Archive of Our Own

Sunghoon glances up from his phone the moment Riki drops his head to stare down at his own again, his gaze darting across the back of his neck like there’s something to be discovered there, something beyond a few moles and the way the short hair at his nape is dampened with sweat. Riki isn’t even facing him, and wouldn’t become aware of the way he’s being studied even if he lifted his head again, but when he does, Sunghoon still makes an effort to pretend he wasn’t looking.

He just wants to understand what’s wrong with him.

With himself, to be clear. There’s plenty wrong with Riki, generally speaking, but in this particular case, the one that’s been driving him a little insane for days now, Sunghoon has to be the problem.

Riki turns to look over his shoulder. Sunghoon, for some reason, decides to look up, staring at the beams of the practice room ceiling in a way that makes it clear he’d been caught looking. Riki scoffs out a small laugh, but there’s nothing remotely knowing behind it, more confusion than true amusement, and Sunghoon figures he’s still safe from any real suspicion. Riki probably just thinks he’s zoning out, and Sunghoon can certainly live with that. It’s better than the truth.

The truth is something Sunghoon is still trying to figure out for himself. The truth is something that Sunoo can be blamed for entirely, something he’d planted in Sunghoon’s mind with nothing more than a simple teasing comment, one not even directed at him.

“It’s not like it’s a surprise,” Sunoo had said, interrupting Jay’s babbling stream of consciousness that he’d been using to fill the otherwise quiet air of the car, complaining with a fond smile on his face about how much of his time Riki was demanding lately. Until he’d decided to chime in, Sunoo was pretending not to listen, and Sunghoon was actually not listening, not closely at least, but his next words catch his attention with an ease that he still can’t entirely understand. “Ni-ki’s had a crush on all of us, at one point or another.”

Jay sputtered and squawked in protest, turning in his seat to glare at Sunoo in offense. “What the hell are you talking about? He does not have a crush on me.”

“Hyung,” Sunoo said dryly, and dropped his phone into his lap to give Jay his full attention, leveling him with an exasperated glare. “Don’t play dumb. You’re way overdue for it. It’s fine. Just – don’t lead him on if you’re not interested, let him down easy, and he’ll be fixated on someone else in a month. We’ve all been through it,” he insisted, then tilted his head thoughtfully, and added, “Except you, hyung, now that I think about it.”

And Sunghoon, because he was paying close attention by then, knew that Sunoo was referring to him, judging by the nod in his direction and the expectant glance Jay shot him in the moment following.

“Me hyung?” Sunghoon had asked, pointing dumbly at himself, even though he already knew, because as Sunoo had flippantly described the way to deal with being the object of Riki’s affections, Sunghoon distantly realized that he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Sure, Sunghoon isn’t quite obtuse enough not to notice that Riki had a habit of becoming, for lack of a better term, fixated on a certain member for a certain period of time. He loves them all a lot, but that love is somewhat rotational. He remembers when he would drag Heeseung out to the basketball court down the street from their company building every other night, practically holding him hostage as he attempted shot after shot, but Sunghoon just thought that was their normal competitive nature. He remembers how upset Riki would get when Jake would go to bed early and forget a promise he’d made to join him for a few rounds of whatever game he was into at the moment, how he’d pout and sigh until Jake made him another promise and kept it, but he thought that was just Riki being a little bit spoiled by Jake.

He remembers the way Riki would crawl into bed with Sunoo during their first few months together, the way he doted on Jungwon and couldn’t quite look him in the eye without turning a bit red for a while. And he’d noticed, by now, the way he was extra invested in teasing Jay as of late, the frequency with which he visits him while he’s in his room absentmindedly strumming at his guitar, the way Sunghoon can hear the soft tones of their voices as they converse late into the night. He’d noticed it, but didn’t quite know what to assume about it, not until Sunoo said the word crush like this was something obvious, something they were all aware of, something Sunghoon apparently missed.

“Yes you, hyung,” Sunoo had sighed, not actually seeming that irritated, a glint of something knowing in his eye that Sunghoon didn’t like one bit. “Don’t take it personally. Maybe you’re next.”

Sunghoon did take it personally. And he also took the second half of Sunoo’s sentiment as a threat, apparently, considering how he’s watching Riki now, keeping an eye on him, like he’s nothing more than a defenseless animal risking a drink from the watering hole and Riki is the lion lurking around the corner. Or – the puma, he supposes. The puma-duck.

But Riki is paying him no mind, tapping Jay’s leg and muttering out a frantic Jay hyung look hyung look at this and holding out his phone to replay a TikTok that is, apparently, top priority, more important than the conversation Jay is in the middle of with Heeseung. Or maybe the TikTok is of a black kitten being let loose in an empty bathtub for the first time, and Riki just wanted his attention, an excuse to tease Jay about his similarity in appearance to the animal until Jay’s cheeks turned a shade darker.

If Sunghoon had to guess, it’d be the latter. What he doesn’t understand, then, is why.

Not that he doesn’t understand the logic to having a crush on Jay. Sunghoon himself has been there, done that, and even circled back to it a few times over the years, and lived to tell the tale, although it’s definitely not one he’s willing to tell. And he can understand the appeal of all of them, the reasons why Riki would have carried a torch for each of them at one point or another. They’re all handsome. They all let Riki get away with far too much, making special exceptions for him in a way that could be twisted as romantic in the mind of someone who didn’t exactly grow up with a normal life or, by extension, normal crushes. It’s natural, or it is to someone like Sunghoon, whose developmental years were equally abnormal. It makes sense.

What Sunghoon can’t make sense of is why he’s the exception.

He knows he’s handsome, too. He knows he also lets Riki get away with pretty much anything, considering the amount of clothes that have migrated from Sunghoon’s closet into his. He plays games with Riki when he asks, and he may be leaning towards the more severe end of the group’s spectrum of emotional unavailability, but he’s definitely not the worst of them, not even close. He’s a good hyung. He takes care of Riki. They’re similar in ways that have always allowed Sunghoon to think he can understand their maknae a little better, even in moments where the other members have found him entirely unreasonable.

Riki’s had a crush on all of them at some point, apparently, but not Sunghoon. And he’s not sure why that bothers him, but it does.

Riki glances over at him again, and Sunghoon swipes his thumb across his phone screen, mimicking mindless scrolling even as his phone remains locked and the screen stays visibly dark. The laugh he gets this time is more of a snort, and then Riki’s attention is back on his own phone for a brief moment, until he finds a TikTok that’s supposedly hilarious enough to justify collapsing with laughter and landing with his head on Jay’s leg.

Jay pats his head like he’s nothing more than an oversized puppy to him, and resumes his conversation with Heeseung without a beat missed. Riki deflates a bit, slumping more against the floor than Jay, and Sunghoon doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before, but now that he does, he definitely doesn’t feel any closer to understanding it.

“Come in,” Sunghoon calls out, sitting up a bit straighter, frantically adjusting the pillows around him so it looks a little less like he was on the verge of a nap, pulling the collar of his shirt into place and smoothing his hair. He even, at the last second, grabs a book he never really intended on reading from where it was collecting dust on his night stand. It doesn't matter why. It has nothing to do with the fact that whoever had just knocked on his door knocked three times, in the same rhythm that Riki consistently knocks with.

The door to his bedroom pushes open, and Riki's own messy mop of hair peeks through the crack, as well as just his eyes, peering at Sunghoon curiously when he asks, “Hyung, can I borrow something?”

Sunghoon should have known. He did know, actually, but for some reason, he was hoping Riki was there to talk to him about something else. Anything else, really.

“Depends what it is,” Sunghoon says, because this is a bit of a routine for them, and the words are basically just a cue for Riki to step fully into the room and start going through the clothes in his closet. Sunghoon watches him for a bit, then forces his gaze down to the random page of the book he'd flipped to, then glances back up at him several more times as he tries on various pieces.

He's wearing a baggy t-shirt that Sunghoon is also fairly certain belonged to him at one point, and everytime he takes a hoodie off to try a different one, the shirt lifts enough to give Sunghoon a flash of his bare hip. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, but his face warms anyway, and he forces his eyes down and then keeps them there, re-reading the same sentence over and over again.

“Are you going out?” Someone asks, and it takes Sunghoon a moment to realize it was him.

Riki looks over at him, apparently not expecting the question either, judging by the way his eyes are a little round with surprise. “Uh, Jay hyung is taking me bowling.”

“Oh,” Sunghoon says dumbly, then continues, “You guys haven't done that in forever.”

“Yeah,” Riki agrees, looking pleased. “Hyung asked if I wanted to go. I think I was annoying him.”

“Right,” he says slowly, a bit awkwardly. “And – how is that going for you?”

Riki pulls another hoodie over his head, then stares at Sunghoon, his eyes narrowing, his brows furrowing. “How's what going for me?”

“Nothing,” Sunghoon says quickly, waving a hand in an entirely unsuspicious way. Apparently, despite everyone knowing about Riki's crushes, they're not actually supposed to be addressed. Sunghoon is still new to this. He's not even involved, actually, which is probably why no one thought to give him the rundown. “Nevermind. I, uh – I like that one. Don't get anything on it.”

Riki adjusts the hoodie until it sits properly, then glances back up at Sunghoon, and grins. “Okay, weirdo,” he mutters in English, like he thinks Sunghoon might not understand the two simple words, and therefore, won't be angry at him.

Sunghoon understands, but he's not angry. Riki never really irritates him as much as he probably should. “Have fun,” he tells him, and tries to really mean it. “Make Jay buy you food, too.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Riki laughs a bit, slapping the top of Sunghoon’s door frame with his hand as he exits, without even bothering to close the door behind him. It should irritate him, but Sunghoon releases a breath he didn't know he was holding, and tension he didn't know he was carrying. And then a moment passes, and Riki circles back, appearing in the open doorway and asking, “Do you want to come with?”

Sunghoon blinks. It's an afterthought of an invitation, that much is clear. Riki already has one of his shoes on, and he can hear Jay barking about how the car is already waiting for them downstairs. Riki is probably just trying to be nice. He must be picking up on the slightly pathetic aura Sunghoon has surely been radiating for the last handful of days.

“I'm good,” he assures him. “I've got, uh –” he cuts off, lifting the stupid book and waving it back and forth for a moment.

Riki laughs again, and Sunghoon is sure he's just given him a new topic of conversation for his dinner with Jay. The two of them can talk about how strange he's been acting lately, and it'll surely bring them even closer together, and Sunghoon will be totally fine with all of it.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake asks, and Sunghoon instantly decides his answer when he hears the tone of his voice.

“I'd rather you didn't,” Sunghoon says.

“Why do you want Ni-ki to have a crush on you?”

He needs to stop being so forthcoming with Jake. He definitely needs to stop going to him for advice, even though he didn't realize that's what he was doing when he trudged his way up the stairs to his dorm and barged into Jake's bedroom and started talking. He knows Sunghoon too well, and Sunghoon is too comfortable with him, and that's really just a recipe for disaster, in times like these.

“I don't,” Sunghoon says quickly, too quickly to sound like anything other than a lie, so he adds, “Why would you ever think I want that?”

Perfect. Totally convincing.

“Maybe because you just sat here and went on for ten minutes about how it makes no sense that he doesn't have a crush on you,” Jake says simply. Sunghoon glances down at his phone, checks the time, and – yeah. He's not exaggerating. “I didn't even know you could talk for that long.”

“I just don't understand why I'm last,” Sunghoon huffs, like he hadn't already made that point several times over by now. “If anything, I should have been first.”

It makes sense to him, when he says it, although he can't entirely understand or explain why. It's not like the idea of fifteen-year-old Riki having a crush on his seventeen year old self was particularly appealing, but it does make sense.

“I guess you just don't have that kind of relationship with him,” Jake says with an easy shrug. “That's not a bad thing. Trust me.”

“Well, what kind of relationship do the rest of you have with him, then?” Sunghoon asks, bothered by Jake’s words for no logical reason, then tacks on without much thought, “Because none of you even feel the same way, right?”

Jake pauses, and a loaded beat of silence passes between them. He tilts his head, and stares at Sunghoon, hard, like he's trying to tell him something. Sunghoon replays what he’d just said, tries to find something wrong with it, something unusual, and comes up short. It was just a simple question, and one that Jake wasn’t planning on answering, apparently.

“You really do have a different kind of relationship with him,” Jake observes, leaning against the headboard of his bed, squinting at Sunghoon like he’s trying to study him. Sunghoon would rather not be studied, so he shrinks in on himself, slouching and ducking his head down and trying his very best to hide. “Give it time. I’m sure it’ll be your turn eventually.”

Again, Sunghoon thinks that’s probably meant to be a threat of some kind. He certainly feels threatened.

Sunghoon knows he indulges Riki a bit too much. He knows he should say no to him more often, the way Jake and Heeseung have become comfortable doing, regardless of how much Riki whines about being neglected by them. He knows he lets Riki get away with pretty much anything, and even though it’s becoming increasingly rare that Riki takes anything too far as he matures, he knows that his soft spot is still completely obvious and easy to take advantage of.

And Riki doesn’t take advantage of it, even though the others shoot Sunghoon exasperated looks that say you’re too soft on him as they walk by, even though Sunghoon is exhausted and really would like to call it a night. But Riki has eagerly requested one more round, so Sunghoon is happy to stay awake a little longer.

He indulges him too much. And it’s only been getting worse since he came to the realization that he apparently isn’t doing enough, at least, not enough to be on the same level as the other hyungs in Riki’s eyes, and he knows, but he’s helpless to stop it.

He just – he likes seeing Riki carefree. They were raised in superficially different environments, sure, but they were similar in a lot of the ways that count the most, and Sunghoon never really felt like he got to have much fun, but he wants to make sure Riki does. In a way, he saw slivers of his younger self in Riki, and maybe that’s why he quickly grew to like taking care of him so much.

So then, that probably makes it a little fucked up when he looks over at him as he celebrates the win that Sunghoon let him have, tossing his controller into the air and letting it hit the couch cushion beside him with a dull thud, and all he can think is that he wants to kiss him.

This is new. Unprecedented, really. Sunghoon may be experiencing a bit of a crisis about why Riki doesn’t like him, but that doesn’t mean he likes Riki. He just kind of wants to kiss him.

“That was so bad, hyung,” Riki taunts, getting in Sunghoon’s face to make sure he’s heard, like he can tell Sunghoon is mentally somewhere entirely else right now – and that’s not good, because he doesn’t want Riki to even make an attempt at following him there, and seeing what Sunghoon is apparently unable to stop himself from imagining.

He has to say something, has to keep his mouth busy in order to stop himself from using it to quiet Riki’s continuing obnoxious teasing in any other way, so he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, and – he really should have expected that wouldn’t go well, either.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

Riki snaps his mouth shut, and blinks, his eyes going wide in a way Sunghoon doesn’t see often anymore, now that his face has matured and his features are no longer round with youthfulness. A few moments pass where neither of them speak, and then Riki laughs, scrunches his features up in confusion, and asks, “Wait, what?”

He can tell that Riki heard him, that he’s not asking him to repeat what he said, but rather elaborate on it and why he’s asking, and Sunghoon’s just not going to do that. He shrugs, and drops his voice to a soft mutter to simply say, “I’m just wondering. We don’t really talk about this stuff.”

“No, we don’t,” Riki agrees, then sits up a little straighter, puffs out his chest in a way Sunghoon thinks is probably subconscious, and continues, “Of course I have. You know I’m twenty-one, right?”

Sunghoon could point out that, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a very big number to be bragging about, but he doesn’t. The last thing he wants to acknowledge as he sits here and thinks about kissing his dongsaeng is just how young he really is. It’s fine, though. It’s not like Sunghoon is going to actually do it. He was just wondering, and now he has his answer, and that should be the end of it.

“When I was twenty-one, I hadn’t kissed anyone yet,” Sunghoon admits without his own permission.

“Duh. You were too chicken to ask anyone,” Riki says dryly, and if Sunghoon were any of the other members, his other hyungs, he would have held a fist up threateningly, and mumbled ya, you brat, and Riki would have laughed delightedly, and it all would have been so normal.

But Sunghoon is Sunghoon, and he’s definitely too soft on Riki, but he’s also a little too curious about him right now, and that is, apparently, a deadly combination.

“Who did you ask?”

Riki seems surprised by the question, his eyebrows raising for a moment before he seemingly forces his expression back into submission and remains completely neutral, if not a little amused. “Jungwon hyung,” he says easily. “And Jake hyung.”

“And they said yes?” Sunghoon asks, unable to hide his shock. Jungwon is less of a surprise, because his soft spot for Riki is just as obvious as Sunghoon’s is, and because he likely wouldn’t have told anyone about it, but Jake is a different story.

Now, Riki seems to shy away a bit, tilting his head and dropping his gaze to the controller still in Sunghoon’s hand to avoid meeting his eyes, because Sunghoon apparently can’t bring himself to look anywhere other than his face. “They knew I had a little bit of a – uh, a crush on them,” he admits, in a way that makes it clear that he thinks no one else is aware of his constant, ever-changing affections for his groupmates. “I think they both thought it might help me move on.”

“Did it?” Sunghoon asks, suddenly desperate to know the answer, maybe because the idea that there’s an easy cure for the affliction of being a little too fixated on someone is an interesting one to him, an urgent one.

“Weirdly, it did,” Riki admits after a brief, thoughtful pause. “I really hate the way Jake hyung kisses.”

Sunghoon snorts out a laugh, and nods. “Yeah, he’s –” he starts, then cuts himself off, not finishing what would have been a teasing comment about Jake’s tongue-and-spit-heavy technique, because a simple but uncomfortably overpowering thought suddenly takes up every bit of his remaining brain power.

Okay. Alright. Sunghoon doesn’t have a crush on Riki, but he does need to move on from thinking about what it would be like if Riki had a crush on him, and he’s not sure that’s something he’ll be able to do without some kind of tangible proof that he’s not missing out on anything. Everyone else has already felt what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Riki’s affections, and they’d been able to decide that they were unwanted, but Sunghoon hasn’t, so he can’t, not until he has that same first hand experience.

It makes sense then, and it’s totally and completely reasonable when he turns to Riki and asks, “Do you want to kiss me?”

For nearly a full minute, Riki just stares at him, his expression completely blank, devoid of any indication of what he’s thinking, what he might say. Sunghoon feels his palms start to sweat, and releases his grip on his own controller in favour of wiping them on his pants. Riki glances down to follow the motion with his gaze, and when he looks back up, Sunghoon sees the slight change in his expression, and gets the feeling that his small, anxious act had been enough to show Riki that he was being serious.

Riki turns to face him properly, nearly kneeing Sunghoon in the arm as he shifts in his spot on the couch accordingly, and gives a quick, entirely nonchalant shrug of his shoulders before he answers, “Yeah, sure.”

“Cool,” Sunghoon says, and then doesn’t move a muscle. Riki reaches over and taps his fingers against his thigh, and Sunghoon flinches like he’d hit him.

“You have to look at me, hyung,” Riki reminds him. “That’s kind of how this works.”

“Right,” Sunghoon mutters, even though he could have taken the opportunity to tease Riki about sounding so sure about how kissing works despite only having two separate instances of experience with it. “Is this – like, kind of weird?”

“It was your idea,” Riki points out. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

“Cool,” Sunghoon repeats, and Riki laughs, and he’s close enough that he can feel his breath on his face. It’s not even unpleasant, even though bad breath would have been a perfect excuse for him to call this whole thing off. He can’t find any excuse not to, really, even though he knows there are plenty, so he lifts his legs and tucks them underneath himself as he turns to face Riki too. “Um, do you –”

Riki leans in and presses his mouth against Sunghoon’s. He barely feels it, the feather-light touch that it is, and it’s over before it even really begins.

“Oh,” Sunghoon says dumbly, disappointed for a reason he can’t quite place. He should have expected that Riki wouldn’t really want to kiss him, not like he wanted to kiss Jake or Jungwon, not like he’d probably kiss Jay now, if he had the chance. Sunghoon gave him the chance, and he didn’t take it, and he still might not understand why Riki hasn’t ever held any romantic feelings for him, but at least now he has confirmation that he really, clearly doesn’t. It’s a good thing, probably.

“You’re weird, though,” Riki tells him, not for the first time, and then kisses him again.

This time, when Riki’s mouth finds Sunghoon’s, it couldn’t be more different. Two hands find Sunghoon’s hips and stay there, holding him in place, and thick, soft lips move against his with almost no consideration for the fact that Sunghoon is still completely stunned. Riki doesn’t seem fazed by his lack of reciprocation, and that tracks with everything he’s been told about how it feels to be pursued by him, so he knows he’s getting exactly what he set out for, that is, the full Riki experience.

But he’s getting a lot more than that too, especially when he snaps out of his fugue state and kisses him back, when he tangles his fingers in Riki’s hair and pulls him impossibly closer, until there’s practically nowhere they aren’t pressed together, until it’s all too easy for Riki to push forward ever so slightly and have Sunghoon’s world tilting on its axis until his back collides with the couch cushions and Riki is hovering above him, their noses bumping with every inhale before they crash back into each other.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, what they’re doing, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want it to stop. Riki complained about the way Jake kisses, but he’s got his tongue in Sunghoon’s mouth, and Sunghoon agreed with him, but he finds that he doesn’t mind it in this case. Riki’s hands are wandering without any hesitation, squeezing at Sunghoon’s hips, and then at his thighs, and this is escalating in a way Sunghoon didn’t expect it to, even though he probably should have, knowing Riki. But he doesn’t break the kiss, doesn’t put a stop to it. He doesn’t know what exactly Riki’s kisses with Jungwon and Jake entailed, after all. Sunghoon’s no scholar, but he needs to make sure his hypothesis is just as thoroughly investigated as theirs was, perhaps even moreso, because he really needs this out of his system. That’s it.

And Riki doesn’t pull away, either, but he does slow down eventually, which is also a surprise to Sunghoon – Riki almost always takes things too far, crosses lines in a way they can’t even really blame him for, because he doesn’t even seem to realize that a line has been drawn in the first place. But then again, he’s always been a little more careful around Sunghoon. He never really understood why that was, either, but he’s starting to think Riki might have a bit of a soft spot for him, too.

So it all slows down, until the kisses they exchange would be considered perfectly chaste again, if not a little drawn out, lingering for a few seconds too long every time. Sunghoon has a hand on Riki’s face, and the short, bleached strands of his hair are brushing against his cheeks every time their mouths move against one another, and where it was once rushed and frantic, it’s soft and careful, and Sunghoon wonders how Riki can be both at once, how he manages to balance it all.

And then it’s over, and Sunghoon feels like he’s snapping out of a daze, blinking away the fog surrounding him until he can see Riki clearly again. His mouth is a deeper shade of pink, almost red, and his cheeks are flushed in a similar fashion, but those are the only two indicators Sunghoon can find that he’d been at all affected by the events of the last few minutes. Maybe he doesn’t understand him as well as he thought.

But then – Riki smiles, but with only their paused game on the television screen lighting the room, his face is mostly shadows, and Sunghoon thinks the expression looks even sharper than usual, maybe even a little menacing.

He distantly wonders, then, if he just spent the last week inadvertently manifesting something for himself, and now that manifestation is coming true. He wonders if he’s finally going to find out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of one of Riki’s infatuations, and then wonders if it’s too late to back out of the whole thing.

It probably isn’t. But then Riki leans in again, and Sunghoon lets him, and the last possible moment where he could undo this slips through his fingers as he threads them right back into Riki’s hair, and he doesn’t even think about trying to get it back.

It spirals completely out of Sunghoon’s control, as all things he thought he could manage are prone to do, and like usual, he only realizes that he’s in entirely over his head when Jungwon tells him he is.

Riki is asleep, and he’s somehow wedged himself in between Sunghoon’s back and the cushions of the couch in the green room they’d been occupying for the last half hour or so, and his arms are wrapped tightly around Sunghoon’s middle, meaning that even if Sunghoon did want to leave – and he’s still not entirely sure he does – it would involve significantly more struggle, and therefore more attention, than he was looking for.

He has their leader’s attention regardless, his narrowed, suspicious eyes not leaving them for a moment, and Sunghoon sometimes hates how good he is at his job, how perceptive he is. Nothing gets past Jungwon – but sometimes, he’s willing to look the other way, to let it pass him. This is clearly not one of those things.

“What did you do?” Jungwon whispers accusingly, either to avoid waking Riki, or to avoid alerting any of their staff or other members to a potential mild scolding in process. It was always a sight to see, when Jungwon did bring out that side of him, and he’s glad he’s aware enough of Sunghoon’s aversion to being the center of attention to keep it down. For now.

Sunghoon just stares at him, choosing to play dumb, choosing to pretend he hasn’t blatantly disrupted the natural life cycle of Riki’s crush on Jay. It’s not a good choice. Jungwon’s brows furrow, bringing a whole new intimidating edge to his expression. Sunghoon still thinks he just looks like a cute, harmless cat for the most part, but he knows he has claws.

Jungwon’s gaze darts off to the side when he seemingly realizes Sunghoon isn’t going to answer him, shooting a meaningful glance to where Riki’s head is pressed into a throw pillow, and Sunghoon follows his gaze to find that – oh. Apparently, he’s been absentmindedly petting Riki’s head. He practically rips his hand away and rests it awkwardly on his knee, and Riki sighs in his sleep, rubbing the side of his head that’s on his chosen pillow back and forth like he’s subconsciously seeking some other kind of comforting touch.

And then Jungwon looks at Sunghoon again, his eyebrows raised in a way that tells him his patience is already wearing thin.

“I think he might have a bit of a thing for me,” Sunghoon says, and only feels a little bit guilty about throwing Riki under the bus. If he was conscious, and hearing this conversation, he’d surely understand.

“You know,” Jungwon starts, tilting his head meaningfully, pressing his lips into a thin, unamused line for a long moment. “I’ve gathered that much already, hyung.”

And it’s not a surprise that he has, really, but Sunghoon still feels a little discomforted at the idea that they’d already been made, and by someone who doesn’t even live with them full-time at that, who isn’t able to keep first hand account of the way Riki has been quietly knocking on Sunghoon’s bedroom door almost every night, even though he knows that he’s already expected, already welcome. He has far less proof of the extra time they’ve been spending together, or the way Riki has started wearing Sunghoon’s clothes more frequently than he wears any of his own, the way fondness has further softened the already careful way they interact. It’s less careful, more comfortable, but Jungwon wouldn’t know that, because outside of the dorm that he doesn’t even share with them, there’s no visible difference. Sunghoon is sure of it.

Except for right now, he supposes. Riki is clinging to him like he’s worried someone is going to try to take Sunghoon from him, and – since Sunghoon is starting to become all too familiar with the way Riki crushes on people, and he knows that the rest of them are experts in their own right – he knows it’s clear what this level of possessiveness is a sign of.

It’s like one of those nature documentaries Jay was really into for a while. The elusive puma-duck has a clear pattern of behaviour, and Sunghoon is the cameraman who got a little too close in his efforts to observe it properly, and he’s going to be reduced to nothing more than a cautionary tale if he’s not careful. Everyone that came before him was smart enough to invest in a telephoto lens and keep their distance. But Sunghoon is, clearly, clutched a little too tightly in Riki’s grasp now to escape with his life.

They only ever kiss. Riki falls asleep in his bed fairly often, but it’s usually just because he’s too exhausted from a schedule to get back up, because there’s always a schedule to exhaust him. Because of that, and because Sunghoon really does only have pure intentions, scientific intentions, they don’t go any further. They just kiss. It’s all fine and under control.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jungwon asks, seemingly realizing once again that Sunghoon isn’t going to respond.

“Of course,” Sunghoon lies.

“Okay,” Jungwon says simply, but a simple upward flick of his eyebrows tells Sunghoon he doesn’t believe him in the slightest. “Does he know what you’re doing, then?”

Sunghoon doesn’t have to follow his gaze to know that he’s looking at Riki again, and that his own hand had probably, at some point, found its way right back to soothingly patting his head. It’s the strangest thing. Sunghoon doesn’t have the faintest clue how or why it’s happening, and he certainly doesn’t know how to stop it, and he can recognize that he’s not making it sound like he has it all under control, but really, he does.

Sunghoon goes shopping with his sister, and in an unprecedented turn of events, he only buys one thing for himself. One small, inconspicuous thing, and despite that, it weighs down the bag the clerk put it in until it feels heavier than all the other bags he’s being forced to carry on his sister’s behalf.

When he returns to their dorm, he goes straight to Riki’s room, knocking on the door even though Riki has given up knocking on his entirely when he comes to visit him.

“Yeah?” Riki calls out, and Sunghoon can hear him clearly despite the volume he had his TV playing at, so he turns the doorknob and lets himself in, stopping in his tracks and trying not to seem too surprised when Jay comes into view first, sitting on the floor with his guitar in his lap, facing Riki where he sits on his couch and jams his thumb rapidly into a button on his controller.

Totally normal, and totally fine. They hang out all the time. Jay has kind of a fucked up, maternal-esque view of Riki, and Riki was kind of conceptually obsessed with Jay even before he fell madly in love with him for a few solid months, and Sunghoon has never felt anything resembling jealousy in his life.

What he doesn’t love, though, is the way Jay grins at him, the knowing in his expression, the same kind of knowing that’s been there for the last several years, because regardless of how different the two of them may be, Jay has thought of Sunghoon as an already-solved puzzle from the moment they met. It’s annoying. It’s wrong. Jay doesn’t know anything, however familiar he may be with the way Riki crushes and, unfortunately, the way Sunghoon crushes.

“I’ll come back later,” Sunghoon mutters, and goes to shut the door, but Riki is close enough that he can reach out and hold it open.

“No – stay, hyung,” Riki says in a gruff tone, not even taking his eyes off the television above Jay’s head. “Jay hyung is boring.”

Jay squawks in protest, but otherwise, stays quiet.

“I’m boring, too,” Sunghoon points out, and it comes out sounding like a plea for Riki to let him make his escape, but it has the opposite effect.

Riki frowns, and pauses his game, looking over at Sunghoon with his mouth open like he was about to object – and then his eyes land on the bag in his hand, the eye catching logo printed on the paper front of it, and he quirks his mouth into a half grin that mirrors the one Jay still hasn’t wiped off his face. “What’d you buy?”

“Nothing,” Sunghoon says quickly. “It’s nothing. It’s for my sister, she just – accidentally left it in the car.”

Jay hums, getting to his feet with his guitar in one hand, his arm outstretched to keep it away from Sunghoon, like he was worried his next move might attract some violence and risk damaging it. He’s probably right. Sunghoon attempts to jolt out of Jay’s reach, but the bag is snatched away from him with a truly impressive amount of speed, and Jay holds one of the handles so it dangles in front of his face, peering inside and grinning impossibly wider.

“Wow,” he says dryly. “Either your sister has a boyfriend, or she has very masculine taste in scents.”

And then the bag is shoved back towards Sunghoon’s chest, and Jay is gone, pushing past him and sauntering down the hallway with all the confidence of someone who knows they’re definitely in the clear in terms of being the subject of unrequited love for a while. Sunghoon closes his eyes for a brief moment and imagines his entire bedroom exploding when he walks into it, ideally taking Sunghoon and Riki with him, too.

“It’s for me, isn’t it?” Riki asks, and his own grin is still knowing, teasing, but Sunghoon doesn’t find it nearly as annoying. It’s that damned soft spot. “You bought me a gift.”

“No,” Sunghoon says, then takes the black glass bottle out of the bag anyway, and presses it into Riki’s outstretched and waiting palm. He beams, then, and slumps back down onto the couch, turning the bottle over in his hands and studying it closely. “I just – smelled it and thought of you. Like, I thought you would like it.”

“And then you bought it,” Riki continues for him. “And you asked for a gift bag.”

“They just gave me the regular bag,” Sunghoon says weakly.

Riki fiddles with the bottle until a cloud of heavily scented air is spritzed out of it, and Sunghoon cringes internally, knowing that the second Riki smells it, he’ll become all too aware of just how much Sunghoon thinks about him, about what he likes, about who he is. He’ll somehow know about just how much space he occupies in his mind as of late, how he’s started buying clothes he knows Riki will want to wear too, how he saves new games he wants to try because he knows Riki will want to play them too.

And whether or not he does come to that realization, whether or not he finds it completely and totally weird, it doesn’t show on his face. His grin just turns to more of a smile, softer around the edges and a little fond, and he fixes his gaze on Sunghoon for a long moment before he says, “Hyung, you’re kind of a romantic.”

“I’m not,” Sunghoon insists automatically, even though they both know it’s a lie. He’s watched Notting Hill on flights with poorly concealed tears in his eyes during Julia Roberts’ confessional monologue one too many times for any of them to believe that, but especially not Riki, who was usually sitting next to him on those flights, but who has also learned over the last month what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Sunghoon’s romantic intent. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until now. It’s kind of natural to him, at least in this case, and that's the problem, really. “You are, too,” he tacks on unconvincingly, because it’s the only real argument he has.

“Sure, but you're like – sweet.”

Sunghoon flushes from head to toe, and sits down on the couch beside Riki, because he's feeling a little faint. “So are you,” he insists, accusingly, as if they're not exchanging compliments.

“Am I?” Riki asks, amused.

“You shared your food with me yesterday,” Sunghoon says without thought, and as soon as he does, several other examples of Riki being sweet come to him with ease. “And you like to match your outfit with mine, even when I tell you not to, and you always hold onto me in your sleep, and – and you always make it way too obvious when you like someone. You're sweet.”

“Have I made it obvious that I like you?” Riki asks.

“Yes,” Sunghoon says simply. “And it was obvious when you liked Jay, and Jake, and everyone else. And especially Sunoo.”

“Because I'm a romantic, too,” he points out easily, like he doesn't find this conversation embarrassing in the slightest. Sunghoon knows him, understands him, so he knows that deep down, he does, but he also knows that he's not going to let it show. He clearly has other priorities, the top one being flustering Sunghoon. “I guess that makes us a good match.”

And when Riki leans over and kisses him, Sunghoon also knows that he's trying to distract him from how poorly he was hiding his doubt under his confident tone, so he only lets it go on for a moment before he pulls away – because he really does have this all under control – and tells him with a small but sure smile, “I guess it does.”

Riki smiles too, and it looks relieved, and Sunghoon thinks of how much time he spent openly searching for a good match, falling hard and fast for everyone he felt most comfortable with. Riki probably understood what they were doing before Sunghoon did, and he didn't shy away from it, because he surely figured out at some point that it was going to make his search a little easier. And Sunghoon can't deny that there was relief in his voice when he said it, that he might have been searching for a good match, too – or maybe he's just been hoping that he would end up being Riki's.

“So, what did the other members have that I didn't?”

“What?” Riki laughs a bit, shifting on his usual side of Sunghoon's mattress until they're facing each other, only inches apart, their noses bumping.

“You liked everyone else before you liked me,” Sunghoon points out, only a little ashamed of the slight whiny quality his voice takes on as he does.

“I was saving the best for last,” Riki says, smoothly and easily, and presses a soft, quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Uh,” Sunghoon stammers, tensing up ever so slightly despite the way Riki is smattering his face with pecks of affection. “That's, uh –”

“Relax, hyung. I'm kidding. I had a huge crush on you during I-Land. You don't remember?”

Sunghoon blinks. He remembers Riki following him around, the way he would cling to him and constantly call him handsome, how enthusiastic he was when he got to work alongside him, like he wanted nothing more than to be his equal, to be truly seen by Sunghoon, and Sunghoon remembers that it didn't take much for him to do just that. He remembers the way that evolved, over the years, the way it grew as they did, the way he started to understand Riki, the way he started to see him differently, even if didn't realize that's what was happening until he had already asked Riki if he wanted to kiss him.

And he did that in the name of science, of moving on, but he's starting to realize now that there may have been a touch of recency bias in his experiment. Because apparently, he's always known what it feels like to be the subject of Riki's unrequited feelings, and all this time, he was learning how it felt to reciprocate them. Maybe he just kissed Riki because he wanted to kiss him. It's another interesting hypothesis, and it's one that he should probably test extensively, just to make sure.

“I feel dumb now,” Sunghoon mutters, his face flushing when Riki laughs, low and soft, and presses another kiss to the tip of his nose.

“No, you don't,” he says. “You feel great now, don't you?”

And Sunghoon doesn't have to admit to that, doesn't have to give Riki the satisfaction of knowing that Sunghoon always wanted to be someone special to him, even if he didn’t know it, even if it wasn’t always like this. He can't make him admit it, try as he might, because Sunghoon pulls him in for another long, proper kiss, busying both of their mouths in the hopes of avoiding any further embarrassment.

And, of course, in the name of research. He has a new hypothesis to prove, after all.