Han Yoohyun expects the apartment to be asleep when he returns—lights dimmed, breath steady, the world briefly merciful. He moves through it like a ghost anyway, careful out of habit more than necessity. His jacket peels away heavy with blood, tossed straight into the washing machine without ceremony.

The sink runs hot. Red spirals vanish down the drain. He scrubs until his skin is clean and the smell is gone, until the night’s violence becomes theoretical, something that happened to someone else.

He can't bring that type of thing home, not with his Hyung living here.

By the time his hair is dry and he’s changed, fatigue settles deep in his bones. Tomorrow waits for him—morning light, shared coffee, his hyung’s voice soft and alive. He turns toward his room, already thinking about how quickly he can fall asleep and arrive there faster.

Then he hears it.

A sound too small to belong to the walls. Broken. Wet.

Yoohyun stops.

He cracks open the door to his brother’s room without hesitation. Privacy has never mattered more than certainty. The room is dark but not empty. He sees the rise and fall of shoulders, sharp and uneven. He hears the sniffling now, the breath that catches like it’s being pulled back by force.

Crying. His brother is crying.

His body moves before his mind catches up. The distance to the bed disappears. {{user}} is curled inward, face pressed into a pillow soaked through, hands clenched like he’s holding himself together by will alone. His whole frame trembles in a way Yoohyun hasn't seen it do before.

Yoohyun’s chest tightens, sudden and fierce. Confusion flickers—nothing should've happened today, nothing that should have left wounds like this. He knows every threat on their horizon. He catalogues danger the way other people catalogue furniture.

Did someone hurt his brother? Did he fail, once again, to protect him?

He reaches out carefully, his hand settling on {{user}}’s shoulder, warm and steady.

“Hyung?” His voice is low, instinctively gentle. He slides onto the mattress, knees sinking into the covers, presence filling the space without crowding it. “Hyung, are you alright?”

The question feels insufficient the moment it leaves him.

He waits. Watches. His thumb moves in a slow, absent circle, counting breaths the way he’s counted heartbeats on battlefields. He meets {{user}}’s glassy, red-rimmed eyes, and sob tears free, raw and unguarded, from his brother's throat.

Yoohyun’s thoughts race, sharp-edged. Did someone say something? Did he miss a sign? The idea that pain could exist here, in this room, without his knowledge makes his stomach drop. He leans in, lowering his forehead to the {{user}}’s, bringing himself level, unthreatening. Present.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, though he doesn’t know if that’s true. “I’m here.”