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Yun Seo laughed. “I was gonna say refreshing. But I know that pinpoint accuracy has pissed my brother off before, too.”
Jason nodded. He knew how he could be. “We both have our quirks.” He scooped up another spoonful of bulgogi. “So you’re good? At least, for now?”
“Yeah. For now. But please have my brother call me when he wakes up anyway. I’d like to at least hear his voice.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks, oppa.”
Jason smiled. “Anytime.” He ended the call, set his phone on the counter, and stuffed the spoon in his mouth, thankful he’d managed to delay Yun Seo’s knee-jerk quitting until things had at least settled down a bit. Hopefully, that would–
“My sister wants to quit?”
Startled, Jason nearly choked on his food. He turned to see Tae Hyun standing at the end of the kitchen island, his expression almost as cold as the bulgogi. Jason swallowed the partially chewed mound of food in his mouth despite the pain it caused in his throat. “She’s just overreacting a little. I talked her out of it for now.”
Tae Hyun’s firm set mouth dipped at the corners. Not quite a frown. “You didn’t need to do that. If she wants to quit, let her quit.”
Whatever cuddly, warm neediness Tae Hyun had been feeling earlier was obviously gone. “That’s the thing. She didn’t really want to quit. She just wanted to say it out loud and have someone talk her out of it.”
“You don’t know that.” Tae Hyun shook his head. “She’s my sister. She wouldn’t say it if she didn’t want to do it.”
No, that’s you, Jason thought but didn’t say. Yun Seo wasn’t nearly as impulsive as her brother when it came to snap decisions. “I don’t think that’s true. At least not in this case. But she asked me to have you call her when you got up so you can certainly find out for yourself.”
Tae Hyun huffed. “So you’re putting it back on me?” He shook his head. “That’s just typical.”
Jason drew his brows together, unsure what Tae Hyun was getting at. “What does that even mean? Either you want me to get involved, or you don’t. But I don’t get what this is.”
Tae Hyun huffed again, adding an eye roll for emphasis. Or more drama. “I didn’t want you to get involved in the first place when she told you she wanted to quit. Then you told her she didn’t want to. So now I’m the one that has to help her figure out what she really wants.”
Jason’s shoulders and lower back tensed as he shook his head. He saw what was going on. Tae Hyun wanted to fight, and Jason happened to be an easy target. “That’s not what happened. If you were listening, then you heard me tell her just to wait a few days. I didn’t tell her not to do it.”
Tae Hyun threw up his hands. “Oh sure, as if that’s so different.” Then he slammed his hands on the countertop. “Stop trying to talk your way out of this. She’s my sister and my assistant. Next time, let me handle things.”
Jason snorted. “You could’ve handled things if you’d answered when she called. But you didn’t. That’s why she called me.”
“You didn’t have to answer! You could’ve ignored it like you do with half of Naomi’s calls.” Tae Hyun shook his head. “But, no. You just had to shove your nose into things like you always do. And then you leave me with the mess.”
You are the mess right now, Jason didn’t say. “I don’t want to fight about this. Let’s just–”
“Then don’t fucking get involved!” Tae Hyun huffed, stormed from the kitchen to the main bathroom, and slammed the door.
Jason remained where he was, standing beside an open takeout container of bulgogi with a spoon in his hand. He blew out a long sigh as he rinsed off the spoon and put it in the dishwasher. Then, he closed up the container and returned it to the fridge. He longingly eyed the Kingston bottle but decided yet again to abstain for the time being. Instead, he turned to lean back against the counter, pressing it into the spot on his lower back that had begun to ache. Then he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. That was part of an exercise he’d learned from his studio-mandated therapy as a teenager when he’d been unable to stop acting out on set. And it was one of the ways he’d been somewhat able to manage his anger over the past few months.
Tae Hyun was clearly hurting. And he’d never been given the benefit of mandated therapy, as far as Jason knew. Instead, he’d been brought up in a system of rigid control that forced him to swallow his discomfort in the face of abusive or oppressive authority until it manifested in often inconvenient ways. Jason had been surreptitiously helping him unlearn that behavior by giving him an environment where it was safe to speak up. But the trauma he’d just experienced was probably more than he knew how to process. Jason sure as fuck hadn’t figured it out yet. If they were at home, he would’ve brought Tae Hyun down to the punching bag again. Or, at least, he would’ve gone down and taken a few swings at it himself. But their building’s fitness center didn’t even have a punching bag, so that was out. But Tae Hyun still needed to figure out how to process his base emotions in a way that didn’t involve yelling at and picking fights with Jason. That was silly. If anyone else in the world yelled at him like that, Jason would’ve quickly reminded them of their mistake. But that was also why he allowed it. Jason had regularly been shitty–and even violent–to a lot of people who probably didn’t deserve it. And he knew Tae Hyun didn’t actually mean half of what he said. And the parts that he did mean really didn’t matter, anyway.
Jason heard the sobbing as soon as he opened his eyes. Shit. It got louder as he rushed to the bathroom, so he didn’t bother knocking and just opened the door. Tae Hyun sat in the shower crying, his head buried between his knees. Jason walked over, climbed in behind Tae Hyun, and wrapped his arms around him. At least he hadn’t turned on the water yet.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Jason softly purred. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Tae Hyun began to wail. He’d probably been trying–and failing–to keep quiet. But he’d given up as soon as he’d been discovered. So Jason sat there, ignoring the ache in his back, and gently rocked Tae Hyun in his arms as he cried. Whatever lingering anger he might’ve felt had dissipated as he listened to his lover’s sobs. The blossoming ache in his heart made his back pain pale in comparison. There was honestly nothing that Tae Hyun could’ve said to him that would’ve made him feel any differently. The man he loved was in much greater pain, and no amount of arguing would make Jason love him any less.
Tae Hyun’s sobs began to quiet after a while. When he’d calmed enough to lift his head, Tae Hyun settled back against Jason’s chest. “I’m sorry, hyung. I was being an asshole.”
Jason gripped him even more tightly. “You were, but it’s okay. I get it.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“No, you deserve a hundred times better. But I’m all you’ve got.”
