in my own little corner (in my own little chair) ; for parkbyun
Title: in my own little corner (in my own little chair)
Rating: NC-17
Side pairing/s: hinted kyungsoo/sehun
Length: 5149 words
Summary: Jongin would like to just once get through his Charms homework without ending up in the room of requirement.
Warning/s: underage sex, barebacking, slight dub-con, cheesey/crappy endings, barely mentioned side characters.
Notes: I originally wrote this with a legitimate plot...somehow it disappeared. I hope y'all don't mind~~ Title is from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.
It's not like Jongin has anything against the room of requirement, he just doesn't really have a need to go there. The room isn't exactly a well kept secret as much as the professors pretend it is (in fact, just about every student in Hogwarts knows about it). Jongin figures there are enough people who need it far more than he does (his roommate and his boyfriend who keep him up at night sucking each other off, for one) or who are actually interested in it (nothing, seriously, nothing, is more interesting than Quidditch) for him to stay away from the Room of Requirement and not intrude on anyone else's explorations of it.
In other words, Jongin had never planned to even step into the Room of Requirement, but when he glances up from his Charm's homework, he has to do a double take because he is not in the Gryffindor Common Room. He's in a rather seductive looking red room with a large bed made from solid, dark wood. The desk he sits at is strewn with parchment and quills, some of the ink stained on its surface. From his perch at the desk, Jongin can see the door that leads to...
The seventh floor?
Even more confusing than the glimpse of one of the tapestries on the seventh floor of the castle is the appearance of a head of dark hair belonging to a seventh year that Jongin knows well.
"Baekhyun?" He blurts out, "You're here?" The seventh year startles, accidentally slamming his hand against the door in his effort to get inside. Jongin gets up, leaping forward.
"Are you alright?" He says, grabbing Baekhyun's hand. His knuckles look a little red, but he's fine. He does look very startled and surprised, his mouth working, making him look a little like a fish out of water as he stares at Jongin. Obviously, Baekhyun hadn't expected Jongin to be here, wherever here is. Naturally, Jongin didn't expect to suddenly appear in a room he had never been in before either.
"J-Jongin?" Baekhyun stutters. His eyes are wide, looking around in utter amazement. He looks from Jongin to the desk to the bed, a wide smile spreading across his face.
"Wow," he breathes, "This is brilliant." He shakes his head, shrugging out of his black robe and tossing it on the back of an over-stuffed chair. "I knew the Room of Requirement was amazing but I didn't know it could, you know-" he makes a vague hand gesture in Jongin's direction "-do this."
Jongin is a bit baffled. The Room of Requirement? And what exactly is this?
Baekhyun pokes him.
"Are you real?" He asks. He looks delighted, his body jittery with energy. He laughs at himself, lifting a hand to slap lightly at his own forehead and cheek. "I mean, of course you're not real real, but you, not you, but this you is real. Right?"
Jongin blinks, feeling a bit offended and a lot confused. He crosses his arms.
"I'm real," he defends. Baekhyun claps his hands together.
"Of course you are," he says. He winks at Jongin. "But not really." Jongin's eyebrows knit together, and he opens his mouth to argue again, but Baekhyun has suddenly grabbed his hand, staring intently at the back of it. His elegant fingers trace over the ink stains Jongin had gained from working on his homework.
"This is really accurate," Baekhyun murmurs, lifting Jongin's hand to his mouth, "I'm amazed." And Jongin watches, frozen in absolute shock at Baekhyun takes one of his fingers into his mouth, sucking gently. He wipes at the ink stains with his shirt, moving on to wrap his lips around the next finger.
Jongin can't stop the small moan that escapes him. He'd never been stimulated by his hands before, but he remembers the thrill of making contact with the bludger during a match, the vibration that run from the bat up his whole arm and realizes that he's probably always had sensitive hands.
"This is a dream," Baekhyun murmurs. And then he grabs the back of Jongin's neck and pulls him down, placing a kiss square on his lips. Jongin stands frozen in shock, lips slightly parted and hands awkwardly at his sides. Baekhyun licks insistently along his upper lip before he tugs on it with his teeth.
Jongin's hands close instinctively on Baekhyun's hips, and the seventh year murmurs appreciatively.
"Just like that, yeah," Baekhyun whispers, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth before he grinds himself up against the taller boy, pushing his robes from his shoulders. Jongin stumbles backwards, his lips still preoccupied with Baekhyun's and mind reeling because okay, this is unexpected but not entirely unwanted?
The backs of Jongin's knees hit the bed, and he sits heavily, his body's motions still jerky with the suddenness of the turn of events.
Baekhyun crawls into Jongin's lap, knees pressing into either side of the boy's hips. He rolls his own hips down, and Jongin moans out loud. His hands fly up Baekhyun's back to curl into his hair, and a laugh bubbles out of Baekhyun's parted lips.
"Fuck, I can't believe this," he muses. He attacks Jongin's mouth with sloppy kisses, his tongue tracing the edges of Jongin's teeth and spit slick on their lips. Jongin lifts his hips a little, seeking friction on his budding erection. Baekhyun takes this as his cue to strip them both of their pants and shirts, shoes thumping loudly on the floor.
"Fuck, you're gorgeous," Baekhyun proclaims, pushing Jongin to lie back on the pillows, placing himself between the younger boy's legs. Jongin watches with wide, surprised eyes, vision hazy with arousal, as Baekhyun licks his licks and descends to drop a kiss to the tip of Jongin's dick.
"Fucking beautiful," he says, and swallows Jongin down, pretty fingers curled around the base of his dick and fondling his balls. The muscles in Jongin's thighs flex, his legs jumping in effort to control the need to fuck up into Baekhyun's mouth. Baekhyun's eyes flick up to meet Jongin's, and his smirk seems to say he knows exactly what Jongin wants.
He pulls back with an obscene slurping sound.
"Y-you-" Jongin manages. Baekhyun kisses him again, the taste of Jongin's own pre-cum prominent on the seventh year's lips. He gasps into the older boy's mouth, throwing caution to the wind as he finally bucks up, their erections brushing together. Baekhyun breaks with kiss with the neediest little moan.
"So impatient," he tells Jongin, teasing him as if his dick isn't just as hard and red as the younger boy's. Baekhyun reaches down by his own ankle and picks up something Jongin swears was not there two minutes ago- a bottle of lube.
"Room of Requirement," Baekhyun murmurs, shaking his head in slight disbelief before he pops open the cap of the bottle and dribbles the liquid liberally onto his fingers. "No kidding." He coats his hand with the stuff, reaching down slowly to circle Jongin's entrance. Jongin's back arches and he keens, trying to force Baekhyun to put it in, please, please-
The first finger slides in easy, and Jongin nearly cries from the slight relief of being filled. He doesn't quite get to revel in it as Baekhyun immediately starts wiggling his finger around, adding another to begin scissoring Jongin open. Jongin thrashes against the sheets, mouth working to form words around his panting and moaning. Baekhyun adds a third finger and presses right up against that spot in Jongin that has his whole body snapping to a rigid pose before he lets out a slight scream.
"Fuck me," he begs. He thinks he hears Baekhyun deliver some cheesy line to acquiesce, but his mind is focused not on what the other boy says but what his body does. He lowers himself over Jongin and nudges at his knees.
Jongin can only spread his legs wider, his hands falling onto his knees to hold himself open.
"Please," he pants. Baekhyun, a look of absolute wonder on his face, follows through without any more preamble, sliding smoothly into Jongin and releasing a groan of satisfaction when he bottoms out.
"Shit, you feel good," he says, and Jongin would tell him the same thing if not for his sudden lack of incoherency. He pants harshly instead, wriggling his hips just slightly to beg silently for Baekhyun to move-
The seventh year pulls back and slides forward again, his hips rocking slowly as he mouth finds the edges of Jongin's rib cage. He breathes out hard through his nose and licks a stripe up Jongin's sternum to attach his mouth to the younger boy's collarbone. He begins to snap his hips forward harder, driving his cock into Jongin and smirking when Jongin's whimpers turn to loud moans that vibrate through both of their bodies.
Jongin's fingers scrabble at Baekhyun's back, his ankles locked behind the older boy and pulling him into himself harder, tilting his hips up that extra half inch and-
Jongin lets out a loud hiss that trails into a low groan as the head of Baekhyun's dick presses against his prostate, pleasure racing up and down his spine and bending it farther and farther into an arch to feel more of that delicious sensation.
Baekhyun reaches down, slotting his hands over Jongin's hips and pressing his fingertips into the soft flesh of the younger boy's hips. Jongin moans, feeling the coils in his belly wind tighter. Baekhyun thrusts harder, and it's only a few more minutes, the both of them panting and moaning out, before Jongin clenches hard around Baekhyun, succumbing to the overload of sensation and coming across his own chest.
Baekhyun leans down to lick at a bit of it, watches Jongin's eyes become absolute liquid and buries his head in the younger boy's shoulder, coming with a muffled shout.
Baekhyun collapses at Jongin's side, reaching behind him (again) for a towel. He clean the two of them up quietly, humming a gentle tune that has Jongin relaxing into the covers. He scratches idly across Jongin's belly and sides, dipping his fingers into the slight grooves of the younger boy's musculature. He rests his chin on Jongin's shoulder, and Jongin feels him beginning to relax into the same dozing state he himself is in. Baekhyun shifts to grab his watch, sliding it back over his wrist.
Baekhyun checks the time-piece, sighing a little bit. He runs his hand up Jongin's thigh, pressing his mouth to his collarbone and taking a moment to breathe.
"Class," he murmurs darkly, "Have to go to class. Ok." He shakes his head, standing from the bed and pulling his clothes back on. He grabs his satchel from the chair and throws his black robe over his shoulder. He glances back at the room, at Jongin laying naked on the bed and smiles in bliss.
"I'll have to come back here," he promises himself. Then he turns and exits the Room of Requirement.
Jongin watches the door close, reeling from fading arousal and building confusion. His head falls back with a sigh, his legs a little bit too reminiscent of jelly.
He blinks.
"What just happened?"
~~~
"Jongin, mate, hey," Chanyeol greets in the morning when Jongin shuffles into his seat at the Gryffindor table. "You look like shit." In typical Chanyeol fashion, Jongin's friend doesn't ask what's wrong or offer any condolences, but he does let Jongin sigh and hide his face in the other boy's shoulder.
"Yeah," he says after a moment, "it was a rough night."
Which actually is the understatement of the millennia, because Jongin's ass is sore in ways he'd never expected to experience, and after Baekhyun had left the room of requirement, Jongin had poofed back to the Gryffindor common room, terrifying a group of second years when he returned suddenly to the common room in the nude, his charms homework laid out pristinely where he'd left it.
Chanyeol grunts, his mouth stuffed with a biscuit, jelly smeared across his cheek.
"Hey, Chanyeol," Jongin asks, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt,
"You're friends with Baekhyun, right?" Chanyeol exaggerates his swallow and ends up choking. Jongin wordlessly hands him his glass of Pumpkin juice. Chanyeol takes a few long swallows, still coughing. His eyes are watering when he answers Jongin.
"Sure I am," he says, coughing again, "He's a great guy. Real smart." He narrows his eyes at Jongin.
"Why?" He asks, "Do you like him or something?" Jongin protests immediately, but his face colors, a blush showing through his skin far more easily than normal. Chanyeol puts a big hand, complete with bacon grease, on Jongin's shoulder.
"Look, it doesn't matter to me if you like him, but here's the funny part-" Chanyeol has to stop and grab another drink, his throat still working as if something is caught there. "Baekhyun has been asking Sehun about you." Jongin pauses, an apple halfway to his mouth. Sehun, his roommate and fellow sixth-year is entirely willing to run his mouth for anyone who offers him a drink he misses from home: bubble tea. As a fellow Korean, Baekhyun knows all about this weakness.
Jongin is doomed.
"Y-yeah?" Jongin prompts, hoping he doesn't sound too curious. Chanyeol's smirk is lopsided, bit of bread stuck between his teeth. Jongin grimaces.
"Apparently," Chanyeol says, wiping at his face. "Baekhyun quite likes you. Like, a lot."
Jongin blinks. "Huh." He absentmindedly takes a sip of his own juice, turning the thought over in his mind. He can't exactly ask Chanyeol or Sehun if Baekhyun gets off to thoughts about him, because the former option would end with him splattered in half eaten food and the latter option would end with him constantly unsettled by judging stares, but he's pretty sure he knows the answer already if last night was any indication.
"Hey, Chanyeol," Jongin asks, casually shifting the chicken his friend had stolen from his plate back onto his own plate, "How exactly does the Room of Requirement work?" The seventh year glances at Jongin.
"Well, you just have to walk past it thinking about what you want, and when you open it- tadah! There's the room you needed," he says simply. Jongin nods along, pretending this is new information so as not to rouse suspicion.
"And could it bring a person that you need into the room?" Chanyeol gives him a strange look from the corner of his eyes. Jongin amends his question quickly, "Theoretically." Chanyeol shrugs.
"I'm not sure, mate, maybe," he offers, "Maybe the strength of the need would factor into it? Like if it's an emotional or physical need?" Jongin takes a bite out of his drumstick, chewing slowly as he mulls this over.
Baekhyun's need had obviously been physical, but he hadn't thought it was really Jongin in the room. Perhaps then, Jongin muses, his need had encompassed both categories enough to actually ask the room to bring the real person there.
Jongin feels a bit warm from the idea, his cheeks burning.
~~~
Baekhyun slides into Jongin from behind, his hand wrapped around Jongin's dick and pulling him closer and closer to the edge with his thumb in the slit. Jongin's knees and elbows ache from supporting his weight and his lover's weight as he lays on top of Jongin, breath ghosting about his neck. He presses a toothy kiss to Jongin's spine and watches the boy arch, the red color of the outline of his teeth fading against Jongin's beautiful skin.
Jongin's fingers curl into the pillow, his face turned to the side so he doesn't suffocate himself. He spreads his legs wider, pushing back with every thrust in that Baekhyun makes.
"I'm going to-" He starts, and then stops with a whine of both pleasure and complaint as Baekhyun's fingers tighten around the base of his dick, stopping his orgasm in its tracks.
He rakes his fingernails along the bed sheets, scrambling for a release of the build-up of want in his system.
"Baekhyun," he chokes, "Baekhyun, please!"
Baekhyun loosens his grip on Jongin's cock, allowing the younger to thrust into the circle of his fingers. For Jongin, who is lost in the dual sensation of Baekhyun in him and Baekhyun around him (even if it's only his hand), it takes only a few moments for the coils in his stomach to wind up all the way again, his body racing along the edge of not enough and too much.
"Baekhyu- fuck!" Once again, Baekhyun's fingers close tight around Jongin's dick, his smirk pressed into the nape of his neck.
"You want to come?" the seventh year asks. Jongin moans out an affirmative. Baekhyun rocks his hips a little faster. "Then beg me for it." His grip doesn't loosen, but that doesn't stop Jongin from trying to get some relief on his cock. He tries to drop down on the mattress to rut against it, but Baekhyun holds him still against his chest. He makes a playful tsk sound in Jongin's ear before biting on the lobe there.
"Beg," Baekhyun insists.
"Please!" It slips from Jongin's mouth before he can stop it, and the word acts as that one support beam that holds the entirety of a dam together, opening the floodgates. "Please, please, please, let me come," Jongin begs. "Please, please! He says, "I need to- Baekhyun I have to-"
"Then come."
And Jongin does, a string of curses flying from his lips as he finds completion. Baekhyun releases a sort of groan, a kind of sigh, as he empties himself into the boy underneath him. He waits a moment, simply breathing in Jongin's scent, before pulling out. He winces from the sensitivity, and Jongin whines at the come slipping down his thighs.
Just like last time, Baekhyun rises and grabs warm towels to clean them both. He presses kisses to Jongin's face all the while.
"You're beautiful," he whispers along the shell of Jongin's ear. The younger boy shivers, flopping onto his back at Baekhyun's urging.
"Do you have to get to class?" Jongin mumbles. Baekhyun sighs.
"Unfortunately," he admits. "I don't want to go." Jongin grabs Baekhyun's wrist.
"I don't want you to either," he says very seriously. Baekhyun does this sad sort of laugh and pulls away, reaching for his clothes.
"What I would give to hear you say to me," he whispers. Jongin tilts his head to the side.
"I just did?"
Baekhyun kisses his forehead and buttons his trousers, "Sure. You did. But not the real Jongin." He shrugs. Jongin sits quietly, a little unsure of how to break Baekhyun of his belief that he's not the real him, that he's a projection while Baekhyun dresses himself. When Baekhyun murmurs a quiet "bye," hand already on the doorknob, Jongin jerks into action grabbing his robe just as the jolt in his belly starts up again.
"Damnit!" He shouts. "Can't you let me put my clothes on?" The Room simply sends him back to the Gryffindor Common room where he left his Charms essay.
Screams of shocked second years greet him.
~~~
Jongin and Baekhyun been meeting quite often, and not always at an opportune time for Jongin who finds himself dragged to the Room of Requirement every time Baekhyun visits. The feeling is quite similar to Apparition, and has strangely become something Jongin longs to feel. Every time the lurch behind his bellybutton wakes him or interrupts his studying, he feels a rush of excitement and anticipation.
Today, he'd been dragged from the Great Hall during dinner, barely managing to hide behind a statue in one of the corridors before he disappeared from the lower levels of the castle only to reappear in front of Baekhyun in the Room of Requirement.
He'd been talking with Kyungsoo, a Ravenclaw who specializes in illusions about proving reality to a person who believes reality to be an illusion. Kyungsoo had, of course, given him an obvious answer that Jongin had flushed at not realizing.
"Why don't you just force him to see reality?" Kyungsoo had said, his tone bored and condescending. "If there is a way that person believes the illusion can't exist, such as a location where that illusion can't happen, show him that illusion in the reality where it can't exist. Then he'll see it as reality." Jongin interpreted that as "walk out of the room with him" and thanked Kyungsoo for his time. The other had grunted by way of saying adieu, and Jongin had suddenly seen why he and Sehun fit so well together (even if their late night rendezvous in Jongin and Sehun's room needed to stop for the sake of Jongin's sleep).
This time in the Room of Requirement, Jongin is determined to show Baekhyun the truth, so without any ounce of hesitation, Jongin draws Baekhyun into his arms and kisses him hard. Baekhyun whimpers immediately, his hands scrabbling at Jongin's robes and mouth open to lick at Jongin's lips.
"Baekhyun," Jongin sighs into the other boy's mouth, "Why do you keep coming here?" He traces his lips down the column of Baekhyun's throat, feeling the boy's fingers clench in Jongin's hair. Baekhyun drags him to toward the bag, placing his own back to it.
"To see you," he whispers back, laying down and letting Jongin pop open the buttons on his shirt. He places a kiss over every new inch of skin he reveals, sucking harshly at the edges of Baekhyun's ribs. Baekhyun keens.
"Can't you see me in the common room?" Jongin asks, "In the Great Hall?"
"I can see the real you," Baekhyun answers slowly, distracted by Jongin's ministrations with his tongue on Baekhyun's nipples, "I can see the you loves Quidditch, who is brilliant at Transfiguration, but not the you who loves me like this." He sighs, drawing Jongin up to look directly into his eyes.
"I can't see the you who I want to tell 'I like you,' or kiss you, or fuck you," Baekhyun answers. He crashes their mouths together, tongue sliding instantly into Jongin's mouth that has dropped open in shock.
He feels so offended that Baekhyun can't see this is him, the real him, and not some projection created by the room to fulfill his desires.
Baekhyun whines, tugging at Jongin, sucking on his bottom lip. Jongin wrenches himself away from Baekhyun, suddenly feeling cold and hot all at once.
"I'm real, Baekhyun," he says, "I'm actually Jongin, Gryffindor sixth year, Beater for the Quidditch team, and I'm good at Transfiguration, but you're best at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I've always admired you for that. And I like you. I've kind of always had a crush on you-" Jongin cuts himself off when he notices the horrified look on Baekhyun's face.
"You're not a creation of the Room?" He finally says, more to himself than to Jongin, "Really?"
"Really," Jongin repeats. Baekhyun stumbles back, his face flaming red. He brings his hands up to his cheeks, squeezing his eyes shut.
"Can you prove it?" He squeaks. Jongin stares and nods very slowly. He takes Baekhyun's hand in his and moves toward the door.
"If I can exist outside of this door," Jongin argues, his fingers slipping into the spaces between Baekhyun's own, "Then I can be yours outside this door."
Together, slowly, Baekhyun's grip tightening as if scared Jongin will slip away from the veil of reality, they open the door to the Room of Requirement and step outside into the abandoned corridor.
Neither hand disappears, and Baekhyun's relief seems to flood into Jongin's own system, making his knees weak.
"See?" He murmurs, pulling Baekhyun against him. "I can be yours." He leans down, prepared to capture Baekhyun's mouth just as he's done the past few times the older boy has entered the Room of Requirement, but Baekhyun pulls back, tears gathering in his eyes.
"O my god," he breathes, pressing a hand to his lips. "Jongin, I-" He turns and runs, sprinting the opposite direction of the Gryffindor Tower, leaving Jongin, very real and very confused, behind him.
~~~
"Jongin!" Sehun shouts by way of greeting at Quidditch practice the next morning. He's got a snitch tightly grasped in one hand and his broom in the other. "Jongin, hey, hey!"
Jongin yawns instead of replying. He hadn't slept last night even after returning to his room. He'd thought that after telling Baekhyun that we is, in fact, himself, and that he does, in fact, like him, that'd they kiss, perhaps retreat back into the Room of Requirement and not emerge for a few hours. He never expected Baekhyun to start tearing up and run away from him. He knows for a fact that the seventh year never returned to the Tower as he had sat in the Common Room all night waiting for him.
"Jongin," Sehun whines, reaching out to tug at his friend's sleeve when his answer is less than satisfactory.
"What," Jongin grumbles out, his eyelids drooping. He sways a little, and Sehun grabs him, pulling him close to steady him. He drops his broom on the pitch and tugs Jongin's from his hand, dropping it carelessly. Jongin barely seems to notice as he snuggles into Sehun's side.
"Chanyeol told me Baekhyun spent the night in with Jongdae," he says conversationally. He starts to walk back towards the changing rooms, and Jongin lets out a little shout of protest. Sehun sticks the snitch in his pocket, using his now free hand to pat down Jongin's messy hair.
"Oh, hush," he chides, "You're not getting on a broom right now. You'll fall off." Jongin can't even bring himself to argue (it'd be a moot point since he can't walk straight to prove his case). He just grumbles.
"Anyway," Sehun continues, "He said that Jongdae said that Baekhyun thinks he's really fucked something up. And he won't go back to his dorm, so it must be something to do with you."
Jongin jolts, raising an eyebrow at Sehun. "How do you figure that?" Sehun rolls his eyes, giving Jongin that look, the do-you-think-I'm-stupid? glare.
"Baekhyun's had a crush on you since fourth year," he states as if it's obvious, and maybe it is. "He says he fucked something up, but I'm guessing you did something." He doesn't ask for more information, but Jongin is forthcoming with it anyway, knowing Sehun will torture it out of him if he has to.
"We've been, uh, meeting in the Room of Requirement for the past month-"
"Ah, mating, got it," Sehun interjects.
Jongin carries on, "But he always thought I was a manifestation of his desires created by the room. I finally confessed that it's always been me, you know, the real, actual me there, and I thought that we'd, you know, get together or something, but he ran away? And I don't know why."
Sehun stops walking, angling himself so that he's looking Jongin right in the eye.
"Did you maybe consider that Baekhyun feels guilty?"
Jongin's eyebrows scrunch together. "Over what?"
"It's just that, if he didn't think you were real, and he didn't ask you permission or anything, isn't it like he took advantage of you?" Sehun swallows and says very, very quietly. "Like...rape?" Jongin sucks in a breath, thinking back. Of course Sehun is right: Baekhyun had never asked Jongin for permission to his body, and he'd never minded putting himself in Baekhyun's hands. But a terrifying thought like that, the idea of being someone who had forced himself onto the object of his affections, it makes Jongin feel sick.
He's wide awake all of a sudden.
"Do you know where Baekhyun is?" He demands of his friend. Sehun scratches idly at his cheek.
"He knows you have practice now, so he's probably finally back in the Tower," he muses. Jongin is already running towards the Pink Lady, leaving a shocked Sehun behind.
~~~
"Baekhyun!" Jongin shouts upon emerging from the portrait hole. He gets no response, and the time of day has the Common Room deserted, all students in class or various club activities. Jongin himself should be in practice, but finding Baekhyun has become his number one priority.
"Baekhyun!" He yells again. There's a crash upstairs in the direction of the seventh year boys' dormitory and a little yelp, and Jongin races toward the source of the sound. He pushes open the door to the dormitory room next to his own and peeks inside.
"Baekhyun?" He calls out in a softer voice. A head of dark hair pokes out from behind a bookshelf, all of the books scattered across the floor.
"Jongin?" Baekhyun says, voice small and timid, "Y-you're here?"
"Yes. The real me, not a projection," Jongin jokes weakly. Baekhyun doesn't smile, but he does stand and move a few steps closer to Jongin. His mouth opens as if he wants to say nothing, but nothing comes out. Jongin waits another moment before he takes it upon himself to speak first.
"It's ok, you know," Jongin starts, "This past month, everything in the room, I'm- I mean, it's ok." Baekhyun stares.
"Sehun said that maybe you felt like you had used me? I guess," Jongin continues, editing his friend's choice of words. "But that's not how I feel."
"How could you not?" Baekhyun whispers, but his voice echoes loudly around the two of them. "I never asked, I never even treated you like a real person-"
"But you confessed to me anyway," Jongin interrupts, blushing faintly. "You said I'm good at Transfiguration, that I'm good at Quidditch." He pauses and coughs a little, scratching at the back of his neck.
"You said that I'm the person you want to kiss and t-to- to f-fu, uhm, that I'm the person that you like, and I-" He takes a breath and meets Baekhyun's gaze.
"I like you too," he finishes. He watches Baekhyun's face, watches wonder and shame pass over his pretty features, admires the way he chews cutely on his bottom lip before he looks up to look at Jongin with determination.
"It must have been odd, hearing me tell you you're not real when you are," he says. Jongin shrugs, offering a little half smile.
"Well," Baekhyun says softly, finally coming up Jongin and taking his hand, "If I ask to kiss you right now, will you let me?" His thumb rubs over the back of Jongin's palm, his fingertips tapping lightly against Jongin's own. The younger boy lets out a little whine-laugh mix.
"Ask me," he breathes. Baekhyun does, and Jongin says yes, and both of them will be the first to admit that it's the best kiss they've ever shared.
"So," Baekhyun muses, "If I ask you to accompany me to the Room of Requirement right now?" Jongin laughs and kisses Baekhyun's forehead.
"Didn't you know? I'm always there when you're there."
#1 why is this ending so crappy I don't even-
#2 there is a distinct lack of magic in this hp!au and i don't know how that happened either
#3 tomato, you made this happen. so thank you!
Rating: NC-17
Side pairing/s: hinted kyungsoo/sehun
Length: 5149 words
Summary: Jongin would like to just once get through his Charms homework without ending up in the room of requirement.
Warning/s: underage sex, barebacking, slight dub-con, cheesey/crappy endings, barely mentioned side characters.
Notes: I originally wrote this with a legitimate plot...somehow it disappeared. I hope y'all don't mind~~ Title is from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.
It's not like Jongin has anything against the room of requirement, he just doesn't really have a need to go there. The room isn't exactly a well kept secret as much as the professors pretend it is (in fact, just about every student in Hogwarts knows about it). Jongin figures there are enough people who need it far more than he does (his roommate and his boyfriend who keep him up at night sucking each other off, for one) or who are actually interested in it (nothing, seriously, nothing, is more interesting than Quidditch) for him to stay away from the Room of Requirement and not intrude on anyone else's explorations of it.
In other words, Jongin had never planned to even step into the Room of Requirement, but when he glances up from his Charm's homework, he has to do a double take because he is not in the Gryffindor Common Room. He's in a rather seductive looking red room with a large bed made from solid, dark wood. The desk he sits at is strewn with parchment and quills, some of the ink stained on its surface. From his perch at the desk, Jongin can see the door that leads to...
The seventh floor?
Even more confusing than the glimpse of one of the tapestries on the seventh floor of the castle is the appearance of a head of dark hair belonging to a seventh year that Jongin knows well.
"Baekhyun?" He blurts out, "You're here?" The seventh year startles, accidentally slamming his hand against the door in his effort to get inside. Jongin gets up, leaping forward.
"Are you alright?" He says, grabbing Baekhyun's hand. His knuckles look a little red, but he's fine. He does look very startled and surprised, his mouth working, making him look a little like a fish out of water as he stares at Jongin. Obviously, Baekhyun hadn't expected Jongin to be here, wherever here is. Naturally, Jongin didn't expect to suddenly appear in a room he had never been in before either.
"J-Jongin?" Baekhyun stutters. His eyes are wide, looking around in utter amazement. He looks from Jongin to the desk to the bed, a wide smile spreading across his face.
"Wow," he breathes, "This is brilliant." He shakes his head, shrugging out of his black robe and tossing it on the back of an over-stuffed chair. "I knew the Room of Requirement was amazing but I didn't know it could, you know-" he makes a vague hand gesture in Jongin's direction "-do this."
Jongin is a bit baffled. The Room of Requirement? And what exactly is this?
Baekhyun pokes him.
"Are you real?" He asks. He looks delighted, his body jittery with energy. He laughs at himself, lifting a hand to slap lightly at his own forehead and cheek. "I mean, of course you're not real real, but you, not you, but this you is real. Right?"
Jongin blinks, feeling a bit offended and a lot confused. He crosses his arms.
"I'm real," he defends. Baekhyun claps his hands together.
"Of course you are," he says. He winks at Jongin. "But not really." Jongin's eyebrows knit together, and he opens his mouth to argue again, but Baekhyun has suddenly grabbed his hand, staring intently at the back of it. His elegant fingers trace over the ink stains Jongin had gained from working on his homework.
"This is really accurate," Baekhyun murmurs, lifting Jongin's hand to his mouth, "I'm amazed." And Jongin watches, frozen in absolute shock at Baekhyun takes one of his fingers into his mouth, sucking gently. He wipes at the ink stains with his shirt, moving on to wrap his lips around the next finger.
Jongin can't stop the small moan that escapes him. He'd never been stimulated by his hands before, but he remembers the thrill of making contact with the bludger during a match, the vibration that run from the bat up his whole arm and realizes that he's probably always had sensitive hands.
"This is a dream," Baekhyun murmurs. And then he grabs the back of Jongin's neck and pulls him down, placing a kiss square on his lips. Jongin stands frozen in shock, lips slightly parted and hands awkwardly at his sides. Baekhyun licks insistently along his upper lip before he tugs on it with his teeth.
Jongin's hands close instinctively on Baekhyun's hips, and the seventh year murmurs appreciatively.
"Just like that, yeah," Baekhyun whispers, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth before he grinds himself up against the taller boy, pushing his robes from his shoulders. Jongin stumbles backwards, his lips still preoccupied with Baekhyun's and mind reeling because okay, this is unexpected but not entirely unwanted?
The backs of Jongin's knees hit the bed, and he sits heavily, his body's motions still jerky with the suddenness of the turn of events.
Baekhyun crawls into Jongin's lap, knees pressing into either side of the boy's hips. He rolls his own hips down, and Jongin moans out loud. His hands fly up Baekhyun's back to curl into his hair, and a laugh bubbles out of Baekhyun's parted lips.
"Fuck, I can't believe this," he muses. He attacks Jongin's mouth with sloppy kisses, his tongue tracing the edges of Jongin's teeth and spit slick on their lips. Jongin lifts his hips a little, seeking friction on his budding erection. Baekhyun takes this as his cue to strip them both of their pants and shirts, shoes thumping loudly on the floor.
"Fuck, you're gorgeous," Baekhyun proclaims, pushing Jongin to lie back on the pillows, placing himself between the younger boy's legs. Jongin watches with wide, surprised eyes, vision hazy with arousal, as Baekhyun licks his licks and descends to drop a kiss to the tip of Jongin's dick.
"Fucking beautiful," he says, and swallows Jongin down, pretty fingers curled around the base of his dick and fondling his balls. The muscles in Jongin's thighs flex, his legs jumping in effort to control the need to fuck up into Baekhyun's mouth. Baekhyun's eyes flick up to meet Jongin's, and his smirk seems to say he knows exactly what Jongin wants.
He pulls back with an obscene slurping sound.
"Y-you-" Jongin manages. Baekhyun kisses him again, the taste of Jongin's own pre-cum prominent on the seventh year's lips. He gasps into the older boy's mouth, throwing caution to the wind as he finally bucks up, their erections brushing together. Baekhyun breaks with kiss with the neediest little moan.
"So impatient," he tells Jongin, teasing him as if his dick isn't just as hard and red as the younger boy's. Baekhyun reaches down by his own ankle and picks up something Jongin swears was not there two minutes ago- a bottle of lube.
"Room of Requirement," Baekhyun murmurs, shaking his head in slight disbelief before he pops open the cap of the bottle and dribbles the liquid liberally onto his fingers. "No kidding." He coats his hand with the stuff, reaching down slowly to circle Jongin's entrance. Jongin's back arches and he keens, trying to force Baekhyun to put it in, please, please-
The first finger slides in easy, and Jongin nearly cries from the slight relief of being filled. He doesn't quite get to revel in it as Baekhyun immediately starts wiggling his finger around, adding another to begin scissoring Jongin open. Jongin thrashes against the sheets, mouth working to form words around his panting and moaning. Baekhyun adds a third finger and presses right up against that spot in Jongin that has his whole body snapping to a rigid pose before he lets out a slight scream.
"Fuck me," he begs. He thinks he hears Baekhyun deliver some cheesy line to acquiesce, but his mind is focused not on what the other boy says but what his body does. He lowers himself over Jongin and nudges at his knees.
Jongin can only spread his legs wider, his hands falling onto his knees to hold himself open.
"Please," he pants. Baekhyun, a look of absolute wonder on his face, follows through without any more preamble, sliding smoothly into Jongin and releasing a groan of satisfaction when he bottoms out.
"Shit, you feel good," he says, and Jongin would tell him the same thing if not for his sudden lack of incoherency. He pants harshly instead, wriggling his hips just slightly to beg silently for Baekhyun to move-
The seventh year pulls back and slides forward again, his hips rocking slowly as he mouth finds the edges of Jongin's rib cage. He breathes out hard through his nose and licks a stripe up Jongin's sternum to attach his mouth to the younger boy's collarbone. He begins to snap his hips forward harder, driving his cock into Jongin and smirking when Jongin's whimpers turn to loud moans that vibrate through both of their bodies.
Jongin's fingers scrabble at Baekhyun's back, his ankles locked behind the older boy and pulling him into himself harder, tilting his hips up that extra half inch and-
Jongin lets out a loud hiss that trails into a low groan as the head of Baekhyun's dick presses against his prostate, pleasure racing up and down his spine and bending it farther and farther into an arch to feel more of that delicious sensation.
Baekhyun reaches down, slotting his hands over Jongin's hips and pressing his fingertips into the soft flesh of the younger boy's hips. Jongin moans, feeling the coils in his belly wind tighter. Baekhyun thrusts harder, and it's only a few more minutes, the both of them panting and moaning out, before Jongin clenches hard around Baekhyun, succumbing to the overload of sensation and coming across his own chest.
Baekhyun leans down to lick at a bit of it, watches Jongin's eyes become absolute liquid and buries his head in the younger boy's shoulder, coming with a muffled shout.
Baekhyun collapses at Jongin's side, reaching behind him (again) for a towel. He clean the two of them up quietly, humming a gentle tune that has Jongin relaxing into the covers. He scratches idly across Jongin's belly and sides, dipping his fingers into the slight grooves of the younger boy's musculature. He rests his chin on Jongin's shoulder, and Jongin feels him beginning to relax into the same dozing state he himself is in. Baekhyun shifts to grab his watch, sliding it back over his wrist.
Baekhyun checks the time-piece, sighing a little bit. He runs his hand up Jongin's thigh, pressing his mouth to his collarbone and taking a moment to breathe.
"Class," he murmurs darkly, "Have to go to class. Ok." He shakes his head, standing from the bed and pulling his clothes back on. He grabs his satchel from the chair and throws his black robe over his shoulder. He glances back at the room, at Jongin laying naked on the bed and smiles in bliss.
"I'll have to come back here," he promises himself. Then he turns and exits the Room of Requirement.
Jongin watches the door close, reeling from fading arousal and building confusion. His head falls back with a sigh, his legs a little bit too reminiscent of jelly.
He blinks.
"What just happened?"
~~~
"Jongin, mate, hey," Chanyeol greets in the morning when Jongin shuffles into his seat at the Gryffindor table. "You look like shit." In typical Chanyeol fashion, Jongin's friend doesn't ask what's wrong or offer any condolences, but he does let Jongin sigh and hide his face in the other boy's shoulder.
"Yeah," he says after a moment, "it was a rough night."
Which actually is the understatement of the millennia, because Jongin's ass is sore in ways he'd never expected to experience, and after Baekhyun had left the room of requirement, Jongin had poofed back to the Gryffindor common room, terrifying a group of second years when he returned suddenly to the common room in the nude, his charms homework laid out pristinely where he'd left it.
Chanyeol grunts, his mouth stuffed with a biscuit, jelly smeared across his cheek.
"Hey, Chanyeol," Jongin asks, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt,
"You're friends with Baekhyun, right?" Chanyeol exaggerates his swallow and ends up choking. Jongin wordlessly hands him his glass of Pumpkin juice. Chanyeol takes a few long swallows, still coughing. His eyes are watering when he answers Jongin.
"Sure I am," he says, coughing again, "He's a great guy. Real smart." He narrows his eyes at Jongin.
"Why?" He asks, "Do you like him or something?" Jongin protests immediately, but his face colors, a blush showing through his skin far more easily than normal. Chanyeol puts a big hand, complete with bacon grease, on Jongin's shoulder.
"Look, it doesn't matter to me if you like him, but here's the funny part-" Chanyeol has to stop and grab another drink, his throat still working as if something is caught there. "Baekhyun has been asking Sehun about you." Jongin pauses, an apple halfway to his mouth. Sehun, his roommate and fellow sixth-year is entirely willing to run his mouth for anyone who offers him a drink he misses from home: bubble tea. As a fellow Korean, Baekhyun knows all about this weakness.
Jongin is doomed.
"Y-yeah?" Jongin prompts, hoping he doesn't sound too curious. Chanyeol's smirk is lopsided, bit of bread stuck between his teeth. Jongin grimaces.
"Apparently," Chanyeol says, wiping at his face. "Baekhyun quite likes you. Like, a lot."
Jongin blinks. "Huh." He absentmindedly takes a sip of his own juice, turning the thought over in his mind. He can't exactly ask Chanyeol or Sehun if Baekhyun gets off to thoughts about him, because the former option would end with him splattered in half eaten food and the latter option would end with him constantly unsettled by judging stares, but he's pretty sure he knows the answer already if last night was any indication.
"Hey, Chanyeol," Jongin asks, casually shifting the chicken his friend had stolen from his plate back onto his own plate, "How exactly does the Room of Requirement work?" The seventh year glances at Jongin.
"Well, you just have to walk past it thinking about what you want, and when you open it- tadah! There's the room you needed," he says simply. Jongin nods along, pretending this is new information so as not to rouse suspicion.
"And could it bring a person that you need into the room?" Chanyeol gives him a strange look from the corner of his eyes. Jongin amends his question quickly, "Theoretically." Chanyeol shrugs.
"I'm not sure, mate, maybe," he offers, "Maybe the strength of the need would factor into it? Like if it's an emotional or physical need?" Jongin takes a bite out of his drumstick, chewing slowly as he mulls this over.
Baekhyun's need had obviously been physical, but he hadn't thought it was really Jongin in the room. Perhaps then, Jongin muses, his need had encompassed both categories enough to actually ask the room to bring the real person there.
Jongin feels a bit warm from the idea, his cheeks burning.
~~~
Baekhyun slides into Jongin from behind, his hand wrapped around Jongin's dick and pulling him closer and closer to the edge with his thumb in the slit. Jongin's knees and elbows ache from supporting his weight and his lover's weight as he lays on top of Jongin, breath ghosting about his neck. He presses a toothy kiss to Jongin's spine and watches the boy arch, the red color of the outline of his teeth fading against Jongin's beautiful skin.
Jongin's fingers curl into the pillow, his face turned to the side so he doesn't suffocate himself. He spreads his legs wider, pushing back with every thrust in that Baekhyun makes.
"I'm going to-" He starts, and then stops with a whine of both pleasure and complaint as Baekhyun's fingers tighten around the base of his dick, stopping his orgasm in its tracks.
He rakes his fingernails along the bed sheets, scrambling for a release of the build-up of want in his system.
"Baekhyun," he chokes, "Baekhyun, please!"
Baekhyun loosens his grip on Jongin's cock, allowing the younger to thrust into the circle of his fingers. For Jongin, who is lost in the dual sensation of Baekhyun in him and Baekhyun around him (even if it's only his hand), it takes only a few moments for the coils in his stomach to wind up all the way again, his body racing along the edge of not enough and too much.
"Baekhyu- fuck!" Once again, Baekhyun's fingers close tight around Jongin's dick, his smirk pressed into the nape of his neck.
"You want to come?" the seventh year asks. Jongin moans out an affirmative. Baekhyun rocks his hips a little faster. "Then beg me for it." His grip doesn't loosen, but that doesn't stop Jongin from trying to get some relief on his cock. He tries to drop down on the mattress to rut against it, but Baekhyun holds him still against his chest. He makes a playful tsk sound in Jongin's ear before biting on the lobe there.
"Beg," Baekhyun insists.
"Please!" It slips from Jongin's mouth before he can stop it, and the word acts as that one support beam that holds the entirety of a dam together, opening the floodgates. "Please, please, please, let me come," Jongin begs. "Please, please! He says, "I need to- Baekhyun I have to-"
"Then come."
And Jongin does, a string of curses flying from his lips as he finds completion. Baekhyun releases a sort of groan, a kind of sigh, as he empties himself into the boy underneath him. He waits a moment, simply breathing in Jongin's scent, before pulling out. He winces from the sensitivity, and Jongin whines at the come slipping down his thighs.
Just like last time, Baekhyun rises and grabs warm towels to clean them both. He presses kisses to Jongin's face all the while.
"You're beautiful," he whispers along the shell of Jongin's ear. The younger boy shivers, flopping onto his back at Baekhyun's urging.
"Do you have to get to class?" Jongin mumbles. Baekhyun sighs.
"Unfortunately," he admits. "I don't want to go." Jongin grabs Baekhyun's wrist.
"I don't want you to either," he says very seriously. Baekhyun does this sad sort of laugh and pulls away, reaching for his clothes.
"What I would give to hear you say to me," he whispers. Jongin tilts his head to the side.
"I just did?"
Baekhyun kisses his forehead and buttons his trousers, "Sure. You did. But not the real Jongin." He shrugs. Jongin sits quietly, a little unsure of how to break Baekhyun of his belief that he's not the real him, that he's a projection while Baekhyun dresses himself. When Baekhyun murmurs a quiet "bye," hand already on the doorknob, Jongin jerks into action grabbing his robe just as the jolt in his belly starts up again.
"Damnit!" He shouts. "Can't you let me put my clothes on?" The Room simply sends him back to the Gryffindor Common room where he left his Charms essay.
Screams of shocked second years greet him.
~~~
Jongin and Baekhyun been meeting quite often, and not always at an opportune time for Jongin who finds himself dragged to the Room of Requirement every time Baekhyun visits. The feeling is quite similar to Apparition, and has strangely become something Jongin longs to feel. Every time the lurch behind his bellybutton wakes him or interrupts his studying, he feels a rush of excitement and anticipation.
Today, he'd been dragged from the Great Hall during dinner, barely managing to hide behind a statue in one of the corridors before he disappeared from the lower levels of the castle only to reappear in front of Baekhyun in the Room of Requirement.
He'd been talking with Kyungsoo, a Ravenclaw who specializes in illusions about proving reality to a person who believes reality to be an illusion. Kyungsoo had, of course, given him an obvious answer that Jongin had flushed at not realizing.
"Why don't you just force him to see reality?" Kyungsoo had said, his tone bored and condescending. "If there is a way that person believes the illusion can't exist, such as a location where that illusion can't happen, show him that illusion in the reality where it can't exist. Then he'll see it as reality." Jongin interpreted that as "walk out of the room with him" and thanked Kyungsoo for his time. The other had grunted by way of saying adieu, and Jongin had suddenly seen why he and Sehun fit so well together (even if their late night rendezvous in Jongin and Sehun's room needed to stop for the sake of Jongin's sleep).
This time in the Room of Requirement, Jongin is determined to show Baekhyun the truth, so without any ounce of hesitation, Jongin draws Baekhyun into his arms and kisses him hard. Baekhyun whimpers immediately, his hands scrabbling at Jongin's robes and mouth open to lick at Jongin's lips.
"Baekhyun," Jongin sighs into the other boy's mouth, "Why do you keep coming here?" He traces his lips down the column of Baekhyun's throat, feeling the boy's fingers clench in Jongin's hair. Baekhyun drags him to toward the bag, placing his own back to it.
"To see you," he whispers back, laying down and letting Jongin pop open the buttons on his shirt. He places a kiss over every new inch of skin he reveals, sucking harshly at the edges of Baekhyun's ribs. Baekhyun keens.
"Can't you see me in the common room?" Jongin asks, "In the Great Hall?"
"I can see the real you," Baekhyun answers slowly, distracted by Jongin's ministrations with his tongue on Baekhyun's nipples, "I can see the you loves Quidditch, who is brilliant at Transfiguration, but not the you who loves me like this." He sighs, drawing Jongin up to look directly into his eyes.
"I can't see the you who I want to tell 'I like you,' or kiss you, or fuck you," Baekhyun answers. He crashes their mouths together, tongue sliding instantly into Jongin's mouth that has dropped open in shock.
He feels so offended that Baekhyun can't see this is him, the real him, and not some projection created by the room to fulfill his desires.
Baekhyun whines, tugging at Jongin, sucking on his bottom lip. Jongin wrenches himself away from Baekhyun, suddenly feeling cold and hot all at once.
"I'm real, Baekhyun," he says, "I'm actually Jongin, Gryffindor sixth year, Beater for the Quidditch team, and I'm good at Transfiguration, but you're best at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I've always admired you for that. And I like you. I've kind of always had a crush on you-" Jongin cuts himself off when he notices the horrified look on Baekhyun's face.
"You're not a creation of the Room?" He finally says, more to himself than to Jongin, "Really?"
"Really," Jongin repeats. Baekhyun stumbles back, his face flaming red. He brings his hands up to his cheeks, squeezing his eyes shut.
"Can you prove it?" He squeaks. Jongin stares and nods very slowly. He takes Baekhyun's hand in his and moves toward the door.
"If I can exist outside of this door," Jongin argues, his fingers slipping into the spaces between Baekhyun's own, "Then I can be yours outside this door."
Together, slowly, Baekhyun's grip tightening as if scared Jongin will slip away from the veil of reality, they open the door to the Room of Requirement and step outside into the abandoned corridor.
Neither hand disappears, and Baekhyun's relief seems to flood into Jongin's own system, making his knees weak.
"See?" He murmurs, pulling Baekhyun against him. "I can be yours." He leans down, prepared to capture Baekhyun's mouth just as he's done the past few times the older boy has entered the Room of Requirement, but Baekhyun pulls back, tears gathering in his eyes.
"O my god," he breathes, pressing a hand to his lips. "Jongin, I-" He turns and runs, sprinting the opposite direction of the Gryffindor Tower, leaving Jongin, very real and very confused, behind him.
~~~
"Jongin!" Sehun shouts by way of greeting at Quidditch practice the next morning. He's got a snitch tightly grasped in one hand and his broom in the other. "Jongin, hey, hey!"
Jongin yawns instead of replying. He hadn't slept last night even after returning to his room. He'd thought that after telling Baekhyun that we is, in fact, himself, and that he does, in fact, like him, that'd they kiss, perhaps retreat back into the Room of Requirement and not emerge for a few hours. He never expected Baekhyun to start tearing up and run away from him. He knows for a fact that the seventh year never returned to the Tower as he had sat in the Common Room all night waiting for him.
"Jongin," Sehun whines, reaching out to tug at his friend's sleeve when his answer is less than satisfactory.
"What," Jongin grumbles out, his eyelids drooping. He sways a little, and Sehun grabs him, pulling him close to steady him. He drops his broom on the pitch and tugs Jongin's from his hand, dropping it carelessly. Jongin barely seems to notice as he snuggles into Sehun's side.
"Chanyeol told me Baekhyun spent the night in with Jongdae," he says conversationally. He starts to walk back towards the changing rooms, and Jongin lets out a little shout of protest. Sehun sticks the snitch in his pocket, using his now free hand to pat down Jongin's messy hair.
"Oh, hush," he chides, "You're not getting on a broom right now. You'll fall off." Jongin can't even bring himself to argue (it'd be a moot point since he can't walk straight to prove his case). He just grumbles.
"Anyway," Sehun continues, "He said that Jongdae said that Baekhyun thinks he's really fucked something up. And he won't go back to his dorm, so it must be something to do with you."
Jongin jolts, raising an eyebrow at Sehun. "How do you figure that?" Sehun rolls his eyes, giving Jongin that look, the do-you-think-I'm-stupid? glare.
"Baekhyun's had a crush on you since fourth year," he states as if it's obvious, and maybe it is. "He says he fucked something up, but I'm guessing you did something." He doesn't ask for more information, but Jongin is forthcoming with it anyway, knowing Sehun will torture it out of him if he has to.
"We've been, uh, meeting in the Room of Requirement for the past month-"
"Ah, mating, got it," Sehun interjects.
Jongin carries on, "But he always thought I was a manifestation of his desires created by the room. I finally confessed that it's always been me, you know, the real, actual me there, and I thought that we'd, you know, get together or something, but he ran away? And I don't know why."
Sehun stops walking, angling himself so that he's looking Jongin right in the eye.
"Did you maybe consider that Baekhyun feels guilty?"
Jongin's eyebrows scrunch together. "Over what?"
"It's just that, if he didn't think you were real, and he didn't ask you permission or anything, isn't it like he took advantage of you?" Sehun swallows and says very, very quietly. "Like...rape?" Jongin sucks in a breath, thinking back. Of course Sehun is right: Baekhyun had never asked Jongin for permission to his body, and he'd never minded putting himself in Baekhyun's hands. But a terrifying thought like that, the idea of being someone who had forced himself onto the object of his affections, it makes Jongin feel sick.
He's wide awake all of a sudden.
"Do you know where Baekhyun is?" He demands of his friend. Sehun scratches idly at his cheek.
"He knows you have practice now, so he's probably finally back in the Tower," he muses. Jongin is already running towards the Pink Lady, leaving a shocked Sehun behind.
~~~
"Baekhyun!" Jongin shouts upon emerging from the portrait hole. He gets no response, and the time of day has the Common Room deserted, all students in class or various club activities. Jongin himself should be in practice, but finding Baekhyun has become his number one priority.
"Baekhyun!" He yells again. There's a crash upstairs in the direction of the seventh year boys' dormitory and a little yelp, and Jongin races toward the source of the sound. He pushes open the door to the dormitory room next to his own and peeks inside.
"Baekhyun?" He calls out in a softer voice. A head of dark hair pokes out from behind a bookshelf, all of the books scattered across the floor.
"Jongin?" Baekhyun says, voice small and timid, "Y-you're here?"
"Yes. The real me, not a projection," Jongin jokes weakly. Baekhyun doesn't smile, but he does stand and move a few steps closer to Jongin. His mouth opens as if he wants to say nothing, but nothing comes out. Jongin waits another moment before he takes it upon himself to speak first.
"It's ok, you know," Jongin starts, "This past month, everything in the room, I'm- I mean, it's ok." Baekhyun stares.
"Sehun said that maybe you felt like you had used me? I guess," Jongin continues, editing his friend's choice of words. "But that's not how I feel."
"How could you not?" Baekhyun whispers, but his voice echoes loudly around the two of them. "I never asked, I never even treated you like a real person-"
"But you confessed to me anyway," Jongin interrupts, blushing faintly. "You said I'm good at Transfiguration, that I'm good at Quidditch." He pauses and coughs a little, scratching at the back of his neck.
"You said that I'm the person you want to kiss and t-to- to f-fu, uhm, that I'm the person that you like, and I-" He takes a breath and meets Baekhyun's gaze.
"I like you too," he finishes. He watches Baekhyun's face, watches wonder and shame pass over his pretty features, admires the way he chews cutely on his bottom lip before he looks up to look at Jongin with determination.
"It must have been odd, hearing me tell you you're not real when you are," he says. Jongin shrugs, offering a little half smile.
"Well," Baekhyun says softly, finally coming up Jongin and taking his hand, "If I ask to kiss you right now, will you let me?" His thumb rubs over the back of Jongin's palm, his fingertips tapping lightly against Jongin's own. The younger boy lets out a little whine-laugh mix.
"Ask me," he breathes. Baekhyun does, and Jongin says yes, and both of them will be the first to admit that it's the best kiss they've ever shared.
"So," Baekhyun muses, "If I ask you to accompany me to the Room of Requirement right now?" Jongin laughs and kisses Baekhyun's forehead.
"Didn't you know? I'm always there when you're there."
#1 why is this ending so crappy I don't even-
#2 there is a distinct lack of magic in this hp!au and i don't know how that happened either
#3 tomato, you made this happen. so thank you!