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“I never thought I’d see you here again.”
Jake’s at the restaurant right around the corner from where the old BigHit building used to be. He’s here to film his EN-loG and his manager just left their private room for the restroom, so he looks up from where he’s setting up his camera, ready to tell the waitress that he wasn’t ready to order yet.
Instead, he perks up.
“Ajumeoni!” he grins. “You still remember me?”
Jihye, the waitress, playfully whacks the top of his head with her server notepad. “Don’t ask stupid questions, of course I remember you—I’m surprised that you remember me.” She gives him a scrutinizing look. She looks proud. “Your Korean got better.”
“By now, I’d hope so,” Jake laughs.
When Jake was a trainee, he’d always sneak here for an extra bowl of jjimdak he knew their diet regiment didn’t allow for. Jihye always made sure he had a meal at the end of the day, even if it meant letting him order when the restaurant was near closing. In return, Jake helped correct her kids’ English essays. Her daughter got into Yonsei. Jihye gave him free meals for a week after they got the acceptance letter.
He’d argue that she was the first friend he made in Korea. He’s missed her.
They catch up. He explains that he’s here to film a vlog of himself editing another vlog; his, Heeseung, and Riki’s fishing trip in all its shaky iPhone camera glory. Meanwhile, she tells him about the new dress she bought for herself earlier in the week. When she shows him a picture of it, Jake makes sure he smiles enough for the both of them.
Sitting in this seat, Jake feels like he’s sixteen all over again. Then, Jihye rips a page out of her server notepad and asks him to sign it for her. Sixteen’s never felt so far away.
Nostalgia seems like it can’t help but leak out of their conversation. “Where’s the other boy?” Jihye asks. “He debuted with you, didn’t he?”
“The other boy?”
She gives him an odd look. “Sunoo-ssi. You always came here with him, near the end.” Before I-LAND, she means.
“Oh,” Jake swallows, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He’d almost forgotten about that. “He’s—” Jake wracks his brain, thinking back to his video-call earlier with Jongseong. “He’s filming his own video right now, where he’s making custom perfumes.” There we go. Almost forgotten, but only almost.
Jake’s grateful when his manager steps back into the room, successfully pivoting the conversation towards their meal order. He looks down at the camera, and he realizes that it’s been recording the entire time. He resists the urge to turn it off, to just start the video anew.
Not that it matters much in the end, though. By the time he’s tasked with captioning the vlog, the entire conversation’s been cut. It makes sense, it makes total sense, but Jake can’t help but feel disappointed anyway.
<<
Jake falls defeated onto the practice room floor, whining, “How did TXT debut with this song?”
They’re in the middle of practicing for their I-LAND entrance exam, and Jake’s head is already spinning from all the moves he has to memorize. They still have a generous few weeks to prepare, but he’s already ready to melt into the ground itself. Youngbin laughs at Jake’s form, though his smile is strained, his muscles even more so. “C’mon,” he pulls at Jake’s limp arm, “We’ve only got thirty minutes left in here before the next group comes.”
“Then let’s just lie here for thirty minutes,” Jake jokes. “I give up, I surrender.”
He’s not being serious, but an ominous shadow looms over him at his words. “If you wanted to sit here and look pretty,” Sunoo chirps down at him, eyes sharp, tongue even sharper, “you should’ve just told us from the beginning, hyung.”
Jake squints up at him. “You’re the pretty one here.” He’s not entirely sure what he’s trying to refute, his tongue dumb in his mouth when he looks at Sunoo.
“Even the pretty ones need eye candy to look at,” Sunoo sighs, shaking his head. He leans down to pat Jake’s cheek. “If you don’t want to practice, then I guess you were just chosen for your face after all—”
Jake hooks his foot around Sunoo’s ankle and pulls.
Sunoo shrieks as he falls down. Jake catches him, of course he does, but he’s beginning to regret that decision as Sunoo viciously slaps his chest in revenge. He wheezes at Youngbin to save him, but Youngbin shakes his head, laughing as he walks over to his laptop to start the choreography video again.
“If you guys don’t get up in the next minute,” Youngbin warns, “I’m kicking you out of the room.”
“So that means we can rest a little longer,” Jake loudly whispers to Sunoo. “Sixty, fifty-nine—”
“You’re so stupid,” Sunoo giggles, rolling his eyes as he gets up. He doesn’t spare Jake a glance, but he extends his hand down for him to grab anyway.
When Jake looks in front of him, though, he finds Sunoo already looking at him through the mirror.
Jake smiles and, when he takes his hand in his, Sunoo smiles back.
>>
Jongseong had headed home earlier, so it’s just Jake and Sunoo in the car as their manager drives them back to their dorm after filming their EN-loGs. The mix of misplaced nostalgia and food that no longer tastes like home churns in his stomach, so he opts to sit shotgun.
None of them are up for much conversation, but Jake’s airpods die just five minutes into the ride, so he leans his head back against his seat, closes his eyes, and he listens.
When he shifts a little, his shirt rustles against his skin and he makes a mental note to iron some of his more wrinkle-prone shirts later tonight. Sunoo’s rolled his car window a few centimeters for some fresh air, and the car next to them is blasting a bubble pop melody. Sunoo hums along to the song, and Jake startles from his half-asleep daze.
Jake looks at the side-view mirror, and he sees Sunoo peek his head through his open window, grinning out into the August sun. Jake feels like a witness to two halves of a whole meeting.
Sunoo briefly catches his eye in the mirror before quickly looking away. He stops singing.
Jake deflates. Why did you stop? he wants to ask, but he doesn’t know how. It’s hard to talk to Sunoo these days. Jake doesn’t know when that happened, or if that was always the case.
The inscription on the side-view mirror seems to suggest otherwise. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
When Jake looks at Sunoo, he wonders if that was ever true at all.
<<
“I didn’t mean what I said earlier, by the way,” Sunoo lowly whispers to him over their bowls of naengmyeon. Jihye walks by to refill their cups of water and they thank her.
“Hrm?” Jake questions him, his mouth full of cold noodles.
“Gross, hyung,” Sunoo wipes a fleck of spit from his cheek. “And I mean—you weren’t chosen to be a trainee because of your looks.”
Ah, that’s what this was about. Jake tries to reassure him that he didn’t take the comment seriously, but he feels like a chipmunk right now, his cheeks filled with too much food he can’t chew and swallow yet. Also, his right eyebrow involuntarily twitches, the pimple above it choosing now as the time to ache.
Sunoo looks him up and down, his face unimpressed and his voice deadpan, “With what we have working here, they clearly saw something else in you.”
Jake should honestly feel offended, but he can’t help the laughter that erupts out of him at that.
Out of him and onto Sunoo.
Sunoo gives him a silent treatment that lasts exactly five minutes. His carefully kept blank face breaks when someone pounds on the bathroom door and Jake panics from where he’s trying to wash the noodles out of Sunoo’s hair, the both of them bent awkwardly around the sink.
Even as Jake shrieks at him to stop moving so much, Sunoo screeches in laughter, his head right against Jake’s chest, Jake’s heart loud and alive.
>>
When they get home, Sunoo lets Jake take a shower first, opting instead to chat with Jungwon and Jongseong in the living room. Sunoo mutely nods at Jake’s Thank you, his smile reserved for the people he wants to give it to.
Jake can’t help but feel like he’s forgotten something very important.
//
Ever since landing in Seoul, Jake’s been confronted with and has accepted the fact that a lot of things don’t come naturally to him.
His limbs didn’t move the way he wanted them to when he danced, his voice cracked and went off-pitch when he sang, and he’d never cared this much about how his face looked before. Learning Korean was a whole different beast, too. The mangled Konglish he’d maintained all his life wasn’t enough anymore, it wasn’t enough at all. His BELIFT instructors didn’t understand him when he tried to speak, and his aunts looked at him disapprovingly when they heard his pronunciation.
It was hard. He cried about it enough to his parents whenever he video called them, an hour time difference and a whole continent away. Maybe this was a mistake, he told them. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this after all.
Jake Sim is not a lingerer, though. He put his entire life on pause for this, and he knew that everyone was holding their breath, waiting for him to fail. Jake didn’t breathe for months. But all of this—the learning Korean, the training, the possibility of a debut—was a matter of survival, and he couldn't afford to linger.
Every new grammar rule that clicked, every note that he could finally reach, every body isolation he could now achieve, was like a problem he’s finally solved.
That doesn’t mean he’s not still behind everyone else—in years, in experience, in passion; there’s still so many more problems ahead of him to figure out. But that click, that moment when everything finally starts to make sense, is too addicting for him to give up just yet. It’s the reason why he’s made it so far, why he refuses to settle for less.
That’s why Jake’s at a loss for what to do now. He waits for the click to come, but nothing makes sense to him at all, least of all Sunoo.
//
The thing about Jake is that he falls in love very easily. Arguably, it’s his fatal flaw.
He very firmly believes that everything and everyone can be worth loving—he’s living proof of it. He fell in love with the way the theory of relativity finally clicked in his head when he was fourteen, late at night watching an explanation video on YouTube. He fell in love with the weight of his violin tucked under his chin, a piece of a symphony possible within his fingertips. He fell in love with the rush that playing rugby gave him, adrenaline pulsing through his veins and a grin etched onto his face.
It’s the exact same thing with people. Jake is very good at having crushes. Great, even.
Jake still remembers a stranger on the bus from three years ago, a girl who danced in her seat to the music blasting in her headphones. One of his coworkers from his old barista job had a laugh that Jake still misses. Once the lineup for I-LAND was confirmed—and he subsequently stopped caring about the no talking rule—he found himself with a new flurry of crushes fluttering in his chest. He had a crush on Sunoo when he met him, which then quickly turned into a crush on Youngbin, which eventually became one on Jongseong, and so on. He started dating Sunghoon a week after meeting him.
Love at the mere brush of fingertips—that was everything to him back then.
He wishes he could just hoard this feeling beneath his ribs, to pile love on top of love on top of love, but it’s a flaw because he can only love so much before his skin isn’t enough, before someone will want to see his flesh and bones too. Tell me all of your secrets, and I’ll tell you none of mine. I wish I could have you without you having me.
It’s selfish, isn’t it? How Jake falls out of love as quickly as he falls into it.
That’s the odd thing about crushes, and the cruel thing about first loves—you don’t get to choose which ones stay.
He realized this when he broke Sunghoon’s heart mid-January, the both of them freezing out on their small balcony because it’s the only part of their dorm that afforded them any real privacy.
“How long have you thought about this for?” Sunghoon asks after a long span of silence, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Their six-month anniversary would’ve been next week.
Since you said I love you before we even turned eighteen, Jake wants to say. Since you began reminding me of a version of myself that I’m not anymore. Since I realized I meant more to you than you did to me.
Soulmates. Jake internally cringes at the word now. Fears it, almost. It became terrifying because Sunghoon actually started to believe it. Jake called them that because he thought it was what he wanted them to be. Because he thought it was what Sunghoon wanted to hear.
Even now, Jake tells Sunghoon what he wants to hear, because he knows Sunghoon better than anyone else. “Since I realized how hard it is to juggle a relationship with a job like ours,” Jake lies. They could’ve made it if he’d tried.
Luckily, Sunghoon believes him. They’ve been practicing for both their first fan meeting event and their first K-CON performance, and they just received the first preliminary version of their first comeback title track. It’s a lot, and Sunghoon knows it’s a lot, so Sunghoon believes him.
“Okay,” Sunghoon exhales, his voice shaky and his words freezing in the air, his heartbreak visible. He doesn’t look at Jake. “If—if that’s what you want, then okay.”
Maybe Jake’s a bad person for the amount of relief that washes over him, because he knows Sunghoon’s perfectly curated nonchalance will disappear once Jake’s out of sight.
For now, though, he lets the cold numb his fingertips, his lungs freezing over long after Sunghoon’s stepped back inside their dorm.
>>
Heeseung broke his heart last week.
Jake’s fine though, really. He is. Maybe it says something about him that he’s able to move on from it so quickly, like it didn’t even matter at all.
(It did. It does. His brain just doesn’t know what to do with all his emotions other than to compartmentalize them and move on. It’s all a matter of survival.)
The rise, the peak, and the fall are all quite simple. After too many nights of them staying up late together and huddled over a stove, faces pressed into each other’s necks as they laid in a spot on the couch that everyone knew was theirs, he looked at Heeseung and realized, Oh, I’ve fallen for you too.
So in the beginning of September, Jake looks at Heeseung as they sit in their spot on the couch, the rest of the world asleep except for them.
A single look, apparently, is all it takes.
Heeseung freezes, a deer in headlights. “Jaeyun-ah,” he breathes out. “Don’t do this to me.”
The words catch in his throat. “Hyung?”
“Don’t say it.” A plead. “Please don’t say it.”
So Jake doesn’t. I love you, he swallows down, and the words pollute his stomach.
“Okay,” Jake lies, and his head spins with deja vu. “If that’s what you want, then okay.”
Maybe that’s the good thing about Heeseung, though. Everything’s easy when it comes to him—even a rejection.
After their break up—does it count as a break up if they never actually dated?—Heeseung goes on a full personality cleanse, committing himself entirely to mental wellness. He deletes his League ID, he meditates before he goes to bed, and he’s really gotten into journaling lately.
Jake doesn’t know whether he should be proud or not of the fact that he’s the reason for it.
“We’re too similar for our own good,” Jake hums a few days later. Heeseung’s sitting on the couch as he watches a video about the benefits of yoga on the TV, and Jake watches with him from the floor. “It probably wouldn’t have worked out between us.”
Jake fidgets with his hands and, even though the summer’s gone and passed by, the tips of his fingers are still numb, the lack of feeling spreading across his skin.
Heeseung looks relieved at his nonchalance, and Jake swallows down his bitterness, his body now a landfill. “It’d be like dating myself—and I’d never want to date myself,” Heeseung shivers.
Okay, that stings a little. They’re not that similar. “You literally just broke my heart,” Jake complains.
“That’s what you get for falling in love with me,” Heeseung shoots back. It’s meant to be lighthearted, but it comes out defensive instead. I can’t love you because you remind me of myself, and I don’t like myself very much is what Heeseung’s thinking, and Jake knows this because he knows Heeseung better than anyone else.
Nevermind, they really are the same. Jake lays his head against Heeseung’s knee. “You have issues, dude.”
“Yeah,” Heeseung sighs as he tilts his head back. “I know.”
<<
There’s something Sunghoon told Jake once and, until now, he’d successfully managed to forget about it.
It’s just them in the car as they get driven home from pre-recording their Gayo Daejun performance, a week before Christmas. Jake shifts uncomfortably as Given-Taken comes up on shuffle; he’s had to hear it blaring beneath his skin at least ten times today alone. He doesn’t want to be sick of the song yet, barely a month old and too special for him to hate. And yet here he is.
Sunghoon’s next to him as he scrolls through his phone. He laughs under his breath before moving to show Jake his screen.
It’s a photo of Sunoo and Jake, taken back when they first moved into their dorm. It’s a blurry photo, with Sunoo mid-laugh because Jake was squishing Sunoo’s cheeks, as though Jake was trying to contain the immensity of Sunoo’s joy within his hands.
“Did you know he used to have a crush on you?” Sunghoon chuckles. “You can really see it here.”
They go under a tunnel, and the night envelops them in a chokehold. “What?” Jake nervously laughs. He can’t see anything at all. “Don’t be stupid.”
Jake doesn’t have to look to know that Sunghoon’s frowning.
“Not like it matters, anyway,” Sunghoon slides their hands together, locks them tight.
He used to have a crush on me. Jake holds onto that word like it’s a lifeline.
“Yeah,” Jake agrees, flexing their hands loose. “Not like it matters anyway.”
>>
As much as he’s tried to deny it, Heeseung’s rejection still hurts. Belatedly, maybe deservedly, his rejection of Sunghoon hurts now too. He falls hard, and he falls fast, but he can’t seem to nail the landing. There was always bound to be carnage in the end.
It’s just Jake and Sunoo in their bedroom right now, the others watching an action movie out in the living room. It’s one of the few times they’re together alone, with Jake being an early sleeper and Sunoo never missing a chance to catch up on his latest dramas after work.
Sunghoon’s words echo in his head. Jake doesn’t really know why he asks, but he knows that whatever answer Sunoo gives him will make him hurt. And he wants it to—because at least the hurt means he feels anything at all.
“Did you ever have a crush on me? When we were trainees?” Jake asks innocently—tries to ask innocently. He became guilty the moment the words left his mouth.
Sunoo stiffens. He has headphones in so, for a moment, Jake thinks he didn't hear him, but then Sunoo pauses his drama.
“I thought you already knew,” he curtly replies, his eyes trained on the ceiling. “I thought that was why you stopped talking to me.”
Jake slowly blinks, jaw slack. So Sunghoon wasn’t joking. I never even realized we stopped talking.
Shit. Maybe he’s guilty in ways he wasn’t even aware of. That’s the thing about carnage—it doesn’t just stop with you.
Sunoo briefly glances at him, and he flinches at his expression. He closes his laptop. “I’m going to sleep,” he announces, lying down and tugging the covers over his head.
“Sunoo-yah,” Jake calls out, finding his voice.
I didn’t mean to stop talking to you, he considers saying. I never noticed anything was different, not until now, another option.
Do you still like me? The money question.
Jake doesn’t say any of these. Instead, he settles for, “I didn’t know,” because it’s the truth. He says it softly but, in the quiet of their room, he knows Sunoo heard him.
Sunoo doesn’t respond.
<<
”You’re getting yourself all messy,” Jake chastises.
Sunoo’s too busy chewing the tteokbokki to respond, but he leans into his touch when Jake wipes the sauce on his mouth. It’s cute how happy he looks when he’s eating a meal. Even happier when it’s out of Jake’s wallet.
“You have to eat more neatly,” Jake continues. “You can’t do your mukbangs like this when you debut.”
They’re heading to I-LAND next week, and they’re trying to eat their fill before they go. They’ve got several dishes laid out in front of them, too much for them to actually finish, but that doesn’t stop them from trying, though.
Sunoo swallows, slumping down on the table. “Who says I’m going to debut?”
“I am,” Jake immediately answers. He kicks Sunoo’s feet under the table, though their legs just end up tangled together. Jake doesn’t mind. “Don’t get all sulky on me now, I’m supposed to be the one having the mental breakdowns.”
Sunoo perks up, resolutely stuffing another piece of tteok in his mouth. “You’re right. What’s going on with me? It’s so much more fun watching you mope around.” His eyes round out and he condescendingly pats Jake’s head. “Down, puppy. Get sad.”
Jake kicks Sunoo again, this time aiming for his shins, and Sunoo shrieks You can’t say I’m going to debut and then try to break my legs! Sunoo’s eyes shine with laughter, and Jake feels lucky to be on the receiving end of his look.
They settle down as Jihye passes by to refill their glasses of water, giggles still bubbling on their tongues.
“Anyway,” Sunoo moves on, “You’ll just have to debut with me to keep me pretty.”
“Do I have to?”
Sunoo nods, serious. “It’s the only way.”
“Then I’m never leaving your side,” Jake solemnly swears.
“Good.” Sunoo looks satisfied. “I’ll hold you to it.”
<<
In between takes at Studio Choom, right before debut, they’re wearing long leather coats that make them sweat more standing still than when they were filming. Jake sits down on one of the makeup chairs, his feet not yet used to dancing in boots, how they’re clunky and tight in all the wrong places.
Sunoo’s already sitting there too. His eyes are closed, and he’s got a piece of tissue paper stuck under his bangs for the sweat. There’s a few strands of hair out of place, which Jake knows one of the makeup noonas will fix soon enough, so there’s really no reason for him to think much of it.
Even so, Jake finds himself standing up, leaning forward, and gently combing the hair back in place.
Sunoo blinks himself awake, startled. “What are you doing?”
“Just fixing your hair.” Jake doesn’t know when his touch became unfamiliar. He suddenly feels starved of something he didn’t realize he’d lost.
“Oh,” Sunoo looks away. There’s no sign of the smile he was giving him earlier, in front of the cameras. “Thanks.” There’s a distinct lack of the usual flush in his cheeks, the sincerity staying in the artificial red of his lips.
The PD calls them back to film the choreography for the second verse. Sunoo doesn’t look at him at all as they walk towards the spotlight.
<<
The last day before their survival program begins—apparently they’re heading out into the fucking wildnerness—Jake goes to the restaurant with Youngbin. One last hurrah.
Youngbin’s handsome, anyone can see that, and when they bump shoulders after Youngbin insists on feeding Jake himself, Jake can feel himself falling. Falling, he’s always falling.
He doesn’t notice the strange look Jihye gives him, nor the way her eyes flit to a point behind him throughout their dinner.
It’s only when he gets home that he finds several texts from Sunoo waiting for him.
let’s do dinner like usual, my treat ^-^
hyung?
ur probably busy, so just let me know
i heard the others say you were already heading to the restaurant, i’ll meet you there!!
nevermind
There are no more texts after that.
When Jake climbs onto the bus the next morning and joins all the other boys, he scans the seats for Sunoo first, half an apology already on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he finds Youngbin, bright and shining.
“Jakey-yah!” Youngbin calls for him. “I saved you a seat.”
“Thanks,” Jake grins, sitting down. Youngbin grins back at him.
Jake doesn’t notice how, when Sunoo gets onto the bus a few minutes later, Sunoo looks for him first as well, nor the way Sunoo’s face briefly lets the hurt show before quickly turning blank, then cold. Jake only notices Sunoo once he’s already sitting with Jaebeom, fully immersed in their conversation. He doesn’t spare Jake a glance.
After their entrance exam, Jake doesn’t see much of Sunoo, doesn’t really look for him either. Youngbin leaves halfway through, and Jake starts dating Sunghoon. You know the rest after that.
//
The thing about Sunoo is that he knows how to hold a grudge. Arguably, it’s his fatal flaw.
When Jake thinks about it hard enough, though, even he can step out of his body and take a look at himself. For a moment, for a very brief moment in time, Jake did have a crush on Sunoo. The seed planted itself somewhere in his stomach the first time he saw Sunoo smile, it started sprouting the first time he heard Sunoo laugh, it blossomed in between dance practices, dinners, and late night walks to the bus stop special only to them, and it died without a proper resting place.
Normally, it would’ve been fine. Jake’s used to cycling through crushes and leaving them behind as quickly as they come to him. He just never considered the fact that Sunoo would end up having a crush on him too. Jake thought he knew everything about his members. He doesn’t know how he missed this.
Jake doesn’t really know where it all went wrong for him to air out all his romantic grievances to a fifteen-year-old, but it definitely means that he’s hit rock bottom.
That’s a lie. He knows exactly where it all went wrong. It’s all been wrong from the start.
Jake’s too good at being accommodating—lovable, even. He’s too good at getting people so caught up in how well he understands them that they never realize how little they actually know about him. Because every time he likes someone, everything is so good until it isn’t, until he pulls away before it can become great, because he’s terrified of it becoming great. Because a relationship becoming great enough means he has to peel back his layers, exposing everything he doesn’t want to be seen. Because if he doesn’t pull away first, then he’ll be the one left behind in the end, open and empty.
Self-sabotage, self-fulfilling prophecies. This is what he’s best at, it seems. He’s never minded it before, has always reveled in the armor around his heart, but now it suffocates him more than anything else.
He’s not even sure if Riki was listening. They’re both lying on Jake’s bed, Riki taking up most of the space and squeezing Jake against the wall. He’s swirling a lollipop in his mouth as he plays on his switch.
Jake groans. Yeah, he’s not listening at all.
That’s the nice thing about Riki, though. He pays much more attention than anyone gives him credit for. Even if he makes a judgmental face or a sarcastic comment, his mouth not quite aligned to his heart yet, he doesn’t try to fix the issue when he knows it’s not what’s needed. He accepts Jake, flaws and all and, despite how it seems, he listens.
After half an hour of silence, the sound of Riki’s game and Jake’s playlist filling up the room, Riki takes the lollipop out of his mouth. “You leave people before you can give them a chance to stay.”
Jake swirls the words in his mouth, and he doesn’t like how they taste. They taste too close to the truth.
“You know, I like it better when you’re quiet,” Jake sighs.
Riki snorts. “Don’t say that, hyung. If I become selectively mute in the future, it can all be traced back to this exact conversation.”
“I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Riki rolls his eyes. They should really hold a team meeting about respect, especially toward one’s hyungs.
“What about Heeseung-hyung, though? I wasn’t the one who left this time.”
Riki stares up at the ceiling, his face blank. “He just beat you to it.” He shakes his head, saying in English, “You snooze, you lose, hyung.”
Jake puts his moping on pause. “Where’d you learn that cheesy ass shit from?”
“Jay-hyung.”
“Ni-ki-yah,” Jake says, his voice low and serious. “You keep learning from him, and you’re going to start sounding like you’re sixty by the time you turn sixteen.”
Riki freezes. “My birthday’s in less than three months.”
“Exactly.”
Riki shoves at his face, and they end up tussling on the bed. Jake groans as Riki knees him in the gut, and Jake tickles Riki before he can apologize.
Out of breath and laughter filling in his lungs instead, Jake blurts out, “Sunoo used to have a crush on me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Riki dismisses him, settling back down. “It’s how he and I started talking back then.”
“What? ”
Riki shrugs. “You’re good looking. You’re Australian. Your accent’s hot. There was a lot to talk about.”
“Please never call me hot again.”
“I say that objectively. As a bro.”
“You can’t just bro your way out of this.”
“I already did.”
Jake lets him win this fight—he lets him win every fight, actually. He’s way too soft on him.
“Did you only find out now, hyung? It was kind of an open secret.”
“Yes, I did.” Jake’s going to have a mental breakdown. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“What is there to do? He clearly doesn’t like you like that anymore.”
Jake jerks, not expecting the pain of his words to sear across his chest. Riki gives him a scrutinizing look. There’s nowhere for him to hide, not here.
“Unless you want him to,” Riki continues. “Unless…you like him like that.”
Jake buries his face into his pillow, and he screams. He’s already expended a lifetime of vulnerability in the last hour. He can’t handle this too.
“Get back to me on that,” he groans, muffled.
Riki huffs out a laugh. “Fine, fine. Just get him to start talking to you again, first.”
Jake gives him a defeated thumbs up.
//
“Would you like to share any other observations you’ve psychoanalyzed out of me?” Jake jokingly asks a few minutes later.
Riki’s done with his lollipop. He tosses the stick into the small trash bin next to the bed.
“You know how Jay-hyung’s stupid in love with Jungwon-hyung? Even worse how it’s mutual?” Riki fake wretches. “That’s why you and Jay-hyung have this awful sexual tension. Mostly on your end—entirely on your end, actually. It’s because you won’t let yourself fall in love with him too, since you’ve got no chance with him, so you like to publicly humiliate him instead. It’s gross, hyung. Get a life.”
He shouldn’t have asked.
He rests the base of his feet against Riki’s side and tries to push him off the bed. He fails. Instead, Riki rolls over and crushes him under his weight, casually going back to playing his game.
Jake just can’t fucking win.
<<
Jake can’t stop staring at Sunoo’s lips.
“Did you get a lip injection or something?” Jake asks as he walks Sunoo to the bus stop after dinner.
Sunoo almost faceplants into the concrete. “What? ”
“No shame, man,” Jake holds his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know. Your lips—they just look…more.”
“My lips look,“ Sunoo squints his eyes, “more?”
Jake nods his head. “They look—“ Luscious. Plush. Kissable. “—more.” He flushes pink, trusting in the streetlights to hide him in sepia.
“Well,” Sunoo huffs, crossing his arms. “I did not get work done on my lips. They’ve always looked like this.”
“Oh. Well, they look good. You—you look good,” Jake says because he’s dumb like that.
“Thanks for finally noticing,” Sunoo quips at him.
Sunoo gives him a razor sharp smile before dragging him into a nearby convenience store. He buys a small tube of chapstick, and he makes a show of putting it on once they’re sitting down and waiting for the bus.
The chapstick is tinted red, Jake dimly realizes. He can’t take his eyes away from Sunoo’s methodical application, slow and purposeful. He probably imagined Sunoo’s small smirk as he makes sure his lips are fully coated.
“It’s my favorite brand,” Sunoo tells him. “Do you want to try it?”
Jake takes a shallow breath. “Yeah.”
Sunoo holds the tube out for him, but Jake doesn’t look at it at all.
Jake wants. He wants. He wants Sunoo to lean forward. He wants Sunoo to kiss him.
Jake ends up leaning forward instead, and Sunoo’s eyes widen, though he doesn’t look surprised. Instead, he looks excited.
Then, the bus arrives. Jake blinks, his face just centimeters away from Sunoo’s, before he scrambles to back away. He must have imagined the disappointment on Sunoo’s face as he offers him a hand to get up, a look that lingers as they board the bus. Yeah, he must have imagined it. He must have.
>>
They’re still part of a team though, young and wobbling on its knees at that, so Jake tries to talk to Sunoo about it. Not that he actually has a plan for what to say, but open communication is king, after all. But every time Jake approaches him, Sunoo’s face, before ambivalent, carefully neutral, becomes obviously guarded. To his credit, though, Sunoo doesn’t let it hurt their relationship on camera. Or the lack thereof.
Jake doesn’t really know what to do. It’s not dire enough for him to go to Jungwon to, and it’s definitely not something he wants to cause a team meeting about.
When he slips out of the dorm late one night, though—he didn’t think it was possible, but they ran out of instant ramen—he pauses at the convenience store counter. That same brand of chapstick stares at him, taunting.
Once he’s back home, Jake ignores Heeseung’s Where are you going? as he drops off the ramen at the kitchen before heading into one of the bedrooms. He stops at the doorway, longing.
“What do you want, hyung?” Sunoo doesn’t even look up at him.
“This is,” Jake says as he digs into his pocket, “for you.” He hands Sunoo the tube of chapstick, trying not to puff out his chest as Sunoo’s eyes glimmer with recognition. “I saw it when I went to the convenience store. I remember how you wore it all the time—it’s your favorite, isn’t it?”
Sunoo’s silent for a few beats. “I don’t use this brand anymore, hyung.”
Fucking Jake gently with a chainsaw would probably hurt less than this. “Ah,” Jake weakly says. “If you don’t want it, then you don’t have to—”
He notices that Sunoo’s shoulders are shaking. Sunoo’s laughing at him. Jake can’t even be mad about that, he would laugh at himself too.
Sunoo looks at him for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, though it’s only been a week, and he smiles. Jake feels weak in the knees. “Thanks though, hyung. I’ll use it well.”
When Jake stares bleary-eyed into their bathroom medicine cabinet in the morning two days later, he finds the chapstick nestled amongst Sunoo’s corner of toiletries.
He closes the mirror shut with a small grin.
A truce.
//
Jake comes to the conclusion that it’s a terrible thing to reside in a body.
Before he can even understand the pain or acknowledge the ache, his body will tell him Here, you hurt here. It will tell him This is where you hurt, but it’s up to you to figure out why.
The patterns are always the same. His head hurts when he doesn’t get enough sleep. His teeth hurt when he eats too many sweets. His knees hurt when he forgets to stretch before he dances.
His heart hurts when he looks at Kim Sunoo.
That’s the other thing about bodies. Knowing the cause of a wound doesn’t make it hurt any less.
The patterns are always the same, so Jake falls heart first back into Sunoo. It happens so fast, it’s a wonder he doesn’t choke on all the love surging up his throat.
The first time Jake hugs Sunoo from behind, his arms wrapping around shoulders broader than his own, Sunoo startles, “Hyung?” He’s wearing the chapstick Jake got him, his lips shining and colored warm.
“You’re only wearing a short sleeve,” Jake pretends to chastise him. “It’s starting to get cold now, you can’t be getting sick.”
Sunoo presses his back closer against Jake’s chest. It’s hardly noticeable, but Jake’s been trying to pay attention to him better. “You’re right, I can’t be getting sick,” Sunoo agrees.
Now, Jake pulls Sunoo in close whenever he’s sitting too far away. He brings Sunoo back into the conversation whenever Sunoo’s been too quiet, because as much as flames can’t burn too bright, you can’t let them burn out too. Whenever Sunoo laughs, whenever he laughs because of Jake, Jake’s smile reaches the corners of his face, real and genuine.
Jake listens intently as Sunoo passionately recaps the latest episode of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha to him when they drive to the company building in the morning, and he notices Sunoo looking up terms on Naver whenever Jake’s describing a recent game of rugby he’s seen. They’re so different, but that only makes Jake want to know him more, and maybe even let Sunoo know more about him.
When they’re at an abandoned construction site to film a choreography video at the end of October, he and Heeseung both cower at the ghosts that are surely hiding between the concrete pillars. Sunoo, however, holds a hand out to Jake.
“Don’t be scared,” Sunoo laughs. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Jake follows Sunoo’s lead as he guides them through the darkness, his hand safely in Sunoo’s, the tips of his fingers finally warm again.
Greater than the beating pain in his chest is the rush of clarity in his head. He finally hears that click, that moment when everything finally starts to make sense. This is what he should’ve been doing all along.
//
“I think I have a crush on Sunoo,” Jake tells Riki.
“Took you long enough to notice, hyung,” Riki scoffs.
Falling, Jake’s always falling. He hopes Sunoo’s still there once he lands.
//
Park Jongseong is a vault of Kim Sunoo’s secrets.
Park Jongseong also cannot lie for shit.
Jake corners him one evening, his arms bracketed around Jongseong’s head as he stops him from leaving their shared room. Jongseong flushes at their proximity, Jake now momentarily taller than Jongseong, and Jake briefly mourns what could have been if his crush on Jongseong had lasted longer. Then he thinks about the pile of dirty socks left in the corner of their room, all courtesy of Jongseong himself. Jake stops mourning.
“What’re you doing?” Jongseong asks.
“You want to tell me something,” Jake accuses him. “Out with it already.”
“You don’t know that,” Jongseong bites back before relenting, “How did you know that?”
“It’s easy to tell with you. If I just look at—” Jake gestures around Jongseong’s face “—all of this, I can practically read your mind.”
"Read it then, asshole.”
Jake narrows his eyes. “It has something to do with Sunoo.”
“The fuck? Can you actually read my mind?”
“I told you—I can see it written all over your face. Especially your big, fat crush on J—”
“Shut up. Let’s go back to talking about Sunoo.” Jay hesitates before setting his jaw. “Be good to him.”
“What the hell?” Jake backs off. “Have I not been?”
“If anything, you’ve been too good to him,” Jongseong snorts. “He’s practically jumping for joy. He likes you so—” Jongseong pales, looking as though he’s said too much. “Just—” he stammers, hands afloat and restless, “keep at it, bud.”
Jongseong awkwardly pats Jake’s arm before leaving the room, and Jake frowns at his retreating back.
//
An hour later, Jungwon walks up to him in the living room with a determined look on his face.
“Hyung, I love you,” Jungwon starts.
What the hell is going on? “I love you too,” Jake responds, suspicious.
“And I love Sunoo-hyung.”
Okay, maybe Jake’s beginning to see where this is heading. “Yeah, I know you do—”
“And if you hurt him,” Jungwon continues before silently drawing a line across his neck with his finger. He tilts his head back up and the shadow over his face disappears, his eyes big and bright and his dimple working at full-force. “Got it?”
Jake nods. He can feel the symptoms of an oncoming heart attack happening to him. “Did you and Jay make a plan together to intimidate me?”
“Yep—he’s good cop and I’m bad cop. Did it work?”
“Yeah,” Jake weakly replies.
Jungwon’s face grows serious again for a split second. “Good.” Then the expression disappears.
Jungwon’s terrifying, Jake realizes. He can never let himself get on Jungwon’s bad side.
“Anyway, can you call the others over?” Jungwon asks. “It’s an urgent team meeting.” He doesn’t explain what it‘s for, but his face is serious and his jaw is hard set.
Once everyone’s crowded in the living room, Jungwon drags one of their laundry baskets to rest at his feet.
“Hyungs,” Jungwon nods at them, “Ni-ki,” Jungwon nods at him, “I have a very serious question.” He pulls on some plastic gloves and digs into the basket. He pulls out a pair of—wait, is that—
“Who’s pair of Squidward boxers are these.”
The room goes dead silent. No one says a word.
They leave the meeting with more questions than answers.
//
They play a drinking game at the end of the year.
The rules are simple. You ask the person next to you a question, hypothetical or real, and they can either answer truthfully or take a shot. There’s no actual alcohol involved, though that’s not for Sunoo’s lack of trying. What they do have are fancy shot glasses that Jongseong’s aunt gifted him when they debuted, though. They use Milkis instead, and that’s enough to make Riki happy.
It starts off easy enough. Jongseong asks Riki if he’s the one that spilled chocolate milk onto his Taehyung blanket. Riki answers Yes without blinking an eye. I wanted him to have a matching birthmark with you, hyung. Jongseong has a mental breakdown. They all laugh, and then Jongseong laughs once he sees Jungwon laughing. Easy.
(Jake catches a glimpse of Riki’s phone screen. He’s on Naver, scrolling through his search for best laundry detergents. Jake gives him an approving tap with his foot. Riki doesn’t look at him, but he gives him a tap back.)
When it’s Jungwon’s turn, he turns to Jake and asks, “Would you help Sunoo-hyung hide a dead body?”
“Oh, did he kill someone?”
“Not yet,” Jungwon replies, and he ignores Sunoo’s indignant What! “But I’m sure it’ll happen one day. For now, let’s just say they said they didn’t like Baek Yerin-sunbaenim.”
Sunoo gasps in understanding. “Oh, they deserved it then.”
Jake wraps his arms around Sunoo’s shoulders, pulls him in close, smiling sticky sweet. Even though Sunoo narrows his eyes at him, he’s flushed up to his ears, down his chest. A small part of Jake hopes that he’s the reason for it.
“I would,” Jake answers, holding out his fist. Sunoo lets out a surprised but pleased Really? His cheeks are full on happiness as he reciprocates Jake’s fist bump.
“We’d bury the body, and I’d let him go uncover for a while, wait for the authorities to get desperate for information about the killer,” Jake continues. “Then I’d turn him in to get the reward money.”
Sunoo grabs him and viciously shakes him, pretending to wring his neck. “You’d be my accomplice, then, dumbass. I’d take you down with me.”
“Oh no,” Jake laughs. “My evil plan was thwarted.” Suddenly, Sunoo’s face is so close to his. Jake thinks he can count each individual eyelash. He should tell their makeup stylists to curl them more. “I’d hate having to be stuck in jail with you.”
“Yeah,” Sunoo swallows, averting his eyes. “That would suck.” It’s easier to tell when Sunoo lies, now. Jake mentally gives himself a pat on the back.
Sunghoon suddenly shouts, having slipped onto the floor after wearing socks on smooth tile. His pajama pants slip down his waist to reveal—
“The Squidward boxers are yours, hyung?” Jungwon shrieks.
All hell breaks loose, and Jake takes advantage of the noise.
“My turn,” Jake whispers right against Sunoo’s ear. “Do you still like me?”
Sunoo takes a shot.
//
“What are you doing, hyung?” Sunoo asks tiredly. “What are we doing?”
They’re at the restaurant again, the one by the old BigHit building. Despite January leaving their schedules packed with award shows and comeback preparations, Jake managed to squeeze in this one dinner with Sunoo tonight. They’ve been making dinners between them a recurring thing again, and Jihye had ruffled Sunoo’s hair so hard the first time she saw him again.
They’re both eating jjimdak, and Jake takes one of the bigger chunks of chicken in his bowl and places it in Sunoo’s. “What do you mean? We’re eating dinner.”
“Don’t act dumb, hyung,” Sunoo picks the chicken up with his chopsticks and places it back into Jake’s bowl. “Why have you been so nice to me lately?”
“I’m always nice to you.”
“Not like this, hyung. It’s different.”
Jake shrugs. There’s no more point in hiding it. “Because I like you.” Simple.
“Or is it because you know I used to like you?” Sunoo challenges.
“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” Jake says. “But what—what did you like about me back then?”
Sunoo laughs, looking somewhere behind Jake, his eyes unable to stay still. “Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”
“Damn, so it was about looks this whole time?” Jake sighs, joking, “I should’ve known.”
Sunoo’s voice grows somber, “Have you ever heard yourself talk?”
“And how do I talk?”
“You make people feel like they mean everything to you—even strangers. You treat people like you already love them.” You treated me like you already loved me. “But no one can love everyone, not even you.”
It’s a different feeling, having someone else describe his actions. “That doesn’t mean I fake how I feel, though,” Jake frowns. Not totally, at least. It all stems from somewhere genuine, even if it ends up more artificial than not.
“That’s not what I’m saying you’re doing,” Sunoo shakes his head before faltering. “It’s just that sometimes you make people think they mean more to you than they actually do.”
Jake's eyes soften, his voice gentle. “You mean more to me than you think you do.”
“This is what I mean, hyung—you’re doing it again.” Sunoo finally looks him in the eyes. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m not,” Jake insists, reassures. “I’m really not.”
Jake doesn’t entirely know how to get Sunoo to believe him, but he tries anyway. “I kind of led you on, didn’t I?”
Sunoo gives him a little nod. “I was so close to asking you out back then—before I realized you didn’t feel the same way, not really.” The tips of his ears are pink, verging on red. “I think a small part of me even loved you back then.”
Hope swirls in Jake’s chest. “Loved?”
“I don’t know!” Sunoo squeaks, misunderstanding the question. He covers his face with his hands. Even his knuckles are flushed, the tips of his fingers soft and pink. “You were cute and you were smart—and you were kind. You’d be surprised at how few guys are all three.”
Jake sits up straight, correcting his posture, his ego polished. “No, I mean—” he laughs, softly pulling Sunoo’s hands away from his face, “Loved, past tense?”
Sunoo pouts and—god, Jake wants to kiss him. “Hyung,” he whines. They’re still holding hands.
“I’m sorry, really,” Jake apologizes. “I didn’t mean to lead you on. I actually had a bit of a crush on you back then too—and it just didn’t end up happening. Right person, wrong time.”
Sunoo doesn’t break eye contact with him. “Right person?”
“Right time, now,” Jake says, certain, “if you’d like to be my boyfriend. If you still like me like that.”
“I don’t know if I really ever stopped,” Sunoo confesses. “Maybe it was put on pause, but it never really stopped.”
“Let’s start again on a blank slate,” Jake proposes. A false start, and a real, new beginning.
“It’s not going to be that easy.” I’m not that easy, is what Sunoo seems to mean. He’s trying to look threatening, but Jake just thinks he looks cute. “You have to try for me.”
Try. Jake can do that. If he tries—he thinks they might just be able to make it.
//
After they finish eating, they walk through a less crowded neighborhood to settle down the food in their stomachs, masks up and hats pulled down low as they hold hands.
“What do you like about me, huh?” Sunoo asks, swinging their arms. “I’ve just been singing your praises all night, hyung.”
Sunoo may have asked the question, but he wasn’t really prepared for the answer. “What is there not to like about you?”
“That’s a cop-out answer!”
“Okay, okay,” Jake chuckles. “You’re cute, to start off.”
Sunoo snorts. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“We’re only ever surrounded by hard working people, but—I genuinely think you’re one of the most hard working people I know. You’re always up for new things, and you take them head on.”
Sunoo nods, his expression proud and a pleased smile gracing his face. His face is growing increasingly red. “Go on.”
“You treat everyone like you already love them,” Jake says, “and you really mean it. You’re fiercely loyal to the people you love, and you brighten up every room you walk into, but you’re not blindly optimistic. You just know how to be a source of strength to everyone—and especially yourself.”
Even against the biting cold of winter, Sunoo’s hands are warm in Jake’s hands. “Okay—that’s enough,” Sunoo stops him, embarrassed. “I get it, you like me and think I’m cool or whatever.”
Jake holds him close, keeps him warm. “I do.”
They’ve arrived at a small park, the area empty of people and cameras. They pull their masks down and breathe in the crisp, cold air.
“That’s enough sincerity for one night,” Sunoo says, and Jake almost jokingly says Oh, thank god. “Do you want to know what I think of you, now?”
“What do you think of me?”
“Everyone thinks you're this super polite and well-mannered church boy, but I actually think you’re a bit of a bitch.”
“Excuse me? ”
“The good thing is,” Sunoo whispers conspiratorially, “I’m a bit of a bitch, too. We should join forces, the others could never take us down.”
Sunoo’d applied the chapstick after they left the restaurant, and his lips are still tinted red. Jake wants to finally know what they feel like against his. When Sunoo pulls him into a kiss, his mouth as plush as Jake thought it’d be, Jake follows him easily. It’s short and sweet, but Jake still gasps for air once they separate.
“It sounds like a plan,” Jake grins, dazed. He can feel Sunoo’s smile on his lips when he goes to kiss him again.
//
(On the nights Sunoo has him on his knees, collar perfectly too tight around his neck and Sunoo’s voice too sweet against his ear when he says Good bitch, Jake grins, dumb of everything except Sunoo. It’s always been Sunoo for him, in the end.)
//
“What’s going on?” Sunoo repeatedly asks as Jake drags him into their livestream room, his hands covering Sunoo’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
He and Jongseong decorated the room for a surprise coming-of-age ceremony livestream for Sunoo, and Sunoo preens as he sits down, a flower crown of roses blooming from his head and joyful giggles brightening up the room.
Jake puffs out his chest, proud as he and Jongseong clean up the extra tape and streamers from where the camera can’t see. You look good like this, you like being surprised. You like being thought of even when you’re not there, because you like seeing the proof that we care.
I like taking care of you, Jake thinks. I like making you happy.
Just to be a bitch, though, he whispers to Sunoo, “Take your time, because we’re not going to wait for you in the car.”
Sunoo rolls his eyes, nodding, “Yeah, yeah.”
An hour later, though, Sunoo peeks his head into the car and perks up when he finds Jake already sitting there. Jongseong had left earlier to meet up with Jungwon, so Jake’s just been waiting for him. He already has a gallery of screenshots taken from the livestream that he’ll tease Sunoo about later. For now, though, he pats the seat next to him, awaiting.
Sunoo giddily claps his hands, triumph making him glow. “I knew you’d stay for me,” he says as he climbs into the seat next to him.
Jake smiles and grabs his hand. “I knew I would too.”