it's honestly hard to gauge how close they actually are just because so much of their closeness comes from offscreen interactions and when they think no one is recording them lol! i think it's pretty obvious that they consider each other friends, but how close their friendship is, i don't know! they often hang out in group settings (that's a given), but i'm not sure how often they hang out one on one. we know they eat together often, someone saw syongseoknen eating out at a restaurant once, and we know that they knew each other as trainees as well. in my personal opinion, i think they have a long way to go but i think they ARE getting there! they are together 24/7 whether they want to be or not. they're bound to get closer and they have gotten visibly closer over the past couple of months :-)

i think their bond will have the sort of renaissance that syongseok did because i don't know how long you've been a fan for, but when eunseok got introduced as an smrookie, we actually didn't know how close him and sungchan were! we didn't even know that they knew each other as trainees/in high school. they were even a fair bit awkward, but as you can see now that they're in a group again and their bond is closer than ever. we legit had no idea that they've known each other for 7 years, which is why i think that clip of eunseok choosing shotaro as his fav nct member and sungchan getting jealous from "welcome to nct universe" is hilarious now because like. DUDE!!! picking the guy you barely know over the dude you've known since high school... zero shame. those bastards fooled us all didn't they <3 (extremely lovingly and affectionately btw)

sungchan and wonbin have a history too, it's going to be 5 years this year (don't know the exact month because i don't think we know what month wonbin joined sm, if someone knows please lmk!!!) in total that they've known each other! they're a little different from 01z just because those two knew each other as trainees for around 3 years, and for wonbin and sungchan it'd be more like 1½-2 years ish maybe, but that's not nothing! it's just been a while since they've been in each other's presence, i feel like. they're definitely going to get much closer over this upcoming year as they get used to each other again because no doubt that they've changed a lot after about 2½-3 years since they got to see each other a lot i think! eitherway, i think the lack of information but the many crumbs of their relationship is what makes syongnen so inticing for a lot of people. they're fun! they're mysterious! they clearly have some kind of a history! that's very fun to explore! i love them anyway and as much as i write them romantically, i love them as friends too. i hope they eat well together :-) <3 <3 <3