It hadn’t taken very long for Soonyoung to spot Wonwoo’s lanky figure a few streets away at the nearest bus stop, glaring down at the lighter in his hand because the leather jacket he’d left behind had his pack of cigarettes in it. As Soonyoung quickly approached the taller man, worried that the bus might arrive before he would, he realized that he was shaking. He pulled out the cigarettes from the inner pocket of Wonwoo’s jacket for him with trembling fingers, nervousness holding his voice hostage again when he’s close enough to speak up and be heard.

There’s no reason to be so scared, Soonyoung had to remind himself. This is nothing. Haven’t I been acting all this time anyway? The situation is still salvageable! Still, it’s only after a good minute of stupidly opening and closing his mouth despite his mental reassurances that he finally manages to mumble out something. “Wonwoo…” Soonyoung started, his best friend’s name slipping hesitantly from his mouth; he hadn’t even spoken that loudly, but Wonwoo always notices him.

The taller man turned immediately with a startled expression, hand on his chest as he gaped at Soonyoung with shock for a second just before his face fell. “I’m sorry for what happened back there,” Wonwoo apologized straightaway, eyes lowered and fingers rubbing the back of his neck in the way that he does when he’s sheepish and can’t figure out what to do with his hands. “They were putting us in a difficult position and it made me upset to see you look so uncomfortable. I hope no one is too mad. I probably ruined the mood, too. I… really, I didn’t mean to lash out at everyone like that.”

Wonwoo was talking to him so normally that Soonyoung’s apprehension began to dissipate in the face of his friend’s own anxiousness; he really should have known that Wonwoo would have that sort of effect on him, that their friendship was stronger than some silly—though very well-founded—accusations.

“I know, you haven’t done that in forever,” Soonyoung chuckled back as he clumsily handed the pack of cigarettes over, as well as Wonwoo’s jacket, and he watched the taller shrug it on. “No one was mad, just… surprised, is all.” He paused for a moment then, hesitating again, but luckily Wonwoo was focused on lighting his cigarette and didn’t immediately take notice. Once he pocketed the lighter, the younger’s sharp eyes focused on Soonyoung yet again, reminding him to speak, and Soonyoung’s composure fell instantaneously.

The older of the two lowered his gaze to avoid prolonged contact, Jeonghan’s accusations still ringing clearly in his ears. “Um, I, uh, don’t know what came over me, either,” Soonyoung continues hurriedly, dragging the sole of his shoe against the pavement. A long pause followed, growing painfully awkward, and Soonyoung’s eyeballs felt super-glued to the concrete. He fiddled with the drawstrings of his hood, anything to distract himself from the burning heat in his cheeks; he might not have been as sobered up as he thought. “I, uh, know it wasn’t that big of a deal,” he adds after a couple beats. “I guess I was just embarrassed.”

Just when Soonyoung was sure he was going to lose his mind from the awkwardness of it all, Wonwoo finally spoke up. “Yeah, I guess it really wasn’t that big a deal,” the taller man retorted, but he sounded so annoyed that it took the other aback. Soonyoung looked up at Wonwoo with his brow furrowed in confusion, a question on his lips, except Wonwoo was looking out into the dark streets instead, his eyes on the cars that passed them by. “Yet you’re still so ing self-conscious right now, it’s ridiculous. You can’t even look at me.”

“W-What’s that supposed to mean?” Soonyoung questioned, confused, fists clenching as the cornered feeling returned with a vengeance.

“It means exactly what I said,” Wonwoo grunted back, expelling smoke from his mouth as he continued to glare into nothingness. His long fingers suddenly twitched, betraying the tension in his body—he was trembling too, Soonyoung realized with a start—and the cigarette he was holding fell to the ground at his shoes. Wonwoo let out a string of frustrated curses, running his hand through his dark hair as he looked down at it. Soonyoung’s eyes followed, dropping to the still-burning tip of the cigarette and then to the gray ash that had sprinkled onto Wonwoo’s black boots.

When he finally looked up again, Wonwoo was looking right back, pink lips pursed before he asked, “Do you really hate me that much?”

The question was so sudden, so groundless, that Soonyoung gaped incredulously at Wonwoo, his shoulders slumping in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re joking right now.”

It was Wonwoo’s turn to look away first at that moment, and he’d turned his body to face the street again; in the dark, his expression was unreadable, and Soonyoung almost wanted to yank him back around to look at his face and figure out just what was going through his mind right then. “I don’t know. Maybe?” Wonwoo slowly replied, hands buried deep in his pockets. Instead of smoke, small clouds of condensation came from his mouth as he spoke, reminding Soonyoung just how cold it was. “I just… wonder, sometimes.”

He still wasn’t laughing, and Soonyoung realized with a sinking feeling that Wonwoo truly wasn’t joking. Maybe he wasn’t as sobered up as he seemed either, or maybe this was something he genuinely worried about. “Did you not hear what everyone said to us back there?” Soonyoung questioned, and he gestured wildly with his hands at the space between them to convey… something. The distance felt so big in that moment, so strange, just like their entire evening had been so far, but Soonyoung didn’t step forward to fill it like he usually would, still grasping at straws. “Why on earth would I room with someone I hate? Or talk to them?” He couldn’t help the hurt seeping into his voice, the shock dissolving into something more intense. “Wonwoo… you’re my best friend. You—You know that.”

Wonwoo didn’t say anything for a while after that, the—strange, horrible, ugly—Soonyoung could go on—silence starting to resettle. Soonyoung thought to say more, unsure what he could do to fix this bizarre tension between them, but his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, eyes stinging as he stared at the profile of Wonwoo’s indecipherable face. This kind of thing, it just wasn’t them. Weird feelings and not looking each other in the eye, space and stilted conversation… it was all so wrong.

Wonwoo spoke when Soonyoung least expected, his words dropping like bombs all over what was left of Soonyoung’s composure. “Does that mean that they’re right, then? Are you really in love with me?”

Just like that, Soonyoung’s skin felt like he’d been set on fire, heart drumming so hard in his throat he could have spat it out right then and there. “H-How did you suddenly come to that conclusion? Didn’t you just say I hated you?” he sputtered out after a couple seconds of distress, clearing his throat so he wouldn’t sound as confronted as he felt. He was shaking again, and he quickly shoved his hands into his pockets to disguise the sudden growing panic in his chest, petrified of slipping up in a way that his friend would find out his feelings and make permanent whatever this growing gap between them was.

“Well at this point it could only be one or the other, right?” Wonwoo continued with a sigh, and he finally turned to look at Soonyoung again. Soonyoung hadn’t known where to look, feeling cornered and unable to look away. “Or neither, I guess. But… I’ve noticed some things. It’s never been halfway, with us. For anything.”

Wonwoo’s stare was searching, cautious as he scanned over Soonyoung’s face, and Soonyoung could only hope he hadn’t looked as frightened as he felt. He was incredibly aware that between the two of them he was not the one blessed with a poker face, and he clears his throat again, trying to find words that didn’t seem to want to come out. Soonyoung was straight up panicking, Wonwoo’s expectant expression still directed towards him, waiting, despite all of Soonyoung’s thoughts consisting of just a slur of , , , , he can’t find out, not like this, not ever.

“What are you so afraid of?” Wonwoo asked, making Soonyoung flinch at being called out. When the taller shifts to step closer, maybe to comfort him or maybe to push him into answering—who knows—Soonyoung took two steps back instead, staring owlishly back up at Wonwoo. Wonwoo should know why he’s so afraid; they haven’t been best friends this long for him not to know.

“I can’t lose you,” Soonyoung whispers, chewing on his lower lip again. He tastes iron and tries to stop himself, but he can’t help it. “You were all I had in high school. You’re all I have now, too.”

“Soonyoung…” Wonwoo starts, running his long fingers through his hair again. He looks frustrated, eyes clenched shut as he shakes his head. “This isn’t high school anymore. No one cares that you’re gay, and you know it never mattered to me either! But why is it that you still somehow have this idea that I’ll hate you if you love me?”

Soonyoung gaped back like a fish, a million thoughts going through his head but none of them coherent enough for him to think clearly. He wanted nothing more than to tie it up with a knot so tight so that wouldn’t matter if anyone ever said anything else to them ever again. “I’m not in love with you,” he’d mumbled, feeling a little choked up even as he denied it. “I’m not.”

Wonwoo’s face visibly fell, and he rubbed the back of his neck again, perplexed as he continued to study Soonyoung’s face. “Right, okay. Okay, fine. , so then why—”

“Look, we’re both exhausted,” Soonyoung cut in with a voice that begged for him to stop this conversation, wherever it was going, and he finally wrenched his gaze from Wonwoo’s clutches so that he would stop looking into his soul, stop trying to read him and figure him out—only to be back in again when he glanced back up, unable to help himself when he could still feel Wonwoo’s eyes on him. “We drank a lot, too. We’re obviously not thinking clearly. Can’t we… can’t we just pretend like the past couple hours didn’t happen? Go back to not noticing or caring about each other? Like we always do?”

He practically begged those last few words; even referring to them as ‘us’ felt like he was maybe admitting to something, anything, and it terrified him. He didn’t want to lose Wonwoo. He couldn’t. Soonyoung didn’t know how to function anymore without him. And maybe he wouldn’t have been this raw, this honest, this scared, or this emotional if he wasn’t drunk. Maybe he would have handled it much better if back in high school no one had ever found out that he had a crush on his homeroom teacher. Maybe if he had just been emotionally prepared to laugh it all off with their friends and act like he wouldn’t care if Wonwoo didn’t love him back, he would be honest. Because, there was just no way that Wonwoo didn’t know now. Not when he can see it in Wonwoo’s eyes as he looked back at Soonyoung with a concerned expression that turned more and more troubled the more Soonyoung babbled on, his words incoherent in his desperation.

In fact, Wonwoo looked offended. Angry, even. His face was thunderous, his lips parting to speak and making Soonyoung shut up instantaneously, waiting to be hated or scolded or something, but no words came from the taller man’s mouth. He continued to stare at Soonyoung, still searching for something, but his shoulders had finally slumped after a minute of dead silence. His expression was suddenly impassive, visibly tired and worn from the long day, and Soonyoung thinks he might’ve imagined the anger that was there just moments before—the heat in Wonwoo’s gaze that made it feel like something had lodged itself in Soonyoung’s throat, zipping his lips tight, was suddenly gone without a trace.

“Sure, Soonyoung,” he’d finally said, turning away as he broke the silence again. “You’re right. Let’s just forget it.” His voice was colder than usual, but Soonyoung hadn’t really noticed then. The last bus of the night that they usually took back to the dorms showed up at the same time, and Soonyoung wasn’t really sure if it was a blessing or inopportune. Wonwoo didn’t speak again after that, stepping into the bus when the doors opened for them to get in, and the relief had made Soonyoung’s shoulders slump, the tension in his body finally dispersing to the far corners of the universe as he followed Wonwoo up the creaky, narrow steps.

They sit next to each other, shoulders brushing, and amidst the loud rumble of the bus, Soonyoung finally allows his eyes to droop closed, exhaustion crawling up his spine. It’s nearly one in the morning when they finally got back to the dorms, and the walk had been dead silent. That wasn’t unusual for them, the quiet normally filled with companionship, but Soonyoung felt like he was suffocating. Wonwoo slept in a bed just a few feet away in the small room that they shared, but the distance between them was miles wide. Soonyoung went to sleep in hopes that the moment would pass, curling under a mass of blankets and wanting nothing more than for the last couple hours to just disappear from his memories; and, in a way, they did.

And that is how they wound up here, with Wonwoo avoiding him.

Soonyoung thought they would have slept away whatever strange atmosphere had fallen over them since the party last night, but clearly this is not the case. Wonwoo is suddenly too difficult to read, avoiding him at every turn, and not even sparing Soonyoung a single glance. This is not what Soonyoung wanted when he said to go back to usual; in fact, it’s somehow worse than last night, and Soonyoung’s stomach turns at the thought that Wonwoo could have seen through his lie. Maybe Soonyoung’s feelings are harder to ignore than he thought they would be. Even then, Soonyoung had been somewhat sure that Wonwoo would be fine even if he ever did find out, but just because they were best friends that didn’t mean it still didn’t make him uncomfortable.

Soonyoung has been down this road once before, when he came out back in high school. That too had been an accident, when an unsent love letter he wrote for his teacher fell from his bag, and he’d been shunned by all his classmates—save for one. Wonwoo stuck by his side the entirety of senior year, and it didn’t matter to anyone that Wonwoo wasn’t like Soonyoung, they’d still been called all sorts of horrible names regardless. He and Wonwoo never cared because they always had each other’s backs since the beginning. It made them closer, like real brothers, and Soonyoung had vowed to himself then he would never harbor a crush on Wonwoo if he could help it, never wanting to risk losing their friendship. And he was right, he never did have a crush on Wonwoo—no, like a fool Soonyoung just straight up woke up one day two years ago and realized that he’d been in love, all this time.

Soonyoung realizes in that moment that, really, he should have just been honest. In his alcohol-induced panic, Soonyoung had forgotten just how much Wonwoo cared about him all these years. He’d stood up for him all that time, and the fact that Soonyoung doubted him even for a second was almost insulting. Something like this would never make Wonwoo hate him or be grossed out—they weren’t ignorant kids anymore. Soonyoung has had several boyfriends over the years and never once has Wonwoo looked at him strangely or treated him any different, and Soonyoung feels bad at how afraid he’d been of Wonwoo and what he could have said. If things had to become awkward, if their friendship had to suffer over his feelings, then at least Soonyoung wanted to be truthful.

No one in Soonyoung’s general vicinity is aware of his life-changing realization, his art history professor continuing to drone on the platform about modern art and how it shaped art over the years. By the time the class is finally over an hour and a half later in the evening, Soonyoung is the first out the door. He’s not sure what he plans on doing now when Wonwoo clearly doesn’t want anything to do with him, but he figures that he needs to forcefully find and talk to Wonwoo like his life depended on it. It helps that he already has Wonwoo’s entire schedule memorized, just like Wonwoo has memorized his—which means that Wonwoo is also well-equipped with the knowledge on how to avoid Soonyoung now that they’ve both finished their final classes of the day.

Soonyoung stops by Mingyu and Minghao’s dorm, disappointment making him groan when he walks in on Mingyu cooking something in the kitchenette and Minghao stretching in his workout gear in the living room getting ready for a jog, but no sign of Wonwoo. Soonyoung leaves before they can get a word out to him, confused by his sudden appearance. Desperation makes him head to his second-best bet, which was back at the eldest hyungs’ apartment where they had their party last night. Only Seungcheol was home currently, still picking up after the party, which makes Soonyoung hopeful that maybe Wonwoo might have come over to play videogames with him, however Seungcheol only tells him that he hasn’t seen Wonwoo since they all had lunch together.

It’s already getting dark by the time the bus brings him back to campus and Soonyoung checks Junhui’s frat in case Wonwoo was hanging out there (he wasn’t), then Jihoon’s undergrad studio (not there, either), then the theater where Seokmin and Seungkwan were preparing for the play (nope), and lastly, the library where Chan and Vernon work part time (a resounding no). Soonyoung walks out of the university library another hour later with his hopes properly dashed; he’d gone through every level, peeked into every booth and study room window, all in case Wonwoo was hiding out in one of them. (He hadn’t been.)

Soonyoung honestly had no idea where else to look. Wonwoo’s phone is off, either because the battery already died since he always forgets to charge it, or he’s just been straight up rejecting Soonyoung’s calls instead of letting it ring to voicemail. Wonwoo has always been very efficient at hiding when he didn’t want to be found, but normally Soonyoung was an exception to this rule, except that this time he was the reason for it. The awareness of this left a bitter taste in his mouth, and Soonyoung dragged his feet all the way back to their dorm, hoping he’ll have better luck tomorrow. He could always stay up late and wait for Wonwoo to show up like he eventually would in order to sleep, but Soonyoung wasn’t a night owl the way Wonwoo was. He would probably pass out before it even hit two in the morning; they were just different like that.

As he approaches the residence hall, dragging his feet the entire way, Soonyoung thinks he’s hallucinating when he spots a familiar lone figure smoking out in the cold, right next to the only bench with a lamplight near it. Since smoking is prohibited inside the dorms, that was Wonwoo’s usual place to go, but Soonyoung didn’t want to get his hopes up in case it wasn’t him. After a couple seconds their eyes lock despite the distance, like they had some sort of homing signal, and they both freeze. Another beat later, Wonwoo finally gives him a curt nod of acknowledgement, awkwardly waving even from this far, and Soonyoung thinks he feels tears prick the corners of his eyes at the fact that he’s no longer being ignored, immediately starting to head over. Soonyoung breaks out into a jog until he is finally standing in front of Wonwoo for what feels like the first time in eternity despite it not even being an entire day, breathless and stunned to find him here.

Soonyoung takes a moment to take in Wonwoo’s appearance for a second, the way he’s looking back at Soonyoung instead of avoiding his gaze, and his heart feels a little less heavy than it did all day. He quickly closes the gap between them without hesitating for even a moment, wrapping his arms around Wonwoo’s lanky limbs in a tight hug. Wonwoo doesn’t say anything at first, leaning into the embrace despite not being able to use his hands, what with Soonyoung trapping him like this, and just allowing the moment to happen. Then, he speaks, voice low and quiet in the cold night, warm only because of how close they are to each other.

“I’m sorry.”