A/N: Written after their first win for Flash.

Wooseok has to stop and take some deep inhales, hunched over with his hands on his knees, feeling like he’s trying to catch his breath after a marathon. In a way, he is, isn’t he? He’s waited four years for this moment, although he didn’t think it would be like this.

“Wooseok.” A gentle voice, and a steady hand cupping the back of his neck before pulling him into a warm embrace. He in a breath that sounds suspiciously like a sob before burying his face against that strong chest.

“Hyung.” Wooseok’s voice is almost gone, like he’s been crying for hours. He hasn’t, not at all, but he feels almost like he has, like he’s wrung out.

Seungwoo looks at him, his eyes gentle and warm and, above all, understanding. Of course he understands. He must feel the same way himself, although he didn’t let it show, couldn’t let it show. Not only the two of them feel this way, but Seungyoun and Hangyul too, and Wooseok is glad he can share that with them but he’s beyond glad that only Seungwoo is with him right now.

“Wooseokie,” Seungwoo says affectionately, running a hand through his hair. “It’s okay if you want to cry. Let it out.”

“I don’t want to cry.” His voice sounds thick and wet. “I want to be happy over this. I mean – I am happy, but I feel like.”

“Like you should be happier?” Seungwoo finishes. “Like you shouldn’t feel guilty?”

“Yeah.” Wooseok swallows. “Yeah, exactly. You feel that way too, don’t you hyung?”

“I do,” Seungwoo says, and then sighs. “We were bound to feel this way, right? There’s no getting around it. But you shouldn’t feel like you don’t deserve it. You deserve all this, Wooseok. You’ve earned it.”

“It doesn’t feel that way, sometimes,” Wooseok admits, not meeting Seungwoo’s eyes.

Seungwoo is silent for a moment. “I know,” he finally says. “It feels kind of like it’s too good to be true, right? Like it’s a dream you’re afraid to wake up from?”

Wooseok raises his eyes. “Does the leader position come with some mind-reading powers, hyung, because I feel like you’re scooping my thoughts right from my mind.”

Seungwoo laughs. “No, it doesn’t. I wish it did, then I could keep track of you guys easier. Or maybe I don’t, then I’d be able to hear all your mental complaints too.”

“I don’t have any complaints.”

“Don’t give me that,” Seungwoo snorts. “And put that innocent expression away. It won’t work on me.”

Wooseok purposefully widens his eyes and juts out his bottom lip. “Are you sure about that?”

Seungwoo makes a half-laughing, half-groaning sound, and closes his eyes like he can’t bear to meet that expression. “Okay well, Minhee and Eunsang are loud and chaotic enough in real life, I don’t need to hear their thoughts too.”

“You know, when Dongpyo said you were like his dad, I don’t think he realized how many other children would come for the ride.”

“It’s kind of creepy to say I have ten sons when you’re supposedly one of them.”

“Just say you have nine sons and I’m your co-parent.”

“Didn’t you hear? You and I are the mom and dad of the group.”

“Why do I have to be the mom,” Wooseok grumbles. “We can both be dads.”

Seungwoo laughs, eyes curving into crescents and dimple coming out of hiding, and Wooseok feels a burst of warmth fill him. “Either way, are you willing to help me raise these nine kids?”

“Of course,” Wooseok says, trying to maintain a serious expression. “I think you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“Oh, definitely. But it’s not my first time raising kids.” Seungwoo’s expression changes a little as he says this, turns heavier, wistful.

“Do you miss them?”

“My kids?” And something blooms in Wooseok’s chest at how Seungwoo calls Victon his kids, something bittersweet. He wonders if Seungwoo thinks of X1 as the same, or different, how he categorizes them in his mind.

“Yeah.”

“Of course,” Seungwoo says, like a given fact. “Do you miss UP10TION?”

“Of course,” Wooseok says with the same certainty. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Well, not that it’s a problem, just.” He leaves the sentence unfinished, but he trusts that Seungwoo can finish it. Not just because he’s their leader or he’s been through the same, but because he’s Seungwoo.

“Just,” Seungwoo echoes, and runs a hand through Wooseok’s hair again, scratches the spot behind Wooseok’s ear that makes him shiver. “I know, Wooseok.”

Wooseok sighs and rests his head against Seungwoo’s shoulder. “I guess I thought it would be easier from here on out,” he says, quiet. “I mean, not easier, exactly, just…simpler.”

Seungwoo lets out a soft chuckle. “I don’t think anything about our lives is going to be simple.”

Is that such a bad thing, Wooseok wonders. After all, simple doesn’t equate to good. If he wanted his life to be simple, he wouldn’t have gone on this show at all, wouldn’t have met Seungwoo and the others, wouldn’t have made it into X1. Even so, they had almost not pursued a relationship because it was another complication in a life that was already more than complicated enough.

Maybe his life would be simpler without Seungwoo, but it definitely wouldn’t be better.

As if reading his mind again, Seungwoo says, “No matter how complicated or difficult or challenging life gets, we’ll face it together, right?”

Wooseok smiles. “Together,” he affirms, and seals it with a kiss.