Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Monday, December 26th

Riki much prefers sleeping in the auditorium to the infirmary for a handful of reasons, but the most important one is this: he wakes up a few minutes before Jungwon, and gets to watch his eyes flutter open, gets to watch him yawn like a cat, stretching his arms over his head and then dropping them back at his sides, his hand brushing against Riki’s, just like it had all night, after they inevitably slipped out of each other’s grasp.

He gets to meet his sleepy smile with one of his own, gets to see him up close in a way he can’t imagine many other people have, and he thinks he can’t imagine a better view to wake up to.

The drawback of sleeping in the auditorium, of course, is this: Jungwon sits up after a few seconds, looking around the mostly dark, windowless room, illuminated only by the one light that always stays on in the sound booth at the back, and asks, “What time is it?”

Riki sits up too, looking down at the watch on his wrist that he probably – definitely – should have set an alarm on, and sighs. “Fuck.”

“Oh no,” Jungwon breathes, frantically feeling around for his own watch, which he’d carefully set aside before falling asleep but also seemingly forgot to use to wake them up in time, finding it and then getting to his feet as he stares down at the display. “We missed breakfast completely. We’re doomed.”

“We’ll just – we’ll tell Chen we were…” Riki trails off, realizing he hasn’t the faintest idea of what they can tell Chen without incriminating themselves in some way. “We just won’t say anything.”

“And what, hope he forgets?” Jungwon asks, his breathing coming a little faster as panic seems to set in, kicking his mat back off to the side of the stage, shooing Riki off of his own and dragging that one over, too. “Oh god, we’re going to get detention, and he’s probably going to check the cameras from last night and then we’ll all get suspended or worse –”

“Jungwon,” Riki starts, getting up and standing in front of him, putting both hands on his shoulders to try to force him to stop flitting around and trying to clean up their mess. “He won’t check the cameras. Just – go to the bathroom, get your hair wet, and then tell him you were showering. It’s believable, because you take like an hour –”

“Hey,” Jungwon protests weakly, but doesn’t attempt any further convincing of the contrary. “What about you?”

“I’ll tell him I slept in here. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll believe it, so he won’t check the cameras. We’re good.”

“You’ll get detention,” Jungwon points out, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “You have to stop getting detention for me.”

“I’ve never gotten detention for you,” Riki corrects. “I’ve gotten suspended, but that won’t happen. That’s more paperwork than he wants to deal with. Trust me.”

Jungwon rolls his eyes, and attempts a few more objections, but Riki ushers him all the way up the aisle and to the door, practically shoving him out of it and closing it behind him, hearing the lock click into place.

He takes a few minutes to clean up any traces of Jungwon in there – the wrapping paper from Jihye’s gift, the slippers he’d left behind in his haste to leave like he’s Cinderella – and leaving the traces of himself, except for the gym mats, which he takes down the stairs and hides a little better, not wanting Chen to confiscate Jungwon’s thoughtful gift. He knows Chen will look in the auditorium once Riki admits the partial truth, and he doesn’t want there to be any doubt that there was only one of them in there the night before.

And then he makes his way to the cafeteria, unsure of if he’s even going to find anyone there, or if Chen would have already escorted them to their prison-classroom for the day – but to his surprise, everyone’s still sitting at the table, including Jungwon, with dry hair and no evidence whatsoever that he’d followed Riki’s instructions, and no Chen to be found.

Sunoo is sitting at the end of the table by himself, and Riki instinctively goes to sit with Jungwon where he’s settling in beside Sunghoon with a plate of pancakes – but Sunoo waves him over with a sly grin, and Riki sighs, but for some reason doesn’t even consider ignoring him.

“You’re both so lucky,” Sunoo says smugly. “I’ll take payment in the form of cash, please.”

“What are you talking about?” Riki asks, not trying to hide the sharpness in his tone. It’s still too early for this shit.

“We went to breakfast by ourselves because Chen slept in,” Sunoo informs him, then adds, with a proud smile, “I tried to wake you guys up, but the door to the auditorium was locked, and I didn’t want to make a scene. So when he asked where you were, I told him Miss Han asked you guys to go with her to the pantry in the basement to help her restock.”

Riki blinks. “Who?” He asks, not even processing the other information Sunoo was giving him.

Sunoo’s eyes narrow, and his head tilts, and he looks at Riki like he’s sure there’s not a single thought in his brain. “The woman that’s been cooking you every single meal you’ve eaten the whole time you’ve been here?”

“Oh,” Riki says dumbly. “Right. That’s, uh. That’s surprisingly nice of you.”

Sunoo shrugs, plastering on an angelic smile, and something occurs to Riki.

“But what if he asks Miss Han if we were with her?”

“He did,” Sunoo says simply. “And she said you were.”

“Why?” Riki asks, all his confusion focusing on that one inexplicable detail.

“Who knows?” Sunoo shrugs, and Riki can tell that there’s something he’s not saying, but he doesn’t call him out on it. He’s not going to question Sunoo’s sudden generous spirit, because he’s sure that if he did, Sunoo would make sure he never receives an ounce of it again.

“Okay,” Riki says, drawing out the vowels. “Well, uh, thanks.”

“Anytime,” Sunoo grins, and Riki’s sure he can see pure evil lying just behind the deceiving smile, so he doesn’t stick around, taking the seat across from Jungwon and meeting his relieved smile with a genuine one of his own.

Chen doesn’t doubt their story for a moment, doesn’t even question them as he escorts them to their classroom – probably because he doesn’t want them to point out his own hypocritical lateness, not to mention his absence the day before. He just tells them to keep it down because he has a headache, and then slams the door loud enough to echo anyway, and that’s the end of it.

There are no more close calls after that, in fact, there’s not much of anything going on for the few days that follow. Riki’s always thought that the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve feel a bit dreamlike, like they don’t quite exist in the real world, but rather, somewhere just outside of it. These ones are no exception, and it’s for more reasons than just Sunoo’s suspicious kindness, and Jungwon’s entire existence, both of which Riki still finds hard to wrap his head around.

Half of them still aren’t on speaking terms, and yet, for those handful of days, Riki’s sure that they’re all something like friends, that they’d found their common ground and the nerve to stand on it somewhere along the two hundred or so miles to New York City. They still bicker, sure, but it’s easy for anyone to tell that there’s no animosity behind it anymore.

Jay and Jungwon get really competitive about chess when they find a board in the classroom’s storage closet. Sunghoon and Sunoo have heated discussions about movies, and Sunoo eventually wears Sunghoon down until he admits that he’s a fan of the same cheesy romance movies Sunoo likes. Heeseung and Jake tuck themselves into a corner every day, and Heeseung actually studies, Jake holding up flashcards and gently correcting what he gets wrong, cheering when he gets something right.

Riki finds something to like about all of them, watching them from behind his sketchbook every day, finding himself capturing all of them in the moments he likes them the most. He’s not great at seeing the best in people, but he’s trying. And maybe it’s not even that hard, with these people. Or maybe Jungwon’s just a good influence on him.

They keep sneaking off to the auditorium at night, Jungwon surprisingly not deterred by the near disaster on boxing day, and every night, they fall asleep hand in hand, or head on shoulder, or when they’re feeling particularly bold, with arms wrapped around each other, gym mats pushed together until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

And, the thing is, Riki probably likes Jungwon more than he’s ever liked another human being in his life. The thing is, he thinks he might be a little obsessed with him, in a way that makes Heeseung roll his eyes and make a comment about them being gross when Jungwon gets too drunk and giggly during their nightly kitchen outings and lets his body fold into Riki’s, even though Heeseung himself is usually supporting Jake’s weight too, at that point, but with even more excessive amounts of PDA to go with it.

Sunoo still isn’t speaking to them, but they coexist, ignoring each other while simultaneously clearly vying for each other’s attention in a way that’s impossible for the rest of them to ignore. But still, they’re all friends. It feels like they’re friends.

Riki’s never been wealthy in friendship. He had peers in elementary and middle school that he got along with just fine, and then started the transferring, and the only having said peers for a year at a time, and then – he started at Decelis, and met Heeseung, and even though he hadn’t quite realized it until recently, Heeseung was his first real friend.

As unconventional as it may be, Riki feels a little wealthier in that particular regard these days. And the thing is, he knows it won’t last. He knows that, come January, and the beginning of the semester, they’ll all return to the norm, and Riki will still have Heeseung, but he probably won’t have this.

But maybe Jake will smile at him in the halls again. Maybe Sunoo won’t actively go out of his way to make snide comments about him being a loser anymore. Maybe he and Jay will cross paths sometimes, now that breaking into the liquor cabinet seems to be a favoured activity of his. Maybe Riki will remember Sunghoon’s name from now on.

Everything outside of that, he’s sure, will come to an end as the new year begins.

Everything. Including, at least according to his more pessimistic side, everything that exists between him and Jungwon. Riki’s not sure if he’ll be okay with that, but he’s accepted it, and it’s the reason that for those handful of days, he makes sure that they never fall asleep without being hand in hand, or wrapped around each other, and it’s the reason he doesn’t deny himself when he looks at Jungwon and thinks, I want to kiss him. He just does it, because he’s sure that he won’t always have that privilege. For once, he’s not going to waste the opportunity to take advantage of a good thing, even though he knows life won’t be kind enough to him to make it last.

He's trying to be more optimistic, lately, less afraid of losing things he cares about. But there's only so far that optimism can go.

Come January, everything will return to the norm. But Jungwon might still think of him, sometimes, when he remembers his first kiss – which he’d bashfully admitted that Riki was – or when he thinks about the first time he’d gone to the city he'll live in one day since he was a kid. And that will just have to be enough for Riki, then, but not yet.

It’s not quite January yet.

Saturday, December 31st

They’ve gotten better about remembering to set alarms, ones that go off a few minutes before they know Chen will be coming to get them for breakfast, giving them enough time to sneak back to the infirmary and make it look like they’d been there the whole night.

This time, though, Riki wakes up not to the sound of Jungwon’s watch beeping, but to his own laboured breathing, his own pounding headache, and flashes of memory of a nightmare washing over him like ice cold water. He sighs, and sits up, checking his own watch to find that there’s still forty or so minutes before they have to be awake, and he knows at once that he won’t be able to fall back asleep for even a second of them.

He can’t even remember what the nightmare was about, not really. But he always remembers the feeling that comes with it. He feels like he’d just sprinted a mile, like he was desperately trying to outrun something – someone – who lurks in the shadows behind him. He’s fairly certain, if that subconscious version of himself ever got the nerve to look over his shoulder, he’d be met with his own face, but older, and meaner, etched with all the same lines and wrinkles as his father’s face is, his eyes filled with the same bitter hatred that filled his.

They’ve always looked alike. One of his first memories is of his paternal aunt, kneeling down in front of him, and saying, you’re just like your father. It feels like she’d cursed him, in that moment.

He doesn’t want to close his eyes and try to sleep again, because he doesn’t want to see his father’s face on his own, doesn’t want to see their similarities. So he looks at Jungwon, instead, expecting to find him sleeping peacefully, dreamlessly, like he deserves to.

But Jungwon’s eyes are open, and he’s looking at Riki, one of his hands hovering near his arm like he was debating whether he should touch him or not, like Riki is some kind of wounded, feral animal, like Jungwon is afraid what might happen if he startles him.

At least, that’s his perception, tinged by the nightmare and the idea of his face morphing more and more to look like his fathers, and in that moment, he feels a little more like him than he has lately, too. Because he doesn’t let Jungwon touch him, doesn’t let him show him kindness in a moment where he’s sure it’s clear to him that Riki needs it. He just shrugs him off, and inches a little further away from him, out of his reach, where he really should have remained.

Riki is just like his father, so when people get close to him, they get hurt. And the last thing he wants is for Jungwon to be hurt by anything, and yet, when that very emotion overtakes his expression, all Riki can feel is anger.

“Just go back to sleep,” Riki whispers, his tone flat, trying not to let any of his own emotion into it, because he knows which one it’ll be.

He doesn’t know who he’s angry at. It’s certainly not Jungwon, could never be Jungwon, but that’s where his father’s anger directs itself anyway. Riki’s never been in control of it. He’d just fooled himself into thinking he was, into seeing the best in himself when, all this time, his best has been buried so far under all of his worst. It was only a matter of time until the worst of him started to rise to the surface again, because it always does, in the moments that really count.

Like the moment that Jungwon sits up too, crossing his legs and scooching closer to Riki, taking one of his hands in his, repeating what he’d told him one of the first nights they came in here together. “I get nightmares too,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, raw from sleep and honesty, and Riki resists the urge to recoil. “I have ever since I was a kid. I – I see my parents, and they’re alive, but they’re… strangers, I guess. They don’t look quite right, and they don’t know anything about me, and it just feels wrong, and then –” he cuts himself off, pressing his lips into a thin line for a long moment. “It always feels really real. But it’s not real.”

Riki nods, avoiding Jungwon’s eyes. He wants to stop talking about this. He needs to stop talking about this.

But Jungwon doesn’t take the hint. He says, in that sweet, unassuming tone that Riki is used to hearing from him, “You were talking in your sleep. I’m… I’m sorry you're so afraid of him, Riki. But it wasn't real.”

Riki wrenches his hand out of Jungwon’s grasp, and gets to his feet, looking down at him as his hands start to shake, as his breathing starts coming heavy and fast again, as his tongue sharpens until there’s nothing that could come out of his mouth that isn’t mean. “You don’t know what’s real about me. You don’t know me.”

Jungwon blinks a few times, stunned by his change in demeanor, even though if he was a less forgiving person, if he gave Riki less grace like he should, he would have been able to feel the anger reaching a boiling point inside of him, and he would have known to back up so he didn’t have to get scorched by it.

“I know you, Riki,” he says after a moment, his tone sure and steady and all the things Riki wishes it wasn’t right now. He’s right. Riki knows he’s right, because he’s spent the last week and a half letting Jungwon get to know him in a way no one else had before, because just the night before, he’d told him things he’d never spoken about aloud before. Jungwon does know him. And maybe that’s why he keeps insisting that he doesn’t, like he can make himself believe he hasn’t put himself in such a vulnerable state, that he didn’t hand Jungwon his bloodied, beating heart with no choice but to trust that he’ll be gentle with it, even when Riki can’t be gentle with his.

“No, you don’t,” he snaps. “You didn’t know me before, and you barely know me now, and after all of this is done and everything goes back to normal, you’ll stop pretending you care and go back to not knowing me at all. So just – just stop, Jungwon.”

He'd barely raised his voice, but there's enough venom in them to have Jungwon flinching, surprise overtaking his features, his eyes going a little wide. “Riki –” he starts, and Riki can already hear the understanding in his voice, the kindness, and he just – he can't.

He takes a step back, and then another, and then turns away from Jungwon and towards the stairs leading down from the stage, ignoring the pleas for him to come back as he puts his head down and walks towards the exit, his breath caught in his throat, his lungs aching with the urge to exhale.

He does, the moment the door closes behind him and he slumps down against the wall, but the next breath in doesn't make his lungs stop aching, sharp waves of pain shooting through his chest like his heart was about to give up on him – and he wouldn't blame it, if it did. He wouldn't blame anyone, if they did.

He doesn't know how many minutes pass as he sits there, curled in on himself, forehead resting on his knees as he desperately tries to catch his breath, but he gives up eventually, pulling a cigarette and his lighter out of his pocket and trying to fill his lungs with that, instead of panic.

He cut back a bit, because he doesn't like smoking in front of Jungwon, because he tends to ask for a hit, even though he never likes it. Riki is always scared that he'll start to, that he'll pick up his bad habit, and it'll be just another reason to call Riki a bad influence on him.

Maybe that's all he'll ever be. Just a stain on Jungwon's perfect record, something for him to look back on in the same way one would see a bad habit. Maybe the only thing Jungwon will feel when he thinks about their time spent together is regret.

Or maybe – maybe – Riki is assuming the worst again. Because the auditorium door swings open, and Riki lifts his head on instinct, and there’s Jungwon, his mouth that Riki is familiar with now pulled into an unfamiliar pouty frown.

“Riki,” Jungwon starts, his tone as sharp as Riki's was, but there's still something gentle in there, because it's Jungwon, and gentle is all he really knows how to be. “I know what you’re doing, and it's not going to work.”

Riki, despite the way his stomach is churning with dreadful nausea, finds himself choking out a surprised laugh. Jungwon meets it with a pleased, cat-like smile, and then he plops himself down beside Riki, and reaches over again, joining their hands and, this time, interlacing their fingers. “What am I doing?”

“You're trying to push me away,” Jungwon says matter-of-factly. “Because you think if you don't, I'm going to leave.”

“Aren't you?” Riki asks, his voice cracking around the words. He clears his throat, and tears his eyes away from Jungwon, fixing them on their joined hands resting on the floor between them. “You're… you're going to New York for the summer. And then you're going to New Haven when you graduate.”

“Which isn't for another year and a half,” Jungwon points out. “And you’re going to come visit me, in the summer. And once we graduate,” he says meaningfully, “New Haven is only a couple hours from New York.”

Riki knows what he's suggesting, and normally the mere implication that he might make something close to what he wants out of his future would make that anger flare inside of him again, but it never comes. Maybe because he doesn't want to be angry at Jungwon ever again, because every cell in his body is fighting against the urge to give into it now that he's recovered from the stress of his dream. Or maybe because the future that Jungwon is talking about no longer seems quite as far fetched.

“And you would want that? Me, uh, me visiting?” Riki asks hesitantly.

Jungwon squeezes his hand, signalling Riki to lift his head and look at him, and he doesn't bother trying to fight against that. He just meets his eyes, and finds them sincere and almost sparkling in the dim light of the hall, and all of the anger that was left inside of him dissipates at once. “Yeah, Riki. I'd really like it if you did.”

Riki smiles, just a small quirk of his lips, not much, but Jungwon still beams at him, and guilt stirs violently in his stomach. “Okay,” he agrees, and then adds, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have spoken to you like that.”

“It's okay,” Jungwon says simply, without hesitation, without thought.

Riki grimaces. “You don't always have to accept my apologies, you know.”

“I know,” Jungwon confirms. “But you've never given me a reason not to. I know you mean it.”

He's assuming the best in Riki, like he always does. And Riki wants Jungwon to be right about him, so he just swallows back his further protests, his doubts, because Jungwon doesn't need to see those.

He sees them anyway. Of course he does.

He squeezes his hand again, and offers him one last smile, soft and dripping with kindness, and says, “You're nothing like your father, Riki. And I know that, because I've never been afraid of you. Not even for a second.”

And Riki doesn't know for sure that that's true. He remembers his eyes meeting Jungwon's when he beat up the kid that was bothering him, finding them wide and confused and fearful, and he remembers the way he avoided meeting them again after that.

But – he also remembers the way Jungwon never seemed truly uneasy around him, never hesitated in befriending him, even with the reputation that Riki arrived at Decelis with. He remembers the way Jungwon only jumped from the roof once Riki was there to attempt to catch him, the way he agreed to sneaking out and drinking and smoking and stealing gym mats only after Riki had assured him that he had nothing to fear.

And even if he didn't have all of that, he knows he'd believe him anyway. Because Jungwon punctuates his sure, steady words by leaning in and pressing his lips to Riki's, and it feels a lot like a promise.

Much to Riki’s annoyance, Jungwon’s watch beeps mere seconds later, and they’re forced to pull apart, sharing small shy smiles as Jungwon stands and offers Riki a hand, pulling him to his feet when he takes it. They make it back to the infirmary with only a few minutes to spare, because they stroll down the hall hand in hand like there’s no rush whatsoever, time no longer feeling like it’s slipping through Riki’s fingers.

He supposes that he hadn’t even realized how much it was bothering him, the time limit he’d perceived all of this having, until Jungwon confirmed that, at least for the two of them, he’ll just keep flipping the hourglass until they have as much time together as they could ever want. It’s reassurance he didn’t know he needed, but now that he has it, he wonders how he was even able to breathe without it.

Everything else, he’d survive losing. He’s gotten good at losing things. But losing Jungwon – it was unthinkable, honestly. He doesn’t know how it got this bad in such a short amount of time, but he’s glad that at the very least, it seems he’s not alone in his feelings.

He wonders how the others are feeling. He wonders if the friendly feelings he’s been having for them are mutual, if they’re starting to see themselves as a unit, a team of sorts.

And then they walk into the infirmary, and the first thing he hears is the sound of Jay and Sunghoon arguing, and he thinks – probably not.

Honestly, it’s been a little too quiet lately, with the lack of arguments between Sunoo and Heeseung, because Sunoo is still refusing to even look at him and Jake. Sunghoon and Jay have been working overtime to make up for it. He’s missed the context necessary to know what it is they’re fighting about, but he can tell it’s nothing serious, because Jay is grinning and Sunghoon is pink in the cheeks, and Riki knows that whatever complicated history is between them, these days, it seems like they’re fighting more for fun than anything else.

“Jake knows what he’s talking about,” Sunghoon snaps, gesturing at where Jake and Heeseung are sitting on Riki’s bed. They’ve pretty much moved completely into their room of the infirmary in Jungwon and Riki’s consistent absence, because sharing a room with Sunoo – even though he’s barely in there these days, either – proved to be a little too much for all of them, and they wanted to give him the option to have a room to himself if he so chooses.

“And I don’t?” Jay asks.

“No,” Sunghoon says. “You’re not half as smart as you think you are.”

“I got into Harvard,” Jay points out.

“Oh, on just your hard work and merit, I’m sure,” Sunghoon says dryly.

“Look, I really don’t care if Jay wants to give his opinion, just – please, keep it down,” Jake sighs, shuffling through some white flashcards in his hands, going to hold another one up in front of Heeseung’s face, and as he does, his eyes land on Jungwon and Riki. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey,” Jungwon greets, eyes going a little wide, as if he’s just remembered something important. “Is that today?” He asks, gesturing to their studying set up, the textbook in between their crossed legs, the stack of flashcards so thick that Jake keeps almost dropping them.

“Yup,” Heeseung confirms, looking a little pale. “And I’ve realized that I really do not want to spend another year here, so – I’m freaking out, a bit.”

It’s the most rattled Riki’s probably ever seen Heeseung – and the first time he’s ever heard him verbalize it. He didn't even look this stressed when he and Jake were caught by Sunoo, but he’s looked stressed every minute since, and it seems like he’s finally reached the peak of it.

“You won't spend another year here,” Riki assures him, partially because he's fairly sure letting him repeat his senior year again would be a hard sell to the headmaster – but he decides it's probably best he leave that unsaid. “What do you need to get in order to pass?”

“Anything above a D+ is fine in most of his classes, but –” Jake hesitates, glancing at Heeseung and then lowering his voice, like he’s concerned he might startle him with his next words, “But he needs a B- in History to raise his average enough to pass.”

Heeseung just nods, clearly already well aware of his predicament. “And I can’t get any of the fucking dates right, so I’m screwed, basically.”

“It’s okay. How long do you have?” Jungwon asks, and Riki watches him switch to tutor mode, taking a seat on the bed next to Riki’s, gesturing for Jake to give him half of the stack of flashcards and shuffling through them when he does.

Riki leaves them to it, retreating into the bathroom and brushing his teeth as he listens to Jake and Jungwon drill Heeseung on various relevant historical events. They only pause long enough to gather their things when Chen comes to retrieve them for breakfast, but Heeseung mutters dates and names to himself for the entire walk to the cafeteria.

They all go to their usual table, Sunoo once again taking the seat furthest from them, this time joined by Sunghoon, as everyone else gathers around Heeseung, Jake and Jungwon sitting across from him, Riki sitting beside him and clapping a hand down on his shoulder in something he hopes feels like reassurance. Jay takes the remaining seat beside Heeseung with an almost mournful look sent over his shoulder, in Sunoo and Sunghoon’s direction.

Riki will probably never understand them. He’s given up trying.

He just listens to Jake and Jungwon continue reading out flash cards, and watches Heeseung flushes progressively redder as he stumbles over his words. But ultimately, he gets most of them right, something Jake overreacts to each time, leaning over the table and smacking a kiss on his cheek when he correctly recalls when The Federalist Papers were written. It motivates him quite well, actually, and his next few answers are all correct and confident.

And then Chen walks out of the kitchen with his plate of breakfast to go to his office for the day, and Jake says, “Hold on a sec, okay? Jungwon, I need you for something.”

Riki and Heeseung both barely have time to process his words before he’s passing his flashcards to Riki, instructing him to continue asking him questions, getting up and grabbing an equally stunned Jungwon by the arm and fleeing the cafeteria with enough haste that even Sunoo lifts his head to pay them an ounce of attention.

Heeseung looks at Riki, and Riki just shrugs, unsure of what exactly Jake is plotting and how it could possibly involve Jungwon.

But they return a few minutes later, neither of their expressions giving anything away, and Heeseung seems too anxious to interrogate them properly, chewing on his thumb nail as he shakes his leg and watches Riki pass the flashcards back to Jake.

His make-up exams are at noon, and he has to do three of them, meaning they have the next three hours to cram his brain with as much information as it can hold, and then the rest is up to him. Riki can tell that Jake is nervous, too, but he’s doing a decent job of hiding it for Heeseung’s sake, assuring him every chance he gets that he’s doing well, that he can do this, that he’s smarter than he thinks he is and he just needs to try in order to succeed.

Heeseung, for once, takes his words and the situation seriously. Riki, prior to this week, was convinced that if Heeseung didn’t crack a joke every five minutes, he might die. But his expression is steely and focused, and he doesn’t even take the bait when Sunghoon gets up to go take a nap and trips over his own crutches and almost eats shit. Sunoo sighs and stands too, either not trusting Sunghoon not to injure himself further or not wanting to be left alone with them, and eventually Jay loses interest in listening to Heeseung recite dates and goes off to do whatever it is he does, but Riki sticks around.

At eleven fifty five, Chen goes over the PA system and calls Heeseung to his office, and they walk him there, Jungwon and Riki hanging a few steps back as Heeseung grips Jake’s hand like a lifeline, nodding as Jake whispers reassurances and last minute reminders of things he’d forgotten the most often during their study sessions.

Heeseung hesitates at the door to Chen’s office, his free hand wrapped around the doorknob but unable to turn it, only galvanized into movement when Jake goes up on his tiptoes and presses another kiss to his cheek. “You got this,” he assures him.

“Good luck,” Jungwon chimes in.

Riki gives him a thumbs up, and Heeseung grins, seemingly returning to his old self for a moment – but a moment is all he needs, and then he’s gone, retreating into the room where he’ll seal his fate once and for all.

“Okay,” Jake sighs as soon as the door closes behind Heeseung, turning to face Riki and Jungwon, eyes wide and a bit wild. He scares Riki, a little bit, sometimes. “Let’s go.”

Riki opens his mouth to question where exactly they’re going, but Jungwon already has a grip on his wrist, pulling him down the hall and trying to keep them in step with Jake. They don’t have to go far, because Jake quickly skids to a stop in front of – to Riki’s surprise – the teacher’s lounge.

“What are you…” he starts as Jake pulls a key out of his pocket and jimmies it into the opening in the slightly rusted doorknob, “Did you steal that?”

He looks at Jungwon, eyebrows raised in surprise, feeling a bit like their roles have been reversed compared to how they’d gone into the holiday break. Jungwon just grins, and shrugs. “Nope,” he says. “The benefit of being well-behaved students is that sometimes, you can just ask a teacher for something instead of breaking into their office and stealing it.”

“Ha,” Riki huffs. “What’d you tell him?”

“The truth,” Jake says easily. “Can you believe it?”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Riki sighs, without any real irritation behind it, earning a small delighted laugh out of both Jungwon and Jake. “So what’s the truth, then?”

“I told him we’ve been helping Heeseung study all week and that we’d really appreciate getting to watch the ball drop on the TV in here to ring in the new year,” Jake explains. “I did leave out the part about Jay breaking into the liquor cabinet again, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He just said we have to keep it down and clean up after ourselves.”

“Wow,” Riki mutters as Jake gets the old key to finally turn, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “I didn’t know Chen was capable of empathy.”

“Jury’s still out on that,” Jake snorts, taking confident strides into the teacher’s lounge, like he’s comfortable there – and Riki thinks he probably is, because he’s well known as a huge teacher’s pet, and is always running around doing favours for him that take him into areas that are restricted to anyone unwilling to break into them. “I think he just really doesn’t care what we do, so long as we don’t tell on him for never actually doing his job. He knows Sunoo and I won’t by now, so – maybe he’s getting too comfortable.”

Jake and Jungwon get right to work, like they’d managed to create a whole plan in the mere minutes they were out in the hall. “Do you think they’d fire him, if we ratted him out?” Riki asks, moving to help them turn one of the couches to face the rest, creating somewhat of a semicircle around the TV.

“Probably not,” Jake shrugs, brushing the dust that had transferred onto his hands from the old couch onto his jeans. “I think someone in his family – like, his great, great grandfather or something like that – was one of the founders of the school. I’ve heard he’s next in line to be headmaster, if Dr. Byrne ever retires.”

“But he probably won’t,” Jungwon chimes in. “Miss Langford told me once that she’s pretty sure he’s going to cling to the title until he’s on his deathbed. I think that’s why Mr. Chen is so cranky all the time.”

Riki smiles, admittedly endeared by Jungwon sharing the intel he’d picked up from the time he spent with various members of the school’s staff. “Maybe Byrne would fire Chen, then, if he’s such a threat to his job.”

“Maybe,” Jake agrees, moving to push a table up against the wall, making more space to arrange the couches to his liking. “But then how else would he get to torture him? It’s his favourite pastime.”

“We have that in common,” Riki agrees sagely, earning a choked laugh from Jungwon, and an amused eye roll from Jake.

“Either way, I don’t care if he gets fired now,” Jake says simply. “They can replace him with a teacher that actually gives a shit if they want.”

“Easy for you to say,” Riki points out. “It’s your last holiday stuck here. I’ll have to deal with whoever they replace him with next year.”

“You think you won’t go home next Christmas, either?” Jungwon asks, quiet and soft, like he’s concerned about upsetting Riki.

He just shrugs. “I’m sure my mom will find some excuse.”

“You can come stay with me, then. Jihye has an extra room with a pull-out couch,” Jungwon says matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument in his tone, so Riki doesn’t even try to give one. He just ducks his head down in an attempt to hide his pleased smile, and he knows his efforts are completely wasted, but he gives it a shot anyway.

There’s a mournful sigh from Jake, and he doesn’t say anything, but Riki’s sure he can guess what he’s thinking. If Heeseung doesn’t pass these exams, or the next ones, then Jake will be in for a similar future, pulling out a couch for him to sleep on when he comes to visit for the holidays – if he even can, if he’s not trapped at the school where he’d be redoing his senior year for a second time. But Jake doesn’t say that, likely because he doesn’t want to put the idea into the world, and Riki doesn’t want to, either – because he’s kind of, sort of rooting for them – so he doesn’t.

“Oh,” Jake says eventually, breaking the long stretch of silence that had come from their efforts to get the room set up to his liking. “Jungwon, you said there might be some party hats and decorations in the prop room, right?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Jungwon confirms. “I can give Riki my key, and he can go look while we go get the snacks from the kitchen.”

“Party hats,” Riki repeats. “And we’re supposed to wear them?”

“Of course,” Jake says, staring Riki down, waiting for him to challenge him on the assertion. Riki doesn’t. He really is kind of scary.

He just takes the key when Jungwon hands it to him, because Jake tacks on a we don’t have all day that manages to rival Jungwon’s ability to boss him around. He just goes without complaint, swinging the lanyard and the attached key around his finger – and then, as he turns the corner and the auditorium comes into view, he pauses.

There’s a shoe wedged in between the doors, keeping one of them open. He does a mental recounting of where everyone had said they were going – Sunghoon and Sunoo to the infirmary, Jay to wherever – and realizes that it could be any of them. Riki doesn’t like not knowing what he’s walking into, so he carefully approaches and peers through the crack in the door just enough to see who had taken up dwelling in Riki and Jungwon’s favourite hiding spot.

Some of the decorations they’d hung are still there, but the tree is gone, shoved back into its box and no longer casting additional light on the stage. Still, Riki knows who it is at once, even though he’s mostly shadows, and curled in on himself with his knees pulled to his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head resting on them as quiet, hiccuping sobs echo through the large empty space around him.

Sunoo.

Riki’s frozen in place, internally debating where to go from here. He could go get Jungwon, but he couldn’t do that without alerting Jake that Sunoo was upset, something that felt a little bit like taking his dignity from him. He doesn’t want to do that, for some reason. He could walk in, and pretend he hadn’t noticed him, and let Sunoo keep it.

Or, he could try to talk to him. He could try to have an actual conversation with Sunoo, who he’d also been convinced was incapable of human emotion until very recently. He could try to comfort him. It’s what Jungwon would do, if he were here.

In the end, he lands somewhere near that idea, but he doesn’t hit the bullseye. He probably should have gone to get Jungwon, and he realizes that the moment he pulls the door open, the creak of it causing Sunoo to lift his head, his expression morphing from surprise to something with a little more vitriol.

“What?” He snaps, watching Riki approach from the top of the aisle, looking him over like he was scanning him for signs of attack. Riki, in lieu of words, just holds his hands up in the universal signal of surrender. “I don’t want to talk to you, so just – go away.”

“That’s quite the assumption,” Riki says. “I’m not here to talk to you.”

“Well, Jungwon’s not with you, so you’re not here to do some loser mating ritual, either,” Sunoo says dryly, then instantly snaps his mouth shut, hanging his head in something like shame. “Sorry,” he mutters as Riki pulls himself up onto the edge of the stage, sitting beside him with a liberal amount of space between them, glancing over at him for only a second at a time, taking in the disheveled sight of someone he’s not used to seeing in any state other than perfect.

Sunoo was never anything other than cruel to him, before this week. He ignored his existence, most of the time, and when he wasn’t ignoring him, he was making snippy comments about whatever vulnerability he could sink his claws into and drag out of him. They’d never even had a conversation, never even made eye contact before Sunoo decided that, because of his delinquency or his association with Heeseung or the whispered rumours about his father, that he was beneath him, something to be squished under his shoe as he stomped his way to the top.

Riki remembers thinking that he was beautiful, the first time he saw him. It was never like it was with Jake, or like it is with Jungwon now, but he remembers that before Sunoo opened his mouth and shattered the illusion, he thought he looked like an angel.

Now, he just looks like a person. He’s still beautiful, and he’s still cruel, but – he also looks so tired, so defeated, that Riki can only see a shell of the Sunoo Kim that the whole school worshipped like a god.

“You were right,” Sunoo says eventually, and Riki snaps his head over to look at him properly. “About me not being fair to Jungwon. You were right.”

“I shouldn't have… that wasn’t my place,” Riki says lamely.

“You were just protecting him. And – he deserves that. He's a good person.”

“You're… you're not bad, either, though. You have your moments where I almost think you're a human being,” Riki admits, and then immediately regrets it, dreading the moment that Sunoo will surely snap right back into being his old self and tell Riki exactly what he thinks of him.

But – Sunoo just laughs, loud and bright, and Riki tries not to study him like he’s observing unfamiliar wildlife, but surely fails miserably. Sunoo laughs, and laughs, and then it suddenly morphs into a choked out sob, and then tears are once again streaming down his cheeks, and Riki once again freezes.

“I'm – sorry,” he stammers out. “I didn't –”

“No, it's not you. It's just… I don't deserve you being nice to me,” Sunoo says, taking a shaky breath in. “I don't deserve Jungwon being nice to me. I’ve been just awful to both of you for years. And – and Jungwon and I, we were friends, and I still made fun of him for things he confided in me about, but he still forgave me every time. And he could have told everyone things I confided in him, but he never did. How… how could I ever think I deserve his friendship?” Sunoo asks helplessly, scoffing out a laugh with no humour behind it whatsoever. “I mean, we're basically in the same fucking situation, but I only ever treated him like shit about it.”

Riki presses his mouth into a thin line, and looks away from Sunoo, his eyes fixing on the floor in front of them, the backs of his feet kicking against the wood of the stage. He thinks he knows what Sunoo is talking about, although he wasn’t actually there when it happened. It was before he ever started attending Decelis, but he’d felt the aftershocks of it every time he spoke to Jungwon last year, every time he shied away from talking about his grades or his family or anything about himself, really.

Sunoo was the one that told everyone that Jungwon was a scholarship student. And it’s not like they didn’t already know, but Sunoo was the one that found out for sure – how, Riki’s never known, because it was before they were friends, according to the rough timeline he’d mapped out in his head from the slivers of information Jungwon had given him – and he was the one that spread it around. Riki never understood his motives in doing so. But he thinks he’s starting to.

Riki stares at him for a long moment, pieces of a puzzle starting to arrange themselves in his mind. “You're a scholarship student too, aren't you?”

Sunoo snorts, and shakes his head, a small, bitter smile on his lips. “Not even. I wish I had the grades Jungwon does. I…” he trails off, daring another quick glance at Riki. “I don't have to pay tuition. Because… because the children of staff get in for free. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have even been able to dream about coming here.”

The pieces click together. Sunoo always stays at school for the holidays. He’s been sleeping in a mysterious location for the last few days, and Riki knows – from sneaking back there to try and find Chen’s – that a few of the teachers live on campus all year round, in small, two bedroom cottages a few minutes walk from the school.

Riki’s eyebrows raise in surprise, and Sunoo goes back to avoiding his gaze. “If you’re about to tell me Chen is your dad, I’m going to freak the fuck out.”

“No, not Chen,” Sunoo hisses. “God, no. Can you imagine what a spawn of that man would be like?”

“The devil?” Riki suggests meaningfully, justifying his assumption.

“Ha-ha,” Sunoo laughs dryly, wiping at his face, his tears starting to slow. “Very funny. My mom works in the kitchen. She’s the one whose food you guys can’t stop shit-talking.”

The last piece of the puzzle slides into place, even though it probably should have been the first. Sunoo, before he gave it to Jungwon, had a key to the kitchen.

The puzzle, now that he can step back and take a proper look at it, paints an interesting scene. Sunoo Kim, dressed head to toe in vintage designer clothing on every occasion where they aren’t forced to wear their uniforms. Sunoo Kim, who apparently became fluent in the language that wealth speaks without being born into it, likely without having it now, unless he’s leaving out information of a wealthy father or a trust fund. Sunoo Kim, who told everyone about Jungwon’s underprivileged status, likely in an attempt to cover up his own.

“No one ever guessed?” Riki asks, wondering if it was worth it, if spilling Jungwon’s secret really kept people off his trail.

“One person did,” Sunoo says quietly, but doesn’t elaborate. He glances over at Riki, and then, after a moment, like he’s reading his thoughts, says, “My uncle used to collect designer clothes from thrift stores. When he died a few years ago, he left his whole wardrobe to me. And my mom has a different last name than me, so anyone that does know her name –” his gaze turns a bit pointed, and Riki sheepishly recalls that he didn’t, that none of them did, that they’d all mostly been referring to her as the lunch lady when accusing her of trying to poison them until Sunoo had told him her name, “– doesn’t suspect anything. And it – it was her idea. She just… I’d gotten bullied a lot, at my last school, and she didn’t want…” he trails off, as if realizing that it doesn’t really matter.

It may have been his mom’s idea, but Sunoo had gone to extensive lengths to keep it a secret. He’d positioned himself at the top of the food chain, and was willing to do anything to stay at the top of it, including taking Jungwon between his teeth and tearing him apart in front of everyone, letting the rest of the school join in and take turns ripping at the tender, vulnerable flesh.

But then – Jungwon had forgiven him. They’d become friends, but Sunoo had kept it a secret all this time, ashamed and embarrassed to be associated with him. And Jungwon had kept it a secret, too, even though he only could have benefitted from being associated with Sunoo.

“Heeseung was the first person to see me,” Sunoo says quietly, out of nowhere, and it takes Riki a moment to even remember what they were talking about. “Like, see me. For who I was, or whatever.”

“He’s the one that guessed,” Riki says, not a question, just a sure statement.

He nods. “I still don’t know how he figured it out. But… he never judged me. I was awful to him, too, and to everyone, but he still…” he trails off, clearing his throat. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. He saw me for who I was, and then he still dumped me for my best friend. And I can’t even blame him, because Jake is just he’s – perfect. He’s so perfect.”

Riki feels an increasingly-less-rare pang of sympathy, of understanding, for the boy beside him, and nods.

“And it’s like –” Sunoo starts again, cutting himself off like he was unsure of what he was allowed to say, continuing after another glance at Riki, “It’s like, I was myself around Heeseung. I dropped the… the mask I wore, and he still ended up not wanting me, and – now he hates me. So why would I ever show myself to anyone else? Why would I ever give them a reason to hate me, too?”

“People see you anyway,” Riki answers thoughtlessly, pausing for a moment when Sunoo looks at him in alarm. “They do. Like I said, there are moments where I almost think you’re a human being.”

It earns him another laugh, but this one is weaker, more forced. And then he sighs, long and mournful, and says, “You’re a good person, Riki. You and Jungwon… you deserve each other.”

Riki blinks, slightly stunned by the words. “I’m… no, I’m not.”

“You are,” Sunoo says firmly, leaving no room for debate in his tone. “And I’m sorry for how I treated you. I think… I think if people see me anyway, there’s no point in wearing the mask anymore. I’ll just be more like you from now on.”

“Me?” Riki asks, slightly stunned.

“Yeah,” Sunoo confirms, shrugging. “You don’t give a fuck. You and Heeseung, you both – you never try to be what people want you to be. I should be more like that.”

Riki considers his words for several long seconds, twisting his lips together as he tries to choose his words carefully. “I do try to be what people want me to be,” he says after a while. “Maybe I didn’t always, but I’m trying to now. But just – only the people that matter. Only the people that deserve my effort, and the people that want me to be – that believe I can be – someone good. That I can make something of myself. Those are the only people I want to listen to.”

“Like Jungwon?” Sunoo asks, smiling a bit, but it’s tinged with sadness.

“Yeah,” Riki admits. “But also Heeseung, and Jake, and – I don’t know. Anyone that doesn’t think I’m worthless, I’m trying to listen to them. You should try to listen to the people that just want you to be who you want to be.”

Sunoo nods, reaching up to wipe away the tears that are still gathering along his lash line. “I don’t think you’re worthless, Riki. I never have.”

“Then I’ll listen to you, too,” Riki says easily, accepting whatever it was that Sunoo was offering him, because it was probably the warmest, most honest thing he’d ever seen from the other boy. “And you can listen to me when I tell you that I know Heeseung pretty well, and I know when he’s bluffing, and – I don’t think he’s ever hated you. Actually, I think it’s probably the opposite.”

Sunoo smiles again, but this time it’s pained and forced, and it only lasts a fleeting moment. “I guess it doesn’t matter now,” he says in a hoarse voice.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Riki says hesitantly, because Sunoo had been honest with him, and he can surely repay him with honesty of his own – even if it’s not necessarily his own honesty, even if Heeseung had only given him a vague indication of what he might be thinking to begin with.

Sunoo looks over at him, and holds his gaze for a few long seconds, like he’s attempting to read Riki’s thoughts. And then he sniffles back more tears, nods, and asks, “What would you do, if you were in my situation?”

Riki resists the urge to take the easy bait and make some sort of witty retort – like sign up for electroshock therapy or jump off a cliff – because even if he would mean it to be a joke, which he would, he finds himself with very little ill will for Sunoo anymore, and it just doesn’t seem like the right time for it.

He considers it. And then he takes a deep breath, and says, “I would probably jump off a cliff.”

Oops. Definitely not the right time for it, but Sunoo laughs anyways, and it’s genuine this time, his teary eyes turning into little half moons, his cheeks rounding until he brings a hand to his mouth and covers them. Riki manages to laugh too, because he wants Sunoo to know that he doesn’t mean it, but Sunoo doesn’t seem to think for a second that he does.

“Sure,” he says after he recovers from being left breathless by laughter, shrugging and then looking at Riki with a more analytical expression. “But what would you wish you had done, looking back?”

He considers that, too. He tries to be objective about it, even though he’s learned that he’s prone to being too forgiving with Heeseung and Jake, to putting them on a pedestal. Eventually, he settles on, and admits, his voice barely above a whisper, “I would probably wish I had worked it out with them. I’d wish I had tried to be friends with them again, but – in your case, I don’t think it would have to end at friends.”

Sunoo once again just stares at him for a while, his bottom lip wobbling every few seconds like he was holding back another sob, his cheeks pink and streaked with tears, his eyes full of something Riki couldn’t possibly understand. He can read a lot of people, but Sunoo Kim has always been his greatest challenge – and now, he’s discovered that it was for good reason. If this is Sunoo without the mask, then he’s found that he’s not so different from him with it. Maybe they were always the same, more than Sunoo ever knew, and maybe it was more of a shield than a mask, or a sword, using cutting remarks and cruelty to hide what could never truly stay out of plain sight.

Jungwon forgave him. Jungwon believes that, deep down, Sunoo is a good person. And Riki believes in Jungwon, so he wouldn’t have needed any evidence if he’d insisted on that being a fact, but – he kind of feels like he’s been presented with it anyway. Not just during this conversation, but over the last week and a half that he’s spent co-existing with him.

“Thank you,” Sunoo manages eventually, and it sounds genuine in a way he’s not used to hearing from him, in a way that’s kind of jarring, but – he’s sure he’ll adjust, because he’s fairly certain that it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

“Sure,” Riki says easily. “Anytime,” he adds, and it earns him another laugh from Sunoo, who likely also can’t imagine a world where he ever comes to Riki for advice again.

They probably won’t remain anything resembling the acquaintances they are now once the holidays are over, but he hopes the metamorphosis Sunoo is undergoing now turns him into someone that can at least tolerate Riki’s presence, because Jungwon seems to have no intention of letting them out of his orbit anytime soon, and they don’t have any intention of leaving willingly, either.

Because even if he hadn’t gotten his evidence that Sunoo really is almost a human being sometimes, that he’d changed, and even if Sunoo was right about not deserving Jungwon’s kindness, his friendship, Riki doesn’t think it would matter. He’s learned the hard way that, regardless of whether or not someone deserves Jungwon, he’ll be there anyway. He’ll be there, and he’ll make them feel like they deserve it, until eventually, they can start to believe that they do, that they deserve good things in general.

He hopes that happens for Sunoo, the same way it has for him.

“Really? You were never in a gang?” Sunoo asks, nearly tripping over his feet and dropping the bag of party supplies Riki had given him in his attempt to keep ahead of him, solely so he can look him in the eye and try to see his reaction, try to read his face to detect any traces of deception in his response.

“You started that rumour,” Riki points out.

Sunoo has perked up considerably in the time since Riki helped him down from the stage, and as they walk back to the teacher’s lounge, he’s started an endless barrage of questions about every rumour he’d ever heard about Riki, rumours he had spread or outright created himself, but now has an interest in getting to the bottom of. Riki has categorically denied all of them, because he hasn’t yet said something even remotely true, but Sunoo still seems to think he’s on the verge of a breakthrough.

“I did not,” Sunoo huffs. “I heard it from EJ. All the guys on the soccer team were saying they saw you with a bunch of bikers – well, except Jake.”

“I have never been in a gang,” Riki confirms.

“Not even the drug dealing kind?”

“Are there any other types of gangs?”

“Some of them do charity work for like, orphans or something.”

“And you’re assuming that if I was in a gang, it wouldn’t be the orphan-helping kind.”

Sunoo just stares at him. Riki sighs.

“Yeah, Sunoo, I was in a drug dealing gang. The same one that broke Sunghoon’s leg, actually. Which – isn’t that funny, that’s another rumour you started.”

“I didn’t start that one, either. I just heard it.”

“And told everyone you know, I’m sure.”

“I’m reformed,” Sunoo reminds him. “I’m quitting gossip forever. It’s my New Year’s resolution.”

Riki snorts out a laugh, shaking his head, wishing there was more real irritation behind the act.

“What about…” Sunoo trails off, clearly mentally sorting through the files he keeps on everyone in his head. “Oh, I know. I heard from – who was it? Maybe Harua, you have some classes with him, don’t you?”

Riki just shrugs, unsure of who Sunoo was talking about – he doesn’t tend to keep good track of who his classmates are.

“Well, I heard from someone that your dad is in prison for arson.”

Riki blinks, looking over at Sunoo as he walks backwards to keep his eyes on him, his almost proud expression dropping when he surely sees the stunned state Riki is in. He knew that was one of the rumours that Sunoo helped spread. But he thought that Sunoo would have known by now that that one was true – at least, partially true – and therefore, wouldn’t bring it up. Clearly, he was wrong.

“Oh,” Sunoo says dumbly, stammering over his words before finally getting out, “I’m – I’m sorry –”

“It’s fine,” Riki says quickly, dropping his gaze back on the floor in front of him. “And, uh, it wasn’t arson.”

“Oh,” Sunoo repeats.

“It was attempted murder,” Riki explains, although he’s not really sure why, because Sunoo had only become a reformed gossip less than five minutes ago, and he still doesn’t fully trust him. “It’s not arson if there are still people in the house you’re trying to burn down.”

Maybe he tells him because, even if Sunoo spreads it around, even if he tells the whole school, Riki no longer cares. Because Jungwon already knows, because Riki had told him the full story the day before, as they lay beside each other on their gym mats hand in hand, Jungwon listening quietly with a pinched expression, waiting until Riki was finished before asking, can I see? And Riki hadn’t even thought to say no, pushing his sleeves up just enough to reveal the long-healed burns on his arms that even he did his best to avoid looking at most of the time. They weren’t that bad. They could be a lot worse, in the grand scheme of things. But Riki still hates them.

And he’d flinched, when Jungwon reached out to touch them with careful, delicate fingers, brushing them against the small patches of damaged skin, his lips twisted into a small, thoughtful pout, his eyes heavy with sadness and exhaustion. And then he told Riki that he’s beautiful – something Riki is fairly certain he’s never heard before, certainly not from anyone who has seen the evidence of what his father left behind – and he kissed him, and this morning he told him that he wasn’t afraid of Riki even after the memories had stirred up the side of himself that he hates the most, and that was the end of it.

So Riki doesn’t care if everyone knows. He doesn’t care if they torture him about it, if they make it their mission to make sure he can never forget where he came from. It’s already impossible to forget. But it’s also impossible to forget the way Jungwon’s eyes had shone with honesty as they met Riki’s and said you’re beautiful, or I’ve never been afraid of you. And those memories are enough to act as a salve, enough to cover the delicate skin and protect it from whatever attacks could come his way.

“Oh,” Sunoo says one more time, for good measure, then adds again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Riki assures him genuinely. “It was a few years ago. I barely remember it now.”

It’s not entirely true – flashes of memories flood his mind when he falls asleep, in the form of those nightmares where he can’t outrun the flames as they lick at his feet, or his father as he chases him down an endless hallway, but he knows those aren’t actually real memories, because despite being thirteen when his father finally snapped, he really can’t remember much of the night it happened. His nightmares are just placeholders for the dark thoughts that refuse to go unheard in his mind, but Riki’s getting a little better at tuning them out, anyway. He’s trying not to be so easily convinced that those dark thoughts are the truth, these days, but even when he slips up and starts believing them again, it’s never for very long.

Riki likes to think that his wounded skin grew back a little thicker.

“I don’t think that makes it any better,” Sunoo mutters, and after a few long moments of looking dejected and a little ashamed, he perks up again. “Oh, I know. You can ask me about a rumour and I’ll tell you if it’s true or not – then we’ll be even.”

“Do I get to spread it around the whole school, too?”

“Preferably not.”

“Then I don’t think that would make us even,” Riki says.

Sunoo rolls his eyes, clearly picking up on the fact that Riki was only messing with him. “Come on,” he goads. “You can ask me anything. One free secret, on me.”

“No offense,” Riki starts, “But everything I’ve heard about you is kind of boring.”

Sunoo scoffs in offense, clearly taking it personally despite Riki’s disclaimer. “That is not true. I pride myself on being a very interesting person.”

“I think you’re more interesting now,” Riki clarifies.

“Now that I’m almost a human being?” Sunoo asks with a roll of his eyes.

“Now that I know that you like Heeseung,” he corrects, and can’t fight the grin that overtakes his expression as he watches Sunoo’s turn to one of pure horror, as his face flushes pink. “I mean, that alone is enough to make me want to study you in the science lab.”

He slows to a stop, because they’ve reached the teacher’s lounge now, and Sunoo does too, his horrified expression turning to something more thoughtful. He doesn’t speak for a while, but he lifts his head and stares through the small panel of glass on the door, his attention caught by something – someone – inside the room, and Riki follows his gaze.

“Actually,” he says eventually, “I thought of an interesting rumour I heard about you.”

Sunoo glances at him with tired eyes, but he doesn’t tell him to fuck off.

“Did you and Jake really hook up at Nicholas’ end of the year party last semester?” He asks, forcing the words out even though he finds them a little embarrassing – maybe part of him remembers how jealous that younger version of himself had been, when he’d heard the shocked whispers the following day – because he’s trying to prove a point.

He’s pretty sure he succeeds. His words, in combination with the conversation they’d just had, have Sunoo’s shoulders slumping in defeat, his lips jutting out into a pout. “Yeah. That one’s true,” he says after a while, his tone strained but honest. “God, this is such a mess.”

“Yeah,” Riki confirms. “But that’s what you’re here to fix, right?”

Sunoo glares at him, and then his eyes drift back to the glass in the door, to where Jake is attempting to keep a tall stack of plastic cups from toppling over every time he steps away from them, and his gaze softens a bit. “I don’t know if it can be fixed,” he says quietly. “But I guess I don’t really have much to lose by trying, do I?”

And Riki knows how that feels – having nothing left to lose but wanting everything back, even if it puts you in the terrifying position of being able to lose it again, of the pain it causes getting impossibly worse – so he just nods, and reaches over to close his hand around the doorknob, giving Sunoo no time to protest before he turns it and lets the old door creak open.

“Took you long enough,” Jake huffs, his back turned to them. “Did you stumble into the catacombs down there and get lost or something?”

When Riki doesn’t respond, he and Jungwon both turn to look at them, and two things happen at once: Jungwon’s eyes light up, flitting between Riki and Sunoo with delight and relief all over his expression. And Jake freezes, going perfectly still, his eyes round with surprise, his jaw dropped open enough to let a stuttered out exhale fall from his lips.

“Sunny,” Jake breathes, and then seemingly regains some of his composure. “Uh – hey, Sunoo. What…” he trails off, like he’s unsure if he’s even allowed to ask what he’s doing there, let alone know.

“Uh,” Sunoo starts, “I heard you’re throwing a party for Heeseung.”

“Yeah,” Jake confirms. “I mean – for New Year’s, but… for him, too.”

“Well,” Sunoo takes a step into the room, a step closer to Jake, his hands anxiously wringing in front of him. “We both know the quality of the parties you throw when I’m not involved in the planning.”

Jake doesn’t take offense, doesn’t take Sunoo’s words as an attack – he laughs, the sound bubbling out of him, airy and suddenly unburdened. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says after a moment, and Sunoo smiles, dropping his gaze to the floor a moment later, as if looking directly at him was still proving to be a little much at the moment – but Riki has a feeling it’ll get easier.

And with that thought, Riki meets Jungwon’s eyes, mirroring his pleased smile with a slightly proud one of his own. He did what Jungwon would have done, if he’d been the one walking into a situation where he could help improve things for Sunoo and Jake, and he actually succeeded. He thinks he deserves to be a little proud of himself, and he hopes that Jungwon is proud of him, too.

Sunoo puts them to work, and it’s far more intensive than Jake’s leadership style, but it’s also far more effective. Within an hour, the lounge is decorated with gold and silver streamers and balloons, and it actually looks half decent despite their limited resources and time. There’s unopened bags of chips taken from the kitchen on the table Jake had pushed against the wall, and a stack of party hats beside them, and Sunoo had the idea to bring fabric from the prop room to cover the shades of every lamp in the room until it glowed every colour of the rainbow – a fire hazard, Riki’s sure, but it does look pretty cool.

Jake can’t stop smiling, can’t stop accidentally bumping his elbow against Sunoo’s every time they pass each other, and Riki knows they could probably benefit from a few minutes alone, to talk or do whatever it is they need to do to make this peace between them last, so he makes an excuse for him and Jungwon to depart early, telling them they’ll meet up again outside of Chen’s office so they can greet Heeseung once he’s done his exams.

“I don’t know what exactly you did to make that happen,” Jungwon starts, bumping into Riki accidentally-on-purpose, similarly to what Jake was doing with Sunoo, and then staying there, their arms pressed against each other, leaning into his side ever so slightly. “But you’re like – a miracle worker. I honestly thought he would hate Jake forever.”

Riki shoots Jungwon – endlessly optimistic, glass-half-full Jungwon – a knowing look, and says, “No, you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” Jungwon admits. “But I definitely didn’t think he’d forgive him this quickly.”

“I don’t know if he forgives him yet,” Riki says thoughtfully. “But I don’t think that’ll do much to change the fact that he still wants him in his life. Both of them.”

Jungwon nods, pressing his lips together in a thin line and pausing for a long moment before moving his hand to press his palm against Riki’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing once. He doesn’t let go until they’re turning the corner closest to Chen’s office, just in case someone is already there – and someone is already there. Two someones. To Riki’s surprise, Sunghoon is leaned up against the wall beside the door, and Jay is standing a few feet away from him, shuffling from side to side a bit awkwardly and kicking the ground with his shoe.

“Where’s Jake?” Sunghoon asks as they approach. “I heard him get up, so I think Chen might be grading him now.”

“He’s on the way,” Jungwon says noncommittally. “I don’t hear any yelling in there, so – maybe it’s good news, so far.”

“I think if he flunked, we’d hear more than just yelling,” Jay chimes in. “We’d probably hear like, windows breaking and a splat when Chen hits the ground.”

Sunghoon snorts at Jay’s dark joke, and opens his mouth to likely give some kind of retort, but they never get to hear it. The door to Chen’s office clicks open, and Heeseung appears, keeping his head ducked down until the door shuts behind him, then taking a deep breath and lifting it, holding it high like he always does. Riki, admittedly, is bracing himself for the worst – not that he would mind being stuck with Heeseung for another year, but like he said, he’s rooting for him and Jake and now Sunoo, and he’d feel a lot better about their odds of working things out if they all end up in Rhode Island come September.

He looks at them, and then his eyes land on something behind Riki, and he says, without hesitation, like it’s bursting out of him, like it was begging to be let out, “I uh, I passed. I passed everything. Barely.”

Riki only manages to get out a sigh of relief and a, “Congrats, dude –” before there’s a flash of movement beside him, and Jake appears out of seemingly nowhere, colliding with Heeseung with enough force to send him one stumbling step backwards, his shoulder colliding with the door behind him in a way that looks a bit painful, but he doesn’t even react. He just wraps his arms around Jake’s waist and lifts him into an enthusiastic embrace, as Jake buries his face in his shoulder and weeps his way through a mantra of I knew you could do it I knew it I’m so proud of you and Heeseung screws his eyes shut like he’s trying not to cry. It’s jarring, just like seeing Heeseung freaked out about his future was jarring, but Riki manages to fit them both into the image he has of his friend now that he’s trying to see the best in him.

And – he’s happy for him. He tells him as much, once he’s lowered Jake back to the ground, clapping a hand down on one shoulder as Jay grips the other one and shakes him around, everyone else chiming in to congratulate him too.

And then, from beside Jungwon, a quiet voice rings out, soft like it’s trying to fade into the background of the joyful chaos, but easily cutting through the noise. “Congratulations, Heeseung,” Sunoo says, his hands once again wringing together in front of him, his bottom lip taken in between his teeth as he anxiously awaits a response.

But Heeseung is just staring at him, dumb and stunned, clearly totally speechless. And then Jake bumps his shoulder against his, and gives him an encouraging nod and a reassuring smile, and Heeseung visibly swallows, pausing for one more long, slightly painful second before he says, “Thanks, Sun.”

Sunoo smiles, nothing more than a simple upturn of his lips pressed into a thin line, but Heeseung returns it with one of his own, and this one borders on giddy as Jake pulls him into another quick hug, as they all give him one last reassurance that he’d done a good job.

“Thank you all, actually. I couldn’t have done it without you, or whatever,” Heeseung mutters. “You’re going to have to help me again at the end of this semester, though, or it’ll all be wasted.”

“Don’t say that,” Jake sighs. “Just – take the win. We’ll deal with next semester when it comes.”

And that day is soon, increasingly so, but none of them chime in to remind him of that fact. Maybe they’re all feeling a bit of what Riki’s feeling – a bit of dread for the new year, the new semester, the moment their lives return to normal routine, routine that barely involves any of them crossing paths.

For now, though, their paths still cross and intermingle and wrap around each other, as they stand in a huddle of sorts around Heeseung, none of them willing to step away from it and pop the bubble that they exist in now, as they celebrate his success like it was their own.

It feels like a success that they can all share in, when Riki thinks about it. This moment, at least, where they feel like a team, feels like something they’d all worked towards, and now something they all get to reap the benefits of, the joy and the pride and the feeling of belonging.

Riki certainly plans on celebrating it, and judging by the state of the lounge, decorated for celebration, and by the way they’d all gathered here without being asked to, he’s sure that he’s not the only one.

“Um, hit,” Jake says eventually, his tone still hesitant even after he’d spent nearly two full minutes debating whether or not he wanted Jay to give him another card. “Or, wait, no –”

“Too late,” Jay quips, slapping a card down next to his two others. Jake frowns, and leans down to look at the card, his frown deepening when he does the math and realizes he didn’t get the number he needed to win.

“I’m out,” Jake sighs. “This game is stupid.”

Jay turns his attention to Heeseung, who leans back in his chair, crosses his arms over his chest, and says, “Hit me, handsome,” with an exaggerated wink.

Clearly, he’s feeling like his old self again.

Jake elbows him, and he grins, leaning forward to watch Jay put a card down in front of him after a moment taken to roll his eyes. Another moment passes, and Heeseung inspects his hand, and his grin grows ever so slightly wider as he says he’ll hit again. Sunghoon, who has six Oreo’s riding on this round, curses under his breath. It was down to the two of them in the third game of Blackjack of the evening, and Sunghoon is clearly thinking that he’s about to lose his third game of the evening. But Riki can always tell when Heeseung knows his luck has run out, when he’s bluffing.

Sure enough, Jay slaps down another card, and Heeseung’s total passes twenty-one by the smallest of margins, and Sunghoon whoops in excitement.

“Don’t get too excited,” Sunoo warns, leaning in where he was sitting next to Jay so he can watch him flip his unrevealed card over. “Jay has an ace, so – if that’s a face card, you’re still screwed.”

“This game is stupid,” Sunghoon grumbles, echoing Jake’s earlier sentiment.

“You just hate seeing me win,” Jay points out.

“I would have to care in order to hate seeing you win, Jongseong,” Sunghoon snaps.

“Uh oh,” Heeseung taunts, suddenly interested again despite being out of the game. “You just got full name’d, Jongseong. What are you gonna do about it?”

Jay, in lieu of responding to Heeseung’s childish goading, just quirks one side of his mouth into a smirk, and flips his card over. It’s a queen. Sunghoon groans in frustration, leaning forward and smacking his forehead against the table, throwing a miniature tantrum before reluctantly sliding his Oreo’s to Jay’s side of the table.

Jay accepts them and, as part of their deal to make sure neither one of them leaves empty handed, gives three to Jungwon. “Thank you,” Jungwon says smugly, sticking his tongue out at Riki before taking a bite of one of his cookie winnings. Riki just lets him have this – just like he’d lost on purpose earlier in the round, taking another card when he was already at a place where he could stand.

“One more round?” Heeseung suggests, gathering everyone’s cards and sliding them back over to Jay, who lets down his defenses around his winnings in favour of shuffling the deck. As soon as he does, Sunghoon reaches across the table in a flash of movement and takes a cookie for himself, and Jay doesn’t protest – he just smiles, staring down at the cards in his hands and pretending he hadn’t noticed Sunghoon’s thievery at all.

“Ugh, no,” Sunoo whines. “You’re all terrible. I can’t be expected to play under these conditions.”

“Right,” Heeseung drawls. “That’s why you keep losing on your first turn.”

He just shrugs, pressing his lips together like he’s fighting a smile. “You can’t prove it’s not.”

“Fair enough,” Heeseung concedes after a moment. It’s the first time Riki can remember that their bickering has had no real anger behind it, and it’s not much, but – it’s progress.

Jake seems pleased, at least, planting his hands down on the folding table Riki had found in a storage closet when Heeseung had suggested they play a game of cards, not even trying to fight his own smile as he announces, “We can keep playing, but we’re not going to do it here.”

“Oh?” Heeseung tilts his head in curiosity. “Do tell.”

Jake reaches into his pocket, and after a dramatic pause, pulls out the key to the teacher’s lounge, waving it around like he was presenting Heeseung with his very own winnings.

Heeseung grins, pride overtaking his expression. “No shit,” he says in an awed tone. “How’d you manage that? I was with Chen all afternoon.”

Jake just shrugs, and mimes zipping his lips, quickly glaring at Riki when he lets out an amused snort. He doesn’t shatter the illusion, doesn’t tell Heeseung that Jake had acquired one of Chen’s keys in a perfectly moral way, because he remembers the version of Jake that had come with him to do the opposite of that a week and a half earlier, the Jake that had wanted to impress Heeseung with his rebellious side, the Jake that had been so distressed at the idea of his boyfriend not thinking he was fun. He just lets him have this one.

Heeseung eagerly follows Jake as he leads the way out of the infirmary and down the hall, the two of them outpacing the rest of them, who are all already aware of exactly what the surprise entails. Jake’s hands shake a bit as he slides the key into the lock, but Heeseung gives him what Riki assumes is exactly the reaction Jake wanted from him as the door swings open, his eyes going a little wide, his breath catching in his throat.

“You… did all this?” Heeseung asks, and Riki hears a for me that goes unsaid, like he wouldn’t even dare to make that assumption, that any of them would go out of their way to make sure he got the celebration he deserved.

“We had a really good Christmas, thanks to Jungwon, so – I wanted to make sure we had a good New Year’s, too,” Jake says sheepishly, his shy smile growing wider when Heeseung wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into his side for a squeezing half hug, turning to press his lips to the side of his head – and Riki hears him murmur something into his hair, but all he catches is the word angel, and that’s plenty for him.

He pushes past them, driving his elbow into Heeseung’s side and earning a surprised laugh from the older boy, but no retaliation. It’s shortly after eight, meaning Dick Clark has just started his countdown program for the night, so Riki grabs the TV remote and turns it on, flicking through the channels to find ABC as the others make themselves at home. Jay shows Heeseung the liquor he’d swiped and stashed earlier that day, and they don’t hesitate for a moment before distributing it amongst themselves.

Jungwon takes a seat beside Riki on the couch they’d positioned directly across from the TV, a red solo cup in each hand, passing one to Riki and pulling his legs up to his chest, leaning against him ever so slightly and making himself comfortable before taking a drink. Riki unsubtly peers over at his cup, relieved when he finds it filled with no more than a few sips of alcohol. Jungwon may partake now, when the rest of them do, but he never overdoes it. He hadn’t filled Riki’s cup, either, and he takes the hint with ease – he has a feeling that he’ll want to remember tonight, so he won’t overdo it, either.

Jake proposes a toast, and they all tap their cups together as Jake says, “To friends.”

They drink, and they talk over the sound of the television, only tuning in when Sunoo gasps and points out various actors or musicians he recognizes, but quickly falling back into conversation with each other after the interest wears off. To help himself remember a little better, Riki uses the film in Jihye’s camera and snaps photos of them when they aren’t looking, or eventually when they are, once Sunoo realizes he’s potentially been captured in an unfavourable light and spends the following handful of minutes fixing his hair and demanding Riki take a better one of him.

And not everyone is in on Riki and Jungwon’s plan to not overdo it, so within two hours of their arrival, all their words are slurring together, and Jake and Sunoo are bursting into giggles every time they make eye contact. Sunghoon has already dozed off into a few fitful naps, interrupted every time Heeseung gets restless and starts messing with him – and Sunghoon only seems determined to stay awake until midnight once he wakes up to Heeseung uncapping a marker and starting to draw a dick on his cheek, after he’s already done a couple of obscene doodles on his cast.

“Are we really that boring, Sunghoon?” Jake asks from where he’s slouched into the couch cushions enough to look like he’s melted a bit.

“Kind of,” Sunghoon says through a yawn.

“We should play truth or dare,” Sunoo suggests with a snap of his fingers, leaning forward from where he was sitting next to Jungwon.

“I thought you were giving up gossip,” Riki points out.

“Would you rather I suggest spin the bottle, then?” He says matter-of-factly, clearly not appreciating the reminder.

“Ew,” Jake says, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “No offense, but I’m only comfortable with kissing like, half of you. Maybe three quarters at most.”

Heeseung turns to look at him, head tilting in consideration, brows furrowing as he does the mental math. “Which two wouldn’t you kiss?”

“Riki and Jungwon. Duh,” Jake says, like it already should have been obvious. “They’re like my children. My little babies.”

“Hopefully not biologically,” Jay mutters under his breath, earning a glare from Riki and an amused snort from Jungwon, who covers his mouth with his hand to keep further tipsy giggles from escaping.

“So, truth or dare, then?” Sunoo prods, checking in on his clear strategy to get them to agree to the game by suggesting something much worse as an alternative. None of them protest. “I’ll start,” he continues, his predatory gaze drifting across the room before eventually settling on Sunghoon beside him. “Truth or dare?”

Sunghoon looks around, as if he was expecting someone to be standing behind him, someone that’s actually on the receiving end of Sunoo’s question. He finds no one, and turns back to face them all, considering it for a moment before eventually choosing, “Truth.”

“Boring,” Heeseung drones.

“I can’t do anything,” Sunghoon points out, gesturing to his cast. “You guys are mean enough to dare me to do a fuckin’ backflip, or something, so – not risking it.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Sunoo assures him, and then promptly asks, “Why did your last relationship end?”

Sunghoon blanches, and leans forward like he’s sure he heard him correctly.

“That’s you going easy on him?” Heeseung scoffs, and it sounds almost impressed, but Sunoo ignores him anyway.

“You can just take a shot, if you don’t wanna answer,” Sunoo shrugs.

“I thought you said you’ve never dated anyone,” Jake says, misremembering the conversation where Sunghoon had disclosed that vague piece of information about himself.

“He said he’s never dated anyone seriously,” Jungwon corrects, and Riki watches as Sunghoon glances over at Jay, then at his drink, then back at Jay, before finally looking at Sunoo again.

Riki’s fairly certain they’re all aware by now that something went down between Jay and Sunghoon. They may not have as many details as Riki does – which still isn’t much – but they’re not total idiots. He’s also fairly certain that Sunoo has more details than anyone else does, but he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about bringing it up like this.

He supposes that his resolution to give up gossip only comes into effect in two hours. Or maybe Sunoo thinks he’s doing a good deed. He thinks it’s likely the latter, based on the satisfied smile he wears as Sunghoon considers his options.

In the end, he doesn’t take the shot. He just clears his throat, and says, barely audible over the crowd cheering on the television, “His dad told him he had to stop seeing me, and he did.”

“Why?” Jungwon asks, misunderstanding the rules of truth or dare. Sunghoon had technically answered the question, and was therefore free of any further interrogation until his next turn.

Jay has a troubled expression on his face, and Sunghoon is no longer looking at him. Despite not being obligated to, he continues, “Why do you think?”

Jungwon considers it, and after a few long seconds, he hums in understanding, quiet and sad. “Right. Yeah, that’s – that makes sense. Sorry.”

“It’s whatever,” Sunghoon says easily. “My mom would have done the same thing, if she ever found out I was dating a boy,” he scoffs. “It was stupid of me to think I could ever have what I want.”

And that’s a particularly depressing thing to say, especially to the audience he has now – Jake clings a little tighter to where he’s wrapped himself around Heeseung’s arm, and Sunoo’s satisfied grin fades into a regretful pout, and Jungwon sniffles, resting his head on Riki’s shoulder for a brief moment. Sunghoon seems to realize this, because he clears his throat again, a little louder this time like he’s attempting to break the sudden heavy silence that has fallen around them.

“Anyways. It’s my turn now, right?” He asks, scanning his options for who to choose without waiting for confirmation. “Uh, Jungwon. Truth or dare?”

“Um,” Jungwon starts, pausing for a moment. “Dare?”

Sunghoon’s goal is clearly to lighten the mood, because he eventually settles on, “Try to lick your elbow.”

“Boring,” Heeseung echoes. “Are we in the first grade? Tell him to sit on Riki’s lap for ten minutes, or something.”

“You’re a perv,” Sunoo informs him, without any real heat behind it, just a simple reminder.

Heeseung shoots him a finger gun with his free hand. Sunoo flips him off.

“I’m good with the dare I got, thank you,” Jungwon sighs, sitting up straight and raising his arm until it’s level with his face, making an attempt as he bends it at his elbow and strains his neck get closer, sticking his tongue out and narrowing his eyes in determination.

He fails miserably, but Riki finds it worryingly adorable, and the next few rounds pass like that, all of them choosing dare, all of them coming up with silly, harmless scenarios that end in fits of hysterical laughter.

And then it’s Heeseung’s turn – Heeseung, who is back to his old self as of that very afternoon, whose break from mischief had seemingly only made him stronger – and, just as he’d silently feared, his eyes land on Riki as a slow, evil smile unfurls on his lips.

“Truth or dare, Riks?”

Riki makes the mistake of thinking that, so long as he follows the pattern they’d set with the last few rounds, he should be fine. He makes the mistake of trying to outsmart Heeseung, choosing dare because he thinks Heeseung expects him to anticipate something truly awful if he does, therefore expecting Riki to choose truth and planning for his destruction accordingly. He should have known that it’s impossible to get one step ahead of him, because the moment the word dare leaves his mouth, he knows he’s fallen right into his trap anyway.

“Hm,” Heeseung hums thoughtfully, making a show of deciding what kind of torture to put Riki through. “I dare you to kiss the most attractive person in the room.”

Riki feels his face heat at once, cheeks surely flushing a deep, humiliated pink, his gaze fixing on the floor straight ahead, not even daring a glance at Jungwon in his peripheral vision.

“Pass,” Sunoo jokes, cutting through the excruciating silence from Riki’s end.

“Hate to break it to you, Sun, but he wasn’t going to pick you,” Jake tells him.

“Well he would, if he had any taste.”

“You can always just drink, if you want,” Jungwon reminds him, startling Riki out of his small spiraling state.

“Ha,” Riki manages, suddenly all-consumed by the idea of kissing Jungwon in front of everyone. He’s pretty sure he would burst into flames. It’s still new, this thing between him and Jungwon, the kissing thing without a name or a label, and even though all of their friends act like they know what’s going on between the two of them, they don’t actually know anything – because Riki doesn’t, either. Riki doesn’t know what label fits him and Jungwon, if they really are boyfriends like the others call them, if they’re the kind of something that involves public displays of affection.

Would Jungwon be hurt if he chose to down a shot of cheap vodka instead of leaning in and kissing him? Would he understand that it’s not out of embarrassment, or at least, not any embarrassment related to him, but to his own laundry list of issues about wearing the things that make him happy on his sleeve instead of hiding them away?

Riki’s instinct is to hide. Riki’s instinct is to not be proud of anything, because he knows how easily something can be taken from someone once its value is known.

“It’s okay,” Jungwon whispers, his chin hooked over Riki’s shoulder now so he can whisper directly in his ear. “It’d be super awkward for me, too. And I know what your answer would be, anyway.”

Riki forces out another laugh, but this one sounds a little more genuine. And then he reaches out and grabs his cup from where he’d left it on the table, chugging the last of his drink as Heeseung boo’s him, hands cupped around his mouth to make sure it’s as loud as possible. Riki ignores him, wincing as the vodka burns its way down his throat, turning his head to shoot Jungwon a grateful smile.

And then it’s his turn, and he’d planned on continuing their streak of easy dares, but Heeseung had turned the tables – and Riki’s not immune to the appeal of creating chaos, either. He looks at Sunoo, who goes a little pale like he already knows what Riki is going to do, and asks, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Sunoo says automatically, then seems to rethink this – maybe because of the amount of secrets he’d told Riki mere hours ago. He wasn’t even going to use any of them to his advantage, but he can’t deny that things are still going his way when he corrects, “No – dare. I’ll do a dare.”

“Okay,” Riki agrees, unable to fight the slightly wicked grin on his face as his eyes shift over to Heeseung and Jake. “Sit on Heeseung’s lap for ten minutes.”

Sunoo’s eyes round in surprise, and then a moment passes, and he seemingly realizes where Riki had gotten the idea, and his eyes narrow in annoyance. Heeseung seems to, as well, because he clicks his tongue and says, “How unoriginal, Riks,” with a disappointed sigh.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Riki points out, then tells Sunoo, “You can just drink if you can’t do it.”

It’s strategic, the use of the word can’t, because he suspects Sunoo won’t be able to resist proving Riki wrong. It looks like he’s considering it, though, his face pinched in deep thought.

“No, he can’t,” Jay announces, having moved to stand in front of the table they were stashing the alcohol under. “We’re all out.”

Sunoo tips his head back like he’s sending a prayer to the ceiling, then sighs, long and mournful.

“Just c’mere, Sun,” Jake invites, clearly not bothered by the idea of Sunoo sitting on his boyfriend’s lap, actually looking kind of amused by it, which doesn’t surprise Riki. He reaches over and pats Heeseung’s thighs encouragingly, while Heeseung stays completely still and rigid.

Sunoo shoots another irritated glare at Riki, and then pushes himself to his slightly unsteady feet, trudging his way over to the couch Jake and Heeseung are sharing, unceremoniously planting himself on Heeseung’s lap. He doesn’t hold back in terms of force, and Riki hears Heeseung hiss in pain, sees him slide his hands under his own thighs, like he doesn’t trust himself not to touch Sunoo otherwise.

Jake doesn’t seem to share in his concern, moving to lean his head on Sunoo’s shoulder instead of Heeseung’s, wrapping his arms around his waist – he’s a clingy drunk, they’ve all come to learn, and Sunoo just spent a week not speaking to him, so Riki’s sure this is only the beginning now that he has him in his grasp.

The game carries on, and ten minutes come and go without any of them keeping track, Sunoo eventually sliding off of Heeseung’s lap as a result of Jake’s unending embrace, until he’s wedged in between the couple, Heeseung releasing his hands from their prison and eventually resting his arm on the back of the couch behind Sunoo, his fingers carding through Jake’s hair.

It looks right, to Riki. They can thank him later.

Jake eventually remembers that they have party hats to distribute, springing to his feet a little less than twenty minutes to midnight and gasping in horror, forcing all of them to put them on – even Sunghoon, who had fallen back asleep at some point, has a hat placed on his head, the elastic carefully tucked under his chin as he snores lightly through it all. Riki reluctantly puts his on, and Jungwon laughs at him, but insists that he keep it on when he immediately tries to yank it off, and he doesn’t put up anymore of a fight.

“Jay, truth or dare?” Heeseung asks, starting what would likely be the last round before the countdown begins as Jake plops himself back down on the couch beside Sunoo.

“Truth,” Jay answers, keeping his voice down – he’s still sharing a couch with Sunghoon, who's fallen asleep again, his head lolling closer and closer to Jay’s shoulder, and Riki’s sure he’s trying not to wake him and stop that from happening.

Heeseung doesn’t even need a moment to think of a question. “How many donations has the school gotten from your dad since you started going here?”

Jay snorts, unbothered, and shrugs. “I don’t keep track. And I probably don’t even know about all of them.”

“We got new chairs in the auditorium last year,” Jungwon chimes in. “That was you, I think. I heard you flunked out of math.”

“That would make sense,” Jay admits, tilting his head like he’s trying to recall all the other times his father had paid his way to academic success.

“What about the pool?” Jake asks.

“Oh, yeah. I think that was when I slept through all my exams. Or, wait – I think that was when they got the cameras installed.”

“Thanks a lot for that,” Riki deadpans.

“Wow,” Heeseung says dryly. “Quick, someone break a vase or something. We can pocket the cash.”

“Break something bigger than a vase,” Jungwon suggests. “The library needs a renovation.”

It earns him a quiet laugh from all of them, and Jay leans back, slumping into the couch, crossing his arms over his chest and grinning like he was in on a joke they weren’t privy to. “I don’t think my dad’s picking up, if the school calls asking for money again. But you can give it a try.”

“Why not?” Sunoo asks. “Did he finally realize the money is going to employ staff like Chen and decided it wasn’t worth it?”

“Nope,” Jay says simply. “He just decided I wasn’t worth it.”

“Go on,” Sunoo prods, getting his one last hit of gossip before midnight comes and his resolution kicks in.

“I’m disowned, I guess,” Jay says eventually. “I’m not welcome in his house, or his bank account, or – anything, really.”

“Seriously?” Jake asks, eyes wide with surprise and slightly shiny with unshed tears, clearly already affected by Jay’s woeful tale. “That’s awful. Why would he do that?”

“Uh,” Jay starts, darting his tongue out to wet his slightly cracked lips before glancing at Sunghoon, still sleeping peacefully beside him. “He told me I couldn’t see the guy I loved anymore, and I listened at first, ‘cause I thought I needed his money to have a future, but… I don’t know. I guess I realized there’s more important shit. So I told him I was staying here for the holidays, with the guy, and he told me I wasn’t his son anymore. Like it was my fuckin’ loss,” he scoffs.

“Shit,” Heeseung curses under his breath. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Park.”

Jay just shrugs. “I didn’t either.”

“Does Sunghoon know?” Riki asks, nodding towards Sunghoon once everyone looks at him, seemingly surprised that he was saying the quiet part out loud. It’s not like they hadn’t all pieced it together, and it’s not like Jay hadn’t practically outright told them, aligning his story perfectly with Sunghoon’s from earlier in the game.

“No,” Jay answers eventually. “He knows I stayed because my dad didn’t want me at home, but he doesn’t know the rest. It’s not like I’ve been doing a good job of making it up to him, or showing him I still… whatever,” he waves dismissively.

“You should tell him,” Riki urges.

Jay shrugs again. “I don’t think it’ll matter much to him. He hates me.”

“I think it will,” Sunoo chimes in quietly. “At the very least, it’s always better to have all the information. It's the lack of answers – closure, or whatever – that can really drive someone insane.”

Jake hugs Sunoo again. Beside them, Heeseung freezes up again. Across from them, Jay tips his head back and sighs, like he internalized Sunoo’s words but found them to be troubling.

They’re all such a mess. Riki is rooting for them anyways. Actually, Riki kind of loves them, in this moment. It might just be the cheap vodka speaking, though.

But he loves them in the moments after that, too, less than a minute to midnight, when Jake insists they all get to their feet, gently shaking Sunghoon awake but making an exception for him and letting him stay seated. Riki turns to look down at Jungwon, still slumped into the couch cushions with a giddy, drunken grin on his face, and holds his hands out in offering as the volume of the TV is raised to an audible level just in time for the countdown to start.

Jungwon takes his hands, and lets him pull him to his feet, not moving away from Riki once he does, not releasing his grip on him, smiling up at him and paying everything else no attention whatsoever. It’s like the whole world disappears around them, until all that’s left is Riki and Jungwon and the new year ahead of them, full of potential, full of possibility. Riki kind of loves this moment, but he thinks he’ll love the year that follows it even more, because Jungwon will be in it, in every single day of it, if Riki has anything to do with it.

He’ll force the upcoming year, and the world, to bend to his will if it means he doesn’t have to lose this feeling, if it means the year in front of them doesn’t have to stop feeling like it has plenty of room for him and Jungwon.

Everything else has faded away. He can hear the others chanting five, four, three, but it sounds distant, because they’re in their own world right now. That’s probably why it’s easy for Riki to lean in, Jungwon meeting him halfway like it’s suddenly easy for him, too, cupping each other’s faces as they ring in the new year breathing each other’s air, mouths slotting together in a way that just makes sense.

Riki knows he’s not the only one that thinks so, either. He never used to be much of an optimist, or much of a believer in any higher power, but in this moment, where he loves so much and so openly, he’s sure that some cosmic being has written this in the stars for him.

And he’s sure that no one can take it from him. If anyone tries, he’ll go down fighting.

They pull away, and the world fades back into place around them, and Heeseung grabs him by the shoulder, jostling him around and shouting, “Was that so hard, Riks? That’s all I wanted to see!”

“You’re a perv,” Sunoo calls out again from where he and Jake are arm in arm, and Riki almost wishes he hadn’t been so distracted, so he could see exactly how the rest of them rang in the new year. Almost.

So he just glares at Heeseung, feigning annoyance even though he’s a little too full of love and sickly sweet hope to really feel it right now. And that has always been unfamiliar to Riki, a state he rarely ever found himself comfortably residing in – but he’s starting to get used to it.

Sunday, January 1st

“Hey,” Sunoo’s voice cuts through the quiet darkness around them, only broken before that by the sound of Jungwon tossing and turning on the couch Riki had left him on in an attempt to get comfortable. The plan hadn’t originally been to sleep in the teacher’s lounge, but they were all a little too tipsy to travel the distance required to get back to the infirmary, and none of them had even suggested they attempt to. “What are your resolutions?”

“You just said you were going to sleep and told us all to be quiet,” Jake points out from where he’s sharing a couch with him, curled up at one end while Sunoo stretches out with his feet resting on Jake’s hip – an unfair arrangement, but neither of them complained when Heeseung moved to the floor in front of them and balled up his hoodie into a makeshift pillow. Riki and Jay had done the same, giving Sunghoon and Jungwon full use of their respective couches.

“Well, I can’t sleep,” Sunoo sighs. “So tell me your resolutions. I’m giving up gossip.”

No one takes the obvious bait to point out that Sunoo is very much incapable of that, all of them occupied with thinking of their own answers.

“Graduate,” Heeseung answers eventually, his voice a little raw, like the word had ripped from his throat without his consent. “I just wanna graduate. The rest I’ll figure out as I go.”

“You will,” Jake assures him, then pauses for another long moment. “I don’t think I have one. Honestly, life is pretty good the way it is, right now.”

“You sap,” Riki teases.

“I’m not ashamed of being sappy,” Jake says indignantly. “What about you, then, cool guy?”

Riki considers it for a while, then admits, “I don’t think I have one, either.” And it’s the truth, because he can’t really think of anything he feels like he’s missing at this very moment. “Maybe I’ll quit smoking. I heard it’s bad for you.”

Jungwon’s hand drops down from the couch beside Riki, and brushes against where his rests on top of his stomach, so Riki takes it and interlocks their fingers.

“Good luck with that,” Heeseung says dryly. “I swear, you’re worse than me these days. Actually, your resolution should just be to start buying your own and stop bumming off of me.”

Riki rolls his eyes, and doesn’t dignify Heeseung with a response.

“All I can think of is that I want to read more books,” Jungwon says.

“I’ve heard those are bad for you,” Heeseung jokes, earning a dry ha-ha from Jungwon.

“I want to try skating again,” Sunghoon answers, apparently awake once again. “Like, not professionally or anything, but – I don’t know. Once this cast is off, I want to at least try to enjoy it again.”

“That’s nice,” Sunoo says, and it sounds genuine. “I’d go with you.”

Silence falls over them for a few moments, and Riki wonders if they’re all thinking the same thing. And then he gets confirmation that they are, or that Jake is at least, because he asks, “Do you think we’ll all stay friends after classes start again?”

For a while, no one answers, and the silence almost feels a little heavier. And then Jungwon clears his throat, sniffles once, and says, “I mean, I hope so.”

“I think we will,” Jake says firmly.

“Easier said than done,” Jay finally chimes in. “Are you gonna kiss Heeseung goodbye in the halls before class, Jake?”

“That’s mean, Jay,” Sunoo sighs.

“It’s realistic,” Jay corrects. “Are you going to sit with Jungwon at lunchtime? Or Riki?”

“I might,” Sunoo says defensively. “I don’t care about what people think of me anymore. We’re all graduating in a few months, anyways. Who fucking cares who we eat lunch with?”

“I’m just saying,” he starts, his tone staying cool and unbothered even as Sunoo’s sharpens, “You all turned out to be half decent to hang out with, but you can’t fight against the shit that’s already been decided for you.”

“Says you,” Jungwon points out, sounding a little hurt. “What’s the difference between you standing up to your dad and Sunoo hanging out with Riki and I?”

“There is no difference,” Jay says simply. “None of it matters in the end, anyway.”

“You’re depressing as fuck, dude,” Heeseung tells him.

Jay laughs a bit, and a few seconds of silence pass between all of them.

“I think it matters,” Sunghoon mutters eventually. “Even if we all never speak again, I think this mattered. It mattered to me, at least.”

“Me too,” Jake says.

“Same,” Sunoo admits. “I think you guys are the only people I can actually call my friends. Like – you know me, or whatever.”

“I’ve never had a group of friends before,” Jungwon confesses. “But it’s nice.”

“Maybe that should be your resolution, Jay,” Riki interrupts, steering the attention back to the only person who still hasn’t answered Sunoo’s original question. He’s unable to stop the bitterness from leaking into his tone, unable to stop himself from speaking his mind as the others pour a little bit of their hearts out. “Do something that matters for once.”

Jay doesn’t respond, doesn’t give any sort of acknowledgement that he even heard Riki, turning over so he’s facing the front of the couch Sunghoon is laying on and away from the rest of them. No one speaks again after that, maybe because the weight of Riki’s words is a bit suffocating, closing their throats, making it impossible for any further conversation to take place.

Riki certainly feels it. And he likes to think he knows the rest of them well enough by now to know that they’re probably feeling it, too.

Tuesday, January 3rd

They make the most of their last two days of vacation – and for them, that means doing pretty much nothing at all – and before they know it, their time has run out.

It doesn’t feel like it, though. He and Jungwon wake up just as early as they always do, Riki reaching over to turn off his watch where it beeps in between their heads, sitting up and looking over his shoulder at Jungwon as he stirs.

“Hey,” Jungwon says sleepily. He’d fallen asleep with his headphones on, unconcerned with the drain on the battery of his new Walkman as he rewound Asleep by The Smiths over and over again the night before. They hadn’t said much to each other as they were drifting off, just listening to the quiet echo of the songs leaking from Jungwon’s headphones. There hadn’t been much to say.

But Riki has something to say now. Time has run out, and he feels the pressure of it, and the need to do something about it. He turns to face Jungwon properly, who is in the process of sitting up too, like he can tell Riki needs his attention right now.

“Hey,” Riki starts, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts. “This has kind of been the best two weeks of my life.”

Jungwon smiles, sweet and sincere, crossing his legs in front of him and almost curling in on himself. “Mine, too,” he says easily, simply, and Riki feels his heart beat a little faster in his chest.

“And I really like you,” Riki tells him, the admission made easier by sleep – or by Jungwon’s proximity – still making his mind a little fuzzy. Riki would have fought to get it out, if he had to, but he doesn’t have to. It comes as easy as breathing, and so does the rest. “And – and I really want to keep hanging out, and I want to visit you in the summer, and… and I want to try to get into an art school in New York. I might not, because I’m kind of rusty, but I want to at least try.”

“That’s great,” Jungwon says, genuine excitement lighting up his expression. “Riki, that’s amazing. I – I’d say I’ll help you in any way I can, but I honestly know nothing about art –”

“That’s okay,” Riki assures him. “You’ve already done enough. You’re, uh, you’re already like – my muse, or whatever.”

Jungwon’s smile turns so blindingly bright that it practically lights up the darkened room around them, and Riki tries not to shy away from it, tries not to shield his eyes even though he kind of feels like he has to, like looking directly at Jungwon is suddenly an impossible task. He fails, and drops his head down to stare at his lap, but Jungwon inches closer, their knees bumping as he ducks down to force Riki’s eyes to meet his again.

“I was right about you,” Jungwon says, laughing a bit when Riki furrows his brows in confusion. “You’re nice. And you’re cool, and you’re smart, and you’re just – you’re my muse, too. You’re a good influence on me. And I think that if you try, you’ll go really, really far. I think you can do anything you want to, Riki.”

Riki doesn’t say anything, because he has no idea what to say, and because he can feel his eyes burning, the threat of tears imminent, and – Riki doesn’t even remember the last time he cried at all, let alone out of happiness. He reaches up, wipes at his face, and sniffles, still trying desperately to hold everything inside, even though he doesn’t really want to do that anymore.

“I really like you too, if that wasn’t obvious,” Jungwon says softly, reaching up to brush his thumb along Riki’s cheekbone. “And wherever you do go, whatever you end up doing, I’ll be there with you. I promise.”

Riki nods, still focused on blinking away tears before they can fall – but he loses whatever hold he had on said focus as soon as Jungwon leans in, pressing his lips to Riki’s cheek, smiling when Riki turns his head to kiss him properly instead, melting into each other like being this close is natural for them, like they were always meant to be together, never separated, never again.

For a long time, Riki was positive that he’d never even be Jungwon’s friend again, but he’s become more than that, and he still can’t quite wrap his mind around it, but he can wrap everything else around it, cling tightly to it and refuse to let go, no matter where the future takes them.

The future is here – part of it, at least – and it doesn’t scare Riki anymore. Wherever it takes him, Jungwon will be there, so how could it scare him?

Nothing about that morning, the morning that they’ll be sent back to their dorms with all the other returning students feels scary. In fact, it all feels perfectly ordinary. The two of them eventually make their way to the infirmary hand in hand, and bicker with the others through breakfast, all of them making sure to thank Sunoo’s mom by name when she sets their plates down in front of them now that they actually knew it – and knew that it mattered to Sunoo, because he’d sheepishly told all of them the truth about why he stayed at the school for the holidays the night before. It’s routine as usual for them, and that feels like a good sign, an indicator that not everything has to go back to normal with the beginning of the next semester.

It’s a bit strange, walking out of the infirmary later that morning, back in his still wrinkled and disheveled uniform just like the rest of them are, with his bag slung over his shoulder, watching Chen turn off all the lights and lock the doors now that the rooms have been cleared of any trace of them. Riki had only actually slept in there once or twice, but it still leaves an achy, almost empty feeling in his chest to see it back to its original state, before it became the dwelling of seven teenage boys and all their clutter and mess.

But then again, Jungwon is still at his side, and the rest of them are too, moving as a unit to the front entrance of the school, so it still feels like not much has changed. Maybe they’ll go back to their dorms and naturally gravitate to Riki’s room, or Heeseung’s, and they’ll hang out there, too.

Or maybe Sunoo will be stopped by a member of his fanclub on the way, or Jake will be whisked away by one of his teammates with a question for their captain, or Jungwon will have to go meet with the needy freshmen he’ll be tutoring this semester. Maybe Jay will go off to do whatever it is he does, and Sunghoon will pretend not to watch him walk away before slipping easily back into being the wallflower he was before all of this.

Maybe Riki will end up sitting alone in his room, or out on the roof outside of his window smoking with Heeseung like he’s used to, but it still won’t mean that none of this mattered. It’s a small consolation, something else Riki can cling to, but it’s enough for him.

He’s resigned himself to either option, made his peace with them, and as they approach the doors that will take them back to real life – Chen pops the bubble a little early.

“Hold on,” he calls out, stopping all of them in their tracks as they pass the door to the headmaster’s office, which he gestures at with a pointed look. “Dr. Byrne would like a word with you. All of you.”

Dread settles in Riki’s stomach and tightens, nausea lurching through him uncomfortably and sending chills across his skin. At once, he knows, without really knowing, what has happened, and it seems like he’s not the only one. Jungwon tenses up beside him, brushing their hands together like he wants to grip onto it for his life, like Riki can act as his life preserver and get them safely to shore.

He should be able to. Getting out of trouble is Riki’s specialty, but he thinks that, if his instincts are right, they might be in more trouble than he knows what to do with. He doesn’t even know where to begin.

An eerie silence falls over them as they follow Chen into the office, past the still unoccupied secretary’s desk and to the wider waiting area, with a few chairs and windowsills for them to fill.

“Sit,” Chen orders, and they do. “Mr. Lee, come with me.”

It’s not a surprise, that he starts with Heeseung. He probably thinks that whatever it was they got caught for – and Riki’s pretty sure he knows what that is, but he’s not quite ready to acknowledge the gravity of it yet – was his fault, because pretty much everything is Heeseung’s fault, in his eyes. And even if it isn’t, he knows he’ll likely take the blame for it anyways. It’s just who he is.

Heeseung goes without protest for once, doing his best impression of someone under no duress whatsoever, hands in his pockets, head held high, but Riki knows better by now than to take it at face value. He stares at him hard enough to risk burning holes in his skin, and as he glances over them at his shoulder before Chen shuts the door to the office behind him, Riki shakes his head and mouths, don’t.

He hopes Heeseung knows what he means. He hopes Heeseung doesn’t immediately confess to their wrongdoing over the holiday break, hopes that for once, he trusts Riki to come up with a way out of it. He doesn’t have to fall on his own sword, this time.

Or, well, on Jungwon’s sword, if it really was the incident Riki suspects they’re going to interrogate Heeseung about. If they knew they left on Christmas, then it’s Jungwon that will take on the majority of the blame. He hopes Heeseung understands that he can’t tell them that, either, even if Jungwon is the darling of the administration, even if he may only walk away with a slap on the wrist.

Riki doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what the best possible outcome is. If Heeseung takes the blame, he’ll surely be kicked out, and everything he’d just worked towards will be for nothing. If Jungwon takes the blame, it’ll put a real stain on his otherwise perfect record, the one that almost certainly will get him a full ride to Yale, the one he’d risked all for Riki.

And that thought puts it into perspective, really. It’s suddenly all too clear what needs to be done to get them out of this, and Riki may not like it, but he likes the alternatives a whole lot less.

He’ll live. He can live with military school, and without art school in New York, and without the future that he’d never really gotten comfortable seeing in a favourable light anyways. What he can’t live with is the knowledge that he let someone else’s future be ruined just to protect his own.

Especially not these someones.

“Do you think –” Jake starts, the words coming out strangled and distressed, and he lowers his voice before continuing, “Do you think they know about New York?”

“Don’t say that,” Sunghoon hisses. “They might be listening.”

“Doesn’t matter much now, does it?” Sunoo says, his expression completely numb and devoid of emotion. “They definitely know. We’re all screwed.”

“We – we can come up with something,” Jake urges. “We can just tell Dr. Byrne that Chen left, that we were just – I don’t know, maybe there was an emergency or something and we just had to go into town quickly –”

“They won’t believe us,” Riki croaks out, feeling his throat start to close up a bit, like he’s suddenly fallen ill. “They probably checked the cameras, for once. It doesn’t matter what we tell them, they’ll find one of us to blame, anyways. And we all know who they’re going to choose.”

None of them speak after that, and Riki dares a glance at Jungwon, sitting on the bench beside him, hands shaking violently in his lap. He reaches over and takes one of them in his own, squeezing for a moment, hoping that he’s sending the message that it’s okay, that it’s going to be okay, that he’d been dealt far worse cards by life before, and none of them had brought him quite as many riches as these ones ultimately still will.

It mattered, at least. They can’t take that from him.

The door creaks open after several excruciatingly long minutes, and Heeseung emerges, looking a little worn down but not entirely defeated. Chen calls in Sunghoon next, and Riki knows what his angle is now. He’d likely perceived Sunghoon as their weakest link, the outsider of the outsiders, the one that – in his perception, at least – didn’t have any existing relationships to any of them before they’d all been thrown together in a situation inadvertently designed to create bonds and make existing ones even more airtight.

Heeseung didn’t tell them anything. They think Sunghoon will. Riki’s not so sure, but he still recognizes that if he’s going to act, he has to act fast, before someone else gets the blame that he’s prepared to take on.

He stands, and Jungwon grabs his hand again, stopping him from moving more than a step away from him.

“Do not,” Jungwon says, in what is probably the harshest tone he’s ever heard from him. “It was my idea.”

“Jungwon,” Heeseung starts hesitantly, cautious like he’s dealing with a rabid animal. “He’s not going to believe that.”

“I’ll – I’ll tell him,” Jungwon insists, his voice wavering even as he tries to keep it steady. “I convinced you all to go. I’ll tell him until he believes me.”

“It wasn’t your idea,” Riki says simply, like it’s a fact, because he’s going to make it into one. “It was mine. I wanted to go because my mom cancelled our trip, and I bribed Jay into driving, and I convinced you all we wouldn’t get caught.”

“Riki, no,” Jungwon chokes out, shaking his head frantically. “No, I won’t let you. It was my idea.”

“They already think it was us,” Riki says, gesturing to Heeseung and himself with his free hand. “Right, Heeseung? They’re already looking for a reason to kick us out.”

Heeseung nods. “They think it was us,” he confirms solemnly. “I didn’t correct them, but – they can’t do anything without a confession.”

“Then don’t give them one,” Jungwon pleads, tears welling up along his lashline and starting a slow roll down his cheeks, desperation all over his face as he stands too, taking Riki’s hand in both of his to get a firmer grip on him.

“I’m not graduating this year, anyway,” Heeseung says after a moment. “Let’s be honest. It’s not much of a loss.”

“You don’t know that yet,” Jake snaps, standing too, like they were all in a stand-off, guns drawn, ready to shoot themselves in the foot to get out of it at the first sign of movement from the other. “You’ll pass. I’m sure you’ll pass.”

“And it still won’t make a difference,” Heeseung shrugs. “People like Riki and I… they don’t think we matter. And they’ll make sure we feel like we don’t. Even if we make it out of here, there’ll always be someone else there to make us feel small and remind us that we don’t fucking matter.”

“I don’t believe that –” Jake starts, voice raising, but Jungwon speaks at the same time, overpowering him with ease even though he’s normally always prone to speaking softly.

“You’re not getting kicked out for me,” Jungwon insists. “It was my idea. And you both matter to me, so you’re not taking the fall.”

“We were a bad influence on you,” Riki interrupts without hesitation. “I was a bad influence on you. Just me. You didn’t want to come, you wanted to tell Chen, but I pressured you –”

“Riki, stop –”

“We have to get our story straight. They’re going to try to get it out of all of us, and – Jungwon, you have to tell them it was me. You’ll get in less trouble if you’re the one that tells them.”

“I’m not doing –” Jungwon starts, but his words die in his throat, his eyes flickering over to something just past Riki’s shoulder, his angry expression fading into pure confusion as something else catches his attention. “Jay?” He calls out, and Riki turns to look at him at the same time as the rest of them do.

Jay is standing, head ducked down to avoid their eyes, brows furrowed, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

He pauses for a long moment, then nods, seemingly to himself, and starts walking towards the closed door to the office, separating them from where Sunghoon was hopefully doing his best to protect them for a little longer.

“Jay, wait –”

He shoves the door open, and then slams it behind him, and leaves behind nothing but silence in his wake, empty air that instantly fills with somber understanding.

“Fucking idiot,” Heeseung mutters under his breath, tipping his head back to stare up at the ceiling. Riki has once again lost the ability to form speech, so he just nods in agreement.

“Maybe… maybe they’ll just call his dad,” Sunoo offers weakly, even though they all know now that his dad won’t be picking up if they do, won’t be making any donations in his son’s name. If Jay had gone in there to take the fall for Jungwon, and for Riki and Heeseung, he would be taking the fall, and surely, at the very least, a suspension will be added to his own deceivingly flawless record.

Jake turns to face the window behind him, staring out of it and shaking his head, wrapping his arms around himself as Heeseung moves to stand beside him. He puts a hand on his shoulder and Jake shrugs it off, but then a moment passes, and he leans into him, giving up the fight before they’d even really had it.

Jungwon has gone speechless and still again, continuing to grip Riki’s hand like a lifeline, like he might collapse if he doesn’t have something to hold onto. They wait, and they wait, none of them quite knowing what to say to break the silence again, just letting it linger.

And then – the door to the office creaks open again, and it’s Sunghoon, stepping out from his interrogation crutch-first, surely freed by Jay bursting in with a confession in full. The door is pulled shut behind him, and he looks back at it with a pinched, pained expression, and then looks at all of them, and gives a small shake of his head, his mouth pressing into a thin line, his face reddening, like he was holding something in – probably the same thing he’s been holding in this whole time, ever since Jay broke up with him on his father’s orders, but Riki thinks it looks like it’s about to come spilling out of him now.

Sunoo moves to his side, grabbing hold of his arm as if to keep him upright until he’s seated, and Riki suspects that it wasn’t just his cast that was making him feel unsteady on his feet. Sunghoon sits down, and drops his head into his hands, rubbing his palms into his eyes as his breathing becomes a bit jagged. Sunoo just sits beside him, Jake taking the seat on his other side, and they both wrap themselves around him, and they still don’t know what to say, so they say nothing at all.

And then – several minutes pass, and the door opens one last time, and Riki feels his weariness dissipate into alertness, eyes widening as he tries to take in Jay’s expression as he steps out, Dr. Byrne’s expression as he shoots them all a harsh glare and slams the door again, as he looks for any indication of what may have gone down in there.

Jay doesn’t let him wonder long. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, huffs out a quiet laugh, and says, “Uh, bad news, Wonie. The library’s not getting renovated this year.”

Jungwon chokes out a wet laugh, but his surprised expression crumbles a moment later and he turns away from Jay, pressing his face against Riki’s shoulder, the fabric dampening as tears well up in his eyes. Riki wraps an arm around him, rubbing circles into his back as he sniffles and shakes with the effort not to break down completely. He’s sure some of it is relief, but he knows Jungwon, and therefore knows that the guilt is surely outweighing it right now.

Riki holds Jay’s gaze for a moment, giving him a nod in thanks, taking in the sight of him. The bruise around his eye is nearly completely faded, the last evidence of the person he was barely holding on for dear life, now that Jay has decided to bury him once and for all. He returns his unspoken thanks with a half smile, and then Heeseung is stepping forward, clapping a hand down on his shoulder, muttering, “You’re not so bad, Park.”

Jay snorts, shaking his head, shoving Heeseung away and letting his eyes land on Sunghoon, who still sits between Jake and Sunoo, hunched forward with his hands now folded and pressed against his forehead, almost like he’s praying.

“Hoon,” Jay starts, and Sunghoon sits upright with a sharp inhale, galvanized by the nickname, still not meeting his eyes as he gets to his feet with minimal struggle. They’re the ones in a standoff, now, the few feet between them feeling like an impassable distance. It’s familiar to him, seeing them at odds like this, but it’s also not, not at all. Maybe it’s something entirely different.

Whatever it is, though, he thinks it’s probably still familiar to Jay and Sunghoon, something a little more like what they once were, what they surely thought they’d never be again.

“Why did you do that?” Sunghoon rasps out eventually, his voice cracking with hurt.

“It’s just a suspension,” Jay tells him gently. “It was my car that we left in, and I was the one driving, so. They bought it. I just… I wanted to do something that actually matters, I guess.”

He glances at Riki when he says it, and he knows that his words from a few nights ago had been heard, and had left an impression, and that Jay had seemingly also come to the conclusion that all of this is what matters.

“But Harvard –” Sunghoon starts, but Jay shakes his head before he can continue.

“I’m not going,” Jay says simply. “You know I never wanted to go in the first place. And Dad isn't going to be paying my tuition anymore, so. I have better things to see with my savings.”

Sunghoon winces, understanding the implications of Jay’s words, likely thinking back to the gap year trip they’d planned together, the trip that Sunghoon was planning on going on alone, the plans Jay was now seemingly asking to be a part of again.

“Why did you do that?” Sunghoon repeats in agony, repeating his question instead of answering Jay’s unspoken one. “Why did you do any of this? Why are you even here? You could have – you could have just done what he asked you to do, you could have just…” he trails off, like he knows the idea of Jay ever doing anything he’s asked to do is too ridiculous to even say aloud.

“I am doing what he asked me to,” Jay corrects. “I’m taking my future seriously.”

Sunghoon screws his face up like Jay’s words are causing him physical pain, a few tears sliding down his cheeks as he says, “But you just ruined it.”

“That’s up to you, actually,” Jay says simply. “I’ve… I’ve had a lot put into perspective lately. About what matters and what doesn’t. And you’re my future, Sunghoon. So as long as I still have you, I have a future. A good one.”

Riki can understand the sentiment. He holds Jungwon a little tighter.

Jay doesn’t show any signs of nerves, of doubt, as he waits for Sunghoon’s response, holding his gaze steady and sure. But then several long seconds pass with nothing whatsoever from him, and Jay takes a few deep breaths in, biting down on his bottom lip for a moment before adding, “But – there’s no pressure or anything.”

Sunghoon just keeps staring at him, his expression simultaneously blank and overflowing with emotion, like what he was feeling was too big to be shown in his features, like all they could do was arrange themselves neutrally regardless of how much there would be to show on them, if he allowed it. And then he allows it, stops keeping it inside, and smiles, his sharp teeth on display as pure elation overtakes his features, and he announces, in a manner most typical for them, “You’re such an idiot.”

And then he moves, his crutches carrying him closer to Jay, shrinking the distance between them. And then Jay moves, because he can move a lot faster than Sunghoon can, and they meet in the middle, Jay hesitating until Sunghoon practically throws himself forward, one of his crutches sliding out from under his arm and clattering to the ground, leaving only one to hold him up, and then leaving Jay to hold him up, because Sunghoon wraps his arms around his shoulders and pulls him into an embrace that Jay couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

And Riki suspects that he doesn’t want to, not at all.

Jungwon, still sniffling and wiping away tears, has lifted his head to watch them reunite, a small smile on his face even as his lip wobbles, pressing the side of his face into Riki’s shoulder like he can’t support any of his own weight. Riki doesn’t mind. He’ll hold him up for as long as he needs.

Eventually, Jay and Sunghoon pull apart, Sunoo picking up his discarded crutch and handing it back to him so he doesn’t punctuate the moment by falling on his face. Eventually, Jake speaks up, his voice raw with emotion too, and when Riki looks at him, he can see that he’s been crying, too. Riki fights all his inner demons with the effort to not call him a sap again.

“How long is the suspension?” He asks.

“Just two weeks,” Jay says, his almost giddy smile contrasting his words.

“Wow,” Heeseung says dryly. “Guess you still have some of your privilege left.”

Jay laughs, and despite everything, Riki thinks that he’s never seen him look so light, so unburdened. It looks good on him. It looks right. “Guess so,” he shrugs. “And, uh, they called your parents, and I think you guys have a few weeks of detention. But it won’t go on your permanent records. And I had to use some of my own savings for that, so – you all owe me.”

They all manage a laugh at that, and Jungwon mutters out, “I owe you my life, I think,” just as Chen steps out of the office and confirms with a severe frown that they would, in fact, be serving detention together on weekends for the next month. None of them seem too bothered by the idea.

They follow Chen out of the office, and Jay sends them all one last grin as he’s escorted out of the building, Sunghoon meeting it with a teary smile and a nod that Riki feels like he wasn’t meant to see, something clearly just for the two of them, maybe an answer to the question Jay hadn’t been brave enough to ask properly. Riki imagines them next year, backpacking across Europe and sightseeing together, and he understands what Jay meant when he said he hadn’t ruined his future.

In fact, it’s about the happiest ending he can imagine for the two of them.

“Come on,” Heeseung blurts out all of a sudden, nodding towards the side of the hallway that leads away from the entrance. He doesn’t even elaborate, but then again, none of them even question it, on board for one last excursion through the building they’d made their own over the last two weeks without any details needed.

They just follow Heeseung into a classroom that won’t be empty for much longer, but remains so just long enough for them to gather around a window at his insistence, looking down at the parking lot below – and at Jay’s stupidly fancy sports car, the one they’d piled into to go on the trip that got them where they are now. Jay’s taking his usual confident strides towards it, his bag slung over his shoulder until he tosses it into the backseat, all under Chen’s now-watchful eye.

Just before he gets in the driver’s seat, he looks up, like he somehow knew he’d find them there, and the easy grin that was already on his lips grows a little wider. He raises his hand, and flips them off, and then – he’s off, pulling out of the parking lot with a screech of tires that feels like a fitting exit for him.

They watch him go, and stay a little longer after he’s long gone, not quite ready to part yet. But eventually, someone will come looking for them, and they’ll be forced back into the real world they’ve been dreading.

Riki finds Jake’s question from the other night echoing in his head. Do you think we’ll all stay friends after classes start again?

He has no way of knowing for sure.

But maybe they’ve changed a little too much, a little too quickly to go back to the norm. Maybe they won’t ever be able to let go of what they’d found and gained from their friendship. Maybe, to someone not looking closely enough, they’ll look like strangers, but maybe they’ll pass each other in the halls and smile and they’ll know that they had something special for that brief, fleeting moment, insignificant when looking at the grand scheme of their lives.

But even if they don’t, even if they return to the norm and disperse back into their respective social circles and move on, it still happened.

And it still mattered. Maybe because it was only temporary, it’ll matter even more.

Or maybe it won’t be temporary at all. Because Sunghoon, with the once plain plaster cast on his leg now covered in doodles and signatures, keeps his eyes fixed on where Jay’s car had been parked, a small, seemingly unconscious smile on his face. Because Heeseung is saying something that’s making Jungwon laugh through his continuing tears, something about how he should have let Heeseung take the fall for him so he doesn’t have to help him study for his next set of exams, and Jungwon assures him that he likes a challenge. Because Sunoo and Jake are the first to depart, but they do so hand in hand, both of them sending smiles over their shoulders at the rest of them, and Sunoo raises his free hand, wiggling his fingers and making eye contact with Riki – something that would have sent him into a shock-related coma a month ago – as he leaves them with his parting words, teasing and melodic.

“See you losers in detention.”

(“I’m still upset with you,” Jungwon says through a shaky exhale as their boots crunch through the snow, the two of them their way back to the dorms that they live on separate floors of – but that likely won’t stop him from finding a way to be able to watch Jungwon wake up again. After all, there are still two gym mats stashed away under the stage in the auditorium. “I can’t believe you were going to get kicked out for me.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Riki says, slowing them to a stop and reaching up to brush a stray piece of hair out of his face, the most intimacy they can be allowed in their current setting. It’s enough for Riki, though. It’s plenty.

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll buy you a whole record player this time,” Riki jokes. “Or one of those fancy new CD players.”

Jungwon rolls his eyes in exasperation, but he’s smiling, looking up at Riki with an expression that makes it clear that his irritation is nothing more than a front. “That could work,” he starts, reaching out to adjust Riki’s tie until it sits a little neater, his fingers twitching as he does like he wants to use it to pull him closer. There’ll be time for that later, Riki’s sure of it. “Or, how about you just try to stick around here, and graduate, so I don’t have to say goodbye to you anytime soon.”

And the last thing he wants is for Jungwon to say goodbye to him. He wants to sit with Jungwon at lunch, walk with him to class, and visit him during their breaks. He wants as much of him as he can get, whether it’s here, or in the city, or wherever they go from there. He wants, and he wants, and he knows how powerful wanting can be, how dangerous, but he’s not afraid of losing it. He trusts that Jungwon won’t say goodbye to him, because he trusts himself not to give him a reason to, because he’s going to try to be the person he wants to be, the person he knows Jungwon already sees him as.

So he just smiles too, and looks for traces of the future he never could have dreamed would be his in the shiny reflection of Jungwon’s eyes, and when he finds it with ease, he clings to all of its potential, its possibility, and says, “I can do that.”

And he really believes it.)