and this quicksilver's gonna kill me [ fic ]
mercury in my veins, part 3
gd/top (covert yb/seungri) | nc-17, 7525 words, au
jiyong's an addict to more than just the cocaine.
if i say who i know it just goes to show you need me less than i need you
take it from me, we don't give sympathy - you can't trust me, trust nobody
i said you and me, we don't have honesty the things we don't want to speak
i'll try to get out but i never will; traffic is perfectly still
TRUST ME/THE FRAY
Jiyong wakes with the sun searing into his eyes and somebody's loud-ass lawnmower outside rumbling through the open window. It's stuffy, and despite efforts to fall back asleep, all he can think about is how hot it is. He squints and rolls over, rubbing grit out of his eyes as they adjust to the light. It's late - too late to be sleeping. He knows it is, the way the insistent heat from the outside has crept into the room to settle around them like another blanket, the way people are chattering outside around the stray scents of barbecued meat that reaches his nose and makes his stomach growl.
His gaze falls on Seunghyun sleeping next to him, and Jiyong rolls his eyes at the older boy's face, half-smashed into the pillow and mouth slightly open, hair tangled and limbs sprawled everywhere on the bed. Seunghyun's always been a difficult person to sleep beside, the less obvious, more psychological reasons paired with his constant tossing and turning.
Jiyong stretches himself out, feeling his joints pop. Last night's events are slowly filtering back into his mind, and imbibing feelings of humiliation and dread, fusing with a headache throbbing dully in his temples, are rising in his chest. It's possible Jay found the three of his four syringes discarded and trampled on the floor of the bathroom, and dealers never like to see their shit discarded - bad for business, in case possible customers suspect the coke was abandoned because of sub par quality. Jay didn't exactly look like the type to leave shit like this alone. Jiyong is too tired to think about this right now. He sighs and rolls over.
Sunlight has streamed its way onto Seunghyun's face. Jiyong has discovered that everything looks different when directly underneath the light, and though if anybody were an exception to the rule it'd be him, Seunghyun is not. The long eyelashes, the deep groove between his nose and mouth, the high cheekbones, the dark brows are still there - but the peaceful, if somewhat blank, expression Seunghyun wears seems to erase years of hard-assing and anger, to reveal just a simple, albeit beautiful, twenty-two year old boy.
Jiyong remembers that once, when they had just moved here and he was still living in this room, that he had told Seunghyun he should go into modeling if this whole drug business didn't pan out.
Seunghyun, back then just a pot dealer, had looked at him funny, his expression a bit taken aback, before shifting to flustered while he stumbled around his words and shot the idea down. It was the first time Jiyong had seen him lose his cool, and he remembers thinking that maybe it was because Seunghyun didn't get a lot of genuine compliments on his looks. But having been there when dozens of people told Seunghyun just what a fine piece of work he was, it took Jiyong a while longer before he finally worked out that maybe he was the first person who told Seunghyun that who also stayed in his life for more than one drunken night.
Jiyong has never asked Seunghyun about his family, and Seunghyun alternatively never brings it up. Jiyong almost thinks maybe he doesn't have any, and was just born alone, dropped onto the earth like some futuristic terminator (how appropriate), but it also doesn't seem like Seunghyun has enough money to afford this house on his own, no matter how much he makes bank these days.
Jiyong feels a surge of frustration in his chest. He knows he should be as used to Seunghyun's apparent blank history by now as he is everything else, but he hates that he knows nothing about the man except his last name and phone number, technical details that really don't matter.
God. He should go home before Seunghyun wakes up. That would probably be best; Jiyong doesn't really want to stay around for the awkward conversation they will have in at least an hour that will probably result in one of them, or both, getting angry again. He just wants to go home, shower off last night's grime, and curl up naked in his bed that doesn't smell a thing like Seunghyun.
His phone rings from inside the pocket of his jeans, and, without thinking Jiyong rolls across the bed and fishes it out.
"Yea?"
"Ji... Jiyong?" The person on the other end seems thrown off guard that Jiyong's actually picked up. And, his eyes widening, Jiyong knows exactly why. He wakes up in the span of a second.
Shit. "I can't talk right now," he says immediately.
"No - wait!" Jang Wooyoung's voice has stayed the same since high school, and yet, it sounds foreign and strange to Jiyong's ears. "Please just give me a minute," he says. "Don't hang up."
"I don't have a minute," Jiyong says. His voice must be coming out sharp, because Seunghyun stirs, grinding his teeth. How stupid and careless is he? Shit, shit, shit.
"Jiyong, please," Wooyoung says. His voice sounds like it's coming from a million miles away.
Eyes pressed on Seunghyun in case the boy shows any signs of life, Jiyong contemplates just hanging up - but something in Wooyoung's voice gets to him, and he jerks up into a sitting position instead. "Fine. You have exactly sixty fucking seconds before I cut you off," he hisses.
"I - really?" Wooyoung sounds almost relieved. "Okay. That's... um... crap." He stammers out a laugh. Jiyong can hear the nerves riding on the sound. "I don't actually know what to say. I wasn't really expecting you to pick up."
"You and me both," Jiyong mutters. "Why are you calling?"
"Um," Wooyoung says, and hesitates. "I... I just wanted to you know how you were, I guess."
"Peachy. Is that it?"
"What? I..." Wooyoung laughs, sounding exasperated this time, and Jiyong can imagine him in a classic Wooyoung pose, his fingers threaded through his hair and pacing around in his room. Or, wherever he lives now, because Jiyong has no idea. "God, Jiyong, I just want to talk."
Jiyong scoffs. "Talk? We haven't in two years. What can we talk about?"
"I know, and I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, switching back to pleading with him. "But maybe, I don't know - can't we start over or something?"
"Start over?" The lack of interest in Jiyong's voice is grating even to his own ears, but frankly he doesn't give a fuck if he hurts Wooyoung's feelings. "No."
Wooyoung doesn't answer for a moment, like all the nervous enthusiasm has suddenly left. "That's it? No?"
"No." Jiyong says. "No, we can't start over. That would require there to be anything left for us to pick up first, and there isn't. Or, no," he says, cutting himself off to cover all his bases, "Even if there was, I wouldn't want to." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm too tired for this shit, okay? Go back to med school or whatever you're doing these days."
"Hyung," Wooyoung says, and Jiyong feels a twist in his stomach. Hyung is something Wooyoung never used to call him, not even as a joke. "People make mistakes. Please, hyung. What about - if we met up? Maybe it would be easier. I could come to you."
"You don't know where I live," Jiyong says. "That's sixty seconds." And then he hangs up.
His cell phone display says he's missed two calls. They're both from Wooyoung, one last night when he was probably on the bathroom counter rolling around in his fractured brain, and one earlier this morning while he was still asleep.
He sighs and throws the device onto the floor, laying back and digging the palms of his hands into his eyes until he sees stars.
People from his old life don't give two shits about him. His parents were never home, people at school passed over him like he was invisible, and his teachers seemed like they'd given up on him after kindergarten. And yea, he got flooded with calls and emails and shit when he first ran away, some from people he'd barely exchanged five words with, but he wondered how many of them actually noticed a goddamn difference. When he gets the random call on his birthday, or Christmas, or whatever, from somebody he used to know, he no longer feels that brief flare of fury before pressing ignore. He doesn't feel anything. He's gotten kind of used to the fact that he was irrelevant to them, and that they're just doing it to keep up appearances.
Jang Wooyoung on the other hand, looked at Jiyong instead of through or around him. He asked Jiyong for advice though Jiyong never gave him any, followed him around like a starstruck dongsaeng though Jiyong was never a good example, and showed up in front of his house in the mornings to walk to school together.
And Jang Wooyoung had never called. Not once.
His phone jingles again. Jiyong stays stiffly on the bed, letting it ring again, and again, and again - and yea, he should be picking it up and setting it to silent or something, but he can't be bothered to. He closes his eyes instead.
After a few minutes, Jiyong feels the bed jerk, the weight displacing for a moment before short, irritated footsteps pad across the carpet to the phone and cuts off the ringing mid-melody.
"Who is this?"
Jiyong's eyes open. Seunghyun has his phone to his ear. Jiyong can feel how irritated Seunghyun is, the way his hands keep carding through his bed head. A long pause, and Jiyong imagines that Wooyoung is probably stuttering.
"What?" Seunghyun finally snaps. "No... because he doesn't give a shit, that's why. You think you'd learn that after he didn't pick up the first fucking thousand times." There's another, shorter silence, and then Seunghyun hangs up.
Setting the phone on the nightstand, he scowls, hair hanging over one eye and face still stretched over with a film of sleep.
Jiyong shrugs.
Seunghyun rolls his tongue around his cheek for a moment. "How do you feel?" He finally asks, and his tone of voice is flat.
Like he cares, Jiyong thinks scathingly, and his voice mirrors Seunghyun's when he answers. "Fine."
Seunghyun is too proud to bring it up first, but Jiyong can see him bristling when he doesn't thank him for saving his ass yesterday. Last night, riding on his drug-induced shaky vulnerability, Jiyong would have - shit, he might've laid on his back and spread if Seunghyun wanted him to - but now, fuck if he's going to admit to Seunghyun playing hero.
Another silent minute slogs by, and the lawn mower turns off outside. "Got anything you wanna say?" Seunghyun finally says, edging as close to blatantly asking for a thank-you as he'll ever get.
Jiyong looks at the other man's face, jaw clenched and eyes acid, and the uncertain haze from last night carrying into this morning before they woke up, is gone again. He swings his feet over the side of the bed, standing. "I need a shower," he says, and looks at the impeccable carpet, at his feet caked over with a layer of grime staining it.
It takes a minute to figure out how to walk. Seunghyun lets him teeter about ten feet, the master bath with its shower in clear view, before breaking his composure with a loud sigh, rearing dog inside of him poised and ready to snap from wary to snarling in the span of a second. "Goddammit, Jiyong."
"What?" Jiyong fires the question back so quickly it's as if he was waiting for Seunghyun to do something, like he knows Seunghyun never lets him get anywhere without making a scene first. Kind of the story of his life, though, when he thinks about it.
"You tell me what," Seunghyun snaps. Span of a second - or less. "Mainlining, Jiyong? The fuck were you thinking? The fuck is wrong with you?" His voice is loud, his eyes are narrowed, and maybe Jiyong's still a little flying high the way the sounds knock around in his head like a wrecking ball against walls of bone for a few seconds before making sense.
"He didn't have anything else, all right?" Jiyong says flatly. He eyes the shower again, wanting this to be over. How predictable is this that they're fighting, again?
"What, my shit isn't good enough for you anymore? Jiyong!" Seunghyun barks out his name when Jiyong doesn't answer, and it makes Jiyong jump a little.
"I didn't see you there," he says, and takes another step towards the bathroom.
And then Seunghyun is across the room in what seems like utter milliseconds, like fucking Superman, with an iron grip on Jiyong's wrist and nails digging into his skin. "Like hell you didn't see me there, you lying bastard, what, you think I'm fucking blind? I saw you looking at me." Seunghyun's breath is hot on Jiyong's cheeks, his lips a thin line pursed against his teeth.
Jiyong scoffs and turns his head to stare blankly at the wall, blocking everything in front of him. "Must've been somebody else. I wasn't anywhere near you."
"It wasn't somebody else." Seunghyun's tone is so sure that Jiyong doesn't see the point in denying it anymore. "So what? Why didn't you just get it from me, huh? You tired of me or some shit like that? At least I wouldn't have given it to you in a goddamn syringe."
Yea. Except Seunghyun's price probably would've been a quick fuck Jiyong didn't want in that same green-lit bathroom pressed up against the rusted metal and cracked tiles, and between that and mainlining, Jiyong doesn't even know which would've been the better option. At least the needle only left a pinprick bruise.
"Who was that girl?" Jiyong says as he suddenly remembers the woman in the dress next to Seunghyun last night. He winces, hating himself inside - everything that's happened and he still manages to hear jealousy in his own goddamn voice. Sometimes he just can't help himself. "With you on the couch. You fucking her?"
Seunghyun's brows knit. "Don't fucking change the subject, Jiyong!"
"Like, I don't care or anything," Jiyong continues, trying to make up for how he can't even mask the resentment in his voice with more talk. "I just don't want any STD's, is all."
"Answer my question!" Seunghyun is shouting, but Jiyong fights to talk over him.
"And she kind of looked like she was one genital wart away from being put down," he says, cracking a grin that feels strange on his face and avoiding Seunghyun's inquisition. It's not exactly like he can outright just say, well, it's not your coke I'm tired of.
For an instant Seunghyun is all fury and daggers glaring down at him. Jiyong thinks he's going to hit him, and holds his breath - but then Seunghyun is kissing him, rough and violent. Their teeth click together and one of Seunghyun's hands slides up to grab at Jiyong's hair and pull his head back to make up for the height difference. Jiyong's mind is spinning and, shit, he must still be high how he offers just as much in return, tangling his fingers in Seunghyun's floppy hair and automatically opening his mouth for him when Seunghyun's tongue grazes his lip, his own tongue, drinking him in.
And it's ridiculous how predictable this all is, fighting and fucking, fighting and fucking, over and over and around and around until the arguments are just another part of the foreplay that Jiyong never misses and almost abhors until he's in the middle of yet another cycle, and then it becomes so hard to keep his head above water that sometimes it's easier just to throw his hands up and admit that maybe he wants it after all. No wonder he tries to stay away from it like the plague.
Seunghyun's so close Jiyong breathes in and smells him, metal and vanilla and stars. He wishes they could go in a straight line instead of circling the drain with every rinse-and-repeat they do. Maybe it's asking too much of them.
He is pushed until he feels the edge of the bed at the backs of his knees, and he falls, barely having time to bounce once on the mattress before Seunghyun has crawled over him, covering him completely with his bigger frame, hands on the bed on either side of Jiyong's head to hold himself up. He kisses Jiyong chastely on the lips but his hips go another way, pressing the two of them together as he grinds, their hard-ons throbbing against each other. It's irritating and Jiyong arches his back to better feel Seunghyun against himself, curving himself up to feel their naked chests rise and fall with every breath.
Seunghyun moves one hand down and then he is cupping Jiyong, rubbing him through the thin fabric of his boxers, the noise stark and loud and intermixing with Jiyong's gasps. Seunghyun's hand slips inside the waistband, and his palm is cold against Jiyong's erection, Jiyong praying he doesn't just get another goddamn hand job even as that thought is stripped away along with his boxers to lie discarded by the door.
"Spread your legs," Seunghyun whispers, voice cracked and hoarse from the heat. Jiyong's eyes snap open, and all of the sudden he has no idea what the fuck is going on even as he watches Seunghyun impatiently nudging his legs apart himself. Seunghyun doesn't even pause, sliding down on the mattress until his breath is ghosting on the tip of Jiyong's cock. But then he takes Jiyong's length in his mouth, and then Jiyong can't think enough to be confused anymore, his eyes fluttering to a close again as a moan escapes his mouth.
Jiyong has only been sucked off by Seunghyun a couple times in his life before - once, after a lost bet, and a few other times back in the old days when Seunghyun was too drunk to remember his alpha male role and then again it didn't really count since he was so sloppy it wasn't satisfying and he didn't remember it the next morning - so this, he supposes, could be somewhat of a milestone experience. Jiyong honestly can't believe it's happening now, of all times. Why is it happening? If anything, he was expecting to be forced onto his knees.
With Seunghyun, there are never any tricks of the trade or weird-ass moves learned from a how-to book, just straightforward mouthing like when they were inexperienced kids, never having advanced into anything more, but he knows Jiyong's every curve and sensitive spot and it's so fucking good that Jiyong wouldn't want it any other way. Jiyong's fingers thread through Seunghyun's sweaty hair, trying not to yank on it too hard and utterly failing when Seunghyun's tongue traces a vein on the underside of his length.
Maybe it's the fact that Seunghyun is doing this willingly that gets Jiyong off so quickly, or maybe it's just the sight of his mouth closed around Jiyong, forehead dripping sweat, calloused hands roaming around Jiyong's thighs and hips, palming his balls. Jiyong comes into Seunghyun's throat and bites his lip so hard he tastes blood.
He rides on it for as long as he can.
The pain on his lip is what he feels first when he regains his senses again. His mind rolls lazily around and around in his head. Seunghyun wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and slips off him, and then leaves the bed altogether. Jiyong wonders for a minute if this is it and he's left to ponder the mindfuck details of what just happened and why by himself when the bed shifts again and he hears a sniffing sound.
Seunghyun is sitting at the edge of the bed on his side, poring over his nightstand at three little white lines laid on top of a small mirror. He handles the razor expertly just as he does the short straw he holds to his nose before doing another line of cocaine, sitting back afterwards to pinch underneath his nose with thumb and forefinger, eyes closed and sniffing until he breathes straight again.
It's not over. Crack is just a mood helper.
Seunghyun opens his eyes, heavy-lidded and bloodshot, and catches Jiyong staring; cocks his head a little: want some? And Jiyong doesn't, not really, still a little fucked up from last night's experience, but he sees the streaks of white all lonely on that reflective glass and shit, he can't not have it.
He twists himself across the bed, sheets tangling in between his legs, until his upper body is draped over Seunghyun's lap, feeling the other man's still-present erection against his shoulder. Seunghyun scoots the mirror closer to reach, strokes Jiyong's hair back from his damp forehead as he closes one nostril with his fingers and sniffs with the other and fuck he's always so goddamn nice when they do lines together. Jiyong hasn't ever understood it and doesn't ever think he will.
Jiyong rolls backwards on the mattress again after he's done, taking his nose in between his fingers and sniffs once, again, until all that's left in his nose is air.
He isn't even high yet when Seunghyun kisses him again. Tweaking always makes Seunghyun antsy for sex, for physical contact that is ten times better like this, another reason why Jiyong has recently chosen to stay away most of the time because Seunghyun is almost always high and these days, Jiyong is almost always sure he doesn't want it.
Except now. Why has he been avoiding this if it's so goddamned good? He feels the beginnings of the rush when Seunghyun bites at his lower lip. Jiyong's skin starts prickling, pulse racing from the high that is finally kicking in, pupils dilated. It feels like there are armies of ants crawling all across his skin, an itch somewhere he can't locate but isn't unpleasant. Seunghyun brushes his lips against Jiyong's, and there's no going back now, his mouth opens hungrily to let Seunghyun kiss him long and hard and sloppy, tongues entwining and hands touching.
Seunghyun kicks off his own boxers and then reaches for the lubricant in the nightstand. The loss of contact is not okay in this state right now, so Jiyong sits up too, mouthing wetly at Seunghyun's neck and feeling the other man's cock twitch against his lap.
"Shit," Seunghyun curses, and Jiyong flops back down on the bed as Seunghyun finally pulls out the bottle. He watches Seunghyun rubbing the liquid over his fingers, and fuck it's taking too long now and he isn't touching him enough.
"Hurry up," he growls. He folds his legs up to his chest and catches them with his hands to hold them in place. Seunghyun rolls his eyes through a flushed face and smug expression but Jiyong can see how excited he is, both of them rolling on adrenalin and the stimulants in the drug.
Seunghyun's hand pauses at Jiyong's entrance for a second before he finally pushes a finger inside him. Jiyong inhales sharply.
It hurts but he's not satisfied, neither at the second finger that follows, or the third, though his jaw is probably locking with how hard his teeth are clenching together as Seunghyun stretches him out.
"Come on, come on, just fucking do it," Jiyong says, whining a little, and then Seunghyun is pressing palms flat on the bed on either side of him. He kisses Jiyong's collarbone, hair brushing against Jiyong's neck, and Jiyong can't really remember why all the shit that's happened, happened as his skin blisters at the touch.
Seunghyun pushes in, and Jiyong's breath stops.
"Fuck," Seunghyun chokes somewhere between Jiyong's chest and neck.
Jiyong grimaces with the effort not to groan in pain. Seunghyun is bigger than he remembers, and for some reason feels strange - or maybe it's all just the coke talking. In any case the drug twists Jiyong's pain into something fantastic and weird, like he's experiencing it from underneath a sedative but can still feel what he wants to. Seunghyun presses the two of them closer, from their fingers to their chests to the tips of their toes. He caps a hand over Jiyong's forehead, wiping the sweat away and keeping the hair from his eyes, and it's almost gentle.
"Ji," Seunghyun says, sounding unsure though it's really too late to do anything about the situation now, and they're like teenagers, eighteen-year-olds, Jiyong staring at Seunghyun from his bedroom window separated by bricks and plaster and glass, except all of it is metaphorical and mental and harder to break.
For a moment, everything is still, save their breaths fanning each other's faces and Jiyong's mind going a million miles a minute with Seunghyun's doing a complete 180. Seunghyun only acts like this when Jiyong's fucked up so badly he needs to be saved, when it's at crazy hours of the night and Seunghyun's wasted, when they were eighteen and nineteen and only smoking cigarettes. It doesn't happen underneath the sunlight. What the fuck is wrong with you, Jiyong wants to say; change, are things going to change, does this mean things are going to change?
But he knows nothing will. So Jiyong does what he's good at, and backs the fuck away from it.
"Fucking do it," he says, and closes his eyes.
And if Seunghyun is put off by this he doesn't show it - shit, the other man is so fucked up he's probably even more turned on that Jiyong's being such a bastard - and Seunghyun starts to move inside him. He shifts onto his elbows to stay propped up, keeping their heads level, his thrusting motions slow and steady. Every touch, every move he makes is intensified thanks to the coke, and fuck Jiyong can't stay away as far as he needs to right now. He wants more, wants all of Seunghyun, god he's like a fucking drug all on his own, ten times deadlier and better than the stuff they snort, and Jiyong is just the addict who can't get clean.
The bed is shaking, and Jiyong claws furious red lines down Seunghyun's back, fists closing and opening restlessly against his wet skin. Seunghyun buries his head in the crook of Jiyong's neck and bites down, and they're both grunting, flying fucking high on the clouds, and this is why sex on cocaine is forever the best sex they will ever have.
Seunghyun's thrusts become fast, and violent, sweat continuously dripping off his face. Jiyong feels his heart pounding a fucking death march in his throat as he can feel Seunghyun's right along with it and goddamn if they both don't have heart attacks he'll be surprised. He wants more, more, and the way just Seunghyun looks right now above him is fucking the hottest thing he's ever seen before and he can just come from that. Jiyong can't get enough - he arches his back, rolling his hips against the other man, feeling Seunghyun tight inside of him and making Seunghyun moan, one hand blindly straying down to squeeze Jiyong's ass.
Seunghyun turns to find Jiyong's lips again, and they almost don't make it they're panting so hard but they find each other and Jiyong kisses him, lets him taste the blood on his lips, relishing it, and Seunghyun is all he knows and all he wants to know. He rolls his hips again, Seunghyun's hand finds Jiyong's cock to pump him once, twice, feeling it pulse underneath his hand, squeezing lightly, Jiyong's moan elevating into a scream that might actually be Seunghyun's name - and that's all it takes for Seunghyun to come, with Jiyong following shortly after, heels digging into the mattress and head twisting sideways as he feels the heat of Seunghyun's come inside of him, his own spilling across both their stomachs and the sheets.
Then he crashes.
For the next few minutes, his brain can't work properly. His mouth is dry and the ants crawling across his skin begin to bite like Novocain wearing off as the high fades. Jiyong watches the dust drift in between the light, seeing nothing but tumbleweeds flip around and around in a desert of glass and white sand. The edges of his vision are fuzzy. His ears ring. Vertigo for exactly ninety-three seconds - he counts - and then he can cautiously sit up and stumble towards the door.
"I don't want you to see Jay again," Seunghyun says from the bed.
Everything Jiyong has has just been used up and spent, and he's a tumbleweed rocketing around in the desert. The metaphorical wall of brick and steel, and not even this can get through it. Even if it's only to keep up pretenses, even if he has climbed out his window and crossed it again and again to touch him, Seunghyun is still on the other side of an alley.
"Fuck you," Jiyong says, and closes the door.
In the shower, washing away the remains of their semen and blood and sweat, it occurs to Jiyong that he knows he's going to stop buying from Jay. Even if Seunghyun would let him, even if Jay had powder that topped Seunghyun's and was throwing free bags at people, he wouldn't do it. He tells himself that it's because Jay creeps him out and independent of Seunghyun he doesn't like the guy anyway, but he pictures another faceless dealer and the idea doesn't sound appealing to him either.
Old habits die hard.
It's only because Seunghyun sells the best shit this side of the city, Jiyong thinks to himself.
"Just shut up," he scowls. He shoves his face under the showerhead and opens his mouth, drinking in the steaming water that burns all the way down his throat.
Jiyong's hair is still slightly damp when he trudges into the kitchen and realizes that he and Seunghyun haven't been alone for God knows how long. Dong Youngbae is sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal like it's breakfast and the remote in his hand, watching Saturday afternoon cartoons. He nods at Jiyong as he flops into the chair across from his and pulls the box of Coco Puffs towards himself.
"Hey. You okay?"
Jiyong digs his fingers into the box to pull out a fistful of cereal. "Yea."
Youngbae gives him a once-over and frowns. "Your lip's bleeding. I don't remember that."
"Oh." Jiyong's hand comes up to swipe at his lip, surprised at the blood that is still comes away wet on his fingertips. "'S not last night's."
An advertisement for a horror movie Jiyong's wanted to see for a while comes on the small sixteen-inch, and he chooses the wrong moment to twist around to watch it. Too late he realizes Youngbae can see the teeth marks on his neck peeking out from his t-shirt, and jerks back around to see Youngbae's eyebrow arch.
"Is that - "
"I don't want to hear it," Jiyong says at about the same time Youngbae starts to laugh, fist pressed over his mouth to muffle the sound.
"Ah, Jesus. No, it's cool," he says when Jiyong scowls. "It's cool. I thought I heard something earlier from Seunghyun's room. I didn't think Seunghyun would wanna after the shit you pulled on him last night, though, so I figured I must've been tweaking too hard. You want milk?"
Jiyong rolls his eyes. He really can't bring himself to care what Youngbae thinks of the shit between him and Seunghyun; last he heard, though, Youngbae thought the whole thing was kind of funny. "Yea, yea, I get it. I'm a bad fuckin' person, I should be punished, I ruined Seunghyun's life. What the shit ever. I'm not doing it again, all right?" He accepts the milk that Youngbae pushes across the table along with a bowl and a spoon and drops the rest of the cereal from his hands into it. The pieces clatter in the porcelain, the sound making Jiyong's head hurt.
"Good," Youngbae says. "Anyway, nobody said that. Seunghyun was just kinda confused why you'd try and switch him off like that. ‘S been a fuckin' long time that you've been here, roots should run deep... you know?"
Jiyong watches Youngbae finish up his cereal, tilting the bowl up to drink the chocolate dredges at the bottom. After he plunks it back down on the table, empty, another smile abruptly curls at the edge of his lip. "So, how long'd you spend on those skinny little knees?"
Jiyong looks up sourly from pouring milk into his bowl. "Think I was on my knees?"
Youngbae shrugs, but it's obvious he thinks he's right. "I know how Seunghyun works. What," he probes amusedly when Jiyong doesn't answer, "You aren't gonna tell me that you guys did it slow and gentle, are you?"
"Do you ever shut your mouth?" Jiyong says irritably. A part of him wants to crow that Seunghyun gave him head without even having to be asked, but whatever morals he's lost along the way of these two years, he hasn't sunk that low yet, so he bites the inside of his cheek and spoons some cereal into his mouth instead. The metal is cold against his injured lip.
Youngbae ignores him. "I aint judgin'. Somebody's just gotta bottom, right? And I can't really see Seunghyun doing it, so - "
"So you're dumber than I thought," Jiyong cuts in. Youngbae stares at him for a quiet second, and the only noise is the crunching of the cereal in Jiyong's mouth.
Damn.
"Ohh - shit," Youngbae exhales, dark eyes round as saucers and fist against his mouth again.
Jiyong sighs, drops his spoon, and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. Speaking of shutting mouths, he should maybe start practicing what he preaches soon.
Youngbae looks like he's having difficulty accepting the beans Jiyong's just accidentally spilled, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "Seunghyun... blew you? Fuck," he says, and chuckles a little. "Fuck almighty up a goddamn wall."
"Will you just let it go?" Jiyong says, past annoyed at both the man sitting with him and at himself. He should've just gone home after his shower - but then he thinks of something else and his glower becomes even more pronounced. "Why the fuck is it so hard to wrap your mind around, anyway?"
"It's not that," Youngbae says. "I'm - wow. Choi Seunghyun, you motherfucker. I knew you were smart, but this... shit, man. Shit."
"The fuck are you talking about, then?" Jiyong snaps after waiting in edgy silence for a few moments for an explanation that never comes, except for an occasional chuckle on Youngbae's part and a few more of his ‘oh, shit, oh, shit'-s as he stares unseeingly into the television.
"Think, Jiyong," Youngbae says, leaning back in his chair. "You're not gonna see Jay again. Or any other dealer, am I right? Seunghyun blows your fuckin' mind and your dick this morning and now you can't even picture buying a cig from somebody else." He taps his temple with two fingers and pushes his chair back as he stands, taking his bowl to the sink. "See? Smart."
For a minute, Jiyong has no idea what the hell he's talking about, and sits swirling his spoon around and around the bowl, cereal turning into brown mulch - and then it hits him that Youngbae is saying that Seunghyun did what he did to keep Jiyong's ass planted here. Which is probably what happens every day with desperate girls and boys afraid of losing their lovers, but Seunghyun isn't desperate, just manipulative, and Jiyong is the fool. Youngbae is saying that if Jiyong had been playing his good little obedient puppy role this whole time, Seunghyun wouldn't ever have given him head, wouldn't have ever stroked the hair from his face during sex or have even fucked him when Jiyong told him to go fuck himself. Nah.
If that were the case, Seunghyun'd still be treating Jiyong like shit, be hand-fucking him against Jiyong's will pressed up against his living room window for shits and giggles with the satisfaction of knowing Jiyong was going to show up again the next day, or week, or month again. They say it goes you don't know what you have until it's gone, or going.
With every passing second that the knowledge sinks into his mind, the taste of chocolate in his mouth turn more acrid in his mouth. Jiyong doesn't realize he's biting down on his lip again until Youngbae shakes his shoulder.
Jiyong then jerks out of his trance, and looks up. Youngbae has crossed the kitchen and is stooped over him, and he isn't laughing anymore, thank god.
"You need a tissue," Youngbae says when Jiyong's eyes focus on him. He fishes one out of the box by the sink to give him, and Jiyong looks at it dully, not knowing why he's being offered it until Youngbae sighs and presses it to Jiyong's chin himself. And then Jiyong realizes blood from his lip has dripped down his chin and into the congealed bowl of cereal, red droplets amongst the swirling white and brown.
Youngbae is staring at him with a concerned look on his face. "Yo. Seriously. You okay?"
"Fine," Jiyong says automatically. It hurts to make the ‘f' sound with his lips. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Hey, don't be like that, aight? Shit," Youngbae says. He tugs the chair next to Jiyong over to sit by him, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees and one hand still on Jiyong's shoulder. "I thought it didn't matter to you. I mean, it's still good, right? Seunghyun wants you here, doesn't he? Isn't that good?"
No, because it's for the wrong fucking reasons, because he wants Jiyong to keep playing puppet on a string to his puppet master and really it doesn't even fucking matter that Seunghyun's puppet is him, because Jiyong's name and Jiyong's presence is something dispensable and could've been replaced by anybody else stupid enough to stick around this long. The hardest part to swallow is that those puppet strings are reinforced with steel, and Jiyong can't cut or gnaw through or unravel them if he tries.
"And," Youngbae is saying, "It's just a theory. It's not like, I'm one hundred percent on this."
That is pretty much the limit of how much he can take, and Jiyong shoots up out of his chair. It overturns, the sound of the metal and wood on the tile floor loud and echoing.
"Why the fuck did you tell me, then?" Jiyong barks. He storms into the kitchen, pacing back and forth when he realizes he's got nowhere to go.
The idea is in his head now, and he can't get it out, because Youngbae is probably right and Jiyong can't believe he didn't stay away. This is why Seunghyun wanted to kiss him so much last night, and today - usually Seunghyun doesn't bother, once the clothes are off. He looks toward the ceiling, and a hand flies up to his face as if to shade his eyes from the sun - except he's inside, and there is no sun.
"Shit," Youngbae is repeating. "Jiyong. You good? Don't listen to me, aight? I don't know shit. I just like to guess sometimes, I think it's funny. I'm making stuff up, you know?"
Jiyong steadies himself on the counter. In a way, he realizes he kind of already knew about this, or something like this - and it probably wouldn't even be such a big fucking deal right now if Seunghyun hadn't been inside him not two hours ago.
Damn, was it only less than two hours ago, really, that he was in Seunghyun's bed moaning his fucking name? Time runs a strange course this side of town, this side of sobriety. Jiyong draws a hand over his face. He just needs to snort another line of coke, and he'll be fine again.
For now, he attempts to press everything down, not wanting Youngbae to shit any more bricks, and changes the subject. "Why are you here, Youngbae?" Jiyong asks. "Don't you have shit to do?"
Youngbae's eyebrows furrow at the abrupt topic and emotional switch. "We're making a few business errands today, that's all."
"You can just say you're making a coke buy, Youngbae," Jiyong says, angry that everything is spoken in cryptoquips. "I'd think I know what you guys do by now."
"You do, but he doesn't," Youngbae says, and his voice suddenly switches to a resentful mutter, face instantly pinching and eyes going to the floor in a glare. "Oh, fuck."
Jiyong looks up. A boy, heavy-lidded and yawning, has just wandered out of the guest room where Youngbae - well, really, it's more like Youngbae and his guest since he rarely is in there alone - sleeps when he stays over.
He's tall and lanky, but it doesn't disguise his youth, brown hair sticking up at the back and dark rings underneath his eyes. And apparently, he's just heard what Jiyong said, and he blinks for a couple times before regaining his bearings.
"I won't tell," he says to Youngbae, awkwardly standing over him. Jiyong looks at the way the boy smiles at Youngbae, recognizes the shirt he's wearing as Youngbae's, and Jiyong's eyebrows shoot up into his hair.
"Oh, Christ, seriously? What is he, fifteen?"
"Shut the fuck up," Youngbae says at the same time the boy protests, "I'm seventeen!"
Something in the whine of his voice sounds familiar. Jiyong squints at him suspiciously before something clicks in his mind, and he stiffens. It's the boy Youngbae threatened to beat the shit out of last night, the one squealing about needing to pee.
"What the fuck - you!?" Jiyong knows that Youngbae has a reputation for being rather indiscriminant with whom he takes to bed, but this is just ridiculous. Between needing to urinate and pounding him into a pulp, how did they even get to talking?
On second thought, Jiyong decides he'd rather not know.
Youngbae is not meeting Jiyong's gaze and rubbing at the back of his neck, and in the silence the kid decides he likes Jiyong, despite Jiyong looking like an alien frowning at him from across the counter with a bleeding lip. The boy sticks his hand out. "I'm Lee Seungri," he says.
Jiyong stares down at it. "Cool for you."
When Jiyong doesn't even make any indication of shaking his hand, Seungri's face falls, and then Youngbae stands and pushes him towards the door. "And you're leaving," he says. Jiyong sees that Seungri, as much as he is seventeen and Youngbae twenty-one, stands at least half a head taller than the older man.
Youngbae's got the muscles though, so despite Seungri's sleepy protests, he manages to herd the younger man out the front door and close it. He and Jiyong stare at each other for a second, and Jiyong opens his mouth to ask Youngbae if that actually happened, when Seunghyun's bedroom door opens and the man comes out, talking angrily into his business phone.
"...and you better tell Hongjyun he's about to eat my shit if he thinks he can take my space! Fucker took away half my customers last year, I'm not gonna let that shit fly again..." Seunghyun is wearing a nondescript gray hoodie and jeans, and he tilts his chin up at Youngbae, who instantly switches gears and grabs a backpack from the couch before following him out the door.
Seunghyun doesn't even glance at Jiyong.
The car sounds from outside, and then Jiyong is watching the SUV disappear through the window.
Jiyong doesn't even know how many packs of cigarettes he's smoked by now.
He's been on the deck for at least four hours, ass planted on the back wooden porch steps ever since Seunghyun left. After having no luck uncovering any coke - Seunghyun must be running low, which is why he's making another run today with Youngbae - he'd found a stash of Marlboros in the kitchen and took an entire twelve-pack outside with him.
Cigarette butts litter the bottom step and the grass underneath him. He's pretty sure that he can blow away all this shit into the air if he tries hard enough. He just hasn't reached the right amount of cigarettes yet.
Jiyong stares off into the sky as he exhales, licking his cracked lips, bottom one having finally stopped bleeding and now crusted over with brown scab. Too angry to properly clean his chin, he's pretty sure it's also encrusted with dried blood. Right now, he doesn't give two shits.
"Excuse me," somebody says, and Jiyong doesn't turn his head.
"Sorry," they repeat, and Jiyong really needs to remind Seunghyun to put a fence around his backyard, otherwise stupid assholes who've lost their way will never stop knocking on their door asking for directions. He ignores them, figuring they'll take him for a deaf man and go bother somebody else.
They don't. "Ji... Jiyong?"
That makes Jiyong look over his shoulder, and suddenly he's staring at Jang Wooyoung.
to be continued note: sorry for taking so long with this chapter. i get really hysterical when i write smut because i haven't written it that much and it's still a weak area of mine. anyway, you guys' comments make my day!
update: i know i haven't worked on this in a while and i feel like my writing style as well as where i want to take this fic has totally changed, so i'll be reworking this and starting over instead of continuing it from where i am now. it'll still have the same basic idea as this one, except hopefully... better? haha. thanks, guys, for being patient.
gd/top (covert yb/seungri) | nc-17, 7525 words, au
jiyong's an addict to more than just the cocaine.
if i say who i know it just goes to show you need me less than i need you
take it from me, we don't give sympathy - you can't trust me, trust nobody
i said you and me, we don't have honesty the things we don't want to speak
i'll try to get out but i never will; traffic is perfectly still
TRUST ME/THE FRAY
Jiyong wakes with the sun searing into his eyes and somebody's loud-ass lawnmower outside rumbling through the open window. It's stuffy, and despite efforts to fall back asleep, all he can think about is how hot it is. He squints and rolls over, rubbing grit out of his eyes as they adjust to the light. It's late - too late to be sleeping. He knows it is, the way the insistent heat from the outside has crept into the room to settle around them like another blanket, the way people are chattering outside around the stray scents of barbecued meat that reaches his nose and makes his stomach growl.
His gaze falls on Seunghyun sleeping next to him, and Jiyong rolls his eyes at the older boy's face, half-smashed into the pillow and mouth slightly open, hair tangled and limbs sprawled everywhere on the bed. Seunghyun's always been a difficult person to sleep beside, the less obvious, more psychological reasons paired with his constant tossing and turning.
Jiyong stretches himself out, feeling his joints pop. Last night's events are slowly filtering back into his mind, and imbibing feelings of humiliation and dread, fusing with a headache throbbing dully in his temples, are rising in his chest. It's possible Jay found the three of his four syringes discarded and trampled on the floor of the bathroom, and dealers never like to see their shit discarded - bad for business, in case possible customers suspect the coke was abandoned because of sub par quality. Jay didn't exactly look like the type to leave shit like this alone. Jiyong is too tired to think about this right now. He sighs and rolls over.
Sunlight has streamed its way onto Seunghyun's face. Jiyong has discovered that everything looks different when directly underneath the light, and though if anybody were an exception to the rule it'd be him, Seunghyun is not. The long eyelashes, the deep groove between his nose and mouth, the high cheekbones, the dark brows are still there - but the peaceful, if somewhat blank, expression Seunghyun wears seems to erase years of hard-assing and anger, to reveal just a simple, albeit beautiful, twenty-two year old boy.
Jiyong remembers that once, when they had just moved here and he was still living in this room, that he had told Seunghyun he should go into modeling if this whole drug business didn't pan out.
Seunghyun, back then just a pot dealer, had looked at him funny, his expression a bit taken aback, before shifting to flustered while he stumbled around his words and shot the idea down. It was the first time Jiyong had seen him lose his cool, and he remembers thinking that maybe it was because Seunghyun didn't get a lot of genuine compliments on his looks. But having been there when dozens of people told Seunghyun just what a fine piece of work he was, it took Jiyong a while longer before he finally worked out that maybe he was the first person who told Seunghyun that who also stayed in his life for more than one drunken night.
Jiyong has never asked Seunghyun about his family, and Seunghyun alternatively never brings it up. Jiyong almost thinks maybe he doesn't have any, and was just born alone, dropped onto the earth like some futuristic terminator (how appropriate), but it also doesn't seem like Seunghyun has enough money to afford this house on his own, no matter how much he makes bank these days.
Jiyong feels a surge of frustration in his chest. He knows he should be as used to Seunghyun's apparent blank history by now as he is everything else, but he hates that he knows nothing about the man except his last name and phone number, technical details that really don't matter.
God. He should go home before Seunghyun wakes up. That would probably be best; Jiyong doesn't really want to stay around for the awkward conversation they will have in at least an hour that will probably result in one of them, or both, getting angry again. He just wants to go home, shower off last night's grime, and curl up naked in his bed that doesn't smell a thing like Seunghyun.
His phone rings from inside the pocket of his jeans, and, without thinking Jiyong rolls across the bed and fishes it out.
"Yea?"
"Ji... Jiyong?" The person on the other end seems thrown off guard that Jiyong's actually picked up. And, his eyes widening, Jiyong knows exactly why. He wakes up in the span of a second.
Shit. "I can't talk right now," he says immediately.
"No - wait!" Jang Wooyoung's voice has stayed the same since high school, and yet, it sounds foreign and strange to Jiyong's ears. "Please just give me a minute," he says. "Don't hang up."
"I don't have a minute," Jiyong says. His voice must be coming out sharp, because Seunghyun stirs, grinding his teeth. How stupid and careless is he? Shit, shit, shit.
"Jiyong, please," Wooyoung says. His voice sounds like it's coming from a million miles away.
Eyes pressed on Seunghyun in case the boy shows any signs of life, Jiyong contemplates just hanging up - but something in Wooyoung's voice gets to him, and he jerks up into a sitting position instead. "Fine. You have exactly sixty fucking seconds before I cut you off," he hisses.
"I - really?" Wooyoung sounds almost relieved. "Okay. That's... um... crap." He stammers out a laugh. Jiyong can hear the nerves riding on the sound. "I don't actually know what to say. I wasn't really expecting you to pick up."
"You and me both," Jiyong mutters. "Why are you calling?"
"Um," Wooyoung says, and hesitates. "I... I just wanted to you know how you were, I guess."
"Peachy. Is that it?"
"What? I..." Wooyoung laughs, sounding exasperated this time, and Jiyong can imagine him in a classic Wooyoung pose, his fingers threaded through his hair and pacing around in his room. Or, wherever he lives now, because Jiyong has no idea. "God, Jiyong, I just want to talk."
Jiyong scoffs. "Talk? We haven't in two years. What can we talk about?"
"I know, and I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, switching back to pleading with him. "But maybe, I don't know - can't we start over or something?"
"Start over?" The lack of interest in Jiyong's voice is grating even to his own ears, but frankly he doesn't give a fuck if he hurts Wooyoung's feelings. "No."
Wooyoung doesn't answer for a moment, like all the nervous enthusiasm has suddenly left. "That's it? No?"
"No." Jiyong says. "No, we can't start over. That would require there to be anything left for us to pick up first, and there isn't. Or, no," he says, cutting himself off to cover all his bases, "Even if there was, I wouldn't want to." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm too tired for this shit, okay? Go back to med school or whatever you're doing these days."
"Hyung," Wooyoung says, and Jiyong feels a twist in his stomach. Hyung is something Wooyoung never used to call him, not even as a joke. "People make mistakes. Please, hyung. What about - if we met up? Maybe it would be easier. I could come to you."
"You don't know where I live," Jiyong says. "That's sixty seconds." And then he hangs up.
His cell phone display says he's missed two calls. They're both from Wooyoung, one last night when he was probably on the bathroom counter rolling around in his fractured brain, and one earlier this morning while he was still asleep.
He sighs and throws the device onto the floor, laying back and digging the palms of his hands into his eyes until he sees stars.
People from his old life don't give two shits about him. His parents were never home, people at school passed over him like he was invisible, and his teachers seemed like they'd given up on him after kindergarten. And yea, he got flooded with calls and emails and shit when he first ran away, some from people he'd barely exchanged five words with, but he wondered how many of them actually noticed a goddamn difference. When he gets the random call on his birthday, or Christmas, or whatever, from somebody he used to know, he no longer feels that brief flare of fury before pressing ignore. He doesn't feel anything. He's gotten kind of used to the fact that he was irrelevant to them, and that they're just doing it to keep up appearances.
Jang Wooyoung on the other hand, looked at Jiyong instead of through or around him. He asked Jiyong for advice though Jiyong never gave him any, followed him around like a starstruck dongsaeng though Jiyong was never a good example, and showed up in front of his house in the mornings to walk to school together.
And Jang Wooyoung had never called. Not once.
His phone jingles again. Jiyong stays stiffly on the bed, letting it ring again, and again, and again - and yea, he should be picking it up and setting it to silent or something, but he can't be bothered to. He closes his eyes instead.
After a few minutes, Jiyong feels the bed jerk, the weight displacing for a moment before short, irritated footsteps pad across the carpet to the phone and cuts off the ringing mid-melody.
"Who is this?"
Jiyong's eyes open. Seunghyun has his phone to his ear. Jiyong can feel how irritated Seunghyun is, the way his hands keep carding through his bed head. A long pause, and Jiyong imagines that Wooyoung is probably stuttering.
"What?" Seunghyun finally snaps. "No... because he doesn't give a shit, that's why. You think you'd learn that after he didn't pick up the first fucking thousand times." There's another, shorter silence, and then Seunghyun hangs up.
Setting the phone on the nightstand, he scowls, hair hanging over one eye and face still stretched over with a film of sleep.
Jiyong shrugs.
Seunghyun rolls his tongue around his cheek for a moment. "How do you feel?" He finally asks, and his tone of voice is flat.
Like he cares, Jiyong thinks scathingly, and his voice mirrors Seunghyun's when he answers. "Fine."
Seunghyun is too proud to bring it up first, but Jiyong can see him bristling when he doesn't thank him for saving his ass yesterday. Last night, riding on his drug-induced shaky vulnerability, Jiyong would have - shit, he might've laid on his back and spread if Seunghyun wanted him to - but now, fuck if he's going to admit to Seunghyun playing hero.
Another silent minute slogs by, and the lawn mower turns off outside. "Got anything you wanna say?" Seunghyun finally says, edging as close to blatantly asking for a thank-you as he'll ever get.
Jiyong looks at the other man's face, jaw clenched and eyes acid, and the uncertain haze from last night carrying into this morning before they woke up, is gone again. He swings his feet over the side of the bed, standing. "I need a shower," he says, and looks at the impeccable carpet, at his feet caked over with a layer of grime staining it.
It takes a minute to figure out how to walk. Seunghyun lets him teeter about ten feet, the master bath with its shower in clear view, before breaking his composure with a loud sigh, rearing dog inside of him poised and ready to snap from wary to snarling in the span of a second. "Goddammit, Jiyong."
"What?" Jiyong fires the question back so quickly it's as if he was waiting for Seunghyun to do something, like he knows Seunghyun never lets him get anywhere without making a scene first. Kind of the story of his life, though, when he thinks about it.
"You tell me what," Seunghyun snaps. Span of a second - or less. "Mainlining, Jiyong? The fuck were you thinking? The fuck is wrong with you?" His voice is loud, his eyes are narrowed, and maybe Jiyong's still a little flying high the way the sounds knock around in his head like a wrecking ball against walls of bone for a few seconds before making sense.
"He didn't have anything else, all right?" Jiyong says flatly. He eyes the shower again, wanting this to be over. How predictable is this that they're fighting, again?
"What, my shit isn't good enough for you anymore? Jiyong!" Seunghyun barks out his name when Jiyong doesn't answer, and it makes Jiyong jump a little.
"I didn't see you there," he says, and takes another step towards the bathroom.
And then Seunghyun is across the room in what seems like utter milliseconds, like fucking Superman, with an iron grip on Jiyong's wrist and nails digging into his skin. "Like hell you didn't see me there, you lying bastard, what, you think I'm fucking blind? I saw you looking at me." Seunghyun's breath is hot on Jiyong's cheeks, his lips a thin line pursed against his teeth.
Jiyong scoffs and turns his head to stare blankly at the wall, blocking everything in front of him. "Must've been somebody else. I wasn't anywhere near you."
"It wasn't somebody else." Seunghyun's tone is so sure that Jiyong doesn't see the point in denying it anymore. "So what? Why didn't you just get it from me, huh? You tired of me or some shit like that? At least I wouldn't have given it to you in a goddamn syringe."
Yea. Except Seunghyun's price probably would've been a quick fuck Jiyong didn't want in that same green-lit bathroom pressed up against the rusted metal and cracked tiles, and between that and mainlining, Jiyong doesn't even know which would've been the better option. At least the needle only left a pinprick bruise.
"Who was that girl?" Jiyong says as he suddenly remembers the woman in the dress next to Seunghyun last night. He winces, hating himself inside - everything that's happened and he still manages to hear jealousy in his own goddamn voice. Sometimes he just can't help himself. "With you on the couch. You fucking her?"
Seunghyun's brows knit. "Don't fucking change the subject, Jiyong!"
"Like, I don't care or anything," Jiyong continues, trying to make up for how he can't even mask the resentment in his voice with more talk. "I just don't want any STD's, is all."
"Answer my question!" Seunghyun is shouting, but Jiyong fights to talk over him.
"And she kind of looked like she was one genital wart away from being put down," he says, cracking a grin that feels strange on his face and avoiding Seunghyun's inquisition. It's not exactly like he can outright just say, well, it's not your coke I'm tired of.
For an instant Seunghyun is all fury and daggers glaring down at him. Jiyong thinks he's going to hit him, and holds his breath - but then Seunghyun is kissing him, rough and violent. Their teeth click together and one of Seunghyun's hands slides up to grab at Jiyong's hair and pull his head back to make up for the height difference. Jiyong's mind is spinning and, shit, he must still be high how he offers just as much in return, tangling his fingers in Seunghyun's floppy hair and automatically opening his mouth for him when Seunghyun's tongue grazes his lip, his own tongue, drinking him in.
And it's ridiculous how predictable this all is, fighting and fucking, fighting and fucking, over and over and around and around until the arguments are just another part of the foreplay that Jiyong never misses and almost abhors until he's in the middle of yet another cycle, and then it becomes so hard to keep his head above water that sometimes it's easier just to throw his hands up and admit that maybe he wants it after all. No wonder he tries to stay away from it like the plague.
Seunghyun's so close Jiyong breathes in and smells him, metal and vanilla and stars. He wishes they could go in a straight line instead of circling the drain with every rinse-and-repeat they do. Maybe it's asking too much of them.
He is pushed until he feels the edge of the bed at the backs of his knees, and he falls, barely having time to bounce once on the mattress before Seunghyun has crawled over him, covering him completely with his bigger frame, hands on the bed on either side of Jiyong's head to hold himself up. He kisses Jiyong chastely on the lips but his hips go another way, pressing the two of them together as he grinds, their hard-ons throbbing against each other. It's irritating and Jiyong arches his back to better feel Seunghyun against himself, curving himself up to feel their naked chests rise and fall with every breath.
Seunghyun moves one hand down and then he is cupping Jiyong, rubbing him through the thin fabric of his boxers, the noise stark and loud and intermixing with Jiyong's gasps. Seunghyun's hand slips inside the waistband, and his palm is cold against Jiyong's erection, Jiyong praying he doesn't just get another goddamn hand job even as that thought is stripped away along with his boxers to lie discarded by the door.
"Spread your legs," Seunghyun whispers, voice cracked and hoarse from the heat. Jiyong's eyes snap open, and all of the sudden he has no idea what the fuck is going on even as he watches Seunghyun impatiently nudging his legs apart himself. Seunghyun doesn't even pause, sliding down on the mattress until his breath is ghosting on the tip of Jiyong's cock. But then he takes Jiyong's length in his mouth, and then Jiyong can't think enough to be confused anymore, his eyes fluttering to a close again as a moan escapes his mouth.
Jiyong has only been sucked off by Seunghyun a couple times in his life before - once, after a lost bet, and a few other times back in the old days when Seunghyun was too drunk to remember his alpha male role and then again it didn't really count since he was so sloppy it wasn't satisfying and he didn't remember it the next morning - so this, he supposes, could be somewhat of a milestone experience. Jiyong honestly can't believe it's happening now, of all times. Why is it happening? If anything, he was expecting to be forced onto his knees.
With Seunghyun, there are never any tricks of the trade or weird-ass moves learned from a how-to book, just straightforward mouthing like when they were inexperienced kids, never having advanced into anything more, but he knows Jiyong's every curve and sensitive spot and it's so fucking good that Jiyong wouldn't want it any other way. Jiyong's fingers thread through Seunghyun's sweaty hair, trying not to yank on it too hard and utterly failing when Seunghyun's tongue traces a vein on the underside of his length.
Maybe it's the fact that Seunghyun is doing this willingly that gets Jiyong off so quickly, or maybe it's just the sight of his mouth closed around Jiyong, forehead dripping sweat, calloused hands roaming around Jiyong's thighs and hips, palming his balls. Jiyong comes into Seunghyun's throat and bites his lip so hard he tastes blood.
He rides on it for as long as he can.
The pain on his lip is what he feels first when he regains his senses again. His mind rolls lazily around and around in his head. Seunghyun wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and slips off him, and then leaves the bed altogether. Jiyong wonders for a minute if this is it and he's left to ponder the mindfuck details of what just happened and why by himself when the bed shifts again and he hears a sniffing sound.
Seunghyun is sitting at the edge of the bed on his side, poring over his nightstand at three little white lines laid on top of a small mirror. He handles the razor expertly just as he does the short straw he holds to his nose before doing another line of cocaine, sitting back afterwards to pinch underneath his nose with thumb and forefinger, eyes closed and sniffing until he breathes straight again.
It's not over. Crack is just a mood helper.
Seunghyun opens his eyes, heavy-lidded and bloodshot, and catches Jiyong staring; cocks his head a little: want some? And Jiyong doesn't, not really, still a little fucked up from last night's experience, but he sees the streaks of white all lonely on that reflective glass and shit, he can't not have it.
He twists himself across the bed, sheets tangling in between his legs, until his upper body is draped over Seunghyun's lap, feeling the other man's still-present erection against his shoulder. Seunghyun scoots the mirror closer to reach, strokes Jiyong's hair back from his damp forehead as he closes one nostril with his fingers and sniffs with the other and fuck he's always so goddamn nice when they do lines together. Jiyong hasn't ever understood it and doesn't ever think he will.
Jiyong rolls backwards on the mattress again after he's done, taking his nose in between his fingers and sniffs once, again, until all that's left in his nose is air.
He isn't even high yet when Seunghyun kisses him again. Tweaking always makes Seunghyun antsy for sex, for physical contact that is ten times better like this, another reason why Jiyong has recently chosen to stay away most of the time because Seunghyun is almost always high and these days, Jiyong is almost always sure he doesn't want it.
Except now. Why has he been avoiding this if it's so goddamned good? He feels the beginnings of the rush when Seunghyun bites at his lower lip. Jiyong's skin starts prickling, pulse racing from the high that is finally kicking in, pupils dilated. It feels like there are armies of ants crawling all across his skin, an itch somewhere he can't locate but isn't unpleasant. Seunghyun brushes his lips against Jiyong's, and there's no going back now, his mouth opens hungrily to let Seunghyun kiss him long and hard and sloppy, tongues entwining and hands touching.
Seunghyun kicks off his own boxers and then reaches for the lubricant in the nightstand. The loss of contact is not okay in this state right now, so Jiyong sits up too, mouthing wetly at Seunghyun's neck and feeling the other man's cock twitch against his lap.
"Shit," Seunghyun curses, and Jiyong flops back down on the bed as Seunghyun finally pulls out the bottle. He watches Seunghyun rubbing the liquid over his fingers, and fuck it's taking too long now and he isn't touching him enough.
"Hurry up," he growls. He folds his legs up to his chest and catches them with his hands to hold them in place. Seunghyun rolls his eyes through a flushed face and smug expression but Jiyong can see how excited he is, both of them rolling on adrenalin and the stimulants in the drug.
Seunghyun's hand pauses at Jiyong's entrance for a second before he finally pushes a finger inside him. Jiyong inhales sharply.
It hurts but he's not satisfied, neither at the second finger that follows, or the third, though his jaw is probably locking with how hard his teeth are clenching together as Seunghyun stretches him out.
"Come on, come on, just fucking do it," Jiyong says, whining a little, and then Seunghyun is pressing palms flat on the bed on either side of him. He kisses Jiyong's collarbone, hair brushing against Jiyong's neck, and Jiyong can't really remember why all the shit that's happened, happened as his skin blisters at the touch.
Seunghyun pushes in, and Jiyong's breath stops.
"Fuck," Seunghyun chokes somewhere between Jiyong's chest and neck.
Jiyong grimaces with the effort not to groan in pain. Seunghyun is bigger than he remembers, and for some reason feels strange - or maybe it's all just the coke talking. In any case the drug twists Jiyong's pain into something fantastic and weird, like he's experiencing it from underneath a sedative but can still feel what he wants to. Seunghyun presses the two of them closer, from their fingers to their chests to the tips of their toes. He caps a hand over Jiyong's forehead, wiping the sweat away and keeping the hair from his eyes, and it's almost gentle.
"Ji," Seunghyun says, sounding unsure though it's really too late to do anything about the situation now, and they're like teenagers, eighteen-year-olds, Jiyong staring at Seunghyun from his bedroom window separated by bricks and plaster and glass, except all of it is metaphorical and mental and harder to break.
For a moment, everything is still, save their breaths fanning each other's faces and Jiyong's mind going a million miles a minute with Seunghyun's doing a complete 180. Seunghyun only acts like this when Jiyong's fucked up so badly he needs to be saved, when it's at crazy hours of the night and Seunghyun's wasted, when they were eighteen and nineteen and only smoking cigarettes. It doesn't happen underneath the sunlight. What the fuck is wrong with you, Jiyong wants to say; change, are things going to change, does this mean things are going to change?
But he knows nothing will. So Jiyong does what he's good at, and backs the fuck away from it.
"Fucking do it," he says, and closes his eyes.
And if Seunghyun is put off by this he doesn't show it - shit, the other man is so fucked up he's probably even more turned on that Jiyong's being such a bastard - and Seunghyun starts to move inside him. He shifts onto his elbows to stay propped up, keeping their heads level, his thrusting motions slow and steady. Every touch, every move he makes is intensified thanks to the coke, and fuck Jiyong can't stay away as far as he needs to right now. He wants more, wants all of Seunghyun, god he's like a fucking drug all on his own, ten times deadlier and better than the stuff they snort, and Jiyong is just the addict who can't get clean.
The bed is shaking, and Jiyong claws furious red lines down Seunghyun's back, fists closing and opening restlessly against his wet skin. Seunghyun buries his head in the crook of Jiyong's neck and bites down, and they're both grunting, flying fucking high on the clouds, and this is why sex on cocaine is forever the best sex they will ever have.
Seunghyun's thrusts become fast, and violent, sweat continuously dripping off his face. Jiyong feels his heart pounding a fucking death march in his throat as he can feel Seunghyun's right along with it and goddamn if they both don't have heart attacks he'll be surprised. He wants more, more, and the way just Seunghyun looks right now above him is fucking the hottest thing he's ever seen before and he can just come from that. Jiyong can't get enough - he arches his back, rolling his hips against the other man, feeling Seunghyun tight inside of him and making Seunghyun moan, one hand blindly straying down to squeeze Jiyong's ass.
Seunghyun turns to find Jiyong's lips again, and they almost don't make it they're panting so hard but they find each other and Jiyong kisses him, lets him taste the blood on his lips, relishing it, and Seunghyun is all he knows and all he wants to know. He rolls his hips again, Seunghyun's hand finds Jiyong's cock to pump him once, twice, feeling it pulse underneath his hand, squeezing lightly, Jiyong's moan elevating into a scream that might actually be Seunghyun's name - and that's all it takes for Seunghyun to come, with Jiyong following shortly after, heels digging into the mattress and head twisting sideways as he feels the heat of Seunghyun's come inside of him, his own spilling across both their stomachs and the sheets.
Then he crashes.
For the next few minutes, his brain can't work properly. His mouth is dry and the ants crawling across his skin begin to bite like Novocain wearing off as the high fades. Jiyong watches the dust drift in between the light, seeing nothing but tumbleweeds flip around and around in a desert of glass and white sand. The edges of his vision are fuzzy. His ears ring. Vertigo for exactly ninety-three seconds - he counts - and then he can cautiously sit up and stumble towards the door.
"I don't want you to see Jay again," Seunghyun says from the bed.
Everything Jiyong has has just been used up and spent, and he's a tumbleweed rocketing around in the desert. The metaphorical wall of brick and steel, and not even this can get through it. Even if it's only to keep up pretenses, even if he has climbed out his window and crossed it again and again to touch him, Seunghyun is still on the other side of an alley.
"Fuck you," Jiyong says, and closes the door.
In the shower, washing away the remains of their semen and blood and sweat, it occurs to Jiyong that he knows he's going to stop buying from Jay. Even if Seunghyun would let him, even if Jay had powder that topped Seunghyun's and was throwing free bags at people, he wouldn't do it. He tells himself that it's because Jay creeps him out and independent of Seunghyun he doesn't like the guy anyway, but he pictures another faceless dealer and the idea doesn't sound appealing to him either.
Old habits die hard.
It's only because Seunghyun sells the best shit this side of the city, Jiyong thinks to himself.
"Just shut up," he scowls. He shoves his face under the showerhead and opens his mouth, drinking in the steaming water that burns all the way down his throat.
Jiyong's hair is still slightly damp when he trudges into the kitchen and realizes that he and Seunghyun haven't been alone for God knows how long. Dong Youngbae is sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal like it's breakfast and the remote in his hand, watching Saturday afternoon cartoons. He nods at Jiyong as he flops into the chair across from his and pulls the box of Coco Puffs towards himself.
"Hey. You okay?"
Jiyong digs his fingers into the box to pull out a fistful of cereal. "Yea."
Youngbae gives him a once-over and frowns. "Your lip's bleeding. I don't remember that."
"Oh." Jiyong's hand comes up to swipe at his lip, surprised at the blood that is still comes away wet on his fingertips. "'S not last night's."
An advertisement for a horror movie Jiyong's wanted to see for a while comes on the small sixteen-inch, and he chooses the wrong moment to twist around to watch it. Too late he realizes Youngbae can see the teeth marks on his neck peeking out from his t-shirt, and jerks back around to see Youngbae's eyebrow arch.
"Is that - "
"I don't want to hear it," Jiyong says at about the same time Youngbae starts to laugh, fist pressed over his mouth to muffle the sound.
"Ah, Jesus. No, it's cool," he says when Jiyong scowls. "It's cool. I thought I heard something earlier from Seunghyun's room. I didn't think Seunghyun would wanna after the shit you pulled on him last night, though, so I figured I must've been tweaking too hard. You want milk?"
Jiyong rolls his eyes. He really can't bring himself to care what Youngbae thinks of the shit between him and Seunghyun; last he heard, though, Youngbae thought the whole thing was kind of funny. "Yea, yea, I get it. I'm a bad fuckin' person, I should be punished, I ruined Seunghyun's life. What the shit ever. I'm not doing it again, all right?" He accepts the milk that Youngbae pushes across the table along with a bowl and a spoon and drops the rest of the cereal from his hands into it. The pieces clatter in the porcelain, the sound making Jiyong's head hurt.
"Good," Youngbae says. "Anyway, nobody said that. Seunghyun was just kinda confused why you'd try and switch him off like that. ‘S been a fuckin' long time that you've been here, roots should run deep... you know?"
Jiyong watches Youngbae finish up his cereal, tilting the bowl up to drink the chocolate dredges at the bottom. After he plunks it back down on the table, empty, another smile abruptly curls at the edge of his lip. "So, how long'd you spend on those skinny little knees?"
Jiyong looks up sourly from pouring milk into his bowl. "Think I was on my knees?"
Youngbae shrugs, but it's obvious he thinks he's right. "I know how Seunghyun works. What," he probes amusedly when Jiyong doesn't answer, "You aren't gonna tell me that you guys did it slow and gentle, are you?"
"Do you ever shut your mouth?" Jiyong says irritably. A part of him wants to crow that Seunghyun gave him head without even having to be asked, but whatever morals he's lost along the way of these two years, he hasn't sunk that low yet, so he bites the inside of his cheek and spoons some cereal into his mouth instead. The metal is cold against his injured lip.
Youngbae ignores him. "I aint judgin'. Somebody's just gotta bottom, right? And I can't really see Seunghyun doing it, so - "
"So you're dumber than I thought," Jiyong cuts in. Youngbae stares at him for a quiet second, and the only noise is the crunching of the cereal in Jiyong's mouth.
Damn.
"Ohh - shit," Youngbae exhales, dark eyes round as saucers and fist against his mouth again.
Jiyong sighs, drops his spoon, and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. Speaking of shutting mouths, he should maybe start practicing what he preaches soon.
Youngbae looks like he's having difficulty accepting the beans Jiyong's just accidentally spilled, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "Seunghyun... blew you? Fuck," he says, and chuckles a little. "Fuck almighty up a goddamn wall."
"Will you just let it go?" Jiyong says, past annoyed at both the man sitting with him and at himself. He should've just gone home after his shower - but then he thinks of something else and his glower becomes even more pronounced. "Why the fuck is it so hard to wrap your mind around, anyway?"
"It's not that," Youngbae says. "I'm - wow. Choi Seunghyun, you motherfucker. I knew you were smart, but this... shit, man. Shit."
"The fuck are you talking about, then?" Jiyong snaps after waiting in edgy silence for a few moments for an explanation that never comes, except for an occasional chuckle on Youngbae's part and a few more of his ‘oh, shit, oh, shit'-s as he stares unseeingly into the television.
"Think, Jiyong," Youngbae says, leaning back in his chair. "You're not gonna see Jay again. Or any other dealer, am I right? Seunghyun blows your fuckin' mind and your dick this morning and now you can't even picture buying a cig from somebody else." He taps his temple with two fingers and pushes his chair back as he stands, taking his bowl to the sink. "See? Smart."
For a minute, Jiyong has no idea what the hell he's talking about, and sits swirling his spoon around and around the bowl, cereal turning into brown mulch - and then it hits him that Youngbae is saying that Seunghyun did what he did to keep Jiyong's ass planted here. Which is probably what happens every day with desperate girls and boys afraid of losing their lovers, but Seunghyun isn't desperate, just manipulative, and Jiyong is the fool. Youngbae is saying that if Jiyong had been playing his good little obedient puppy role this whole time, Seunghyun wouldn't ever have given him head, wouldn't have ever stroked the hair from his face during sex or have even fucked him when Jiyong told him to go fuck himself. Nah.
If that were the case, Seunghyun'd still be treating Jiyong like shit, be hand-fucking him against Jiyong's will pressed up against his living room window for shits and giggles with the satisfaction of knowing Jiyong was going to show up again the next day, or week, or month again. They say it goes you don't know what you have until it's gone, or going.
With every passing second that the knowledge sinks into his mind, the taste of chocolate in his mouth turn more acrid in his mouth. Jiyong doesn't realize he's biting down on his lip again until Youngbae shakes his shoulder.
Jiyong then jerks out of his trance, and looks up. Youngbae has crossed the kitchen and is stooped over him, and he isn't laughing anymore, thank god.
"You need a tissue," Youngbae says when Jiyong's eyes focus on him. He fishes one out of the box by the sink to give him, and Jiyong looks at it dully, not knowing why he's being offered it until Youngbae sighs and presses it to Jiyong's chin himself. And then Jiyong realizes blood from his lip has dripped down his chin and into the congealed bowl of cereal, red droplets amongst the swirling white and brown.
Youngbae is staring at him with a concerned look on his face. "Yo. Seriously. You okay?"
"Fine," Jiyong says automatically. It hurts to make the ‘f' sound with his lips. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Hey, don't be like that, aight? Shit," Youngbae says. He tugs the chair next to Jiyong over to sit by him, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees and one hand still on Jiyong's shoulder. "I thought it didn't matter to you. I mean, it's still good, right? Seunghyun wants you here, doesn't he? Isn't that good?"
No, because it's for the wrong fucking reasons, because he wants Jiyong to keep playing puppet on a string to his puppet master and really it doesn't even fucking matter that Seunghyun's puppet is him, because Jiyong's name and Jiyong's presence is something dispensable and could've been replaced by anybody else stupid enough to stick around this long. The hardest part to swallow is that those puppet strings are reinforced with steel, and Jiyong can't cut or gnaw through or unravel them if he tries.
"And," Youngbae is saying, "It's just a theory. It's not like, I'm one hundred percent on this."
That is pretty much the limit of how much he can take, and Jiyong shoots up out of his chair. It overturns, the sound of the metal and wood on the tile floor loud and echoing.
"Why the fuck did you tell me, then?" Jiyong barks. He storms into the kitchen, pacing back and forth when he realizes he's got nowhere to go.
The idea is in his head now, and he can't get it out, because Youngbae is probably right and Jiyong can't believe he didn't stay away. This is why Seunghyun wanted to kiss him so much last night, and today - usually Seunghyun doesn't bother, once the clothes are off. He looks toward the ceiling, and a hand flies up to his face as if to shade his eyes from the sun - except he's inside, and there is no sun.
"Shit," Youngbae is repeating. "Jiyong. You good? Don't listen to me, aight? I don't know shit. I just like to guess sometimes, I think it's funny. I'm making stuff up, you know?"
Jiyong steadies himself on the counter. In a way, he realizes he kind of already knew about this, or something like this - and it probably wouldn't even be such a big fucking deal right now if Seunghyun hadn't been inside him not two hours ago.
Damn, was it only less than two hours ago, really, that he was in Seunghyun's bed moaning his fucking name? Time runs a strange course this side of town, this side of sobriety. Jiyong draws a hand over his face. He just needs to snort another line of coke, and he'll be fine again.
For now, he attempts to press everything down, not wanting Youngbae to shit any more bricks, and changes the subject. "Why are you here, Youngbae?" Jiyong asks. "Don't you have shit to do?"
Youngbae's eyebrows furrow at the abrupt topic and emotional switch. "We're making a few business errands today, that's all."
"You can just say you're making a coke buy, Youngbae," Jiyong says, angry that everything is spoken in cryptoquips. "I'd think I know what you guys do by now."
"You do, but he doesn't," Youngbae says, and his voice suddenly switches to a resentful mutter, face instantly pinching and eyes going to the floor in a glare. "Oh, fuck."
Jiyong looks up. A boy, heavy-lidded and yawning, has just wandered out of the guest room where Youngbae - well, really, it's more like Youngbae and his guest since he rarely is in there alone - sleeps when he stays over.
He's tall and lanky, but it doesn't disguise his youth, brown hair sticking up at the back and dark rings underneath his eyes. And apparently, he's just heard what Jiyong said, and he blinks for a couple times before regaining his bearings.
"I won't tell," he says to Youngbae, awkwardly standing over him. Jiyong looks at the way the boy smiles at Youngbae, recognizes the shirt he's wearing as Youngbae's, and Jiyong's eyebrows shoot up into his hair.
"Oh, Christ, seriously? What is he, fifteen?"
"Shut the fuck up," Youngbae says at the same time the boy protests, "I'm seventeen!"
Something in the whine of his voice sounds familiar. Jiyong squints at him suspiciously before something clicks in his mind, and he stiffens. It's the boy Youngbae threatened to beat the shit out of last night, the one squealing about needing to pee.
"What the fuck - you!?" Jiyong knows that Youngbae has a reputation for being rather indiscriminant with whom he takes to bed, but this is just ridiculous. Between needing to urinate and pounding him into a pulp, how did they even get to talking?
On second thought, Jiyong decides he'd rather not know.
Youngbae is not meeting Jiyong's gaze and rubbing at the back of his neck, and in the silence the kid decides he likes Jiyong, despite Jiyong looking like an alien frowning at him from across the counter with a bleeding lip. The boy sticks his hand out. "I'm Lee Seungri," he says.
Jiyong stares down at it. "Cool for you."
When Jiyong doesn't even make any indication of shaking his hand, Seungri's face falls, and then Youngbae stands and pushes him towards the door. "And you're leaving," he says. Jiyong sees that Seungri, as much as he is seventeen and Youngbae twenty-one, stands at least half a head taller than the older man.
Youngbae's got the muscles though, so despite Seungri's sleepy protests, he manages to herd the younger man out the front door and close it. He and Jiyong stare at each other for a second, and Jiyong opens his mouth to ask Youngbae if that actually happened, when Seunghyun's bedroom door opens and the man comes out, talking angrily into his business phone.
"...and you better tell Hongjyun he's about to eat my shit if he thinks he can take my space! Fucker took away half my customers last year, I'm not gonna let that shit fly again..." Seunghyun is wearing a nondescript gray hoodie and jeans, and he tilts his chin up at Youngbae, who instantly switches gears and grabs a backpack from the couch before following him out the door.
Seunghyun doesn't even glance at Jiyong.
The car sounds from outside, and then Jiyong is watching the SUV disappear through the window.
Jiyong doesn't even know how many packs of cigarettes he's smoked by now.
He's been on the deck for at least four hours, ass planted on the back wooden porch steps ever since Seunghyun left. After having no luck uncovering any coke - Seunghyun must be running low, which is why he's making another run today with Youngbae - he'd found a stash of Marlboros in the kitchen and took an entire twelve-pack outside with him.
Cigarette butts litter the bottom step and the grass underneath him. He's pretty sure that he can blow away all this shit into the air if he tries hard enough. He just hasn't reached the right amount of cigarettes yet.
Jiyong stares off into the sky as he exhales, licking his cracked lips, bottom one having finally stopped bleeding and now crusted over with brown scab. Too angry to properly clean his chin, he's pretty sure it's also encrusted with dried blood. Right now, he doesn't give two shits.
"Excuse me," somebody says, and Jiyong doesn't turn his head.
"Sorry," they repeat, and Jiyong really needs to remind Seunghyun to put a fence around his backyard, otherwise stupid assholes who've lost their way will never stop knocking on their door asking for directions. He ignores them, figuring they'll take him for a deaf man and go bother somebody else.
They don't. "Ji... Jiyong?"
That makes Jiyong look over his shoulder, and suddenly he's staring at Jang Wooyoung.
to be continued note: sorry for taking so long with this chapter. i get really hysterical when i write smut because i haven't written it that much and it's still a weak area of mine. anyway, you guys' comments make my day!
update: i know i haven't worked on this in a while and i feel like my writing style as well as where i want to take this fic has totally changed, so i'll be reworking this and starting over instead of continuing it from where i am now. it'll still have the same basic idea as this one, except hopefully... better? haha. thanks, guys, for being patient.