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hyunjin catches felix’s eye across the circle. did he notice how hard that breath was? is he giving hyunjin a suspicious look right now? he can’t tell. felix has always been hard to read, too calculating for his own good. it puts hyunjin on edge.
hyunjin isn’t cold, not really, but he’s shivering, shaking like a leaf and he can’t think about anything besides: get a hold of yourself hyunjin because jisung noticed his shivering and tucked him into the warmth of a blanket that he doesn’t need. blankets can’t help anxiety. blankets don’t help the oxygen flow in and out of his lungs better. but he doesn’t say anything and accepts the gesture gratefully. because he is grateful, he’s very grateful for jisung despite how his own horrible efforts at being a good boyfriend recently have probably been making jisung think the opposite. so he sits with jisung’s gifted blanket stewing in his own heat. the back of his knees feel slippery and his hair has never been more scratchy and uncomfortable tucked back into his hoodie.
felix doesn’t end up saying anything. he doesn't even text him to silently make sure his friend is okay like he’s been known to do when seungmin’s getting anxious or when minho’s feeling claustrophobic. instead, he turns his attention back to the uno game they’re playing, because minho got them all distracted by going on a long tangent about why he’s banned from the mall off exit twelve as a result of an unfortunate loss in a very intense game of uno (he was dared to pour pink dye and bubbles into the fountain and got chased out by the mall cops), but now they’re back with seungmin slapping down a red five. felix just lets hyunjin suffer with the consequences of his own actions. and at first hyunjin thinks he likes it better this way, and that he’s grateful for felix too because he doesn’t think he’s ready for all the questions that would follow from his other friends after felix speaks up, no matter how bad deep down he wants to answer them.
however, at the same time, hyunjin also wishes he’d say something, do something, anything just so hyunjin can have the satisfaction of knowing his suffering isn’t lost on the people he likes to call family. just so he can feel that little tinge in his chest that reminds him someone does care about him. and of course he knows people care about him. he knows felix cares about him because he always hangs onto every word hyunjin says. no matter if he's talking about how annoying the old man at the dining hall deli counter is, or if he's having a real problem, felix is always listening and giving one hundred percent to their conversations.
and it’s hard to put into words how he knows seungmin and minho care, because he isn’t the closest with them, but they do make him feel comforted in a weird “i wish you guys were my parents” kind of way that hyunjin doesn’t quite want to unpack right now. the silence that sometimes squeezes its way between their conversations isn’t always awkward even though hyunjin gets flustered when minho out of the blue says “i’m proud of you kiddo”, or when seungmin —who’s adverse to almost all forms of physical contact— seeks out him, him, hwang hyunjin of all people, to ask for a hug when he’s having a bad day. and they both know its because hyunjin won’t ask if he wants to talk about it, because the simplicity of just a hug is one way hyunjin shows he cares.
and of course, hyunjin knows his boyfriend cares. jisung cares about him, so incredibly much in fact that lately he can feel the tension sliding off jisung’s skin in sharp, nasty slivers whenever they’re around each other, because jisung cares so much that now that hyunjin isn’t talking to him he doesn’t know how to function. all he wants to do is care and hyunjin won’t let him.
but it’s different to hyunjin if he has to bring it up, versus if someone would just ask him how he’s doing. which is unfair of him because jisung has asked if he’s okay, he’s just neglected to answer in a way that’s productive to working through this thing that’s fueling the big ball of anxiety slowly crushing him. but that’s just it. this isn’t just some thing and he knows how important this is, so why can’t he just spit it out?
hyunjin’s head spins.
“babe,” jisung says, fingers brushing over his knee, “its your turn.” hyunjin looks down at the heaping handful of cards he has somehow all wedged into the grip of just one hand. there’s lots of colors and he kind of forgets the point of the game for a second because all the cards start to blend together as his vision blurs ever so slightly. he only had one drink, it really shouldn’t be affecting him as much as it seems to be. jisung leans back a bit and then reaches over to grab a card from his hand and put it on the pile in the center of the floor for him. no one says anything but felix gives him a look and now hyunjin’s sure felix was eyeing him weird before as well. what does he know?
hyunjin’s chest hurts. he wants to thank jisung and he wants to hold his free hand and lay his head in his lap. but he feels paralyzed where he sits, sucking in breath after breath, each as shallow as the next. god, it hurts. hyunjin blinks and it feels like his eyelashes are covered in glue, they stick together and resist when he tries to open them again. when he finally does look up everyone is staring at him. there’s a hand on his back and jisung’s uno cards are scattered on the floor. or maybe those are his own. felix looks like he’s finally going to say something. if he does hyunjin doesn’t hear it.
his lungs feels like they’re screaming.
jisung can only watch as hyunjin’s eyes roll back and suddenly she’s falling onto her side. incredibly unhelpfully, his brain slips into panic mode. he does manage to catch her so instead of her head hitting the floor with a thud she’s let down gently. and knowing that he could at least stop a future headache from happening makes jisung feel a little better, but his girlfriend is still passed out so really he hasn’t helped much.
“jisung.” he looks up. felix is standing there, holding a pair of scissors in his face,
“what?”
“you have to get hyunjin’s shirt off. you might need to cut it.” jisung didn’t notice everyone move around them but they have. seungmin is standing with his arms crossed, hugging himself to calm the terror that’s very obviously creeping onto his face. minho frantically scrolls through something on his phone with an intense furrow in his brow, and felix is now standing in front of him with scissors. right, hyunjin’s shirt. jisung takes the scissors but doesn’t move. felix crouches down and takes jisung’s face in his palms to force him to look up, “hey, i know you’re freaking out up there but you have to get hyunjin out of his shirt, now.” oh. hang on. there’s a sharpness to felix’s tone that tells him that he knows something jisung doesn’t and he should probably just shut up and do what felix says. so jisung just nods and looks back down at hyunjin. her breathing is dangerously slow.
he goes for her beanie first, tugging it off so it doesn’t get in the way when he tries to get her head through the top hole in her sweatshirt. out of the corner of his eye he can see all three of his friends turn their backs to him. then he starts on her arms, wiggling them out of her hoodie and thankfully this one is oversized because it comes off very easily. and then he notices hyunjin’s chest is flatter than normal, like she’s wearing a sports bra under her shirt except its four sizes too small and has completely crushed her breasts.
it’s tricky, but jisung manages to get hyunjin out of her shirt without needing to cut it up, and now he’s left staring at what looks to be the most constricting and uncomfortable situation of bras and ace bandages that jisung’s ever seen. no wonder hyunjin’s passed out. there’s no way she can breathe with all of this on.
“jisung?” felix calls out. there’s questions in the air that felix fails to get out but somehow jisung knows what he wants to ask. are you okay? do i need to step in and take care of this? ‘okay’, he knows, has many meanings here.
“yeah,” jisung breathes, “i almost got it, hang on.” jisung’s hands shake and his brain feels like its stuffed with cotton balls. he doesn’t even try and save the bandage, he goes straight for the scissors, using them to cut down the middle until the two sides are flopping over onto the floor next to hyunjin’s torso. then with a quick peek to make sure everyone’s still turned around, jisung starts cutting hyunjin out of her bra (a voice in the back of his head tells him that’s not what this is and the same voice tells him he knows what’s really going on here but the pieces aren’t clicking as fast as he wants them to). the change in her breathing is painfully obvious and brings an ache to jisung’s own chest as he wonders how long she hasn’t been able to breathe properly.
he shimmies her hoodie back on as she starts to blink awake. “hey, you’re okay,” he whispers, carding a hand through hyunjin’s long, dark hair. “you’re okay.” he lets hyunjin grab his other hand and squeeze it as hard as she can as her breathing returns to normal. the guys turn around now and minho tugs on seungmin’s arm to get him to sit down so they can comfort each other. felix leaves for a second and comes back with a glass of water and one of the jolly ranchers seungmin keeps to help him focus on tests.
“don’t get up right now,” he says, “but for when you’re ready.” he leaves the items on the side table just an arms reach from where jisung is sitting.
it takes a while for hyunjin to get up. and no one blames her for course, she just fainted for fucks sake she’s allowed to lay on the floor as long as she needs to, but they all see the apology on her tongue before she even opens her mouth to speak. and even though she doesn’t need to apologize, they let her.
“i’m sorry,” her voice comes out small and strained. “i didn’t mean to— it wasn’t supposed to be that tight.” seungmin and minho have been left out of this whole thing, what with felix not giving anything away even though it’s clear he knows, and not actually seeing specifically what jisung had to cut off, but jisung’s pretty sure they’ve caught on by now. hyunjin folds her knees into her chest and leans into jisung’s side. “i was fine with just using sports bras until two months ago so i got… i got a binder. it was too small but i just wanted— even though it was tight i didn’t like that everything was still so obvious, so i-i got the bandage and…” she cuts herself off with a whimper, letting out a cry that jisung is willing to bet has been pushing to come out for a long time.
so hyunjin cries for as long as she needs to. felix cries a bit too and jisung would let out a few tears but he’s so focused on making hyunjin comfortable that he thinks his brain is subconsciously making him hold off.
he’s known something has been up for the past two months. which lines up with when hyunjin got her binder. she hasn’t been avoiding him, in fact its quite the opposite. particularly in the past month they’ve been hanging out a lot more recently. even if they aren’t doing anything more than homework, hyunjin’s been constantly asking for his company. jisung didn’t mind of course, but he could always tell hyunjin seemed like she wanted to say something, like the words were threatening to crawl out of her. and when she couldn’t bring herself to say anything, she ended up just asking jisung to come over and comfort her instead while she tried to think of a good way to talk to him.
which in a way felt a little like hyunjin was overcompensating for something. like she was afraid that if she didn’t remind jisung of how much she loves him, and if she didn’t cling to him twenty-four seven then he would assume that this big secret she was holding onto was something that would tear them apart. which would lead to him getting worried about the stability of their relationship and it would turn into a big ball of miscommunication. naturally, because that’s not at all what she wanted (if the way she continues to trust jisung and lean on him right now means anything), she did everything in her power to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere.
finally, after everyone’s more calm, hyunjin speaks up again, “i’m trans. i’m a guy.” felix smiles.
“do you want us to refer to you with he/him pronouns?” seungmin asks. just to make sure. felix’s smile grows wider and hyunjin nods,
“yes, please.” jisung tries not to squish him —because that’s literally the last thing hyunjin needs right now— as he pulls him into a side hug: the best he can manage with the way they’re sitting. jisung presses a firm kiss to hyunjin’s forehead and just holds him as close as he can for a long moment. hyunjin squeezes him right back.
“we love you hyunjin,” minho says, crawling a bit closer so he can take hyunjin’s hand.
“so much,” felix adds. subsequently seungmin follows minho and felix joins them too until they’re all in a happy little circle on the floor. hyunjin looks like he’s going to cry again. happy tears this time. the best kind.
“how did you know?” hyunjin asks felix.
“there was one day that you had changed in the room because you thought i was still asleep, but i wasn’t and i turned around just before you slipped your shirt on so i saw all that,” felix gestures to the pile of cut up chest binding materials, “i pretended to be asleep until you left. the room is yours too you know, i didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable changing in a space that’s also yours.”
“oh.” hyunjin replies softly.
“i was really worried about you tonight,” felix says.
“i know. you’ve been giving me a look.”
“yeah ‘cause i wanted you to get up and take it off in the bathroom so you could breathe!” felix is laughing a little but they all know it’s just so hyunjin doesn’t feel like he’s being scolded. its very serious that hyunjin put his health on the line like that, but what happened is in the past and getting mad at him for being (frankly) stupid isn’t going to help anything.
“do you guys want to go talk?” seungmin asks, “you can have my room.”
hyunjin sits up properly, picking at his nails nervously, “i’d kind of like to talk to you like, later, if that’s okay?” he says, glancing sideways at jisung, “i really just want to relax for a bit longer.”
“that’s okay with me,” jisung agrees. hyunjin grins and just like that things are relatively back to business as usual for their saturday night. hyunjin’s understandably still a bit shaken up, but it’s clear that everyone else acting normal is what’s helping him calm down. they decide to put on a movie. felix screams ‘wait!’ as soon as they pick one to watch and scurries to the kitchen to make popcorn. but of course because it’s not his apartment seungmin feels obligated to help him find things and begrudgingly gets up too. then minho leaves to go to the bathroom after dramatically (and disgustingly) claiming that he’s holding enough piss inside his bladder to water a corn field. jisung honestly doesn’t know what to do with that information.
in any case he and hyunjin end up alone. “can i have my beanie back?” hyunjin asks. jisung picks it up from a few feet away where he’d thrown it earlier and hands it to him. hyunjin makes quick work of gathering all his hair up into his hands, twisting it into a bun, and instead of securing it with a hair tie, tries to stuff it all into the hat. but he has a lot of hair and only two hands so it only partially works. so jisung reaches over and holds the back down over his hair while he adjusts the front. “thanks.” hyunjin says. jisung just smiles,
“i love you,” he whispers, “okay?” hyunjin nods, “i know i said we could talk later but for now i just want you to know that this doesn’t change how i feel about you. you’re my boyfriend and i love you so much.”
“you’re gonna make me cry again,” hyunjin whines, shoving his face into jisung’s chest to hide his embarrassment. jisung just laughs and puts his arms around hyunjin’s shoulders,
“so cry then. nothing wrong with that.”
stubborn as ever, hyunjin refuses with a violent shake of his head. then he looks up, scooting closer to throw his leg over jisung’s lap. he plays with the long chain of the amethyst crystal jisung’s been wearing around his neck since his dad bought it for him on his business trip to california (he thinks absently that his dad would’ve loved hyunjin if they had the chance to meet).
“can you say it again?” hyunjin requests. jisung blinks,
“say what? i love you?”
“no,” hyunjin laughs, “the other thing.” it takes an embarrassingly long moment for jisung to realize what hyunjin’s asking but when he does he smirks playfully.
“my boyfriend? is that it?” hyunjin nods, “it’s nice isn’t it? hwang hyunjin, my boyfriend.” jisung wishes he could capture hyunjin’s smile in a picture with a pretty frame.
after their movie, everyone tucks in for the night. minho and seungmin leave first as minho is half asleep and has been heavily relying on seungmin to keep him upright for the past thirty minutes. he and minho share this apartment and generously switch off who lends hyunjin and jisung their bed whenever they have sleepovers. this week they’ve been given minho’s room. hyunjin hangs back a second to talk to felix so jisung goes to the bathroom to get cleaned up, and he waits on minho’s bed when he’s finished.
hyunjin joins him ten minutes later, softly shutting the door and standing there like he’s suddenly very afraid to be in the same room as his boyfriend. jisung cocks his head, “are you okay?”
“are you really not gonna break up with me?” jisung shakes his head,
“no hyunjin, i’m not.” he pats the bed for hyunjin to sit. “you don’t have to tell me every little detail, but whatever you want to tell me i’ll happily listen to. okay?” hyunjin nods, looking down at his hands.
“i think i’ve always kinda known,” he says “i always wanted to be like the boys at my school and stuff, but i didn’t really know what exactly that meant. like, i thought that if i dressed in baggier clothes and wasn’t afraid to get bruised up while riding my bike then i could ‘be like the boys’ and i would make friends with them and that would be it. and acting like all the boys i knew was enough for a while. in junior year my mom finally stopped with her whole ‘you’re a lady so act like one’ thing so i thought i’d won. and i think because i was finally free of her nagging i didn’t think about it anymore because i just wanted to… i don’t know, live in the moment? i convinced myself that there was nothing more complicated going on.
when i got to college, i don’t know what exactly changed, but i just felt so wrong all the time. i still don’t know how to describe gender dysphoria to a cis person, ‘cause for a long time i didn’t know how to describe it to myself, but it sucks. part of me was scared of what would happen if i kept changing myself, you know? i’d gone so long with my mom making me feel like being a tomboy was somehow different from the hyunjin she knew and she made me feel guilty about it. but i realized that’s not true, i’ve always been like this, i’ve always been a guy i just didn’t consciously know it back then. so then i finally decided to get a binder because my sports bras weren’t cutting it anymore.
i really didn’t mean to get it so small. and i would’ve returned it to get the proper size but when i’d tried it on i finally looked a little closer to how i want to. i didn’t think it’d be that bad. i didn’t add the extra bandage until today. i just woke up and felt terrible and when i was getting dressed it felt like the only way to fix how i felt was to try and get my chest to disappear, which meant i needed more binding. i know it was stupid and i know i’ve been acting off recently too because i was trying to find a way to talk to you about it but i was so scared. i’m really sorry for making you worry.”
“you don’t have to apologize for anything. i’m just glad you’re safe.” he takes hyunjin’s hand, “did i make you feel like you couldn’t talk to me? i would’ve done anything to help.”
“it’s not… it’s not that i didn’t think you’d accept me or let me talk to you about it, i was more worried that you’d break up with me because of it. i didn’t think i would loose you as a friend but i didn’t want to loose you as my boyfriend.”
jisung sputters, “what? why would i break up with you?”
“‘cause you’re straight,” hyunjin shrugs.
“well clearly i’m not, if i’m dating a man,” hyunjin laughs a little at jisung’s overly sarcastic tone, “seriously, did that have something to do with what took you so long to get a binder and start trying to present as a guy?”
“yeah that was a big part of it. you started dating a girl, i figured it was over as soon as i came out.”
“babe, i didn’t fall in love with you for your body parts. well, except your face, i like your face—,” hyunjin bursts into comfortable laughter, “hey! i mean it you’re hot— oh my god, what i was trying to say was that i love you for who you are so like i said, this doesn’t change how i feel about you,” jisung looks at hyunjin with downturned lips, “honestly, figuring out what this means for my sexuality is the least of my worries, i can’t believe you held back from being yourself just because you thought i would have such an issue with it.”
hyunjin shrugs again. “i mean, trans people get rejected a lot because people have preferences.” he says it so nonchalantly that it makes jisung’s stomach turn in disgust for all the bigots of the world. it’s sad that’s such a reality.
“i know, i didn’t mean that it wasn’t a valid fear, i just mean… i wish the world was a bit different so you could feel comfortable speaking up.”
“me too,” hyunjin murmurs. jisung takes hyunjin’s hands and kisses the back of them,
“i’m going to be annoying and ask one more time, are you okay?”
hyunjin meets his eyes with a content smile, “yeah. the whole fainting thing aside, i’m good.”
“good.” wordlessly jisung shimmies backwards to dislodge the comforter he’d been sitting on and throw it over his legs. hyunjin joins him, curling up against his side and sliding his arms around jisung’s middle. jisung returns the favor, making sure to hold him as tight as he can without hurting him. “hey,” he speaks up, “when you go to get a new binder, in the right size, tell me so i can pay for it, okay?” hyunjin starts to protest, lifting himself up to give jisung an incredulous look only to be swiftly shushed by a peck on the lips before he can say anything, “i’m the one who cut it up,” jisung reasons.
and when he puts it like that, how could hyunjin refuse his offer? so he agrees and before settling back down to sleep, he gives jisung a kiss that feels like a breath of fresh air, like a sigh of relief.
(two weeks later hyunjin walks to jisung’s car for their date with a fresh haircut. all the long hair chopped off and donated. jisung’s jaw drops when he sees him because, “shit you look so good.” and hyunjin doesn’t think he’s ever been happier.)