Chapter Text
Wooyoung didn’t know when it started.
Maybe it wasn't a moment at all. Not a sudden crash or a cinematic revelation. Not thunderclaps or lightning strikes. No—falling for San had been quiet. A gentle, creeping thing. It tiptoed in over the years, soft and unnoticed, weaving itself into the spaces between their laughter and their silences, until it was simply there—a truth rooted too deep to untangle.
If someone asked, When did you fall in love with your best friend?
He wouldn’t know what to say.
Because there was no before and after. No defining moment. Just a thousand little ones. The way San’s voice changed when he was tired. The way he reached for Wooyoung without thinking. The way he laughed, head thrown back, eyes crinkled at the edges, like Wooyoung was the funniest thing in the world.
Wooyoung didn’t fall in love. He just… looked up one day and realized he already was.
And it scared him.
Not because love itself was frightening—he had never been ashamed of who he was. But because this? This was San. His best friend. The one person who had always been his constant, his anchor. And to want more, to need more… it felt like standing at the edge of something he couldn’t come back from.
Because if he lost San—if he said the wrong thing, reached too far, broke what they had—he wouldn’t just be heartbroken.
He’d be alone.
So he stayed quiet. Careful. He let the feelings live in silence. He learned to carry them like a secret folded in the corner of his heart.
But love doesn’t stay silent forever.
Not when it’s this loud.
Sometimes Wooyoung wondered if San knew.
Not in the obvious way. Not in the “I caught you staring” way. But in the quiet spaces. The pauses in their conversations. The way San’s eyes would linger on him a second too long, soft and unreadable. Like maybe, he felt it too.
But San never said anything. And Wooyoung didn’t ask. That was the silent agreement between them, unspoken but ever-present. They danced around the line so gracefully it almost felt choreographed.
Some nights, though—when the world was quiet and the lights were low—Wooyoung let himself imagine.
Imagine what it would feel like to run his fingers through San’s hair without pretending it was just playful affection. To fall asleep next to him and wake up in the same warmth. To love him out loud.
He imagined it all.
And then he buried it.
Again and again.
Because reality was simpler. Or safer, at least. Their friendship was effortless, full of rhythm and history and years of knowing each other too well. Wooyoung could handle loving San from a distance. What he couldn’t handle was the possibility of losing him entirely.
So he played his part.
He laughed when San teased him. He leaned into the jokes, the fanservice, the half-flirtatious comments thrown into interviews and lives and late-night conversations. He wore the mask so well, sometimes he almost believed it himself.
Almost.
But there were moments that cracked through. Brief, breathless seconds when San looked at him like he was the only person in the room. When the air shifted and everything felt heavy and full of maybe.
And it was those moments, the ones they both pretended not to notice, that haunted Wooyoung the most.
Because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could pretend not to notice them either.
So he’d promised himself a thousand times he wouldn’t let San stay over. Wouldn’t let him share the bed. Wouldn’t hold him through the night.
But he never kept that promise.
Again and again, he let it happen. Broke his own rules like they were made of paper. Let San curl into his side like it meant nothing, like it hadn’t wrecked him every single time.
He’d hold San close, let their legs tangle under the blanket, feel his breath warm against his collarbone. He’d run soft fingers along San’s cheek when he napped in his arms, brushing hair from his eyes like it was instinct. Like it was his right.
And still—Wooyoung couldn’t sleep.
Not when San was in his arms. Not when every nerve in his body was on fire with the awareness of where they touched. Where their skin met. Where his longing lived, quietly burning between them.
San always fell asleep easily. Trusting. Soft and defenseless in his hold.
And Wooyoung?
He just lay there, heart too loud, breath too shallow, drowning in the silence.
It was torture.
But it was also the closest he’d ever get to loving San the way he wanted to.
So he let himself have those nights, even if they broke him a little more each time.
Because San was sunshine in human form—bright, warm, and meant to be protected. And Wooyoung could never bring himself to say no, never had the heart to push him away.
To Wooyoung, San was the sky and the sun and the mountains and forests.
His universe. His everything.
They say there’s no greater tragedy than loving someone who doesn’t love you back.
But Wooyoung couldn’t call it a tragedy. Not his. Not really.
Because at the end of the day, he had San.
Protective San.
Selfless San.
San, who would stand beside him in every storm.
How could he call that a tragedy?
No, Wooyoung would never name his love for San that.
Because even if San never looked at him the way Wooyoung looked at him... even if he never saw what lived behind the laughter and the touches and the silences— Wooyoung still had him.
And maybe that wasn’t everything he wanted.
But it was more than most people ever got.
So he held onto it. Quietly. Carefully.
Grateful, even in the aching.
Because loving San hurt, yes—
But not loving him at all?
That would have been unbearable.
And maybe one day, San would leave—
and Wooyoung wouldn’t even get to call it heartbreak.
Because you can’t lose what was never yours.
And still, night after night, he let San’s warmth into his bed.
Even if he knew the sun was never meant to stay.