From These Beautiful Mistakes *part two*
Part One
Pairing: DaeLo
Rated: PG13-ish?
Length: 5.2K
It wasn’t until bedtime that things started to fall apart and Junhong regretted letting Daehyun step foot into his apartment. There was only one bedroom and it was barely big enough for a full-sized bed. Junhong started to gather up a pillow and a couple of blankets to take with him to the couch when Daehyun grabbed them out of his hands and pushed him back onto the bed.
“Why are you sleeping out there? The bed’s big enough for the two of us. We used to sleep in the same bed back in the dorm all the time and did okay.”
That was because back then Junhong only cared about two things: eating and sleeping. Daehyun curled up right beside him had never been a blip on his radar.
Daehyun absentmindedly yanked at the t-shirt he’d been wearing under his jacket and threw it into the clothes hamper. When he reached for the button on his jeans Junhong might have inwardly screamed a little.
“I have to use the bathroom before bed,” He said a little too loudly, jumping up and racing out of the room. The time it took him to collect himself and calm the ragged breaths was only a few minutes but it felt like a lifetime in the tiny bathroom.
By the time he came back Daehyun was already in the corner of the bed and wearing one of his old t-shirts.
“I forgot to pack pajamas,” He answered the unspoken question, wrinkling his nose at him. “Do you mind?”
Junhong shook his head. The click of the lamp being turned off was loud in the quiet room. He climbed into the bed and burrowed inside of his covers, staying careful to keep a respectful distance from his new bedmate.
Never one to worry about personal space, Daehyun immediately rolled over and wrapped himself around Junhong’s stiff body.
“Sometimes when we shared beds during tours I would wait for you to fall asleep and then curl around you like a cat,” His usually loud voice was softened in the blackness and hit the shell of Junhong’s ear like a blast of heat. “It was even more pathetic than it sounds. I fall asleep better when I’m touching someone.” His arm slid down Junhong’s ribs until it rested heavy over his stomach. “Do you care?”
“No,” His eyes were clenched tightly shut, the lyrics to every childhood song he could remember were running through his head on a loop. “It’s okay.”
Daehyun pressed his check against Junhong’s shoulder blade and it wasn’t long before Junhong could hear his breaths even out against his t-shirt.
It was a long time before he fell asleep, the clock racing forward every time he looked at it.
When he woke up after way too little of sleep the next morning, it was to a sharp poke in his lower back and laughter against his chest.
“Junhonggie. Wake up. You’re crushing me.”
He came to slowly and with a pout of annoyance, muttering under his breath about the time and the bright sun as he tried to ignore the murmurs of his name.
“You weigh a ton.” The attempts to awaken him by force halted, Daehyun using his fingers to stroke soothingly along the hips that were currently holding him down. “And I think that you might have, um, you have something you need to take care of down there.”
Waking up hard wasn’t anything new, he was still in his early twenties after all, but waking up hard on top of the person he had just been dreaming about was an entirely new experience.
Junhong, still drowsy and not completely convinced he wasn’t still asleep, lifted his head and blinked bleary eyes at an amused Daehyun.
“What time is it?”
“Nine,” Daehyun turned his head to check the clock on the nightstand next to them, exposing a bare expanse of tanned throat that made Junhong’s morning discomfort a full-blown morning disaster. “Junhong?” The fingers skimming happily across his back froze and Daehyun’s lips tightened. “You really need to move off of me.”
Alertness finally slammed into him and he jumped backwards so far that he fell ass first onto the hard wooden floor.
Junhong hissed, rubbing a palm along a sore cheek while Daehyun laughed hysterically from above him.
“Why don’t I go start breakfast while you, ahem,” His eyes slid lower to where Junhong’s hands were covering himself. “You go make yourself presentable.”
Still laughing loudly, he bounced to his feet and left the room, shutting the door behind him in an effort to give Junhong the privacy he thought he needed.
After a quick shower, in which he did not “take care of himself” because he had manners, thank you, he hesitantly waited by the bedroom door and watched as Daehyun made himself at home in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets and humming under his breath.
“You know you’re going to burn everything.”
“And you’re going to eat it and tell me it’s delicious because that’s the polite thing to do,” Daehyun grinned at him over his shoulder and pointed to the table. “Relax. It’s just cereal and toast. You really need to go to the grocery store.”
He normally just popped downstairs to his dad’s restaurant if he needed something to eat. There were always leftover sandwiches or fresh from the oven desserts that he would snatch when no one was looking.
“It took me forever to figure out how to work your coffee maker. Do you want some?”
“Not a big fan of it.” He gratefully accepted the glass of orange juice Daehyun slid in front of him though. “The smell of it reminds me of Himchan and how he was always in the kitchen fixing cup after cup.”
Daehyun stopped buttering the piece of toast in his hand and tried to smile. “I know how hard trying to take care of Himchan is for you. But you’re doing as good of a job as you can do, Junhonggie. He can’t get any better if he doesn’t want to.” He grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and filled it with cereal before searching through the fridge for the milk. “Have you gone to see him since he punched you?”
He shook his head, “I need to. It was just really hard to see him so broken like that. He wasn’t the Himchan I remember,” Cool fingers skidded down his neck and he leaned into the touch instinctively, letting Daehyun smooth the tightness away. “Do you ever miss the way we were? BAP?”
“Every day,” Daehyun’s voice was soft. “But we all needed to get away from it. It was hurting each of us in different ways. It took me a long time to see that.”
“Are you still in therapy?” Daehyun had mentioned his weekly appointments a few times, saying they were helping him to sort out his mixed-up feelings.
The comforting touch receded and Daehyun moved to the other end of the table where a cup of coffee and a piece of dry toast was waiting.
“No,” He blew into the mug before taking a sip. “My final appointment was last week actually. I decided I didn’t need to go anymore.”
“Oh,” Junhong chewed slowly on a corner of his toast. “Why?”
Daehyun eyed him from behind the rim of his coffee. He sat it down onto the table and stood up to go back to the kitchen. “It was you actually.” He rummaged around for a moment before finding a shaker of sugar above the microwave. “Talking to you every night has been pretty nice. I get to let everything out and not be judged or worried about someone spilling all of my secrets on the internet.” His cheeks were red when he sat back down and stirred the sugar into his drink. “I’d rather talk to you than a stranger.”
“Plus I’m free,” Junhong teased him to gloss over the fact that his own face was blushing at the confession. “Unless you wanted to pay me what you gave to that over-priced therapist.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you want, Junhong,” The innocent eyes across the table either didn’t seem to register the double meaning of his words or was doing it to torture him. “Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how happy I am to be with you again?”
---
The days flew by so quickly that they started to fall into a routine. In the mornings Daehyun would wake him up for school (usually by trying to shake him off because he always ended up underneath him), fix him breakfast while he showered and they would sit in the silence of the morning, neither of them speaking unless it was absolutely necessary because they both agreed that they weren’t early wake-up people.
During his classes he would constantly pull his cell out and look for missed calls or texts, sometimes of random things Daehyun had seen on the television but mainly they were proclamations of how much he missed him and a countdown of the hours until he came home.
They had both concluded that dinner had better be ordered out or brought up from downstairs after the second night Daehyun had been a houseguest and served them raw chicken.
When they were finished with dinner Junhong would work on his homework while Daehyun absentmindedly watched TV next to him.
“What do you do here all day?” Junhong finally asked after the first week was up. He closed his math book and stretched the kinks out of his back. “Aren’t you bored?”
“It’s nice doing nothing for a change,” Daehyun pulled his feet into his lap and rubbed a knuckle hard up the arch of his foot, earning him a low moan of pleasure. “I do the laundry and the dishes then I do whatever I feel like. Today I called Yongguk and we talked about the next single for a little while. Yesterday I took a walk around the neighborhood and visited downstairs with your mom for an hour.”
Junhong’s head rolled back as Daehyun pressed a thumb against a sore spot. “She loves that you’re here keeping me company. When you leave she’s going to start worrying about me again.”
“Why is that?” Daehyun asked even though he had to already have known. Junhong knew his mom wouldn’t hold back on all the things she complained to him about.
“She thinks I need to get out more. I go to school and help them out and that’s pretty much it.” He shrugged, but the truth still hurt. “It feels wrong to live my life all happy and fake when Himchan is out there somewhere wasting away.”
The massage on his foot halted.
“You can’t stop living just because Himchan is sick,” Daehyun’s hand slid up the leg of his jeans, nails scratching sharply across his skin. “You deserve to be happy, too. What makes you happy, Junhong?”
You, he wanted to reply. You falling asleep with your arms around me and your breath on my skin. You fresh out of the shower and wearing my clothes because you were too lazy to pack enough. You laughing so hard that your eyes disappear and you sound like a dying hyena.
“Food,” Junhong shakily pulled his leg away and moved back to his own end of the couch where his forgotten math book was. “You know me. Always eating.”
He kept his eyes on the book and ignored the way he could see Daehyun out of the corner of his eyes still watching him.
Six more days and things would go back to normal.
---
Unfortunately, when those six days started to quickly tick down, Junhong knew there was no way things would go back to normal without him. Daehyun had become his normal and their daily routine was important to him. He thought briefly of asking him to stay a few days longer, but overheard Daehyun on the phone to Yongguk planning next week’s schedule and changed his mind.
The days flew by until there was only one more night spend breathing him in, one more morning eating his burnt toast that he pretended to love, one final hug in the entryway of his apartment.
“I’m glad I came,” Daehyun took one last look around the room and attempted a smile. “I had some stuff I needed to think hard about and being here and seeing you made everything else unimportant.”
Junhong was trying his hardest to pretend that Daehyun leaving was a good thing. That they had gotten along for the past two weeks the same as any old friends and not like a real couple in a relationship, even if Junhong thought that was exactly what it felt like.
“And?” He closed his eyes and leaned into the palm reaching for his cheek. “Did you figure out whatever you needed?
“Yes,” Daehyun whispered. Gone were all traces of the loud boy Junhong was used to. “I’ve been putting off asking you. I don’t want you to think I’m accusing you or judging you. But I need to know, Junhong. Why did you try so hard to avoid me?” At Junhong’s confused look, he tried again. “Why am I the only one you ignored in the group chats at the beginning? Anytime Yongguk or Jae asked you something you would reply right away but it was like you were trying to pretend I didn’t exist.”
He tried to pull away, this was not going to end well, but Daehyun was quicker, grabbing him by the shirt and holding him still.
“Please Junhong,” Daehyun begged him, fisting his shirt tightly in his hands and refusing to budge. “Were you… Are you… Attracted to me? I just want to know. I’m not angry.”
Junhong hung his head and nodded. There was no reason to deny it. The truth of what Daehyun did to him had been visible to everyone that day. He had been a fool to hope that Daehyun hadn’t noticed. At least he had the foresight to wait until their final few minutes together to ask.
“Have you always felt that way?”
“No,” He took a deep breath and clenched his eyes shut so that he didn’t have to look at him. “Back in the band I wasn’t really attracted to anything. Side benefits of feeling like you’re crazy, I guess. But,” He swallowed the rock in his throat. “But it’s different now. With you. I feel different.”
Daehyun didn’t say anything and Junhong expected any second to hear the door slamming, but instead was shocked by the sound of quiet laughter in front of him.
He cracked open a eye just before Daehyun jerked him forward. They stumbled against the door and Junhong banged an elbow against the wood before he could steady himself.
“Same here,” Daehyun skimmed his nose across the underside of Junhong’s jaw and breathed in deeply. “All those years we were together every second of every day and me not seeing you as much more than an overgrown child.”
“Hey!”
“But after the band broke up and I couldn’t see you anymore it hurt more than losing anyone else and I couldn’t understand why,” Daehyun’s tongue flicked against the shell of his ear, making him gasp. “It took a lot of time devoted to you in my therapist’s office to realize that I maybe, kind of, liked you.”
He palmed the slender hip against him and thumbed hard into the indention. “Maybe?”
Daehyun moaned under his breath when Junhong leaned forward to repay the favor, teeth nipping softly at the curve of his throat.
“Still not sure,” Hands clawed at his chest as Junhong sucked the sensitive skin between his teeth and sucked. “Needs more clarification.”
“Then let’s go on a date,” Junhong knew that if he didn’t stop in the next few seconds that he would turn Daehyun into a whimpering, pathetic mess against his front door and he didn’t want that to happen. Yet. “So we can gather more info. For science.”
“For science,” Daehyun agreed breathlessly, leaning down to pick up his suitcase. “If I touch you one more time I’m going to lose my mind, so I’m just going to…” He pointed to the door. “So goodbye? I guess?”
He took a step back and gripped the table behind him so that his hands stayed busy. “Could we not tell anybody? That we maybe like each other? Not until we get Himchan taken care of.”
Daehyun nodded, the smile on his lips turning shy, “Of course, Junhonggie. It will stay just between us for as long as you want it to.” He opened the door, heavy gaze still locking across the kitchen on him, “I’ll call you.”
“For your new therapy appointments,” Junhong clarified. “I’ll be sending you my bill.”
“Can’t wait,” He chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip for a moment before silently leaving.
The soft click of the door made the room seem deafeningly silent afterwards. Junhong looked around the empty, and now spotless, apartment with a frown. He frantically jumped towards the kitchen counter when he heard his phone beep.
I know you’re overthinking everything right now. Don’t. We’re both adults. I’ll call you as soon as I’m home.
Another beep and a second text joined it.
This is Daehyun, by the way.
Well at least he knew his life would be interesting for a while.
---
It took him two months to finally work up the courage to ask Daehyun when he was coming back down. He typed and deleted texts all day before he finally took a deep breath and just called him.
“I need to see you,” He replied instead of answering the happy ‘hello’.
Daehyun laughed, “Oh I’m fine. Thank you for asking. Yes, the weather has been beautiful. Mmhmm, I just ate an hour ago.”
“I want to go on our date,” Junhong ignored his teasing, hand clenching the phone so tightly that it was making his palm start to sweat. “I want to kiss you.”
“Well…” Daehyun turned serious. “You just get right to the point.”
He could still feel the warm body underneath him as he drifted off to sleep each night and it was getting a little too pathetic pretending his pillow was Daehyun. It was time for them to go all in on this whole dating thing. They’d been trying it out for a couple of months and everything was going good, now for the next stage. If he didn’t kiss Daehyun soon he was going to be a mess.
“We said we’d go slow and see if this was working. I think it’s working. Do you?”
“Yes. It’s definitely working on my end.” There was the sound of papers being flipped from the other line. “I have promotions and studio appointments all day for the next couple of weeks.”
The strangled sound Junhong made wasn’t because he was angry he told himself.
“Come up here,” Daehyun said suddenly. “For the weekend. I have a lot of things scheduled but I’m supposed to be home by seven every night. That was part of my contract when I signed with the company. I’m guaranteed to be done with everything at a decent hour or they get into a lot of trouble.”
He had classes all day Friday and early on Monday so he would need to plan his time carefully but it was worthwhile because he needed to see Daehyun desperately.
“It will be late on Friday before I could get there.”
“I’d wait up.”
Junhong grinned. Three more days and he would finally be with Daehyun again.
---
The flu came out of nowhere and hit him hard on Thursday night. He spent the entire night with his head in the toilet and vomiting up things he didn’t even remember eating that day.
The six hours of classes he had felt like a lifetime and he even drifted off to sleep once during math.
By the time he drove the three hours to Daehyun’s apartment he was running on fumes and saltine crackers.
“Oh my god,” Daehyun’s grin slipped off his lips and he grabbed for the pale boy standing on his doorstep. “What’s wrong? You’re burning up, Junhong.”
“Sick,” He mumbled, whimpering at the warm fingers sliding along his forehead. “Didn’t want to miss seeing you.”
Daehyun dragged him to the couch and helped lower him down, covering his shaky body with a blanket. “I wouldn’t have been mad if you stayed home because you were sick. You probably made it worse driving all the way here when you should have been in bed.” He left for a few minutes and came back with a wet cloth and another set of pillows and blankets which he spread out on the floor beside the couch. “Even if you look like shit I still think you’re gorgeous.”
“Flattery won’t get you in my pants,” Junhong reached over the side of the couch and held his hand out, waiting for Daehyun’s to clasp it. “But it will be stored away for later.”
---
All of the plans they had made for their first weekend together since deciding to try the dating thing were thrown out of the window because of Junhong’s sickness. During the day while Daehyun was working he rested on the couch, drinking the broth Daehyun had ran out for at eleven o’clock Friday night. And then when Daehyun rushed home they would watch a movie together, his head in Daehyun’s lap and fingers running through his hair.
By the time Sunday night rolled around he was feeling well enough to eat the dinner Daehyun had brought home with him, but there was still zero chance of any progressions to the next level with them.
“I’m sorry this weekend sucked,” Junhong rolled over and pressed his face against Daehyun’s belly. “All I’ve thought about for the past two months has been finally getting to kiss you.”
Daehyun chuckled, fingers reaching down to trace along his jawline. “Is that really all you’ve thought about?”
He cracked open an eye and peered up at him dryly. “I am an innocent young man and have no idea what you’re talking about.” His teeth nipped at the t-shirt in front of him and he managed to catch a piece of skin between them. The yelp it caused made him grin.
“We’ll have more weekends together,” Daehyun promised. “We still need to have that date you promised. I was going to wait until it was for sure to tell you, but Yongguk thinks I’m going to have three days off at the end of the month. If you wanted me to visit that is.”
“Our town is having a fair that weekend,” He sat up and pulled Daehyun into his lap, burrowing his face into his soft brown hair. “That could be our date.”
It took a few moments for Daehyun to reply because Junhong’s palm was smoothing along his thigh and it made him loose track of his thoughts.
“Would you win me something? It’s not a real date unless I come home with a giant stuffed animal.”
“I’ll win you the biggest,” He vowed, pressing a sloppy kiss to the sharp bone of Daehyun’s shoulder. His hand itched to slide a little higher up and make more of those soft sighs of pleasure come out of Daehyun’s lips but his stomach gave an unhappy roll and he didn’t want to mess things up before they’d even had a chance to start.
---
“I can’t believe how much money you spent on this stupid thing,” Daehyun hugged the oversized fish to his chest and laughed. “You could have gone to the store and bought a nicer one for a quarter of the price.”
Junhong’s pride was the reason he had kept going. That fish that Daehyun had pointed out and said was so ugly it was cute was going home with them come hell or high water. There was also the tiny fact that Daehyun had said this wasn’t a real date unless something was won for him. Junhong really, really wanted this to be considered a date.
They’d both confessed to each other that they were worried things would be weird spending time together knowing it wasn’t just as friends. Junhong had been panicked in the days leading up to the visit, rapidly cycling between extreme elation one second and pure terror the next. Thankfully his daily medicine dosage was still working effectively.
Before Daehyun had arrived he’d eyed the half-empty bottle with a frown. There was barely enough money left in his checking account to cover the next dosage. He’d have to pick up a few more extra weekend shifts at the restaurant to build up some more money.
“I think he wanted me to steal it. He purposely went behind the stand to grab more toys when there was an entire box in front of him.”
“Yes, that’s why he chased you all the way to the hot dog stand.”
Regardless of how he acquired it, the fish was in Daehyun’s arms and he looked down at it contentedly. That was all Junhong had wanted for the night. To do something that made Daehyun’s eyes light up and his lips curl happily.
“So how do you think we did?” The doll was placed onto the table. Daehyun cocked his head to the side and the way his hair fell over his eyes really wasn’t something that should turn him on but Junhong had been waiting to be alone with him for far too long. “For our first date?”
“We did good,” Junhong shrugged his jacket off, not removing his gaze from Daehyun’s own. “You sick of me yet?”
Daehyun shook his head. “The opposite actually.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, the furrow between his brows growing deeper. “I’m not in this for fun, Junhong. I just want you to know that.”
“I’m not either,” Although he thought that they would have a lot of fun together if Daehyun put his mind to it. “There’s no way I’d be okay waiting years to kiss someone who wasn’t important.”
The silence between them was deafening until it was as if they’d read each other’s minds, both of them springing forward and crashing together in the center of the kitchen. Daehyun’s legs wrapped tightly around his waist and Junhong palmed the expanse of his back through his jacket as he stumbled them towards the couch.
Daehyun’s lips were slick with spit, making Junhong’s slide across them smoothly, tilting his head and turning back for more until they fell into the couch. He yanked at Daehyun’s jacket, not remembering it was still zippered and growled against his lips until Daehyun expertly unzippered it and threw it to the side.
When they came back together Daehyun’s tongue was against his lips, waiting until Junhong parted his own for entry and it was everything he’d spent so long imagining that he didn’t think anything could be nicer.
His shirt was untucked from his jeans so that Daehyun’s hands could slide up the bare skin of his back, nails scratching lightly on his way down. He wanted to keep kissing him, there was so much time to catch up on, but his head was starting to feel woozy from lack of air and there was an entire neck’s worth of area he wanted to discover.
“This has been,” Daehyun clawed at his back when he felt Junhong’s body rock against his. “The best first date ever.”
“Mmhmm,” He wrapped his hand around Daehyun’s jaw and tilted his head backwards, licking a fat stripe back up to his lips.
It took him a while to realize that Daehyun’s hand was working the button to his jeans open, fingers having difficulty since his other hand was still up the back of Junhong’s shirt.
He nipped sharply at the swollen bottom lip under him. “What are you doing?”
“What does it feel like I’m doing?” Daehyun grinned slyly as he finally managed to unbutton the jeans, zipper quickly sliding down afterwards. “Lift up a little.”
There was a half a second of doubt as to whether this was a good idea so soon in their relationship, but technically they’d been together for two and a half months so maybe this was just following along right on time.
His hips lifted away from Daehyun’s warm body, just far enough for him to shove them down his thighs a few inches. Fingers tickled at the waistband to his boxers while Daehyun eyed him warily to see how he reacted.
“You do this and I won’t be sane enough to help you out afterwards,” Junhong warned him, swallowing thickly as Daehyun palmed him hotly through his jeans. “But when we wake up tomorrow I’m going to give you the blow job of your life.”
Daehyun hissed through his teeth, eyes narrowing as he rolled the promise over in his head. With a final nod of his head he hesitantly slipped a hand inside Junhong’s boxers, fist encircling him tighter when Junhong hummed in pleasure.
“This doesn’t feel weird,” Daehyun flipped them over and grinned lazily down at him, wrist still twisting expertly between them. “Shouldn’t it feel weird?”
“No,” Junhong really wished he would stop talking but silence and Daehyun had never belonged in the same sentence, so it made sense that he would be chatty during the intimate moments too. “It would only be strange if we shouldn’t be doing it.” He cracked open an eyelid and clenched a fist around Daehyun’s arm. “And we should definitely have been doing this for years.”
The quiet laugh above him washed over Junhong peacefully. He never would have thought that he could be so attracted to someone so talkative and loud and annoying, but Daehyun had been throwing him curveballs for months and he was still excitedly looking forward to the next ones.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wondered what you would look like when I finally got to touch you? If you would be loud or barely make a sound?” Daehyun rested heavily on Junhong’s side and buried his damp head against the racing pulse of Junhong’s neck. “I feel so stupid for putting headphones on and pretending to be asleep every time I could hear you masturbate in the dorm.”
“Oh god,” Junhong wasn’t sure if the mumbled words were embarrassment at Daehyun’s admission or a warning that he wasn’t going to last much longer. The thumb that was stroking across his slit applied just the right amount of pressure to make his brain feel more muddled than normal. “Did I really…” His back arched for a split second when Daehyun jerked against him and he could feel how much just touching Junhong had turned him on. “Did I do it a lot?” He couldn’t remember, those moments where he would lose control and try anything to take his mind away from the confusion were still locked away somewhere inside of his head and only bits and pieces were able to be patched together.
Daehyun’s hips stuttered against his thigh and a needy whine muffled itself on Junhong’s chest. He lifted bleary eyes and smiled weakly down at him. “Not any more than,” His head drooped when Junhong reached behind him to press a palm into his lower back, pushing Daehyun’s hips harder against him. “Than was normal.” He bit at Junhong’s lip, tugging the bottom one between his teeth until the coppery taste of blood mingled between them. “So about this blowjob tomorrow…”
Part Three
Pairing: DaeLo
Rated: PG13-ish?
Length: 5.2K
It wasn’t until bedtime that things started to fall apart and Junhong regretted letting Daehyun step foot into his apartment. There was only one bedroom and it was barely big enough for a full-sized bed. Junhong started to gather up a pillow and a couple of blankets to take with him to the couch when Daehyun grabbed them out of his hands and pushed him back onto the bed.
“Why are you sleeping out there? The bed’s big enough for the two of us. We used to sleep in the same bed back in the dorm all the time and did okay.”
That was because back then Junhong only cared about two things: eating and sleeping. Daehyun curled up right beside him had never been a blip on his radar.
Daehyun absentmindedly yanked at the t-shirt he’d been wearing under his jacket and threw it into the clothes hamper. When he reached for the button on his jeans Junhong might have inwardly screamed a little.
“I have to use the bathroom before bed,” He said a little too loudly, jumping up and racing out of the room. The time it took him to collect himself and calm the ragged breaths was only a few minutes but it felt like a lifetime in the tiny bathroom.
By the time he came back Daehyun was already in the corner of the bed and wearing one of his old t-shirts.
“I forgot to pack pajamas,” He answered the unspoken question, wrinkling his nose at him. “Do you mind?”
Junhong shook his head. The click of the lamp being turned off was loud in the quiet room. He climbed into the bed and burrowed inside of his covers, staying careful to keep a respectful distance from his new bedmate.
Never one to worry about personal space, Daehyun immediately rolled over and wrapped himself around Junhong’s stiff body.
“Sometimes when we shared beds during tours I would wait for you to fall asleep and then curl around you like a cat,” His usually loud voice was softened in the blackness and hit the shell of Junhong’s ear like a blast of heat. “It was even more pathetic than it sounds. I fall asleep better when I’m touching someone.” His arm slid down Junhong’s ribs until it rested heavy over his stomach. “Do you care?”
“No,” His eyes were clenched tightly shut, the lyrics to every childhood song he could remember were running through his head on a loop. “It’s okay.”
Daehyun pressed his check against Junhong’s shoulder blade and it wasn’t long before Junhong could hear his breaths even out against his t-shirt.
It was a long time before he fell asleep, the clock racing forward every time he looked at it.
When he woke up after way too little of sleep the next morning, it was to a sharp poke in his lower back and laughter against his chest.
“Junhonggie. Wake up. You’re crushing me.”
He came to slowly and with a pout of annoyance, muttering under his breath about the time and the bright sun as he tried to ignore the murmurs of his name.
“You weigh a ton.” The attempts to awaken him by force halted, Daehyun using his fingers to stroke soothingly along the hips that were currently holding him down. “And I think that you might have, um, you have something you need to take care of down there.”
Waking up hard wasn’t anything new, he was still in his early twenties after all, but waking up hard on top of the person he had just been dreaming about was an entirely new experience.
Junhong, still drowsy and not completely convinced he wasn’t still asleep, lifted his head and blinked bleary eyes at an amused Daehyun.
“What time is it?”
“Nine,” Daehyun turned his head to check the clock on the nightstand next to them, exposing a bare expanse of tanned throat that made Junhong’s morning discomfort a full-blown morning disaster. “Junhong?” The fingers skimming happily across his back froze and Daehyun’s lips tightened. “You really need to move off of me.”
Alertness finally slammed into him and he jumped backwards so far that he fell ass first onto the hard wooden floor.
Junhong hissed, rubbing a palm along a sore cheek while Daehyun laughed hysterically from above him.
“Why don’t I go start breakfast while you, ahem,” His eyes slid lower to where Junhong’s hands were covering himself. “You go make yourself presentable.”
Still laughing loudly, he bounced to his feet and left the room, shutting the door behind him in an effort to give Junhong the privacy he thought he needed.
After a quick shower, in which he did not “take care of himself” because he had manners, thank you, he hesitantly waited by the bedroom door and watched as Daehyun made himself at home in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets and humming under his breath.
“You know you’re going to burn everything.”
“And you’re going to eat it and tell me it’s delicious because that’s the polite thing to do,” Daehyun grinned at him over his shoulder and pointed to the table. “Relax. It’s just cereal and toast. You really need to go to the grocery store.”
He normally just popped downstairs to his dad’s restaurant if he needed something to eat. There were always leftover sandwiches or fresh from the oven desserts that he would snatch when no one was looking.
“It took me forever to figure out how to work your coffee maker. Do you want some?”
“Not a big fan of it.” He gratefully accepted the glass of orange juice Daehyun slid in front of him though. “The smell of it reminds me of Himchan and how he was always in the kitchen fixing cup after cup.”
Daehyun stopped buttering the piece of toast in his hand and tried to smile. “I know how hard trying to take care of Himchan is for you. But you’re doing as good of a job as you can do, Junhonggie. He can’t get any better if he doesn’t want to.” He grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and filled it with cereal before searching through the fridge for the milk. “Have you gone to see him since he punched you?”
He shook his head, “I need to. It was just really hard to see him so broken like that. He wasn’t the Himchan I remember,” Cool fingers skidded down his neck and he leaned into the touch instinctively, letting Daehyun smooth the tightness away. “Do you ever miss the way we were? BAP?”
“Every day,” Daehyun’s voice was soft. “But we all needed to get away from it. It was hurting each of us in different ways. It took me a long time to see that.”
“Are you still in therapy?” Daehyun had mentioned his weekly appointments a few times, saying they were helping him to sort out his mixed-up feelings.
The comforting touch receded and Daehyun moved to the other end of the table where a cup of coffee and a piece of dry toast was waiting.
“No,” He blew into the mug before taking a sip. “My final appointment was last week actually. I decided I didn’t need to go anymore.”
“Oh,” Junhong chewed slowly on a corner of his toast. “Why?”
Daehyun eyed him from behind the rim of his coffee. He sat it down onto the table and stood up to go back to the kitchen. “It was you actually.” He rummaged around for a moment before finding a shaker of sugar above the microwave. “Talking to you every night has been pretty nice. I get to let everything out and not be judged or worried about someone spilling all of my secrets on the internet.” His cheeks were red when he sat back down and stirred the sugar into his drink. “I’d rather talk to you than a stranger.”
“Plus I’m free,” Junhong teased him to gloss over the fact that his own face was blushing at the confession. “Unless you wanted to pay me what you gave to that over-priced therapist.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you want, Junhong,” The innocent eyes across the table either didn’t seem to register the double meaning of his words or was doing it to torture him. “Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how happy I am to be with you again?”
---
The days flew by so quickly that they started to fall into a routine. In the mornings Daehyun would wake him up for school (usually by trying to shake him off because he always ended up underneath him), fix him breakfast while he showered and they would sit in the silence of the morning, neither of them speaking unless it was absolutely necessary because they both agreed that they weren’t early wake-up people.
During his classes he would constantly pull his cell out and look for missed calls or texts, sometimes of random things Daehyun had seen on the television but mainly they were proclamations of how much he missed him and a countdown of the hours until he came home.
They had both concluded that dinner had better be ordered out or brought up from downstairs after the second night Daehyun had been a houseguest and served them raw chicken.
When they were finished with dinner Junhong would work on his homework while Daehyun absentmindedly watched TV next to him.
“What do you do here all day?” Junhong finally asked after the first week was up. He closed his math book and stretched the kinks out of his back. “Aren’t you bored?”
“It’s nice doing nothing for a change,” Daehyun pulled his feet into his lap and rubbed a knuckle hard up the arch of his foot, earning him a low moan of pleasure. “I do the laundry and the dishes then I do whatever I feel like. Today I called Yongguk and we talked about the next single for a little while. Yesterday I took a walk around the neighborhood and visited downstairs with your mom for an hour.”
Junhong’s head rolled back as Daehyun pressed a thumb against a sore spot. “She loves that you’re here keeping me company. When you leave she’s going to start worrying about me again.”
“Why is that?” Daehyun asked even though he had to already have known. Junhong knew his mom wouldn’t hold back on all the things she complained to him about.
“She thinks I need to get out more. I go to school and help them out and that’s pretty much it.” He shrugged, but the truth still hurt. “It feels wrong to live my life all happy and fake when Himchan is out there somewhere wasting away.”
The massage on his foot halted.
“You can’t stop living just because Himchan is sick,” Daehyun’s hand slid up the leg of his jeans, nails scratching sharply across his skin. “You deserve to be happy, too. What makes you happy, Junhong?”
You, he wanted to reply. You falling asleep with your arms around me and your breath on my skin. You fresh out of the shower and wearing my clothes because you were too lazy to pack enough. You laughing so hard that your eyes disappear and you sound like a dying hyena.
“Food,” Junhong shakily pulled his leg away and moved back to his own end of the couch where his forgotten math book was. “You know me. Always eating.”
He kept his eyes on the book and ignored the way he could see Daehyun out of the corner of his eyes still watching him.
Six more days and things would go back to normal.
---
Unfortunately, when those six days started to quickly tick down, Junhong knew there was no way things would go back to normal without him. Daehyun had become his normal and their daily routine was important to him. He thought briefly of asking him to stay a few days longer, but overheard Daehyun on the phone to Yongguk planning next week’s schedule and changed his mind.
The days flew by until there was only one more night spend breathing him in, one more morning eating his burnt toast that he pretended to love, one final hug in the entryway of his apartment.
“I’m glad I came,” Daehyun took one last look around the room and attempted a smile. “I had some stuff I needed to think hard about and being here and seeing you made everything else unimportant.”
Junhong was trying his hardest to pretend that Daehyun leaving was a good thing. That they had gotten along for the past two weeks the same as any old friends and not like a real couple in a relationship, even if Junhong thought that was exactly what it felt like.
“And?” He closed his eyes and leaned into the palm reaching for his cheek. “Did you figure out whatever you needed?
“Yes,” Daehyun whispered. Gone were all traces of the loud boy Junhong was used to. “I’ve been putting off asking you. I don’t want you to think I’m accusing you or judging you. But I need to know, Junhong. Why did you try so hard to avoid me?” At Junhong’s confused look, he tried again. “Why am I the only one you ignored in the group chats at the beginning? Anytime Yongguk or Jae asked you something you would reply right away but it was like you were trying to pretend I didn’t exist.”
He tried to pull away, this was not going to end well, but Daehyun was quicker, grabbing him by the shirt and holding him still.
“Please Junhong,” Daehyun begged him, fisting his shirt tightly in his hands and refusing to budge. “Were you… Are you… Attracted to me? I just want to know. I’m not angry.”
Junhong hung his head and nodded. There was no reason to deny it. The truth of what Daehyun did to him had been visible to everyone that day. He had been a fool to hope that Daehyun hadn’t noticed. At least he had the foresight to wait until their final few minutes together to ask.
“Have you always felt that way?”
“No,” He took a deep breath and clenched his eyes shut so that he didn’t have to look at him. “Back in the band I wasn’t really attracted to anything. Side benefits of feeling like you’re crazy, I guess. But,” He swallowed the rock in his throat. “But it’s different now. With you. I feel different.”
Daehyun didn’t say anything and Junhong expected any second to hear the door slamming, but instead was shocked by the sound of quiet laughter in front of him.
He cracked open a eye just before Daehyun jerked him forward. They stumbled against the door and Junhong banged an elbow against the wood before he could steady himself.
“Same here,” Daehyun skimmed his nose across the underside of Junhong’s jaw and breathed in deeply. “All those years we were together every second of every day and me not seeing you as much more than an overgrown child.”
“Hey!”
“But after the band broke up and I couldn’t see you anymore it hurt more than losing anyone else and I couldn’t understand why,” Daehyun’s tongue flicked against the shell of his ear, making him gasp. “It took a lot of time devoted to you in my therapist’s office to realize that I maybe, kind of, liked you.”
He palmed the slender hip against him and thumbed hard into the indention. “Maybe?”
Daehyun moaned under his breath when Junhong leaned forward to repay the favor, teeth nipping softly at the curve of his throat.
“Still not sure,” Hands clawed at his chest as Junhong sucked the sensitive skin between his teeth and sucked. “Needs more clarification.”
“Then let’s go on a date,” Junhong knew that if he didn’t stop in the next few seconds that he would turn Daehyun into a whimpering, pathetic mess against his front door and he didn’t want that to happen. Yet. “So we can gather more info. For science.”
“For science,” Daehyun agreed breathlessly, leaning down to pick up his suitcase. “If I touch you one more time I’m going to lose my mind, so I’m just going to…” He pointed to the door. “So goodbye? I guess?”
He took a step back and gripped the table behind him so that his hands stayed busy. “Could we not tell anybody? That we maybe like each other? Not until we get Himchan taken care of.”
Daehyun nodded, the smile on his lips turning shy, “Of course, Junhonggie. It will stay just between us for as long as you want it to.” He opened the door, heavy gaze still locking across the kitchen on him, “I’ll call you.”
“For your new therapy appointments,” Junhong clarified. “I’ll be sending you my bill.”
“Can’t wait,” He chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip for a moment before silently leaving.
The soft click of the door made the room seem deafeningly silent afterwards. Junhong looked around the empty, and now spotless, apartment with a frown. He frantically jumped towards the kitchen counter when he heard his phone beep.
I know you’re overthinking everything right now. Don’t. We’re both adults. I’ll call you as soon as I’m home.
Another beep and a second text joined it.
This is Daehyun, by the way.
Well at least he knew his life would be interesting for a while.
---
It took him two months to finally work up the courage to ask Daehyun when he was coming back down. He typed and deleted texts all day before he finally took a deep breath and just called him.
“I need to see you,” He replied instead of answering the happy ‘hello’.
Daehyun laughed, “Oh I’m fine. Thank you for asking. Yes, the weather has been beautiful. Mmhmm, I just ate an hour ago.”
“I want to go on our date,” Junhong ignored his teasing, hand clenching the phone so tightly that it was making his palm start to sweat. “I want to kiss you.”
“Well…” Daehyun turned serious. “You just get right to the point.”
He could still feel the warm body underneath him as he drifted off to sleep each night and it was getting a little too pathetic pretending his pillow was Daehyun. It was time for them to go all in on this whole dating thing. They’d been trying it out for a couple of months and everything was going good, now for the next stage. If he didn’t kiss Daehyun soon he was going to be a mess.
“We said we’d go slow and see if this was working. I think it’s working. Do you?”
“Yes. It’s definitely working on my end.” There was the sound of papers being flipped from the other line. “I have promotions and studio appointments all day for the next couple of weeks.”
The strangled sound Junhong made wasn’t because he was angry he told himself.
“Come up here,” Daehyun said suddenly. “For the weekend. I have a lot of things scheduled but I’m supposed to be home by seven every night. That was part of my contract when I signed with the company. I’m guaranteed to be done with everything at a decent hour or they get into a lot of trouble.”
He had classes all day Friday and early on Monday so he would need to plan his time carefully but it was worthwhile because he needed to see Daehyun desperately.
“It will be late on Friday before I could get there.”
“I’d wait up.”
Junhong grinned. Three more days and he would finally be with Daehyun again.
---
The flu came out of nowhere and hit him hard on Thursday night. He spent the entire night with his head in the toilet and vomiting up things he didn’t even remember eating that day.
The six hours of classes he had felt like a lifetime and he even drifted off to sleep once during math.
By the time he drove the three hours to Daehyun’s apartment he was running on fumes and saltine crackers.
“Oh my god,” Daehyun’s grin slipped off his lips and he grabbed for the pale boy standing on his doorstep. “What’s wrong? You’re burning up, Junhong.”
“Sick,” He mumbled, whimpering at the warm fingers sliding along his forehead. “Didn’t want to miss seeing you.”
Daehyun dragged him to the couch and helped lower him down, covering his shaky body with a blanket. “I wouldn’t have been mad if you stayed home because you were sick. You probably made it worse driving all the way here when you should have been in bed.” He left for a few minutes and came back with a wet cloth and another set of pillows and blankets which he spread out on the floor beside the couch. “Even if you look like shit I still think you’re gorgeous.”
“Flattery won’t get you in my pants,” Junhong reached over the side of the couch and held his hand out, waiting for Daehyun’s to clasp it. “But it will be stored away for later.”
---
All of the plans they had made for their first weekend together since deciding to try the dating thing were thrown out of the window because of Junhong’s sickness. During the day while Daehyun was working he rested on the couch, drinking the broth Daehyun had ran out for at eleven o’clock Friday night. And then when Daehyun rushed home they would watch a movie together, his head in Daehyun’s lap and fingers running through his hair.
By the time Sunday night rolled around he was feeling well enough to eat the dinner Daehyun had brought home with him, but there was still zero chance of any progressions to the next level with them.
“I’m sorry this weekend sucked,” Junhong rolled over and pressed his face against Daehyun’s belly. “All I’ve thought about for the past two months has been finally getting to kiss you.”
Daehyun chuckled, fingers reaching down to trace along his jawline. “Is that really all you’ve thought about?”
He cracked open an eye and peered up at him dryly. “I am an innocent young man and have no idea what you’re talking about.” His teeth nipped at the t-shirt in front of him and he managed to catch a piece of skin between them. The yelp it caused made him grin.
“We’ll have more weekends together,” Daehyun promised. “We still need to have that date you promised. I was going to wait until it was for sure to tell you, but Yongguk thinks I’m going to have three days off at the end of the month. If you wanted me to visit that is.”
“Our town is having a fair that weekend,” He sat up and pulled Daehyun into his lap, burrowing his face into his soft brown hair. “That could be our date.”
It took a few moments for Daehyun to reply because Junhong’s palm was smoothing along his thigh and it made him loose track of his thoughts.
“Would you win me something? It’s not a real date unless I come home with a giant stuffed animal.”
“I’ll win you the biggest,” He vowed, pressing a sloppy kiss to the sharp bone of Daehyun’s shoulder. His hand itched to slide a little higher up and make more of those soft sighs of pleasure come out of Daehyun’s lips but his stomach gave an unhappy roll and he didn’t want to mess things up before they’d even had a chance to start.
---
“I can’t believe how much money you spent on this stupid thing,” Daehyun hugged the oversized fish to his chest and laughed. “You could have gone to the store and bought a nicer one for a quarter of the price.”
Junhong’s pride was the reason he had kept going. That fish that Daehyun had pointed out and said was so ugly it was cute was going home with them come hell or high water. There was also the tiny fact that Daehyun had said this wasn’t a real date unless something was won for him. Junhong really, really wanted this to be considered a date.
They’d both confessed to each other that they were worried things would be weird spending time together knowing it wasn’t just as friends. Junhong had been panicked in the days leading up to the visit, rapidly cycling between extreme elation one second and pure terror the next. Thankfully his daily medicine dosage was still working effectively.
Before Daehyun had arrived he’d eyed the half-empty bottle with a frown. There was barely enough money left in his checking account to cover the next dosage. He’d have to pick up a few more extra weekend shifts at the restaurant to build up some more money.
“I think he wanted me to steal it. He purposely went behind the stand to grab more toys when there was an entire box in front of him.”
“Yes, that’s why he chased you all the way to the hot dog stand.”
Regardless of how he acquired it, the fish was in Daehyun’s arms and he looked down at it contentedly. That was all Junhong had wanted for the night. To do something that made Daehyun’s eyes light up and his lips curl happily.
“So how do you think we did?” The doll was placed onto the table. Daehyun cocked his head to the side and the way his hair fell over his eyes really wasn’t something that should turn him on but Junhong had been waiting to be alone with him for far too long. “For our first date?”
“We did good,” Junhong shrugged his jacket off, not removing his gaze from Daehyun’s own. “You sick of me yet?”
Daehyun shook his head. “The opposite actually.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, the furrow between his brows growing deeper. “I’m not in this for fun, Junhong. I just want you to know that.”
“I’m not either,” Although he thought that they would have a lot of fun together if Daehyun put his mind to it. “There’s no way I’d be okay waiting years to kiss someone who wasn’t important.”
The silence between them was deafening until it was as if they’d read each other’s minds, both of them springing forward and crashing together in the center of the kitchen. Daehyun’s legs wrapped tightly around his waist and Junhong palmed the expanse of his back through his jacket as he stumbled them towards the couch.
Daehyun’s lips were slick with spit, making Junhong’s slide across them smoothly, tilting his head and turning back for more until they fell into the couch. He yanked at Daehyun’s jacket, not remembering it was still zippered and growled against his lips until Daehyun expertly unzippered it and threw it to the side.
When they came back together Daehyun’s tongue was against his lips, waiting until Junhong parted his own for entry and it was everything he’d spent so long imagining that he didn’t think anything could be nicer.
His shirt was untucked from his jeans so that Daehyun’s hands could slide up the bare skin of his back, nails scratching lightly on his way down. He wanted to keep kissing him, there was so much time to catch up on, but his head was starting to feel woozy from lack of air and there was an entire neck’s worth of area he wanted to discover.
“This has been,” Daehyun clawed at his back when he felt Junhong’s body rock against his. “The best first date ever.”
“Mmhmm,” He wrapped his hand around Daehyun’s jaw and tilted his head backwards, licking a fat stripe back up to his lips.
It took him a while to realize that Daehyun’s hand was working the button to his jeans open, fingers having difficulty since his other hand was still up the back of Junhong’s shirt.
He nipped sharply at the swollen bottom lip under him. “What are you doing?”
“What does it feel like I’m doing?” Daehyun grinned slyly as he finally managed to unbutton the jeans, zipper quickly sliding down afterwards. “Lift up a little.”
There was a half a second of doubt as to whether this was a good idea so soon in their relationship, but technically they’d been together for two and a half months so maybe this was just following along right on time.
His hips lifted away from Daehyun’s warm body, just far enough for him to shove them down his thighs a few inches. Fingers tickled at the waistband to his boxers while Daehyun eyed him warily to see how he reacted.
“You do this and I won’t be sane enough to help you out afterwards,” Junhong warned him, swallowing thickly as Daehyun palmed him hotly through his jeans. “But when we wake up tomorrow I’m going to give you the blow job of your life.”
Daehyun hissed through his teeth, eyes narrowing as he rolled the promise over in his head. With a final nod of his head he hesitantly slipped a hand inside Junhong’s boxers, fist encircling him tighter when Junhong hummed in pleasure.
“This doesn’t feel weird,” Daehyun flipped them over and grinned lazily down at him, wrist still twisting expertly between them. “Shouldn’t it feel weird?”
“No,” Junhong really wished he would stop talking but silence and Daehyun had never belonged in the same sentence, so it made sense that he would be chatty during the intimate moments too. “It would only be strange if we shouldn’t be doing it.” He cracked open an eyelid and clenched a fist around Daehyun’s arm. “And we should definitely have been doing this for years.”
The quiet laugh above him washed over Junhong peacefully. He never would have thought that he could be so attracted to someone so talkative and loud and annoying, but Daehyun had been throwing him curveballs for months and he was still excitedly looking forward to the next ones.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wondered what you would look like when I finally got to touch you? If you would be loud or barely make a sound?” Daehyun rested heavily on Junhong’s side and buried his damp head against the racing pulse of Junhong’s neck. “I feel so stupid for putting headphones on and pretending to be asleep every time I could hear you masturbate in the dorm.”
“Oh god,” Junhong wasn’t sure if the mumbled words were embarrassment at Daehyun’s admission or a warning that he wasn’t going to last much longer. The thumb that was stroking across his slit applied just the right amount of pressure to make his brain feel more muddled than normal. “Did I really…” His back arched for a split second when Daehyun jerked against him and he could feel how much just touching Junhong had turned him on. “Did I do it a lot?” He couldn’t remember, those moments where he would lose control and try anything to take his mind away from the confusion were still locked away somewhere inside of his head and only bits and pieces were able to be patched together.
Daehyun’s hips stuttered against his thigh and a needy whine muffled itself on Junhong’s chest. He lifted bleary eyes and smiled weakly down at him. “Not any more than,” His head drooped when Junhong reached behind him to press a palm into his lower back, pushing Daehyun’s hips harder against him. “Than was normal.” He bit at Junhong’s lip, tugging the bottom one between his teeth until the coppery taste of blood mingled between them. “So about this blowjob tomorrow…”
Part Three