Chapter Text
Lee Sayoung is always grateful to have Cha Euijae, his Hyung, his beloved. He does not always appreciate the man’s disregard for his own well being. Only a week after he had covertly been taken to the hospital for collapsing in a dungeon, and he was already on the news fighting monsters the size of tanks. Why couldn't Hyung just stay at the Hangover Soup shop and live quietly liked he always said he wanted to? He was still so fresh from the White Rift, so recently back from five years that were so bad he could not even remember them. How could Cha Euijae do this still? How was he not beyond traumatized? Was it because he couldn’t remember it? Was it still like before he had entered for Hyung? Did he still believe he had to work nonstop like this because he was the only person who could?
Lee Sayoung would always support his Hyung, but how could be possibly support such self sacrificial actions… He only wanted Cha Euijae to live comfortably. It had been hard enough to get him to move in with him to his apartment. Going from sleeping in a little backroom to a nice comfortable bed had been a near impossible thing to convince the man of. He was so conditioned to providing for himself, that Lee Sayoung could barely force him to accept little kindnesses. They were dating, for goodness’ sake. It was basically Lee Sayoung’s job to give Hyung little trinkets every once in a while.
Yes, dating. Lee Sayoung had managed the absolute score, the final win. Cha Euijae was back from the West Sea Rift, and he wanted to spend time with Lee Sayoung in a romantic sense.
But all that aside, Hyung was on TV again, fighting what looked to be a cross between a dolphin and an amorphous being made of sludge. How he found the time to do that during open hours of the Hangover Soup shop, Lee Sayoung really couldn’t imagine.
In the middle of his musings, Seo Mingi popped out of a shadow near his office’s door. At this time in the day, he was supposed to be tailing Cha Euijae, not at the Pado guild headquarters.
“Seo Mingi, what are you doing here, and not with Hyung?” Lee Sayoung inquired. He was under no requirement to be polite, and dammit but Hyung got into enough trouble to need full time supervision.
“He needs your help Boss–”
Lee Sayoung didn’t even hear the rest, tearing a teleportation paper supplied by Hong Yeseong to take him right to Hyung’s side. If Seo Mingi felt the need to leave his post to report that Hunter J of all people needed help, then there was no point in wasting time.
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Lee Sayoung appeared on a street devoid of pedestrians, and filled with potholes and rubble. J faced off that strange beast from the television in the middle of the street, spear out and covered in the classic milky white blood of a monster. How the thing had made it out of a dungeon, Lee Sayoung didn't know. This was an oversight by Jung Bin’s people that nearly never happened anymore.
Lee Sayoung navigated around all the junk on the street to stand next to his beloved. The man was heaving, breaths coming too fast for the situation. Lee Sayoung was struck with understanding. Seo Mingi hadn’t come to him for help because J had met his match in a fight, but rather because he had met his match in his mind.
Lee Sayoung couldn’t see beneath the classic black mask he always wore, but he would bet that Cha Euijae’s eyes were dilated, seeing a landscape that wasn’t really there. He placed his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, careful not to startle the tense man, and he let his trademark poison ooze out of him across the street. The dolphin-beast was taken care of in less than a second, and Lee Sayoung was able to give his full attention to his lover. It was clear he was in the midst of a flashback, luckily something Lee Sayoung had experience helping his Hyung with. However, they were in the middle of a public street, not a place J would want to be seen breaking down, let alone showing weakness at all.
Unsure what to do, Lee Sayoung tilted his head like he was talking to J, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pretending as if he were acting the impertinent asshole he always presented himself as. He then carefully, and thank goodness Cha Euiajae was allowing his body to be moved, coaxed J away from the scene, and back to the Pado guild headquarters.
Once inside, he abandoned all attempts at appearing as if they were simply on a walk, and scooped his still trembling Hyung into his arms. The guild members were used to this, and knew better than to yap. The elevator ride up to their apartment was just them, Lee Sayoung putting his intimidating face to good use to get the elevator private to just the two of them. None of the guild cronies would dare be in a confined space with him when he was so visibly angry.
Not that Lee Sayoung was truly angry. He was frustrated, yes. Frustrated with Cha Euijae’s refusal to rest, frustrated with the work environment he had become so used to that fostered those feelings. But he was not angry. Nothing had actually been done wrong. J went out monster hunting all the time. He was the number 1 hunter, it was his prerogative. Lee Sayoung was mostly just grateful that the street had been as empty as it was, usually civilians didn’t take evacuation requests that seriously anymore. They were in luck though, it severely lowered the likelihood that anyone would notice how unwell their favorite hunter was.
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Finally making it to their apartment, Lee Sayoung brought Euijae straight to the room they shared, and cradled him in his arms on the bed. He swiftly removed Hyung’s shoes and masks, trying to make him as comfortable as possible, and perhaps reinforce with physical feelings that he was safe, he could relax.
In the warm dark Lee Sayoung allowed himself to show the soft side he hid away from the public. He carded his hand through Euijae’s hair, the other cradling that still fear stricken face.
“Hyung, are you in there?” He whispered. Often, when these flashbacks happened, his beloved became very sensitive to stimulation. It was sometimes how Lee Sayoung figured out it had happened at all, seeing Cha Euijae flinch away from a boisterous customer. It saddened him, how even in his “civilian” life Cha Euijae still felt as if he had to hide away all his problems. Lee Sayoung wasn’t the best at expressing his troubles either, but at least he switched to glasses when he had a flare up. Cha Euijae just powered through everything.
No sound came from his Hyung, a troubling sign. Normally when this happened, Cha Euijae could at least receive audio input from beyond his hallucinations. Now though, it seemed he was fully immersed in the memories of the worst years of his life, so bad he had blocked them all out but for these episodes. Cha Euijae was truly the strongest hunter, just to keep going after experiencing such hell.
Lee Sayoung pulled him even closer. While not much helped break Euijae out, they had found that physical touch helped a lot. Sayoung was only grateful that Hyung seemed to be immune to his poison, or this would be a truly deadly course of action. He took a deep breath, and settled in for a long haul, murmuring sweet nothings to his beloved.
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When Euijae finally surfaced, Lee Sayoung could see the hazy fog in his eyes. This had been one of his worst episodes yet, lasting hours, and leaving Cha Euijae fully out of it. If only he could take this pain from Hyung, he would. Lee Sayoung wished J had never gone into that dreaded rift, if only so he wouldn’t have had to see all his comrades fall.
He shifted both of their bodies upright to sitting, and propped Euijae’s lax body up against a pile of pillows. Experimenting in the aftermath of his episodes had taught them both that Hyung would likely be physically weak for a little while, perhaps a mental stopgap to ensure he rested. Lee Sayoung was all for it, this forced resting. He eased out of bed and went to the kitchen, heating up some canned chicken noodle soup. Perhaps it was a low standard to cook, but with how dangerous his hands could be, he preferred to handle the foods he fed his Hyung as little as possible, even if he was immune to the poison. With how weak he became, it never hurt to be careful.
Walking back into their room found Cha Euijae scrolling through his phone. From what Lee Sayoung could tell, he was watching cooking videos on social media. As much as he wished Cha Euijae would rest his eyes a bit more, this did mean he was likely to be fed some delicious food in the coming week, and who could really complain about that?
Lee Sayoung slid back into bed, plucking Euijae’s phone from his hand, and replacing it with the bowl of soup, ignoring the mildly annoyed huff this got him.
“Hyung, please eat,” he coaxed, “I’ve made sure the Hangover Soup shop got closed by the way, and I’ve also texted Jung Bin to make sure he doesn’t tell you where any rifts are for the next few days.”
His Hyung, grumpy on the best of days, only graced him with a glare for this.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lee Sayoung said, “You know you need it.”
A taciturn silence followed this, and Lee Sayoung knew he had won. Perhaps Euijae would rest for a day, even two would be a miracle
Cha Euijae finished his soup, and Lee Sayoung tucked them both back into bed. After that, they were both taking the rest of the day off, and hopefully tomorrow if he could convince Hyung not to open the shop for once.
“Hey,” he heard, just as he was dropping off to sleep, “thank you.”
“I love you too, Hyung,” Lee Sayoung whispered, and dropped a kiss to the top of his exhausted boyfriend’s head.