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Maeda Riku was raised around girls. He’s always been close with his mom, and his sisters treated him no differently than they treated each other. They all had a hand on his upbringing, and he carries their handprints with him everywhere. He is a reflection of his environment; a mirror to his beloved family who he left behind.
Riku was always mild mannered. He was polite. Didn’t swear, didn’t yell, didn’t run too fast or play too much, and never fought. When his sisters argued, Riku was brought to the middle as their mediator.
Meeting five other boys to share everything with—a home, a life, a career—had been intimidating in theory. He’d walked into it the same way he did everything else, with grace and confidence. The same way his mother taught him to. It took Riku a while to realize that it was only intimidating because he would be meeting Sion again. Yushi didn’t scare him. Not for longer than a second, with his cute, icy disposition. Yushi warmed up to Riku, so fast that Sion even commented on it. He’d never seen Yushi befriend someone so quickly, apparently. Because that would be something that Sion knew. Because he’d been by Yushi’s side as long as he’d been in the company. Long before Riku came along, forced to bullishly settle himself in between Sion and Yushi like he had been there all along.
They welcomed him warmly. Yushi did it because it was easier to welcome Riku than it would be to reject him, and he was in a place where he’d do anything to debut, and Sion… Sion did it because he was the model SM trainee. The perfect future idol. Handsome, talented, diligent, kind—everything Riku could hope to be.
The rest of the kids were easy. There was Sakuya and Ryo, who Riku had met before briefly, who brought out his nurturing instinct that he’d carried with him from childhood. They clung onto him like a lifeline. And there was Daeyoung, who was so polite and outgoing, who admired Riku for reasons he couldn’t understand and made him feel immediately at ease. Those three were simple. They stuck to Riku like they’d known him forever.
There was a distinct separation that Riku caught on to quickly. The golden, long-time trainees and those who had been at the company for only a year or less. The divide made Sion feel sad, he’d confessed to Riku one night.
“I don’t know what to do,” he’d said, quiet and scared in the dark of their shared room. The hum of their aircon and their breaths were the only sound prior. Riku’s breathing must have been kind enough, safe enough, warm enough that Sion felt comfortable opening up. “I don’t know how to get them to warm up to me.”
Riku hummed thoughtfully. Sometimes, he would wish he was asleep already. He didn’t know what he could say to Sion that would matter. “Just keep going as you have been. They’ll warm up soon.”
Silence followed for a long beat, so long that Riku began to think Sion fell asleep. But then there was a shaky breath, and Sion asked, “Have you?”
The truth was that Riku took the longest out of them all. It took him a long time to feel truly comfortable around Sion, although he was always the first to know when their leader was struggling. He was the first to offer support, to help find a solution, to be a shoulder to lean on.
It was a much different dynamic that Riku was used to at home. He was the youngest of his siblings, always the baby of the family, but here he became the second oldest. It was a nice difference, welcomed even, but he had a feeling he’d soon come to miss being taken care of. He couldn’t possibly add that onto Sion’s plate.
Riku’s mediation skills still hold up today, and sometimes it works against his favor. Ever since Sion dragged Sakuya to Riku’s room and let them pierce one ear each, Sion and Sakuya have been nearly inseparable. Which is great, and partially what Riku hoped would happen when he gave Sion that naughty cat look and handed Sakuya the piercing needle. But Riku was there too, so why are they barely giving him a second glance? He practically facilitated the whole thing, back during pre-debut and now, and Sion did thank him, but watching his boyfriend laugh with their maknae over breakfast about whatever game they played together the night before leaves Riku feeling a little bit left out.
He knows it's stupid. Sakuya is just a kid. He and Sion have always been close, despite their age difference and any tension previously caused by Sakuya getting his ears pierced by a certain other member behind Sion’s back. So why should Riku be feeling annoyed?
Riku doesn’t expect anything in return from Sakuya. If anything, Riku did it for Sion’s sake. He doesn’t even really expect anything from Sion. He only did it to help, but he can’t help the sour taste in his mouth.
Despite his earliest concerns, Riku has grown to love his role as a hyung. He loves babying Sakuya and Ryo, teasing and cooing at them like he birthed them himself. He loves being reliable. Sakuya used to come to him for advice all the time—for help with getting a certain dance move right, or how he should deliver this rap line, or even stress and anxiety management. Now he goes straight to Sion. As Sion’s partner, who knows the stress he’d put himself under wondering whether he’d make a good leader or not, this change makes Riku happy. But when he thinks about it all alone, from his own unbiased perspective, it makes Riku feel like he’s no longer needed.
The reality is that they all need each other. Riku needs Sion too. Sion often reminds him to come to him when he’s having a hard time, but Riku’s stubbornness gets in the way. This situation is troubling him, and he thinks about how easy it would be to go to Sion. Riku would tell him how he feels, that he’s glad he and Sakuya are doing so well but he’d like some attention too, please.
When he thinks about it, Riku can’t tell Sion. It’s so stupid. He doesn’t want to come across as a burden, doesn’t want to seem childish for it. Sion would probably think that Riku is old enough, smart enough to get over it on his own. Riku doesn’t want to risk turning Sion away from him.
Riku knows that’s silly too. It’s his only hyung he’s thinking about—his kind, caring, and thoughtful hyung. But there’s always the risk, and as much as the lack of attention is getting to him, losing Sion for real would kill him.
Riku isn’t used to not getting his way. His mother used to always tell him, “how could anyone say no to that sweet face?” The problem isn’t that Sion is saying no. The problem is that Riku can’t even ask.
The issue comes to a head a few days later. Days after they’ve each slept alone, days after minimal conversation and nothing between them except for a meaningful look or a head rested on the other’s shoulder. Riku tucks himself into bed and shuts off his lamp just as a soft knock sounds at his door.
Sion’s head pops in before Riku can ask who it is. “Hey,” he whispers, in case Riku’s already asleep.
“Hey,” Riku whispers back. He waits for Sion to come in and softly shut the door behind him. He’s not exactly sure why, but seeing Sion has him tensing up. Sion could call him out on his behavior. He could make Riku explain it all to him. “Could you not sleep?”
Sion looks offended as he crosses Riku’s room toward the bed. “I missed you. That’s all.”
Riku’s entire demeanor softens. In his attempt to contain his own emotions, he supposes he’s been a bit cruel to Sion. “I missed you too, hyung.” It’s the truth, vulnerable and shaky leaving Riku’s mouth. For two people in the same group, who sometimes spend every second of the day together, they don’t get much time like this.
“Can I sleep here?” Sion asks, tentatively sitting on the edge of Riku’s bed. Riku’s hand is splayed on top of the comforter—Sion’s fingers rest a centimeter away. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”
Riku finds himself laughing, and rather than answering, he lifts the comforter and shuffles toward the other edge of the bed, making room for Sion.
Sometimes their busy schedules and lack of alone time don’t mean anything at all. Not when things fall so comfortably between them, silence like a warm hug as Sion crawls into bed with Riku. They meet in a space where words aren’t always needed.
Riku’s not mad at him. He’s a little frustrated with himself, and answering Sion would mean needing to lay it all out in front of both of them, and Riku isn’t even sure how to say what he feels or if he wants to at all. But Sion can be a chronic overthinker, so Riku wipes away any worries by pulling Sion in with hands cradling his face and kissing away any remaining tension.
Sion gives in easily, forever quick to be soothed by Riku’s touch. He kisses back, tangling his fingers through the long hair at Riku’s nape. Riku smiles into it, and Sion kisses his teeth, and then he’s smiling too. Riku pinches at Sion’s earlobe.
“Are they still sore?” He asks, breath fanning across Sion’s lips.
“No,” Sion replies, the warmth between them pulling them in like a magnet as he presses his lips against Riku’s again. And again, and again. His own fingers find Riku’s ear, tugging lightly on the earrings he wears. Almost as if to say yours healed, mine did too. Everything we go through, we go through it together. “They healed perfectly. You’re a professional.”
Sion’s fingers trail up the curve of Riku’s ear, and he pinches his cartilage where his helix piercing used to be. Digs his thumbnail in, just a bit. As if Riku doesn’t know exactly what’s coming.
“Would you want it repierced?” Sion asks him. It’s Riku’s own game that he’s playing. It doesn’t come as a surprise, especially not after the first few times Sion asked.
Riku can’t help but laugh. Maybe it’s karma for him bothering Sion about piercing his ears so much.
The hole closed up from disuse during Riku’s break. Before that, he struggled keeping it safe from infection. He liked it, he misses having the extra piercing all the time, but it was too much trouble. Riku isn’t sure he’s worth that. He shrugs. “Maybe.”
It’s warm with Sion’s arms wrapped around Riku. It’s a safe place. Somewhere he’s understood without needing to explain himself too much, loved even when he makes himself hard to be loved. Somewhere that Riku can be like a child again. Unburdened, protected, adored. Sion clings closer, and Riku laces their fingers together.
“Come to me,” Sion whispers into Riku’s hair. “When you need somebody. Don’t hide away, please.”
Riku does not go to Sion. He doesn’t hide away, but he doesn’t go to Sion. He keeps to himself to maintain the peace. Everyone else is in such a good place, why should Riku disrupt the balance just because he doesn’t want to act his age? Sion treats the youngest as the youngest and the second eldest as the second eldest. Sion is a fair leader, a good one despite all his worries.
Riku knows it’s getting a little bit ridiculous when Ryo finds him during their break in practice with his acute sense for even the slightest upset in Riku’s demeanor. He sidles up next to Riku, grabs him by the hand to sling his arm over his shoulders, hugs his own arm around Riku’s waist. Riku’s human power bank. Ryo has always been shockingly emotionally mature, and Riku has always been grateful for that. Getting to debut with a kid like that made all the hard parts a little easier, and all the easy parts a little more fun.
“What’s wrong?” Ryo asks, patting Riku’s head like he could protect him from all evil in the world with a simple touch. Sometimes Riku is sure that he can.
Riku’s phone screen is shoved into Ryo’s face. It shows fans lamenting Riku’s missing helix piercing, begging to see it once more. Riku puts very little thought into fans’ wishes about his appearance—as long as he’s happy with himself then he won’t change to their expectations. It’s too exhausting to keep up with everything. But it sparks a little bit of interest this time because he’s been feeling the same way.
Ryo takes Riku’s phone out of his hands, scanning the comments with furrowed eyebrows. “Do you want it redone?” Ryo asks, handing Riku’s phone back over. “Just re-pierce it.” Like it’s that simple.
Maybe it is, but Riku drops his phone in his lap and buries his face in his hands to hide away from all the comments. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I thought it looked so cool,” Ryo muses, looking out into the expanse of the room like he’s watching a memory play over in his mind. “You always made me want to pierce my ears.”
Riku gawks at the confession. He places his hand on the top of Ryo’s head, turning to face him head on and stare speculatively, eyes narrowed. “You said never ever! You know, words have meanings, Ryo-chan!”
The only catalyst known to Riku for Ryo itching to get his ears pierced was his cool Sionie hyung getting his done. A sentiment Riku thought was so sweet in the moment, that he immaturely looks back on, now tinged in bitterness. Sakuya doesn’t need Riku anymore, Ryo never idolized him like he secretly does Sion. “It’s true that I never wanted to actually do it!” Ryo defends himself, ducking his head out of Riku’s grasp. “It doesn’t suit me like it suits you and Sakuya. And Sion hyung now, I guess.”
Childishly, the addition of I guess has Riku feeling a little smug. He decides to let the feeling wash over him, accepting it without shaming himself. It’s already childish enough that he refuses to go to Sion about it. The least Riku can do is own that.
“Maybe hyung would do it for you,” Ryo tacks on. “Since you did his.”
“It was infected,” Riku tells him. It was sore and swollen and aching. His body rejected the piercing. His body rejects getting Sion’s help. “It was gross. It won’t work.”
Ryo visibly does not believe a word out of Riku’s mouth. “You could take care of it better. You hardly had time before. Hyung could help.”
Whatever agenda Ryo is obviously on about fixing Sion and Riku’s relationship is starting to get under Riku’s skin, crawling all over him, creating an itch he just can’t scratch. There’s nothing wrong between them. It’s just a strange feeling of envy and self-isolation warping Riku’s perspective. Everything will smooth itself out in a few more days.
“I think you’ve got to give yourself some more patience,” Ryo tells him, all-knowing as he sits up, stretching his arms.
In their career, Riku has had to be steadfast in his confidence. He’s guarded his own heart exhaustingly, feels the need to protect everyone else first and protect himself with whatever energy he has leftover in his reservoir. But he remembers the day, not long after their debut was confirmed, that Ryo came to him. Eyes wide and glittering, full of wonder as he looked up at Riku. Riku still remembers the waver in his voice, the tremble in his hands as he tucked them behind his back. The way he’d confessed that he was scared. Riku hugged him tight against his chest—afraid of the responsibility, terrified he’d mess it all up, but thanking fate for giving him the little sibling he’d always dreamt of.
I’ll always be by your side, Ryo-chan, Riku told him. Ryo’s little hands balled fists into Riku’s hoodie. His gaze shifted into something more serious, sincere, resolved.
I will protect you too, Ryo said, determined. Eyes still sparkling, but his voice was clear. He made up his mind. I swear. Nothing will ever hurt you if I can help it.
How silly it is, to be sworn to safety by a teen boy. But Riku has seen firsthand how intensely Ryo loves, how he adores his sister and works harder every day for her sake, how he babies Sakuya despite being just a few months older, how he gives in to Daeyoung’s doting just because he knows it makes him happy. Ryo has done the same for Riku. Protected him, in his own way, every single day since he swore to.
Now, when Ryo looks at Riku again, just as earnestly, his voice doesn’t waver. His hands don’t tremble. “As much patience as you give the rest of us.”
The sentiment settles itself deep inside Riku’s chest. Ryo’s gentle voice carves a space into Riku’s heart, making itself at home.
In hindsight, Riku should have gone to Sion much earlier. Riku is typically the more decisive of the two, but when he’s torn up with a decision, Sion can be a gentle, guiding hand in the process. It’s just too much to put on Sion’s plate. Too complicated, too layered. Riku can’t ask Sion for the answer when he doesn’t even have the question figured out.
Ryo is right that Sion would help. If Riku knows Sion at all, he’d do anything he could to help. It just isn’t an option right now. Riku did Sion’s piercings, but he also did—
“Riku,” Sakuya barges into his room. He's taking on some of Sion’s manners. “Ryo said you want your helix pierced.”
Riku had no idea he was surrounded by a group of gossips. “I don’t.” He sits up quickly, but he’s even quicker to deny it. The denial sits heavy around him, uncertain in its root. Would someone think less of him if he went back on his decision to close it? Isn’t it silly to pierce it again after he gave up on the first try?
“Well, he said you do,” Sakuya says. He looks impartial, like he’s just the messenger on a journey greater than himself. “Should I get Sionie hyung? He can help.”
Riku’s demeanor softens, his shoulders slumping as he sighs. He doesn’t think he’s been hiding from Sion, but both maknaes are so quick to step in to mend whatever gap they think has split between them. Maybe Riku is hiding. He’s a coward. “Don’t get Sionie hyung. I don’t… I don’t want to bother him with this.”
Sakuya just looks confused, eyebrows knitted together and a small frown across his lips. “I don't think you could ever bother him.”
“I don’t think you could,” Riku echoes back. “Or Ryo, or Jaehee, or Yushi. But I’m supposed to be the second oldest. I’m supposed to be independent.”
“Did Sionie hyung tell you that?”
“Hey,” Riku scoffs, shoving lightly at Sakuya’s shoulder. “You are turning into such a little brat. Who’d you learn that from?”
Sakuya just smiles, and an unbidden warmth creeps around Riku’s heart. “You’re the one who taught me how to stand my ground.”
“If I decide to pierce it, would you do it for me?” Riku asks. It’s easier to ask a teenager, someone who should rely on him, than it is to rely on Sion.
“I’ll think about it,” Sakuya replies, feigning nonchalance. He looks excited to be considered. Riku realizes he’s been feeling left out while refusing to let anyone in. “If you talk to Sionie hyung.”
“I talk to hyung!” It’s immature, pretending he doesn’t know what Sakuya means because he didn’t display the terms flat out. Riku talks to Sion. They talk so much, Riku just leaves out everything that matters. “I miss you, is that so wrong? That I want my Saku-chan to pierce my ear for me? It’ll be like the good old days.”
Graciously, Sakuya only smiles at Riku. He doesn’t say anything like stop living in the past. He says nothing about Riku trying to recreate memories that just can’t be replicated, their lives being too different than they were just two years ago, being too changed as people to relive one moment that Riku has desperately clung onto. “You know, it isn’t like I need either you or Sionie hyung,” Sakuya says, voice mature and gentle. He looks at Riku with kindness in his eyes, something like admiration warming up all his features. “I need you both. I can’t do any of this without you.”
It’s exactly what Riku needs to hear from him. Not a thank you, not an admission of his preference for Riku, nothing that sets him on a pedestal or separates him from Sion in any way. It’s as simple as a kind smile, as sweet as Sakuya’s voice is when it’s hushed like it’s something private and personal. As mundane as a tender moment on a small scale, but as remarkable on a cosmic level as fate knowing that one little brother was not enough for all the love in Riku’s heart, and gifting him with two.
If Riku can accept the gentleness from Sakuya, who is four years younger yet so emotionally mature, then he supposes he can accept it from his only hyung.
Nobody is forcing him into his role. He’s the second oldest, yes, but nobody told Riku he had to push aside all of his needs. They never said he had to present only strength, and never vulnerability, to Sion. Sion has told him over and over to come to him. They’ve both said it to each other, endlessly stuck in a cycle of stubbornly holding out, waiting for the other to break down first. Riku decides that he might not want to break before he lets himself be helped. It’s too tiring to be split apart fully and tediously pieced back together, when love can so easily plaster the earliest stages of a crack, stitch together a too painful paper cut, mend the wear and tear of Riku’s sensitive, bleeding heart.
Ryo checking in on him during a quiet moment is love. Sakuya sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong is love. Sion waiting for him, forever patient, arms open wide, is love.
Sion comes to Riku’s room again like a white flag raised. Surrendering in a battle he didn’t know he was fighting. It’s early morning, Riku’s just woken up and hardly rubbed the sleep out of his eyes enough to consider rolling out of his bed and into Sion’s.
It’s completely out of Sion’s character to be up and about this early, and he wears a solemn look across his handsome features. Riku sits up quickly, preparing for bad news.
“Is something wrong?” He asks, reaching his hands out as Sion crosses the room toward him. Sion looks pale, dark circles looming under his eyes like he hasn’t slept. His t-shirt is soft and rumpled, lines of folded fabric stamped into his arms. His lips are red and bitten. When he reaches Riku’s bed, he nearly falls into his arms. “Hyung, are you sick?”
Sion rests himself against Riku, arms circling his waist. He squeezes tight, and his warmth soothes Riku’s aches. Riku hates himself for not asking for help. Hates himself for trying to deny that he needed this. “I am sick,” Sion says. He presses his face against Riku’s chest, and Riku feels the warmth of his cheek through the fabric of his sleep shirt. He presses the back of his hand against Sion’s forehead.
“Don’t think you’re running a fever, at least...” Riku grabs Sion by the shoulders pushing him to sit up so that he can further examine. Sion’s cheeks are pink, but he feels mostly a normal temperature. A bit warm with sleep, cozy with the mess of hair on his head. But worry still floods Riku’s mind, as he imagines a scenario where it’s Sion who has to take a leave and Riku has to try and fill in all the gaps he’d leave behind. Imagines Sion sick and alone, no Riku to hold when he’s scared and no Sakuya or Ryo to cheer him up. “What’s wrong? Should I call a manager?”
“I’m worried sick,” comes Sion’s clarification. He grabs at Riku’s waist again, if only to anchor him down. Take away Riku’s tendency to float away, keep him present. “The kids told me you’ve been upset. I’m worried sick about you.”
The hold on Riku’s waist does little to stop him from nearly pushing Sion out of bed. “Don’t scare me,” he says with annoyance coloring his voice, edging out the relief. “I thought something was really wrong.”
“But something is really wrong. I’m sorry I had to learn it from the kids.” Sion sits up, fully stable, and sifts his fingers through Riku’s hair.
Riku’s mother used to comb his hair for him every morning. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror as his sisters argued over whose turn was next, as his mother sprayed water to detangle his thick hair, as he blinked away sleep and tried to hold his high and keep from nodding off. He’d catch his mother’s gaze in the mirror, adoring, and his sisters would call him pretty as he passed by, soothing their chaos. They would all eat breakfast together, hair neatly combed, and his middle sister would ask if they could play dress up with Riku. Their mother would laugh, but Riku answered yes every time. Riku was pampered every day of his life, before he coldly uprooted it all with his own bare hands and tried to transplant it in an unfamiliar vessel, some place where he became the oldest, where it began to feel foreign to be pampered.
Sion’s fingers are quite different from the wooden comb his mother used, but the feeling is all the same, and tears well up in Riku’s eyes. “I wish those little ones would mind their business,” he tells Sion bitterly, but the taste is thick on his tongue and clogged in his chest. It doesn’t quite fit with the words. He doesn’t quite mean it.
“Riku,” Sion gasps as he notices the tears. One of his hands comes to cup Riku’s face, thumbing away a teardrop. The touch is so tender, the very glue Riku needed to hold him together, and more tears spill down his cheeks.
Sion doesn’t ask him what’s wrong. He doesn’t poke or prod at the gaping wound in front of him, he just holds Riku closer. Runs his hand through Riku’s hair over and over, bandaging him up with slow breaths and a steady heartbeat pressing into his.
“Hyung,” Riku whispers, voice trembling. His fingers clutch Sion’s t-shirt and his tears wet it. “I’m sorry, it’s childish. I just need your attention.”
“Oh.” Sion’s voice is as gentle as his hand soothing down Riku’s back. He doesn’t scold Riku. He doesn’t tell him he’s right, it is childish. He doesn’t click his tongue or ask why Riku didn’t come to him before. “Baby. Hyung is here, you have my full attention. Whatever you need.”
It is still too difficult, weighing too heavy on Riku’s chest, to explain that he’s jealous of Sion’s bond with Sakuya or Sakuya’s bond with Sion or some misguided combination of both. He’s left out of something he started. He isn’t strong enough to ask for what he wants. What he wants doesn’t matter enough to go out and grab it. No one will love him with the same full focused intensity that he loves with.
But Riku doesn’t need to explain, because even without words, Sion has always understood his heart. Their souls sing in tune to one another, their hearts beat in time, their breathing syncs. Even in a million lifetimes from now, Riku would hope he’d end up with Sion by his side and the rest of the group backing him up.
“I don’t know why, but I miss you,” Riku tells him after he has calmed down. His breathing is even, the tears are drying up. Sion presses a kiss against Riku’s salty, tear soaked mouth, and then another for good measure.
“I’ll come see you every morning,” Sion says. He kisses the tear track on Riku’s cheeks.
Sion presses their lips together again, kissing at the corner of Riku’s mouth and across the seam of his lips and Riku smacks him on the shoulder to remind him to focus.
“Or every night,” he amends. “I’ll sleep over.”
“It’s not like that,” Riku murmurs, twisting his fingers in the fabric of Sion’s pajamas. He busies his gaze with watching it, observing how the cotton wrinkles in his hands. How he can smooth it out with the press of his palm. “Do you ever feel like you’re missing an important part of yourself? Like there’s a hole that can’t ever be closed, no matter how hard you try or how bad it hurts to be open?”
“I feel like I’m missing something all the time. It’s impossible not to.” They’ve talked about it before. Missing normalcy, or self expression, or anything else that was rendered impossible when they signed themselves away to the company.
Riku takes a deep breath and reaches within. He digs deep, hands marred by the stubborn, jagged edges he pretends aren’t there. It hurts, but he unearths something bloody and infected. Something aching and swollen, and he offers it up for Sion to see. “What if you have enough memories without me that you end up forgetting all about me? If you make more memories with everyone else, maybe you won’t need me anymore.”
It looks like it hurts Sion just as much. But he grabs the infected thing with cautious, brave hands, and wipes it clean. “I would sooner forget myself than forget you. You take up every corner of my mind and my heart. There’s not a single memory I have made that I can’t trace back to you.”
Riku’s fingers find Sion’s earlobe, pinching at the space around the piercing, tugging at the earring. They have so many memories together, including that one, so why does it sting like saltwater in his open wound?
Sion presses his fingers to the very same point on Riku’s ear like he’s looking into a mirror. A reflection to his insecurities, a foil to his fears. And then Sion’s fingers travel up, and the mirror shatters when he pinches Riku’s old helix piercing.
There’s a knock at the door and Sakuya’s low voice traveling in from outside. Riku had sat him down to talk about privacy. Sakuya is a better listener than Sion.
Riku thinks it might be divine timing. Sakuya looks between them, cringes like it’s a rehearsed reaction but smiles because he can’t help it. “Sorry if I’m interrupting,” he says, a little shy like he’s unsure if he heard his instinct correctly. “But I thought about it, and I’ll pierce your ear if you really want me to.”
Sion looks from Sakuya to Riku with wide eyes. “You want to re-pierce it?” He asks, like he didn’t ask Riku weeks ago, like Riku didn’t have the audacity to say no.
“I’m scared because it’s cartilage,” Sakuya tells Riku, stepping closer as he visibly convinces himself it’s okay. “I don’t know if I’ll do a good job. Especially since it got infected last time.”
“I think I want to try again anyway,” Riku says. The infection was a pain, but everything worthwhile takes care and energy to nurture into something beautiful.
Sakuya’s face is still reading as uncertain. “Are you sure you don’t want hyung to do it?”
Riku laughs out loud before he covers his mouth with his hand, too late to save Sion from the half offended look on his face. The thought of Sion hovering with a needle a centimeter off of Riku’s face is a bit scary. “It’s the same as the earlobe,” Riku tells him. “You just have to push a little harder.”
“Riku hyung,” Sakuya sighs. “I’m scared. What if I mess it up and Sion hyung gets mad because I stabbed you in the head with a needle?”
“Saku.” Sion’s voice is exasperated, as if they’ve gone over this before. And maybe they have, in different circumstances. Sakuya might be holding on to some fear of Sion’s anger over Riku piercing his ears. “I told you, I was never mad because Riku might have stabbed you with a needle. I know Riku would never do that.”
A sneaky, amused grin crawls across Sakuya’s lips. “But I might.”
“Hyung won’t be mad,” Sion promises. Sakuya seems to have been torturing him for his missteps years ago. Riku tsks, switching quickly from Sakuya’s side to Sion’s. “I will never be mad at you.”
“Hyung,” Riku gently butts in. He conquers his fears one at a time as he opens the drawer to his nightstand and pulls out his equipment. It hasn’t been long since they used it, but it’s much more daunting than it was even with Sion’s disappointment hanging over his head from its first use. “Why don’t you do it with him? I think Sakuya would prefer that.”
Riku doesn’t say that he would prefer it. That the shared experience between the three of them again would start to piece together that hole within him. That the care it would require for Sion and Sakuya to hold the piercing needle, hand in hand, would coddle Riku in a way he hasn’t been able to ask for.
“Okay,” Sion easily agrees.
Sakuya raises his eyebrows. “Okay?”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Sion grabs the red marker and reaches toward Riku’s right ear, right below where his old piercing was, but Sakuya stops him. “Let’s do it on the left. Like a fresh start.”
Sakuya knows not to reopen the wound. The two of them share a private smile as Sion draws a little dot on Riku’s left ear instead.
It’s a clean slate. A memory of something brand new that he’ll share with both of them forever. A memory centered on himself, and as much as he wants to turn away from it and bury it deep and call himself selfish for it, Riku loves it. He basks in their attention.
Riku doesn’t even worry when Sion and Sakuya are bickering with a needle pressed to his ear. It doesn’t hurt—he hardly feels it.
Sakuya takes pictures to run off and brag to Ryo and Sion cleans the piercing for Riku with leftover solution from when his were freshly done.
“If it even starts to feel infected,” Sion murmurs, voice quiet as he focuses on running the solution soaked cotton swab gently along Riku’s piercing. “We’ll take it out right away.”
Sion directs him to the mirror, just as Riku did for him. Stands behind him with a proud smile, watching Riku take it in. It’s been over six months since he’s seen himself with a fifth earring stacked on, so it’s almost like a reflection of the past. This Riku is brand new, reborn with the cocoon of love from his members swaddling him.
“I feel like a burden to you sometimes,” Riku confesses quietly, able to meet Sion’s eyes only in their reflections.
“I love you. You aren’t a burden,” Sion assures him, arms winding around Riku’s waist and pulling him flush against his chest. He kisses Riku’s neck, just below his ear. “Even if you were, it’s a burden I’d gladly carry.”
A new memory, a joy that springs eternal. A burden that is weightless to those Riku loves.
Sion kisses his ear. Everything we go through, we go through it together.