summary - you’re Jake’s sister, so that means all of his friends are off limits. but, maybe that could change when you find out that one of his friends is just as much of a gamer and a loser as you are. not like Jake would made that easy, since he’d never trust any of his friends around his precious little sister.
“i need a duo” — nishimura riki x fem!reader ⁀➴ brother’s best friend smau
i didn’t add the banner bc i wanted to add an extra slide 😭😭 i hope yall like this one.. im so sorry my updates take so long now, im still on vacation so i’ve been going outside and enjoying life instead of being a loser in my room all day.. i cant believe this is who i’ve become 😕😕
heyy, can you do somthing like where the reader is a dancer and her body really hurts and when she gets home she cries and ni-ki comforts her ?? btw i LOVE your fics you such a good writer 🙂↕️
Always
Bf Riki x dancer reader
Sypnosis: Riki comforts you after a harsh dance session
Warnings: fluffff, tiny bit angst
now playing🎧- always- Daniel Caesar
📍a/n: IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE, guys ill try to finish all the request asap 😔😔😔 enjoyyyy!!!!
The walk from the subway station to the apartment complex usually took you exactly seven minutes, but tonight, it felt like an endless trek across a desert. Every step send a dull, throbbing ache straight up your shins, radiating into your knees and lower back like a localized earthquake.
You were twenty-four, a professional contemporary dancer in a city that demanded perfection, and today had been the absolute breaking point. A grueling, ten-hour technical rehearsal for the upcoming showcase had pushed your physical limits past the red line. The choreographer had been relentless, marking the seven-minute piece over and over again until your muscles burned with lactic acid and your toes felt raw inside your slippers.
By the time you finally pressed your thumb against the keypad of the apartment door, your entire body was trembling from sheer exhaustion.
The lock clicked open, and the instant you stepped into the entryway, the warm, comforting scent of cedar and clean laundry washed over you. The living room was bathed in a soft, low amber glow. Riki was sitting on the couch, a sketchpad resting against his knees, his sharp eyes focused intently on a blueprint design he was rendering for his firm.
He looked up the moment the door clicked shut. His expression, initially relaxed and welcoming, shifted instantly into a laser-focused frown the second his eyes landed on your posture.
You hadn't even taken off your coat yet. You were just leaning against the shoe console, your head hanging low, your shoulders shaking minutely.
"Sweetheart?" Riki’s low, smooth voice cut through the quiet apartment. He set his sketchpad on the coffee table, immediately standing up. "You’re late. I was starting to get—"
He stopped mid-sentence. You had finally looked up, and the flickering light revealed the silent, heavy tears streaming down your pale cheeks. The sheer, overwhelming physical pain from your throbbing muscles had combined with the mental exhaustion of trying to look flawless all day, and the dam had completely burst.
A small, broken sob escaped your lips.
Riki closed the distance between you in two long strides. He didn't ask questions. He didn't demand to know what happened or who had upset you. He just stepped directly into your space, his large, warm hands coming up to gently cradle your face, his thumbs instantly wiping away the hot tears.
"Hey, hey... I've got you," he murmured, his tone dropping into that fiercely protective register that always made your heart ache. "What hurts? Tell me where it hurts, baby."
"Everything," you wept hoarsely, your voice cracking as you leaned your forehead against his chest, completely unravelling. "My legs... my back... I can't even stand up straight, Riki. It hurts so bad."
Riki let out a soft, aching breath against your hair. Without a word, he carefully unbuttoned your heavy winter coat, sliding it off your stiff shoulders and letting it drop onto the entryway bench. Then, with the effortless grace he always possessed, he bent his knees and slid one massive arm behind your back and the other beneath your thighs, lifting you into his arms.
You let out a tiny, startled gasp, instinctively wrapping your arms around his neck. Even though you were independent enough, in riki’s arms, you felt incredibly small, perfectly shielded from the rest of the world.
He carried you down the short hallway and into the bathroom, setting you down with painstaking gentleness on the closed lid of the toilet. "Stay right here. Don't move an inch," he commanded softly, pressing a sweet, lingering kiss to the top of your head before turning around to turn on the bathtub faucets.
You watched through blurry eyes as he knelt on the cold tile floor, rolling up the sleeves of his black sweater. He tested the water temperature with his wrist, adjusting the handles until a thick, soothing steam began to rise from the porcelain tub. He reached into the cabinet, pulling out the heavy bag of lavender Epsom salts he had bought specifically for you months ago, pouring a generous amount into the rushing water.
"Come here," riki murmured, turning back to you. He helped you strip out of your damp, sweat-stained rehearsal clothes, treating your aching joints as if they were made of fragile glass.
When you finally slid into the scalding, mineral-rich water, a long, trembling sigh escaped your lips. The heat instantly began to loosen the tight, angry knots in your calves and lower back, the pain dulling from a sharp knife to a manageable throb.
Riki didn't leave. He pulled over his low wooden desk stool, sitting right beside the edge of the tub. He reached for a small bottle of massage oil, pouring a few drops onto his palms and rubbing them together until his skin was entirely warm.
"Give me your foot," he ordered gently.
You lifted your right leg out of the water, placing your wet, calloused foot into his lap. Riki’s large hands closed around it. He used his broad thumbs to apply a firm, perfectly calculated pressure to your aching arch, working out the intense tension from hours of dancing en pointe.
A soft whimper of relief left your throat, your head dropping back against the rim of the tub as you closed your eyes.
"The choreographer made us run the allegro section twelve times in a row," you whispered, the residual tears finally drying on your face as the comfort took over. "I felt like my shins were going to snap. I was so scared I’d lose my balance and ruin the formation."
Riki paused his movements for a fraction of a second, his dark eyes looking up at you with an intense, fierce adoration. "You could never ruin it. You’re the most incredible dancer I’ve ever seen, sweetheart. But you push yourself too hard. You don't have to carry the physical weight of that studio home with you."
He shifted his grip, his long fingers moving up to massage your tight calf muscles, his thumbs tracing the long lines of your leg with a rhythmic, soothing motion that made your whole body feel like it was floating.
"When we're in this apartment, you aren't a performer," riki murmured, his voice a deep, grounding anchor in the steam-filled room. "You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be strong. You can just break down, and I'll always be here to piece you back together."
By the time the water began to cool, you felt entirely human again. Riki stood up, wrapping a massive, plush heated towel around your body the moment you stepped out of the tub. He practically carried you into the bedroom, guiding you into a pair of his own oversized, incredibly soft sweatpants and a matching hoodie that smelled entirely of his cologne.
He pulled the heavy duvet back, tucking you into the mattress before sliding in right beside you.
The moment riki’s broad frame settled into the bed, you eagerly crawled across the sheets, burying your face directly into the crook of his neck. His large arms instantly locked around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest, his chin resting comfortably on top of your damp hair.
His long fingers lazily stroked up and down your back, providing a lingering, warm pressure that kept the aches at bay.
"Better?" Riki whispered into the dark room, his breath ticking against your forehead.
"Mm," you hummed, your eyelids growing incredibly heavy as the utter exhaustion finally transformed into a deep, peaceful drowsiness. You pressed a soft kiss to his collarbone, your heart overflowing with a quiet, profound gratitude. "Thank you, Riki. For everything."
Riki’s grip tightened just a fraction, holding you securely against his chest as the quiet night settled over the city. "Always, baby. Sleep now. I've got you."
in which: niki comes over every weekend to pick up your daughter, however he can no longer handle the distance you put between the two of you.
a/n: i think this is the longest fic ive ever wrote lmao and i’m kinda nervous to post it. it definitely isn’t perfect but i really like it so i hope you do too! every like & reblog is greatly appreciated, it helps more than you know <3
warnings: not proofread! , lowercase intended , pet names: baby / princess / love / baby girl (used on reader & their daughter) , niki is yearninggg , desperate ki , angst if you squint , fluff? - please lmk if i missed anything worth adding!
the knock on your apartment door comes at exactly ten o’clock - just how it usually does.
you swing open the door with your 2 year old daughter, Aria, balanced on your hip, her tiny hands wrapped around a stuffed, green duck that’s missing one wing.
“daddy!” she squeals and kicks her legs, trying to slide down your hip.
Riki’s expression softens instantly.
there’s something unfair about it, actually. how easy he smiles at her - how familiar he looks standing in your doorway dressed in that black hoodie and grey sweatpants. like he belongs there.
but he doesn’t. not anymore.
he reaches for her automatically, lifting her up and squeezing her tightly. “hey, princess.”
you watch him pull Aria against his chest as her little arms wrap around his neck.
and then he looks at you.
then there it is - that awkward pause, the one that happens every weekend.
“hi.” he says quietly.
“hi.”
neither of you move - neither of you say anything else. because what is there to say, honestly?
“have a good weekend”
“see you on sunday”
“i miss you”
the last one never makes it past either or your lips.
“okay, princess. shoes on.” Riki says, after clearing his throat, as he places her gently on the ground in front of you. you kneel and help her put on her trainers, fastening the velcro with shakier hands than you’d ever admit. you hate how he still affects you.
“there we go,” you smile at her before standing.
the silence settles again - it always does.
you watch as your daughter turns to pick up her bag, the hoodie you’re wearing slipping off one shoulder. his hoodie. at least, it used to be.
Riki tries not to stare. he really does. when your miniature self holds up her backpack to him and he doesn’t take it, you look up at him. he’s staring at you.
at his hoodie you’re wearing. at the necklace he gave you a few months before you told him you were pregnant. at your nails which were now a different colour from when he saw you last weekend.
“daddy!” Aria exclaims, her bag becoming too heavy for her little arms.
he looks down instantly, shaking his head, and picks her up. “sorry, love.”
“she ate breakfast already,” you say quietly. “there’s some snacks in her bag.”
he nods simply. “okay.”
you nod.
neither of you say goodbye when he turns towards the open door. because somehow, after all this time of being apart, saying it out loud feels too permanent.
your daughter saves you both.
“bye, mommy!”
you laugh, stepping closer to kiss her forehead. “i’ll see you on sunday, okay? have fun.”
then she turns to him. “let’s go, daddy!”
he should leave. but instead, his eyes lift to yours once more.
you’re smiling. tired. soft. pretty.
the same smile he used to wake up beside. the same smile he hasn’t stopped missing.
his throat becomes tight as he peels his eyes off your face and turns to leave one last time. Aria waves at you as he carries her down the hallway towards the elevator.
you stand at the door until they’ve disappeared around the corner. and only then do you exhale the breath that felt like you’d been holding since he knocked on the door.
—
the walk to his sleek, black mercedes feels much longer than it actually is. he can’t help his mind racing with thoughts of you. the way you smiled at your daughter so lovingly. the way your face completely changed when you caught him looking at you for a moment too long.
he shakes his head and sets the tiny human into her car seat before bucking the seatbelt. he checks it twice before shutting the door and sliding into the driver’s seat.
he should drive away. he turns the key, the engine purring to life beneath him, but he doesn’t pull away from the curb. he almost gets back out of the car before Aria speaks softly from the backseat.
“daddy?”
he blinks, his fingers loosening from the steering wheel. his knuckles are white.
“are we going?” she asks and he turns to look at her over his shoulder.
“yeah,” he smiles lovingly before shifting the car into gear and pulling away from the curb.
the drive is quiet. Aria tells him about the picture you helped her draw yesterday and how she wants pancakes for lunch.
he answers when he’s supposed to, but all he can think about is you. standing in the doorway wearing his hoodie, the sleeves pulled tightly over your hands, looking at him like he’s still someone you want to know.
“daddy!” Aria exclaims.
“hm?” he doesn’t take his eyes off the road.
“you forgot,”
“forgot what, baby?”
she frowns like it’s obvious. “to say goodbye to mommy.”
his fingers tighten on the steering wheel again. he doesn’t take his eyes off the road.
for a long moment, the only sounds in the car are the low hum of the engine and the blow of the air conditioning. then he swallows.
“i don’t think…” his voice comes out more unsure than expected. “i don’t think i’m very good at saying goodbye to mommy.”
Aria tilts her head to the side. “why?”
he laughs because how is he supposed to explain this to a two year old?
how is he supposed to tell her that every time he stands in the doorway, some part of him expects you to let him walk back inside. that every time you smile at him, he remembers what it felt like to come home to you.
he blinks hard and lets out a small breath through his nose. “i just miss her sometimes, princess.”
“i miss you too, daddy.” she says softly.
he swallows hard. he almost stops breathing. he glances in the rearview mirror and sees Aria looking out of the window, her little legs swinging slightly beneath her car seat like she hasn’t just shattered his heart.
he exhales shakily. “you do?”
she nods. “yeah. when i’m at mommy’s house.”
silence fills the car and his fingers grip the steering wheel tighter than ever. because he misses her when she’s gone. every week he counts down the days until he gets to see her again.
because somewhere between missing his daughter and missing you, he’s started to hate sundays.
—
at some point during the drive back to Riki’s house, he thinks Aria had fallen asleep in the backseat. she was silent, clutching her stuffed duck to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her there.
“you okay, baby?” Riki speaks softly from the driver’s seat. his daughter nods.
minutes later, he pulls up in the driveway and puts the car in park. he rounds the car and unbuckles Aria’s seatbelt before helping her out and grabbing her backpack.
once inside, he immediately begins taking off her trainers before heading to the kitchen to make the pancakes she asked for.
he watches her run into the living room and drop onto the rug before pulling a colouring book out of her backpack. then he blinks and she’s beside him.
“can i help?” she smiles, already struggling to drag over a stool from the counter.
he laughs and helps her up onto the stool.
he’s always careful with her. always making sure she washes her hands after using the bathroom. always making sure her laces are tied and that she’s wearing a jacket or a coat before going outside.
and he loves her just as much as he loves you.
that evening, Riki lets Aria help make the pancakes, laughing when she makes a mess all over the counter, before they settle onto the couch together to eat. he shakes his head when she asks silly questions. “daddy, do you like dinosaurs?” and he reads her three bedtime stories before she finally lays down and falls asleep.
once she’s finally asleep, he sits on the edge of her bed and watches her for a while. because in five days, he’ll miss this. again.
when you told him you were pregnant, he almost jumped for joy. he’s always thought about it - the three of you cuddling up on the couch together watching a movie and eating snacks, wearing matching pyjamas, and taking walks through the park with his hand on your lower back while your child jumps beside him.
except, this is everything he didn’t want.
—
“daddy, look! it’s a dinosaur!” Aria exclaims from the living room.
Riki walks towards her and stares down at the green blob on the paper. it’s definitely not a dinosaur but he nods anyway. “it sure is.”
“and this is you!” Aria beams, holding up the drawing proudly.
he squints at the tiny stick figure beside the green blob. “wow. don’t i look handsome.”
his daughter giggles. “no, daddy. you look silly!”
he presses his hand to his chest as if he’s physically hurt. “me? silly? i’m offended.”
her laughter fills the kitchen; its bright, loud, the kind of laugh that makes him laugh too.
actually, he hasn’t laughed that hard in months.
she’s sitting on the rug with a box of crayons scattered around her while the waffles she didn’t eat for breakfast go cold on the coffee table.
“daddy?”
“hm?”
“pink.”
he looks down as Aria holds out a pink crayon. “what about pink, baby?”
“you need pink.”
“for what?”
she points at the paper. “sit.”
Riki laughs. “you’re bossy.”
Aria grins. “sit.”
he sits.
she immediately begins scribbling and he doesn’t even ask what she’s drawing. he just watches her tiny hand move across the page.
at some point, she sticks her tongue out in concentration and his heart does that thing it always does. the thing where it feels too full.
he thinks maybe you’re his favourite part. not the cartoons, not the park, not even the pancakes. just this.
her talking nonsense, her colouring. being here.
being his.
“daddy?”
“yeah, princess?”
she looks up. “i like weekends.”
Riki smiles. “me too.”
she giggles and turns back to her masterpiece.
and suddenly, his chest aches. because weekends end; they always do. he glances at his phone.
sunday. already. too fast.
he swallows hard and looks down at his daughter, specifically where she has green crayon on her cheek. he doesn’t tell her, though.
instead, he just reaches over and gently tucks a wild strand of hair behind her ear. she doesn’t look up - she just keeps colouring.
as if he’ll still be here tomorrow. as if he doesn’t spend every week counting down the days until he gets to see her again.
he blinks once and then stands. “come on, baby.”
she finally looks up. “hm?”
“let’s get you ready.”
she pouts. “already?”
his heart drops to his ass. “yeah.”
she looks down at her picture and then back up at him.
“i stay longer?” she tilts her head.
silence. god, he wishes more than anything she could stay longer. he crouches beside her and cups her cheek with his palm.
“mommy’s waiting for you.”
she thinks about that. blinks. and then asks softly: “can you come too?”
Riki forgets how to breathe - because she’s two - she doesn’t understand why daddy has one house and mommy has another. why weekends happen, why sundays happen.
Aria just knows she likes being with both of you.
he swallows hard. “not today, princess.”
she nods slowly like she’s disappointed but she’s accepting it before reaching for her daddy. “carry.”
Riki immediately lifts her up and she buries her face into his shoulder while one tiny hand fists the fabric of his hoodie. he holds her a little tighter knowing that tomorrow, this house will be quiet again.
his chest tightens. Aria is getting bigger and both Riki and you know she is. her words are becoming clearer, her clothes keep getting too small, and she keeps asking questions he doesn’t quite know how to answer.
but right now, she’s still small enough to fit perfectly in his arms. so he holds her tightly like she’ll disappear if he lets go just a little.
“you ready to go see mommy?” he asks quietly while carding his fingers through her locs.
Aria nods against his shoulder. there’s none of the excitement she’d had when she arrived at his house on friday. she’s tired… and so is he.
Riki grabs her stuffed duck from the couch before stuffing it into her backpack.
he turns around to scan the living room for anything he might forget. but all he sees is one of her socks peeking out from under the couch, a tiny cup with cartoon animals on it, and her crayons still scattered on the rug.
little reminders that she’s been here - little reminders that in a few minutes, she won’t be.
his chest feels unbearably tight.
every weekend. every weekend he gets this; two days of cartoons and little giggles and tiny arms around his neck.
and then it’s over in the blink of an eye.
he shakes his head before flicking off the light and heading for the door.
the evening air is cool when he steps outside. his fighter is tucked securely against his chest as he makes his way to his car. she yawns, long and dramatic, before her body goes even heavier in his arms.
a small laugh escapes Riki’s throat. “you tired, baby girl?”
she nods once. small.
“you had a busy weekend, huh?”
another nod.
Riki smiles and presses a gentle kiss to the top of Aria’s head.
by the time he reaches his car, he thinks she’s already asleep in his arms. he unlocks the door with a beep of his keys and swings open the back door before lowering his tiny human into her car seat.
she makes a small noise of protest as he peels her away from his chest. her sleepy eyes blink open just enough to find him.
“there we go.” Riki mumbles as he buckles her seatbelt.
she doesn’t say anything, just watches him with heavy eyes. then, quietly: “daddy?”
he looks up. “yeah?”
“i had fun.”
he stills. it’s such a simple sentence, four little words, but somehow they hit in right in the chest. then he smiles back at her. softer this time.
“me too, baby.”
Aria smiles once more before her eyes slowly drift shut. Riki doesn’t move; he stays crouched beside the open car door for a moment, watching her breathing softly.
the he slowly stands and closes the door.
he walks round to the driver’s side and slid into the seat before resting his hands on the steering wheel. for a few seconds, he doesn’t start the car - he just sits there. listening to the quiet because he already misses her… and she’s still right behind him.
eventually, he starts the engine. the soft hum of the car fills the silence as he glances in the rear-view mirror.
Aria is still sleeping, her head tilted awkwardly to one side. her curls are messy from her exciting day with daddy, and there's still a faint mark on her cheek from the green crayon.
he almost smiles. almost.
his heart aches instead.
the drive to your apartment isn't long; Riki's done it enough times to know every turn, every shortcut, every set of traffic lights.
he also remembers driving this same route two years ago with you in the passenger seat. you were exhausted after a long night with the baby, your head resting against the window while he drove aimlessly to get Aria to sleep.
you'd looked so tired, so perfect, when you looked at him and smiled. "you're a good dad, you know."
the memory hits him unexpectedly and he swallows hard.
the light ahead turns red, forcing him to stop, before the car falls silent again. he glances in the mirror at Aria's sleeping form, a tiny frown has appeared on her face.
a few more minutes pass before familiar buildings begin appearing outside the window.
no matter how normal this arrangement has become, no matter how many months have passed, his throat always tightens as soon as he turns onto your street. because you're here and you'll open the door in a few minutes and he'll see you and pretend everything is normal... and then he'll have to leave again.
he pulls up outside your apartment and turns off the engine.
silence.
the curtains are drawn. the hallway light is on.
home. not his - not anymore.
he exhales slowly and unbuckles his seatbelt before rounding the car to the back door. she’s completely out and he smiles despite himself.
“hey, sleepyhead.” he murmurs.
nothing.
he carefully unbuckles her seatbelt and slides his arms beneath her warm, sleeping body. Aria stirs slightly before immediately tucking herself against his chest.
like she belongs there.
he kicks the door shut gently with his foot before walking towards your apartment. each step feels strangely heavy, and by the time he reaches the elevator, his breaths are coming a little too fast.
the elevator doors ding and slide open as he places a kiss to the top of Aria’s head.
by the time he reaches your door, his hands are shaky. he shifts her in his arms and raises an arm to knock.
then he waits.
—
the door doesn’t open straight away. Riki stands there silently - your daughter pressed against his chest, her little hand fisting his hoodie.
the dim light casts a soft glow over the two of them in the hallway, and for a moment, all he can hear is her slow breathing and the tv from one of the neighbouring apartments.
then he hears the footsteps and his heart does a stupid jolt when the lock clicks.
the door opens. and there you are.
your hair is messy, like you’d tied it up but given up halfway through. you’re wearing an oversized jumper and a pair of shorts - looking comfortable, tired, like you’d been curled up on the sofa waiting for them to get back.
looking like home.
neither of you say anything first. then your eyes drop to your daughter curled up in his arms. the corners of your mouth curl into a small smile at the sight - her sleeping silently on his chest.
then your eyes lift to his and something changes… it’s so brief he almost thinks he imagined it.
but your smile softens even more. because his hand is rubbing softly up and down her back, because he’s holding her carefully…
because he looks exactly like he did two years ago when you used to take turns getting up to warm a bottle for a crying baby.
“she fell asleep?” you ask quietly, your voice barely a whisper.
Riki blinks. “yeah,” his own voice softens more than he’d intended. “about ten minutes before we got here.”
you smile again, glancing down at your daughter. “looks like she had fun.”
neither of you notice how close you’ve gotten - or maybe you have but neither of you say anything.
for a few seconds, everything feels strangely normal.
“oh… come in.” you smile awkwardly as you step to the side to let Riki inside.
he steps inside and immediately heads to Aria’s bedroom.
you follow close behind him, watching the way he moves down the hallways of your apartment. like he’s done it a thousand times before. he has. like he still lives here. he doesn’t.
you stand in the doorway and watch as he leans over her bed and gently places her down under the duvet before slipping off her shoes.
you watch how he’s so careful with her, like one wrong move will break her. like she’s the most precious thing in the world. but to him, she is. and to you, she’s your everything.
he pulls her blanket up to her chin and strokes her cheek twice before quietly stepping back, careful not to wake her.
the apartment falls silent as you softly pull Aria’s bedroom door shut. when you turn around, Riki is standing there, hands tucked into his pockets. waiting.
neither of you speak at first. you both just stand there, looking at each other as if you both know this feels wrong. as if you both know this isn’t how it was supposed to be. as though you both know, deep down, it doesn’t have to stay this way.
“two days with her doesn’t feel enough anymore.” Riki speaks, finally turning your attention to something other than the weight on your chest.
“if you want more time with Aria, we can talk about it.”
he shakes his head before you can finish. “it’s not just that…”
your brows knit together. “then what is it?”
“i know i don’t deserve to ask this after everything that happened,” he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper. “but if there was even the smallest chance that we could try again, i’d take it.”
you sigh and cross your arms over your chest. “Riki, you know we can’t-“
“but we can, y/n!” he steps closer, his eyes search yours frantically. desperate for a sign you haven’t given up. not yet.
“you know we can. if you’d just let me-“
“Riki-“
“no, listen, y/n.” he says firmly and you close your mouth instantly.
he runs a hand over his face before taking the remaining step to fully close the distance between you. his hands land on yours and he threads his fingers through yours. “every sunday, i bring her here, tuck her into bed, and then leave.”
a humourless laugh escapes his throat. “it never gets any easier.”
you blink up at him, speechless.
“you know we’re both standing here acting like this is normal. it isn’t! not one bit.” his hands squeeze yours like he’s afraid if he lets go, you’ll turn and walk away. “we could be better and i know you know that. please give me another chance. for Aria.”
that last part shattered you.
for Aria.
those two words echoed in your mind, pounding on every wall you’d spent months building around your heart.
the thing is, you do know this could be different. you just refuse to be hurt again. you refuse to feel stupid like last time. you can’t ever let yourself become that vulnerable. not again.
“please, baby, give me another chance. i want us to be the family Aria deserves. i don’t want her growing up wondering why we stopped trying.” he whispers.
tears sting your eyes as you let out a shaky breath. “do you think i haven’t imagined it? every single day?” you whisper.
“then why are we still standing here like idiots pretending we don’t still love each other?” his voice shakes and you almost break down right there.
“because you don’t know what you’re asking, Riki.”
“i do.” his brows pull together.
you shake your head. “no, you don’t. if we try again and it falls apart… Aria doesn’t just lose the idea of us, she loses us all over again.”
Riki’s shoulders fall and his expression softens. “i know,” he says quietly. “i know that’s what you’re afraid of.”
his thumbs are tracing small circles on the backs of your hands now. “but i’m not asking you to pretend nothing happened, y/n, i’m asking you to let me earn it.”
the silence settles once again as you stare at the floor, refusing to look at him. because you know if you do, you’ll crumble.
every part of you wanted to believe him. to pull him into a hug and believe this time it’ll be different.
and… that’s exactly what happens.
you look up at him, eyes searching his face for any sign that means he’s lying. any hint that means whatever he’s saying will end up as another broken promise.
you don’t find one.
instead, you see the same boy you fell in love with. the same boy that held your hand during labour. the same boy that kissed your forehead and cooked dinner when you were stressed about work.
only now, he’s standing in front of you practically begging you to take him back. asking you to let him own up to his own mistakes.
you let out a shaky breath.
“okay…”
Riki’s eyes light up. “okay?”
you nod as tears stream down your cheeks before you can stop them. “one more chance.”
for a long moment, he just stares as you. almost like he’s convinced he heard you wrong.
“really?”
a small smile finds it’s way onto your lips.
“we’re not doing this just because of Aria,” you nod. “we’re doing it because i still love you. even after everything. i never stopped, Riki.”
his eyes glisten and he releases the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
OR WHERE，paying a wizard for an obsessed boyfriend actually works!
❪ MAGAZINE ❫ ｡ down bad!yjw 𝗑 f!r smau fluff ✿ language businessman jungwon loosely inspired by ‘crazy rich asians’
스루 ܃ atp im js posting my drafts fr TT but i really hope this was ok, not really fun now but more parts incoming!
ONE TWO (+tba)
join my perm taglist ! or join the ‘crazy rich match’ taglist only by commenting ! if you liked this, feedbacks and reblogs are very much appreciated :p
synopsis . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. when you're traveling with your idol boyfriend, things get a little pushy. thankfully, everyone mistakes you for just another staff member.
a/n: just a little idea that i obviously got too carried away with, oops !
the whole idea was already questionable from the start.
".. are you sure?"
the windows in the hybe office building overlooked the city of seoul. there were tall sky scrapers, idol-advertised cafes, and shops below that surrounded the huge company. you sat in one of the meeting rooms, sitting and talking with an enhypen staff member and their manager, yuki.
"isn't that going to be risky?" you questioned for what felt like the fourth time. the backpack sat heavy in your lap. "i can just take a separate car and flight.."
yuki leaned back in the chair, arms folded in a relaxed manner while speaking. "and make us coordinate another vehicle? just come with us."
the staff member nodded in agreement. "it'll be easier— plus, it's been discussed among us staff already.. you know we don't mind your presence, yn."
you hesitated. "ah.. i don't know."
"besides.." yuki shrugged. "ni-ki's been trying to convince us to let you travel with the group since the festival schedule was confirmed."
your eyes narrowed slightly.
"he did?"
"mhm."
you were silent for a second.
"okay," you let out a nervous breath. "i'll travel with you guys."
after the small discussion in the meeting room, you slipped out and went to sit in the lounge area of the floor where enhypen was having there dance practice. you sat patiently, waiting for ni-ki to come out.
soon enough, the sound of feet shuffling out of a room and towards a hallway was made aloud. some laughs were exchanged, along with nagging and complaints. you turned your head towards the commotion, seeing ni-ki leading the rest of the group. he immediately walked over towards you. the other guys waved and smiled at you as they turned the corner to take the elevator first. "hey, yn!" jungwon blurted out while walking away. ni-ki turned to the boys while he walked backwards towards you, "see you tomorrow morning."
you giggled as he made his way and sat on the couch next to you, instantly wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you in for a hug. "so.. what happened in the meeting?"
you glared at him. "you know what happened. they told me it was your idea."
ni-ki coughed. "oh.. surprise?"
~~~~
it was now the day.. the day you overthought for the past week.
upon arrival, you dressed up in all black (advised by staff) and wore a black mask and beanie that covered most of your face. you sat in the car with the rest of the other staff while ni-ki was in another car with the members and their manager.
on the ride to the airport, you got a text.
ni-ki <3: hello staff, make sure to protect me today. yk airport departures can get hectic.
yn: oh please😒
do i actually look like a staff member
ni-ki <3: u look more stylish with the beanie
yn: ugh
what if i told u i was trying to blend in with the staff
ni-ki <3: are u that scared
yn: i mean…... do u care abt ur career and wanna get caught?
ni-ki <3: u right
ok we just got here
be safe, ok?
watch where ur stepping and follow staff
ill try to talk to u on the plane
i love u
yn: okay i love u too
enhypen's car had arrived before yours, you were now pulling up behind their van in the terminal drop-off area.
hundreds of people stood outside in front of the entrance— you could even see some others inside already crowding. screams were heard, yelling, cameras clicking, and the bright flashes from the cameras did not help one bit. you took a deep breath before putting on your sunglasses to cover yourself up a bit more.. and also to help with the flashing lights.
as the car door opened, you followed the staff. you acted normal to the best of your ability, trying not to look bothered. your posture stood relaxed and your bag was slung over your shoulder. as you stood outside of the car next to the other staff, you slyly watched enhypen.
"hello! please look over here!" a photographer spoke aloud as the members stood in a line getting their pictures.
then after a minute or two, yuki nodded towards them. the boys started to walk as yuki lead the group. the rest of the staff you were with followed from behind, security also surrounded enhypen.
you couldn't lie, the whole thing was overwhelming from the start— but now being inside the airport— things were about to get worse.
"ni-ki!"
"i love you, heeseung!"
"look here!"
“sunoo!”
the crowd surged and phones lifted into the air.
people squeezed past one another trying to get closer.. which caused someone's shoulder to bump into yours, then another right after. and then— someone shoved from behind. you stumbled but caught yourself quickly. from the side of you, one stylist muttered.
"hey, be careful."
"i'm okay."
you weren't entirely though, of course. the amount of people and limited space made it very hard to not trip and face plant.
up ahead, ni-ki turned his head to look at you from behind. even behind his mask, you recognized what kind of look he was giving you— he was checking on you.
you gave him a tiny nod, to which he faced forward again.
you constantly looked at your watch on your wrist because it seemed like 10 minutes of just walking to the gate. throughout the whole time despite the pushes and interviewers constantly talking to the members, ni-ki continued to look back at you often.
finally, the destination to the security check was near— but that didn't make things better. the crowd bottlenecked near the entrances, still trying to interact with the group.
everyone then compressed together and a wave of people shoved forward.
a fan on the side of you stepped closer, trying to get a closer look at what you guessed was one of the members, which made you trip over her foot.
for a second, everything felt like it was in slow motion, dramatic enough. your balance started to shift, soon disappearing. your body tilted sideways—and for a serious moment—you genuinely thought you were going to embarrass yourself in front of everyone and eat the airport floor. a few squeals and gasps erupted from the crowd.
before you could fall— a hand slid across your upper back.
a single arm was now propping your upper body up, hand squeezing your right shoulder. it was firm and steady, somewhat panicked too. your left shoulder pressed into their chest.
and to your surprise, it was ni-ki.
ni-ki, who was near the middle of the members, somehow made his way towards the back to walk in front of you.
he kept you tucked in for barely two seconds without no words, before letting go and returning to walk like how he previously was
you blinked.
one staff member beside you looked over. "are you alright?"
"yeah..!” the nervousness in your voice was noticeable.
~~~~
now boarding the flight, you somewhat felt more relaxed being able to sit down. while the staff put the luggage away in the head-over bins and the passengers become distracted finding their seats, ni-ki casually stops beside your row.
he leans down just enough that only you can hear.
"are u tryna get me exposed?" he raised an eyebrow when he spoke in a cheeky voice.
you blinked. ".. me?"
"you almost fell."
"oh my g— you know that wasn't my fault."
"i know."
a tiny smile tugs beneath his mask.
".. just don't scare me like that again."
then he pats the top of your seat and keeps walking before anyone can look too hard.
your cheeks flushed under your mask. then, your phone chimed.
ni-ki <3: do i get no thank u? 😢
yn: thank you ki🩷
~~~~
by the time everyone landed.. twitter had every picture and video you could imagine.
@/ot7engeneluvr: ni-ki helping one of the staff members when she almost fell 🥹 he's seriously such a gentleman [1:video attachment]
@/ddeonu.xo Whoever that staff is i KNOW she was thankful because that crowd looked more insane than normal…. ☹️ENGENE do better!
@/enhypenarchives: NI-KI immediately noticed she lost her balance and caught her so politely, a MAN 😩 [4:photo attachments]
@/hoonie_.daily: people alwaysss say he's quiet but he notices everything
@/carpediem: she's SOOOO LUCKY!!!!!!
@/muffinmaster: how do i become her
you scrolled through the posts from your hotel room continuously. you were waiting for ni-ki to come back from rehearsal for the festival.
one clip had over three million views.
you watched yourself wobble and watched ni-ki's hand appear almost instantly— then watched him let go just as quickly.
to everyone else, it was like he had simply helped a staff member, but to you, it had been on instinct. it was the kind of instinct that comes from loving someone so much that your body reacts before your mind does.
soon enough, the door to the hotel room opened. ni-ki had his black mask on along with his sunglasses, dragging the bag he brought with him. he groaned as he dropped the bag on the floor near the front. he then started jogging towards the bed you were lying on, jumping on it— making the whole bed shake. you guarded yourself as he hugged you.
you laughed, pushing him away. "you're all sticky!"
"you like it."
"i do not. go shower."
"yes ma'am."
without no other complaints, he went straight to the bathroom to clean up.
after a bit, he came back with wet hair and a white tank top paired with his grey baggy sweats that hung low on his hips, making the brand name of the boxers that were under peak out.
he plopped right beside you on the bed, instantly pulling up the covers.
you smiled, then nudged him a bit. "did you see—"
he kissed you before you could finish.
"i did."
you gave him a look with furrowed brows. "you didn’t even let me finish. how do you even know what i’m talking about?"
he shrugged, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. "because i love my girlfriend."
"hm, you're right."
"seriously though, i thought i told you to watch where you step?"
you groaned, throwing your head back against the pillows. "i tripped on a girl's foot because she was trying to step towards you guys. not my fault."
he scrunched his face. "okay, you're right."
you let out a laugh, peering at his phone as he opened up the weverse app.
"are you gonna go live?"
"why would i go live with you in the room?"
"i thought you didn't care." you teased.
ni-ki grunted, pulling up jay's current weverse live. "he's already live anyways." you opened your eyes a little wider. "join him, i promise i won't make any noise."
he took a moment before looking at you.
he gave you another kiss, soft this time on the lips. "one more kiss before i go live."
you smiled while lying down comfortably, going on your phone with your airpods in your ears.
ni-ki clicked the join button for jay's live, which jay immediately accepted it.
"hey!— oh?.. are you in your hotel room right now?" jay was pictured sitting on the couch, while ni-ki was laying in bed— only half of his face showing.
"i am."
jay nodded, puckering his lips out. "oh, alright."
"hi engene." ni-ki spoke while placing his hand on your leg, drawing small circles on your skin. your hand travelled down to his, giving it a small squeeze.
Summary 𑣲⋆- Your d1 yearner ex boyfriend Riki is absolutely shameless and will embarrass himself just to get you back, will it work? [ft. all of enha + stella from h2h, minji from njz and nicholas from &team]
in which - you drunkenly message your bestfriend asking him to pick you up from the bar only for him to send his friend.
slide count - 28
masterlist // previous , next
warnings!! - language, jealousy, lowk fluff, riki asks to be official, riki calls reader baby and sexy girl, riki talking to his ex (we tryna ignore it 😭😭😭), mentions of drinking. thats all i hope!!
authors note - yo im irritated asf just reading over this, yall aboutta hate the rest of this story...
୨ৎ Summary : Two people. One bar. One really, really bad night to be alone. Y/n just caught her fiancé of two years in bed with her best friend. Jungwon just found out his girlfriend of six years has been cheating for god knows how long. Neither of them planned on ending up in a hotel room with a stranger — they just both really, really didn't want to be alone that night. No names. No numbers. Just two broken people borrowing comfort from each other for one night, then going their separate ways like it never happened. Except a month later, y/n's staring at two pink lines on a bathroom floor, and there's only one person it could possibly be. She makes her choice fast, she's keeping the baby, and she's doing it alone. no ring, no husband, no one's permission required. So she books her first prenatal appointment at some random clinic near campus, ready to start this chapter solo like she planned—and her doctor walks in. It's him. Yang Jungwon.
୨ৎ Pairing : obgyn! Jungwon x college lecturer! reader
୨ৎ Wordcount : 10k
୨ৎ Warning : ANGST (i warned you) , aged-up Jungwon (he's 28 here), stranger to.... (still figuring out but there's something promising chat), one night stand, unprotected sex, cheating (not Jungwon or y/n), unprotected sex (BIG NO NO, PLEASE WRAP YOUR WILLY), pregnancy.
୨ৎ Song : Maroon 5 - MAPS
PART I
So, I'm following the map that leads to you
You’d both silently decided the bar didn’t count. It belonged to some emergency exit version of yourself, the one who shows up when everything falls apart and then sensibly disappears by morning. Two strangers, one terrible night, and then back to real life, like it never happened. That was supposed to be the whole story.
For weeks you’d told yourself he didn’t exist. No last name, no number, just a blurry memory getting less real by the day. And then there he was. Not imaginary, not gone, just three feet away in a room that smelled like antiseptic instead of whisky, looking at you like he was doing the same impossible math you were.
It still didn’t add up.
You didn’t move. You didn’t speak. The chart in his hand had gone slack, like whatever clinical purpose it once held had dissolved the second recognition hit his face. You watched him swallow. Watched his jaw work, like he was searching for some professional footing and coming up with nothing.
You weren’t doing any better. Your pulse was in your throat, your fingertips, that strange hollow drop in your stomach that had nothing to do with the pregnancy and everything to do with him. A month of telling yourself this was impossible, and here it was anyway, undoing every careful assumption you’d built your new life on.
When he finally spoke, the composure was gone from his voice. He took a slow breath, like he needed it just to stay upright.
“Is the baby mine?”
This time it was quieter. Just him, stripped back down to the same person who’d sat beside you in that bar a month ago, asking a question he already knew the answer to but needed to hear anyway, like saying it out loud might keep the ground steady under him.
You closed your eyes for a moment. “Yes,” you said. The word barely made it past your throat, smaller than you meant it to be.
He didn’t say anything right away. When you opened your eyes, he was still watching you, something delicate moving behind his expression. Not quite fear, not quite relief, but some confused tangle of both, like a man standing at the edge of a life he hadn’t planned for and couldn’t make himself walk away from.
“Okay,” he said, so quietly the hum of the lights above almost swallowed it.
You recognised that it was precisely the same word you had muttered to your bathroom mirror a month prior. You both had no idea how much that one tiny syllable was going to demand of you.
For a brief moment, his hands just hovered in the space where the chart had been, uncertain, as if every professional instinct he had spent years honing had suddenly stopped responding. He set the chart down hard enough that it slid slightly across the counter.
“I can’t examine you.” What remained sounded jagged and unsteady.
“What?”
“Conflict of interest.” He said it like the words hurt on the way out.
You went very still. You already knew. You’d known before he said it, really, but hearing it made it land differently.
He ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time, you saw his composure completely crumble. It was not the cautious, contained way it had earlier cracked, but rather clearly and painfully, as if he were witnessing the disintegration of every assurance he had relied upon throughout his adult life.
"I don't know what to do," he said in a rough voice.
You just stared at him for a second. Then something inside you quietly folded in on itself.
Sure.
Why did you expect anything else?
You’d told yourself you didn’t need to know the father. You’d cried over the impossibility of it before it was even real, before there was anything to be impossible about. You’d accepted that you’d raise this child alone, because that was just how it was going to be. Strangers didn’t become families. One extraordinary night didn’t rewrite an ordinary life
You'd come to terms with it. Or at least you thought you did. But here he stood now, and he saw the doubt in his face, and that studied acceptance began to crack. Not because he actually rejected you, but because your heart already decided what his hesitation meant.
"Right," you said, speaking in a more flattering tone than you meant to, and you were already grabbing the armour you had developed over the previous month. "There is nothing for you to figure out. I told you that I had nothing to ask of you.”
He scowled.
"What?"
"I said there's nothing for you to figure out."
You could no longer bring yourself to look at him. Rather, you occupied yourself with smoothing out imperceptible wrinkles on the paper that was spread out on your lap.
"I wasn't looking for you." You took a swallow. "I wasn't trying to find you."
The words had a false flavour. Everything was different. Saying it out loud hurt more than you expected. You hated that some part of you had already filed Jungwon under the same heading, hated how quickly and completely your body had braced for the same ending, as though you had never once been given a reason to expect anything else from anyone.
Jungwon was watching you. He'd seen patients recoil before. The woman who had stopped crying because she had made up her mind it was no good. The overly polite husband after receiving a terminal diagnosis. The parents who resorted to talking about parking validation because to face reality would destroy them. Some people didn't fall apart loudly. Sometimes they were unbearably controlled. That's what you were doing.
“You think I’m trying to go?"
The sentence slipped out before he'd fully decided to say it. Your fingers paused. For the first time since you'd looked away, you met his eyes.
The words hit home visibly. You saw something flicker behind his eyes, not defensiveness, something more like recognition, as though he knew precisely which wound he'd just stepped on without meaning to. You didn't expect that from him. This wasn't something he had asked for. Even if he wanted nothing to do with you or the baby, you told yourself that made sense.
The bar surfaced again, whether you wanted it to or not. That ring around your glass. The way you’d kept twisting it on your finger instead of just taking it off, because taking it off would have made it final in a way you weren’t ready for. You remembered what you’d said that night, loose enough with drink to be honest, past caring who might overhear.
"I think he stopped choosing me long before he ever said it out loud.”
You looked away first this time, blinking hard at the poster on the wall, the one you'd deliberately avoided studying earlier. Your throat had gone tight enough that breathing normally took actual effort. You pressed your lips together, willing yourself to hold it.
That did not work.
One single tear escaped before you could stop it. Hot and humiliating, sliding down your cheek at the worst possible moment, in front of the worst possible person. You wiped it away quickly, angry at your body for betraying you in this way.
“I have to go,” you said, your voice cracking halfway through the sentence. You slid off the exam table too quickly, the paper crinkling loudly in the small room, and reached for the door before you could change your mind, before you could let yourself fall apart any further in front of him.
You didn’t get far. His fingers wrapped loosely around your wrist, warm, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he had any right to hold on but couldn’t quite make himself let go either. Just enough to stop you. You went cold.
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Please. Don’t walk out like this.”
“I—” Your voice gave out completely, and the tears came without permission.
His hand hovered between the chart, the exam table, and finally settled against his own chest.
"You don't have to say anything," you continued, quieter now, the bitterness folding into something more tired than sharp. "I wasn't going to ask you for anything. I didn't come here looking for you."
He opened his mouth, then closed it. Whatever he'd been about to say didn't survive that.
"I'll get someone else to take my file," you said, before he could. "You don't have to be involved in any of it. Really. It'll be easier that way. For both of us."
"That's not what I want," he said quietly.
"You don't know what you want yet," you said, not unkindly, just certain. "That's okay. You don't have to. I stopped expecting anyone to figure that out on my timeline a long time ago."
You picked up your bag from the chair, not looking at him now, because looking at him made it harder to keep the walls up, and the walls were the only thing keeping you standing.
"I can manage this myself," you said, quieter. "I've been managing everything myself. This isn't any different."
He didn't say anything as you walked past him, though you felt his eyes on you the whole way to the door, uncertain and unresolved in a way that you told yourself, firmly, was not your problem to fix.
The hallway outside the exam room felt longer than it had on the way in.
You kept your eyes forward, one foot in front of the other, the way you'd taught yourself to walk out of rooms that had just quietly ended something. It would've been easier if he'd been cruel about it. If he'd looked at you the way you'd braced yourself for.
But he hadn't been cruel. He'd looked lost. Standing there in his white coat with a stethoscope around his neck and no idea what to do with his own hands. And somehow that was worse. Because lost meant he hadn't decided yet. Lost meant there was still a version of this where he tried, and failed, and you had to watch it happen up close instead of guessing at it from a distance.
You couldn't do that again. You didn't have it in you to hope for something and then watch it quietly dissolve a second time in the same year. So you'd decided for him before he could make it for himself. It felt almost merciful, in a strange, aching way. If you didn't let yourself need him, there was nothing left for him to take away.
You didn't need him. You'd meant that.
But walking away from a room where someone had, for one brief second, looked like he might actually want to stay. That took more out of you than you let yourself admit. Because some small, foolish part of you, had wanted to be wrong about him. Just once, for someone to prove your worst assumptions weren't the safest bet.
You got in your car, hands steady on the wheel the way they'd been steady the night everything else fell apart, and you didn't cry until you were three streets away, safely out of sight of anyone who might feel obligated to ask if you were alright.
.
.
.
Jungwon didn't move for a long moment after the door clicked shut.
The room felt too quiet without you in it. He was still holding a pen he didn't remember picking up, and when he looked down at his own hand, it took a second longer than it should have for the object to register as familiar.
A baby.
The word sat in his chest like something he'd swallowed wrong, lodged and unmoving. He'd delivered dozens of them. He knew what the next nine months would look like on a chart. He did not know what it meant that one of them might have his name attached to it.
He sat down heavily on the stool you'd left empty, the vinyl still faintly warm, and stared at the door like it might open again and make the last ten minutes make sense. It didn't.
He realised, that he didn't even know your first name. Not really, he'd seen it on the chart, glanced at it in that first frozen second before recognition hit, but it hadn't stuck, buried under everything else crashing through him at once. He didn't know where you lived. What you did for a living, though, something about you had felt like you spent your days around people who needed patience. He remembered that much from the bar, vaguely, the way you remember the shape of a feeling more than the words that caused it. He didn't know if you had family nearby. Friends. Anyone who'd sit with you through this the way he clearly wasn't being let anywhere near it.
He didn't know a single real thing about the woman who had just told him, flatly, that she was carrying his child and didn't expect anything from him because of it. That last part kept snagging on something in his chest, sharp and unpleasant, like a wire he kept running his thumb over without meaning to.
He didn't know what that meant, not exactly, but he knew enough to recognize the shape of it. The practiced ease of someone who'd said some version of that sentence before, to someone else, about something else. You hadn't sounded angry when you said it. That was the part that unsettled him most. Angry, he could have argued with. Anger gave him something to push against. But you'd sounded certain, the way people sound when they've simply stopped being surprised by disappointment, when they've built their whole footing around expecting less so the ground never has anywhere lower left to drop.
A knock at the door pulled him upright before he could sit with it any longer. Nurse Park leaned her head in, brow raised at the empty room, the abandoned chart, him sitting there like he'd forgotten how exam rooms worked.
"Dr. Yang? Your two o'clock is—"
"I need you to reassign a patient," he said, before she could finish. His voice came out steadier than he felt, which surprised him almost as much as everything else today had. "Transfer her file to Dr. Kim. Today, if you can."
Nurse Park's brow rose further, curiosity plain on her face, but she didn't ask. That was one mercy, at least. "Sure. Everything okay?"
"Fine," he said, too quickly. "Just a conflict of interest."
She left it at that, ducking back out, and he was alone again with the abandoned chart and the too quiet room and the sound of his own pulse suddenly very loud in his ears.
He didn't go find you. He told himself it was because you'd asked him not to, because chasing you down the hallway would have looked exactly like the kind of scene neither of you needed in a hospital full of patients. He told himself a lot of things in the next several minutes, none of which made the unease in his chest sit any easier.
He didn't know you. You'd made that painfully, deliberately clear, like it was a wall you needed built between the two of you before either of you said something you couldn't walk back. But you were going to have his child. And he was going to spend the rest of the day, and probably several after it, turning over the unbearable fact that a woman whose last name he'd only just learned had already decided, quietly and completely, that he wasn't someone worth hoping for.
He picked the pen back up. Set it back down.
Somewhere down the hall, his next patient was waiting, and he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to walk in there and be anyone's calm, steady doctor when his own life had just come apart at a seam he hadn't known was there.
.
.
.
.
Three days.
That was all it had been since you walked out of that exam room, and already your body seemed determined to make you regret every ounce of composure you'd held onto in front of him. It was as if some cruel switch had been flipped the moment you'd said the word yes out loud, made it real to someone other than yourself. Like your body had been waiting for a witness.
You woke Wednesday morning already nauseous, the ceiling swimming faintly overhead before you'd even tried to sit up. You'd read that morning sickness typically started later, that this was early even by the worst case scenario timelines, but apparently your pregnancy hadn't read the same pamphlets you had.
By the time you managed to get upright, the room tilted sharply enough that you had to grip the headboard and breathe through it, slow and deliberate, before attempting the short, treacherous walk to the bathroom.
You didn't make it in time to feel dignified about it. Afterward, you sat on the bathroom floor with your back against the cold tub, forehead damp, waiting for your stomach to stop staging its rebellion. This was becoming routine faster than you wanted to admit. Not once, but twice already this week you'd called your department to push back your morning lecture, voice pitched carefully steady, blaming a stomach bug going around campus. You'd never missed lectures before. Not once. It unsettled you more than you let yourself dwell on.
The apartment was silent except for the tap still running in the sink. No one to hand you water. No one to notice you'd barely eaten since yesterday, that the crackers on your nightstand had gone untouched because even the smell of them turned your stomach some hours. You'd gotten good at being invisible to everyone, including yourself.
You didn't know if this was normal. You didn't know if you should be worried, if this level of sick warranted a call to whoever your new doctor was going to be, or if this was simply what your body intended to do to you for the better part of the coming months. You had no one to ask. No one who'd sit on the edge of your bed and tell you this part was supposed to be hard, that it would pass, that you weren't failing at this before it had even really begun.
You pulled yourself back onto your feet using the edge of the sink, rinsed your mouth, and studied your reflection for a moment. Pale, hollow around the eyes, nothing like the woman who used to stand in front of a lecture hall like she had her whole life figured out.
"You're fine," you told her, quietly, the way you'd told yourself countless small lies over the past month that had somehow, collectively, kept you upright. "You've done harder than this alone."
You believed it most days. Today, curled back into bed twenty minutes later with a bucket close enough to reach without standing, the blanket pulled up to your chin against a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room, you weren't entirely sure you believed it at all.
But there was no one there to notice the difference. So you closed your eyes, and let the silence hold you instead, and waited, the way you always did, for the worst of it to pass on its own.
You should have called in sick. You knew that the moment you stepped out of the car, the parking lot tilting faintly at the edges in a way that had nothing to do with the morning sun.
But you'd already missed two lectures this week, and a third would mean questions you didn't have answers for, sympathetic looks from your department head that you didn't think you could survive without your composure cracking down the middle. So you'd taken two crackers and a sip of ginger tea you couldn't taste, told yourself you'd manage, and gone in anyway.
You almost did.
The lecture hall was half full, forty some students scattered across the tiered seats, laptops open, the low hum of a Thursday morning. You'd made it through the attendance. Through the first ten minutes on developmental milestones in early childhood, your voice steady even as your stomach had begun its slow, familiar climb somewhere around slide four.
You kept going.
"—and by eighteen months, most children can typically identify two to three body parts when asked, which becomes important later when we discuss—"
The room tilted.
The front row of desks sliding sideways in your vision like the whole hall had been picked up and set back down at a slight angle. You gripped the edge of the podium, hard, waiting for it to right itself the way it usually did if you just breathed through it, counted to ten, kept your face neutral.
It didn't right itself. Cold sweat prickled along your hairline. Your vision narrowed at the edges, the way it did right before things went dark, a sensation you recognized now with a distant, clinical horror even as your body refused to respond to anything you told it to do. You heard your own voice trail off mid sentence. You saw, as if from very far away, several students look up from their laptops.
"Professor?"
You tried to say I'm fine. Give me a second. The words didn't make it out. The podium seemed to tilt away from your hand, or your hand slid off it, you couldn't tell which, and the last clear thought you had was a strange, absurd flicker of worry that you were about to fall in front of forty students and there'd be no graceful way to explain any of this afterward.
Then the floor came up to meet you, and everything went white, then gray, then nothing at all.
You came back to fluorescent light and unfamiliar voices, the particular antiseptic smell that your body had apparently decided to associate with catastrophe now. Someone's hand was wrapped around your wrist, fingers pressed lightly, counting.
"Ma'am? Can you hear me?"
You blinked, the ceiling swimming into slow focus, a stranger's face hovering above you, kind and unfamiliar. Not him. You didn't know why some small, useless part of you had braced for it to be him.
"You fainted," the nurse said gently, once she saw your eyes track her properly. "You're in the ER. One of your students called it in. You went down pretty hard in the middle of a lecture."
Fainted. In front of your entire class. You closed your eyes again, mortification arriving even before you'd fully processed the rest of it, a hot wave of embarrassment layering itself over the nausea that hadn't actually gone anywhere.
"I'm fine," you said, or tried to. Your voice came out cracked, thinner than you meant it to. "I just need to go home. I have another class at—"
"You're not teaching anything today," the nurse said, not unkindly, but with the particular firmness of someone who dealt with stubborn patients for a living. "You're pregnant and dehydrated and you haven't been keeping food down. We're keeping you a few hours at least, getting fluids into you."
There was someone whose opinion mattered now, whether you liked it or not, and he worked three floors up in this exact building.
A resident you didn't recognize came by twenty minutes later to check your IV line, young, unfamiliar, entirely uninterested in anything beyond your vitals and your chart. You almost laughed at the relief that gave you.
By the time they discharged you late that afternoon, an IV bruise blooming faintly on the inside of your elbow, a stack of printed pamphlets about hyperemesis gravidarum tucked under your arm. You called a cab instead of your own car, since you didn't trust your hands on a wheel yet, and sat in the back seat with your forehead against the cool window, watching the hospital shrink behind you.
You told yourself that was fine. You told yourself that a lot, lately. It didn't make the ride home feel any less quiet.
The cab dropped you off just as the sky was starting to dim, and by the time you'd climbed the two flights of stairs to your apartment. The elevator was broken again, of course it was. Your legs were shaking badly enough that you had to stop twice, palm flat against the wall, waiting for the stairwell to stop tilting.
You made it inside. You didn't make it much further than that. The pamphlets slid out of your grip and scattered across the entryway floor as your knees gave out, not dramatically, just a slow, graceless folding, your back sliding down the front door until you were sitting on the cold tile with your knees drawn up and your whole body trembling like something had come loose inside it.
The nausea came back within the hour, worse than it had been that morning, worse than it had been at all this week. It didn't announce itself gently. It arrived in one violent lurch that had you crawling toward the bathroom, not trusting your legs to carry you upright.
You didn't make it to the toilet in time. You barely made it to the bathroom at all, retching over the edge of the tub instead, your whole body seizing with the force of it long after there was anything left to bring up, dry, wrenching heaves that left your ribs aching and your throat raw and scraped, tears streaming down your face less from sadness than from the sheer physical violence of it.
You stayed like that for a long time, forehead pressed against the cool porcelain, saliva and bile stringing from your lips, your hands braced shaking against the tub's edge. Your stomach cramped hard, a deep muscular ache that radiated up into your ribs and down into your pelvis, and for one sharp, terrified second you pressed a hand low against your abdomen, holding your breath, waiting to feel something wrong.
Nothing. No blood. No new pain beyond the exhaustion of your body trying to turn itself inside out. You allowed yourself a single shuddering breath of relief before the next wave hit and you were retching again, nothing left to give it, just your body insisting anyway.
By the time it finally, mercifully passed, you were slumped sideways against the bathtub, cheek against cold tile, drenched in a cold sweat that had soaked through your shirt. Your pulse fluttered too fast and too thin at your wrist when you pressed two fingers there, checking, the way you'd learned to over the past week. Your mouth tasted of bile and copper. Your lips had gone dry and cracked at the corners.
You should call someone. The thought arrived distantly, muted, the way thoughts did when your body had spent everything it had. You'd just been hospitalized for exactly this, hours ago, and here you were on your bathroom floor doing it again, alone, with no one so much as aware it was happening.
Your hand found your phone in your pocket, more out of habit than intention. The screen lit the dim bathroom, too bright, and you had to squint against it. You didn't call anyone. You didn't have the strength to hold the phone to your ear, let alone explain, let alone hear the worry in someone's voice and have to manage that too, on top of everything else.
You set the phone down on the tile beside you instead, and simply lay there, curled loosely on your side, waiting for enough strength to return to your limbs that you could drag yourself the six feet to your own bed.
It took nearly twenty minutes. You slept in your clothes that night, on top of the covers instead of under them, too exhausted to manage even that small effort, a glass of water you couldn't bring yourself to drink from sitting untouched on the nightstand, condensation sliding slowly down its side in the dark, and no one in the world aware that you'd spent your evening on a bathroom floor, alone, quietly and privately falling apart.
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Karina almost didn't come by that morning.
She'd meant to call first, the way she usually did, but you hadn't answered your last two texts, and something about the silence. Three days of it now, uncharacteristic even for you at your most withdrawn, had sat wrong in her chest all week. She'd told herself she was being paranoid. She came anyway.
She still had the spare key, back when you'd both lived two buildings apart and traded keys the way close friends did. She let herself in calling your name, expecting to find you buried in lesson planning, embarrassed to have worried.
She found you on the bedroom floor instead, half collapsed beside the bed like you'd tried to stand and simply hadn't made it, your skin gray pale, lips cracked, one hand still curled weakly against the carpet like you'd been reaching for something.
"Oh my god— hey. Hey!" Karina dropped to her knees beside you, hands shaking as she checked for breath, for pulse, for anything. You stirred faintly at her voice, eyes fluttering half open, unfocused. "Stay with me, okay? I'm calling an ambulance."
"I'm fine," you managed, barely a whisper, the words slurring together. "Just need—"
"You are not fine." Her voice cracked, fear bleeding through the command in it as she fumbled her phone out of her pocket, thumb shaking too hard to hit the numbers cleanly the first time. "You look like you're about to die on your bedroom floor, so don't you dare tell me you're fine."
She got the address out between breaths she didn't remember taking, one hand still gripping yours the entire time, too tight, like letting go might mean losing you to whatever this was.
She rode in the ambulance with you, refusing to be left behind when a paramedic suggested she follow in her own car. She sat in the hospital waiting room for forty five minutes that felt like four hours, knee bouncing, phone clutched uselessly in her lap because she didn't know who else to call, didn't know if there was anyone else to call, and that realization alone made something in her chest ache almost as much as the fear did.
When a nurse finally came to update her, Karina was on her feet before the woman had finished her sentence.
"Family?" the nurse asked, glancing at her chart.
"Might as well be," Karina said, voice tight. "She doesn't have anyone else listed, does she."
The nurse's hesitation was answer enough.
"She's stable," the nurse said instead, gently. "Severe dehydration, malnutrition. She's been dealing with hyperemesis, it looks like, and it seems like she's been managing it alone for weeks. We're keeping her a few days to get her properly stabilized."
Karina pressed a hand over her mouth, equal parts relief and fury rising in her chest. Relief that you were breathing, steady, alive, and fury that you'd let it get this bad without telling a single soul, without telling her, after everything the two of you had been through together.
She sat by your bed for the rest of that afternoon, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, IV fluid dripping steadily into the back of your hand, and made a silent, furious promise that the moment you were lucid enough to argue with her, she was going to give you an earful about doing this alone.
You stirred sometime near evening, eyes fluttering open slowly, disoriented, focusing first on the ceiling and then, gradually, on her.
"Karina?" Your voice came out cracked, confused.
"Yeah." She leaned forward, gripping your hand, blinking back tears she refused to let fall in front of you. "Yeah, it's me. You scared the absolute hell out of me."
You blinked at her, at the IV in your hand, at the hospital room slowly coming into focus around you, and something in your face crumpled, the exhausted collapse of someone who'd been holding a wall up for too long and had finally, involuntarily, let it fall.
"I didn't want to bother anyone," you whispered.
"You're pregnant and you were dying on your bedroom floor," Karina said, voice thick, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "I don't care how much you didn't want to bother me. You're stuck with me now. No more doing this by yourself."
You didn't have the strength to argue. For once, some small, exhausted part of you was almost grateful you didn't have to.
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Jungwon told himself it would fade. That was the whole premise he'd been operating on for two and a half weeks now. That time would do what time was supposed to do, sand the edges off something sharp until it became just another fact of his life instead of the thing that occupied every quiet moment he wasn't actively filling with something else.
It hadn't worked. He caught himself doing it again during a lull between patients, staring at a blank spot on the wall of the break room, coffee going cold in his hand, his mind somewhere else entirely.
He'd requested her file be transferred to Dr. Kim, exactly as he'd promised. He hadn't looked at it since. He told himself that was the responsible thing to do. He told himself that every time his hand hovered a half second too long over the patient database before he made himself close it, unopened.
He didn't know if she'd made it to her next appointment, if the nausea she'd looked faintly gray with even standing in that exam room had gotten better or worse, if she was eating, sleeping, managing any of it the way she'd insisted, with such brittle certainty, that she would.
He hated that he thought about it as much as he did. Hated it, and couldn't stop.
“You've been doing it for weeks." Sunoo took a sip, watching him over the rim of the cup. "Still thinking about the peach dream? Told you it meant something."
"It's nothing," Jungwon said, too quickly, and made himself take a sip of his own coffee just to have something to do with his mouth besides say anything further. "Just tired. Long week."
"It's been a long week for three weeks running, then." Sunoo didn't look convinced, but he let it sit for a moment, watching him with the kind of patience that usually meant he was waiting for a crack to widen on its own rather than trying to force one. "You'd tell me if something was actually going on, right?"
"There's nothing going on." The lie came easier than Jungwon expected it to, flat and practiced, though it sat wrong in his chest the second it left his mouth. "I'm fine."
Sunoo studied him a beat longer, clearly unconvinced, but he shrugged eventually and let it go, the way he usually did when Jungwon's tone made it clear a door had been shut. "Alright. Suit yourself."
The conversation moved on to something else and he was grateful for it, grateful that Sunoo hadn't pushed harder, because he didn't know what he would have said if he had. There wasn't a version of the truth he could hand over that didn't sound absurd out loud.
He didn't know how to explain that he'd meant to let it go, and instead had spent nearly three weeks failing to stop thinking about a woman whose last name he'd had to read off a chart to remember, whose entire life outside of that one night and that one appointment remained a complete blank to him.
He didn't know how to explain, least of all to himself, why some part of him refused to accept that blank as permanent. He finished his coffee in silence, and when his pager went off a few minutes later, he was almost relieved for the excuse to leave the thought behind, if only for the length of his next shift.
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The consult request landed in his queue a little after four. It was one of a dozen routine notifications that came through on any given shift. He almost skimmed past it. He didn't work in obstetrics anymore, not since he'd handed his own patient list over to Dr. Kim weeks ago. He'd made an effort to stop looking at those cases.
But this one came through internal medicine, not OB. It was flagged as severe dehydration and malnutrition, possible hyperemesis. They wanted a second opinion on fluid management before admitting the patient properly.
He opened the summary out of habit more than curiosity.
Female, thirty two years old. About eleven weeks pregnant. She'd been found unconscious by a friend. Severe dehydration. She'd lost eight percent of her body weight in two weeks. Her heart rate had been dangerously high on admission. There was no record of any follow-up appointment since her first OB visit three weeks earlier.
He frowned at that last part. Three weeks was a long time to go without monitoring, especially with symptoms this severe. Someone had fallen through the cracks. It bothered him, the same way it always did when a patient's file showed the system failing someone who should have been caught sooner.
He looked for the name of the doctor overseeing her care. He found only Dr. Kim listed, with no other notes attached besides an old transfer memo from a few weeks back. He didn't think twice about that memo. He'd written it himself, but his mind was somewhere else, moving through the facts the way he always did, quickly and clinically.
The patient's name was cut off in the quick view screen, an old glitch in the hospital's software that had annoyed him for years. He never thought to be grateful for it before.
He typed up his recommendation. Slow rehydration. Anti nausea medication. Closer monitoring, given the gap in her care. He added a note asking social work to check in, since it looked like she didn't have much support. It was clinical and short, the way he wrote every consult note, and he sent it back through the system without a second thought.
Something caught at the back of his mind for a moment. Eleven weeks. The number surfaced, then sank again before he could think about why it mattered. There was another patient waiting.
He didn't open her full chart. There was no reason to. It wasn't his case anymore, and nothing in the short summary gave him any reason to connect this exhausted, malnourished woman to the one who still, somehow, took up more space in his thoughts than she had any right to.
He moved on to the next consult. But the uneasy feeling stayed with him for the rest of his shift, quiet and shapeless, like a name he almost remembered but couldn't quite reach.
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Jungwon didn't remember falling asleep. He remembered lying in the dark for a long time, staring at his ceiling, exhaustion finally pulling him under sometime past midnight.
And then he was dreaming.
The garden came back to him, the same one from weeks ago, though he knew almost immediately that something about it was wrong.
The trees were still there, heavy branched, familiar in shape. But the leaves had gone brittle at the edges, curling inward like paper too close to a flame. Some had already fallen, scattered thin and brown across ground that should have been soft with grass and instead felt dry and cracked underfoot, like it hadn't seen rain in a long time.
He walked through it the way he had before, searching without knowing exactly what he was searching for. The fruit trees that had once bent low with ripeness now held branches that looked stripped and empty, a few withered pieces of fruit still clinging on that looked more rotten than ripe.
The woman was there again. He still couldn't see her face clearly, the way dreams sometimes blurred the details that should have mattered most, but he recognized her outline, the same as before, standing beneath the same tree where she'd once handed him a peach warm with sunlight.
This time she wasn't holding anything out to him. She was kneeling at the base of the tree instead, one hand pressed against the trunk like she needed it to stay upright. Her shoulders looked thin. Her head was bowed low enough that he couldn't see any of her expression, only the slow, careful way she was breathing, like even that took effort.
"Wait," he said, or tried to. His voice didn't seem to carry the way it should have.
He moved toward her, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to stretch further with every step, the way distances do in dreams, refusing to close no matter how fast he moved. The leaves kept falling around them, one after another, drifting down slow and silent, until the branches above her were bare.
He reached her at last, or thought he did, and knelt down in front of her, and reached out to touch her shoulder. She looked up at him then. He still couldn't make out her face. But he could feel, somehow, in the strange logic dreams operated by, that she was exhausted. Depleted. Something in her had been quietly draining away, day after day, and no one had noticed in time to stop it.
She simply closed her eyes again, her hand still pressed to the trunk of the dying tree, and the last of the leaves let go overhead, falling around both of them like something quietly ending.
He woke with a start, heart pounding, sheets damp beneath him, the ceiling of his own bedroom swimming slowly into focus in the dark.
It took him a long moment to remember where he was. Longer still to shake the feeling that had settled deep in his chest, heavy and wrong, like his body understood something his mind hadn't caught up to yet.
He sat up, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and told himself it was only a dream. Stress, probably, or guilt finding a strange shape to wear while he slept. But he didn't fall back asleep for a long time after that. He lay in the dark instead, staring at the ceiling, turning the image over and over, the garden gone bare, her kneeling beneath it, exhausted in a way that had felt far too real to belong only to a dream.
He was distracted the whole next day, in a way that didn't sit well with him at all.
It started small. He mixed up the order of two consults, something he never did, and had to double back and apologize to a nurse who'd been waiting on him. He found himself staring too long at a patient's chart during rounds, words on the page not quite registering, his mind circling back again and again to a garden that didn't exist and a woman whose face he couldn't see.
He told himself it was just a dream. He'd told himself that all morning, on repeat, like saying it enough times might finally make it true. It didn't help. The image kept surfacing anyway, uninvited, in the quiet spaces between tasks. The leaves falling. Her shoulders, thin and bowed. The way she hadn't answered him.
And underneath the dream, tangled up with it so tightly he couldn't separate the two anymore, was her. The real her. The woman from the exam room, weeks ago now, sitting there in a paper gown telling him flatly that she didn't need anything from him.
He hadn't seen her since. He didn't know if she was alright. That fact, which he'd been quietly carrying around for weeks, suddenly felt heavier today, pressing somewhere behind his ribs in a way he couldn't explain and didn't like.
He caught himself, twice, opening the hospital directory with every intention of searching her name, only to close it again before he could type more than a letter or two. He had no reason to look. No professional reason, and telling himself there might be a personal one felt like admitting to something he wasn't ready to say out loud, not even to himself.
His chest felt tight in a way that had nothing to do with his own health. It was an uncomfortable, restless feeling, like something was wrong and he didn't have enough information to know what, or where, or how to fix it. He hated not knowing. He'd built his whole career around being someone who found answers, who didn't let uncertainty sit for long before chasing it down. And here he was, useless, sitting with a feeling he couldn't name and no way to act on it.
By the time his shift ended, he'd barely eaten, his coffee long since gone cold and forgotten on his desk. He sat in his car in the hospital parking lot for a while before starting the engine, hands resting on the wheel, staring out at nothing in particular.
"It's just a dream," he said out loud, to the empty car, like hearing it might finally settle something.
It didn't. If anything, saying it out loud only made the discomfort in his chest more obvious, more real, refusing to be reasoned away just because he didn't have a name to put to it, or a face, or any real claim to worrying about her at all.
He drove home in silence, the radio off, the same restless unease sitting with him the whole way, quiet and persistent, like it had no intention of leaving until he did something about it.
He got as far as his apartment door before he stopped fighting it.
He stood there for a moment, keys still in hand, and then, almost against his own better judgment, pulled out his phone instead of going inside. He told himself it was just to check. Just to see that she was fine, that the dream had been nothing, that the tight feeling behind his ribs was simply exhaustion wearing a strange shape. Just this once, and then he'd stop.
He let himself back into his own hallway, sat down heavily on the bottom step of the stairwell instead of climbing them, and opened the hospital's internal system on his phone. His thumb hovered over the search bar longer than it should have. He typed her name.
The system took a second to load, longer than he wanted, his knee bouncing while he waited, and then a list of results filled the screen. Not many. It was an uncommon enough name that there was really only one match that mattered.
He tapped it before he could talk himself out of it. The file loaded slowly, and for a moment his eyes just skimmed without absorbing anything, too much information arriving too fast. Then it started to land, piece by piece, and his stomach dropped further with each line.
Admitted three weeks ago. Severe dehydration and malnutrition. Discharged same day, no documented follow up. Readmitted two days ago. Hyperemesis gravidarum, ketones present, found unconscious by a third party.
Found unconscious. He read it twice, like the words might rearrange themselves into something less alarming the second time. They didn't. He scrolled further, hands not quite steady now, and found the consult note attached to the more recent admission. His own name was on it. His own handwriting, in a sense, typed out clinically weeks ago, recommending fluid management for a patient he hadn't realized was her, flagging her case for social work because something in the chart had told him, even then, that no one was checking in on her.
He'd been right there. He'd read her chart and not known it was her. He'd written notes about her condition and closed the file without a second thought, because the software had cut off her name and he hadn't looked hard enough to notice.
Eleven weeks. The number that had been surfacing in his mind for days finally made sense, horribly, completely, and he felt something in his chest cave in around it.
She'd been sick. Really sick. Alone in an apartment somewhere, collapsing, hospitalized twice, and he hadn't known. He'd been having dreams about dying gardens while she was on a bathroom floor somewhere, or worse, and he'd told himself it was nothing, told himself it wasn't his place to look.
He was on his feet before he'd fully decided to move, keys still in his other hand, phone still lit with her chart, his pulse loud enough in his ears that it drowned out every reasonable argument his own mind tried to raise about boundaries, about what she'd asked for, about whether he had any right at all to show up.
None of it mattered right now. He needed to see her. He needed to know, with his own eyes, that she was alright. He was already moving toward the door before he'd let himself think through what he'd even say when he got there.
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The room had gone dim sometime after the nurses' evening rounds, the overhead lights dimmed low, the machines beside your bed humming their steady, indifferent rhythm into the quiet. Karina had left an hour ago, only after you'd insisted, only after you'd promised you'd call if you needed anything, a promise you both knew you probably wouldn't keep.
You lay there now, IV taped to the back of your hand, the thin blanket pulled up to your chest, and let yourself, finally, stop pretending you were fine.
It came slowly at first. A tightness in your throat you tried to swallow down out of habit. Then your eyes stinging, then blurring, until the ceiling above you dissolved into a soft, watery smear of white. You pressed the back of your free hand against your mouth, an old reflex, quiet, don't let anyone hear.
There was no one to hear. That was the whole problem, wasn't it.
You thought about the last two weeks. About crawling to the bathroom in the dark. About lying on your own bedroom floor, alone, until your body simply gave out and someone else had to find you before it was too late. You thought about how close that had actually been, closer than you'd let yourself admit even to Karina, who'd cried in the waiting room while you were unconscious and hadn't fully stopped being afraid since.
You thought about the tiny, stubborn thing growing inside you that you hadn't even properly begun to plan for, that you were supposed to be strong enough to carry through all of this alone, and some exhausted, honest part of you finally admitted, in the dark, in the quiet, that you didn't know if you could.
"I don't know if I can do this," you whispered, to no one, to the empty room, your voice cracking apart on the last word.
The admission scared you more than anything else had in weeks. You'd built your whole life, especially these last two months, around the belief that you could handle anything alone if you just gritted your teeth hard enough. You'd told Jungwon that, practically to his face. You'd told yourself that every single day since. And here you were, hooked to fluids in a hospital bed for the second time in a month, and the belief was cracking right down the center, and you didn't know how to hold it together anymore.
The tears came harder after that, silent at first, then not silent at all, your shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to keep it quiet even though there was no one there to disturb. You curled onto your side as much as the IV line would allow, one hand drifting to rest low against your stomach, the way it always did now without your permission.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, to the tiny life you couldn't see or feel yet, only imagine. "I'm trying. I promise I'm trying."
It didn't answer, of course. There was only the quiet hum of the machines, and the faint hallway light bleeding in under the door, and the terrible, hollow ache of being so completely alone with something this big.
You cried until you didn't have much left to cry with, until your eyes burned and your chest ached and exhaustion finally started pulling you down toward sleep despite everything. You didn't wipe your face before you let your eyes close. There was no one there to see it anyway.
That was what you told yourself, right up until the moment sleep finally took you under, and you never heard the soft, hesitant knock that came at your door several minutes later, too tentative to wake you, from someone who'd been standing in the hallway for a long moment before he found the nerve to lift his hand at all.
Somewhere between the crying and the exhaustion pulling you under, one thought kept circling back, quiet and unanswerable.
Is it supposed to be this hard?
You didn't know. That was the worst part of it, in a strange way. You'd spent years around children, around the after of pregnancy, the finished product of it, toddlers with sticky hands and easy laughter, and never once had you stopped to ask their mothers what the nine months before had actually cost them. You'd assumed, vaguely, the way people assume things they've never had to live through, that it was hard but survivable, uncomfortable but manageable, something women simply got through with the right amount of patience and ginger tea.
You hadn't expected this. The bathroom floors. The fainting. Two hospital admissions in less than a month, your body seeming to fight the thing growing inside you rather than simply carry it. You wondered, in the dim, half formed way exhaustion allowed for, whether other women went through this too, quietly, alone, and never talked about it because talking about it felt like admitting they weren't handling something that was supposed to come naturally.
You thought of your own mother, briefly, the offhand thing she used to say. Hardest thing I ever did alone. You'd always assumed that meant the raising, the late nights, the years after. You were starting to wonder if she'd meant this part too, the very beginning, the part nobody warned you about because by the time you were far enough along to tell anyone, you were already too deep in it to turn back.
You didn't know if this was normal. You didn't know if other women lay awake at night wondering if their body had simply chosen the wrong person to do this to, someone without the reserves for it, someone already worn thin from everything that came before. You didn't have anyone to ask. Not really. Karina had been wonderful, had sat by your bed for hours, but Karina didn't know what this felt like from the inside, the particular loneliness of a body doing something enormous while the rest of your life went on expecting you to be fine.
You pressed a hand lightly against your stomach again, feeling nothing yet, no movement, no proof beyond the exhaustion and the IV and the doctor's clipped, worried tone from earlier that day. Just an idea of a person, still. A hope, and a fear, tangled together so tightly you couldn't separate them anymore.
Is it supposed to be this hard?
You didn't have an answer. You only had the ache in your chest, and the too-quiet room, and the slow pull of sleep finally dragging your thoughts apart before you could find one.
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Jungwon didn't remember most of the walk from the parking garage. He remembered running at some point, badge bouncing against his chest, breath tearing ragged in his throat by the time he hit the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator, two steps at a time, his pulse louder in his ears than anything else around him.
He found your room number on the floor directory and moved toward it without slowing, weaving past a cart, muttering an apology to a nurse he nearly collided with. He didn't bother knocking. He pushed the door open, chest still heaving, and froze.
You were still awake.
You'd curled onto your side, one hand pressed against your mouth, shoulders shaking with the effort of crying quietly in a room that had no reason to expect anyone would walk in on it. Your eyes were red, your cheeks wet, the IV line taped awkwardly to the back of your free hand. You looked up at the sound of the door, startled, and every part of you went rigid.
Disbelief bleeding through the exhaustion. You pushed yourself up slightly against the pillows, swiping a hand roughly across your face, some old reflex to hide what he'd just walked in on, even though it was far too late for that. "What are you— how did you—"
He didn't answer right away. He was too busy staring at you, chest still rising and falling too fast, his own shock plain on his face. He hadn't let himself picture this, not really, not the reality of it. How small you looked. How hollowed out. How clearly you'd been crying alone for a while before he arrived.
"I read your chart," he admitted, voice rough, still catching his breath. "I didn't know it was you until an hour ago."
"You shouldn't be here," you said, though it came out weaker than you meant it to, your voice still thick with tears.
"I know." He didn't move toward you yet, like he was afraid of doing the wrong thing, afraid of taking up space you hadn't offered him. "I know I shouldn't. You told me you didn't need me. I heard you. I've been trying to respect that for weeks, and I have no right to walk in here and undo it just because I'm scared."
"Then why did you come?" Your voice broke on the question, quieter than you meant it, more honest than you meant it too.
He took a step closer, slow, like he was asking permission with every inch. "Because I've been dreaming about you for weeks and I didn't even understand what I was dreaming about," he said, voice unsteady now, none of his usual composure left in it. "Because I read a chart today and didn't know it was yours until it was almost too late to know at all. Because the thought of you lying somewhere alone, going through this by yourself, is unbearable to me. I can't explain why. I've tried to talk myself out of caring this much about someone I barely know, and I can't do it. I've tried for weeks."
You stared at him, tears still slipping down your face, unable to find any words to answer that with.
"I'm not asking you to let me fix this," he went on, quieter now, closer, close enough that you could see how badly his hands were shaking at his sides. "I'm not asking you to trust me, or to need me, or to believe I'll be different from whoever taught you to expect nothing. I know I haven't earned any of that yet." His voice cracked, raw and unguarded in a way you'd never heard from him. "I'm just asking you to let me sit here. Just for tonight. Please. I don't want you to be alone in this room anymore."
You pressed the back of your hand against your mouth, a fresh wave of tears rising, not entirely sure anymore if they were from exhaustion or grief or something dangerously close to relief.
"I don't know… I… ," you admitted, voice cracking apart.
"One night. That's all I'm asking for right now. Just let me stay."
He reached out, slow and hesitant, and rested his hand near yours on the blanket, not quite touching, close enough that you could close the distance if you wanted to. You did. Your fingers curled weakly around his, and for the first time in weeks, neither of you were entirely, completely alone.
You took a four-month hiatus to save your career after your breakup with Riki caused a huge scandal. When you finally return, the company has the two of you record a dance video together.
pairing: idol!exbf!riki x idol!reader ⭑
contains: fluff skinship kissing light angst cyber bullying rumors hate comments kpop scandal breakup arguing riki's a flirt 🎧
⊹
@ idolsdaily
🚨 ENHYPEN's Ni-ki and REPLAY's Y/n caught fighting outside HYBE.
The two idols were seen having a heated argument outside the HYBE building today before Y/n appeared to push Ni-ki in the chest. Witnesses say the argument lasted several minutes before they walked away separately.
[🎥 Video attached]
You take a deep breath before pushing open the door of the practice room.
Music hums quietly from the speakers, Riki's phone is charging in the corner, water bottles are scattered across the floor. The moment the door clicks shut behind you, Riki looks up.
His footsteps are heavy against the wooden floor as he walks straight toward you. One hand drags through his hair, pushing it back out of his face, bracelets sliding down his wrist and clinking softly with every step.
He's dressed exactly how you'd expect him to be, oversized sweatpants hanging low on his hips, a black hoodie with the zipper halfway down over a white tank top, silver jewellery around his neck, on his wrists and in his ears.
A smile spreads across his face before he's even reached you.
"There she is."
Without thinking twice, he opens his arms for a hug.
You hesitate for half a second. Then you step forward just enough to give him a quick side hug, one arm patting his back once before immediately pulling away.
"Hi."
The smile leaves his face almost as quickly as it came.
"...Hey."
You don't linger, you walk past him toward the corner of the room where his black duffel bag is already thrown on the floor. You quietly set yours beside it, unzip it to grab your water bottle, then sit down on the floor, keeping a comfortable amount of distance between the chair he was on and yourself.
Riki slowly walks back too. He drops into the chair with a sigh, legs spread, leaning back so far it almost looks ridiculous. One arm hangs over the backrest while the other absentmindedly taps against his thigh.
The silence feels unfamiliar, there used to be a time when the two of you couldn't stop talking. Now even finding the first sentence feels awkward.
He clears his throat. "So..."
His eyes flick toward you. "How've you been?"
You look up from unscrewing your water bottle. "Good."
"...Good?"
"Yeah ...You?"
"I'm alright."
—
Four months ago, this room would've sounded completely different.
You would've stolen his chair before he got to it. He would've complained while trying to pull you onto his lap anyway. You would've argued over which song to warm up with, flirted your way through practice, shared snacks during breaks, and left to his dorm after.
You had dated for a year.
A year full of arguments about stupid things.
Who forgot to text back, who cancelled plans because of practice, who was too lazy, who didn't listen. The little fights started happening so much they stopped feeling little.
When you finally broke up with him, the company immediately stepped in.
"Due to increasingly busy schedules, the idols have decided to end their relationship by mutual agreement and focus on their personal careers.”
It would've worked if nobody had seen the argument.
Someone had filmed the two of you outside the HYBE building after a rehearsal. The video only lasted twelve seconds, but it changed everything.
You raising your voice, Riki slamming the door in frustration. You giving his chest one small shove to get past him. It wasn't violent, it barely moved him.
But online, rumours and theories spread faster than ever.
"She hit him!"
"He's controlling."
"Ew they're so toxic."
“Get rid of both of them!”
"Enhypen and Replay definitely hate each other."
Every livestream they’d bring it up. Every airport appearance they’d call you out.
Your anxiety got so bad you stopped sleeping.
Eventually, you were completely removed from the schedules by the company. Mostly for your mental health, but it was also to let the scandal die before it dragged down not only you, but Replay, Enhypen, and HYBE itself.
—
For Riki, the past four months had been strange.
Not nearly as hard as they were for you, but nowhere near as easy as they should've been either.
The first few weeks after the breakup, he was just angry. Angry that you'd broken up with him. Angry that one stupid argument had somehow turned into the biggest scandal either of your groups had ever dealt with. Angry that everything had spiraled over something that should've stayed between the two of you.
So he did what every stubborn twenty-year-old guy does when his heart gets broken.
He blocked you. Your number, your private Instagram, he blocked Replay on Spotify and removed you from all your shared playlists. Anything that had your name attached to it disappeared from his phone within minutes.
If someone mentioned your group backstage, he'd quietly leave the conversation. Whenever your name somehow came up during interviews or variety content, he'd pretend not to hear it.
He was convinced the easiest way to get over you was to act like you didn't exist.
It didn't work.
Then the company announced your hiatus.
At first he thought it'd only be for a week or two, maybe until things calmed down online. But you disappeared completely.
During those long, quiet months, his anger slowly started fading. Because the more he replayed that argument in his head, the more he realized he couldn't keep blaming only you.
Yeah, you pushed his chest. Barely.
But he was the one who kept following you outside, he was the one who wouldn't let the argument end. He kept provoking you, throwing little comments your way because he was frustrated and wanted the last word.
Neither of you had noticed someone recording. Neither of you wanted the internet to twist twelve seconds into an entire theory.
It wasn't your fault that someone happened to have their phone pointed at you two. And it definitely wasn't your fault that millions of people decided they knew exactly what your relationship had was like.
The anger turned into guilt quickly. Especially every time he made the mistake of opening comments.
"Kick Y/N out of Replay."
"She pushed him. I don't care if it was 'lightly.'"
"Poor Ni-ki deserves better."
"She's only crying because she got caught."
"Hope her hiatus becomes permanent."
"Blink twice if HYBE is forcing you to defend her."
He hated reading it. One afternoon he'd gotten so frustrated that he marched straight to his manager.
"People need to stop this."
The manager looked up from his laptop. "We're handling it."
"No, you're not. She barely touched me."
"We know."
"Then why aren't you saying anything?"
"Because responding will only make the situation bigger."
His jaw clenched. "They're tearing her apart."
"We understand."
The room fell quiet, the manager sighed. "Ni-ki."
He already knew he wasn't going to like whatever came next.
"Do not say anything publicly. Not on Weverse. Not on live. Not during interviews. Nowhere."
He stared at him in disbelief. "She's getting hated every single day."
"And if you speak up, people will start talking again."
"But she doesn't deserve—"
"I know. But the best thing you can do for y/n right now... is let the situation die."
He hated that answer. He wanted to tell everyone that you'd never hurt him and that the fight had been both of your faults.
But all he could do was wait. Wait for the hate to die down, or for the day he'd finally get to see you again, he even wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.
Finally, around the third month, something slowly started to change.
People got bored. New scandals happened, new rumors started, people actually began looking back at the original clip instead of just repeating what everyone else had been saying. The comments slowly became less hateful.
"That's the push everyone's talking about? She literally barely touched him."
"We don't even know what happened before."
"Ni-ki was yelling at her too."
"This was obviously just a couple arguing. Why is everyone acting like she's some criminal?
"Y'all ruined a girl's career over THIS?"
Edits started appearing, slowing the video down, circling details people hadn't noticed before.
"Ni-ki’s still walking towards her after she pushes him."
"She looks more upset than angry."
"We judged Y/N way too quickly."
"Bring her back already."
"She served a four month hiatus over a tiny shove??"
"Free Y/N."
"Replay doesn't feel complete without her. We miss our main dancer :("
The company went back and forth behind closed doors.
Managers from met with Riki several times to discuss how contact between you and him should go if you came back.
Emails were constantly being exchanged with Replay’s management. Rules were made. No interviews about the breakup, no public interaction unless approved, no mentioning the scandal. No dating rumors. Just move on.
Four months of no performances, no interviews, no seeing Riki.
And now, only a week after your return, management had decided the best possible way to prove to the public that there were no hard feelings… was to lock the two of you in a dance practice room and have you film a dance collaboration.
"Show the public you two are fine."
—
You walk over to one side of the mirrored wall, setting your phone and water bottle on the floor before sitting down to stretch. One leg folded underneath you while the other extends out, your fingertips reaching toward your shoe.
Then Riki clears his throat. He isn’t looking at you anymore, his elbows rest on his knees as he stares at the floor.
"...I'm really sorry about everything. You didn't deserve any of th-“
You stop stretching for a second and cut him off.
"Don't worry about it."
He looks up. “I’m serious y/n… I wish we h-”
You offer him a small smile. "I'm back now. I'm fine."
"...Mhm." That’s all he manages to say. "Okay."
The silence immediately returns and it feels painfully awkward, so you decide to fill it.
"You changed your hair."
He instinctively runs a hand through it, the bracelets around his wrist softly clinking together.
"Oh." A small grin appeared. "Yeah."
The last time you saw him it was long and blonde, now its shorter and darker, kind of brown-ish.
He ruffles it again before looking back at you and his smile becomes a little more nervous.
"You like it?"
You look at him for a second. Then simply shrug one shoulder and give him a small nod, nothing too much.
"...Yeah."
He smiles. "Thank you."
Before the conversation could awkwardly die again, you push yourself off the floor, dust off your sweatpants and walk towards the center of the practice room. You glance at the huge mirror in front of you before looking over your shoulder at him.
You clapped your hands together once.
"Shall we start?"
The first hour of practice was very quiet. The only thing filling the room was the song over and over. The same thirty seconds replayed until you got every single step perfect.
Neither of you talked unless it was necessary.
"Five, six, seven, eight."
"Again."
"You were half a count late."
"My bad."
"Let's go."
That was it. Just mirrors, sweat, music and counting.
The choreography itself wasn't difficult, it was just precise. Every step had to land at exactly the same moment. You were both main dancers for a reason.
After almost an hour, Riki suddenly stops moving.
"Nah..."
He exhales sharply, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. "It's hot as hell in here."
He walks toward the chair in the corner. His hoodie comes off in one smooth motion before he throws it over the backrest, leaving only the black tank top underneath. Silver chains rest against his collarbones, his hair already sticking slightly to his forehead from sweat.
He walks over to the air conditioning unit on the wall and presses the temperature down a few degrees.
"There." He sighed in satisfaction. "Way better."
Walking back toward the speaker, he presses play again and looks at you through the mirror.
"Ready?"
You nod and he counts. "Five... six... seven... eight."
You both move at the exact same time. Your bodies slip into the choreography automatically. Muscle memory, years of training.
You catch your own reflection, then his. Your eyes stay there longer than they should.
It feels strange. Four months without seeing each other, pure silence, convincing yourself everything between you had changed.
Yet somehow, the moment the music starts, your bodies still move together like they always had. Every turn and step matched. The realization made something tighten in your chest.
You miss a count, your eyes still on his reflection instead of your own.
"...Wait."
You stop dancing.
"Can we stop for a sec?"
Riki immediately reaches over and pauses the music.
"What happened?"
You rub the back of your neck.
"This part..." You look at your feet. "I can't get the footwork right."
He looked down for a second before nodding.
"Oh. It's..."
He steps into position and demonstrates it slowly.
"This foot first. And then your weight goes here."
He repeats it again.
"You keep putting your weight on the wrong leg."
You watch carefully. "Oh..."
"See?"
He does it one last time. "It's easier if you don't think about your upper body yet."
You copy him. "...Like this?"
"Almost."
He steps closer and points at your foot. “No, this one.”
You adjust it.
"Yeah." He smiled. "That's it."
“Okay.” You laughed quietly. “Thank you.”
He nods and walks back to his spot.
"Again?"
The music starts. This time you made it a little further. Then—
"Wait. Sorry." You frowned. "Again."
Riki didn't complain. "Okay."
You got through the first half, then stumbled.
"...Stop for a sec."
Click. The music stops.
"My bad."
Again, and again, and again. By the fifth restart, you let out a frustrated groan.
"Can we do it one more time?"
Riki clicks his tongue. "Y/N. You were fine."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I messed up."
"It wasn't noticeable."
"It was to me."
He sighed through his nose. "Just keep going."
"We're filming this."
"I know."
"So I want it right."
"It is right."
You roll your eyes before walking straight past him towards the speaker and stop the music.
Riki closes his eyes for a second, dragging a hand down his face before rubbing the back of his neck.
"...Seriously?"
"I wanna try again."
He looks at you for a long second before letting out another sigh.
"Y/N."
You don't look at him. He lets out a small sigh. "You're stressing yourself out too much."
Your hand stays on the speaker, waiting for him to continue.
"It's just a dance challenge."
The words hit a nerve instantly. You slowly turn around.
"…To you, maybe."
Riki frowns.
You laugh once. "To you, it's just a dance challenge."
"For me?" You gesture around the practice room. "This is my first appearance after disappearing for months. My first time people are gonna see me again."
You shake your head. "If I mess this up once, they'll tear me apart again. They'll say I lost my skills, and that I shouldn't have come back."
You look him straight in the eyes.
"So no, it’s not just a dance challenge. I have to do this perfectly."
Then you quietly add,
"And it doesn't exactly help that they paired me up with you."
His eyebrows pull together immediately.
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
You scoff. "Come on, seriously? You wanna act like nothing happened?"
His jaw tightens. "Oh, i’m not the one acting, y/n."
"No?"
"No." He takes a step closer. "You're the one acting. And a great fucking actress you are."
Your jaw drops and you scoff, ready to fire something back but he cuts you off before you can.
"I literally apologized the second you walked in, but you cut me off. I tried talking about it, you cut me off again."
You fold your arms. "I don't need your apology. It's not like you gave a shit before."
His head snaps up. "Don't say that."
"Why?"
"Because it's not true."
You scoff. "You don't know half the shit I've been through these past months."
"I know enough."
"No, you don't."
"I do." He runs an irritated hand through his hair. "I talked to the managers."
You let out a sarcastic laugh. "Sure."
"I did. They wouldn't let me contact you."
"Oh please. Don’t lie to me. You blocked me on everything!" The words echo through the room.
Riki exhales sharply.
"Come on y/n. I blocked you right after we broke up, i was angry. I know it was childish, but I was pissed."
You shake your head in disbelief. "And after that? You could've unblocked me? You could've texted, you could've asked if I was okay."
"I wasn't allowed."
"Bullshit."
His voice rises. "I argued with management! I told them you didn't deserve the hate, I told them you barely even fucking touched me! They told me to stay out of it because it'd make everything worse!"
You stare at him. You hesitate, then you look away again.
"Whatever, Ni-ki."
His expression changes immediately. "Don't."
You frown. "What?"
"Don't call me that."
His voice is lower now. "It's Riki to you."
You raise an eyebrow. "Is it?"
He says nothing. You give a bitter little smile. "We're coworkers now. You said it yourself."
"This is work. So professionally..." You shrug. "You're Ni-ki."
He clenches his jaw. "I hate it when you call me that."
You give him one last glance. "Let's just get this over with."
Five, six, seven, eight.
You start again. The choreography you've already repeated dozens of times, but everything is off.
Your heart isn't in it anymore. Your mind keeps replaying the argument. The counts blur together, you miss another step, ignore it, keep going.
Riki notices you're a fraction behind, but he doesn't say anything. He just adjusts without thinking, like he always used to.
You reach the chorus. Turn, step— A sharp pain suddenly shoots through your calf.
"Ah!"
You immediately stop moving, grabbing the back of your leg. You sink down onto the wooden floor with a groan.
"Shit..."
The music is off instantly, Riki is already halfway across the room.
"What happened?" He crouches down in front of you. "You okay?"
You squeeze your eyes shut, both hands gripping your calf.
"...Yeah." A pained exhale leaves you. "I'm fine."
Another cramp shoots through the muscle. "...Fuck."
He watches you rubbing desperately at the back of your leg. "I told you you're stressing yourself out too much. We should've taken a break."
You shake your head. "It's just..." You wince again. "...a cramp."
He nods toward your leg. "Can you stand?"
"I think so." You plant one foot on the floor, but the second you put weight on it—
"...Ow." You wince.
Riki immediately reaches toward you. He slips one arm around your back and another underneath your arm. "Lean on me."
You hesitate, then reluctantly let him help you up. The moment your foot touches the floor again, another sting shoots through your calf.
You hiss through your teeth. "I think... I think I strained something."
"Easy." His hand automatically settles against your waist to steady you. "Don't rush."
The two of you slowly make your way toward the corner of the practice room.
He helps you lower yourself onto the floor before sitting beside you with a quiet sigh. You keep kneading your calf with both hands in silence, hoping the muscle will finally relax.
Beside you, Riki twists open his water bottle and the plastic crackles. He takes a long drink before glancing sideways at you.
"...Want me to massage it?"
You don't even look up. "No. It’s just a cramp."
"I know."
"I'll be fine."
He shakes his head and chuckles quietly. "C’mon.. I'm not asking to kiss you or something."
The joke slips out suddenly.
Your hands stop moving and your eyes immediately lift to his. Neither of you says anything, you just look at each other.
You quickly clear your throat and look back at your leg.
"...Fine." A quiet sigh leaves you. "Go ahead."
He puts his water bottle down.
"Give me your leg."
You slide it a little closer. Carefully, he rolls your grey sweatpants up to just below your knee, exposing your calf.
His fingers wrap gently around the muscle. "Tell me if it hurts."
"It already hurts."
Then he starts slowly massaging the tight muscle between both his hands. His hands are warm and soft on your skin, and it feels stupidly familiar.
He continues massaging your calf in silence, the music paused, the only sounds coming from the air conditioner humming above you and Riki's hands slowly working the tension out of your calf.
The pain has already eased a little. You watch his hands for a moment before quietly speaking.
"...I'm sorry."
He looks up. "Hm?"
"For earlier."
You fiddle with the ring on your middle finger. "I kinda snapped at you."
A small, awkward laugh leaves you. "I... didn't know you actually tried talking to the managers."
Riki’s hands don't stop moving. He shakes his head. "It's okay."
He smiles faintly. "You couldn't have known."
He shrugs one shoulder. "I wasn't exactly able to tell you."
You let out a slow breath. "I still shouldn't have said all that."
He looks at you for a second before returning his attention to your calf.
"I said things too."
"Yeah, you did."
"...I’m sorry."
You smile despite yourself and the tension between you eases just a little.
Neither of you notices that his massage has slowly changed. He’s not massaging anymore, his fingertips drift lazily over your leg instead, tracing slow lines against your skin while the conversation continues. He's not even thinking about it, neither are you.
His eyes stay on your leg for a second before quietly saying,
"...I never wanted our relationship to end."
Your smile fades a little.
He lets out a breathy laugh. "You really broke my heart."
He says it almost jokingly, smiling as he looks up at you. You meet his eyes. You smile, but guilt still sneaks onto your face.
"I'm sorry… I think." You look down at your hands with a faint smile.
He watches you for a moment before giving a small shrug.
"Learned our lesson."
You nod slowly. You look at each other for a little, Riki is the first to break the silence.
He gives your leg two light pats.
"There. You good now?"
You gently flex your ankle. The pain is almost gone.
"...Mostly."
You lean back against the mirror with a sigh.
"I wanna sit for another few minutes, okay?"
He nods. "No problem."
Pushing himself up from the floor, he grabs his water bottle and takes another sip.
"I'll keep practicing."
Still smiling to himself, he walks back toward the center of the practice room. You stay seated on the floor when he walks away.
Your calf still aches a little, so you keep absent-mindedly rubbing circles into the muscle while scrolling through your phone with your other hand. Every now and then you take another bite of your protein bar.
The room fills with music again. Your eyes keep drifting away from your phone, to Riki. At first it's just quick glances, checking how far he is into the choreography.
Eventually you stop pretending he’s not all you want to look at. Your phone rests forgotten in your lap, you simply watch him. He hasn't changed, he's still ridiculously good.
Every movement is so clean it looks effortless. His shoulders roll smoothly, the muscles in his arms flex every time he throws them through the air. His footwork is still stupidly precise, and the little expressions he makes while dancing, his brows pulling together, the tiny smirk whenever he nails something, the way he'd mouth the lyrics without realizing it.
You recognize it all. You had just forgotten how much fun he was to watch.
Riki notices just in the corner of his eye. His heart immediately starts beating a little faster.
Without meaning to, He puts more energy into every detail. Because a part of him still wants to impress you, maybe then you’ll remember why you liked him.
When the song finishes, he lets out an exaggerated groan.
"Fuck..."
He bends over dramatically, hands on his knees, breathing way louder than necessary.
"This shit’s exhausting."
You don't even look up from your phone this time.
"Mhm."
He shoots you a look. He sighs like the world is ending before standing back up.
"I'm dying over here."
"You'll survive."
"I don't know..."
He says before grabbing the hem of his tank top.
"So hot."
He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of it, lifting the fabric high enough to reveal toned abs, the dark tattoo stretching along his side… and just above the waistband of his sweatpants, the tiny kiss tattoo, your lips, sitting on his V-line.
You see it. Riki glances down before looking back at you with the tiniest grin.
You grab your empty water bottle.
"You're embarrassing yourself." You say, then you throw the bottle at him.
He catches it against his chest with both hands.
"But you gotta admit…"
He tilts his head.
"…you missed seeing this a little"
You look at him with a stale face for a second before looking back at your phone. You’re not admitting that.
Riki shakes his head to himself, still smiling, before tossing your water bottle into the bin beside the mirror.
"Come on."
He walks over to you with that stupid smug grin that always means he's about to annoy you.
Stopping right in front of where you're sitting, he holds both hands out toward you.
"Ready?"
You glance up at him.
"Last run." He wiggles his fingers. "Let's go."
You stare at his hands for a second before waving them away.
"I can get up myself."
He clicks his tongue. He motions with his fingers again.
You look up at him with the most stubborn expression you can manage. He stares right back. You sigh loudly and place your hands in his.
The second your fingers wrap around his, he pulls. He pulls harder than neccesary which makes you lose your balance immediately. Stumbling forward, bumping straight into his chest. He catches you by your forearms to stop you from falling against completely.
His grin is impossible to ignore.
"My bad."
He doesn't sound sorry whatsoever. You narrow your eyes.
"I slightly underestimated my strength."
"Mhm."
You poke a finger against the middle of his chest. He looks down at your finger and then back at you.
"I know what you’re doing Riki, you’re not slick. And it’s time to stop."
You walk past him toward the center of the room. He follows, and the music starts. The choreography goes amazingly well now that you’ve taken a break, and the tension between you has eased up.
When music finally cuts off you both stay where you are for a few seconds, breathing hard, hands on your hips.
You wipe the sweat from your forehead before looking at him. "...We did it."
Riki lets out a breathy laugh. He lifts both hands and you slap both palms against his.
Instead of letting go, though, his fingers immediately slide between yours. He interlocks your fingers and gently pulls you a step closer.
You're close enough now that you can see the sweat clinging to the strands of hair on his forehead.
He smiles. "You did really good." He sounds genuine this time.
You can't help smiling back. "So did you."
His grin grows.
"So..." He tilts his head. "Can I get a kiss as a reward?"
You immediately giggle. "No."
He doesn't let go.
"Hm. How about..." He pretends to think. "...an 'I missed you' kiss?"
"No."
"'Welcome back' kiss?"
You shake your head, still smiling. "Nope."
"You sure?"
"Mhm."
"You don't even wanna think about it?"
"No. Ni-ki.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Don’t call me that.”
You gently press a hand against his chest and push him back to break the moment.
"Greedy."
"I had to try."
You shake your head with another laugh before turning away.
"I'm getting my bag."
He watches you walk toward the corner of the room.
He smiles to himself. He walks over to his own bag, stuffing his charger, water bottle and headphones inside before pulling his hoodie back over his head. You zip up your duffel bag at the same time.
The two of you walk toward the door together.
You grab the handle first and pull it open. Then... you stop. Riki almost walks into your back.
You glance into the hallway and hesitate. Without saying anything, you slowly pull the door shut again.
Riki raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"You should come out after me."
"...Why?"
"So people don't start talking."
He looks at you for a second before giving a tiny shrug.
"They're gonna know we did the collab anyway."
"I know."
"So?"
"I just..." You sigh. "I don't want people making up stuff again."
He studies your face, then quietly says, "...I don't really care."
"I do."
You point at him.
"At least put your hood up."
He lets out a small laugh. "Y/n.. It’ll be okay."
You slowly open the door again and you both step into the hallway.
For a few seconds you walk side by side in silence. Then you glance over and his hood is still down.
You let out an annoyed sigh. "Riki, just..."
You reach up and fingers catch the edge of his hood and gently pull it over his hair.
Riki looks down at you and a quiet chuckle escapes him. He leaves the hood on.
You reach the lobby and the evening sun shines through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. A few staff members walk past outside, and a security guard stands near the doors, barely paying attention.
You're only a few steps away from the exit when Riki suddenly catches your wrist.
"Y/n."
Before you can react, he gently tugs you sideways.
"What are you doing?"
He guides you around the corner beside the entrance, where one of the concrete pillars blocks you from most of the lobby.
"Riki," you whisper, laughing nervously. "What are you doing?"
He plants one hand against the wall beside your head, then he peeks around the corner toward the glass doors like he's checking something.
His lips slowly curl into a smile. You immediately recognize that smile.
"Riki we’re-"
He chuckles. "Kiss me."
You stare at him. "What?"
"Just one." He shrugs like he's asking for a sip of your drink. "One kiss."
You immediately start laughing, but panic creeps into your voice too.
"Are you serious? There’s windows everywhere."
"I know."
He reaches up and pulls his hood down himself, fixing his hair with one hand.
You stare at him, he just smiles.
"Come on."
"No."
"Y/n."
"Riki, seriously—"
"One."
"Riki…”
He tilts his head.
"Please."
You sigh, smile and stop protesting. He takes it as a yes.
He immediately cups your face with one hand. His thumb brushes your cheek once and then he leans in.
The kiss only lasts a few seconds. Quick enough that anyone looking away for a moment would miss it, but knowing your fans, they won’t miss something like this.
And it’s exactly what he wants.
He wants people to see. He wants someone across the street to recognize him, he wants the blurry slowed down videos. He wants the dating rumors, the reporters asking about you, wondering if you're together again.
He wants a chance to have you back.
@ idolsdaily
🚨 ENHYPEN's Ni-ki and REPLAY's Y/n caught kissing inside HYBE after her hiatus.
Just one week after REPLAY's Y/n returned from her four-month hiatus, fans claim they spotted Ni-ki (ENHYPEN) and Y/n sharing what looked like a kiss inside the HYBE building.
The sighting comes shortly after HYBE announced a dance collaboration between the two idols.
Neither HYBE, BELIFT LAB, nor REPLAY's management has commented.
HEESEUNGㅤwas set on doing a successful prank— going to your favourite cafe without you— not even asking if you’d like to come along.
“i’ll be back soon,” are the worst that fall off his lips ever so naturally, and he doesn’t even turn to look at you twice before reaching out for the door.
“oh...okay,”
and this is weird— it’s about your favourite cafe. the one you’d want to visit even in the dead of the night and right now. he expected you to follow along, be stubborn if he doesn’t agree.
“...what’s wrong?” he asks cautiously, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. and then he notices— the blanket, your tired eyes, a hot bag— and he breaks a little on the inside. “oh are you...”
the next second, he’s pulling you in his arms, hand slipping under your top just enough to caress your belly with gentle care.
“you’re not going?” you ask, and he tightens his arms around you at the thought of leaving.
he shakes his head, planting a chaste kiss on your forehead. “it was a silly prank, baby, i would have never done it if i knew you weren’t feeling well,”
JONGSEONGㅤis too natural at this, it even scares him.
“i’m going out for a while. don’t wait up for me,” and he’s out of the door the next second— a pause, brows furrowed.
he sneaks back inside, expecting some sort of reaction, clinginess, questions, but all he heard was silence and it scared him more.
you curl up on the couch and he is already kneeling in front of the couch, drawing soft circles on your cheek. “hey...what happened?”
“i just don’t feel well,” you mumble, his chest tightens at your quiet, weak words. “cramps are worse this time,”
and boy, he feels like the worst boyfriend ever to have missed your dates. he is supposed to remember them, he always did.
“sit up for a second,” he adjusts the pillows for you, tucking you nice under the blanket.
you blink, and he is already ready with a hot bag, snacks, a nice honey lemon tea, playing one of your favourite shows on the television.
you shift closer to him on the bed and he lets himself melt against you, making a mental note to never do a prank again. “sorry, i shouldn’t have left like that,”
JAEYUNㅤhears your soft footsteps behind him and he immediately put on a serious face, not wanting to laugh while he was supposed to be cold.
“not know, i’m busy,” he cringes at how unnatural he sounds. he can’t even lie properly, you must have caught on already, until his ears register the silence.
he walks out of his study, slow and cautious, making way to the bedroom. usually, you’d sneak up to him and ask what he’s doing. no, you would have sat next to him while he worked.
and then he spots you on the bed, curled up against a pillow— his heart drops. “baby?”
he knows something is wrong, he gets the inkling of what it could be, and you basically confirm it when you look at him with those tired eyes. “i feel terrible,”
he is already throwing the pillow away. he feels terrible that you had to cuddle a pillow because of his stupid prank. “why didn’t you say anything?”
“you left too quickly,”
“does it hurt a lot?” he lets you bury yourself in his chest, one hand rubbing your lower back gently. “tell me if you need something, yeah? i’m here for you,”
SUNGHOONㅤwalks of your shared bedroom, making a beeline to the exit door. he knew not to look at you, or he would melt at your pretty face and drop the prank.
“hoon, can you—”
“uh...i have to go out for a bit. i’ll talk to you later,” and he doesn’t even let you finish before leaving.
a minute passes, then another. he stands outside the door, hoping you would react. yeah, this isn’t you— you would have jumped him for cutting you off like that.
quietly, he steps inside to the sight of you in the kitchen, making tea, leaning against the counter with a wince and his heart breaks with realisation.
“oh, sweetheart,” he takes the tea bag from you almost immediately. “leave that to me,”
he leads you to the couch, making sure you’re lying down comfortably. “you should’ve told me you’re on your period,”
“you cut me off,” and guilt fills in his chest when you say those four words laced with helplessness.
“sorry,” he whispers, making sure you’re all nice and snug next to him. “i’ll never do that again,”
SUNOOㅤwalks out on you as soon as you emerge from the bathroom, his words short and dismissive. “i have to go somewhere, see you later,”
“you’re leaving?” he jumps internally at your question— this is exactly what he was hoping for, a reaction.
“yeah, why?”
“i got my period and i don’t feel well...” and he visibly falters at your words, feeling like an absolute prick. “i won’t stop you if it’s something important,”
he holds your hands immediately, caressing them with his thumb. how could you even think anything was more important than your wellbeing?
“no, i was joking. i didn’t mean to leave,” you look at him in confusion and he leads you to the bed. “forget it, come here,”
he makes sure you’re comfortable, checking your face for any discomfort. you look so exhausted, he just wants to wrap you in his arms and kiss you all over. “does it hurt a lot? should i get some painkillers?”
he stays glued next to you for the whole day, at your beck and call. and the prank? yeah...no more pranks from him now.
JUNGWONㅤpretend to talk on the phone, making it seem like he needs to go somewhere for whatever reason.
he already feels weird when you don’t say anything— not asking about the call, or why he was getting ready.
he leaves, waits for three seconds then comes back fast, already concerned about your state. “are you okay?”
“got my period today,” he aches a little at your small, quiet voice, missing your usual happy and bright self. he cannot believe he didn’t even check on you and pulled something like this.
sitting next to you, he kisses your fingers, the back of your palm, then wrist. “sorry, i should have checked first,”
“it’s okay—”
firm yet soft, he is quick to cut you off. “it’s not when you’re not well,”
he pulls you into a warm embrace, rubbing your back, peppering kisses on your forehead and temple. “you’re not busy anymore...?”
“it was a prank...” he is guilty, even a bit embarrassed because you are definitely going to tease him about his failed prank. none of it matters as long as you’re okay, though. “even if it was not, i would drop everything to take care of you,”
NI-KIㅤwas so sure he will get you this time— you pull pranks on him all the time, it’s only valid he gets a payback.
“see you later,” and he’s out of the bedroom, smiling to himself as he expects you to come running to him soon.
but his steps slow down when there’s nothing, no reaction, no ‘where are you going baby?’, no goodbye pecks that have become a routine even when he leaves for five minutes.
he gets back in, frowning at the way you hid yourself under the duvet, as if wanting to sink in the mattress. “hey— what happened?”
you don’t say a word but he’s quick to catch on— tired eyes and low energy, there can only be one reason. “that time of the month?”
“you were going somewhere...?” you ask quietly.
“not anymore. come here,” and he slides under the covers next to you, pulling you on top of him. “do you need anything? chocolates? sweets? tea?”
“...just stay,”
“okay,” you feel him plant gentle kisses on your head, holding you just a little closer. “i’ll never joke like that again, promise,”
Jungwon did not say that ot7 are " fake fans " btw the thing he said is to STOP THE FIGHTING BETWEEN FANS and who starts the fights first ? ofc. ot6. ot7 are always alone but yall just come and fight with us so like just stfu and let ot7 be ot7 like everyone has his own opinion and jungwon would never hate ot7 or heesung btw ok ? so like syabu and leave us alone and like we wont just forget 6 years compared to 4 months and go cry about it
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