#his existence is walking on eggshells and being hypervigilant

[broken-clover]

Deeply deeply attached to the idea of Potemkin and Dizzy being friends and an unreasonably large portion of that is the thought that she's basically one of the few things he would be able to hug and not immediately reduce to paste

[marshmallowprotection]

Iris

Pairing: Choi Saeran/Reader, 707 | Choi Luciel/Main Character

Description: Was there faith in a false paradise with a savior that spilled honey sweet lies to make you agree? There is no life to be found amongst those in a rotting flowerbed, only those clinging to the roots as the world awaits your demise. Why is he still here when others had long been plucked from the dying earth? And better yet, why are you still here after everything, clinging to his roots as if he’ll bring you life? Or is he the one clinging to you?

SE Saeran x Former Believer Reader

Word Count:

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[Read On AO3]

Chapter Three

Saeran didn’t stop running. 

It felt like a bomb had gone off. It was as if he were trying to wade through a disaster zone where there was only rubble and debris left of the world that existed before the explosion. 

It was a minefield of his death and despair that warned him to look where he stepped because of one false move and he would be like the world of the scorched earth.

Dead and buried six feet underneath the ground if he was lucky enough to be identified. Saeran felt this shuddering sensation from the second that he started to run and it hadn’t left him since. It was like his body was running on just the foundation of how to get away from something, not thinking twice to see if it was the right thing to do.

When he came through the front door, his heart was beating out of his chest, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it. Saeran knew that something had gone wrong and he knew that there was no choice left for him but to run and hide. If he didn’t flee from the problem as soon as possible, then it was going to blow up in his face and make matters worse for wear. 

That wasn’t what he wanted. 

The last thing he needed was someone meddling in his affairs. His mind was moving faster than he could stomach and his thoughts kept hitting him in the face over and over again with false hopes, guilt, shame, and many more emotions that he couldn’t wasn’t sure that he was ready to be feeling or dealing with again. Saeran was, to put it bluntly, panicking. 

These days, he was pretty good at masking his emotions and keeping them where they needed to be in his chest. He would deal with the ugly things in therapy if he had the power and then, the rest of the free time he had was spent trying to work in his garden, or simply laying back on the grass to take a nap in the sunshine. 

But, this was a full-scale problem and he had no idea how to address it.

What he did know was that he needed to be alone and he wasn’t sure what would happen if someone dared to get in his way. This is why he hurriedly entered the string of random letters and numbers to the bunker and stepped inside, ignoring the chime of the gate as it spoke and warned the others that he was home. 

Saeyoung didn’t seem to be around, so Saeran counted his blessings on that one. 

One obstacle was too much for him and considering what he had been dealing with the day prior when it came to his twin, he wasn’t ready to unpack that problem, either. The universe didn’t seem to care if he wanted to deal with it or not, because it kept stacking rocks on his chest. If it wasn’t one thing that went wrong, it was a hundred other things that trailed behind it. 

“Saeran, is that you? Or, is it Saeyoung?” 

“...” 

“Saeran…?” 

He passed by MC who peered out of the kitchen to see who had come home, and they opened their mouths to say something but Saeran just stormed right past them and entered his room. It was nothing against them, he just couldn’t handle it right now. He locked the door behind himself as quickly as he could and felt his legs starting to buckle underneath his weight—

Saeran had enough energy pumping through his veins that he was able to collapse against the bed and sink his face into the pillows. He had spent so much time trying to run away from these things only for them to blow up in his face again. He thought that he was finally trying to make sense of his life and to see you all over again opened the shame of his wounds. 

It almost seemed like he was starting to move past what happened enough to function every day without thinking about what he would be doing if he was still trapped in the cult. 

Was that just one of those falsehoods that he allowed himself to be lulled into? Saeran was always walking on eggshells to survive no matter what he was. He might not have been waiting for Rika to peer around the corner and scold him for existing, nor was he waiting for his mother to walk into the room with a scowl on her face before she raised her hand and struck him.

But, his mind felt like he was still there no matter how removed he was from those places. That’s what his therapist said. He was struggling to escape the memories because his body was wracked with so much fear and exhaustion from years spent being hypervigilant that it had left a mark on his brain that wasn’t going to leave him readily or soon. 

You couldn’t turn off something that you learned needed to stay on at all times. If you dropped your attention for a moment, then it was likely that you were going to be destroyed. That’s the theory that his head ran with and it went without saying that that was his problem. He knew that it was always going to haunt him, just as the dread pooled inside of him. 

His body felt overwhelmingly stimulated. Fear, shame, rage, guilt, and more feelings fluttered inside of his chest and left him feeling suffocated. It was too much, too much, too much all at once. How was he supposed to deal with all of these feelings when he had nobody to turn to which he could explain all of this? 

Opening this up would mean talking about everything that happened at Mint Eye. Everything from the moment that his memory began to work again. If he even started to talk about it to his therapist, then it would open up a can of worms. Because the more he said about what he was forced to do, the more that he had to admit that he’d done to you in the process.

The more that he said, the more that he had to relive. Saeran tried to ball up the memory of you in the back of his head with the rest of Mint Eye for a reason. You weren’t the worst thing to ever happen to a man named Unknown. You were the best thing to ever happen to him but he didn’t realize it at the time and it shattered everything.

His devotion to his savior was everything and because of that, he couldn’t see everything that was happening around him. 

He couldn’t allow himself to truly live in the moment because his mind was meant to be focusing on destroying everyone that hurt him. He lived in a state of confusion and sheer anger that was meant to blanket him with a cloud of detachment from reality to ensure his safety to his goals. He did things and he said things without thinking of anyone but himself. 

A selfish man, that’s who Saeran had been when he lived in Mint Eye and went by the name of Unknown. He didn’t want to be seen, heard, or acknowledged as the person that he once was, and that was why he simply allowed people to know him as an enigma. He lived in his pain, in his elixir, and his spite for such a long time that his memories clouded together and shrouded his awareness. 

There was so much that he couldn’t remember about Mint Eye and how it all started. He just came into existence one day and kept working. His memory was locked away from him tightly and left him reeling constantly. He didn’t want those memories back of the time where he existed alone. But, at the same time, a part of him didn’t want the memories that were bathed in your vision as well. 

Unknown had lived in a world of his own until you came along and truly, his thoughts weren’t his own until you entered his black and white nightmares. A saccharine smile at the edge of your lips spoke volumes of the person that might have existed underneath that elixir before you were saved by his savior,  no, by Rika. 

Your face haunted him just as much as the face of Jihyun Kim did. 

Just, for entirely different reasons. 

The things that he did to you—

The horrible words that he said—

The actions he took against you—

The way you looked at him when—

Your vision clung to him like honey that refused to let go of the things that it poured onto. In many ways, he missed you, and to see you out in the world free from your chains had struck him so hard that it made him sick to his stomach once again. In other ways, the thought of seeing you again filled him with terror and dread the likes of which he couldn’t verbalize. 

The realization that struck him when he saw you hit him like a ton of bricks. He panicked and decided to get out of there as fast as he could. It was what he knew how to do best. He knew how to get away to avoid anything that was going to cause something bad to happen. 

But, it was you, and that was what left him conflicted in the first place. You weren’t a bad thing, you were the furthest thing from bad, to say the least of how you made him feel. You were a shining light in a stormy sea. You were the moon in his cloudy night. You were the reason that he felt like there was still some kind of warmth in his barren chest. 

However, seeing you drudged everything up, even the sickening memories that he wanted to try and forget. He couldn’t forget them. He carried those sins on his back everywhere he walked. It was like the tattoo that dug into his bicep. It was going to stay with him no matter what he did and no matter how far he ran away from it. 

That was the price that he had to pay for what he’d done. Even if he had been out of his mind for so long, it didn’t change the fact that he put himself fully into those feelings and choices. That was why your memory brought everything back to him. He couldn’t bury it down, could he? No, no, no, Iris was always on the cusp of touching his freezing skin.

Iris, huh? 

“Iris,” his voice whispered the codename that he had given you as if it was a prayer that he used to sing every single night. It felt like coming home but at the same time, like breathing in the smoke of his fire and brimstone. “Iris, Iris, Iris, Iris… Iris… Iris…” 

That’s why his fingers were trembling so badly and the feeling of a chill was rolling down his spine. He sucked in a desperate puff of air as the panic finally caught up with him. All he had been thinking was to get home and to lock himself away before it hit him like this. He’d been running on autopilot since the moment that he’d caught a glimpse of your face. 

Saeran hadn’t even realized it was your face until he saw the curl of your lips as you smiled at the view of the sky. You were sitting in the same spot that he always placed him, just so that he could look out of the window and gaze at the world around him. It was strange how you had managed to find this place all on your own and somehow know just where he might be. 

Was the universe trying to taunt him with his reality? 

His nails dug deeper into the fabric beneath them. The only thing that he knew was that seeing you opened up every wound that he had tried to push away. It was bad enough the blood lingered on his hands to this day, he didn’t need the shadow of what happened back then to hit him like a ton of big bricks all at once. It was hard enough, but this… this flood was only beginning. 

The panic overwhelmed him, causing him to lose control of his breathing until his vision went white and he lost track of where he was and what was happening around him. The only thing that he knew was the dread and anxiety… and the haunting melody of Mint Eye’s hymns lingering in his ears as the memory of you overcame him and he slumped against the bed. 

—

It wasn’t often that he went to ceremonies anymore. 

If the Savior asked him, he would. But, if he didn’t have to go, he wouldn’t go to them. It wasn’t something he needed to do. His job was more important than that. He had to protect the safety and all of the goals that they aspired for in paradise. He was the only one that she entrusted all of their goals to and he knew that was a greater honor than what the believers that could be nameless fodder could ever be given. 

Today was different, though. 

All because on his way to the ceremony, he found another nameless believer standing at the doors that led to the gardens. Your hood was off your head and hanging against your shoulders as the sunlight did kiss your cheeks and you seemed lost in thought. Everyone was meant to be in the church before the clock struck twelve times at the peak of noon.

Either you were wandering around because you didn't know any better, or you were in a bleary haze of elixir. There was no other reason for any person to be meandering about like that. He did not care but his Savior would. 

Believers were meant to be seen, not heard. If you didn’t have a job to do that was important, you needed to stay out of sight and mind. You needed silent reflection to reach the level of sheer devotion that would bring you whatever honor the Savior wanted to give to you. 

He scoffed when someone thought high and mighty of themselves to be gifted something as important as he was.

Nothing more than a meathead that would wind up serving their use and then being thrown away the second that they weren't useful to the cause. If you were meant for paradise, you would be molded to paradise or perish. You had to be strong. If not, then what use were you? 

Those types never lasted long… Well, they did, just not the way they expected. There was plenty of space in the basement to transform someone into a mindless drone. It was how all the guards were trained, after all. Cocky and so stupid, but strength couldn’t be wasted when the group was trying to grow in power to take down its enemies. 

He only paused when he stepped behind you, and you didn't bother to look back at him. That was an insult, alone. Unknown grabbed at your shoulder and whipped you around to face him and you blinked, not frightened, but surprised that someone had touched you or bothered you as you slacked off your duty to attend services for salvation. Savior checked the cameras, too, he wasn't getting in trouble for you. 

"You're supposed to be with the rest of the sheep, following the Savior's words," he said, voice dry and devoid of pleasantries. He was trying to scan your face to see if he knew your identification number. "You better have a damn good reason for skipping out of your sole duty." 

You didn't seem to realize who you were even speaking to, either, because you responded, "Well, what would Savior say if she knew that you were skipping out on your duty, as well?" 

That sass and backtalk could have alone warranted enough for him to laugh and call someone to wrench you to the basement. However, for reasons that he would never understand, he decided against that at the last second. Nobody was dumb enough to talk back to him. It had been a while since he felt anyone bite. 

Unknown had simply grown so accustomed to people cowering and running away from him, that he forgot what it felt like to have someone stare at him with such condemnation in their eyes. There was something inside of your soul that hadn't been beaten out of you. Most people who went through the process were devoid of their emotions were allowed to feel nothing but the pleasure of nothingness.

However, a select few had more adverse reactions that change their perspective on everything. Those were the people that his Savior was interested in and invested in. She liked to say that the people that had hum that darkness that flourished in such a way like this were truly the gifted few. 

He had his doubts about that but her word was always absolute and final. It interested him to know that someone still had something left inside of them and it wasn't submission.

He had been living in a cycle of feeling the same numb feelings for so long now, that he almost forgot what it felt like to feel anything. He had forgotten what it felt like to experience a challenge and to know what it felt like to have someone look at him and want to push back against him. 

It had almost grown boring to live the same cycle over and over. But, he told himself that it would be worth it when the destruction paid off.

The Savior said the same thing. 

It would be worth it in due time.

It was just this hum that seemed to linger in his heart that told him that he could have some fun. 

He wasn't always interested in fooling around or testing the limits of some other person, but at this moment where you barely shared any words, he felt something that he wanted to feel more of. Which is exactly why he wasn't going to let you get away with this.

He laughed in your face. 

You still didn't get it. 

"What's so funny? You're probably going to get in just as much trouble. We're both believers in this place. You're wearing the same robe as me, therefore, we hold the same ability. Are you laughing since you think you've caught me or some shit? I'm in the middle of doing—"

He leaned in close and watched as you began to finally hesitate,  "Haven't figured it out? That's adorably pathetic. Are you sure there's anything in that brain? I am the strongest member in Mint Eye, I am the Savior's chosen believer, I am the man who will secure our paradise with my blood and sweat. I can do anything I desire simply because the Savior trusts me to give her what she needs. If you haven't figured it out, I control security and your position. My name is Unknown and I am your worst fucking nightmare."

—

“He didn’t talk to you?” 

MC shook their head. 

Saeyoung had to press his face in his hands. He breathed in deeply before he looked back down the hall at the area where Saeran’s room was located. ��Okay. This isn’t the first time that’s happened to him but how bad did it seem when you tried to talk to him? Was it okay? Was he angry? What did it seem like to you?” 

Saeran liked to be alone sometimes. He was still having a hard time trying to come to grips with what it meant to be free from Rika’s control and Saeyoung didn’t want to pressure him. He had made plenty of mistakes time and time again trying to make the right choice for Saeran, but he knew that pushing too hard wasn’t going to make anything right. 

If he wanted to be alone, he could be alone for as long as he wanted. They would bring dinner to his door if need be, but to think that he didn’t even say a word to MC, which he almost always did, even on his bad days…? That wasn’t a good sign. Saeyoung couldn’t always speak to his twin, but he knew that Saeran had MC if he wanted to find someone to talk to. 

He’d never talk to the RFA, not willingly. 

His room was his sanctuary and Saeyoung was doing his best to give him space and time to breathe, even if that was hard for him. His therapist had told him that that was one of his real issues. That he wanted to make things better as soon as he could for his loved ones without thinking it through first. It wasn’t exactly reckless, but it did give him an explanation why his act before he thinks style didn’t help.

His room was on the opposite side of the bunker than the room he and MC shared to give him that space and comfort that he wouldn’t otherwise have if they’d been right on top of each other. That was better for his mental state but him isolating himself wasn’t exactly the greatest thing in the world. He only did that when something was seriously wrong.

It happened quite often in the beginning. Saeyoung didn’t quite realize the extent that of his damage until he spoke about it in therapy, simply that he had “made him brother come and live with him since he was a danger to himself at the time,” and while he couldn’t elaborate on why he did that, it seemed like his therapist was able to cut right through to the things that he missed. 

He erased Saeran’s freedom of choice. 

It had been a necessary evil in Saeyoung’s eyes. Saeran was lashing out at everyone in the hospital, he truly needed better care, but he wasn’t safe there. Jumin could only lie and pay people off so much in the hospital about those attempts before their father found out. He had to steal Saeran from the place just to ensure that their father couldn’t find out about them. 

It was a mistake on his part but he didn’t know what else to do at the time. Jumin was already trying to handle everything else and Saeyoung knew that if he didn’t do something, it was going to put everyone into something that they didn’t need to be involved in. He knew that it was going to make his twin angry with him, but he never considered what that would do. 

It was another reason why they felt so fractured from each other, even to this day, because he had done something to save Saeran but he never even asked if Saeran would be okay with it. He had done what he had done when they were kids all over again, and in retrospect, he now understood what was wrong with that and why he should’ve done it differently.

There was no wonder why Saeran had trouble trusting him, even if Saeyoung had been tricked and played for a fool as well. He never should have done something without asking or explaining first, that was his fatal mistake. He was still paying for it to this day, but this evil tried to convince himself that it had to be done.

Jumin had warned him that it was becoming too dangerous and if they had to put Saeran into the intensive care unit, his risk of being located was much higher than it was under a false name. He was in a bad place from whatever drugs they had given him to keep him underneath their thumbs, but it was so much more than that. There was so much pain in his heart. 

There were a lot of risks to consider in their lives and it was better to be safe than sorry, even if that meant that someone might get hurt in the process. That’s why he made the choice that he did, even if he knew that it was going to crush Saeran and upset him. Because no matter what happened, nobody deserved to be found by that man. 

They might’ve been free, but not from a man named Saejoong Choi. 

He had recently secured the title of Prime Minister and the less he knew about the boys, the better it was going to be for them. He was not involved or anywhere near the aftermath of Mint Eye, but if it continued to be a talking point in the public eye… God, he could count his blessings for now since he wiped them clean from the agency’s servers and the country database. 

That had taken a long time. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be able to make it through without being caught back then, but he had. Everything was legal and squared away, so it wasn’t going to hurt them now. All you needed was a little editing and a rich friend to stay out of sight and mind. 

As long as they stayed underneath the radar and out of sight, he knew that he could protect the two of them. Saeyoung had the two of them listed underneath false identities, the same way that he had done for Vanderwood. Jumin had been able to validate it further, and they helped a lot. He owed so much to Jumin but the man wouldn’t let him pay it back properly. 

No, the only way that he could pay it back was by providing work and support to C&R only way that he knew how. He spent hours of his time trying to ensure that their systems were better than better, it was the least that he could do for Jumin. He was covering everything in his protection and really, it was worth the trouble. 

It wasn’t like he needed Jumin to pay him for the work. 

He had more than enough money stashed away to keep everyone happy and healthy from now until the end of their lives, but it just didn’t feel right to live that way without giving something back for the length that everyone had gone to, to protect him and his twin. He wasn’t working himself like a dog to the brink of death anymore, but he was providing service. 

Jumin had commented that he was doing it in Jihyun’s honor, but also because the RFA was family, no matter what. They had gone through so much together and they couldn’t ever forget the bounds made during their time with the group. Even if there weren’t any plans to hold any parties at the moment, it would never change their relationship to each other. 

If you survived the amount of stress and trauma that the RFA had in the past year, you would be happy to come out of it with people that understood what you went through. There were things that nobody else would ever be able to understand. They all walked hand and hand into this, and they left the same way, even if it burned to see the truth.

Not everyone got to escape, though. 

The name Jihyun left a truly sour and bittersweet feeling in everyone’s mouth, but nobody wanted to speak ill of the dead. What point was there? As angry as Saeyoung was, he shoved it to the back of his mind because no amount of wanting to unpack it was going to help him unbury the hatred that he held inside of his heart now. 

He wasn’t going to get his answers. 

All of the answers died when Jihyun did.

Just as the rest of the RFA was holding onto the reality of their lives with a grain of salt. Everyone had to confront a devil they never thought was going to stand in front of them. The fact of the matter was that what they thought they knew wasn’t ever the truth at all. It was all a fabrication, for one reason or another. 

The truth of what happened to V was being sold as a lie to the public to protect Saeran from being in the line of fire, for one. There was no mention of Saeran amongst the remains of believers and that was pure because Jumin had ensured that it was taken care of. It may have covered his tracks and kept him safe and sound, but—

But, most everyone had started to believe that Rika had been the one to kill Jihyun for trying to stop her from hurting others.  That was a nasty rumor that couldn’t be stopped. Everyone knew that she’d once been dating the photographer, but news of her sudden death left people stunned. That alone had made people wonder what their relationship was like and who Rika truly was.

Yet, those murmurs were kept quiet merely out of respect at the time… but now that the truth was out in the open that she wasn’t dead and what she’d truly been doing had come to light? 

There were even a fringe group of people who believed that Jihyun had been the founder of Mint Eye and Rika had simply been trapped with him, with no choice but to obey. No former believers were able to speak on their experiences and the ones that were remained were far too traumatized to confront the rumors at hand. 

They needed to heal, not be hounded by media who wanted to treat them like some kind of circus act. Though, Saeyoung was aware that Jumin was trying to put together the pieces that was another thing entirely. He wanted closure in his way and that was why he was personally seeing to the secrets of Mint Eye and protecting everyone. 

Saeyoung was helping him with it to an extent, but there were things that Jumin knew not to say to him given how sensitive things were. He had dealt with some of that work earlier after he tended to his appointments but nobody was aware that this was still going on to the extent that it was. He hated to lie to his MC but he didn’t want to worry them about this. 

They had their trauma from that situation to contend with… to witness someone lose their life was something that wasn’t a joke. It didn’t matter how you felt about them in life. It’s human to not want to see someone end cruelly, at least, people like MC who were gentle and kind. Saeyoung had… seen plenty himself. 

It never got any easier to deal with. 

It was one of the things that Vanderwood always told him to glance away for, but he would force himself to stomach it because he had no other choice but to live his reality. He had to know what could happen to him if he wasn’t faster, stronger, and better than everyone else who tried to get in his way on a mission. That probably was a huge factor in why he could lock away those feelings but… it was still too much. 

That mark changed everything. 

Yoosung and Zen were the only ones that didn’t know who killed Jihyun. Jumin and Jaehee found out after the fact, as did Saeyoung. This was something that nobody wanted to discuss but it was a fact of reality. Saeran had been upset, uncontrolled, and lost. He panicked, lost himself, and it fired off the gun before he knew what he was doing. 

It didn’t change the fact that his brother’s hands were stained with blood. 

But, the situation was a complicated mess of pain and misery. 

It was too late by the time Jumin got Jihyun help. It was too late to stop the bleeding. It was too late to help him internally. It was too late to make things right. It might have been different if Jumin’s guards had arrived even a minute earlier, but there was no changing the past as it was already done. It was just what happened and nobody could’ve stopped it. 

He couldn’t have stopped it, either. 

Saeyoung had passed out from the blood loss and exhaustion that he sustained with the agency, so he hadn’t been able to do anything about it. Vanderwood and MC were the ones that witnessed every bit of it. Neither one of them was able to do anything. Nobody could’ve stopped it. That was the reality of things. 

Survivor’s guilt was a hell of a feeling. 

That hung heavy on Saeyoung’s shoulders. He wanted to take the blame for it himself if it would protect his little brother from any more harm, but Jumin had looked him in the eyes and told him that Jihyun wouldn’t want the twins to suffer after he gave his life for them. He lied and covered their tracks to protect his best friend’s honor and wishes. 

There was no denying that they were already deeply entrenched in all of this… whether they wanted to be or not. Saeyoung stepped up security and ensured that everyone was safe online from any comments or suspecting theories. He scrubbed things clean for hours to ensure that nobody was spreading those things to ruin more lives. 

The death of Jihyun Kim wasn’t the only death in Mint Eye, but he was a popular artist and people would whisper about who they thought him to be and what they thought him to be. The same way that they whispered of their theories of Rika and the woman that they thought her to be underneath the glimmer of a seemingly lovely young woman. 

It was a mess but it was too much to deal with in the waves that it hit them. No matter how angry he was about everything that happened, he had to protect everyone as best he could. He couldn’t worry about what people said about V or Rika because it was bridges burned and they would have to forever be marked by those choices. 

In life, and death. 

Saeyoung tried not to dwell on them for very long because of how angry he was. It was one subject that he was fine burying away because there was no untwisting those memories of his past. If he started, it’d make him feel shameful, guilty, and more. He blamed himself for everything but he was working on his perspective. But, even a year away from the pain didn’t change much. 

People were going to think whatever they wanted but not about his family if he could help it. 

That’s one of the many things that the public whispered about. The RFA was a footnote to the life of what Rika Kim had become to South Korea.

 Sure, all eyes lingered on the charity that she once created, and plenty of people whispered about it with the members who had been involved with the cult in any way, but when everyone was cleared from suspicion the more information slipped through the cracks. 

It was shaky ground for quite a while, but it was more of a murmur now instead of a screaming shout that couldn’t be ignored. It was treading water but at least they were high enough that it wasn’t going to pull everyone back underneath. As far as Saeyoung was concerned, he wasn’t going to let anyone fall on his watch. 

The RFA had already suffered so much and he wasn’t going to lose the family that he had now. Even if he had to work harder to ensure that. He gave MC a tired smile as they noticed the line of exhaustion as it grew on his face. He knew that he was pushing it. If Saeran wanted to be alone, he needed to give him more space. They had that argument the night before that was still weighing on him, maybe—

Maybe, that’s why he was so anxious.

MC was always one to notice when he had that look in his eyes. They caught his hand in their own and smiled back. “Let’s give him some time, okay? I’ll make sure to put his dinner on ice in case he wants to grab it later, but he needs some space right now. He did go to therapy today, too. I’m sure it was hard to unpack everything and come back home.” 

Saeyoung squeezed their hand. He trailed, “Yeah, yeah… I know you’re right. I’m sorry. I just wish… I just wish that he could talk to me if he’s upset. I understand why he doesn’t but… it doesn’t change the fact that it hurts that we aren’t the kids that we used to be. “ 

With a knowing smile blooming on their face, they narrowed their eyes at him. “And how did your session go, Saeyoung? I recall that you had an appointment as well today after you met with Jumin about business.” 

That was the point that he knew he had his situation to deal with. He turned away from his brother’s room and decided, for once, he would back off and let him take his time with his feelings first before he tried to see if there was anything that he could do or if there was anything that he might have wanted from him. 

It was important to make sure that Saeran knew that the olive branch would always be there. 

“Well, would you believe me if I told you she wouldn’t believe me when I said that it’s possible to help cats fly?” 

“Saeyoung, I’m pretty sure Jumin shut down the cat jetpack idea.” 

“You never know when it could be useful!” 

“Saeyoung…” 

“Imagine the possibilities, though! It would make a cat-stronaut a definite reality because if you can teach them how to manage flight patterns, it’s going to be a cinch in space!” 

“Saeyoung!”