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“So she never worried-”
“I’m sure she worried all the time,” Seong said gently. “I’m sure she still worries. But she won’t show it. Not fully. I still have guilt for pushing her away so completely. At first it was because I was angry. Angry that I was so alone and she didn’t seem to know how much everything hurt. Then I thought I didn’t need her, she was in the way. …Eventually, I was convinced I was protecting her. I think I’m still trying to protect her. I don’t want her to know what I do, who I have hurt.”
Thomas looked down, stacking the small dishes into his bowl without thinking about it. The sweatshirt Seong had lent him was just the right size for Thomas which made it feel too small after his oversize sweaters and hoodies. One of the sleeves started to pull up and he dropped a plate to quickly pull it back down. “Sorry,” he muttered, wincing as he pulled his arms into his lap.
“It’s alright,” Seong said softly. “What other questions do you have?”
Thomas looked down at his arms, pushing the sleeve back just enough to see the thin white scar that tore through his freckles before pulling it back down again. “Did… Did you ever think it was your fault? When he hurt you?”
“All the time.” Seong’s voice had gone quieter, thickening. “That’s what they do, Thomas. They hurt us and then convince us that it was our fault. But it’s not. It’s never our fault that they laid hands on us. They are the ones who chose to drag us in and hurt us for not wanting it.”
“When did you stop thinking it?” He asked, not lifting his head.
Silence stretched. Then stretched again until Thomas glanced up to see Seong looking down. “I mentioned,” he said, glancing up as well to meet Thomas’s eyes, “that it just takes one wrong comment to send you spiraling. For the most part… After five years and a lot— and I do mean a lot— of therapy, I know it wasn’t my fault. That I was a child and Peacock was ten years older than me and should have never done anything that he did. That there is no justification for the hell he put me through even if I use things I learned there to help people now, even if most of the time it’s with extremely questionable methods. It wasn’t my fault.” He paused, his eyes shining in the still dim light of the apartment. “But every now and then, I get into a dark place and I think that it was or that I’m no better than-”
“You’re better than him,” Thomas interrupted, not wanting to hear Seong finish that sentence. “You are! You are better than he ever could be.”
A thin smile quirked his lips. “And why do you say that, Thomas? Even with the small bit of knowledge you have about the two of us, I’m not a saint by any means.”
Thomas looked away, around at the apartment, at where his boots were, where the blanket he had slept with was folded on the back of the couch, where the clubbing outfit had been stuffed into a grocery bag, before looking back at Seong. “Because he wouldn’t have done what you’ve done for me without taking something in return,” he said firmly. “In your position, he would have taken advantage. But you didn’t do that. You only helped me. You looked out for me. I’m pretty sure you looked out for Danny, Mark, and Kevin too from what you said to them on the phone. You’re better than him because when you were given the choice between running away and caring only about yourself or helping others, even in a really twisted and illegal way like I know you do, you chose to help others. Even when you could barely hold yourself together.” He looked down, face burning again. “You are better than all of them. All of them who hurt us.”
Seong chuckled softly, the weight of his hand touching the top of Thomas’s head. “Thanks, Thomas,” he said softly. “I needed to hear that.”
Thomas swallowed, wishing he wasn’t wearing the t-shirt wrap so he could feel Seong’s fingers pressing into his hair. “It’s the truth,” he muttered.
“I know,” he agreed, getting up from the table. “But I still need to hear it sometimes.” His hand moved, the weight already missed. Then it returned and Thomas gasped as Seong’s fingers pressed under his chin to make Thomas look up at him. “You’re better than them, too,” he said, staring into Thomas’s eyes and not seeming to realize that Thomas forgot how to breath like a normal person. “The things you did and saw while under Finnegan’s influence do not make the man I see before me. You have protected people when you could have protected yourself, at risk of yourself. That is far more than a lot of people would do.”
Thomas swallowed, just barely able to keep himself from falling over when Seong’s fingers slipped away from under his chin. “I- I haven’t really-”
“You have,” Seong told him, sliding the dishes towards him. “It might not feel like it but you have. Even in that phone call. You were protecting the other three by revealing what Andy was. Even after you had done Andy a kindness by not dragging his ass for being a dick to you yesterday and calling him out for pretending to be nice.”
“That wasn’t-” Thomas muttered, grimacing as he kept his hands in his lap to make sure Seong didn’t see the effect he had had. His relief that the sweats were loose on him after peeling the clubbing pants off had evaporated now that he had a tent to worry about. “They wouldn’t have believed me. If it wasn’t for you, they probably would have sided with Andy if I accused him of all of that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Seong hummed, setting Thomas’s phone on the table and picking up the dishes. “Check your messages.”
Thomas frowned at his phone, waiting until Seong was behind him to pick it up. The group chat for the guys was already up, a massive wall of text from Danny from sometime while Thomas was in the shower filling most of the screen, with much shorter texts from Mark and Kevin. Kevin’s said that he had given Andy a black eye for Thomas, which made him smirk. He couldn’t bring himself to do more than skim Danny’s message, a lot of it repeatedly apologizing and promising something to Thomas.
He scrolled higher, expecting there to only be a handful of texts from when they had been at the mall. Instead there were dozens of texts from last night, the last coming in around four am and all of them— He scrolled up and down the texts, frowning. All of them were looking for him, except for a couple of texts from Andy claiming Thomas had gone to the bathroom then insisting Thomas must have left and was ignoring him. It made him sick but he also realized something else.
“You saw all of these.”
“I did,” Seong agreed, turning on the water to the sink and opening the dishwasher.
“You saw them as they came in,” Thomas said, getting to his feet to walk over to the breakfast bar that separated Seong’s tiny kitchen from the living room.
“I did,” he repeated, still focusing on the dishes before him.
“Why didn’t you tell them anything,” he demanded. “You could have pretended to be me and told them something.”
“I could have,” he said, placing the dishes in the dishwasher one by one and glancing at Thomas. “But I was busy trying to find out if Jerry had any friends.”
“Bullshit,” Thomas said bluntly.
Seong smirked and Thomas felt his temper rise.
“You were using them- You knew Andy set me up and you didn’t warn them of the danger!”
Seong leaned over the counter, his face close to Thomas’s. “No,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on Thomas’s. “I didn’t. I had my reasons. Reasons you don’t need to know about.”
