[Fic] Play For Me - Part 2
Seoul, present day
The sun has set and it is a new night. Jinwoon paces restlessly up and down his luxurious penthouse apartment.
“My lord….” the distant memory echoes once again in his head, except that this time, it is more than a memory. He had heard those words again, said with that voice, the voice that has been with him for so long.
“Master,” Changmin steps in and flicks the remote to open the shutters, revealing a spectacular view of Seoul’s skyline. Jinwoon acknowledges his friend, seeing that Changmin has fed, his cheeks are rosy. Changmin places a stack of posters on the desk. Jinwoon knows what they are, promotional posters for his new album that he has to sign.
He does so in seconds, distracted enough not to be affected by the fact the concept this time is cheesy vampire lore. In the poster, Jinwoon is a vampire, completely with plastic fangs that he had resented wearing at the photoshoot. He had not, does not, like it, but if he had learned anything over the very many years, it is to let the trivial matters slide. The passing of time makes issues, once almost impossibly big, become insignificantly small.
“Are you hunting today, master? You have nothing on your schedule.” Changmin does well in his post as Jinwoon’s manager, a role Jinwoon had bestowed him at the turn of the 20th century.
Instead of replying, Jinwoon strolls to the kitchen and takes a bottle from the fridge. He slops the dense contents into a wine glass and he nurses it sitting by the bay windows, his long legs crossed elegantly.
Observing his master, Changmin strides over and hands Jinwoon a white card swiped from Jinwoon’s bedside table. Jinwoon looks at it, reading the cursive letters that spells out an address.
“You should go,” Changmin says, “you need answers.”
*
The address belongs to a sprawling property on the outskirts of Seoul, not anything like what Jinwoon had expected. Jinwoon frowns as he drifts to the front door. The incongruity is unsettling.
“Welcome to Haven,” says the good-looking young man that opens the door at Jinwoon’s knock. Human, Jinwoon immediately identifies, slightly relieved that his first assumption about the place is wrong. Jinwoon is led to a tastefully furnished parlour. He scans the paintings hung on the wall - old paintings, contrasting with modern furniture. One painting stood out. Crashing white waves and a little brave boat. Jinwoon studies it, trying to place it in the history book that is his mind.
“You’re new here, sir,” the young man says as a statement, obviously knowing his customers well.
“Well, yes, I am,” Jinwoon replies, but new to what, he wonders.
The young man pulls out a portfolio album from the bookshelf and places it in Jinwoon’s hands. Jinwoon flips it open, and is met with a menu of young men, each good-looking in his own way.
A brothel.
“I’ve been expecting you, my lord.”
“Jo Kwon,” Jinwoon turns to greet the owner of the establishment, who looks very fetching in his fitted white suit.
Jo Kwon waves the receptionist away.
“Come. To my private quarters.”
Jinwoon follows.
*
The first thing Jinwoon notices as he enters Jo Kwon’s private wing is that the grandeur diminishes. The furnishings, although new and undoubtedly expensive is more muted, simple. Jo Kwon swings open wide double doors to reveal a saloon. A long bar lines the wall, with liquor of every kind on display.
“Seulong, is this the way we greet our VIPs?” Jo Kwon chides before Jinwoon even sees the very handsome man dressed in an open shirt black sports suit, lounging, with long legs stretched out, on a leather love seat.
“He’s my bartender,” Jo Kwon informs Jinwoon cursorily.
“Sorry,” the man called Seulong slurs casually as he walks up. Human, but a human taller than Jinwoon. Rare.
“Care for a drink?” Seulong continues as he slits his wrist nonchalantly with a pocket knife and offers it up to Jinwoon. Jinwoon looks at Jo Kwon.
“It’s rude to turn down a drink,” Jo Kwon remarks as he saunters over. He brings Seulong’s bleeding wrist up to Jinwoon’s lips. “I’ll join you,” Jo Kwon says as he exposes Seulong’s neck, riddled with bruises. Jo Kwon bares his white fangs and sinks into the man’s skin just as Jinwoon accepts and latches.
Jinwoon releases when Seulong moans. Jo Kwon stays on for a little while longer before guiding the near unconscious man back onto the love seat. Jo Kwon is immaculate in his dining. Not a single drop of blood on his pristine white suit. Seulong smiles weakly and gazes up adoringly at Jo Kwon. Jo Kwon rewards Seulong with a long kiss. Jinwoon sits on one of the single couches, making himself as comfortable as he can, considering the circumstances.
“He’s not compelled, you know,” Jo Kwon says as he soothes Seulong into a doze with a gentle hand stroking his cheek.
“I know,” Jinwoon answers.
“I don’t believe in making someone do something against their will, but you know that about me,” the resentment in Jo Kwon’s words is clear.
Jinwoon stills, hiding his emotions.
Jo Kwon eyes Jinwoon for a minute, unreadable, before straightening up and walking to the grand piano.
“Let me play and sing something for you, my lord. You’ve always liked that.”
All Jinwoon could do is nod.
*
Seoul, Joseon Dynasty, 1700s
“We see each other once a century and you drag me to watch a play?” Nicole whines as her old friend Jinwoon tugs her into an old theatre. A small crowd had already gathered around the stage.
“This is what you get for springing up unannounced. I’ve already made plans and I’m not about to give them up for you,” Jinwoon grins. He had met Nicole about 300 years ago in a coven. He had stumbled onto this coven while looking desperately for someone to teach him something, anything, and Nicole took him under her wings.
Nicole punches Jinwoon hard on the arm, and he flinches. She is older, and hence, stronger than he is.
“Who is this flavour of the decade that you would forgo our bonding time?” Nicole asks as she sits on a rickety bench, oblivious to the stares of the men around her. Jinwoon smirks. Nicole is undeniably beautiful with a damsel-in-distress disposition about her. She can, and will, charm men into doing her bidding even without using her vampire powers. It is always good sport to witness the change in a man’s eyes when they find out too late that she is not only a sweet young thing, but a ruthless killer as well.
“You know me well, my dear friend,” Jinwoon responds and accepts a kiss from Nicole. For a moment, Jinwoon is contentedly distracted. Kissing Nicole feels like home. He feels her fangs puncture a small wound in his lower lip, and he lets her. He pulls abruptly away, wound immediately closing up, when the murmur of the crowd grows louder. He does not notice the disappointment on Nicole’s face; his eyes are fixed on the stage. The show is starting.
The beautiful boy, Jo Kwon, steps up, posture rim-rod straight, with the confidence of a king, out of sync with his stature and standing, but somehow befitting of him. Jo Kwon kneels and sets the Gayageum he is carrying on the low table in the centre of the stage. He starts to play as he sings, a voice so heavenly that reminds Jinwoon of things he never thought he would miss - green meadows, light blue skies, the warmth of sun rays on his skin.
*
A hearty laugh emits from Jinwoon as he watches Jo Kwon. The boy is dancing wildly to a jovial tune Jinwoon is playing on the Gayageum. Pure, unadulterated laughter has never come to Jinwoon easily, and the fact that Jo Kwon can coax it out of him means something. Jo Kwon laughs as well, and falls heavily on Jinwoon, exhausted from all the frivolity.
They are under a gazebo on Jinwoon’s property. After weeks of Jinwoon visiting the brothel, Jinwoon decided that it would be more comfortable if he booked Jo Kwon out for the entire night. Jinwoon doesn’t like to think of the clients Jo Kwon services before and after him, and even if he cannot do anything about it, for now, he can at least have Jo Kwon to himself an entire night at a time.
“You should laugh more, my lord,” Jo Kwon remarks with a blinding smile on his face.
“You should make me laugh more then,” JInwoon chuckles and rubs his nose against Jo Kwon’s.
Jo Kwon giggles and it is the cutest sound Jinwoon has ever heard. He pulls the boy onto his lap, and enjoys it as the boy straddles him and flutters light kisses on his face.
“You like to tease me, don’t you?” Jinwoon jests as his hands disappear under the folds of Jo Kwon’s garments in search of smooth skin.
A soft moan as Jo Kwon responds to Jinwoon’s caresses makes Jinwoon lose his all-important self-control. Almost instantly, the light-hearted atmosphere changes to something weightier, darker. He captures Jo Kwon’s lips and sucks hard, drawing blood as sweet as nectar. It is a matter of minutes that Jo Kwon is writhing under him as they make love under the full moon.
*
Seoul, present day
“The boys that work here have nowhere else to go,” Jo Kwon says as they walk through the maze of corridors. Jo Kwon had insisted on giving Jinwoon a tour. Jo Kwon informs him that this is not his only business. He has other, more legal, businesses peppering the city, like that jazz bar Jinwoon had chanced upon.
“A regular businessman. Who would have thought?” Jinwoon humours.
“No one, I suppose,” Jo Kwon humours right back.
Jinwoon tunes his ears to the sounds through the walls, sounds of base desires being satiated. Randomly, Jinwoon muses how, as much as the world changes, there is one aspect of society that has not. In every century, no matter which part of the world, this trade booms, even as governments hide it, but cannot do without it. It all boils down to the hedonistic need of man, a need for release, a need for mind-numbing pleasure, a need to feel needed.
“I never force them, but I do teach them the tricks of the trade. I was after all, the best, wasn’t I?” Jo Kwon stops, and waits for Jinwoon’s response.
Jinwoon offers none.
Jo Kwon shrugs after a minute and bows, “I was, in the least, good enough for my lord.” A point that Jo Kwon knows cannot be argued.
Jo Kwon gestures ahead and leads Jinwoon into a room full on monitors, showing the activities that go on in each room. Jinwoon sees that the clientele is not limited to men, but women as well. One thing they all had in common is social affluence. The rich, with their perverse wants, thinking that money can buy anything. Jo Kwon places a hand on the shoulder of the employee sitting in front of the screens, his watchdog. The employee takes the cue and leaves.
“I protect them too. These boys, so beautiful and yet, so gullible. They fall in love too easily. They shouldn’t fall in love with the wrong person,” Jo Kwon turns and faces Jinwoon, and for the first time tonight, Jinwoon sees a flicker of something that was, that flash of anger, that defiance.
It fires something up in Jinwoon, a blind rage that he had been suppressing the moment he laid eyes on Jo Kwon again. It is akin to an impossible dream revealing itself as a horror of reality. It had taken a lot of effort to hold on to the futile possibility of that dream, and now, it feels like it is slipping though his fingers.
Jinwoon roars and rushes forward to take hold Jo Kwon’s collar. He spins them out of the building and onto the sprawling grounds. He slams Jo Kwon against a tree, hoping for a response that he is familiar with, not this stranger that is a shell of the boy he once knew.
Jo Kwon gives him no satisfaction. Instead, Jo Kwon bares his fangs, forcing Jinwoon to bare his. They growl, bloodthirsty, hard eyes meeting hard eyes. Then, something snaps and they crash their lips together, fangs cutting through porcelain skin. Jinwoon feels the gush of blood on the roof of his mouth, and he laps it up as he kisses Jo Kwon violently. Jo Kwon returns as violently as he gets, clipping Jinwoon’s lips, drawing more blood and licking it up hungrily.
The taste of Jo Kwon, his strong, unforgettable scent, reminds Jinwoon of what he had lost. It arouses him so intensely that he rips Jo Kwon’s clothes in one pull. Jinwoon bites down hard on Jo Kwon’s shoulder, drinking messily, blood dripping from the wound, smearing all around his mouth. Jo Kwon moans and sinks his teeth into JInwoon’s neck, and Jinwoon jolts as pleasure shoots through his senses.
They feed off each other, viciously, passionately. Jinwoon breaks his own belt buckle as he hoists Jo Kwon up to wrap his legs around his waist, never once breaking from feasting on his shoulder. Jinwoon thrusts into Jo Kwon dry and the friction is unbearable. Jo Kwon is hard and throbbing against his abs. Jinwoon snakes his hand between them and pumps. Jo Kwon pulls his fangs out of Jinwoon’s neck to cry out. He punctures Jinwoon again, this time on his chest. Jinwoon, too, shifts, as he thrusts repeatedly, taking blood from Jo Kwon it that soft spot behind his ear.
Jinwoon hears an almost inaudible “my lord” as Jo Kwon comes, and it sends Jinwoon spiraling. The orgasm he has is reminiscent of the times in that simple brothel room, with the boy he loves in his arms. “Jo Kwon,” he pants as he leans his body against the leaner one, both disheveled and bloody, physical wounds healing, emotional ones still gaping open.
Jo Kwon pulls away coldly and puts on the tattered, bloody suit with a dignity that only he can muster. He takes a handkerchief and wipes his mouth.
“You are, as always, welcome here, my lord,” Jo Kwon says without emotion. He tosses his used handkerchief to Jinwoon and disappears into the night.
*
Part 3