By day, you were the unpaid intern of HYBE — which sounded glamorous until you realized it mostly meant sprinting across eleven floors with coffees you couldn’t afford and holding back tears in supply closets when the printers jammed.

By night, you returned to your rat-infested apartment: a shoebox whose walls crumbled like overcooked tofu, owned by a landlord who breathed like a Disney villain.

And yet, despite all this, you woke up each morning glowing like you’d swallowed a small sun whole. (You preferred to believe it was optimism, not the questionable wiring in your ceiling.)

People often assumed your sunshine meant you’d lived a soft life. If only they knew. But you never corrected them — trauma wasn’t your currency here. Kindness was. And you spent it lavishly.

Three months. If you could survive three months of this internship, HYBE might actually pay you. Like… with real money. With digits and decimals and everything. So you smiled through the ache in your feet, laughed through exhaustion, and carried the weight of seven idols’ chaos with the grace of a ballerina who had a death wish.

Enhypen was brilliant. Onstage? Gods. Offstage? Seven sleep-deprived cryptids who deserved better.

You saw things the cameras never would: swollen ankles, skipped meals, quiet panic attacks, backs bowed from expectations heavier than dumbbells.

And today? Riki was having one of those days.

The choreographer had chewed him out so publicly the mirrors in the practice room looked embarrassed. Riki didn’t yell back — he just hardened, clenched, shut down. Classic puma Riki. He stalked off with that sharp blonde mullet slicing the air behind him.

Which is why you were now holding the iced tea he’d requested, wandering the labyrinth of practice rooms like a lost Roomba.

You found him in Studio B — the private one. The one with the lights dimmed to a moody, heartbreak-music-video level. He sat on the floor, back against the mirror, head hanging, chest rising too fast.

You knocked softly. “Riki? You asked for—”

“Get out.”

Sharp. Cold. No honorific, no hesitation. He didn’t even look up.

You blinked. Sunshine didn’t mean you lacked a spine. “That was rude,” you said lightly, placing the iced tea inside the door anyway. “But you look like you don’t need an argument right now, so I’ll—”

He inhaled, long and shaky, like he was pulling the entire galaxy into his lungs before letting it collapse.

“…wait.”

The word was so quiet you almost thought you imagined it.

He lifted his head. And there it was — not puma Riki, the fierce, intimidating prodigy. But duck Riki. Soft. Lost. Trying not to be 20 years old and drowning.

His eyes were red around the edges, not from crying, but from holding tears hostage. His fingers trembled on the iced tea cup.

“Sorry,” he muttered. It was the smallest apology in the world, but from him, it felt like a meteor strike. “I— I didn’t mean to yell. I just… I don’t know what to do right now.”

You walked in gently, like approaching a wounded animal. You sat beside him, knees bumping, offering warmth without demanding anything in return.

“Do you need space,” you asked softly, “or… comfort?”

He swallowed. Hard. His jaw clenched. His breath shook.

Then, quietly:

“…don’t leave.”