Chapter Text
Eric wishes a drunken Chanhee goodnight before crawling under his covers, attempting to suppress the rumbling of his rather ravenous stomach. He hasn’t left the room since…the incident. The COD screams stopped when the members had returned, more boisterous than usual after getting some alcohol in themselves. And now, it was quiet, with everyone having gone to bed and sure to wake up hungover in the morning, with the exception of Eric and Juyeon. Eric would hopefully just wake up feeling free. He lays in bed staring at the jackets Chanhee had hung up on the door, it’s figure resembling a ghost. It makes his skin crawl, but at least the fear keeps him awake until he hears that Chanhee’s breathing has steadied. It’s time, then.
With great care he edges open the door, swipes a lighter from Sunwoo’s not-so-secret stash beneath the entertainment console, pulls his hoodie up, and heads out. He’s halfway to the door that leads to a back alley when he thinks he hears footsteps behind him, but that can’t be. He’d been so careful, and everyone sleeps like logs after they go out drinking. He whips around to see another hooded figure a few feet behind him and nearly jumps out of his skin.
“Eric, what are you doing?” comes a whisper in a voice that most definitely belongs to Juyeon. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
He turns around and steps into the back alley, letting the door close behind him. Juyeon, of course, follows him out, stepping into a ring of light illuminated by a shitty lightbulb above the door. The shadows pool under his eyes and spread over his cheeks and he looks almost haunting.
Eric’s hands begin to shake again, but they’re obscured by his hoodie pockets.
“I saw you taking a lighter…don’t tell me you’re a regular smoker,” he says, all disappointed and chastising but voice barely above a whisper, “Eric I understand if it’s once in a while but this is-”
“Hyung,” Eric breathes, trying to keep his voice steady but he can’t help how it shakes, “I’m so much worse.”
Juyeon’s eyebrows furrow as he steps closer. “What are you talking about?”
He’d tried to ignore that sinking feeling, but that had been another one of his mistakes. He needs to tell someone, or it's going to eat him from the inside out. He needs to tell someone, and who better than Juyeon?
Eric pulls the notebook out from under his hoodie and holds it up. “This is not my diary. I wrote about you kissing me. I wrote about Sunwoo and Haknyeon, Jacob and Kevin, Chanhee and Changmin, and more, too.”
“You what?”
“I know you heard me. I wrote it. And it happened, and I kept writing it.”
“You-wait..It happened? Youngjae, what are you saying?”
Eric’s breath hitches, “I’m saying, that I wrote about me confessing to you, and then you kissing me, and it happened and I hated every second of it because it was wrong. It is so wrong, because when I write these things you guys act them out and then you act as if nothing happened afterwards, and I am playing with your lives .”
Even to his own ears, Eric sounds deranged, his voice rising in pitch and frantic in tone, his hands flailing every which way in an attempt to explain.
Juyeon’s face twists into something of concern, but Eric can see the hurt in his eyes too. And it’s all his fault.
“So that's why…that’s why my head was hurting all night. I couldn’t sleep,” Juyeon says, and Eric can see his brain working to piece things together, “I remembered getting back from our schedule and I played COD but I was alone and I didn’t know why. I didn’t think to question it for some reason, until I went to bed. And then I started to question it and it made my head hurt.”
Juyeon looks up from the ground and at the notebook, “And then I heard sounds, very faint sounds, so I went to check and I saw you.”
“Hyung, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I really am. I should never have done this,” and god, he’s so pathetic because tears well up in his eyes already, “I want to tell everyone I’m sorry, I can’t believe I didn’t realize how terrible this was until now, but I don’t know how to tell them.”
“So you really did it, then? You wrote…that…and it happened? I don’t think I’m understanding.” His voice has a shake to it too, now.
Eric presses his thumb into his eyes, “Yeah because…because I like you, hyung. I like you so much I-”
He can’t believe he’s confessing now, again. He doesn’t deserve to, but he needs to. He takes a deep breath before continuing, “You’re so good to me, and to everyone. You’re a good person, hyung. Thank you for being a good person, but I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve any of you.”
He drops the notebooks to the ground and brings the lighter to it. The flame catches on quickly. Eric is very fortunate because it is soon engulfed in flames, flames that eat away at the pages, burning them to a crisp, and the bright orange embers spark to the ground and it’s such a sight, really. He should have done this earlier, it’s such a sight, he’s so happy to watch it go. Juyeon watches it with him, mind still reeling, trying to process the new information.
Only a half of the book remains to be turned into ashes when the silence is broken, by Juyeon.
“Youngjae, if you really did what you said you did, then you did a terrible thing.”
“I’m so sorry. I know an apology doesn’t change anything, but still I’m so sorry.”
Their eyes meet over the burning book and Eric catches his breath, because the flames reflect so beautifully in Juyeon’s eyes.
“It’s ok, Youngjae,” and the shake in his voice grows more pronounced as his eyes become wet, and the flames reflect like shards of glass. They twinkle.
He sniffles, lifting a big hand to brush away a tear that threatens that fall, “You did a terrible, stupid thing, but it’s ok, you can tell them what you did on your own terms, if you want. For what it’s worth, I like you too. I like you, Youngjae, but I don’t know if we can be together that way.”
Eric’s heart is in free-fall. He feels like a bloody fire hydrant again, which has to be one of his least favorite things to feel like.
“I’ll tell them sometime, hyung. And again, I’m really sorry. I don’t think it’s ok, but thank you.”
“Love can make you do terrible things.”
Juyeon’s last sentence lingers in the air, weighing down on them both, wheedling its way into Eric’s head and settling there firmly. The last of the notebook turns to ash and then-
What is he doing here? Eric looks around at the empty alley, at the pile of ash on the ground, and at the confused Juyeon blinking at him.
“What am I doing here?”
Eric laughs, “Do you feel drunk? I don’t.”
Juyeon shakes his head, “No, so how’d we end up here?”
He smiles in amusement at Eric shrugging before opening the door for him. They step into the warmth of the building, suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted, as if they’d been in dance practice nonstop since the wee hours of the morning.
“Honestly, I just wanna sleep,” Eric says. He receives a nod from Juyeon and they trudge up to their dorm and into their beds, drawing their covers over their heads. Sleep drags them away the moment they hit the pillow.
The next morning, burrowed into his side when he wakes up, Juyeon finds a red notebook. About a hundred pages thick, about the size of his hand, and entirely empty.