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Kun is in the kitchen again.
He’s got his back to Chenle. He’s standing by the stove and stirring sugar into a mug of steaming hot coffee. It’s the pretty one. Delicate ceramic and a ring of pink and gold flowers painted on the baby-blue rim. His mother’s coffee mug.
It’s obscene, the practiced familiarity of his gestures. Chenle doesn’t know how his mother takes her coffee, but Kun does. It pisses Chenle off. It makes something weird and dirty pull hard in his lower belly, twisting and gently sizzling all the way down to his dick.
Kun is around all the time.
He’s been around since Chenle was in braces and wearing stupid cartoon-patterned pyjamas to bed. Five years older, the neighbours’ golden boy. Smart, handsome, a total charmer. The kind of perfect eldest son other parents wish they had.
Chenle’s parents, for one, adored him from the moment his family moved in the house next door. They started inviting him over for dinner every other day, his mother leaning over the table to coo and pinch his dimpled cheeks—cute and rosy soft, still plump with teenage-fat—and saying things like, please Kun, for the love of God, take care of our Chenle. He’s so naughty, this one.
Chenle still remembers the look on his mother’s face when she found him in the shed, age thirteen, pressed up against one of the good-for-nothing boys from his class, their hands shoved deep into each other’s shorts. She’s not the type to ever lose control, not in front of anybody who can then go and talk about it. But that time, there were veins pulsing menacingly under the thin skin of her neck and temples. That time, she grabbed Chenle by the loose collar of his t-shirt and slapped him across the face so hard his ears rang for hours after.
You don’t do this with boys, Chenle. Not in this house. Not to your father and I. Do you want to make your father sick? You know he’s got heart problems, for God’s sake!
After that, they washed their hands of it and simply trusted Kun to fix Chenle. To scrub him clean of whatever filth he’d picked up from the other boys at school. They even gave him a copy of the house keys, just in case.
And Kun, as fucked up as it sounds, he stuck around.
He offered to tutor Chenle in Classical Chinese and Calligraphy. His parents loved it. Ate it up. Kun’s strokes were so beautiful, so elegant, his lessons would give his mother teary eyes. And then he just never left. He clung to the house walls like black mould and spread himself through the cracks. Clung to Chenle’s skin and made a home for himself right beneath it.
He’s still here, years later, sipping expensive scotch with Chenle’s father and stirring the appropriate amount of sugar into his mother’s coffee.
White-cotton socks sticking to the white kitchen tiles, Chenle watches him tap the spoon against the rim of the mug and set it down on a paper tissue.
“No coffee for me?” he asks, trying his best to sound lighthearted. It comes out of him all whiny and wrong, petulant with misplaced eagerness.
Kun laughs. He laughs, and the low rumble of it gets Chenle feeling a little sick in the mouth. He thinks of dropping down to his knees in front of Kun right here, with his parents sitting just outside the room. He thinks of wrapping his arms around his calf and kissing the skin at the back of his kneecap, refusing to let go even when his parents threaten to rip him away from Kun by the hair.
“You don’t drink coffee,” Kun says. He’s smiling. The soft pull at the corner of his mouth sends his dimple sinking deeper into his cheek.
Hungry, the tips of his fingers tingling with pins and needles from the need to reach out and touch, Chenle stares at it. He licks his lips and thinks about how bad he wants to shove his tongue in that familiar dip of Kun’s face, kissing and licking into it until they’re shaped the same.
“I would, if you made it for me,” he says with a shrug.
Kun stares at him.
“You wouldn’t,” he tells him. “You’re just messing with me.”
Yeah, Chenle wouldn’t. He shrugs again.
“Well, maybe I just wish you’d take care of me for once.”
Silence. Kun stares at him for a moment, considering him and maybe trying to figure out if Chenle’s really just messing with him, or if they’re about to have a bad day. He must decide it’s the first option because he shakes his head and laughs again, exasperated fondness spilling out of him regardless.
“Really?” he says. “Why do you think I’m here so often?”
“How do I know Gege comes here to see me?” asks Chenle, voice sticky-sweet. Cough syrup dripping down the split corner of his mouth. He speaks and looks at Kun the way he knows makes him go weak in the knees. “How do I know you don’t just come over because you like my parents stroking your ego?”
Kun snorts, but his jaw still twitches. His gaze burns greedy holes right through Chenle’s chest, his arms, lingering and melting the skin where his thighs are peeking out of his shorts.
“You don’t even believe that,” he mutters, turning his back on Chenle. Always weak. Always a coward. “Stop messing with me, will you? Are you bored, or just trying to be difficult?”
Both, Chenle thinks.
He’s always bored when Kun isn’t around, or when he’s around but not giving him his full attention. Ever-irritated that he wants Kun so much and purposefully insufferable because of it. Chenle doesn’t know how to fix it. What Kun can give him is simply not enough.
Still, Chenle doesn’t think he should be chastised for his behavioural issues. It’s not fair. Not when Kun is so obsessed with playing the grown up between them, all puffed up and high on some sort of defective God complex. He should be the one fixing it for them and making it right. He should know how to.
Chenle sucks on his lower lip and moves, feet light on the tiles.
He cages Kun against the counter, chest pressed to Kun’s back, and digs his chin into his shoulder. Kun’s always a little tense, too. He presses his nose into the tacky skin on the side of Kun’s neck and takes a long whiff. Pretentious grown-up cologne. Sweat. The faint smell of Chenle’s own bedsheets. His eyes flutter shut, lips trembling on a deep-bellied low moan. He hopes Kun can feel the outline of his cock as it swells, starting to poke into the plush give of Kun’s ass.
Kun does. He stiffens. “Chenle,” he says, voice firm. “Stop it.”
Chenle hums. “Stop what?”
He drags his lips up Kun’s neck and pokes the tip of his tongue out to lick behind his ear, where he smells the strongest. Chenle could eat him. He grinds his hips into him and thinks they should really stop playing house. It probably counts as self-harm, whatever this is. Letting himself believe he can hold Kun like this, here in his kitchen. Letting this sick illusion of intimate domesticity soothe him.
“Chenle.” It’s more urgent, this time. Chenle loves it, the way his name rolls off Kun’s tongue like he’s trying not to bite down and take a chunk out of it. Always weak, always a coward, always so restrained. “You’re gonna get us in trouble.”
It’s not that Chenle doesn’t understand how difficult their situation is. How fragile, how precarious. He’s not stupid. It’s just that he hates it.
“So what, Kun? I don’t care. Let’s go upstairs.”
Kun makes a frustrated sound with his throat. It vibrates gently against Chenle’s lips. Kun’s running out of patience now. Chenle can tell because his fingers, shaky, wrap around Chenle’s wrists and squeeze hard, perfectly trimmed nails digging into thin skin like he’s trying to break Chenle’s bones.
If only.
Distracted, Chenle moans again. Really, he doesn’t mean it. Pain affects him in weird ways sometimes, especially when Kun’s involved.
Usually, Kun finds it hot. Right now it just makes him mad.
“Well I do. I care,” he says. His eyes are scary when he turns around to face Chenle. He looks all grown-up now. “Because one of us is gonna have to.”
That’s not what Chenle wants to hear. He knows Kun’s right. He just wishes he had something better to offer him, or a better way to say it. But no, there he goes, looking at Chenle like he’s carrying the full weight of their sins on his shoulders. Kun, the sacrificial lamb. The self-appointed martyr. Typical.
“Are you mad at me now?” Chenle asks.
Kun sighs. Rubs the tiredness out of his face with his hands. “Your lesson starts in fourty-five minutes,” he says. “Go wait upstairs.”
—
When Kun first started tutoring him, the door to Chenle’s bedroom had to be kept wide open at all times.
If it wasn’t, his mother would come poking her head inside to remind them, voice chirpy and pitched too high, doors open, boys. Lele knows the house rules.
Now she doesn’t even bother. She trusts Kun. Why wouldn’t she? Kun is a good guy. Guys like Kun don’t even dream of encouraging messed up little boys’ depravity. No, they crush it dead before it can grow too big.
“Gege,” Chenle says, foot rubbing slow circles into the meat of Kun’s calf under the desk.
“What, Chenle?”
“Do your parents not care that you’re always here?”
Chenle only says it to get a reaction out of him, really. And he gets it, because Kun is nothing if not predictable. His heart swells and gets stuck at the back of his throat anyway when Kun presses his lips together, like he’s gathering patience, cute dimple notching deeper into his cheek.
“What do you mean?”
“You know.” Chenle drags the words out, pushing his toes deeper into Kun’s thigh. “Don’t they ask you what you’re doing here all the time?”
“They know what I’m doing here. They had dinner with your parents two weeks ago.”
Right, Chenle didn’t know that. A gut-punching feeling of wounded wrongness rattles and explodes behind his ribcage, shaking him up until it melts into liquid-hot shame.
“Yeah? Were you there?”
Kun hesitates, because he knows it’s fucked up. Then still nods briefly.
Chenle snorts. Well, tries to.
“Bet my parents told yours all about how fucked up I am,” he says, hoping to sound lighthearted enough Kun won’t be able to tell how much he can’t stomach the thought of it. “How lucky we are to have you working so hard to fix me.”
Kun hesitates again. It’s a pause so long, it freaks Chenle out a little. Then he sighs, tired and guilty, and says: “yeah, something like that.”
That’s just not fair, Chenle thinks. It’s fucked up.
“It must’ve felt good,” he says. “Bet it even made you hard.”
He doesn’t know if the thought of Kun getting his saviour complex stroked makes him angry or if it turns him on. Both at the same time, probably. Chenle spreads his legs open, just a little. It doesn’t even matter anyway, because next thing he knows Kun’s hand is on him, fingers squeezing firmly around the circumference of his ankle. He lifts Chenle’s leg onto his thigh, thumbs digging into the squishy meat right by the bone.
“Don’t be like that,” he murmurs, softly. Cotton-candied sweet. Because he knows he’s in the wrong.
“Why not? You like it.” Chenle tilts his chin up, challenging. “You like me.”
Say it. Please, just say it now.
“You know I do.”
“Yeah, right.” Chenle sinks deeper into the chair and lets his head tip back over the backrest.
He moans a little when Kun pushes his fingers into a tense knot at the back of his calf, eyes fluttering shut. Dizzy, he stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets looking down at them from the ceiling. Kun helped put them up back then, smoothed them flat against the sticky plasters so they’d last. They barely even light up anymore.
“It’s cute,” Kun says. “That you still got those up.”
Chenle huffs out a laugh. The sound turns into a hiss when Kun’s thumb digs in harder, right into the knot.
—
The first time they have sex is a mistake.
Or well, Kun tells him that much. Chenle’s parents pour him too much wine at dinner and he ends up rosy-cheeked and greedy in Chenle’s small bed, Chinese textbooks forgotten on the desk.
It’s nothing like how Chenle thought their first time would be. It’s urgent and ugly, their bones grinding together and their bodies sweaty and tacky, sticking together in weird places.
This can’t happen again. Won’t happen again. You don’t tell anyone about it, okay Chenle? And then Kun didn’t come over for three weeks. Guilty, probably. Ashamed.
But then it happened again. And again. Chenle made sure of it. It happened enough times that now Kun isn’t so ashamed anymore.
Right now, for example, he doesn’t even fight it when Chenle laces their fingers together and tugs him towards the bed. He drags his feet a little, as though reluctant to follow—as though he needs Chenle to convince him, still, because he really really shouldn’t—but his gaze is pitch-dark and feels like greedy wet mouths all over Chenle’s body.
Chenle drops onto the mattress and props himself up on his elbows. He stretches so that his shirt rides up, flashing the tattoo inked low above his waistband.
It’s a womb tattoo. A pretty ugly one at that, stick-and-poked shaky in Renjun’s basement and crooked, but Kun has been obsessed since he first found it on Chenle. He likes lying between Chenle’s legs with his cheek pressed to his belly, fingers tracing the jagged tribal lines. Likes pressing his mouth to the little angel wings, and dragging his tongue through the halo that hovers on top of the fat love heart in the center of the piece.
Chenle cocks a brow.
“Well?”
Kun shakes his head. “Don’t get bossy with me.”
But he braces one hand on the mattress and lowers himself over Chenle, slotting between his spread legs until the weight of his body presses Chenle further into the mattress and their noses bump together. He inhales shakily against Chenle’s lips and exhales hard through his nose, dimples popping through gritted teeth.
“Do you hate it?” Chenle asks, cupping Kun’s cheek. He’s warm and baby-soft under his palm. “Do you hate it that you want me so bad?”
“Yeah,” Kun breathes, all ragged. He shoves Chenle’s shirt up with heavy hands to expose his flat chest and gives his nothing-tits a fat squeeze each. Puts his mouth around one and suckles at the nipple like he’s suddenly starving.
Chenle moans high in his throat. He breathes hard, caught between wanting to squirm away from the tickling of Kun’s tongue and wanting to push more of himself into his mouth. He hooks his legs around Kun’s waist and digs his heels into the meat of his ass, forcing their bodies even closer together.
He wishes they could merge into one.
“Is it bec—”
He chokes on his own spit when Kun grunts and bucks down hard, grinding his cock hard against Chenle’s ass through their clothes. Something about that—being fully clothed—makes Chenle’s head spin. It feels almost better than if they were naked. It’s dirtier, more of a secret with the rough rub of Kun’s denim jeans against his bare thighs.
Still, Chenle has things to say. He can’t help it. If his mother’s right and he’s going to hell, he’s at the very least dragging Kun with him.
“Is it because of your parents?” he rasps into Kun’s ear.
“Quit that, Chenle.” And that should be a clear warning. Chenle should stop. But Kun’s mouth is everywhere on him, sucking at the skin of his throat like he can’t get enough of lapping up his sweat. His hands, grabbing greedy handfuls of the meat and bone of Chenle’s belly, his fingers pulling and bruising Chenle’s thighs. “God, just shut up.”
“Gege, Gege.” Chenle moans it out wet and pathetic. His voice breaks each time Kun thrusts down against him, head sliding further up the satin pillow with every desperate push. “What would they—what would they say if they knew what you do to me?”
Kun’s movements falter, body locking for just a moment. “I don’t know.”
“You do,” Chenle insists. He pushes his hands into Kun’s hair and yanks his head up, just so he can chew on his blowjob-lips. He can’t resist biting him a little, sucking on the spit clinging there before pressing a chaste wet kiss to his perfect mouth. And another one, and then another one. “You know they’d talk about you the way my parents talk about me.”
“Chenle—” Kun tries. He almost whines, voice crooked and cracking around the edges. But he keeps rutting against Chenle like a teenager anyway, so it doesn’t really mean anything.
“They’d know,” Chenle taunts, grinding up against him. “They’d know Gege’s just as dirty as I am.”
That does it. Kun’s breath stutters. Chenle isn’t even sure what it is that he was clawing at, but once he catches the dark flash behind Kun’s eyes he knows he’s hit it. Kun yanks Chenle’s shorts down his thighs, shaky fingers fumbling hard with the button of his own jeans, and Chenle knows he’s won this round.
What exactly has he won? He couldn’t say. It doesn’t matter. Not when he doesn’t know what game they’ve been playing to begin with, just that the stakes have started to feel like life or death.
“You’re impossible,” Kun hisses. “You drive me insane. You just don’t know when to shut up, do you?”
Before Chenle can get anything smart out—he tries, mouth open and tongue ready—Kun pushes his thighs up, folding him in half until the pink of his knees is pressed to his parted lips. The words die in his throat. His chest heaves hard, lungs swelling and straining with the position he’s been forced into.
Kun’s hand wraps around his cock. Chenle claws at the sheets uselessly, dizzy with adrenaline and the shame of being so exposed. White-tender underbelly up for slaughter. And then there’s the wet heat of Kun’s mouth, and his tongue dragging over Chenle’s hole, and Chenle’s brain shortcircuits.
He screams. It’s a moan so animal, ripped straight from somewhere within his gut, all the hair on his arms stands up. He tries to choke it down halfway through it, tries biting down on his tongue, but Kun is faster. This time too, Kun’s got him. He slaps a hand over Chenle’s mouth and twists the other one around his cock.
“Quiet now,” Kun murmurs against him, mouth hot and hungry between his thighs. “Don’t make a sound.”
And Chenle tries. God, he tries. But his eyes roll back, and his thighs start jerking so violently he nearly knees himself in the face a few times. Kun isn’t just licking him. He’s trying to eat him alive. He’s impossible to handle when he gives in and starts taking what he wants.
Chenle loves it. Him.
It doesn’t take much longer. He spills hot over Kun’s fist, body twitching and shuddering, muffling broken moans in the sweat-slick skin of Kun’s palm.
—
The dining room is dark, lights dimmed low and claustrophobic-intimate. There’s not enough clean air.
Chenle sits next to Kun and knocks their knees together under the table. Distracted, he pushes food around with his chopsticks without eating it, even as his belly grumbles in protest. He doesn’t want to spoil the taste of Kun’s sweat clinging to his tongue just yet.
“So,” Chenle’s mother chirps, smiling wide. She leans forward to top up Kun’s wine, then pours herself an even larger glass. “How was your lesson today? Did Lele behave himself?”
Kun ducks his head. He chews his food carefully before answering. “He did,” he confirms, polite as always. Smile tight, tense. Liar. “Chenle has been doing really well lately.”
Chenle watches Kun take a sip of wine and dab a napkin over his lips. Heat licks between his legs as he thinks back to where Kun’s perfect mouth was half an hour ago. He spreads them a little wider, pressing his thigh harder against Kun’s and wondering if his mother would get a heart attack and die on the spot, if she knew what Kun was doing to him upstairs.
“Don’t stare at Kun like that,” his mother scolds, swatting lazily at Chenle’s cheek. “It’s not polite.”
“It’s okay,” Kun says, laughing quietly. “I don’t mind.”
Chenle’s mother sighs, gaze shifting between them. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, the chandelier dripping creepy shadows over their faces in teardrop-shaped shards, but something in her gaze softens and goes wet. For a terrible moment, Chenle thinks she might start crying.
“You’re such a blessing to have around,” she continues, voice wobbling with something too intimate. Private, gross and out of place. Jesus. Chenle’s father reaches over to squeeze her arm briefly. “You’ve done wonders to him. He’s so much more manageable since you started coming over.”
Kun scratches his throat. He smiles again, dimples popping as he shifts away from Chenle and closes his legs. Coward. A liar, and a goddamned coward. “You’re really too kind.”
“Yeah, lucky me,” Chenle muses, finally shoving some rice into his mouth. Kun stiffens against his shoulder. Biting down on a laugh, without looking up, Chenle wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and continues, “and you don’t even know half the things Gege’s done to me.”