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Wooyoung can't really think properly, far too startled to realize he's still in the middle of the freaking road.

His outfit -- the one he'd meticulously planned out because he knew he'd be seeing San today -- is completely soaked, dripping wet, but he doesn't give a crap.

He's in utter disbelief, because did he really just see San tune into a telekinesis zia earlier? The same zia that masked man had?

Part of Wooyoung wants to believe that maybe he was seeing things again; maybe the rain had fogged up his glasses so much that he could no longer tell his right from his left.

But Wooyoung can't shake off how afraid San had looked the second they'd locked eyes across the road. The man had been petrified, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have done even when it resulted in saving Wooyoung's life.

What even is happening?

Wooyoung is too caught up in the hurricane of his thoughts that he barely picks up on his watch beeping. Hongjoong's unmistakable voice soon echoes through.

"Wooyoung." He sounds strained, which unknowingly adds to Wooyoung's distress. "Get your ass over here now."

Wooyoung doesn't reply immediately, which Hongjoong quickly picks up on.

"Wooyoung?"

Wooyoung wipes his face with his sleeves, which does next to nothing in drying him up. I'm a moron. He's all out of whack now, the way he almost always is when he's faced with something far too astonishing to comprehend.

San has powers. Wooyoung's pulse quickens. He has powers but he isn't a hero. He tried to hide them.

"Wooyoung, are you okay?"

I need to tell Hongjoong hyung. Wooyoung can barely keep up with his thoughts. Tell the Headquarters --

"Wooyoung you need to answer me right now or I will assume you're in danger and send backup," Hongjoong instructs, noticeably agitated.

"No!" Wooyoung yells through the downpour. He can't see Hongjoong, but he's pretty sure he startled the man. "I mean -- I'll be at the lair soon. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

No.

"I'm fine," Wooyoung repeats. Ambulance sirens blare up the road, filling up the atmosphere. He runs a couple meters away from the road, and when the coast is clear he shoots into the sky, braving the rainfall because a certain villain has his teleportation slide.

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By the time Wooyoung showers and is ready to meet Hongjoong in the lair, a thick green robe wrapped around him for comfort, the man is perched on his favourite white spinning chair clicking through the large screen in front of him.

Zia Info, the name of the website reads. Wooyoung's grip tightens on his mug when he remembers what he'd seen earlier.

Hongjoong's still swiping past pages, none the wiser to Wooyoung's internal war with his conscience. On the one hand, he'd been taught to report to Hongjoong anything that might've put his position in jeopardy. On the other hand, San doesn't know he's The Golden Clover. San is just a man who hid his zia and would've continued doing so if Wooyoung hadn't been close to getting hit with that car.

San had saved Wooyoung's life. Wooyoung can't betray him.

"You said you saw fire that one time." Hongjoong's voice cuts into Wooyoung's thoughts, the man currently typing something into the screen. "And then you said you imagined a hand pulling you into a boiling hot pool."

Wooyoung stiffly nods. "Yeah." He draws closer, looking over the new page that loads up. What he sees chills him to the bone.

Fire Manipulation/Pyrokinesis

"I'm not a Fire Manipulator," Wooyoung immediately snaps, staring wide-eyed at Hongjoong.

"Wooyoung, listen to me -- "

"Pyrokinesis is a destructive zia," Wooyoung states, stumbling all over his words. He can't believe Hongjoong's showing this to him. "Superheroes don't have destructive zias!"

"I know," Hongjoong insists, rubbing his forehead. He looks even more stressed out than Wooyoung is, if possible. "But we have to rule out the possibility of you developping pyrokinesis. We can't have something unexpected showing up later and alerting the Headquarters."

Wooyoung feels as though his mind's melting -- like reality's slipping through his fingertips. From almost kissing San and then discovering he might have an unpredictable, unstable zia, to Hongjoong almost accusing him of being a dreaded Fire Manipulator, today is shaping up to be one of the craziest and worst ones imaginable.

"They're just hallucinations," Wooyoung argues, but he doesn't know who he's trying to fool. "I mean -- it runs in the family, so."

Hongjoong's face darkens. "Don't say that."

"What if it's true, huh? What if I've gone insane like he did, not because I've somehow mysteriously developped a new zia at nearly twenty-five years of age?" Wooyoung answers, his trembling fingers nearly dropping his mug.

"Look," Hongjoong points at the screen, sounding practically desperate. "It says before someone with the pyrokinesis zia develops their powers, they see things relating to heat and fire, something you've definitely experienced."

Wooyoung's breathing shallows.

"It's part of the calamitous triad of zias," Hongjoong goes on, getting to his feet, "which are known for their disasterous effects on the human mind."

He takes Wooyoung's mug and places it on the spotless counter. "Set it aflame."

"I can't believe this, hyung," Wooyoung utters.

"Just do it, Wooyoung," Hongjoong answers, and Wooyoung knows he can't quarrel his way out of this. "We need to know."

Wooyoung glares at the older man and then at the mug, breathing in deeply. He thinks of that woman and how she'd burned, thinks of how the flames had spread all across her appartment, real and bright and disasterous, destroying everything in their path.

He thinks of that moment at the pool when that hand had grabbed on to him, dragging him into water so hot he'd feared it'd incinerate him.

"Do you feel anything?" Hongjoong says, but he sounds muffled, as if Wooyoung's ears have been clogged with wool.

The hero stops looking at the mug when the lair abruptly darkens, the walls charred and every one of the gadgets singed and melted. The smell of smoke is pungent, and Hongjoong is nowhere to be seen.

"H-Hongjoong?" Wooyoung takes a step back, but trips over a fallen chair. Hongjoong's spinning chair.

He hits the floor with a thud when something crashes into him, fingers fisting his neck so tightly he starts to suffocate.

Wicked orange eyes peer down at him from the dark, their equally as orange hair reminding Wooyoung of the flames that had turned that woman to ash.

Wooyoung sputters for breath, but the shadow's grip is unrelenting. They grin broadly, their teeth as sharp as razor blades.

"Boo."

Wooyoung gasps loudly and then he's back at the lair, Hongjoong's eyes brimming with concern.

"Wooyoung?"

Wooyoung pants, scratching at his neck to get rid of the heat he feels there. He needs to get rid of it.

Hongjoong rushes to him to get him to stop before he draws blood, the mug remaining unblemished. "Jesus! Woo, don't hurt yourself."

"I -- I saw something again," Wooyoung exhales, gulping thickly. He tries not to blink because the moment he does, he'll see those malevolent eyes and smile gleaming down at him again.

Hongjoong's brows rise in panic. "What did you see?"

"I don't think I can go to that cocktail party tomorrow, hyung," Wooyoung admits, still breathless. He needs some comfort right about now, someone to hold him and tell him everything will be alright. He needs San.

Hongjoong hurriedly nods, for once too worried to put social gatherings above the wellbeing of the superhero. "Alright. I'll alert the Headquarters, make sure to clear your schedule for tomorrow, okay?"

Wooyoung swallows, slowly calming down. "Okay."

"Now tell me, what did you see?"

"A-A shadow," Wooyoung answers. Hongjoong is rubbing his back, which warms his heart as the older isn't normally so physically affectionate. "It attacked me -- had orange hair and eyes that looked like fire and everything. It had burnt this place down, hyung. It knew me."

Hongjoong listens intently, never saying a word until Wooyoung's done.

"Don't say I need to see a doctor," Wooyoung states.

Hongjoong shakes his head. "Wooyoung, I believe you. Why do you think I did so much research on the zias and made you try to burn that mug? It's because I don't want you getting hurt. We have to nip this in the bud before the Headquarters get a hold of it and try to cleanse you."

That particular word has chills running down Wooyoung's spine. He's never experienced it before, fortunately, but he's heard stories of heroes who underwent the procedure and came back a shell of themselves.

"I didn't burn the mug," Wooyoung states, "which means I'm not a Fire Manipulator. Let's leave it at that."

"Wooyoung."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." Wooyoung grabs the mug, feeling a headache coming on. "Let's just call it a night."

"It's 6:15PM," Hongjoong says, but he sounds resigned, all the fight leaving him.

Wooyoung shrugs. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to bed."

Hongjoong doesn't say a thing as the hero speeds down the stairs and into his room, too mentally fatigued to have an appetite.

His phone is on the nightstand, the device surviving the earlier rainfall due to its zium steel protector.

Despite everything, Wooyoung still aches for San, aches to call him and see if he's okay. They nearly kissed, for crying out loud, and San had saved him.

He just wants to see San, even when he knows their relationship can never return to how it was. Not when San now knows of Wooyoung's feelings and Wooyoung knows about San's powers.

Don't do anything rash, the voice in his head warns, but Wooyoung has never been one to listen to logic.

So it's no surprise that in less than five minutes he's snatching his phone and scrolling through his few contacts, soon landing on San's.

The last time they texted was yesterday morning, with Wooyoung ending the chat by wishing San a good day. It almost hurts Wooyoung to read through their messages as he realizes he may never get this back again.

San's the only person apart from Hongjoong that Wooyoung's ever had heart-felt conversations with. From the moment the Headquarters discovered he was special, he'd been removed from everyone else to train and grow his zias, which limited human contact and stunted his social skills for years. And then when he became the well-known hero he is today, his fame and powers were all people wanted from him.

And maybe it's because San doesn't know about his superhero identity -- or maybe Wooyoung is truly delusional -- but it felt like San had looked past all that and saw him for who he truly was, even when he acted a bit like a dick in the beginning. He made Wooyoung feel normal. Made him feel alive.

With San, there was no pressure to conform to the heroic, flawless standards that being The Golden Clover required. With San, Wooyoung could just exist and be himself.

And Wooyoung will hate himself forever if he lets this thing he and San built waste away because of some shitty rules and customs.

- WOOYOUNG
hey san
i don't hate you
and i'm not scared of you either

- WOOYOUNG
i got a little shocked, yes
but i'm okay with it now

- WOOYOUNG
i really don't care that you have a zia
in fact i think its cool :)

I have zias too, Wooyoung adds internally, but knows he can't expose himself.

- WOOYOUNG
dont feel pressured to reply back or anything
i just wanted to let you know that i still like you

And we almost kissed. Wooyoung feels his heart squeeze at the memory of San's lips so close to his. The man has the prettiest lips Wooyoung's ever seen. Everything about him is pretty.

- WOOYOUNG
have a nice night san

With that, Wooyoung throws his phone aside and collapses into his bed.

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San wakes up that morning on top of a drenched pillow, cheeks uncomfortably sticky and his throat dryer than the Sahara desert. His eyes are bleary when he opens them, red and raw after all the crying he did last night.

He doesn't even know why he cried. He just remembers storming home after Wooyoung had caught him using telekinesis on that car while choking on his tears, unable to stop. He'd been able to convince Mingi his face was wet because of the rain, and as soon as he was alone in his room, he sobbed into his pillow.

San thinks he maybe needed that release after years of sacrificing himself to survive and hating what he saw in the mirror, but boy was it immensely inconvenient.

San doesn't know just how much Wooyoung saw, doesn't know if the man saw his scar. If he had San doesn't know how he'll ever live with himself.

His phone's been on silent since yesterday evening in case Wooyoung sent anything, because he doesn't think he can bear it if Wooyoung shuns him or turns him in because of what he saw.

So when San switches it on and discovers Wooyoung has sent him not one, but five messages, his chest tightens in panic.

Rubbing the crust out of his eyes, San reads the shorter's texts. Then he reads it again, and then rereads it for the third time, the words on the screen seared into his brain like branded iron.

Wooyoung doesn't hate him.

It's crazy how little San has known Wooyoung for and how much of an impact Wooyoung has on him regardless. It doesn't help that the hero has a way with words by making them sound all the more sincere. So sincere in fact that it has San tearing up again.

He gets up, goes to wash his face and brush his teeth, hating how emotional he's being first thing in the morning. Even then, he's plagued by yesterday afternoon's events. Wooyoung's alluring grey eyes and plump lips are stuck on his mind.

The house is empty with Mingi out on a task, and while San has always appreciated some peace and quiet, he feels quite alone in this place. He has plans on visiting Jongho, but that isn't until later in the afternoon.

San prepares to go back to bed when he hears a loud thud in the living room, a particularly explicit string of curses soon following suit.

"Oh... fuck me."

It can't be.

San freezes at seeing Jung Wooyoung right in the center of the living room, in his house, the man wobbly on his feet and rubbing his bruised elbows.

"Wooyoung?"

Wooyoung's eyes widen in shock when they meet San's. He's donned on a pastel blue sweatshirt and joggers, looking worse for wear. His hair's a fucking mess, his cheeks a stark pink and his large glasses make his round eyes appear even rounder.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, I -- " Wooyoung rakes both hands through his hair but it doesn't do much in the end. He looks so frantic. "I-I didn't know it'd work. I mean -- I did a thing and asked for something so fucking stupid and I didn't expect it to actually drop me inside your house. Oh my god I am so sorry. So sorry."

The teleportation slide. San still has the one Wooyoung gave him, which meant the hero had used another.

Wooyoung is looking at him now -- looking at his face -- and San's blood goes cold. He quickly twists the marred side of his face away, unable to breathe, and Wooyoung jolts into action.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry San," Wooyoung apologizes again, edging closer. "I didn't mean to be a creep and intrude on your privacy like this. I just -- I just couldn't get you out of my head. I teleported here because I too have powers and -- fuck I think I said too much. Please don't hate me."

San hates how close Wooyoung is getting again. Despises it, even. "Don't come any closer."

Wooyoung pauses, fully realizing why San's hiding half of his face. "I'm -- I'm gonna go back in a second, I'm so sorry. B-But I just want to let you know that I don't think of you any differently, San. I...I know it isn't my place -- it literally isn't -- and I can't imagine what you've endured or what it's like to be in your shoes."

"But I... I've got your back, San," Wooyoung continues, tugging nervously on his sweater sleeves. "I care. I care a lot about you -- "

San has no idea what fucking comes over him at that moment, but he holds Wooyoung's face and kisses him right then.

Wooyoung's breath hitches sharply at the contact, but the man quickly sinks into San, melting into a puddle under his touch.

San can't believe this is actually happening.

Wooyoung's lips feel just as soft as San had imagined they'd be, his palms unbelievably warm and sturdy on San's waist as he embraces him.

San's heart skips in his chest when Wooyoung draws them even closer, his hand drifting upwards to cup his face.

"Is...is this okay?" Wooyoung whispers against San's neck, his lips like sparks on his skin. It's clear that he's nervous.

San jerkily nods, but ducks his face when Wooyoung pulls back to watch him. He flushes when Wooyoung gently shifts his hair behind his ears.

"I think you're lovely, San," Wooyoung praises, his cheeks a deep pink.

Craving his touch, San leans in to connect their lips once more, allowing Wooyoung's careful hands to roam all over his body. He doesn't believe the shorter's words, but he just wants to be loved.

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a/n: sorry for this messy ass chapter :')
thoughts?