❀ Caution Tape Romance (OVA Series) ❀ for edoriko
Title: ❀ Caution Tape Romance (OVA Series) ❀
Pairing: Sehun/Kai
Rating: R
Length: 8,650
Summary: Sehun’s new roommate has a secret.
Warnings: Language, Mild Kink.
Authors’ Note: Eleventh Floor Best Floor.
Episode 01:
“I think this is the last box,” Junmyeon says, sighing and wiping his hands on his jeans. There’s sweat on his brow, Sehun observes from the sofa, as he crosses and uncrosses his legs. “You could have helped.”
Junmyeon has this way of talking that Sehun thinks is supposed to make him feel guilty, but guilt is a difficult emotion for Sehun to feel on his best days, and today, Junmyeon’s last day in the apartment, is not one of Sehun’s best days.
“Why would I help you leave?” Sehun says grumpily. “I don’t want you to leave and leave me with your ex-stepbrother. I’m your friend, not someone to pawn unwanted relations off on so you can feel less bad about leaving me with the entire rent.”
“You’ll really like Jongin,” Junmyeon replies. “You guys are… alike.” He rubs wearily at the back of his neck. One lone box sits at his feet, and all the hideous cat paperweights he’d imported from Italy are gone from the tables and shelves. Sehun had never imagined he could miss them. “Plus, he needs a place to live. Be nice to him, he’s not from a big city. He’s only been to New York once, back when we were in middle school.”
“Great. A country bumpkin. I’m so excited.”
“Play nice,” Junmyeon says. “He’ll be here in ten minutes. And you’d better help him move in if you want him to like you.”
“Everyone likes me.” Sehun balls his hands into fists. “Buing buing.”
Junmyeon sighs, looking amused despite himself. “And Sehunnie, don’t forget to buy curtains. The view is great, but you don’t want everyone in Queens looking into your living room.”
“Why should I deprive them of all this?” Sehun says, gesturing lazily to all of himself. He crosses and uncrosses his legs again. His balls are sticking to the inside of his left thigh. Summer is too hot for underwear. (So is winter, really. Sehun doesn’t really discriminate by season.)
“You’ll keep saying that until someone calls the cops on you for indecent exposure.”
“You say indecent, I say amazing.” Sehun runs a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna miss your daily dose of Sehun’s Magnificence when you’re living with my fiancé.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive somehow,” Junmyeon drily replies. “Jongin never wears clothes either. You guys are going to get along great.”
Sehun is about to inform Junmyeon that he doesn’t want to break in a new roommate, because he’s already conditioned Junmyeon to his impolite speech, his casual nudity, his arbitrary misuse of Junmyeon’s black card for purchases that he never explains, his lack of cleanliness in the kitchen, and his refusal to take out the trash. Basically, Sehun has trained Junmyeon to respect the fact that Sehun is a lazy sonofabitch in return for Sehun’s tolerance of his terrible, terrible interior decorating and even worse sense of humor. It was the perfect arrangement.
Now, Junmyeon is getting married and moving in with some gorgeous blond, his college girlfriend that he’d met in his music theory class, and Sehun’s getting landed with Junmyeon’s ex-stepbrother. Who even has an ex-stepbrother, let alone serves as their real estate agent. He’s always known rich people are fucking weird.
But before Sehun can say any, or all, of that, the buzzer sounds through the apartment. “Ah!” Junmyeon says, smiling widely and clapping his hands. “There’s Jonginnie, now.”
“Joy.”
Junmyeon’s smile only grows as he steps over the last box and approaches the door, turning the deadlock and opening the door.
“Why couldn’t you live on the first floor?” is the first thing Sehun’s new roommate says, breathless. Sehun frowns, because eleventh floor best floor, and Sehun has a great ass thanks to all those stairs, and it’s not like he could look out over the city like this if the apartment was on the first floor.
Ugh, Sehun hates this guy already.
Then the mysterious Jongin lowers the huge box in his arms and Sehun gets a look at his face. “Holy fuck.”
Jongin, with his flawless jaw and toned arms and dark eyelashes and gorgeous summer tan and inky black hair falling into his smoldering eyes as he runs his tongue over his positively succulent lips, scowls at Sehun. “What?”
“You’re really sweaty. Wow. Must be hot outside.” Sehun is gonna pass out. “Wow. You look so… exhausted, I need a shower. So. I’m gonna do that. Bye.”
“You’re not going to help me move?” Sehun should have worn underwear.
“Helping…” Sehun waves his hand. “That’s not my thing.” Joonmyun puts his hands on his hips like a disappointed mother. Sehun is familiar with that look because he disappoints his mother a lot. “Fine, I’ll… take that box for you.” He reaches out, and Jongin moves faster than Sehun had thought humanly possible, stumbling backwards with a high-pitched squeak, knuckles white.
“No!” Jongin says, looking a tad cornered. “Not this one. This one’s… special.”
Sehun stares at the box, in an effort not to stare at Jongin’s biceps. He can’t do this. There’s something written on the box. G-U- Jongin notices his gaze and slides his hand down a little to firmly cover the word.
“Ohhhhhhkay.” Sehun backs away slowly, in the direction of the shower. “What’s even in there, the family jewels?” That makes Sehun think about Jongin’s dick. He wonders if it’s as pretty as the rest of him-- No. No no no no. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m. Shower.”
As Sehun closes the bathroom door, he thinks he hears Jongin saying “he’s kinda weird” to Junmyeon. Whatever Junmyeon says in response is drowned out by the shower.
Jongin thinking Sehun is weird does not stop Sehun from jerking off to the image of Jongin’s full lips as cool water sluices down his back.
Episode 02:
“So how’s the new roommate?” Chanyeol asks, prodding curiously at the lamb in his gyro.
“He’s so weird,” Sehun says, before he lies his head down on the table. “But he’s so hot.”
“You don’t even care that’s he’s weird,” says Chanyeol, as Baekhyun talks over him with a “Who are you to be calling anyone else weird? You sit and cackle in front of your computer when you’re working, like you’re a mad scientist instead of a programmer.”
“Weird…how?” Jongdae asks. Everyone turns to look at him. “What? Dealbreakers are different for everyone.”
“I, personally, hate men that talk too much, and yet have nothing to say,” Kyungsoo says, after a thoughtful silence. Sehun gives him a deadpan look as Baekhyun bristles.
“Well I hate men that are shorter than I am,” Baekhyun says.
“And I hate men who wear their nails too long.”
“And I hate men with large eyes.”
“Who wear insoles in their shoes--”
“Who wear snapbacks backwards like they’re still in high school--”
“Can you do this later?” Sehun asks, interrupting what will undoubtedly endure for the rest of lunch and probably turn into a fistfight in front of the soda machine. “My crisis is more important than your dickmeasuring.”
“My dick is bigger,” Kyungsoo says. “If you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” Jongdae says, as Chanyeol rubs at his temples. “So, back to Sehun’s new roommate. It’s been, what, two months since he moved in?”
“Yeah,” Sehun says. “And, uh, he put caution tape on his door.”
“Like, the yellow stuff? Like it’s… a crime scene?” Kyungsoo looks intrigued.
“Exactly,” Sehun says. “And he says I’m not allowed into his room, under any circumstances, even if he’s dying.”
“He said that?” Chanyeol doesn’t look like he believes Sehun, but he hadn’t seen the look in Jongin’s eyes as he’d said ”even if you see blood seeping through the crack into the hallway,” so.
“He never wears a shirt,” Sehun says. “It’s awful. He’s so hot.”
“So basically, what you’re saying is, he wants you to respect his personal space and he walks around giving you a free show?” Jongdae sets down his own gyro. “Well, not a dealbreaker for me. Sign me up.”
Sehun resists the urge to hiss. “That’s not all.”
“Ooooh,” Baekhyun says. “There’s more?”
“One time he left the door open because he didn’t know I was home, and when I walked by, I didn’t even see anything, but he screamed so loud our neighbors called the police. And we live in Queens.”
“Maybe he’s got a weird hobby,” Chanyeol says. “Like taxidermy.”
“Amanda Seyfried is into taxidermy,” Sehun says. “Definitely not a dealbreaker.”
“Sehun, humor me. What is a dealbreaker for you?”
“People who dress their dogs in sweaters,” Sehun replies. “It’s not cute, it’s cruel.”
“Maybe there’s a dead body in there,” Chanyeol says. “He did mention seeping blood. You should look.”
“He puts a strip of masking tape on the door when he’s not in there so he’ll know if I peeped.”
“He sounds like a serial killer,” Jongdae says.
“He’s too hot to be a serial killer,” Sehun says. “He’s too hot to do anything but be hot.”
“Maybe he’s running a business in there,” Baekhyun says.
“I think I’d know if strange people came to our apartment to buy crack or something, Baekhyun. You can take off your Detective Conan hat, now.”
“Not that kind of business,” Baekhyun replies, as he leans forward to look Sehun dead in the eyes. “Maybe he’s a camwhore.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t even look up from his phone as he slaps Baekhyun upside the back of his head, mashing Baekhyun’s forehead into his sandwich, which leads to Baekhyun elbowing Chanyeol’s drink right off the table and onto his lap and expensive designer sneakers.
“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol shrieks, voice crackling into a higher register than Sehun’s heard since Chanyeol was in the ninth grade. “Be careful! These shoes are custom!”
“I’m doing you a favor,” Baekhyun says, pulling a piece of lettuce out of his hair. “They’re fucking ugly.”
Kyungsoo smacks him again, and Baekhyun whines in the back of his throat.
“A camwhore,” Jongdae says thoughtfully as Chanyeol and Baekhyun start to argue, growing progressively louder. People are staring. “If he’s hot enough to be a camwhore, that’s probably still not a dealbreaker.”
“Excuse me,” Sehun says primly, “camwhore is not the appropriate term. That’s degrading to what is a perfectly valid profession.”
“Excuse us, Miss America,” Jongdae says. “Damn, Junmyeon rubbed off on you hard.” He pauses. “I wish Junmyeon had rubbed off on me hard. Teenage fantasies.”
“I’m ending our friendship,” Sehun says. “Thinking about Junmyeon sexually is another of my dealbreakers.” Baekhyun has now rubbed mayonnaise into Chanyeol’s cheeks and it covers the lenses of his glasses.
“You little bitch,” Chanyeol says, reaching aggressively for Baekhyun’s diet iced tea in a fit of rage. It’s actually even more ominous to the soundtrack of Kyungsoo playing Bejeweled Blitz in the background.
“Do you guys have to fight all the time?” Sehun pleads, and it’s enough to get Chanyeol’s attention. It’s probably Jongdae’s fault for making friends with Baekhyun, even if Sehun thinks every Korean who went to Columbia knows each other. Things were never this loud in high school, even if Chanyeol could set a Guinness record for decibels all by himself. His life is a constant episode of Ouran High School Host Club.
“Yes,” Jongdae says, “but when Baekhyun and Chanyeol do it, it’s not foreplay.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyungsoo says mildly, but Jongdae goes a little paler before he takes another sip of his soda, because they all know Kyungsoo is most unpredictable when he’s mild. After all, he was voted most likely to be the true identity of Jack the Ripper in the South Kent high school yearbook.
“I still think he’s a camwhore,” Baekhyun says, crossing his arms. The lettuce is still in his hair. People are still staring. The whole restaurant looks scandalized at his use of the word ‘camwhore’.
“We should do a reconnaissance mission.” Chanyeol wipes the mayonnaise from his glasses calmly, like he and Baekhyun hadn’t been trying to kill each other with their lunches only moments before. “You should have, like, a housewarming party or something, so we have an excuse to all be there.”
“I’ve lived there for three years.”
“And I bet you still don’t have curtains,” Kyungsoo says.
“Taxidermy boyfriend hasn’t lived there for three years, though,” Baekhyun says. He seems pained to be agreeing with Chanyeol about anything. “Tell him you didn’t rush him meeting all your friends.”
“I never want anyone to meet you,” Sehun says. “You’re all horrible people.” Sehun eats the last of his gyro. “Besides, he’s been super busy with whatever it is he does when he’s not home.”
“Serial killing,” Chanyeol coughs obnoxiously, as Jongdae turns to look at Sehun with incredulity.
“This might be a silly question, but have you ever… had a conversation with your roommate?”
“I think he might shy.” Jongin does seem to avoid Sehun’s gaze a lot. “I tried once,” Sehun says. “But unfortunately, we didn’t get very far before I… had to be somewhere. Else. Safe.”
“You went and masturbated, didn’t you?” A woman with her small child leaves the restaurant, shooting the table dirty looks.
“Just a little.” Sehun shrugs. “Have I mentioned he’s hot?”
“Several times,” Jongdae says.
“So hot he could be a camwhore,” Baekhyun stage-whispers, and then groans in pain. Sehun can’t see one of Kyungsoo’s hands. He wasn’t hungry anymore, anyway.
“So,” Chanyeol says. “What time should we be there on Saturday, then?”
Episode 03:
“Um,” Sehun says. “We’re having a housewarming party on Saturday at seven.” Jongin is bending over to get something out of the fridge. Sehun thinks talking to Jongin’s ass might be worse than talking to his face. “So if you, um, want to invite anyone.”
“We are?” Jongin says, looking up, startled. “Haven’t you lived here for three years?”
“You haven’t,” Sehun says, defensively. “And all my friends want to meet you.”
Jongin’s face goes pink, and his eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Sehun says, shuffling in place. “I’m sorry in advance.”
“Oh, um… that’s… uh…” Jongin scratches at his floppy hair, and somehow he looks even more sexy when he’s blushing. Sehun finds this ridiculously unfair, because when Sehun blushes, he looks twelve-year old tomato. Like a tomato, but also a twelve-year old, not a really rotten tomato that is twelve years old. “There’s one guy, I could… yeah… um.”
“Also, it might be a good chance for us to, I dunno, talk?” Sehun just throws it out there. Puts it on the table, even if Jongin seems about as much a talker as Sehun is. Everything was so much easier when Junmyeon did all the talking and Sehun ignored him.
“You want to?” Jongin looks so pleased, Sehun feels, oh my god, guilt, for not having made the effort earlier. He’s evolving into a Charizard of feelings. “I kind of thought you hated me or something. I know I’m not much like Junmyeon, so…”
“No, see, that’s great,” Sehun says. “Because now we don’t have plastic over the couch. Not being Junmyeon is, yeah, one of my favorite things about you.”
Jongin, who is clutching the cold bottle of Evian like it could slip through his fingers at any moment -- those tricky water bottles, you have to watch them all the time -- goes even pinker. “Plastic on the couch?”
“He’s, you know, finicky,” Sehun says, and tactfully doesn’t mention that it had only happened after Junmyeon had come home and caught Sehun jerking off in front of the TV to the Victoria Secret Fashion Show two years ago. “You do something one time, and he never lets it go. He’s like an elephant.”
Jongin laughs, loudly, and Sehun is stricken with an odd mix of horror and affection for how embarrassing Jongin’s laugh is. “Yeah, he is,” Jongin says, flashing Sehun with a full smile, teeth perfectly straight and blinding. “When we were kids, he remembered every time I accidentally taped over his documentaries with Digim-- I mean, my favorite show.”
Sehun’s too busy melting at that grin to wonder about Jongin’s quick change to the end of the sentence. “So Saturday?”
“Saturday,” Jongin says. “I won’t go to dance practice.”
“Great,” Sehun says. It’s time for a retreat, before things get hard. Jongin is really hot. And cute. Oh no. This is bad. “Saturday. I already said that. Hahaha...ha. Bye.”
He leaves Jongin standing there with his Evian and closes the door to his room loudly and authoritatively, as though to inform Jongin that all conversations are over for the day, by royal decree of Sehun, King of Eleventh Floor Best Floor.
He frantically digs in the pocket of his shorts, pulling out his cell phone and dialing Junmyeon, who is still number three on his speed-dial, after his mom and the local chinese food guy.
“Hello, Sehunnie~~~~,” Junmyeon says cheerfully. “How are you doing on this lovely Wednesday evening?”
“Junmyeon, you have to move back in.”
“Don’t you like Jongin?”
“No, I hate him. I’m afraid for life. For continued sanity. I can’t do this. What if he’s into taxidermy.”
“Did you have lunch with Baekhyun today?”
“Baekhyun thinks Jongin takes off his clothes and jacks off on camera for money--”
“He’s actually a breakdancer,” Junmyeon says. “He moved to New York to join a pretty famous team.”
“I don’t care,” Sehun says, even if he does because that makes Jongin even hotter, fuck him. “Come back.”
“Now, Sehun, you know I’m getting married. I can’t live with you forever.”
“Just break up with her, immediately. Aren’t I the most important person in life?”
“No,” Junmyeon says. “What’s really wrong, Sehun?”
“He never wears a shirt, Junmyeon. Never. And his abs kind of glisten, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s so hot his skin is made of diamonds, or if the dust from the Doritos he is constantly eating can actually refract light.”
“You still haven’t gotten new curtains in the living room, have you?”
“Nooooooooooo,” Sehun wails. “How can I buy curtains when my roommate is so hot?”
“I’m going, Sehun. I have things to do tonight that don’t involve talking about how hot my stepbrother is.”
“Ex-stepbrother. Don’t make it weird.” Sehun pulls at his hair. “At least tell me you’ll come to the housewarming party on Saturday.”
“There’s a housewarming party? You’ve lived there for three years?”
“Shut up!” Sehun says, and angrily hangs up the phone.
Episode 04:
“Why is there sparkling water in the fridge,” Sehun asks himself. “Did Junmyeon move back in last night?”
“It’s for Kris,” Jongin says, startling Sehun into slamming his face into a cabinet.
“Who is Kris?” Sehun rubs at his head as he turns around. Jongin is wearing a shirt, a tight, white, tank shirt with no sleeves and Sehun can see his nipples and possibly the outline of his abs. It is fucking useless, as far as shirts go, and Sehun is offended that Jongin probably paid money for it to enter into his possession.
“My friend? You said I could invite a friend.”
That’s mostly because Sehun had thought Jongin didn’t have any friends, but it’s fine. Sehun is sure Jongin’s friend is better than his friends, even if he does drink sparkling water. Maybe they went to the same prep school, like Sehun and Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had. “Cool, yeah, friend Kris. Kris friend.”
“What are your friends’ names?” Jongin asks, rubbing his hands on his jeans. They’re nice jeans. Designer. But they cling? To his ass? Maybe Jongin has done too many squats to that amazing Pussy Cat Dolls soundtrack he’s got constantly going in his off-limits taxidermy room.
Sehun is definitely not thinking about Jongin doing squats right now. “Asshole 1, Asshole 2, Asshole 3, and the Tall Asshole.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of assholes. Is that what you’re into?” Sehun probably set himself up for that.
Is Jongin asking him if he’s into assholes, like as a personality type, or if he’s into them, like, Sehun wants his dick in them? Judging by the panicked look on Jongin’s face, he meant the former but kinda wants to know the latter. There’s really only one good answer. “Yes.”
“Oh,” Jongin says. “Ahahaha, well, I need to… um, find a shirt.”
“It’s clear that you never really have any on hand,” Sehun says, ripping open a bag of Lays with more force than is probably necessary. Potato chips spray all over the counter and floor. “Fuck.”
“You never wear shirts either,” Jongin says, crossing his arms. “And you spend a lot more time in the living room.”
Sehun doesn’t distract Jongin like Jongin distract Sehun, though. Just yesterday morning, Sehun had poured enough cereal for seven servings into bowl as he watched Jongin stretch on his way to the bathroom. Then he’d planned on leaving it there for Junmyeon to clean up, before his sleepy brain remembered that Junmyeon doesn’t live here, and Jongin would probably pick handfuls up off the counter and eat them if he didn’t scoop them up.
“You’ve been naked everywhere in this apartment except my room,” Sehun says absently, and Jongin makes a strangled noise and flees as Sehun’s brain catches up with him. “I’m not inviting into my room, by the way!” Except he totally is, but whatever.
There’s a knock on the front door and Sehun stomps over to it, trying not to think about how Jongin’s nipples had looked through the thin fabric of his tank. A stranger is waiting in the hallway, and Sehun scowls at him on reflex. “Yes?”
“Uh, I’m looking for Jongin,” says the stranger, craning his neck to see around Sehun into the apartment. He’s tall enough to see over Sehun’s head and has on glasses that make his eyes look like, anime big, and Sehun doesn’t like him at all.
“Are you Kris?”
“Yeah. Can I come in?” Kris shakes his blond hair out of his eyes and Sehun’s eyes narrow. Kris is taller and blonder than Sehun, and Sehun wonders if that might be grounds for a lawsuit. Only he’s allowed to be tall and blond.
For lack of a better option, Sehun holds open the door, and Kris steps past him.
“Is that his room over there?” He points to the caution tape door with hand that is big enough to qualify as a meat paw. Sehun decides uncharitably that Kris looks kind of like a great dane puppy, unattractively gangly, with a drooly mouth and big paws.
He’s also wearing leather pants, which is so heinous that Sehun almost mentions it, except Kris is walking over like he’s going to go into Jongin’s room.
“He doesn’t really let people go in -- “ Sehun starts, but then Jongin’s door opens just wide enough for arm to peek out and a hand drags Kris inside before the door closes again with a slam of exclusivity.
Sehun is so upset he actually eats some of the potato chips he picks up from the kitchen floor.
Episode 05:
“I can’t believe none of you bitches bought me curtains.”
“But I bought you this lovely vase,” Baekhyun says.
“For all those flowers I’m going to put in it,” Sehun replies, passive-aggressively picking up a handful cheetos and pushing them into his face. Who even cares if his mouth turns orange, it’s not like he’s trying to attract anyone who isn’t in the room Sehun is not allowed into with some big, tall, basketball-player-handed, sparkling-water-drinking dweeb. Kris. Whatever.
“I know I teased you about not having them, but I thought it was a joke when you agreed.” Junmyeon shakes his head.
“Why would you think that,” Sehun says. “I’ve haven’t bought anything that isn’t food or a dildo since I stopped having to buy textbooks for my classes. And technically, my parents bought those.”
“Where is your roommate, by the way?” Junmyeon says cheerfully. “I haven’t seen him in a while!”
“You know him?” Jongdae asks.
“Is he into taxidermy?” Chanyeol adds, and Junmyeon tilts his head to the side like a curious meerkat.
“I have no roommate,” Sehun says. “He’s dead. To me.”
“He’s my stepbrother,” Junmyeon says. “Well, my mother’s third husband’s son, really.” He laughs like that’s not the traumatic childhood memory Sehun knows it is from their weekly drunken pow-wows in the basement laundry room. “He’s not into taxidermy, as far as I know.”
“How about serial killing?” Jongdae asks.
“Is he a cam-” Sehun puts his hand over Baekhyun’s mouth, and Baekhyun bites him.
“Ow, fuck, Baekhyun, I’m not Kyungsoo, don’t fucking bite me.”
“Are you implying something?” Kyungsoo asks, dangerously, as Sehun shakes his hand, trying to will the pain of Baekhyun’s teeth away.
“Am I bleeding?” Sehun asks, and Chanyeol looks momentarily concerned before shrugging and leaning back with the whole bowl of Lays. Sehun isn’t planning on telling him they were all on the floor of their nasty kitchen about an hour ago.
“Is Jongin in his room?” Junymeon asks, pointing to the caution-tape covered door. “Why is there caution tape on it?”
“I don’t know,” Sehun says. “It just showed up about two days after he moved in, after the conversation where I was forbidden to enter his room like it was Mordor or something.” He sighs. “And yes, he’s in there with Kris. His friend.”
“Friend, or, you know, friend?” Baekhyun asks. The worst part about Baekhyun, besides everything else about Baekhyun, is that he always says the thing that will make the most number of people upset. Sehun is upset at Jongin being taken, Jongdae looks like he’s imagining someone getting banged among a plethora of stuffed animals that used to be alive, and Junmyeon looks dismayed at his Jonginnie doing anything untoward behind a closed door, and looks prepared to stand up and go play chaperone. Kyungsoo just looks upset that Baekhyun is speaking.
Chanyeol, though, looks almost excited.
“Kris Wu?” Chanyeol beams. “Tall, blond, glasses?”
“That sounds like him,” Sehun says, bitterly. “Should I be surprised you know him?” Chanyeol knows, like, everyone, because he joined like ten thousand clubs during college and still had straight As. Fucker.
“Yeah, we play basketball together sometimes.” Sehun knew he was a basketball player, and now he hates him even more. “You know, with Yixing and Minseok down at the gym I joined last year?”
“Speaking of beer,” Baekhyun says. “Can I go get that from the fridge?”
“No one was talking about beer, Baekhyun,” Jongdae says, coming out of his horrified taxidermy reverie. “But perhaps we should have been.”
“I’ll just go check on Jongin,” Junmyeon says. He knocks on Jongin’s door, and Sehun stubbornly turns away as Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo look on with unabashed interest. “Jongin, it’s Junmyeon. Everyone’s here.”
“Be right out!” Sehun hears him yell, followed by an obnoxious giggle that can only be his. He doesn’t hear Kris at all.
Jongin and Kris slip out from behind Jongin’s door like criminals just as Baekhyun sets a twelve-pack of Coronas on the table, and Jongin’s eyes are all crinkled up with happiness so Sehun shotguns one.
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Hello there, roommate Jongin. You are gorgeous. You don’t have a foot fetish, do you? That’s a dealbreaker.”
“There are no deals,” Sehun growls, picking up another can as Kris goes to sit next to Chanyeol. He watches with disgust as they bro-fist. Jongin perches on the arm of the couch and looks around warily, like a hunted animal. “Jongin, meet my friends. Friends, meet Jongin. And Kris, too, I guess.”
“I already know Chanyeol,” Kris says, with a big smile that’s ninety-five percent gums and five percent Crest white strips. “We -- ”
“Play basketball together,” Sehun says. “So I’ve been told.”
Jongin is gnawing on his lip like if he chews through it he will bleed out, blood everywhere, just fountaining from his lip, and it will kill him and he won’t have continue the horrible experience of being social. “So,” he ventures, “Which one of you is Asshole 1?”
Baekhyun squirts beer out of his nose and then shameless wipes it up with the hem of his t-shirt as Kyungsoo stares in disgust. “I’m always number one,” Baekhyun says, his voice scratchy from coughing up Milwaukee's Best. “Baekhyun. This is Kyungsoo, and that’s Jongdae and Chanyeol.”
Jongin wiggles his fingers uncomfortably, and Sehun is going to cry because he’s so so so cute and hot and thank God he’s wearing a shirt that covers his nipples.
By the time the party is winding down, four more twelve-packs of beer later, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are nowhere to be found, Junmyeon has left for home, Chanyeol and Jongdae are passed out on floor -- they had passed out on the couch, but Sehun had pushed them off to make space for himself -- and Kris had left unexpected after things had devolved into a game of five fingers that was mostly just Baekhyun asking a number of uncomfortable and leading question meant to expose Jongin’s ‘secret work’ as a camera sex professional, but had ended up revealing Kris’s part time gig as a internet porn model. Sehun can’t understand why Kris didn’t just lie, but the man doesn’t even drink. He probably thinks honesty is the best policy or something. Poor guy. (Chanyeol had looked sad to see him go, but Sehun had felt the thrill of victory.)
Jongin flops down next to Sehun on the couch, sleepy and drunk. “I think your friends are having sex in our kitchen,” he slurs.
The thought makes Sehun feel queasy. “I hope they get tetanus. Of the dick.”
Jongin winces at Dick Tetanus, and Sehun thinks it sounds like a good name for a band. Jongin leans into Sehun’s side, resting his head on Sehun’s shoulder, his hair catching on Sehun’s lips and tickling his ear. It smells nice, like… clean… stuff… and Sehun self-consciously tries to remember if he’d bothered with deodorant today. Jongin grabs the half-empty bowl of Cheetos that wobbles precariously on the edge of the coffee table in front of them, and makes a self-satisfied moan as he grabs a big handful and pushes them into his mouth.
“I had fun,” Jongin says, around a mouthful of cheese dust. “We should be friends.”
“We should,” Sehun agrees. “Then I could get rid of my friends.”
“They’re kinda nice,” Jongin says. “Baekhyun even got us a vase.”
“Your friend’s are nice too,” Sehun says begrudgingly, and Jongin smiles.
“Yeah, he’s dating one of the guys from my dance team,” Jongin says. “But he’s into a lot of the same stuff as me so we hang out sometimes.”
He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to hang out with an oversized great dane puppy with meat paws but who knows, maybe Jongin is a dog person. Sehun’s not a pet person, in general, because pets require attention and care, but he’s okay with dogs, and he’s more okay with Kris now, too, since Kris has a boyfriend who is not Jongin. He’s still not okay with the fact that Kris is allowed into Jongin’s room, though.
Sehun’s stomach growls, like he’s hungry, or maybe like it is extremely unhappy that he’s mixed Milwaukee’s Best with Corona.
Jongin picks up another Cheeto, licking his lips slowly, like it’s taking all of his concentration, and he puts it into his mouth so slowly that Sehun feels like he’s living entirely in slow-motion.
Sehun wants to be that Cheeto. Or maybe he wants to eat that Cheeto. Fuck, he doesn’t know. He’s drunk. Maybe he wants to eat that Cheeto out of Jongin’s mouth, or maybe he wants to eat Jongin, or for Jongin to eat him, like some horrible cannibal movie. Sehun’s going to end up on the news. Baekhyun will give an interview about him, and talk about how Sehun never wears underwear and it was probably Sticky Balls Syndrome that had caused this lapse in judgement.
Sehun has never chosen a person over food in his whole life. Is this love? Is true love not knowing if you want to eat the Cheeto or be the Cheeto?
Jongin falls asleep without eating the other half of the Cheeto, and as Sehun stares at it, lying there on his thigh like it hasn’t destroyed every truth that Sehun holds dear, he thinks to himself that even if it’s not love, he really does just want to kiss Jongin, because he’s cute and funny and sweet and really hot, and even if there are dead bodies under his bed that might not be a dealbreaker.
There’s a loud moan from the kitchen, Baekhyun’s high pitched ”don’t you dare put the knife down” and ”fuck me like you hate me” ringing through the apartment, and Sehun amends his previous thought.
It’s definitely not a dealbreaker, especially if it’s Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s bodies under the bed.
Jongdae stirs in his sleep, muttering “not Bambi, no” and Sehun wills himself into passing out, his head falling on top of Jongins as they lean into each other.
Episode 06:
“I think there’s cum on the floor, so we’re going to need a mop,” Jongin says, shame having abandoned him in the wake of his hangover. He’s whistling a song Sehun thinks is familiar, maybe the theme song to something.
“We’re going to need a bomb,” Sehun says. “Or, hell, we’re getting new tile. I’ll make Kyungsoo pay for it.”
There are three full trashbags by the door, and Jongin puts down the last one and collapses onto the couch, arms and legs both spread out to take up as much space as possible. “I give up,” he says, and Sehun smiles.
“A man after my own heart.” He sits down on the opposite side of the couch, as far away from Jongin as possible, and Jongin seems to shrink in on himself.
It’s a little awkward, maybe, since they’d woken up this morning tangled together on the couch, Jongin’s mouth open against Sehun’s neck and Sehun’s hand under Jongin’s shirt with his hand pressed to uncomfortably warm skin. Sehun’s balls had been stuck to the inside of his thigh again, and he can’t wait for August to become September. It had been uncomfortable. Everything about waking up with Jongdae’s camera phone in his face taking blackmail photos as Jongin rubbed and breathed on him was uncomfortable. Jongin is ruining his life.
Jongin leans forward and grabs the bowl of Cheetos from the table. “Breakfast of champions,” he says, and Sehun’s stomach drops out of his body and into the pits of hell as Jongin picks up a handful and starts feeding himself stale party snacks.
Sehun watches for about two minutes before he cracks. “You have to stop eating those Cheetos,” he says desperately. “I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”
Jongin freezes with a Cheeto halfway to his mouth. “I’m… sorry?”
“I’m too attractive to want to be a Cheeto,” Sehun says and he would sound a little hysterical except that everything he’s feeling right now is entirely justified. “You’re just so -- so -- can’t I just make out with you instead???”
“You want to make out with me?” Jongin asks.
“Yes! What planet do you even come from where people don’t want to make out with you twenty-four seven?” His Charizard of feelings has leveled up to max SP and it’s inflicting Burn all over Sehun’s LIFE.
Jongin scratches the side of his face, where the beginnings of facial hair shadow his jaw. “Um, Ea...rth?” His eyes are wide, and he stutters as he speaks, like he can’t understand why Sehun is so upset when it’s obvious why Sehun is upset.
“Do you not understand that you are so hot and that you walk around half-naked and you need to obliterate that white tank shirt because that’s almost worse because then I have to actively concentrate to imagine your nipples and twice as bad!” Sehun kicks the coffee table, just because he can. “I can’t be around you! You’re like a super-nova-hot-sun-man or something and it’s painful I BURN EASILY I DON’T ATTRACTIVELY TAN NOT ALL OF US ARE SEX GODS WITH SKIN MADE OF DIAMONDS AND DORITO DUST.”
“Sehun, I…” Jongin flounders, his hand still holding on to a bunch of Cheetos, one by one slipping through his fingers as his grip turns lax. “I really thought you didn’t think I was cool enough to hang out with.”
“Are you not listening? You are the opposite of cool. You’re so hot.” Sehun feels like he’s going to cry. “All I do is talk about how hot you are, and touch myself in the shower thinking about it.” Sehun throws a pillow. “And then, you have to go and have a cute personality, too! It’s not fair, and you’re ruining my life, and I want a new roommate who doesn’t make me feel feelings, which I do not like to do!”
“I like you too,” Jongin blurts out. “Every since I saw you standing there, trying to get away with not helping me move in, I thought you were--” Jongin is blushing red like Sehun is a super-nova-hot-sun-man too, which Sehun is but he didn’t think Jongin had noticed. “But then you wouldn’t look at me and I don’t date people so I don’t know how you go about getting people to date you and you never wear underwear why do you not wear underwear do you know how distracting that is??” This is the most Sehun’s ever heard Jongin say at once, and unlike anyone else Sehun knows, they’re all words he actively wants to hear. “Your dick just flops around, like “Jongin, look at me, I’m Sehun’s dick! Hi!” and--”
Sehun leaps across the couch, landing gracelessly in Jongin’s lap, and kisses him, tongue slipping between Jongin’s soft, succulent lips as Jongin’s hands slide down the back of his sweats to palm his butt (“no underwear,” Jongin says into Sehun’s mouth, sounding not-mad) and fuck, Sehun tastes Cheetos and now he’s forever going to associate the taste of Cheetos with Jongin’s mouth. Two things he loves for the price of one.
Episode 07:
“You need to get laid,” Kyungsoo says. “Maybe that’s why you’re so irritated.”
“I’m sorry, I’m still pretending you don’t exist,” Sehun says. “Because you got laid. In my kitchen. You left cum on the floor, by the way, thanks for that, and I threw away all my knives, just in case.”
“The ones my mom gave you for Christmas?” Chanyeol asks, looking scandalized.
“I couldn’t take the risk that one of them had been near Baekhyun’s genitalia,” Sehun says. “You don’t understand, Chanyeol. You were lucky. You were unconscious for that delightful bit of trauma.”
“There’s nothing traumatic about to consenting adults engaging in a little bit of roleplay.”
“Were you roleplaying as yourselves?” Sehun asks, and Kyungsoo looks shifty, and Sehun clings to the memory of Jongin’s Cheeto kisses to get him through this difficult time. “I hope you get dick tetanus.”
“What the fuck is dick tetanus?”
“Jongin was really nice,” Chanyeol says, changing the subject like Kyungsoo didn’t used to spank him back when they fucked around briefly during freshman year of college. Sehun’s whole life has been a serious of events he desperately needs to forget. “He’s cute, and friendly once he gets over the shyness.”
“He is cute,” Kyungsoo agrees. “In that ‘what are people how do they work’ kind of way.” He pins Sehun with a piercing gaze, one almost as sharp as those six-hundred dollar knives Sehun had thrown in the trash. “Sorta like you.”
“I know how people work,” Sehun says, trying valiantly not to give away that he had made out with Jongin -- sweet, wonderful, Jongin, who is salvation in a sea of horrible -- “I just hate them all, so I put forth no effort. That’s why I became a programmer.” Sehun smoothes his shirt. “Besides, Jongin is much nicer than I am.”
Kyungsoo and Chanyeol both look at him, and then at each other.
“So, you guys hooked up, huh?” Chanyeol asks, and Kyungsoo smirks as Sehun squares his shoulders.
“We just touched… mouths… and butts… briefly.” That sounds bad. “Well, he touched my butt. I didn’t touch his. Yet. Which is a shame, because it’s nice and he’s so hot.”
“So like, why only the one-way butt touching?” Chanyeol asks, making a gesture that looks nothing how anyone normal would signify the act of touching a butt, and a lot like how it would look to try to corner a rabid goat.
“Well, you see,” Sehun says. “There’s a quandary, in that there are no curtains.”
“You have a bedroom?”
“I refused to let him into my bedroom,” Sehun says. “It was ploy, you see, to find out what was in his room. That… backfired.” Jongin had seemed perfectly amenable to snuggling on the couch, which Sehun prefers to the hunted bunny look on his face when Sehun had laid out his ultimatum, but does not prefer to being naked with Jongin who looks so good naked.
“But why don’t you just buy new curtains?” Chanyeol pushes his glasses up his nose.
“I can’t buy new curtains,” Sehun explains, because duh. “Then Junmyeon will have won.”
Kyungsoo heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Right. Won… what, exactly?”
“The curtain contest!” Sehun says. “This is a horrible game of chicken and I refuse to lose.”
“I’m pretty sure Junmyeon is winning regardless, because you’re not sleeping with his brother--”
“EX. STEP. BROTHER. Don’t make it weird.”
“And he’s getting called daddy and fucking on the regular by his smoking hot soccer player girlfriend while you’re caught up in a game of ‘curtain chicken’?” Kyungsoo scoffs. “Please.”
“Junmyeon is definitely getting the last laugh,” Chanyeol adds. “And you know how hideous he looks when he laughs.”
“I can be patient,” Sehun says.
“Laziness and patience aren’t synonyms,” Kyungsoo says. “Those are two different words. With two different meanings. And only one of those words applies to you.”
“To be honest, I don’t really care what’s in the room. I’ve reached a point of zen.”
“Does that mean you fell asleep thinking about it, or that you’ve lost interest?”
“No, it means I’m more upset about the fact that I’m not allowed in there than whatever’s in there. I’ll like him even if he is putting stuffing into dead baby animals.”
“Wow that’s so dark,” Chanyeol says. “But what if he’s into collecting human faces, or making snuff films?”
“Come what may,” Sehun says, feeling like Jongin’s kisses are worth a couple of human faces. He didn’t scream once during Silence of the Lambs, anyway. “What if the inside of his room is, like, a TARDIS?”
“What if he’s really into himself, and all his walls are covered with nude selfies, though?”
“It’s not not your room, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo says, and Sehun laughs at Chanyeol’s ears turning pink.
Episode 08:
“What should I make for lunch today~” Sehun sings to himself, to tune of the theme song from Dancing with the Stars. He’s still on a high from the kisses he and Jongin had shared in the hallway, right before the UPS guy came with a package that Jongin took straight into his cave. “How about--”
Jongin lets out an unearthly scream, that Sehun assumes people in New Jersey can probably hear through the closed, caution-taped door, and Sehun is thinking only about possible horrible serial killer taxidermy accidents when he rushes into Jongin’s room, miraculously unlocked, to find his boyfriend underneath his desk chair, rubbing at his forehead and clutching a crinkled poster in his other hand.
Sehun’s mouth drops open as he surveys the room, and Jongin shrieks again, this time the words “PLEASE DON’T BREAK UP WITH ME!” echoing in Sehun’s ears as he tries to process the overload of information that is Jongin’s bedroom.
There are magical girls everywhere.
Literally everywhere.
Sehun has never seen so many magical girls in one place, and he went to Otakon in Baltimore four times before he got too busy for it in college. “Jongin, oh my god, did you know there are anime girls all over your bedroom?” Jongin is curled up in the fetal position on the floor, rolling around like a roly poly bug.
“I can explain,” Jongin says quickly, looking up at Sehun with begging in his voice. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you don’t really like dudes,” Sehun says, still in shock. Jongin’s got a few quality anime represented in his posters, though. Stuff Sehun and Kyungsoo had watched in high school, even if Kyungsoo has always like the sports themed shows more. Above his bed, there’s a lone Digimon poster, and his bookshelves are covered with collectable figurines of gundams and ninjas. “Or anything that’s not anime, really.”
“I like you,” Jongin says quietly. “A lot. I didn’t want you to think I was too… geeky to be your friend. That’s why I worked so hard to keep my hobby to myself.”
“Jongin, anime is not that weird of a hobby. This is New York City, not Bumfuck, USA or wherever you’re from, you bumpkin.”
“Then why are you looking around like that?”
“This is intense,” Sehun says. “Really intense.” Sehun grins. “But considering I thought you might be keeping bodies or like, stuffed dead animals in here, I’m kind of relieved. This isn’t a dealbreaker.”
There’s a picture of Jongin’s dogs on his desk. They’re wearing sweaters. But maybe that’s not a dealbreaker, either, Sehun realizes, with a mix of horror and Jongin dicklust.
“Like, taxidermy?” Jongin covers his face with his arms. “That is so much worse.”
“I know, you should have told me!” Sehun laughs. So what if Jongin likes magical girl anime and ninjas and giant robots -- “Baekhyun thought you were a… Wait, is that how you know Kris? Is that like an fan thing?”
“Yeah,” Jongin says, and he looks relieved to finally come clean about everything. “We met at the Pokemon National Championships, the first time I visited New York.” (Sehun suddenly remembers Junmyeon saying Jongin had only visited once before, and wow, that box on the first day must have all the gundams sitting on his bookshelf in front of all his Prince of Tennis manga.) “You really started dating me thinking I might have corpses hidden in my room?”
“Well, yeah,” Sehun says. “I’ve got really big balls so I figured I could handle it.” Sehun does not mean that only metaphorically, but maybe Jongin will discover that sooner rather than later, now that their bedroom stalemate has come to an end without Sehun buying a single window covering. Sehun wins, and he’ll victory dance his dick all the way into Jongin’s ass.
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Jongin says, reaching up and pulling Sehun down to the floor, catching his mouth in an open kiss. “And I’ve seen a lot of magical girl anime.” He kisses Sehun again, and Sehun pulls Jongin closer, cupping his hand around the back of Jongin’s neck as they kiss sloppily in the middle of Jongin’s weird anime girl shrine. “You liking me even though you thought I was a serial killer is… I feel like Sasuke in issue 232, when Naruto slashed his forehead protector, you know?”
Sehun drops his hand, and pulls back to look at Jongin. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Jongin’s eyes go wide, and he looks mortified. “Is that too nerdy? Am I too embarrassing to make-out with, now?” His eyes plead with Sehun to say he isn’t.
Sehun frowns. “Jongin, everyone knows that was issue 233, after the 9-tails-powered Rasengan impacted the cursed-seal Chidori. I’m embarrassed that you would make such an amateur mistake.”
“You’re so hot,” Jongin says, in awe, and he tackles Sehun to the ground, Sehun’s “I know” getting lost in kisses as Jongin starts to strip Sehun of his clothes. Sehun doesn’t even mind that that creepy robot girl from Chobits is staring down at him, because Jongin’s mouth feels as great as expected around his cock.
OMAKE 01:
“Wait,” Kyungsoo says, miraculously ignoring the way Baekhyun is dripping ice cream onto his shoe on purpose, “you like Prince of Tennis?”
“Uh oh,” Jongdae says. “Here we go. We’ll be talking about anime forever.” He shakes his head. “Anime. Dealbreaker.”
“To each their own,” replies Sehun, holding tightly onto Jongin’s hand as Baekhyun accidentally gets ice cream on Chanyeol’s custom jacket and Chanyeol reaches his hands out as if to strangle him.
Sehun’s never seen Kyungsoo look so happy without being the cause of Baekhyun moaning in pain (or is it ecstasy?) in the background, and as he and Jongin launch into a conversation about Seigaku uniform changes in the New Series, Sehun thinks Jongin might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
OMAKE 02:
Sehun adjusts the bow on his Tokyo Mew Mew costume, combing his fingers anxiously through his newly pink hair as he knocks on Jongin’s door. “Are you ready for your surprise, birthday boy?” Sehun asks, and he’s totally not nervous or anything because he has great legs and Jongin is probably going to come in his pants, to be honest.
“What is it?” Jongin says, opening the door quickly before he stops breathing, his eyes going up and down Sehun’s body as Sehun cockily juts out a hip.
“Wanna save the world?” he asks, and Jongin groans so loud Junmyeon can probably hear it clear across the city, and Sehun can only hope he doesn’t come over and try to chaperone. “Do you like it? I borrowed it from Junmyeon’s girlfriend.”
“Lu Han? She’s smaller than you, right?” He runs a hand up Sehun’s thigh. “Is that why the skirt is so short?”
“We shared clothes all the time in high school before I got taller,” Sehun says, leaning into the touch. “But yeah, that’s why.”
“Didn’t you go to an all boys boarding school?” Jongin asks absently, now toying with the neckline of Sehun’s outfit. His words catch up with him, and Sehun grins.
“Yeah,” Sehun says, and then he kisses Jongin to distract him from trying to work out anything about Lu Han while Sehun is standing in his doorway dressed like a magical girl. “Happy birthday,” he says, when they part, breathless.
“Is your hair really pink?” Jongin croaks, sounding like he’s died and then been revived solely to have sex with Sehun. “That’s so anime.”
Pairing: Sehun/Kai
Rating: R
Length: 8,650
Summary: Sehun’s new roommate has a secret.
Warnings: Language, Mild Kink.
Authors’ Note: Eleventh Floor Best Floor.
Episode 01:
“I think this is the last box,” Junmyeon says, sighing and wiping his hands on his jeans. There’s sweat on his brow, Sehun observes from the sofa, as he crosses and uncrosses his legs. “You could have helped.”
Junmyeon has this way of talking that Sehun thinks is supposed to make him feel guilty, but guilt is a difficult emotion for Sehun to feel on his best days, and today, Junmyeon’s last day in the apartment, is not one of Sehun’s best days.
“Why would I help you leave?” Sehun says grumpily. “I don’t want you to leave and leave me with your ex-stepbrother. I’m your friend, not someone to pawn unwanted relations off on so you can feel less bad about leaving me with the entire rent.”
“You’ll really like Jongin,” Junmyeon replies. “You guys are… alike.” He rubs wearily at the back of his neck. One lone box sits at his feet, and all the hideous cat paperweights he’d imported from Italy are gone from the tables and shelves. Sehun had never imagined he could miss them. “Plus, he needs a place to live. Be nice to him, he’s not from a big city. He’s only been to New York once, back when we were in middle school.”
“Great. A country bumpkin. I’m so excited.”
“Play nice,” Junmyeon says. “He’ll be here in ten minutes. And you’d better help him move in if you want him to like you.”
“Everyone likes me.” Sehun balls his hands into fists. “Buing buing.”
Junmyeon sighs, looking amused despite himself. “And Sehunnie, don’t forget to buy curtains. The view is great, but you don’t want everyone in Queens looking into your living room.”
“Why should I deprive them of all this?” Sehun says, gesturing lazily to all of himself. He crosses and uncrosses his legs again. His balls are sticking to the inside of his left thigh. Summer is too hot for underwear. (So is winter, really. Sehun doesn’t really discriminate by season.)
“You’ll keep saying that until someone calls the cops on you for indecent exposure.”
“You say indecent, I say amazing.” Sehun runs a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna miss your daily dose of Sehun’s Magnificence when you’re living with my fiancé.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive somehow,” Junmyeon drily replies. “Jongin never wears clothes either. You guys are going to get along great.”
Sehun is about to inform Junmyeon that he doesn’t want to break in a new roommate, because he’s already conditioned Junmyeon to his impolite speech, his casual nudity, his arbitrary misuse of Junmyeon’s black card for purchases that he never explains, his lack of cleanliness in the kitchen, and his refusal to take out the trash. Basically, Sehun has trained Junmyeon to respect the fact that Sehun is a lazy sonofabitch in return for Sehun’s tolerance of his terrible, terrible interior decorating and even worse sense of humor. It was the perfect arrangement.
Now, Junmyeon is getting married and moving in with some gorgeous blond, his college girlfriend that he’d met in his music theory class, and Sehun’s getting landed with Junmyeon’s ex-stepbrother. Who even has an ex-stepbrother, let alone serves as their real estate agent. He’s always known rich people are fucking weird.
But before Sehun can say any, or all, of that, the buzzer sounds through the apartment. “Ah!” Junmyeon says, smiling widely and clapping his hands. “There’s Jonginnie, now.”
“Joy.”
Junmyeon’s smile only grows as he steps over the last box and approaches the door, turning the deadlock and opening the door.
“Why couldn’t you live on the first floor?” is the first thing Sehun’s new roommate says, breathless. Sehun frowns, because eleventh floor best floor, and Sehun has a great ass thanks to all those stairs, and it’s not like he could look out over the city like this if the apartment was on the first floor.
Ugh, Sehun hates this guy already.
Then the mysterious Jongin lowers the huge box in his arms and Sehun gets a look at his face. “Holy fuck.”
Jongin, with his flawless jaw and toned arms and dark eyelashes and gorgeous summer tan and inky black hair falling into his smoldering eyes as he runs his tongue over his positively succulent lips, scowls at Sehun. “What?”
“You’re really sweaty. Wow. Must be hot outside.” Sehun is gonna pass out. “Wow. You look so… exhausted, I need a shower. So. I’m gonna do that. Bye.”
“You’re not going to help me move?” Sehun should have worn underwear.
“Helping…” Sehun waves his hand. “That’s not my thing.” Joonmyun puts his hands on his hips like a disappointed mother. Sehun is familiar with that look because he disappoints his mother a lot. “Fine, I’ll… take that box for you.” He reaches out, and Jongin moves faster than Sehun had thought humanly possible, stumbling backwards with a high-pitched squeak, knuckles white.
“No!” Jongin says, looking a tad cornered. “Not this one. This one’s… special.”
Sehun stares at the box, in an effort not to stare at Jongin’s biceps. He can’t do this. There’s something written on the box. G-U- Jongin notices his gaze and slides his hand down a little to firmly cover the word.
“Ohhhhhhkay.” Sehun backs away slowly, in the direction of the shower. “What’s even in there, the family jewels?” That makes Sehun think about Jongin’s dick. He wonders if it’s as pretty as the rest of him-- No. No no no no. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m. Shower.”
As Sehun closes the bathroom door, he thinks he hears Jongin saying “he’s kinda weird” to Junmyeon. Whatever Junmyeon says in response is drowned out by the shower.
Jongin thinking Sehun is weird does not stop Sehun from jerking off to the image of Jongin’s full lips as cool water sluices down his back.
Episode 02:
“So how’s the new roommate?” Chanyeol asks, prodding curiously at the lamb in his gyro.
“He’s so weird,” Sehun says, before he lies his head down on the table. “But he’s so hot.”
“You don’t even care that’s he’s weird,” says Chanyeol, as Baekhyun talks over him with a “Who are you to be calling anyone else weird? You sit and cackle in front of your computer when you’re working, like you’re a mad scientist instead of a programmer.”
“Weird…how?” Jongdae asks. Everyone turns to look at him. “What? Dealbreakers are different for everyone.”
“I, personally, hate men that talk too much, and yet have nothing to say,” Kyungsoo says, after a thoughtful silence. Sehun gives him a deadpan look as Baekhyun bristles.
“Well I hate men that are shorter than I am,” Baekhyun says.
“And I hate men who wear their nails too long.”
“And I hate men with large eyes.”
“Who wear insoles in their shoes--”
“Who wear snapbacks backwards like they’re still in high school--”
“Can you do this later?” Sehun asks, interrupting what will undoubtedly endure for the rest of lunch and probably turn into a fistfight in front of the soda machine. “My crisis is more important than your dickmeasuring.”
“My dick is bigger,” Kyungsoo says. “If you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” Jongdae says, as Chanyeol rubs at his temples. “So, back to Sehun’s new roommate. It’s been, what, two months since he moved in?”
“Yeah,” Sehun says. “And, uh, he put caution tape on his door.”
“Like, the yellow stuff? Like it’s… a crime scene?” Kyungsoo looks intrigued.
“Exactly,” Sehun says. “And he says I’m not allowed into his room, under any circumstances, even if he’s dying.”
“He said that?” Chanyeol doesn’t look like he believes Sehun, but he hadn’t seen the look in Jongin’s eyes as he’d said ”even if you see blood seeping through the crack into the hallway,” so.
“He never wears a shirt,” Sehun says. “It’s awful. He’s so hot.”
“So basically, what you’re saying is, he wants you to respect his personal space and he walks around giving you a free show?” Jongdae sets down his own gyro. “Well, not a dealbreaker for me. Sign me up.”
Sehun resists the urge to hiss. “That’s not all.”
“Ooooh,” Baekhyun says. “There’s more?”
“One time he left the door open because he didn’t know I was home, and when I walked by, I didn’t even see anything, but he screamed so loud our neighbors called the police. And we live in Queens.”
“Maybe he’s got a weird hobby,” Chanyeol says. “Like taxidermy.”
“Amanda Seyfried is into taxidermy,” Sehun says. “Definitely not a dealbreaker.”
“Sehun, humor me. What is a dealbreaker for you?”
“People who dress their dogs in sweaters,” Sehun replies. “It’s not cute, it’s cruel.”
“Maybe there’s a dead body in there,” Chanyeol says. “He did mention seeping blood. You should look.”
“He puts a strip of masking tape on the door when he’s not in there so he’ll know if I peeped.”
“He sounds like a serial killer,” Jongdae says.
“He’s too hot to be a serial killer,” Sehun says. “He’s too hot to do anything but be hot.”
“Maybe he’s running a business in there,” Baekhyun says.
“I think I’d know if strange people came to our apartment to buy crack or something, Baekhyun. You can take off your Detective Conan hat, now.”
“Not that kind of business,” Baekhyun replies, as he leans forward to look Sehun dead in the eyes. “Maybe he’s a camwhore.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t even look up from his phone as he slaps Baekhyun upside the back of his head, mashing Baekhyun’s forehead into his sandwich, which leads to Baekhyun elbowing Chanyeol’s drink right off the table and onto his lap and expensive designer sneakers.
“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol shrieks, voice crackling into a higher register than Sehun’s heard since Chanyeol was in the ninth grade. “Be careful! These shoes are custom!”
“I’m doing you a favor,” Baekhyun says, pulling a piece of lettuce out of his hair. “They’re fucking ugly.”
Kyungsoo smacks him again, and Baekhyun whines in the back of his throat.
“A camwhore,” Jongdae says thoughtfully as Chanyeol and Baekhyun start to argue, growing progressively louder. People are staring. “If he’s hot enough to be a camwhore, that’s probably still not a dealbreaker.”
“Excuse me,” Sehun says primly, “camwhore is not the appropriate term. That’s degrading to what is a perfectly valid profession.”
“Excuse us, Miss America,” Jongdae says. “Damn, Junmyeon rubbed off on you hard.” He pauses. “I wish Junmyeon had rubbed off on me hard. Teenage fantasies.”
“I’m ending our friendship,” Sehun says. “Thinking about Junmyeon sexually is another of my dealbreakers.” Baekhyun has now rubbed mayonnaise into Chanyeol’s cheeks and it covers the lenses of his glasses.
“You little bitch,” Chanyeol says, reaching aggressively for Baekhyun’s diet iced tea in a fit of rage. It’s actually even more ominous to the soundtrack of Kyungsoo playing Bejeweled Blitz in the background.
“Do you guys have to fight all the time?” Sehun pleads, and it’s enough to get Chanyeol’s attention. It’s probably Jongdae’s fault for making friends with Baekhyun, even if Sehun thinks every Korean who went to Columbia knows each other. Things were never this loud in high school, even if Chanyeol could set a Guinness record for decibels all by himself. His life is a constant episode of Ouran High School Host Club.
“Yes,” Jongdae says, “but when Baekhyun and Chanyeol do it, it’s not foreplay.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyungsoo says mildly, but Jongdae goes a little paler before he takes another sip of his soda, because they all know Kyungsoo is most unpredictable when he’s mild. After all, he was voted most likely to be the true identity of Jack the Ripper in the South Kent high school yearbook.
“I still think he’s a camwhore,” Baekhyun says, crossing his arms. The lettuce is still in his hair. People are still staring. The whole restaurant looks scandalized at his use of the word ‘camwhore’.
“We should do a reconnaissance mission.” Chanyeol wipes the mayonnaise from his glasses calmly, like he and Baekhyun hadn’t been trying to kill each other with their lunches only moments before. “You should have, like, a housewarming party or something, so we have an excuse to all be there.”
“I’ve lived there for three years.”
“And I bet you still don’t have curtains,” Kyungsoo says.
“Taxidermy boyfriend hasn’t lived there for three years, though,” Baekhyun says. He seems pained to be agreeing with Chanyeol about anything. “Tell him you didn’t rush him meeting all your friends.”
“I never want anyone to meet you,” Sehun says. “You’re all horrible people.” Sehun eats the last of his gyro. “Besides, he’s been super busy with whatever it is he does when he’s not home.”
“Serial killing,” Chanyeol coughs obnoxiously, as Jongdae turns to look at Sehun with incredulity.
“This might be a silly question, but have you ever… had a conversation with your roommate?”
“I think he might shy.” Jongin does seem to avoid Sehun’s gaze a lot. “I tried once,” Sehun says. “But unfortunately, we didn’t get very far before I… had to be somewhere. Else. Safe.”
“You went and masturbated, didn’t you?” A woman with her small child leaves the restaurant, shooting the table dirty looks.
“Just a little.” Sehun shrugs. “Have I mentioned he’s hot?”
“Several times,” Jongdae says.
“So hot he could be a camwhore,” Baekhyun stage-whispers, and then groans in pain. Sehun can’t see one of Kyungsoo’s hands. He wasn’t hungry anymore, anyway.
“So,” Chanyeol says. “What time should we be there on Saturday, then?”
Episode 03:
“Um,” Sehun says. “We’re having a housewarming party on Saturday at seven.” Jongin is bending over to get something out of the fridge. Sehun thinks talking to Jongin’s ass might be worse than talking to his face. “So if you, um, want to invite anyone.”
“We are?” Jongin says, looking up, startled. “Haven’t you lived here for three years?”
“You haven’t,” Sehun says, defensively. “And all my friends want to meet you.”
Jongin’s face goes pink, and his eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Sehun says, shuffling in place. “I’m sorry in advance.”
“Oh, um… that’s… uh…” Jongin scratches at his floppy hair, and somehow he looks even more sexy when he’s blushing. Sehun finds this ridiculously unfair, because when Sehun blushes, he looks twelve-year old tomato. Like a tomato, but also a twelve-year old, not a really rotten tomato that is twelve years old. “There’s one guy, I could… yeah… um.”
“Also, it might be a good chance for us to, I dunno, talk?” Sehun just throws it out there. Puts it on the table, even if Jongin seems about as much a talker as Sehun is. Everything was so much easier when Junmyeon did all the talking and Sehun ignored him.
“You want to?” Jongin looks so pleased, Sehun feels, oh my god, guilt, for not having made the effort earlier. He’s evolving into a Charizard of feelings. “I kind of thought you hated me or something. I know I’m not much like Junmyeon, so…”
“No, see, that’s great,” Sehun says. “Because now we don’t have plastic over the couch. Not being Junmyeon is, yeah, one of my favorite things about you.”
Jongin, who is clutching the cold bottle of Evian like it could slip through his fingers at any moment -- those tricky water bottles, you have to watch them all the time -- goes even pinker. “Plastic on the couch?”
“He’s, you know, finicky,” Sehun says, and tactfully doesn’t mention that it had only happened after Junmyeon had come home and caught Sehun jerking off in front of the TV to the Victoria Secret Fashion Show two years ago. “You do something one time, and he never lets it go. He’s like an elephant.”
Jongin laughs, loudly, and Sehun is stricken with an odd mix of horror and affection for how embarrassing Jongin’s laugh is. “Yeah, he is,” Jongin says, flashing Sehun with a full smile, teeth perfectly straight and blinding. “When we were kids, he remembered every time I accidentally taped over his documentaries with Digim-- I mean, my favorite show.”
Sehun’s too busy melting at that grin to wonder about Jongin’s quick change to the end of the sentence. “So Saturday?”
“Saturday,” Jongin says. “I won’t go to dance practice.”
“Great,” Sehun says. It’s time for a retreat, before things get hard. Jongin is really hot. And cute. Oh no. This is bad. “Saturday. I already said that. Hahaha...ha. Bye.”
He leaves Jongin standing there with his Evian and closes the door to his room loudly and authoritatively, as though to inform Jongin that all conversations are over for the day, by royal decree of Sehun, King of Eleventh Floor Best Floor.
He frantically digs in the pocket of his shorts, pulling out his cell phone and dialing Junmyeon, who is still number three on his speed-dial, after his mom and the local chinese food guy.
“Hello, Sehunnie~~~~,” Junmyeon says cheerfully. “How are you doing on this lovely Wednesday evening?”
“Junmyeon, you have to move back in.”
“Don’t you like Jongin?”
“No, I hate him. I’m afraid for life. For continued sanity. I can’t do this. What if he’s into taxidermy.”
“Did you have lunch with Baekhyun today?”
“Baekhyun thinks Jongin takes off his clothes and jacks off on camera for money--”
“He’s actually a breakdancer,” Junmyeon says. “He moved to New York to join a pretty famous team.”
“I don’t care,” Sehun says, even if he does because that makes Jongin even hotter, fuck him. “Come back.”
“Now, Sehun, you know I’m getting married. I can’t live with you forever.”
“Just break up with her, immediately. Aren’t I the most important person in life?”
“No,” Junmyeon says. “What’s really wrong, Sehun?”
“He never wears a shirt, Junmyeon. Never. And his abs kind of glisten, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s so hot his skin is made of diamonds, or if the dust from the Doritos he is constantly eating can actually refract light.”
“You still haven’t gotten new curtains in the living room, have you?”
“Nooooooooooo,” Sehun wails. “How can I buy curtains when my roommate is so hot?”
“I’m going, Sehun. I have things to do tonight that don’t involve talking about how hot my stepbrother is.”
“Ex-stepbrother. Don’t make it weird.” Sehun pulls at his hair. “At least tell me you’ll come to the housewarming party on Saturday.”
“There’s a housewarming party? You’ve lived there for three years?”
“Shut up!” Sehun says, and angrily hangs up the phone.
Episode 04:
“Why is there sparkling water in the fridge,” Sehun asks himself. “Did Junmyeon move back in last night?”
“It’s for Kris,” Jongin says, startling Sehun into slamming his face into a cabinet.
“Who is Kris?” Sehun rubs at his head as he turns around. Jongin is wearing a shirt, a tight, white, tank shirt with no sleeves and Sehun can see his nipples and possibly the outline of his abs. It is fucking useless, as far as shirts go, and Sehun is offended that Jongin probably paid money for it to enter into his possession.
“My friend? You said I could invite a friend.”
That’s mostly because Sehun had thought Jongin didn’t have any friends, but it’s fine. Sehun is sure Jongin’s friend is better than his friends, even if he does drink sparkling water. Maybe they went to the same prep school, like Sehun and Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had. “Cool, yeah, friend Kris. Kris friend.”
“What are your friends’ names?” Jongin asks, rubbing his hands on his jeans. They’re nice jeans. Designer. But they cling? To his ass? Maybe Jongin has done too many squats to that amazing Pussy Cat Dolls soundtrack he’s got constantly going in his off-limits taxidermy room.
Sehun is definitely not thinking about Jongin doing squats right now. “Asshole 1, Asshole 2, Asshole 3, and the Tall Asshole.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of assholes. Is that what you’re into?” Sehun probably set himself up for that.
Is Jongin asking him if he’s into assholes, like as a personality type, or if he’s into them, like, Sehun wants his dick in them? Judging by the panicked look on Jongin’s face, he meant the former but kinda wants to know the latter. There’s really only one good answer. “Yes.”
“Oh,” Jongin says. “Ahahaha, well, I need to… um, find a shirt.”
“It’s clear that you never really have any on hand,” Sehun says, ripping open a bag of Lays with more force than is probably necessary. Potato chips spray all over the counter and floor. “Fuck.”
“You never wear shirts either,” Jongin says, crossing his arms. “And you spend a lot more time in the living room.”
Sehun doesn’t distract Jongin like Jongin distract Sehun, though. Just yesterday morning, Sehun had poured enough cereal for seven servings into bowl as he watched Jongin stretch on his way to the bathroom. Then he’d planned on leaving it there for Junmyeon to clean up, before his sleepy brain remembered that Junmyeon doesn’t live here, and Jongin would probably pick handfuls up off the counter and eat them if he didn’t scoop them up.
“You’ve been naked everywhere in this apartment except my room,” Sehun says absently, and Jongin makes a strangled noise and flees as Sehun’s brain catches up with him. “I’m not inviting into my room, by the way!” Except he totally is, but whatever.
There’s a knock on the front door and Sehun stomps over to it, trying not to think about how Jongin’s nipples had looked through the thin fabric of his tank. A stranger is waiting in the hallway, and Sehun scowls at him on reflex. “Yes?”
“Uh, I’m looking for Jongin,” says the stranger, craning his neck to see around Sehun into the apartment. He’s tall enough to see over Sehun’s head and has on glasses that make his eyes look like, anime big, and Sehun doesn’t like him at all.
“Are you Kris?”
“Yeah. Can I come in?” Kris shakes his blond hair out of his eyes and Sehun’s eyes narrow. Kris is taller and blonder than Sehun, and Sehun wonders if that might be grounds for a lawsuit. Only he’s allowed to be tall and blond.
For lack of a better option, Sehun holds open the door, and Kris steps past him.
“Is that his room over there?” He points to the caution tape door with hand that is big enough to qualify as a meat paw. Sehun decides uncharitably that Kris looks kind of like a great dane puppy, unattractively gangly, with a drooly mouth and big paws.
He’s also wearing leather pants, which is so heinous that Sehun almost mentions it, except Kris is walking over like he’s going to go into Jongin’s room.
“He doesn’t really let people go in -- “ Sehun starts, but then Jongin’s door opens just wide enough for arm to peek out and a hand drags Kris inside before the door closes again with a slam of exclusivity.
Sehun is so upset he actually eats some of the potato chips he picks up from the kitchen floor.
Episode 05:
“I can’t believe none of you bitches bought me curtains.”
“But I bought you this lovely vase,” Baekhyun says.
“For all those flowers I’m going to put in it,” Sehun replies, passive-aggressively picking up a handful cheetos and pushing them into his face. Who even cares if his mouth turns orange, it’s not like he’s trying to attract anyone who isn’t in the room Sehun is not allowed into with some big, tall, basketball-player-handed, sparkling-water-drinking dweeb. Kris. Whatever.
“I know I teased you about not having them, but I thought it was a joke when you agreed.” Junmyeon shakes his head.
“Why would you think that,” Sehun says. “I’ve haven’t bought anything that isn’t food or a dildo since I stopped having to buy textbooks for my classes. And technically, my parents bought those.”
“Where is your roommate, by the way?” Junmyeon says cheerfully. “I haven’t seen him in a while!”
“You know him?” Jongdae asks.
“Is he into taxidermy?” Chanyeol adds, and Junmyeon tilts his head to the side like a curious meerkat.
“I have no roommate,” Sehun says. “He’s dead. To me.”
“He’s my stepbrother,” Junmyeon says. “Well, my mother’s third husband’s son, really.” He laughs like that’s not the traumatic childhood memory Sehun knows it is from their weekly drunken pow-wows in the basement laundry room. “He’s not into taxidermy, as far as I know.”
“How about serial killing?” Jongdae asks.
“Is he a cam-” Sehun puts his hand over Baekhyun’s mouth, and Baekhyun bites him.
“Ow, fuck, Baekhyun, I’m not Kyungsoo, don’t fucking bite me.”
“Are you implying something?” Kyungsoo asks, dangerously, as Sehun shakes his hand, trying to will the pain of Baekhyun’s teeth away.
“Am I bleeding?” Sehun asks, and Chanyeol looks momentarily concerned before shrugging and leaning back with the whole bowl of Lays. Sehun isn’t planning on telling him they were all on the floor of their nasty kitchen about an hour ago.
“Is Jongin in his room?” Junymeon asks, pointing to the caution-tape covered door. “Why is there caution tape on it?”
“I don’t know,” Sehun says. “It just showed up about two days after he moved in, after the conversation where I was forbidden to enter his room like it was Mordor or something.” He sighs. “And yes, he’s in there with Kris. His friend.”
“Friend, or, you know, friend?” Baekhyun asks. The worst part about Baekhyun, besides everything else about Baekhyun, is that he always says the thing that will make the most number of people upset. Sehun is upset at Jongin being taken, Jongdae looks like he’s imagining someone getting banged among a plethora of stuffed animals that used to be alive, and Junmyeon looks dismayed at his Jonginnie doing anything untoward behind a closed door, and looks prepared to stand up and go play chaperone. Kyungsoo just looks upset that Baekhyun is speaking.
Chanyeol, though, looks almost excited.
“Kris Wu?” Chanyeol beams. “Tall, blond, glasses?”
“That sounds like him,” Sehun says, bitterly. “Should I be surprised you know him?” Chanyeol knows, like, everyone, because he joined like ten thousand clubs during college and still had straight As. Fucker.
“Yeah, we play basketball together sometimes.” Sehun knew he was a basketball player, and now he hates him even more. “You know, with Yixing and Minseok down at the gym I joined last year?”
“Speaking of beer,” Baekhyun says. “Can I go get that from the fridge?”
“No one was talking about beer, Baekhyun,” Jongdae says, coming out of his horrified taxidermy reverie. “But perhaps we should have been.”
“I’ll just go check on Jongin,” Junmyeon says. He knocks on Jongin’s door, and Sehun stubbornly turns away as Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo look on with unabashed interest. “Jongin, it’s Junmyeon. Everyone’s here.”
“Be right out!” Sehun hears him yell, followed by an obnoxious giggle that can only be his. He doesn’t hear Kris at all.
Jongin and Kris slip out from behind Jongin’s door like criminals just as Baekhyun sets a twelve-pack of Coronas on the table, and Jongin’s eyes are all crinkled up with happiness so Sehun shotguns one.
“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Hello there, roommate Jongin. You are gorgeous. You don’t have a foot fetish, do you? That’s a dealbreaker.”
“There are no deals,” Sehun growls, picking up another can as Kris goes to sit next to Chanyeol. He watches with disgust as they bro-fist. Jongin perches on the arm of the couch and looks around warily, like a hunted animal. “Jongin, meet my friends. Friends, meet Jongin. And Kris, too, I guess.”
“I already know Chanyeol,” Kris says, with a big smile that’s ninety-five percent gums and five percent Crest white strips. “We -- ”
“Play basketball together,” Sehun says. “So I’ve been told.”
Jongin is gnawing on his lip like if he chews through it he will bleed out, blood everywhere, just fountaining from his lip, and it will kill him and he won’t have continue the horrible experience of being social. “So,” he ventures, “Which one of you is Asshole 1?”
Baekhyun squirts beer out of his nose and then shameless wipes it up with the hem of his t-shirt as Kyungsoo stares in disgust. “I’m always number one,” Baekhyun says, his voice scratchy from coughing up Milwaukee's Best. “Baekhyun. This is Kyungsoo, and that’s Jongdae and Chanyeol.”
Jongin wiggles his fingers uncomfortably, and Sehun is going to cry because he’s so so so cute and hot and thank God he’s wearing a shirt that covers his nipples.
By the time the party is winding down, four more twelve-packs of beer later, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are nowhere to be found, Junmyeon has left for home, Chanyeol and Jongdae are passed out on floor -- they had passed out on the couch, but Sehun had pushed them off to make space for himself -- and Kris had left unexpected after things had devolved into a game of five fingers that was mostly just Baekhyun asking a number of uncomfortable and leading question meant to expose Jongin’s ‘secret work’ as a camera sex professional, but had ended up revealing Kris’s part time gig as a internet porn model. Sehun can’t understand why Kris didn’t just lie, but the man doesn’t even drink. He probably thinks honesty is the best policy or something. Poor guy. (Chanyeol had looked sad to see him go, but Sehun had felt the thrill of victory.)
Jongin flops down next to Sehun on the couch, sleepy and drunk. “I think your friends are having sex in our kitchen,” he slurs.
The thought makes Sehun feel queasy. “I hope they get tetanus. Of the dick.”
Jongin winces at Dick Tetanus, and Sehun thinks it sounds like a good name for a band. Jongin leans into Sehun’s side, resting his head on Sehun’s shoulder, his hair catching on Sehun’s lips and tickling his ear. It smells nice, like… clean… stuff… and Sehun self-consciously tries to remember if he’d bothered with deodorant today. Jongin grabs the half-empty bowl of Cheetos that wobbles precariously on the edge of the coffee table in front of them, and makes a self-satisfied moan as he grabs a big handful and pushes them into his mouth.
“I had fun,” Jongin says, around a mouthful of cheese dust. “We should be friends.”
“We should,” Sehun agrees. “Then I could get rid of my friends.”
“They’re kinda nice,” Jongin says. “Baekhyun even got us a vase.”
“Your friend’s are nice too,” Sehun says begrudgingly, and Jongin smiles.
“Yeah, he’s dating one of the guys from my dance team,” Jongin says. “But he’s into a lot of the same stuff as me so we hang out sometimes.”
He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to hang out with an oversized great dane puppy with meat paws but who knows, maybe Jongin is a dog person. Sehun’s not a pet person, in general, because pets require attention and care, but he’s okay with dogs, and he’s more okay with Kris now, too, since Kris has a boyfriend who is not Jongin. He’s still not okay with the fact that Kris is allowed into Jongin’s room, though.
Sehun’s stomach growls, like he’s hungry, or maybe like it is extremely unhappy that he’s mixed Milwaukee’s Best with Corona.
Jongin picks up another Cheeto, licking his lips slowly, like it’s taking all of his concentration, and he puts it into his mouth so slowly that Sehun feels like he’s living entirely in slow-motion.
Sehun wants to be that Cheeto. Or maybe he wants to eat that Cheeto. Fuck, he doesn’t know. He’s drunk. Maybe he wants to eat that Cheeto out of Jongin’s mouth, or maybe he wants to eat Jongin, or for Jongin to eat him, like some horrible cannibal movie. Sehun’s going to end up on the news. Baekhyun will give an interview about him, and talk about how Sehun never wears underwear and it was probably Sticky Balls Syndrome that had caused this lapse in judgement.
Sehun has never chosen a person over food in his whole life. Is this love? Is true love not knowing if you want to eat the Cheeto or be the Cheeto?
Jongin falls asleep without eating the other half of the Cheeto, and as Sehun stares at it, lying there on his thigh like it hasn’t destroyed every truth that Sehun holds dear, he thinks to himself that even if it’s not love, he really does just want to kiss Jongin, because he’s cute and funny and sweet and really hot, and even if there are dead bodies under his bed that might not be a dealbreaker.
There’s a loud moan from the kitchen, Baekhyun’s high pitched ”don’t you dare put the knife down” and ”fuck me like you hate me” ringing through the apartment, and Sehun amends his previous thought.
It’s definitely not a dealbreaker, especially if it’s Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s bodies under the bed.
Jongdae stirs in his sleep, muttering “not Bambi, no” and Sehun wills himself into passing out, his head falling on top of Jongins as they lean into each other.
Episode 06:
“I think there’s cum on the floor, so we’re going to need a mop,” Jongin says, shame having abandoned him in the wake of his hangover. He’s whistling a song Sehun thinks is familiar, maybe the theme song to something.
“We’re going to need a bomb,” Sehun says. “Or, hell, we’re getting new tile. I’ll make Kyungsoo pay for it.”
There are three full trashbags by the door, and Jongin puts down the last one and collapses onto the couch, arms and legs both spread out to take up as much space as possible. “I give up,” he says, and Sehun smiles.
“A man after my own heart.” He sits down on the opposite side of the couch, as far away from Jongin as possible, and Jongin seems to shrink in on himself.
It’s a little awkward, maybe, since they’d woken up this morning tangled together on the couch, Jongin’s mouth open against Sehun’s neck and Sehun’s hand under Jongin’s shirt with his hand pressed to uncomfortably warm skin. Sehun’s balls had been stuck to the inside of his thigh again, and he can’t wait for August to become September. It had been uncomfortable. Everything about waking up with Jongdae’s camera phone in his face taking blackmail photos as Jongin rubbed and breathed on him was uncomfortable. Jongin is ruining his life.
Jongin leans forward and grabs the bowl of Cheetos from the table. “Breakfast of champions,” he says, and Sehun’s stomach drops out of his body and into the pits of hell as Jongin picks up a handful and starts feeding himself stale party snacks.
Sehun watches for about two minutes before he cracks. “You have to stop eating those Cheetos,” he says desperately. “I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”
Jongin freezes with a Cheeto halfway to his mouth. “I’m… sorry?”
“I’m too attractive to want to be a Cheeto,” Sehun says and he would sound a little hysterical except that everything he’s feeling right now is entirely justified. “You’re just so -- so -- can’t I just make out with you instead???”
“You want to make out with me?” Jongin asks.
“Yes! What planet do you even come from where people don’t want to make out with you twenty-four seven?” His Charizard of feelings has leveled up to max SP and it’s inflicting Burn all over Sehun’s LIFE.
Jongin scratches the side of his face, where the beginnings of facial hair shadow his jaw. “Um, Ea...rth?” His eyes are wide, and he stutters as he speaks, like he can’t understand why Sehun is so upset when it’s obvious why Sehun is upset.
“Do you not understand that you are so hot and that you walk around half-naked and you need to obliterate that white tank shirt because that’s almost worse because then I have to actively concentrate to imagine your nipples and twice as bad!” Sehun kicks the coffee table, just because he can. “I can’t be around you! You’re like a super-nova-hot-sun-man or something and it’s painful I BURN EASILY I DON’T ATTRACTIVELY TAN NOT ALL OF US ARE SEX GODS WITH SKIN MADE OF DIAMONDS AND DORITO DUST.”
“Sehun, I…” Jongin flounders, his hand still holding on to a bunch of Cheetos, one by one slipping through his fingers as his grip turns lax. “I really thought you didn’t think I was cool enough to hang out with.”
“Are you not listening? You are the opposite of cool. You’re so hot.” Sehun feels like he’s going to cry. “All I do is talk about how hot you are, and touch myself in the shower thinking about it.” Sehun throws a pillow. “And then, you have to go and have a cute personality, too! It’s not fair, and you’re ruining my life, and I want a new roommate who doesn’t make me feel feelings, which I do not like to do!”
“I like you too,” Jongin blurts out. “Every since I saw you standing there, trying to get away with not helping me move in, I thought you were--” Jongin is blushing red like Sehun is a super-nova-hot-sun-man too, which Sehun is but he didn’t think Jongin had noticed. “But then you wouldn’t look at me and I don’t date people so I don’t know how you go about getting people to date you and you never wear underwear why do you not wear underwear do you know how distracting that is??” This is the most Sehun’s ever heard Jongin say at once, and unlike anyone else Sehun knows, they’re all words he actively wants to hear. “Your dick just flops around, like “Jongin, look at me, I’m Sehun’s dick! Hi!” and--”
Sehun leaps across the couch, landing gracelessly in Jongin’s lap, and kisses him, tongue slipping between Jongin’s soft, succulent lips as Jongin’s hands slide down the back of his sweats to palm his butt (“no underwear,” Jongin says into Sehun’s mouth, sounding not-mad) and fuck, Sehun tastes Cheetos and now he’s forever going to associate the taste of Cheetos with Jongin’s mouth. Two things he loves for the price of one.
Episode 07:
“You need to get laid,” Kyungsoo says. “Maybe that’s why you’re so irritated.”
“I’m sorry, I’m still pretending you don’t exist,” Sehun says. “Because you got laid. In my kitchen. You left cum on the floor, by the way, thanks for that, and I threw away all my knives, just in case.”
“The ones my mom gave you for Christmas?” Chanyeol asks, looking scandalized.
“I couldn’t take the risk that one of them had been near Baekhyun’s genitalia,” Sehun says. “You don’t understand, Chanyeol. You were lucky. You were unconscious for that delightful bit of trauma.”
“There’s nothing traumatic about to consenting adults engaging in a little bit of roleplay.”
“Were you roleplaying as yourselves?” Sehun asks, and Kyungsoo looks shifty, and Sehun clings to the memory of Jongin’s Cheeto kisses to get him through this difficult time. “I hope you get dick tetanus.”
“What the fuck is dick tetanus?”
“Jongin was really nice,” Chanyeol says, changing the subject like Kyungsoo didn’t used to spank him back when they fucked around briefly during freshman year of college. Sehun’s whole life has been a serious of events he desperately needs to forget. “He’s cute, and friendly once he gets over the shyness.”
“He is cute,” Kyungsoo agrees. “In that ‘what are people how do they work’ kind of way.” He pins Sehun with a piercing gaze, one almost as sharp as those six-hundred dollar knives Sehun had thrown in the trash. “Sorta like you.”
“I know how people work,” Sehun says, trying valiantly not to give away that he had made out with Jongin -- sweet, wonderful, Jongin, who is salvation in a sea of horrible -- “I just hate them all, so I put forth no effort. That’s why I became a programmer.” Sehun smoothes his shirt. “Besides, Jongin is much nicer than I am.”
Kyungsoo and Chanyeol both look at him, and then at each other.
“So, you guys hooked up, huh?” Chanyeol asks, and Kyungsoo smirks as Sehun squares his shoulders.
“We just touched… mouths… and butts… briefly.” That sounds bad. “Well, he touched my butt. I didn’t touch his. Yet. Which is a shame, because it’s nice and he’s so hot.”
“So like, why only the one-way butt touching?” Chanyeol asks, making a gesture that looks nothing how anyone normal would signify the act of touching a butt, and a lot like how it would look to try to corner a rabid goat.
“Well, you see,” Sehun says. “There’s a quandary, in that there are no curtains.”
“You have a bedroom?”
“I refused to let him into my bedroom,” Sehun says. “It was ploy, you see, to find out what was in his room. That… backfired.” Jongin had seemed perfectly amenable to snuggling on the couch, which Sehun prefers to the hunted bunny look on his face when Sehun had laid out his ultimatum, but does not prefer to being naked with Jongin who looks so good naked.
“But why don’t you just buy new curtains?” Chanyeol pushes his glasses up his nose.
“I can’t buy new curtains,” Sehun explains, because duh. “Then Junmyeon will have won.”
Kyungsoo heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Right. Won… what, exactly?”
“The curtain contest!” Sehun says. “This is a horrible game of chicken and I refuse to lose.”
“I’m pretty sure Junmyeon is winning regardless, because you’re not sleeping with his brother--”
“EX. STEP. BROTHER. Don’t make it weird.”
“And he’s getting called daddy and fucking on the regular by his smoking hot soccer player girlfriend while you’re caught up in a game of ‘curtain chicken’?” Kyungsoo scoffs. “Please.”
“Junmyeon is definitely getting the last laugh,” Chanyeol adds. “And you know how hideous he looks when he laughs.”
“I can be patient,” Sehun says.
“Laziness and patience aren’t synonyms,” Kyungsoo says. “Those are two different words. With two different meanings. And only one of those words applies to you.”
“To be honest, I don’t really care what’s in the room. I’ve reached a point of zen.”
“Does that mean you fell asleep thinking about it, or that you’ve lost interest?”
“No, it means I’m more upset about the fact that I’m not allowed in there than whatever’s in there. I’ll like him even if he is putting stuffing into dead baby animals.”
“Wow that’s so dark,” Chanyeol says. “But what if he’s into collecting human faces, or making snuff films?”
“Come what may,” Sehun says, feeling like Jongin’s kisses are worth a couple of human faces. He didn’t scream once during Silence of the Lambs, anyway. “What if the inside of his room is, like, a TARDIS?”
“What if he’s really into himself, and all his walls are covered with nude selfies, though?”
“It’s not not your room, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo says, and Sehun laughs at Chanyeol’s ears turning pink.
Episode 08:
“What should I make for lunch today~” Sehun sings to himself, to tune of the theme song from Dancing with the Stars. He’s still on a high from the kisses he and Jongin had shared in the hallway, right before the UPS guy came with a package that Jongin took straight into his cave. “How about--”
Jongin lets out an unearthly scream, that Sehun assumes people in New Jersey can probably hear through the closed, caution-taped door, and Sehun is thinking only about possible horrible serial killer taxidermy accidents when he rushes into Jongin’s room, miraculously unlocked, to find his boyfriend underneath his desk chair, rubbing at his forehead and clutching a crinkled poster in his other hand.
Sehun’s mouth drops open as he surveys the room, and Jongin shrieks again, this time the words “PLEASE DON’T BREAK UP WITH ME!” echoing in Sehun’s ears as he tries to process the overload of information that is Jongin’s bedroom.
There are magical girls everywhere.
Literally everywhere.
Sehun has never seen so many magical girls in one place, and he went to Otakon in Baltimore four times before he got too busy for it in college. “Jongin, oh my god, did you know there are anime girls all over your bedroom?” Jongin is curled up in the fetal position on the floor, rolling around like a roly poly bug.
“I can explain,” Jongin says quickly, looking up at Sehun with begging in his voice. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you don’t really like dudes,” Sehun says, still in shock. Jongin’s got a few quality anime represented in his posters, though. Stuff Sehun and Kyungsoo had watched in high school, even if Kyungsoo has always like the sports themed shows more. Above his bed, there’s a lone Digimon poster, and his bookshelves are covered with collectable figurines of gundams and ninjas. “Or anything that’s not anime, really.”
“I like you,” Jongin says quietly. “A lot. I didn’t want you to think I was too… geeky to be your friend. That’s why I worked so hard to keep my hobby to myself.”
“Jongin, anime is not that weird of a hobby. This is New York City, not Bumfuck, USA or wherever you’re from, you bumpkin.”
“Then why are you looking around like that?”
“This is intense,” Sehun says. “Really intense.” Sehun grins. “But considering I thought you might be keeping bodies or like, stuffed dead animals in here, I’m kind of relieved. This isn’t a dealbreaker.”
There’s a picture of Jongin’s dogs on his desk. They’re wearing sweaters. But maybe that’s not a dealbreaker, either, Sehun realizes, with a mix of horror and Jongin dicklust.
“Like, taxidermy?” Jongin covers his face with his arms. “That is so much worse.”
“I know, you should have told me!” Sehun laughs. So what if Jongin likes magical girl anime and ninjas and giant robots -- “Baekhyun thought you were a… Wait, is that how you know Kris? Is that like an fan thing?”
“Yeah,” Jongin says, and he looks relieved to finally come clean about everything. “We met at the Pokemon National Championships, the first time I visited New York.” (Sehun suddenly remembers Junmyeon saying Jongin had only visited once before, and wow, that box on the first day must have all the gundams sitting on his bookshelf in front of all his Prince of Tennis manga.) “You really started dating me thinking I might have corpses hidden in my room?”
“Well, yeah,” Sehun says. “I’ve got really big balls so I figured I could handle it.” Sehun does not mean that only metaphorically, but maybe Jongin will discover that sooner rather than later, now that their bedroom stalemate has come to an end without Sehun buying a single window covering. Sehun wins, and he’ll victory dance his dick all the way into Jongin’s ass.
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Jongin says, reaching up and pulling Sehun down to the floor, catching his mouth in an open kiss. “And I’ve seen a lot of magical girl anime.” He kisses Sehun again, and Sehun pulls Jongin closer, cupping his hand around the back of Jongin’s neck as they kiss sloppily in the middle of Jongin’s weird anime girl shrine. “You liking me even though you thought I was a serial killer is… I feel like Sasuke in issue 232, when Naruto slashed his forehead protector, you know?”
Sehun drops his hand, and pulls back to look at Jongin. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Jongin’s eyes go wide, and he looks mortified. “Is that too nerdy? Am I too embarrassing to make-out with, now?” His eyes plead with Sehun to say he isn’t.
Sehun frowns. “Jongin, everyone knows that was issue 233, after the 9-tails-powered Rasengan impacted the cursed-seal Chidori. I’m embarrassed that you would make such an amateur mistake.”
“You’re so hot,” Jongin says, in awe, and he tackles Sehun to the ground, Sehun’s “I know” getting lost in kisses as Jongin starts to strip Sehun of his clothes. Sehun doesn’t even mind that that creepy robot girl from Chobits is staring down at him, because Jongin’s mouth feels as great as expected around his cock.
OMAKE 01:
“Wait,” Kyungsoo says, miraculously ignoring the way Baekhyun is dripping ice cream onto his shoe on purpose, “you like Prince of Tennis?”
“Uh oh,” Jongdae says. “Here we go. We’ll be talking about anime forever.” He shakes his head. “Anime. Dealbreaker.”
“To each their own,” replies Sehun, holding tightly onto Jongin’s hand as Baekhyun accidentally gets ice cream on Chanyeol’s custom jacket and Chanyeol reaches his hands out as if to strangle him.
Sehun’s never seen Kyungsoo look so happy without being the cause of Baekhyun moaning in pain (or is it ecstasy?) in the background, and as he and Jongin launch into a conversation about Seigaku uniform changes in the New Series, Sehun thinks Jongin might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
OMAKE 02:
Sehun adjusts the bow on his Tokyo Mew Mew costume, combing his fingers anxiously through his newly pink hair as he knocks on Jongin’s door. “Are you ready for your surprise, birthday boy?” Sehun asks, and he’s totally not nervous or anything because he has great legs and Jongin is probably going to come in his pants, to be honest.
“What is it?” Jongin says, opening the door quickly before he stops breathing, his eyes going up and down Sehun’s body as Sehun cockily juts out a hip.
“Wanna save the world?” he asks, and Jongin groans so loud Junmyeon can probably hear it clear across the city, and Sehun can only hope he doesn’t come over and try to chaperone. “Do you like it? I borrowed it from Junmyeon’s girlfriend.”
“Lu Han? She’s smaller than you, right?” He runs a hand up Sehun’s thigh. “Is that why the skirt is so short?”
“We shared clothes all the time in high school before I got taller,” Sehun says, leaning into the touch. “But yeah, that’s why.”
“Didn’t you go to an all boys boarding school?” Jongin asks absently, now toying with the neckline of Sehun’s outfit. His words catch up with him, and Sehun grins.
“Yeah,” Sehun says, and then he kisses Jongin to distract him from trying to work out anything about Lu Han while Sehun is standing in his doorway dressed like a magical girl. “Happy birthday,” he says, when they part, breathless.
“Is your hair really pink?” Jongin croaks, sounding like he’s died and then been revived solely to have sex with Sehun. “That’s so anime.”