Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jake presses the back of his hand flush against the wood of the door, just below the wreath dusted with snow, the chilled skin of his hand lightly scraping against some chipped paint. He pauses for a moment, keeping it pressed there until he feels the cold start to seep deeper into his skin, before making his final decision and pulling it away – just long enough to then rap his knuckles against it.

There’s no going back now, but he’s fairly certain he wouldn’t even if he could. He's got to see where this goes. The decision to knock, to see where it goes, was one that Jake has agonized over for days now, one he’s already made something resembling peace with.

The days leading up to that peace, though, contained only turmoil, only moral dilemmas that he lost sleep over. And before that, truthfully, Jake can’t remember the last time he’d even thought about Riki. Months, probably.

After their first encounter all the way back in February – the one Jake had thought would end in his arrest, but instead ended in him giving his number to a nineteen year old with a promise to consider going on a date with him once he turns twenty – they’d only exchanged texts a couple of times, and none of them were particularly noteworthy. Eventually, Jake stopped going out of his way to reply at all. They lost touch, and he thought that would be the end of it.

And then, five days ago, he opened his locker in the back room of the cafe he’d just worked a full shift at, and there was a text waiting for him on his nearly-dead phone. The contact name read Maybe: Riki, because Jake never saved his number.

hey. it’s my birthday today. i’m twenty

Jake, for a moment, had no idea what he was trying to say. But he was just about to open the message and type out a half-hearted happy birthday wish to someone he barely knows, and then realization – and the embarrassment inherent to it – hit him like a train, and he only narrowly avoided shattering his phone on the tile floor.

Jake left the message unread for five days, and during those five days, he’s pretty sure he hit all five stages of grief.

Denial came first. Jake was just simply not interested. He’d moved on from everything involving Heeseung, and that included his weird son and his weird proposition to take Jake on a date.

And then came anger, because Riki's message opened the mental can of worms that was Heeseung, and it had briefly taken him right back to that moment, when he’d received the relationship-ending text he’d somehow convinced himself would never come. He spent a lot of time working through it, and he wasn’t angry at himself anymore, but he was still pretty pissed at Heeseung when he thought about it. And now, thanks to Riki, he was thinking about it again.

Bargaining came in an unexpected way, because Jake made the mistake of telling Sunghoon about the text he’d received. Sunghoon already knew about his strange early morning spent with Riki, and Jake had expected him to tell him not to follow through on his vague promise of a next time. Sunghoon had sagely declared that he thought it could be good for Jake, and he’s sort of like a higher power in his life, one that Jake had decided he would listen to from now on. That doesn’t mean he didn’t try practically begging Sunghoon to tell him not to text him back, but Sunghoon wouldn’t budge, and Jake continued to run himself in circles until he’d tired himself out to the point of exhaustion.

Depression took that form – exhaustion, the specific kind that comes with knowing you’ve lost an argument but still clinging to your last little sliver of falsified logic. This argument was one Jake was having with himself, and he was kicking his own ass.

Riki, in his memory, was sweet. Considerate. And he actually liked Jake, actually seemingly held interest in getting to know him, which was more than could be said about his past paramours. Jake hasn’t been on a date in ages, like actually eons, but he doesn’t hate the idea of going on one with someone he suspects won’t thoughtlessly discard him at the end of it.

Acceptance. It comes the next morning, after he sleeps on it one last time, and it’s powerful enough to have him finally texting Riki back before he even gets out of bed. Maybe he feels bad about leaving it unread and unanswered for so long. Or maybe he just can’t deny that he’s curious, just like he was back then, just like he’ll continue to be if he doesn’t see where this leads.

Riki wasn't phased by the late response to his text, asking if he was free tonight, sent after Jake finally saved his number. His response was as casual as his first message had been, and it only took a few texts exchanged to come up with a vague plan.

Which brings Jake here, knocking on his ex-boyfriend’s door to pick up his son, with Sunghoon’s car parked on the road behind him. He’s not the same person he was ten months ago, but he suddenly feels like it again. Maybe it’s just the surface level similarities giving him the feeling of deja vu, because the last time he’d stood here, he’d been banging his fist against the door with intent of confronting Heeseung.

Now, he’s knocking politely, but he knows for sure that it’ll be Heeseung answering this time.

you should pick me up, Riki had said in his last text. it’d be fun to see my dad’s reaction

And Jake has long moved on from the idea of getting any sort of revenge on Heeseung, but Riki’s right – although Jake still suspects his request for him to pick him up had more to do with his lack of vehicle than any fun to be had in spooking his dad. And fun really is the right word for it, despite the pit in his stomach that grows like a black hole as the doorknob turns and the door swings open.

For a moment, Heeseung just stares at him. And then his features twist into something between recognition and confusion, and he says, “Jake?”

“Hey,” Jake says, hoping his voice isn’t shaking.

“I don’t –” Heeseung starts, then glances around, like he’s worried he’s missing something. “Uh, can I help you?”

“Yeah,” Jake says. “If you could tell Riki I'm here, that'd be great.”

Heeseung pauses, once again staring at him for several long seconds. “Riki?”

“Riki,” Jake confirms.

“How do you…?”

“Hey, Jake,” Riki’s voice echoes from behind Heeseung, whom Jake tears his eyes away from – a feat that is surprisingly easy, something he wouldn’t have been able to say ten months ago – to look at, watching as Heeseung does too, gaze flitting between them with increasing confusion and mild horror in it. “Don’t wait up,” he adds, passing his dad and lightly shoulder checking him on his way by.

Jake, for all his mental preparation for this moment, is completely and totally stunned, frozen on his ex’s front porch as his son steps out to take him on a date. He hasn’t seen Riki since February, and it feels like a whole lifetime has passed since then. Three whole seasons have come and gone. Jake graduated, watched a concerning number of TV shows from start to finish, got a job and then another job to make ends meet, started seeing a therapist, got over the man he thought he’d spend his whole life pining after, and now, here he stands.

He couldn’t be further removed from that tragic clown attempting to break down the door of this very house. But Riki looks the same, standing in the doorway with the same long, messy hair, with black smudged around his eyes in a purposeful way, still boyish, still young. Jake doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about that. Riki is twenty, but five days ago, he was nineteen. Jake is twenty-three, but he feels like he’s aged a decade in the last ten months, and he thinks that matters.

This was a mistake. He can’t believe he didn’t realize it before – but then again, it’s kind of routine for him, at this point, to not realize he’s making a mistake until he’s already knocked on Heeseung’s door.

And, speaking of. Heeseung is still staring at him, jaw dropped, brows furrowed, looking like he’s trying to solve all the issues of the universe and not just piece together how his inappropriately young ex fling knows his inappropriately young son.

“Ready to go?” Riki asks, surely noticing the way Jake has gone still, the way his feet have seemingly cemented in place.

“Uh,” Jake starts, glancing at Heeseung one last – hopefully last – time before letting his eyes fall on Riki again. He still looks nineteen, at least physically. But then, with a slight delay, he notices something else.

Riki is wearing a suit jacket. It’s black, and a little short for him in the arms, which makes it clear that it’s his and he’s already outgrown it, maybe because it was bought for his senior prom, or something along those lines. He’s paired it with a plain black t-shirt and dark grey jeans, but there are no rips in them, not like all the pants Jake had seen in the photos posted on Instagram.

(Not that he’s spent a significant amount of time looking at Riki’s Instagram, of course. He definitely didn’t spend a full twenty-five minutes scrolling to the very bottom of it earlier that day, all the way back to when Riki was fifteen and taking heavily filtered photos of his skateboard in various locations and posting them with the caption #skater #cool #edgy. In the same year that he was doing that, Jake was starting his first year of university. He can’t believe he still found the strength to leave the house and attempt this date after that, but he did. Maybe there’s something a little wrong with him.)

Still, though. He might be wearing it casually, but Riki is still wearing a suit. Part of one, at least. It doesn’t matter, not really, but it feels like it does.

It feels like Riki is putting effort into this, something Jake hadn’t even considered doing when he’d gotten dressed. He was just here for a casual hang out with his ex’s son, and it shows in his outfit, the worn state of his blue jeans, the holes in the sleeves of his crewneck sweater formed by years of anxiously chewing on the fabric while he was studying. It’s not his most proud habit, but then again, he doesn’t have many habits he is proud of.

He was proud of himself for staying away from Heeseung. He was proud of himself for picking himself up after the worst semester of his life, for graduating and integrating into society with only a few more bumps along the road.

And he’s not proud of what he does next. Not at all.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, and turns on his heel, narrowly avoiding tripping down the stairs before high-tailing it in the direction of Sunghoon’s car, parked on the side of the road, perfect for a quick escape. He must have known he would need it when he chose not to pull into the driveway, behind Heeseung’s stupid Prius and Riki’s now-familiar skateboard propped up against the garage door.

He must have lost his mind, coming here, agreeing to this date, giving Riki his number in the first place. He knows he's lost it, because when he gets in the car and slams the door shut, loudly enough to surely attract the attention of a few nosy neighbours, he starts it, but he doesn’t move. He just sits there, doors locked like he’s anticipating an attack, hands gripping the wheel at a perfect ten and two, his head dropping to press the cool leather against his forehead until he feels an ache bloom there. He can imagine Heeseung and Riki, standing on the porch together, looking nothing alike but still reminding Jake eerily of one another, watching him have an existential breakdown.

His life is one big joke, really. He’s never stopped being that tragic clown, that hot mess, that weeping, hypothermic loser who never learns his lesson, knocking at the door of someone who never cared about him.

And then, before he can even properly begin what likely would have been a days-long spiral, there’s a knock at the window, polite and gentle. Jake is afraid to lift his head and find out which one had bothered to chase after him – but then again, he knows, because unless Heeseung is about to hand him a restraining order, he’d have no interest in chasing Jake anywhere.

He knows it’s going to be Riki. But still, he manages to be startled, surprised, when he turns his head and sees his face at his window, his eyebrows raised in concern, his mouth pressed into a line that Jake assumes is an attempt to hide said concern.

He reaches over and presses the button to roll down the window, just enough to allow Riki to be heard, and leaves his finger on the button to raise it. He owes him the chance to make his case, at least, but he also reserves the right to flee if he declares it necessary.

“If I’m remembering right,” Riki starts, his voice even and cool, in a way Jake can tell is purely manufactured, purposeful, crafted to make a point, “I specifically told you to get over your issues by December.”

Jake, more out of shock than anything, barks out a loud laugh, lifting his head from the steering wheel to look at him properly. For a long moment, several long moments actually, he just stares at him, considers him, unable to stop himself from smiling wide as more laughter bubbles out of him without his consent. Riki smiles too, just a half-lift of his mouth, but Jake thinks he sees his eyes kind of light up, and despite his urge to flee still very much being present, he knows what he’s going to do next.

He presses the button, raising the window until it shuts and Riki’s expression falls ever so slightly, and then he slides his finger over to the unlock button, and presses it twice, and Riki lights up again. He hurries over to the passenger’s side like he’s worried Jake might lock it again before he gets there, and – he’s not wrong to worry, truthfully. Jake isn’t entirely sure that he won’t.

Before he can take back his decision, though, Riki is already there, flinging the door open and ungracefully throwing himself into the passenger’s seat, shutting it behind him and telling Jake to drive, go, go, like they're characters in an action movie, making their great escape together. Jake just laughs again, still unable to stop himself, riding a high he hadn’t even felt creeping up on him until the moment Riki got in the car, and drives.

“You look nice,” Riki says, less than a minute into the drive that Jake is treating like a car chase, taking sharp turns and abrupt stops at lights that haven’t turned green for him yet. Riki is gripping the safety handle above his door like a lifeline, but he’s still keeping his expression carefully calm.

“Ha,” Jake manages. “I thought you might not recognize me if I looked like less of a hot mess this time.”

“You always look nice,” Riki corrects, and it’s an obvious lie, because he’s only actually seen Jake twice now, and he looked a mess both times, but – it’s a lie he appreciates, at least.

“Well,” Jake starts, pausing, because his instinct is to shut him down again, but that doesn’t feel fair. If he’s committed to doing this, crazy as it may be, then he’s going to do it. Full send. No take-backs, not yet, at least. He still reserves the right to change his mind. “Thank you. You do, too.”

A beat of silence passes, and Jake dares a glance over at Riki, fearing what expression he may find on his face. It’s neutral. It gives nothing away. This is the same guy that, ten months ago, openly and unashamedly begged for Jake’s number, and now here he is, playing it cool on their first date. Maybe he has changed more than Jake thought he had.

Somehow, though, he’s not sure if that’s a good thing, either.

The Riki he met had been slightly off-putting, yes, but he’d also been kind of endearing. Jake isn’t used to being pursued. He’s used to pursuing, and then crumbling under the weight of his own desire, and ultimately falling flat on his face. But Riki had liked him, instantly and openly, and Jake isn’t ashamed to admit that a lot of the reason he came here was to remember how nice it was to be liked, to be wanted.

But now Riki is playing it cool. It’s obvious, based on the way he’s holding himself, the way he’s being careful not to look at Jake too often, the way he wore what are probably his neatest, nicest clothes. It becomes even more obvious after Jake asks, “So, where are we going?”

Riki recites an address that Jake vaguely recognizes. He’s not sure why he recognizes it, until he sheepishly tacks on the name of the restaurant a moment later.

“No,” Jake says automatically. “Sorry, no. We can’t go there.”

“You don’t need an ID to get in or anything,” Riki says. “I checked.”

“It’s not that,” he sighs, unable to even acknowledge the fact that Riki would be concerned about not being able to get into a hybrid bar and restaurant, because he’s barely twenty. “Your, uh. Your dad brought me there once. A few other guys I’ve dated have, too.”

“Ah,” Riki says after a moment, both of them pointedly keeping their gazes fixed forward as awkwardness tinges the air filling the car. “I guess that explains why it came up when I searched mature date spots for grown ups.”

Jake laughs despite himself, and the sound comes out a little more fond than he would have liked it to. “You don’t have to, like, prove yourself to me. Or try to impress me, or whatever.”

“I was kidding,” Riki clarifies. “I just looked up normal date spots for normal people.”

“I know,” Jake assures him. “But if I wanted to go on a normal date, then I wouldn’t have said yes to going on a date with you.”

“You would have just hung out outside a retirement home and waited for someone to hit on you instead, right?”

“Exactly,” Jake says with a snort. “But I’m here, so.”

“And you’re calling me abnormal,” Riki presses, as if he’d just realized the implication of Jake’s words.

“I’m calling you different,” he corrects. “And it’s a good thing. I think I kind of need something different, for once.”

“Okay,” Riki agrees after a moment. “I can work with different.”

“Good,” Jake says, unable to fight the small smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “So, then – where are we going?”

As it turns out, the answer Riki has for him is the absolute last place Jake expected. It’s so unexpected, in fact, that it has him stuttering out, “I – I was just joking, though, if you wanted to go to that – that restaurant –” until Riki puts him out of his misery and interrupts him.

“Trust me,” Riki assures him. “It’ll be fun.”

The sun is almost fully down, even though it’s still early in the evening, and Jake can’t help but let his mind run wild with possibility as they approach the house they’d just fled. Is Riki’s idea of fun egging his dad’s house now that they’re cloaked by darkness, just like Jake had considered doing back on that fateful February night? Because he’s really trying not to be that person anymore. And he doesn’t particularly feel like risking getting arrested again.

But then, just as Jake pulls over and braces himself for whatever it is Riki is planning on doing, he clambors out of the passenger’s seat, and darts towards Heeseung’s car, the same stupid Prius that Jake had been splayed out across the backseat of countless times, and then – he walks right by it. He picks up his skateboard from where it rests against the door of the garage, and then hesitates for a moment before grabbing the discarded helmet in the grass beside it.

God. Jake shouldn’t have protested to the restaurant.

He should probably leave. It’d be incredibly rude, especially now, now that he’s all but explicitly told Riki that he has a chance if he plays his cards right, but he kind of wants to slam on the gas and never return.

He doesn’t, though. He just lets out a groan of anguish and tilts his head back until it rests on the seat behind him, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to piece together exactly how he’d gotten to this point.

And, okay. Listen. Jake knows that, in the grand scheme of things, the difference in age between him and Riki is not that much. Only three years. Jake's brain isn't even fully developed yet, or whatever they say. He's still, decidedly, very young.

But Jake has only ever dated older guys. And he shouldn't have been, a lot of the time, especially when he was sixteen chasing twenty-somethings that never put up much of a resistance to begin with, but he was. And he's a little worried about taking advantage of Riki, even though they're both adults, but more than that – he's worried about leading him on.

Because what if there really is something broken inside of Jake? What if he can't bring himself to be interested in something different, in skateboarding dates instead of dinners at stuffy restaurants, in being with someone who doesn't speak down to him, who actually could be interested in him beyond whether or not he’ll go home with them at the end of the night?

And, sure. Jake doesn't like being spoken down to by the men he dates, doesn’t enjoy being condescended to all night as he listens to them rattle on about whatever topic they thought they could impress him with their knowledge of, treated like nothing more than arm candy. But it's all he knows.

He doesn't want to hurt Riki, just because he's too broken to enjoy what would probably be a pleasant, fun date to anyone with a grip on reality.

“Can I give you some advice?” Riki asks, and Jake startles, apparently so lost in his own thoughts that he'd missed the sound of the door opening.

“Sure,” Jake says easily. He'll take whatever he can get, at this point.

“Don't think about this too much,” he instructs simply. “Just take the night off from thinking.”

“Easier said than done,” Jake points out.

Riki smiles a bit, taking his seat again and dropping his worn skateboard at his feet. “If it helps, this is sorta weird for me, too.”

It shouldn't help, not really, because that's the last thing he wants Riki to be feeling right now. But – the feeling seems kind of inevitable, all things considered, so. At least they aren't feeling it alone.

Jake lets out a shaky exhale, and it turns into a laugh at the end, strained and quiet. “What, is this your first time going on a date with one of your dad’s exes?”

Riki laughs too. Jake finds that he likes the sound of it, the unexpected slight squeakiness compared to his deep voice. “Yeah, but – it’s also kind of my first date, period.”

Jake blinks. “I can’t do this,” he says automatically.

“Hey,” Riki leans forward, trying to catch Jake’s eye as he keeps his gaze fixed on the steering wheel in front of him. “I told you not to think too much.”

“I’m not thinking,” Jake defends. “That’s the problem.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Riki insists.

“How have you not had your first date yet?” Jake asks, turning to face him, not even considering how rude he sounds until the words are already out, but Riki barely even reacts. “I mean, you’re – you’re like, cool, or whatever.”

“Thanks,” Riki says, amused. “But I’m also a basement dweller who doesn’t go to university or parties or anything social. I barely even leave the house, except to do this,” he taps his skateboard with his black converse. “It’s not exactly easy to meet people that way.”

“There’s dating apps,” Jake points out. “Or like, I don’t know. The skatepark.”

“Good idea,” Riki hums, and Jake gets the sudden feeling that he’s lost his grip on the control of this situation he thought he had. “Let’s go there.”

“What?”

“Do you know how to skate?” Riki asks.

“Yeah, but I haven’t gone since I was a kid.”

“Then we’re going to skate,” he says simply. “You wanted something different, right?”

And, really. Jake should be a little ashamed that he’s so easily convinced, that he keeps flip-flopping on his decision to go through with this or back out of it, and he is ashamed, but not enough to stop him from putting the car back in drive.

Riki directs him to the nearest skatepark, only a few streets over from his house, and they fall into another brief, albeit more comfortable silence.

“So, you’ve really never been on a date before?” Jake asks eventually.

“Are you going to keep rubbing it in my face?”

“I’m just curious,” he defends. “I’m trying to get to know you. That’s what you do on a date.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Riki shrugs, but he doesn’t actually seem offended. “I had kind of a thing for one of my friends in high school, and we hung out sometimes, but – his boyfriend was always there, too. So I don’t think that counts.”

Jake hums. “You like them taken, then.”

“Or freshly broken up with by my father, apparently.”

He snorts, shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and disapproval.

“What about you?” Riki asks after a moment, wordlessly pointing out the parking lot of the skatepark so Jake knows where to turn. “Do you really always go for older guys?”

“Always,” Jake answers, pulling into one of the many empty parking spots. It looks like, for the most part, they’ll be alone as Jake embarrasses himself trying to relearn a skill he had as a kid, and unlearn the urge to sabotage everything that could actually be good for him. He’s not sure if that’s a relief or not. “I guess I thought I was too mature for guys my own age. I was wrong, but – that’s what I thought. Turns out older guys are just as immature, and I’m pretty immature, too.”

“Classic,” Riki says wisely, earning another laugh out of Jake as he turns the car off and they both get out. “You know, not to brag, but I’ve been called immature once or twice.” His tone is exaggeratedly flirtatious, smooth and, unless Jake is imagining things, slightly deeper than usual.

“Wow,” Jake says dryly. “You sure know how to get me interested.”

“Just you wait,” Riki jokingly assures him, grabbing his skateboard and helmet from the car before walking over to Jake’s side. He holds out his arm in offering, and Jake doesn't even have to force his pleased smile as he takes it, linking them together and letting Riki lead the way. The sleeves of his suit jacket are folded and pushed up to his elbows now, and as they approach the actual skatepark, he uses his free hand to gently shove the helmet he’d brought onto Jake’s head.

“Hey,” Jake huffs, reaching up to adjust it and get his hair out of where it’d been pushed into his eyes. “Now I don’t look like a cool kid.”

“Safety is cool,” Riki counters. “Not cracking your head open on our first date is even cooler.”

Jake is, admittedly, a bit shocked at how easy it is for Riki to make him laugh. He’s – well, he’s kind of charming, and endearingly sincere in a way Jake wouldn’t expect from someone his own age, let alone someone younger. Riki didn’t strike him as a helmet at the skatepark kind of guy, but he is. He didn’t strike him as someone who would follow through on his interest, his initial pursuit of Jake, but clearly, he is.

“So, what else, then?” Riki asks, once they’ve reached the edge of the upper level, right before it dips into a sloping curve, perfect for gaining momentum. Jake’s not sure he’s ready for momentum yet, but he doesn’t step away from the edge.

“Hm?” He looks at Riki, a little too out of it to trace the change in the trajectory of the conversation properly.

“What else do you look for in a date? Other than, like, a fake hip and a cane.”

“You know, you’re making fun of your own dad when you make fun of my taste in guys,” Jake reminds him, just to attempt to get a dig in of his own.

“You’re right,” Riki says solemnly. “In that case, I’ll have to do it even more.”

Jake laughs, and the sound echoes around the empty park in front of them.

“I’m not making fun of you, by the way,” Riki clarifies after a moment. “I just think you’re interesting.”

Jake, despite his better judgement, feels his cheeks flush ever so slightly with warmth, contrasting the cool air of the season and the dry nature of Riki’s compliment – if it could even be called that. In a way, it makes Jake feel like he’s here for Riki to study, to understand the inner workings of the mind of the guy that tried to break his door down in the middle of the night, and in doing that, understand his father a little better. But he doesn’t really think Riki meant it that way, although he can’t quite place why he's come to that conclusion.

“Okay,” Jake says after a moment. “Well, then, to answer your question – I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” Jake confirms. “I think I’ve just been… going out with anyone that will have me for a long time.”

“Hm,” Riki hums. “Is that why you’re here? Because I asked you?”

Jake nods. “I guess so. But – I don’t think it’s a bad thing, this time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” he starts, pausing for a long moment to scan Riki’s features, the sloppily smudged liner around his eyes, his serious expression that Jake also finds endearing, the way he feels simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar to him, likely for reasons he doesn’t particularly want to dwell on, “I think you’re interesting, too. I don’t usually find the guys I go out with interesting.”

“I bet,” Riki snorts, visibly trying to fight the grin overtaking his serious expression. “They probably only wanted to talk about like, taxes. Or your overdue library books.”

“Right,” Jake agrees with a clear layer of sarcasm over the word. “And all you want to talk about is the old men I’ve dated.”

“That’s not all,” Riki protests. “This is just the icebreaker.”

“Well, hurry up and break the ice, then,” Jake huffs.

Riki gives in to the pleased grin he’d been fighting, and swings his skateboard out in front of him, planting one foot firmly near the top and using it to push himself over the edge, shooting forward with practiced ease.

“What happened to not cracking your head open on our first date?” Jake calls out, gesturing to the helmet he abandoned on his head.

“I’m built different,” Riki declares, and as if to prove it, he kicks the skateboard into the air for a brief second, doing a trick that is surely meant to impress Jake.

Really, it mostly just feels like a child demanding he watch as he shows him some fine motor skill he’d just picked up. It’s not really working in Riki’s favour, in proving that he should be taken seriously as a potential amorous option, but Jake’s too committed to seeing this through now, so. It’s fine. He just laughs, and doesn’t make it clear whether he’s laughing with him or at him, because he’s still not entirely sure himself.

“Hey,” Riki says, holding his arms out in a shrugging motion as he skates by, “You said you wanted immature.”

Jake briefly wonders if Riki is reading his mind, and then shakes the thought out of his head just in case, and says, “Did I say that? I don’t think I did.”

“Something different, then,” he corrects.

“This is definitely that,” Jake agrees. “Am I going to get a turn, or are you just going to keep showing off?”

Riki skates back over to the edge, putting one foot on the ground to stop himself right in front of Jake, holding out a hand in offering before stepping off the board completely. Jake, to his credit, only hesitates for a moment.

It takes some effort, getting Jake to the point of being able to stay upright, and past the point of folding in on himself every time Riki uses his grip on him to try and pull him forward. It’s embarrassing how tightly he clings to Riki’s hand, and it’s something entirely else how small he feels standing in front of him. Jake may be older, but Riki towers over him, and it almost makes them feel a little more equal – although, Jake could just be humouring himself.

“I thought you said you know how to skate,” Riki says, after the third time Jake has nearly fallen face first off the front of the board.

“I knew how to skate,” Jake clarifies. “But I usually preferred getting around on my bike. I was never that good on a board to begin with. And – there wasn’t usually ice on the ground when I would do it.”

“We’re nowhere near the ice,” Riki says, gesturing vaguely at the patch of slick ground no more than an arm’s length away from them. “But that’s why you get the helmet.”

“You’re funny,” Jake says.

“Glad you think so,” Riki quips. “Now, come on. Put some effort in. We’re gonna have you ready to go pro by the end of the night.”

Jake resigns himself to letting Riki yank him around all the tamest, least intimidating areas of the skate park, attempting to keep himself steady even as he feels his core weakening with every passing moment of effort. “Can I ask you something?” He says after a while, because he’s not going to miss his chance with Riki’s seemingly perpetually-present guard finally down.

“As long as it’s for advice on how to do a kickflip properly,” Riki answers.

“It’s not,” Jake warns, and pauses for a moment, giving Riki the chance to shut him down. He never does. “You said Heeseung didn’t know you existed until a couple of years ago, right?”

Riki nods, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground beneath them, like he’s monitoring for any obstacles that could send Jake falling forward again.

“Where were you before that?”

“Here,” Riki says automatically. “Not here here, but – here. Just down the street, actually. Not for my whole life, or anything, but a lot of it.”

“Seriously?” Jake asks, awed. “And he – he really never knew?”

Riki shrugs. “Maybe he knew. Either way, he didn’t care. Not until he had no other choice.”

“Did you know?”

Riki shakes his head. “Mom never told me. She… she didn’t do everything right, all the time. But she did her best.”

“I mean, who does do everything right all the time?” Jake offers sympathetically.

He nods, pressing his lips into a small, almost pouty smile. Jake feels a strange urge to coo at him.

“Sorry,” Jake sighs after a moment. “I think I’ve gotten all the Heeseung talk out of my system, now.”

Another shrug. “It’s all good,” he assures him. “I’ll talk about whatever, if it’s with you.”

Jake, for a moment, can only stare at him, the urge to coo and pinch his cheek replaced with a mixture of emotions tightening his chest, none of which he knows how to properly identify. This is confusing. Jake is used to his relationships being cut and dry, only consisting of one or two simple, easy emotions – usually desire, or more accurately, the need to be desired. It’s not usually like this. This is something entirely new.

And it’s kind of debilitating, in both an emotional and a painfully literal sense – because Jake feels the board slide out from under him as they hit that foreshadowed patch of ice, and he flails in panic, only narrowly avoiding landing on the ground in a way that definitely would have twisted his ankle thanks to Riki’s quick reflexes, thanks to his arms wrapping around Jake’s waist and reducing his impact with the ground to a simple and careful and small drop.

“Sorry,” Riki breathes after a moment. “I was – distracted.”

“It’s okay,” Jake assures him. “I was distracting you, so.”

“You were,” Riki says, taking on that same teasing tone again. “You’re good at that.”

Riki’s still got his arms around him. He’s still holding him, and Jake isn’t stepping away. They’re practically chest to chest, Jake’s hands gripping Riki’s jacket for stability he doesn’t really need, not anymore. But still, he doesn’t let go.

“I don't…” Jake starts, trailing off in order to swallow back the anxious lump forming in his throat. “I don't think I know what I'm doing here. But – I think I'm glad I came.”

After a moment, a long moment spent staring at Jake like he can't quite believe he's real, Riki says, in a slightly shaky voice he's trying hard to disguise, “Cool. You hungry?”

Jake laughs, surprised and admittedly delighted by the levity Riki is attempting to bring to his small confession. “Of course I'm hungry,” he says. “Someone was supposed to take me to dinner already.”

“Yeah, but someone else was being picky and wouldn't let me.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, do you want to go eat in the same spot your dad and I hooked up in the parking lot of?”

“Not particularly,” Riki says dryly. “I have a better idea.”

“I don’t know if I trust you when you say that, now,” he says, gesturing to the ground they were standing on, the ice-slick skate park that Riki thought wise as a first date location.

“Really? ‘Cause this worked out pretty good for me,” Riki counters, rubbing circles into Jake’s jacket with his thumbs, as if to remind him that his plan had gotten Jake right where he wanted him.

“Ha,” Jake huffs, rolling his eyes, making a small attempt to put some space between him and Riki, one that’s clearly a ruse, one that Riki doesn’t let him get away with for very long. “I could have really gotten hurt, you know.”

“Yeah,” Riki agrees, only slightly sympathetically, then gives him a meaningful look and continues, “But that hasn’t stopped you before, has it?”

Jake takes a deep, shaky inhale, and shakes his head. The idea of getting hurt has never stopped him from throwing himself at men he knows will hurt him, not even for a second. Sunghoon told him once that he thought Jake was just punishing himself, only ever going on dates with guys he knew it wouldn’t work out with, so that all they leave him with is that pain, that hurt. Jake never used to want the good parts of a relationship, not really. He just wanted the pain. It was all he knew.

Riki might hurt him, but for some reason, Jake doesn’t think he will. Maybe because he’d caught him when the skateboard slid out from under his feet. Maybe because Jake is his first date, because for once, Jake is on the other end of the power imbalance. And maybe it’s a little fucked up, that he finds comfort in that, because he can’t guarantee that he won’t hurt Riki, but he’s going to try his very best not to. That’s all he can do, really.

“Okay,” Jake speaks up again after a moment, his voice coming out a little raw, a little vulnerable. “Okay, then. Lead the way. I’m starving.”

Riki grins, that increasingly-familiar upturn of his lips, smug without putting in much effort to be, and drops his hands to his sides, shoving them in his pockets, freeing Jake from his grasp. For some reason, Jake doesn’t let go of his jacket, not until Riki reaches up and takes his hand, wrenching it away and interlacing their fingers. Once he has a tool to pull Jake along like a ragdoll, he wastes no time, leaning over to grab his abandoned board before dragging him back towards the car.

“Is it far from here?” Jake asks, getting into the car once Riki fully releases his grip on him, already assuming that Riki isn’t going to come right out and tell him. That just doesn’t seem like something he does.

“It’s, uh, pretty close.”

There’s something in his tone that tells Jake he should be wary, but – he just does what he does best, and ignores the red flag. It’s not as bright as the other red flags he’s ignored, at least. Actually, he finds he quite likes the shade.

“Pull over here,” Riki instructs, and Jake does without question, even though they’ve been driving through a rather residential neighbourhood for the last minute or so, and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen a restaurant yet.

He looks around. Definitely no restaurant. Not even a food truck, or a sign advertising an entrance to either that can’t be seen from where they are. He looks at Riki, brows furrowing in confusion. “Is this the part of the night where you take me into the woods and murder me?”

“You said you wanted something different,” Riki says noncommittally.

“Not that different,” Jake argues. “I’ll give this date rave reviews if it ends with all my organs still in my body.”

Riki sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, poorly restraining his laughter, clearly holding back some kind of remark that Jake is surely better off not hearing. He doesn’t need any more reminders of Riki’s slightly childish nature.

He gets one anyways, though, a minute later, after Riki has opened the car door for him and made a sweeping gesture for him to go first, letting him blindly lead the way towards the apartment building they pulled over in front of. Jake’s instincts should be kicking in at this point, should be telling him to make a break for it and remove himself from what he suspects is going to be an incredibly uncomfortable situation for everyone involved, but he doesn’t. He just watches as Riki jams his finger into the buzzer for one of the apartments, and tries his best not to assume the worst.

“What?” A voice barks through the tinny speaker after the sixth time Riki has sounded the buzzer within a few seconds.

“What’s for dinner?” Riki asks, glancing back at Jake with a look that isn’t nearly as embarrassed as he probably should be. It’s nearly nine p.m., and Riki’s voice is carrying and echoing across the quiet street. Jake, not for the first time, finds himself very concerned that someone is going to call the cops on him for disturbing the peace.

There’s a long, frustrated sigh from the other end, and then a few muttered words Jake can’t make out, and then, after a moment, “What do you want for dinner?”

Riki looks at Jake. Jake, after a moment of hesitation, just shrugs helplessly.

“Ramen,” Riki answers eventually.

Another sigh. And then, for several long seconds, nothing at all. And then, just as Riki starts to actually look a little unsure of himself, the buzzer sounds again, and the door unlocks with a loud click.

Riki grins, grabbing the door and pulling it open for Jake, grinning when he hesitates once again. “Don’t worry,” he tells him. “This is the best spot in town.”

“We’re about to harass one of your friends into making us ramen, aren’t we?” Jake asks, just to make sure he’s reading the situation right.

“It’s not harassment,” Riki defends. “Jay practically lives for this stuff. He just likes to put up a fight before he caves. It’s fun for him.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Jake says sarcastically. “I don’t know if… if I should be meeting your friends.”

“Jay’s not my friend,” Riki says quickly. “He’s my friend’s boyfriend, and a total pain in my ass. It’s no big deal.”

“The friend’s boyfriend?” Jake asks, remembering Riki’s brief story about his unrequited high school love.

“Yeah, but –” Riki starts, cutting himself off as he seemingly realizes how bizarre this must be for Jake. “That’s all in the past, or whatever.”

“Riki, this is – I think this is a little too much for me,” Jake starts, taking a step back, away from the warmth radiating out of the open door, away from Riki and his now panicked expression.

“No, Jake, wait,” he says frantically. “I just – I don’t really know any other restaurants. When I’m out and I’m hungry, I always just come here and Jay cooks for me, ‘cause he’s like – obsessed with cooking for people. And he’s, you know, he’s nice. Weird, but nice. He already knows about you, I – uh, I already told him.”

Jake stares at him for a long moment. “You told your friends about me?”

“Jay’s not my friend,” Riki reminds him.

“That seems like a rude thing to say about someone you force to cook for you on the regular.”

“Okay,” Riki sighs. “Fine. He’s my friend. And I told him and Jungwon about you, but they didn’t believe me, anyway.”

“Ah,” Jake says, understanding creeping across his already goosebump-prickled skin. “So that’s why we’re here. You want them to see that I’m real.”

“A little bit,” Riki sheepishly admits. “But it’s not a big deal. Really.”

Jake, for some reason, finds himself smiling, wide and amused, unable to fight it no matter how hard he tries to arrange his face back into a neutral expression.

“Seriously,” Riki groans, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the door he’s still holding open, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, no, I hear you,” Jake assures him. “Honestly, I have no idea why I haven’t bailed on this date yet.”

Riki sighs, and cracks open one eye to look at him. “But you haven’t.”

“I haven’t,” Jake agrees.

“Are you going to?”

“I’m considering it,” Jake says, but it must be clear that he’s lying, because he still can’t stop smiling. “You’re pretty weird.”

“I know,” Riki sighs again.

“But you’re also pretty cute,” Jake continues.

Riki perks up like a dog being presented with a bone, head lifting, spine straightening. If he had a tail, it would be wagging, whipping back and forth and thumping against the glass door he was still using as a partial shield, like he thought he might be at risk of attack from Jake as he revealed their dinner plans.

“And that cancels it out?” He asks, endearingly eager, no longer even trying to play it cool. Jake’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

In the end, he doesn’t confirm or deny if it does. But he knows the answer, and he makes it clear by taking Riki’s hand in his, using it to pull him into the apartment building they were reluctantly invited into.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Jake instructs, letting Riki take the lead as they go up the zig-zagging staircase, still hand in hand.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you will,” Riki assures him. “If you think I’m weird, wait until you meet Jay.”

Jake means to sigh in exasperation, he’s pretty sure. But what comes out is a laugh, giddy and breathless, and as they reach the third floor, the door to one of the apartments opens, and a guy with short, jet black hair and a severe frown on his face steps into the hallway.

“What took you so –” the guy – Jay, presumably – cuts himself off, his gaze landing on Jake, then dropping down to their joined hands and narrowing in suspicion. “Who’s this?”

“Jake,” Riki answers simply, pushing their way past Jay and into the apartment, “This is Jay. Jay, this is Jake.”

“Hi,” Jake says politely – as polite as he can be, at least, after he’s just barged into a stranger’s apartment, thanks to Riki.

“Hi,” Jay greets, far more hesitantly, still looking at Jake like he expects him to start robbing him at any moment.

“You’re Jake?” Another voice chimes in from beside them, and Jake startles, looking in the direction of the sound to find Jay’s couch occupied by someone, stretched out like a cat laying in the sun, clearly just having woken up from a nap. Most likely, it was Riki’s incessant buzzing that did it. The guy – who Jake can safely assume is Jay’s boyfriend, Riki’s former crush, Jungwon – sits up, looking Jake over like he was a rare specimen to be studied. “Huh. I really thought you were lying.”

“And I told you I wasn’t,” Riki snaps.

“You know, I don’t know if he told you this, but –”

“Stop,” Riki interrupts, but it doesn’t do much to slow Jungwon’s announcement.

“He’s been talking about you all the time for like, months. Every time you post on your Instagram story, we get sent a screenshot of it.”

“Why would I ever have told him that?” Riki asks.

“I didn’t realize you followed me,” Jake says quietly, nudging Riki with his elbow as he avoids meeting his eyes entirely, his cheeks slightly pink.

“Oh, he doesn’t,” Jay chimes in. “Not on any account you’d recognize, at least. He’s got a burner with your post notifications on.”

“Dude,” Riki attempts.

“Don’t you dude me –” Jay starts, sounding eerily like a mother scolding her child, but Jungwon interrupts him before he can give him a proper talking to.

“Honestly, we were kind of worried about him,” he says, then lowers his voice to a whisper, “Like, his mental state, you know? We thought he got too high and imagined the whole night. But I guess you’re really here.”

“I guess I am,” Jake agrees.

“This is Jungwon, by the way,” Riki mutters, gesturing vaguely to his traitorous friend.

“I figured as much,” Jake says.

“So this was really the best date you could come up with, huh?” Jay asks, his voice raising as he retreats into the kitchen, presumably to check on their ramen. “Did you even look up the place I suggested?”

Riki looks like he’s about ready for the ground to swallow him up and put him out of his misery. Jake stifles a laugh behind his free hand. “I did,” he confirms, barely loud enough to be heard by Jay until he raises his voice to continue, “But it was boring, and I didn’t want a boring date for old people.”

“I’m not old,” Jay defends.

“I didn’t say you were,” Riki says, even though he was very much implying it. And then he adds, under his breath, “He’s your age. Which is not old.”

Jake grins at Riki’s pointed, deceptively nonchalant comment. “Got it,” he says.

“Get in here, then, before I throw out your ramen,” Jay demands, and Riki seizes the opportunity for a distraction, rushing them into the kitchen and letting go of Jake’s hand just to push at his shoulders, and forcibly sit him down in one of the dining chairs surrounding a slightly flimsy wooden table. He takes the chair next to Jake, and Jungwon joins them a moment later, sitting across from Jake and staring him down with a remarkably cat-like, remarkably wicked grin.

It’s that moment, for some reason, that Jake realizes what a mistake he’s made in coming up here. Dread sinks like a rock in his stomach, and he starts mentally taking note of all the fastest escape routes, and then – and then nothing, actually.

Dinner is, all in all, quite pleasant. Jay and Jungwon tease Riki mercilessly, telling Jake stories of times he embarrassed himself until he’s so red in the face that it’s actually a bit medically concerning, but nothing that could actually be considered traumatizing, for either of them. They don’t bring up what Jake is certain they’re already aware of – that is, the minor details of the circumstances of Riki and Jake’s first meeting – and they don’t treat Jake like anything other than a welcome visitor. He almost thinks he’ll get through this dinner completely unscathed, but then, as Jungwon is gathering their empty dishes, he gets another flash of his cat-like grin before he turns on his heel and leaves them with Jay, and Jake realizes he’s been the mouse clutched in their claws the whole time.

“So,” Jay starts, leaning forward and folding his hands in front of him, a serious expression once again etched into his features. “What exactly are your intentions with our Riki?”

“We have to go,” Riki says automatically, taking Jake’s hand again and pulling him upright. “Thanks for dinner, Jay, you’re the best, I’ll see you –”

“Get back here, brat,” Jay calls out. “It’s a simple question!”

Jake pulls back against Riki’s iron grip, just enough to peek back around the doorway to the kitchen, as Riki starts trying to shove his feet back into his shoes. “Good intentions,” he manages. “I swear.”

And he really does mean it, even though he’s spent the entire night convincing himself that he’s got nothing but the worst intentions, even though he can’t possibly know how this will end for them. But as soon as he says it, he knows he means it, that he really is here because he wants to get to know Riki, because he might actually like him.

It probably should have been obvious that he might like Riki when he didn’t drive away after fleeing his front porch. It probably should have been obvious when he let Riki bring him to a skatepark for their first date, and when he let him roll him over patches of black ice, trusting he’d catch him if he fell and being proven right. It definitely should have been obvious when Riki informed him he’d be meeting his friends already, and even that wasn’t enough to actually scare Jake off.

It should have been obvious when he spent the last ten months avoiding even thinking of him, let alone answering his texts, because Jake avoids things that are good for him like his life depends on it. Riki, so far, has been nothing but good for him, and normally, that would mean that Jake’s intention would instinctively be to destroy all of this as quickly as possible.

But he doesn’t. He holds his ground, holds Jay’s gaze, and puts all the conviction he can muster up into his own. And when Jay gives him a two finger salute, and says, “Have him home by midnight,” Jake feels nothing but relief.

“Sorry,” Riki mutters a moment later, once both of their shoes and coats are back on and they’ve stepped out into the hall, the door to Jay’s apartment swinging shut behind him. “That was – probably a bad idea. I told you he’s weird.”

“No, he’s – it’s nice, how much he cares about you,” Jake says, then adds, when Riki sends him a doubtful glance, “Really. If you met my best friend, he’d probably act the exact same way. He’s weird, too.”

Riki laughs a bit, shaking his head as they start their trek back down the stairs. “Jay thinks he’s my mom, or something. He’s real fucked up about it.”

Jake laughs too, feeling some of the weight he hadn’t realized was pressing on his chest dissipate. “I get it. Sunghoon’s been overprotective like that of me since we were kids. He – he doesn’t approve of anyone I date.”

“I wonder why,” Riki says dryly.

“Okay, yeah, fair,” Jake admits, once again overtaken by a wide grin he can’t even begin to fight. “But that’s why I’m trying to listen to him now. He’s the one that told me to go out with you, you know.”

“Really?” Riki asks, holding the door open for him once they’ve reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping back out into the cool almost-winter air. “So he approves of me, then?”

They’re walking aimlessly now, Riki using their joined hands to take him across the street, away from the car and closer to a small playground. It’s almost funny, but Jake is sure that if he pointed the irony out, Riki wouldn’t find the same humour in it.

“He approves of me going out with someone age-appropriate, for once,” Jake clarifies. “Which I told him you aren’t, but he said it’s better than – well, you know.”

The park is empty, and there are two swings creaking as they swing back and forth in the wind, so they take them, Jake kicking his legs out to gain a bit of momentum as Riki sits relatively still and quiet.

“I’m really not that much younger than you, you know,” Riki says eventually.

“I know,” Jake admits, because he does know. As much of a deviation from the norm as this date may be for him, he is aware that there’s nothing wrong with two people of their ages spending time together. He’s not totally disconnected from reality – except, of course, for the ways that he is, except for the ways that knowing and feeling that fact are two entirely different things. “But – when I was your age, I was dating guys in their twenties. And I regret it now.”

“Yeah, but I’m in my twenties. Remember?”

“Barely,” Jake says.

“You’re hung up on a technicality,” Riki points out.

“Says the guy who was nineteen five days ago telling me he’s in his twenties,” Jake points out. “That’s a technicality. But – clearly it doesn't matter. I'm here, aren't I?”

“I'm not some kid,” Riki says, his voice suddenly taking on a serious, slightly sharp edge. “I don't want to just be some kid you're humouring, telling yourself that it's fine as long as it’s just for one date.”

“I'm not humouring you,” Jake assures him, slowing his swing to a stop beside him. “I wanted to come on this date. I chose to. Maybe I shouldn't have, but – I did.”

“Yeah,” Riki nods. “But what about after this date?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if I asked you to hang out again in a week, would you say yes?”

Jake considers it, for a few long seconds, turning the idea over in his mind, looking at it from every angle.

“By then, I'll be twenty and twelve days,” Riki reminds him, and a laugh bubbles out of Jake before he has the sense to stop it. “Come on,” he goads, clearly encouraged by Jake's unintentional response. “You're having fun. Admit it.”

And, really, he is. He's having fun in a way he's not used to having fun on dates. It’s more carefree than he's used to, more like the puppy-love crushes he missed out on in high school, when he was busy trying to outrun his own youth and pretending he would never look back and miss it. He's having fun.

Because, the thing is, Jake is still young, and Riki is making him feel that way, showing off to him at the skatepark, getting teased by his friends, sitting on the swings in an empty playground hand in hand long after the sun has gone down. Jake thought he'd hate the feeling. He's pretty confident saying now that he really doesn't.

“I'm having fun,” Jake says eventually. “And – I think I would say yes.”

Riki turns in his swing, his lips upturned into that same sly grin, and bumps his knees against Jake's leg. Jake turns too, twisting the metal chain just enough to allow him to face Riki properly. “And what if I said I want to kiss you right now?”

“I'd say,” Jake starts, “That you'll have to wait until you're older.”

Riki groans in agony, screwing his expression up like Jake had wounded him, and then pries his eyes open just enough to peer at him in curiosity. “Older – like, seven days older?”

Jake laughs again, taking a moment to scan his features, his sincere expression, the unashamed, uninhibited interest all over it, his youthful, familiar-yet-unfamiliar features. And then he leans in, bringing their faces close enough together to feel the hot puffs of Riki's breath on his chilled cheeks, and says, “I think I could work with that.”

And then, in what is likely the first truly predictable thing he's done all night, Riki closes the distance, and kisses Jake anyway.