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You couldn’t give away everything to the cameras—Xinlong learned this lesson early. Too early, some might say, and therefore it was a lesson that came after considerable shame and pain.
As a trainee he had believed that access and love were one and the same. The more of yourself you gave and the more of your soul you carved out, the more it proved the sincerity of your love and the more this love would be reciprocated.
But it turned out that hadn’t been the case at all. No matter how desperately Xinlong gave of himself, it never seemed enough. Even worse, perhaps the more people saw of him the more they decided he was unworthy. At the end of the day, it all just left Xinlong carved empty, picked clean by prying eyes and careless words.
It had taken him years to claw back something of his own, something of the child he was, and the person he might have grown to be, and to forge from that something just sincere enough to be ‘him’ but hard and flinty enough to withstand the onslaught of public exposure. An idealised, easily consumable him, worn like a suit of armour until it felt like a second skin.
Then a single night in an abandoned hospital was enough to remind him that this second self had only ever been the emperor’s new clothes—tug hard enough and its threads would unspool, unravelling you bit by bit till all the soft, horrible bits of yourself were once again visible to the world.
He sits outside the abandoned hospital, cataloguing the world by daylight in all its glorious, reliable mundanity: the bumps of the concrete road, the water stains that streak the beige exterior of the hospital, the chattering of the other trainees. Zihao understands him well enough to leave him alone and steer the Haidilaoz away if they try to approach.
It’s been a while since Xinlong has felt this hollowed out, forced to expose the worst parts of himself before the cameras and their rapacious recording for content content content. He tries to efface himself, to resolve back into air, before the regrets and overthinking about his cowardly showing in the haunted hospital—and what that implies about who he is, has always been—have a chance to sink their claws into him and pull him under.
The human body floats when you relax, and sinks faster when you struggle. Because Xinlong never learnt to swim, it took far too many years for him to fully grasp it as a metaphor for his brain.
“Long-ge,” sings a voice, pulling him back even as he drifts. There is a little jolt of unease in Xinlong. Talking with Geonwoo-hyung when he gets in these teasing moods is like trying to see-saw while gravity is in flux—before you know it you’re flat on your back and no longer know which way is up.
But Xinlong is too fragile to respond, so Geonwoo takes that as an invitation to settle by his side, a callback to the way their night began. Xinlong can still recall the heat of hyung’s body, the sensation of their skin on skin, their arms curled around each other and fingers interlaced.
“Who would have thought Long-ge would be one of the last survivors?” Geonwoo says again, teasing and cruel all at once.
Xinlong cracks an eye open, checking if there are cameras present. Reality TV is that strangest of genres where you are both yourself but also not, and Xinlong needs to check whether Geonwoo is Geonwoo right now or ‘Geonwoo’.
No telltale red lights are lit in any of the camera equipment hanging around. Xinlong calibrates.
“No thanks to hyung,” he says, hurt and reproachful in a way he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be on camera.
“What did I do?” laughs Geonwoo, and the laughter is charming in its self-possession, in the ease with which Geonwoo takes up space in the world. And because it’s charming, it’s difficult to trust whether he means it or not, if he’s facetious or teasing or sincere or just performing for the cameras. It’s always so difficult to tell when it comes to Geonwoo.
Xinlong stews for a moment; his shirt sticks uncomfortable to his back, still damp from his anxious sweating and the heavy press of the camera equipment’s straps. “Hyung left me,” he says, and surprises himself with how whiny his tone comes across.
An arm drapes around his shoulder, and strong fingers squeeze the line of his shoulders. It’s one of Geonwoo-hyung’s gestures that Xinlong assumes is intended to be soothing, but only ever makes Xinlong more tense.
“Did I do that?” Geonwoo says diffidently.
The denial makes Xinlong’s eyes flutter open, all attempts to dissolve into breath put aside. There’s a feeling akin to choking down a fishbone, something small but sharp and unpleasant lodged in Xinlong’s chest. How easily, how easily Geonwoo has put back on the layers of his self, as if he had not also been a coward, as if he had also not shown himself undependable.
This lack of parity in their respective exposure cuts like a betrayal. Xinlong turns to shoot a dirty look at his hyung. Geonwoo looks back at him with an expression of light amusement, the one he makes when Xinlong has done yet another thing that Geonwoo didn’t expect. It’s one that he always seems to have when it comes to Xinlong these days, as if he sees something in Xinlong no one else does, as if Xinlong is his personal source of endless novelty.
This look, probing and nosy, always makes Xinlong’s skin itch. It makes Xinlong want to curl himself up, the way a prey animal cowers to protect its soft belly.
“In any case, you found plenty of other hyungs to keep you safe, didn’t you, Long-ah?” Geonwoo continues, breaking their gaze to look towards the other trainees.
The accusation paired with the diminutive ‘Long-ah’ makes Xinlong feel aggrieved, anger creeping in to fill the void of his hollowed self. Yes, but it wasn’t as if Xinlong had wanted to throw himself under the protection of other hyungs. He hadn’t wanted to need protection at all! It was only because there had been a moment at the start when Xinlong had been lulled to think that maybe it would be fine, to be small, to be soft, because he really wanted to believe that he could depend on—on—
And that’s when the realisation hits: why hyung’s jokes about leaving him feel like picking at scabs, why his inability to read Geonwoo in particular bothers him the way no other interaction does, and why Geonwoo’s desertion brings with it a pang of disappointment that feels personal.
If Xinlong had been younger, this window into these shameful parts of himself would have sent him into a spiral of guilt and recrimination. But now the insight only gives him relief. If he is aware of this thought, he can name it. If he can name it, then it can be controlled instead of controlling him.
He gathers up the tattered outer coat of himself and follows his muscle memory to patch it back together: it’s all just a show. Geonwoo-hyung was just playing the game, and so was he. It was just part of the bigger script they were all following, a set-up, a follow-through, a punchline. Add some kooky subtitles to underscore the joke and bam: another viral clip to fuel the show’s engagement.
He is just a bit part in one great performance. With that, his practiced persona, mild and pleasant, slides into place like armour. “I should have trusted my instincts and just stuck to Leo-hyung from the start,” Xinlong says lightly.
It should be a cue to return to their comedy duo banter from the start of the night, but Geonwoo’s eyes visibly dim in response to that. It’s a subtle shift, his lids slackening and his gaze clouding over. An involuntary shudder flutters through Xinlong; it’s fascinating how hyung’s modulations in his gaze can make its recipient either feel like the most beloved creature in this world or the most damned. Geonwoo’s hand pauses at the juncture where Xinlong’s shoulder meets his neck, before squeezing down punishingly hard.
There’s a strange blend of pleasure and pain in the sensation, Geonwoo’s fingers pinching down right on Xinlong’s acupuncture point. But Xinlong doesn’t flinch, because the more Geonwoo presses down to discover his bruises, the more Xinlong refuses to reveal anything.
The see-saw that is their undefinable friendship teeters.
It is Geonwoo who breaks the stalemate at last, lips curling in that permanent smirk, “Aigoo, Long-ge. They all say you’re kind but only I know how heartless you are.” He releases his hold on Xinlong’s neck, his fingernail scratching lightly along Xinlong’s hairline on his nape before his hand finally pulls back.
The nickname functions like an incantation to a spell to put things back to their right place. The cliff edge recedes, and the scene progresses as the script demands, filled with meaningless back-and-forths that require them to surrender nothing.
It’s true, what Geonwoo says, Xinlong is heartless. He wants, without daring to give anything in return; he hopes, but will risk nothing; and he holds people to expectations he has never said aloud, instead blaming them for not being able to read his mind.
He is twenty but he is still the same useless, unreasonable child cowering in a dark room in a foreign country, wishing fervently that someone would come and soothe him, to hold him close and tell him that they will take care of everything.
It is in this fatalistic mood that the production assistants find him later on, asking him for his answer to the special photo card that is his benefit for surviving the haunted hospital.
What scares you? The question on the card reads. He writes his usual litany, recited by his fans like a sutra: heights, bugs, swimming, the dark, haunted houses.
Then he pauses, and appends an afterthought: the human heart.
* * *
The mood at the Planet Camp dorms after the third elimination is the worst it’s ever been since the show has started. The finer the margins, the crueller the cut; at least the C-planet massacre, unjust as it was, was blunt enough not to feel personal. But this time, just one in every three of them are eliminated—and on what basis? Why should anyone’s dreams mean more than someone else’s?
Zihao is coping as well as he could be, which is to say that the sadder he is, the more manic he behaves. So he is chattering a mile a minute, talking about everything and anything except the now undeniable truth that he and Xinlong are on separate paths. His belongings end up as the victims of this excess of nonverbalised anxious energy, flung haphazardly into his suitcase.
Xinlong knows, as chaotic energy ricochets off the walls of the small dorm room, that in many ways Zihao is daring Xinlong to leave, knowing full well that he and Xinlong are like the sun and the moon: only one of them can be ascendant at a time. When Zihao gets like this, Xinlong cannot help but wither.
But Xinlong stays put, slumped on Zihao’s bed against the wall and fiddling with his best friend’s garishly awful pajama set.
“You’re really going to stay here all night?” Zihao asks, after Xinlong endures his lengthy monologue about the untapped demand for la tiao in Korea, based on the Chinese snack’s explosive popularity in the Boys 2 Planet dorms.
“I’m just coveting your remaining snacks,” Xinlong replies, reaching into the suitcase and fishing out a packet of squid peanuts. “I love these.”
“Anxin and Hao-ge and Kaiwen are still here,” Zihao says, a knowing look in his eyes.
Xinlong’s lips purse together and twist to the side. There’s less of a need to hide in front of Zihao; they’ve seen so much of each other’s ugliness that there’s nothing that could shock them about each other anymore.
“The finale mission starts tomorrow; you need your sleep,” Zihao says again. Then his tone turns comical and heckling, “Aiyah, you ah, you know you’re a slow learner even on a good day. How are you going to fight for killing parts running on no sleep?”
Xinlong hugs his knees into his chest. They’ve spoken about this, him and Hanyu and Zihao, from the beginning: wanting to debut didn’t constitute a betrayal. But to want something new after eight years of wanting the same thing feels terrifying. What is the core of ‘Xinlong’ the idol, if not Boy Story? What are his dreams now and who does he dream is beside him when he achieves them?
And of course, this line of thinking is full of hubris, because Xinlong’s rank is slipping week by week and he’s now in the danger zone. So what makes him think that this dream is even within reach? On what basis is he looking at the other guys in the top eight and evaluating how he feels about them as teammates? He really is an arrogant scumbag.
It’s a weird one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of mental spiral where the object of anxiety is itself amorphous and ever-changing. Xinlong feels unanchored, and the off-kilter mood in the dorms only worsens the sensation of the world spinning out of control.
And Xinlong knows himself—when he feels as if he’s drowning, he’ll cling onto the nearest person and end up drowning them too.
There’s a sigh and some rustling as Zihao steps gingerly over the mess of his belongings to sit on the bed. He leans forward and flicks Xinlong ruthlessly on the forehead.
“Stop that,” he orders, even though Xinlong has been nothing but quiet and still. “And get out and get some sleep.”
Xinlong is unceremoniously pulled off the bed and pushed out the door, barring a brief interlude when Zihao doubles back to scoop all the remaining squid peanut snacks he has and presses them into Xinlong’s arms. Then the door is very firmly shut in his face.
Xinlong dallies a little while outside of Zihao’s room. It’s tough love, but unmoored from Zihao and the crucible of a past that was at least real, if painful, Xinlong well and truly feels like he’s drowning. There is nothing and no one to cling to. Not with cameras in every room and angled down every corridor and stairwell.
There are a few spots that the trainees have catalogued as safe places to have mental breakdowns. The toilets, for one, where they can cry with the tap running to drown out their mikes. The laundry room was another, though having a door that wouldn't lock made it a much more exposed space.
Though surely, Xinlong thinks, with everyone’s luggages half-packed in limbo, no one has the mind space for the mundanity of laundry on elimination day.
Xinlong has always had dog shit luck, so he’s not surprised when there is someone in the laundry room. What does shock him is the fact that it’s Geonwoo, dolefully shaking his clothes out from a plastic bag into the machine.
Hyung’s needling, teasing presence is the most unbearable when Xinlong is at his most raw; so Xinlong has half a mind to reverse back out, but Geonwoo’s already caught sight of him.
Xinlong freezes on the spot, a rabbit hoping that if it doesn’t move, the wolf will forget it’s there.
“Just let me load my laundry and I’ll be out,” Geonwoo says, looking a little put out.
He knows, Xinlong realises. Or he’s aware, at least, of Xinlong’s hesitance to be alone with him. Being a separate mission teams had offered Xinlong the perfect reason to put some distance between the two of them, to restore some semblance of his self-preservation without hyung’s prickly scrutiny.
But what if Xinlong had been too obvious? The need for space was a Xinlong-problem, and now he has made it a Geonwoo one as well. He steels himself and walks into the laundry room, letting the door shut behind him.
“Just surprised to see someone here,” Xinlong says, feigning conviction.
“Ran out of underwear,” Geonwoo mutters.
The contrast strikes Xinlong as comical: Xinlong might be staring down a permanent goodbye from the friend he’s grown up with for half his life; he is such an awful and greedy person that his desires are a hellish Mobius loop with no beginning and no end; and hyung is doing laundry because he has no more clean underwear.
The situation is so ludicrous that Xinlong has to laugh out loud. Geonwoo’s forehead creases a little, worried that the laughter is directed at him, but Xinlong’s cackling, whooping laugh soon gets him to join in too. Both of them looking at each other and smiling and smiling and smiling till tears sting Xinlong’s eyes. It feels like a luxury all of sudden, laughing in a laundry room as the world ends and remakes itself all over again outside.
“How’s Zihao?” Geonwoo asks gently, when the laughter finally subsides.
That gets Xinlong to sober up quickly. “You know how he is,” he replies, shrugging. Though it occurs to him belatedly that he never mentioned to Geonwoo that he had been in Zihao’s room. “He wants to go into la tiao wholesale import and export. Or something.”
Geonwoo laughs again. He’s genuinely fond of Zihao, Xinlong realises. The thought of Geonwoo loving so wholeheartedly someone that’s a part of Xinlong’s history makes something unnamed flutter in his stomach. “Tell him I’ll be lining up to be his first investor,” he says.
“I’m not his personal assistant; you can tell him yourself,” Xinlong retorts. “Haven’t you two been chatting over Kakaotalk this past break?”
Geonwoo huffs as he shuts the door of the washing machine. “Why, Long-ge, this sounds like jealousy to me,” he says provocatively.
“Why would I be jealous?” Xinlong says incredulously. “I have you on Kakaotalk too.”
Geonwoo’s smile turns vindictive. “Oh, you’re aware of that? I thought you’d forgotten or never saved my number in the first place,” he says.
“Why—” Xinlong starts to push back, but it’s half-hearted because Geonwoo’s got that look in his eyes when he’s revving up into a comedy bit.
“Then explain why doesn’t Long-ge ever text me?” Geonwoo interrupts, his voice pitching into a full-on whine.
Xinlong has to bite back his smile even as he rolls his eyes. “How could I compete with your legions of admirers,” he jokes instead. It’s rooted in truth though—most of the time at Planet Camp, Geonwoo is surrounded by so many other people that Xinlong is shocked that his own absence is ever noticed.
“I make time for everyone—even if it’s you,” Geonwoo grumbles, echoing what he said to Xinlong at the abandoned hospital.
“I’m flattered,” Xinlong deadpans, “but I make it a point to only be friends with people who can maintain a respectable clean underwear inventory.”
“Ouch,” Geonwoo said, clutching his heart as if he was struck by an arrow. “So judgey.”
“It’s uncharacteristically poor planning on your part, hyung,” Xinlong says, biting back his smile. Of all the contestants, Geonwoo feels the most like those war tacticians in period dramas, ten moves ahead of everyone at any given time.
He can see Geonwoo open his mouth like he’s about to say something, before deciding against it.
“You were going to say something,” Xinlong points out gently.
Geonwoo sighs, having been caught out. “I just didn’t want to get ahead of myself, you know?” he admits.
Xinlong must look confused, because Geonwoo gets a little more self-conscious, hurriedly explaining, “I just thought it would be a waste of effort to do the laundry… if I was going to go home. Because then I could just have my mom do it.”
Xinlong blinks slowly, trying to separate the truth from the joking. “Hyung, how old are you? Stop asking your mother to do your laundry. But also, you can’t be serious. Did you really think you were going to be eliminated after ‘Chains’?”
Geonwoo laughs weakly, arms folding in front of him. “Is anything for certain in this show?” he asks pensively. “All it takes is a rumour to burn all your dreams to ash.”
There’s a vulnerability in Geonwoo’s voice that Xinlong instinctively responds to. He closes the distance between the two of them, arm lifting at first to reach around Geonwoo so he can rub his back in small soothing actions.
“You’ll debut, hyung,” Xinlong says in reassurance, glancing up at his hyung.
Geonwoo closes his eyes in exhaustion. “I’ve heard that before, multiple times,” he sighs again.
There are many rational arguments that Xinlong can make here, that Geonwoo’s only ever been on an upward trajectory these past few weeks now, that he’s been on the winning team every time, that he so handsome and so funny and so easy to love—but the two of them have been through enough in the industry to know that none of these amount to much. So he just nods quietly and continues to rub Geonwoo’s back.
“You know when I slipped down the ranks, a part of me thought: good. This is good. I don’t have to expect anything. I tried, I failed, but now I can be free,” Geonwoo continued. “Wouldn’t my life be easier if I just gave up?”
“You’re not the kind of person that could ever do that, I think,” Xinlong says, lowering his voice to a calming burr.
Geonwoo laughs hollowly. “Oh, tell me then, what kind of a person am I?”
Xinlong thinks about the way Geonwoo held his head up high, unflinching even as rumours flying around Planet Camp reached a fever pitch; how he threw himself into being the leader in front of a camera, when he knew what that looked like in the context of his allegations; and the many, many ‘Let’s try that again’s during practice, even when they all believed that chances of victory were next to nothing.
“I think,” Xinlong puzzles slowly, sorting out the Korean phrases in his head, “you are a dog who bites down into things and refuses to let go. Especially when people tell you to.”
Xinlong feels quite pleased with that answer, though the recipient of his description seems less enthused. Geonwoo’s making a weird, sputtery noise like he’s in disbelief.
“Maybe I pronounced something wrongly?” Xinlong clarifies. “I said you’re a—”
“Ya!” Geonwoo half yelps, trying to both headbutt Xinlong and smack him. “Ya! Long-ge, did you just call me a dog?”
Xinlong cracks up. He wasn’t even intending to tease Geonwoo with this description. He tried to defend himself: “What’s wrong with dogs? I love dogs. My Chuyi is a dog just like that—he ruined all the cushions in our house when he was a puppy.”
The sputtery noises stop, and Geonwoo stops trying to throttle Xinlong. He looks away huffily, face flushed. “You’re not frightened then—of, of dogs?”
“Well, yes,” Xinlong admits sheepishly. “But you can love something even if you’re frightened of it, I think.”
Geonwoo goes so still that Xinlong thinks for a moment that hyung didn’t hear what he said. Then Geonwoo curls up, both hands covering his face in—frustration? Irritation? Xinlong can’t tell. All he can hear is a muffled grumbling, “Do you even understand what that sounds like?”
Oh, it was a dumb thing to say, Xinlong thinks. Can love and fear coexist?
Then suddenly Xinlong is engulfed in a forceful hug, cocooned within all six feet of hyung’s lanky frame. He freezes, uncertain if he ought to reciprocate, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air.
Here’s what he should do: he should pat Geonwoo-hyung on the head and say, “Good boy.” Geonwoo will pout and complain and they’ll laugh it off and the hug will end. Cue: laugh track. But something in him won’t break this moment—not yet. Not while he can smell Geonwoo’s cologne mixed in with the scent of washing powder, not while it’s warm and safe, not while Xinlong is finally anchored in something.
The moment holds, quiet and still.
“I won’t give up,” Geonwoo says at last, his breath tickling Xinlong’s ear, “I’ll debut here with you. I want—I want us to debut together.”
The reminder of debuting puts an ache in Xinlong’s heart. This is a dangerous wish to speak aloud—wishing for something you can’t control is to ask for your heart to be broken.
It isn’t as if Xinlong doesn’t wish for the same thing, especially now, wrapped in Geonwoo’s arms. It’s seductive to be anchored in his certainty, to enjoy this feeling of being wanted, to imagine a future where existing as an ‘us’ was not only possible but easy.
But Xinlong is a drowning man. His rank is dropping, he doesn’t feel like he can be an anchor for hyung, and he cannot seize the first kindness he receives and drag it down with him to the murky depths. So he stays mute, his arms limp, trying in his own way to grant the only mercy he can to his hyung.
If Geonwoo notices the silence, he never addresses it. His arms relinquish Xinlong and he restores the space between them as if nothing of significance had ever happened. Gone is that air of vulnerability and back is the Geonwoo-hyung that likes to pick fascinatingly at Xinlong the way small boys take insects apart.
It’s for the best, this distance. “I’ll head off now,” Xinlong says awkwardly, “Old people need their early bedtimes.”
The slightest inclination of Geonwoo’s head is the only sign of acknowledgement that the older man has heard him.
The silence is now thick with discomfort, and Xinlong feels like he is moving through molasses trying to cross the short few metres to the door. So he jolts when Geonwoo suddenly speaks up, right when Xinlong is about to walk out of the room.
“You’re right about one thing though,” Geonwoo announces off-handedly.
Xinlong glances back to meet the other man’s eyes. They’re not turned up to their most charming setting, like when Geonwoo is trying to pull focus on camera or when he’s mingling in a group; but they’re also not dull nor angry. His gaze is clear, open—letting Xinlong take from it whatever he will.
“And what is that?” asks Xinlong, eyes darting away. His tongue licks out nervously to wet his lips.
“I’m not someone who lets go of the things I want,” Geonwoo says. “Once I bite down, you’ll never get rid of me.”
* * *
Xinlong vaguely registers relief when Geonwoo and him are once again on different mission teams. The relief is nothing momentous, a mere passing thought that dissipates even as it is noticed, displaced by the endless dread and fear and excitement of finale week.
Xinlong’s rank of P06 is right on that knife edge. It’s too dangerous for him to cling to anything now, his dream close enough to touch and therefore close enough to crush him when he loses it. He’s not like Geonwoo; disappointment has made Xinlong too weary and cynical to live life fighting stubbornly against the currents. All he can do is allow the rapids to crash over him, wearing him down till he is pebble smooth.
He gives the camera whatever it needs to extract for him. He will play the fool, shriek like a coward, be wistful staring down the barrel of the lens, whispering his wishes for debut.
It’s not giving up though; just a different form of strength. It’s a strength that comes from knowing that underneath all of this, there is some part of him that he’s held back, where the machine of the show can’t touch. It’s the part of himself that’s true, stored in moments the cameras can’t film: in thoughts of Zihao and Hanyu and Mingrui and Zeyu and Shuyang; in the giggles he shares with Anxin and Jiahao in murmured conversations in Mandarin; in the quiet joy of walking to early morning rehearsals with Kaiwen.
Maybe it is a rebellion in some ways, a way of expressing sincerity in ways that cannot be commodified. It’s why he keeps a friendly distance from Geonwoo in front of the cameras, even though he can feel the weight of his hyung’s gaze—sometimes questing, sometimes wounded—on him sometimes. Refusing to play the game is in Xinlong’s own way an act of love.
So he holds back when he hears that hyung injures his foot just days before the finale is to take place. He doesn’t nag when he sees Geonwoo dragging himself to rehearsals to dance when he should be resting. He pretends he doesn’t notice the way hyung shoots little looks at him during the slumber party, the last chance for them to sell themselves as a duo.
Instead he contents himself with watching over Geonwoo from a distance, as if his gaze could encompass the other man, gentle in the way a cup holds tea. He’s not strong enough to shelter himself, let alone hyung, but he can give hyung the patience of ordinary things, invisible like air but faithful and undeniable.
He’s careful not to do it when Geonwoo can notice, but he slips up on the night of the finals, as they wait for the cameras to reset and the broadcast to resume.
This is the last time they will perform together as trainee Kim Geonwoo and trainee He Xinlong. The world seems to dip out into static, a sensation that they’re about to tip over the precipice into the unknown.
In this vacuum, Xinlong finally allows himself the indulgence. He turns his head to look at Geonwoo up close: the profile of his nose, the comical size of his ears, those eyes that tell you everything he’s feeling at any moment.
And like the tides responding to the moon’s gravitational pull, Geonwoo’s gaze also turns to meet Xinlong’s.
I want to debut here with you, Xinlong thinks, his mouth curling into a tremulous smile. Can hyung understand that?
Geonwoo smiles back, and it’s a heartbreaking thing, his expression—nervous but resolute, filled with fear but also—a fondness and ache that feels like love. The distance between them feels simultaneously like a hair’s breath but also a vast, uncrossable chasm.
Xinlong looks away. He tries to store up this memory: of Geonwoo in this grey uniform, standing by his side; the slight furrow of his brow, the quirk of those lips; the weakness and the strength that make up Geonwoo revealed in those dark eyes. Then Xinlong hides it away with all the other parts of himself that no one can know and so no one can destroy.
* * *
Xinlong once read that the astronauts in the space station aren’t so much floating as they are in a constant state of freefall, the earth’s gravity just barely keeping them tethered even as they are buffeted sideways through the vacuum of space.
That’s what his life feels like after the results are read. At any moment now, he’ll plummet to the ground, an Icarus flown too close to the sun. But the pre-debut dominoes have already begun to fall, and he has barely said a proper goodbye to his mother and Zihao before he is herded off by a cabal of managers and staff.
There’s hair and make-up, then a new wardrobe. There’s photos for social media and photos for press releases. There’s videos to be pre-recorded for a content schedule he has already been pencilled into without him being aware, following which there is a livestream for one platform, and then yet another.
Xinlong functions on a kind of professional autopilot, the way drunks rely on muscle memory to get themselves home. He is charming and friendly and approachable, and says what he has to say and obeys the cues he has to follow. It helps that the team—his team—vibe is ebullient, and every time he thinks the crash is coming, there are warm hands that pat him and wrap around his shoulder and pull him in for hugs.
Together the eight of them ricochet through the darkness of the twilight, holding onto each other to stay in orbit.
The crash that Xinlong fears doesn’t come. Not on the bus ride to their new dorms, when Xinlong normally blacks out, burnt out from all the human interaction and exposure. Not even at the dorms, where a clock displays a shocking 3:48am.
His eyes drift to Geonwoo and the laborious way he shuffles towards the bedroom temporarily assigned to him. That itch in Xinlong, the one he has suppressed all this while, to reach out and hold hyung’s arm, starts up again.
Who’s to stop him now; he’s already in freefall. He can finally test this, if the place next to Geonwoo’s can be his.
He speeds up so he can slot himself into Geonwoo’s side, an arm tentatively reaching around his hyung’s waist. Xinlong holds his breath.
The world doesn’t come crashing to the ground.
Instead this touch is reciprocated almost immediately, Geonwoo’s arm going around his shoulder. Oh—it’s so easy, their height difference somehow helping them slot together like puzzle pieces. Xinlong curls his fingers a little tighter, pressing into the waistband of Geonwoo’s trackpants and feeling the shape of the hip bone underneath.
He doesn’t hear Geonwoo call him at first, not until Geonwoo squeezes his shoulder hard enough to draw a wince.
“Xinlong-ah,” Geonwoo repeats. There’s an urgency but also gentleness, as if he were soothing a wild animal who might bolt at any moment. “Are you here right now?”
Xinlong blinks back in confusion at the strange question. “Where else would I be?”
Geonwoo has a small, tentative smile on his face. “You’ve been… different. I wonder—ah, forget it.”
Xinlong turns his head to look at Geonwoo quizzically, and the confused stare draws a chuckle from the taller man. “I just wonder if you’re feeling alright?” Geonwoo adds, cool fingers pinching Xinlong’s earlobe lightly.
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that question?” Xinlong shoots back, eyes flicking down to Geonwoo’s messed up foot.
“I don’t mean—” Geonwoo trails off, seemingly searching for the right words. “It’s been a very intense day. We’re all—” his head bobs vaguely, “—a little out of it. I know it’s been hard for you.”
He’s referencing the gallons and gallons of tears that Xinlong had shed in front of his mother, his lifelong friends, his peers, the production crew, the mentors, the thousands of live audience members, the cameras and the hundreds of thousands of viewers livestreaming his breakdown from all over the world. The magnitude of how far this image will travel is a little staggering, and Xinlong feels that little flicker of anxiety, of the sheer lack of control he has over his image and his person.
“Hey, hey,” Geonwoo calls again, hand tugging a little more sharply this time on Xinlong’s poor earlobe. The pain is enough to bring Xinlong back to where he stands, in the barebones apartment, tucked under Geonwoo’s arm.
Geonwoo-hyung’s voice has never been sweeter, the look in his eyes gentle. “Stay with me. Is there anything I can help you with?” he asks.
Xinlong has never known how to react to tenderness, especially when offered so freely. Within the Boy Story team it had taken Zihao and Hanyu years to learn how to hide their care in bullying and heckling and roundabout ways that didn’t make Xinlong feel small.
But this is a new team and a new start. Xinlong shouldn’t be that fragile, wounded thing people tiptoe around anymore.
“Ahh, hyung,” Xinlong deflects, puffing up his chest, “I’ll take care of you this time. I’m good at taking care of people.”
Geonwoo’s expression turns inscrutable. There’s annoyance and exasperation, sure, but also a strange lingering disappointment. Maybe hyung also struggles with accepting help, Xinlong thinks, reevaluating all of Geonwoo’s performative nonchalance during the show.
This theory is further proven true when Geonwoo finally mutters, “Long-ge is so kind,” the supposed compliment spiky and pointed like an accusation.
It’s another wild up-and-down ride on the see-saw that is Kim Geonwoo’s changeable attitude towards Xinlong. This game normally leaves Xinlong hapless, unsure of how to react, but with Geonwoo hobbling and leaning his weight on Xinlong, Xinlong finds the courage to be a little petty. He digs his fingers in harder to Geonwoo’s side, until the latter flinches, shooting him a betrayed look and whining.
Not so nice when you’re the one being pinched, is it, Xinlong thinks, smirking at the other man.
They hobble collectively together towards Geonwoo’s room, waving good night to the others with their free hands, like a lopsided pair of conjoined twins.
“Well, thank you—” Geonwoo mutters awkwardly, at the threshold. His arm starts to lift off Xinlong’s shoulder though Xinlong continues to hold him tightly by his waist, with no intention to let go.
“—aren’t you going to your room now?” Geonwoo asks. There’s an uncertainty in his eyes that contradicts the teasing smile on his face.
“Won’t you need some help getting in?” Xinlong asks, worried, “I’ll get you to bed at least.”
Geonwoo stares at him for a beat, before sighing, “Long-ge, can you listen to the things you say and how it might come across to people?”
Xinlong’s brows furrow, trying to think of what had gone awry in his Korean phrasing. Had he been too informal? “What’s wrong with what I said?” he asks, carefully using a more formal conjugation.
Geonwoo leans forward a little, his height advantage helping him to loom over Xinlong as he leers, “Think about what could happen, helping another man to bed.” His eyebrows lift suggestively.
Xinlong rolls his eyes. “What could possibly happen to me?” he deadpans, “You’re a cripple.”
Geonwoo gasps scandalised. He shifts his weight, trying to use his hips to bump Xinlong in indignation. But his foot is unable to bear much weight, and all he manages in the end is an uncoordinated wiggle, like those inflatable car wash men.
He’s proven Xinlong’s point, and he and Xinlong both know it. Geonwoo’s face flushes, and while the shock of colour in that handsome face is a very lovely sight, Xinlong generously averts his eyes and tries to hold in his laughter, though the trembling of his shoulders gives him away.
Geonwoo grumpily shoves open the door, before half-dragging Xinlong in with him. “Laughing at a cripple, heartless Long-ge,” Geonwoo complains.
“Yes, yes,” Xinlong squeezes out between his cackling, finding hyung too pitiful to fight with. He makes sure that Geonwoo is able to stand on his own before popping out of the room briefly to wheel Geonwoo’s suitcase in for him as well.
“Mm, thank you,” Geonwoo mumbles when Xinlong returns. His face is still flushed from embarrassment, though he watches Xinlong with a speculative look on his face. “I feel as if… you enjoy this, Long-ge.”
“I told you I’ll take care of you, hyung,” Xinlong grins.
Geonwoo doesn’t answer. Instead he suddenly winces and shifts his weight, as if his foot is acting up.
“What’s wrong?” Xinlong asks, smile fading. He goes to Geonwoo’s side immediately to hold him by the elbow.
“The injection I got is probably wearing off,” Geonwoo says, before sighing dramatically. He leans over Xinlong, using the advantage of his height to envelop the other man. “Good thing I have an angel here ready to carry me to bed.”
I’ll make sure you regret saying that, Xinlong thinks darkly. He purses his lips in annoyance, before leaning down and sweeping Geonwoo off his feet into a princess carry.
Now it is Geonwoo on the verge of falling flat on his back. Xinlong’s arm—braced tightly behind his waist—is the only thing keeping him afloat.
“Ya, Long-ge,” Geonwoo yelps, panicked, arms looping around Xinlong’s neck in terror. “Is this stable? Can you do it?”
“Am I not an angel, hyung?” Xinlong says sweetly, though inwardly he is crowing with triumph. “Would an angel drop you?”
Geonwoo’s face telegraphs with desperate clarity that yes, he fully believes that this myopic angel is about to drop him like a sack of potatoes.
“Look, I can even do squats—”
“—PLEASE DO NOT,” Geonwoo half-yells.
Xinlong laughs again. He carries Geonwoo to the bed, before bending over so he can lower the man carefully onto the mattress. “You see, I told you I could do it,” he says, scrunching his nose.
He leans over Geonwoo’s prone body, smug and triumphant, until he realises that Geonwoo isn’t looking embarrassed or shy anymore. In fact, the man has regained that poisonous glint in his eyes, the one that suggests he has found a new way to torment Xinlong.
The pair of arms still wrapped around Xinlong’s neck tighten, pulling Xinlong lower and lower, until he topples onto Geonwoo, his head colliding into the older man’s chest.
“Caught you at last,” Geonwoo sing-whispers, and the sound makes the hairs on the back of Xinlong’s neck stand.
“Hyung, are you crazy?” Xinlong hisses. The lengths of their bodies are pressed together, and Xinlong cannot ignore the warmth that seems to radiate out of Geonwoo’s body or the steady rise and fall of his chest. Xinlong has shared a bed with other trainees, like Anxin and Yunseo, but it’s never felt like this: the bed so narrow and their bodies so searingly warm and the press of skin electric and far, far too intimate.
He tries to push himself off, but Geonwoo’s arms keep Xinlong caged against his chest. “Hyung, my glasses,” Xinlong complains. His spectacles are askew, digging awkwardly into his nose bridge.
Geonwoo sighs and reaches an arm over to pull Xinlong’s glasses off, before folding it neatly and placing it at a corner of the bed. “Problem solved,” he announces, before booping Xinlong on the nose with his finger.
Okay. Play time is over. Xinlong grew up with five other boys and is more than capable of fighting dirty. He’s just about to dig his fingers into Geonwoo’s ribs when Geonwoo speaks again.
“Long-ah,” the other man calls, a note of pleading in his voice. Xinlong can’t see Geonwoo’s face from where he is pinned, but there’s a quality in the way Geonwoo has said his name, soft and caressing and solicitous, that sends a tiny thrill down his spine. “Just give me this, okay? Just stay, for a little while, for me.”
Xinlong is helpless against such begging. Geonwoo needs something that Xinlong can give—so how could Xinlong possibly deny him this? He stops struggling, though his shoulders stay stiff.
“Will they take you to the hospital tomorrow?” Xinlong asks quietly, trying to fill the silence.
Geonwoo murmurs back, “First thing, they say. Hopefully I can sleep in the car.”
“Or you could sleep now,” Xinlong says pointedly. He tries to lift his head to glare at Geonwoo, though he quickly pinned back down.
Geonwoo chuckles, and the bastard has the gall to rock very slightly side to side like he’s lulling a baby to sleep. “What makes you think that’s not what I’m trying to do?”
“Hyung,” Xinlong chides, one hand hitting him lightly on the arm. “This joke has gone on long enough. Let me go, and get some rest.”
“Why do you think I’m joking? What if I wake up and need to use the toilet? How will I get there by myself?”
“Oh,” says Xinlong thoughtfully. “Well, you can crawl there.”
Geonwoo’s arms clamp down tightly around Xinlong in punishment. “Cruel angel,” he says in a sing-song voice. “Heartless Long-ge.”
“Why do you keep saying that,” Xinlong grumbles.
“Because you only want me when I’m weak and helpless,” comes the answer matter-of-factly.
The answer is so shocking that Xinlong manages to half wriggle out of Geonwoo’s embrace to stare at him. “That’s not true at all,” Xinlong says. He realises belatedly that there’s an implication in his answer—that he wants Geonwoo all the time—but to his relief the older man doesn’t seem to notice.
“Isn’t that the only reason you’re here? Because you think I need to be taken care of?” Geonwoo asks.
Xinlong laughs shakily, “Hyung, listen to yourself: how can it be heartless to take care of someone?”
“Only when it’s Long-ge,” Geonwoo replies. He raises a hand to tug at Xinlong’s earlobe. “Long-ge is the best at using his kindness to keep people at a distance.”
How does Geonwoo do it every time, drawing blood from Xinlong with such a blend of ease and casualness?
“It’s okay,” Geonwoo says suddenly, hand moving from Xinlong’s ear to cup his face. “Like I said, it’s who you are. You don’t like letting people take care of you.”
Xinlong feels torn between wanting to lean into the warmth of Geonwoo’s palm versus flinching away. “Is that what you want? To take care of me?” he asks.
Geonwoo snorts derisively. “I can’t believe you have to ask,” he says.
It’s not really answering the question, but Xinlong has been far from forthright this entire time so he doesn’t call Geonwoo out on this. “You don’t actually want to,” Xinlong says.
“How would I know if I’ve never been given the chance?” Geonwoo shoots back.
Xinlong pauses uncertainly for a beat. He asks, hesitant, half afraid of what the answer might be, “You—you want me to give you a chance to take care of me?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Geonwoo sighs, looking somewhat aggrieved. He lays his head back on the pillow and shuts his eyes.
This is one of those situations where Xinlong genuinely questions his own ability to speak and understand Korean. How do all the words make sense individually but not together? How was what he had said different from what Geonwoo said originally?
“You want to take care of me?” Xinlong tries again, retracing their conversation further back.
“Ddaeng!” Geonwoo buzzes, as if they were on a variety quiz show.
Xinlong thinks for a bit before rephrasing, “If you want to–”
“Still the wrong answer,” Geonwoo interrupts lazily, not even bothering to open his eyes to look at Xinlong.
Xinlong is on the verge of headbutting Geonwoo in anger. He’s hapless when people plead with him for favours, but he hates it when people back him into a corner to get some sort of desired behaviour out of him. The truth is: Geonwoo’s stubborn refusal to explicitly state what he meant only serves as confirmation that firstly, Xinlong had understood him correctly from the start, and secondly, Geonwoo knows that Xinlong understood him.
But he will never come and say it outright, just as Xinlong won’t ever confirm he understood Geonwoo perfectly clearly. That’s the only way they’ve kept the seesaw of their friendship balanced: the two of them pretending they look but don’t see, and they hear but never listen.
Pull back, whisper old fears, like old friends. Go too far and you cannot pull back from the edge anymore. But what is there to ground him now? The past, heavy with the weight of his regrets, is no longer there to call him home. Meanwhile, the future is not yet here to tell him who he can be.
In this present there is only this bed, only Geonwoo, pressed chest to chest with him. Xinlong shuts his eyes and gives in to the gravitational field of hyung’s body, the only thing anchoring him in this endless freefall.
“You can take care of me,” Xinlong whispers.
Geonwoo’s body tenses suddenly. “What did you say?” comes Geonwoo’s voice, rough with urgency.
Embarrassment comes flooding into Xinlong under Geonwoo’s scrutiny. He covers his face, and whines into his palms, “Ah, hyung, it’s embarrassing. Don’t make me repeat it.”
“Hey,” Geonwoo says, gripping Xinlong by the wrists and urging him up so they’re lying on their sides facing each other. “Xinlong, look at me,” and when Xinlong keeps his hands plastered over his face in shame, Geonwoo adds a soft, broken, “Please.”
The tone of pleading elicits an immediate response from Xinlong, his hands lowering slowly from his face, though his eyes dart around without meeting Geonwoo’s.
“Xinlong, listen to me,” Geonwoo says, slowly and deliberately. “I am going to ask you to repeat what you just said, and this is your last chance to change your answer. Because if you tell me again that I can take care of you, then I am going to kiss you. So what did you just say?”
Warmth rushes into Xinlong’s face as he processes Geonwoo’s words. He feels his ears burning up, embarrassment and desire blooming within him, the sensations inextricable from each other. There is a bossiness in Geonwoo’s statement, a promise that might as well be a threat, and it makes Xinlong feel small in a way that he hates but also longs for.
He lifts his gaze to look Geonwoo in the eyes.
“Take care of me—” The last word is barely past his lips when it is practically swallowed by Geonwoo’s mouth meeting his.
The kiss is not gentle. Their front teeth knock against each other’s, and Geonwoo mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a swear, before his hands come up to Xinlong’s jaw, adjusting the tilt of his head so that he can guide their lips back together more carefully this time.
It’s easy to yield, when hyung takes the lead like this; so Xinlong surrenders to the insistent press of Geonwoo’s lips against his, letting the other man dictate the pace with which they come together and when Xinlong is allowed to move apart. It’s overwhelming while somehow still feeling safe, because no matter how much Geonwoo seems to be in control, it’s Xinlong he looks to, eyes full of desperate searching for how Xinlong likes it, what Xinlong needs.
Why had he deprived himself of this? There was a pleasure in being picked apart, in ceding all control over to someone else. You didn’t need to think, to expend all that energy holding yourself together when you allowed yourself to be possessed, consumed. What did it matter anyway, tonight of all nights? They were twin stars bound together, falling through space, and if they crashed in flames at least they crashed together.
Geonwoo’s right thumb comes to press against the corner of Xinlong’s mouth, the pressure coaxing Xinlong’s lips to part. He obeys, mouth falling open, to allow Geonwoo’s tongue to press inside, and Xinlong feels as if he is burning up, Geonwoo’s every kiss pouring fire down his throat.
There’s so much want in him, amplified in the growing slickness of their mouths, and surging like the tide in response to Geonwoo’s own roaming hands. Hyung is seeking him with a never satiated hunger, hands smearing across his shoulders and chest, coming down to grab at his waist. Xinlong gives himself over, not resisting as Geonwoo tugs his shirt, hands dancing briefly over Xinlong’s bared stomach, the fluttery touch making something tight and desperate pool in the pit of Xinlong’s heated core. Then Geonwoo is clutching his waist, pulling their bodies closer until—
Xinlong breaks their kiss in a gasp, the sharpness of the pleasure jolting him back to awareness. His body curls away from Geonwoo’s instinctively, exposed and horrified by the tightness in his own pants.
Geonwoo reaches back up to cup Xinlong’s face again, thumbs rubbing against his cheekbones. “Xinlong,” Geonwoo says hurriedly, calling his name to calm him. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We can just stop here if it’s too much.”
There is nothing critical in Geonwoo’s statement but Xinlong can still find plenty to be disappointed in himself about.
“Xinlong—Longlong,” Geonwoo calls again. The novelty of the nickname is enough to entice Xinlong to look back at Geonwoo.
“Longlong,” Geonwoo repeats, smiling crookedly as he sounds the syllables in his mouth. “You’re still you and I’m still me. No matter what we just did, no matter what’s to come. We’re still us.”
For better or for worse, Xinlong thinks bitterly. He’s still him: not strong enough to bear the final threshold of being known at last.
“Please just stay,” Geonwoo whispers, after Xinlong is silent for far, far too long. Geonwoo sounds small and scared, like he’s sure that Xinlong leaving him is all but a certainty.
We’re no good for each other, it dawns on Xinlong. He can’t be a harbour for Geonwoo if he can’t fix himself, and he can’t expect Geonwoo to hold it together for the two of them with Xinlong giving nothing back. How much longer can Xinlong pretend to be someone he is not, will never be?
That thrilling forward momentum that had carried them all night finally stalls, and without it there is only the feeling of plummeting—the promised crash, that impending impact.
And Geonwoo takes him by the hand and places their joined hands over his chest, locking Xinlong in place, as if they both know that the instant Geonwoo lets go, Xinlong will float away.
* * *
The camera is live and Geonwoo is hanging off Xinlong like one of those large dogs who are oblivious of their size. One of his arms is snaked around Xinlong’s back, his hand having rested on Xinlong’s shoulder for a good part of the livestream, and the other arm is stretched across Xinlong’s chest.
It is a sham of an embrace, brazen and unapologetic. Ordinarily Xinlong would shrug free, but the camera is watching, its red light blazing like a warning. All Xinlong can do is avert his gaze, so he cannot notice how close Geonwoo’s face is, how his lips are pink with gloss and his cheekbones are lifted from that smile he never seems to drop.
Then the moment passes when Geonwoo rights himself, the tablet he was reaching for in hand, as if everything that had transpired was perfectly natural and not a performance choreographed exclusively to torment Xinlong and only Xinlong.
Xinlong hates it. He hates how it traps him, because the “yes-and” improvisation rules of variety means that he has no choice but to allow this once the camera starts recording. The script writes itself—a playful reciprocation of skinship, body leaning in, eyes glancing back at Geonwoo’s and smiling.
Yet these performative gestures, when applied to Geonwoo, skirt too close to Xinlong’s true, broken self. He’s trapped, yes, but a part of him wants to be. Because it feels like the most natural thing in the world, smiling and whispering to each other, or stealing glances of Geonwoo, as if he could never drink his fill.
It’s a kind of a bizarre inversion from how Xinlong used to separate out his life: performing has now become the most unsafe state, baring the most honest parts of Xinlong in the most public way possible.
This is his retribution, his punishment. He was the one who had left, after all. He was the one who pulled his hand free and slipped out of the room, who had ignored Geonwoo’s text messages out of fear and cowardice, who had pretended nothing had happened at all, laughing and joking like there was still a camera present, like the survival show had never ended.
So he can’t blame hyung, he supposes, for deciding that in front of the camera is where the full force of his attentions will be expressed. Xinlong will gladly surrender himself as a punching bag if this playacting—vindictive or not—will make Geonwoo feel better. It’s what he deserves.
Though it doesn’t seem to make Geonwoo feel better, not when Xinlong can see the way Geonwoo’s eyes shut down when the cameras turn off. He’s cordial enough that no one seems to really notice, but Xinlong can. How could he not? Not when he spent months during the survival show observing and learning to read every tiny change in the brightness of Geonwoo’s eyes.
Xinlong can’t figure what it is he needs to give to Geonwoo for him to feel better; proximity hurt, but distance was just as unbearable.
“What are you doing, hyung?” Xinlong finally asks, after weeks of this torture. They’ve found themselves alone on a run to the convenience store across from their dorm, and Xinlong finds the courage to finally speak when they’re alone in the elevator.
“What am I doing?” Geonwoo mutters under his breath. He doesn’t look Xinlong in the eye, staring instead at the floor indicator display, like the lift cannot move quickly enough.
How do you talk about something that neither of you want to acknowledge exists? Xinlong sighs, opting for a roundabout warning: “If you let it all play out in front of the camera, there’ll be nothing left for you at the end of the day.”
Geonwoo lets out a deep exhale, the smile on his lips cold and mocking. “But what to do? This is what Long-ge wants.”
This? This purgatory where touches burn but mean nothing, and where their bodies press into each other side-by-side, wounding each other with every hug? “Hyung, everything—” Xinlong starts, but falters. Anything he says next sounds like an accusation. “—you’re the one doing as you please,” he ends up saying.
Geonwoo’s eyes go dark. There’s fury, but also hurt. “That's rich, coming from you. Who is the one coming and going as he pleases, Xinlong? Who is the one who decides how close we can ever be, who pulls me in when you feel like it and puts up the walls when you don’t? How else can I have you?” he says. “This is the only side of you that you’ll let me have.” He stiffens suddenly, hands pressing over his eyes. “Shit,” Geonwoo curses, “I didn’t want this—”
Geonwoo’s tears trigger contradictory instincts in Xinlong. He’s not disturbed by the tears themselves; in fact, they fueled him with a kind of purpose, no matter how much despair he himself felt. There's a sense of security in taking care of someone, because in centering someone else’s needs, you yourself got to disappear.
But disappearing is exactly what Geonwoo’s tears forbid him from doing—on trial is Xinlong himself, and there’s no way he can fix things for Geonwoo without putting himself on scrutiny.
He trails Geonwoo onto the lift landing, following him through the door to the emergency stairwell. He stands an uncertain distance away, granting Geonwoo the space at least to collect himself, until the latter can articulate if he wants Xinlong to go or stay.
“The tears did it, didn’t they?” Geonwoo remarks at last. His back is to Xinlong still, but he’s lowered his hands from his face, resting them on opposite sides of his neck. “I wasn’t crying to make you feel bad, I promise,” he continues, before glancing over his shoulder to smile at Xinlong with dead fish eyes. “Otherwise, if I had known that tears would make Long-ge stick close to me, I would have cried much earlier.”
“You’re so—” Xinlong starts irritably, before faltering. How did hyung always find a way to turn the tables on Xinlong, to sharpen his knowledge of Xinlong into an arrow aimed at his deepest vulnerabilities? There is no way to refute Geonwoo’s implicit accusation without revealing too much of Xinlong’s own ungovernable feelings, the depth of how badly it is that he wants to care for Geonwoo, tears or otherwise.
Geonwoo watches him for a bit, as if waiting to see whether Xinlong will ever finish his sentence. And when he stays quiet, ceding the space back to Geonwoo, Geonwoo sighs and turns away again. “This is exactly what I didn’t want,” he says quietly. “Your kindness.”
Xinlong is at a loss at what he can possible say to that. “I’m sorry, hyung,” is all he manages. “That night… it was a—”
Geonwoo puts up a hand to stop him mid-sentence. “You better think twice about what you’re going to say,” he says. There’s an edge in his voice, and Xinlong can’t tell if it’s because Geonwoo is about to start yelling or crying again. “Because if you say anything along the lines of ‘it was a mistake’ then I am really going to be furious.”
Xinlong sighs haplessly: “But what if that’s really what I feel? Hyung, this… thing. It can’t work.”
“Why? You don’t like me?” Geonwoo asks bluntly.
The question posed with so much brazen entitlement that it verges on the absurd. “Hyung…” Xinlong pleads, because surely Geonwoo cannot expect him to answer this question on the spot.
“Do you think I’m joking? I’m not,” Geonwoo says dully. “I like you. I like you very much, in fact, and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way.”
Xinlong can feel himself flush at the casual confession, the heat burning its way up his cheeks. He has to look away as Geonwoo turns to look at him, feigning nonchalance even though he wants to cover up his face before Geonwoo can notice.
But it’s too late, because Geonwoo’s lips curl into a knowing smile, cruel and playful. “But maybe I’m mistaken,” he says, in a mocking tone. “So now is your chance to clear things up.
“Tell me: do you like me or not?”
Xinlong bites down on his lower lip in frustration, “Hyung, how can…”
“Long-ge, aren’t you supposed to be so kind? Why can’t you just tell me what I want to hear?” Geonwoo interrupts again mockingly.
What is kind and what is cruel? What does Xinlong love and is it enough to outweigh what he fears?
“It can’t work, hyung…” is all that Xinlong hears himself say.
Geonwoo shakes his head stubbornly, seeing through Xinlong’s vague dismissals. “Why can’t this ‘thing’ work?” he presses.
“I don’t want—”
It’s a mistake to pull back, not when Geonwoo has already bit down on this line of questioning. He’ll never let this go. “Tell me, Long-ge.”
“Because it makes me hate myself!” Xinlong snaps.
The statement hangs between them, both of them staring at each other in broken silence.
“My feelings for you make you hate yourself,” Geonwoo echoes emptily. “Okay. Message received loud and clear.”
Xinlong closes his eyes in exhaustion, his voice barely above a whisper: “That’s not what I meant. It’s not about you.”
“It sounds like it is very much about me,” Geonwoo shoots back. He starts to move as if he’s about to walk away from Xinlong.
“No,” says Xinlong, temper flaring again. It’s like Geonwoo has cut him open, and all the darkness and ugliness that Xinlong’s tried to hide away has come pouring out. “You keep doing this, forcing and forcing me to say things I don’t want. Then when the answer isn’t what you want to hear, you just shut down and walk away before I can explain.”
Xinlong lowers himself to sit on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest, shrinking himself into a tiny ball. Geonwoo hesitates for a moment, before joining Xinlong. Mercifully he makes no attempt to touch Xinlong, and the only point of the contact they have is the slightest press of their shoulders.
“Hyung, do you know how tempting it is for me to just let you take care of me?” Xinlong admits. There’s an almost physical sensation of relief in speaking this desire aloud. Something in his chest loosens, this want finally let out into the world, and into this gaping cavity floods a longing that hurts with a physical ache.
Geonwoo’s hand jerks a little, like it’s about to reach to clutch Xinlong’s, but it stalls, hovering for a moment before returning back to rest on Geonwoo’s thigh.
The disappointment stings a bit, because it would be so easy to just let Geonwoo comfort him, to stop demanding things from him and just hold him like they were in freefall again…
“But that can’t be, hyung,” Xinlong says, his hands curling into fists so they don’t do something silly like try to hold Geonwoo’s hands. “Because of who I am. I’m unreliable. When fear strikes, I become helpless. And I spent so many years feeling helpless, hyung. And I hate it.
“Taking your care and affection, hyung, is as good as indulging this helplessness. All I’m handing over in return are the worst, most useless parts of me. What self-respect can I have for myself then?
“This is why we can never work, hyung,” Xinlong continues, tears beginning to prick at his eyes. “This is who I am—who I truly am—and the more you see these parts of me, the more you’ll resent me.
“So what you said—how there’s only one side that I’ll let you ha… I’ll let you see—yes, that’s true. Because that’s the good part of me. That’s the part that’s funny and lovable and strong enough to be kind, hyung.”
A sigh from Geonwoo is all the acknowledgement that Xinlong gets, before a silence settles around them. The only movement comes from Geonwoo’s fingers, which tap erratically on his knee.
“Okay,” Geonwoo says finally. “Are you done?”
Xinlong looks up at the other man, somewhat dazed. “Am I done? Hyung, did you hear what I just told you? Did you understand—I poured out everything—” he stammers.
Geonwoo puts up a hand to stop him. “I heard you. You told me that you’re actually this horrible person that I could never want. But when have you actually asked me, Xinlong, about what I want?” he says. “Have I ever said that I expect you to be kind? Have I ever said that I expect you to be strong, to protect me?
“If anything, I’ve made it clear that I know you’re a pretty frustrating bastard. But it’s who you are, and—I’ll be honest—I like the bastard side of you more than your kindness.”
Xinlong laughs miserably, “You have horrible taste, hyung.”
“Is it so difficult to understand?” Geonwoo smiles back crookedly. “Everyone gets your kindness, but only I get your cruelty. It’s mine.”
There’s a charged frisson in that word, something imperious that Xinlong’s body responds to. “Hyung,” he chides weakly, before lowering his face to hide its deepening flush.
“Xinlong,” Geonwoo calls, before pausing to wait for Xinlong’s eyes to lift and meet his once more. “This is not some hostage negotiation. I’m not here to save you, and I don’t ask that you save me. I’ve never needed your repentance, or your self-punishment to make up for crimes that you commit in your own head.
“I have never asked that you bare everything to me—if you wanted to, in the future, I would love for that—but I don’t need it now. I don’t need everything now. Keep your secrets; and I’ll keep mine.”
Geonwoo pauses, watching Xinlong’s expression, waiting to see if Xinlong has truly processed everything he’s said. Xinlong nods mutely in return, for fear that saying anything will unleash the tears that sting the corners of his eyes.
Geonwoo’s lips twist into a small smile. “Longlong,” he continues, and the nickname is imbued with so much tenderness that it steals Xinlong’s breath away. “I just ask that now, in this moment, that you want me. Just want me. Want me however way: recklessly, selfishly, destructively. Want me just to use me and throw me away. Want me because you choose me and not because you think I need some sort of reciprocation, or because I need your care.
“Because I’m losing my mind when I think about that night. Was it all in my head? Did you only ever pity me? I need to know, Longlong, do you want me or not?”
Can the matter be so simple, boiled down to a simple offer: to want and let yourself be wanted? Outside there were always monsters hidden in the dark, the world teetering on disaster every other Thursday. And yet, in the ruins, a boy gives himself to you with a foolish, cocksure recklessness.
“But I’m not brave like that,” Xinlong whispers.
“Well, I’m something of a coward myself,” says Geonwoo, his eyes looking increasingly sad. “That’s why I need you. Especially you.”
Their eyes meet, and it’s like they’re back on the survival show again, just two boys, resolute and terrified all at once, holding fast to each other in a vast machine demands more of them both while grinding them down to dust.
Debuting doesn’t make all your problems fall away—Xinlong has known that for a while now. But what he’s realised now is that it also doesn’t magically crown you a better, stronger person, and, it seems, neither does falling in love. He’s still him; and Geonwoo is still Geonwoo. The moon and the tides, pushing and pulling each other, closer now and then further again, but always locked in an eternal embrace.
Xinlong nods, before saying softly, “Okay, hyung.”
“Okay,” Geonwoo echoes, voice cracking with relief. He leans in slightly, and wraps his arms around Xinlong when he’s certain that Xinlong is not going to flinch away.
* * *
What they agree to do in the end is simply to try. As for what exactly they’re trying—they agree to leave unspecified, so there’s no pressure or destination to rush to.
All they have to do is choose each other, to pare away the countless layers of their splintered selves and make a choice to be with each other with what’s left.
Even if that part of themselves is bruised, terrified, lacking.
Xinlong learns that it’s alright to be a coward. A relationship didn’t have to be a ledger, tracking deposits and withdrawals that needed to be balanced. You didn’t have to be brave to take care of someone; you didn’t have to be small to be loved.
He lets his body obey the pull of Geonwoo’s, allowing himself to take up space in Geonwoo’s life, until it becomes natural for Xinlong to sit in Geonwoo’s bed even when he’s not here, to flip through the books on Geonwoo’s headboard, to unplug Geonwoo’s phone from the charger so Xinlong can charge his instead.
“My cat has decided to grace me with its presence,” Geonwoo exclaims when he finally comes out from his shower, hair still damp. He catches, without missing a beat, the roll of tape that is hurled at his head by Xinlong.
“Who is ‘your cat’?” Xinlong asks, in mock-annoyance.
Geonwoo grins. “‘The cat that I belong to’ has decided to grace me with its presence,” he corrects himself. “Better?”
Xinlong tries very hard to keep a smile off his face. This too is allowed now, claiming that they belonged to each other, but that didn’t mean that Geonwoo saying it out loud didn’t cause a weird squirming sensation in Xinlong’s stomach. He did his best to discourage it as much as possible.
“Did you miss me?” Geonwoo asks, tilting his head innocently.
Ugh, he thinks he’s adorable, doesn’t he? Xinlong thinks darkly, all the while trying to tamp down the stubbornly lifting corners of his mouth.
“Maybe,” Xinlong says after a brief staredown, before conceding, more shyly, “Yes.”
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t already seen each other all day, amidst all the filming and practice. But they had agreed that it was alright as well to want more and ask for it.
Geonwoo beams, getting on the bed to crawl towards Xinlong. He cages Xinlong within his arms and leans in so closely that their noses touch. “And how do you want hyung tonight?” he asks again.
It’s Xinlong who closes the distance this time, cupping Geonwoo’s face and pulling him in for a kiss. This is another thing that Xinlong has gotten better at with time, to feel like his hunger and his need weren’t something shameful to hide.
It helps that Geonwoo almost always responds with a fervour that feels at times like worship, as if Xinlong’s desires weren’t a sign of brokenness, but rather something worthy of reverence. Geonwoo pulls them closer so their chests are flush, their bodies surging together in a complementary rhythm with their kisses. His hands rove across Xinlong’s body, clutching first at his arms, then his waist before resting at his hips, like he can’t be certain Xinlong is real until he has thoroughly mapped his body through touch.
“Longlong,” Geonwoo whispers, as he peppers kisses along Xinlong’s jaw, moving up towards his earlobe. He licks at the sensitive spot on Xinlong’s neck just behind his ear, trying to elicit that telltale shiver from the younger man.
“Ah—hyung,” whines Xinlong, the spike of arousal causing his hands to grab blindly at Geonwoo’s waist. That little erogenous spot had been an accidental discovery for them a few days ago, and had quickly been weaponised by Geonwoo at every opportunity.
There’s a smug chuckle before Geonwoo’s smiling lips press back onto Xinlong’s, whose lips part more pliantly this time. After a slightly messier round of kissing, Xinlong pulls apart to pout, “You’re not playing fair, gege.”
Because of the larger size of Geonwoo’s ears, it was very, very satisfying to see them slowly turn bright red.
“Also—” Xinlong adds quickly, before Geonwoo’s brain could recover its full function, “—I didn’t tell Sanghyeon that I was coming over, so we shouldn’t get too carried away.”
Geonwoo pouts exaggeratedly.
“I don’t really want to give him another traumatic experience,” points out Xinlong. It was pretty scarring for Xinlong too, and he and Sanghyeon couldn’t quite look each other in the eye for a couple of days following that.
Geonwoo harumphs, “It’s a rite of passage to walk in on your university roommate doing something inappropriate. We’re just ensuring he has as normal an upbringing as possible. You’ll still stay the night though?”
Xinlong nods, face warming a little. But it’s worth the embarrassment, because Geonwoo’s eyes brighten up once again and there’s really nothing quite like being the recipient of that gaze.
“We can play another time,” Xinlong says shyly, after they’ve rearranged themselves to cuddle under the duvet instead.
“Mm,” hums Geonwoo in assent. “I’ll be sure to book a timeslot in advance.”
He is rewarded for that snarky comment with a sharp pinch on his thigh. “Shut up and sleep,” Xinlong hisses.
“Your wish is my command,” Geonwoo says with a faux flourish of his hand. He reaches for the roll of tape by his bedside table, the same one that Xinlong had hurled at his head earlier.
“Must you sleep with your mouth taped shut?” Xinlong asks.
Geonwoo laughs at the tone of judgement in Xinlong’s voice. “You don’t like it?”
“No,” Xinlong deadpans. “It’s very sexy.”
Geonwoo laughs harder this time, pulling Xinlong in tightly in a hug. He leans over to murmur into Xinlong’s ear, “I knew there was a part of you that would love to see me gagged.”
There was a time that such a comment from Geonwoo would send Xinlong into a tailspin. Like Geonwoo had dragged yet another rotted part of him out into the light for everyone to dissect and laugh at.
But he’s calm enough now, to look back into Geonwoo’s eyes, their darkness and their hunger.
Oh, and love.
“We can try that some time,” Xinlong says, burying his face in Geonwoo’s chest.
There’s a sharp inhale of surprise, and a strangled, “R—really?” from Geonwoo.
Hyung, hyung, hyung—always throwing stones when he lived in a house of glass.
“We can take turns,” Xinlong says, deliberately lowering his voice to a deep burr. It’s a dirty trick, but one that’s proven effective. He glances up at Geonwoo, enjoying the expressions cycling through his hyung’s face.
Geonwoo says at last, voice tight, “You keep riling me up when you know I want to eat you alive. Don’t you know that once I bite down, you'll never escape?”
I’m counting on that, Xinlong thinks, and he lets Geonwoo echo that declaration in his actions, the older man’s lips claiming his.
They surrendered to each other, yielding their reciprocal hunger, a craving that seemed to scrape both their hearts hollow. Yet what was left wasn’t emptiness, no, only the awareness of how much of their selves there was to fill and be filled. Two soft bodies, yearning to love what they loved.