when you wake up | sunki

four.

Sunoo doesn't forget about his promise to Riki when midnight strikes close the next day, of course. He finishes up his dinner in a slight hurry after his first lesson with a nice little boy living a few bus stops' journey away, washing up quickly before heading up to the rooftop. He's not late; it's 11:58 when he reaches, but Riki is already there.

He's seated in the same position he was the previous day, cross-legged on top of the parapet facing the street, and as Sunoo nears he calls out something along the lines of what he said last night. "Riki, I told you not to sit there, come down it's dangerous."

Riki immediately turns, not shifting from his position but fixing Sunoo with a questioning stare from where he's sitting.

"How do you know my name?"

"You told me last night." Sunoo sits down at the ledge, beckoning him over. "Don't be funny, come on down."

Riki seems like he's undecided on whether he should heed Sunoo's call, but he eventually slides himself down from the parapet and sits down across from Sunoo anyway. "What's your name?"

"What? My name is Kim Sunoo, have you forgotten it so soon?" Sunoo feigns some offense at Riki's question, but he supposes it's understandable. Some people aren't good with names, and that's alright.

"Ah, Kim Sunoo. Thank you for telling me."

"Do you like coming to this rooftop?" Sunoo asks, looking out into the street. "You seem like you come here every day."

"It's my first time coming here." Riki seems a little confused at Sunoo's statement. "But it's a nice place."

They manage, somehow, to talk about everything and nothing as the night stretches on, and as strange as Sunoo finds the boy's apparent lack of memory of any of the events of their previous meeting, Riki is still the same as he was last night, and conversation flows oddly easily with him.

"Ah, I almost missed it," Riki says suddenly, looking down at his watch. "I have to go."

The time on Sunoo's phone shows 00:55 when he checks it.

"Yeah, you said the same thing last night. What's so special about 00:55?"

Riki gives him a smile, looking back halfway as he heads for the staircase. "Curfew. Goodnight, Sunoo."

"Goodnight, Riki."

He's starting to think that there's more than meets the eye about the orphaned boy from his apartment building, but he doesn't yet know enough about him to figure any of it now. He makes a mental reminder to go to the rooftop at midnight again the next day, just to see if Riki will be there yet again.

─

"Get down, do you have a death wish? You sit there every single night," Sunoo calls. It's his third night in his new apartment, and his third night meeting Riki at the rooftop.

"Who are you?" Riki's tone of voice is more guarded in this one sentence than he usually is, and Sunoo wonders inwardly if he's the type of person who needs to warm up before starting conversations with people.

"It's Sunoo. Why don't you come sit with me?" He supposes he should back off for a while and let Riki recover, and he sits down at the parapet while he waits, slipping his pencil out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?"

Riki looks inquisitively over at the open ring-bound notebook in Sunoo's hands. In all Sunoo's absorption in his writing, he'd missed Riki getting off the top of the parapet.

"Hm? I'm drafting lyrics. I work better at nighttime, for some reason."

"Drafting lyrics...as in, you're writing a song?" the other boy asks.

Sunoo nods, putting aside his pencil momentarily. "Yes, I write songs for a label, that's my job."

"So you can sing?" Riki's eyes light up as he hears the other boy's words. "Do you know any Japanese songs?"

"No, not really, I work with Korean music mostly," Sunoo says. "But is there a song you want to hear? I could learn it for you in my free time, if you'd like."

"Really?"

"Mhm."

Riki gestures for Sunoo to hand his notebook over and he flips to the next blank page, writing neatly in English letters. Sunoo doesn't recognise the title of the song when Riki hands him his notebook back, but he tells himself he'll listen to it when he gets back home.

"My mother used to sing this song to me," Riki says.

"Your mother likes Japanese music?" Sunoo asks inquisitively, surprised.

"My mother is Japanese."

"Oh..."

That was kinda stupid.

"That's cool. So you're half Japanese?"

"What?" Riki looks like he wants to laugh but contains himself for Sunoo's sake. "I'm full Japanese."

Okay, that's it. This conversation is a gone case.

"Right. What's wrong with me?" Sunoo says quietly to himself. "I didn't know you were Japanese. What's your last name?"

"Nishimura. What's yours?"

Sunoo laughs softly. "Kim, and don't you forget it this time."

Riki doesn't argue, merely offering a smile. "We'll see."

Sunoo holds his phone screen up when the time shows 00:54. "One minute to curfew. Wanna get a headstart?"

"How'd you know about that?" Riki throws Sunoo a grin as he gets up from the ledge and heads for the staircase. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"You're awfully sure that I'll be back here tomorrow," Sunoo quips back, but he already knows he'll be here again tomorrow night. He sends a quick wave to Jay as he sees his neighbour walk out from the apartment block's attached garage, dressed in a similarly sleek outfit as he was the day they first met.

Late night at work. Being a lawyer sure doesn't look like an easy job, and Sunoo wonders how Jay manages to balance his family with his career as he heads back down to his apartment to retire for the night.