「if I stay, it won't be long
till I'm burning on the inside
if I go, I can only hope
that I make it to the other side」

♫three days grace; get out alive

✩ h o n g j o o n g ✩

Hongjoong felt San's eyes follow every move he made, as he slowly paced around the room. It wasn't nervousness he felt, and as the shock of standing face to face with someone he had thought died months ago was fading, Hongjoong was left with a feeling he couldn't quite describe.

He felt uneasy but calm at the same time. He wanted to hold San in his arms, but also rip his hair out and scream at him. Or - hear him scream, more likely.

"You are so fucked up," Hongjoong mumbled under his breath, keeping his eyes away from the dark haired man who had been the beginning of the entire mess that had become Hongjoong's life.

"If you keep looking at me like I'm the bad guy only," San said calmly, "you'll never understand the bigger picture."

An excessive huff flew from Hongjoong's lips, as he dumped down to sit on the old couch. With his hands folded in his lap he finally let San's eyes find his own. Leaning forward, he let go of a snort while staring at the older standing in front of him.

"Then, enlighten me."

"Are you sure you are ready to hear the truth about everything?"

"Are you going to tell me, or simply waste my time as you've been doing from the very beginning?" The snappy tone in Hongjoong's voice made San furrow his brows, but Hongjoong himself stayed completely unbothered.

It was indeed how he felt. And Hongjoong had had enough of waste...

"How can I be sure that you won't just run back and tell everything to Seonghwa?" San asked with a roll of his eyes at the mention of the oldest brother.

"You can't."

"Figured." San squatted down right in front of Hongjoong, eyes burning into his with such force that Hongjoong couldn't even look away. "I don't know exactly what he did to you, to make you like this... But this is not the Hongjoong I knew..."

The voice he used to know so well was starting to blend into an annoying buzzing in his ears, but Hongjoong stubbornly reciprocated the deep stare.

"Like you ever knew me," he growled, and tension was rising fast between them in the small, dark room.

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But I know this for a fact; the real Hongjoong would have cried his heart out over what happened to Yeosang. So tell me, did you even shed one single tear yet?"

"Don't say his name!" Hongjoong flew up from the couch, hands clenched and body tensed and ready to fight. "Don't you dare speaking his name ever again!"

His voice stayed in a deep growl, and his eyes were vicious flames of rage, as he stood face to face with San – and the darkness that had come to live inside of him was begging to be set free. But San didn't let himself get intimidated, and his voice remained steady and cold, as he finally began to pull Hongjoong through all the things that had been going on behind closed curtains.

"What happened to him after the time he left," San said. "I'm sorry, but you can't put the blame entirely on me for my brother's sick obsession with him. They met long ago, without my involvement. In fact, if you want to blame anyone, it should be yourself."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, Hongjoong..." San sighed, but with a dangerous smirk at the corner of his lips.

With slow steps, he made his way to sit down at the table under the window. He crossed his legs and pushed his hair back – all while a drowning silence was causing the distance between them to feel even bigger. Then, he inhaled sharply and suddenly the look in his eyes changed.

"I'll admit; I can't escape all of the blame. He went to Seonghwa to save you from, well, me. Foolish boy, to trust someone like my brother, but love makes you blind and naïve I guess. His plan backfired, obviously, Seonghwa wanted all of it. He wanted me dead, wanted Yeosang all to himself – but he also wanted you. Always so greedy."

The tension in Hongjoong's body was starting to fade, and he quickly sat down on the couch again to prevent himself from suddenly collapsing on his weakening legs. Confusion was washing down over him, and one moment he was seeing red, and the next he felt the tears coming. And it kept repeating in a never-ending circle in his mind.

"He... He told me he loved him..." Hongjoong mumbled, thinking back to the painful meeting in the kitchen where he met Yeosang after their time apart. "I should have known he was lying. He has always been such a liar..."

Choking on his last words, Hongjoong had troubles controlling his breathing. His body was beginning to tremble a bit, and every little part of him was itching – that familiar feeling of being held captured inside his own body reoccurred, but this time it was even worse.

And San's next words didn't make things better at all...

"He lied to you because he had to. Because I told him to."

Hongjoong jerked his head in San's direction, already lost in the reveal of the sick games that had been going on behind his back. How could San know this much about Yeosang and his motives? After all, Yeosang should have been the last person to trust Choi San after what had happened between them.

"Fine," San suddenly said with a loud sigh, and he promptly got up from his seat again. "I'll tell you everything, and if you still choose to run back to Seonghwa after this, there isn't much I can do about it."

San paced back and forth over the carpet on the floor, while he spoke slowly and calmly – now and then looking at Hongjoong still sitting as frozen on the couch. Hongjoong didn't move at all, but he now heard every word so painfully clearly.

Yeosang had been in love with him, for a long time, but being too late to realize it he had put his own feelings aside, and focused on his worries that Hongjoong would get hurt if San stayed around much longer. The solution to that problem had seemed so easy back then; let Seonghwa take care of his most hated brother in exchange for the younger brunette's love and affection.

But as Hongjoong knew by now, the place Yeosang had been taken to was far from a happy home, and Seonghwa's idea of love was something so dark and brutal that not even the Devil could compare.

Jongho, despite his wish of staying out of the Choi family drama, had taken his part in the action as soon as he heard that Seonghwa had been the actual cause for their parents' death. Seonghwa had been the ideal child, but his mother was not the ideal woman for his father soon fell in love with a younger woman – the future mother of San and Jongho. Seonghwa's mother became so depressed and ended up taking her own life – something Seonghwa never forgave their father for.

Nonetheless, Seonghwa played his part as the perfect son, knowing that one day he would get his revenge.

Mr. Choi kept it a secret for the youngest brothers, and as they grew up they never had any suspicion about it at all. Other things were to worry about anyway back then.

When Seonghwa was sent to the West coast a couple of years ago, to take care of the family business over there, the hotel chain was the official reason - hiding over the truth; the drug trafficking. But Seonghwa's hunger for power had always been insatiable, and as the drug empire began to bore him, he found new ways to keep himself entertained – in control.

He built his own little play house, the mansion, in the woods, filled with living dolls who all somehow resembled a golden haired boy he once used to 'love'. But the old Mr. Choi, the head of the family, did not agree with his oldest son's newest idea. They fought a lot about it, something which Seonghwa thought of as such a waste of his precious time – and he decided that it was time to finally put the nail in his father's coffin.

"Jongho was working so hard to impress Seonghwa, when he returned to the city," San continued after a small break. His eyes were staring blankly at the wall as he spoke, and he had stopped walking back and forth and how stood with his back leaned against the door. "He made sure to always do something extra, while I would deliberately slack and mess things up to infuriate Seonghwa. Jongho quickly became so much of a favorite that Seonghwa trusted him to work on his own on many projects. But the most important one was the investments that Jongho insisted on would be a good idea."

The money they transferred went into secret accounts, and was used to cover up all the set ups and traps the two younger brothers worked on together, including faking San's death. They found the right people, and paid them well enough to keep things hidden. They even created this Chinese billionaire persona, who just happened to enjoy the company of pretty young men. In reality Minghao was a trained assassin, and had things gone wrong, at least he knew how to fight. The need for his character fell into place as soon as San got the news that Yeosang was still alive, and held captured in Seonghwa's deadly claws.

"Yeosang became our 'mole', so to say," San said, and by then the sound of the younger's name was cutting deep into Hongjoong's heart. "He was skeptical at first, which I understood, but he soon came around. And he did it all, for you."

Hongjoong bent over forward, hands covering his face when he heard San's last words. And then he cried, so hard that every part of him was hurting. His tears felt like cutting blades, burning his skin as they rolled down his cheeks – and his heart, his poor heart was broken into a million pieces. It didn't matter if Yeosang actually loved him, or if Hongjoong still loved him back – he was gone now...

"Listen..." A gentle hand was placed on Hongjoong's shaking thigh, and he looked up through the tears and into San's awaiting eyes. With an attempt on a wry smile, San carefully wiped Hongjoong's cheeks, as he whispered: "I'm no Saint, I know that... But I made a promise, and I will do anything to keep that."

With sobs pushing up his throat in an endless stream, Hongjoong couldn't even respond. His head felt so heavy, and so did his body – he felt like falling without moving at all. But when San's arms suddenly embraced him, the world stopped turning.

And the soft whisper in his ear, was the most comforting thing he had ever heard.

"Seonghwa must die. I will make sure of it."

✩

A/N: don't worry, there is still more to be revealed, but I thought I'd stop here to prevent walls of text! ^^ stay curious, I hope <3