troublemaker. baekhyun/kyungsoo
name: troublemaker
rate: dicknificent
k-i-s-s-i-n-g: baekhyun/kyungsoo
this is about: Kyungsoo has 99 problems, and Byun Baekhyun is pretty aware that he is all of them.
counting the words: 8k
doodles: who dropped the soap? written as a pinch for sooenaemoured
Baekhyun’s phone is ringing. He fumbles for it on his bedside table, knocking over a lotion bottle and a mostly empty glass of water that he definitely doesn’t remember putting there. The glowing display says it’s noon, and Baekhyun accepts the call, cursing.
“Did I have shooting this morning and I forgot about it?”
“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, “what the fuck were you thinking last night?”
The phone makes Kyungsoo sound like a robot, which is not far off from the truth. Baekhyun sits up, rubbing his eyes.
“Last night?” If this were a movie, Baekhyun assumes this is the part where the montage of drunken debauchery would flash across the screen. It isn’t a movie, so Baekhyun mostly just feels really, really, really hungover. Also, he has no idea what Kyungsoo is talking about. “I don’t remember doing anything worth mentioning.”
“No?” Kyungsoo says, sounding suspiciously pleasant. “Then it’s lucky for you that you don’t have to remember, because there is a visual record on display across the home page of every entertainment gossip site on the internet.”
“Oh, is it because of those fans again? The creepy ones?” Baekhyun can’t remember the word in Korean this early in the morning…afternoon. Korean is hard. Kyungsoo is constantly telling Baekhyun it’s a good thing he’s pretty, since he can’t even read Hangeul even though he’s lived in Seoul for five years: He’s been in Korea ever since he’d been stopped in on the street in Myeongdong while on vacation with his parents to visit his grandma and wound up with an audition for a top agency. “Sangsangs.”
“Sasaengs, you dumb piece of shit,” Kyungsoo snaps. “Wake up and take responsibility.”
“Woah~,” Baekhyun says, sitting up in bed. “This is awfully hostile for an early Thursday morning, Mister Do.”
“A, I’ve already had lunch,” Kyungsoo says, doing what sound like breathing exercises on the other end of the line, “and B, you have no idea what I’ve been dealing with this morning trying to clean up your mess.”
“Don’t I have publicists for that?” Baekhyun’s going to throw up. He definitely shouldn’t have had those last… nine shots… of vodka.
“Guess who had to call the agency this morning?” Kyungsoo says. “Here’s a hint. Me. Your manager. Guess who’s coming over to your apartment right now to castrate you? Hint, it’s also me.”
Baekhyun groans. “What have I done to earn a castration, exactly?” Baekhyun only knows the word castration in Korean because Kyungsoo taught it to him the first week they’d worked together, when Baekhyun had accidentally spit chewed gum in Kyungsoo’s neatly combed hair. He’d learned several conjugations of it after Kyungsoo had needed to get the gum cut out by a professional.
“If you didn’t have a dick,” Kyungsoo says, “then you wouldn’t have gotten into this shit in the first place.” He hangs up, and Baekhyun’s stomach rolls.
“Definitely should have said no on the vodka,” he mumbles to himself, before rolling out of bed. He successfully doesn’t land on his face, and then crawls toward the bathroom. “It’s been at least a week since I gave the toilet a hug, it’s probably feeling neglected.”
Twenty minutes later, Baekhyun’s buzzer sounds. Baekhyun ignores it, listening lazily as Kyungsoo types in the code and appears moments later, looming in the bathroom doorway like the angel of death.
“You’re disgusting,” Kyungsoo tells him, and Baekhyun looks down at himself. He’s still sitting on the bathroom floor, wearing the clothes he’d worn out last night, and his mouth tastes like something died right under his tongue.
“Well, I’ve definitely smelled better,” he allows, “but my hair’s probably okay.”
“Your hair looks great in these photos from last night. Too bad your TONGUE IS DOWN ANOTHER MAN’S THROAT.”
Suddenly, Baekhyun has a flashback of crawling into someone’s lap, and yeah, okay, that someone had definitely had a dick. Oops, that’s Baekhyun’s bad. He’s usually more circumspect about things like that. He’s certainly never been caught on camera before.
“Hey,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I was in the VIP section. What person with access to the VIP section would be taking pictures of me when U-Know Yunho was there? Too bad I didn’t make out with him. Or did I?” He’s pretty sure he’s not going to puke again, but he stays sitting next to the toilet, just in case.
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “It appears you didn’t get that lucky. Otherwise, you’d be likely to have all your films banned in China right now.”
“Why?”
Kyungsoo slaps his hand hard against the doorframe, making a sound like the gavel from Law&Order: SVU. “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what’s happening. You were caught on camera aggressively making out with a man.”
“Is that better or worse than that time with the pot? Which I still think was totally unfair, by the way, because what the hell else was I supposed to do while visiting my cousin in Seattle? It’s legal there.”
“Worse,” Kyungsoo says. “Much worse. You’re going to lose work over this. You’ll be lucky if they don’t give your character a sudden violent death on your drama.”
“They can’t kill me off, I’m the second male lead. Everyone loves me. I’m a fan favorite.”
“You’re also involved in the biggest gay scandal ever.”
Baekhyun rubs at his face with his hands. “I am too hungover for this.”
Kyungsoo sighs, leaning over the sink to pour some water into the glass Baekhyun keeps on the counter next to his toothbrush. He’s should probably get up and brush his teeth at some point. “I can’t believe this is my life. I can’t believe I went to college so I could take of a man-child.”
“Thank you,” Baekhyun says, reaching out to take the glass from Kyungsoo, but Kyungsoo upends the whole thing over his head instead. Baekhyun sputters, cold water in his eyes and up his nose. “That was unnecessary!”
“I disagree,” Kyungsoo says. He tosses a towel and it hits Baekhyun in the face. “Now get up. We’ve got places to be.”
*
Okay, now Baekhyun’s seen the pictures, and they are kind of incriminating. His hand down the back of the other guy’s pants is pretty hard to misinterpret.
There’s a crowd outside the agency when Baekhyun’s finished getting metaphorically fucked by upper level management even harder than he’d apparently wanted to be fucked the night before. Lots of cameras keep getting shoved in his face, and people who didn’t give a shit about him before are suddenly asking for “his statement”, like Baekhyun has anything to say that’s not “whoops.” It’s not Baekhyun’s idea of a good time.
Kyungsoo is driving even more passive-aggressively than usual as he chauffeurs him to the evening shooting location for his drama, “Last Tears for My Dying Mother,” and Baekhyun reviews his lines instead of drinking, which is what he’d rather be doing. For the record, he doesn’t have a problem.
“On a scale from one to ten, how mad are you right now?” Baekhyun asks when they pull into parking at the location.
Kyungsoo frowns and then turns off the car. “Is one the most or is ten the most?”
“Ten.”
“Fine, then ten,” Kyungsoo says, leaning over to unbuckle Baekhyun’s seatbelt. His fingers tickle the bare skin where Baekhyun’s shirt doesn’t meet the waistband of his jeans, and Baekhyun gulps, before he chances a smile at Kyungsoo, because Kyungsoo runs a steady eight on the ‘angry scale’ on a good day, and Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. “Ten million.”
“Okay, well, I will see you in six calming hours,” Baekhyun replies, getting out of the car. “You can, I don’t know, attend a yoga class. Prune a bonsai. Or something.”
“Get out of my sight,” Kyungsoo growls, driving away before Baekhyun’s taken three steps away from the car. Baekhyun rests his hand over where Kyungsoo’s fingers had brushed, and lets out a deep breath, heading inside to today’s location.
Jongin’s manager, Junmyeon, whistles obnoxiously as Baekhyun walks into costuming. He’s sitting with his legs crossed primly on the sofa, almost like how Kyungsoo sits on Baekhyun’s couch when he’s berating Baekhyun in his own living room, during their schedule briefings. In contrast, Jongin, Baekhyun’s co-star in ‘Last Tears for My Dying Mother’, is slumped down in the make-up chair like a bored toddler, deeply invested in his cell phone game. The only thing Baekhyun does on his phone is use Tindr and shamelessly ignore his mother’s phone calls.
“So,” Junmyeon says, “saw you on the news.” Junmyeon has a way of being twice as embarrassing as usual when he’s trying to be funny. Also, Baekhyun never gets his jokes because they’re stupid.
“Oh my God, shut the fuck up,” Baekhyun says. “Kyungsoo already tried to rip out my heart through my anus this morning.” He starts to take off his sweatshirt. He’s perspiring. He’s had a rough day, and he’s still hungover. “I’m so done with managers.”
“Looks like you wanted something up your anus, though,” says Sehun, who is inexplicably on set for the fourth time this week, as full of loathsome commentary as usual. “I mean, damn, those pictures were pretty graphic, dude.”
“Don’t be jealous that I got more action on a Wednesday than you’ve gotten in your entire natural-born life,” Baekhyun says. Sehun scoffs. “Anyway, I don’t need a play-by-play of my own actions: everyone has just been through the situation with me pretty thoroughly for the past three hours, and basically I’m screwed.”
“Well, yeah, you are, because, you know, last night, with that guy…” Junmyeon says. It’s a hamfisted innuendo and Baekhyun rolls his eyes.
“Please don’t talk anymore,” Baekhyun says. “Hyung, it’s embarrassing. Everything you say is embarrassing.”
Jongin finally seems to notice that Baekhyun is in the room, and looks up from his phone. “Hey,” Jongin says, “Saw you with that Kyungsoo-hyung lookalike on the news this morning.”
Baekhyun, who had been filling a paper cup from the water cooler to wash down his aspirin, drops the cup to the floor. Water splashes all over the jeans he hasn’t washed in almost a month, and he wonders, numbly, if this counts as doing laundry. “What.”
“Yeah,” Sehun says, legs crossed as he leans forward in his chair, “he looked… just like your manager. Again.”
“What do you mean, again?” Baekhyun looks in the mirror. It’s past seven at night and he’s still wearing his sunglasses. Baekhyun is losing cool points by the second. Hangovers suck. Baekhyun is going to give up drinking for at least a month, because it’s starting to cut into how attractive he can look with minimal effort.
“You tend to have a type,” Junmyeon says. “Remember when we went out after the wrap party for “Love Jungle Vacation” and there was that girl… with the eyes.” Junmyeon makes his eyes really wide, “and the mouth...” He puckers his lips.
Baekhyun cringes.
“Yeah, basically a lady Kyungsoo-hyung,” Sehun says, and Jongin looks distinctly uncomfortable, probably because Baekhyun had ended up making out with her while sitting in Jongin’s lap. Whatever, he can get over it. He shouldn’t go to parties if he’s not prepared for things like that to happen.
“That’s not what’s going on here,” Baekhyun says.
“I absolutely believe you,” Sehun replies, and Baekhyun holds up his middle finger at Sehun even though he’s learned that doesn’t communicate ‘fuck you’ that well in Korea.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Baekhyun says. “You’re not even in this drama. Don’t you have your own drama to film, or has Korea finally realized that your face can only express two emotions?”
“My manager says I need time to ‘recharge’ between dramas,” Sehun says, shrugging. “Also, my cable’s out. Watching you go down in flames is the next best thing.”
“Oh my God, I’m going to get fired,” Baekhyun says, “and you think this is funny?”
“They’re not going to fire you,” Junmyeon says, uncrossing his legs and revealing that his pants are pleated front, much to Baekhyun’s dismay. He was already nauseated from his hangover, and now this. “It will all blow over once you make a statement. Everyone loves you, so you just need to make sure they believe that you were drunk, and that you had no idea what you were doing.”
“It’s totally not going to be that easy,” Baekhyun says. “That’s apparently not how it works in Korea. Kyungsoo already explained, in between gruesome death threats and increasingly furious glares, that it’s going to take me a ton of time to make up for this.”
“Kyungsoo just wants what’s best for you.” Junmyeon smiles. “Like any good manager. I always do my best with Jongin.”
“He’s threatening to send me to Siberia for a hiatus,” Baekhyun says, examining his nails. “He said I wouldn’t be allowed to take my laptop or phone, because I might accidentally tweet something useless and terrible if he’s not around to stop me.”
“That’s probably true,” Sehun says. “Anyway, your agency is not going to fire you. Your head is basically filled with Jack Daniels, and yet even I believed you were a Harvard educated doctor devoted to the care of Moon Geun Young’s dying mother in the last episode. You’re the best actor I have ever seen. My girlfriend cried when you confessed and she hasn’t shown a human emotion in five years.”
“My head is not filled with Jack Daniels,” Baekhyun replies, sniffling angstily. “I don’t drink Jack Daniels, because it gives me heartburn, and I’m too pretty have heartburn.”
“That’s the spirit,” Junmyeon says, and the wardrobe assistant comes to get Baekhyun.
*
By the time Kyungsoo brings him food, around two in the morning, Baekhyun is relieved to see that he’s calmed down considerably. He’s changed clothes, and he looks totally put together in a white button down and a pair of black slacks that hug his thighs, not that Baekhyun has noticed.
“I have a plan,” Kyungsoo says, laying out an array of hamburgers from McDonald’s. Baekhyun looks at the spread, and back up at Kyungsoo. “I didn’t know which one you wanted,” he mutters. “You change your mind about which one is your favorite a lot so I just got everything you’d said you liked best in the past month.”
“You are the world’s best manager,” Baekhyun says solemnly, unwrapping three of them of them at once and combining them into one sandwich.
“I can’t watch you do that,” Kyungsoo says, pulling out a notebook. “So here’s the plan.”
“Shoot,” Baekhyun says, around a bite of what tastes like a filet o’ fish, a bulgogi burger, and the classic Big Mac. Little pieces of bun spray out of his mouth. Kyungsoo gags.
“You’re going to do an interview,” Kyungsoo says, once he has stopped grimacing at Baekhyun’s food choices. “Preferably Healing Camp, but we’ll see what we can arrange. Then you’re going to go on dates.”
“What kind of dates?” Baekhyun asks. Kyungsoo’s hair looks really nice today, all soft and silky. He’d noticed in the car, earlier, too, but he hadn’t wanted to say anything because Kyungsoo might have stuck his hand into Baekhyun’s chest and somehow removed his spine.
“I don’t care,” Kyungsoo says, “as long as they’re women. Famous or not famous, it doesn’t matter. Just go on dates with them. Be seen. With women.”
“But I don’t like anyone right now,” Baekhyun says, wondering what kind of shampoo Kyungsoo uses. Baekhyun would guess it was something expensive, but Kyungsoo has always seemed like more of the off-brand shampoo type, considering the way he gives Kris and his expensive everything disdainful looks every five minutes when Baekhyun whines Kyungsoo into letting him eat out with Kris despite the fact that his and Kris’s combined star power at lunch means they get hounded by photographers.
“Who cares?” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun remembers that he and Kyungsoo are having a conversation that is not about Kyungsoo’s shiny, perfect hair.
“You have to like people to date them,” Baekhyun explains when he regains the thread of conversation. “My mom says if you date people without liking them you’re setting them up for heartbreak and that makes you a soul-sucking bastard.” She’d sounded really angry when she’d said it, too. Baekhyun had only been seven, but he’s pretty sure that had been right around the time his mother stopped letting his fourth step-dad into the house.
“Well, clearly you liked that stranger last night enough to grab his dick in public,” Kyungsoo says. “What would your mom have to say about that?”
Baekhyun’s mother would probably understand, because she’s awesome, even if Baekhyun hates talking to her on the phone, but Kyungsoo’s eyebrows are twitching, and Baekhyun thinks that’s not the answer Kyungsoo’s looking for.
“That wasn’t me,” Baekhyun says. “That was my alter ego. The one that is sort of a freak in the sheets when I drink nine extra shots of vodka.”
“Then drink ten shots tomorrow night and have your alter ego pick up someone nice and pretty. You could even take a friend. A double date. Go to the movies.”
“That’s a stellar plan, really, great, yes, but there are a couple of problems here.” Baekhyun steels himself, because there are only two things Kyungsoo hates, and those two things are being disagreed with, and finding out he was lied to. Baekhyun is about to do both of these things. “First thing, my alter ego only likes dudes, so, uh, if you let me out tomorrow night after ten shots of vodka, we’ll probably just end up with another scandal. And possibly my death from alcohol poisoning.”
“That could be another solution to all my problems,” Kyungsoo says, but he mostly sounds like he doesn’t mean it.
“Second thing is, none of my female friends really can afford to be caught in even a regular dating scandal right now, and I wouldn’t feel exactly comfortable taking out some fan I’m not attracted to.”
“I’m sure there is a girl out there that you are attracted to,” Kyungsoo says. “What about the one from the ‘Love Jungle Vacation’ party?”
Baekhyun searches for a way to explain to Kyungsoo that she is literally the only girl he has ever made out with in his life that he wasn’t kissing for a drama, and comes up with “Maybe I should have told you before, but like my alter ego, my regular self also only likes dudes.”
Kyungsoo sets down his notebook, and then pins Baekhyun with a glare that makes Baekhyun’s skin feel like it’s about to slough of his body, like the giant snake in ‘Anaconda’. Passersby would find Baekhyun’s human skin just hanging out in the parking lot, hiding from Kyungsoo’s judgement. That would be nasty.
“Let me get this straight,” Kyungsoo says. Baekhyun resists the urge to make a joke about nothing straight to be found here because he doesn’t think it would go over too well right now. “I have been your manager for the past three and a half years, and you didn’t think I should know that you’re gay.”
“I didn’t think it mattered?” Baekhyun totally knew it mattered. Otherwise he would have festooned his apartment in RuPaul’s Drag Race memorabilia and worn glitter thong underwear like he’s always dreamed. But how do you even begin to bring something like that up? Write it on a greeting card? Baekhyun doesn’t think Korean stores sell ‘Happy I’m-Coming-Out-of-the-Closet Day’ cards.
“Does anyone else know?” Kyungsoo asks.
“Well…” Baekhyun prevaricates, “maybe, like, everyone. Except you. Well, no, I’m pretty sure no one in upper management knows, but everyone else. Pretty much. Jongin might be lying to himself about it, considering he’s still traumatized by the lap incident, but yeah, like… Even Yixing knows, and he can’t even remember his own birthday.”
Kyungsoo angrily takes Baekhyun’s sandwich out of his hands. “You don’t even deserve this,” he says.
“You can’t starve everyone that lies,” Baekhyun whines, and Kyungsoo smacks him upside the back of his head, crushing the sandwich into nothing in his other hand like something out of The Terminator.
“Watch me,” he replies, and Baekhyun whimpers sadly.
“So mean,” Baekhyun says, as a car exits the parking lot. Light from the headlights makes Kyungsoo’s hair gleam. It’s so healthy. Baekhyun’s hair has been fried since 2010.
“I’ll come up with a new plan, then,” Kyungsoo says bitterly, wiping his hand on Baekhyun’s sweatshirt. “Let’s see how the media backlash goes over the next few days. You haven’t been lying about anything else, have you?”
“No,” Baekhyun says guilelessly, and Kyungsoo glares at him suspiciously. Baekhyun’s a totally great actor, though, and this is a Harvard-doctor-situation, so eventually, Kyungsoo sighs.
“Fine,” he says, and Baekhyun exhales with relief.
*
“So then I said no,” Baekhyun says, looking at his nails again. He’d broken one last night as he’d repeatedly punched his pillow, before rolling around in frustration on his bed, kicking his legs up in the air like Taylor Swift in the ‘You Belong With Me’ video.
“So you lied to him, to his face?” Chanyeol replies. “Wow.”
Chanyeol is a producer for some of the top rappers in Korea but his apartment is decorated like a sixty-year-old spinster’s. Baekhyun flattens the doily lying on the arm of the couch. “I’m an actor. I get paid to lie well on an everyday basis. And be pretty, of course. I’m practically a spy.”
“What you’re saying is, he gave you the perfect opening to talk about how you’ve been madly in love with him for like three years, and you let it pass you by?” Chanyeol’s knitting needles click rhythmically as he finishes a row of whatever he’s making and starts another one.
Baekhyun wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘madly in love’. Really, it’s just that the very first time he’d seen Do Kyungsoo, his heart had beat way too fast and he’d thought he was going to pass out. The first time he’d talked to Do Kyungsoo, he had passed out, and he’d woken up to Kyungsoo patting his face with a wet washcloth and muttering angrily that Baekhyun wasn’t going to be overworked on his watch. Baekhyun had thought, as he got to know Kyungsoo, who is cranky and often sharp and resorts pretty commonly to violence, that he’d stop liking him so much, but it turns out Kyungsoo is also secretly sweet, unfailingly attentive, and unfalteringly loyal, and so instead of falling out of like, Baekhyun had kind of fallen into... well, liking Kyungsoo way too much.
“I don’t think he’s ever going to let me eat McDonald’s again,” Baekhyun says, thinking forlornly of his crushed mega-sandwich. “I can’t take anything more than that. I’ve never been rejected before.”
“Please,” Chanyeol says, “Kyungsoo has been unknowingly rejecting you for the past three years. How would actually letting him know what he’s rejecting you for be any different?”
“I wouldn’t have the armor of my lies!” Baekhyun rolls around on Chanyeol’s couch. He accidently kicks Chanyeol’s arm, and Chanyeol pouts.
“Damnit, Baek, you made me drop a stitch.”
“Stop knitting tiny booties for Jongin’s ugly-ass dogs and console me in my time of despair,” Baekhyun moans, and Chanyeol sighs.
“You’re so melodramatic,” Chanyeol replies.
“Hello? I’m an actor?” Baekhyun fixes his hair. “I act in dramas? That’s the point?”
“I dunno,” Chanyeol says, “I don’t think Kyungsoo would be that mad. I mean, he already puts up with all your shit? I think he kind of likes you.”
“But liking me kind of is not the same is being okay with the fact that I think about that one time I saw his dick at the bath house during that overnight trip to Gwangju all the time and masturbate while shoving objects of various sizes up my--”
“I get the picture,” Chanyeol says, interrupting with slightly jaundiced coloring to his face. “Wow, that was way more information than I needed.”
“It’s such a nice dick, too,” Baekhyun says. “I think about it, and my mouth waters.” Baekhyun has legit never seen a dick that nice. It’s totally unfair that Kyungsoo has a dick that nice AND a mouth that nice, and neither of those things are available for Baekhyun to taste. Baekhyun sighs sadly at how hard his life is.
“I don’t think you need to say all that. You should just be honest with him, since it’s clear that he’d prefer that, and since it doesn’t look like you’ll be getting over him anytime soon.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m getting over him or not,” Baekhyun says. “It’s not like he’d ever be interested.”
“You don’t know that,” Chanyeol says. “After all, he’s always telling you how pretty you are.”
“Usually after he insults my intelligence,” Baekhyun replies. “That’s what people do to their dogs. Anyway, I do know he wouldn’t be interested. I’m not his type.”
Baekhyun is not about to go into why he’d made out with that girl at the ‘Love Jungle Vacation’ wrap party with Chanyeol, but honestly, it’s mostly because he’d stumbled upon Kyungsoo eating a girl out at a back booth of their reserved room, his face between her thighs and her hands pulling on his hair. His choices had been to make out with that girl that sort of, yeah, looked like Kyungsoo, or cry like a bitch in front of everyone, so Baekhyun had chosen the path of least humiliation. Her lipgloss had tasted nice. Baekhyun bought a tube for himself later that week.
“Well, I think that you should tell him,” Chanyeol says.
On the surface, with his double life of making beats and knitting clothing for dogs, Chanyeol may seem ridiculous, but in Baekhyun’s experience, he’s always given good advice. When they’d first met at some nightclub, right after Baekhyun had come to Korea, he’d stopped Baekhyun from going into a backroom, telling him “there’s some crazy shit going down in there, you don’t wanna get involved”, and sure enough, the next morning the news was buzzing with rumours of a group of people busted for cocaine possession. Chanyeol has always had Baekhyun’s back.
“I’ll think about it.”
*
Baekhyun is in the middle of soaping up his balls when Kyungsoo bursts into the bathroom, already mid-rant.
“-- and can you please tell me why your dick is all over the internet, and I didn’t know about it?” Kyungsoo shoves the shower door out of the way to glare at Baekhyun through the steam.
Baekhyun freezes, scrotum in one hand and the bar of soap in the other. “Um. I have really creepy fans?”
“All famous people have really creepy fans.” He points at Baekhyun with an accusing finger, piercing the spray of the shower and spattering water into Baekhyun’s eyes. “What you have is a tendency to get photographed while making out with men at nightclubs.”
Kyungsoo’s teeth are all showing, which might have indicated a smile on a normal person, but with Kyungsoo, it usually means he’s smelled blood and is going in for the kill, like a shark. Baekhyun likes assertive men.
“I think you’re blowing this out of proportion,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo growls.
“Am I?” He steps into the shower, between Baekhyun and the showerhead, still fully clothed, and pokes his finger into Baekhyun’s chest. Baekhyun jumps, and the soap shoots out of his grip, ricocheting off the wall and landing somewhere behind him. “Look, I can’t stop you from doing what you want. I’ve figured that out by now. But if you hide things from me, I will kill you.” His thin sweater is soaked, and Baekhyun can see the dark outline of Kyungsoo’s nipples through the mint-colored fabric.
He wills himself not to get hard, because this is basically every wet dream he’s ever had about Kyungsoo happening to him all at once, including the part where Kyungsoo is berating him like he needs to be punished. Baekhyun’s head is a messy place, but these thoughts usually sit front and center.
“Can we talk about this when I’m not naked?”
Kyungsoo’s eyes immediately drop to where Baekhyun is covering himself and he takes a step back, determinedly staring over Baekhyun’s shoulder instead “Hurry up and finish, then,” he says, the hem of his wet jeans slapping against the tile as he steps out of the shower. “There’s coffee waiting for you in the kitchen.”
Baekhyun nods as the door closes again, and slowly turns around to pick up the soap.
The rest of the shower doesn’t take too long. Baekhyun is too distracted to sing his usual medley of Taylor Swift songs to the shower head, and he grabs an extra towel to dry his hair. He got it hanging around his neck on his way into the kitchen, scrubbing at the nape of his neck with one end, when he stops in the doorway.
Kyungsoo is standing at the counter, wearing one of Baekhyun’s T-shirts and a pair of Baekhyun’s jeans. They’re too big on him, so he’s cuffed them at the ankle. He’s staring at his phone, his shoulders hunched, and Baekhyun stares at him for a moment. Kyungsoo, in Baekhyun’s kitchen, wearing Baekhyun’s clothes, makes his stomach ache.
He shuffles into the kitchen, and Kyungsoo looks up, stony faced, and points to the coffee. “Drink,” he says.
Taking a sip of the coffee, still lukewarm, Baekhyun moves so he’s standing next to Kyungsoo. He sets the coffee cup down and towels at his hair. “So, um, hi,” he says. “Here we are in the land of the clothed.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kyungsoo looks at him. Baekhyun has never seen Kyungsoo look so hesitant.
“Can I stop you?” Baekhyun asks, and then holds up his hands in surrender when Kyungsoo growls at him, back on his game. “Go ahead. Ask away.”
Kyungsoo holds his phone up to Baekhyun’s face. These photos are a lot less blurry than the ones of him currently being splashed across the news. They’re also from a different night. “This guy, in this photo… He’s not the same guy as in the other pictures, is he?”
“No,” Baekhyun says, looking away. He remembers that guy. He’d liked him. He smoked, though, and Baekhyun hadn’t liked the cigarette taste that had lingered long after he’d bid the man goodnight after getting fingered by him in the men’s restroom. “Not the same guy.”
“He looks a lot the man from Wednesday night’s photos,” Kyungsoo says quietly, and then he swipes to the next photo. “Actually, most of these guys look the same, Baekhyun.”
“Where did you get these?” Baekhyun snaps, pushing Kyungsoo’s hand down, and his phone with it. Of course they all look similar. Baekhyun has been trying to replace Kyungsoo for almost three years, and it’s never close enough.
“I told you, they’re everywhere, if you know where to look,” Kyungsoo says.
“Oh, and you know where to look now?” Baekhyun asks. Baekhyun is definitely not aroused by the idea of Kyungsoo scrounging around gay gossip and porn sites looking for pictures of Baekhyun with his hands down other people’s pants. That would be weird and Baekhyun totally isn’t into it. Much.
Kyungsoo sighs. “It’s my job to clean up your messes,” he says, and Baekhyun scowls. “The news sites didn’t catch these ones, yet, but this is still your mess.”
“I get it,” Baekhyun says, taking the coffee and pouring it down the sink. “All I am to you is just a big mess. You’ve made that pretty clear.” Baekhyun throws the cup in the trash, and Kyungsoo grabs his arm before he can walk away.
“You’ve got shooting in an hour,” Kyungsoo says. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
Baekhyun glances up at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo is looking away, and he has this weirdo expression on his face that Baekhyun hasn’t seen before. Like, unsure, or something. It makes Baekhyun feel terrible and guilty and if Kyungsoo were Chanyeol, Baekhyun would already be whining on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says, impulsively. “I’m not trying to make your job harder. I’m just trying to figure something out, and… it’s more difficult than I thought.”
“You’d better get changed,” Kyungsoo says, eyes flicking to catch Baekhyun’s. “Or you’ll be late. It’s raining, and I’m not getting a speeding ticket for you.” That’s Kyungsoo for ‘wear something warm or you’ll catch a cold’, so Baekhyun smiles at him. Kyungsoo swallows. “Go, I don’t have all day.”
“You do,” Baekhyun says. “All day to be my manager.”
“You’re insufferable,” Kyungsoo replies, slipping his phone into his pocket and leaning against the counter to wait.
*
“Is Kyungsoo-hyung okay?” Jongin asks, grabbing Baekhyun’s arm to get his attention.
“Why? Did he say anything?” Baekhyun asks, suddenly losing interest in the sandwich platter over on the other side of make-up.
“He’s been watching you all day like you’re a three year old in a room of knives,” Sehun says, already carrying a plate with seven sandwiches on it. He doesn’t even belong here, Baekhyun thinks, so there’s no reason for him to have his hands all over teriyaki chicken with Baekhyun’s name on it. “What did you do.”
“You didn’t even phrase that as a question,” Baekhyun says. “For the record, it is not my fault that Kyungsoo went cruising gay sites and found tons of pictures of me making out with dudes.”
“No, it is your fault. Those pictures exist because you can’t control your boner.” Sehun crosses his arms. “You should have seen his face when the director was teasing you and Jongin about doing a kissing scene to take advantage of your new gay icon status.”
With Baekhyun’s scandal, the shows Thursday ratings had gone unexpectedly through the roof, and the director and the writers seem eager to exploit it. It meaning the gay. The director has spent most of today’s shooting making suggestions for more homoerotic interaction between Baekhyun and basically any other cast member, including the actor playing his dad. Baekhyun would find that insulting, except the actor playing his dad is kind of hot, in that silver fox, Richard Gere, kind of way, and he’d smiled down at Baekhyun in a way that spoke volumes.
Kyungsoo had broken a light when that happened, and Junmyeon had gone over to reassure Kyungsoo that the director was teasing. Baekhyun’s always known Kyungsoo is overprotective with him, but it gives him a warm glow anyway, even if Kyungsoo glares at him every time their eyes meet, like he doesn’t want Baekhyun to get any ideas about the anger scale sliding any lower than ten million anytime soon.
“I don’t think he likes people touching you this much,” Jongin says. “I think he looks the most upset when Baekhyun’s standing too close to someone else, or when Baekhyun does that flirty thing when the cameras aren’t rolling.” Jongin points to the actor playing Baekhyun’s dad. “Especially with him.”
“What’s the male version of a cougar?” Baekhyun asks. Sehun throws one of his sandwich crusts at Baekhyun’s face. “Look, kid, I make my money with this face, we don’t throw things at it.”
Sehun rolls his eyes and turns to Jongin. “Are you trying to say Kyungsoo’s jealous? Of people liking Baekhyun? No. He spends most of his time threatening to kill Baekhyun. I keep thinking the next scandal on the news will be the discovery of Baekhyun’s corpse.”
“Kyungsoo doesn’t yell at me that much.” Sehun looks at him incredulously. “Well, he’s really hot when he’s angry, so, I don’t really mind.”
On the other side of the set, Kyungsoo is engaged in conversation with Junmyeon, but he’s staring over Junmyeon’s shoulder. Right at Baekhyun.
“Oh great,” Sehun says, “so it’s some kind of kinky foreplay then.”
“He doesn’t… like me like that.” Baekhyun clears his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Baekhyun hates that this isn’t the U.S. and he can’t plead the 5th amendment, aka the right not to implicate himself in horrible conversations with Sehun, or something like that.
Sehun rolls his eyes. “Right, and I don’t know that Jongin sings his dogs to sleep with lullabies that are meant for actual babies.”
Jongin sputters around his hand sandwich and Baekhyun slaps him on the back to keep him from choking. Or maybe to provide solidarity. One of those things that friends do for other friends when they might be choking.
Kyungsoo is still staring when Baekhyun looks back over. Junmyeon is gone, so Kyungsoo is just standing in the middle of the lunch crowd like a creep, so Baekhyun stands up, brushing the crumbs off his lap. “I’ll be right back,” he says, grabbing the other half of his sandwich, and Sehun snorts.
“Yeah, right.”
Baekhyun has already taken a few steps in Kyungsoo’s direction when Kyungsoo has to take a phone call, ducking out of the studio for privacy, and Baekhyun watches him go.
*
Kyungsoo pulls up in front of Baekhyun’s apartment. Baekhyun’s about to bolt, because today was too weird, but Kyungsoo opens his own door. “I left my clothes drying upstairs,” he explains. “I’m not wearing your stuff back to my apartment.” Kyungsoo doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Whatever,” says Baekhyun. “Not like you’ve ever needed my permission to come in before.”
“Because you’re too irresponsible to answer the door when I push the buzzer,” Kyungsoo says.
“Who knows who’s on the other side of the door?” Baekhyun waves to the door guard and uses his card key to enter the locked building. “It could be a burglar. Or a murderer.”
“It’s always me,” Kyungsoo says, gesturing to the massive security camera poised outside the elevator. “Literally no one else can get up to your apartment but me.”
“Like I said,” Baekhyun replies, “it could be a murder.”
“Ha ha,” Kyungsoo says, with no actual mirth.
Kyungsoo puts in the door code, letting them both into the apartment.
“So I’ll let you go get changed,” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo had left his clothes on the drying rack in Baekhyun’s room.
Kyungsoo doesn’t go into Baekhyun’s room. He stares at Baekhyun instead, with unsettling intensity, like he’s trying to dissect Baekhyun with his mind. “Baekhyun,” he says. “I talked to Chanyeol during lunch.”
“Really?” Baekhyun asks. “About what?”
“About the pictures,” Kyungsoo says, sternly. “I told you not to lie to me, Baekhyun.”
“Lie about what?” Baekhyun takes a step back, and Kyungsoo follows, taking a step forward. Baekhyun nervously picks at the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“They all looked like me,” Kyungsoo says. “When you said you were trying to figure something out, Baekhyun… Was that something me?”
Baekhyun gapes at Kyungsoo, unsure if this is a test. He has no idea what Kyungsoo wants him to say. One of the things that makes Baekhyun such a good actor is that he always knows what people want from him. Kyungsoo, right now, is making him draw a blank. He wants to tell Kyungsoo anything that won’t have him quitting as Baekhyun’s manager.
“Um?” is what Baekhyun eventually settles on, but even in his mouth, it tastes inadequate. He takes another step back, and then another and Kyungsoo follows until he’s got Baekhyun cornered against the door of his bedroom.
Kyungsoo’s stare is enough to light him on fire, which Baekhyun is sure he’s threatened to do more than once. “If you wanted me, you should have just said so.”
“What?”
Kyungsoo’s eyes are still burning, but his grip on Baekhyun’s chin is only just firm enough for him to fit their mouths together. It’s not a forced kiss, but a telling one, as both of them fall into it equally. Kyungsoo nibbles at the uneven bow of Baekhyun’s lips until Baekhyun is shivering and licking back at Kyungsoo’s wide mouth. The doorframe cuts into Baekhyun’s back as Kyungsoo cages him in, sucking hard on his tongue, and he moans, the sound breaking in the middle.
Baekhyun pulls back, embarrassed and breathless. One of his hands is tangled in Kyungsoo’s wonderfully silky hair.
Baekhyun fumbles with the door until it opens, and Kyungsoo uses his hold on Baekhyun’s waist to walk him back until Baekhyun is tumbling onto the bed, Kyungsoo on top of him.
“Wait,” Baekhyun says, brain catching up, “you actually…”
“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Kyungsoo says, and then bites Baekhyun’s ear. Baekhyun can’t tell if it feels good or hurts, which seems to be the summary of his entire relationship with Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun has always liked a little pain with his pleasure. “Yes, I like you.”
“But you ate out that girl, I saw you,” Baekhyun blurts out, and Kyungsoo raises his eyebrow arcanely.
“I just like eating people out,” Kyungsoo says. “If you’re a good boy, maybe you’ll find out how good I am at it.”
Kyungsoo removes Baekhyun’s clothes and then his own with same efficiency he applies to organizing Baekhyun’s schedule, getting them both naked before Baekhyun even finishes thinking about how much he would like to be naked. “You’re amazing,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo pouts at him, unimpressed.
“I haven’t even fucked you yet,” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun is totally having a wet dream right now, because Kyungsoo is talking dirty to Baekhyun in his own bed and they’re both naked.
Kyungsoo’s dick is as awesome as he remembered. Baekhyun doesn’t even think about it before he’s rolling them over, Kyungsoo’s hair spreading out dark on his blue pillows, and wrapping a hand around Kyungsoo’s dick.
“Can I blow you?”
“That is the best possible use for your mouth that I could possibly imagine,” Kyungsoo replies, and for some reason, Baekhyun feels like he’s being praised, which only makes him harder.
Baekhyun has kissed a lot of people, but he doesn’t have quite as much practice at this part. Kyungsoo watches him as he takes a little taste, the tip of his tongue just licking at Kyungsoo’s slit, and Baekhyun can feel Kyungsoo’s thigh muscles twitch. His mouth is wet, like all the other times he’s drooled over just the thought of sucking Kyungsoo off, and he wets his lips before fitting them around the head of Kyungsoo’s dick.
The muscles in Kyungsoo’s thighs twitch again, like he can’t help it, and it makes Baekhyun feel suddenly powerful about having Kyungsoo in his mouth. He bobs his head, gripping the base with a firm had, and swallows Kyungsoo’s dick like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to do.
Kyungsoo presses a hand to the back of his head, a firm pressure holding Baekhyun’s head down as he works the cock in his mouth, and Baekhyun likes that too, the way Kyungsoo is holding him in place and won’t let him run away. Smirking as best he can Baekhyun reaches down to run a finger over Kyungsoo’s balls so he can feel the muscles twitch again. Kyungsoo’s hand on the back of his head becomes heavier, holding Baekhyun in place as Kyungsoo thrusts into his mouth and not letting him up for air until Baekhyun moans so loud the sound bounces off the walls.
Baekhyun pants once his mouth is empty again, sucking in air, and Kyungsoo’s hand is still there, fingers tangled in the hair above the nape of his neck. “Fuck,” Baekhyun says, voice raw, “I’ve been dreaming about choking on your dick for years.”
“I’ll let you do it to your heart’s content later,” Kyungsoo says, sounding almost indulgent, but he’s got his shark smile on, which sends a shiver up Baekhyun’s spine. Kyungsoo is so hot. “But right now…”
He reaches over to dig in Baekhyun’s bedside table drawer without asking, but before Baekhyun can catch enough breath to lodge a complaint, Kyungsoo’s found what he needed and slid the drawer shut again.
Kyungsoo sets the lube and the condom on the bedspread. “Hands and knees,” he says, and Baekhyun scrambles to obey. Kyungsoo’s voice is rough and wild, like when he’s angry, only he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds like he wants to pound Baekhyun into the mattress, and that would be fantastic.
With two cool hands, Kyungsoo spreads Baekhyun’s cheeks. Baekhyun shivers at being so exposed, but he wants it. He’s always wanted it like this from Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo blows hot air, making Baekhyun grunt, then he uncaps the lube. “Did those other men touch you like this Baekhyun?”
“No,” Baekhyun says. “No.”
“Good. Now hold still,” Kyungsoo says, “so I don’t hurt you. There’s no hurry.”
“You won’t hurt me,” Baekhyun says. He fingers himself all the time. He likes it when it stings just a little.
Sliding a finger down from Baekhyun’s tailbone, Kyungsoo stops when Baekhyun immediately arches his back, looking for more pressure. He pulls away.
“Since you can’t behave,” Kyungsoo says, “next time, I should tie you up.” Baekhyun moans as Kyungsoo slides a lubed finger down between his asscheeks.
“What’s the incentive to be good then?” Baekhyun asks, and Kyungsoo smacks his asscheek. Baekhyun wiggles at the sensation, and Kyungsoo does it again.
“I never said I’d fuck you after I tied you up,” Kyungsoo replies, pushing his finger in. Baekhyun rolls his hips back for more, and Kyungsoo sighs, like he’s given up on getting Baekhyun to slow down and listen to him. “I might just leave you here on the bed, tied up and naked. You can’t cause me any trouble if you can’t go anywhere without me.” He adds a second finger in, scissoring, and Baekhyun can’t see Kyungsoo, but he just knows he’s wearing that eight of ten smile that Baekhyun has come to recognize as Kyungsoo’s version of fondness.
“I wouldn’t have any trouble to get into,” Baekhyun gasps, as Kyungsoo pushes in another finger, “if I had this waiting for me at home.” It comes out garbled, and Baekhyun thinks he may have said half of it in English, since Kyungsoo has curled all three fingers down and found his prostate.
Kyungsoo’s fingers disappear, and Baekhyun opens his eyes, getting up onto his elbows so that he can look for Kyungsoo, but then Kyungsoo is pushing down on Baekhyun’s neck. “Stay right there,” he says. Then Baekhyun feels Kyungsoo’s dick, and the latexy brush of a condom, pressing into him, slowly, and he groans as Kyungsoo’s other hand grabs his hip to hold him steady. When he’s all the way in, Kyungsoo pauses, and Baekhyun impatiently huffs, pushing back with his hips.
“Move, damn it,” Baekhyun says.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Kyungsoo says again, steadily, and Baekhyun clenches around Kyungsoo, getting a hiss.
“You don’t have to be gentle with me,” Baekhyun gasps, as Kyungsoo smacks his butt again, warning him. “I don’t want--”
Kyungsoo pulls out and thrusts back in, hard, and Baekhyun whines, pleased, at the pressure and at the friction. “Okay?” Kyungsoo asks, and Baekhyun says yes about four hundred times in the span of like, five seconds, a jumbled mess of confirmation in English and Korean and maybe even Spanish, and Baekhyun hasn’t studied that shit since middle school.
Kyungsoo in bed is just like Kyungsoo out of bed. He pulls Baekhyun into the position he wants him, and he doesn’t pull his punches. He thrusts like he means it, and Baekhyun hasn’t come as hard in years as he does when Kyungsoo bites his shoulder and thumbs his slit at the same time, cock a constant pressure against Baekhyun’s prostate as he grinds forward with his hips.
It’s everything Baekhyun has ever wanted.
*
Sehun screams, and Baekhyun bites down on the sweatshirt Kyungsoo had shoved into his mouth to gag him as he ate him out on the sofa in costuming. Baekhyun’s thighs are on either side of Kyungsoo’s head, and Kyungsoo laughs into the skin behind Baekhyun’s balls as Sehun continues to shriek.
Baekhyun always forgets to lock the door. Sometimes it’s on purpose.
“That is not what the director meant by a Boy’s Love storyline!” Sehun slams the door as Kyungsoo licks back into Baekhyun, and Baekhyun might be taking a break from acting next month, to let his scandal blow over, but man, he’s found the best way to fill the time.
rate: dicknificent
k-i-s-s-i-n-g: baekhyun/kyungsoo
this is about: Kyungsoo has 99 problems, and Byun Baekhyun is pretty aware that he is all of them.
counting the words: 8k
doodles: who dropped the soap? written as a pinch for sooenaemoured
Baekhyun’s phone is ringing. He fumbles for it on his bedside table, knocking over a lotion bottle and a mostly empty glass of water that he definitely doesn’t remember putting there. The glowing display says it’s noon, and Baekhyun accepts the call, cursing.
“Did I have shooting this morning and I forgot about it?”
“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, “what the fuck were you thinking last night?”
The phone makes Kyungsoo sound like a robot, which is not far off from the truth. Baekhyun sits up, rubbing his eyes.
“Last night?” If this were a movie, Baekhyun assumes this is the part where the montage of drunken debauchery would flash across the screen. It isn’t a movie, so Baekhyun mostly just feels really, really, really hungover. Also, he has no idea what Kyungsoo is talking about. “I don’t remember doing anything worth mentioning.”
“No?” Kyungsoo says, sounding suspiciously pleasant. “Then it’s lucky for you that you don’t have to remember, because there is a visual record on display across the home page of every entertainment gossip site on the internet.”
“Oh, is it because of those fans again? The creepy ones?” Baekhyun can’t remember the word in Korean this early in the morning…afternoon. Korean is hard. Kyungsoo is constantly telling Baekhyun it’s a good thing he’s pretty, since he can’t even read Hangeul even though he’s lived in Seoul for five years: He’s been in Korea ever since he’d been stopped in on the street in Myeongdong while on vacation with his parents to visit his grandma and wound up with an audition for a top agency. “Sangsangs.”
“Sasaengs, you dumb piece of shit,” Kyungsoo snaps. “Wake up and take responsibility.”
“Woah~,” Baekhyun says, sitting up in bed. “This is awfully hostile for an early Thursday morning, Mister Do.”
“A, I’ve already had lunch,” Kyungsoo says, doing what sound like breathing exercises on the other end of the line, “and B, you have no idea what I’ve been dealing with this morning trying to clean up your mess.”
“Don’t I have publicists for that?” Baekhyun’s going to throw up. He definitely shouldn’t have had those last… nine shots… of vodka.
“Guess who had to call the agency this morning?” Kyungsoo says. “Here’s a hint. Me. Your manager. Guess who’s coming over to your apartment right now to castrate you? Hint, it’s also me.”
Baekhyun groans. “What have I done to earn a castration, exactly?” Baekhyun only knows the word castration in Korean because Kyungsoo taught it to him the first week they’d worked together, when Baekhyun had accidentally spit chewed gum in Kyungsoo’s neatly combed hair. He’d learned several conjugations of it after Kyungsoo had needed to get the gum cut out by a professional.
“If you didn’t have a dick,” Kyungsoo says, “then you wouldn’t have gotten into this shit in the first place.” He hangs up, and Baekhyun’s stomach rolls.
“Definitely should have said no on the vodka,” he mumbles to himself, before rolling out of bed. He successfully doesn’t land on his face, and then crawls toward the bathroom. “It’s been at least a week since I gave the toilet a hug, it’s probably feeling neglected.”
Twenty minutes later, Baekhyun’s buzzer sounds. Baekhyun ignores it, listening lazily as Kyungsoo types in the code and appears moments later, looming in the bathroom doorway like the angel of death.
“You’re disgusting,” Kyungsoo tells him, and Baekhyun looks down at himself. He’s still sitting on the bathroom floor, wearing the clothes he’d worn out last night, and his mouth tastes like something died right under his tongue.
“Well, I’ve definitely smelled better,” he allows, “but my hair’s probably okay.”
“Your hair looks great in these photos from last night. Too bad your TONGUE IS DOWN ANOTHER MAN’S THROAT.”
Suddenly, Baekhyun has a flashback of crawling into someone’s lap, and yeah, okay, that someone had definitely had a dick. Oops, that’s Baekhyun’s bad. He’s usually more circumspect about things like that. He’s certainly never been caught on camera before.
“Hey,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I was in the VIP section. What person with access to the VIP section would be taking pictures of me when U-Know Yunho was there? Too bad I didn’t make out with him. Or did I?” He’s pretty sure he’s not going to puke again, but he stays sitting next to the toilet, just in case.
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “It appears you didn’t get that lucky. Otherwise, you’d be likely to have all your films banned in China right now.”
“Why?”
Kyungsoo slaps his hand hard against the doorframe, making a sound like the gavel from Law&Order: SVU. “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what’s happening. You were caught on camera aggressively making out with a man.”
“Is that better or worse than that time with the pot? Which I still think was totally unfair, by the way, because what the hell else was I supposed to do while visiting my cousin in Seattle? It’s legal there.”
“Worse,” Kyungsoo says. “Much worse. You’re going to lose work over this. You’ll be lucky if they don’t give your character a sudden violent death on your drama.”
“They can’t kill me off, I’m the second male lead. Everyone loves me. I’m a fan favorite.”
“You’re also involved in the biggest gay scandal ever.”
Baekhyun rubs at his face with his hands. “I am too hungover for this.”
Kyungsoo sighs, leaning over the sink to pour some water into the glass Baekhyun keeps on the counter next to his toothbrush. He’s should probably get up and brush his teeth at some point. “I can’t believe this is my life. I can’t believe I went to college so I could take of a man-child.”
“Thank you,” Baekhyun says, reaching out to take the glass from Kyungsoo, but Kyungsoo upends the whole thing over his head instead. Baekhyun sputters, cold water in his eyes and up his nose. “That was unnecessary!”
“I disagree,” Kyungsoo says. He tosses a towel and it hits Baekhyun in the face. “Now get up. We’ve got places to be.”
*
Okay, now Baekhyun’s seen the pictures, and they are kind of incriminating. His hand down the back of the other guy’s pants is pretty hard to misinterpret.
There’s a crowd outside the agency when Baekhyun’s finished getting metaphorically fucked by upper level management even harder than he’d apparently wanted to be fucked the night before. Lots of cameras keep getting shoved in his face, and people who didn’t give a shit about him before are suddenly asking for “his statement”, like Baekhyun has anything to say that’s not “whoops.” It’s not Baekhyun’s idea of a good time.
Kyungsoo is driving even more passive-aggressively than usual as he chauffeurs him to the evening shooting location for his drama, “Last Tears for My Dying Mother,” and Baekhyun reviews his lines instead of drinking, which is what he’d rather be doing. For the record, he doesn’t have a problem.
“On a scale from one to ten, how mad are you right now?” Baekhyun asks when they pull into parking at the location.
Kyungsoo frowns and then turns off the car. “Is one the most or is ten the most?”
“Ten.”
“Fine, then ten,” Kyungsoo says, leaning over to unbuckle Baekhyun’s seatbelt. His fingers tickle the bare skin where Baekhyun’s shirt doesn’t meet the waistband of his jeans, and Baekhyun gulps, before he chances a smile at Kyungsoo, because Kyungsoo runs a steady eight on the ‘angry scale’ on a good day, and Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. “Ten million.”
“Okay, well, I will see you in six calming hours,” Baekhyun replies, getting out of the car. “You can, I don’t know, attend a yoga class. Prune a bonsai. Or something.”
“Get out of my sight,” Kyungsoo growls, driving away before Baekhyun’s taken three steps away from the car. Baekhyun rests his hand over where Kyungsoo’s fingers had brushed, and lets out a deep breath, heading inside to today’s location.
Jongin’s manager, Junmyeon, whistles obnoxiously as Baekhyun walks into costuming. He’s sitting with his legs crossed primly on the sofa, almost like how Kyungsoo sits on Baekhyun’s couch when he’s berating Baekhyun in his own living room, during their schedule briefings. In contrast, Jongin, Baekhyun’s co-star in ‘Last Tears for My Dying Mother’, is slumped down in the make-up chair like a bored toddler, deeply invested in his cell phone game. The only thing Baekhyun does on his phone is use Tindr and shamelessly ignore his mother’s phone calls.
“So,” Junmyeon says, “saw you on the news.” Junmyeon has a way of being twice as embarrassing as usual when he’s trying to be funny. Also, Baekhyun never gets his jokes because they’re stupid.
“Oh my God, shut the fuck up,” Baekhyun says. “Kyungsoo already tried to rip out my heart through my anus this morning.” He starts to take off his sweatshirt. He’s perspiring. He’s had a rough day, and he’s still hungover. “I’m so done with managers.”
“Looks like you wanted something up your anus, though,” says Sehun, who is inexplicably on set for the fourth time this week, as full of loathsome commentary as usual. “I mean, damn, those pictures were pretty graphic, dude.”
“Don’t be jealous that I got more action on a Wednesday than you’ve gotten in your entire natural-born life,” Baekhyun says. Sehun scoffs. “Anyway, I don’t need a play-by-play of my own actions: everyone has just been through the situation with me pretty thoroughly for the past three hours, and basically I’m screwed.”
“Well, yeah, you are, because, you know, last night, with that guy…” Junmyeon says. It’s a hamfisted innuendo and Baekhyun rolls his eyes.
“Please don’t talk anymore,” Baekhyun says. “Hyung, it’s embarrassing. Everything you say is embarrassing.”
Jongin finally seems to notice that Baekhyun is in the room, and looks up from his phone. “Hey,” Jongin says, “Saw you with that Kyungsoo-hyung lookalike on the news this morning.”
Baekhyun, who had been filling a paper cup from the water cooler to wash down his aspirin, drops the cup to the floor. Water splashes all over the jeans he hasn’t washed in almost a month, and he wonders, numbly, if this counts as doing laundry. “What.”
“Yeah,” Sehun says, legs crossed as he leans forward in his chair, “he looked… just like your manager. Again.”
“What do you mean, again?” Baekhyun looks in the mirror. It’s past seven at night and he’s still wearing his sunglasses. Baekhyun is losing cool points by the second. Hangovers suck. Baekhyun is going to give up drinking for at least a month, because it’s starting to cut into how attractive he can look with minimal effort.
“You tend to have a type,” Junmyeon says. “Remember when we went out after the wrap party for “Love Jungle Vacation” and there was that girl… with the eyes.” Junmyeon makes his eyes really wide, “and the mouth...” He puckers his lips.
Baekhyun cringes.
“Yeah, basically a lady Kyungsoo-hyung,” Sehun says, and Jongin looks distinctly uncomfortable, probably because Baekhyun had ended up making out with her while sitting in Jongin’s lap. Whatever, he can get over it. He shouldn’t go to parties if he’s not prepared for things like that to happen.
“That’s not what’s going on here,” Baekhyun says.
“I absolutely believe you,” Sehun replies, and Baekhyun holds up his middle finger at Sehun even though he’s learned that doesn’t communicate ‘fuck you’ that well in Korea.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Baekhyun says. “You’re not even in this drama. Don’t you have your own drama to film, or has Korea finally realized that your face can only express two emotions?”
“My manager says I need time to ‘recharge’ between dramas,” Sehun says, shrugging. “Also, my cable’s out. Watching you go down in flames is the next best thing.”
“Oh my God, I’m going to get fired,” Baekhyun says, “and you think this is funny?”
“They’re not going to fire you,” Junmyeon says, uncrossing his legs and revealing that his pants are pleated front, much to Baekhyun’s dismay. He was already nauseated from his hangover, and now this. “It will all blow over once you make a statement. Everyone loves you, so you just need to make sure they believe that you were drunk, and that you had no idea what you were doing.”
“It’s totally not going to be that easy,” Baekhyun says. “That’s apparently not how it works in Korea. Kyungsoo already explained, in between gruesome death threats and increasingly furious glares, that it’s going to take me a ton of time to make up for this.”
“Kyungsoo just wants what’s best for you.” Junmyeon smiles. “Like any good manager. I always do my best with Jongin.”
“He’s threatening to send me to Siberia for a hiatus,” Baekhyun says, examining his nails. “He said I wouldn’t be allowed to take my laptop or phone, because I might accidentally tweet something useless and terrible if he’s not around to stop me.”
“That’s probably true,” Sehun says. “Anyway, your agency is not going to fire you. Your head is basically filled with Jack Daniels, and yet even I believed you were a Harvard educated doctor devoted to the care of Moon Geun Young’s dying mother in the last episode. You’re the best actor I have ever seen. My girlfriend cried when you confessed and she hasn’t shown a human emotion in five years.”
“My head is not filled with Jack Daniels,” Baekhyun replies, sniffling angstily. “I don’t drink Jack Daniels, because it gives me heartburn, and I’m too pretty have heartburn.”
“That’s the spirit,” Junmyeon says, and the wardrobe assistant comes to get Baekhyun.
*
By the time Kyungsoo brings him food, around two in the morning, Baekhyun is relieved to see that he’s calmed down considerably. He’s changed clothes, and he looks totally put together in a white button down and a pair of black slacks that hug his thighs, not that Baekhyun has noticed.
“I have a plan,” Kyungsoo says, laying out an array of hamburgers from McDonald’s. Baekhyun looks at the spread, and back up at Kyungsoo. “I didn’t know which one you wanted,” he mutters. “You change your mind about which one is your favorite a lot so I just got everything you’d said you liked best in the past month.”
“You are the world’s best manager,” Baekhyun says solemnly, unwrapping three of them of them at once and combining them into one sandwich.
“I can’t watch you do that,” Kyungsoo says, pulling out a notebook. “So here’s the plan.”
“Shoot,” Baekhyun says, around a bite of what tastes like a filet o’ fish, a bulgogi burger, and the classic Big Mac. Little pieces of bun spray out of his mouth. Kyungsoo gags.
“You’re going to do an interview,” Kyungsoo says, once he has stopped grimacing at Baekhyun’s food choices. “Preferably Healing Camp, but we’ll see what we can arrange. Then you’re going to go on dates.”
“What kind of dates?” Baekhyun asks. Kyungsoo’s hair looks really nice today, all soft and silky. He’d noticed in the car, earlier, too, but he hadn’t wanted to say anything because Kyungsoo might have stuck his hand into Baekhyun’s chest and somehow removed his spine.
“I don’t care,” Kyungsoo says, “as long as they’re women. Famous or not famous, it doesn’t matter. Just go on dates with them. Be seen. With women.”
“But I don’t like anyone right now,” Baekhyun says, wondering what kind of shampoo Kyungsoo uses. Baekhyun would guess it was something expensive, but Kyungsoo has always seemed like more of the off-brand shampoo type, considering the way he gives Kris and his expensive everything disdainful looks every five minutes when Baekhyun whines Kyungsoo into letting him eat out with Kris despite the fact that his and Kris’s combined star power at lunch means they get hounded by photographers.
“Who cares?” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun remembers that he and Kyungsoo are having a conversation that is not about Kyungsoo’s shiny, perfect hair.
“You have to like people to date them,” Baekhyun explains when he regains the thread of conversation. “My mom says if you date people without liking them you’re setting them up for heartbreak and that makes you a soul-sucking bastard.” She’d sounded really angry when she’d said it, too. Baekhyun had only been seven, but he’s pretty sure that had been right around the time his mother stopped letting his fourth step-dad into the house.
“Well, clearly you liked that stranger last night enough to grab his dick in public,” Kyungsoo says. “What would your mom have to say about that?”
Baekhyun’s mother would probably understand, because she’s awesome, even if Baekhyun hates talking to her on the phone, but Kyungsoo’s eyebrows are twitching, and Baekhyun thinks that’s not the answer Kyungsoo’s looking for.
“That wasn’t me,” Baekhyun says. “That was my alter ego. The one that is sort of a freak in the sheets when I drink nine extra shots of vodka.”
“Then drink ten shots tomorrow night and have your alter ego pick up someone nice and pretty. You could even take a friend. A double date. Go to the movies.”
“That’s a stellar plan, really, great, yes, but there are a couple of problems here.” Baekhyun steels himself, because there are only two things Kyungsoo hates, and those two things are being disagreed with, and finding out he was lied to. Baekhyun is about to do both of these things. “First thing, my alter ego only likes dudes, so, uh, if you let me out tomorrow night after ten shots of vodka, we’ll probably just end up with another scandal. And possibly my death from alcohol poisoning.”
“That could be another solution to all my problems,” Kyungsoo says, but he mostly sounds like he doesn’t mean it.
“Second thing is, none of my female friends really can afford to be caught in even a regular dating scandal right now, and I wouldn’t feel exactly comfortable taking out some fan I’m not attracted to.”
“I’m sure there is a girl out there that you are attracted to,” Kyungsoo says. “What about the one from the ‘Love Jungle Vacation’ party?”
Baekhyun searches for a way to explain to Kyungsoo that she is literally the only girl he has ever made out with in his life that he wasn’t kissing for a drama, and comes up with “Maybe I should have told you before, but like my alter ego, my regular self also only likes dudes.”
Kyungsoo sets down his notebook, and then pins Baekhyun with a glare that makes Baekhyun’s skin feel like it’s about to slough of his body, like the giant snake in ‘Anaconda’. Passersby would find Baekhyun’s human skin just hanging out in the parking lot, hiding from Kyungsoo’s judgement. That would be nasty.
“Let me get this straight,” Kyungsoo says. Baekhyun resists the urge to make a joke about nothing straight to be found here because he doesn’t think it would go over too well right now. “I have been your manager for the past three and a half years, and you didn’t think I should know that you’re gay.”
“I didn’t think it mattered?” Baekhyun totally knew it mattered. Otherwise he would have festooned his apartment in RuPaul’s Drag Race memorabilia and worn glitter thong underwear like he’s always dreamed. But how do you even begin to bring something like that up? Write it on a greeting card? Baekhyun doesn’t think Korean stores sell ‘Happy I’m-Coming-Out-of-the-Closet Day’ cards.
“Does anyone else know?” Kyungsoo asks.
“Well…” Baekhyun prevaricates, “maybe, like, everyone. Except you. Well, no, I’m pretty sure no one in upper management knows, but everyone else. Pretty much. Jongin might be lying to himself about it, considering he’s still traumatized by the lap incident, but yeah, like… Even Yixing knows, and he can’t even remember his own birthday.”
Kyungsoo angrily takes Baekhyun’s sandwich out of his hands. “You don’t even deserve this,” he says.
“You can’t starve everyone that lies,” Baekhyun whines, and Kyungsoo smacks him upside the back of his head, crushing the sandwich into nothing in his other hand like something out of The Terminator.
“Watch me,” he replies, and Baekhyun whimpers sadly.
“So mean,” Baekhyun says, as a car exits the parking lot. Light from the headlights makes Kyungsoo’s hair gleam. It’s so healthy. Baekhyun’s hair has been fried since 2010.
“I’ll come up with a new plan, then,” Kyungsoo says bitterly, wiping his hand on Baekhyun’s sweatshirt. “Let’s see how the media backlash goes over the next few days. You haven’t been lying about anything else, have you?”
“No,” Baekhyun says guilelessly, and Kyungsoo glares at him suspiciously. Baekhyun’s a totally great actor, though, and this is a Harvard-doctor-situation, so eventually, Kyungsoo sighs.
“Fine,” he says, and Baekhyun exhales with relief.
*
“So then I said no,” Baekhyun says, looking at his nails again. He’d broken one last night as he’d repeatedly punched his pillow, before rolling around in frustration on his bed, kicking his legs up in the air like Taylor Swift in the ‘You Belong With Me’ video.
“So you lied to him, to his face?” Chanyeol replies. “Wow.”
Chanyeol is a producer for some of the top rappers in Korea but his apartment is decorated like a sixty-year-old spinster’s. Baekhyun flattens the doily lying on the arm of the couch. “I’m an actor. I get paid to lie well on an everyday basis. And be pretty, of course. I’m practically a spy.”
“What you’re saying is, he gave you the perfect opening to talk about how you’ve been madly in love with him for like three years, and you let it pass you by?” Chanyeol’s knitting needles click rhythmically as he finishes a row of whatever he’s making and starts another one.
Baekhyun wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘madly in love’. Really, it’s just that the very first time he’d seen Do Kyungsoo, his heart had beat way too fast and he’d thought he was going to pass out. The first time he’d talked to Do Kyungsoo, he had passed out, and he’d woken up to Kyungsoo patting his face with a wet washcloth and muttering angrily that Baekhyun wasn’t going to be overworked on his watch. Baekhyun had thought, as he got to know Kyungsoo, who is cranky and often sharp and resorts pretty commonly to violence, that he’d stop liking him so much, but it turns out Kyungsoo is also secretly sweet, unfailingly attentive, and unfalteringly loyal, and so instead of falling out of like, Baekhyun had kind of fallen into... well, liking Kyungsoo way too much.
“I don’t think he’s ever going to let me eat McDonald’s again,” Baekhyun says, thinking forlornly of his crushed mega-sandwich. “I can’t take anything more than that. I’ve never been rejected before.”
“Please,” Chanyeol says, “Kyungsoo has been unknowingly rejecting you for the past three years. How would actually letting him know what he’s rejecting you for be any different?”
“I wouldn’t have the armor of my lies!” Baekhyun rolls around on Chanyeol’s couch. He accidently kicks Chanyeol’s arm, and Chanyeol pouts.
“Damnit, Baek, you made me drop a stitch.”
“Stop knitting tiny booties for Jongin’s ugly-ass dogs and console me in my time of despair,” Baekhyun moans, and Chanyeol sighs.
“You’re so melodramatic,” Chanyeol replies.
“Hello? I’m an actor?” Baekhyun fixes his hair. “I act in dramas? That’s the point?”
“I dunno,” Chanyeol says, “I don’t think Kyungsoo would be that mad. I mean, he already puts up with all your shit? I think he kind of likes you.”
“But liking me kind of is not the same is being okay with the fact that I think about that one time I saw his dick at the bath house during that overnight trip to Gwangju all the time and masturbate while shoving objects of various sizes up my--”
“I get the picture,” Chanyeol says, interrupting with slightly jaundiced coloring to his face. “Wow, that was way more information than I needed.”
“It’s such a nice dick, too,” Baekhyun says. “I think about it, and my mouth waters.” Baekhyun has legit never seen a dick that nice. It’s totally unfair that Kyungsoo has a dick that nice AND a mouth that nice, and neither of those things are available for Baekhyun to taste. Baekhyun sighs sadly at how hard his life is.
“I don’t think you need to say all that. You should just be honest with him, since it’s clear that he’d prefer that, and since it doesn’t look like you’ll be getting over him anytime soon.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m getting over him or not,” Baekhyun says. “It’s not like he’d ever be interested.”
“You don’t know that,” Chanyeol says. “After all, he’s always telling you how pretty you are.”
“Usually after he insults my intelligence,” Baekhyun replies. “That’s what people do to their dogs. Anyway, I do know he wouldn’t be interested. I’m not his type.”
Baekhyun is not about to go into why he’d made out with that girl at the ‘Love Jungle Vacation’ wrap party with Chanyeol, but honestly, it’s mostly because he’d stumbled upon Kyungsoo eating a girl out at a back booth of their reserved room, his face between her thighs and her hands pulling on his hair. His choices had been to make out with that girl that sort of, yeah, looked like Kyungsoo, or cry like a bitch in front of everyone, so Baekhyun had chosen the path of least humiliation. Her lipgloss had tasted nice. Baekhyun bought a tube for himself later that week.
“Well, I think that you should tell him,” Chanyeol says.
On the surface, with his double life of making beats and knitting clothing for dogs, Chanyeol may seem ridiculous, but in Baekhyun’s experience, he’s always given good advice. When they’d first met at some nightclub, right after Baekhyun had come to Korea, he’d stopped Baekhyun from going into a backroom, telling him “there’s some crazy shit going down in there, you don’t wanna get involved”, and sure enough, the next morning the news was buzzing with rumours of a group of people busted for cocaine possession. Chanyeol has always had Baekhyun’s back.
“I’ll think about it.”
*
Baekhyun is in the middle of soaping up his balls when Kyungsoo bursts into the bathroom, already mid-rant.
“-- and can you please tell me why your dick is all over the internet, and I didn’t know about it?” Kyungsoo shoves the shower door out of the way to glare at Baekhyun through the steam.
Baekhyun freezes, scrotum in one hand and the bar of soap in the other. “Um. I have really creepy fans?”
“All famous people have really creepy fans.” He points at Baekhyun with an accusing finger, piercing the spray of the shower and spattering water into Baekhyun’s eyes. “What you have is a tendency to get photographed while making out with men at nightclubs.”
Kyungsoo’s teeth are all showing, which might have indicated a smile on a normal person, but with Kyungsoo, it usually means he’s smelled blood and is going in for the kill, like a shark. Baekhyun likes assertive men.
“I think you’re blowing this out of proportion,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo growls.
“Am I?” He steps into the shower, between Baekhyun and the showerhead, still fully clothed, and pokes his finger into Baekhyun’s chest. Baekhyun jumps, and the soap shoots out of his grip, ricocheting off the wall and landing somewhere behind him. “Look, I can’t stop you from doing what you want. I’ve figured that out by now. But if you hide things from me, I will kill you.” His thin sweater is soaked, and Baekhyun can see the dark outline of Kyungsoo’s nipples through the mint-colored fabric.
He wills himself not to get hard, because this is basically every wet dream he’s ever had about Kyungsoo happening to him all at once, including the part where Kyungsoo is berating him like he needs to be punished. Baekhyun’s head is a messy place, but these thoughts usually sit front and center.
“Can we talk about this when I’m not naked?”
Kyungsoo’s eyes immediately drop to where Baekhyun is covering himself and he takes a step back, determinedly staring over Baekhyun’s shoulder instead “Hurry up and finish, then,” he says, the hem of his wet jeans slapping against the tile as he steps out of the shower. “There’s coffee waiting for you in the kitchen.”
Baekhyun nods as the door closes again, and slowly turns around to pick up the soap.
The rest of the shower doesn’t take too long. Baekhyun is too distracted to sing his usual medley of Taylor Swift songs to the shower head, and he grabs an extra towel to dry his hair. He got it hanging around his neck on his way into the kitchen, scrubbing at the nape of his neck with one end, when he stops in the doorway.
Kyungsoo is standing at the counter, wearing one of Baekhyun’s T-shirts and a pair of Baekhyun’s jeans. They’re too big on him, so he’s cuffed them at the ankle. He’s staring at his phone, his shoulders hunched, and Baekhyun stares at him for a moment. Kyungsoo, in Baekhyun’s kitchen, wearing Baekhyun’s clothes, makes his stomach ache.
He shuffles into the kitchen, and Kyungsoo looks up, stony faced, and points to the coffee. “Drink,” he says.
Taking a sip of the coffee, still lukewarm, Baekhyun moves so he’s standing next to Kyungsoo. He sets the coffee cup down and towels at his hair. “So, um, hi,” he says. “Here we are in the land of the clothed.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kyungsoo looks at him. Baekhyun has never seen Kyungsoo look so hesitant.
“Can I stop you?” Baekhyun asks, and then holds up his hands in surrender when Kyungsoo growls at him, back on his game. “Go ahead. Ask away.”
Kyungsoo holds his phone up to Baekhyun’s face. These photos are a lot less blurry than the ones of him currently being splashed across the news. They’re also from a different night. “This guy, in this photo… He’s not the same guy as in the other pictures, is he?”
“No,” Baekhyun says, looking away. He remembers that guy. He’d liked him. He smoked, though, and Baekhyun hadn’t liked the cigarette taste that had lingered long after he’d bid the man goodnight after getting fingered by him in the men’s restroom. “Not the same guy.”
“He looks a lot the man from Wednesday night’s photos,” Kyungsoo says quietly, and then he swipes to the next photo. “Actually, most of these guys look the same, Baekhyun.”
“Where did you get these?” Baekhyun snaps, pushing Kyungsoo’s hand down, and his phone with it. Of course they all look similar. Baekhyun has been trying to replace Kyungsoo for almost three years, and it’s never close enough.
“I told you, they’re everywhere, if you know where to look,” Kyungsoo says.
“Oh, and you know where to look now?” Baekhyun asks. Baekhyun is definitely not aroused by the idea of Kyungsoo scrounging around gay gossip and porn sites looking for pictures of Baekhyun with his hands down other people’s pants. That would be weird and Baekhyun totally isn’t into it. Much.
Kyungsoo sighs. “It’s my job to clean up your messes,” he says, and Baekhyun scowls. “The news sites didn’t catch these ones, yet, but this is still your mess.”
“I get it,” Baekhyun says, taking the coffee and pouring it down the sink. “All I am to you is just a big mess. You’ve made that pretty clear.” Baekhyun throws the cup in the trash, and Kyungsoo grabs his arm before he can walk away.
“You’ve got shooting in an hour,” Kyungsoo says. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
Baekhyun glances up at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo is looking away, and he has this weirdo expression on his face that Baekhyun hasn’t seen before. Like, unsure, or something. It makes Baekhyun feel terrible and guilty and if Kyungsoo were Chanyeol, Baekhyun would already be whining on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says, impulsively. “I’m not trying to make your job harder. I’m just trying to figure something out, and… it’s more difficult than I thought.”
“You’d better get changed,” Kyungsoo says, eyes flicking to catch Baekhyun’s. “Or you’ll be late. It’s raining, and I’m not getting a speeding ticket for you.” That’s Kyungsoo for ‘wear something warm or you’ll catch a cold’, so Baekhyun smiles at him. Kyungsoo swallows. “Go, I don’t have all day.”
“You do,” Baekhyun says. “All day to be my manager.”
“You’re insufferable,” Kyungsoo replies, slipping his phone into his pocket and leaning against the counter to wait.
*
“Is Kyungsoo-hyung okay?” Jongin asks, grabbing Baekhyun’s arm to get his attention.
“Why? Did he say anything?” Baekhyun asks, suddenly losing interest in the sandwich platter over on the other side of make-up.
“He’s been watching you all day like you’re a three year old in a room of knives,” Sehun says, already carrying a plate with seven sandwiches on it. He doesn’t even belong here, Baekhyun thinks, so there’s no reason for him to have his hands all over teriyaki chicken with Baekhyun’s name on it. “What did you do.”
“You didn’t even phrase that as a question,” Baekhyun says. “For the record, it is not my fault that Kyungsoo went cruising gay sites and found tons of pictures of me making out with dudes.”
“No, it is your fault. Those pictures exist because you can’t control your boner.” Sehun crosses his arms. “You should have seen his face when the director was teasing you and Jongin about doing a kissing scene to take advantage of your new gay icon status.”
With Baekhyun’s scandal, the shows Thursday ratings had gone unexpectedly through the roof, and the director and the writers seem eager to exploit it. It meaning the gay. The director has spent most of today’s shooting making suggestions for more homoerotic interaction between Baekhyun and basically any other cast member, including the actor playing his dad. Baekhyun would find that insulting, except the actor playing his dad is kind of hot, in that silver fox, Richard Gere, kind of way, and he’d smiled down at Baekhyun in a way that spoke volumes.
Kyungsoo had broken a light when that happened, and Junmyeon had gone over to reassure Kyungsoo that the director was teasing. Baekhyun’s always known Kyungsoo is overprotective with him, but it gives him a warm glow anyway, even if Kyungsoo glares at him every time their eyes meet, like he doesn’t want Baekhyun to get any ideas about the anger scale sliding any lower than ten million anytime soon.
“I don’t think he likes people touching you this much,” Jongin says. “I think he looks the most upset when Baekhyun’s standing too close to someone else, or when Baekhyun does that flirty thing when the cameras aren’t rolling.” Jongin points to the actor playing Baekhyun’s dad. “Especially with him.”
“What’s the male version of a cougar?” Baekhyun asks. Sehun throws one of his sandwich crusts at Baekhyun’s face. “Look, kid, I make my money with this face, we don’t throw things at it.”
Sehun rolls his eyes and turns to Jongin. “Are you trying to say Kyungsoo’s jealous? Of people liking Baekhyun? No. He spends most of his time threatening to kill Baekhyun. I keep thinking the next scandal on the news will be the discovery of Baekhyun’s corpse.”
“Kyungsoo doesn’t yell at me that much.” Sehun looks at him incredulously. “Well, he’s really hot when he’s angry, so, I don’t really mind.”
On the other side of the set, Kyungsoo is engaged in conversation with Junmyeon, but he’s staring over Junmyeon’s shoulder. Right at Baekhyun.
“Oh great,” Sehun says, “so it’s some kind of kinky foreplay then.”
“He doesn’t… like me like that.” Baekhyun clears his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Baekhyun hates that this isn’t the U.S. and he can’t plead the 5th amendment, aka the right not to implicate himself in horrible conversations with Sehun, or something like that.
Sehun rolls his eyes. “Right, and I don’t know that Jongin sings his dogs to sleep with lullabies that are meant for actual babies.”
Jongin sputters around his hand sandwich and Baekhyun slaps him on the back to keep him from choking. Or maybe to provide solidarity. One of those things that friends do for other friends when they might be choking.
Kyungsoo is still staring when Baekhyun looks back over. Junmyeon is gone, so Kyungsoo is just standing in the middle of the lunch crowd like a creep, so Baekhyun stands up, brushing the crumbs off his lap. “I’ll be right back,” he says, grabbing the other half of his sandwich, and Sehun snorts.
“Yeah, right.”
Baekhyun has already taken a few steps in Kyungsoo’s direction when Kyungsoo has to take a phone call, ducking out of the studio for privacy, and Baekhyun watches him go.
*
Kyungsoo pulls up in front of Baekhyun’s apartment. Baekhyun’s about to bolt, because today was too weird, but Kyungsoo opens his own door. “I left my clothes drying upstairs,” he explains. “I’m not wearing your stuff back to my apartment.” Kyungsoo doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Whatever,” says Baekhyun. “Not like you’ve ever needed my permission to come in before.”
“Because you’re too irresponsible to answer the door when I push the buzzer,” Kyungsoo says.
“Who knows who’s on the other side of the door?” Baekhyun waves to the door guard and uses his card key to enter the locked building. “It could be a burglar. Or a murderer.”
“It’s always me,” Kyungsoo says, gesturing to the massive security camera poised outside the elevator. “Literally no one else can get up to your apartment but me.”
“Like I said,” Baekhyun replies, “it could be a murder.”
“Ha ha,” Kyungsoo says, with no actual mirth.
Kyungsoo puts in the door code, letting them both into the apartment.
“So I’ll let you go get changed,” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo had left his clothes on the drying rack in Baekhyun’s room.
Kyungsoo doesn’t go into Baekhyun’s room. He stares at Baekhyun instead, with unsettling intensity, like he’s trying to dissect Baekhyun with his mind. “Baekhyun,” he says. “I talked to Chanyeol during lunch.”
“Really?” Baekhyun asks. “About what?”
“About the pictures,” Kyungsoo says, sternly. “I told you not to lie to me, Baekhyun.”
“Lie about what?” Baekhyun takes a step back, and Kyungsoo follows, taking a step forward. Baekhyun nervously picks at the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“They all looked like me,” Kyungsoo says. “When you said you were trying to figure something out, Baekhyun… Was that something me?”
Baekhyun gapes at Kyungsoo, unsure if this is a test. He has no idea what Kyungsoo wants him to say. One of the things that makes Baekhyun such a good actor is that he always knows what people want from him. Kyungsoo, right now, is making him draw a blank. He wants to tell Kyungsoo anything that won’t have him quitting as Baekhyun’s manager.
“Um?” is what Baekhyun eventually settles on, but even in his mouth, it tastes inadequate. He takes another step back, and then another and Kyungsoo follows until he’s got Baekhyun cornered against the door of his bedroom.
Kyungsoo’s stare is enough to light him on fire, which Baekhyun is sure he’s threatened to do more than once. “If you wanted me, you should have just said so.”
“What?”
Kyungsoo’s eyes are still burning, but his grip on Baekhyun’s chin is only just firm enough for him to fit their mouths together. It’s not a forced kiss, but a telling one, as both of them fall into it equally. Kyungsoo nibbles at the uneven bow of Baekhyun’s lips until Baekhyun is shivering and licking back at Kyungsoo’s wide mouth. The doorframe cuts into Baekhyun’s back as Kyungsoo cages him in, sucking hard on his tongue, and he moans, the sound breaking in the middle.
Baekhyun pulls back, embarrassed and breathless. One of his hands is tangled in Kyungsoo’s wonderfully silky hair.
Baekhyun fumbles with the door until it opens, and Kyungsoo uses his hold on Baekhyun’s waist to walk him back until Baekhyun is tumbling onto the bed, Kyungsoo on top of him.
“Wait,” Baekhyun says, brain catching up, “you actually…”
“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Kyungsoo says, and then bites Baekhyun’s ear. Baekhyun can’t tell if it feels good or hurts, which seems to be the summary of his entire relationship with Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun has always liked a little pain with his pleasure. “Yes, I like you.”
“But you ate out that girl, I saw you,” Baekhyun blurts out, and Kyungsoo raises his eyebrow arcanely.
“I just like eating people out,” Kyungsoo says. “If you’re a good boy, maybe you’ll find out how good I am at it.”
Kyungsoo removes Baekhyun’s clothes and then his own with same efficiency he applies to organizing Baekhyun’s schedule, getting them both naked before Baekhyun even finishes thinking about how much he would like to be naked. “You’re amazing,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo pouts at him, unimpressed.
“I haven’t even fucked you yet,” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun is totally having a wet dream right now, because Kyungsoo is talking dirty to Baekhyun in his own bed and they’re both naked.
Kyungsoo’s dick is as awesome as he remembered. Baekhyun doesn’t even think about it before he’s rolling them over, Kyungsoo’s hair spreading out dark on his blue pillows, and wrapping a hand around Kyungsoo’s dick.
“Can I blow you?”
“That is the best possible use for your mouth that I could possibly imagine,” Kyungsoo replies, and for some reason, Baekhyun feels like he’s being praised, which only makes him harder.
Baekhyun has kissed a lot of people, but he doesn’t have quite as much practice at this part. Kyungsoo watches him as he takes a little taste, the tip of his tongue just licking at Kyungsoo’s slit, and Baekhyun can feel Kyungsoo’s thigh muscles twitch. His mouth is wet, like all the other times he’s drooled over just the thought of sucking Kyungsoo off, and he wets his lips before fitting them around the head of Kyungsoo’s dick.
The muscles in Kyungsoo’s thighs twitch again, like he can’t help it, and it makes Baekhyun feel suddenly powerful about having Kyungsoo in his mouth. He bobs his head, gripping the base with a firm had, and swallows Kyungsoo’s dick like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to do.
Kyungsoo presses a hand to the back of his head, a firm pressure holding Baekhyun’s head down as he works the cock in his mouth, and Baekhyun likes that too, the way Kyungsoo is holding him in place and won’t let him run away. Smirking as best he can Baekhyun reaches down to run a finger over Kyungsoo’s balls so he can feel the muscles twitch again. Kyungsoo’s hand on the back of his head becomes heavier, holding Baekhyun in place as Kyungsoo thrusts into his mouth and not letting him up for air until Baekhyun moans so loud the sound bounces off the walls.
Baekhyun pants once his mouth is empty again, sucking in air, and Kyungsoo’s hand is still there, fingers tangled in the hair above the nape of his neck. “Fuck,” Baekhyun says, voice raw, “I’ve been dreaming about choking on your dick for years.”
“I’ll let you do it to your heart’s content later,” Kyungsoo says, sounding almost indulgent, but he’s got his shark smile on, which sends a shiver up Baekhyun’s spine. Kyungsoo is so hot. “But right now…”
He reaches over to dig in Baekhyun’s bedside table drawer without asking, but before Baekhyun can catch enough breath to lodge a complaint, Kyungsoo’s found what he needed and slid the drawer shut again.
Kyungsoo sets the lube and the condom on the bedspread. “Hands and knees,” he says, and Baekhyun scrambles to obey. Kyungsoo’s voice is rough and wild, like when he’s angry, only he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds like he wants to pound Baekhyun into the mattress, and that would be fantastic.
With two cool hands, Kyungsoo spreads Baekhyun’s cheeks. Baekhyun shivers at being so exposed, but he wants it. He’s always wanted it like this from Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo blows hot air, making Baekhyun grunt, then he uncaps the lube. “Did those other men touch you like this Baekhyun?”
“No,” Baekhyun says. “No.”
“Good. Now hold still,” Kyungsoo says, “so I don’t hurt you. There’s no hurry.”
“You won’t hurt me,” Baekhyun says. He fingers himself all the time. He likes it when it stings just a little.
Sliding a finger down from Baekhyun’s tailbone, Kyungsoo stops when Baekhyun immediately arches his back, looking for more pressure. He pulls away.
“Since you can’t behave,” Kyungsoo says, “next time, I should tie you up.” Baekhyun moans as Kyungsoo slides a lubed finger down between his asscheeks.
“What’s the incentive to be good then?” Baekhyun asks, and Kyungsoo smacks his asscheek. Baekhyun wiggles at the sensation, and Kyungsoo does it again.
“I never said I’d fuck you after I tied you up,” Kyungsoo replies, pushing his finger in. Baekhyun rolls his hips back for more, and Kyungsoo sighs, like he’s given up on getting Baekhyun to slow down and listen to him. “I might just leave you here on the bed, tied up and naked. You can’t cause me any trouble if you can’t go anywhere without me.” He adds a second finger in, scissoring, and Baekhyun can’t see Kyungsoo, but he just knows he’s wearing that eight of ten smile that Baekhyun has come to recognize as Kyungsoo’s version of fondness.
“I wouldn’t have any trouble to get into,” Baekhyun gasps, as Kyungsoo pushes in another finger, “if I had this waiting for me at home.” It comes out garbled, and Baekhyun thinks he may have said half of it in English, since Kyungsoo has curled all three fingers down and found his prostate.
Kyungsoo’s fingers disappear, and Baekhyun opens his eyes, getting up onto his elbows so that he can look for Kyungsoo, but then Kyungsoo is pushing down on Baekhyun’s neck. “Stay right there,” he says. Then Baekhyun feels Kyungsoo’s dick, and the latexy brush of a condom, pressing into him, slowly, and he groans as Kyungsoo’s other hand grabs his hip to hold him steady. When he’s all the way in, Kyungsoo pauses, and Baekhyun impatiently huffs, pushing back with his hips.
“Move, damn it,” Baekhyun says.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Kyungsoo says again, steadily, and Baekhyun clenches around Kyungsoo, getting a hiss.
“You don’t have to be gentle with me,” Baekhyun gasps, as Kyungsoo smacks his butt again, warning him. “I don’t want--”
Kyungsoo pulls out and thrusts back in, hard, and Baekhyun whines, pleased, at the pressure and at the friction. “Okay?” Kyungsoo asks, and Baekhyun says yes about four hundred times in the span of like, five seconds, a jumbled mess of confirmation in English and Korean and maybe even Spanish, and Baekhyun hasn’t studied that shit since middle school.
Kyungsoo in bed is just like Kyungsoo out of bed. He pulls Baekhyun into the position he wants him, and he doesn’t pull his punches. He thrusts like he means it, and Baekhyun hasn’t come as hard in years as he does when Kyungsoo bites his shoulder and thumbs his slit at the same time, cock a constant pressure against Baekhyun’s prostate as he grinds forward with his hips.
It’s everything Baekhyun has ever wanted.
*
Sehun screams, and Baekhyun bites down on the sweatshirt Kyungsoo had shoved into his mouth to gag him as he ate him out on the sofa in costuming. Baekhyun’s thighs are on either side of Kyungsoo’s head, and Kyungsoo laughs into the skin behind Baekhyun’s balls as Sehun continues to shriek.
Baekhyun always forgets to lock the door. Sometimes it’s on purpose.
“That is not what the director meant by a Boy’s Love storyline!” Sehun slams the door as Kyungsoo licks back into Baekhyun, and Baekhyun might be taking a break from acting next month, to let his scandal blow over, but man, he’s found the best way to fill the time.