Work Text:
"Okay," the flight attendant says to you tiredly. "Just wait in here, and I'll do some checking around. Please feel free to eat and drink. Do you need a shower?"
Maybe you misunderstood… "A shower?" you echo.
"You can sign up in here," she says, and walks you through a door, and you're in some kind of private lounge. No, you're in a lobby for a private lounge. You go through the second set of doors and wow. The room is full of arm chairs and lounge chairs, and places to charge phones and work on laptops. It has little alcoves around it — a restaurant, a bar, a kind of buffet area, and another, bigger bar. You take in air through your nose and let it out slowly; no need to look like a rube even though you are one.
You are a fly coach kind of person, you've never even been in business class except for once when they had to upgrade you because they oversold the flight. This? This is really nice.
"I'll be back — it may take a long time," she tells you. "Take this." She hands you a blank red plastic card. "Complimentary everything for you today." She grabs your hand as you reach out for the card. "I really am very sorry," she says in a low voice. "I am so sorry."
"I appreciate that — it's not your fault," you tell her for what feels like the tenth time. "These things happen. And thank you for this — I'm hungry." You smile at her and wave the red card.
Once she's gone, you look around and decide to go to the buffet. There are a few staff members there, and you show one of them your red card. He nods, swipes it through something, and gives it back. "Anything you like," he says, waving at the tables of food.
One side is eastern and one side is western. You would really like to eat some of the incredibly delicious looking seafood, but you feel queasy with anxiety, so you stick with western food to hopefully calm your stomach with something familiar: a scoop of roasted potatoes and what looks like it might be a miniature Yorkshire pudding with roast beef and gravy. Sure, why not.
The tables at the buffet are all empty. There are a bunch of men and women in suits over by the big bar, and a few women in athleisure at the smaller one, and that's it. Maybe it's not the right time of day for a lot of VIP passengers.
You wish that you weren't here, because being here means everything is a mess. But since you are here, the food is nice, and it's quiet, so you couldn't really ask for anything more. And apparently there are showers, which you may try out if there's time. You've already been traveling for more than thirty hours, thanks to the mix up with two connecting flights, and you've been in the same clothes the whole time.
You drop your plate at a table, and leave your stuff while you go back to the buffet to get a cup of coffee and a bottle of water.
The food is good. You were expecting it to be the kind of mid airport fare you're used to, but even the coffee is good. They made your cup fresh using some kind of fancy pour-over, and it's rich and hot and doesn't even need milk and sugar.
You eat about half your food before nausea gets the better of you. God, what if you have to turn around and just go home? What if you do get there, but you miss the concert?
One of the wait staff comes to take the plate you pushed away, and asks if you want another cup of coffee. You nod, and when they bring it to you, you ask if you can take it over to one of the arm chairs. For that you get a weird look, but a smooth and polite, "Of course."
You collect your suitcase and purse and hoodie and cup of coffee… If this were a regular paper coffee cup with a lid, this would be fine, but it's an actual porcelain cup, and you're pretty sure you're going to spill it. But.. needs must? You want to sit in a comfortable chair after six hours out in the main concourse in one of those awful metal ones. But if you bring your coffee over first and come back for your luggage, the coffee will be alone and open, and…
"Can I help?" asks someone, coming up next to you. "I can take your suitcase?"
You blink at the person next to you. Tall, thin, baggy jeans, long t-shirt, some kind of jacket — Louis Vuitton, you think — and a hat and a mask. Wire-rimmed glasses. Not an airport employee. He has a backpack over his shoulder.
"English?" he asks. Then, "한국어 ? 日本語 ? 广东话 ?"
You clear your throat. "English is fine," you say. "我廣東話好差 — and my Korean is rudimentary," you add in Korean, in your clumsy accent. You can say, "My ____ is rudimentary" in all the languages you can count to ten and ask for the bathroom in.
His eyes crease, so you can tell he's smiling under the mask. "Where?" he asks, and reaches for your suitcase. On his wrist you realize he has a little bag that looks like it's got food in it. You should have gotten a bag.
"Uh… anywhere that looks comfortable?" You squint out at the room, and point to the far side, which is totally empty.
"Good choice," he says cheerfully, and heads over. You take a sip of coffee before you follow him. You realize that someone is following you, a man in a blue jeans and a black jacket and a black mask, who has his own backpack. You look behind yourself at him, and he nods at you.
Okay, sure.
"I can sit?" he asks, and points to two chairs together.
"Sure. Do we need a chair for…" You gesture to the masked man.
"He's okay," the man says as the masked man settles down a few feet away in his own arm chair.
"Should we get him a cup of coffee or something?"
"He's okay," the man says again, this time a little more reassuringly. "Very nice of you."
You shrug and finally sit down. "God," you sigh, and drain half the cup of coffee in one long swallow.
The guy pulls his hat and mask off, and you do a double take. It's fucking j-hope? You quickly look away and glance down at your mug.
"Mind if I eat?" he say, opening up a container from his bag. Miso soup, from the smell.
"Oh, please do," you say, and wave your hand.
He drinks the soup from the container, forgoing a spoon. You try not to watch him, just stare at where you've stretched your feet out in front of you. You'd opted not to wear sneakers to the airport, because you knew it would be a few long flights and wanted to be able to take your shoes off and put them back on more easily, plus you weren''t sure how many times you would have to go through airport security. Now you're wishing you'd worn sneakers, because your Crocs are cute but weren't meant for wearing for thirty hours, and your feet are a little sweaty.
You sigh and slip the crocs off.
"I like your socks," j-hope says, and when you look up, he's smiling at you.
"I like rainbows," you tell him. "Oh, sorry, my name —"
He shakes your hand and introduces himself as "Hobi."
You nod. "Weird to say I know?"
He shrugs. "I don't like to assume."
You want to say something like, oh, how humble, but you know it will come out sarcastic, so you just nod again. "You're on tour, right?"
"Yes, but I took some extra days here to play tourist." His smile is so big and his teeth are so perfect. "I like to learn about places."
"It's so beautiful here," you say wistfully. "I wish I had time to visit, but I'm on a strict schedule."
"Work?" he asks.
"Ah — no, I'm on vacation for the first time in ten years." You grimace. "I'm going to a concert, if I can ever get out of this country."
"Oh?" He perks up. "Where?"
"Taiwan?" You take another sip of coffee. "I've never been there, so I get to be a tourist there for a few days, though."
"Taiwan?" he repeats oddly. "I'm going to Taiwan. Are you… going to my concert?"
"Oh! No — no, sorry," you apologize. "I didn't even try to get tickets for that. I'm going to see Jeff Satur? He's a Thai singer, plays guitar."
His face eases a little. "You didn't even try to come see me?" He puts his hand to his chest in faux shock. "Rude."
You laugh. "Come on, you know every stop on your tour sold out in like ten minutes. I might have tried a reseller if I'd realized we'd be in Taiwan at the same time, but…" You shrug. "At this point, I'm not sure I'll even make it to the Jeff Satur show, or even to Taiwan."
"Why not?" He finishes his soup and sets the container on the table between your chairs, then goes into his bag for something else. Onigiri. You hadn't seen any out there, although when he takes a bite, you see it's tuna mayo, which you wouldn't want anyway. Blech, mayonnaise.
"The airline messed up my booking in two separate places." You shrug, finish your coffee, and set the cup down next to his soup container. "I've already been here almost all day, and… well, staff are looking for a flight for me, but…" You shrug again. "But that's depressing. Tell me something fun?"
"Ooh." He chews a bite of onigiri thoughtfully. "I was just in Macau, and I stayed a few extra days to look around. I went to a night market, and Na — um —"
"It's okay," you tell him, "I'm not looking for some kind of expose on your friends."
"Habits are hard to break." He flashes you a heart-shaped smile. "Sorry."
"No worries." You wish you had another cup of coffee just to have something to do with your hands.
"Namjoonie sent me to a museum, teamLab SuperNature…" He describes what it was like, the lights and the flowers and "The Infinite Crystal Universe," which takes you a few minutes of listening to him talk about it to realize it's the name of the installation, not his poetic description of being alive.
He's finished with two onigiri by the time he's done talking, and he looks thoughtfully at the table between you. "More coffee? A snack?" he asks. "Then your turn to tell me something interesting."
You grin at him. "Sure. Do you think they have croissants somewhere? Or… any kind of pastry?"
"I love pastry," he says fervently, and motions to his security, and talks to him in Korean for a moment. You catch eat, Americano, "can you" and "thanks."
"Americano okay?" he asks you. "Iced or hot?"
"Sure — iced would be good."
He nods, his security nods, and when his security leaves, you raise your eyebrows. "You're sending your security away?"
He gestures to the room around you. "I think we'll be okay, right?"
"Sure." It's his life, you guess.
"So your turn," he says, and turns fully to you, pulling his legs up onto the chair and crossing them. He's kicked off his sneakers, too, you notice, and his socks have… fish ? on them. Super Tuna, you think. Maybe a gift from Jin.
"Something interesting…" You trail off, thinking. "Last year I felt like I never did anything fun, just worked all the time, like everything I did was research, so I went to the place where I got some of my piercings, and asked them if they would teach me to do piercings." You tap the fourth earring in your earlobe. "I did this one myself. I've never been paid to do it, but I did my best friend's nipple ring a few weeks ago, and I'm learning how to do dermal piercings now, which I might end up getting certified or whatever and doing at the shop, since the dermal piercer who's training me is leaving."
"Dermal?" he asks, his accent much stronger on that word.
"Ah.." You pull down the shoulder of your cardigan and show him the tiny rhinestone embedded near your shoulder, right under your collarbone.
"What?" He leans forward with his finger out and then catches himself. "Oh, no, sorry."
"No, it's okay, go ahead," you say, and lean forward as well. His finger, when it moves across your piercing and your skin, is soft and dry. He strokes the piercing a couple of times, staring at it and licking his bottom lip.
You do not look at his tongue. He's not your bias or anything, but you are not immune to the effect of an incredibly beautiful, interesting man looking at you like you're fascinating.
"Wow," he finally says. "It hurt?"
"Nah, I've got like…" You mentally count. "Well, I have seventeen piercings right now, but I've been pierced a lot more than that. And I like needles so sometimes I — well." You stop yourself abruptly. He does not need to know that you sometimes sub during needle play demonstrations at a local kink club.
He eyes you while he sits back in his chair. "Seventeen."
You start pointing them out — you start with your ears, ten there; your nose; your Monroe; your dermal at your shoulder. Then you wave at your chest and lower body. "And, you know," you finish, feeling your face flush.
Only one side of his mouth goes up in a smile, so it's more like a smirk. "I know," he says, and waves his hand at his own lower body and repeats, "I know."
Your face gets even hotter as you picture lower body piercing options. Oh god. Luckily, at that moment, his security comes back with three iced Americanos and two brown paper bags. Hobi arranges the iced Americanos for both of you on the table, then opens the paper bag, and pulls out the pastries, and sets them out using the bag as a makeshift plate.
"What's your favorite?" he asks, gesturing to them.
"Hm…" You look down at them. They're fancy-looking croissants. One might be that kind of pistachio Dubai chocolate thing? And one is definitely almond, and one is plain, and one you can't tell from the outside but it has some kind of drizzle on it. "What if we split them each in half?"
"Nice," he nods, "Smart."
You roll your eyes, but pull two toward you to rip them in half, and he does the same with the other two, and ends up with pistachio cream all over his fingers. He starts licking them off, laughing, and you reach into your purse for the small bag of wet wipes you carry for situations just like this. Plus, you never know what you're going to end up touching in an airport.
While you eat the pastries, you exchange more "interesting" stories: he tells you about learning dance styles he doesn't already know, and you tell him about working at a fiber crafts store in order to research for the mystery series you self publish; he tells you about his mom and you tell him about your stepdad, who went back to the small town where he lived as a teenager to run for the school board when he heard that outsiders had started showing up to meetings trying to ban books. He tells you about his new gadget to steam clean furniture and you tell him about taking a cooking class to meet people, but you ended up only meeting Thai aunties who wanted to introduce you to their nieces and nephews and grandchildren.
He grins wickedly at that. "Marry you off?"
You roll your eyes. "Apparently I have birthing hips." You gesture to yourself; you're dressed in black track pants and a black tank top and a black cardigan, and your black hoodie is hanging up with your purse. Look, traveling can get messy and you just wanted to hide coffee stains. You don't look like you have hips at all; you look pretty frumpy.
But his eyes get a little hotter. "I see," he says.
"Anyone trying to marry you off?" you ask, ignoring it, because you have no idea what you would even do or say if you acknowledged it.
"Everyone," he says, rolling his eyes, and the moment breaks. "Even my members."
"Friends can be the worst for it, especially if they're happily paired off," you agree.
"Now that I'm discharged, it's time to get married, have kids, be an adult," he says, rolling his eyes again. "My mother wants grandchildren, the members want nieces and nephews. I'm not the only one, though, Jinnie hyung and Tae are always trying to…" He trails off and licks his lips, and you realize he was about to reveal a little too much.
You jump in to cover the awkward moment: "Every time I visit my stepdad, he has a new person for me to meet," you tell him. "Woman, man, he doesn't care, he keep saying he wants to see me, quote, settled down before he dies."
"He's dying?" Hobi asks, looking concerned.
"Oh my god, he is healthier than me. He runs five miles every day and eats right and has good sleep hygiene…" You wave your hand. "He doesn't even drink caffeine."
"But he says dying."
"He wants grandkids, like your mom. He thinks I need someone to take care of me and make sure I sleep and eat and don't work too hard." You hold up your hands and shrug. "I like to work. I like to keep busy. I wouldn't mind having kids, I guess, but I don't just want to… pick the first person who looks like they have good genetics or something and have kids just to have them. That's a lifetime commitment!"
"Thank you!" he says. "Exactly. It has to be the right person and the right moment."
"Yes, exactly," you agree, nodding.
His eyes flick behind you. "Uh —"
You turn and see a flight attendant coming toward you, the same one from before. Her face is drawn. Bad news, then.
"I'm so sorry," she says, before she's even quite up to you. "I'm so sorry, there's nothing we can do today. We can put you in a hotel for the next two nights — there will be room on a flight to Taiwan then."
"There are no seats at all for two days?" you ask incredulously.
"Not today. Tomorrow only first class, and that's…" She grimaces. "I couldn't get you a free upgrade. And if we put you on a different airline, you'd have to pay for that and you wouldn't get your money back from us."
You rub your eyes. "I see."
"Should I book you into a hotel?" she asks. "The airline will pay, I made sure — it's our fault this happened."
You let out a long breath. "Okay, I —"
"Wait, wait," Hobi says. You and the flight attendant both look over to him. "Two days? You'll miss your concert!"
"Yeah," you say tightly. "But I don't have —" You look at her. "How much?"
She says an absolutely ridiculous fucking amount that you wouldn't pay even if you had the money.
"What?" He gapes. "Really?"
"Really," you say dryly. He's not the first millionaire you've met who has lost sight of how much things cost in the real world. "I'll miss the concert, but I'll get a few days in Taipei to wander around. Go to a night market." You smile at him as best you can. "I can look on the bright side."
"But…" He looks over at his security, and then back to the flight attendant. "I can talk to you please?"
She looks at you uneasily. "Well, I don't know," you tell her. Then you address Hobi: "I have no idea what you're thinking and maybe this is presumptuous, but don't pay for a flight for me or anything."
"I won't," he says, but his big smile makes you skeptical.
He goes with the flight attendant and his security out of the room, and you slide down in your seat and sigh.
You've met plenty of interesting people on flights — not that you fly all the time, but you visit your stepfather, and your best friend is a teacher in Appalachia, and once in a while you go to a writing convention. You weren't kidding when you mentioned this was your first vacation in ten years, though — usually when you go someplace, you still bring your laptop, and you write your ten pages a day, no matter how long it takes, before you go off to have fun. This is the first time since you started writing that you are going some place without your laptop. And it's your first time leaving North America. And it's your first time becoming acquainted with someone in an airport who is not a tired, harried parent traveling with children who need to be entertained or burped or cuddled to sleep.
You've always felt like you should have been an oldest sister. You would have liked at least three or four younger siblings to take care of and play with. Instead, you're an only child; your mother and father are gone, so it's just you and your father's true love. Your mother never remarried after they split, choosing instead to move to Arizona and live in a singles village, where she seemed very happy. You didn't visit a lot, because she never seemed to have time for you, but it was good that she was happy.
And like you told Hobi… you'd like to have kids, maybe, and a partner, but you don't want to just pick the first schmuck who likes you and settle for that just because you don't want to be alone.
You are definitely thinking about this to distract yourself from (1) whatever it is that Hobi is doing with the flight attendant, which, you suspect, might actually be paying for your flight even though he said he wouldn't, and (2) missing the Jeff Satur concert. You were going to meet up with some KinnPorsche friends, sit together, and one of your friends made a list of all the themed 7/11 stores she wants to visit. Well, maybe you can still do that.
It's not that you are unwilling to take several thousand dollars from a stranger. If he were really a stranger, you probably wouldn't hesitate, unless you got a creepy vibe. But the thing is… he's not actually a stranger. He's BTS j-hope, and you're ARMY. Maybe not as passionate as some other ARMY you know, but you're still ARMY. Taking money from j-hope feels… bad. That's not the kind of relationship you want with him. And this has been really nice — getting to know him, having a good time laughing and joking, not j-hope to ARMY but you to him as regular people.
Taking money from him fucks that up, makes your relationship different, makes you feel kind of like you're exploiting him or taking advantage or…
It doesn't matter if he's offering, you would never want him to think for one second that you would prefer his money to his time. Not that he would, probably, but you'd feel like it.
You make a disgusted noise in your throat and finish your Americano. You need a bathroom. Maybe you can use one of the fancy showers before they shuffle you off to a cheap airport hotel.
You look around to see if he's coming back, but he's no where to be seen. The lounge has been filling up, though, and the noise level is rising. You check your phone for the local time, and see that it's getting late. You wonder why mid-afternoon isn't when the VIP lounge fills up, but maybe people were waiting to come eat dinner at the fancy sit-down restaurant on the other side, near the small bar.
Hobi left his backpack and his Louis Vuitton leather jacket. Just out here. Like he trusts that you won't go through his stuff or sniff his jacket's armpits.
You're thinking about what he smells like when he comes back, and you feel flustered and hot for a moment. He hasn't been near enough to you for you to smell him — until now, when he crouches down in front of you. Citrus, you think, and… the forest.
You tune back in to what he's saying:
"So, if you want, you can have the seat."
"Wait, sorry, what?" you ask.
"Serious," he says. "You can have the seat — if you don't mind."
"I don't mind," you say automatically.
"Okay, great, your passport? She'll set it up?"
"I…" You nod, and dig into your purse for your passport, and hand it to Hobi. "Are you sure?" you ask, not even sure yourself what you're asking.
He hands the passport over to the flight attendant without looking away from you. "I have the extra seat to Taiwan, you need a seat," he says, "and it won't be hard to sit next to you for a few hours."
You put one hand up to your hot cheeks. It sucks being pale; everyone can see when you blush.
"This is very kind of you," you tell him. What did he do, buy out all of first class so he could sit alone? Maybe.
"I like to be kind," he says, and looks a little abashed, "but it's also… I like talking to you. It's selfish, I would like to talk to you more."
You reach out your hand and touch his where it's resting on the arm of your chair. "It's generous. And I like talking to you too."
He nods. And puts his other hand on your thigh. He looks down at his hand, and so do you, and then your gazes meet when you look up.
"Okay?" he says softly.
"Yeah," you reply, just as softly. Before you can process what's just happened, or say anything else, the flight attendant is back.
She has your passport, and what looks like a printed ticket, and something else. When she hands everything to you, she explains that she switched your flight to Hobi's and the ticket will be sent to your phone, but here's the receipt and information about your voucher, since the cost is different so you get miles as a refund.
You take everything from her, and say, sincerely, "多謝," and she cracks for the first time, blushing a little and bowing to you. "Really," you add, "you didn't have to do any of what you did, or get me in here, or anything. I appreciate that you did."
"It's just my job," she says, sounding flustered.
"And I appreciate you for doing it," you repeat firmly. You bow back from your chair, and she bows again before she walks away.
"Kind," Hobi observes, back in his chair. "You're very nice."
You raise your eyebrows at him. "'It costs you nothing to be kind'," you quote, and it's his turn, finally, to flush, and sink down in his chair a little.
"Really ARMY, huh," he mumbles.
You spread your fingers and show him the small purple heart tattooed on the inside of your left middle finger. It's old enough now that the ink is spreading a little, and because of where it is on your body, it looks like it's kind of wearing away a little, but it's still recognizable as a purple heart.
"Oh," he says blankly.
You spread your fingers more and show him the "보라해" tattooed on the inside of your left ring finger. Also old, also blurry from ink spread and time, but still recognizably borahae.
"Oh," he says again. You shrug.
"My first BTS song was Black Swan, and I never looked back," you tell him. "My closest friends I've met through ARMY, and I listen to BTS every day, and your music makes my heart feel light and free. Still want to sit next to me on an airplane?"
He's smiling now, though, the same heart-shaped, happy smile he's had the whole time.
"Yes, even more now," he says, hugging his legs to his chest. "Can I take a picture?"
"Of my tattoos?" you ask, startled. "Sure, I guess."
"Everyone will like it," he tells you, and pulls out his phone. You spread your fingers so he can get both tattoos at the same time, and he takes a few pictures. "Thank you."
"Sure. They're kind of your tattoos too." You force a smile. What. What. What.
His phone buzzes, and your phone buzzes at the same time. You pull it out of your purse and check it. Apparently your flight is boarding. Hobi's flight.
"Ready?" he asks you, slinging his backpack on.
"Sure," you say. "Oh, but we should throw out the garbage."
"No, they'll clean it."
You frown. "And no tip, right?"
He laughs a little. "No tip for sure. It's rude here."
You shrug and pull on your hoodie, grab your purse, and go for your suitcase but his security is already there.
"Oh," you say, and he nods at you, rolling it behind him as he leads you both to a door on the side, not the door you came in through, but one that says exit only, and leads to a hallway. You follow, Hobi behind you; there looks to be two people behind him, going to the same flight, you guess. So maybe he didn't buy out all of first class?
You try to make mental notes as you walk through… can't hurt to write this into a book at some point. Most of your characters are small town folks who solve local mysteries, but maybe you'll write one of those silly self-referential books about a mystery writer who goes on vacation and solves a mystery. You kind of love those. Why not solve a mystery on a fancy first class flight on the way to vacation or something?
Now you wish you'd brought your laptop. You'd promised yourself a full break from writing, but… you want to write this, or at least start some notes or an outline.
The plane is… fancy. The first class cabin is up stairs, and is more like a floor, with rooms that are walled off, and a bar in the middle. The doors don't quite go all the way up to the ceiling, but they are doors that close. The flight attendant opens the doors and says, "The Residence," in English.
Hobi ushers you into the room first, and you realize it's actually more like a fucking apartment. It is a residence. There's a couch and a TV, and instructions for how to turn the couch into a bed. There's a bar with drinks on it, and snacks, and a door on the side that's open so you can see it's a bathroom with a toilet and a shower and a vanity big enough for a person to actually sit on the chair in front of it and do their makeup or whatever in the lighted mirror.
"Um," you say, turning to him.
He looks embarrassed. "I don't get noticed a lot, not like Jungkook and Tae, but…" You watch his throat move as he swallows. "I have to be careful. You know. Especially in Asia."
You nod, keeping your face solemn. "Yeah, I get it," you tell him. You look behind him for his security and your suitcase, but they aren't there. "Where is…"
"He's in one of the singles. Do you want your bag, or…"
"No, I'm fine, just checking." You gesture at the door. "Mind if I use the bathroom?"
"Oh, go ahead." He flops down on the couch and turns the TV on. "Okay?"
"Sure, anything you like," you say before you shut the door. You hope he can't hear you pee out there, that would be embarrassing. Unless he likes that, in which case you hope he can hear you and is enjoying it.
You've never heard a rumor of j-hope liking pee, but who really knows about people?
God, you need your brain to stop and shut up.
You wash your hands and splash water on your face, and dry off with the softest towel you've ever felt. You're sure just the towel costs more than your rent.
You do look longingly at the shower, but you'll be able to shower at your hotel in Taipei, and you can wait that long.
Your turn to flop onto the couch next to him. You pull off your hoodie and cardigan — it's not cold in here — and relax into the plush seat. Hobi is on his phone. He looks up to smile at you, then goes back to it.
"Work," he says briefly.
You pull out your own phone. The plane has wifi. Of course it does. You connect, and then open Whatsapp so you can update the group chat. You finally got a seat, you will definitely be at the show, but you're definitely not going to make it to dinner tonight or breakfast tomorrow. You think you're gonna sleep for a hundred hours; you slept on the flight to Hong Kong, but economy class seats on a trans contintental flight are actually not super comfortable or conducive to napping.
You double check your hotel reservation — you missed your first night, but they agreed to hold the room for you. You have to pay for that night anyway, but that's fine. Fair.
You message your stepfather to let him know you're on your way to Taiwan — you picked it for the concert instead of Macau or Thailand or any other place because that's where he's from, even though none of his family is still there. He taught you the most important phrases for traveling, like where is the bathroom? Please make my food spicy. Where is the bus station? Where is the American consulate? (You really hope you don't need to use that one.) He also taught you "Don't cheat me!" which you think is hilarious and do not plan to ever say, even though it's apparently not as rude in Taiwan as it would be in America.
You laugh softly at the list of more Taiwanese phrases he's messaged you: I want to talk to a lawyer. Don't touch me. I love toast.
Hobi nudges you. "What's funny?" he asks.
You show him the message.
"I… love… toast…" he sounds out. "You love toast?"
"I do love toast," you say, grinning, "but my stepdad is just coming up with silly things for me to say now. Look at this one — women… neng… yiqi zhonghun…ma. Hm, that's just Mandarin."
He's leaning on your arm a little, and you try to surreptitiously sniff to get more of that woodsy citrus scent. "Women neng yoqi zhongun…" he trails off.
"Can we spend our lives together," you translate. "Like, will you marry me?"
"Yes," he says promptly, and bumps his head against your arm. You laugh.
"Well, my stepdad will be pleased to hear that, but embarrassed for me that I didn't ask in Korean," you joke, and Hobi laughs. His head is warm against your bare arm. You lean a little to put your head on top of his, and sigh.
"Ugh, I'm tired," you tell him. "I might fall asleep right here."
"Do you want… the bed?" he asks. "We should wait until take off, but then we can open it."
"Oh — I wouldn't want… you wanted to work…"
He shrugs. "I can sleep, too. I have early schedules tomorrow, I should nap."
You have to disassociate from what's happening, because otherwise you might have a stroke from the idea of sharing a bed with j-hope.
No — with Hobi, the nice guy you met at the airport.
If he wasn't j-hope, you would definitely be flirting a lot more. But like with the money — you wouldn't want him to think that you're… a person who just fucks famous people or whatever.
"It's okay," he says, "no bed is fine."
"No — sorry, I was lost in thought. Bed would be great, actually."
"Oh. Uh… good," he says, and you can feel him press his nose and mouth into your arm.
"Here, let me," you say, and move your arm. Before he can get the wrong idea and pull away, you drape it over his shoulders. His very wide, very strong shoulders. He's warm under his t-shirt. You can feel bone and muscle, and…
He snuggles into you, pulling his feet up onto the couch. "Mmm," he says, kind of into your armpit. You hope your deodorant is holding up.
"Mm," you hum in agreement, and you sit like that for a long time as the plane taxis and takes off. The TV is muted, playing an old episode of Friends, and you watch for a while, glancing from it to your phone, messages coming in from the group chat, all relieved you'll make it. One of your friends is doing a rewatch of KinnPorsche and live-messaging through it — a KimChay supercut, though, no Kinn and Porsche drama almost at all.
You rub your thumb against his shoulder, and he puts his hand on your inner thigh, and seems to relax against you. He's taken off his glasses and is not looking at his phone.
When the "Stay seated" light clicks off, you jostle him a little.
"Awake?" you ask, and he grunts.
"Do you wanna open the bed? Use the bathroom?"
He groans but drags himself up. "Yes," he says, and makes a face, opening his mouth and letting his tongue loll out while he scrunches his nose. The universal face for "Bleh".
He kicks off his sneakers and shuffles to the bathroom while you collect the stuff that's already gathered on the couch — his phone and glasses, his jacket, your phone and sweatshirt and cardigan. You hang the jackets on hooks, and put the phones and glasses on the bar. You pull off your socks and stuff them into your Crocs, wiggling your finally-freed toes into the carpet. Then you look at the drinks thoughtfully, and crack open a bottle of water, and take a long sip.
You can hear him in the bathroom. You put it out of your mind completely. As much as you do, in fact, want to listen to BTS j-hope use the bathroom, because you're a creepy pervert, you don't want to listen to this guy Hobi use the bathroom when he thinks he's in private.
Although he must have been able to hear you pee earlier, since you can hear him now.
No, you don't want to think about it.
You click off the TV, and find the light switch. It dims, so you press the button to dim it as much as you can without it turning off. Finally, you pull off your bra and tuck it into your purse, and feel like you're taking your first deep breath in thirty-something hours.
By the time you're done and taking another sip of water, he's out of the bathroom, face damp, yawning.
"You said sleep and now I'm so tired," he complains.
You grin at him and hold out the open bottle of water. He looks at it and hesitates, so you pull it back and grab a sealed one from the bar and offer him that.
He looks from the sealed one to your face, and bites his lip, and then reaches for the open one you were sipping from.
"Thanks," he says in a low voice. He comes closer and closer, and when he holds the bottle out for you to take back, he pushes right against you, pushing you into the bar. You suck in a breath and he puts his hand on your face and tilts you up and kisses you.
Not like he's going to eat you alive, just a brief, chaste kiss, a little wet from his tongue flicking over your lips. You part them slightly, and your tongues touch for a moment. Then he pulls back and takes the bottle of water back for another sip.
You think for a moment, wildly, that he's going to spit it into your mouth — but this isn't one of the erotica novels you write once every few months for extra cash. He just swallows it, and grins at you, his hand still on your jaw.
He hands the bottle back to you, and you trade it, hips pressed together, legs slotted together, until it's empty. He puts it on the bar, puts the sealed bottle you're still holding on the bar, and steps back. He holds out his hand to you.
"Nap?" he asks, and you nod.
He shows you how to turn the couch into a bed, and where to find the blankets and pillows, and you make the bed together. Weirdly domestic.
As you climb in and lie down, and he yawns, you say, "Big spoon, little spoon, separate?"
"Big spoon," he says, and turns onto his side to face you. Before you can flip over, he leans in to kiss you one more time, then guides you over and presses up against your back. His jeans cannot possibly be comfortable to sleep in, but he's probably used to making do, to catching naps when he can during long days.
But he's thinking the same thing, wiggling around. "Is it okay?" he asks.
"Mm?" you ask, looking over your shoulder.
He looks chagrined. "Belt," he explains. "Jeans."
"Yeah, yeah, take them off," you say around a yawn. "Don't worry, I can control myself."
"What if I can't?" he counters, and you feel him wriggle out of his pants and hear the belt jingle as it lands on the floor.
"I'm not worried about that since you're half asleep already," you retort. "Good luck starting anything."
He huffs a laugh into the back of your neck. "I like you," he murmurs sleepily, and holds you tight, and then he's asleep.
You're only awake for a few more minutes before you drift off. He's warm, and holding you tightly, and it doesn't matter in this moment that he's BTS j-hope — you're just people, keeping each other company. He likes you, you like him, and it's nice. He's nice. It's been a while since you've been held in bed and you didn't realize until this moment how much you missed it.
You wake up because you're sweating, you're so hot, your heart is racing, and your hips are rocking, your leg already up and back, draped over someone's hip. You gasp and open your eyes — you're on an airplane and the person in bed, grinding his dick against you, is j-hope. Hobi.
He grunts and his hand flexes on your hip, and then everything stops.
"Oh my god," he says in Korean. He doesn't move.
"Um," you say. You don't move either.
"I'm sorry," he says in Korean, his breath hot against the back of your neck; then, in English: "Shit, I'm sorry."
"It's okay," you rasp, your throat closing. "It's… fine."
"I'm not like this," he says, but he's not moving. You're not moving.
"I'm not like this either," you reply, and move his hand from your hip down over your stomach and into your track pants. You can feel yourself, sticky, wet, hot, and then his fingers, cool and callused, dip under your panties and slide over your clit, parting your pussy lips, jerking when he realizes you have a ring through your clit hood. He rubs at it, exploring, and you both moan at the same time.
He starts rocking against you again, chanting, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," under his breath. You reach behind yourself to put your hand on his ass, keep him close even though he's not moving away, and he rubs his fingers against your clit in time with his thrusts. The body control on this man is wild, the way he can do three things at once. Four, you amend, when he starts biting at your neck while still chanting fuck fuck fuck.
"That's it," you tell him, and tilt your head to give him more skin to bite. "Come on, make me come, Hobi, please."
His hips jerk against you, putting more pressure from his fingers to your clit, and you realize he's coming, sinking his teeth all the way into your skin and crying out, clearly trying to keep his voice low so that it doesn't drift over the top of the door.
You turn a little so you're more on your back, and add your own hand into your panties, slotting your fingers with his.
"Stop, stop," he mumbles, and bites your neck again. "Let me." You blink and pull your hand away, and he grabs it, puts it in his mouth, and groans.
Then he's moving down your body, pulling your pants down, leaving them and your panties on one leg and pushing his shoulders to open you wider. His mouth is so so hot on your clit, and he touches fingers to your slit. He lifts his head up to look at you, hair a mess, mouth all red, pupils wide and dilated — maybe from the low light, maybe from arousal, you don't care. It's so hot.
"Do you want… inside?" he asks, and you whine a little and say, "Yes, yes, inside, please," and then you're being stretched out by long fingers. He rededicates himself to your clit, playing with your clit ring with his tongue, then sucking on it, then tonguing it again. You grab his hair with your clean hand, and it's only a few more minutes before you're coming on his face.
He keeps his fingers inside you as he kisses your pubis, your stomach, tongues at your navel ring. He pushes your shirt up to kiss between your ribs, and then sucks in a breath. "Ohhh," he says, and attaches himself to your nipple. You keep your hand in his hair and listen to him moan, and pull your leg up to get his fingers in the right spot. You weren't planning to come again but you don't hate him for trying to get you there. Your breasts aren't super sensitive, but he sucks hard, and it feels like he's chewing on your nipple ring. You squeeze down hard on his fingers and ignore the feeling that you're going to pee. You don't think you're quite going to squirt, but you're definitely going to gush.
He moves to suck on your other tit, the one with the barbell, and the heel of his palm presses your clit, pressing the ring down hard, and that's it, it's so good, you come again, crying out, you can't keep quiet.
He muffles you with his mouth, his tongue, keeping his fingers inside you until you hiss — "Too much, too much —" and he pulls them out.
"Mm," he says and sticks them into his mouth, licks them off, gets his tongue between them. He sees you watching and offers them to you and you suck them into your mouth until they hit the back of your throat, and you suck and suck, because you didn't get to suck his dick.
He drops his head onto your shoulder, and you take even breaths until you feel calmer.
"I didn't plan that," he mumbles. "I didn't."
"Well, me either," you say, "although I'm not mad about it. It was nice."
He lifts his head up to look at you. "Nice!" he says with mock hurt. He's smiling, his eyes all crinkled, and you lean up a little to kiss him, that heart shaped smile, those red lips.
"Really nice?" you say, grinning.
"Really nice," he allows. Then he makes a face and shifts his hips. "Shower with me?"
"Will I get to see your mysterious hidden piercings?"
"If you want." He flicks your nipple ring, and you tug your tank top over your head and kick off your pants and panties. It feels incredibly strange to be naked on an airplane.
"I want." You lean up to kiss him again, then slap him on his flank. "Let's go."
He groans, not a sexy one this time, as he rolls out of the bed. He strips off his t-shirt as he walks into the bathroom, and then steps out of his boxer briefs. When he bends over in front of you, you catch a glimpse of gold.
"Ohhh," you breathe. "Nice."
"Mm?" He turns to you and your hand immediately goes out to his dick.
"Ohh," you say again, and move his foreskin back to see the full dydoe piercing, the barbell going through the head of his dick vertically at the ridge. "Oh, Hobi, pretty." You drop to your knees — carefully, because the floor is hard, but you want to be closer to it.
His hand goes into your hair. "Go ahead," he says, sounding amused.
"Thanks," you say lowly, and then get your mouth around the prettiest dick you've ever seen, all pink and purple and glinting gold barbell. Once it's in your mouth you realize there's one on the underside, too, and you tongue at it, just feel it in your mouth. You taste salt and bitterness, too, his come smeared over his skin.
His dick stays soft in your mouth even as you take it deeper and deeper, until you're pressed right up against him, dick touching the back of your throat, your soft palate. He pets your hair while you stay there, cockwarming him for your own pleasure, eyes shut. It's so meditative, he tastes and smells so good, and you lose yourself there, you don't even know for how long before you realize your knees hurt and start pulling yourself off.
You look up at him from your knees, feeling fuzzy. "Thank you," you slur, and his fingers go into your mouth.
"Beautiful," he says in Korean. "You're so beautiful like this." Maybe he thinks you can't understand this because your Korean is bad? You don't correct him, just float on his hot gaze until he starts to tug you up by the hair.
"Come on," he says in English. "Shower."
You stagger to your feet and he catches you, pulls you against him.
"Okay, baby?" he asks, and his hand smooths down your back. "Take a minute."
"So good," you sigh, leaning on him, and you let him drag his hand up and down your back until you feel like you can stand on your own. "Okay," you finally say, and take a deep breath. "Okay."
"We can go slow," he says. "We slept for only a little while. An hour?"
"Oh. It felt longer." You yawn and watch him turn on the shower and feel the water. "Um. Sorry about that, I wasn't thinking…"
He grins at you over his shoulder. "I liked it," he says. "No one's ever done that to me before."
"What, really?" You're surprised. "But you have such a nice dick."
He huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, well, that's not really what people are focused on when I'm in bed with them."
You cock your head. "It's… not?"
He steps under the water and holds his hand out to you. It's a tight squeeze, but you fit, and let him get your hair wet.
Finally he says, "No, mostly people just want oral. My mouth, you know."
"Your mouth," you repeat blankly. "Oh, I mean, you have a great smile."
He laughs, and pours some shampoo into his hand, starts to scrub it into your hair. "Thanks."
"Did I see a guiche piercing earlier?" You close your eyes and let him tilt your head under the spray and wash out the shampoo. He puts conditioner in your hair, and you watch through slitted eyes as he lets it sit while he shampoos his own hair.
"Yeah," he finally says, once he's put conditioner in his own hair, and starts washing it out of yours. "Three."
You shiver. "Three," you murmur. "Can I see?"
"When we're done," he says, sounding amused. "Yours are nice too."
"Thanks, I like them."
You let him raise your arms and wash your pits, reach down and get between your thighs. His fingers trail up, rub your asshole — not with soap, you realize, just to feel — and then over your back. No soap on your back, just his hands.
"Can I?" you ask, and take the soap from him. The airplane toiletries smell nice, kind of similar to his cologne earlier, woodsy. You lather, and repeat on him what he did to you — armpits, stomach, groin, between his thighs. He spreads his legs, and you finger his guiche piercings. One, two, three rings on his perineum.
"And this?" you ask. "Do people play with you here?"
He leans against the side of the shower, and opens one leg. He's so flexible, you notice in passing, and move your fingers back to his hole. Just like he did to you, there's no soap on your hands, but you play with him for much longer, until he starts breathing hard and his dick starts plumping up. He grabs himself at the base of his cock, and you look up into his face. His eyes are closed and he looks like he's in pain.
"Can I suck you off?" you ask, and he dips his head under the spray for a moment, letting the conditioner wash out. His hair starts to curl almost immediately. He must have gotten some kind of perm before the tour.
He reaches around you to shut off the spray, and then leans close to you and says in a low voice, "Can I fuck you?"
"You want to?" you ask, and wince. "I mean — yes. I would love that. But I don't think I can come again, so it would just feel… good."
"It'll feel good?" he asks, cupping your chin.
"Yeah, I like it, getting fucked. Deep, hard, slow, fast, I love…" You flush. "I guess there's no TMI anymore huh?"
"You heard me take a shit earlier," he says dryly. "No TMI."
"You listened to me pee," you counter, and he laughs as he wraps a towel around you. "Anyway, I really like being full. Really full."
"My dick is not going to fill you that much," he says, and pats his hair with a towel before he dries his body off. You stand there watching before you remember you need to dry off too.
"No, I think your dick is a good size," you finally say, watching the play of his muscles. He ate and drank; miso soup is salty, croissants are fatty, he's hydrated… it doesn't seem to have mattered to his body. He isn't cut like a superhero, but his muscles stand out in relief, his little brown nipples are cute, his hips cocked, his whole body rangy and lean in a way that's really attractive. It's his job to be attractive, of course, but he appeals to you very specifically — his body, his smile, his personality, the way he listens when you talk and seems interested in what you have to say. What's hotter than someone who thinks you're attractive and interesting, who you think is attractive and interesting in turn?
The towels are huge and soft and have that deep pine smell of the toiletries.
He takes your hand and leads you back to the bed. "Mm," he hums to himself, and starts digging through his backpack. He tosses a bunch of stuff onto the bed and you frown at it while you catalog it and squeeze water out of your hair. Condoms, lube, a comb, two different moisturizers, and ??? You kneel down next to the bed and pick up the soft cloth packet, and then realize: it's a little bullet vibe in a soft pouch. There's something else in there too, and when you open it, you realize the battery is in there separately. Smart, that way it won't ever accidentally go off.
You hold it up to him, and he shrugs. "Maybe you like it?" he says.
"You like it?"
He crawls onto the bed with you. "It feels good." He offers you a bottle of water — this one he's already opened and sipped from, in a mirror of what happened before.
You sip from it and watch him organize his things. He runs the comb through his hair, then reaches over to run it through yours. He carefully gives you the same center part you'd had before the shower, humming the whole time. Then he combs the sides and back of your hair again and chucks your chin. You dip your face to kiss his fingers.
Then he reaches for the moisturizer. This is so funny, but also really sweet. He opens one and pats it onto your face carefully, avoiding your eyes, and making sure to get under your jaw and a little behind your ears. His face is so serious. He uses the other one on himself — it's an oil that he drips onto his cheeks and pats in. It smells like almonds.
He smiles at you as he puts everything away, and you hold up the condom in one hand and the lube in your other.
"Ready?" he asks you, and drops his hand to his dick, stroking it. He gets onto the bed and lies on his back and spreads his legs, rubbing at the piercings stacked on his perineum. You click open the lube and show it to him and he nods, so you put some on your fingers to warm it up and then replace his fingers with yours, playing with the rings, and moving back to his asshole.
"Pretty," you murmur. "Pretty everywhere."
You get your thumb inside him, just a little, and tug on his rim and he moans, one leg kicking out.
"Shit," he hisses, "shit, goddamn."
"You're so sensitive," you observe, and swap your thumb for your first two fingers with your palm facing up to make sure you'll hit his prostate if you can.
His cock is thickening, getting longer, but only a little. You hadn't gotten to see it hard earlier, and he's right — it's not huge. It's more than a mouthful, but it's not going to bully you open and rearrange your guts.
It will feel good, though. You can tell.
How perfect he is was kind of intimidating, until you saw little pimples on his ass and on his jaw by his ears, a scar on his hip. You smile to yourself. It's nice to see a flaw — or not a flaw, just a human thing that isn't airbrushed and lasered and painted within an inch of its life.
You bend down to lick at him, and he pulls his legs up by the thighs. "Fuck, you don't have to," he gasps.
"I want to," you tell him, and kiss the back of one thigh. "Is it okay?"
"Fuck yes," he says, "please, please."
You lick around your fingers, and scissor them open little by little so you can get your tongue inside where he's hot and soft. You lose yourself in this, too, adding a little more lube, flicking your tongue around in the way that keeps making his hips thrust and his legs shake.
He grabs the base of his dick and says, "Okay, now, now," and while you move up his body, he rolls on the condom, hissing. You're wet again, and you slide onto his dick easily.
"Like this?" you ask, grinding down onto him.
"Up and down," he gasps out, his hands holding tightly to your hips. He helps you find the rhythm he prefers, the head of his cock in you very shallowly, so that you're jerking off the head of his dick with your cunt.
It doesn't fill you, he's right, but it does feel so good. Almost like… a massage. A really good massage right inside you.
He moves one hand to your breast, the one with the barbell, and pinches your nipple, tugs on the barbell, tosses his head back so you can look at his perfect throat. You watch him get more and more aroused; you watch him come with his eyes screwed shut and his mouth open; you watch him turn his head to bite his own biceps and let out a high-pitched whine. It gets lost in the noise of the airplane's engines; you hope no one else can hear it.
You guys have been… loud.
While he shakes and comes, you keep riding him and watching him, and once he settles down, you finally pull yourself off him. You lean over him and kiss him gently, then step away. You take the condom off him and into the bathroom, where you wrap it in tissues and put it into the trash. You wet a washcloth and go back to him. He's lying starfished on the bed, arms and legs spread, eyes shut. His breathing is still heavy.
He opens his eyes, and while you wipe him down, dick, asshole, thighs, he watches you quietly.
The washcloth, your towels, you bring them into the bathroom and pile them into the little laundry basket. You click off the bathroom light and the whole room goes dim again, and he's in shadow.
You grab up the lube, condom wrapper, the little bag with the vibrator you hadn't used, and put it all on the bar with the empty water bottles, and then you crawl onto the bed and curl up next to him with your head on his shoulder.
"That was… so good," he tells you.
"It really was," you say, and put a hand on his stomach. You start smoothing your hand over his stomach, letting yourself feel his skin and muscles, the way he's perfectly hairless, with no stubble at all — laser, you figure. It was painful enough when you did your chin and upper lip in your twenties; you can't imagine having it done all over your body.
When you touch the root of his dick, he shivers, and you move your hand away.
"No, I like it," he says, and puts his hand over yours, moves you back to his cock. "I like the — the —" He's clearly groping for an English word.
"Overstimulation?" you ask.
"Yes, that. Sometimes edging. No one has time for that." He laughs a little bit but it sounds kind of bitter. "I don't get it except with myself, but I like it."
"Mm," you hum. "Well, if you're ever in America and you want to be edged and overstimulated, you know who to call."
"And cockwarming," he says, sounding sleepy again. You keep your hand moving on his dick, using two fingers to rub his piercings under his foreskin, and get the head of his cock leaking, even though it's soft.
"And cockwarming," you say softly. You feel so awake, but he's clearly drifting off. You kiss his shoulder, his neck, his temple, and once his breathing is even, you pull the blanket up over him. You kind of want to get out of bed and fold all your clothes (and his), but you stay next to him instead, curled up against him, and once you're warmed up and starting to feel relaxed, you fall asleep again too.
Your next wake up isn't quite as dramatic — an alarm is beeping on the coffee table and he's moving quickly to silence it.
When he sees you looking, he says, "We land soon," and puts the phone back on the table.
You yawn and stretch. "This has been a very nice break from reality," you tell him, smiling, and he frowns.
"A break," he says slowly.
"I mean…" You sit up and cock your head. "This isn't real life for either of us."
He flattens his lips. "It's my real life," he says, and looks down.
"Okay…" You fold your legs and rub your hands on your thighs. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry," you add in formal Korean.
He makes a face. "Don't. It's fine."
"Wow, it could not sound less fine."
He shakes his head and pulls a pair of boxer briefs out of his backpack. "My mistake," he says, and steps into them.
"No, wait, what? Tell me, Hobi, tell me what just happened."
He straightens up from putting on his underwear and holds your panties out to you. When you don't take them, he tosses them onto the bed and reaches for his t-shirt.
"It doesn't matter," he says shortly. "We both had a good time, right?"
"A great time," you say, feeling really off balance. "This has been amazing. Not just the sex, the whole…" You wave your hand. "All this time we've spent together. Even just sleeping with you was really nice."
He pulls on his jeans, jumping a little to get them up to his hips. "But not real."
"I…" You frown. "I mean… We're gonna land and you're gonna go to a fancy hotel and do magazine interviews and perform for fifty thousand people, and I'm going to go to a shitty hotel and tour themed 7/11s and sit all the way in the back in the cheap seats to see an idol sing mostly in a language I don't understand. This…" You wave a hand to encompass not just "The Residence" and the plane, but, really, literally everything happening. "I don't have this."
"Why couldn't you?" he challenges. "You don't like me?"
"What? I like you so much," you protest. "What do you mean?"
"You like me but don't want to see me again?" He folds his arms over his chest, cocks a hip. He sounds brave, like this is easy for him, but he looks… so upset. You think his chin is trembling but it's hard to see in the dim light.
You wonder how many people have told him he was good for a quick fuck and not bothered to want to see deeper or get to know him more. You can't actually imagine any ARMY doing that, but maybe he's had bad luck? Or maybe he doesn't fuck ARMY and just has passing affairs with dancers or something, like you've heard other idols do.
It sounds… lonely. All work and no love. Except his members, but you suspect that feels as different to him as it sounds to you.
"I… would love to see you again," you reply slowly. You bring your knees to your chest and wrap your arms around them. You wish you weren't naked while he's mostly dressed, but whatever.
He makes a skeptical noise in the back of his throat.
"I would. I didn't realize it was on the table. An option. I didn't think you'd want that."
He shakes his head. "I don't do this," he says emphatically. "I don't ever do this." He sweeps his arm around — to encompass you, you guess. "I don't have sex with ARMY. I love ARMY, but this part of me is not for them. Do you ever hear about me doing this?"
"I'm ARMY," you remind him. "And just because I don't hear it doesn't mean it doesn't happen." You want to run your tongue over your Monroe piercing, a self-soothing habit you picked up a few years ago, but it's really bad for the piercing. When you catch yourself doing it, you stop, and instead put your fingers to your dermal piercing to rub the rhinestone.
"It doesn't happen," he says. "Not since… not since debut."
You process that. You guess he really is fucking dancers, then. Maybe other idols.
"I'm not sure what to say," you confess. "I didn't realize I was… special."
"You are special," he says simply. "I like you. Do you like me?"
"I do," you say quickly. "I like you."
"Then…" He looks unsure again. "Come to my hotel. Stay with me. Come to my shows. Give me your phone number, let me…" He holds out his hands. "I like you," he says again. "And the sex is good."
You put a hand to your chest in mock offense, just like he had earlier. "Just good? Rude!"
That gets him to laugh, at least.
"Listen, I'm sorry," you say again. "I didn't realize. I thought it was… you know, one and done and you go back to your life and I go back to mine. If that's not how it has to be… I would like that. A lot, actually. So yes — I'll come to your hotel and I'll come to your shows and we can get to know each other and see if we want to keep knowing each other."
He nods, and unfolds his arms, and comes toward the bed, and crawls onto it, and comes between your legs, into your arms.
"Ahh," you say, and rock him a little. "Sorry, sorry, that sucked. I'm sorry I hurt you."
"Sorry," he mumbles into your chest. He turns his face into the space between your breasts. "Did I react too much?"
"Overreact?" you ask. "No. Not really. I'm glad you told me. I'm glad we aren't going to walk away from each other."
He grunts, and you keep rocking him for a while, soothing him and yourself. When the "Stay seated" light clicks on, you kiss his head and say, "Let me get dressed."
He clicks his tongue, but rolls off you, and watches as you pull on your panties, your crumpled track pants, your wrinkled tank top. You sit down to put your socks on, and then you both stand up and fold the bed. He tells you to just put the duvet and sheets and pillows back where they came from, and they'll be taken and cleaned.
By the time you really start feeling the descent, you're back to sitting on the couch, his arm wrapped around you, each of you holding your phone, watching what might be the same episode of Friends, dubbed in Mandarin.
"You speak it?" he asks. "Me too, a little bit."
"Better than Korean and Thai but not as good as English or Arabic."
He looks down at you. "How many languages?"
"Do I speak?"
"Do you know."
"I can talk a little in Mandarin and Cantonese and one of the Taiwanese dialects," you say, "and I can, whatever, watch Korean dramas and kind of follow them. I can count to ten and ask for the bathroom in Thai, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, and ASL —"
"ASL?" he repeats.
"American sign language." You look up at him, and see his eyebrows are all the way up in his hairline. Huh. No Botox. "And I'm conversant in English and Italian. And I can read Arabic, because I took it for a few semesters when I did my religious studies degree, and then kind of kept up with it in an app."
"That is… so many languages," he says.
"So… I'm a writer?" you tell him. "Did I mention that?"
He doesn't stiffen or pull away or anything, just says, "Mystery. And something else, journalist maybe?" with a kind of nonchalance that you suspect is feigned.
You laugh. "No, mystery and erotica. I self publish a book every six weeks or so, and make a pretty good living. The erotica actually does really well."
"Sex books," he says.
"Yeah, sex books. My specialty is queer BDSM, sometimes really hardcore and sometimes with a soft romance."
"I know BDSM," he says, and when you look at him again, his face is flushed. "You like it? No, you do like it. Cockwarming. And needles." He sounds like he's just solved a mystery.
"And being on my knees, and a little pain, and…" You shrug. "You like it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I like it," he says. "I do both sides sometimes."
"Switch," you tell him. "Me, too, with the right person."
"Yes, switch," he nods. "So… you learn languages for your books?"
"Yeah, I always try to incorporate diversity, so I like to pepper all kinds of languages in. You know, a lot of different people live in the United States, and people are always surprised to find out that even in small towns there are immigrants from all over the place."
"Not many immigrants in Korea," he says neutrally. "It's interesting in the United States, to see so many different people."
"I think so too, and I've lived there my whole life."
"I like people," he says, as though you hadn't figured that out. "Learning about people helps me know myself."
You hum an agreement. "That's part of why I like to write. I get to explore what it's like to be all different kinds of people. Research, sometimes talk to people — maybe kind of a journalist, right? I interview people."
"And you work places to learn things to write about. Yarn store," he says thoughtfully.
"Yeah." You beam at him. "You remembered."
"Of course." He kisses the top of your head. You both bump a little as the plane wheels touch down. "Oof."
"We're there," you say on a sigh.
"Back to reality," he says, but he sounds like he's teasing you. "A new reality."
"For both of us, I guess, right?"
"Yes, for me too." He tilts your head up and kisses you. "It's going to be very interesting. Are you ready?"
"Not at all," you say, laughing.
"Me either." He laughs too, and you turn your faces to each other at the same time to kiss.