First place.  They’d ranked him first place.

Taekwoon stared, numb, at the screen while chaos broke out around him, half-expecting the number to morph into another before his eyes.  Competitive pride flared molten-hot in his chest until he felt he would burn up from the inside, but deep beneath was a cold core of fear.  He knew what it meant for him once they reached the arena.   

His promotion team was making such a racket (they seemed as conflicted about the results as he was) he wouldn’t be surprised if the walls caved in.  He couldn’t think.  Everyone was pushing and pulling, praising and scolding, and even his iciest stares didn’t earn him an inch of space.  He slipped away as soon as he could escape.  Yet as he stormed through the hallway, something warm and soft brushed his hand--Taekwoon was about to spin around and push away whoever tried to stop him from leaving when calloused fingers closed over his own to squeeze.  They were gone again so quickly he could have imagined it, but when he glanced behind him Wonsik stood statue-still by the wall, face blank, unfocused eyes straight ahead.  Taekwoon kept walking.

He barely had five minutes to himself, wasted pacing in circles in his room and wishing he had a punching bag to demolish.  Was he angry?  Proud?  Eager?  Frightened?  The door was sliding open and intrusive voices echoed off the walls as a thought welled up at the worst possible moment--that his family must have seen the broadcast too.  No time to process it, no time for answers before he was fished out and swept away to the stylists’ chair.  By the half-heard chatter there was yet another event to rush off to.  

By the time they returned, Taekwoon’s ears were ringing and patches of light flashed behind his eyelids every time he blinked.  Dinner dragged itself along like a dying thing.  Over the past week his team had slowly given up trying to drag conversation out of him at their meals, but were now back at it in full force.  He looked up only once or twice, but Wonsik was nowhere in sight.

He left his dinner half-eaten, shoving himself to his feet and ignoring the scolding of his mentor as he slouched away, only looking back to cast a glance towards the Avoxes by the door--both unfamiliar.  His stomach sank.

He had just reached his doorway when a sound halted him in his tracks--faint, delicate, like the soft chirping of a bird in the branches.  It was too sudden, too unexpected, and a lump caught in his throat that he angrily swallowed away.  Taekwoon swatted at the door sensor and barely waited for it to slide open before storming forward--

It slid shut behind him by the time he realized the light was already on.  

Not the lights---the projectors.  The simulation.  The false, loathsome facade of a forest stretching as far as the eye could see.  And suddenly he was wheezing, throat clenched tight around his windpipe, eyes hot and stinging.  A noise escaped unbidden; he was too angry to allow to be a sob--instead a low, strangled wail welled quavering from his lungs, and he spun, thoughtless, ramming his knuckles into the wall.  A patch of pristine night sky rippled beneath his bruising fist.  In the corner of his wet-blurred vision he caught a glimpse of the remote that controlled the projections; Taekwoon snatched it up in one shaking fist and hurled it across the room.  It hit with a satisfying crack he could feel in his bones, and a short, sharp sound of surprise echoed with it.  Taekwoon froze and spun--and there was Wonsik, eyes round and mouth wide (Taekwoon reflexively glanced away, stomach tightening).  The other remote hung limply from one trembling hand.

“Sorry,” he grit out.  He should feel guilty, should feel something, but the ebb of confused rage left nothing in its wake.  Wonsik lowered his eyes as he set the remote aside, slipping into the blank servants’ posture in a blink.

His stomach twisted again.  “Did you--”  Taekwoon paused, swallowing back the roughness in his voice before continuing, “Did you do this?”

Wonsik nodded, shoulders stiffening, eyes still wide and nervous.  

“Why?”

He felt foolish, asking a question he knew would be difficult to answer, but Wonsik met his gaze, brow furrowing.  He held up seven fingers, then gestured to him.

A pause.  “You knew I’m from District Seven.”  A dumb thing to say.  Everyone did.  And they thought this image would comfort him, just like Wonsik did now.

There were no words to describe how vast the difference seemed.

Guilt and gratitude welled slowly in him, and Taekwoon didn’t bother to fight it.  He trudged to his bed and slumped to sit on the edge.  He patted the blanket beside him.  

Wonsik hesitated, glancing at the doorway, before slipping to sit next to him.  

“What District are you from?” asked Taekwoon.

The other brightened before holding up eight fingers.  The Textiles District.  

“You didn’t have many trees there, did you?”  He’d never been to Eight, but the propaganda videos for their tributes showed glimpses--cherry-picked and carefully-edited as they were, it still looked bleak and lifeless, rows upon rows of dead brick buildings and smokestacks clogging the skies.  

Wonsik shook his head.  He turned, craning his neck to look around the panorama around him.  What seemed insultingly, devastatingly fake to Taekwoon must have been a wonder to him.

“They’re...nice.”  Why was the only time words came easily to him was when he was guessing Wonsik’s?  “Wish you could see real ones.  It’s nothing like these.”  He hated the way his voice thickened as he talked, but Wonsik’s fingers were winding into his again and he couldn’t quite regret it.  

It was dangerous, sitting here like this, with the evening still young and the entire household wide awake, but Taekwoon gripped back until Wonsik grunted in discomfort and pried his hand from his grasp to wrap an arm around his shoulders.  

Something broke.  The weight of weeks of stoic facades and homesickness and fear strangled into anger collapsed all at once and he was he was drowning, drifting--no tears came, but every bone in his body seemed to dissolve at once and he slumped into the half-embrace, barely propping himself up with a hand on Wonsik’s knee.  While each breath was a struggle to draw before, now they came too fast, tripping over one another until his head spun and swam.  Warm arms closed around him and he closed his eyes, striving to focus on the heartbeat against his ear.  A hand (still trembling slightly) smoothed up and down his back, and he tried to rein in his frantic breaths to match its gentle rhythm.  

“Shhhhh.”  The breath whispered against his ear as the hand slid up to card through his stiff-styled hair.  Taekwoon nodded, just barely.  His breathing had evened out and the horrible weight on his chest was gone, but he didn’t want to move.  And then the light huff of breath against his forehead became the press of lips.

It had been so faint that he could have imagined it, but it was enough to kindle heat in his face and a (confusing) spark in his chest and suddenly everything made sense--sneaking out every night to see him, the flutter beneath his ribs each time he gave that cute smile that made his eyes sparkle, the ache that grew in his stomach whenever he was away.  It all made sense; it was the only thing that made sense.  Taekwoon sat up, adrenaline shooting through his limbs, and before Wonsik could retreat kissed him full on the lips.

The startled sound Wonsik let out quickly turned to a pleased hum--Taekwoon realized with a jolt that the first kiss was likely just meant as comfort, like a child being tucked in to rest, but then hands were cupping his face and rough thumbs smoothed over his cheeks and a quiet but giddy chuckle rumbled from Wonsik’s chest.   

Taekwoon moved his lips slowly, savoring the feeling of Wonsik’s mouth against his, but when he tried to deepen the kiss was halted by the sudden pressure of hands against his collarbones.  When he pulled back, eyes searching, the other was stiff and pale--eyes lowered and glassy, lips pressed to a thin line as he forced shallow breaths through his nose.  

“I-I’m sorry,” Taekwoon mumbled.  Red climbed in his cheeks and he began to pull away, but the grip on his shoulders turned him back.  Wonsik caught his gaze before shaking his head, tension fading from his face as he curled his fingers around the back of Taekwoon’s head and pulled him forward.  Their foreheads bumped before he guided Taekwoon’s lips to the corner of his own mouth, and Taekwoon could feel him grin against his cheek as he ran his fingers through his hair.  

Again Taekwoon kissed him, just at the edge of his lips, and felt the huff of a giggle against his cheek before he slid an inch to the side and kissed him again.  And then down slightly just above his jawline.  And again, right at the hard angle of his jaw.  Warmth bloomed in his chest at the faint hum of approval in his ear.  If Wonsik didn’t like being kissed on the mouth, he would kiss him everywhere else.