cock envy. sehun/kai. two.
*
Jongin doesn’t think Heart looks traumatized when Sehun brings him back home from the sex museum, but he has to resist the urge to double and triple check, just to make sure.
Doing that might make Sehun more upset at him? Jongin doesn’t want that because he’s kind of decided to take some of Kyungsoo’s advice (not all of it though, because Jongin… doesn’t want to? Yes, he doesn’t want to confess to Sehun. That’s it.)
He does want to apologize to Sehun about the chick imprinting thing, and so he corners Sehun on his way to the shower, and then regrets it because Sehun is half naked and he’ll never be able to concentrate like this. Focus, Jongin. “Can I talk to you?” Jongin asks, and Sehun narrows his eyes. Jongin notices that for all his protests, Sehun has Heart cheeping up at them both from his shower caddy.
“Now?” Sehun says, and he doesn’t look angry, or anything, just…. confused? Or maybe annoyed. Jongin should figure out how to tell when people are annoyed with him. It’s on his list, right after the Sehun’s dick sucking thing. “Can it wait?”
“No!” Jongin says, and Sehun makes that frowny face that looks like his face has been put into a waffle press. “It’s, um, important.”
“Okay,” Sehun says. “But it better not be about how I stole your children or something weird like that, because I never even wanted them and I would prefer they didn’t exist--”
“I’m sorry!” Sehun stops talking and just kinda… gapes at Jongin for a minute, before he immediately returns to the indifference that Jongin finds most comforting. “About the chicks. About leaving them with you and then getting mad when they liked you more than they liked me. I was just…” He sighs. The truth is, Sehun hates animals, and Jongin didn’t know what to do when, for the first time, like, ever, Sehun seemed to smile at them. It all seemed like some big metaphor for the future? Like maybe one day some person was gonna show up and Sehun was going to smile at them, too, when Jongin was used to keeping all of Sehun’s smiles to himself. Or maybe Jongin was just having a temper tantrum. “I was just jealous, and a little bit angry at myself, so I guess I wanted to push some of the blame for that… feeling… onto someone else? Possibly?”
Sehun is quiet, looking down at the chick instead of at Jongin, but he’s back at the waffle iron stage now, which Jongin knows means he’s thinking about Jongin’s apology. “That… made almost-sense, so apology accepted.” He coughs, and Jongin grins at him. Sehun half-smiles back, and Jongin suddenly becomes aware of the fact that yeah…. Sehun is still… kind of… naked… partially…? Also there is no sunlamp, so Sehun can’t blame the redness of Jongin’s face on anything but embarrassment.
Except Sehun is looking down again, so he misses Jongin’s red face completely. “So, uh, that’s all, you can… uh, carry on with the whole showering thing--”
“I’m sorry, too,” Sehun says. “About making you feel bad about the whole sex thing. If I made you feel bad. I don’t know. That’s not really my business.”
Jongin is really glad Sehun has no idea how much he wants it to be Sehun’s business. “That’s… it’s fine, I know it’s weird to you, probably--”
“No, no,” Sehun says. “Sex is… Sex is whatever, I was just… surprised.” Sehun rubs at his bare arm, and Heart is just chirping away. “Because you’re so…”
“So what?” Jongin asks, tilting his head. Sehun’s eyes widen, and waffle iron is immediately replaced by I Hate Emotions, and Jongin knows the conversation is over.
“Nothing,” Sehun says. “It’s not a big deal. Plenty of people are virgins.”
The front door of the apartment bursts open unexpectedly, making both of them jump and Sehun struggle to hold on to both his shower caddy and his towel.
“Virgins?” Baekhyun says as he comes inside, like, Jongin thinks with dread, he’d been listening to their whole conversation. “I can definitely contribute on that subject because I am a Virgin Expert.”
He looks between them, Jongdae appearing at his elbow.
“Have you guys fucked yet?” Baekhyun asks, leering at them both. Baekhyun always asks that like he’s expecting a different answer, and isn’t actually joking, but Jongin knows there will never be a different answer to that question. Jongin is probably going to be a virgin forever.
But Sehun also said that that’s okay? Sehun also probably doesn’t know that Jongin is kind of accidentally on purpose sort of saving himself for when he can have sex with Sehun, which might change his opinion on Jongin’s virginity in general, so he decides not to mention it.
Also, Baekhyun is still there, looking like he wants an answer, and Jongin is sure he and Jongdae would never let him live that whole thing down if they knew.
“No,” Sehun says finally, stepping away from Jongin and closer to the bathroom door, “we haven’t fucked yet.”
“Shame,” Baekhyun says, and turns back to talk to Jongdae like he’s bored. Jongin can see the little golden apple emblem shining on the back of his jeans.
“Oh, Sehun,” Jongdae says, stopping him just before he shuts the bathroom door. “I heard one of the chicks went with you to the MoSex today. I didn’t know they had ‘take your child to work’ day there.”
Baekhyun laughs like the hyenas from The Lion King, and Sehun slams the door behind himself.
Jongin retreats to where he’d set the chicks’ box earlier, next to the couch. He’s lucky because the sound of Sehun’s shower and the noises that the chicks make help drown out the sounds of Baekhyun and Jongdae having sex in Jongdae’s bedroom. Baekhyun’s brought out the whip again. Jongin doesn’t really get what that’s for but maybe it’s something you learn in Advanced Sex, which Sehun sometimes jokes was Baekhyun’s major in college whenever they try to guess what Baekhyun actually does for a living.
Wind, the chick that seems to like Jongin best, waddles over over to the side of the box closest to Jongin and cheeps up at him, and Jongin thinks what the chick is trying to say is that it doesn’t matter that Jongin doesn’t know what Baekhyun and Jongdae need a whip for, and Sehun said it’s okay that he’s a virgin, and that everything is going to be okay.
*
The second week of “chick marriage”, Sehun watches and holds the chicks as Jongin prepares a bigger brooding box. “They’ll start to attack each other if we don’t,” he says. “Chicks are very much like our high school wrestling team. Territorial. Each needing a separate locker. You know.”
Sehun doesn’t know. He doesn’t think about people like they’re animals to cope with social anxiety, like Jongin does. That’s a weird Jongin quirk.
What Sehun does know is that Jongin looks adorable earnestly explaining why he’s brought home a massive box from CVS to move their chicks into, and that it reminds him of all the other times Jongin’s made that face at him.
Mostly it reminds him of Jongin pulling him outside onto the fire escape in tenth grade and hesitantly telling Sehun he was pretty sure he liked boys almost as much as he liked puppies, but in a different way, his hair falling into his face as he spoke. It also reminds Sehun of the way Jongin had patiently explained that Sehun didn’t have to pretend he liked boys too, when Sehun had tried to confess the same.
Sehun had felt sick to his stomach for three whole days afterwards, because he’d thought… that was Jongin’s way of rejecting him. Because it had to have been obvious to everyone on Earth that Sehun loved Jongin more than anything, even to Jongin. When he’d really thought about it, though, he realized Jongin would never be that indirect. That’s when Sehun resolved to put all his Sexual Jongin Thoughts behind him.
“Pretty soon they’re going to need a new home, Jongin. Have you even been looking?” Earth nuzzles into Sehun’s palm. “We can’t keep them forever.”
“You’re such a cold mom,” Jongin says. “Why are you so eager to get rid of our kids?”
“They’re not our kids, Jongin,” Sehun says, rolling his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not anyone’s mother?”
Jongin picks up Water, moving to sit down next to Sehun on the couch. It’s not a very nice couch, with lumpy cushions, and Jongin ends up pressed right into Sehun’s side, their arms rubbing together and their knees bumping.
Jongin throws his leg over Sehun’s thigh to stop them from getting tangled up, which means that he’s sort of leaning with his head on Sehun’s shoulder. Sehun can smell Jongin’s Irish Spring soap that he buys in bulk with the same regularity that he’d bought Axe in middle school, and he’s holding Water closer to his chest.
“Thanks for all your help,” Jongin mumbles into Sehun’s shirt, and Sehun is tempted to shrug him off, but he doesn’t, because Jongin sounds so sincere and when he gets like that rejection makes him gloomy.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sehun says instead. “It’s not like you gave me a lot of choice with your “cat-mergency” or whatever.”
He pretends that he’s annoyed, but the tilt of his mouth probably gives away that he’s happy, and Heart chirps up at Jongin softly from his place in Sehun’s lap, like some physical manifestation of Sehun’s good mood.
*
“How are the chicks?” Chanyeol asks. “Do they still like Sehun better? He never struck me as a chick magnet, if you know what I mean.” Chanyeol adjusts his coat. “Knowing you, you probably don’t.”
“I put an advertisement online to see if anyone was looking for a few free chickens, but…” Jongin frowns. “How do I know if I’m sending them to a good home?”
“It’s a difficult task,” Chanyeol says. “But I trust you not to give them to anyone who means them harm.” Chanyeol wags his finger. “And don’t promise them to anyone before you meet them in person. You don’t want them to count their chickens before they hatch.”
“There are five chickens and or roosters. There’s not really a need to count them.”
“It’s just an expression, Jongin. What do they teach you kids in college these days?”
“Veterinary medicine,” Jongin says, and Chanyeol laughs, clapping loudly like Jongin has told an excellent joke. “Or other things, depending on your major. Sehun studied art history.”
“It’s a shame you’re leaving before Pamela Anderson comes in for her check-up.” Chanyeol claps Jongin on the shoulder. “Tao was really looking forward to seeing you.”
“I’ll catch him next time,” Jongin says. “I promised Kyungsoo I’d drop by his office this week, and today is the only day Sehun’s already home, so I don’t have to rush to check on the chicks.”
“Oh, tell him I said hi.” Chanyeol grins. “And Kris too, if you see him.”
“Why would I see Kris?” Jongin asks, and Chanyeol runs a hand through his hair.
“You’re one of those ‘booksmart’ kids, aren’t you?”
“I only survived school through my sheer love of animals,” Jongin admits. “And Kyungsoo helping me study for tests.”
“Yeah, Kyungsoo is very good at taking charge.” Chanyeol says it fondly, and there definitely aren’t any sunlamps here that should be turning his face so red. “And definitely tell them both I said hi.”
*
Sehun has invented the ultimate sandwich. Heart seems to agree, even though Sehun is trying in vain to keep him from eating bits of it every time he lowers the sandwich back down toward the plate.
“You could put him back in the box,” Jongdae says, and Sehun frowns.
“Why don’t I put you in the box?” he says. “We’ll see how you like it.”
“I may have underestimated Sehun’s potential for kinkiness,” Baekhyun says. “I wonder if he’s into cages. Rawr.” He makes a claw motion with his hands.
“Why are you always here.”
“I’m spreading delight,” Baekhyun says.
“That’s not how you pronounce chlamydia, Baekhyun. You’re way off. I thought you and Jongdae met in college.”
“We did,” Baekhyun says. “Although we didn’t share any classes. I spent most of college looking at labias.”
“How many could possibly have seen?” Sehun snorts. “You closet types.”
Jongin chooses that moment to walk in the door. His eyes are shadowed, but the despair in them lifts as Fire and Wind trill at him happily.
“Someone had a rough day,” Baekhyun says. “Was Chanyeol making his disgusting animal puns again?”
“I dropped by Kyungsoo’s office,” Jongin says, sounding haunted, “and the things I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, man, they, get up to some real freaky shit.” Jongdae grins. “You know how Kyungsoo is sponsoring Kris’s next gallery show? I’m pretty sure Kris is paying him back in ass.” Then he shudders. “One time I walked in on Kris with his arms belted to Kyungsoo’s desk, on his knees over a large piece of spread out canvas, and Kyungsoo was jacking him off and growling something about ’being the real artist here’ and ‘painting better than Jackson Pollack.’”
“Oh,” says Sehun succinctly as Jongin shivers.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jongin says faintly, and Sehun feels momentarily sorry for him, because Jongin’s too nervous to even go to Sehun’s work place because it’s a sex museum, so seeing his best buddy from college banging one of Sehun’s best buddies from college was probably Very Difficult.
“Here,” Sehun says, reaching down into the box next to him on the floor and holding out Wind for him to hold. “Cuddling small animals always makes you feel better.”
Jongin sighs with relief as he takes the chick in his hands, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. Rubbing his nose across the top of Wind’s head, he coos what Sehun thinks might be Katy Perry’s “Roar” at the chick. It’s kind of heartwarming, but also upsetting because Jongin likes Katy Perry so much.
Peeking down into the box at the other three, Jongin reaches down to pet them all one by one. “You’re all so cute,” he tells them as they nuzzle his hand. “Were you good for Sehun today?”
“They only slept on me for like, four hours, instead of the entire time, so I guess they were okay,” Sehun says around a mouthful of his perfect sandwich and this seems to please Jongin, so he coos down at the chicks a little more, like a great big mother hen.
“You know, you’re not their mom, Jongin,” Jongdae says, seeming to be on the same train of thought as Sehun.
Baekhyun snorts. “Yeah, that would be Sehun. You’re the dad in the chick-marriage scenario, remember?”
“If you sleep here tonight,” Sehun says, “I might kill you both. Just so you’re prepared.”
“A double homicide might tarnish your modeling career, Abercrombie,” Jongdae says.
“More like a double “homo”-cide,” Baekhyun jokes, flopping across Jongdae’s lap, the signature Sean John plaid of his shirt wrinkling as he moves around. What he and Jongdae are doing on the couch looks a little too much like foreplay and Sehun decides it’s better to just ignore it.
Jongin is still talking to the chicks softly, the voyeuristic trauma from his visit to Kyungsoo’s office seemingly forgotten, which makes Sehun feel a little better because he may work a sex museum, but Jongin was the type of teenager that covered his eyes when his characters on The Sims went at it, so.
After a little while longer, Jongin leans back against the table next to where Sehun is sitting, close enough that his hips are almost brushing Sehun’s shoulder.
“I should eat something,” he sighs, stroking down Wind’s back as the chick chirrups up at him.
Sehun stares down at his sandwich masterpiece. From his place on the table, Heart is cocking his head at Sehun, like he’s trying to tell Sehun something with his shiny black chick eyes.
Sehun cannot imagine what a baby chick could have to tell him except that he needs to poop. Yet again.
Then Heart tries to take another nibble of Sehun’s sandwich, and Sehun sighs, because Heart is right and Sehun hates that.
“Here.” He shoves his beloved sandwich in Jongin’s direction. Jongin looks down at him, blinking in surprise.
“Are you trying to give me some of your sandwich?” he asks, sounding disbelieving, which is totally not fair because Sehun gives things to people all the time. Sure, what he’s giving them is usually a judgemental glare, but it’s really the thought that counts.
He keeps holding out the sandwich for Jongin to take, but Jongin, for some reason, decides to bend down and take a bite while it’s still in Sehun’s grip instead.
Sehun has to lick his lips to keep his mouth busy while Jongin’s own mouth touches his food, lips brushing the bread and the muscles of his jaw working as he pulls back to chew and swallow. Jongin has a really nice throat, with an Adam’s apple that bobs beneath golden skin, and Sehun’s entire life is suddenly at Defcon 2.
Jongin just ate out of Sehun’s hands and also, Sehun might be jealous of a sandwich.
He sets his food back down on the plate and tries to find inner peace again.
Sehun is not having Sexual Jongin Thoughts. Sehun feels nothing. He is placid, like a hidden mountain lake. He’s practically--
Leaning forward again, Jongin slips his fingers into Sehun’s hair, running them through it a couple of times before pulling back. Sehun’s first reaction is to sigh, because it feels kind of nice, and even after a whole day at the vet office, Jongin still smells like the soap he keeps in the shower, and while Sehun thinks that his hair looks best this color, the bleach always makes his scalp kind of itchy, so having Jongin do that is--
No. Having Jongin do that is not nice. It is off-limits.
“You had some fluff in your hair,” Jongin says, oblivious to Sehun’s inner turmoil. He shows Sehun the little bit of whatever he’d grabbed, and Sehun looks down at Heart accusingly.
“That’s your chick fluff, isn’t it?” Heart cheeps, but he’s probably asking for another piece of sandwich and not apologizing for the Jongin’s-hands-in-his-hair-chicken-fluff incident, and Sehun feels betrayed.
He stands up from the table, picking up Heart in one hand and pushing his plate toward Jongin with the other. “You can have the rest.”
Sehun can’t deal with the thought of putting his mouth where Jongin had also put his mouth and it being on a sandwich and not them actually kissing. He’s been not-kissing Jongin for ten years and that’s been fine.
It’s still fine, and Sehun is Just Fine.
Jongin looks as started as when Sehun had first offered him a bite. “You really don’t want the rest?”
Sehun shakes his head. “It wasn’t that good anyway.”
The sandwich is actually delicious, but that just means that Jongin will be able to enjoy it while Sehun goes and tries to find inner peace in his bedroom instead of out here, where Jongin is being all distracting and Jongdae and Baekhyun are trying to reach second base on the couch.
“You know,” Jongdae says as Sehun passes on his way out of the room, “this is kind of like watching that program on Animal Planet about those gay penguins.”
His voice is loud enough for Sehun to hear, but Jongin is absorbed in talking to the chicks again while he sits and eats Sehun’s sandwich.
Which is definitely not a euphemism for anything.
Baekhyun is in Jongdae’s lap fully now, and Sehun can’t see where his hands are. This whole thing is upsetting. “Shut up.”
“They took care of that rock because they thought it was an egg, remember? Only in this version, the rock is your feelings and you’re both pretending it’s friendship instead of sexual tension.”
Sehun shuts the door of his bedroom behind himself instead of telling Jongdae he hates him because Jongdae already knows and doesn’t care.
Flopping down on his bed, Sehun looks at Heart.
“Jongin and I are nothing like that pair of gay penguins,” he tells the chick, like Heart’s opinion on his and Jongin’s relationship matters. Heart moves around on top of Sehun’s chest, trying to get comfortable, and Sehun thinks the chick looks sceptical.
“And we’re not your chick parents, so don’t go getting ideas,” he adds, while Heart curls up right over his heart, like its beat will lull him to sleep. Sehun is getting to used to the way these little baby chicks cuddle into his body to use its heat to fall asleep. Jongin’s love for cuddly, helpless animals is like a disease that Sehun is always in danger of catching, and this time, his luck has run out.
“You stupid fluff-ball,” he says, thinking of the bit of chick-fluff Jongin had picked out of his hair, but he doesn’t really mean it.
*
The doorbell rings, and Sehun jumps five feet in the air in surprise as Jongin bolts for the door.
He’s been looking forward to his sister coming by all week, and she’s finally here. Sehun looks mortified that Jongin is going to open the door before he’s blow-dried his hair. Jongin rushes to reassure him. “Relax, Sehun, it’s just my sister, it’s not like she doesn’t know what you look like after a sleepover.” Also it’s not like Sehun doesn’t look amazing anyway, with his hair all messy and his skin flushed with sleep from his nap? There’s a little drool at the corner of his lips, too, but Jongin doesn’t think it detracts from his handsomeness even a little.
Then again, Jongin had thought Sehun looked handsome when he’d dressed up as Rainbow Dash for Halloween in the eleventh grade. He’d really pulled off the multicolored hair.
Jongin’s oldest sister has got her hands full of leashes when Jongin opens the door, three dogs straining for a chance to make a break for it. Jongin’s children have always been adventurous souls. He’d forgotten she was bringing them, but he’s glad that they’re here now.
“Hi!” Jongin says to his sister brightly before greeting the dogs, because he’d gotten scolded for paying more attention to animals than humans his whole childhood. Then he kneels down, letting his puppies jump all over him and lick his face. “Hello, yes, hello!”
Monggu’s tongue somehow makes its way up into Jongin’s nose, which feels kind of gross, but he doesn’t mind because he’s missed his dogs and it’s nice to know they’ve missed him too. Jongin sits down fully on the floor and pulls Jjanga into his lap, tugging at her sweater where it’s ridden up
“If you’re going to play with them all, you might as well take their leashes,” his sister says, taking Jongin’s hand and pressing the bunch of leashes into it. She steps further into the apartment. “Hi, Sehun.”
Sehun mumbles something back, probably still embarrassed about his hair even though Jongin and all his family had seen him that one time he got caught in the rain on the way back from getting his hair dyed and it had turned the sides of his face and the shoulders of his shirt pink, and Jongin can hear them vaguely talking about something to do with Sehun’s job at the museum while he cuddles his dogs.
The three pups live with Jongin’s parents uptown, since Jongin’s apartment isn’t supposed to have pets, and while Jongin’s mother makes the best kimchi jjigae in the world, Jongin thinks she might be feeding Jjangu too much in an effort to fatten someone up now that all her children have moved out. That’s what parents do when they empty-nest, right?
Jongin wonders what Sehun is going to do without the chicks. He can’t exactly imagine him suddenly taking care of anything else.
“Jongin,” his sister calls suddenly, “why do you have a box of baby chickens in your no-pets-allowed apartment?”
Jongin gulps. “Um? It was raining?”
She turns to look at Sehun, who shrugs. “You know how he is. It’s not like I could say no without feeling like I was the dude that shot Bambi’s mom.”
The first time Jongin saw the movie Bambi was when he was five and he ended up crying so hard he couldn’t even eat the ice cream his mom had tried to give him to cheer him up. Sehun doesn’t know about that, because that was before Jongin’s family had moved to New York, but when he and Jongin had watched The Lion King together and Jongin had wailed “Dad!!” along with Simba during the stampede scene, he hadn’t made fun of Jongin at all, ignoring Jongin while he wiped his nose on his sleeve and then offering Jongin some of his Pringles. That was definitely something friends were for, Jongin had decided back then, and he and Sehun have been friends ever since.
“It’s not for very long,” Jongin tries to explain. “We’re already trying to find them a home since the pound won’t take them.” Sehun is frowning at him, but Jongin thinks that might be because Monggu is trying to eat his hair? Something like that. “They were all alone in this little box and I didn’t want them to die--”
His sister waves him off. “I know, I grew up with you, remember? Just don’t get kicked out of this place. Mom will try and get you to move back home if you do.”
The dogs are starting to get curious about the apartment, instead of walking all over Jongin, and he fumbles for their leashes. There’s one of them, laying across his lap, and the second one is tangled in Jjanga’s legs, but the third one--
“Monggu, no!”
But it’s too late. Jongin’s biggest puppy is already bounding off across the living room, toward Sehun-- or, not toward Sehun, but toward the box of chicks, chirping away for Sehun’s attention. Sehun must see what’s about to happen the moment before impact, because he kind of lunges for the box, and Jongin sees it in slow-mo, like the Michael Jordan dunks in Space Jam, or the lunging of a cheetah just before the gazelle gets away on a National Geographic program.
Jongin is scrambling across the floor on his knees, trying to keep ahold of the other two dogs while reaching to grab Monggu’s leash as it trails out behind him.
Monggu gets there before Sehun can, and the box tips over, baby chicks and newspapers and the water feeder spilling out onto the floor. The dog barks, startling the chicks as they try to right themselves, and goes for Fire, the biggest one, with his mouth open like he’s going toeat him. Jongin hears himself let out a strangled scream.
Monggu doesn’t know that he and Fire are brothers. He’s going to eat his brother. Their no-pets-allowed apartment is going to be the site of fratricide.
Sehun snatches up Fire from the floor just as Jongin’s fingers close around Monggu’s leash.
“Take the dogs outside,” Sehun says, quietly, and Jongin quickly gathers up the leashes and hands them to his sister, who had watched the whole situation unfold with the same amount of horror as Jongin. “Right now.”
“Right,” Jongin says. He looks down at his kids. “You guys have a lot of energy, right? Sis and I are gonna take you guys for a walk around the neighborhood.”
His sister opens the door and Jongin follows her out, looking behind him to see Sehun carefully righting the box, his jaw clenched tightly with the furious anger usually resolved for people who spoil the end of the movies Sehun is actually interested in seeing, and Jongin’s whole stomach stages a revolt. He wants to say sorry on behalf of his dogs, but they’re just dogs, and that’s the way dogs are. Doesn’t Sehun know that? Something bad could have happened, but it didn’t, so hopefully if they go out for a walk, Sehun will have calmed down by the time they get back.
“Sehun looked pretty mad,” his sister says once they’re down on the street. “Why didn’t you tell me you had chicks? I wouldn’t have brought the dogs. You know I always bring them to see you.”
“I didn’t think of it,” Jongin says. “I forgot that dogs and chickens don’t necessarily get along, even if they’re brothers and sisters.” He frowns. “Sehun doesn’t need to be that mad.”
“He’s probably mad because Monggu could have killed them,” his sister says. “And you didn’t even tell him the dogs and I were coming, or think about them at all, even though you’re the one that brought them back to the apartment. It looks kind of like he’s been taking care of them more often than you have.”
Well, when she puts it like that, it does make Jongin seem like kind of an idiot and also a jerk.
“I should go apologize,” Jongin says, stopping dead in his tracks, so that Jjangu tugs on the leash he’s holding.
“Probably.” His sister holds out her hand and he gives her the leash. “I mean, if you don’t want him to be mad at you forever.”
That would be kind of really awful? Sehun has only ever been mad at Jongin twice before. Once, when Jongin had tried to get Sehun a cat for his birthday, forgetting that Sehun is allergic to cats and ruining his party because Sehun couldn’t stop sneezing into his cake, and the other time was in high school and Jongin still hasn’t figured out why Sehun was so mad at him, but it had been awful and he doesn’t want that to ever happen again.
“I’ll take the dogs back to mom and dad’s,” his sister says, and Jongin is so preoccupied, he almost forgets to say goodbye.
When he gets back to the apartment, Sehun has got the chicks’ box all put back together, and he’s standing over the box, as though he can’t make himself look away, just in case something happens to one of them while he’s not looking.
He doesn’t look up when Jongin goes to stand beside him.
“Hey,” Jongin says, and he’s glad all the chicks look okay, even if they’re all still a little more noisy than usual from all the excitement. Sehun doesn’t look okay, though? His mouth is all thin, in a flat line like that waffle iron expression he makes sometimes, but his eyes are hard, like instead of thinking, he’s just angry.
“I’m sorry about Monggu,” Jongin tries again, when Sehun doesn’t say anything back. “And for not telling you about the dogs. I just… forgot?”
Sehun breathes out hard through his nose, kind of like a snorting bull, and Jongin thinks maybe his apology has had the opposite effect he wanted, because that is a very angry sounding sound. “You forgot?”
Jongin scuffs his shoe on the floor. “Yeah, I mean, my sister always brings the dogs by when she comes to visit because she knows I like to see them and um, at least none of them got hurt?”
“One of them almost got eaten,” Sehun bursts out, like he can’t possibly not say what’s on his mind. “What were you thinking? You brought these chicks home and dumped them on me and now you try to kill them in front of me?”
“It was an accident, Sehun, it’s not like I saved them from the rain so I could let Monggu eat them!” Jongin pulls at his hair. “I just didn’t think--”
“You never think! About anything! And then it falls to everyone around you to think for you and fix the messes you make, even when you don’t even notice you’re making them, and I’m tired of it!”
Sehun’s whole face is flushed pink. His hair is going every which way and Jongin is nauseated by the look on his face, like he’s never been so mad at Jongin in his life. He doesn’t want Sehun to be mad at him, because…
Jongin’s brain short-circuits, and he grabs two big handfuls of Sehun’s shirt and pulls him closer as Sehun tries to walk away. “No, don’t,” Jongin says, his knuckles digging in to the flat plane of Sehun’s chest as Sehun tries to pull away. “Wait, let me--”
“I know you’re sorry, Jongin,” Sehun says. “That’s not good enough. I’m not one of your dogs, and I’m not going to forgive you for accidentally stepping on my tail three seconds later because I don’t know any better.” His lips are then and pressed together, and his nostrils are flared. He pushes at Jongin’s shoulder, trying to make space between them, and Sehun’s face is really close, but he looks even more angry at Jongin from this angle than he had before.
Jongin doesn’t want to fight with Sehun, not about this, or about anything, really? There are a hundred, a million other things he’d rather do with Sehun, and all of them, even the ones that friends aren’t supposed to want to do to each other-- running his hands over Sehun’s naked thighs, watching Sehun orgasm, anything to do with touching Sehun’s mouth-- are filling Jongin’s mind until it’s like an overflowing kiddie pool, and he stops thinking about all the things he wants to do with Sehun instead of fighting with him, and just does one of them.
The first thing Jongin notices is the softness of Sehun’s mouth, which is unexpected since he was doing that thing with his mouth that makes his lips pull thin with disapproval. The second thing Jongin notices is that Sehun uses the same aftershave as he does, which he has known forever since they only buy one container of aftershave, but he’s never really imagined that Sehun would smell like Jongin, only kind of better because not like the pets Jongin deals with most days and because Sehun’s skin has always smelled sweet, even before either Jongin or Sehun were old enough to shave.
The fact that Jongin has actually kissed Sehun seems to really register with them both, then, Sehun’s nails digging into Jongin’s shoulders as Jongin’s grim slackens on Sehun’s shirt. They stumble away from each other, Jongin banging his knee into the wall as he struggles to move as far back as he can before Sehun can strangle him, and Sehun is horrifyingly, alarmingly quiet as Jongin catches his breath.
“Jongin?” Sehun whispers, voice scratchy and not at all sure, and panic surges through Jongin as he realizes, really realizes, exactly what he has done.
“Oh fuck,” Jongin says, and he bolts for the bathroom.
*
“Is everything all right?” Minseok asks, carefully turning the four-centuries-old dildo from today’s shipment in his hands, inspecting it for damage. “You seem kind of down.”
“Everything’s fine,” Sehun says, not thinking about the kiss.
Okay, so Sehun is thinking about the kiss. And what it means, or might mean, really, since the closest he’s come to talking to Jongin since he’d been mauled mid-argument by the softest pair of lips that have ever touched his in his life is when Jongin had quietly said he didn’t have work this morning as he’d passed Sehun the cereal.
Minseok sets the dildo down, erecting a barrier between them, and searches Sehun’s face for answers.
“Really?” he says, and Sehun sighs.
“What would you do, theoretically, if you liked someone for a really long time before you convinced yourself they would never like you back, so you got over it, but then they kissed you in the middle of an argument?”
“Kiss them back?” Minseok strokes his chin thoughtfully, like he has a beard. “And then maybe spank them for making me wait so long.”
“Uh,” Sehun says. “Okay.”
“You can buy one of those paddles from the gift shop,” Minseok adds with encouragement. “I’m sure Heechul would give you a discount. Theoretically, of course.”
Sehun frowns at Minseok until he laughs and puts both hands up placatingly. “Okay, theoretical but actual advice, I’d sit them down and talk to them about why they did it. That’s not a good way to end an argument, so they must have had a reason for doing it.”
“A good reason?”
“Or at least an excuse,” Minseok says. “A flimsy… excuse….”
Sehun mournfully continues the search for his pen. His bag is like a mini-black hole that he’s always losing things in. No chicks today, though. “Sure.”
Minseok picks up the dildo and taps Sehun on the nose with it. “Well, how are the chicks doing?”
“My roommate’s dogs almost ate them,” Sehun says. “It was a traumatic weekend.”
“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” Minseok says, “why don’t you just give the chicks to my parents?”
“What?” Sehun looks up at Minseok in surprise. “Your parents?”
“I told you I grew up on a farm, right?” Minseok laughs. “When my parents drive up to visit in a few weeks, the chicks can go back to Pennsylvania with them. My parents have other chickens and stuff, so they’ll be well taken care of, and then they’re out of your hair.”
“That’s…” Sehun looks at Minseok in shock as the solution to the chicks’ future falls right into Sehun’s lap. “That would be amazing, Minseok.”
It will be amazing, right after Sehun stops feeling like someone’s ripped his heart out and stomped all over it wearing Baekhyun’s ugly construction boots at the thought of losing his chicks. Not that they’re his chicks, because he knows he can’t keep them, and that they’ll be happier out on a farm than they would be in the apartment, but still. He’s gotten used to the way Heart curls up on his stomach and sleeps happily while Sehun takes pictures of himself on Instagram.
Minseok grins at him, giving him a peace sign. “Great! We’ll work out the details late, all right?” He puts the dildo back into the massive shipping carton of historic dildos for the new exhibit on ‘Mayflower Masturbation: Self Pleasure of the American Pilgrim’. “Now help me with all these cocks.”
“Coming,” Sehun says, following Minseok out of his office, relieved that at least one of his problems is solved.
cheep cheep cheeeeeeeeep