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The blue waves had crashed ashore, and the midnight sky glistened in the dark with the dotted constellations - it formed into a landscape like painting. The weather was just perfect to head out to the quiet beach. It was something Anxin had thought in mind for a bit, he wanted to clear his mind out and the first thing he did before heading out to the beach was to go to Sangwon, where he was still not yet asleep and was reading a book, while his fellow roommate Xinlong had been fast asleep on the bed. They both quietly left without waking the latter up, closing the door shut on him.
Sangwon and Anxin had secretly sneaked out of their dorms together while the rest of the members were already fast asleep, and their manager had gone back home for the day.
Thankfully when they had secretly headed out of their dorms, there were no crazy fans that had followed them, so they both quickly booked a cab not long after and headed down to their favourite spot to unwind aside from their dorms — the beach. It was an hour away located just outside from the city, but it was a nice change of scenery once in a while. After being booked with schedules back to back ever since the finals ended, this was one of the rare occasions they could finally breathe for a little bit and rest for the week.
The pair had found a marbled bench to sit and probably talk their feelings out for the rest of the night.
“I haven’t been here in a while… ever since we’ve been busy preparing a lot of things as a group with our upcoming debut & our other schedules… this honestly feels so surreal to me, you know?” Sangwon continued, “Even talking about it again makes me feel emotional, god.”
Anxin laughs seeing the older man’s face, his eyes filled with tears reminding him of the time they were during the finals, Sangwon bawling his heart out saying his speech as the PO1 contestant for the show, and he, who stood beside him had patted his back in reassurance.
“I understand, hyung. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning and not believe this is real… the times I had dreamt of being on stage just like my other fellow friends… it really is true.” He held Sangwon’s hand in his.
“We worked together for the first time during the Whiplash mission, am I right?” Anxin nodded at him.
“I can’t believe how much time had passed since then, you’re one of the people I wanted to get close to in the show… but I was pretty shy and hesitant to approach you during the fanmeet day before the show had officially started airing, so… I’m glad and thankful that we were able to work together during the Whiplash mission and also… got to know you more closely.”
“Me too. Jiahao hyung had kept teasing me non-stop because I couldn’t stop talking about you back then…” Sangwon smiled and chuckled upon hearing Anxin’s comment.
“And I thought u were going to join me in the Like Jennie team in the second mission after that…”
“I hesitated… but I wanted to prove myself out there and to the judges that I could pull off a heavily based vocal song with the best of my abilities.” Anxin says, “You looked really good with that red leather, though. It suited you so well. And you pulled it off with the performance, too.”
“Really…? I thought that was the worst performance I did because of the scores… that made me lose my self-confidence with how low those scores were…” Sangwon recalls that time, during the second mission when his Like Jennie team scores were revealed. He honestly did not expect the low scores…Sangwon had felt like he held the team back then.
“To me, you were the winner for the dance team on the second mission. I swore it in my heart.” He reassures the older man.
“Thank you Anxinie… you did amazing with your Breathe performance as well. That really… moved me to tears, I kid you not. I probably cried myself to sleep after the whole second mission was over, too.” Sangwon wiped away his tears.
“Sangwon-hyung… you’re crying a lot.” He points out to the older man who was in a crying mess again.
“I know…” He lightly hits Anxin’s shoulder in response.
“Chains was…something. It passed by like the wind.”
“The time I had lost my self-confidence… I’m glad that was over.” Those sleepless nights of trying to get the choreography right… and not getting the killing part for Chains, so luckily those dark days were long over - but it's something that gets to his head once in a while.
“Anxinie…you did well. I truly mean it. I know how tough it was for you back then… I’m so proud of you getting through it and making all the way to the finals together with me towards the end.”
“Hyung… I appreciate that coming from you… thank you for looking out for me, really.” Anxin was truly grateful for Sangwon always being by his side, no matter what.
“…And here we are now in our new group, our new home.”
“Sangwon-hyung…” He looked at the older man who sat beside him and gave him a sudden kiss on his cheek before pulling away.
“And I missed being…this affectionate to you, Anxinie.”
“Coming from you… you would rarely be like this and I do the usual things like being clingy around you whenever we are on our schedules, or let alone when we have those rare off days and the members who would be away from the dorms… I would always be the first to do this to you, hyung.” Anxin was pleasantly surprised by Sangwon who rarely shows his affection out in the open unlike him, but the times when he does, deep down it definitely gives him the fireworks going off in his head.
“Of course at your service, my princess.” Sangwon teases him.
“Please don’t call me that here…I might go crazy.”
“Sweetheart, darling, baby… I could call you those names too, if you like.”
“Hyung please don’t…” Anxin tugged at Sangwon’s black shirt.
“Okay okay, I’ll stop here since you said please.” He softly laughed to Anxin who started to pout.
“…What if I called you Sangwon-ge too? Sometimes I would almost call u Sangwon-ge instead of hyung…”
“Whatever you are comfortable with, sweetheart. I don’t mind you calling me either one of those names.”
Anxin sighed in relief. “That’s good to hear… and oh, it’s almost going to be 4 am now? Wow… we’ve been talking the whole night ever since we came to the beach.” He glanced over at his phone screen to check the time.
“Time flies so quickly… should we go back?”
“We should.” The pair had got up from the bench and started to slowly make their way back to the dorms.
And so they held hands together side by side, not caring about anything else in the world as long as they had each other.