Chapter Text
Nishimura Riki was used to being the best.
Well, okay. To clarify:
First, at dance was an important addition to that claim.
Confidence flowed off him in waves. It bled into the pulse of the music itself, made the moves his, and no one could dispute that when he danced all eyes were on him. He could feel the buzz of the other trainees after he finished his part in the I-LAND entry level test, could sense the voting hands raised in approval.
When he danced, he felt like the still point of a turning world, and that feeling tasted like freedom.
The second thing was that there’s a difference between being the best and knowing you are, or could be, given the couple of extra years training others in the room usually had on him at any given time.
But that was the whole point: Niki was there, with them, anyway. He was good enough to be called competition. He was good enough to be a threat.
And he’d known this when he’d elected to compete in I-LAND. The producers would be mercurial, and the challenges would be demanding, and the other trainees- heck, his future group mates- would be talented in their own ways.
But as long as he could dance, he’d succeed. That, and his competitive streak, would push him into the final lineup. He could even be number 1.
He’d thought it was that simple.
The training room at I-LAND is empty at this hour. Niki doesn’t know exactly what time it is, but too late seems to cover it. He flops to the floor after running through the DNA choreo for the umpteenth time, chest rising and falling rapidly, oxygen scraping through his lips.
The mirror before him is brushed in condensation, a thin trickle of water cutting through it near where he’s sprawled. He stares as it creeps down the glass, feeling his pulse steady even as the lino floor seems to dissolve under his sticky palms. Feeling, perhaps, that he should’ve gone to bed an hour ago….
“Niki?”
The floor is solid all of a sudden. Niki’s heart lurches forward in surprise, as he glances up into the mirror wall, to find the source.
A figure in black sweatpants and the bright yellow hoodie he’d been wearing earlier at dinner, leans against the doorframe, lips pursed.
Niki’s gaze meets Kim Sunoo’s in the mirror. Then he twists his head around, and it’s in real life.
“You’re still up?” says Sunoo, his voice rising. Niki can’t tell if he’s surprised or… something else— something bordering on upset. Worried.
Niki runs a hand through his hair and looks away from the older boy. He laughs very softly- not a laugh at all really but a tattered sigh.
“Yeah, hyung,” he replies, the honorific feeling a little more natural on his lips than it had months ago. He glances up once again at Sunoo.
“You’re up too,” Niki adds, mustering a grin.
Sunoo is still biting his lips in that way he does when he’s anxious, that no doubt the cameras had picked up countless times during the many intense moments of I-LAND. That was Sunoo, after all; barely ever reserved in his emotions; bright, dynamic, quick to tear up, upfront in the best way and the worst.
The thought of Kim Sunoo being worried, upset, with him makes his stomach turn.
Then the dark-haired elder sighs too, and smiles a very small smile. “Yeah, me too,” says Sunoo. “I guess we’re both worried about the same thing, huh?”
Niki nods. “Three days till the BTS challenge.”
Sunoo pads towards the mirror.
“So,” he starts casually, “How’s it going?”
He pretends to do a fouetté while looking at his reflection, like the ice skating turns Sunghoon does. Niki’s eyes are trained on him. Of course, Sunoo topples, losing his balance, giggling.
Niki is tired… too tired….
He wants to get up and join Sunoo in mucking around, but instead he laughs and stares at him while a second part of him, the less fatigued, more rational part, prays Sunoo doesn’t notice the way he looks at him.
“Oh, you know,” replies Niki. His Korean has improved so much since they started filming, but his accent is more pronounced with his exhaustion. “I already knew the choreo… and it’s not as hard as Fake Love,” he trails off, still watching Sunoo go over the moves to the chorus of Fake Love in the mirror, his arms rising up and snapping down at a right angle. He’s good, thinks Niki. Better than he gets credit for.
“...But I feel like I’m gonna stuff up the connecting wave part or something.”
Sunoo flops to the floor beside him and gapes at him.
“You’re kidding right?” He states. His lips are bitten red, and his black fringe is fluffed up from spinning.
Niki gulps. Frowns. “What?”
Sunoo shakes his head. “You guys have like… one of the most solid teams for this round in terms of dance. I mean,” he drops his hands in his lap from where they’d been fiddling.
“K hyung, Jay-hyung, Hanbin-hyung, …. and you.”
Niki scoffs, eyes dancing as he looks at Sunoo. “I guess I’m just an afterthought huh?”
Sunoo flails his foot out, bumping Niki’s. It reminds the younger of a moment from when they were in the Ground together, and Niki had been the one comforting Sunoo when he was unwell, not the other way around.
“C’mon, you know that’s not what I meant,” says Sunoo. He pauses. “I don’t think I’ve met a better dancer than you.”
And yes Niki’s heard it before, but his pulse lurches anyway and it’s got nothing to do with surprise now. When Taki or Jay said the same thing, did it do that? He can’t remember.
Niki laughs it off.
“Says the boy ranked number 1 world wide,” he teases back.
“God,” Sunoo groans, kicking him harder this time. “Not you too!”
Because yes, that explains why he feels different around Sunoo. Why he makes him oddly breathless, short of words, and it’s not just his Korean literacy. Of course Sunoo is charming and likeable; the entire nation, or world, agreed.
Niki smirks, his flame of embarrassment flickering to dimness for now as he teases Sunoo.
“Kim Sunoo, Korea’s It-boy!” he sings, clutching his heart with one hand.
Sunoo looks at him with a challenge in his eyes. “Oh yeah?” He says. Then something shifts, and he tilts his head with a slow smile, and Niki searches his friend’s face, knowing somehow that this is dangerous.
“And would you have voted for me?” He bats his eyelashes and moves his head inches closer.
Niki stares at him.
“I’d never vote for someone who says Save Me is their favourite BTS song,” he replies sweetly, teasingly, but his breath is short. “Idol all the way.”
Sunoo erupts into laughter and he’s back, suddenly, no longer taking up Niki’s air.
“Come on,” says Sunoo, offering a hand to Niki after he’d standing himself. “Let’s go to bed.”
He should practice more. But Niki takes the hand after a moment, gulping as he does. They turn the light off in the training room, and the darkness closes like curtains around them.
So yes, Niki is used to being the best. He’s used to things being simple. But maybe he was naive to think this leap towards his dreams would be so; that there wouldn’t be some catch.
Enter Kim Sunoo, I-LAND’s It-Boy.