Public Fallout

The camera’s red light burned steady. It didn’t blink, didn’t waver, just glowed like a patient wound waiting to be opened. He stared at it until it blurred into the air, until he could almost convince himself it was a pulse—his, not his, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it never turned off.

“Can you tell us why you’re here, Wooyoung?”

The voice from behind the lens was careful, professional, polished by years of coaxing confessions. There was no edge in it, no cruelty in tone—the cruelty was in the question itself, in how softly it was asked, in the knowledge that whatever he gave them now would be clipped, packaged, played across millions of screens.

He had the line ready. He had rehearsed it until it was stripped of texture.

“The relationship ended,” he said. The words landed clean, unmarked, as though he were reading from a press release. “I’m here to move forward.”

That should have been it. The safe answer. A soundbite tidy enough to fit in a trailer.

But the second it left his lips, memory came like floodwater through cracks.

---

The apartment was lit wrong when he returned, lamps burning amber into walls that had no business being warm at that hour. The air felt thick, steamed over with something cooked and gone, a lived-in warmth that shouldn’t have been there.

Then came the sound. A laugh—San’s laugh. Not the practiced one, but the private one, low and soft, the one that belonged to quiet mornings and two a.m. noodles.

He pushed the door open, and the world split.

San was standing too close, body pressed in, lips brushing against the side of Yeosang’s neck. His mouth lingered there, a ghost of a kiss, breath dampening skin like it had every right to be that near. Both his hands rested against Yeosang’s back, fingers splayed wide, holding him in place with a familiarity that twisted cruel in Wooyoung’s chest.

Yeosang’s hand anchored him there, firm and unshaken. Not tentative. Not new. A touch that had already been claimed.

And then San’s eyes lifted.

The door hadn’t slammed, hadn’t rattled—just a quiet click—but it was enough. His gaze lifted slow, catching Wooyoung in the frame like a spotlight, steady and unflinching.

For a heartbeat—one sharp, stuttering beat—time faltered. Wooyoung’s chest caught, hope flaring reckless and wild. This could still change. He could jerk back, startled. He could push Yeosang away. He could look guilty, stricken, desperate to explain. He could run to me. He could say anything, please, anything that rewrites this moment.

But San didn’t move.

His lips didn’t part to explain. His hands didn’t release their grip. His gaze didn’t flash with guilt or fear.

It stayed steady. Heavy. And what lived in it wasn’t panic. It was resignation. A look that said this isn’t a mistake—it’s a choice.

And Yeosang never moved his hand.

Not pulling back, not startled, not apologizing. His hand was at San’s back, steady, deliberate, spread wide with the calm of permanence. The kind of hand that didn’t have to ask permission because it had already been granted. The kind of hand that said this is mine now. The kind that said you are too late.

In the booth, the memory knotted hot in his chest. He pressed his lips together until they thinned, until he could taste blood at the edge from where his teeth caught skin. He forced himself back under the lights, into the posture, into the performance. But the tape at his collar pulled sharper when he breathed, and the red dot didn’t look away.

“How long were you together?” the producer asked, voice pitched like concern but careful, always careful.

“Almost five years.”

The number scraped raw coming out. His throat caught around it. Numbers made it too real, too measurable, like laying out five years of nights and mornings on a scale.

“We met during filming. Stayed together through… everything. Promotions, tours and life.” His voice snagged on the words. “It lasted longer than most people thought it would.”

He should have stopped there. It was enough. But silence was a danger all its own.

It thickened around him, pressed hard against his temples, made his own breath echo too loud in his ears. Silence was never empty. It was a hallway lined with open doors—and through them came the small, ordinary pictures that hurt worse than anything.

San in the kitchen at two in the morning, head bent over a pot as noodles boiled over, laughing when the smoke alarm chirped.

A shirt he never got back, worn until the fabric worn out.

Messy makeouts shared in between schedules.

A hand at his waist in a crowd, casual and claiming all at once.

These were the things silence let in. The things that had promised forever not in declarations but in repetition, in their ordinariness.

The lights blurred when he blinked, and he realized the wetness gathering in his eyes would catch on camera if he let it. He blinked harder, faster, as though he could wash the image clean.

“It was good,” he said quickly, the words flat, an emergency patch. “Until it wasn’t.”

Because it hadn’t been private. None of it.

He remembered the way his legs had carried him out of the apartment without permission from his brain, stumbling down the stairwell, breath burning wrong in his throat. He had wanted the night to be empty, just for a second. Wanted the street dark enough to hide him until he could figure out how to stand upright again.

Instead, a flash.

A stranger across the road raised their phone. Not even hidden—just bold, like it was a right. The shutter snapped, soft and surgical, and before he could lift a hand to his face the moment was stolen.

By the time he dragged his palm across his cheek, the photo was already climbing feeds.

Exclusive: Solo Idol’s Midnight Breakdown.
From Chart-Topping Star to Sidewalk Tears.

Headlines polished to a gleam, cruel in their professionalism. His name in bold against the shot: his body bent forward, his face cracked wide, eyes slick and mouth raw. The kind of image no one rehearsed. A picture of him not as an idol, not even as a man, but as collapse.

And the spread was instant. Paparazzi sites stamped their watermarks across it, fighting for ownership of his ruin. Entertainment portals clipped it into think pieces: Is Wooyoung’s career in danger? Experts weigh in.

They used words like exclusive, tragic, unprecedented, but all it meant was: look, he broke where we could see it.

Then the feeds took it.

📱 On X:
@idolwatchdog: Solo king Wooyoung caught breaking down on the street. Exclusive pics 👀
@truthhurts99: From stage lights to streetlights. Couldn’t keep his man OR his image.
@soft4woo: please delete this. he’s human, he deserves privacy 😭😭😭
@anti_stan: your “perfect” idol caught sobbing in public… not so untouchable now lol
@kfansuniverse: Behind every flawless image is a night like this… 💔

He hadn’t even made it to the corner when he felt it shifting, multiplying, mutating into discourse. Fans zoomed into the shine on his cheek, argued about whether it was real. Threads bloomed with strangers debating if he was acting. Some begged people to stop sharing it. Others turned it into memes before his lungs had caught enough air to steady.

His face was no longer his. It was trending. Not for a song, not for a stage, but for collapse.

And the worst part—the detail that would never loosen its grip on him—was knowing that while the world dissected him, upstairs San and Yeosang were still together. Lights warm. Voices low. A hand at a back. Their beginning untouched, while his ending was sold off in real time.

“Do you still love him?”

The question landed soft, almost casual, but it clamped around his throat.

His first instinct was to laugh. The sound rose bitter, jagged, an ugly laugh that would have turned the moment cruel. But he swallowed it, because cruel wasn’t what he felt.

What he felt was the ache of muscle memory. His body didn’t know how not to love San. His chest still clenched at the thought of his name, a reflex as sharp as pain. His fingers twitched against his thigh, aching for a touch that wasn’t there. Love had threaded itself too deep, past bone, past blood—marrow. And marrow didn’t drain because you wanted it gone.

“No.”

The word came too fast, brittle as glass. It cracked the second it left him.

Memory betrayed him anyway.

San in rehearsal, sweat dark on his hair, shirt clinging, still grinning across the room like Wooyoung’s gaze was enough to keep him alive.
San half-asleep in the back of a van, head heavy against his shoulder, mumbling soft, please, don’t let go.
San’s hand at his nape, steady, grounding, the anchor that kept him tethered when the world grew too loud.

None of it vanished just because Yeosang’s hand had been there later.

The silence pressed heavier. The red light burned steady, patient as if it knew the lie would rot in his throat eventually. His breath snagged, uneven. He wanted to smooth it, but the lights and the tape at his collar made every fracture impossible to hide.

The truth lived in him, stubborn, burning—and still, on camera, he forced the lie to stand.

---

The memory bled so hard it carried him out of the booth, out of the lights, back into the stariwall where his legs had given way.

Flashbacks -The air had been sharp, colder than his lungs could manage. His phone vibrated in his pocket, insistent, the noise loud against the hollow of his chest. He almost didn’t move. Almost let it ring until silence. But the screen lit up with a name he couldn’t ignore.

Mingi.

For one second he stared, paralyzed. Then his thumb hit accept without thought.

“Wooyo?” The voice burst through, ragged, urgent. “Wooyo, where are you?”

The sound of his brother’s panic cracked him open. He wanted to answer, but nothing came out—only a noise, thin, wrecked, more like an animal keening than human speech. He pressed the phone tighter to his ear, as though he could crawl inside the line and be held there.

“Hey—hey, breathe. Please. Tell me what happened.”

Mingi’s voice trembled and sharpened all at once. The mix of fear and fury was so familiar it scraped raw.

Wooyoung’s breath hitched. The name rose before he could stop it.

“San—”

His voice broke around it, split down the middle.

The silence on the other end hardened. Then it cracked open into rage.

“What did he do? What the fuck did he do to you? Are you at the apartment?”

Images clawed up: the lamps too warm, San’s hand steady at yeosang’s back, a text with single word sorry. His throat refused to formulate anything. All he managed was another sound, helpless, pitiful, and he hated himself for it.

“Don’t—don’t do that. Don’t go quiet on me.”

Mingi’s voice fractured, pitched high and raw, a sound Wooyoung had never heard from him before. The kind of break that belonged to a kid, not the older brother who’d always stood taller, louder, stronger.

“Please, Wooyo. Say something. Anything.”

He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But his tongue sat heavy, useless. His hand shook so hard the phone nearly slipped from his grip, slick with sweat. His chest convulsed in jerks, lungs stuttering like they’d splintered into pieces.

On the other end, Mingi’s fury melted to pleading.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. Just breathe with me, yeah? In. Out. In. Out.”

His own breath rasped loud in the receiver, exaggerated, desperate for Wooyoung to copy.

“You’re still mine. You hear me? You’re my brother. No one gets to take you from me.”

The words hit like a rope tossed into water too deep. They didn’t stop the shaking, didn’t stop the way the pavement tilted under his knees, but they gave the trembling something to cling to. He pressed his forehead to his jeans, phone slippery in his palm, clinging to the sound of Mingi trying to stitch him together across miles.

And then it was gone. The stairwell, the cold air, Mingi’s voice trying to hold him together—all of it collapsed inward like a house gutted from the inside.

Back in the booth, the red light burned steady, unblinking. The tape tugged at his collar when he shifted, sticky and small, as if nothing had happened at all. As if the world hadn’t already opened him up and gutted him.

“Your brother,” the producer said, voice soft, almost coaxing. “Did it help?”

Wooyoung blinked. His throat was scraped raw, every word like it might draw blood. He forced himself upright anyway, spine straight against the chair.

“He tried, he really did” Woo said. Each syllable careful, deliberate, laid like stones one by one. “But some things…” His jaw clenched, holding back the ache swelling in his chest. “…you can’t fix.”

The words didn’t just hang; they settled in him, heavy, sharp, like they’d been carved into his ribs with something that wouldn’t fade. The silence that followed pressed hard, thick enough that even his breath sounded like a betrayal.

The camera hummed, unblinking, its red light burning steady. It felt like the lens had eaten the words whole, storing them, replaying them, already turning them into something he couldn’t take back.

Settling into the show 😭

The house looked like comfort, which was its first lie. Wide windows spilling light, couches too white to be real, bowls of fruit arranged with the precision of a stylist. Cameras nested in the corners, small red eyes burning steady. Everything was built to look soft, safe, ordinary — and everything hummed with the reminder that it was for show.

Wooyoung stood in the doorway longer than necessary, hands shoved into his pockets, listening to the microphone taped to his chest pick up the small scratch of his breath. The producer had told him to smile when he entered, to greet the others warmly. He didn’t. He bowed, polite, and let his lips twitch into something barely shaped, just enough to pass if no one looked too closely.

“Wooyoung-ssi,” one of the women said, bright and rehearsed. “We’re glad you’re here.”

He murmured thanks, his voice flat around the edges. The introductions blurred. He caught names — some actors, some singers, one popular young trainee, one comedian whose laugh rang out too sharp — but none of it rooted. He sat where they pointed him, on the end of the couch, posture neat, eyes lowered. Polite but detached.

They filled the air with chatter the way people do when they know they’re being watched. He offered nods, small hums, a smile when someone asked if he wanted tea. But he did not volunteer anything. Already he could feel the camera in the corner pivoting toward him when he stayed quiet too long. Already he knew silence could be edited into mystery, into fragility, into a narrative he would not control.

Hongjoong sat across from him. Not beside — across, where Wooyoung could feel his gaze more than he could see it. He wasn’t the loudest, wasn’t the brightest, but he had a way of watching without prying. Wooyoung felt it once, twice, the steadiness of eyes that didn’t skim over him, that didn’t lunge at him either. Just saw. He looked away first, uncomfortable with being noticed in any capacity at all.

The first activity was an icebreaker game, staged on the patio with cushions arranged in a circle, drinks poured in sweating glasses. The PDs hovered behind cameras, coaxing them into laughter with instructions. Say your name, your age, one thing you’re hoping for.

When it was his turn, the circle’s attention landed heavy.

“Jung Wooyoung,” he said, his voice controlled, careful. “Twenty-five.”

A pause. He could feel the producers begging silently for something juicy. Something about heartbreak, about healing. Something they could cut into a promo. He gave them nothing.

“I… hope to rest a little here.”

Polite laughter rippled around the circle. Too neat, too shallow. Someone else jumped in with a joke, and the moment moved on, but he felt the cameras lingering. That answer would be edited into detachment, into mystery. He knew it already.

Later, when drinks had loosened the others into louder stories, Wooyoung excused himself to the edge of the patio, folding his arms tight against his ribs. He didn’t want to hear anecdotes about bad dates, about “crazy exes.” The words made his skin itch.

One of the actresses — younger, glossy with confidence; he barely remembered her name from earlier — followed him to the patio, leaning close enough that the sweet sting of her perfume wrapped around him.

“You’re even prettier up close,” she teased, a smile pulling at her lips. Her hand lingered too near his arm, as though waiting for an excuse to brush against him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. He knew what people saw when they looked at him — the moles that drew the eye like constellations, the one just beneath his left eye, the one near his lower lip that glimmered when he smiled. The asymmetry of his gaze, dark irises that people thought they could read too easily. His mouth — too full, always a little bitten — and the collarbones that stylists never stopped emphasizing. His features carried softness, even prettiness, but his hands, his veins, the sharp rise of his Adam’s apple made him impossible to mistake.

A beautiful contradiction. The kind of man strangers fawned over, the kind women wanted to shield, the kind people projected fantasies onto.

He offered her a smile — polite, practiced. It was the sort of smile that had sold albums, lit up stages, bought him time. But it wasn’t warmth. He didn’t have warmth left to give.

His shoulders went rigid beneath her nearness. He fought the instinct to lean back, to make space, but stillness had always been easier to sell. Inside, his pulse stumbled hard against his ribs, the same panicked rhythm as a cornered animal waiting for a door to open.

She didn’t notice. She leaned closer, her voice pitched soft, almost protective.

“You should let yourself have fun here. You look like you need someone to take care of you.”

Her words should have landed like kindness. Instead, they cut deep. He had already been promised protection once, had already let himself be looked at like fragile glass worth guarding — until the same hands left him shattered.

Across the patio, Hongjoong’s gaze found him again, steady, unintrusive. Not a hand reaching for him. Not a promise. Just presence. Wooyoung looked away first, chest tightening as though even that was too much.

Hours later, after the laughter dulled and footsteps retreated, the house quieted. The red lights on the cameras dimmed but never fully died.

The nights were the worst.

He lay on the too-clean sheets, staring at the ceiling, feeling the tug of tape against his collarbone. Every shift of his body reminded him he was still wired. He turned his head toward the wall, pressed his face into the pillow, tried to breathe slow.

It didn’t work. Sleep never came easy. His mind filled the silence with noise: San’s laugh spilling out in rehearsal rooms, Yeosang’s hand steady at his back. The photo on his phone — not one he had saved but one the world had, screenshots of his own face mid-collapse. He scrolled until his stomach soured.

📱 On X:
@fan_for_wooyo: he looks so tired already on the show… please protect him
@realitytea: Episode 1 and Wooyoung is giving main character trauma
@coldtruthblog: cry harder, it’ll get you more screentime.
@moonboyluv: you can literally see his walls up. it hurts to watch 🥺
@snidebite: he came here to rest? lmao buddy you’re in a reality show, not rehab

He set the phone face down on the nightstand, but the glow stayed behind his eyelids. His chest hurt with the effort of keeping still. He wanted to scream. He wanted to claw the microphone off his skin, tear the cameras from their nests. Instead, he lay there and breathed through his teeth, counting seconds until morning.

😔 Fractures Made Public

The booth was colder this time, or maybe it was just him. The same white chair, the same steady red eye in the corner, but the air clung sharp against his skin. He sat straighter, forced neatness into his body as though posture might make him unbreakable. His mouth felt clean, empty of words, which he hoped would be enough.

The producer’s voice came soft through the dark. “We’d like to show you something.”

He stiffened.

“These are important years of your career,” the producer continued, smooth, polished. “We think reflection is part of healing — to look back honestly, and tell us what it means to you now.”

The screen flickered on. At first it was harmless — a drama scene. San in costume, hair slicked back, expression serious. Wooyoung had been there on set that day, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the cameras, watching. He remembered the way San’s laugh had cracked open between takes, head thrown back in a way that made the whole crew lighter. He remembered thinking then: this is why people fall for him. This is why I did.

His palms pressed flat against his knees, grounding himself. The chair creaked beneath him.

Another clip: an interview. San’s voice warm, his gaze fixed just off-camera. Wooyoung had been there too, waiting in the wings, their fingers brushing where no one could see. The memory surged, sharp and uninvited, until his throat worked hard to swallow it back down.

His head lifted, voice rough. “Why are you showing me this?”

The producer’s tone stayed calm, professional. “Because this is how the public remembers you. We want you to speak to it — to reclaim the story in your own words.”

Wooyoung let out a hollow laugh. “Reclaim it? You think making me sit here while you play his face in front of me is healing? You think this helps?”

No answer. Only the hum of the camera, steady, patient.

The next clip made his stomach drop. Not San alone this time — San and Yeosang, standing side by side at a press event. Their smiles too aligned, shoulders brushing like instinct. Wooyoung had seen the photos online already, magnified until strangers could measure the centimeters between them. But here, in motion, it was worse. The casual intimacy of it. The way San leaned fractionally closer as Yeosang spoke.

His chest lurched. “Stop it.”

Still the footage rolled.

The producer’s voice slid in, coaxing. “Does it feel strange, watching him like this?”

He barked a laugh — sharp, broken. “Strange? It feels like you’re tearing me open for ratings.”

Another clip before he could breathe. A variety show. San’s hand pressed against Yeosang’s back in that same steady way, casual, proprietary. The exact hand that had once lived at Wooyoung’s waist. The exact hand that had steadied him in airports, in corridors, in rooms too loud to survive otherwise.

The air caught in his lungs. His fingers clawed at the tape on his collar until it ripped free, adhesive snapping sharp against his skin. He yanked the mic wire loose, breath heaving, chest bare where the tape had pulled hair and skin raw. The camera swiveled to follow, unblinking, as he stood, as he shoved past the frame, as he stormed into the hallway with nothing but the sound of his own pulse in his ears.

Out there, away from the lights, his hands shook so violently he had to grip the railing to keep himself upright. He hated how familiar it felt — this shaking, this breathlessness — as if betrayal had become his body’s new baseline.

His chest heaved, skin raw where the tape had ripped free. He barely had breath enough to stand when the door behind him clicked.

“Family call.”

As if they’d been waiting for him to break.

He turned his head, disbelieving. “Now?” His voice rasped.

“They’re ready.”

Ready. The word hit wrong. He wanted to laugh — broken, hysterical. He was barely upright, the mic wire still dangling torn from his shirt, and they wanted him to sit down neat and make a call that could be cut into “comfort.” But the hand at his back ushered him toward the monitor room before he could resist.

A fresh strip of tape dragged across his skin, a new mic fixed in place.

The screen flickered on. Mingi’s face filled it, too close, too grainy with the lag, but alive in a way that punched through the room. His mouth opened before Wooyoung could even breathe a greeting.

“Wooyo?” The voice cracked raw, frantic. “Jesus Christ, you look—” His eyes flicked over him, reading every line, every shake, every redness staining his eyes. Fury tightened his expression like a wound. “What did they just do to you?”

Wooyoung tried to speak, but nothing formed. His lips parted uselessly. A sound came instead, a small, wrecked thing that made Mingi’s entire face crumple.

“Hey, no—don’t do that again,” Mingi blurted, breath sharp, like he could reach through the screen and hold him steady. “Don’t shut down on me. I need to hear you. Please, Wooyo. Please just say something anything.”

The name on his tongue burned. “San— they” It broke out half a syllable, jagged, unshaped.

Mingi went still. Deja vu struck him. His voice hardened into violence. “What did he do? Did they show you him?” His jaw locked, his eyes blazed wet. “If I ever see that bastard—”

“Don’t,” Wooyoung forced out.

“No, you don’t understand,” Mingi snapped, voice shaking with fury and grief all at once. “I will put him on the fucking ground. He doesn’t get to hurt you twice. Not you. Not my baby brother.”

“Please.” Wooyoung’s throat tore around the word. He pressed his hand into his thigh, grounding himself. “Don’t ruin yourself for him. Don’t burn yourself. I already did.”

That broke something in Mingi. His head dropped, his hand dragging hard down his face. When he lifted it again, his eyes were wet. “You think I care about ruin? The only thing I’ve ever cared about is you. Since we were kids. You remember?” His voice cracked, trembling. “Every time you got sick, I was the one sleeping on the floor next to your bed. Every time you came home crying from practice, I sat in the hallway till you stopped. I don’t care what he took from you, Wooyo. He doesn’t get to take you from me. Please talk to me. You know that I love more than anyone else”

The words hit like a rope hurled into water that had already closed over his head. They didn’t stop the shaking, didn’t fix the burn under his ribs, but they gave the trembling something to cling to.

“I’ve got you,” Mingi whispered, leaning too close to the camera, voice breaking open. “Even if you’re falling apart on live fucking television, I’ve got you. You’re still baby brother. I don't care about anything else but you. Always and Forever”

Wooyoung nodded, too small, barely there, but it was all he had.

And then the feed cut — just a black screen where his brother’s face had been. The silence hit like a slap.

They guided him back into the booth. Same chair. Same lights. Same red eye burning steady in the corner, patient, merciless. His throat was raw from holding too much, his chest aching with the ghost of Mingi’s voice. You’re still mine. I’ve got you. Words meant to tether, but tethers slipped when the floor was this unsteady.

He sat stiff, jaw locked, as if sheer posture could keep him sealed. The silence pressed anyway.

He tried to breathe evenly, tried to will himself into something smooth, but the air caught sharp every time, breaking against the bone of his chest. His hands curled into fists against his knees. He told himself he wouldn’t speak. Not again. He wouldn’t give them more.

But the silence pressed in, thick as hands around his throat. It was worse than words.

The words tore loose anyway.

“I…” His throat closed. He swallowed hard, useless. “I don’t—” His voice broke thin. “I don’t know how to stop.”

Not a statement. Not a soundbite. A fracture.

He bent forward, elbows pressed to his thighs, forehead nearly dropping to his hands. His breath stuttered loud, ragged, catching in the new mic taped near his collarbone. His mouth moved again, silent this time, trying to shrink the words down until they couldn’t be heard.

I don’t know how to stop loving him.

The red light burned steady. It didn’t care if the words were full or broken, loud or whispered. It would take them all the same.

The Haunting

The morning after felt staged. 

He sat at the counter with a mug between his palms, lukewarm tea he hasn’t even tasted. The others moved around him, too polite. A laugh too bright from the comedian, a question about sleep tossed casually in his direction that he answered with a nod. Their eyes flickered to him when they thought he wouldn’t notice. Not cruel, not mocking — worse. Pity.

He wanted to crawl out of his body.

Hongjoong passed by once, setting a fruit bowl on the counter, not looking directly at him. The only one who didn’t reach, didn’t pry. Just let the silence sit between them like something that didn’t have to be solved. Wooyoung almost thanked him for that. Almost.

The producers didn’t mention the booth. Not the clips, not the ripped mic, not the way he’d folded forward and whispered broken into the dark. They wouldn’t need to. It was all recorded. It would be waiting for him later in an edit suite, framed with music, packaged for public consumption.

For now, they let him sit at the counter, quiet, pretending.

Until the noise broke from somewhere he couldn’t control.

The first notification buzzed against the table. Then another. Then a flood. His phone lit bright enough to sting. He shouldn’t have looked. He knew better. But his thumb unlocked it anyway, stupid reflex.

Jongho uploaded a new video.

The title was simple. Lovely — Jung Wooyoung (unreleased).

His chest caved.

It hadn’t been meant for anyone. A demo he’d written in the hours between flights, recorded raw into his phone, words too soft for a studio. He had buried it deep, hidden from the world, because it wasn’t a song — it was marrow, confession carved into melody. And now it was live.

The room felt wrong. Too bright. Too still. His hands shook as he tapped the link.

And then his own voice poured out of the speaker. Thin, unpolished, cracked around the edges. The way his voice always sounded when he sang alone, without an audience to sharpen for.

I thought I found a way out… but you never get away.

Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can't fight my fear

The first line alone was enough to make his stomach drop. It wasn’t a lyric; it was the sound of his body trying to crawl free of itself. He remembered recording it — in a hotel bathroom, whispering into his phone so the walls wouldn’t hear.

Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone

The words he had once thought too humiliating to share were now dressed as poetry, dissected as art. But they weren’t art. They were a boy in a bathroom clutching his phone like it was oxygen.

Isn’t it lovely, all alone?

His voice cracked on lovely. He had hated that word even then, hated the irony of it, the way his tongue bent around something soft while everything inside him was jagged. He had called it that because the lie hurt more than the truth.

And now millions of ears were replaying that lie.

📱 On X:
@stanlyricism: WOAH. Jongho dropped an unreleased Wooyoung track???
@tears4woo: the lyrics… he’s literally grieving in real time 😭
@industrytea: so his cousin leaked this? messy but omg the CONTENT
@softlovepoet: “heart made of glass, my mind of stone, tear me to pieces, skin to bones??” — who writes like this?? he’s bleeding and it’s beautiful
@antiidol: lmao crybaby ballads incoming. man got dumped and made it everyone’s problem
@archivist_woo: he whispered “isn’t it lovely, all alone” and I swear I felt it in my bones

------

Every word he’d never meant for anyone’s ears was dissected now. Clipped into threads. Lyrics screencapped, analyzed, translated badly into languages he’d never spoken. People he had never met choosing what his grief meant.

The mug slipped from his hand, hitting the counter too hard. The others turned at the sound. He kept his head down, shoulders tight. Pretending he was fine was harder with his own voice climbing charts without permission.

Hongjoong’s eyes flicked toward him, steady, not prying. Just seeing. The only gaze in the room that didn’t feel like intrusion.

But even that didn’t stop the heat crawling up his throat. His own voice was still playing in his skull, over and over, words he could never take back: heart made of glass, my mind of stone. He wanted to claw his throat open and tear the sound out.

He shut himself in the upstairs room but it didn’t help. The walls felt porous, too thin to keep the noise out. Even with the door latched, even with his phone facedown on the nightstand, he could still hear it — his own voice everywhere at once. Whispered on timelines, clipped into edits, rewound into loops he hadn’t given permission for.

He pressed his palms into his eyes until colors sparked, but that only made the sound sharper.

Isn’t it lovely, all alone?

It replayed without mercy. The bathroom tile cold under his knees, phone balanced against a soap dish, his voice small enough he thought it would disappear when the night ended. And now it was climbing charts, stamped with his name like he’d chosen this exposure.

He wanted to call Jongho and scream, demand why. But he already knew why. Jongho had always been the one who believed in him most, who hated seeing his voice wasted. He would have thought he was helping — thought he was saving him. That didn’t soften the cut. The intention didn’t matter when the wound was already bleeding.

He sat on the edge of the bed, fists pressed hard into his thighs until his nails bit skin. His chest felt full of noise he couldn’t contain.

A knock came at the door. Too soft to be a producer.

“Wooyoung?” Hongjoong’s voice. Careful, low.

He didn’t answer, but the door eased open anyway. Hongjoong stepped in without crossing far, keeping distance like he knew space mattered. He didn’t stare. He let his eyes rest steady, quiet.

“They’re saying it’s beautiful,” Hongjoong murmured. Not pitying, not soothing — just stating what was true.

Wooyoung’s head snapped up, eyes wet and sharp. “It’s not beautiful.” His voice cracked raw. “It’s mine. It was mine. And now it’s—” He swallowed, fists tightening. “It’s theirs. They’ll cut it up, caption it, turn it into something I never meant. It’s already not mine anymore.” Hongjoong tilted his head, gaze still unflinching. “It’s still yours,” he said. The words were soft but not fragile. Certain. “Not theirs. No matter how many times they replay it, no matter how they dress it up. It’s yours. Because only you know what it cost.” The room stilled.

For a second, Wooyoung almost laughed — bitter, jagged — because it all sounded too easy. But Hongjoong didn’t flinch. His eyes didn’t demand, didn’t dig, didn’t ask for more. He just held it there, steady, until Wooyoung felt the weight press against his ribs.

“Come downstairs when you’ve calmed down.”

The patio was quiet when Wooyoung finally stepped out. He thought it was empty. He almost turned back when he felt someone there, but retreating would be too obvious, too rude. So he dropped into a chair instead. His chest tightened when he realized it was Hongjoong.

“How are you doing now?” Hongjoong’s voice carried low.

Wooyoung let out a sharp, broken laugh. “Coming here was a mistake,” he said. His throat burned. “Honestly, everything is so… overwhelming. I don’t even know how to exist right now.”

Hongjoong didn’t answer. He just shifted the notebook from his lap, tilting it so the messy words spilled between them. The pages looked like they’d been clawed into existence — jagged, unfinished, slanted like they could barely stand upright.

Wooyoung’s gaze snagged on the fragments:

All I want is nothing more
To hear you knocking at my door
'Cause if I could see your face once more
I could die as a happy man I'm sure

When you said your last goodbye
I died a little bit inside
I lay in tears in bed all night
Alone without you by my side

His chest clenched. The words weren’t polished, but they read like confession. Like Hongjoong had ripped open his ribs and written down what spilled out.

“Why—” Wooyoung’s voice cracked. “Why would you write that?”

Hongjoong didn’t close the page. “Because grief sings whether we want it to or not. And sometimes the only way I know how to hear someone is to write what I see.”

Wooyoung bent forward, forehead to his knees, trying to shut it out, but the lyrics branded themselves behind his eyelids.

Cause you brought out the best of me
A part of me I'd never seen
You took my soul, wiped it clean
Our love was made for movie screens

He hated how true it felt. Hated that Hongjoong’s words didn’t pity him, didn’t flatter him — they recognized him. And somehow that hurt worse.

Back in his room, the walls felt too thin again. He pressed the door shut, but the notebook’s fragments burned in his skull.

All I want is nothing more… to hear you knocking at my door…

The words chased him as he lay down, eyes locked on the ceiling. They tangled with the other ones he couldn’t outrun — his own voice, leaked and looped, replaying endlessly across the internet.

Thought I found a way out… isn’t it lovely, all alone…

He pressed his palms over his ears, but it didn’t matter. The voices weren’t outside anymore. They lived inside his ribs.

If I could see your face once more… I could die a happy man, I’m sure…

The lyric struck like a blade between his ribs. Because it was true. Because even after everything — the lamps too warm, Yeosang’s hand steady at San’s back, the text message that said only sorry — part of him still begged for San’s face in the doorway. He hated himself for it, hated that the song had written it down before he’d admitted it to himself.

Isn’t it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, mind of stone....

Tear me to pieces, skin and bones

Hello welcome home...

The songs braided together until he couldn’t tell which words were his anymore. One belonged to him, leaked to millions. The other belonged to Hongjoong, scribbled raw in ink. Both carved him open. Both refused to let him rest.

He curled on his side, fists pressed against his chest like he could hold himself closed. Sleep didn’t come. Only lyrics — his and not his — circling like vultures above the same open wound.

Viral Wound

By morning the house wasn’t quiet. Staff moved through it like vultures, phones pressed tight to their ears, clipboards filling with notes that were never meant for the contestants’ eyes. The cameras had shifted overnight too. They tracked differently now, closer, like they already knew where the cracks would form.

He’d felt it before — the scent of blood in the water, the industry’s reflex when it caught a story worth feeding on.

A producer intercepted him before he could pour tea. Her smile was sharp enough to sting. “Congratulations,” she said, as if it weren’t a knife. “Lovely is charting. Number one on trending. The audience response has been overwhelming.”

His stomach turned. He hadn’t eaten yet, and now he wouldn’t.

“It wasn’t meant for release,” he said flatly.

“Exactly why it resonates.” Her voice was syrup over steel. “It’s raw. It’s authentic. That’s what makes people connect. This is an opportunity, Wooyoung-ssi — if you’re willing, we’d like to film a short segment of you reflecting on the lyrics.”

Reflecting. As if it wasn’t already marrow on tape.

“I’m not performing grief for you.”

“Not performing,” she corrected sweetly. “Sharing.”

Behind her, the red light blinked on. The camera was already hungry.

And then Hongjoong walked in. Not fast, not loud — just there, a mug in hand, gaze flicking once from Wooyoung’s clenched jaw to the camera’s unblinking eye. He set the cup on the counter with a quiet clink.

“If you want vulnerability,” he said evenly, “stop trying to wring it out of him.”

The silence that followed was the kind that hummed, live-wire. The producer’s smile didn’t break, but her clipboard shifted, and after a beat she murmured about “revisiting later” and slipped out. The camera lingered a second too long before it followed.

What remained wasn’t silence at all — it was static. The charge in the air felt dangerous, noticeable.

Wooyoung braced himself for pity. Instead Hongjoong just sipped his coffee and said, “They’ll script you anyway. Might as well decide if you want to have a hand in it.”

Not comfort. Not rescue. Just honesty. And in a house built to bleed him dry, honesty felt almost like protection.

It was then, from the corner of the room, that he caught the faintest reflection — glass where the director’s monitor sat. A shadow leaning forward, watching. Not the grief anymore. Not the song. Watching this.

The way Wooyoung’s eyes had flicked to Hongjoong, too quick. The way Hongjoong had spoken like the words were for him alone.

The director had seen it. He knew without being told. And whatever he had just given away in that static silence — they would find a way to use it.

---

The rest of the morning was scripted silence. The cameras tracked him closer than usual, lingering whenever Hongjoong moved into frame. Even if he wasn’t speaking. Even if he was just sitting at the counter, writing in his notebook, or drinking coffee too slowly. Wooyoung told himself he imagined it. He’d always been paranoid under the lens. But the way the rigs panned — subtle, almost casual — made his skin itch.

By afternoon they called him back into the booth. Same white chair, same patient red light.

The first few questions followed the script he expected. How did you feel when you saw the audience response to your song? He gave them nothing but fragments. It wasn’t meant for release. I didn’t want it heard. It doesn’t belong to them.

Then the shift came. Too soft, too careful.

“Do you think it helps,” the producer asked, “having someone in the house who understands what it means to turn pain into music?”

His pulse jerked. He knew who they meant before the name dropped.

“Hongjoong has been working on songs too,” the voice continued, casual but cutting. “Viewers might be curious what it feels like to share space with another artist. Do you find yourself drawn to him?”

The words landed sharp — not cruel in tone, but cruel in precision.

He blinked hard at the camera, throat tight. “Drawn?” He almost laughed. It came out bitter, cracked. “I’m not here for a duet.”

Silence stretched, patient. The camera hummed.

“Still,” the producer pressed, gentle as ever, “he did speak up for you this morning. That seemed… unusual. Did it matter to you?”

His hands twitched against his knees. He wanted to shut it down, to give them nothing. But the memory had already replayed — Hongjoong’s voice cutting steady through the kitchen, the mug on the counter, the faint static in the air.

“It didn’t matter,” Wooyoung said quickly. Too quick. Too brittle. The red light didn’t blink.

He swallowed. Tried again, softer. “It just… surprised me. That’s all.”

The silence didn’t let him go.

When he left the booth, he didn’t look toward the monitor room. He didn’t want to see what they were doing with his face. But he knew. He knew the moment had been caught, clipped, labeled. It wouldn’t stay static between them anymore. It was already story.

----

That night the house was quiet in the way that never meant peace. The cameras still hummed faint in their corners, red lights pulsing steady like veins. Wooyoung couldn’t stop hearing the booth questions replayed in his head — every word sharpened to pry at something he hadn’t meant to give.

He found Hongjoong outside, on the patio again, notebook open, pen tapping slow against the page.

“Do you know what they’re doing?” Wooyoung’s voice came out rougher than he meant.

Hongjoong looked up, eyebrows lifting. “What?”

“They’re turning you into a storyline. Us. They asked me about you in the booth. About how it feels to be around you. About whether I’m—” He cut himself off, jaw locking. His hands curled tight at his sides. “They’re trying to make it something. Don’t you see?”

For a moment Hongjoong just watched him, expression unreadable. Then he closed the notebook slowly, setting the pen across its spine. “And does that bother you because it’s untrue? Or because they’re not supposed to notice yet?”

The words sliced clean. Wooyoung’s chest lurched, heat flooding up his throat. “There’s nothing to notice.” His voice cracked too sharp. “There’s nothing—”

Hongjoong tilted his head, not flinching, not apologizing. “Then why are you out here telling me about it instead of letting it roll off?”

Wooyoung’s breath stuttered. His mouth opened, then shut, as if the words might form if he just forced them hard enough. But nothing came except the rush of blood in his ears.

“You think too loud,” Hongjoong said softly. Not mocking. Not kind. Just matter-of-fact. “That’s why they hear it. That’s why I hear it.”

The silence stretched raw between them. Wooyoung turned away first, gripping the patio railing until his knuckles blanched. He wanted to deny it again, louder, sharper, but his voice refused him. The red light from a camera blinked faint in the corner of the glass, catching both of them in its eye.

-----

Later, upstairs, Wooyoung made the mistake of unlocking his phone. He told himself it was just to check the time, maybe a message from Mingi. But the notifications had piled higher than before, his name pinned in hashtags, trending alongside Lovely.

And now another tag blinked beside it.
#WooJoong.

He tapped it before he could stop himself.

The screen filled with clips from the kitchen that morning. Hongjoong setting his cup on the counter. Hongjoong’s voice cutting clean through the producer’s smile. Wooyoung’s eyes flicking up too quick, jaw clenched, lips parting like he meant to speak and didn’t.

Edited in slow motion. Set to music.

📱 On X:
@shipnation: “if you want vulnerability, stop trying to wring it out of him” HELLO?? he DEFENDED HIM??
@wooheart: the way Wooyo looked at him after 🥺🥺
@antiidol: lmfao yall ship trauma like it’s fanfic. he’s crying and ur horny.
@camclips: the STATIC in the room… you could feel it through the screen
@romcomfancam: i slowed down the eye contact at 0.25x speed… he’s gone.

He scrolled faster, thumb jittering. The edits multiplied. Fancams, slowed glances, their names smashed into one portmanteau like it had been inevitable. His chest burned hot, humiliation crawling under his skin. They were dissecting it like they’d dissected his breakup, like they’d dissected his tears on the sidewalk.

Only now it wasn’t San they paired him with.

It was Hongjoong.

Another clip rolled — the patio tonight, his voice sharp, Hongjoong’s gaze steady, the cameras catching what he hadn’t wanted them to. The caption read: “chemistry doesn’t lie.”

He threw the phone face down onto the mattress, chest heaving, but the glow still pulsed against the sheets. The edits still burned behind his eyes.

It didn’t matter if he denied it. It didn’t matter what he said in the booth, brittle and breaking. The audience had already decided there was a story. And once they decided, there was no undoing it.

The Intrusion

By the next morning, the producers didn’t bother pretending.

Breakfast had been rearranged. Chairs shuffled so Wooyoung found himself pressed into the seat beside Hongjoong, cameras angled closer than usual. It wasn’t subtle. The lens lingered when their hands reached for the same jug of water, when their shoulders nearly brushed.

He could feel it — the narrative calcifying around him faster than he could dodge. Lovely had barely stopped trending and already another headline was waiting.

Later, they announced the day’s activity. Reflection exercises, they said. In pairs. The draw “coincidentally” landed Wooyoung and Hongjoong together. No one in the room looked surprised.

Hongjoong’s gaze slid toward him, unreadable. He didn’t comment, didn’t smirk, didn’t look like someone who’d asked for this. But the staff’s eyes gleamed like they’d pulled off a miracle.

The director’s voice through the speakers was syrup-sweet: “We want to see what happens when artists create together. Maybe you’ll write. Maybe you’ll talk. Just… share.”

Share. That word again, wielded like a knife.

The corner room had been dressed for them. Two chairs, one low table, cameras tucked into angles that pretended to be discreet. A whiteboard leaned against the wall, a keyboard shoved to one side, and on the table sat a fresh notebook like bait.

Wooyoung sat stiff, arms folded, the blank page untouched between them. His skin crawled with the weight of the lens. This wasn’t about healing or music. This was about edits and hashtags and the way the internet had already decided their eyes lingered too long.

He wasn’t going to play along.

Hongjoong broke the silence first. “You hate this.”

Wooyoung’s head snapped up. “What?”

“This.” Hongjoong gestured at the cameras, at the notebook. “All of it. You hate being asked to spill when you’re already bleeding.”

Wooyoung’s jaw tightened. He wanted to deny it, to give nothing. Instead the words scraped out brittle: “Then why are you here?”

“Because they put me here.” Hongjoong’s voice was calm, almost lazy. “But if we’re stuck, we can at least decide what it looks like.”

Before Wooyoung could spit back, Hongjoong leaned forward, flipped the notebook open, and wrote quick across the top of the page. Then he slid it across the table.

Noise feels like drowning. Silence feels like remembering.

Wooyoung’s chest lurched. His own words — from the patio days — staring back in black ink.

“Why would you—” He broke off, voice sharp.

“Because it was honest,” Hongjoong said simply. “And honesty’s harder to twist than silence.”

The camera burned steady in the corner. Wooyoung’s hands twitched. He hated the exposure — but some part of him hated more how much it felt like air.

The pen waited. The trap was set.

He grabbed it before he could stop himself. His fingers shook, but he forced the tip to drag across the paper:

I don’t know how to stop wanting what ruins me.

The sentence sprawled messy across the page, pressed too hard, ink bleeding where his hand stuttered. He shoved the notebook back like it burned.

Hongjoong glanced down. He didn’t smile. Didn’t comment. He only added two words beneath:

Still human.

The silence that followed was heavy, uncuttable. The camera burned steady, catching everything, but for a flicker of a moment Wooyoung felt it — a thread between them that didn’t belong to the lens.

That night, he made the mistake of unlocking his phone.

Notifications piled higher than before, his name trending beside Lovely. But now another tag blinked above it.
#WooJoong.

His thumb tapped before he could stop.

Clips filled the screen — Hongjoong sliding the notebook across the table, Wooyoung’s hand trembling as he wrote, the words Still human visible in the corner of the shot. Set to music. Edited in slow motion.

📱 On X:
@shipnation: HE WROTE “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP WANTING WHAT RUINS ME” AND HONGJOONG WROTE BACK “STILL HUMAN.” THIS IS CINEMA.
@wooheart: we’re watching them fall in real time 🥺🥺
@antiidol: lmfao the producers feeding you scripted crumbs and yall act like it’s shakespeare
@romcomfancam: the tension?? the honesty?? I’m sick
@industrytea: mark my words, they’re pushing this pairing as the new arc. #WooJoong is here to stay.
@truthhurts99: imagine trauma dumping on camera and ppl calling it romance 🙄

His chest burned as he scrolled, thumb jittering. He tossed the phone facedown, but the glow pulsed through the sheets anyway.

It didn’t matter that it was a setup. It didn’t matter what he said in the booth, brittle denials stacked one after another. The audience had already decided what this story was.

And once they decided, there was no undoing it.

He lay awake long past midnight, heart pounding. And when the announcement finally came — a producer’s voice over the intercom, calling all contestants to the main hall for a “special guest” — his stomach dropped cold.

He knew before the words landed.

San was back — the wound walking in alive.

How dare you? 😔

They called it an exercise in closure.

The chairs were lined up like pews, facing the front where the cameras were arranged to catch every angle. The lights were harsher than usual — so hot the air shimmered above them — bleaching the contestants’ faces until even pores and fine hairs stood out in high definition. The director’s voice came over the speakers, syrup-smooth and steady, as if this were therapy instead of theater.

“Today we want to talk about honesty. About closure. About the strength it takes to confront the past.”

Closure. Honesty. Words polished enough to hide the teeth inside.

Wooyoung sat near the middle, his body stiff, palms slick against the denim over his knees. The red light on the main rig blinked steady, patient, hungry. He tried to breathe even, shallow, quiet, as though control might fool the lens. His chest betrayed him anyway. His stomach was already cold. His bones knew before his mind admitted it.

The doors opened.

San walked in.

He didn’t hesitate, but his hands betrayed him. They were clasped too tight in front of him, knuckles pale, like he needed something to hold himself steady.

The director’s voice purred through the speakers: “San-ssi has agreed to come today because he believes in healing. In honesty. We hope this conversation can bring understanding to both sides.”

Healing. Honesty. Words that already felt like knives.

San sat across from him. His posture was immaculate, his expression calm, perfectly camera-ready. To anyone else he looked composed, but Wooyoung’s eyes — traitorous eyes, trained by years of closeness — caught the tells. The way his jaw flickered. The way his breath measured itself too carefully.

“Why are you here?” the director prompted.

San’s gaze found him at last. For a heartbeat it softened — then shuttered. “Because what we had was real,” he said. His voice didn’t waver, but it pressed low, steady, like he had rehearsed it against himself a hundred times. “And because endings deserve truth, not silence.”

The words struck like a blunt blade. Wooyoung’s stomach lurched. The text message — sorry — flashed in his mind, now dressed in polish for a national audience.

The director’s voice pressed sharper. “Wooyoung-ssi? Do you want to respond?”

His throat locked. His lips parted but nothing came.

The silence stretched, burning under the lights. San’s jaw ticked once. His fingers tightened. And then, too quietly cruel: “I didn’t stop loving you.”

Wooyoung’s chest lurched.

San exhaled, steadying, before the second half dropped. “But I started loving someone else too. And I couldn’t live split between you both.”

San’s words hung in the air, clean as glass, sharp enough to split bone.

The silence after wasn’t empty. It fractured.

A choked inhale from the row behind. One of the younger contestants — a trainee boy barely twenty — clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Another, the actress who had always kept her tone sweet, muttered a curse before she bit it back.

Someone else shifted violently in their chair, metal scraping, jaw tight, teeth clenched like they were restraining themselves from shouting.

Tears brimmed at the edge of one woman’s eyes. She blinked hard, trying to hide it from the cameras, but her hand drifted toward Wooyoung’s back before she froze, remembering the rules: no interference.

Even through the roar in his ears, Wooyoung felt it — the collective intake, the shame, the weight of other people witnessing what he had once thought was his alone. The worst part was that their tears weren’t just pity. They were recognition. They knew what San had admitted wasn’t love fading. It was love dividing. Splitting. Cheating dressed as resignation.

And still, San sat immaculate in his chair, hands clasped too tight, voice calm as if he hadn’t just gutted the room. His composure pressed against Wooyoung like a wall.

The betrayal was no longer private. It was public fact now, stamped into the air, witnessed by contestants, staff, cameras — the millions waiting outside the frame.

Wooyoung’s body folded. His chest convulsed around a sound he couldn’t swallow, not words, not language, just an animal break. The mic wire stretched taut across his collar as his shoulders shook, tugging sharp against his skin.

San’s eyes flickered — barely, just once — at the sight. But he didn’t move. He couldn’t. His calm wasn’t indifference. It was barricade. Because if he reached now, if he softened, there would be no end.

The director let the silence stretch, milking it. The cameras hummed, adjusting, framing his collapse like it was art.

And then — the sound that shattered it.

A door slammed open somewhere behind the crew. Heavy boots thundered across the floor.

“CHOI SAN!”

The voice was ragged, furious, already breaking.

The set erupted before Wooyoung even turned his head. Contestants jerked upright, staff leapt to intercept, cameras swung wide.

Mingi stormed in like he’d torn the hinges off to get there. His face was flushed, damp with sweat, hair mussed as though he’d driven without stopping, without breathing. He didn’t look at the cameras, didn’t look at Wooyoung, didn’t look at anyone but San.

“You think you can sit here—” His voice cracked raw as he shoved through the rows, knocking a chair sideways. “You think you can sit here and talk about my brother like it’s a fucking segment? Like his heart is just another scene for you to sell?”

“Sir, you can’t—” A producer lunged for his arm; Mingi ripped free with terrifying force. His chest heaved, his hand shaking as he pointed straight at San.

“You broke him!” he roared, voice fraying at the edges. “You broke him, and now you’re sitting here calm, calling it closure? You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to sit there like this is healing when he—” Mingi’s voice cracked open. He swallowed hard, eyes wild. “When he can’t even breathe.”

Gasps rippled. Contestants froze, torn between fear and awe. Crew scrambled, security shouted.

San stayed seated, shoulders taut, but for the first time his composure fractured. His face tightened. His eyes wavered, flicking from Mingi’s fury to the trembling figure folded in the front row.

Wooyoung couldn’t move. His body was locked, convulsing, lungs useless. He could only watch as the two halves of his life collided under lights designed for spectacle.

The director shouted for security, but the cameras never cut. They whirred and hummed, eating everything: Wooyoung’s collapse, San’s barricade, Mingi’s rage tearing the room apart.

The set was no longer a show. It was a battlefield.

The episode aired after three hours of this aftermath.

They cut it into theater: San’s confession framed as devastating honesty, Wooyoung’s body breaking like a cliffhanger, Mingi’s eruption crashing in like the third act twist.

The headlines were merciless.

📰 Headlines:

• “San’s Confession: Honesty or Betrayal? Wooyoung Collapses on Air.”

• “Mingi Storms Set in Viral Showdown: ‘You Broke My Brother.’”

• “Closure or Exploitation? Reality Show Spirals Into Chaos.”

📱 On X:
@tearsshed: wooyoung’s sob will haunt me forever. this wasn’t closure, it was cruelty.
@wooangel: and mingi storming in?? brother of the year. i was SOBBING.
@sanxysupremacy: he told the truth. y’all just hate that love moves on.
@protectwooyo: stop calling it “drama” — that was a man’s life breaking in real time.
@industrytea: producers won the lottery. cheating scandal, idol breakdown, protective brother brawl? this season’s locked in history.

The set had already dissolved into panic — producers shouting over one another, security lunging, contestants half-risen from their chairs. Mingi tore free of another guard, his arm cocked back, fist trembling with so much fury it seemed to shake the very air around it.

San didn’t move. He sat stiff, shoulders locked, eyes steady, as though bracing himself to take the blow.

And then—

“Stop!”

The sound ripped out of Wooyoung’s chest, ragged, breaking. He lurched forward from his chair, legs unsteady, arms flung out. His palms slammed against Mingi’s chest, not with strength but with desperation. His body shook violently, breath wheezing, every muscle quivering like a wire stretched too thin. His eyes — wet, wide — locked onto his brother’s face.

“Don’t,” he begged, his voice shredding. “Don’t hurt him.”

The words gutted the room.

Gasps tore through the contestants like a wave. The trainee boy whispered “oh my god” before he could stop himself. The actress swore under her breath. It was horror to watch — Wooyoung shielding the man who had broken him, bracing his fragile body as a barrier made only of grief.

Mingi’s fist hung inches from San’s face. His whole frame shook with the force of holding himself back, veins standing out in his neck, teeth clenched against a snarl.

“Wooyo,” he whispered, like a man begging.

But Wooyoung couldn’t hold. His arms trembled violently against Mingi’s chest, then buckled. His knees hit the floor hard, his chest spasming shallow, the mic wire snapping taut against his throat like it might strangle him.

His body collapsed all at once.

Mingi caught him before he hit the ground. His arms locked around his brother’s limp weight, scooping him up in one motion. Wooyoung was terrifyingly light in his grip, his head rolling against Mingi’s chest, breath thin and stuttering.

“Wooyo—shit—fuck—” Mingi’s voice cracked, wild and raw. His palm cupped the back of Wooyoung’s head, rocking him instinctively, like he was a boy again needing comfort. “Stay with me, baby, please—please—”

The cameras zoomed closer. Red tally lights glowed against Wooyoung’s damp cheek, turning his collapse into spectacle.

That was when Mingi snapped.

His head whipped toward the lens, his glare blazing, his voice erupting like shrapnel.

“Fuck you,” he spat, venom so sharp it echoed. His voice rose, shaking the set. “Fuck this show. Fuck every single one of you vultures.”

A producer tried, “Sir, please—” but Mingi was already shoving through, Wooyoung clutched to his chest like something he would kill to protect.

“You all deserve a special place in hell,” he roared, his throat raw. “Making him bleed like this for your fucking ratings.”

The contestants were crying openly now. One woman pressed her sleeve to her mouth, sobbing. The trainee boy’s hiccupped sob caught on the mic. Security scrambled again, useless against Mingi’s size and rage.

He barreled through them, his voice breaking down to something hoarse, almost a prayer, whispered only for his brother.

“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. I swear to God I’ve got you.”

Behind them the set howled — producers shrieking, “Cut! Cut! Keep rolling!” — but Mingi didn’t look back. He slammed the doors open, carrying Wooyoung out in his arms. His final words echoed like a curse, burning into the walls:

“Fuck every last one of you.”

-------

Mingi’s roar still echoed in the halls long after the doors slammed.

The official broadcast never showed the rest. They ended on silence, San’s words left hanging in the air. No collapse. Just brother entering the set and causing commotion. Just a fade to black, as though mercy had been extended.

But the mercy was a lie.

Because before the producers could bury it, the raw footage leaked. A staffer, maybe. Or a crew member hungry for clicks, for cash. Whoever it was, they uploaded everything: Wooyoung stumbling forward, whispering don’t hurt him; his knees caving; the mic wire yanking taut against his throat; his body folding into Mingi’s arms; the curses hurled at the cameras on the way out. The video bore the faint watermark of an internal feed. Proof it had come from inside.

The internet didn’t hesitate.

📰 Headlines:
“Uncut Leak Exposes Idol Collapse: Wooyoung Faints Mid-Filming, Brother Mingi Storms Set.” (Dispatch)
“Crew Leak Sparks Outrage: Calls for Investigation Into Reality Show Ethics.” (Korea Herald)
“Exploitation or Honesty? Leaked Clip Fuels Debate.” (Soompi)

📱 On X:

@tearsshed: he whispered “don’t hurt him” before fainting. I feel sick.

@wooangel: the mic wire choking him… and Mingi catching him like glass 😭💔

@traineeboy19: the leak shows staff yelling “keep rolling” while he collapsed. absolute monsters.

@sanxysupremacy: funny how it always “leaks” right before ratings week 🙄 staged af.

@protectwooyo: this isn’t content. this was a man fainting on set because of cruelty. jail every last one of them.

@antisaywoo: crybaby can’t handle a breakup lol.

@industrytea: Mingi spitting “fuck this show” — raw, uncensored. most real moment in K-pop this year.

The hashtags swarmed within hours:
#LeakedWooyoungCollapse
#MingiWasRight
#ProtectWooyoung
#ExploitationShow

Edits spread like rot. His fainting body slowed to half-speed, set to piano ballads. GIFs looped of Mingi rocking him against his chest. Someone captioned the freeze-frame of Wooyoung limp in his brother’s arms: “your idol without a mask.”

The discourse ate itself alive — compassion, cruelty, conspiracy — all of it louder than the truth.

And somewhere, far from the noise, Wooyoung lay unconscious, the world tearing him apart while he wasn’t even awake to defend himself.

That alone should have been enough to split the internet apart.

But it wasn’t the only leak.

In the dressing room down the hall, San finally broke into tears.

He had sat silent for hours, hands clasped so tight the bones ached, his reflection in the mirror looking less like a man, more like a mask stretched too thin. The dressing room was sterile — faint smell of hairspray, discarded tissues by the sink, an untouched bottle of water — but it felt like a confessional box. And in the glass, staring back at him, was not the man he pretended to be but the coward he had become.

For six months he had held it. The resignation, the composure, the illusion that his choice had been clean. He told himself again and again that silence was mercy, that distance was necessary. But tonight, watching Wooyoung crumple, whispering don’t hurt him with tears streaking down his face — that lie shattered so violently he thought he heard it crack inside his ribs.

The sob tore out of him before he could choke it down. His shoulders buckled, his chest heaved, and his hands clawed through his hair like he could dig out the shame with his nails.

He hadn’t come here to gloat. He hadn’t come to defend himself. He had come to confess. To repent. To finally say what he had been too ashamed to speak aloud: he was a coward.

A coward who had sent a text message typing just one word SORRY . A coward who had cheated on the one person who would have burned himself to ash just to light San’s way. The boy who would have given him the moon if he asked. The boy who actually would have hung the stars.

San had tried. God, he had tried. He came home and kissed Wooyoung breathless, let himself laugh with him, cooked midnight noodles like everything was normal. But Yeosang was already in his head. His smile ghosted behind Wooyoung’s eyes, his laugh tucked between breaths. Shame gnawed and gnawed until silence seemed safer than honesty, until deceit tasted easier than truth.

It had started slowly, innocently — on set, under lights, lines rehearsed until they blurred. A drama shoot. A kiss scene. His lips pressed to Yeosang’s in front of the cameras, meant to be performance, and yet the jolt of exhilaration and calm that followed had been too real. It was then San knew. Knew he was no longer Wooyoung’s person.

But how do you tell that to the boy whose thigh you marked with your promise? Amicus ad aras. Friend to the altars. Bond to the end. How do you face the one you had begged, drunk and desperate, to never leave you? The one you had sworn would be your forever? How do you look into his wide, bright eyes — eyes that had always seen only you — and say, I broke it. I broke us.

He couldn’t.

So he didn’t.

He became silent. And then he became a liar. And then he became cruel.

He told himself Wooyoung was strong, that he’d get over it. He even told Yeosang that lie. He’s strong. He’ll survive. He’ll be fine. Ruses stop being ruses when you force yourself to believe them.

But then he saw Wooyoung again. Six months later, under studio lights on Broadcast My Breakdown. The boy he had left behind wasn’t fine. He was stiff where he used to be liquid, beautiful still but lifeless in a way that made San’s chest seize. The song, Lovely, leaked by Jongho, was a wound disguised as music. Every note sounded like marrow cracking, like breath held until it broke. Wooyoung hadn’t healed. He had hollowed.

And tonight — tonight had undone San completely.

Wooyoung had defended him. Defended him from Mingi’s fist with a trembling body, whispered don’t hurt him through tears, shielded him when San deserved to be hit, dragged, destroyed. Shielded him and then collapsed, limp, into his brother’s arms.

San sobbed harder, pressing his hands to his mouth, his body curling in on itself. His chest seized with the knowledge that he had come ready for punishment. Ready to confess. Ready to take the heat. To say it out loud — yes, I hurt him. Yes, I was weak. Yes, I loved him and I loved Yeosang, and I chose Yeosang over him.

But instead, Wooyoung had shielded him. Instead, Wooyoung had fainted.

He had thought he was ready for this reckoning. But nothing — nothing — could have prepared him for that.

For his person, the boy with the matching tattoo on his thigh, the vow etched into both their skins, to collapse defending him, even after all the ruin he caused.

The mask cracked for good, ugly sobs wracking through him, hot tears spilling unchecked. His composure was gone. His barricade was useless. His body shook with all the grief he had swallowed for too long.

He had broken Wooyoung. And now, for the first time, he let himself break too.

He gasped it out between sobs, voice wrecked. I’m sorry. I loved him. I loved them both. I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t know how to tell him.

---

He hadn’t realized the camera was already there.

Tucked high in the corner of the dressing room, half-hidden in the shadow of a rack of costumes, its red tally light faint against the dark. It had been set up by a staffer, maybe days ago, maybe hours ago, for reasons San would never know. Insurance, blackmail, money — the motive didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was rolling while his mask cracked, while his chest seized, while the words he never wanted the world to hear spilled out of him like blood.

By dawn, the footage was everywhere.

The world didn’t just see Wooyoung faint into his brother’s arms. They saw San too — folded in a chair, his hands clawing through his hair, voice raw with confession. They saw the coward admit it at last:

I loved him. I loved them both. I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t know how to tell him. I’m sorry.

Two collapses. Two idols. One story.

📰 Headlines:

• “Dual Leaks Shake Industry: Wooyoung Faints, San Sobs in Dressing Room.” (Dispatch)

• “Coward or Confessor? San’s Hidden Breakdown Surfaces Online.” (Korea Herald)

• “Two Sides of Love: Wooyoung’s Collapse, San’s Apology.” (Soompi)

• “Ethics Crisis: Who Leaked San’s Dressing Room Footage?” (Rolling Stone Korea)

📱 On X:

@tearsshed: the parallel kills me. wooyoung whispering “don’t hurt him” → san whispering “i loved him, i loved them both.” same night. same hell.

@wooangel: I hate him. I hate him. but god, watching him sob like that after… it’s the first time I’ve believed he loved him at all.

@sanxysupremacy: so now you see. he wasn’t cold. he wasn’t heartless. he loved them both and it destroyed him. stop pretending love is simple.

@protectwooyo: NO. don’t humanize him. don’t you dare. wooyoung fainted because of him. San’s tears don’t weigh the same as Wooyoung’s body hitting the ground.

@antisaywoo: lmfao fake tears. can smell the acting through the screen. Oscar goes to…

@traineeboy19: whoever leaked this should be fired. this is violation. this is not journalism. this is exploitation twice over.

@industrytea: two men. two breakdowns. two leaks. stitched together like a love story turned autopsy. history, but at what cost.

The edits came almost immediately.

Splitscreens of Wooyoung’s collapse on the left and San’s sobbing confession on the right. Subtitles burned in: I loved him. I loved them both. Piano tracks underneath, timing each faint breath to each gasped sob. Captions like: “Love doesn’t vanish. It splits you in half.”

The hashtags trended worldwide:
#LeakedWooyoungCollapse
#SanConfession
#ProtectWooyoung
#ExploitationShow

The discourse ate itself alive. Pity twisted into rage, rage into defense, defense into conspiracy. Was it staged? Was it mercy? Was it love? Was it cruelty?

And somewhere far from the noise, in a hospital bed under sterile lights, Wooyoung lay unconscious — his pulse fragile, his breath shallow.

He wasn’t awake to see strangers cut his heartbreak into edits.
He wasn’t awake to see San’s shame turned into captions.
He wasn’t awake to know that the world had stitched their ruin together into one story — and claimed it as theirs.

---

And then Yeosang’s name trended.

Dispatch dredged up old photos — San and Yeosang leaving a drama shoot together, walking too close. Clips of their kiss scene resurfaced, played in slow motion with captions like “the moment it started.” Wooyoung’s own confessional words were clipped alongside: “Yeosang’s hand was on his, steady. Like it already belonged there.”

The hand that had gutted Wooyoung in that apartment now looped endlessly across timelines, ordinary touch made into emblem.

📰 Headlines:

• “Yeosang Named as ‘Other Man’ After Leaked Confession.” (Allkpop)

• “Dispatch Revisits Drama Shoot: Did On-Screen Chemistry Spark Off-Screen Affair?” (Naver)

📱 On X:

@stanwooyo: idc what anyone says. yeosang KNEW. you don’t touch someone’s back like that unless you mean it.
@defendsang: stop vilifying him. he didn’t ask to be the villain. love happens. san owed wooyoung honesty, not yeosang.
@industrytea: notice yeosang hasn’t said a word. silence is louder than denial.

Yeosang stayed silent. No statements. No posts. His quiet was its own confession, whether true or not.

At Haejeong Hospital-

Mingi paced the hall, eyes red, jaw clenched. Hongjoong sat in a plastic chair nearby, hands fisted, his own face tight with worry. Nurses murmured in low voices, machines beeped steady, but none of it cut through the roar that still lived in Mingi’s head: his brother collapsing, the cameras zooming closer, producers shouting keep rolling.

Wooyoung didn’t hear any of it. He wasn’t awake to see strangers turn his grief into edits. He wasn’t awake to see San’s shame turned into captions. He wasn’t awake to know Yeosang’s name was being dragged through dirt in his absence.

The world owned their story now.

All three of them.

Shadows in Silence 🤐

Yeosang scrolled in the dark, the light from his phone bleaching his face until his reflection in the black glass behind it looked like a ghost.

Wooyoung’s collapse looped in one corner of the screen. San’s dressing-room confession looped in another. His own name burned below both: #YeosangTheOtherMan. #SanConfession. #ProtectWooyoung.

He didn’t post. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t speak at all.

What could he say? That he hadn’t meant for this to happen? That love had crept up on him slow and quiet, until one day it was already spilling out of his chest, too real to be denied? That he had known about Wooyoung — everyone knew about Wooyoung, because Wooyoung and San had been everywhere, inseparable, a love so public it seemed untouchable — and yet his heart had betrayed him anyway?

Silence was all that remained. Silence, and memory.

San had been impossible not to notice. Tall, broad-shouldered, built like he’d been carved to catch light. The kind of physique that made people stare first, but it wasn’t his body that undid Yeosang — it was everything softer.

The feline tilt of his eyes when he laughed. The dimples that sank deep, boyish and warm. The way his voice always dropped when he asked if everyone else was comfortable before himself. The way he could carry a room with confidence and then spend the night crouched on the floor, making sure the youngest staff ate first.

He was beautiful, yes, but more than that — he was down-to-earth in a way idols weren’t supposed to be. A man who teased gently, who listened fully, who remembered the smallest details and tucked them away like treasures. A man who called Wooyoung every single break without a miss.

And Wooyoung — god, Wooyoung had looked at San like he was the only thing that existed. Wide eyes that softened just for him, laughter that cracked open like light. It haunted Yeosang even when San turned toward him instead.

Yeosang had told himself not to fall. He knew who San belonged to. Knew how Wooyoung’s eyes always found him in a crowd, how San’s hand at Wooyoung’s waist had looked like a promise. He knew the two of them had marked their skin with permanence — tattoos that bound them together.

And yet…

They were filming late, exhaustion clinging to the set like fog, when San’s laughter cut through it all. Low, rumbling, unguarded — and it landed square in Yeosang’s chest. Then came the kiss scene. Scripted. Mechanical. Supposed to be nothing.

But when San’s lips pressed against his, Yeosang felt a jolt of exhilaration and calm all at once, like the world had shifted and clicked into place. He had pulled back, breath caught, guilt flashing fast — but San’s eyes had been steady, searching.

That was when Yeosang knew.

And once you know, you can’t unknow.

He had tried to quiet it, bury it, tell himself it was wrong. But love had a way of outgrowing denial. It rose in him like tidewater, slow but unstoppable, until resisting felt like suffocating.

He hadn’t wanted to be the villain. He hadn’t wanted to be the thief. But when San’s hand brushed his, when San’s voice lowered just for him, when San leaned in as if Yeosang was the one thing keeping him steady—how could he pull away? How could he not fall, when falling felt like the only honest thing he’d ever done?

So he let it happen. Even as guilt gnawed, even as shame shadowed every smile, even as Wooyoung’s face haunted him when he caught them in the apartment. But his feelings overshadowed everything.

And now the world knew.

The leaks had stitched together every piece: Wooyoung’s fainting, San’s confession, San’s hand at Yeosang’s back. Strangers replayed it on loop, slow-motion captions framing his touch as theft. Dispatch photos resurfaced. Headlines crowned him the other man.

His silence was taken as guilt. But what words could he offer that wouldn’t make it worse?

Sometimes guilt and love lived in the same chest. Sometimes honesty was cruelty. Sometimes silence was the only mercy left.

So he stayed quiet, and let himself be torn apart by people who would never know how it had felt.

At the hospital, the world felt muted, like sound had been pressed through cotton.

Through the glass, Wooyoung lay pale against white sheets, wires running from his body, chest rising shallow but even. Another kind of restraint — not a mic taped to his skin this time, but machines holding him steady, binding him to their rhythm instead of his own. He was still. Silent. Beautiful even in fragility.

And for the first time in months, the world couldn’t touch him.

The quiet didn’t last long.

Jongho was the first to arrive. He came in fast, breath ragged like he had run the whole way, eyes wide and frantic. The second he saw Mingi pacing outside the room, he stopped, chest heaving.

“I should never have uploaded Lovely,” he blurted. His voice cracked on the word, guilt rushing in faster than breath. “I thought—I thought people needed to hear him. To know what he was holding inside. But now—”

“Stop.”

Mingi caught him before he could spiral further, one huge arm wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him in until Jongho’s forehead pressed against his chest. “Don’t do that to yourself,” Mingi rasped, voice rough from hours of shouting, of swearing. “You gave him a voice. Don’t twist it into blame.”

Jongho clutched the fabric of his shirt, sobs muffled against him.

Seonghwa and Yunho came next. Their faces were streaked from crying, hands gripping each other as they walked in. Seonghwa didn’t hesitate—he went straight to Mingi and wrapped both arms around his middle, clinging like he could hold him up by sheer force. Yunho crouched at his side, pressing his forehead into his shoulder.

They didn’t say much. They didn’t need to.

“He’s going to be okay,” Seonghwa whispered, his voice breaking anyway. “He has to be.”

Yunho’s hand squeezed Mingi’s tight, grounding, insistent. “He’s stronger than all of this. Stronger than them. We’ll make sure he knows it when he wakes up.”

Mingi let himself fold then. His head bowed, his massive frame trembling as tears spilled hot and unstoppable. He had carried Wooyoung out of that hell with rage in his arms, but now, surrounded by people who loved him just as fiercely, the fury burned down into grief.

Together, they held him. Jongho sobbing into his chest. Seonghwa clinging like he’d never let go. Yunho’s steady grip an anchor against the storm.

Through the glass, Wooyoung lay still. Machines hummed, monitors beeped, his body pale against white sheets. He didn’t hear their voices. Didn’t feel their arms.

But the room was thick with love all the same. Fierce, protective, stubborn love. The kind that would wait as long as it took for him to come back.

By the second hour, reporters had gathered outside the entrance. The low hum of cameras carried through the glass doors — clicks and flashes, the thrum of whispered commentary. Dispatch vans idled by the curb. Microphones were shoved at anyone in scrubs who happened to walk too close to the doors.

Every so often, the voices rose in unison, shouting questions that bled faint through the halls:
“Is he conscious yet?”
“Is San here?”
“Will Yeosang make a statement?”

The circus hadn’t stayed on set. It had followed them here.

Inside, Mingi’s pacing grew sharper, his glare a weapon aimed at anyone who dared step too close. When a producer appeared down the hall, phone in hand, voice pitched low like he was already drafting spin, Mingi stormed forward so fast Jongho had to catch his arm.

“You,” Mingi snarled, his voice low, trembling with fury. “If one of you tries to turn this into another headline, I swear to God—”

The man stammered, raising both palms, but Mingi wasn’t finished. His voice carried down the hall, sharp enough that nurses peeked out from the stations.

“He’s not a fucking plotline. He’s not your ratings. He’s my brother for fuck sakes. If I see one camera closer than that door, I’ll smash it myself.”

The producer fled before he could finish.

Seonghwa sat pressed close to Wooyoung’s door, one hand resting against the sterile frame, his head bowed. His lips moved in fragments — not prayers exactly, but memories disguised as them.

“The way you used to crash at my dorm,” he murmured, voice breaking. “Sneaking in because the bed was bigger, because you said my walls were quieter… Remember? You’d steal my blanket and leave your cold feet on me. I let you, every damn time. Because you knew I’d give in — no matter how annoying you were, you were too damn adorable to refuse.”

His throat closed. Yunho crouched beside him, one broad arm slung over his shoulders, grounding him. His own eyes were red, glassy, but his mouth tried to curl into something like a smile.

“Or the way he’d come to me,” Yunho said, softer. “Back when we were all still trainees. He’d get scolded too hard in practice and… god, he’d find me in the stairwell. Just sit there until he stopped shaking. And I’d make dumb faces until he laughed again.” His voice cracked. “He always laughed. Even when he shouldn’t have.”

Seonghwa’s hand dragged down his face, shaky. “He’s always been soft. Too soft for this industry. I kept telling myself he’d harden up, learn how to take the hits. But no matter how much time passed, he still cried at the smallest things. Still clung when he was scared. And I—” His voice faltered. “I should’ve protected him better. We all should have.”

“No.” Yunho’s voice turned firm, even through the rasp. “We did. We always did. Remember the showcase? When those older trainees tried to cut him out of center? We fought for him until he got it back. Remember when staff yelled at him for being late? We covered for him, said it was our fault. Every time.”

Seonghwa nodded, tears streaming, but his mouth twisted bitter. “And yet here we are. He’s still the one bleeding for everyone else.”

Yunho pressed his forehead against Seonghwa’s shoulder, clinging harder. “Then we keep shielding him. However long it takes.”

Through the glass, Wooyoung lay pale, his body still, wires trailing from his arms. He didn’t hear their voices, didn’t feel the weight of the memories being spoken for him.

But the hall was thick with love anyway. Fierce, stubborn love. The kind that had shielded him since they were kids. The kind that would not stop now.

A chair scraped quietly. Jongho had been silent until then, shoulders hunched, hands locked in his lap. His leg bounced restless, like a drumbeat he couldn’t stop. His voice came out smaller than the others, but no less raw.

“I remember when he’d visit me,” Jongho whispered, staring at the floor. “When I was just a kid, still dreaming about all this. He’d sneak me candy, play music too loud in my room, make me believe I could do it too.” His throat worked, the words breaking. “He was my reason. Always. I followed him everywhere like an idiot, because he was… everything. And now—” His voice fractured. “Now look what I’ve done. Its all my fault.”

“Jongho.”

Mingi’s voice cut sharp but not unkind. He was standing against the wall, massive frame trembling, eyes bloodshot. He crouched low enough to grip his cousin’s shoulder. “Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself."

Jongho’s jaw clenched, tears slipping hot down his cheeks. “Then why does it feel like I hurt him too?”

“Because you love him,” Mingi said simply, his voice wrecked but steady. “Because all of us do.”

Beyond the hospital walls, the discourse raged. News alerts pinged on every phone.

📰 Headlines:

“Wooyoung Hospitalized After On-Set Collapse; Condition ‘Stable but Monitored.’” (Korea Times)
“Producers Under Fire: Did Show Exploit Idol’s Pain for Ratings?” (Soompi)
“San, Yeosang Silent Amid Hospitalization of Wooyoung.” (Dispatch)
“Mingi’s Fury Trends Worldwide: ‘He’s Not a Plotline, He’s My Brother.’” (Rolling Stone Korea)
“Love Triangle Idol Hospitalized Amid Cheating Scandal — Fans Demand Truth.” (Tabloid Star Daily)

📱 On X:
@wooangel: he’s literally fighting for breath in a hospital bed and ppl are STILL asking about san & yeosang?? you’re sick.
@traineeboy19: mingi threatening producers… chills. brother of the year. keep them the hell away from wooyo.
@antisaywoo: crybaby idol can’t handle heartbreak, lmao. imagine collapsing over a man.
@protectwooyo: every photo of him behind that hospital glass looks like he’s sleeping beauty. i hope he wakes up to love, not this circus.

The hashtags swelled again:
#ProtectWooyoung
#MingiWasRight
#CollapseShow

😔 The Ghost Who Won't Let Go

The hospital smelled like lemon disinfectant and something sharper, older — fear, maybe, or grief that had nowhere to go. Machines beeped in steady little patterns, impartial, unfeeling. Out in the corridor the fluorescent lights hummed, but inside this room the world had narrowed to the fragile rise and fall of Wooyoung’s chest.

Mingi hadn’t left the chair. Hours had gone by and he stayed bent forward, elbows digging into his knees, eyes glued to his brother’s face like he could hold him here by sheer force of will. He’d memorized the rhythm of the monitors — the rise, the beep, the pause. It lived inside him now.

The internet was already eating him alive.

📰 Headlines screamed through every waiting room TV and every phone pressed to every stranger’s palm:

“Jung Wooyoung Collapses On Air — Brother Storms Set in Viral Fury”
“From Idol Darling to Hospital Bed: Can Wooyoung Survive the Industry?”
“Exploitative Reality Show or Necessary Healing? Public Divided After On-Set Collapse.”

📱 On X:
@wooangel: he used to smile so bright on vlives. now look. pale, wires all over him. how did we let this happen?
@industrytea: career break → comeback on a trauma show → collapse. honestly the saddest arc I’ve ever seen
@traineeboy19: he loved fans so much. and now he won’t even look at social media. it broke him.
@antisaywoo: lmao man couldn’t take heartbreak. weak.
@protectwooyo: no. fuck you. he was the life of every room. he was sunshine. and they drained him till he was nothing.

Mingi shut his eyes against the glow of his phone, but the words still burned. They made a spectacle out of him. Out of his baby brother. He had been the idol who loved too much, the boy who hugged fans till security tugged him back, who spammed lives because silence was unbearable. He used to love people. He used to fucking love them. And now? Now he flinched from his phone like it was a weapon. The joy had been beaten out of him, humiliated out of him, edited out of him.

Mingi remembered how it used to be.

Wooyoung clinging like a koala, arms looped tight around his shoulders until Mingi barked and told him to get off. He never did. He’d hang there giggling, humming nonsense songs into Mingi’s ear, driving him insane. He’d sneak into Mingi’s bed at night when the thunder was too loud, poke at his ribs until Mingi pretended to kick him out — only to leave a sliver of blanket waiting.

To Jongho, he’d been more than a cousin — he’d been a protector, a guiding star. Jongho had followed him everywhere like a shadow, learned from him, leaned on him. To Seonghwa and Yunho, he’d been daily laughter, the moodmaker, the one who filled practice rooms with noise until the air was too thick to suffocate.

He had been the heartbeat. The glue. The one everyone loved without needing a reason.

And now he was lying here, pale, fragile, wires running from his skin, because of the one man he had loved too much. Because of San.

Mingi’s throat locked. Rage boiled hot in his chest, so violent he could barely stay seated. How could God be this cruel? To take a boy who gave everything — his time, his laughter, his body, his loyalty — and break him this way? To let the person he shielded, defended, worshipped, be the very person who destroyed him?

It felt like a joke with no punchline. Like cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

And then—

Wooyoung stirred.

His fingers twitched. His lashes fluttered. Mingi’s whole body went rigid, breath caught halfway up his throat.

Then his lips parted. A cracked sound crawled out, rasped and broken, but clear enough to wound.

“…Sannie.”

The syllable dropped like a stone.

Seonghwa gasped and slapped both hands to his mouth, shoulders shaking. Yunho folded into himself, his body collapsing inward as though the name itself had weight. Jongho let out a jagged, strangled noise — part laugh, part sob — before covering his face.

Mingi froze. His knuckles pressed into the mattress until the skin stretched white, until it hurt. His jaw locked so tight it made his teeth ache. That name. After all of it. After the apartment — Yeosang’s hand at San’s back, San’s eyes resigned instead of guilty. After Wooyoung walking into the stairwell, breaking down on the pavement while upstairs San didn’t follow. After six months of lifelessness, of therapy sessions that never worked, of nights where Mingi heard his brother crying through the walls.

After all of it — the first word back on his lips was still Sannie.

Mingi bent close, forehead nearly pressed to the sheet. His voice rasped like something tearing.
“It’s me,” he whispered. “It’s Ming. You’re safe. Don’t—don’t think of him.”

But Wooyoung’s glassy eyes drifted through him, fixed somewhere else. The name clung to his lips like smoke. And then his body sagged, chest loosening as sleep pulled him under again.

The room was silent but for the machines.

Mingi lasted another ten minutes in the room before the nausea won.
He stood too fast, nearly knocking over the chair, muttered something hoarse to Seonghwa that didn’t make sense, and staggered out. His chest heaved, air clawing at his throat as if the hospital walls were closing in on him.

The automatic doors hissed open and the night hit him hard — sharp air, the sting of exhaust, neon signs buzzing in the distance. He barely made it past the line of parked ambulances before his body folded.

He dropped to his knees on the asphalt.

Bile surged up hot and violent, splattering across the pavement as his chest convulsed. He heaved until his stomach emptied, then heaved again, dry, his whole body shaking with the force of it. His hands braced against the ground, palms scraping on gravel, knuckles raw.

And still the name pounded in his skull.
Sannie. Sannie. Sannie.
The first word out of his baby brother’s mouth after six months of breaking. The ghost still owning him even now.

Mingi spat, retched again, his throat burning, tears leaking hot down his face. He cursed low, savage, his voice ripping out of him.
“Fuck—fuck, why him? Why not me? Why do you keep saying his fucking name?”

The night didn’t answer.

But the cameras did.

Flashes burst in his periphery. Reporters who had camped at the entrance were already on him, lenses rising like vultures circling meat. They caught him doubled over on the asphalt, vomit on the ground, his massive frame shaking, tears still wet on his cheeks.

“Look this way, Mingi-ssi—”
“Can you tell us how Wooyoung is?”
“Was he asking for San?”

Their voices sliced through the night. He shoved a hand up, middle finger raised, his other arm dragging across his mouth to wipe away the bile. His glare burned under the flashes, but he couldn’t stop shaking.

Then—hands, familiar ones.

“Move back!” Seonghwa’s voice cut sharp, shaking but fierce, as he shoved himself between Mingi and the cluster of lenses. His chest rose hard, his palms held out like shields. “Back the fuck up, give him space—he’s not a headline.”

Yunho was right behind him, dropping to his knees on the asphalt, one arm bracing Mingi’s shoulder. “Breathe, hyung, please—look at me. Not at them.” His own voice cracked as he cupped the back of Mingi’s neck, grounding him, pulling his forehead to his shoulder.

The flashes kept coming. The vultures didn’t stop.

Seonghwa spun, his own tears streaking down his face. “Do you have no shame?” he shouted, his voice raw, breaking. “He’s falling apart—he’s human—can’t you see that?”

For a second, even the cameras faltered.

But by dawn, the images were everywhere.

📰 Headlines:
“Caught on Camera: Mingi Collapses in Grief Outside Hospital.”
“Not Just Wooyoung — Brother and Friends Break Down Under Pressure.”
“Shielding Him to the End: Seonghwa and Yunho Protect Mingi From Press.”

📱 On X:
@wooangel: yunho literally holding mingi up while seonghwa fought off cameras. i’m destroyed.
@soft4woo: first wooyo fainted into his brother’s arms, now his brother vomiting in grief. this is inhumane to watch.
@antisaywoo: why are they crying so much lol this family weak as hell.
@traineeboy19: seonghwa’s voice cracking when he yelled at the press… i’ll never forget that sound.
@industrytea: the heartbreak is spreading like dominoes. this isn’t a show anymore. it’s a public unravelling.

Inside, Wooyoung lay unconscious. Outside, Mingi crumpled under the weight of a name. And Seonghwa and Yunho — the ones who had been shielding Wooyoung since they were kids — shielded his brother now too, even as the world insisted on turning every collapse into spectacle.

The Machinery

The world did not sleep after Wooyoung collapsed.

By dawn, newsroom lights still burned, editors hunched over coffee-stained desks, pushing headlines live as if his heartbreak were breaking news, not a breaking man. Networks scrambled — some sponsors pulling out in disgust, others doubling down, calling it “historic television.”

Dispatch polished their knives into think-pieces:

📰 “Six Months of Silence: Jung Wooyoung’s Collapse in Context.”
📰 “From Idol Darling to Reality Show Ratings Spike.”
📰 “Brother’s Fury Raises Questions of Exploitation.”
His career break — the therapy, the sabbatical, the nights Seonghwa and Yunho had found him curled in stairwells, the mornings Jongho carried him coffee with hands shaking — became bullet points on a timeline. His fainting body, limp against Mingi’s chest, was replayed between ad slots.

📱 On X:
@wooangel: protect him protect him protect him 😭😭😭
@industrytea: collapse already bigger than any of his comebacks 💀 the machine never sleeps
@truthhurts: he signed the contract. stop acting like he’s innocent.
@moonchildfan: he used to adore us. now he can’t even look at social media without flinching. what did they do to him?

The machine had found fresh meat. Grief was marketable. Collapse was content.

The Fractures

San hadn’t moved in hours. The dressing room was still littered with tissues he hadn’t used, a bottle of water untouched, his reflection in the mirror more corpse than man. The leaked video looped in his mind whether or not he pressed play: his own body folded, his voice whispering confessions he had never meant for the world.

And Wooyoung’s collapse. God — Wooyoung’s body limp, his mouth shaping don’t hurt him even as he fainted. It replayed until San thought he’d be sick.

The door creaked. Yeosang slipped in, phone clutched tight in one hand. His face was drawn, eyes raw from scrolling the same footage over and over. He shut the door behind him and stood there for a long beat, his chest heaving, before he spoke.

“San,” his voice cracked, thin with restraint. “I watched it.”

San’s throat closed. “Yeosang—”

But Yeosang’s voice rose, desperate. “I watched him say your name as he collapsed. Do you understand what that means? He still loves you enough to shield you from his own brother’s fist, and then he fainted for it.” His hand pressed against his chest like the words hurt to keep in. “Do you have any idea how cruel that looks from the outside? From my eyes?”

San’s lips parted, but no words came. He bowed his head, shame hot.

Yeosang took a step closer, his voice trembling now, not just sharp but raw with love and guilt tangled. “I knew about Wooyoung from the start. Everyone knew. I saw the way he looked at you, like you were the air he breathed. And I still let myself fall. I still touched you when I shouldn’t have. I told myself lies because being with you felt like the only honest thing I’d ever done.” His voice broke, tears finally spilling. “But it wasn’t honest. It was theft. And I let it happen because I couldn’t stay away from you.”

San’s face twisted. He rose halfway, his hands reaching for him before he dared pull back. “Don’t—don’t blame yourself. I let it happen. I wanted it to happen.” His voice cracked hard. “I loved him, Yeosang. And I loved you too. I thought I could hold both without breaking anything. I was a coward. I didn’t stop it when I should have.”

Yeosang’s eyes shone wet, furious and tender at once. “You think saying coward makes it smaller? It doesn’t. It makes it worse.” He choked back a sob, shoulders shaking. “Because I loved you knowing what it would cost. And I thought maybe, maybe if we were quiet enough, careful enough, the world wouldn’t notice. But now—” his voice dropped, splintering—“the whole world saw what we did to him. And I don’t know how to live with that.”

San’s breath hitched. He surged forward then, finally, his hands finding Yeosang’s face, thumbs brushing tears that kept falling. His own cheeks were wet, his voice shaking. “Then we live with it together. If we have to carry the guilt, we carry it side by side. No more pretending. No more silence. We own it.”

Yeosang let out a sound, halfway between a sob and a laugh. His hands caught San’s wrists, clinging tight. “I don’t want to let you go. Even if it means the world hates us. Even if he never forgives us. I can’t let you go.”

San pressed his forehead to his, breath shallow, chest caving. “Then don’t. Don’t let go. We’ll face it. Together. We’ll say it plain, even if it kills us. He deserves at least that.”

The silence after was not clean. It was jagged, full of tears and ragged breaths, the press of guilt too heavy to soothe. But it was different than the silence before. Not denial. Not blissful ignorance.

It was the sound of two people finally admitting what they had done, what they had chosen, and the ruin they had left behind.

-----

Thread in the Dark (Hongjoong POV)

Hongjoong had thought the house was cruel. The blinking cameras in corners, the producers’ questions sharpened into scalpels, the way silence itself became a trap when you knew it could be clipped, captioned, replayed.

But the hospital was worse.

Because here there were no edits, no rehearsals, no cuts. Just Wooyoung’s body small against white sheets, lips cracked, chest rising shallow under the pull of machines.

Hongjoong had watched him unravel for weeks, every day a little more marrow scraped out of him, every night the cameras circling closer. He’d seen the way Wooyoung still defended San — the same San who left him with nothing but a note, the same San who watched him collapse and stayed seated. It had gutted Hongjoong then, but nothing compared to seeing him faint into his brother’s arms.

His own breakup had been brutal, yes, but survivable. His ex hadn’t been that cruel. His grief had been private but wooyoung’s grief has turned into a spectacle, his heartbreak looped and packaged until even strangers argued if it was “authentic.” That was the difference. And that was why Hongjoong’s chest ached now in a way that felt unbearable.

He didn’t know when protection had become instinct. Maybe it was the first night he heard Lovely leaking through a bathroom door, Wooyoung’s voice soft and wrecked, already stolen by the world. Maybe it was when producers cornered him with congratulations for a song he hadn’t meant to share. Maybe it was when they asked about him in the booth — probing, twisting, turning static into storyline.

What Hongjoong knew was this: he couldn’t say it aloud. Not here. Not in front of cameras that would chew it up and spit it out as content.

So he did what he always did when words felt like knives — he wrote them down.

And now, tonight, with the hospital hallway quiet and Seonghwa, Yunho, Jongho, and Mingi slumped around the bed like sentries, Hongjoong slipped inside. He didn’t linger. He didn’t dare.

He only set the notebook down on the table beside Wooyoung’s hand. Its pages already bore the weight of weeks — fragments he’d scribbled on set, words Wooyoung might recognize as his:

Noise feels like drowning. Silence feels like remembering.
Still human.
Some people are gravity. You only notice when you’re falling.

He placed the pen across the spine, glanced once more at Wooyoung’s face — pale, still beautiful even now, but unbearably still — and then stepped back out before anyone stirred.

It wasn’t a confession. It wasn’t even comfort.

It was the only way he knew how to say what he couldn’t risk putting into air:

You’re not alone. Not anymore.

--

The Brother’s Vigil

The hospital at night was louder than the day in its own way. Fluorescent lights hummed steady in the hall. Machines ticked their impartial rhythms. A nurse’s shoes squeaked faintly down the corridor.

Inside, only one sound mattered.

Mingi’s sobs.

Not the roar of rage that had shaken the set. Not the curses he’d spat at cameras. These were smaller. Quieter. Muffled into his palms. The kind of sobs someone tried to swallow so they wouldn’t wake anyone else. Fragile, breaking things.

Wooyoung stirred at the edge of it. Not fully awake. Not fully under. Sedation dragged him down in waves, but the sound tugged him up again, stubborn, like memory.

“Ming…” His voice was a rasp. Barely air.

Mingi jerked upright in the chair. Eyes bloodshot, face streaked raw. He lurched forward, hands clutching Wooyoung’s wrist too tight.
“Wooyo—God—you’re awake—”

Wooyoung’s lashes fluttered. His lips cracked.
“Why… are you crying?”

Mingi’s throat closed. He pressed their hands together, forehead bowed against them.
“Because I thought I lost you. Because I can’t stand seeing you like this. Because I love you so much it’s killing me.” His voice splintered. “That’s why.”

Wooyoung’s fingers twitched weakly against his cheek, the pulse clip glowing red where it brushed tears. His mouth trembled.
“I’m sorry. I know how much you love me. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

Mingi shook his head violently, sobbing into his brother’s hand.
“No. Don’t you ever say that. You didn’t hurt me. He did. This cruel world did. Never you.”

The words pressed into Wooyoung’s chest, and this time he let them in. He’d been drowning so long he hadn’t noticed the lifeline beside him — the way Mingi’s world had collapsed too. His brother’s life had frozen at the exact point where his own had shattered. Every night of crying. Every furious defense. Every curse, every broken prayer — all of it had been for him.

A tear slipped loose with the realization. Mingi’s thumb brushed it away, automatic. Always. It made Wooyoung whimper — small, broken, childlike.

God. He’d heard his brother cry for him a million times. Felt him shield him another million. The guilt came sharp, stabbing harder than San’s betrayal. Because even shattered, even fainting, even empty, he hadn’t been the only one bleeding.

Mingi had bled right beside him.

--

Two Days Later
The discharge was quiet, clinical. Forms signed, prescriptions handed over in neat envelopes, the hospital staff bowing as though formality could soften what the cameras outside were waiting for.

Wooyoung was wrapped in layers: blanket around his shoulders, mask over his face, a cap tugged low. He looked small, swallowed by fabric. But he walked, his brother’s arm snug around him, guiding every step.

Mingi’s grip was steady, protective in a way that broadcast louder than words. On his other side, Seonghwa hovered like a shadow, Yunho close behind, Jongho dragging Wooyoung’s small overnight bag. They moved together like a wall, exhausted but united — four pillars carrying one fragile center.

The glass doors slid open and the flashbulbs detonated.

Shutters clicked, voices called questions that none of them answered. Mingi’s arm tightened, pulling Wooyoung closer, his own glare enough to hold the crowd at bay. Seonghwa lifted a hand, shielding, Yunho pressed forward to block a lens that came too close, Jongho’s jaw set sharp as steel.

They didn’t look like idols or celebrities or contestants on a show anymore. They looked like family — wrecked, exhausted, but unbroken.

And the tabloids went wild.

📰 Headlines:
“Jung Wooyoung Leaves Hospital: Family by His Side”
“From Collapse to Recovery: Idol Surrounded by Pillars of Support”
“Mingi Emerges Protective, Seonghwa and Yunho Shield Cameras, Jongho in Tow — A Family United.”

📱 On X:
@wooangel: he looked so small under that blanket 😭 but mingi’s arm never left him. that’s love.
@industrytea: the walk out of the hospital looked like a movie scene… family shielding him from the world.
@antisaywoo: blanket, mask, cap… he milking this collapse for sympathy 💀
@soft4woo: no. fuck you. that was survival. and i’m glad his family never let go.
@camclips: jongho clutching his bag like it was treasure 🥺 i can’t.

The images spread like wildfire — Wooyoung pale but upright, surrounded on every side. Broken, yes. But not alone.

---

That night, long after the cameras had been shut out and exhaustion had driven Seonghwa, Yunho, and Jongho into sleep on the living room floor, Wooyoung lay in his own bed for the first time in weeks.

His throat felt scorched, his body heavy, he searched for water on the side table. It took a moment to notice the notebook on it.

Not his.

The cover was scuffed, corners softened. A pen lay balanced across its spine. His chest tightened before he even reached for it — he knew the handwriting that would live inside. Small, slanted, impatient strokes.

He opened it anyway.

The first page was dated weeks back.

Noise feels like drowning. Silence feels like remembering. Still human.
His breath caught. He flipped again.

Some people are gravity. You only notice when you’re falling. You’re falling, Wooyoung. And I want to tell them it isn’t entertainment. It’s orbit. It’s survival.
The next page snagged his ribs harder — a lyric echo, scrawled jagged across the line.

All I want is nothing more / than to see you survive this intact.
(beneath it, smaller, like Hongjoong had argued with himself on the page: But they keep asking you to die for them, piece by piece.)
His hands trembled as he turned the paper.

Cause you brought out the best of me / a part of me I’d never seen.
(a note beside: I only knew you from videos. The boy who laughed too loud, who clung to friends like he’d never let go. I thought that was all of you. But this… this silence is killing me to watch.)
The tears came fast, hot. His chest clenched until he had to press his fist hard against it, as though to hold himself together.

Page after page bled fragments:

Your silence is louder than music.
If love can hurt like this, maybe it can heal like this too. But no one should have to bleed just to prove they were alive once.
You’re still human. You’re still—
(the word blotted into ink, trailing into nothing)
Wooyoung shut the notebook too hard, breath breaking out of him ragged. It felt like he’d just read something forbidden, something too bare.

Because the words weren’t pity. They weren’t even comfort. They were recognition.

And recognition hurt more than anything.

The Statement

The apartment was silent except for the tap of keys. San sat hunched over the laptop, jaw tight, eyes hollow. Yeosang stayed beside him, one hand curled around a mug that had gone cold, the other ghosting San’s wrist each time he stalled too long.

It wasn’t PR. They hadn’t let management write it. They hadn’t called their agencies, hadn’t asked the producers. This wasn’t going to be a “clarification” or a “mutual decision to part ways.” They knew those words by heart already. They were too clean.

This had to be ugly.

San typed, then deleted. Typed again. His chest heaved shallow, each word tugged out like a tooth.

“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen,” Yeosang murmured. His voice was soft but steady. “If we make it short, people will call it an excuse. If we make it clean, people will call it PR. You know what has to happen.”

San nodded once, then forced his fingers to keep going.

The statement began:

I need to say this in my own words.
For months, I let silence stand in place of truth. For months, I let someone I loved suffer alone, because I was a coward who thought saying nothing would hurt less. I was wrong. Silence was its own violence.

San stopped, pressed his palms to his eyes until spots burned behind his lids.

Yeosang read it, throat working. “Keep going.”

San’s hands trembled as he returned to the keys.

I was with Wooyoung for nearly five years. He was my heart. My home. I told him things I had never told anyone. I promised him forever, and he believed me, because he should have been able to.
And then, during filming, I met Yeosang. Feelings started I did not expect. I tried to stop them. I told myself I could be strong enough to love only one person. But I kissed him on set and felt something I shouldn’t have, and instead of confessing it, instead of facing it, I went home and kissed Wooyoung as if nothing had changed.
That was the first betrayal.

His breath shook. His shoulders curled inward, but Yeosang’s hand pressed against his back, urging him on.

I told myself lies. That I could balance both. That he was strong enough to get over it. That if I left quietly, he would survive. I even told Yeosang those lies — that Wooyoung would be fine, that time would make it easier. I let myself believe them, because the truth was too ugly to say out loud.
But the truth is this: I broke the person who loved me most. I betrayed the trust of the man who gave me his life, his laughter, his devotion, and I did it in silence, with a text that said only “sorry.”
I let him walk out of the apartment alone. I didn’t follow him. That was the choice I will regret for the rest of my life.

San’s hands faltered. His head bowed low, tears dripping onto the keyboard. Yeosang covered them with his own hand, and then—without asking—began to type himself, his words weaving into San’s:

I am Yeosang. I was part of this too. I knew about Wooyoung. Everyone knew. I saw the way he looked at San. I saw what they had, and I still let myself want him. I still touched him knowing what it cost.
I can’t call myself innocent. I won’t. I loved San even when it meant stealing pieces of someone else’s forever. I told myself love was enough, but it wasn’t honesty. It was selfishness.

San picked up again, voice breaking aloud as he wrote:

We are not asking for forgiveness. We don’t deserve it.
But we don’t want to hide behind silence anymore. We chose each other, knowing it would destroy him. We watched him suffer, and we stayed quiet. That was cruelty. That was cowardice.
He deserves truth, if nothing else.

By the time it ended, the document stretched pages long. Not polished. Not clever. Just confession.

Yeosang whispered, “Do we send it?”

San stared at the blinking cursor. His chest heaved once, twice. Then he pressed upload.

The world caught fire.

📰 Headlines:

• “San’s Confession Letter: ‘I Broke the Person Who Loved Me Most’”

• “Not PR — Raw Statement Stuns Fans With Length, Brutality”

• “Joint Apology: San and Yeosang Admit Betrayal, Refuse Forgiveness”

📱 On X:
@wooangel: this isn’t an apology, it’s a fucking eulogy. i’m shaking.
@sanxysupremacy: he finally said it. every ugly piece. idk if i hate him or pity him.
@yeosangluv: yeosang didn’t run. he stood next to san in the statement. my heart aches but i respect that.
@antiidol: blah blah feelings. they’re just trying to save face.
@industrytea: this isn’t PR. this is self-destruction.

The Sunflower

The apartment carried a different kind of quiet than the hospital. Not sterile, not mechanical, not broken by the beep of monitors. It was homely quiet, the kind that pressed soft against the walls, where every sound inside stretched and lingered.

Wooyoung lay cocooned on the couch, a heavy blanket wrapped around him so tightly he could barely shift his arms. Seonghwa had tucked him in before leaving, fussing over each fold until it looked like he’d been sealed against the cold. Yunho had bent down to kiss the crown of his head, murmuring a promise to come back for the weekend. Even Jongho, usually so stiff with affection, had crouched low and pressed a quick kiss to his temple, whispering something only Wooyoung had heard.

The touches had been brief, but fierce — as if each of them believed they could physically transfer their strength into him. When they left, their absence was filled by echoes: Seonghwa’s perfume clinging to the blanket, Yunho’s laughter faint in the kitchen tiles, Jongho’s hoodie tossed over a chair like he meant to return for it soon.

Now it was only Mingi.

From the couch, Wooyoung tracked the noises from the kitchen. The scrape of a knife. The clatter of a spoon against a pot. The sound of broth simmering low. His brother was cooking again.

It used to be a constant — Mingi in the kitchen, loud and impatient, pretending to hate it while plating meals with enough care to betray the truth. Wooyoung had adored it, had teased him until he laughed, had eaten every bite like it was ritual.

But after the breakup, Mingi had stopped. Cooking reminded him of someone who couldn’t eat, who sat at the table untouched, who couldn’t taste anything through the grief lodged in his throat. Food had turned into silence, into wasted effort.

Now, for the first time in months, the smell of broth wound its way into the apartment. Wooyoung lay still beneath the blanket, eyes half-closed, chest aching. It almost hurt more than the silence — this reminder of a life that had been paused, not ended.

His phone sat dark on the coffee table, untouched. Mingi had taken it from him after the collapse, ignoring every weak protest. “Not until you look better,” he’d said. “Not until I trust it won’t destroy you.” The device was a weapon right now, and Wooyoung knew it. But knowing didn’t soften the emptiness it left.

He shifted faintly under the blanket, staring at the ceiling, letting the scent of broth curl around him. For the first time in weeks, the quiet didn’t feel suffocating. Because Mingi was there. Because Mingi’s presence — steady, immovable — was still a tether.

That was the scene when the knock came.

A soft, careful knock against the door.

Mingi stilled in the kitchen. His head snapped up, spatula clattering too loud against the pot. His shoulders squared as he wiped his hands on a towel and stalked to the door, body tight with suspicion.

He cracked it open an inch, and his frame instantly blocked the gap.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was low, edged with warning.

“I just wanted to see him,” Hongjoong said. His tone wasn’t sharp. It was quiet, steady. He wasn’t carrying anything except a single sunflower, its stem wrapped clumsily in tissue.

“You think I’m letting you in after everything—”

“Ming.”

The voice was thin, muffled beneath the blanket, but it cut through the apartment. Wooyoung had turned his head, dark eyes peeking out from the folds of fabric.

Mingi froze, jaw flexing. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Wooyoung whispered, voice scraping raw. “Let him in.”

Mingi held Hongjoong’s gaze a moment longer, his glare sharp enough to slice. Every word made Mingi want to slam the door again, to drag Hongjoong back into the hall and keep the walls sealed. But Wooyoung’s voice — fragile, shaking — pinned him still. Then he stepped back, reluctantly, opening the door just enough.

Hongjoong didn’t intrude. He didn’t even cross far. He moved quietly to the side table, found an empty glass on the counter, and filled it from the tap before setting the sunflower inside. Against the muted apartment, the yellow was startling. Bright. Alive.

Wooyoung blinked at it, chest tight.

Hongjoong finally spoke, voice low, almost careful. “I brought this because I wanted you to know… there are people who still see you. Who love you. Who aren’t watching because of spectacle, but because of you.”

Wooyoung’s throat caught. His fingers twitched beneath the blanket.

Hongjoong stayed where he was, not pressing forward, not filling silence with noise. “The whole cast sent wishes,” he added softly. “They didn’t dare post anything online, not with the producers watching, but they sent messages through staff. Quiet ones. They’re rooting for you. Every single one.”

The words hurt more than they soothed. Wooyoung pressed his lips together, tears pricking the edges of his eyes.

Hongjoong’s voice shifted, rougher now, carrying weight. “When you collapsed, I saw what it did to the people who love you. Your brother. Your friends. Your fans. Wooyoung, there are so many people out there praying for you to be okay. It’s not just you fighting.”

Mingi lingered by the door, arms folded tight. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. But his eyes softened slightly at that.

Hongjoong hesitated, then went on, voice lower, confessional. “I don’t have a family like yours. I grew up in foster homes. I didn’t know what it meant to be loved like that until much later. When I see your brother, your friends — the way they’d burn down the world for you — I think you need to see it too. To know what it looks like from the outside.”

The room held still.

“I went through a breakup too,” Hongjoong admitted, the corner of his mouth twisting. “It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t… this. But it hurt. I know what it feels like to think you’ll never stop bleeding. I got through it. Not because I was strong, but because life didn’t stop offering me reasons to keep going.” His gaze flicked to the blanket-wrapped figure on the couch. “And you have more reasons than most. You just… have to look around.”

Wooyoung’s eyes shimmered, wet. His lips parted, a trembling sound breaking loose. “But it hurts so much.”

The words felt too small, too bare — like San’s had been, once.

Hongjoong’s throat bobbed. He nodded once. “Then let it hurt. Just don’t let it end you. Not when there’s a brother in the kitchen making soup like it’s a prayer. Not when you’ve got friends who’ll kiss your forehead like it’ll keep you alive. Not when there are people like me who’d rather leave a flower than let you think you’re alone.”

Wooyoung pressed his face deeper into the blanket. His body shook with silent sobs.

At the door, Mingi’s jaw clenched. He turned away, running a hand hard over his face, unwilling to let either of them see how much those words moved him.

The sunflower stood bright on the table. Small. Simple. A crack of color in the quiet.

And for the first time since the collapse, Wooyoung didn’t feel entirely buried by the dark.

Embers on Paper

It had been four days since Wooyoung came home from the hospital, three since Seonghwa, Yunho, and Jongho arrived with overnight bags and the determination to smother him with so much affection he couldn’t even think about retreating into himself.

The apartment had become a kind of safe house. Mingi cooking in the kitchen, pots clattering like he was daring grief to walk in and try him. Seonghwa fluttering between rooms, tidying and fussing, pressing soft kisses into Wooyoung’s hair whenever he passed by. Yunho making stupid voices in the hallway until Wooyoung snorted into his pillow. Jongho sprawled across the couch like it was a throne, declaring, “Hyung, you’re not allowed to get rid of me. I’m literally part of the furniture now.”

It wasn’t the same as before. Grief still clung in corners like dust no one could reach, and silence still dropped too heavy between jokes. But it was different than the hospital. Here, there was color again. The smell of broth instead of antiseptic. The clatter of pans instead of machine beeps. The sunflower by the window instead of sterile white walls. Here, Wooyoung could breathe without monitors dictating whether he was doing it right.

He hadn’t asked for his phone. Mingi refused to hand it over anyway. “Not until you look like yourself again,” he’d said, tucking it into a drawer without compromise. And Wooyoung let him, too tired to fight. The phone was a battlefield he wasn’t ready to walk into.

Now he sat wrapped in a blanket on his bed, knees pulled close, the faint glow of evening slipping through the curtains. The sunflower Hongjoong had left leaned in a glass on the sill, its head heavy, petals already sagging at the edges — stubbornly bright anyway, as if to say life could wilt and still be vivid.

The notebook lay on his lap. He’d read the fragments Hongjoong left: jagged thoughts scribbled sideways, words that cut sharper than comfort ever could. He had closed it twice already, the recognition too raw to bear. But tonight, with Yunho’s laughter bubbling through the wall and Mingi’s clatter steady in the kitchen, he opened it again.

And this time, he picked up the pen.

At first the marks were hesitant. Small, cramped words tucked in the margins, as if he were trespassing on someone else’s grief. Then one line came sharper, truer.

You promised the world and I fell for it.

His breath snagged. He stared too long at the words, like they might bite him back. But then the pen moved again, faster, as though once the dam cracked the water couldn’t be stopped.

I put you first and you adored it.
Set fires to my forest, and you let it burn.

The words came jagged, pressed too hard, the ink bleeding where his hand shook. But they felt alive in a way he hadn’t felt in months.

He pressed harder, chest heaving.

We’d always go into it blindly.
I needed to lose you to find me.
This dancing was killing me softly.
I needed to hate you to love me.

The blanket slipped from his shoulders. His skin was clammy but his hand didn’t stop. His throat caught; a tear fell onto the page, warping the ink. He didn’t wipe it away. He let it stay.

From the doorway, a shadow leaned. Mingi — arms crossed, eyes wet but steady. He didn’t speak, didn’t interrupt. He only watched, as if seeing his brother with a pen in his hand was the first time in months he’d let himself breathe. He’d been the shield, the guard, the one who blocked every intrusion. But now he was just a witness, letting Wooyoung fight for himself in the only way he could.

Wooyoung’s lips parted, shaky. A whisper slipped out, barely sound, the first line faltering into the air:

“You promised the world…”

The syllables cracked, raw, nothing like performance — just truth scraping its way free. He froze after, ashamed of the sound, but didn’t tear the page.

When his hand finally stilled, he sat back, chest heaving, blinking through wet lashes. The silence held for a beat. Then the floor creaked.

Mingi crossed the room in two strides. He crouched low, big hands bracketing Wooyoung’s knees before tugging him forward into a hug so tight the pen nearly dropped from his hand.

“You don’t know what this means,” Mingi rasped against his hair. His voice shook, teary and raw. “You picked up the pen, Woo. That’s another step. That’s—you don’t know how proud I am of you right now.”

He pulled back just enough to pinch his brother’s cheeks with damp fingers, his smile wobbling through tears.

“Ming,” Wooyoung groaned, swatting weakly at his hands. His lips trembled but curved into the faintest grin. “You’re turning into the crybaby now.”

Mingi huffed a broken laugh, sniffing hard. “Shut up. You started it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

Their voices tangled soft in the room, a half-hearted bicker that sounded more like love than anything else.

Out in the living room, Yunho’s laugh broke loud, Seonghwa scolded again, Jongho cackled unrepentantly. The sound carried through the walls — proof of life, proof of love.

Inside the room, Wooyoung leaned against his brother’s chest, the ink still damp on the page, the ember of a song still glowing.

Noise Outside

The world hadn’t quieted since the statement. If anything, it had grown louder.

For a week, Wooyoung’s name had never left the headlines. Not because he spoke — he hadn’t. Not because he appeared in public — he didn’t. His phone remained locked away in Mingi’s drawer, untouched. His world was limited to broth simmering on the stove, the sunflower drooping in its glass, his friends orbiting him with relentless affection.

But outside those walls, it was chaos.

📰 Headlines:

• “Raw Confession or Career Suicide? San and Yeosang Break Silence.” (Dispatch)

• “From ‘Forever’ to Fallout: Timeline of Wooyoung’s Collapse.” (Korea Times)

• “Jung Wooyoung’s Silence: Victim, Survivor, or Both?” (Rolling Stone Korea)

📱 On X:
@industrytea: this is the biggest scandal K-pop has seen in a decade. three idols, one love triangle, AND a collapse on live tv? insanity.
@wooangel: wooyoung hasn’t posted, hasn’t spoken, hasn’t been SEEN. i’m so scared for him.
@antisaywoo: lol everyone acting like he’s a saint. he’s milking silence for sympathy. open ur eyes.
@sanxysupremacy: say what u want — san admitted it all. no pr fluff. no management spin. he gave wooyoung the honesty he deserved. respect.
@yeosangluv: notice how yeosang didn’t run? he stood with san, confessed too. i hate it but i can’t deny it.

On gossip shows, panelists dissected the scandal with gleeful cruelty disguised as analysis. Every old interview was replayed, every offhand quote reframed as foreshadowing. San calling Wooyoung “my home” on stage years ago now rolled like irony under laugh tracks. Yeosang’s hand at San’s back in a behind-the-scenes clip was frozen, circled in red, called evidence.

Every moment of love had been rebranded as a breadcrumb to betrayal.

The producers, meanwhile, weren’t backing down. Ratings had doubled since the collapse episode aired. Sponsors debated pulling ads, but the numbers were too high to ignore. Quietly, networks called it “historic television.” The whispers grew: there would be a press conference. Soon.

But inside the apartment, Wooyoung knew none of it.

He sat at the kitchen table one morning, Mingi sliding a plate of eggs in front of him with a pointed look that dared him not to eat. Seonghwa fussed with the curtains. Yunho made faces across the table until Jongho cracked first and laughed.

For a moment, it almost felt like the world wasn’t burning outside.

Almost.

Because every time Wooyoung caught the sunflower out of the corner of his eye — petals now curling at the edges — he remembered that the noise was still waiting. The cameras. The questions. The millions of strangers dissecting his heartbreak like they owned it.

He hadn’t faced them yet.

But he knew he would have to.

2 hours later

He wasn’t asleep when he heard it.

Mingi’s voice, low in the kitchen. Tense. “You can’t be serious.” A pause, then sharper: “No. He’s not ready.”

Seonghwa murmured something back, too soft to catch, but Wooyoung sat up, heart tightening. He padded down the hall, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, and stopped just outside the doorway.

“…we’ll pay it,” Mingi was saying, words tight as wire. “Whatever the penalty is. I don’t care. I’ll cover it—”

“You can’t,” Seonghwa interrupted gently. “It’s not just money. The contract says that promisee is obligated to appear at least twice if he/she has recovered from any accident that took place on the set. They’ll fight it if he doesn’t. They’ll drag it through the press. That’s worse.”

Silence stretched. Then Mingi’s chair scraped hard against the floor. “So what? They want him to stand in front of cameras again just to bleed for them? After everything?” His voice cracked raw. “Over my dead body.”

The words hit too close.

Wooyoung stepped into the doorway. His voice was soft, but it cut through the argument like glass.
“Ming.”

Both heads snapped toward him.

He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, but his gaze didn’t waver. “It’s okay.” His throat worked, but he forced the words out steady. “We’ll do it.”

Mingi shot up instantly. “No. No, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t have to—”

“I do.” Wooyoung’s lips trembled, but he stood straighter. “I can’t sit here forever. I can’t be cooped up in this apartment, pretending the world isn’t out there. If I hide, they win. And I’m so tired of being… of being a ghost in my own life.”

His eyes burned, but he didn’t look away. “I can’t promise I won’t cry. I can’t promise I won’t break down or spiral. But I can promise I’ll tell you when it’s too much. I’ll communicate. I’ll let you hold me up if I need it.” His voice broke then, but the words carried anyway: “I love you, Ming. And I know how much it hurts you to see me cry. Trust me — it hurts me just as much to know I keep making you watch.”

Mingi’s chest heaved. His eyes shone wet, jaw clenched like he could hold back the flood. He crossed the kitchen in three strides and gripped his brother’s shoulders, shaking his head even as tears slipped hot down his face. “You don’t make me watch. I choose to. I’ll choose it every time.”

Wooyoung gave a trembling smile through his own tears. “Then choose to stand with me. Just this once. Please.”

The silence that followed was thick, fragile. Seonghwa sat still, watching, his own hands knotted in his lap.

Finally Mingi exhaled, shaky, and pulled Wooyoung into a hug so fierce the blanket slipped to the floor. His cheek pressed against his brother’s temple, voice rough. “Fine. We’ll face them. But you keep that promise. You tell me the second you can’t breathe, and I’ll burn the whole place down before I let them hurt you again.”

Wooyoung’s laugh broke through a sob, muffled against Mingi’s shoulder. “See, I just told you yesterday, you are the official crybaby now?”

Mingi pinched his cheek hard enough to make him yelp. “Shut up. I’m still scarier than you’ll ever be.”

Their banter cracked the heaviness for just a second, enough for Seonghwa’s eyes to soften, enough for Wooyoung to feel — that this wasn’t just breaking anymore. It was choosing.

The Press

The week before the press conference blurred into a cocoon. The apartment became fortress and cage both — curtains drawn, phones silenced, broth simmering on the stove like ritual. Every sound outside felt dangerous. Every laugh inside felt borrowed time.

It was Mingi who broke the stillness one morning, dragging open the drawer where he’d hidden Wooyoung’s phone. His hand lingered too long on the device before he pressed it into his brother’s palm.

“They released their statement,” he said gruffly. “You should see it for yourself.”

For the first time in weeks, Wooyoung felt the weight of the glass rectangle in his hand. It buzzed faintly, even muted, like the world inside it was desperate to claw back into him. He unlocked it with a shaking thumb.

The headline glared first:

Joint Statement from San and Yeosang.

His vision blurred before he even opened it. But he forced himself. Word by word. Line by line.

I need to say this in my own words. For months, I let silence stand in place of truth. For months, I let someone I loved suffer alone, because I was a coward who thought saying nothing would hurt less. I was wrong. Silence was its own violence.

I was with Wooyoung for nearly five years. He was my heart. My home. I promised him forever, and he believed me. I betrayed that promise when I kissed Yeosang on set and felt something I shouldn’t have. I went home and kissed Wooyoung like nothing had changed. That was the first betrayal.

His chest lurched. He almost shut the screen, but his finger kept scrolling, masochist, desperate, furious.

I lied to myself. I told Yeosang lies too — that Wooyoung would survive, that he was strong enough, that he would be fine. I left him with a text that said only “sorry.” That was not mercy. That was cowardice. I broke the person who loved me most, and I will regret it the rest of my life.

The phone slipped from his hand onto the blanket. His breath came ragged, sharp. His body curled instinctively, hands pressed hard against his stomach like he could stop himself from vomiting.

Mingi caught the phone before it slid away, face thunderous, ready to turn it off. But Wooyoung grabbed his wrist, shaking his head.

“No,” he rasped. “I need to finish.”

So he picked it back up, eyes burning, throat raw.

I am Yeosang. I was part of this too. I knew about Wooyoung. Everyone knew. I saw the way he looked at San, and I still let myself want him. I touched him anyway. I told myself love was enough, but it wasn’t honesty. It was selfishness. I can’t call myself innocent. I won’t.

Tears blurred the letters. His breath hitched so hard Seonghwa crossed the room at once, kneeling, gripping his shoulder. Yunho muttered curses under his breath, punching his knee to keep from shouting. Jongho’s eyes brimmed, teeth clenched as if silence alone could hold him together.

And then San again:

We are not asking for forgiveness. We don’t deserve it. But we don’t want to hide behind silence anymore. We chose each other, knowing it would destroy him. We watched him suffer, and we stayed quiet. That was cruelty. That was cowardice. He deserves truth, if nothing else.

The words burned themselves into him like a brand. He clutched the phone until his knuckles whitened, breath breaking out of him in sobs he couldn’t swallow.

Mingi pulled him into his chest, rocking him hard, whispering, “You don't have to go through it. Don’t read. It’s poison—”

But Wooyoung only sobbed harder, muffled against his brother’s shirt. “No,” he gasped. “It’s—It’s finally the truth. It hurts, Ming, but it’s the truth. I need it. I needed it.”

The apartment was heavy with his crying. With all of theirs.

The day of the press conference arrived with bodyguards at the lobby doors. Not for cameras. Not for paparazzi. For fans.

There had been threats — some so vicious Mingi had nearly ripped the door off its hinges when he heard them. San and Yeosang had their defenders, obsessed ones who saw Wooyoung as the villain now, the obstacle who “ruined” their careers. It didn’t matter that he’d fainted on live television, that San had confessed in front of millions. To them, Wooyoung had “exploited heartbreak” for sympathy.

So the agency lined the lobby with black suits and dark glasses. And Mingi, Seonghwa, Yunho, and Jongho lined him like armor.

The lobby was a wall of flashing lights and shouting. Wooyoung walked small, wrapped in a muted suit that hung a little loose on his frame, no mask this time. His eyes — swollen but bare — were the only defense he carried.

Inside the hall, it wasn’t better.

Rows of reporters gleamed with cameras and questions sharpened to knives. Microphones dangled like nooses from stands. Every seat was filled. The hum of anticipation pressed hot against Wooyoung’s skin as he sat at the long table, the agency logo bright behind him.

His fingers trembled when he reached for the microphone. Cameras zoomed, catching the shake, the way he tightened both hands around the base just to steady it.

Q: “Why did you join Broadcast My Breakdown in the first place, after six months of silence?”

His throat caught, but he forced himself forward. “Because I thought… I thought if I didn’t try, I would disappear.” His voice cracked. The cameras caught it, zooming closer. “Six months felt like drowning. I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror without feeling like a stranger. The show wasn’t… salvation. But it was… something. A place to try.”

Q: “How did those six months affect your career?”

He blinked hard, lips trembling into something between a laugh and a sob. “Career.” The word tasted bitter. “I thought if I stepped away, maybe people would forget me. Maybe I could forget myself too. But all it did was… remind me how much everything had revolved around one person. And when that person was gone, I…” His hand tightened on the mic. “I had nothing left.”

Flashes burst. His fingers shook harder. He lifted his hand once to wipe at his cheek, and the cameras zoomed in instantly — the single tear catching the light like spectacle.

Q: “Do you acknowledge San and Yeosang’s statement?”

Mingi stiffened beside him. Seonghwa’s hand twitched against his knee under the table. But Wooyoung lifted the mic again, trembling, his voice small but clear.

“I read it.” His breath hitched. “I read every word.”

The silence in the hall was heavy, expectant.

“It hurt. It still hurts. But for the first time, I felt like they weren’t hiding behind silence. For the first time, they said what I already knew — that I was betrayed. That I was left behind. That I was broken.” His voice fractured, but he pressed on. “I don’t forgive them. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I needed the truth, and now I have it.”

Q: “Do you still love him?”

Mingi bristled, his whole body surging forward. But Wooyoung pressed a trembling hand against his arm, steadying him. His own voice shook when he answered:

“I loved him enough to break.” He drew a shuddering breath. “But I love myself enough to survive.”

Q: “Wooyoung-ssi — your brother Mingi, and your friends Seonghwa, Yunho, Jongho… they were all seen shielding you these past weeks. How much has their presence mattered in this?”

The question cracked something in him.

“For a long time, I thought my grief was only mine. That I was the only one breaking.” His hands tightened around the mic. “But every night, I heard my brother cry for me. Every day, I saw my friends fight for me. They… they suffered too. My collapse wasn’t just mine — it became theirs. And I didn’t see it until recently.”

A tear slid unchecked. Cameras zoomed closer, shutters snapping like gunfire.

“San was my person,” Wooyoung whispered, voice trembling. “For years, he was my home. But my brother was my person before him. My friends were my people before him. And they never left. They never ran. They held me through the worst, and they’re the reason I can sit here today, even shaking like this, even afraid. I’m not strong because I healed. I’m here because they refused to let me disappear.”

Mingi’s massive hand slipped onto his back, steadying him. Seonghwa’s fingers brushed his sleeve. Yunho gave the smallest nod. Jongho mouthed, we’re here.

And when Wooyoung lifted the mic again, his voice cracked but sure, the words rang louder than anything else that day:

“I was never alone. I never will be.”

Q: “And Mingi-ssi, for you — you stormed the set, you carried him out, you’ve stood at his side through all of this. What has it meant for you to be here?”

Mingi leaned forward, voice ragged but steady. “It means I don’t ever want to see my brother’s pain turned into someone else’s entertainment again. It means when he breaks, I’ll be there to catch him, every single time. It means—” His throat closed, but he forced it. “It means he’s my family. And I’d rather burn every stage to the ground than let anyone forget that.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick, reverent. Reporters blinked fast, some lowering their eyes, caught off guard by the rawness.

That answer alone sent internet into spiral:

📱 On X:
@wooangel: “I’d rather burn every stage to the ground” — MINGI YOU DID NOT HAVE TO GO THAT HARD 😭🔥
@traineeboy19: bro’s voice shaking but still solid. that’s love. that’s blood. I’m shaking.
@protectwooyo: mingi basically declared war on the industry in the middle of a press conference and I’ve never respected anyone more.
@industrytea: rawest mic-drop of the day. not Wooyoung, not even San — but Mingi. the brother who refused to let it be a storyline.

📰 Headlines:
“Mingi at Press Conference: ‘I’d Rather Burn Every Stage to the Ground Than Let Anyone Forget He’s My Family.’” (Dispatch)
“From Idol to Brother First: Mingi Steals Spotlight at Wooyoung’s Side.” (Korea Herald)
“‘Never Entertainment Again’: Mingi’s Fierce Defense of Wooyoung Goes Viral.” (Rolling Stone Korea)

Q: “Did producers push you to talk about San on camera?”

“Yes,” he admitted, voice flat. “They asked. They framed. They waited for cracks. And I gave them what they wanted, because I thought maybe someone out there would understand me if I said it out loud. Instead, they clipped it into storylines.”

Q: “Do you regret joining the show?”

His eyes stung. He glanced at the row of his friends, at his brother’s fierce, wet gaze. His lips trembled into the smallest smile.

“No. Because it showed me something. That I wasn’t as alone as I thought. That I had people who would catch me when I collapsed. That I still… have family. And maybe… maybe someday, I’ll have more than that.”

📱 On X:
@wooangel: “my brother was my person before him” — WHO IS GOING TO CARRY ME OUT OF THIS ROOM
@traineeboy19: he really shifted the focus. not just san, not just yeosang. his FAMILY. his TRIO. his REAL ones.
@antisaywoo: cry me a river. family blah blah blah. he’s still milking it.
@industrytea: the moment he acknowledged Mingi’s grief → instant viral clip. too raw to spin.
@jonghostan: jongho literally mouthing “we’re here” had me sobbing.

📰 Headlines:
“Wooyoung: ‘San Was My Person, But My Brother Was My Person First.’” (Dispatch)
“Idol Turns Spotlight on Family Support at Press Conference.” (Soompi)
“Tears, Tremors, Truth: Jung Wooyoung Acknowledges Shared Grief.” (Rolling Stone Korea)

The Aftershocks

The van door had barely shut before Wooyoung sagged sideways. The mask slid from his face, his body boneless, drained.

Mingi caught him instantly, one arm braced tight around his shoulders, the other hand cupping the back of his head. He murmured low, nothing coherent, just the steady thrum of voice against his ear.

Seonghwa sat forward in the seat across, his hand hovering close as if he wanted to reach but knew Mingi needed the hold more. Yunho twisted in from the side, eyes wide, biting his lip until the skin split. Jongho squeezed his knee, silent but fierce.

No cameras now. No flashes. Just the raw weight of exhaustion pressing Wooyoung into his brother’s chest.

When they reached the apartment, Mingi carried the weight of him up the stairs, ignoring every protest, muttering, “You’ve carried too much, let me.” Inside, Seonghwa drew the curtains shut. Yunho threw a blanket over the couch. Jongho set water and tissues within reach like ritual.

And when Mingi finally lowered Wooyoung down, the dam broke.

He curled sideways into his brother’s lap, sobs tearing soundless at first, then jagged, desperate. His fingers fisted in Mingi’s shirt like he could disappear into the fabric. “I—I said it all, Ming,” he gasped between hiccups, voice wrecked. “And it still—hurts—so much.”

Mingi held him, rocked him, pressed kisses to his damp hairline. “I know, baby. I know. You were brave. You were stronger than anyone should have to be. But it’s okay to hurt after. It’s okay to fall apart here. I’ll hold you until it stops shaking.”

Seonghwa wiped his own eyes silently, Yunho’s arm wrapping tight around his shoulders. Jongho turned away, jaw clenched, shoulders trembling.

The apartment filled with the sound of Wooyoung’s grief — not for cameras, not for strangers, not for spectacle. Just grief. Just release.

Later, when the others drifted into the kitchen, Wooyoung reached for his phone. His thumb hovered, shaking, over endless notifications. Then he scrolled past all of them, straight to one name.

Hongjoong.

Message:
You weren’t alone out there. Not for a second. I'm so proud of you.

Wooyoung stared at the words until his chest tightened. Then, for the first time in months, he let the phone rest on his chest instead of hiding it away.

And for a moment, in the quiet between sobs, he believed it.

Echoes & Embers

The morning after the press conference, the machine spun faster than ever.

📰 Headlines:

• “Tears and Tremors: Wooyoung Breaks Silence in Emotional Press Conference” (Rolling Stone Korea)

• “From Idol Darling to Survivor: Jung Wooyoung Speaks of Betrayal, Family, and Healing” (Korea Herald)

• “San and Yeosang Silent After Wooyoung’s Public Response” (Dispatch)

• “Future in Limbo: Will Jung Wooyoung Return to Music or Retreat From Industry?” (Billboard Korea)

📱 On X:
@wooangel: i can’t stop rewatching the clip. the way his hands were shaking, the way mingi put his hand on his back… i’m ruined.
@sanxysupremacy: san hasn’t said a word since. neither has yeosang. guilty silence is loudest.
@antisaywoo: victim olympics round 99. when will he log off for good?
@industrytea: network already considering “follow-up specials.” grief sells. tears sell. the cameras aren’t done with him yet.
@protectwooyo: he deserves peace. the world doesn’t deserve him.

In boardrooms, producers called it historic television. Ratings had broken records, hashtags trended in a dozen countries, advertisers renewed contracts. Behind closed doors, one exec was heard saying, “Every tremor in his hands bought us another million viewers.”

They were still circling his grief like vultures, tearing it into content.

But inside the apartment, the world was quieter.

Wooyoung slept through most of the day after the conference, his body limp against Mingi’s chest on the couch, too drained to speak. When he finally woke, evening light stretched long across the floorboards, soft orange filling the corners of the room. Seonghwa had dozed off curled against Yunho’s shoulder. Jongho was sprawled with a blanket over his head, one hand twitching as though even in sleep he was still guarding.

For a while, Wooyoung just sat still, breathing in the hush. His throat still ached from speaking into microphones, his eyes burned from the tears, but something in his chest had shifted. He had said it. He had survived it. He had not disappeared.

Later, when the others slept heavier, he padded to his bedroom and closed the door. The sunflower was nearly gone now, its head bowed, petals brittle — but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. It had carried him here.

The notebook waited on his desk. Its pages already scarred with fragments and confessions, Hongjoong’s scrawl bleeding into his own shaky handwriting. Tonight, though, he didn’t hesitate. He opened it and pressed the pen down until ink bloomed.

You promised the world and I fell for it.
I put you first and you adored it.
Set fires to my forest, and you let it burn.
Sang off-key in my chorus, ’cause it wasn’t yours.

The words came jagged at first, messy, ink blotted where his hand shook. But the rhythm steadied the longer he wrote, grief sculpted into verses.

We’d always go into it blindly.
I needed to lose you to find me.
This dancing was killing me softly.
I needed to hate you to love me.

His breath hitched. Tears slipped, dotting the lines, staining the paper darker. But he didn’t stop.

I gave my all and they all know it.
Then you tore me down and now it’s showing.
In just months, you replaced us like it was easy.
Made me think I deserved it

He pressed harder, pen carving almost through the paper.

When he finally dropped the pen, the page was soaked with ink and salt, words tilting across the lines like they’d been dragged from the bottom of him. His hand trembled, stained blue. His chest heaved as though he had just finished singing, though no sound had left his throat.

The door opened softly. Mingi’s shadow filled the frame.

Wooyoung’s lips trembled into a faint smile. His throat rasped. “Writing these lyrics feel like I am bleeding again.”

Mingi squeezed his hand tighter. “This is how you move on, Baby.”

For a long moment, they stayed like that — ink on skin, tears on cheeks, two brothers tethered against the noise outside.

The Release

The apartment was silent, when it dropped.

No teasers. No press. Just a thumbnail: black and white.

Mingi clicked it open before Wooyoung could. The screen filled with grayscale — a bare chair, a mic, Wooyoung in a plain shirt, hair falling into his face. No stage lights. No choreography. Just him and a lens that felt like confession.

And then the piano began.

You promised the world and I fell for it
I put you first and you adored it

His voice was low, wrecked but steady. Eyes locked on the lens like San was sitting there. Mingi’s grip tightened on the couch cushion, breath snagging.

Set fires to my forest
And you let it burn
Sang off-key in my chorus
’Cause it wasn’t yours

Every syllable emptied the air. Wooyoung didn’t hide the tears. He let them fall. He wanted them to fall.

Mingi’s chest locked. He reached, dragging his brother against him, arm cinched tight around his waist, eyes never leaving the screen.

I saw the signs and I ignored it
Rose-colored glasses all distorted
Set fire to my purpose
And I let it burn

The lyric cut through time — back to the night Wooyoung collapsed on set, whispering don’t hurt him as his knees gave out. Back to the months he stopped eating, stopped singing, curled in bed until the walls swallowed him whole.

Mingi pressed his forehead into Wooyoung’s hair, whispering through a sob: “You don’t need to remember this—” but the video carried on.

We’d always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
This dancing was killing me softly
I needed to hate you to love me

The lens lingered close. Mouth trembling. Eyes wet, unflinching. It didn’t look like performance. It looked like truth, raw and merciless, finally clawing out of him.

Mingi broke. Chest heaving, sobs tearing out of him, fists twisting Wooyoung’s shirt like he could shield him from his own voice. But Wooyoung kept singing.

I gave my all and they all know it
Then you tore me down and now it’s showing

Mingi sobbed harder. Because those lines weren’t lyrics. They were lived.

In just months, you replaced us
Like it was easy
Made me think I deserved it
In the thick of healing

On screen, Wooyoung’s mouth twisted. Eyes shut like the memory cut too deep. Then open again. Daring the world to see the wreckage.

By the final verse, Mingi was holding him with both arms, face buried in his brother’s hair, tears hot against his scalp.

And now the chapter is closed and done
… And now it’s goodbye, it’s goodbye for us

The screen cut to black.

For a moment — silence. Only Mingi’s sobs filled the room, ragged and unrestrained, his frame trembling as he clutched Wooyoung close.

“You finished it,” he whispered finally, voice torn raw. “Baby, you finished it.”

Wooyoung leaned into his chest, body drained but steady, voice barely more than breath. “I had to.”

The words fell like absolution.

By the time they checked online, the world was already burning — headlines screaming confessional, devastating, rawest release of the year. Clips looping trembling hands, wet eyes, falling tears. Edits stitching goodbye for us against footage of his collapse.

But none of it mattered inside the apartment.

Because for the first time, Wooyoung hadn’t sung for San. Not for cameras. Not even for fans. He sang for himself.

And when Mingi whispered into his hair, “You’re okay. I’ve got you,” it didn’t sound like a lie.

It sounded like survival.

The world devoured it in minutes.

📰 Headlines:
“Jung Wooyoung’s Raw Ballad ‘Lose You to Love Me’ Drops Without Warning.” (Dispatch)
“Black and White, Bare and Brutal: Idol Turns Heartbreak Into Confession.” (Rolling Stone Korea)
“‘Goodbye for Us’: Wooyoung’s Song Trends Worldwide Within an Hour.” (Soompi)

📱 On X:
@wooangel: he’s not even performing. he’s bleeding. i’m shaking so hard.
@traineeboy19: mingi holding him while the lyrics played. no one touch me rn.
@sanxysupremacy: every word is a blade and he aimed them at san. devastating.
@antisaywoo: another pity project. congrats i guess.
@industrytea: black and white, stripped to bones → already being called “the confessional of the decade.”

The hashtags swarmed instantly:
#LoseYouToLoveMe
#GoodbyeForUs
#ProtectWooyoung

Across the city, San watched live.

He had told himself he wouldn’t. That it would be masochism. That it would finish him. But when the link appeared on his feed, his finger pressed before his brain could stop it.

And there was Wooyoung — black and white, plain shirt, tears streaking his cheeks, singing words San knew were carved out of his own betrayal.

You promised the world and I fell for it.

San crumpled almost instantly. His body folded over his knees, his hands clawing through his hair as sobs ripped free. He gasped through them like drowning, voice cracking: “He’s still… he’s still singing to me.”

Yeosang sat beside him, rigid. His throat burned as Wooyoung’s voice carried through their speakers — not just the words, but the rawness of them, the way each line sounded like bone breaking.

In just months, you replaced us / Like it was easy.

Yeosang’s hand shook when he reached out, bracing San’s back. His own tears streaked hot, shame clawing at him. “We did this to him,” he whispered. “And he turned it into music. We destroyed him, and he made it immortal.”

San sobbed harder, muffling his face into his sleeve. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve him singing me goodbye.”

Neither of them moved until the last note faded, until the screen cut to black. The silence after was worse than the song — a silence filled with everything they had broken, everything they couldn’t take back.

The Call

The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the weight of exhaustion pressing against the walls. The sunflower on the sill had drooped fully now, petals curling in on themselves, but Mingi still refilled the glass every morning as if it might stand tall again. The notebook sat closed on the desk. Proof that Wooyoung was writing. Proof that he was still here.

The phone on the table buzzed.

Mingi grabbed it before his brother could, eyes narrowing at the agency number flashing across the screen. He answered with a clipped, “What.”

Wooyoung sat beside him at the kitchen table, wrapped not in blankets but in a plain hoodie, hands tucked into the sleeves. He watched his brother’s jaw tighten, the way his knuckles went white around the phone.

“…Are you serious rn,” Mingi said into the receiver, voice flat. A pause. His tone sharpened. “He nearly died on your set. You think, i would let him walk back into your circus—”

Wooyoung reached out, fingers brushing over Mingi’s fist. He didn’t pull, didn’t push. Just touched.

Mingi’s eyes flicked to him.

The voice on the other end droned on — legal clauses, penalty fees, obligations.

Finally Mingi snarled, “We’ll fucking pay it. Now shut the fuck up-”

But Wooyoung shook his head. His hand tightened around his brother’s. When he spoke, his voice was low, steady.

“No, Ming. We won’t.”

Mingi tried to cover the speaker, tried to shield him from the words, but Wooyoung pressed on. “Put it on speaker.”

Reluctantly, Mingi did. The voice filled the kitchen — clinical, impersonal. “...minimum appearance clause. If he refuses, it will be pursued legally. A statement won’t suffice. He has to be present in the finale.”

The silence after stretched.

Then Wooyoung’s voice cut it clean. “I’ll do it.”

Mingi turned on him like he’d been stabbed. “No. Don’t say that. You don’t owe them a damn thing—”

“I owe it to myself,” Wooyoung interrupted. His voice trembled, but his eyes were clear. “I chose to release the song. I chose to put my voice back out there. And now I have to choose this too. Not because they demand it, but because if I hide again, I’ll disappear for real.”

Mingi’s chest heaved. “They’ll break you again Woo, those vultures spare nobody.”

Wooyoung’s lips pressed thin. “Maybe. But if I don’t walk into that room at least once on my own two feet, I’ll never forgive myself.” He paused, then softer, “You’ve been carrying me for months. I need to carry myself at least once.”

Mingi’s throat worked. He wanted to argue, to rage, to hurl the phone against the wall. But Wooyoung’s hand was still around his, warm, steady.

The agent’s voice asked, “Can we confirm his appearance, then?”

Mingi inhaled sharp, ragged. He looked at his brother one more time, searching for cracks. But what he saw wasn’t collapse. It was resolve. Fragile, yes. But real.

He closed his eyes. “Confirm it.”

The call ended. The phone lay between them like a weapon.

Mingi slumped back in his chair, covering his face with both hands. His voice was muffled, breaking. “I don’t trust them. I don’t trust any of this. This is madness”

Wooyoung leaned sideways until his head rested against his brother’s shoulder. His own voice was soft, frayed but sure. “You don’t have to trust them. Just trust me.”

Mingi’s hands dropped, eyes wet. He turned, cupping Wooyoung’s face in both palms, thumbs pressing hard against his cheeks like he could anchor him there. His voice rasped. “Then promise me. Promise me you’ll tell me when it’s too much. Promise me you’ll let me drag you out before they bleed you dry.”

Wooyoung’s mouth trembled into the faintest smile. “I promise.”

Mingi exhaled something that almost sounded like relief.

-----------

It buzzed again.

Mingi cursed under his breath, grabbing it — but stopped when he saw the name. Hongjoong.

Wooyoung’s breath hitched. He nodded once. “Take it.”

Mingi thumbed the speaker on. “What.”

There was a pause, then Hongjoong’s voice — quiet, low, almost hesitant. “Sorry for calling late. I… couldn’t not.”

Wooyoung sat straighter.

“I’ve been writing,” Hongjoong continued. “It started as fragments. But it turned into a song. Sagittarius.” His voice steadied, gentler now. “I thought about your story, Wooyoung. About light — about how it comes back when you think it’s gone. I wrote the first set of lyrics. I want you to write the rest. I’ll compose it, arrange it. But it should be yours.”

Wooyoung’s lips parted. “Sagittarius,” he whispered. “That’s… my sign.”

“I know,” Hongjoong said. His voice dipped, softer than it should have been on speaker. “I thought maybe you deserved something that pointed back at you for once. A song that doesn’t end in collapse.”

The kitchen felt too still.

Mingi shifted, bristling by reflex, but the sharp edge never came. He remembered the sunflower, the notebook, Hongjoong’s words weeks ago. Instead of anger, something awkward tugged at his chest — protective, yes, but something else too.

Hongjoong’s voice carried on, firmer now. “I don’t want this for ratings. Not for the show. This is for you, Wooyoung. To give you something they can’t twist.”

Wooyoung’s chest clenched. His hand curled in his sleeve. “And you’d wait?”

“As long as it takes,” Hongjoong said. Then, quieter, “You don’t know what it was like, watching you break every day, and not being able to say anything. If this is all I can do — write something you can breathe inside of — then I’ll do it. I’ll keep doing it.”

The silence stretched, taut. Wooyoung swallowed hard, throat burning. His voice cracked when it finally came: “Then… we’ll do it. Together.”

Something unspoken hung heavy in the air after that.

Mingi cleared his throat loudly, pushing back from the table. “Ahem. Right. Uh—kitchen’s too stuffy. I’ll… check the stove.” He left before either could stop him.

The line was still open. Wooyoung pressed the phone closer, voice barely above a whisper. “…thank you.”

Hongjoong’s reply came low, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be heard. “You don’t have to thank me. Just… let me stand with you.”

The words left Wooyoung blinking hard, a strange warmth threading through the ache.

The call ended.

And for the first time, the silence that followed didn’t feel empty.

The Studio

The morning he was meant to leave, Mingi hovered like a storm cloud.

Wooyoung stood by the door in a soft hoodie, notebook tucked under his arm, hair falling into his eyes. He looked small, yes — but not fragile. Not like the weeks after the collapse. There was color in his cheeks again, steadiness in the way he laced his sneakers.

Mingi still glared at every movement like the world might snatch him away the second he stepped outside. “You call me if anything feels wrong,” he said, voice low and fierce. “Not later. Not when it’s too late. Immediately.”

Wooyoung laughed, soft but real. He stepped forward and wrapped both arms around his brother, pressing his face against his chest. “I promise. First hint of trouble, you’ll know before I do.”

Mingi froze, then folded him close, chin digging into his hair. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet. “Good. Because if anything happens—”

Wooyoung cut him off, squeezing tighter. “Nothing’s happening. I’m going to a studio, not a battlefield.”

Mingi tried to scowl, but it came out closer to a pout. “Same thing sometimes.”

That made Wooyoung laugh again, the warmest sound Mingi had heard in months. “You’re ridiculous.”

He didn’t let go until Wooyoung pulled back himself.

When they reached the curb, the van waited. Hongjoong’s studio was across the river, tucked in an unmarked building. It should have felt safer than any stage, but Mingi still stood with his arms folded, glaring at the driver like even he couldn’t be trusted.

Wooyoung squeezed his hand once more, grinning crookedly. “Cut it out, crybaby. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t call me that in public,” Mingi muttered, eyes narrowing. But when Wooyoung slipped into the van, notebook hugged to his chest, his lips pressed tight like he was holding back another plea.

The door shut. The van pulled away.

And for the first time, Wooyoung was riding toward something that wasn’t survival, but creation.

Hongjoong’s studio wasn’t glamorous. No big sign, no sterile polish. Just a padded room, scattered instruments, cables crawling across the floor, notebooks stacked on shelves. It smelled faintly of coffee and pencil shavings — lived-in, not staged.

When Wooyoung stepped inside, Hongjoong was already at the desk, headphones looped around his neck, eyes lit with that restless energy that made him look like he belonged to the music more than the room. He looked up, startled — then smiled. Not wide. Not rehearsed. Just soft, like light sneaking through blinds.

“You made it,” he said quietly.

Wooyoung set the notebook on the desk, fingers lingering on the cover. “Of course. I promised.”

Hongjoong flipped it open, scanning the scrawled additions Wooyoung had written into the margins of his draft lyrics. His own words were already there — sharp, poetic fragments titled Sagittarius. A song not about breakups, but about finding constellations in people who refused to leave.

The silence between them wasn’t awkward. It was charged, humming, like a chord waiting to resolve.

“Ready?” Hongjoong asked finally.

Wooyoung’s throat tightened. But he nodded anyway. “Ready.”

Sagittarius🫀

Hongjoong’s studio wasn’t the first thing Wooyoung noticed.

It was the warmth. The way the kettle hissed in the corner, filling the air with steam and a faint jasmine scent. The way a blanket was folded on the chair nearest the desk, as if Hongjoong had thought ahead, certain Wooyoung would need it. The way the light overhead was dimmed just enough to be gentle, no camera glare, no stage brightness.

It was safe. Or as close to safe as anywhere felt now.

Wooyoung shrugged out of his hoodie and set the notebook down on the table between them. He didn’t speak at first. Just flipped to the page where his handwriting tangled with Hongjoong’s earlier draft — Hongjoong’s clean lines, his jagged ones. Together, they looked like a map no one else would know how to read.

“I tried,” Wooyoung said finally, voice low. “It’s rough. But… I think this is what I want it to say.”

Hongjoong leaned over, scanning the words. His lips curved faintly as he nodded, tapping the corner of the page. “Light.”

Wooyoung looked up, surprised.

“You wrote it like a promise,” Hongjoong said. “Not just to survive. To give something back.”

Wooyoung’s throat tightened. He nodded once. “For my brother. For Seonghwa, Yunho, Jongho. For the fans who didn’t leave. I want to be a light for them, even when I’m—” His voice cracked. He glanced down quickly. “Even when I don’t feel like I have much left.”

Hongjoong tilted his head, smile crooked. “Maybe for me too?”

It was said lightly, almost teasing — but Wooyoung startled anyway, heat blooming across his cheeks. He ducked his head, fingers twisting in his sleeves. “Maybe,” he muttered, barely audible.

Hongjoong didn’t press. He only shifted the notebook closer. “Sing it. Just the demo. I want to hear it.”

The piano loop began, soft and steady. Wooyoung pulled the headphones on, gripping the mic like it might anchor him. His voice slipped out low at first, raw but steady:

It seems that this dark, fallen heart / has found its light again…

Hongjoong stilled. He’d heard Wooyoung sing grief — bleeding, wrecked, shattered. But this was different. This was tentative, fragile, like a match striking after too many nights of ash.

Only when I am headed towards you / I float through the sky every day / You are my only cosmic clue.

Wooyoung’s voice cracked on cosmic clue. His brow furrowed, but he didn’t stop. He pressed through, clutching the notebook tighter.

Every night I’ll be your sign / you’re the reason why I ran through this long night / you complete this view / lean into the universe traveling…

By the time the demo faded, Wooyoung’s chest was heaving like he’d sprinted. His cheeks flushed, his eyes wide — terrified of what Hongjoong might say.

But Hongjoong only sat back, pressing a hand over his mouth, blinking fast. His voice came low, ragged.
“Wooyoung… this is it. This is going to heal more than just you.”

The blush deepened across Wooyoung’s cheeks. His lips trembled into the smallest smile — one that looked, for the first time in months, like it belonged to him.

📰 Headlines:
“Studio Glimpse: Wooyoung and Hongjoong Spotted Working on New Track ‘Sagittarius.’” (Dispatch)
“From Heartbreak to Healing: Wooyoung Prepares Performance Piece for Broadcast My Breakdown Finale.” (Soompi)
“‘Sagittarius’ Set to Be Dedication Song: Hope Over Hurt.” (Rolling Stone Korea)

📱 On X:
@wooangel: wooyo literally WRITING again. with HONGJOONG. oh i’m crying.
@starlighthong: sagittarius = his zodiac sign… he’s aiming forward. he’s literally telling us he’s moving on.
@antisaywoo: finale stunt, don’t be fooled. producers milking him again.
@traineeboy19: hongjoong teasing “maybe for me too” >>> wooyo BLUSHED. I need subtitles for their eyes.
@industrytea: confirmed → wooyoung won’t rejoin the cast as contestant. only finale performance. producers banking on historic ratings.

The Finale

The finale stage was a machine. Lights sweeping, cameras hungry, the audience buzzing with the fever of knowing they were about to watch history. Every seat was filled, every phone already lifted, every livestream ticker surging.

The producers didn’t bother to temper it. They leaned into spectacle. The screen above the stage blazed with his name — Special Performance: Jung Wooyoung — and the screams hit like a tidal wave.

He walked out slowly, a pastel brown suit hanging loose on his frame, hair falling naturally into his eyes. No glitter, no choreography, no mask. Just him, a mic stand, and a presence so raw it made the glittering stage look obscene.

Hongjoong followed a beat later, guitar slung at his hip, expression steady but tight around the eyes. He nodded once at Wooyoung, small enough the cameras didn’t catch, and Wooyoung nodded back. That was all the rehearsal they needed.

The lights dimmed. Silence spread sharp and expectant. Then the first notes began — soft, steady, cosmic in their stretch.

The truth I’ve been keeping in silence in the dark /
The night of my sky I’ve been hiding without an end

His voice cracked faintly on the first line, trembling with nerves and weight, but he didn’t back down. The cameras zoomed close — the curve of his mouth, the shimmer in his eyes. His hand gripped the mic stand like an anchor.

And when he lifted his gaze, it went first to the front row — to Mingi. His brother’s eyes were already shining, as if holding the song inside himself too. Wooyoung’s voice steadied at that sight.

The world with no such thing as light /
The galaxy that has lost its brightness /
Now your light is making changes /
In ways I never imagined

He let his gaze travel next — to the trio seated just beyond the lights. Seonghwa’s hands pressed tight in his lap, Yunho leaning forward as if to catch him if he fell, Jongho already wiping at his face. He smiled, faint but real, voice warming through the lyric.

Every night I’ll be your sign /
You’re the reason why I ran through this long night /
You complete this view /
Lean into the universe traveling

His voice lifted higher now, and his eyes slipped sideways — to Hongjoong. Their gazes caught for a fragile second. Wooyoung’s cheeks flushed, lips trembling into the smallest smile. Hongjoong’s strumming softened as if answering him, grounding him.

It seems that this dark, fallen heart /
Has found its light again /
Only when I am headed towards you /
I float through the sky every day

The note cracked, but he didn’t pull back. Instead, he turned last — lifting his gaze past the cameras, past the lights, directly into the ocean of fans. Thousands of faces, thousands of voices hushed into reverence. Tears slipped freely down his cheeks now, but his smile spread wide, unguarded, devastating.

Every night I’ll be your sign /
You’re the only reason I breathe /
I fill this move with you /
Lean into the universe traveling

The final note rang out, raw and trembling, galaxies blooming across the screen behind him. And then it was silence.

For one beat, the room held still — every throat tight, every eye wet.

Then the screams detonated.

The cameras caught it all: Wooyoung’s hands shaking as he dropped from the mic, the way he smiled through tears, the sight of Mingi crying outright in the front row, Hongjoong’s jaw tight with emotion as his guitar stilled.

It wasn’t a stage anymore. It was a confession. A survival. A promise.

📱 On X (Live Reactions):
@wooangel: he looked at Mingi first 😭 then Seonghwa/Yunho/Jongho 😭 then Hongjoong 😭 then US 😭😭😭 I AM RUINED.
@traineeboy19: that last smile… it didn’t look like stage. it looked like freedom.
@antisaywoo: lmao everyone crying over karaoke. grow up.
@industrytea: rawest finale performance in years. the eye contact progression → brother, family, new anchor, fans. narrative perfection.
@jonghostan: his SMILE THROUGH TEARS on the last note literally broke me.

📰 Headlines:
“‘Sagittarius’ Debuts: Jung Wooyoung Threads Family, Friends, and Fans Into Finale Performance.” (Rolling Stone Korea)
“No Glitter, No Mask: Idol Smiles Through Tears in Cosmic Ballad.” (Dispatch)
“‘My Only Cosmic Clue’: Fans Say Wooyoung’s Gaze Made Them Feel Seen.” (Soompi)

The Finale (Part II - The Forgiveness)

The applause hadn’t finished echoing when Wooyoung’s hand stayed on the mic stand. He bowed once, low, trembling, then straightened. The lights softened, but the cameras zoomed, hungry. He didn’t look at them.

He looked down — straight at Mingi in the front row. His brother’s shoulders were stiff, his eyes wet, and Wooyoung’s lips trembled into the smallest smile before he tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling lights as though searching for stars that weren’t there. His breath shook.

“I… I want to say something.”

The crowd hushed instantly.

“For weeks I thought the only way to survive was to hate this feeling called LOVE.” His voice cracked, hands tightening on the mic. “Hate San. Hate Yeosang. Hate Love. Hate the cameras that turned me into a story. But the truth is… I couldn’t.” He blinked hard, tears catching light. “I was hurt. I wanted to give up on living. But never once did my heart let me hate him.”

He swallowed, his lashes lowering. “What I wanted was simple. I wanted him to look at me and say the words himself. To say—‘I’m sorry. I did this. I can’t love you the way I did before.’ That was all. Not silence. Not a text message. Just truth.”

His lips trembled again. He tried to steady, but the slip came unguarded, breaking into the mic. “I want Yeosang to take care of… Sannie—” The pet name cut like glass, intimate, fragile, wrong on a stage like this. His shoulders shook, tears spilling faster. “…I mean San. Take care of him.”

A ripple moved through the crowd, muffled sobs rising.

“And to everyone watching — I want you to stop hating him.” His voice rose, desperate, raw. “Please. Stop. He doesn’t deserve the world’s hate for my heartbreak. I don’t want that for him. I never did.”

He dragged in a trembling breath. “Lose You to Love Me… that song was my goodbye. My way of letting him go. My way of saying—yes, he was my everything, but I was alive before him, and I had people who loved me before him. I was too blinded by love to see it.” His voice cracked, but he pressed on. “My brother, who cried maybe more than I did. Whose life stopped when mine did too. My friends — Seonghwa, Yunho, Jongho — who carried me, who kissed me, who saw me when I couldn’t see myself. My sweet Jongho, who once told me I was his idol, and then had to watch me shatter. They suffered because I couldn’t see what truly mattered.”

He looked down at Mingi again, and his voice broke into a whisper. “This song… it was me being tethered. And you being mine, Ming. I don’t think I would have survived without you.”

The crowd’s sobs grew audible now, a tide.

He drew another shaking breath. “And… I want to thank Hongjoong. For helping me with this song. For arranging it, producing it, giving it breath when I was too empty. He’s been the sweetest through all of this, and I’ll never forget it.”

His lips quivered into the faintest, breaking smile. “And my fans. Thank you. For treating me like a human being, not a spectacle. For not leaving me when I needed rest. I love you — heart and soul. I will be your light forever.”

His voice wavered, then steadied as though forcing himself to say it. “And Sannie…” The syllable came soft, small, a dagger dressed as tenderness. He blinked up at the lights, tears spilling faster. “If you’re watching this—you are forgiven. Take care. This is the final goodbye, forever.”

His chest heaved. “Yeosang—take care of him. Please.”

And then he bowed, low and shaking, until his hair fell into his face, until the roar of the crowd drowned in the wet silence of a man finally setting his grief down.

📱 On X (Live Reactions):
@wooangel: HE CALLED HIM SANNIE. HE SAID FORGIVEN. I AM SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY
@traineeboy19: “this is the final goodbye forever” ← the most devastating line in reality show history
@industrytea: no spin. no PR. just grief turned public confession. unprecedented.
@yeosangluv: he didn’t spit venom. he asked us not to hate. he’s softer than any of us deserve.

📰 Headlines:
“‘San, You Are Forgiven’: Jung Wooyoung’s Final Goodbye Shatters Finale.” (Dispatch)
“From Hate to Forgiveness: Wooyoung Urges Fans to Stop Attacks.” (Rolling Stone Korea)
“‘Lose You to Love Me’ Singer Thanks Brother, Friends, Hongjoong, and Even San.” (Soompi)

Epilogue Note

This story was never about revenge. It was never about turning heartbreak into spectacle.

It was about collapse — and then survival. It was about the brutal truth of loving someone who could not stay, and the devastation of realizing that even soulmates can fail you. It was about grief so heavy it made you believe you were alone.

But it was also about rediscovery. About the brother who became a tether. About friends who turned silence into laughter again. About fans who treated him as human instead of headline.

Wooyoung thought San was his only person. But by the end, he understood something greater: family can be your person, too. And when love breaks, sometimes it’s the ones who have always stood beside you that piece you back together.

This was an exploration of heartbreak, yes. But more than that, it was an exploration of survival.

Because healing doesn’t erase the scars — it simply reminds you that you were never truly alone in carrying them.