“hurt me?” wenyan asks, sounding a little incredulous. the words are foreign and strange in his mouth, as if the thought of harim hurting him is almost unthinkable. “i hurt you.”
“i got you sick,” he admits, tone a little self-deprecating, all too quiet against the chatter of everyone else. he worries his teeth at the inside of his mouth, breaking his gaze to look down at the space in between them. “that day when i took you out to eat…” he trails off. stops again. a rueful smile sits in place, tinged with something unnameable. “well, i’m sure you can figure it out.”
and it kind of sucks. the more he sits here, the more harim realizes that something really did shift irreparably, something he should have tried to fix right when it happened. the time they’ve spent tiptoeing around each other feels like an eternity and if he’s felt the weight of it on his shoulders ever since he saw wen’s expression of hurt those weeks ago, he can’t even begin to imagine what sort of far-out truths wenyan’s been nurturing.
harim sets his bottle down on the ground and kicks it over idly. the thud is inaudible in the midst of the campfire festivities and harim almost wishes they were somewhere quieter, somewhere less hectic.
the smile that works its way onto harim’s lips when wen manages a clumsy response almost falls to nothing instantaneously. his brows furrow in muted confusion and he lifts his head again, gaze focusing on wenyan scrutinizingly, waiting for any sort of indication that this entire situation will start making sense to either of them, to both of them, in the impending future.
he doesn’t understand, and it frustrates him because what part about it is so convoluted that harim can’t wrap his mind around it?
wen? of all people? hurt him?
“what?” he murmurs listlessly. “that doesn’t make any sense.”
harim’s expression eases into something softer, something less perplexed. he does remember. he remembers going out for dinner after a long day of initiation with wen, not feeling particularly great or particularly terrible. by the end of the night, he’d felt sick to his stomach and wasn’t sure if it was the seolleongtang or his lack of sleep finally catching up to him. he’d never thought to blame wen, and even if it were wen’s fault, harim would never think to hold it against him.
“that’s—” harim rubs his neck. he’s a little embarrassed because he isn’t sure if what he’s about to say properly conveys how he feels, and whether wen will interpret it the way harim would like. it doesn’t matter. he can explain if he has to, but he figures it’s more important to get it out one way or another. “i don’t really care about that, hyung.”
he pauses, hand falling to the bend of his arm. his sister would probably smack him if she saw him slouching like this, but it sort of feels like his heart’s gotten lighter, like the stiffness in his body’s loosened minutely.
“i mean, don’t get me wrong, that fucking sucks for you. i can’t imagine how hard it must be and i'm sorry, but...” with much futility, he hazards a look in wen’s direction, angling his head to meet wenyan’s eyes. “how could i hate you for something like that? i'm fine now, right? i don’t know, i took a bunch of vitamin c tablets and slept for more than six hours that night. woke up feeling like a new man, so if anything, maybe you did me a favor.” he’s joking, maybe trying to edge a smile out of wen too. “i know it’s kind of weird of me to say it like this, but i really don’t care. it’s not like you meant to do it, and that’s really all that matters to me in the end.”
something crackles, a tiny fuse growing into a storm; his muscles tighten, and harim almost grimaces.
he brushes it off for now. it’s less important in the grand scheme of things.
“hyung,” harim begins, insistence as clear as a bell, “i would never hold that against you.”
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