hypoxia.
@idmilo, ep 1 of dancing9, during filming.
this is the first real time they’ve worked together while both being established. they had in the past, when milo used to backdance for olympus. but it’s a little different. despite it, it still brings with it a wash of nostalgia, back from those days. san had gotten himself wound up tight. as tight as he was able, anyway. he hadn’t had time for dating around the time of olympus’ debut. his entire focus was on his career., everything else fell to the wayside. potential friendships, finishing high school, and definitely dating.
but, from san’s point of view, they’d gotten close. he’d been around his age and interested in talking. and so san gravitated toward him and away from his group members. would find slivered out hallways and cram both of their bodies back there between takes, if only to hide from taeho or seokyung. he remembers milo’s fingers working into stiff calf muscles, remembers talking intermittently about groups, or about potential auditions in milo’s future. remembers that overeager zealousness when they found somewhere cramped and quiet, to shove themselves closer. rough lips, curious hands.
but san didn’t have time for milo. his focus was singular, and if it threatened to split, then his mother was already there. ready to slap on some blinkers, or to grab him forcefully enough to redirect his attention. milo should have washed away. evaporated. dried up. something. but he didn’t. san always found him again, but it feels ingrained now to keep pulling back. and at this point, there’s some undiagnosed fear of giving in. milo’s been a presence in his life, sure. but have they ever really collapsed in front of each other? let down those walls for long enough to allow in reality.
at this point it’s been so long. nearly too long. sometimes it feels fake. whatever understanding they have of each other. sometimes san’s not sure like he feels like himself when milo stares at him, rapt. sometimes it feels like he might be in love with a false image of him. but maybe that’s san projecting without realizing it. maybe that’s what happens when you grow up surrounded by people proclaiming their love for you, people who don’t even know the first thing about you. that want to hurt you just to remember them by. selfish. and that’s what san became.
san tries not to let the backlog of memories catch up to him while there’s a couple of cameras propped up around the room. milo’s sitting at his side, and they don’t even have to pretend that they might not have known each other that well. that fun snippet of trivia had already been brought out by the pd’s, san’s sure it’ll be edited into the teaser. “you think we’ll get sorted into the same team?” san asks, and he’s note entirely sure if it’s all pre-selected, or if they’re actually being judged throughout the show. but either way, he hadn’t gotten a finalized list himself.