Somewhere Only We Know (3/3)
Sehun had come out to him after two semesters at K-ARTS.
Jongin had still been dating Do Kyungsoo then--a pretty-boy upperclassman he'd met at a soiree for all the music majors. Kyungsoo had warm hands, a low voice, and a soft, melting mouth that tasted like candy whenever he pressed it over Jongin's.
Jongin can still remember it as clearly as though it had happened yesterday. How he'd come back to the dorm after one of their giddy makeout sprees in the deepest part of the library, lips still tingling from Kyungsoo's kisses. How he'd found Sehun face-down on his bed, eyes bloodshot and swollen, skin burning up. How Jongin had felt panicky and protective at once--and intensely--because Sehun had become his rock over the past several months. Jongin'd never seen him sick before, let alone fragile.
"I have a fever," Sehun had rasped, completely disoriented. "Sorry, I thought this was my bed." Then he'd made a feeble attempt to get up.
Jongin had pushed him back down into his sheets, and with the tenderness of a mother, brushed stringy bangs off of Sehun's forehead. "Stay right here," he'd said, out of his depth but trying not to show it. "I'll take care of everything, Hun."
He'd spent the entire night pressing cool washcloths against Sehun's face and chest; bundling Sehun up in blankets when he got the shivers and stripping them off when his skin started to scorch itself raw. Jongin's mother, upon his request, had texted him her simplest porridge recipe, step by step. He'd made the gruel as thin and inoffensive as he possible could, so Sehun wouldn't throw it all up after Jongin had coaxed it, by the spoonful, into his system. When Sehun finally fell asleep, his face gray with fatigue, Jongin had climbed into bed next to him--hand on Sehun's hip, nose parallel to Sehun's nape. He'd hoped the contact would remind Sehun that someone was there if he needed help getting up to puke.
By morning, Jongin's palm and the tip of his nose were pressing into linens. Sehun had been sitting on the edge of the bed, knees drawn up to his chest, skin no longer colorless, but a healthy pink. He'd been waiting for Jongin to wake up.
Jongin had bolted upright, blinking himself into consciousness. "How do you feel?" He'd pressed his palm over Sehun's forehead, and then trailed it down to the slope of Sehun's cheekbone. No more temperature.
"Good," Sehun'd told him, eyes never leaving his face. "Thanks, Jongin."
Jongin had pshawed, grinning at him. "I'm the best, aren't I?"
Sehun had been watching him with something akin to longing, only more hesitant. "You are." He'd folded in his lips, licked them, and released them, and only then did Jongin notice the shake in them. "I want to tell you something."
The words had sounded serious enough for Jongin's grin to slide into a frown. "Okay."
"I think..." Sehun had started, his hands balling into Jongin's bedsheets. "I'm..." His breath had caught in his throat, and Jongin watched, completely baffled, as Sehun's lips moved without issuing any actual words. And then: "I'm just like you, Jongin."
"Me?"
Sehun'd rubbed his lips, over and over, with the tips of his ring and middle fingers. "I'm like you," he'd said, with finality. "I like the same kind of people you like." His mouth had shaken like a leaf.
It had hit Jongin with the force of a speeding, careening, twenty-ton truck. He's coming out to me...
But Sehun hadn't been finished. "I always thought I liked girls. I've had so many crushes, you know? More than I can count." His hand had raked frantically through his hair--still platinum blonde at the time. "But recently, I've...I've been watching you and Kyungsoo. The way he touches you. The way you look at him. I'm sorry if that sounds weird, Jongin, and I know it is weird, but honestly it's made me realize that--"
Jongin had lunged at him before he could even finish. His embrace had been vicelike, forged with acceptance and affection and loyalty and the fiercest platonic love.
"I get it," he'd whispered into Sehun's ear. "You're just like me, Hun."
Sehun's arms had come to circle Jongin's waist. "Yeah," he'd said softly. "I am."
"I'm glad you told me," Jongin had said, rubbing soothing circles into the lowest part of Sehun's back. Sehun's breath had fanned against his neck. "Now we're brothers for life."
The third week that Sehun's been away, Jongin hears, for the very first time, what he sounds like in bed.
Jjanggah's been getting ticks in her paws again. Jongin calls Sehun for a quick chat about the last time this happened, and what medicine they got her to treat it.
The line rings five and a half times. In the middle of the sixth ring, Sehun picks up. At least, that's what Jongin thinks.
"Hun," he says, nibbling on a hangnail on his pinky, "I have a question about Jjanggah's tick-killing meds. Was it the cream or the spray that worked faster?"
He gets no reply--save for a long, low moan.
Jongin's mouth stills. His finger remains suspended between his lips. "Hello?"
There is another moan, followed by Sehun's ragged voice. "Fuck," he says, and the word is filled with pleasure. "Fuck, Yixing..."
Jongin's heart stops dead, like a clock out of batteries.
Now, he hears a new voice; more alto than baritone, less friendly than lusty. "You look so good like this," it says, and then something happens, because Sehun moans out a fresh string of curses.
"Yixing," he groans quietly, urgently. "Please."
Jongin's hand covers his mouth. It's clear as crystal now, what's going on the other end of the line. Sehun is having sex with someone, and Jongin must, must hang up, right this second.
But he can't.
"What do you want?" The voice--this Yixing--is husky with desire. "Tell me exactly."
Sehun is practically delirious. "Just...ah!" he cries out, and the sound that follows that is unmistakable. Jongin's layered songs over 19-rated movie scenes, after all. Skin on skin.
"I've been trying to get you naked for weeks," Yixing is saying, and his voice is pinched, like he's holding back. "Tell me exactly what you want, and I'll give it to you."
Jongin hears the most obscene moan yet. It sends a chill down his spine, and sparks a fire in his belly, and gets his frozen heart pumping painfully back to life.
Every beat feels like a stab wound.
Sehun finally breathes out, "Fuck me," and it's a total surrender.
Jongin ends the call.
He takes Jjanggah to the vet by himself that afternoon.
"We use the spray for this little princess," the older woman tells him, scratching Jjanggah's head so gently that her eyes start to close. "Sehun-chan picked up six months' worth in January. Didn't he tell you?"
"No," Jongin says quietly. "He came alone?"
"Oh, yes." The vet takes Jjanggah from his arms and cradles her like a baby. "He said he was just on his way home from somewhere, and that you were on a date." Her smile is polite, and a little curious. "Was it a good one, Jongin-chan?"
It was that lunch with Joonmyun. Jongin doesn't even have to ask.
"It wasn't a date, Doc." The thought of Sehun trudging home alone, hungry, grumpy with him, but still stopping to run errands for Jongin's puppies--their kids--makes him feel sick. Jongin bites his lip. "It was just a meal with someone I used to know."
Did you call?
That's what Sehun texts, hours later, when Jongin is doing midnight laundry.
He can't sleep. He can't eat, either--he'd barely touched his dinner a few hours before, even though it was his favorite tempura takeout from that restaurant near the apartment. He's in a foul mood, and he can't explain it.
All he can do is think about Sehun, naked and willing in a bed in Taipei, underneath/on top/all over some guy named Yixing, whose Korean had had an odd twang to it, and whose unseen activities had pulled the filthiest sounds out of his best friend's body.
Jongin flings a handful of wet pajamas into their dryer. His mouth is pulled tight, and his fingers comb exasperatedly through just-showered hair. For a brief, petulant moment, he considers ignoring the message.
He's never ignored a message from Sehun in his life.
Not important, he keys in eventually, insides caving with defeat. It turns him listless, this reluctant submission to decorum. It's a golden opportunity for closure drifting by, slow and leisurely, like the plump white fish in the koi pond at the MixTape office.
Who were you fucking earlier?
How long have you been fucking?
Why didn't you fucking tell me?
That's exactly what he'd type next, if it were any of his business. His thumbs are poised over the keypad. They twitch.
"Don't," Jongin rebukes himself, out loud. "Just...don't." He waits, and his screen dims, and it switches to black. Jongin lays his thumbs flat on top of it.
Sehun is his best friend. Not his boyfriend. Not his.
That stabbing sensation from earlier returns, and the pain of his desperately throbbing heart radiates to the very tips of Jongin's fingers when he types the three words that will end this conversation.
Good night, Sehunnie.
At work, he storms about like a dark cloud. He avoids meals with everyone, including Sooyoung, whose eyes trail after him like magnets after he ducks out of her reach with a muttered excuse. He shuts himself into the smallest studio, when no one on the team is scheduled to be in there, just so he doesn't have to talk to anybody and explain. There, he hammers out his soundtrack for the Korean melo--sad songs first, love songs forgotten.
Chanyeol drags him out to drink after four days of this.
"We're going to Bar Cactus," the older man barks in response to Jongin's objections. "It's near your place. You need to learn how to drink tequila. Shut up."
He's right, no matter how loudly Jongin bitches in protest. They take Exit #5 from the Shinsaibashi Station, and there it is, just a little further down the road. If Jongin walked three more blocks and took a left, he'd arrive at his and Sehun's apartment building.
Bar Cactus is cozy and dimly lit, studded with the usual Mexican tchotchkes and equipped to seat just two dozen patrons. Chanyeol nabs the only table for two on the first floor, nudging Jongin into the seat opposite him. He orders a bottle of Espolon.
"You'll like this," Chanyeol says briskly. "It tastes like butterscotch, and it's got a kick."
Jongin is worn-out from working all day and moping all week, so he just nods, staring at the wood grain of their tiny table.
The Espolon arrives, glinting light gold in its corked poison bottle. The server brings them two shot glasses and tells them to wave him over if they need snacks to go with their drinks.
Chanyeol pours out two portions of the tequila. "Don't take it as a shot," he tells Jongin, pushing one of the glasses across the table. "This is the good stuff. You sip it."
They nurse their drinks in silence. The tequila is sweet and stout; perfumed, like the inside of a wood barrel. When Jongin swallows his first sip, it dances in his throat, sparking all the way down to the pit of his stomach.
"Tell me what happened." Chanyeol's voice has lost its edge. It's round and warm, like the liquor in both their bellies. "And don't say 'nothing,' Jongin, because I won't buy that for a second."
Jongin fiddles with his shot glass, watching the infinitesimal ripples in the golden liquid. He makes eye contact with Chanyeol for this first time. There is reproach on his friend's face, mingling with affection, all wrapped up in concern.
Chanyeol handles his next words carefully, like they're made of gossamer. "Is it Joonmyun-sunbae?"
Jongin actually reels. His shot glass sits flush against the table. "Why would you say that?"
Chanyeol sips his tequila. "I always thought you were...kind of...sweet on him." His lips purse. "If that's not the case, I'm sorry for assuming."
"I was." Jongin answers without thinking, head racing, knees bouncing. "Not anymore. But that's not why..."
"So it's Sehun."
Color pools in Jongin's face, hot and thick, faster than he can blink. "Hyung," he says, slowly, so he doesn't stutter. "Why would you--"
"You've never been apart this long." Chanyeol's eyes shift, like he's trying to suss out a secret clue. "Did you have a fight?"
"A fight?" Jongin rubs his face. "That's silly. What would we fight about?"
"I don't know." Chanyeol takes another sip of his Espolon. "Is he jealous about sunbae?"
"No--hyung." Exasperation is a rush of heat, a dryness in the mouth. "I told you, it has nothing to do with sunbae. Besides," Jongin expels his breath, "why would he be jealous? It's not like I'm spending less time with him to hang out with anyone else." He slams back the rest of his tequila, contrary to Chanyeol's instructions. It practically burns the skin off his esophagus. He coughs out, "Sehun's the one who left for a Taipei for a month to have dinner meetings that go on all night, and to ignore my phone calls, and to--" Yixing...please. "To sleep with some stranger."
In a split second, Chanyeol's eyes have tripled in size. "Excuse me?"
Cat's out of the bag.
Jongin's looking for an ally, so he doesn't feel the slightest shred of remorse. "I called him," he continues, pouring himself another tequila. His hand trembles from the adrenaline. Some of the drink drips over the lip of his glass. "He must have picked up by accident. Maybe his butt pressed it. I don't know." He takes the entire shot, again, and it's like a dozen lemon wedges rubbing over sunburned skin. "Then I heard him. Mid-coitus."
"No," Chanyeol whispers on an exhale, completely flabbergasted.
"Yes." Jongin looks away. His chest twinges, and the feeling is familiar and horrible and as fresh as it was the first time. Most of all, it is telling. "I heard everything."
"But Sehun's in love with you," Chanyeol says, without skipping a beat. "Why would he..."
The words float in the air like small, filmy bubbles, poised to pop.
In a millisecond, Chanyeol's mind catches up to his mouth. A hand flies over loose lips. "I mean--"
The whir of the world spinning on its axis drowns out the rest of that sentence. Jongin grips the edge of the table with one hand. His other hand sets down the bottle of Espolon, which was dangerously close to pouring another shot. He grips the bottle for dear life, like it's an anchor--the single fixed point in this centripetal force of gravity. "What...what did you just say?"
Chanyeol is of sharp cheekbone and proud brow--but everything softens, like butter over heat, when he hears Jongin stammer. His hand falls away from his mouth. "I guess you really didn't know."
"What the fuck, hyung!" Jongin lurches away from the table, leaning as far back into the cushion of his chair as he can manage. Sehun...is in love with me? "What do you--how did you--why are you saying this like it's common knowledge?"
The tilt of Chanyeol's head is a tender rebuke. "It is, Jongin. You're the only one who doesn't see it."
Jongin stares straight ahead, without blinking, until his eyes smart. But it's no longer Chanyeol's face that looms before his eyes.
Sehun touching his face with the tips of his fingers.
Sehun opening his arms, in the middle of the night, when Jongin trudges into his bedroom with insomnia.
Sehun bussing his cheek, his forehead, his crown; the sensation of his lips lingering even though they've barely made contact.
Sehun looking at him, just looking, his expression layered and locked so that Jongin can't decipher it, not even after years of practice--only to look away when Jongin strips down to his skivvies in the apartment.
Sehun washing his hair in the shower, fingers warm, grip sure; the rest of his body held away at arm's length, so nothing else touches but his hands and Jongin's scalp.
Sehun never allowing Jongin to wash his.
The impenetrable glaze over Sehun's pupils, the guarded praise issuing from his lips, the reluctant yet faithful support he'd given Jongin's plans each and every time Joonmyun-sunbae came into conversation.
("Maybe I'm just being possessive," Sehun'd said, once Jongin had revealed the identity of his first love. "Never thought you'd be more obsessed with anyone than you are with me.")
There are thousands of bricks heaped over Jongin's shoulders, each memory adding a hundred more. But that pales in comparison to the devastating weight in his heart--a galleon sinking into the deep, dark sea.
Sehun is in love with me, Jongin intones, in shock and shame and everything unbearable in between. I've been such a fucking idiot.
An unknown force has jacked up the volume of Chanyeol's voice. "When you were with Kyungsoo in college," the older man is saying, "Sehun would hang out in my room, and we'd just play video games until you came home from your dates. He told me how he felt about you, one of those times. I just listened, and he never brought it up again. But I could tell nothing changed after that."
Jongin steeples his fingers over his mouth. "That was so long ago, hyung. We were still kids..." I've been such a fucking idiot.
"He's loved you a long time." Chanyeol takes the rest of his drink in one shot, just like Jongin had done. Tonight is not the night for sipping. "It was so obvious, Jongin. Still is. Even Kyungsoo noticed."
Jongin gapes. His pretty-boy ex had kept mostly to himself--but Chanyeol had been friends with everybody in college.
The latter doesn't even wait for questions. "I never told you this," he explains to Jongin. "But when Kyungsoo broke up with you, he asked me to go drinking with him at one of those pojangmanchas outside campus. Remember the purple tent?" Chanyeol traces a halo around his head. "Red-haired ahjumma who sold us odeng and soju?"
Jongin nods, and it feels like slow motion.
("This is the best fish cake in town," he'd gushed to Kyungsoo in the early days. "My best friend Sehun discovered it.")
"We finished six bottles of soju," Chanyeol goes on. "I could only manage two. Kyungsoo guzzled the rest. And when he was good and drunk, he said to me--what was it?" Brows furrow. Lips are licked. "He said, 'I love that boy, Chanyeol, but I just didn't want to be second-best anymore.'"
"To whom?" Jongin objects, baffled and torn. "We were completely exclusive. I'd stopped emailing Joonmyun-sunbae after our first few dates because I liked Kyungsoo so much. How could he even--"
"I'm not sure if he knew anything about sunbae," Chanyeol cuts in quietly. "But the person he was referring to was Sehun."
Jongin shuts his eyes. Another one of those dizzy spells has kicked up a vortex in the center of his forehead. "I don't get it, hyung."
He feels a large hand pass over the top of his head. He opens his eyes. The steady, searing gaze Chanyeol is levelling at him is the kind Jongin can't escape.
"Yes, you do," Chanyeol says. His tone is kind but firm. "You don't see the way you look at him. But I'm sure you've caught yourself looking."
He strokes his hand over Jongin's hair one more time, like a father would. Then he retreats into his own territory.
Now Jongin gets it.
His arms around Sehun's waist, chest pressed against the warmth of Sehun's broad, broad back.
His nose in Sehun's hair--right above his ear or just at his nape--where the strands are the softest and smell of melon shampoo.
His mouth on the parts of Sehun's skin where friends are allowed to kiss--his cheek, his forehead, his crown--lingering longer than he should, because that's what ~best friends~ are allowed to do.
His need to impress Sehun with his work, to please him with his compliments, to tail him like a shadow, wherever Sehun goes, so he and Jongin can experience everything together.
His blazing, hell-raising jealousy when another man had made Sehun moan.
His hollow, clattering heart-feeling when he thinks of that same man making Sehun come.
The way his chest had squeezed when Sehun'd left for Taipei, and how he'd held his breath when Sehun'd stroked his face, and the earth-shattering realization that Sehun had said everything with that single movement.
I've been such a fucking idiot.
"I'm too late," he mutters, and he feels the waves crashing around his shipwreck. "Shit, hyung, I've been so blind." The tide pulls him under, so he can no longer breathe. "He's got someone else now."
Chanyeol's face is marbled with pity, pride, and relief. "Jongin," he says, over the din of glasses clinking. "Tell him the truth."
The room glows from the backlight of the wall-to-wall bottle display. The air conditioner vent swings up, then down, and it smells of wood barrel and butterscotch and Jongin's bleeding heart.
"It's too late, hyung."
Chanyeol shrugs, and he reaches across the table for the bottle of Espolon. "It's the only thing you've got left."
The puppies are the first to greet Sehun when he comes home from Taipei.
"Babies," he coos as three miniature poodles yip and hop around him. He drops his backpack on the floor of the foyer and pushes his suitcase out of the way, kneeling so the puppies can clamber all over him. "I'm back~"
Jongin leans against the entryway, trying to be casual. Then he decides against it, because he feels like he's posing for a picture. He settles for standing up straight instead, his hands shoved into the pockets of his (new) jeans.
Fleetingly, he thinks of how surreal it is to be scared in his own home.
"Hun," he starts, his voice cracking over the single syllable. It makes him flinch--not because of how uncool it is, but because of how unnatural he sounds. He clears his throat. "Hi."
The smile Sehun gives him is small and bright; an open window in a dark attic. It turns Jongin's knees to jelly. "Hi."
Sehun's got his cap on backwards. What little of his fringe peeks out in the front looks greasy (probably smells, too). His sweatshirt is tragically creased, and his joggers are riding up around his calves. He's wearing his old glasses today, so he looks like student. Sehun never wears contact lenses on flights--says they dry out his eyes and make them all crusty.
If Sooyoung were here, she'd call him out on it. Taipei's only three hours away, and you look this rough?
A few months ago, Jongin would have said it himself.
But on this sleepy Sunday afternoon, with secrets hanging over their heads like a dense fog, all he can focus on is the thump of his heart and the full-body urge to reach for this man and kiss him, airplane smell and all.
"I missed you," Jongin blurts out. "A lot."
Sehun's lips part, like he was caught off guard. His eyes flicker significantly. Jongin can't tell if he's going to smile again, or ask him questions, or maybe just laugh.
So when Sehun replies, "Me, too," the muscles in his face set to stone-cold stoic, it's a little anticlimactic.
Jongin feels let down, but he tries again. "I'm glad you're home." Fond voice. No filter. "That felt so much longer than a month."
"Did it?" Sehun goes back to patting the dogs. "I guess I was so busy with work, time just flew by."
That punctures something between Jongin's lungs. He stares down at the floor, gritting his back teeth. "What else were you busy with?" he snaps in an undertone. "Or who."
That gets Sehun's attention. "What?" he clarifies, no longer nonchalant. Concern is a map connecting tiny, invisible dots across his countenance.
Jongin shakes his head. He's acting like a spoiled brat, and he knows it. He moves away from the foyer so Sehun can pass through, chiding himself internally.
Sehun leaves his luggage where it is. "Hey." Long legs narrow the distance between them in a few strides. Sehun places his hand over Jongin's wrist. "Why are you mad?"
Jongin can't look up. He feels stupid and childish and shut in a trap of his own making. He shakes his head a second time.
The timbre of Sehun's voice is even more caressing than before. "What did I do?"
Jongin can't help it.
In one fluid motion, he's stepped right into Sehun's space. He hooks his chin over a bony shoulder and his finger into the edge of a sleeve.
It causes a minor chain reaction. Sehun moves his hand from Jongin's wrist to the small of his back. His fingers splay out protectively. He presses his nose against Jongin's temple--and Jongin's stomach churns.
He steels himself. "Who is Yixing?"
Immediately, Sehun's body stiffens. "Why do you know that name?"
Jongin gulps, and it's like molasses in his throat. "I called you a week ago," he recounts, as he had to Chanyeol at that tequila bar. "I heard you two through the phone." The nerves have taken over his voice. He could use some tequila right about now. "Who is he, Hun?"
"Nobody." The answer is an adamant one. Jongin finds himself crushed against Sehun's chest. "He's nobody."
Even as relief trickles through the hole in his heart, Jongin can't let it go. "But I heard him," he insists. "He said, for weeks..."
"He's from the office." Sehun's tone is flat, and not to be negated. "We worked together while I was there. He flirted with me, and I gave in. Once."
Once. Jongin hates that word. "Why?"
"Why else?" The sound that follows that is a sorry excuse for a chuckle. "Because I was sick of being the sad one." Sehun shifts away, inch by painstaking inch. "The unwanted one. The one waiting at home all the time, like a chump." The awful sound repeats itself. "I was jealous of your sunbae, okay, Jongin? Okay? I was jealous because I love you, so in the spur of the moment I--"
"Time out." Jongin grips Sehun's sleeve. He has drums in his ears, and a jackhammer heart. "Say that again."
"No." Sehun wrests away, catching his breath. "You heard me the first time." He spins on his heel, making a beeline for his abandoned baggage.
When Jongin grabs him from behind, in a vicelike embrace, Sehun stops in his tracks.
"Let me go," he mutters. "I haven't slept since Friday, and I need a fucking shower, Jongin. Don't make me feel any more pathetic than I do right now."
A car honks from the street outside their apartment. Next door, the opening theme of SpongeBob SquarePants blares from their neighbor's television.
Jongin starts from the beginning, like he does with every record.
Track 1.
"In college," he says, "I was happy you never dated anybody."
Sehun's head whips to the side, so Jongin can see his profile.
"I didn't want to share you," Jongin soldiers on. "You were the coolest person I knew. So talented and smart. So self-assured. You were like a senior when the rest of us were freshmen."
Sehun's jaw works. Other than that, he remains silent.
"That," Jongin swallows, "and you were sweet. And good-looking. And good to me. When you told me you liked men, it made me feel so much closer to you, Hun. But it also made me uneasy."
A sigh swells between their bodies.
"I wanted you all to myself." Jongin presses his nose into the fabric covering Sehun's neck. "Your inside jokes. Your surprise smiles." There is a movement, and Sehun's head is resting against his. "Didn't you ever wonder why I never let Kyungsoo hang out with us?"
He feels the elevation in Sehun's shoulders when his lungs fill with air. "What are you..." Sehun exhales sharply. "What are you trying to tell me?"
Jongin digs his fingers into Sehun's sweatshirt. It's an old one, tempered and torn by wash and wear. He'd had it since K-ARTS. All its seams are giving out--but he could never bring himself to toss it.
Ten years is a long, long time.
Jongin says, "I think--no, I know--I feel the same way."
They're still standing in front of the foyer. The puppies are pacing around them; whining, sniffing, wondering at their stillness. Jjanggah licks Jongin's bare toes, and SpongeBob SquarePants yells in Japanese.
Sehun leans his head back. He doesn't have to go too far to brush his lips over Jongin's. It happens so quickly--the beat between two seconds--Jongin doesn't even get to close his eyes.
"I didn't know," Sehun tells him. His lashes are wet, and his voice is brimming with emotion. "I had no idea. I just...hoped."
Jongin drops his head on Sehun's shoulder. Solace is the scent of an old shirt, and the warmth of a new love. "You and me both."
They take a shower together, like they always do. Only this time, Sehun gets to the shampoo first.
"Will you wash my hair?" He presses his lips together, staring at the bottle in his hands instead of Jongin's face. "I warn you, it's gross."
"It's fine," is Jongin's reply. He takes the bottle, pops the cap. "It's you."
Sehun doesn't both turning around. Just waits, with his arms hanging at his sides. Jongin squeezes out the shampoo, smooths it over Sehun's head, and lathers it up. He's a little embarrassed, being watched so closely like this; Sehun's breath fans over wet skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
But he likes it just the same, because he can sneak looks at Sehun's serious face and track every change in his expression when the shampoo is massaged into his scalp.
Sehun has his eyes closed. His lids tremble, like butterfly wings. His mouth is wet.
Jongin's hands are full of melon-scented suds. He lets them slide down to Sehun's nape. "I want to kiss you."
Sehun opens his eyes. The look residing in them does not waver. "Then do it."
Jongin takes a step forward, keeping his hands where they are. A thrill races over his skin when Sehun places his own hands on Jongin's hips.
"I don't want you to slip," Sehun says simply, and Jongin closes the gap between them with his mouth.
Finally, his subconscious says, as he kisses Sehun once, twice, thrice. Sehun tastes like peppermint gum and Japanese tea, and Jongin lingers longer and presses harder each time to savor it. Sehun does, too. He works to prolong each meeting of their lips, movements waxing when Jongin's wane, tilting left when Jongin tilts right. The water from the shower streams down their faces, and their chests slide together like two pieces of a puzzle.
Sehun has thin lips and a small, hot mouth. He opens it after Jongin pulls back, inviting him back in. His face is wrecked with lust, and his eyes are filled with wonder.
Jongin dips down. They swirl tongues, and Sehun whines high at the back of his throat. Jongin plunges in deeper. He sucks on Sehun's tongue, and Sehun moves his hands down to cup Jongin's ass.
Something stirs against Jongin's belly. He's so turned on, he can't tell if it's him, or Sehun, or both.
"What did Yixing do," he mouths against Sehun's lips, "to make you moan like that?"
Sehun doesn't stop kissing him. "Are you jealous?" he asks, breathlessly.
"Yeah," Jongin mutters, and Sehun squeezes his ass, hard. "Ah, fuck, Hun."
Sehun turns his face so he can access the shell of Jongin's ear. "He put his face between my legs, and he kissed me."
Jongin laps into his mouth, grabbing a handful of Sehun's ass at the same time. It is firm and pert, like a peach. "What else?"
"Oh," Sehun groans, as Jongin suctions his lips to the side of his neck. Rosy little welts rise over the skin. "He...he was creative. With his mouth and his fingers."
"Where?"
"Everywhere." This time, it is Sehun who yanks Jongin up by the hair to tongue his ear. "It's not a competition, Jongin."
"Shut up," Jongin growls in warning. He pulls Sehun closer to him so that their skin creates friction again. Then he backs him up against the wall. "Did you come?"
Sehun leans his head back, half-lidded, exposing the jut of his Adam's apple. "Yes."
Jongin licks a long, aggressive stripe over it. "How?"
"He put my legs over his shoulders," Sehun whispers. He skates his hands up Jongin's back, then scratches down it suggestively. "And he didn't stop until I did."
Jongin is wild with envy and prickling with frustration--and, honestly, hard. It's a difficult cocktail to swallow. He leans his forehead against Sehun's. The water sprays over their heads, drips down their backs, and pools at their feet.
"It meant nothing to me, Jongin," he hears Sehun say. "I was just lonely." His words are sure, and his tone is tentative, and Jongin wants to have him all to himself.
He raises his face. For a moment, he just soaks up the view: Sehun wet, Sehun naked, Sehun warm and gorgeous and present, just waiting to be loved.
"I was lonely, too." Jongin bites the inside of his cheek. "Will you sleep with me, Hun?"
Sehun's face makes its own sunlight; soft, like the glow of an afternoon through the leaves of a wisteria tree.
"I thought you'd never ask," he replies, with the smile of a man deeply in love.
Then the sunlight darkens to something less innocent, and Sehun reaches between their bodies to make Jongin hiss.
There is no sleeping when they sleep together.
Jongin takes Sehun against the shower door, with his leg hooked around Jongin's hips and his rich moans muffled by Jongin's lips.
Still nude and dripping wet, Sehun maneuvers them both across the apartment, all the way to his bed. He pushes Jongin down, and he grinds their hips together, and he gets Jongin to cry out his name.
When Jongin recovers, he kisses Sehun again, deep and deliberate, until his entire body is flushed and ready. In the end, they're both sitting up in bed; Sehun's taut thighs on either side of Jongin's hips. There are fists in Jongin's hair, and a sweet, swollen nipple in his mouth, when the final release comes. Then they both go limp.
They breathe and breathe and breathe.
With his face mashed against Sehun's neck, Jongin watches the movement in the other man's body, mesmerized. Ribs, sternum, base of throat; peaks and valleys, pink and gold.
There is a line in a poem he once read in college that describes the color sweeping across Sehun's skin. Jongin runs through it in his head: I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
From now on, he will be reminded of this moment when he sees the cherry blossoms, ripe and fragrant and flowering to life.
"I love you, Jongin," Sehun murmurs, his head still thrown back. "Always have."
Jongin snakes his hand up Sehun's spine until he gets to his nape. He tips Sehun's head forward so they can look each other in the eye.
"I've been so stupid," he begins, and the words are plaintive. "I can't believe you put up with my shit all these years."
Sehun issues the weakest giggle.
"But..." Twenty-nine-year-old lashes flutter with nerves. "You're the one, Hun."
The amusement slips from Sehun's face. It is replaced by radiant joy.
"I don't want you to be with anyone else," Jongin tells him. Just saying it makes his chest squeeze. "It hurts."
Sehun brushes the tips of their noses. Silent, forgiving little Eskimo kiss. "I know."
"I love you," Jongin confesses. It echoes like a prayer. "So much." Sehun's eyes fall closed, and there, right there, is the curl of his smile. Jongin is grateful to see it again. "It just took me a little longer to figure things out."
"Let's figure them out a little more then," Sehun murmurs, smooth as silk, with a playful glint in his eye.
Jongin's grin engulfs his face. "Flirt," he declares. "Don't even try that with anybody who isn't me."
Then Sehun bursts out laughing, and Jongin pushes him back down into their soiled sheets.
Sooyoung's jaw is, quite literally, on the ground.
"Oh, my god."
It's bright and early on a Monday morning. MixTape Osaka is bustling with deliveries for new instruments, mixing equipment, and gifts from satisfied clients. There's a delicious stack of vinyls at reception, waiting to be devoured--Amy Winehouse, Asobi Seksu, a remastered Beatles anthology, the latest Toe.
Chanyeol's got Band road-testing his next score for an Ang Lee short. It's an experimental mix of Italian cello and djembe drums. Jongin likes every note he hears from Sooyoung's office, where he and Sehun are holding hands.
Sooyoung has beautiful, square white teeth, and she's showing every one of them. "What is going on, you guys?" Her hand creeps up to her mouth. "Does your hyung know about this?"
Jongin tries to keep a straight face. "That we're together now?" His smile cracks through when Sehun squeezes his hand. "It's a surprise."
Sooyoung squeals, and she comes flying towards them, her Manolos clacking against the floor.
"This is crazy," Sehun giggles, just before she gets to them.
"I know," Jongin mouths in reply. Sooyoung is now hugging them both, jumping up and down on her four-inch heels. He barely gets away with pecking Sehun behind her back. "Isn't it great?"
For Sehun's twenty-ninth birthday, Jongin takes him to Nishinomaru Garden.
It's a cool, dry evening in April. The mustard grass is turning tender green. The boughs of the cherry trees have gone feathery with bloom--millions of petals rivaling the stars. They're illuminated by hidden lights at the roots, so the branches look like they're covered in pink snow.
Close by, Osaka Castle is lit up like a ride at an amusement park; neon blue and fluoro white masking its ancient jade tiles.
"I love this," Sehun murmurs, taking in their surroundings. They've joined the rest of the coupled-up public in the largest sakura grove. "I've never been here at night before."
Jongin smiles to himself as he spreads a picnic blanket. He's brought wine and cheese and chocolate--and some shiso-marinated tonkatsu. "You always said you wanted to." He's so smug about it. "Seemed like a good choice for our first date."
Sehun's smiling at him, too. "You remember everything, don't you?"
Jongin's been the recipient of that smile for over a decade--but now, he has to fight the impulse to touch it. "When it's important," he says, "yes."
"So." Sehun's expression shifts to mischief. "First date, huh?" He waggles his brows. "Will anyone be putting out?"
"I'm pretty uptight," Jongin replies, poker-faced. "But since it's your birthday, I might have to make an exception."
He'd gone down on Sehun at the breakfast table this morning. Then he'd bent over the kitchen counter, winking over his shoulder. Very uptight.
"Well." Sehun's hand alights on the dip of his waist. "I love a shy boy." Swiftly, he swoops in for a kiss. No heat--just honey.
A man pushes by them abruptly. Sehun loses his footing. Jongin catches him ("Gotcha") before he cranes indignantly in the stranger's direction.
The man has already bowed three times. "I'm so sorry," he apologizes to both of them, in fluent Nihongo. He has jet black hair, and the same deep green sweater that Jongin had found at H&M. There's a smartphone in the man's left hand, and he's covering the receiver with his right. "Please excuse me. I wasn't watching where I was going."
Sehun places him first. "Hello, sunbae." He uses polite speech. "Remember me?"
"Oh--" Joonmyun sees their faces for the first time. Recognition permeates his gaze. "Sehunnie, Jonginnie, hi."
It's cute how even Sehun gets a nickname, when Joonmyun's only met him once.
Sunbaes.
Jongin draws his boyfriend into a back-hug. It's a reassurance. Sehun traces his knuckles, not troubled in the least.
Joonmyun registers every detail. "You kids on a date?" There's a twinkle in his eye.
"Yup!" Jongin doesn't even try to reel it in. Sehun pinches the dip next to his thumb. "And you?"
Joonmyun brings up the phone he's still holding--cradling, really, like it's a tiny bird's egg. "I've got to go," he whispers. "My wife just called to say she misses me."
That washes over Jongin like warm bathwater. "Get her to visit," he whispers back.
Sehun's nod is an eager one. "We'll show you around--for real this time."
There's more nodding on Joonmyun's part, and some follow-up apologies, and one bouncing thumbs-up. Then the older man crinkles his boyish eyes and turns away. ("Soojung?" they hear him say into the phone. "Yeah, baby, I can hear you.")
After that, there is no need for discussion. They settle down on the picnic blanket; calm and quiet, comfortable in their silence. Sehun lays out the cutlery, and Jongin uncorks the sauvignon blanc.
It feels like he's come full circle, somehow.
"Hey, Hun."
"Hmm?" Sehun's starting in on the tonkatsu. There's a fleck of breading in the corner of his mouth.
Jongin wipes it off. "We should have a song."
Sehun laughs at him, indulgent and mellifluous. "Because we make mixtapes for a living?"
Jongin's smile is light, but his glance is loaded. "Just because."
Slender typing fingers brush under his chin and over his lips. "I already have a song for you, Jongin."
Teeth flash. "What is it?"
"It's pretty common."
"That's fine."
"Don't tell anybody."
"I won't."
"So it'll be our little secret?"
"Okay."
Sehun leans in. His clean-shaven cheek rubs over Jongin's stubble, and his pale, chapped lips graze the lobe of Jongin's ear.
He whispers the title. Four words. Six syllables.
"That's perfect," Jongin tells him, the wine in his breath mingling with the cherry blossom scent. He catches a whiff of Sehun's after-shave, too, just before he is kissed. "That's so us."
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