Chapter Text
The hotel room was silent when they came back. The concert was over.
San still saw the stage lights every time he blinked — white, harsh, and gold. It felt like the world had spent two hours shouting their names, but no one really understood them.
Wooyoung walked in first.
He always walked into rooms as if challenging everyone not to notice him.
His black, see-through shirt stuck to his skin in damp lines, so thin that San could see the outline of his ribs. Leather pants sat low on his hips. The choker at his neck caught the bedside lamp’s dim light and made it glint.
San closed and then locked the door behind them.
The click sounded too final.
Wooyoung glanced over his shoulder. “You’re quiet.”
San dropped his key card onto the desk. “I’m tired.”
“Liar.”
Wooyoung smiled, but it wasn’t really playful. There was something softer underneath, like he understood exactly why San was quiet and what it meant.
San didn’t answer.
He sat on the bed’s edge, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, still half-dressed from the stage. His body was tired, but his mind kept racing, stuck on the same impossible dream.
A kitchen with morning light.
Wooyoung barefoot, stealing food from his plate. Wearing only one of San’s t-shirts.
No managers knocking. No flights. No rehearsals. No cameras waiting to turn every glance into evidence.
Just them. Normal.
Just thinking about that word hurt more than he expected.
Across the room, Wooyoung began undressing.
Slowly.
He did it not out of need, but because he liked being watched. He loved attention, especially from San.
He took off his shirt first, sliding the black fabric off his shoulders. San’s breath caught, and Wooyoung noticed, his mouth curving in a pleased, almost dangerous way.
“You’re still looking,” Wooyoung murmured.
San’s jaw tightened. “You’re making it hard not to.”
“Good. That’s my purpose.”
The shirt fell to the floor.
Wooyoung’s fingers went to the button of his leather trousers.
San looked away.
Wooyoung laughed softly. “Now you’re shy?”
“No.”
“Then look at me.”
It wasn’t a command. Not really. It was worse.
It was an invitation San had never once survived, so he glanced over him and looked intently.
Wooyoung stood in the soft light, wearing only the choker. He looked both confident and a little hurt, like someone who knew he was wanted but wasn’t sure he was loved enough to stay.
San swallowed.
“You shouldn’t do this when I’m trying to think.”
Wooyoung stepped closer. “That’s exactly why I’m doing it.”
“Wooyoung.”
The name came out rough.
Wooyoung stopped between San’s knees.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then San reached for him. Both hands on his hips.
Desperate. Firm. Reverent.
He pulled Wooyoung closer until their bodies fit together, warm and real. It was almost unbearable to have him so close but not completely his. San pressed his mouth to Wooyoung’s hip, just above the bone, and felt Wooyoung’s breath catch.
San kissed him again — on his lower stomach, his side, where warmth gathered under the skin. He wasn’t rushed or playful. Each kiss was like an apology he couldn’t say out loud.
Wooyoung’s hand slid into his hair.
“San…”
San rested his forehead against Wooyoung’s stomach. Just stayed there.
“What is it?” Wooyoung asked seriously, a hint of fear in his voice.
For once, San didn’t want to perform, tease or play games. He just wanted to rest his face against the only person who felt like home and admit he was scared.
“Can we go somewhere?” San asked quietly.
Wooyoung’s fingers stilled.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” San closed his eyes. “Anywhere. After this. Somewhere no one knows us.”
Wooyoung let out a sound that was part laugh, part pain. “We’re on tour.”
“I know.”
“We can’t just ditch everyone.”
“I know.”
“San.”
“I know, I know.”
Wooyoung looked down at him, his teasing expression gone.
San lifted his head. His hands stayed on Wooyoung’s hips, his thumbs moving slowly over bare skin, as if he was afraid Wooyoung would disappear if he let go.
“I think about it all the time,” San said. “You and me. A normal life.”
Wooyoung’s expression changed gradually.
For a moment, he looked almost scared. Then he smiled, but it was too small to make either of them feel better.
“You’d get bored.”
“No.”
“You like the stage, too.”
“I like you more.”
That made Wooyoung go quiet.
The silence that followed felt heavier than shouting. It was full of all the things they had learned not to say in public places.
Wooyoung’s throat moved beneath the choker.
“Maybe when the tour ends,” he said tentatively.
San searched his face. “Don’t say it just because I want to hear it.”
“I’m not.”
“You love this life.”
Wooyoung’s mouth twisted. “And you think that means I don’t love you?”
San’s grip tightened.
He didn’t grip hard enough to hurt, but enough to show what he felt.
“No,” he said. “I think this life takes everything. And one day it’ll take you too.”
Wooyoung stared at him.
For a moment, something raw showed on his face.
Then he reached down, took San’s face between both hands, and bent to kiss him.
San turned his head.
Wooyoung’s mouth landed against the corner of his jaw instead.
They both went still, like they froze in time.
The silence that followed felt even worse than if they had kissed.
Wooyoung pulled back just enough to look at him. His hands were still on San’s face, but they had gone tense now, fingers cold against his skin.
“Oh,” he said.
San hated that sound.
Not anger. Not even surprise.
It was just hurt, plain and simple.
“Wooyoung.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
Wooyoung laughed once, sharp and ugly. “You don’t want me to touch you now?”
San’s hands moved from his hips to his waist, holding him there before he could step away.
“That’s not what I said.”
“You moved.”
“Because you always do that.”
Wooyoung’s eyes narrowed. “Do what?”
San looked up at him.
The choker sat tight around his throat. His hair was still damp from the stage, blond strands falling into his eyes. He looked beautiful, furious and afraid. All at once.
“You turn it sexual when you don’t want to answer me.”
Wooyoung’s mouth parted, like he wanted to say something – anything –, but then closed.
San’s voice softened, but it didn’t become weaker.
“And I let you. Every time. Because I want you so badly, I forget what I was trying to say.”
Wooyoung looked away. That almost hurt more than the kiss.
San reached up and touched his wrist, thumb brushing over the pulse there.
“I’m not rejecting you.”
Wooyoung swallowed. “Feels like it.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
“I need you to hear me.”
Wooyoung’s jaw tightened.
For a moment, San thought Wooyoung would pull away, make a joke, or act cold — anything to avoid standing there with nothing but the truth between them.
Instead, Wooyoung whispered: “I hear you.”
San breathed out shakily.
“Do you?”
Wooyoung looked back at him then, eyes bright in a way the stage lights could never explain.
“You think I’m going to choose this over you.”
San’s grip faltered.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Isn’t it?”
San looked at him for a long moment, and something tired moved through his face.
“We don’t even call this anything,” he said quietly. “Because you don’t want to.”
Wooyoung went silent.
Too silent.
For once, no quick answer came. No smile. No hand sliding into San’s hair to turn the conversation into something easier.
Then his mouth twisted, but there was no cruelty in it this time.
“It feels stupid to label us,” he said.
San’s face changed.
Wooyoung looked away, throat moving beneath the choker.
“You’re… we’re…” He let out a small, frustrated breath, as if language itself had offended him. “You know what we are.”
“Do I?”
Wooyoung looked back at him then, eyes bright with something too frightened to be anger and too proud to become tears.
San’s grip faltered again.
Wooyoung tried to smile, but it faded before it really appeared.
“Maybe part of me is scared you’re right. That I could choose this over you.”
San went very still.
Wooyoung’s hands slipped from his face.
Without his touch, the room felt colder.
“I don’t know how to be wanted quietly,” Wooyoung said.
San looked at him as if those words had hurt him physically.
Wooyoung gave a quiet, embarrassed laugh, angry at himself for saying it.
“The crowd wants me loudly. The cameras want me beautifully. The stage wants me exactly like this.” He touched the choker at his throat, fingers curling around it. “And you…”
San waited.
Wooyoung’s voice dropped.
“You want me when all of that comes off.”
“Yes.”
“What if there’s nothing left?”
The words came out quietly.
But they still hurt.
San stood then.
Wooyoung didn’t move back, but his whole body tensed as San rose in front of him.
San reached for him slowly this time. Not his hips. Not his mouth.
His hand settled over Wooyoung’s, where it still gripped the choker.
“There is,” San said.
Wooyoung stared at him.
San’s thumb brushed over his knuckles.
“There’s you.”
Wooyoung’s breath caught.
Wooyoung nodded slowly, as if something had just been confirmed for him.
“Right.”
“Woo.”
“No.” He stepped back. “No, I get it.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.” His smile looked painful now. “You think I use all this — my body, the stage, the attention.”
San swallowed. “I think you hide in it.”
Wooyoung went still.
For a moment, the room was completely quiet.
Then Wooyoung bent, picked up his clothes from the floor, and started getting dressed with shaking hands.
San’s stomach dropped.
“Where are you going?”
Wooyoung didn’t look at him. “Out.”
“Where?”
Wooyoung laughed under his breath and dragged his leather trousers back up with shaking hands.
The zip caught once. Then again.
“None of your business.”
Wooyoung finally looked at him.
His eyes were bright, but not with tears. Not yet. Something worse. Pride holding the door shut against pain.
San had no answer.
Wooyoung grabbed his jacket from the chair.
“Wooyoung,” San called him again in one, last attempt to bring something back to normality.
“What?” His voice cracked on the edge of anger. “You wanted me to stop seducing you. Congratulations.”
San took one step forward.
Wooyoung stepped back.
Wooyoung’s mouth trembled for a moment before he pressed his lips together to stop it.
“I love this life,” he said quietly. “I do. I love the noise. I love the stage. I love being wanted by people who don’t ask me to explain why I need it.”
San’s chest hurt.
Wooyoung looked at him as if he wanted San to understand, but also hated that he almost did.
“And I love you too,” he said. “But lately you say my name like those two things can’t live in the same room.”
Wooyoung opened the door without looking back and crossed the threshold with no hesitation.
San stayed by the bed, surrounded by everything they hadn’t said or done.
He sat down on the edge of the mattress.
The sheets were still untouched.
His mouth still remembered the kiss he had refused.
And for the first time that night, the room felt so big it seemed possible to lose himself in it.