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They say that eyes are the windows to the soul and if that is actually true, Riki's soul must be flying in heaven right now. Or maybe it is dancing in a breathtaking island, in midst of the bluest waters and golden sands. Or maybe, it's neither. Maybe, it's not somewhere unreal and unreachable. Maybe it's just there, right in it's favourite place, that he for sure knows he won't trade for anything else.
Beside him.
Riki is undoubtedly still young. And there are many things he is still unsure of. But despite being unsure of things most of the time, he was sure of one thing. He was sure that he wouldn't exchange this spot for a first class seat on a flight nor for a VIP seat on the concert of the biggest boy band in this world where he can proudly sing his heart out loud.
He can't think of any other place more worthy than of this one, right beside Kim Sunoo and under the gaze of a gazillion sparkling stars bestowed above the two of them. He can't think of any other situation he'd rather be in than laying down on the ground decorated with pointy and uncomfy grass that's making him slightly twinge with his every move, to be able to feel the fresh air softly whispering in their ears as if telling them a secret only they can hear and the hot warmth coming from their barely connected shoulders through the fabric of their clothing.
Riki would never leave this for anything else.
He wonders if Sunoo wouldn't, too.
"Hyung," he called, voice gentle. Without taking his eyes off the constellations above them, Sunoo hummed.
"Do you... Would you...", Riki bit his lip, not knowing how to voice out his questions. He stared at the other for some time, trying to figure out how he'd tell it or most likely, figuring out whether it is right to ask or not. After all, how can he, a poor teen who had fallen head over heels for his best friend, deal with possible indirect rejection?
Bothered by the silence of the younger, Sunoo looked back at him, resulting to an unexpected eye contact.
"Hmm? What is it?"
'Sunoo's beautiful,' he thought. The older had always been pleasant looking in his eyes, but tonight, it was a different kind of beautiful. There's just something astounding about how his long lashes flutter occasionally. How his lips slowly form a slight pout. How his hair fell graciously against the sharp greens on the ground. Everything looked so wondrous and dreamy and every little thing he did looked thrice as lovely as usual. Riki nearly convinced himself that the older was indeed a wizard and Riki was just another boy in the audience bound under his unbreakable spell. He isn't sure how he does it, but he sure knows that the stars and the moon had something to do with it. And so, he completely ignored the past question and did what felt right at the moment.
"Hyung, you look pretty."
Pretty. Riki knows that it was an understatement. He could've used a better word, he thought. He was confident he knew a lot of words so why did he chose to say the most basic of them all? But then again, he thought that no word could ever justify his beauty.
As expected, the older of the two showed him a smile. His signature bright smile that Riki wanted to protect and keep.
"I always do. But thank you.", he replied, ever so poised. Although Riki saw a ghost of a light shade of pink tinting his cheeks that only stayed for a millisecond.
It's not the first time that he saw him getting a bit flustered despite his well known confident personality. He sees it every now and then, although the older isn't aware that he does. He thinks the younger boy pays not much of attention to him to even notice anyway. Little did he know that his attention is always on him.
Sunoo went back to stargazing, leaving Riki alone to stare at him. There was a little faint voice inside the younger's head that warned him about how both his parents would kill him the moment he steps his dirt dressed timberland inside their house. Usually his dad wouldn't care about him sneaking out at night and going back at 4 am, but now, now that he has his stolen car key inside the pocket of his jeans, he is hella sure he does care. And he is probably plotting his own son's demise at the moment.
But he shushed the voice down. For some reasons, when he's with this particular boy, he didn't care about anything else. For some reasons, he felt as if he is capable of doing everything, with him beside. It was strange since he had never been on a summit of any mountain, but whenever he's with him, he felt as if he's at the highest point of the world. Sunoo effect. He calls it the Sunoo effect. The effect of a boy whose smile can light up a whole mundane town. The effect of a boy who is the embodiment of positivity and the personification of comfort.
And maybe, falling in love with him is also a part of that effect. If so, Riki wonders how many of them are head over heels for him. If his admirers had numbers attached to them, then what number is he?
Riki is sure not the type of person who has a very low self esteem, but tonight, he felt as if he's just another normal person. Another commoner in the crowd. And Sunoo, Sunoo is just the one standing on the stage. The one who has lights pointed at him as if he own it. The one showered with praises and compliments. And Sunoo might look at his direction but won't remember his face, anyways.
The younger's train of thought was disturbed by a sigh coming from the older.
"Can you imagine it, Riki? One day everything will just disappear. Even the stars here. One day, they will all just explode.", Sunoo said with a hint of gloom. He then averted his gaze to the younger. "Say, will you have regrets if this was your last night?"
The question kind of caught the younger off guard, not expecting his hyung to be thinking about things like this. He had always been the happy go lucky one. The light-hearted and untroubled. So it's no surprise for him to be surprised by the question. But then again, no matter how bright is a place, it will still have its cloudy days. Rainy days, even.
Riki tried to think for an answer. Regrets. What would he be regretful of if he died tonight?
Would it be something huge like the abandoned dreams he would leave behind? The cities he had yet to travel? The possessions he had yet to own? Or maybe as small as being a little bit mean to his younger sister earlier? Choosing the wrong ice cream flavor yesterday? Not reviewing for the exams last week?
Or would it be the sincere confession he could only whisper in his mind? The fact that he is too much of a coward to not be able to intertwine his fingers with the ones brushing against it right now? Would it be the fact that he would die lying down on a dirty grassy area?
In the end he came up with nothing, because if he died tonight, he would die beside him and not anyone else's. He would die on his favourite place, his favourite spot. So who cares if he died with a pair of mucky shoes worn on his feet right now? At least he died wearing the pair of shoes both he and his hyung loved. Who cares if he died with barely having money in his wallet? At least he was able to buy his favourite person a bouquet of his favourite flowers before he died.
As if on cue, Sunoo spoke again with a "So?", with a questioning eyebrow slightly raised.
"I probably won't.", he truthfully answered, shrugging right after. A follow up question he expected never came. He's sort if glad it didn't though. Instead, his hyung just started nodding slowly, an understanding look on his face before he looked back, once again, to the stars.
Riki stayed silent for a minute until he cannot anymore. "How about you, hyung?", he asked, curiosity evident in his voice. To his dismay, the other just let out a silent yet meaningful laugh, leaving his question left without an answer.
Silence outpowered them for a moment, before the older decided to break it once more.
"You know, you were in my dreams last night.", he started and Riki had to act as if his heartbeat didn't just made a huge increase with one phrase.
"I was?", he croaked, trying his best not to stutter and make it obvious that his heart was doing a somersault right now. "What was I doing there?"
"I don't know...", the older pouted followed with a shrug. "But it looked like we were living together. We were in the kitchen, I cooked while you washed the dishes. We had plants on pots placed on the windowsill, they had names, I just forgot. There was also a cute magnetic photo of us on the refrigerator where both of us was showing the camera a peace sign. And oh, we were wearing matching beige coloured aprons and we had an adorable pair of potholder gloves with a design of we bare bears. The kitchen looked kinda small, but just enough for the two of us. After that, we went out to the living room and you turned on netflix and we watched something together while cuddling on the two seater couch with a soft blanket draped on us and a bowl of warm fries on the coffee table, paired with two mugs of unfinished chocolate drink with marshmallows on top of it. I remember saying something about watching the film for the 10th time and you shushed me by saying that I should watch since it was already on its climax. The weather was pretty cold there, but we looked warm nonetheless. In the end, we both had tears on our eyes despite watching the film multiple times. You pretended as if you didn't cry though and instead teased me for it. I playfully smacked you on the shoulder and we just... laughed. We filled the whole house with laughter.", he finished leaving a whole Nishimura Riki surprised and confused and... in love.
Honestly to say that he was surprised with what his hyung just said was an understatement. He felt something warm lingering on his chest and he was sure he looked red as a tomato right now and his eyeballs looked as if they were falling. Both his emotions and words were mixed up and his heartbeat also probably stopped once for a second during his hyung's storytelling. Or twice. Or maybe thrice.
"D-Do you usually remember your dreams vividly?", he was even barely able to say anything due to his breath getting taken away. Although he still managed to curse himself internally for stuttering.
"No, not really. It was kind of a surprise that I remember that dream so specifically. I even remember catching a glimpse of our shoes placed beside each other on that little shoe rack.", his hyung responded with no hesitation and just looked as if he wasn't affected by any of these things. While Riki had to pretend as if he wasn't dying beside him. Figuratively.
Now Riki is even more in love with him. Now Riki is nearly sure that his feelings for his hyung would never fade like how an old writing on a stone using a chalk would. Or would just disappear like a short-lived bubble. For a second, he thought he'd hate him for making the situation worse but who was he kidding? He loved the idea of living together with him and plus, he could never hate him. Maybe he can act sulky for an hour over his caramel macchiato stolen by the older, but not mad. Definitely not.
The younger then proceed to daydream about them living together. He thought about how they would play Nintendo and Riki would always be the one winning in the first half, but lets the other win in the end, anyway. He thought about how the both of them would scream and yelp and cling onto each other whenever a spider shows up and both would point fingers at each other, telling the other to kill it. He had a feeling he would be the one to kill it though. He thought about how he would let the older sleep beside the wall, and the older would let him take up all the bed space. He thought about how they would cuddle every night and would wake up to the sight of each other every day.
"Do dreams come true?", and Riki had never been the type to believe that a dream would come true, but this time, he hoped it would. He wished in every imaginary shooting star that it would be true. And he might pray to all saints just for it to be true. Ever since he was young, Riki pretty much understood the concept of 'no', and never had been really pushy to something he badly wanted even as a child. He never whined to get a toy, nor threw a tantrum for not letting him eat another candy. In other words, he wasn't spoiled as a kid. And even now. But for the first time in his life, he badly wanted something and badly wanted to have that something. For the first time in his life, he felt so persistent and desperate over something he wanted. He felt the want to beg. To please the universe or whoever was out there.
"Do you want it to be true?"
Because Riki was just a poor boy deeply in love with his best friend, who is suffering from a serious illness and can die any moment from now.
"I do.", he truthfully answered, not caring about how bold of a move that was. He could panic later or tomorrow about it, but for now, he would be honest with the older. And himself.
A soft, gentle smile formed on the other's lips and Riki's brain recognized that as the 'Riki smile'. With shining eyes that outshone even the brightest star, he replied with, "I do, too."
"We'll make it true, then.", the younger replied, smiling back at him with the same level of softness and of gentleness, heart going haywire.
"That's a deal, then.", the other's smile grew wider, finally reaching his eyes and making it crinkle. "And if there's a deal, there should be a seal.", he added, a glint of mixed excitement and mischief seen in his eyes and Riki didn't even had time to comprehend the last sentence and it's hidden message before the older scooted himself closer and pressed a delicate warm kiss on his cheek. It didn't last long of course, probably only lasted for a second, but Riki undoubtedly felt it, and it's ghost. And the heat from his lips was comparable to a poison that spreads to his cheeks then to his whole face and neck. And his heart, too. A simple peck on cheek intoxicated him so much that it made him feel as if he was dying, but also living at the same time. It made him feel as if he was about to pass away, but at the same time, he had never felt so alive.
Riki was still processing what happened when he heard a giggle coming from the older. He knew what he was doing, Riki noted. He turned his head towards the direction of his hyung, only to feel worse when he realised he was still close as fuck. And their noses touched. And Sunoo let out yet another ridiculously adorable giggle.
And oh God, help Riki.
"Mole...", the other suddenly muttered. Riki was certain it was only meant for himself to hear but since they were inches close, he heard it too. Although, he couldn't really understand what that means. Partly because it really didn't have context and partly because he couldn't think straight when he's this close to him.
"Huh?"
"You have a mole.", the other repeated, and Riki finally got to wrap his head around what he meant. "It's my first time seeing it. It isn't really noticeable, you know. But it's noticeable like this.", Sunoo spoke in a low volume, almost a whisper but just enough for the two of them to hear. "It looks pretty."
"Oh... thanks.", he awkwardly responded cuz do people usually compliment moles? "Y-You look pretty, too, hyung.", Especially up this close.
"You already said that, Riki-ah."
"I wanted to say it again. You deserve to hear it twice."
"Not just twice, duh.", Sunoo rolled his eyes in a sassy manner, making Riki chuckle.
"You're right, hyung."
"So, the flowers sitting on the backseat are mine, right?"
"W-What?"
"They are for me, right?"
"No, they're not."
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"You don't have anyone else to give it to. And it's mine. It belongs to me and me only."
"Fine, yeah. It's yours."
Riki would never leave this for anything else.
Sunoo wouldn't, too.
And just like Riki, in case Sunoo dies tonight, he wouldn't have any regrets. He asks himself the same question every night, but the answer was always the same.
'As long as I spend my last night with him, then I'll be fine.'
Because Sunoo wanted to make the most out of his remaining time, he doesn't like wasting time.
But he would waste an entire night or even a lifetime with him.