Chapter Text
Hyunjin knew something was up the second Chan texted him:
Chan hyung: You’re getting a new dorm mate. Don’t kill him.
He stared at the message for a long moment before tossing his phone onto the bed. There was no exclamation mark. Not even a laughing emoji. Just that dry, clipped warning Chan only used when he knew Hyunjin wasn’t going to like something.
A reshuffle wasn’t new. They happened every now and then whenever the company decided the group needed a shake-up. They were never random though. Sleep schedules, temperaments, creative flow was all part of the plan that someone up there spent hours measuring in a spreadsheet.
Which meant whoever they were sticking with him now was probably the exact opposite of whatever mask he’d been wearing lately.
He was still chewing on that thought when the knock came.
Then the door opened. Obviously whoever it was didn’t feel the need to wait. Jeongin stepped inside with a single nod, dragging a scuffed suitcase behind him.
“Hey,” he said, like they hadn’t just spent years dancing around each other’s orbit.
Hyunjin blinked. “Wait.. you?”
Jeongin tilted his head slightly, eyes dry. “Me.”
“I thought they were pairing me with…” He stopped himself before he said something too honest. Too obvious. “Didn’t think they’d pair me with the baby.”
“I’m twenty-two,” Jeongin said, setting the suitcase upright. “I’ve been drinking legally for years.”
“You were born in the wrong decade.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t ask you to babysit.”
Hyunjin squinted at him, but it didn’t land the way he wanted. Jeongin’s face didn’t twist in embarrassment or tilt into a grin. He just looked like the joke had bounced right off him.
He wasn’t the wide-eyed maknae Hyunjin thought him to be. Not the giggling blur, that used to trip over his own feet while trying to match formations. There was still softness in his face but it had grown structure. Angles. Patience. He stood differently too, weight evenly balanced, shoulders drawn back like he didn’t mind being looked at.
Hyunjin looked away. Why did he notice these thing now??
“You’ve been rehearsing that line all morning, haven’t you?” he muttered, stepping aside.
Jeongin walked past without answering and plopped down on the couch.
The living room looked different already. No more candles on the shelf. No blankets draped over the couch. Just an empty dish where Minho’s lucky coin used to sit and a stack of neatly folded hoodies that didn’t belong to Hyunjin.
Minho was still boxing up the last of his things when Hyunjin came into the room.
Minho glanced up with a tired smile. “You gonna be nice to him?”
Hyunjin leaned against the doorframe. “Define nice.”
“Not making him cry would be a good start.”
Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “I haven’t made anyone cry in years.”
“Yeah? Remember why that is?”
The answer to that question was absolutely not something Hyunjin wanted to think about now. Not with Jeongin in the next room.
Minho tugged the zipper on his duffel shut. “I’ll come by sometimes. When it’s less awkward.”
“It’s not awkward,” Hyunjin said immediately.
Minho’s eyebrow twitched. “You know he still looks at you like you hung the moon, right? Or he used to.”
“That’s not…” Hyunjin cut himself off. “He doesn’t.”
“No. He doesn’t,” Minho agreed quietly. “That’s the thing.”
He walked out with one last glance over his shoulder and didn’t look back.
The new dorm setup was cleaner. Smaller. It felt like a hotel suite someone forgot to decorate. Two rooms. One bathroom. No 3rd or 4th roommate buffer.
Jeongin took the smaller room without a word, dropped his bag beside the bed, and started unpacking while Hyunjin stood in the hallway a second longer than he meant to, listening.
No music. No humming. Just the sound of a zipper being drawn open. A soft exhale when something didn’t fit in the drawer the way it was supposed to.
He turned away and closed the door to his own room. The silence stretched between them. It was awkward alright.
They hadn’t said anything real yet. Maybe they wouldn’t. But Jeongin was here now. And Minho wasn’t.
Hyunjin lay sideways on the couch, scrolling his feed with one hand and picking at the frayed edge of a cushion with the other. The blue light washed over his face, casting everything in the detached glow of curated lives and filtered perfection.
His focus kept slipping to the hallway. To the faint movements behind the closed door at the end of it. To Jeongin. Or more precisely; the way Jeongin moved like he’d done this before. Like sharing space was a technical arrangement, not a social one. No small talk. No check-ins. Just careful footsteps and quiet drawers, as if his presence was something to be minimized.
Hyunjin wondered we he didn’t smell like anything. Beta-neutral. That’s what his chart had always said. The company hadn’t flagged anything new, and Jeongin never talked about it. Maybe it was true. Hyunjin’s alpha stirred anyway. Not enough to rise. Just a flicker. Something didn’t add up and thought left Hyunjin a little bit unsettled.
They ended up eating together mostly because it was too late to pretend they weren’t hungry, and ordering separately would’ve been stupid.
Fried chicken. Shared sauces. Two bottles of beer sweating on the table. The muted hum of the news on TV, because neither of them had reached for the remote.
“You always this quiet?” Hyunjin asked around a mouthful of rice.
Jeongin didn’t look up. “You always this loud?”
Hyunjin smirked. “Touché.”
“I figured they needed someone to balance your energy,” Jeongin added. “Not that I volunteered.”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t choose to live with me?”
“I’m saying I’d prefer a roommate who doesn’t talk to mirrors.”
“It’s called visualization,” Hyunjin said, feigning offense.
Jeongin didn’t blink. “It’s called narcissism.”
The laugh burst out of Hyunjin before he could stop it. Jeongin didn’t smile and that didn’t sit well with him. Because it meant he hadn’t been joking for Hyunjin’s benefit. It wasn’t banter. It was just how he was now. The grown up version of Yang Jeongin; dry, unbothered, and clearly unimpressed.
Later, Hyunjin paced the length of his room. Shirtless, barefoot, buzzed just enough to feel warm behind the eyes. He wasn’t restless exactly, just… unfulfilled. It was a strange feeling. Like a performance cut short before the applause. He’d tried, hadn’t he? Thrown out a few lines, smiled the way he always did, teased just enough. But Jeongin hadn’t risen to any of it.
He flopped onto the bed, arms stretched wide, staring at the ceiling telling himself not to care. He didn’t care. Not really. The lie was so comically obvious.
Hyunjin would have expected tension and awkward silences, overlapping routines, territorial instincts flaring. That was what happened when alphas were forced to share space. But Jeongin wasn’t alpha. He was a beta. Neutral. Steady. Unshakable.
From the outside, Jeongin was easy to live with. Quiet. Precise. He kept his space neat, didn’t linger in shared areas, and didn’t fill the apartment with unnecessary noise. They trained, ate, slept, and passed each other like clockwork. Just two people on parallel tracks.
It was the kind of arrangement that should’ve soothed Hyunjin’s alpha instincts.
“Still surviving?” Felix asked, tossing him a drink as they waited for the rest of rehearsal to start.
“Barely,” Hyunjin muttered. “He color-coded the spice rack.”
“Okay, now I’m jealous,” Seungmin said. “Han keeps trying to use ketchup as marinade.”
“He’s doing his best,” Felix grinned. “Besides, he’s mated. He doesn’t cook anymore. That’s Chan’s job.”
Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “Must be nice.”
“They’re the only pair that didn’t rotate,” Seungmin added. “You and Jeongin, though. That’s an interesting combo.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that he’s not a kid anymore, you know?”
Hyunjin looked across the room.
Jeongin was stretching against the barre, his body long and loose, shirt tugged slightly up from his waistband, neck glistening with sweat.
His alpha responded before his mind did. It was just a ripple of tension low in his spine. A quiet demand to watch.
“Hyunjin,” Seungmin said again.
“What?”
“You were zoning out.”
“I was not!”
Felix smirked. “You were. It’s fine. He’s hot now.”
“I’m not talking to you two anymore today.”
In the evening, Jeongin handed him the remote.
“No horror,” he said, sipping his water, gaze flicking up only briefly.
“I wasn’t going to pick horror,” Hyunjin grumbled.
“You always pick horror when you’re sulking.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“Mm-hm.”
Jeongin was still officially beta. Neutral profile. No change on record. But there was something underneath that neutrality now. something green and maddening.
A trace of heat from his skin after a run. A clean sharpness when he stepped out of the shower. Not floral or sweet, but fresh and clean. Unclaimed.
Hyunjin’s alpha keyed into it like a live wire. Not enough to trigger anything instinctive. Just enough to keep him aware.
Jeongin was leaning against the counter, shirtless, eating cold leftovers directly from the pan. Hair still wet. Sweatpants loose and low on his hips when Hyunjin padded in, still damp from his own shower, and stopped short.
It was stupid and normal but Hyunjin’s alpha saw territory. Saw bare skin and bare throat and something just primal enough to trigger the faintest urge to scent-mark the entire kitchen.
He forced himself to blink. “You left the soy sauce out.”
Jeongin didn’t even look at him. “Well, that was a random thing to say…You used it last by the way”
Hyunjin opened the fridge, tried and failed to remember why he’d come into the kitchen. Better retreat to his room before any more genius remarks sprouted.
He sat on the edge of his bed, towel around his neck, staring blankly at his phone. He wasn’t supposed to notice these things about Jeongin, their Innie. He’d lived around omegas before. Betas, too. This was very very normal.
If only his alpha cared for normal. It cared that Jeongin was a desirable. Clever, fit, fun and gorgeous.
It cared that Jeongin took up space in any room now, with his broad shoulders and sleep heavy eyes in the mornings in a way that made Hyunjin want to lean in and breathe him deeper. He was right THERE. All the time now. And so out of reach he could just as well have been on the moon. Hyunjin’s alpha hated that.
The next night, Jeongin walked in late from rehearsal, shirt damp with sweat and face prettily flushed.
Hyunjin’s entire body went still.
His alpha surged up with need to touch and to scent. To test the calmness and see if it held.
“Long day?” he asked, trying to sound normal.
Jeongin peeled off his hoodie in one smooth motion. “Normal,” he said, and sat on the floor with a groan.
He arched his back, cracked his neck, and let his head fall back against the couch.
Hyunjin forgot how to blink.
“You gonna keep staring?” Jeongin asked, eyes still closed, voice low and unimpressed.
Hyunjin swallowed. “I wasn’t.”
“Sure.”
It was so infuriating. Jeongin didn’t react. He didn’t flush when Hyunjin leaned in. Didn’t flinch at teasing. Didn’t look at him the way people usually did when Hyunjin’s alpha got curious. He was composed. In control. Neutral on the surface.
It made Hyunjin burn. At night, he tried not to think about it. Tried not to picture Jeongin stretched across his bed, warm and gasping for him. Tried not to imagine the taste of his skin. The sound of his voice when he came.
But his alpha did. His alpha thought about it constantly and Hyunjin, wide awake and breathless knew this wasn’t just curiosity anymore. It was raw want and not just a tiny bit of obsession, that Innie luckily didn’t know about. Or so he told himself. One of these days he might even believe it.
The beer shouldn’t have been there.
Chan had made it clear that no alcohol was allowed. Official or not. Cameras or not.
Jeongin had bought it anyway. Tucked between fizzy drinks and salt snacks on the kitchen counter.
“You’re not even old enough to..”
“Twenty-two,” Jeongin cut in, brushing past him without slowing. “And I checked. We’re not on call. No cameras. No press.”
Hyunjin blinked. Then stared at the space Jeongin had just walked through, his face one big question mark.
Because the thing was, Jeongin had always been here. On stages. In waiting rooms. In the van, slumped over Felix’s shoulder. At their lowest and highest, always part of the group.
But now? Now Hyunjin was forced to see him in a new light and it threw everything off balance.
The living room filled quickly. Jisung cranked the volume on the TV. Seungmin arrived with his usual sarcasm and a grocery bag full of “functional snacks.” Felix stumbled in with a tote bag that smelled suspiciously of soil.
“Okay but listen,” Felix said, setting the bag down carefully and pulling out a battered pink planter. “This is Bean.”
A moment of silence.
“…Is that a ficus?” Chan asked carefully.
“He’s an experience,” Felix said, hugging the plant to his chest. “Bean has trauma and flair. He’s allergic to bad vibes and responds best to sarcasm and jazz.”
“Great,” Seungmin muttered. “The plant has a better personality than Jisung.”
“He also has abandonment issues,” Felix added. “He’ll drop his leaves if anyone in this room is emotionally constipated.”
They all turned slowly to Hyunjin.
“Why me?” he snapped.
Jeongin, sitting calmly with a bottle in one hand and a bag of chips between his knees, hummed in a sing song voice “If the ficus fits…”
The others burst out laughing.
Hyunjin opened his mouth to reply. Then shut it again.
Because Jeongin hadn’t looked over. Hadn’t even smirked properly. He just sipped his drink and returned his attention to the group conversation, shoulders loose, expression unreadable.
Like this was normal. Like he was normal. He had started to hate that word. Nothing was normal now, especially not Yang Jeongin.
The baby of the group. The one who used to fall asleep in wardrobe chairs and miss his bus stop because he got distracted watching clouds.
Now a grown man who was calm, unfazed, and absolutely not interested in Hyunjin’s approval.
They ate sitting on the floor and lounged across the couch in familiar piles. Felix fell into Jisung’s lap. Bean took the windowsill. Jeongin sat on the floor with his back to the couch, knees bent, controller in hand, eyes fixed on the screen.
He was louder than usual tonight. Laughing at Jisung’s terrible impressions. Arguing with Chan about how much sauce was too much for one drumstick. Swearing at Seungmin every time a blue shell tanked his kart in Mario Kart.
Through it all, Hyunjin observed.
Watched him stretch his arms overhead, obsessing about his bellybutton. Listened to the way his voice dipped low when he was focused. Smelled how his scent stayed neutral. He felt like a stalker. Completely unhinged and out of control while his alpha kept pricking up its ears.
“Ohh, hyung’s losing,” Felix crowed, pointing at the screen as Hyunjin’s kart rocketed off the edge of Rainbow Road. “That’s a new low.”
“I blame Bean,” Hyunjin snickered.
“Bean is spiritually disappointed in you,” Jisung added.
“I’m spiritually disappointed in this game.”
Jeongin didn’t even look over. He just sipped his drink again and kept playing.
Hyunjin cursed himself silently.
The group thinned out close to midnight. Chan and Han left first. Jisung gave Bean a goodbye pat and Felix made Jeongin promise to mist the plant with filtered water and positive affirmations. Being a ficus foster daddy came with great expectations and responsibilities.
Jeongin started cleaning before anyone else moved.
Hyunjin stood, awkwardly half-holding a takeaway box. “I can do that?”
“I’ve got it,” Jeongin said, sliding past him.
When the last dish was stacked and the apartment fell quiet again, Hyunjin lingered in the doorway to the kitchen.
“You always this bossy when the others aren’t around?”
Jeongin shrugged. “I clean. It’s not that deep.”
“You’re very… settled.”
Jeongin turned slightly, brow raised. “You say that like I only learned to tie my shoes yesterday.”
“Just don’t get too comfortable,” Hyunjin muttered. “I snore. And I don’t share.”
Jeongin gave him a long, dry look. “Did I ask you to?”and sauntered away into his room.
The problem wasn’t proximity. It was the way Hyunjin’s body responded to it.
His instincts stirred every time Jeongin entered a room. Jeongin as a compass tugging at something in Hyunjin’s chest. It became like a second pulse that hummed beneath the surface of everything.
Three weeks in, and he knew the rhythm of Jeongin’s days more intimately than his own. Knew the sound of his footsteps across the hall. Knew which hoodie he grabbed when he was tired. Knew how his scent of fresh-cut grass lingered faintly on the shared laundry rack long after he was gone.
It wasn’t a strong scent and it didn’t fit the mold of either beta or omega. Still, it carried something that made Hyunjin’s alpha instincts tangle up on themselves.
It was everywhere.m; Rehearsals. Van rides. Dressing rooms. He was one stiff breeze away from loosing it.
Innie tossing his practice bag into the corner and collapsing into a seat, sweat-soaked and glowing after dance drills. Innie half-asleep on the greenroom floor, legs long, joggers clinging in ways that made Hyunjin’s jaw clench. Innie yawning with his arms stretched overhead, shirt lifting to reveal a sliver of skin. And then there was the turtleneck. Black. Fitted. Sleeves pushed up to his elbows, collar grazing the edge of his throat. It aught to be illegal.
Hyunjin had tripped over a speaker cable that day. Nearly dropped a mic during the shoot. Faked a cough to avoid eye contact when Jeongin brushed past him on the way out.
“Hyunjin.” Chan’s voice cut through rehearsal
Hyunjin looked up, already on edge.
“You good?”
“Yeah hyung” he said quickly. “Fine.”
Chan didn’t buy it. “You’ve been off. Slipping counts. Missing your marks. And unless my eyes are broken, you nearly growled when Innie walked past you earlier.”
Hyunjin’s stomach dropped.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh?” Chan repeated.
There was no explanation that didn’t sound insane.
How could he say that Innie’s scent got stuck in his nose sometimes, made him restless at night? That he’d nearly called him baby the day before while reading script cues, and only caught himself because Felix coughed at the exact right moment? That he’d started biting the inside of his cheek every time glutes were on display when Innie leaned over to tie his shoes?
That he wanted, more than anything, just to touch. To scent. To test that composure and see what was beneath it.
So he didn’t say any of that.
“I guess I’m still adjusting,” he said, dragging a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Different sleep schedule. That’s all.”
Chan didn’t blink. “You’ve known him since you were kids.”
“Yeah, but… it’s different now. Sharing space again. We’re older. He’s…” his voice trailed off. He’s not a kid anymore and it has turned my world upside down. Words like that couldn’t be spoken.
“You sure that’s all it is?”
Hyunjin smiled thin and tired. “Definitely.”
A pause. Then Chan clapped him on the back, smile wry. “If he’s secretly eating your skincare, just blink twice.”
Hyunjin laughed a bit too loud and a bit too fast.
And Chan silently agreed to pretend until Hyunjin was ready to talk.
Afterward, Hyunjin stayed behind in the practice room. The others drifted out and the lights dimmed around him as leaned against the mirror wall, closing his eyes.
This wasn’t about space or sleeping patterns or skincare. It was about how Jeongin’s scent clung to his sheets sometimes. That faint, fresh-grass clarity that made Hyunjin’s chest ache.
It was about the echo of Jeongin’s voice in the hallway, the softness of his laugh, the heat of his body pressed lightly against his in the van when they hit a sharp turn and didn’t speak about it after. About a cozy night on the couch.
His Innie had changed. Or maybe not changed at all. Maybe just grown into himself while Hyunjin wasn’t looking and now that he was looking, he couldn’t stop.
Hyunjin took a deep breath, the air thick with leftover sweat, floor polish, and the ghost of green. He could handle this. He had to.
Because if he didn’t, something was going to give and he didn’t know if it would be his restraint or whatever invisible thread still held their fragile friendship in place
Jeongin.
“You know Hyunjin’s acting weird, right?”
Jisung flopped onto the dorm couch without grace, hair still damp from the shower. “Like, extra weird. Even for him.”
“Define weird,” Jeongin replied, not looking up from the cup ramen he was finishing at the kitchen counter.
“Staring,” Felix chimed in, sitting cross-legged on the floor with Bean tucked safely between his knees. “Staring a lot. Like, cartoon heart-eyes level.”
“He’s not” Jeongin sighed. “It’s not like that.”
Felix tilted his head. “Not like what?”
“I know that look,” Jisung said. “I’ve done that look. That’s the ‘I’m having thoughts and most of them are illegal’ look.”
Jeongin stirred his ramen slowly.
“I think it’s just alpha preening,” he said eventually. “He’s not used to people not reacting.”
Felix blinked. “You think he’s… what? Acting out because you’re not fawning over him?”
Jeongin shrugged. “Maybe.”
Jisung leaned in, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Wait. Wait. So you have noticed.”
“I’m not blind,” Jeongin muttered, lips twitching into something not quite a smile. “He watches me like I’m going to start glowing any minute. Like I might be on the menu for his next meal.”
Felix giggled. “Well, to be fair, you are glowing. All that moisturizer and maturity.”
“Shut up,” Jeongin said without bite.
He wasn’t flustered. Just tired. Because Hyunjin had always been like this. Big energy. Bigger presence. Alpha to the core.
Once upon a time, Jeongin had felt the spark. Long ago, when he was younger and Hyunjin was golden in the spotlight, laughing too loud and shining too bright. That spark was gone now. Snuffed out by time and knowing better.
Whatever Hyunjin was doing now with the lingering glances, subtle scent adjustments in the hallway, Jeongin wasn’t reading into it.
“I’m not playing,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.
Felix looked up. “What?”
Jeongin wiped a spot off the counter with his thumb and shrugged again. “Nothing. Just… I see it. I’m not chasing it.”
“You don’t have to,” Jisung said. “Pretty sure it’s chasing you.”
“Let it,” Jeongin said quietly, eyes flicking toward the hallway. “It’ll get bored eventually.”
What if he played just a little bit to get back at Hyunjin for not adoring ham years ago. It was childish he knew. But it would also be too much fun not to. Just a tiny little bit.
He could feel Hyunjin staring again.
He didn’t need to look up. The weight of that gaze had become so familiar it may as well have been a second skin. It wasn’t just looking. It was tracking. Low-grade alpha tension all over the place.
They were in the dressing room, post-rehearsal. Bright lights and loud music. Jisung arguing with Changbin about a sweater and Felix explaining Bean’s “emotional recovery arc” to a confused makeup assistant. Seungmin half-asleep in the chair next to him with a brush in hand and no intention of using it.
Jeongin sat on the edge of the counter, shirt tucked in too neatly. Collar too stiff. It was nothing, really. Just a button-up he’d worn for countless shoots.
He couldn’t wait to take it off. So, with a fake absentmindedness he undid the top button. Then the second. The heat of Hyunjin’s gaze burned steady, and his fingers moved on. The third button came undone, loosening the fabric and baring the top curve of his chest.
Too much? He asked himself. Oh well. Too late now.
One of the managers called his name from the door and he twisted to look.
The fabric of the shirt shifted wide open to a full view of a single nipple, framed artfully in pale cotton and smooth skin.
The room didn’t freeze, but Hyunjin did. With a tiny involuntary noise. A choked squeak, that clearly tried to be subtle but sounded more like a small animal having a spiritual crisis.
Jeongin slowly turned back and met his eyes. Held them a few seconds with a single eyebrow lifted and looked away.
Next to him, Seungmin leaned over with a deadpan whisper
“You’re evil. You know that?”
Jeongin tilted his head.
“Noooo…” he said flatly, drawing the word out in mock innocence.
Seungmin snorted once. “Just know that if he combusts, I’m not cleaning it up.”
“I’m just sitting here,” Jeongin replied, entirely too calm.
Jisung, catching the tail end of the interaction, frowned. “What did I miss?”
Felix, still recovering, mock whispered, “Don’t look directly at Jeongin. It’s like staring at the sun. A very smug, dangerous sun.”
Hyunjin had gone suspiciously quiet and when Jeongin glanced over again, he wasn’t looking anymore but his ears were pink.
Jeongin let the corner of his mouth turn upwards. Just a little.
Hyunjin.
The short trip home lasted forever. The apartment was quiet when he got in. Jeongin’s shoes weren’t by the door. That helped.
He tried the usual tricks: water, food, scrolling on his phone like nothing in his body was burning.
It didn’t work. The image wouldn’t leave him. Jeongin, sitting on that counter like he didn’t even realize what he was doing. Fingers slowly undoing buttons. Not in a rush. Not trying to seduce. Just existing. Then.. twist. Shirt parting. That single flash of skin, smooth and clean and impossibly sexy.
It had broken Hyunjin. It was still breaking him.
He made it to the bathroom on instinct. The water was cold, but it didn’t make any difference. His body was already vibrating under his skin, alpha instincts turning restless, clawing at him from the inside. He pressed one hand to the wall, the other already closing around himself.
His breath hitched.
He could still see it. The shirt. The space it created. The curve of Jeongin’s chest, just barely visible, teasing and so fucking deliberate.
In his head, it was different now.
In his head, Jeongin looked at him with heat behind his eyes. Wanted him there. Invited him in.
In his head, Hyunjin touched that skin. His thumb tracing the hollow of Innie’s collarbone, dragging down, slow and greedy. He kissed over it. Bit it. Marked it.
In his head, Jeongin gasped for him.
“Fuck,” Hyunjin whispered, stroking harder now, rhythm stuttering.
In his head, Jeongin’s shirt was open wide, pale chest flushed and slick with sweat. Waiting. And Hyunjin was above him, hands braced on either side, body pressed tight.
“I want to see you covered in it,” he groaned, the words slipping out like they had claws. “I want see my cum all over you, baby. Fuck. Want make you mine”
His hips jerked forward, uncontrolled now.
It barreled through him, hot and fast and dizzying. Pleasure and blinding white behind his eyes. He came with a fractured “Innie.. baby”
It echoed, loud and raw in the wet silence.
He stood there, breathing like he’d run five miles, water still cold, guilt already crawling up the back of his throat.
Jeongin.
He had come home five minutes earlier.
He hadn’t said a word. He didn’t make a sound.
When he walked in he heard the shower running, and paused. He didn’t mean to listen. Really.
But he also didn’t mean to leave.
So he stayed, quiet outside the bathroom, face unreadable, heart a little faster than usual. Ok, a lot faster. He had heard everything.
When Hyunjin finally came out, Jeongin was already on the couch, legs crossed, phone in hand.
He looked up. Made eye contact. Neutral.
“Hey,” he said casually. “Dinner’s in the fridge.”
Hyunjin swallowed. “You just get home?”
Jeongin nodded. “Mmh. Ten minutes ago.”
Too long. Long enough. He forced himself to not react. He held back a smirk and hoped he didn’t blush. He just looked at Hyunjin like he hadn’t just heard him lose control and then back to scrolling, acting as if nothing had happened at all.