he is a little moon, myungsoo thinks. orbiting irresistibly around a planet that sees him, is aware of him, loves him even, but for all intents and purposes doesn’t see him, doesn’t love him. he is loved by thousands, he marvels. thousands and thousands who will never meet him or know him, or get to talk to him, and yet they love him. or maybe that love isn’t the kind of love he wants, he needs, because no part of that love has intimacy, true knowledge, tolerance all in equal parts. what would it be like, myungsoo wonders, to be loved back? to be considered special by thousands is nothing compared to being special to that someone who is special to you. 

sungyeol shines, and myungsoo reflects his light like a dutiful moon - myungsoo feels the metaphor grow muddled, because he can remember bits from school science lessons reminding him that only stars give off light - he shrugs; sungyeol shines, nonetheless. he feels it making him glow by default, sungyeol’s face and touch and voice and warmth all rolled into one big searing ball of sun-heat that is probably going to swallow him up one day. myungsoo laughs and shouts and dances and sings and shoves and prays andfeels, incredible longing and quickly-dismissed despair, hot flashes of desire and shameful want, adoration and admiration and frustration and barely-there-gone-too-fast satisfaction when sungyeol stops time with a touch or a smile and he focuses on myungsoo like myungsoo is the only one that exists in the whole, wide galaxy. the benevolent planet smiling fondly on its little moon, drawn unresistingly to it never to escape its pull. 

there are days sungyeol’s operating system seems to have a glitch and he acts as if he’s in love with myungsoo too - soft eyes and never-let-me-go fingers and whispers and myungsoo’s all he needs. and then, invariably, sungyeol snaps back to form like a fog lifting, blinking as if he’s confronted by something he wasn’t supposed to forget. i’m sorry, his fingers seem to say afterwards. i’m sorry i don’t love you.

myungsoo is a brittle moon, and woohyun sometimes imagines him breaking all into pieces as he hangs in space, circling sungyeol who remains as intact as ever. but that’s not completely true, because sungyeol isn’t stupid, and he sees and thinks more than people realise. if myungsoo the moon shattered so would sungyeol the planet - or sungyeol the star - because sungyeol knows it would be because of him. woohyun worries, worries for the two of them, and sends prayer after prayer to every god he can think of without fear of offending that myungsoo learns to swallow his feelings for sungyeol and bury them deep inside his chest where they can live quietly and without danger to anyone. sungyeolknows. it’s impossible for him not to know, woohyun thinks, when sometimes the way myungsoo feels about sungyeol blinds the rest of them with its intensity. at first none of them knew what to do with myungsoo’s heart, and finally one by one they each took a part of it to keep in the hopes they could somehow keep it safe. the biggest part, however, and the most vulnerable one, rests in sungyeol’s hands. sungyeol carries it around with him gingerly, carefully, but there are days he absentmindedly leaves it upon a shelf or on a chair and those are the days myungsoo’s light nearly goes out.

woohyun holds myungsoo as he feel the tears being forcibly dammed by sheer force of will, myungsoo taking deep breaths. this doesn’t happen often - really, at all - and he knows myungsoo is going to be embarrassed to the roots of his hair later but woohyun ignores that. myungsoo is a species of creature, a moon-child, that soaks up love like it’s fuel. they’re both adult men, and the deep harsh breaths myungsoo is taking are awkwardly loud, but none of that matters to him, really. woohyun his thick hair and lets myungsoo cling to him, his fingers twisting in woohyun’s shirt; he remembers myungsoo clinging to him like this at sixteen and eighteen and he supposes twenty-three isn’t all that different. the tears used to come freely before, but it’s been a long time since myungsoo’s cried in woohyun’s arms. woohyun rubs myungsoo’s back and knows it’s useless to tell him that’s it’s okay to cry.

it takes longer than usual, this time, for myungsoo to go quiet and still, but woohyun lets his moonchild stay as long as he needs.