Work Text:
Gun Woo had always waited for Woo Jin. He waited outside the gym while Woo Jin got caught talking to coaches or teammates after practice, leaning against the wall with his gym bag slung over one shoulder, never once thinking to leave without him. He waited for him to finish showering after training, absently scrolling through his phone or staring at nothing in particular until the bathroom door finally opened. In the mornings, he waited for Woo Jin to get out of bed, even though they shared the same room and Gun Woo could already tell he was awake from the subtle change in his breathing.
Waiting had never bothered him. Not when Woo Jin always came back. It had become such an ordinary part of his life that Gun Woo had stopped noticing he was doing it. They trained together, ate together, lived together. If Gun Woo wasn't at the gym, he was usually somewhere beside Woo Jin. And if he wasn't beside him, then he was only waiting for him to return. That was simply how things were, until someone else started taking up that time.
It wasn't even a dramatic change. Woo Jin would linger after practice for another fifteen minutes, chatting with a guy from the gym. Sometimes he'd casually mention grabbing lunch with him afterward. Other times he'd disappear for coffee before coming home, returning with an easy smile and stories Gun Woo hadn't been there to hear.
Nothing important had changed. They still trained together. They still shared the same apartment. They still fell asleep only a few feet apart every night.
So why did it bother him so much?
Gun Woo paused halfway through wiping sweat from the back of his neck. Across the gym, Woo Jin laughed. The sound carried over the steady thuds of gloves against punching bags and the squeak of shoes against the mats. It wasn't unusually loud, but Gun Woo found himself looking anyway. Woo Jin stood beside the same man again, his shoulders relaxed as he laughed at something the other had said. Gun Woo's grip tightened unconsciously around the towel in his hand. Something unpleasant twisted beneath his ribs.
He looked away. "...You're staring." Woo Jin smiled at him. Gun Woo blinked. Woo Jin was looking at him now, amusement dancing across his face. "I wasn't." Gun Woo denied. "Sure." Woo Jin chuckled.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, Gun Woo caught himself glancing over again only a few seconds later. Was the guy still there? Was Woo Jin still smiling? His gaze lingered for a moment before he frowned. What was so funny, anyway? The guy wasn't particularly good-looking or interesting. At least, Gun Woo didn't think he was. He couldn't even explain why he disliked him. There was simply something irritating about him.
The feeling refused to disappear. If anything, it became harder to ignore. Whenever Woo Jin left after practice, Gun Woo found himself checking the time without meaning to. Twenty minutes. Twenty-five. Thirty. Somehow thirty minutes felt much longer than it actually was. He'd tell himself he wasn't waiting. But he'd glance toward the entrance. Then again a few minutes later and again.
By the time the apartment door finally opened one evening, the words were already leaving his mouth before he could stop them. "There you are." Woo Jin paused in the doorway, one shoe already halfway off. "...There I am?" Only then did Gun Woo realize what he'd said. His ears warmed. "I..." He cleared his throat. "Nothing." Woo Jin finished slipping off his shoes, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I've only been gone for twenty minutes."
"I know."
"You sound like you've been waiting."
"I wasn't."
"Hm." Woo Jin stepped closer, studying him for a moment before a laugh escaped him. "You literally greeted me with the brightest expression I've seen all day."
Gun Woo frowned. "I did not."
"You absolutely did."Woo Jin shook his head with another quiet laugh as he brushed past him toward the kitchen. "You're terrible at lying."
Gun Woo should've been annoyed. Instead, he stood there listening to the familiar sounds of Woo Jin moving around the apartment—the cupboard opening, glasses clinking together, running water from the sink. Only then did he realize the uncomfortable knot in his chest had disappeared. The relief settled over him so naturally that it made him feel sick.
After that, he started noticing things he wished he hadn't. Woo Jin would sit down somewhere, and before Gun Woo could consciously decide, he was already lowering himself into the seat beside him. Someone would call Woo Jin over during training, and Gun Woo's eyes would instinctively follow him across the room. If someone interrupted their conversation, Gun Woo found himself lingering nearby instead of walking away. It wasn't intentional. At least, he didn't think it was.
One afternoon, one of the newer members at the gym stepped a little too close while talking to Woo Jin. Without thinking, Gun Woo moved. Just one step, enough to quietly wedge himself between them under the excuse of asking Woo Jin a question. The other man didn't seem to notice. Woo Jin did.
Later that night, after training, Woo Jin dropped onto the bed with a dramatic groan, allowing himself to fall sideways until his head landed comfortably across Gun Woo's thighs. Gun Woo barely reacted. His hand lifted automatically, fingers slipping into Woo Jin's hair with practiced ease as he absentmindedly combed through the soft strands. Woo Jin practically melted beneath the touch.
"Hm."
"What?"
"You're being strange lately."
Gun Woo didn't look up from the book resting in his other hand. "I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm really not."
"You've been following me."
Gun Woo's fingers paused for the briefest moment before continuing through Woo Jin's hair. "I haven't."
"You have." Woo Jin sounded far too certain.
"You waited outside that club the other night."
"I was passing through."
"For four hours?"
Gun Woo didn't answer. Woo Jin tilted his head back just enough to look up at him. "You told me you weren't even interested in going."
"I wasn't."
"So why were you there?"
"...Coincidence."
Woo Jin stared at him for several long seconds. Then, with all the seriousness in the world, he sighed. "...You're weird."
Gun Woo's hand continued moving through Woo Jin's hair in slow, absent strokes. He stared at the ceiling. The word echoed uncomfortably in his head. Weird. Maybe Woo Jin was right. Because he had been acting strangely. He just didn't know why.
****
One afternoon, Gun Woo decided he wasn't going to let it bother him anymore.
The decision felt too simple. He'd stop following Woo Jin around. He'd stop checking the time every few minutes. He'd stop wondering where he was or who he was with. Whatever strange thing had gotten into him over the past few weeks, he'd simply... stop feeding it. It couldn't be that difficult.
When practice ended that afternoon, Woo Jin waved over his shoulder before falling into step beside the same man from the gym. They were already talking by the time they reached the doors, their conversation carrying faintly through the open entrance before disappearing into the bustle of the street outside.
Gun Woo watched them leave. Then, deliberately, he turned in the opposite direction. He collected stray gloves that had been left around the ring, wiped down the benches, and stacked the spare equipment without being asked. One of the trainers thanked him for staying behind, and Gun Woo only nodded before grabbing a towel to wipe the last sheen of sweat from the mirrors.
When there was nothing left to clean, he stretched for far longer than usual, holding each position until the muscles in his legs trembled from the strain. See? He hadn't followed Woo Jin. He was perfectly capable of minding his own business. Satisfied with himself, Gun Woo slung his gym bag over his shoulder and headed home. At least, that was where he intended to go.
His thoughts drifted somewhere between the second and third intersection. He wasn't paying much attention to where his feet carried him until the familiar scent of roasted coffee reached him. Gun Woo slowed. The café across the street stood exactly where it always had, its windows glowing amber against the early evening sky. People sat inside with steaming cups cradled between their hands, conversations muted behind the glass. His eyes wandered almost absentmindedly across the room. Then they stopped.
Woo Jin was sitting near the window. He looked relaxed, one elbow resting on the table as he laughed at something the other man had just said. His smile was easy, bright enough that the corners of his eyes crinkled the way they always did when something genuinely amused him.
Gun Woo stood rooted to the pavement. The world around him continued moving. Cars rolled past. Someone brushed his shoulder as they hurried down the sidewalk. A bicycle bell rang somewhere behind him. He barely noticed any of it. His attention stayed fixed on the café window. A waiter placed two drinks on the table. Woo Jin thanked him with another smile. The man across from him said something else, and Woo Jin laughed again. Gun Woo looked away so quickly it almost made his neck ache. "...What am I doing?" The question escaped in a whisper. His stomach twisted unpleasantly. He hadn't come here on purpose. Had he?
He retraced his walk in his mind, trying to remember the turns he'd taken. Home was in the opposite direction. He should have noticed that. He always noticed where he was going. Yet somehow he'd ended up here. His feet had carried him to Woo Jin before he'd even realized they were moving. The realization settled heavily in his chest. He turned on his heel and walked away before Woo Jin had the chance to glance toward the window.
The walk home felt longer than usual.No matter how hard he tried to think about something else, his thoughts circled back to the same image: Woo Jin smiling across a café table at someone who wasn't him. That was the part he hated the most. It wasn't that Woo Jin was spending time with someone else. It wasn't even the man himself. It was the feeling that came afterward. The hollow ache that settled somewhere beneath his ribs. The restless energy that made sitting still impossible. The way every laugh Woo Jin shared with someone else seemed to echo in Gun Woo's head long after he'd stopped hearing it.
None of it made sense. Objectively, nothing had changed. Woo Jin still came home every night. They still trained together until they were too exhausted to stand. They still argued over dinner, still watched terrible action movies sprawled across the couch, still fell asleep in the same room only a few feet apart. They spent more time together than he did with his mom. So why did it suddenly feel... insufficient?
Gun Woo hated himself for even thinking it. He tried giving the feeling a name. ‘Possessive’. The word sat uneasily in his mind. It made his stomach churn. Woo Jin wasn't something that belonged to him. He wasn't an object to cling to or keep tucked away where no one else could reach him. The thought alone left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Maybe it wasn't possessiveness. Maybe he was simply... protective. That sounded way better. Except it didn't explain why his chest tightened whenever Woo Jin smiled at somebody else. It didn't explain why relief washed over him whenever Woo Jin instinctively chose the seat beside him instead of somewhere else. It certainly didn't explain why hearing another man make Woo Jin laugh left him feeling strangely... forgotten. Gun Woo buried his face in his hands. “What is wrong with me?” The apartment was silent. No answer came.
Instead, another thought slipped quietly into his mind, so ridiculous that he almost laughed. Maybe… Just maybe he just hated seeing men together. Gun Woo's head snapped upright. “No.” The word left him immediately. That couldn't be right. He had never cared before. He'd met plenty of couples over the years and thought absolutely nothing of it. So why would it bother him now? Why? Only when it was Woo Jin? The question lingered. He spent nearly a week trying to convince himself that was the answer anyway. It wasn't. Deep down, he knew it wasn't.
The feeling remained exactly the same, refusing to shrink no matter how many explanations he tried to force over it. Each one crumbled the moment he looked at it too closely, leaving him right back where he'd started—confused, embarrassed, and increasingly afraid that something inside him had quietly changed without him noticing.
The explanation he'd clung to for the better part of a week fell apart so quietly that Gun Woo almost didn't notice it. He'd told himself he was simply overthinking. That if he ignored the feeling long enough, it would eventually disappear on its own. Instead, it lingered beneath everything he did, subtle enough to ignore during training but impossible to escape the moment the apartment grew quiet.
*****
He found himself speaking less. Not because he wanted to avoid Woo Jin, but because every conversation felt strangely dangerous. He was terrified that if he opened his mouth for too long, something buried deep inside him would slip out before he could stop it. So he settled for silence.
The television filled most evenings now. It played loudly enough to disguise the quiet that had settled between them, action scenes flashing across the screen while Gun Woo stared through them without absorbing a single frame. He had no clue what the movie was even about. Woo Jin, however, had been watching him.
"You've been quiet."
Gun Woo blinked, dragging his attention away from the television. Woo Jin was sitting beside him on the couch now, one arm draped lazily over the backrest as he studied him with an expression that had slowly become more common over the past few days. Concern.
Gun Woo forced a small shrug. "I'm tired."
Woo Jin didn't even hesitate. "Liar."
The answer was so immediate that Gun Woo almost smiled. He leaned further back into the couch, letting his head rest against the cushions as he closed his eyes. "Hyung," he muttered, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "I'm really tired."
"You've barely looked at me since I got home."
Gun Woo's hand stilled. "I see you every day."
"So?"
The single word caught him off guard. He opened his eyes again. Woo Jin hadn't moved. He was still watching him with that same patient expression, waiting as though the answer should have been obvious.
Gun Woo looked away first. "I don't know."
"No," Woo Jin said quietly. "You do."
Silence settled between them once more, though this time it felt heavier.
The television continued playing in the background. Someone shouted. Glass shattered. Dramatic music swelled through the living room before fading into another explosion. Neither of them paid it any attention.
Woo Jin sighed softly before leaning closer, his shoulder brushing against Gun Woo's. "Did I do something?"
The question hit harder than it should have. Gun Woo's chest tightened. "No."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"...Gun Woo."
"It's fine, hyung." His voice came out quieter than he'd intended. "You didn't do anything wrong." The lie sat heavily on his tongue.
Woo Jin looked at him for a long moment, searching his face as though hoping to find whatever Gun Woo refused to say aloud. Eventually, he leaned back again, unconvinced but unwilling to push any further. The movie continued. Gun Woo couldn't remember a single scene from it afterward.
****
The conversation that finally broke him began so ordinarily that, later, Gun Woo couldn't understand how something so small had unraveled him so completely. Woo Jin came home later than usual, balancing a convenience store bag in one hand while slipping off his shoes with the other.
"I'm not coming home early tomorrow," he called casually from the entryway.
Gun Woo looked up from where he'd been absentmindedly scrolling through his phone. "Hm?"
"I'm having dinner with a friend."
The words settled somewhere deep in his chest. He tried not to let them bother him. "Oh." His voice sounded normal. At least, he hoped it did. "The guy from the gym?"
Woo Jin nodded as he carried the groceries into the kitchen. "Yeah. We kept saying we'd go, but training kept getting in the way." Plastic bags rustled as he unpacked them. "I'll probably be back pretty late."
Gun Woo stared at the blank phone screen resting in his lap. "...Okay." Nothing else was said. Woo Jin disappeared down the hallway a few moments later, humming quietly to himself before the bathroom door clicked shut. Water began running almost immediately. Gun Woo remained exactly where he was. The apartment suddenly felt much larger and too quiet. He lowered his phone onto the coffee table without looking at it.
Woo Jin would spend tomorrow laughing with someone else. Eating dinner with someone else. Making new memories with someone else. The thoughts came so naturally that he barely realized he'd started thinking them. His fingers curled tightly against his knees. This was ridiculous. It was dinner. Just dinner. Woo Jin had every right to have friends outside of him. He knew that.
Of course he knew that. So why did his chest hurt? The ache spread slowly, settling beneath his ribs until breathing itself felt strangely uncomfortable.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as if he could physically force the thoughts back where they'd come from. He's allowed to have other people. The thought should have comforted him. Instead, another one surfaced before he could stop it. What if he realizes he likes them more?
Gun Woo's breath caught. He laughed once under his breath. It sounded hollow. "Seriously?" He scrubbed both hands over his face, frustrated by how quickly his thoughts had spiraled into something so irrational. Woo Jin wasn't leaving. He wasn't replacing him. Nothing had changed. Literally nothing had changed. Then why did it feel as though something precious was slipping through his fingers no matter how tightly he tried not to hold on?
His throat tightened painfully. He hated this. He hated himself for feeling this way. He hated that every attempt to reason with himself only made him feel smaller. More pathetic. Like a child throwing a tantrum because his favorite person had dared to exist outside the tiny world the two of them had built together.
He let out another quiet, humorless laugh. "What the hell is wrong with me?" No one answered. Only the steady sound of running water drifted from the bathroom, oblivious to the quiet war Gun Woo had been losing against himself for weeks.
****
Woo Jin found him sitting on the apartment balcony well past midnight.
The city had long since quieted, leaving only the distant hum of passing cars and the occasional bark of a dog somewhere below. A cool breeze drifted through the narrow space, carrying just enough of a chill to raise goosebumps across Gun Woo's bare arms, though he barely noticed it. He sat with his forearms resting on his knees, staring blankly at the rows of apartment buildings stretching into the darkness. He couldn't remember how long he'd been sitting there. Long enough for the tea beside him to grow cold. Long enough for his thoughts to circle the same painful path until they no longer felt like thoughts at all, only noise.
The balcony door slid open behind him. "You'll get sick sitting out here." Gun Woo didn't turn around. "I won't." His voice sounded distant, even to himself.
A moment later, the door slid shut again. Soft footsteps approached before the chair beside him scraped lightly against the concrete floor. Woo Jin lowered himself into it without another word, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable. It never had been. They'd spent countless evenings like this after exhausting training sessions, sitting side by side while the world moved around them. Usually, it was enough just to know the other was there. Tonight, the silence felt unbearably loud.
Woo Jin rested his elbows on his knees, looking out over the sleeping city before letting out a quiet sigh. "You've really been weird lately." Gun Woo smiled faintly. He had run out of ways to deny it. "I'm starting to think I actually did something."
"You didn't." The answer came immediately. Woo Jin turned to look at him. "Then tell me what's wrong."
Gun Woo opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His throat tightened the moment he tried. How was he supposed to explain something he didn't even understand himself? Every explanation he'd come up with over the past few weeks had fallen apart the moment he examined it too closely. Possessive. Overprotective. Jealous. Homophobic. Every word had felt wrong, like trying on clothes that belonged to someone else.
He let out a quiet laugh. It sounded brittle. "I..." He rubbed both hands over his face, dragging them down slowly before letting them fall back into his lap. "...I don't know."
Woo Jin frowned. "That's not an answer."
"I know."
"Then what is?"
Gun Woo stared at the ground between his feet. The concrete blurred. He blinked hard. "I really don't know, hyung." His voice cracked so quietly he almost hoped Woo Jin hadn't heard it. "I've been trying to figure it out for weeks."
He laughed again, softer this time. "I keep thinking I've finally understood it..." He shook his head, his smile disappearing almost as soon as it appeared. "...Then I realize I'm wrong all over again."
The words hung between them. Woo Jin didn't interrupt. He never did when Gun Woo was trying to find the right words. Gun Woo wished he would. Anything would have been easier than the silence. "I think..." He swallowed hard enough that it hurt. "I think..." The sentence refused to come. His fingers curled tightly together until his knuckles turned white. "I think something's wrong with me."
He finally forced himself to look up. Woo Jin's expression softened almost immediately. "What do you mean?"
Gun Woo held his gaze for only a second before looking away again. His chest felt impossibly tight. "I keep getting angry..." His voice was barely above a whisper. "...For no reason."
"At what?"
"...You."
Woo Jin blinked. Gun Woo immediately shook his head. "No— not because of anything you've done." The words came out too quickly now, stumbling over each other as panic settled in. "That's not what I mean. You've... you've never done anything wrong."
He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, squeezing them shut. "It's just..." How could he possibly say this out loud? Every instinct screamed at him to stop talking. To laugh it off. To tell Woo Jin he'd been stressed. Just tell him anything. Anything except the truth. His hands slid down his face again.
"Whenever you smile at someone else..." His throat tightened. "...I get angry." The admission sat between them like shattered glass. Gun Woo couldn't bring himself to look at Woo Jin. "I hate it when you spend time with other people." His voice cracked. "I hate waiting for you to come home." A shaky breath escaped him. "I hate hearing you laugh with someone else."
"I hate wondering whether you're having more fun with them than you do with me." He laughed suddenly. It sounded so awful, Small, and Broken. "...God." He covered his face with both hands.
"Listen to me." His shoulders shook once—not quite a sob, not yet. "I sound insane."
Woo Jin still hadn't said a word. The silence should have comforted him. Instead, it made him keep talking.
"I tried to stop." His words were muffled behind his hands. "I told myself I wasn't going to follow you anymore." He let out another humorless laugh. "I actually believed I was doing better." Slowly, he lowered his hands again, staring at them as though they belonged to someone else. "And then I ended up standing outside a café... watching you through the window like some kind of stalker."
His face twisted with embarrassment. "I didn't even realize I'd walked there." The confession tasted bitter. "My feet just..." He swallowed. "They just took me to you." Silence stretched between them.
"So I thought..." His voice trembled. "...Maybe I was just possessive." He shook his head before the thought had even fully left his mouth. "But that didn't feel right."
His laugh came again, smaller than before. "So then..." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking genuinely miserable. “...I actually convinced myself I was turning into some kind of homophobe.”
For the first time since the conversation began, Woo Jin's composure cracked. "...What?"
Gun Woo groaned, dropping his forehead into one hand. "I know."
"No..." Woo Jin stared at him in complete disbelief. "What?"
"I told you!" Gun Woo's voice rose despite himself, half frustration and half humiliation. "I don't know what's wrong with me!" The words burst out before he could stop them.
His breathing hitched. "I don't know why I feel like this!" He laughed again, but this time the sound dissolved into something dangerously close to a sob. "I know you should have friends. I know you have a life outside of me. I know I'm being selfish."
Every sentence came faster than the last, years of restraint collapsing under the weight of weeks spent pretending he was fine. "So why..." His voice broke completely. "...Why does it feel like..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "...Every time you spend time with someone else..." His breathing became uneven. "...There's less room left for me?"
The words barely made it out. As soon as they did, the first tear slipped free.
Gun Woo wiped it away almost angrily, only for another to replace it. Then another. He scrubbed roughly at his face, growing more frustrated each time his vision blurred again.
"...Damn it." He laughed through the tears. "I'm twenty-three." Another shaky laugh escaped him. "I get punched in the face for a living." He dragged a sleeve across his eyes again. "And I'm sitting here crying because my best friend made another friend."
His shoulders finally gave out. Like every ounce of tension he'd been carrying sagged under its own weight. "I don't want you to leave." His voice had become almost impossibly quiet. "I know you aren't."
"I know you're not going anywhere. But..." He inhaled shakily. "...It feels like one day you will." His fingers curled helplessly against his knees. "And when that happens..." He finally turned toward Woo Jin, tears blurring his vision until he could barely make out his face. "...I don't know what I’m going to do with my life."
The words fell into the night almost soundlessly. And somehow, saying them out loud hurt even more than keeping them inside ever had. The words settled between them. Neither of them moved.
Gun Woo wished Woo Jin would say something—anything. Tell him he was being ridiculous. Laugh at him. Call him an idiot the way he always did. Even telling him he was overreacting would have been better than this suffocating silence.
Instead, Woo Jin simply looked at him. Really looked at him. As though he were seeing something that had been standing in front of him for weeks without either of them realizing it.
Gun Woo couldn't hold his gaze. Humiliation settled over him in slow, crushing waves. What had he just done? The words were still hanging in the air, impossible to take back now that they'd been spoken aloud. Every excuse he'd hidden behind over the past few weeks had been stripped away one by one until only the ugly truth remained.
He was terrified that someday Woo Jin would build a life that didn't revolve around the two of them anymore. He'd make more friends. Meet new people. Maybe even fall in love with someone else. His world would grow larger and larger until Gun Woo became only a small corner of it.
Meanwhile, Gun Woo's entire world had quietly become about one person. The realization made his stomach twist. "I'm sorry." The apology escaped before he could stop it.
Woo Jin frowned. "What are you apologizing for?"
Gun Woo laughed weakly, though there wasn't an ounce of humor left in the sound. "For... all of this." He gestured vaguely toward himself, unable to meet Woo Jin's eyes. "For making things weird." He took another shaky breath. "For acting like..." He swallowed. "...Like you're mine."
The words tasted wrong. "I know you're not." His shoulders slumped a little further. "You should have other people. You should go out. You should make friends. And I know that." Every sentence felt like he was forcing broken glass down his throat. "And I'm happy that you do."
He stopped. The lie hung between them for barely a second before he shook his head. "No. I’m not happy about that." His voice cracked again. "But I'm trying to be."
Another helpless laugh escaped him. "But every time you walk out that door..." He stared at his own hands. "...It feels like I'm being left behind." His fingers trembled against his knees. "I hate that I think like this."
His voice had become so quiet Woo Jin had to lean in slightly to hear him. "I hate waiting for the sound of the front door. I hate checking the time. I hate wondering when you're coming home knowing you’re spending time with someone else."
He squeezed his eyes shut. "I hate wondering whether you'll eventually realize someone else is more fun to be around." His breathing hitched again. "I hate..." He laughed through another wave of tears. "...I hate how relieved I feel every single time you come back home to me."
The confession seemed to drain the last of his strength. He covered his face again. "I'm pathetic." The words were barely audible. "I've never been like this."
"I don't even recognize myself anymore." For the first time since Gun Woo had started speaking, Woo Jin moved slowly. As though he were approaching an injured animal that might bolt if startled. His hand closed gently around Gun Woo's wrist to make him lower his hands.
Gun Woo resisted for only a second before letting them fall into his lap. His face was a mess. Eyes red. Cheeks damp. He looked exhausted. Woo Jin stared at him for a long moment.
Then… He sighed, not the tired sigh Gun Woo had spent the last few weeks dreading. Nor was it a one of frustration. It was a soft sigh filled with fondness. "You really are an idiot."
Gun Woo let out a laugh. "I know."
"No. You don’t." The corner of Woo Jin's mouth lifted into the smallest smile. "I mean a complete idiot."
Gun Woo looked away again, embarrassment burning hotter than ever. "I know."
"You spent weeks convincing yourself you were becoming a homophobe."
"Please don't remind me."
"And somehow that made more sense to you than talking to me?"
Gun Woo groaned quietly. "I didn't know what I was trying to say."
Woo Jin's thumb brushed absently across the back of Gun Woo's hand. "You thought all of this by yourself?"
Gun Woo gave the smallest nod. "Yeah."
"Did you really think I’ll get bored of you?" That question hurt the most. Gun Woo couldn't answer. His silence said enough.
Woo Jin looked at him for another long moment before shaking his head in quiet disbelief. "I've been wondering why you've been pulling away from me."
Gun Woo blinked. Woo Jin gave a helpless laugh of his own. "You stopped talking. You stopped looking at me. You kept saying you were tired."
"I thought..." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "...I thought maybe I'd done something to upset you." Gun Woo stared at him. "I kept replaying every conversation we'd had."
Woo Jin smiled weakly. "I even wondered if I should cancel dinner."
"You did?"
"Of course."
Gun Woo felt something inside him gently crack. The way ice gives way beneath the warmth of sunlight. Woo Jin reached forward then. This time there was no hesitation. He wrapped both arms around Gun Woo and pulled him against his chest. The movement was so sudden that Gun Woo barely had time to react before his forehead was resting against Woo Jin's shoulder.
For a second, he simply froze. Then every bit of tension he'd been holding onto dissolved. His fingers curled weakly into the back of Woo Jin's shirt. He hadn't realized how desperately he'd needed to be held until that moment. Woo Jin's hand came to rest against the back of his head, fingers slipping into his hair with the same absent familiarity Gun Woo had used countless times before.
His hand rubbed slow, comforting circles between Gun Woo's shoulder blades. "I'm not going anywhere. So stop worrying so much. You're stuck with me forever. "
Gun Woo's eyes squeezed shut. Fresh tears soaked into Woo Jin's shirt before he could stop them. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"I know."
"I really am."
"I know."
"I made everything weird."
A chuckle rumbled beneath Gun Woo's ear. "You've always been weird." Despite everything, Gun Woo laughed. It came out muffled against Woo Jin's shoulder, wet with tears and utterly exhausted, but it was real.
The tightness that had lived inside his chest for weeks loosened little by little with every slow pass of Woo Jin's hand across his back. Nothing had actually been solved. Woo Jin would still make friends. He would still have dinners with people who weren't Gun Woo. The questions Gun Woo had been too afraid to ask himself remained unanswered.
And as Woo Jin held him beneath the quiet glow of the apartment balcony light, Gun Woo found himself realizing something almost embarrassingly simple. He had spent so long being afraid that Woo Jin would leave. He'd forgotten to trust that, if he was hurting, Woo Jin would always come back to him first. Just as he always had.