(no) Strings Attached

Until You Do

Wooyoung doesn't move. His eyes flicker, caught between belief and instinct, between wanting to run and wanting to stay.

San notices—but doesn't push.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me right now."
His voice dips low.

"I'm not even asking you to believe me yet. I'm just asking you to let me try. Let me prove it. That I can stay. That I will."

He shifts his weight, like he's grounding himself there, in that moment. "You don't have to love me again. You don't even have to like me."

A small smile touches his mouth, faint and sad.
"Just... let me earn the right to be near you again." And he means it.

With every scar, every ounce of guilt, every piece of himself still bruised from leaving—he means it.

Wooyoung doesn't look at him at first. His jaw is tight, eyes glassy, blinking too fast to keep anything from spilling over.

"You think I didn't know we were both messed up in this?" he says quietly. "That we didn't both make mistakes?" Wooyoung thought about the times he must have unintentionally given hope to Seojun. When he was trying to be kind and it all backfired like hell.

He scoffs, shaking his head once. "I knew."

He finally looks up—and the pain there is raw. Clear as day. "But I told you, San. I looked you in the face and said I had feelings for you."

His voice breaks a little. "I fucking said it. Out loud. I put it out there."

He takes a breath, shaky and fast, like he's trying to hold himself together with sheer will.
"And you still walked away."

A bitter laugh slips out. "Like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing."

He presses the heel of his palm to one eye, scrubbing hard, furious at himself for feeling this much. Still.

"You didn't just break my heart, San. You stepped over it. You made me feel stupid for feeling anything at all."

His voice is rising now—anger clawing up his throat, but behind it is that deeper thing: the grief. The exhaustion.

"You don't get to just show up now and say it's always been me. Not when you never felt like it."

He swallows hard. "Do you know what that did to me?" There's silence again—but it's not empty. It's heavy. Full of everything he never got to say. Everything he thought he was finally done feeling.

"I don't care if you were scared," Wooyoung says finally, softer now, but no less sharp. "I was terrified. But I stayed. Because I hoped. I fucking prayed that you'd see what was becoming of us."

A beat.

"You didn't."

San's breath catches like the words physically knock the wind out of him. For a second, he just stares—like he can't believe Wooyoung still has the strength to say all that out loud.

He deserves every word. Every damn one. And San knows it. "I know," he says hoarsely. "I know I fucked up."

He takes a slow, uneven breath, and then another—like he's trying to keep from unraveling completely.

"I heard you. That night. I heard you say you had feelings. And I still left. I still acted like it didn't mean anything because—"

His voice cracks.

"Because I didn't know what to do with it. I panicked. I've never been good at... at being chosen like that. At choosing back."

He looks down at his hands, curling and uncurling like he wants to tear something open. "But that's not an excuse. It's not even close. It's just—"