''~°.HIDE AND SEEK.°~'' | YEONGYU

THE MEMORY #2

The sound came faint. Wood creaking, or maybe the brush against the siding of the house. Barely there...

Beomgyu stiffened immediately. His hand clenched the blanket, knuckles pale.

Yeonjun's arm tightened around him, his voice low but steady, deliberate.

"Don't panic. It's nothing..and even if it's not nothing, I'm right here."

Beomgyu's breath came shallow, uneven. Yeonjun tilted his head, catching his gaze, forcing him to focus.

"I won't let anything touch you."

For a moment, Beomgyu nodded. But then silence stretched too long, his chest rising too quick, his eyes wet but unblinking. He wasn't calming down.

If anything, the stillness pressed harder against him, squeezing him tight.

And then it slipped out.

"I don't—" Beomgyu's voice cracked before he forced it out, low and shaking. "I don't even know why you're still here. I'm—" His breath stuttered, his grip on Yeonjun's sleeve trembling.

"I'm broken, Yeonjun. I make everything worse. People get hurt just because they're near me."

The words hung heavy between them, too raw, too sudden, like a wound split open under the weight of sleepless fear.

Yeonjun froze. He hadn't expected that.

Beomgyu's gaze dropped, shame burning across his face. "You should've....you should've left me when you had the chance."

Yeonjun's brows furrowed, but before he could respond, Beomgyu's voice cracked again, sharper this time.

"It's my fault. All of it."

Yeonjun stilled. "...What are you talking about?"

Beomgyu's eyes glistened, unfocused. He shook his head, almost violently. "The bully—. I know I didn't—" His breath hitched, a sob caught in his throat. "I know I didn't do it, but...if I hadn't..if I wasn't..." His words tangled, messy and desperate.

Yeonjun's hand pressed against his shoulder, steady, grounding. "Beomgyu."

Beomgyu jerked his head up, tears brimming, expression twisted with something between anger and despair. "You don't get it! If I hadn't been there, if I hadn't existed like this, he wouldn't— he wouldn't have—" His voice broke, the last word falling into silence.

The lamp's glow caught the tears streaking his cheeks. He looked small, cornered by ghosts only he could see.

Yeonjun's chest ached at the sight. For a split second, the urge to argue, to demand sense, rose in him. But instead he breathed slow, steady, letting the boy in front of him unravel.

"You think his death is on you..." Yeonjun murmured, not a question, not judgment. Just a thread of truth laid bare between them.

Beomgyu's lips parted, but no words came. His silence was answer enough for Yeonjun. His lips trembled, but no words followed. The silence between them stretched, thick with the weight of his confession.

Yeonjun exhaled slowly, his voice low, steady, deliberate. "Gyu... listen to me."

His hand slid from Beomgyu's shoulder to the back of his neck, firm enough to keep him from sinking into himself. "You didn't do this. You hear me? What happened to him...it wasn't you. It wasn't your fault."

Beomgyu's chest rose and fell too quickly, his breaths uneven. "But if I hadn't—"

"No," Yeonjun cut in, gently but with finality. "Stop. Don't finish that sentence. You're taking pieces of blame that don't belong to you." His gaze stayed fixed on Beomgyu, unwavering. "It isn't yours to carry."

Beomgyu's eyes welled again, though he tried to look away. His throat worked like he wanted to argue, but the words never came.

Yeonjun softened his tone, thumb brushing the side of Beomgyu's neck.

"You've been hurt enough. Don't twist that hurt into guilt for an idiot's death. Don't give him that power, even now."

The room was quiet again, but this time Yeonjun didn't let the silence feel empty. He filled it with his presence, his steady breathing, the calm weight of his hand grounding Beomgyu in the moment there and then.

Beomgyu's chest stuttered with uneven breaths, his voice thin and trembling.

"...It's not just him."

Yeonjun's brows knit. "What do you mean?"

Beomgyu shook his head at first, as if trying to swallow the words back down. But they came anyway, slipping out in fragments, like a dam breaking too slowly to stop.

"All my life it's been like this... like I was the problem. Wrong if I spoke. Wrong if I stayed quiet. Wrong if I laughed, wrong if I cried. They'd—" He stopped, choking on the sentence, his fingers curling hard into the blanket.

Yeonjun's stomach tightened. His grip on the back of Beomgyu's neck steadied, urging without pressing. "Who, Gyu?"

"My parents." The words cracked, raw, as though admitting them out loud burned. His eyes glistened as he looked past Yeonjun, not daring to meet his gaze. "You don't..you don't know what it was like there. They could smile at everyone else like nothing was wrong, like they were the perfect family. But the second the door closed..."

He trailed off, his voice breaking into silence. The air between them felt heavier, suffocating.

Beomgyu's throat worked, his voice coming out thinner, cracked at the edges. "...they made sure I remembered every mistake. Every flaw. Sometimes I didn't even know what I did wrong, but it didn't matter. They always found something."

His hands shook as he pressed them flat against his knees, as if trying to hold himself together. His next words came out in a whisper, shame curling around each syllable. "After a while... I started to believe them. That maybe I really was broken...cursed."

Yeonjun felt something twist sharp and ugly in his chest. His instincts screamed to press for details, to know exactly what Beomgyu had gone through, but the way the boy's voice trembled stopped him. Too much, and Beomgyu would shut down. He couldn't let that happen.

So instead, Yeonjun leaned in, his voice low, steady, grounding. "You're not cursed."

Beomgyu flinched, as if the words were too much. His eyes glossed over, darting away. "You don't know that."

"I do," Yeonjun said firmly, leaving no space for doubt. His fingers brushed against Beomgyu's wrist, guiding his clenched hand away from his knee. He held it loosely, not forcing, just there. Present.

Beomgyu's lips parted, but no words came out. Just silence. His chest rose and fell too quickly, caught between panic and relief, fear and something softer.

After a long, stretched moment, he whispered, "Then why does it still feel like it's my fault? Everything. Him. The figure. The way things always go wrong. It follows me, Jun. It always follows me."

Yeonjun didn't answer right away. His jaw tightened, his mind already clicking through possibilities, pieces of the puzzle shifting...but for now, he buried that instinct.

Instead, he tightened his grip on Beomgyu's hand, firm enough to anchor him. "Then let it follow you," he murmured, eyes sharp and unwavering. "Because I'll be right there too."