has anyone written inho developing a bitter agonising complex that gihun has replaced him as junho’s hyung after the games end? he can’t say it, obviously, because he’s inho and emotional honesty is illegal, but it just eats him alive how easily gihun slides into the space he used to occupy in junho’s life.
like imagine being inho. your entire identity used to be “older brother/parental figure” and now you’re a trauma-riddled ex-frontman who can’t walk ten steps without pain and can’t look your brother in the eye without remembering what you became. and the guy who blew up your entire philosophy—gihun—is just… better at being a human than you. better at being a hyung than you.
and inho sees that and just quietly crumbles because it’s not even jealousy exactly—it’s more like this awful realisation that this is what junho always needed. gihun takes care of him, and he does it well. like it’s second nature. and junho leans into it without even realising he’s doing it. like this is the kind of care he’s been starving for.
inho’s just there. watching it happen. watching them fall into this rhythm where gihun becomes the emotional anchor, the person junho turns to first, the one he trusts with the scared parts.
and then it happens. the moment that breaks him. junho calls gihun “hyung.” like it’s nothing. like it hasn’t just knocked the fucking air out of inho’s chest. because that word used to mean something. it used to be the last piece of who he was. the only thing left that said, you were important to him. you mattered. you were his older brother.
and now it’s not his anymore.
and the worst part? gihun doesn’t even flinch when he hears it. he just answers. like it’s normal. like it’s fine. because to him, it is. but for inho, it’s shattering. because it makes everything real. this quiet little shift he’s been trying not to notice. the way junho doesn’t look at him the same. the way he flinches sometimes when inho comes close, not from fear, but from memory. the way he laughs freely with gihun, like the weight’s been lifted, like he can finally breathe.
and inho just stands there, heart in pieces, thinking: i was supposed to be that. i was supposed to be the one who kept him safe. but he wasn’t. he didn’t. he hurt him. and now someone else does it better. and without meaning to, without asking for it, gihun became the version of “hyung” that junho always deserved. it doesn’t belong to him. and the echo of it, floating casually from junho’s mouth in someone else’s direction, is worse than silence. it’s a replacement and it hurts like hell.
but he doesn’t say a word. because what could he even say? he lost the right to that name the moment he stopped being the man who earned it.
(side note it’s a complex for a reason. junho still loves him to pieces and inho is too blind and traumatised to see it)