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Yohan is four when it first becomes noticeable that something isn’t right. Isaac isn’t sure if he notices first, or if Kang Jisang, for once in his life, pays enough attention to his younger son to realise that Yohan has yet to speak. Isaac spends more time with him, so he notices. He notices when Yohan doesn’t start speaking, and he notices when Yohan starts being able to track the words across the page when Isaac sits and reads to him.
He starts doing that when he’s three. Isaac is reading him a book of fairytales when he catches Yohan’s finger following along at the bottom of the page, eyes fixated seriously on the page in front of them. That, too, is nothing new; Yohan stares. Isaac would say he doesn’t blink, if he hasn’t watched just to make sure Yohan does blink.
Isaac had overheard, once, Jisang refer to Yohan as a monster. He hadn’t understood it then, and he doesn’t understand it even as they grew up. Yohan is different but he’s hardly evil. He’s quiet—though he does speak, finally, saying Isaac’s name, followed by a full sentence when he’s five—and he stares more than he watches. Yohan flushes when Isaac calls him a camera when Yohan is eight and Isaac thirteen, but neither of them consider it a statement worth disagreeing with. Yohan watches and captures but he rarely considers it worth his time interfering.
Yohan is incredibly lonely. The more time Isaac dedicates to his studies, the less time he has for Yohan, and the guilt only eats away at him when he sees Yohan, through the closed glass doors, in the gardens outside reading. His hair blows in the wind but Yohan hardly seems to take notice of it. He doesn’t seem to take notice of the chill as the sun begins to set, or the darkening skies until all of the sudden he realises he can’t read outside anymore. Isaac watches Yohan pack up his book into the bag he’s taken to carrying with him, and distantly, Isaac hears the sound of the closing door. It’s followed by Kang Jisang’s sharp words and Isaac just inhales and grits his teeth and wishes Yohan would make any sort of noise, to give him any sort of hint that he needs to go save him.
But Yohan endures in silence. He endures the world and its cruel touch in silence.
On the flip side, his devotion, too, comes in silence. Isaac wakes up the morning of his college exam to his bag packed already just inside his door, to his outfit laid out for him, and a note in Yohan’s neat, practised handwriting wishing him success. Birthdays come and go and Isaac only ever notices Yohan’s actions days later, the gifts left in places for Isaac to discover them over time. He prefers it to the grand gestures, and Yohan can’t duck his head quickly enough to hide the pull at the corners of his lips when Isaac ruffles his hair and gives him a quick hug.
Isaac tries not to think about the reasons behind why Yohan knows how to cook, when he’s fourteen and starts preparing dinners for both of them after Nanny leaves for the day, on the nights when Jisang works late and Isaac comes home after classes to find Yohan waiting for him while pretending he’s doing nothing of the sort. He sits with Yohan and eats dinner, and then doesn’t say anything when Yohan chooses his room to do his homework in, in the silence of the darkening room. Sometimes Isaac glances up and just watches Yohan work; Yohan bites his pen when he thinks, absently thumbs through books when he’s working on an essay, and while his letters are neat and careful, his maths problems are messy, in what is closer to Yohan’s own handwriting.
“Why is your maths work always messy?” Isaac asks one night when he notices, again, the way Yohan needs the extra space. Yohan looks up at him and blinks, watching him, taking him in, for a long minute before he answers.
“Numbers are more interesting.” It’s a non-answer, and one that infinitely interests Isaac.
He buys a puzzle and gives it to Yohan a week later and watches the delight in Yohan’s eyes. When he comes back to Yohan’s room the next day, Yohan hasn’t slept, and the two-thousand-piece puzzle has been put together in sections, though they haven’t been connected themselves.
Puzzles and patterns fascinate Yohan and Isaac takes to finding things for him to do. He spends time learning about codes and ciphers so he can throw them at Yohan to watch him take them apart. He’s not so hands-on to take things apart himself, but Isaac catches him studying diagrams of watches more than once as if they’ll teach him how he ticks.
Yohan spends more time in Isaac’s room the older they get. Isaac goes to sleep more than once with Yohan still sprawled on the floor behind his bed, books open near him or a puzzle half-finished on the floor next to him. More than once, Isaac wakes up and finds Yohan asleep on the floor, his head pillowed on his arms.
The older he gets, the more Isaac becomes aware of how beautiful Yohan is. He is entirely unaware of his beauty, too, and that makes him all the more precious. Yohan skips school and comes with Isaac to classes and Isaac just rolls his eyes fondly at the attention Yohan gets on the university campus. Yohan is fifteen the first time a girl approaches him. That same day, walking away from the girl, is the first time Isaac ever sees Yohan properly blush. Isaac doesn’t tease him about it, not until they’re in the car and Yohan can’t run from the conversation. “She liked you,” Isaac says and pretends he doesn’t see Yohan sink in the passenger seat, the tips of his ears pink.
“So?” Yohan mumbles, looking away.
“You could have gone to lunch with her instead of staying with my friends and I,” Isaac says gently. Yohan doesn’t look back at him. “Yohan-ah?”
“I didn’t want to.” He’s fully looking out the window now. Isaac glances at him, a moment of worry at pushing him eating at him. But Yohan glances back at him and flashes him a soft smile, one learned rather than natural, a worldwide don’t worry smile. Isaac smiles back at him without thinking and hums to himself.
Yohan wears the necklace as a bracelet. Isaac catches glimpses of it every so often, underneath the ends of his sleeves or dangling ever so slightly from where it’s wrapped around his wrist three times over. It doesn’t occur to Isaac until it’s too late that it, too, is a sign of Yohan’s love.
Not until it’s a late night, and they’re on the floor in Isaac’s room together putting together a puzzle. It’s nothing new, nothing Yohan can’t do on his own, but Isaac’s morning class was cancelled and it’s been a long time since he’s sat and done a puzzle with Yohan.
It doesn’t occur to him just how much Yohan has grown up in front of him until Yohan mumbles something to himself under his breath and Isaac realises that Yohan could very much get away with pretending to be an adult. His quiet, reserved nature lends a maturity (and, too, does the lasting effects of Jisang’s abuse, but Isaac tries not to think about it), and Yohan only ever gives away that childish nature when he gets three pieces into the right place one after the other and looks up with that genuine excitement at having figured out some sort of pattern, just to catch sight of Isaac’s affectionate attention.
It doesn’t occur to him just how much Yohan loves him, until Yohan leans against him and rests his head on Isaac’s shoulder and sighs. Yohan, who simply does not like touch, leans against him and doesn’t pull away even when Isaac wraps his arm around Yohan and pulls him closer. “Hyung?” Yohan murmurs, and the depth of his voice astounds Isaac for a full minute before he hums his reply.
Yohan doesn’t say anything else, though, and Isaac dismisses it from his mind. He pulls his fingertips through the ends of Yohan’s hair, detangling the knots that have formed in the shaggy mess that Yohan probably needs to get cut, and feels rather than hears the sigh Yohan lets out as he leans into him further. “Can I sleep in here?” Yohan asks finally.
Isaac isn’t entirely sure when the transition happens, to Yohan sleeping in the room almost all of the time. He gets used to falling asleep and waking up to Yohan waking up as well. He takes Yohan to school every morning and picks him up and, on rare occasions, lets Yohan skip to come with him to classes instead. Yohan starts to keep his clothes in Isaac’s room until they’re the same height, and then Yohan just starts wearing his clothes. Nanny doesn’t comment on it, and Isaac doubts Jisang has even noticed.
He gets so used to Yohan’s silent company that when Yohan pulls away, he feels it in the empty air of the bedroom. Yohan sleeps in one of the many empty rooms of the house and only comes in to grab his clothes for the day. The puzzles remain in their boxes on the shelves in the back of the room, and Yohan’s books start to disappear from Isaac’s shelves to his own. Isaac mourns the loss but he lets Yohan go. He thinks it was only a matter of time until Yohan pulled away from him, until Yohan got old enough to no longer need his big brother around.
It’s late on a Tuesday night. It’s storming outside, the pounding of the rain doing nothing to help with the throbbing headache behind Isaac’s eyes. The occasional rumble of thunder or flash or lightning doesn’t help either. Most of the lights are off, save for his desk lamp, where he’s leaning over one of his textbooks and hoping the words will put together sentences he can actually comprehend.
The door opens and however silently he moves, Isaac always knows when Yohan is in the room with him, because the world seems to become a little softer, a little kinder. Yohan doesn’t speak but he clambers onto the bed and leans against the headboard; when Isaac risks a glance over at him, one of Yohan’s legs is propped up, the other stretched out in front of him, and his book propped on his leg.
Isaac’s headache lessens. The silence extends for the time Isaac stays awake and studies, but as he struggles to keep his eyes open, he feels Yohan’s hand on his shoulder. He lets Yohan pull him away from the desk, and Isaac is only just awake enough to feel it when Yohan’s hand brushes his hair back from his face and Yohan murmurs, “Good night, hyung.”
Isaac wakes up to Yohan watching him sleep. “You’re still here,” Isaac says, voice raspy, and Yohan blinks at him and then nods once. “I missed you.” Yohan reaches out and brushes his thumb against Isaac’s cheek, and Isaac doesn’t think too much about it, catching Yohan’s hand when he goes to pull away. “Don’t do that again. Yohan-ah, I missed you.”
“I’m sorry,” Yohan says finally. When Isaac lets him go, they go about their old morning routines like Yohan hasn’t been missing from his side for almost three months, like it’s normal for them to be standing side-by-side and brushing their teeth.
Yohan has cut his hair and wears the shorter hair uncomfortably. There’s no fringe for him to hide behind, no way for him to use his hair to avoid eye contact. He looks doubly uncomfortable as he sits in the passenger’s seat of Isaac’s car. They take the route to his school but it only takes one glance over at Yohan, rigid, for Isaac to change his mind and turn off of the route. “What are you doing?”
“We’re skipping today,” Isaac says. Yohan stares at him for a long two minutes. Isaac defaults back to checking to make sure Yohan is blinking; Yohan finally looks away and mumbles something to himself and shakes his head.
Isaac buys them both coffee and takes them out of the city to the open land, to wander alongside a creek, veering off the path like they used to as children in the grounds around the property. Yohan narrows his eyes and then carefully slips his shoes off, his socks going into his shoes. Isaac outright laughs when Yohan carefully hops down onto the wet rock and lets the water flow over his feet. Yohan smiles too. “Hyung, come here,” he calls to Isaac. Isaac only considers for a moment how it would look if someone stumbled upon them, seventeen and twenty-two respectively, hopping around in a creek like children, before he slips his socks and shoes off too and hops down next to Yohan.
“You almost cracked your head open in one of these creeks when you were five,” Isaac says conversationally. Yohan snorts and shoves him and Isaac laughs, looping his arm around Yohan for balance. It pulls them both down to the ground, to the water, and when they both get back up, Yohan’s almost completely soaking wet, and Isaac might as well be. Yohan scoffs at him and splashes some of the running water at Isaac’s face. Isaac laughs and reaches for his wrists to pin him, to stop him splashing. Yohan splashes him in the face again and swiftly gets back to his face, taking off in a quick walk up the creek. Cursing under his breath, Isaac goes after him, the thoughts of their shoes long forgotten.
He catches up to Yohan trying to climb a small cliff and splashes Yohan two, three times before he pulls him back down, laughing. Yohan’s pouting but only barely, just enough for Isaac to see him fighting a smile.
It has been a long time since it was just the two of them outside, ignoring the world around them. Yohan looks more relaxed than Isaac can remember seeing him in years, smiling openly and playing around with Isaac. It’s close to noon when Yohan finally decides he’s done with the water and starts to go hunting for their shoes. Isaac trails after him, grinning every time Yohan nearly falls because he’s not paying attention to where he’s walking. “Careful,” Isaac says every time, grinning wider when Yohan shoots him a nasty look.
Isaac drives them back home and, thankfully, Jisang’s car is gone from the garage when they pull in. They separate long enough to shower and then bunker down in Isaac’s room for the rest of the day. They do a puzzle, they read, and Isaac watches the way Yohan lights up with the attention. Some things don’t change, no matter how old Yohan gets, and the smiles Yohan gives him are no different than the ones he had given him as a child.
Isaac loses track of time watching Yohan read. Yohan is leaning against him, reading aloud but Isaac has long since stopped paying attention to whatever book Yohan is reading, the hum of Yohan’s voice nothing more than soothing background noise. Isaac is absently playing with the cross on the necklace, the one he himself wrapped around Yohan’s wrist, and every so often, his fingers brush against Yohan’s wrist and Yohan very obviously suppresses a shudder. He never pulls away though.
Yohan is good with words, but he prefers to use actions. “People lie,” Yohan says on one of the rare occasions he feels like sharing. He’s on his stomach on the floor, his chin resting in one hand, and a half-finished puzzle on the floor in front of him. Isaac, on the bed, is on his side, his own head resting on his arm, watching Yohan.
“People use words to lie, but their actions never lie. Not really. Body language, choices made; even as people speak, they look towards what they want most,” he picks up a piece and fits it neatly into an empty space. He looks up at Isaac and smiles faintly. “I like being alone,” Yohan says, in a seemingly unconnected tangent, but Isaac pieces it together when Yohan’s eyes don’t leave him.
“I don’t like it when you’re here,” Isaac lies in turn, even as he reaches out his free arm to tug Yohan closer to him by the collar of his shirt. Yohan laughs and scoots closer, sitting up so Isaac can wrap him up in a quick one-armed hug.
Jisang is away internationally for a month, and Isaac watches as Yohan thrives. He spends more time out of their now-shared room, and when he smiles at Nanny, Isaac watches the way she takes it in, the way she smiles back at him despite the fact that Isaac knows that she, too, thinks Yohan is evil or needlessly cruel. Yohan stands taller and gets more confident, and he skips school almost daily to come with Isaac to his classes and he doesn’t shy away when Isaac’s friends joke with him, when girls come up to him to talk to him. Yohan is still shy, still reserved, but he’s not hiding.
Something akin to pride rises in him as he watches Yohan get shy talking to a girl. They both glance at him, though, and Yohan says something to the girl that makes her laugh and twirl her hair on her finger. Yohan comes back to him and though his walk appears relaxed, his expression neutral, Isaac can sense the storm, the conflict. He wraps his arm around Yohan’s shoulders and steers them towards one of the quieter paths on campus. “What’s wrong?” Isaac asks, only half-expecting Yohan to answer him.
“She asked about you,” Yohan says quietly. Isaac looks at him, startled, and realises slowly that it’s jealousy that he’s seeing. Yohan is angry about the possibility of Isaac dividing his time, turning his attention to someone else.
“But she didn’t stick around, hm?” Isaac tries.
“And what happens when I’m not here?” Yohan asks. Isaac doesn’t have an answer for him. Yohan sets his jaw and nods and walks away.
Isaac lets him go.
Yohan doesn’t pull away fully but there’s space between them as they get ready for bed that night. Yohan closes the door when he showers, something he hasn’t done in years, and Isaac sighs when Yohan clambers onto the bed and reads rather than talking to him like they always do before bed. Only once the lights are out, and they’re settling in in the darkness, and Isaac shifts and reaches out until his fingers touch Yohan’s arm to try to coax him to his side that Yohan speaks.
“I should just get used to it,” he says softly. Bitterness drips from every word. “Hyung is handsome. Hyung is bound to get the attention of girls, and hyung is bound to fall for one of them, and get married, and have a family and I’ll just be here. I should just get used to it.”
“Yohan-ah,” Isaac starts before stopping. He bites his lip, worrying it between his teeth before he sighs. “Yohan-ah, I can’t lie and say that it won’t happen because it- it probably will. But no one will replace you for me. You’re still my brother-”
“I don’t want to be your brother,” Yohan snaps suddenly. He turns away from him in the darkness, as Isaac’s heart shatters and he realises why Yohan has been so up-and-down with him.
“Yohan-ah?” Isaac tries softly. “Yohan-ah, look at me, please?” His eyes adjust to the dark in the minutes it takes Yohan to compose himself and roll back onto his back, not quite looking at Isaac but not turning away from him. Isaac reaches out with a finger and touches his chin; Yohan turns his head at the slightest touch, towards him.
Isaac kisses him.
Every part of him tells him it’s wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing it (though, to Isaac’s… something, his conscience seems more upset with the fact that Yohan is a man, rather than the fact that Yohan is his brother), but Yohan relaxes at the touch of their lips and tilts his head further into it. It confirms the worst of Isaac’s fears and the deepest of his wishes: that Yohan will always be devoted to him. “Hyung?” Yohan whispers against his lips. Isaac sighs and rests his forehead against Yohan’s, his hand resting carefully against his cheek.
“No one will ever replace you,” Isaac says softly, “no matter what I have to do for the sake of our family. Okay?” Yohan swallows heavily and nods.
Isaac meets the girl who asked Yohan about him. Her name is Heejin and she’s sweet and gentle and Isaac could imagine himself falling in love with her, starting a family with her. Yohan is polite to her, if distant, and Isaac just tells her that Yohan is like that. She takes it in stride and makes efforts to include him in their plans, even if he turns her down most of the time.
Yohan tells him in the darkness of the night, between kisses, “I don’t mind her so much. She’s not awful.”
Isaac can’t bring himself to stop whatever it is that he and Yohan do. He tells himself it’s mutual comfort, that it’s not much further than he and Yohan have done in the past. They have gotten closer as they’ve gotten older, and Yohan has let him in more. No matter what he tells himself, it doesn’t change the brief moment of disgust with himself the first time he reaches for Yohan’s pants and Yohan shifts to give him better access.
He marries Heejin in a quiet ceremony in May with only their families. Yohan is particularly striking in his suit, his hair carefully styled out of his face. Isaac loses track of the number of members of Heejin’s family who comment on how striking Yohan is, how beautiful he is just standing, quiet and polite. Isaac is sure at least three separate members of Heejin’s family try to ask if Yohan is single. He pretends he doesn’t hear Yohan’s answer. “Ah, no, I’m taken, but thank you.”
Heejin doesn’t question why, rather than Yohan move, Isaac suggests they, as a couple, move to a different room than his childhood room. Yohan sits, barefoot and cross-legged, on the bed as Isaac carefully packs up some of his things to move to the other room. He doesn’t pack everything, though, and Isaac pretends he doesn’t see the satisfied, smug smirk on Yohan’s face when he comes back the next morning, after Heejin has left for work, and starts to get ready for work himself. It’s a lot harder to pretend he doesn’t see how smug Yohan is when he steps under the shower and doesn’t bother to argue with Yohan when Yohan pushes him back against the tile and sinks down to his knees.
Heejin doesn’t question a lot of things, really, and Isaac is eternally grateful for the patience of the woman he decided to marry as she’s thrown headfirst into the mess that is their family dynamics. Isaac and Yohan both watch as she tells Jisang off outright for a comment he makes, and then all but dares him to lay a hand on Yohan again while she’s in the house, and Isaac knows that she has, too, won Yohan over with that alone. Jisang stops hitting Yohan when she’s around, and Yohan finds excuses to spend time with her and Isaac when they are home.
Heejin is caring for a new cut on Yohan’s cheek when Isaac gets home. “Again?” Isaac asks. Yohan snorts and Heejin tsks, swatting at his hand when he goes to try to brush her away.
“You’ll have to be careful for a few days,” Heejin says. Yohan leans back on his hands and exhales. Nothing prepares either of them for Heejin to add, “That means no going down on Isaac in the shower.” Yohan’s mouth falls open and he sits up straight; Isaac stops, slowly turning to face her.
“What are you talk-”
“Oppa, I’m not stupid,” Heejin says. She fixes her eyes on Isaac and waits, until he gives up and lets out a breath.
“You barely even argued. Hyung!” Yohan scoffs.
“You’re not married to her,” Isaac retorts without looking at him. “How do you know?”
“You don’t close the door when you shower. Either of you,” Heejin says. Isaac flushes and Yohan lets out another exhale, leaning back on his hands again. “Be careful with your face, Yohan-ah, please. I don’t think it will scar right now.”
“Okay, noona,” Yohan says softly. His tone draws Isaac’s attention and he looks at Yohan, startled when he sees the genuine agreement on Yohan’s face. “Thank you.”
They don’t talk about it. It sits in the space between them in their bed, but Heejin never brings it up or talks about it, beyond an occasional offhand comment, usually at Isaac’s expense, directed at Yohan. It does nothing but endear Heejin more to Yohan, so Isaac can’t find himself too bothered about it. Yohan is less and less upset about the marriage, and when Isaac comes to him one morning to get ready, Yohan doesn’t look at him right away, focused on his own reflection to fix his collar.
“Heejin is pregnant,” Isaac says and reaches out, fixing Yohan’s collar and tie for him. Yohan pauses before continuing with his usual routine.
“I was unaware you’d fucked her,” Yohan says finally. Isaac pokes him in the side and watches in amusement at the juxtaposition of Yohan, mostly dressed in his suit, his hair neatly styled, trying to dance out of reach.
“Don’t be crude.” Isaac says, lunging in Yohan’s direction just to watch him trip away again. “She’s my wife, Yohan-ah. Of course I’ve fucked her.” Yohan scoffs and picks up his suit jacket, coming back towards him, and the mirror, to check his appearance. Isaac stops him long enough to kiss him quickly. “Will you be the child’s godfather?”
“Did you have to ask?” Yohan asks dryly. He pauses by the door and lets out a breath, turning back to look at Isaac. “Of course I will. She’ll be my niece.”
“It could be a boy,” Isaac says. Yohan shakes his head.
“Uncle’s intuition. It’ll be a girl.”
Isaac pretends he doesn’t hear the smug smile in Yohan’s voice when Isaac calls him to tell him about Elijah. He pretends he doesn’t see Yohan cry the first time he holds her, when Elijah wraps her little fist around his finger and stares up at him with big eyes. “You were like this as a baby too,” Isaac says softly. Yohan looks up at him. “Quiet. Watching everything.”
“Maybe she’ll grow up like me too, then. Hm, Elijah? Do you want to be smart and pretty like your uncle?” Yohan asks. He just smiles when Isaac lightly cuffs him over the back of the head.
Isaac gets used to the sight of them together. He works harder when Jisang gets sick, longer hours to cover hospital bills without dipping into their savings, and he comes home to Yohan watching Elijah, Yohan playing with Elijah, Yohan reading to Elijah. Isaac can’t help but feel his exhaustion leave his body when he sees them together. When they catch sight of him, Yohan smiles softly at him, and Elijah yells, “Appa!” and throws herself from Yohan’s lap to run to Isaac’s leg and give him a hug.
“There’s my baby,” Isaac says and picks her up. He greets Heejin with a kiss and hands Elijah off for bed. Isaac doesn’t think about it twice as he steps into Yohan’s room to change and shower, and he just sighs into Yohan’s mouth when Yohan presses him to a wall and kisses him.
“You look tired,” Yohan says softly. Isaac gives him a small, soft smile.
“Hyung’s okay,” Isaac says in the same tone. Yohan kisses him again and lets him go with a gentle squeeze of his hand.
Jisang dies and Isaac watches Yohan blossom again. Like the months when Jisang would be abroad, Yohan smiles more easily, he’s more relaxed. He jokes with Heejin and one night, when Elijah is asleep and the three of them are sharing a few drinks, Yohan kisses Heejin entirely out of curiosity. They both tease Isaac when it’s clear it does more for him than either of them, and Isaac wonders, briefly, in there’s promise in the looks both of them shoot him separately.
Religion was always Isaac’s thing, passed down from his mother, so when they agree to have the event at the Verena Church, Isaac asks Yohan to come but promises that he doesn’t have to stay at the event if he doesn’t want to. Yohan agrees and lingers in the distance. He’s watching Elijah for the most part, Isaac assumes, when Elijah runs off into the building and he catches sight of Yohan out one of the windows, Yohan’s eyes fixed on a different window. It’s not until the fire is roaring and Isaac is searching for Elijah that he hears, and sees, Yohan running in and his mouth goes dry. He can’t yell loud enough to tell Yohan to get out. He can’t gesture to him and get him to see, and he knows Yohan can’t see him.
The last thing Isaac thinks before he loses consciousness, is that at least the two people he loves the most will have each other.
Some days are better than others, and that's okay, Yohan repeats dully after the psychiatrist he sees a total of five times before he lies to convince her he’s fine, and then he’s left alone with his thoughts. It’s true, that some days are better than others. Some days he remembers everything that happened and he shakes hard enough to get Elijah’s attention, even with as many pain medications as she’s taking, as out of it as she is. Some days he’s so angry that he leaves Elijah in the care of the doctors and he leaves to find something to break, to destroy. Some days the grief is so overwhelming that he leaves and stares at the sky wishing he was dead too.
There’s the slightest twinge of guilt at only missing his sister-in-law a little. But the hole that Isaac leaves is gaping, unfixable, unhealing, and Yohan moves on what feels like autopilot. Food doesn’t taste like food and he wakes from sleep unrested and wishing he’d never woken in the first place.
It’s only that icy hot anger, that desire to live up to what everyone thinks of him, to be a monster, that keeps him going. It’s that anger that he uses to forge his weapons and armour, the build the distance he once used to protect himself and to use it as a weapon. He uses the need to victimise him to get what he wants: an internship, a job, connections and networking to get himself to the place he needs to be.
It’s hard to look at Elijah and not see Isaac. It’s hard to raise her and not think of how much Isaac would scold him for how terrible he is with her now. More than once, Yohan considers leaving her at an orphanage and promptly feels the ghost of Isaac’s hand smacking him over the head for even considering it. But Elijah pulls away from him and Yohan lets her go. She feels more familiar then, like her mother. It’s easier to figure out how to treat her as she gets older.
His plans are finally in place, and the Live Court, his passion project, is finally set up and ready for him to take the place as its star, and Kim Gaon comes into his life. Kim Gaon, who could be identical to Isaac if he brushed his hair a certain way and never opened his mouth. But Yohan indulges in the desire to test him, to play with him just because he looks like Isaac. He’s sure that, when Kim Gaon sees the picture of Isaac, that he puts something together. It’s not the correct something, though, and Kim Gaon goes and accuses him of killing Isaac.
Isaac, who he loved like no one else. Isaac, who Yohan would have traded anything in the world to still have with him.
Yohan’s blood runs hot and his eyes go cold and he loses his temper. It’s only Isaac’s voice in his mind that calms him again, that keeps him from killing Gaon. Isaac’s voice, and the way Gaon looks at him.
Kim Gaon looks at him like he knows there’s something more. Like he knows there’s something deeper. Kim Gaon looks at him like there’s something there worth saving from himself.
Yohan wishes that he felt alive enough to be saved.