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Among the members, Sunoo is an outlier. An extrovert among introverts, a feeler among thinkers. A gay man among painfully, painfully straight ones.
(Even if the others don't know about that last thing.)
Of course, it's not the members’ fault. They can’t help their personalities, the way they think, their base instincts. But Sunoo also can’t help the pit of loneliness that’s taken up permanent residence in his stomach. The feeling that he's an outsider, just out of reach.
And really, none of them have made him feel like that, but he can't help it. It's hard to feel included when he’s so fundamentally different from the rest, when the other six have so much in common.
But he’s accepted it. He doesn't like it, but he's resigned himself to it, grateful to be a part of the group that he worked so hard for. He should be thankful for what he's been graciously given.
⚣
“Sunoo-hyung?”
Sunoo looks over at Jungwon, immediately on alert when he sees the serious yet awkward expression on the leader’s face as he stands in the doorway to his bedroom. Like he's about to start a conversation he really doesn't want to have.
“What's up, Won?” Sunoo asks, turning his phone off and straightening up in his bed to give him his full attention. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” Jungwon assures him, but his voice is stilted, uncertain. “I just, um, need to talk to you.” To punctuate his words, the door shuts behind him, and oh, this must be genuinely serious.
“You're making me nervous,” Sunoo says, eyes following Jungwon as the younger makes his way to the bed and sits on it. He's tentative when he lowers himself down, very unlike him.
Jungwon chews his lower lip, fidgeting, unable to sit still as he squirms and plays with his fingers, looking everywhere but next to him. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, hesitant. Rather than speaking, he pulls something out of his pocket, a folded piece of paper that he promptly hands to Sunoo. It looks oddly familiar, he can see writing in blue ink bleeding through the page.
When he opens it and reads the first words, his blood immediately runs cold, a flash of panic zipping down his spine as he looks at Jungwon with wide eyes. “How did you get this?” Sunoo asks, voice trembling.
Jungwon still refuses to meet his eyes, his gaze glued to the paper in Sunoo’s hands. “Um, we found it next to the recycling. We weren't going to read it, but it was partially unfolded, and we saw that it was addressed to—”
“We?” Sunoo interrupts, hands shaking. “Jungwon, who else knows about this?”
Jungwon goes quiet, looking even more fidgety and nervous. Oh, no. Sunoo has a feeling he knows.
“Jay-hyung knows,” Jungwon says, and Sunoo’s mind eases for roughly one second before the leader continues and promptly ruins his life. “So do, um, Sunghoon-hyung and Riki.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Sunoo says quietly, stating the obvious. “I— I wrote that during I-LAND.”
Here's the thing — nobody was supposed to ever find that stupid note. The only reason he's kept it the past four years is because it felt too scary to let go of it, to send it off into the world even if through recycling or trash. He was finally ready to rid himself of it, only for it to come right back and bite him in the ass, just as he feared.
“Yeah, I… figured,” Jungwon says. He hasn't looked at Sunoo since coming in. “Um, do you… do you still—”
“No,” Sunoo cuts him off before he can finish. “God, no.”
The letter was a confession, of sorts. An outpouring of a seventeen-year-old Sunoo’s immature thoughts and feelings, feelings he outgrew not too long after writing them down. He’d had a puppy crush on Sunghoon at the time, the type of fleeting obsession only a teenager could experience, one that turned out to just be strong admiration and a tad of jealousy.
Seventeen-year-old Sunoo didn't know that, and he was stupid, and he filled up a page with a confession of his sexuality and mushy words about his alleged feelings, all laid out in blue marker and bracketed by the words To Sunghoon and Sincerely, Sunoo.
But even seventeen-year-old Sunoo wasn't stupid enough to give it to the intended recipient. The letter was a catharsis, an outlet. And it really did help, at the time, to realize his thoughts on paper. He got over his puppy crush within the next few months, but he couldn't bring himself to throw the note away. It felt like a vital piece of himself, a remnant of his naïveté, a symbol of who he was before idol life forced him to grow up.
He doesn't care that Jay saw it. Despite his frankly strange behavior and sharp outward appearance, Jay is a reliable and caring hyung, one whom Sunoo has always been able to communicate with even without words. He'd almost consider Jay to be Jungwon’s right-hand man, dependable and stable.
To be fully honest, he doesn't even care that Sunghoon saw it. That period of his life is over now. He and Sunghoon are close friends, perhaps not as close as they used to be, but the relationship they've built is sturdy and not prone to change. Past feelings are just that: past.
But Riki saw it, too. And that's what scares Sunoo.
Around debut and a bit onward, they were basically best friends, practically inseparable. And then everything happened; the rumors, the speculations, and the subsequent fallout. It’s true that while Riki kept his distance on camera, they were still hanging out outside of that, but things had permanently shifted.
Only in recent times have they started truly repairing that mend. Joking together on camera, becoming comfortable around each other, getting closer in a way they hadn't been even before things changed. Sunoo finally felt like his friendship with Riki was solid and secure again, leaving the past tension behind them.
(And maybe, he’s a little bit attracted to him. The man he's become, the way he's matured, the way he's grown into himself. And maybe, just maybe, there exists a tiny speck of something a lot like love tucked in there somewhere too.)
This, though. This can change things. As much as he'd like to think his members are understanding and progressive, they've never had discussions about anything queer-adjacent, and he has no idea how they’ll take this information. If this will put a strain on his freshly mended relationship with Riki.
“Is it—” Sunoo’s voice cracks slightly and he clears his throat, playing with the letter in his hands. “Is it… okay? That I’m, y’know.” He vaguely gestures to the note, but he still doesn't look away from Jungwon. He's afraid that if he looks down, he’ll see his abdomen split in two, his insides on perfect display, scribbled over in blue marker that reads please, spare me.
Jungwon finally, finally looks at him, eyes impossibly rounder than usual. “What?” he asks with a disbelieving laugh. “Of course it's okay. It's not like you're suddenly completely different now. Obviously you've been this way the entire time we've known you, considering you wrote it during I-LAND.”
Sunoo wants to accept that, he really does. He wants to cling onto Jungwon’s reassurance like a safety blanket, but it's only enough to cover a small part of him, like if Achilles was only invincible on his heel, rather than the other way around.
“What about the others?” Sunoo blurts out, and then immediately braces himself.
“I can't speak for them, really. We didn't talk about it for more than a minute or two, I came right here to give it to you once we saw who it was from,” Jungwon says, running a hand through his blonde hair. “But none of them were, like, weirded out. Sunghoon laughed it off, he seemed endeared if anything.”
Some of the weight on his chest lessens, and he takes a slow breath. “And Jay-hyung? Riki?”
“Hyung was more worried about the fact that we unknowingly invaded your privacy,” Jungwon says with a breathy chuckle. “As for Riki…” The way Jungwon pauses has Sunoo’s heart sinking. “Well, he didn't react negatively or anything. But as soon as we read who it was from, he left to his room, so I'm not sure. You'd have to talk to him.”
That's not reassuring at all. Sunoo chews on his lower lip anxiously, and Jungwon must pick up on it, because his hand is landing on Sunoo’s thigh and squeezing it, a small comfort. At least Jungwon isn't afraid to touch him now that he knows.
“Listen, I’m not really the best with this sort of thing,” Jungwon says after a prolonged silence. “But you should talk to him. All of them, honestly.”
“I know,” Sunoo says with a resigned sigh, propping his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face with his hands. “I will. I think I just need a day or two to process.”
“That's understandable,” Jungwon says. Then, he opens his arms in a direct invitation. “Hug?”
For now, all of the worry seeps out of his chest as he accepts the hug gratefully and holds his leader tightly, burying his face in the crook of the younger’s neck. As long as he has someone as dependable as Jungwon on his side, he thinks he'll be just fine.
⚣
The next day, Sunoo seeks out Jay first. The plan is to knock out the easiest conversation before attempting the other two, easing into the shallow before plunging himself into the deep end.
It goes extremely well. Jay isn't acting any different towards him, if a little apologetic and guilty for stumbling upon the letter, but it's not like it's his fault. It was addressed to one of the members, the sender wasn't revealed until the end of the note; for all they knew it could've been some weird sasaeng and then they'd have a problem on their hands. But it wasn't a sasaeng, it was just teenage Sunoo and the feelings that were too big to carry alone.
The conversation with Sunghoon is a little more awkward. At least, on Sunoo’s end. The older doesn't really seem to mind, his typical indifference to most things helping out a lot in this case. He musses up Sunoo’s hair and calls him cute, to which Sunoo scowls at him, and Sunghoon laughs. He knows they'll be okay.
The conversation with Riki… doesn't happen.
Because Riki is avoiding him.
It's not outright, more of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of ordeal. He's not leaving rooms that Sunoo enters, or ignoring him, or anything the other members might notice.
No, it's a subtle avoidance. Declining Jay’s invitation to eat as just the three of them, his arm twitching to the side when Sunoo instinctively moves to grab it while they're walking, staying away from the tinyz dorm even if it means sacrificing time with Jake, responding to texts and small talk with okay and that's cool, the list goes on.
Somehow, it's more hurtful than if Riki was outwardly mad at him. At least then, he'd be communicating his feelings, but instead he's bottling them up and pretending nothing is wrong when there's clearly a problem. It doesn't help that it feels eerily similar to how they were the past couple years; close in proximity but so, so distant. The worst kind of nostalgia, the kind that sends you back to waking up from a nightmare in your childhood bedroom, the room pitch black as you stumble your way to your parents’ room only to discover a small dorm hallway and suddenly you’re twenty-one again and you're too big for your mother’s lap.
“Is everything alright with you and Riki?”
Okay, maybe Riki’s avoidance was enough to set off alarm bells to the other members.
Sunoo glances over at Jake in surprise. They're in the green room waiting for a photoshoot, staff milling around as the stylists do their work. Sunoo was second in line for hair and makeup, so he's already finished, but Jake is still bare-faced and fluffy-haired. “Why do you ask?” Sunoo deflects, rather than giving him a straight answer.
Jake’s eyes narrow slightly — he definitely knows that Sunoo is deflecting — but he lets it slide. “I haven't seen him around our dorm much,” he says with a shrug. “And he's acting weird. He keeps his distance from you like you're sick or something.”
Sunoo involuntarily flinches at those words, stomach turning with a weird sort of shame. The wording Jake used was terrible, but he's one of the members who doesn't know anything, so it's not his fault. Still, the comparison puts a sour taste in his mouth. Like you're sick or something.
“I don't know, I haven't really noticed it,” Sunoo lies through his teeth, expression carefully neutral. “We're fine, hyung.”
Jake opens his mouth to say something, more than likely to call him out on his bullshit, but the makeup-noona is calling him over before he can get any words out. Jake sighs, shoulders slumping as he gives Sunoo a look that reads you're not fooling anybody before slinking away to the makeup chair.
Sunoo can't help it when his gaze drifts to where Riki sits next to Heeseung across the room, only to find the maknae’s eyes darting away from him like he's been caught. Heeseung notices the interaction and whispers something to Riki, who waves him off and looks down at his phone with an air of indifference.
Sunoo hates how much it hurts, so he looks for Sunghoon to distract himself, nagging the taller man into giving him a sip of his drink, to which he fondly complies after putting up a false fight. Riki’s gaze burns holes into the side of his head, and doesn't relent until the photoshoot begins.
⚣
“Do you still have feelings for Sunghoon-hyung?”
Sunoo nearly spills the bottle of water he'd been filling up by the sink, whipping around to face the source of the question. Riki. It's the first time the maknae has initiated conversation since they found the letter a week and a half ago.
Currently, Sunoo is at the other dorm, for no reason other than pure boredom and a need for a change of scenery. He was going to bother Heeseung into taking him out to eat, but it seems that plan is foiled, and his eyes nervously flick to said man's closed door as Riki speaks.
“What the hell?” Sunoo hisses. “You can't just say that right here. Heeseung-hyung doesn't know.”
Only then does Riki seem to realize where they are — the dorm’s kitchen, to be exact — and he winces. “Sorry,” he says, shifting his weight nervously. “Can we talk?”
Sunoo has been waiting impatiently for this for almost two weeks, and yet, he really doesn't want to have this conversation. Still, he twists the lid onto his water bottle and nods.
Riki’s room is very him. The bed is always slightly messy and the small black sofa is always a bit off-center, needing to be fixed when anyone wants to play games on the TV mounted on the opposite wall. His various collectibles and games are organized in a way that Sunoo doesn't quite understand, but Riki seems to know where everything is.
When they enter, Riki glances between the bed and the sofa, before choosing the bed and gesturing for Sunoo to join him after closing the door. One could assume he chose the bed for its comfort, but Sunoo sees the choice for what it is — there's more space on the bed. They'd be sitting too close to each other on the sofa.
Before Riki has the chance to say anything, words are spilling from Sunoo’s lips. “You avoided me for a week and a half, and the first words you ask me are about Sunghoon-hyung?” The words are laced with disbelief. “What's up with that, Riki? What's up with you?”
Riki looks properly scolded, fidgeting with his fingers as he looks down at his lap. When it's silent for a beat too long, Sunoo keeps speaking, all of his frustrations falling from him unbounded.
“You learned an extremely vulnerable piece of information about me and iced me out right after,” he says, voice thick with hurt. “Now you look at me weird every time I’m with Sunghoon-hyung whom, to answer your question, I haven't had feelings for in years. I could've told you that if you actually talked to me.” Sunoo takes a deep breath, collecting himself so he doesn't work himself up.
“Listen,” Sunoo continues, voice level. “I don’t care how you feel about me being—” The word hangs from the tip of his tongue. He never said the word outright even in the letter, too afraid of the power it holds and the changes it could bring. Still, he has to face this, so he tries again. “I don't care how you feel about me being gay, but I wish you’d at least—”
“I’m bisexual.”
Sunoo’s words die in his throat, eyes wide as he stares at Riki like he just claimed to be the latest reincarnation of Cleopatra. “What?” he asks, voice small.
Riki swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing as his eyes stay fixed on his hands. “I said, I’m—”
“No, look at me when you say it.”
With visible effort, Riki’s eyes drag up to meet Sunoo’s, an expression on his face that the older has never seen before. “I’m bisexual, hyung.”
Sunoo can only blink at him, his brain refusing to process the words. “Oh,” he manages. “Then why—?” Why did you avoid me? Shouldn't you have an idea of how scary it is to be found out?
“I—”
“Riki-yah!” Heeseung’s voice rings through the door. “Stop leaving your shit on the floor, you just nearly killed Jay with a pen.”
Riki looks between Sunoo and the door, looking conflicted. Laid in front of him are two choices — swallow his pride and continue talking to Sunoo, or cut the conversation short to retrieve his pen.
With guilt written over his features, Riki stands up from the bed, and Sunoo can only watch as he opens the door and walks out. After five minutes of waiting to see if he’ll come back, Sunoo cuts his losses and grabs his water. He can't help but notice that Riki is nowhere to be seen when he enters the main room, and Heeseung’s door is closed, the maknae’s quiet laughter ringing out from behind it.
My fault for falling in love with a damn coward, Sunoo thinks, heading to the elevator with even more questions than he had before.
⚣
Riki is still avoiding him. This time, it's even worse.
“Seriously, what's up with you and Riki?”
It's like déja vù when Jake asks the question again, except this time, they have an audience, and Jake looks much more determined to get information out of him.
Sunoo, Jungwon, Jake, and Heeseung sit around the main room of the tinyz dorm, having just eaten a meal together. Heeseung had joined when Jake invited him, the prospect of ramyeon too good to pass up, and Sunoo had been okay with that up until the present moment.
Because now, Sunoo is in a situation with two people who don't know his sexuality. The only two who don't know. And he has to try to explain why he and Riki are on such… strange terms. Before he can, though, Heeseung is speaking up.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, half engaged with the conversation as he plays some random game on Jungwon’s Switch. “Riki’s been really cagey recently.”
Sunoo chews his lip, sharing a glance with Jungwon before looking between Heeseung and Jake. “It's a bit complicated,” he says, not denying that there's something going on. He briefly considers his options — telling them part of what's happening would expose his sexuality, but he doesn't think he can keep it hidden much longer anyway.
“Do you guys know about the note?” Sunoo asks, and in his peripheral, he can see Jungwon’s eyes widen slightly. He's not shocked by the leader’s reaction.
Heeseung looks up from the Switch to look at Jake, then back at Sunoo. “What note?”
Sunoo leans back into the couch with a sigh, looking up at the ceiling to avoid their gaze. “Everyone except you two found a note a couple weeks ago,” he starts. “It was something stupid I wrote during I-LAND. But… in it, I came out.”
Jake straightens up, completely alert, and Heeseung puts down the Switch, now completely focused on the conversation. “Came out?” Jake echoes. “Like…”
“As gay,” Sunoo says, saving them the trouble of having to ask. “And I also had feelings for Sunghoon-hyung at the time, so that was in the note, but I got over that completely not too long after.”
“Oh,” Jake manages, looking a bit lost for words. Heeseung doesn't look much better. Soon, though, Heeseung musters up something to say. “Well, um, we support you in that, you know,” he says, and Jake nods vigorously to assert his agreement. Sunoo has to bite back a laugh at that. “It doesn't change anything.”
“Thank you.” Sunoo can feel Jungwon’s hand land on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly, and he smiles warmly.
“Of course,” Jake says. “So… I’ll assume that the note is what started Riki's behavior?”
“Pretty much,” Sunoo confirms, frowning a little as he thinks back to their conversation. “We talked once, and I know he's not homophobic, so I have no idea why he's avoiding me like this.”
Heeseung and Jake share another glance. It lasts a frankly scary amount of time, and it's even scarier when they both turn back to Sunoo at the same time. “It’ll be fine,” Heeseung says, voice sure like he knows something Sunoo doesn't. “Just give it a little bit of time.”
And really, Sunoo has no choice but to believe it. There's not much else he can do but wait.
⚣
There's a folded note on the floor next to Sunoo’s door.
He almost thinks it’s his when he sees the blue ink seeping through, but a cursory glance tells him that it's a different shade, and it's pen instead of marker. When he opens the note, he can see that the ink is slightly smudged towards the right, almost as if written by someone left-handed.
Oh, god.
When he sees the date scribbled at the top of the note, though, he freezes. It's from the beginning of the year, which means it was written completely independently from the knowledge of Sunoo’s own note. It's a strange twist of fate. Maybe the universe itself was written in cerulean, its most important revelations spilling out in shades of cobalt. Surely there's a reason the sky and the ocean, despite their clarity, appear blue to the human eye.
With a shaky breath, Sunoo reads through the note, swallowing down his nerves.
Hi, hyung. Or maybe just hi to myself, considering I’m not actually giving this to you. Think of it as a sort of ramble. About you. God, I feel pathetic.
We've been getting closer, and you seem a lot happier these days. The selfish part of me hopes it's partially because of me, but really, a lot of good stuff has been going on. You're closer with the other members now too. And even if your happiness isn't because of me, I’m happy no matter where it comes from. After everything, you deserve that.
I’m sorry about the last couple of years. I was a coward for pulling back. I know we've had this conversation before, but still. I’m sorry. I wish I could talk to you easily. I wish it wasn't so hard to look at you sometimes. It's like staring directly into the sun.
I don't know where I’m going with this. I’m just glad we're close again. You'll never see this, but maybe by putting the words somewhere physical, you'll feel them somehow.
- Riki
Sunoo almost thinks that's where it ends, but when he inspects the note, he finds another piece of paper stuck to the back. Same pen, same smudging. Different date.
ADDENDUM October 2024
We found your note. I don't know what to do with this knowledge. It's odd, to know there's another person like me in the group, and it's especially odd that it's you. I think Sunghoon-hyung found the note cute. Do you still like him? I don't know why I’m so invested in your feelings, but for some reason, I’m hoping you don't like him. I might be jealous. I don't know why. I need some space to think about this.
ADDENDUM October 2024 (again)
I cracked.
You're the first person I've come out to.
I’m glad Heeseung-hyung interrupted, I think I almost told you that I like you. It would've been wrong. I don't like you, not like that.
ADDENDUM October 2024 (really? again?)
I don’t like you like that.
Because I think I’m in love with you.
Fuck.
For a brief moment, Sunoo wonders if he's hallucinating. He closes his eyes, counts to three, then opens them again. The words I think I’m in love with you stare back at him once more, sapphire bleeding from the smudged edges. Sunoo runs a thumb over the words, staring at the tangible evidence of the one possibility he never considered, the one thing he never allowed himself to want.
He fumbles around in his pocket for his phone and shoves the note into his other pocket, already leaving his room to head back to the elevator, putting the phone to his ear as it rings and he presses the up arrow button.
“Sunoo?” Sunghoon sounds confused, which is fair, because the younger doesn't call him often.
“Hyung,” Sunoo says, stepping into the now-open doors of the elevator. “Is Riki at the dorm?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sunghoon confirms after a moment of shuffling. “He's in his room.”
“I’m coming up right now.”
“Wh—”
Sunoo feels slightly guilty when he hangs up on Sunghoon like that, making a mental note to apologize later. Right now, he has a one-track mind as he watches the elevator doors open on the other dorm’s floor.
Unsurprisingly, Sunghoon is peeking out of his room, staring at Sunoo with raised eyebrows. Sunoo makes a vague gesture that means pretty much nothing as he bypasses him and knocks on Riki’s door. There's some rustling before the door opens, and when Riki looks down to meet his eyes, he looks frozen.
“Riki,” Sunoo says with a slight tremble in his voice, fishing the note out of his pocket. “Did you leave this on purpose?”
Riki glances around before his fingers wrap around Sunoo’s wrist, gently pulling him into his room before he shuts the door. “I’m sorry, it was impulsive,” Riki says, a non-answer that confirms the statement all the same. “You should just throw it out.”
“What? No,” Sunoo says incredulously, holding the note close to himself. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it's embarrassing,” Riki says, dragging his hands over his face as he plops down to sit on his bed.
Sunoo frowns. “Is anything in the note untrue?”
“No,” he says, uncovering his eyes, “but you should still forget about it. I'm being dumb.”
“Yeah, you are being dumb,” Sunoo agrees, “but not in the way you think you are. You're being dumb because you haven't even given me the chance to say anything.”
Riki goes quiet at that, looking at the ground, soft black hair fanning over his eyes. He's shaking his leg restlessly, and Sunoo sighs, moving to join him on the bed, a parallel to the last conversation they had here. He places a gentle hand on Riki’s knee and squeezes, and the jittery movement stops.
“Riki-yah,” Sunoo says, the younger’s name tinged with cornflower blue as it flows from his lips. “Look at me.”
After a moment of hesitation, Riki lifts his head to look at him. He's got that same look of vulnerability from their last conversation, his sharp and intense gaze softened by something a lot like fear.
“I’m not upset by the note,” Sunoo says, a hand reaching up to brush Riki’s hair away from his face, only for it to fall right back into place. He gives up, but his hand comes to rest on Riki’s cheek, the skin soft and plush. “Quite the opposite. I might even get it framed.”
Riki’s eyes widen with alarm. “Don't you dare—”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Sunoo assures him with a giggle. “But seriously. I’m glad you feel you can trust me with things like that. It's… certainly difficult."
“Hyung,” Riki says, eyes closing as he takes a deep breath. “I really appreciate the reassurance, but I want to get the rejection over with first.”
Sunoo blinks in confusion. “What rejection?”
“The one where you tell me you don't like me like that.”
Oh. That's why Riki looks like he's bracing himself for something.
“You're right, I don't like you like that,” Sunoo says, running a thumb over Riki’s skin. “But I do love you like that. Dummy.”
Before Riki even has the chance to process the words he's just heard, Sunoo leans up and presses a soft kiss to his lips, a chaste couple of seconds. When he pulls back, he holds back a laugh at Riki’s deer-in-headlights expression, knowing it's not quite the time to tease.
Once Riki’s brain comes back online, he properly meets Sunoo’s eyes, irises flicking back and forth like he's searching for something. And then, he's surging forward and recapturing Sunoo's lips with his own, one large hand splayed over the back of his head to pull him closer. Now Sunoo is the shocked one, but he quickly composes himself, adjusting his own hand to sink his fingers into the maknae’s hair. He tastes like polar ice mints, the ones he's been obsessed with the past month, the little blue containers invading both dorms. Sunoo will never be able to have one again without thinking about this.
“I hate you,” Riki mumbles against his mouth after a while, forehead resting against Sunoo’s, his hair tickling the older’s skin. “You scared the shit out of me when you said you don't like me.”
“Yeah, well, you did the same thing to me.”
“...Fair point.”
Sunoo giggles, his mouth meeting Riki’s again for a brief moment. “I’m serious, though. I do love you. A lot. More than a friend.”
The corner of Riki’s mouth curls up. “Best friend?”
Sunoo scowls and flicks him on the forehead as hard as he can muster, earning a yelp as Riki clutches his head. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Riki says with a laugh once he's recovered. “I definitely deserved that. I was joking.”
“You're terrible,” Sunoo says with an exasperated huff, but he can't put up the act for very long, breaking into a smile as he clings onto Riki and tips them both over to land on their backs, pressing a light kiss to the spot he flicked. “You're so lucky you're cute, you know that?”
Riki rolls his eyes, but he can't hide the way he's smiling too. “Yeah, whatever.” The room goes silent for a few moments after that, the two of them breathing in sync as they lie together. It's peaceful, until Riki speaks, his hand moving to run through Sunoo’s dark curls. “I’m sorry for acting like a coward,” he mumbles. “I shouldn't have avoided you.”
“You needed your space,” Sunoo murmurs back. “You went about it a bit poorly, sure, but I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. The best you can do is try to communicate in the future.”
“You're too empathetic.”
“One of us has to be.”
Riki just shakes his head with a little smile. “We really wouldn't be the same without you, you know. You balance us all out.”
Sunoo’s heart warms considerably, and he buries his face in Riki’s shirt to hide his expression. “Cheesy.”
“It's true!”
“Shh. Let's take a nap.”
Riki laughs, shaking Sunoo’s head slightly as he does. “Since when was that the plan?”
“Since now.”
“Okay. Nap it is.”
Sunoo grins, closing his eyes as he pushes his face further into Riki’s shoulder. He doesn't fall asleep, but relaxation washes over him like a bright azure tide.
⚣
(“You did not.”
“Oh, but I did.”
On Sunoo’s desk, in a tiny little frame, a small slip of paper reads:
ADDENDUM October 2024 (really? again?)
I don't like you like that.
Because I think I’m in love with you.
Fuck.
“You're the worst.”
“I think the note begs to differ.”
They end up playfully pushing at each other, which quickly turns into a match that would put WWE fighters to shame. They're giggling the entire time as they poke at each other's ribs and try to gain the upper hand, up until Jungwon comes in and gives them a disapproving glare.
The bruise Sunoo gets from knocking his elbow on the side of his desk blooms in shades of aqua.)