↱FRIENDS↲ ⇾woosan⇽

sms

It was barely even dinner time when the texts started rolling in.

'Get me the fuck out of here, hyung'

San was nice enough to respond quickly, but not nice enough not to induce in a laugh first, stomach aching as he smiled stupidly at his phone screen.

'That bad?'

San knew that it was probably worse than bad, harder than he could even imagine considering Wooyoung had tried coming out more than a dozen times to his family over the years, and had only been met with refusal.

"'You've brought home girls before," Wooyoung had said to San one night, quoting his father in an overly manly voice. "'What about that girlfriend you had in high school? You liked her, didn't you?'"

Wooyoung loved his family, loved them despite all of it in a way San didn't think he could if he was in his position, and it was something he admired him for.

San knew the strain it put on Wooyoung to visit them, to be in their company when all they wanted was for Wooyoung to bring home a girlfriend, not once again try to come out as bisexual, but it was Christmas and Wooyoung had been adamant on traveling to Ilsan to at least try to get along with them.

This left Wooyoung all by himself to deal with his family, and even though the way he was texting was comical, San could tell every word came with a punch of truth.

'My mom invited her boss's daughter to family dinner, like some arranged marriage bullshit.'

San, unsure of how to respond, grimaced into the back of his hand.

He shifted against the lumpy couch pillows, cuddling his phone closer.

'Did she try and feel you up in the hallway?'

'No, but her foot brushed mine under the table twice.'

'Shit, she on the pill?'

'Very funny, hyung.'

'You're gonna get your mom fired, Wooyoung.'

San snorted into the palm of his hand, dropping his phone on his chest for a moment to compose himself.

He could hear his mother cutting potatoes in the kitchen, his father somewhere playing chess with himself (San got bored of the game way earlier that evening), and it wasn't until he felt his phone vibrate against his skin that he realized why such normalcy suddenly felt so unfamiliar, distant and unrecognizable in a way it usually didn't.

He wished Wooyoung was there with him.

He wished Wooyoung had come over for Christmas to meet his parents and cuddle with San on the couch before dinner, making the kind of charismatic jokes that made strangers swoon beyond their control, because that's just the kind of person he was.

So effortlessly liked, so widely loved.

It took a great deal of strength for San to look back at his phone.