4 things Seungwoo likes about Wooseok (+1 thing Wooseok likes about Seungwoo)

i. his faith

Seungwoo’s always been the dad type. Well, no, not always. He’s the maknae in his own family, he’s the one that gets babied, but when they appointed him as the leader of Victon he learned to step up, to take care of others, to be the tree that bears the brunt of the heat so they can stay in the shade. He enjoys it, and he’s been told he’s good at it, although he thinks that he could certainly do better.

He wants to take care of Wooseok, which is not a novelty feeling in itself, as he wants to take care of many of his dongsaengs, from Byungchan to Dongpyo, but at the same time this is very much a novelty feeling because he’s certainly never wanted to kiss any of his dongsaengs before. Or any hyungs or chingus for that matter.

Wooseok is the first. He’s many firsts for Seungwoo.

“Hyung, did you see my wallet?” Wooseok asks distractedly. “I swear I had it with me but now I can’t find it.”

“Doesn’t Jinhyuk have it?”

“Oh, right.” Wooseok snaps his fingers. “You have such a good memory. I don’t know how you do it.”

I remember everything about you, Seungwoo thinks, but he just smiles. “Years of practice.”

Wooseok suddenly stops and stares at him with a deep, fathomless gaze.

“What?” Seungwoo asks, self-conscious.

“You’re a really good leader, hyung.”

“What? That’s so random.”

Wooseok smiles and shakes his head. “It’s really not. If we make it, I can’t see anyone else as the leader.”

There’s no if for Wooseok, Seungwoo thinks. The only doubt is whether he’ll be the centre. There’s no way he won’t make it.

“Seungyoun would make a great leader.”

“I’m sure he would,” Wooseok agrees, “but there’s nobody better than you.”

Seungwoo knows he’s talking about the leader position, but even so, after Wooseok bids him goodbye and goes off to find Jinhyuk, he still hears those five words ringing in his ears.

There’s nobody better than you.

ii. his size

Seungwoo is pretty tall, and he’s glad about it but it’s not something he notices very often, nor does he typically compare his height with other people the way some guys like to do. That is, until Wooseok.

Wooseok is on the smaller side, in both height and build. It doesn’t seem so onstage, because with his stage presence and charisma he seems about a head taller than he really is. Seungwoo himself is caught up by it, until a moment when he’s behind Wooseok and he can comfortably tuck his head over Wooseok’s shoulder, or when Wooseok borrows one of his shirts and he’s practically swallowed up by it.

He seems—delicate. Fragile. Something to be protected, cherished. Seungwoo wants to put his arms around Wooseok like a fortress and keep everything dangerous out, the comments that attack him, the nightmares that plague him, the memories that haunt him. He wants to pull Wooseok into his lap and wrap himself around him, keep him safe and warm and loved. At the same time, he wants to bite down on that pale, flawless skin and leave a mark behind, he wants to bracelet his fingers around Wooseok’s wrists, his waist, his hips, he wants— He wants.

Seungwoo wonders if he has a size kink, but he thinks that he just has a Wooseok kink.

“Here’s your shirt back,” Wooseok says as he puts a neatly folded garment on Seungwoo’s bed. “I washed it. Do you want me to hang it up?”

“No, it’s okay, you can just leave it there.”

Wooseok rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry I keep borrowing your clothes. You can tell me if you mind.”

“It’s okay.” Seungwoo is obviously not going to say that he very much the opposite of minds, that as far as he’s concerned, Wooseok can just go around wearing anything from his wardrobe 24/7. “I don’t mind. Really.”

“I’d say you can borrow mine too but you probably wouldn’t be able to fit into them.”

Seungwoo rolls his eyes. “Wooseok, you’re not that small.”

“That,” Wooseok says with a quirk of his lips, but he doesn’t look offended.

Seungwoo slings an arm around him. “Okay, I’m not that huge, how about that?”

“You’re the perfect size,” Wooseok tells him, leaning his head against Seungwoo’s shoulder for a moment before stepping back. Seungwoo lets him go right away, even if he wants nothing more than to hold on.

“You are too,” Seungwoo says, and resists the urge to reach for him again.

iii. his snark

At first glance, it may seem that Wooseok’s personality is bland. Seungwoo has heard it, has even heard Wooseok himself say it with a bitter quirk of his lips and then an overly casual shrug, like he’s saying, but who cares? But Seungwoo knows he cares. He cares too much, has always cared too much.

Wooseok reminds Seungwoo of a rescue cat his family adopted from a shelter when he was a child. Shy at first, quiet and still and watchful, always watchful, but once you got to know him, he let his true nature out.

The first time that Wooseok made a snarky joke towards Seungwoo, Seungwoo was so surprised that he just faltered and stared at Wooseok, whose teasing smile froze.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Wooseok blurts out, inclining his head, practically bowing.

Seungwoo raises a hand in placation. “It’s okay.”

Wooseok really does bow his head. “That was rude, it was out of line, I won’t do it again, I’m sorry.” He says it all in one breath, like he’s used to saying the words, like they’ve been lying in wait, ready to burst out of him, and something constricts in Seungwoo’s chest.

“Hey,” he says softly, reaching out his arms as if wanting to pull Wooseok closer. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. It wasn’t out of line. I liked it.”

“You did?” Wooseok has big eyes and they look bigger than ever when they’re wide like this.

“Yeah.” Seungwoo smiles. “You should joke around more often. I was starting to think you didn’t have a sense of humour.”

“Maybe you’re just too boring,” Wooseok says, glancing at him from under his lashes as if to check it’s okay.

Seungwoo shrugs good-naturedly. “I am pretty boring.”

Wooseok’s face sobers. “Hyung, you’re not boring. You’re just—”

“Not very interesting?”

“Nice,” Wooseok says. “Kind,” he corrects, as if there’s a difference in meaning between the two words. “You’re too kind to make fun of us.”

“Now you really do make me sound like a dad.”

Wooseok wrinkles his nose. “I hope not. I don’t think of you remotely like a dad.” He tilts his head to the side. “Although your jokes are kind of dad-like, now that I think about it.”

“Hey!” Seungwoo protests.

Wooseok grins, bright, dazzling, and Seungwoo tries to breathe.

iv. his face

Wooseok’s face is probably the last thing that Seungwoo likes about him. That’s nothing against Wooseok’s face itself. Wooseok has a great face. A handsome face; a beautiful face, even. Seungwoo usually doesn’t think of boys as beautiful, but Wooseok definitely is. He knows it, has probably heard it from everyone and their mother a hundred times, and knows how to use it, but at the same time seems so completely oblivious about the effects his face can have when he’s offstage, when he’s away from the cameras, when he has no makeup on, when he’s just Wooseok and not Wooshin or Produce X 101 contestant Kim Wooseok.

When he looks at Seungwoo in the morning, face scrunched up like a kitten, eyes barely open and lips a soft bow, he has no idea how adorable he looks and how Seungwoo wants to pull him into his arms. When he stretches during dance practice and his shirt rides up and his sweat-dampened hair curls against the nape of his neck, he has no idea how tempting he looks and how Seungwoo has to remind himself not to stare. When he reads negative comments and his lips flatten into a line and his eyes get that dark shadow in them, he has no idea how melancholy he looks and how Seungwoo wants to kiss away the crease in his brow.

He has no idea. Wooseok is a paradox in that he is perfectly aware of how attractive everyone finds him and yet he does not think anything of his face, he knows how to light up a stage but he walks around carrying a shadow around him, he wants to take care of others but he doesn’t allow himself to be taken care of.

Seungwoo is so far gone that he finds even Wooseok’s flaws endearing.

“You’ve been zoning out a lot lately, hyung,” Wooseok says.

Seungwoo gives a laugh that sounds frayed even to his own ears. “Have I?”

Wooseok nods. “Is everything okay?” he asks, tilting his head to the side, and Seungwoo knows there’s nothing to the action but he can’t help the way his throat dries.

“Yeah,” he manages.

“You can talk about it if you want. To me.”

“It’s fine. It’s just—I’m tired, you know?” And it’s not a lie. He’s tired. He’s always tired. But what else is new? They’re all tired, they’re all overworked and underfed and barely held together with threadbare hopes and dreams.

“I know,” Wooseok says, and his eyes hold the same exhaustion Seungwoo feels, that they never let show onstage, that they bury behind smiles and BB cream and finger hearts, that sneaks up on them at the most inopportune of times, in the middle of dance practice, before an interview, after a phone call spent giving parents reassurances that they don’t have.

Sometimes, Seungwoo is surprised that he’s still standing. He’s almost shocked that Wooseok is, after everything he’s been through, but Wooseok has always been far stronger than his delicate appearance let on.

“It’ll be worth it though,” Wooseok says. “Won’t it?” His eyes hold Seungwoo’s, questioning, almost pleading, like he wants Seungwoo to give him an ultimate answer.

“I hope so,” Seungwoo says, the best he can manage. “I really do.”

Wooseok nods, slowly, and bites his lip. “I’m glad you’re here, hyung,” he says in so low a voice that Seungwoo can barely hear him.

It takes Seungwoo a moment to speak. “I am too,” he says, reaching out a hesitant hand and putting it on Wooseok’s shoulder, allowing himself to squeeze once before forcing himself to let go.

Wooseok puts his hand over Seungwoo’s and keeps it there.

v. (i.) his patience

It’s not that Seungwoo hasn’t thought about telling Wooseok. In fact, he’s thought about it too much, too often, until his insides feel twisted and he thinks he’ll never be able to unravel them. There’s too much at stake, he tells himself. They can’t risk their group, they can’t risk their careers and they can’t risk their friendship. And that’s assuming there’s any chance of Wooseok even returning his feelings.

Sometimes Seungwoo thinks that Wooseok really might feel the same way. He’s a little different with Seungwoo than he is with the others, even Jinhyuk or Seungyoun, his eyes a little brighter, his smiles a little softer. Sometimes Seungwoo thinks that he has no chance at all. Maybe Wooseok is just like that around him because he’s his hyung, or maybe he’s just imagining those things out of sheer wistfulness, or maybe… There are so many possibilities, but the odds seem perpetually stacked against his favour.

Wooseok could have anyone he wants. Why would he want Seungwoo?

“Hyung,” Wooseok sighs. “You’re really going to do this forever, aren’t you?”

“Do what?” Seungwoo asks, confused.

Wooseok exhales, slow and drawn out, but he’s smiling and his eyes are bright. Eyes that have captivated a nation, that are holding Seungwoo captive right now.

“I like how patient you are, but if I didn’t say anything, I have a feeling you’d let it reach the end of our contract before you ever made a move.”

And then, before Seungwoo can react, Wooseok pulls Seungwoo down with a sure hand at the back of his neck and seals their lips together.

For a second, Seungwoo is too shocked to respond, even though he’s imagined this moment more than once, and everywhere from Wooseok’s hand on his neck to Wooseok’s mouth on his own, every point of contact between them, feels warm and charged and alive.

“Hyung,” Wooseok murmurs, tugging Seungwoo’s bottom lip between his teeth. “Seungwoo hyung.” He looks at Seungwoo from under his lashes, an expression that Seungwoo’s never been able to resist, especially since he knows now that Wooseok is doing it on purpose.

Seungwoo surges back against Wooseok, cups his face and kisses him back, and he feels Wooseok’s hand fist in the back of his shirt, an action that inflames him further. Seungwoo’s tongue traces the seam of Wooseok’s lips, asking for permission, and Wooseok shivers as he opens his mouth, opens himself to Seungwoo, who doesn’t just take but explores, shares, gives.

They’re both breathing hard by the time Seungwoo leans back. Wooseok’s hair is mussed and his cheeks are flushed and his lips are swollen. He looks—delectable. Like a meal that Seungwoo wants seconds and thirds and fourths of even though he hasn’t even finished his first fill yet.

Slowly, Wooseok starts to smile. “You’ve wanted to do that for a while, haven’t you, hyung?”

Seungwoo almost flushes. “I think that’s rather obvious.”

“I’ve wanted to too,” Wooseok says. “I have to constantly tell myself not to jump you.”

Seungwoo is definitely blushing now. “What changed?”

“Well, I thought you’d never make a move, so if I didn’t either we’d just be stuck here for who knows how long.” Wooseok his bottom lip, his eyes dark, and Seungwoo knows now that he’s totally doing it on purpose. The little minx. “I’m pretty patient, hyung, but I don’t want to have to wait forever.”

“I’m not exactly that patient myself. I just…got scared.”

Wooseok’s expression softens. “You don’t have to be scared. I like you too.”

“It’s not just that,” Seungwoo says, although something bursts into life, singing, in his chest, at those words.

“It’s about the group. I know. You’re thinking about how it’ll affect our dynamics.”

Seungwoo’s eyebrows fly up. “Why do I feel like you can read my mind?”

“You’re not very hard to read. Your thoughts are written all over your face.”

“Yours aren’t,” Seungwoo says, eyes roving over Wooseok’s face, feeling like he could do it for hours, days, months more, and still find more he can’t decipher.

“I can’t afford for them to be,” Wooseok says frankly, and something aches deep in Seungwoo’s chest. Wooseok has intertwined himself there. “I’m scared too. Of so many things, since I came on this show. I didn’t think anything like this would happen. I just wanted to make it past the first round, and then the next, and then the next…” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing, the most nervous Seungwoo has ever seen him. The most nervous he’s ever let himself show. “I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“You don’t have to be scared.” It’s Seungwoo’s turn to tell Wooseok this now, and he means it. “You made it, Wooseokie. We made it. We have a long way left to go, but we got the hardest part over with.”

“Did we really?” Wooseok asks him, with the same tone he had asked it’ll be worth it though, won’t it? earlier, like he’s hinging on Seungwoo’s every word, like he’ll believe whatever Seungwoo tells him.

“This almost feels like an ending – it is the end of certain things – but it’s a beginning too. We’re starting over. It’s a second first chance for us. Most people don’t get those, but we did. We have to take advantage of it. We have to give it our all.”

And suddenly, something clicks for Seungwoo. He had been scared that a relationship between them would put their group, put everything, into danger, but he realizes that having Wooseok by his side would only make him more determined, more resilient, more capable. Wooseok would never make him lesser, only more.

Seungwoo holds out his hands, and slowly, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to, Wooseok puts his own smaller ones in Seungwoo’s.

“Let’s do it together, Wooseok.”

And even though Wooseok had been the one to kiss him, to initiate this, it is Seungwoo who finds himself holding his breath as he waits for Wooseok’s answer.

Wooseok stares at Seungwoo, his expression inscrutable, his eyes fathomless, and if he were a book he’d be one with a blank cover, but Seungwoo thinks that slowly, he’s learning to read Wooseok, and just as he thinks it Wooseok starts to smile. It’s that soft smile he has just for Seungwoo, brightly shining eyes and gently curving lips.

He only says one word, but it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

“Let’s.”

(xi.

“Wooseok.” Seungwoo pushes him, gently, and then again with a little more force. “Wake up.”

Wooseok makes a sound like a dying elephant and rolls to his other side, the blanket sliding mostly off him, leaving a tempting stretch of skin bare where his shirt has ridden up.

Seungwoo sighs. “Wooseokie,” he says right into Wooseok’s ear, pitching his voice into the tone he reserves for him. “It’s time to wake up. You’ll miss breakfast like this.”

At the mention of food, Wooseok turns and half-opens his eyes, squinting at Seungwoo like he’s looking at the sun. “Seungwoo hyung?” he says sleepily, his voice a little scratchy and his face scrunched up in that kittenish way.

Seungwoo can’t resist – he no longer has to resist – and pulls Wooseok into his arms, pressing a kiss against his hair. Wooseok makes a sound of contentment and rubs his cheek against Seungwoo’s chest. “Your shirt is so soft.”

“Is that why you like to borrow them?”

“Mm. They smell like you.”

Seungwoo has to remind himself that pinning Wooseok down right now and having his way with him is really not a good idea. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmurs, his hand wandering over that plane of exposed skin.

“Well, I don’t want to kill you,” Wooseok says, his eyes glinting playfully and his mouth quirked into a smirk. “Are you sure your old bones can handle me, hyung?”

Seungwoo raises an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”

Wooseok looks at him through his lashes. “What if it is?”

Seungwoo doesn’t tackle him, exactly, the motion is too gentle for that, but he has Wooseok pinned underneath him, his body caged around Wooseok’s smaller one. Even though Wooseok’s no longer sleep squinting, he still looks at Seungwoo like he’s looking at the sun.

“Hey,” Seungwoo says quietly, a hand over Wooseok’s cheek, fingertips trailing over his skin.

“Hey,” Wooseok returns, with that soft smile he reserves for Seungwoo.

“We made it, you know.” Seungwoo doesn’t know if he means as part of X1 or as a couple or both.

“I knew you would,” Wooseok says. “I knew we would.”

Seungwoo adjusts his position so they’re lying side by side, pressed together from shoulder to hip. “Thank you. For believing in me. In us.”

“Hyung.” Wooseok’s voice is as soft as his smile. “How could I not?”

And Seungwoo leans in to taste that smile.)