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The darkness of the hallway lends an alluring illusion of privacy during the final week of Boys Planet filming, and despite the fact that they’re practicing into the wee hours anyway, it gives Matthew a sense of comfort to know that the camera in Jiwoong’s room is always covered, and he’ll always open his arms to intruders, especially those who are small and Canadian and particularly anxious about their place in the rankings.
Tonight, three days out from the finale, is no different from the two previous nights. They go to their separate rooms to shower after post-practice snacks and then reconvene in Jiwoong’s room down the hall.
Jiwoong does have a roommate, technically, but Matthew can’t even remember who it is anymore. Everyone’s so shuffled around at night. Maybe he’s practicing. Maybe he’s in someone else’s bed.
It doesn’t really matter, anyway.
“Hyung,” Matthew whispers as he crawls under the covers, “are you tired?”
Jiwoong makes an indistinct noise, which means yes.
Matthew shuffles closer. He can feel the heat coming off of Jiwoong’s arm where his own is just a breath from brushing against it. “I’m not. Sorry.”
“Matthew-yah.”
“Hm?”
Jiwoong takes a few slow breaths before continuing his thought. “Are you disappointed?”
“About what?”
“The killing part.”
Ah. Matthew tries to ignore the niggle of doubt and fear he’s been suppressing all day. He laughs instead, quiet but determined. “Hyung, come on, you’re always behind the gossip. I got over that right away.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmhm. Everyone in the Jelly Pop room was telling me I’m so mature now. They said they would give me gifts and write pretty letters for SNS.” He keeps his voice low in case the clothes over the cameras haven’t muffled everything, because as much as he wants to joke about it he thinks a Say My Name Situation Part Two would genuinely ruin him, but it’s not hard to keep it to a murmur in this atmosphere. The bubble around them feels simultaneously impenetrable and delicate. Best not to burst it.
Jiwoong nods. A strand of his hair tickles Matthew’s forehead. “I fist-fought Hanbinie when we got back to the Hot Summer practice room,” he deadpans. “It took four people to pull me off him.”
Matthew snorts. “That’s cruel. You know Hanbin-hyung isn’t a fighter.”
“We all have our breaking points.” Jiwoong’s voice keeps slurring at the edges. If Matthew’s brain were less filled with the frantic buzzing of self-doubting bees, he’d just let Jiwoong sleep.
But Matthew has never had enough impulse control for that kind of kindness. “I could’ve taken you on myself,” he says instead.
Jiwoong huffs a laugh. “I don’t know about that.”
“I’m stronger than I look!”
“Our scary Woohyunie.”
Despite his own best efforts, the name still rings a little oddly in the air, like a remnant from family vacations and Korean lessons rather than something to respond to and call his own. It’s better, though, in Jiwoong’s warm, amused voice. Better when he can hear Jiwoong’s indulgent smile.
Matthew pretends to nip at Jiwoong’s bicep, then squawks a little when Jiwoong wraps an arm around Matthew’s neck and shakes him around. Matthew could probably wiggle free if he wanted to turn this into a full-on wrestling match, but there’s no way either of them has the energy for that. “I’m sorry,” he yelps instead, trying not to have so much fun that someone will poke their head in, “I’m sorry, you’re the strongest.”
Jiwoong makes a satisfied noise and half-releases Matthew. His arm is still under Matthew’s neck, comfortable and warm, but he’s not attempting to toss Matthew around like a rag doll anymore.
When Matthew chances a glance up at him through the soft darkness, Jiwoong doesn’t have a hair out of place, and the quiet curve of a smile lingers at the corners of his mouth. What would it take, Matthew wonders, to break that composure? Some days he thinks it wouldn’t take very much at all, but other days the bottom seems too far to even scrape on a dive.
“Tired yet?” Jiwoong asks.
Matthew chews on his lower lip, caught out. “Honestly?”
“Not really,” Jiwoong answers for him. “I should have known. I don’t know how you have so much energy.”
“It’s because I’m not old.”
He gets jostled for that one. “Watch who you’re calling old,” Jiwoong warns toothlessly.
“Sorry, I meant ancient.”
“Thin ice, Matthew-yah.”
Matthew shoves his face into Jiwoong’s shoulder and doesn’t answer for a while. The silence thickens around them for a bit, turning the moment syrupy. What time is it now? Four in the morning, maybe? Five?
Even a month ago Matthew would have found it hard to believe that he’d be curled up with Jiwoong every night. It’s almost funny to think about. Coming into the show, Matthew had been so nervous about making any new friends. He’d been separated from Hanbin immediately by the nature of his home country, and the lance of fear that sent through him had been real at the time. Now, Matthew’s closest circle here doesn’t even have Hanbin in it. Not really. It’s Jay and Kamden and the comfort of English in an accent that sounds so much like his own. It’s Keita and his simultaneous doting and messing around. It’s Jongwoo and his gruff generosity, the way he can’t help but show just how much he cares.
And it’s Jiwoong, too. Somehow it always comes back to Jiwoong.
Their connection doesn’t really make sense on paper. Matthew himself forgets how they fit, sometimes, frayed nerves cutting away at the ease and leaving behind only doubts. They’ll be apart for a day and Matthew will think it was all a fluke. An invention by editing, a counterpoint to Hanbin finding his literal soulmate in the only trainee good enough to challenge him for first place.
And then he sees Jiwoong after practice, rumpled and tired and smiling when he catches Matthew’s eye, and everything makes sense again.
“Jiwoong-hyung,” he mumbles. He thinks he’s mangled the -ng again, but he can’t really hear it himself. It’s always someone else pointing it out, and that someone else is never Jiwoong. “Are you scared? For the results?”
He doesn’t know why he feels like he can talk about it tonight when every other attempt has closed his throat up.
Jiwoong hums. “I am.”
“I was at the bottom,” Matthew whispers. “Last time.”
“Mm.”
It’s as though fans like him less and less the more they see of him. Each episode revealing more of Matthew’s imperfections, all the ways he’s lacking. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it. Maybe the only version of him that could have deserved it is the one that doesn’t exist. But he can’t bring himself to say that part out loud.
“I want to make it,” he says. “Really bad, hyung. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t.”
“You’ll make it,” Jiwoong answers calmly.
“But if I don’t?”
Jiwoong sighs, not unkindly. “Then you’ll land on your feet. And if you want to act in a BL, I’ll connect you with some directors I know, don’t worry.”
Matthew giggles at that. “Really?”
“Of course. Fans would lose their minds. You’d smile once and they’d put music and flower effects over it, and you’d win everyone’s heart right there in the first episode.”
“Would you be in it too?”
“I have to debut with the final group, don’t I?”
“Hyung,” Matthew whines, “you can’t do that without me.” It’s easier to make it a joke. It’s easier to dig an elbow into Jiwoong’s disconcertingly muscular abdomen and pretend there’s no universe in which one of them could make it without the other.
Six months ago, Matthew had never even heard of Kim Jiwoong. How can it be now that just the thought of losing him hurts so much?
“We’ll make it. Together.” Jiwoong, steady as ever, presses the shape of his mouth against Matthew’s temple. A glancing kiss? Just the promise of one, maybe, or the threat. Matthew shivers either way.
“But you don’t know—”
“Listen to your hyung,” Jiwoong says firmly. Matthew closes his mouth. “Didn’t I tell you to trust and follow me?”
Matthew nods.
“One more elimination. That’s all. Seok Matthew-yah,” Jiwoong continues, lilting, “did you know you’re my one-pick?”
“No I’m not.”
“You are,” Jiwoong confirms. He sounds shy about it now, embarrassed, which is how Matthew knows he’s telling the truth. “I vote for you every day.”
Matthew can’t wrap his head around that. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s just a few votes,” Jiwoong soothes.
He’s right that it won’t be a difference maker, but Matthew doesn’t think that anywhere, even in the most generous recesses of his own heart, would he be able to find the impulse to vote for another contestant over himself.
“You’re unbelievable,” Matthew says quietly, but it doesn’t come out as accusatory as he planned.
“You think too much.”
“True,” Matthew responds, “but still.”
“Still what?”
“Ugh, I don’t know.” Matthew yawns so hugely after that his jaw cracks, which makes Jiwoong laugh again, that warm, low sound.
They both shift a little, and Matthew ends up with his head half on Jiwoong’s shoulder, Jiwoong’s arm still most of the way around his shoulders. “Sleep time, I think,” Jiwoong murmurs.
The part of Matthew that’s wired revolts, but it’s getting drowned out by genuine exhaustion. Jiwoong spoke directly to his worries and they quieted down. Jiwoong asked for trust and something in Matthew knew to give it over without fear.
All right, he thinks. Okay. There’s just one more thing he wants to ask, and then he can let it all go for a few hours.
“Hyung will let me wear his perfume for the performance, right?”
It’s a silly question. He thinks he sounds young while asking, whiny how he gets when talking to someone he knows will indulge him. He just needs to hear Jiwoong tell him yes one more time.
Jiwoong traces around the shell of Matthew’s ear, the touch brain-meltingly soft. “Whatever you want.”
“Thanks,” Matthew breathes.
That was all he needed. He thinks he manages a final goodnight, words smeared into the night at least half in English, and he falls asleep with his cheek tucked into the curve of Jiwoong’s shoulder and his eyes finally fluttering shut.
.
When he dreams that night, it’s of the final elimination broadcast. It’s hot blinding lights and discordant chanting of names. It’s the swell of hope and then the fall, everyone he loves getting called up and leaving Matthew behind. If it ended there he might have been all right, but the nightmare inexorably presses on, and he’s met with condolences from the wave of the other 17 trainees returning from the stage, all of whom somehow made it through without him. Some of them are crying. Some don’t talk to him at all.
In the dream, Jiwoong looks at him sadly and says Maybe in another life, hm?
Matthew startles awake with damp cheeks and shuddering breaths to Jiwoong’s concerned face. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” he whispers, stirred-up and ashamed. He blinks hard, trying to get his bearings back.
Jiwoong wipes the tears from his face. “Bad dream?”
“Don’t go without me,” Matthew says. He might be speaking English. He might have said something else entirely, by accident, by way of the panic that’s shaking his hands and tightening his throat.
“We have another hour or so before we need to be up,” Jiwoong tells him. He looks very calm aside from something in his eyes, but Matthew is too tired to parse that right now. “Do you want to try to go back to sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s try.”
Matthew trusts him. Follows him. “Okay.” His heart rate is finally slowing down, though the sick feeling remains.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jiwoong says.
“Okay,” Matthew repeats. “Okay, hyung.”
He hadn’t really woken all the way up, so it’s all too easy to fall back into a dozing state, especially considering how worn down his body is from all the practice. As wired as he feels, it can’t be any later than seven or so in the morning. He needs the sleep.
He feels a kiss to his hair. “Hyung,” he says again.
“Hm?”
But Matthew is too tired to finish the thought, which slipped away like water in his hands the second he thought to verbalize it.
He thinks he hears Jiwoong laugh as he drifts off. He thinks Jiwoong says something else. He doesn’t hear it, though.
He just sleeps.
.
Two days later, Matthew’s name is called for third place.
“I told you,” Jiwoong whispers into his ear once Matthew is high enough up the stairs to be pulled into a hug. Matthew is so excited he wants to shake Jiwoong like a soda can. Wants to look at the ceiling and scream until his voice goes raw. There are more names to call and nothing in him will settle until the team is finalized, but the weight off his shoulders is too huge to process.
“We’re debuting!” Matthew yells at him.
Jiwoong laughs and pulls him closer. He's broad and warm. He doesn't mind that he's more or less holding Matthew up for a moment, and whispers jokes until Matthew has to pull away because he's cackling. I'm wearing your perfume, he wants to say , and almost does. Can Jiwoong smell it? Can he tell? Is he as proud of Matthew as he looks?
Eventually Matthew does have to go to his seat, where he tips his head back and tries to take it all in. The broadcast continues, just as slowly as it had while he was waiting but with so many fewer nerves. He keeps catching his family’s eyes in the audience and almost sobbing again. It’s waiting, and it’s hoping, but Matthew’s nightmare isn’t reality. He came in third. Third. He laughs again to himself, disbelieving.
Hanbin in second is a shock, but Matthew forgets about places once they’re jumping up and down together like little kids. Zhang Hao walking up with him is somehow both classy and rebellious, and Matthew looks at his team so far and thinks about how much he can learn from them. How much he wants to.
It’s just position nine after that, and there’s a rush to get the broadcast cut before it starts violating labor rules for minors. The announcement comes almost before Matthew has braced for it.
Yujin joins them in a daze. They all end up in a messy, discombobulated group hug. Half of them are still crying, and Matthew can’t even tell if he’s one of them with so much adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream. It feels right to be in this huddle. It feels like a new kind of home.
Home, Matthew thinks. How unfathomable this had been at the start.
Amidst the chaos, he looks up to find Jiwoong already watching him. Happy? he mouths at Matthew.
Yes, he mouths back, and then again, and again. Yes, yes yes.
There are so many ways this could hurt down the line, but for now? Matthew is happy. Jiwoong seems to understand, stomping his feet in that distractingly cute way of his and beaming. God, he’s handsome. Someday Matthew will kiss him properly. Someday they’ll tease each other even more than they already do, and Matthew will climb into Jiwoong’s lap and see how long it takes him to crack and grab Matthew’s waist so hard he bruises. Someday, someday.
The future stretches out in front of him like an impossible dream, technicolor in all its joys and fears and surprises. For now, though, Matthew has this enormous happiness, the hope that comes with it, and the knowledge that he doesn’t have to bear any of it alone.