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“How long till your shift is over?”
Namjoon hums. “What’s the time again?”
Jimin makes a show of leaning against the chipped front desk and glancing at the clock, like it’s taking him a lot of work to do so. “Around two. Give or take.”
“What do you mean give or take?” Jeongguk scoffs, from where he’s draped over Namjoon’s side. “You’re literally looking at the clock right now. Can’t you tell?”
Jimin rolls his eyes. “I’m not wearing my glasses and you know I have short-sightedness.” Jeongguk arches a brow and Jimin sighs, loud in the stillness of the night. He tries to explain, “Myopia? When you can see distant objects blurred but — ah, fuck you. Joon, can you pass me that pen over there please?”
Namjoon does as he’s asked.
“Thank you.” Jimin copies Jeongguk’s scoff. “At least one of you knows how to treat people with respect.”
Jeongguk bristles at the jab.
Namjoon successfully tunes out the sound of their bickering — a feat he has learnt over various misplaced words and playful insults. After all, it’s hard to find much entertainment that keeps you preoccupied at nights like these, when the world is deader than anything. It’s hard to find much of anything here, except maybe, isolation. Ah, Hollywood. The maker and breaker of millions of dreams. Namjoon didn’t know how a city bustling with so much life and activity can look so lifeless, but he does now. He’d like to pretend that he has learnt a lot of things. He hasn’t, but it’s a nice thought.
Nearing two-thirty, a couple bustles in. Two girls. They are holding hands and giggling conspiratorially behind their fists, like they have the whole world at their feet.
Jimin straightens behind the front desk, an easy smile slipping on his face, and Namjoon says, to Jeongguk, “I’ll take their luggages. My shift ends in —” He checks the time. He doesn’t have short-sightedness. “— around half an hour.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Jeongguk says, relieved. “I feel like I need a coffee before I can even attempt to walk.”
Namjoon carries the girls’ luggage to the designated room once Jimin has assigned them one. Room 513. He counts the floors as the elevator ascends, holding their bags in his hands. Beside him, they’re wrapped up around each other, pressing giggly kisses to each other’s mouth, in a world of their own.
The elevator doors open with a ding.
The girls thank him warmly when they reach their room. They wish him a good night and ask for his name.
Namjoon fumbles with the luggage.
“Namjoon,” he says, wondering why his name feels like a stranger on his own tongue. “My name’s Namjoon. Kim Namjoon.”
They repeat it. The one with the blue hair has an Aussie accent and a guitar case in her hands.
Namjoon.
He smiles, thinks about it all the way back. It’s three now, the end of his shift. The night’s dark and lonely but it’s alright. It’s nothing he isn’t used to. He’s quick to send a text to Jimin, letting him know that he’s done with his shift and that he’ll see him later. Jimin sends a vomit emoji and a blurry selfie of him and Jeongguk leaning over the front desk, faces half-hidden behind the computer but tired eyes crinkled in a smile. Working in this hotel for the past year has made him quite accustomed to the hum of a computer, so much so that he can almost hear it through his cracked phone screen. He laughs, sends the picture of the abstract painting at the end of the hallway, something he knows Taehyung will love, and pockets his phone.
The Staff Quarters of the hotel are to the furthermost corner of the property. It isn’t much: a modest two-floored building with a small garden in front of it, but it’s enough. Definitely more than what he could hope for.
He finds Yoongi, Seokjin and Taehyung in the garden, engaged in what looks like an intense game of UNO.
“Tae!” Namjoon calls. “I’m done with my shift!”
Taehyung makes a noise of protest, even as he goes to stand. He’s already in his uniform. “Just when I was about to win too,” he says, his voice pouty in a way that only happens when he doesn’t get his way.
“Only because you were cheating,” accuses Yoongi. “Both of you.”
“The alcohol is making you see things that aren’t there” Seokjin says, without missing a beat. “Good night, Joon.”
“Good night,” Namjoon echoes.
He hurries back to his room. The uniform is quite uncomfortable and he hates the way it makes him feel, all sweaty and itchy and miserable. The stairs creak with the speed he climbs them, his legs skipping one, even two, at a time. Compared to the hotel building, the building of the staff quarters is older. Or, well, it feels like it is, with all it’s noisy stairs and chipped out paint, but they were built at the same time. Or so he’s heard.
His room is on the second floor, the last door to the right. It’s both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because he gets both a massive L-shaped balcony (to be fair, balcony is a very loose word. It’s a piece of roof which is sturdy and strong despite looking like it’s poorly constructed. It’s not surrounded by any railing though, so he makes a point of never going out to it when he’s drunk or exhausted). A curse, because his room is right beside a construction site, and we all know how this story goes. It’s the low murmur of a crowd on a good day, and deafening noise of ongoing construction on a bad one. They’re building a hotel, from what he has heard. There’s so many of them here. So many but never enough.
The door of his room is ajar.
Namjoon doesn’t think much of it.
The lights are on.
Namjoon stops.
He catches sight of an unknown pair of black boots first.
“BOO!”
“Fucking fuck.” Namjoon didn’t even know he could scream like that. “What the fuck, Hoseok?”
Hoseok laughs, sweet and beautiful in the yellowish lights of the room. “I didn’t know you could scream like that.”
Something in Namjoon’s chest stutters, spills from between his ribcage. Falls over. “I gave you a spare key yesterday,” he says instead, ducks his head down so Hoseok won’t see the flush spreading over his face. “And you’re already making my room your second home.”
Hoseok makes a dismissive noise, and then an appreciative one when Namjoon tugs his uniform off. He doesn’t even hide the way his eyes greedily wander over the newly exposed skin. “I didn’t make your room a second home,” Hoseok defends. He wanders closer. “I saw you talking to Tae, Yoongi and Jin from my window. So I came. Your footsteps are really loud, you know? I can hear you climbing the stairs from all the way over here.”
Hoseok cracks a smile.
Namjoon smiles too, can’t really help himself. “Eyes up here,” he teases, pulling on a t-shirt. Hoseok’s hands reach out to smooth over the neckline. Namjoon catches his fingers in his own.
There’s something too honest in Hoseok’s eyes.
Something too real.
He doesn’t meet Namjoon’s eyes when he says, “I just — I wanted to see you,” which is just another way of saying I missed you.
It’s dangerous.
Namjoon exhales through between his teeth.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he admits, and this is dangerous too.
Hoseok huffs out a shy laugh, presses closer and rests his face in the crook of Namjoon’s neck. “I’m glad I’m here too,” he whispers. Rounded words into the warmth of his skin. Namjoon tries to suppress a shiver.
He fails.
Hoseok hides a smile in the jut of Namjoon’s collarbone, the curve of his shoulder, but Namjoon feels it anyways. Close like this, he can smell the floral shampoo, the faint smell of smoke that almost always lingers. Hoseok’s an enigma. A wild card. He doesn’t eat fried vegetables because he once read on a shady website that they increase the risk of cancer, but he smokes everyday without fail. He retreats to his room for days at a time, only coming out for meals and his shifts, and even then he doesn’t talk to anyone, but he reprimands Jeongguk if he ever gets too much into his own mind. He’s an enigma until he’s around Namjoon, because every time that he is, he becomes an open book.
Namjoon recognises the glossy look in his eyes whenever Hoseok looks at him, when he thinks Namjoon isn’t looking. Namjoon recognises it in his touch, in the way Hoseok reaches for him when they’re having sex and he’s about to fall over the edge.
It started as a game of toeing the lines between friendship, love and lust, and then it became bending and blurring the rules. A dangerous game. Stupid, probably. Definitely.
The night wind blows in from the window.
Hoseok’s incredibly warm in his arms.
The wind makes him cold but Hoseok makes him warm.
It’s a dangerous game.
“I’m hungry,” Hoseok lets him know, once Namjoon has tugged away to change his pants. He pokes around the various trinkles sprinkled around the room, and then his shelf. He pouts when he finds nothing. “Do you have nothing here to eat?”
Namjoon’s tying the knot in his sweatpants. “Um,” he thinks. “There’s a packet of Oreos in my drawer. Or we can go down to the kitchen and make something?”
“What will we even cook at this time of the night?”
“Instant noodles?”
Hoseok scrunches up his nose adorably. “Let’s go out somewhere,” he says, stretching. A sliver of skin peeks out from where the hem of his t-shirt raises just enough. Namjoon can just make out the marks he had left there last night. The bruises in the shape of his fingertips. It’s the evidence of him, the physical proof that he has been there and made him feel good. Made him feel.
Namjoon’s mouth has gone unfairly dry.
“At this time of the night?” He forces out. “It’s nearly four in the morning.”
Hoseok has taken to munching on the oreos he has fished out of the drawer. “It’s LA!” he says, spreading his arms and doing a graceful twirl. “Hollywood! Where dreams are made of! We can find somewhere, I’m sure. Actually —”
Namjoon laughs when he catches Hoseok in his arms, lets him tug him around in an out of beat dance.
“Lets run away,” Hoseok says breathlessly.
Namjoon catches his chin in his hand, wants to dip down and kiss him, wants to pull him fully into his arms and trace the beat of his heart, wants to hear him sing and wants to see him dance and just — wants. Wants so much.
“Where can we even go?” he laughs.
Hoseok’s breath smells like smoke, mint and the oreos he has stolen from Namjoon. He shrugs, “Anywhere we want. We can go wherever we want to. This world is ours.”
There’s something bitter in his smile.
Namjoon used to believe that once. He knows Hoseok used to as well.
They have stopped moving now, Hoseok’s hands around his waist and his own twirling a dyed brown strand of Hoseok’s hair.
“Are you serious?”
Hoseok ducks his head down and Namjoon presses his lips to the curve of his earlobe. An almost kiss. This is safe, he thinks. Safe.
“Maybe.” Hoseok shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. “Your next shift doesn’t start until eight in the evening tomorrow and I have a day off. And a bike. And two helmets.” He smiles this unfairly attractive lopsided grin. He’s a little unsure, Namjoon can tell, from the way his words are slurred together, and from the way his fingers have tightened on his hips, and from the way he’s peering at him from under his eyelashes, doe-eyed and lips pulled into a pout. All things he knows Namjoon can’t resist. “We can find a motel far away from here — or, realistically, a few miles away. It isn’t running away exactly but it’s — it’s close enough.” He shrugs, adds feebly, “Or something.”
Namjoon sweeps a gaze around his room, at the chipped paint on the wall, at the messed up comforter, at the crumpled packet of oreos.
At his abandoned guitar case.
He feels a pull in his chest. A lull.
He remembers himself, nineteen and giddy in a city he doesn’t really belong in, his guitar case in his hands and dreaming big, big, big under the endless blue sky and the warm California sun. He remembers himself, twenty-one and still at the hotel he had checked in when he had first arrived. His money had run out and so he now wears a uniform and smiles at the guests as he helps them with his luggage. He remembers seeing it for what it really is. The giant HOLLYWOOD sign. The sound of rushed footsteps. Everyone seems so miserable here. Hollywood, so full of life and so lifeless at the same time. Dreams end here more than they’re born. Namjoon knows this more than anything else he knows. He hasn’t touched his guitar in weeks. He hasn’t sung a single note in months. He hasn’t written anything in even longer.
Hollywood.
The breaker of dreams.
“Okay,” he says, with a certain sort of finality. “Hand me that damned helmet and drive me into the sunset.”
Hoseok barks out a laugh, startled. Beautiful. He’s so beautiful.
Safe. Play it safe.
Namjoon exhales.
“Come on,” Hoseok says, tugs him along, smiles over his shoulder. “Lets pack an overnight bag.”
He follows.
It doesn’t take them too long. They shove everything in the same bag, their clothes, a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes, their phones, a towel, a first-aid kit, just in case, and anything that they might need, really. Hoseok even runs to his room to fetch a bag of chips. They grab their phones and a charger, Hoseok grabs his car keys, and they’re on the move. No one’s in the garden this time. Yoongi and Jin must have started their shifts already, and Jimin and Jeongguk might be asleep. It’s a full moon but the night’s starless.
It isn’t until Hoseok’s revving up his bike that Namjoon remembers how scared he is of riding a bike.
“Seok?” Namjoon wonders if it’s too late to back down. “Bro, do you really think this is a good idea?”
Hoseok frowns. “What did you just call me?”
“Seok?”
“No, the —” Hoseok sighs in frustration. “Never mind. Will you just get on before I drive away without you?”
“Are you sure this is safe?”
Hoseok accelerates in response.
“Fuck, alright.” Namjoon scrambles on, clutches onto Hoseok’s waist with his whole strength, might have dug in his fingertips into the bruises littered there just to hear Hoseok hiss through his teeth. A reminder. Something settles in his chest. “This alright?”
“Yeah, bro,” Hoseok says. Namjoon can hear the scowl in his voice, and —
Ah.
He hides his smile in between Hoseok’s shoulder blades.
“Yeah?” he says, pressing his lips against Hoseok’s nape, letting his voice drop deeper, Hoseok shivering against him. “Is that so, baby?”
“You bastard,” Hoseok hisses, but there’s a smile on his face. “I’m about to start driving, don’t make me fucking horny, you buffoon.”
Namjoon laughs.
The night’s silent except for the purr of the bike’s engine.
This isn’t exactly true. There are people milling about, on their way to the park for a quick jog, or work, or the airport, but the world has shrunk enough until it only encased Hoseok and him. Him and Hoseok. Sounds nice.
“Where are we going?” Namjoon asks again.
Hoseok says, “I don’t know,” but he keeps driving. He doesn’t stop.
Namjoon rests his head against his shoulder and closes his eyes.
He isn’t scared.
The wind whips in his hair, in his eyes. His nose feels frozen. They’re steadily gaining speed, the bike tilting to the right when they take a turn. It’s almost like they’re flying. He holds on. He doesn’t let go.
He isn’t scared.
It takes them an hour to slow down.
They find a motel a few miles away from the hotel they work at, on the outskirts of Hollywood. The Rich People Neighbourhood, is what Yoongi calls it.
The motel’s dingy and old and has a fancy name, but it’s cheap and that’s all they really wanted anyways. The receptionist has pink hair. She looks tired. She smiles at them but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Namjoon finds himself missing Jimin, suddenly. They get a room with one bed — it isn’t like they had any money to get anything better than this, to get an upgrade, it isn’t like they would’ve wanted it any other way. Hoseok insists he would pay and Namjoon makes a mental note to pay him back later. He asks for gum, and the receptionist fumbles with it before dropping it into his palm.
Their room’s on the second floor. 2B, the yellow keychain reads.
They take the stairs because the elevator was taking too long.
“How about a race?” Hoseok calls from a step or two ahead. He runs before Namjoon can get a word in.
It’s four-something in the morning and they’re in a dingy motel that’s barely holding on in itself. And Namjoon’s chasing Hoseok through empty hallways adorned with paintings he really hopes don’t suddenly start moving.
Hoseok, naturally, reaches the door first, but he struggles a bit with the lock, and it lends Namjoon enough time. One step in their room for the day and he has caught him around the waist.
“You cheater,” Namjoon accuses breathlessly, half from the impromptu exercise and half because Hoseok’s laughing into his neck.
“That was fun.” Hoseok hums. Presses his lips on Namjoon’s neck, right above his pulse.
Namjoon’s breath hitches.
His hands tighten on Hoseok’s hips.
“Was it?” Namjoon wonders, letting his fingers tangle through Hoseok’s hair, tugging on it, pushing his head back until they’re face to face. Hoseok’s face is flushed red and his eyes are waiting. Wanting. Namjoon gulps. “You’re beautiful.”
“Ha, am I?” Hoseok looks away shyly. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just tugs Namjoon closer, and mumbles, “Kiss me? I want — I want you to kiss me.”
They’re so close that they’re sharing the air between them, and Hoseok’s confession sends something reeling inside Namjoon.
“Yeah,” he says, splaying his fingers alongside Hoseok’s jaw, trailing his thumb across his bottom lip. Hoseok’s eyes flutter shut, his mouth dropping open to let Namjoon’s thumb in, sucking on it wetly, whining when he presses down on his tongue. Arousal swirls through Namjoon’s belly. “Let me,” he breathes, grabbing Hoseok by both sides of his face. “Let me,” he repeats, and dips his head down to kiss him. Hoseok makes this desperate little noise, right before he curls his hands into the front of Namjoon’s shirt. Hoseok’s warm under his skin. Solid. Real. Dangerous. Safe.
Right.
The world shifts from beneath his feet.
Something in the distance breaks.
Something slides into place.
Warm, warm, warm.
The air conditioner is whirring and the room feels cold. The room feels cold but Namjoon feels warm.
“Do you want to —”
“Yeah, yes, please —”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, please —”
They stumble on the bed. It creaks under their weight but none of them pay any attention to it. Hoseok’s hair forms a halo in the pillow. Namjoon can’t resist kissing his nose, breathing in Hoseok’s giggle, mouthing down his jaw, up his neck, sucking a mark, kissing him again. Hoseok’s hands slip under Namjoon’s shirt and Namjoon feels a shiver run down his spine. His hands are warm and hot and searching. The kiss is hot and messy and Hoseok’s moaning under him. Namjoon grinds down, feels Hoseok buck up desperately against him.
“Off,” demands Hoseok, tugging at his shirt.
Namjoon takes his shirt off in one go, takes Hoseok’s off while he’s at it, goes back to sucking a mark at his neck.
“Let me blow you.”
“Fuck,” Hoseok hisses, his hips jerking. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”
Namjoon smiles, feeling stupidly fond. “Okay.”
Hoseok helps him shimmy out of his jeans. His boxers are wet with precum already. It sends a thrill down Namjoon’s spine. A burst of senseless pride.
Hoseok’s squirming. Couldn't keep still when Namjoon tugs at his boxers.
Namjoon presses his lips against Hoseok’s stomach, right above his navel, and laves around the skin. “Sit still,” he says, pressing his finger on the marks again, feeling strangely possessive.
Hoseok stills. “Are you going to suck me off now or —”
Namjoon tugs his boxers down.
Hoseok falls silent.
“Call me baby again?”
Namjoon couldn’t hide his smile. “Yeah? You like it when I call you baby?”
“Shut up,” Hoseok huffs, making grabby hands. “Come here and kiss me again.”
“So fucking demanding,” Namjoon sing-songs, even as he does what he’s told.
I think I love you.
“You look good, baby.”
“Ah —”
Hoseok trembles in his hold and he’s a sight to see, all red-faced and blushy and squirmy. He’s naked, golden, beautiful. So fucking beautiful. Fading marks littered across his thighs and his waits. Soft skin and sharp edges under the electric neon lights spilling over him and making shadows. Blurry eyes and red lips. A wet dream. A dream. Not a lot of things have made Namjoon feel like this. Not a lot of people have. There used to be one when he was seventeen, back in Ilsan. But he was seventeen then. He doesn’t remember any of it, doesn’t even know if what he remembers is true or a romanticised version of events that he has made up in his head. Wouldn’t be the first time, for sure.
Bur Hoseok is real. The way he makes him feel is real. This is real.
I think I love you.
Namjoon moves lower, mouths along the back of Hoseok’s thighs, sucks a mark near the one he has left a few days ago, the one that’s almost faded.
I think I love you.
“This okay?” Namjoon asks.
One of Hoseok’s hands has made its way in Namjoon’s hair. “Yeah,” he exhales. “Please.”
Namjoon sucks in the head of his cock and feels Hoseok’s breath stutter, feels his hold tightening in his hair. It’s been a while since they’ve started doing this. A long while. Namjoon knows how Hoseok likes it wet and messy, and exactly how wet and messy he wants it. He bobs his head, the salty precum dribbling on his tongue and curves his tongue. Hoseok’s moaning and letting out all these beautiful noises. Namjoon feels a little drunk on them, here, like this. Definitely aroused. He’s hard and grinding down slowly on the sheets. Can’t bring himself to stop. He flattens his tongue, digs the tip into the slit. Hoseok’s hips jerk. He easily holds them down.
“Fuck,” Hoseok gasps, digging his nails into Namjoon’s hair. “Fuck, please just fuck me before I go crazy.”
Namjoon holds himself up.
“Do you have lube?”
Hoseok fumbles with his jeans and fishes out a packet of strawberry scented lube. “Here.”
Namjoon huffs, amused and maybe a little fond. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
Hoseok grins right back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He has a big mouth, Namjoon has learnt over two years of knowing him now, but his words falter as soon as Namjoon begins working one lubed finger into him. And then two. And then Namjoon has to hold him down to still the squirm of his hips.
“Please —”
Hoseok loves being fingered as much as he likes getting his mouth fucked. Both are incredibly high on his kink list, because yes, Hoseok has a kink list, complete with a separate section of the DOs and the DON’Ts during sex. Namjoon keeps this in mind as he works a third finger in, curling his fingers just so, searching, and watches Hoseok’s whole body jerk. He grinds his own dick into the sheets below, hissing at the pressure, and tries to quieten Hoseok’s broken moans with his mouth.
The air around them is becoming hotter.
“Joon —” Hoseok’s thighs tremble under him, and his voice is exhausted like it’s hard for him to stop anymore. “I’m close — Please, I’m so close. So fucking close. Just — please —”
He breaks off in a choked sob, tears sticking to his eyelashes, his cock laying hot and heavy against his stomach.
Namjoon kisses him again. Can’t bring himself to stop. Doesn’t want to stop. Never.
Hoseok looks like he’ll cry when Namjoon lets his fingers fall out of him.
“Okay?” Namjoon asks again as he sheds all his clothes, as he positions himself. He asks just to be sure.
Hoseok nods tearfully, fingers digging into Namjoon’s shoulder. Namjoon sinks in without a word and — fuck. Fuck. He doesn’t think he’d ever get used to this feeling. More than that, more than this, he never thinks he can get used to Hoseok’s face every time it happens. His body seizes up once before going lax in his hold. Pliant. Trusting. So much trust in him. Hoseok’s eyes are hooded and teary, but honest and real. Namjoon digs his fingers into the marks littered along his skin, again. And again. And again. Hoseok whimpers, moans, tugs into him until they’re face to face and breathing in the same air. And Namjoon goes, curls up close, lets Hoseok press demure kisses along his jaw. His lips are warm, and so is his neck when Namjoon presses his thumb into his pulse point. He’s warm everywhere. Sweaty. Hot.
Namjoon feels his knees go weak.
“You can move, you know,” Hoseok says weakly, hitching his legs higher onto Namjoon’s waist.
“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Namjoon grits out, pinching his own thighs to stop himself from moving.
But the heels of Hoseok’s feet dig into the bottom of his spine.
“I am,” he huffs. “Now fuck me till I can’t breathe. I fucking cleaned my ass for you. You better make it worth it.”
“God,” Namjoon laughs. “Fuck, you’re so —”
He never completes what he wanted to say, and Hoseok doesn’t ask him either. It’s not like Namjoon even had an answer but he feels some sort of relief spread through him anyways.
“Are you going to move?” Hoseok demands. “Or do you want me to push you over and ride you.”
Namjoon pauses.
Hoseok’s smile is wobbly and amused.
Fond.
Namjoon raises his chin in a challenge. “Do it then.”
Hoseok does.
It takes them a while to find a position that works. Namjoon splays down over the sheets, raising his knees so Hoseok will have something to support him. Keep him up. He gets tender-eyed and loose-limbed after every time he has orgasmed. It takes effort to keep him up. The neon yellow lights from the ceiling spill over Hoseok, paint his skin a lovely golden and his brown hair a lovely ombre, form a halo around his head. Namjoon traces a hand down his jaw and kisses him once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Hears him giggle against his mouth. Holds him up as Hoseok squirms around on his lap. Chases the shadows on his face with his thumb.
“Now?” Hoseok asks, shyly, squirming some more as Namjoon runs his palms all over his body. Down his chest and on his ass and anywhere he can reach. God.
“Yeah,” Namjoon says, breathless. “Yeah, now.”
Hoseok told him once that he has been a dancer for most of his life.
“This okay?” Hoseok asks, a habit he has picked up from Namjoon over the months, probably years. There’s something purposeful in the movement of his hips. Namjoon lets his body go pliant, eyes closed as he feels. Hoseok’s hands on his chest, his face near his neck, all around him. He angles his hips and then keens, sitting on Namjoon’s dick, panting.
“Fuck,” Namjoon sighs, runs his knucks against Hoseok’s cheekbone, moans out his name. “Fuck, feels good. Keep going.”
Hoseok does.
The sun breaks through the sky.
It’s nearing six.
It’s silent except for their gasps and moans and the lewd sounds of sex.
“I’m —” Hoseok gasps, slowing down, his thighs weak and trembling. “I’m close —”
Namjoon takes his cock in his hand and Hoseok chokes on the next word.
Safe. Play it safe. Remember to play it safe.
Namjoon shudders, moving his hips in the same rhythm as Hoseok’s, thrusting up, jerking Hoseok off at the same time. It doesn’t take Hoseok long. He has been tethering on the edge since the beginning.
A few more thrusts and Hoseok’s collapsing on Namjoon’s chest.
Namjoon, who holds him through his orgasm.
Namjoon, who feels warm and warm and warm.
Namjoon, who thinks — who feels —
“Keep going,” Hoseok breathes, shuddering when Namjoon picks up speed, whining when he angles his hips. It doesn’t take him long either, and he’s coming inside Hoseok, shivering and moaning and weak-boned.
Hoseok tucks his head under Namjoon’s chin and closes his eyes.
Namjoon presses tender kisses along Hoseok’s hair. “It’s six now,” he mumbles. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Hm, not so much anymore,” Hoseok grins cheekily, yelps when Namjoon playfully pinches his side. “Fu — fine. I might be a little hungry. And I’m craving something greasy.”
Namjoon hums again. “Want to go out?”
Something flickers through Hoseok’s face, but it’s gone as soon as it’s there.
Hope.
And then, a mask of indifference.
“I’m guessing you aren’t going to shower?” At Namjoon’s sheepish grin, he sighs. “Well, because I don’t like feeling like a cum rag unlike you, I’m going to take a shower. Like a responsible person.”
“Good luck,” Namjoon offers. “I can look up places to eat near us till you’re done.”
“Yes, please,” Hoseok says over his shoulder, already scrambling to get out of bed. He limps all the way to the bathroom and Namjoon tries to silence the pleased sigh he feels building from somewhere in his chest.
He rolls over on his back and pulls out his phone.
3 missed calls from Yoongi.
7 missed calls from Jin.
15 unread messages from Jin.
5 unread messages from Jimin.
Namjoon bites his lips guiltily, and considers for a moment, finger hovering over the screen. He swipes the notifications away.
The sun’s steadily rising in the sky. Not enough, but it is. The deep violet sky’s turning lighter and Namjoon peers out the window and at the stars. There’s only a handful of them, scattered around and hard to see, but it’s already more than what he’d get to see from his room back at the hotel. The light pollution is bad enough that he almost can count all the stars he can see, and we all know that we shouldn’t be able to. His phone buzzes. He sighs, switches it to silent mode, opens Google, closes Google, messes around with his phone for a while. The ceiling is a grey-ish white and dusted with cobwebs. Namjoon stares.
By the time Hoseok’s out of the shower (exactly twenty minutes later, Namjoon knows, he takes around the same time everyday) and moves towards their discarded bag for clothes, Namjoon has a fairly decent-looking burger place picked out.
“So? What are we going to have for breakfast?”
“Burger, probably,” Namjoon says. And then, “That’s my shirt.”
Hoseok’s pulling up a pair of jeans up his legs. “I know.”
Namjoon thinks about the easy way his mouth curled around the words. I know. “Okay,” he says. Wonders if the smile in his voice is loud in the space between them or if it’s just him.
Hoseok smiles back.
They walk to the burger place. It’s right around the corner and it takes them only five minutes. Hoseok sings the entire way.
“There.” Namjoon exits out of Google Maps and points at the one-storeyed building in the distance. “That one.”
Linda’s Breakfast Shack.
“Is it a shack?” Hoseok asks.
“Doesn’t seem to be.” Namjoon shrugs, and then tugs at his hand. “Come on. I’m hungry.”
Hoseok follows him.
A bell dings above them when they make their way inside. There’s a kind old woman standing behind the counter. She smiles at them. They both order burgers and Hoseok picks out a table near the window overlooking the road. Namjoon sits across from him. They still haven’t fully let go of each other’s hands, the tips of their fingertips meet in the middle. There’s silence as they eat. Namjoon’s heart feels a little too bold. Too slippery. Too real.
“The sun’s rising,” Hoseok says, mouth red from the grease.
6:18 a.m.
The sky turns pink with the rising sun. A car zooms by.
“Pretty,” Namjoon comments, squeezing Hoseok’s hand, feeling a little brave.
Hoseok turns pinker.
Namjoon gets a smoothie for himself, a light pink drink with a fancy name he can’t pronounce and that tastes sweet, sweet, sweet. Hoseok gets a Sprite because of course he does. It’s his brand, he claims.
“So.” Namjoon fiddles with the paper napkins.
Hoseok smiles around the next bite. “So?”
“Tell me a bit about yourself?”
“Oh?” Hoseok says, ducks his head down, pushes his food around. “What? Is this a date or something?”
Namjoon freezes.
Oh.
“Oh.”
Hoseok looks a little embarrassed, a little horrified. “I didn’t mean — I mean — I didn’t mean to imply —”
Namjoon slides his hand over Hoseok’s. Sees him go wide-eyed and slack-jawed. “Hoseok, it’s fine.”
That shuts him up.
The woman from before comes to check on them. Linda, she says her name is, says no, it isn’t her that the shack is named after, it was her grandmother, and laughs. She has a nice voice and a nice laugh. It reminds Namjoon of his own grandmother. Or what he remembers of her anyways. He has never met his paternal grandparents, they died before he was born, and his mother was never close to her parents, and so they rarely visited them. Namjoon doesn’t even remember the last time he saw them, can’t recall it if you paid him to do so. But he does remember the way his grandmother’s eyes crinkled she smiled, and the taste of the food his grandfather made for them every time they visited.
But that was Ilsan and this is California.
He doesn’t even know if they’re alive.
The bell dings again and a couple enters. A boy and a girl. They’re smiling at each other, so soft and fond that Namjoon can see it from all the way over here. Something in him aches.
He looks away.
“I like it when you say my name.”
It’s said in a whisper. Barely there.
Namjoon meets Hoseok’s tender eyes. “What?” he says. Whispers. “Sorry I think I missed it.”
“I said.” Hoseok smiles slowly. “I like it when you say my name. I like it when you call me baby, or Seok, or Hobi. But I like it the most, maybe, when you call me Hoseok.”
A muted sigh. Dreamy.
“So should I just call you just Hoseok from now on?” Namjoon laughs.
Hoseok grins cheekily. “Keep switching it up.”
A giggle. More warmth. The California sun sticks to his skin. Something erupts in Namjoon’s chest, spills over his ribcage, and reaches for Hoseok’s hand.
“Tell me something about yourself,” he insists.
Hoseok blushes. “I — Uh.” He rubs a gentle thumb along Namjoon’s knuckles, smiles shyly, his dimples caving in. “I dance. Or, well, I used to. I don’t anymore. It — it used to be my life.”
Namjoon leans on his elbows. “Then what happened?” he asks, gently.
“Life,” Hoseok laughs. It sounds a little bitter, a lot sad. It sits awkwardly in the space between them. “I danced since i was what? Six? That’s all I wanted to do in life. But.” He smiles sadly. Namjoon curls his fingers around Hoseok’s tightly. Squeezes once. “But my parents — ah. It wasn’t that they were all that bad. They took the news of me being bisexual pretty well. Or, well, at least I thought they did, better than I could’ve ever hoped for. They were confused but trying. What else can I really ask? And then — and then I got my first boyfriend. Daniel Howard, his name was. He met me through one of my performances. He was in the Entertainment Industry and a few years older than me. I really liked his smile, and I really liked how he was good with his words. He really made me dream of stardom. But — ah. Now I’m here. So. Nothing good came out of it.”
Namjoon tilts his head, “And your parents?”
“We barely talk now. I think it was me running away more than anything else but.” Hoseok shrugs. “That thing with Daniel? It really broke my heart. Fucked me up for a while. Lesson learned. Don’t trust white dudes with nice smiles.”
Namjoon thinks back to the Hoseok he met a year ago. The bird-boned smoker who never talked to anyone.
“You didn’t deserve it,” he says, firmly.
Hoseok smiles, thinking. “I didn’t. I know that now — but what about you? What’s your story, Namjoon Kim? What brought you here? To Hollywood?”
“I sing,” Namjoon says, revels in Hoseok’s surprised squeak, adds, “I used to, at least. I’ve played guitar all my life. Sang, rapped, wrote songs. Everyone said I was talented but it wasn’t enough.”
Hoseok’s mouth is curved down. “Why not?” he asks, almost offended.
“I’m gay, and Asian,” Namjoon says softly. “And I didn’t want to give up either of it. They are my existence, you know? They are part of what made me who I am. I didn’t want to hide that. I wanted to sing about loving men, kissing them, fucking them. All the good shit and the bad shit. Just like all those het songs. And I wanted to do it in Korean too. Not all of it, but enough that I wasn’t considered a reliable source of — income, as they put it. The recruit guy. No one wants to hear a gay Asian tell his story.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not through his words,” Namjoon says, shrugs, picks apart the napkin with his hands, shreds the edges. Meets Hoseok eyes and smiles in a what can you do? kind of way. “But I knew. That guy was a dick. Daniel. Bleh.”
It’s almost comical how Hoseok freezes.
“Howard?”
“No,” Namjoon laughs. “God, no. Campbell. He was pushing sixty and had like, four divorce and a failing marriage. Last I know his company went bankrupt so, I’m glad I’m here instead.”
Hoseok nods somberly. “Fuck all the Daniels in the world.”
“Fuck all the Daniels in the world,” Namjoon agrees.
Hoseok smiles too. Looks a little like he has to physically swallow the next words. His t-shirt —or, really, Namjoon’s t-shirt — falls down his shoulder. Just enough. A patch of skin. A hint of collarbone.
He doesn’t say a word.
The sun’s high up in the sky. Sunlight tumbles in from the windown and paints them golden. Someone in the distance giggles softly, then hysterically, but Namjoon only has eyes for Hoseok.
Safe. Play it safe. What happened to playing it safe?
Namjoon retracts his hand from Hoseok’s hold.
“I’ll pay the bill.”
Usually, Hoseok would argue.
Usually, he would ask to split the bill.
This time he just nods. His mind seems to be somewhere else.
His hand lays limply on the table.
Linda asks if they liked the food and Namjoon smiles, nods, and promises to return someday. Hoseok isn’t at the table. Namjoon finds him outside, fiddling with a lighter and with a lit cigarette between his lips. The sky’s bright blue. A car passes by. And another one. And another. And another. Namjoon tries to count them all until there are too many. He couldn’t after seventeen.
Namjoon leans against the wall.
Closes his eyes.
Soaks in the California sun.
Beside him, Hoseok’s waving his hand around in the puff of smoke he exhales.
Making patterns.
A heart.
“I like it when you say my name too,” Namjoon rushes out. A little too honest. An almost-bravery. A glimpse of could be. If Hoseok is surprised he doesn’t show it. “I like it when you call me Joon, or Joonie, or Nam. But Namjoon is — it isn’t my favourite but definitely up there.”
Hoseok smiles, honest and slow. “What’s your favourite then?”
An inhale. Heart on his sleeve, in his palms.
Namjoon admits, “Joon.” And then, “No one calls me that except you.”
His phone buzzes. He thought he had put it on silent but apparently not.
15 missed calls from Yoongi.
12 missed calls from Jin.
20 unread messages from Jin.
1 missed call from Jeongguk.
3 missed calls from Tae.
How couldn’t he tell?
But Hoseok isn’t looking at him. “Joon,” he says, traces the path of a passing seagull. The distant flap of his wings. “You know, don’t you?”
It isn’t an accusation, or a question, or even a statement. Instead, it’s an observation. Instead, it’s a way out.
(As if.)
Namjoon does know.
Hoseok pauses, stares at the lit end of his cigarette. “I trust you, Joon,” he whispers. “With my life. Please don’t fuck me up.”
Namjoon texts Jin first, I’m here, I’m fine, I’m sorry. Yes, Hoseok is with me, I’m sorry. We’ll be back soon.
This isn’t exactly playing it safe but, people change. They grow and they learn. Hoseok would never hurt him, he knows. He knows in sleepy cuddles at the beginning of dawn, in stolen kisses between shifts, in the smokey minty taste of Hoseok’s mouth. Every day. Every night. Namjoon thinks, he thinks, that if Hoseok Jung were ever to break his heart, he would let him. Again. And again. However he wants. In whatever ways he wants. He would let him, and that’s a dangerous thought.
That isn’t really playing it safe, is it?
Maybe it hasn’t been for a long, long while.
Jin texts back, you dick, you utter stupid idiotic and every insult in the book and every insult that hasn’t been made. And then, let someone know the next time we thought you fucking died are you fucking crazy you bag of rotten chips you dickwad.
‘‘Never,” Namjoon promises.
Hoseok smiles, “Let’s go home?”
“Back to the hotel?”
“Hm,” Hoseok says. “I’ll get the bike. You get the luggage.”
Namjoon isn’t really convinced, is the thing. “Are you sure you aren’t too tired to drive? What if you fall asleep half-way through?”
“Oh my God,” Hoseok laughs. “No, I won’t fall asleep while driving, Joon. Are you going to come or not?”
“Yeah,” Namjoon says, miserably.
It’s so humid outside. His scalp is wet with sweat. Hoseok shoves his shoulder and cuddles in close. The roads are bustling with activity again. Like this, the city looks a little less lifeless. Maybe he can get used to this.