Cans of Hite Beer are strewn about the room, empty and on their sides on the coffee table, rolling onto the floor and sprinkling those final unreachable drops at the bottom of the can onto the hardwood floor. They’ve all had a few too many - even Sehun, Tao, and Jongin, who aren’t legally allowed to drink but, thanks to lax hyungs, got to have their share anyway - and it’s getting to be that time of the night where someone has to make questionable decisions.
“Let’s play a game,” Chanyeol announces. He’s just happens to be that someone. “It just popped into my head. Don’t judge me for it, okay?”
“Here we go,” Kris mutters.
“We all have to get naked,” Chanyeol says, and he starts giggling as everyone exchanges glances and groans. “No, no, listen, it’s funny. We get naked, right, and we just sit there.” Everyone glares at him. “The first person to pop wood wins.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Baekhyun snaps.
“But wait! There’s more,” Chanyeol says. “No touching allowed. Just sit there, maybe quietly, maybe not, and focus on getting hard.”
“Is there a prize or something, because I can’t see myself doing this just for bragging rights,” Yixing says, garnering a half-dozen defiant nods in return.
“Okay, okay, the first person to get a boner has to tell everyone what they thought of to get it,” Chanyeol says. “So you basically lose. Right? That makes it more fun.”
“I… don’t see what’s fun about this at all…” Lu Han mumbles, and there’s a rumble of agreement, but the next minute they’re all getting undressed and discarding their clothes in a pile off to the side.
They all learn very quickly that the key to winning the game is to avoid all eye contact. One would assume that it would be the other way around - stare deep into the eyes of the man across from you; there’s no way anyone could get hard that way. That would be gay, wouldn’t it?
For some, that was the exact reason why they couldn’t use that strategy to win. For some, it would backfire tremendously… or put them in a precarious position that would lead to the game ending far too early.
“This may be the only time in my life where I’m happy that I can’t get it up,” Kris proclaimed, probably in an effort to break up the tense silence that was made more awkward by the fact that he was surrounded by eleven other naked men.
There was a hum of laughter, but nothing more. They were all too busy trying not to get hard because that would probably lead to having to air their own dirty laundry.
“Say one of us loses,” Minseok asks, and everyone fights the instinctual urge to look in his direction and address his presence. “What if we tried to lie about what… you know…”
“You’d have to tell the truth,” Chanyeol replies.
“But how would you know -“
“If you’re suspected of lying…” Chanyeol clicks his tongue in the way he does when he’s trying to think; he’s making it all up as he goes along. “If you’re suspected of lying, you get held down by your ankles and wrists and someone kicks you in the balls until you tell the truth.”
“Jesus Christ alive,” Jongdae says in a pained voice, shaking his head in disdain.
“That’s awful, Chanyeol,” Joonmyun scolds, but he can’t hide the fact that Chanyeol’s given him extra incentive not to lose this game.
“I have to pee,” Sehun whispers, and Lu Han snorts. “What… beer makes me pee.”
“You have to hold it,” Chanyeol says.
“That’s ridiculous,” Sehun said, bouncing his feet at the heels to distract himself from his bladder. “Someone hurry up and lose so I can piss.”
There’s silence for a while, and then it’s broken by the sound of Kris tapping away at his phone. “Are you texting right now?” Jongin asks incredulously.
Kris’s phone makes a sound that signifies his text has been sent and he places his phone back on the coffee table. “Is there a rule against that?”
“No, it’s actually quite impressive,” Chanyeol says as Tao’s phone buzzes across the table. Tao glances around as he leans over to pick up his phone. He swipes the screen with his thumb, reads silently for a few beats, then glares at Kris and exclaims through gritted teeth something in Mandarin.
“Bastard,” he finishes in Korean, and Kris laughs through his nose. “Chanyeol, he’s cheating.”
“How?” Chanyeol asks, and then Tao flushes dark red.
“Nevermind,” he mumbles. “I don’t want to have to read it out loud.” Chanyeol stares him down and Tao cracks under pressure.
“It must be hard to try not to think of…” Tao looks up from his phone bashfully. “I won’t say the name… fucking you on the practice room floor at a time like this, right? Don’t think I forgot about that dream, haha… he’s sitting naked right there, I can’t believe you aren’t turned on by that.” Tao tosses the phone away in embarrassment as the others try in vain not to laugh.
“Okay, no more cell phones,” Chanyeol says between badly stifled laughs. Tao shrinks away and the room falls silent again.
A few start falling asleep as the game continues. The rest continue to stare off to indeterminate places because they don’t want to be the unlucky one to lose.
But it seems that the game is coming to a close when Chanyeol starts making uncomfortable coughing sounds, clearing his throat more than he needs to, dragging attention to himself.
No one seems to notice, though, until Chanyeol’s coughs sound more like groans and when they look at him, he’s tensing and relaxing his jaw so quickly it’s a wonder his teeth haven’t shattered and tumbled out of his mouth. No one says a thing, though, even as Chanyeol squeezes his eyes shut and emits a long, exaggerated cough that ends with a look of fear plastered across his face.
“You just lost,” Lu Han says, awestruck. “You made the game yourself and you lost!”
“I… didn’t lose…” Chanyeol says, trying to keep his cool as Sehun points out the white evidence slowly creeping down Chanyeol’s calf.
“You went beyond getting hard,” Lu Han said, collapsing onto Sehun’s shoulder as he laughed hysterically, waking the members who had fallen asleep. “You came without touching yourself… holy fucking shit, that’s incredible.”
“No way,” Kris says, wide awake now. “Are you serious?”
“What were you thinking of?” Yixing asks.
“That’s… not your business,” Chanyeol mumbles.
“Yeah, but it’s your rule,” Jongin chimes in. “You have to tell, or you get kicked in the balls.”
“That… was not a condition…” Chanyeol says, snapping up a napkin from the table to wipe himself clean.
“Now it is,” Joonmyun says. “You can’t be the only one making up the rules here. Tell or suffer the consequences.”
Chanyeol whimpers; neither option is ideal but one outweighs the other by a long shot. “I was thinking about the text Kris sent to Tao… the situation kind of turned me on, I guess…”
“Just a little bit,” Baekhyun says, and there’s a few snorts of laughter.
“Which is funny because you, Chanyeol, were the person Tao dreamed about,” Kris says, and he groans as he’s smashed in the face with an empty beer can, thrown from across the room.
“Shut up!” Tao shouts. “Goddamn it, Kris…”
“Alright, I’m going to go pee now,” Sehun announces, leaping to his feet and shuffling toward the bathroom.
“None of this gets mentioned at any time after tonight,” Chanyeol says. “Ever.”
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