“Hyung?”

All of them call him hyung, but he feels like nobody says it the way Wooseok does. There’s something…special about the way Wooseok says the word, something soft laced through it, that makes it more than an honorific.

“Hyung.”

“Why do you say it like that?” Seungwoo blurts out.

Wooseok looks confused. “Say what?”

“Hyung.”

“Whoa, are you calling me that now? It feels weirder than when Eunsang called me Wooseok ah.”

“I thought you were going to kill him.”

“Oh, death would be too easy on him,” Wooseok says lightly. “I made him suffer.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Seungwoo says, amused. “Also, I wasn’t calling you hyung. I meant that – it’s the way you call me that.”

“The way I call you hyung?” Wooseok looks even more confused now. “You don’t want me to call you hyung? I’m not Eunsang, I can’t just call you Seungwoo yah.” He winces a little as he says it, glances at Seungwoo almost apologetically. Wooseok, despite his constant teasing, is nothing if not respectful.

“I’m not asking you to call me Seungwoo yah. But you can, if you want. I won’t get offended.”

Wooseok looks at him with a thoughtful expression for a second. “Seungwoo yah,” he tries out, tentatively, and an odd feeling dances over Seungwoo’s spine. It’s not unpleasant, not at all. Wooseok sounds hesitant, unsure, but there’s the same…thing Seungwoo can’t name to his tone as when he says ‘hyung.’

Wooseok makes a face. “It feels too weird. I can’t do it, hyung. Sorry.”

Seungwoo almost laughs at the fact that Wooseok, who has the sharpest tongue in the group except for maybe Hangyul, is apologizing for not being able to speak to him informally.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I like the way you call me hyung.”

“You…like it?” Wooseok blinks. “Is that what you meant before?”

Seungwoo clears his throat. “Well. Yes.”

“How do I call you hyung?” Wooseok asks, cocking his head to the side.

Well, that’s the problem, it’s not like Seungwoo can explain it. He was hoping that Wooseok could. “You just do it…differently.”

“I mean, I don’t call any of the other members hyung. They’re all younger except Seungyoun.”

“You say it differently from them,” Seungwoo says, knowing he isn’t making sense but then again he doesn’t know how to make sense of this all. “And I’ve heard you call other people hyung, you don’t say it like that to them.”

“Well, you’re not other people, hyung.” And even now, Wooseok still says it in that way of his. “You’re…different.”

“Is this just a nicer way to say weird?”

Wooseok laughs so hard his face crumples. He looks so young when he does that, open and unburdened. Sadly, like most beautiful things, it never lasts long. Seungwoo tries to take it in while he can.

“I was going to say you’re not weird but honestly, I see weirder sides to you every day. You’re like an onion.”

“I hope I don’t make you cry.”

“An onion with dad jokes,” Wooseok says, rolling his eyes, and maybe that shouldn’t make Seungwoo smile but it does.

“I’ll put that as my bio,” Seungwoo jokes. “Maybe I should start introducing myself as that.”

Wooseok smiles. “Nobody would understand, though.”

“Well, I can explain how you gave me the nickname.”

“What if I don’t want you to?”

“You want the context to remain a secret so I look crazy?”

“Maybe I want you to keep this story just between us,” Wooseok says, his smile turning smaller, slyer. “It’ll be our secret.”

Our secret. Seungwoo likes the sound of that rather too much. Something just between them.

“Wooseok,” Seungwoo says, his voice hushed, like he’s afraid of shattering this—whatever this is—between them. “What did you mean, when you said that I’m different?”

Wooseok bites his lip, and Seungwoo doesn’t even pretend that his eyes don’t track the motion. “You’re special. Not because you’re my hyung, but because you’re you. You’re Seungwoo.”

“I’m Seungwoo?” It sounds ridiculous even as he says it, like he doesn’t know his own name or identity.

“You’re Seungwoo,” Wooseok confirms. “Seungwoo hyung. My hyung.”

Seungwoo’s breathing hitches again. He feels like he’s at a precipice, that he has one foot dangling off the edge and if he’s not careful he’ll plummet right off, and yet he doesn’t want to draw it back.

“Mine,” Wooseok murmurs, and as his voice drops his eyelids do too, and he peers at Seungwoo through his lashes, and as often as Seungwoo’s seen Wooseok direct this expression to the cameras, it’s different this time. Everything is different. “Hyung—”

Seungwoo can’t help himself. He doesn’t know how anyone can be expected to do so when Wooseok is tilting his face up, his eyes fluttering shut and his lips parting, clearly an invitation. He finds himself pressed right against Wooseok, cupping Wooseok’s face in his hands, and he’s never been so hyperaware of how small Wooseok is, how delicate he feels in Seungwoo’s arms, like he might break if Seungwoo is not careful.

Seungwoo isn’t careful. He lets himself fall, but instead of meeting rock bottom he meets Wooseok, whose hands tangle in his hair and lips open under his, warm and insistent and not the slightest bit delicate.

“Hyung,” Wooseok sighs, once, against his mouth, and Seungwoo falls.

(“Do you get it now?” Wooseok asks.

“Get what?”

“Why I call you hyung the way I do. I mean, not that I do it on purpose, but.”

“Yeah,” Seungwoo says. “Yeah, I think I get it.”

Wooseok smiles. “Good,” he says, and draws Seungwoo into another kiss.)

A/N:The title is from the quote "And you promise yourself you will never fall so hard again, until you meet someone who makes the fall feel like flying" by Nikita Gill.