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It must’ve been around dawn when the temperature changed. It had been a warm night when the group left the fire late and dispersed to their tents. They’d fallen asleep atop their folded sleeping bags in the humid, still night air. Now a breeze moves through the mesh tent door, its warmth thinned into something soft and cool and ghostly.
Jo slowly wakes because of it. Or maybe not the cold, not entirely. Its opposite. The small circle of heat and weight near his arm.
Yuma, turned in sleep to his side. Close. His forehead presses lightly against Jo’s shoulder.
Jo comes fully awake and freezes. A breath catches in his chest like a misstep on stage. His heart trips, then sprints.
The tent ceiling is dim above them, the light pale and reluctant, the sky outside just beginning to stain a delicate rose.
Jo doesn’t move. Not really. His fingers twitch against the slick surface of the sleeping bag, the only part of him willing to betray the thought arriving like the morning:
He’s asleep on me. He’s here. I could hold him.
But that feels like too much.
Jo swallows. Closes his eyes again. Tries to be still the way it feels in paintings — posed, deliberate, a choice rather than a reaction. Somewhere just beneath his ribs, something flutters. Not quite nerves, not quite joy.
A butterfly of hope caught behind bone.
The breeze returns, gentler this time. Yuma shifts a little closer. A little more warmth. His cheek rests against Jo’s arm, and a small sigh escapes him. An impulse rises in Jo, quiet and fierce. Not fear, not want — protection.
And then, as if it’s the most natural thing he’s ever done, Jo moves his arm.
He does it slowly, tentative. Gathers Yuma in.
He feels Yuma’s body change. Settling in, not pulling away. Yuma stirs slightly, his head finding Jo’s chest like it belongs there. Jo’s arm curves around Yuma like instinct, not choice.
The thought returns — one Jo’s carried too long, too carefully. It arrives in music. In the language he and Yuma share.
And a memory comes loose.
Oh, I’m obsessed
With the way your head is layin’ on my chest…
He’d heard the song first on Yuma’s phone. Two years ago. Yuma had been trying to build a playlist for something and played half a dozen songs aloud, asking Jo what felt “romantic”.
This one had played. Jo had said nothing, but later — on the airplane, then again that night — he listened to it on repeat. He knows it by heart now. He never told Yuma.
“With the way your head is—” His chest tightens. Not from panic this time. From a realisation.
He loves this.
Yuma. Here. With him.
He always has.
Backstage, right before going live. Jo’s mic was crooked, his hands too cold with nerves to fix it. Yuma stepped in, gentle, focused. His fingers brushed Jo’s jaw as he nudged the mic into place. Jo had nearly forgotten to breathe. Yuma hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he had noticed, and hadn’t minded.
And in the van yesterday, somewhere between the first roadside stop and that first ridge full of tall pines, Yuma had dozed off. His head tipped toward Jo’s shoulder. It didn’t touch — not quite — but Jo hadn’t leaned away. He’d watched the soft rise and fall of Yuma’s breathing, and the curve of the smile still resting on his mouth, and thought: Let it be like this just a little longer.
Jo lies motionless, eyes still closed. The closeness is real now — the weight of Yuma, the warmth.
No dream, no wish. Just here.
Jo wonders — not for the first time — if, even in sleep, Yuma knows what he’s doing. Maybe Yuma is making a statement. Maybe it’s a question. Maybe Jo needs to answer it.
But stillness makes space for doubt, and Jo’s mind starts to fill. He thinks of the ways this could break: if Yuma wakes, if he pulls away, if this becomes another thing Jo has misread. He can almost feel Yuma’s usual response — the shrug, the too-loud laugh, the practised dodge.
Jo doesn’t want to move again. He doesn’t want to risk finding out.
He wishes he understood the rules Yuma lives by — the things he loves, the ways he moves through the world without apology. Dyed hair. Ice cream for breakfast. Talking too much, even though Jo knows it drains him in the end.
Jo pays attention, even when he doesn’t understand. Maybe especially then.
And now he’s realising that Yuma pays attention, too.
Oh, I'm a mess
When I overthink the little things in my head
You seem to always help me catch my breath
A group interview — some light segment, nothing intense. Jo had stumbled halfway through a sentence, trying to describe how he thinks about his facial expression when dancing. The words wouldn’t land right. He’d paused, reached for something better, and found nothing.
Yuma had glanced over. Not laughing. Not impatient. Just… understanding. Then he stepped in gently, picking up the thread as if Jo had handed it off. Reframed it. Finished the thought in simpler language, and smiled like that was all it took.
The others kept talking. The moment moved on. But later, off-camera, Jo had murmured an apology, embarrassed.
Yuma had bumped their shoulders together and said, like it was obvious, “You don’t have to say it all out loud. I already know.”
And then there was something small — a rehearsal clip they’d reviewed before bed. Jo had winced watching himself, muttered a comment about how he always stiffens his shoulders at the wrong moment because he’s concentrating too hard.
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud. But Yuma, halfway through brushing his teeth, had paused scrolling on his phone and glanced over.
“That’s one of the reasons I like you,” he said, around the toothbrush. “You take it seriously.”
Then he turned back to his phone and kept brushing, like it was nothing.
Jo had frozen. Not because of the compliment — but because of how easily Yuma had said it.
As if liking Jo had never been in question.
The memories fade like fog on glass. Jo exhales, slow and careful. He opens his eyes.
The light has shifted — faint silver pooling against the nylon walls, threading the seams of the tent in soft lines.
His gaze traces upward, across the slope of the ceiling, then downward again. And there it is.
Yuma’s hand. Not quite touching. Just resting at the side of Jo’s ribs. The shadow of it lies across him, delicate and still. It shouldn’t feel like anything. But it does.
Jo holds his breath, not out of fear now — but reverence. Even here, even in sleep, Yuma reaches without reaching.
Jo wonders if Yuma’s always done this, and if he’s just never looked closely enough to see it.
But it wasn’t always like this.
Some nights — the long ones, the loud ones — Jo spirals.
There was a time after a stage mistake, small but visible. He’d come off trembling, hands cold, replaying the moment over and over like a punishment. He’d started picking himself apart — too quiet, too slow, too strange — all the things he feared the world already thought of him.
Yuma had found him backstage, crouched near the stairs, staring at the floor.
He hadn’t said much. Just sat beside Jo, elbows brushing.
Then, after a pause: “You did fine.”
Simple. Unshakeable. No room for argument.
And somehow, that was enough.
Jo looks down.
Yuma’s head still rests against his chest, face turned slightly toward him. His lashes cast soft arcs on his cheek. His mouth is parted slightly, breath slow and warm.
Jo can’t look away.
There’s a kind of danger in looking. Jo knows this. Has always known it: Looking is the closest thing to confessing.
Why do I get so nervous when I look…
Because sometimes, Yuma looks back.
Rehearsals, almost two years ago. Jo had glanced across the room without meaning to, just for a moment.
Yuma had been tying his shoes. Then he’d looked up, caught Jo’s gaze, and held it. He hadn’t looked away. He hadn’t smirked or teased or turned it into a joke.
He’d just… smiled. Quiet. Sure. Like Jo’s attention didn’t surprise him.
Jo had looked away first.
And then there was the campfire — just hours ago.
They’d been sitting in a loose ring, K-hyung telling a story, the rest laughing, interrupting.
Yuma had been half-listening, eyes tracking the flame. Jo had been watching him again, and maybe this time he didn’t hide it fast enough.
Because Yuma turned. Looked straight at him. Not startled, not shy.
Their eyes met — and Jo forgot the story, the laughter, the fire.
Everything quieted.
That was the moment. This is the moment.
This is more than anything I felt before…
It’s not a crush. Not a passing ache or a moment of weak will. It never was. Jo knows this now. Lying here in the soft dark, with Yuma asleep on his chest, every breath syncing slowly to his own.
This is the feeling that survived — months of silence, years of careful steps.
It endured the way only real things do.
Yuma dancing. Not on stage. Not for anyone. Just in the living room one evening, music playing from someone’s speaker, lights dimmed low. Yuma wasn’t even thinking — just moving, unguarded and light.
Jo had walked in, meant to say something, but stopped. Watched.
Yuma spun, laughing, hair sticking to his forehead, off-beat and perfect.
And Jo had thought:
I could stay right here forever.
You're everything that I want
But I didn't think I'd find…
Jo has spent so long hiding this — carving quiet spaces inside himself where the feeling could live, silent and safe.
But Yuma never demanded anything. Never rushed. He just... stayed near.
The rooftop, pre-debut. A casual group gathering, all of them chatting. Jo had fallen quiet, as he often did. And Yuma, without drawing attention, had bumped Jo’s knee with his own.
Said his name, low and even, the first time he’d use the nickname: “Jojo?” Not to call him out. Just to invite him in.
Jo had spoken. Just a little.
And Yuma had smiled, like that was enough.
And I love the way
You can never find the right things to say…
Jo smiles to himself.
Yuma isn’t perfect with words either. He fumbles, stalls, changes tack halfway through a sentence. They’re mirrors that way — both of them trying, and sometimes getting lost in the effort.
But Jo’s never minded. He always understands anyway.
Waiting on set, sitting shoulder to shoulder on a flight case. Yuma had turned suddenly and blurted, “You make things feel… not scary.”
Jo had blinked, unsure if he’d heard right.
Yuma had frowned, waved his hands like he could weave the sentence from thin air. “I mean, it’s like… when I talk to you, I don’t feel like I have to fix anything. I can just… be.” He trailed off, cheeks flushing faintly.
Jo had said nothing. Just nodded, barely.
But his chest had stayed warm for hours.
In sleep, Yuma is still. It’s rare. Strange, almost — like watching a fire go quiet but never go cold.
Jo studies the slow rhythm of his breath, the steady rise and fall, the soft curve of his lips. He’s used to watching Yuma move — fill space, fill silence, dart from joke to idea to gesture.
But this stillness feels like something sacred.
&Audition — one of the first evenings they were all together off-camera. Everyone had been loud. Bright. Too much. Jo had hung back, half in shadow, trying to recharge.
Yuma had been at the centre of it all — laughing, loud, a blur of motion.
But in a quiet moment, when no one was watching, Jo had seen him stop. Yuma had taken a breath. Deep and shaky. His hands were trembling.
Their eyes had met across the room.
Yuma had blinked — and Jo could see it, the recognition. Another introvert.
Yuma had closed his eyes again, steadied himself, then launched back into the crowd. But just before he vanished into the noise, he turned his head, caught Jo’s eye again.
“You rest,” he mouthed.
Jo had.
… let’s run away
Because us is enough...
There was one afternoon they got lost running an errand together.
Wrong train, wrong station, no real hurry. They ended up in a corner shop off a quiet street, arguing over drink choices and snacks, laughing while huddled between shelves.
Jo remembers the bags in their hands, condensation on the vending machine cans, their smiles reflected in the glass door as the ice cream cooler swung open.
Nothing urgent. Nothing planned.
Just the two of them, and the soft glow of maybe.
Butterflies can’t stop me fallin’...
Yuma shifts in his sleep. His hand moves gently, up onto Jo, fingers splayed atop his ribs. Not a caress, but enough to make Jo go still again.
I want time to stop. Right here. Right now.
The butterfly in his chest stirs again, gentle, weightless.
You’re everything that I want...
Jo presses his lips to Yuma’s hair. Not quite a kiss. Just presence. Just promise. He breathes Yuma in. Faint traces of rose and shampoo and campfire smoke. Lets his eyes close.
It’s time, he thinks. It’s time to tell him.
He kisses Yuma’s head again, more certain now, and lifts his hand to smooth Yuma’s hair down.
Yuma stirs. A small breath. His lashes flutter.
He’s waking up.
Come close, let me be home for anything...
Yuma mumbles, voice rough with sleep, “—'ll apol'gise later. Warm.”
Jo huffs out a breath, the smallest laugh. He whispers, low and sure, “I like you like this.”
Yuma’s voice is already fading, eyes sliding shut again. “Like what?”
Jo answers, soft and steady.
“Close.”
But I know now I found the one I love.
Yuma shifts again, this time lifting his head. Eyes open, not startled, just slow and clear.
The moment stretches.
Jo meets his gaze. Holds it.
The butterfly inside his chest doesn’t flutter now — it stays.
“Yuma,” he says. “I have something to tell you.”
Yuma doesn’t smile. Not yet. He just looks at Jo the way he always has. Like he already knows.
And maybe he does.