[Fic] Just Pretend - 2/2
Part Two
***
Part One
***
Joonmyun woke up to more brightness than he was expecting, and a faint rustle. Seeing as how the bed was empty and Kai was standing up with a brush in his hands from where his bag was, that explained that. A quick squint at the clock showed it was early, but not too early.
Kai stopped, when he noted Joonmyun moving. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re fine. I feel like I slept for about a decade.”
Though he woke up feeling better, at least. There was a twinge in his thighs and shoulders, but nothing out of the ordinary after a good work out. A really thorough one. He stretched on the way to the bathroom, scratching at his hip through his shorts. He slipped in after Kai, washing his face and taking a moment to think. He wasn’t sure what there was to think about, actually. Still, he brushed his teeth well first, since he wasn’t sure if Kai was hungry or…had other plans.
Joonmyun kept his face intentionally blank when he saw that Kai was fully dressed. It made him feel severely underdressed, and as strangely off balance as he had felt since the first hour after Kai had gotten there. Kai stepped up to him, hands on Joonmyun’s sides as he leaned into his kiss him. Joonmyun wasn’t sure if he shivered from the kiss, or the stroke of Kai’s hands.
“I actually need to go soon,” Kai said. His eyes were more apologetic than his tone. “It’s later than I thought. I can- If you want, I can blow you before I go. We have time for that.”
Kai was apparently pretty sure of his talents. It was one thing to accept it when there was no finite end, but even though Kai was offering, and willing, Joonmyun didn’t feel right taking.
“I’m fine,” he said, instead, tweaking Kai’s collar. “Did you want breakfast before you went, or..?”
He wondered how out of line that was. He wondered what Kai read into it, as though Joonmyun were trying to take care of him, or too attached. Joonmyun meant it as neither, really. More of a courtesy, than anything else. Maybe Kai felt that as well.
“No, I’ll catch something on the way home. I’ll get going then. You can go back to sleep or something.”
Or something. More than likely, he’d check out of the hotel and go home, and luxuriate in the ability to connect to the internet.
“Do I owe-“
“Nope,” Kai said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Thanks for the food, though.”
Joonmyun nodded, pasting a smile on his face. They weren’t friends, so it wasn’t like he could hug Kai goodbye. A handshake felt stupid. A kiss, too intimate. So a smile it was.
“Have a safe trip home,” he said.
“You too,” Kai sad, lips curving a bit. Not a true smile, but potent. The door clicked closed behind Kai and Joonmyun settled into one of the room’s chairs. That was it, then. Kai was probably off to help some other guy. Or maybe a woman, who knew. It wasn’t like he’d call for Kai again, not that he even knew how to. Who knew what Kai wanted out of life, and Joonmyun would find someone to date for real. Somehow. Someday.
He’d rediscovered his love of having sex with a human being instead of just his hand. If that was what his friends had been trying to do, they’d accomplished it.
***
It turned out he’d gotten more extra mileage out of Kai than he’d thought. Baekhyun’s eyebrows rose when he mentioned the day and a half of some strange guy in the process of telling them about the weekend. Not that he was thanking them, because he’d been railroaded into the weekend, and then had an escort or whatever Kai was dropped into his lap.
“Uh,” Baekhyun laughed, glancing at Kyungsoo. “I know you know we love you and all, but that’s a little out of our price range.”
Joonmyun frowned at both of them. “What?”
“It was supposed to be one night. A few hours, tops. Get you off, set you up for a weekend of relaxation. You know. You’re saying he…didn’t leave.”
Joonmyun possibly may have frowned harder than he’d ever frowned in his life. “Not until an hour or two before I checked out.”
There were twin sounds of surprise and admiration.
“Our little leader has hidden talents,” Baekhyun exclaimed.
“Probably because it’d been a while,” Kyungsoo said, clearly having no faith in him at all. Neither of them.
Joonmyun wasn’t sure what to make of it, actually. Kai had never told him he’d been engaged for the weekend, that was true. But he’d never said anything after. He’d just slept in Joonmyun’s bed, ate his food, watched his TV, and gave him pretty fantastic sex.
“And don’t call me little,” Joonmyun muttered into his tea. He wasn’t sure if he should be proud of himself, angry, upset with them, or what.
By the time the weekend rolled around, he’d settled on mostly pleased, though he’d extracted from them a promise never to do anything like it again. And then he opened his front door, slightly tipsy after getting home from work, to Kai’s face.
Joonmyun blinked, because his brain wasn’t processing information visual or otherwise.
“I live here,” Joonmyun said aloud, having mostly been meaning to think that and not say it.
“Yeah,” Kai said, leaning into the same door jamb that Joonmyun was using. “I know.”
“I can’t afford you,” Joonmyun said, and then thought better of that line of thought. There were only a certain number of reasons why Kai would be at his door. “I can’t loan you money. I don’t make that much. I don’t-“
His words trailed away as Kai cupped his neck. It felt good to be touched, and Kai was rubbing his thumb just so against his jaw in a way that made Joonmyun want to lean into it.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Kai told him, his eyes focusing on Joonmyun’s mouth for a moment before he smiled. “Can I come in?”
If he didn’t have to worry about paying, then someone else had - whoever had given Kai his address? Another sabotage by his friends, maybe. It wasn’t as though he was running out to find some guy to date right away, and he didn’t need - well, getting laid regularly wasn’t a hardship.
“Do you usually make house calls?” Joonmyun asked, still a little dumbfounded as he stepped back to let Kai into his apartment.
“When I know it’s worth it. This is nice. And no, I’m not some kind of robber,” Kai said. “I had the night free, and I saw… Well. I got ahold of your address, anyway. Were you busy?”
Joonmyun stared around his apartment as though that held that answer. It was decently picked up. He’d bought a new chair, and there was a couch he mostly used for napping.
“No, I’m not busy,” he said, surprised to note that he was happy to have Kai there. The etiquette for a situation like he was in escaped him, but it was taken out of his hands. He stood his ground as Kai leaned in, and arm was up around Kai’s shoulder’s a moment later. Whether he’d been hoping for it or not, he wanted it. Wanted it as Kai pulled him closer, only to push him away and almost pull him onto his lap on the couch. Petting, kissing, moans and slides of body against body. He wasn’t sure how long it was, moving from feeling tipsy because alcohol, to full on arousal.
He palmed Kai through his jeans, feeling the moan against his neck. “There was something I didn’t get to do?”
“Fucking me?” Kai asked.
“That. And… something else.”
It was his own condom that time that he rolled down Kai’s cock. He locked the thought out of his head as he anticipated. He gave great head. He’d even say he gave fantastic head. He could get around his gag reflex as long as he could get a cock into his mouth. And Kai, well. He fit.
“Holy fuck. Where did you learn- How-“
Joonmyun smiled inside.
He wasn’t some kind of master, or holder of some trick.
He just really loved doing it.
It was ironic, because “boyfriend who loves sucking cock” should’ve had him keeping guys forever. Not so much in his experience.
Though considering what asses some of them had turned out to be, perhaps it was a good thing.
With Kai he loved it no less, feeling the shift of Kai’s hips and the short, helpless little moans. Getting sucked off could be so boring, and that seemed wrong on so many levels. Kai hissed at Joonmyun’s nails on his thighs, grasping at Joonmyun’s hair as he sucked, squirming closer and cupping with his hand, and moaning himself at the high noise Kai made.
Kai didn’t last long, which to Joonmyun was a point of pride. He climbed back into Kai’s lap, pressing kisses to his face as he breathed, stealing kisses until he could no longer taste the condom, just Kai. And they never got his pants fully undone, just enough for Kai’s hand to get in, finding him hard and eager as Kai loomed over him, stroked him, kissed him.
And it took him no longer as he came all over his shirt as Kai kissed him, glad Kai had something to brace himself on or he would have been smothered. He was surprised he didn’t just burn right off of the face of the planet. Kai’s hair was soft under his hand and Kai smelled better than they both collectively did. Though there would be no shared shower that night. He had to draw the line somewhere.
“Want some water?” Joonmyun asked, and Kai hummed.
“Yeah,” he said, pressing a swift kiss to Joonmyun’s lips and then helping him to his feet. Joonmyun wrinkled his nose and stripped off his shirt, doing spot cleaning before getting his pants closed. All the while, Kai was watching, and Joonmyun led them into the kitchen.
He didn’t get to see any glistening water running down Kai’s throat as he drank or anything like that, but he certainly imagined it. Sure, he had guys showing up all the time for a quick blow job and cuddle on their way home. Absolutely. Absolutely never. Even the guys he’d broken up with, they hadn’t retained the benefits part after, except for that one imminently regrettable time that he’d learned from.
Kai put aside the empty glass, and Joonmyun’s thoughts would no longer be contained, waving between the two of them as they spoke.
“Why do you do this?”
Kai waited a moment, until he seemed to get Joonmyun’s meaning. “You’re hot?”
Joonmyun tilted his head. “Thank you? But I don’t mean that. You’re hot. I mean, you could have any guy you wanted.”
Kai hesitated, fidgeting. “It’s something to do? Besides, how many guys do you know who are like us?”
Not many, and of those who were unattached, even fewer. He didn’t want to know how many other guys Kai had on the side. It wasn’t good to think about that, or wonder. It wasn’t his place, and he’s overstepped it even by asking, from the way that Kai was frowning at the floor. When he saw Kai to the door, his knees carefully locked after Kai had kissed him until he’d lost all sense of if he were standing or not, he thought they would not see each other again.
***
But they did, three nights later, and the next Sunday night, and the Thursday after that. Joonmyun stopped wondering who was paying Kai because it was clear no money was changing hands, but he had no idea why Kai had chosen him to relieve his boredom. The Sunday night, Kai showed up with food, and they’d watched a movie on TV until Kai had gone. And then they’d actually gone out, catching a movie at the theater down the street from Joonmyun’s apartment - paying separately. He’d had the momentary unease that Kai thought of it as some kind of date, until it had just been a fun outing, and Kai had grabbed a taxi rather than walking with Joonmyun back to his apartment.
Perhaps, he wondered, they’d moved out of the fuck buddies-after-paying-session realm into the semi-friendly-can’t-define territory. And when Kai had left on Thursday, he’d made sure of Joonmyun’s next free day, and when he was given permission, said he would show up that morning. It was mysterious. Kind of exciting. Kai never tried to touch him when they were in public though in private he had a habit of scritching at Joonmyun’s neck and getting him to curl into Kai’s body in self-defense.
But it was that day, that morning, that changed things. Kai showed up with coffees, waiting in the hallway until Joonmyun was ready to go and holding the coffee hostage. And then they just…roamed. They wandered through shopping areas, window shopping and trying on hats. They had lunch at a noodle shop, and Kai dispensed little factoids about his family like little pellets out of a candy machine. Joonmyun cranked just hard enough, and the fact that Kai had sisters came out, and the fact that Kai was a couple of years younger than him, and that his family lived nearby.
Things they didn’t talk about included Joonmyun’s family, his job unless he was vaguely complaining, or anything Kai could use to blackmail him with. They also avoided mention of Kai’s employment, since Kai’s brows immediately dropped at any hint of it. It wasn’t that Joonmyun brought it up to tease, or even to remind himself that Kai wasn’t just there trying to get to know Joonmyun. His curiosity caught him sometimes, and Kai’s thoughtful looks. All he could do, really, was keep it out of their conversations entirely. He could be curious on his own. Kai was more than Joonmyun had ever feared he was. More, probably, than he’d hoped. Kai was insistent on splitting everything, so Kai paid for his own food, his own ticket to get into a museum, his own movie snacks.
Joonmyun wasn’t sure why that was, if Joonmyun was trying to prove that he was self-sufficient, that he wasn’t trying to mooch, or what. But Kai followed him back to his apartment with food they’d picked up, settling with him on the couch as they laughed at people being silly on some show Kai had picked out.
He let his head fall back against Kai’s shoulder, feeling Kai’s head rub against his. It was so utterly normal. An all-day date, a dinner in while watching TV. If he let his eyes close, he could smell whatever Kai had put on that morning, some kind of cologne that Joonmyun liked. A little longer, he’d start to wonder what it’d be like to smell that more often.
“I can hear you thinking,” Kai teased.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Do you wear glasses?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“You’d look cute in them, frowning. Like a teacher.”
Joonmyun glared. “What, you were hot for your teachers?”
“A couple of them. Maybe. None of them looked like you, though.”
The compliment came out all stilted, and Joonmyun might have teased Kai about it had he not been humming because of the hand Kai put on his stomach, and way that Kai kissed him.
It was like renting a boyfriend for a day. No attachments, no worries. Just an arm steadying him, wrapping around him, as he leaned into Kai. Soft hair under his fingers, a body he knew.
He breathed in the cologne again.
“Joonmyun,” Kai murmured against his mouth.
He wondered who else Kai wore that cologne for. Who else’s door he showed up at, like a kitten who hadn’t found a home. He couldn’t ask, and that meant that he couldn’t- He couldn’t.
Joonmyun pulled back, and Kai grinned, trying to pull him in.
“No,” Joonmyun said, pushing onto his feet and pulling Kai with him.
“Oh. You want to go somewhere more comfortable.”
“No. I think you need to go.”
Kai frowned. “Okay? You have an early day or something?”
“No. I think we can’t do this any more. I don’t think I’m cut out for pretend,” Joonmyun said, the laugh stopping just short in his throat.
He hoped his message was clear. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know who else Kai was with, or that he didn’t know if he could count on him. It was that little by little he’d start expecting things, relying on things. Wondering if Kai was comparing Joonmyun to someone else, wishing he was with someone else, when all Joonmyun wanted was Kai to be there with him.
“Because of how we met?” Kai asked.
“No.” Joonmyun closed his eyes for a moment and wished he was better at confrontation. “I don’t want to get to a point where I have expectations. You’re a great guy, but I think it’s best if this is it.”
“Expec- Okay. That’s the weirdest way I’ve had things broken off with me before.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
He was weird. He got that.
“You don’t have to apologize. Thanks for today.”
“Yeah,” Joonmyun said, watching Kai step into his shoes. “Thanks.”
Kai waved at him, the back of a hand and moving fingers while not really looking at him, before he closed the door behind himself.
**
“You broke up?”
Joonmyun squinted up at Baekhyun from behind his computer. “What?”
“Kai. Chanyeol said you told him it was over.”
Ah, yes. The chain of gossip. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo in his office, Baekhyun across the hall. It meant everyone knew, but for some reason only Baekhyun was in his space. Perhaps they’d thought a targeted strike was more effective than a full on ambush.
“Yes? But I don’t know if you could call that breaking up,” Joonmyun said. “We weren’t dating.”
“You spent a weekend together. And he’s show up, how many times?”
“I don’t know if someone who gets paid to take people out qualifies as dating.”
“We didn’t pay him, so if he said we did, he was bullshitting you to get to spend more time with you,” Baekhyun said, finally sitting down and scowling.
“No, he never told me someone was paying, but every time I asked, he told me that wasn’t something I had to worry about.”
Baekhyun was giving him a very flat stare, as though that was going to beat whatever sense Baekhyun had on tap into Joonmyun’s brain.
“He’d already stayed an extra day because of his apparent addiction to your body, why does him showing up again without wanting to get paid surprise you?”
“We didn’t-“ Joonmyun began, before shutting his mouth. But Baekhyun was on it like a dog on a steak.
“Didn’t what? Have sex when he came over?”
Fine, he’d shot himself in the foot. “Once. But not the other times. We probably would’ve, but I kicked him out.”
Baekhyun held up both hands, waving them on either side of his head for a moment, before shaking it violently. “Okay. Okay. I can’t… I can’t process that right now. How’s playing games at the nursing home going?”
Joonmyun knew Baekhyun was rattled, because he hadn’t even tried insinuating that Joonmyun was going to be a resident soon.
***
But peace did not last long. An hour, maybe. And then on and off for a couple of weeks. It had been too much to hope that Joonmyun’s love life would be absent the conversation - though mentions of Kai had grudgingly been dropped the week previous. They had chicken up to their ears, and drinks, finally relaxing out of the canned air of the office building. And that was when Joonmyun looked up to Kyungsoo’s most guile-free expression. It was supposed to smooth the thought into Joonmyun’s brain, and just set him on edge instead.
“There’s this guy we know…”
Joonmyun groaned. “First escorts, now setting me up on dates?”
“Now that we’ve gotten everything going again, don’t you want to?”
Joonmyun’s scowl was immediate. “Yeah, some guy is going to appreciate me wanting to date him so I can get laid regularly.”
“Don’t be stupid. You need more than that,” Baekhyun pointed out, a chicken bone hanging precariously from his fingers. “Besides, all you have to do is have coffee with him, and see if you click. Then maybe you’ll have someone to go on dates with.”
“And I’ll stop worrying you? Or bugging you.”
Joonmyun had to duck to keep from being hit, settling for kicking one of them under the table.
But when he left, he had a coffee shop and a time. And in movies, Baekhyun had said, they always took something to identify themselves, like a flower. Joonmyun drew the line at that. So he had a card from Baekhyun’s workplace, one with a cute little dog on the front. Baekhyun promised the guy coming to meet him would have one, too.
“I promise, you’ll like him,” Baekhyun said, his smile one that Joonmyun was never sure he should trust or punch.
***
Joonmyun got to the coffee shop fifteen minutes early, buying himself a drink and staking out a table. He chose a nicer shirt, jeans, trying to not look like he was trying to hard but also without looking like he wasn’t trying. That didn’t even make sense in his head.
The back of his shoe rubbed against the leg of the chair and he tried not to fidget as he read the news on his phone. Or, tried to anyway. He was having a hard time concentrating and that happily lolling dog was just mocking him from the edge of the table. He protected the extra chair from being scavenged, saying he was meeting someone, and collapsed back in apology. He hoped he was meeting someone. He sent a furtive look around whenever anyone moved, or when the door opened. Most people just went up to order. A couple. A woman alone. A family. A couple of single men that came and left.
Joonmyun tried not to think of them as being potentials, as though they’d seen him and then decided not to bother. They hadn’t been very cute anyway, he’d consoled himself.
The clock on his phone turned to the hour exact, and his anxiety levels ramped up accordingly. Unless the guy was fashionably late, it wouldn’t be long. The door chimed again, and Joonmyun caught sight of men’s shoes, jeans, alone, and kept his eyes on his phone rather than gawk. That was him. He could feel it. He waited, fidgeting as the man ordered, and got his drink.
He looked up then, finally, hoping. If Baekhyun was hopeful, maybe there’d be a chance for connection, attraction, or-
Joonmyun blinked. But the man’s face didn’t change, as he slid into the seat opposite Joonmyun.
Kai.
“Hey,” Kai said.
Joonmyun’s heart rate went from anxious to panic in a millisecond, almost giving himself whiplash as he looked around and then back at Kai. He was meeting someone. He was-
Baekhyun couldn’t have meant this. He couldn’t have been that cruel.
“Kai,” Joonmyun said, swallowing reflexively. If Kai wasn’t here on Baekhyun’s suggestion, then he was there and couldn’t be if the guy Joonmyun was really meeting showed up.
“My name is Jongin,” he said. Kai pushed a card over, identical to Joonmyun’s. The same puppy cheerfully staring back. A match to his. No. Not Kai. Jongin.
Jongin was his blind date. Baekhyun had set him up with Jongin, the guy he’d slept with, and had maybe four days total together with before that moment. The guy he’d had a hard time getting out of his head for a lot of reasons, one of which being the smile like Jongin was sending him right then. A little shy, a little knowing.
“Why?” Joonmyun asked, still unsure. Jongin shook his head and and kept his eyes on Joonmyun’s.
“You were right. Sometimes pretending isn’t enough.”
***
Small sequel here in compilation Lazy Mornings.
***
Part One
***
Joonmyun woke up to more brightness than he was expecting, and a faint rustle. Seeing as how the bed was empty and Kai was standing up with a brush in his hands from where his bag was, that explained that. A quick squint at the clock showed it was early, but not too early.
Kai stopped, when he noted Joonmyun moving. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re fine. I feel like I slept for about a decade.”
Though he woke up feeling better, at least. There was a twinge in his thighs and shoulders, but nothing out of the ordinary after a good work out. A really thorough one. He stretched on the way to the bathroom, scratching at his hip through his shorts. He slipped in after Kai, washing his face and taking a moment to think. He wasn’t sure what there was to think about, actually. Still, he brushed his teeth well first, since he wasn’t sure if Kai was hungry or…had other plans.
Joonmyun kept his face intentionally blank when he saw that Kai was fully dressed. It made him feel severely underdressed, and as strangely off balance as he had felt since the first hour after Kai had gotten there. Kai stepped up to him, hands on Joonmyun’s sides as he leaned into his kiss him. Joonmyun wasn’t sure if he shivered from the kiss, or the stroke of Kai’s hands.
“I actually need to go soon,” Kai said. His eyes were more apologetic than his tone. “It’s later than I thought. I can- If you want, I can blow you before I go. We have time for that.”
Kai was apparently pretty sure of his talents. It was one thing to accept it when there was no finite end, but even though Kai was offering, and willing, Joonmyun didn’t feel right taking.
“I’m fine,” he said, instead, tweaking Kai’s collar. “Did you want breakfast before you went, or..?”
He wondered how out of line that was. He wondered what Kai read into it, as though Joonmyun were trying to take care of him, or too attached. Joonmyun meant it as neither, really. More of a courtesy, than anything else. Maybe Kai felt that as well.
“No, I’ll catch something on the way home. I’ll get going then. You can go back to sleep or something.”
Or something. More than likely, he’d check out of the hotel and go home, and luxuriate in the ability to connect to the internet.
“Do I owe-“
“Nope,” Kai said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Thanks for the food, though.”
Joonmyun nodded, pasting a smile on his face. They weren’t friends, so it wasn’t like he could hug Kai goodbye. A handshake felt stupid. A kiss, too intimate. So a smile it was.
“Have a safe trip home,” he said.
“You too,” Kai sad, lips curving a bit. Not a true smile, but potent. The door clicked closed behind Kai and Joonmyun settled into one of the room’s chairs. That was it, then. Kai was probably off to help some other guy. Or maybe a woman, who knew. It wasn’t like he’d call for Kai again, not that he even knew how to. Who knew what Kai wanted out of life, and Joonmyun would find someone to date for real. Somehow. Someday.
He’d rediscovered his love of having sex with a human being instead of just his hand. If that was what his friends had been trying to do, they’d accomplished it.
***
It turned out he’d gotten more extra mileage out of Kai than he’d thought. Baekhyun’s eyebrows rose when he mentioned the day and a half of some strange guy in the process of telling them about the weekend. Not that he was thanking them, because he’d been railroaded into the weekend, and then had an escort or whatever Kai was dropped into his lap.
“Uh,” Baekhyun laughed, glancing at Kyungsoo. “I know you know we love you and all, but that’s a little out of our price range.”
Joonmyun frowned at both of them. “What?”
“It was supposed to be one night. A few hours, tops. Get you off, set you up for a weekend of relaxation. You know. You’re saying he…didn’t leave.”
Joonmyun possibly may have frowned harder than he’d ever frowned in his life. “Not until an hour or two before I checked out.”
There were twin sounds of surprise and admiration.
“Our little leader has hidden talents,” Baekhyun exclaimed.
“Probably because it’d been a while,” Kyungsoo said, clearly having no faith in him at all. Neither of them.
Joonmyun wasn’t sure what to make of it, actually. Kai had never told him he’d been engaged for the weekend, that was true. But he’d never said anything after. He’d just slept in Joonmyun’s bed, ate his food, watched his TV, and gave him pretty fantastic sex.
“And don’t call me little,” Joonmyun muttered into his tea. He wasn’t sure if he should be proud of himself, angry, upset with them, or what.
By the time the weekend rolled around, he’d settled on mostly pleased, though he’d extracted from them a promise never to do anything like it again. And then he opened his front door, slightly tipsy after getting home from work, to Kai’s face.
Joonmyun blinked, because his brain wasn’t processing information visual or otherwise.
“I live here,” Joonmyun said aloud, having mostly been meaning to think that and not say it.
“Yeah,” Kai said, leaning into the same door jamb that Joonmyun was using. “I know.”
“I can’t afford you,” Joonmyun said, and then thought better of that line of thought. There were only a certain number of reasons why Kai would be at his door. “I can’t loan you money. I don’t make that much. I don’t-“
His words trailed away as Kai cupped his neck. It felt good to be touched, and Kai was rubbing his thumb just so against his jaw in a way that made Joonmyun want to lean into it.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Kai told him, his eyes focusing on Joonmyun’s mouth for a moment before he smiled. “Can I come in?”
If he didn’t have to worry about paying, then someone else had - whoever had given Kai his address? Another sabotage by his friends, maybe. It wasn’t as though he was running out to find some guy to date right away, and he didn’t need - well, getting laid regularly wasn’t a hardship.
“Do you usually make house calls?” Joonmyun asked, still a little dumbfounded as he stepped back to let Kai into his apartment.
“When I know it’s worth it. This is nice. And no, I’m not some kind of robber,” Kai said. “I had the night free, and I saw… Well. I got ahold of your address, anyway. Were you busy?”
Joonmyun stared around his apartment as though that held that answer. It was decently picked up. He’d bought a new chair, and there was a couch he mostly used for napping.
“No, I’m not busy,” he said, surprised to note that he was happy to have Kai there. The etiquette for a situation like he was in escaped him, but it was taken out of his hands. He stood his ground as Kai leaned in, and arm was up around Kai’s shoulder’s a moment later. Whether he’d been hoping for it or not, he wanted it. Wanted it as Kai pulled him closer, only to push him away and almost pull him onto his lap on the couch. Petting, kissing, moans and slides of body against body. He wasn’t sure how long it was, moving from feeling tipsy because alcohol, to full on arousal.
He palmed Kai through his jeans, feeling the moan against his neck. “There was something I didn’t get to do?”
“Fucking me?” Kai asked.
“That. And… something else.”
It was his own condom that time that he rolled down Kai’s cock. He locked the thought out of his head as he anticipated. He gave great head. He’d even say he gave fantastic head. He could get around his gag reflex as long as he could get a cock into his mouth. And Kai, well. He fit.
“Holy fuck. Where did you learn- How-“
Joonmyun smiled inside.
He wasn’t some kind of master, or holder of some trick.
He just really loved doing it.
It was ironic, because “boyfriend who loves sucking cock” should’ve had him keeping guys forever. Not so much in his experience.
Though considering what asses some of them had turned out to be, perhaps it was a good thing.
With Kai he loved it no less, feeling the shift of Kai’s hips and the short, helpless little moans. Getting sucked off could be so boring, and that seemed wrong on so many levels. Kai hissed at Joonmyun’s nails on his thighs, grasping at Joonmyun’s hair as he sucked, squirming closer and cupping with his hand, and moaning himself at the high noise Kai made.
Kai didn’t last long, which to Joonmyun was a point of pride. He climbed back into Kai’s lap, pressing kisses to his face as he breathed, stealing kisses until he could no longer taste the condom, just Kai. And they never got his pants fully undone, just enough for Kai’s hand to get in, finding him hard and eager as Kai loomed over him, stroked him, kissed him.
And it took him no longer as he came all over his shirt as Kai kissed him, glad Kai had something to brace himself on or he would have been smothered. He was surprised he didn’t just burn right off of the face of the planet. Kai’s hair was soft under his hand and Kai smelled better than they both collectively did. Though there would be no shared shower that night. He had to draw the line somewhere.
“Want some water?” Joonmyun asked, and Kai hummed.
“Yeah,” he said, pressing a swift kiss to Joonmyun’s lips and then helping him to his feet. Joonmyun wrinkled his nose and stripped off his shirt, doing spot cleaning before getting his pants closed. All the while, Kai was watching, and Joonmyun led them into the kitchen.
He didn’t get to see any glistening water running down Kai’s throat as he drank or anything like that, but he certainly imagined it. Sure, he had guys showing up all the time for a quick blow job and cuddle on their way home. Absolutely. Absolutely never. Even the guys he’d broken up with, they hadn’t retained the benefits part after, except for that one imminently regrettable time that he’d learned from.
Kai put aside the empty glass, and Joonmyun’s thoughts would no longer be contained, waving between the two of them as they spoke.
“Why do you do this?”
Kai waited a moment, until he seemed to get Joonmyun’s meaning. “You’re hot?”
Joonmyun tilted his head. “Thank you? But I don’t mean that. You’re hot. I mean, you could have any guy you wanted.”
Kai hesitated, fidgeting. “It’s something to do? Besides, how many guys do you know who are like us?”
Not many, and of those who were unattached, even fewer. He didn’t want to know how many other guys Kai had on the side. It wasn’t good to think about that, or wonder. It wasn’t his place, and he’s overstepped it even by asking, from the way that Kai was frowning at the floor. When he saw Kai to the door, his knees carefully locked after Kai had kissed him until he’d lost all sense of if he were standing or not, he thought they would not see each other again.
***
But they did, three nights later, and the next Sunday night, and the Thursday after that. Joonmyun stopped wondering who was paying Kai because it was clear no money was changing hands, but he had no idea why Kai had chosen him to relieve his boredom. The Sunday night, Kai showed up with food, and they’d watched a movie on TV until Kai had gone. And then they’d actually gone out, catching a movie at the theater down the street from Joonmyun’s apartment - paying separately. He’d had the momentary unease that Kai thought of it as some kind of date, until it had just been a fun outing, and Kai had grabbed a taxi rather than walking with Joonmyun back to his apartment.
Perhaps, he wondered, they’d moved out of the fuck buddies-after-paying-session realm into the semi-friendly-can’t-define territory. And when Kai had left on Thursday, he’d made sure of Joonmyun’s next free day, and when he was given permission, said he would show up that morning. It was mysterious. Kind of exciting. Kai never tried to touch him when they were in public though in private he had a habit of scritching at Joonmyun’s neck and getting him to curl into Kai’s body in self-defense.
But it was that day, that morning, that changed things. Kai showed up with coffees, waiting in the hallway until Joonmyun was ready to go and holding the coffee hostage. And then they just…roamed. They wandered through shopping areas, window shopping and trying on hats. They had lunch at a noodle shop, and Kai dispensed little factoids about his family like little pellets out of a candy machine. Joonmyun cranked just hard enough, and the fact that Kai had sisters came out, and the fact that Kai was a couple of years younger than him, and that his family lived nearby.
Things they didn’t talk about included Joonmyun’s family, his job unless he was vaguely complaining, or anything Kai could use to blackmail him with. They also avoided mention of Kai’s employment, since Kai’s brows immediately dropped at any hint of it. It wasn’t that Joonmyun brought it up to tease, or even to remind himself that Kai wasn’t just there trying to get to know Joonmyun. His curiosity caught him sometimes, and Kai’s thoughtful looks. All he could do, really, was keep it out of their conversations entirely. He could be curious on his own. Kai was more than Joonmyun had ever feared he was. More, probably, than he’d hoped. Kai was insistent on splitting everything, so Kai paid for his own food, his own ticket to get into a museum, his own movie snacks.
Joonmyun wasn’t sure why that was, if Joonmyun was trying to prove that he was self-sufficient, that he wasn’t trying to mooch, or what. But Kai followed him back to his apartment with food they’d picked up, settling with him on the couch as they laughed at people being silly on some show Kai had picked out.
He let his head fall back against Kai’s shoulder, feeling Kai’s head rub against his. It was so utterly normal. An all-day date, a dinner in while watching TV. If he let his eyes close, he could smell whatever Kai had put on that morning, some kind of cologne that Joonmyun liked. A little longer, he’d start to wonder what it’d be like to smell that more often.
“I can hear you thinking,” Kai teased.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Do you wear glasses?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“You’d look cute in them, frowning. Like a teacher.”
Joonmyun glared. “What, you were hot for your teachers?”
“A couple of them. Maybe. None of them looked like you, though.”
The compliment came out all stilted, and Joonmyun might have teased Kai about it had he not been humming because of the hand Kai put on his stomach, and way that Kai kissed him.
It was like renting a boyfriend for a day. No attachments, no worries. Just an arm steadying him, wrapping around him, as he leaned into Kai. Soft hair under his fingers, a body he knew.
He breathed in the cologne again.
“Joonmyun,” Kai murmured against his mouth.
He wondered who else Kai wore that cologne for. Who else’s door he showed up at, like a kitten who hadn’t found a home. He couldn’t ask, and that meant that he couldn’t- He couldn’t.
Joonmyun pulled back, and Kai grinned, trying to pull him in.
“No,” Joonmyun said, pushing onto his feet and pulling Kai with him.
“Oh. You want to go somewhere more comfortable.”
“No. I think you need to go.”
Kai frowned. “Okay? You have an early day or something?”
“No. I think we can’t do this any more. I don’t think I’m cut out for pretend,” Joonmyun said, the laugh stopping just short in his throat.
He hoped his message was clear. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know who else Kai was with, or that he didn’t know if he could count on him. It was that little by little he’d start expecting things, relying on things. Wondering if Kai was comparing Joonmyun to someone else, wishing he was with someone else, when all Joonmyun wanted was Kai to be there with him.
“Because of how we met?” Kai asked.
“No.” Joonmyun closed his eyes for a moment and wished he was better at confrontation. “I don’t want to get to a point where I have expectations. You’re a great guy, but I think it’s best if this is it.”
“Expec- Okay. That’s the weirdest way I’ve had things broken off with me before.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
He was weird. He got that.
“You don’t have to apologize. Thanks for today.”
“Yeah,” Joonmyun said, watching Kai step into his shoes. “Thanks.”
Kai waved at him, the back of a hand and moving fingers while not really looking at him, before he closed the door behind himself.
**
“You broke up?”
Joonmyun squinted up at Baekhyun from behind his computer. “What?”
“Kai. Chanyeol said you told him it was over.”
Ah, yes. The chain of gossip. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo in his office, Baekhyun across the hall. It meant everyone knew, but for some reason only Baekhyun was in his space. Perhaps they’d thought a targeted strike was more effective than a full on ambush.
“Yes? But I don’t know if you could call that breaking up,” Joonmyun said. “We weren’t dating.”
“You spent a weekend together. And he’s show up, how many times?”
“I don’t know if someone who gets paid to take people out qualifies as dating.”
“We didn’t pay him, so if he said we did, he was bullshitting you to get to spend more time with you,” Baekhyun said, finally sitting down and scowling.
“No, he never told me someone was paying, but every time I asked, he told me that wasn’t something I had to worry about.”
Baekhyun was giving him a very flat stare, as though that was going to beat whatever sense Baekhyun had on tap into Joonmyun’s brain.
“He’d already stayed an extra day because of his apparent addiction to your body, why does him showing up again without wanting to get paid surprise you?”
“We didn’t-“ Joonmyun began, before shutting his mouth. But Baekhyun was on it like a dog on a steak.
“Didn’t what? Have sex when he came over?”
Fine, he’d shot himself in the foot. “Once. But not the other times. We probably would’ve, but I kicked him out.”
Baekhyun held up both hands, waving them on either side of his head for a moment, before shaking it violently. “Okay. Okay. I can’t… I can’t process that right now. How’s playing games at the nursing home going?”
Joonmyun knew Baekhyun was rattled, because he hadn’t even tried insinuating that Joonmyun was going to be a resident soon.
***
But peace did not last long. An hour, maybe. And then on and off for a couple of weeks. It had been too much to hope that Joonmyun’s love life would be absent the conversation - though mentions of Kai had grudgingly been dropped the week previous. They had chicken up to their ears, and drinks, finally relaxing out of the canned air of the office building. And that was when Joonmyun looked up to Kyungsoo’s most guile-free expression. It was supposed to smooth the thought into Joonmyun’s brain, and just set him on edge instead.
“There’s this guy we know…”
Joonmyun groaned. “First escorts, now setting me up on dates?”
“Now that we’ve gotten everything going again, don’t you want to?”
Joonmyun’s scowl was immediate. “Yeah, some guy is going to appreciate me wanting to date him so I can get laid regularly.”
“Don’t be stupid. You need more than that,” Baekhyun pointed out, a chicken bone hanging precariously from his fingers. “Besides, all you have to do is have coffee with him, and see if you click. Then maybe you’ll have someone to go on dates with.”
“And I’ll stop worrying you? Or bugging you.”
Joonmyun had to duck to keep from being hit, settling for kicking one of them under the table.
But when he left, he had a coffee shop and a time. And in movies, Baekhyun had said, they always took something to identify themselves, like a flower. Joonmyun drew the line at that. So he had a card from Baekhyun’s workplace, one with a cute little dog on the front. Baekhyun promised the guy coming to meet him would have one, too.
“I promise, you’ll like him,” Baekhyun said, his smile one that Joonmyun was never sure he should trust or punch.
***
Joonmyun got to the coffee shop fifteen minutes early, buying himself a drink and staking out a table. He chose a nicer shirt, jeans, trying to not look like he was trying to hard but also without looking like he wasn’t trying. That didn’t even make sense in his head.
The back of his shoe rubbed against the leg of the chair and he tried not to fidget as he read the news on his phone. Or, tried to anyway. He was having a hard time concentrating and that happily lolling dog was just mocking him from the edge of the table. He protected the extra chair from being scavenged, saying he was meeting someone, and collapsed back in apology. He hoped he was meeting someone. He sent a furtive look around whenever anyone moved, or when the door opened. Most people just went up to order. A couple. A woman alone. A family. A couple of single men that came and left.
Joonmyun tried not to think of them as being potentials, as though they’d seen him and then decided not to bother. They hadn’t been very cute anyway, he’d consoled himself.
The clock on his phone turned to the hour exact, and his anxiety levels ramped up accordingly. Unless the guy was fashionably late, it wouldn’t be long. The door chimed again, and Joonmyun caught sight of men’s shoes, jeans, alone, and kept his eyes on his phone rather than gawk. That was him. He could feel it. He waited, fidgeting as the man ordered, and got his drink.
He looked up then, finally, hoping. If Baekhyun was hopeful, maybe there’d be a chance for connection, attraction, or-
Joonmyun blinked. But the man’s face didn’t change, as he slid into the seat opposite Joonmyun.
Kai.
“Hey,” Kai said.
Joonmyun’s heart rate went from anxious to panic in a millisecond, almost giving himself whiplash as he looked around and then back at Kai. He was meeting someone. He was-
Baekhyun couldn’t have meant this. He couldn’t have been that cruel.
“Kai,” Joonmyun said, swallowing reflexively. If Kai wasn’t here on Baekhyun’s suggestion, then he was there and couldn’t be if the guy Joonmyun was really meeting showed up.
“My name is Jongin,” he said. Kai pushed a card over, identical to Joonmyun’s. The same puppy cheerfully staring back. A match to his. No. Not Kai. Jongin.
Jongin was his blind date. Baekhyun had set him up with Jongin, the guy he’d slept with, and had maybe four days total together with before that moment. The guy he’d had a hard time getting out of his head for a lot of reasons, one of which being the smile like Jongin was sending him right then. A little shy, a little knowing.
“Why?” Joonmyun asked, still unsure. Jongin shook his head and and kept his eyes on Joonmyun’s.
“You were right. Sometimes pretending isn’t enough.”
***
Small sequel here in compilation Lazy Mornings.