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Yushi wasn’t much of a talker. He chose his words carefully, and they were always enough. He only repeated himself when he had to.
Turned out, with Riku and Daeyoung, he had to.
The first time he asked the question was so long ago he couldn’t even remember when. It was somewhere in the fog of late-night rehearsals, the sweat dripping from his hair into his eyes. His vision blurred, his limbs heavy with exhaustion. He hadn’t eaten properly, hadn’t slept enough. Maybe that was why the words slipped out.
“You two are dating, aren’t you?”
It stopped them cold.
Riku and Daeyoung had been laughing, their voices soft and close, overlapping like the way their shoulders always seemed to find each other. They were always connected somehow, like two charging cables tangled in the same bag.
Then silence.
No answer. Not even a glance in his direction. For a second, Yushi wondered if he’d said it out loud at all. But something had changed. He could feel it.
Riku stood up a moment later, too fast, too cheerful. He clapped his hands and told everyone to get back to practice, even though the break wasn’t halfway through. Yushi didn’t say anything.
And when he stepped into position for the next routine, Riku looked at him.
He didn’t speak, but he mouthed it. A simple, quiet no .
Yushi continued with his life as if his eyes saw nothing and his ears heard even less.
And yet, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he heard the water running through the pipes in the walls of Riku's bedroom. He heard the hiss of steam slipping out from beneath the door, the soft laughter and giggles echoing through the hall, muffled by distance but unmistakable. Still, he told himself he must have misheard. Maybe Riku was just talking on the phone while taking a shower. After all, Daeyoung was assigned to the bathroom in Yushi’s room, not Riku’s.
But then his eyes saw what his ears attempted to deny.
The door creaked open, releasing a wave of steam that clouded more than just the air. And stepping out was Daeyoung, his feet still wet, leaving faint prints on the floor. His tall frame was wrapped in a towel Yushi instantly recognized. The soft fabric, the Kuromi design, the shade of lavender just slightly faded from frequent use. It was definitely Riku's.
“Oh, Yushi hyung,” Daeyoung stammered, clearly caught off guard. “I thought you were playing games with Sakuya in the other dorm.”
“Sakuya was sleepy,” Yushi replied flatly, his voice distant, swallowed by the flood of thoughts rushing through his mind.
“I thought you were asleep, so I did not want to walk through your room just to take a shower.”
“Did not you just say you thought I was in the other dorm?”
Daeyoung’s usual eloquence and quick wit deserted him in that moment. It felt like he had reached a dead end, a one way street with no way out.
But Yushi saved him by finding a moment of clarity. As soon as the single drop sliding down Daeyoung’s chest and abdomen stopped distracting him, Yushi rushed back to his room, telling himself that maybe it was only Daeyoung, maybe he was singing in the shower or watching YouTube. Yet that thought gave him only a few minutes of ease before he returned from splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom he, at least on paper, shared with Daeyoung. When he stepped into the kitchen, Riku was standing there wearing nothing but the exact same towel Daeyoung wore. Their laughter and jokes sounded very familiar, like those he head moments ago, even though this time they were no longer mixed with splashes of water. Yushi did not know how much time passed, but he was almost certain Riku had no time to take a shower from the moment Daeyoung walked out until now, considering his hair looked almost dry too.
“You two are dating, aren’t you?”
His question was nearly drowned out by the boiling water waiting for the ramen packs to be dropped in. For a brief moment, Riku hesitated, denying it with a quick shake of his head, but his eyes never met Yushi’s. Then, shifting the subject, he said, “Yuu-chan, do you want to eat ramen with us? We can add one more pack!”
“Also no,” Yushi replied flatly.
Yushi was a sweet person, but when he held a grudge, he held it firmly. Since his questions were met only with negative answers, his replies became just as cold.
“Yushi hyung, we'll order dinner, what do you want to eat?”
“Yuu-chan, do you fancy an eel rice bowl right now?”
“Hyung, we really crave pizza right now, wanna join?”
“Yuu-chan, why don't you have dinner with us?”
Yushi sat quietly in his corner, eating his food and observing. He had sworn he would not ask the question again, sworn he would not put himself through being lied to.
And yet, when he saw Daeyoung’s spoon, loaded with fluffy white rice and a perfectly placed piece of glazed eel, dance through the air to land on Riku’s tongue, Riku slowly chewing while holding Daeyoung’s gaze and licking his lips after an exaggerated swallow, his voice barely more than a moan as he confessed how much he loved having his mouth full of delicious stuff , Yushi could not hold it in any longer.
“You two are dating, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh… okay.” Yushi stammered, returning to his meal in silence, tasting yet another flavor of defeat. Not a single one of the twenty monologues he had rehearsed in his mind was used.
And yet, as he chewed his overcooked ramen noodles, he promised himself he would catch them in a situation where they could not deny it.
Although he thought it would take much longer to find such a moment, since he had developed the habit of spending more time in the other dorm, it came pretty soon actually. No, he would not admit it was because of those two but because of the other two, the adorable maknaes. Who would miss a chance to hang out with Ryo and Sakuya while trying to protect them from the annoying cuteness attacks from Sion? Literally any guy in his early twenties would dream of spending a Friday night like that, right?
Well, that moment came right as he was spending one Friday night like that!
“So, did they answer your question yet?” Sakuya asked as he pushed Sion toward Ryo.
“Riku denied it. Three times.”
“Did he actually deny it in a believable way?” Ryo sent Sion back to Sakuya, the leader bouncing between them like a ping pong ball while Yushi watched from across the living room. “Or did he just say it to get you off his agenda?”
“The latter. I’m sure it’s the latter. But I promised myself I’d catch them in a situation so obvious they won’t be able to deny it.”
“I haven’t seen Yushi this determined since our trainee days before our debuts were confirmed,” Sion finally said, giving up on bothering the maknaes. “Yushi, are you sure you don’t want to spend another night on the floor between Ryo’s and Sakuya’s beds? You get along with them so well.”
He would have. Yushi really would have, because he was almost certain he had started hearing voices in that dorm. Well, it could have been actual noise or just him going absolutely crazy, but he convinced himself there were ghosts. That was also what he told the other three when he begged to be allowed to spend a night there instead. One night led to another, then a third, a fourth, and eventually a tenth, until it became more of a habit than an exception.
“I wonder if Daeyoung is using the bathroom right now…” Yushi whispered to himself one night as he lay on the floor between Ryo and Sakuya.
“Huh?” one of the maknaes groaned. Yushi couldn’t tell which one. Maybe even both.
“Never mind. Let’s sleep.”
There were some things he never told them.
But that was a few nights earlier. That night he decided to be brave. That night he felt it deep in his bones that he would catch them so red-handed they simply couldn’t deny it.
And he was right, yet the scene he walked into took the air from his lungs. He expected to find them on the sofa, maybe cuddling up with a movie or a drama on the screen, their hands free, but still somewhat innocent, just like always. But what he saw was those hands being far freer than that. Riku straddled Daeyoung’s lap, his hands roaming freely beneath Daeyoung’s T-shirt, their hips moving in unison to the sounds of their clashing lips producing against each other.
And it went on and on, feeling like forever while Yushi had no idea how to signal that he was there. For a moment, he was ready to turn around and run back to the other dorm. But just as he was about to leave, his hand knocked a vase off the dresser. It fell to the floor and shattered into hundreds of pieces, the sound echoing in his ears like New Year’s fireworks, but only inside his skull.
He dared not look back. He hoped, by some miracle, that the two had not heard it, that they were too absorbed in… whatever the hell they were doing… to notice.
“Yuu-chan, I thought you’d sleep over there again.”
Fuck, they did hear it.
“I’ll help you with that.” Daeyoung’s voice came from behind him sooner than he expected. Yushi had no idea how Riku’s hands managed to free themselves from Daeyoung’s skin so quickly. Now, those hands were busy wiping the corner of his own mouth, while Daeyoung was already picking up every piece of ceramic from the carpet.
“You two are dating, aren’t you?” Yushi squatted next to Daeyoung, helping him gather the scattered pieces of what used to be a beautiful vase. His question was a whisper, this time meant only for Daeyoung.
Unlike Riku who always had a no prepared and ready to fire off, empty and shallow as those refusals sounded, Daeyoung paused to think. He turned around, his eyes glancing at Riku over his shoulder. Yushi saw him swallow and heard a soft sigh.
“No.” The answer was as quiet as the question.
Yushi sensed sadness though he could not tell if it was from the negative answer or from having to lie.
“Hyung, please put your shoes on, if you step on this it will hurt.”
After that evening, Yushi changed his strategy. Instead of chasing it, he told himself he’d wait until not the moment they couldn’t deny, since that didn’t seem to work, but the environment they couldn’t deny it in.
With the cameras rolling, as they paired up for a round of games, with staff watching and lights shining on them, and as Riku and Daeyoung introduced their team name, Yushi saw his chance. This time they would be too flustered to say no, too flustered even to acknowledge the question they had heard so many times before. And honestly, a part of Yushi just wanted to see how they would handle his question with all eyes on them.
This time they were not caught red handed. They were not in a questionable situation doing questionable things. This time it was just them the way everyone always saw them. Yushi had seen more, he had heard more too, but this moment was his.
“You two are dating, aren’t you?”
This time there was no answer.
But maybe a lack of denial was one step closer to admitting the truth.