Burning Up Inside
Title: Burning Up Inside
Pairings: Sehun/Kai, Sehun/Luhan
Rating: R
Length: 2138
Summary: It hurts because Sehun has always been clinging to the grey part of life and there is no room for love there.
A/N: I nearly had a heart attack while writing this because I was typing it in a text while I was on the train AND THEN THE FIRST 5 PARAGRAPHS GOT DELETED. Note to self, don’t ever write fics in a text while on the train. On another note, I apologize for any typos. I wrote this in a rush and then reread it sleepily at 2 a.m. and okay so is it grey or is it gray? what's the difference?
Burning Up Inside
Jongin picks up Sehun at the train stop, car sitting just a block away, doors shut and windows rolled up to keep in steamy heat. The windows are fogging. He waits there, engine on while he burns precious gas and listens to some indistinguishable pop song on the radio to waste the time. Five minutes early every night, unless the train’s delayed.
He watches, eyes focused on the exit of the station, searching for the familiar slender silhouette as it emerges from the station. The view of his body is disfigured by the wet drizzle plinking on the window the of the car. Drops of water dotting across the fog that skews the outside world and displays Sehun in a distorted light. Jongin honks once, twice, to get the younger man’s attention. Now he’s headed in his direction, no umbrella covering his hair as the pitiful excuse for rain splatters across his skin. It’s cold out, but not cold enough for snow.
With a thud, Sehun closes the door. Water trickles down the side of his cheeks and the bangs that fall in front of his eyes. Jongin greets him with a kiss on the cheek and, for some reason, he doesn’t pull away from the curb. So they sit there and they talk, and they sit there and they talk, and somewhere in between they have a falling out. They sit there again for the moment, music humming low in the background, steam still coating the windows, distorting the world around them. That’s how Sehun leaves him, locking himself out of the warmth of Kim Jongin and his emotions. And that’s the last Jongin sees of Oh Sehun in a long while, fading shadows in a bitter, cold, darkness, distorted by water droplets and street lights.
So while things may be looking down for Jongin, things have never looked better for Sehun. He finds himself at a bar a few nights later, shamelessly flirting with a Chinese man by the name Luhan who has dyed blonde hair and a cute button nose. His Korean is almost flawless, and Sehun finds himself gaping, mouth flung open stupidly wide, when Luhan says he’s actually a Chinese-Korean translator for one of the largest companies in Korea. Apparently he makes a living off of teaching rich, Korean businessmen how to speak Chinese or translating important documents.
Later that night, Luhan fucks him into soft cotton sheets so hard that he almost can’t breathe, and it hurts but if feels so damn good that he keeps begging for more. It’s exhilarating in a way that it never was with Jongin. He knows that tomorrow when he wakes up he’ll be covered in bruises, but he’s never been so happy and excited in his life to look at himself in the mirror the next morning. To exam every little scratch and flush of purple and red that dots across his skin.
Luhan worships him by licking and kissing over every tender spot, something Sehun can’t seem to get enough of. He’s never been so happy to feel so much pain because beneath it all there’s the endless layer of pleasure, the sign that these bruises are the evidence of being thoroughly fucked and sexually satiated. A sign that pleasure is so ridiculously close to pain it’s laughable. Something that shows him that life is full of grey edges and shadows. A mystery that keeps him interested and longing for more.
They remain like that for weeks that turn quickly into months. Luhan and Sehun taking turns pressing each other up against walls, on couches, in bathrooms. At work, on dates, in their apartments. Slicking up their cocks with lubed fingers or saliva from deft tongues and fucking till they turn to jelly, spilling all over bathroom stalls or bedsheets. They don’t care. Each time leaving bruises. Sehun loves the bruises. Luhan loves the thin red scratches from nails down his back or on his thighs. Either way, it’s only good if it hurts. It’s dirty and disgusting, but neither of them can deny that they’re addicted to the pleasure and the pain, something that’s only good when you mix the two together.
But eventually, what friends Sehun has left after his falling out with Jongin start to notice. They look at the bruises and the bite marks with disdain, eyes scanning every exposed inch of skin to see just what Oh Sehun’s been up to. They’ve never met this Luhan, not in all the months they’ve been “together”, but they see the way Sehun’s always itching to get away from them, back to Luhan’s roaming hands and tongue, and it hurts in a way that’s more emotional than physical. It’s a different kind of pain. One that Sehun seems to be oblivious to.
Eventually Sehun just stops responding. No more social gatherings. No more phone calls or texts or email replies. All he knows is Luhan and the way his tongue feels lapping at his cock like it’s the best fucking lollipop he’s ever had and taste of Luhan in his mouth, tongue running across his teeth and the roof of his mouth extracting and swallowing every little moan and whimper. The constant thought, the need, the desire to pull Luhan into his embrace and mingle their limbs together.
But like most things that start out good and subsequently morph into addiction, it starts to go sour. Sehun begins to look at himself in the mirror and, instead of noticing the bruises he once loved, he sees hollowed cheeks and lifeless eyes. He sees the ghost of himself in the glass and smashes it. When Luhan asks what happened to his mirror, he brushes it off as an “accident” and explains nothing. He almost wishes Luhan would press him for more, dig deep under the skin on his throat and choke out the words, but he doesn’t.
A few nights after the mirror incident, Sehun finds himself lying in bed next to a quietly sleeping Luhan, and his mind wanders back into the past. It starts with something small, like how he misses Jongin’s soft snores in his ears, and then it morphs into something more. The gentle press of Jongin’s palm on his back as they stand in the tiny kitchen of his apartment, Sehun demoted to the duty of stirring the sauce after accidentally slicing his finger while chopping garlic. The smell of Jongin’s shampoo, and how he used to steal little bottles of it when he was traveling for work just so he could wrap himself in the comforting smell of his lover. How Jongin used to pinch his cheeks until they were puckered and red and then complain that his poor Sehunnie was gaining too much weight. If Jongin where to pinch his cheeks now, would there be anything left to pinch?
He gets out of bed, legs sore and wobbling as he inches his way to the bathroom in the darkness, shuts the door behind him, and flicks on the light. For a few moments, he can’t stand the light, too harsh against his dilated pupils, so he cringes and sits down on the closed toilet seat with a pathetic thud. When he blinks them open, still slightly sore and aching to be closed again, he looks down at the purple blush of bruises, teeth marks, and reds lines from nails that dig too deep and suddenly it all aches too much.
This is the pain that he’s never felt before. This is the look of the desperate and the depleted. A look of those addicted to the shadows. A look akin to other lonely people that cling to the grey areas in the world because they can accept neither the darkness nor the light. This is a pain that feels so different from that of Jongin, whose intimate gestures and dark heated eyes made him ache for an entirely different reason.
It’s the way he looked at him, like he was hopelessly in love with the person lying beneath him, desperate and needy to be loved back the way Sehun was desperate for Luhan’s bruising touch and harsh thrusts, except with more sincerity. Jongin looked at him in a way that made him feel like he was burning up inside. Muscles, bones, and skin melting into a discernible pool of emotions. Tasting ash on his tongue where there should have been words to proclaim that yes, he feels this too.
It hurts because Sehun has always been clinging to the grey part of life, and there is no room for love there.
He falls asleep in the bathroom, waking only when Luhan finds his naked body sprawled across the cold tiled floor. It takes only a few seconds for Luhan to notice the desperate flicker in Sehun’s eyes to know what’s up. Just as quickly as everything started, everything is now coming to an end. After that morning, they never see each other again.
A week later, Sehun finds himself waiting at the train station. It’s winter again. This time snowflakes sprinkle to the ground like powdered sugar being dusted on top of a cake. The final detail of delicious beauty before you’re allowed to sink your teeth into it. He watches for the car that reluctantly pulls up to the curb a block away and honks twice. The windows are fogged. He can’t see the driver, but he knows it’s Jongin. Same beat up car, same fogged up windows. The only difference is that this time it’s cold enough to snow. Flakes of white pepper across his hair.
He walks towards the car, feet slipping on the icy road as he hurries to re-envelope himself in Jongin’s familiar heat. There’s an eagerness in his step that he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since they first started dating. But it’s back now and it makes his stomach flutter with anticipation.
Once inside, he shuts the door with a thud and sighs contentedly, soaking in the comforting feeling. Basking in the familiar sight of Kim Jongin. And for some reason, Jongin doesn’t pull away from the curb. They sit there for a moment, like they did all those months ago, and then they begin to talk. Words fall out of Sehun’s mouth like vomit. Regrets tumbling out from the bile that’s built up in his system over time.
So they sit there, and they talk, and they sit there, and they talk, and somewhere in between Jongin still wants to kiss him, so he does. Leaning over and pressing chapped pink flesh against smooth lips. Running his tongue across Sehun’s bottom lip, a request to part them and welcome Jongin’s tongue inside. A request that’s immediately granted.
Jongin has that same look in his eyes when they pull apart and Sehun feels like he’s burning up inside again, but this time he doesn’t turn away from it. He stares back, trying to convey the same message with his eyes, still a little too afraid to say the words he knows he should. So Jongin kisses him again, harsher this time. More demanding than any other time that Sehun can recall. A kiss that says I miss you and I still want you. Please come back to me.
They kiss until the gas light comes on and Jongin is forced to pull away from Sehun and the curb and into the nearest gas station.
Sehun’s afraid he’ll lose his courage to speak while Jongin refuels the car. He wants to finish their talk now. Lay everything out under the neon lights, no more grey areas or shadows, and fix things. But the middle of a gas station at night is not where he wants this to happen. So he waits, watching the numbers slowly flicker, increasing until the tank is full. His skin crawls in anticipation as he waits for what’s to come later in the security of Jongin’s apartment, assuming their conversation goes well.
They’ll have popcorn and watch a cheesy movie to smooth things over as they curl up on the couch, absorbing each other’s words. Maybe they’ll forget to watch the screen, eyes flicking between each other and the film flashing in front of them. And maybe later that night, when Jongin presses Sehun into the mattress of his too small bed, smothering him with the gentle kisses and soft touches that he hasn’t realized he’s been missing until now, he won’t run away from all the painfully intimate moments. Instead he’ll embrace them. Soak them up like drops of water on parched earth. Absorb them and sprout new roots to cover the beaten soil with soft green grass. And maybe afterwards, when long tan limbs curl around his body and pull him closer for one last sleepy kiss goodnight, he’ll whisper “I love you.”
Pairings: Sehun/Kai, Sehun/Luhan
Rating: R
Length: 2138
Summary: It hurts because Sehun has always been clinging to the grey part of life and there is no room for love there.
A/N: I nearly had a heart attack while writing this because I was typing it in a text while I was on the train AND THEN THE FIRST 5 PARAGRAPHS GOT DELETED. Note to self, don’t ever write fics in a text while on the train. On another note, I apologize for any typos. I wrote this in a rush and then reread it sleepily at 2 a.m. and okay so is it grey or is it gray? what's the difference?
Burning Up Inside
Jongin picks up Sehun at the train stop, car sitting just a block away, doors shut and windows rolled up to keep in steamy heat. The windows are fogging. He waits there, engine on while he burns precious gas and listens to some indistinguishable pop song on the radio to waste the time. Five minutes early every night, unless the train’s delayed.
He watches, eyes focused on the exit of the station, searching for the familiar slender silhouette as it emerges from the station. The view of his body is disfigured by the wet drizzle plinking on the window the of the car. Drops of water dotting across the fog that skews the outside world and displays Sehun in a distorted light. Jongin honks once, twice, to get the younger man’s attention. Now he’s headed in his direction, no umbrella covering his hair as the pitiful excuse for rain splatters across his skin. It’s cold out, but not cold enough for snow.
With a thud, Sehun closes the door. Water trickles down the side of his cheeks and the bangs that fall in front of his eyes. Jongin greets him with a kiss on the cheek and, for some reason, he doesn’t pull away from the curb. So they sit there and they talk, and they sit there and they talk, and somewhere in between they have a falling out. They sit there again for the moment, music humming low in the background, steam still coating the windows, distorting the world around them. That’s how Sehun leaves him, locking himself out of the warmth of Kim Jongin and his emotions. And that’s the last Jongin sees of Oh Sehun in a long while, fading shadows in a bitter, cold, darkness, distorted by water droplets and street lights.
So while things may be looking down for Jongin, things have never looked better for Sehun. He finds himself at a bar a few nights later, shamelessly flirting with a Chinese man by the name Luhan who has dyed blonde hair and a cute button nose. His Korean is almost flawless, and Sehun finds himself gaping, mouth flung open stupidly wide, when Luhan says he’s actually a Chinese-Korean translator for one of the largest companies in Korea. Apparently he makes a living off of teaching rich, Korean businessmen how to speak Chinese or translating important documents.
Later that night, Luhan fucks him into soft cotton sheets so hard that he almost can’t breathe, and it hurts but if feels so damn good that he keeps begging for more. It’s exhilarating in a way that it never was with Jongin. He knows that tomorrow when he wakes up he’ll be covered in bruises, but he’s never been so happy and excited in his life to look at himself in the mirror the next morning. To exam every little scratch and flush of purple and red that dots across his skin.
Luhan worships him by licking and kissing over every tender spot, something Sehun can’t seem to get enough of. He’s never been so happy to feel so much pain because beneath it all there’s the endless layer of pleasure, the sign that these bruises are the evidence of being thoroughly fucked and sexually satiated. A sign that pleasure is so ridiculously close to pain it’s laughable. Something that shows him that life is full of grey edges and shadows. A mystery that keeps him interested and longing for more.
They remain like that for weeks that turn quickly into months. Luhan and Sehun taking turns pressing each other up against walls, on couches, in bathrooms. At work, on dates, in their apartments. Slicking up their cocks with lubed fingers or saliva from deft tongues and fucking till they turn to jelly, spilling all over bathroom stalls or bedsheets. They don’t care. Each time leaving bruises. Sehun loves the bruises. Luhan loves the thin red scratches from nails down his back or on his thighs. Either way, it’s only good if it hurts. It’s dirty and disgusting, but neither of them can deny that they’re addicted to the pleasure and the pain, something that’s only good when you mix the two together.
But eventually, what friends Sehun has left after his falling out with Jongin start to notice. They look at the bruises and the bite marks with disdain, eyes scanning every exposed inch of skin to see just what Oh Sehun’s been up to. They’ve never met this Luhan, not in all the months they’ve been “together”, but they see the way Sehun’s always itching to get away from them, back to Luhan’s roaming hands and tongue, and it hurts in a way that’s more emotional than physical. It’s a different kind of pain. One that Sehun seems to be oblivious to.
Eventually Sehun just stops responding. No more social gatherings. No more phone calls or texts or email replies. All he knows is Luhan and the way his tongue feels lapping at his cock like it’s the best fucking lollipop he’s ever had and taste of Luhan in his mouth, tongue running across his teeth and the roof of his mouth extracting and swallowing every little moan and whimper. The constant thought, the need, the desire to pull Luhan into his embrace and mingle their limbs together.
But like most things that start out good and subsequently morph into addiction, it starts to go sour. Sehun begins to look at himself in the mirror and, instead of noticing the bruises he once loved, he sees hollowed cheeks and lifeless eyes. He sees the ghost of himself in the glass and smashes it. When Luhan asks what happened to his mirror, he brushes it off as an “accident” and explains nothing. He almost wishes Luhan would press him for more, dig deep under the skin on his throat and choke out the words, but he doesn’t.
A few nights after the mirror incident, Sehun finds himself lying in bed next to a quietly sleeping Luhan, and his mind wanders back into the past. It starts with something small, like how he misses Jongin’s soft snores in his ears, and then it morphs into something more. The gentle press of Jongin’s palm on his back as they stand in the tiny kitchen of his apartment, Sehun demoted to the duty of stirring the sauce after accidentally slicing his finger while chopping garlic. The smell of Jongin’s shampoo, and how he used to steal little bottles of it when he was traveling for work just so he could wrap himself in the comforting smell of his lover. How Jongin used to pinch his cheeks until they were puckered and red and then complain that his poor Sehunnie was gaining too much weight. If Jongin where to pinch his cheeks now, would there be anything left to pinch?
He gets out of bed, legs sore and wobbling as he inches his way to the bathroom in the darkness, shuts the door behind him, and flicks on the light. For a few moments, he can’t stand the light, too harsh against his dilated pupils, so he cringes and sits down on the closed toilet seat with a pathetic thud. When he blinks them open, still slightly sore and aching to be closed again, he looks down at the purple blush of bruises, teeth marks, and reds lines from nails that dig too deep and suddenly it all aches too much.
This is the pain that he’s never felt before. This is the look of the desperate and the depleted. A look of those addicted to the shadows. A look akin to other lonely people that cling to the grey areas in the world because they can accept neither the darkness nor the light. This is a pain that feels so different from that of Jongin, whose intimate gestures and dark heated eyes made him ache for an entirely different reason.
It’s the way he looked at him, like he was hopelessly in love with the person lying beneath him, desperate and needy to be loved back the way Sehun was desperate for Luhan’s bruising touch and harsh thrusts, except with more sincerity. Jongin looked at him in a way that made him feel like he was burning up inside. Muscles, bones, and skin melting into a discernible pool of emotions. Tasting ash on his tongue where there should have been words to proclaim that yes, he feels this too.
It hurts because Sehun has always been clinging to the grey part of life, and there is no room for love there.
He falls asleep in the bathroom, waking only when Luhan finds his naked body sprawled across the cold tiled floor. It takes only a few seconds for Luhan to notice the desperate flicker in Sehun’s eyes to know what’s up. Just as quickly as everything started, everything is now coming to an end. After that morning, they never see each other again.
A week later, Sehun finds himself waiting at the train station. It’s winter again. This time snowflakes sprinkle to the ground like powdered sugar being dusted on top of a cake. The final detail of delicious beauty before you’re allowed to sink your teeth into it. He watches for the car that reluctantly pulls up to the curb a block away and honks twice. The windows are fogged. He can’t see the driver, but he knows it’s Jongin. Same beat up car, same fogged up windows. The only difference is that this time it’s cold enough to snow. Flakes of white pepper across his hair.
He walks towards the car, feet slipping on the icy road as he hurries to re-envelope himself in Jongin’s familiar heat. There’s an eagerness in his step that he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since they first started dating. But it’s back now and it makes his stomach flutter with anticipation.
Once inside, he shuts the door with a thud and sighs contentedly, soaking in the comforting feeling. Basking in the familiar sight of Kim Jongin. And for some reason, Jongin doesn’t pull away from the curb. They sit there for a moment, like they did all those months ago, and then they begin to talk. Words fall out of Sehun’s mouth like vomit. Regrets tumbling out from the bile that’s built up in his system over time.
So they sit there, and they talk, and they sit there, and they talk, and somewhere in between Jongin still wants to kiss him, so he does. Leaning over and pressing chapped pink flesh against smooth lips. Running his tongue across Sehun’s bottom lip, a request to part them and welcome Jongin’s tongue inside. A request that’s immediately granted.
Jongin has that same look in his eyes when they pull apart and Sehun feels like he’s burning up inside again, but this time he doesn’t turn away from it. He stares back, trying to convey the same message with his eyes, still a little too afraid to say the words he knows he should. So Jongin kisses him again, harsher this time. More demanding than any other time that Sehun can recall. A kiss that says I miss you and I still want you. Please come back to me.
They kiss until the gas light comes on and Jongin is forced to pull away from Sehun and the curb and into the nearest gas station.
Sehun’s afraid he’ll lose his courage to speak while Jongin refuels the car. He wants to finish their talk now. Lay everything out under the neon lights, no more grey areas or shadows, and fix things. But the middle of a gas station at night is not where he wants this to happen. So he waits, watching the numbers slowly flicker, increasing until the tank is full. His skin crawls in anticipation as he waits for what’s to come later in the security of Jongin’s apartment, assuming their conversation goes well.
They’ll have popcorn and watch a cheesy movie to smooth things over as they curl up on the couch, absorbing each other’s words. Maybe they’ll forget to watch the screen, eyes flicking between each other and the film flashing in front of them. And maybe later that night, when Jongin presses Sehun into the mattress of his too small bed, smothering him with the gentle kisses and soft touches that he hasn’t realized he’s been missing until now, he won’t run away from all the painfully intimate moments. Instead he’ll embrace them. Soak them up like drops of water on parched earth. Absorb them and sprout new roots to cover the beaten soil with soft green grass. And maybe afterwards, when long tan limbs curl around his body and pull him closer for one last sleepy kiss goodnight, he’ll whisper “I love you.”