Work Text:
⟡˙⋆ .─── .☆⋅🍃⋅☆. ───. ⋆˙⟡
1. Strawberry Haze
“I can’t fucking do it.” Hyunjin glared at the smoke curling in shapeless wisps above his head, huffing until the cloud of it rippled and then disappeared.
Chan’s laugh came out just as breathy. “I told you, you gotta hold it. Drop your jaw a little more.”
Hyunjin tried to ignore the soft, studious hum of appreciation somewhere to his left as he took another too-long drag of his joint. He was already high, and his throat already felt like sandpaper, mostly because he couldn’t be bothered to lean forward to grab his drink off the coffee table, and so he ended up spluttering and coughing around his next exhale. Chan just laughed harder, high and squeaky as he tilted forward and squeezed Hyunjin’s knee.
“It’s not my fault,” Hyunjin wheezed around a giggle, flopping back into the cracked leather of Chan’s couch. His mouth felt too big for his face. He hooked his teeth over his bottom lip, trying to flatten the television static nothingness, but the laugh he always had to chew on whenever he was around Chan was making them puff up like he had an allergic reaction. “You’re a terrible teacher.”
“That is the most offensive thing you’ve ever said to me,” Chan laughed, because Chan laughed at everything. “C’mere, I’ll show you.”
Hyunjin let the warm hand on his knee tug him sideways, toppling until he was face-to-face with Chan’s dimpled, crinkly-eyed grin. He’d changed the jewellery in his nose from a plain silver ball to a diamante stud, and it glittered gold with the light from the giant salt lamp in the corner before it sparkled in blue and purple when his string lights shifted from one colour to the next. Hyunjin fought the urge to press his fingertip to the glittering rhinestone and accuse him of being a slut, and instead watched Chan’s cheeks hollow out as the joint’s cherry crackled. A thick curl of white smoke escaped his lopsided smirk, and Hyunjin grinned dumbly as he watched Chan lower his jaw, round his lips into a pout, and pop a perfect smoke ring out into the air between them.
Bang Chan was only the third person Hyunjin met after he moved to Seoul, but he was by far his favourite.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true - Hyunjin had spent an agonising amount of time stuck in mandatory training with a bunch of new employees, after he’d already endured three gruelling interview stages, an eight hour online trial that felt more like eight years, and the absolute massacre of his resume after one too many human resources reps had pecked at it like vultures snapping their beaks over prime carrion. And he was almost familiar enough to ask for the usual at the coffee shop at the end of his block. He hadn’t actually gathered up the courage to ask them yet, though.
Felix was the first real friend he’d made. Hyunjin had been a nervous wreck when he’d met him on his first day, because he’d hauled his belongings into a shitty shoebox apartment in Itaewon and then started work the very next morning. But as soon as he’d found the desk with his name on it, and perched on the edge of an office chair that probably cost more than Hyunjin’s rent, Felix had wheeled himself over with a blinding smile and complimented him on his shoes. By lunchtime, Hyunjin had his phone number, knew his sister’s name, knew his shoe size (he’d wanted to try on Hyunjin’s loafers), and he knew that he lived in Hongdae with a roommate called Jisung. Hyunjin also knew that Felix had a monumentally huge crush on the roommate called Jisung, although Felix didn’t actually tell him that. But he didn’t really need to.
He’d met The Roommate Called Jisung pretty soon after Felix had taken him under his wing. It’d only taken half a Ghibli movie, a box of takeout chicken wings, and a couple of shared joints to work out that Jisung had an even bigger crush on Felix than Felix had on him (but Hyunjin chose to keep his mouth shut so he could let it play out like his own personal drama). Jisung smoked a lot of weed, and Felix took a lot of pills, and Hyunjin did both, so he found himself at their apartment almost every other weekend. Most Fridays were spent pre-gaming and rifling through Felix’s closet, Saturdays were for sweating in a basement club and dancing until they couldn’t feel their feet, and Sundays were for collapsing on their lumpy couch and passing Jisung’s bong back and forth as the three of them carb-loaded and tried to keep their eyes open.
Felix had given him the details for his plug after Hyunjin had spent an entire night painting and then popped his grinder open to find nothing but THC dust - which, sure, he still smoked, but he was right in the middle of a piece and he needed so, so much more to keep his vision alive - and Chan had happily invited him over. Replied with too many laughing emojis, shared his location, and asked Hyunjin to bring a six-pack of Diet Cokes like they’d been friends for years.
Hyunjin had been just about buzzed enough to find it funny, but by the time he ended up standing outside a random apartment building holding a 7/11 bag heavy with sodas and his favourite munchies, all he could think about was his mother begging him to carry pepper spray whenever he left the house. The can she’d pressed into his hands as she’d kissed him goodbye at the train station had been abandoned at the bottom of the messenger bag he used for work, and that had been a good enough excuse for him to turn around and head home.
The door had slammed open before he could turn back to the stairs, and every molecule of stranger danger promptly dribbled out of his ears.
Hey, you must be Hyunjin! I’m Chan, nice to meet you, dude. He’d been very quickly enveloped in a thick cloud of weed smoke and a bone-crushing hug that smelled of flowery shampoo and an unidentifiable body spray that was almost definitely an off-handed gift from an aunt who bought them in bulk for all of her nephews. Hyunjin had been tugged forward as an excited hand grabbed at the plastic bag white-knuckled in his fist. Oh, far out, you brought snacks?
Hyunjin never did finish the painting.
“Okay,” Chan said, suddenly all business, and he bounced enough to get a leg under his lap. Close enough for their knees to touch, but Hyunjin had discovered pretty quickly that Chan had a habit of pressing himself as close as he was allowed, completely unaware of just how strong his own gravitational pull was. “Like this.”
Chan let Hyunjin take another drag before he plucked the joint back from between his fingers, rocking absently in time with the bassline rumbling from his stereo. Some old metal song that was about as sludgy as Hyunjin’s brain as he watched Chan wedge the butt between the seam of his smile. He took a long, slow drag as the riff rattled through the speakers. Held the smoke before the beat dropped with the bass guitar, and then he lowered his chin, pointing insistently at where his jaw met his neck - not that Hyunjin needed an extra excuse to stare at the vein that bulged beneath the tight, pale skin of his throat. Hyunjin blinked, a little cross-eyed thanks to the proximity, as another smoke ring wobbled in the air. Chan exhaled fully when the guitar riff kicked in, eyes turned up with a giggle as Hyunjin snatched the joint back.
The roach was damp, and Hyunjin pulled on it harder than necessary until it burned the fluffy feeling away from his lips. Chan’s hand was on his knee again. Encouraging, thumb pressing into the meat where his calf met his thigh, squeezing a little when Hyunjin sucked the smoke back into his lungs and then held it in his mouth as it thickened. Chan leaned forward expectantly, his eyes heavy and red-rimmed and watching eagerly as Hyunjin opened his lips.
If he met Chan in the middle, they could just shotgun the toke.
Hyunjin lowered his jaw and huffed out a frail, misshapen smoke ring that almost immediately broke, but Chan whooped triumphantly anyway, barreling headfirst into Hyunjin’s chest with a loud shout of laughter. Hyunjin grunted with a soft oof and let himself be moved again, grinning about it but going limp as he was unceremoniously crushed under Chan’s weight. It was a nice weight, though. Like a heavy blanket, if a blanket had thick biceps and fluffy hair that tickled his neck, and a voice that always came gift-wrapped with the same squeaky giggle. Inevitable, like the toy buried at the bottom of a cereal box.
Chan wasn’t like a normal drug dealer. Hyunjin sometimes forgot that all they really had was a transactional, buy-and-sell kind of friendship. He never asked Hyunjin to meet him on a dark corner, or in a gross back alley behind a dumpster, with a plastic baggie that was half a gram light. He was fine with Hyunjin claiming a spot on his couch so he could get stoned for free, as long as he brought snacks, and as long as he bought what he’d come to buy in the first place. Hyunjin had learned, after the first time he’d scored weed from him, that if he shook a bag of honey butter chips in front of Chan’s face, like rattling a pouch of treats at an excitable puppy, then his attention was fairly easy to earn and keep.
Hyunjin figured it was probably just because he was friends with Felix and Jisung. Friend of my friend of my drug dealer, or something like that. Chan was always more than happy to invite him over, just like the first time, so they could hang out and share a joint before Hyunjin bought his q. And then they’d share another. And then maybe Chan would pack a bong, and maybe they’d just watch a movie if it was an indica-heavy hybrid, or maybe they’d just collapse right in the centre of Chan’s couch, bodies slumped together in easy silence as they listened to one of Chan’s ridiculous Spotify playlists, when neither one of them had enough energy to do anything other than blink. But it wasn’t hard to imagine Felix doing the same, feet up on Chan’s coffee table, head on his shoulder as they watched a cartoon with glassy eyes and giggled in heavily accented English. It wasn’t hard to imagine Jisung knocking on Chan’s door with his backpack in his hands, PlayStation controller and four-pack of Red Bulls ready for a night of stoned zombie-slaying.
It wasn’t all that difficult to imagine Chan any other way. He was so easy-going that he never really went anywhere; everyone came to him, like he was the centre of his own little universe.
Hyunjin was just happy to orbit.
He blinked up at the ceiling as Chan heaved himself up onto one elbow, sliding his fingers along Hyunjin’s hand so he could take the end of his joint back and grin down at him as he took one last drag. Hyunjin could see the stubble under his chin, the curve of the piercing glinting inside his nose, the slick line of saliva where his bottom lip met the roach. Chan hummed as he exhaled, tongue darting out to lick the sting from his lips, reaching over Hyunjin to get to the giant glass ashtray on the coffee table.
Hyunjin yelped, loud and dramatic and laying it on thick as he winced in mock-pain when Chan slumped against his chest to stub the joint out. He got a poke to the ribs for his troubles, and Chan shoved himself up, laughing again when it made Hyunjin grunt for real.
“So, you just want an eighth?”
Hyunjin hooked his arm under his head and watched Chan shift forward, legs spreading so he could rest his elbows on his knees. They were even more pink than usual, where they’d rubbed against the shitty fake leather of his couch, and Hyunjin found himself idly wondering - not for the first time - just how pink Chan was everywhere else.
“Yeah,” he said, watching with lazy eyes as Chan smashed his beanie back onto his head properly. The lift of his arm flashed an obscene amount of skin thanks to the loose-fitting baseball jersey that he hadn’t bothered tugging back into place, and Hyunjin licked the bitter tang of nicotine and the sweeter, nearly-strawberry flavour of weed from his lips when he spotted the glint of a nipple ring. He tilted his head as Chan stretched to grab his scales. “Trying to cut back a bit.”
Chan snorted without looking back, shaking curled buds of weed onto the metal weighing plate. It was the same strain they’d smoked, beaded with delicate crystals clumped around the curl of dried leaves, pretty and pale pink. “Man, I really gotta stop giving you so many freebies, it’s bad for business.”
2. Black Diamond
There was a bulb out in the string of fairy lights tacked up above the television. They glowed a rich red, the colour pulsing against the cracks and lumps in the plaster as it bled into a deeper orange. Chan’s landlord obviously hadn’t taken much care with the paint job. It wouldn’t have mattered, if it weren’t for the one light that didn’t work.
The gap made the shadows just a little longer on either side, and Hyunjin could see the seam in the wallpaper, slightly bubbled and creased at the edges.
“ - like man, I’m sorry, but nah yeah, no tomatoes, and gosh he got mad, and I had to like, I dunno, try and fight my own corner and y’know, like, everyone has their own likes and dislikes and all, mhm, and I just… just don’t want tomatoes in my burger, but still, I ended up, heh, I ended up apologising and -”
Hyunjin blinked slowly and watched as the string lights faded from gold to green to blue.
“ - will ever be as bad as the pineapple, but gosh, I felt like I’d… like I’d personally offended him, and like, I wasn’t, y’know, asking for anything else to be different, I can… hehe, pick out the, the pickles, Minho always eats them, he’s like a walking trash can, but far out, how silly is th -”
“Hyung…” Hyunjin mumbled, pushing his tongue between the sticky seam of his lips as he took a drag of his joint. The lights glowed purple, blush pink, cherry red, and Chan shoved Jisung to the side so he could shoot a grin at Hyunjin where he was curled up on the armchair. “If you don’t shut the fuck up about cheeseburgers, m’gonna eat my hand.”
“Noooo…” Felix chuckled, deep and rich in the back of his throat as he slid further down the couch. It made his bleach-fried hair stand on end with the static, and Hyunjin huffed out a laugh as Felix propped his feet up on the coffee table and traded off with Chan, tugging Jisung closer. “Don’t do that, your hands are so sexy, something something…”
“Yeah,” Jisung said with an immediate, jagged bob of his head, crossing his legs and leaning back into Felix. His voice came out hollow and muffled as he pressed the rim of the bong to his lips. “Your hands are really sexy, Hyunjin-ah.”
Hyunjin snorted and let his eyes drift back to Chan. Jisung’s bong bubbled obnoxiously, and Hyunjin tilted his head expectantly, and Chan just giggled as he wedged his own smoke between his lips and shook his head. It made his earrings wobble, and he tugged his cap away so he could immediately fix it back in place, flattening the chaos of his hair.
“I’m not succumbing to peer pressure,” he said, hand at the back of his neck as he smoothed the curls twisting beneath his hat.
Hyunjin’s grin widened and he wiggled his fingers. Crooked them just so as he plucked his joint from his lips, holding the smoke and baring his teeth.
“Okay, okay, fine,” Chan said with a squeaky little laugh. The tips of his ears were already stained pink, although that might’ve been thanks to the string lights. “You have very sexy hands, Hyunjin.”
Hyunjin popped a smoke ring and smirked as it floated in the air, breaking when the lights glowed red again. Jisung exhaled at about the same time, but he’d taken such a huge bong rip that he ended up fighting for his life and coughing right into Felix’s shoulder as Chan just leaned back into his corner of the sofa, his smile making his upper lip curl.
“But it’s a shame I’ve never seen you use them.”
Hyunjin almost laughed. An automatic response, a soft series of hehhehheh in the back of his throat that got away from him before he could think about it, and he ended up spluttering through the rest of his exhale just as bad as Jisung. Chan’s smile widened enough to carve a dimple into his cheek, and Felix was looking between them as though they were a particularly entertaining tennis match. It was only when Jisung collapsed forward to trade his bong for his Red Bull, momentarily blocking Chan’s annoyingly toothy grin, that Hyunjin remembered to blink.
Chan was already giggling, head thrown back and knees coming up to his chest as he tilted into Jisung’s side, and Hyunjin employed the only defence mechanism he had, which was to simply double down and call the bluff.
“Oh, yeah?” He cocked his head and tried to ignore the churn in his stomach. It felt like he’d smoked past his limit and was erring dangerously close to pulling a whitey, thick and stuffy like cotton wool lodged in his throat. “What exactly is it you want to see them do, Channie-hyung?”
Chan remained where he’d fallen, mashed into Jisung’s side with his cap lost somewhere behind the couch cushions. He tongued the inside of his lip and just lifted a lazy foot, nudging his tray across the coffee table and jutting his chin up with a smirk.
“Roll a joint for once,” Chan said with a barely-there chuckle, like it was the funniest joke he’d ever made. In fairness, it made Felix fling his head back with a shout of laughter aimed at the ceiling, loud enough to make Jisung jump half out of his skin.
“Oh, trust me, no one wants that,” Felix cackled as he hooked the edge of the rolling tray beneath his finger, sliding it towards Jisung instead. “Hyunjin is a princess, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him roll anything.”
“Hyunjin-ah’s way too pretty t’lift a single one f’his pretty fingers,” Jisung said with a decisive little nod, obediently grabbing the grinder without Felix having to ask. “Thought we already ‘stablished that, hyung, c’mon…”
“Right,” Chan muttered with another giggle as he heaved himself to his feet and shuffled towards the kitchen. Hyunjin’s eyes followed his movement of their own accord, watching as his hand ended up at the back of his neck again, fingers twisting absently around a stray curl of hair. Chan patted it back down as he snorted under his breath and shoved the kitchen door open. “Too pretty…”
Hyunjin watched the door swing shut. Both Jisung and Felix were shooting him near-identical grins as they listened to Chan root around in his refrigerator, and it would’ve been unnerving if they didn’t always act like they shared a single brain cell every time they got stoned together. Hyunjin couldn’t quite remember how to make the muscles in his face work to return it. The cotton scratch in the back of his throat was making him want to cough again, and despite the stupid dubstep song bouncing out of Chan’s sound system, the actual silence suddenly felt too heavy.
“Can’t believe you don’t think I’m pretty, hyung!” Hyunjin called, wriggling deeper into his chair and staring at his lighter as he twisted it between his fingers. He didn’t need to look up to know Felix looked like the fucking Cheshire cat, and Jisung just huffed through a giggle as he pulled a rolling paper from the pack.
Hyunjin let his head flop back against the chair as Chan reappeared from the kitchen with an armful of snacks, pouting up at him as he blew another stream of smoke into the air. Chan dropped a small plastic container into his lap, purposefully aiming for his stomach so the impact made Hyunjin grunt, but he twisted it up into a dramatic gasp and clutched his chest.
“Grapes! Fresh ones, too! Oh, Channie-hyung, did you go all the way to an actual grocery store and buy actual real-life food, just for me?”
Chan just shrugged and bent low, propping his chin against Hyunjin’s shoulder and pursing his lips expectantly. Like he was after a kiss, and despite the sickly wave rolling in his gut, Hyunjin laughed as he held up the butt of his joint. Even with the weed, Hyunjin could smell the rosy sweetness of his shampoo and the same fuckboy body spray he always wore. He never changed it, probably because the bottle fit perfectly between his hand soap and cleanser on the bathroom counter. Hyunjin wondered, as he watched Chan take a deep pull that made his cheekbones cut sharp, whether he had a designated spot for the lip balm he must use, too. His mouth was soft against Hyunjin’s knuckles, and he blinked as the fullness of Chan’s lips pulled back to bear his teeth with a grin.
Hyunjin wanted to know if the inside of his mouth was any softer.
“Well.” Chan’s voice was tight with smoke until he exhaled with a giggle, the breath fanning across Hyunjin’s neck. “You’re just so pretty, Hyunjinnie, and if all it takes to keep you around is making sure my fridge is stocked with your favourite munchies, then…”
Hyunjin just blinked against the pale cloud of smoke and watched Chan shuffle back to his spot on the couch with the rest of his snacks.
He was soft around the edges. Sweet and gooey, marshmallow dimples, spearmint toothpaste, strawberries and cream, eyes like melted chocolate. It wasn’t Hyunjin’s fault that he had a sweet tooth. The attention was easy to indulge in, especially when it was always so freely given. But it was like Halloween candy, nondiscriminatory, offered to absolutely everyone who knocked on Chan’s door. He gave it to Felix, to Jisung, to his housemate, probably, to anyone who walked into his apartment with cash to spend. As normal as it was, for Chan to flirt with him, it was just as normal for him to flirt with everyone else, and it always made Hyunjin’s stomach churn. Sickly sweet, one piece of candy too many, and if Hyunjin didn’t cut himself off and clamp his mouth shut against it occasionally, then he was at risk of throwing it all back up.
“Does that mean you’ve got cheesecake back there?” Jisung asked, mouth slack and somehow still perfectly round. “Oh m’ god, I want cheesecake so bad…”
“Nah,” Felix said with a sly smile, hooking an arm around Jisung’s shoulders and squeezing the swell of muscle his fingers landed on with an appreciative hum. “Jinnie’s just his favourite.”
“Wha’...” Jisung’s mouth immediately dropped into a pout, eyebrows knitting together as his bottom lip jutted out, all wet and reproachful. “S’not fair, hyung…”
Hyunjin could feel the heat in his face, and he wished the lights would just settle on a single colour for once, so he could hide the flush in his cheeks when they turned red. They faded and bloomed into orange again anyway, and he leaned forward to stub his roach out as the room glowed gold.
Chan’s gaze was heavy where it fell. Like a hand flat against Hyunjin’s chest, pushing him back into the armchair as the weight of it spread through to his bones. Blaming it on the weed would’ve been a cop out, but Hyunjin pressed his tongue between his lips, just to make sure he could still taste the herbal sting of it.
Chan grabbed Jisung’s freshly rolled joint and flicked his lighter between fingers that were, arguably, just as pretty as his own. He exhaled a cloud of smoke after he’d lit it and taken a drag, and flung an arm across the back of the couch as he grinned across the room at Hyunjin.
“I don’t have favourites.”
Saccharine, enough to make him sick.
Hyunjin smiled sweetly and slid a grape through the circle of his lips with a cheerful little pop. Juice burst between his teeth when he bit down, and he hummed, tongue darting out to catch a stray drop of it at the corner of his mouth. Chan’s grin turned a little darker, like sugar melting into caramel, and Hyunjin resisted the laugh crackling in his chest.
“Liar.”
3. Gucci Kush
Chan 🔌01:18
hyunzales~
u up
wot u doin
Hyunjin flopped back against his pillows with a huff and blinked up at the ceiling. He dragged a hand through the clammy mess of his hair and sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, breathing heavily through his nose as a droplet of sweat slid down his throat and gathered in the dip of his collarbones. His sheets were already ruined. They were brand-new, a beautiful emerald-green silk that put far, far too much of a dent into his measly paycheck. But they’d been on sale, and Felix had - quite literally - twisted his arm as they’d wandered around the department store during a lunch break. His friend had far more confidence in Hyunjin’s ability to pull his date and actually put them to use.
He should’ve known how disgusting they’d get the moment he started sweating. It felt particularly wasteful that he was the only one to blame, and as the orgasm twisting meekly in his gut dissolved with a clench of disappointment somewhere behind his navel, Hyunjin rolled onto his side with a heavy sigh and reached for his phone.
Hyunjin 01:24
Jerking off
Chan 🔌01:24
cap ㅎㅎ
Hyunjin 01:25
Why, what’s up?
Chan 🔌01:25
wanna smoke?
cant sleep ㅠㅠ n the buds on this new strain r crazyyy
its called gucci~ ㅋㅋㅋ
Hyunjin was still sweating by the time he knocked on Chan’s front door. He could feel it against his temples, sliding down the notches of his spine, not quite bad enough to ruin his silk sheets for a second time, but enough that he could feel the stickiness beneath his t-shirt. It was raining, and so he’d had to throw a hoodie on and zip it up to his chin, and as soon as he peeled it off and ran a hand through his hair, Chan laughed.
“No fucking way, were you actually rubbing one out?” He wriggled his fingers into Hyunjin’s hair and immediately pulled a face when his hand came away damp, and Hyunjin just snorted, batting his arm away and flopping down on his usual spot on the couch.
“Yeah, you interrupted me.”
“Ohh, gosh, fuck I’m sorry,” Chan said, and Hyunjin just huffed out a laugh of his own. The apology was so automatically sincere that it sounded silly. “Did you even… y’know.”
Chan fell into the seat next to him with a pained groan, and Hyunjin didn’t need to look up to know the tips of his ears were flushed.
“Shoot a load? Bust a nut?”
Chan just tilted, shoulders hunching up toward his flaming ears as he covered his face with both hands, enough for the giggle to come out muffled and only a little strained.
Hyunjin grinned. “No, you well and truly ruined my orgasm, don’t worry.”
Chan stared up at him, the abject horror smeared across his face completely eradicating the usual bubble-gum pink embarrassment. He wore guilt like it was armour. Shouldered it like he was glad of the excuse, bowed under the weight of it because it was so much easier for him to carry. Hyunjin just chuckled as his shoulders slumped like a puppy that’d been told they couldn’t go to the park. He even slapped a hand to his mouth, and it only made Hyunjin laugh harder.
“I did?” He hissed through his fingers. “Dude, I’m the worst friend ever.”
“I’m just messing with you, hyung,” Hyunjin said, shaking his head and nudging him upright again. “My heart wasn’t really in it, anyway.”
Chan hummed, plucking the grinder out of Hyunjin’s hands so he could start packing a bowl. “How come?”
Hyunjin let out a heavy sigh and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. It hadn’t been a particularly bad date. Hyunjin had certainly experienced worse, back home and in Seoul, and this last guy had at least been polite. He’d taken Hyunjin to a restaurant he’d been meaning to try ever since he first moved to the city, and he happily paid the bill, but it’d just been unforgivably boring. He’d droned on for close to an hour about his dad’s construction company, was lowkey misogynistic to the waitress, and he hadn’t asked Hyunjin a single question about himself, other than your profile said you were vers, but you prefer bottoming, right? By the time Hyunjin had shoved the door to his apartment open, he’d been on a mission to cum his brains out if only out of pure spite.
“Hookup gone awry,” was what he told Chan, though, leaning forward to tap the end of his cigarette against the ashtray.
“How?” Chan asked, almost earnestly, with none of his usual sugary sweet teasing laced into the question. Maybe Hyunjin had spread the guilt a little too thick. “Did he… if he did anything to make you… uncomfortable, Hyunjin, I can -”
Hyunjin popped a smoke ring, smiling when it came out thick and white and perfect. “Honestly, hyung, don’t worry about it.”
“I’m serious!” Chan replied hotly, although a tiny giggle escaped on the back end of his indignation. “Did… he didn’t, did he?”
“You really think I’d have been jerking off if he’d actually tried anything?” Hyunjin’s smile felt on the wrong side of too warm. It started to singe the corners of his mouth, and he cleared his throat and shoved a hand through his hair again as he took another pull of his cigarette. “Nah, he just… I don’t know. Just wasn’t feeling it.”
“Ah,” Chan said softly, a barely-there comment it was so quiet. Hyunjin glanced sideways to watch him dig a thumb into the bowl to pack the weed a little tighter. He hummed and kept his eyes on his task. “Too short? Too tall? Too hairy? Not hairy enough? Oh, too touchy? Annoying laugh, shit hair, questionable tattoos? Gross teeth? Terrible fashion sense? Too -”
“Stop,” Hyunjin interrupted with a crunchy giggle, kicking his foot out until it connected with Chan’s knee. “You make it sound like I’m totally superficial.”
“Nah, just trying to figure out your type,” Chan replied easily, shooting him a smile as he dropped the bowl into his favourite bong. Lilac glass, with flecks of gold twisting through the choke. “I reckon you like blonds.”
Hyunjin was glad he wasn’t already high. If he’d been stoned, then he might’ve laughed at the comment, might’ve hummed and shaken his head and immediately replied with an easy nah, hyung, you’re more my type.
“Oh, yeah?” Hyunjin muttered, twisting his cigarette between his lips and slumping further down his seat until he could rest his feet in Chan’s lap. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you’re all dark and brooding and artsy. A blond would look good with you, y’know? Maybe someone with freckles. Cute smile. Deep voice.”
“Felix?” Hyunjin asked with an incredulous laugh. It stung, like he’d taken too long of a drag, like he’d chewed on the lit end of his cigarette, like the embers were burning a hole through his tongue. “Way off base, dude, he’s my best friend, and… well, I mean, it’s not like he’s hard to love, but I dunno, even if I did. He’s pretty spoken for at the minute.”
Chan already had the glass rim of his bong at his mouth, the pale purple glass making the pink of his lips even rosier. His lighter was sparked and ready, but he immediately dropped both with a scandalised gasp. “Really? Who?”
“Oh, c’mon…” Hyunjin snorted, digging his heel into Chan’s thigh. “I know you’re stoned like, ninety nine percent of the time, but you’re not that blind, surely.”
Chan wriggled in his seat, almost dislodging Hyunjin’s legs until he patted his ankle, then tapped it faster, then smacked his foot repeatedly as he bounced so hard that the couch springs creaked. “He finally hooked up with Jisung? When?”
“Last weekend, when Felix took him to that rave. Jisung dropped half a pill and dry-humped him on the dancefloor.”
Chan practically dissolved, cotton candy in water, melting into the couch with a peal of delighted laughter. He kept his grip tight on Hyunjin’s ankle, his thumb pressing into the squishy part between his tendons, the metal of his chain bracelet warm where it landed against his sock.
“Oh my gosh, I never actually thought they would,” Chan breathed, throwing his head back and squeezing the entire instep of Hyunjin’s foot. He let his head fall to the side so he could hit Hyunjin with the full solar flare of his smile. “Felix has wanted to sink his teeth into him for years.”
“Jisung made the first move, apparently,” Hyunjin said coyly, tonguing the edge of his teeth and waggling his eyebrows. He stifled a giggle when Chan honest to god gasped, like they were a pair of gossiping ahjummas. “Rubbed up on him in the middle of the crowd and stuck his tongue down his throat.”
“Far out,” Chan said, shaking his head as he finally brought his bong back up to his mouth. “I was at that party, too, man, I can’t believe I missed it. When I fucked him… well, he told me he’d never, ever make a move, said he was way too much of a scaredy cat.” He shook his head again with a breathy laugh and sparked his lighter. “Whoa, good for him.”
Hyunjin exhaled slowly as he watched Chan’s bong fill up with thick, creamy white smoke. The water bubbled with his inhale, and Hyunjin held his own breath, hoping that Chan was too focused on his hit to notice how Hyunjin’s leg jerked in his lap.
“You -” He cleared his throat as Chan tilted his chin up to exhale a long, steady plume of smoke. Hyunjin blinked and forced himself to look away from the smooth column of his neck, the bulging vein at the side of his throat, the tendons that pulled his collarbones tight. “You, uhh, you fucked Jisung?”
Chan let his head drop to the side with a low, lazy laugh, handing the bong over. Hyunjin took it and stubbed his cigarette out, not caring that the embers were still glowing when he threw the butt into the ashtray.
“Yeah,” Chan said simply, shoving a knuckle into his eye and coughing. He let his hand drop back down to Hyunjin’s ankle, thumb making little circles against the material of his sock. “Couple months ago, I dunno. Ages after I fucked Felix, but I got sick of them crying to me about their feelings whenever they came to pick up.”
“Felix too?” Hyunjin tried and ultimately failed to keep his voice from squeaking.
The orgasm he’d fought tooth and nail for earlier bloomed in his stomach, a shameful yank of interest, a mangy street animal with its ears perking up as the moment came and went. He shifted in his seat and forced the laugh out.
“Oh my god, you’re a slut, I knew it.”
“What?” Chan chuckled, high and bubbly against the roof of his mouth, spilling past his teeth and filling the room with champagne foam. Like he was standing on the victor’s podium and celebrating Hyunjin’s blatant, and unfairly automatic, flare of jealousy. Chan just squeezed his ankle again. “Nah, yeah, I mean, I’m sex-positive, man! And y’know, maybe Jisung only made a move after we hooked up, ‘cause he figured, like… sex with your friends isn’t the end of the fucking world, mhm.”
Chan’s eyes were already lined with red, and his grin was already dopey, and his dimple was carved deeper than he’d ever seen it. His hand moved higher as he giggled again, fingers dipping below the hem of Hyunjin’s jeans to brush against his calf muscle.
“Slut,” Hyunjin repeated with a disbelieving laugh, bringing the bong to his lips. The glass was already warm where it’d pressed against Chan’s cheeks.
4. Dirty Widow
“Seriously,” Hyunjin whined, shoving the kitchen door open with a huff and making a beeline for the refrigerator. “I’m destined to be alone forever.”
“Aish, c’mon, Hyunjinnie…” Chan chuckled from the living room, voice strained. “Romantic like… you? You’ll be married with… two-point-five children… before you even hit… thirty.”
Hyunjin scowled at the packed contents of Chan’s refrigerator, ignoring the chocolate and fresh fruit and cooked chicken and diet sodas, and instead grabbing a bottle of water from the rack in the door.
“I’ve been here for months, hyung. Months. I’ve only hooked up twice, and not through lack of trying, believe me.” Hyunjin chugged half the bottle before he’d even made it back to the couch, swiping his hand across his mouth and clearing the fluff from the back of his throat as he took the fresh joint Chan had rolled for him from the divot in the ashtray. He sent himself hurtling back into the cushions and stared up at the string lights. “How is that even statistically possible? I thought moving here… I dunno, I just thought I’d be buried under a mountain of dicks.”
“Well, I mean…” Chan snickered around a laugh as he traded one set of weights for the barbell he kept propped up in the corner behind the sofa. Hyunjin resisted the urge to glance up, knowing he’d get smacked in the face with a tight black tank top and skin flushed pink all the way past the neckline. He could hear the jangle of his bracelets, and Hyunjin glared at the opposite wall as Chan started grunting properly. “You technically… have been buried… under a mountain of dicks, just… not in… the way… you’d like.”
“You’re the worst,” Hyunjin muttered, but he couldn’t stop the laugh from spilling past his lips even in his haste to light his joint. He exhaled heavily and waved a hand into the empty space above him as Chan started another set. “I fucked that DJ, Changbin, on my birthday, but I sent Felix after him next time we went out, and I hooked up with… Fuck, I can’t remember his name, but he was big. Taller than me, and his arms were like. The size of my head.”
Hyunjin laughed, and Chan just grunted wordlessly, pointedly disinterested, as he carried on lifting his weights.
“But that’s literally it, and that was only because we were all completely fucking loaded. I could’ve had a mountain of dicks, and so far I’ve just found a mountain of assholes, instead.”
“And you’re… a whiny little… bottom, yeah,” Chan huffed, and Hyunjin sighed theatrically as he let his head flop to the side, narrowing his eyes as he finally looked up. The tendons in Chan’s neck were pulled tight, the pretty angles of his face contorted as he curled the bar up to his chest. “What?” Chan laughed. “I’m right… aren’t I?”
“Half right,” Hyunjin snapped, but he couldn’t stop the smirk twisting into the corners of his mouth. “Well… seventy thirty.”
“So… you’re telling me you’re… cute… and vers… and intelligent, and… funny and yet you can’t… get laid?” Chan let out a long groan as he finished his set and balanced the barbell against the wall, shaking his arms out and making the chains around his wrists jingle even louder. “Okay, show me your profile.”
“What?” It came out far higher and squeakier than he’d intended, and he sat up a little straighter, clutching his phone to his chest.
“Show me your profile,” Chan repeated, giggle coming out more breathless than usual. The sweat was making his hair curl up at the back of his neck, and Hyunjin couldn’t tell if the pink in the tips of his ears was because of his impromptu workout - he’d insisted that this particular strain of weed would open Hyunjin’s third eye and he’d paint like a man possessed, and then proved it by lifting weights after he’d smoked his joint - or if it was because he was asking to see Hyunjin’s Grindr page. “C’mon, no judgment. Judgment-free zone, promise.”
Hyunjin felt like he was tip-toeing on the blade of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Hyunjin desperately wanted his hot and slutty drug dealer to view him as someone fuckable. And then on the other hand, he was about to show his hot and slutty drug dealer that he was, apparently, completely unfuckable. The for and against was engaged in a battle to the death on the tip of his tongue, and Chan took the opportunity to snatch his phone out of his hand with another breathy chuckle.
“Oh my gosh, how long did you spend organising all your apps and stuff?” Chan muttered, eyebrows shooting up as he thumbed through the pages. “They’re all black and gothy, too. Whoa, you’re so artsy, Jinnie.”
“I got bored at work,” Hyunjin replied defensively, immediately scooting along the couch until he could press up against Chan’s back and look over his shoulder. “I did Felix’s too. Wait, there, bottom left.”
Chan hummed as he clicked on the blacked-out Grindr icon, and Hyunjin felt something twist in his gut as he immediately discarded the chat notifications and tapped on the profile icon. Hyunjin thought it was pretty good. Hell, he’d fuck himself, given the chance. The main picture was a mirror selfie he’d taken a few weeks ago, when the spikes of his hair were perfect and his eyeliner made it look like he’d just been fucked - he hadn’t, he’d just slept in it. His lips were plump and shiny where his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, and the distressed sweatshirt, with all the safety pins and studs he’d twisted into the thread, hung loose from his shoulders, exposing the cut of his collarbones. The second picture, he was drenched with sweat, feet pressed against the dance practice room’s floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the sleeves of his soaked t-shirt shoved up to show his biceps and shoulders. Then there was the candid shot of him kicking a football around the park with Jisung, mid-laugh with his eyes scrunched up and his hands twisted into his shirt to fan himself. Felix had insisted on that one, simply because it showcased his ‘slutty little waist’, and then the last one was a repeated gif of a paintbrush spinning idly between his fingers.
Chan hummed thoughtfully, and Hyunjin chewed on his bottom lip enough to peel the skin away.
“Jinnie, twenty-five, vers switch, probably someone’s sleep paralysis demon.”
Hyunjin just buried his face into Chan’s shoulder with a pained groan, stifling the near-hysterical laugh by mashing his cheek into the sweaty skin of his shoulder. The muscle was solid as a rock from the pump of his barbell.
“Hyunjinnie,” Chan chuckled, enough to dislodge him, and Hyunjin flopped onto his back with his hands covering his face. “This is hot. Your profile is hot. I’d swipe on it.”
Hyunjin made a wounded sound into his fingers, wanting to bite them clean off, and Chan laughed all over again.
“I have plenty of people who swipe on my profile, thanks,” Hyunjin mumbled, twisting onto his back so he could stare up at the ceiling.
“I can see that,” Chan muttered, scrolling through his messages. “But…”
“What?” Hyunjin demanded, shoving himself up and slumping over Chan’s shoulders again so he could reach his lighter on the coffee table. “But what?”
“I know what your issue is,” Chan said, craning his neck so he could flash a smile up at him. “It’s too hot.”
Hyunjin immediately snorted and lit his joint, shuffling up the couch to put some space between them. Chan was too warm, muscles flushed and tight from all the blood rushing beneath the surface of his skin, and it felt like he was burning all the air up in the room. “It’s a hook-up app, hyung. That’s kind of the point.”
Chan shifted back in his seat properly, handing Hyunjin’s phone back and then tugging his legs into his lap. He patted Hyunjin’s knee, and although the touch sent something ricocheting up into his sternum, it felt so platonic, so sweet, as sugary as it always was, that it made Hyunjin’s stomach lurch.
“But you’re not hot, Hyunjinnie.”
Hyunjin heard his mouth pop open, heard the slick sound of his bottom lip falling, felt something sharp stab at the back of his eyes, but Chan giggled and rubbed his hands into Hyunjin’s thighs before he could suck a breath in to hold it.
“I mean, you are. Of course you are, I… I mean, look at you. Just… this is the real you, not the guy in these photos, this guy, right here.” He kneaded the meat of Hyunjin’s leg through his cargos. “You’re adorable. You’re silly, and you’re cute, and your whole face squishes up when you really laugh, and you’ve probably had the colour scheme for your wedding picked out since you were a teenager, and you believe true love and soulmates and love at first sight exist.”
Hyunjin clamped his mouth shut so quickly it made his teeth click together.
“All these guys you talk to on here, and meet up with, they all think they’re getting… intimidatingly hot sex demon Jinnie.”
“So I’m a disappointment.”
Chan’s fingers wrapped over the curve of Hyunjin’s thigh, and he whined through a laugh, shaking his head so hard it made his earrings wobble. “No, you big idiot, I just mean… the guys are wrong. The guys are the disappointment. They only wanna fuck the sex demon, and you… you wanna fall in love.”
Hyunjin frowned. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to fuck first.”
“Well, sure,” Chan chuckled, tugging at one of his earrings enough to pull on the lobe, and he cleared his throat and waggled the fingers of his free hand until Hyunjin passed the joint back to him. He dropped his earring and squeezed Hyunjin’s leg again. “I’m just saying, there’s a reason you never end up actually fucking them. Because you don’t really want to, there’s no connection, there’s no…”
Chan waved his hand with a half-shrug, taking a long pull of the joint. He bared his teeth and then exhaled, leaning over to pass it back. He slumped halfway and remained wedged between the cushion and Hyunjin’s hip.
“No spark.”
“Right,” Chan nodded encouragingly, and then he shook his head. “They don’t deserve you, anyway.”
“No?” Hyunjin muttered, unable to stop the disbelieving quirk of his eyebrows. “Think you could do better?”
“Yeah.” Chan’s answer was so immediate, so easy, like everything else that fell out of his mouth, that it made Hyunjin snort a laugh through his nose. “Definitely, actually.”
“Why, because we have a spark?” Hyunjin asked, only a little vindictively, swiping a malicious layer of spite over the flirtation just to see if Chan was willing to lick through it to get to the sherbet in the centre.
Chan looked up at him and grinned. The angle made his teeth look pointed. “Don’t we?”
“Well, which one am I, then?” Hyunjin asked, propping himself up on his elbows and taking a purposefully long pull of the joint, wincing when it stung the inside of his bottom lip. “Sex demon or… pabo?”
“You, Hwang Hyunjin…” Chan’s fangs dropped as his smile widened, an almost audible click of razor-sharp enamel, like he was a vampire about to unhinge his jaw and sink his teeth. “You are the most pabo sex demon I’ve ever met.”
5. Layer Cake
Hyunjin had a pretty solid process for when he felt too much. He teetered on the edge at the best of times, bubblegum blown so big it threatened to pop, a ticking bomb with the numbers stuck flickering between one and zero, a match continuously struck without igniting. Red phosphorus and powdered glass, never quite sharp enough to spark a flame.
It was easier to swallow it down. A pill on the back of his tongue, the first glug of lukewarm tap water the morning after a night out. Hyunjin always felt like he was about to boil over, and instead of turning the heat down to calm the bubbles foaming at the sides, he tended to switch the burner off completely. Buried it, absorbed it, let it sink beneath his skin until he couldn’t feel it scratching at the surface.
The only drawback was the inevitable explosion and the nuclear fallout that always followed. But he had a process for that, too.
“Yeah, hyung, a half.” Hyunjin’s knee was bouncing, and he folded his legs beneath himself and pulled his sleeves a little further down over his hands. “Please.”
“Everything okay, Hyunjinnie?” Chan asked quietly, fingers twitching against his scales. He pushed a finger into one side, bracing it between his thumbs, lining it up with the edge of the table.
“Yeah.”
“You want a half all in one go?” Chan’s breath whistled through his teeth and he shifted back on the couch without turning the scales on. The little screen on the front remained dark, no row of neon blue zeroes flashing up at either of them. “What’s up?”
“Figured you wouldn’t mind,” Hyunjin muttered. “Figured it’d be good for business, right?”
Chan just smiled, but it didn’t quite leave enough room for his dimple.
“I’ve just had… a really shitty week, hyung,” Hyunjin mumbled, picking at a thread in the sleeve of his hoodie. He blinked quickly, ignoring the sting in the corners of his eyes. “And I just… I wanna get high, and lock myself in my apartment, and paint, and… and…”
“Hey,” Chan said, immediately shuffling along the couch and extending an arm, pulling it back just as quickly and patting Hyunjin on the knee instead. “S’okay, Jinnie, you don’t have to tell me anything. But you’re my friend, right? Gotta make sure you’re okay, and all.”
“Thanks, h-hyung.”
“Oh… Hyunjinnie, hey, s’okay, hey hey you’re okay, what’s up, huh?” Despite the sob battering its way to freedom through his rib cage, Hyunjin ended up laughing wetly as Chan immediately moved to balance in front of him. He couldn’t work out how best to comfort him, with one hand hovering near Hyunjin’s elbow, and the other skimming lightly against his knee as he crouched between the coffee table and Hyunjin’s spot on the couch.
“S’fine, Chan-hyung, really I’m fine, s-sorry, I -”
Hyunjin automatically shifted back in his seat, shaking his head and rubbing his knuckles into his eyes as he sniffed out a humourless laugh, and Chan withdrew his hands with a slight whine. Like not being able to wrap Hyunjin up in a hug was somehow causing him more pain than the river of tears Hyunjin was keeping at bay. But he stayed, waiting as Hyunjin sucked in a slightly shuddering breath before he could cry properly, staring up at him with gooey, chocolate-fondant eyes as Hyunjin pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly through his nose.
Chan tapped him delicately on the knee with the tip of his finger. “Wanna smoke a bowl?”
“God, yes.”
Chan’s laugh squeaked in his throat, and he bounced on the balls of his feet. “Wanna play Left 4 Dead 2 and order pizza? Hyung’s treat.”
“Fucking yes, please.”
“Okay.”
Chan pulled weed from his personal stash, yapped happily about how it was his favourite strain because it was so mellow, because it made everything tingly and calm and fuzzy round the edges. Once they’d both taken a huge bong hit, and after they’d eaten an entire large pizza and two sides of mozzarella sticks, and after several, several rounds on the carnival level of Chan’s favourite zombie game that always ended with a giant, bloody rockshow, Hyunjin had almost forgotten why he’d very nearly burst into tears on his drug dealer’s couch in the first place.
Well, he hadn’t, not really; he could still hear the argument with his parents, the two of them trying to persuade him to move back home because rather than getting the promotion he’d wanted, he’d ended up in a disciplinary meeting for a customer complaint that absolutely was not his fucking fault, and he could still hear the disgusting, slimy comments from the group of drunk businessmen that’d followed him down the train carriage after work, and he could still feel the way his boss had clapped him on the shoulder after he’d placed an ominous black mark in his ledger. He could still feel the crushing weight of everything in the entire world on the back of his neck, making his shoulders round and heavy.
His workaround normally involved a lot of weed, his sad boy playlist, his favourite depressing movies, and painting until his hand cramped. But Chan, as it turned out, was an even better antidote.
Cool, when the pressure burned so hot, a breath of fresh air after Hyunjin crawled out of the metaphorical tar pit that bubbled in his head.
“Man…” Chan muttered, brow hard and sharp as he stared unblinkingly at his television screen. His jaw ticked, and it made his earring wobble. “I fucking miss the dual-wield pistols from the first game, they hit so hard.”
The plastic controller squeaked in his hand as he swapped weapons and fired his shotgun directly into the painted clown-face of a zombie, whistling through his teeth as he pulled a one-eighty and did the same to the bloater shambling toward him. It exploded in a gory spray of green goo, and Chan laughed as he threw a molotov and went sprinting through the fairground while the horde burned.
“Jockey,” Hyunjin mumbled, face mashed into the arm of Chan’s couch.
“Yeah, I see him…” Chan grunted, sprinting to his teammate for heals before spraying his uzi into the zombie leaping through the air before it could wrap its limbs around his neck. “Fuckin’... out of ammo, though.”
Hyunjin blinked lazily, squinting through tight, scratchy eyes as he stretched his legs out behind Chan and fought off a yawn. He could check the time, but his phone was still in his pocket, and he didn’t have the energy to shove his hand down to his jeans. Especially not when Chan was perched on the edge of the sofa right where Hyunjin was sprawled.
“- wake up the fucking witch, man, c’mon…”
Hyunjin ground his teeth, but the yawn bled out of him anyway.
“ - lose my fucking mind if this shotgun doesn’t reload any fucking faster, I swear -”
He only closed his eyes for a second. And then what felt like a second after that, he was forced to blink them back open again as a hand gave his shoulder a gentle shake. Hyunjin sniffed and screwed his eyes shut tighter.
“Hyunzales, I think you’ve run outta steam.”
Hyunjin groaned, and Chan giggled. He felt the hand relax, fingers spreading across his upper arm as a thumb kneaded into the muscle.
“You wanna stay?”
Hyunjin hummed softly, wincing at the ache in his neck where he’d passed out slumped over on his side.
“Yeah? C’mon. Yeah, see, you’re too… fuckin’ long for my couch, heh, c’mon…”
Chan hauled him up gently, and Hyunjin tilted his head as he squinted one eye open to find the usual huge smile, the deep dimples, the sparkly eyes and sparklier nose stud, the curls of hair poking out from beneath a beanie. Hyunjin shuffled after him like just another zombie NPC, not really registering where his feet were taking him, just hopeful that it was somewhere dark and marginally more comfortable.
Chan’s room was like the rest of his apartment. Dimly lit, but bathed in steady, warm purple instead of pulsing RGB, with the posters and frames nailed to the wall perfectly perpendicular to the ceiling. His bed was made and tucked in so well that Hyunjin didn’t bother trying to free the corner of the blanket, happy to just collapse headfirst into the pillows. They smelled sweet and warm, like his flowery shampoo, and Hyunjin buried his face with a happy hum.
He was maybe only half-aware of Chan pottering around. Hyunjin at least had the foresight to kick his shoes off, not wanting to mess up Chan’s inexplicably perfect bedsheets, and if he had energy enough for that, then he could definitely shove his jeans down his legs, because the thought of sleeping in denim made him want to crawl out of his skin completely. He could hear Chan’s whispery squeak of a laugh every now and again, especially when Hyunjin’s jeans got caught on the heel of one foot, and by the time he shrugged out of his hoodie, Chan had already pulled the sheets back on one side.
“Get in,” he said.
“You get in,” Hyunjin slurred, both eyes already firmly shut as he rolled over and burrowed beneath the blanket.
“Why, you wanna cuddle?” The laugh came out high and squeaky again, and a little too quick, and Hyunjin snorted.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?” Chan asked, and Hyunjin felt the mattress dip. “You’re not normally all that big on the whole… I dunno, physical affection thing.”
Hyunjin blinked his eyes open halfway and pulled a pillow up beneath his chin, twisting his fingers into the material and kneading the stuffing. “Yeah, well, I’ve had… a really, really shitty week, remember?”
Chan sucked a harsh breath in through one side of his mouth and nodded, and Hyunjin watched sleepily as he shoved a hand under the hem of his t-shirt to tug it over his head in one quick motion. The muscles in his back were so defined that Hyunjin could probably use him for anatomy practice. Could fill a sketchbook with him, could cover pages with thick charcoal lines detailing the way each one of his muscles pulled and dipped and swelled in all the right places, could commit every tendon and vein to paper with eager scratches of graphite, could drag his thumb across the page to smudge shadows into his skin. Hyunjin blinked slowly, and Chan stood, kicking his jersey shorts off and bundling his clothes up so he could throw them in the hamper.
“What?” He grinned. “Count yourself lucky, I normally sleep naked.”
“S’okay,” Hyunjin said, watching as Chan took a long glug from the water bottle on his nightstand. He resisted the urge to look down, to where Chan was wearing a pair of criminally tight black boxers, and instead focused on the lift of his arm where it made his shoulder round, made his bicep bulge, made the muscles in his chest pull tight enough to wobble the silver ring pierced through his nipple. “You’re really beautiful, hyung.”
“Yeah, and you’re high as fuck,” Chan giggled through a whisper, wriggling under the covers and tugging them up to his chin like he was embarrassed. He sighed theatrically and laughed again, soft and quiet in the dark. “You wanna be big spoon or little spoon?”
+1. Cereal Milk
“Nah, no way, man.” The almost immediate indignation came out as a whistle, and Chan shook his head. “That quiz is bullshit.”
“It says, right here!” Hyunjin said with a triumphant grin that made his cheeks ache, flashing his phone screen too fast for Chan to actually see. “You’re a forest.”
“How am I not the beach?” Chan whined, kicking his legs out and making grabby hands. “Your test is total bullshit, I… I fucking cried watching a livestream of Manly Beach literally the other day -”
“Forest people,” Hyunjin interrupted gleefully, ignoring the petulant kicks and batting Chan’s feet away before he could dislodge his phone. “Much prefer a slow, quiet life, full of fresh mountain air and toasted marshmallows and the - hehe - the crackle of a, of a log fire, ow -”
“Bullshit,” Chan repeated with a breathless giggle, digging his toes into Hyunjin’s leg. “I’m from fucking Sydney, for god’s sake, they’re wrong, it’s wrong, your dumb quiz is… fucking wrong, c’mere - Hyunjin, get over here, I’m serious, I don’t trust you, I bet you didn’t even put my answers in properly, just - I wanna take it again, c’mon… c’mon -”
He wedged a foot between Hyunjin’s thighs and wormed his leg out a little further, so he could hook an ankle behind Hyunjin’s knee and use the leverage to shift himself up. He pinged Hyunjin’s shirt until he eventually managed to grab a fistful of his sleeve, and Hyunjin was still cackling about the smell of pine needles and snowy cabins as he toppled sideways into Chan’s lap.
His throat was stuffy with how much they’d smoked. Swallowing was difficult and yet despite how dry his mouth was, Hyunjin had an excess of spit pooling under his tongue, bubbles of it popping against his teeth. He still wasn’t quite used to Chan touching him so much. Well, Chan always touched him, he touched everyone, but where it was so reserved before, a gentle acknowledgment of Hyunjin’s boundaries - despite the fact that, really, all he’d thought about ever since they first met was just how badly he wanted to sink his teeth into his neck - now it felt like a dam had burst. He couldn’t even blame the weed, not really. It’d been his own fault; he’d opened the door to it when he fell asleep in Chan’s bed. When he woke up with Chan’s arms wrapped around his waist, and Chan’s chest pressed against his shoulder blades, and Chan’s breath hot and even against his neck.
Hyunjin had absolutely no problem cuddling up to Felix while they watched a sad movie, was perfectly happy to drape himself over Jisung’s shoulders to distract him from whatever fighting game he was playing. Held zero issue with the three of them shotgunning a bong hit just to see how long they could make one toke last before they all burst out laughing.
Now, it was just as normal for Chan to open his legs and scoop Hyunjin up until he had his back pressed against his chest. Until Chan’s chin was propped on top of Hyunjin’s head, and the hand that wasn’t still holding a lit joint was skating across the back of Hyunjin’s knuckles, guiding him into selecting answers to a stupid Buzzfeed quiz.
Chan wriggled with satisfaction beneath him when pixelated confetti exploded cheerfully across an image of white sand and foamy blue waves.
“Oh my gosh, I miss the beach,” Chan said quietly, curving an arm around Hyunjin’s shoulders so he could prop a mini ashtray in the centre of his chest. The resin bowl was black and flecked with silver, and it was already half full of wrinkled roaches and soft mounds of ash. “I miss swimming.”
“Me too,” Hyunjin said, smiling at the smoke ring that wobbled past his cheek. “I used to be really good at it.”
“Same,” Chan muttered. “I won a whole bunch of awards when I was living in Australia, I always thought I’d maybe end up going for the Olympics or something.”
Hyunjin craned his neck to grin up at him, waggling his fingers until Chan slotted the joint between his knuckles. “How come you ended up selling weed in Seoul, then?”
Chan just sighed dramatically and buried his face into Hyunjin’s hair. Hyunjin did his best to ignore the way his voice came out hot and soft against his scalp. “Well, how else was I gonna meet you?”
Time had already started to stretch out like pulled toffee, thin and white at the edges, but for a moment it felt like the world stopped spinning completely. Hyunjin pressed his lips together, kept his breath even and calm as his chest rose and fell just the same. But it felt like a foot had slammed on the breaks and sent him hurtling through the windshield. Blood everywhere, smeared across the asphalt, huge casualty, national news.
Hyunjin blinked, scoffing loudly with a shout of laughter and whacking Chan in the leg for good measure. “Gross, hyung.”
“What?” Chan chuckled, shifting beneath him until Hyunjin slipped half onto his side, enough for Chan to grin down at him.
“Did that really work on Felix? And Jisung? You fed them a fratboy-grade line and they fell to their knees, or what?”
“Nah, I just asked if they wanted to fuck and they said yeah.”
“Oh, is that what that was?” Hyunjin raised an eyebrow and forced a laugh out, passing the ashtray so he could prop himself up on one elbow. “An offer?”
Chan shrugged easily, taking one last lazy drag before balancing the joint against one of the little dips in the ashtray and reaching over to push it onto the edge of the coffee table. He flopped back with a dimpled smile and shoved an arm beneath his head.
“Nah,” Chan said, tongue pressing into his cheek as smoke curled around his teeth. The smile became terrifyingly decisive and Hyunjin swallowed thickly. “This is.”
Chan bucked his leg and nudged his knee into the small of Hyunjin’s back, enough to make him flop forward before he had a chance to hold himself up. He didn’t need to, though. Chan caught him, one arm snaking around his waist and a hand curling around his jaw to pull him into a kiss.
He’d thought about it a lot. Spent plenty of time with his hand shoved past the waistband of his underwear, wondering whether a squeak would filter through the gap their mouths made if Hyunjin pressed his lips to Chan’s after they’d shared a bong. Figured Chan would probably stiffen for half a second until his brain caught up, before he melted like ice cream left out on the counter on a warm day. Squishy and creamy at the sides, cookie dough at the centre, a bloom of whipped butter and powdered sugar when Hyunjin finally wormed his tongue into his mouth.
He hadn’t really thought about what it’d feel like if Chan kissed him.
It was already curled upward, loose with the width of his smile, bitter and herbal at first and then a little sweeter with the slight vanilla sting of weed. It was another one of Chan’s favourite strains. He’d giggled about how it made everyone kinda horny as he’d rolled a joint, tongue pink and wet as he’d licked along the line of gum on the rolling paper.
“Yeah?” Chan mumbled, threading his hand beneath the hem of Hyunjin’s shirt so he could spread his fingers, warm like caramel before they hardened against the small of his back.
“Yeah,” Hyunjin said with an eager nod that made their mouths slide together, and he nodded again when Chan’s fingers trailed up the knots of his spine, nodded even faster when his thumb pressed against the point where his jaw met his neck, just below his ear. “Yeah, fuck, okay yeah.”
Chan laughed, and although Hyunjin was pretty much always high around him, kissing him made it feel like he was levitating. Buoyed against the current of a delicate, wet little giggle that Hyunjin immediately ground down on, determined not to float away.
It made the chuckle sink deeper in the back of Chan’s throat, a steady thrum that opened the black hole in his chest and kept Hyunjin anchored in his lap.
“Chan…” His voice was ragged already, choking through a request for something that he couldn’t quite find the words for, a single syllable broken up into so many pieces as Chan’s fingers tightened against his neck.
He wasn’t sure how or when he’d got so hard, wasn’t sure how long that first kiss even lasted, but everything just started to condense; the world simply folded in on itself until the only thing that really existed for sure was Chan’s body under his and the quiet croak of leather as they moved. The soft hums vibrating in Chan’s chest, the slide of his fingers against Hyunjin’s skin, and the slick, wet sound of his tongue as he licked into Hyunjin’s mouth and sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. The slow thump of a bassline shuddering from Chan’s stereo, joined by a shimmering guitar note, and then a distorted vocal line floating on top of the beat as Chan’s back arched away from the sofa. It was like standing too close to one of the speakers at a rave. It thundered in Hyunjin’s head, made his ears start ringing, made the fucking air wobble.
“This,” Hyunjin rasped, shoving his hands up under Chan’s tank top and dragging the material over the hard lines of his stomach until it bunched at his chest. “Can you… I mean, can I -”
Words were difficult. Fizzing like pop rocks on the tip of his tongue, except they got stuck on the gumminess coating the roof of his mouth. It felt like his teeth had melted into glue. Smoking always dried his throat out, but Chan was sucking at what little reserves he still had left, replacing it with something jammier, stickier, syrup dripping down his neck, molasses thick and sweet where they pooled in the pit of his stomach.
Chan’s laugh finally escaped, high and thin as he rocked his hips up to match the way Hyunjin was grinding down, keeping his hand flat and insistent against his back. The tips of his fingers had wormed an inch past the waistband of Hyunjin’s jeans, and he used his thumb to shove them even lower.
“You’re so needy,” he muttered, a candy-coated admonishment that made Hyunjin’s teeth rot.
“Well, it…” Hyunjin hissed when Chan pushed his thigh surreptitiously against his groin. “S’like… a - a one-time deal, right, or -”
“Doesn’t have to be,” Chan said lazily, winding his other hand up into Hyunjin’s hair with a fluttering laugh. “Can be whatever you want.”
“Was it… was it a one-time deal with Sung?” Hyunjin asked. “And Felix?”
He couldn’t help the question. He might’ve been stoned out of his mind, but he wasn’t unaware enough to know that he was probably very comfortably slotted into the same category as their mutual friends. But even with Chan’s lips sliding against his, even with his leg shoved between Hyunjin’s thighs, even with the high making everything feel like the only gravity to exist was inside Chan’s mouth, Hyunjin still couldn’t resist asking, anyway.
“Yeah,” Chan sighed, a breathy thing that danced along the trail of spit that connected them. “‘Course it was. They wanted each other, not me.”
“You think I want you?” Hyunjin grinned, hiking his knee up a little further so he could press against the promisingly hard bulge between Chan’s legs.
Chan sucked a violent breath in through his teeth and then hummed around a smirk, pulling Hyunjin back into a far messier kiss with a slow, easy nod.
“Yeah, I think you do.”
For all the months he’d spent agonising over every flirtatious comment, for all the time he’d spent jerking off and fingering himself open with his eyes screwed shut, trying his best to remember the exact shade of pink that spread down Chan’s neck when he flushed, or the way the pillow of his top lip curled over his teeth whenever he started talking at mach speed, Chan had probably seen right through Hyunjin’s poor attempt to play it cool. Hyunjin was starting to wonder why he’d even bothered.
“Off,” was all he grunted in reply, yanking insistently at the bunched material of Chan’s shirt where he’d managed to hike it almost up to his neck.
Chan laughed - because of course he laughed, he never really stopped - but he obliged by arching his back and refusing to move any more than that. It took a lot of yanking and huffing on Hyunjin’s part, and the shirt collided with the weights stacked behind the sofa when Hyunjin threw it with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. Chan just smiled up at him, an easy quirk of plump, kiss-bitten lips.
He already knew, objectively, that Chan was hot. He’d seen him topless before. He’d curled up and fallen asleep just as close as they were making out on the couch, but Hyunjin could feel just how quickly his eyes were flickering, desperate to commit it all to memory like it was the first time. Hard planes of soft, pale skin flushed with the same familiar shade of pink, staining his ears, his cheekbones, spreading down the tight column of his neck and across his chest before dripping down the roundness of his pecs like strawberry syrup poured along the creamy ridges of cheap ice cream cones. Hyunjin pushed his tongue through the gummy seam of his lips as his eyes flickered to the silver rings pierced through Chan’s nipples, just as pink as the rest of him but deeper, like a bruise, hard and pebbled around the titanium jewellery that shifted gently as he filled his chest with a slightly shaky inhale. The outline of his abs was clear, although it was softer around his belly with the way he was propped up against the arm of the couch, and the giggle got a little higher and a little louder as Hyunjin dragged a finger down the divot between his muscles, towards the line of soft, dark hair at his navel. He poked the ring pierced there, too, and snickered when Chan sucked the laugh back in through his teeth like he was toking a joint.
It fluttered out of him in a soft gasp when Hyunjin bent down to drag his tongue along the swell of his chest, and got almost immediately inhaled again when he gave a gentle tug to the silver ring between his teeth. Chan’s back arched, hips bucking up into the empty space between them, and Hyunjin hummed, lips wet against flushed, angry skin as he listened to the ragged pant of Chan’s breath.
The laugh was long gone, replaced with sounds just as light, just as airy, but snagging on the flick of Hyunjin’s tongue, the scrape of his teeth, the drag of his lips. Chan was sensitive. Maybe it was just because he was stoned. Hyunjin thought, or maybe hoped, kind of idly as he sucked and bit his way across to Chan’s other pec, that he’d get another chance to see if Chan gasped and hissed and started to whimper in the same way when he was sober.
“Hyunjin…” he muttered, voice heavy and a little slurred as his hand came up to push into his hair again. An aborted gesture, fingertips skimming along the sweaty skin of his temple like he was trying to feel the rush of his pulse through it. “You trying t’ eat me alive?”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin answered immediately, sucking his nipple back between his lips and grinning when it made Chan curse under his breath.
“Okay,” Chan said, trying for a laugh and giving up when Hyunjin licked up his neck, tongue curling beneath the silver chain at his throat before he bit down on his trap muscle. “Just… come here, though.”
Chan managed to get him out of his own shirt with far more finesse, and everything sort of short-circuited when he pulled Hyunjin back down. He was so warm, so soft, even with all the hard edges of muscle, and although Hyunjin had single-mindedly planned to suck and bite his way down Chan’s chest until he was covered in marks shaped just like the messy signatures he scrawled into the corner of his paintings, that particular desire was very quickly forgotten when Chan slotted them together properly.
Hyunjin had always lowkey judged Chan for his fashion choices. He always looked good, that much was frustratingly true, but it was even more annoying because all he ever seemed to wear was a predictable array of unlawfully tight tank tops or stupid graphic t-shirts that must’ve been at least two sizes too big for him. Ratty beanies, faded baseball caps, baggy shorts or loose grey sweats, sometimes faded jeans soft from age on the rare occasion he planned on leaving his apartment. But Hyunjin could feel the thick length of him like he wasn’t wearing anything at all, and he decided, then and there, that basketball shorts were inarguably the best possible thing that Bang Chan could ever fucking wear.
“Big,” he mumbled absently, forgetting to even try and filter the single-worded thoughts rattling around in the emptiness of his head, and he hissed when Chan arched up into him, and then laughed even harder all over again when he felt Chan’s lips twist up with a grin.
“Wanna see?”
The material of Chan’s shorts was so fucking thin that Hyunjin could’ve seen plenty if he cared enough to look down, but the obvious, increasingly insistent press of Chan’s cock made him forget the question entirely. Good. It felt good already. Chan always made him feel good, really, a little more every time he ended up knocking on his door. Like a gummy high. Slow at first, and then Hyunjin was suddenly so stoned that it ended up kind of difficult to remember how he got from one point to another, just that he was pleased to be there at all.
“Or d’you just wanna cum in your pants like this?”
“Unh,” was all he managed, eyebrows twisting up as he mashed his face somewhere close to Chan’s mouth. Chan was laughing again, and Hyunjin grinned dumbly as the shake of it made his bones melt beneath his skin.
He was so wet. He could feel the spread of it across the front of his underwear, nowhere for it to go other than to soak into the material where his cock was still trapped in his jeans. Could probably use the mess of it to slick a finger well enough to press into Chan’s hole, if he ever managed to get him naked.
He might’ve said that out loud, he wasn’t sure, but as soon as Hyunjin thought about it, Chan was already shoving his shorts down to his thighs.
“Jinnie,” Chan mumbled, hissing through his teeth. “Please, I -”
“Needy,” Hyunjin echoed, grin triumphant and so huge it felt like his teeth might fall out.
Chan chuckled on instinct, but it turned into a pathetic, reedy little whine when Hyunjin rolled his hips again and the harsh scratch of his fly dragged across his dick. He didn’t really register Chan’s hands at the button of his jeans. Definitely didn’t hear the scrape of the zipper, didn’t notice Chan’s clumsy fingers shoving at the waistband until they were far down enough on his hips for him to slide a hand into Hyunjin’s underwear.
Hyunjin might’ve blinked once, maybe twice, might’ve managed to suck a couple breaths in, or he might’ve spent the entire night rubbing against Chan, living in the same ten second loop, as something warm and wet started to unfurl just behind his stomach. Time always became a little sludgy when he smoked, but with Chan beneath him, hard and giggly and heavy-handed, and moving with him just as much, it was difficult to keep track of it. One second he had his tongue in Chan’s mouth, and the next he was shuddering around a moan as Chan’s fingers wrapped around the base of his dick and pulled him free of his underwear.
“Ohh, f-fuck…”
It didn’t take much. Hyunjin screwed his eyes shut as Chan licked into his mouth, rutting mindlessly into the dry, warm circle of Chan’s hand all of maybe four times, and he could only think to offer an incoherent mumble of panic when it was already far too late.
“Jesus, Hyunjin…”
White noise was still crackling in his head, and Chan’s voice sounded too far away to tune in to, but Hyunjin felt himself laughing anyway. Could tell his shoulders were shaking with it, because his forearm was burning from holding himself up for so long, and his breath rattled in his chest as his dick twitched in Chan’s hands, still shooting thick ropes of cum all over the harsh cut of Chan’s lower stomach as the delirious giggle fizzed on the tip of his tongue.
When he blinked his eyes open Chan’s smile was almost blinding. Like looking directly at a solar eclipse. Beautiful, yeah, but painful when Hyunjin looked at it face on.
“Pent up?” Chan asked, the words tight with a laugh he was trying really, really hard to hold on to.
“Yeah,” Hyunjin snorted, mashing his forehead against Chan’s cheek with a breathless chuckle. “Fuck, sorry.”
“S’okay,” Chan said easily, fingers starting to uncurl from around his dick. “We can -”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin interrupted, nodding furiously and dragging his mouth back to Chan’s parted lips. He bucked forward, into the now far wetter grip of Chan’s bony fingers and hissed, teeth catching on the laziness of his kiss. “S’fine, yeah, just… just keep going.”
“You sure?” Chan asked, disbelief dressed up as concern.
“Y-yeah, yeah, just… fuck, okay -” Hyunjin let himself half-sink into the heat of Chan’s hold on him, wedging an elbow against the arm of the sofa behind his head as he wormed the other hand between them. Sweat slid down the back of his neck. His orgasm didn’t even really stop, it was just a continuous drone of pleasure winding through his body, like smoke curling against the glass shell of a bong. Thick, and white, and everywhere it could possibly reach. The tips of his fingers, the crook of his elbows, the pad of his tongue where all he could taste was Chan anyway, the echo against his ribs where his heart was thumping in earnest. He didn’t bother hovering over the mess he’d made of Chan’s stomach, just dragged his hand through it, collected as much as he could between the webbing of his fingers as he pushed against the soft crease of his belly. Chan squirmed with a breathless laugh.
“Ticklish,” he mumbled, and Hyunjin cackled.
“Sorry,” he said, except he wasn’t at all, and they traded a breathless giggle as Hyunjin dragged his cum down even further, matting the curls of hair trailing towards his dick.
Chan’s fingers opened for him. The gesture was almost sweet. Except they’d skipped the match notification, and the hey, how are you, and the talking stage, and the awkward conversation over dinner in a mid-priced restaurant, and so the thrill of holding hands for the first time came with a sick little squelch. If it wasn’t for the fact Hyunjin could finally feel the full length of him pressed against the underside of his cock, he would’ve laughed even harder.
Hyunjin had taken his fair share of drugs over the years. He’d been smoking weed since he was a teenager, and he was well acquainted with the horniness that came with bombing molly and dancing until his clothes were at risk of disintegrating just from the sheer amount of sweat pouring from his skin. He preferred it to coke, which honestly was just too expensive for how much it was cut with over the counter painkillers. He’d taken mushrooms for the first time on a stupid camping trip with his friends, after they’d graduated college. He’d watched, mesmerised, as giant bubbles bounced above the campfire, glowing like liquid neon when they sank over his head and covered his eyes with a haze of rippling blue.
But the thick, lazy slide of Chan’s dick against his, damp and hot with shared sweat and his own cum, and tight where their fingers laced together, felt better than any high he’d ever had before.
It felt like they’d fused together. Hyunjin couldn’t really tell where he ended, and Chan began. He could taste the wet heat of his mouth as he panted wordlessly between the soft wind of their tongues. He could hear the Led Zeppelin song rumbling from the stereo, the hitched moans stuck in the back of Chan’s throat, the creak of fake leather beneath them, the gentle metallic clank of his belt buckle, hard where it pressed into his thigh. He could sort of see the shift in colour behind closed eyes, when Chan’s lights faded from blue to purple to pink, just like they always did. But everything he felt was already Chan’s, the roll of pleasure behind his navel was just Chan’s shuddering whimper worming its way down his throat to settle in his belly, the twitch in his dick was only in response to the head of Chan’s cock catching and then sliding against his, the strain in his neck was Chan’s fingers in his hair, the ache in his arm was Chan pulling him closer.
They melted into it, like tempered chocolate, like the fizz of sherbet, like shaved ice pooling in the bottom of a cardboard cup, wet and sweet and a little sticky.
“Shit,” Chan breathed, hips jerking when Hyunjin absentmindedly tightened his hold as they both rocked forward, a call and response to the low hum of Chan’s voice. “God, y-you… yeah, yeah, like that, just like that…”
Hyunjin mumbled something incoherent, nodding anyway. It made Chan’s bottom lip snag, the soft press of it damp against Hyunjin’s chin.
“Hyunjin…”
Chan’s voice always managed to turn his name into something filthy, even without meaning to. When it clacked against his teeth, light and excited, yapping about a new strain of weed that he’d crossbred as he explained all the reasons why he thought Hyunjin might like it. Worse when they were hanging out with Jisung and Felix, and Chan churned it under his tongue, making it thick like bong smoke, wanting to get a rise out of him when it curled out the corner of his mouth. Dirtier still when it skipped half a syllable, when it was layered over an innocent mumble, when it was sleepy, deep and slurred when Hyunjin had tried to slip out of the loose hold of his arm the first morning he’d woken up in Chan’s bed, mentally fighting a boner that fucking hurt it was so hard.
Hearing it cracked, like the back of a spoon thunking against the candied shell of a creme brulee, made Hyunjin’s stomach lurch so violently he thought he might throw up. He rutted against the thick shaft of Chan’s cock with a moan that stretched out like taffy, squeezing his fingers tight enough to make them both gasp when Chan’s grip turned slack and uncoordinated.
“Hyunjin,” Chan whimpered, breath canting upward, back arched so harshly he was only connected to the sofa by his shoulders. “Hyunjin, I - m’gonna cum…”
Hyunjin just nodded again, sucking Chan’s bottom lip into his mouth to try and get a taste of how sweet his name sounded.
“Shit…” Chan breathed, planting one foot against the couch cushions as he fucked up into the circle of their joined hands, hips stuttering as pre-cum slid over their knuckles. Hyunjin didn’t know if it was his or Chan’s, not that it really mattered when it felt so good. “Yeah, yeah, fuck keep… keep doing that…”
Hyunjin wasn’t entirely sure what he’d started to do differently, but he kept the rhythm as best he could anyway, trying to shift the fog in his brain so he could keep making Chan whine.
It always took him a little while to sober up when he smoked, like his entire system needed to shut down and restart. Like Jisung’s stupid shooter games. Shields cracked, no health packs, forced to bleed out and watch the kill cam as he waited impatiently for a respawn. The second orgasm churning in his gut was like a killswitch, and Chan panting his name over and over again, warm and needy as he wound it around Hyunjin’s tongue and squeezed them together, was the thumb hovering over the button.
Chan broke their poor excuse of a kiss to slam his chin down against his chest, blinking desperately as he panted even quicker, staring as he slid his fingers away from Hyunjin’s to wrap his hand around the base of them both. Hyunjin didn’t get the memo and just carried on jerking them both off, holding them in a tighter grip and running his thumb across Chan’s slit when he felt the first pulse of it in his palm. Chan keened and collapsed back against the couch, a high whine whistling past clenched teeth as his eyebrows shot up to meet in the middle.
He looked pretty like that, Hyunjin thought. Suddenly hard, when he was normally so soft. Nose scrunched, harsh lines carving into soft, flushed skin, sweat making his hair curl against his forehead. Not so laid back anymore. Nothing casual about it, not really.
Hyunjin’s second orgasm was already fizzing in his belly when Chan came, and god, he wanted to look down too, wanted to watch their dicks move against each other, complimentary, red and pink, the same but different. He wanted to see if the vein he could feel in Chan’s cock was bulging any harder as he shot load after load into Hyunjin’s fingers. He wanted to see how pretty he was there, too, but he couldn’t make his eyes move. He was too busy cataloguing every crinkle at the side of Chan’s eyes, the twitch in his nose and the flare of his nostrils when he exhaled a half-breath, the hard line of his lips as he pressed them together and then the rosy bloom when he sighed them back into existence.
“Hyunjin,” Chan laughed, but it came out weak, a little pathetic when it turned into another overstimulated whimper. “P-please, fuck, please I can’t, heh - ha - Hyunjin…”
Oh. Right. Hyunjin blinked, and sighed, and came all over Chan’s dick for the second time.
“Fuck, dude…” Chan’s chuckle hitched once but flowed a little easier when Hyunjin’s fingers went slack. Hyunjin just watched, acutely aware of his mouth hanging open, as all the softness returned to Chan’s face. The gentle wave of his hair, stuck flat to one temple and flicking up on the other side around his ear, the easy blink of his eyes, the smooth bridge of his nose, the plump swell of his lips, the rolls of skin beneath his chin where his neck was bent against the arm of the couch.
Hyunjin felt like he’d smoked a q all in one go.
He obediently shifted back onto his haunches as Chan stretched an arm over to the coffee table. Hyunjin licked his lips, watching as Chan plucked the half-smoked joint still in the ashtray between his fingers. Hyunjin blinked against the trail of sweat threatening to drip into his eye as Chan hinged at the waist to light it. Hyunjin didn’t move as he watched Chan take a drag, like he had so many times before, except this time his dick was still out and his stomach was covered in cum, and he was flushed pink and sweating, and so, so fucking pretty that Hyunjin didn’t really know what to do with himself.
The paper crackled, and there was hardly any trace of the vanilla and browned butter scent, not when the stench of sex hung so low and fresh in the air. It just smelled like weed, bitter and harsh and earthy. Chan’s cheeks hollowed as he pulled, but he let them expand as his mouth filled with smoke. Hyunjin almost looked over his shoulder when Chan lifted two fingers and crooked them expectantly.
He went where he was told, though. Chan held the lit joint away, arm dangling off the side of the couch, and so the fingers that grabbed his chin were sticky with cum. His thumb slid against Hyunjin’s jaw and his eyebrows quirked up, and the dimple in his cheek was already there, even with a mouthful of smoke as he pulled Hyunjin down to kiss him again. Hyunjin inhaled as Chan exhaled, and he couldn’t help but let his forehead thunk against Chan’s shoulder as he let the shotgunned toke filter out through his nose.
“Shit…” he mumbled, listening to Chan take another drag. “Man, I… I came so fucking fast…”
Chan’s laugh was so huge that it forced Hyunjin to look up again, shoulders shaking like it was the funniest fucking thing anyone had ever said, ever, and Hyunjin swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, trying to hold it in. It came out of him stunted, and a little croaky, and Chan just laughed harder.
“Yeah, but you came twice in like, two seconds. You should put that on your Grindr page,” Chan said, a wicked grin making his eyes flash. He took one last pull and threw the roach into the ashtray, not bothering to stamp it out. “C’mon, let’s take a shower.”
He tucked his dick back into his shorts, grimacing a little at the mess on his stomach, and then slipped his legs out from beneath Hyunjin. Hyunjin just flopped back onto his ass as he watched Chan stand, stretching his arms over his head with a long groan.
“C’mon,” he said with a giggle. “You’re not getting in my bed like that, we’re fucking gross.”
“You, uhh… you still…” Hyunjin frowned, not really sure how to put the words in the right order.
“Yes,” Chan said, like the answer was obvious despite the fact Hyunjin hadn’t quite managed to get the question out. He hooked a hand under Hyunjin’s arm pit to haul him up and held him at arm’s length, like he was about to scold him, but he stepped forward to press a kiss into the dumb sag of Hyunjin’s mouth all the same. “You just gotta give me a little more time.”
“For what?” Hyunjin mumbled, the sigh catching in his throat when Chan’s tongue bullied it back down.
“I don’t recover as fast as you,” he said, his one clean hand pushing down Hyunjin’s back until he could finally grip his fingers into the flesh of Hyunjin’s ass properly. The appreciative hum sounded like a fucking seven-piece orchestra, a swell of strings, the shudder of a gong, a crescendo rattling in his ears the more Chan dug his fingers. Hyunjin wanted to know what his signature looked like on the corner of a painting.
Chan sighed exasperatedly, although it sounded like a smile, and Hyunjin just mindlessly kissed him a little harder because it tasted good.
“Man, you’re so stoned.”
Hyunjin blinked when Chan pulled back, and snorted when Chan tapped his finger against the squishy part between his eyebrows, and pressed his lips together to try and keep hold of the laugh in his chest when Chan grinned.
“We’re gonna fuck in the morning, yeah?” Chan said with a slow nod, like he was explaining that two plus two equalled four. Like he thought Hyunjin was a bit of an idiot for not coming to that conclusion already. Maybe he was. No, he definitely was, actually. “And I’ll tick you for that eighth, but remember, I know when you get paid.”
Hyunjin let his head drop back with a cackle as his brain finally started to reboot. Half-health, but his gun was still fully loaded, and to his genuine surprise, his stamina bar was pretty damn full still. “What, I don’t get a fuck buddy discount?”
“Fuck no,” Chan snorted, grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him forward, just so he could slap his ass. He followed through, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing the absolutely foul, sticky skin of his stomach against the small of Hyunjin’s back as he nosed the side of his neck, shuffling them both toward the bathroom. “You’re bad enough for business already.”