ruirui @xiaoquanquans - Tumblr Blog

You, All This Time

Pairing: Dancer!Niki x Fem!Filmstudent!Reader

TW/N | 37k- childhood friends au, best friend's brother au, slow burn (like too fucking slow), sex, Niki's family, especially his sisters (Konon, Sola), are very much involved in this story, Y/N is Sola's best friend, Riki first says "she's like a sister to me" a lot around his friends, mentions of health issues and fainting, huge friend group mentioned, lots of fluff, lots of love, lots of family sentiments- ending on an era, this instalment of the New York series. Niki is Riki in this fic as this isn't an idol au, and he is also very much older like in his late 20s. Age gap mentioned!

Summary: Riki had known Y/N since she was a kid- she was his sister's, Sola's, best friend, after all. It was hard not to see her. He spent most of his childhood taking care of Sola and Y/N with Konon- putting band-aids on her scraped knee, sneaking out to buy ice cream and running into the beach together. But then, at the ripe age of fifteen, he moved to New York with his friends to start anew- but Y/N was never forgotten. She hovered in his life with Sola's presence- until, she entered his life again like a breath of fresh air. She came to New York to pursue a masters in film and in the process, Riki found himself wrapped up in the storm that was Y/N.

BEING BROUGHT UP WITH impeccable sentimental, familial and behavioral values was something Riki was known for amongst those in his life. He wasn’t religious but didn’t discriminate or judge those that were and he would never dare talk back to someone older to him, especially if they had graying hairs and bad posture. He was taught to never point a finger at anyone but to direct his hand towards them instead and he was taught to politely thank anyone for any miniscule favors he’d receive. He was taught to be polite and respectful to anyone he came across, regardless of his personal feelings for them but he could never learn not to judge a book by its cover. His sisters were brought up the same way.

Konon was the oldest of the three Nishimura siblings which meant that she was a year older to Riki and five years older to Sola. The three siblings grew up like best friends, leaving no secrets and unresolved fights between them. If two were fighting, one would act as a mediator to settle the situation. If their parents were scolding one, the other two would stand in defense. Konon would buy matching clothes and shoes out of her limited pocket money and made sure that they would wear the outfits whenever they went on vacation. Being the oldest sibling, it was a responsibility she had to take on.

Her parents expected her to help take care of Sola when they couldn't because they were usually busy with work and they expected her to cook and pack Riki’s lunch if they ever slept in too late. All these chores and many more were things she did regardless of whether her parents expected it from her. She cared about her siblings far more than people understood. There were times when she would bring her friends to defend Riki if he was ever being bullied in school and there were times she would stay up all night taking care of a crying Sola if her parents were out on business trips. And she didn’t just dote on them because of her love for them. She also understood that her parents had to work hard in order to afford the huge house they lived in and put enough food on the table to feed a family of five.

To sum things up, Konon was the perfect daughter. Their relatives- aunts and uncles- constantly praised her for her high levels of maturity and sense of responsibility and if her parents had to be honest, she was the smartest out of the three siblings. She maintained perfect grades and was a phenomenal dancer and her teachers, since the beginning of high school, had praised that she was on her way to get a scholarship at some of the world’s best universities. To top it all off, she had won the jackpot in inheriting the attractive Nishimura genes- well, so did her siblings.

But the weight of this responsibility, of being the perfect daughter and perfect sister, only grew heavy on her shoulders around the time Riki turned fourteen. He was just entering high school, barely garnering the experiences of a teenager, when he and his camp friends had made a request to send him to America with them. When Konon heard the news from her parents, she felt her heart drop and head swell- she wasn’t sure what to make of this request. At first, she simply laughed it off, labeling it as one of those stupid adolescent dreams that most people had. She herself had such dreams of moving to another country with her friends in high school. But then he and his friends had made a detailed plan and even a PowerPoint to formally request for his departure and it brought her to tears. What flabbergasted her more was the fact that her parents actually considered it.

It wasn’t that Konon was jealous of the fact that Riki was going to America to further his studies. Well, she wasn’t jealous enough to ruin the bond they had. She was more worried than anything. In the months that he first moved, she’d stay up all night wondering if his friends were taking care of him well and if he was going to school and studying like a good student. She’d call him frequently and ask about his day, his homework and how his new dance teachers were treating him. He told her that school was less stressful than it was in Japan, that his homework was a little hard because he wasn’t fluent in English (but he was getting there) and that his dance lessons couldn’t be better.

If there was anything anyone knew about Riki, it was that he was always able to adapt to any situation that he was faced with. It was almost like a superpower he held, something that made him more superior than the rest of his friends. When he and his six friends first moved to New York City, he was probably the only one that didn’t complain- not as much as everyone else, at least. Heeseung was always whining about college and how he regretted majoring in music sometimes. Jay was complaining about how Jake and Sunghoon were terrible roommates because they never cleaned their dishes and made their beds. His own roommates were worse because he had to deal with their complaints. Jungwon would complain about not liking the food he’d buy and Sunoo would complain about his pillow never being soft and his air conditioner never working at night. Heeseung was usually up all night working on his assignments and the music he composed would wake everyone up. But the thing about Nishimura Riki was that his mother taught him to be a good helper, so he would help Jungwon pick out food that fit his liking and would exchange pillows with Sunoo and fix the air conditioner whenever he could. He even bought everyone earplugs.

Niki had his own complaints, too, but he would rarely voice them out. He hated that his dance class was much too far from where his apartment was and he hated that he had trouble focusing in class because he would give up on understanding English. He hated the fact that he had to have Jake and Jay help him with his homework because it made him feel like a primary school boy. At times, he felt vulnerable because of this and the feeling was more overwhelming because he was in a whole new continent, oceans away from the country he was used to. Sometimes, he’d feel so homesick that he’d want to call his parents to buy him a ticket home so he could enroll back into his old school again and play Mario Kart with his sisters over melted ice lollies and frozen grapes. But he held himself back, knowing that studying in New York would get him a better career than it could in Japan- and he also wanted to prove to his parents and Konon that he could, in fact, be independent.

Out of the seven of them, Jake was probably the first to hit the jackpot in having a successful career. He first set out to study engineering but on a random whim, he tried dabbling in the modeling industry and only a few months later, he found himself ditching college altogether to pursue modeling as a full time job. He was showing up in magazines, commercials and even newspapers and finally, he had bought an apartment of his own, closer to the upper east side. It was around that time that he got a girlfriend, who was also a model, whose house was conveniently close to Riki’s dance class and Jungwon’s karate lessons. The two would find themselves going to her house as a rest stop and she would let them sleep and would sometimes even cook them food if they were particularly exhausted. Around this time, Riki’s grades had improved, his English was borderlining on fluency and because of the added advantage of having more rest, he developed a new flare in his dance.

Jake and Chiara got married. He was the first out of the seven of them to get married and it was a hassle to decide between themselves who the best man would be for the ceremony (Jake refused to make the decision himself because he said he didn’t want to risk the chance of hurting anyone’s feelings). So, they all picked chits and it was decided that Sunghoon would be the best man for Jake’s wedding and Riki would be the best man at Sunghoon’s wedding (which was unfortunate because Sunghoon had garnered a reputation for being terrible at maintaining relationships).

Over the years, he watched the rest of his friends find girlfriends and start families of their own. When they started having kids, he was being called an uncle before he had even graduated university. They all had started careers of their own and soon enough, everyone had their own house or apartment. Jake, along with modeling, had also taken up photography. Jay had completely taken over his father’s business. Sunghoon was one of the most famous figure skating instructors in America and finally settled in a long term relationship. Heeseung was a successful producer in the music industry with artists lining up to work with him. Sunoo started a cosmetics brand and made frequent trips between Korea and America. Riki, after tremulously getting a degree in business, had opened a dance studio with Jungwon and his girlfriend- now wife, Eva. The whole reason the two even started dating was because of Riki.

When it came to dating, Riki wasn’t exactly pent over it like most people he knew were. He, too, was known for having short-lasting relationships but for different reasons. The difference between him and Sunghoon was that he could never find himself being invested in the girl he was seeing while Sunghoon simply had bad taste and luck when it came to women. Now that he considered it, Sunoo would probably never get the chance to be best man at a wedding (Sunoo picked Riki when they were picking chits) because Riki never gave marriage a second thought. To him, it was almost unnecessary to think about, like it was just another errand he could worry about later. His parents had brought up the topic of girlfriends and marriage before but he would always change the topic. If Konon brought it up on their weekly calls, he would roll his eyes and tell her to worry about her own marriage. Even at the age of twenty-six, when he could afford to provide and support for someone other than himself and when all his friends were either engaged or married with kids, he never felt like he had to go down the same road they did.

There was a time when he thought something was probably wrong with him- psychologically, mentally. He had dated so many phenomenal girls, all who would get along with his parents and sisters and he could even go as far as to imagine starting a family with them, imagine them interacting with his family- but in those scenarios, he would never see himself happy. He would always be standing in the sidelines, awkwardly watching and not taking the initiative to introduce himself or support her in conversations. It was around that time when he realized that he had never truly been in love with anyone.

When he talked to Chiara, the psychologist of the group (because she graduated with a college degree, unlike her husband), she told him that it wasn’t something to be ashamed or worried about. Just because he didn’t find someone to love, didn’t mean that he never would and it especially didn’t mean that something was wrong with the way his brain was wired. It simply meant that he hadn’t found the right person for him and that it was alright to wait.

“Sunghoon waited so long and he finally found Sarah, didn’t he?”

“What if I’m not capable of love, though?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Chiara laughed at him and put more broccoli on his plate. Even after all these days, her cooking probably brought him the most comfort in all of New York. “You love us, isn’t that proof enough?”

Every week or so, everyone would gather around Jake and Chiara’s house for dinner, simply to chat and keep the bond of the group alive. Some would drink, some would play movies on the television and others would babysit the children because they were all still quite young, either a couple months old or a couple years. During these dinners, Riki would be made fun of at least once regarding his relationship status. Jay and Heeseung even had a habit of placing bets on how long his relationships would last. Riki didn’t take offense to this practice, in fact he found it comical when Heeseung would lose the bets almost every time. But it also comforted him to know that at least someone had faith that he would find love too.

“Now, Sunoo’s the only one that needs to worry about whether he’ll be best man or not,” Sunghoon would say but in all honesty, everyone knew that this type of thing wasn’t something Sunoo would brood about.

Everything that Riki stood by, though, had gone to shambles when Y/N entered his life again.

Well, Y/N had never left his life to begin with, there was just a physical distance keeping them apart. She had always been there, lurking in conversations he had with his sisters and standing in the corners of some of his pictures with a wide smile as she hugged Sola. The two were best friends, after all. They met each other in kindergarten and had grown up together ever since. She came on family vacations with them sometimes and Riki even used to babysit them together back when he was still in Japan.

The last time he had seen her, she was ten or eleven. She came to the airport to send him off to America, waving goodbye to him along with Sola and Konon with tears brimming their eyes. From what he knew, Y/N had always been fond of him like he was her older brother. She never had siblings of her own and her parents were usually always working abroad so his family became a second family to her. He had watched her grow up from this helpless thing in kindergarten to an eleven year old girl that would frequently get in trouble in school because she’d never pay attention in class. Riki had always been fond of her, too. It was hard not to be when he was around her so much. He took care of her like she was his sister, bought her ice cream when she cried and put medicine on the one time she scraped her knee on the ground while playing tag.

He could say he still somewhat knew what was going on in her life, even after moving to New York. Whenever he video called his family, Y/N was usually there as well and she would wave to him and ask how he was. Her and Sola were almost always together, like two peas in a pod, so whenever he talked to his youngest sister, the topic of Y/N would always come up and he had learned that she was the smartest in her class, had aspirations to become a film director and even had a knack for learning languages. Sometimes, he would wonder if Sola told her things about him, too- that he had graduated university, started a business and earned enough to buy himself a decent house in what was considered one of the most expensive cities on Earth.

Sola once told him that when she got her first phone, Riki’s number was the first she had saved. But it occurred to him that she never tried contacting him. The only interactions they had were through calls with his family.

“Riki-kun! How’s New York?”

“It’s pretty great, how’s school?”

“Pretty great, too.”

Riki was twenty-six now, which meant Sola and Y/N had even graduated college. He was supposed to go for their graduation but work kept him busy and he had to cancel his flight back home. He watched the graduation ceremony through the live broadcast the college had provided for family members that couldn’t attend and he watched as Sola accepted her diploma and hugged Y/N like she had just conquered the world. The pair walked around carrying flower bouquets wrapped in beige newspaper and threw their hats in the air to mark their victory.

A couple months later, when their summer break was supposed to end, Riki got a call from Sola when he was in the middle of work. Riki had given his family strict instructions to never call him during his work hours unless it was an emergency. And if his sister was calling him at such an hour, he had no choice but to cut his lesson short and tend to his duty as an older brother.

“Hey, sis,” he chimed, wiping the sweat off his face with a stained towel. “What’s the matter?” He asked with caution, trying to catch his breath from abruptly stopping his dance. His eyes darted back and forth, wondering what kind of issue she could be in, waiting for her to respond.

“Hey, sorry,” he heard her cringe. “I kept forgetting to ask you about this so I just called when I got the chance.”

“Alright, what is it, then?” He let out a breath and leaned against the plush wall behind him, slumping his shoulders and letting the towel fall to his feet. “I haven’t got all day, you know?” He said, his brotherly teasing and affection resurfacing the second he stopped worrying about her.

“Funny,” he heard her say and could almost imagine her rolling her eyes. “It’s about Y/N. She’s coming to New York to study.”

“What?” Riki blinked profusely, processing the information before ultimately saying, “that’s amazing. I’m proud of her but what does that have to do with me?”

“Well, because her university is close to where you live so I thought I’d tell you and you can… you know?”

“So I can, what?”

“Pick her up from the airport? Look after her while she studies there the next few years? She’s my best friend, you know? And you practically watched her grow up, too. She’ll be in a new country so it’d be nice to have a friendly face there. Mom and dad agreed, too. They said you should keep an eye on her when you can. You know how worried her parents can get and even they were relieved to know that you’d be living close to her-”

As Sola went on rambling, Riki thought of all possible outcomes that could come out of him picking her up from the airport (because he hadn’t processed the fact that he would essentially be her local guardian once she’s moved to her dorm). His first thought was that it would probably be awkward. He wouldn’t know the first thing to ask her or talk to her about and conversation would be necessary because the drive from the airport back to the city was quite long and he refused to spend it with thick air. Then, reconsidered it and wondered that maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. This was the girl that he used to babysit, and play tag with and eat ice cream with. If anything, they could laugh about the past and maybe get to know each other again. And even if Riki was hesitant, he could never turn down the request to help someone in need.

“Alright, alright, alright, I got it,” he cut her off from rambling. “Where is she gonna study and when do I pick her up?”

NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY wasn’t a sight Riki was unfamiliar with. He’d drive across the campus everyday while on his way to work and on his drive home. It was no different today, either, except now he knew he had some sort of affiliation with the university now. Y/N is going to study here, he thought, I’m going to see her walking in and out of the building a lot. It was such thoughts that filled his mind while driving to the airport and he had to wake up two hours earlier in order to reach there on time. He still found it weird that he was going to the airport to pick up an old friend, a person he could practically call family. Perhaps they were like cousins? He wasn’t exactly sure where they stood. He knew that if he had stayed in Japan, they would have been like siblings, just as they were before he moved to America, but instead, he was questioning what his sister’s best friend would be to him, in terms of relation.

Riki didn’t have a board with Y/N’s name written on it because he was adamant. When Sola offered to send him a picture of her, in case he found it hard to recognise her in the crowd, he insisted that he would recognise her without any help. It almost hurt his ego to even consider that he would be ignorant and aloof enough to forget the face of someone his family considered important, someone he was once very close to. He was also convinced that Y/N would be able to recognise him without help, too.

“You’ve changed a lot since the last time she’s seen you, you know?” Sola reasoned. “So has she.”

“We’ve seen each other on video calls,” he argued. “Should be fine.”

He was questioning his choices as he waited for Y/N to walk out of the airport, his eyes eagerly trying to fish out a familiar face from the sea of people spilling out of the automatic glass doors. He was on the brink of texting Sola to send him a picture after all or perhaps contacting Y/N through Instagram when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, brows knitted in confusion as he held his phone away from his gaze to find Y/N standing there with a shy smile, her long hair hiding her cheeks. She had her hands clasped behind her back as she rocked back and forth on her feet, probably easing the anxiety she felt from seeing him after a long time.

“Long time no see,” she said, her voice almost disappearing as she tried speaking without stuttering.

Riki himself felt a wave of panic when he saw her, his eyes widened in surprise to see how much she had changed. Granted, it was something he had expected. An eleven year old would surely grow taller in the decade that he didn’t see her but what awed him the most was that he wasn’t expecting for all his childhood memories to come flooding back to him- running around the beach with her, sitting beside her in rollercoasters and sneaking away from his parents so buy a soda from a street vendor. Catching glimpses of her on video calls was one thing but actually having her stand in front of him, in all her glory, was like a slap in the face to bring him back to reality.

“Y/N,” he cleared his throat, blinking his eyes back to normal. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“A decade, yeah,” she nodded, chuckling into ease. He hid her smile behind the back of her hand and her bangs blew in the direction of the wind. “You look different.”

At first, Riki thought she was talking about his appearance specifically. It was a given, considering the fact that he had started going to the gym around junior year in high school and he was practically a beanstalk in comparison to her (and all of his friends, Riki grew up to be impressively tall). But when he saw her continuing to shyly smile, he realized she was pointing out the sheer fact that he simply looked older compared to the last time she saw him- which was at the airport ten years ago.

“You do, too,” he grinned and looked her up and down, just to note what he’d never noticed when seeing her in video calls. She was wearing a white dress with cherries printed on the fabric. To hide her arms from the cold, she wore a black cardigan. It was a rather simple outfit, but then he noticed her attention to jewelry and grinned. “You’re into fashion, huh?”

As Y/N gripped the strap of her bag, Riki moved to drag her suitcase towards his car and she followed behind his feet. The suitcase wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be but then remembered that Sola told him that her parents were having the rest of her belongings parceled directly to the university.

“Well, I’m an arts student,” she shrugged, tilting her head as she spoke. “It’s kind of a given, no?”

“I suppose so,” Riki nodded. They reached his car and he opened the truck to stow away her bag and suitcase, nodding his head towards the passenger's seat so Y/N could make herself comfortable in the car. “Film and cinematography, is it?” He asked as he sat beside her and started the car.

“Yeah,” she confirmed with a nod.

“How so?”

Y/N cracked a grin, confused at his curiosity. Riki drove away from the parking lot and they were already on their way out of the airport premises. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he rephrased. “What got you interested in film?”

“Ah,” she pondered, dropping her gaze to her lap. “I watched Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. And I guess, since then, I’ve been obsessed with how movies are made and how much some directors pay attention to detail. I think I just love movies.”

Riki hummed as an acknowledgement, hands swiftly moving the steering wheel to follow the road. He was fascinated, really, with how things had turned out- he was meeting someone again after a decade. And he was going to get to know this person, not just because she was his sister’s best friend but because he had a new found responsibility over her. He wouldn’t be able to just sit in his house if he ever knew that Y/N would need help during college. He wouldn’t be able to ignore her needs when she’d be living close to him.

“Is he your favorite director?” He asked in hopes of continuing conversation.

“I… guess you could say that,” she agreed. “But I also do like Quinton Tarantino, his scripts can be flawless.”

“He directed Pulp Fiction, right?” Y/N nodded again to his question. “I watched it just a couple of days back. It’s a pretty great movie.”

“Yeah, it is,” she said. “I think Tarantino and James Cameron write the best scripts in Hollywood. Maybe even Greta Gerwig.”

“James Cameron is the one who directed Avatar?”

“And Titanic,” she confirmed.

“You know, I’ve never watched that movie?” Riki laughed and Y/N was about to feign offense. “But somehow I still know everything that happens in the movie. Never watched The Notebook either.”

“Oh, my God,” Y/N let out a soft giggle, almost as if she was holding back her laughter. Her hand moved to hide her smile again and she leaned her head further into the headrest. “A lot of people haven’t watched those movies. You’d be surprised.”

“A friend of mine keeps asking me to but we never get around to it,” he mused, thinking back to the time Sunoo had thrown a tantrum about Riki having never watched the classics of pop-culture. He and Chiara were probably the biggest movie enthusiasts he knew and when Sarah came into their lives, the three would discuss movies and plots like tomorrow would never come.

Oh, they were going to be over the moon if they ever had a conversation with Y/N.

“You should watch them, you know? Just to appreciate the direction. The movies are very beautiful,” her voice hiked up a notch as she tried convincing him and he could feel her gaze burning into his side. She leaned closer to him as she spoke and he let his chest fall into place when she leaned back.

“I’ll watch them,” he cracked a grin and glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. “Some day.”

“You haven’t changed at all,” Y/N shook her head and looked out the window to hide her smile. She fiddled with her hands in her lap and occasionally pulled at the hem of her dress. “You’ve always been a tease.”

“Oh, I know,” he continued grinning.

“But seriously, please watch them,” she repeated. “I’ve made everyone I know watch them, you have to, too.”

“You made my sisters watch them?” He asked out of curiosity.

“Of course, I did,” she said and Riki was reminded of how Konon had mentioned watching the two movies a while back. It was rather a long time ago.

“I’ll watch them, I’ll watch them,” he said, nodding with determination.

Y/N hummed and nodded with him, her hair falling further in front of her face. She pulled her hair behind her back and tucked a few stray strands behind her ears. “You have a dance studio, yeah?” She asked.

“Yup,” Riki nodded with pride. “It brings in a lot of cash,” he grinned and briefly tore his gaze away from the road to lean closer to her, bringing his hand between their faces and rubbing his thumb against his pointer and middle finger to convey money.

“I can only assume so,” she said and looked around the interiors of his car. It was a rather expensive car, especially for someone his age to own. If Riki had to be honest, even he was surprised by the level of success he had achieved at such a young age. He was in a better position in his life than his older sister, which was saying a lot.

“Anyways,” Riki wet his bottom lips before continuing. “We’re going directly to your dorms, right?”

When Y/N didn't respond immediately, Riki looked at her and repeated his question with caution. He watched as her face contorted into embarrassment and her shy grin had him repeating his question again.

“Actually,” she started, bringing her voice down into a whisper. The nerves she felt in the airport resurfaced and she played with the hem of her dress. “The dorms don’t open until the evening for everyone to move in so… I kinda-”

“Don’t have a place to stay?” He finished for her, raising his brow in her direction from utter surprise and disappointment. He let out a groan and hung his head low before concentrating on the road again. He knew what he was going to do, he just wished his sister had given him more details- but in her defense, he was too adamant to ask. “Let’s just get you some breakfast first.”

Riki brought her to a restaurant he said was close to his apartment and her university. They have the best pizza in town hands down, he said and Y/N nodded along to whatever he said. The place he brought her too couldn’t even be ruled as a restaurant- it was a small space built into the side of a crumbling building and the pizza was made on a small metal table and had only two ovens. The tables for this place were scattered around the area- in all honesty, she didn’t know if the tables and chairs belonged to the pizza place or the park they were in.

Y/N had a list of places she wanted to visit in New York City. During her research, she heard various opinions on which restaurants served the best pizza but this place wasn’t mentioned anywhere. She supposed everyone had their own preferences and realized that this place was one of the city’s hidden gems after tasting a slice of pizza. She moaned with delight as she swallowed a bite, her eyes closing in bliss as the cheese melted in her mouth.

“Told you, didn’t I?” Riki wiggled his brows and had a bite of his own.

“I’ve never had pizza like this,” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “I love this city already.”

Riki chuckled, remembering he once said the same thing when he moved here. “Who wouldn’t,” he said. “But nothing can beat the sushi from the bistro across my house.”

“I ate there before going to the airport,” she said and Riki jealousy pouted at her. “I told the owner that I was going where you lived and she got so excited. She asks about you all the time.”

“God, I miss that place,” he shook his head and tilted his head towards the sky, letting nostalgia take over him. In the fourteen years that he lived in his neighborhood in Osaka, he made more memories than he could fathom. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t make memories in New York- no, his entire life was situated in this city now. But it amazed him how people he rarely thought about still remembered him.

“Nothing’s better than New York, though, right?” Y/N joked and bit a chunk off another slice.

On the drive back to his apartment, Riki stopped at his favorite coffee cart to get her a tall cup of coffee and she awed at the flavor in that too. She held the warm cup in her palms, close to her chest as he parked his car and led her to the elevator that led to the top floor of his apartment building. The walls of the building were brightly painted with new white paint and the doorways to some even had flower pots lining the entrances. Riki’s door, however, was empty with only a peephole and wasn’t lavishly decorated like everyone else’s.

With her suitcase separating them, Riki fished out his keys from his pocket and opened his door. He stood in the doorway for a few minutes, fixing his shirt and throwing his keys onto the cupboard that stood right beside his door. When he finally lifted his head, however, he was met with the sight of Jake, Sunghoon and Jay sitting on the couch and chairs surrounding the coffee table in his living room with a few bottles of beer and a bag of chinese take away. Without saying a word, simply staring at them with wide eyes, Riki closed the door and turned around to face Y/N with an awkward smile. He held the door slightly open behind him, chewing at his bottom lip.

“Just one second,” he said to her and scurried into his house before she could say anything.

“What was that?” Jake asked, raising his brows and pointing at the door. He saw Y/N standing outside and he wondered if she had seen the three other men intruding in his living room.

“I should have never given you guys a key to my apartment,” he sighed and carded his fingers through his hair.

Sunghoon scoffed but he had on a smile and Jay raised his brows in feigned disappointment. “Hey, talk to your Hyungs with a bit of respect, yeah?” He pointed his finger at him as if he were scolding him but the action only earned a few chuckles from the group.

“Aren’t you all supposed to be working? What are you doing so early in my house? That too with beers,” he asked, pointing at the food and drinks on his table. Normally, he wouldn’t have minded it but this time, he was simply nervous because he had a guest over.

“It’s a Sunday, no one’s going to work this early,” Sunghoon reminded him.

“No one drinks this early either,” Riki retaliated, pointing at the beer in his hand.

“I do,” Sunghoon cracked him a grin and gulped down the rest of his beer. “You should know this by now.”

“Unfortunately,” Riki rolled his eyes, as did the other two. Sunghoon wasn’t an alcoholic, everyone amongst his friend group was aware of that. He could go days without drinking. But on days like these, when he didn’t have work to worry about, he would be the only person up for drinking, regardless of what time it was. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing in my house.”

“Nothing in particular,” Jay shrugged. “Just hadn’t seen your place in a while so we just came.”

“Didn’t think of leaving when I wasn’t here?”

“Well, why weren’t you here?” Sunghoon asked and Jake moved to play with a ketchup packet lying around the takeout.

“I had to go pick someone up.”

“Oh, is that who’s behind the door?” Jay smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and indicating that it could perhaps be a new romantic venture of his. “The girl?”

“It’s a girl behind the door?” Jake’s interest peaked at the mention.

Riki rolled his eyes and shook his head again, looking to her feet and stepping around for a moment. “Just don’t be weird, alright? She’s gotta leave in a few hours so just… behave,” he warned and turned around to open the door, acknowledging their hums of understanding with a nod.

Riki opened the door to find Y/N shifting her weight between one leg to the other, her neck hunched as she rapidly typed away on her phone. When she heard the door clicking open, she put her phone in the pocket of her cardigan and returned his embarrassed smile. He told her to come in as he pulled in her suitcase and placed it in front of the cupboard beside his door.

“Guys,” he said, louder than he usually spoke. He placed his hands on Y/N’s shoulders, almost in a protective way. She couldn’t see the stinking glare he sent to the three in his living room. “This is Y/N. She’s going to be completing her masters in NYFA.”

The three waved at her and their greetings morphed into a single sound. She waved back and bowed in acknowledgment.

“That’s Jay, Jake and Sunghoon, I’m sure you’ve heard of them,” Riki pointed his hand at the ones he was introducing and slowly guided Y/N into the living room by her shoulders. He dragged out a chair for her and she settled in it, looking between everyone in the room and Riki stood awkwardly with his hands in his back pocket. She ignored the way he swiftly switched from Japanese to English and while she was standing outside, she swore she heard him speak Korean

If Y/N were to be honest, she knew who these people were. She knew all the people in his friend group, including all the wives, girlfriends, fiances and kids because Sola would frequently show her the group pictures Riki had sent them and she would teach her the names of everyone until she remembered without making a mistake. She was sure she’d seen Jay a decade ago when they visited to talk to Riki’s family about moving to America. But she would never admit this fact to them, solely because she thought it made her creepy.

“So, are you two…?” Jake pointed between Riki and Y/N and his tone suggested a possible romance but Riki scrunched up his lips in disappointment and rolled his eyes.

“She’s my sister’s best friend,” Riki explained. “So, she’s like a sister to me, I’ve known her my whole life.”

“Oh, you’re her,” Jake crooned in realization and his face brightened with his smile. Y/N grinned at him, shrugging sheepishly. “We’ve heard about you.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s her,” Riki nodded with pursed lips and put his hands on his waist. His shirt, much too large for his frame, had bunched up under his palms. Then, he switched to Korean and he almost sounded angry, speaking as though he was in a hurry. “You guys gotta leave, man. She’s gonna be here until the evening and I’m probably going to help her move into her dorm. Tell Jungwon Hyung that I won’t make it to work today, yeah? Thanks.”

As he spoke in Korean, Jake, Sungoon and Jay got up and made their way towards the door before stopping and sharing a high-five or fist bump with Riki. They cordially bowed their goodbyes to Y/N and with groans and grumbles, they were out of his apartment. The door clicked shut behind them and his apartment felt bigger.

Y/N wasn’t sure how she imagined Riki’s apartment to be decorated but it definitely wasn’t what she was expecting. The walls were painted in white but most of his furniture was black- black couch, black dining table set and black chairs and coffee table. From what she could make out of the kitchen, the counters were some sort of black marble and the rest was white. He had a shelf across his couch, beside his television which was made of metal painted in black and it had a few Marvel figurines and potted cacti. Deeper into his house, she could see a beautiful view of New York City, roads mixing with buildings and yellow taxis standing out.

“You own this place?” She marveled.

“Yeah, I moved in very recently. My roommates got married so I thought I’d finally try living alone,” he explained as he settled on the couch. Slowly, he coaxed her to sit beside her and she cautiously moved.

“How’s it going for you?”

“I like it much better than I thought it would,” he grinned and tilted his head down so his bangs could cover his forehead. Then, he brought his hand up to fix and meddle with his hair again. “What do you wanna do for the rest of the day? We could go out? Or if you want, you can shower and sleep?”

“I think I want to sleep,” Y/N nodded and instinctively, she yawned and covered it with a fist in front of her mouth. Riki grinned at her and nodded. “Will you wake me up when it’s time for me to move?” Riki nodded and guided her towards his bedroom.

At the time he bought his apartment, he didn’t see the significance in having a guest bedroom. He rarely had people in his house anyways- there was the one time everyone threw a house party for him and stayed up all night drinking and talking. The next morning, Riki forced everyone to clean up the mess in his house. That was when Jake bought him all the Marvel figurines and when Jungwon gave him the cacti. Jungwon and Sunoo would come over from time to time just to keep him company or to watch a movie. The rest would rarely come and if they did, it was only for some time. Riki preferred it that way, that his home was a place for his solitude.

Y/N disappeared into his room with her suitcase, saying that she’d shower first and then sleep. Riki walked backwards and collapsed on his couch again, his palms running down his face from a sudden wave of exhaustion. He simply sat there with the television on for the next few hours. He heard the water in his shower running for a few minutes and then silence followed so he assumed she must have slipped into bed. Netflix became boring so he moved scrolling through his phone before ultimately falling asleep on the couch himself.

When he woke up a few hours later, he saw Y/N sitting on the dining table in front of the kitchen, sipping a glass of water while staring at the screen of her laptop. She didn’t notice he was awake until he stood up and started stretching his arms and legs, soft groans escaping his throat as he pulled himself away from slumber.

“I didn’t think you’d wake up so early,” he said and sat in the chair across from her.

“Yeah, I think it's jet lag,” she pursed her lips. “And I hope you don’t mind, I helped myself to your kitchen,” she cringed.

“Oh, no, please, make yourself at home,” Riki shook his head and hands to assure her and she smiled before bringing her attention back to her laptop. “Any plans for the rest of the day?”

“Well, no,” she chuckled. “Do you?”

“No,” he chuckled with her and clasped his hands on the table. “So we have two options here,” he started.

Y/N’s interest piqued and she smirked, pushing her laptop and glass of water to the side. “And what are those?” She clasped her hands on the table, mimicking Riki.

“We could order lunch and sit around in my apartment until you have to leave,” he said. “Or, we could go out for lunch, catch up and burn some time.”

Y/N pretended to weigh her options, her finger on his chin as she tilted her head to the side in ponder before ultimately saying, “I say we go out.”

“Great!” Riki exclaimed and pushed his chair back as he got up. He walked towards the door and grabbed his coat while Y/N excitedly followed him, her phone gripped in her hand.

“I’d love some carbonara, right now,” she said and he promised to give her the best lunch she’s had in a decade.

He brought her to an Italian restaurant not too far from his apartment and her university. It was decorated rather minimalistically with a few paintings hung around each corner. He brought her to sit in the corner most booth, beside a window, because it had the best view and perfect amount of air conditioning. He told her how Jake and Chiara found this place a long time ago while they were still dating and spent a lot of their dates there. Through them, the location passed down between Riki and the rest of the group.

They ordered carbonara spaghetti and lasagne with gelato on the side and mostly talked about their childhood. They reminisced on the vacations they went on as kids and how she used to sleep over at his house all the time. He confessed that she and Sola were a pain in the ass when they were together and Y/N agreed, saying that their mothers were lucky they weren’t born as sisters instead.

As they were finishing their gelato, Riki asked about what she planned on doing in the future. She told him that she wanted to direct a movie one day and become as renowned as her favorite director. She already had a few ideas brewing in her head, a few drafts for potential scripts saved on her desktop. For her first film, though, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to direct a contemporary film or a mainstream one that would hopefully become a critic’s favorite and win a few awards.

Riki laughed and said, “you have high hopes.”

Y/N shrugged and said, “a girl can always dream.”

After lunch, Riki drove her up and down a few streets to introduce her to the neighborhood. He even drove her around her university so she could get a quick glance of what the buildings looked like. When the time finally came, he parked his car near her dorm and helped her with her suitcase and bag. She was probably the first person to show up to get settled into her room, which meant that she had the comfort of unpacking alone with Riki without having the awkwardness of meeting her roommates.

It was a room for three and the beds were built in such a way that the mattress would be above a flight of stairs with their desks underneath. Within an hour or so, she had all her belongings put away in the places she needed them to be and hung up a few movie posters. After her suitcase was empty, she climbed up the stairs and collapsed onto her bed and laughed along with Riki. He was tall enough to be able to see her just by stretching his neck a little and his height almost startled her.

He asked her if she wanted him to stay with him for a little longer but Y/N checked her watch and said, “no, I think people are gonna start coming in soon and I wouldn’t want to bother you more.”

“Trust me, Y/N, you’re not being a bother,” Riki assured her but he left anyway and told her to give him updates on how her roommates turned out to be and whether her first day of college went well. She promised him that she would and Riki left her dorm and drove to Jake and Chiara’s house for Sunday night dinner (there was still time for dinner but he figured he’d get there early because he was free for the rest of the day).

THE FIRST FEW MONTHS of college could only be described as surreal- nothing Y/N had expected to experience when she first made the big decision to study in NYFA. There was something about New York that she could not box into a definition- she felt both small and infinitely expansive in the concrete jungle. New York didn’t just exist- it performed. When Y/N took a sociology class in under-graduation, she was taught that the word performance didn’t necessarily have to denote positivity and talent. Gender was a painful performance, for example, and so was religion. But New York… oh, New York City performed without purpose, yet it was performing towards history.

Every train screech was a score. Every flicker of neon on rain-slicked streets was cinematography. Her first month in the master’s program felt like being dropped into a Wong Kar-wai film, except she was the one writing it, camera slung across her shoulder, coffee in hand, mind in three timelines at once. Her vision blurred with rose-colored glasses that made sunsets more colorful, traffic more enjoyable and late night classes more memorable. She got used to finding beauty in places that were nothing like home- old Korean women selling roses on the corner, a Black gospel choir rehearsing in the park, a Hasidic father tying his son’s shoelaces with one hand and reading Torah with the other.

Her film classes were like therapy sessions disguised as lectures. Professors asked questions like, “What does your favorite shot say about your childhood?” and nobody laughed because they were all a little emotionally raw from the 1940s Italian neorealism screening the night before. They watched Iranian cinema in total silence and then tore it apart like scholars, artists, and insomniacs all in one breath. She wrote scripts in cafés with broken chairs and made short films in borrowed basements with actors she met at 2 am parties in Chinatown. Every day, something unpredictable happened- her professor once scrapped an entire lecture to screen a bootleg Soviet animation reel because “you’ll never understand surrealism through words.” And then suddenly she was dissecting Bollywood’s influence on diasporic identity in a seminar that smelled like burnt coffee and wet coats.

Culture oozed through every crack in the sidewalk. One day she stumbled into a Tamil film festival and left questioning everything she thought she knew about pacing. Another, she ended up at a protest-turned-performance-art-piece in Washington Square, where a girl painted her body with film negatives and screamed about censorship in Myanmar.

She kept changing. Faster than she could process. She became someone who could talk about Tarkovsky and TikTok in the same sentence. Someone who found metaphors in puddles and planned shots while brushing her teeth. She missed home, of course- but even that homesickness became a scene.

There were long nights in editing rooms, where the hum of machines kept her company. She started filming the city- not the postcard skyline, but its teeth. The peeling walls in bodegas, the way steam rose from manholes like ghosts, the poetry of strangers on fire escapes. She learned that storytelling wasn’t always beautiful- it was about tension, decay, intimacy. She once shot a silent piece about grief that made her TA cry. She kept the voicemail he left afterward.

Every day felt like an unfinished film. Rough cuts of people, sudden plot twists, shaky focus. But god, it was art.

Y/N also met people like characters that jumped out of novels and films she was too scared to watch.

There was Noah, who called Kubrick overrated just to start fights, and Juniper, who only shot in Super 8 and lived in a loft that smelled like lavender and old film reels. There was Marcel, who studied sculpture and only wore linen; he once made a bust of her nose because he said it reminded him of something “ancient and tragic.” Then there was Asma, who wore rings on every finger and spoke four languages, and who dragged Y/N to jazz clubs in Harlem and poetry readings in Brooklyn where everyone drank too much red wine and clapped like it meant salvation. Y/N would find herself at rooftop screenings, warehouse festivals, and film collectives where everyone sat on the floor and shared blunts like communion.

She called Sola less, but not out of neglect- just that time stretched weirdly in New York. Everything was happening all at once. And it all mattered. Conversations with her family and friends consisted of a selectively curated set of pictures from everyday that she spent out in the city, doing something new and unheard of- waters untouched, unexplored. Her parents would tell her to be careful as she was in a new city; Sola would send her voice messages of how she was jealous and miserable working at the desk job her parents found for her.

“Did you become an alcoholic?”

“You bought newclothes?”

“That short film you sent us was beautiful, It’s got to be my favourite.”

“Your voice sounds different- your accent is changing.”

YN loved her concern, loved the way she noticed even the slightest change in octave of her voice or color in her skin.

In all the chaos and unfolding that Y/N’s life was, somewhere down the line- the line filled with used film rolls and unfinished scripts- she had forgotten about Riki and her promise of keeping in touch with him. They had gone back to becoming strangers, only a few texts sent his way every two months or late responses if he was checking up on her. As usual, Sola was giving her updates about everyone through text, or calls or voicemails- long, terribly long voicemails that Y/N would stay up to listen to even if she were on the verge of dying from a hangover.

Riki, on the other hand, had started to forget about Y/N, too. He would still try to check up on her, sending her a text here and there but would only get a response weeks later. He had gone back to asking Sola about her and learning about her through secondhand. He would find himself scrolling through the myriad of pictures she would send on the big family group chat they had now, consisting of his family and Y/N’s family that they created around the first month of Y/N’s classes starting. Looking at those pictures, he found no need to worry about her. He found no need to keep the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, realising that the pair silently agreed upon a sort of mutual forgetting.

But he just couldn’t help himself.

Sometimes, when the studio emptied out early and the speakers still buzzed from the last song, Riki would open that group chat again. Not to say anything. Just to scroll. There would be a photo of Y/N on a rooftop, squinting into the sun, a coffee cup half-off the ledge like it didn’t know it was supposed to fall. Another one of her with some friend he didn’t know, maybe someone from her program. They always had complicated hair and thick boots.

There were times he’d type out a whole message. A “saw someone who looked like you today” or a “you’d hate this new kid’s music taste”- but then he’d just... delete it. Not because it was sad, but because it didn’t feel urgent anymore. Eventually, the urge to message her died along with passing time.

Still, every now and then, when she would respond out of nowhere, he would get excited and a knot he didn’t know he had in his chest would untangle and he would be filled with a sense of relief. A short voice note, her voice scratchy from lack of sleep, saying something like, “Riki, I saw this dancer today who reminded me of you. Except he was terrible.” And he’d laugh. Because it meant she still remembered him in motion. Not in memory, not in stills. But in the way he moved.

He never told her, but he played those voice notes more than once. Usually when the rain hit the windows sideways and the studio smelled like old wood and something close to longing. He never told her and probably never would but he had saved some of his favorite pictures of her onto his gallery and would show his friends later, let them scroll through her instagram that was now flooded with stills of New York and her film classes in NYFA.

Jungwon and Eva had a habit of asking him about her when things in the studio got boring. His older Hyungs had a habit of bringing her up during dinners at Jake and Chiara’s. “How is she?” “What is she doing now?” “Have you spoken to her?” “Are we ever gonna meet her?” And the only thing he had to offer them was a shake of his head or a shrug conveying that he really didn’t know. He couldn’t even predict what she would be doing- probably filming something in some dangerously abandoned street with a crew behind her or exploring a historically relevant dinner that even Riki would have never heard about.

One day, Sunoo told them about how a colleague of his gifted him tickets to a local play that was happening downtown- low budget, unknown actors, full of potential and fresh content. So, Riki, Karina, Heeseung, Sarah, Chiara and Jay tagged along with Sunoo to watch. He led them down a shady alley, he himself scared and wary of what Google maps was directing them because no way a play can be held in such rotten conditions, as Karina said.

The alley looked like it hadn’t seen light in over a decade. If they were in the world of Disney’s Lion King, this area would be under Scar’s jurisdiction- all the land that light didn’t touch. Graffiti art layered the walls- some political and some poetic. And it wasn’t one of those murals that looked beautifully messy- it simply looked messy, threatening almost. Rusted fire escapes sprawled above them, casting shadows that resembled broken piano tiles onto the uneven pavement they were cautiously padding on.

A trash can was tipped over near the corner and Chiara nearly stepped on a rat that darted across their path. “Never thought I’d see this side of the city,” she muttered, hugging her coat tighter around her.

Jay laughed nervously. “We’re either about to watch a play or get mugged.”

Sunoo stopped in front of a building- a squat, crumbling thing with vines growing from the roof and a crooked door that looked like it hadn’t been touched in a few years- like it had been locked with some sort of spiritual haunting rumours. He stared at the map on his phone, dumbstruck at the location he led everyone to. The group stopped abruptly behind him, almost bumping into him at his sudden stop in motion.

Heeseung peered over Sunoo’s shoulder to look at his phone screen. “Is this the place?”

“The ticket says so,” Sunoo grumbled under his breath, retrieving the stack of tickets from his jacket pocket and waving them around everyone’s vision.

“Hyung, are you sure you haven’t been scammed?” Riki, with his boxy and skeptical grin, peaked his head out from behind everyone.

Karina, now clung onto her husband’s arm, rolled her eyes in an attempt to ease her nerves. Heeseung held her hand in comfort. “Just open the door. Sunoo did say it was cheap.”

Because no one else was willing to, Riki pushed the door open first. It creaked- of course it creaked- and for a moment, all they saw was a dim, narrow hallway lit by a single, flickering candle.

And then, the hallway opened.

It was like stepping into another world- like they walked into Narnia’s closet. Inside, the theatre was glowing. High, arched ceilings painted in soft gold, deep red velvet curtains, chandeliers that looked like they’d been pulled out of a time capsule, casting a warm glow over the room. The walls were covered in intricate molding, the kind that spiraled like vines and told stories if you stared long enough. Everything smelled like old books and candle wax and something sweet, like caramel popcorn.

A grand staircase split into two directions leading to a balcony, and scattered around the lobby were mismatched chairs, couches and old film posters framed like art. There was a man in a suit two sizes too big handing out paper programs at the front and a small sign that read “DO NOT MISS OUT” in bold red against white.

Heeseung let out a low whistle. “This is not what I was expecting.”

And Riki, standing just a little behind them all, looked around and thought- not for the first time that week- that New York never ceased to take his breath away.

The group found themselves taking over the dusty and abandoned couches on the balcony, closest to the theatre as they could get. Karina and Heeseung occupied a two seater, as did Chiara and Sarah. Sunoo, Jay and Riki cramped themselves on a velvet green three seater, making themselves comfortable by adjusting their coats and hair. Eventually, Riki leaned back, not knowing when the play was about to start. Sunoo and Jay read through the paper program.

“What is this play about, by the way?” Riki asked, bouncing his foot and resting a hand on the back of his head.

“I’m not really sure,” Jay said under his breath, looking at the pamphlet back and forth in perplexion. “I think it’s some retelling of an old Chinese myth?”

The lights around them turned off dramatically and the stage glowed in front of them. Behind the curtains, a man appeared- probably a college student- and introduced the story of the play. As he walked off the stage, the curtains rose and the crowd clapped. Riki followed, not entirely sure of what drama etiquette consisted of.

The play was a reimagining of The Peony Pavilion, but not in the traditional, heavy-opera kind of way. The stage was stripped down- just a gauzy maze of hanging fabric panels, lit with projections that shifted from cityscapes to watery forests to flashes of old handwritten love letters. The characters wore layered modern hanfu in muted tones, their movements fluid and dreamlike, more like contemporary dance than blocking. The dialogue slipped between Mandarin and English, sometimes spoken, sometimes whispered like thoughts spilling out mid-dream.

The story unfolded slowly: a young woman dreams of a man she's never met, falls deeply in love with him, then wakes to find that nothing in the real world compares. She withers from longing until their love crosses realms- until he appears, inexplicably, and they’re reunited.

The group stayed surprisingly still throughout. Sarah, as expected, was engrossed in the plot, whispering to Chiara about its historical significance. Karina and Heeseung munched on the popcorn that was being sold by a boy walking around with a tray. Jay stopped fidgeting and Sunoo watched with wide eyes and parted lips of awe.

And Riki- Riki was caught off guard by how much it got to him. He wasn’t even following every word, but the feeling was unmistakable. That yearning for something that didn’t exist anymore- or maybe never did- hit somewhere deep in his chest. He sat there, arms folded, brow slightly furrowed, trying to pretend he wasn’t completely absorbed. But when the final scene faded and the stage lights dimmed, he realized he’d forgotten to blink. It wasn’t about the characters. It was about what it meant to miss something imaginary. And to know it still changed him anyway.

He didn’t realise the lights turned back on until the crowd erupted into applause. Confused, he looked around like he didn’t know which world he was in, standing up to clap the way everyone around him was. He blinked profusely as the curtains closed, almost flinching when he heard Jay hollering and Heeseung using his fingers to whistle.

“That was by far one of my favourite plays I’ve been to,” Sarah announced.

“Shame everyone else missed it,” Heeseung commented.

“Seriously, they missed out,” Sunoo nodded, a hand on his chin, still recovering from the drama he had just stood witness to.

“Why don’t we come to watch plays more often?” Jay asked.

As Sarah went into a rant about always having to drag Sunghoon to such plays because no one else was free and Karina laughed at her frustration over a very predictable Sunghoon, the group started walking away. Conversation rumbled amongst them as Riki silently followed, struggling to find his way out of the maze of couches and chairs and staying with his group, apart from the rest of the crowd.

But then, when he heard a voice- a voice so familiar and distinct- echo from the speakers, he stopped in his tracks. He head snapped to the side, letting his ear catch more of this voice that he had already placed a face to. But just to be sure- just to assure himself that he wasn’t hallucinating from the irony and allegory of the play, he ran towards the edge of the balcony and gripped onto the railings.

Standing on stage, in front of the velvet curtains with her hands behind her back and a headset to her mouth, was Y/N. Beside her stood a couple more people, all stared starry-eyed and smiles filled with pride at the crowd. As Y/N continued speaking, more people started spilling out from behind the curtains- probably the cast and rest of the crew- to stand with them, clapping from exhaustion and ecstasy.

“We’re proud to say that this was the very first production by our NYFA batch,” Y/N said, voice steady but eyes shining. There was a softness to her tone, like she still couldn’t quite believe it herself. “And I had the honour of directing this piece alongside some of the most creative, chaotic, sleep-deprived people I’ve ever met.” That got a few laughs from the crew beside her. She glanced at them briefly before looking back out into the crowd again. “Tonight was months of writing, re-writing, filming rehearsals, surviving on black coffee and instant noodles. And somehow… It worked. I think it really worked.” Her smile faltered for half a second, as if the weight of it all just hit her, then grew again- calmer now, like she’d let herself breathe. “Thank you for showing up. Really. We couldn’t have done it without an audience willing to step into something a little weird and unfamiliar. I hope you carry it with you, even just a little.”

More applause. The cast around her clapped again, some cheering softly. One of them wiped tears off her cheeks and sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her costume.

Riki didn’t clap. Couldn’t move, actually. All he could do was stare and listen.

“Isn’t that Y/N?” Jay asked. The rest of the group had materialised beside him, watching the girl Riki had shown a sudden interest in.

“Yeah.”

Beside him, he could hear Karina letting out a small gasp and slapping Heeseung’s arm in disbelief.

“Is there any way we can go meet her?” Chiara offered.

The group shuffled out of the theatre slowly, trying to be subtle even as Jay whispered, “I feel like we’re crashing a cast party,” to which Sunoo replied, “We kind of are.”

They creeped down a narrow hallway that smelled like old velvet and hairspray, the paint chipping slightly on the doors. A sleepy intern in all black waved them through after Chiara charmingly name-dropped Sunoo’s colleague and whispered something about them being donors- which was a lie, but the intern didn’t question it, mostly because he recognised Chiara as a model, Heeseung as a producer and Karina as a singer.

The backstage area was smaller than expected, filled with half-open costume trunks and water bottles balanced on music stands. People milled around, hugging and laughing, some still half in costume. And then- there she was.

Y/N stood a little apart from the crowd, talking to a techie in a headset, laughing over something on a clipboard. Her hair was pulled back, a sheen of sweat still visible on her temple, and she looked tired in that good way. The way you only look after doing something impossible and getting away with it.

Riki didn’t move. The others hesitated behind him, sensing something shift in the air.

She turned because someone called her name from behind the group, not expecting anything more than another crew member.

And then her eyes landed on him.

Y/N’s reaction consisted of a wide, welcoming smile, one that only beamed of happiness and comfort. She made her way towards him, pushing through the crowd squeezing her way past heaps of set pieces and costumes and finally, she stood in front of him, fidgeting with her clipboard and wiping strands of hair off her sweaty forehead.

Riki, however, was not as calm as her. He felt like the entire play had been a prelude- like he hadn’t come to watch the performance, but he’d come to see her. His heart was thudding against his chest like after a particularly tiresome dance class and he could feel his throat drying up. He simply blinked at her as she stared up at him, doe-eyed and excited like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Riki-kun,” she acknowledged. “I saw you sitting in the balcony, actually. I couldn’t tell if I was hallucinating.”

“Yes…” Riki trailed, clearing his throat. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Except, he chose that moment to let his thoughts drown him. She looked different- she’d cut her hair to have more layers, her choice of jewellery looked out of the norm, her words were filled with more confidence and, in fact, her accent had changed.

Jay, sensing the struggle of the youngest of the group, leaned forward to make himself existent in their moment. “Y/N, I’m Jay,” he extended his hand towards her. Y/N obliged, her smile never leaving her face. “We’ve met before.”

“Yes, I remember, good to see you again,” she beamed.

And just like that, everyone else started introducing themselves, too. One by one, they moved toward her- smiling, praising, teasing gently like they hadn’t just been strangers five minutes ago. The quiet secret of Riki’s affection hung loosely between them, unspoken but fully understood, carried in the way they watched her, in the softness of their voices when they said her name. Y/N, unaware, accepted it all with a kind of nervous grace, her eyes bright and her hands fidgeting at her sides as they told her how much they loved the play.

She nodded through compliments like she didn’t quite believe them, surprised by the way these people- celebrities, professionals, people she’d only ever heard about- were now calling her work beautiful. She told Chiara that she was a big fan of her work, Heeseung and Karina that she listened to their music all the time. They even promised to get a picture with her later. She then continued to praise Sunoo’s work in the cosmetics industry and asked how Jay’s business was going.

Riki stayed where he was, a few steps behind. He watched her move from person to person like she belonged in that space, like she’d built it and grown into it and left the version of herself he knew far behind. And yet, nothing about her felt distant. Everything about her still pulled at something deep and quiet inside him.

When the rest of the group pulled away as a cue for Riki to take over again, he felt stiff. He stepped closer to Y/N, awkwardly hanging the height of his presence around her as she struggled to look up at him. “The play was beautiful, I’m really proud of you.”

“Thank you, Riki,” Y/N cracked him a shy grin. “Can’t wait to tell Sola and Konon about it.”

“I’m sure they’ll be very proud,” Riki offered. Then, he moved to rubbing the back of his neck, letting his hair fall on his forehead. “How’ve you been? You’ve barely kept in touch.”

“So busy,” Y/N laughed, not realizing the weight of his question. “It’s just… been a lot, as you can see,” she vaguely referred to the chaos unravelling around her- people still trying to get out of their costumes, speakers and tubs of mics being escorted out and suitcases of costumes being rolled into oblivion.

“Yes,” Riki cleared his throat again, finally letting his eyes meet her gaze for the first time that night. Even her eyes looked different, reflecting a certain hope he hadn’t seen the day he picked her up from the airport and dropped her off to her dorm.

“I’m really sorry, though,” she said, but it wasn’t a weighted apology. She said it in passing, acknowledging that she was probably in the wrong, still high over the success of the night that she didn’t even notice him being weird and out of character. “For not keeping in touch. I know you asked me to-”

“No, that’s really alright,” Riki quickly pulled back, waving his hands in front of him as if the gesture would make the situation seem insignificant- like he hadn’t been holding onto the thought of her like a piece of loose threat on the verge of snapping off a sweater. He was scared he would unravel if that threat ever snapped. Riki who was always aloof, poised and nonchalant was now stuttering and stumbling for words over a girl- that too, the last person he expected. “Maybe you could come over again, some time. We could catch up over a meal.”

Y/N acknowledged this offer without any sense of tension or second-guessing. To her, it was a family friend calling her to hang out- her best friend’s brother, practically her own brother who she had once shared everything with and watched her grow up. To her, he was simply someone who cared about her because they'd known each other for practically their whole lives. It was simple, innocent, cordial even. To Riki, on the other spectrum, it was a plea of longing, a desperate shot in the dark to somehow get her in his life. He didn’t realise how much he’d yearned for her in her absence until she was there again, standing in front of him in all her glory.

FINDING A DAY WHEN both were free and willing for lunch was like trying to catch fireflies in cupped hands. When they were younger, Konon would drag Riki, Sola and Y/N into their backyard during summer nights when the fireflies came in swarms, painting the dark in flickers of gold. The air would be thick with humidity and grass, and the garden- overgrown and imperfect- became something close to a dream. They’d run barefoot over uneven stones and patches of clover, chasing the tiny lights with cupped hands, their laughter tangled with the distant sound of cicadas. Back then, catching fireflies felt easy in their juvenile energy. Now, it felt like a feat. It was possible, maybe, but barely.

Riki was always at the studio, running rehearsals, reviewing new choreo, or getting pulled into whatever spontaneous plan Sunghoon had cooked up that week for the group- karaoke at 1 am, skating on some rooftop rink, new ramen place in Queens he swore was life-changing. And Y/N was swallowed whole by her schedule- classes, late-night editing sessions, freelance gigs she took to make allowance, meetings about future projects that might not even exist yet. Her days bled into each other. Mornings disappeared into subway rides and nights into blank Final Draft documents blinking back at her.

Their texts were more like receipts than conversations. “Can’t do Tuesday.” “Maybe next week.” “Shit, forgot to reply. You alive?” They missed each other in passing, like trains on opposite tracks. Close enough to see, never long enough to stop.

As a desperate attempt, he invited her to celebrate his birthday with him- December 9th, at a restaurant on the Lower East Side like his friends planned every year. Just something small, something casual. But she couldn’t make it. She had a major paper to present that day- something she'd been prepping for all month, apparently. She apologized profusely over text, promised she would make it up to him, and sent him a sweet, thoughtful birthday message instead. Riki, mid-celebration- caught in the noise of a joint party they threw every year for him and Sunghoon, whose birthday landed just the day before- stared at the message for longer than he should have. The music was loud, the laughter even louder, but for a moment, all he could hear was her absence.

When Riki mentioned their technical difficulties to his friends, Chiara casually offered to host Y/N at one of their usual Sunday dinners. At first, he smiled, nodded like he’d think about it- but later, the idea sat heavy with him. Those dinners weren’t always just dinners. They were reserved for introductions- a new partner, a milestone, the kind of announcement that meant something had shifted. To bring Y/N there, like that, felt dangerous. Not because it would be obvious, but because it might not be. Because she wasn’t a new chapter. She was something older, deeper, threaded through his whole life. And he didn’t know how she’d take it. Would she think he was making it into something it wasn’t? Would she smile politely and pull away afterward? The thought of placing her in that space- his space- felt like tipping a balance he wasn’t ready to name. And yet, a part of him wanted her there anyway, just for the sake of it, just for the curiosity of how the night would turn out to be.

Then, the holidays came around, at a weird time. They had classes and exams during Christmas and New Year’s, ridding them of the experience of New York during the holidays. They couldn’t even go to the Time Square’s New Year’s countdown because they were begrudgingly finishing up work. To keep their Christmas spirit alive, some of them participated in secret santa and through it, Y/N was gifted a cheap night lamp that was shaped like a reindeer. Her phone filled with wishes from her family and friends, telling her that they missed her and that it sucked that she was away. Then, there was a text from Riki, wishing her a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The family group chat poured with pictures of their respective celebrations- her parents with Riki’s family, Riki with his big group of friends in fancy clothes.

Y/N sent them a picture of her editing software and a huge pile of unedited script.

The second exams got over, one by one, everyone started flying home or disappearing into weekend trips and reunions. Noah, Juniper, and Marcel left for a fishing trip upstate, and Asma flew back to Turkey to see her family. Y/N had planned to return to Japan too, but by the time she started checking flights, everything decent was either sold out or wildly overpriced. Whether it was bad luck or just bad timing- likely the latter- she ended up stuck in her dorm, quietly resigning herself to a depressing winter break alone.

When her parents found out, they reached out to Riki’s family- who, in perfect Nishimura-family fashion, turned it into a group operation. The news made its way to Riki through three separate calls: first from his parents, then from Sola, and finally Konon, each delivering the same message with varying degrees of urgency.

By the time Konon called, Riki was already half-laughing. Not at Y/N, but at how quickly the family machinery kicked into motion, like some ancient ritual.

“It’s only a few weeks,” Konon had said flatly, like she wasn’t already planning what meals to prepare.

“I know,” Riki had replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “If I’d known earlier, I would’ve brought her home by now. I just didn’t know.”

And maybe that’s what unsettled him the most- not knowing. Not realizing how easily she would have slipped through the cracks.

Before the day could even end, with Riki’s parents and sisters breathing down his neck (via a very active family group call), Y/N was already stuffing clothes into a small suitcase and Riki was hauling her back to his apartment like it hadn’t all been decided hours ago. There wasn’t much discussion- just a series of texts and calls that became instructions, and suddenly, there they were, tumbling into the elevator of her dorm, laughing about how aggressively loving their families could be.

The car ride was short, but it was filled with that kind of easy laughter that only came when things have already been decided for you. They joked about Sola’s threatening tone, Konon’s fake indifference, his mom’s voice getting unusually high-pitched when she insisted that Y/N not spend even a second of the break alone. Everything felt strangely light, comical, inevitable.

And beneath the jokes, somewhere between the suitcase rattling in the backseat and the sound of Y/N’s laugh catching in his throat- Riki realized he wouldn’t have it any different.

As they scrambled into his apartment, still laughing, their conversation slipped easily into the past- stories from a childhood that felt both distant and immediate. They remembered running down to the beach barefoot, racing each other until they couldn’t breathe, the sun setting behind them like a reward. They talked about sleepovers in makeshift blanket forts with his sisters, the way they’d huddle close during horror films, half-hiding behind pillows but still peeking through- until a jump scare sent popcorn flying everywhere. Then there were the winters when they’d sneak out just to buy popsicles, convinced that cold sweets in cold weather were a kind of rebellion- only for one of them to catch a fever and give the whole mission away to their parents. They looked back to all the things they couldn’t when they last met- when he picked her up from the airport and took her to lunch.

One moment, she felt so far away- out of reach- like Riki was chasing after the string of a kite that had flown too close to the sun. Then the next, she was on his couch, in his apartment, laughing at something he said, ranting about her studies, or listening to him unravel the details of his life- the way New York had etched itself deeper into him than he’d expected. They didn’t leave that couch for the rest of the day and meals were forgotten, time slipped past unnoticed. Their bodies settled into the grey fabric like it had always known them. They moved only to shift positions, to toss a cushion between stories, to stretch their legs into each other’s space. And in that stillness, they explored the separate, strange, and beautiful lives they were living- exchanging stories that felt too cinematic to be true, like they belonged to someone else, or maybe to two versions of themselves they hadn’t yet met.

With a racing heart and anxiety masked behind his boxy smile, the tips of Riki’s fingers slid across the skin of her calf. At some point in their long, winding conversation, her legs had stretched out behind him, and now he sat at the edge- of the couch, of the moment, of something he couldn’t quite name. She didn’t react. Or maybe she did, but chose not to show it. Or maybe she felt it and simply didn’t mind. So he kept going, slow and careful, his fingers tracing gentle, aimless lines up and down, like he was trying to memorize something without drawing attention to it. His arm rested loosely over the headrest, body angled toward hers, but his eyes never strayed from her face. She was beaming, mid-story, animatedly recalling how she first met Noah.

Y/N met Noah in their first semester film production class, the kind where half the students already acted like they were nominated for Oscars and the other half hadn’t held a camera before. The professor- who had the energy of a retired rockstar and spoke only in metaphors- assigned everyone into random groups and told them to create a two-minute scene using only natural light, diegetic sound, and their intuition. Whatever that meant. Y/N ended up with Noah, who showed up twenty minutes late with iced coffee, sunglasses, and a small duffel bag labeled “emergency props.”

They were supposed to set up a shot using a vintage camera rig and a complex array of wires, clamps, and one massive studio light that was borrowed from the “do not touch without signing a waiver” corner of the equipment room. It was during this setup that the inevitable happened. Noah was on the ladder adjusting the light while Y/N tried to connect cables she didn’t fully understand. A misplaced elbow, a slightly-too-fast swivel, and a moment of mutual confusion later- one of the campus’s most expensive studio lights crashed to the ground with the force of divine punishment.

No one saw it happen. Or rather, no one knew who did it. The group next to them looked up, startled. Someone gasped. The professor looked like he’d just seen his childhood home burn down. But by the time anyone pointed fingers, Y/N and Noah were already mid-performance, feigning shock and concern like seasoned criminals in a soap opera. They never confessed. They just silently agreed, from that day forward, that the light broke itself. The real tragedy, they claimed, was that they couldn’t finish their scene because of the incident.

And that’s how they became friends- not because they were alike, but because no one else would survive being in a group project with them more than once.

“What would happen if they found out it was you guys?”

“Don’t even say that, my entire life savings couldn’t pay off the penalty fee.”

Then, upon Y/N’s request for a story from his life with his friends, Riki began narrating the infamous tale of Sunoo and Sheila’s secret wedding- a story that, to this day, still made Chiara’s voice rise an octave when it was brought up. It had happened not long before Y/N’s arrival in New York. One quiet Tuesday, Sunoo and Sheila vanished for a few hours in the middle of the day. No one thought much of it. The next morning, Sunoo casually dropped the news into the group chat like he was sharing a new skincare product recommendation.

They had gotten married. Legally. Quietly. Without anyone present. Just a courthouse, a bouquet of daffodils from a street vendor, and a blurry selfie that looked like it had been taken between dental appointments. The group exploded. Not because they weren’t happy- of course they were- but because there were no announcements, no warnings, no hints. The group was livid, especially Chiara- not because she felt the need to be a part of every milestone of everyone’s life. No, it was because Sheila was her best friend, and she’d been robbed of her rightful title as maid of honor. She sulked for a few days, childlike pettiness extending to Sheila and Sunoo- it was bordering comical, bordering unseriousness, but everyone could tell how hurt she was.

Jungwon, while less vocal, was equally heartbroken. Years ago- years ago- before Jake’s wedding, they had all drawn chits from a hat to declare who would be whose best man in the future. Jungwon had gotten Sunoo. It was sacred. It was binding. It was, as Jungwon said with deep sincerity, the one thing in this world I had a guaranteed role in.

So, to restore balance in the universe, they decided to throw a fake wedding. Because of course they did.

Sunoo and Sheila’s apartment became the venue. Chiara showed up in a satin gown and Jungwon wore a navy suit with a boutonnière made out of paperclips and rosemary from Eva’s windowsill. Jay brought candles he found on sale at a novelty store. Heeseung printed out fake vows, poured wine into mismatched teacups, and stood beneath a party store arch decorated with twinkle lights and string beans (because that’s all they had left in the fridge) to officiate the fake wedding. Sunghoon showed up late carrying a Bluetooth speaker, playing Clair de Lune like it was the most romantic thing in the world. There was no aisle, no seating chart, no real audience- just a chaotic, intimate group of people who wanted to honor something that had already happened.

Chiara shone with happiness as she read out the maid of honor speech she had written for Sheila when they were still in high school (as Sheila did for Chiara’s wedding, as well, all those years ago), innocent and uncertain of what marriage and love meant. Jungwon gave a best man toast that sounded more like a TED Talk on friendship and commitment, complete with a pie chart he drew on the back of a pizza box. At one point, Sunoo whispered that this might be better than the real thing- and everyone pretended not to hear him choke up.

They danced. They played bad rom-com soundtracks on shuffle. Heeseung kept fake-pronouncing them husband and wife over and over in different accents. Someone spilled wine on the rug, and no one even cared. It was a wedding in spirit, but it felt more real than most actual ones. Because this was how they loved each other- loud, messy, dramatic, and all in.

Y/N was crying by the end of the story. She pictured the whole thing like a fever dream turned indie short film: fake florals, stolen candles, half-drunk toasts, and Sunghoon flinging a bouquet of bunched-up napkins out the window like it was tradition. And in the middle of it all, Sunoo and Sheila- beaming, barefoot in their own living room, surrounded by the only people who ever really mattered.

Meanwhile Riki was telling it all like it was nothing, like it was just another Tuesday with his people.

“You got so lucky,” Y/N said under her breath, wiping away stray tears with the sleeve of her sweater. “These are such amazing people.” Y/N was sure she’d seen pictures of that night, one’s Sola must have shown her when she was still in Japan, packing about worrying about her student VISA. She vaguely remembered it- Sola telling Y/N about an intimate wedding and showing her grainy pictures that were taken under the light of the moonlight and a few candles scattered across the room.

Riki leaned closer to her, his hand now covering the span of her calf, wondering if he should reach out to her cheek and comfort her. He doesn’t, though, acknowledging that this wasn’t supposed to be a moment- it was simply Y/N, a writer and director in the making, feeling the emotions of a love-story narrated.

“Liked the story that much, huh?” Riki chuckled, tutting and shaking his head.

“So, you and Sunghoon are the only two people unmarried?” She asked as clarification.

Riki nodded. “But Sunghoon and Sarah are going strong, though,” he paused, lifting a brow in thought. “I think they’ve been together almost two years? Maybe more? That’s a story for another day,” he waved it off, shaking his head again.

“Have you been a best man yet?” She continued, patting off patches of wetness from her cheeks.

“I’m supposed to be Sunghoon’s best man, actually,” he grinned. “And he better make it happen soon. I’ve got plans.”

“Embarrassing him?”

“Embarrassing him.”

The pair fell into a bout of laughter, the one that had them squinting their eyes and leaning into each other with their teeth in display. It felt intimate, personal- so unlike them. But it was starting to feel nice, like it was something they were supposed to be used to.

“So,” she started again, in between giggles. “Who is whose best man?”

Riki took in a sharp breath, looking up as if searching his memory, preparing to list them out with his fingers. “I am supposed to be Sunghoon’s,” he exhaled. “Sunghoon was Jake’s. Jake was Heeseung’s. Heeseung was Jay’s. Jay was Jungwon’s. Jungwon was Sunoo’s. And Sunoo is supposed to be mine.”

“Wow,” she nodded, letting out a breath of awe. “When do you plan on getting married, Riki-kun?” She teased, wiggling her brows that made him spit out his breath and throw his head back in laughter.

“Shut up.”

They fell into a rhythm without even meaning to. During Y/N’s winter break, Riki’s apartment quietly morphed into something like a shared home. Some nights he took the couch, sprawled out with one arm slung over his eyes and a throw blanket he wouldn’t admit wasn’t enough, while Y/N took the bedroom. Other nights, it flipped- her curled on the couch with her laptop warming her legs and Riki tucked under his duvet like he lived there alone. It was unspoken, seamless, not out of politeness but out of wanting an easier predicament.

Their days barely touched. Riki left early for the studio, hours before she was even fully awake. He'd disappear into rehearsal schedules, choreography tweaks, and group chats that vibrated endlessly. Y/N stayed behind, either lounging in oversized T-shirts watching movies she said were for research or diving into freelance projects- polishing scripts that needed character, subtitling moody short films, editing indie commercials for start-ups that sold things like oat milk candles or emotionally intelligent dog leashes.

They always returned to each other at dinner- takeout bags stacked on the counter, or half-hearted cooking sessions where someone inevitably forgot the salt. They were too tired to go out, too full of comfort to need more. One night, on a whim, they built a blanket fort with every cushion in the apartment and watched an old horror film they used to be terrified of. They didn’t flinch once, no popcorn thrown. Just soft laughter, a realization- they weren’t kids anymore, but something about that night made it feel like they could still play pretend.

And slowly, something inside Riki shifted. His feelings for her had always been hard to name- threaded in history, stitched into the craving of childhood familiarity- but now it felt heavier. Not sharp, but lingering in the depths of his conscience. He didn’t know what it was about her. Maybe the way she moved through his apartment like she had always belonged there. Maybe the quiet trust that settled between them like steam from a warm meal. It felt inevitable. It felt like a cliché.

His friends noticed. Of course they did.

Every few Sundays, Heeseung or Chiara or Jungwon would casually ask, “So, you bringing Y/N this time?” And every time, Riki had a new excuse. She was working. She was tired. She had plans. And sure- sometimes, that was true. But what he never said, not even to himself, was that he was afraid to even ask her. Afraid of what her reaction would be, afraid of how his second family would see everything he didn’t want to say out loud.

But eventually, he mustered up the courage.

It was no big moment, not any confession that had to go down in history. It was simply a text sent before he could overthink it, in between dance breaks and overthinking. And now, Y/N was on her way to Jake and Chiara’s apartment- for their sacred Sunday dinner, the table already set, the group already wondering what it would mean, this time, to set one more plate for a guest of Riki’s.

WHEN RIKI RANG THE DOORBELL to Jake and Chiara’s apartment, the hallway he’d stood in a million times before and the expensive black door he was staring at felt unfamiliar, unexplored. And he finally understood the nervousness and deafening anxiety the rest of his Hyungs had described when introducing their own significant others.

The story of how Jay and Jade argued their way into the same Sunday dinner, all those years ago when they had just started dating, was told and retold to the point that no one even remembered what they were arguing about. They just knew that Jay had a complicated, only sexual relationship with Jade, before they started dating and that to suddenly spring the news of their relationship on everyone felt criminal. Then there was Sunghoon and Sarah who almost bailed on the dinner, already a step forward of literally running, if it weren’t for Chiara opening the door too fast. Jungwon said he almost fainted before introducing Eva to everyone officially, afraid of the criticality that he thought would come with it (because he used to bitch about her like she was the devil herself before he actually fell for her). But it never did- he underestimated his friends. Sunoo and Sheila didn’t have the hassle of nerves because they’d all known Sheila long before Chiara and Jake even got married.

With Riki’s past relationships, he’d never felt this nervous. He’d never felt nervous at all- he had no reason to. Perhaps it was because, in the back of his head, he knew that all his relationships would somehow be ended. That all of them would somehow become irrelevant down the line, another name in his expansive list. He wasn’t proud of it- it was just the way it had been with his insufferable commitment issues.

As for Heeseung and Karina, tradition wasn’t even a thing when they started dating. In fact, it was them that even started the tradition, to hold Sunday dinners at Jake and Chiara’s every week for whoever was able to join, and to introduce or announce important milestones during such gatherings.

At that moment, Riki wanted to curse at his oldest Hyung.

Beside him, Y/N stood in a pair of jeans and an expensive top she bought just for the occasion (or so she claimed- Riki knew she just had a shopping addiction that was fueled with random excuses). She clutched her phone to her chest, eyes blanking at the door, her lips pulled between her teeth.

“Hey,” Riki nudged her, chewing his own lips now, hands fidgeting in his pockets. “You okay?”

“Nope,” she shook her head and Riki was taken aback by her honesty. He was also relieved that she couldn’t pick out his own nervousness, too fixated by her own.

“Oh-”

“I know, being a film student and all,” she rambled. “That I’m supposed to be confident in crowds and shit. Extraverted or whatever. And I am, don’t get me wrong. And I’ve already met, like, half these people, right? In your apartment, at our play that night- and they’re all so sweet. They sound like amazing people. But those interactions were short. I knew they would last barely a few minutes. But an entire fucking night with these accomplished fucking people-”

Somehow, Y/N’s panic brought relief to Riki. It was almost like the playing field was leveled.

Up until that moment, he was trapped in his own head, convinced that his nervousness was pathetic, especially because Y/N usually carried herself with so much ease and poise. She was always quick on her feet, emotionally articulate, socially magnetic. But when she started to panic? When her presence cracked and she blurted out an honest stream of messy, human anxiety? It grounded him, told him that, perhaps, he was putting too much pressure on this night when he didn’t need to.

Because they were old friends, known each other their whole life. That was all that it was. Right?

“Y/N,” he said, moving his hands to her shoulders- an action suddenly so natural and familiar after living together. “Breathe.”

And she did, her eyes locked onto his gaze, inhaling and exhaling while profusely nodding her head. “Yes,” she breathed. “It’s not that deep, right?”

Riki didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t offer generic lines like you’ll be fine or they’ll love you because he knew all that already. Instead, he shifted closer, shoulder brushing hers, his hand reaching instinctively for the sleeve of her jacket- two fingers hooking onto the fabric, tugging once.

He leaned in, just enough for only her to hear. And then he said something dumb, something that made her roll her eyes and laugh under her breath. It was about the way Jungwon once spilled wine all over Chiara’s wedding dress, and how Karina once called Heeseung her “co-worker” in front of his entire family during a fight. It reminded her that these people weren’t untouchable. They were chaotic, ridiculous, imperfect with stories just as embarassing as hers.

Then the door opened.

Jake, with his usual full and welcoming smile, greeted them as he ushered them inside. Y/N stepped in first, heart pounding like she’d just walked into the lion’s den. Jake shook her hand, took her coat, and affirmed that it was nice to see her again and asked if her film programme was going well in NYFA. Riki stood behind them as they walked through the apartment, into the kitchen. Y/N felt the relief of not needing to introduce herself- his friends already knew her.

The apartment was warm and glowing- soft lighting, familiar laughter echoing from the kitchen, and the scent of garlic bread and red wine floating through the air like bait. Shoes were piled near the entrance, coats already flung over chairs, and someone (Jay) was shouting about overcooked pasta. A half-set table sat in the middle of it all, cluttered with mismatched wine glasses and paper napkins weighed down by salt shakers. Candles flickered unevenly beside takeout containers and Chiara’s attempt at a centerpiece- a vase full of dried lavender. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t curated. But it felt familiar, a space built on years of dinners just like this one.

Still, it was a lot.

Heeseung was the first to notice her, reintroducing himself as he maneuvered around the table to offer her a glass of alcohol- pick any, we have it all. Karina appeared beside him, greeting her with the same warm smile from the night of the play. Sarah waved with her mouth full of salad, her eyes sparkling at Y/N’s arrival. Sunghoon let out an elongated “ohhh” as he finally recognized her as the girl from Riki’s apartment six months ago. Then Chiara appeared- all grace and cheekbones- guiding Y/N by the shoulders to sit between Sarah and Sheila, who immediately complimented her hair.

“Come here, you little shit,” Riki felt Heeseung grab his arm, pulling him into a hug and ruffling his hair. Heeseung and Karina hadn’t made it to the last few dinners, caught between work and travel. It had been about three weeks since they last saw each other- probably the night of the play.

“Any bets you’ve made for tonight?” Riki muttered, struggling out of Heeseung’s grasp as Jay joined them.

“If we had,” Jay grinned, “we’re not gonna tell you anyway.”

“You treat me like I’m a child,” Riki sighed, something he’d said a hundred times before and would likely say a hundred times again- locked in a permanent, affectionate limbo with his Hyungs. “I’m not even the youngest one here tonight.”

At that, Heeseung and Jay dramatically gasped.

Jungwon, overhearing, pointed it out even louder, and suddenly everyone was nodding toward Y/N as the baby of the group, tossing around stories about how they once faced the same struggles she was likely going through now. Eva and Jade eventually hushed everyone, telling them to stop being weird and to ignore their never-ending childish antics.

Jay and Sunoo set up Y/N’s plate, stuffing it with everything they had cooked up that night- pasta, salad, salmon, and some sort of vaguely Mexican dish Chiara had attempted. Y/N accepted it shyly, already knowing she’d struggle to finish it all.

And through it all, Riki observed her- not close enough to smother, but always within reach, like his presence was some kind of quiet safety net she hadn’t realized she needed. Then, Jungwon approached her with a collaboration idea- something about her helping them out with filming a commercial for their dance studio and Riki was almost embarrassed to admit that they did need to up their game in marketing.

“I’d love to help,”Y/N admitted. “I’m sure my friends would, too. Winter break just has everyone busy.”

“Wow, I miss having summer and winter breaks.”

Dinner was loud- expectedly. Sarah and Sunoo engaged her in a conversation about contemporary film and mid-century drama. Eventually, Chiara chimed in to learn about set design and direction. Y/N indulged them with what limited knowledge she had, quickly learning that they were film geeks in high school. Beside them, Jake, Karina and Jungwon were debating the relevance of garlic in tomato soup- however that conversation started. Suddenly, in between laughter and questions, Y/N wasn’t overwhelmed anymore and Riki could tell from the occasional eye contact from across the table.

“Y/N, when Riki’s home, you’re around him, yeah?” Jay, out of nowhere, hollered from the other end of the table and it startled Y/N.

“I guess,” Y/N responded, biting the nail of her thumb. She was taken aback by the next, confusion spilling over her features, expression almost disrespectful.

“Has he smoked?” Heeseung asked.

Riki was seen pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is this another bet?”

Confused, Y/N wrinkled her brows. “No…?”

The table rumbled again, Sarah suddenly getting defensive as Sunghoon poked fun at her about something Y/N didn’t have context to and Jay clapping Riki’s back with pride. “You owe me twenty for that,” he yelled at Heeseung who was slumping in his chair, already digging through his pants pocket to retrieve his wallet.

“Heeseung, if you’re gonna keep losing bets like this, I’m scared we’ll go broke,” Karina said, obviously a joke. “Just stop making bets.”

Then Jungwon, in his usual calm and matter-of-fact way, began explaining the odd but deeply sentimental significance of smoking within their group. The story of how Riki picked up the habit in high school unraveled slowly- something about the wrong crowd, bad influence, too much ego and not enough impulse control. When the rest of the group eventually found out, their reactions were, in hindsight, nothing short of comical. Sunghoon, with his deep-rooted hatred for smoking, refused to speak to Riki for three whole days. Jake tried getting him to quit with nicotine patches that ended up forgotten in drawers. Heeseung and Jay took to blackmail- quit, or we tell your mom. It never really worked.

Then Sarah came along with her already well-established smoking schedule and zero shame about it. Naturally, she and Riki bonded instantly, and the habit only worsened. There was something strangely poetic about the two of them standing outside at gatherings, bundled in coats, sharing long silences with smoke curling from their fingers.

It was probably around a year ago, around the time of Jungwon and Eva’s wedding, when a bunch of them went on a camping trip that a bet had been formulated under the stars and in front of a campfire- that Riki and Sarah would try quitting. It was about time, if fact- they were getting old, Sarah almost pushing thirty. They weren’t getting younger or healthier any time soon. So, with conviction, Riki and Sarah agreed and shook on it over a hundred dollar bill.

Both of them would lose the bet within a week.

But to be fair, they never stopped trying. Riki noticed the cravings begin to dull about two months later. Sarah managed a solid three months before caving during a particularly stressful meeting with the university. But even then, she picked herself up again. Last anyone checked, Riki had quit completely, and Sarah had been clean for two months- again.

Before that dinner, Heeseung had made a quiet bet with Jay- twenty bucks and bragging rights- that Riki would’ve relapsed by now. Given the emotional landmine he was currently living in- a winter break spent sharing an apartment with the girl he was clearly pining over- it felt like a sure thing. Heeseung argued that no man, not even one as stubborn as Riki, could survive that kind of domestic tension without giving in to at least one bad habit.

Jay disagreed, not because he believed in Riki’s willpower, but because he believed in Riki’s denial. “He’ll suffer, sure,” he’d said. “But he’ll suffer clean.”

Riki snickered as he watched Heeseung hand Jay a crumpled twenty dollar bill, a scoff on his face.

Dinner blurred into something rich and full- like a film montage in laughter, glass clinks, and overlapping conversations. Y/N found herself swept up into everything. Sheila and Sunoo argued passionately about whether filmmakers romanticized loneliness too much, while Jungwon launched into an overly dramatic retelling of how he dropped out of film school (after 24 hours of joining) after getting a C+. Jungwon knew nothing about film. Chiara and Eva took turns threatening Riki for trying to sneak extra chili flakes into the pasta. Karina and Jade somehow ended up telling birth stories- no one knew how- and half the table gagged while the other half applauded.

Y/N didn’t say much, but she didn’t need to. She listened, laughed, sipped from the wine glass Sunghoon kept refilling when she wasn’t looking. She watched it all unfold- the way this group moved around each other like planets in orbit, chaotic but never colliding. At some point, Sarah passed her a bowl of salad and whispered, “You’re doing great,” like it was a performance. And maybe it was. It would take a while for it to stop being a performance for a new-comer. Y/N just didn’t know if there would be another time.

Plates were cleared slowly- half by volunteers, half by peer pressure. Jay and Jade rinsed dishes while Heeseung played a post-dinner playlist from the living room speaker. Riki stayed near Y/N, helping her stack forks and carry glasses, their shoulders bumping every few steps. It didn’t feel chore-like. It felt like rhythm. Like something they already knew how to do together.

As the night stretched on, the chaos mellowed. Parents began checking their phones- Jade stepped out to call her babysitter, and Chiara and Jake had to talk their toddler through a minor bedtime meltdown via FaceTime. Sughoon and Jungwon were cross-legged on the floor in the corner, wine-drunk and laughing uncontrollably about a group vacation that never actually took place. Riki was asleep on the couch, one shoe off and a throw pillow clutched to his chest like a teddy bear. Karina was curled up beside Heeseung, legs tucked under her, eyes closed as he quietly played with the ends of her hair mid-conversation, wondering what their twins were doing with their babysitter. Sunoo and Sheila had left for home a while ago and Eva assured her that this wasn’t unusual for them.

Y/N found space beside Riki’s sleeping form, her head slightly tipped in quiet exhaustion. Slow jazz now filled the atmosphere, wrapping around the hush that had settled across the apartment- the kind of quiet that comes only after a storm. She let her gaze wander, finally taking in the details of the space she hadn’t had time to notice before.

The ceilings were tall, the walls warm-toned and glowing under soft light. A spiraling staircase curled upward toward what she assumed were bedrooms, and a balcony stretched wide, offering a sweeping view of New York’s glittering skyline. In front of her stood the television wall, a small bookshelf tucked neatly beside it. It was filled with magazines- presumably ones Jake and Chiara had modelled for- and well-worn books of old literature Y/N vaguely recognized from her high school English classes.

There was a wall lined with framed photographs- a mosaic of memories frozen in time. At first glance, they seemed casual, almost cluttered. But the more Y/N looked, the more she realized they were deliberate, chronological, curated by love. Most of the frames held Jake and Chiara posing with their son- grinning, sleepy-eyed, dressed as pirates on Halloween, or drenched in cake at what must’ve been his second birthday. But around those, like branches growing from a shared root, were the real legacy: pictures of the group. Their group. The number of people grew frame by frame, like chapters added to a story still being written.

The first photo was grainy, printed slightly crooked. It showed only the boys- seven of them, arm-in-arm, standing in front of a worn-down brick building that looked like it might’ve been a school. Riki, Jungwon, and Sunoo were unmistakably in uniform, their ties askew and faces baby-soft. They looked so young. Almost unrecognizable, all round cheeks and unformed edges, eyes filled with the kind of confidence that only came before real heartbreak.

In the next frame, Chiara appeared- wedged between Jake and Jay with a soft, almost shy smile. Nothing like the poised, statuesque model Y/N had seen online. She looked like a friend, like family. After that came Karina and Sheila, arms looped together at what looked like a birthday dinner, mid-laughter, mid-life. Then Jade and Eva, sitting on opposite ends of a couch but leaning inward, like a magnetic pull existed between them. And finally, in the most recent photo- clearer, brighter, heavier- was Sarah, along with all the children, as well. She was wrapped in Sunghoon’s arms, head tucked into his shoulder, her eyes closed in that unguarded way people only let happen when they’re truly safe.

The wall read like a timeline, each new face a plot twist, each smile a resolution. It wasn’t just decoration- it was storytelling. A collective memory pressed into glass, a gallery of arrivals, of becoming. It was the kind of thing you didn’t frame just to remember when someone came into your life- but to mark that they had never left.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Sarah appeared beside her, offering her a glass of water as she wedged herself in the empty space beside her and the passed out Riki.

“Yeah,” Y/N gulped down the water, astonished. “Never knew people like this existed, in this day and age.”

“Agreed,” Sarah nodded. “I feel like I got a little lucky every time one of these dinners happens.”

“I told him the same thing when he told me about Sunoo’s wedding,” Y/N grinned, too shy to meet Sarah’s eyes.

“Yeah, that night was beautiful,” Sarah mused. “Sunghoon has a framed picture from that night on his desk.”

Then came a moment of silence. With a smile softer than a feather, Sarah reached out and gently patted Riki’s hair, testing to see if he’d wake up. He only stirred, mumbling something under his breath before sinking further into the couch. Y/N stared, something warm blooming in her chest at the ease of it all- the tenderness, the familiarity. It wasn’t performative. It was family.

“Everyone shows up every Sunday for this, huh?” Y/N asked, curious.

“Well, no,” Sarah shrugged. “A lot of the time, we travel. We’re busy. Heeseung and Karina didn’t show up for the last three. Sunoo and Sheila are also missing a lot because they travel a lot, too,” she explained.

“And if Jake and Chiara aren’t home?”

“Sometimes, we make restaurant reservations. But we mostly come over anyway, raid their kitchen,” Sarah grinned. “When I first found out, I was a bit perplexed. Because, what do you mean you trust a group of people so much that you’d let them run your house and clean your house when you aren’t there? It felt like it was out of a sitcom.”

“Yeah.”

“But these people, Y/N,” Sarah sighed. “They built something irreplaceable. It’s like- you couldn’t understand it if you don’t experience it for yourself, you know? There’s no malice, no hate, no pettiness, no fucking each other over. It’s always just been love.”

Y/N felt her chest tighten as she gulped.

“You know, Riki hated me when Sunghoon and I first started dating?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Sarah chuckled. “When Sunghoon and I first met, I was... apprehensive. Cold. May or may not have acted like a dick.” Y/N laughed at that. “I think Riki was the only one who genuinely held a grudge. Everyone else somehow had blind faith in Sunghoon. But Riki didn’t. Looking back, I used to wonder how they could trust his judgment about me- because, to be fair, Sunghoon was kind of stupid about his love life. But I’m glad they did. I’m glad they trusted me.”

Y/N smiled faintly, her laughter from before still lingering at the corners of her mouth. The room had quieted, the buzz of dinner fading into the gentle clinking of dishes in the kitchen and the low murmur of a half-finished conversation across the room. Riki was completely passed out now, his face slack with exhaustion, one arm flung over his head like he’d been caught mid-dream.

Sarah tilted her head, studying him for a long, thoughtful moment.

“Sometimes I can’t wait to see who Riki would end up with.”

AFTER THAT DINNER, SOMETHING ABOUT Riki shifted in Y/N’s eyes.

The mornings were quieter- not the awkward kind but more of a familiar kind, the kind that didn’t require effort to be filled. And Y/N would find her eyes wandering towards Riki more often than not- when he made breakfast half-asleep, when he put on his jacket in that same dramatic way every morning, when he came home and tossed his keys on the counter like the world had chewed him up. Everything was technically the same- dinner, watching movies, talking- but it wasn’t, like a new layer had been added.

They sat closer together, leaned in instinctively to hear each other better. He was more attentive to her now, softer. Around the apartment, she started noticing little things- her favorite snacks in the cupboard (Sola definitely helped with that), a charger placed near the couch, a new stack of books on the coffee table- books that Riki absolutely did not own before because he barely read. He probably never finished reading a book his entire life. She knew they were brand new. She had once said she missed reading for fun, and the next morning, they were just… there, in front of her to discover openly. She just stared at them for a long time that morning, trying not to smile. He never said anything either.

One night, he came home late and found her watching some black-and-white film. He made a face, called it visually offensive but joined her anyway (she still couldn't convince him to watch The Notebook or The Titanic). At first, he lounged like usual, all stretched limbs and lazy posture, his arm on the headrest as usual. She was curled up beside him, completely locked in, eyes wide and focused. He didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until her head knocked against his chest. And when the movie ended, he didn’t find it in him to move. Her warmth felt too... permanent, too dangerous. He woke her gently, and when she blinked up at him, their faces way too close, it almost felt like a question- they looked away.

Another time, they finally agreed to step out for dinner- ramen at a place just down the block, nothing too fancy. It was familiar, like most things with them were. They debated over an internet conspiracy theory, laughing with their heads tilted together like it was the most important argument in the world. But when they stepped back into the snow, coats drawn tight around them, scarves tugged over mouths, Riki watched her with a full heart. This time, he didn’t shy away from the feeling. When she reached out to catch a snowflake, he reached out too- his fingers brushing hers as he took her hand. And without thinking, he tucked a stray flake-speckled lock of hair behind her ear. She blinked up at him, surprised. He looked at her with eyes that were filled with something like hope, glassy and lingering. They didn’t speak about it, instead choosing to reminisce about Osaka’s cherry blossoms and snow fall.

She told him, offhandedly, how her Christmas had been lost under piles of work and a silly gift exchange. It was kind of sad, kind of lonely. So, he called Chiara and asked for her gingerbread recipe. He didn’t say it was for Y/N, but Chiara knew- she always did. That day, they made the ugliest gingerbread house known to mankind. The walls caved in, the roof collapsed- the kitchen looked like it too, flour thrown everywhere, the remnants of egg yolk dripping off the counter. They laughed so hard Riki nearly dropped the whole thing on the floor. She hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. They took a picture of it and sent it to the family group chat.

Sometimes, Riki’s friends would barge in. One afternoon, while Riki was out at the studio and Y/N was working from the kitchen counter, Heeseung and Jake barged in while arguing- perhaps about something trivial but Jake was pointing an accusatory finger at Heeseung. They didn’t realize Riki wasn’t home- or that Y/N was. But when they finally looked up and noticed her, they didn’t skip a beat. There was no awkward tension, no polite apology, just a casual “oh hey,” followed by them flopping onto the couch like they lived there, still arguing as if she’d always been part of the scene. Then, mid-sentence, Heeseung asked how she was doing- genuinely. Jake chimed in with something about her film classes.

“If anything’s bothering you, let us know,” Jake grinned.

“Yeah, we’ve got contacts,” Heeseung snickered.

It dawned on her that these people probably knew a lot of her faculty.

She talked to them as they told her stories of Riki and Y/N told them about her childhood. And somewhere between the questions and intent listening, she realized they cared. Not just as an extension of Riki and not just as a guest in his apartment. And she talked to them, lost in their world, until Riki came home and they disappeared into his room to discuss their original intent of coming over in the first place.

But then, Winter break came to a halt. The fantasy Y/N was living in had crumbled over night. The apartment wasn’t the same anymore. It felt like it was bracing for some sort of impact like when sitting on a rollercoaster that was hiking its peak- the impact never hit, it was just silence.

Riki helped her pack- quietly, methodically, like if he focused hard enough on folding her clothes or zipping her bag, he wouldn’t have to acknowledge what it meant. Y/N moved around the apartment slower than usual, checking the same corners twice, pretending like she’d forgotten something just to stay a minute longer. They didn’t talk much. But both of them were sulking, in that wordless, obvious way. Not angry, not upset- just... unwilling. And it didn’t feel like there was space to say the thing they were both thinking. That they didn’t want it to end. That she didn’t want to leave. That he didn’t want her to.

The silence between them felt like a third person in the room- looming, heavy, impossible to ignore. It clung to their steps as Riki carried her bags down the stairs and into the car. On the drive, they spoke in one-liners- the kind of conversation that started and ended at the same time. And when they finally reached her dorm, Riki didn’t move to help carry anything further. He just stood there, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets, eyes on her building like it had done something wrong. Y/N hesitated, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag.

They bid each other goodbye, they said they’d keep in touch- both of them aware they’d said that before.

But this time, they really did keep in touch. Not in a dramatic, every-day kind of way. But in the little excuses- the link to a song she’d once mentioned in passing, a blurry photo of Riki’s half-burnt dinner with the caption you’d be ashamed. She’d send a picture of a weirdly dramatic pigeon outside her classroom and he’d reply in all-caps. It wasn’t constant, but it was intentional. A shared meme, a screenshot of a movie scene. “Did you see this?” “This reminded me of you.”

Sometimes it was a late-night text when one of them couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it was nothing more than a single emoji in response to something they didn’t need to explain. But it was effort, a mutual one. They didn’t talk about missing each other. But it was in every message they didn’t have to send but sent anyway.

Then, a month later, Y/N and Riki were standing in the same room again, this time in his dance studio while her and her friends were helping him with a commercial shoot. It wasn’t anything complicated- just promotional. There wasn’t much dialogue involved, and there wasn't much planning. They kind of just showed up with their equipment and hoped to go with the flow.

There were a million questions being thrown around by both parties, one because they didn’t understand the art behind dance and the other confused of what to do in front of a camera but both parties were concerned about the amount of footage they’d have by the end of the night. Noah and Marcel stood behind the lighting and sound equipment, Asma was going around touching up everyone's makeup and cleaning people’s sweat. Y/N was leaning into Juniper’s side as she flipped through her camera settings.

Most of the shooting was done by then and it was barely past the evening. They had made good progress. The only thing they needed to worry about was exhaustion. All of Riki’s dancers were heaving and Jungwon and Eva struggled to force their bodies into doing the same routine over and over again. The three collapsed in a corner as the camera crew yelled for a break so they could run over footage. Riki stole glances of Y/N while she quietly listened to Juniper point at the laptop screen and Marcel at his phone, head tilted and hands on her hips.

Then, after a brief silence, Juniper proudly announced that they had enough footage for their intended promotional video and that they could officially wrap up the shoot. Like they’d rehearsed it, the five friends (Y/N, Noah, Marcel, Juniper and Asma) huddled together, arms holding each other's shoulders, and outrightly sang Take Me home, Country Roads by John Denver. It had the rest of the studio laughing and clapping.

While the group, all the dancers included, made their way to a celebratory dinner at a Chinese bistro not too far away, Juniper narrated the story of how the song came to become so significant for them.

It all started four months ago, during an overnight shoot for yet another project. They were filming in a borrowed barn for aesthetic purposes- even though none of them had written a single word of the script yet. It was freezing, pitch-black, and none of the lighting equipment was working. Noah had forgotten the extension cables, Juniper tripped over a hay bale and sprained her ankle, and Asma was yelling about how this was exactly why she didn’t believe in spontaneity.

Somewhere around 2 am, Marcel discovered that the Bluetooth speaker was the only functioning piece of technology they had. He connected his phone and, without explanation, blasted Take Me Home, Country Roads at full volume. At first, everyone just stared. Then Noah, still in costume as a ghost for some reason, started swaying with a flashlight under his chin. One by one, sleep-deprived and high on instant noodles, they all joined in, singing it like it was a hymn sent down from the heavens. By the second chorus, Juniper was crying (unclear if from emotion or ankle pain), and Asma was harmonizing like her life depended on it.

The project was never finished. The footage was unusable. But that night? That night became legend. And from that moment on, Country Roads was their emergency theme song- when things went wrong, when they wrapped something up, when someone was sad or stupidly happy. It became less of a song and more of a ritual, a religious practice.

The Chinese bistro, decorated with red, blue and green, couldn’t accommodate so many people at one table. So the groups split and occupied the small round tables that could barely accommodate four people. Y/N separated into a table with Riki, Jungwon and Eva like it was natural, letting her friends occupy the table behind her. Riki grinned at her while conversation filled the space, not only their own but the many others who were conversing with their friends and celebrating the day’s victory and free meal (which wasn’t free for Riki, Jungwon and Eva because they were paying the entirety of the bill).

Riki ordered food for the table, coaxing everyone to trust his choices while Jungwon threatened to roundhouse kick him if the food tasted out horrible. Eva only rolled her eyes and looked at Y/N with feigned annoyance. “You see what I have to deal with everyday?”

Y/N laughed, politely covering her mouth with the back of her hand. She wasn’t sure if she had it in her to contribute to the conversation so she listened and laughed and threw in an occasional reactionary response. Cautiously, she nibbled on fried tofu and bok choy, watching the way Eva and Jungwon discussed taxes and bills and Riki argued about how they could have just hired an accountant to figure these things out for them. Then, they moved on to talking about real-estate and how Jungwon and Eva were looking to find a bigger apartment- they needed more space after adopting a dog. Finally, on some whim, Riki came to the topic of their friends and how, after a long time, things felt silent and serene amongst them- no big announcement, no big changes, no more life-altering decisions.

“You’d be surprised,” Jungwon then said, to break the bubble. He brought the ceramic cup of green tea to his lips. “There’s talk of Sunghoon proposing to Sarah.”

Riki’s brows crickled, neck craning forward in confusion, lips parting. “Talk?” He asked. “What do you mean, talk? Did Sunghoon say so?”

“Yeah, my bad, I phrased that so terribly,” Jungwon shook his head. “Sunghoon Hyung, Eva and I went to watch a movie together a few nights ago. I think Sarah was still on campus or something, one of her students needed help. And after the movie, Sunghoon just… blurted it out.”

“Yeah,” Eva piped, profusely nodding. “He just up and went I think I’m gonna ask her to marry me and Jungwon dropped the popcorn on the floor.”

There was a moment of silence that fell upon them, Riki slowly leaning back into his chair and crossing his arms. Then he looked at Y/N, a grin playing on his lips. “Thank fucking God,” he exhaled. Jungwon chuckled. “I was really convinced that if these two weren’t endgame, Sunghoon Hyung would truly end up alone.”

“I love him but I was thinking the same thing,” Eva admitted.

“Makes sense why Chiara and Jake have her in one of the group pictures,” Y/N offered, softly- only Riki heard her.

He grinned at her again, nudging her shoulder with his. “Seriously,” he nodded. “Sarah is the only person we all collectively trusted with Sunghoon. Every other girl, at some point in time, we all had an issue with.”

“Sunghoon had terrible taste,” Jungwon rolled his eyes.

They started telling one of Sunghoon’s infamous drunk stories- this one passed down like mythology. None of them were actually there that night. It was Jay’s story originally, but at this point, they’d all claimed it as their own.

It was the night of Chiara’s high school graduation. Just a handful of them at Jake’s old apartment- Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon- playing cards, drinking cheap beer, and yelling over the sound of thunder shaking the windows. By the time it hit midnight, the rain was sideways and Sunghoon was gone. Not tipsy. Gone.

Jay was apparently half-asleep, slouched at the edge of the bed, when Sunghoon started spiraling. Not dramatically- just tragically, in the way only Sunghoon could. Mumbling about how his love life was cursed. How nothing ever worked out. How he was “doomed to rot in loneliness forever,” because- get this- he once Googled the meaning of the mole on his right pinky toe, and it said he’d face “constant issues in love and marriage.”

At this point in the story, Jungwon was already laughing.

“Like, who the hell Googles that?” he said between cackles.

Eva jumped in. “And believes it!”

Riki, nearly in tears, mimicked the way Sunghoon apparently clutched the blanket to his chest and yelled curses in Korean when Jay told him to just go to sleep.

Y/N was wheezing by the end of it, clutching her side, already picturing Sunghoon dramatically slapping his forehead in drunken despair. “Poor guy,” she breathed. “God bless Sarah.”

Meanwhile, Riki and Jungwon had already launched into full-blown scheming mode- whispering back and forth about which Hyung they could manipulate into treating them to an expensive meal later to soothe the sting of spending so much money tonight. It felt less like grown men plotting and more like two middle-schoolers rehearsing how to ask their parents for something they weren’t allowed to have.

“Jake Hyung’s the easiest,” Riki whispered. “He always takes us out.”

“Right, right,” Jungwon nodded. “And Jay Hyung.”

“Nah, not him,” Riki shook his head. “He’ll catch on.”

“Heeseung Hyung?”

“Sunoo Hyung?”

“Perfect. We’ll scam all three,” Jungwon clapped.

“You guys are idiots,” Eva muttered, arms crossed. “Jake literally hosts us every Sunday for free- do you realize how much money goes into all that food and alcohol?”

“They’re rich,” Jungwon argued without shame.

And just like that, Riki, Jungwon, and Eva were caught in a circular argument about the morality of tricking their friends into feeding them. Riki thought it was harmless. Jungwon laughed and said it was tradition- they’d been doing it since high school. Eva, who was clearly not thrilled by the idea of her husband and best friend acting like broke teenage boys despite earning well above average, eventually smacked both of them on the head and declared herself done.

“What do you think, Y/N?” Riki turned to her like she was the final judge.

Eva shot her a look too- sharp, warning, the kind that said choose wisely.

Y/N looked between them like a deer caught in headlights, lips parting to try and find a diplomatic answer- and then, miraculously, a waiter appeared with a tray of drinks. Every single head turned. The argument dissolved. All moral debates were instantly forgotten. Y/N was off the hook.

Riki had definitely drank too much.

It wasn’t like him- not really. He wasn’t the type to lose control at group dinners or forget where he left his shoes. But that night, for some reason, it just happened. No emotional backstory, no dramatic trigger. Just too many shots handed to him too quickly and not enough good decisions in between.

Jungwon had offered to drive him home, one hand already reaching for the keys while Eva helped wrangle the rest of the group into cabs. Y/N had hesitated at first- torn between following her friends back to the dorm or going along- but eventually nodded, telling the others she’d catch up later.

When they reached Riki’s apartment, it became painfully clear that he was no longer in full control of his legs. He couldn’t even stand up straight- his entire weight slumped onto Y/N like he’d mistaken her for an armrest made of steel instead of someone barely taller than him and running on two poorly made cocktails and fried rice.

Jungwon and Eva exchanged a knowing glance and muttered something about “text us when he’s okay,” before slipping out. And just like that, Y/N was alone with him- drunk, mumbling, kind of pathetic, but in a way that still somehow made her chest ache.

Riki groaned something incomprehensible as she fumbled with the door and tried not to let both of them collapse on the welcome mat. She wasn’t even sure he knew where he was anymore.

But when his hand clumsily reached for hers, squeezing it just barely, she held on.

She didn’t know where she got the strength from- maybe adrenaline, maybe stubbornness- but she finally managed to get him into his bedroom, stumbling through the hall like they were fighting gravity with every step.

She sat him down on the edge of the bed with a heavy thud, both of them breathless, her arm sore from the effort of carrying his weight. Riki slumped forward, elbows on knees, and she sat beside him, hands pressed into the mattress, trying to still her heartbeat. But Riki leaned on her again, whining loudly- it was so unlike him, such an odd sight.

“I like your company,” he mumbled, head slotted into the space between her shoulder and her neck, voice low and messy.

Y/N’s heart stilled- she felt it, in her chest, the skip of a beat, the missing second of a heartbeat. She closed her eyes.

“I like being around you, Y/N,” he mumbled- too clear, too clean for the state he was in and the moment they were wrapped up in.

“Riki,” she whispered, staring at the empty wall in front of her. “You’re drunk.”

She wished he wasn’t. But if he weren’t, would he be saying the same things?

“So what?” He said, voice now heavier, annoyed almost. “Don’t you see?”

Did she see? Did she see the way he looked at her while she was talking? Did she see the way he smiled when he spoke about her to his friends? Did she see the way his hands somehow always stretched towards her? Did she see the sparkle in his eyes when their families demanded that he house her for winter break? Did she see the way he almost shattered at the lack of her constant presence?

“See what?”

Riki didn’t reply, not with words, at least. He let his weight tip sideways and collapsed onto the bed, dragging Y/N with him in motion. They landed together, flat on their backs, legs dangling on the edge, Riki’s head lolling from side to side as more whines stumbled past his lips. Y/N only stared forward, breath caught in her throat.

“Riki,” she exhaled, squirming under the weight of his arm. “I need to go back to my dorm.”

Before she could even finish her sentence, his arm snaked around her waist, skin touching skin past the sliver of her shirt riding up. The warmth brough blood rushing to her cheeks and a squeak escaped her throat. Riki continued to nuzzle his head into the crook of her neck, his hair tickling her jaw, his lashes brushing her ear, his chin on her shoulder.

“Don’t go,” he breathed. “Stay.”

WHEN RIKI WOKE UP THE next morning, he found himself buried under his duvet, limbs twisted in a way that made no physical sense. His mouth was dry, his head was pounding, and somehow- somehow- the curtains were open, sunlight slicing through the room like a personal attack. He groaned, already irritated, one arm thrown over his face to shield himself from the rays of sunshine. This was unusual- he never left the curtains open.

Then he felt it, the presence beside him and his eyes shot open faster than he knew to breathe.

Y/N was curled into him, her head resting on his numbed arm, hand gripping the fabric of his shirt, hair strewn across his pristine grey pillows. Their legs were tangled, weaving each other close- too close.

Full blown panic hit him as he gasped- loudly. His eyes went wild, scanning the room, scanning them, desperately checking if anything was out of place, if anything was unusual. He lifted the blanket, afraid of what he would find-

They were fully clothed.

Riki let out a shaky exhale, letting his fingers card through his sweaty hair, tutting and twitching his jaw. His heart didn’t stop pounding against his ribs though- he thought his heart could never calm down, with the way she was holding onto him like he’d disappear if she didn’t, like she was holding on so he wouldn’t leave.

Nothing happened, he repeated in his head, nothing happened.

Then the memories started trickling back in. The drinks. The way he’d leaned on her. The things he’d said.

Oh, fuck.

His head throbbed harder. Riki, disappointedly pulling away from Y/N, scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping over his own feet, hand pressed against his forehead like he could physically push his hangover back in. Now, his head throbbed harder than his heart and he collapsed onto his couch, head heavy in his hands, curses falling past his lips.

What the hell had he done?

When Y/N woke up, groggy and confused by her lonesome state in the bed- she jolted up. Running a hand through her hair and fixing her shirt, she found Riki in the hall, sitting on his couch, staring straight ahead at the black screen of the television.

She padded over slowly, bare feet against the floor, still disoriented but fully aware that something was off. The apartment was too quiet. Riki was too still.

Y/N sat beside him, the silence between them somehow louder than the city noise outside. She looked at him- head in his hands, posture crumpled like regret had already gotten to him. His voice was rough when he answered her question about the tablets, a shake of the head without lifting his eyes. She moved to get up anyway, almost instinctively- because that’s what you do when you care about someone- especially if you had known them since childhood. But before she could make it out of the room, his fingers wrapped gently around her wrist and held her in a soft hold. Not desperate, not firm, but enough to make her sit back down and breathe a little slower, enough to make her feel something she didn’t have a name for yet.

“Last night was weird, huh?” Riki’s voice came out slowly, flatly- he was trying to hide the fear in his voice, the caution he was taking while looking at her. His eyes were drooping, not because he was tired or sleepy but because of the regret pounding in his chest, the anticipation of what was to come next slowly creeping into his conscience.

“You were drunk,” she answered- but it almost sounded wrong, a weak debate, like she was trying to convince herself rather than console him.

She tried to tell herself that it didn’t mean anything. That her heart hadn’t been racing when he said those words. That she didn’t feel like her lungs had collapsed when he wrapped his arms around her like she belonged there. And maybe she was trying to convince herself, because if it wasn’t just because he was drunk, then what was it? What did that mean for her? Why did it suddenly feel like her skin still remembered where his hands had been? Why did everything about him feel louder than the room?

It scared her a little bit- how much she wanted to stay and how much she wanted him to ask her to stay. It felt natural to just be next to him, even now, as the air was filled with awkwardness and the remnants of a hangover and too many questions. She hadn’t meant for it to happen- this shift, this unravelling- but now she couldn’t not feel it. She thought about that night a week ago, when she spent hours working on a draft for a potential short film, only to realise halfway that the main character had become him. The way he laughed. The way he got all defensive when he was wrong. The way he looked when he was too tired to pretend he wasn’t hurting. The way he was so quiet and attentive without a complaint. The way he could never point at her, She’d written him into her story without meaning to. And once she noticed it, she couldn’t take it back.

They sat there in that silence again, but this time it was heavier. Charged. That strange pull between them rising again like it always did. It had started happening more and more lately- just staring. Long, unblinking, weighted. Not flirtatious. Not exactly romantic. Just this quiet, suspended thing between them like they were waiting for something neither of them could name. A buildup, a prelude, to something that could change everything.

Riki’s phone buzzed, snapping the moment clean in half.

It was Konon.

With a sigh and a regretful look passed to Y/N, he answered her video call, greeting his sister by ruffling his first and then groggily looking into the camera. His sister was sitting on a bed, the background he quickly recognised as her boyfriend’s house. She had been dating someone from work for a couple of years now but never told her parents- too scared, too shy to express emotions as the older child. She put a cookie in her mouth, waving at the camera.

“Do you not have work today? How come you’re still home?” Konon asked, raising a brow. She had always been like this- assertive, concerned for his well being, making sure that he wasn’t straying.

“I do,” Riki nodded. “Woke up sick.”

“Don’t bullshit,” Konon pointed a warning finger at him. “It’s so obvious you’re hungover,” and then, it started: her once-in-a-week speech about, “you know I can always see through you, Riki. Honestly, it’s like you think I’m blind. Mom and dad probably can’t tell but I raised you, obviously I can tell when you’re hungover and when you’re lying-”

Y/N, realising what was happening, had stifled a laugh. Her hand came up to cover her mouth but it was too late- Riki was already glaring at her, cheeks hot from embarrassment- that he, a twenty-seven year old, was still getting lectured by his older sister. Beside Konon, he even heard her boyfriend mumbling something about, “leave the boy alone.”

“Konon-” Riki pursed his lips and took in a breath when his sister continued rambling. “Konon- Konon, Y/N is here, too.”

Yeah, that got her to go quiet.

But it didn’t come from surprise but rather, suspicion and that older-sister instinct that always sensed when something wasn’t right, even through a screen. She narrowed her eyes, just slightly, as weight returned back to the room again. Y/N looked between Riki and his phone that was in his hand, held delicately with shaking arms- it could fall off anytime now.

When Riki tilted his phone to show Y/N, Konon’s expression changed. She smiled, warmly, like she always had at Y/N and waved.

“Sola told me about your filming yesterday,” Konon said. “Riki drank after that, didn’t he?”

Y/N nodded, not having it in her to lie to her- she, too, was practically her older sister. She could never lie to her- respected her too much. “I had to carry him home,” Y/N grinned and Riki, as if forgetting the weight on his shoulders and the air pushing down on him, rolled his eyes. It made Y/N grin wider, looking between him and the phone screen.

Konon’s suspicion, though it still sat at the back of her head, was forgotten for a moment.

“Oh, Riki, you’re gonna get a piece of my mind-”

Before Konon could go on her tangent of his actions being disrespectful, that putting Y/N in such a position was embarrassing and about drinking responsibility, by God’s grace, Riki’s phone rang again- Heeseung Hyung.

“Konon, I’m so sorry, I’m getting another call. It’s important. It’s work. Bye!”

“You little shit-”

Konon’s angry face was replaced by Heeseung’s fresh and showered expression. He was driving and Riki could hear traffic in the background- mixed with Y/N’s stifled laugh. She was almost off the couch, throwing her head back at the banter between Nishimura siblings she’s watched growing up. But this time, for the first time, she was seeing it through Riki’s perspective.

“Riki?” Heeseung called, eyes trained on the road as one hand held his phone to his chest- it was not a flattering angle. But it wasn’t anything Riki wasn’t used to.

“Yeah, Hyung?”

“I’m around the corner,” he said. “Picking you up,” then he cut the call.

Riki looked at her then- eyes hesitant, mouth caught somewhere between a wince and a breath he hadn’t finished taking. His shoulders, which had briefly lifted during the call, dropped again. Like reality had returned and settled too snugly into the room. There was something careful about the way he looked at her, as if unsure whether she’d laugh again or pull away entirely. His phone felt heavy in his hand.

Y/N only smiled at him, assuring and assertive, almost like she already knew what was going on in his head. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll take the subway.”

“No,” he quickly said but he didn’t have a plan, nor did he know where he was going with his words. “I should- I always drop you-”

“No, it’s fine, Riki,” she said again, voice as soft as her smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’ll text you when I reach my room.”

He stared at her, still trying to piece together what was right and what wasn’t. It felt criminal to let her leave alone, to not drop her off like he always did- like it broke some quiet promise he’d never officially made. But she was already slipping on her jacket, already walking to the door, and all he could do was watch.

When the door shut behind her, it was like she took the warmth with her. The room felt cold again, empty in a way that had nothing to do with the hangover in his skull. The moment- their moment- had been cut off too abruptly.

He went downstairs a few minutes later, climbing into Heeseung’s car without saying anything. He could barely freshen up, the grim from last night still hovering in his hair and his face, his outfit a complete mess.

“You good?” Heeseung asked, pulling into the mainroad again.

Riki didn’t respond.

“Jungwon called last night. Said Y/N took you home.”

Riki leaned against the window, exhaling through his nose.

Heeseung glanced at him once, then back at the road. “We all know you like her, bro. How long are you gonna keep pretending you don’t?”

Heeseung didn’t ease into it. Didn’t give him space to sidestep or deflect or pretend this was just another drive. He just asked- too plainly, too soon, cutting through the fog that Riki hadn’t even begun to untangle. And for a second, it felt like the air was punched out of his lungs. No warning, no time to brace, it was all too much- Konon’s knowing tone still ringing in his ears, Y/N’s warmth still lingering on the couch cushion beside him, the silence they’d shared that hadn’t felt like silence at all. And now Heeseung, his oldest hyung, sharp-eyed and soft-hearted, looking straight through him like he always did.

Riki didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what would come out if he even tried. His fingers curled in his lap and his throat dried. His heart was still somewhere between her goodbye and Heeseung’s question. So he just leaned his head back against the window, shut his eyes for a second, and let the silence stretch. He needed it to say what he couldn’t.

“No,” he finally muttered, under his breath, almost deflecting. “Maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it’s just protectiveness-”

“Riki,” Heeseung said, his voice assertive. “You do know. You’re just scared. This is like Jay and Jade all over again.”

Jay and Jade had known each other since they were kids, much like Riki and Y/N, but- not exactly friends, more like family acquaintances forced into proximity at every wedding, holiday, and summer BBQ. They didn’t even start talking properly until years later, when on some late night whim and zero forethought, they stumbled into a friends-with-benefits arrangement. No rules, no feelings- until there just were. Jay fell first, obviously, but denied it with his whole chest until Sunghoon and Sunoo cornered him during a drunken game of truth or dare and wouldn’t let up until he admitted it, red-faced and pissed off, muttering something about how "this wasn’t part of the deal."

And knowing his friends, they wouldn't hesitate doing something like this to Riki either.

And maybe Heeseung was right, maybe Riki was terrified. Because if this went wrong- if he let himself want her, and he failed- then what? What would happen to their families? To the years of closeness and comfort? What would happen when Sola found out he messed it up with the one girl he wasn’t supposed to hurt- just like he did with all his past relationships?

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking a little.

“I think I just need time to process.”

Would Riki ever come to terms with his feelings? Or did he already accept them but was only scared, shy, of actually doing something about it? He couldn’t tell. Riki was raised with a lot of great qualities- but he was never taught what to do in such situations- tangled, messy, uncertain.

Heeseung didn’t argue. He just nodded once.

Silence hung in the car for a moment longer before Riki finally asked, “Where are we even going?”

“Your studio,” Heeseung replied. “Jake, Jay and Sunghoon are already there. Jungwon told Eva not to come because, let’s be honest, she’s a blabbermouth. I think Sunoo is on his way, we should reach at the same time.”

Heeseung rumbled on like Riki already knew the context. But it was quite evident that he wasn't with the way his brows drooped, lips parted and neck craned in confusion.

“What?”

“Did you not read the group chat?”

Upon Heeseung’s blunt jab, Riki pulled out his phone and scrolled through the dozens of unread messages flooding the group chat that only the boys were part of. As expected, it was chaos- links, memes, screenshots, Sunghoon’s vague panic, Jungwon’s nonsense voice notes, and Jay trying to keep everyone focused. He’d missed all of it. He was either blacked out or wrapped up in Y/N’s presence while the rest of his friends were planning the next life-altering moment for one of their own.

“Sunghoon’s gonna propose,” Heeseung said, casual but direct. “We’re helping.”

Riki blinked at the screen, still trying to catch up. “We’re... helping?”

Heeseung shot him a look. “Yes. Full planner mode. Jay’s already treating this like a corporate merger.”

Riki groaned. “In all our years of wingmanning and last-minute suit rentals, this is the moment we go full sap mode?”

“You gonna help or cry about it?”

“I’m just saying,” Riki muttered, thumbing through more texts, “this is the first time anyone’s called in a whole council over a ring. Usually it’s like- got the girl, see you all at the wedding.”

Heeseung smirked. “Well, it’s Sunghoon. This is a big deal for him- we all thought he’d end up alone.”

Riki sighed, defeated. “Fine. But why isn’t anyone else involved? Chiara would drool over this. Jade? Karina? Literally anyone with a Pinterest account?”

“Just shut up and be useful.”

When they arrived at the studio, the others were already there, sprawled out across the hardwood floor and leather benches like they’d moved in. Jay had his laptop open. Jungwon was half-asleep with a granola bar in his mouth. Sunoo was scribbling something on a whiteboard. Jake was trying to juggle a pair of apples for no reason.

And Sunghoon? He looked like he had been born anxious. He was pacing, eyes darting, sweat beading at his hairline- and he wasn’t even wearing his skating gear. He was only in a hoodie, an old pair of jeans and the kind of face that screamed I need this to go perfectly or I will combust. His cheeks were even red and they only turned that way when he laughed too loud.

But there was something different about his nerves. This wasn’t the type of nerves that came from fear or uncertainty. Because there really wasn’t anything Sunghoon didn’t know- he knew. He knew that when he proposed, Sarah would say yes. Everyone knew. Because there really was no other answer- they loved each other, they found each other. They were the poster couple for people who think they’re never going to find love- that it’s always worth the wait.

“Okay,” Sunghoon said, clapping once, mostly for himself. “So. Proposal ideas.”

Chaos ensued.

Riki immediately suggested an ice rink flash mob. Jake seconded it. Jungwon started googling sparklers.

Jay told them they were all idiots and pulled out a mood board from Google photos.

Sunoo suggested a dinner with dimmed lights and live violin music. Heeseung backed him up, adding a PowerPoint for venue logistics.

And Sunghoon, poor guy, just stood there in the middle of it all, overwhelmed and smiling and trying not to cry or scream or do both. He kept walking back and forth, kept mumbling about Sarah’s favorite songs and how he didn’t want anything too loud because neither of them were fans of loud gestures- grand, unforgettable, but never loud.

Somewhere after Sunghoon showed them the ring he was going to propose with and Jungwon and Jay arguing about whether Sunghoon should propose in public or an empty restaurant, they started wondering what the wedding would look like. Small, intimate, everyone’s families flying down to New York, rustic and old themes only because Sarah loved the color brown and how Riki was finally going to be a best man-

“Riki, you’re bringing Y/N, right?” Sungoon turned to Riki, sudden, almost deliberate and planned.

It was quiet for a split second.

Then, grins started to split across everyone's faces. Jake’s eyes lit up, Jungwon snorted, Sunoo threw his head back in laughter and Jay just looked at him, waiting for an answer that they all already knew of. They just needed him, needed Riki, to finally admit it so they could hopefully help him (and end a few bets).

Riki, however, was on the verge of sinking into the floor- to just let his legs pass through the hardwood and enter whatever realm existed beyond the one he was in right now. He’d never been put in such a situation before, to be treated like a middle school boy with a crush- but Y/N made him feel that way, like he was fifteen again with a whole future waiting ahead of him.

He could feel his face burning and his hand shot to the back of his neck. He even whined, something Riki never did, and tried to cover it up with a laugh. And when his phone pinged with a text from her, he was losing his mind.

Everyone burst out laughing.

“I hate you guys,” he stated, blankly, staring at the floor. He didn’t find it funny, not really. He thought his heart would burst. But he was just glad his Hyungs rooted for him- hoped for him. “I really do hate you guys.”

“You love us.”

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t fucking know!” He whined again. “If she wants to? I- I don’t… I can’t say-”

“Head. Over. Heels,” Heeseung muttered, not even looking up from his notes.

Riki groaned again, flopping back onto the couch behind him, face hidden in his hands because he couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Because even if no one had said it out loud before, they all knew. And maybe, deep down, so did he.

A few hours later, everyone packed up, quickly and efficiently- work calls started to pour in, some needed to drive across town to get to lunch meetings and Sunghoon needed to get back to teaching his kindergarten students how to ice skate. They all left in intervals, leftover ideas being tossed in the group chat and Sunghoon promising to let everyone know how and when he was going to do it.

And just like that, the studio emptied and Riki was left alone with Jungwon. They looked at each other for a moment, a silent agreement, an understanding that for the rest of the day, they wouldn’t talk about anything other than work. Then the students and more dancers started to pour in along with Eva and they were back to reality, back to life.

A WEEK LATER, THE NEWS had reached Y/N’s ears- Sunghoon and Sarah were engaged. They were already talking about wedding venues and tentative guest lists, though it hadn’t even been a full seven days. Y/N was invited early- not because the save-the-dates were ready, but because Riki was the best man and, according to Sarah, he could invite whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted (which was a lie. That clause only applied to Y/N. Sarah had said so herself).

According to Riki, Sunghoon had planned the whole evening meticulously. He was going to start with a quiet dinner at their favorite spot downtown, then surprise her with a trip to the museum she loved most, and finally circle back to the boba place where they’d met all those years ago. It was meant to be poetic, natural, a soft-spoken sequence of little moments that led to the moment.

But he never made it past the front door.

Sarah had been waiting for him to grab his coat, standing on their small balcony, arms folded on the railing, chin resting on her wrists. The skyline stretched behind her, dusted in disappearing snow and streaked with dusk, and the wind toyed with her hair like something out of a dream. She was smiling- barely, softly- and Sunghoon said her eyes had caught the light just right- said it knocked the breath out of him.

So he got down on one knee, right there, on the uneven concrete floor of their balcony, with half-melted snow clinging to their chairs and the cold biting his skin. He pulled the ring from his pocket, still unsure of how to say it.

But before he could even speak, Sarah turned around- and said yes. Before he could even say the words, before he could even open the ring box- Sarah said yes. And she said it ten times more before he could even get the question out- “will you marry me?”

Riki told Y/N this through an unexpected phone call. It was late in the evening and Y/N was just entering her dorm room again, tired and peeling off her soaking red scarf out of her neck. It was also around the time Riki usually came home from work. On the phone call, he sounded softer than usual on the phone- she could tell he was happy for his friends, excited for their future and his role as best man.

It was that phone call that led Y/N walking into the familiar buzz of the ramen bar they'd gone to once before. “I’m craving it,” he had said. “Let’s go?” So simply, so casually that Y/N almost thought it was planned out. But she didn’t know that he wasn’t craving ramen- he was craving her. He just wanted to see her, talk to her, be near her in a way that didn’t demand explanation. It was stupid, maybe, but it mattered to him.

And something about that night felt different. Like it wasn’t just dinner. It was like they were both agreeing to something without ever saying it. It was quieter than their usual meetups, but not in a bad way- it wasn’t awkward. They still laughed, still made fun of each other, still slipped into their rhythm like no time had passed. But something hovered. That night- that night- when Riki was drunk and clinging to her like a lifeline, when he’d said things she hadn’t been able to forget. It sat at the edges of her thoughts like fog on a mirror, begging to be wiped away but never quite gone.

She played with her chopsticks, stirring her broth but not eating. Her appetite had vanished. And maybe it was foolish or maybe it was brave, but she looked up at him.

“Riki?” she said, barely audible above the soft clatter of the restaurant.

He glanced up. “Yeah?”

She watched him across the table, chopsticks clicking gently against ceramic as he reached for another slice of fishcake, and she wondered how he could look so normal. So fine. Like the moment hadn’t etched itself into his skin the same way it had in hers.

She hesitated, feeling her heart twist. Then she said it.

“That night... what did all that mean?”

The fishcake Riki was holding with his chopsticks had dropped into his bowl with a plop. His chopsticks hung in the air, his lips parted as he stared at her like the air stopped reaching his brain. His eyes glassed over—not with sadness, not quite. Just that soft, heavy look people have when they’re finally telling the truth.

“Y/N...” he breathed. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Then, Y/N realised that this was happening- this conversation, the confessions she thought would never come- were actually, finally spilling out.

“Is it?” She whispered.

“You tell me,” he said. “You can’t tell me there isn’t something here. We both know it. We’ve tried ignoring it, but I don’t think I can anymore, Y/N.”

“Riki...”

“I think I’m falling for you. I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know how. But I like you- fuck, I like you, Y/N,” there was a desperation in his voice, a plea threaded through every word, like he was hanging on by a string and that string was her. And it made Y/N’s chest ache.

“Riki…” she murmured. “I like you too. I know I feel the same.”

And for a moment, he was suspended- floating. He finally understood how Jake felt when Chiara confessed her feelings for him. Heart blooming so wide he thought he’d never stop smiling.

But then she spoke again.

“But-”

Riki’s heart dropped. The flowers that bloomed in the crevices of his veins wilted- just like that, so simple, so easy. That was the power Y/N held over him, realised. It was enough to make him break.

“Sola talks about your love life, you know?” She said quietly. “She’s told me about all these perfect girls you dumped just because you weren’t feeling it.”

“It’s more complicated than that-”

“I’m sure it is,” she said, looking down.

The ramen had long gone cold. The window beside them was fogged, casting the outside world into a blur of yellow lights and moving shadows. People walked past, laughing, running, carrying groceries, wrapped up in coats and conversations- completely unaware of two hearts unraveling beside a forgotten bowl of noodles, two people that loved each other but weren’t quite lovers.

“But you do realise that if anything were to happen between us, and you pull the same shit with me...” she trailed off. “You realise what that would do to us? To Sola? She’ll hate me for even wanting you. She’ll hate you for hurting me. Our parents... the whole dynamic... everything would fall apart.”

Riki felt his heart break- physically. Like muscle tearing against bone, the kind of pain that wasn’t loud but heavy. Like drowning quietly in your own chest. And maybe she saw it in his eyes- the devastation, the disbelief, the way he looked completely and utterly lost. This was the first girl he let his thoughts wander about- living with her, growing old with her, marrying her, starting a family with her. And it was taken from him, snapped into dust with just a few words.

But she had a point.

He’d spent years with people who almost fit. Girls who looked right, sounded right, laughed at the right jokes. Girls his family liked. Girls he thought maybe- maybe- he could grow into. But something was always missing. He never stayed because he never felt it- not really.

And now, sitting across from her, it hit him all at once.

Maybe it was always her.

Maybe his heart had been waiting in the background this whole time- quietly, patiently, without his permission. Like it had always known she’d come back. That somehow, in some life, in some version of the world, it would be her.

Jayonce once told him about in-yun over a late night beer. It was a Korean belief- that some people are tied together by a string of fate, waiting to cross paths, to build lives. A thousand meetings in past lives, each one tying you closer to someone you were meant to find again. And maybe Y/N was his in-yun. Like in that movie she’d probably cried over, Past Lives. But did she believe in that kind of thing? Did the girl who lived in the magic of movies believe in fate at all?

“You really think I could hurt you?” he asked, voice fragile.

And for the first time, Y/N looked away from him. “I don’t know, Riki. I don’t want to risk it.”

His hands clenched into fists. “That’s it?”

“Riki-”

“No, seriously,” he said, voice breaking. “If I asked you to risk it- to just trust me, put some faith in me... you’re not willing? That’s all I mean to you?”

Y/N stared, dumbfounded. Her lips parted to answer, to stir up words in her brain that hadn’t reached her tongue yet. Her eyes reflected panic and pain. But before she could respond, Riki’s phone rang and her heart stilled.

She almost felt guilty for feeling relief.

It was Konon. Again.

Riki cursed under his breath, half-mad with disbelief- not now, not again.

Y/N let her eyes flicker between his glowing phone screen and Riki and with uneven breath, Riki picked it up, defeated. He placed his phone against his ear, nostrils flaring, eyes sharp. “Konon, I’m a bit busy right no-”

But she cut him off. Her voice was shaking. “Sola’s in the hospital,” she said. “She fainted at work. They don’t know why yet. Riki- she collapsed. She’s unconscious.”

Everything froze. The buzzing of the restaurant, the scrambling of the waiters, the laughter and warmth of family and friends that came to dine and the pedestrians on the street outside the window- everything froze in time and it almost felt like he was in an expensively shot scene of a time-travel movie.

Y/N looked at him confused, worried about the way his face went pale under the restaurant’s warm air, lips parted in shock. He couldn’t even find the breath to speak. And suddenly, the world around him resumed again, but he couldn’t feel his heartbeat anymore, couldn’t feel the air entering and exiting his lungs anymore.

RIKI HADN’T BEEN BACK TO Osaka in three, maybe four years. The last time he came, it was for Christmas and New Year’s- he stayed for exactly five days before flying back. And in those five days, he spent every waking moment with his family and his sisters, either going to movies, malls, restaurants or dancing together in their hall. They cooked a huge Christmas dinner like they did every year and burst fire crackers when New Year’s came and before he left, the siblings gathered to take down the heavy decorations. That winter, Y/N and her family flew to China for vacation- he hadn’t seen her, slipped between his fingers like loose sand.

But stepping foot into Osaka with Y/N by his side was something he never thought would happen- not anytime soon, at least.

The second Riki and Y/N comprehended what had happened to Sola, they went into autopilot. The first thing that Riki did was call Jay because he had contacts to get them plane tickets and they needed them fast. Riki drove them to Y/N’s dorm, gave her exactly thirty minutes to pack whatever she needed and then they drove back to his apartment so he could pack a suitcase too. And an hour later, Jungwon was at his doorstep with his car, ready to drop them to the airport.

The drive was quiet. Jungwon didn’t ask them questions, Y/N and Riki didn’t speak to each other. They just stared out their respective windows, arms crossed, watching the city disappear behind them as empty roads stretched in front of them. Jungwon kept glancing at them through the rearview mirror, concerned and disturbed by their silence.

And when they finally reached the airport, it was a hurried exchange of take care and travel safe and hugs and pats on the back which Y/N watched from the sidelines. Jungwon, still, didn’t ask questions. He simply assured them to think positive and that Sola would be in everyone’s prayers and he waited until Riki and Y/N were physically not visible to his eyes, buried inside the crowd of the airport, before he left.

When Riki and Y/N finally landed in Osaka, the exhaustion didn’t hit right away. The flight had long- restless legs, anxious fingers, and silence stretched too tight between them. Her father was waiting at arrivals, and they barely spoke before loading their suitcases into the trunk and heading straight to the hospital. The weight of it all clung to their skin like static- sweat, nerves, fear.

The reunion with their families was bittersweet. Riki hugged his mother for a long moment, clinging onto her like she was the only source of solace. Then he hugged his father and they exchanged words of comfort. Finally, he stood in front of his older sister- Konon, who refused to cry, let out a sniffle when her brother engulfed her in his embrace.

Y/N hugged her parents and the rest of the Nishimura family. Konon, in a desperate attempt to ease the tension in the air, joked about how Y/N couldn’t make it for winter break but it worked out because she was back now. The pair let out wet laughs and somehow, as everyone sat back down in the waiting room, silence ensued again. By that point, it was Sola’s second night in the hospital and the nurses had only told them to not worry.

The parents were sharing looks of comfort and worry amongst each other. Konon sat with her back straight, staring into nothingness with spaced eyes and chewed on her lips. Y/N was looking at her phone, picking on her nails and occasionally looked up to check the waiting room to see if anyone new had entered. Riki, who was sitting hunched over with his hands women together, right knee bouncing, was simply staring at Y/N- wondering, confused, surprised.

He knew his mother had probably already cried, he could tell from her squinted eyes and puffy cheeks. His father, probably, shed a few tears but would have eventually found the strength in him to console his mother. And he knew Konon wasn’t the type to cry in such situations- she only got angry and protective and became a third parent. Riki was similar to Konon in such situations. He would get angry at his sister for not taking care of herself, get mad at her office for letting such a thing happen and then he would resign to being angry at himself for not being able to be there for Sola.

But it dawned on Riki that he didn’t know Y/N well enough to know what her reaction would be. In his head, a huge part of Y/N was still the eleven year old kid he had left behind when he left for New York. A kid who cried for every little thing, a kid who was more mischievous than Sola, a kid who loved ice cream and beaches and horror movies and a kid who… was simply a kid. And he knew her New York counterpart, the creative and confident girl that explored more of the city in six months more than Riki could in two years. But he didn’t know everything in between.

He was half expecting her to cry, to sob and pray for her best friend’s health to return to normal. But he also half expected her to laugh throughout the whole thing and wait for Sola to gain back consciousness so she could yell at her (lovingly) for making her and the entire family worry so much. But when the doctor finally appeared, Y/N was the first to stand up and bombard him with questions before Konon or anyone else realised a doctor had shown up. And Riki realised how much he actually missed with his absence, how much of their family dynamics he never learned about.

Everyone just stood as background characters as they listened to Y/N and the doctor interact.

“She’s severely anemic,” said the doctor. “And extreme exhaustion from overwork and dehydration can lead one's body to collapse. She seems to have fainted due to vasovagal syncope- maybe work was too hard on her.”

In unison, everyone seemed to have let out a breath of relief. Y/N and Riki’s father ever smiled a little- they seemed to have dodged the worst.

“She’s still asleep. It’s nothing to worry about,” the doctor said. “You can come to see her again tomorrow. We’ll keep her in for observation and rehydration. After that, you can take her home again. We can keep her on a strict diet or supplements. And someone should talk to her about stress management- maybe take her to a therapist.”

Then the doctor walked away and all everyone could do was look at each other.

“God bless,” Y/N’s mother breathed and hugged Riki’s mother. “It’s alright.”

Konon looked around and stepped towards Riki. She placed a hand on his back, leading him towards Y/N. “You both should go home and rest- go back to Y/N’s place. Spend the night there, it’s closer to the hospital. Mom and dad and I will take care of the bills.”

Riki quickly felt himself become defensive. His brows furrowed, neck craned in disbelief at his sister and he huffed. “No, Konon, I-”

“You’re exhausted,” she said, firmer now, her voice like steel wrapped in warmth. “And if we let you handle the bills, I’m convinced you’ll get the math all wrong. So just go and get some rest.”

He wanted to argue more. Wanted to stay, to do something, because the adrenaline still hadn’t worn off and his hands still felt too empty. But Y/N caught his eye then- her shoulders slack with fatigue, her face pale but soft- and he let out a slow breath. There was no fight left. There was just quiet, just gravity.

Before they could fully process the weight of what had just happened- the panic at the airport, the sprint through security, the silence in the car- Y/N’s father was already guiding them back outside, back into the Osaka air that felt a little less sharp now.

And somewhere in the warmth of that car ride, between the quiet radio and the blurred and familiar streetlights, they realized they’d flown halfway across the world in a panic over something that turned out to be manageable, fixable. Not nearly as catastrophic as they feared. And yet, neither of them regretted it. Because they needed to be there and nothing else would have made sense.

Y/N’s house was exactly as Riki remembered it. Warm, comforting, subtly grand in the way old money felt when it didn’t need to prove itself. The ceilings were high, the walls painted in creamy tones that caught sunlight like a diamond. The curtains were still a bit too floral, the kind of print Y/N always said she hated but never actually changed. The hallway mirror was still crooked, hanging like it had given up on being straight years ago. The furniture hadn’t shifted in over a decade, and the floorboards still creaked in the exact same places. It smelled like vanilla and books and whatever incense her mother liked to burn on Sundays. It smelled like memory.

And for a second, Riki felt like he was thirteen again.

He remembered the first time he’d ever stepped into this house- awkward limbs, shaggy hair, a little too cool for his own good. He’d been sent to pick up Sola, who’d forgotten her dance shoes or jacket or some other emergency at Y/N’s. He rang the bell, no one answered, so he let himself in. And what he found was chaos- Sola and Y/N had turned the living room into a fortress of blankets and snacks, half of which had spilled onto the rug. Crumbs in the couch cushions, juice on the wooden floor. Riki had sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and cleaned the whole place up before Y/N’s parents got back. He remembered Sola crying because he’d scolded her, and Y/N crying because Sola cried. He remembered thinking, even then, how this house- this life- felt different, softer, safer.

Now, years later, stepping inside again with the weight of their shared history trailing behind him, it felt like nothing had changed. And that was what made it all hit harder.

It felt like walking back into the beginning.

Quietly, they padded upstairs while Y/N’s parents took their suitcases from them and kept them in a corner to deal with later. Oneflight, and then the next, they carried their backpacks and an overwhelming sense of fatigue. She hadn’t been home in nearly eight months, but slipping back into it felt seamless, like pressing play on a paused moment. For Riki, however, he wasn't even sure how to feel.

The last time he came back, he could emotionally prepare for it. But now, with the frenzy and panic that led him back to his hometown- -he didn’t know if it was appropriate to feel indifference to Osaka’s air and he didn’t know if it was appropriate to feel at home because New York had become his home. Somewhere between accommodating a thick accent which had people mistaking him for an actual New Yorker and the work and home he made for himself, New York had become his home.

But perhaps, to the child inside him that was still confused and immature, Osaka was as familiar as home could be.

Y/N stood in front of her bedroom and Riki stood across from her, in front of the guest bedroom. They had their backs turned to each other but they could still feel it- how they both hovered and how they were waiting for something they couldn’t define. For a moment, Riki’s hand gripped the doorknob and he twisted it but didn’t quite open the door.

And then, from the quiet, Riki spoke- voice low, nearly swallowed by the night. “Just give me a chance, Y/N.”

She turned toward him, her silhouette framed by the warm lamp light behind her. In the dark, his eyes found hers. There was no bravado in them, no performative charm. Just truth, just that same raw, aching hope she’d seen in the ramen bar.

She didn’t say anything.

Just offered him one last look- quiet, unreadable- and disappeared into her room, the door clicking shut like punctuation.

WHEN THE ENTIRE FAMILY PILED into the hospital room, Sola’s eyes were fluttering open. It was a symphony of a crowd, one holding flowers, one holding baskets of fruits, and one holding home cooked food and bags of her favourite snacks. And between the crowd, Riki and Y/N emerged like they were the actual gift and everything else was a prelude. At the sight of them, Sola wasn’t groggy anymore- her eyes lit up, smile widened and she fought to sit up against the uncomfortable bed.

“No way!” She said, opening her arms to pull both of them in for a simultaneous hug.

Riki and Y/N ignored the way their cheeks brushed against each other and shoulders knocked in Sola’s embrace. The warmth came as fast as it had left, mixing with the cold of the hospital’s sanitary air.

“Surprise,” Riki grinned, ruffling his sister’s dyed bronze hair. The day she got her hair colored to that, he remembered scolding her through video call just the way their parents did. But two days later, he himself went to the parlour and got blonde highlights- oreo hair, they called it. It suited him well.

“You absolute bitch,” Y/N, though she obviously didn’t mean any harm by it with that dopey smile on her mouth, hit Sola up the head before hugging her again. The parents groaned about language in the background, rendering the videos they were filming as inappropriate now due to the cuss word. “We were so worried.”

Then, Y/N told her and everyone about how Jay booked the flight tickets the second they found out Sola was admitted, how Riki was hauling his and her ass across town and how Jungwon drove them to the airport. Riki listened to her with his head hanging low in embarrassment, arms crossed. The parents listened to her with wide eyes, surprised at their efficiency- in their heads, they were still irresponsible children.

“You guys,” Sola muled, clinging onto Y/N’s arm and looking at her brother through heavy eyelids. “I’m so happy to see you.”

The morning unravelled into the afternoon as Riki indulged his sister with stories he hadn’t told her about yet- how Sunghoon and Sarah were engaged, how Sunoo was going to send her a few more skin care products from his brand, how one of Heeseung’s dog had recently learned how to chase mice (which he had never been taught) and how Jungwon and Eva finally adopted a dog after months of debate.

People went in and out of the room, sometimes to talk to a doctor, to get food and water or to simply catch some fresh air. Slowly, the parents were confident enough to go home and Konon announced that she was going back to work (but Riki knew she was going to her boyfriend’s apartment) and eventually, Riki left to buy lunch, leaving Sola and Y/N alone.

Sola, excited, poked Y/N’s side, wiggling her brows- they could finally talk about the things they weren’t allowed to around everyone.

“So,” Sola started. “Tell me everything, what’d I miss.”

Y/N chuckled. “I tell you everything,” she rolled her eyes. And it was true- everything that happened in her life were conveyed to Sola through long text messages or voice messages or video calls whenever they could, late into the nights while Y/N’s roommate was asleep and she hid under the covers.

The only thing Y/N kept to herself, the only thing she actively pushed to the depths of her mind and her heart, was Riki.

“Come on,” Sola nudged even more. “I know you, I can tell when you’re keeping something.”

If anyone knew Y/N, it was Sola. She knew her better than she knew herself, better that she knew the back of her own hand. It was so cliche, to think of it that way. But the pair had known each other since kindergarten, were attached to the hip until Y/N moved to New York and even then, their friendship found a way, through the screens of their phones and their laptops.

Licking her lips, Y/N hesitated. She looked at Sola from the corner of her eyes. “You know you’re the sister I’ve never had right?”

Sola’s brows pulled together in confusion, feeling the air between them settle into something heavier. “I know- you’re my sister, too. I say it all the time,” she shook her head. “Y/N, what’s happening?”

“Riki…”

Sola didn’t even need Y/N to explain, the puzzle pieces just sorta of… clicked in her head. There were plenty of nights where she and Konon had discussed this, especially during the month Y/N lived with Riki for winter break and even more profusely when they found out Y/N spent the night with a drunk Riki. Sola wasn’t taken aback by the thought of her best friend and brother dating- not at first, at least. It wasn’t until Konon showed her apprehension towards the thought that she finally realised- Riki wasn’t the best and maintaining relationships. They didn’t know what it was, it was so easy for him to break up with girls. He once broke up with a girlfriend of a year and a half over coffee, came home, called his family and told them like it was no big deal.

What if he did that to Y/N? Whose side would Sola pick?

“You know,” Sola sighed dramatically, looking at the duvet that covered her legs. “Konon and I have talked about this.”

Y/N’s heart sped up and she felt her cheeks burn, temples bursting. “What?”

“It’s kind of inevitable, you know what I mean?” Sola chuckled, taking Y/n’s hand in hers. “Best friend’s brother- the cliche,” she rolled her eyes and waved her hand theatrically to make a point.

“Was I that obvious? I’ve never even-”

“No, it’s not about you being obvious,” she shook her head again. “It’s just that… It made so much sense.”

“Oh.”

Who better to be with than the boy that practically watched her grow up? The boy that vowed to never hurt her- though it was a silent promise, it was there. Riki was one of the best people Sola knew and she wasn’t just saying that because he was her brother. She had to admit, perhaps the way his love life narrated didn’t do his image very well- but while he was in those relationships? Perfect gentleman, always in tune with what his women needed. Usually, Sola and Konon didn’t have to worry about Riki hurting a girl but rather, a girl hurting Riki in toxic relationships.

“Do you like him?” Sola asked, her voice firm- but she was supportive, she would always be. “Because I know he likes you- he’s made it obvious, at least.”

Sola realised her brother’s feelings for her best friend when he sent them that picture of the dumpster fire of a gingerbread house they made together. Riki wasn’t the type to bake- he knew to cook, well enough to sustain himself, but to bake? Never unless he was forced. He’d always say he had people like Jay or Chiara to bake for him- heck, he could walk into a bakery and buy himself whatever pastry he needed. And that day, Sola knew for a fact that Y/N didn’t ask him to bake together, let alone force him.

“Yeah,” Y/N trailed, looking away. She was almost embarrassed by herself, that this was the cliche she brought upon them. “But-”

“I know,” Sola nodded, patting her hand. “I know, it’s scary. His love life, the way it’s so easy for him to walk away. But you know? Every time he’s broken up with a girl? He said whatever he did during the relationship felt like obligations, not wants or out of care.”

Y/N blinked. “You’re saying he’s never loved them?”

Sola nodded. “Yeah, and that’s probably why he walked away. It’s better to walk away than force yourself into something you’ll end up unhappy in, right?”

“Right,” Y/N gulped. “Who’s to say he won’t walk away from me?”

“I can’t explain it, and honestly, I’m not going to promise you that my brother is the poster child of a green flag,” Sola chuckled. “But I know he cares about you. I’ve never seen him pine over a girl the way he’s pined over you.”

Exhaling, Y/N told her about the conversation they had at the ramen bar before hauling themselves to the airport. She told her about how her heart stilled when he finally confessed to her, how he was on the verge of tears when she said she was too scared to risk it, how his fists balled when he felt defeated, rejected.

“I’m scared,” Y/N sighed. “I’ve spent so long trying to protect myself from heartbreak-”

“What if he doesn’t break your heart, Y/N?” Sola argued. “What if, right?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Sola smiled at her, eyes soft. “Konon’s thought process was the same as yours. And to some extent, so is mine. But you know, what?”

“What?”

“Who better to take care of you than Riki, Y/N?”

Like on cue, Riki was opening the door to the hospital room, oblivious to the conversation that was taking place just seconds before. He held a can of bread from the vending machine- Y/N’s favourite. Shyly, almost embarrassed, he handed it to her, a dopey grin on his face, like he was making a peace offering. Sola looked between the pair, trying to read their expressions.

“Thank you,” Y/N said, trying to pass him a smile but her heart was still beating against her ears. Their fingers brushed as she took the can of bread from him. She silently opened it and pulled off a chunk to bite into.

Riki cleared his throat, shifting his gaze from Y/N to his sister. “Doctor said you can be discharged tonight.”

“That’s great,” Y/N nodded, excited.

“Yeah, but Sola,” Riki started, a shift in his gaze as he looked at her with concern. “Have you not been eating?”

Sola groaned, rolling her eyes. “No, I eat, I eat just fine,” she said. Their parents said the same thing, Sola never skipped a meal. But perhaps her hydration habits were more to be worried about. “It’s just that work is so stressful. They dump all the new employees with work and I’m just running around trying to get shit done. So I guess in between all that exhaustion-”

“Quit,” Riki said, as if it was the most simple thing in the work. “Quit and look for something else.”

“Riki-”

“No, I’m being serious-”

“That seems a bit extreme, Riki,” Y/N huffed. “You know how much she struggled to land this job.”

“But it’s okay to faint over work?” Riki huffed back. “That’s fucking insane. Sola, I’m dead certain we can find you something better.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sola blinked. “What if I don’t find another job?”

“Come to New York with us, I can get you a job, no problem,” it was the cockiness in Riki’s voice that scared them. But they knew he was just concerned. “You know Jay and Jade? Sunoo, Sheila, Heeseung, Chiara, Jake- name it and they’ll pull strings for you.”

Just then, Konon walked in and heard what Riki said. She was fuming.

“That’s fucking insane, Riki,” Konon yelled at him. “We raised you better than that. To use your contacts like that? Where’s the dignity in that?”

“That’s not the point,” Riki yelled back. “She’s literally admitted in a hospital because of her shitty job. You want her to continue there?”

“Of course not,” Konon said. “But there are better ways to earn a job instead of it being handed to you. You say that Like Sola is incapable of doing this by herself-”

“My point is that she doesn’t have to-”

“Konon,” Sola’s voice cut through the pair like a feather slowly falling in cold air. “I think I should quit, too.”

“That’s the one thing we can all agree on,” Konon said and Y/N nodded, cuddling further into Sola’s side. “But say a word about moving to New York and I will lose my shit.”

Riki didn’t argue with that. He simply nodded, crossed his arms and shifted his weight on his legs. “You’re sending in your resignation letter tomorrow.”

“But-”

“I don’t care,” Riki interjected. “You’ll find a better one.”

And no one argued with that either.

The room buzzed with renewed energy once the parents trickled back in- murmurs of relief, small talk layered over the rustle of plastic bags and chopstick wrappers. Someone cracked a joke about hospital food being a scam, and laughter rang out, thin but genuine. The sushi wasn’t great- rice a little too cold, wasabi packets already hardening at the edges- but no one seemed to mind. It was comfort, in its own tired, familiar way that Riki hadn’t experienced in a while.

Y/N stayed curled beside Sola, careful not to jostle her too much, quietly feeding her bites of tamago when their mother wasn’t looking. Across the room, Riki stood leaning against the window, arms crossed, eyes distant. He wasn’t sulking, not exactly- just... processing. Letting the adrenaline wear off. Letting everything catch up to him.

When Y/N glanced over, he met her gaze. There wasn’t much said- there didn’t need to be- but the look in his eyes told her he needed air. That they did.

Later, once the sun had dipped and visiting hours were gently winding down, Konon offered to drop them back to Y/N’s house. But Y/N stood up, brushing stray rice grains off her lap, and said, “it’s okay. We’ll walk.” And Riki was already grabbing his coat.

No one stopped them. Not because they didn’t care, but because they understood. The kind of understanding that only lives in families built on shared histories and unspoken truths. It was cold outside, but not painfully so- the kind of cold that made your breath visible and your hands seek warmth. They didn’t say much at first, just walked, shoulders brushing occasionally, steps falling into sync without effort.

And somewhere along the way- maybe a few blocks in- Riki slipped his hands into his pockets and quietly asked, “How long are you going to make me wait?”

Y/N exhaled, slow. “Riki, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Think about it now,” he said, not with pressure, just with hope.

She didn’t answer immediately. But her hand, when it bumped against his again, didn’t move away this time.

“You know, before you came,” Y/N started. “I talked to Sola about it.”

Riki's head snapped towards her in utter surprise, the kind of surprise that had his eyes widening into saucepans and the kind that had his lips parted. “What?”

“Yeah, I-” Y/N let out a ragged breath, fingers carding through her tangled hair. “She likes the idea of it- the idea of you and I together.”

Riki’s brows crinkled. She said it so solemnly. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “But can you blame me for being scared?”

Riki gulped. “I suppose I brought this upon myself.”

They weren’t walking anymore. Instead, they stood underneath a streetlamp, its white glow casting shadows against Riki’s face. And for the first time, Y/N actually let herself look at him, like actually admiring his features- his sharp eyes, flat nose, carved lips and angled jaw, the way his eyebrows help all his expression and the moles that scattered his skin. All his pretty moles Y/N once spent a whole night wondering about, asking herself if she’d ever get the chance to explore them for herself.

“Riki…”

He was towering over her, eyes staring down at her. And then, he craned his neck, leaving down, slowly but surely, a sense of confidence dawning on his shoulders. And he hovered, just close to her face, his breath fanning her cheeks. Y/N didn’t dare look up at him, her gaze fixed on the concrete beneath them. Their noses touched and his lips were only inches away. Her heart had long since abandoned its rhythm, beating unevenly in her chest like it couldn’t keep up.

The way he was looking at her… It wasn’t new. He’d looked at her like that before. In stolen glances, in quiet laughter across the couch, in the way he said her name when no one else was around. But this was the first time she’d allowed herself to admit it.

“Say you don’t trust me,” he whispered. “Say you don’t trust me and I’ll forget. I’ll forget everything and pretend like none of this ever happened.”

Y/N shook her head. He felt her lashes brush against his nose. “No,” she said. “I trust you.”

That was all Riki needed to hear.

In the cold of the night, as cherry blossom petals circled around them in chilly air, underneath the streetlamp, Riki kissed her. He finally, finally, kissed her and it felt like everything that Riki had been waiting for, everything that the universe was working to had built up to this moment- that this was it, this was what was meant to happen. In-yun.

He didn’t kiss her desperately- it wasn’t rushed, it wasn’t chaste. It was like he’d been preparing for this moment all his life, waiting for it to happen- slow, passionate, kissing her mouth open. Like he wanted the first kiss to feel like all the time they’d ever lost. His lips brushed hers once, then again, softer, firmer, and she melted- absolutely melted- into him.

Her hands reached up, one curling against the fabric of his coat, the other finding the back of his neck, and when she pulled him closer, he gave in entirely. His hand slipped from his pocket, found her waist, found the middle of her back, grounding her like he was afraid she’d disappear.

The kiss deepened- unfolded like a story waiting to be written- and it was as if they had always known this was coming. As if the entire stretch of their shared past had been moving toward this one singular, trembling moment.

When they finally pulled apart- slow, reluctant, breathless- Riki kept his forehead pressed against hers.

“Please, Y/N,” Riki breathed, cupping her cheeks with his hands. His knuckles were white, his palms cold against her warm skin. “Just let me love you.”

THEY STAYED IN OSAKA FOR four more days. Four days that blurred into motion- quiet, steady, necessary. Sola’s discharge came like a deep breath the family had been holding in, and once she was home, the rhythm changed. Everything revolved around her and getting her healthy. There were tea refills and fruit bowls, her father hovering with a thermometer, Riki furiously googling side effects of iron supplements.

And the job hunt began almost immediately- Konon on her laptop, Riki on business calls, their dads flipping through connections, reaching out to whoever owed them favors. Y/N and Sola moved slower- side by side at the dining table, shoulder to shoulder on the couch- reading job descriptions aloud, deleting emails, making lists they barely followed. The house was never quiet, not in a bad way. Just... full- of people, of purpose, of presence.

There was something comforting about the way both families just hovered around each other. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. Dinners spilled from one household to the next. Someone would suggest eating at Y/L/N’s, and the next day they’d all gather at Nishimura’s again. Bags of groceries were exchanged without question, house slippers swapped out instinctively at front doors. It was a kind of merging- two families orbiting the same people, blending without even trying.

And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, Riki and Y/N were falling deeper into each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like nothing had ever felt more right. They snuck around like thieves- brushing hands in the kitchen when no one was looking, kisses pressed into collarbones between staircases, late-night calls from separate rooms just to hear the other's voice. The feeling was all-consuming, but not overwhelming. It wasn’t loud, it was gentle.

Riki walked around like someone who’d stumbled into joy and didn’t know what to do with it. He was over the moon, borderline smug, always finding reasons to pass by her, touch her, look at her like she’d rewritten everything he thought he knew about love.

It was strange, though- seeing him like this. Not just soft, but solid. An authority figure rather than someone that once took care of her. Y/N had never really seen him that way before, not fully. But now… she saw it in the way he’d told Sola to quit her job with no room for debate, in the way he spoke to his parents about hospital bills like he knew what he was doing, in the way he held his phone to his ear at odd hours of the day, speaking in clipped English, moving meetings around, talking numbers, talking futures. He was only a year younger than Konon, but the gap never really mattered. There was a weight to his presence now, a steadiness she hadn’t noticed around his friends in New York.

And despite the busy-ness, the noise, the work- Y/N felt calm. Like she could breathe fully for the first time in a while. Osaka didn’t feel like a break, it felt like a pause. A much-needed inhale. And in that pause, Riki became hers.

Before leaving for the airport, Riki and Y/N agreed to eat at the bistro across from his house. It was a little place folded into the corner of the street, marked by its faded red sign and wind chimes that jingled every time the door opened. The place hadn’t changed at all. Bamboo blinds filtered in soft sunlight, casting striped shadows across the low tables. Paper cranes still hung from the ceiling, yellowed and delicate now, swaying gently like they remembered them too. It smelled like miso broth and sweet vinegar, like warmth and childhood and quiet afternoons after school.

The old owner- Obaachan, as they’d always called her- let out a soft gasp the second she saw Riki. She hadn’t seen him in years, and her hands flew to his cheeks, pinching and patting him like he was still a teenager who needed feeding. Her smile reached all the way to her eyes. “You never come anymore,” she scolded, only to immediately fuss over them and shuffle behind the familiar and old wooden counter, muttering about making them something fresh.

As she placed sushi down in front of them, still warm from the press, she looked between them and said- completely deadpanned- “Have you both finally started dating?” Y/N nearly dropped her chopsticks. Riki froze mid-bite. But neither of them responded. They just looked at each other and laughed, soft and shy, a kind of laughter that made Obaachan squint knowingly.

Later, bellies full and hearts strangely weightless, they said their goodbyes, bowed deeply to thank her, and left for the airport.

They were dropped off at the airport with the usual chaos- half-laced shoes, last-minute photo ops, and bags that felt heavier with meaning than weight. It was yet another bittersweet goodbye, the kind that lingered in the chest. Tight hugs were shared, promises whispered into jacket collars, and cheeks pressed just a moment longer than necessary.

Before they could pass through the gate, Konon pulled Riki aside, arms crossed and eyes sharp with emotion. She leaned in, lowered her voice, and whispered, “Go get the girl.” Then, with a teasing shove, she pushed him toward his flight like she always had- just a little too roughly, just enough to mean I love you.

Traveling together now, after everything, felt natural, like slipping into fluffy pyjamas. They talked through the boarding, through the takeoff, through the quiet lull in the air, and when they weren’t talking, they were curled into each other, legs tangled, heads resting on shoulders, the hum of the cabin fading behind them.

By the time they landed in New York, there was a lightness between them that hadn’t been there before. Jake was waiting at arrivals, leaning against his car with coffees in hand. The second he spotted them, he blinked. Because this wasn’t the same pair Jungwon had described five days ago- stressed, distracted, practically vibrating with burden. This was different. They were beaming, giggling against one another as they pushed their luggage cart, eyes wrinkling at the corners from happiness.

“Well,” Jake hummed when they approached him. The pair greeted him merrily, Riki hugging him with a pat on the back. “How’s your sister?”

“Great,” Riki smiled and moved to fit their luggage into the trunk of the car. “I think we found her a better job, she starts in a week.”

“That’s great,” Jake sounded like he was walking on eggshells as he looked between the pair. “How was Osaka?”

“Beautiful, as always,” Y/N chimed. She sat in the back with Riki and Jake frowned when he looked at the passenger seat beside him.

He brushed it off, shaking his head and starting the car. “You two seem-”

“Just happy,” Riki cut him off. “And relieved.”

“Right,” it was safe to say that he would be calling Chiara and Sunghoon the second he dropped the two off to gossip. Jake was so sure something must have happened between the two in their five day stay in Osaka- he was willing to bet on it. He could easily milk a few dollars from Heeseung or Jay if he played his cards right.

Jake didn’t say much else on the drive back, only listened to his youngest friend ramble about Osaka and how different it had looked and about his big sister’s secret boyfriend and how he ate at the bistro across from his house after so long. His replies came in nods and hums, eyes darting at the rearview mirror occasionally to find Y/N’s head sleepily resting against Riki’s shoulder.

He let a knowing grin slip past the cracks of his lips.

When they finally stepped into Riki’s apartment, they didn’t even try to pretend they weren’t exhausted. Their bags were abandoned by the door, shoes kicked off in a hurry, jackets dropped somewhere along the hallway like breadcrumbs. Riki’s bed never looked more inviting. They fell into it fully clothed, bodies curling toward each other with muscle memory more than intent- his arms wrapping around her waist, her face buried in his chest, breath synced like they'd never been apart.

Sleep found them like that.

And when Riki woke, it was much later- well past the afternoon, the light in the room dulled and golden, filtered through closed blinds. Y/N was still asleep beside him, her lips slightly parted, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other splayed against his chest like she belonged there.

Something shifted in him, seeing her like that. So peaceful. So close.

He couldn’t help it- his fingers moved before he even realised, tracing the soft curve of her cheek, the shape of her jaw, the line of her neck where her pulse fluttered faintly. Then lower, to her collarbone, exposed just slightly by the way her shirt had slipped during sleep. He breathed out slowly, like if he inhaled too sharply, he’d wake her. Like if he moved too fast, he’d ruin something sacred.

His hand dipped beneath the hem of her shirt, resting on the warm skin of her waist. Not greedy. Not urgent. Just… gentle. Curious. His thumb moved in slow circles, memorising her in fragments. She stirred then, eyelids fluttering, breath catching just a little when she realised he was awake- awake and watching her, touching her with a reverence that made her heart ache.

Her eyes met his. And what she saw there stopped her breath altogether.

It was want, yes- but deeper than that. It was all the moments they hadn’t touched like this. All the nights spent inches apart. All the times his fingers brushed her shoulder and he pulled away. All the times they didn’t kiss.

And now- there was nothing holding them back.

He hovered over her, one hand still at her waist, the other bracing beside her head. His face was so close. Close enough to feel her breath. Close enough to drown in her.

"Can I?”

His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper against her lips. When she nodded, it felt like something shifted- something unsaid finally given permission to unfold. Her shirt was pulled over her head, discarded somewhere in the quiet haze of the room, and Riki didn’t waste a moment. He kissed her like he’d been waiting lifetimes. Like the feeling had been burning a hole in his chest and finally found a way out. His lips were hot, hungry, dragging across hers like he was searching for every version of her he had ever loved- childhood, memory, present.

It wasn’t slow. It wasn’t timid. It was everything they had held back and swallowed down and folded into late-night silences. Their kisses deepened, full of teeth and gasps and hands that couldn’t decide where to settle. Clothes peeled away between touches and rushed laughter, skin meeting skin with a kind of urgency that said we can’t waste this.

And when they finally moved together, it felt less like chaos and more like gravity- like they’d simply fallen into something they were always meant to. Riki touched her like she was delicate and permanent all at once, like he wasn’t afraid of breaking her but terrified of losing the feel of her. And Y/N gave herself to him with a trust that made his heart stutter, with soft sighs and clawed hands, with moans muffled into his shoulder and fingers tangled in his hair.

There were no awkward pauses. No missteps. Just rhythm and heat. Just the world narrowing down to two bodies who were desperate to know each other in every way possible- and now like this. It was all desperate and breathless and perfect. And when they were done, tangled up in each other with flushed cheeks and shaky hands, neither of them said anything for a while, just laid against each other with heaving chests.

“Fuck, Y/N,” Riki looked like he’d just seen an angel with the way he was staring at her. Perhaps to him, she was the angel. “I missed you- I’ve missed you so much.”

Y/N didn’t answer, she didn’t know how to. She only buried herself deeper into his chest, clutching onto him, breath ragged. She felt his palm cup the side of her head, pushing his hair away from her face, trying to unknot the tangle with his fingers.

“I don’t even know how to explain it,” he sighed. “I’ve just missed you.”

“You have me, Riki,” Y/N whispered against him. “You have me.”

Yeah, finally.

THE ONE WITH SUNGHOON’S WEDDING

“If you all know Sunghoon the way I know Sunghoon, you’ll know that Sarah is a goddamn saint for coming this far with him,” Riki grinned.

He was holding a glass of champagne, raised as a toast towards the married couple who were sitting on a table in front of him. Laughter rolled through the room. Sunghoon groaned dramatically into Sarah’s shoulder.

The wedding, seven months in the making, was held in the garden of an old, restored inn upstate- ivy trailing up brick walls, fairy lights strung between trees, and folding chairs filled with every person who had mattered along the way. Jake had officiated the wedding (after a failed hunt for a priest who didn’t give them the ick), standing under an arch of wildflowers and saying things like love is not dramatic, it’s daily- to which Sunoo wept openly and Karina rolled her eyes. One of Sarah’s sisters was the maid of honor, and Riki, standing at Sunghoon’s side, was the best man- fidgeting with the corner of his printed speech and praying he wouldn’t cry.

As best man, Riki had also been handed the weighty task of planning Sunghoon’s bachelor party. And of course, he had no idea where to begin. Thankfully, Riki’s girlfriend- who knew how to read people like characters in a book– had subtly nudged him in the right direction. Riki would never admit it to the others (he valued his life), but the entire night was quietly curated off her advice. No wild clubs, no chaos (that was Heeseung’s bachelor party, a story they had never told anyone and kept between themselves). They simply rented a lodge tucked deep in the woods, a campfire, too much beer, old photos passed around like sacred relics, and a projector set up under the stars playing The Lion King- Sunghoon’s comfort movie since middle school. He cried, of course he cried. And said it was the best night of his life (he’s said that about a lot of nights), second only to what would be the next day.

So when Riki stood in front of the reception crowd- hundreds of eyes blinking at him, champagne in hand, heart beating a little too fast- he smiled, wide and genuine.

“But in all seriousness,” Riki continued, voice softening just a little, “Sunghoon is... something else. He’s stubborn- so stubborn about what he thinks is right, even though the rest of us know he’s wrong. He was once dead set on the fact that he would end up alone, but here we all are.”

Sarah rested her head on Sunghoon and he weaved their arms together.

“And he’s the most picky eater you will ever meet. And if you’ve ever been stuck in a car with him while he’s controlling the music- my condolences,” the crowd laughed again, Sarah hiding her face in Sunghoon’s chest. “But that’s okay now. Sarah has much better music taste- so, I guess it kinda cancels out.”

Sunghoon rolled his eyes but grinned at Riki, eyes sparkling, knowing Sarah was his better half.

“When I first heard of Sarah,” Riki continued. “Sunghoon described her as cold and ignorant of him. I wasn’t a fan of this girl because, well- what do you mean you’re head over heels over a girl that basically walked away from you mid conversation? But then, they bumped into each other when Sunghoon and I were walking past a grocery store. It’s insane to think I was there. And then, they started dating. And whenever he talked, he could only talk about her and her big family and how smart she was.”

Sarah smiled warmly at Riki. He raised his glass to her now.

“But then I finally met her,” Riki smiled, remembering the cigarette they shared on Jake and Chiara’s balcony. “And I realised how much she and I had in common. We smoked together- and also quit together. Sorry, mom and dad, you had to find out this way.”

Riki’s parents and sisters sat somewhere in the middle of the crowd and they all sent him looks of surprise. Konon was flabbergasted.

“And we were also the youngest amongst our circles- she’s the youngest of seven, and I’m the youngest in my friend group. So we bonded over the fact that everyone treated us like we were children- yet, we’re both pushing thirty.”

The crowd collectively chuckled.

“And somewhere along getting to know her, I realised how perfect she and Sunghoon really were together. They found each other through this whim, this uncertainty,” Riki’s eyes met his girlfriend’s. She was sitting between Karina and Eva, one leg crossed over the other, brightly smiling at Riki’s speech, eyes shining like he had painted words in the dictionary. Riki’s heart swelled. “And they just kind of kept… picking each other. Through fights, arguments, trips, late nights at work- they just picked each other and refused to let go. Like they knew that this was it, that this was an endgame before it even came.”

Sunghoon and Sarah shared a brief peck on the lips. Sarah was covering her mouth, her smile too wide. Sunghoon was on the verge of tears, reminiscing on his love story with his one.

“You two are the definition of loyalty,” he paused, glancing at the couple, who were holding hands under the table. “And I’ve learned so much from both of you- I’m so lucky to have been raised by you and all our friends. Sometimes I think, without us, Sunghoon would have been in a ditch right now.”

Sunghoon, again, rolled his eyes.

Riki laughed. “But, I digress,” he nodded. “I’m lucky to be the best man at this wedding, I’m lucky to have been a part of your love story. To more years of love, bad playlists, and picky meals to make us all cry. To endgame.”

Riki ended the speech by drinking the last of his champagne. As the married couple stood up to share another kiss, earning an applause from the audience, Riki jumped off stage and ran to his girlfriend. His tie was askew when he reached her, pulling her up by her wrist and holding her against his chest.

“To endgame,” he whispered to her and she kissed him, a kiss that sealed their fate and history as one.

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