as the night moves along, the families that flew kites have decided to call it a night and the pair of buskers move on to a different part of the park, subtracting from the scene. but the pair of wandering souls don't intend to move along as they immerse themselves in their own little world until the next few hours.

people watching. it was nice just watching the remaining people around them as they sip their beers together in comfortable silence.

"it's nice like this."

"like what?"

seungwan starts lying down on her back, finishing her fourth can of beer, while he hasn't even finished his first one yet.

"like this. no cameras. you and me, in the midst of people doing their own thing like we are. being out in the open and just actually being free for once."

seungwan acknowledges hoseok's sentiments with a small chuckle.

"it's nice like this too." she says with a yawn.

"like what?" he yawns as well and he earns a glare from his small friend because of it. he wasn't bothered by it the least bit, in fact, he was smiling softly at her patting the crown of her head.

"the quietness of all this. just the two of us, where people actually don't care about us too much for once. not having to meet anyone's expectations even just for a night. where we can't hear from people that we need to be happy all the time."

hoseok looks at her. feels that he should let her go on, so he waits for a few seconds. but what she said next didn't add up to what spilled out earlier.

"soooyeah, you still drinking these?" her words are close to slurring as she reaches for her fifth beer can.

"yah, wh-are--are you drunk already?" hoseok says alarmedly as he tries to take the beer away from her.

she slaps his hand away and pouts at him, "pfft, iii'm not."

"wah, wow, what's this? are you actually expecting me to take care of you?"

"and why-ie not? aren't you my oppa by three days? i-ie think it's time you start acting like-a one!"

hoseok pauses and mulls over her drunken words and serious expression.

"wow, am i lucky enough to be a witness to this for the second time tonight? wendy of red velvet, A K A, the aegyo fail master actually doing an aegyo perfectly when she's drunk and even calling me oppa on top of that? oh god, i've been blessed."

he clutches at his heart as he's trying to relate to her inebriated self but doesn't miss the chance to mean what he says. his heart caught on to the 'oppa' he was sure he'd never hear from her in his lifetime, but he actually did.

"hey, i'm not an eggyolk fail master. i cook eggs really well." she says in full english while frowning at hoseok.

eggyolks and aegyo.

he loses himself in hysteric wonderment at her mindlessness ultimately falling on his back.

seungwan glares at him now speaking in their native langauge.

"yah, what did i say? why are you laughing?"

"oh, seungwan, i never thought you'd be this adorable!"

"why-ie? and why are you still laughing?"

"because you're adorable! that's why!" he wheezes and wipes the joyous tears from his eyes.

"hmmm? tch, i wish i was." seungwan shakes her head and pouts even more closing her eyes now.

she rolls on her side in a fetal position and hugs the beer can to her chest.

hoseok melts at the sight. her cheeks donning that drunk blush, the loose fit of her jacket making her look smaller than she already is, and her dark soft locks that fell on .

it was instinctive, that hoseok moves a little closer to her side. his hand sweeps away her hair to the back of her neck so he could get a better look at her face.

she didn't have any makeup on save from the light lip color she wore but her barest beauty was what tugged at his heart the most. if she was already beautiful from afar, who would have known she was a true angel up close?

she was effortlessly beautiful, most especially in this purest state.

he takes all the time he can to look at her. simply looking at her.

her lips were parting slightly to breathe from and her body moves by an inch to snuggle more into the warmth of the quilt beneath them.

she must have been so hard on herself, he observes.

she looks like a few inches thinner than before as her once puffy cheeks have flattened by a fraction.

her eyes are closed still but she wasn't sleeping and he knows that. he picked up on the tone of her voice when she doubted his unadulterated admiration for her.

hoseok mindlessly holds the side of seungwan's head, sweeping his thumb over to part the bangs on her forehead, and he holds his breath at the contact his fingers made.

they have never been close like this before but something about this moment they're sharing doesn't feel wrong at all. he doesn't stop smoothing his thumb over the skin on her forehead and she doesn't shy away at all. and he can't help but want to ask her something that will calm his aching heart for her.

"seungwan?"

"mm?"

he asks the question he's always wanted to ask the first time he's known her.

"how many guys in your company have ever acknowledged or called you pretty?"

he doesn't know why he asks this when seungwan is almost drunk enough to hold a proper conversation with him, but it doesn't surprise him when she responds a short yet fitting answer to his vague question.

"hrmmm, a lot?"

"oh."

"why?"

why? he wants to be honest this time. and selfish too.

because he's fallen for her already.

he decides it should be more than just a crush. not that is should, but it already is.

but when...and how?

he doesn't know but he feels it's been that way ever since she officially came out into the world of glittery and shallow entertainment.

she was weightless bliss and sunshine eyes, the first time around, kind of like him too.

in his vision of red and black, she was a refreshing burst of blue that recolored his perspective of the dark world he was plunged into.

hoseok wasn't a greedy person, not at all. he was always content with everything that he's got. but having met seungwan and having her presence in his life sort of elevated his definition of contentment.

she was like a mirror of him, seeing pieces of himself in her as well as seeing new things of himself in her.

and when there's something off about him, she was someone who was able put it back in its place and he'd be okay again.

he can't say it's just something about her when it's all of her that's put him on like this.

and he wishes, no, he wants that no other guy in their present situation has ever looked at her the way he does. not as deep as he feels for her. he wants them to be only shallow and dense.

"i thought i'm the only one who thinks you're pretty."

he says, his hands moving down to her cheek this time and softly pads his thumb over the softness of her skin. seungwan lets him and even accommodates more of the warmth his palms were emitting as she moves her cheek closer to his hold. hoseok's breathing isn't getting any sturdier.

"hmm? thank you...hob-iee, for being...mmm...the first one to say that directly."

she sounds sad that nobody acknowledges her beauty right in front of her face, but hoseok's heart jumps in victory when she said he was the first one to be vocal about it. and when he means it, there's no room for hesitation.

"i mean it, you're naturally beautiful."

hoseok emphasizes it as he presses the slightest force of his thumb on her cheek.

"and i hope you'll always remember that for yourself, seungwan." he continues, the distance between them getting smaller as he inches ever so closely at every word he says.

seungwan still doesn't open her eyes but she moves closer by a few inches so that their noses were almost touching.

"and...you're honestly amazing yourself...hoseok."

warmth spread all over him. it sounds too good to be true when she says it, even though she smelled like malt and alcohol, but people say that drunk people tell the truth and only the truth.

"no lie?" he has a sad smile on his lips and his hand find its way to knead his fingers through her silky locks, causing her head to move even closer, their noses now pressed against each other.

"not a single lie. so tell me...h-how do you stay amazing?" her voice cracks at the question and a tiny sob escaped her lips, the beer from her hands fall away.

and there was silence for a while. hoseok thinks about their transparency towards each other and how there was no fear when they reveal themselves to each other.

when most people around them thought they have nothing to hide, they were merely at the surface. they only knew j-hope of bts and wendy of red velvet.

they don't know the hoseok and seungwan that hides their deepest pain in the brightest of smiles and laughter.

they don't know the hoseok and seungwan that deals with insecurities like these.

it saddens him even more that his mirror is about to break into pieces and he can't have that.

he wants to put her back into place but he doesn't know how.

"seungwan?" his breath ghosts over the space between her nose and lips.

"mmhmm?"

"i think we should get you home."

it was dumb. he knows it's dumb because he can't help her the way he wants to if he takes her home now but he was waiting for her to say something else.

"do you want me to go home?"

no, of course not. it's too soon. why would he let her?

"what if i say yes?"

he moves his hand to her chin now, his fingers caressing it delicately.

"then i don't think you're being honest, hoseok."

her eyes flutter open and there are tears at the brim of falling. it pains him that she was holding in everything just like him.

"seungwan, you know it's okay to cry right?"

she nods once and the tears roll down by his word.

her whole frame shook as sobs break out from the pits of her lungs so he holds her, embraces her, in hopes that she won't completely fall apart.

her face presses against his neck, soaking it with warm tears that run down to the collar of his sweater.

he doesn't mind at all, he's all for her in her dullest days and would love it more than anything if they trusted each other like this.

when her sobs quiet down, she detaches her face from his neck and apologizes for the mess she gave him.

"don't be. i'll always be right here with you."

he dabs his thumb gently on the rims of her eye lids to wipe the last of her tears away. she smiles at the gesture but as soon as she looks into his eyes, she couldn't find it in herself to look away.

not when there was fondness and something else she can't put a finger on and she didn't want to miss it.

without a blink, she inches closer until their noses touch again.

"hobi?" she whispers.

"yeah?" his fingers her cheek and she gulps.

"w-why are you looking...at me...like that?" her speech was still stuttering under the influence of alcohol but hoseok finds it adorable. she was honest, vulnerable, and raw and he liked all of those things when it comes to her, but now that she's intoxicated, it showed even more.

"like what?"

"like th-that...i don't know how to explain it." her hand blanket over hoseok's hand on her cheek and he visibly breathes unsteadily.

hoseok doesn't speak up for a few moments, just continues to hold her soft curious gaze, her cheek.

"something like adoration?"

when seungwan thought her heart was palpitating because of the alcohol, her heart beat twice faster at his seemingly ambiguous response.

"hobi...don't play with me. i-i know i'm tiipsyy but that doesn't...gi-give you the right to play me like thiss."

she doesn't have a clear resolution yet of what she feels for him but maybe if he says something, she'll align herself with him. if it would hurt her or make her happy, it's okay, as long as he decides to always be present in her life.

'cause if he looks at her like this, like she was the only one that mattered, she could be hopeful, but then again she was slightly drunk and she would have to guard her heart first more than anything.

"i'd joke around with you as much as i would seungwan, but if it's the matter of my feelings for you, i. would. never."

there. he said it and he moves back a little bit, his heart on the edge of bursting and seungwan feels a little scared that he pulled away from her.

"what do you mean?" she shuts her eyes, too sensitive at the little things that don't go her way, though hoseok's hand remains on her face.

"you don't get it, do you? seungwan, when i see you, even so much as think of you, i wish you were already mine now."

she lightly gasps at this and opens her eyes again to see that hoseok was smiling at her with a relieved smile.

"then...why can't you have me now?" seungwan searches his eyes again.

this time he touches her forehead with his and chuckles.

they both know the answer but if there's anything else, she wants to know too.

"you just don't know how much i want to. i'd always have you with me if i only could."

"can you prove it? even for a fleeting moment?"

"seungwan."

"i'm sorry, y-you don't have to."

"that's not what i meant. but...is that how little you think that i feel for you when you're bigger than that?"

he sincerely grins at this, his heart pounding so hard because he's not the only one with these feelings.

"then, make it last, please."

an