Chapter Text
He was drowning.
Fingers trembling, his heart racing a mile a minute, Rui ran down the hall on the first floor of their company building, choosing the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. This couldn’t be happening.
Not Muti-Hyung.
Please.
Taking two steps at a time, he ignored concerned staff members shouting at him to slow down.
Shut up. I'm already too late.
Wumuti's ears were ringing.
Nothing but static noise. Cameras flashed in rapid succession. Too bright. Too close.
Each burst burned itself into his vision, blinding him, leaving behind shapes that overlapped until nothing but a blur was left.
Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, uninvited yet inevitable with the raw panic he was experiencing.
A slow, sickening nausea settled deep in his gut, spreading upward, heavy and dizzying.
The air felt thick. Wrong. As if a tinge of vengeance stained it, though he had yet to understand why. He swallowed, throat tight, and realised with detached horror that the conference hall looked... tilted.
Something was off.
Oh.
It wasn’t the room.
It was him.
He was losing his balance, swaying, even while being seated. The venue was spinning, faces in front of him morphing into stretched out shapes with dark mouths that moved without sound.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe, lungs burning, can’t breathe, help, I can’t breathe—
“…true?”
Huh?
“Is it true? Are these pictures real?”
Papers rustled. Cameras started flashing.
“Wumuti, do you want to give an official statement?”
Looking down at the evidence presented to him, the room snapped back into focus all at once. The lights. The cameras. The dozens of eyes fixed on him, waiting. Hungry.
The pictures.
Seeing the evidence projected across the walls for everyone to see, inescapable, hit him like a gunshot.
His fingers twitched uselessly against the table, seeking any form of stability they could get. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
He felt utterly paralysed.
Fueled by crippling anxiety, his mind leaped straight to the others. To his members. To the dream they had carefully built and finally realised, fragile and shining, now cracking in real time in front of multiple cameras.
And then there was nothing but the unbearable certainty that no matter what he did, what was portrayed on those pictures had already taken something from him.
Their careers were over.
✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷✧✷
Before everything went wrong, there were moments that felt almost safe.
With only a week to go until their comeback, their schedules had been relentless. Wumuti, whom Hyun had lovingly crowned as their “creative weapon”, had chosen a title track that was a complete 180 from their debut song. Despite the demanding choreography and the time-consuming preparations, all of them were counting down the hours until their showcase.
They were sitting on the studio floor long after practice had officially ended. The others were scattered around the room, phones out, earphones plugged in, the kind of tired silence that only came after shared exhaustion. Rui ended up next to Wumuti without either of them making a decision about it. It just happened. It always did. Knees brushing. Shoulders touching.
Rui did not move away.
Neither did Wumuti.
It was a small thing, the kind of contact none of them would question, but it lingered. Rui shifted closer, his arm pressed fully against Wumuti’s. The warmth he felt immediate. Familiar. Wumuti told himself it meant nothing, which is how he knew it did.
Rui leaned in slightly, voice lowered.
“Baobei,” he said, soft, almost careless.
The word landed heavier than it should. Wumuti’s breath stuttered before he could stop it. He did not look at Rui right away. If he did, he knew he would give himself away.
“Stop calling me that,” he said, but there was no reprimand in it. No edge.
Rui smiled, soft and giddy, eyes warm and searching. “You don’t mean that.”
Wumuti exhaled through his nose, a quiet laugh escaping him despite himself.
“You’re right. You’re also too confident.”
The elder pinched his nose playfully for emphasis.
“Only with you,” Rui whispers.
That does it.
Wumuti finally turned his head. Their faces much closer than expected. Close enough that he could see Rui’s brows lifting slightly, the way they did when he was serious, when he was sincere. It was disarming.
Close enough that the room seemed to narrow around them.
Rui looked at him like this often. Like he was already sure. Like the answer had been sitting in front of him for years.
Wumuti couldn’t hold that gaze for long.
He looked away, eyes dropping to the floor, to Rui’s hands, to anything that wasn’t Rui’s face. His heart was beating too fast. He told himself it was exhaustion. He told himself it was responsibility. He told himself many things.
What he didn’t tell himself is the truth.
Rui noticed. He always did.
“Hyung,” Rui said quietly, staring up at him intently. No teasing. No flirting. Just honesty. “You okay?”
Wumuti nodded too quickly. “Yeah... yeah. Just thinking.”
Rui hummed, unconvinced, but he didn’t push. Instead, he leaned his head against Wumuti’s shoulder, light enough that Wumuti could have moved if he wanted to.
He didn’t move.
For a few seconds, everything aligned. Rui’s weight. His warmth. The steady rise and fall of his breathing. Wumuti’s hand rested near Rui’s knee, close enough that their fingers almost touched. Almost.
Almost was where they lived.
Rui shifted slightly, tilting his head up. Their faces were inches apart now. Close enough that Wumuti felt it, the pull, the dangerous ease of it. Rui’s eyes flicked down, then back up again, a question he didn’t dare to voice.
Wumuti’s chest tightened.
He wanted to close the distance. Needed to. He wanted to stop his own misery, tired of postponing what he had been craving for years. He wanted to let himself have this.
Instead, he lifted a hand and gently cradled Rui’s cheek. The touch was tender. Controlled. Safe. It’s the least he could do, knowing how much more Rui deserved.
“Get some rest,” he said softly. “We have a schedule tomorrow morning.”
Rui’s smile faltered, just a little. He wasn’t hurt, he understood. He leaned into the touch anyway, eyes closing for a brief moment, like he was memorizing it.
“Okay,” he said. “But let me sleep in your bed tonight.”
Wumuti swallowed thickly.
“Of course.” He had never learned how to refuse him.
Later, when Rui had fallen asleep against his shoulder, Wumuti stayed awake, staring at the darkened room he shared with Haru. He let himself feel it then. The pull. The affection. The want.
Here, in this space they shared, he didn’t deny it. Didn’t need to hide it when he was surrounded by the safety of the night, the absence of watchful eyes.
He simply told himself there would be time. After the next comeback. After the next milestone. After the group was safe.
He told himself love could wait.
He didn’t yet know how wrong that would turn out to be.