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Riku comes alive when Yushi teases him. He thinks it’s teasing when Yushi calls him pretty out of the blue, despite knowing quite well how Yushi can’t lie. Couldn’t. So he proposes an open-ended question, in so many ways that leaves Yushi speechless.
“Shall we sleep together today?”
That could mean anything. Knowing Riku, it was most likely literal. But they’re both grinning, smiling, because they know what the other likes. Hell, it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, and they know each other well enough to think that the other could potentially be toying with the idea, thinking the same. Riku looks at him like he’d actually do it, the wandering hand prodding on his shoulder not helping at all.
Riku has been teasing him throughout the day, calling him a cat. Yushi knows the double entendre in Japan but he still considers it, because of course he’d consider anything for Riku. He listens when Riku pours his heart out over the most mundane things, with Riku talking and talking like a podcast he just can’t get enough of. Yushi feels it again when Riku caresses his bare leg sensually, not daring to get closer because any more contact would get him hard. Yushi is pure- he simply has a crush and he thinks it will fade away the more he learns about Riku. He thinks Riku could be his older brother but he does not wish it. He wants to be more. His thoughts devolving, and he falls further and further into a delusion where him and Riku are dating and they miraculously make it work.
They should at least try, he thinks. No answer yet, not even a proposal said but he’s already had his 3-year anniversary with Riku in his mind. It shifts to “I should at least try,” and he googles “how to make your crush like you in Japanese” and finds a website that gives handy instructions. Riku refers to him as a friend, which he does too, but with the superlative of best because what was Riku if not priority numero uno. He wants to slither in, wants to go beyond cute, get close enough to feel Riku’s breath on his skin and his warm touch before he goes to bed and when he wakes up in the morning. Yushi thinks that best friends can do this too.
Riku distracts him throughout that night, even telling him that they could wash together. Riku says it with enough sincerity that he considers it, but he perceives Riku tired, and so was Daeyoung and it would be inconsiderate of him to make Riku move when he can barely open his eyes. Saying yes to Riku dies in his throat and he stays in his corner, which he remembers Riku fought for him to have.
He wears the sunglasses Riku and him have matching of, he’d wear it even if it wasn’t his mission. Riku’s birthstone on his neck doubles down on that, and he feels like if he just wears more of Riku, he’d stick to him and just never let go. There’s no logic to this, but when has love ever been logical? Yushi thinks about it- why is the heart supposed to go along with the brain when the heart pumps to keep you alive? All the brain does is tell you that you can’t love Riku because he’s a man, because he’s your friend, because he might just be flirting, and because he doesn’t actually like you the way you like him. Riku did say he was gyaru, not gay. Before he goes to bed, Yushi hears Riku say I love you again, but to Sion. He knows it’s half-meant, but he wishes to hear it directed to him too. It doesn’t have to mean anything, Yushi would just like to hear it.
Or so Yushi thinks.
When morning comes, Riku wakes up first, stretching himself in place. He wins this mission challenge and nobody’s surprised. Yushi wakes up a little later, and he sees Jaehee and Riku together again and he feels a little jealous. He’s hearing things already, mistaking Riku’s aings for aishiteru, prodding at Jaehee and Riku to deny that they’re a couple so he can feel comfort in knowing that Riku’s single and available for the taking. Yushi thinks his cute crush has turned ugly, desire darkening his pristine sea of blue.
Yushi often thinks about why he’s so possessive, not every interaction with Riku has to mean something. Sometimes, they can just be together. Isn’t it healthy to have friends outside the relationship? And Wish is more family than friends at this point, so should it really affect him negatively that Riku’s flirting with another?
While Sion is cooking breakfast, Yushi pretends to be cold when it's summer and it's obviously not. He goes to the small space, the corner beside Riku and rubs his feet against Riku's under the covers, asking for his attention like a cat would. He could be a cat if Riku perceived him one. Riku grazes his feet on Yushi, but remains fixated on his phone and nothing Yushi does parts him from it. Yushi gives him some space, he knows Riku woke up first today. He knows how Riku can't sleep sometimes, how he gets sleep paralysis and how exhausted he's been since he came back from hiatus. Everyone has asked so much of him that Yushi sees him get anxious and stressed, sometimes even wishing Riku could go on hiatus again so he could rest. What's foregone flirting if Riku gets to rest?
Besides, he was hungry.
When they’re walking outside again, Yushi notices that Riku’s still wearing his birthstone around his neck. He blushes at the thought when it could very well mean nothing. Riku was so pretty these waking hours that he almost gets the urge to say it again. But there’s no outside context now, no plausible deniability or mission to pin it on. Suddenly, Yushi realizes he said his mission out loud earlier, and that Riku already knows he thinks he’s pretty unprompted.
“Good,” Yushi thinks. "He needs to know."
When they’re outside, Riku holds the umbrella for him before Yushi takes initiative to hold it too. Suddenly, they’re holding hands, pretending they’re not because there was still a functional umbrella between the two of them and Yushi already denied wanting to hold hands with Riku on camera once. Yushi thinks he’s slick until Ryo teases him later in the day for liking Riku.
Yushi doesn’t deny it this time, he just smiles.