Work Text:
Mood: You Are The Right One by Sports / Bleed by Malcolm Todd & Omar Apollo.
“Shit, I think my shirt caught onto something.”
“Yeah, just— stop moving, dumbass, you’re tearing it even more.”
Jay does a quick work of freeing the torn fabric of Sunghoon’s ratty t-shirt from the hook of the metal fence his friend is currently in the process of climbing — or at least attempting at doing so.
He’s the unfortunate candidate after getting annihilated at rock paper scissors, and even though his Converse are certainly not the right kind of shoes for pulling stunts like this, he takes it like a champ and gets to climbing with little to no protest.
Still, Jay stands a little closer than the others as Sunghoon climbs. Just in case he needs to catch him.
A voice in the back of his head that worryingly resembles Ni-ki’s teases that he just likes to act like a mother hen, and… yeah, that sounds like something Ni-ki would say if he was here.
He’s not, though, and to be honest it’s the only reason they’re even in this predicament to begin with.
The rubber sole of Sunghoon’s right foot slips a little, and Jay flinches slightly. If the others notice, they choose not to comment on it.
It takes Sunghoon a solid thirty seconds to swing one leg after the other over the edge of the fence and hop down on the other side, and he looks weirdly proud of himself when he throws a smile at them.
Jay rolls his eyes, hoping to disguise the smile he feels tugging at his lips. He hears Heeseung snort in amusement.
“Just open the gate, idiot,” he sighs.
“It’s okay, Jay-ah. You can say I’m amazing.”
“You know, I think maybe you didn’t even need to climb,” he snarks, as Sunghoon inputs the code Sunoo had smuggled from the secretary at the start of the semester — even though none of them had ever thought a day would come when they would actually need to use it.
“You could’ve floated right over the fence supported by the sheer force of your ego.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunghoon waves a hand, almost bored as the gate buzzes open, “you love me so much, I get it.”
Jungwon huffs past, finally pushing the heavy gate open and sliding through.
“Can we all focus for a minute here? Sunghoon-hyung, stop getting on Jay-hyung’s nerves.”
Jay gets the satisfaction of throwing Sunghoon a smug smirk as he passes him by.
Sunghoon sticks his tongue out at him — like the pre-schooler he is.
Jake snickers in amusement, for once not part of their bickering.
“I think we should split,” Jungwon hisses in a low voice.
“Me and Sunoo-hyung will check out the Humanities and Arts building,” he hooks his arm around Sunoo’s shoulders in an attempt to cheer him up, but Sunoo’s eyes stay stuck to the ground.
Jay knows Sunoo feels guilty. Big, fat tears had been streaming down his cheeks up until a couple of hours ago, and when Jungwon had first picked up his call Sunoo was already crying, harsh sobs wrecking through his words as he explained.
‘Ni-ki has disappeared,’ he had managed to stammer through tears.
‘I don’t know where— where he is. We had a fight— I— he’s not in his room, his roommate says he hasn’t seen him at all. I came to apologize but he’s— gone.’
That had been enough to throw the rest of them into a collective panic.
Flash forward to a couple of hours and countless scoutings of every inch of the whole area around Ni-ki’s dorm and here they are, trespassing into the area of campus where the lecture buildings are — an area they totally shouldn’t be caught in at this hour of the night.
“Jake-hyung, can you and Sunghoon-hyung go look around the STEM area? It’s not likely that Ni-ki is actually there, but…”
“We can’t take any chances, got it,” Jake promptly swoops in, big, anxious eyes void of any of the usual mischief.
They all know Ni-ki is probably just hiding in some dark corner like the angsty teenager he is.
Still, it’s not like Ni-ki to just disappear on everyone without even sending Heeseung a quick text, so they can’t help but worry.
Ni-ki was fourteen when he first met Heeseung through the dance club back in high school, back when he’d just moved to Korea, didn’t speak a word of the language and Jay was a good two inches taller than him.
It had taken approximately forty-five minutes for Heeseung to make up his mind and basically unofficially adopt the kid, treating him to ramen after every dance practice and bringing him with him everywhere he went.
As far as Jay remembered, Ni-ki had just randomly spawned into existence into his life one day, trailing lankily behind Heeseung one afternoon.
So he can’t blame Jake for worrying.
“Me and Hyung are going to scope out the Sports building and the cafeteria, then,” he concludes, and his eyes traitorously steal a glance at Heeseung, before he forces himself to look away.
Now is not the time, for fuck’s sake.
When he looks up, Jay finds Jungwon giving him a strange look — one he doesn’t think he was supposed to see.
Jungwon doesn’t give him time to dwell on it, though, as he sets his jaw in a tight line and nods resolutely.
“Good. Keep your phones close, and if anyone finds him send the others a text.”
With that, he stalks away towards the Humanities building, Sunoo’s hand held tight into his.
Sunghoon shares a look with Heeseung, before he and Jake set out onto their own path.
Before he can say or do anything, he feels Heeseung’s hand gently slip into his own clammy fist and tug him in the opposite direction.
“Let’s go,” he says.
Heeseung’s hand is warm.
They jog all the way to the Sports building, and Jay is embarrassed to find himself slightly out of breath simply because of a two minute run.
The door opens with little to no resistance, and they’re in.
As they walk down the long, dark corridors in silence a shiver runs down Jay’s neck.
It’s kind of eerie, he thinks, seeing the building so empty. Maybe he’s just used to seeing it in the daylight.
Still, he steps a bit closer to Heeseung, feeling their arms press together.
Had it been Jake, or Sunghoon, or even Ni-ki, he would have surely been made fun of endlessly for being a scaredy cat.
Whatever, he thinks. He’s never liked scary stuff, since he was a child.
He had even cried once when he was still a small kid when his friend Junhao had tried to show him a gross bug he had caught.
Heeseung doesn’t comment.
He thinks Heeseung has noticed, though, because one corner of his mouth lifts in an almost imperceptible smile.
They can’t risk calling Ni-ki’s name out loud, because they don’t actually know if there are patrol guards around (and there probably are), something that makes their searching a lot more difficult.
“Ni-ki,” Jay whisper-shouts as he pokes his head inside an empty classroom, “where are you?”
He doesn’t think the Sports building would be Ni-ki’s designated hiding-spot on campus — if he even is hiding on campus grounds — but as Jake said: they can’t take any chances.
Jay’s heartbeat is abnormally loud as it echoes in his ears.
Heeseung is unusually quiet.
It sets Jay on edge.
He doesn’t like it when something manages to upset Heeseung enough that it actually shows.
“Hey,” he lightly bumps his shoulder against Heeseung’s, “we’ll find him.”
Jay’s voice is a whisper in the silence of the empty halls.
“I know,” Heeseung croaks back, and he sounds like he’s holding back from crying.
It breaks Jay’s heart a bit. He clears his throat, probably trying to get rid of the wobbliness in his voice.
“If he ever tries to pull a stunt like this again I’m kicking his ass so hard he’ll remember it for the next decade.”
Jay stares at Heeseung profile in the darkness for a second longer.
He had never quite managed to understand the relationship between Heeseung and Ni-ki.
They had always been quite weird about each other, ever since the very start, even with the strange admiration-borderline-adoration Ni-ki had felt for Heeseung as his senior and as his Hyung.
It’s safe to say that Heeseung has been the holder for the number one spot in Ni-ki’s life for a long time, and will probably continue to be so, in the same way in which no one else, not even Jay, could ever fill Ni-ki spot in Heeseung’s.
Back then, it had taken a while for Jay to understand this.
Even without everything that had to do with Heeseung and his presence in Jay’s life, they had known each other for the longest time among everyone.
Jay can admit he’d been a bit jealous, at the start — despite how embarrassing it is to admit he’d been jealous of a literal fourteen-year-old — because, well.
It was Heeseung-hyung.
It wasn’t until Jay’s first proper conversation with Ni-ki — in Japanese, because Ni-ki still sucked at Korean and Jay wanted to put his skills to the test — that he’d finally come to what felt close to understanding but not quite.
Either way, it had been good enough for Jay. Besides, it hadn’t taken long before Ni-ki had charmed his way into Jay’s affections as well.
Heeseung and Ni-ki were still weird sometimes, something that left Jay feeling like he was witnessing two halves of a whole and two opposites at the same time.
It strangely reminded him of the negatives of pictures, like the ones Jake used to develop back when he’d gone through a short but intense photography phase.
Maybe Ni-ki was like Heeseung’s negative image, or vice-versa.
Jay doesn’t answer Heeseung, also because he kind of gets the feeling that Heeseung doesn’t want him to, so they go back to looking around trying to spot a head of blond-bleached hair.
Jay is getting more and more restless with every minute that ticks by, unconsciously starting to chew on the tender skin of his inner cheek.
It’s a childhood habit he’s never managed to quite shake off, especially when he’s nervous or worried.
The door leading to the university’s indoor pool almost bangs against the wall when they open it, but Jay can’t bring himself to care about the possibility of someone actually finding them here.
The space is a bit brighter than the rest of the building, and it seems the university keeps the pale underwater lights on during the night, so the water is actually the only source of illumination they’re provided
They split to search the opposite sides of the pool, even though Jay has no hope of finding Ni-ki here, and he feels moderately ridiculous as he even resorts to looking through some of the swimming team’s equipment crowded against a corner with the flashlight of his phone.
The sound of Heeseung’s ringtone suddenly tears harshly through the silence, startling Jay hard enough that he slips on a wet patch of the pool floors and finds himself tumbling through floaties and swimming boards.
He doesn’t give himself the time to wallow in any self-pity as he gets back on his feet and almost breaks his neck again to run to the opposite side, where Heeseung has fished his phone out of his pocket and is answering the call.
He mentally gives his mom the credit she probably deserved when she used to yell at Jay not to run alongside the pool edge, when he was a kid and she took him swimming in the summer.
This shit’s slippery as hell.
“Yeah,” Heeseung answers, tongue darting out to wet his lips.
To anyone who doesn’t know him at all, he might seem poised and relaxed like he normally tends to appear, but Jay can recognize the tells of his anxiousness.
The way his eyebrows are drawn together a bit too tightly, how he keeps on licking his dry lips, the way his finger keeps tapping the edge of his phone.
Someone talks on the other end of the call.
He can see the physical shift when the tension drains from Heeseung’s body, and like a reflex, he feels himself take a breath he didn’t know he was holding, too.
“Okay, thanks. Yeah, see you there.”
The call ends and Heeseung finally looks at Jay for the first time that evening.
“They found him.”
Jay lets out a relieved sigh.
“Fucking hell.”
“Yeah,” Heeseung answers, “he’s with Jake and Sunghoonie.”
Jay feels like he’s been on a fucking roller-coaster this whole time ever since Sunoo called, so he doesn’t care when the wet floor completely damps the fabric of his jeans under his ass and thighs as he plops himself down, tired from running around the place the whole time.
He lets his phone lie forgotten next to him as he crosses his legs, because he’s still wearing his shoes and if he let his feet dangle from the edge they’d be soaked in the pool water.
He feels Heeseung’s stare on the back of his head, so he’s not surprised when he feels him crouch down at Jay’s level.
“You were worried,” Heeseung says, and it’s not a question but rather a statement.
Like he blurted it out without meaning to.
“Of course I was,” Jay feels kind of offended, “weren’t we all?”
“I mean, yeah,” Heeseung looks embarrassed, at least, “It’s just. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what you’re thinking.”
That catches Jay off guard. He’s never been the mysterious type, he has enough self-awareness to recognize it’s always been quite the opposite, really.
It’s always been quite a problem for him.
He’s too much.
He stares at Heeseung dumbly for a couple of seconds before catching himself.
He doesn’t know what to say, so he goes back to staring at the ripples of water and the faded blue tiles of the bottom of the pool.
He thinks about leaving the conversation hanging like this and getting back to their friends, but for once he actually feels like growing a spine when it comes to Heeseung.
“It’s hard for me, too.”
Jay feels like he had to push the words out, but when he turns to look at Heeseung’s face lit up by the pool lights, he feels the words untangle themselves from the depths of his throat.
“To know what you think. Actually, sometimes I get so mad about it I don’t know what to do with myself. You’re such a confusing person, Hyung.”
Heeseung looks stunned, like he never would have imagined Jay speaking to him this way, and as his own words catch up with his brain Jay feels his cheeks heat up.
“I— I just mean,” he stammers, eager to explain himself, “that we’ve known each other the longest and… sometimes I actually fool myself into believing that I know you like I know myself, because sometimes you feel so familiar.”
Heeseung is not saying anything, just looking at him.
“And then sometimes you feel like a stranger again, and— it drives me mad. I don’t want you to push me out. I always want you to keep me close.”
Silence has never felt quite this loud as it rings out between them, and Jay’s face feels on fire.
He never meant to unload all of his pent up and embarrassing feelings onto Heeseung like this, and it’s not even a proper confession. Jay just… emotionally threw up on him.
Great.
He feels like a whiny child, and he’s so embarrassed that Heeseung isn’t saying anything that he gets up in a haste, eager to walk away from this place and this conversation, but he miscalculates.
There are moments in which Jay feels like his life is seriously a joke or a sitcom, like ‘The Truman Show’.
Maybe the universe has personal vendetta against him, or maybe it just likes to make fun of him.
He’s usually gotten pretty good at just taking the embarrassing moments in stride after all these years, but as he feels his feet slip from under him and his body go dangerously off-balance, he can only pray this fall finally puts him out of his misery so he never has to face Heeseung again after this.
Heeseung’s eyes are wide in alarm.
It’s like it happens in slow motion.
One second he’s flailing his arms around, desperately trying to save himself from what could potentially be a very dangerous — and very embarrassing — fall, and the next he feels the warmth of a hand splayed across his back and two arms closing around his middle.
The wet floor doesn’t provide enough friction for Heeseung to actually manage to pull Jay back onto his feet, so he just gets dragged along as they both go hurling towards the water at high speed.
He barely has the time to register that Heeseung’s face is a breath away before he feels his body being twisted in the air at the last minute, and they fall.
He and Heeseung crash through the surface of the water like a cannonball, so harshly that Jay half-expects to feel the burning from the impact with the water before he actually realizes.
Heeseung has turned his own back to the water to spare Jay from the hit, and while they didn’t fall from such a height for it to actually hurt that much, Jay’s sappy heart does a little flip in his chest at the thought.
The coldness of the water sends ripples of shock through Jay’s whole body.
They’re both plunged deep enough that when they come up for air they’re panting, although Jay doesn’t know if the adrenaline he feels is due to the fall or Heeseung’s proximity.
Heeseung is still holding him close, but somehow the fact that all of his clothes are completely drenched now makes his touch even more electric.
Jay heaves and coughs a bit, the chlorine of the water leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
His nostrils are burning, his hair is completely soaked and the sensation of the cold water surrounding him is giving him goosebumps.
This is the worst non-confession ever.
“What the hell,” he croaks out, looking at Heeseung who is coughing up his own mouthful of chemical water.
“Why did you do that, Hyung?”
Heeseung looks bewildered that Jay even asked.
“You were falling!” he says, like it explains everything.
Jay feels like he’s actually going crazy.
“So you just jump in with me?” he asks, baffled.
“I didn’t mean to, Jongseong-ah,” he says, defensively, and he actually kind of looks like a wet puppy, his big bambi eyes somehow even shinier in the shitty pool lights.
“Besides, if I hadn’t you would have hurt yourself. You’re clumsy like that.”
Jay shuts his mouth, but the words just feel like rubbing salt into the wound.
Tonight has been a total disaster.
Not only has Jay completely made a fool of himself only for Heeseung to stare back at him like he’d grown a second head, but now Heeseung has the audacity to tease him about being clumsy?
Jay can take a hint. And he feels like it’s time to actually pick up the pieces of what’s left of his dignity and go home.
He moves his hands to Heeseung’s shoulders to push Heeseung away and swim back to the edge, but Heeseung must read what he’s feeling on his face, because he immediately pulls Jay back towards him by his waist, suddenly alarmed.
“Shit, I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Heeseung genuinely looks remorseful, and it’s tugging at Jay’s heartstrings.
“I meant— it’s cute, your clumsiness. You’re cute.”
This time, it’s Jay’s turn to get stunned into silence.
He stares back at Heeseung completely dumbfounded.
“I’m— what?”
Sometimes the others say it to tease him and make fun of him, cooing at him until they successfully manage to anger him, but he’s never heard Heeseung call him that with such sincereness.
They’re just floating pressed close to each other in the middle of the pool now, and Jay guesses that if it were a different situation he would be panicking about being so close to Heeseung to actually feel the warmth emitting from his body through the soaked fabric of his shirt.
“Jeongseong-ah,” Heeseung exhales shakily, “ I want to keep you close, too.”
It takes more than he’d like for Jay to actually understand that he’s quoting Jay’s own words back to him, and he feels the flush that had subsided creeping back up.
“I’m not good with words like you are, but I don’t want you to misunderstand.”
If Jay wasn’t already swimming in water, he’s pretty sure he’d feel the floor go missing from under his feet.
He just looks back into Heeseung’s huge, deep eyes. His lashes are clumped together, droplets clinging to them.
“And I want you to want me close, too. I want to be the only one to— be that for you.”
Jay’s breath catches, and he’s sure that if his hands weren’t still pressed to the front of Heeseung’s shoulders they would be shaking.
“Hyung…” his voice is feeble, almost a whisper, “if I’m reading this wrong, I—”
Heeseeung’s hand comes up, featherlight touch holding the side of Jay’s face by the jaw.
It feels like Heeseung’s touch sets Jay’s skin aflame, even as they’re swimming in cold water.
He promptly shuts up, heart hammering frantically in the cavity of his chest as he watches with huge eyes how Heeseung finally closes the gap between them.
Everything skitters to a stop the moment Jay realizes that Heeseung is kissing him.
He’s so dumbfounded he doesn’t even know if he actually kisses him back, the soft feeling of Heeseung’s lips pressing against his the only sensation his brain is able to process.
It lasts less than five seconds, but to Jay it feels like an eternity has passed when Heeseung pulls back and he’s finally able to greedily suck in a breath.
His ears are ringing, and he’s not sure if the floaty feeling in his limbs is because of the reduced gravity from being submerged in water or because Heeseung just kissed him.
Actually kissed him. Lips on lips.
Heeseung looks sheepish, and Jay can’t fathom how the brave boy who held Jay close two minutes ago and the boy blushing bright red in front of him right now are the same person.
“I— I’m—” he stammers, unable to form a coherent thought.
“Did I cross a line? Is this… not what you meant?”
He feels Heeseung’s hold start to loosen, fingers slipping away from the damp skin of his cheek, and he suddenly panics, the hold his own fingers have on Heeseung’s shirt tightening.
“No! I mean—” Jay wants to punch himself, “Yes! It is what I meant, but I—”
Heeseung’s eyes are wide and vulnerable, but a smile starts to tug at his mouth.
“I didn’t know, that you also…felt this way. About me.”
Heeseung looks puzzled.
“Jongseong-ah,” he says, “Of course I do. I always have.”
Jay blushes, but he tries to gain back some self-control.
“Well,” he huffs, “this is news to me. I can’t read your mind yet, Hyung.”
“Hm,” Heeseung hums, closing in again, “can’t you?”
Jay is about to answer again, even though he half-expects Heeseung to kiss him again (oh god, he feels himself blush even at the thought).
What he’s not expecting, though, is to feel himself be tugged and for Heeseung to drag him under the surface of the water.
He has his eyes shut closed and he’s sure his cheeks are puffing up with air, but when he feels a gentle touch on the side of his face again his eyes snap open.
The water burns at his eyes, and he’s sure they’ll be red and irritated when they finally get out of the pool, but the blurry vision of Heeseung in front of him keeps them open despite the effort.
His hair looks incredibly soft as it floats around his face slowly, but Jay doesn’t have time to dwell on how Heeseung makes it possible to look good even underwater as he’s pulled forward gently.
Air bubbles and floats to the surface between their lips as Jay lets out the breath he was holding when Heeseung’s lips close in on his own again.
As expected, Heeseung’s hair feels soft as it tickles the skin of his cheeks.
Kissing submerged in water is something Jay would have never thought he’d get to experience, but then again he also never would have thought they’d end up here.
And yet, here they were.
Water makes their movement sluggish, and the kiss is clumsier than the one earlier — really just lips pressing together — but for some reason it still makes Jay’s stomach twist in a better-than-good way.
Like those air bubbles from earlier are now swirling around his stomach.
They kiss until Jay feels his lungs burning from the lack of air, and once they’ve resurfaced they both cough in between giggles.
“Hyung—” he manages between coughs, ”what the fuck!”
“I’d always wanted to try that,” Heeseung heaves out, eyes soft and sparkling as he looks at Jay.
“What, drowning me?” he asks, sarcastic.
“No,” Heeseung looks amused as he flicks his wet hair backwards, exposing his forehead,
“kissing underwater.”
His fingers tighten imperceptibly where they’re anchored around Jay’s waist.
“Well, kissing you underwater.”
Jay feels like there’s something wrong with him tonight, a malfunction of some kind, because it seems like he just can’t stop blushing.
“You’re so—” he splutters, “you’re such an idiot.”
Heeseung laughs, amused.
“Yeah, but now I’m your idiot.”
Jay can’t help the smile he can feel blossom on his face.
“Yeah,” he sighs, “you are.”
The moment is shattered by the sound of Heeseung’s ringtone once again, and Jay feels his heart drop to his ass.
By the panicked look on Heeseung’s face, he can tell the feeling is shared.
Fuck, they forgot about the others.
“Fuck,” Heeseung voices his thoughts for him, and they both start to scramble towards the side of the pool from where they’d fallen.
Thankfully, they both didn’t have their phones on them when they’d fallen, and when Jay hauls himself out of the water and onto the edge of the swimming pool he’s glad to find both phones perfectly intact on the floor.
Shivers wrack through him violently as the cold fabric of his drenched clothes clings uncomfortably to his body, and when he picks his phone up to check the time he sees an incredible amount of messages on the group chat.
“Shit,” he curses, carefully standing upright and trying not to stare at the muscles on Heeseung’s arms as the other boy gets out of the water, too.
“We gotta go, now,” Heeseung hisses as he grabs Jongseong’s hand and they both dash to the exit.
Running in soaking wet clothes has to be one of the worst experiences in Jay’s life, and he can’t help but fantasize about the moment he finally gets to go home and throw himself in the shower.
His shoes squeak with every step as he and Heeseung run through the empty halls all the way back to the entrance of the building, water sloshing uncomfortably inside.
They’re dripping all over the floor as they finally make their way out of the Sports building, but Jay finds he doesn’t care much when Heeseung’s damp hand is holding his so tightly.
The cold night air arises new goosebumps on his skin once they’re finally out, and he must be shivering badly, because Heeseung suddenly halts to a stop — Jay bumping against his back — just to turn to throw a worried look at Jay.
“I have a hoodie in the car,” he says as he starts to move once again, “wear it when we get back.”
Jay feels the tip of his ears warming up despite the cold as he resumes stumbling like a clumsy baby deer after Heeseung.
“You’ll be cold too,” he says — way too meekly for how he meant it to sound — but doesn’t protest further, a new warmth bubbling in his chest.
When they finally spot the others, a new head of blonde hair is with them.
Jay can’t help himself when he breaks into a sprint towards Ni-ki.
Ni-ki looks sheepish like he rarely does these days, tucked under Sunghoon’s arm the best way his height allows him to cuddle against his hyung’s side.
When Jay finally reaches him, he slips out of Sunghoon’s hold to let himself be tugged into Jay’s tight hold, and he doesn’t seem to mind the fact that Jay is probably getting him all wet.
“Where the hell were you?” Jay starts, toeing the line between angry and relieved, “Do you know how many years you just took off of my lifespan?”
Ni-ki finally pulls away, looking down at the spots in his shirt’s fabric that got wet from the contact and scrunching his nose.
“Hyung, why are you all wet?” he answers with a question of his own.
“Yeah, Jay-ah,” Jake pipes in, sounding pretty perplexed, “why are you and Heeseung-hyung soaked from head to toe?”
“Ah,” Jay lightly scratches at his neck, uncomfortably put under the spotlight, “we just. We fell in the pool.”
He’s met with silence and a few dumbfounded looks.
“We were looking for Ni-ki,” he adds, almost defensively.
They see right through him, of course, but it seems the subject gets temporally dropped.
“Well, you two sure took your sweet time on your little swim there,” Sunghoon comments, clearly attempting to taunt Jay, who just rolls his eyes at him.
Heeseung is right behind Jay, and he promptly also pulls Ni-ki into his arms in a tight hug.
“You do that again and I’ll whoop your ass so hard you’ll remember it ‘til you’re all old and grey,” he says in a low voice, but the soft way he speaks completely contradicts the threatening words.
Ni-ki just nods, letting himself be hugged for a couple more seconds until they let go.
Just then, Sunoo steps forward, eyes glassy with tears that he’s clearly trying to hold back, and Ni-ki turns instantly, even without a single word from Sunoo.
“Ni-ki-ah,” he starts, voice wobbly, “I’m sorry. I don’t like it when we fight.”
He sniffles, and Ni-ki gently goes to grab his wrist, lightly tugging him into the third hug of the night.
“I don’t like it when we fight, either, Hyung.”
He wraps his arms around Sunoo’s middle, Sunoo’s arms coming up to cling around Ni-ki’s shoulders.
“Just don’t run away again, please.”
Even with Ni-ki’s back turned, Jay can see the way his ears colour red.
“Okay, I’m sorry, Sunoo-hyung,” he says, soft like he’s trying to soothe an agitated animal, “ I promise I didn’t mean to scare you all.”
They pull away, but their hands stay intertwined.
Ni-ki rubs sheepishly at the back of his neck, facing all of his Hyungs.
“I wasn’t running away,” he says, trying to explain himself, “I just wanted to be alone for a while. I planned on going to Sunoo-hyung’s tomorrow morning to apologize, but I guess I was so upset that I forgot to text where I was.”
Jake huffs, reaching out to affectionately ruffle Ni-ki’s hair.
“You’re lucky I found you, brat.”
Jungwon breathes out a long sigh, shaking his head with a smile at the familiar antics.
“Okay, well, we should probably get going. We’re lucky none of us got our asses busted by some patrol guard already,” he shoots a look at Jay, “and these two Hyungs need to put on something dry if they don’t want to get sick.”
“Yeah, let’s move it,” Sunghoon butts in, already walking back to the gate.
They all start shuffling back towards the exit, but as he feels a hand slip inside his own and fingers locking together a smile tugs at his mouth.
For a second, Heeseung looks even younger in the cold air of the night.
He looks like the boy Jay fell in love with all those years ago.
With the corner of his eye, he sees Jungwon’s eyes linger for a moment on their joined hands, and when he looks back up at Jay his eyes are wide before a genuine smile takes over his face.
He huffs out an incredulous laugh, and Jay barely manages to catch the “Finally,” that slips out of his mouth before he goes back to walking.
“Come on, lovebirds, we don’t have all night,” Jake calls from the gate.
“Yah!” Jay half-yells just as Heeseung starts laughing.
“Who even kisses underwater in the university pool.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“I’m not, you and Heeseung-hyung are just weird.”
“Hey, underwater kisses are lit. Have you never read ‘Percy Jackson’?”
“You’re so lame, Heeseung-hyung.”
“Yah, respect your elders, you brat.”