Chapter Text
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”
— Ruth 1:17
✵✵
They didn’t even make it to the bed this time.
Beomgyu yanked Yeonjun into a fierce kiss the minute he’d come through the front door, barely giving him the time or breath to say hello, but Yeonjun wasn’t going to complain. He simply put his hands on Beomgyu’s waist and got with the program, walking them backwards onto the first surface they could get horizontal on. They toppled onto the couch like two hormonal teenagers, and Yeonjun was immediately drunk on the little noise Beomgyu made when Yeonjun shoved him back against the cushions, hot and shocked and wanton.
“Yeonjun,” Beomgyu gasped during the split second their mouths parted for air, tugging on Yeonjun’s clothes impatiently — his belt, his shirt, his askew tie, like he couldn’t quite decide what he wanted off first. “Take this off, c’mon, come on—”
“Take what off?” Yeonjun asked, faux-innocent. There wasn’t much to be happy about these days, but Yeonjun had always derived a ridiculous amount of delight from the scrunch of Beomgyu’s brow when he started teasing. “I have a lot on at the moment.”
“All of it,” Beomgyu grunted. He finally settled on an article to remove first, undoing Yeonjun’s tie with an ungainly yank. “Are you just gonna sit there, or are you gonna help me?”
“Okay, okay. Bossy,” Yeonjun laughed, but instead of helping to rid himself of the shirt Beomgyu was practically tearing off, he set his teeth on Beomgyu’s throat, relishing in the gasping sigh it elicited. He found the mark he’d left a few days ago, purple-blue with age, and bit around it again, as if he was reopening a freshly closed wound. As if Beomgyu’s blood was spilling bright and heavy over his tongue, sweet with the rapid beating of his rabbit heart.
“Quit that,” Beomgyu pretended to grumble, swatting Yeonjun’s bare back. Oh, he’d gotten the shirt off. Yeonjun hadn’t even noticed. “If you don’t get your pants off in the next ten seconds, I’m gonna make you stand in the corner and watch as I get myself off. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Ouch,” Yeonjun said, rising up onto his knees, greedily eyeing every inch of exposed skin as Beomgyu began stripping his own clothes off, glowing golden in the saffron light of the setting sun. He drank everything in like Beomgyu had dropped straight out of a dream, drowning in the planes of his stomach, the slight curve of his ribcage, the birthmark right next to his heart. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen this or would get to see this; the view never got old. “What’s the hurry today? You got somewhere better to be after this?” The words tasted like ash in his mouth.
Beomgyu leveled him with a withering look, shaking his tousled hair out of his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this all day. So I’d appreciate if you could do something about it—”
Yeonjun grinned a shark’s grin, all hunger and no mirth. He unbuckled his belt slowly, slid it from its loops slowly, fixated on the way Beomgyu’s gaze went storm-dark, startlingly black against the pink flush of his face. “All day, huh? What, fucked you so good the last time you’ve been feeling empty ever since?”
“You flatter yourself,” Beomgyu muttered, but his eyes were glued firmly to the tent in Yeonjun’s pants. “If you hadn’t come over today, I would’ve made do just fine.”
Yeonjun hummed, kicking his pants and boxers off to join the rest of the pile on the floor. “Well, it’s too bad that I’m here, then.”
“Yeah. Too bad,” Beomgyu said, and leaned up to crush his mouth to Yeonjun’s, sucking on his bottom lip in the way he knew made Yeonjun’s head spin. His legs fell open as he reeled Yeonjun in, and though it was Yeonjun’s weight pressing Beomgyu into the couch, somehow it felt like Yeonjun was the one being crowded.
“Baby,” Yeonjun murmured against the nip of Beomgyu’s teeth, fighting a full-bodied shudder. He was so hard it hurt. “Do you—”
“No talking,” Beomgyu interrupted, breaking away long enough only to shuck the rest of his clothing off. “I need you now, c’mon.” He grabbed Yeonjun’s hand and guided it down, down, down, right where he wanted it most. Yeonjun acquiesced readily, running his fingers over the inside of Beomgyu’s thighs, mouth watering at the memory of being there, of tasting soft skin over hard muscle, when something stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at Beomgyu, pinned by the sight of the other man’s wicked smile.
“Baby,” Yeonjun said again, voice gone hoarse. He swiped through the wet mess slicked around Beomgyu’s hole and taint, throat impossibly dry. He thumbed at Beomgyu’s rim, and groaned out loud when he felt how loose Beomgyu already was. His heart slammed against his ribs, going into overdrive, kicking up a ferocious rhythm that threatened to split him in half. “Did you really..?”
“You were taking too long,” Beomgyu explained easily, like he wasn’t a hundred adolescent fantasies come true. He stretched out on the cushions, arranging himself with a languid grace. “Opened myself up in the shower so we could skip to the main event. Now if you’d like to get inside me sometime this decade—”
“You know they say patience is a virtue,” Yeonjun mused, pushing two fingers into Beomgyu, scissoring them easily. He smiled when Beomgyu squirmed, pulling out when he got too close to finding the right angle that would make him see stars, merrily ignoring Beomgyu’s noise of complaint. “You could definitely use some.”
“Been on edge for hours, you ass. Hurry up.”
Yeonjun lined his tip up with Beomgyu’s entrance, arching an eyebrow, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a brat?”
Beomgyu snorted, gaze flickering, “Yeah, lots of people. Am I gonna have to find one of them to fuck me instead?”
Yeonjun’s vision washed red at that. He sank into Beomgyu in one quick thrust, punching a sharp exclamation from the back of Beomgyu’s throat. “Shut the fuck up,” he growled. “Only I get to see you like this. Only I ever get to touch you.”
“Prove it,” Beomgyu breathed, and Yeonjun shoved in further, until he was all the way inside, until he could hear Beomgyu’s half-hurt noises reverberate through him like they shared one body.
“No one else,” Yeonjun gritted out, nearly seeing double from the pain-pleasure sparking in little fires along his veins. He went to work setting a punishing pace, fisting a hand in Beomgyu’s hair and yanking so he could earn another one of Beomgyu’s long, lusty groans. “Say it, Beomgyu. You don’t do this with anyone else, you don’t belong with anyone else.”
“No one—ah,” Beomgyu stuttered over a choked-off wail. “There’s no—fuck, Yeonjun, oh my God. Yeonjun!”
“That’s right,” Yeonjun said, sickly sweet, a little mean. After all these years, he knew exactly what Beomgyu liked, how to play him best, a most darling instrument. Nobody was more fluent in the language of this fiddle, this flashbang of fiery feeling. He glanced down at where they were connected, where Beomgyu’s body was making space to be full of him, burning and burning and burning. He needed to feel them both succumb, sons of the morning. “Taking me so good. Go on, baby. You think you can come like this? Just from me fucking you like you deserve?”
“I don’t—fuck, I don’t know,” Beomgyu whined. “Maybe, but I—please, Yeonjun, please.” He hooked his arms around Yeonjun’s neck, digging his nails in hard, scratching down Yeonjun’s nape with a desperate vehemence. Yeonjun hissed, hips jerking.
“I think you can.” He leaned down to catch Beomgyu’s mouth in a filthy kiss, more a sharing of gasping breaths than anything, trying to swallow each other whole. “Show me. Come on, Beoms, let me see.”
Beomgyu’s head lolled. His irises were dark pools of hellfire, nearly liquid around the edges. “I can’t—Yeonjun, I need—”
“Hm? What do you need, baby?” Yeonjun slowed to a languid roll, freeing one hand so he could press on Beomgyu’s knee, hitching it higher, spreading him wider — and there it was, Beomgyu’s wrecked whimper as Yeonjun ground into the spot that made his insides seize like he’d been electrified, right where it counted. “You need me to tell you when to come? Is that it?”
“Touch me,” Beomgyu panted, syllables all slurring into one another, as if Yeonjun was fucking the coherence out of him. Shit, Yeonjun wasn’t gonna last. “Need you to touch me, oh God, please please—”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Yeonjun smiled. “How can I deny you anything when you beg for it so sweet?” He held Beomgyu’s gaze as he raised his hand to his mouth, licking a wet stripe over his palm, reveling in the glassy, covetous sheen of Beomgyu’s eyes as he tracked the passage of Yeonjun’s tongue. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you. Don’t I always?”
Whatever Beomgyu had been about to say in reply was lost when Yeonjun finally wrapped his hand around his flushed cock, so scarlet it was nearly maroon. His voice caught on a relieved sob, hoarse. “Close,” he rasped. “Almost there, Jun, I’m so close.”
“That’s it,” Yeonjun murmured, a little strangled. He was racing towards the finish line too, teetering on that knife-edge. “You gonna come for me, baby? You gonna let me have it?”
Beomgyu tossed his head back, body arching into an impossible parabola, and then he was spilling warm over Yeonjun’s fist, silent with his breath stuck in his throat. Yeonjun watched, enraptured as always, feeling kind of breathless himself — this was his favourite sight in the world, the aftermath of an entire history of human desire. Nothing could ever be better than seeing Beomgyu fall apart, mouth hanging open, crimson bleeding over his face and running down his neck like a Rorschach test.
“Fuck, Beoms,” Yeonjun moaned. The familiar tension was building in the base of his spine, coiling in his stomach. Beomgyu shifted, shivering when Yeonjun’s next thrust hammered his oversensitive prostate. He always got even tighter after an orgasm, walls fluttering around Yeonjun like he wanted to keep him there and never let him out. Yeonjun collapsed forward onto Beomgyu’s shoulder, helplessly grinding in deeper, where it was too hot and too perfect to be true.
Beomgyu let out a small hum, lazy and sated now that he’d gotten what he was looking for. “Yeah, come on, Jun. Want you to fill me up so I’m dripping for days.” His touch trailed over Yeonjun’s side, making him tremble for it. “Or,” he mused, “maybe I’ll sit on your face as I’m leaking, make you clean up the mess you made. How ‘bout it? That sound good to you, sweetheart?”
“Shit,” Yeonjun swore into the crook of Beomgyu’s neck, panting like a dog in heat. “Fucking hell, Beoms.”
“Mm-hm, just like that,” and Yeonjun could hear the satisfied grin in his voice, the absolute menace. That was the best and worst thing about sleeping with someone for the better part of a whole decade — they knew exactly which buttons to press, what had you going wild-eyed with wanting, hurtling headlong into the detonation of all sensation. Beomgyu clenched around Yeonjun, pulling another string of curses from him. “Feel so good inside me. C’mon, Jun, give it to me, wanna be so full of you. Give it to me. Be the only one.”
“Oh God,” Yeonjun gasped, his climax crashing into him gracelessly. He groaned like he was dying, digging his teeth into the hollow of Beomgyu’s collarbone, gleaming with sweat. Beomgyu rode out the shockwaves rippling through muscle and bone with him, rocking his hips steady and shallow, making this low little purring sound in his chest that only sent a tendril of arousal curling through Yeonjun again.
“Jesus Christ,” he sighed happily.
Yeonjun blinked slowly, dazed. “Yeah, holy shit. What the hell was that, Beoms? The hell’s gotten into you?”
“Hey, you’re the one who went berserk on me the second I mentioned the vaguest idea of someone else. I was practically mauled.”
“You did that on purpose,” Yeonjun scowled, shaking off the last lingering bits of his blissful haze. “You were goading me.”
Beomgyu shrugged, jostling Yeonjun where he was still buried in Beomgyu’s neck. “Took the bait, didn’t you? Anyway, it’s like I said, I’d been waiting all day.”
Yeonjun rolled his eyes, but emerged from his hiding place to draw Beomgyu in carefully, fitting their mouths together, found puzzle pieces. “Missed me that much, huh?” he asked quietly, tasting the starlight in Beomgyu’s smile.
“Maybe,” Beomgyu admitted, just as quiet. He kissed Yeonjun again, and again; soft like seafoam, like salvation, like the wings of a merciful angel. “Never letting you forget that you disgraced me on the couch, though.”
Yeonjun scoffed, slipping out of Beomgyu carefully, patting his thigh until he got the message and rolled onto his side so Yeonjun could lie next to him. Like an old habit, Yeonjun’s fingers crept their way up to the birthmark on Beomgyu’s chest, almost an exact mirror of the birthmark he had on his own. Twin bruises for twin flames. You couldn’t really fight fate. “Try and remember that you asked for it, while you’re at it.”
“Whatever,” Beomgyu said, in that way of his that never failed to drive Yeonjun up the wall, but before Yeonjun could start bitching about it, Beomgyu nudged their noses against one another. “Run into any trouble on the way over today?”
And Yeonjun knew Beomgyu was most likely asking about the heavily policed borders between districts, about the streets and freezer trucks stacked up with cold bodies, but his mind immediately went to Soobin. He thought of Soobin’s face that morning, when Yeonjun had brought up needing to attend a work meeting in the afternoon. On a Sunday? he could hear his husband not asking, could see him biting back in the brief flicker of his expression. Who needs you on a Sunday? But Soobin had only nodded and announced that he’d spend the day running errands. He’d straightened Yeonjun’s tie for him before he’d left with a tiny smile, the same tie that was now strewn on Beomgyu’s floor, a dormant snake. Yeonjun swallowed the flash of revolting guilt crawling up his throat to say, “No, no trouble at all,” hoping Beomgyu didn’t hear it in his voice.
“Good,” Beomgyu said, and yawned. “You staying tonight?”
Yeonjun chewed on his lip, trying not to wince. “I don’t think so, baby. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Beomgyu said sleepily. He threw a leg over Yeonjun’s, nuzzled his way under Yeonjun’s chin. Yeonjun curled up around him, automatic. “Just stay with me for a little while more, then. Don’t go yet.”
“Okay,” Yeonjun said softly. He wanted to tell Beomgyu that he wouldn’t ever go anywhere, that he never wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t here, but he couldn’t do that to the both of them. He couldn’t make another promise he knew he wouldn’t keep. He feathered a butterfly kiss over Beomgyu’s crown, stroking his sweaty hair back from his face. “Just for a little while.”
✵✵
Soobin was sitting at the dining table when Yeonjun got home, the moon high in the sky. He looked up from the papers he’d been frowning at, eyes brightening when he saw Yeonjun step through the doorway. “You’re back! How was your meeting?”
“Not bad,” Yeonjun said. He set his empty briefcase down and walked over to peer at the important-looking documents scattered over their table. “What’s all this?”
“Due diligence, for the upcoming acquisition. Or not-so-upcoming, since it seems like someone’s been exaggerating their performance output.” Soobin sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. When Yeonjun reached to set them back right, his husband smiled up at him, half bashful and half hopeful. Yeonjun’s heart gave a slow, heavy thud in his chest. “I’ve been staring at these for hours. So much for a Sunday, huh? Looks like we both got put to work.”
“Yeah,” Yeonjun tried to smile back, but it felt like a grimace on his face. “Not even the apocalypse can stop capitalism, I guess.”
Soobin laughed, leaning back in his chair, “If death on a catastrophic, global scale can’t stop it, nothing can.” His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. “So. I was thinking, if they don’t need us at the office urgently, maybe we could take a half-day tomorrow. Spend the morning sleeping in, or… not sleeping?”
Dread sank like a stone in Yeonjun’s stomach, slithering under his skin. “Sorry, Bin, I can’t,” he said, and hated how he didn’t have to pretend to be apologetic. He owed Soobin so much more than a bunch of lousy sorry’s. “Board’s convening at nine, I have to be there.”
“Oh,” Soobin’s smile dimmed, and Yeonjun hated himself even more. “That’s okay. Can’t be helped, right?”
“Right,” Yeonjun said, hoping he didn’t sound as miserable as he felt.
“Well. Some other time, then,” Soobin said, smile still plastered on his face, even if it looked a little strained around the edges.
“Sure.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Yeonjun echoed, feeling stupid, not sure what else there was to say. He waved a hand in the direction of the stairs awkwardly, “I’m just gonna… go get ready for bed.”
“Yeah. I’ll be there in a bit, just wanna finish looking over all of these.”
“Sure,” Yeonjun said again. Soobin turned back to his papers, and that was that. Yeonjun waited until he’d shuffled upstairs and into the bathroom, door safely closed behind him, to let out the huge breath he’d been holding. He leaned over the sink, gripping the counter, glaring into the mirror. His reflection glared back, all disheveled hair and chest heaving under crumpled clothes, faint red scores only partly hidden by his collar. Fuck.
He tipped forward, closing his eyes as he rested his forehead against the blessedly cool glass. He had to take a shower, wash all the traces Beomgyu’d left on his skin down the drain. He had to stop sneaking away from his husband like a dirty, dishonest thief; he had to stop coming up with flimsy excuses to not touch anybody but Beomgyu. But the God’s honest truth was that when Soobin was gazing up at him just now, illuminated by the yellow glow of their fluorescent lamps, Yeonjun had been thinking of Beomgyu instead. He’d been wishing it was Beomgyu instead, imagining him all golden and surrounded by the silt-soft warmth of Yeonjun’s home. He didn’t have it within him to wish for anything but Beomgyu, Beomgyu, Beomgyu.
Fuck. What kind of person did that make him?
✵✶✵
The most awful kind.
That was probably how Yeonjun would’ve classified his first meeting with Beomgyu. They’d been nineteen, hell-raisers, and Beomgyu had only been the ex-boyfriend of a friend of a friend. Yeonjun had been sitting on the alarmingly sticky floor of someone’s studio apartment, regretting every decision he’d made in his life that had led him to that very moment.
“I just don’t get what I did wrong,” some guy called Sunghoon was wailing on the bed. His friend next to him rubbed his back, handing him a cup that was so full, beer was sloshing over the rim; Sunghoon paused to gulp it all down in one go. Yeonjun grimaced. “It seemed like it was going well, and then—and then he just dumped me! Like, who the fuck does that?”
“You’re better off without him, man,” his friend said consolingly. Yeonjun had no idea what his name was. Jack, maybe? Or Jacob. Something along those lines. Whatever. “He’s an asshole.”
Sunghoon sniffled. “Why can’t he be ugly too? It’d be so much easier to hate him if he was ugly. God, my life is over. Have you ever been with someone you thought was the one and then they turned out not to be the one?”
Yeonjun tugged on his roommate, Heeseung’s, sleeve. “Dude,” he hissed. “I think the party’s over. Let’s split, before this turns into a real sobfest.”
Heeseung snickered, “Aw, is somebody scared they’re gonna be asked to talk about feelings for once?”
“Yes,” Yeonjun huffed. “What’s the big deal, anyway? Plenty of fish in the sea. It’s a big university, your friend will find someone else in a week. Now come on, let’s go.”
Heeseung shook his head, brow knitted, “I don’t know, man. I think I should stay. Sunghoon seems pretty broken up about it, and Jake might need a hand cleaning up here.” Ah, Jake. So that was the other guy’s name.
“He’ll need more than a hand,” Yeonjun grunted, gesturing at the disgusting state of the place. “How did it even get this bad? Has he been nutting into the mop bucket, or something?”
“Gross,” Heeseung rolled his eyes. “Look, you can go back if you want, I have keys on me. No pressure to stick around, okay?”
Yeonjun glanced at Sunghoon. The boy was chugging something else now; it was suspiciously brown. Jake was laughing, but his eyes looked troubled. Damn it. “Nah,” Yeonjun sighed, settling in. “Got nowhere else to be, so might as well. Not like it’s a school night.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Heeseung smile, so he rushed to change the subject. “Hey, so who’s this ex-boyfriend anyway? He sounds like a real tool, huh?”
“Oh, Beomgyu?” Heeseung said, and Yeonjun hadn’t known it then, wouldn’t know it for a good long while, but hearing that name changed the trajectory of his life for evermore. That name turned the entire planet right on its head, setting something irreversible in motion. A butterfly flapping its wings over Asia, turned into a wild western wind that rolled a storm through his sails, pouring rain into his ocean. “Yeah, you know, met him a couple of times, he seemed pretty nice then. Maybe a little complicated, but who isn’t, right?”
Yeonjun shrugged, “I guess. How long were they dating?”
Heeseung pressed his lips into a thin line. “A month.”
“A m—dude. You’re joking,” Yeonjun deadpanned. “There’s no way you’re serious right now. A month has him drinking his weight in… what is that? Rum, tequila, a lifetime supply of Fireballs, all of the above?”
Heeseung’s mouth twitched, like he was holding back a laugh. A round of raucous cheers went up from somewhere else in the room, and not for the first time, Yeonjun wondered how Heeseung, remarkably soft-spoken Heeseung, had gotten mixed up with such rowdy company. “Sunghoon just lives life at the pace of a U-Haul lesbian. I can’t judge, and honestly? Beomgyu’s hot. I’d be crying a little bit too if I fumbled that.”
“How hot is this guy if Sunghoon’s this devastated about losing out on a month-long relationship?” Yeonjun muttered. “If it can even be called that. One month is a talking stage, at most. Nobody’s that hot.”
“Beomgyu probably is. You gotta see him for yourself, man,” was all Heeseung managed to say, before Jake and two other boys were pouring Sunghoon into his lap, shouting about some plan concerning photos and making Beomgyu jealous. Heeseung froze up like a deer in headlights, his already-large eyes growing so big they looked like they were about to pop out of his head, two fruits bursting to ripeness. Yeonjun pointed and cackled.
“It’s just for show,” Jake cajoled. “You don’t even have to pretend Sunghoon’s a good kisser, or anything.”
“Fuck you!” Sunghoon barked. “I’m a great kisser!” Heeseung stared up at him, open-mouthed, hands flitting around Sunghoon’s body.
“What—hold on, why does anyone have to be kissing—”
“It’s just for show,” one of the guys repeated patiently. Yeonjun didn’t really remember his name either; it might’ve been Jungwon. “Y’know, you make out, we take a few pictures, send them to Beomgyu, he turns into the green-eyed monster and comes running back. Easy. It’s classic.”
“What’s classic about any of this?” Yeonjun asked no one in particular. Heeseung was still doing an excellent impression of a fish, especially when Sunghoon slid forward to straddle him better, wiggling around to get situated more comfortably.
“Just do it,” Jake wheedled. He whipped his phone out, pointing the camera at them. Yeonjun frantically scooted his butt out of the line of fire. “What’s one makeout session between friends, right? It’s just guys being dudes.”
“Why me?” Heeseung asked, or squeaked. There was a slightly shrill note to his voice. “Why not any of the rest of you?”
“He didn’t wanna kiss any of us,” Probably-Jungwon shrugged a shoulder. He had his phone out, too. Jesus. Yeonjun was so glad he wasn’t actually a part of this mess. “Now c’mon, bro. We’re on a tight schedule.”
“What tight schedule—” Heeseung’s bewildered question was cut off by Sunghoon leaning forward to kiss him. A cacophony of hooting and hollering followed, and Yeonjun laughed at Heeseung’s still-hovering hands. He laughed even harder when Sunghoon, without taking his mouth off Heeseung’s for a second, reached back to grab them and plant them firmly on his own ass.
The details after that were a little fuzzy. Yeonjun only remembered flashes: Sunghoon firing off a slew of pictures in a text thread with an accompanying message of “I’M OVER YOU!!!!!!!!!!”, the stunned expression Heeseung wore for the rest of the night, and drinking everything that was put in his hand. He didn’t even remember how he and Heeseung had made the trek back to their dorm. The next thing Yeonjun was fully cognizant of was waking up to the horrendous sound of hammering. For a minute, he was sure the pounding was in his head; combined with his sandpaper tongue and how much the sunlight cutting in through the blinds felt like blades being stabbed into his eyes, he knew he was hungover. But once he came a little more alert, he realized that the noise was coming from their front door, and whoever was outside was knocking with enough force to have the door shuddering in its frame. Yeonjun groaned, looking over at Heeseung’s side of the room. Miraculously, the other boy was dead to the world, despite the racket. Fucking hell.
Yeonjun swung his legs out of bed, muttering curses under his breath, stumbling to answer the door before it splintered in half. He yanked it open, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Before he could start griping at the unknown person for trying to wake the entire building up, a low voice broke into a mini tirade, “Lee Heeseung, I know it was you in those damn photos, and I knew it, you were lying to my fucking face when I asked if there was something between you and my boyfriend! Don’t even try to deny it again, I talked to Jay before coming over here. You could’ve told me the truth, you know, I would’ve backed off!”
“Keep it down, will you,” Yeonjun grumbled. “It’s literally—” he craned his neck to the side to squint at the digital clock on his desk. “Okay, fine, it’s noon, but have you ever heard of manners? You can’t just barge in here and start banging down…” He turned back to the rude stranger, and immediately lost his train of thought, trailing off. The boy in the hallway was scowling. He was also the most beautiful person Yeonjun had ever seen in his life. The kind of beautiful that stopped time and reinvented it, the kind that razed empires and drew goddesses’ envy and launched a thousand ships. “Uh.”
The boy blinked, and his lashes were so long they seemed to scatter shadows. Yeonjun could hardly breathe. “Oh. You’re not Heeseung.”
“Great, you noticed,” Yeonjun’s stupid mouth said. Internally, he swore up a blue streak. He’d never been any good at talking to pretty boys, and that fact was coming to bite him at the most inopportune moment. He could only pray that he didn’t look too disgusting. “And you are..?”
“Beomgyu,” Beomgyu said, looking abashed. Oh, so this is the famous Beomgyu, Yeonjun thought. Fuck, he is hot. Fuck, I can never doubt Heeseung again. “Sorry, I thought this was Heeseung’s—”
“It is. He’s right here,” Yeonjun shifted and gestured behind him at a happily snoring Heeseung. “Asleep, as you can tell. I’m his roommate.”
Beomgyu’s luminous eyes brightened even more, with something like recognition. “Ah, you’re Yeonjun, right? I’ve heard about you.”
A white-hot bolt of feeling shivered through Yeonjun. He’d never heard anyone shape the syllables of his name like that before, as if everybody else had been saying it wrong all his life. It was so sweet he could almost taste it, could almost sink his teeth into its naked nape. The ground heaved beneath his feet, and he wondered if this was what it felt like, to experience the world change in real time. If this was what it meant to witness the atoms of the universe rearrange themselves into parallel lines. “That’s me,” he said weakly.
“Right,” Beomgyu smiled, incandescent. Yeonjun wanted to weep. “I’m realizing this is quite possibly the worst first impression ever, oh God. Sorry about waking you up, I didn’t mean to. I only came here to yell at Heeseung, I know you have nothing to do with—” He stopped, cocking his head. “Wait, I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”
“Um,” Yeonjun ran a hand through his bedhead, self-conscious. “Student government?”
“No,” Beomgyu narrowed his eyes. “You’re the guy, in the background of the photos last night. What the hell? What were you doing there?”
“Whoa,” Yeonjun frowned, taking a step back. What was with the sudden antagonism? It was like a switch had been flipped, and Yeonjun was doubly unhappy with how his desperate ass-scooting hadn’t been enough to keep him out of frame after all. “Don’t put me in your crosshairs. I didn’t do shit.”
“Tell me everything you know,” Beomgyu demanded. “Does Sunghoon come over a lot? Does Heeseung bring him back here and kick you out so they can be alone? Has he ever said anything to you about his feelings for my boyfriend?”
Yeonjun bristled. “Hey, you’re kind of bossy, you know that? I don’t owe you anything. And even if I did, last I heard, you’d dumped Sunghoon, so he isn’t your boyfriend anymore. Sounds like he can make out with whoever he wants, and it’d be none of your business.”
Beomgyu scoffed, “Are you fucking kidding me? Who are you to tell me what is or isn’t my business? Anyway, Sunghoon and I broke up three days ago, and he’s already out here sucking faces with the one friend who explicitly told me I had nothing to worry about? I should think I deserve some fucking answers!”
Alright, so Yeonjun hadn’t known that. But as gorgeous as Beomgyu was, he felt like he had to defend Heeseung out of loyalty. “Okay, seriously, you guys were together for one month. I don’t get why everyone’s making it out to be a bigger deal than it was. I’ve seen bullets fly for longer. There are sex marathons that have lasted longer.”
“Ew,” Beomgyu wrinkled his nose. “What the f—are you always this crude? What’s your problem, dude?” He held up a hand when Yeonjun opened his mouth. “You know what, don’t answer that yet. Answer all my other questions first.”
Yeonjun felt another headache completely separate from his hangover begin to build in his temples. “I don’t fucking know,” he snapped, more than a little irritated. “I don’t make it a point to know everything about my roommate’s personal life, I’m not his keeper. And I only met Sunghoon last night when I got dragged to that sorry excuse of a party—”
“Party?” Beomgyu repeated. “You guys were drinking? Did Sunghoon get drunk?”
“Of course we were drinking, it was a fucking party,” Yeonjun rolled his eyes.
Beomgyu’s eyes darkened, and Yeonjun hated the thrill that zipped down his spine. Pull yourself together, he screeched at himself. “So Sunghoon got a little liquored up and all of a sudden Heeseung was all over him, not 48 hours after I’d broken up with him?”
What the fuck was this guy trying to imply? “You’re making it sound like Sunghoon’s some kind of helpless damsel,” Yeonjun pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will his oncoming migraine away. This was so not his problem. “Look, I don’t remember jackshit. If you want some real answers, you’re gonna have to take it up with the both of them.”
Beomgyu pointedly peered over Yeonjun’s shoulder. “Well, one of them is very conveniently knocked out at the moment. And I don’t wanna talk to my ex.”
“Too bad,” Yeonjun sniffed. “Why don’t you go and do what regular people do on a Saturday afternoon, and I’ll let Heeseung know you stopped by when he wakes up?”
Beomgyu folded his arms, “How do I know you’ll do it, though? You could be lying to cover his ass. Besides, he doesn’t have my number, how is he gonna contact me?”
“You could always do that trick again where you come over and knock hard enough to wake the dead and earn us an eviction notice,” Yeonjun muttered. Beomgyu glared at him.
“Or you could let me wait in your room instead of out here in the hallway. Move.”
Yeonjun gaped at the audacity of this boy. It really always was the prettiest faces with the nastiest attitudes, he thought to himself bitterly. You dodged a bullet, he mentally projected out towards wherever Sunghoon was. “No. Go wait somewhere else. I wanna go back to bed.”
“I won’t disturb you,” Beomgyu said impatiently.
“You already have,” Yeonjun sniped. He made a shooing motion. “So sorry you came here for nothing, but you’ll just have to come back some other time! Bye-bye now, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
Beomgyu ground his teeth audibly, “It won’t, because you didn’t even let me in, you asshole.”
“Ah, right,” Yeonjun said with false cheer. “Okay then. See you never!” Before Beomgyu could get another word in edgewise, he slammed the door in the boy’s face. He heaved a long sigh into the sudden silence, scrubbing a hand down his face. Just great. Well, at least I spared myself the drama of catching feelings for my roommate’s friend’s ex, he lamented to himself. Not that it would’ve been a big deal, but he was sure someone would’ve had something to say and blown it way out of proportion. Gay people didn’t really have anything better to do.
“Is he gone?” Heeseung piped up from his bed, voice small. Yeonjun nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around.
“Jesus Christ,” he swore, laying a hand over his racing heart. “Dude, what—have you been awake this whole time?”
“Yes,” Heeseung confessed, wincing.
“You left me to deal with that all alone?” Yeonjun asked incredulously. “Also, you were so wrong, Beomgyu isn’t nice, he’s a crazy piece of shit. Also, also, why the fuck didn’t you say anything when he was standing there accusing you of, I don’t know, taking advantage of his drunk ex?”
“I don’t know what I did,” Heeseung wailed. “Don’t yell at me, I can hear colours right now.”
Ugh. “Just go and fucking tell him you don’t actually have feelings for Sunghoon so you can get him off your back.”
Heeseung bit his lip. “Um, the thing is…”
“No. Are you serious? Bro—you know what, hash it out with them. Not with me. I’m going back to sleep, Jesus fuck,” Yeonjun marched back to his bed and flopped face-down onto his pillow, tuning out a stammering Heeseung. He had no business getting tangled up in any of this bullshit. If he was lucky, he’d never hear of Beomgyu or Sunghoon again for as long as he lived.
Beomgyu. The name echoed through his mind as he drifted back into slumber. Why did his eyes have to glitter like that, like the sunrise over the Aegean sea? Too goddamn pretty for his own good, even when he’s being an angry prick. Or especially when he’s being an angry prick. Thank the stars we’ll never see each other again.
✵✵
Yeonjun poked his head into Soobin’s office. “Hey. You got a minute?”
Soobin barely looked up from his computer, fingers flying over the keyboard. “Sure, but make it quick.”
Yeonjun stepped halfway inside, hesitating. “If you’re busy, I can come back in a bit.”
Soobin frowned at his screen, hitting the backspace button hard, “It’s fine, I have a meeting in ten minutes anyway. What do you need?”
“Right. Um.” Yeonjun shifted his weight from foot to foot; his phone, snug in his back pocket, felt like it was on fire. “I’m not coming home for dinner tonight, so… and you don’t have to wait up or anything, I’m not sure what time I’ll be back.”
At that, Soobin finally paused in his typing, staring at Yeonjun over his glasses. “Ah. I see. Going far?”
“No,” Yeonjun said too quickly, and winced internally. “It’s just,” he amended, “client stuff. Dinner with a client. You know how it is.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Soobin’s expression twitched for a second, before he smoothed it out into something impassive. “Send my regards, I guess.”
“Sure.”
“And I want the quarterly report on my desk before noon tomorrow. I wanna review everything before you send it off to the auditors.”
“Sure.”
Soobin cocked his head, gazing at Yeonjun for a long moment. “Just don’t be home too late.”
Yeonjun’s brow furrowed, hackles raising, “What, do I have a curfew now? Am I a teenager you have to discipline, or else I’ll run around town causing trouble after dark?”
“All I said was ‘don’t be home too late.’” Soobin clenched his jaw. “You know that it’s more dangerous at night now, it’s not like I’m trying to be a control freak.”
“You’re a CEO, you’re always a control freak,” Yeonjun muttered, and immediately felt bad. He didn’t have any high horse to get up on here, had no leg to stand on; he was sneaking around behind his husband’s back, then snapping when said husband was rightfully suspicious. He felt rotten to the core. “Okay, wait, I didn’t mean—”
But Soobin’s face had already gone frighteningly blank. “If you’d rather I wish you to go out and get bitten or scratched by one of the Infected clogging up the streets instead, I can do that,” he said stiffly.
“Look, nothing’s gonna happen to me, I’m not going to be hanging around one of those neighbourhoods—”
“They’re everywhere now!” Soobin hissed. “Haven’t you been reading the news? It’s not just spreading within the poorer districts, it’s everywhere now, and sooner or later you’ll catch it and then—”
“And then you’ll be down a CFO,” Yeonjun said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He didn’t need to read the news, he knew perfectly well what it was — an RNA virus that presented like rabies and reproduced like HIV, mutating and mutating. No cure, no vaccine. The scientific community was scrambling, but even they were dropping like flies, and soon there was going to be nobody left to find the answer to this doomsday disease. “Fine. I hear you, I’m sorry. I’ll be careful.”
“That’s not it and you know it,” Soobin closed his eyes, half-pained and half-drained. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you. Come on, are you really not scared of getting it?”
“You don’t need to remind me to be scared of getting infected,” Yeonjun said coldly.
“It’s just—it’s an awful fucking way to go, and an awful way to spend your last days. You remember.”
Yeonjun chewed at the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. He remembered. Seizures, confusion, aggression, hallucinations. Unquenchable thirst, insatiable hunger. He thought of all the lives he led: the one here in this sterile office, and the one waiting for him in the car outside. Split down the midline like a sternotomy, but snarled into a tangle of dream and reality. “I can think of worse.”
Soobin opened his eyes, meeting Yeonjun’s gaze with resignation. “I suppose you can.” Yeonjun blinked, but before he could ask the other man what he meant by that, Soobin turned back to his computer, waving a dismissive hand in his direction, “See you when I see you, then. Have a good dinner.”
“Um…” Yeonjun hated hovering, but he felt obligated to hang back a little, on account of the stormy countenance Soobin was now sporting. “Okay, well, remember to eat. If you don’t have time, I can bring something back for you?”
“Don’t bother. I’m sure we have leftovers at home.”
“Oh, right. Okay,” Yeonjun said slowly, backing away. “I’ll just—see you later.” Soobin didn’t respond, absorbed in his work again, so Yeonjun turned around to leave. He glanced at Soobin as the door closed, and maybe it was just his guilt playing tricks on him, but he could’ve sworn he saw his husband push his glasses up and press the heels of his hands to his eyes. It can’t be, he told himself on the trek to the elevator, something acidic churning inside him. There’s no way he knows. I’ve been careful. We’ve been careful, I’m sure of it.
The discomfort twisted in his gut all the way down to the lobby, up until he stepped out of the building and caught sight of the one thing he’d been looking forward to seeing all evening, quietly nestled in the shadowed space between two streetlamps. Whatever anxiety he had left drained away as his stomach bottomed out in anticipation. He dashed across the road, smiling when he saw the driver’s seat had already been left empty for him.
“Hey,” he said, slipping into the car. Beomgyu immediately leaned over the console to kiss him in greeting, reflexively, proprietarily. He grinned as he pulled away, most probably at the lovesick expression Yeonjun could feel was plastered all over his own face.
“Hey,” he parroted, eyes gleaming. “Long day at work?”
“You have no idea,” Yeonjun groaned, catching Beomgyu’s face up in his hands to press another greedy kiss to his mouth, and then another, drinking in Beomgyu’s delighted laugh. “Was stuck reading reports I don’t care about all goddamn day. My lunch break was literally ten minutes in the pantry and even then, there were people hounding me for approvals on more shit I also didn’t care about. But enough about me,” he shook his head, letting go of Beomgyu’s face to run his hands over Beomgyu’s shoulders. “How was your day?”
“Uneventful,” Beomgyu shrugged. “Finished up a couple of commissions and my lesson plans for Friday’s class. Was really boring without you there to distract me every five seconds, though.”
“Aw,” Yeonjun smiled. “Must’ve been hard to focus on drawing anything that isn’t my beautiful face.”
Beomgyu scoffed, “Yeah, so hard. It was a real Herculean feat.” He fluttered his lashes, pouting, “Do I get anything for being so unbelievably brave?”
Yeonjun hummed, swaying further into his space. “I suppose I could think of something. Though isn’t my presence fulfilling enough?”
Beomgyu rolled his eyes good-naturedly, “You wish. If I didn’t have you here, I’d have at least a hundred paintings of you at home to keep me company.”
“But nothing beats the real thing,” Yeonjun smiled beatifically. “Could a painting do this?” He tilted his head to feather his lips down the column of Beomgyu’s throat, hooking a finger into Beomgyu’s collar to pull it away and give himself better access. He mercifully refrained from teasing when Beomgyu’s breath hitched, latching onto his pulse point and sucking that stuttering heartbeat into his mouth, holding it on his tongue. He’d probably leave a mark; it’d probably last for days. Yeonjun only wished he could bury himself there, burn himself around those veins, so no one could ever doubt this was where he belonged and chose to stay.
“Yeonjun,” Beomgyu sighed, carding a hand through Yeonjun’s hair. “We shouldn’t—mm—get carried away. Anyone could see us here.”
Yeonjun reluctantly detached himself from Beomgyu’s neck with one last scrape of teeth and an arched eyebrow. “I’m not the one getting carried away,” he directed a pointed look down at Beomgyu’s jeans. “It’s sweet that I’ve still got you on a hair-trigger, though. At least you’re not tired of me yet.”
Beomgyu huffed, yanking Yeonjun in to kiss him again, long and lingering. “You moron. I could never get tired of you, not in a million years. And you turn me on just by walking into the room, you know that.”
“Sounds like you’re just a really easy lay,” Yeonjun snorted, but he felt his cheeks heating up, a pleased flush bleeding into the tips of his ears. “And this is a car, not a room.”
“Okay. You turn me on by getting behind the wheel every time we’re in a car,” Beomgyu put a hand over his heart. “And they say chivalry is dead.”
“Not like I have a choice! I know you drove yourself here, you ass, you just somehow always end up back in the passenger seat. Do we have actual plans tonight, or did you just want to con me into driving you home?”
“What can I say? You look so good from here, and I’m an artist, I have an eye for beauty. I need to keep you there for artistic purposes.”
“More like for jacking off purposes,” Yeonjun pretended to grumble, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t preening just a little.
“Well, you got me there,” Beomgyu said. He slotted their mouths together for another breathless moment, and then he was settling back into his seat, shooting Yeonjun a smile so seraphic it was hard to feel disappointed. “Also, I do have actual plans for tonight.”
Yeonjun squinted at the glint he saw in the other man’s eyes. “What’s that look? I don’t like that look. Don’t tell me you wanna break into one of the Hollywood Hills mansions to use their pool again. Getting arrested one time was enough, and we’re way too old to be caught with our pants down now. Literally.”
“You’re no fun, Gramps,” Beomgyu buckled his seatbelt in. “We’re 28, not 88.”
“Beomgyu,” Yeonjun said in warning, but he was fighting back a smile at the memory. Twenty and drunk on nothing but the exhilaration of really living, muffling laughter into each other’s mouths and tasting chlorine in every kiss. The high had lasted even when they got bundled into a cop car, half-naked and dripping wet.
“Relax. No breaking and entering for us today, though our plans could include swimming if you really wanted to. You feeling up for a drive to Newport Beach?”
“Newport Beach?” Yeonjun reached to start the car, his free hand finding Beomgyu’s to intertwine their fingers. “What’s at Newport Beach?”
“Lookout Point.” Beomgyu ducked his head a little, and warmth blossomed behind Yeonjun’s breastbone, unfurling through the rest of his body. “I packed dinner in a picnic basket and everything. I figured since you’ve been stuffed into an obnoxiously ergonomic chair all week, it’d be nice to just go out and… I don’t know. Be near the ocean, get some heavy petting in under the stars. The clothes stay on, though, 'cause I don’t wanna get sand in any crevices,” he shuddered.
Yeonjun laughed as the engine purred to life beneath them. He lifted Beomgyu’s hand to press a kiss to the back of it, hiding his smile between Beomgyu’s knuckles. It already sounded like a dream. So much of this, with Beomgyu, felt like the dream, the false reality. But no, Yeonjun reminded himself, this was real. This life was real, because Beomgyu was the truest thing he’d ever touched. This love was real, because they’d given up heaven and everything else under it, half-sick with needing each other too much. Unquenchable thirst, insatiable hunger.
“Sounds perfect,” he said. “Let’s go.”
✵✶✵
“Yeonjun,” his mother’s voice came from the door. Yeonjun grunted in reply, unwilling to lift his head from where it was buried face-first in his pillow. “Honey, you can’t mope all summer.”
“Watch me,” he said petulantly, voice muffled.
His mother padded over to his bed, her footsteps soft on his carpet. The mattress dipped as she settled on the edge of it. “Look, I know you really liked this… boy of yours,” she said carefully, “but you just graduated. You should be celebrating, like everyone else.”
“You can celebrate without me. I’m staying here.”
“Honey,” she sighed, and then her fingers were carding through his hair, as if he was still five years old and climbing into her arms whenever a thunderstorm wiped the night sky a brilliant white. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Yeonjun’s heart ached; he hurt everywhere. “Not really,” he said, finally lifting his head, propping his chin up to stare at his plush headboard. “It’s fine, Mom. You don’t have to stay here with me. I know you have brunch with your friends, or something.”
“I see them all the time,” she waved him off. “I can miss one morning of mimosas and gossip. Come on, do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“You’ll meet someone else,” she said. “I know when you’re young it feels like there’s only one person to love, but we get more than that, I promise. And you’ve just finished college! The whole world’s your oyster, your life is just beginning.”
Yeonjun bit back a sharp retort. He knew she was only trying to make him feel better, but it was Beomgyu, and this was the third time they’d broken up in two years. Usually, he’d feel confident that they’d find their way back to one another somehow — he’d been unfailingly proven right in that regard so far — but something about this time felt final. Something about this goodbye felt like the very last one, the end of all the endings. Graduation just seemed like the nail in the coffin, the confirmation that their paths were indefinitely diverging. “Mom, please. I really can’t right now, okay?”
His mother sighed again. “What’s so special about this one, anyway? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“He was—” My soulmate, he didn’t want to say. It was corny, and trite, and true. Every breath felt borrowed, like half his heart had walked out of his chest and all that was left was a chewed-off network of black and blue. “Everything,” he finally settled on saying. “You’ve seen him, Mom, you’ve met him.”
“Yes,” she sniffed, a little disdainful. “When we went down to the station to bail you out last year. He was… charming.”
Yeonjun ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “That’s underselling it. He comes into a room, and it’s like—suddenly, the world’s unbearably bright. Like he invented sunlight. You know what I mean?” He rolled over onto his back, dislodging his mother’s hand from his hair. He stared up at her, her perfectly curled hair and matched jewelry, such a far cry from everything Beomgyu was. “And I’m sorry to say this, Mom, but he’s the one person in the world I can’t lie to. It physically hurts me, right here,” he tapped at his sternum. “As if God is giving me some sort of sign, that to be untrue to him is as good as being untrue to my own soul. I don’t know what makes him so special. All I know is that he took all I knew apart and put it back together in this new shape I can’t recognize without him here to give me clarity.”
His mother was eerily silent for a full minute, staring back at him with eyes as wide as quarters. Finally, she blew out a breath, “I had no idea college turned my son into a hopeless romantic.”
“Ma,” Yeonjun grumbled, shifting to turn away from her, but she put her hand on his shoulder, making him fall still.
“I had no idea,” she repeated, something fragile in the creases by her mouth, “that you found someone to love this much. I’m sorry, honey. I really am.”
Yeonjun flushed in embarrassment, squirming under the weight of her solemn gaze. “Yeah. I just… I miss him, Mom. I don’t understand why it had to end.”
She frowned. “Well, you know how they say if you really love something—”
“Set it free, and if it comes back, it’s yours?” Yeonjun finished dryly. “I don’t think I believe in that. We already tried that a couple of times, look where it landed us. I really think it’s for good this time. Maybe he just… never loved me as much as I love him.”
“Oh, honey.” His mother raised a hand to resume stroking his hair, eyes full of sorrow. “I hate seeing you like this. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do? Would you like me to track him down and threaten him?”
“God, Mom, no,” Yeonjun groaned, but it managed to get a laugh out of him, albeit strangled. His mother lit up. “I don’t know. Maybe just—keep Dad off my back for as long as you can?”
“I’ll try,” she nodded. “But I’m not sure I can promise anything. There’s someone he’s been talking about wanting you to meet.”
“Ugh, seriously?” Yeonjun whined, past caring about how much he sounded like a toddler throwing a tantrum. There was only one kind of person his father ever wanted him to meet, and Yeonjun didn’t need to be wallowing in self-pity about Beomgyu to much prefer being dipped in acid over having to interact with shrewd businessmen in stuffy suits. “Is it one of the private equity people he’s trying to get to buy over the company? He knows how I feel about that.”
“I think it’s one of their sons,” she mused. “Soobin? I think that’s his name. Quiet boy, seems harmless.”
“For now,” Yeonjun said grumpily. His mother patted his head soothingly, and he leaned into her touch. “Until his dad starts being the boss of my dad. Then we’ll really see.”
“Well,” she said, “maybe it’s just about making a new friend. What’s the worst that could happen?”
✵✵
Yeonjun rifled through his pockets, cursing under his breath. “Shit. Shit, shit, fucking shit.” He was so sure he’d grabbed his keys before he’d left the house this morning, but apparently not. Usually, he’d ring the doorbell, but the windows were mysteriously dark, and Yeonjun knew that no matter how angry Soobin was at him, he’d never not leave a light on if Yeonjun wasn’t home yet.
Which begged the question, why wasn’t Soobin home yet? Yeonjun hadn’t seen his car in their office building’s parking lot when Beomgyu dropped him off, so where had his husband gone if not home?
He shook his head, pushing his sopping wet hair out of his eyes. It’d started raining the second he and Beomgyu started walking back to the car, prompting a mad dash, and while it’d seemed romantic then, it was feeling a lot less so now that Yeonjun was back inland, where the canopy over his front door didn’t provide much cover against the whipping frenzy of the storm. If he concentrated hard enough, he could still hear the shrieks of the Infected out on the main street, howling as they tried to find shelter from the pelting rain. He shivered, only half from the cold, and pulled out his phone, but hesitated when he opened up his contacts.
Was he supposed to call Beomgyu and tell him Yeonjun would be staying with him for the night, or call Soobin to see what was keeping him out so late?
Yeonjun’s thumb hovered for another second. He chewed his lip, indecision wrenching his guts around. If he did go back to Beomgyu’s, he’d have to find a suitable reason to explain away his absence to his husband in the morning. Something perfectly justifiable, an amalgamation of coincidental circumstances that were unavoidable. It was a headache and a half. But the idea of getting to pretend he was coming home to Beomgyu, of getting to go to sleep warm and wrapped up in his arms, was a temptation too tantalizing to pass over.
Just when Beomgyu’s dialtone started to ring, glaring headlights pierced through the gloom, rolling up next to Yeonjun’s car. Yeonjun swore; and because the gods were all on his side tonight, Beomgyu chose that moment to pick up, his low timbre floating through the speakers. “Jun? Everything okay?”
“I’ll call you back,” Yeonjun hurriedly spit out, cutting the line and shoving his phone into his pocket just as Soobin emerged from his vehicle. His husband squinted at him through the lashing rain, raising a hand to shield his eyes.
“Yeonjun?” he called, stumbling up the driveway. “What are you doing just standing there? Get inside!”
“Obviously, I forgot my keys,” Yeonjun said when Soobin got close enough to hear him over the thunder rumbling in the distance. “It’s not like I wanted to stand outside in a downpour for fun.”
“Jesus, you’re drenched. How long have you been waiting out here?” Soobin gave him a disapproving once-over as he unlocked the front door. He ushered Yeonjun into the foyer with the air of a mother hen, barely two seconds away from clucking his tongue. “You could’ve called, or texted. I would’ve rushed home.”
“I…” Yeonjun faltered. His phone burned in his pocket, guilt twisting a rope around his neck. “I was just about to,” he lied, internally wincing at how flat his voice sounded. “It’s fine, I was only out there for like, ten minutes. Anyway, where were you? I thought you were coming home after work, you said there were leftovers in the fridge.”
Soobin stiffened, pausing in the middle of wringing his jacket out. “Stayed in the office,” he said curtly. “Lost track of time. You know how it is.”
“Right,” Yeonjun said slowly. “Okay. But your car wasn’t in the lot when I doubled back to drive home.”
“Oh.”
“Did you meet someone for dinner? It’s fine if you did, I’m not mad.”
The line of Soobin’s shoulders grew even more rigid, if possible. “Yeah. Taehyun.”
Yeonjun frowned at the tension Soobin was holding in his posture. Was he hurt, somewhere? Or was he mad because Yeonjun wasn’t mad? “Soobin—” he began, stepping towards his husband, but reeled back once he got a whiff of everything the wet wool of Soobin’s blazer had been masking. “Christ on wheels,” he coughed, “were you drinking? Are you drunk? There’s a cloud of fumes around you, oh my God.” He narrowed his eyes, “Wait, you were drinking and you drove back home? What the fuck, Soobin? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“It’s fine,” Soobin muttered, tossing his blazer onto the coat rack. It fell to the floor with a heavy, damp thump. Neither of them moved to pick it up. “I’m fine. Not drunk.”
“It’s not fine, you could’ve gotten hurt, or hurt someone,” Yeonjun said in disbelief. “You could’ve killed someone, do you really think you could live with yourself if you did? It’s not the kind of problem you can throw some money at to make it go away. And what if you’d gotten pulled over? Your father would never—”
“Stop nagging me, you’re not my mom. And I don’t want to hear a word about my father,” Soobin interrupted. When he looked over at Yeonjun, his expression was downright glacial, the whites of his eyes almost crimson. “He’s the reason I’m in this fucking mess.”
“What mess? Nearly getting a DUI? I feel like that’s on you.”
“No.” Soobin raked a hand through his hair, washed out of its usual coiff and dripping water onto his collar. “This,” he flung a hand out to gesture at the expanse of their first floor, all cold marble and steel and sharp-edged teakwood. “This fucking house, this fucking marriage. God, you know, sometimes I wish I’d never met you.”
Yeonjun’s mouth was dry. He swallowed past the lump clogging his throat, his insides writhing like a pit of vipers. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” Soobin barked out a laugh, but it wasn’t funny. None of it was, and he was starting to scare Yeonjun a little. “You can’t even ask me why.”
“I’m sure you have your reasons,” Yeonjun said quietly.
Soobin’s breathing sharpened into a rasping, noisy thing. “Reasons,” he repeated, holding the word between his teeth like it was a slur. A challenge glinted in his dark eyes. “What about you, hm? Do you wish you’d never met me?”
“I don’t,” Yeonjun floundered for a moment, not quite sure what the correct answer here was. “I don’t know. No.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Soobin moved faster than Yeonjun could blink, seizing him by the wrist in a grip so tight, Yeonjun could almost hear his bones grind together. He gasped, more in shock than anything else, trying to yank himself free. “Stop with the fucking lies!”
“Soobin, let me go—”
“Look at me,” he shook Yeonjun, dragging him forward bodily. Yeonjun stared at his husband, at the wild light he didn’t recognize in Soobin’s eyes, and only felt disgust at himself. This could’ve just been the alcohol talking, but he knew this was really just the consequence of all the pushing and pushing and pushing he’d done. No one could be pushed around forever. “Kiss me.”
Yeonjun gaped. He’d been expecting a slap across the face, not… whatever that was. “What?”
“Kiss me,” Soobin demanded. “Do you know the last time you kissed me was on our fucking wedding day? Almost four years ago.”
“That—that can’t be true,” Yeonjun said, wracking his brain. It couldn’t be, could it? He’d known from the very beginning, that if he wanted to keep himself from losing everything, he’d have to give Soobin something. There was no way he’d dropped the ball that bad.
“You didn’t initiate anything on our honeymoon,” Soobin reminded him, expression twisting with rage, or hurt, or both. Yeonjun tried not to flinch, biting on the inside of his cheek until the taste of iron burst hot and bitter over his tongue. “And since then, every time I’ve tried you’ve begged off because you’re too tired, or we have an early meeting, or you’re not in the mood.”
Yeonjun frowned, taken out of his guilt for a split second, not liking where this conversation was headed. “Okay, hang on, I don’t owe you sex just because we’re married—”
“You can’t even touch me!” Soobin shouted, his voice echoing through their half-empty house. His chest heaved with uneven breaths. “You can barely look at me on most days! You know what you owe me, Yeonjun? Some fucking dignity, for once.” He gripped Yeonjun tighter, and Yeonjun yelped, panic flaring up harder than the pain.
“Let go of me, Soobin, I’m serious. You’re hurting me.”
“Do you really hate me that much?” Soobin continued, like Yeonjun hadn’t said a thing. “What did I ever do to you, huh? ‘Cause if I’ve offended you, or—or fucked something up, just tell me. I’m tired of paying for it.”
Yeonjun shook his head, fervent. “No, you haven’t done anything—”
“You’re still lying,” Soobin snarled. In one great shove, he had Yeonjun fetched up against the nearest wall, wrist still pinned between their bodies. Dread coiled sharp and insistent in Yeonjun’s chest, and he struggled against Soobin’s vice-like hold. Soobin loomed closer, a boozy miasma permeating the claustrophobic space. “What’s it gonna take with you? Am I going to have to tie you down, tie you here? Don’t make me do something we both—”
Fear lit a flame under Yeonjun’s feet. “Soobin, stop!” he yelled, slamming the heel of his unpinned hand against Soobin’s collarbone. His husband staggered back, blinking; Yeonjun took the moment of surprise to wrench his sore wrist free, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his teeth. “What the hell has gotten into you, you fucking drunk? What the fuck were you going to try? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“I…” Soobin stared at him, eyes wide. “I didn’t… fuck.” He nearly tripped in his haste to put some distance between him and Yeonjun, cringing as he plastered himself against the opposite wall. “I’m sorry, Yeonjun. Shit, I wasn’t going to—”
“Get your ass in the shower and sober up,” Yeonjun snapped. Cradling his wrist close to his body made him feel small, and weak, and he hated it, he hated every fucking second of it. He wasn’t going to let anyone make him feel that way. Even if he deserved it, even if this was karma or penance for his sins. “Don’t fucking touch me again.”
A sudden bolt of lightning lit up the dark sky, illuminating the ghostly pallor of Soobin’s face. “Yeonjun, I swear I would never—”
“Sure.” Yeonjun folded his arms, turning his head to stare at the rainwater streaking down their bay windows like a hundred running rivers. He didn’t want to listen, or argue, or look at Soobin.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, or insinuate… I didn’t mean it. I swear.”
“Fine, whatever, it’s fine,” Yeonjun blew out a breath. “I’m serious about that shower. Go, or you’ll catch a chill.”
“What about you? You’re soaked too.”
Yeonjun had a split second to weigh his options; it ended up not being much of a choice at all. “I’m getting a hotel room for the night.” He heaved himself off the wall, moving to collect his things, making sure to grab his house keys this time.
“What? Wait, you don’t have to,” Soobin sprang forward, reaching for Yeonjun again, but seemed to remember himself at the last minute. He paused mid-motion, hand hovering in the air awkwardly for a moment before he dropped it back to his side. He stared at Yeonjun with beseeching eyes. “I know—I know you don’t want me to touch you. I’ll sleep on the couch, or in one of the guest rooms. Just don’t go back out there.”
Yeonjun was shaking his head before he even finished. Usually, he’d feel a lot more guilty, but there was nothing in his chest right now but the slowing beat of his heart, coming down from the brief burst of adrenaline. He felt nothing but a hollowing, and a longing for the safety of Beomgyu’s embrace; but then again, that was old. It was older than this anxiety, than this marriage, almost older than this skin. “I can’t be here tonight. Just go to sleep, Soobin. I’ll see you in the morning for the KPI meeting.”
“No. I know where you’re going,” Soobin said. Yeonjun froze. When he turned, Soobin was a little green in the face, looking like the words had been dragged out of him with tenterhooks. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a single convulsive motion. “Don’t leave. Not like this.”
Yeonjun had nothing to say. He was too tired. Robotically, he pushed past Soobin and ducked into their kitchen, wordlessly retrieving a bottle of Advil and pouring out a glass of water. It took a little rifling around, but he got it done. The hesitant click of Soobin’s shoes against the marble floor let him know his husband had followed him, also mired in complete silence. Yeonjun set his small haul down on the counter in front of Soobin, meeting his wary gaze head-on. “Take this before bed. See you tomorrow.”
Soobin didn’t acknowledge the water and pills. “This is a marriage, Yeonjun. Not a game, not just some affair. No matter how we got here, it’s still an actual marriage, it’s more than whatever—”
Yeonjun whirled around to leave, the gloom hiding the burning of his eyes. His voice came out flatter than he thought himself capable of, “He is not just some affair.”
Stiffening his spine, he walked back out into the rain, ignoring Soobin calling his name as the front door swung shut.
✵✵
Beomgyu was waiting when Yeonjun rolled up in front of his duplex, his body wedged in the doorway. The light spilling through the gap he occupied cast an amber glow on his face, illuminating the concern knitting his brow and the way he was chewing his lower lip. Yeonjun’s heart half-hammered in anticipation, half-settled at the sight of the other man. He parked haphazardly and nearly fell out of the car in his haste to get out, barely remembering to kill the engine. He tripped up the front steps and hurled himself into Beomgyu’s open arms.
“Hey,” Beomgyu murmured. He was perfectly dry, but he pulled Yeonjun into him tighter, uncaring of how he was dripping all over the two of them. “You’re shaking. Are you okay?” Yeonjun buried his face in the crook of Beomgyu’s neck in lieu of a verbal response, inhaling the smell of freshly laundered cotton and citrus tea, the memory of warm sun and belonging and serendipity. “Jun,” Beomgyu smoothed a hand down Yeonjun’s spine, “did something happen? You barely said anything in your text, and I just—you had me scared for a minute. Is everything okay?”
Yeonjun drew back far enough to prop his chin on Beomgyu’s shoulder, staring into the apartment he could navigate blind and insensate — eyes traveling over the terracotta coloured walls, the oak shelves with their combined collection of vinyls, the easel set up in Beomgyu’s painting corner that was as far away from the dining area as possible at Yeonjun’s insistence. The talavera tiles in the kitchen, the Tiffany stained glass lamps they’d combed eBay for all lit up because they hated the bright white of overhead lights. The money plant dumped between two towering stacks of neglected mail and magazines, that refused to die no matter how long Beomgyu went without watering it; it’d probably outlive them both. This was home. Anywhere Beomgyu was could only be home.
“Yeonjun? Sweetheart?” Beomgyu prompted again, sounding even more worried than he had before. Yeonjun closed his eyes, tilting his head to press his mouth to Beomgyu’s jackrabbiting pulse, letting Beomgyu hold him close. He’d meant what he’d said to Soobin; this could never just be an affair to him. Perhaps in the estimation of God and everyone else, Soobin was everything between his groom and his grave, the sinking of a vessel and the sentencing of a gavel. But Beomgyu was Beomgyu — first, and final, and forever. This was what was real to Yeonjun.
“Everything’s fine now,” he said. “I’m right where I’m meant to be.”