Chapter Text
The day after he saw Jieun getting out of Jaeho’s car was one of the most miserable of Jongwoo’s life. What little sleep he’d gotten the night before had brought no rest. Still less than sober after the soju he’d shared with Seokyoon, reeling from the evidence of his hyung’s betrayal, strung-out like never before after the attempted search of the pervert’s room, sleep had eventually claimed Jongwoo as he curled up in the bed of 303. But with sleep came dreams, and Jongwoo’s dream that night had been even less welcome than the violent fantasies and memories that had become more and more frequent intrusions into his day-to-day life since he moved to Seoul.
In the dream, Jongwoo was in one of Eden’s shower stalls, the warm water washing over his body, when someone moved the shower curtain and entered behind him. Jongwoo didn’t turn to see who it was. He didn’t need to. He felt Seo Moonjo’s breath against his neck, then his torso against his back.
“Jagiya,” Moonjo murmured. He took hold of one of Jongwoo’s arms and leaned forward, guiding the younger man to brace himself against the wall. Jongwoo followed suite with his other arm and realized, at the same time, that he was hard. He could feel Moonjo’s hardness against him too.
“Please,” Jongwoo whispered, full of need and desperation and none of the shame that had colored all of his real-life sexual encounters with men.
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” Moonjo said, and pushed inside him with an ease only possible in a dream. Each long, slow stroke was enough to make Jongwoo cry out, and he could feel tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as Moonjo whispered praises in his ear. A moan turned to a whimper as Moonjo moved a hand to cup Jongwoo’s balls, then took hold of his aching cock.
“Look,” Moonjo said, and Jongwoo obeyed, tilting his head down to watch the other man’s ministrations. That’s when he realized that the water from the showerhead had turned to blood – red, thick, and raining down on them fast. Moonjo’s thrusts quickened as Jongwoo looked up to find the source, but crimson clouded his vision. Then, he woke up.
The inside of his boxers was sticky with pre-cum as Jongwoo rushed to get ready for work, already knowing he was going to be late, but he didn’t change them. Changing them would mean acknowledging his erection and its cause way more than he wanted to. Jongwoo just prayed it would go down by the time he reached the bus, or he’d look like a bigger pervert than the freak in 313.
It did, but that was hardly a relief. The last thing Jongwoo needed right now, when he was experiencing maximum stress in every other aspect of his life, was a reawakening of his stress about sexuality.
He’d realized as a teenager that he liked boys the same way he liked girls, and he’d acted on that a few times in college, always one-night stands with guys he’d met on apps, hook-ups in cars late at night or dorm rooms in the middle of the day while roommates were at class. These brief relationships brought equal parts anxiety and relief. His hope that getting off with another man would cure his curiosity and “get it out of his system” was soon extinguished. He never wanted less afterwards, always more – more fucking, more connection, more intimacy, more of the lead-up kisses and the holding each other afterwards.
Then he met Jieun, and it was a relief that he’d both liked and wanted her, and she seemed to feel the same way, at least back then. He loved hanging out with her and he treasured the moment when she let him in enough to touch all of her, savor the softness of her skin and the smell of her hair. He told himself that was enough, that the relationship he could have with her made up for how much more he enjoyed sex with men he only knew for a night or two. But it weighed on him that he never burned for her like he knew some couples burned for each other. Like he had burned for Moonjo last night in his dream.
Why did it have to be Moonjo, of all people, he’d had this kind of dream about? Jongwoo wondered as he plowed through spreadsheets. Why not Seokyoon, who anyone could see was adorable and who Jongwoo was almost completely sure had never stalked him to random locations?
Just then, Jongwoo noticed a text notification from Seokyoon, as if he knew he was on Jongwoo’s mind.
He read the message on his lunch break. Hyung! Just thought of a genius plan. Too complicated for text. Call me when you can, it read, followed by a string of brain and explosion emojis.
With panic rising in his throat, Jongwoo ran up the few flights of stairs to the roof of the office building. He tapped the phone icon by Seokyoon’s name as soon as he’d checked he was alone.
Seokyoon sounded too perky to be in imminent danger. “So hyung,” he said, “I was thinking about what happened last night and everything you told me about the residence, and I have an idea. You might not like it at first, but please hear me out.”
“Okay,” said Jongwoo, wary.
“Okay, so you obviously have way more experience living in Eden and you know more than me about what’s been going on. But I think you might be wrong about one thing. That tall guy, the guy who always wears long sleeves? I don’t think he’s the scariest guy here. I think he might just have a crush on you.”
This statement, delivered so casually, was too much for Jongwoo’s exhausted brain. After a full shut down and restart, he managed to respond with, “What?”
“Honestly, hyung, I haven’t seen him do anything that weird. He seemed kind of angry when he heard us on the roof, but that’s fair. You’d be upset if you heard someone talking about you like that, right? And you mentioned him calling us ‘jagi,’ but I don’t think he was calling us jagi, hyung. I think he was just calling you that.”
“Because he has a crush on me,” said Jongwoo, monotone.
“I mean… I think so!” Seokyoon said. “In crime movies, detectives are always talking about this thing called Occam’s Razor. Have you heard of it? It’s like, ‘the simplest explanation is usually the right one.’”
Jongwoo thought that Seokyoon might not be remembering Occam’s Razor correctly, but he wasn’t going to correct him. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” he replied.
“That made me think we should test my theory,” Seokyoon continued. “Because what if I’m right? What if he isn’t in league with the rest of the residents and he just knows how to deal with them better than us because he’s lived here for a while? Then he could be part of our team. So I think you should ask him out.”
Jongwoo’s brain nearly restarted again. “Ask – ask him out? Ask him out, like…”
“Like on a date, hyung,” Seokyoon said. “Or at least out for a drink, like he’s been asking you to do. If you two hang out away from the residence, maybe you’ll be able to get a clearer read on him. The residence puts a creep filter on everyone; I thought you were the creepiest guy the night I moved in.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Jongwoo said, his face burning with the memories of last night’s dream, the way he’d fantasized so vividly about Moonjo’s voice, Moonjo’s hands, Moonjo’s cock.
“I know, but… it’s not a real date, right? It’s like that other thing you see in crime movies, where there’s a hot woman who pretends she’s into a guy to get information? What’s that called again – a fern fatale?”
“Femme fatale,” Jongwoo replied.
“Right, yeah. You could be a male femme fatale, hyung. I don’t think that’s cheating. Anyway, you could just ask him out for a friendly drink and then figure out if he wants it to be a date. If he does, just clear things up afterward and tell him you’re straight. If you are straight.”
“I am! I am straight,” Jongwoo said loudly enough that he scanned the roof for other people again.
“Okay, I thought so,” Seokyoon said. “But I wouldn’t judge you if you weren’t, you know? Especially since we’re artists, I think we should be more open-minded about that stuff.”
“Yeah, totally,” Jongwoo replied, a bit embarrassed. It was fine for people not to be straight. He wasn’t the type of guy who cared about that. It just wasn’t fine for him. And it especially wasn’t fine for him with Seo Moonjo. “I’m just not sure about this plan.”
“Well... could you think about it?” Seokyoon asked, sounding younger than his years.
Jongwoo caved. “Sure, I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know when I get back from work.”
Jongwoo had planned – vaguely, in the back of his work and anxiety-filled mind – on staying late at the office and then going to a PC Bang for a while – anything to put off returning to Eden for as long as possible. But after Seokyoon’s crazy proposal, Jongwoo blanked his mind out, by necessity, from everything but work for the rest of the day and finished everything he could work on by a half-hour after closing time.
He stared at his monitor. The completed spreadsheet stared back. That was it. Nothing to do but go back to Eden, pull Seokyoon up to the roof, and explain to him that no, he couldn’t go out for a drink with the man who made him feel like the floor was turning to sand beneath his feet.
But speak of the creepiest guy you know, and he shall appear.
Jongwoo stopped in the kitchen for some water before meeting up with Seokyoon, and Moonjo was already there, grabbing a tonic from the fridge. He was dressed in tan slacks and a light blue shirt, an outfit that reminded Jongwoo of the man who seemed to have disappeared about the same time as the gangster. On Moonjo, the clothes looked closer to fashionable. In fact, Moonjo looked like he could be photographed right now to advertise the drink in his hand, which Jongwoo noticed had a brand label and wasn’t one of the dubious health drinks Mrs. Eom kept pushing on him.
“Hi,” Jongwoo said. Moonjo paused in lifting the bottle to his mouth. Jongwoo knew, for once, how the other man felt. He was surprised at himself too.
“Hello,” Moonjo replied. “Just coming back from work?”
“Yeah. Uh, yeah, I did a little overtime and came back here.” This was already easily the most normal conversation they’d ever had.
“Overtime and writing a novel, huh? You’re a really hard-working guy,” Moonjo said in his perfectly mild-mannered way.
“Well, they say you’re supposed to work hard while you’re young, right?” Jongwoo replied lamely.
Moonjo nodded and took a sip of his tonic.
“Listen,” Jongwoo said. “About last night.”
Moonjo’s eyebrows raised a little.
“I’m sorry.”
Moonjo’s eyebrows raised a little more. “There’s no need to be sorry, jagiya. You were just being honest.”
“No, but…” Jongwoo began, then paused long enough to start questioning himself, then restarted before he could get very far. “I was being honest about how I felt at the time. But I don’t feel that way all the time.”
“I see.”
“It’s hard to explain, but… look, if you still want to get a drink sometime, I’m down.”
A rejection from Moonjo would have saved Jongwoo from himself, from using the excuse of Seokyoon’s plan to give into what he secretly wanted. So of course, Moonjo didn’t reject him. After a pause, the other man said, “Alright. I’d still like that.”
“How about tomorrow?”
Moonjo nodded. “I’ll be back a bit later tomorrow, but I’ll come knock on your door once I’m home.”
“Could we meet somewhere else instead?”
Another pause from Moonjo. “Somewhere else?”
Jongwoo tried to will his heart to stop racing. He was already all-in on this stupid scheme; there was no backing out now. “I still haven’t been in Seoul very long, so I don’t know that many bars, but I thought you might know some places.” Jongwoo’s mouth was dry. “Maybe a good place for two men to get a drink and get to know each other better?”
If Jongwoo’s line was too awkward, it didn’t show on Moonjo’s face. The corners of his mouth turned up, a smile less like the one that night in the kitchen that still haunts Jongwoo’s daydreams and more like the ones Moonjo had displayed in their first rooftop conversation that had left Jongwoo feeling lucky to have found a kindred spirit in the big city. “Ah, so you haven’t been to a place like that yet,” Moonjo said. “Sure, I can take you. I wasn’t sure if you were interested.”
So Jongwoo’s meaning had gotten across. The moment of recognition between them was like the formation of a crack in a dam that was already straining to burst. How often do you go there? Jongwoo wanted to ask. Do you know other men like us? Do you know how people manage to live this way? Do your parents know?
Before Jongwoo could ask any ill-advised questions, Moonjo stopped and smiled at something behind Jongwoo's shoulder. "Mrs. Eom, hello."
Jongwoo turned towards the older woman as she pottered into the kitchen, her usual cheery smile on her face, with no hint of the surprising sternness she'd shown during the previous night's incident. "Hello, just checking what needs to go on the shopping list. Don't let me interrupt you."
Mrs. Eom started opening the cupboards one by one and peering through them.
"Ahjumma didn't interrupt," Moonjo said, as cordial as ever. "Jongwoo-ssi asked me to show him around Seoul and we were just making plans."
Mrs. Eom continued her kitchen inspection, moving on to the fridge. "That's wonderful. It's good for people living together to get along."
Jongwoo's face went hot. "Ahjumma, about last night -"
Mrs. Eom shut the fridge and turned to face him. "Young man, it’s a valuable life lesson to understand that actions speak louder than words. If you change your behavior, there's no need for an apology."
It was a firm statement, but there was still none of what she’d shown yesterday in her eyes. Jongwoo, once again thrown by this woman, could only nod in response.
Fortunately, that seemed like enough for Mrs. Eom. "Besides, if you spend enough time with our Moonjo-ya, I'm sure he'll be a good influence on you,” she said. “He's one of the nicest young men I've ever had the pleasure to take care of." With that, she made her exit from the kitchen, leaving Jongwoo staring behind her.
"She can get a little familiar, can't she?" said Moonjo, unfazed. "Anyway, why don't you give me your phone number, to get in contact tomorrow?"
They exchanged numbers, Jongwoo hoping his reluctance didn't show. When he texted Seokyoon later to tell him the plan was underway, his head was ringing with the way Mrs. Eom had said our Moonjo-ya. Maybe she was just overfamiliar, but maybe this date - this fake date - could actually be how he figured out what was really going on at Eden.