[ exo ] of red snapper and boba tea (2/2)
“You like him,” says Lu Han, simply, shrugging as if the words have absolutely no weight on them at all. Joonmyun splutters over the meal in front of him, shaking his head and going to reply before he’s cut off yet again, “and don’t say you don’t, cause honestly by the way you talk about him I would swear that you might love him.”
Silence. Luhan’s look is almost pitying with all the genuine sympathy he packs into it, and Joonmyun has to forcefully look away with the grueling feeling that stirs in his stomach.
“It’s been years, Joonmyun,” he says, and it’s soft. Encouraging, almost. “You tell me you’ve let go but we both know you haven’t. It’s time.. to leave him behind. He isn’t coming back, and you need to make yourself happy again. I need you to be happy again because I miss you.”
Lu Han is right. Joonmyun knows he’s right, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Doesn’t want to give into the fact that not only is Taekwoon gone, but that he’s left his memory behind and his heart has followed suit to a new person, a replacement.
“This isn’t replacing him,” says the other, as if reading his mind, “and we both know even if it was, he would want you to be able to get on from him, to be happy.”
There’s a few more beats of silence as Joonmyun mulls things over in his head (--his friend only wants the best for him, Taekwoon was his friend too, his friend, his friend, he’s gone, gone gone gone, but his memory lives on and moving on might seem impossible but he knows on the inside it’s what the other would have wanted--) before Lu Han nudges the other’s plate gently with a knuckle. “Eat before your kimbap gets gross.”
There’s no more talk of Jongdae, or Taekwoon. Joonmyun is thankful.
---
The next days at the shelter are easy, much more comfortable than before. Joonmyun coaxes Jongdae out of his room more often and they find he’s actually quite the clown, his feline smiles backed with jokes and snips at the other people around him that are all in good fun but have just the amount of snark to be clever.
He gets along with Baekhyun well enough, now that he’s not trying to claw at or bite him when he comes near, despite the fact that right off the bat they argue slightly over the elder’s eyeliner (--the catboy doesn’t understand why he’s wearing it. “You look like a raccoon, like you haven’t slept in three days!” he exclaims, brow furrowed in distress. “It’s fashion,” scowls Baekhyun, eyes rolling. “Not like you’d ever understand that.”)
He’s still scared of Kyungsoo, slightly wary of the other patrons of the shelter, preferring to stick closer to Joonmyun’s side whenever they venture out. Sometimes he snakes under his arm and the elder’s heart skips a beat before he can swallow it back down his throat, burrows his way in and smiles that dazzling smile up at him that he can’t help but return.
A lot of the time, though, is still spent inside Jongdae’s room. Joonmyun still gives him time to himself, of course, but he finds that the kitten’s head comes popping out his door whenever he doesn’t visit, ears twitching until he finds the elder and invites him in.
They talk, mostly, about everything and anything. Sometimes he’ll tell the younger about Taekwoon --
(“I used to have a roommate.”
“Oh? What was his name?” Jongdae perks up slightly, ears twitching as he glances up at Joonmyun from where he’s stationed in his lap.
“Taekwoon.” He swallows thickly, eyes closing. “Jung Taekwoon.”
…
“What was Taekwoon like, Joonmyun?”
“Quiet, mostly,” he says, fingers carding carefully through Jongdae’s hair and nails scratching gently behind his ears. “He liked to go out but he didn’t like to make very many new friends. He liked fruity kinds of teas and always used to throw pillows at me whenever I would get takeout that was greasy and make me cook him something better to eat. Taekwoon had a soft voice but when he sang he sounded like nothing short of an angel. He.. was one of my best friends.” Joonmyun swallows past a thick throat, head ducking as he pauses for a few moments and only startles when he feels something warm slip into his palm.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, smiling that beautiful smile of his. “You don’t have to relive it.. I don’t want you to hurt.”
Joonmyun’s heart aches so bad at those words he thinks it might crumple there and then.)
-- and sometimes they talk about Jongdae’s old owner.
(“How did you get out?”
It’s hesitant, and the fear in Jongdae’s eyes is enough to have the elder’s mouth opening to try and take back his words as quick as he can before he’s hushed by a raised finger.
“I slipped something into his drink,” he says, voice quivering just the slightest bit as his ears flatten to the top of his head. Joonmyun shifts over on the bed, tucking the small boy beneath his arm in an effort to comfort him. “He would make me cook dinner every night and when it got so bad I thought I was going to die I just.. I just did it. I didn’t think about it. He passed out on top of the table and I ran out onto the streets as soon as I could.”
Joonmyun squeezes his shoulder gently, trying to mentally will the hurt expression on his face away, squish the tremble of his frame from him the best he can.
“It’s okay,” he says instead, softly, smiling over at Jongdae when he looks over and quietly returns the best one he can. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore, okay? I’m here now.”
Again his chest clenches, because no matter how much he can be here at the shelter with him, he knows that eventually Jongdae is going to move on away from him and he’s going to lose someone else he holds close to him yet again.)
They bond and they talk and talk and talk and Joonmyun tries not to think about how much Jongdae is improving at being able to hold his own, being able to socialize and function semi-normally again, because he knows once the catboy is okay and well again he can be put up for adoption.
The papers are on his desk and Jongdae’s name is already on them, Joonmyun the only one who has to sign off on them with his own judgement to let Yifan put the kitten’s name and picture up on the wall and the website for people to see and choose from. He neglects them as long as he can because he wants to pretend for just a little while, indulge himself in pretend-happiness for just a bit longer because he just.. wants to have something for himself.
Just once.
---
When he arrives at work the next day, he’s greeted with complete chaos in the form of Wu Yifan, a whole 187cms of frizzy blond hair and wide wide wide eyes full of panic and frenzy. Joonmyun has a mere moment to prepare himself before he’s being practically bowled over with a shrill call of “Joonmyun!”
“What’s wrong?” He says, after pushing Yifan off his body carefully and putting a bit of distance between the two, brow knit in genuine concern. The taller’s eyes flicker back for a small moment behind him before his fingers circle the elder’s wrist, tugging him off quickly towards the room side of the shelter.
“Jongdae won’t let any of us inside,” he explains on the way, teeth worrying at his lip. “He blocked the door and all he keeps asking for is you, even though every so often he’s whining about how he needs it to stop, needs someone to make it end.” Worry strikes hard in the pit of Joonmyun’s stomach and he swallows thickly, palms dampening as his fingers curl into them.
They reach Jongdae’s door and Yifan knocks hesitantly, calling out, “Joonmyun is here,” before he stuffs something in said man’s pocket and the door is being opened, the shorter man being tugged inside too quickly to reach in and try and figure out what’s been placed in his pocket.
In seconds, the kitten is pressed flush up against his body with a whine echoing in the back of his throat, Joonmyun’s mind taking a moment to catch up and recognize what the warm mass pressing up against his thigh is and--
Oh.
“J-Jongdae,” he stutters, flushing pink all the way up to his hairline and the tips of his ears as he tries to nudge the other away gently, eyes wide, only to have the kitten cling a little tighter to him with a whimper.
“P-Please,” he says, and it’s quiet, pitiful almost. His hips grind unconsciously up against Joonmyun and the latter feels something stir up in his belly no matter how much he tries to swallow the feeling back down. “I need you, Joonmyun, please make it go away. It’s hot, hot hot hot so hot.. make it stop, you said you would make sure I was okay, please, please please please, it’s so warm I can’t it’s too warm I--” he gasps for air, now, eyelashes fluttering prettily against the height of his cheekbones, and Joonmyun just can’t deny him.
“Is it your heat?” He hears himself saying as he nudges Jongdae back towards the bed, the other nodding almost frantically as he starts stripping from his clothes quicker than he can get them off, tripping and catching on fabric as he tries to peel it away. “Then I’ll help. I’ll help you kitten, however you want me.” The words roll off his tongue without thought and he’s sure his pupils are blown as a warm lust settles over his bones in a thin veil.
Soon Jongdae is completely naked and lying back into the bed, entirely shameless as his legs spread with the slightest sticky sound coming from between them. His cock is already halfhard against his belly, the tip pearling precum, and even lower Joonmyun can see that he’s already wet, the substance leaking down his thighs.
He climbs onto the bed and starts to unbutton his shirt, piece by piece and torturously slow, voice a shade lower as he speaks again. “God, look at you,” he says, right as he undoes the last button, unable to help himself after shrugging the shirt off as he reaches down and runs a finger along the quivering mass of Jongdae’s leg curiously before lifting it up and tucking the finger between said boy’s parted lips. “You’re so eager, and I haven’t even touched you yet.”
Jongdae’s tongue is sandpapery as it laps eagerly at the pad of Joonmyun’s finger, his eyes wide and silently pleading. Again, the tug in his belly is too much to refute and the elder leans down, replacing his finger with his mouth.
The slight acceptance that this is something that’s happening, something that he gets to experience -- Joonmyun feels some deepset need to take things slow, to drag out the feeling of having the other close like this, intimate like this. Jongdae clearly doesn’t have the same beliefs, judging by the way he’s nibbling and tugging at Joonmyun’s lips with his teeth not a moment after he leans down.
(Of course, Joonmyun’s always willing to make other people happy before himself. He tosses his own feelings out the window with a painful throb to his heart and simply goes with it, goes with the sex because it’s clear Jongdae wants it, needs it.)
With a particularly harsh tug at his bottom lip he lets both part from each other, the kitten’s overeager kiss growing a bit sloppy as he snakes past and his nails dig gently into the elder’s shoulders. Joonmyun drags his hands down and, careful, circles an index finger round the slick hole between his legs, feeling the muscles flutter at the small touch and shuddering a little at the pathetic mewl that the catboy lets out.
It’s clear he’s desperate, trying to ride down and impale himself on the digit before Joonmyun’s even gotten started. He doesn’t tease and slips the finger in without making Jongdae wait, enjoying the pleased sigh that comes with the intrusion.
Distracted by admiring the way Jongdae’s brow furrows and lips part with his puffy breath, Joonmyun doesn’t even realize he’s got three fingers bottomed out inside the other until he’s begging for more, begging please, hyung, please, please fuck me please please please, eyes wide and boring into the elder’s in a way that dries his mouth out altogether.
Unzipping his pants as quick as he can and stumbling out of them and his boxers clumsily with the affronted, impatient noises Jongdae makes ringing loud in the otherwise silent room, he only remembers to check his pocket at the last second before tossing his jeans aside, tugging out a condom and a small packet of lube. His cheeks turn a dark dark red at the implication that Yifan had known what he was sending him into. (He’ll get him later for it.)
Jongdae reaches out and takes both items from him, ripping open the lube first and giving Joonmyun a look when the elder goes to insist for him to put on the condom first and pointedly tossing the other item away. His stomach does a flip as he watches the foil fall to the ground, lids nearly twitching with how fast he blinks at the significance of the cat’s actions.
Again, his overthinking escapes him as Jongdae’s lubed fingers wrap around his length, spreading the slippery substance down along the heated flesh and coaxing a soft moan from Joonmyun’s slightly swollen lips as he’s stroked quickly to full hardness in the other’s palm. The tunnel of his hand is gone all too soon and there’s a quiet huff of frustration before his eyes are opening from where he hadn’t even noticed that they’d closed, and Jongdae is looking up at him so expectantly, trustingly, his heart almost melts.
(Almost, because he reminds himself that it’s not allowed to.)
Jongdae’s lithe legs wrap around his waist and tug him forward ardently, both Joonmyun’s hands falling down to either side of his head to keep from tumbling on top of the other. He lowers a hand and it takes a mere moment to position the head of his dick against the hybrid’s entrance before he’s being pulled again, his length fitting in up to the hilt in a matter of seconds and drawing a long groan out from both, their voices mixing in the thick air between them.
He’s balls deep inside of Jongdae and his eyes all but roll to the back of his head as his lashes flutter, the intimately emotional feeling of being this close to him swelling in his chest that’s too strong to stifle coupled with the physicality of being wrapped up in something so hot and tight swirling into a coiled arousal at the bottom of his stomach that goes much past just eroticism.
Joonmyun barely has time to gather himself, let alone giving the boy beneath him time to adjust, before Jongdae is already whining at him, walls quivering around Joonmyun’s cock as the kitten digs his nails into the elder’s shoulders promptingly. The look on his face is pure submission, eyes wide and lips parted just the slightest bit, and god help him to try and resist that.
It starts as a shallow pull out and push back in, a work up to a rhythm between the two of them that has the boy on the bottom tipping his head back into the sheets, Joonmyun’s name breathing past his teeth hot and heavy with each time he’s shunted into along with a slur of a moan slash swear every so often.
(There’s something thick in Joonmyun’s throat, an emotion he doesn’t want to pair with anything because it’s familiar and scary because though he recognizes what it is it feels so, so intense, and the thought of what it implies prickles the backs of his eyes with tears.)
He leans down to kiss along the pretty curve of Jongdae’s throat, the skin white hot beneath his lips as his teeth latch onto his Adam’s apple and suckle lightly. He feels a furry warmth wrap around his waist and it’s not hard to guess that it’s the other’s tail, trying to tug at him a little as another needy whine vibrates up his chest and beneath Joonmyun’s mouth.
“Please, hyung, I want--” he cuts himself off with a whimper, toes curling against the elder’s spine as his eyes close shut and his teeth sink into his bottom lip. It isn’t hard to tell what he’s asking for now, and Joonmyun isn’t one to deny, rearing his hips back until he’s nearly pulled out and canting back in to start a pace that’s tenfold more unforgiving.
Jongdae practically chants his name into the air, a heavy mantra of “JoonmyunJoonmyunJoonmyun” only broken by a hiccuped, breathy moan or two every so often. His tail presses against the elder’s back just the slightest bit firmer and his body begins to tremble just slightly, jerking with each thrust back in, and that’s when Joonmyun figures he’s found it.
He all but piledrives into the same spot inside smaller boy, leaning down and sealing their lips together in a kiss full of nothing but teeth lips and tongue, messy through and through. He wants to make Jongdae remember this, remember him, because his heart is so full it feels like it might burst any moment and he’d like for even a moment for the younger to know that.
Joonmyun’s hand snakes down between their sweaty bodies and his thumb spreads the precum spitting from the tip of Jongdae’s cock down the rest of his length, using the substance as a makeshift lubricant to jerk his palm along the younger’s dick easily. His own stomach curls redwhite hot hot hot and he has all the consciousness for a moment to latch his mouth to the axis of Jongdae’s jaw right below his ear, muffling a cry as his hips stutter forward a last time to bury himself deep into the catboy and release his load right up into him, painting his walls white white white with his seed.
Jongdae comes not soon after, all over his own stomach and the elder’s hand, both their breathing unsteady as Joonmyun carefully pulls out and collapses on the bed beside the other, chest heaving. The catboy turns over and presses himself close into the other’s chest, fingers furling against the fronts of his shoulders and cute button nose burying into the junction between his shoulder and neck.
He holds the smaller close, close close close as he can, face pressing into his hair and inhaling quietly as if to commit Jongdae’s scent to memory, to stone, bury it somewhere deep in the confines of his mind to bring back later on and treasure just for his own. Jongdae lies limp in his arms, boneless and compliant to how Joonmyun wants him, the moment picture perfect and peaceful and everything the older could ever ask for.
Of course, not everything lasts forever.
There’s a small heat against Joonmyun’s bare thigh, a press of something he can’t quite distinguish for a few moments until it gets hotter and it twitches, the fidgeting of Jongdae’s body suddenly making much more sense. He’s still burning to the touch, skin ablaze and heat not yet sated.
He’s rolled over up onto his back, Jongdae straddling his hips and peering down at him with a smile nothing short of feline, tail flicking prettily behind him and ears twitching playfully atop his head. “Round two?” He asks, and Joonmyun can’t do anything but grin back.
---
The next day, Joonmyun wakes up in a bed that is definitely not the one he has at home. It takes a few moments of blinking his eyes rapidly to focus in and put the white walls of the room together with the sheets, the floor, the red button on the wall and lastly, the body in his arms to complete the puzzle they make and take a step back to see the full picture.
Memories of the day before come slamming into him fullforce all at once and Joonmyun is left breathless, air taken right from his lungs with only the softest of wheezes. The condom is still left abandoned on the floor and the elder swallows, throat dry as he glances down and finds Jongdae’s face not inches from his own.
He looks peaceful, so peaceful, like this. His heat is gone after the day he and Joonmyun had spent together and he’s pleasantly warm to the touch again, ears and nose twitching cutely in his sleep as a hand paws just gently at the elder’s chest and he sighs in something akin to content.
Joonmyun traces an index finger along the outside curve of the kitten’s face fondly, heart going a mile a minute because this is really happening, isn’t a dream. Underneath his euphoria there’s a twinge of worry, a spark of hurt because he knows that this like everything isn’t going to last long.
He gets twenty minutes of solace in his own private world before Jongdae is awakening, sleepy eyelids drowsily blinking open and brow furrowing in a fashion oh-so-adorable it has his heart clenching just slightly. He squints to adjust to the light and glance around briefly before his eyes raise and fall on Joonmyun, eyes lighting up and lips curving into a smile so genuine and beautiful it’s breathtaking.
“Good morning,” he mumbles, head laying back down onto Joonmyun’s chest as he scoots himself a little closer, tip of his tail tracing up the elder’s spine. The latter murmurs the greeting back, shifting uncomfortably as his chest clenches tight and he struggles to bring in a steady breath.
“I should-- go. Home.” He says abruptly after a few moments, inching just slightly away from Jongdae and trying his best not to see the hurt look that flickers across his features.
“Don’t,” the other says, adams apple visibly bobbing as his extra appendage reaches out and wraps tight around Joonmyun, fingers clutching at both his biceps. “Don’t leave me.
“Please, hyung,” he says, eyes wide with sincerity and maybe something else Joonmyun doesn’t want to think about. (He also realizes at the same moment that he doesn’t remember Jongdae ever calling him hyung -- before last night, before he’d asked for him directly.)
“Why do you want me to stay?” He finally says after a few moments and for once, he lets himself ask, lets himself question giving someone else their happiness by reflex. He’s not expecting Jongdae’s cheeks to flush the pink they do but he admires the hue all the same.
“I, I--” his brow furrows as he stumbles over his words, lips pressing together a moment. “I.. like you. You’re nice to me and you don’t push me and you have never, not once been selfish when I needed you to be selfless.”
His nails dig lightly into Joonmyun’s biceps, eyes clear and straightly trained on his as his ears flatten to his head. “I wouldn’t have just asked anybody to help me with my heat, hyung. I want.. I want you to keep me. I don’t want to live in this stupid white room anymore, I want you to take me to your house. To take me home.”
Joonmyun lays stock still, eyes wide and jaw practically hanging open. His eyes dart back and forth from one corner to the other as if checking for cameras, looking for where Baekhyun is hiding ready to jump out and spray silly string everywhere shouting ‘just kidding!’ at the top of his lungs. This can’t be real, can’t be happening, because Joonmyun isn’t meant to be happy. He’s meant to make others happy.
A nagging at the back of his mind tells him that that’s why this is happening -- he’d made someone happy at their lowest point, when they’d truly needed it, and now they want to give back. Maybe Jongdae doesn’t even know that Joonmyun wants this, but he does, and that’s enough for Joonmyun to lean in and kiss the stupid frightened look right off his mouth.
He cups Jongdae’s jaw gently in both his hands as if if he were to squeeze too hard it would shatter like glass beneath his fingers, lips soft and moving languidly over the other’s with all the emotion he’d wanted to pack into last night but hadn’t the incentive to get over his fear to do so. The kitten responds just the same, tail slowly dragging up the curl of Joonmyun’s spine and hands trailing down along his hips and gripping gently.
They only pull back a bit later to catch their breath, grins mirroring each other as their foreheads press to one another and Joonmyun presses one last peck to Jongdae’s lips, heart doing a jig against his ribcage excitedly.
“Let’s go fill out those adoption papers.”
1. joonmyun fills the shelter's condoms with itching powder, and the next time yifan comes out of yixing's room when he’s gone into his heat he comes out yowling and hopping his way off to the bathroom, joonmyun and jongdae giggling all the way as they watch him in amusement and listen to his screams of agony grow quiet over the running sink.
2. when chanyeol, luhan, jongdae, and joonmyun all get together for the first time, chanyeol gets all up in jongdae's personal space, shoving his nose in his crotch and sniffing enthusiastically. jongdae promptly bops him on the nose with a fist affrontedly and from then on chanyeol doesn't speak directly to him, merely curling at his feet like an obedient pet when he sees him, much more compliant with him than he ever is with luhan (much to the latter's dismay).
3. a few months after jongdae and joonmyun move in together, kyungsoo the rottweiler decides to sit on his caretaker baekhyun's back for three hours straight, baring his teeth and growling 'mine' at whomever tries to come near and help the poor boy. needless to say, kyungsoo doesn't live at the shelter by the end of the day and baekhyun doesn't leave his bedroom for days afterwards by said mix's doing.