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San had said during a live once, “Wooyoung would always come back to me.” Mingi had refuted his comment saying it was the opposite. Jongho hadn't paid much mind to it but when Wooyoung came to know about it, he didn't like how correct that statement was.
San was Wooyoung's first love.
San is Wooyoung's first love.
Wooyoung, a not so normal boy from Ilsan, who dreamed of becoming an idol after watching his favorite group perform. The world of dancing and singing, performing on a stage, going around the world and making a change. So naturally, like a normal teenager, he began working for his dream.
The name Wooyoung means someone who can make a lot of friends. Maybe his parents were some kind of sorcerers because they named him real well. Wooyoung was loud and sometimes annoying according to the societal scale of annoyingness but he was an extrovert and a heartthrob nonetheless. He was easy to talk to, from old people to kids, everyone eased around him. Wooyoung was always proud of that.
Determined to follow his dreams, he joined a big company and made a lot of friends. He was training at his role model's company and had a best friend he trusted with his life. Training was hard but Wooyoung was no giver.
However his beloved best friend, Yeosang, made a decision which shouldn't have concerned Wooyoung much but it did. Yeosang left the big company for a smaller one. A company mostly unknown and had no chance of guaranteeing success. If Wooyoung wanted, he could've chosen to stay at the company he always dreamed about.
But Wooyoung was, contrary to what others usually presumed, a softie at heart.
He was happy when he joined KQ, he didn't regret his decision of following his best friend to an unknown company with no grantee of debuting. He just wanted to be with him, through thick and thin, through failure or success. Wooyoung was like that, committing to every relationship with all his heart. He took feelings seriously and when he loved somebody, he would do anything for them.
So it really shouldn't have come as a surprise when Wooyoung fell in love with a fellow trainee. A guy who managed to steal his heart through such simple gestures.
Choi San. A small frail and shy boy from Namhae who couldn't even dance when he first joined— a good ice-breaker from his side as he says himself— intrigued something in Wooyoung. Now, the younger was no stranger to making friends with absolute introverts so being the social butterfly he was, he started becoming close to him.
And they did start out nice. San was shy and Wooyoung was not but still they were growing closer than anyone else in the team.
There was something about San, he was so different, so much more unique than anyone Wooyoung had ever met. He was different on camera and different when the world didn't watch all his moves. He was a nice person, but to an extent. He stood in a gray area and Wooyoung could never make out if San was someone dangerous or just unique.
Wooyoung and San had their pros and cons, their similarities and differences but Wooyoung never really cared about those. He always looked at San through rose-tinted glasses, but San wasn't a bad person. He was just different.
But when did Wooyoung actually fall in love with San?
Wooyoung remembers that time really well.
It was a stormy night and everyone was stuck in the company, not being able to get to the dorms. Wooyoung was assigned to get snacks for everyone else having lost a simple game of rock-paper-scissors, San just tagged along like always. Fortunately for them there was a convenience store right below their company and they were quite well known to the cashier working there so they got their snacks pretty fast.
They headed towards the stairs when the light had cut off abruptly causing Wooyoung to stumble and fall on his face. To his demise, the light came back when he was on the ground, kissing it. San hadn't laughed like most friends do and quickly helped him, dropping all the food in his arms. Fortunately he only scratched his knee a little, a small frail of blood oozing out of his skin.
San didn't say anything and quickly went down the stairs, ignoring Wooyoung's call for him. Wooyoung sat there for unknown reason, he didn't even know where San had gone or if he was even coming back or how much time would it really take him to come back but he stayed put as if his heart knew that San wouldn't leave him like this.
To his heart’s assumptions, San came back with a plastic bag in his hands and beads of sweat on his temples.
“Where did you go, Sannie?” Wooyoung had asked him in a soft voice, already becoming acquainted with his lack of ability to multitask.
“I have to clean this up, what if you catch an infection or something?” San bent down and began working on his small injury. It didn't even need the amount of things San had bought him, a bandaid would have suffice but San was San, he did what he wanted to.
“Why do you care if I catch an infection?” Wooyoung only had meant to tease him, wanting to fluster San because of his exaggeration. It was something he would've done with any of his friends, the other members cared for him too, they would've gone and bought him a bandaid too but they wouldn't have said what San did.
“Because I love you and you are my best friend.”
It was a simple sentence. A mere confession from your best friend. Wooyoung had said something similar to Yeosang several times. But something about the way San said it to him, the sincerity, the genuineness, and the seriousness of his voice made goosebumps rise on Wooyoung's skin.
Wooyoung was startled for a moment before he burst out laughing, his loud shriek voice that annoyed everyone around him echoing through the staircase. Hearing the echo of his own laugh startled him and he quickly slapped a hand on his mouth, muttering a small sorry on instinct.
“Don't be. I love your laugh too.” San leaned in with a smile and Wooyoung, for god knows what reason, removed his hand from his mouth. He thought San was going to kiss him and this was all his deliberate plan to confess to Wooyoung. Maybe he will finally say that Wooyoung's kindness ignited something in him.
Wooyoung would've said yes at that moment even though he didn't exactly love San when that small exchange happened.
San didn't kiss his lips but he did leave a small peck on his cheeks. Something they have done several times too, they both were physically affectionate people, so that small kiss shouldn't have drummed his heart in his chest like that.
But it did. And everything that San did to him after that made his cheek flush, heart race and lips quiver up in a smile.
Another time was when San and Wooyoung were cuddling, like best friends, and Wooyoung had asked him a question that popped in his mind.
“I look mean, don't I?”
“No.” San’s answer was quick. “Do people always look at you that way?” He asked him back. Wooyoung thought for a moment, the memories of the said comment flashing through his mind.
“Yes.” He replied.
“Well they are wrong. Because in my eyes, you look like the sweetest and most caring person ever.” San said it so simply but Wooyoung’s heart beat rose a little.
“You are saying this because I am your best friend.” He tried shaking it off but San cut him through it.
“Well probably yes. But I am saying this because I know you well and even when I first saw you, I only saw a guy who was confident and determined to be a great idol. And confident people aren't mean so those people are wrong about you. You are not mean, you are just sure of yourself.”
The way San talked about him made him warm and happy. His praises always boasts his confidence and everyday San worked to push his insecurities away until Wooyoung didn't know he was in love with him.
Wooyoung was doomed to love San.
And that's how Wooyoung fell in traps after traps of love but San was never there to catch him.
For San didn't love him back, not like Wooyoung loved him. San loved him like how he loved everyone else, like a best friend. Wooyoung may receive his special treatment but that was the ‘best friend special treatment’ not ‘I love you special treatment.’
Nonetheless Wooyoung was okay. He didn't mind loving San from afar, he didn't mind pining for someone like San because San deserved it. San deserved everything in this world, happiness, joy, giggles, love, adoration, success. And Wooyoung gives him everything he can because Wooyoung loves San. He always will.
His pining was easy during the early years of his debut. Being idols came with so many side-jobs and one of them was fanservice. Woosan, a lovely name in Wooyoung's dictionary, was one of the most loved ships of those times.
So naturally the company had advised them to play into the roles of something more than just teammates. Wooyoung was happy when he heard it but San was neutral. He didn't mind but he wasn't exactly ecstatic like Wooyoung was.
But again, he wasn't in love like Wooyoung was so he shrugged it off, thanking the universe for the opportunity. Wooyoung was sure he could make San fall in love with him and he always felt like he was succeeding because San would look at him like he held stars and said words that made his heart flutter but then the camera would cut off and he was back to normal.
San wasn't totally appalled by Wooyoung, they talked and hung out pretty much like olden times but it was just that, like best friends and nothing more. All the ‘maybe we are something more’ was gone when the cameras were gone.
It pained Wooyoung but he had promised himself to love and wait.
Or maybe he shouldn't have because San fell in love too. It was all natural and bound to happen, Wooyoung would be lying if he said that he didn't see it coming. He would be lying if he said he didn't calculate all the possibilities, all the companions, all the options when it came to San’s love life.
And one thing about Wooyoung, he will support San. He will shamelessly give him tips on how to impress and propose, all things he wishes for himself, he will tell that to San and watch him do those things to someone he loves. Someone who was not Wooyoung.
Wooyoung would've been happy supporting him like that.
People often perceived him like he was someone easy and chill. Someone who loved partying and flirting shamelessly with everyone. He flirted and complemented people to ease them up, praising someone is always a nice way to win their heart after all.
He didn't mind if people thought of him like that because he knew the real him. His close friends knew the real him. San knew the real him. The real Wooyoung is a lover through and through. He will love someone with every being of his flesh, doting shamelessly without asking for anything in return.
Wooyoung was like that.
But he didn't know why he couldn't handle his heart when San confessed to liking someone else. Someone who was not Wooyoung.
He didn't understand where all his support and unconditional love went when San’s love turned out to be his own best friend.
Yeosang.
Yeosang was his best friend, still is and always will be. He adored that boy, in fact everyone did. Yeosang was charming, shy and so inevitably cute that you just cannot help yourself to admire him. He was a gentle person, someone who was totally opposite of Wooyoung.
So it shouldn't have come as a surprise when San inevitably fell in love with his best friend's soft charms.
But it hurt him. And it pained like a thousand bees stinging his skin at the same time, it hurted like shit. It broke his heart into a million pieces. Yet Wooyoung couldn't do anything, he couldn't say anything because San didn't tell him that information.
He, unfortunately, came to hear it from a conversation he wasn't originally part of. San confessed to Seonghwa about his hard pinning on Yeosang and Wooyoung had managed to listen to everything, loud and clear. Heartbreaking and sad.
San never told him though. He told everyone but him.
That upset him more than the truth.
Wooyoung had cried several times since that and often wondered if anything would have changed if that night hadn't happened.
It was not like Wooyoung had never signaled his feelings towards San, he had made it very obvious.
Waiting for him after every schedule, giving him praises over every little thing, staying awake and waiting for him to come home, cooking especially for him, staying by his side for two whole days when San fell ill and catering him, (something he has never done for the other members) showing affection with his cheeks flushed and high heart beat even when the cameras were nowhere in sight.
Every member caught on his unrequited love except San.
He did confess once though. Straight and precise. That was the one moment in his life where he laid his heart completely bare, ready to either be held with love or trampled on with San’s lovely feet.
It was the movie marathon night and after skimming through three whole Marvel movies, most of the members had gone to their shared room to sleep or work. Mingi was fast asleep on the couch far away from where San and Wooyoung sat, completely awake for different reasons.
While San was genuinely intrigued by the movie, Wooyoung was contemplating the most important decision of his life. To confess and risk their friendship or to pine for the rest of his life. He chose to confess.
“Sannie?” He had called out in his unusual soft voice, something he only used when he wanted to talk about something that bugged him for a long time. San was well aware of that tone so he immediately turned, abandoning the movie completely.
“I wanted to tell you something.”
“What is it, Woo?” San's voice was so delicate and careful, as if he was afraid of hurting Wooyoung.
Wooyoung took in a sharp breath, staring at the masterpiece of the man in front of him, San had grown a lot since they first met. He looked more manly now, something that made Wooyoung feel small and safe.
They had a beautiful friendship, the ink on their skin was a great reminder of that. San was Wooyoung's everything, from a best friend to his love. It was Wooyoung's peaceful and safe place. This was a risky move but Wooyoung couldn't hold it any longer, four years of pining was enough of a torture for him as it is.
“I love you.” He finally said it.
“I love you too.” The response came quickly but Wooyoung panicked.
“That's not how I meant, Sannie.”
“Then how?” San cutely tilted his head, his eyebrows furrowing and nose scrunching just a little. Oh how cute he looks when he does that.
“Like something more?” Wooyoung didn't expect it to come out as a question but it did and he wanted to slap himself at that.
“Something more? Like how?” San asked him, straightening his position as if he was making a distance between them and it short circuited something in Wooyoung’s already frail heart.
“Like this.” He kissed him on his lips, closing the initial distance that San made. He stayed like that for a moment, eyes closed, great drumming but San never kissed him back.
Wooyoung panicked at the absence of response and quickly retrieved his lips, finally looking at his love’s face. San had a shocked face for a moment, a slight second if Wooyoung was being honest before it was back to the neutral look.
“Stop playing Wooyoung.” San had said to him, his voice becoming an unfamiliar sound in his ears.
“I am not.” If Wooyoung was a tad bit sensible at that moment he would have laughed and agreed that he was playing because then San would have forgiven him. Maybe joke more too but Wooyoung was too heartbroken by the kiss to even think straight.
“You love me like that? That's disgusting Woo.”
Disgusting.
San thought Wooyoung's love for him was disgusting.
“How the fuck is my love for you disgusting?” Wooyoung snapped at him.
“Because people don't love their best friends, Woo. Not romantically. We were supposed to be like that but
you— you love me? All these times? That is disgusting.” This wasn't the San he knew. No, this was someone else.
“Well then forgive me for having a simple fucking emotion San. I am sorry that I fell in love with you! This whole thing, this Woosan shit, I am sorry I let it all go to my head. But I fell in love with you since I first talked to you okay? I love you because— because.” His voice broke, gosh he must look pathetic now.
“But we were supposed to be best friends Woo. That Woosan thing, everyone knew it was a best friend thing, a soulmate even. How could you fall in love?” San asked him, shaking his shoulders as if he was devastated by that news.
“But you are not my best friend! Don't you understand? You are not my best friend, Yeosang is. He always has been. And I am not your best friend either. At least, I have never thought of you as a best friend, I could never bring myself to love you only like a best friend would. No, I am sorry but I cannot.” His sobs finally broke out.
“All these years, you never thought of me as a best friend?” San’s voice was almost a whisper now, sadness slowly seeping across his face. It broke Wooyoung's heart.
“I couldn't.” He honestly said. He doesn't even remember the last time he thought of San as just his best friend, he was always something more.
“I treated you so well, Wooyoung! How could you—” His voice suddenly rose, not caring about the fast asleep boy who was present in the room with them.
“That's the fucking problem! You shouldn't have! If you didn't treat me like that— If only you didn't treat me with so much love and care and adoration, I wouldn't have fallen in love with you. But no, you had to do all these special things for me— surprising me when I had a solo shoot, looking at me when you make a joke, showering me with kisses, understanding all my simple thoughts, participating in my stupid antics, keeping up with my whiny and bratty attitude, calling me sweet names, being jealous when I got too close with others, making me laugh all the time, making me happy! If only you didn't look at me like I had hung the stars in my eyes, then maybe I wouldn't have fallen in love with you."
“I just treated you well because you were my best friend Wooyoung and some of them were just fanservice, you knew that.” San disappointedly says.
“I know! I know how well you treated me but isn't that the answer to your question earlier? You treated me so well that I forgot the line. At one point I thought that being this— whatever the fuck Woosan was— it will change something in your mind. Trick you into falling in love with me! I am sorry, okay?”
Wooyoung ran away after that. He was sure he wouldn't be able to hear anything more, he couldn't bear to hear the harsh words that left San’s mouth. San wasn't being unreasonable, he truly never loved Wooyoung more than a best friend would. In San’s eyes, if they ever crossed a line that wasn't under the so-called rules of being best friends, it was fanservice. Something to feed their fans. Nothing more.
But for Wooyoung, it was everything.
Woosan was a lovely word in Wooyoung's dictionary but it lost its meaning way too soon.
A lot of things changed after that night. Wooyoung and San apologized after a week of not saying a word to each other. The members forced them to do so. Wooyoung made a promise that he would move on and San and Wooyoung could go back to being friends. Not best friends though. That line was never there in the first place.
San agreed and then acted like nothing really happened. He truly was different. They interacted like normal in front of cameras although off cameras it was always a little awkward.
Woosan was demolished soon after San confessed being in love with Yeosang.
It was during a meeting when the new creative director had raised the point that Woosan was too outdated and becoming boring and had advised that since San was so good at showing chemistry with his fellow teammates, he could try to fish more people into the fandom with a new ship.
Wooyoung didn't say a word in that meeting. He just watched the Woosan written on the white board being cut off by a straight line and replaced by Sansang. A name San chose himself.
San was happy, happier than Wooyoung had ever seen him. It broke his heart a little every day when he had to sit and stand far away from San, always at the other end, and watch him interact with his best friend.
It broke his heart when San openly expressed how much he wanted Yeosang to be his. When San fought with their own fans for his love. When San kissed him, hugged him, took care of him. Everything about this new arrangement broke Wooyoung's heart.
Yeosang obviously knew that Wooyoung loved San. But Wooyoung had lied to him saying he had moved on even when he had not.
Even so he wanted to assure his best friend that the ‘bro code’ didn't apply here. Yeosang is free to date San because Wooyoung doesn't love him anymore. Yeosang had not agreed straight away but San was a charmer so when his best friend of almost a decade and his first love got closer and began going on dates. Wooyoung couldn't do anything but cry in his room.
Things changed a lot, time was a healer but it never healed Wooyoung’s heart. Instead it made it worse. Time reminded Wooyoung how he was ruined to always be infatuated with San. That no matter how much it pains his heart to see his best friend and love interact like they are lovers, Wooyoung would watch everything like a fool and still be in love with San.
Because Wooyoung was a puppet of love. He was like a horse tied in an open field, freedom was all across him but the knot on the rope around his neck never let him go far. He could only walk small circles until the rope tightened around his neck and forced him back to where he was. He couldn't do anything but scrape the small amount of love given to him.
Wooyoung didn't understand why he was so hopelessly in love with San. But then he would look at him once and all those memories of them, laughing and being in their own world would haunt him. He would smile and live in those memories, not letting them go.
If San gave him even a little bit of attention, a glance, a comment, a touch Wooyoung would smile. He would feel giddy and get shy. That's the power San had on him. No one could make Wooyoung shy but San.
So he waited for him, for attention and special treatment.
Because he still, stupidly believed, that maybe one day San would fall in love with him.
And everything about that thought was foolish because deep down Wooyoung knew that San would never fall in love with someone like Wooyoung.
Wooyoung was loud and whiny, he was way too confident. He wasn't timid or shy, he wasn't cute or had a pretty aura. He was the opposite of Yeosang. Honey skin, veiny hands, crude voice, annoying laughter. He liked sports but not the gym. He liked things San didn't. Yeosang liked things San did though.
Another reminder that Yeosang was perfect for San.
In every universe, San would fall in love with Yeosang and Wooyoung would watch them from afar, clutching his heart so tight that it bled but never ending it all.
Wooyoung is doomed to always love San.