Wonwoo's POV: 

I still remember the forbidden grazes of your hands and the stars in your eyes as we shared prolific glances across the wide, plains of the gardens surrounding Pledis studio. The sun dies in the distance, clouds of pink and purple stream by as birds call and shrill in their estacy, loop-de-looping across the skies. Your hands were so close to mine, and I could feel your forbidden glances slice through the air, and land on me piercingly almost like the air was a solid substance to travel through. The air felt so static and everything seemed in hypersurreal detail, from the gardener's tools lined up in the soil bank in my peripheral vision, to the rose bud on the rose bush, and the very few cubic metres of space that separated us. Everything seemed rife with unsaid things, and the tenacious years of long childhood friendship crashing down upon us. I knew you since I was a child, and you helped me grow into the person I am now. We grew, we fought, we trained at Pledis Entertainment company for so long, the auditions were glimmering on the horizon of tomorrow like a dream so close and yet so far away...so far away... To be a kpop idol was easy once you had a big name and an audience for yourself, but to break through the sea of other aspiring but unknown wannabes like yourself, to break through the sea of the unfamiliarity and root yourself in international fame...it was a make it or break it journey all kpop idols had to prevail before they graced the final staircase to stardom... 

It was a journey so bittersweet, so entrailed and wrapped up in the very meaning and definition of our lives - we could've chosen safer career paths. Thrown it all away for some boring path in business or information technology, but there was something about this path that just seemed to call. A nearby dream was of waking up tomorrow and finding yourself big - successive fame after successive fame and a sound audience base, a root to establishment, a one-way journey you could only experience alone. I felt your gaze on mine, and the unsaid emotions filtering between us, your puppy dog eyes brought out the inner green eyed monster in me which took control as I looped an arm around your shoulders (oh back then when you were shorter than me) and whispered the damn words 'you'll be my maknae forever' that I'd never be caught dead whispering to anyone, ever. 

"We'll share this together ok?" 

"I know it's hard to admit..." I paused. He bit his lip and split his glance with me and the ground, his tears hot on my cheek. 

"Too risky now. Fans don't like that image."

"When we're big..."

"...we can come out..." 

Mingyu's POV: 

It was all too much. The the playful way we used to wrestle and hit each other, the joke insulting names we'd used to call each other, his habit of biting my shoulder to grab my attention...the eternity of memories we shared and understood...I threw my arms upon his shoulders without even thinking. Who knew hugs could be this bittersweet?

[No one's POV] 

The results came out, they were broadcasted upon Pledis Entertainment company and School of Performing Arts Seoul [A/N: I know only Wonwoo went here, but for the point of this story let's pretend Mingyu came there also so they're in the same place okaii??]. Wonwoo was to debut with Seventeen, and Mingyu with Nu'est, being the younger idol he was. The day a week after the auditions came out spoke of flights and future trips to other parts of Korea to train and travel. Apparently Pledis wanted different cities for the debut of each band. An early morning dawn spoke of the departure, the pale sky so frigid and fractured in its lacking warmth, awaiting the plane, as Wonwoo trained his gaze at the stormy skies outside the airport window. Hands strewn deep in his pockets. 

He tallied the minutes, the hours, the days, the minutes until his debut. From the training sessions right til debut, and the whirlwind of events that happened after. 

Old, untouched by negative media and the press no more, established, grown, exposured, Seventeen had reached the height of its power, reached the depths of stardom and stretched forevermore. As with Nu'est. The autobiographies and films, and numerous interviews measured both bands on their success across the platforms through the years. The screaming fans and crazy journalists, and the bittersweet ashes of reneditions of their best works and callowing cries for encore. The bitterest and hardest journey that encircled them and entwined them in everlasting fame should they come out the other side. The part of the journey that was all set and had made them idols for all eternity; immortal among the star-scribed cities and hollywood walk of fame, and the paths of this new adventure that took their lives in directions they never would've anticipated. There's something they say, about the relationships you form with the people you train so assiduously and debut with, that stays forever. Or put it in pessimistic terms, there's no way to form a relationship with someone who didn't debut alongside you. Even kpop idols were separated by rivalry between bands. 

And yet years and years after everything and anything, who was to bump into a handsome, dark-haired stranger upon his morning jog one day? Running...running...an awkward hello. The familiar silhouette of someone whose shoulders he once bit, the same charming glance, and the hint of something livid and more, living in the depths of his irises, the same green eyed monster that threatened to make a reappearance in the otherwise cool and collected Wonwoo. 

It had been so long, yet the years never mellowed them. There had been such silence, yet there was nothing to say. A warm embrace, the two worlds crashing and colliding, as MIngyu had tumbled into his arms just like when they were young teenagers, the embers of other people's words ("Oh Wonwoo, you're so famous now! You can get any girl you want!" "Wonwoo! You have people falling over you! You don't need anyone!" "You've made a name for yourself. Forget about everything and everyone before you!") inscribed in my brain all die before they reach my heart. Something new and raw and yet not quite so new awakens and blossoms and makes my breath catch in my throat when I look and see you on the other side. 

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Author's Note: How was it? Please comment, I really value and appreciate feedback! ^-^ Sorry if it's too cheesy, I'm not the best writer!! :P Anyway, long live and whereever you are (it's currently really late where I am! I should be asleep! :P) I hope you have a great day and yeaaaaaaaaaaah ^^ 

-Bluecookie :D