reverberations [one]
[MASTERLIST]
- ONE
Jiho looks across the practice room. Sweat drips down the back of his neck, slow and tickling, but the room is already stifled with high summer heat, and it does nothing to cool him.
Kyung throws himself down next to Jiho, back slamming into the wall-length mirrors, and slumps down onto Jiho’s shoulder. His head is damp with sweat and he smells what Jiho thinks hell might smell like, but he’ll have to confirm when he finally gets there. Hopefully Kyung won’t be there, but that might be too much to ask for.
“I’m so tired,” Kyung whines, letting his body go loose until he’s resting all his weight on Jiho. “I think I’m gonna die of tiredness. And this smell.” Jiho wants to groan and shove him off, but he has no energy for that.
Instead, he feebly shrugs the shoulder under Kyung’s ear and mutters, “That smell is you. Get off me, loser.”
In response, Kyung slumps more fully against him, and Jiho is gonna die, he’s so fucking overheated. Irritation pings slowly through his body, tempered only slightly by his exhaustion. It’s been three weeks since he got a full night of sleep. Some of the other trainees exchange stories of not sleeping fully for months on end- he’s really on the baby end of the scale, but it’s still painful. And he really does want Kyung to move, and the longer Kyung lies there, unmoving, the more annoyed he gets.
He’s just summoning up the energy to actually shove Kyung off when footsteps make him look up.
His heart skips a beat before he’s really registering who he’s seeing. Some pretty boy, equally sweaty but all the better looking for it, a thin white shirt clinging to his slightly bowed, broad shoulders. Jiho’s gaze slips down his basketball shorts to his basic tennis shoes, and he is nothing that Jiho would ever aspire to, sartorial or face-wise. But his legs are long and his fingers are slender, slightly knobby wrists leading to nice arms and those shoulders.
A sudden streak of desire shoots to his groin as Jiho’s eyes flick back up to the boy’s lips, the peaked nose and arching eyebrows.
Fuck, but he looks like some of the guys from the Japanese porn Jiseok brought back from his last trip to Tokyo. There’s a flash of memory, pink mouths on bare skin, the soft huff of breath held close, and warmth gathers in between Jiho’s thighs and pulls taut his stomach. It doesn’t even feel like the normal thought of porn, but as if Jiho lived it already, the sensations so close to real-
Overheated and now slightly hard, Jiho swallows and tries to get back to his thoughts.
“Hey, isn’t that the dude who’s going to be part of our group? J-eh- Jaehyo or something?” Kyung mutters into Jiho’s ear, so quietly the guy doesn’t hear.
Flushed and just slightly unsettled, Jiho snorts. I can’t be stuck with him for the rest of my career, I won’t survive it, I already want to fuck him- “He’s not hip-hop enough.”
Kyung splutters a laugh. Jiho joins him, already feeling like it’s tinged with hysteria.
Confusion twists into anger on the guy’s face, darkening his big, brown eyes. He straightens his back, like he’s getting ready for a fight, and those long fingers curl into fists. Jiho wonders if he was one of those boys who came in late to school, getting in fights on the way to and from class. Those guys whose stares Jiho couldn’t back down from, who weren’t afraid to look straight at you as if they knew- Arousal tightens up Jiho’s spine like an electric shock and god, Jiho wants him.
This is a fucking disaster.
“What did you say?” the guy demands. His face is pretty and he’s skinny as hell, but he could probably hold Jiho down easily. Jiho would be willing to test the theory. The thought twists desire deeper into his gut.
Jiho feels the challenge draw him to his feet, and he shoves his hands into his sweatpants pockets to hide his half-hard dick. He saunters over until he’s face-to-face with the dude, and he looks familiar in a vague way- maybe Jiho has seen him around the company. The guy does not look impressed or intimidated, and Jiho is gratified to see that he has at least six centimeters on Jiho, if not more.
A smirk curls Jiho’s face as he figures out how to needle the guy. His lungs feel half-short, like he’s about to fight someone, and energy crawls over his skin.
He feels, despite his exhaustion, alive. The best he’s felt in weeks.
“I said,” Jiho draws out each word, aware he’s an annoying shit but not caring, “that you’re ‘not hip-hop’ enough.”
Stubbornness mars Jaehyo’s pretty face and for a moment Jiho feels a flash of recognition so strong he swears he could know Jaehyo, now.
Somehow, he feels like he could reach out and kiss Jaehyo right there, drag his body close with a fist in his shirt, something of the challenge in Jaehyo’s expression pressing hard into Jiho’s mouth. Jaehyo’s eyes flick over his face, and Jiho swallows, throat clicking.
He wants to say, “Come here,” like Jaehyo is his friend, his love, someone to hold close.
But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t know Jaehyo.
--
He has the first dream that night.
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