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When Win was five, he became a big brother.
His parents had explained to him early on what it would mean to have a new sibling. That he would be to this baby what Wan is to him, that he’d no longer be the youngest in the family, and that he’d have to start sharing his space. He just remembers being confused at the prospect of a new family member but simultaneously excited about having someone else to play with.
Once View was actually born, however, Win was thrown into a reality where babies were loud and gross. They required so much attention, they couldn’t be left alone, and they couldn’t play with his trucks. He’d grown so frustrated and bitter that his parents weren’t around him much anymore that he had broken a picture frame by throwing an action figure at the wall in a fit.
He’d gotten scolded, yes. But at least they’d looked at him.
As some years passed, he would become very well acquainted with the concept of sharing.
It wasn’t a foreign concept. Grade school teachers told the kids to share all the time, and Win had no issue lending his crayons over to a classmate for the day if need be.
The problem was at home, where birthday parties were ruined because View was a toddler who needed to be included in everything and threw tantrums when he wasn’t; where gifts were hand-me-downs from Wan; where his friends would rather hang around his “cool older brother” than play with him.
Where his toys would be abruptly taken from him and given to View because he was a “big boy now.”
At ten years old, he fell down outside and scraped the skin from his knee, and when he went inside with tears in his eyes, his father handed him a bandaid and told him to buck up and stop crying. It was the first time he’d ever felt the sharp sting of rejection from a family member, but it’s a sensation he would grow increasingly numb to.
A year after that, he twisted his ankle in a game of basketball with his friends on the street and bit down on his lip so hard from the pain that it had started bleeding.
He didn’t tell anyone for a week, keeping his mouth shut and swallowing the agony of walking on it until his foot swelled so much he had to fess up to his mother when she questioned why he was limping.
She took him to the doctor.
And he didn’t cry once.
First year of highschool, Win met a boy quieter than any teenager should have a right to be, and learned that his name was Dean.
Dean was Win’s first and only best friend, simply because Dean didn’t care about popularity and never made any effort to leave Win’s company despite his constant complaining.
Raised apart from his siblings, Win knew that there must’ve been something inside of Dean that was missing, too. Even if they never talked about it, he thinks somehow they’d come to the silent understanding that, contrary to their opposing personalities, they matched.
On his fifteenth birthday, Win kissed a boy during a game of Truth or Dare and found that he didn’t hate it.
While that boy laughed it off, Win spiraled into an internal frenzy of panic, unable to help wondering if this revelation was going to be another thing that sets him up for confusion, heartbreak, and disappointment.
When that same boy made out with him a week later behind the school and never spoke to him again after, he got his answer.
In their freshman year at university, Win dragged Dean to a party off campus.
He doesn’t remember much of that night in particular. He knew he’d gone because within that same week, he did only slightly worse on a test than he’d hoped, both brothers called him relentlessly to bitch about the other, and the girl he was sort of seeing said that she didn’t think they’d work out.
So he needed to let loose, and a party was a better option than sitting in his room sulking.
He knows that a couple hours in, everything ended with him on someone’s bathroom floor, puking up everything into a toilet while Dean stood behind him and gently berated him for drinking so much.
And when he’d finished expelling his soul, the two of them sat next to each other, backs against the tub until Win finally broke and drunkenly started crying into Dean’s shoulder, his walls and heart cracking as he asked, over and over again, what it was about him that made him so unloveable.
Dean had just wrapped an arm around him, and didn’t answer.
Now, at twenty, he falls in love.
And Win’s spent too many years of his life keeping people at arms’ length for this to be anything but terrifying.
Team blindsided him. An unassuming first year with big brown eyes that always light up minutely whenever he looks at Win. Win is positive that his do the same and he doesn’t know what to do about that.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but Win has never been good at saying no. He wanted to believe he was doing all of this because he’s a good senior taking care of his junior, but Dean had to go and point out that the things he’s doing are not things he’s done for anyone else.
Win looks at Team and the first thing he wants to know is if he’s eaten, if he slept well, and how his day has been. He wants to make him laugh solely because he loves how round his cheeks get when he smiles.
He wants to kiss that stupid mole on his neck.
He’s become so accustomed to another body in his bed that he finds it hard to sleep any other way now. Win almost looks forward to the nights that Team seeks him out for comfort, even when it’s clearly at the expense of Team’s own health.
Win isn’t uncomfortable with Team—could never be uncomfortable around Team—but he’s uncomfortable with what they’re becoming, when it’s obvious that both of them are hesitant for reasons they refuse to divulge.
When Team teased him, “Are you asking me to be your boyfriend?” Win had felt his throat close and the words stuck like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth.
It was a deflection. They’re good at that. When Win asked if he’d have an answer if he were, there was that little part of him, a little hope, that was snuffed out once Team shook his head.
In a way, he appreciated the honesty. In another, years of being pushed to the side, abandoned, and ignored all came to the forefront of his mind. That voice telling him he’s still not good enough is a persistent niggle in his ears.
He doesn’t want to do this; hates it, even. Win never asked for these feelings, least of all now, when he was so wholly unprepared for them.
It isn’t Team's fault, but he hates him a little too, for being so easy to love.
And even with all of that reluctance and fear, Win is still going to hold him at the end of the night. He’ll wrap his arms around Team and kiss the top of his head and wish him, with an ache in his chest and utmost sincerity, that he has sweet dreams.
If a stray tear escapes his eye minutes later as Team falls into a peaceful sleep against him, then that’s nobody else’s business but his own.