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Once upon a time,

 not too long ago — in a world of velvet curtains and footlights —

a hatchling was born in the wrong nest.

His feathers were soft but not sleek.

His voice cracked where others boomed out.

His hands shook where others carved certainty.

Ι n the lit pond of dancers and dreamers,

he was always a little too quiet,

a step too strange.

They laughed when he stepped forward.

''Not you,''

''You're not the star.''

They said he'll never make it.

They said he made a mistake.

They called him a background filler.

And so, the hatchling tried.

Straightened his neck.

He explained.

Fluttered his wings.

Stood beside them until his reflection disappeared.

But still — they did not clap for him.

When the stage lights burned too hot,

and his bones ached from trying, he ran.

Not away from them — but towards himself.

In the quiet, the hatchling began to move in a language that was entirely his own.

Complex.

Awkward.

Honest.

And when he danced, not to be loved but to be true, t he world stopped to listen.

They did not see a swan.

They saw something rarer.

A boy who dared to be real.

Chapter Text

“I don’t pay attention to the world ending.
it has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.”

N.W.

9:27 AM.

One of Seoul’s most prestigious national theatres.

Grand halls, historic velvet seats, decades of legacy.

The stage is bare, save for a single spotlight that remains on.

Seonghwa almost didn't come.

The auditorium smelled like old wood, leftover nerves, and anxiety-sweat from the previous auditionees. Ηe sat in the third row — not close enough to be seen, not far enough to disappear — hands cold, shaking and clasped on his lap.

He did know much about the play yet. Only that it was about to be a modern, poetic version of the well known fairytale — but stylized, dramatic, haunting, almost eerie, the description said.

His number was 19. Printed in sharp black on the chest of his hoodie with masking tape. Like a lost parcel. . .

The director flipped through papers. A bored assistant called names. Laughter came from the left wing, where the confident ones waited — loud-voiced, warm with familiarity that came from graduating together, and being friends with each other, colleagues aside.

From what Seonghwa overheard they were casting for various roles in the play, among them his too. He didn’t look at them. But he felt their aura, like rays of sun on a cracked window.

He looked at his palms instead.

You’re not like them.

Are you really meant to be that seen?

''You are mediocre and you'll stay this way forever.''

''He is a good student–but he rarely participates in class.''

''Wow, you look decent today! Miracles actually happen!''

A childhood echo.

A teacher's voice.

A friend’s laughter that hurt too much.

He breathed.

The panel sat in a half-moon curve near the front of the auditorium, backs against the light from the windows, faces partially shadowed. A cluster of authority, each one holding a pen like a sword.

Seonghwa kept his eyes low.

There were four of them.

The director, leaned far back in his seat like he’d seen a hundred versions of every person walking in. Thin-rimmed glasses. A frown already pre-creased between his brows. He flipped through the script like he was hoping it would offer him a cigarette instead.

Next to him, a woman in her thirties, poised and sharp, the type who wore her patience like a very thin scarf. She clicked her pen three times between each applicant. She didn’t look mean, just tired of seeing people try too hard.

The other member was chewing gum. Seonghwa tried not to flinch every time the pop sound echoed in the theater walls.

And then there was… him.

The clipboard guy.

He didn’t have a name tag like the rest. Just sat quietly on the far right, sleeves rolled up, brown hair falling into his eyes. Several silver hoops in his ears, and rings on nearly every finger—more an artist than an administrator.

He hadn’t smiled at anyone. Not once.

Seonghwa had noticed that right away. How he watched people — not with passive interest, but quietly. Calculating. He wasn’t scanning for performance––but something else. Was he a director too? A writer? A judge? His face was unreadable, like the sea before a storm. Not vicious. Just... contained.

Their eyes met once — accidentally — the man blinked once, then looked back down at his page, as if taking note.

Of what?

Seonghwa touched his throat. Still warm. Still working. He had a voice. He was here.

''Candidate 19,'' the assistant called.

He stood too fast. Knocked over his water bottle. It rolled down the auditorium floor and hit someone’s chair leg with a pathetic clink.

Someone snickered.

Seonghwa felt the whole committee looking at him. But one of them made his skin tingle. He didn’t know what the clipboard guy saw when he looked at him, but the weight of his gaze lingered–– pressing between his shoulder blades as he made his way onstage.

He stepped on it.

The lights weren’t even that bright. But they made him feel… unarmored. He stood in the middle, and someone asked, “Which role are you reading for?”

He opened his mouth, and for a second — it dried.

Not now, not now.

''The Duckling,'' he managed, voice a little frayed, ''Thank you,''

A few mutters. Someone laughed.

Then a badly concealed whisper, ''Shouldn’t he be one of the baby birds instead?''

Seonghwa's stomach dropped.

''Right? His whole vibe is giving side role king!''

But the clipboard-guy— the quiet one — raised his eyes on him again.

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t look amused.

Just stared.

''Whenever you’re ready,'' the director said.

Seonghwa took a breath.

''Your voice is too soft and passive,

it can put a whole ass kindergarten to bed.

Speak up!''

A professor echo this time...

Seonghwa spoke the first lines — slow, trembling, like the first ripple before a wave.

The committee’s faces seemed like masks—some bored, others politely attentive but clearly just ticking boxes. It felt like performing for an audience of stone.

Ηe kept his voice calm, low, melodic. Like a lullaby. That was how he understood the role. The Duckling didn’t yell; it didn’t need to.

He felt every breath settle like a confession as he delivered the lines. His chest tightened, but not from fear—more like hope. He knew—he could do something extraordinary with this.

He could still hear the voices—harsh, cutting—It's not good enough. You’ll never measure up- curling around him like smoke. He refused to let them.

He held the words like a lifeline, a truth he understood. He believed in this role, in its quiet defiance, in the way it demanded to be seen without raising its voice. He could be that—gentle yet unforgettable. He was that.

Subtly, like a drop of ink in water—he saw a shift in the panel when his eyes landed on them again. A slight tilt of a head. A pen stilled mid-note.

And the corner of the clipboard guy’s mouth lifting—just barely. A glint of interest, as if the hush in Seonghwa’s voice had caught the edge of something that even he didn’t know he was holding.

It was small, but in that sterile space, it felt like a gentle glow of warm light. 

The monologue ended.

Someone exhaled.

The clipboard-guy leaned forward to face the rest of the rest of the committee. And for the first time that morning, he said something:

''Top contender for the Duckling.''

*

22.03 PM of the same day.

The dim lamp casts a golden light over the living room.

Three people are sitting on the couch.

After the audition concluded, Seonghwa knew the following week would bring the well-known waiting period — that agonizing stretch where the casting team reviewed audition notes, considered each actor’s fit for the role, checked their availability, experience, and even social media presence in some cases.

He had expected to endure the same wait.

But just a few hours later, his phone buzzed with a notification.

Email Notification

Subject: Casting Confirmation – “The Swan Who Wasn’t”

Dear Mr. Park,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to play the role of The Ugly Duckling/The Swan in our upcoming production of The Swan Who Wasn’t.

The rehearsals and first script readings and will be taking place next week, starting on Monday at 9:00 AM.

Congratulations, and we look forward to working with you on this project.

Sincerely,
The Casting Team
The Swan Who Wasn’t

Seonghwa blinked at the email. His hands trembled slightly.

“San. Wooyoung,” he called, voice hoarse. “Please—read this. Read it again and again. Just to make sure I’m not hallucinating from my nerves.”

They leaned over his phone, eyes wide.

“Hyung, it’s real,” Wooyoung said, beaming.

“It is real,” San added, clapping him on the back. “You did it!”

A bottle of champagne followed.

After the first two flutes Seonghwa felt ready to finally talk instead of making these little unintelligible sounds that sounded something like: ''No'', ''No way'', ''What'' ''Me?''

"They seemed to like my audition!'' he yelled at the other two, '' I mean. When the clipboard-guy said: 'Top contender,' I–I  thought I’d cry, or scream, or — fall to the floor in dramatic gratitude or something stupid! But instead–Shit, I was so awkward! I just stood there! Frozen. I wasn't excepting–they actually meant it.''

''Hyung gets so chatty when he's drunk,'' Wooyoung giggled and downed his flute, while Seonghwa scrolled through his acceptance email for it with big, wet eyes.

San filled his flute again,'' Seonghwa Hyung, are you happy?''

''He looks scared, lol'' Wooyoung commented as if Seonghwa wasn't in the room with them.
''I am.'' Seonghwa ignored him and nodded to San's direction, ''But—It's the first time I apply for the protagonist's part.'' Seonghwa cried as if he just realized what he did, ''Isn't it a little too–– ambitious for someone like me, I–?''

''What do you mean someone like you?'' Wooyoung cut him irritated.

"I–I should have applied for a side role instead? But I just–there’s something about the ugly duckling... The way he keeps searching for belonging, even when he’s told to quit. He stays soft. He doesn’t harden, even when he’s alone. I saw that and thought–maybe– But what if they made a mistake?"

''You got the part because you deserve it!'' Wooyoung's nostrils flared, ''Do you believe this high- end-ass-theatre team would take this lightly and risk their reputation? or their money?''

''Right,''

''Don't right me,'' the boy pointed his finger at him, '' Hyung,'' his voice softened now, came such a long way, despite all the shit you've been through, you worked your ass off to graduate first of your class from–''

''But–it's not their type of university, the other candidates–''

“So what?'' Wooyoung cut him off again as if he suddenly read something in Seonghwa's eyes, ''Since when does your worth depend on their expectations? You’re not there because you begged, or payed your way in — you earned it. With talent and work. With everything they wish came naturally to them.”

''God, I love it when you talk like that,'' San meowed next to Wooyoung and buried his face on the crook of his neck.

Seonghwa scoffed and turned away from the loving couple, yet he couldn’t help but smile while rubbing both his eyes with his knuckles.

He didn’t have many people. But those two were his people.

He and Wooyoung had met in the university — both too queer, both pretending to be much louder than they were, both a little too committed to their own goal to notice they were lonely– until they found each other.

Wooyoung was studying photography and smoked too many joints back then, always with ink smudges on his fingers and different kind of lenses in his bag. He’d taken Seonghwa’s first professional headshot, and they had been inseparable ever since.

San had arrived in their lives as a force of nature — a wind of perfect bone structure, working as a model on the side, with the softest laugh Seonghwa had ever heard and the warmest eyes. He was supposed to be a weekend guest once. That was three years ago.

The three of them just clicked.

The first night the three of them went out together, the grill hissed nonstop with slices of pork belly sizzling and the air thick with laughter and clatter of empty soju bottles. It was already their third round — maybe fourth, Seonghwa had stopped counting — and Wooyoung was deep into his boisterous storytelling mode.

“–and this guy,” he jabbed his chopsticks dramatically toward Seonghwa across the table, nearly knocking over a lettuce wrap in the process, “he’s like…the moonlight. No — wait, hear me out.”

Seonghwa groaned into his glass of water. “Wooyo, stop.”

“Let me talk!” Wooyoung pressed a hand to Seonghwa’s shoulder like that gave him permission. He was grinning — cheeks flushed from the shots, hair slightly crazy from laughing too much. “Sannie needs to know what kind of creature he’s eating barbecue with.”

San, for his part, was smiling into his side dish like someone trying not to laugh too hard.

Wooyoung continued, undeterred. “Seonghwa Hyung’s the quiet one, right? But not in a weird way. It’s like — you think he’s zoning out or something, but then he’ll say one thing and it’s the most profound shit you’ve heard all week.”

“Woo–” Seonghwa tried again, but his voice came out in a half-laugh.

“Listen!” Wooyoung wagged his finger to San. “He’s a show stopper without trying to be. You know, all oversized clothes and hair in his eyes — total accidental ethereal energy! He’s not the type to scream and demand stuff. He just… gives. Nurtures.  People might underestimate him, BUT, he notices everything. Like, he’ll hand you a tissue before you even sneeze.”

“I’m not that dramatic,” Seonghwa muttered, but the tips of his ears were glowing, and San was tittering.

“And yet,” Wooyoung went on, clearly enjoying himself too much. “He’s so easy to please! Give him a plate of Abura soba, and he’s over the moon. Show him snow, and he’s spinning like a kid in a cartoon. Bubbles? He’s chasing them like a puppy. Even a claw machine game—he lights up like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Honestly, isn't this Hyung full of unspoken poetry?”

At that Seonghwa dropped his chopsticks. “Oh God.”

San burst out laughing. “Unspoken poetry?”

Wooyoung grinned proudly, eyes sparkling. “Did I lie?”

Seonghwa shot him a glare, but he couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.

This was ridiculous. Embarrassing. But also — maybe a little nice.

It didn’t matter Wooyoung and San had become a couple soon. It didn’t shift the dynamic between the three of them like it sometimes did in those fragile college-born friendships. It wasn’t about balance. It was about belonging.

San moved in with them not to help pay the rent, but because both Seonghwa and Wooyoung almost abducted him out of his old place.

A found family, or WooSanHwa as Wooyoung liked to call them.

They were a home Seonghwa had built with his own hands, after spending years convinced that he would never have one. That he would always walk alone.

''Cheers to Seonghwa-Hyung,'' San raised his flute after Wooyoung escaped San's dramatic and crushing embrace.

And three flutes clung with each other.

Seonghwa was ready to begin.

Chapter Text

Next Monday.

9.01 AM.

Theatre stage.

A storm is brewing outside.

“For those of you who don’t know me…” The man with the clipboard paused in the middle of the stage and let out a low chuckle—a sound Seonghwa had never heard before, layered with both irony and amusement.

“I’m Kim Hongjoong. Creative Director, Assistant Director, Playwright, Head of Artistic Development, with prior experience in stage design and script editing. Newly promoted.”

A girl seated in front of Seonghwa turned to the boy next to her, eyes wide. “Who doesn’t know the Kim Hongjoong? God, he’s so hot and so scary all at once.”

Seonghwa chewed on his bottom lip, the knot in his stomach tightening. That made one of him—he had no idea who Kim Hongjoong even was. He hadn’t known that he, rather than the producer or director, would be the one to welcome them today.

No announcement, no formal introduction. Just the sudden shift in the room the moment he walked in. Postures straightened, laughter died mid-breath. It wasn’t just fear, Seonghwa realized—it was respect. The kind that followed someone who had long since earned it.

“Remember his seminar on line interpretation coaching in second year?” someone whispered behind him. “He made Jay cry.”

Seonghwa’s gut twisted, but he forced himself to focus as Kim Hongjoong started pacing the stage.

“I’m the one who wrote the play script you’re holding,” Hongjoong began, voice calm but sharp. “The retelling of The Ugly Duckling—in an adult-world version. A person who feels out of place in relationships and social circles that prize conformity—always being told they’re either 'too intense' or ‘not fun enough.’ They try to fit in, tone themselves down, stay with the wrong people, go to the wrong places, until one day—exhausted and done pretending—they choose solitude, honesty, and spaces where depth is welcome. And over time, they stumble into others like them—not louder, not prettier, just real. And in that acceptance, they finally see they were never ugly—just in the wrong crowd.”

Seonghwa swallowed, the silence between each breath deep enough to hear a pin drop.

“That,” Kim Hongjoong continued with a pointed tone, “is how you would describe the play to your seven-year-old sibling. However, in practice, things will be much more complicated, blending high art with emotional resonance. This production carries my name. This is my pride.” His gaze swept the room, pausing on Seonghwa for a second. “And I do not tolerate dullness. If you are not here to give everything—your focus, your discipline, your respect for the craft—then you shouldn’t be here at all. The audience owes you nothing; you owe them everything.”

A murmur rippled among the actors. Seonghwa held his breath, unmoving.

“We have ten weeks to reach perfection,” Kim Hongjoong concluded, his voice a quiet challenge. “Without further ado, let’s meet the cast.”

Kim Hongjoong reached for his clipboard and started calling people on stage.

They all carried themselves like they belonged there — like this grand stage had been made for them.

The girl playing the Mother Duck had an old-school grace to her, her chin kept high even though she wasn’t in character.

The trio cast as the sibling ducklings clung to one another like a flock in real life too — whispering, giggling, watching Seonghwa with a smug gaze.

One of the male leads, cast as one of the rival swans, moved like he owned every spotlight he stepped into; even his stretches looked choreographed.

Then there was the ensemble — dancers, forest creatures, feelings, flowers, seasons, —ethereal, light, casted perfectly for their roles. Some of them were mentioning their degrees as they introduced themselves, their European seminars, casually name-dropping acting coaches Seonghwa had only read about in interviews.

It wasn’t just what they said — it was how they looked. Their coats tailored, their water bottles branded, their sneakers designer. Even the way they carried their scripts, in leather folders or monogrammed bags, screamed money.

Seonghwa peaked at his black, velvet sweats and clutched his creased copy like it might betray him.

Kim Hongjoong was looking out over the gathered cast like a general reviewing his troops.

His voice was calm, yet clipped. “Next — Park Seonghwa. The Duckling.”

Seonghwa’s feet moved before his breath did. The big stage lights weren’t even on, but he felt exposed all the same. He didn’t know where to rest his hands as he stood next to Kim Hongjoong— in his pockets? Clasped behind his back? Hanging limp?

Every option felt wrong.

Every eye was on him. Some curious, some blank, some already dismissive.

“Your casting raised some eyebrows,” Kim Hongjoong said, his tone even, almost conversational. “Not because of your talent, but because your academic background is different from many of your colleagues here.”

It wasn’t an accusation — more like a quiet acknowledgment of the unspoken tension that hung in the air ever since Seonghwa's casting. Like a new student stepping into a class where everyone else already knew each other’s names.

A pause followed, stretching longer than Seonghwa would have liked.

From somewhere off to the side, a mumble: “The swan from the wrong pond, lol.” A soft laugh rippled in its wake.

Then another voice, edged with skepticism: “Maybe he’s a favor. Or a publicity stunt.”

Seonghwa’s fingers curled at his side. He didn’t look in their direction. He didn’t need to. He already knew which faces had twisted into smirks. He’d seen them before.

''Your colleague graduated from a lesser-known yet highly rigorous university,'' Hongjoong's eyes remained cold and fixed on Seonghwa while talking to the rest of the cast, ''Top of his class, cum laude, praised for both his vulnerability and control onstage as his professors informed me. Technically brilliant throughout his casting and now the main lead of this play.''

It didn't sound like Kim Hongjoong was defending him. More like presenting calculated data, having guessed somehow that Seonghwa wouldn't refer to his own achievements.

Seonghwa looked down once, briefly, then back up. Straight ahead. “I know I’m not what you expect. Maybe I’m not what the role usually looks like. But to me… theater isn’t about appearance. Or prestige. It’s about—” He hesitated shortly, “—transformation. About standing on a stage and making someone feel something deep. About giving pain a shape, giving joy a voice, and letting it reach someone who needs it.”

He glanced at the floor, then lifted his eyes again, voice quieter but steadier.

“I wasn’t really raised in a place where theater made sense to anyone but me. But I always felt drawn to it. It made me feel like I wasn’t completely on my own. That’s what theater is for me—a place where I can see something real.”

There was a long stillness when he finished. Seonghwa swallowed, offering a small, respectful nod. “I’m grateful to be here, and I hope I can grow with all of you.”

He could still feel the discomfort in the room. A few of the other actors shifted, unimpressed or unmoved, one even letting out a small scoff under their breath.

His eyes turned to Kim Hongjoong.

His gaze was locked on him. Sharp, unreadable. But his grip had slackened just a little. His mouth didn’t press in disapproval. It parted — like he’d almost said something before stopping himself. There was something like a flicker of surprise behind his eyes. He nodded once, slowly, before forcing his expression back into neutrality. “Thank you,” he said, the words sounding tighter than usual. ''Let’s move on. The last of the swans, Jeong Yunho,''

As Seonghwa walked to his seat, his pulse still hammering in his throat, the next actor climbed on the stage with the kind of presence that didn’t demand attention — it invited it. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a smile that belonged in a late-summer evening. He gave a small wave to the room. “Hey everyone. I’m Yunho. I’ll be one of the good swans — the one who isn't dainty and long necked, but promises not to bully the duckling either.”

A few people chuckled. Even Seonghwa’s lips tugged upward despite himself.

“Do you know him? Lord, he’s too handsome for our own sake,” a boy mumbled behind Seonghwa to the person next to him. “He’s either fake or fallen from heaven.”

Yunho's tone shifted slightly to something more sincere. “This is my third production with the company, but it’s my first time doing something this stylized and metaphorical. I’m super excited. I think stories like this — the Ugly Duckling and all — they hit hard because we all know what it’s like. To feel out of place. Or like you’re too much, or not enough.”

Seonghwa’s eyes flicked up.

Yunho clapped his hands once, light and cheerful. “Anyway — I’m terrible at speeches, but I can make a killer somaek and I always bring snacks. Looking forward to working with you all!”

He bowed lightly, and the energy around the room felt as if someone had opened a window and let fresh air in. People smiled back. 

Yunho belonged there. And more than that he made other people want to belong.

Kim Hongjoong announced a ten minute break before they started on some cold reads.

“Hey,” Yunho waved, suddenly standing next to Seonghwa. “You’re the lead, right? The Duckling?”

Seonghwa blinked, caught off-guard. “Yes, Seonghwa, or Hwa.”

“Nice. I’ve been wanting to meet you, Hwa.”Yunho’s grin widened — and then he extended a hand, easy, natural. Like making friends was easy as breathing for him.

And Seonghwa —shook it.

It felt nice. Even safe maybe?

For a second, his eyes wandered past Yunho’s shoulder to where Kim Hongjoong stood, clipboard in hand.

He wasn’t watching them.

But he also hadn’t turned the page he was pretending to read.

*

The rest of the cast had already left, but Seonghwa lingered behind after this first day was finally over.

He was reviewing notes, had been staring at the rehearsal schedule for so long the words had started to blur. Vocal warm-ups. Blocking. Choreo. Lighting check. All packed into a little box of time.

It didn’t feel real yet — the lead role, the expectations, the eyes – skeptical, amused, patronizing.

A quiet pair of footsteps slowed beside him.

The clipboard guy. Kim Hongjoong. He hadn’t smiled once during the cold reads. He kept giving Seonghwa these looks like he was either unimpressed, or trying to solve a particularly dull equation.

“I hope you’re not lost already,” he said dryly as he paused next to him — clipboard in hand.

Seonghwa looked up. He blinked.

He never knew where he stood with him.

One moment it was his 'top contender for the duckling', recounting Seonghwa's virtues in front of everyone and long stares across the room. The next, it was sarcastic comments and cold glares.
Seonghwa couldn’t tell if he was being mocked or… noticed.

And,as always, that was the worst part . . . How much Seonghwa already wanted it to be the second.

“Just making sure I read the schedule and the places right.''he replied and stared at him right in the eye, his voice equally cold now, ''Wouldn’t want to show up to the wrong rehearsal and embarrass myself in front of the important people.”

A small twitch at Kim Hongjoong’s mouth — not quite a smirk. “Don’t worry. If you do, I’ll be there to write it down.”

“You take notes on everything?”

“I observe.” Kim Hongjoong’s tone was unreadable. “It’s part of the job.”

“I thought creative direction was supposed to be more… hands-on. An energetic, enthusiastic profession.” Seonghwa's brows lifted, letting the words hang like a half-question.

That earned a pause. Kim Hongjoong shifted his weight and glanced toward the hallway wall — where a faded poster from an old production of Hamlet hung, the paper curling slightly at the edges.

“I’m not here to be warm, and giddy,” he finally said. “I’m here to make something worth watching.”

Seonghwa's eyes narrowed slightly. “And you don’t think I can help with that?”

Kim Hongjoong met his gaze, steady and unreadable.Then what seemed to be his singature smirk and a voice that was almost too calm: “I think we’ll find out soon enough.”

“You know,” Seonghwa smiled bitterly, “if this is meant to intimidate me, I’m afraid I’ve already had practice. I’ve been underestimated by people with more titles—and less grace.”

Kim Hongjoong blinked — like he hadn’t expected Seonghwa to react. Then he nodded like he made a note. “You’ve got some fight in you.”

“I wouldn’t have survived without it.”

The words were out before Seonghwa could stop them.

Too raw. Too revealing.

But something in Kim Hongjoong’s eyes had pushed him. Like a challenge he couldn’t walk away from.

Kim Hongjoong didn’t reply. Just looked at him for a long moment… then walked away, his heels clinging on the floor. But before he turned the corner he turned around and gave him a head to toe look: “Ducklings don’t usually bite.”

Seonghwa’s jaw clenched. Once again he wasn’t sure if it was mockery. Or fascination. Or both.

He looked back down at the schedule in his hands — but now the letters didn’t blur.

They burned.

*

By the time Seonghwa got back home his mind wouldn’t settle.

Not after that little talk.

He pulled his laptop closer on his bed, one leg tucked beneath him, hair damp from a rushed shower. It was already late, but sleep eluded him.

So he typed: Kim Hongjoong, Creative Director, Contemporary Theater

The search results loaded instantly. Headlines. Reviews. Interview snippets. Photos from opening nights and mid-production sneak peeks.

Seonghwa was mortified when he realized the two of them had the exact same age of twenty six. The difference being that while Seonghwa was chasing and acting on these small, side roles in obscure productions and theatres, Kim Hongjoong, with his multiple studies, and hard work built his name resulting on it showing up everywhere.

“Fire and loyalty,” one feature in Seoul Stage called him.

“Doesn’t say much, but when he does? Earthquake.”

“Creative direction meets raw instinct — his work blends visceral physicality with emotional precision.”

Another article went deeper, describing his role in past productions:

• Oversaw interpretation of text and how it aligned with visual dramaturgy.
• Coached actors directly for emotionally complex scenes, often stepping in when the director needed sharper nuance.
• Worked closely with the lighting and costume departments to fine-tune tone and transitions.
• Helped choreograph symbolic sequences, particularly those combining stillness and tension — movement as metaphor.

There was a quote from a playwright he had collaborated with: “He’ll fight for what matters, but he listens like it matters too.”

Seonghwa clicked through old play footage — scenes he hadn’t even realized had been Kim Hongjoong's doing.

The symbolism in the blocking. The restraint in the staging. The choreography that made the silence feel loud.

Intense, Seonghwa thought, watching him speak in a behind-the-scenes clip. He spoke in a firm, confident voice, his eyes locked on whoever he was addressing. Kind of intimidating.

In a fierce way.

There was another interview where Kim Hongjoong was explaining his approach to collaborative storytelling. He wore layered rose gold rings, and a thin, almost imperceptible scar cut across the top of his right hand. When a question caught him off guard, he fidgeted with the rings and smirked—thumb circling the band slowly, eyes narrowing in thought.

Seonghwa noticed the small things: the way Kim Hongjoong’s gaze stayed focused, the way he was polite and inviting with the interviewer. He was focused at them as if every word they said carried a special weight.

Walks like he’s heading into battle, Seonghwa thought. But looks like the type that would stop mid-step to tie a friend’s shoelace.

That was the duality he could see in him: determined but considerate, sharp but fair.

By the time Seonghwa closed the last tab, it was almost 1 a.m.

He hadn’t expected he would be so–curious.

He didn’t know him yet.

But…he wanted to.

Chapter Text

The first week always felt like stretching in a language nobody remembered how to speak.

Cold reads came first —untuned voices stumbling over lines still unfamiliar, searching for breath.

There was a strange kind of intimacy in that clumsiness, like strangers undressing in the dark and pretending not to look.

Then came the ensemble exercises: walking the space with intention, stopping at impulse, mirroring the body of the person across from you without speaking. It was about trust, instinct, presence — the things that made theatre real before it ever became performance.

Hongjoong watched, clipboard in hand, always close but never interfering unless needed. He was methodical but not rigid, known for his sharpness. The room responded to him as it should.

He didn’t choose to speak unless there was something worth saying. When he corrected, it was surgical. Unpleasant? Yes. Precise? also Yes.

He believed in the truth of the stage — not the polish. And if truth required a little discomfort, he was there to deliver it.

It was on the third day he fully noticed him.

Noticed, because Park Seonghwa didn’t try to win the room. While others cracked to the loudest laugh, he stayed inward—not shy, just steady. Unmoved by the noise, as if blending in with the popular crowd didn't mean so much to him. He read lines quietly at first, then earnestly. He wasn’t smooth.

But something about the way his voice caught on certain words — like it meant too much to say cleanly — made Hongjoong pause.He was present in a way that made him watch Park Seonghwa a little longer than intended. Like it happened with his casting. Like it happened when he introduced himself for the first time.

They hadn’t spoken properly yet. There was still friction there — some kind of resistance.

The other's eyes were kind and respectful and yet he didn’t defer to Hongjoong the way the others did. He didn’t rush to impress. He had too much edge for that, maybe too much wariness behind this posture? Certainly not arrogance. More like defiance built into his bones. Like an invisible map of all the places Park Seonghwa had struggled.

Hongjoong didn’t dislike it. He just didn’t know what to do with it.

Today it was the first full-cast read-through.

The rehearsal room smelled of old coffee and freshly printed paper. A long, wooden table swallowed the space, littered with scripts, highlighters, and half-drained water bottles. Hongjoong stood near the window with his clipboard pressed against his chest, scanning the room while everyone settled in.

The actors were arranged in a horseshoe shape, all with scripts in hand. Yunho was flipping through his copy upside down, pretending to be lost, while two others — the ones Hongjoong had already pegged as self-satisfied — whispered something behind their hands and chuckled. He didn’t catch the words, but he didn’t have to. The timing was too pointed: Park Seonghwa had just walked in.

Late. Not much, but just enough that the silence caught him.

He muttered an apology and took the only seat left — between Yunho and a girl who pretended he didn’t exist next to her.

Hongjoong scribbled on his notes but watched closely as everyone opened their scripts.

There was something too bare about the other. Too open. Too expressive. Like he had forgotten people were supposed to be performing, even offstage. He wore his emotions like fabric, layered and shifting, never quite hidden — not on stage, not in conversation, not even in that awkward self-introduction where he spoke of theater like it was some sacred altar.

People laughed.

Hongjoong didn’t.

He’d seen rehearsed sincerity before. And this wasn’t that.

What annoyed him, though — what should’ve annoyed him more than it did — was the way Park Seonghwa looked at him. Not with awe. Not with fear. He didn’t bow his head like the others did. Didn’t lower his gaze or phrased his words carefully just because Hongjoong held the clipboard and the title. He met his eyes, even challenged them.

Hongjoong hated being surprised.

 “All right,” the director called, “Let’s begin. Prologue. Yeji, go ahead.”

Lines were read. Voices slipped into character. Some stiff, some overcompensating. The rhythm was awkward, but expected — it was always this way in the beginning. But Hongjoong’s pen paused the moment Park Seonghwa spoke for the first time.

His voice was soft. Clear, but cautious. Hongjoong saw his fingers curl slightly under the table, knuckles white around the pages. His eyes didn’t rise from the script.

Someone snickered.

A tiny sound. But it sliced through the room.

Hongjoong’s head snapped up.

Park Seonghwa flinched almost imperceptibly but kept going.

Line after line, the same thing. Quiet giggles. Whispered comments. A mocking echo of his last phrase when he spoke the line:“But what if I don’t belong anywhere?”

Hongjoong narrowed his eyes.

He wanted to speak. Wanted to shut it down. But it wasn’t his place — not officially. He was the creative director. Not the director. He didn’t want to overstep. Not yet. Not when everything was still so political, so brittle.

But he circled something on his page anyway: “Scene 3, Cast Attitude.”

Park Seonghwa didn’t say anything. Didn’t look up. But Hongjoong could see the slow spread of red behind his ears, could see the slight tremble in his hand as he turned a page. His voice never cracked — but it did falter, just once, and that was enough for someone to let out a soft tsk.

Hongjoong closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath through his nose.

When Seonghwa’s final line came — the scene’s emotional climax — Hongjoong looked up just in time to see the other close his eyes for a beat before delivering it: “I’ve spent so long trying not to be seen. But I think — I think I want to be.”

This time, no one laughed. For just a second, the room was still.

Hongjoong let his pen fall to the table. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been gripping his own wrist until that moment.

When the read-through ended, there was the usual shuffling, the scraping of chairs, the brittle clatter of coffee cups. Hongjoong didn’t move. His eyes followed Park Seonghwa, who quietly packed his things, shoulders a little hunched.

He didn’t look up until he passed Hongjoong.

And then — just for a second — their eyes met.

Hongjoong offered nothing. No smile, no words. Just a steady look.

And when the other was gone, he scribbled one more note, barely legible.

'He understood his lines better than anyone.'

*

During the next two weeks the focus of the rehearsals was mapping out stage movement, blocking scenes and spatial dynamics. As always, Hongjoong helped the main director decide on where actors would move on stage during each line or emotional beat.

Hongjoong noticed Park Seonghwa struggle with space — literally, in between dismissive whispers by the rest of the cast that maybe weren't meant to be heard:

 “He always shrinks back,”

“You’d think a main lead would walk like he belonged there.”

“Is he allergic to center stage, or just confused by it?”

''Confusion and tardiness suits side characters better don't you think?''

Hongjoong noticed how Park Seonghwa heard.

He always did. He didn’t flinch, not outwardly — just reset his stance with stiff shoulders and eyes locked on the floor, like he could will himself into confidence. But Hongjoong, pacing the edge of the scene with his clipboard, caught the flush at  Park Seonghwa’s neck and the breath he held too long. His gaze lingered a moment too long — just watching. As if quietly marking every bruise that didn’t leave a mark.

Hongjoong would adjust his blocking quietly, not intrusive. He would explain to him in a low, unreadable voice: “Come closer — you’re standing too far. The audience won’t feel the ache in your voice. Step into it.”

''Hongjoong sunbaenim has a soft spot for the duckling boy?'' he heard the girl playing the Mother Hen whispering backstage, after that rehearsal came to an end,  ''I’ve never seen him speak so calmly to someone.''

Hongjoong didn’t have a soft spot. At least, not like that.

He knew how most people labeled him as distant, a little too cool, even untouchable. But if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was the hierarchy rot that clung to theater culture like mold — the unspoken rulebook of who belonged and who didn’t.

The smug superiority.

The casual cruelty.

He wasn’t going to stand on a chair and shout them down, but he didn’t need to. He made his point by his acts — quietly, steadily — every time he held the line for someone fighting.

He didn’t have a soft spot for Park Seonghwa.
He would have done the same for anyone who was being crushed under collective scrutiny.  

That wasn’t even kindness. That was simply–– ethics.

...Still.
One-on-one was different.

It wasn’t that Park Seonghwa had done anything wrong.

It was the opposite, maybe. Too composed. Too precise. It made Hongjoong want to­­ ––somewhat challenge him further.

By the end of the second week, late in the afternoon the theatre was quiet in the way only old buildings knew how to be — not silent, but breathing.

Hongjoong stepped lightly between the rows of seats, clipboard in hand, scanning the stage through the gold-hazed gloom.

Most of the cast had already left, their laughter still faintly echoing in the halls, but one figure hadn’t moved. Still on stage, script clutched in his hands like he was trying to anchor himself to the boards. Hongjoong paused in the wings, watching.

He was repeating a line under his breath — His voice was soft,

''Even the pond won't remember my face by spring...''

Something in it gave Hongjoong a pause.

He stepped out before he thought better of it.

“You’re holding the script too stiff.”

Park Seonghwa startled, shoulders tensing like he’d been yanked out of a dream. He turned, blinking under the lights. “Oh. Uh, I guess—”

“I didn’t mean metaphorically,” Hongjoong replied, already walking forward. Easy, measured. Not unfriendly — not warm either. “You don’t need to strangle it. It’s just paper.”

The other flushed slightly, in a way that made a prickling sensation spread on Hongjoong’s chest.

“Right. Thank you.”

Hongjoong tilted his head, studying him. “You’re not what I expected.”

He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But it was true. When they’d cast Park Seonghwa, he was good. Really good. But Hongjoong expected another frail talent wrapped in overconfidence, or worse — empty confidence backed by a fancy CV and a forgettable stage presence.

 But Park Seonghwa was neither.

“...Meaning?”  the other's voice had gone tight, guarded.

Hongjoong took a few steps closer, squinting through the light. Park Seonghwa’s face was sharper up close — not in bone structure, but in the way he wore his strength like an armor.

Like someone who had learned not to expect kindness without needles.

“You don’t move like a main character,”  Hongjoong declared. It wasn’t an insult. Just an observation.

Still, he saw the way Park Seonghwa flinched. The breath he took, the weight shift in his spine. As if it landed too hard.

Hongjoong shouldn’t have said it like that, but–

“But,” Hongjoong added, softer this time, “your voice… it does something when you read that line. The pond one.”

Seonghwa looked down. His ears were red. “You mean, like, good?”

“I mean like you mean it.”

The silence yawned wide and heavy.

Hongjoong looked past Park Seonghwa then, out into the empty velvet rows.

 “We’ve had three leads before you who looked better crying on cue,” he said plainly. “But not one of them looked like they’d been forgotten for real.”

That was what this role needed. Not a perfect posture. Not glassy tears. Just someone who could portray what it felt like to be left behind and had learned to speak from the silence.

“So,” Hongjoong added, meeting the other's eyes again, “don’t screw it up.”

Then he turned and left quickly, before he could say anything else.

Before he could admit his high hopes.

Behind him, the stage creaked softly.

He didn’t truly mean to be like that with Park Seonghwa.

The blank eyes and the sarcasm came easy, too easy, like a reflex he hadn’t outgrown.

Hongjoong told himself the script in his hand was the only thing that mattered.

But his fingers had loosened around it without realizing.

He didn’t look back.

*

21.34 PM

Wooyoung and San are watching a movie in the living room.

Seonghwa tosses his bag next to the door and drags his steps towards them.

He flopped onto the couch next to his friends, like the world was too much that evening.

San hit pause and Wooyoung cleared his throat dramatically, waiting for an explanation.

''He said I don’t move like a main character,'' Seonghwa groaned into a pillow after a while.

San raised a brow, ''Who said that?''

''Clipboard guy.''

''Ahhhh, the one with the tragic eyebrows and the God complex?''  Wooyoung rolled his eyes mid-pop corn crunch.

''That’s the one,'' Seonghwa muttered, still face down. ''Except now he’s upgraded from judgmental staring to psychological warfare.''

''...What did he say, exactly?''

Seonghwa lifted his head just enough to mimic Kim Hongjoong's tone: ''You don’t move like a main character.'' Then dropped his face again. ''What does that even mean? Why everyone is so obsessed with this?! Like—should I Parkour? Moonwalk? Exist harder?''

San snorted. ''Okay, the way he said it–– rude. But also maybe… accurate?''

Seonghwa looked at him and Wooyoung, betrayed. ''Whose side are you on?''

''I’m on the ‘you’re spiraling again’ side, Hyung,” San replied, chucking a box of strawberry milk at Seonghwa. ''He didn’t say you sucked, right? Just that you surprised him?''

Seonghwa sat up, biting his lip and clutching on the little pink box. ''He said… my voice did something. That I ‘mean it’ when I recite the line. Then told me not to screw it up.''

''So, he sees it. He sees you! He just doesn’t know how to say it like a normal person. He's a clipboard with anxiety issues most probably.'' Wooyoung chimed in. “So, onto the hot tea.” he propped himself up on one elbow, a slow grin forming. “Any news with my favorite?”

Seonghwa looked up, blinking. “Your favorite?”

Wooyoung wiggled his brows. “Yunho.”

“Oh my god,” Seonghwa groaned, face diving into the pillow again.

Wooyoung let out a cackle. “Come ooon, you’ve been talking about him for days. Tall, warm, 'broad shoulders like Atlas'—your words, not mine.”

“I was just making an observation,” Seonghwa cried, voice muffled by the fabric.

“Uh-huh. And the lunches in between rehearsals? The way you smiled when you said he grabbed and carried your gym bag the other day?”

Seonghwa lifted his head just enough to breathe, cheeks pink. “He’s just nice. Supportive. It's not illegal.”

“No, but it is suspicious Hyung,” San winked and sat up now. “In every insta-story you two shared  together the man looks at you like he’s choosing curtain colors for your shared apartment.”

Seonghwa laughed, loud and disbelieving. “He does not.”

“Okay, maybe not curtains. But your future puppies? Absolutely.”

There was a silence for a moment.

“He asked me something about—” Seonghwa paused, his eyes wandering to the edge of the room like the thought might land there. “Something about the play’s themes. How I feel about playing a queer role. If it feels close to home.”

Wooyoung raised a brow, intrigued.

“He was... careful. Not weird. Just open.”

“And?”

Seonghwa shrugged. “I said yes. That it does. And he didn’t flinch.”

“So, what’s the problem?'' Wooyoung looked at him for a long second, then softened,  ''He’s into you, he’s respectful, he’s hot—”

“He's not! I don’t know,” Seonghwa said too fast. “I just... I don’t think about him that way.”

“But he’s literally your type and you've been single for ages?”

“Yes,” Seonghwa said.

San tilted his head. “Okay, now you’re not making sense.”

“I mean,” Seonghwa continued, as if hearing it himself for the first time, “Yunho is the type of person I usually like. And I do. I do like him.”

“But?”

“But lately...” Seonghwa trailed off, glancing down at the crumpled script again. The corners were worn from the rehearsal, from being held too tightly.

“Lately?” Wooyoung encouraged him.

“Nothing,” Seonghwa said quickly, standing up, the blanket slipping off his shoulders. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Uh-huh,” Wooyoung mumbled, but didn’t push. Just watched Seonghwa cross the kitchen for water, humming under his breath.

A little before Seonghwa went to take a shower, his phone buzzed with a new note from Kim Hongjoong — a small line change for Scene 4, a suggestion for physical blocking. Seonghwa read it three times before replying, “Noted.”

He stared at the screen a little longer than necessary.

*

23.28 PM

Seonghwa brushed his teeth slowly, the hum of the bathroom fan filling the silence.

The mirror was still fogged from his shower, blurring his own reflection — a soft smudge of eyes and damp hair.

Seonghwa tried to look at it anyway.

It had been three weeks since the first table read, since the casting was locked in and his name printed bold under Main Lead.

The already thin smiles gradually vanished by then. The whispers weren’t always behind Seonghwa's back. Some loud comments wore politeness like a mask too papery to work.

Seonghwa wasn’t supposed to notice, but he did.

And yet, he still held the door open every day. Offered a cough drop when a voice cracked. Stayed late to help Chaewon find her missing charger— even though she told someone Seonghwa “looked too stiff to carry the final scene.” some days ago. He carried boxes for the younger crew and lent rainbow highlighters to anyone who needed them. Shared warm-up space, and complimented performances even if they didn’t return the gesture.

He wasn’t trying to be saintly. It was just easier to be kind than to grow bitter. Easier to help than to ignore. If they expected him to crumble, then his ever existing poise was his own kind of rebellion.

Later, tucked into his bed with the sheets cool against his skin, he lay staring at the ceiling— familiar darkness pressed in like a weight blanket.

He didn’t regret auditioning. He didn’t regret the role.

Even on days when the voices were too loud, even when Yunho’s smile felt like a lifeline in the room, even when Kim Hongjoong’s cold gaze left him shaken.

It was clear they didn’t want him in the spotlight, Fine, he would fight until they had no choice but to see him. Like he always did.

His last thought before sleep wasn’t about the whispers, or the script, or even that impending sense of doom that sometimes found its way between Seonghwa's breaths.

It was the way Kim Hongjoong had said “good work” that morning . Offhand, but sincere.

Chapter Text

Seonghwa sat halfway down the third row, his hands loosely clasped in his lap, his spine upright even though the seat begged him to slouch.

The stage was still lit bright after the rehearsal and before the costume tests.

Kim Hongjoong stood at the edge of it — clipboard in hand, sharp lines in his posture. ''Your attention.''

Η is voice like a piano lid shutting,

 “We’re hosting a benefit ball,” he announced. “The board approved it this morning.”

A ripple of whispers followed. Seonghwa didn’t join them. He watched as Kim Hongjoong’s gaze moved over the room like a sweep of wind. Not cold, nor warm.

“The goal is to fund resources for Korea's Foundation for Suicide Prevention,” Kim Hongjoong continued. “Real ones. Not just pamphlets and one single counselor buried under a hundred names.”

That earned a few exhales. Some nods. Deep thoughtful frowns.

Seonghwa's chest tightened.

Τhe way Kim Hongjoong said real ones — it landed like truth. Like experience. Like maybe he wasn’t just reading lines off a clipboard.

The rest came with clipped elegance: the date, the guest list, the performances expected from every single actor of the cast. Required. And the way the room shifted — bodies stiffening at the word press, others blinking at the idea of performing for something beyond the stage.

Seonghwa sat still and listened.

And when Kim Hongjoong said, “We can’t create safe spaces, as a society, if we pretend everyone and everything is fine,” a hard, quick pulse drummed in Seonghwa's throat.

This mattered. More than a play. More than applause. It was about people.

And it struck too close for comfort.

Seonghwa hadn’t looked away the entire time Kim Hongjoong spoke. Couldn’t. Because something in the other's voice made the world sharpen — and Seonghwa knew he had to show up for this event and make it count.

Kim Hongjoong stepped off the stage.

Seonghwa sat frozen in the golden light, eyes still on the other, still thinking.

***

It was the Friday of the fourth week of the rehearsals already, and the studio lights felt brighter than usual — or maybe Seonghwa had just grown a bit more tired of squinting through them, pretending they didn’t cast shadows where none belonged.

The week had been all about line interpretation, which was Seonghwa's favorite up until now.

Kim Hongjoong walked the room like a question in human form. His voice peaceful but sharp as a knife. He asked things that dug beneath the words: “Why do you pause here? Is he scared, or is he hiding something?”

Seonghwa lived for questions like them — invitations to dive deeper, to explore something untreated. And yet, sometimes the questions landed too close. Kim Hongjoong’s eyes lingered longer on him, his notes came quicker. “Don’t soften it — he’s not innocent.” “Start that sentence like you’ve already lost.” “That laugh is a shield. Drop it.” Some felt harsh. Others, confusingly intimate.

Seonghwa once again couldn’t tell if he was being tested or appreciated.

He also thought — foolishly, maybe — that by now the whispers of the cast would have softened. That him not being competitive and indifferent, but helpful and kind would ease the sharp glances.

If anything, the edge to the cast’s chatters had grown harder.

He saw them look past him when they laughed, when they planned coffee runs, when they paired up for scenes.They usually whispered just low enough to get away with it.

“He’s overdoing it again. Like it’s Shakespeare.”

“Always so serious.

Like it’s his story.”

“The duckling role doesn’t need perfection, it needs originality.”

Seonghwa didn't snap.

 He carried his silence like posture — straight-backed, chin high. When he stumbled in a line, he picked it back up with quiet dignity. When someone “accidentally” knocked his notebook backstage, he bent down and collected it without a word.

When he nailed a scene and, oddly, only Kim Hongjoong clapped — once, briefly — he let that be enough. The approval, or the quiet nods from him, their director, the stage crew and the choreographer meant more to Seonghwa than anyone else's opinion anyway. Their subtle respect felt like an invitation to belong here—like he had earned his place.

If the room still didn’t want him, it didn’t mean the stage wouldn’t.

Seonghwa went on working quietly, effectively, stubbornly.

Not with hope, but with certainty.

They didn’t have to want him to watch him rise.

***

8.45 AM

Monday

Backstage always smelled like a mix of expensive perfumes and tension.

The kind that lingered behind the red velvet curtains and stuck to the skin like static.

Seonghwa had come early — not out of overachievement, but out of habit. It just gave him a few moments of silence before the rest of the people there filled the space with noise.

However, it seemed like the noise arrived even earlier than him.

He slowed near the side entrance to the dressing area, the faint hum of voices carrying beyond the half-closed door.

“The Duckling is one thing.

But him as the swan?

He’s too boring.”

''He should’ve been sadness!

All quiet and weak.''

''He’ll drop out soon.

Just watch. Can’t handle it.''

'' He’ll beg for a smaller part, like the orchid,

or the eclipse.''

There was laughter — sharp and careless.

The kind that doesn’t think about the door swinging open. Or the person standing just behind it. Seonghwa stepped inside anyway, just as one of them muttered, “Anyway, who even picked—”

A sudden hush. Air snapped to stillness. Then fake smiles, too wide and too late.

“Oh. Seonghwa.''

'' Hey! We were just—”

“Talking about scene placements.”

“Yeah, Hongjoong-sunbaenim's notes. Lighting stuff.”

He said nothing.

Just walked past them heading to his locker, his spine straight and his eyes locked on the far wall like it mattered. His face burned with the effort of keeping everything inside — the disbelief, the humiliation, the bruised part of him that still believed in empathy and kinship.

He didn't get the chance to reply something–anything to them.

Because Yunho, once again—slipped in without ceremony. The others didn't acknowledged his arrival, but they stopped talking about the alleged scene placements.

“Seonghwa-yah,” Yunho smiled at him, stepping forward and stretching his arms slightly as if warming up for the hundredth time that morning. “You’re dancing with me for the ball.”

A brief pause. The room blinked in confusion. His words cut through the air, not loud, but clear. Even. Intentional.

Seonghwa looked up, stunned.

“For the ball performance. Duo piece,” Yunho clarified, tossing a water bottle from one hand to the other. “I want someone who understands stillness. Not just movement. You harmonize with the music just right. It’s what this piece needs.”

The others had fallen silent. Watching, calculating, as always.

There was no smugness is Yunho's voice. Just ease. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

''Yuyu!'' one of the girls chuckled half confused half surprised, ''I thought you were going solo,''

Yunho didn't return the smile. Instead he raised his shoulders slightly with cold eyes, “I changed my mind.”

Seonghwa searched the other's face — unsure whether it was joy or disbelief pulsing through his chest. Because it didn't feel like a rescue. Not charity. Just a hand extended to create something special. Another space made. A signal, in the shared language of theater, that someone saw the work beneath the whispers.

''Yes, of–of course I will,''

''Ack! That's my mate! We're eating! So, listen–''

Seonghwa let Yunho stand beside him like a shield, sing-songing his ideas for their performance.

And for the moment, that was enough.

*

Late in the afternoon

Theatre stage

Rehearsal

SCENE I — “Born Out of Tune”

A spotlight where Seonghwa stood alone.

A “family” of ducks in matching gray coats. He wears a slightly off-color version. The Duckling tries to match their steps, voices, rhythm — but he always stumbles a beat behind. They ridicule him softly, almost like passive-aggressively trying to fix him. Soft shame. A  heartbreak. The choreography subtly leaves him out of formations.

Rehearsals weren’t supposed to taste like tension.

But for past couple of hours, the air onstage felt as thin as  foam—ready to vanish with a single wave.

Hongjoong stood near the edge of the rehearsal mark, clipboard cradled loosely in his arms, his eyes narrowed at the other.

“They called it kindness, the way they corrected me. But kindness doesn’t cut.”

The line was meant to sting. But Seonghwa’s voice trembled, barely reaching the rafters.

Something was off — not just in delivery, but in his presence.

He wasn’t holding the space the way he usually did.

“Try again,” Hongjoong said, evenly. He kept his voice level, but with enough push to cut through the soft snickering from the wings. “I want to believe you’re in pain.”

It wasn’t cruelty. It was clarity. Hongjoong's job wasn’t to coddle but to coax truth into the light.

The silence stretched and Seonghwa swallowed hard, Hongjoong caught the way his hands curled at his sides — not into fists, but into something smaller. Defensive.

A murmur rippled through the other actors. The kind of collective breath that meant they were waiting for him to crumble. Like they wanted it.

Then Seonghwa exhaled. Not loud. Just quiet. And just before he spoke again, his voice dropped to a whisper — for him, and him alone. “I am in pain. Just not the kind you know how to look for.”

The words slipped like thread through skin. The others didn’t hear — they were too busy rolling their eyes or shifting scripts around with fake boredom.

But Hongjoong heard every word.

And suddenly the fractured rhythm of the past few rehearsals aligned in his mind like puzzle pieces: the lingering backstage after everyone left, the missed lines, the too-tight shoulders, the way Seonghwa laughed like it wasn’t meant to be shared.

Something was wrong today. Not with the acting. Not with the technique. With him.

But before Hongjoong could say anything, Seonghwa gave a polite bow and left the stage. A ghost slipping between scenery.

The rehearsal broke shortly after, and the others scattered, chattering like they hadn’t been waiting for blood.

Hongjoong stayed.

Pretended to check the production notes. Listened for the exit door.

And then, when he caught the quiet shuffle of footsteps down the aisle, he called out.

“Seonghwa-ssi?”

The other paused, back half-turned, profile ghosted in the dim auditorium light.

Hongjoong approached slowly, pulling something from his satchel. A book — worn, but not in a careless way. Milk and Honey. Folded notes stuck out from between the pages like soft-spoken bookmarks.

“You might hate this,” he said, holding it out, “or think it’s overly emotional. But it helped me when I felt... outside of things.”

Seonghwa didn’t take it right away. Just blinked, silent. Like he didn’t know how to accept an offering without strings.

“No script notes inside,” Hongjoong added. “Just underlines and marginalia. The nervous kind.”

Finally, Seonghwa took the book. His fingers barely brushed Hongjoong’s, but it was enough to feel the tremor in them. Not from the cold, or the stage fright.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Hongjoong nodded. “See you tomorrow.” and he walked away, not looking back.

But he left the theatre later than usual that night, sitting alone in the control booth for a long time — wondering what kind of marks didn’t show, and what it would take for someone to name them out loud.

*

The book felt heavier than it should.

Not just in weight, but in meaning — kindness disguised as paper and ink. Seonghwa cradled it under one arm as he stepped out into the cool night, the theater’s back door clicking shut behind him.

“See you tomorrow.”

Hongjoong had said it like it meant something. But Seonghwa wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone tomorrow.

Or the day after that.

Or ever again.

His shoes scuffed lightly against the pavement as he walked, the street lamps humming above in pale halos. His other hand tugged at the hem of his sweater, just to feel something move. Something to prove he was still real.

Still here.

He glanced down at the book again. The title wasn’t anything grand — a slim poetry collection he vaguely recognized. One of those melancholic and subversive literary works that artsy people read quietly in cafés.

But it was the way Hongjoong had handed it to him. The way Seonghwa's hands trembled , but the edges of Hongjoong's lips just curled up slightly in something resembling a smile. Calm, settled, steady.  

Maybe Seonghwa misread it. As per his usual. Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all.

He kept walking the last street before home without remembering the last five blocks. His body moved on autopilot, his mind tearing itself apart.

The cast’s laughter from earlier still rang in his ears. One of them had mimed a limp wrist behind his back. Another one had whispered, “No wonder he’s always trying so hard — he’s struggling to keep up with us.”

And then the one that split Seonghwa open. It was said like a joke, but lodged like a blade: ''He’s sweet, but the role is not fitting for him. He's more like… background comfort.''

The worst part? He agreed.

He overestimated himself– the percent of indifference he could feel over other people's words. Opinions. Jokes.

In his defense––he couldn't catch a break.

For weeks now he spent half of his day listening people insisting he is someone he’s not.

What felt like a constant identity erosion–disguised as teasing–slowly gnawing at him.

Being told who he should be while Seonghwa knew who he was.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. But it reopened something in him he hadn’t touched in years — something from when he was young, and small and helpless. Staring up at a father who only ever saw one mistake after the other. And everything that followed.

“Grow the hell up or don’t come crying to me when the world spits you out.”

“You’ll never make it if you don’t grow a spine.”

“Too sensitive, too dramatic, too much — you exhaust everyone around you. No one will deal with that.”

Seonghwa used to think his art and his passion would make him invincible.

That if his love shone brightly enough, the light would slip through the cracks and mend them.

But nowadays all he saw in the mirror was a boy stretched thin by hunger and performance. A ghost with a painted face.

Seonghwa used to think he was pretty — not in the idol way— but in a diverse, interesting kind of way.

Now, even that was gone.

The confidence he built from the scratch, once anchored inside him, was now only a hollow echo. Like waves lapping against an empty dock.

He was tired of avoiding the mirrors and take his makeup off blindly. Terrified to see his own reflection. Tired of counting almonds and rice crackers, and still feeling like he took up too much space.

He couldn’t compete.

Not with the idols.

Not with other actors.

Not with the version of himself everyone wanted him to be.

By the time he reached their apartment door, he could hear laughter inside — Wooyoung’s voice loud and teasing, San humming something tuneless under it.

Warmth. Light.

Seonghwa stood outside for a moment too long.

Then in and quick.

Wooyoung glanced up from the couch. “Hwa—?”

He didn’t answer. Just raised one hand — not quite a wave — and walked past. The book was still tucked against his chest like a shield. He placed it carefully on his desk as if it might break if he wasn’t gentle, then shut his bedroom door behind him without a sound.

In the guest bathroom, he locked the door. Turned the faucet on. Not for the water — just for the noise.

He sank onto the floor, back against the tiles. Pulled his knees in. Pressed his forehead to them. And finally let the grief inside him swell loud.

It wasn’t Hongjoong’s fault.

But that book — that one warm, shy gesture — had made something inside him feel seen. And to be seen like that, even for a second, only made the emptiness afterwards louder.

Seonghwa didn't want to die.

He just didn’t know how to keep carrying this.

Not anymore.

After what could be five minutes or one hour, he stepped up.

Soon was cradling the scissors in his hand.

This was about control.

If they were going to take pieces of him, he’d choose which ones.

Hair was too easy. Too visible. Too clean.

He thought about it — standing in front of the bathroom mirror, the light above humming as if it was mocking him too.

His fingers trembled, but not from fear. From restraint. Because he wanted to mark something. His grief, maybe. Or the fury blooming in the space where dignity used to be.

Instead, he went back to his room.

He tore open the drawer at the bottom of his wardrobe, his hands shaking, and his breath catching somewhere between a sob and a hiss.

His eyes landed on the battered script binder — the thick, marked-up copy of The Ugly Duckling they had handed out on the first day of table read. The margins were littered with his own neat, handwriting, some notes half-faded from sweat, tears, or time.

 He’d memorized every page, every beat. It wasn’t just a script.

 It was the closest thing he had to proof that he belonged there.

Seonghwa gripped it in both hands. The plastic cover dug into his palms.

He remembered the way Hongjoong had looked at him during his last scene.

He threw the script against the wall.

The sound cracked the silence like a gunshot — paper exploding in a fan of white across the floor, bindings torn, pages skidding beneath the shelves, some curling at the edges as they landed. Seonghwa staggered back, chest heaving. He pressed the heel of his palm to his mouth. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scratch his skin open and let the ache out, the way he used to. But no. Not again. He wasn’t that boy anymore. He couldn’t be.

Instead, he dropped to his knees and started tearing.

One page at a time. Line by line. His own lines.

Hongjoong’s notes.

Even the dog-eared page that had once made his heart flutter — gone in seconds, split down the middle.

The ripping and his sobs filled the room like static. Messy. Uncoordinated. Louder than he thought it would be.

When nothing of it was left, he sat down on the floor beside it. Cross-legged. Blank-eyed. His sobs had died down, his nose stuffed.

The silence stretched long and weightless, and his thoughts began to flicker through like a reel too fast to pause.

They think I'm playacting softness.

They think this role is just a token for me.

They think I don’t feel it.

They think I will change my mind.

They think the role is too heavy for me.

But I’ve been carrying this weight before I knew how to speak of it.

He didn’t notice the knock at first. It came again — gentler, then firmer.

“Seonghwa-Hyung?” Wooyoung’s muffled voice.

Then San, quieter. “Hyung… can we come in?”

He didn’t answer. But the door opened anyway, slow and careful.

The look on Wooyoung’s face when he saw the mess wasn’t pity. It was knowing. And without a word, he crossed the room, pulled Seonghwa up by the wrist— and guided him to the bed while San turned off the light.

Wooyoung climbed in beside him and wrapped both arms around his middle, his chin tucked over his shoulder, like a shield– made of skin and breath.

He didn’t say things like: You’ll be okay, I believe in you. He didn’t need to. He just stayed.

And for the first time in days, Seonghwa exhaled.

The unraveling was quiet. So was the holding.

And sleep eventually found him — in the warmth of someone who didn’t ask Seonghwa to explain why he was breaking.

Chapter Text

Hongjoong sat cross-legged on the main stage, a tangle of notes and props scattered beside him — tape marks, a half-folded light plot, blocking diagrams smudged with coffee stains. As per his usual he balanced a pencil between his fingers, tapping it absently against his clipboard while the rest of the crew murmured in the background, taping down boundaries, rolling platforms into place.

His mind was not in the room.

Two days.
Seonghwa had never missed a single rehearsal before. Not once. Not even when the rest of the cast had begged for a day off, citing migraines or overwork or existential fatigue, Seonghwa had always shown up. Early. Notebook in hand. Hair still damp from the morning shower" That glow around him like he was half-human, half-nature.

Now — two days. Gone. Silence.

Hongjoong noticed immediately. Of course he had. Not that he made it obvious. He just… found himself staring at Seonghwa’s usual spot by the third row. Kept expecting to hear that light, voice reciting lines under his breath. But there was no sound, no pink post-it notes, no scent of abstract floralcy when someone would walk past Hongjoong.

And no Instagram stories.

That was the weirdest part.

Seonghwa, despite being quiet in person, had the most personal social feed. Blurry photos of the night sky, paperbacks curled open beside half-drunk tea cups, napkins inked with crooked lyrics and half-thoughts. Selfies in which his eyes looked soft and shy, like he’d almost forgotten he’d hit ‘post.’

It was all so him — that mix of mystery and sentiment, the kind of beauty that didn’t ask to be looked at but got noticed anyway.

Hongjoong liked those stories. Sometimes literally. Often silently.

But now, nothing.

He told himself not to care. Seonghwa didn't look particularly good the last time he had seen him. Maybe he needed some rest. Or he was busy. Or down with a light cold.

Or with someone.

The last thought came uninvited and hit like a nail. With someone. Out partying, maybe. Dating. Doing something stupid and bold while Hongjoong ran laps around the tech booth trying to fix a sound cue that had been Seonghwa’s solo.

His worry twisted in on itself, turned sour and sharp and useless.

It made him mad.Mad because it mattered. Because Seonghwa mattered.

It felt like a betrayal.

Hongjoong didn’t do actors. He didn’t get involved. He certainly didn’t waste time overanalyzing why someone with doe eyes and a quiet posture hasn't added Spotify Music to his Instagram story in forty-seven hours.

And yet, here Hongjoong was. Pacing backstage like a nervous ghost with a headset.

Then, that afternoon — Seonghwa returned.

Hongjoong saw him before anyone else did, slipping in through the stage door with his oversized leather jacket pulled tight around him and a bag slung low on his shoulder. No smile. No notebook. Just… quiet. Dimmed.

The kind of quiet that didn't belong to someone who had been resting. It belonged to someone recovering.

And Hongjoong had learned this through lessons that life didn't bother to soften for him in the past.

Seonghwa's skin looked pale under the fluorescents. His movements seemed a little too careful. He spoke to no one, except to respond when he was called. Didn’t help the younger cast with their warmups, didn’t check on lighting placements, didn’t offer to read with anyone. He kept his eyes down and his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

Hongjoong found himself standing next to him before he even realized it. Something snaked inside his stomach — frustration, yes, but it was more than that. Worry. Confusion. Possibly jealousy.  But what for?

“Seonghwa.”

The other looked up. Just slightly. There were purple shadows beneath his eyes that makeup couldn’t hide. He wasn't startled, he didn’t smile. Just nodded.

“You’re back,” Hongjoong added, with a low pitched voice. “You okay?”

Seonghwa shifted his eyes, refusing to look straight at him as if he was trying to find the appropriate thing to say.

“I’m here,” he finally replied. Quiet. But not in the same way he used to be. It wasn’t his soft kind of silence — this one left something untold.

And suddenly, Hongjoong wanted to punch something. Or hold something.

He didn’t know which.

Had someone hurt him?

Had he hurt him?

“Don’t disappear like that again,” he ordered more harshly than he intended.

Seonghwa nodded yes.

“I won’t,” he murmured. “I'm sorry.”

Hongjoong looked at him closely.

This didn't look like the same person who’d laughed at water bottle jokes, or offered cough drops to the lighting crew. This version was even quieter— but not because he had nothing to say. But because he felt his voice didn't matter...

And that realization made Hongjoong's jaw grow tense with strain.

He turned away before he said something stupid.

But as he walked back to his seat, heart tight and steps uneven, one thought repeated itself like a like a footnote that kept demanding attention: I care. And I don’t know how to stop.

*

Evening.

The cast left.

An actor stayed behind to work on one of his monologues, from the second scene — “You’re Not Like Us”

A stylized “school pond” . The Duckling meets other birds — swans, geese, crows. Each group finds him amusing at first, but ends up rejecting him in their own way. One says, “You’re too loud.” Another says, “Too quiet.” “Too soft.” “Too sharp.” Disorientation. Trying on personalities, dialects, clothes — only to be told “not quite.” The mirrors don’t reflect the Duckling. They distort him.

Hongjoong had meant to stay for just a moment longer. Just long enough to lock up the meeting room, maybe scan the lighting rig for tomorrow’s adjustments.

But instead, he found himself in the wings, watching Seonghwa onstage.

Alone and vulnerable beneath the mirrored floor’s shimmer, the projected ripple effect making him look like he was treading water in a sea of memory, each swell of the light pulling him deeper.

Seonghwa was trying to work through that scene again. The one with the lines that cut too close to Hongjoong's bone.

  Hongjoong had written it this way, of course. Every word. Pulled from the ache that lived beneath his ribs. He shaped it into something that could be rehearsed under stage lights.

It was healing, like cleaning a wound. It hurt, but taking it out was the only way it wouldn’t fester.

That was the thing no one admitted about writing from pain.

It felt like control.

But when someone else said the words, it was like hearing your own secrets out loud.

“Every time they told me I wasn’t one of them, I believed them a little more.'' Seonghwa paused, struggling with the next line, ''They looked at me and laughed. But I wasn’t trying to be beautiful. I was just trying––''

His voice faltered, ''To stay a–"

And Hongjoong couldn’t help himself.

“Trying to stay convincing?” he stormed in with his arms folded on his chest.

Seonghwa startled like a bird mid-flight. His spine straightened, his mouth parting slightly in shame.

He looked young in that moment, caught. Frail. Tired.

“I didn’t know anyone was still here,” he muttered.

“You should finish your lines at once,” Hongjoong boomed, stepping closer, clipboard pressed to his ribs. “Leaving them hanging like that just makes it more obvious you don’t know what they mean.”

The words were too sharp. But he couldn’t stop himself.

“I was just working through the—”

“Do you even understand the Duckling?” he cut in again, voice dripping acid. “Or are you just trying to look fragile enough so that no one questions you?”

Something in Seonghwa’s face tightened — not with anger. Something sad. “I am trying,” he said, voice barely more than a whisper. “It’s not about looking—”

“No, it is,” Hongjoong's lips grew thin with anger, “You think the Duckling is about being pliant, sad and lyrical. But he’s not. He’s just trying to keep his body and soul together. You should try tapping into that next time.”

Hongjoong turned, ready to walk away — and yet, his body refused. “Right now,” he said without looking at the other, “it’s not the Duckling I see. Just someone who thinks tragedy will make people clap.”

It landed much harder. Hongjoong knew that instantly. Not because Seonghwa argued back — he didn’t.

But because he didn’t say anything at all.

And that silence rang louder than any stage direction ever could.

*

The old, little bar Hongjoong was heading to was one of those places someone wouldn't find unless they were looking.

Half-submerged in a quiet alley away from the main street, all exposed brick and low jazz from an old speaker in the corner. The kind of place that didn’t try to be aesthetic.

It simply was.

Like it had always been there throughout the years.

Yeosang was already sitting at their usual table in the back, legs crossed, glass half-empty. His coat folded neatly over the chair beside him, and his sketchbook — the leather-bound one Hongjoong had gifted him years ago — lay open, half-filled with inky wings and cathedral arches.

When Hongjoong walked in, late and brooding, Yeosang looked up with a single raised brow. “What’s the rush?” he asked, tone lazy but knowing. “Didn’t think we'd meet tonight. Don’t you have callbacks tomorrow?”

“I need a drink,” Hongjoong grumbled, sliding into the seat across from him, nodding to the bartender for his usual — a sharp pour of whiskey. No ice. “Don’t you have a gallery deadline?”

Yeosang giggled. “Sketching angels for a commission. But they can wait. You’re harder to summon than the divine.”

They sat in silence for a while, the kind Hongjoong could only manage around Yeosang — the kind that didn’t feel like pressure, but a rare safety.

Yeosang was his only real friend. Not out of lack, but choice. They had met in university — two kids with dark clothes and darker ambition, circling each other warily before realizing they were made of similar wires. Yeosang painted. Large, spiritual, mythic motifs. Bodies in impossible poses, wings and water, glory suspended mid-flight.

Hongjoong always said his works looked like the world mid-collapse.

Yeosang always said Hongjoong’s direction felt like punishment made beautiful.

After the first drink, Yeosang leaned forward, watching him. “So,” he said. “What are you actually here for?”

Hongjoong stayed quiet for a moment too long.

“I was a jerk.”

Yeosang blinked. “To someone?”

Hongjoong’s mouth twisted. “Seonghwa.”

“Ah.” Yeosang swirled his drink and smiled knowingly. “The Duckling.”

“He didn’t even do anything wrong!” Hongjoong complained, staring into the amber in his glass like it might save him from his self. “He was trying. I just— I fucking snapped. I said it wasn’t real. Like he was faking it. It wasn’t fair.”

Yeosang tilted his head, curious now. “Then why did you say it?”

“He improvised. On my script. It scared me,” Hongjoong muttered. “He almost said something I’ve thought a hundred times and never said aloud. I freaking saw– myself in it and I hate it.”

“Ah,” Yeosang exclaimed and nodded with a little smile. He leaned back. “But, I hope you know–You’re not just seeing yourself.”

Hongjoong’s gaze flicked up.

Yeosang didn’t look smug anymore.

“That’s not just a random projection, Joong-ah. That’s reflection. And maybe... something else.”

Hongjoong didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up his drink, took a generous sip of his whiskey. It burned just enough to hold him in his body.

“You like him,” Yeosang said plainly.

Hongjoong scoffed. “I don’t—”

“You like him. You like the way he stumbles when he over thinks. You like the way he’s trying to carry himself like the role is not breaking him in half and cracking him open. You like how he hasn’t asked for anyone’s permission to be exactly who he is, and even when he falls to his knees, he rises to his feet right away.”

''I thought you were a painter, not a writer,''

''I can be both.''

“I yelled at him.”

“Because it’s easier than admitting you care, eh?”

That one hit even harder.

Hongjoong looked away biting the inside of his cheek.

“I’m just–worried,” he blurted out. “He took two days off. He’s never done that before. No tweets. No reposts. No stories. No nothing.”

“You checked his socials?”

“I always check his socials. They’re...” he hesitated. “...personal. Like little polaroids and postcards from his brain.”

Yeosang smiled into his glass. “You’re doomed.”

Hongjoong flipped him off. But there was no venom in it.

Later, when they stood outside in the crisp night air, Yeosang pulled his muffler up and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Talk to him. Even if you think it’s stupid. Even if you think it doesn’t matter.”

Hongjoong nodded. Quiet. Thoughtful.

He walked home with his hands in his pockets, breath fogging in the dark. His mind was a whirl of Seonghwa’s gaze, the way he looked smaller than usual, like he was holding himself more tightly together.

At his door, he pulled out his phone.

The empty DM screen stared back at him like an accusation.

After three drafts he never sent, he settled:

 [11:42 PM]

There’s a difference between being fragile and being honest. I know you were the second one today.

That matters.
– HJ

He didn’t wait for a reply.

Just closed the screen, pocketed his phone, and let the night carry him forward.

But the weight in his chest didn’t feel so heavy anymore.

Chapter Text

The days that followed rolled in like grey tides under a sunless sky — quiet, endless.

Seonghwa moved through rehearsals on auto-pilot— lines said clearly–immaculately– but without appetite, movements technically precise but colorless.

He pushed the food around his plate or forgot to eat entirely. Sleep was elusive. He twisted and turned  until the early hours, breath snagging in the dark, jaw clenched and hands curled tightly around him, to keep him from doing anything impulsive.

That sharp edge he used to lean into when things cracked inside. He was trying so hard not to go back there.

Soon the rehearsals shifted.

They were deep in scene work now — emotional arcs, character study and character movement, transitions between silence and speech. Vulnerable stuff. It asked for more than memorization. It asked for parts of  one's self. Seonghwa gave what he could.

Hongjoong had grown... softer.

Not completely. He still had his clipped tone and his usual intensity. But something had changed in the way he looked at Seonghwa now ––less like a cold assessment, more like an open look. He approached carefully, gently adjusting a posture here, offering a thought there. One day he handed Seonghwa another weathered poetry book without a word. Just a yellow Post-it tucked inside the front cover that read: “For the moments when silence is not enough.”

It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for him.

Hongjoong’s words that day — “You think sadness will make people clap” — had cut deeper than Seonghwa wanted to admit.

He already spent so long pouring everything he had into the role, tried not to care what the others said. He was used to being misunderstood. But Hongjoong? He mattered. Hongjoong’s opinion was the only one Seonghwa ever measured himself against. He admired him — not just as a director, but as an artist. A writer. Maybe even more than that. And so his comment had pierced through something raw. The pain still lingered every now and then.

And yet...

There was that text.

“There’s a difference between being fragile and being honest. I know you were the second one today. That matters.”

Seonghwa had read it five times before responding with a: “Thank you.” Then he’d stared at the screen, heart doing a tight twist he was terrified to acknowledge.

What seemingly was a truce between them didn’t stop there.

Now Hongjoong brought him water between scenes sometimes, despite people whispering how: 'Hongjoong-sunbaenim only cares about the main lead'. He asked Seonghwa if he needed time before doing emotionally intense takes. When someone made a snide comment out loud—the way theatre actors sometimes mask jealousy in jokes — Hongjoong shut it down with a single, unreadable glare.

A wordless peace stitched together with borrowed books and mindful acts. Little, small, things.

Hongjoong adjusting the strap of Seonghwa’s costume so it wouldn’t dig into his shoulder. Pausing beside him during breaks, not saying anything, just being there.

One afternoon, Seonghwa noticed he was sketching something in the margins of his clipboard and realized, with a flush, it looked like a swan.

The way Hongjoong looked at him — not like he was flawed, not like he had to prove something— made Seonghwa believe he’d never been broken after all.

Seonghwa had always prided himself on instinct — in dance, in acting, in people. And his gut told him when Hongjoong had snapped, it wasn’t rejection. It wasn’t disgust.

Was it that old cliché? The one where someone acts mad because they are fond of you?

And Seonghwa caught himself watching Hongjoong’s hands.

His mouth when he spoke.

The way his eyes lit when he talked about intention, about subtext.

How Seonghwa’s name sounded when he said it.

He wondered — stupidly, dangerously — if Hongjoong could ever see him as a man.

Not as a project. Not as a performer.

But as a man, standing in front of him, offering something more.

The scariest part?

Seonghwa might wanted him to.

***

The lights in the ballroom dimmed slightly that night, as the emcee announced their names —Park Seonghwa and Jeong Yunho, stepping up to the stage set beneath chandeliers that caught in every flicker of movement like the shimmer of lake water.

Hongjoong stood at the back, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

He had approved the lineup, even told Seonghwa earlier he was looking forward to seeing what he and Yunho had cooked up.

The two of them would present a piece that straddled the line between speech and movement — something between dance and acting. Something stitched with emotional depth and visual artistry.

The music poured into the ballroom.

Yunho and Seonghwa told the story of a white and a black swan circling one another in a dance on a frozen pond—one bold, one uncertain.

Lines were exchanged like secrets, movements like near-misses of touch.

Their hands grazed once, twice, never fully grasping.

At one point, Seonghwa’s eyes lifted to meet Yunho’s just as the latter cupped his cheek—a gentle motion, rehearsed, but somehow warmer under the spotlight.

Then, with a single, measured breath, Yunho’s hands found Seonghwa’s waist.

The air tensed.

He lifted Seonghwa into the air and they spinned—a moment of flight that felt like both lament and rejoice. Seonghwa’s body– in his black swan costume– curved like a question mark, his hands reaching for the sky suspended in midair to fall limp on his sides.

The world below vanished, leaving only the hush of their breath and the music’s haunting rise.

When Yunho brought him back down, it was slow.

The lights faded, the pond melting beneath them.

The room stood still.

The music was playing low as the piece ended with Seonghwa performing a spoken-word piece drawn from his Swan monologue — raw, aching, personal.

There’d been applause.

Countless impressed nods even from the higher standing people in the room.

Seonghwa stepped down from the stage with his cheeks flushed from more than exertion.

He was genuinely happy. Proud even. Yunho crushed him in a hug, and even though it seemed unprofessional, Seonghwa couldn't find it in himself to care. In no time Yunho was taken away by whom seemed to be this famous best friend of his, Mingi, for whom Yunho was always talking about.

A few people came by to congratulate him, before a drink found its way into Seonghwa's hand.

Yuri came first — the dancer cast as the Mute Swan — all smiles, lilac perfume, and gold rings clinging on her flute. Jinwoo and Areum followed after her, each shining in their own tailored way.

Seonghwa was still catching his breath yet he offered a polite, little bow.

“Seonghwa,” Yuri sang, lightly elbowing him. “Someone’s got chemistry.”

“It was lovely,” Areum said with mock solemnity. “Like a little chant. The kind you whisper to a crush you won’t admit you have.”

Seonghwa tried to laugh it off, but Jinwoo leaned in with a smirk. “No wonder you wanted the Duckling role. That quiet pining thing? You do it exceptionally!”

“And you were so brave up there,'' Yuri cooed, ''That kind of vulnerability… you really brought something different.”

“Thank you,” Seonghwa's voice was cautious. He had a sip of his flute, “I… just wanted it to be honest.”

“Oh, it was,” Areum laughed. “Honest and classical. That’s what makes your work so special. You really have that drama-school purity, you know?”

Seonghwa blinked. “Drama-school… purity?”

“Definitely yes,” Jinwoo agreed, sipping his drink. “It’s just — this production’s we are working on with Hongjoong sunbaenim is kind of experimental. Post-modern. A bit gritty. And your approach is so… traditional? Like old conservatory stage work.”

“You have that… old soul way about you,” Areum said sweetly. “And this is a modern story. Messy. Passionate. Wild.”

Seonghwa felt his smile stiffen. “I’m not sure I see it that way.”

“Of course,” Yuri said quickly. “It’s not a bad thing! You clearly love the Duckling. That’s obvious.”

Areum nodded sympathetically. “We’re not saying the role doesn’t suit you. But you have such presence — it’s just… maybe something else would’ve made your strong points shine even more.”

 “You’re new to a high end production than most of us here,” Jinwoo added too casually. “It takes time to see which roles shape you, and which ones… hold you back.”

There was no malice in their tone. That was what made it worse. It was dipped in politeness, in suggestion, in dismissal masked as praise. Seonghwa, once again, heard it all clearly: Give up trying. You don’t belong here. You weren’t meant to lead.

Seonghwa took another sip of his drink to stall the heat rising in his chest. “I appreciate the… feedback,” he said carefully.

“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way,” Yuri said, laughing like a bell. “We just thought we’d chat. Friendly notes from friendly peers.”

They smiled and drifted away — like swans themselves, gliding off before one could see the fevered kicks beneath the waterline.

Seonghwa exhaled, his hand tightening around the stem of his flute.

Same old sugar-coated sabotage.

But still, he wasn’t going to quit.

He felt a shift behind him.

Hongjoong.

He didn’t say anything, but his hand briefly brushed Seonghwa’s elbow as he passed —like the softest kind of anchor. Then he turned back towards the floor, clipboard in hand, escorting the next performers to the stage.

Seonghwa watched him walk away, heat snaking up his nape.

He needed some air.

*

The hallway outside the ball room hall was dimmer, quieter. Just the murmur of voices echoing through concrete, distant thuds of prop cases being moved. Seonghwa leaned against the cool wall, his eyes closed, breathing.

Yunho appeared beside him like he always did —still wearing his white swan suit, a gentle presence, casual but never careless.

“You’re letting them get to you again?” he asked tenderly, folding his arms as if he could guess exactly what happened.

Seonghwa gave a weak shrug. “I start wondering if they are right. Not because I believe it… just—because it’s exhausting. Always having to prove something to someone.”

“They’re not,” Yunho's voice was unwavering. “Some people only see what’s easy to interpret, Seonghwa-ya.”

He stepped closer, “They pick up on your quiet strength, the way you carry yourself—composed, calm. And their first instinct is to think: side character. The emotionally-stable best friend. The withdrawn one who gives good advice and then exits stage left.” He chuckled a little, as if to soften the blow.

Seonghwa didn’t respond.

''Side characters actors are  quiet but observant,'' Yunho's hands gestured slightly as he spoke, ''They're  usually deadpan. They're often not the first ones to speak, but when they do, it’s intentional. They care, but don’t always express it in traditional ways. And because you’re someone with an inner softness but also this–– more “put together” outside, people might confuse this subtle confidence and independence as side character qualities.''

Right...

''But that’s just lazy reading!'' Yunho concluded, ''Especially when they don’t really pay attention to you, and your most cracked-open moments on stage.''

Seonghwa let out a slow, mindful breath.

Yunho was trying. He always did. And not just by adding a thick coat of sugar. But with arguments, with wisdom.

''So you––do? pay attention to me?'' Seonghwa asked with a weak smile tugging at one side of his mouth.

''Isn't it obvious?'' Yunho smiled back at him.

Seonghwa had been holding on so tightly holding onto that comment. The one that said he didn’t have the it factor. But Yunho’s words landed in that quiet space—the one Seonghwa didn’t let people into. And made everything just–right.

Seonghwa didn’t always express what he felt. He didn’t explode. But that didn’t make him less of a lead. It made him a different kind of one.

“Thank you, for explaining all these in detail,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to the floor and lingering there for a moment. “Believe it or not, it’s the first time since we started on the play that I feel like I understand why they act the way they do. Your words gave me a light to see it differently—like it’s not really about me at all.”

''It's not.'' Yunho agreed, his eyes narrowing just a bit. ''And I want to see you smile more often. I think it would look good on you.''

Seonghwa blinked. The way Yunho was looking at him — soft, curious, like he was watching something bloom in slow motion — made his heart stutter for a second.

Was he –

But before the thought could settle, the thin door next to them slammed open with a loud, jarring bang. Seonghwa flinched. Both of them turned.

Hongjoong stood in the doorway, brows furrowed, jaw set like stone.

“There you are,” he said shortly, his eyes set on Seonghwa with a judgmental brow raising. Then, barely a glance at Yunho. “You’re needed backstage for a short interview, main lead,”

Something in his voice was irked. Strained.

Seonghwa hesitated, unsure if he’d missed a cue — but Hongjoong didn’t wait. He turned and disappeared down the hall, the weight of his sudden mood trailing behind him.

Yunho let out a low whistle.

“Wow. He’s really…”

“Like that,” Seonghwa finished, still staring after the door.

But the weird twist in his stomach wasn’t caused by fear.

*

The music had long faded.

The ornate hall was empty now, chairs abandoned mid-circle. After the ball's performances — the velvet gowns were already packed away, and the glittering lights were dimmed to a soft dusk as the cast and guests had dispersed too quickly.

The after-party was at some wine bar downtown, and everyone rushed out in a cloud of perfumes and chatter, eager for curated selfies and congratulatory drinks.

Hongjoong wasn’t interested.

He had forgotten his clipboard somewhere backstage, and despite the silence being a rare kind of luxury in these places,  he didn’t expect someone else to still be there, too.

Seonghwa was crouched at a bench near the edge of the stage, unpinning something from his tuxedo that trailed around him like a pool of midnight.

“I thought you had already left,” Hongjoong said quietly, approaching.

Seonghwa looked up — startled, but not unhappy. His gaze softened. “I was going to,” he said, a little breathless. “I just needed a moment.”

The hush between them felt like a stone sinking in water.

Then Hongjoong tilted his head slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting like he was offering something unspoken.

Seonghwa shifted over on the bench without a word, making room. And Hongjoong sat beside him.

No one said, let’s stay for a while.
But they both did.
Time paused, stretching one minute into ten.

There was utter silence around them, the kind that made every small thing magnify — the whisper of fabric, the clink of rings on fingers.

“You don’t talk much,” Hongjoong said finally, his voice less guarded than usual.

“I do,” Seonghwa smiled shyly. “Just not when I don’t feel safe.”

Hongjoong didn’t flinch. He nodded, glancing down at his hands. “Fair.”

A moment passed. Not awkward, just... full.

Then they began to speak. Not in the clipped, casual way people fill silence, but carefully, letting something real finally take root.

They circled the ball first and then the play — its themes, its weight. How rejection could turn someone silent. How transformation could start from the inside. Hongjoong felt himself relax as Seonghwa listened with real attention, not just politeness. It made him want to keep going. He surprised even himself by opening up about the writing process — how the Swan story had followed him before it ever made it to paper. “It started with a single image,” he said, the words unfolding slowly. “A boy looking at his reflection and not recognizing anything. I built the whole script from there.”

Seonghwa watched him the way people listen to music — eyes half-lit with awe. He didn’t rush to respond, just looked at him like Hongjoong was really being seen — like he felt the weight of it.

And for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, Hongjoong didn’t feel like just a director speaking to an actor.

 “You talk about it like it’s alive.” he said after Hongjoong's words had settled.

Hongjoong nodded. “The right stories always are.”

Seonghwa’s lips parted as if he was about to say more, then settled into a gentle, admiring smile. “You’re… a bit of a wonder.”

 “Don’t flatter me.'' Hongjoong flushed despite himself, ducking his head, ''I already have a God complex.”

Seonghwa's eybrows arched for a second as if he remembered something before a pink hue rushed on his cheeks, “You deserve one.”

The compliment hung between them like a gentle breeze — brief and soothing.

 “Can I ask something?” Hongjoong's lips twitched, hesitating.

Seonghwa stilled but nodded yes.

“Those two days you were gone. I... noticed. It’s none of my business, but—”

“I had something like an––episode.'' Seonghwa interrupted nervously. His tone was more self deprecating than anything else, ''And I almost cut my hair,”

Hongjoong blinked.

“I didn’t, in the end,” Seonghwa laughed mock relieved. “I guess–It–– got bad. The way some people talk, the way they look at me. I––'' he played with the silver ring on his index finger, ''I didn’t want to be me for a while.” he concluded.

But Hongjoong didn’t laugh. He didn’t change the subject. He soaked up the sorrow in Seonghwa’s voice and his heart did something––sharp, like it winced without moving.

Then he moved a little closer, “If anyone ever makes you want to disappear again, I want to be someone you can tell.”

That seemed to stop Seonghwa’s breath but Hongjoong didn't even think before saying it. And then, almost as an afterthought — “Have you eaten?”

''...My stomach has been,'' Seonghwa paused, ''weird.''

Hongjoong nodded as if he already knew. “Come on.”

They walked at a quiet street-side cart near the corner of Jongno. The ajumma recognized him — “Ah, director-nim!”

She served them bowls of warm tteokbokki and eomuk, the kind of food that made your hands smell like comfort.

Seonghwa smiled after the first bite. “My favorite.”

“I figured,” Hongjoong smirked, not meeting his eyes.

They talked more. Mostly stupid things. Songs they hated. The worst line they’d ever delivered. Seonghwa snorted at one and Hongjoong made it his secret mission to keep making him laugh.

What seemed to be hours later he walked him home and when they reached Seonghwa’s building, the air shifted.

It wasn’t quite a hug. It wasn’t quite hand-holding. But their hands found each other's arms, in a barely there loose grip and neither pulled away.

“Goodnight,”

“Goodnight Hongoong-ssi.”

And as Hongjoong walked away, his heart pulled taut inside his chest, he knew Yeosang had been right that night.

Those bruises beneath Seonghwa’s grace — they were his own.

Hongjoong had seen them before. In mirror reflections, in middle-school bathrooms with graffiti scratched into the stalls. In the way he would carry his tray to the farthest table at lunch, choosing solitude before someone else chose it for him.

Hongjoong was always the unusual one out. Too sharp. Too strange. Too much.

In school, he was the weirdo with a sketchbook full of crazy stage ideas. The boy who talked too fast when he was passionate, who didn’t care about the video games people played. They rolled their eyes behind his back. Whispered that he thought he was special. That he tried too hard.

University was better — in theory. There, Hongjoong found a language for the things he wanted to build. Professors praised him. Some even said he’d definitely change things in their craft.

But even then… he never quite belonged. People called him “the whimsical one.” They said it like it was a brand, not a person. They smiled at him like Hongjoong was a collectible. A curiosity.

The best. The brightest. But never the one they really knew.

Most of them gravitated towards him for the gleam. For the idea of him. For the way he made their own projects look more impressive when he stood beside them. Like a well-dressed mannequin. Like a prop.

Not because they wanted to go deep. Not because they wanted to stay.

Hongjoong had learned to stop expecting them to. Did it hurt? Yes. Had he built around it? also Yes. Thick skin, sharper words. A cultivated indifference. His mum, his baby brother and his auntie told him he was brilliant— and he believed them.

He didn’t need anyone else to tell him what he was worthy.

He didn’t even want to need anyone else.

“I stopped wanting to be liked a long time ago,” he had told Seonghwa earlier tonight, when the other admitted softly: “Some people from the cast… they don’t like you. But they listen when you walk into a room.”

He hadn't meant to sound pretentious. Just honest.

But Seonghwa… Seonghwa wasn’t like him.

Hongjoong had seen the way his expression dimmed when someone whispered behind his back. The way his posture curled inwards when another actor corrected him harshly. He had noticed the way Seonghwa would bite on his tongue — not because he was unsure, but because he didn’t want to be too much. Didn’t want to give them another reason to sneer.

Seonghwa still bled when they cut him.

And that was what gutted Hongjoong the most — because he saw it: The way Seonghwa stood out, not because he was trying to, but because he couldn’t help it.

The way he took up space in such a natural, graceful way.

People didn’t always know what to make of it. So they mocked it. Tried to describe it as something less deserving.

Hongjoong hated that he recognized every goddamn step of it.

And still, tonight, Seonghwa locked eyes with him. Like maybe Hongjoong was something safe. And Hongjoong didn’t know what to do with this kind of trust. He just knew he wanted to protect it. Even if it meant protecting Seonghwa from himself — from how he was starting to feel.

This wasn’t some surface-level flirt.

Hongjoong was recalling how the first time he laid his eyes on the other, it hadn’t felt like meeting someone new, more like remembering a face he’d always been looking for. This wasn’t performance-high adrenaline or just the intimacy of shared creation. This was slow and wrecking and real.

And it scared him.

He sat on his desk later than he needed to that night, staring at the movie posters next to him and thinking about bruises.

The visible and the invisible. The ones one showed, and the ones one hid so well that even they themselves forgot they’re there — until someone else came along and touched them without meaning to. Seonghwa was touching something in him.

And Hongjoong wasn’t sure he was ready for what that meant. But he was starting to think he couldn’t walk away, either.

Not now.

Not from him.

Chapter Text

''In Andersen’s fairytale,
the ugly duckling is born among
other ducklings, but it is different.

They do not recognize it as one of their own
and they reject it.

It tries to make them love it, hopes to become like them,

 but it cannot,
because deep down it is different.

It feels inferior and despised
and struggles to be accepted.
But as long as the ugly duckling
has not discovered its identity, it cannot find love.

As long as it does not discover it is a swan
and does not accept what it truly is,
it cannot love genuinely, nor be genuinely loved.

The ugly duckling must begin a journey
that will lead it to discover who it is,
and this will allow it to find the love of others.

Many people try to appear as something they’re not,
either because they believe that’s what others want,
or because they don’t like who they are.

They are dependent on others’ opinions
and desperately need their approval.

But true love does not grow from lack,
by expecting someone else to fill our inner voids
or tell us what we should do.

We can only truly love something by accepting it for what it is.
Only when we accept ourselves as we are,
including our wounds,
can we become masters of our own lives.

And for that, we must first know ourselves.
Only then can others love the person we truly are,
and not a mask we have created.''

Hermann Hesse

66 Lessons of Everyday Wisdom

Chapter Text

It had been a week since that first night under the flickering streetlamp. Since the almost-hug.

Since Hongjoong had looked at him like it meant something.

Rehearsals hadn’t gotten easier — the biting whispers still came, flung like darts from most of the cast– who still didn't manage to adjust to the idea of Seonghwa as the main lead.

But something in him had shifted.

Now, when someone muttered, “Some of us actually trained for this,” he wanted to well–– laugh. Because it had become predictable—like a script the others couldn’t deviate from, no matter what praise or correction Seonghwa received from their superiors. So these words no longer carried the power to wound him; they just echoed the same tired chorus, as if they’d never change their tune. He still felt the sting sometimes —but it didn’t unsettle him anymore. It didn’t undo him like that day in the bathroom.

Now Seonghwa knew he was really seen. As a whole. By someone who mattered.

By him.

The two of them hadn’t talked about that night directly. But something had softened even more between them. They had started exchanging DMs now. Based on their talks that night — a quiet, stream of reels, thoughts about scripts, strange memes about swans and overly dramatic monologues. Late-night likes on each other’s stories.

Seonghwa had always liked Hongjoong’s stories: black and white photos, snippets of poetry paired with blurry neon lights, even these old vintage songs. They felt like puzzle pieces of a person who lived halfway in––metaphor.

And now… he was even one of the people in Hongjoong’s Close Friends stories. That small green circle that seemed ridiculous—just a color — but it meant something. Like a quiet tap on the shoulder. You’re trusted. You’re let in. A private window into moments meant for only a few. And Seonghwa was one of them. Chosen, in some small way.

And then it was the “ajumma tent.”

It started as a joke — or maybe not.

“Ajumma tent?” Hongjoong had asked with a shrug when it was just the two of them after a late rehearsal . As if it was just convenience. As if the tent hadn’t already started closing its plastic flaps.

Seonghwa had followed, and they’d sat across from each other under flickering bulbs, hunched over warm odeng and too-spicy tteokbokki.

Hongjoong’s presence was that of velvet and gold—smooth, rich, with a warmth that wrapped around Seonghwa's heart, the more he got to know of him.

The second time, Hongjoong said “Ajumma tent?” with a little smile.

By the third, it needed no explanation.

Seonghwa hadn’t initiated it once. He was afraid to overstep. Afraid of misreading kindness as interest, and randomness as affection.

But the other night, when he had walked straight home instead of waiting around for the invitation — he’d felt something small and stinging open up in his chest. Even when they hung out at Yunho’s and played their dumb video games, even when Wooyoung and San had him in stitches laughing, there was this quiet space in him that looked around for someone else.

He talked to San about it once, in the safety of their living room and shared candies.

“I think I might– like him,” Seonghwa had said, voice barely a whisper.

San had blinked, too quick to be shocked. “Yeah. I know.”

“You know?”

“I see the way you look at your phone every time it buzzes. You’re either in love or waiting for the pizza guy.” Seonghwa had groaned, but San had turned serious. “Does he know?”

“No. I mean. Maybe. I don’t know. He is more experienced. He’s—above me. Literally. In the theater hierarchy.”

“And emotionally?”

“…I’m trying to figure it out.”

San tilted his head. ''Hyung, if someone makes you feel safer in your own skin, that’s not a small thing. Don’t treat it like one.''

Seonghwa kept hearing those words.

Over and over––like a refrain in a well-worn poem.

Don’t treat it like a small thing.

Maybe… maybe that’s why he should be the one to do something. Why he should cross the line discretely and show Hongjoong he was there — not just for the tent food and the late-night reels, but for all of it.

He wasn’t sure if Hongjoong liked him the way he hoped.

But when Hongjoong’s fingers brushed his by accident across the metal table, he didn’t pull away.

And Seonghwa didn’t flinch either.

***

Noon

Theater stage

Rehearsal

SCENE III — “Winter”

A bare stage. Soft snow falling. A single bench.

The Duckling sits alone. No words. Just a long pause with music and visuals — past voices echo faintly. He clutches his coat closer. His reflection appears behind him, more swan-like now, but he doesn’t notice it yet. Isolation. Grief. The silence that comes when you run out of ways to shape yourself for others.  

The “reflection” actor  in a white coat mimics the Duckling's moves in utter silence —

''I wanted to disappear so they wouldn’t have to pretend to love me. They said I wasn’t beautiful enough to be loved. So I shed what wasn’t mine.

Feather by feather.

Smile by smile.''

''Cut! It was perfect Seonghwa, Perfect! the director yelled, ''Lunch break, everyone.'' and the cast collectively sighed in relief.

“Don't worry Park,'' The girl playing the reflection stepped on her feet and stretched in front of Seonghwa, ''You don’t look like someone who could be loved like that anyway.”

Seonghwa was too quick to smile at her as he was slowly rising to his feet too, “Funny how the loudest ones never have a line worth remembering.” his voice didn't raise but it wasn't less cutting.

“Wow! You’ve been working on your comebacks eh?!'' she said unaffected, her voice lilting like it was all in good fun — like they were just playing some kind of backstage sparring match. ''Finally starting to act like a real lead! What else do you have in store?”

She liked it. This was a game for her. A way to measure control, to test the edge of her own wit against someone else’s nerves.

It wasn’t personal. That’s what made it worse.

Only, Seonghwa wasn’t interested in playing. He could. But he didn't want to.

When you’ve spent years trying to unlearn the way your reflection melts under fluorescent lights — when you've peeled off layers of other people’s sticky and wrong opinions from your own skin— you don’t flirt with cruelty just to pass the time.

So he didn’t laugh.

He didn’t throw the insult back, didn’t offer her the satisfaction of another round.

Instead, he just looked at her — steady, unflinching, and already halfway gone.

Because for someone who had to build their sense of self piece by piece, validation was never a game. Neither was dignity.

*

Late in the afternoon.

Rehearsal is over for the day.

The lights were low now.

Most of the cast gone. But Seonghwa still stood center stage, script forgotten in his lap, rehearsing  his monologue aloud, again and again—like a confession.

"They said I wasn’t beautiful enough to be loved. So I shed what wasn’t mine.''

“You keep pulling back right there.”

Seonghwa startled slightly before he turned.

Hongjoong was next to him. His eyes impossibly soft. “You say it like you’re afraid it’s true.” he explained.

''Maybe I am.'' Seonghwa whispered, not defensive at all.

Hongjoong walked closer, slowly. ''Then say it like it’s the last time you’ll let anyone believe that.''

Seonghwa breathed in... like something clicked. He raised his chin and spoke.

"They said I wasn’t beautiful enough to be beloved.
So I shed what wasn’t mine.
Feather by feather.
Smile by smile.
Until all that was left… was me."

Hongjoong looked at him like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just folded his arms and nodded once. Seonghwa let a soft laugh slip from his lips,

''Was that better?'' he asked a bit shaken. He improvised the last line once again. The last time this happened didn't go particularly well between them.

''No,'' Hongjoong finally smiled, ''That was the moment."

Seongwha's heart fluttered. Satisfaction swelling in his chest– like the world was finally set to rights.

There was a sing-song quality to his voice when he gathered his strength to say it,

''Are you free tonight? Maybe...Should we–''

''I am.'' Hongjoong cut him with a wink, ''Let's go.''

Once again, the time passed with no one of them registering how, when. Sitting at these inconvenient stools inside the tent. It had to be was the most random and non aesthetic spot in the city, but it didn't matter.  It felt warm, familiar, theirs.

They were talking about the kind of things that never made it into journals or scripts, but said everything.

Seonghwa confessed he still didn’t understand taxes.“Every year,” he frowned at his fish cake like it had betrayed him, “I consider just moving into the woods.”

“Let me know,” Hongjoong replied. “I’ll bring canned peaches and a speaker. We’ll go full feral.”

They debated over which idol's choreography was the most unnecessarily difficult.
“‘District 9’,” Seonghwa said with a shudder.
“Wrong. It’s ‘Full Moon’ by Sunmi. That shoulder roll nearly ended me.”

They compared weird acting warmups they’d been forced to do in the university.
“One professor made us pretend to be melting ice cubes.”
Hongjoong nearly choked on tteokbokki. “Did you commit to it though?”
“I puddled with dignity. Please, It was so embarrassing.”

Hongjoong admitted he sometimes mumbled lines in the mirror like he was in an indie film no one asked for.
Seonghwa leaned in, playfully. “What’s your go-to tragic monologue then?”
Hongjoong struck a dramatic pose and whispered, “‘You ever think we’re all just echoes of someone else’s better idea?’”
Seonghwa laughed so suddenly and loudly the ajumma gave them a side-eye.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, catching his breath.

“You laughed,” Hongjoong said, grinning. “I win.”

They shared favorite stage mishaps— a prop sword that broke mid-scene, a forgotten line covered up with a completely invented one.
“Mine was during a death scene,” Seonghwa said, wiping his mouth. “I died facing the wrong direction. My co-actor had to rotate my corpse with her foot.”

Hongjoong nearly fell off his stool laughing.

As per his usual, Hongjoong instinctively began walking Seonghwa home.

A little before their goodnights, their conversation slowed. They both stared at the soft glow of the streetlights, listening to the quiet hum of traffic and late-night Seoul murmurs.

“Do you ever wish you could freeze a moment?” Seonghwa pulled out his keys from his pocket.

Hongjoong didn’t answer right away.
He just looked at him — this graceful, bright-eyed boy whose voice he could now recognize even in a room full of chaos. Whose laugh had begun to echo somewhere inside his chest.

 “I think I’d freeze this one.”

Seonghwa blinked. For a moment it was like the city sounds dulled behind them. And then, without asking, without warning, Seonghwa leaned in and hugged him.

It was sudden, but not rushed. Arms around Hongjoong’s waist, face pressed lightly into his shoulder, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And Hongjoong — who had never been good at touch, who tensed whenever people got too close — found his body relaxing before his brain caught up.

Seonghwa smelled like smoky flowers, laundry detergent, chamomile shampoo– and something warmer beneath it all.

Like linens dried in salt-kissed breeze of a spring morning by the sea.

Like home, somehow.

For a second, Hongjoong forgot every script note he had ever written. Forgot how to stand cool and collected, forgot how to breathe.

His arms came up slow— but settled around Seonghwa’s back, a hand curling loosely at the base of his spine.

He held on.

And then, when they pulled apart after a while — slowly, reluctantly — Hongjoong’s eyes dipped, just for a second, to Seonghwa’s lips.

Seonghwa saw it.

Hongjoong saw him see it.

He stepped back immediately, clearing his throat. “You should… get home before it gets too late,” he mumbled, suddenly interested in the cracks of the sidewalk.

Seonghwa nodded, a soft smile playing on his lips, like he had been handed a secret. “On to it.”

Neither moved.

“Thank you,” Seonghwa said after a beat. “For walking with me. For tonight.”

Hongjoong gave him a lopsided smile. “Anytime.”

“Goodnight, Joong.”

“Night, Hwa.”

They lingered a second longer — caught in that charged space of almost — before Seonghwa finally turned and walked up the steps to the entrance of his building.

Hongjoong watched him go.

Then stood there, under a streetlamp, his heart loud in his chest and a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Chapter Text

The theatre was dark except for the soft spill of work lights across the stage floor. Everyone else had left.

Hongjoong had stayed behind — pretending to organize cables, to skim notes — but really just sitting alone in the control booth, head in his hands.

His notebook lay open beside him, pages thick with red ink and expectation.

Too many revisions. Too many cracks in his voice when he gave notes today. He hated the way his authority frayed when people were complaining. The way his chest had caved when the assistant stage manager muttered, “Hongjoong-nim is under the pump .”

He wasn’t immune to it. He just knew how to hide.

He didn’t hear the door open. Only noticed when a shadow crossed his peripheral. And then a voice — soft, unassuming.

“You forgot your scarf,” Seonghwa said, holding it out.

Hongjoong blinked. He hadn’t even noticed it was missing.

“Thanks,” he said, voice raw from staying quiet too long.

Seonghwa didn’t leave. Instead, he climbed the stairs up to the booth and sat beside him, silent.

But even in silence, Seonghwa had a way of speaking to him — in glances, in stillness — in a language only Hongjoong seemed to understand.

Hongjoong unwillingly peeled his eyes off the other and stared forward. “I don’t know how to do this without breaking something.”

Seonghwa reached for the scarf again and gently wrapped it around his neck, tucking it in like he was anchoring something breakable in place.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” he said.

Hongjoong closed his eyes.

He always had to have the last word, but for once, he didn’t answer — he just let himself breathe.

***

It wasn’t a question anymore.

He liked Seonghwa.

Not just as an actor, an artist, a performer — not in the distant, detached way one might admire something luminous on stage.

It was worse than that. Or better. Or terrifying.

Hongjoong liked him in that maddening, gravitational way that made his body feel hot and his hands feel useless. It was proven in the way he lingered after everyone had packed up, the way his eyes trailed after every tilt of Seonghwa’s head, the way he remembered his laugh — not the polite rehearsal one, but the cracked-open kind from the ajumma tent when they talked about their most embarrassing moments.

And today, they were rehearsing  the transformation scene.

Seonghwa's solo choreography.

Just him on the stage. Barefoot. No costume. No spotlight — only the slow crescendo of strings and the dim hush of rehearsal lighting.

The Arrival of the Birds started playing.

Seonghwa wasn’t just moving. He was unfolding... It was grief and joy and ache and hope in motion —too open, too raw —impossible to look away from.

His body didn’t hit marks or shapes; it spoke, fluid and open, like every gesture was pulled straight from somewhere deep, somewhere healing. His arms arced with the kind of grace that looked effortless but wasn’t. His chest lifted with each breath as if he was trying to hold something invisible — and let it go at the same time.

There was no artifice. Only truth, spilling out of him in the curve of a wrist, in the tremor of his fingers, in the way his gaze lifted to nowhere and everywhere at once.

Hongjoong felt it like a weight — this was what he'd written for, without even knowing it.

Seonghwa danced like he wasn’t afraid to break apart, like breaking was the point.

Hongjoong didn’t take notes.

He didn’t interrupt.

He just watched from the wings, undone. One of his hands curled around the strap of his clipboard like it would anchor him to his chair.

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until Seonghwa stopped moving.

Then a soft voice at his shoulder, low and half-laughing:

“Careful now, Hyung. If you stare any longer, someone might think you’re trying to catch feelings.”

Hongjoong turned. It was Junseo — one of the lighting techs. Friendly enough. Obviously observant. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, like someone who knew things he shouldn’t.

“Pretty sure I saw you walking together the other night too?” Junseo added, not unkindly. “Y’all dating or something?”

It wasn’t said in a judgmental way. Just light. Teasing.

But something in Hongjoong clenched, like a sail twisting hard in a sudden gust. He cracked his neck. His mouth felt tight and grim, “Not funny.”

Junseo blinked. “It wasn’t a joke.”

“My point exactly.” Hongjoong said shortly, and then turned his gaze back toward the stage.

But the veil had lifted.

The warmth died down.

He wasn’t thinking about Seonghwa’s hands anymore, or how he used his breath like a second instrument.

Hongjoong was thinking about what people might say. About what the cast already whispered behind Seonghwa’s back. About how shattered Seonghwa looked after those voices led him to disappear for two days — and how long it had taken to really bring him back.

It wasn’t himself Hongjoong was worried about. He’d had worse rumors. He was used to deflecting, used to weaponizing silence.

But Seonghwa—

He couldn’t be the reason he got hurt.

Not after how long Hongjoong has watched people underestimate him and bitten his tongue. Not now– when he looked stronger.

That afternoon, Hongjoong gave notes to all the actors  like he was supposed to — technical, measured, neutral. Then he almost ran home as if someone was chasing him.

He didn’t like any stories. He didn't reply to these 4 new messages.

He hated himself for it.

When he looked at Seonghwa the next day, and he caught the small flicker of confusion in his eyes— the one he tried to hide behind his performance — Hongjoong felt like he had just undone something delicate he had only just begun to hold.

Still, he told himself it was the right thing.

He had to back down. He had to protect him.

Even if it meant stepping away from the one person he wanted to walk towards to the most.

***

Seonghwa noticed it in the small things first after two days.

Hongjoong stopped looking at him when giving notes —his eyes focusing just above his head instead of meeting his eyes. He started assigning the assistant director to manage Seonghwa’s blocking, even when he was clearly watching from the wings. Outside of work he wouldn't view or like his stories anymore, wouldn't share something interesting or funny via DM.

He wouldn't even reply to Seonghwa's texts–which hurt the most. Seonghwa stopped writing to him. He didn't want to bother.

The ajumma tent felt like it belonged to a different lifetime now. Long forgotten. The easy proximity they had fallen into — script sharing, silent safe attention, the quiet kind of warmth after rehearsals — vanished. Replaced by polite, distant professionalism.

It stung. Seonghwa hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, he didn’t think he had.

Hongjoong didn’t snap or speak coldly. That would’ve been easier to understand. Maybe even better than what was happening lately. Instead, he grew distant, in the way only someone who once was close could.

And the absence felt like an ache.

And Seonghwa, proud and quiet, tried to show he didn't notice. But he did.

And it stung.

Later that day, just before the second act transformation scene, Seonghwa found Hongjoong backstage adjusting one of the lighting cues manually. Alone.

''Hongjoong-ah?'' the suffix slipped off Seonghwa's brain-to-mouth filter before he could censor it. His ears started ringing with the tension.

''Hey,'' Hongjoong muttered without looking at him.

Seonghwa approached cautiously and stood in the dim blue of the tech shadow,
“Did I… do something wrong?”

Hongjoong’s hands paused on the cue sheet. His shoulders stiffened.
“No.”

“Then why won’t you even look at me?”

The silence between them carved a distance that felt like none of their voices could cross.

Hongjoong finally turned to his direction, but his eyes didn’t soften. “It’s better this way.”

“For who?”

“I’m your director, Seonghwa.”

“And?”

“And I need to remember that.”

Seonghwa waited for a second or two. And yet Hongjoong wouldn't look at him again.

He walked away with the taste of unsaid words in his mouth, each step feeling heavier than the last. His heart sank as the words echoed in his head:

“I’m your director, Seonghwa.”

Director.

He had known it from the start, hadn’t he? That they could never be something more. Seonghwa had overstepped. The hug, the quiet conversations about things he’d never dared to share with anyone he had known so little — it had been a mistake.

He’d let his guard down, let himself believe that maybe– just maybe– Hongjoong could see past the tangle of layers inside him. But that was the thing: Seonghwa was too much. Too complicated.

And he knew.

And Seonghwa wanted something that wasn’t meant to happen here, in a rehearsal stage that smelled of fresh paint and unspoken rules.

Seonghwa wanted closeness, trust — the kind of easy laughter and warmth he had seen others have. But this was a professional setting. A stage. And he let himself blur the lines. His mouth was open, loosely hanging in an empty expression of guilt. Shame.

But worst was the feeling he had revealed too much. And now Hongjoong — no matter how neutral his tone — was reminding him where they stood.

Not lovers.
Not even friends.
Just a director and an actor.

*

Hongjoong didn’t believe in watching rehearsals passively.

His clipboard wasn’t just for notes — it was armor, habit, control.

He stood half-shadowed by the curtain during movement practice, jotting quick impressions with a precision that gave him something to do other than stare at him.

Seonghwa was rehearsing the second act's transformation once again— the slow unfurling of the duckling into the swan. His steps were flawless. The countless, unpaid, hours he stayed behind in the theater, when everyone else left, paying off in his performance. There was something painfully real in the way his body moved, like he felt it. Like it hurt to become whole.

And it was exactly what Hongjoong had in mind when he wrote this piece.

And Seonghwa was his the living example.

Hongjoong's eyes fell on Yunho. He was watching Seonghwa with the kind of look people wrote ballads about. Present. Steady. Encouraging.

They stood close during the break, laughing about something Hongjoong couldn’t hear. Yunho’s hand brushed Seonghwa’s back once, casual — but Hongjoong felt the proximity of it like a slap.

He looked away.

It’s not your business.

You pulled away.

He’s allowed to smile at someone else.

Hongjoong's grip on the clipboard tightened anyway.

He caught Seonghwa glancing at his direction — a quick, uncertain glance— and for a second, Hongjoong thought he might come over. Say something. Look like at him like that

But Yunho said something else, made him laugh again, and Seonghwa didn’t move.

Hongjoong made a note on the page in front of him, even though it didn’t need editing.

 'Fix timing. Scene lacks clarity.'

He hated how much he noticed when someone else saw Seonghwa.

Chapter Text

It was the morning of the fourth day.

Four days since Hongjoong had gone quiet. Stopped replying to messages, stopped liking stories, stopped asking: “ajumma tent?” like it meant something only the two of them understood.

Yesterday, there’d been the smallest moment — a comment on blocking, a ghost of a smile when their eyes met by accident. Seonghwa had carried it home inside him like a small flame.

He tried to be optimistic.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just a phase. Maybe today will be different.

But today, Hongjoong wasn’t even in the rehearsal.

“Is he sick?” Seonghwa asked, pretending his voice wasn’t too worried, trying for casual.

''Nah.'' Junseo replied, fiddling with a lighting cue sheet, without looking up. ''He had some production meeting in Hannam. Sound design issue. Said he’ll come later, after the rehearsal is done. Needs to check a few cues and LED calibrations.''

After the rehearsal is done.

He’ll come in — but only after Seonghwa’s part was over.

It hit him like a whip on his ribs.

So this was it. The brush-off. The slow fade. The kindest cruelty: absence instead of rejection.

Seonghwa felt nauseous. Humiliated, mostly with himself.

You really thought he liked you back?

He couldn't wait to go home tonight.

Where at least he could take off the calm, decent and unbothered mask, even for some hours, and just emerge to––being numb.

He didn’t want to say anything to San or Wooyoung.

But they knew.

They always knew.

Maybe it was the way  Seonghwa hadn't touched the strawberry cake in the fridge. Or how his phone screen would light up and he’d look — just for a second too long — before tucking it face-down again. So even when he said nothing, when he tried to hide, they saw everything.

And they didn’t let it slide.

Yesterday night was their standard Pirates of  the Caribbean movie marathon, and they must have caught Seonghwa staring at the void, instead of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner on the TV screen.

“Okay, this has to stop now,'' San murmured and hit pause. Seonghwa didn't even flinch.

''What the helly did that moody-clipboard guy say to you now?” Wooyoung demanded, arms crossed like a furious little storm cloud. “Because you’ve been Sad Seonghwa™ for days now.”

“Nothing,” Seonghwa muttered. “He didn’t say anything.”

“That’s worse,” San exploded next to him. “You said you two were talking every night. Hanging out. Sharing noodles under plastic tents like a slow-burn K-Drama.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Seonghwa said, but even to himself, he didn't manage to sound convincing.

“Are you kidding?” Wooyoung huffed. “He treated you like you hung the moon! Or did, before he decided to ghost you. What a pathetic, shitty, little move. I’m gonna break his car.”

“Wooyoung—”

“I won’t, but the thought is there, Hyung!”

San fumbled a little under the blanket and found his hand. Cold and numb, “Did you ask him why?”

Seonghwa shook his head. His throat was too tight. He didn’t want to say it aloud — that he was too scared to ask Hongjoong. How he didn’t want to be told it was all in his head. “I just… I don’t get it,” his voice finally cracked. “I started feeling better in rehearsals. Like I was really doing it. And then it was like the universe needed payment for that. Like in fairy tales.”

Wooyoung scoffed. “Yeah, well. This ain’t a fairy tale. You don’t have to bleed every time something goes right.”

But Seonghwa wasn’t sure. It felt like a price.

Maybe Hongjoong didn’t want someone like him. Maybe he wanted someone stronger.

Louder. Braver.

A partner who doesn’t fall apart. Who doesn’t shudder. Who doesn’t need to be told they’re enough to believe it.

Not someone like Seonghwa.

Someone who couldn't look himself in the mirror on bad days.
Someone who still sometimes starved himself to feel in control.
Someone who couldn’t even tell the man he liked it hurt to be ignored.

“You liked him,” San said softly, like it was obvious. “You like him. And that’s okay.”

“What’s not okay...” Wooyoung interjected, “ Is him treating Hyung like an option after everything.”

“I don’t think he meant to—”

“Hwa.” San tilted his head. “You don’t need to defend him just because you feel something.”

''Yeah,''  Wooyoung nodded. “We know you. When you believe you’re the problem, you go quiet. When you know you’re not, you argue.”

Seonghwa’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“I don’t want him to hate me.”

“Babe,” Wooyoung muttered, reaching over to squeeze his other hand. “He doesn’t hate you.”

“He just doesn’t know what to do with you,” San added gently. “But that’s his problem. Not yours.”

Seonghwa sat with that.

 Let it settle in his chest like a foreign language he almost understood, while Wooyoung and San  gave him what they always did — presence, warmth, the unspoken promise: you never walk alone.

In today's rehearsal the floor felt too bright, too cold during warm ups.

Seonghwa's own body — something he spend years trying to trust — felt like borrowed clothes in the wrong size.

However, he had taught himself long ago how to tuck his pain away – to quiet the noise inside him and concentrate on the task at hand.

They were about to ran SCENE IV–– “First Flight”

The stage was dim and cold-looking. The projections mapped soft cracks across the floor as he moved.

He stood at the edge of the mirrored panel, barefoot, breath shaking. His reflection tilted back at him — a swan, not quite. Not yet.

He portrayed panic. Just a flicker.

Then he stepped forward.

Arms out. Wings imagined. Light slowly growing. A shudder of disbelief — and then a stunned kind of grace.

They merged — him and the mirrored figure. The choreography was once again tender and slow. A revelation more than a transformation.

“They didn’t change,” Seonghwa whispered his final line, “I did. And I’m still me.”

Applause from the creative team.

The director clapped and called it “breathtaking.”

But it didn’t reach Seonghwa’s chest and it was more than obvious.

Because backstage, while he was changing into his sneakers, he overheard two of his cast members whispering behind the set flats:

“It’s so obvious, right?

If it’s not Hongjoong sunbaenim praising him, he doesn’t even care.”

“Pffft, Teacher’s favorite. Classic.”

Seonghwa looked away. Pretended to adjust his laces.

Then, mercifully, a familiar voice: “Come on! Let's go grab lunch.”

It was Yunho, always appearing like the world’s kindest deus ex machina.

As they reached the parking lot, Yunho nudged him lightly. “You killed it today, you know.”

Seonghwa smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

Yunho hesitated. “And… I noticed how Hongjoong sunbae is being weird. Not to you, to everyone. But he’s not an ass. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Seonghwa whispered.

“I just wish I knew what he is.”

*

Late afternoon.

Tech rehearsal.

Tensions are high.

Everyone present is scattered in their own chaos.

Hongjoong hadn’t known the other would be here.

This was supposed to be strictly technical work — lighting cues, sound tests, calibration for the projection surface. He had checked the call sheet himself.

Thought for that one afternoon he would be safe from... feeling too much, regretting too much.

But apparently, the director had told the actors involved in the "mirror merge" scene they could stay if they wanted to practice the timing with the tech crew. And of course Seonghwa had stayed.

Of course he had.

Because Seonghwa was always trying. Even when no one asked him to. Especially then.

Hongjoong swore softly under his breath and stepped behind a lighting tower, out of sight. His clipboard forgotten at his side.

It had been four days of dodging him. Four days of sitting through meetings with half his attention there, looking more at this clipboard while being present in the rehearsals than the actors, sending his notes through stage management instead.

Four days of punishing himself and calling it space.

He told himself it was for Seonghwa’s reputation. And half of it was true. But the other half of the truth was cruel. And hard to swallow.

He thought that maybe if he pulled away, Seonghwa would stop looking at him like that. Like Hongjoong mattered. Like he hurt him. Ever since that night — that almost kiss caught in the hush between streetlights — Hongjoong was devoured like a ship by the tide. He missed him. Desperately. He missed the texts. Their inside jokes. Dinner at their Hongjoong's favorite street food. Missed how Seonghwa looked when he was too tired to guard his smile. Missed how he never asked Hongjoong to be anyone else but himself. And that made it worse.

Because Hongjoong didn’t know if he could offer anything consistent. Anything safe.

He had spent his entire life crafting layers around himself — director, creator, genius, control freak.
But Seonghwa? Seonghwa saw him.

And Hongjoong still hadn’t decided yet whether that made him want to leave, or made him want to give in.

So he ignored him.

And yet Hongjoong should have been focusing.

Seonghwa was now running through a difficult stage cue alone, trying to get the timing right.

He was in costume, barefoot and dressed in layered grays and soft whites, breath visible in the cold draft.

 Hongjoong should have been focusing.

Instead, he focused on not focusing. He didn't need to see him, he told himself. Instead he was bent over the lighting console, squinting at the diagram one of the tech assistants had left him, cross-checking the angle notes for the side floodlights. Precision work. Boring work. Work that kept him from looking downstairs, at the stage.

But Seonghwa's voice still echoed — A soft recitation, steady and alive across the theater like a rope fraying in the salt air.

The same words Hongjoong spent hours rewriting so they wouldn't sound so... overused.

And Hongjoong knew — even before he looked —  the other was now heading toward the raised platform. The pond. The mirror.

The part in the second act of the set that never failed to pull something raw out of Seonghwa.

He didn't need to look at the way Seonghwa moved now, light and real, carving out the story with all the feelings in his body.

It was annoying.

It was dangerous.

It was—

—the sound of a thud. A dull, heavy sound—and the cry that followed wasn’t loud.

A startled, broken gasp. More breath than voice.

Like the air had been knocked from Seonghwa's lungs before he had the chance to scream.

His body— tumbled down from the platform’s edge and hit the stage floor with a sickening thump that made something in Hongjoong stop.

Not just his heart.

Everything.

Chapter Text

Hongjoong was blinking stupidly at the empty space where Seonghwa had been standing just a second ago.

No, not empty. A body curled awkwardly on the stage, unmoving.

His own body seemed to realize before his mind did. He practically flew down the stairs, two at a time. He ran. Feet pounding against the steps leading up to the stage.

The others — the director, the stagehands, the few actors from the cast — were still stunned into stillness, except–of course–Yunho. Already next to Seonghwa, trying to access the damage done.

''Move!'' Hongjoong yelled at him and the other took a few shocked steps back. "Get the damn lights off!" he barked at no one and everyone, "Get the medic! Now!"

He dropped to his knees beside him, checking the dazed look in his eyes, his pulse.

Up close, Hongjoong could see how pale Seonghwa had gone, how his lashes trembled against his cheeks. His wrist cradled awkwardly to his chest. His breathing was shallow–short little gasps like he was trying not to make a sound. Like he was biting back tears. Multiple seams of his swan costume were now breached.

''Seonghwa—'' Hongjoong's voice cracked.

Seonghwa forced a laugh without looking at him, ''Guess– I, wasn’t graceful, after all.''

''Shut up–''

''I can, keep up with the– rehearsals. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the commi–,''

What was that red–

''Just shut up,''  Hongjoong's fingers carefully pushed a few strands of hair off Seonghwa's forehead and his fingers came away sticky with blood.

It was gushing, and it was enough to make Hongjoong's heart pound harder.

Shit.

He remembered reading that concussions weren’t always obvious — His fingers brushed over Seonghwa's arm— his wrist already swelling. Dislocation? Fracture?

Shit. 

Around them — voices shouting, people rushing forward — but none of them mattered. Not now. Hongjoong's voice was low and frantic when he spoke again, ''You fucking scared me. Why are you here all the time?! Do you even realize how–'' Hongjoong's jaw clenched. His eyes flickered with fear, ''...bad this could be?”

Seonghwa blinked hard at him, as if he was testing his own vision, ''You don’t have to– pretend.'' he said softly then,'' I'm fine.''

Hongjoong's voice was barely above a whisper, ''Pretend?''

''It’s not like, you’ve spoken– more, than three words, to me lately.'' Seonghwa's words came out in between small labored breaths. His eyes lit with frustration and something far more vulnerable beneath it.

And all Hongjoong could think was: He’s right.

He hadn’t spoken. He’d watched Seonghwa rehearse, falter, shine — and stayed silent. Because if he said anything, he wouldn’t be able to keep pretending none of this mattered. And now, watching how much it clearly did matter to Seonghwa— he realized he hadn’t just been aloof. He’d been a coward.

He looked at Seonghwa, cradled in his own arms, trying to keep his expression blank even though he was trembling. Hongjoong reached out, hesitated for half a second… then slid his hand firmly around Seonghwa’s back, pulling him upright, steadying him into a sitting position against his chest.

 “I’ve got you now. I mean it,” he said — rougher than he intended. His voice was strangled. Worry, guilt, hope “I’m here.”

Seonghwa’s eyes fluttered open. Glazed with pain, but searching.

What Hongjoong saw there — confusion, raw fear, and that flicker of trust — made something split open in him, clean through the center.

Somewhere behind them, a stagehand called out, “The medic is not here — emergency at another set — but the production van’s outside, ready to take him.”

“I’m going to help you up,” Hongjoong murmured, shifting to brace them both on his knees. “We’ll get you to the hospital. Try not to move too fast.”

Carefully, he hooked one arm beneath Seonghwa’s legs, the other around his back, and began to rise.

“Stubborn idiot,” he muttered under his breath, not even aware he’d said it until Seonghwa blinked at him in hazy confusion.

Hongjoong bit down on a wave of panic. He took a breath. Softer, this time: “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

He didn’t even glance back. He just held Seonghwa tighter and moved.

*

The van’s engine rumbled low as it sped through the city. The night blurred outside the windows — neon signs, streetlights, rain streaks on the glass — but Hongjoong couldn’t take his eyes off the man  slumped beside him.

Seonghwa had become gradually unresponsive. And pale. Too pale. He sat stiffly, clutching his hurt wrist with his functioning hand like he didn’t know what to do with it. His breathing was shallow, as if even this hurt.

Hongjoong shifted closer, pretending to fidget with his seatbelt.
Truth was, he wanted to watch him. Wanted to catch him if he slumped any farther, to make sure he stayed there.

"You're gonna be okay," he repeated like a broken record, low, voice gruff from holding back too much.
Seonghwa didn’t answer — just nodded, tiny, almost invisible.

The van jolted over a pothole. Seonghwa flinched. Hongjoong cursed under his breath and steadied him — one hand ghosting to the small of Seonghwa’s back, holding him upright.

Seonghwa didn’t pull away.

Didn’t even seem to notice. He just leaned into the touch a little, like it cost him everything to admit he needed it. Hongjoong bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

In front, the assistant muttered into his phone — something about paperwork, something about insurance —it felt like background noise.
All that existed was the van’s rattling hum, and Seonghwa’s breathing, and Hongjoong’s heart– beating a bloody drum against his ribs.

When the hospital came into view, Hongjoong almost sighed in relief. He leapt out before the van even fully stopped and yanked the door open.

"Come," he murmured, reaching for Seonghwa. "Lean on me."

And, Seonghwa let him.

He staggered into him, all skinny limbs and trembling muscles, and Hongjoong slung an arm around him without hesitation. Their bodies fit like puzzle pieces — like somehow this was the place Seonghwa was supposed to fall when he fell.

They stumbled through the hospital's automatic doors, into too-bright white lights and the sharp scent of antiseptic. Nurses rushed toward them. Someone asked questions. Insurance cards. Emergency contact.

Hongjoong answered everything. His voice was calm — clipped, professional — but his hand never left Seonghwa’s waist. When they tried to guide Seonghwa to the emergency room, he hesitated — a flare of panic breaking through the exhaustion clouding his face.

Without thinking, Hongjoong caught his wrist. "I'm not going far," he promised, low and firm.
"I’ll be right outside."

It wasn’t gallant. It wasn’t fearless. It was just... honest.

Seonghwa let go of a shuddering breath and let the nurses take him away.

Hongjoong watched until the other disappeared around the corner.

Only then did he slump into the nearest plastic chair, head in his hands, breathing hard like he’d run a marathon.

*

He stepped out of the hospital doors into the cold night air, the rush of it clearing only a fraction of the fire under his skin.

Seonghwa was being treated — bruised, shaken, likely a sprain, maybe worse.

Conscious for the time being.

 That should’ve settled something inside Hongjoong.

It didn’t.

A while before they left his gaze had darted to the stage. A waxy slickness gleamed faintly under the footlights, right at the spot where Seonghwa had stepped. Hongjoong knew that texture. Stage wax, the kind used to prep shoes for smoother turns — never on platforms, never on elevated surfaces. It was a rule. An obvious one. Someone broke it. No one in their right mind would apply wax there without imagining the consequences. He took his phone out, thumb already moving before he’d even finished the thought. He called the stage manager directly.

The line picked up on the third ring.

 “Hongjoong—nim—I didn’t know you’d left—”

“I left ten minutes ago, and I want to know what the hell happened with the platform.” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the pause on the other end felt like he failed.

The hell he cared.

“Don’t give me vague guesses. I saw the wax.”

“We think someone prepped the stage with turn wax. Just a bit, but… enough to slick that edge.”

Hongjoong’s jaw locked. “You think?”

“We triple-checked everything, I swear,” the manager rushed. “Hydraulics were locked, platform passed inspection — but someone must’ve done it after the setup. It wasn’t on our checklist. It was—”

“Intentional,” Hongjoong finished quietly, the word like flint on steel. “Someone knew better and did it anyway.”

“We’re reviewing security footage now. It had to be someone backstage? A joke, or—”

“You think this is a joke?”

The line went silent again.

“Send me the footage,” Hongjoong said, his voice low and even more dangerous. “And if I find out who was responsible before you do, I won’t be this calm.”

He ended the call without waiting for a reply.

His hand dropped to his side. The air didn’t feel cold anymore.

Whoever had done this— hadn’t just messed with the stage. They had put Seonghwa in danger. And that made it personal.

Very, very personal.

Because, once again Hongjoong had heard the whispers in the hallway when he arrived...

"He doesn’t even belong in such a high end production."

''My audition for the Duckling was much better.

 He should have been a tree or the mushroom instead, not the main lead. ''

"Pretty face, no weight."

''He's just a spoiled nobody, who thinks he can get anything he wants.''

What happened to Seonghwa wasn't an accident.

And Hongjoong didn't just panic because someone got hurt under his watch.

He panicked because it was him.

Because somewhere between their first glare and the other's first smile, Hongjoong might have carved a home into him without even realizing it.

He also didn’t realize he was shaking until he saw his hands.

*

The hospital room was a private one–looked expensive.

And it was quiet. Too quiet.

Seonghwa was laying on the bed, wrist wrapped and elevated on a pillow. It wasn't broken, just sprained—but that didn’t stop the dull ache from humming through him.

He had three stitches on his forehead now. No visible signs of concussion. Yet.

He hadn't even realize he was falling.

One second he was speaking —feeling the lines curl up from his chest — and the next, the floor betrayed him.

The sickening lurch of gravity.

He hit the ground hard. Air punched out of his lungs in a helpless, broken sound.

At first, he thought he’d just been rattled.

His heartbeat thundered louder than the fall itself, and his hands shook more from embarrassment than pain. He could still move his hand that took the main hit— it felt sore but manageable — the sting on his forehead was just that: a sting, no blood in his vision, nothing urgent.

Yunho was soon hovering over him, ''I’m fine, Yu,'' he muttered, bracing himself to sit up, until, someone was yelling. Footsteps thundered close to them and Yunho's voice was silenced.

Another voice now. Low. Familiar. Frayed at the edges.

Hongjoong.

It didn’t make sense. Did he rush there just to scold him? Probably. During the last days he barely looked at him without a dry remark at best.

But now Hongjoong was there, on the floor next to him, knees scraping the stage, hands steady even though his breath was ragged.

Seonghwa tried to humor him at first.

But before he knew it the stage lights blurred into halos above him. Shadowy figures loomed at the edges. Warmth bloomed beneath Seonghwa's skin, deep and slow and wrong.

There was a dull throb behind his eyes — or was it just panic? He tried to track his thoughts, to follow a straight line from memory to now, but everything felt slightly... fuzzy. Not dizzy, just off. He wondered if he's thinking too much, or not clearly enough.

He needed to get up— he couldn’t stay there, not like this, not in front of everyone — but before he could try and move, Hongjoong's hands pulled  him on his chest, just in time when the adrenaline faded completely. The throb in his wrist sharpened with every heartbeat, stiffening his fingers. His forehead pulsed in rhythm too, a dull ache spreading outward to his eyes, and when he touched it, his fingers came away sticky with a bloom of red.

His face. He was an actor. His wrist. His dominant hand. He was an actor. He needed his hand–he–

Seonghwa forced his eyes open through the haze. A hand was now splayed across his back, firm and grounding. Another hand hovered at his arm, careful, almost shaking. ''I’ve got you...I'm here.''

Seonghwa tried to say something — I'm fine, it's okay, don't look at me like that — but nothing came out except a choked sound.

People were shouting — the director, the stagehands — but Hongjoong didn’t move. He stayed there, his palm pressed gently between Seonghwa’s trembling shoulder blades, grounding him with his whole body like a lighthouse against the storm. ''Try not to move too fast.'' he said to him, and his voice was rough as if he was chewing glass.

Seonghwa blinked up at him. His vision swam but he could see the little details up close — the way Hongjoong’s brows pinched together, the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed hard, the way his fingers were too careful on Seonghwa’s skin like he was terrified of hurting him worse.

Hongjoong was truly... scared?

For him?

That realization hit harder than the fall itself.

"You’re going to be okay," he murmured, almost like a secret.

The world spun. Seonghwa’s whole body felt wrong — shaky and thin, like a cracked plate barely holding together. Someone said something about the medic missing and Hongjoong might have cursed — but Seonghwa barely heard it.
His fingers moved before he even thought. They found the edge of Hongjoong’s sleeve — the soft worn fabric of his shirt, pushed up his forearm — and gripped. Tight. Instinctive. He didn’t even know why. He just needed something safe.

And he could feel Hongjoong freeze. Then, wordlessly, he shifted his hand — not to shake Seonghwa off— but just enough to cover his trembling fingers with his own. A small, fierce squeeze. A promise tucked into the gesture: I’m here. Seonghwa swallowed the sob that threatened to break out of him as they were moving.

He shut his eyes, just for a moment, and held on.

The door of the room creaked slowly.

Hongjoong was still there.

Now awkwardly approaching the edge of Seonghwa's bed.

He looked terrible. Disheveled hair, hunched shoulders, and–puffy eyes. Was he–

''You can go if you want,'' Seonghwa said groggily, ''You know. I’m not dying.''

Hongjoong wasn't looking at him, ''I know.''

He sat on the armchair next to Seonghwa's bed, elbows on knees, and hands laced together like he was praying.

''You’ve been quiet for at least four minutes,'' Seonghwa commented when the silence grew too loud to ignore.

''I talk too much, apparently.''

''That’s not true.'' Seonghwa smiled a little, ''You just say things like they're final.''

Hongjoong turned to look at him. His expression softened, then shifted. A glimpse of something… guilt? regret?

He hesitated. Then reached out instinctively and adjusted the pillow behind Seonghwa’s head.

''It was bothering me.''

''The pillow?''

''No. You. Lying there like you didn’t matter. Like you'd break and you'd say it's just a scratch.''

''...You noticed?''

Hongjoong’s fingers were still curled loosely at the edge of the pillow. He brushed a lock of Seonghwa’s hair back in front of Seonghwa's wide eyes. '' I noticed. You get quieter when you’re hurt. And louder when you’re trying to prove it didn't kill you.''

''I didn’t know–'' Seonghwa's voice was almost a whisper, ''you saw me that clearly.''

''I tried not to.'' Hongjoong was looking at him now, eyes steady, ''Believe me.''

A soft hush settled over the street below as the last birds called out into the dimming sky.

In the distance, a dog barked once, and the rustle of leaves was carried gently by the cooling wind through the barely open window. Hongjoong exhaled, a sound soft and rough all at once, his eyes tracing Seonghwa's face like he was memorizing it. His fingers flexed slightly, as though holding himself back from reaching out, from touching, ''I should’ve protected you better. From them. From me.''

Seonghwa was staring ahead instead of Hongjoong, ''You don’t owe me that.''  

''Don’t I?'' Hongjoong asked quietly.

They held each other’s gaze. The silence turned into something else now. Thick, warm, buzzing at the edges.

Because Seonghwa saw Hongjoong care, out loud, for the first time. No jokes. No unreadable eyes.

And it was––deafening.

Just words. Direct. Unguarded. Meant. And they hit louder than anything Seonghwa had ever shouted across a stage. He didn’t even know care could sound like that–like silence finally letting something bloom.

Hongjoong looked at him as if he was something worth worrying about. And for a moment, it felt unbearable — being seen like that. No filter. No cleverness. Just him, offering something real.

And maybe Seonghwa should’ve said something back. Meet him halfway. But all he could do was sit there, throat tight.

Hongjoong stood up, and when Seonghwa thought he would walk away—he didn’t. Instead, he settled gently on the bed beside him. Slowly, he leaned in, his forehead resting carefully against Seonghwa’s, their skin meeting just shy of his stitches.

It was the closest they had ever been.

For a split second, Seonghwa’s heart lurched.

He still didn’t believe Hongjoong could want him that way—not really—but he knew, in this moment, that this move wasn’t just professional or friendly worry.

It was something more.

''You know,'' he whispered, a wry smile ghosting his lips, “You’re really bad at pretending, Hongjoong-ssi,”

Hongjoong's little chuckle buzzed on his skin.

''Yeah, well... you’re really good at making people forget how to breathe.''

A tiny dismissive giggle left Seonghwa's lips. But he didn't dare to move an inch. Afraid that he would ruin everything.

''I’m bad at a lot of stuff.'' Hongjoong whispered softly, and Seonghwa's breath was caught in his throat, because this was the last thing he expected to listen from him, ''But… let me try.''

Seonghwa's eyes were fluttering closed, ''You already are.''

''I’ll stay. Just this once.''

''Stay every once.'' Seonghwa whispered and Hongjoong–kissed him.

Their lips met softly, warm and sure. Hongjoong tasted faintly like coffee and salt and something unmistakably him. Seonghwa let out a small, trembling sigh, parting his lips further, as Hongjoong’s hand came up to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek as his tongue slipped in, slow and careful. Seonghwa’s heart pounded so loud it drowned out everything else.

He thought about how long he had wanted this,

how right it felt,

how he never wanted to stop.

It wasn't starved, and wild, and dramatic, as someone would watch in a hospital scene in a movie.

Just a quiet truth.

The kind one whispers into someone's skin because anything louder would feel like breaking it. A closeness. A pulse. The kind that might said: I will stay. Even if it scares me.

Chapter Text

22.23 PM.

Hospital Room.

Seonghwa found himself blinking at the doctor as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

“What?! No, I’m fine. There’s absolutely no need for that, doctor!”

“Mr. Park,” she interrupted him gently, a small, sympathetic smile on her face, “it’s recommended to be monitored for the first night after a head injury. You’ll be discharged first thing in the morning.”

 “But I can be monitored at home,” he muttered weakly, and yet the doctor nodded to their direction goodnight and turning away to make her notes.

The moment she left, Seonghwa shot a glare at Hongjoong,

 “Just admit it, you made them keep me here.”

“Yeah, because I was really looking forward to spending my night on this damn armchair,” Hongjoong teased, refusing to meet his gaze. “Dream come true.”

Seonghwa slumped back against the pillows, grumbling under his breath.

He watched the way Hongjoong fussed with his phone, pretending to scroll. His heart clenched a little at how obviously he was avoiding eye contact. Like a kid caught in the act making a mess. ''Thank you.'' he started softly, reaching for his hand, ''I know you just—''

Hongjoong waved him off, but his ears were bright red. “Just shut up and rest, will you?”

Seonghwa smiled despite himself, settling back.

Cute. Hongjoong was so cute.

''And you won't be spending the night on the armchair.'' he grunted weakly after a while, repositioning himself on his side, ''Just go home? I'll be fine. Not both of us need to suffer tonight.''

''So dramatic Seonghwa-ssi. Plus, I told you I'd stay, and I will!'' Hongjoong gave him an annoyed glare, ''Maybe you really do have a concussion after all.''

Seonghwa tried to bite his lips to restrict a chuckle.

Impossible.

They both broke on a shared a genuine, laugh.

Like the ones back in their ajumma-tent days.

And warmth started sparkling inside Seonghwa’s chest again, like a long-forgotten memory — the kind that lingered quietly, even after the moment has passed.

A little while later, Hongjoong left the room under the excuse of getting some tea — but when he came back, it wasn’t just with tea.

His arms were full, almost comically so, with snacks piled up to his chin. He kicked the door shut with his foot and shuffled over, dropping everything carefully into Seonghwa’s lap.

Seonghwa blinked at the avalanche of treats. “What have you done?!” he gasped — but his grin betrayed him.

Hongjoong looked faintly sheepish. “Not enough? I can go back down—”

“Are you kidding?” Seonghwa was already digging through the packages with his good hand, eyes lighting up. “You got this one? And—this! How did you even know this is my favorite candy?” He pulled out a pint of ice cream, triumphant. “And– chocolate-strawberry ice cream!”

Hongjoong chuckled, sitting on his armchair, “Lucky guess.”

But Seonghwa quickly learned why people with injured wrists shouldn’t be left unsupervised.

He tried to tear open the ice cream lid with his teeth, but the tug made the bandaged cut on his forehead throb.

Without a word, Hongjoong reached over and gently took the ice cream from him. “You said you could handle rehearsals, but now you can’t even open dessert?” he teased, peeling off the lid and wrapping the plastic around the stick.

Seonghwa huffed but took it back, a little pout on his lips. “And you told me to shut up, so...”

“So much for being a strong, independent man,” Hongjoong quipped, with a little nudge on his knee.

Seonghwa narrowed his eyes dramatically. “Since you’re so eager to babysit, I guess I’ll just relax for once.”

“Pssss, you’re way sassier than I expected.”

“Then maybe next time get to know someone before writing them off,” Seonghwa said, taking a slow bite of the ice cream.

He moaned softly at the taste.

When he glanced back, Hongjoong was watching him from his armchair— not just with amusement, but with that lopsided smile he always tried to hide when he was caught off-guard.

“You’re staring,” Seonghwa said around another bite.

Hongjoong rolled his eyes and looked away, muttering, “Just eat your snacks and stop being a brat.”

''You kissed me, and now you won’t even make eye contact,'' Seonghwa smirked, ''Classic.''

Hongjoong's lips twitched, “I kissed you and now you won’t stop looking at me like I invented warmth.”

“Maybe you did.”

That one landed. Hongjoong exhaled like the air had been knocked clean out of him.

Slowly, he made his way back to the bed and sat down close to him. Right in the middle of the crinkled candy wrappers, like none of it mattered.

“You’re not scared?” he asked, quieter now.

Seonghwa tilted his head. “Of you?”

“Of us.”

The question sat there between them, soft but heavy. It caught Seonghwa off guard—not because it was strange, but because it wasn’t. It was honest. It was Hongjoong.

He hadn’t expected that. Maybe a joke to deflect, maybe a quick change of topic to somewhere safer. Not this quiet, uncertain truth. And it stirred something deep—something tender and aching and a little unsteady.

He looked at Hongjoong carefully. The way his gaze flicked and landed, the slight hunch of his shoulders, like he was bracing himself. For rejection? For distance?

The truth was — Seonghwa wasn’t truly scared. He should be. All his instincts told him to be. He’d taught himself not to hope too loud. To feel things quietly and carry them alone. But maybe... Hongjoong wasn’t a distant impossibility. He was here. Sitting in front of him, still warm from the kiss, surrounded by the ridiculous clutter of snacks he’d brought like it meant something— telling Seonghwa that maybe this wasn’t just him, feeling things alone for once.

And Seonghwa…He felt heavy and light at once.

“I’m used to caring about people on my own,” he finally replied, voice low, a small smile twitching at his lips. He let the words hang there, then added, softer still: “I think I’m more scared that this time… maybe I don’t have to.”

There it was. Out in the open.

Hongjoong didn’t answer right away. But the tension in his face eased, something in his features unclenching. He looked at Seonghwa not like he was trying to protect himself anymore.

Then, quietly,he reached out. His fingers brushed something from Seonghwa’s shoulder—just a bit of lint on his gown, but the motion lingered.

It wasn’t about the lint.

“Everything you are,” Hongjoong said, his voice unshaking now, “quiet or loud, soft or sharp—it’s always been more than enough. I just… didn’t know how to hold it.”

Seonghwa didn’t speak.

But he didn’t look away.

And neither of them moved to close the distance again—because somehow, in that moment, it didn’t feel like there was any. Seonghwa was smiling, full-hearted, “You’re learning.” he joked.

“I guess...You make me want to.” Hongjoong reached for his good hand, and pressed a gentle, kiss to it. His eyes never leaving Seonghwa's–and there were butterflies. So many. That threatened to puncture Seonghwa's lungs. Because this kiss felt like something steadier.  

And then Hongjoong's phone started ringing.

''Director.'' he groaned. ''They time these things on purpose.''

''Go.'' Seonghwa grinned. ''I’ll be here.''

Hongjoong paused, then nodded, “Yeah. You will.”

*

They might have fallen asleep around three or four in the morning.

Seonghwa had made Hongjoong climb into bed after four full minutes of groveling, insisting—on repeat—that the bed was plenty big for both of them.

Hongjoong finally caved, awkwardly lying on the side of Seonghwa's good hand, his body stiff with hesitation. For another four minutes, Seonghwa debated whether he was being too clingy, too eager—until Hongjoong quietly leaned in and placed his head on his shoulder. Just like that.

As if it was easy. As if it made sense.

They’d watched two movies, interrupting constantly with commentary that sounded like their lives depended on it—complaining about the idiot characters, gushing about the cinematography, naming their favorite actors. It felt familiar, safe.

Hongjoong didn’t seem fazed by the late hour—and yet he scolded Seonghwa gently for staying up so long while he should be resting.

But Seonghwa couldn’t sleep.

He wouldn't.

And even though he was a trained actor, he was a terrible liar. He tried anyway: “It’s not my bedtime yet,” he repeated. “I’m not sleepy.”

He was. But he didn’t want this night—this version of Hongjoong, soft and unguarded beside him—to end.

Because in the morning, they’d go their separate ways. Back to their own apartments. Back to the theater. Back to lines and stage blocking and cautious distance. And Seonghwa was scared. He didn’t want Hongjoong to vanish behind professionalism and that polite detachment again. He didn’t want this—whatever it was— to be forgotten once again, treated like a fluke.

Worse, what if Hongjoong was waiting for him to fall asleep so he could leave? Or if he stayed– what if he saw Seonghwa in the morning, messy and tired and undone—hair sticking out, makeup gone, just Seonghwa—and changed his mind?

A little before the second movie ended, Seonghwa’s eyes started to flutter shut. He wasn’t built for all-nighters. But he tried. His head throbbed dully and his wrist ached—payback for not resting properly. He knew he was pouting when his forehead scrunched and he shifted with a groan.

“Seonghwa? Hey,”

“Eh?”
Great. He’d been drooling on Hongjoong’s shirt. Fantastic timing.

“Sorry—I was just… is it over? Did she leave him?”

Hongjoong was stroking his hair gently, his eyes were focused yet soft.

“She did. Wasn’t it obvious?” He paused, catching the question forming in Seonghwa’s eyes before it left his mouth. “So,” he continued, voice cautious but hopeful, “I was thinking… if you’re up for it… maybe tomorrow we could watch the prequel?”

“Like—together?”

“Obviously.”

Obviously.

“Yes, of course,” Seonghwa whispered against the lump in his throat.

“I took tomorrow off anyway,” Hongjoong announced, almost shyly. “I can drive you home in the morning, and then maybe come visit later—after you’ve rested. If you still want. No pressure.”

Seonghwa nodded, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, then winced when pain pulsed at his temple.

“Just sleep now, okay?” Hongjoong whispered, as though Seonghwa was already asleep and he didn’t want to wake him.

He shifted slightly, about to get up—but Seonghwa, even with his eyes half-shut, instinctively grabbed his arm. He released it just as fast, startled by his own impulse.

But Hongjoong didn’t seem annoyed.
He just adjusted. Lay back down beside him and threaded their fingers together.

“Goodnight, Hwa.”

***

The next day.

17.09 PM.

Wooyoung's, San's and Seonghwa's apartment.

"Wooyoung, please! Just behave for once. That’s all I’m asking," Seonghwa groaned from the couch, clutching a pillow to his chest. "Hyung is injured. I am sick."

"Sick card?" Wooyoung scoffed.

San snorted from the kitchen, dish towel slung over his shoulder. "As if that’s ever stopped him."

“I’m going to confront him,” Wooyoung announced dramatically.

“It’s not a duel! What are you even talking about?” Seonghwa cried. His head throbbed in agreement.

"Hyung, come on! Show some backbone. It’s not okay for him to treat you like crap for weeks and then you just roll over the second he shows up all broody and tragic hero.”

“He didn’t treat me like crap for weeks!” Seonghwa argued, weakly.

Wooyoung rolled his eyes. “You’re just lucky you have a brother like me to protect you.”

“Younger brother,” Seonghwa corrected with a pointed finger, like it would make a difference.

“I might be younger, but I will bite if someone hurts you.” Wooyoung’s eyes narrowed, deadly serious.

“Wooyo,” San called out, chuckling as he rinsed a glass, “Do not bite the clipboard guy. You know I’m the jealous type!”

'Shib–'

Seonghwa buried his face in his free hand with a groan.

''What was that, Hyung?!''  Wooyoung gasped with a grin, ''You recite poetry with that mouth?''

“Just—please,” Seonghwa lifted his head, near tears. “Please, don’t embarrass me. You saw him earlier—he’s quiet, reserved. You don’t have to talk to him, just… be polite when he arrives, okay? We’ll be in my room. Quiet. Safe. No biting.”

“He wasn’t so quiet and reserved when he told you you didn’t know what your lines meant, that day in the rehearsal,” Wooyoung muttered, crossing his arms.

“And keep that door open tonight, Hyung!” San added over his shoulder with a grin. “Like a good boy.”

“Why are you even using honorifics if you’re just going to disrespect me constantly?” Seonghwa grumbled.

“Fineeee, fine!” Wooyoung said, pressing a loud, exaggerated kiss to Seonghwa’s cheek. “We’ll behave. Promise. But if he makes you sad again—” he drew a slow, dramatic line across his own throat.

Seonghwa sighed.

More at himself than anyone else.

''Come on then Hyungie, the water is ready,''

Right. Seonghwa wanted to take a shower and San offered to help him since Wooyoung was about to run to the drugstore for some extra medicine they were missing.

And yet Seonghwa was clutching on the soft velvet fabric of these ridiculously expensive, beige sweats he didn't want to take off.

Hongjoong was not in the room when Seonghwa squeezed his eyes open this morning.His stomach twisted painfully.

Soon he would be discharged. And he was all alone.

He realized he didn't even have any clothes except from the half shredded swan costume, printed with blood ever since yesterday.

San and Wooyoung were both at work, since he practically threatened them not to come to the hospital, nor take a leave of absence for his sake, because he had help.

Had had.

He couldn't believe his eyes were watering.

He turned on his nightstand to maybe see if Yunho was free but soon he found a little piece of paper, on top of his phone:

'Be right back. Don't move unless you need to use the bathroom.

HJ'

After ten minutes or so Hongjoong was back with this unnecessarily huge carton bag with silken handles.

He emptied the contents in Seonghwa's lap once again, his ears a bright hue of red.

''Look, I know you mostly wear black, but the psychology of the color dictates lighter colors too every now and then. I think this tone matches your skin. Anyway, you can throw them away after today. I think I got the size right. Basically it might be a little wider?–At least the fabrisc is soft. You're recovering, it's not good to wear stuff that squeeze your gut. Seong–Why–what's wrong?''

Hongjoong had frozen mid rambling, with the sweat set on his hands and his eyes wide and terrified. 

And it was embarrassing really.

For Seonghwa to sob uncontrollably in front of him like that, out of the blue.

Because of a pair of beige, velvet sweats.

But it wasn't just the sweats. Wasn't it?

It was everything.

The fact that for once in his life he could lean on someone other than himself. Trust them to take care of everything. Without asking. Without feeling like a burden.

Hongjoong's consecutive actions that proved he cared. Did he?

Seonghwa hid his face in the palm of his functioning hand to cover up the snot dripping down his nose and his ugly, pained expression.

He couldn’t speak. His throat was tight — not with pain, but with something rawerr. Like his whole chest had been peeled open from the inside and every part of him that had spent years learning how to contain was suddenly out.

Hongjoong didn’t come closer at first. But he hovered at the edge of the hospital bed like someone watching a flood approach and not knowing whether to run or dive. “What’s wrong?” he whispered then, “I’m sorry — what did I do? Do you hate them? Shit-are you in pain? Should I call the nurse—?”

“St–op,” Seonghwa rasped, finally. It was a plea. A breathless one.

Hongjoong stopped. That alone made something crumble further inside him.

Seonghwa turned his head toward the wall, shame clawing up his spine. His whole body still hurt from the fall, his pride even more so. What about the future of his role, the theater, the play. And now here he was, tears leaking against his will — again — like this room had peeled away all his last lines of defense.

He hated crying in front of people. It always felt like failing.
And yet.
And yet—

Without a word, Hongjoong sat carefully on the edge of the bed, just beside him. Then, so quietly Seonghwa almost didn’t notice, he slipped a tissue into the palm of his hand.

It was so subtle. So stupidly gentle. Like he was saying, Here. You can cry. I won’t say a word. You’re safe. We’ll pretend none of it happened if this is what you want.

Seonghwa felt another sob cracking deeper in his ribs.

But the tissue in his hand grounded him. He clutched it like a lifeline.

Hongjoong still wasn’t looking at him. Just staring ahead, letting Seonghwa exist beside him without asking for anything in return. No questions. No fixing. Just presence.

His tears gradually slowed. His breath evened out.

And for the first time in a long time, even in the white sterility of that hospital bed, even with his dignity melting somewhere on that cursed stage floor — Seonghwa didn’t feel humiliated.

 He felt held.

A little before it was time to go home Hongjoong went to bring his car while the doctor paid a last visit to Seonghwa to give him instructions and fill in some paperwork.

Then a male nurse came to help him. “Alright, let’s get you dressed, superstar,” he said cheerfully, pulling out a pair of scissors to snip the tags. “So these are the famous sweats from your very concerned visitor. He basically strong-armed the front desk into finding a store open this early in this side of the city.”

Seonghwa flushed a little, eyes flicking to the clothes.

As the nurse helped him ease into the jacket, he added with a conspiratorial grin, “Okay, I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but… Your boyfriend is such a gentleman. So vintage.”

Seonghwa blinked. “He–”

The nurse just laughed, waving a hand. “C’mon. I know gay when I see gay, love. You two are the cutest. I walked in earlier with your meds and he was just sitting there in that sad little armchair staring at you like you were a painting in the gallery. He didn’t even blink.” the man let out a dreamy sigh. “Like–who does that in real life? I was about to cry on your behalf.”

Seonghwa stared at his lap, heart threatening to beat out of his chest. The jacket suddenly felt warmer than it should.

The nurse smiled softer this time as he was done helping him with the pants. “Anyway. I think you’re lucky. Husband, situationship, boyfriend, whatever he is.”

'He is not–'

But Seonghwa didn't voice his thought to the nurse.

He didn't even want to finish it.

He didn't want it not to be real.

As if leaving it linger would make it more true.

Yes, Hongjoong didn't look like someone who believed in love stories, even if he spent most his years studying them, analyzing them, even writing scripts based on them.

But in real life love wasn't about grand gestures and cinematic moments, but the little things.

And Hongjoong hadn't stopped doing all these little things. . .

As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

People don't go that far for someone they barely care about. This… it meant something more. Right?

That kind of fear… That kind of softness… it was more than concern.

Right?

It had to be.

''Hyung!'' Wooyoung yelled next to his ear, never failing to wake him up from his occasional hazes. ''Your boyfriend will be here in two hours, do you want to stink, or will you get your fine ass up and go to the bathroom with Sannie?''

He–

He. . .

Seonghwa got up to head to the bathroom with San.

*

Hongjoong crossed the living room and stepped out onto the small balcony of Seonghwa's apartment, sliding the glass door shut behind him.

The air was crisp that night, curling against his neck.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the railing, watching the streetlights blink over the damp pavement.

When he arrived a few hours ago he had been fussing — though he’d never call it that — with adjusting the cushions behind Seonghwa’s back, when his eyes landed on that ridiculous bouquet sitting by the windowsill of his bedroom.

A flood of red and orange tulips spilling out from a small glass vase, with a banner:"GET WELL SOON YOU DRAMATIC SWAN" in comically large, glittery letters.

The paper was so big it practically dwarfed the flowers.

Hongjoong paused mid-adjustment and tilted his head at the spectacle. “Who sent you... that?”

Seonghwa followed his gaze and smiled, the corners of his mouth lifting with fondness.

 ''Yunho. He dropped by earlier with them. Said I needed visual morale support.''

Hongjoong scoffed.

“Did he steal the banner from a kindergarten?”

“I kind of love it,” Seonghwa admitted shyly, adjusting the blanket over his lap. “It’s... loud. But it's sweet.”

Silence settled over them for a while.Then he added, quieter, “No one has ever sent me flowers before. Not unless you count Wooyoung and San, and that’s only because they refuse to let my opening nights go uncelebrated.”

Hongjoong’s expression shifted. Just a flicker — almost imperceptible. But Seonghwa caught it.“It’s stupid, isn’t it?”  he said quickly, like he’d revealed something embarrassing. “I’m not even a flower person. But it meant a lot.”

Hongjoong looked away for a second, jaw tight. “It’s not stupid.”

And what did he mean 'he wasn't a flower person?' Him? Park Seonghwa?

Hongjoong sat down beside him on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling the urge to argue with something he couldn’t name. “I should have been the one to sent them to you,” he muttered. Not looking at him. “Not Yunho.”

That made Seonghwa giggle, “What?!”

“I mean—” Hongjoong straightened his spine, visibly regretting his own words. “You’re my—I mean, I was there. I should’ve thought of it.”

Seonghwa turned to him, brow softening. “It’s not a competition, Hongjoong-ah”

Hongjoong didn’t reply.

Seonghwa tilted his head just slightly, then nudged his elbow gently into Hongjoong’s arm. “But if you’d sent me flowers,” he said, voice low, “I’d probably have saved the petals. Pressed them between pages of a book you gave me or something.”

That made Hongjoong glance at him sharply — not startled, just stunned still.

A smile ghosted Seonghwa’s lips, “Because that would’ve meant something different.”

Something charged sat between them for a second too long.

Hongjoong broke it with a nervous, choked sort of laugh. “God. You’re unfair.”

“Maybe,” Seonghwa chuckled, “But only to people who deserve it!” he added, eyes filled with mischief.

Inside, Hongjoong could still hear muffled voices from the living room—Seonghwa’s friends, who also happened to be a couple, trying to decide on a survival show, bickering about subtitles versus dub, laughing loudly.

Seonghwa had laughed too, before, to one of Hongjoong's lame jokes about the inaccuracies of the costumes in the movie they were watching in Seonhgwa's room. Hongjoong had felt it like a tug in his ribs. And when Seonghwa laughed, something light unfurled in him. When he cried, this morning in the hospital–it hurt in places Hongjoong didn’t even know could ache. It wasn't a loud, bold feeling. Just a quiet pull, like his body had already decided long before his mind caught up.

And it was all new to him.

How easy he could get used to seeing him outside of work. Hold him close. Kiss him. This annoying need to make him smile as much as possible. Take care of him.

In just two days, Hongjoong had learned that Seonghwa added cinnamon to his tea, even if he always wrinkled his nose at the first sip. That he muttered lines to himself while checking on his phone, like his body couldn’t exist without rhythm. That he wanted to keep the TV volume low, but laughed loudly. Hongjoong learned how their energies… fit. Where he was sharp edges and calculated silence, Seonghwa was softness in motion, occasionally playful, yet steady and warm. There was a rhythm to them, like a harmony they didn’t have to rehearse: one pulling back when the other pushed, one anchoring when the other shook. And somehow, in the small, quiet spaces between their conversations — the way Seonghwa had started to lean a little closer to him when he talked, and how Hongjoong wasn't anxious to pull backwards, or fill the silence — it felt a place he didn’t have to guard himself. A place where the air was lighter just because someone else was breathing beside him.

It was all new to him. And scary.

''You’re not really a smoker,'' an unexpected voice declared behind him.

Hongjoong turned.

It was Wooyoung. The loud one. He stepped out onto the balcony with a blanket wrapped around him like a shawl.

“I am sometimes,” Hongjoong replied, flicking ash into the night.

There was a pause before the other spoke again. “Has he told you about his last audition?”

Hongjoong narrowed his eyes. “No.”

Wooyoung nodded to himself, as if confirming a theory. “There was this one audition—big… career-defining, like the play you two are working on now. They told him he had the part.” The boy looked out over the street. “Then a week later, they gave it to someone with more followers. Told him he wasn’t marketable enough.”

Hongjoong didn’t say anything. The cigarette burned low in his fingers.

“He didn’t get out of bed for three days.” Wooyoung smiled bitterly, but his eyes didn’t. “I had to bribe him with strawberry cake just to get him to shower. And he still showed up to rehearsal with his script memorized. Still clapped for the guy who got the role.” He glanced at Hongjoong. “He does that. Performs his pain so well people forget it’s real.”

Ofcourse... Seonghwa did  that. Folded up his hurt so neatly inside a performance, even those who truly cared couldn’t always tell the difference. And wasn’t this the worst kind of ache? When someone was bleeding in plain sight and still managed to make it look like art?

Wooyoung paused for a while. Then went on quietly, “His father always told him acting was a waste of time and money. Said it wouldn’t ‘make a man out of him.’ He didn’t even come to his graduation.”

Hongjoong blinked, the cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

“Hyung doesn’t talk about it,” Wooyoung's eyes narrowed slightly. “But it shows. When people doubt him, it’s like he already believes them. So when you pull your cold act? He thinks you’re just seeing what’s already true.”

Hongjoong finally looked at him. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Wooyoung said gently, “He likes you. A lot more than he admits. And I think you care. I think, you’re just scared that you do. You seem more like a realist, not the type for romance. Do you have -T in your MBTI? lol,''

The boy didn't wait for an answer– turned and padded softly back into the apartment, sliding the door shut behind him. Hongjoong stayed where he was, the smoke curling around him, unsure if it was the cold or if all this new information had shaken something loose in his chest.

He didn’t return right away.

When he finally did, the room greeted him with a soft orange glow from the desk lamp . It seemed like being underwater—quiet, warm, too still.

Seonghwa was lying on his side, propped up by his elbow, his good hand loosely tucked under his cheek.

For a while their knees were brushing occasionally, neither of them pulling away. The movie still flickered on the laptop screen. Dialogue hummed quietly in the background, now forgotten.

Hongjoong glanced down, fidgeting with the hem of the throw blanket. “You’re quiet.”

“We are on the same bed for a second night in a row,” Seonghwa said softly.

Hongjoong didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at him fully. “Is it too much for you?”

''Not at all.'' Seonghwa breathed out, a tiny laugh that didn’t quite land, ''I thought it might be, you know– for you. Like I thought you'd ran after I fell,''

“I did run.”

“Yes,” Seonghwa said, “I thought you didn’t care.”

Hongjoong’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “You said I didn’t have to act like I did.”

Seonghwa nodded. “Because I didn’t believe it, not really.”

The silence was thicker this time.

Seonghwa looked up at him through long lashes. “But–you looked terrified.”

Hongjoong swallowed.No running this time. This was real. This was his to hold, if he just reached.

“I was. Because I couldn’t not care. I can't. And– we didn’t meet on Bumble. We met at work. ” He leaned forward a little, cautious, searching, “I know–I was cold to you. At first. And then I vanished. It wasn't because I changed my mind. But because you bring something I didn’t think was possible for someone like me.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

Hongjoong reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from Seonghwa’s face. “And I didn’t just kiss you because I was scared. I kissed you because I see you. Because I like you. A lot.”

Seonghwa’s breath hitched. But he deserved to know. Throughout the years everyone has told Hongjoong he sucked with words and heartfelt confessions. Tonight he would be brave. He promised he would try. No half-measures. No maybe laters.

“And not just when you’re acting,” he added. “But especially when you’re not.”

Seonghwa looked down at the blanket between them. “It's hard for me to believe people mean what they say. But I want to believe you.”

''I know,'' Hongjoong leaned closer, their foreheads touching again, like an invisible hug.

''Wooyoung told me some things.''

Seonghwa exhaled and shifted slightly shaking his head with a disappointed smile. He was looking toward the laptop like he might pretend to care about the movie. “I should’ve known in the end he wouldn't behave as he promised he would.'' when he turned to look at Hongjoong again he looked–scared. ''Don't pay attention to him, he's always making everything so dramatic, and–''

“He said your father never came to a single performance. Not even when you graduated top of your class.”

Seonghwa closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled slowly through his nose.

''Right...Theatre is ‘pointless.’ Because I should’ve taken law like he did. Because art is only for those 'touched in the head'. Because ‘men don’t cry in public,’ and acting means emotion, and emotion means problems.” His smile was so bitter Hongjoong could almost taste it. “I used to rehearse monologues in my room with the door closed. And one night—he heard me. He banged on the door and said, ‘Keep it down. No one cares how well you pretend.’”

Hongjoong’s chest tightened. Who could say that to someone like Seonghwa?

Who could look at that spark and try to snuff it out?

“That line stayed with me. Every audition. Every time I forgot a line. I’d hear it.”

''Is that why you never stop pushing yourself?'' Hongjoong asked quietly, ''Even when you’re hurt?''

''Because I have to be perfect,'' Seonghwa nodded, ''If I’m not, then he’s right.''

''...He’s not.''

Seonghwa looked at him and Hongjoong could see how it was the first time he really searched Hongjoong’s expression—no humor, no caution, just softness.

“I’ve seen actors who are technically brilliant.'' Hongjoong added, ''Perfect diction. Beautiful posture. But they don’t make people feel anything. You do. You probably always did.”

Seonghwa's voice was barely a whisper, “You really believe that?”
''Yeah,'' Hongjoong nodded without hesitation. ''I think... that’s what scared me.''

They sat in the hush of that honesty. Then, gently, Seonghwa leaned his head against Hongjoong’s shoulder. And Hongjoong let him.

“You’re not the only one who had to rewrite his story to win.” he muttered after a long pause.

Seonghwa tilted his head slightly but didn’t pull away.

''My mum used to work front of house at a little playhouse in Busan.'' Hongjoong's eyes were still looking forward, ''I spent more time in red velvet chairs than a playground. I used to imagine I belonged up there, behind the curtain. Like it would fix something. Like I’d finally feel real.''

“Did you?”

Hongjoong laughed quietly after a long pause.“Not really. Turns out being good at something doesn’t mean it fills the hollow parts.”

Seonghwa slowly pulled back to look at him.

“My father  wasn’t around. Barely a–shadow in the hallway.'' Hongjoong went on, ''And my mum... when I told her that I didn’t want to act, I decided to direct — she said it was fine. But I saw it in her face. She looked at me like I’d abandoned her dream.”

“God... Hongjoong-ah...”

“It's not the same. But maybe that’s why I snapped at you, sometimes. You were doing the thing I ran away from. And you were... good. You are good at this.”

Seonghwa smiled and looked away shyly, “I’m getting more compliments these past two days than I’ve gotten in my whole life.”
Hongjoong shrugged.

Right...Why would Seonghwa believe him?
After weeks of Hongjoong’s unpredictable moods?

He would try harder. Becauase these words were not even compliments, but his genuine feelings.

“I respect you. Not just on stage. Not just as some rival I tried to pretend they were my inferior. And I care, Seonghwa. Not just because you fell, or because you got hurt. I cared before that. I was just too much of a coward to say it.”

Seonghwa blinked but then he smiled — small and sad, but not less warm. Hitting straight to Hongjoong's chest–where something threatened to escape. “You don’t have to be scared with me. I’m not asking for someone without flaws...Just honest. Just you.”

Hongjoong turned to look at him fully. . .

And this time, he leaned in first — to rest his forehead against Seonghwa’s. It seemed it had already become their thing. A quiet promise. A quiet yes.

They never discussed whether Hongjoong would be sleeping over that night — but when he didn’t move away, when Seonghwa didn’t let go, the answer settled between them without needing to be said.

Chapter Text

For the next ten days Seonghwa wasn't allowed to step a foot in the theater despite trying everything he could think of to convince Hongjoong otherwise.

Gradually the stitched cut on his forehead, once raw and angry, slowly faded into something gentler—still visible, but no longer furious red.

On the fifth day, the doctor snipped the sutures out, leaving behind a thin line of healing skin. His wrist was slower to forgive. Daily physical therapy became a quiet ritual: squeezing a stress ball, rotating the joint in slow circles, wincing through stretches that made his fingers tremble. He wore a compression wrap most days, more out of habit than necessity, and though the pain dulled, it hadn’t disappeared.

But there was something about healing—how it hurt in silence before it showed strength. Pretty much ironic huh?

Only the day after their movie night in Seonghwa's room, Hongjoong showed up with a stack of scripts, dog-eared and marked in highlighter, dropping them onto the bed like a silent promise. “You’re not missing your scene arc,” he said, not quite meeting his eyes, already flipping pages like it was any other rehearsal.

And ever since–Hongjoong was there every day. Some days before he even went to the theatre, and if not, then certainly after. Seonghwa was worried. There were days when the other looked barely more than a shadow of himself. Troubled, exhausted,  yet unwilling to leave Seonghwa's side, loyal and reliable to a fault.

Seonghwa noticed how things shifted between Hongjoong and Wooyoung, too. The formal edges had worn off, honorifics abandoned somewhere between late-night ramen. It was strange at first — shocking, even. Hongjoong had started out cool and guarded, and Wooyoung had met him with barbed sarcasm and narrowed eyes. But somehow, they found a rhythm.

It began–ofcourse– with photography.

Wooyoung was flipping through one of the albums with his street shots. Hongjoong had commented once — just a low, almost reluctant, “Your framing is good.” That was all it took. The next day, Hongjoong brought an album of his own shots, and their casual competition started. They critiqued each other’s shots, compared color tones and light leaks, fought over composition theories like teenagers in a film school forum.And then, imperceptibly, something softened. Wooyoung’s chaotic energy didn’t bounce off Hongjoong. It landed. Hongjoong was watching him, not just amused, but taken. Seonghwa couldn’t help smiling when he caught it — the way his lips twitched upward when Wooyoung talked.

These ten days somehow felt like both a pause and a shift.

Hongjoong's and Seonghwa's stage was a shared blanket and the soft rustle of script pages between them. They rehearsed the same scene over and over—Hongjoong correcting his tone with a tilt of his head, Seonghwa adjusting his delivery until it felt like truth instead of performance. There were pauses for painkillers and water, for his wrist to rest or his head to stop pounding, but Hongjoong never rushed him. He listened. He waited. Sometimes they forgot they were rehearsing at all, slipping into real conversations that mirrored the script too closely—about being seen, being chosen, about regret, fear, about the ache of wanting.

Hongjoong laughed more now. Seonghwa smiled easier.

It didn’t feel like memorizing lines. It felt like something– mending.

***

The final lines had barely left Seonghwa's lips that evening when silence settled over the room—soft, unspoken, and full of something more than script.

It was their last night. The pages had grown softer with use, the words easier in their mouths, the pauses more meaningful.

Hongjoong sat at the edge of the bed, the script laid down on the sheets between them. His fingers traced its spine idly, but his eyes stayed on Seonghwa.

“So,” he said, voice low. Careful. “We’re back tomorrow.”

Seonghwa nodded, pulling his knees up to his chest, half-wrapped in the comforter.

Hongjoong didn’t move closer, but he didn’t move away either. The air between them felt tender—like a string pulled taut, but not ready to snap. “We need to talk,” he said.

“I know.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Outside, a car passed. Somewhere down the hall, San laughed.

“I don’t want people thinking you got the role because of me,” Hongjoong said finally. “Because you earned it. By majority vote at your casting, and with your hard work all this time. But I also know how fast rumors catch fire.”

“I don’t want that either,” Seonghwa replied, voice steadier than he expected. “I want them to see my performance, not…” He faltered, but Hongjoong looked up, waiting. “Not your approval.”

He smiled, but it was a little sad. “Exactly.”

The quiet stretched again, and it was Seonghwa who crossed it first, reaching for Hongjoong’s hand where it rested beside the script. Their fingers linked instantly. They both looked down at it—like it was something fragile and rare.

“So… we keep it quiet,” Seonghwa said softly. “At least for now.”

“I will still be there helping you with everything,” Hongjoong promised. “And–we can still spend time together. I don’t want that to change.”

“It won’t.” Seonghwa squeezed his hand. “But maybe no lingering looks during warm ups.”

Hongjoong chuckled. “Or I might have to pretend to be mean to you again.”

Seonghwa grinned, then leaned forward slowly, pressing a kiss against Hongjoong’s lips. Their breaths mingled—it was warm, like a secret they both promised to keep safe.“No matter what happens,” Seonghwa whispered, “You’re still the best thing I found in this whole storm.”

Honjoong’s arms wrapped around him in reply, pulling him close.

A pause before the curtain rose again.

*

The next morning.

9.02 PM

The theatre had never been quieter.

The cast was scattered onstage, scripts in hand, the usual hum of murmurs and idle jokes hanging in the air. Seonghwa sat near the wings. His hand still wrapped, the tiny scar on his forehead covered by his locks and Yunho on his side, staring right and left as if he was ready to bite whomever decided to come closer to them.

Seonghwa caught the end of someone’s laugh behind him — low and mean — and something in him braced.

Then Hongjoong walked in.

Clipboard tucked under one arm, he moved to center stage like gravity followed him. “Before we begin — I want to address something.” His voice cut through the room before anyone could greet him.

Silence run the room– cool and inescapable.

“There was a... stunt,” he continued, tone clipped, controlled. “A so-called joke involving prop wax. It resulted in one of our leads getting hurt. Missing rehearsal. Losing time.”

No one spoke.

Hongjoong didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“I assume it was meant to be funny. I also assume no one will ever find it funny again.”

His gaze swept across the cast — calm, unreadable, “The person responsible has already been removed from the play, with a formal warning in their CV. If anything like that happens again, I won't hesitate to remove the problem. Again.”

No threats. Just a fact laid bare.

Seonghwa sat frozen.. It wasn’t just what Hongjoong said — it was how he said it. The way he stood up for him.

He hadn’t looked at him once while speaking, but Seonghwa knew.

And when rehearsal finally began, and Hongjoong passed behind him to adjust a blocking note, his fingers brushed his uninjured side — brief but grounding.

Seonghwa closed his eyes for a moment.

He didn’t say thank you.

But he would find a way.

***

Seonghwa was back for three days now.

Stronger. Not just in body, but in the way his voice remained steady, his eyes never darted away from the space they claimed.

The whispers had quieted over the last week — not vanished, but softened. Seonghwa wondered how much would it last.

The stage that day felt warmer than usual — too many lights, too much dust kicked up by bodies in motion.

And then came one of these tests, that had become Seonghwa's new favorite thing.

They were rehearsing the third act once again — the duckling’s turning point — when Hongjoong’s voice cut through the space, sharp and precise like the edge of a brushstroke.

“Don’t look down this time,” he said from the house seats. Clipboard balanced on his knee, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. “This time, look at them. Dare them to look away.”

Seonghwa turned, mid-movement. “That’s not in the—”

“It is now,” Hongjoong replied, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

A ripple of interest moved through the cast.

They didn’t know. They wouldn’t guess. Not with the way Hongjoong still spoke like that — all controlled and cool detached delivery. But Seonghwa saw the flicker in his eyes. The go on, I dare you. The silent grin Hongjoong wasn’t showing anyone else.

So Seonghwa stepped back into the scene. He didn’t break character. He didn’t need to.

This time, when the other actor stepped toward him with the line that once crushed the duckling — “You don’t belong here” — Seonghwa didn’t flinch or fold.

He looked up.

Not just at the other actor — but beyond him. Into the seats. To where Hongjoong sat. And he held his gaze. Let it burn. Let it blaze. The whole line played out like a slow, charged standoff — not between actor and character, but something more intimate.

Something layered and electric.

He didn’t say the next line as it was written. He improvised once again. Voice low, even: “And yet, here I am. Still dancing.”

Something shifted in the air. A breath held too long. One of the interns at the tech table whispered, “Whooooa.”

But Seonghwa didn’t hear the rest. He was looking at Hongjoong, who didn’t speak, but tapped his pen once against the clipboard.

Approval. And something more.

That was the thing.

This wasn’t just direction anymore. This was the way Hongjoong flirted when they weren’t allowed to. With challenge. With little trials disguised as notes. With that quiet fire in his eyes.

And Seonghwa — he was in love.

Not the sweet, stumbling kind. The steady, I-know-what-this-is kind. The kind that made him fight harder every time Hongjoong said, “Again,” and trust that he’d never say “Good” unless he meant it. He left the stage without needing to ask. He already knew what Hongjoong would write in the margin.

Seonghwa looked at them.

And they couldn’t look away.

*

Α fternoon rehearsal.

Focus: The Swan dance

Seonghwa was standing near the center, prepping for the solo Swan sequence they’d begun blocking — shoulders squared, breath steady, remembering how Hongjoong had told him “your stillness holds weight.”

Then, he walked to his mark. The lights dimmed around the edges of the stage, drawing the world into a hush — like a held breath. The music began, low and trembling, a single cello dragging sorrow across its strings. And then, Seonghwa stepped into the light.

And danced like he’d never crawled through mud in his life. Only air, breath, and a fire that wouldn’t go out. He moved like the echo of something broken learning how to be whole again.

The Swan solo — the contemporary piece that demanded vulnerability more than perfection. He had practiced it only a few times before the accident, and even now his hand wasn’t at full strength. He could feel the tremor in it. The fear. The doubt clinging like damp feathers to his ribs.

But the moment the music caught him, he let it all go.

Each step was a decision: to trust his body, to trust the story, to let go of the voices of the past. His arms lifted — not as wings, but as memory. His spine arched not for show, but because something inside him needed out.

He wasn’t perfect. He missed a breath here, a beat there. But it didn’t matter.

What mattered was that he danced like someone who remembered drowning, and still reached for the sky.

No borrowed grace. No mimicry of flight.

And when he lifted his arms in that final stretch — trembling, sweat-kissed, eyes burning — it was like watching a swan rise not from a lake, but from ash. The duckling became the swan. The mirrors had caught him just right.

The applause still rang like tinnitus in his ears as he stepped offstage, breath steady, body humming with the phantom of movement. The scene had gone flawlessly — his monologue sharp as a blade, his final turn as the lights dipped, weightless.

And then they were there. Two of them. Three. The ones who used to whisper behind tablets and costume racks. The ones who laughed a little too loud when he fumbled a line. Who insisted the lead role wasn't for him, wondered why he was pretending, why he looked like this or that.

“Hey,” one of them said, like they’d always been friends. “You really surprised us.”

Seonghwa blinked at him. “Did I?”

“Yeah,” another added, grinning with too many teeth. “I mean, after the– accident and everything, we didn’t expect you to come back and just—do that.”

''LegendHwa.''

''The duckling and the swan are tailor made for you.''

They smiled at him, like it was a compliment. Like it meant something now.

Seonghwa didn’t smile. He nodded politely.

Let their words fall somewhere on the floor where they belonged.

Because the thing was–he didn’t need it anymore.

Not after lying in a hospital bed and realizing he hadn’t cried out of fear. He had cried because he wanted to be back.

The connection he felt to the play and his part? It was real.

His intuition, his self-awareness, and his emotional resonance all clicking together.

No one would get to take that from him or tell him it wasn't valid. That he wasn't valid. Ever.

Because the stage meant something.

And because someone waited in a sad little armchair for him to wake up. Because Hongjoong had held him like he mattered.

So no. Their approval didn’t impress him now. And their praise didn’t land. He moved past them with a simple, “Thanks,” clipped and neutral.

He didn’t dance like that to prove himself anymore. Not to his father. Not to the cast. Not even to Hongjoong. He was dancing because it was his. And he wouldn’t trade that for all the forced smiles in the world.

As he walked backstage, Seonghwa caught his reflection in the mirror.

He paused.

The light overhead was cold and unflattering, but it didn’t matter. He looked anyway.

His features were the same—still soft around the eyes, the curve of his mouth still gentle, his skin marked faintly where stage makeup hadn’t fully come off.
Too delicate, some might say.
But there was something steadier in his gaze now, something that said: I know who I am.
He adjusted the collar of his sweatshirt, smoothed a hand down his side. He didn’t shrink away from the way his body filled the mirror. Didn’t second-guess the fullness of his cheeks, the slope of his waist.
This body danced. This body carried ache and joy and all of him.

Then the voice came. From the wings.
One of the duckling girls.

“Gained some weight, Park? Are you a pigeon or a swan now?”

It wasn’t too loud, but it sliced through the quiet all the same.

A few giggles followed, too rehearsed to be surprised. Some eyes flicked his way, then darted off, guilty or complicit—Seonghwa couldn’t tell. But still, he didn’t look away from the mirror.

He simply turned, slow and deliberate, as if unbothered — as if she hadn’t just poked at the body he’d spent years trying to make peace with. “Funny,” he said smoothly, his voice clear but calm. “It's almost show time and you still need to dim someone else just to feel like you belong–well, in the background.”

''Hilarious,'' the girl snarled, her voice dripping with venom.

''Depends on one's sense of humor,'' Seonghwa winked and reached to collect his stuff ignoring the noise. Across the stage, he caught Hongjoong's eyes — brows slightly lifted, mouth twitching in delight and disbelief.

Half an hour later, the air was crisp and humming with leftover adrenaline as they walked side by side toward Seonghwa’s building.

Seonghwa’s coat swished as he moved, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto his script loosely rolled in his palm.

He was still flushed, not from embarrassment—but from how not embarrassed he felt.

“Did I overdo it?” he finally asked, darting a glance at Hongjoong.

“You mean when you verbally drop-kicked her to her rightful place?” Hongjoong snorted. “No. I think it was… effective. And you didn’t even flinch. The way you said ‘well, in the background’? I almost applauded.”

Seonghwa tried to drown a chuckle as they reached the curb and crossed the quiet street. “It just came out.”

“Soon you’ll be unstoppable.'' Hongjoong smirked, mock serious. ''Dangerous. Witty.”

“Oh!” Seonghwa gasped in mock horror. “You like dangerous and witty?”

“Depends on the shoes,”

Hongjoong glanced down at Seonghwa’s feet. “Hmm. Loafers. Dangerous but professional.”

“You’re judging my shoes now?!”

“Someone has to!”

Seonghwa bumped into him lightly with his shoulder. “You still owe an apology for saying pineapple on pizza is a crime.”

“It is!” Hongjoong said, raising both hands. “I don’t care how poetic your defense was. ‘It’s sweetness breaking the rules’—” he mimicked Seonghwa, “What does that even mean?”

“It means you have no taste!” Seonghwa replied primly as they reached his building steps.

They stopped outside the door, both still grinning, the banter between them as natural as breath. “You want to come up?” Seonghwa asked softly, the words gentle, shy—unguarded.

Hongjoong looked at him for a beat, then nodded.

“Only if we agree the pineapple-on-pizza debate ends here.”

“I make no such promise!”

“Dangerous,” Hongjoong murmured again, just as Seonghwa unlocked the door chuckling.

Chapter Text

They hadn’t gone back to how it was — and they didn’t want to.

There was a softness now, not loud but insistent, like sea foam that lingers long after the wave is gone.

In the way Seonghwa’s fingers brushed Hongjoong’s wrist while passing him a pen, or how Hongjoong lingered when zipping up the back of Seonghwa’s costume, knuckles grazing the fabric just long enough to make his breath catch.

In the theater they stayed composed — Hongjoong knew how to build walls when he had to — but the moment they stepped into the night, past the glass doors of the theatre, it was different.

Footsteps in sync. Shoulders bumping. A kind of unspoken wave between them: we’re figuring this out, quietly.

Hongjoong was walking Seonghwa home every night. No matter how late, no matter the weather. Sometimes they shared an umbrella, and Seonghwa would let the tips of his fingers graze Hongjoong’s. Sometimes they shared strawberry cake in Seonghwa's tiny kitchen, forks clinking gently, Seonghwa humming through his nose at the taste.

And more often than not Hongjoong stayed over. On those nights, they curled into the couch like they’d always belonged there. Seonghwa half-draped over a throw blanket, eyes slipping closed, while Wooyoung threw popcorn at Hongjoong and San accused everyone of cheating at whatever board game they had been playing before.
In the end Hongjoong would nudge Seonghwa gently, thumb brushing his cheek, whispering, “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

To sleep. Only to sleep.

Not because Hongjoong didn’t want more. He’d never wanted anyone this much — and somehow that made it harder to cross the line.

There had been moments. Moments where Seonghwa kissed him with a kind of hunger that made Hongjoong’s spine go loose. Where the bed underneath them burned and time broke open. Where hands slipped under shirts, palms on ribs, searching. Seonghwa’s body was so soft against his, so willing — his sighs open, unguarded.
But each time, just before they tipped too far, Hongjoong pulled back. He’d press his forehead to Seonghwa’s, chests still heaving, and whisper, “Not yet.”

Sometimes Seonghwa’s disappointment was soft and nearly imperceptible — a sigh, a shift, a delay in his fingers letting go. But he never pushed. Never asked why. And that made Hongjoong ache more.

He couldn’t explain it in words without sounding too weird, too old-fashioned. But the truth was: this wasn’t about hesitation.

He wanted Seonghwa — all of him — but not as a climax to months of tension. Not because the mood was just right. He wanted to make love to him the way someone would write a final draft — after learning the story inside out. He wanted it to mean something bigger than release.
He wanted to be sure that when they crossed that line, it wasn’t about proving anything.

He wanted to look Seonghwa in the eye and give him everything he’d never been given before — not just safety, but worship.

Was that too much? Too vintage? Maybe.

But Hongjoong had lived a whole life of almosts and not quites.

He didn’t want this to be yet another one.

Until then, he was content with the quiet ways they belonged to each other.

With falling asleep to the sound of  Seonghwa's breath.

With his shirts folded in Seonghwa’s drawers.

With the way they touched in silence.

For now, he let the wanting live in his palms, in the way he kissed Seonghwa like he already knew. And it wasn't a sudden realization — just the quiet certainty that something in him had always known it would be Seonghwa.

*

There were only two weeks left before the opening night.

Hongjoong stood alone in the back of the auditorium, one foot resting on the edge of the seat in front of him, clipboard forgotten at his side.

Today they were practicing SCENE V — “Now You See Me”

The “family” returns. They see the Swan now — tall, still, soft but radiant. Some look ashamed. Some try to approach him again. One reaches out — but the Swan pulls back gently. Not in cruelty. In self-respect. Quiet triumph. Not revenge. Dignity.

Seonghwa stepped into the light.

His costume was fully white now — soft at the sleeves, layered at the collar, with feathers that moved like water when he turned. His posture had changed too: no longer cautious. He carried himself like someone who had grown into his own silhouette. Every movement had precision, every line intention. The other performers filled the space with choreography, but it was Seonghwa the light followed. Not by spotlight, but by gravity.

It wasn’t favoritism. It wasn’t Hongjoong's love clouding his judgment. It was fact.

Objectively — technically — Seonghwa was delivering the best performance of his life.

Hongjoong watched his turns now. Clean. Controlled. His transitions had lost that flicker of hesitation, his arms were sweeping wide as if the stage was made for them. His voice — in the monologue — didn't just echo through the rafters. It landed.

And all Hongjoong could think was: Seonghwa did this.
He pulled himself from the wreckage.
He built a version of himself with his own hands.

As a director, he would be proud of anyone who made that kind of arc — from fractured to whole. But this was Seonghwa. His Seonghwa. And Hongjoong understood now what it had taken to get here.

He had been worrying deeply, that as the premiere inched closer, Seonghwa’s anxiety would tighten its grip — and yet it hadn’t. If anything, the opposite had happened.

Seonghwa was lighter.

He was eating consistently again — not counting calories, not asking if this or that made his face puffy. He was sleeping. Going to the gym, even posting unfiltered clips on his story. He laughed more. Still reserved sometimes, but looser.

And last week, he’d nudged Hongjoong with the eagerness of someone plotting something illegal.“Let’s go to a concert,” he said, eyes sparkling. “You like ILLIT, right?”

The corners of Hongjoong's mouth pinched, betraying his silent disapproval.

They had gone to the concert anyway — caps pulled low, masks high, sitting shoulder to shoulder in a sea of pastel fans. Seonghwa had pulled out an ILLIT lightstick like he had been hiding it for years, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal it and grinning like a criminal.

Hongjoong had stared at it. “You own that?”

“Don’t judge me!”

“You’re such a nerd!”

“You call it nerdy,” Seonghwa whispered while waving his lightstick in sync, “I call it happiness and modern taste.”

And Hongjoong had laughed so hard he nearly nudged the girl on the seat beside him.

But that was Seonghwa. This version of him. A tapestry of contradictions.

He collected vintage lapel pins but slept with a pink, pilled-up stuffed bunny. He was making 5.000 pieces puzzles of famous paintings— “It's relaxing,” he claimed — and labeled every jar in the fridge with washi tape and neon sticky notes. He owned three different planners and still forgot his keys. He got obsessed with niche skincare ingredients and copied ''wise'' quotes from the books he read in a chrome silver notebook, “for posterity.”Every time Hongjoong teased him about it — God, you’re such an ahjussi in disguise. You alphabetized your tea again? — Seonghwa would just raise an eyebrow and say, “I'm not the one who makes Pinterest boards for lighting schemes and cries over film scores,”

Touché.

It was domestic. Safe. Deep in a way nothing short lived ever was.

And yet, on stage, Seonghwa wasn’t soft — he was fierce.

Hongjoong's hand tightened around the edge of the seat today.

He was still caught in the haze of watching Seonghwa rehearse — of trying to separate what was objective from what was his, and struggling. As a director, he couldn’t ask for more. As a partner, he wanted the world to see what he saw. Not the small thing they had tried to make of Seonghwa — but the artist who had written his name in light, scene by scene.

And — what a privilege it was.

To witness this becoming.
To have seen him before the wings came in.
And still be here, now, as they opened wide.

A soft nudge broke through Hongjoong's thoughts.

“Joong,” Seonghwa said, barely above a whisper, just for him. If they hadn’t been surrounded by half the cast and crew, Hongjoong knew that call would’ve come with a kiss pressed gently to his cheek. “You spaced out again,” he teased, and Hongjoong blinked rapidly, the world snapping back into focus.

“Sorry,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair, trying to find where he’d left his clipboard. “Just thinking.”

Seonghwa tilted his head, smirking. “Was it bad? My part?”

Hongjoong turned to him — and though he tried for the neutral tone, the one he used to have as a director, his words came out a little too full. A little too fond.“No. It was…” he paused, eyes catching the white of Seonghwa’s costume again, the way it caught light like memory. “It was alive. You’re in control now. Your pacing, your transitions — they’re intentional. But it’s not forced. It’s instinctual.”

Seonghwa’s lips curved, but he didn’t interrupt. Hongjoong continued, quieter now.

“It’s strong work.'' Hongjoong's throat caught, but he masked it with a little shrug. ''I’m proud of you.”

A pause. Hongjoong looked down, suddenly aware of how close they were standing. The heat in his cheeks bloomed slow and unstoppable.

“I want to go out with you,” Seonghwa dropped it, voice firm but soft — as if the words had waited in his mouth all day.

Hongjoong’s brain short-circuited.

His ears flushed crimson before his thoughts could catch up, and his mouth moved like it had forgotten what language was. “You mean—like a date?” he asked, fingers jumping to scratch the back of his neck.

Seonghwa’s smile curved knowingly. “Not like a date. A date.”

Hongjoong opened his mouth — something like “me too,” or maybe “yes,” or maybe just a choked sound— what finally came out was: “But—uh, you know—we can’t really... right now. It’s not safe for us, for you.”

The moment hung in the space between them like a soft, delicate bubble.

But Seonghwa looked around them and when no one was watching he reached up to ruffle his hair with a grin, gentle and warm like spring. “I know, Joongie,” he said, and it made Hongjoong melt from the inside out. “I just wanted to say it. We’ll have the chance in the future.”

And that should have been it. Enough for now.

But Hongjoong just stared, brows pinched, eyes far off.

What he did when he was over thinking, brainstorming, calculating, planning.

Seonghwa leaned in, eyes still soft.“There you go again,” he murmured, affection buried in scolding. “That face.”

Hongjoong didn’t reply. But his hand, almost without thinking, found Seonghwa’s.

He didn’t squeeze. He didn’t speak.

He just held on.

***

Three days later.

Saturday Night.

 9.00 pm.

Hongjoong's apartment.

The first thing Seonghwa said after kissing him 'hello' as he stepped inside was: “God Hongjoong-ah! You live here?”

Hongjoong couldn’t help a high pitched laugh, “What were you expecting? A shack with ramen boxes on the floor?”

Seonghwa pursed his lips inside his mouth, trying not to laugh, “Yes, actually.”

Honjoong rolled his eyes with a smirk. Classic.

But this was the top floor of a quiet, older building — a studio-turned-loft with floor-to-ceiling windows, warm wood and moody lighting. His mum helped him with the down payment years ago. Hongjoong barely spoke of it. It felt like something he’d earned, not something to show off.

He watched Seonghwa’s gaze trace over the soft-lit bookshelves, the piano in the corner, the curated clutter.“You’re rich,” his eyes twinkled with mischief, “Like, secretly.”

A dismissive chuckle escaped Hongjoong's lips. “Don’t act like you’re not wearing an outfit that costs more than my fridge.”

Seonghwa, in fairness, was radiant. In a silken blouse in muted pewter — the kind that caught the light like water. Loose at the cuffs, soft and dramatic. Paired with pleated black trousers, narrow at the ankle, and a string of tiny pearls around his throat. Something old-Hollywood. Something fearless.

Something Hongjoong couldn’t stop looking at.

“Come,” he said in an effort to swallow his nerves. “The real surprise is outside.”

He opened the terrace door with one big move.

His rooftop terrace had been transformed for the night. A low table was set with linen, two plates already served — pasta, slightly clumsy yet edible. Candles flickered low. Pillows scattered in soft piles around the table. And above, the sky stretched clear and full.

“You cooked?!” Seonghwa exclaimed.

“Don’t act so shocked!”

“I just thought… takeout, maybe. Instant noodles with flair.”

“That was plan B,” Hongjoong's right foot tapped a quick rhythm against the floor, “But someone said he liked white wine, so I asked your besties and… well. The internet says Sauvignon Blanc is a good match for pesto pasta. Whatever.''

Seonghwa's face gleamed with the same excitement as a child seeing fireworks for the first time. Bambi eyes darted back on Hongjoong after taking in the dinner table.

Fuck, fuck, Hongjoong was so fucked.

''It's just– '' he turned his body away from the other and shoved his hands inside his pockets,''The other day you said you want to go out on a date, and–since we cannot, for the time being, I thought of making it an 'in and out' date night.''

Seonghwa tilted his head to the side, his expression went slack. “What?”

“Anyway! Let's just eat, okay? And if you mention this to Wooyoung you're dead to me!”

Hongjoong watched as Seonghwa’s lips parted, his eyes sparkling with something that made his heart tighten. It wasn’t just excitement—it was awe. Like he couldn’t believe Hongjoong had remembered at all.

And then, he smiled. Wide, toothy, and real.

It hit Hongjoong like a punch in the gut, the kind that ached and eased at the same time. Then a warmth blooming in his chest, knowing he had given Seonghwa that smile.

They ate slowly, knees bumping. Talking in circles. Seonghwa told him about a terrible audition once where he’d tripped over a chair and forgotten his lines. Hongjoong told him about the first short film he ever wrote —how it was supposed to come out as a tragedy but everyone who watched it claimed it was pure comedy (!)

Everything flowed easy, cozy.

Later, after they clumsily stacked the dishes to the sink — they returned and stayed on the pillows, backs pressed to the railing, legs outstretched.

The hum of traffic was distant, nothing above them but the faint outline of stars—and that one sharp trio of lights, aligned just so.

“That,” Hongjoong said, lifting a hand toward the sky, “is called a syzygy.” He let the word linger for a second, “It’s when three celestial bodies line up. This one’s rare — Venus, Mars, and the moon.”

He felt the small movement before he saw it. Seonghwa shifted beside him, slow and careful, then rested his chin lightly on Hongjoong’s shoulder to get a better look.

 “It only happens every… twenty-three years or something?” Hongjoong continued, softer now. He watched Seonghwa’s chest fall, his breath unspooling slowly, like a knot he hadn’t realized he’d tied.

“I didn’t know you knew this stuff,” he murmured eventually, his voice right by Hongjoong's ear.

Hongjoong shrugged one shoulder gently. “I had a phase, and a telescope. I like space. Geometry in chaos. That kind of thing.”

 “I used to memorize constellations in middle school.'' Seonghwa said after a while, almost as if the sky had pulled it out of him, ''But I didn’t tell anyone. Thought it made me sound like I wanted to be a poet.”

Hongjoong turned to look at him, but Seonghwa wasn’t looking back. He was still gazing upwards, like he’d forgotten where they were. His face was tilted, moonlight tracing the edge of his cheekbones, his lashes dark against his skin.“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Seonghwa’s answer came without hesitation. “Because it’s something I love. And when people have ruined the things you love… it sticks.”

Hongjoong didn’t say anything. He just reached up and took Seonghwa’s hand, the one that had been resting on the ledge, and held it between his own.

For a long time, they stayed like that. Watching a rare alignment of planets, saying nothing more.

When he turned his head to glance at Seonghwa, the other was already looking at him. And then — he leaned towards Hongjoong.

Soft, certain. A kiss. No hesitation. Just there.

Hongjoong’s breath caught in his throat — and then his hands found Seonghwa’s waist, tugging gently as their lips parted and came together again. Seonghwa’s fingers curled around his collar, pulling him even closer, bold tonight, like he was trying to show him something without breaking the spell with words.

It began to rain. Barely at first — a mist, then silver drops like static over the candles.

They pulled apart slowly, breath shallow, rain droplets glinting in their hair.

“We should go inside,” Hongjoong said, voice low.

Seonghwa nodded. And as they stepped inside, his hand lingered in Hongjoong’s.

*

The rain was tapping against the window of Hongjoong's bedroom like a hush, as if even the night knew something was shifting. The moonlight spilled across the room in silver-blue slants, tracing the curve of Hongjoong’s jaw and softening the edges of the intensity that always lived in his eyes.

His hands rested lightly on Seonghwa’s back now, thumbs drawing slow, steady circles through the thin fabric of his shirt. It was soothing. Reassuring. Like a pause between breaths.

But Seonghwa wasn’t here for another pause tonight.

He leaned in, hands sliding up to cradle the back of Hongjoong’s neck, pulling him closer until their mouths met again — firmer this time. There was no hesitation, no gentleness. Just a kiss that deepened fast, urgent. It was Seonghwa trying to speak without words. Like he needed Hongjoong to understand something he couldn’t say aloud. Hongjoong’s grip tightened around his waist in response, fingers digging in, his rings cold against the warmth of Seonghwa’s skin. The pressure made Seonghwa gasp into the kiss, the sensation threading heat low in his belly. His chest rose sharply, breath catching—

And then Hongjoong pulled back. Just slightly.

His lips ghosted along Seonghwa’s jaw, then down his neck — close enough to feel, but never quite touching. Hovering. Waiting. Like he was searching for the edge of control.

It left Seonghwa aching.

That doubt — the one that had been flickering in his chest for days — flared again. The way Hongjoong always paused. Always pulled back, like he didn’t trust the moment, like he wasn’t sure if it was time or if he should let it be.

“Hongjoong,” he whispered, his voice cracked at the edges. He reached out, fingertips brushing Hongjoong’s shoulder, “Please, don’t think. Just... don’t think.”

For a moment, Hongjoong’s gaze held something unreadable — a shadow of uncertainty.

But then it shifted to something close to accusation. Caught fire. His lips found Seonghwa’s neck again, open-mouthed now, pressing soft, claiming kisses to the hollow of his throat.

“You don't know how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmured, voice hoarse, dark with something tender and aching.

Seonghwa didn’t answer. He arched into the touch, tilting his chin to give more. To ask for more.

“…Prove it.”

Hongjoong pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. His smirk was slow, dangerous — like the spark at the end of a matchstick. He pressed their foreheads together, breathing hard, and then he kissed him again — deeper, fiercer. This time his teeth grazed Seonghwa’s bottom lip enough to draw a breathy sound from him, part sigh, part plea.“Tell me you want this,” Hongjoong asked, lips brushing his as he spoke, each word a gentle pressure.

“I do,” Seonghwa breathed, fingers threading into Hongjoong’s hair to bring him back down into another kiss, one that left them both dizzy.

Hongjoong shifted, his hands sliding to the small of Seonghwa's back, pulling him closer until their bodies fit without space between them. Seonghwa let himself sink back into the mattress behind them, the cotton sheets cool against his spine.

Clothes were lost somewhere in the shuffle of tangled limbs and rising heat. An urgent yet quiet unwrapping of something long awaited.

And then, Hongjoong’s mouth was everywhere on his skin — his tongue tracing slow, deliberate lines down Seonghwa’s chest, his lips brushing just shy of the sensitive spots before doubling back, teasing. Sometimes soft. Sometimes edged with teeth. It was reverent and hungry all at once, like Hongjoong wasn’t just kissing him, but studying him — tasting his reactions, collecting every shiver and gasp like secrets he intended to keep.

Seonghwa’s fingers curled in the sheets, his body arching instinctively into each touch. He felt cherished, undone in ways he hadn't imagined. And Hongjoong moved like he had all night to learn him — and maybe he did.

Because time felt strange now. Slow and heavy, like the room had melted around them and all that was left was breath and skin and the low, sighs of want between them.

Seonghwa was already flushed, trembling under the weight of it all, when Hongjoong kissed his hipbone, then the inside of his thigh. He burried his face between his legs for a while-and then moved back up — lips pressing into the hollow of his throat, then over his ribs, backtracking like he couldn’t help himself.

When he finally reached toward the nightstand, it felt like hours had passed — like Hongjoong had delayed it on purpose, like the buildup was part of the gift. Seonghwa’s chest rose in a sharp breath, his pulse fluttering at the base of his throat. The small sound of the drawer opening made something twist in his stomach.His skin was buzzing, every nerve lit and expectant.

The first press of Hongjoong's fingers was slow. Measured. Seonghwa's breath caught and a choked sound escaped his lips before he could swallow it. His hand found Hongjoong’s wrist—not to stop him, but to hold on. Just to feel him steady and real. And Hongjoong didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Because the pace had already said it all: I want you like this. I want to take my time.

And he made sure Seonghwa would open as he should around his touch — slow and unguarded. It became unmistakable in the way Seonghwa's breath stuttered but didn’t falter, after a good while, in how his hips tilted instinctively into Hongjoong’s hand, seeking more without shame. How his body was responding to every kiss, every whispered graze of skin- for what felt like an endless stretch of time.

And now, the warmth pooled low and steady in him, familiar and overwhelming all at once. Seonghwa's eyes were dark and glassy on him, and a quiet, needful sound escaped his throat. His face flushed, but he didn’t look away. And Hongjoong, ever attuned to him, pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth — gentle, grounding — like a reminder: I got you. I’m here. You’re mine.

He pushed slowly in and Seonghwa gasped — not from pain, but from the sheer feeling of it. Fullness. Presence.

It was more than he had braced himself for, but not more than he wanted.

Hongjoong moved with care at first, his hand steady on Seonghwa’s hip. He watched him closely, adjusting to his every shift, every breath. The rhythm built slow, patient. Their breaths tangled. The heat between them thickened with the sound of skin meeting skin, and soft, unfiltered sounds Seonghwa had never made before — sounds he never thought he’d let someone hear.

But he wanted Hongjoong to hear them, to know exactly how he was coming apart beneath him.

 “Hongjoong?” his legs curled tighter around Hongjoong’s waist, asking silently for more.Their eyes met — and Hongjoong didn’t look away either.

All it took was a nod from Seonghwa and he went harder. And harder. His gaze on Seonghwa dangerous, yet utterly devoted. Intent.

It was a burning fire, consuming and absolute.

His fingers splayed in a possessive, grounding grip in Seonghwa’s hips, like he never wanted to let go. Like he had finally let himself free too.

And Seonghwa gave himself to that fire. Every breath. Every sound. Every ache.

Because for once, he wasn’t afraid to burn.

*

Seonghwa lay quiet, eyes wide in the soft, muted dark.

Hongjoong’s breath now moved slow against his chest, warm and steady, like tide against the shore. One of Seonghwa’s hands rested beneath the covers, splayed gently across Hongjoong’s bare back; the other moved up, fingers carding slowly through the tangles of his hair.

Hongjoong looked peaceful like this. Unguarded in a way the world wouldn't see him.

''You’re still here,'' Seonghwa had said jokingly to him while they were still catching their breath, because he didn’t know how else to hold trust without making light of it.

''I’m not going anywhere,'' Hongjoong had replied, kissing the tip of Seonghwa's nose — and for once, the fear didn’t rush in after it.

Seonghwa didn’t know what he’d expected. Guilt? Fear? The panic of having crossed into something irreversible? But all he felt was a quiet certainty — like something inside him had clicked into place. Not because sex had changed anything. But because it had been theirs.

He brushed his thumb along Hongjoong’s temple.

He was careful. He made space. He waited.

There had been a moment — just before — when Seonghwa had looked into Hongjoong’s eyes and known, truly, that he could say no and nothing would shatter. That was what made it safe. Not the candles. Not the setting. But him.

The way Hongjoong was touching him like a secret, not a prize. The way he had listened everything, even without words.

Seonghwa never thought he could have this. Not in a way that felt like him.

He had spent so long building walls — around his body, his mind, his heart — afraid that anyone who got too close would find something terribly wrong. But Hongjoong stayed.

Seonghwa curled a little closer, pressing his lips into the crown of the other's hair. He smiled into the hush, just a little, as the first pink traces of dawn painted the corners of the room. Hongjoong shifted slightly in his sleep and Seonghwa stilled, then let his fingers resumed their path, light and careful.

Hongjoong, asleep in his arms. A heart beating slow against his ribs.

And a quiet truth whispered every time Hongjoong touched him: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Chapter Text

It had been a hard final week.

Production stress, the press run, last-minute rewrites. Hongjoong had been floating through his days with Seonghwa, half there and half somewhere else — a place full of worry and high walls.

Seonghwa let him. For a while.

But that afternoon, three days before the show, when he came over unannounced, unlocking the door with his own pair of keys–which Hongjoong buried in his hand the morning after their first time–with iced coffee and twinkling eyes, he found Hongjoong sitting on the kitchen floor.

Back against the cabinets, surrounded by crumpled script pages and cold food containers. His phone buzzed on the counter. He ignored it.

Seonghwa didn’t speak.

He sat down beside him. Crossed his legs. Waited.

“I can’t get the ending right,” Hongjoong whispered eventually. “I’ve rewritten it twelve times. It either feels fake or like I’m trying too hard to mean something.”

“You are,” Seonghwa said gently. “Trying too hard.”

That earned him a sharp glance. Slightly defensive, a little angry, mostly tired.

“I mean,” Seonghwa continued, brushing some paper aside so he could stretch out his legs, “you’re trying to prove your worth in every scene. Like your value only exists in the final product.”

Silence.

“But. . .I don’t love you because you write well,” Seonghwa added. “I love you, and your drafts, even when they're shit.”

Hongjoong laughed—sharp at first, then it softened, cracked open into something more sensitive.

There it was again...This warmth he wasn’t used to. He’d spent so long carrying everything on his own, certain that leaning on someone else was a sign of weakness. But Seonghwa’s words felt like a bridge, reaching across the gap he hadn’t known was there. Grounding him. Like maybe he didn’t have to always do it all by himself.

“Come here,” Seonghwa opened his arms, and Hongjoong let himself fall into them.

Just for a while.

And later, when Hongjoong finally stood up again, Seonghwa didn’t say: Finally, I was tired of sitting on the floor. He only said: ''Let’s make dinner. Something simple.''

As if sometimes saving someone meant reminding them they were already enough.

Making Hongjoong feel that it wasn’t just fate that brought them together — it was also choice.

And every time, even with everyone against them, he would still choose Seonghwa.

***

The theater pulsed like a living entity on the opening night.

Gold trim glinting under the house lights, velvet seats lined in perfect rows. The scent of perfume mingled with fresh programs and adrenaline. Ushers in tailored black suits guided people to their places, murmuring names and row numbers with practiced ease.

Seonghwa peeked out from the wings for a moment, heart thrumming not with nerves, but something steadier — anticipation. The rows were already filling. Some of the biggest names in the industry were there: idols, directors, public figures known for their aloofness now whispering with eager eyes. Famous faces, watching. Waiting.

The theater bells chimed — once, then again — the traditional warning that the show would begin in ten minutes. Low, musical tones that stirred something in Seonghwa’s chest.

Backstage there was controlled chaos around him — prop runners darting past, someone adjusting a mic pack, the faint static of headsets relaying cues from the booth. The crew was moving with the rhythm of a well-oiled machine, each minute rehearsed and accounted for.

But Seonghwa stood calm at the center of it all.

No shaking hands. No parched throat. His breath was even, deep. His body felt grounded. The kind of steady he never imagined possible before a show.

He’d eaten. A proper meal. Not a nervous nibble or a slice of dry toast. He’d laughed with Hongjoong and the others at lunch, chopsticks clacking and limbs tangled under the table. No stomach flips, no shaking knees.

He had never performed without hunger gnawing in the back of his mind — but tonight? His body felt like his. Fed, rested, whole.

He was ready.

He glanced toward the crowd again and smiled as he thought of the small chaos earlier.Introducing Wooyoung, San and Yeosang to each other for the first time. It had gone far better than expected. Wooyoung had lit up like he’d gained a new favorite plushie, immediately teasing Yeosang with exaggerated bows and playful questions. Yeosang had blushed from the ears down but didn’t retreat — not with San standing so close, an arm occasionally brushing protectively over Yeosang’s back. The chemistry was instant: Wooyoung’s fire meeting Yeosang’s gentleness and San’s quiet watchfulness making room for both. They were sitting together now — a loud, slightly chaotic row of support.

His gaze found Hongjoong then.

He moved like someone born for this space.

He paused at every cluster of actors with the same intense, focused kindness.

Whispering last-second notes:

“Remember your eyeline when you pivot — the light’s tighter in this scene.”

“Don’t rush the silence after your final line in act two. Let the breath land before the music rises.”

“Watch the tempo of your second entrance — sync with the underscoring.”

Little things. Precise things. But they carried weight — because they came from him.

And then he was in front of Seonghwa.

The air quieted. Just a little.

All eyes turned toward them, curious but pretending not to be.

They couldn’t hold each other, not here. Not now. But something passed between them — low voltage, like an invisible thread — and Seonghwa stood just a little taller. Hongjoong's voice was steady, soft but sure. “Your first turn, after the coat drops? Breathe into it. It’s not just movement. It’s the moment you become.”

Seonghwa nodded. He already knew. He’d been rehearsing that breath for weeks — the one that would send him flying.

“And the monologue,” Hongjoong added, a flicker of emotion crossing his face, “don’t deliver it to the audience. Deliver it to yourself.”

A pause.

“Break a leg, Duckling.” Hongjoong said with a half-curved smile, “You already broke my heart.”

And Seonghwa understood without needing explanation, because everything Hongjoong had never said aloud now rang clear in the space between them.

You already broke my heart, not in ruin. In opening.

The final bell rang — three long, resonant tones that echoed through the walls like thunder before a storm.

Seonghwa inhaled.

Tonight, he would burn bright.

A star not falling — but rising.

*

The curtain rose to darkness — and the sound of water.

A single spotlight spilled onto the stage, where Seonghwa stood alone at center, cloaked in a long grey coat feathered at the hem.

The soundscape built: distant wind, soft ripples, faint laughter far offstage. The world began to move around him — other performers passed by, colorful and confident, dressed as sleek swans in asymmetrical silhouettes. Their lines were sharp, their movements synchronized. And yet he did not belong to them. He stood on the bank, observing. A figure out of rhythm, his posture folded inward like a question he wasn’t allowed to ask.

Scene after scene, the stage transformed — reeds became mirror frames, fog became a ballroom. The ugly duckling wandered through them all. He was bumped, dismissed, ignored. Dancers in pristine white brushed past him, voices sharp like cut glass: “You don’t belong here.” “Why are you still here?”

But Seonghwa didn’t falter. His pain wasn’t loud — it moved. His hands trembled where others glided. His turns weren’t perfect, but they were true.

He spoke, the theater quieted like a heartbeat.“You kept telling me I was wrong. But I looked at my reflection, and I saw something else. I saw possibility.”

The metamorphosis began slowly — not with magic, but with courage.

The coat came off.

The music swelled, dissonant at first, then rising into something beautiful.

His solo choreography.

The once-drab sleeves fell away to reveal a soft white.

One swan stepped forward — not to mock, but to mirror him.

The scene turned. No longer was he apart from them. He was the story. He lifted his arms and spread them wide, and the movement was no longer small, no longer hesitant. It filled the entire stage.

In the wings, Hongjoong watched — not with nervousness, but devotion. This was the person he had once doubted, once ignored, once loved in silence.

Now performing the most honest truth Hongjoong had ever written. His masterpiece.

When Seonghwa fell to his knees — not in pain, but in grace, wings curved around him — the audience gasped. The lights dimmed to a soft blue shimmer, like morning breaking through mist.

“You didn’t see me when I needed it. Now I no longer need you to. I wasn’t born a swan. I was born seen too late.” Seonghwa existed alone. Not triumphant in a grand way. Just… at peace. Wounds and everything.

He reached out and gently touched his reflection in the mirror as the lights went down.

His pain wasn't erased now, but transformed.

Others telling him who he could and couldn't love,what he should want and shouldn't want, who he could and couldn't be. People laughing when he claimed his reflection. Giving him crumbs of validation after pulling him apart. Seonghwa fought. Quietly–decently– but he fought and he won.

The play was coming to its end and he walked slowly to center stage.

A hush fell. Then, the monologue began.His voice was mellow as always, but grounded — he wasn’t performing it, he was living it.

"They looked at me and laughed. But I wasn’t performing sadness. I wasn’t sculpting my softness into something you could consume. I wasn’t asking for pity. I wasn’t trying to be beautiful. I was just trying to be..."

He paused — as if he wanted them to feel the silence. Then his eyes rose — steady, unblinking: “...Enough.”

A beat. He walked forward.

He turned slightly towards the audience, his gaze sweeping over the sea of faces,“I was surviving. I am surviving.”

The stage dimmed around him, the light shrinking until only he remained in its glow.“You laughed because it was easier than looking,” Seonghwa's gaze didn’t waver once, “Because maybe what you saw in me made something ache in you. Something you buried. Something feathered and small and breathing.”

Then he stepped closer to the edge of the stage — not far, but just enough. Just enough to make it feel personal.

“You’re looking at me now.” He whispered, but it pierced.

And then, a swell of light — not white, but golden. Soft. Like the warmth of dawn.

Hongjoong's hands ached from being clenched too long.

The moment the Duckling became the Swan wasn’t grand. It was–subtle.In the curve of Seonghwa’s spine as he stood tall. In the stillness after.

In the way the audience leaned forward, with their eyes wet, without even knowing they did–right before the applause rolled through the theater like a seismic wave, a thunderous, unstoppable roar that shook the very walls.

Hongjoong felt it buzzing in his throat. And he knew — everyone saw what he had seen all along.

He was left standing frozen for the first time that night — eyes glassy.  Because that line? It felt as if it was meant for him.

*

The theater was still echoing with clapping despite the fact that curtain had fallen — a thunderous, living thing that seemed to rattle the bones of the theatre itself.

The actors began to scatter after the last bow, breaking into celebration. Cast members were hugging, crying. Someone threw flowers. Staff filtered into the wings to wrangle cables and clear props.  The stage crew buzzing.

Hongjoong was still standing at the very edge of the backstage area, his headset still slung around his neck, half in shadow, half in stage light. Still frozen. Not clapping. He watched.

He’d done his part. Every cue. Every transition. Every breath the story took tonight had been shaped by hands he trusted, by voices he guided. But now, he just wanted to see him.

And there he was.

Seonghwa stood in the middle of the stage, light catching in his hair, white costume glowing like it had been spun from wind. His chest was rising and falling. Adrenaline still visibly humming under his skin.

Yunho’s arm found its way around his waist. They laughed. Another actor clapped Seonghwa’s back. He accepted it with that same graceful smile he gave the world.

But Hongjoong recognized something in the slant of his eyes. The way they scanned the edges of the backstage area. Looking.

And then, Seonghwa saw him. They locked eyes. The noise faded — not really, but for Hongjoong it might as well have. Just a wall of warm sound behind the crash of something quiet and certain inside him. Seonghwa’s smile changed. Subtle. Less performative. More real.

And then, despite Yunho’s hand still resting loosely around him, Seonghwa stepped away. No explanation. He walked straight toward the wings. Straight toward him.

Hongjoong 's heart was rising up to his throat. Every rule they’d followed, every moment they’d forced distance — it crumbled more and more beneath Seonghwa’s feet with every step closer. Hongjoong's eyes stopped at the other's curled fists and he knew he felt the same. This time Seonghwa's hands were shaking from holding back from him. From them. They should have been able to crush each other in their arms. They should have been able to kiss.

 He opened his mouth — then closed it again.

“Hongjoong-ah?” Seonghwa's voice was cautious. Hongjoong didn't know what Seonghwa saw on his face.

“...Those lines.” Hongjoong finally managed to utter and stepped forward, his own voice low, dazed.

“They weren’t in the script. I know.'' Seonghwa shrunk a little, ''I just... It felt right. I’m sorry if—”

“Say them again.” Hongjoong cut in, his eyes burning— not angry, just wrecked.

“What?” Seonghwa muttered confusion clouding his eyes,

“Right now. Say them again.”

"I–I– wasn’t trying to be–beautiful...''Seonghwa said gently, unsure, ''I was just trying to be enough."

Hongjoong closed his eyes. His breath caught in his throat.Seonghwa went on softly, as if he was noticing his struggle,"I was surviving. I am surviving."

“Do you even understand the duckling?''

“...Just someone who thinks sadness will make people clap.”

Seonghwa insisted to these same words Hongjoong once tried to silence. That had now become the very thing that silenced the room. Because survival didn't need to roar. Sometimes, it just needed to stand there, unashamed. And Seonghwa didn’t play the role. He became it — not as the character written by someone else, but as himself, stepping forward inside the costume, elevating the ending.“…That’s what you were trying to say. That day, in the rehearsal.” Hongjoong finally uttered.

Seonghwa nodded with a little pained smile, his voice barely above a whisper, “You didn’t let me.”

Hongjoong stepped even closer––impossibly close when everyone was around them, throwing at them occasional suspicious gazes.

“I didn’t let myself.” Hongjoong said hoarse, ashamed.

Then movement broke the moment.

Hands grabbed at Seonghwa—arms slung over his shoulder, shouts of: “You fucking did it!” and “He killed it!” as if they had always believed.

 Applause burst around him again, smaller and messier this time, but no less loud. Someone tugged him toward the mirrored dressing room. Another flung a scarf around his neck like it was a prize.

Seonghwa turned back toward Hongjoong for half a second, offering a soft, lopsided smile—I’m sorry—before he was swept away again.

They told him how he proved he was the main lead tonight.

That no one else could’ve done it like him.

That he had “the kind of presence you can’t teach.”

How The Duckling was tailor made of him

But Hongjoong noticed—how none of it landed.

How Seonghwa smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. How his shoulders tensed slightly with every compliment, not out of pride, but restraint.

And it should feel good, right? It’s what he wanted before — to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be taken seriously in his connection to something that mirrored his soul. But Hongjoong could see it in Seonghwa's expression how he accessed all these words as simply: performative. Because instead of them being rooted in genuine respect, they felt rooted in:

“Let me say what you probably want to hear.”

“I’ll flatter you so you like me.”

“You won, here’s your trophy.”

There was no honoring of his truth all this time—there was just resistance, and now reluctant surrender. And Seonghwa didn't seem willing to forgive on command, and he wasn't trying to make them feel comfortable. It made Hongjoong's chest swell with pride.

And then—

“Make way for genius!” Wooyoung yelled, bursting in with San behind him, both wielding a chaotic, half-wrapped bouquet of marigolds like a trophy. “Don’t cry, Hwa. Unless you want to. Then we’ll cry with you too.”
“Speak for yourself,” San muttered, though he was already misty-eyed, his arm sliding protectively around Seonghwa’s back as he nudged the bouquet into his hands.

Laughter. Screaming. People getting changed half-dressed, popping open bottles someone definitely wasn’t supposed to bring. Costume pieces on the floor, tech crew yelling across the room for equipment returns. Someone had turned on music too loud and a group was already dancing in socked feet. Everyone buzzing for the after party, faces glowing with post-show adrenaline.

And through it all, Hongjoong stood quietly near the edge of the backstage chaos, headset long forgotten in his back pocket. Watching.

The director appeared beside him first, drink already in hand. “You pulled it off,” he said. “No. You elevated it. That final mirror sequence—genius.”

The choreographer followed with a slap on the back and a bright, “It was tight. Emotionally disciplined. Cinematic. You’ve got a wicked eye, Hongjoong-nim!”

Hongjoong smiled back, automatic. “Wouldn’t have landed without your vision,” he said smoothly. “You carved out the structure. I just filled in the space.”

Polite. Respectful. Flattering in all the right ways. But his heart wasn’t in it.

Because as they spoke, his eyes lingered. Not on the bouquets. Not on the noise.

On Seonghwa, across the room. Laughing now—real this time—head tipped back as San mussed his hair and Wooyoung tied one of the stage ribbons around his wrist like a charm.

Hongjoong’s gaze held there, soft and unmoving, like gravity had chosen where to pull him. No matter how loud the room got, it was still only Seonghwa he was listening to.

*

The stage is empty now.

Two figures are still there.

As they have always been.

Wooyoung, San and Yeosang had just left 'for a triple date' San said, and wouldn't go back home until Hongjoong and Seonghwa joined them later for 'one drink minimum' as Wooyoung demanded.

Seonghwa's legs ached, his chest still cracked open from the performance—but he felt calm. Raw and a little numb, but not broken.

His lips still tingled from the taste of him, as he sat next to Hongjoong in the front row, their shoulders pressed together just enough to look like colleagues—a director and his main lead actor. Professional. Unassuming.

But his mind was still reeling from what had happened just minutes ago.

Everyone was still boiling among the chaos backstage, the rush of costumes and props, congratulations and tears, people darting past in a blur of euphoria.

Seonghwa met Hongjoong’s eyes—steady, dark with something that burned low. No words. Just a silent agreement. Seonghwa had felt it in his chest, like the rush of adrenaline before a leap.

The door of the bathroom had barely closed behind him before Hongjoong was on him—rough and unstoppable, pushing him inside the closest cabin–the door banging shut, lock sliding with a finality that made Seonghwa’s pulse jump.

Hongjoong’s hands gripped his waist, pressing him into the cool wall. “Hongjoong-ah—” he had gasped, but the words were swallowed by lips that wrapped him up like a storm rolling in hungry, urgent, and far down.

 The kind of kiss that left no doubt where they stood, even if the world couldn’t know.

When they parted, reluctantly, breathless, Hongjoong’s forehead rested against his. “Congratulations, Seonghwa-ssi.” He whispered, voice low and hoarse. Then his signature smirk.

It was such a small word and the only congratulations that mattered to Seonghwa. Not the applause backstage, not the polite smiles from strangers. Only this—Only Hongjoong.

Their eyes were locked, burning, unwavering —and Hongjoong went on, “The first time I presented this playwright, I said it is my pride. After tonight, it’s our pride.”

Seonghwa’s heart had nearly burst inside his chest.

Even now, sitting side by side like mere professionals, his heart wouldn’t stop racing.

Because no matter how many people were in that theater, it was Hongjoong who had seen every inch of him—his pain, his triumph, his everything.

Next to him, Hongjoong sat unusually still, hands resting on his knees, his profile lit by the fading glow of the stage lights. His jaw was slack, like he’d forgotten how to hold it tight. His eyes didn’t move—they stayed fixed on the empty stage, like it was still holding something only he could see.

There was a quiet furrow in his brow, not confusion, but awe, like he was trying to make sense of something that had split him open from the inside.

“You performed like fire and heartbreak combined,” Hongjoong said quietly, like the words cost him something.

Seonghwa’s smile bloomed, slow and disbelieving, his shoulders sinking an inch like he could finally let go of the weight he’d been carrying.

He shifted slightly and placed something on the seat beside him—a single white feather from his costume. He set it down like it meant something more than fabric and glue. Like it was a piece of what had been shed.

“It was your writing,” Seonghwa said softly. “It always made me feel like… it was written for me.”

Hongjoong let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “But… I didn’t write it for you.”

Seonghwa looked up, confused.

“I mean—the part. The Duckling,” Hongjoong went on, voice lower now, each word measured. “When I was working on the adaptation, I didn’t know it’d be you. I didn’t want it to be you, even after we started talking. Because if it was you—then I’d have to look at everything I’ve been avoiding.”

Seonghwa’s expression didn’t shift, but Hongjoong could feel the question waiting in the quiet.

“Like what?” Seonghwa finally asked, voice calm but steady—too steady.

Hongjoong looked away, jaw tight. “How much I saw myself in you,” he said after a long moment. “And how angry that made me. I thought if I could push you away, I could push that part of me away too.”

Silence settled between them. Not awkward—just full. Something spacious enough for both of them to breathe in.

“You made the role yours,” Hongjoong continued, voice hoarse. “You weren’t performing. You bled for it. I’ve watched you give everything—bravely, beautifully. And it made me realize I’ve never let myself feel that deeply about anything.”

He finally turned his head and met Seonghwa’s eyes, the harsh light of the stage making the shimmer in them unmistakable.

“You shouldn’t have had to prove you were enough,” he said. “Not to them. Not to me. Not to anyone.”

Seonghwa swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to win,” he whispered. “I just didn’t want to be laughed at for trying. I was so tired of constantly having to earn space.”

“I know.” Hongjoong’s lips trembled. “And I’m sorry.”

Seonghwa blinked quickly, trying to hold himself together, but the ache behind his eyes was swelling. “Please, don’t look away this time.”

And Hongjoong didn’t. His gaze stayed locked on Seonghwa’s, open and raw.

They held that gaze, neither of them trying to hide. No distance left to retreat into. No audience. Only them two, stripped down to nothing but honesty.

No masks. No stage.

*

As the last of the theater crowd began to spill into cars and cabs, Seonghwa stepped outside with Hongjoong beside him, both of them wrapped in dark coats, their hair still carrying the scent of stage fog and powder.

The after party was still swelling inside — voices raised, glasses clinking, laughter that felt just a little too rehearsed.

Seonghwa pulled out his phone to call San.

“Hyung!” San answered almost immediately, voice bright through the speaker. “Don’t tell me you’re still at the after party. Is it weird? Wooyoung says it must be weird.”

“It’s... loud,” Seonghwa said, glancing toward the theater doors. He caught Hongjoong’s eye. “Are you guys still out?”

There was a pause on the line, a rustle of movement, someone — probably Wooyoung — yapping in the background. “Where should we meet?”

“The café near the river?”

“Perfect. We’re close. Wooyoung says he’s in charge of picking the vibe tonight.”

Seonghwa chuckled softly. “Of course he is.”

He hung up and looked to Hongjoong, who was already watching him with that faint, knowing smile.

“They’re on their way,” Seonghwa said, slipping his phone into his coat pocket.

“Good,” Hongjoong replied. “I didn’t want to toast with anyone else.”

The pavement was still slick with rain, city lights blooming in every puddle like little pools of stars.

Seonghwa walked beside Hongjoong. His shoes clicked softly on the stone — polished black leather to match his wide-legged trousers. His blazer was dove gray with a satin lapel, open at the collar, where a single silver chain glinted under the streetlamps. Next to him, Hongjoong looked devastating — in a deep navy suit with a black turtleneck, his hair pushed back, eyes still outlined from the stage, though a little smudged now.

They looked as if they had stepped out of a magazine — a little too composed for how late it was, but neither of them felt tired. Not in the way that mattered.

Seonghwa’s heart was full. He could still hear the applause, see the standing ovation, feel the sting in his eyes when the curtain fell and the lights went to black. The moment kept replaying in soft flashes — his final pose, Hongjoong’s hand between his shoulder blades before he stepped onstage, the marigolds, the warmth in Yunho’s voice. For the first time after a show, he didn’t feel hollowed out.

He felt… real. Present.

“Are you ready?” Seonghwa asked as they approached the corner where the others said they’d be waiting.

Hongjoong tilted his head, smiling. “For what?”

“Meeting these clowns. They’ve had three drinks each, Sannie texted me. Possibly four in Wooyoung’s case.”

Hongjoong laughed under his breath, just as San’s voice echoed from across the road: “There they are! The stars of the night!”

The three of them were gathered under a café awning — Yeosang looking half-asleep with his cheeks flushed pink, San holding an umbrella that he clearly wasn’t using, and Wooyoung leaning dramatically against the wall like he was in a noir film.

“Look at you two!” Wooyoung gasped, sweeping his arms. “Who let you leave the theatre like this? You could’ve started a riot.”

“Shouldn't we?” Hongjoong replied dryly, but his smirk melted when Yeosang shyly handed Seonghwa a tiny bouquet of lavender and said, “You were amazing. Really.”

They debated for a few minutes where to go — Yeosang mumbled about bubble tea, Wooyoung voted for soju and skewers, San insisted they needed something "celebratory but chill."

“How about the jazz bar?” Hongjoong offered casually. “The one Yeosang and I like. Near the bookstore.”

There was a pause.

Seonghwa wrinkled his nose. “Please no. I really can’t stand jazz right now.”

“You can’t stand jazz?” Hongjoong turned like Seonghwa had just admitted he was gambling in secret. ''Tonight? or in- in general?!''

 “I thought you knew,” Seonghwa said with mock offense.

''First fight.'' San snorted. ''Over Miles Davis.”

“Tragic,” Wooyoung deadpanned. “The beginning of the end.”

They ended up at a little Korean gastropub with warm lighting and a quiet corner booth, tucked away from the bustle of the street. Seonghwa sat between San and Hongjoong, Yeosang across from them with Wooyoung, already nibbling on pickled radish.

The conversation flowed easily — teasing, recounting moments from the show, San mimicking some of the backstage chaos making Yeosang and Wooyoung wheeze with laughter.

At some point, Wooyoung leaned across the table and smirked at Hongjoong and Seonghwa, a devilish light in his eyes. “So...From what I've gathered, you two heading back to Joongie’s place tonight?”

Seonghwa coughed into his drink. “What?”

Wooyoung winked. “You probably need some privacy to be extra naughty after a show like that, right?”

Hongjoong, for once, was the one blushing. “You need to stop watching dramas, Wooyoung.”

Yeosang raised a brow. “He probably doesn’t even watch them. He is the drama.”

But Seonghwa just laughed and let his fingers brush against Hongjoong’s under the table, a silent answer.

The night ended with promises to meet again soon, with hugs and cheeky goodbyes, and then the two of them slipped into the quieter streets again, walking side by side.

They didn’t speak much. There was no need.

By the time they reached Hongjoong’s apartment, Seonghwa felt the day settle around him like a soft cloak. As they stepped inside, the door clicking quietly shut behind them Hongjoong leaned in. Slowly. Not grabbing or rushing. Just leaning, with every breath asking permission.

And Seonghwa met him there.

When their lips touched, it was something tender. The kind of kiss that didn’t demand, but offered.

“Welcome home.”

And Seonghwa smiled.  

Chapter Text

After the opening night, everything blurred into motion — but not chaos.

There was a rhythm to it now, a current Seonghwa learned how to swim in.

The show was set to run for the next eight weeks, with performances four nights a week and two weekend matinees. Between shows, there were press conferences, radio interviews, promo clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and content for the production’s SNS platforms. The theater team moved like clockwork — the creative director, the cast, the crew — and Seonghwa now stood at the center of it with confidence.

Him and Hongjoong were still careful in public. There were too many eyes, and the stakes were high. But that didn’t stop Hongjoong from showing he cared.During press conferences, the other would nudge his knee against Seonghwa’s beneath the table. Not obviously — just enough to say I’m here. When Seonghwa secretly reached for Hongjoong’s drink — always something medium sweet like strawberry lemonade — there was no protest, only the slight curve of a smile that made Hongjoong's eyes soften.

Once, after an exhausting round of interviews, Seonghwa had curled up on the couch in the dressing room and accidentally fallen asleep. When he woke up, there was a familiar black coat draped over his body, and Hongjoong’s script folder left neatly beside him.

There were no sticky notes anymore. No corrections in the margins. Just one, small sentence on the first page:
You were bright today.

Sometimes they still sat on the edge of the empty stage after everyone had cleared out, the afterglow of applause still humming in the walls. Their legs would dangle, not quite touching, but close enough.

The silence between them never awkward. It was fluent. It said everything that didn’t need saying.

Seonghwa remembered thinking once — long before all of this — that he’d never be the reason people clapped for.

He remembered the whispers behind curtains, the snide remarks, the 'jokes', the sideways glances from his castmates. The way some of them refused to meet his eyes offstage, or only acknowledged him when they had to. The cruel words, the silence that followed, the way it all chipped away at him, slowly.

But the applause didn’t frighten him anymore. It didn’t feel like a lie or a fluke.

Now, as the curtain prepared to rise for another show, Seonghwa stood in the wings, his mic fitted, his costume crisp in ivory white.

He caught Hongjoong’s eyes across the black expanse of backstage. A small nod. A small smile.

This was their rhythm now — art and affection, knitted together by something stronger than either of them had words for.

Seonghwa wasn’t just playing the main lead anymore.

He was finally living like one.

***

One month and 26 days later.

The train hummed beneath them — a soft, lulling rhythm that vibrated through the soles of Seonghwa’s sneakers and up through his chest. The early morning sun stretched across the windows, casting light on Hongjoong’s face where it rested, sleeping quietly on Seonghwa’s shoulder, his breath warm against the collar of Seonghwa’s shirt.

Outside, the scenery had changed gradually— concrete giving way to green, then deepening to coastal blue. Hills rolled by, dotted with clusters of quiet houses, and some occasional bursts of yellow flowers leaning gently against the wind.

They were getting closer.

Seonghwa kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, fingers idly brushing the back of Hongjoong’s hand. He felt soft and small beside Seonghwa — not commanding attention the way he did in rehearsals or on stage. A version of Hongjoong only reserved for the quiet moments, for the in-between, for him.

Seonghwa looked at him now — head tilted gently on his shoulder, lips parted, lashes like ink smudges against his skin — and something in his chest folded in on itself, then opened again like a tide pulling back. He thought of how indifferent Hongjoong always seemed when people praised him. All the compliments, the interviews, the curtain call claps — they bounced off him like rain on steel. He’d nod politely, maybe offer a half-smile if someone had worked especially hard for his attention, but nothing lingered.

But when he praised him — when Seonghwa told him that a particular line he wrote had shattered him, or that a directorial choice had been genius, or that he moved like someone born for the stage — something would change. Just slightly, but unmistakably. A dimple would bloom. His lips would part, like he wanted to argue the compliment, deflect it — but then he wouldn’t. He’d just look at Seonghwa, as if those words landed somewhere deeper. As if they lingered.

Day by day he was getting to see more and more of Hongjoong as a person. And Seonghwa loved it. The way he carried the weight and still walked upright. The way he noticed everything, even the silences. The way he never demanded attention but always earned it in a natural–almost magnetic way.

And now they were going to Hongjoong’s childhood streets. To the ocean he talked about in metaphors when he thought no one was listening. To the corner shops, the little theater and bookstores, the night stalls and the markets. To his family.

Seonghwa wanted to see all of it.

A small lurch in the train’s movement signaled the final stretch, the announcement already humming. Seonghwa smiled, then turned his head, gently brushing his lips against Hongjoong’s temple.

“We’re here,” he whispered.

Hongjoong stirred, a groggy sound caught in his throat, eyes blinking open like a cat disturbed from her perfect sun-soaked sleep.

“Busan?” he murmured, voice husky.

Seonghwa nodded, smiling as their fingers found each other’s without thought.

“Busan.”

*

The hotel they checked into was like something out of a movie. Exactly how Hongjoong imagined it.

Marble floors that gleamed, floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto the sea, chandeliers that dripped light over the check-in desk like liquid gold.

He couldn’t help but glance at Seonghwa, half-worried he’d find it too much, too showy. He’d booked it because he wanted this trip to feel different, like something neither of them had ever dared to ask for.

And if he was being honest, he liked the idea of Seonghwa—being treated like this.

He carried both their suitcases, even though Seonghwa protested. Hongjoong handed them off to the bellhop with a quiet nod, feeling absurdly old-fashioned. And later, when he pulled out Seonghwa’s chair at the breakfast hall, it felt cliché in a way he would normally hate.

But it felt instinctive. Like something he would always do.

Seonghwa was usually pouting at first with such gestures, but at the same time he would smile and blush, a little pink high on his cheekbones, as if he could hardly believe he deserved this kind of treatment. That made something in Hongjoong’s chest flutter and ache. And he found himself wanting to give him more—always more.

They sat by the window, sunlight pooling on the table, breakfast spread out before them in an arrangement that looked like an art exhibit: pastries, fruit, yogurt, eggs, everything too perfectly arranged.

“I shouldn’t have let you book the hotel,” Seonghwa muttered, his fork poking at a slice of melon.

Hongjoong’s lips curved, half-amused. “This is my hometown, and I didn’t ask for your permission anyway,” he reminded him, biting into a croissant.

Seonghwa huffed, still looking down at his plate. “How much money exactly do you have to spare?”

Hongjoong’s eyes danced. “Just stop nagging and enjoy the perks of having a successful partner, Seonghwa-ya.”

The words hung in the air and Seonghwa’s eyes widened, mouth opening in a small, stunned ‘o.’

Probably because it was the first time Hongjoong had said it out loud — the word partner. But for Hongjoong, it had always been obvious — from that very first kiss in the hospital, when every wall he’d built up had crumbled and Seonghwa had been there to catch him and hold him.

Seonghwa’s lips curved, slow and shy. “Yes… okay.”

Hongjoong reached over and brushed his thumb across Seonghwa’s wrist with his standard smirk, “Good.” He reached for the platter of eggs, scooping an extra helping onto Seonghwa’s plate, even though Seonghwa waved his hand and muttered something.

“Eat more,” Hongjoong insisted, his voice half-scolding but warm.

Seonghwa gave him a look, but didn’t argue further. He started picking at the food, a small smile lingering on his lips.

They both picked up their phones, scrolling quietly between bites — a rhythm they had fallen into so easily. In this moment, with plates half-eaten and fingers swiping across screens, there was no pressure to fill the silence.

Just their simple, comfortable togetherness.

'Pfff, look at this,'' Hongjoong grumbled.

He turned the screen of his phone to Seonghwa, to show him a post one of the duckling girls shared on Instagram. It was a dump of rehearsal photos, ending with one of their final bow at the premiere. With a long caption, describing the play's journey. Hongjoong watched Seonghwa reading aloud the last line, amused: But the greatest applause should be given to Park Seonghwa, the main lead–OUR main lead–with all the essence of the word.

Hongjoong scoffed.

''Finally, I got approved by the high council,'' Seonghwa laughed with his heart now, almost unable to catch his breath, ''Good for me!''

But Hongjoong was still annoyed, ''There's no one who loves this story more than you. All these shitheads thought it was funny. But the way you performed in the end? It felt like you were haunting them back.''

''Look at you––defending me after nearly a decade and spilling poetry for breakfast,'' Seonghwa giggled while pouring more orange juice in his glass.

''Would you have let me defend you sooner?''

''Of course not,''

''Then?'' Hongjoong pouted looking at the sea outside the window, ''You're such a brat sometimes, Park Seonghwa,''

''And you're a hopeless romantic Kim Hongjoong,'' Seonghwa mimicked his tone.

''Pffff, Romance is currency in our field. It doesn't mean anything.'' Hongjoong dismissed him cutting on his omelet as if it was his sworn enemy, 'hopeless romantic he says,' he mumbled taking a bite, and Seonghwa nodded okay and looked away, pursing his lips inside his mouth.

“So, what have you planned for us?” he exclaimed after a while as if he had almost forgotten, “You said it would be a surprise until we got here—now spill!” he leaned forward with a grin.

Hongjoong grinned back, feeling that little thrill that came from seeing the other so animated. He’d been planning this trip for weeks, quietly lining up all the things he guessed would make Seonghwa light up even more.

They’d spent the first day wandering through Busan’s old streets, stopping by the colorful Gamcheon Culture Village. Seonghwa was glowing with excitement, snapping photos of every mural and quirky art installation. He’d rocked back and forth on his heels at the view from the observatory, eyes wide as a kid’s, clutching Hongjoong’s hand like he couldn’t believe they were really there.

On the second day, they’d taken the train down the coastline, Hongjoong smirking as Seonghwa nearly bounced in his seat with anticipation. The rhythm of the tracks, the shifting scenery—it was simple but Seonghwa had loved every second.

They had eaten at different street food markets, laughed over seed-filled pancakes, and stayed out late watching the city lights flicker on the water.

And now, the third day after breakfast, it was beaches tour day. Hongjoong decided they would start with his favorite: Songjeong Beach. It wasn’t the flashiest, but it was the one that felt most like home to him—small cafés with handwritten menus, surfers wading out with boards tucked under their arms.

He had always loved the way the tide came in slow, like it was asking permission to touch the shore.

And yet, after the first ten minutes of them peacefully walking across it, Hongjoong found himself sitting on this specific shore, grumbling and throwing little rocks into the water as if it had personally offended him.

He didn’t care that Yunho had just video-called Seonghwa.

Not at all.

Every rock hit the water with a satisfying plop.

It was fine. Really.

Seonghwa was holding his phone out to catch the surf and the sky. “No, no, look at this,” he said brightly, voice muffled by the wind. “This beach is so pretty!”

“Yeah, yeah, I see it,” Yunho’s deep voice came through the speaker. “But seriously, Hwa, did you drag sunbae with you there?”

Seonghwa laughed, head thrown back, hair mussed by the breeze. “I didn't drag him! It was his idea! He’s here somewhere,” he said, glancing and winking toward Hongjoong, but not pointing the camera at him.

“Oh come on, show me the great Hongjoong-sunbaenim in his hometown!” Yunho teased.
“Let’s not ruin the mystery,” Seonghwa smirked. “And! Look at this seashell, it’s shaped like a little ear—how weird is that?”
Hongjoong made a face and hurled another rock.
“Yeah, show him the seashell. Not the boyfriend,” he muttered under his breath.

The call ended after a while and Seonghwa wandered back, tucking his phone into his pocket and plopping down next to him on the sand.

“You know,” Seonghwa began, teasing, “Yunho just got together with his best friend after years of pining. That famous rapper, Mingi?”

Hongjoong’s head whipped around, eyes wide. “What? Since when?!”

“Just a few weeks ago. Romantic, isn't it?”

Hongjoong’s jaw hung open in surprise. “Jeong Yunho? With–Mingi? Holy s—”

He exhaled, then felt something inside him settle a little.

Yunho was too busy with Mingi to worry about Seonghwa like that maybe...Probably.

''Joongie..." Seonghwa started but Hongjoong beat him to it.

“I know! I know I act like a jerk okay? And yet. . .I’m glad you–you had Yunho to lean on,” he admitted, voice quieter now, eyes on the horizon. “When I…when I wasn’t around. I’m grateful to him.”

Seonghwa’s hand found his, fingers warm. “You’re here now," he murmured, voice a bit unsteady, "That’s all I ever wanted.” He bumped their foreheads softly, like a cat nudging affection, then pressed a kiss to Hongjoong’s lips — quiet, grateful.

They stood like that for a while, letting the rhythm of the waves speak where words couldn’t.

Then, after a stretch of quiet, Hongjoong spoke again.
“You look happier by the sea,” he said, watching the way the late-morning light danced in Seonghwa’s eyes, catching like tide glass — delicate, gleaming.

Seonghwa turned to him, the wind ruffling through his hair.
“You’re not the only one who loves the ocean, you know,” he said, beaming. “My hometown is by the sea too.”

But as he spoke, something flickered across his face — distant and thoughtful.
“Summer evenings and the sea were the only things I really enjoyed as a kid. No one would make me study things I didn’t care about, or expect me to act like a miniature adult.”

A tightness crept into his voice, the edges of his smile turning brittle. It was almost too subtle to notice — but Hongjoong felt it like a thread pulled taut.
“You could just play,” he offered softly.

Seonghwa nodded. “Yes,” he whispered.

Hongjoong felt it once again — the weight Seonghwa had carried for so long, hidden beneath practiced poise and pretty smiles.
Someday, he wanted to make sure Seonghwa never had to carry any of it alone again.
Ever again.
Officially.

But the words stayed in his throat. Not because they weren’t true, but because he didn’t want to press more expectations onto a heart that had already borne too many.

So instead, he squeezed Seonghwa’s hand — firm, steady — and let the sea breeze carry the promise for him.

***

The next day came and Hongjoong didn’t know what to expect, exactly.

He’d texted his mother that morning — Coming over with Seonghwa — but he hadn’t explained.

He only hoped she wouldn’t do, or say anything too embarrassing.

Not that she’d been a bad mother — she’d always been warm, supportive, even when her passion for acting could fill a room like a never-ending monologue.

She met them at the door with a bright smile, arms open. “Hongjoongie! There you are!” she exclaimed, pulling Hongjoong in for a hug that squeezed a small, startled laugh out of him. Then she turned to Seonghwa. “You must be Seonghwa. I’ve heard and read so much about you — welcome, darling,” she said, giving him a warm hug too.

Hongjoong caught the way Seonghwa’s cheeks went pink, and he had to fight a smile of his own.

He wondered if his mother could sense it — the shift in Hongjoong's voice, the way Seonghwa’s eyes kept finding his, a softness that hadn’t been there before. Does she know?

Before he could think more about it, Jongho appeared — taller than he remembered, though still carrying that clipped, stubborn look that ran in their family. His hair was mussed from rehearsal, and his grin was sharp. “Hyung,” he said, clapping Hongjoong on the shoulder.

“Hey, kid,” Hongjoong said, and felt a wave of pride. Jongho had always been a little savage, sharp-tongued, but he’d grown into his own strength.

Their mother beamed at Seonghwa. “Our Jongho is an opera singer,” she said proudly ignoring Jongho's muffled 'mum, stop,'

Seonghwa’s eyes widened. “That’s incredible.”

She laughed and fixed a pillow next to her. “You see, neither of them followed me into acting,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “In the beginning, it was a little hard for me to accept, but then I realized  it’s not about me. It’s about letting them find what makes them happy, even if it’s a different stage.”

Hongjoong’s chest warmed.

They sat down to lunch — a spread of rice, banchan, and grilled fish — and Hongjoong felt Seonghwa’s hand brush his under the table, a small, secret touch that made him smile.

Halfway through, Jongho fixed his sharp eyes on Hongjoong and asked, “So. How long have you two been together?”

Hongjoong nearly choked, coughing hard enough to make Seonghwa reach over and hit his back, looking both amused and worried, pushing a glass of water in front of him. “Are you okay?” he murmured, eyes wide.

Hongjoong’s mother giggled behind her hand, and Jongho smirked with a satisfied nod. “See?” he crowed. “I told you he was fruity! I knew it the moment his room was covered in all these G-Dragon posters!”

Their mother laughed and her eyes were sparkling. “All right, all right,” she said, clapping her hands lightly before picking up her chopsticks again. “I always wanted at least one actor in the family beside me,” she added with a wink, then glanced fondly between them. “Looks like I got my wish — and three sons to brag about now.”

Hongjoong looked at Seonghwa, whose eyes were a little wet, the way they got when he was overwhelmed with happiness.

And in that moment, Hongjoong thought he’d never loved his family more.

*

The next night, Hongjoong had taken Seonghwa to his favorite theater in Busan.

A little place that carried the scent of velvet curtains and old wood, the memories of every show he’d loved as a teenager. He loved it for its size, its intimacy; it was the kind of place where the air felt charged with some old and the audience close enough to capture even the tiniest detail.

After the play — a tense, beautifully staged piece that made little sparks ignite in Hongjoong’s heart — a few of the actors recognized them both. They rushed over, excited, their eyes bright.

Hongjoong felt a twinge of anxiety tighten in his chest; he’d never liked being the center of attention off-stage unless it was in the wings, controlling lights or angles. But Seonghwa — he shone. He laughed easily, signed autographs without hesitation, answered questions with a warmth that drew people to him like moths to a flame.

It hit Hongjoong just how different Seonghwa was here, among people who shared his passion without competing with him.
He was light, unguarded, a star in his own right. In this space, free from envy or suspicion, Seonghwa seemed to breathe easier, his true self unfolding naturally, like a flower blooming in sunlight. Hongjoong stayed a step behind, content to watch, arms crossed, half-smiling at the way Seonghwa’s eyes crinkled when he laughed.

As they finally made their way out of the crowd, heading back to their hotel, Seonghwa turned, a playful and smug glint in his eye. “Did you hear that boy call me Seonghwa-sunbaenim?”

Hongjoong gave him a look, half fond, half teasing. “Yeah. Sunbaenim, huh? Someone’s getting big time now.”

Seonghwa laughed, the sound light and free and Hongjoong found himself smiling at the way the city lights played across Seonghwa’s face — open, bright. “You deserve it,” he added quietly, feeling that old surge of pride.

Seonghwa’s smile softened, and he reached for Hongjoong’s hand. Hongjoong squeezed it back, thinking how, in that small theater in Busan, he’d witnessed not just the performance on the stage, but also a part of Seonghwa he hadn’t fully known — another part that made him want to stay, always.

The hotel room was dim, curtains half-drawn, letting in just enough of the Busan moonlight to trace Seonghwa’s silhouette as he stood by the window — quiet, arms folded over the loose cotton of his shirt. The city below glittered, but Hongjoong’s eyes never left him.

 “I still can’t believe the play is over. That we’re here,”  Seonghwa said after a while, not turning. “And  no one is watching.”

Hongjoong crossed the room slowly, the soft carpet muffling his steps. “They’re not,” he said, settling behind him, letting his hands gently circle Seonghwa’s waist. “It’s just us.”

The other turned, and there was something different in his gaze. Lighter. No defenses. Just him. Cracked open in a way Hongjoong didn’t realize he’d been waiting to see. A deep, unshakable happiness, a soul finally at ease with itself—and with Hongjoong.

“I used to think you wouldn't ever look at me like this,” Seonghwa whispered.

Hongjoong smiled faintly, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “I used to think I’d ruin it if I did.”

The kiss came slow— the kind that tasted of the sea air and trust. Of  all the things they could say even without words.

Hongjoong kissed the corners of Seonghwa’s mouth, then down his throat. He could feel the shape of every shiver, every breath, like they were written just for him.

“I want to remember this,” Hongjoong whispered into Seonghwa’s skin. “Not the stage. Not the bruises. This.”
Seonghwa’s reply was soft, almost a plea: “Hold me tight.”

The bed behind them welcomed their careful movements—careful not because of doubt, but because Hongjoong had spent months watching Seonghwa hold himself back. Tonight, he wanted to remind him he never had to.

Their hands explored slowly–bodies moved together with something deeper than rhythm, something instinctive. Like breathing–like returning home.

“You’re breathtaking,” Hongjoong whispered, his voice thick with awe as Seonghwa arched toward him, fingers curled tight together.

“You walk into a room and change the air. They never deserved to see you.”
Seonghwa let out a breathless laugh. “But you do.”

He meant he was the only one he trusted—Hongjoong understood that without needing words.

“I always saw you.” Hongjoong’s voice trembled as he said it, too full to hide behind sharpness now. “Even when I pretended not to.”

Seonghwa sighed softly, then slowly climbed on top of him, their bodies pressing close. Hongjoong felt the warmth of his skin, the steady rhythm of his breath mingling with his own.

There was no rush, no need for words—just the gentle closeness of two people becoming one.

Seonghwa looked down at him through half-lidded eyes, and Hongjoong thought: If this is love, then I’ve already fallen too deep.

When they reached the peak, it wasn’t sudden—it was steady, building until Seonghwa’s breath hitched on top of Hongjoong and his body went still against his. Hongjoong watched the way his eyes fluttered closed, lips parted, every muscle relaxing into him. In some deep, unspoken part of himself, Hongjoong felt that even across lifetimes he’d find his way back to this moment. Maybe Seonghwa was right after all. He was a hopeless romantic. Or he had recently become one. Their hands found each other again, fingers laced tightly, as if holding on for something more. The quiet that followed was heavy with something unspoken—warmth, trust.

Later, Hongjoong lay on his side, watching the curve of Seonghwa’s back rise and fall. The covers were half-kicked off. Their legs still tangled. And in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, he whispered the words he had never said before.

“You’re it for me.”

Seonghwa turned, sleepy smile blooming slow. “I know.”

Outside, the sea moved quietly under the stars.

Inside, they had nothing left to prove.

Just this.

Just them.

Chapter Text

Once upon a time— not too long ago,

there was a boy who didn’t believe he could belong on a big stage.

And another who didn’t believe he could belong to anyone.

But time, like water, smoothed the rough edges.

The boy who had been cast as a swan — the wrong one, they said — didn’t fly away.

He learned that both the duckling and the swan are equally beautiful.

And yet, when the curtain fell and the world looked up, they did not see a duckling.

They saw something unnameable and true.

A swan not made of feathers, but fire and resilience.

The other boy, the one with the clipboard, watched it all happen.

Watched the world discover what he had known quietly, stubbornly, first: that some people don’t just perform beauty — they are it, even when no one’s watching.

He never stopped working backstage. Never stopped fixing lighting cues or whispering advice into the wings.

But he started smiling more.

Coming home early.

 Letting someone else turn on the lamp first.

Together, they moved into an apartment that faced the sea.

One that never had enough closet space and smelled faintly of marigolds and warm coffee.

The kind of home built out of shared toothpaste and mismatched mugs,

out of scripts on the table and books on the floor.

Slowly, like feathers falling into place, they learned each other’s rhythms.

Which side of the bed to sleep on.

How to fight without walking away.

How to love without fear.

They came out to the world not with a bang, but with a photo: Seonghwa in Hongjoong’s blazer, Hongjoong in his arms,

both of them caught mid-laughter.

It wasn’t stylized — just real.

Just theirs.

Seonghwa kept rising.

More roles. More cameras. More curtains lifted in his name.

But he always circled back  to that theatre, to the stage that first bruised him, then built him.

And every night, when the lights dimmed, he would find Hongjoong waiting, leaning against the car with his sleeves rolled and a knowing smile.

The doors would unlock with a soft click, and Seonghwa would slide into the passenger seat, cheeks still warm from stage lights.

Hongjoong would kiss him and glance over, voice low and fond.

“Hey, swan,” he would say, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

 And maybe it was.

Some fairy tales don’t end with a kiss in the dark or applause from the crowd.
Some end like this: Two men in love, driving home. Still learning how to fly. But never alone.