Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

February

The worst day of Jungwon’s life begins with a note. A simple thing, really. Something you’d normally underestimate, something you’d never assume would have that kind of power.

But its simplicity is what makes it so powerful, because Jungwon had certainly been underestimating it, and that’s probably why its contents caught him so off guard to begin with. Tucked under two slices of toast like it was trying to go unnoticed, sharpie bleeding through and making the attempt to fold it to hide its message pointless, Jungwon could easily see that it had something to say.

He’d thought it would have something to say to Jake, his older brother’s boyfriend – or whatever he is to him – whom Jungwon had bombarded with breakfast plans that morning, in what was an attempt at friendship disguised as a half-hearted interrogation. Jungwon has always been a little too nosy for his own good. He thought, when he grabbed the note, ignoring Jake’s protests, that the worst to come of it would be some scolding from Heeseung later about invading people’s privacy. Nothing he hadn’t heard before, and nothing he hadn’t ignored before.

And then Jungwon unfolds the slip of paper, and his eyes scan over its contents, and he’s instantly regretful of everything he’d ever done in his life. He’s pretty sure his heart actually stops for a brief moment, and not in a cute, romantic way, but a medically concerning way.

Who is the beautiful angel with you and can I have his number I’m being so deadly serious right now

The note – that had travelled to them on Jake’s plate, but is referring to someone with Jake, not Jake himself – is about Jungwon. That much is clear to him. What he doesn’t know is who sent it, because Jake is trying to tell him, but his ears have suddenly started ringing. The cook, he sees Jake mouth, and then he’s slapping the note back onto the table like he’s squashing a bug, sliding it over so Jake can read it and confirm that it said what he thinks it does.

He’s blushing. He’s not sure he’s ever blushed in his life. Jungwon – by nature, but also by strict rule – doesn’t do that.

“Oh my god.” Jungwon presses his hands into his eyes as Jake gasps, not wanting to see the look on his face, entirely sure that he was about to reveal that this was all some elaborate prank. “You have an admirer.”

And that’s something else Jungwon doesn’t do. He doesn’t admire, and he doesn’t get admired. He fades into the background with every chance he gets, always making himself at home on the backburner. It’s the safest place to be, even if it one day ignites and burns him up, because at least on the backburner no one else will be there to watch as it happens.

“Shut up,” Jungwon says quickly, even though it’s a bit rude, because if he doesn’t, Jake might keep talking and say something even more embarrassing. And then he must lose control of his motor functions, because what he says next couldn't possibly be what he meant to say. “Please tell me he’s cute. This has never happened to me before and I don’t know what to do unless he’s cute.”

All of it was technically true, but none of it was what Jungwon wanted to say.

He wanted to threaten Jake into silence, to insist that he forget this ever happened and burn the note in the closest flame, except the closest flame was likely in the kitchen, and that’s where the note came from so he can’t go there, and oh god what if he is cute –

“Well, what would you do if I said he is?” Jake asks.

Jungwon would run out of the diner and all the way back to his brother’s apartment. He would get in his car and drive back to his university, except his car is still at the mechanic, because Jungwon is having a whole bunch of bad luck lately, so he’d have to take Heeseung’s deathtrap car and pray it made it there.

Jungwon would –

“I mean,” he starts, even though he hasn’t yet figured out where his sentence was going to go. “I think I’d go give him my number.”

Betrayal. From his own brain. Can’t trust anyone, these days.

“I’m not going to deny someone who thinks I’m a beautiful angel,” Jungwon continues, digging his grave a little deeper, because Jake had raised his eyebrows in interest and he’d felt the need to defend his temporary lapse in sanity.

Maybe – maybe it wouldn’t kill him to give one weird, toast-note-giving guy his number. Maybe he could even get one good night out of it, the likes of which he hasn’t had in a while, a long while, longer than Jungwon cares to admit. He’d had some mediocre nights, nights where he’d tagged along with his friends to frat parties and gone upstairs with some jock and left entirely unsatisfied and a little disgusted with himself, but he hadn’t had a good night – well, probably ever, actually.

And isn’t that a little sad? It wouldn’t hurt to change that. Jungwon has endless amounts of self control, after all. He could have one night of indulgence, and easily go back to business as usual the next day.

Maybe Jake will say this guy is hideously ugly, anyways. Maybe he won’t even have to worry about it.

“He’s cute,” Jake finally says, and Jungwon resists the urge to put his fist through the wood of the table. “He’s a bit weird.”

“Weird as in serial killer?” Jungwon asks, trying not to sound too hopeful at the potential for a reason to stay away, because then Jake would definitely think he’s insane.

“Definitely not.”

Well, fuck. The little demon that lives inside of his brain won’t be deterred by just the normal amount of weird. He’s going to do this. There’s no use fighting against it. “Okay,” he sighs. “I can work with most other types of weird.”

The smile on Jake’s face grows, and Jungwon swears it’s sinister in nature, but he’s probably just having some sort of stress-related hallucination. Jake is nice. Jake wouldn’t steer him wrong. He may not be able to trust his own brain right now, but he can probably trust Jake.

“I guess we’ll have to stop in and give our compliments to the chef on our way out, then?”

Jungwon’s palms are sweating. He’s having some sort of extreme fight or flight reaction, one that’s getting so muddled in his brain that he might just end up choosing the secret third option, which is drop dead, right now, stop your heart again, it’s the only way. It very much is not the only way. Jungwon could make the choice to be normal about this. He won’t, but he could.

“If you tell Heeseung about this I will end you,” he says all in one breath, hoping Jake has an open mind about being threatened by someone he’d met for the first time only a day ago.

Jake just keeps smiling at him in a way that was so kind, Jungwon’s instantly wracked with guilt over his tendency to jump right to a place of murder. “I won’t, I won’t,” he assures him. “I wouldn’t even know how to explain this to him if I wanted to.”

And then Jungwon is scarfing down the rest of his breakfast, and to the untrained eye, someone might think that he’s excited, but in reality it’s an instinct he’s much more familiar with: the instinct to just get it over with, to just get through and move on.

Jake even pays. He’s nice. Jungwon likes him.

And then he’s asking his coworker if someone named Jay is the only one in the kitchen – Jay, what kind of a name is that, it had far too few letters to be taken seriously – and sending him in there with a shove and a thumbs up and a grin that looks menacing in nature to Jungwon, and he decides that, actually, he hates him very much.

His palms are so sweaty that his hand slips off of the door handle the first time he tries to grab it, but he recovers with some level of grace, pulling it open and stepping into the kitchen, wincing at the sound of it clattering shut behind him.

The presumed note guy – Jay – is standing over a grill with a spatula in hand, and he doesn’t look up when Jungwon walks in, which gives him several long moments to scan his side profile.

Oh fuck. Code fucking red.

He’s hot. He's all sharp lines, and tan skin, and –

“I already know I don’t want to hear what you have to say,” Jay snaps.

Jungwon blinks, his entire body flushing in embarrassment. “Oh,” is all he can manage to say, because this is probably the most humiliating moment of his life, and that secret third option from earlier is starting to sound really tempting.

Jay looks up. And – sound the alarms. He’s really hot.

“Oh shit,” he breathes, dropping the spatula onto the grill beneath him, quickly scrambling to pick it up, hissing in pain when one of his fingers makes contact with the hot surface. “Ow, fuck –”

“Are you okay?” Jungwon asks, stepping forward, watching as he brings his finger close to his chest and squeezes his hand around it, hiding the injury from Jungwon’s view.

“I thought you were Jake,” Jay says quickly. “I’m so sorry. Seriously. So sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jungwon assures him. “Are you okay, though?”

“I’m fine,” Jay says with a dismissive wave, moving away from the grill – there were still burger patties cooking on it, and Jungwon has the thought that he probably shouldn’t take his eyes off of them for too long – so he can lean against the prep table beside it, looking at Jungwon in poorly disguised curiosity and interest. “So how can I – what can I – how can I do you for?”

Jungwon just stares at him.

“Fuck, sorry,” Jay sighs. “What can I do for you?” He corrects.

“I just – I got your note.”

“He showed you?” Jay asks, visibly horrified, peering through the glass of the doors, likely trying to spot Jake so he can hunt him for sport.

“I saw it,” Jungwon clarifies.

“Oh,” Jay says. “Sorry. I don’t, uh – I don’t do that often, I promise.”

“I don’t do this often, so,” Jungwon shrugs. “Do you still want my number?”

Jay’s expression turns to one of pure shock, and he blinks a few times like he’s sure Jungwon will disappear once he does. Jungwon doesn’t disappear, although he kind of wishes he had, kind of wishes he could just poof himself out of existence. “Yeah. Yes. I do want your number, if you want to give it to me, uh –”

Jungwon holds out the note Jay had given him, turned to the side that was originally blank but now had Jungwon’s number on it, scribbled haphazardly with the first pen Jake could find in his bag.

Jay steps closer and takes it slowly like he’s dealing with a feral animal, and he uses the hand he’d just burnt, so Jungwon’s fingers brush against the reddened, blistering skin, but Jay doesn’t even wince. He looks like he’s in a bit of a daze, actually, like despite the fact that he’s confirmed that Jungwon isn’t an illusion, he’s still afraid to look away.

He’s cute, too. Jungwon realizes this fact in a totally neutral, disconnected way. Purely observational.

“Thanks,” Jay says after a moment. “I’ll, uh – I’ll text you tonight?”

Jungwon just nods, not trusting himself to speak after all the nonsense his brain-to-mouth functions had pulled on him earlier.

“Okay. Cool. Uh, nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Jungwon mutters, then quickly turns around, heading back out the doors he’d come in, hoping a sinkhole had suddenly opened in front of them so he wouldn’t have to face Jake again.

No such luck. Jake follows along behind him as he practically sprints out of the diner, and he pries for information with a grin that Jungwon really doesn’t like the implications of, and isn’t even slightly put off by the vitriol he’s met with from his end.

He likes Jake. That’s probably why he makes sure his tone is gentler when he says goodbye to him once they reach the apartment building that both Heeseung and Jake lived in – separate apartments, although with the rate they were going Jungwon was sure it wouldn’t be long before that changed – and it’s time to say goodbye to his new friend.

Jungwon, as a rule, doesn’t get his hopes up. He doesn’t expect people to come through for him. Only one person in his life ever truly had, and therefore Heeseung had become an exception to the rule, but not what made the rule. Everyone else – okay, maybe not Riki, his nephew, because he was only five and had never done anything wrong in his life – had failed to show up for him when it mattered most.

Even Heeseung, try as he might, couldn’t always be there for Jungwon. Case in point: he had a dance showcase this weekend. His last one ever before he graduates from the university he’d spent the last four years of his life at. He’d told Heeseung about it months in advance, but he hadn’t made it clear just how badly he wanted him to come, because he knew that he was Heeseung’s only babysitter, and that his older brother likely wouldn’t be able to make it.

It's not a big deal. Heeseung had done just about everything else for Jungwon, and he’d done it without complaint.

But it only reinforces what he already knew. People, in the end, will always let him down in one way or another.

It’s why he doesn’t get his hopes up that Jake will stick around, even though he’d insisted he would. It’s why he doesn’t get his hopes up about toast-note-guy – he can’t even remember his name now, that’s how much he isn’t hoping about him – because Jungwon knows better.

He probably won’t even text. All of Jungwon’s panic would likely be for nothing. He can, surely, return to his norm.

“Hey, kiddo,” Heeseung greets him when he walks into the apartment, laughing when Jungwon levels him with a glare. He’s twenty two years old, but Heeseung has been calling him kiddo since he adopted him, when he was nineteen and Jungwon was eleven, over a decade ago now, and he refuses to stop. “How was breakfast?”

“If that’s your way of asking me to tell you everything Jake said, you’re going to regret asking,” Jungwon says coolly. “Because he told me that he thinks you’re a total loser and that he never wants to see you again.”

“That was my way of asking how breakfast was, but thank you for that,” Heeseung says with a snort, and then a few long seconds pass before he sheepishly adds, “Did he say anything about me, though?”

“Pathetic,” Jungwon mumbles, walking past him to go find Riki, who was much less likely to interrogate him and much more likely to force him to pretend to be a supervillain so that he could live out his Spider-Man dreams. Jungwon would take the latter in a heartbeat.

And then – after Jungwon’s been caught in a cocoon of Riki’s sheets, meant to be his webs that he’d shot at him with ease – he gets a text from an unknown number. He only sees it because his phone had fallen out of his pocket as Riki tackled him to the ground, and it’s sitting a few feet away, very much out of reach for someone whose hands are tied to his sides with a fitted sheet.

“Riks, can you hand me my phone?” Jungwon asks, managing to free one of his hands through a gap the boy had carelessly left.

“Villains don’t get to have a phone,” Riki says matter-of-factly.

“Villains have all kinds of technology.”

“Yeah, but not in jail.”

“You wouldn’t send your one and only uncle to jail without letting him check his phone first, would you?”

Riki considers this for a little too long before giving in, picking up Jungwon’s phone and handing it to him before settling down in his sheet covered lap to the best of his ability. “Who is it?” He asks, and Jungwon feels a bit of pride at his nosy tendencies, surely inherited from himself, until he remembers the little shit can kind of read now and that he’s straining his neck to look at his screen as it lights up.

“Nunya,” Jungwon asks, knowing Riki would be easily distracted by the opportunity for a pun.

“Nunya who!” Riki yells, getting out of Jungwon’s lap, jumping up and down until Jungwon sagely declares that it was, in fact, nunya business, which has him nearly collapsing to the floor with giggles.

Once there were no little eyes trying to get a peek at the message, Jungwon opens it. He watches as the word read appears under the message, knowing it has sealed his fate.

Unknown

Hey, this is Jay from the diner. I was just wondering if you’re free sometime this week for dinner?

Jungwon stares at the message for a little too long, and then he spends a little more time trying to free his other hand in order to respond, eventually having to bribe Riki with a cookie before bed in order to get his help. First, he saves Jay’s number, then he types out a response.

Jungwon

hey, sorry but i’m actually just in town visiting my brother for the weekend, i have class on monday :/

Jay (toast note guy)

All good!

Wait, class? How old are you?

Jungwon

lol

i’m 22

Jay (toast note guy)

Oh ok lol

Just making sure

I’m 24

Do you come to town every weekend?

Jungwon

usually yeah

i won’t be here next weekend tho

Jay (toast note guy)

Wow, you’re a good brother lol

That sucks, it would have been nice to get to know you 🙂

Actually

I never even caught your name

Jungwon

jungwon yang

Jay (toast note guy)

Nice to meet you Jungwon

I’m Jay Park

Jungwon wrinkles his nose. He thought it couldn’t get worse than just Jay.

Jungwon

do people ever ask if you’re the singer

Jay (toast note guy)

All the time lol

I can be Jongseong if that’s what you prefer

Jungwon

no you’re good

it would annoy me if i were you

Jay (toast note guy)

Someone famous having your name? Sure, but there’s not much I can do about it lol

I don’t know any other Jungwons, lucky you

Jungwon

my full name means sheep garden

Jay (toast note guy)

Ah that’s right, it does

Cute, it suits you

Can I ask you something?

Jungwon

sure

Jay (toast note guy)

If I said I would love to see you again today before you leave, would that be totally crazy?

Jungwon, truthfully, finds himself considering it. He finds himself wondering what the harm could be in meeting with him for dinner before he has to drive back, and then he promptly reaches up and punches himself in the head, because he needs to snap out of it.

Jay (toast note guy)

I’m sorry if I’m coming on too strong

Jungwon

it’s fine

i’m just not sure i’m up for it, it’s been a long day

It wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the morning. It had not been a long day.

Jay (toast note guy)

Totally understandable

Jungwon

we can keep texting tho

if you want to

Jay (toast note guy)

I’d love that 🙂

Jungwon doesn’t know why he says it. Perhaps he was having some sort of lapse in judgment, some sort of temporary, head trauma induced insanity. Perhaps he just wants to keep talking to Jay.

No, that can’t be it.

But then he does, he keeps texting him, and he doesn’t stop, not long enough to look up from his phone and answer Heeseung when he asks what he wants for dinner, not long enough to entertain Riki’s request to give him a piggyback ride around the apartment, barely long enough for Heeseung to bring him to the mechanic’s to pick up his car. He spends his whole afternoon talking to Jay about nothing, and he doesn’t even realize he’s done it until he’s leaving his fugue state, which is only accomplished by Heeseung physically removing his phone from his hands and holding it just out of his reach where he was slumped into the couch cushions.

Jungwon lets out an inhumane screech, swatting at Heeseung in hopes that he would realize he was no match for him when he was in a rage induced frenzy, to no avail.

“I asked if you were going to head out soon,” Heeseung says, and Jungwon glances over at the nearest window, surprised to find that the sun had seemingly gone down already.

“Yeah,” Jungwon sighs. “I’ll probably go now.”

“Are you sure? It’s dark, if you’d rather me just set up the couch for you, you could drive back in the morning,” Heeseung suggests, concern etched into his features.

“You worry too much,” Jungwon tells him. “I’m a good driver.”

Heeseung opens his mouth, but Jungwon silences him with a glare, knowing he was surely about to bring up the time he scratched his car when he first got his license – Jungwon denies his involvement to this day, insisting that Heeseung must have done it and not realized, but they both knew that wasn’t the truth.

Heeseung lets him go, reluctantly, offering Jungwon multiple things that were entirely unnecessary, like snacks for the road and a hug from his big brother. Jungwon does accept a hug from Riki, however, because he may have a bit of a soft spot for him. Maybe.

And then he’s sitting in his car, and he’s got the key in the ignition, and he’s telling his hands to turn it, but once again, his motor functions are failing on him.

He should leave. He should go back to his apartment, he should answer his roommate’s questions about how his weekend was as vaguely as possible, and then he should move on. Forget about Jay, delete his number, return to the norm.

He pulls out his phone. He presses call on Jay’s contact.

“Hello?” Jay answers, like he’d been waiting with his phone in hand, which made sense, because their conversation had ended quite abruptly, thanks to Heeseung.

“Hey,” Jungwon huffs – and why is he out of breath? This is fine. Nothing to panic about. No bad decisions being made here at all. “Where do you live?”

“I – what?” Jay sounds confused, and Jungwon can’t blame him for that, either.

“I am busy this week, and next weekend, but it looks like I’m free tonight after all,” Jungwon tells him. “Where do you live?”

Jay gives him his address. He doesn’t even hesitate, like it spills out of him, like Jungwon had him under some kind of spell.

“Okay,” Jungwon says, pulling his phone away from his ear to put the address in and get directions. It wasn’t far, only a few blocks away. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Jungwon, uh –” Jay starts, still sounding confused, a bit dazed.

“I’m not looking for anything serious,” Jungwon says. “But… I don’t know. Don’t think too hard about it. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Jay says quickly. “That’s fine.”

Jungwon hangs up then, his once reluctant fingers suddenly itching to turn the key, and then he’s pulling out of the parking lot, driving in the direction of Jay’s place, not even letting his brain attempt an opinion on the matter, now. It no longer gets a vote, not until it starts cooperating with him more consistently.

Until that day comes – and ideally that day will be tomorrow, when he’ll wake up perfectly sane again – Jungwon will allow himself one stupid decision. As a treat.

And it really is a stupid decision, because he’d forgotten that today was the worst day of his life, and on a day like that, only stupid decisions will be made.

But Jungwon doesn’t realize just how stupid it was until Jay has already buzzed him in, and Jungwon has already knocked on his door, and Jay is already standing in the doorway in a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants, leaning against it with his arms crossed like he was trying his hardest to look casual and relaxed, but in reality is probably just showing off his arms. It’s working on Jungwon. Shit. It shouldn’t be working on Jungwon.

“Hey,” Jay says, breathing heavily like he’d been running laps around his – very fancy, what the actual fuck – apartment before Jungwon had arrived. “Sorry, I was going to change, but – you must have been close by.”

“Yeah,” Jungwon nods. “My brother lives in the same apartment building as Jake.”

“Ah,” Jay hums. “I don’t know where Jake lives, but – I assume it’s close.”

“I thought you guys were friends,” Jungwon says with a tilt of his head.

Jay shrugs noncommittally. “He certainly exists near me from time to time.”

“Hm,” Jungwon hums, feigning disinterest in the topic in favour of getting this next part over with. “Are you going to let me in?”

Jay startles like Jungwon had shouted, even though his voice was barely above a whisper, and he moves out of the doorway in an instant. Jungwon steps inside, looking around at the impressively large apartment with giant windows putting the city skyline on display as he shrugs his coat off.

This is probably the part where, if Jungwon was smart, he would kiss Jay. He would kiss him and make it clear that he was here for one thing and one thing only, and Jay, hopefully, would give it to him, and he would have his first actually good night. Jay seems like the type of guy to be able to give him one, and that’s exactly why he’s here.

But he feels a little bit frozen, the same fight or flight response from earlier kicking in, and this time the secret third option sounds a lot like get to know him. That one must be coming straight from the demon in his brain.

“Nice place,” Jungwon says after a while, handing Jay his coat when he holds out a hand in offering, taking a few steps into the apartment to look around even more thoroughly. He’s nosy, sue him. “Really nice. I thought you worked at a diner. Like – wait, are you a drug dealer or something?”

Jay stammers for a moment, eyes wide with shock, and Jungwon can’t help but laugh at him.

“Kidding,” Jungwon says. “But now I kind of think you are, based on that reaction.”

“Ha,” Jay breathes. “I’m not a drug dealer. And I do work at the diner. But I don’t technically have to work.”

Jungwon looks at him in passive interest. “Trust fund?”

“Trust fund,” Jay confirms sheepishly.

“What do your parents do?” Jungwon asks, walking over to a framed photo hung on the wall of Jay with, presumably, his parents. He looked a lot like both of them, like they’d somehow managed to perfectly split their DNA to create him. He envies him for that, a little. Jungwon looks just like his dad, while Heeseung looks like his dad, which meant everyone had always been able to instantly perceive them as half siblings, if they even ventured to guess that they were siblings in the first place. He’d always hated it, when he was a kid. He still kind of hates it now, when he looks in the mirror when it’s too late at night for his brain to do what it’s supposed to and ignore those kinds of thoughts.

“I’ve never really been sure, to be honest,” Jay says, and Jungwon only realizes it’s a joke when he laughs a bit, so he gives him a small smile. “My dad’s CEO of a travel company, owns a few hotels, invests in something or other. I never cared enough to learn.”

“He doesn’t want you to like, inherit the family business or whatever?” Jungwon asks.

“Sure, he does,” Jay says easily. “I like cooking, though.”

“Was he pissed?”

“Oh yeah. The day I got into culinary school, I thought we’d probably never speak again. He’s come around, kind of. Mostly.”

“So,” Jungwon starts, his nosy streak still going strong. “If you have a whole culinary degree, and like, nepotism on your side, what are you doing working at the diner? No offense.”

“None taken,” Jay says, actually not seeming offended in the slightest. “I like the diner. It’s… quaint. And I’ve been working there since I was a teenager, and they took me back after I left to go to school. Since I don’t really need the money, I figured I should just work somewhere I actually like being.”

“Must be nice to only have to do things you like,” Jungwon says, and he’s being genuine, but he’s sure that he’s coming off a little rude. “Sorry. No offense, again.”

“None taken, again,” Jay says. “I don’t know. There are things about life that I don’t enjoy, of course, but – I try to balance it out with things I do like. I like the diner, so it makes sense to stay. I like you, so I talked to you.”

Jungwon looks at him, and Jay is looking right back, and once again, he finds himself staring right at an opportunity to kiss him. He knows he shouldn’t waste it. This is what he came here for, after all.

He turns around to face him fully, steps closer, his fingers brushing against Jay’s arm, their noses bumping against each other gently. Jungwon waits for Jay to make the move, but he never does. He leaves it up to Jungwon. And Jungwon has his brain turned off for the night, so he takes his opportunity.

He surges forward, connecting their lips in a way that was admittedly a little painful, but it doesn’t stay painful for long, Jay’s hands coming up to his cheeks so he could guide him, moving their mouths together in a way that made him feel like their lips were meant to meet like this, in some weird cosmic way that his roommate, Wonyoung, would likely believe was written in the stars. Hm. That’s not good.

Jay kisses exactly how Jungwon expected he would. He’s cautious, and gentle, and skilled, so skilled in a way that he’s never experienced before, so skilled that he feels his knees go a little weak.

Jungwon had never kissed anyone until he was nineteen. He was a late bloomer, he supposes. Not because he wasn’t interested – although that was part of it – but because he simply didn’t have the time. It was hard to think about dating and crushes when you were fighting just to keep your head above water, and for most of Jungwon’s childhood, he was being pulled under by the current.

And then college, and then parties, and one very unsatisfying, sloppy makeout session with a guy in a letterman jacket later, Jungwon had technically been kissed, although it hadn’t turned out to be anything like he thought it would be. He thought, at the time, that he probably just didn’t enjoy it. He assumed it was just another broken thing about him, another squeaky wheel that never got fixed.

Jungwon has definitely never been kissed like this. If he had, he likely would have come to a different conclusion about his opinion on kissing. If he had, he likely wouldn’t be standing here right now, because he would have already had his fill, wouldn’t have had to seek it out in a guy who slipped him a note under a piece of toast.

But his first kiss had been bad, and his second and third were more of the same, and thank god they were, because they led him here, in the end.

And now Jungwon is getting the life kissed out of him, and he wants more, wants to find out what else Jay was skilled at, but also he kind of wants to know –

“Why did you give Jake a note?” Jungwon asks, pulling away from Jay, ignoring the string of spit that connects them and trying not to look at the flush of Jay’s cheeks, the way it travels down his neck, instead slipping into full interrogation mode.

“What?” Jay is breathing heavily, looking at Jungwon like he’s not even sure what planet they’re on right now, let alone sure of the answer to the question he was asking.

“Like, why not just text him or something?” Jungwon pushes, genuinely curious. “Is that like, your big move?”

“If it was,” Jay starts, seemingly catching up to what Jungwon was saying, “Wouldn’t I have put it on your plate?”

“How’d you even know which plate was mine?”

“Jake hates omelettes.”

“He said they were good.”

“He’s a known liar,” Jay says, and Jungwon can’t help but laugh even though it's not that funny, one of the hands that had come to rest on Jay’s shoulder moving to cover his mouth in an attempt to muffle the sound. “You have a cute smile.”

“Thank you,” Jungwon says. “You’re really –” he cuts off. “Your skin is nice. Very – tan. And smooth.”

“Thanks,” Jay says with an amused grin.

Why is Jungwon so flustered? This doesn’t happen to him. It shouldn’t be happening now.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Jungwon points out.

“I don’t know,” Jay responds after a few long seconds. “I usually don’t have my phone on me at work. Seemed like the best option at the time.”

“Oh,” Jungwon says, trying not to let his disappointment show.

Jay’s grin brightens. “Were you hoping I’d say I wanted to be more romantic?” He asks, and Jungwon feels his cheeks start to burn – and what the fuck is that? Is blushing just going to be a regular occurance for him now?

“No,” Jungwon says stubbornly. “I was hoping you’d say something less boring.”

“Well, I won’t lie to you. I was also kind of hoping it would come off as more romantic than a text,” Jay admits.

“Are you into that? Romance?” Jungwon asks, before he can think twice about why he wanted to know.

Jay shrugs, not even laughing at the absurdity of Jungwon’s question. “I like to treat people how they deserve to be treated.”

“That’s not really an answer,” he says stubbornly.

“Okay,” Jay laughs. “Well, for example, Jake’s an asshole to me, so I’m an asshole back. And you’re probably the closest thing to an angel that can walk among humans, so of course I’m going to want to be a little romantic with you.”

It’s corny. It’s so corny, Jungwon should hate it. Jungwon does hate it, he attempts to convince himself, failing miserably.

“Jake is nice,” Jungwon says, pointedly ignoring the second example.

“Yeah, I know,” Jay agrees. “I’m kidding. He’s just easy to be mean to.”

“I can see that being true,” Jungwon says, and they fall into a long stretch of silence.

Jungwon, for the first time since they broke apart, remembers that they had been kissing, that it had been good, and that he’d like to continue. They were still holding each other, hands still pressed to cheeks, fists still balled up in shirts, so it’s all too easy to crash back into each other, and they do, because Jay must have remembered too, meeting Jungwon halfway and picking up where they left off.

This time, it’s nothing close to cautious. Jungwon half expects this to be where it all goes out the window, where Jay’s skill goes away and this turns uncomfortable for all parties involved, but that’s not what happens. What happens instead is this: Jay swipes his tongue along Jungwon’s bottom lip, and he grants him access, waiting for the slobber to make him feel a little nauseous, but Jay maps his mouth with his tongue with a precision Jungwon didn’t know was possible and instead all he feels is heat stirring in his gut.

He must make a sound, he’s sure he does, because Jay’s teeth scrape across Jungwon’s bottom lip and Jungwon loses all control of his voice now, that’s new, and then Jay is pulling away and looking at him like he’s waiting for Jungwon to say something, like there was a script to follow.

Jungwon doesn’t have a copy of it. He has no clue what he’s supposed to say.

“What?” He asks, fighting the urge to ask if there was something in his teeth, if his breath was bad. And then it clicks, and his cheeks are burning once again. “Oh. We’re supposed to go to your room, aren’t we?”

“We don’t have to,” Jay says easily.

“But we’re supposed to,” Jungwon insists.

“There’s no rule book,” Jay tells him gently.

Jungwon hates that answer. He needs a rule book. He thrives on rules, and if Jay was telling him now that this encounter didn’t have any, well – that just wouldn’t do.

“I want to go to your room,” he says firmly.

Jay just swallows, and nods, and then he’s leading Jungwon down the hall, opening the door to a bedroom that looked much less polished than the rest of the apartment, like someone actually lived here, like Jay allowed himself only this space to exist in.

And Jungwon has every intention of picking back up where they left off – really, he does – but a bookshelf catches his eye, and he breaks away from Jay in favour of wandering towards it. He always thought it was a good way to get to know someone, looking at their bookshelf, and after all, getting to know him was the option the demon in his brain had chosen. Looks like it was once again behind the steering wheel.

Jay doesn’t seem bothered by his sudden lack of interest in kissing him, sitting down on the edge of his unmade bed, watching as Jungwon pulls out various books and reads the back of them.

“They’re all self help books,” Jungwon says quietly. That, in his opinion, could be a very big red flag, but on Jay, it didn’t even come close to reaching the hue. For some reason.

“Business ones, mostly,” Jay says. “From my dad. He gets me one every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter…” he trails off.

“I thought you said he’d come around on it.”

“I said he kind of has. Mostly,” Jay repeats. “I think it’s his idea of a joke, or something.”

“Not a very funny one,” Jungwon says before he can think twice about making judgments on someone else’s family.

“No,” Jay agrees. “It’s not.”

Jungwon doesn’t say anything for a while, looking for any book title that he recognized. “Do you read anything fun?” He asks.

“I don’t read in general,” Jay confesses.

That has Jungwon looking back at him, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed. “Everyone reads.”

“Not me,” Jay shrugs.

“Articles? Comics? The back of a shampoo bottle?”

“Well, sure,” Jay laughs. “I know how to read, to be clear. I just never got into books.”

Jungwon frowns. He turns back to face the bookshelf.

“Is that a dealbreaker?”

There’s no deal to break, he thinks, but doesn’t say, both because it’s a little mean, and a little silly to say at this point. This one night stand had turned into something Jungwon didn’t know what to make of. Something with arguably too much talking and too much clothing still on, but it makes sense that it’s turned out this way. He isn’t at the wheel, after all.

“I love books,” Jungwon says after a few moments. “My mom used to own a bookstore. My brother and I would spend all our time down there when we were kids.”

“Oh,” Jay says, and he almost sounds embarrassed. “Is that your major, then? English?

Jungwon shakes his head. “Business.”

“Huh,” Jay says after a long moment. “Not what I expected you to say.”

Jungwon winces. Jay takes the hint.

“So, do you have any book recommendations?”

Jungwon recognizes it for what it is: an attempt to change the subject, but also an attempt to establish a relationship outside of just tonight. Jungwon could give him a list, could even loan him a few books, and then Jay would have a good excuse to text, to tell Jungwon what he thinks, and Jungwon would have a good excuse to come over, to get them back.

He doesn’t take the bait. He just shrugs.

“What about your mom? What does she do now? You said she used to own a bookstore.”

Jungwon glances back at him. He hates this part. “She’s dead.”

He feels Jay staring at him for a few long moments, likely a bit stunned by his blunt answer. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jungwon says easily, even though it isn’t easy to talk about, not at all. For some reason, though, he feels like he can get the words out once he turns to face Jay again. “She was sick for a while. We knew it was coming.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven,” Jungwon answers. “My brother was nineteen. He adopted me.”

“What about your dad?” Jay asks, and then seems to regret it, wincing. “Sorry –”

“It’s fine,” Jungwon assures him. “Who knows what his deal is. I never even met him until he showed up to the court to defer all his parental rights to my brother.”

“I’m sorry,” Jay says. “That must have been – I can’t even imagine –”

“You don’t have to keep saying that,” Jungwon says. “That you're sorry, I mean.”

“Well,” Jay starts, then pauses. “I am sorry, though.”

Normally, sorry was his least favourite word to hear. He never really felt like people meant it when they said it, that they were only saying it because it was what was expected of them. But Jay had said it with a genuinity Jungwon wasn’t used to, but one that he probably should have expected from him. Jay seemed like he was never anything but genuine.

“Your brother sounds like a really good guy,” Jay adds when Jungwon still doesn’t say anything.

“He is,” Jungwon agrees. “He’s never complained once about being stuck raising me.”

“I’m sure he didn’t feel stuck with you,” Jay says.

Jungwon shrugs, not particularly wanting to talk about it anymore. “Do you want to, like – keep going?” He asks, hating how childish he sounds.

“If you want to,” Jay says simply. “I’m okay with just talking, though.”

Jungwon isn’t okay with that. If Jungwon wanted to talk, he’d go back to his brother’s apartment, even though he doesn’t really do it there, either. Jungwon’s not a talker, not in any way that matters, at least. He likes to talk about other people, maybe because he’s a bit nosy, but he definitely doesn’t like to talk about himself.

He likes kissing Jay, though. He likes it even better once they’re on Jay’s bed, with him hovering over Jungwon, their kisses getting more heated, finally heading towards where they should have already gotten by now.

And then Jungwon tilts his head, exposes his neck, lets Jay start kissing down the skin there, and something catches his eye.

“Is that a lava lamp?” Jungwon blurts out.

Jay lifts his head, then lifts off Jungwon completely, following his gaze. “Oh,” he says, eyes landing on the lamp, sitting on top of his dresser, with a thick layer of dust on it. “Yeah, it is. It was a gift from my roommate when I went to culinary school – uh, Matthew. I think he bought it as a joke, but I don’t know. I kind of like it.”

Jungwon gets up before he can stop himself, moving towards the dresser and picking up the lamp, wiping the dust off before pressing the on button. He feels Jay come up behind him, one of his hands settling on his waist, and Jungwon nearly jumps out of his skin at the contact.

“Sorry,” Jay says quickly, dropping his hand back to his side.

“It’s fine,” Jungwon breathes, reaching down, closing his fingers around Jay’s wrist, bringing the hand back up to his waist. He doesn’t know why he does it, but he finds that he likes the contact, likes to be touched just for the sake of being touched.

He watches the lava lamp start to heat up, watches as the wax – or whatever it is that’s in there – starts to disconnect from itself in bubbles, floating up to the top of the glass jar. He smiles.

“You’re kind of a dork,” Jungwon says eventually.

“Excuse me,” Jay says, sounding offended, but Jungwon can hear the smile in his voice.

“You have a lava lamp,” Jungwon reminds him.

“It’s cool!” Jay defends. “I told you, my roommate gave it to me.”

“Hm,” Jungwon hums. “He’s your ex?”

Jay goes quiet, and Jungwon looks back to find his expression morphed into one of surprise and confusion. “How…?”

“You said his name like you were worried it would make things awkward,” Jungwon says simply. “I’m good at reading people,” he adds, because he is. He’s had lots of time to observe them, because Jungwon keeps himself on the sidelines, on the backburner, where it’s safe.

“I don’t think it will make things awkward,” Jay says. “It was years ago. And it was really only a few hookups, anyways. Actually, one of the worst kisses of my life was with him,” he tells him, like he already knows Jungwon won’t be able to pass up the opportunity to get a juicy piece of information out of him. Jungwon’s demon brain takes the bait.

“Tell me more,” he says, watching as Jay moves to sit on the edge of the bed again, joining him a moment later.

“I’ll let you guess at the risk of grossing you out,” Jay tells him, smiling in a way that Jungwon finds a little bit endearing. Or, no, he doesn’t. He’s actually never been endeared in his life. “It was right after we made a bet to see who could eat the most pizza, and then he brought out this gigantic bottle of vodka, and we drank half of it…”

Jungwon wrinkles up his nose. “Got it. That is bad.”

“Mm,” Jay hums, his knee bumping against Jungwon’s as he shifts in an attempt to get more comfortable. “What about yours?”

“My…?”

“Your worst kiss.”

Jungwon doesn’t even have to think about it. “I’ve never had a good kiss,” he says, and then adds, in fear of being rude, “Until now.”

“You don’t have to say that,” Jay says, one of his hands moving to rest on Jungwon’s clothed knee. “You’ve only had bad kisses? How many kisses have you had?”

“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” Jungwon says, not to be overly flattering, but because he really wouldn’t. “I don’t exactly keep track, but – five?” He says, even though he knows it’s only three – well, four now.

“Oh. That’s – that’s okay,” Jay says after a moment. “This is totally rude to ask, but are you – have you –”

“I’m not a virgin,” Jungwon says. “If that’s what you were going to ask.”

“It was,” Jay confirms. “I just wanted to make sure.”

Jungwon laughs a bit, and he hates the way it comes out nervous, so he snaps his mouth shut. Words eventually find their way out anyway, though, which is concerning. “I’ve only slept with one person, though. And that was bad, too.”

“How so?” Jay asks, a mix between genuinely curious and a little bit sad.

“It hurt,” Jungwon says honestly. “A lot. And he didn’t use a condom even though I asked him to, and when I asked him a week later to get tested with me, he blocked my number. And then he proceeded to tell all his friends that I was easy.”

He’d only ever told Wonyoung that story, and he’d told Heeseung bits and pieces, and even then, they’d had to drag the story out of him. Now Jay, who he’d only met today, knows too. Jungwon feels fine about this.

Jay blinks, once, twice, and then his expression changes into something Jungwon hadn’t seen on him in their short time knowing each other. He’s angry. “What a fucking asshole.”

Jungwon just shrugs.

“You deserve so much better than that,” Jay says, and he says it with so much emotion behind it, so much genuine care, that Jungwon doesn’t really know what to do.

He kisses him.

It gets heated, and then it cools down when Jungwon accidentally bites Jay’s lip and they burst into laughter, and then it heats back up again, and then Jungwon is interrupting again to make fun of the posters lining Jay’s walls – they were all anime, another red flag, but Jay’s nose crinkles cutely while Jungwon is teasing him and it starts to look kind of green – and then they’re kissing again no less than twenty minutes later, after Jay has gone on a rant about how misunderstood the genre was as a whole.

They kiss, and they talk, and they talk and kiss, and before he even realizes how long they’d been at it, it’s well after midnight. Jungwon could drive home in the morning and make it in time for class, but he probably shouldn’t stay at this stranger’s apartment – if he could be called that, because Jungwon now knew all of his favourite tv shows and movies and his mother and father’s name and where he grew up and why he refuses to get on dating apps and his political alignment – but it’s looking more and more likely by the minute.

He’s about to say something, to make some lame excuse for why he had to leave, but then Jay kisses him again, and this time it’s slow, and languid, like Jay was also feeling the night catch up with him, like he was also nearing sleep. And then it’s all too easy to curl into him, to keep kissing him until it’s not really kissing at all, until he feels himself drifting to sleep with his head tucked into Jay’s chest, with Jay’s arms wrapped around him.

The last time anyone had held Jungwon as he fell asleep was over a decade ago, and it had been his brother, the night their mom died. He didn’t often let himself seek out that kind of comfort, because a long time ago, he’d decided that he would save it for when things were really bad.

But tonight, despite it following what should have been the worst day of his life – because this was never meant to happen to Jungwon, he was never supposed to meet someone like Jay – was a good night. It was a good night, and so Jungwon doesn’t need this, but he lets himself have it anyway. As a treat.

-ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ-

Jungwon leaves before Jay has even started to stir, before the sun has even started to rise.

He must be a deep sleeper, because he doesn’t wake up as Jungwon untangles their limbs, just stops snoring for half a second before resuming, turning over to face the wall.

It’s for the best. Jungwon’s never really been good at saying goodbye. He almost always opts for the Irish exit, and this time wasn’t an exception to the rule, in fact, this is when the rule is the most important to stick to.

He’d had a good night. But it was morning now, and Jungwon was back behind the steering wheel of his brain, and it was time to go.

So then he’s also back behind the steering wheel of his newly repaired car, driving back to his apartment, where Wonyoung would surely take one look at him and somehow know what he’d been up to, because she had an all-seeing eye and the ability to make Jungwon feel like he had to tell her all his secrets with just one look.

He has a two hour drive ahead of him. Plenty of time to mentally prepare for her inevitable psychic attacks.

But then he walks through the door of his apartment, and she’s already awake and fully dressed even though it’s not even seven o’clock, and she’s sipping a coffee and sitting in a chair in the corner of their living room like a parent waiting to catch their child sneaking in.

“Jesus, fuck,” Jungwon shouts when he notices her.

“Just me,” Wonyoung corrects. “I thought you were coming back last night?”

Cutting straight to the chase. That’s fine. Jungwon had prepared for this. He won’t fold. “I met up with a guy.” Shit.

Wonyoung looks interested, but not surprised. Jungwon is pretty sure she’s a witch. “A guy? What guy? Did you, you know…?”

“I don’t remember his name,” Jungwon lies, although it’d be reasonable for a name with such few letters to slip his mind. Happens all the time, he’s sure. “I don’t have to tell you that.”

Wonyoung stares at him.

“We just made out,” Jungwon admits. “And talked.”

“You talked?” Wonyoung asks, getting up from her chair, following Jungwon into the bathroom as he tries to escape.

“What if I was about to take a piss? You wanna be here for that?” Jungwon asks in an attempt to change the subject.

“What did you talk about?” Wonyoung pushes, undeterred.

Jungwon, luckily, was not about to take a piss. He was about to try to do something about the dark circles under his eyes and the hickeys on his neck. When did Jay leave those there?

“His name’s Jay?”

Jungwon blinks. Witch.

“You spoke out loud, Won. And I’m not a witch.”

“Oh,” Jungwon says. “We talked about, like, I don’t know. Stuff.”

“You don’t talk about stuff,” Wonyoung observes.

“I talk about stuff with you,” he counters.

“By force,” she says, and Jungwon appreciates that she’s willing to admit that she does, indeed, hold him at proverbial gunpoint most of the time.

They’d been friends since they were freshmen, and they’d lived together since they both moved out of their dorms in their second year, because the roommates they’d had at the time were truly just the absolute worst. Wonyoung was relatively quiet, and she was as focused on her studies as Jungwon was, and they were both in roughly a million extracurriculars before they burnt out on most of them. They got along well. It made sense.

But then they moved in together, and they got closer, and Jungwon thought that for the first time in his life, he might have someone to call his best friend that wasn’t his older brother or his five year old nephew.

And then came the horrors. Wonyoung is still his best friend, but that list of horrors is endless.

And the top of the list is this: she cares about Jungwon, and she doesn’t let him close himself off. This is unfortunate, because his favourite thing to do is close himself off.

“How did you even meet him? Are you back on the apps?” Wonyoung asks – a little too judgmentally for his taste – when he doesn’t say anything.

“No,” Jungwon says, a bit offended. “You know I’d never meet up with someone that way.”

“Yeah, I know, you treat it like your little troupe of personal court jesters,” Wonyoung says, and Jungwon would be more defensive if she wasn’t quoting him directly.

He barely even speaks to anyone on dating apps. He just likes to scroll through and judge their profiles. He’s only human, after all.

“He put a note on Jake’s plate,” Jungwon says. “That’s how we met.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to know who Jake is, or what that means.”

“Jake is the guy my brother is seeing. I told you about him.”

“Right,” Wonyoung hums. “So you were – getting food with him? And this guy… put a note on Jake’s plate? I’m not following.”

“Use your psychic powers and I’ll send you the memory from my brain.”

“That’s not something I’m capable of,” Wonyoung says, probably lying, but Jungwon will let it slide for now. “How about you just tell me in words?”

Jungwon groans. He hates words. “I went to get breakfast with Jake at the diner where he works, and the cook put a note on Jake’s plate asking for my number. It was weird.”

“That is cute,” Wonyoung gasps in excitement.

“I said weird.”

“And I said cute. He was cute, right? He sounds cute.”

Jungwon shrugs.

“That cute, huh? Are you going to see him again?”

“No.”

“What?” Wonyoung follows him to the kitchen, outrage seeping into her normally pleasant tone. “Was the sex that bad?” Her voice turns a bit pitying when she says this, and Jungwon feels discomfort crawl across his skin.

“I told you, we just made out. And it was, uh, fine. It was good,” Jungwon says noncommittally.

“I’ve never heard you call someone good at kissing,” Wonyoung points out, then pulls out her phone. “You should definitely see him again. What’s his Instagram?”

“I don’t know,” Jungwon shrugs, picking up an apple and taking a bite out of it. “His name’s Jay Park, but there’s like, a million of those –”

“Is this him?” Wonyoung asks casually, turning her phone so Jungwon can see.

“Witch,” he mutters, but leans in anyways, so he can see that she had, in fact, found his Instagram.

“He’s really hot,” she says. “If you don’t see him again, can I have his number?”

Jungwon knows it’s a joke, because she was less interested in dating – and in men in general – than he was, but he glares at her anyways.

“He was – nice,” Jungwon says after a while. “Too nice.”

“Ah,” Wonyoung nods, like she suddenly understood all of Jungwon’s hesitations, and – most likely, she did. “You don’t only have to hook up with assholes, you know. You can be around people who treat you half decently.”

“Yeah, but god forbid I get used to it,” Jungwon jokes, but Wonyoung doesn’t laugh.

“Maybe you should,” she says simply, and then walks away, and that’s the end of it.

He actually thinks he survived her psychic assault on him quite well, all things considered. At least he hadn’t told her he was definitely, absolutely going to see Jay again at some point – except, he’s not really sure when he decided that.

Somehow, this is Wonyoung’s fault. Witch.

Jungwon feels his phone buzz in his pocket halfway through his last class of the day, but he decides to ignore it until he’s emotionally ready, even though that will probably be never.

It could just be Wonyoung. Or Heeseung – that one was more likely, actually, because he’d forgotten to text him last night and he was probably halfway to thinking Jungwon was dead in a ditch by now.

And then he feels like he has to check it, because he shouldn’t worry Heeseung, because Heeseung already has a lot to worry about. As soon as class ends, he pulls out his phone and dares to look at his message notification.

It was Wonyoung, but Heeseung had messaged him the night before. He was being surprisingly chill, just requesting that Jungwon let him know he was okay. He’s been a lot more chill since he met Jake. It’s weird.

He tells Heeseung that yes, he’s fine, he’d just forgotten to charge his phone after he got home. It was a believable lie, because he’d done it before.

Wonyoung’s message is a lot less chill.

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

look at this (o･ω･o)

[image]

your man is wearing a 5,000 dollar watch

i thought u said he works at a diner

Jungwon

why the fuck are you FOLLOWING HIS INSTAGRAM

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

:3

Jungwon

i am going to put a curse on your bloodline

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

i thought i was the witch here

Jungwon

NOT YOU ADMITTING IT?

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

:3

anyways

he followed me back

Jungwon, for some inexplicable reason, feels like he’s just been hit by a train. Oh well. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced someone being interested in him until Wonyoung walked by, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Jungwon

wow. you beautiful enchantress. you strike again

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

and the jumping to conclusions award goes to…

he followed me and liked all the photos i’ve posted of you dummy (⌒‿⌒)

Jungwon frowns. Admittedly, that makes more sense. Jay had told him, somewhere between attempted makeout session #4 and #5, that he’s gay. Wonyoung may be the most beautiful woman Jungwon had ever seen, but she is still a woman, so it’s reasonable to assume that she isn’t Jay’s type.

And then the realization of what Wonyoung had said actually sets in with him, and he suddenly so very badly craves death.

Wonyoung has posted many, many photos of Jungwon on her Instagram, because she liked that people thought he was her boyfriend, and therefore it generally kept the creeps out of her DMs. Most of the photos she’d posted of him on her main feed were fine, and generally pretty flattering of him, all things considered.

It was her story highlight – the one titled won! won! cross! – that Jungwon was suddenly very concerned about. It was filled with what he thought of as the most embarrassing photos of him to ever exist, including but not limited to: the one she’d taken after he’d passed out studying and drooled all over his textbook to the point that the words were smudged and illegible, the one she’d taken where he’s got chocolate all over his face, and, worst of all – the one she’d taken after she’d ordered him a too-short maid outfit and cat ears online and handed them to him when Jungwon was a little too tipsy to remember why he shouldn’t put them on.

Jungwon

WONYOUNG

GOOD GOD

PLEASE TELL ME YOU DELETED YOUR STORIES OF ME BEFORE HE FOLLOWED YOU

Wonyo (friend) (roommate)

:3

He’s about to respond with a litany of curse words that likely have never been said in that specific order before, but then another notification appears at the top of his screen, and he goes into fight or flight again. This time, the secret third option sounds a lot like break your phone stomp on it until it’s dust, but can’t really afford a new one, so he refrains.

It’s Jay. Jungwon promptly shoves his phone back in his pocket. He doesn’t have time for this. He has debate club, and after that he has a rehearsal for his dance showcase, after which he has a student council meeting, and then once he’s done with that he has plans to go home and lay face down on the floor for several hours.

But his phone in his pocket feels like a weight he can’t shake throughout his busy evening, and he knows that this is ultimately a battle he’s going to lose. Curiosity has killed the cat before, and will continue to kill the cat until Jungwon throws his phone out of the window and goes off the grid. Actually, no. Don’t think about cats. They’re part of the problem right now.

He still allows himself his designated laying-on-floor time, but he uses it to be very brave about opening Jay’s message.

Jay (good kisser) (DO NOT ANSWER!)

Hey :)

How are you?

Jungwon

hey

i’m fine

Jay (good kisser) (DO NOT ANSWER!)

I’m sorry I didn’t wake up early enough to say goodbye

I’m assuming you made it back okay, though?

Jungwon

indeed i did

so uh

you didn’t happen to see any weird photos of me today did you

Rip the bandaid off. It’s better to find out now, so he can block Jay’s number as quickly as possible and shove the whole thing into the corner of his mind where he keeps all his most embarrassing moments.

Jay (good kisser) (DO NOT ANSWER!)

Haha no I don’t think so?

Jungwon breathes a sigh of relief, even though it’s premature, because Jay is still typing.

I did see some cute ones on your friend’s Instagram. But nothing I’d consider weird

You know, you actually really do look like a cat ;)

“Wonyoung Jang!” Jungwon shouts in agony, and it echoes off the walls of his empty apartment. And then she materializes – or, actually, she just walks through the front door. Her timing, as always, was as impeccable as it was suspicious.

“Yes, my love?”

“I am not your love,” he corrects, lifting his head up from where he’d been pressing it into their hardwood floor. “I am your worst nightmare. Hi Liz, hi Rei,” he greets Wonyoung’s friends as they walk in behind her.

“Hi,” both girls echo, poorly concealing their amused grins as they take in the state of him.

“He probably thought it was cute,” Wonyoung says, not an ounce of sympathy in her tone.

“I don’t care! I don’t care what he thinks of me!” Jungwon squeaks, cheeks warming as he tries to deny his way to freedom.

“Sure,” Wonyoung says easily.

“Who are we talking about?” Liz asks.

“No one,” Jungwon says, in the very same moment that Wonyoung says, “This guy Jungwon hooked up with.”

“Ooh, does he go here?” Rei questions, sitting down next to Jungwon on the floor, patting his head like he’s a cat.

“Enough with the cats,” Jungwon mutters under his breath to himself, and no one questions it, because they’re all used to him.

“No, he’s twenty four,” Wonyoung informs her when Jungwon doesn’t answer.

“How do you know that? I didn’t tell you that.”

Wonyoung just winks. His brain once again helpfully supplies, WITCH!

And then he notices that his phone is ringing. He gets up. “Okay, good talk, bye.” He takes off in the direction of his room, slamming the door behind him before the rabid pack of wolves in his living room can catch up with him and demand more information.

He lets it ring for longer than he means to, picking up on the last one before it would have been sent to voicemail.

“Good afternoon,” Jungwon says, a little too formal, a little too stilted. He then promptly realizes that it’s eight pm.

“Good afternoon,” Jay echoes with a lighthearted laugh. “You didn’t respond. Thought I'd check in.”

“Some people would take that as a hint,” Jungwon says, embarrassingly out of breath from his short sprint down the hall.

“Yeah, well. Not me,” Jay says. “But I can, if you meant it as one.”

“I didn’t,” Jungwon assures him. “My roommate came home with her friends, and they distracted me.”

“The same one who followed me? Wonyoung, right?”

“Yeah,” Jungwon sighs. “I didn’t tell her to do that. She’s a little bit deranged.”

Jay laughs again. “I don’t mind. I’m glad she did.”

“Only because you got to see the most embarrassing photo of me in existence.”

“It’s not that embarrassing,” Jay lies. “I have worse photos than that.”

“It cannot get worse than that.”

“I’ll prove to you that it can,” Jay says, and a moment later Jungwon’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it away from his ear to open the message.

He smiles. “This isn’t even that bad. You just took this.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“Take another photo and hold up a newspaper with today’s date on it, then.”

“I don’t have any newspapers. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“You should be getting newspapers. It’s a dying industry. It needs your support,” Jungwon says, even though he’d never had such strong feelings on the matter until now.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jay says, and Jungwon can tell that he’s smiling too. Jungwon frowns. “I just wanted to tell you that I had a really good time last night. And that I’d love to see you again.”

“I’m not coming down next weekend,” Jungwon says automatically.

Jay isn’t deterred. “I know you aren’t. I just meant next time you are around, I’d love to see you. Or I can come there sometime, too.”

“Don’t come here,” he breathes, opening his bedroom door a crack to see if Wonyoung is lurking around the corner. She is. He shoves his hand through the crack and flips her off before closing it again. “Sorry. I just mean –”

“It’s okay,” Jay says easily. “You told me you weren’t looking for anything serious.”

“Yeah,” Jungwon agrees. “We could – be friends,” he suggests, although he doesn’t really want to be Jay’s friend. He kind of wants to make out with him again. But he knows what’s good for him, and he’s the king of self control, so he doesn’t say anything like that.

“I’d like that very much,” Jay says, like it’s that simple.

And then Jungwon feels a little nauseous with seemingly no cause, so he says a rushed goodbye to Jay, and hangs up the phone. He thought he’d feel better once he wasn’t talking to him. He doesn’t.

Wonyoung, Liz, and Rei have settled down to watch the newest episode of whatever drama they were currently obsessed with, and Jungwon trudges out to the livingroom to join them, and there must be something in his expression because Wonyoung holds her arms open as he approaches, and Jungwon sits down beside her and lets himself get pulled into a hug, but only for a moment. He has to save it for when he really needs it, after all.

He eventually tunes into the drama, listening to the overly romantic, borderline cheesy speech the male lead is in the middle of. He finds himself, for no reason that he can pinpoint, thinking of Jay.

Not good. Not good at all.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Jay (friend) (answer with caution)

You said you’re in a dance rehearsal? What kind of dance are we talking about here?

Jungwon

pole dancing

Jay (friend) (answer with caution)

Oh!

That’s super cool. Takes a lot of core strength!

Jungwon

that was a joke

Jay (friend) (answer with caution)

Oh haha of course

Jungwon looks up from his phone just in time to see one of the interpretive dancers take a fall that actually looks really painful, and he winces in sympathy. He has no real reason to be here, as he’d already practiced his parts and is under no obligation to stay, but he has a meeting with one of his professors in an hour, and he didn’t particularly feel like walking all the way back to his apartment only to leave again a few minutes later.

So he texted Jay to keep himself entertained. That’s fine. They’re friends.

Jungwon

i mostly do hip hop

i have a showcase this weekend actually

Jay (friend) (answer with caution)

That’s also super cool

I bet you’re really good, I wish I could watch!

Except – he’s been texting Jay, pretty much nonstop, since their last conversation two days ago. They talk about everything, every part of their day, every single passing thought they had, no matter how menial or boring, they put it all in their chat. Jungwon felt like he had a human diary, and he’d never even had a normal diary before, not even when he really probably should have, so he doesn’t know why it comes so naturally to him now.

He’s interested in Jay. It’s an unsettling thing to realize. Jungwon is not interested in very many people, not like this, not beyond surface level gossip, but he’s interested in Jay.

And Jay gives him any bit of information that he hungers for, and Jungwon devours it, and then finds himself nowhere near full.

It’s fine. He has it all under control.

Except he definitely doesn’t, though, because he momentarily considers asking Jay if he wants to come watch his showcase. Not because he wanted Jay specifically there, definitely not, but because the idea of looking out at the audience and seeing no one there for him made him feel a little nauseous.

Maybe he’ll ask Wonyoung to come. She might not be interested, but maybe she could pretend to be for an hour or so. Either way, he won’t get his hopes up, because if he doesn’t, he won’t be let down.

“Are you joking?” Wonyoung asks him with a sour expression later that night, after Jungwon has worked up the nerve to ask her if she wanted to come. “I bought my ticket weeks ago. You thought I wasn’t coming?”

Jungwon shrugs. “I didn’t ask you to, so…”

“You don’t have to ask me to come,” she says, like it’s obvious. “I’m your best friend.”

Jungwon doesn’t really get how those two facts are related, because he’d been let down before by people who were much closer to him than a best friend, but he lets it go for now. He was just glad someone was planning on showing up for him.

Truthfully – and he only admits this to himself once Wonyoung has left the apartment to go to the library for the rest of the night, because he was still kind of convinced she could hear his thoughts – he still couldn’t stop thinking about inviting Jay. And, worryingly, he thinks he mostly just wants to see him again, and doesn't care if it’s with the excuse of watching Jungwon dance or not.

Very worrying indeed.

He stares up at the ceiling, tucked into his bed, hoping sleep will take him, but it never does. Hours pass. It’s well after midnight. He wonders if Jay is still awake. He’d told him he was working late at the diner, but he hadn’t said how late, and Jungwon didn’t want to risk texting him and waking him up if he’s one of those weirdos that slept with his ringer on.

He opens their chat. Jay had last sent him a message three hours ago, when Jungwon had said he was going to sleep, and he’d responded telling Jungwon to sleep tight!

Surely if Jungwon was not, in fact, sleeping tight, Jay wouldn’t mind hearing about it.

Jungwon

hey

are you awake

Jay (friend) (answer with caution)

I am :) just got home from work. What’s up?

Jungwon

nothing

i can’t sleep i guess

His screen lights up. Jay is calling him.

“Hi,” Jungwon answers, holding his phone up to his ear.

“Hey,” Jay says, his voice almost gravelly, and Jungwon wonders if he’d been lying, if he actually had woken him up. “Have you tried counting sheep, Sheep Garden?”

Jungwon snorts. “The sheep don’t listen to me. I tell them to line up so I can count them and they just ignore me.”

“They don’t respect your leadership,” Jay says wisely. “The only choice is to get them to embrace you as an equal.”

“But I’m not the sheep,” Jungwon argues. “I’m just the garden that holds the sheep.”

“That’s right,” Jay hums. “You’re not a sheep. You’re more like a cat.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jay says quickly, even though Jungwon had no real intention of hanging up. “Why can’t you sleep? Something on your mind?”

“You,” Jungwon admits, even though it’s probably the last answer he should have given. It’s the most truthful one, at least.

“Me?” Jay asks, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard Jungwon correctly. “What am I doing on your mind?”

“I was wondering if you would want to come see me dance,” Jungwon says. “I was going to give Heeseung my extra ticket, but he can’t make it.”

Jay doesn’t say anything for a few long moments. “I’d love to, if you want me there.”

“Sure,” Jungwon says easily. “It might be kind of lame, though. It’s just a hobby.”

“I bet it’ll be amazing,” Jay says firmly. “I’m excited. Should I – is it like, a dressing up kind of event?”

“No,” Jungwon says quickly. “You don’t have to dress up.”

“Okay,” Jay says. “Follow up question. Could I take you to dinner after?”

“Oh,” Jungwon finds himself momentarily at a loss for words. “As – as friends?”

“Sure,” Jay says. “Whatever you want it to be.”

Jungwon doesn’t love that answer. He wishes it was a little simpler, a little more cut and dry. Yes, as friends. I feel only friend things for you, except for when I want to make out with you, but even that is in a totally platonic way. But it’s ultimately not his answer to give, so he accepts it.

“Okay,” Jungwon agrees.

“Great,” Jay says, then clears his throat. “Amazing. I’m – excited.”

“Me too,” Jungwon says, suddenly feeling like a bit of a stranger in his own body. This wasn’t like him. He’d gotten used to being a single entity, alone, and he liked it better that way. And yet, he really is excited. It’s a feeling that settles alongside the ache in his chest, and he wonders how both can exist at once, how he can be both dreading and looking forward to something. Jungwon was quite used to his emotions being black or white – something was good, or it was bad, and if it somehow blurred the lines and became both, it was an emotion he didn’t need to be feeling.

He feels like he needs this, though.

“Do you feel tired now?” Jay asks.

Exhausted, Jungwon thinks.

“Not really,” he says, because despite his exhaustion, his eyes are wide open, flitting around his room like he was searching for something. He doesn’t know what he’s searching for, but he knows it’s not here.

“Do you want me to stay on the line?” Jay asks after a while. “Maybe the sound of my snoring will soothe you to sleep.”

“Mm,” he hums. “I’ll count your snores.”

Jay just laughs, and Jungwon hates the way it makes him smile. “Goodnight, Jungwon.”

“Goodnight,” he mutters, putting his phone down on his pillow, putting it on speaker, and turning the volume down halfway. Jay falls asleep within seconds, which Jungwon finds very impressive, because it normally takes multiple hours to find sleep when he is able to find it, even when he’s as exhausted as he is right now.

This time, though, he closes his eyes, and he listens to Jay’s heavy breathing turn to light snores, and he doesn’t know exactly how much time passes before drifts off, but it certainly isn’t hours. Maybe he should be concerned about that. Right now, though, he’s too tired to think.

-ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ-

Jungwon’s showcase goes well. Pretty good. Not bad at all.

He doesn’t miss any steps, doesn’t slip on a banana peel – and he wasn’t being paranoid, no, because that had happened before to someone else he dances with – and he doesn’t spontaneously combust when he catches Jay’s eye in the audience, so. Huge success, really.

And then the show ends, and Jungwon is stepping out into the area where all of his peers are greeting their families, and something aches, but he ignores it, because Jay is against the wall across the room, and he did dress up, he’s even wearing a tie, and oh god he’s holding a bouquet of flowers –

“Jungwon!”

Jungwon looks to his left, where the sound had come from. It’s Heeseung.

“Hey, kiddo,” Heeseung greets him as he approaches, pulling him in for a hug, smiling even when Jungwon ends the hug prematurely with a squirm and a shove. He’s used to it. “That was amazing!”

Over his shoulder, Jungwon sees that Jay has noticed him. He’s looking at him, almost in question, and Jungwon’s eyes go wide, and he shakes his head, and prays he gets the message.

“What are you – doing here?” Jungwon manages to find his words. “Where’s Riki? Did you leave him by himself?”

“Yes, Jungwon. I left my five year old son home alone for the night,” Heeseung deadpans. “Jake offered to babysit so I could come. And I’m so glad I did, I swear this was the best one yet –”

Jungwon’s ears are ringing again. He kind of feels like he might start crying, only he doesn’t do that, so he won’t. He’s overwhelmed. Why is he so overwhelmed? Everything’s fine. Everything’s great. He should be happy.

“Thank you,” Jungwon says in one quick breath, even though he’s not actually sure what Heeseung had said. “Thank you for coming.”

Heeseung hugs him again, and this time Jungwon lets it last a moment longer before he pushes him away. “Oh, I was going to bring flowers, but –”

“But you procrastinated?” He guesses.

Heeseung grins sheepishly. “How about I take you to dinner, instead?”

“No,” Jungwon says quickly, frantically, and immediately regrets it when Heeseung looks a little hurt. “Sorry, I just meant – I already have plans.”

“With your friends?” Heeseung asks, even though he knows Jungwon only has the one, and Wonyoung hadn’t made herself known yet. He’s sure she’s lurking somewhere nearby, watching gleefully as Jungwon crashes and burns.

“With – a friend,” Jungwon says, cryptically, too cryptically, and Heeseung’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

Heeseung, to Jungwon’s horror, turns around and starts to scan the room. Jungwon grabs his shoulders and attempts to force him to stop, but he sees Jay anyway. He knows he does, because he’s smiling when he looks at Jungwon again, and there’s a smugness in it that has Jungwon’s palms sweating before he even speaks.

“I see. A date?”

Jungwon blinks. Either Heeseung is really jumping to conclusions, or someone had tipped him off beforehand. “Did Jake tell you anything?”

It’s the worst possible thing he could have said. It’s confirmation of two things he’d really rather not have confirmed – that there is something to hide, and that he’s only hiding it from Heeseung. Fucking demon brain.

Heeseung recoils in surprise, and then his smile grows, and Jungwon doesn’t know what to make of that. “No, he didn’t,” he says. Fuck. “Are you going to introduce me?”

“No,” Jungwon says firmly. “That’s not happening. Ever.”

“Ever?”

“Not until I know you aren’t going to embarrass me, which is never.”

“I think that’s a little unfair,” Heeseung laughs. “But alright, go enjoy your date. I’m just glad I got to see you. And just know that you can’t run away forever.”

Okay, that’s ominous. Jungwon definitely doesn’t like that. “It’s not even really a date,” he attempts, but Heeseung’s amused expression doesn’t change. He just brings a hand up to pat the top of Jungwon’s head a few times.

“Whatever you say. Love you, kiddo.”

“Drive safe,” Jungwon says. “Thank you – uh, for coming. And thank Jake for, um, for babysitting. And I’m sorry for being mean.”

“You’re never mean,” Heeseung lies. And then he’s gone, not even subjecting Jungwon to another hug, and he feels – guilty. Really guilty.

One of these days, he should stop brushing him off. He supposes today just isn’t that day.

And then his guilt is smothered by something new – something like pure horror – because he looks back at Jay to find that Wonyoung is talking to him.

Jungwon’s feet carry him over there at a speed he didn’t even know he was capable of. “Hello,” he blurts out, getting both of their attentions.

“Ah! Wonie!” Wonyoung gasps cheerily, pulling him in for a squeezing hug and not letting go even when Jungwon attempts to shake her off. “You did so good! Oh, my baby, I’m so proud –” Jungwon draws the line at letting her kiss all over his face and head, pulling away and putting as much distance between him as he can manage with her still gripping his arm tightly.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, then dares a glance at Jay.

Jay smiles, looking almost awed, and he holds out the bouquet of red roses. Jungwon takes it, but still won’t meet his eye. “You were incredible,” Jay says, and once again, he doesn’t detect anything less than genuine in his tone.

Jungwon can’t look at him. He can’t speak.

“Well,” Wonyoung starts, pulling Jungwon in again so their cheeks were squished against one another. “I just wanted to quickly say hi and congratulations before I go. To Liz and Rei’s. For the whole night.”

Very subtle. Jungwon pulls away so he can glare at her. “Okay. Good for you.”

“Good for you,” Wonyoung winks, not even attempting subtlety anymore. “Enjoy your dinner!” She says to Jay before turning away from them, her long hair almost hitting Jungwon in the face as she waves over her shoulder at them.

For a few long moments, Jungwon and Jay just stare at each other. Jungwon once again finds himself wishing for a sinkhole to open beneath his feet.

“I, uh – I made a reservation,” Jay finally says. “If you still wanted to get dinner?”

“Why are you wearing a tie?” Jungwon asks. “I’m wearing sweatpants.” He looks down helplessly at the clothes he’d quickly changed into in the dressing room.

“You look great,” Jay assures him.

“If you take me to one of those fancy rich person restaurants, I’m going to be really upset.”

Jay doesn’t say anything, but he looks almost embarrassed. He just gestures in the direction of the exit, and Jungwon follows him even though he’d kind of rather take off running in the direction of his apartment.

The restaurant Jay had chosen was, indeed, one of those fancy rich person ones. Their silverware – made of real silver, and Jungwon briefly considers sliding them off the table into his bag until he remembers he’ll need them to eat – is wrapped up in napkins made of linen, and their table is in a room of its own, a whole room with very suggestive lighting for only one table, and Jay’s cheeks are bright red.

This is too weird. Jungwon doesn’t do this. Why did he agree to this?

“I may have panicked,” Jay sheepishly breaks the silence, “When I was choosing the restaurant.”

“Hm,” Jungwon hums, picking up the menu, finding that there’s not a single meal priced below thirty dollars on it. He sets his menu down. “I’m glad I don’t panic the same way you do, then. I’d probably have a lot more debt.”

Jay laughs, and something in the air between them lightens considerably. “You’re not upset with me, then?”

Jungwon stares at him for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “I’ll get over it,” he finally settles on. “I do look ridiculous, though.”

“You’re the prettiest thing in this restaurant, sweatpants or not.”

Oh. Okay. Jungwon doesn’t know what to say to that.

He just points at the chandelier above them, the one made of what he assumed were one million tiny crystals. “Prettier than that?”

“Yes,” Jay says without looking away from him.

“Don’t be dumb,” Jungwon says, picking up his menu again and using it to hide his face as Jay laughs again. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere.”

“I’m not trying to get anywhere,” Jay says easily.

“Good,” Jungwon says. You don’t need to try, because you’re going to get there anyways, he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t know that for sure yet. He could stay perfectly in control the whole night and not end up sleeping with Jay. He probably won’t, but he could.

The waiter comes to take their order – he’s wearing a bowtie, and he glances at Jungwon’s sweatpants with a sort of disgust that Jungwon really doesn’t love – and Jungwon instantly blurts out that he’ll have a glass of wine before he’s even asked what he can get for them. The waiter checks his ID, then looks to Jay when he asks if he should bring a bottle – and Jungwon resents that, too, the assumption that he’s not the one paying even though it’s pretty obvious that he isn’t – and Jay politely declines. Jungwon quickly realizes that he hadn’t even thought about what he wanted to eat, so he just asks for another of whatever Jay ordered.

“You don’t want to drink your way through this?” Jungwon asks, even though it’s a little mean.

“Tempting,” Jay starts, and he’s smiling, and Jungwon wonders why he seems immune to his more cutting remarks, if he sees something softer in them that Jungwon is incapable of seeing in himself. “But I’d be undoing quite a few years of sobriety progress if I did, so – probably for the best that I don’t.”

Jungwon blinks, feeling a wave of shame and guilt wash over him. “How many years?” He asks, because his first instinct is to say sorry, and he doesn’t want to do that.

“Four,” Jay says, his voice quiet. “Almost five.”

Jungwon does the math in his head. “Twenty is a rough age to be the only sober person in a room.”

Jay nods. “You get it,” he says with a nervous laugh.

“You didn’t say anything about it the other night,” Jungwon says, then regrets it. “Not that you had to tell me, but –”

“We talked about just about everything else, yeah,” Jay says, taking the thought right out of his brain. “It’s still something I’m figuring out how to bring up to people.”

“I do get it, then,” Jungwon says quietly, because he knows the feeling. He knows the way the lump in his throat forms, the way the words feel heavy sometimes, the way that they deceive him into thinking that if he says them out loud, they’ll become lighter. They never do. They weigh on him just the same.

“Yeah,” Jay says, pressing his lips together in a smile that’s a little too sad for Jungwon’s liking. “Sometimes I wish I could tattoo it on my forehead.”

“Why not?” Jungwon says, enjoying the way Jay’s smile turns a bit brighter. “I’ll get one that says dead mom to match. We’d never have to say it out loud again.”

“Good idea,” Jay laughs, and Jungwon likes the sound of it more and more every time he does. “But then we’d never get to talk about it.”

“I hate talking about it.”

“Do you?”

“No,” Jungwon admits after a while. “But I hate talking about it in the way I usually have to talk about it.”

“You definitely get it.”

Jungwon smiles, just a bit. He’s not really sure why, but he feels a little lighter.

“Tell me something about your mom,” Jay says, leaning forward, elbows resting on the table even though this wasn’t that kind of restaurant. “Something you don’t usually get to tell people because you have to get through the sad parts first.”

Jungwon’s chest aches. Jay gets it.

“She always smelled like vanilla,” Jungwon says eventually, quietly. “She couldn’t really afford perfume, so she’d put a bit of vanilla extract on her neck every morning. She even kept it in the bathroom, in a little spray bottle so you wouldn’t know what it was unless you tasted it – which I did, once, because I thought it smelled so good that it had to taste good. It really didn’t, though. She’d always put some behind my ears, before I went to school, because I loved the smell so much. One year, for her birthday, before she got sick, Heeseung saved up some money from his job at an ice cream stand and I put all my allowance aside and we bought her a really nice vanilla perfume. She wore it every day after that, and she still let me use it, too, even though I always used too much and wasted it.”

Jay doesn’t say anything for a few long moments, and then he reaches across the table and takes Jungwon’s hand, squeezing it once. Jungwon fights the urge to flinch, to rip his hand away and hold it to his chest like Jay had burned him. Because Jay hasn’t burned him, not yet.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Jay says, his expression genuine and serious and caring and all the things Jungwon usually avoided being looked at with. “She sounds really special.”

“She is,” Jungwon says, not realizing they’d both spoken in the present tense until a moment later. He pulls his hand away, because that overwhelmed feeling from earlier is back, and Jungwon will not cry in a private room at the world’s most obnoxious restaurant in sweatpants, for god’s sake.

He’s glad he does pull away, though, because their meals arrive a moment later, along with Jungwon’s wine, which he suddenly doesn’t feel like drinking. It’d only make him more likely to end up crying, and he wasn’t doing that. If he wants to cry, he’ll do it in private, at home, except he doesn’t ever do it there, either.

“You can drink it,” Jay says eventually, looking up from where he was cutting into his steak. “It’s not a problem.” The expression on his face tells Jungwon that it wasn’t fully the truth, that it likely is a problem, that the more accurate way of describing it is that he’s just used to it.

Jungwon presses his lips together for a moment. “I’m okay. I don’t think I feel like drinking my way through this anymore.”

Jay stares at him for a long moment, and then he’s smiling a bit, ducking his head so Jungwon can’t see, but he does. They don’t speak much while they’re eating, keeping it light with small talk that Jungwon would normally hate if it was anyone else, but finds himself almost enchanted by when it’s Jay.

Not good. But Jungwon’s not going to unpack it right now.

When they’re done, Jungwon declines desert, and Jay takes the bill from their – increasingly adversarial, in Jungwon’s opinion – waiter, refusing to let Jungwon see it as he hands his credit card to the waiter.

“Next time,” Jungwon says as they step out into the crisp winter air together, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket to keep himself from taking Jay’s arm again. Self control. It’s his thing. “I’m choosing the restaurant. And it’s going to be somewhere that has chicken tenders on the menu.”

“Next time?” Jay asks with a smug smile, and Jungwon curses under his breath at yet another lapse in his brain-to-mouth function.

Jungwon doesn’t answer, just gets in the passenger’s seat of Jay’s car – which is also at a level of fancy that he considers entirely unnecessary, but he has to admit that Jay looks good in the driver’s seat of it. He’s very handsome. Objectively. And nice, too. Not even too nice, like he’d expected before, but a normal amount of nice.

The demons have returned. Jungwon is definitely going to sleep with him. It’d be a bit of a waste, if he didn’t.

Jay gets out of the car when they reach Jungwon’s apartment, and for a moment he’s worried he’d said his last thought aloud, but he just walks him up to his door before stopping there.

“I had a really good time tonight,” Jay says.

“I did too,” Jungwon says, surprised to find that it wasn’t a lie.

They stand there for a few moments, and Jungwon wonders if Jay is going to kiss him. He would let him. But Jay just takes a step back.

“I’ll text you tomorrow?”

“Where are you going?”

They’d spoken at the same time.

“Sorry, what?” Jay asks, blinking.

“I asked where you were going,” Jungwon repeats.

“Um,” Jay pauses for a long moment. “Home?”

“Do you have to?”

“I –” Jay looks at him, like he’s waiting for Jungwon to start pointing and laughing at him. Jungwon just holds his gaze for once. “I don’t have to, no. If you can think of somewhere else I should be.”

Jungwon just turns the key to his apartment door, opening it and tilting his head towards it. Jay gets the message, stepping inside, looking around like Jungwon had the first time he’d been to his place. He’s sure he won’t find anything quite as interesting to look at.

Jungwon takes his shoes and jacket off, tossing the latter over the back of the couch, and Jay does the same a moment later. He watches as Jay scans the decor of their livingroom – almost entirely picked out by Wonyoung, who thrifted like it was her job – and a small smile unfurls on his lips. Jungwon is just staring at it, his lips, his sharp smile, his white teeth.

“Nice place –” Jay starts, but Jungwon is already pulling him in, and they collide together with ease, like this was something practiced for them. Maybe it was. Jungwon has kissed Jay more times now than the amount of collective kisses he’s had in his life, and Jay is clearly a fast learner, because he seems to already know all the things Jungwon had enjoyed last time their mouths had met like this.

He’s trying to draw it out, trying to take his time, but Jungwon isn’t. He already has his fists closed around the fabric of Jay’s shirt, and he’s already walking them in the direction of his bedroom, and Jay is just letting him, not putting up any fight. He’s going willingly, blindly, like he trusts Jungwon, and he doesn’t quite know why he would, or what to do with it.

Jungwon doesn’t get distracted this time, and Jay definitely doesn’t either. No, he’s completely focused, his eyes staying fixed only on Jungwon, and the intensity of his gaze makes the world feel a little smaller, like it really is just the two of them, and Jungwon likes that feeling. It means he doesn’t have to think about anything outside of this moment, not the consequences of it or what it means, and he’s happy to be free of that particular burden.

His hands fly up to tangle in Jay’s hair as he pulls him in by the waist, his mouth leaving Jungwon’s in favour of leaving searing kisses along his cheek, and then his jaw – teeth scrape against the skin tauntingly when he gets there, and Jungwon feels a little dizzy – before they drag down his neck. He pauses, and Jungwon nods, letting out a shaky breath, and Jay latches his mouth onto his skin, sucking and gently biting at it with enough tenacity that there will surely be proof of the moment on his skin in the morning.

Jungwon had never been given a proper hickey before Jay. He never got the appeal, found them to be more painful than pleasurable, and had always stopped anyone who attempted to give him one. When Jay takes his skin between his lips, though, Jungwon doesn’t want him to stop. Not at all. He kind of wants him to leave even more marks, to give him something to display, something that says look, someone wanted me. And then he pushes that thought away, because it makes him feel like he’s using Jay, and that makes him feel shitty, even though he kind of is using him.

But Jay doesn’t seem to mind being used. He seems like he wants Jungwon to use him, completely open and willing to whatever Jungwon directs him to do, giving it to him without complaint. When Jungwon pulls him off his neck, back into a kiss, Jay lets him. When Jungwon slides his tongue into his mouth and pulls at his hair, Jay lets him.

Jungwon has never been the one in control before, either. The one sexual encounter he’d had left him feeling used and taken advantage of, and the last thing he wants is for Jay to feel that way, but Jay seems set on letting Jungwon take charge. It’s like he knows he needs this, needs to have sex with someone on his terms, needs to be allowed behind the steering wheel.

Or maybe he doesn’t know any of that at all. Maybe Jay just actually wants him, doesn’t see him as just a warm body but a person with preferences and autonomy. That would be a new experience for Jungwon, too.

It’s that thought that does it, in the end. Jungwon pulls away, and his eyes fix on Jay’s kiss-swollen lips, the way the hue of them had darkened considerably, the way his cheeks were a matching shade of pink.

“I don’t want to use you,” Jungwon breathes, and if Jay’s confused by his sudden admission, it doesn’t show in his expression.

“I don’t mind,” Jay says, and when Jungwon shakes his head, he insists, “It’d be an honour to be used by you. I mean it.”

Jungwon stares at him for several long seconds. “We’re friends, right?” He asks, even though they were nothing of the sort. He knows it, Jay most likely knows it, but he also knows he’ll keep up the charade for as long as he possibly can. He hopes Jay will indulge him and do the same, or this whole thing will most likely crumble.

“We’re friends,” Jay confirms, and a moment later they crash together again. This time, Jungwon walks them forward until Jay’s legs hit the end of his bed, and they don’t stop kissing even as they fall onto it, although Jungwon does almost slide right off of his lap and onto the floor. Jay catches him. He’s surprisingly strong. Jungwon wants him in a way he doesn’t normally allow himself to want things, intensely and openly and unwaveringly.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that for, doesn’t bother keeping track because he knows the minutes he counts will border on an embarrassingly high number, but Jungwon can’t seem to stop. It was the complete opposite of what happened last time, when he couldn’t stop talking to him long enough to kiss him, but this is equally as enthralling, like he’s set on devouring Jay in every way possible, intellectually and physically.

Jungwon eventually pulls away, looking down between them at the hand that he’d been resting on Jay’s stomach. If Jay weren’t wearing a suit, he would slide the hand under his shirt and let himself map out the planes of tan skin that surely lay underneath it, but unfortunately Jay is wearing a suit, and it was acting as an unfortunate road block for Jungwon.

He sits up, reaching down to untuck Jay’s dress shirt from his trousers, and Jay doesn’t stop him, so he begins his work on the small buttons, sighing in frustration when he can’t get them all in one try.

“This shirt is stupidly well-made,” Jungwon says.

“Sorry,” Jay chuckles. “Just break them if you have to.”

Jungwon glares at him. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I think the thread holding the buttons in is made of like, titanium, somehow.”

Jay laughs harder, and then Jungwon finally gets the last button undone, loosens his tie and pulls it off, opening Jay’s shirt fully, and quickly realizes it was worth the wait. Jungwon had never thought about his preferences much – if he was into muscles or not, if he wanted his men to look anemic or like they could knock down a tree with a single swing – but suddenly all his preferences have become exactly what Jay has to offer. His tan skin, his lithe muscles that would go unnoticed if you weren’t looking closely, but Jungwon is looking, in fact, he’s staring. He might even be drooling.

Embarrassing. Pull it together.

Jay just lets him look, lets him explore the smooth planes of newly-revealed skin, running his hands across it like he was trying to memorize what was under his fingertips. He doesn’t know why he’s so comfortable doing this, letting his desire be seen and known like this, but maybe Jay is just giving him the space he needs to do it, letting it exist without judgment and without fear of it being used against him.

Eventually, Jungwon meets his eyes. He swallows back the spit that had built up in his mouth, and bites down on his lip for a few long seconds. It’s all pointless. He knows he won’t be able to hold back his words, that they’ll find a way out of him. They always do.

“You want me?” Jungwon asks, then promptly hates the words, then makes his peace with them.

Jay props himself up on his elbows, getting close enough to Jungwon’s face again to kiss him, long and slow and everything their prior kisses hadn’t been. Sweet. A little bit soft. Jungwon feels it all a little too much.

“I do,” he says against Jungwon’s lips. “Is that okay with you?”

Jungwon just nods. Then he kisses him again, and again, and lets Jay slide his hands under his hoodie, lets him remove it, ignores the chill that trickles down his spine when he does. He pulls away from Jay long enough to reach past him, once again almost falling off the bed as he opens the drawer and tries to get ahold of the lube he knows is in there. Jay holds him in place with two firm hands around his waist, and despite his near fall, Jungwon has never felt more grounded.

Jay has let Jungwon take the lead, so when he slides in the other direction to flop down onto his bed, Jay follows him, turning over and positioning himself in between Jungwon’s legs, helping him get rid of his sweatpants before unbuttoning his own trousers. He’s about to pull them down but Jungwon stops him, hooking his fingers in the belt loops and doing it for him. He doesn’t know why he was so intent on doing it himself, he just felt like he had to, because he’s behind the wheel, because he wants to stay there. Jay watches him do it, eyes following Jungwon’s hands as he drags them down his thighs, chest rising and falling faster every moment.

Once his pants are dealt with, and they’re both left only in their underwear, Jungwon drops his hands to rest on his own stomach, and Jay’s eyes follow that movement, too. He feels a bit of a thrill, watching Jay watch him, watching him take in the sight of Jungwon like it was something worth seeing, really seeing. Jungwon feels more observed now than he did mere hours ago, when he was dancing on stage in front of a crowd of hundreds.

Now, in front of his crowd of one, Jungwon slides his hands down his stomach and lifts the waistband of his underwear, pushes them down until he’s fully exposed, feeling a rush from the way Jay’s gaze takes him in fully, the way it’s intense enough to feel like a touch in and of itself.

“You’re beautiful,” Jay tells him. He already knows Jay thinks he’s beautiful. He’d written as much on the note that started all of this, called Jungwon a beautiful angel, but it’s different to hear it out loud, to watch the word leave his mouth and take shape in the air between them, to then float down and land on Jungwon’s chest and warm his skin and make his heart thump a little louder. “Can I touch you?”

Jungwon hadn’t realized he was waiting for permission. He thought he’d already given it, thought he’d already made it clear.

“Please,” Jungwon whispers.

Jay sighs, and it sounds relieved, like he was worried Jungwon might say no. Jungwon doesn’t know when he gave him that impression, but he intends to set the record straight now. He reaches up, fingers closing around Jay’s wrist, and guides his hand to where he wants him to be. He can’t make it any more clear than that.

Jay’s fingers wrap around his cock, and Jungwon can’t stop the gasp that escapes him, both because Jay’s hand was still a little bit cold from being outside, and because Jungwon had never actually had someone else’s hand there.

The first guy Jungwon had slept with – and only, at least until tonight inevitably progresses to where it’s clearly headed – had seemed content to ignore the fact that Jungwon was also a guy, and had refused to do anything beyond rushedly fingering him open and shoving inside of him.

Jay, on the contrary, seems intent on touching every part of Jungwon, on drinking him in, unwinding him, worshipping him.

Jungwon picks up the lube from where he’d discarded it on the bed and bumps it against Jay’s hand – the one that isn’t currently pumping up and down his length – and he quickly takes the hint. Within seconds of that, Jungwon is turning over, settling on his knees with his chest and face pressing into the bed, exposing himself, trusting Jay to be gentle with him.

Jay must have noticed his reaction to his cold hands, because the next time his fingers touch him, they’re warmed, and slick with lube. Jungwon takes a shuddering breath in anyways. He waits for the sting, for the discomfort of Jay shoving the first finger in, but it never comes. Instead, there’s only this: Jay’s finger is rubbing slow circles around his rim, not breaching it, just touching it gently like he’s trying to soothe him.

Jungwon doesn’t need to be soothed, because nothing has actually happened yet, and he’s fine, but he feels some tension leave his body anyways. Huh. He hadn't even noticed he was carrying it until it had already left him.

“Jay,” Jungwon breathes after a moment, and he can feel Jay smiling, and resists the urge to kick blindly behind him as punishment.

And then Jay is pushing his finger in, and it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even really feel that uncomfortable, because he’s moving slowly and gently – and Jungwon can’t remember ever being treated with this kind of care before. Jay takes his time like they have an endless supply of it, reading cues from Jungwon that he wasn’t even aware he was giving, brushing his finger against the spot that makes Jungwon sigh in pleasure, adding a second finger only when Jungwon unconsciously started grinding back on the first one. It feels good, like Jay knows exactly what he’s doing, or like he knows exactly what Jungwon wants.

Jungwon didn’t even know what he wanted until now, until Jay gave it to him. He wonders if Jay’s been able to see through him this whole time, wonders if he’d read him like a book, start to finish, the first night they spent together, and why that simultaneously scares him both far too much and not enough.

By the time Jay pulls his fingers out, Jungwon is shaking with need, and he’d be more embarrassed if he wasn’t so desperate. Jay must sense his desperation – of course he does – because only a few moments pass before he hears the sound of Jay ripping open a condom wrapper, and then the sound of Jay slicking himself up, and then he’s lining up, waiting for permission once again.

Jungwon can’t bring himself to words, so he just nods.

He was used to pushing people away, and then he got used to people shoving their way back in, when they grew tired of the game he played with himself. He isn’t used to this – to gentle caresses, and whispered praises, to letting someone be inside of him and them treating that allowance, that rare allowance, with gravity and care and using it to make him feel good.

Jay fills him like he was always meant to be there, and Jungwon hates that idea, that he was missing this before he’d even had it, because he had so many missing pieces inside of him that he already knew about, he couldn’t even imagine how raw the ones he hadn’t noticed yet were.

He shoves that thought down, and focuses on the feeling of Jay, all around him and inside of him. He kind of wishes he could see his face, see the way he was reacting, the way he felt, because he can’t be the only one feeling this.

Jay isn’t moving, giving Jungwon time to adjust, another thing he hadn’t expected but probably should have. It doesn’t hurt, not really, because Jay did a very thorough job of stretching him out, but Jungwon still waits a few long moments. He wants to savour this feeling, before Jay starts fucking him properly and he’s inevitably overwhelmed.

He doesn’t know who he thinks he’s kidding. He’s already overwhelmed, has been since he saw the bouquet of red roses in Jay’s hand as he waited for him in the lobby. Or maybe since he read the note requesting his number. He hadn’t been keeping track, didn’t think it would be important. It feels important now, and he doesn’t know why.

“Move,” Jungwon mutters. “Please.”

Jay lets out a breath, like he’s steadying himself, and then he moves, pulling out just enough to thrust back in – gently, slowly, carefully. Jungwon sighs in relief, because even a small movement was still movement, and at least Jungwon is being given an inch, an inch he knew he could turn into a mile.

Jay fucks into him like he’s not fucking him, not really, like it’s something more than that, but Jungwon refuses to put a name to it. He just lets his eyes flutter shut, focuses on the drag, the pleasant ache, the way Jay is gripping his waist like he doesn’t already feel like he’s touching Jungwon a satisfactory amount.

“Fuck,” Jungwon gasps out when the angle Jay is driving into him at changes ever so slightly, and Jay doesn’t need to be told to stay there, just listens to Jungwon’s response and knows. And then he’s picking up the pace, and it feels good, it feels like something Jungwon could get dangerously addicted to, but it’s not quite enough.

Jungwon reaches back and presses his hand to Jay’s hip bone, like he was trying to push him away, and Jay stops moving as soon as he does.

“You okay?” Jay pants out, one of the hands on Jungwon’s waist loosening its vice grip to stroke circular motions into the skin instead.

Jungwon just nods, and then he’s shifting himself forward until Jay is forced to pull out of him, and he turns over so he’s laying on his back with his knees pressed to his chest, looking up at him, no more room inside of him for shame or embarrassment now that Jay has filled him up.

He watches as Jay swallows and nods, and then Jungwon immediately regrets everything because even that small reaction is overwhelming for him, because the idea that Jay is treating the position change with any sort of significance unnerved him. It’s not significant. Jungwon has never craved intimacy in his life, and he’s not about to start now.

This time, when Jay pushes into him, his mouth is pressed against Jungwon’s neck, and Jungwon’s legs are resting on his hips, and their chests are pressed together almost like they’re hugging, and – the room is sort of spinning. It felt good before, but this, this is something Jungwon has no idea what to do with.

The familiar sensation of not being at the wheel of his own body returns, because Jungwon is letting out moans with every thrust in, sounds he’s probably never made in his life, but he can’t seem to stop. Jay is noisy, too, letting out groans and whines and whispering Jungwon’s name like it means something to him.

“Feels so good,” Jay sighs in his ear, and if it were anyone else, Jungwon probably would have laughed, but it’s Jay, so he just turns his head and kisses him.

In the end, it’s the kiss that has heat stirring in his gut, that has him feeling like a string drawn tight and about to snap, and that’s another thing Jungwon will just have to unpack later. Jay is fucking into him with a precision that has him feeling a bit dizzy, and Jungwon knows he’s close, even though Jay hasn’t touched him since he pushed inside.

He’s never come untouched – actually, his first time, he hadn’t come at all – but it seemed inevitable now, because Jay is kissing him like he’d been starved of it for much longer than he had been, and it’s the kiss that does it in the end but it’s also Jay, his presence, the way he makes him feel. Not good.

Jungwon comes with a keening cry, and Jay holds him tighter through it, slowing his thrusts but not stopping, not until he’s letting out his own loud groan and filling the condom with a shudder, as his teeth press hard into Jungwon’s lower lip.

It was, without a doubt, the most intense thing Jungwon has ever experienced. And maybe that isn’t saying much, because Jungwon doesn’t experience intense things very often, goes out of his way to avoid them, actually, but he’d dived head first into this one, and Jay had carried him through it.

Jay pulls out of him and discards the used condom and Jungwon feels a little empty again, but he’s back within seconds, laying down next to him and pulling him into a tight embrace like he knew Jungwon was at high risk for coming apart at the seams right now.

Jay presses a kiss to Jungwon’s shoulder. The warmth that spreads across his skin, the way it makes him blush, the way it makes him smile a bit – Jungwon can only take those as the first signs of his inevitable descent into madness.

If they weren’t already at Jungwon’s place, he would almost definitely be long gone by now. He would have politely thanked Jay for the dinner and the sex, and then he would have left. Fleeing the scene of the crime. Never to return. Burning the evidence. But this is his apartment, and Jay seems content to stick around. Jungwon should probably ask him to leave, knows Jay would respect his request, but he doesn’t.

“I know you said you like to read,” Jay says from where he’s standing in front of Jungwon’s bookshelves clad in only his boxers, and Jungwon is staring at him so hard he almost misses what he’s saying completely. “But I didn’t expect four bookshelves worth of books. This is impressive.”

He watches as Jay picks up a few, flipping through the pages, reading the back. Jungwon wouldn’t normally let someone go through his books like this – most of them were from his mom, and most of them had notes written on the inside of the cover for him. She’d bring home a new book every week for him, usually with an inscription telling him all the reasons she’d thought of him when she’d read it. And the ones that aren’t from his mom are ones he acquired after her death, when he’d thrown himself into reading even more than before in an attempt to feel close to her again.

But Jay is treating his books like they’re an extension of Jungwon, touching them like he knows they’re precious, even though Jungwon hadn’t told him that they are. He watches as Jay flips through one of his most well-loved paperbacks, and he stops when he gets to the inside of the front cover, his eyes flitting over what Jungwon knew to be a birthday wish from his mom.

“Sorry,” Jay says, closing the book, putting it back on the shelf. “I just totally invaded your privacy, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Jungwon says. “I did the same thing to you.”

“It’s a little different,” Jay says with a wince.

“Not really. Yours are gifts from your dad, mine are gifts from my mom.”

Jay looks at him in consideration. “True. Your mom gave them to you to be nice, though.”

“I don’t know. She’s given me some really shitty books before,” he says, laughing a bit. “I used to get so mad at her when I didn’t like them. I would ask her to give me my time back. She’d always just say that if I could just find one good line in a bad book, and then it’d be worth my time. I always finished bad books after that, because I loved telling her my one good line.”

“I like that,” Jay says after a while. “One good line.”

“I do it with Riki, sometimes,” Jungwon says. “He’s been having a hard time focusing, in class. So I always tell him to find one good line from whatever book they read that week. He takes it really seriously. Usually it’s just like, about a little engine that could or a frog or something, but – I don’t know. It’s nice to still be able to do it with someone.”

“Do you have any photos of him?”

“Of Riki? Hundreds,” Jungwon says. “Why? Do you want to see?”

“Of course,” Jay says, sitting down next to Jungwon, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him into his side as Jungwon grabs his phone. Jungwon doesn’t crave physical touch, normally doesn’t even allow it, but for some reason he doesn’t even consider moving away from Jay.

Jay lets him show him at least ten photos of Riki, commenting on each one, letting Jungwon give him details of what he was doing in each shot, and when and where it was taken.

“He kind of looks like you.”

Jungwon scoffs. “Don’t lie. He barely even looks like Heeseung.”

“Sure, but he smiles like you.”

And Jungwon feels that comment in his chest, feels it like an ache he can’t quite explain. “I have my mom’s smile. It’s the only part of me that looks like her.”

“Can I see?” Jay asks.

Jungwon nods, scrolling through his camera roll and finding a photo he revisits often, studying it, trying to find pieces of himself in her.

“I think you have more than her smile,” Jay says quietly. “She’s beautiful. Like you.”

“Thank you,” Jungwon mumbles, suddenly feeling the unique kind of nausea that comes after you’ve realized you’ve overshared, that you’ve bared a little too much of your soul. It’s a feeling he usually tries hard to avoid, but he couldn’t stop his words from coming out around Jay. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I feel like I’m only talking about myself,” Jungwon says. “I don’t like doing that.”

“I like when you talk about yourself,” Jay counters. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

“Stop lying,” Jungwon sighs. “Tell me something.”

“Like what?” Jay asks, looking amused by Jungwon’s bossy nature.

“Like… tell me one good thing that’s happened to you since you got sober.”

“I feel like I’m at a meeting,” Jay laughs a bit.

Jungwon feels his cheeks burn, and he turns his head so Jay can’t see. “Forget I asked.”

“No, no,” Jay says quickly. “You’re sweet. It’s a good question. My one good line of sobriety,” he adds, and Jungwon feels his heart thump hard in his chest again. “I started learning how to play the guitar.”

Jungwon lifts his head from where it was resting against Jay’s shoulder, looking up at him. “Are you any good?”

“No,” Jay snorts. “I’m terrible. But I always wanted to learn, and I’m actually doing it.”

“I bet you’re good,” Jungwon says. “You have good – fingers.”

He laughs, and Jungwon sits up fully, groaning, shoving at Jay’s bare chest.

“You know what I mean,” he says with a pout that was definitely a little over exaggerated.

Jay leans in and kisses the pout off his face, and doesn’t stop until they’re both smiling. “I do. I just wanted to make you blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” Jungwon says defensively.

“I hate to break it to you, but –”

“I don’t blush,” Jungwon insists, even though lately that isn’t true. “My body is incapable of it. I’m serious, stop laughing at me.”

“Okay, okay. You don’t blush. You’re definitely not the prettiest shade of pink I’ve ever seen right now,” Jay says, laughing when Jungwon sends a venomous glare his way. “Your turn. One good line. Just – generally.”

Jungwon thinks for a few long moments. “I’m really happy my brother showed up tonight.”

Jay hums. “He seemed really excited to be there,” Jay says, like he somehow knew Jungwon’s doubts, like he couldn’t let them exist without correction.

“I was a little mean to him. I’m always a little mean to him. I don’t know why,” Jungwon says, then sighs. “It’s like – he’s done so much for me. I don’t know how to repay him, but I also don’t even know how to be around him sometimes. Like – he loves me so much, enough to give up his entire life just to make sure I had a good one. And I feel like – like there’s this –” he cuts himself off, realizing he was oversharing again.

“Pressure?” Jay asks, not phased by the amount of information Jungwon has dumped on him. “To do something good with it, right?”

“Yeah,” Jungwon breathes. “And I don’t think I have done anything good with it. So when I’m around him, I’m just – scared that he’ll figure that out and be disappointed in me. My worst fucking nightmare. He makes this sad face when he’s disappointed and I can’t stand it.”

“You’ve done plenty good with it,” Jay tells him firmly. “Who could ever be disappointed with you?”

Jungwon looks at him for a while, keeping his expression blank. “When you first saw me, and you wrote that note,” he starts, watching for any changes in Jay’s expression. “Is this what you thought I’d be like?”

“What do you mean?” Jay asks, expression soft, and open, like he wanted Jungwon to feel like he could say anything to him. Apparently, it was working.

“Like, have I lived up to your expectations?” Jungwon asks.

“I didn’t have any expectations,” Jay says. “I just wanted to get to know you.”

“That’s a lie,” Jungwon scoffs. “Everyone has expectations.”

“Not me,” Jay insists. “I try not to expect anything from anyone. I thought you were beautiful, I wanted to get to know you.”

“And – are you glad you did?” Jungwon tries again, phrasing his question in a way Jay might find easier to swallow.

Jay pulls away just enough, so he can look at him. Jungwon wants to shy away from his gaze, but he holds it. He’s not a quitter. “It’s looking like you’re going to turn out to be one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time.”

Jungwon quits. He looks away. “That’s not true.”

“It is true. You’re one really good line in a book that’s spent about three hundred pages being pretty fucking bad.”

“Jay,” Jungwon snaps. “Stop.”

Jay goes quiet.

“Please stop being so nice to me,” he mutters, not daring to meet Jay’s eyes again, not wanting to see the way his soft, open expression had surely changed in response to his cruelty. “I don’t – I don’t know what to do with it.”

“You don’t have to do anything with it,” Jay says.

“I don’t know how to be nice to you,” Jungwon clarifies, hoping Jay understands what he’s failing to express.

“It’s not transactional,” Jay tells him. “I’m not saying nice things about you so you’ll say them back. I’m saying them because I mean them, and because I think you might need to hear them.”

“I don’t,” Jungwon says, but he feels his bottom lip wobble, and bites down on it to keep it from revealing his lie. “I don’t need anything.”

“Everyone needs something.”

“Stop,” Jungwon groans, standing up, putting as much distance between them as he can stand. “Stop trying to like, read me.”

“I'm not trying to read you,” Jay says. “I'm trying to get to know you.”

“Well, don’t.”

Neither of them say anything for a while, and then Jay nods. “Okay, Jungwon. Alright.”

Jungwon deflates, all of the fight leaving his body at once. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jay says easily. He must see something on Jungwon’s face, because his goes back to being soft a moment later. “It’s fine. It’s not that easy to scare me off.”

“Maybe it should be,” Jungwon mutters. “I feel like – I feel like I’m not good for you. I don’t think I’m good for anyone. Not like – this,” he gestures between them, their state of undress, the things unacknowledged hanging between them.

This doesn’t feel like a hookup. They both knew it. Jungwon would never admit it out loud, but he’s not an idiot.

“Well,” Jay says, holding Jungwon’s eye, unwavering and sure. “Good thing we’re just friends, then. Right?”

It’s an offer, and he knows it as soon as he hears it. An offer to pretend, to act like Jungwon hadn’t lost control of this, to act like there was still a chance they could both walk away from this unchanged by it.

Jungwon takes the offer. He crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. Blinks – tries to blink away the last little bit of anger that was clouding his vision as he looks at Jay. “Do you work tomorrow?”

If Jay is surprised by the change of subject, he doesn’t show it. He shakes his head.

“Are you gonna stay?”

Jungwon doesn’t know why he asks, or why he hopes so badly that Jay will say yes. The idea of breathing the same air any longer, of occupying the same space, of crawling into bed – Jungwon’s bed, the one that no one else had ever slept in but him – should be making his skin crawl, should have his fight or flight kicking in. And maybe it is, but Jungwon isn’t noticing it, because he’s too busy noticing Jay.

He’s too busy watching the way Jay’s lips quirk into a small smile, the way he licks them before he answers, the way he rubs at the back of his neck and looks at Jungwon in a way he’d almost describe as shy.

“If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

Jungwon doesn’t like that answer. He wishes Jay wouldn’t leave it up to him, because he knows he’ll make the worst decision every time. Because he’s not at the wheel. If he was, he wouldn’t be nodding, wouldn’t be moving to sit on the bed again, wouldn’t be pulling Jay in for another kiss.

“I want you to stay.”

He hates how true the words are, because Jungwon should know by now that wanting people to stay is a dangerous game. But it’s a game he finds himself playing once again, going all in, taking a gamble, hoping he leaves with the jackpot instead of complete and utter ruin.

-ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ-

Jungwon wakes up slowly, a contrast to the way he’d fallen asleep. One moment, he and Jay had been talking, tangled around each other, and the next thing he knew, his eyes were blinking themselves open as the morning rays of light warmed his skin. He’s used to sleep being something he has to chase, something he has to fight to earn, but with Jay, it greeted him like an old friend.

Jungwon finds himself watching Jay sleep. It’s not attractive, per se. Jay is snoring, and he’s got a bead of drool running down his cheek, and his eyes are cracked open a sliver. His hair’s a mess, messier than Jungwon would ever think possible considering he kept it fairly short. Jay, all in all, was a very unattractive sleeper.

But the sun is making his tan skin glow, and he slept shirtless so there’s just so much glowing skin to be seen, and Jungwon can’t look away.

And he’s here. He stayed. Even with Jungwon’s outburst and his attempt to push him away, he stayed. His ankles are pressed against Jungwon’s, and his arm is wrapped around his waist, and he’s here.

Jungwon feels guilt creeping along his skin, and quickly shudders in an attempt to shake it off. Feeling guilty won’t get him anywhere. He should just apologize to Jay, properly, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to get the words out.

He supposes he’ll just have to try.

Jay lets out a particularly loud snort, and Jungwon props himself up on his elbow before poking at his shoulder, eventually having to resort to shaking him gently when he doesn’t stir.

“Wha –?” Jay wakes with a jolt, looking around in confusion before his eyes land on Jungwon. He stares at him for a second, then smiles, warm and sleepy. “Oh. Hey. Sorry, was I snoring?”

“Very much so,” Jungwon says. “It’s fine, though. I was just going to ask if you wanted to get breakfast. My treat.”

It’s not an apology, not really, but Jay seems to recognize it as one. His smile gets a little brighter, and he leans over and presses a kiss to Jungwon’s forehead. It’s so tender, so intimate, that he feels himself tense up completely, and Jay surely recognizes that, too.

“Sorry,” Jay mutters against his skin. “You’re just cute. Couldn’t resist.”

“It’s okay,” Jungwon says, even though it isn’t. He isn’t used to this, he thinks, and then it’s immediately followed by another thought, this one much more unsettling – he could get used to this. He doesn’t want to, but he could. He moves away from Jay, scooching to the end of the bed and sitting up, out of his reach entirely. “Do you like bagels?”

“Who doesn’t?” Jay says, unphased by his avoidance.

“There’s a place down the street,” Jungwon tells him. “It’s really good. It might not be fancy enough for you, though, it doesn’t even have a single Michelin star –”

“Okay, okay, enough,” Jay interrupts with a delighted laugh. “You’ve seen the diner I work at. You should know I don’t care about fancy.”

“And yet you made me sit in a restaurant with a chandelier in our private room in my sweatpants last night.”

Jay’s cheeks darken, and he avoids Jungwon’s gaze. “Maybe I wanted to impress you.”

“Well, now I’m going to impress you with the best bagels in the city,” Jungwon says matter-of-factly.

He regrets it as soon as he says it, because they are by no means the best bagels in the city, not even close. He’s just saying anything at this point, words spewing out of him before he can think twice – and Jungwon, normally, always thinks twice. He’s the master of thinking twice, or sometimes even thrice, if he’s feeling particularly cautious that day.

He wants Jay to think he’s interesting. Because Jay is interesting, with his fancy clothes and restaurant choices and his calm demeanor and his inexplicable fascination with Jungwon. He wanted to understand him, wanted to pick him apart until he could understand why he wanted to be around him.

Jungwon can count on one hand how many people actually enjoy spending time with him, and yet here’s Jay, choosing to seek out Jungwon’s company for the second weekend in a row. He doesn’t know what to make of that, but he has to admit that he doesn’t hate the feeling it gives him.

They both get ready only to the bare minimum that is considered socially acceptable, Jungwon settling for pulling on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants and covering his hair with a beanie. Jay only had the suit he’d worn the night before, and Jungwon tries very hard to convince him to put it back on, because he thinks it would be funny, but Jay refuses. In the end, he loans him some of his own clothes, and laughs at the way his oversized hoodie hung off of him.

“This makes no sense,” Jay says, looking down as they make their way out of the apartment.

Wonyoung wasn’t home yet, but Jungwon rushes him through putting on his jacket and shoes a bit, anyways, because he knows her all too well. He’s sure that she’s already sensed that they’re no longer locked up in Jungwon’s room, and is currently sprinting her way across campus to catch them before they leave. She’s done stranger things in the name of ruining Jungwon’s life.

“What makes no sense?”

“You’re smaller than me. Do you buy things this big on purpose?”

Jungwon shrugs. “It’s more comfortable that way.”

“Well, it looks cute on you,” Jay says, gesturing to Jungwon’s outfit, which he didn’t think was anything remarkable. “Not so much on me.”

“You can always put the suit back on,” Jungwon suggests, unable to keep himself from smiling as they step out into the hallway together.

“Maybe I will,” Jay huffs, but he doesn't actually sound annoyed at all. “But you’d have to put one on, too. I can’t outdress you again.”

“How thoughtful,” Jungwon hums, locking the door behind them, looking back at Jay as he follows him down the stairs and out of the building. “You think about that stuff a lot, don’t you?”

“What stuff?”

“Like, how you’re perceived by people,” Jungwon clarifies, and maybe he’s being a little too blunt, because Jay’s eyebrows raise. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“I like to give a good impression,” Jay says after a few long moments of consideration. “I kind of need people to think I have my shit together when they look at me.”

“Your shit is together,” Jungwon assures him. “More together than my shit, at least. My shit is always like, the kind I have after I eat a burrito.”

Jay laughs loudly, his head thrown back, his jawline even more pronounced than usual. God, he’s handsome. Why did he just describe his bowel movements to him?

“That’s not true,” Jay says when he recovers a moment later. “You’re graduating this year, aren’t you?”

“By the skin of my teeth,” Jungwon says, even though his grades are actually very good. By the skin of his sanity, he supposes.

“I don’t believe that,” Jay says. “You seem like someone who’s never had to try very hard in school.”

Jungwon looks at him for a long moment, then shrugs. “I guess not,” he agrees. “But it’s not like a business degree is difficult to get.”

“It was too difficult for me,” Jay says easily. “But that might just be because I hated it. If I’d enjoyed it, maybe I would have gone through with it.”

Jungwon pauses for a few long seconds, then sighs. “I kind of hate it, too. Actually, I really hate it. Sometimes I wish I’d chosen anything else.”

“So why didn’t you?” Jay asks, not in any kind of judgment, just genuine curiosity.

Jungwon hesitates for a few long seconds. This was something he almost never talked about, almost never even thought about. “I was originally going to go to school for dance,” he says, not looking at Jay, because he doesn’t want to see his reaction. “It was like, a childhood dream, I guess. Never really a realistic dream, but Heeseung always wanted me to go for it. I even got accepted to a couple of schools, and I just applied to the university I go to now as a backup, but… I don’t know. Heeseung was having trouble finding a steady job, he was worried about money all the time, and Riki was like, a newborn. It didn’t feel right to take such a gamble on something I wasn’t sure would work out.”

When he does finally meet Jay’s eyes, he’s staring right back at him, brows drawn together, lips pursed into a frown. “I’m sorry you had to make that decision,” Jay says. “That sounds really hard.”

Jungwon shrugs, feeling nervous for no discernible reason. “It probably wouldn’t have worked out, anyway. I was never really as good as I thought I was.”

“You’re amazing,” Jay says firmly.

“Well,” Jungwon starts, biting down on his lip, keeping his face carefully blank, “Either way, there’s no guarantee it would have worked out. Not that there’s a guarantee that this will work out. I just try not to think about it, I guess, because if I do I’ll probably spiral and drop out.”

“Sometimes all you can do is not think too hard about something,” Jay agrees.

“What about you?” Jungwon asks.

“What about me?”

“Were you a good student? You seem like you were kind of a nerd.”

“I resent that,” Jay says, but he’s smiling. “I was a little bit of a nerd. But I actually dropped out, so I think that disqualifies me from ever being considered a good student.”

Jungwon blinks. “You dropped out? When?”

“Halfway through my senior year,” Jay says simply. “I was already partying a lot, by then. I stopped caring about pretty much everything that wasn’t drinking, and I didn’t see the point in graduating. I only got my GED when I sobered up for a few months after my parents sent me to rehab for the first time.”

“How many times did you go?” Jungwon asks, hoping Jay isn’t taking his interest as nosiness. He wanted to know, yes, but he didn’t want Jay to feel like a spectacle. Jungwon knew the feeling all too well, and hated it more than almost anything.

“Twice,” Jay says, seemingly not taking any offense to Jungwon’s questions. “The second time stuck, but only because it had to stick, or I probably wouldn’t be standing here today.”

Jungwon feels his chest tighten at the words, and he can’t stop himself from blurting out, “I’m glad you’re standing here.”

Jay looks at him, and smiles, warm and kind and pretty. “So am I. Otherwise I’d be missing out on the best bagels in the city, right?” He nods towards the building they’d slowed to a stop in front of without Jungwon even realizing. He’d done this walk so many times, because he never had the energy to make himself breakfast but always was in need of a mental health walk, so it had become sort of a tradition for him and Wonyoung to go before class.

“Right,” Jungwon says dumbly. “Yeah, this is it. I may have overhyped them a bit, but –”

Jay is already opening the door, and walking right up to the counter, scanning the menu while Jungwon approaches too and orders the same thing he always gets. Jay takes far too long to decide what he wants, and he attempts to fight Jungwon on letting him pay for it, both of which would normally bother Jungwon, but it doesn’t bother him now. Whatever.

Everything about Jay is pleasant, maybe, even the things that are annoying.

Like the way he reaches for Jungwon’s hand as they leave the shop, the way he doesn’t complain about his bagel even though Jungwon can tell they’re a little dry today and he’s not a literal chef. He should be annoyed, but he’s not, so he just lets Jay lace their fingers together and moves his bagel into his other hand.

He half expects Jay to leave once they get back to Jungwon’s apartment, but he just follows him upstairs, seemingly not in any rush to leave. Jungwon certainly isn’t about to tell him to, mostly because he doesn’t want to be rude, definitely not because spending the whole day with Jay actually sounds really nice.

The idea becomes even more appealing as soon as the door to Jungwon’s bedroom clicks shut, because then Jay is pulling him in, kissing him like he’d been thinking about it all morning, and any thoughts of asking him to leave are gone in an instant. He definitely wants Jay to stay, both in his apartment and on top of him, wants his hands to never leave Jungwon’s skin. It scares him a little, how much he feels like he could drown in this, but more than that, it makes him feel alive, more alive than he’s felt in a long time, like something he didn’t even know he was missing until it was given back to him.

He can’t get enough. He can’t get enough of Jay’s mouth on his, of the sounds he makes when Jungwon bites down on his bottom lip, of the way he seems to know just how Jungwon likes to be touched, despite only properly touching him for the first time the night before.

They don’t do much more than kiss, Jungwon ending up in Jay’s lap with his hands wandering under the hoodie he’d loaned him, pressing kisses to his jawline before moving down to his neck, pausing when he gets to the birthmark he’d noticed a few times before. He leaves a kiss there, too.

“It’s heart shaped,” he mutters against Jay’s skin, pulling away when Jay hums in question. “Your birthmark,” he explains, poking it with his finger. “It’s a heart.”

“Oh,” Jay says with a slight laugh. “Yeah, it is. My mom always says that’s where she put all the extra love she had for me.” His cheeks turn deliciously pink a moment later, and he shies away from Jungwon’s gaze.

“That’s cute,” Jungwon says. “Maybe that’s why you are the way you are.”

“What do you mean?” Jay asks.

“Like, the extra love. That’s why you’re so – nice,” Jungwon finishes lamely, even though he’s starting to suspect he had better words to describe Jay with than nice. “The only birthmark I have is shaped like an angry baby. Maybe that’s why I am the way I am.”

Jay’s brows furrow in confusion. “An angry baby?”

“You didn’t notice it?” Jungwon asks, climbing off of Jay’s lap before he can think twice about it, turning around, lifting his hoodie, lowering his sweatpants just enough to expose his lower back. He turns his head enough to watch Jay’s reaction, watches him stare at the marked skin for several long seconds, watching a smile unfurl on his lips. “Angry baby, right?”

“It is,” Jay agrees. “It totally is. It even looks like it’s throwing food.”

“Yes!” Jungwon laughs, excited that someone else finally sees what he sees. “No one ever agrees with me, but I’ve always said that.”

Jay lifts his hand to brush his fingers across the birthmark, and then he’s wrapping an arm around Jungwon’s waist, using it to pull him into his lap, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You’re adorable,” he says, moving to mouth at his neck, the hand not wrapped around Jungwon’s waist coming to rest at the waistband of his sweatpants. “I kind of want to eat you up.”

“I don’t think I would taste very good,” Jungwon hums, fighting the shudder that was threatening to wrack through him as Jay’s fingers dance along the skin of his hip teasingly. “I’m all bitter inside. Not like you.”

“You think I would taste good?” Jay laughs in his ear, and this time he can’t fight the way he shivers.

“Yeah. It’s the extra love,” he says. “Like a pastry, or a cookie. When they’re made with love, they’re extra sweet.”

“I don’t know,” Jay says, the pads of his fingers pressing into the skin just below his waistband. “I think you’re plenty sweet.”

Jungwon is about to reply, about to quip back with some comment about Jay being the only one that thinks so, but he’s distracted by the sound of the front door opening.

“Jungwonie!” Wonyoung calls out, and Jungwon is off Jay’s lap and across the room in an instant. “It’s debrief time!”

“Um –” Jungwon starts, hearing the haunting sound of her footsteps approaching his room. “Now’s not a good time!”

“Debrief?” Jay asks, smiling like he already knows exactly what she’s talking about. Jungwon just waves dismissively, not daring to look at him.

“Oh, is that Jay I hear? Still here, hm?” Wonyoung asks, her voice loud enough now that Jungwon knows she’s right outside the door. “If I come in, am I going to see anything traumatizing?”

“Just don’t come in, and you won’t have to worry about it,” Jungwon points out.

There’s a long stretch of silence on the other side of the door. “That’s a good point. You win this one, I suppose,” Wonyoung says, and Jungwon breathes a sigh of relief before quickly tensing up again when she adds in an overly sweet tone, “We’ll talk later, okay?”

For a few long seconds, all Jungwon can do is stare at his door, mortified for no real reason. Wonyoung hadn’t said anything too insane, and Jungwon knows she very well could have. She had plenty of ammo, but used it sparingly, which he both appreciated and resented.

“Sorry,” Jungwon says, flicking his eyes over to Jay. “She’s an agent of chaos.”

“It’s fine,” Jay says easily. “She’s nice.”

“She’s also a witch, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh yeah?” Jay asks with a surprised laugh.

“Yeah,” Jungwon nods, sitting back down beside him on the bed, letting Jay take one of his hands into his lap without much thought, absentmindedly playing with his fingers. “Sometimes I think she’s reading my mind.”

“You should test the theory,” Jay says, seriously, like he’s actually entertaining Jungwon’s foolish line of thought. “What would she hear right now if she read your mind?”

Jungwon thinks about it for a moment. “Probably that I’m really annoyed that she chose to come home now.”

“Heard that!” Wonyoung yells, very clearly still hovering outside of his bedroom door.

Jungwon still jots it down on his mental list of evidence.

Jay laughs again, squeezing Jungwon’s hand. “Maybe next weekend you can come to my place, then,” he suggests, then adds, “Not that her presence is a problem.”

“Oh, she makes it a problem,” Jungwon mutters, quietly enough that she couldn’t hear him if she was still snooping. “That should work, though. I’m going down anyway, I promised Heeseung I’d take Riki to the museum on Saturday. He called me the other day to make sure I was still coming, as if I don’t know he probably plans on having Jake over while we’re gone.”

Jay’s expression turns disgusted. “Didn’t need that mental image,” he says.

“Me neither,” Jungwon sighs. “Those crazy kids. Anyway, I should be free Friday and Saturday night,” he informs him, then promptly feels insecurity creep up on him. “If that’s not, like, too much Jungwon for you.”

“No such thing,” Jay says quickly, simply. “I’d love to see you.”

“Cool,” Jungwon says, aiming for nonchalance. “You could – if you wanted to, you could come hang out with Riki and I, too.”

“On Saturday?” Jay asks. “I wish I could, but I work.”

“Oh,” Jungwon says. “All good. He’s pretty lame, anyways.”

Jay laughs, shaking his head, looking at Jungwon with a fondness that made him want to crawl out of his skin. “Maybe another time. I’d love to meet him. And your brother – partially because I have to meet anyone that’s deranged enough to be into Jake.”

Jungwon laughs a bit too, hoping it isn't obvious how nervous he’s suddenly become. He hadn’t really thought of his words as an offer to meet his family, not like that at least. For Jay to meet his brother and Riki, surely they’d have to be something, and Jungwon wasn’t ready to admit to that, even if it was clear that they were, in fact, something.

If they’re something, they’re something casual. Something that doesn’t require commitment, something that doesn't require a label or things like meeting each other’s family. Something chill. Jungwon can be chill.

Jungwon knows he isn’t kidding anyone, especially not himself, but he’s determined to keep up the charade.

“I’ve always said Heeseung should be studied in a lab,” Jungwon agrees. “But Jake is nice.”

“Jake can be nice. He’s capable of it. But that doesn’t mean he ever is.”

Jungwon doesn’t argue, because he can’t quite figure out what the vibe of Jay and Jake’s friendship is no matter how hard he tries. He just lets go of Jay’s hand, flops down onto his bed, leaving enough room for Jay to do the same beside him.

Their legs tangle together when he does, and Jay ends up resting a hand on Jungwon’s stomach, once again touching him just for the sake of touching him.

“I feel like I could go back to sleep right now,” Jungwon admits after a while. “I never nap.”

“Never?” Jay asks, shock all over his features. “How do you survive?”

Jungwon shrugs. “I barely even sleep at night, let alone during the day. Honestly, I’m like, an insomniac, or something,” he says, then frowns. Opens his mouth and closes it again, just to make sure it really was his own mouth that the words had come out of. He’d never admitted that out loud, at least, not to anyone that wasn’t his therapist. Even then, she’d had to wrench the admission out of him.

“You are?” Jay asks, his voice soft, suddenly full of concern.

“I guess so,” Jungwon says after a few long seconds. “I don’t sleep easily, or well, when I do sleep. I usually wake up two or three times every night. Sometimes it gets so bad I have to go outside and walk around in circles for an hour or so until I tire myself out enough to try again.”

“How long has that been going on for?”

Jungwon thinks about it. “I don’t know. A long time. Maybe on and off since my mom died? Sometimes I’d be in therapy or on medication and it would get better, but – nothing ever really helped long term. I’ve just gotten really good at functioning on very little sleep, I guess.”

Jay stares at him for a moment. “What about last night? Did you sleep okay?”

Jungwon nods. “I did, actually. And – when we talk on the phone, I usually fall asleep a little faster,” he says, stopping himself from saying any more, not wanting to give meaning to something that was, most likely, just a coincidence.

Jay does it anyway. “Maybe you sleep better with another person there,” he says.

Jungwon wrinkles his nose. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

Jay smiles at him, the hand resting on his stomach coming up to brush through Jungwon’s hair. “You should take a nap.”

“We’re hanging out,” Jungwon says. “I’m good.”

“We have plenty of time to hang out,” Jay says, as if he wasn’t going back home that day, as if it wouldn’t be another week before Jungwon would see him again.

“I have plenty of time to sleep, too,” Jungwon protests, but his eyes are starting to feel a little heavy.

“Clearly, you don’t,” Jay says dryly. “Sleep, Jungwon. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Will you sleep too?” Jungwon asks, his words a bit fuzzy around the edges, sinking into sleep whether he wanted to or not.

“You couldn’t stop me if you tried,” Jay mumbles, closing his eyes, and Jungwon suddenly doesn’t even have the energy to laugh. He just quirks his lips into a grin, and falls asleep that way, with Jay’s hand resting in his hair and a smile on his face.

They only wake up shortly before dinner time, and Jungwon, once again, assumes Jay is going to leave. He finds that he really doesn’t want him to, but that’s probably just because he hasn’t shaken the sleep out of his brain yet.

“I should probably go,” Jay says, and Jungwon is once again momentarily concerned that someone is reading his thoughts and projecting them without his knowledge.

“Don’t,” Jungwon says automatically. “Or – whatever, if you want to.”

Jay smiles. “I can stay a little longer. If I’m not overstaying my welcome, that is.”

“Obviously not,” Jungwon mumbles, letting his eyes fall shut again.

“Are you going back to sleep?” Jay asks.

Jungwon hums. “Just resting my eyes.”

Jay laughs, and the sound is enough to have Jungwon cracking his eyes open, because he’s finding it increasingly difficult to look away from Jay when he’s laughing.

“Are you hungry?” Jungwon asks a moment later.

“Sure,” Jay agrees. “I can make something, if you want.”

“As nice as that sounds, I’m pretty sure the only thing in my fridge right now is an apple and a bag of spinach.”

“Why do you eat like a rabbit?” Jay mutters.

“They’re not even mine,” Jungwon adds, to make matters worse.

Jay groans, running his hand down his face like Jungwon was causing him extreme distress. “Sometime,” he starts, looking over at Jungwon with a serious expression. “We’ll go grocery shopping, and I’ll teach you how to cook.”

“Mm,” Jungwon hums. “Or you can just always do the cooking for me.”

“I would,” Jay says. “If I was closer.”

And that gives Jungwon some unsolicited images from the depths of his demon brain, images of sharing a space with Jay, of helping him cook dinner and not really making anything easier for him, of sleeping in the same bed every night, a bed that they shared, in a place that they shared.

Jungwon is, seemingly, in desperate need of a lobotomy.

“Just the lesson, then,” Jungwon says, his brain tacking on a very unnecessary for now that he really doesn’t appreciate.

“Sure,” Jay agrees easily. “In exchange, you can give me some book recommendations.”

Jungwon shakes his head. Jay laughs at him, and he cracks an eye open just to narrow it in his direction.

“Why not?”

“I don’t do that,” Jungwon says.

“Why? Are you worried they’ll reveal something about you?”

Yes, his brain supplies. “No,” Jungwon says.

“Okay,” Jay chuckles. “Then don’t tell me your favourites. Tell me ones you think I’ll like. Then it’s more of a reflection of my character than yours, right?”

“I don’t know your character,” Jungwon says stubbornly. “Just – go pick one, if you want to.”

“I don’t need to borrow yours,” Jay says gently. “I can buy my own copies.”

“I don’t mind,” Jungwon insists. “They just sit there on the shelf. I barely have time to read these days, so someone might as well be reading them.”

Jay hums after a moment, and Jungwon feels the bed shift as he gets up, cracking his eyes open again to watch him look through his bookshelf. He already knows which ones Jay is going to gravitate towards – the ones with the cracked spines, the worn edges, the dog-eared pages. The ones that were visibly Jungwon’s favourites, the ones that he’d clearly read time and time again. He watches as his fingers brush across the spines of books Jungwon used to carry with him everywhere he went, by authors whose words he’d practically committed to memory at this point – Shelley, Salinger, Didion, Plath.

He ends up choosing Frankenstein, a book that had enthralled him when he was a teenager, a book that he rarely revisits now. But a past version of himself had turned to it for comfort, and it was clear from the state of it that he had loved it well. He had the inscription on the inside cover of it memorized. It’s one his mother had given to him after she got sick, and she’d written a joke about how she expected Jungwon to take notes while reading.

He hadn’t thought it was funny at the time. It’s a little funny, now.

“I’ve seen the movie,” Jay tells him. “My parents took me to see it at a drive-in when I was a kid. It scared the shit out of me.”

“You would find it scary,” Jungwon says with a roll of his eyes.

“Excuse me,” Jay turns around, sitting down next to him again. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you’re a big softie,” Jungwon tells him.

Jay barks out a surprised laugh, shaking his head at him, looking entirely too fond once again. “You’re the only one that thinks that.”

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Jay insists. “Everyone always tells me they thought I looked scary when they first met me.”

“I don’t believe it. Your face is too cute for that.”

Jay smiles at him, and it’s a little too amused for Jungwon’s liking, like he could see right through him. “You think so?” He asks, patting his cheeks with his hands like he was testing it for himself. “You didn’t think I was scary at first?”

“I thought you were terrifying, but not because of your face,” Jungwon says, then immediately regrets it.

“My personality, then. I knew it,” Jay sighs mournfully, teasingly.

“No, just your – existence,” Jungwon says, digging his grave a little deeper. “And your… interest in me. It’s scary.”

Jay nods in understanding. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Jungwon counters.

“It’s scary to let someone into your life.”

“You don’t seem scared,” Jungwon says, bringing his thumb up to his lips, chewing on the skin around his nail. Jay follows the movement with his eyes.

“Of course I’m scared,” Jay says after a moment. “I’m always scared.”

Jungwon stares at him for a while, takes in the sharp lines of his face in the late afternoon sun shining through his window. The slope of his nose, the texture of his skin, the birthmark on his neck that holds all the extra love he’s been given. Jungwon wonders if he’s contributed to the stockpile. He thinks he probably has, whether he was aware of it or not. He thinks he has a little extra everything, when it comes to Jay.

“And that doesn’t make you want to stop?” Jungwon asks.

“No,” Jay says, looking over at him. “It doesn’t. I stopped denying myself things just because I was afraid of them a long time ago. If I hadn’t, I never would have gotten sober, never would have gotten my GED, never would have gone back to working at the diner. All the best things I’ve done in my life are things that scared the shit out of me at first. Like talking to you.”

Jungwon shakes his head automatically, his familiar instinct to shut down anyone that tried to be kind to him kicking in once again. “I don’t think I’m going to be one of your best things.”

“It’s too early to tell,” Jay says sagely. “We’ll have to keep seeing each other to know for sure.”

“Seeing each other,” Jungwon repeats, narrowing his eyes, “Sounds a lot like dating.”

Jay raises his hands in surrender. “You said it, not me.”

Jungwon rolls his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to protest. He really should protest. He should let Jay down easily, and in a way that ideally meant they could keep sleeping together, because that’s something Jungwon is very interested in doing. He’s not interested in being anyone’s boyfriend, not now and probably not ever.

He is unfortunately, however, very interested in Jay. In getting to know him, in seeing him, whatever that may mean. Jungwon doesn’t want to be cruel and lead him on, but he also isn’t quite ready to let him go. Maybe Jay will settle for somewhere in the middle.

“We’re friends,” Jungwon tells him. Jay’s expression doesn’t dim, like he knows that isn’t going to be where he ends his sentence. “But I – unfortunately, I have to admit that I like this. Whatever this is. So we can be friends and… whatever.”

“Friends and whatever,” Jay repeats, a slow smile growing on his face. “I’ll take it.”

“Will you?” Jungwon asks, knowing that insecurity had crept into his tone despite his efforts to not let it.

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” Jay says, and coming from anyone else, it might sound sad. From Jay, it sounds unbelievably optimistic, so much so that the room practically fills with it, so much so that it almost infects Jungwon, almost buries in his chest and spreads to every part of him and makes a home there.

He swats it away like a pesky insect before it gets a chance. And then he smiles at Jay anyway.

They end up ordering pizza, and eating it in the living room, because Wonyoung doesn’t scare him, and he pays the same rent that she does. She ends up joining them, because of course she does, and she ends up eating a few slices from the pizza Jungwon had ordered with her favourite toppings in mind, because of course he did.

She doesn’t traumatize him, not in any major way, doesn’t bring up the cat-maid-outfit incident or the time that Jungwon got too drunk and danced on a table that ended up collapsing under his weight. (He was really drunk, and it had a faulty leg, and it was Wonyoung’s fault, anyway.) He’s pretty sure she has a video of it, one she never posted, because she actually is a good friend to him when she’s not busy being a menace.

“So, should I make myself scarce tonight, too?” She asks sweetly between bites of her slice of pizza.

Most of the time, she’s a good friend. Most of the time.

“No, Wony,” Jungwon snaps, harsh but covered in a layer of saccharine sweetness to match her own. “Jay’s leaving soon.”

Jay nods in confirmation, finishing swallowing the bite that was in his mouth before speaking. How gentlemanly, Jungwon thinks, then shakes his head hard enough that he hears his brain rattle. “Yeah, I’ll get out of your hair shortly,” he says. “I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome now.”

Wonyoung scoffs, waving a dismissive hand, sending a wink Jungwon’s way. “Nonsense. You’re welcome anytime, sweetheart,” she says in that same sweet tone, like she was flirting with Jay on Jungwon’s behalf, clearly not trusting him to do it himself.

Jungwon doesn’t want to flirt with Jay, not in front of Wonyoung, but he also likes to win. So once Jay has had his fill of pizza and declared that he should probably hit the road since it’s getting dark, Jungwon walks him to the door, and when Jay looks like he wants to kiss him, Jungwon lets him. Maybe he even pulls him in. He’s too close to the situation to know for sure, he needs an objective third party to review the footage.

Not Wonyoung, though. She’s not objective, nor is she a third party, more like a human extension of Jungwon’s demon brain. Still, if Jungwon was counting her opinion, he’d certainly be freaked out by it, because the door closes behind Jay and she gives him a wickedly amused grin, going full Kubrick stare on him.

“It’s creepy when you do that,” he tells her. “You’re not helping the witch allegations.”

“The allegation in question comes from you and only you.”

“The number of allies I have grows every day.”

“Yeah, up by one from yesterday, and only because you let Jay hit –”

“Oh my god.”

“– And now he’ll probably go along with anything you say.”

Jungwon huffs in defeat, stomping into the kitchen to open the fridge and stare into it aimlessly. He just wants some soda. Maybe he should go grocery shopping. He’s not going to, but maybe he should.

“You did let him hit, right?” Wonyoung asks, following him into the kitchen, putting their leftover pizza in the fridge and bringing its contents up to a whopping three items.

“You don’t normally say these things,” Jungwon says, ignoring the question. “Since when do you talk like this?”

“If you didn’t, I’m going to be so mad at you,” Wonyoung pushes on, ignoring him. “I had to sleep on Liz and Rei’s couch last night, and my back is still hurting. You know I’m like a modern-day Princess and the Pea, but I made this sacrifice for you so you could get laid. I’m basically like a modern-day Mother Teresa.”

Jungwon’s cheeks are already burning, and he hasn’t even confirmed anything yet. “So which is it? Are you a modern-day Princess and the Pea or a modern-day Mother Teresa?”

“I’m both. And I’m about to be a modern-day Tom Brady if you don’t start giving me details.”

“Tom – do you mean Ted Bundy? Tom Brady is a football player.”

Wonyoung narrows her eyes. “I’m too pretty to know that. Now spill.”

“I – yeah, I let him hit,” Jungwon mutters, once again hoping and praying for a sinkhole to open up in the floor beneath him to send him straight down to the deepest pits of hell. “It was nice.”

“Nice?” Wonyoung asks, crossing her arms, looking far too amused by his vague answer.

“It was – I don’t know. It was good. He was nice and it didn’t fucking hurt like shit this time,” he says with a frustrated sigh. “How much detail do you want from me here? We fucked, it was nice, no big deal.”

Wonyoung doesn’t look convinced. “It doesn’t seem like no big deal. You bought him dinner and kissed him goodbye at the door.”

“He bought dinner,” Jungwon corrects. “I bought him breakfast, but it was just bagels. And you have no proof that I kissed him.”

Wonyoung tilts her head, looking at him in confusion and a bit of awe. “I literally saw it? With my own eyes?”

“Doesn’t sound like something I’d do,” Jungwon says stubbornly.

Wonyoung sighs, and it sounds long-suffering, like Jungwon had been inflicting mental anguish on her for decades and not just a couple of years, tops. She steps closer, putting a perfectly manicured hand on each of his shoulders, like she was about to shake him to death. He’d let her. No doubt about it. It sounds like just what he needs, right now.

“Jungwon,” she says slowly, carefully, dragging out the vowels of his name for half a second too long. “I’m only going to phrase this harshly because I love you, and because I know you can take it, and because you need to hear it.”

“Pass,” Jungwon mutters.

“No passes,” Wonyoung insists. “Jay is nice. He’s super handsome. He’s like, the total package, and you know that’s true if I’m saying it, because I never give men any praise, ever.”

Jungwon nods in agreement. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Then let me tell you something else you already know: you are going to try to find a way to fuck this up for yourself,” Wonyoung tells him seriously – more serious than he’s used to seeing her, more serious than he’d like her to be. “You are going to hit the self-sabotage button, and you are definitely going to convince yourself that you don’t deserve to be happy. It’s inevitable.”

“Is this supposed to be making me feel better?” Jungwon asks.

“No,” Wonyoung says. “But this might, okay? I am not going to let you fuck this up. I am going to throw the self-sabotage button out the window, and I am going to tie your hands behind your back, and I am going to hold you hostage in the letting yourself have good things room.”

“This is a really elaborate way of asking me to share my feelings with you.”

“Is it working?”

“No. You’ll have to pry my feelings out of my cold dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” Wonyoung says ominously. “But I for one happen to like my best friend alive and happy. Do you get it?”

Jungwon shrugs, but finally meets her eyes a moment later, wary and tired despite the surplus of sleep he’d gotten that day. “Does that mean I seem happy to you right now?”

Wonyoung nods. “Yeah, Wonie. You seem really happy. In your own way.”

In his own way is just another way of saying in a weird way, but he doesn’t take it personally. He knows Wonyoung doesn’t mean it as an insult, because he knows – although he doesn’t always fully believe – that she likes him despite his weirdness, despite his avoidant tendencies. He thought she was a rare exception, someone that could achieve the impossible task of finding something worth loving inside of Jungwon’s cold exterior.

But now, he’s starting to worry that she’s not the only one. He’s starting to worry about what Jay has seen in him that’s making him want to stick around, whether or not it’s the very thing he tries so hard to bury into oblivion.

It should scare him, and it does, it terrifies him, but he’s not sure there’s anything he can do about it.

“I – I think I might be,” he admits. “I think I might be kind of happy.”

Wonyoung gives him a soft smile, and then the hands on his shoulders are pulling, until he’s close enough for her to wrap her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly like she can tell he needs the stability. He really, really does. He doesn’t normally allow this, saves it for when he really needs it, but – this might be one of those times where he does.

He’s happy. Now that he’s spoken it aloud, it’s become a tangible thing, something real, something that can be taken from him, something that has been taken from him, time and time again. Now that he’s spoken it aloud, he wants to take it back, wants to hold it close to him like it’s precious, because it is, precious and rare and a little too breakable.

But more than that, he wants more of it. He’s becoming greedy, and hopeful, something he thought he’d never allow himself to be, something that Jay has pried out of him and left him with. He doesn’t know what to do with all of it, with his newfound hope.

Wonyoung is right. His first instinct is to stomp it into tiny pieces, to ruin it for himself, to hit the self-sabotage button. He doesn’t. He just lets her hold onto it, for a moment, because he knows she’ll treat it with more kindness than he knows how to.