Archive of Our Own ^beta

"So you're…. firing me?"

The CEO on the other side of the table does not scoff, or roll his eyes, but the sympathetic, condescending, patronising look that he sends is enough to know he wants to.

"That's a little dramatic."

Dramatic?

Fucking dramatic?!

Woongki will show them dramatic. Frankly, no-one here is being dramatic enough. He wants to flip the table. He wants to scream, throw things, cause a scene, call every asshole in a suit in this room every name they deserve until the office reflects the chaos inside of him.

He wants to cry, too, but he's not going to do that either.

"You're still an asset to this company, we don't want to let you go," one of the women in upper management says, like it's a compliment, like he should be happy about it. "However, we have decided that if any of the three of you do wish to leave, then the contract can be dissolved without penalty."

How generous.

He doesn't really hear much else of what is said, besides registering that he needs to move all his things out of the group dorm, and that there is a place in the trainee dorms for him if he likes, that he can take a day or two to think about whether he wants to remain with the company or be released as a free agent. His manager–

Not his manager anymore.

The group's manager, who is no longer his manager, because he is no longer in the group as of this fifteen minute meeting scheduled between the CEO's lunch and his golf tournament, tells him gently after he has bowed (why?) and left that he can take him straight to the dorm to pack, if he wants. That no-one else should be there.

It's a small mercy, but the dorm is empty and quiet as he collects his things into suitcases and flatpack cardboard boxes that hadn't been there that morning. The efficiency stings. It's odd to think, even tangentially, that some random guy delivering boxes knew before he did that his life was being ripped out from under him. He wants to reject the offer of being driven to his parents place, but practicality means considering packing everything into a taxi and accepting it instead. He wants to be dropped at the door, too, but their flat is on the eighth floor and he can't manage the remnants of his life on his own, so his– the– manager helps him get things in the lift and lug it all through the door into the hallway.

And then they stare at each other, with no idea what to say. Eventually, he just squeezes Woongki's arm and turns and walks out the door.

It's kind of dark, in the entrance. The windows are on the other side of the flat, so it gets very little natural light, and Woongki hasn't bothered flicking the switch. He should probably start moving things to his bedroom, try to have the least amount of mess for when his parents get home. He should definitely remove his shoes. Instead he sits down next to his suitcase and waits, in the gloom, for however long it takes for the door to open and his father to step through.

"God! You scared me! Why are you sitting–"

He cuts himself off as he takes in the cases and the boxes and Woongki sitting dwarfed among them.

"Woongki-yah? Why are– Are you taking a break again? Why didn't you tell us?"

He opens his mouth to answer but nothing comes out except a weird, choked sound. He slams a hand over his mouth as his eyes well up, a habit formed from panicked crying in toilet stalls in tv studios and radio stations, places he could not afford to be overheard. It's both better and worse here, the shame of being observed tempered by the way his dad drops to his knees and squeezes him tight enough to hurt.

“It’s alright, I’m not angry, just surprised. You know we’re always happy to have you home. And for you to do whatever you need to feel well. If they’d just told us one of us could have come to get you, I kept saying–”

He’s always talked in a crisis, and he keeps going, words washing round and through the room, hardly registering, as he unties Woongki’s shoes and half coaxes, half carries him into the living room to deposit him on the sofa. It might be a long time that he holds him, gently petting his hair while he cries. It’s long enough that by the time Woongki is cried out, and curled on his side on the sofa with dry, dazed eyes as his dad goes to fetch him a drink and a blanket, they hear the door open again to signal his mother’s arrival, the scatter of dog claws on the floor as she sets Seri down having picked him up from daycare. He hears the hurried footsteps and the frantic whispering in the hallway, knows it means they’re talking about him, but even as Seri jumps on the couch and sticks a wet little nose in his ear, he’s too checked out to care.

It’s not until later, when he’s picking at the crust of a pizza he doesn’t want to eat, that he actually reveals what’s happened. Both of his parents go unnervingly still, his mother’s face white.

“They did what– How– why would–”

She doesn’t finish the sentence but he sees the moment she answers her own question. They all know why.

“Not just me.”

He tells them about the others, voice dull and flat, and watches the sharp, angry smile twist her mouth.

“Naturally,” she spits, and the venom isn’t aimed at him, but he’s the only one sitting in the line of fire, so he flinches anyway.

He excuses himself to bed not long after, even though it’s barely eight thirty, and shoves his earphones in his ears so he can’t catch any of the conversation he knows is happening two doors away. He barely sleeps.

His parents are concerned when he joins them for breakfast early and says he’s going to university, but there are classes on the schedule, and the deal has always been that he goes whenever he has enough time, and well. There’s plenty of it now. The t-shirt and sweatpants Woongki is wearing do not go together, and his hair is unwashed, but that hardly matters here in the mass of over-worked hungover students. He hides in the back of the lecture hall, takes diligent notes, raises his hand only when everyone else does to avoid getting picked to answer about the material he definitely has not read. He hangs around on campus until his professor’s office hours and wanders into the room, untidy and stuffed full of books, desk over-flowing with papers as always, and sips on his bubble tea until she puts her pen down to look at him.

“If you want to talk about arranging your assessments I hope you have at least a vague schedule with you. I’m good, but I’m not psychic,” she says straight away.

“I won’t need them arranged. I’ll be able to do everything as it is.”

She frowns.

“Are you sure? You’ve always been fine with your normal assignments but some of these are twenty-four hour exams and performances, Woongki-yah. They’ll be a lot harder to fit around an idol schedule.”

“That won’t be a problem because I won’t have an idol schedule.” He tries for a smile, claws for something bitchy and sarcastic to put on his face because anything must be better than the nothing that he’s been wearing on it all day, but he can feel it doesn’t quite happen. He lets it drop, exhausted from the effort. “I was removed from my group. Effective yesterday. I've been given a few days to decide whether to stay with the company.”

She doesn’t gape at him, but her eyes widen behind her glasses, and she sits back into her chair. It takes her a little while to speak, and he’s not expecting pity, but half hopes for something vaguely inspirational, or even something mean, just to shake up the day. Instead she lets a long breath out through her nose, shakes her head, and says “God. What a bunch of fucking idiots.”

Woongki manages half a smile.

“I know, right?”

The conversation doesn’t linger, and he’s glad to turn to academic matters, even if his head hurts after half an hour of discussion. He picks up his empty cup and turns to leave her office and head to the library, to write down the ideas she’s spoonfed him before he forgets, when she calls out to him.

“Woongki-yah? People who have treated you badly will only ever continue to treat you badly. Try not to do anything unwise.”

He thinks over her words. It’s true, that if he stays with the company it would be foolish to expect better treatment than what he’s used to receiving, but the prospect of leaving, of going around auditioning, selling himself, begging someone else to take him– he knows those odds aren’t good. He knows that the vague talk of “new prospects” and the rumours of a Girls Planet sequel are probably connected, and as much as the thought of another survival show brings him out in a cold sweat, he struggles to see another way forward.

In the end, Minsu goes, and he and Seongmin stay. And a few weeks later, when the application for Boys Planet is placed in front of them, he fills it out.

The next day he skips into his professor’s office hours.

“I,” he announces brightly, removing his sunglasses with one hand and waving an iced coffee with the other, “Am about to do something deeply unwise.”

She sighs and removes her own glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“Of course you are,” she says flatly, placing her pen in the notebook she had been writing in and snapping it closed. “What kind of unwise are we talking, exactly?”

“Survival show.”

“Jesus, another one?”

He shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. She puts her glasses back on and looks at him, studying him for what feels like an eternity.

“You know you’re brilliant, don’t you?”

It catches him so off guard he can’t think of anything to say.

“I do mean that,” she continues. “You’re intelligent, you’re bright, charismatic. You’re a good actor, and though you aren’t naturally good at studying you do work hard, when you want to. When you walk into a room, people notice. You could do just about anything, I think, if you put your mind to it.”

Woongki can only blink at her, because compliments are so far out of the realm of what he was expecting from this conversation he doesn’t even have a response. This has to be leading somewhere else.

“Why do you insist on chasing after the one thing that only seems to cause you pain?”

There it is. It’s hardly a question he’s never asked himself. What’s the point? Why carry on, why even start it at all, when he had known how hard it would be? The answer, in the end, always boils down to the same thing. He’s been headed in the same direction since before he knew what that direction was, and anytime he even tries to look in another, all he sees is fog, is darkness. He has only ever known one road, and even if it takes him through hell he has no choice but to walk it, because there is nothing either side.

“Because I have to.”

She nods once, curtly, and tells him to give her the filming schedules as soon as he gets them, so they can see how to arrange his studies around them, and then tells him to get out of her office because she has marking to do.

Practising again is good, having something to aim for, he and Seongmin together. He's not quite sure of the decision to split them from the other trainees (because that's what they are, again, the label they've been given, even if their contracts still say "Artist"), not quite sure of their ability to carry a whole song just the two of them, but they do it anyway.

It goes... well, it goes. It happens, and he doesn’t cry, which in retrospect feels like an achievement in itself. Once it’s done, he's mostly just glad to get it over with, even with that stomach sinking proclamation of One Star. He forces himself to ignore it and instead be glad to really start in on sizing up the competition. All these people who, in another flip of the coin, would still call him "sunbaenim", some of whom are brilliant, some of whom are dreadful, some of whom have the same, screen-time killing death knell of fine as he and Seongmin.

Seeing Hui is like having the rug pulled from beneath him. It feels like the world has been turned on its head, like they've gone down the rabbit hole or through a fun-house mirror. Once upon a time, they had stood on the same stage and greeted each other as– well, not equals. Not exactly, but something. And here they are, not-quite-equals again. What the everloving fuck is going on? He wants to lean over to Seongmin and ask if he thinks Hui remembers them, but he doesn't want that caught on camera, because here everything is caught on camera, and sod's law says they'll always cut the things you want seen and broadcast the things you don't.

They have decided, between them, that they are here for a fresh start, and mentioning the past is not going to help them. They aren't like Hui or Keita or Seo Won and his members, with a group relying on them and a home to return to. They aren't even like Wumuti, Jiwoong, Hwanhee or Seunghwan, guys who've been through this before and been victim to circumstance and bad luck, whose tenacity is desperate, maybe, but admirable too.

They weren't victims of circumstance. They weren't wanted. It will do them no good to remind people of that.

It’s weirdly easy after a while to relax into it, the long filming familiar in a way he knows they had both wondered if they'd ever experience again. Long, tiring, dull at times, but they know this. They can do it. And it's fun in parts too. There are so many new people to meet, people who are all, for better or worse, in the same situation. They may technically be rivals, but they're working together too, to appear well, to make the show successful, to make it as pleasant an experience as they can. It's a surprisingly positive room to be in, despite the undercurrent of nerves and tension that trickles through it.

And when they play 0.0.0, and the masters invite the other boys down to play, Woongki cannot let that pass without joining in. It’s a drop of energy, and, more calculated, a chance to show what he can do. Maybe his technical dancing skills could never compare to the global trainees– Chen Kuanjui is an unnatural spirit of a man, and he doesn’t know Haruto or Antonny well but he knows their skills, has seen them through practice room doors and watched the way Haruto walks and sits, that abnormal control of every muscle. But comparison or not, he is still good, and this is his area of expertise. If he’s doing this, and they are, no turning back now, he’s not going to hide away the things people have loved about him, even if they’re the same things that have nearly ruined him.

When they're waiting for their ride home with the others (because WakeOne may be treating them like they're from different planets, but that doesn't extend to paying for separate minibuses) Woongki turns cautiously to Seongmin and, voice lowered so the others don't hear, says "Is it just me, or did that crowd feel surprisingly…"

"Uh… sympathetic?" Seongmin tries, eyes flicking to the side to check if anyones paying attention.

They aren't. Hanbin who Woongki knows (in every sense of the word, unfortunately) and Taerae, who he doesn’t particularly, are whispering quietly to each other, most of the rest are blinking blearily at their phones. Min appears to be asleep standing up.

"Mmm. Sympathetic." Woongki agrees, with a strange, fluttering sense of hope building in his chest.

In grand survival show tradition, after one day of learning the signal song he is both inexplicably fond of it and never wants to hear it again. The frustration of being in his group, of knowing, however mean it is, that he outclasses most of the people learning with him by miles, is difficult. But they’re trying, very hard, most of them. The mood isn’t exactly what one would call good, there’s plenty of despair being passed around like a cold (which is also being passed around, unfortunately), but it is determined. He swallows his ego and helps the others, takes the generous offer of help from those above– even he isn’t proud enough to think a professional dancer of the likes of Sung Hanbin has nothing to teach him.

One star becomes two, and roommates become friends, and rehearsal and evaluation becomes filming. Seo Won is a blessing he had never hoped to wish for, and the general atmosphere of, not positivity, exactly, but geniality and comradery, is utterly unexpected.

Filming the song is such a mixture of feelings. It's so satisfying to actually get to do his job again. It's so painful to look up from the second platform to the top and see other people in the spotlight. But there's a camera on him, and he knows he can make people look, if he gets just a second he can grab at their attention. It's something, after months of nothing, and even though he's not stupid enough to think of the show or the producers as kind, exactly, there's a simplicity to the contract here.

Of course, the science of actually getting people to support him is more complicated, but somehow life here is the easiest to understand anything has been for a while. The masters want them to do well. His fellow trainees want him to work hard, be friendly to pass the time with, not be a dick, and not make them look bad. The producers want them to be interesting, one way or another. He just wants to prove he's good and reliable and charming and worthy.

The people here take him as he is. There is no deficit to fill, no potential he hasn't lived up to, just a blank slate he can colour however suits him. And so, he colours it with hard work and a fun attitude and a portable children’s karaoke set.

When they're brought into the room to choose the first mission, and Minhyun sunbaenim is right there telling them that both he and Seongmin were among the top eighteen viewed fancams and they get the luxury of choice for their first team, it's like a dream. Tenth place overall– maybe, just maybe, this is going to work.

It's obvious, looking down the line, what some of the shared characteristics of these people are: namely, a pre-existing fanbase. Of course it makes the ones who didn't have that– Sung Hanbin, Ricky, Zhang Hao, Dang Hong Hai, to name a few– far more dangerous. No-one is surprised at literal Hui from Pentagon ranking first, or professional handsome boy-kisser Kim Jiwoong having people want to watch videos of his face (Woongki has watched the dramas, he understands completely), but an unknown trainee from Vietnam? That's a threat to watch out for.

Hui is ruthless when choosing his team. The combined power of the members is terrifying, and crucially a little annoying for Woongki when it’s his turn, especially having stolen Seongmin. But there are plenty, ninety-eight, in fact, boys to choose from, and he knows the song he wants to do, and it's just a matter of rolling through those two things and seeing who matches up. Seo Won is a no-brainer, as is taking Jiho along with him. Mingyu is possibly a risk, but he's not awful, there's some potential there, and more importantly he's kind, hardworking and ridiculously endearing. It's difficult to look at the guy and not love him, so despite the funny looks he gets from some corners when he says his name, he's sticking with that choice. Seungeon, he hopes, is self-explanatory. He hasn’t felt the pressure of the whole K vs G setup quite so keenly until he looks at the global ranks and wishes desperately for the ability to steal some of them. But he’s satisfied, eventually, with the line-up he gets, and when practice commences he thinks he’s being proven right.

They watch the first episode together, in a big room with Sunmi, who Woongki has been on TV with before and who doesn't acknowledge his presence (although she doesn't really acknowledge Hui's either, and she definitely knows who he is, so he's not too upset by it).

It’s borderline painful to watch their performance and see the sheen in his own eyes, and Woongki wouldn't say they get a lot of screentime, but they get some, and with nearly a hundred boys to juggle, he can be grateful for that. It’s more than a lot of the others did. They'll get more in the first mission too, he can tell, especially Seongmin's 'Avengers' team, and in the meantime the routine is settling. There’s pressure, and anxiety, but there’s a blissful simplicity to it as well: they get up too early, eat what they can, work themselves to the bone for too long, go to bed too late, and try to keep themselves entertained in the bits in between. The lack of connectivity to the outside means a lot of talking, and a lot of games: mafia games, board games, card games, silly party question games. It turns out that Kim Jiwoong, of handsome boy-kissing fame, is an absolute card shark, and he ends up with half the dorms’ snacks held hostage, although he’s also too nice, because he goes around later handing them back again. This at least keeps Seongmin happy, who had been a bit miffed at losing his shrimp chips.

It's strange. He and Seongmin came here together, but they’ve been split up immediately, and it's only now dawning properly on Woongki that one of them may make it through this and leave the other behind. He doesn’t like the idea, but he can’t quite stop poking at it, like a bruise. Who has the better chance? Who is it more likely to be? Who would be the one in the stars and who would be left staring up at them from the dust?

The food provided in the cafeteria is not what one would call "inspiring", but there is enough of it, which is honestly more than he knew most of them had thought to hope for. He's heard and seen, broadcasted on television, horror stories, particularly from the girls' shows. He's sitting with Seo Won and Taerae, who is proving interesting. He's a little reserved, but that’s ebbing, and Woongki has seen him onstage. There’s a quiet confidence in him, a surety in his abilities even if he doesn't always seem sure of his place, and an ambition that’s bleeding through the cracks of his humility. He's funny, too, when he lets himself be. It took one look between himself and Seo Won for them to decide they were adopting him.

Junhyeon drops down into a chair next to them with all the grace of a descending boulder, already talking. He's sweet, brilliant, and so energetic he gives Woongki a headache, and he looks at Taerae with stars in his eyes and a metaphorical tail wagging behind him. Woongki wonders, as he chatters on about how brilliant their performance is, about how Taerae is their ace and how he's going to be a superstar, if Taerae realises that Junhyeon has a crush on him. Whether it’s a crush crush or a little straight boy crush, Woongki can’t be sure, but it is adorable.

Someone else slides into the chair on Taerae's other side, and Woongki lets his face turn to an expression of performative disgust.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in."

"Does it take effort to look that ugly or does it come naturally?" Park Hanbin responds, picking broccoli off Taerae's tray and replacing it with pumpkin from his own.

"Don't play," Woongki says. "You want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid."

"Been there, done that, sweetheart. I don't do repeats."

Woongki holds eye contact as he bites viciously down on a sausage, and Taerae looks between them with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"As if I would ever go near your tiny dick again," he says through his mouthful.

Junhyeon is blushing and avoiding eye contact. Seo Won is eating his rice like it’s popcorn. Taerae's hand is hovering above Hanbin's arm, and he seems to realise rapidly who he has revealed that information to, blood draining from his face as he looks at the shock on Taerae’s.

"Oh, it’s not– I mean it wasn't like–" he scrambles to explain.

Woongki wonders if Taerae realises that Hanbin is in love with him.

"Oh, it's– don’t worry," Taerae tries, sweetly flustered. "I mean, you know we'd support you–"

"There's nothing to support, Taerae-yah," Woongki tells him, internally cooing over the earnest panic. "It was brief and disappointing and it’s never happening again."

"I don't remember you being all that disappointed," Hanbin scoffs, missing the relief on Taerae's face as he gets back to eating his pumpkin, and the one Won and Woongki share between them at the display.

Woongki also wonders if Taerae knows that he’s in love with Hanbin in return. It’s a difficult thing to decide, whether or not to pity them. It’s a shit situation, really, because they both have pretty good chances of making it, but good chances aren’t guarantees, and it could get messy, very messy indeed if one person gets left behind. The sensible thing to do would be to discourage it. But Woongki is nothing if not an optimist, a hopeless romantic determined to believe in love– he’s here, after all, after everything.

The empty seat to Junhyeon’s right gets occupied and Woongki has to stop himself from sitting up straighter or reaching up to fuss with his hair.

Lee Seunghwan is handsome. He’s kind, and funny, and carries a very sexy confidence with him despite the myriad of abandonment and self-worth issues that are basically a visa requirement for this building. He’s one of those people Woongki has crossed paths with briefly, fleetingly, enough to remember the name and face but not anything significant, barely enough to warrant remarking on having met before. But Seunghwan did, had made a point of saying how nice it was to see him again and then something vaguely complimentary about his stage presence that Woongki was too busy trying to stop himself from visibly swooning to pay attention to.

“How’s yours going?” Won asks him through a spoonful of omelette, and Seunghwan grimaces.

“Is your team taking refugees?”

Won winces sympathetically.

“That bad?”

“Eh,” Seunghwan sighs. “We’re trying. It’ll be fine, I think. I hope. But it’s not going to be anything more than fine. I guess that's what happens when the popular kids don’t want you on their team. Am I just not good enough for you, Cha Woongki?” he pouts dramatically, leaning across the table.

“I can put you in a beret and make you do aegyo if you want,” Woongki tells him, smiling and fluttering his eyelashes, one hand propping up his chin, and Seunghwan grins at him something devilish and returns to his tray.

So what if he’s handsome? If Woongki crumbled every time a good looking man made his heart flutter or his ribs tingle he’d have been a pile of ashes on the floor before he even debuted. He’s stronger than that. Seunghwan winks and turns back to his food, and Woongki ignores the knowing, glinting smile on Won’s face next to him.

In the run-up to the first mission’s performance, Woongki feels simultaneously like a seasoned veteran and like a fresh rookie, like he’s never been on stage before. It’s been so long, it almost hurts a bit. The mood on their team is a good one, jovial, nervous excitement more than anything. There have been no breakdowns, no resentment over parts. Worry, sure, and some less than complementary feedback at times, but nothing bitter, nothing terrifying. The G-group team has been a nice one to share space with too, and while obviously Woongki wants the victory he’s not exactly praying for their downfall, only their own success. He thinks, hopes, that maybe they’ll get it. They aren’t going to win overall, not with the likes of the Love Me Right and Back Door and Kill This Love teams– that’s a pipe dream too far. But maybe, just maybe, he can get them this smaller victory.

They gather before the stage, mics set, berets and braces and blush brushed on cheeks, and he huddles them in, mindful of both the cameras and the younger members (and Mingyu, always poor Mingyu). He links his arm through Won’s and leads them onstage with confidence and attitude, because they need it, and then they’re taking places and the lights are dimming and the countdown in their ears starts.

It’s fun. Actually fun, and it goes right, and they’re bright and cheerful and Seungeon is a star in the making and Mingyu doesn’t forget his lines or keel over from exhaustion and no-one makes any really bad mistakes and as they pile offstage and into the K-Group holding room to receive their fate he’s giddy with it, that no-one is going to be able to look at it and say they’d done badly, that Woongki had chosen wrong or led them astray.

It wasn’t what he knows some of them will be, but it was good, and it was his, and they snatch the victory from the (very cute) global team, and he thinks he’s allowed to be proud of this, ok?

All of K-group win, except for Kill This Love. It’s fair. He agrees with it entirely, the G-group team is stacked, talent wise, and their interpretation and execution was just better by far. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to see Park Gunwook, who has loomed so huge the entire time, barely eighteen and yet taking on the world, suddenly looking so small. It’s an unpleasant reminder of what their friends in the other room probably looked like when Woongki’s own victory was announced.

Cruel. But they all chose to come here. They knew this was the game they were playing.

It’s midnight or somewhere thereafter, and this great cavernous warehouse of a studio, this cathedral to the gods of entertainment, is absolutely fucking freezing.

Officially, they don’t know why they’ve been dragged here, K and G groups on separate stands facing a central stage area. Unofficially, they’ve all watched every previous survival show this company has made and they know what part of the format this is, and Woongki is very very excited. Nonetheless, when LipJ emerges and informs them all they’re doing a dance battle, they do an excellent job of faking excited surprise. The surprise part, not the excitement part. That bit’s pretty real, and palpable, even if they are freezing their collective hundred and ninety balls off. He’s glad when they’re assigned Choi Youngjoon as their mentor, if only because it reduces the risk of little Han Yujin passing out from fear at proximity to Baek Kooyoung.

The pressure of victory is more than just honour, though, much, much more important than that.

It’s pizza.

They’re going to win or die trying.

Some of these people carry dance battle victories like prizes of war, it's part of them, but for most of them it feels a lot like stepping into the TV, which Woongki supposes they sort of have, in a way. Watching Zihao and Yedam size each other up makes him understand the battle portion of this all so much more. The posturing, the not-so-quiet confidence they both carry, the way it sort of feels like this good-humoured entertainment segment could actually turn nasty at any second, if either of them chose to make it happen. Which is an absolutely wild thought to have about an interaction involving human teddy bear Wang Zihao, possibly the sweetest, most soft-spoken man in the world. Watching them dance is amazing. He knows before it's over that Zihao has snatched the first blood, but that doesn’t mean Yedam was anything short of incredible, as they all make sure to tell him as he returns to their stand.

Woongki is just settling into the rhythm of the whole venture when Choi Youngjoon points at him with a knowing smile and tells him he’s next.

Woongki can dance. That’s not a matter of debate. He knows he can, knows he’s good at it, isn’t shy about his ability. But Woongki is not A Dancer. Sung Hanbin is A Dancer. Chen Kuanjui is A Dancer. Wang Zihao is A Dancer. Woongki is A Performer, who happens as part of his job (it’s still his job for now, until he finishes this programme, then he’ll reassess that) to dance. There is a difference. He wasn’t raised on techniques and genres the way these others were, he’s never had to stand in a ring and back himself one-on-one against an opponent, and he’s ever so slightly terrified he’s going to embarrass himself doing something reasonably good and then get blasted by someone turning thirty times on one spot doing a somersault and landing in the splits while vogueing.

He’s ushered onto the stage and discovers that his opponent is Keita. Powerful, cool, confident. Stupidly hot in a compact sort of way. Undeniably masculine.

They cheer behind him, call his name, Jongwoo yells for him to tear the stage up. He hears the G-group mutter about how strong of an opponent he is, and it's not loud enough to be meant for his ears, which means they mean it, that they respect him, that they're expecting from him.

He lets the music start, feels the beat for a second, and looks Keita in the eye as he pops a hip to the rhythm, determined not to disappoint.

There’s only one way Woongki is winning this battle, he knows, and it won’t be by smirking and flexing his muscular forearms. He’s surrounded by friends here. As Seongmin said, this crowd is surprisingly sympathetic. Their team mentor is Choi Youngjoon, for fuck’s sake. The only thing for it, truly the only way to grab both the victory and the screentime he craves, is the be his best, gayest self and shake ass like they’re in a Hongdae nightclub and he’s doing his level best to get Keita to fuck him silly.

Well.

It works?

LipJ calls his name and he bounces gaily around the stage and the other trainees chant his name and welcome him home as their victor and it feels fucking incredible.

In the real mission his team didn't win the battle outright, they're not going to a music show or gaining point benefits, he can't be sure of his place in the voting rankings the way he knows some people will be.

But there are a hundred people in this hall who see him as he is and respect him, as a teammate, a friend, an opponent. A threat. And that feels almost as good as the half cold pizza they end up sharing with the global trainees and the mentors and the crew at two o'clock in the morning.

The first round eliminations sneak up on them like a scythe, and he makes it through. They lose Jiho, and he feels awful, but the kid is surprisingly pragmatic about it. Then again, he thinks as Won sends them both away with dry eyes, he and Winnie have something to go back to, a home to which to return and a career, however fledgling, waiting for them. The same can’t be said for a lot of the other boys piling suitcases back onto buses, seen off with hugs and promises to stay in touch which they all know only half of will be fulfilled. Hwanhee announces to them all that he can’t continue on because of his health and Woongki sees the unshakeable Kim Jiwoong cry. And then they’re sent into a big empty hall with song names on the walls and Minhyuk from BtoB in all his glory and this time they’re going from the bottom up, and Hanbin will be last with the privilege to kick out whoever he chooses.

There are several choices he could go with here. He’s not one to brag, but while he has his strengths he also knows his own versatility. He knows what he wants, though, and what he wants is to combine both what he is good at and an image he hasn’t shown before. He wants to do Tomboy. He needs to do Tomboy. Everyone knows he can be bright and cute. He needs to show them he can be strong and dark and sexy. It’s rap and vocal, no real choreography, he can try to showcase his singing more, but he already has several ideas for the performance side of it too, blooming and swirling on an imaginary stage in his head.

He also would really very much like to say fuck on camera. And maybe wear fishnets.

He has his plan B (and C and D and so-on and so forth), but he takes his place under the Tomboy sign anyway and tries to both hold onto hope and let go of expectation, and when Seunghwan joins him under the same sign those activities become very very urgent. His revamped need to stay here is part personal and part professional, because yes he would really like to share a practice room (and possibly a bedroom) with Seunghwan, but also he’s heard the guy sing, seen him dance, heard him rap. He’s good, really good. He suits the song beautifully, and while Woongki is obviously having visions of him in leather and plaid and eyeliner, he’s also hearing his voice in the pre chorus and trying not to swoon from imagination alone.

As the people keep filing into other songs, they reach the top fifteen, and hope starts to flutter around like a particularly persistent butterfly.

Please he prays, Let me have this. Just this once, let me keep it.

He grabs Yunseo’s hand as Park Gunwook enters the fray, and heads straight for where they’re standing. There’s a horrible sinking feeling as he considers the team Gunwook had put together last round, and considers who’s standing with him. There’s no way he’ll kick Junhyeon out– the pair of them have bonded like puppies left in a crate under a bridge. And when he thinks of the image of the three boys he stands with it’s fairly obvious who the odd one out is. So it’s a disappointment, but not a surprise, when with a genuinely apologetic look on his big squishy face, Gunwook steps up to him and says “Sorry” in the most formal way he can.

Woongki could pout at him, could make a show of being sad. But it doesn’t feel right at this point, so he just assures him it's ok and starts his path to his second choice.

“It hurt my heart more than I thought,” he hears from behind, and he glances at his peers and sees sympathy, pity.

That won’t do. That isn’t who he’s become here. So he sucks up his pride, strikes a pose and struts his way over to the Feel Special sign and hears the cheers and the laughter that follows.

It had been too easy to forget, in the murk of the depression that had forced his break from work, ending not in a triumphant return but in redundancy, that his skill set lies not only on the stage but here too: in the noticeable uptick in atmosphere, in the smile on Gunwook’s face that replaces the contrition, in the excitement in his new teammates as he approaches the spot like he’s walking a runway. Maybe it’ll get him votes, maybe it won’t. This might not even make the final cut of the episode. But starting this new challenge on a negative isn’t going to help. He loves this song, and while he isn’t going to get to show the new side he wanted to, he can still make it good, he knows he can. He doesn’t know enough about his teammates to piece that puzzle together yet, but they all seem enthusiastic and they’re all pretty. They can work with this. It’s gonna be good.

He is not going to look at the clock, because looking at the clock will only remind him of how little time he has and how little, if any, sleep he is going to get in the next day or two. He’s only in the stairwell to remind himself that the walls of the small studio are not actually closing in on him as he works, and that there are other sounds besides a constant repeat of Feel Special and his own trainers squeaking on the floor and his pencil moving in his notebook. He has to remind himself that there are other people who exist, and that he’s not going to emerge from the studio tomorrow morning (this morning?) with a finished choreo and no-one to show it to because he’s actually the only person left in the world and the show stopped filming and he’s been in there for months and months and everyone’s forgotten all about him. He sways a little as he forces his legs to carry him up the stairs, and after the second lean a touch too far in one direction decides sitting down is probably the best course of action for now.

Time has ceased to have meaning, but at some point a familiar body joins his on the stair.

“I’m not going to make it,” Seongmin says, after some time just leaning into his side.

“Huh?”

“This elimination. Our performance is fucked. I’m a shit leader, we can’t even rehearse, I can’t make them– they made Takuto cry, which means I made Takuto cry. Takuto. They’re going to crucify me, Woongki-yah. I’m just– I’m fucked. It’s over.”

Once upon a time, Woongki was a good friend to have in a crisis. He’s empathetic and sensible and good with words. Right now though, he doesn’t have any.

“Bitch, me too. It’s a party.”

He drops his head onto Seongmin’s shoulder. They mostly operate as friends, in their relationship, and it's rare that Woongki asks or even needs Seongmin to play the hyung. Funny that the one time he does is the time he knows he can’t.

“Who made Takuto cry?” he asks instead around a yawn.

“Ricky and Jingxiang.”

“Fighting?”

“Literally can’t get through five minutes of rehearsal without it,” Seongmin tells him glumly. “So we just can’t rehearse. Jingxiang is running off on his own because he refuses to go at the group’s pace,” (Takuto’s pace, Woongki mentally corrects), “Ricky won’t stop fighting him about it, and technically Ricky’s saying what I’m thinking but I can’t get it through to him that I need him not to. I have no authority over either of them. I had to walk out because I got so mad. Ricky clams up every time someone shoves a camera in his face so he never even gets it to a head or yells about it. And Jingxiang seems like he’s one wrong push from a full on nervous breakdown and I don’t want to be the person who does that but they made Takuto cry and he was aggressive to me because he was cornered and I just didn’t know what to do. So I left. We don’t have the time to put together a decent performance from this. And there isn’t an edit in the world that’s going to make me look competent. I’m fucked.”

Woongki wants to tell him he isn’t, that it’ll be fine, that they’re both going to breeze through this and slide comfortably through the next eliminations into a round where they can pick songs and stand out for all the right reasons. He wants to, so bad. But Seongmin and he have been through too much together to lie to each other now.

“I don’t know what to do, Woongki-yah.”

Woongki squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in the sweat and the dust and the desperation. His brain is still singing distorted versions of his own song, still record scratching over hand movements and formations for four people he can't quite seem to see straight when it’s just him alone jumping between positions. But he tries to let it go and think.

“Neither of them actually have a problem with you, right?”

“I don’t even think they have a problem with each other, not really. They’re just–”

Scared. Desperate. Flailing in quicksand.

“Talk to them outside of the practice room. Call a meeting, and be, I don’t know. Pathetic. If authority won’t work, shock them with pity. Oh god, I don’t know, I’m talking out my ass.”

He leans back, lying down on the stairs, edges digging uncomfortably into his spine as he stares up at the ceiling. Seongmin threads a hand through his, fingers intertwining, except he can’t quite feel it, it’s like his fingers are wrapped in blubber or bubble wrap, only the slightest pressure as Seongmin squeezes which is, uh, worrying. But also inconsequential, really, at this point.

“Did you know I could make choreography?” he asks.

His hand gets wiggled in the air above them. It looks like it belongs to someone else.

“I think you can do just about anything, to be honest.”

“I can’t make them… I don’t know. Believe? They’re not lazy or difficult but they’re all so scared. They’ve just, like, decided it’s too hard and they can’t do well so they’ve given up and we’re like. Frozen. So here I am, singing eighty percent of the fucking song and making the fucking choreography, all on my own, because I’m the only one with the balls to try.” He breathes out slowly. “Sorry. That was mean. I get it. I just feel like I’m all on my own.”

Seongmin rolls into him, pressing his forehead hard against his shoulder.

“I’m gonna take your advice," he says after a moment. "I’m gonna round them up and be pathetic and pray for sympathy.”

“Make yourself cry,” Woongki suggests.

“I might not have to force it, at this point,” Seongmin admits, disentangling and pulling himself up before offering Woongki a hand. “I’d tell you to go to bed, but you won’t listen. Drink plenty, eat snacks, try not to stay up literally all night.”

“No promises.”

He stays up all night. But they have a choreo, and he teaches it, and they perform it, and it's not brilliant, exactly, but it's whole. It’s there and finished. The need for a private coaching session is embarrassing, but it's useful, and he absorbs every last bit of expertise and tries to make sure the others do too, is encouraging and helpful and cheerful. The relentless positivity he pours into his groupmates is exhausting, but they try and feed it back to him, he thinks, which is something at least.

The final review isn’t exactly glowing, but he shoves his disappointment down. He takes the feedback. He rallies the troops and he works and eventually they’re leaving the stage with no major mistakes behind them.

He knows it didn’t feel right, isn’t sure he’s ever going to want to watch this one, but it’s over and done with, and honestly that’s enough to be grateful for at this point.

There’s a little expectation building, too, as he assures his team they did well, as they come down from the high and the nerves together, as they gather in front of the screen that will announce their individual scores from the audience. It’s not arrogance, surely, because they all did well, but realistically– he sang nearly the whole song. Led the performance. He doesn’t think any of his teammates should be scored badly, but is he mad for thinking he has to be highest?

It doesn’t feel like madness when they sit with the other teams behind them and they all seem to expect it too, calling his name so casually, as though there can be no other option. He allows himself the excitement, turning to shush his friends as he giggles, linking hands with his teammates and waiting with bated breath and hope burning until, at last, the screen reveals the first place name.

Oh.

Never mind.

“Have you always known you were gay?”

Woongki pauses with a crisp halfway to his mouth, eyes instinctively flicking for cameras, hand coming to clutch at the front of his shirt where a mic would be. There are none, obviously. It’s night time, before an elimination, and they’re in the stairwell blindspot. He’s had more damning conversations here at more precarious times, but the suddenness of it has thrown him.

“What?” he half chokes, half breathes.

Seunghwan is watching him, eyes wide and one hand twitching by his side, like he wants to reach out.

“Sorry, I mean– I just assumed– god thats so rude–”

“No, no. It’s not rude. Just– unexpected.”

Seunghwan is still watching him carefully, like he’s waiting for an explosion, or for Woongki to crack, maybe, hands ready to catch the pieces. Not for the first time, Woongki thinks that he probably wouldn’t mind being caught by him. He shoves it away. It’s a dangerous thought, especially with this line of conversation.

“I am,” he says, when Seunghwan remains quiet. “Gay, that is. It’s… I mean it is a secret, it kind of has to be, but it’s never been a very well kept one.”

Seunghwan nods understandingly and smiles a little.

“When did you realise?” he asks, leaning back against the wall and looking unfairly handsome while he’s at it.

Woongki thinks about it. He likes to think he’s in touch with himself, that he’s a part of his community, however open he isn’t allowed to be about it. But the necessity of secrecy means there are certain things he doesn’t really talk about all that often. It’s one thing not to really hide something, but it’s another to go yapping about it to anyone who will listen. That’s how accidents happen. There are things he’s never explained, to anyone, and he realises that this is one of them.

“I don’t know if I realised I was gay so much as I realised everyone else wasn’t? I don’t know how to describe it. Like I knew adults tended to be in mum-dad pairs or whatever but that was grown-up shit, you know? It was foreign, it didn’t matter. But at some point I realised that when the boys in school and stuff, when they talked about girls, they actually meant it. Maybe I’m self-centred, but I never really saw it as me being different from them so much as them being different from me. I mean, then came crushes and teenage hormones and bullying and stuff, but that was first.” He pauses to shove a few more crisps in his mouth, Seunghwan not interrupting, still watching him with undivided attention. “And I think my parents knew before I did. My dad– you’ve seen Reply 1997, right?” at Seunghwan’s eye roll and subsequent nod, he carries on. “He was weirdly insistent that we watch it together, him, my brother and me. I was only, like, ten, maybe eleven. Probably too young. But we all watched it together, and you know when Joonhee says he’s in love with Yoonjae? My dad just made a point of saying that he should’ve fallen for someone else. And he said it was because he shouldn’t waste his time on someone who won’t love him back, that he deserved someone who would value him. I didn’t realise at the time he was talking to us, about us, but I knew it was important. And when I realised later… It made things easier.”

There is this look on Seunghwan’s face that makes Woongki want to hide.

“Your dad sounds really cool," he says eventually, with a smile that twists a little at the corners. It looks good on him, as everything does, but it's sad too.

“He is. They both are. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them.”

They’re quiet for a bit, and it's nice, just to sit and eat snacks and not be observed. Except for the fact that he is being observed. Seunghwan’s eyes are heavy on him, his attention is a solid, tangible thing, and Woongki hates how much he feels it. Well, hate is a strong word. But it’s an inconvenient time and an inconvenient place, and the wise thing to do would’ve been to strive for distance as soon as he realised what he was feeling, but it’s a bit late for that. Innocent, attraction based crushes are one thing, especially on straight boys. They don’t really matter, they’re two a penny, easy to enjoy and then ignore. This is becoming another beast altogether.

“I wish someone had done that for me," Seunghwan says. "I might've figured myself out sooner. I feel like I’m playing catch up.”

Time seems to stand still for just a second, the air freezing in place as the words sink in, as Woongki processes the meaning in them. That's not right. It's not how this conversation is supposed to go, Seunghwan is already too close, too touchable, this was the one remaining vestige of his unavailability. But this isn't about Woongki, so he allows himself only a second to pretend not to be surprised, and then another to pull the right words out.

“It’s not a game, or a test," he says. "God, I hope there’s not a test, I’m terrible at studying. But there isn't, I mean, there's nothing to catch up on. Everyone figures things out at their own pace.”

Seunghwan smiles at him from across the stairs, hair stylishly mussed as he leans against the wall, which is truly just uncalled for. He can’t be this hot and nice and gay. It’s not fair. Won’t someone think of Woongki’s delicate constitution?

“Thanks. But I hate that there are things that only make sense looking back. I wish I’d known at the time, it would’ve– I think it would’ve stopped me being a dick about some things, to be honest. If I’d known what those feelings were, understood myself a bit better.”

“Can’t change the past,” Woongki shrugs, and he’s being so casual about this, this is fine and completely normal and he doesn’t want to escape the conversation and he definitely doesn’t want to suggest a few things Seunghwan and he could do in order to catch up on what he might've missed. “If you could, neither of us would be here. But we are. Work with what you’ve got now, move for what you can have tomorrow. Live laugh love. Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss. Um… look before you leap? Where there’s a will there’s a way? Two di–”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,” Seunghwan laughs, reaching over to grab some of the remaining crisps and try to stuff them in Woongki’s mouth to stop him talking. He swerves heavily, scolding him for making a mess in order to distract from the way his pulse had quickened at the potential of Seunghwan's fingers anywhere near his mouth.

Stop thinking about it. Don't think about it. Stop. God, at least they aren't in a group together.

“Are you excited for the next performance?” Seunghwan asks, having been bullied back to his place against the wall. “You seem like you really like the song.”

He is. He’s so excited, to finally be doing something that suits him, with a team he doesn’t have to worry about. Well, they all worry about Takuto, but he has also proven time and again that he will put the work in to handle himself, so that worry isn’t as pressing as it could be. The abundance of popular figures he’s sharing a practice room with have the potential to drown him out, of course, but standing behind or to the side of Sung Hanbin is also basically guaranteed screentime, so there’s that too. Plus it's just– it's fun. It's really fun. They’re a great group of people, and the song is a blast, and he knows he can pull it off well even if his lines amount to like, three seconds, he’ll be credited for his ideas when they record it properly.

Given, of course, he makes it through the eliminations tomorrow.

“I do. It’s really fun, the team is good. I’m gonna be overshadowed but I’ll be onscreen and I’m noisy enough to not go unnoticed. I’ll just stand behind Hanbin-hyung and act ridiculous. As long as I make it through tomorrow.”

Seunghwan looks at him with something akin to disbelief, handsome eyebrows (god, Woongki, get it together, they’re just eyebrows) raising.

“You’re basically guaranteed. You had the storyline to end all storylines, you carried that performance.”

A bitter smile twists at Woongki’s mouth before he can crush it.

“Not enough to rank first, apparently.”

It’s not that he’s bitter about– okay, that’s a lie, he’s still completely eating vinegar about the whole thing. Not that he’s mad at Shuaibo or the others, it’s not their fault, but still. Seunghwan’s right. Far be it from Woongki to toot his own horn, but he carried that performance. As good as the others were, the lack of confidence and the language barrier meant he basically dragged them through the entire thing. He knows the edit will be good, will paint him well, people should be sympathetic to his plight and impressed by his work. And yet, all that, and it still wasn’t enough to win.

“Do you ever…” he trails off, looking down at the stairs, not sure if he should continue.

This isn’t the kind of friend he is, it's not the Woongki people want. He’s the fun guy, the annoying dramatic one, the cheerleader. But the problem is Seunghwan is so nice, Woongki can’t help feeling that even if he cut himself open and spilled out all the rotten bits inside, the bitter and self-conscious and cruel, he would accept it all. It’s this, far more than his jawline or his voice or the way his tongue peeks out from his teeth when he’s dancing, that makes him dangerous. And Woongki has always had a terrible habit of flirting with danger.

“Do you ever feel like, no matter what you do, you’re never going to be good enough? Like you can have all the fortune in the world and work as hard as you can and do everything right and still, there’s just something about you that means you can’t win? That no matter how loud you are, people are just never going to hear you?”

“Come here.”

Woongki looks up in surprise, but Seunghwan really has his arms open and a soft, sad look on his face. He shouldn’t. But he wants to, and it would be weird if he didn’t, so he scoots along the stair until Seunghwan can wrap him up and pull him close. And he’s warm, and solid, and he smells so good, and he rests his chin on Woongki’s head like he doesn’t have anywhere else he’d rather be.

“I know what it’s like to win and still lose anyway,” is what he says eventually. “The result wasn’t fair, but nothing about this life is fair, and we chose it knowing that. I don’t know why the audience picked Shuaibo–”

“He did well,” Woongki interjects, because as frustrating as the process had been, it’s true, he had done well in the end.

“You did better,” Seunghwan tells him, gently but firmly.

“Maybe. But he’s pretty.”

“You’re prettier,” he says, and what the fuck?

“That is a bald-faced lie,” Woongki splutters, looking anywhere but Seunghwan’s face, feeling his ears burning.

Seunghwan chuckles, and Woongki tries desperately hard to ignore the fact he can feel it through his side that’s pressed to his hyung's chest, held there by strong arms, and his head against his throat.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you know. I’m allowed to have an opinion.” He can hear the amusement in his voice, until it turns more thoughtful. “Everyone in this building adores you, Cha Woongki. You have to know that.”

It’s not that he’s unaware that his peers seem to like him, respect him. He’s made far more friends than he thought he would, has been somewhat blindsided by how enjoyable the experience has been, despite the pressure and the hard work and the general sense of existential dread that follows with it. But the problem is these people are not the ones who decide his fate, and ultimately, though their affection and respect is meaningful, and it might help him, it’s not going to hand him his career back. The only people who can do that don’t seem to be particularly bothered by him one way or another.

“Well I am adorable,” is the only thing he can pull to respond with.

Seunghwan hums in agreement and tightens his arms around him, squeezing gently.

“I think we’ll make it to the finals.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then hyung will buy all the soju you want.”

It’s hard to say why what had been a private conversation becomes– well, becomes a party, really. First Wumuti turns up, and squeezes in on Woongki’s other side to hug him, unknowing of context, because that’s just the sort of person he is. And then Haruto appears with Antonny, then Won, (Park) Hanbin and Taerae, and then suddenly half the camp is crowded into the staircase, passing around snacks and drinks. Even Zhang Hao and Kuanjui, who had clearly been looking for their regular stairway chat, settle themselves in with the crowd. There are so many of them they spill into the hallway, which means the cameras will be picking up the edge of the group, but the main bulk will be hidden and they can let loose a little. No-one says, explicitly, that they’re enjoying the last night that a good deal of them will be on the programme, but they all know it’s how this has come to be. It’s late, but all they have to film tomorrow are the eliminations, and with the voting not done they don’t happen until night time. It’s a fucked up sleep pattern, but everyone knew that coming in.

In perhaps an effort to avoid talking about the real reason they’re gathered, somehow a game of Truth or Dare starts. Woongki gags when Junhyeon eats a crisp off the floor, ooohs with the crowd when Jianyu successfully identifies two of his teammates shoes by smell, blindfolded, and cheers for Taerae as he competes with Sung Hanbin to see who can stuff the most Homerun Balls in their mouth. It’s a closer match than anyone would guess, because Hanbin, bless him, is a competitive monster, but Taerae prevails in the end. They learn that Hyunbeen is frightened of moths, that Jongwoo lost his virginity in a car and that Mingyu once managed to download porn onto a school computer (by accident, he insists, and given everything about him Woongki honestly errs on the side of belief).

The turns move on, and Won, bless his innocent (hah) little heart, picks truth. Haruto, his truth demander, looks disturbingly happy about it. There’s a brief pause as he decides something, during which Haruto bobs his head around, before he finally speaks.

“Wonnie hyung,” he says, grinning and leaning forward slightly with his hands braced on his knees. “Fuck Marry Kill: Kim Jiwoong, Sung Hanbin, Park Hanbin.”

The chorus of gasps and squeals is almost loud enough to drown out Won’s immediate, hesitation free declaration of “Fuck Jiwoong-hyung.”

But only almost.

He doesn’t even look embarrassed. He just sits and smiles innocently, pretty eyes curving as they all scream and holler and Jiwoong chokes out a confused “Thank you?”, and then the second wave of gasps goes round as what just transpired gets repeated and translated for those who missed it.

“Marry Hanbin, kill Hanbin,” he finishes up, before leaning over to take a snack from the bag Cong is holding.

“Which one’s which?”

“Marry Sung Hanbin, obviously,” comes Park Hanbin’s only slightly gloomy shout from the step below, raucous laughter following Won’s nod of confirmation as he pats him consolingly on the shoulder.

Woongki cackles along with them, leaning into Wumuti’s side where the older still has an arm wrapped around him. It’s not like he’s forgotten that come tomorrow night there’ll be only half this number of people here, but it’s easy not to think about in this atmosphere. It is strange, despite the stress, what a gift this thing has been. He knows it’s not the same for everybody, knows for some of them the bad has outweighed, is outweighing the good. But for Woongki… he’s been given the stage back. And for the first time in his life, he’s popular. Not just friendly, not just having plenty of friends (because he’s always had lots of friends, whatever wider groups thought of him, and it’s been enough, really) but a figure of actual repute, of respect. These people, as a whole, like him. It's worth sitting through any elimination for.

He's just zoned out enough to miss how the game moves, and when he tunes back in, Shuaibo (who definitely had not been there a few minutes ago) is kissing a shocked looking Donggun on the cheek.

"Really?" He asks, blushing a little.

"Mm." Shuaibo nods once. "Pretty."

The mini game makes Jongwoo its next victim, and he plumps for dare.

"Actually, same again," Wumuti calls from beside Woongki, to excited "ooooh"s from the crowd. "Kiss the best looking person here."

So that's what it had been about. Jongwoo removes his arm from Jay's shoulders and lifts a sleepy-looking Matthew just enough to transfer him from his own lap to Jiwoong's next to him. He stands and looks about himself, and Woongki, like he assumes most people were, was kind of expecting him to just lean over and plant one on Jiwoong, so now he's intrigued. He watches him stumble his way up the stairs, crossed over legs and arms hurriedly retracted and folded out of the way as he goes, until he comes to a halt in front of the Hao-Hanbin-Kuanjui trio. He crouches before them and picks up Kuanjui's hand to press a delicate, gentlemanly kiss on his knuckles.

Kuanjui screams. Zhang Hao also screams, about two octaves lower. Jongwoo accepts an incredibly childish high five from Antonny as he fights his way back through the bramble of limbs to his original seat, grinning all the way.

When Kuanjui is the next loser, it feels something like fate.

"We've got to!" Junhyeon shouts over the excitement. "We've got to!"

"All in favour of repeating the dare!" Sung Hanbin bellows, and hands shoot up like bamboo. "Majority votes! Chen Kuanjui, please kiss the best looking person in this stairwell."

Woongki has one hand over his mouth, one clutching Seunghwan's elbow in excitement. Junhyeon is running a commentary on whether Kuanjui will return Jongwoo's affections or betray his suitor, and Kuanjui unfolds his limbs in that physically improbable way where he's technically doing human activities like standing still on two legs, but something about the way his body moves, like it doesn't have to obey the same laws of space and physics as everyone else's, makes him look inhuman all the same. He picks his way carefully through the human jungle, up the stairs to stand just in front of Woongki. But he's not facing Woongki.

He ripples down to kneel in the non-existent space in front of Seo Won, then leans forward and presses a solid kiss to his lips.

The collective gasp is audible, and then it breaks into whooping and giggles from all sides. An indelicate cry of "Get it, Wonnie-hyung!" comes from somewhere down the stairs, and Woongki would try to see where it came from but he can't look away. Won blinks slowly and his mouth curls at the corners, a gleam in his eye.

"Chen Kuanjui," he drawls, words oozing from him like honey as he cocks his head to the side, leaning back on the wall behind him. "Do you really think I'm pretty?"

"Prettier than the rest of them," Kuanjui purrs back at him.

Won pouts. The whole hall has gone quiet. This is part performance and part something else, and Woongki, like everyone, is enthralled by it.

"Really? And that's all I get for it?"

Woongki sees the moment Kuanjui gets the message, the way his eyes drop and darken, his smile turns wicked at the edges. His hands slide from Won's knees up his thighs and he leans in, pausing a centimetre from his mouth. It's Won who tips his head and closes the gap, capturing Kuanrui's mouth with his own again. It's impossible to look away from. It's not a dirty kiss, there are no tongues involved, but it's not exactly chaste either. It's sensual and captivating, and Woongki swears he can hear at least seven sexuality crises happening at once.

They separate, and no-one speaks, no-one breathes. Until Won's nose wrinkles and he giggles, high pitched and sweet, like tinkling wind chimes. He darts forward to kiss Kuanjui again, quickly at the corner of his mouth, and then they're drawing apart from each other and the hollering and whistling takes over the stairwell.

"God damn," someone says in English a little way away, and Woongki thinks it sounds like Jay.

He reaches a leg out to kick Seo Won in the knee, who just grins happily at him, looking innocent as anything even with Kuanjui's spit glistening on his lips.

A few turns go by in which no particularly exciting scandals emerge, and then Woongki shouts “three” at the same time as another voice and loses rock-paper-scissors to a very relieved Yunseo.

It’s Keita’s turn to demand, and Woongki, mostly because he’s comfortable squished between Wumuti and Seunghwan’s weight and really cannot be bothered to move, chooses truth.

“Tell us the story of your first kiss.”

Shit.

Keita has no reason to think this is an unfair question. Given he was there for the dramatic retelling of the night Woongki lost his virginity, he knows that Woongki has at least had a first kiss, which is more than can be said for a number of their company. Woongki swallows uncomfortably.

“A girl in middle school,” he says quickly, leaning his weight more into Wumuti in the hopes he’ll press back, anchor him to this space and time and these people.

“A girl?” Haruto gasps. “Why? Were you friends?”

His hands shift on his thighs. He wants to grab one of the hyungs but embarrassment freezes him, embarrassment at acting like this, that a memory of a five second kiss seven years ago can do this to him.

“No,” he says eventually, hoping the shake in his voice isn’t audible. “I just didn’t dodge quick enough. And I couldn’t– she was too strong, I couldn’t– I couldn’t push her–”

He squeezes his eyes shut against the stares but that’s worse because he can see her, her face looming closer, smell the stench of her body spray and the sticky press of her lip gloss that he couldn’t seem to wipe from his mouth even days after when the edges were raw and tender from how he’d scrubbed them. He feels the iron grip on his face, one hand either side, pressing into his teeth. He remembers the way he’d lifted his arms to try and push her away but he couldn’t because the only place he could reach was her chest and he knew he couldn’t do that, knew it would be worse, somehow, and the way she’d smiled at him after and asked if he wanted to go see a film with her and he’d just shaken his head and ran because he was so terrified that if he opened his mouth he was going to be sick all over her. He’d skipped training, sprinted home and collapsed straight into his brother’s arms, retching over his tears, trying and trying to get the words out to say what had happened and trying to understand why it had felt so bad –

There’s a hand on the back of his neck, and a face pressed into the side of his.

“Woongki-yah. It’s okay.” Wumuti’s voice is strong, certain, but still gentle, right next to him. The laws of physics state that two separate things cannot occupy the same space, so if his nose is pressed to Woongki’s cheekbone, her hands can’t be there. Something squeezes both his hands so he knows they aren’t raised, trapped in the prison her arms had formed. “Open your eyes, Woongki, come on.”

He does, after a minute. The images don’t disappear entirely, but they’re diluted by the reality in front of him. Wumuti is holding his hands, Seunghwan has one hand on his neck and the other on his knee. From down the stairs Seongmin is looking up at him, stricken, guilty. He’s not the only one. Haruto looks like he wants to cry, Taerae has a hand half stretched in his direction, and Keita looks ready to climb up to him.

“Sorry,” he blurts out. “Woongki-yah, I’m really sorry, hyung is so sorry.”

Woongki just shakes his head, doesn’t quite trust himself with words yet. There are quiet but intense whispers rushing through the gathering, none more so than whatever is happening with Hao, Hanbin and Kuanjui. Zhang Hao is speaking quickly to the others, and Hanbin’s eyes widen and Kuanjui starts nodding his head a million miles an hour, flapping a hand against Hanbin’s knee.

“Do you want a do-over?” their P01 says all of a sudden.

“What?”

“That was a shitty first kiss,” Hanbin says evenly. “Do you want a better one?”

Woongki can only gape at him, at the little smile on Zhang Hao’s face, at the dawning looks of realisation that spread from person to person. Hanbin raises himself to his knees, cups his hands around his mouth, and calls out to the assembled company.

“Who wants to volunteer to be Cha Woongki’s first kiss?”

“Hyung, don’t be ridiculous, that’s–”

He stops, spluttering.

Ninety-five percent of the people gathered have their hands raised in the air. Even the straight ones. Even the taken ones. It seems like the only ones that don’t are the literal children and Kamden, who Woongki knows can be jumpy about skinship and personal space, and he doesn’t have it in him to feel offended.

The first thought that goes through Woongki’s head is All these hot boys want to kiss me. The second, more truthful, more warming thought is All of these people care about me enough to try to fix something unfixable. His musings are disrupted by a startled bark from Park Hanbin.

“Tayonaga Takuto! Why the fuck do you have your hand up?”

Takuto, right at the bottom of the stairs, swallowed by larger figures so Woongki hadn’t even noticed him, looks around in confusion. There is a sudden barrage of Japanese from at least three different angles, until Takuto gasps and pulls his hand down fast enough it must hurt. It sets a wave of giggles round the group, tension starting to dissipate from Woongki’s earlier display.

They decide via rock paper scissors, because of course they do. It’s Taerae who sheepishly suggests it, to relieved laughter, because it must be blatantly obvious that Woongki is far too overwhelmed to do anything as complicated as choosing.

Junhyeon calls it, and they weed out chunks at a time. Woongki can only watch, and hide his relief and his disappointment as people get eliminated. Seongmin would have been a safe choice, but he’s out in the second round. Hui, thankfully, goes out in the first. Jiwoong clings on long enough for Woongki to get his hopes up, but then the idiot throws scissors instead of rock and that’s that dream dead. Woongki refuses to think about the fact that Seunghwan still has his hand raised, is still hissing in victory every round, because he refuses to hope. He can’t allow it.

It comes down to Keita, Seunghwan and the two Hanbins.

Everybody knows that very soon Sung Hanbin is going to be the most famous person in this room, and saying he was Woongki’s ‘first’ kiss would be quite something. Unfortunately then both he and Park Hanbin throw rock while the other two throw paper.

Woongki can hardly bear to watch, drops his eyes to the stairs, refuses to pray or wish or even think about it even as the other boys get excited, volume and tension building.

When Keita caws in victory Woongki cannot parse whether he’s disappointed or relieved. Seunghwan clicks his tongue in (feigned, Woongki reminds himself, it’s not real) disappointment, and winks at him.

“Better luck next time, eh?”

He can feel Wumuti’s hand leave his arm to fly round his back and hit the other boy, producing a whine and a “You’re so mean to me, hyung.”

Keita marches up the stairs with a broad grin, stopping in front of Woongki with his hands on his hips, tummy protruding like it does when he’s not thinking about his posture. He kind of looks like a cartoon character, but he’s handsome still, and his eyes are as kind as always.

“I hear you’re in need of a first kiss. May I?”

Woongki can only nod, giggling in a way he knows is uncharacteristically shy when Keita crouches before him and picks up both of his hands.

“Fitting,” he says, squeezing them firmly. "Since it's my fault. I'll make up for it."

He leans forward and nudges Woongki’s nose with his own. And then he kisses him. It’s chaste but it’s firm and sure, nothing clumsy or hesitant about it. Woongki is reminded that this is a man who always knows what he’s doing, who can take charge of any room, determined and dependable. Whatever maelstrom of feelings he’s suppressing for the boy on his right, as Keita pulls back and gently drags Woongki’s bottom lip with him, he’s glad it was him. Glad of the safety of it.

He smiles at him and squeezes his hands again, and Woongki manages a smile in return. It won't erase the past, but there's a new memory to go with it now, a better one, and maybe one day this will be the first one that comes to mind.

Keita takes his hands back and stands again, the soft smile morphing into a grin.

"I'm gonna start telling everybody I was Cha Woongki's first kiss," he says cheekily, smugly.

And Woongki, because he's emotional and vulnerable and his brain to mouth filter is dead in a ditch and if he says anything even slightly more sincere he's probably going to burst into tears, says "Well I'm gonna tell everyone we fucked nasty in the laundry room and you came so hard you cried."

There's a choking sound from next to him as Seunghwan coughs Pocari Sweat all over himself, and then Park Hanbin's high-pitched witch's cackle starts bouncing off the walls of the stairwell, until Keita and then the rest of them join in, Woongki included. He still feels wrung out, but there's an arm round his shoulders and one round his waist, and a kiss from a handsome man who cares about him on his lips. He's definitely had worse days.

Much, much too late, when he’s just about to drift off in his too small single bed, a sharp triangle of light splits their dark room apart and then disappears, and someone lifts the covers and climbs into bed behind him. Won tucks an arm over his waist and snuggles their heads together.

“And where have you been, hyung? Urgent business?” he whispers as quietly as physically possible, not wanting to disturb Ollie tucked up in the bed across the room.

Won giggles silently, little gusts of air through his teeth which brush Woongki’s jaw.

“You know how it is. Laundry to do.”

Woongki grins into his pillow. He wishes he could see Won’s face, but this is good enough. Half of the most important conversations in this building happen when you can’t see the other participant.

“Did this laundry happen to be Taiwanese and flexible beyond imagination?”

There's a face pressed into his neck and a choked down little squeal, Won's hand grabs onto his and his feet kick uncontrollably.

"Well?" Woongki badgers. "How was the laundry?"

When Won has something to say that he knows won't match his face, he pauses in a certain way beforehand. It's a pause that radiates glee, that delights in putting its audience on edge.

"The laundry," he says, and Woongki can hear the grin in his voice, "was very thorough. Long fingers, you know?"

Woongki chokes a little and flops over to face him.

"You. Little. Slut!"

Won his smiling, clearly can't keep the smug grin off his face, and he slams his hands over his eyes and peeks through his fingers.

"God I needed it though," he half-sighs, half-giggles. "I mean, curse Seok Matthew's existence, because I could've definitely seduced Jiwoong hyung if he wasn't obsessed with him. But it was fun. And it's Jui, you know? It won't be weird, whatever happens."

"Think you'll do it again?"

"Maybe, if we both make it through tomorrow. Today, I guess."

There’s a little noise from across the room, and then the lump of blankets moves as a shadow he thinks is Ollie's face comes into view.

"Hyung?"

"Shhhh. It's okay," he whispers in English. "Hyung just went to the bathroom. Go back to sleep."

"Mmm. Okay."

There’s rustling, then quiet as he and Won hold their breath. And then the breathing settles into soft snores.

"Come on," he whispers, turning over again so Won can resume spooning him. "Big day tomorrow."

His name isn’t called.

And then it isn’t called again.

He’s aware, somewhere, that he must look ridiculous, that it’s pathetic to react this way, but that voice only fuels the panic rather than dispersing it. He knows it’s embarrassing, he knows he’s making a display, but he can’t stop. It can’t end, not here. He doesn’t even care about debuting again, at this point, he just doesn’t want to go out on that, he doesn’t want his last performance to be something so sad.

They call his name, and he’s two from the bottom but it doesn’t matter because they still call him, he gets to stay, he hasn’t been thrown away again. The haze of relief is so strong that it’s not until the end, until it’s all finished and their fates have been decided, split down the middle again as their cohort gets ever smaller, that he realises.

His name was called.

Seongmin’s wasn’t.

To say he holds himself together after that would be untruthful, but he doesn’t fall apart entirely. He manages to hold Seongmin in a hug, to give his commiserations to the friends they’re losing until the filming ends and they’re ferried back to the dorms for the eliminated trainees to pack up, and he leaves Seongmin hugging Jongwoo to find five minutes worth of empty room. It would be unconscionable to break down in front of anyone else, but he’s not done, he’s just managed to pull himself in for a bit, and it needs out, he needs to find somewhere private before it comes spilling in front of someone who has a lot more to cry about than he does. There are only so many places without cameras, and it would be a miracle if there were no-one in the best known one, but he’s passing it anyway. The light switch for the laundry room is on the outside, and it’s off, so maybe someone up there has decided, for once, to grant him some luck. Five minutes, that’s all, five minutes squatting sobbing behind a washing machine will be fine. It’ll sort him, level him out for long enough to get on with things. He flicks the light switch and pushes through the door as two figures jump, startled by the interruption. The flickering fluorescent bulbs illuminate the tear tracks on Seunghwan’s face, and after a moment’s shock, he leans forward to tuck it back into Wumuti’s shoulder, shaking.

“Oh, god, I’m so– I’m sorry, the light was off–”

“Don’t be sorry,” Wumuti says, sniffing, stroking a hand over Seunghwan’s hair where he stands between his legs, the older man sat on top of one of the machines. “Come here, I’m so happy for you.”

How? Woongki wants to say, but he’s burning enough with mortification, he’s already fucked this up just by entering the room.

“I’m so sorry, hyung,” he says instead. “You shouldn’t be going. We’ll miss you so much.”

“It’s ok,” he whispers again, despite his watery eyes. He grabs Woongki’s hand with one of his and squeezes. He leans back and with the other he extracts Seunghwan’s face from his neck and gently, so tenderly, cups his cheek and brushes a thumb under his eyes, wiping away the tears. “So it didn’t work out this time. I’ve been eliminated, I’m not dead. I’ll still be around. You aren’t getting rid of me that easy, you hear?”

The words are in reply to him but they aren’t for him, that much is obvious. He feels so extraneous. He knows he shouldn’t be here, a spare part no-one needs right now, he knows their history and the memories this must be stirring, but he’s stuck here, unable to leave. And he can’t cry now, that’s just. It would be rude.

It’s perhaps a dreadful thing to think when he’s just been spared elimination, when he’s survived to perform one more time, and is looking at someone who hasn't been so fortunate, but Jesus, when is he going to catch a fucking break?

Not yet, evidently.

It’s…

He can’t be bitter about it. He can’t afford to be, they don’t have time for that shit, they’ve got days to pull together a performance for the initial evaluation and Haruto needs them to be solid and reliable because otherwise he’s going to fly apart with how frantically he’s moving.

It stings all the same, that little cut of being unwanted again, of being a second choice, if he was one at all. But he’s hardly the only one, and it's not like he can begrudge them it– he’d made his own choices after all, would maybe not have done the exact same, but what difference does the name you say make? You’re still saying one. It was never going to be fair or kind. Resilience and the ability to deal with rejection is one of the traits they say is most necessary for surviving the entertainment industry, and he knows that, he agrees, you’ll never get anywhere if you can’t even get up when you fall.

There’s got to be a point, though. Where a man stops bouncing back and just stays down on the floor where he’s been thrown. Woongki worries that when it happens he won’t even see it coming and the shock of remaining on the concrete when he expected to be back upright might be what finally does him in.

And he really, really liked that song.

It’s late, far later than they should be up, definitely later than the kids should be awake, but if they aren’t being recorded who’s going to tell the employment rights people that they’re working past ten pm? Certainly not Woongki, even as he feels the sharp pinch of guilt every time Ollie yawns or Takuto rubs his eyes and shakes his head to stay focussed. The unfortunate fact is they just don’t have the time to take care of themselves the way they should, and the other unfortunate fact is that if they want to be idols they need to get used to this sooner rather than later. Not that it’s like this all the time, of course, but ten o’clock bedtimes will be a thing of the past for them, regardless of the law. If they make it.

They’re good kids. Painfully good, utterly sweet, hardworking and determined and so absurdly resilient already. But they’re still so young, and under-experienced, and they know that attitude isn’t everything, and they’re both so desperate to do well and they know that the older ones are their best shot. It’s just a cruel twist of fate that Haruto is both the only real trained rapper among them and the one best placed, language wise, to communicate with everyone. He’s the most sensible option to help them both get their lines down, but Woongki can see he’s stretched too thin already.

“Babies!” he calls from where he’s taken a seat in the corner to down some healthy sport drink with electrolytes or oxygen or cocaine or something in it. “Let's run your verse and check your pronunciation.”

Takuto may only understand about thirty percent of what’s being said to him at any given time, but he knows that whenever someone in Planet Camp says “babies” it definitely includes him, so he comes shuffling over to take a seat in front of him, legs crossed and back upright like an elementary schooler, while Ollie collapses into his side. Won settles down next to them, because he might not be a rapper ( and neither is Woongki but somehow that’s what he’s doing!) but he can help with pronunciation or tweaking their lyrics, at least.

“Hyung? Are my legs still there? Because I can’t feel them,” Ollie says in English.

It gets a laugh from them all. He doesn’t know if it's deliberate, the attitude, the good nature, always knowing what to say even when he might not have the vocabulary to say it, or if he’s just naturally that way. He knows this isn’t as easy on Ollie as he’s making it seem, either, has seen him curled crying in exhaustion between Hanbin and Hao even later at night than now. Woongki almost wishes he would collapse on him instead, it feels like a judgement on his inability to provide that comfort, but it's a stupid thought. It’s sensible, something so painfully mature about the way he separates it, how he brings his best self to the practice room and goes to collapse on his other hyungs in private, how he never lets his team see him struggle.

God, Woongki loves this kid. Maybe motherhood is his destiny, rather than stardom.

“Get your lyrics. Let’s go.”

From the other corner, Haruto shoots him a grateful look and drops his head onto Zihao’s shoulder, closing his eyes. They can give him ten minutes, at least.

To say Woongki knew this was going to happen would be a lie, but he knew something was. Despite what they had been saying to each other in front of the camera, they all knew they wouldn’t let an audience of fans see performances earlier than they should, that would be ridiculous, but although the idea of friends and family had been floated no-one had quite wanted to believe it. There’s something strange about seeing where all of these people who he’s come to know so well came from, looking at their parents and seeing their noses, their laughs, getting a glimpse of the person they are outside of the Planet Camp walls. Not that he hasn’t seen a lot of them in the filming breaks, but that’s different, then they’re still Boys Planet trainees, even if they are cramming into the Chinese boys’ airbnb and handing round shots of soju. The Kim Taerae unable to look at his parents for fear of crying when he sings is not the same Kim Taerae who had, wide eyed after two glasses of somaek, earnestly asked how one avoided tooth incidents in a blow-job and made Park Hanbin choke on a cheeto.

Some of their families aren’t there. It’s inevitable, especially for the foreigners, but it's still sad. Zihao lights up at the sight of his dance teacher, and everyone politely pretends not to have eyes when Sung Hanbin’s parents embrace Zhang Hao, the way they have been politely pretending not to have eyes half the time those two are in the same room for the past two months or so. Not that anyone actually thinks they’re together, of course. Which is possibly worse, now Woongki thinks of it.

The letters make them cry. The work doesn’t let up. The brief respite of the show hall and its balloons and its tears and its questionable catering is lost in the neverending practice, until suddenly they’re getting fitted for costumes and filing onto the stage ready to perform.

He’s nervous, as they take their places for the introduction and wait for Haruto to cue them in. He can’t let it show. He walks with purpose, sets his face serious and stares down any camera that dares to approach him, and lets the music drive his body. It wasn’t the song he wanted, it’s not his kind of music, he’s rapping in a leather jacket with two children who still haven’t even mastered how to find their camera. And yet.

And yet.

The audience sing along, to a song none of them can have possibly heard in full, chanting louder than the music. When Zihao cues the fire and leads their dance break they lose their minds. They scream, and cheer, and it's everything he’s missed for so long. The sheer relief when the camera leaves them after their ending fairies has Haruto collapsed in tears on the stage while they surround him in celebration, in comfort. They head back to the waiting room not in disappointment but in triumph, and when they enter their friends aren’t just proud of them, they’re impressed. It’s a world away from last time as they line up in the plastic chairs in front of the screen to receive their scores

Poor Takuto doesn’t so much look disappointed as he does resigned towards his score, which is sad, but honestly the only way it could have played out. It was the only fair option. He did well, and they all make sure to let him know that, but he’s still an inexperienced fifteen year old trying to hold the stage with older, experienced professionals. It’s never going to work out in his favour.

Sadness is swept aside in anticipation of the highest scorer. They aren’t expecting anything ridiculous, but the atmosphere told them people were enjoying themselves, at the very least. And then Haruto beats Zhang Hao’s record. It's the highest score ever, on any of the shows. It’s ridiculous, and it’s deserved, so deserved, that Woongki hardly cares for where he placed himself. It’s a judgement of Haruto and his brilliance, of course, but it feels like a commendation of them all, of what they managed to build together.

Going first means that now all they have to do is sit back and enjoy the rest of the show (with half a mind on their reactions, of course, screen time does not come to idle boys). Obviously they have all seen each other perform, but they haven’t seen it all with the sets and the costumes. Taerae in cat ears, ugh, Woongki could die. Little Yujin in his uniform. And the Over Me team, god. An absolute visual treat, balm for the eyes.

He’s ignoring Seunghwan’s outfit for his own sanity.

Watching Say My Name is more painful than he’d like to admit, and he has to be reminded, in the form of a well placed joke from his own teammates, to mind his expression more carefully. He’s proud of what he did, the stage they created, his own performance in itself. He knows though, by the sheer nature of the song and the part he received in it that it wasn’t his best. Say My Name would have been. It’s wistful, rifling through the box of ideas he had for it, that he had been so excited to show, knowing they have nowhere to come to fruition now. But he smiles and sings along and cheers their names with everyone else, because these are his friends and he’s proud of them and also he’s a goddamn professional.

It’s most fun when En Guarde performs, and the room is full, and everyone is teasing Park Hanbin (a perpetually enjoyable activity) while they politely ignore the single being that Zhang Hao and Sung Hanbin have become. Woongki is fairly sure that at one point Hao actually slaps Hanbin’s thigh to demand he hold his hand again, and if they don’t officially get together before the debut group they’re both inevitably going to be in disbands Woongki is going to turn into the fucking joker.

He knows they haven’t won. He’s not hoping for it, despite the insanity of Haruto’s score. And he’s happy for the Over Me team, especially for Kuanjui when his scream pierces the air of the huge draughty studio when the points are revealed. Woongki would have very much liked to win, but this is nothing like last time. This is a narrative he can be proud to broadcast. Win or no win, debut or no debut, this isn’t a disappointment. It’s an accomplishment.

Casual clothes and a random studio in Seoul, far from Planet Camp, cannot mean the introduction of the final mission. Besides that, they’re all fairly sure that won’t be revealed until after the elimination, which no-one is thinking about if they can help it (meaning they’re all thinking about it constantly and pretending that they aren’t). They’re expecting something fun, or possibly humiliating, but mostly irrelevant. Nobody is expecting Jo Kwon, in the flesh, in heels. Woongki might faint. Park Hanbin screams.

A musical mission?

Well. It’s not his area, as such, but it's still acting. It’s still drama. And Woongki is, if nothing else, a drama queen. They have to get into pairs, and surely he’s going to be a hot commodity– not as much as actual professional musical theatre actor Hui, but still.

When Jo Kwon (who is still just casually in the same room as them, looking at them, acknowledging their existence, which is, you know, completely fine) tells them to get into pairs, Woongki knows he will not be the one running around asking other people to please be his partner. Oh no. They will come to him.

He only realises he has horribly miscalculated when Seunghwan is already holding his hand. This was a terrible idea, he should have run to Won or Kuanjui or Taerae immediately instead of leaving himself open to this absolute attack of Seunghwan lacing their fingers together and telling him he can be in charge for the day, calling him sunbaenim with a cheeky smile.

It’s lovely. It’s torturous. It’s immensely distracting either way. Woongki steels himself, ignores the chaos of languages and the blatant flirting coming from the Hao-Hanbin corner, and sets them to work.

Happiness is not blinding, at least not for Woongki. He hasn’t given up yet, but he knows– he knows. There are too many of them. The competition is too strong, and there are too many people more popular than him, his rank has been dropping week by week and it’s honestly a miracle he’s even made it this far. At this point, to make it to the final would be a pleasant surprise, but it isn’t something he’s expecting, and it’s sad, of course it is. Even to prolong the experience another few weeks, to get another song to record (and be paid for), to perform live in a stadium– god. It would be a dream, even if there’s no way he would make the debut group.

But there is this all the same– the electronic light, the pixels converting this subway station into a cathedral to love. His face projecting, those of his friends on other walls. There are people, in this city and elsewhere, who like him enough to raise their money to put his face on a subway wall. Even if he gets eliminated this week, which he’s pragmatic enough to realise he probably will, this has to mean something. He’s popular. He’s marketable. The company must see that.

The uniform feels strange to wear, somehow, when they dress themselves in it and head out to the eliminations filming. Woongki has accepted his fate. So has Won, they’ve talked about it, he’s ready to be home and working, and as for the kids… it’s time, honestly. They’re proud of them, they’ve done well, but realistically neither of them should be taking space in that top group. Zihao is a wild card. The producers have dismissed him, but he has a ridiculous amount of support, and for him it could go either way. He’s been promised a debut regardless, by the sounds of it. Haruto, though. He wants it so bad. They want it for him. Woongki has a horrible feeling he’s not going to get it.

Sometimes he hates being right.

It’s Kamden, in the end, who sneaks in at eighteen. Hanbin keeps his number one spot, in spite of Hao’s immense point benefits this round. Maybe he truly is unbeatable. It’s fascinating watching the public, palatable display of them when they’ve all been subject to who they are around each other in private. It's a little sickening watching them perform the dance break together with Kuanjui sitting watching from the seats of the unwanted– not their fault, of course, and Hanbin did choreograph the thing, but it still– it must sting.

Kuanjui is devastated, utterly, completely. He’s devastated and he has to go and film M-Countdown and do the fanmeeting and not say a word. It’s going to be torture for him.

It’s hard to think what’s worse– to be them, a whole team culled in one fell swoop, or to be one of the others, to be Kuanjui or Shuaibo, to know that everyone else on stage with you was loved enough to make it, and you weren’t.

잘생인 승환이형: I’m bored. Come out and play.

The message comes on a day he’s fighting with himself over whether to go and fuck about at the company or make a token effort to go to university, his dwindling attention to which is becoming a crisis of its own that doesn’t bear thinking about. He’s trying to treat the time until the finale like a holiday– as WakeOne gears up to sort out the debut group and they all wait to see how the dust settles there’s very little attention to be had for their trainees who didn’t make it. Safe to say, that not only is he heart-flutteringly excited by the idea of being in a room with Seunghwan for an extended period of time, he’s also very glad of having the decision taken out of his hands. When the bus drops him off and Seunghwan greets him with an enthusiastic hug, he only tells him one of those reasons he’s happy to see him, a dramatic retelling of his indecision soundtracking their walk to the studio Seunghwan has booked for the afternoon. Seunghwan doesn’t interrupt him, except to tease or exaggeratedly sympathise, even though he’s saying nothing of any consequence, just chattering to fill the space. Woongki is stretching in the studio, running through a list of tiktok challenges they can film, when he hears the opening of a very familiar song and looks up in surprise. Seunghwan just grins at him.

“Come on, I know you loved this song. You were so disappointed you didn’t get to perform it.”

Damn him. Damn him and his perfect face and his sweet smile and his attentiveness. This is an attack on all fronts, how is Woongki supposed to survive?

They select the portion of the chorus they want to film, and Seunghwan is patient and obedient as Woongki helps him get the choreo down, which is a whole thing in and of itself. He calls him seonsaengnim in a teasing tone and winks when Woongki flusters a little over it, laughing and promising him it will be the caption to the video.

“You made half the gestures after all,” he points out.

It’s Seunghwan’s idea to pick him up at the end and run out of frame, a horrible reminder of their physical difference, of other ways he could easily use that strength. If Woongki insists they film it a few times more, it's only because he’s a raging perfectionist, and has nothing to do with chasing the feeling of solid arms around his waist.

He sends the video for approval and they go and collapse in a cafe in the next building. When Woongki shivers a little exaggeratedly, Seunghwan wastes no time untying the flannel from round his waist and draping it over his shoulders, helping him put his arms in, before declaring after a brief selfie session that it looks far better on Woongki, and maybe he should keep it.

Is this flirting? It feels like flirting. It feels like something, like for once maybe he isn’t reading too far into it. Like maybe, this time, something could actually happen for him.

“Who do you think it will be?” Won asks them when they gather the night before the finale, sitting in a circle in the tiny apartment Kuanjui is still staying in.

“Who what will be?”

Seunghwan offers a bottle round over glasses and nobody turns him down.

“P01,” Won clarifies. “Hanbin or Hao?”

Woongki downs his shot without any courtesy towards his elders beside a slight glance away as the vodka goes down.

“You really think Hanbin is beatable?” Seongmin asks, genuinely curious. “I mean even with all those points, Hao hyung couldn’t last time. Plus there’s, I mean–”

“The fact he’s Chinese?” Kuanjui offers, with a winning smile.

Wumuti wordlessly pours him a shot and hands it over, refilling his glass again when he downs it.

“I mean, no foreigner has ever won before,” Won points out.

“True, but I think Hao might do better in one pick. I think a lot of people used Hanbin being P01 as a filler vote,” Seunghwan says.

The vodka is doing its job, Woongki is a little tipsy, and schoolboy giddy about the way their knees are squashed in together, about the press of bone through denim and the casual warmth of a hand on his thigh as his glass is refilled. He doesn’t know who’s right. It’d be nice to see Hao win, simply for the drama of it all. Then again, no-one could ever be mad at seeing Sung Hanbin, sweet Sung Hanbin, the Princess Diana of Korea, take his rightful throne.

“You know what? Twenty thousand says Hao wins P01.”

“Call. Twenty thousand on Hanbin.”

Seunghwan and Won lean over Woongki for a firm handshake as Wumuti laughs to himself and downs another shot.

“Twenty thousand says they kiss live on camera.”

“Muti hyung!”

Seunghwan wins his twenty thousand won. Wumuti does not win his, but he does give a very smug look when what can only be described as a wedding procession occurs after the announcement of Hao’s well deserved victory. Woongki is so pleased for them all, thrilled for Taerae in particular. Devastated for Park Hanbin, who barely responds to anything after they announce Yujin in the ninth spot, just stands and stares out at the crowd. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that Hanbin is more talented, or more ready, than some of the people standing up there. But even he knows that in this game they’re playing that doesn’t mean he deserves it more.

When the limbo period between the elimination and the finale is over, everything feels sort of out of joint. Familiar routines chafe, like trousers one has grown out of by just an inch or two. They go to practice, take the lessons that they can. After some back and forth, Woongki is spared a manager to go to the birthday cafe fans have organised for him, and it's ridiculous, people crowding a street just for him, and stranger still to return from that to an empty schedule and bottom of the priority list for even a practice room. It’s painfully obvious that the company is stretched too thin– the abrupt cancellation of the foreign trainees contracts says it most blatantly, beyond everything else. After ZB1’s return from Japan, somewhere in the midst of debut preparations and the filming of their reality show, Taerae manages to carve out half an hour to meet him for coffee.

“Have you–” he starts and then stops, looking down at his takeout cup instead. Then seems to resolve himself. “Have you spoken to Hanbin?”

“Like, today?”

Woongki sips at the straw of his iced americano, a reprieve from the building May heat.

“Just… at all. He hasn’t, he won’t reply. Not since the finale,” Taerae confesses in a whisper. He looks tired, hurt and confusion just piling on top. “I thought we were, I don’t know, going somewhere. You said he–”

He breaks off in frustration.

“He hasn’t been himself recently,” Woongki admits. “It hit him pretty hard. Apparently he disappeared the whole night after.”

“I know, because Jeonghyeon and Munjung and– fucking everybody were blowing my phone up asking if he was with me.” Taerae’s mouth is set, annoyance and determination taking over his face despite the bags under his eyes and the pallor of his skin. “Which obviously he wasn’t.”

Woongki had been the one to sow the seeds of that idea, leaning over casually one night to remark to Taerae that Hanbin didn’t really look at anybody else the same way he looked at him, causing a spiral of realisation and an adorably noticeable change in attitude. He almost feels guilty about it now– he had known this was a possibility from the start.

“He’s not mad at you, you know? He doesn’t hate you, he’s just sad.”

“Well maybe him being a dick is making me sad,” Taerae huffs bluntly, taking a gulp.

This is a serious discussion, but he can’t help it. Taerae in his big dorky glasses and his beautiful face and his horrible ugly clothes, sweet, gentle Taerae pushed to the brink of being rude.

“You’re adorable when you’re grumpy,” he tells him, and receives an unimpressed eyebrow in return. He leans across the bench and grabs his hand. “Forget him. Run away with me instead.”

“You only want me for my money.”

“Have you got any money yet?”

Taerae snorts into his coffee.

“No.”

Woongki manages to hold off for one day, which honestly he thinks he should be commended for, because his anger is starting to build. Normal human beings don’t get to make Kim Taerae sad. It should be punishable by the death penalty. When he casually messages Hanbin to asks if he’s spoken to Taerae and the message goes unread, he decides this isn’t going to resolve itself and his skill as Fairy Godmother is needed, urgently.

“Park Hanbin!”

He pushes through the doors to a practice room muggier than a jungle in July, mirrors fogged up as some dreadful foreign music blares for Hanbin to run through some routine or other that Mun Jungnyun is half-heartedly copying from behind him. Hanbin finishes his sequence before he even acknowledges his existence, which is incredibly rude, and unwise for someone who is already on Woongki’s shit list. Not that he knows that yet. But then perhaps he should learn to be more vigilant.

“Junghyun-ah, go and be somewhere else for five minutes,” he coos, and the kid glances between them suspiciously.

“You’re not hooking up, are you?”

“Yah! Who taught you that word!”

“I’m nineteen, hyung. And also just– please don’t do that. For so many reasons.”

“How dare you! I have standards!”

Woongki hopes he’s not blushing, although the humidity in the room is so thick it’s starting to affect the visibility. Objectively, his past, if one hook-up even counts as that, with Park Hanbin is not embarrassing. Objectively, Hanbin is hot. Objectively, he is (ugh) a decent human being and Woongki may, in fact, be somewhat reluctantly actually very close friends with him. Munjung leaves fairly quickly anyway, so he isn’t forced to explain himself. Hanbin finally turns the music off and sweats into the resulting silence.

“What do you want?”

He’s thinner than he had been. His face is paler, cheeks pressing in, and his abs are still there but so are his ribs when he lifts his shirt to wipe some of the sweat off his face.

“Call Taerae. Right now. Tell him you’re sorry for being a dick.”

The stink-eye Hanbin gives him through the mirror is impressive and incredibly rude.

“Stop meddling.”

“No. You’re making Taerae sad.”

“Maybe I’m fucking sad, Woongki, did you think of that?” he spits, and honestly, Woongki has had enough of him.

“Oh, grow up.”

“You what?” Hanbin reels backwards like he’s been struck.

“You heard me!” Woongki is yelling now, whoops-a-daisy. “You think you’re the only one who missed out? The only one who got left behind? You didn’t make the group, you aren’t dead, so stop acting like it. ”

Hanbin looks so taken aback, staring at him as he shouts, that it catches him off guard enough to calm down. A little bit, anyway.

“I am never saying this again, so listen closely. You are brilliant, and talented, and there are literally millions of people who saw that and loved you for it. You can and will do this, however you make it happen. But more importantly, Kim Taerae is in love with you, and that probably makes you one of the luckiest people on the planet, and you are throwing it in his face. He knows that you’re sad, he knows that you’re angry, he knows you’re jealous of him, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want you to be perfect. He just wants you to talk to him. So fucking do it, before I beat you up.”

He doesn’t let Hanbin reply, doesn’t stick around to watch him process it emotionally, partially because he knows Hanbin would hate it and partially because he feels like he’s done quite enough of untangling other people’s lives lately. It’s not like his own is perfect– his academics are a mess, his love life is non-existent and he has no idea what the future holds for his career now. Getting anything from the company is like getting blood from a stone, and it mostly isn’t even contempt, just sheer overwhelming unpreparedness for everything they’re now committed to running. Three active groups, including what will be the most popular rookies of the year, plus a gaggle of no longer unknown trainees who they’d be stupid to get rid of but don’t have the capacity to utilise effectively. It feels like sailing on a slowly sinking ship, but when the other option is diving into open ocean they’re all still clinging to the mast and praying for a fair wind, or for another ship to come along and invite them aboard.

“I feel like I’d do a better job running the place, at this point,” he complains to Seongmin one evening, both lying on the living room floor of his parents’ apartment and letting Seri run all over them.

“I’d vote for you. CEO Cha. Has a nice ring to it.”

Complaining on personal terms in front of Seongmin, who has had even less than he has, doesn’t feel fair. But shittalking the company is a long-honoured pastime, and they both know how to navigate each others’ sore spots by now.

“Have you heard anything about that drama?” Seongmin asks him.

“No, not officially. It’s definitely going to happen, my professor knows someone who knows someone, and she’s been updating me, though I’ve not been told anything about an audition from the company.”

Seongmin hums, lifting Seri above his face like newborn Simba and laughing when she growls at him.

“Do you think they’re blocking it because it’s a BL?” he asks.

It’s not like Woongki hasn’t wondered. It’s possible, but it’s also possible that he’s just at the absolute bottom of their priority list. He feels – he hopes – that his stint on the show and the popularity and interest that has come from it has proved to the company that he can be successful as himself, and that it can’t possibly be worth it to try and “protect” his image in this way anymore. If they don’t want him as he is, and more importantly, the way people enjoy watching him, his own little market niche, then there doesn’t seem any point in them keeping him on at all. He wasn’t fired. They want him for something, they must do.

“God knows,” he answers eventually.

Seongmin is quiet again, finally letting Seri escape him, and Woongki can hear the words building. He just has to wait him out.

“Jongwoo is being cryptic,” he says at last. “Every time I see him he keeps telling me to keep my options open, and acting like he knows more than me about all the rumours.”

The rumours, of course, being that there are a few agencies looking to scoop up more popular trainees into project groups. Jongwoo, being independent, has more to gain from them than most.

“And why are you meeting up with Jongwoo hyung so frequently?”

“Don’t start,” Seongmin warns. “ He’s straight, for one thing. And like, he’s hot, I would, but it’s not like that. It’s not like you and–”

“Finish that sentence and I’m kicking you out.”

It's not a date. It's just coffee with a friend.

A very handsome friend, who insists on paying for said coffee and buying Woongki a pastry to go with it, and smirks when he sees the flannel he gave him last time draped over Woongki's figure.

"Told you it looked better on you," he says, straw between his teeth.

"Everything looks better on me," Woongki retorts, to avoid doing anything else like screaming or blushing or proposing.

He makes a mess of tearing the pastry in half, but it's worth it for the pleased grin it brings to Seunghwan's face when he passes it over. They munch happily as Woongki regales Seunghwan with his observances of what he thinks is a first date happening two tables away, behind Seunghwan's back. He's so invested, keeps whispering questions, demanding more information, never once making the suggestion that this is a petty or pointless way to spend their time.

"Oh no, hyung," Woongki hisses, eyes widening. "He held the fork out for her to eat off and she took it off him and fed herself. I don't think it's true love after all."

Seunghwan leans in over the table, mouth open in mock horror.

"Oh no," he parrots. "Think of the children."

It feels powerful, to have his attention so completely like this, the way he never looks away when Woongki talks. Could it mean anything? Is he foolish for thinking it might? His brother has been telling him to confess, that to an outsider it sounds like there's something there, and even if there isn't, doesn't he think a good friend would be alright with it? He would never be cruel about it, Woongki knows that for sure. It might be embarrassing, but–

Risk. Reward.

He lets the scales teeter in his head as they catch up properly.

"How was the fanmeeting?" He asks.

Seunghwan sits up straight, a slightly bashful glow creeping to his face.

"It was amazing. I mean it wasn't huge, or anything, not like some of the others are planning. But it was so fun. It's like… you know, you went to your birthday stuff, it's like you can feel it physically in the air."

"Yeah."

"I wish you could have come," Seunghwan says suddenly. "It would've been fun to have you there. If we do another, you should."

It was so easy, on the programme, to throw "lets debut together" out as a platitude, a new version of telling someone they'd worked hard or done well. Like promising to buy someone a meal: you didn't have to mean it was possible, just that the sentiment would be nice. Now it's over, those words hold weight, and bitterness.

"I can't really do anything without the company–"

"Oh, I know that! I mean, obviously we'd love to have you play, but I get it, company stuff. I mean like. As my guest."

As his guest. Not their guest. Is Woongki reading into this too much? He doesn't know. It's torturous not knowing. He has to know. It’s been months, and the closeness from the show hasn’t waned, they’ve only gotten closer, and the care and the flirting have kept on, and it really, really feels like…

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, isn't that the saying? Woongki is tired of missing. He has to try. If he wants to win, for once in his life, he has to actually start playing.

He can’t do it right now, it’s far too public, but he can’t give himself time to overthink it either. He is going to confess, today. When they go home, maybe. Because Seunghwan always walks him to his subway station, so this time he can suggest going through the park instead to look at the flowers and take pictures, and then, when they’re alone there, he'll tell him. That way if he gets rejected they can part straight away and Woongki can go and cry on his parents' couch until he gets over himself, and if he doesn't–

Well. If he doesn't, then the day doesn't have to end there at all.

"I'd like that, hyung. Although you might get distracted by my beautiful face and fall off the stage," he says, cupping his face in his hands and winking.

So what if he's going to wait until later to confess? Doesn't mean he can't flirt shamelessly in the meantime.

"I am a consummate professional," Seunghwan tells him, and Woongki is certain he's not imagining the way his voice lowers or how he leans in across the table. "No face could distract me, not even one as pretty as yours."

Woongki refuses to be flustered, just takes a demure sip of his coffee.

"I'd find a way," he threatens, and Seunghwan's expression breaks into a wider smile as he leans back into his chair again. "Anyway, I have a request. I want a recording of you and Muti-hyung singing Stay."

Seunghwan's eyes widen. He looks at Woongki in surprise.

"You saw that?"

"Obviously," Woongki scoffs. "I know everything. And it was all over twitter. It was so lovely, your voice. I mean, both your voices together." He makes a little heart with his hands. "I ship it."

He's expecting Seunghwan to roll his eyes, or make a joke, or play along exaggeratedly, or maybe, if he's lucky, turn it into an opportunity to flirt. What he isn't expecting is the blush. The smile, shy and sweet, as Seunghwan dips his head over his glass, clearly trying to get his face under control.

"Ah, yeah," he chuckles self-consciously. "Were we that obvious?"

Woongki's pulse pounds in his ears, drowning out the noise in the cafe. His entire world seems to shrink into the uptick at the corner of Seunghwan's mouth.

"What?"

"Oh god, we were, weren't we? We weren't sure if it was a good idea but it's been– I never thought I'd get to sing with him again, you know?"

Woongki has never heard him ramble like this, never seen this expression on his face.

"No," he hears himself say, but the words sound far away, like he's hearing them through glass. "No, not at all, not obvious at all. Don't worry so much."

Seunghwan buries his face in his hands. And then sits up, pulling at his hair. He looks sort of… distressed with his own delight, can't keep the smile off his face.

"God, are we mad? It's the worst time, it's so risky, but it's like– something put us both there, you know? Something is giving us these opportunities together. It wants us to– to do what we couldn't the first time. Am I crazy?"

Woongki blinks hard and shakes his head, letting his straw drop back into his drink. It tastes sickening all of a sudden.

"I don't think you're crazy."

He feels trapped inside his body, banging on the doors as it moves the right way and says the right things.

Seunghwan's voice drops. He darts a hand across the table to clutch one of Woongki's.

"I was so angry with him, when he left before, and I didn't even know why. I said some mean things, never said goodbye properly. It felt like he was abandoning me, and I hated him for it, but I didn't know why it hurt so badly. I've learned a lot about myself since then. It felt like I had to fix that, so… I didn't let him go without telling him, what I knew now. I wanted to do it better. But I should have known he wouldn't let me go either," he grins to himself, drags his other hand down his pinkened face and then picks up his drink to take a sip. "Thanks, by the way," he continues. "For never saying anything, about the laundry room. It must have been awkward, but you never even asked. And I know how much you love gossip, so thank you for that sacrifice."

He mocks a little bow in Woongki's direction, eyes closed in fake solemnity, and Woongki wants to hit himself. He wants to laugh out loud at his own stupidity. He'd been so blinded by his own distress at the time, so relieved and so guilty and still trying to get the emotions out so he could be strong, so he wasn't crying in the face of his friends who were being sent home. It's so obvious in retrospect. The position they'd been in. The way they'd sprung apart. The mess, the intimacy with which Wumuti had cradled Seunghwan's face and wiped his tears away even as he was still crying himself. He'd known he was intruding even then but now he realises just how much he wants to set himself on fire.

"You're happy, right?"

Why is he asking that, what's he even hoping for? That he'll say no?

“Yeah. There’s so much still up in the air, but. I am. I’m so happy.”

That’s good, it's good, of course it's good, he loves them both, he wants them both to be happy. It’s the perfect movie romance, a lost love, a missed opportunity, brought together again by fate, and he’s seen them, how they are together, and it all falls into place now that it’s not warped by his own selfish wants. They fit.

Whereas Woongki and Seunghwan– they get along well. They enjoy each other’s company and care about each other, and of course Woongki wants to do utterly despicable things to Seunghwan and also, sort of, feels like if he saw that smile with bed hair and eye bags in a room quiet and free of other people it might heal something in his soul. But it’s not much, in the face of all that. He’s not anything more than the next in the never-ending conveyor belt of people who fall for a friend they can’t have.

That’s not a movie. It’s just a dull reality.

They don’t walk home through the park, or look at the flowers, or linger to take pictures in the sunset. Woongki doesn’t confess. There’s no point, obviously, and he could never want to make Seunghwan uncomfortable, or for it to get to Wumuti that he had done something as stupid as confessing to his boyfriend, as though he were trying to steal him, as though that would even be a possibility. He can’t lose either of them over something like this.

He manages to stay another hour, to pose for pictures wearing– god, wearing Seunghwan’s shirt, that he won’t take back even when he offers to wash it again. Woongki has the most ridiculously pathetic thought that if only he hadn’t washed it already, and worn it today, it would still have smelled like Seunghwan, instead of smelling like Woongki’s sweat and his parents’ fabric conditioner. But he did, so when he goes home and curls up into bed, when he shoves his nose in the collar, the only scent left on it is his own.

The rumours pick up. He finally gives up and drops out of uni, personally hands his professor a large box of expensive chocolates and thanks her for trying to help him. He goes to his lessons, works hard, goes to the few schedules he can make happen, and tries not to listen to the rumours and get his hopes up, but it’s hard when they seem to fly around the building like some sort of plague. A project group, one says. A joint venture, scooping up other companies’ trainees from the programme, Boys Planet’s JBJ, says another. Outsourced to a different company, says the most prominent one, and that he fully believes. WakeOne is barely equipped to handle the groups they’ve got, realistically trying to manage another with no immediate guarantee of the same financial success as ZB1 would be a little stupid. He talks with his new friends often, meets up (when he can) with Won and with Taerae, who is exceeding all their expectations. They had worried about him, a little, whether he would manage to make a place for himself within that group when so many of them were already so interconnected. They needn’t have, because Taerae is doing what he does best, which is to say doing nothing but be himself and yet having people fall at his feet anyway.

ZB1 work out of the same building, in theory, but he barely sees any of them. Runs into Yujin once when he’s being dropped off from school still in his uniform, tired but bright and giving him that awkward little wave that makes people want to squish him like a marshmallow. Gets reasonably regular messages from Hao, less frequent though painfully sincere ones from Hanbin and Jiwoong. And once, when he’s given up an evening in favour of working his body into the ground dancing, he hears voices from a darkened corridor.

“Do you blame me?”

Taerae.

“Never. Do you blame me? That I’m not, I don’t know, waiting for you?”

Park Hanbin.

“Never,” the response comes, a little choked. A fond chuckle follows it, also a little wet around the edges. “I don’t want you to wait. I want you on stage, where you belong. I want to meet you there, not just in dark corners in the company building.”

“I’m trying,” Hanbin laughs again. “We’ll find out soon, I mean, I have my suspicions, but I think I’m the only one they’ve actually talked to. It’d be something, to see you on music shows and shit.”

“I can’t wait,” Taerae says.

Woongki feels like a creep leaning against the wall and listening, no intention of peeking around the corner to see because, well, that would be rude. But he really has to hear how this pans out, because this had been hovering and then it had crashed and Woongki has honestly been too invested for too long to feel much guilt over eavesdropping. He needs to know. And, given he was the one who went and knocked enough sense into Hanbin to make this happen in the first place, he deserves to know.

“Although…. I mean. There are some benefits to dark corners. Can’t exactly do this on stage, can I?”

He doesn’t hear what this is, but by Taerae’s gasp and the low, rich delighted laugh which follows he can give a ballpark guess. He nearly fist-pumps in vindication, but he feels more like a creep than before so he tiptoes away, internally squealing all the while.

Maybe Woongki needs to give up on his fruitless pursuit of both love and a career and just become a full time matchmaker. He’s obviously better at that than most things.

Three days later Park Hanbin takes him by surprise as he’s emerging from a vocal lesson, and the sombre, almost angry look on his face can only mean one thing.

“I’m not in love with you!”

Not ideal, but workable.

“What?”

“I didn’t mean to spy on you, I wasn’t following you, I promise what we did was really not that special to me, I was just there and I heard voices and you know how nosy I am, and honestly, I was the one who made Taerae think about what you guys were so really you should be thanking me, also I ran away as soon as you started–”

“Woongki. I don’t know what you’re–” Hanbin cuts himself off. And he looks less angry, more nervous. Scared, even. Maybe contrite, which is honestly just weird. “Woongki-yah, we need to talk. And not about… that.”

“Ok?”

Hanbin leads him down to an empty vocal studio, barely bigger than a cupboard, and paces in the tiny space with his hands in his hair. He looks like one of those lions trapped in a cage with nothing else to do.

“I’m starting to think that you do want to talk about—” he drops his voice mockingly low “—that. Come to think of it, this might be the same–”

“Woongki.” Hanbin interrupts. “I’m really sorry. They have plans. For a debut, and I think it’s actually going to happen this time. They’re gonna do some promo, a fanmeeting, and then we’re being, like, outsourced. With other ex-contestants. I heard, and then they said there’d be a meeting today and– I just–” He stops and looks at Woongki, lost, bewildered. “I just really, really thought you’d be in that room. I’m so sorry, Woongki-yah.”

They have been in this room before. He’d been joking, but looking around it he's almost certain it's the same one. For some reason it’s the funniest thing in the world, except in a sick way that doesn’t make him laugh, and he doesn’t know why but he wonders if he fell to his knees now the carpet would burn the same way.

“Who?" He asks, voice surprising him when it spits out. "Who is it then, in the wonder team? Oh go on, don’t be shy. Jeonghyeonnie, definitely. Munjung?”

Hanbin nods, mouth snapped shut.

"Seongmin?"

Hanbin's gaze drops, and he shakes his head. Fuck. Again. They're really doing this to them again.

“And who from the other places? Muti hyung? Jongwoo? Is Yuehua gonna let Seungeon go, or–”

“I don’t know. They’re talking, with Yuehua, and Jellyfish I think. Rain company too, I heard.”

“Keita, of course, naturally. No Jay? Kamden hyung’s company want to keep him, from the looks of it, so not him.”

He doesn’t know why he’s asking, why he keeps pushing. He has to know, like he has to hold himself up and see where he was found wanting. Jeonghyeon and Hanbin were top eighteen, that makes sense, but he’d done better than MunJung. And all the Jellyfish kids.

“Jihoo’s joining WakeOne. He was here. He’s signing a contract tomorrow.”

Woongki ranked higher than him, too.

He won’t hate these people, he can’t hate them, but why? Why them and not him, when he’d done better, when he’s had events and requests and has a bigger instagram following than the very group he’d been kicked out of to start all this mess?

Stupid question. He knows why. They all know why. And maybe it’s awful, maybe he’s a masochist, but he wants someone to say it, out loud and clear. He’s tired of euphemisms, he’s tired of knowing why he’s being excluded and tired of knowing that he’s supposed to know even though no-one’s ever actually said it to him. He’s already tired of knowing that he’s had his mouth on two of the people he was passed over for and wondering what the public and the CEOs would say if they knew that, or if it wouldn’t matter because despite that shared truth they can glaze over it, can not look like him, not act like him. He’s tired–

He’s just tired.

“I need you to go now.”

He’s not sure what it says about the state of him that Hanbin obeys him without question.

The carpet is just as uncomfortable as he remembers when he sits on it, even if it isn’t digging into the skin of his knees this time. He dropped out of uni. An inevitability, really, given how awful his grades were, but at least last time he had started going to classes, had something to do with his days when he couldn't face walking into this building and all its cloud of phantoms.

It’s hot. He’s thirsty, but he finished his water already. There’s a fountain in the next corridor, he should move. He should move anyway.

God. What is still he doing here?

The company’s not so huge. Other places are bigger. But it’s big enough to get lost in if you don’t know where you’re going, and Woongki doesn’t. Nobody stops him on his hunt through the part of the building their lot never really go to, either because they trust him or, more likely, because they don’t really notice he’s there at all. The resident ghost. Eventually, he finds the office he’s looking for, walks in and stands next to a young woman he’s fairly sure he’s never met. She looks up blearily from a computer and a scribbled through planner and nearly jumps into a bow.

“Hello. How can I help you?”

“I want to dissolve my contract and leave the company.”

Two other heads shoot up from behind the other desks in the room.

“Woongki-ssi.”

An older woman– well, older than the girl who’s probably his age he’s standing next to, anyway. It's possible they’ve met before, but he has no recollection. Human Resources don’t generally deal directly with the artists or trainees, after all. Although really, now, Woongki isn’t sure if he’s one or the other, or neither at all.

“Woongki-ssi, listen. This is not official advice, or I’d be sacked, but if you have another offer, you need to get your legal representative to negotiate on your behalf.”

He nearly laughs.

“There’s no other offer. I don’t have a lawyer. I just want to leave.”

She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. The only man in the room stands from his desk and takes over.

“Human Resources don’t deal with trainee contracts, you’ll have to go to one of the trainee managers or the legal team down the corridor.”

“Woongki isn’t a trainee,” the woman tells her colleague with a smile so polite it could cut glass. “But we don’t manage artist contracts either, not directly. Honestly…” she looks around a minute and then clearly resigns herself to saying something she isn’t sure she should. “Honestly? That’s going to be tricky. And your best shot is to talk to your manager and get a meeting with the CEO.”

Your manager. As though Woongki has one of those anymore.

“Right then. Thank you very much for your advice. You’re working hard, thank you.”

He turns and leaves with a brisk bow and without another word, because if he looks at the pitying expression on her face any longer he’s going to cry.

He does know where the CEO’s office is, and it doesn’t take all that long walking through corridors of confused people in suits in his training shorts and the flannel he never returned to Seunghwan to reach it. His secretary is at the desk in the little pre-office in front of the door.

“Hello. I want to speak to the CEO.”

The woman stares at him as though no-one has ever said such a thing before, as though it is not literally her job to deal with the people who want to speak to her boss.

“He has a very tight schedule, as you can imagine. I can possibly look in his diary and make you an appointment, but you’ll have to wait–”

“No. I either want to see him now or I want a time, this week, I can come and see him. It will take literally ten minutes, if that.”

There is only so much energy a person can use in a day. A great deal of Woongki’s has been spent already.

“Now, really, whatever it is–”

“I want to accept the offer to be released from my contract and leave the company.”

Her mouth snaps shut. They’re hefty words, he knows, and even if she doesn’t think he’s worth much time, it’s a serious enough statement to get attention. There’s not enough left within to feel anger, not really, just a dry sense of amusement that one of the most important decisions of his life is barely more than an inconvenience in other peoples’ work days. It tracks, really.

She heroically refrains from rolling her eyes and picks up the phone. The conversation is brief, and apparently she does remember who he is, because she says his name without prompting, although she doesn't actually explain why he wants to talk to him. She puts the phone down.

"I'm afraid he's out of the office at the mome–"

"No he isn't, you dialled the in building extension, not the outside line. If you're going to lie, at least make it convincing."

She flushes and her eyebrows pinch inwards.

"Is he actually in a meeting or just refusing to see me?"

The awkward avoidance of eye-contact answers that question.

People who are used to sitting all day for work don't move particularly fast, Woongki finds. It's very easy to get past her desk and through the door, he doesn't even have to run, just walk quickly and by the time she's even realised he's going in an undesired direction he's already in the room, standing in front of the desk as the CEO drops the magazine he was perusing.

"When you kicked us out of TO1 you offered a chance to dissolve the contract with the company. I want to take that offer now."

He’s not hyperventilating. He’s not even sweating, besides residual sweat from dancing.

“That offer was one time only. You chose not to take it and remain as an artist with the company. Therefore you are still bound by the contract you originally signed.”

“What use is having me if you don’t want to debut me? I know about the group, and if I wasn’t good enough to be in it, then what’s the use of keeping me?”

“Young man–”

“I know I’ve had more variety offers than have been accepted, too. And I know the company is struggling, you’re overstretched, so just let me go and I won’t be a burden on you anymore.”

The look he’s levelled with is icy. It’s all the contempt he was never shown the first time, and the wall between Woongki and his emotions is thick and cold but there’s satisfaction pushing through that the jovial pretence has been dropped.

“You seem to think you know a great deal about the runnings of the company. I do hate it when people think they know more than they do.” There’s a threat in there, probably. He’s beyond caring. “Even if I was inclined to do this, there is your trainee debt. Are you willing to buy us out of that?”

Woongki does hate it when people think they know more than they do.

“My trainee debt was paid off before I was kicked out of the group. Try again.”

“You need to learn to treat your superiors with respect –”

“Let me out of my contract or I will publicly announce that you kicked me out of TO1 because I’m gay.”

The man chokes on his sentence and stares at him, bug-eyed, like he can’t believe he’s actually said it out loud when everyone had gone to such effort to talk around it even as they tried to make it obvious. He looks a bit like he’s in shock. In contrast, this may be the calmest Woongki has ever been.

“I don’t want money,” he repeats. “I’m not being poached, there are no other companies. I just want to leave. I want to be in charge of my own career, if I’ve got one left. So let me go, no penalty, no severance except what I’m owed for royalties. Because if you don’t I will write a statement and I will release it to people I know in the press, and I will tell them everything. I will tell them I was thrown out for being gay, I will tell them that when I was at my lowest, when I admitted to the team looking after us I was thinking about– about–” Funny. He’s been running perfectly but his breath just stopped short. Try again. “–that I was thinking about hurting myself because of the homophobic abuse I was suffering, it took my parents demanding it for me to be given treatment and a break.” His hands look like they’re shaking but he can’t feel it, and he stares the man directly in the eyes. “Oh, and I will name drop every single artist, staff member and trainee in this company and its affiliates that I have ever hooked up with.”

That last part is a lie. There’s only one name on that list, and despite everything he cares about Park Hanbin far too much to ever do that to him. But he can see it’s tipped the scales, he can see the man blanch as he runs through a mental list of everyone Woongki has ever shared practice rooms and hotel rooms and Boys Planet dorm rooms with. He watches the grudging resignation wash over him.

“You’re throwing away your career, here,” he says as he picks up the phone. “I hope you know that.”

Woongki laughs, short and dry and humourless.

“What career?”

He finds a bar, afterwards, when he’s signed and gathered his things and left. It’s dark by then, because having a version of a contract ready doesn’t actually mean it’s ready immediately, and he has to wait several hours as they add a few clauses to nullify the threats he had made. It means he has time to figure out how to tell a few people. He drafts a text and sends it to both Keita and Hanbin, saying only that he loves them and doesn’t want to speak to either of them for a while. He tries to call Seongmin, but it goes to voicemail, so he leaves one.

“I’m leaving WakeOne. You have to do what’s best for you, and I trust your judgement, but if you want out now might be a good time. Love you.”

He thinks long and hard before sending a barely intelligible series of emojis to the family group chat, and leaves his parents and brother to work it out.

And then he signs, and he takes his gym bag of stuff that he had gathered from where he’d left it over the years, and then he’s gone.

The bar isn’t empty, but it’s not crowded, and he easily finds an empty table for two to monopolise as he makes his way steadily through a single bottle of soju and a portion of gopchang. He scrolls idly through his phone, eavesdrops on the tables next to him, the uni students on one and the office workers at the other, and he doesn’t think about the future.

He has two options, from here, with the subway. He can change trains partway through and get off at a stop five minutes from their building. Or he can stay on the same line and walk half an hour home. He chooses the latter, and wishes the air was colder as he sweats in the humidity lugging his bag along. It's something, though, Seoul at night time, even the more residential areas. Quiet but never quite sleeping. He stops at the park ten minutes from his house and sits down on a swing, thinks about calling Dongpyo but remembers he's away working, tries to call Seo Won but it doesn't go through, he knows they're busy with their comeback, probably practising or sleeping. He's glad they've had a boost from the show, they deserve it.

He barely notices himself clicking a different contact instead, until a rough voice picks up.

"Hello? Woongki?"

Seunghwan sounds like he's just woken up. It must be later than he realised.

"Hyung, what time is it?"

He hears sheets rustle and a bed creak, and Seunghwan hums.

“Like, half one in the morning. Are you ok? Do you need anything, is everything alright?”

“I don’t know.”

“Woongki.” Seunghwan’s voice is more alert now, and there’s more rustling of bedding. Maybe he’s getting up. “Woongki where are you? Are you safe? Have you been drinking?”

“Yeah. I’m ok, really, I’m not–” He stops, looks up at the sky. It’s never dark, not truly, even beyond the streetlights. There are no stars in Seoul, just this vague lilac haze over the black. “They’re debuting a group of trainees from the show, from different companies. But not me. I left WakeOne. I think I blackmailed the CEO.”

“You what? Jesus, Woongki. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” His tongue feels kind of heavy in his mouth, but the words leave him easily. “Hyung, did you know that I liked you? That I like you?”

There's a long silence.

“What?” Seunghwan says. He sounds confused. Hurt, maybe. “What do you mean, you– Woongki.”

“I’ve been kind of obvious, I guess, I’m not trying– I know you have Muti-hyung, and I’m happy for you, I don’t want anything, I’m not expecting anything. I just– god, I don’t know why I’m saying this. It must be the alcohol.”

There’s a noise, a fumbling noise, and then a different voice.

“Woongki-yah. Where are you?”

Oh god.

Of course. Seunghwan has his own place, they aren’t restricted by the babysitting of a company like WakeOne, or by family hovering. He knows that. He knows they basically live together. He still shrinks from Wumuti’s voice, woken up from their bed by Woongki’s call to confess to his boyfriend.

“Hyung, I’m so sorry, I’m so, it’s not like that, I didn’t–”

“Hey, it’s okay, Woongki-yah, it’s okay, I’m not mad. I’m just worried, yeah? Can you tell hyung where you are?”

“I’m on a swing. In a park.”

“What park, baby, where is it?”

“Near my parents’ house.”

“Okay, okay.” The noise gets muffled, but he can hear him talking, fast. When he speaks to Woongki again he sounds a lot less tight wound. “It’s late, Woongki, so I want you to get up and walk to your house, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah.”

He picks up his bag and swings it back on his shoulder. It’s really heavy. It’s still so hot, and the shirt he’s wearing doesn’t help. He manages not to tell Wumuti he’s wearing his boyfriend’s shirt, isn’t really sure why he wants to. A confession, maybe, of a different kind. He hasn’t been to a church for a long long time, but he thinks he wants absolution.

“My bag’s heavy. I had to take everything from the company,” he says instead as his feet thud dully on the pavement towards home. “I’m tired, hyung.”

“It’s late, and you’ve had a long day, and you need to go to bed,” Wumuti says, his voice gentle but firm. It’s an instruction, not a suggestion.

“Yeah.” It’s so hot. He’s sweating, it’s rolling in beads down his cheeks from his eyes. “But I’m so tired, hyung. I’m tired of loving things that don’t love me back.”

He makes this little noise, on the other end of the phone.

“You are loved. Your company was shit, and I’m glad you’re free of them. You’ve survived so much, and you’ll keep on surviving. You have fans who love you, who are waiting for you. Your family loves you. Your friends love you, and there are a lot of us. I love you.”

“Even though I fancy your boyfriend?”

“Oh, baby,” Wumuti laughs gently. “It’s not a crime to have a crush on someone. And one day you will find someone who’ll love you the way you deserve, I promise. You’re too wonderful not to.”

He sounds very sure of it. Maybe he’s right. He’s usually right about things. He’s nearly home now, on the path to his parents building, the other apartment blocks in the complex rising around him like mountains from the mist.

“I’m home,” he says. “I’m not– I don’t really know what I’m going to do now.”

“Well, first, you’re going to have a shower, drink some water and go to bed. And tomorrow, you’re going to sleep in, eat something greasy, and let yourself rest.”

That sounds doable.

“And after that?” He’s pleading, maybe, a little bit. For instruction, for belief. For love.

“The world is your oyster, Cha Woongki. You can do absolutely anything you want.”