Work Text:
5.
Their kiss scene gets leaked three years and three months after they film it on a beach in Tahiti, and three years and three months after they become boyfriends.
When it had been cut from the music video, it was something of a relief for them both. It meant their intimacy was a secret just for them (and their eleven bandmates, and the music video crew, and the production staff… but mostly just for them). It’s a clip their fans have long since accepted exists, but they’ll never see, for the sake of Seungkwan and Wonwoo’s reputation.
Seungkwan used to laugh at that and say it was more for Wonwoo’s reputation. Now, he’s watching the scene go viral on social media with a bemused expression on his face.
“Why has this come out now?” he says, cheek smushed into Wonwoo’s chest, phone propped up on Wonwoo’s stomach.
“Beats me,” Wonwoo says, half-asleep. Everyone important in his life already knows he’s dating Seungkwan, and he doesn’t really care what anyone else has to say about the clip. He soothes his hand up and down Seungkwan’s back leisurely.
“Hey, seriously. Only a few people should have had access to this. Aren’t you bothered someone has betrayed our trust?” Seungkwan turns his head so his chin digs into Wonwoo’s chest, and Wonwoo cracks an eye open to look at him.
“No? We’re idols, remember? This kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. It’ll be a member of production staff who left Pledis, or something.”
Seungkwan pokes him, scrunching up his nose. “You’re way too relaxed about this.”
“What’s the worst that can happen? People think that we’re dating? Our fans have always known this clip existed. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“It’s different for them to actually see it, isn’t it?”
Wonwoo blinks his eyes open properly. “Do you hate it?”
Seungkwan shrugs. “I don’t like it.”
He shuffles down to kiss the top of his boyfriend’s head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. At least it’s not something actually private.”
“Exactly. It could be much worse. Like I said, we’re idols.”
Seungkwan settles down again, cheek on his chest, looking up at Wonwoo rather than down at his phone this time. “But what if people start to figure it out after this? Piece other things together, look at us a bit too closely?”
He can’t say he hasn’t considered this. Many, many times he’s thought about the complexity of coming out with Seungkwan.
He kind of wants to shout to the world about his lovely boyfriend. How funny, witty, special, good, beautiful and thoughtful he is. He wants to celebrate with those who would celebrate them.
But is it worth everything they could lose? Could doing so only make things harder for them both?
“Then we’ll deal with that when it comes,” he says, quiet for the hour, steady for the beat of his heart. “But I don’t want to waste time worrying about it if it’s out of my control.”
Seungkwan blinks slowly, humming in consideration. “I wish I could think more like you do.”
Wonwoo rubs his back slowly again with a smile. “Stay here for longer. You might absorb some of my chill.”
Seungkwan laughs, a high little giggle. “There’s no way we can sleep like this. I’ll pull a muscle.”
“Don’t go yet,” he whines. “I’ll miss you.”
Seungkwan makes a considering noise in his throat. “Okay. But you have to let me get ready for bed eventually.”
“Deal,” he says instantly, wrapping his other arm around Seungkwan, who throws his leg over Wonwoo’s, sighing into his chest, the two of them comfortably tangled together.
3.
Wonwoo is twenty-five when he falls in love with Boo Seungkwan.
Well, falls in love is a little dramatic. More accurately, Seungkwan falls, hurts his leg during dance practice, and has to spend weeks and weeks being careful with it before he can dance again. He cries about missing out on HIT promotions, and Wonwoo’s heart hurts for him so much, he realises he’s got the softest spot for him, out of everyone.
He spends their down-time sitting with him, watching reality TV, discussing new music, or filling him in on their schedules he can’t attend. Seungkwan tells him how much he appreciates the company, and Wonwoo feels like the special one in his eyes.
After several weeks of this, he comes close to confessing. Comeback periods are hectic enough to make anyone feel delirious, and Seungkwan spends so much time backstage clinging to him, kissing his hand or cheek or back of his head, giving him extra helpings of their food and looking for him in a crowd, that Wonwoo slowly, steadily, starts to convince himself he’s special.
He snaps out of it just in time. He realises Seungkwan will hold onto anyone’s arm when he’s feeling clingy—he’ll feed anyone extras who showed him some extra attention that day. He’ll give kisses freely, and is grateful to all of them for looking out for him.
Of course he is. Wonwoo reprimands himself internally, rights himself, and smiles in Seungkwan’s direction whenever he looks at him.
He can get over these feelings in time. He’s sure of it.
8.
He’s sat in a chair in the middle of his dad’s kitchen, Seungkwan watching the hair fall to the floor, when he finally faces the reality of completing 18 months of military service.
“Do you know what I’ll miss the most?”
“Bookkeu,” Seungkwan says, with the sort of confidence that makes Wonwoo laugh and his dad place a hand on his shoulder to still him.
“No. I can’t believe I’m going to miss your solo debut because I’m in the army. I’m going to be like a little fanboy, watching your schedules before bedtime.”
Seungkwan snorts, and hits his arm, but Wonwoo can tell he’s pleased. “You’ve already heard the song! You’ve heard me practice it a million times. I thought you’d be glad to get away from that.”
“Nah,” he grins, catching Seungkwan’s hand as it falls into his lap. “I can’t believe I’ve heard so many unfinished versions, and you’re going to polish it all off without me. I want to say I was there to see you outshine the stars.”
Seungkwan shakes his head with a repressed smile, turning pink. “You are so embarrassing sometimes.”
Wonwoo’s smile splits his face, and the buzzing of the electric razor cuts out. Seungkwan looks at him, and his dad smooths down the buzzed hair on his head, getting rid of any excess.
He thanks his dad, and stands up, going over to the kitchen mirror to take a look at himself. Seungkwan follows after him, not letting Wonwoo release his hand.
“I’m going to miss you,” Seungkwan says after a moment, as they both stand there looking into the mirror. He runs his hands over Wonwoo’s shaved head, and while Wonwoo isn’t the biggest fan of the look, he can’t help but grin dumbly. Probably because Seungkwan is also grinning dumbly, and his eyes are a little shiny, and he’s been clingier and kissier than ever lately.
Wonwoo gets it. He doesn’t want to go either.
“Then you can’t think about me too much. Focus on your work. But don’t forget about me, either.”
“Like I ever could,” Seungkwan says, resting his head on Wonwoo’s shoulder. “You’ll be cheering me on, right?”
“Wherever I am, I’m going to be supporting you,” he says, kissing the top of Seungkwan’s head, and bringing him in for a hug.
1.
Wonwoo joins Pledis at fifteen years old, and stays for reasons that aren’t clear to anyone except the CEO, who sees Wonwoo as something of a golden child. He’s not really sure why, because he can’t sing like Jihoon, can’t dance like Soonyoung, and is only beginning to learn to rap.
It’s hard work. It’s hopeless and thankless, most of the time. Trainees come and go under the strict regimen they work to each week.
In his mind, the ones that stay are the reason Wonwoo also stays.
Seungcheol is everything he thinks he can be. Jihoon is everything he wants to debut with. He sees parts of himself in Mingyu. Soonyoung is the most driven person he’s ever met, and that inspires him. Then, a year after he joins, Seungkwan comes to Pledis at just fourteen years old.
It’s with a lot of other trainees—the most important of them being Vernon, Junhui, Chan, Mingming and Samuel. Still, he’s the loudest of them all, and the funniest, and makes a name for himself with the amount of time he spends shouting and crying and making the other boys laugh.
He’s got a lot of love in him, and a lot of passion for a fourteen-year-old boy. And in the face of harsh words about his appearance, recommendations for his diet and cosmetic surgeries, and jokes at his expense, Wonwoo thinks he’s as cute as the rest of the kids training with them. Maybe even cuter, because he’s so friendly. Wonwoo hates how hard the Noonas can be on him, sometimes.
He doesn’t say much to him in those early days. He’s not the lively, chatty type like Seungkwan. But he pays attention, and he cares for him, and he grows alongside him for three years before they even begin to make anything of themselves.
4.
Their first kiss is, well…
When Wonwoo lies in bed and thinks about how much he loves Seungkwan, and goes over the milestones they’ve hit since getting together, he has to classify things like ‘first kiss’ into different stages.
First, there’s the first first kiss. He has no idea when that was. Seungkwan is very giving, and it’s very likely he got a kiss to the cheek when they were still teenagers at some point, when it meant nothing but gratefulness that he was Seungkwan’s friend and bandmate.
Then there was their first real kiss, as coworkers.
“I think we need to practise for our roles in the music video.” Seungkwan’s eyes flick to Wonwoo’s mouth.
Wonwoo’s brain goes blissfully blank. “Are you seriously suggesting we do kissing practise?”
“You said you wouldn’t call me crazy!”
“I’m not!” he says, floundering. It’s not like him to flounder. “But I didn’t expect you to mean that!”
“We’ve got about ten days until filming, and I can’t even remember a time we’ve held hands. Don’t you think it’s a good idea to ease into it?”
When Wonwoo had kissed him then, he was imagining he could be professional about it. They’d been asked to do this for work, and both agreed. Any old feelings he had for Seungkwan could stay away. Seungkwan had asked this of him, and not knowing his own limits, he’d believed he could go through with it.
When Seungkwan had laughed into their first actual kiss, all weirded out and keyed up, Wonwoo had thought with certainty that he would never have a chance with Seungkwan. Not a real chance.
And then, just a few weeks later, came their first kiss as boyfriends. That’s the one he likes to think of.
Seungkwan had been sitting in his lap, hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders, and unlike their first kiss for work, their first kiss for love was initiated by Seungkwan. Wonwoo had held him around his waist, as Seungkwan ran hands through Wonwoo’s hair, and at that point they were so used to the feel of each other that it was easy and right and warm, the two of them fitting together perfectly.
Off the back of their confession, though, it felt new, and full of a kind of passion he was only just discovering, and it was more exciting than anything he’d done in his life before.
Seungkwan had kissed him for what felt like the whole night—kissed his lips until they were bitten and tender, kissed along his jaw and left bruises down neck, and Wonwoo had kissed him back, hands on his thighs, tongue tracing along the seam of his mouth gently, discovering every part of Seungkwan he dared.
That night changed the course of his life. When they have their honeymoon, he wants to go back to Tahiti, and relive the magic they created that day.
6.
There are times when things get hard.
Not because they’re idols, or because they’re in a same-sex relationship and hiding it from the public eye for two and a half years running.
Sometimes, life just catches up to them.
Their only saving grace is that many of their schedules are the same. But Seungkwan is ambitious, and has a different TV show slot every season, and so many idol friends that like having his time and attention almost as much as Wonwoo does.
Wonwoo’s duty to his family grows, especially as he gets older. He moves back home to help out for a while, and Seungkwan gets so busy, and…
Sometimes, Wonwoo looks up, and realises they haven’t spent time together for weeks and weeks. He realises that he’s demotivated, that Seungkwan is exhausted, that everything they do together is for work, not for leisure.
Date night comes into effect. It’s flexible, tentative, and sometimes consists of ordering food together and falling asleep on the couch watching I Live Alone.
It’s alright. Sometimes it’s too hard to do much more. The moments they have together are special enough, anyway.
9.
There’s this perfect window of time, after he comes back from his service—roughly a year of time for the two of them to move in together before Seungkwan has to enlist too.
With too much of the group scattered or serving to do a full comeback, it’s a year for them to be a little freer, enjoy being with each other, and for Seungkwan to have some fun before doing his service.
As it turns out, it’s the exact year his brother needs to enlist. His brother, who has a new baby—his brother, who is starting to regret the choice of becoming a single father.
Wonwoo tells him to go and enlist without worries. That he’ll take care of everything.
“You told him what?” Seungkwan says, voice raised, but coming down again at the end, eyes on the 6-month old Bora in Wonwoo’s arms. “You—you what?”
“The mother’s family don’t want anything to do with her,” Wonwoo says, rocking the sleeping infant gently. She looks so sweet in sleep. “My Dad wouldn’t be any good with a young baby like her. I didn’t want my brother to give her up.”
Seungkwan comes to sit beside him. Wonwoo has only been back from the military a week or so, and they're on the tail end of all the making-up-for-lost-time giddiness. “Give her up? Are you telling me… have you just agreed to take care of her… permanently?”
Wonwoo goes a little pink in the cheeks. This is something he should’ve discussed with Seungkwan, definitely—but his brother had been in a panic yesterday, and Wonwoo had been desperate to avoid the worst case scenario. He’d said what he thought was the most obvious solution.
“Maybe?” he says, stroking Bora’s cheek lightly. “Um. Can we just try, for a little while? If you don’t like it, we don’t have to keep her. One of my aunts might take her. But… she’s so young. I want her to have someone who loves her, at least for a little while.”
Seungkwan watches him with those eyes that hold so much love. He leans in over Bora, and Wonwoo offers her up. Wordlessly, Seungkwan positions himself better to receive her.
As he holds Bora for the first time, Wonwoo sees the change in his body language. He sees the way his pinched forehead smoothes out, his smile curls up, and his gaze rests on her with love.
While, yes, this is definitely something he should’ve warned Seungkwan about ahead of time, Wonwoo likes to think he knows Seungkwan better than he knows himself. He knows how Seungkwan feels about children, and knows how hard it will be for them to have any of their own. He knows how much Seungkwan loves, and how much he’s willing to give to those who will take it.
Who knows—maybe his brother will come home ready to raise her. Even if he doesn’t, maybe Seungkwan will come back from his enlistment with a new perspective, wanting to live a little more before settling down.
But Wonwoo is a big believer in trying, even if you don’t necessarily know the outcome.
“You’re crazy,” Seungkwan says quietly, and Wonwoo takes a moment to understand that’s for him, not the baby.
“I have my moments,” he replies, looking his way.
Seungkwan looks up, expression newly determined. “Let’s try to love her like she deserves. Just for a while.”
Wonwoo smiles and leans in, kissing Seungkwan’s clothed shoulder. “If it’s love you want to trial run, I know you’ll succeed with flying colours,” he says, and leans in to kiss his cheek, then Bora’s right after.
“You sap,” Seungkwan says, very quietly, before leaning in to kiss him back.
2.
Debuting is hard. It means lots of fights, lots of fraught emotions, and little time to talk or play or eat or sleep or think properly.
Seungkwan is rarely one to get involved in the fights, and Wonwoo grew out of that soon after debut. Seungcheol, Soonyoung, Mingyu, Chan—these are the members who will be confrontational when they believe they’re right (which is often). While Seungkwan loves a petty argument, he gets upset easily by a serious fight.
At some point, things start to click, and they talk about their problems rather than shout about them. They stop getting pissed off at each other, living thirteen people to their tiny dorm, and start working together a bit more.
At some point, they all enter adulthood, and find they have some standing in the public eye.
At some point, Wonwoo and Seungkwan start finding time to talk, and play, and eat and sleep and think together. Wonwoo remembers the first time he went out for a meal with just Seungkwan—he remembers how much he enjoyed his company, loved Seungkwan’s attention on him, loved how Seungkwan was surprised at just how much he found out about Wonwoo. Being the quiet one is easy for him—it’s what he’s used to. But he also loves getting to really talk with someone, in small groups or one-on-one. Getting to know them, and them getting to know him.
A year later, he figures out his crush. He supposes it was a long time coming.
10.
They never really disband, but things do peter out as they get older, and a group comeback becomes a rare and special occasion. To Wonwoo, that makes everything more fun. Even in their mid and late thirties, they can have as much fun together as when they were kids.
There’s a no-partners rule enforced at the group meal they have ahead of each comeback—while they’re all on good terms with each other’s partners, the pre-comeback meal is for the team of them only.
This, of course, leads to much goading about his and Seungkwan’s relationship, despite having been together for nearly fifteen years running.
“We have to kick one of them out, they both brought their partner,” Soonyoung says, voice raised above the table when he and Seungkwan arrive.
Seungkwan knocks him up the side of his head. “Don’t you get tired of making that joke?”
“Also, you didn’t say anything about children,” Wonwoo grins, as Bora comes into view between the tables, nine years old and clutching Wonwoo’s hand. “Someone needs to give up their chair, or Bora will be sitting on you.”
“Hey,” Seungcheol says, trying to look stern even as he greets Bora with a hug. “This isn’t a family dinner!”
“Isn’t it?” Seungkwan says, looking at everyone around the table. “I’m seeing all our family here, though?”
Mingyu makes a strange little pleased-disgusted-protesting-happy noise, and goes to drag over another chair for Bora between him and Seokmin.
“You love wriggling around the rules,” Minghao says, amused.
“You’re not the only one with children, you know. You’re telling me you had no choice but to bring her?” Joshua says, shifting the beer bottles further up the table.
“I wanted to come!” Bora says, clambering up onto her chair as Mingyu watches. As soon as she’s up, she reconsiders, and starts to clamber off it again. “I missed you, Uncle!”
Jeonghan coos and watches as Bora runs up to give Joshua a hug, and then starts working her way around the table, making sure all eleven uncles get a Bora hug. Truly Seungkwan’s daughter—the tactic works well to soften them all up.
“We let you get away with so much because she’s so cute,” Seungcheol informs him, and Wonwoo beams.
“It’s what I rely on, Hyung.”
Bora reaches them, and climbs up onto Seungkwan, who huffs and lifts her into a proper hug.
“Love you, Appa.”
“I love you too, honey,” Seungkwan says, kissing the top of her head. Bora climbs down, reaching up to Wonwoo for a hug too.
“Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, sweetie,” Wonwoo says, holding her, smile pressed into her hair. “Go and take your seat, okay? Look, the food is coming.”
“I have to hug Uncle Cheollie quickly,” she says, scrambling over to include Seungcheol before she has to start eating.
“See, how could we leave her at home?” Seungkwan says, tutting in Seugncheol’s direction, who goes soft in the face of his second Bora hug in the span of two minutes.
“I still think one of you has to leave,” Soonyoung says. “What about the partner rule? That doesn’t include Bora. She can stay.”
Seungkwan whacks him again. Wonwoo laughs, and places a hand on Seungkwan’s thigh, distracting him by loading some dumplings onto his plate.
7.
When Seungcheol’s enlistment starts to loom on the horizon, the whole group starts spending more time together. Wonwoo didn’t think that was possible, even though most of them don’t live together anymore, but they manage it. It isn’t even agreed upon—it just happens.
He doesn’t mind it. Being fourth in line to go, his enlistment period is creeping up on him too.
It does make everything more tiring. They’re in the midst of a comeback—what’s likely their last full-group comeback for some time—and they’re also organising social hangouts between hectic schedules. This is sometimes hard to squeeze in around individual schedules on the team, too.
It becomes harder to grab time just for the two of them, when they both feel they should be putting all their efforts into the team before the long stretch of separation among them, rather than spending time as a couple.
But he doesn’t want to lose the moments he treasures so much with Seungkwan, when they’re only paying attention to each other. Their bed becomes their safe sanctuary. When Seungkwan watches a video late at night, Wonwoo watches with him—when he sings from the bathroom while applying moisturiser, Wonwoo puts down his phone and listens. When Seungkwan lies in the dark with his worries, Wonwoo pays attention, no matter how tired he is.
Tonight is something different. Seungkwan is lying awake, still, and Wonwoo is hanging on to consciousness, wondering why.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks, voice drowsy and slow.
Seungkwan reaches out to him, hand coming up to rest at his nape. “Just you.”
“Me?” he asks, surprised, cracking open an eye even though he can barely see Seungkwan in the dark.
“Yeah, you.”
“What about me?”
“Nothing much. Just that you did well today.”
“I did?”
“Of course. You do well all the time. You never show when you’re tired. You never complain.”
“That’s because I love it. I love being with you guys. I love being with you.”
“Even when it’s hard?”
“Even then.”
Seungkwan reaches further, so he’s resting an arm over Wonwoo. He’s wearing one of Wonwoo’s shirts to sleep in, so when Wonwoo runs a hand up his back comfortingly, Seungkwan feels all his.
“I think I love you more every day,” Seungkwan whispers. “It’s scary. How do you do that?”
Wonwoo smiles into the dark, rolls over slightly to blindly press a kiss to Seungkwan’s face. He lands on his nose, and they both laugh.
“You have more love than anyone I’ve ever known. I feel lucky you chose me to give it to.”
When Seungkwan lands his kiss, it perfectly sits on Wonwoo’s mouth. “I didn’t choose anything. You happened to me, and I’ve never been happier for something as unexpected as falling in love with you.”
Wonwoo kisses him back, and holds him close. “I love you so much.”
Seungkwan links their hands together, and Wonwoo cups his face. Without his glasses on, he seriously can’t see a thing in the dark, but it’s okay—he knows Seungkwan’s face by heart, and he can feel the smile pushing at his cheeks.
“I think I’m going to love you forever,” Seungkwan replies, resting into Wonwoo’s arms. “No matter what.”
“Please do,” Wonwoo says, smiling too, the two of them settling back down in the dark. “And I’ll love you every day.”
They still don’t sleep for a while. It’s not so bad—they enjoy lying together. Just the two of them and their love in the dark.