung spots dark drawings of jongseong, the boy that claimed him and gives jungwon an amused smile before jungwon starts spilling everything about jongseong.
don’t make it easy for him, wonwon, he tells him. kids like him are used to having everything handed to them on a silver platter.
heeseung smiles when he sees jungwon clench his fists.
--
heeseung is thirteen when he finds out just how pretty jungwon looks with bruises painted on his skin.
he makes no motion to help his younger brother when he hears his father’s drunken slurring down the hallway in the middle of the night mixed with jungwon’s pleas for him to stop.
heeseung waits until the noises stop, knowing that jungwon will be at his door soon. when he appears, in tears with fresh bruises, heeseung pulls jungwon into his arms and hugs him close.
he’s not comforting him, however. heeseung just wants to get a closer look at the way jungwon’s tears collect on his eyelashes and stain his face. he runs his fingers softly over jungwon’s bruises, and when he presses into one out of curiosity, jungwon flinches with a soft cry, so heeseung apologies.
be careful. he’s just a baby, his mind reminds him. but how much longer was jungwon going to be a baby?
heeseung watches as jungwon retreats into himself. he no longer smiles at much, and the sound of his laughter becomes a distant memory. he pulls away from heeseung, hiding in his room, his books, and his drawings. the adults talk about him in hushed whispers now, but they never use his name. they call him jongseong’s.
their family slowly falls apart. dad is almost never home now, and mom is like a ghost in the house. they show up to the rich dinner parties and act like a family, but jungwon always hides away as soon as he gets the opportunity.
heeseung is fourteen when he presents as an omega, and suddenly, the adults have thrown him onto a pedestal. he preens under the attention. now, jungwon is long forgotten until he wants to hear compliments of him being a good omega because of his nurturing instincts when it comes to taking care of his brother.
jungwon looks almost like he used to as a kid, laughing and smiling with heeseung, until the eyes of the adults are off of him. then, heeseung drops jungwon like a sack of bricks, leaving a very confused, very sad jungwon because he loves his older brother.
--
heeseung is fifteen when he stops being careful with jungwon.
his younger brother still searches for his company and approval, showing him his latest works, but heeseung casts a bored glance at them, answering with a shrug, if he even bothers to acknowledge jungwon in the first place.
every now and then, jungwon will ask him how school is going, or what he’s doing now, or if he can hang out with him, but heeseung gives him a disgusted look for even suggesting the idea in the first place.
jungwon deflates, and he’ll mope about it for a few days before everything goes back to normal.
but then, on a day where heeseung is in a particularly bad mood, he snaps at jungwon and hits him, making jungwon cry. heeseung’s eyes go wide, the words be careful, he’s just a baby echo louder than he’s ever heard them in his mind until he feels tears pricking at his own eyes.
he apologizes, he apologizes to jungwon until he stops crying, and he makes it up to him by letting jungwon spend the night in his room, talking about anything and everything. heeseung feels a sense of pride that jungwon still idolizes him as a prince in his art.
the affection is always short lived, however, because heeseung goes right back to being cold the next day.
it becomes a vicious cycle of pain and comfort, and at the end of it all, jungwon wonders what he did to make his brother stop loving him.
when heeseung wakes up this time, he’s sitting in a chair, bound with ropes. someone’s cleaned the blood from his face and bandaged his hands. he can feel his skin aching from the cuts made by the heretic’s fork, and he can’t move his fingers, confirming his suspicions that his hands and fingers are broken.
most of all, his mouth burns, especially the holes where his canines used to be. he can tell his face is swollen.
heeseung’s throat is dry, his entire body feels like it’s on fire, and fuck, how long has he been here?
“the prodigal son awakens. did you get enough beauty rest?”
heeseung sighs and closes his eyes again. sunoo’s voice grates at his mind, and the feeling is reminiscent of when the words, be careful. he’s just a baby, won't leave him alone.
“fuck you,” heeseung whispers. he doesn’t have enough in him to make the words bite like he wants.
“no, thank you. i’m not interested.”
when heeseung forces his eyes open, he sees sunoo sitting in a chair across from him, legs crossed, elbow on an armrest, grin on his face.
“hoon was interested.” heeseung sees the way sunoo’s eyes go dark, satisfaction welling up inside of him until sunoo speaks again.
“ugh. really, hoonie? was he that much of a good fuck you had to keep going back to him?”
heeseung’s eyes dart towards the darkness when he spots a figure moving, and sunghoon appears next to sunoo, bemused expression on his face as he sits on the empty armrest of sunoo’s chair.
“mm, more like he was there. you’re not really my type, to be honest with you, heeseungie.” sunghoon shrugs at him, and heeseung is staring at him like he’s grown a second hand.
“everything i’ve ever done, i’ve done for sunoo. even if he doesn’t think so,” sunghoon adds when sunoo scoffs from beside him. “you were just… practice, i guess, for the real thing.”
“i’m offended you’re comparing me to him in any way, shape or form. do you let him call you hoonie, too?”
“no. just you, love.” sunghoon leans over and noses at sunoo’s hair.
sunoo looks over at heeseung and tries not to laugh when he’s met with nothing short of absolute loathing on his face.
sunghoon smiles before lacing his fingers together in front of him. "you know what jungwon asked me once? he asked me if i knew how to kill someone."
heeseung's eyes are trained on sunghoon now.
"he asked me if i knew how to kill someone. then he said, all you have to do is fill them with love, then leave."
heeseung goes unnaturally still.
"it was never about you, heeseung. i never loved you. i couldn't love you because my heart, my soul, my entire being belongs to kim sunoo."
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