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Before Sunoo learned his fellow boy group members’ personalities and histories, he learned all about their habits, even the ones they were unaware of. When you are seven teenage boys, sharing and living and breathing the same cramped space, you are very quick to pick up on them. Especially the irritating ones. In fact, when you are seven teenage boys, most of your habits are bound to be irritating. You either learn to live with them, or let things come to a head.
For example: Jungwon zoned out in the shower. If left undisturbed, he could easily waste hours away just standing under the water, letting his duties roll off of his back. For all his nagging about cleanliness, Jay never put his shoes away on the shoe rack, but stepped out of them and left them there, lying haphazardly by the entrance. Heeseung, by virtue of spending his youth practicing night and day, was always going somewhere else, even in his sleep. He’d climb out of bed in the middle of the night to change and get ready for practice, and had once made it nearly all the way outside to the street before he’d come to and gone back to sleep, which had caused the company to invest in a child-safe lock.
And Riki talked in his sleep.
To this day, there are a dozen videos floating around in the groupchat, all of Riki at varying stages of sleep, murmuring incoherently as the others giggle silently. Most of them are from when he’d still been small enough to crawl into the space between Sunoo’s arms, burying his cold nose into his chest and slotting his legs between Sunoos. Most of them were taken by Sunoo.
At the time, Sunoo couldn’t understand what he said. Riki’s sleep talking always occurred in his native tongue; a direct reflection of who he was, underneath the idol persona. Who he still was when there were no cameras around. Sunoo wasn’t skilled at Japanese back then, far too occupied with practicing singing and dancing and mastering the perfect expressions and sanding down his edges to fit amongst the intricate seven-piece puzzle that was to be his life for the next seven years. The transition from cut throat competitors to colleagues and roommates and brothers, all rolled into one, hadn’t been as smooth as any of them had hoped.
But he thinks Riki talked about his family most of the time. That much he could understand.
Not long after their debut, Riki stopped climbing into Sunoo’s bed at night. It had been for the better. They don’t talk about what happened. There are a lot of things they no longer talk about. But sometimes, when Sunoo looks at Riki now, he wonders: Ni-ki-yah, do you still talk in your sleep?
The air in the practice room is thick with humidity. Teeth is a monster to be reckoned with; when Riki shows them the choreography for the chorus, the execution of every move, every flick of the wrist, every turn of the head, is intentional, calculated down to the decimal. Riki approaches dance like a science, and choreography as if it works under a law. Teeth is a seductive song, but not as seductive as Bite Me. So: seduction must be balanced with power, and power with fluidity. One movement affects the next, affects the next, affects the next. In Riki’s head, it all makes logical sense, it all adds up to the higher unit that is the choreography as a whole. Sunoo stands in the forest, gazing up at the tree crowns overhead; Riki sees the entire forest from above; its shape, its surroundings, the way the wind blows in the leaves, from East, then from South.
As they go over the choreography together, Sunoo watches his eyes narrow in the mirror as he ponders what changes to make, pulling the members this way and that.
Hyung, can you move a little bit to the left? How about we try this formation instead? I think it would look better if you raised your arm higher.
By the time they go for a water break, Sunoo’s t-shirt clings to his back, sticky with sweat.
“Ni-ki’s really grown up, huh?” says Jungwon, in between catching his breath. They collapse against the back wall. Heeseung and Riki have left for the bathroom, the door echoing shut behind them. He jokes: “He’s grown teeth.”
“Riki has always had teeth,” says Sunoo. He’d always known exactly what he wanted, and had always been hungry for it, hungry enough for his ambition and his genius to gnaw itself out of him as a child. “They’re sharper now, though.”
When Riki and Heeseung return, they’re talking about some viral dance video Riki saw on his Tik Tok page. Riki imitates it in the mirror; it’s some ridiculous dance with wide arm movements. Heeseung imitates Riki imitating the dance, singing the song it supposedly goes with. When Riki laughs, he laughs with his whole body. Jungwon joins them.
Then, Heeseung’s alarm rings. He and Jungwon groan in unison as he turns it off. In the mirror, Riki looks at Sunoo; Sunoo nods with a small smile, gets up to join them as well.
“Okay,” says Riki, authoritative all over again. “From the top.”
Day One. Saitama. They’d opted for an early night. They'd played rock-paper-scissors to determine who roomed with who; Sunoo had blessedly gotten his own room. His body aches from exhaustion, in that way he knows will keep him up for hours, despite his tiredness. He’s tossing and turning, the sheets rustling, considering whether or not to watch an episode of his current drama instead, when there’s a knock on his door.
“Hyung?” Sunoo sits up, blinks blearily. Riki stands in the crack of the door, dressed in his pajamas. “Can I sleep in here tonight? Jay hyung’s sleeping in me and Heeseung hyung’s room.”
Wordlessly, Sunoo scooches closer to the wall, pulling the blanket aside so Riki can slip in. The bed dips from his weight. “Did they kick you out?”
“No.”
Sunoo hums. It didn’t sound like them either. They would've kicked almost anyone from the group. But never Riki.
“I just figured I’d give them some alone time. I think they needed it.”
Sunoo recalls the last time they’d slept in the same bed like this. Before hotel rooms overseas, and outsold shows and enormous crowds and long lines of people wanting to see them in person, them. Before Jungwon and Sunoo had kissed and had agreed to leave it at that for the sake of the group, before Heeseung and Jay had fallen apart and then reassembled each other again and made each other whole and new, before Riki had started shooting into the air and had started to look at Jake in the way that was reminiscient of the way he'd used to look at Sunoo.
The last time they'd shared a bed had been like any other. They hadn't known it would be the last.
Sunoo wonders why he came to him, and not Jake. But then again, Sunoo had never claimed to understand Riki - at least not when it came to that. He doesn't know what's happening between the two of them; if anything is happening at all. If it's a puppy crush or something deeper. If it's mutual. Had the group been younger, he would've fretted more about the uncertainty. They all would. But despite their youth on an individual level, they know the ins and outs of being held under a microscope as a unit well enough now, to know how to handle things on their own, and when to involve the rest of the group.
Besides, somewhere along the way, Sunoo had lost the privilege of imposing on what went on in Riki's life. He doesn't know if he's regained it.
He says: “That's sweet of you.”
A younger Riki would've slotted himself in between Heeseung and Jay and fallen asleep like that, content within the cradle of their arms. A little selfish, a little coy. None of them would've minded it. They all loved to indulge their precious maknae.
This Riki is always considerate, even when he doesn't need to be. And Riki has always had the capacity for kindness. He no longer has the capacity for being young or selfish. It had all been clawed out of him, the hands of a million people, all reaching in at once. These days, selfish displays from Riki were rare enough to be treasured whenever they appeared.
Sunoo folds his hands on his stomach over the blanket. "We're doing Teeth tomorrow. Are you excited?"
"We already performed it in Goyang, hyung," chuckles Riki.
"Isn't there something special about it being in Japan, though?"
Riki hums. "I suppose you're right, hyung. I'm excited."
"I hope you're proud. You should be."
"I am. I'm proud of all of us." There's a short beat. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather perform with. Especially when you guys perform my choreography. It's in safe hands with you."
A lump forms in Sunoo's throat. Words like these, coming from Riki, were equal to a grandiose love confession. More than that, even. Riki lives so he can dance. "I hope you get to choreograph more for us then."
Riki falls asleep at some point. Sunoo knows, because he sleeps in the same way: soft snores, occasionally interrupted by the sound of his teeth grinding together, his jaw tight and tense.
Five, six, seven, eight, he counts under his breath. It’s barely audible. Suddenly Sunoo is reminded of the night he'd woken up to Heeseung getting dressed in the dark. That had been back when they’d all bunked together in their first dorm, in between gruelling dance practices, recording sessions and awkward first lives. When Sunoo had looked over at the time on his phone, it had been 3 am. He'd been lying there, wondering what he was doing. It was the first time Sunoo had seen him sleep-walk; not even in I-land had he experienced it.
Heeseung had almost been by the door, when Riki had stirred next to Sunoo, and they'd shared a confused glance.
Hyung's sleepwalking, Riki had whispered. Riki had been the one to climb down and push Heeseung gently back to bed, and then he'd climbed into his bunk and settled himself next to him, tucking both of them in. You need to go back to sleep, Heeseung hyung. Big day ahead of us tomorrow.
Sunoo waits for Riki to speak. In his dream, he's practicing. One and two and three and-a-four. He’s dancing; he’s always dancing. It’s the thing that has carried him when nothing else could, not his family, not Sunoo, not even his own genius. Sunoo combs his hair away from his forehead.
He doesn’t speak Japanese. Sunoo wonders if that’s because of the nature of his dream, or if Japanese no longer comes as naturally to him.
In his sleep, Riki looks for Sunoo’s hand like an otter. Did you know? Sunoo had once told him, a long time ago. Some otters hold hands when they sleep, so they don’t drift away into the sea. Your representative animal should be an otter.
Sunoo holds on, so he won't get taken by the current.
Riki’s face is more round than it’s angular. It’s a dream or a memory, Sunoo isn’t sure. They’re brushing their teeth in the bathroom mirror, and Riki’s mouth is made of foam. Their shoulders are stuck together, the way they always are. The shower’s running. Jake hums a Justin Bieber song behind the curtain. Sunoo and Riki get eye-contact in the mirror; Riki goes cross-eyed, the corners of his mouth pulls upwards, his nostrils flare. Sunoo laughs at him.
“Remember to floss,” he reminds him, because he won’t do it if no one tells him to.
When Riki spits into the sink, he spits red. “Bleugh,” he says, and washes his mouth out. Sunghoon edges past them to reach for his toothbrush.
“Remember to floss, Ni-ki-yah,” he says.
Riki nods and hums. “I know. Sunoo hyung already told me.”
“Remember to floss, Ni-ki-san!” yells Jake teasingly from behind the shower curtain. Riki rolls his eyes, rummaging in the bathroom cabinet for a pack of dental floss.
“Okay, okay. I'm doing it now."
Sunghoon reaches out a hand to pinch his cheek, and Sunoo concludes that it must be something between a dream and a memory he’s recollecting, because he thinks, with a retrospection that can only come from knowing exactly what happens in the future: cherish it now! All that you can! Soon, he’ll be taller than me and taller than you, complaining about neck pain and his crooked spine, and he’ll be too grown up to climb into anyone’s bed but his own. Hold onto him while you still can!
Day Two. Riki is on the big screen for everyone to see, his lanky arms enveloping Heeseung and Jungwon’s shoulders. In the split second right before he realizes he’s on the big screen, his grin is so wide it nearly fractures his face. Then, he sees himself, and his grin makes way for something more embarassed.
Jay coos into the microphone; they all join in. Our forever maknae.
Sunoo gets to thinking that although they’d been teenagers when they’d met, half-shaped already, although Sunoo had lived many years without him, he thinks he has loved Riki for all his life. In what way, he isn’t sure. Does it really matter? He loves him now, he loved him when they’d been two peas in a pod, he loved him when they’d pushed each other away, he loved him before he’d known him.
The camera stays on Riki as he attempts to hide behind the eldest.
And you are so loved.
They do their ending segment. Being in Japan always seeps Riki’s speeches with sentiment. Once, he had belonged to this island, to this sea, to this sky. How much he has grown while Sunoo has known him. His canines are sharp because he was born with all his teeth, and has spent his teenage years whittling them into points. He can take on whatever comes his way. Sunoo hopes he won't have to, though.
“This has been…” says Jungwon.
ENHYPEN.
They bow, in a long line, hand in hand. Sunoo, next to Jake, squeezes his hand and hopes Jake carries it over to Riki, who stands on his other side.
As much as you love dancing, and your family, and us, you will be loved in return, a hundred-fold. And I hope that for the rest of your life, this is everything you will ever know.