✔︎ let me in | enhypen

sixteen

The manager closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She slowly let go of Riku's shoulder, making her feel less hurt. Or so she thought. The manager pushed her against the chair behind the girl, making the nail that was poking out stab Riku's ankle.

The manager took Jungwon's phone that was flung across the room and placed it where it was before. She couldn't care less about Riku screaming in pain. She took the blanket and threw it onto her.

"You listen here. I'm doing this for you and the boys. If you keep your mouth shut, nothing will happen. You can talk shit about Mr Baek, but if they find out about me... you're going to get more than a nail stabbed into your ankle."

Riku couldn't breathe properly nor move. She felt like passing out when she saw the manager leaving. Riku desperately wanted to just close her eyes but she hung on. She tried to get up at all costs but kept falling back down.

Riku stopped as she felt helpless and getting weaker. Her hiccups were blocking air from coming in. Luckily, Jungwon came into the room 30 minutes later.

.

Riku woke up, drenched in sweat. She took deep breaths as tears were falling down her face. The last thing she wanted to remember was that manager's face.

"Riku ! Are you okay- Calm down. Deep breaths."

Heeseung saw her wake up and ran over to her. He placed his arms around her and tried comforting her while the other members heard Riku's crying from next door. Riku was covering her ears not wanting to hear anything.

"Riku, it's okay... Mr Baek isn't here anymore. He's gone for good. Shh shh..."

Oh how desperately she wanted to tell Heeseung they got the wrong person.

After a while, a member brought a nebulizer for Riku. They all panicked since the manager wasn't around. Riku breathed through the nebulizer. She finally took some time to look around where they were. She was back at the hotel room, got a glance at the window to see it was dark.

Sunoo poured Riku a glass of water and gave her medication. Riku had calmed down and was now hugging her stuffed animal with a blanket wrapped around her. She was just watching a random show. The other members had gone to their rooms to get some sleep.

Riku realised it was actually 1 am. Jungwon was still awake. He sat down next to her and showed her his phone. It had the caller id of Mr Baek.

"We all decided to not give you a phone anymore. See, the outside world is making you go crazy like this. We will try to keep you safe okay ? Don't worry too much. Just listen to us and you'll be fine."

It was another one of their manipulating chats. But, somehow Riku felt comforted as she heard those words. Her mind is telling her to not believe it but at the same time, she thought.

Why am I trying to trick myself ? It was obvious they just wanted to take care of me.

She was scared of this thought for quite a while and decided to brush it off for now.

.

All of them didn't know what the hell got into Riku. She started yelling and being angry. They had arrived at the final location which was Ansan for the last shoot before going back to their dorm. Riku was sitting down on a chair, clearly looking upset. Ni-Ki was the only one in the room with her while the others went to get lunch.

Ni-Ki tried his best to be patient with Riku. She started throwing random things at him whenever he approached her to say some 'comforting words'. She hated it so much. The last thing Riku wanted to do was give in. The whole time Ni-Ki was calming her down in Japanese but that clearly didn't work.

One of the members was just about to open the door halfway to see Riku throwing a thermos bottle at Ni-Ki and it hit his arm. Ni-Ki winced in pain and glared up at Riku.

"What's going on-"

Ni-Ki dashed for Riku and gripped on her shoulder, yelling in Japanese.

'I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU. YET YOU THREW A FUCKING METAL BOTTLE AT ME. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TODAY ? I GET YOU'RE TIRED BUT EVERYONE HERE IS TIRED TOO."

Before anything else could happen, Jay had pulled Ni-KI off Riku. Ni-Ki dropped down to the floor holding his hand. Of course it hurt but it only scratched him a tiny bit with a small bruise as Riku didn't actually throw it that hard.

Jake crouched down in front of her while Riku stared at Jay who was helping the maknae out.

"Riku, why did you throw the bottle ?-"

Riku realised Ni-Ki's words were right. He was just comforting her. She ran towards Ni-Ki and hugged him.

"N-Ni-Ki-san... go-gomen..."

She kept repeating the words, 'gomen.' She felt guilty, thinking the word sorry was definitely not enough. Ni-Ki was shocked but slowly patted her head. His heart just couldn't hate the girl. Her emotions got to her.

.

The two had shared a room together, coincidentally. The two were sitting down on the bed hugging each other. Ni-Ki heard small sobbings coming from Riku after a while.

"Why are you crying ? I told you I'm fine... "

Riku just cried even harder while holding Ni-Ki's injured arm.

"I'll still be able to perform so it's not a big deal."

Ni-Ki hugged her tighter and let her let everything out. All this time she had only cried by herself, didn't have anyone to give this comfort to her from when she was born. She was a loner after all.

"We're going back to the dorm tomorrow. So let's just sleep-"

"C-can you just- um... stay like this ?"

Riku asked with a shaky voice while gripping on Ni-Ki's shirt. Ni-Ki smiled and got off to turn the lights off, only leaving the side lamp turned on. The two melted in each other's embrace as the felt their eyes closing.

wow, what a long and dramatic and complicated and sad chapter ><
see you in around 9 hours-
by the way do yall like the new book cover ? heheh
i have an instagram if you want to see me-
it's in my carrd at my bio<3
have a nice dayyy !!