Chapter Text
In the living room, their little post-promotions decompression party is still going on. There’s laughter. Music blares through the TV speakers, Hyui can hear Haru yell something, can hear the sound of a chair scraping across tile and Geon’s evil little cackle.
But here in the bathroom it’s quiet.
They didn’t bother turning on the light. There’s a streetlight right outside the window and it’s bright enough. Its light slants silvery across the floor and across Tomoya’s hair, glints on his fake eyebrow piercing he still hasn’t taken off.
Tomoya is sitting across from where Hyui is leaning with his back against the sink. He’s perched on the edge of the tub, hunched over, his long fingers working on rolling up a joint. When he brings it up to lick the sticky tab, Hyui’s eyes track the movement.
Tomoya breaks the silence as he sticks the joint between his lips and flicks the lighter to life. It lights, and he takes a deep inhale, inspecting how the cherry is burning with an expert eye, before fixing his dark eyes on Hyui.
“You’ve been quiet today,” Tomoya mumbles around the joint. He holds the next drag of it in his lungs. Hyui looks away; at his socks, dark against the light fuzz of the bathmat, then out the window.
He has been quiet, but it’s not like there’s a good reason for it, or that it’s anyone’s fault. It’s not even Yu’s fault, for being all sweet and tipsy and unable to keep his hands off Geon. It’s only Hyui’s own fault for not being able to fucking deal with how his own brain refuses to move on from a jealousy that makes no sense.
“I’m always quiet,” he says, in lieu of a real answer. It’s what Tomoya has said about him countless times before, after all. Hyui’s always quiet. He hopes in vain that Tomoya will just leave it at that.
“Hmm, yeah, but you’re more quiet. Different quiet.”
Tomoya holds out the joint. Hyui takes it without looking at him. He feels a strange urge to make sure their fingers don’t touch, but he fails. Maybe his hand lowers as Tomoya’s lifts, or maybe Tomoya noticed and is trying to fuck with him, but their fingers brush. Hyui tries not to jerk away as if he’s been burned, but he only partially succeeds. He doesn’t look at Tomoya to find out if he noticed.
“Is this about Yu and Geonie?” Tomoya suddenly asks and Hyui chokes on the first toke of the joint. He coughs, splutters, smoke burning like acid in the back of his throat. His eyes are watering so badly he doesn’t see Tomoya’s offer of one of their toothbrush cups filled with water until he presses it into Hyui’s hand. He doesn’t put up a fight when Tomoya takes the joint from his hands, only croaks out a broken thank you and gulps down some water. It helps a little, though the sticky burntness still coats his tongue.
The pain had momentarily distracted him, but as the water slowly washes it away, he’s faced with Tomoya’s words. Tomoya hasn’t doubled down yet. Hyui still has time. He might be able to excuse himself under the guise of getting himself something else to drink and just never returning to the bathroom—
“Is it? Is it about them?”
Hyui already feels like he wants to cry. But deep down, he also knows that Tomoya’s nothing if not persistent. If they don’t hash it out now, he will force Hyui to have this conversation tomorrow, or the day after. Here, in the liminal, dark muteness of the bathroom, with some soju and weed coursing through his veins to soften the blow, might not be the worst option.
Hyui’s a bad liar. He has always been a bad liar. Nonetheless, he lies. He shakes his head.
Tomoya doesn’t even bother acknowledging it. He watches Hyui like a hawk.
“Geon asked me about it, you know. He noticed—that you’ve been getting awfully quiet, lately, especially when they’re around, and especially when they’re together.”
Tomoya pauses. Hyui can’t look at him. He swallows more water down his dry, irritated throat. His face is burning, though he hopes Tomoya can’t see it in the monochrome silver of the moonlight.
“Hyui,” Tomoya says, and there’s something in his voice that makes Hyui look up at him, against his will. Tomoya looks more serious than Hyui has ever seen him, even as he takes another drag of the joint.
“Hyui, Geon asked me if I knew if you had a problem with them. If you had a problem with them being together because they’re boys.”
Another pause, and Hyui feels like he’s watching this whole exchange from outside of himself, like he’s hovering somewhere by the ceiling—sees the hand holding the sword lift and then fall, right on his neck.
“He asked me if you were homophobic, Hyui.”
Hyui stills. Everything in him at once becomes very, very still.
His voice is barely there when he finally manages to speak.
“What?”
Tomoya doesn’t budge. He’s staring Hyui down. It’s not all hostility, there’s also something searching in his eyes, but what unforgiving seriousness there is makes Hyui’s legs tremble. He’s always known how protective Tomoya is of all of them. He’s had plenty of opportunities to witness it—but this is the first time he has had it aimed at himself, and it makes him feel a little sick. Especially when Tomoya couldn’t be further from the truth.
“You heard me,” Tomoya says, and it finally jolts Hyui into action. He can no longer wonder about how on earth he has found himself in this situation. He needs to make it right.
“I’m not,” he stutters out. Tomoya’s eyebrows raise, but Hyui forces himself to hold his gaze. “I-I’m really not. I’m not,” he almost yells when Tomoya gives him another, sceptical look that singes right through Hyui’s heart. “Moya, I swear, why would I— I wouldn’t— How could I— Moya, I’m gay.”
Even though logic tells him that if Tomoya is this ready to jump Hyui for being homophobic, he probably has no problem with Hyui being gay, Hyui still can’t help the wave of vertigo that rushes through him when the words leave his mouth. It’s followed by a shudder of anxiety that makes his eyes dart to the door, suddenly terrified that, somehow, someone else heard. But the door is still firmly closed.
When he looks at Tomoya, he finds him still staring at him, though at least some of that scary, protective seriousness has left his eyes.
“You’re … you’re gay?” Tomoya repeats, like he can’t quite believe what he’s saying, or like he’s still trying to unite this new fact with the Hyui he knows. Hyui ignores it as another ugly wave of vertigo sears through him, bites back the urge to look out the window and check the sidewalk for any passersby who may have overheard.
“Yes,” he mumbles, “yes, I am. Okay? So, no, I’m not h-homophobic.”
Hyui had hoped that this would be the end of it, but it’s Tomoya. So of course it isn’t. He can never let anything be.
“Then what’s your problem?” he asks, brashly, making Hyui’s hackles rise. “Why are you being weird about Yu and Geon?”
“I’m not being weird—“
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes. You are. Tell me why.”
“Fuck you, man,” Hyui snaps, “it’s scary, alright? It’s scary.”
Tomoya blinks at him like he doesn’t understand, but he’s trying to.
“What’s scary about it?!”
Hyui groans, and rolls his eyes. He reaches for the joint, long gone out and forgotten in the ashtray, and brings it up to his lips. Tomoya, who’s still holding the lighter, holds it out to him and flicks it to life. It bathes his face in warm light, and Hyui has to rip his eyes away to focus on lighting the joint.
Once he does, the lighter goes out and the room dips back into darkness. He takes a deep inhale. His throat protests a little, still sore, but he needs the soothing cloudiness of a little weed in his system more. He takes two more deep drags from the joint for good measure.
“Being gay is scary to me,” he finally says, after having turned over a million different sentences in his head and finding none that make much sense. So, he opts for honesty. “Because of society, right? People don’t accept gay people. Not really. Some do, of course, but most don’t.” He feels impossibly awkward, the way he’s stuttering and stumbling, stating the obvious. “And then our careers—it could literally ruin everything!”
Tomoya is still watching him carefully.
“Does your family know? That you’re gay?” he asks, then.
Hyui can’t help the shudder that goes through him. He shakes his head.
“God, no.”
“Would they … would they not be okay with it?”
Tomoya isn’t doing anything, just looking at him. Hyui feels like he’s looking right through him. Like his eyes are searing a hole into Hyui’s chest, where his heart is raw and exposed and beating way too fast. Hyui doesn’t even nod. Tomoya can see it, the way his heart clenches at the words.
“Does that … does that make it scary, too?”
The words land in Hyui’s guts like a punch. He blinks. His eyes sting. He nods.
“I’m sorry,” Tomoya says, and he sounds like he means it.
Hyui pretends to be brave. He shrugs, ignores the tears beading at his lashline. He brings the joint up to his lips and takes another deep drag. The first tendrils of its familiar tingle starts settling at the base of his skull.
“But you have to know you’re safe here. With us,” Tomoya says. He reaches a hand across the space between them, a wordless request for the joint. Hyui hands it over, reluctantly. He only shrugs in response.
“You know, considering Seita’s gay. Yu and Geon are bi … and I am, too.”
Hyui, who had just been nodding along, too busy digging his toe into the tiles, whips his head up at his last words.
Tomoya looks mischievous. There’s a little smirk on his lips, and he’s leaning back, confidently. He looks so casual it’s almost irritating. No, it is. It is irritating. It grates against Hyui’s fragile vulnerability and makes him feel … well, stupid.
“Do you like girls, too?” Tomoya asks.
“Well, no,” Hyui presses out, trying and failing to contain the snark that worms its way into his voice. He hadn’t really ever thought about Tomoya’s sexuality, but somehow he had always assumed he was straight. The knowledge that he isn’t sets something loose inside him, something he doesn’t understand, something that makes him defensive. “I thought that was implied in the whole ‘I’m gay’ thing.”
Tomoya just hums. He hands Hyui the joint back and gets up. Somehow, that unnerves Hyui even more. It shifts the energy in the room, makes everything feel suddenly too real, reminds him that there will be a moment, then an infinite number of moments after, where he has revealed the one thing that he has never told anyone and is now out there. In Tomoya’s hands.
Not that he doesn’t trust Tomoya, but the truth always has its way of coming out. Even if Tomoya doesn’t tell anyone, he might slip up. Or someone may have been right outside the door after all. Telling Tomoya is just the first beat of a butterfly’s wing that could be the reason something terrible happens, five years down the line. And there’s no way for Hyui to know—if he just inadvertently sealed his fate.
“So … “ Tomoya starts, his eyes now trained on where Hyui brings the joint, almost gone at this point, back to his lips. “What scares you, then? You think God will smite you or something?”
Hyui bristles.
“Fuck off. You know I don’t believe in God.”
Tomoya doesn’t take the hint.
“What is it then?” he continues to needle, “there has to be something. Because every time Yu and Geon kiss, you look like you’re about to throw up.”
Hyui flushes so hot and fast that he feels dizzy. Again, he’s grateful for the darkness in the room because he can’t imagine how annoying Tomoya would be if he could see it.
Though he thinks not even the darkness will save him when Tomoya steps forward, and steps right into Hyui’s space.
“Or … or is it not that it scares you …”
There’s a glint of something dangerous in his eyes, but it does nothing to prepare Hyui for Tomoya’s next words.
“Is it not that it scares you, but that it turns you on?”
Hyui’s anger flares before he can find a better outlet for the blind panic that rushes through him. Fear. Jealousy. A crush. All of those things are humiliating enough. But this. It’s so wrong, it’s so fucked up, he can’t— Moya can’t—
He shoves at Tomoya’s shoulder, hard.
“Ew, shut up, what’s wrong with you?!”
The new panic mixes with the old and curdles into something acidic.
Here he was, spilling his fucking guts at Tomoya’s feet, their leader’sfeet, admitting to all his fears and the most vulnerable part of himself—and all Tomoya does is fucking tease him again.
It’s mean. Shame prickles in Hyui’s cheeks, it only fuels the anger, though there’s a hint of a desperation that’s all too real in his voice when he curses and drops the butt of the joint into the ashtray on the windowsill, grateful for the opportunity it gives him to avoid Tomoya’s intense eyes even just for a few seconds, though they’re still boring into him when he looks back.
But now there’s also a shit-eating grin on his face.
Hyui scowls at him. Anger and humiliation twist tighter against his sternum.
“It’s okay, you know,” Tomoya sing-songs, “they’re hot. You’re gay.”
That’s Hyui’s last straw.
His scariest, most well-kept secret, falling from the tip of Tomoya’s tongue with such carelessness, without any worry or concern for who might hear, who might witness it.
Hyui’s hands curl into Tomoya’s shirt.
“You … fuck you. Fuck you. I’m so fucking tired of you always teasing me. Can you literally not be nice to me? Just this fucking once? Just about this?! Would it fucking kill you?!”
He tries to shove Tomoya away, but Tomoya doesn’t budge. It makes Hyui’s rage flare, then falter, confused.
Then, Tomoya smiles. It’s a little sweet, but mostly dangerous.
“I am nice to you,” he says, and Hyui scoffs. Of course, Tomoya is often nice to him. But that’s not what he’s talking about right now.
“No, you’re not,” he spits, flushes a little deeper when he hears the distinct pout in his voice, “you’re always so fucking mean to me.”
Hyui expects Tomoya to protest, to start a round of their usual bickering, to say something about always letting Hyui smoke his weed, or gaslight him with something like ‘oh, please, tell me one time when I wasn’t nice to you’, when he knows as well as Hyui does that they’re both incapable of not fighting at least once a week, but he doesn’t.
Instead, Tomoya steps closer. His hands curl around the edge of the sink, on either side of Hyui, pinning him in place.
It’s too close. He’s so close Hyui can feel the warmth radiating off his body, can feel his next breath against his chin.
Hyui’s heart thumps so hard against his ribcage that he genuinely worries that it might give out.
“I would argue I am being nice to you. Right now Or at least I’m doing you a favour.”
Hyui opens his mouth, but no words come out because, at that moment, Tomoya’s gaze slithers down from Hyui’s eyes to his lips, and Hyui’s entire brain stutters to a screeching halt.
Is Tomoya … is Tomoya about to—
“I’m doing you a favour because I don’t think you need someone to be nice to you …”
He leans in closer. He does it so slowly, Hyui recognises it for what it is. A chance for him to pull back, to put a stop to it if he doesn’t want this. If he doesn’t want this, Hyui thinks, he should probably push him away now.
Why is he not pushing him away?!
“I don’t think you need anyone to be nice to you,” Tomoya repeats, and then he’s so close that Hyui can feel the vibration of his next words against his lips.
“I think what you need is for someone to show you that the world won’t end if you allow yourself to have what you really want.”
Tomoya kisses him.
It’s only a close-mouthed press of his lips against Hyui’s at first, but it’s not hesitant. Tomoya kisses him like he means it. Hyui makes a little sound at the back of his throat, a sound which means that the next kiss Tomoya presses against his lips is in the shape of a smile.
And Hyui … kisses him back. Against everything in him, the fear screaming in his head, the way his heart squeezes, he kisses Tomoya back. In fact it’s him, who opens his mouth first—and then him, who shoves Tomoya back and off him so fast it punches a little gasp out of him. There’s a string of spit between their lips, one that snaps as Tomoya stumbles two steps backwards.
Though Hyui, blind, deaf and most definitely stupid, follows him immediately. His mouth, still going through the motions of his misplaced anger, mumbles out a “what the fuck are you doing”, but his feet have already carried him back into Tomoya’s orbit, his hands are already screwing into Tomoya’s shirt and then his mouth isn’t saying anything any more because they’re kissing again, and this time neither of them are holding back.
Tomoya meets him open-mouthed, lets Hyui take his anger and tongue it into his mouth. He lets him turn them around, lets Hyui’s hands, still fisted into Tomoya’s shirt, push him against the sink where Hyui was. Tomoya’s hand finds the base of Hyui’s neck, digs his fingers in and angles his head so he can kiss him deeper and Hyui’s legs buckle and he stumbles the rest of the way against Tomoya’s body.
He doesn’t fall. Tomoya catches him, winds one arm around his waist, his fingers sliding into the belt loops at the back of Hyui’s jeans, letting Hyui’s weight press Hyui forward until there’s no more space between them.
There’s cotton in Hyui’s brain. No thoughts, nothing, except the feeling of being kissed, being devoured. Tomoya’s hand is in his hair, his tongue is licking into Hyui’s mouth and he keeps making those noises, deep in the back of his throat, that make Hyui’s thoughts spiral into the gutter and blood rush south. But it seems he’s not alone in that, because their hips are pressed together and he can feel Tomoya, too. Can feel the hardening evidence of him wanting it, too.
It’s a mindfuck. To feel, from someone else, the same want that’s been boiling in him, that he has always believed was too much. Tomoya’s hand slides further into Hyui’s hair and he tilts his head, like he’s trying to kiss Hyui even deeper, like he can’t get enough, like they’re not pressed together, like there isn’t spit sliding out of the corner of Hyui’s mouth with how desperately he’s trying kiss him deeper and deeper and deeper.
Hyui’s lungs are burning, but he ignores it. His own hands have somehow found their way around Tomoya’s waist, one clawed into the porcelain behind himfor leverage, the other fisted into the back of Tomoya’s t-shirt. Tomoya’s teeth sink into his bottom lip and he moans, and he’s just about return the favour when the sound of the bathroom door opening cuts through the haze in Hyui’s mind like a knife.
“Hey guys, have you seen—“
Hyui’s head whips over.
The handle of the door is still in Yu’s hand when his eyes fall on them and he freezes. His mouth falls open.
Hyui realises suddenly, and with a startling clarity, that he’s still pressed up against Tomoya and stumbles back. Tomoya’s hands fall from him, awkwardly, but he doesn’t seem too bothered by the interruption. He’s looking at Yu with a sheepish half smile that is so him it would make Hyui grin in any other situation. Any situation that isn’t quite literally his worst fucking nightmare.
Yu stares at them for another beat before he lets out a very awkward “uhm”.
This is a nightmare. The flutter of the butterfly wing. His secret. It’s already spiralling out of control. And, of course, it had to be Yu of all people. Not like it makes a difference, of course. He’s not stupid. But still, he can’t help but think, still, did it have to be him?
Hyui once again feels like he’s floating outside of himself as he watches Yu not scream, not frown—but duck his head with an infuriatingly handsome badly concealed grin, before he’s backing out of the room.
“Nevermind. Didn’t mean to disturb. Pretend I was never here.”
The door falls shut and Hyui curses.
He’s still trying to get his bearings when Tomoya already shoves back into his space. There’s a lopsided grin on his face.
“See? You kissed a boy and someone saw and the ceiling didn’t fall on your head. Everything’s fine,” Tomoya mumbles.
Hyui shakes his head, but Tomoya doesn’t see that, because he’s looking down, down where his fingers are threading back into Hyui’s belt loops.
“Now … can we pretend that didn’t happen and go back to what we were doing? It was just getting good.”
Hyui blinks at him, at his stupid, pretty eyes, his lips, and the flirty little lopsided grin on his face.
Tomoya leans in too soon, and Hyui’s chest seizes with panic. He jerks backwards, knocks the backs of his knees into the bathtub, sends a few bottles of shampoo tumbling against the ceramic. The sound is deafening in the muted silence of the room.
Tomoya’s eyes are wide, and for the first time that night, Hyui thinks he sees something like uncertainty in them.
Hyui forces himself to speak.
“I c-can’t,” he croaks out, his voice shaking terribly, “sorry, sorry, I’m freaking out. I’m sorry.”
It’s bad enough that Tomoya knows everything—now he’s also going to see how truly and actually fucked up Hyui is about this and what was just a fun, sexy thing that made him want to kiss Hyui a moment ago, will turn into some weird, warped pity, or into teasing. Hyui doesn’t think he can handle the teasing.
But Tomoya doesn’t tease him. His eyes go wider, and his hands immediately pull from Hyui’s belt loops to hover in the air between them plaintively.
“Hey,” he mumbles, trying to catch Hyui’s eyes, but Hyui can’t look at him, “hey, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have pushed. What’s wrong?”
Hyui’s lower lip wobbles and he curses.
“I’ve never told anyone. Now you know. And Yu knows. I didn’t want Yu to know, because …” he should stop. He should really stop, but Tomoya already knows everything else and Hyui can’t carry it around with him any more. This bathroom can be his confessional, just for this night. “I have a crush on him. On Yu. It’s also why I was being … weird.”
Tomoya suddenly goes very still.
“And I know. I know, okay? I know it’s stupid. And it's not like I’m going to do anything about it.”
He expects Tomoya to say something, hopes, maybe, that he will reassure him, tell him that it’ll be okay or whatever. Something. Anything. Anything to ease Hyui’s mind.
But Tomoya doesn’t do anything. He’s not even looking at him any more, his eyes focused somewhere behind Hyui on the floor. He’s right in front of Hyui and yet, he feels like he’s a million miles away. It gives Hyui a feeling akin to vertigo—to go from kissing him, to this.
“I really won’t,” he says, in part to fill the silence, but also in the hopes that he can ease whatever seems to trouble Tomoya, but Tomoya doesn’t look eased whatsoever. Hyui can’t read him, can’t read him at all. “I promise,” he tacks on, in a quiet voice, but it doesn’t seem to reach Tomoya either.
The moment stretches for another few agonizing seconds, before Tomoya finally reacts. Though it’s nothing like Hyui could’ve predicted.
He steps back. Not one, but two steps. His eyes dart to Hyui’s but almost immediately flitter away again. He brings his hand up, wipes the back of one of them over his mouth, almost self-consciously. It’s so completely opposed to his cocky demeanour from earlier. Hyui doesn’t dare let it show, but it’s really freaking him out.
“It’s fine, Hyui,” Tomoya says, the words seeming detached from what Hyui just said. His voice, just a moment ago full of worry, is suddenly almost eerily flat.
“Yeah?” he asks, hoping for more, but Tomoya doesn’t give him more. Only nods, still not looking at Hyui.
“Yeah, it’s all good. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
They’re the words Hyui had hoped for, but Tomoya recites them so mechanically that they don’t comfort him at all.
He opens his mouth to say something, anything, wants to take a step towards Tomoya, touch him, bring him back, to talk to Hyui, to look at him again, but Tomoya has already turned towards the door.
“Anyways, sorry if I overstepped. I’ll let you …,” he doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s gone. The door clicks shut behind him and Hyui is left in the darkness of the bathroom.