Work Text:
Sicheng:
I miss you
7.18 pm
Sicheng stared at the text he sent over half an hour ago. No, it wasn't weird at all, people said this to each other on the daily. And yet, when it came to sicheng, it was unexplainable, odd almost, that he would ever send something like that.
No, it wasn't that sicheng couldn't 'display outward motions of affection', contrary to what almost everyone thought of him. He could do that just fine. It was simply a matter of whether he wanted to, whether he was comfortable enough to.
Sometimes he shys away from taeil's cooing and mark's gentle touching of his ears. Sometimes he is the first to pull away from hugs. But his members know he loves them with all his heart and he would give all of them the world if he could, but he couldn’t. He was just sicheng.
Just sicheng is enough. It's more than we deserve.
Sicheng smiled faintly at the little familiar voice in his head. Yuta had whispered that to him, early one morning when they were having breakfast alone together. It wasn't often that they could have breakfast together, Yuta had woken him up extra early to cook breakfast for him and they had tried to be as quiet as possible, basking in the rays of the early morning sun. After that, a flustered Sicheng had been murmuring about how he couldn't believe Yuta couldn't fry a decent egg without his help, to which Yuta let out an offended screech as he smacked Sicheng's arm, something about how oil and seasoning weren’t necessary at all and sicheng had smacked him right back and one thing led to another and suddenly the whole dorm was up and complaining.
No. No, Sicheng wasn't incapable of intimacy. But several countries away, separated by a whole sea and being unable to see yuta's reaction to the simple text message? The fear was very much real.
He had been worried since a very long time ago. And blurted it out, once, when he was very very very drunk after their first win.
'Is- Is it okay? That I don't reciprocate everyone's affection?'
Red-faced, and slumped into the couch, Yuta had mumbled something. Sicheng stumbled and took a few tries to actually get his feet to listen to him and finally sat down beside him. Or was it on top of him? Sicheng had no idea.
'It's not. It's hurtful sometimes. I've told you... I've told you I love you ten times, but you'd only reply once. But I know, know you're trying and you've tried. People can be different, winko, it's okay.'
But still, sicheng worried. He tried not to push away the members as much. Tried to display more affection publicly. No, it wasn't necessarily him. But he loved his members and if returning their ministrations made them more comforted, he would do it.
He missed yuta's hugs. Yuta hugged him for the simplest reasons, for good nights, goodbyes, good mornings. Short and brief. Slightly tense and almost a bit uncomfortable, with his chin digging into sicheng’s shoulder as he tiptoed. Too fast for sicheng to truly enjoy, too fast for sicheng to react and properly wrap his arms around the other, but he knew it happened. And he missed it.
Yuta liked him a lot, this much he knew. From the very start, when yuta laid eyes on the trainee who was trying his darndest to smile and nod despite not understanding what the other trainees were saying to him, the trainee who slipped away after a while to the washroom, blinking back tears at his own reflection as he gripped the washbasin, the trainee who hurriedly wiped away his tears when yuta stepped in and greeted him softly.
But yuta didn’t know how much he meant to sicheng.
Yuta, who cried and smiled in turns, and was a source of comfort and warmth for every member. A ray of sunshine, with a quiet side to him that not many would know about. He enjoyed every hug, every squabble, every hair ruffle, every movie watched in silence. Yuta liked everyone, not just him.
Sicheng stared at his lockscreen, desperate, hopeful, wishing for something, anything at all.
‘Sicheng! Get your ass over here already, time for practice!’
Sicheng let out a huff of ‘I’m older than you, be more respectful to me you little brat!’ Before he took one last look at his screen. Nothing at all.
I miss you.
‘Coming!’
Sicheng dropped his phone on his bag, shook off the tenseness in his shoulders and tightened his shoelaces, rushing off to where Yangyang was waiting.
Buzz.
Yuta:
I miss you.
8.01 pm