Work Text:
a long night spent with your most obvious weakness
you start shaking at the thought
you are everything I want
'cause you are everything I'm not
[...]
and we lay, we lay together
just not too close, too close
(how close is close enough?)
“Oh, fuck.”
It comes out involuntarily. Changmin feels the breath escape his lungs when Jaehyun picks him up, so effortlessly it’s like Changmin weighs nothing. Maybe he doesn’t, light as he feels right now. He kisses Jaehyun with both hands on his face, messy and wet, obsessed with the way Jaehyun’s lips mold against his own, and with how he doesn’t need to see the way to walk them into the room.
He throws Changmin down onto the bed and Changmin laughs, delighted, high from need, so turned on his entire world narrows down to Jaehyun’s face and the look on his eyes when he climbs up Changmin’s body.
A look of adoration. Eager, hungry, but with reverence attached to it too.
Changmin’s heart skips a beat, so he kisses Jaehyun. At least kissing him his eyes are closed, and he can’t see things that are not there.
It’s still so intense. No matter how many times he finds himself here, in Jaehyun’s bed, with the same bedside lamp giving everything that same hazy orange glow, it never gets old. It still feels just as exhilarating to help Jaehyun pull his shirt open as it did the first night, months ago, the fabric sliding down his shoulders something straight out of a fantasy, a wet dream Changmin must’ve had a thousand times in his lifetime.
When Jaehyun thrusts in, Changmin bites his shoulder. Jaehyun’s moan comes out beautifully broken, the grip on his waist growing tighter. At this point, it doesn’t feel like Changmin does it for himself anymore—he likes to use his teeth, always did, but he likes the reaction much more now. It’s the look Jaehyun gives him when Changmin bites his bottom lip with a little too much force, the face he makes when Changmin rolls them over and latches his mouth onto a nipple.
Jaehyun unravels for him every single time like it’s the first, and Changmin can’t help but stare. He drinks in the way Jaehyun’s face changes depending on what Changmin is doing with his hands, mouth, hips; falls into a little bit of a trance watching how expressive Jaehyun can get. And he’s loud, too. When Changmin sits up and starts to pick up the pace, doing most of the work himself, Jaehyun watches him with brows furrowed, his moans coming up his throat unbidden and unapologetic, past swollen, bitten-pink lips.
It’s different, somehow. It’s about pleasure first, because that’s what this arrangement hinges on, after all, but Changmin knows it’s also something else. It’s a hook-up for practical reasons, but not at the same time, because Changmin is as interested in Jaehyun’s pleasure as his own. Spellbound by Jaehyun’s eyes on him, the sound of his voice muttering dirty nonsense into his ear when he sits up and grabs Changmin’s waist to pull him down onto his dick.
Maybe Changmin really does weigh nothing then, so close to floating away in a cloud of unrestrained bliss.
And he wonders if Jaehyun feels that. When Changmin’s on his back, Jaehyun’s hand closed tight around him, his mouth on his balls, sucking as he jerks Changmin off, golden hair tousled and strikingly fairylike. It’s only here, when he’s so far gone he doesn’t have the strength to fight back these thoughts, that he lets it fill his mind with the questions he wouldn’t ask out loud. If Jaehyun thinks this is good, too good, much more than what they signed up for, like a monster that keeps growing and eating away every other thought that is not about this, them, because Changmin sometimes catches himself thinking about Jaehyun’s fingers, his waist, the back of his knees, the spot behind his ear where he’s most sensitive. Wonders if Jaehyun ever thinks about his body like Changmin thinks about his, or if Jaehyun ever misses the sound of his voice when they haven’t seen each other in a while.
It’s all thoughts he shouldn’t entertain, yet he does, here. When Jaehyun recognizes the signs that he’s close and wraps his lips around the head of his dick, jerking him off until Changmin comes into Jaehyun’s mouth with a garbled groan, hips thrusting up of their own accord.
The soft press of Jaehyun’s lips on his skin kissing up Changmin’s body while he’s catching his breath shouldn’t feel familiar, but it does. The last kiss takes longer, pressed to his jaw before he drops next to Changmin on the bed, and the warmth of Jaehyun’s body next to his shouldn’t feel familiar either, but it does.
And this is the part that Changmin hates. When the cloudy afterglow of orgasm fades and he needs to reconcile the fact that he’s dreaming of what ifs. He wishes he knew when it started—what started it, what was the spark that made him twist things in his head like this.
He looks to the side. Jaehyun looks at him, too. Golden hair falling in half-formed curls over round, bright eyes, so easy to get pulled in.
Changmin sits up to look for his clothes on the floor, giving his back to him.
“You’re going?”
His voice is like honey, mellowed out and bare. Honey Voice. One of his nicknames, because of course Changmin knows this, knows so many useless things about him from the recent searches still quietly judging him from his browser history.
For some reason, his voice always sounds sweeter here. Either that, or Changmin is truly losing it.
“Yeah,” he says, slipping into his pants. He buttons it up and looks around for his shirt.
“Living room,” Jaehyun says.
“Thanks.”
He finds his shirt over the back of the couch, slips it on with his jaw clenched, still feeling the ghost of Jaehyun’s fingers on his waist, his mouth on his ribs, his—
“Hey.”
Changmin jumps in place, but relaxes immediately when Jaehyun sneaks his arms around his middle and nuzzles his neck. He could walk away. He could say no to this. Technically, Changmin could do a lot of things.
He does nothing.
“You could stay, you know.”
The words fan across Changmin’s neck. Warm, like Jaehyun’s arms around him.
It would be so easy to let himself believe it.
“I shouldn’t,” he says. “Early day tomorrow...”
Jaehyun shakes his head, and Changmin only knows this because Jaehyun makes a point of rubbing the tip of his nose against Changmin’s neck to drive the point across. He’s acted touchy after sex before, but he seems… touchier tonight. Clingier.
He untangles himself from Jaehyun’s arms, tries to act like he’s not going against every instinct in him to do so. He finds his boots in the hallway between the living room and Jaehyun’s room.
Jaehyun is still by the couch, watching him collect his things. He put his white shirt back on, but it’s open, the flat expanse of his stomach so inviting, begging to be touched. Changmin swallows dry, checks his bag to make sure he slipped his phone inside before he dropped everything by the door.
The silence feels much too heavy, so Changmin clears his throat, offers a “I’ll text you” that sounds hollow to his own ears.
Then he opens the door and leaves, afraid to look back and find Jaehyun’s eyes on him.
Changmin made a mistake.
He knows that now. Punching the button to call the elevator like it personally offended him, too jittery, biting the inside of his cheek. Watching the numbers and wondering how it got to this.
They met at an after party. The worst possible place to meet someone, Changmin thinks, because there’s always too much alcohol, and the air reeks of self-importance and grossly expensive perfume. Fertile ground for bad decisions, like letting a slightly tipsy famous singer flirt with you.
Like flirting back when that happens.
The ride from the 13th to the 8th floor is always quick. Such a blessedly cursed coincidence that they should be neighbors, too, as if this isn’t bad enough as it is. Changmin drops his keys when he gets to his door, curses under his breath. He’s not even drunk, and that makes him angrier. Because there’s no excuse for how rattled he is, how much he’s already missing Jaehyun, just a few floors above, like Changmin didn’t just see him.
How did it get to this?
He’s thankful for the dark, quiet apartment when he closes the door behind him. There’s always a chance he’s gonna find Jacob wasting away his insomnia in front of the TV in the living room, but the couch is empty tonight. There’s a post-it note glued to the door of his room, scrawly handwriting reading leftover gamjatang in the fridge!! that he rips off and sticks to his desk when he enters the room, as quietly as he can, so as to not disturb Haknyeon’s soft snoring.
Changmin doesn’t cry, not in the shower nor when he slips under the covers of his much too cold, much too empty bed. Maybe he should, to ease some of the weight in his chest, threatening to suffocate him. To dissolve the words lodged in his throat, so ready to jump out at the first opportunity.
What he does instead is curl on his side and try to wipe from his mind any thought of soft lips or honeyed voices.
He falls asleep thinking about both of those things.
leejaehyun:
i like your lines in ‘one last’
do all drummers sing?
i never noticed ㅎㅎ
Changmin locks his phone again. It’s been two days since that night at Jaehyun’s. He hasn’t texted, and Jaehyun hasn’t asked him why. He’s carrying conversation like Changmin didn’t explicitly tell him he’d text and didn’t. Like he doesn’t mind that he’s being ghosted.
Jaehyun is not an idiot. He must know that’s what’s happening. He’s just choosing to act like it’s not. Changmin can’t tell if it’s indifference or kindness, or a dangerous mix of both.
The door to the studio opens just then, so Changmin shoves his phone into the pocket of his hoodie, decided to forget, at least for now. Sangyeon takes one look at him and frowns.
“You don’t look too happy.”
Changmin smiles. He considers opening an exaggerated, toothy smile just to be funny, but Sangyeon’s right—he’s not in the mood. So his smile is a tight one.
“Yeah, that didn’t help,” Sangyeon says.
He closes the door and sits down next to him on the couch with a sigh. Changmin scoots a little to give him some space, since it’s a two-seater that’s seen better days. Sangyeon throws an arm on the back of the couch and looks at Changmin.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Changmin says. Then he shakes his head. “Nothing important, I mean. Just… bullshit.”
“What kind of bullshit, though?”
Sangyeon’s voice is a notch lower, softer. He’s worried, that much is easy to tell. Changmin wonders just how miserable he looks to warrant that kind of immediate reaction. They’re supposed to be taking turns in the recording booth next door, so he imagines that’s what Sangyeon is here for, to grab him for his own turn.
Instead, he sits down. Looks at him and waits. Patient. Enough that Changmin feels a little bit of his own anguish bleed out before he can help it.
He shakes his head again, trying to hold back the volcano of his emotions, so close to erupting, it’s concerning.
“It’s just—You ever wish you could just rip your own heart out?”
Sangyeon raises an eyebrow. “Metaphorically speaking?” With the look Changmin gives him, he adds, “Sure. But I mean, it’s not really healthy, is it? We’re supposed to have feelings. If that’s what you’re getting at. Otherwise we’d just be a bunch of psychopaths.”
“Psychopaths have feelings,” Changmin counters. “I think.”
“I don’t think they do but that’s neither here nor there. My point is, feelings are a good thing. Usually. Most of the time.” A pause. “Why do you want to get rid of yours?”
Changmin shrugs. Stupid, and childish, he thinks, but that’s where he’s at. Struggling to verbalize his own thoughts, because there’s a voice begging him to text Jaehyun back that seems louder than anything else.
“Because they’re dumb,” he says, then laughs, a little pained. “I’m dumb.”
Sangyeon grabs his wrist, stopping him from tugging too hard and ripping the hole in his jeans wider than it already is. “Shut up. Where’s that coming from? What happened?”
How do you explain to your bandmate and friend of years that you’ve committed the fatal mistake of falling for someone you shouldn’t have? What was supposed to be a one-night stand and an anecdote to be told after a couple of beers growing so out of your control you’re left adrift in a sea of self-doubt and regret?
It’s unfair to dump all of that on Sangyeon, at least right now. That’s not what they’re here to do. Changmin can be a lot of things and do a lot of stupid shit, but he refuses to let any of that get in the way of work. He doesn’t slack off, never has, and never will.
So instead he says, “I’ll be fine.”
Sangyeon doesn’t look like he believes him. But he doesn’t push it, either. “You can talk to me. You know that, right? I’m here.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t have to—”
“Go through anything alone, I know,” Changmin completes for him. That’s almost their mantra at this point, isn’t it? “Thanks. Really.”
When he stands up, Sangyeon follows, throwing an arm around his shoulder to walk them out of the studio. It’s comforting, the fabric of his hoodie soft where it tickles Changmin’s neck.
If everything else fails, Changmin thinks as Sangyeon opens the door to the studio where they’ve been recording the new demos, at least Changmin will have this. The cacophony of Haknyeon joking around in the recording booth, loud even through the speakers, and Jacob at the mixing table, laughing so hard his eyes crinkle up at the corners. Jacob beckons them inside, and Changmin finally feels like he remembers how to be himself again.
Jaehyun texts one more time later that night, while they’re still at the studio, but Changmin clears his notifications without reading it.
Weak. Changmin is so weak.
The word echoes through his head all the way from the 8th to the 13th floor, up until the moment Jaehyun opens the door for him and all of his thoughts shatter into little shards of nothingness. It’s the look on Jaehyun’s face, the smile he gives him, the black tee that looks a little too big on his already big frame.
It’s his hair, so incredibly soft against Changmin’s fingers, shining bright gold under the lights of the living room when they step blindly into it, door slammed shut behind them. It’s the breathless chuckle he lets out against his lips when Changmin’s hands go for his ass next, pulling him as close as he can get.
It’s the fact that Changmin tried so hard to pull away, to forget, only to end up back here, getting dizzy on Jaehyun’s scent, on the silk smooth fingertips playing with the piercings adorning Changmin’s ear, as if he’s missed this, missed Changmin and his piercings and the breath on his neck and the hands on his ass.
They make it to the room like that, a tangle of limbs and bruising kisses. Changmin throws him on the bed and Jaehyun lets him, welcomes him with open arms and opens legs when Changmin kisses him hard, grinding their hips together and eliciting a muffled moan from him.
“You didn’t tell me you were going on tour,” Jaehyun pants, running short nails on Changmin’s back, pulling his shirt up and out of the way when Changmin finally allows him a moment to do that.
Changmin knows that. It was on purpose, he means to say, kissing him instead. I wanted to forget you, he runs his hands underneath Jaehyun’s shirt up to his chest, pinches his nipples to get another moan from him, a louder one this time.
“I missed you.”
Changmin freezes. He pulls back to meet Jaehyun’s eyes, space black and so, but so bright. Constellations right above the flushed apple of his cheeks, watching him, knowing. It’s like he can hear Changmin’s unvoiced thoughts, the turmoil that preceded all of this, all of them.
Like he knows him.
That does it.
“I missed you too,” Changmin says, words coming out in a hoarse whisper before he kisses Jaehyun again and slips a hand into his sweatpants. “Missed you so much…”
Jaehyun keens, back arching off the bed when Changmin grabs his cock. His body follows every single touch and kiss that Changmin trails on his skin, so beautifully responsive and sensitive. It hasn’t been too long, barely four full weeks, but it feels like ten times that. Changmin eats up every noise Jaehyun makes like a man starved, growls low in the back of his throat when Jaehyun grips his hair, hard enough to sting.
He’s hungry, but he’s thorough too. Touching Jaehyun feels as close to a religious experience as he thinks he’ll ever get—Changmin loses and forgets himself, enraptured by the feeling of drawing Jaehyun out, the euphoria of looking up from where he’s deepthroating him to find Jaehyun’s eyes on him, brows drawn and lips swollen, the intoxicating ecstasy of thrusting inside and watching Jaehyun’s frame shudder in unrepentant pleasure.
The thoughts come back again, like they always do now, but Changmin doesn’t try to hold them back. He’s too distracted, too absorbed in the familiarity of Jaehyun just there, on the tip of his fingers, around him, underneath him, his for a brief eternity.
Changmin wonders if they could make that eternity a reality.
When he comes, it’s with Jaehyun moaning his name, so far gone his voice loses all the edge, all the careful poise he reserves for the outside world. Here, he lets it all go in favor of something much softer, much more subdued, less polished. Changmin wants to think he has something to do with it, that it’s his hands on his waist, his teeth on the curve of where his neck meets his shoulder, and for a moment, he allows himself to think just that.
He gets Jaehyun off with praise whispered into his ear, because he doesn’t want to deprive himself of it tonight. The pleasure of letting Jaehyun know just how gorgeous he is, how hot and lovely and so completely his—
“Oh god, Changmin,” Jaehyun cries out. “Say that again. Please.”
“You’re gorgeous—”
“No. Call me yours.”
Changmin lets the beating of his heart engulf him like flames.
“You’re mine. Mine to touch like this, mine to fuck, all mine...”
Jaehyun spills over Changmin’s hand with a loud cry. It’s such an intense orgasm, and so beautiful to watch and feel against himself. Jaehyun’s so completely gone by the time the last ripples die out that his body gives out, nearly trapping Changmin’s hand between his stomach and the mattress.
There’s a moment of silence while they come back from the high of orgasm. Changmin is on his back, staring at the ceiling and paying attention to the rhythm of Jaehyun’s breathing, in case he falls asleep. Maybe that would be best. They wouldn’t have to talk about it, and Changmin wouldn’t have to confront the feeling burgeoning inside him and filling him until there’s nothing else left, until he’s only this, a vessel for something that feels much too big to fit inside his body.
Jaehyun rolls over on his back again. He doesn’t bother keeping a distance, left arm against Changmin’s right, so close but not at the same time. Never close enough.
“I didn’t mean it,” Changmin says. His voice comes out in a flat whisper, ghost-like.
Jaehyun turns his head to look at him. Changmin does the same. They stare at each other, and Changmin catches himself cataloguing the little things, like he always does now, a terrible habit he should never have acquired in the first place: the tiny freckle on his nose, the perfect line of his brows, the shape of his cupid’s bow.
“You’re your own person, I mean,” he explains. “You don’t belong to me, or to anyone.”
The laugh he gets for it stings, just a little. It’s careless, happy. Like this doesn’t affect Jaehyun at all.
“Yeah, it’s just some dirty talk,” Jaehyun says. “Don’t worry about it.”
Too late for that, Changmin thinks.
This is the moment where he usually takes his leave. The calculated dance of giving his back to Jaehyun and avoiding his eyes as much as possible until he’s far enough away to not be pulled in by bright eyes and golden curls.
For some reason, he hesitates tonight.
Jaehyun must notice it, because he keeps his eyes on Changmin and asks, “What if I wanted that, though?”
Changmin doesn’t answer. He watches as one corner of Jaehyun’s lips tilt up in a smirk.
“What if I wanted to be yours?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t mean it,” Changmin says. Cold, because that’s a low blow, and he doesn’t want to hear it. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything. I’m serious.”
Panicked anger, swelling up and out of his control. Changmin sits up, wanting to get the fuck out of there before he does anything stupid like believing him. He doesn’t get far, because Jaehyun holds his wrist.
“Changmin, wait—”
“No,” he pulls his wrist free and stands up. “Seriously, don’t.”
Jaehyun lets him go this time. Changmin doesn’t look back as he puts on his pants, then pulls his shirt over his head, but he knows Jaehyun is watching him from the bed. Because that’s the thing about him: he listens. If Changmin said he doesn’t want to talk about it, then Jaehyun won’t do it.
So accommodating. So understanding, all the fucking time. So fucking perfect, everything Changmin should never have gotten himself tangled up with.
“Why are you even doing this?” Changmin turns around to ask. Jaehyun looks up to meet his eyes. The smirk is gone. “Why are we doing this?”
“What do you want me to say?”
The truth, Changmin means to say, but that’s not really what he wants to hear, is it?
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I was expecting from you.”
That earns him a frown. “I’ve never been anything but honest with you, Changmin. You know that. Don’t be unfair.”
“Unfair?” Changmin snickers. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”
He picks up his boots and walks out of the room, intent on walking out of there barefoot, if it comes down to it. The volcano is threatening to explode again, so close to burning down everything in its wake if Changmin is not careful enough.
Weak. So goddamn weak.
“Wait, hang on—”
Jaehyun has followed him after a second, buttoning up his pants as he catches up to Changmin in the living room. He grabs Changmin’s arm to stop him before he reaches the door, getting him to turn around. It’s always harder to get his thoughts in order like this, because he can never think of Jaehyun as the public persona when he’s this close, divested of anything that would make him look like the unapproachable star Changmin once thought him to be.
All Changmin can think of is that Jaehyun looks bare like this, open in a way Changmin doesn’t think he has any right to witness.
“Changmin, talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit,” Jaehyun says. It’s the first time Changmin has seen him this upset. “You’re angry. Why?”
“Because you keep doing this!” Changmin pulls his arm back from Jaehyun’s grasp, frustration billowing up his throat like smoke, threatening to choke him. “You keep acting like this is more than it is, taunting me, like you think it’s funny to string me along. But it’s not. It’s really not. You can’t do this to people. It’s cruel.”
“Changmin—” Jaehyun licks his lips. Changmin can’t read the expression on his face, but his voice is quieter when he says, “I’m not taunting you. I never did.”
Changmin scoffs in barely controlled anger. He turns around to leave, but Jaehyun moves much too fast, getting between him and the door. It’s a bit ridiculous, Changmin thinks, exasperated, that Jaehyun is trying so hard to stop him from leaving, as if Changmin won’t be back in no time, begging and on his knees, if he needs to.
“I’ve always been one hundred percent in,” Jaehyun says. He touches Changmin’s wrist. “I just didn’t think you wanted anything more. When we first met, you said—”
“I know what I said.”
“You said,” Jaehyun repeats, patiently, ignoring the thorns in Changmin’s tone, “you didn’t want to get involved with my mess.”
Changmin widens his eyes in surprise. That’s not what he was expecting. When they first came back here, to this apartment, after that godforsaken party where they talked long enough for the flirting to take a turn to banter, Changmin warned Jaehyun that this had an expiration date. It was a short-term agreement for something that was never meant to last. Back then, it seemed like a fair assumption to make, and a fair warning to give out. Changmin likes to be clear about his intentions precisely to avoid making anyone walk the kind of murky waters he’s treading now.
But he wasn’t expecting Jaehyun to cling to that part of the conversation. A throwaway comment Changmin barely gave a thought, meant as an extension of the flirty banter they had going at the party. Of course I wouldn’t want to get involved with that whole mess, Changmin remembers joking. Half the country would want my head on a stake if they knew I’d taken the nation’s sweetheart off the market and into my bed.
“And I get that,” Jaehyun is still saying, oblivious to the storm in Changmin’s head. “If you wanted to walk away now and not look back I would get it. I’m not dating material, and I know that.”
He pauses, licks his lips. The hand on Changmin’s wrist is still there, warm skin on warm skin, in a gentle hold that feels as Jaehyun as anything can possibly get: careful, kind, wanting yet never overbearing, never overwhelming.
“But I didn’t lie. With words or otherwise. I meant everything I said and everything I’ve ever shown you. If you’re gonna doubt everything else, at least believe that.”
“Why?”
The question confuses Jaehyun. He gives him a slight shake of his head, “Why what?”
“Why me?”
“I don’t know,” Jaehyun says with no time to think or hesitate, the truth always on the tip of his tongue. “I could list dozens of things I like about you, right here, right now, but that’s not what you’re asking me.”
Changmin looks down at their joined hands, the way Jaehyun’s fingers wrap around his wrist. The familiarity should be the catalyst to get him to move, to turn his back around and not see the look on Jaehyun’s face, just like he’s done all this time.
But Changmin doesn’t run. He looks up again, to constellations in a dark infinity, and feels his own eyes sting with treacherous tears, the lava of a dormant volcano that hasn’t been in action in so long.
Jaehyun sees that, because he sees everything, even what Changmin tries so hard to keep behind smoke and mirrors and black eye makeup. He brings his hands up to hold Changmin’s face and plants a kiss on his lips, the gentlest kiss they’ve ever shared and the most brutal, too, for the way it rips Changmin’s heart open.
“I don’t think the why matters.”
“It matters to me,” Changmin whispers against his lips, hands on his naked waist. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I tried to walk away. I really did. Countless times.”
“I know.”
“So you know I’m not you.” He looks Jaehyun in the eyes. “I’m nothing like you. You wouldn’t wanna be mine.”
“And yet I do.”
This time, when Jaehyun kisses him, it’s with more intent, bringing their bodies together. Changmin doesn’t even think of pulling away; he keeps Jaehyun close, one hand on the small of his back, aware of the stinging behind his eyelids, ever present.
It’s clever, so clever. Because Changmin can doubt Jaehyun’s words, but he can’t question the devotion he tastes on his lips.
“Make me yours,” Jaehyun says, the words hot against Changmin’s mouth. “I want you, Changmin. In whatever version you’ll have me.”
“And if I want all of it?”
“Then I’m all yours.”
Changmin doesn’t close his eyes this time.
It’s much too easy allowing himself this. Seeing everything Jaehyun is trying so hard to show him and letting himself believe it. The instinct to put his walls up and save himself the heartbreak of getting things wrong is strong, always has been, but Changmin pushes it back and lets this night be a deviation from the norm, if that’s what it is.
If he wakes up tomorrow and finds out it was all a dream, then so be it. But he’s not counting down to midnight like this is all a spell. He lets himself bask in the glory of a Jaehyun that is not trying to hold back, the tidal wave that finally puts out the burning behind his eyelids.
And if it’s his destiny to drown in all of this, Changmin can’t seem to bring himself to care about it tonight.
That comes clearer to him later, when he’s the one still in bed, for the first time since it all started. It doesn’t feel weird to be here, which should be weird in and of itself, but it’s not. He watches Jaehyun’s back, the way he leans over the bathroom sink, closer to the mirror, an endless expanse of skin that Changmin knows is more familiar to him than his own at this point.
“Oh, I should’ve known.”
Changmin smiles to himself when Jaehyun says that with a chuckle, turning around to give him a look.
“My stylists are gonna have a field day about this.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Changmin teases in faux innocence.
The hickey, once Changmin stands up to look at the mirror over his shoulder, is blooming bright right above Jaehyun’s collarbone. He sneaks his hands around Jaehyun’s torso, hugging him from behind.
“Looks good,” Changmin mumbles against the skin of his back. He leaves a kiss there before he leans his chin on Jaehyun’s shoulder to meet his eyes in the mirror. “Right? What do you think?”
Jaehyun is grinning, clearly pleased. He bites his lip when Changmin’s hand travels up his chest to touch the bruised skin, a gentle brush of fingers that barely does anything more than ghost over it.
“I think makeup is a modern day miracle,” Jaehyun jokes.
Changmin laughs, light and carefree, and Jaehyun uses that moment to turn around in his arms so he’s leaning against the sink and facing Changmin. He takes Changmin’s chin between his fingers, tilts his head up gently. Always so open from this up close, Jaehyun’s face shows nothing but affection. And it’s here, in this moment, that Changmin comes to the realization that he couldn’t run away now even if he wanted to.
Not when he’d be leaving a crucial piece of himself behind.
“And I like it,” Jaehyun whispers. “I really do.”
Maybe feeling something so much bigger than himself doesn’t have to be such a strange concept. Maybe, Changmin thinks to himself, lightheaded with the weight of that thought and the weightlessness of Jaehyun’s arms around his neck, that’s what it means to be alive.
“I think I love you,” Changmin admits.
Jaehyun is surprised for a second. But he opens a smile right away, a happy, cute one that lets his pointy canine teeth poke out from behind pretty pink lips. “Good thing I know I love you, then,” he says.
It’s easy, so easy to let it happen now, to let his feelings run downstream and into the kiss he gives Jaehyun, not scared anymore of any of it exploding out of him. It’s so easy to laugh when Jaehyun picks him up all of a sudden, drunk on the familiarity that washes over him immediately when he wraps his legs around Jaehyun’s waist.
It’s ridiculously easy to accept that he wants this more than he’s ever wanted anything else, and that if it takes a little bit of work to make it happen, a little bit of caution and levelheadness, he can deal with it. He was never one to shy away from hard work, anyway.
Jaehyun takes them back to the bedroom and presses him against the wall to pepper his neck with kisses. It’s all Changmin can do to grab a fistful of his hair to get him to look at him. Jaehyun goes with it, easily enough, happily enough, licking his lips in anticipation.
“What is it?” When he doesn’t get an answer, he searches for one in Changmin’s eyes. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m not leaving this time.”
The smile Jaehyun gives him is incandescent.
“Yeah? Good. I hope you don’t mind being the big spoon.”
Changmin laughs, “Shut up and kiss me.”
Jaehyun does, overflowing with something Changmin recognizes from within himself, a joy so absolute it doesn’t feel possible. But he knows it is. Eyes and heart wide open, there’s no denying it anymore. No coming back from it, either.
Their eternity begins now.
He will make damn sure of that.