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Euijoo has this dream a lot.
He finds himself in the mouth of a whale.
But the whale has human teeth. Big ones, obviously. Because it’s a big whale. And Euijoo is Euijoo-sized. Which is to say tall in proportion to other humans but quite small when compared with a big whale.
So the entire scenario could read nightmare to many, Euijoo thinks. Small person inside mouth of big whale.
But for some reason Euijoo feels pretty chill in there every time it happens.
Oh, and Euijoo’s best friend is there too. Nicholas.
That part is probably not important though.
“Juju,” Nicholas says in the dream, waving him over to where Nicholas is perched atop a molar.
Euijoo walks over because Nicholas is his best friend.
And then they get swallowed.
☽☾
It’s just after 8 PM on a random Wednesday when Alpha Tau Mu gathers in the student affairs office. Yuma gestures to where K is holding a brightly colored, neatly organized poster board displaying their event proposition, which they’ve dubbed “PRECIOUS NIGHT (of DANCE).”
“So,” Student Council President Taemin says, after taking in the contents of the poster for a minute, “you’re asking for permission to not only hold a strip show—”
“ Tasteful strip show,” Harua cuts in. He gives a flourishing wave at the bubble letters cut out of construction paper that read “TASTEFUL!”
“—for charity.” Fuma adds quickly, pointing to the scribbled-in “for charity” at the bottom of the poster.
“But also to… auction off yourselves like gift baskets?” Taemin says, squinting again at the poster.
“A date! For charity,” Taki interjects, tapping over the words on the poster.
Euijoo, slouched over with his hood pulled up over his head, grumbles from his folding chair, “See, I told you guys. This is a dumb idea and no one in their right mind would—”
Taemin stands suddenly, hands slapped to the top of his little desk. “Listen, boys. Here’s the thing…” Euijoo prepares for a celebratory whoop as the president pauses thoughtfully. “Can I get a routine?”
“Wait a second, Mr. President—” Euijoo protests.
“Hush, Euijoo,” K snips, shoving a balled-up flier for a rival fraternity party into Euijoo’s gaping maw.
“We would even allow you to open the show,” Fuma proclaims, extending his hand across Taemin’s makeshift desk. “It would be our honor, Sir.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Taemin replies, gripping Fuma’s hand in camaraderie. After releasing the handshake, Fuma stands staring at his own hand in worshipful silence.
“I cannot believe this,” Euijoo moans around soggy paper, dropping his face into his now-clammy hands.
“I truly cannot believe this.”
“Good thing we don’t care,” Nicholas says, flicking Euijoo on the cheek as the group enters the mall. Nicholas’s finger, like the rest of his hand, is bizarrely thick and strong. Euijoo’s skin tingles.
They veer immediately toward the Halloween costume warehouse that, like a parasite, inhabits an abandoned husk of an old strip mall each year.
“You guys know that this could seem extremely problematic, right?” Euijoo whines. “An auction ? Of humans ? We need to be careful of our optics. People already call us the ‘Twink Frat’ and now you want them to say ‘Problematic Twink Frat’?”
“It’s not an auction of humans. It’s a raffle of dates with humans for charity,” K declares, immediately veering off toward the plaid skirts once inside the store. “And I don’t mind the Twink Frat reputation, honestly, despite considering myself more of a Twunk.”
“And we’re witnessing Yuma’s twinkdeath in real time everyday,” Harua adds, gesturing at Yuma who is flexing in a mirror and taking a selfie.
“Are we all just going to be sexy construction workers and cowboys and shit?” Euijoo whines, following Nicholas to the ‘Sexy Professions’ section. “Personally, I don’t find either profession sexy. Construction workers are always yelling rude things at ladies on the street, and cowboys like...shovel poop all day.”
Yuma snorts. “You said poop.”
Nicholas cuts a steely glare in Yuma’s direction. “Did you get high before coming to the mall?”
Yuma shakes his head exaggeratedly, steadily-buff-ening arms raised in innocence. “I had a dentist appointment, and the gas hasn’t worn off.”
“You’re not getting rid of your lil snaggle are you?” Nicholas whines, sticking his finger right up against Yuma’s lip and then beneath it to feel at the tooth. Euijoo looks down at his own hands. He feels his own teeth in his mouth with the tip of his tongue. Nicholas never sticks his fingers in Euijoo’s mouth.
“Nooooo,” Yuma giggles, lips parting to show his teeth. He points to one of his two front teeth. “Remember when I chipped it on a big rock?”
“Oh, they finally fixed it! From when you, you know, dove off the back deck to try to catch that fat gopher in the yard?” Nicholas teases.
“I actually was intoxicated then, in my defense,” Yuma says, shrugging. “It seemed like the best stealth method at the time.”
“Right, of course. The ideal defense: intoxication,” Nicholas snips, smirking. He wipes his finger off on Euijoo’s sweatshirt.
Just then, K emerges from a changing room in a full-on plaid schoolgirl costume. “Tada~” he sings, gesturing majestically at his own body. “You may all simp now.”
Clumsily, Taki toddles over and flips up the back of K’s skirt, and they all get a full view of K’s completely bare cake. They all fall silent for a moment, just taking it all in.
Euijoo doesn’t think he actively wants to fuck ATM president Yudai Koga aka K, but he also doesn’t think he has ever even allowed himself to think such a thought—the visuals are simply too powerful for his mortal brain to comprehend.
“I think you legally have to purchase this,” Taki intones, nodding seriously despite the furious blush in the tips of his ears. He points at a fake police badge on a rack behind him. “Because of the law.”
“The law,” K repeats, smirking with a comically cartoon-eque glimmer in his eye. He teases the hem of the skirt again, and the group swallows audibly in unison.
“I’ll buy it,” Fuma says, waving his wallet in the air.
“No, me! I’ll buy it!” Taki shouts, jumping in the air to wave his wallet higher in the air than Fuma.
K gestures at his bag, carefully being held by ATM Vice President Jo, who has, up until now, spoken nary a word. “I accept your simping as payment, boys, thanks. I can buy it myself.”
K then turns and squints suspiciously at Euijoo, who has taken the opportunity to grab a costume package while the rest of the frat was busy simping. He now holds the bag tightly to his chest, grinning in a way he hopes comes off mischievous but is likely just off-putting. Close enough.
“Did you… buy something?” K asks, tonguing at his cheek suspiciously.
Euijoo clutches the bag tighter. “Oh, I most certainly did.”
Outside, thunder rumbles.
It’s from the Rainforest Cafe across the way in the mall.
But the ambiance is appropriate regardless.
☽☾
Euijoo is hanging upside down off the edge of his twin-size bed when Nicholas walks in.
“I can smell your gross ‘Sunlit Walk’ or whatever Yankee Candle from downstairs,” Nicholas gripes, shoving his sock-clad toes in Euijoo’s face. “I know you’re trying to cover your vape smell, so hand it over.”
Euijoo snatches at his foot, gripping around his narrow sole, and Nicholas trips forward. Euijoo gets a strip of Nicholas’s pale belly over his face before Nicholas’s full weight drops onto Euijoo, pushing him off the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
In a heap, Euijoo huffs, “I hope partially fulfilling your secret foot fetish for a split second was worth this.”
Nicholas chuckles. Euijoo always has to take a moment to appreciate the sound.
In the way bros do sometimes, you know.
Cute laugh, bro.
Anyhow, Nicholas laughs. And Euijoo appreciates it. Moment over.
“Do you have a song for the show yet?” Nicholas asks, pillowing his head on the soft of Euijoo’s lower stomach, the two of them still on the floor, gazing up at the awkwardly elegant tin ceiling that has no purpose being so beautiful in a fraternity house. The ATM house is an extremely old townhouse, so the stairs creak, and the doors creak, and the floor creaks, but it has character. That’s what K says at least.
“No, and I refuse.”
“If that means you’ll just go up there and dance to complete silence, I’m not totally against that idea. Very artsy,” Nicholas says, digging his nose into Euijoo’s stomach.
“No, I won’t do any of it. I’d rather clean the house for a year than be forced to dance like a horny bird in front of my classmates,” Euijoo replies, grabbing Nicholas by the hair to keep him still because the feeling of Nicholas’s nose sinking into his navel is A Lot.
“You don’t have to be horny about it. But that will likely get you the best bid,” Nicholas says. He reaches over Euijoo’s body to snatch his fallen vape off the floor. He rests his elbows on Euijoo’s chest and takes a deep drag.
He blows the smoke out into Euijoo’s face. Euijoo inhales.
Nicholas is right. This candle stinks to high hell. Like a department store’s perfume section after all the salespeople have spritzed every passerby in desperation. Like his grandma’s house. Euijoo misses his grandma. He should call her. Concentrate, Byun.
“Do you have a song?” Euijoo counters.
Nicholas drops the vape after taking another hit. “I’m between a couple. Do you think I’m more of a 90s teen heartthrob á la Shawn Hunter or Monsterfucker Eddie Brock?”
“I’m too high for you to be saying shit about fucking monsters,” Euijoo complains. “Take your perversions over to Yuma and Maki.”
Nicholas takes one long leg and toes the door shut.
Then he swings his body over Euijoo’s waist and leans in.
Right. So this is something Euijoo forgot to mention before when he introduced Nicholas.
Sometimes he and Nicholas make out.
Like, as friends. They don’t talk about it, obviously. It just happens sometimes.
Anyway, continuing on…
Euijoo’s hands reach for Nicholas’s waist, and Nicholas practically purrs into his mouth. Euijoo feels triumphant. He needs to stop smoking.
☽☾
Later that week on Saturday morning, the frat is gathered around the two IKEA tables joined together with painter’s tape (so they don’t rip off the fake wood veneer) for The Show-Ur-Concerns-Cabal at the ATM house.
“Jo, I believe you are moderating The SUCC tonight,” K recites, scribbling on a Lisa Frank clipboard with an unsharpened pencil. Euijoo is almost certain there is nothing clipped to it.
Jo nods resolutely. Moderating The SUCC is no small feat. Yuma once had to physically haul Harua off where he’d latched onto Nicholas’s back when Nicholas refused to allow Harua the right to “ reclaim the word ‘thot.’ ”
“ Word isn’t for you to reclaim, bruh. Check your privilege, ” Nicholas had shouted while Harua tugged on the sprout ponytail he’d created on Nicholas’s head earlier that evening. After watching a Youtube video essay about the history of the word ‘thot,’ Harua acquiesced.
“So, who wants to start us off tonight?” Jo offers gently. He’s sitting to the left of K, just beneath the shitty ceiling fan slash light fixture that the school won’t allow K to swap with something nicer. The dull yellowish light that’s created by this fixture can only be described as ominous as it falls over the planes of Jo’s face. Jo is of course the gentlest of creatures, but beneath this light, he looks menacing.
Maki’s hand shoots up. He’s the newest recruit to the Alpha Tau Mu fraternity. Euijoo is surprised he already has something to SUCC.
“Please,” Jo gestures at him. “SUCC away.”
Maki nods, “Right.” He takes in a deep breath and then pauses for a moment. Then he says, “Someone in the house… is using Apricot Scrub.”
A collective gasp. Jo chastises himself for gasping too. He’s supposed to be the moderator. He sits up straighter in his seat and bangs his squeaky-toy hammer onto the table.
“You mean the scrub with the little walnut shell shards in it?” Yuma follows up, hand flying to his face in horror.
Maki nods and reaches down into the tote bag in his lap. He plucks out a bottle of St. Ives Apricot Scrub with just his thumb and forefinger like he can’t bear to touch it. Jo successfully keeps himself from gasping, but it takes visible effort.
K is especially incensed. He’s the one who made the entire frat watch his “Skin Care, More Like Skin Scare ” PowerPoint presentation about bad skincare habits.
“Who,” K grits out, staring down the row of faces. His powerfully long frame vibrates with rage. Euijoo is not the perpetrator here, but even he feels a flash of fear at the sight.
There’s a long pause, the only sound coming from the Totino’s Pizza Rolls currently zapping in the microwave.
And then Taki’s hand tentatively goes up. Another gasp from everyone except a red-faced Jo, who seems to be holding his breath.
“I can explain,” Taki pleads, as everyone glares at him. “First of all, I thought this was a safe space, President,” he hisses at K. “Second of all, the scrub isn’t from anyone in the house.”
A pause.
“Did you fuck someone who uses St. Ive’s Apricot Scrub in this house, Taki?” K questions.
“I didn’t even know it was in her bag! I swear! She just brings a travel kit every time she has a booty call, and she left it in the bathroom. I was going to return it to her, but by then it had vanished,” Taki accuses, squinting rudely at Maki. “Her boyfriend, who was also there at the time of the act, has been trying to get her to swap products, but habits are hard to break.”
K stands, strides over to Maki, snatches the scrub with the same disgusted thumb-and-forefinger pinch, and then tosses it over his shoulder and in a perfect arc into the trash can. “Problem solved. Taki, please tell your hookups the house rules next time.”
“Yeah, or just stick to fucking people in the house since we already know the rules. Much more convenient,” Harua says, chin in his hand as he bats his lashes.
“I already do, though, with like all of you…” Taki replies, and the others hum in recognition.
“Wait,” Euijoo interjects, holding a tan hand up as his eyes flutter shut in bewildered annoyance. “You guys are all fucking ?”
“Not everyone,” K says, grimacing. “Just… most.”
Euijoo looks around, and there’s an aggravated twitch in his forehead, between his eyes. “By that you mean except me… So, why didn’t anyone ask me?”
Harua swivels around so fast he falls out of his chair, scrambling back up to shout, “YOU?”
Euijoo folds his arms over his chest. “I fuck.”
“Language!” K replies, slamming his clipboard to the table. Jo gently slides the board away from K before he hurts himself (it’s happened before).
“I’m one of the oldest here! I fuck! Why don’t you think that I fuck?” Euijoo exclaims.
“You don’t even take your shirt off at the swimming pool, Euijoo,” Yuma reasons. “I’ve literally never seen your dick, and we roomed together last year.”
“And that entitles you to see my dick how?” Euijoo counters. “Maybe I’m just picky.”
“Picky about who even just sees your dick?” Harua questions, eyeing Euijoo’s crotch.
“Yes,” He sighs, throwing his hands up at the ceiling. “Okay, so if I show everyone my dick right now will you believe that I fuck?” Euijoo protests.
“No,” K replies, just as Harua, Taki, Maki, and Yuma all say, “Yes” in unison.
Euijoo huffs and steps up onto his chair, unclipping his belt swiftly and dropping trou before Jo can say anything as moderator. There’s technically a ‘no excessive nudity’ rule for the SUCC.
The room collectively gasps again (perhaps a new record for a single SUCC session).
“Wait a minute,” Yuma says, just as Jo slowly maneuvers around Euijoo to look.
“President,” Jo says slowly, adjusting the lens-less glasses perched on his handsome nose. “We need to amend the spreadsheet.”
K squints, leaning in. “Are you saying…?”
“Taki has lost his place as ATM’s Size Queen Dream,” Jo whispers.
Euijoo is about to snatch his pants back up when Taki grabs at the hem. “Wait. Wait! I don’t believe this,” he says, tearing his jeans down to his knees to frantically glance between the two dicks in question.
“What, is it big or something?” Euijoo asks, genuinely confused. He looks between Taki’s cock and his own. “I guess it’s bigger than Taki’s, but that doesn’t mean—”
“What the fuck is going on?” Nicholas asks, frozen by the front door. He can’t seem to tear his gaze away from where Euijoo is standing on the chair, cock-naked.
“A lot of revelations from this SUCC session, Nico. You really need to reschedule your guitar lessons,” Harua says. “Taki fucked a girl (and also maybe her boyfriend?) who uses apricot scrub, and apparently Euijoo has been hiding an absolute unit of a dick this whole time. Oh he also found out we’re all fucking.”
“Right,” Nicholas replies weakly. “Well.”
“Oh, actually, Euijoo, don’t worry. Nico doesn’t fuck us anymore,” Yuma says. “He doesn’t like to share attention in bed.”
Right.
Euijoo does not allow himself to process any of that.
Euijoo instead just clears his throat. “Cool. Good to… know,” he says, despite apparently not knowing fuck all. “Anyhow, I’m just going to…”
He gingerly lifts his pants back up. All the boys’ phones light up on the tabletop at once.
It’s an email from Jo. The ATM Stats Spreadsheet has been updated.
ATM Size Queen Dream: Taki Euijoo
☽☾
It’s Friday, so Euijoo is working the bar at the weekly ATM party. He doesn’t really drink. Not for a sexy reason like lowered inhibitions or making bad decisions but because it gives him nasty acid reflux.
Harua, Maki, and Nicholas are lingering near the old boarded-up fireplace in the fraternity basement. Fuma is working the DJ station in the far corner, blasting an absolutely fire medley of Rihanna hits.
“We miss you, Nico,” Euijoo overhears Taki whimpering. “You’re the only one who can boss Yuma around when he gets into Big Seme! Mode. Remember when you made him cry?”
“It was great,” Harua agrees, rubbing his blonde head into Nicholas’s chest.
“Yeah, it was,” Nicholas agrees, breathlessly. He pats Harua on the head and adds, “But I dunno, guys. I’m just trying not to rely on sex to avoid feeling my feelings.”
Euijoo shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but his ears can’t help straining to hear every word.
“Well, I’m proud of you,” Harua says, lifting his head to cup Nicholas’s cheek with his little hand. He presses his thumb into Nicholas’s cheek, molding the soft skin around his finger. It looks like fresh dough. “And we’re always here for you, emotionally and sexually.”
Nicholas snorts a laugh. He cuts a quick glance over at Euijoo, and when he finds Euijoo looking back at him, he smiles. Euijoo spills the beer of the girl standing at the bar waiting for her drink.
“Seriously?” she hisses, wiping beer off the front of her dress.
Euijoo very gingerly pours her another cup with a blurted apology. As he starts to wipe down the counter, he feels Nicholas’s presence radiating heat as he approaches.
“You okay?”
Euijoo sighs and tries to fight the urge to look up from where he’s pouring water into the keg to cut the beer. K’s idea, of course. Gotta save money for the more important things like their Weekly Spaghetti Night and the Annual Camping Glamping Trip.
“Fine, fine,” Euijoo replies, attempting nonchalance by leaning with his free arm on the bartop and instead soaking his entire forearm in the spilled beer that he did a terrible job mopping up. Nicholas huffs a laugh.
“C’mere,” he says, his voice low and teasing. He grabs Euijoo’s hand from across the bar and helps him slowly roll the wet sleeve of his flannel shirt up. “Always making a mess of yourself, Juju.”
“Only around you, it seems,” Euijoo huffs under his breath.
“Hm?” Nicholas looks up from where he’s neatly tucked the wet hem of Euijoo’s sleeve up to keep it in place, and his eyes are sharp and surprisingly bright in the dim basement light.
“Nothing…”
“So about the thing that happened at the SUCC,” Nicholas says, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth and releasing it now slick and shiny.
“You mean like… when I took my dick and balls out…?” Euijoo offers.
“Riiiiiiight,” Nicholas says, tapping the top of the bar with his pointer fingernail. “When you did that. How come, um… you did that though?”
Euijoo pours a watery beer for another girl who has approached the bar. It’s 90% foam, which she grumbles about, but Nicholas just waves her off.
“Everyone was going off about how they’re always hooking up with each other, and it pissed me off that everyone thinks I’m some like… Never Nude… Prude Dude,” Euijoo admits sorrowfully.
“Uh huh… and the dick and balls came out… why?” Nicholas probes.
Euijoo shrugs. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Right,” Nicholas says again, his tone flat.
“You seem upset,” Euijoo observes, watching the fluorescent strobe lights dance over the sharp planes of Nicholas’s face.
“Just seems like that should’ve been a Best Friend thing,” Nicholas says, his voice pitching slightly higher and whinier in that subconscious way it sometimes does when he’s frustrated.
“What? What should’ve? My… my dick?”
“I just don’t think it’s right that the others saw it first, is all,” Nicholas replies, bitterly crossing his arms over his chest.
Euijoo squints, deep in thought. Did Nicholas have a point? Is it a Best Friends Privilege to see one another’s dick and balls first?
“I’ve never seen yours, though,” Euijoo points out, eyes on the cup in his hands as he fills it with shitty beer water. “And I’m your Best Friend, right?” When he looks up, Nicholas is staring at him like he’s scrutinizing.
Maki walks by at that moment, and Nicholas reaches out a quick hand to fist in his shirt. “You’re on bar,” Nicholas hisses, voice tight.
“I’m underage,” Maki says.
“Five minutes. Ten minutes, tops,” Nicholas says.
Maki glances between Nicholas and Euijoo and then raises his hands in submission. “Fine, but if the President gets mad about this later, it’s on you.”
“I will take the punishment,” Nicholas replies breathlessly before dragging Euijoo out from behind the bar. Euijoo wordlessly trails after him up the basement steps and then again up the second flight of steps to their bedrooms. Nicholas kicks open his and Maki’s shared room, and the ambiance is so drastically different from Euijoo’s very plain room that he almost laughs.
Nicholas’s side of the room is dark and moody but also dotted with bright spots of color and warmth. A giant Kuromi doll sits perched on his floating shelf over his desk. Euijoo won that for him their freshman year at the school’s fundraiser carnival.
When the door shuts behind them, Nicholas has Euijoo up against the door, one hand in Euijoo’s hair and the other reaching under Euijoo’s thigh to hike it up to grind their bodies closer.
“Nichol,” Euijoo breathes out between their lips, hands scrambling to grab at Nicholas’s shoulders. “You drunk?”
There’s usually some kind of intoxication when they do this, you see.
After a couple hits of Euijoo’s vape, you know.
“No,” Nicholas murmurs into his mouth. “Wait. Yes. Whatever. Fuck.” He maneuvers them over to his little twin bed and pushes Euijoo down on his back on the mattress. “Let’s see it then.”
Euijoo cups his hands over his crotch, where he’s already getting hard. Probably from the manhandling…
Out of fear… obviously. Fight or Flight Dick Hardening.
“That’s what this is about?”
“It just doesn’t sit right with me,” Nicholas says, sitting back on his haunches where he’s perched over Euijoo’s thighs on the bed. “It isn’t fair.”
“Because you’re my Best Friend,” Euijoo ventures.
“Exactly.” Nicholas leans forward over him, hands on either side of Euijoo’s head. His dark eyes lock onto Euijoo’s, deadly serious.
☽☾
It’s the expression that terrified Euijoo the first time he met Nicholas. With a black mask tugged up over his mouth and a matching black baseball cap over his head, Nicholas’s whole face was narrowed down to those two sharp brown eyes. It was frat rush week during the spring of his freshman year, and the two of them were walking on the same sidewalk to the ATM house, their pace awkwardly identical. Euijoo tried walking a tad bit slower, but his legs were too long, so it looked even weirder, like he was tailing Nicholas clumsily.
“You can just walk next to me,” Nicholas had said, his voice low and rough as he craned his neck to peer back at Euijoo. “You’re going to the ATM house, right?”
God his gaze was so intense back then. Euijoo is mostly used to it now. After all, Nicholas is as soft as they come, really. He’s just a little coconut. Rough and tough exterior but sweet soft exterior.
Inside the ATM house that first day they met, Nicholas had finally lowered his face mask, and his lips pulled up in a shy smile as he said, “Nicholas Wang. We might be brothers soon, so we should actually talk to each other, I think.”
Euijoo had laughed behind his hands. “Then why did you make us walk that whole quarter of a mile in complete silence?”
Nicholas had looked down at his black boots, shy smile spreading into a smirk. “You looked so funny trying to decide whether to break the ice. I liked it.”
☽☾
Now, beneath Nicholas and with that harsh gaze on him, Euijoo squirms. “You didn’t tell me you used to hook up with the others,” Euijoo replies, which makes him realize he’s more upset about that than he thought. Not upset that Nicholas used to hook up with them. Just that he never told him.
“It was only a couple of times,” Nicholas says. Euijoo glances away up at the static ceiling fan. Okay, maybe he’s actually… definitely… more upset than he thought. Nicholas grabs Euijoo by the cheeks with one hand and steers Euijoo’s gaze back to meet his. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”
Euijoo puffs out his cheeks beneath Nicholas’s grip. Nicholas grins, watching his cheeks inflate beneath the pads of his fingertips. He heaves a resigned sigh before saying, “It’s cool. We’re cool.” Under his back, Euijoo can feel the slight vibrations from the music down in the basement.
“I still think I should get my own little peek, though,” Nicholas teases, trailing his finger down Euijoo’s chest to the top of his jeans. Euijoo swats his hand away, stomach muscles clenching as he sits up to grab Nicholas by the wrist.
“Only if you show me yours too,” Euijoo teases back, looking up at Nicholas’s unreadable expression.
Nicholas is silent a moment, his gaze piercing as it pans over Euijoo’s face. After that moment of silence, Nicholas wordlessly tips forward and collapses his whole body over Euijoo. He presses his face into Euijoo’s neck and sighs. “Just forget it. I’m too tired anyhow. And we need to rescue Maki from the bar before K has a conniption.”
Euijoo is perplexed about the tone of Nicholas’s voice but is relieved he doesn’t need to whip his dick and balls out again. He’s a bit too sweaty. He revels in the sensation of Nicholas’s soft puffs of air against his bare skin for a couple seconds before replying with a little, “Mm. Okay.”
☽☾
Nicholas is grumbling under his breath when he walks out of the kitchen early the next morning.
“Cleaning duty for a couple weeks, I assume?” Euijoo asks as Nicholas passes him.
Nicholas doesn’t respond, striding resolutely to the front door and wrenching it open.
Euijoo’s brows knit together, but he chalks it up to Nicholas’s adversarial relationship with the concept of the Morning.
In the kitchen, K is cradling a mug of coffee. He gestures for Euijoo to take a seat across from him where there’s another steaming hot cup waiting.
“Seems rather formal,” Euijoo says, taking his seat. “Obviously we shouldn’t have put Maki on bar duty. I’m sorry about that.”
K breathes out a weary exhale and stretches his long arms over his head, his muscles shifting beneath his thin t-shirt. In the morning light streaming through their kitchen window, K is otherworldly.
“Euijoo, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” Euijoo replies.
K folds his hands together and perches them under his chin as he observes Euijoo. “Are you and Nicholas sleeping together?”
Euijoo chokes on his next breath as it’s coming up from his lungs. “Wh—what?”
“Sorry,” K explains, shaggy hair falling over his eyes. “I know you fall asleep together sometimes. That’s not what I mean. I mean are you… sexually active? Together?”
“Please…” Euijoo protests weakly, still struggling with air. “The phrasing…”
“Are you two… congregating sexually?” K asks again, making a crude gesture with his hands over and over until Euijoo grabs him by the wrists and begs him to stop. “You understand me?”
“I understood you the first time,” Euijoo begs, dropping his face into his hands. “And no! We are not!”
“Well,” K replies, slouching back in his chair grouchily, “then why did you sneak off together last night and force our sweet baby Maki to illegally pour beer for ten minutes?”
“We were… having a disagreement, I guess.”
“Hm,” K hums dubiously. His warm, wide brown eyes always look kind, but there’s a skepticism sharpening his gaze that Euijoo is uncomfortable when faced with. For three straight years, K has always been a warm presence in Euijoo’s life. Someone reliable and familiar. Euijoo doesn’t like disappointing K. It’s like disappointing a father, mother, and lover all at once. (Euijoo will not confront those thoughts.) “I see. First of all, please apologize to our precious baby for putting him in that position. And second of all, cleaning duty for two weeks.”
Euijoo sighs and accepts his punishment with grace. He gives K a salute on his way out. K seems to still be deep in thought though because he doesn’t salute back like he normally does.
Upstairs, Euijoo knocks on Maki and Nicholas’s door.
“Come in!”
Euijoo peers around the door as he swings it open slowly. Maki is alone, sitting at his desk with his headphones around his neck. His dark hair is wet from the shower, his face bare and sculpted and handsome even at nineteen. Euijoo is jealous of how sharp and defined his features are already. Euijoo is instead perfectly round in the face. Like a little tangerine.
“Wanted to apologize,” Euijoo says, perching himself on the edge of Nicholas’s bed. “We shouldn’t have done that. You could’ve gotten in trouble if we got caught. That was selfish of us.”
“It’s okay,” Maki replies, playing with the strings of his sweatpants and avoiding eye contact. “Frankly, we’ve all been waiting for you two to finally fuck, so this will—”
“Wait, wait,” Euijoo cuts in. “Why is everyone assuming we fucked?”
“Nicholas literally dragged you up to our room in the middle of the party, dude,” Maki points out. “Looked very sexually charged.”
“Yeah, but only for like… ten minutes.”
“Uh huh,” Maki hums. “And?”
“You think we’d only last ten minutes ?” Euijoo croaks incredulously.
“I mean, you could’ve been doing anything,” Maki huffs. “Some things can easily be concluded in ten minutes.”
“Offensive,” Euijoo grumbles, pouting. For some reason the idea of only being able to provide ten minutes of pleasure really irks him. “For the first time ?”
“The way you’re talking right now is leading me to believe you’ve thought about this,” Maki says, squinting at Euijoo.
Euijoo rises to his feet. “Well! K made me think about it this very morning—not even ten minutes ago—so!”
“Mhm,” Maki says, monotone.
Euijoo doesn’t need to take this. He’s already taken this once today.
“ Regardless ! Hypothetically, obviously, I think we’d 100% last longer than ten minutes ! In the hypothetical instance!” Euijoo cries, and the way the room smells like Nicholas is making this conversation feel even more distressing somehow. Like a betrayal. He shouldn’t be entertaining these thoughts.
Just then, the door swings open violently. Harua is standing in the doorway with his gray zip-up sweatshirt hood pulled up tight over his face. His eyebags are dark and puffy. His leg is lifted like he’d straight-up kicked the door open.
“Hangover Handjob, please,” he groans weakly, voice cracking.
Euijoo glances over at Maki. Maki sighs and puts his headphones back on their stand before spinning his chair around and patting his lap.
“Oh. You staying?” Harua asks as he trudges slowly into the room, finally noticing Euijoo’s presence.
“Certainly not,” Euijoo replies.
Harua perches himself on Maki’s lap, pressing his face into Maki’s throat. Voice muffled, he says, “Just thought after last night you were no longer adverse to—”
“Oh my God!” Euijoo cries, rushing out of the room.
The door shuts behind him, but Euijoo still hears Harua grumble, “Geez. Do you think it was bad or something? Maybe Euijoo doesn’t know what to do with all that heat he’s packing? Should we offer to help?”
“Just because he’s packing heat doesn’t mean he tops,” Maki argues. “We shouldn’t make assumptions based on size.”
“Just seems like a waste is all,” Harua replies.
Euijoo is about to slam the door back open when he hears a soft gasp and a high broken moan. Okay.
Tabling for another time then!
☽☾
It’s midnight, and Nicholas is wearing a baggy black hoodie and matching baggy sweatpants. He’s barefaced and pale beneath the streetlights on the way to the one campus snack bar that’s open late.
Beside him, Euijoo is wearing his plaid flannel pajamas under a padded black jacket.
He was actually asleep already when Nicholas crept into his room to beg for company on his walk to get cheese fries at 12am. Ergo the pajamas under a jacket.
“You’ve been weird,” Euijoo says, bumping their shoulders together. “You good?”
Nicholas has his hands in his pockets, but he bumps their shoulders together a second time in response. “I’m fine. Just stressed.”
“You can talk to me,” Euijoo says seriously. “Always.”
When Nicholas goes quiet, Euijoo is pretty used to leaving him alone to work his shit out. Nicholas is pretty good about just working himself through things and then returning to Euijoo when he’s ready to talk again. But Euijoo has noticed Nicholas falling silent more often these days.
Nicholas gives a toothless smile and nods. “Same here. Obviously.”
Euijoo never had a best friend before Nicholas. He had an older sister who sometimes forced him to have deep conversations when she was tired of his pubescent attitude, but he never had someone who he’d allowed to see so much of his mind. It was terrifying in the beginning. Letting himself be known.
And it’s terrifying now, feeling like Nicholas is growing reluctant to show his real feelings.
Inside the student services building, Nicholas orders himself a large cheese fries, and the two of them grab a table. The building is unsurprisingly packed with students even at midnight, since it’s the only place to use their meal plan cards for munchies.
Euijoo is currently not high and also just woke up, so he isn’t particularly hungry. Instead he just watches Nicholas dip a melted-cheese-coated fry into a pile of ketchup.
“Why did you stop hooking up with everyone?” Euijoo finds himself asking because he’s an idiot.
Nicholas pauses with a fry halfway to his mouth. His brow quirks up skeptically. “Do you really want to know?”
Something in Nicholas’s voice makes Euijoo’s brief surge of confidence shrivel into dust. He shakes his head.
Nicholas gives a half-laugh half-sigh. “It’s nothing bad. I was just feeling kinda lonely after.”
“Lonely? After a… threesome?”
Nicholas grimaces.
Euijoo clears his throat. “...Foursome?”
Nicholas glances off, still grimacing.
Euijoo grips the edges of the table, knuckles whitening. “...F-Fivesome?!”
Nicholas rises up to slap a hand over Euijoo’s mouth from across the table. “Please, could you not shout about it at least?”
“I can’t believe you’ve all been having literal orgies without me this whole time,” Euijoo mutters behind Nicholas’s hand. His skin smells like strawberry hand lotion.
“I wasn’t there often to be fair,” Nicholas says, slouching back into his seat and grabbing a new fry to douse in ketchup. “Just when I felt lonely.”
“I’m confused now,” Euijoo mutters. It being midnight isn’t helping him sort his thoughts out. “You were lonely so you had an orgy that made you feel… more lonely?”
Nicholas shrugs. “I’m not a psychology student. Can’t explain shit to you about the machinations of my own mind.”
“Nicholas Wang, you sure are a mystery,” Euijoo replies, trying to lighten the vibe. Nicholas doesn’t take the bait.
“I’m not trying to be,” Nicholas says instead, swirling a fry in ketchup over and over. “I like to think I’m pretty obvious about things usually.”
Euijoo kicks at Nicholas’s shin under the table. “I’m not very good at reading people. You know that. Reading people is a you and Harua skill that I simply do not possess,” Euijoo admits. “If it isn’t explicitly said out loud, I probably won’t pick up on it. You know, like me having no idea about all my fraternity brothers fucking each other.”
“We didn’t exclude you on purpose,” Nicholas says, hunched over with a red-drenched fry in front of his mouth. “Harua even tried to subtly ask you one time after the Toga party, but I don’t think you got the euphemisms.”
Euijoo stares blankly at Nicholas for a moment. “...The toga party?”
The toga party???
“Wait, you mean when he asked if I needed help getting the toga off after?”
Nicholas drops his head into his hands. “Yeah.”
“And if I am recalling this correctly, I said, ‘Haha, it’s just a sheet and a safety pin’...?” Euijoo says.
Nicholas keeps his head in his hands, but his shoulders start bouncing like he’s laughing. Nicholas always laughs with his full body, like the laughter is coming from deep in his gut and shaking everything on the way out of his mouth. Normally, Euijoo loves making Nicholas laugh like a little muppet, but not like this.
“Oh my God,” Euijoo chokes out. “And then Harua was like ‘if you change your mind, we’ll be in Fuma’s room.’”
Nicholas looks up, and there are tears at the corners of his eyes from trying to hold in his laughter. “What did you think he meant?”
Euijoo throws his arms up at the heavens. “Would love to know that myself, honestly. What the fuck was I thinking? Fuma was helping everyone get out of their togas?”
Nicholas wipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “If I didn’t already know about that time you fucked the Zeta Beta Omega president at the joint halloween party last year, I really would think you were a virgin, Juju.”
Wait.
Euijoo fucked who ?
“ What ?” Euijoo squawks.
“I know you slept with Hanbin Sung, Juju. It’s okay,” Nicholas replies, waving his hand dismissively.
He had been a real mess last Halloween, but he knows for a fact that he didn’t fuck anyone.
☽☾
Euijoo had been dressed as the Luigi to Nicholas’s Mario. Not a sexy Luigi either. Just a straight-up Luigi, heavy denim overalls and big puffy green hat included.
The ZBO house was decked out in fake cobwebs and dim purple lighting that was equally as spooky as it was gay. Euijoo was tipsy off pumpkin-orange jello shots.
Nicholas was chatting with Ricky next to a skeleton wearing pearls and a long blonde wig. The two of them looked so good next to one another, with their dark hair and clear pale skin and mature features. Ricky laughed and slapped a hand on Nicholas’s chest, swaying into him like his joke was so funny that gravity stopped functioning correctly.
Ricky was wearing pretty much what he normally wears: a white button-down shirt and tight black slacks. But he had a leather gun holster across his chest.
Lazy.
Was he supposed to be a cop ? Okay, class traitor. Euijoo couldn’t believe Nicholas would go for a cop.
Euijoo grabbed another jello shot from Taerae’s little silver tray. Taerae, who was dressed in a Batman costume (which seemed cheap for him, to be honest. Taerae normally turned the fuck out on Halloween. Maybe there was drama in the ZBO house…), gently touched Euijoo’s shoulder. “You good, big guy?”
Euijoo sucked down the shot in one gulp, the non-Newtonian fluid rattling down his throat with a disconcerting gurgle. “Mm good.”
Taerae, clearly in disbelief after such a display, waved Hanbin over. Hanbin was dressed like Tuxedo Mask. He looked hot.
“You look hot,” Euijoo slurred as Hanbin approached.
Hanbin flashed Euijoo a disarmingly handsome smile. “Thanks. I like your overalls.”
Euijoo looked down at his dumpy overalls and winced. “They’re stupid. I’m stupid.” He cut another glance over at where Nicholas and Ricky were talking with their heads bowed, mere inches apart.
Hanbin—kind, sweet Hanbin—had led Euijoo upstairs to his room with a soft, “How about we get some air or something, huh?”
The room smelled like Hanbin’s perfume, clean and bright. Everything was tidy and neat.
Hanbin sat Euijoo down on the edge of his bed, which was perfectly made, his sheets and duvet tucked in precisely. Euijoo felt guilty for slightly rumpling them with his big stupid body. “You wanna talk?”
Euijoo shook his head. Why was he the kind of guy who’d wear an embarrassing, unsexy halloween costume? Why was he the kind of guy who had to be escorted out of the party for being shamefully drunk off fluorescent orange jello shots? Why wasn’t he suave and charming and always put-together like Ri—
“Would you hook up with me?” Euijoo suddenly blurted.
Hanbin, who had just taken a seat beside him on the bed, froze up like a little critter facing rapidly approaching headlights. “What?”
“Objectively speaking,” Euijoo added. His whole body felt so heavy. He wanted to be rid of it. He wanted to be in his own bed. He wanted someone to be holding him. He wanted to stop wanting.
“Objectively, would I hook up with you?” Hanbin repeated, removing his tophat to run a shaky hand through his floppy brown hair.
“Yeah,” Euijoo breathed out, his every breath heavy with alcohol. He felt trapped in his own body. He never got this drunk. He hated feeling out of control. And of course the acid reflux. “I know I’m not like… that hot and—”
“Wait,” Hanbin interjected, hand raised calmly. “ You’re not hot?”
Euijoo huffed and slapped Hanbin on the thigh. “Stop. You don’t have to lie to me.”
“Euijoo,” Hanbin said, hands finding Euijoo’s knees and squeezing gently. “Listen to me very closely, okay? You are very hot. Like, really very hot, okay?”
Euijoo shook his head, waving the comment away.
“That time we did the Sexy Squatting Contest—”
“—for charity,” Euijoo adds, nodding as he recalled the day.
“For charity, right. When they paired me with you, I was so nervous,” Hanbin replied, gaze steady and kind.
“What? Why? Because I’m so long and hard to carry? Like some kind of big, long… stick?”
“ God,” Hanbin breathed out in disbelief. He grabbed Euijoo’s hands and held them between his own, and his skin was so soft and warm… and so different from Nicholas’s calloused hands that were always freezing. “No. Because you are beautiful.”
Euijoo bit the inside of his cheek. “But you never hit on me. Not even once.”
“Things are a bit… complicated,” Hanbin explained. “For me. And… for you too, I think?”
Euijoo looked down at his hands, his fingertips red from poor circulation. He pulled his hands free from Hanbin’s, muttering a lame: “Nothing complicated for me.”
“Well,” Hanbin murmured, moving his gentle hand to Euijoo’s cheek. “If things weren’t complicated for me, I would absolutely hit on you.”
Hanbin’s thumb stroked Euijoo’s cheek, and it was so different but so similar.
Euijoo fell asleep in Hanbin’s bed five minutes later. When he woke up, Hao was hovering over him, his face bare, gaze intense, and hair pushed out of his face with a red panda headband. “You’re lucky I’m a benevolent man,” he said, voice perfectly even.
Ah, the complication, Euijoo realized.
“Nothing happened,” Euijoo choked out.
“I’m well aware of that.” Hao’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek. “Or you’d be in pieces all over this beautiful, old hardwood floor.” He gestured with a flourish toward the door. “I’m sorry you had a rough night. You may leave now.”
Euijoo had never skedaddled so quickly in his life.
☽☾
“Nothing happened,” Euijoo repeats now.
Nicholas squints, clearly not believing him. “I saw you go upstairs together.”
“By the same logic, you and I fucked,” Euijoo replies, gripping his own knees under the table. “We also went upstairs together.”
Nicholas, displeased with this reply, puffs his cheeks out. “You were gone all night and came back home in your rumpled Luigi costume.”
“I fell asleep in his room fully clothed, I swear,” Euijoo says. “We didn’t even kiss.”
Nicholas hums, still squinting.
“I’m surprised you even realized I was gone,” Euijoo finds himself muttering.
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I dunno,” Euijoo retorts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just seemed kinda distracted that evening.”
“You’re so stupid,” is all Nicholas says in response. “You’re really…”
“What?”
Nicholas stands, grabbing his tray. “I’m done eating.” Wordlessly, he walks to the trash can, dumping his trash and stashing his tray away. He doesn’t wait for Euijoo and starts walking back to the house. Euijoo trails after him, unsure of anything.
☽☾
Weekly Spaghetti Night.
K is standing at the stove, selecting a jarred spaghetti sauce for the evening.
Jo is setting a timer for the noodles, which are actually Ziti and not the eponymous Spaghetti of Weekly Spaghetti Night.
“Tomato basil or marinara?” K asks, holding the jars up to Fuma.
Fuma eyes the labels for a moment expressionlessly. In his spandex workout tanktop, Fuma looks extremely out of place next to K who is wearing what Euijoo is pretty sure is a women’s Dior cardigan. “I thought Yuma wanted alfredo sauce.”
K puts his free hand on his hip, popping it out dramatically as he does. “Alfredo sauce with ziti?”
“It’s on you if he throws a fit. He was promised alfredo,” Fuma replies, shrugging his massive shoulders.
From his seat at the table, Euijoo raises his hand. “Um, how come Yuma got to make a special request?”
“We had a ‘bouncing on it’ contest, and I won,” Yuma says, entering the kitchen with a smug little grin and immediately hip-checking Maki.
Euijoo, who had just lifted his ginger ale to his lips, places the cup back down. “Right.”
“Can’t believe you used your win privilege to request fucking alfredo sauce,” Maki huffs, shoving Yuma away with what Euijoo is now realizing is barely controlled lust. “Heathen.”
K seems to be in agreement as he grumpily eyes the alfredo sauce jar on the counter. Yuma walks over and pops off the lid, inhaling the cold alfredo sauce scent with a pleased little grin. K shivers.
“Go on then,” Yuma says, shaking the lidless jar in front of K and making him watch the white mass within jiggle worryingly.
Grabbing the jar, K’s expression tightens as he holds it over a pot on the stove. Jo watches silently from beside him, eyes wide and lips parted.
“Motivation to get back in the gym,” Yuma adds, tucking a loose strand of hair behind K’s ear. The white mass seems to quiver in the air before dropping all at once into the pot.
Nicholas slouches into his seat beside Euijoo at the table and leans in to ask, “What’s with this weird tension?”
“Apparently Yuma is so good at ‘bouncing on it’ that he got to request alfredo sauce,” Euijoo whispers back.
“Good for him,” Nicholas says, grabbing Euijoo’s glass and nonchalantly drinking his ginger ale. “Bouncing on it is hard.”
“You weren’t there for that?” Euijoo asks, ignoring the rest of his sentence.
“No,” Nicholas replies, meeting Euijoo’s gaze. “It’s been a while. For me.”
“Right,” Euijoo breathes out, swallowing thickly. Time to stop thinking thoughts.
Ten minutes later, they’re all seated around the table with steaming plates of alfredo-coated ziti in front of them.
“Don’t forget your song selections are due for the ‘Precious Night (of Dance)’ by the end of this week,” K reminds everyone as he pushes pasta around his plate.
Euijoo raises his hand.
“No, once again, you cannot abstain,” K replies sternly. “This is for charity.”
“No one is going to bid on me,” Euijoo huffs, stabbing his fork bitterly through a noodle. “Can’t we just agree to spare me the humiliation?”
K lifts his fork to his mouth, brows knit together as he glares at Euijoo across the table. “See me after dinner, please.”
Euijoo pouts down at his plate. He can feel Nicholas’s eyes on him, but he continues staring at his pasta instead of dealing with that.
After a few minutes of haunting silence, Jo leans in to whisper something to Taki. Taki glances over at Yuma.
“He’s not even eating it,” Taki exclaims in indignation, pointing an accusatory finger.
Yuma indeed is not eating the pasta. In fact, he’s squatting on his chair like a little demon, surveying the table like a turkey vulture while everyone else attempts to eat the abominable pasta.
“I never said I wanted to eat it. I just said that I wanted it served in honor of my win.”
“You will pay for this,” Jo says ominously.
Yuma smirks. “Can’t wait.”
“Has everyone been this freaky around each other this whole time, and I just didn’t notice?” Euijoo whispers to Nicholas.
Nicholas nods.
There’s a group vote to order Chinese food. K, feeling guilty about wasting all that pasta, volunteers all of them for community service work at the local food pantry the following week.
☽☾
After the actual dinner of Chinese food, K orders Euijoo into his room for a talk. K spins around dramatically in his desk chair to face Euijoo, who is currently flopped onto the bean bag chair beside K’s bed. Since the bean bag is much lower to the ground, K appears to be looming over him menacingly.
“Explain to me what you mean by ‘no one will bid on me,’” K demands, hands folded in his lap.
“Pretty simple statement,” Euijoo huffs, pinching at the little plastic beans inside the chair.
“Euijoo.”
Euijoo focuses his gaze on the SHINEE poster above Fuma’s bed on the other side of the room. As the oldest, K and Fuma were offered the single rooms first, but they decided to share. Perhaps that should have been Euijoo’s first clue. Euijoo suddenly wonders if they fuck while looking up at SHINEE. Banish that thought.
“I’m not sexy,” Euijoo explains.
“There are no non-sexy brothers of ATM,” K retorts, sounding truly affronted.
“Except me. That’s why you all never included me, right?”
“Euijoo,” K laughs. “You told me you didn’t want to join.”
“What? No I didn’t! I didn’t even know it was happening!” Euijoo protests.
K heaves out a sigh and turns to face his desk. He rummages around in his file folder before grabbing a single sheet of paper. He brandishes it as he moves to kneel in front of Euijoo on the floor.
“My New Brother Survey?”
“Look at your answer to question eleven,” K explains.
Euijoo looks down at the paper, flipping it over to the backside.
Question eleven: In the event of a Group Orgy, I am a) PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR, b) Carefully considering it as long as everyone is safe, c) Abstaining but all for everyone seeking their bliss.
Euijoo has messily circled option C with an orange crayon and even written “Haha funny~” next to the question.
“Huh.”
“You filled that out a long time ago, so it’s my fault for not checking in with you over the years,” K says, placing his hand on Euijoo’s knee. Euijoo looks up into his eyes, dark and shining and so welcoming. “But we absolutely did not exclude you because you’re ‘not sexy,’ silly.”
“But I’m really not. I’m long and thin and gangly, and I don’t know how to move my body attractively.”
“Well, we can easily teach you how to do that,” K replies, grinning eagerly.
☽☾
K, as a dance student, has access to the practice rooms in the Performing Arts building.
Euijoo stands in front of the mirror in his loose gray sweatpants and white t-shirt feeling incredibly uncomfortable.
“Loosen up first,” K instructs, shaking out his limbs and gesturing for Euijoo to copy him. Euijoo wiggles his arms and legs, watching them shake awkwardly in the mirror. “Did you pick a song?”
Euijoo shakes his head. “And if I’m being totally honest, I actually bought a big inflatable alien costume at the mall that time instead of something hot.”
K pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know those costumes are non-returnable.”
Euijoo scuffs his sneaker on the wood floor. “I was feeling spiteful.”
“Clearly,” K replies. “Okay, well. I had a thought.”
“That’s worrisome,” Euijoo says. “About my routine?”
K hums. He grabs Euijoo’s flannel from around his waist and holds it up. He squints at Euijoo’s reflection in the mirror. It’s too early in the morning for Euijoo to have his contacts in, so he’s got his glasses on. With a grin, K nods firmly. “This will do perfectly, I think.”
☽☾
The “PRECIOUS NIGHT (of Dance)” is on a Friday night just before Winter Break. The student center has a little stage set up with rows of folding chairs in front of it.
Taemin Lee, school president, stands in front of the microphone in a full tuxedo as if this is a real formal event.
“Welcome, everyone! I hope you are feeling generous tonight because this is all for charity!” Taemin exclaims into the microphone. “I could only get approval for this event because I promised lots of money for charity, so let’s not let me down, okay?”
The crowd cheers and yells, “OKAY, TAEMIN!” in unison.
Or maybe that was all just Fuma.
There’s a little barrier wall set up to the right of the stage, where the ATM brothers are standing around waiting for their turns on stage.
Taki, Maki, and Harua are wearing matching cowboy outfits. Maki is smoothing Harua’s hair down before gently placing his cowboy hat on for him. Jo and Yuma are dressed as an angel and devil respectively, which Euijoo can only nod in approval of, despite being extremely put off by the shiny red satin of Yuma’s little short shorts.
From behind him, K places his hands on Euijoo’s shoulders. “How you feelin’?”
Euijoo lets out a shaky exhale. “Terrible?”
“It’ll be over before you know it,” K says, patting Euijoo gently in a comforting rhythm. “And I think you’ll like it once you’re up there.”
“Just think of everyone as potatoes,” Harua says, flashing Euijoo a thumbs up.
“He’s trying to feel horny, not hungry,” Taki hisses.
“I can feel both at the same time,” Harua says, shrugging.
“I’m not trying to feel horny. I’m trying to inspire feelings of horniness in others,” Euijoo protests.
Just then, the crowd outside cheers again. K gives Euijoo one last comforting pat before dropping his coat to the floor.
Underneath is the schoolgirl outfit from the mall.
“Well, I’m up. See you fellas after!”
K and Taemin must have planned a joint stage from the beginning because they have full-on professional choreography. Taemin must have had his matching outfit hidden underneath his opening monologue tuxedo.
They dance to a Britney medley. The crowd seems to have a similar reaction to the sight of the school girl costumes as ATM did that day at the mall.
Euijoo wishes he could describe it to you, but there are simply no words.
Watching from behind the stage, Taki grips his hat in his hands so hard that his knuckles turn white. Fuma kneels on the ground reverently watching.
Euijoo can feel sweat building at the nape of his neck.
Again, Euijoo refuses to allow himself even a mere thought of fucking ATM president Yudai Koga, but this night is the greatest struggle he’s ever faced in that regard.
When the performance ends, there is an aggressive bidding war for both men. A group of girls from the Orchestra program end up collecting their assets together to win a date with both of them together. K gives them a happy little wave, his skin flushed from his face down to his chest, where his shirt is unbuttoned at the front. The screams are deafening.
Taki, Maki, and Harua of course perform to “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” with the three of them miming riding the folding chair props on the stage. Euijoo will spare you the description of this stage, except to say that their chaps were tear-off, but Taki’s did not rip correctly so Harua and Maki had to stop dancing to help him get the extra fabric detached. They made a little show of it, kneeling on the ground on either side of Taki and pawing at the fabric.
Matthew gets some of the ZBO guys to bid on Maki, who in turn says Taki and Harua have to be included, so all of ZBO ends up winning the collective date.
Yuma and Jo dance to “Dirty Talk” by Wynter Gordon. The dance is mainly Yuma circling Jo like a horny apparition in his devil costume while Jo lip syncs the “I am no angel” part with little hip gyrations.
The crowd seems mixed about this performance, likely because the sexual tension between the two performers is so palpable that it makes bidding seem fruitless.
Jo quietly pants, “Hehe, it’s okay if you don’t want to bid,” into the microphone with his sweet deep little voice as he pushes his sweaty dark hair back from his perfectly sculpted face, and the crowd suddenly is spurred into action, calling out bids eagerly.
Nicholas is next, but Euijoo notices he isn’t wearing a costume. In fact, he’s wearing a plain tight black shirt and ripped jeans. He grabs his guitar case from the floor, gives Euijoo a little salute, and walks out onto the stage.
He sits down on the chair at the center of the stage and removes his guitar from the case.
“Wasn’t sure what to do, honestly,” Nicholas says coyly into the microphone. “So I figured I’d play to my strengths.”
With his forearms bare, his thick veins are in clear view as he briefly tunes the guitar. Euijoo watches his deft fingers glide over the strings.
“This one goes out to everyone struggling with a Nasty, Naughty Boy,” Nicholas says, before launching into an acoustic version of the Christina Aguilera song. Euijoo has heard Nicholas sing before, in the shower and such, but this is… different.
Euijoo thinks he blacks out at the post-chorus. The word “spanking” rings out into the student center, and Euijoo has to take a seat. He grabs Taki’s abandoned cowboy hat and places it over his lap.
After letting the last few notes linger, Nicholas gives a little laugh into the microphone. “Everyone okay out there?”
Euijoo looks over to where K is watching him. “Seems unfair that he didn’t have to dance.”
“I never said dancing was mandatory,” K replies evenly.
“Then what’s the ‘(of Dance)’ about on the posters?”
“Just because some of us danced doesn’t mean all of us had to dance,” K says, grinning. “Plus, it’s in parentheses. Everyone knows things in parentheses can be ignored. Now I believe it’s your turn.”
“Wait, I missed it—who won Nicholas’s date?”
“Oh, I believe it was Ricky,” K murmurs, resting his chin in his hand and smirking.
“ Richard Shen,” Euijoo groans, rising up from his seat. “I will show you.”
“Atta boy,” K cries, pumping his fist in the air. “Go get him.”
“I will!” Euijoo exclaims vehemently as he strides to the stage. “Wait… get who?”
Coming up behind him, K pats Euijoo on the butt as he herds him onto the stage. “Nothing, no one. Just a freudian slip.”
“That’s not… okay sure.”
Euijoo stands in the center of the stage. K had dressed him with things from Euijoo’s own closet. A gray striped button-down shirt under a dark gray sweater vest. He’s wearing his glasses, and his hair is neatly brushed down over his forehead. This is honestly how Euijoo dressed freshman year before he met Nicholas and decided to diversify his fashion a little.
The intro to “Buttons” rings out as Euijoo stands there on stage under the bright lights of the student center.
Euijoo can see Nicholas standing in the crowd, chatting and laughing with Ricky and the ZBO boys.
After all the effort Euijoo put into learning this stupid dance?
Oh no.
Absolutely not.
His sweater vest comes up over his head, and he tosses it in a perfect arch toward them. The thick fabric lands right over Ricky’s head, and Nicholas jerks in shock, glancing over at the stage.
Euijoo starts unbuttoning his shirt to the music.
Nicholas seems frozen, gaze hot and dark as it traces each inch of skin Euijoo bares on stage.
Euijoo follows K’s routine, gliding his hands over his own body, dropping to his knees and crawling forward on stage. The song ends as he reaches the edge of the stage, fingers fiddling with the last of his buttons, and the lights dim overhead. The crowd roars with outrage.
Euijoo wants to look backstage to see if he made K proud, but he can’t tear his eyes away from Nicholas.
Taemin walks out on stage as the lights come back on. “We’ll start the bidding at—”
“I will write you a blank check.”
The crowd turns in unison. Nicholas has a checkbook out and is waving it in the air.
“Um,” Taemin says. “Anyone… want to challenge this bid?”
Nicholas sweeps his eyes over the crowd, eyelids lowered threateningly. No one speaks.
For a second, Euijoo is elated.
And then it sinks in.
Was Nicholas worried that no one else would bid on him?
Euijoo grabs the mic from Taemin and says, “You can’t bid on me. This is our charity event.”
Nicholas puts his hands on his hips and calls out, “There’s no such rule.”
K walks up on stage and loops his arm around Euijoo. “C’mon now, Euijoo. Money for charity is money for charity no matter who it comes from,” he says calmly as he guides Euijoo off the stage.
Replacing him on stage is Fuma in only a pair of skin-tight workout shorts, his abs rippling in the light. Fuma takes the microphone and says, “Um, so, I actually made a Powerpoint about my ideal Pokemon team. Can I get the HDMI cord?”
Backstage, Euijoo is tugging his sweater vest back on in indignation.
“So embarrassing,” he whines to K. “Why did you let him do that?”
“Why is that embarrassing?”
Euijoo frantically brushes his hair out of his face. Every sensation on his skin feels wrong. “Because! He’s my best friend!”
“Who you make out with sometimes,” K says.
“What.”
“Euijoo,” K snips. “Please. Be real. You don’t want to lie to me.”
“Stop,” Euijoo grits out, grabbing his bag from the floor and throwing it onto his back. “Can everyone stop with this?”
K’s expression hardens. “Either stop hooking up with him or get over yourself, Euijoo. I mean it.”
Euijoo scoffs and starts walking away.
Nicholas is standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the wall.
“I know you were trying to spare me some humiliation,” Euijoo says, gripping the straps of his backpack, “but I’m a big boy. I don’t need that.”
“You’re truly… so stupid, Juju,” Nicholas sighs.
“And where did you even get that checkbook?”
“It was Ricky’s. But I’m going to get mine no—”
“Ricky’s? You used Ricky’s money to place a pity bid on me?”
“I just needed a grand gesture,” Nicholas says, grabbing Euijoo by the wrist. “Can you please get your head out of your ass and listen to me?”
“No,” Euijoo says. “I worked really hard to make myself feel worthy and sexy and I just wanted to—”
“And you were really good!”
“Seriously, you don’t need to—!”
“Euijoo Byun,” Nicholas hisses. “You were really good.”
“I don’t know what to… what you…”
“Euijoo,” Nicholas pleads, fingers tightening around Euijoo’s wrist.
Behind the student center, Nicholas gets Euijoo up against the brick wall.
“Nichol,” Euijoo pants. “I don’t think we should—”
“Is that what you really want, Juju?” Nicholas shifts his knee between Euijoo’s thighs, where Euijoo is half-hard, and Euijoo grips Nicholas’s hips with a shiver.
“I don’t know,” Euijoo replies, desperately rutting against Nicholas with no control of his body.
“I love when you look like this,” Nicholas says, finger tracing the lens of Euijoo’s glasses before dropping to flick at the top button of his shirt peeking out beneath the top of the sweater vest. “So hot.”
“ This ?” Euijoo repeats incredulously.
Nicholas nods, shoving himself away with resolve. “Let’s go.”
Euijoo cups his hands over his crotch, where his pants are embarrassingly tented at the front. “W-where?”
“Home.”
Euijoo collapses to the bed, and before he knows it, Nicholas is climbing up over him.
“Um,” Euijoo starts, “What exactly are we doing?”
“We’re having sex,” Nicholas says.
Euijoo’s blood pounds at his temples before quickly rushing south.
“...is that… something we can do?”
“Euijoo,” Nicholas groans, sitting back so his ass is directly over Euijoo’s crotch. Euijoo jerks up beneath him, gripping the sheets, unafraid to touch him like he might shatter the moment.
“I just mean… you stopped hooking up with everyone else, right? Because it was making you feel… lonely?”
Nicholas hastily moves to wrestle Euijoo’s sweater over his head. “Mhm.”
Euijoo lifts his arms obediently. His sweater vest is tossed over Nicholas’s shoulder. “But this is okay?”
Euijoo watches Nicholas’s pretty fingers flick all the buttons of his shirt open, baring his chest.
“I was lonely because you weren’t there,” Nicholas says.
“As your… friend?” Euijoo tests.
Nicholas pinches Euijoo’s nipple, and Euijoo cries out, grabbing his wrist.
“ Ouch,” he hisses.
“Stupid Juju,” Nicholas grumbles. “Why would I want you there as a friend ?”
“Moral support?”
Nicholas pinches his nipple again.
“ Ow, okay! Not that!”
“That night when you went up to Hanbin Sung’s room, I threw a fit,” Nicholas admits. “That was the night I stopped hooking up with everyone else. I tried to throw myself in with them to distract myself, but I ended up… too upset to do anything.”
“Hey, nothing happened,” Euijoo says, sitting up and wrapping his arms around Nicholas. Nicholas looks down at him. “I think Hao would’ve gutted me alive actually.”
“Ah, yeah. I did wonder about that.”
“I’ve never skedaddled so hard in my life.”
Nicholas laughs, dropping his head to Euijoo’s shoulder. He rocks his forehead side to side over Euijoo’s shoulder bone. “Why am I so devastatingly attracted to you? You’re… such a loser.”
Euijoo cups his hands around Nicholas’s face, guiding it away from his shoulder until they’re eye-to-eye. “Nichol,” he breathes out. “I think… I really like you.”
Nicholas gives a little chuckle. “You think?”
Euijoo nods. “And I think I want to sleep with you.”
“Okay,” Nicholas says, tugging at Euijoo’s shirt.
Euijoo grabs Nicholas’s wrists and holds them. “I think I need a little time,” he admits. “My brain is… very strange. And I have been repressing whatever this is for a long time, I think.”
“Repression is very bad,” Nicholas says, biting his lip. “We should un-repress you very quickly, no?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Nicholas coos, brushing his thumbs over Euijoo’s cheekbones. “It’s okay. Really. But you mean it, right? You like me?”
Euijoo looks at Nicholas, the familiar sharpness of his facial features that soften so preciously when he’s feeling fond. He lays back and guides Nicholas down beside him, their legs tangled together.
“I can’t believe you played a sexy acoustic Christina Aguilera song.”
“K thought it would be funny,” Nicholas says. “Did you like it?”
“I think I passed away actually,” Euijoo admits.
“Oh no,” Nicholas says, lifting himself up as he pretends to feel all over Euijoo’s body like he’s searching for a pulse. “Do I need to resuscitate?” He teasingly pushes his hands against Euijoo’s chest, miming CPR, as he leans in to press their lips together.
“Nichol,” Euijoo whines, pushing at Nicholas’s shoulders. “I’m trying to be responsible.”
“You know I hate when you’re responsible,” Nicholas groans, collapsing back down to his pillow.
“Actually, based on your reaction to my earlier ensemble, I think you’re turned on when I’m responsible.”
Nicholas scoffs, expression shifting until it settles on shock. “Wait, oh my God, I am. Oh no. This is awful.”
Euijoo grins. “Nicholas Wang, seduced by clothes from Kohl’s and astigmatism prescription glasses.”
“Please,” Nicholas begs, burying his face into the pillow. “I own Chrome Hearts underwear.”
“Wait, my boxers are from Kohl’s too. Should I keep the glasses on when you fuck me?”
Nicholas’s head whips up. “When I what?”
Euijoo’s heart is hammering in his chest. “When you… fuck me?”
Nicholas’s hands fist into the pillow, and his voice is low and gruff when he says, “Euijoo Byun, please…”
Euijoo shivers. “Is that… okay? I don’t know how you usually—”
“All good. All of it. Is good. Any way is good,” Nicholas says shakily. “I think I need to go sleep in my own room actually.”
“Wait,” Euijoo says, grabbing Nicholas by the arm. “I’m sorry. If I made things awkward.”
“I’m not feeling awkward, Juju,” Nicholas groans. “I’m hard.”
“Oh.” Euijoo releases his grip on Nicholas’s arm. “Whoopsie.”
“‘Whoopsie,’ he says,” Nicholas whines. “And this is the boy I’ve spent three years pining for.”
“You what.” The words ricochet around inside Euijoo’s skull.
“What.”
“Three years?”
“Oh, I said that out loud,” Nicholas mutters, hiding his face behind his hands.
“Three years?” Euijoo repeats. “Like… when we met?”
Nicholas nods, still hiding his face. “Since that first pledge meeting. You were so cute and shy when we were walking next to each other. I really… liked you immediately.”
Euijoo imagines the two of them back in the mouth of his dream whale.
Everything should be terrifying.
But it’s Nicholas.
“I changed my mind actually,” Euijoo says.
It was always just Nicholas.
“You… are you sure? I really mean it when I say no pressure, Euijoo. I want you to want this as much as me.”
Euijoo just guides Nicholas’s hands back to his shirt. Nicholas’s fingers shake as they pry the buttons from the holes. “Were you like this with them, too?” Euijoo can’t help but ask.
Nicholas shakes his head, biting at the inside of his cheek. His fingertips graze over each inch of Euijoo’s chest that he bares while he works the buttons open. Euijoo can feel goosebumps rising up at each touch of calloused skin.
“Juju,” Nicholas exhales breathily, as he guides Euijoo’s shirt off. “You’re so…”
Euijoo’s arms move to cover his body, gaze sliding away to the ceiling. Nicholas grabs him by the wrists and looms over him.
“Hey. Look at me,” Nicholas orders. “Juju. Euijoo.”
Euijoo forces himself to meet Nicholas’s eyes. “Nichol. Nicholas.”
“I want you so badly,” Nicholas murmurs, lips right over Euijoo’s own. Euijoo can feel his breath, can almost taste the desire on his tongue now. He isn’t sure if it’s his own or Nicholas’s. “So, so badly.”
“Please have me,” Euijoo says, throat tight as he squeezes the words out. “I’m being so serious.”
Nicholas chuckles against Euijoo’s lips before diving in to kiss him. Sober like this, Euijoo can really taste him—can really enjoy the sensation of Nicholas licking into his mouth.
“Can I put on my hookup playlist real quick?” Nicholas pulls back briefly to ask.
“Why? Can’t get hard without your ‘low-fi hip-hop beats to fuck to’?” Euijoo teases.
“No, it’s just what Maki and I agreed on to let each other know not to come into the room. Our version of the sock on the door.”
“Is that why Justin Bieber is always blasting from this room at random times of the day?”
Nicholas groans and nods. “God, yeah. The others hate it too. Actually, I think it’s Pavlovian now for some of them. They hear the Justice album and need to bone.”
Euijoo grins. “Has anyone heard your playlist before?”
Nicholas shakes his head. “I made it for you.”
Euijoo’s stomach muscles tense up, and he lets out a little moan.
“Are you turned on by me making you a glorified mixed-tape?” Nicholas laughs, thumb tracing Euijoo’s lower lip.
“Tremendously,” Euijoo admits, biting at Nicholas’s finger. “Please put the damn playlist on and then kiss me more.”
Nicholas chuckles, pressing a few buttons on his phone before setting it down on his nightstand.
“Euijoo, you’re not actually a virgin, are you?” Nicholas nervously asks.
“I… slept with someone in high school?” Euijoo offers.
“You’ve never slept with anyone at college? In three years ?” Nicholas questions as he grabs at Euijoo’s belt, yanking it loose with newfound fervor.
“I think subconsciously,” Euijoo says, lifting his hips to help Nicholas yank his pants off, “it felt wrong to touch anyone else but you.”
Nicholas groans and throws the balled up Kohl’s business casual slacks across the room like they disgust him. “I’m going to destroy you,” he says, sliding his warm hands up Euijoo’s body until he can grab him by the hair and lick into his mouth again. “I’m really going to.”
“Okay,” Euijoo eagerly consents, panting. “Okay. Yes. Okay.”
“Drawer,” Nicholas murmurs against Euijoo’s lips. “Lube. Condoms. Drawer. Please hold.”
Euijoo shivers as Nicholas’s warmth shifts away, his arm reaching out to throw open his bedside drawer. They continue to kiss messily as Nicholas blindly feels around inside the drawer until he finds what he needs.
“I know you’re about to see my dick for the first time—”
“I sorta saw it that time you, you know, flashed the whole house,” Nicholas interrupts.
“—but I just want to say that you really are the best friend I’ve ever had,” Euijoo finishes.
Nicholas laughs fondly and drops the bottle of lube next to Euijoo’s head. “You’re mine too.”
“More than Ricky ?”
Nicholas grabs Euijoo’s boxers and tugs them down decisively. “I have never and do not ever want to see Ricky Shen’s dick, Juju.”
Bare in front of Nicholas for the first time, Euijoo feels strangely like crying.
Nicholas must notice because he leans in and coos, “Hey. You with me? All good up here?” He taps gently on Euijoo’s temple.
Euijoo nods, throat tight as he replies, “I feel good.”
Nicholas kisses him gently this time, sweetly. With Nicholas’s clothed body rutting against his completely bare skin, Euijoo whines in the back of his throat.
“Please take your clothes off,” Euijoo gasps, the fabric of Nicholas’s jeans rubbing against his hardening dick. “I’m going to get rug-burn on my cock.”
“I’d make it feel all better, I promise,” Nicholas taunts, but he stands up to strip all his clothes off methodically before climbing back over Euijoo.
Euijoo’s eyes lock right onto his dick, heavy between his beautiful pale thighs. “There it is: My Best Friend’s Cock.”
“Okay, let’s just take a quick second,” Nicholas seems to agree, sitting back a bit so they can observe in silence for a moment. Nicholas’s cock is thick and hot where it presses against Euijoo’s belly. Shorter in length than his own but beautifully thick.
“I’ve taken it in enough, I think,” Euijoo announces weakly, flushed all the way from his ears to his navel.
“Oh you’ll be taking it in much more than this,” Nicholas retorts, smirking.
Euijoo slaps his chest. “Yuck.”
“Sorry,” Nicholas replies, fingers running over the skin of Euijoo’s hipbone and then dipping down between his legs. “Just happy.”
Euijoo grins, grabbing the lube and tossing it at Nicholas, who catches it one-handedly. “You’re so annoying.”
“You like it.”
“Yeah,” Euijoo sighs out as Nicholas’s finger presses wetly inside him. “I really do.”
After three fingers are worked into Euijoo’s eager body, Euijoo feels like pure electricity. Like he’s lost all solid form as he moves in sync with each thrust of Nicholas’s fingers. Everything feels liquid.
“Just,” Euijoo moans out, “Please.”
He might even be gas. He has passed the liquid stage. He is pure condensation.
Nicholas rolls the condom down over his cock and yanks Euijoo’s legs up over his thighs, so his lower back is arched off the mattress. Euijoo gasps as Nicholas strokes his hands down over Euijoo’s ribs until he can fist Euijoo’s cock, his gaze heavy as it watches Euijoo’s dick harden with each touch. “I can’t believe you’ve really had the biggest dick in the whole fraternity this whole time.”
“You all should’ve known. It’s because I’m pure of heart,” Euijoo offers, giving a full-body shake as Nicholas’s fist tightens around him.
“You’re so stupid, Juju,” Nicholas laughs. “And I’m going to fuck you now, okay?”
Euijoo grabs at Nicholas’s hand. “Hey. Um. You promise you like me?”
Nicholas squeezes Euijoo’s hand in return, and Euijoo ignores the fact that he can feel his own precome on Nicholas’s skin. “Yeah. Really, so much. Promise.”
When Nicholas presses in, Euijoo gasps and grips his hands into the sheets. “Oh,” he chokes out. “ Oh. ”
Nicholas’s hands wrap around Euijoo’s narrow waist once he’s fully seated inside. “Oh my God,” Nicholas moans, head bowed as he holds himself steady. “Whoa. Okay. Yeah. That’s how you feel inside, huh?”
“Nichol,” Euijoo whines. “Begging you to move.”
“Yeah,” Nicholas says, nodding with resolution. “Promised to destroy you.”
“You did,” Euijoo gasps as Nicholas moves his hips, cock shifting until it’s just barely pressed inside. “But I’d settle for a modest dismantling.”
“Absolutely not,” Nicholas huffs, thrusting back in. “Decimation. Wreckage. Nothing less.”
“Okay,” Euijoo groans, hands raising to grip at the pillow above his head. “Yeah. Again please.”
Nicholas pulls out and then thrusts back inside. Their skin smacks together, and Euijoo’s brain melts out his ears.
“Yeah,” Euijoo pants. “Like that, Nichol.”
Nicholas whines, and the sound strikes Euijoo right in the cock. “Going to really do it now, Juju.”
“Okay,” Euijoo says, grip tightening in the pillow. “Do it.”
The first real thrust of Nicholas’s hips makes Euijoo’s whole body rock up toward the headboard, his back arching into the sensation.
“Fuck, Juju.” Nicholas pulls Euijoo back down onto his cock, and Euijoo cries out.
Euijoo realizes “FRI(END)S” by BTS’s V is playing.
“ This is what you put on our prospective hookup playlist?” Euijoo coughs out a shocked laugh.
“It felt fitting,” Nicholas admits, grinning. “Now shush. I’m concentrating on your destruction.”
Euijoo then quickly falls silent on account of being unable to conjure speech, honestly. He can only gasp and lift his head to watch Nicholas’s big hands yank Euijoo’s body back onto his cock over and over again.
“J… Juju,” Nicholas groans. Euijoo is dripping sweat, and Nicholas’s hands are struggling to keep hold of him. Euijoo is so close, though.
“Don’t stop,” he pleads, and Nicholas’s grip on his waist tightens.
“Feel so good,” Nicholas murmurs, gaze heavy on Euijoo’s face. “Look so good. Wanted you so bad. So long. C-Can you touch yourself for me, Juju?”
Euijoo nods, crying out when his fingers close around his own cock. He’s not sure how he manages it, honestly, considering his gaseous state. “Going to come,” he whines.
“Yeah,” Nicholas groans, hips jerking erratically as he thrust himself inside over and over. “For me. Euijoo Byun, coming for me.”
Like he’s dreamt of it. And maybe Euijoo has too.
Euijoo’s whole body quakes as he comes, every sensation of his body whiting out into infinity. He isn’t even sure if he makes noise, his ears ringing. Nicholas bows his body over Euijoo and ruts himself inside with his arm muscles straining as they hold Euijoo’s body up against him. Euijoo feels when Nicholas comes, his whole body shaking as a weak, broken moan escapes his lips. He guides Euijoo down gently to the bed and then drapes himself over Euijoo’s burning hot body.
They breathe in silence for a moment.
Euijoo can feel his own release dripping down his clavicle.
“Do you think… Um… C-Can I do that to you too?” Euijoo pants out eventually once semi-coherent thought has returned.
There’s a pause.
“Can you give me like ten minutes? Five if I can eat one of Harua’s rice crispy treats that he keeps in Maki’s desk drawer for the refractory period,” Nicholas replies, chest heaving.
“Go get that rice crispy treat, Wang.” Euijoo flips Nicholas onto his back, staring down into his eyes. His pupils are blown wide. “I’ve got three years to make up for.”
☽☾
It just so happens to be The SUCC the following morning. Nicholas and Euijoo, hoods pulled up to hide egregious hickeys, slip awkwardly into their seats.
Everyone else at the table looks at them, expressions ranging from giddy to smug.
“Good morning, beautiful angels,” K greets. “Really glowing today, aren’t we?”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Nicholas grumbles.
“Simply wanted you both to get your heads out of your asses,” K replies, waving his clipboard around. Jo grabs it from him for safety reasons.
“By the way, definitely more than ten minutes,” Euijoo says, winking at Maki.
“I mean, clearly, considering that lame-ass playlist blasted all fucking night,” Maki retorts.
“Better than your playlist,” Yuma cuts in.
“You love my playlist!” Maki protests.
“I love what happens when your playlist is on,” Yuma admits. “You know, like when your cock is in my mouth and stuff like that.”
“And that brings us to our first order of business,” Jo announces, tapping the clipboard. “The President and I would like to put forth a request to create one singular ATM hookup playlist that can play in unison from every room where it would be used. This is to avoid the absolutely horrific cacophony of sound that crashes through the house whenever this situation arises. Last night we had to deal with an egregious mix of indie and pop hits.”
“And who would decide that playlist’s contents?”
“Me, obviously,” K replies, patting his chest.
“I don’t really care what music is on,” Euijoo admits. “I’ll vote for it.”
“But my playlist,” Nicholas whines. “I worked so hard.”
“You can keep working hard,” Euijoo promises. “For me.”
“Oh, gag,” Harua blurts. “Wow, I actually liked it more when they were both uber repressed.”
“Wait, shush, this is fun,” Yuma says, chin in his hands as he observes Euijoo and Nicholas with eager eyes.
“All in favor of a collective ATM Fuck Playlist?” K offers.
Everyone’s hands eventually raise.
“Whatever, as long as it isn’t all SHINEE. I can’t get hard listening to ‘Noona Neomu Yeppeo,’” Taki says.
“Sounds like a personal problem,” Fuma retorts.
Nicholas’s hand finds Euijoo’s under the table.
The whale swallows.
Euijoo probably loves Nicholas, but he’ll find a time to say all that later.
He squeezes Nicholas’s hand.