Blue Moon: Chapter 10 - Why didn't you
Title: Blue Moon: Why didn't you
Chapter: 10
Characters: EXO - Sehun/Tao centric
AU: Twilight
Pairings: Tao x Kris; Sehun x Kai; side!Chanyeol x Baekhyun
Rating: nc17
Word count: 4.566
Genre: supernatural, angst
Warnings: sexual content
General summary: For the Seoul coven, life isn't that hard. With six members, and only two of them being newborns, hunting is kids' game, and the chances of getting caught are almost nonexisting. But when Sehun, the youngest vampire among them, accidentally transforms Tao (a soon-to-be shapeshifter from the Mandarin pack) into one of them, things aren't all that easy for them anymore, nor they are for the pack itself. Will their bonds be stronger than their nature? Or will their instincts lead them to mayhem?
Chapter summary: Sehun is good at fucking things up, and he is just as good at waiting until they fix themselves. But, for his misfortune, that rarely ever happens.
“Is that a trick question?”
_________________________
After the fourth day of pretended indifference, Zitao walks into his room (in the middle of changing clothes, unfortunately, though Zitao doesn’t particularly seem to care) and punches him on the shoulder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he questions, Sehun hurrying to pull the sweatpants on and stumbling just a bit.
“What?” he asks, because really, even if he doesn’t sleep anymore, quarter past seven am is way too early to be paying attention to anything at all -let alone a vampire who can hardly control his own love life, yet he tries to advice others. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate it (in fact, Zitao has, oddly enough, become as close of a friend in that house as Jongin was at some point). It’s just that Sehun has never been good with following orders, even if they are supposed to be for his own good, and the constant flow of Have you talked to him yet? Have you apologized yet? What are you waiting for? is really getting on his nerves. Mostly when he knows how hard it is on him.
Sehun is good at fucking things up, and he is just as good at waiting until they fix themselves. But, for his misfortune, that rarely ever happens.
Apologizing isn’t a good option in his world, because it doesn’t fix anything. Words can’t fix what was done, regardless of whether or not you are sincere. If you let a glass drop to the floor, it will shatter, and saying you’re sorry won’t pull it back together; and, Sehun figures, people are just about the same. He isn’t one hundred percent sure of what he did so wrong in order to make Jongin upset enough to rarely ever talk to him, so he doesn’t even know what he should apologize for.
“Then tell him that,” Zitao said, when Sehun asked him about it. “He’ll know you want to fix things, even if you don’t know how.”
Sehun wasn’t convinced. “What if he says no?”
“Then, at least you tried.” With that, he went back to what he was doing, and Sehun left his room, hardly less confused than before.
And now, shirt clutched to his bare chest and brow furrowing reprovingly, Sehun is just as lost as he was then.
“It’s been, like, three days. Your apology is overdue.” Zitao stands in front of him, if a bit too close for his taste (even though, Sehun knows, Zitao is better at keeping in mind the fact that, the louder they speak, the less private his situation will be).
Sehun folds his arms. “It’s been four, actually,” he corrects. “I haven’t had the chance to do it.”
Zitao’s eyebrow raises, hand resting on his hip. “How come? All he does all day is play videogames.”
“Yeah, but not alone.” Sehun has tried to catch him by himself, really. But, as opposed to how he’s been ever since Sehun met him, now he seems to be always with someone. When asked, he uses the multi-player option of his console as an excuse, but Sehun knows better; and this is not a topic he is eager to discuss in front of Chanyeol -much less, of Kyungsoo, who happens to seem to have grown fond of gaming over the past week.
“I highly doubt you never caught him alone. Try harder,” shrugs Zitao, and he leaves his room -not without punching Sehun again, and that one, he thinks, he didn’t deserve.
Sehun stays there, frowning at the door, half naked and twice as annoyed.
***
It takes five hours, two more hisses of do it already! and one golden opportunity for Sehun to finally approach Jongin, hands balled to fists and shoved into his pockets, shoulders sagging.
“Jongin?” he calls, voice gentle, even though he kind of wants to grunt his way ouf of this and go for lunch.
The boy doesn’t stop immediately, settling instead for acting like no one said anything at all until he reaches the bathroom door, turning around only once his hand is on the doorknob. This time, Sehun is too far away to slip into the room with him, and he doesn’t really feel like he’d be welcome. Maybe showering together isn’t the best way to restore a ruined friendship.
(Sehun shakes his head. That was totally not what he meant.)
Jongin blinks at that, because he hasn’t yet said anything Sehun could be denying. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” replies Sehun, snapping out of it. “Just- can we talk, maybe? After you’re done?” he adds, seeing Jongin’s grip on the doorknob tighten. No one messes with Jongin’s bath time, and after the sponge incident, Sehun doesn’t want to add up on that.
“Yeah,” agrees Jongin, although a little hesitantly. “’Course.”
He turns back around and goes into the bathroom, towel swinging, hanging from his shoulder, and Sehun is left to stare at a closed door for the second time that day.
***
Sehun didn’t know what he was supposed to do until Jongin came out of the bathroom. He usually takes his time, and waiting on the hallway didn’t only look highly impractical, but also quite rude. Sneaking into Jongin’s room wasn’t an option, either, because he had always been throughly protective over his space when he wasn’t around to watch it; and staying in his own didn’t sound completely right, for he knew that walking out once he heard the drizzle shush down and chasing Jongin again would be even harder than approaching him the first time. Yet, it was the only alternative that (hopefully) wouldn’t end up with a fist on his face, so it was the one he settled for.
He sat on the edge of his bed for several minutes, wondering what exactly was taking Jongin so long. He obviously doesn’t sweat, and he hadn’t gone hunting in a few days, so he was probably as clean as he could be. Sehun had asked, once, and Jongin had only shrugged and said “I like showers.” That was it. Now, if you like showers, but you don’t particularly need them, there’s no reason why you would have to spend exactly forty-three minutes taking one, when you could cut it to a perfectly effective twenty.
Sehun is on his seventh game of Tetris by the moment the sound of water running dies, and the distraction makes him place a bar the wrong direction, causing a gap that doesn’t poof away until the rumble of fabric ceases as well. Sehun decides he might as well give Jongin a little while before going to him again, because he doesn’t want to come out as clingy (even if clinging is the thing he has done the least the last four days); but when his door opens all of a sudden, he makes three cubes fall on top of each other, and his phone beeps as the ending screen pops up.
Jongin is standing at the door, shoulder pressed against the frame and arms folded over his exposed chest. His towel is draped around his neck, though it fails to collect all of the drops of water that trickle from the ends of his hair, pushed back off his face (and that in itself is an anomaly), all the way down to the waistband of the sweatpants that hang loose from his hips.
Not that Sehun is staring.
“I’m done,” Jongin announces, arms spreading in a helpless gesture. When Sehun doesn’t reply, he adds: “You said you wanted to talk.”
He considers sending Jongin to get dressed properly before they do any talking, but Jongin might ask why, and Sehun really, really doesn’t want to be morally forced to say “in order to get any talking done at all”. Instead, he clears his throat -quietly, hoping the other boy doesn’t notice. “I did. I mean- I do.”
“Okay,” Jongin nods. “Then shoot.”
Sehun looks around, and then at Jongin, and then at the door and at Jongin again. “Could you possibly…” he starts, index pointing at the hallway.
“No need to,” replies Jongin. “There isn’t anyone home but Baekhyun and Chanyeol. They won’t hear us.”
Oh.
“I see.” Hands on his lap, he fidgets with his phone. “So…”
“So…?” pushes Jongin, nonchalantly walking into the room, and a tang of vainilla scent floats towards Sehun, catching in his nostrils and the back of his throat. He vaguely remembers sniffing a pot of some emulsion during his first shower in the house and immediately putting it down, judging it as too sweet for his taste. Now, Sehun’s mouth waters, and he can only hope it is the scent of the shampoo provoking it.
Sehun looks around the room, avoiding Jongin’s gaze. “So I wanted to, um.” His eyes fix on his own lap. “I wanted to apologize. “
There’s a silence, and Sehun has to bite his lip in order not to shake Jongin until he says something. Fortunately, the boy speaks before anything of that kind needs to be done. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he corroborates, looking up at him, momentarily forgetting he wasn’t supposed to, because Jongin’s skin is shimmering with droplets of water and how is one supposed to concentrate like that? “You forgive me?”
Jongin scoffs. Okay. Not forgiven. “I said ‘okay, you can apologize’, not ‘okay, everything is in the past’. So proceed.”
This is not how things were supposed to go.
Sehun’s expression is blank, and it angers him a bit that even then Jongin can read it.
“You don’t do this very often, do you?” Sehun shakes his head, and he thinks he sees a hint of a smile on Jongin’s face. “That’s impressive, given the fact that you fuck up so often.”
Okay, then. Not a smile.
This is definetly not how things were supposed to go.
“I don’t fucking know, okay? I never cared enough to try.” At the very least, this seems to bewilder Jongin for a moment, and the look on his face goes from somewhere between dull and smug to slightly perplex. Sehun allows him a moment to speak if he wants to, but he doesn’t; so he takes in a breath (not required by his lungs, but much needed by the lump in his throat) and hopes not to fuck up this time. “I’m sorry about the other day.”
Jongin rests his back against the door, feet crossing at his ankles, and the towel on his shoulders crooks just slightly. “About what, exactly?”
Sehun wishes he had notecards or something along those lines. “Everything?”
He watches the older boy nod slowly. “You’re sorry you kissed me.”
Sehun blinks. And he blinks again. “Yes. No.” Finally, he frowns. “Is that a trick question?”
“Something like that,” answers Jongin, and this time, Sehun is almost sure there is a smile somewhere around there -just clearly not in his eyes.
He tries to get around it, and even though he isn’t sure he will succeed, he gives it a go anyway. “I’m sorry I kissed you without permission and I’m sorry if that bothered you in any way, but I would do it again so I can’t say I regret it.” His words come out slurred and messy, but he knows Jongin understood them. “Is that okay?”
Jongin doesn’t respond to the latter. “Then why didn’t you?” he asks instead, and Sehun is forced to go through his speech backwards, trying to find something he was supposed to do out of all of the things he didn’t.
“What do you mean?” he asks, although, as soon as the words come out of his mouth, it becomes obvious. But he can’t withdraw the question, so he lets Jongin look into his eyes from across the room, arms folded obstinately across his chest. Sehun doesn’t know if he looks like he’s putting on a barrier, or trying to hold himself together.
“If you said you’d kiss me again, why didn’t you?” His voice doesn’t break, not exactly; but it does crack a little, as if it was of a great effort for him to force the words out of himself. Sehun, Jongin sometimes remembers, is almost as stubborn as him -except a lot more considerate.
It’s Sehun’s turn to be astounded. “I didn’t think you’d want me to,” he admits, and saying it aloud makes it a lot more real. It wasn’t like Sehun hadn’t thought of doing so, whenever he passed by Jongin’s room, or when he saw him on the couches of the living room, talking to Chanyeol or Joonmyeon; or even when he wasn’t seeing him, staring at the ceiling of his room and trying to will the universe to be on his side for once. But even the idea of things ending up worse than they already were alone was enough to decide against, every single time.
Jongin stares at him for a moment, and Sehun feels like a frog waiting to be dissected. “You really do think that’s why I’m upset.”
Sehun misses the meaning behind his words, but not the tense in Jongin’s speech: he’s still upset, and Sehun doesn’t know how on earth he’s going to change that. “Why else would you?”
Jongin laughs, but it lacks humor. It sounds twisted and unamused, even a little disappointed, and Sehun doesn’t like it one bit. “Are you really that dense?”
The younger hopes Jongin will pity him and maybe be a little more clear, because this is hard on Sehun as it is and maybe if they both got all their issues on the table, they would be easier to fix. “Enlighten me?” he asks.
Jongin doesn’t make a sound, but Sehun feels like he’s laughing at him. “Enlighten yourself.”
Just as he’s opening his mouth to protest, Zitao’s words come to him. We’re not- Speak for yourself. And -how could he not notice before?- Zitao had even spelled it out for him. You don’t honestly believe that going all ‘there’s nothing between us’ on him was right, do you?
Sehun might be dense, but he isn’t stupid. Or so had he thought, because this, he realizes, he had to be an idiot not to get. And somehow, that makes it all better and worse at the same time. The answer to his question is right there, he only has to walk a few steps to be right in front of it, up on it’s face. Its very pretty face.
The problem is, Sehun doesn’t think he can give Jongin what he wants.
He decides to start with what he can manage -or at least, what he should be able to manage. At this point, he isn’t even sure he can handle that much. “I’m sorry I said there’s nothing between us.”
Jongin nods, slowly. He looks like he’s measuring Sehun, trying to see how much he can pull without breaking him. Sehun doesn’t know the answer himself. “That’s better,” he says softly, and for a moment, Sehun wishes to give in.
But then he remembers the reason why he doesn’t. “I know there is something,” he admits, regardless of his reticence. “But what is it, exactly?”
“You tell me,” dares Jongin without hesitation.
“I’m being serious, Jongin.” Sehun doesn’t have the patience for these kind of things. That’s probably why he’s always been mostly alone -but he’s been just fine. “What is it? Because I see it, it’s there- I can’t lie.”
“It seems like you can lie just fine,” contradicts Jongin, eyebrow cocking upwards. “You were very convincing the other day. And you seem convinced now as well, so we have two options.” One of his hands untangles itself from the fold of his arms, coming to hover next to his face, a v shape on his index and middle fingers. “Either you were lying then…” The middle finger comes down; “or you’re lying now.” His index meets the rest of his fingers in a tight fist, and Sehun remembers Joonmyeon reminding him of Jongin’s fighting skills. He hopes he hasn’t made him upset enough to see those skills with his own eyes. From very up close.
“I wasn’t lying,” he says. “I was denying something I don’t really understand. You can’t blame me.”
“Oh, but I can,” grins Jongin. This smile-without-meaning-it thing isn’t fun to Sehun. “I can, because this is about me, too.” Sehun stares at him, and he continues: “If you were only playing with yourself, I’d gladly let you make a fool of yourself. Why would I care?” Jongin slides down the wall, sitting on the floor, elbows resting carelessly on his knees. He would look bored if you didn’t know him, but Sehun prides himself in being able to read Jongin pretty well, even if not as well as Jongin reads him. And, behind that coat of pretended impassivity and lull, his eyes are storming with curiosity and frustration. “But. You don’t mind your own business at all. You came into my life, just like that, and I couldn’t do anything about it, and no, don’t be a drama queen; don’t even think about protesting and going all I can leave if you don’t want me here on me, because you know damn well that’s not how it goes.” Sehun is stuck to the matress as if he had been weaved together with it. “I can’t help the way I feel, and I don’t know how you feel, but I know you can’t control it, either. I can’t tell you what’s going on between us if I don’t know what’s on your part. So, Sehun.” Jongin’s gaze is deep, almost in a violent way. Sehun feels like he’s being set on fire. “Can you tell me what’s on your part?”
It takes him a moment to react, and even then, he doesn’t really know what to say -so he doesn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought,” continues Jongin. Sehun wishes he didn’t look so discouraged. “You should have probably said that before I threw everything out the window.” He stands up, and Sehun has to tilt his head back in order to look at the older. “You could have also said no, that one time. That would have saved us a lot of trouble. And next time, don’t throw mixed signs. They hurt.”
Sehun gets up from the bed, even if his legs feel numb (though they aren’t supposed to even be able to), and even if he still doesn’t know how to stop Jongin from leaving, because his hand is almost at the doorknob once again and this time, Sehun can’t sneak in and steal a kiss. If Jongin leaves, the conversation is over, just like that; and if Jongin leaves, he might be gone for good. And no matter how fucked up in the head Sehun might be, he can’t let that happen.
He can’t say he notices himself closing the distance between the two and then the door back again, or even touching Jongin at any point, but since the transformation, things have gone this way sometimes: as soon as he thinks of doing something, it’s already done, like his body works faster than his brain. It sucks when you’re just trying to pick a shirt and end up with three on instead, but when you have Jongin’s wrists captured in your hands, pressed at his hides, his face roughly five centimetres away from yours… Sehun doesn’t complain, even if the situation isn’t the ideal.
Jongin’s lips are slightly parted, and when he exhales, soft and tremorous, a tinge of mint mixes with the vainilla. It’s a lot nicer than Sehun would have expected.
When he speaks, his voice is low and husky, and it sends a shiver up Sehun’s spine. “In my dictionary,” he says, “this counts as mixed signals.”
Sehun’s hands press harder into Jongin’s wrists (but he swears it’s unintentional). “How is it mixed when I got you right where I want you?”
“And where exactly is that?” Jongin’s eyes are defiant. Sehun is all in to take the dare.
His hands drag up the wall, bringing Jongin’s wrists together and holding them both with one hand, in order to have at least the other one free. The breach that separates them disappears as Sehun’s leg goes to slink in between Jongin’s, not applying any pressure; but he can already feel Jongin’s breathing quickening. “Right here,” he says.
For a moment, he almost expects Jongin to free himself, to shove Sehun across the room and never talk to him again. But he doesn’t; and instead, he asks: “So what are you gonna do about it?”
There are a lot of things Sehun would like to do about it; but even though he doesn’t know when the rest are coming back, he does know that he’d be interrupted before being even halfway done. “You’ll see,” he breathes into the other’s neck. The bridge of his nose grazes up Jongin’s jawline, and the older’s eyelids flutter. He’s trying to speak, Sehun can tell; but his hand is resting flat on Jongin’s waist and going upwards, and down again, and his fingers are playing notes on Jongin’s ribs and he doesn’t seem to find his words.
“You aren’t- letting me finish my speech,” he lets out after a bit, and Sehun’s ego boosts up a bit at the sound of Jongin’s voice, raspy and shaky. His eyes shut when Sehun’s lips drag along his neck. “I wasn’t done.”
The tip of his finger travels to Jongin’s hipbone in a featherish fashion. “Then finish it,” he allows. “If you can.”
His hips go to press against Jongin’s, breath hovering over the older’s neck. Jongin inhales a sharp breath. “You aren’t playing it nice.” Sehun doesn’t reply, but the light scrape of his teeth on Jongin’s skin might as well -and it’s clearly saying No, I’m not. “I was going to say,” he continues, eyes fixated on some imaginary spot above them, “that you can take it all back, if you want.” Jongin swallows; Sehun doesn’t see it, but he feels it beneath his lips. “We can go back to friends, I’ll live. But you have to stop now.” Sehun doesn’t. “Though, I’m not sure I want you to anymore.”
Jongin’s voice sounds strained, and Sehun is glad his doesn’t -at least not yet. “Good,” he says. “Because I wasn’t going to.” There’s a depth in his tone even he is aware of, and Jongin’s eyes close with anticipation.
“But maybe you should,” he says. “If this is just a game to you.”
Mixed with the darkness and the longing, there’s an undeniable seriousness, and, Sehun has to admit, it intimidates him a fair bit. “If you think I’m playing, you are entitled to leave this room whenever you please,” he states. He places a kiss on Jongin’s shoulder, hoping to coax him otherwise.
“I don’t wan’t to think you are,” admits the other, voice soft. His head tilts sideways as to give Sehun more room.
“Then stay.” Sehun’s free hand roams down Jongin’s stomach, and the smoothness of his skin startles him all over again. His finger hooks on the waistband of the sweatpants, pulling them down barely a few milimetres, just enough to have Jongin’s hips shifting, pressed between Sehun’s and the door behind him. His chest is aligned with Sehun’s as well, arms stretched above him. Sehun figures it might be a bit uncomfortable, but he doesn’t struggle. “This is your last chance to retreat.”
Sehun pulls away, because it’s not enough to hear Jongin: he wants to see it in his eyes. And he isn’t disappointed when he looks in them, glazed and half-lidded. “Maybe I don’t want to.”
That’s all the authorization he needs to slip his hand into his clothes, layers of cotton becoming nothing but a bother. It wraps around Jongin dauntlessly, and the sensation isn’t completley unfamiliar, but it’s maximized with Jongin’s gentle hums and the way his eyes almost close, except not all the way, and in between thick lashes they are still locked on Sehun’s.
When he gives a meager tug, Jongin’s hands become fists above them, and his eyes do shut for a second. Sehun can’t help but grin. “Look,” he teases, “that little smug smile of yours is gone.”
It’s a given that vampires don’t blush, but something very similar goes across Jongin’s face. “Shut up,” he says, and Sehun can’t tell whether he’s glowering at him or trying to remain lackluster. But when Sehun picks up his pace, just slightly, a noise comes from Jongin’s throat and throws his head backwards, hitting the door with a soft thump.
From one moment to the next, Jongin is pushing his hips forwards, looking for something Sehun isn’t willing to give just yet. His thumb runs across the slit of the head, and Sehun’s plans for the evening were maybe a few jokes and a movie, and definetly not Jongin crying out and thrusting into his hand, but he can’t complain. His lips go to brush on Jongin’s jawline, crawling almost to his lips and then coming back down; refusing to surrender, for he knows it’s a one way ticket.
Jongin’s head turns to face him, and when he speaks, Sehun can smell the mint again. “You’re still not kissing me,” complains the older, somehow managing to look both lost and focused.
“I want to watch,” replies Sehun as he speeds up some more, slowing down again and then back up. Jongin alternates between soft purrs and high-pitched whines, and nothing Sehun has ever heard has turned him on more than this.
A grunt resonates between them when, with a punctuatued flick of Sehun’s wrist, Jongin’s climax shakes his lithe body, small spasms making his hips rattle forward, throat constricted and fists tightening. Sehun catches flashes of Jongin’s gaze in between disoriented looks and shut eyes, Sehun helping him through it, and when he finally goes still, a shaky breath eloping from his lips, Jongin doesn’t look remorseful or ashamed. “Was that enough of a show for you?” he asks, the threat of a tease in his tone, even if, in his state, he can’t quite manage to sound spiteful. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
Sehun kisses Jongin, and it’s rather sloppy, with too much teeth and too litle distress, and probably gross to anyone but them; because Sehun’s hand is sticky and so is the inside of Jongin’s boxers, and what Jongin is doing to his tongue can’t be defined as anything other than filthy, but Sehun can’t bring himself to care about the looks of it.
He doesn’t realize the moment he let’s go of Jongin’s wrists, but at some point his hands land on the younger’s shoulders and, when Sehun’s hands retreat to dock on Jongin’s waist, he grins at the sensation of moisture beneath his fingers. “Seems like you’re gonna have to shower again,” he points out. “Guess who’s coming?”
Even through the weariness of the aftermath, the smirk -the one Sehun has come to love and hate- comes back to Jongin’s expression. “Not you,” he says before pushing Sehun away and swiftly turning around, disappearing from the room in a blur.
Sehun gawks at the door, pants uncomfortably tight, wondering how has his life come to the point where he chases after an angel-faced demon, and a door gets closed on his face three times on the same day.
_________________________
a/n: I have said it before, sassy Jongin is my favorite.
Chapter: 10
Characters: EXO - Sehun/Tao centric
AU: Twilight
Pairings: Tao x Kris; Sehun x Kai; side!Chanyeol x Baekhyun
Rating: nc17
Word count: 4.566
Genre: supernatural, angst
Warnings: sexual content
General summary: For the Seoul coven, life isn't that hard. With six members, and only two of them being newborns, hunting is kids' game, and the chances of getting caught are almost nonexisting. But when Sehun, the youngest vampire among them, accidentally transforms Tao (a soon-to-be shapeshifter from the Mandarin pack) into one of them, things aren't all that easy for them anymore, nor they are for the pack itself. Will their bonds be stronger than their nature? Or will their instincts lead them to mayhem?
Chapter summary: Sehun is good at fucking things up, and he is just as good at waiting until they fix themselves. But, for his misfortune, that rarely ever happens.
“Is that a trick question?”
_________________________
After the fourth day of pretended indifference, Zitao walks into his room (in the middle of changing clothes, unfortunately, though Zitao doesn’t particularly seem to care) and punches him on the shoulder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he questions, Sehun hurrying to pull the sweatpants on and stumbling just a bit.
“What?” he asks, because really, even if he doesn’t sleep anymore, quarter past seven am is way too early to be paying attention to anything at all -let alone a vampire who can hardly control his own love life, yet he tries to advice others. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate it (in fact, Zitao has, oddly enough, become as close of a friend in that house as Jongin was at some point). It’s just that Sehun has never been good with following orders, even if they are supposed to be for his own good, and the constant flow of Have you talked to him yet? Have you apologized yet? What are you waiting for? is really getting on his nerves. Mostly when he knows how hard it is on him.
Sehun is good at fucking things up, and he is just as good at waiting until they fix themselves. But, for his misfortune, that rarely ever happens.
Apologizing isn’t a good option in his world, because it doesn’t fix anything. Words can’t fix what was done, regardless of whether or not you are sincere. If you let a glass drop to the floor, it will shatter, and saying you’re sorry won’t pull it back together; and, Sehun figures, people are just about the same. He isn’t one hundred percent sure of what he did so wrong in order to make Jongin upset enough to rarely ever talk to him, so he doesn’t even know what he should apologize for.
“Then tell him that,” Zitao said, when Sehun asked him about it. “He’ll know you want to fix things, even if you don’t know how.”
Sehun wasn’t convinced. “What if he says no?”
“Then, at least you tried.” With that, he went back to what he was doing, and Sehun left his room, hardly less confused than before.
And now, shirt clutched to his bare chest and brow furrowing reprovingly, Sehun is just as lost as he was then.
“It’s been, like, three days. Your apology is overdue.” Zitao stands in front of him, if a bit too close for his taste (even though, Sehun knows, Zitao is better at keeping in mind the fact that, the louder they speak, the less private his situation will be).
Sehun folds his arms. “It’s been four, actually,” he corrects. “I haven’t had the chance to do it.”
Zitao’s eyebrow raises, hand resting on his hip. “How come? All he does all day is play videogames.”
“Yeah, but not alone.” Sehun has tried to catch him by himself, really. But, as opposed to how he’s been ever since Sehun met him, now he seems to be always with someone. When asked, he uses the multi-player option of his console as an excuse, but Sehun knows better; and this is not a topic he is eager to discuss in front of Chanyeol -much less, of Kyungsoo, who happens to seem to have grown fond of gaming over the past week.
“I highly doubt you never caught him alone. Try harder,” shrugs Zitao, and he leaves his room -not without punching Sehun again, and that one, he thinks, he didn’t deserve.
Sehun stays there, frowning at the door, half naked and twice as annoyed.
***
It takes five hours, two more hisses of do it already! and one golden opportunity for Sehun to finally approach Jongin, hands balled to fists and shoved into his pockets, shoulders sagging.
“Jongin?” he calls, voice gentle, even though he kind of wants to grunt his way ouf of this and go for lunch.
The boy doesn’t stop immediately, settling instead for acting like no one said anything at all until he reaches the bathroom door, turning around only once his hand is on the doorknob. This time, Sehun is too far away to slip into the room with him, and he doesn’t really feel like he’d be welcome. Maybe showering together isn’t the best way to restore a ruined friendship.
(Sehun shakes his head. That was totally not what he meant.)
Jongin blinks at that, because he hasn’t yet said anything Sehun could be denying. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” replies Sehun, snapping out of it. “Just- can we talk, maybe? After you’re done?” he adds, seeing Jongin’s grip on the doorknob tighten. No one messes with Jongin’s bath time, and after the sponge incident, Sehun doesn’t want to add up on that.
“Yeah,” agrees Jongin, although a little hesitantly. “’Course.”
He turns back around and goes into the bathroom, towel swinging, hanging from his shoulder, and Sehun is left to stare at a closed door for the second time that day.
***
Sehun didn’t know what he was supposed to do until Jongin came out of the bathroom. He usually takes his time, and waiting on the hallway didn’t only look highly impractical, but also quite rude. Sneaking into Jongin’s room wasn’t an option, either, because he had always been throughly protective over his space when he wasn’t around to watch it; and staying in his own didn’t sound completely right, for he knew that walking out once he heard the drizzle shush down and chasing Jongin again would be even harder than approaching him the first time. Yet, it was the only alternative that (hopefully) wouldn’t end up with a fist on his face, so it was the one he settled for.
He sat on the edge of his bed for several minutes, wondering what exactly was taking Jongin so long. He obviously doesn’t sweat, and he hadn’t gone hunting in a few days, so he was probably as clean as he could be. Sehun had asked, once, and Jongin had only shrugged and said “I like showers.” That was it. Now, if you like showers, but you don’t particularly need them, there’s no reason why you would have to spend exactly forty-three minutes taking one, when you could cut it to a perfectly effective twenty.
Sehun is on his seventh game of Tetris by the moment the sound of water running dies, and the distraction makes him place a bar the wrong direction, causing a gap that doesn’t poof away until the rumble of fabric ceases as well. Sehun decides he might as well give Jongin a little while before going to him again, because he doesn’t want to come out as clingy (even if clinging is the thing he has done the least the last four days); but when his door opens all of a sudden, he makes three cubes fall on top of each other, and his phone beeps as the ending screen pops up.
Jongin is standing at the door, shoulder pressed against the frame and arms folded over his exposed chest. His towel is draped around his neck, though it fails to collect all of the drops of water that trickle from the ends of his hair, pushed back off his face (and that in itself is an anomaly), all the way down to the waistband of the sweatpants that hang loose from his hips.
Not that Sehun is staring.
“I’m done,” Jongin announces, arms spreading in a helpless gesture. When Sehun doesn’t reply, he adds: “You said you wanted to talk.”
He considers sending Jongin to get dressed properly before they do any talking, but Jongin might ask why, and Sehun really, really doesn’t want to be morally forced to say “in order to get any talking done at all”. Instead, he clears his throat -quietly, hoping the other boy doesn’t notice. “I did. I mean- I do.”
“Okay,” Jongin nods. “Then shoot.”
Sehun looks around, and then at Jongin, and then at the door and at Jongin again. “Could you possibly…” he starts, index pointing at the hallway.
“No need to,” replies Jongin. “There isn’t anyone home but Baekhyun and Chanyeol. They won’t hear us.”
Oh.
“I see.” Hands on his lap, he fidgets with his phone. “So…”
“So…?” pushes Jongin, nonchalantly walking into the room, and a tang of vainilla scent floats towards Sehun, catching in his nostrils and the back of his throat. He vaguely remembers sniffing a pot of some emulsion during his first shower in the house and immediately putting it down, judging it as too sweet for his taste. Now, Sehun’s mouth waters, and he can only hope it is the scent of the shampoo provoking it.
Sehun looks around the room, avoiding Jongin’s gaze. “So I wanted to, um.” His eyes fix on his own lap. “I wanted to apologize. “
There’s a silence, and Sehun has to bite his lip in order not to shake Jongin until he says something. Fortunately, the boy speaks before anything of that kind needs to be done. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he corroborates, looking up at him, momentarily forgetting he wasn’t supposed to, because Jongin’s skin is shimmering with droplets of water and how is one supposed to concentrate like that? “You forgive me?”
Jongin scoffs. Okay. Not forgiven. “I said ‘okay, you can apologize’, not ‘okay, everything is in the past’. So proceed.”
This is not how things were supposed to go.
Sehun’s expression is blank, and it angers him a bit that even then Jongin can read it.
“You don’t do this very often, do you?” Sehun shakes his head, and he thinks he sees a hint of a smile on Jongin’s face. “That’s impressive, given the fact that you fuck up so often.”
Okay, then. Not a smile.
This is definetly not how things were supposed to go.
“I don’t fucking know, okay? I never cared enough to try.” At the very least, this seems to bewilder Jongin for a moment, and the look on his face goes from somewhere between dull and smug to slightly perplex. Sehun allows him a moment to speak if he wants to, but he doesn’t; so he takes in a breath (not required by his lungs, but much needed by the lump in his throat) and hopes not to fuck up this time. “I’m sorry about the other day.”
Jongin rests his back against the door, feet crossing at his ankles, and the towel on his shoulders crooks just slightly. “About what, exactly?”
Sehun wishes he had notecards or something along those lines. “Everything?”
He watches the older boy nod slowly. “You’re sorry you kissed me.”
Sehun blinks. And he blinks again. “Yes. No.” Finally, he frowns. “Is that a trick question?”
“Something like that,” answers Jongin, and this time, Sehun is almost sure there is a smile somewhere around there -just clearly not in his eyes.
He tries to get around it, and even though he isn’t sure he will succeed, he gives it a go anyway. “I’m sorry I kissed you without permission and I’m sorry if that bothered you in any way, but I would do it again so I can’t say I regret it.” His words come out slurred and messy, but he knows Jongin understood them. “Is that okay?”
Jongin doesn’t respond to the latter. “Then why didn’t you?” he asks instead, and Sehun is forced to go through his speech backwards, trying to find something he was supposed to do out of all of the things he didn’t.
“What do you mean?” he asks, although, as soon as the words come out of his mouth, it becomes obvious. But he can’t withdraw the question, so he lets Jongin look into his eyes from across the room, arms folded obstinately across his chest. Sehun doesn’t know if he looks like he’s putting on a barrier, or trying to hold himself together.
“If you said you’d kiss me again, why didn’t you?” His voice doesn’t break, not exactly; but it does crack a little, as if it was of a great effort for him to force the words out of himself. Sehun, Jongin sometimes remembers, is almost as stubborn as him -except a lot more considerate.
It’s Sehun’s turn to be astounded. “I didn’t think you’d want me to,” he admits, and saying it aloud makes it a lot more real. It wasn’t like Sehun hadn’t thought of doing so, whenever he passed by Jongin’s room, or when he saw him on the couches of the living room, talking to Chanyeol or Joonmyeon; or even when he wasn’t seeing him, staring at the ceiling of his room and trying to will the universe to be on his side for once. But even the idea of things ending up worse than they already were alone was enough to decide against, every single time.
Jongin stares at him for a moment, and Sehun feels like a frog waiting to be dissected. “You really do think that’s why I’m upset.”
Sehun misses the meaning behind his words, but not the tense in Jongin’s speech: he’s still upset, and Sehun doesn’t know how on earth he’s going to change that. “Why else would you?”
Jongin laughs, but it lacks humor. It sounds twisted and unamused, even a little disappointed, and Sehun doesn’t like it one bit. “Are you really that dense?”
The younger hopes Jongin will pity him and maybe be a little more clear, because this is hard on Sehun as it is and maybe if they both got all their issues on the table, they would be easier to fix. “Enlighten me?” he asks.
Jongin doesn’t make a sound, but Sehun feels like he’s laughing at him. “Enlighten yourself.”
Just as he’s opening his mouth to protest, Zitao’s words come to him. We’re not- Speak for yourself. And -how could he not notice before?- Zitao had even spelled it out for him. You don’t honestly believe that going all ‘there’s nothing between us’ on him was right, do you?
Sehun might be dense, but he isn’t stupid. Or so had he thought, because this, he realizes, he had to be an idiot not to get. And somehow, that makes it all better and worse at the same time. The answer to his question is right there, he only has to walk a few steps to be right in front of it, up on it’s face. Its very pretty face.
The problem is, Sehun doesn’t think he can give Jongin what he wants.
He decides to start with what he can manage -or at least, what he should be able to manage. At this point, he isn’t even sure he can handle that much. “I’m sorry I said there’s nothing between us.”
Jongin nods, slowly. He looks like he’s measuring Sehun, trying to see how much he can pull without breaking him. Sehun doesn’t know the answer himself. “That’s better,” he says softly, and for a moment, Sehun wishes to give in.
But then he remembers the reason why he doesn’t. “I know there is something,” he admits, regardless of his reticence. “But what is it, exactly?”
“You tell me,” dares Jongin without hesitation.
“I’m being serious, Jongin.” Sehun doesn’t have the patience for these kind of things. That’s probably why he’s always been mostly alone -but he’s been just fine. “What is it? Because I see it, it’s there- I can’t lie.”
“It seems like you can lie just fine,” contradicts Jongin, eyebrow cocking upwards. “You were very convincing the other day. And you seem convinced now as well, so we have two options.” One of his hands untangles itself from the fold of his arms, coming to hover next to his face, a v shape on his index and middle fingers. “Either you were lying then…” The middle finger comes down; “or you’re lying now.” His index meets the rest of his fingers in a tight fist, and Sehun remembers Joonmyeon reminding him of Jongin’s fighting skills. He hopes he hasn’t made him upset enough to see those skills with his own eyes. From very up close.
“I wasn’t lying,” he says. “I was denying something I don’t really understand. You can’t blame me.”
“Oh, but I can,” grins Jongin. This smile-without-meaning-it thing isn’t fun to Sehun. “I can, because this is about me, too.” Sehun stares at him, and he continues: “If you were only playing with yourself, I’d gladly let you make a fool of yourself. Why would I care?” Jongin slides down the wall, sitting on the floor, elbows resting carelessly on his knees. He would look bored if you didn’t know him, but Sehun prides himself in being able to read Jongin pretty well, even if not as well as Jongin reads him. And, behind that coat of pretended impassivity and lull, his eyes are storming with curiosity and frustration. “But. You don’t mind your own business at all. You came into my life, just like that, and I couldn’t do anything about it, and no, don’t be a drama queen; don’t even think about protesting and going all I can leave if you don’t want me here on me, because you know damn well that’s not how it goes.” Sehun is stuck to the matress as if he had been weaved together with it. “I can’t help the way I feel, and I don’t know how you feel, but I know you can’t control it, either. I can’t tell you what’s going on between us if I don’t know what’s on your part. So, Sehun.” Jongin’s gaze is deep, almost in a violent way. Sehun feels like he’s being set on fire. “Can you tell me what’s on your part?”
It takes him a moment to react, and even then, he doesn’t really know what to say -so he doesn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought,” continues Jongin. Sehun wishes he didn’t look so discouraged. “You should have probably said that before I threw everything out the window.” He stands up, and Sehun has to tilt his head back in order to look at the older. “You could have also said no, that one time. That would have saved us a lot of trouble. And next time, don’t throw mixed signs. They hurt.”
Sehun gets up from the bed, even if his legs feel numb (though they aren’t supposed to even be able to), and even if he still doesn’t know how to stop Jongin from leaving, because his hand is almost at the doorknob once again and this time, Sehun can’t sneak in and steal a kiss. If Jongin leaves, the conversation is over, just like that; and if Jongin leaves, he might be gone for good. And no matter how fucked up in the head Sehun might be, he can’t let that happen.
He can’t say he notices himself closing the distance between the two and then the door back again, or even touching Jongin at any point, but since the transformation, things have gone this way sometimes: as soon as he thinks of doing something, it’s already done, like his body works faster than his brain. It sucks when you’re just trying to pick a shirt and end up with three on instead, but when you have Jongin’s wrists captured in your hands, pressed at his hides, his face roughly five centimetres away from yours… Sehun doesn’t complain, even if the situation isn’t the ideal.
Jongin’s lips are slightly parted, and when he exhales, soft and tremorous, a tinge of mint mixes with the vainilla. It’s a lot nicer than Sehun would have expected.
When he speaks, his voice is low and husky, and it sends a shiver up Sehun’s spine. “In my dictionary,” he says, “this counts as mixed signals.”
Sehun’s hands press harder into Jongin’s wrists (but he swears it’s unintentional). “How is it mixed when I got you right where I want you?”
“And where exactly is that?” Jongin’s eyes are defiant. Sehun is all in to take the dare.
His hands drag up the wall, bringing Jongin’s wrists together and holding them both with one hand, in order to have at least the other one free. The breach that separates them disappears as Sehun’s leg goes to slink in between Jongin’s, not applying any pressure; but he can already feel Jongin’s breathing quickening. “Right here,” he says.
For a moment, he almost expects Jongin to free himself, to shove Sehun across the room and never talk to him again. But he doesn’t; and instead, he asks: “So what are you gonna do about it?”
There are a lot of things Sehun would like to do about it; but even though he doesn’t know when the rest are coming back, he does know that he’d be interrupted before being even halfway done. “You’ll see,” he breathes into the other’s neck. The bridge of his nose grazes up Jongin’s jawline, and the older’s eyelids flutter. He’s trying to speak, Sehun can tell; but his hand is resting flat on Jongin’s waist and going upwards, and down again, and his fingers are playing notes on Jongin’s ribs and he doesn’t seem to find his words.
“You aren’t- letting me finish my speech,” he lets out after a bit, and Sehun’s ego boosts up a bit at the sound of Jongin’s voice, raspy and shaky. His eyes shut when Sehun’s lips drag along his neck. “I wasn’t done.”
The tip of his finger travels to Jongin’s hipbone in a featherish fashion. “Then finish it,” he allows. “If you can.”
His hips go to press against Jongin’s, breath hovering over the older’s neck. Jongin inhales a sharp breath. “You aren’t playing it nice.” Sehun doesn’t reply, but the light scrape of his teeth on Jongin’s skin might as well -and it’s clearly saying No, I’m not. “I was going to say,” he continues, eyes fixated on some imaginary spot above them, “that you can take it all back, if you want.” Jongin swallows; Sehun doesn’t see it, but he feels it beneath his lips. “We can go back to friends, I’ll live. But you have to stop now.” Sehun doesn’t. “Though, I’m not sure I want you to anymore.”
Jongin’s voice sounds strained, and Sehun is glad his doesn’t -at least not yet. “Good,” he says. “Because I wasn’t going to.” There’s a depth in his tone even he is aware of, and Jongin’s eyes close with anticipation.
“But maybe you should,” he says. “If this is just a game to you.”
Mixed with the darkness and the longing, there’s an undeniable seriousness, and, Sehun has to admit, it intimidates him a fair bit. “If you think I’m playing, you are entitled to leave this room whenever you please,” he states. He places a kiss on Jongin’s shoulder, hoping to coax him otherwise.
“I don’t wan’t to think you are,” admits the other, voice soft. His head tilts sideways as to give Sehun more room.
“Then stay.” Sehun’s free hand roams down Jongin’s stomach, and the smoothness of his skin startles him all over again. His finger hooks on the waistband of the sweatpants, pulling them down barely a few milimetres, just enough to have Jongin’s hips shifting, pressed between Sehun’s and the door behind him. His chest is aligned with Sehun’s as well, arms stretched above him. Sehun figures it might be a bit uncomfortable, but he doesn’t struggle. “This is your last chance to retreat.”
Sehun pulls away, because it’s not enough to hear Jongin: he wants to see it in his eyes. And he isn’t disappointed when he looks in them, glazed and half-lidded. “Maybe I don’t want to.”
That’s all the authorization he needs to slip his hand into his clothes, layers of cotton becoming nothing but a bother. It wraps around Jongin dauntlessly, and the sensation isn’t completley unfamiliar, but it’s maximized with Jongin’s gentle hums and the way his eyes almost close, except not all the way, and in between thick lashes they are still locked on Sehun’s.
When he gives a meager tug, Jongin’s hands become fists above them, and his eyes do shut for a second. Sehun can’t help but grin. “Look,” he teases, “that little smug smile of yours is gone.”
It’s a given that vampires don’t blush, but something very similar goes across Jongin’s face. “Shut up,” he says, and Sehun can’t tell whether he’s glowering at him or trying to remain lackluster. But when Sehun picks up his pace, just slightly, a noise comes from Jongin’s throat and throws his head backwards, hitting the door with a soft thump.
From one moment to the next, Jongin is pushing his hips forwards, looking for something Sehun isn’t willing to give just yet. His thumb runs across the slit of the head, and Sehun’s plans for the evening were maybe a few jokes and a movie, and definetly not Jongin crying out and thrusting into his hand, but he can’t complain. His lips go to brush on Jongin’s jawline, crawling almost to his lips and then coming back down; refusing to surrender, for he knows it’s a one way ticket.
Jongin’s head turns to face him, and when he speaks, Sehun can smell the mint again. “You’re still not kissing me,” complains the older, somehow managing to look both lost and focused.
“I want to watch,” replies Sehun as he speeds up some more, slowing down again and then back up. Jongin alternates between soft purrs and high-pitched whines, and nothing Sehun has ever heard has turned him on more than this.
A grunt resonates between them when, with a punctuatued flick of Sehun’s wrist, Jongin’s climax shakes his lithe body, small spasms making his hips rattle forward, throat constricted and fists tightening. Sehun catches flashes of Jongin’s gaze in between disoriented looks and shut eyes, Sehun helping him through it, and when he finally goes still, a shaky breath eloping from his lips, Jongin doesn’t look remorseful or ashamed. “Was that enough of a show for you?” he asks, the threat of a tease in his tone, even if, in his state, he can’t quite manage to sound spiteful. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
Sehun kisses Jongin, and it’s rather sloppy, with too much teeth and too litle distress, and probably gross to anyone but them; because Sehun’s hand is sticky and so is the inside of Jongin’s boxers, and what Jongin is doing to his tongue can’t be defined as anything other than filthy, but Sehun can’t bring himself to care about the looks of it.
He doesn’t realize the moment he let’s go of Jongin’s wrists, but at some point his hands land on the younger’s shoulders and, when Sehun’s hands retreat to dock on Jongin’s waist, he grins at the sensation of moisture beneath his fingers. “Seems like you’re gonna have to shower again,” he points out. “Guess who’s coming?”
Even through the weariness of the aftermath, the smirk -the one Sehun has come to love and hate- comes back to Jongin’s expression. “Not you,” he says before pushing Sehun away and swiftly turning around, disappearing from the room in a blur.
Sehun gawks at the door, pants uncomfortably tight, wondering how has his life come to the point where he chases after an angel-faced demon, and a door gets closed on his face three times on the same day.
_________________________
a/n: I have said it before, sassy Jongin is my favorite.