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“Hyung,” Riki says, draping himself heavily over Jake’s shoulders. They’re in the bathroom, waiting for the car to arrive to take them home after their most recent interview, and Jake is hunched over the sink washing his hands. He groans when Riki presses all of his weight on top of him, folding a little more, a little closer to the faucet, but then he stabilizes, one shoulder blade jutting up to nudge at Riki’s chest, betraying just how strong he actually is.
“What?” Jake says. He sounds exasperated but fond, which is good. Riki likes it when Jake is fond of him, especially when he’s riding high on endorphins like he is now.
“Hyuuuuung,” he croons again, dragging the word out and this time wrapping his arms around Jake’s waist and burying his face into his neck. Jake groans even louder, but he doesn’t push Riki off, doesn’t smack at him with wet, soapy hands. He just drags Riki to the paper towel dispenser, going about his business like having a 183 centimeter guy on his back is nothing unusual (which…maybe it isn’t).
“Yeah, what?”
“You like me,” Riki mumbles into Jake’s neck, hoping that Jake’s skin muffles the way that he’s clearly grinning. He’s sure that Jake knows, though, because he can feel his teeth dragging across the skin of Jake’s neck. It leaves a salty flavor on his tongue, and something bitter, likely his perfume.
Jake is quiet for a moment, but then he snorts. Hard enough that Riki’s own nose crinkles with an aching sympathy.
“Yeah?” Jake says, clearly laughing. “Duh?”
“No, hyung. You really like me.”
Riki can’t say anything more, can’t talk about how Jake fighting with Jay over who loved him more made him want to curl up on the ground and kick his feet like a little kid. He can’t say that he had forgotten that long-ago meal Jake bought him, because there have been plenty of meals since, but Jake bringing it up reminded Riki of how much it meant to him, how it stoked the fire of his already blooming crush, how Riki had hugged Jake so tightly in thanks and then laid in his bed at the dorm and panicked because his cheeks were flushed and his heart was pounding and he was sure that the feeling wasn’t going to go away. He can’t say that sometimes he can’t get a read on Jake, that sometimes he thinks Jake likes him and sometimes he thinks Jake is indulging him and sometimes he thinks Jake is annoyed with him.
Jake taking him out to dinner wasn’t exactly special by many people’s standards; at this point all of the members go out with each other for meals all the time. Riki has been treated (and has started treating) by all of the hyungs, so maybe it shouldn’t seem like it means anything, but it does. It does because Jake asks him out for no reason. Jake takes him out because he wants to spend time with him, and Jake takes him out because he notices Riki is sad, and Jake sends him messages of encouragement before anyone else does when he has to do solo projects, and Jake checks in on him when something in a rehearsal or performance doesn’t go quite right and all of this together means that Jake thinks about him. Maybe not as much as Riki thinks about Jake, but Riki can’t even admit how much he thinks about Jake to himself because it freaks him out, so he thinks that’s okay.
Jake doesn’t say anything for a while. He finishes drying his hands, and then he rests them on where Riki’s arms are wrapped around him, squeezing his forearms and gently running his thumbs along the skin. It makes goosebumps raise, makes Riki shiver, but he doesn’t let go and Jake doesn’t stop.
“Yeah,” Jake finally says, so quietly Riki almost doesn’t hear him. “Yeah, I like you.”
Riki squeezes even tighter, squeezes so tightly that Jake lets out a soft squeak and then starts to smack at Riki’s arm. He can’t help it; he’s got what the kids on the internet call cute aggression, and he wants to squeeze Jake until he becomes enveloped by Riki, becomes one with him, rests right behind his ribcage forever. He wants to bite his cheek, his neck, sink his teeth in until he can feel Jake’s heart beat in his mouth.
“Aish,” he groans, loosening his grip and nuzzling against Jake’s neck. “You make me crazy. Can I kiss you?”
Jake’s laughter is bright and startled, bubbly like a can of soda shaken and fizzing over the top.
“What are you saying?”
Riki nuzzles a little harder. There is a patch of stubble on the jut of his jaw that he missed shaving and has been driving him crazy all day, and now he is delighting in rubbing it against Jake’s neck to just watch him squirm.
“Can I, hyung? Just a little bit?”
“How do you kiss just a little – you know what, nevermind, I just – oh my god Riki, what’re you–”
Jake’s near hysterical rambling cuts off with bright laughter; Riki, seized by the feral urge that hits him any time he finds a tickle spot on Jake, doubles down. He nuzzles even harder, focusing on the spot high up on Jake’s neck near his ear that causes him to practically screech. Jake folds in on himself but that only causes him to press more into Riki, and that allows Riki’s hands to also move, his fingers to wiggle, finding out soft spots that he knows will make Jake writhe and scream.
He probably shouldn’t do this; the walls of the bathroom means their voices carry even more than usual, and they’re in public, technically still at work, but Riki can’t help himself. He can’t even lie to himself and say that he doesn’t get to see Jake like this often so he needs to indulge while he can, because the truth is that he often steals Jake away to wrestle or roughouse or just cuddle. But he doesn’t want to stop because Jake is laughing and he’s grinding back on Riki and how often is going to experience that, and Jake even reaches up and tugs at Riki’s hair hard enough to make his head throb – which should be a deterrent but actually makes Riki’s insides go molten and sloshy. So Riki does what he’s been wanting to do basically since Jake brought up buying Riki dinner, and he bites down on Jake’s neck. Hard.
The moan Jake lets out is startling in it’s clarity, so startling that they both immediately freeze. Riki swears that it echoes off of the tiles, or at least off of his tympanic membrane, Jake’s syurupy oh reverberating through his skull on an endless, torturous loop. His eyes dart to the door, fully expecting someone to burst in, but the door says firmly, blessedly closed. The tension melts out of his body and when it does Riki groans as well, a heady, deep thing against where he’s still attached to Jake’s neck. He feels Jake shiver through his teeth, a sensation he wants to repeat as often as he can, but he lets Jake go and takes a step back. He’s all too aware that he’s potentially gone a step too far and he wants to give Jake his space.
Jake slumps over the counter for a moment, tilting his head so that he can get a better look at his neck. The bite mark actually isn’t that bad; Riki can see the indentations from his teeth, but the red mark is already fading. Jake scoffs, but he’s smiling as he turns around and leans his butt against the counter. His lips are shiny with spit and his bottom lip is particularly red, like he’d been biting it when Riki was tickling him, and for a moment Riki is positive that if he doesn’t get his mouth on Jake’s mouth in the next five minutes he’ll actually die.
That thought must come through in his expression because Jake bursts out giggling.
“What’s with the face?” he asks, but it’s teasing like he already knows.
Riki whines. He’s not usually a whiner; he hates being looked at as a little kid when he’s been trying so hard to get everyone to take him seriously, but it’s Jake. He can’t help it. He’s on his way to laying on the ground and crying about it.
“Please?” he whimpers, jutting out his lower lip for emphasis.
“Are you kidding?” Jake asks, but his smile doesn’t drop. He does cross his arms over his chest, but his expression is too cocky to be defensive. “We were already so loud, someone could come in.”
“But no one did,” Riki says. He steps closer, and when Jake doesn’t react, not a raised eyebrow or any indication that he’s going to move away, he takes another step in and places his palms on Jake’s waist. “No one cares. Please?”
“Oh my god, you’re such a – here, come here.”
Jake’s smile is soft and beautiful as he wraps his arms around Riki’s neck and tilts his chin up so that he can look at Riki through his lashes. Sometimes Jake looks at him and Riki is hit with something that he thinks might be close to a religious experience; Jake is just so goddamn beautiful sometimes that it knocks the air out of Riki’s lungs. When fans scream at the sight of Jake, when they talk endlessly about how pretty he is, how desperate they are for him, he can’t even be jealous because he gets it. How lucky he is to be in this bleach-scented bathroom with the most beautiful boy in the world holding him.
Jake plays with the hair at the nape of Riki’s neck for a moment, then his broad hand cups the back of Riki’s skull and he pulls him down with gentle pressure, lining them up so that their breaths mingle. Riki has five seconds to worry about if he’s got coffee breath before Jake’s lips are on his and he isn’t able to think about anything anymore.
Jake’s lips are soft. Of course they are soft, but they are softer than Riki imagined. They are plush against his own and when Jake breaks the small kiss Riki is helpless but to follow, mouth meeting Jake’s over and over again, addicted to the way it feels when they’re pressed together. He doesn’t know how long they kiss like that, close-mouthed and innocent, but he’d happily do it forever.
That is, until Jake’s tongue swipes out. At first Riki thinks it’s a mistake, that maybe Jake’s lips are getting a little chapped, but then his tongue drags along Riki’s lips too slowly to be anything but deliberate, and when Riki gasps his mouth open Jake’s tongue darts inside and swipes along his tongue and a noise bubbles from the back of Riki’s throat that he has no control over.
Tongue kissing is harder for him to get the hang of; every time Jake licks into his mouth his knees buckle and white heat bursts in his gut. And Jake is messy; he’s known this but it’s different when instead of Jake accidentally spitting while he talks or drooling on his own arm, he’s drooling into Riki’s mouth. It’s the hottest thing that Riki has ever experienced in his life, and between happily taking anything that Jake gives him, lapping up the spit that drips down their chins, and figuring out how to suck on Jake’s tongue in a way that’s hot and not painful, he feels simultaneously riled up and also self-conscious. His fingers grapple at Jake’s waist, fingers digging into the soft flesh right above his hip bones hard enough to leave bruises, like he’s afraid Jake is going to slip away if he doesn’t hold on tighter, kiss harder, kiss better.
“Hey,” Jake murmurs when Riki nips at his bottom lip. Jake delivers a bite of his own, sharp and stinging, sucking Riki’s bottom lip into his mouth and then biting it again before he lets it go. “You trying to eat me?”
“Yeah,” Riki croaks. He’d had grand plans of what he was supposed to do if he ever got to this part; he’s got notebooks filled with poetry and lyrics dedicated to Jake that they’d never let him put on an album. But now that he has Jake in front of him, in his arms, now that he’s tasted him, all of his plans have gone out of his head. All he has left is pure want, the dark and overpowering feelings that sometimes are so obsessive and macabre that they freak him out. He didn’t want to admit that he wants to kiss Jake until they literally can’t separate, that he wants to crawl inside of Jake’s mouth and never leave, but his brain to mouth filter is gone and Jake is staring at him with this expression that he can’t read.
And then Jake laughs; it’s not his usual laugh, not the high-pitched lilting giggle. This one is softer, trapped in the back of his mouth. He gently tugs on Riki’s hair, then trails his thumb along Riki’s ear and down his jaw.
“You’re so cute,” he murmurs, and that… that is so not what Riki wanted to hear. His eyes immediately sting and Jake gets blurry in his vision.
“Hyung,” he croaks, and fuck even his voice is wet. “I like you so much.”
“Oh, Riki. Shh, I know.”
Jake swipes his thumb under both of Riki’s eyes, and then he places both of his hands on top of where Riki is still digging his fingers into his waist. He gently loosens Riki’s grip, but instead of pushing him away – which is what Riki expects – he tangles their fingers together and holds them up to the center of his chest.
“I’m right here,” he mumbles. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And it’s not really a confession, but it’s close enough and Riki knows that Jake means it because his eyes are flitting around literally everywhere but on him which means he’s being vulnerable. Riki’s heart flip flops in his chest and his eyes are still annoyingly leaky but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters because Jake is real and solid and he’s going to stay in Riki’s grasp because he likes him back.
The mature thing, the romantic thing, would be to kiss Jake again, to kiss him sweetly and deeply in a way that means something. But Riki is Riki, and so he attacks Jake’s neck again, open mouthed and slobbering, delighting in the way Jake shrieks and laughs and how he can feel the vibrations against his teeth and tongue. He doesn’t let go even when he hears the creak of the bathroom door opening. Jake whacks at Riki’s arm, but Riki has decided that right now is maybe the perfect time to make a hickey, just a small one, just suck on the skin a little and–
“Alright, I get it,” Jay’s voice drawls. “You’re the favorite.”
Riki sucks on Jake’s skin for one more second, actually puts some force behind it, uses his teeth, and then releases Jake’s neck with a sound that is much more wet and loud than he anticipated. He catches Jay’s gaze as he walks to the urinal, and Jay rolls his eyes so hard that for a moment Riki is sure his eyeballs are going to get stuck facing the inside of his skull.
“Don’t mind me. I just gotta piss. Van’s gonna be here soon.”
Riki looks at Jake and Jake looks back at him, his eyes also wide and a little confused. He isn’t sure what he expected from being caught, but it wasn’t the complete butt-hurt nonchalance that Jay is giving him.
“Are you sulking?” Jake asks, his tone short and exasperated.
“No,” Jay says with the type of calmness that is forced. “I’m pissing.”
Jake’s sigh is so heavy it deflates his whole body against the counter. Riki looks between the two of them, tries to communicate with Jake via eyebrow telepathy that he doesn’t pick up on, and then bounds over to Jay and wraps his arms around his shoulders, glomping on much in the same way that he did to Jake earlier.
“Dude what the hell?” Jay yells (more like shrieks, but he will never admit it and Riki will tease him about it to the end of his days). “Oh my god man, I’m taking a piss.”
“I did appreciate when you took me home with you,” Riki mumbles into Jay’s shoulder. “I love you too, hyung.”
“Again, my dick is in my hand.”
“Tell Riki you love him, Jay.”
“No.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“Oh my god.”
Jay shakes off and zips up, and then whips around so fast that Riki loses his hold. Jay holds up his hands dangerously close to Riki’s face, and Riki makes a noise that is also in the decibel range that he will never admit to hitting, and that Jay will likely tease him for for the rest of his life. Jay, with a smirk so heavy it has its own weight class, saunters past him and shoulders Jake out of the way so that he can wash his hands. The bathroom is silent for a solid thirty seconds save for the sound of running water and Jay’s aggressive scrubbing.
“Of course I love you,” Jay finally says, pitching his voice low so that it disappears into the sound of the running water. “Both of you. I’d do anything for you.”
“We know,” Riki says, because he does know. He’s very aware of how loved he is, and is especially aware of Jay’s selfless way of giving love. Jay will never say things; Jay’s way of loving is to sit by you when you really need it, to bring you home when you don’t have a place to stay, to take you out to a fancy dinner just because he wants to see your face when you take that first delectable bite. Jay will cook and spend hours trying to make the dish just right, he trains until he is ready to collapse from exhaustion, he hugs so hard that Riki’s ribs shift under the pressure. Jay gives everything he has to his love, and he never asks for anything back.
“I love you too, hyung.”
Jay’s eyes dart to Jake, and Jake shrugs with a sheepish grin. “C’mon man, you know I love you.”
“Right,” Jay says. He nods. “Good talk. Van is here.”
He walks out ahead of them, doesn’t even bother to hold the door open. Riki glances at Jake, grins, takes a step in, but Jake holds his hand up against Riki’s chest to stop him from getting any closer.
“No more kissing. The van is here.”
Riki shrugs. He takes Jake’s hand in his and twines their fingers together. Jake heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes, but his lips twitch with a smile even as he pulls his hand from Riki’s grasp. He holds the door open, and when Riki starts to step through (not sulking, he’s not sulking) Jake rises up on his tiptoes and presses a wet kiss to his cheek.
Even though Jake sits next to Sunoo in the van, and Jay shoves his earbuds into his ears and falls asleep against the window, Riki feels so full of love he’s practically vibrating with it. If anyone notices him constantly pressing his hand to his cheek, or the way he can’t stop smiling, or the way Jake holds his shirt collar up to his chin to hide his neck, they don’t say anything.