A/N: Because this video destroyed me.

Wooseok’s face crumples. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

Jinhyuk’s chest constricts. He wants to wipe away Wooseok’s tears, but his eyes are stinging too and he’s trying desperately to hold his own tears back. In the end, he stops fighting the losing battle and just succumbs to it, leaning his forehead against Wooseok’s until he can’t tell if the moisture on his face is from his tears or Wooseok’s.

With a sigh, Jinhyuk leans back. “Don’t cry, Wooseokie,” he says softly, brushing away Wooseok’s tears, but the action just makes new ones come, falling faster than Jinhyuk can wipe away. Wooseok is not much of a crier, and it breaks Jinhyuk’s heart to see him crying so much, so hard over Jinhyuk. It breaks his heart even more to think about how he won’t be around in the future for Wooseok to cry on. Or to laugh on, for that matter. To lean on. He won’t be there with Wooseok.

Great, now he’s going to cry again.

“I’m sorry,” Wooseok suddenly says.

“What?”

Wooseok swallows. “That I made it and…”

“I didn’t?” Jinhyuk finishes. “Now, come on. Don’t remind me how I wasn’t good enough,” he says with a weak chuckle.

“Don’t say that,” Wooseok snaps, sounding so fierce, almost angry, that Jinhyuk blinks, taken aback. “Don’t ever say you’re not good enough.”

“I don’t have to say it. Korea said it for me.”

“Oh, because a bunch of votes said that? Plus,” Wooseok adds, with a twist of his mouth. “The main reason people voted for me is for my face anyway. If I didn’t look like this—”

This time, Jinhyuk is the one who bursts out with a, “Don’t say that!”

“Why not?” Wooseok counters. “It’s true.”

“You are so much more than your face.”

“And you are so much more than your ranking.”

The statement hits Jinhyuk like a blow. He has to in a breath and steel himself before he can reply. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Now that we got those out of the way…”

Wooseok’s face crumples again, but this time into a smile. With his red eyes and blotchy cheeks, he shouldn’t be much of a sight, but Jinhyuk thinks that he’s never looked more beautiful.

“You’re supposed to be happy, you know,” Jinhyuk says softly. “This is what you’ve been waiting for all this time, Wooseok.”

“Not like this,” Wooseok says quietly. “Not without you.”

“I’ll be here. I know it’s not the same, but I’ll come to all your concerts and fanmeets. I’ll be your most dedicated fansite.”

“I don’t know if you can,” Wooseok says, with a smile. “Some of them are realllly dedicated.”

Jinhyuk scoffs. “Can any of them beat me in loving Kim Wooseok? I don’t think so.”

For a second, he thinks Wooseok is going to cry again, but his expression remains composed, concentrated. Jinhyuk’s heard that Wooseok doesn’t have many expressions, that he always looks blank, even cold, but it’s not true. Those people just haven’t had the privilege of seeing Wooseok’s true emotions, that’s all.

“You’re going to do great,” Wooseok says seriously. “You already are great, you just didn’t get an opportunity to showcase that. And now you have. Everyone knows how brightly you can shine now. You don’t need to get a number to prove that.”

Jinhyuk doesn’t know what to say, but he looks at Wooseok and trusts him to understand. He is loath to even break eye contact between them, to break this connection that had lived and thrived between them over the past weeks. Being on the show together was, in a way, like living in their own bubble. Now that they’re out of it, he can’t help but fear what’s going to happen to them.

“Jinhyuk? What are you worried about?” Of course Wooseok can see right through him.

He swallows. “You’re going to be in X1, and only X1, for the next two and a half years.”

“Mm hmm.”

He can’t bear to say something like will you forget about me? or what if we drift apart? It’s not that he doesn’t have faith in Wooseok, but reality has a way of eroding your convictions. Everything breaks down over time, and emotions are tenuous things in the first place.

“I don’t know where I’ll be in two and a half years. I don’t even know where I’ll be in two and a half months.”

“Nobody can predict the future,” Wooseok says slowly, “but are you saying that you don’t see me in yours?”

“Of course I see you,” Jinhyuk says. “You’re all I see, Wooseok.”

“But you don’t think it’s the same thing for me?”

Jinhyuk musters a weak smile. “I’m just thinking you’ll have better things to look at, that’s all.”

“Like what? Trophies and records? Do you think those matter more to me than you, Jinhyuk?” Wooseok in a breath; it sounds wet. “If I could trade my place for—”

Jinhyuk puts a finger against his lips and stops him from finishing that sentence. “Shh. It’s okay. I get it.”

Wooseok looks at him, those big eyes of his liquid and limpid, and Jinhyuk softens, yields to him as he always does. How could he doubt Wooseok?

“I’m sorry,” Wooseok says again, tucking his face against Jinhyuk’s shoulder.

“Stop apolo—”

“I don’t mean for that. I mean. I keep talking about how I’m going to miss you, like it’s just about me.”

“Should I talk about how badly I’ll miss you? You know I will, Wooseok.”

“But you’re going to be my most dedicated fansite, right?”

“I already am,” Jinhyuk tells him, hand dipping beneath his shirt to trace warm skin.

Wooseok shivers, and Jinhyuk tightens his arms around him, wishing that he could hold onto more than this moment.

“Don’t miss me too much,” Jinhyuk says. “They’re good guys, Seungyoun and Seungwoo hyung and the others.”

“I know,” Wooseok says, in a tone like he’s asking and what’s your point? “But they’re not you.”

Jinhyuk feels his throat tighten. “Let me finish my sentence. I know you and I know how you keep everything to yourself. But you can confide in people, you know. I won’t be around all the time, but you have the others. Promise me you’ll talk to them if you need.”

“Jinhyuk…” Wooseok’s voice sounds wet again.

“Promise me,” he says insistently.

“I promise,” Wooseok says, and Jinhyuk lets out a breath. “But you have to promise me something too.”

“Name it.”

Wooseok’s gaze is so intense it’s almost sharp. “Promise me that you’ll believe in us.”

“You know I do.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.” Jinhyuk thinks about jokingly holding out his pinky or something, but Wooseok nods, and he knows they don’t need anything else to seal it.

Jinhyuk his thumbs under Wooseok’s eyelids, tracing shadows that are too dark, too pronounced, on a face that’s too thin, too sharp.

“You deserve this, Wooseok,” he says solemnly. “Don’t doubt that, okay? Enjoy it.”

“Okay,” Wooseok says in a voice that’s mostly breath.

“I’ll always cheer you on. Always.”

“I’ll always cheer you on too.” Wooseok smiles and his eyes look wet but Jinhyuk thinks that they’re not tears of sadness, not this time. “I love you, Jinhyuk.”

He had said the same words onstage, after breaking down in sobs, his composure undone at last, this boy who looks delicate but has a core of steel, who not only endured everything that the cruel world threw at him but conquered it. This beautiful, amazing boy who, for some reason, looks at Jinhyuk like he won the greatest prize of all.

“I love you too,” Jinhyuk says, and he recognizes that it almost sounds like a goodbye but he knows it’s not. They’re not parting ways, they’re just walking different paths for a while, Wooseok on his flower road and Jinhyuk on his budding trail, but he knows they’ll reunite in no time at all.

He can’t wait.