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Seonghyeon was sprawled on the cracked leather couch, re-reading the email on his phone for the eighth time.
Dear Tenants,
Due to rising operating costs, rent will increase by $500/month effective next billing cycle.
Five hundred. And the bathroom faucet is dripping again, the fridge still makes a sinister noise every half-hour, and the kitchen light constantly hums whenever it's on.
Keonho's bedroom door opens. He shuffles out in low-riding sweats, his hair pointing in every direction and eyes still puffy from sleep.
"Hey," he greets.
Seonghyeon doesn't have it in him to respond properly, settling for a hum as he reads the email once more. The words stubbornly stay the same. They can't do five hundred. They can barely even afford the rent as it is now.
"Seonghyeonie, will you make me a coffee?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"Let me think…" He taps his finger against his chin like he's considering it. "No."
Keonho groans loudly. "You're so rude. Come on, please? I like the way you make it."
"I've taught you how I make it like a hundred times, you can do it yourself."
He feels Keonho giving him his best puppy eyes from across the room, but he doesn't budge. He's too busy thinking about how they'll probably be living on the streets in a few days.
Keonho lets out a heavy sigh, grabbing a mug and a jar of instant coffee from the cabinets.
"Dude, that shit's gonna taste like sewage water."
"Well I don't see you making it for me like I asked, so."
Seonghyeon rolls his eyes and stands, the couch creaking from the movement. He grabs the jar of instant coffee from his hands and pointedly sets it back in the cabinet.
Keonho grins, wide and toothy. "Thanks!" He hoists himself up onto the counter and watches Seonghyeon make him a proper coffee, with a semi-fancy secondhand machine and all, his feet kicking.
He hands Keonho his mug back when it's done and leans against the counter across from him.
"What's with that look on your face?" Keonho asks. He blows on the coffee.
Seonghyeon doesn't bother easing into it. "Rent's going up."
Keonho freezes mid-sip. His eyes widen and his lips part slightly. "How much?"
"Five hundred."
Keonho laughs, but there's no humour in it. "Nice. That's great."
"What are we gonna do, Keonho? We don't have that kinda money."
They stare at each other in silence. In Seonghyeon's mind, there are two ways this could go:
-
He can sell his soul to capitalism and bag another job.
-
Keonho can sleep with their landlord so they never have to worry about rent again. Keonho, not him, because Seonghyeon actually values his dignity.
Keonho clears his throat, disrupting Seonghyeon's horrifying vision of him blowing their landlord's old lady back out.
He fidgets with a loose thread in his sweats, not meeting Seonghyeon's eyes. "Okay, hear me out. I was scrolling through some shit last night, and there's these guys—couples, or whatever—who make… content together. And they make a fuck ton of money."
Seonghyeon raises an eyebrow. "Content?"
"You know what I mean…"
"I don't. Enlighten me."
Keonho's jaw tightens. He's blushing, Seonghyeon could see it—the colour climbing up his neck and blossoming into his cheeks, the tips of ears going red. He keeps his eyes on the loose thread he was fidgeting with, twisting it around his finger.
"Porn, okay? They make porn! And people pay for it, and we wouldn't even have to show our faces."
He stands a little straighter, hands gripping the edge of the counter. "Have you lost your mind? You wanna make porn together?"
"Come on, Hyeon, I'm broke. We're broke." He gestures between them. "And it's not like we're ugly. We're decent. Better than decent, actually." His throat bobs as he swallows harshly. "It's just sex. We're friends. It's easy money."
Seonghyeon's mouth dries. His best friend isn't unattractive—quite the contrary, actually. He's not blind. He's certainly no stranger to the sight of him walking around in just a towel, dark curls dripping and cheeks flushed from the hot water. Nor the way he stretches his arms, shirt riding up and exposing that beautiful tan skin and the jut of his hipbone. Nor the sweet pitch of his voice when he first wakes up in the morning, whining at him to make him a cof—Or whatever. Seonghyeon's not keeping track.
So yes, he's not stupid. He's noticed all of these things. But he's spent quite a lot of time filing those details away under 'completely normal facts about my roommate that I probably shouldn't dwell on.'
He studies Keonho's hands around the mug, the curve of his nose, the dip of his collarbone where his shirt hangs loose. Then he catches where he's looking and yanks his gaze away.
They do need the money. Badly.
"You really think people would watch us?"
"People watch everything, dude. And no one would know it's us."
He crosses his arms. Thinks for a second. "What if it makes things weird between us?"
Keonho shrugs. "Then we stop. But right now, we kinda don't have a lot of options."
Seonghyeon lets out a breath. His eyes narrow. "And we'd split the money?"
"Fifty-fifty."
The fridge groans loudly. The faucet drips, steady and irritating. The kitchen light buzzes and hums.
"Okay," he says. "Let's do it."
Scratch that, Seonghyeon might be a little stupid.
They set the ground rules sitting side by side on the floor of the living room.
Rule one: Nobody finds out. No telling friends, or family—duh—, or coworkers. This stays between them.
Rule two: If either of them doesn't want to film or post something, it doesn't get filmed or posted. No arguments.
Rule three: The money is split fifty-fifty, down to the cent. Rent comes first.
Rule four: No weird vibes.
Keonho said it last, and he said it the most serious, which was strange because he's rarely serious about anything. "If it starts feeling weird between us, we stop. Promise?" he said.
Seonghyeon promised, and he meant it.
Keonho made their account, @twoboysonephone, and they sat beside each other on the bed days later, about to film their first video together, eyes avoiding looking at each other.
The air was charged with both anticipation and anxiety—on one hand, this is Keonho, and Keonho is safe. Keonho is his best friend, the person he fights over the last yogurt cup with and takes care of when sick. On the other hand, that same person is about to put his mouth on him, and if that ruins everything, then Seonghyeon will have to move out, change his number, and flee the country. And he doesn't quite have the funds for that.
His heart does something extremely unpleasant in his chest.
"So…" Keonho starts. "How do we start this?"
"I don't know, I've never filmed a porno before."
Keonho laughs, and some of the tension lifts. "We'll film on your phone. It'll give it that amateur feel that people like, you know?"
"Yeah, okay," he manages, voice coming out high.
Keonho got off the bed and knelt on the floor between his legs, and the first useless thought Seonghyeon had was that the floor would make Keonho's knees hurt.
He lifts the phone, thumb hovering over the record button. Then he reaches down with his free hand and presses it over Keonho's upper face—palm covering his eyes and forehead to keep him anonymous. "Okay, I'm starting," he says weakly.
His heart hammers against his ribs. He hits record and lets the phone capture everything he could see—his hand covering Keonho's eyes, his mouth below it, the line of his jaw, the curve of his throat. His hand comes up to Seonghyeon's hip and pulls him closer.
Keonho's mouth finds the inside of his thigh, just below the hem of his shorts. It's soft at first, then open, his tongue dragging over the skin. His breath catches in his throat. His teeth graze the sensitive skin, and Seonghyeon's fingers tighten against his forehead.
Keonho's hands hook into his waistband and pull his shorts down, then his boxers. His cock springs free, half-hard and flushed. His mouth presses against his hipbone, then lower, tongue tracing a line down. He watches his own hand stay pressed over Keonho's eyes, watches his mouth work toward where he needed it most.
His lips close around the head. Seonghyeon's breath stutters. He tries his hardest to keep the phone steady and his hand pressed over Keonho's face, but his grip trembles. Keonho tongues over the shaft slowly, then he circles the head and wraps a hand around the base.
His mouth slides down and pulls back up with wet sounds that make Seonghyeon's face burn. He watches the way Keonho's throat moves as he takes him deeper, jaw stretching, nose pressing against his abdomen.
He hums around him, and Seonghyeon's hips jerk forward on their own accord, and Keonho responds by pressing his hips down and sucking harder.
"I'm close," he says, voice breathless.
Keonho pulls off just enough to say, "Come in my mouth."
His brain stops working. And then Keonho is taking him back in, all the way. He comes down his throat with a strangled moan, and Keonho swallows around him twice before pulling off with a wet pop. He opens his mouth to the camera, sticking his tongue out before grinning. Seonghyeon stops the recording and lifts his hand from Keonho's face.
"How was that?" Keonho asks. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
Seonghyeon's hands shake where they hold his phone. "Oh! Yeah—yeah it was good, man." he says, as if he were critiquing a dish instead of his best friend's head.
I am so fucked.
That same night, Seonghyeon laid in bed and replayed the whole thing in his head.
The weight of Keonho's tongue, the vibration when he hummed around him, the way his throat moved when he swallowed, the feeling of his breath against his skin.
He was hard again just at the memory. His hand travels downward before he can rationalize with himself—tell himself that this was wrong. He shouldn't be thinking about him like this. They may have already crossed some boundaries tonight, sure, but that was with Keonho's consent. Jerking off to the thought of your best friend and roommate without him knowing probably violates like ten ethical principles at once.
But God… He thinks about the slide of Keonho's mouth around him, the way his hands held his hips, the sweet sounds he made when he took Seonghyeon too deep.
He groans in frustration, hand tightening, chasing the memory of Keonho's throat swallowing around him. His chest heaves as he moves faster. He comes with a palm pressed against his mouth to stifle a moan, Keonho's flushed face burned into the back of his eyelids.
He lies there panting and thinks, This is just the first time. There are going to be more.
Seonghyeon didn't know if the thought scared him or excited him.
He shuts his eyes, but his mind drifts right back to Keonho again. Memories of him blinking up at him with watery eyes when Seonghyeon took his hand off his face, sitting there with swollen lips, catching his breath.
This is going to get complicated. So, so complicated.
He knew that already. It didn't take a genius to figure it out.
By morning, their video—CUTE BOY SUCKS HOT BEST FRIEND OFF UNTIL HE NUTS IN HIS MOUTH 🤤😈🔞, titled by Keonho, obviously—had forty thousand views and over a thousand user subscriptions at $5.99 a month. That's rent money and then some. Keonho texts him from his shift at the gym front desk: we're doing that again.
Seonghyeon's thumbs hover over the keyboard. He should say no, before things get even weirder.
No weird vibes no weird vibes no weird vibes—
kk, he texts back.
He flops back onto his bed and lets out a loud groan.
"People are already asking for more," Keonho said the next week after they posted their first, phone held up to Seonghyeon's face.
The comments scrolled past:
please post moreeeee
He's so good with his mouth.
MORE PLS
So messy
He shoves the phone out of his face. "Okay, I get it, man. People like it." He doesn't look at Keonho, because he's probably wearing that stupid grin, and he's already flustered enough from reading strangers talk about Keonho's mouth.
"Got any plans tonight?" Keonho asked.
"No."
"Good. We're filming."
His stomach flips, the way it always does around Keonho these days. He tells himself he's just camera shy, or something. Having strangers watch videos of you butt-naked doing intimate things with your best friend will do that to you. "Okay," he says, swallowing down the knot in his throat.
It became a routine—Keonho would text during his own morning lecture: filming tonight?, and Seonghyeon's stomach would always flutter, and he'd type: sure. And then he'd spend the rest of his day thinking about it—during his seminar, during his shift, during his commute back home—and he'd blame his nerves on the stress of daily life. Which is code for: I can't stop thinking about my best friend, his mouth and his hands and his smile, and having him like this is driving me crazy.
Their channel kept growing steadily. Keonho eventually bought them an actual tripod. He had sat on the floor and torn the delivery box open and said to him, "We're professionals now, Seonghyeonie," with his eyebrows wiggling.
They used it for the first time filming Keonho on his back, his legs wrapped around Seonghyeon's waist and ankles locked at the small of his back. He had told Seonghyeon to go harder, and Seonghyeon did, and his heels dug in and pulled him deeper for every thrust. They were face to face, so close that Seonghyeon could see every beauty mark on his face. Keonho's hands were on his shoulders and his mouth was open and the sounds he made were right there in his ears. He had come inside him with their foreheads pressed together, Keonho's thighs trembling around his hips, and neither of them moved for a while.
Then Keonho said, "That one's gonna do numbers," and Seonghyeon said, "Totally," and rolled off with his heart stuttering in his chest.
Days later, Keonho told him that it was "his turn," and that was how Seonghyeon found himself face-down on the mattress with Keonho's weight pressing against him, his cock sliding in inch by inch. Seonghyeon's hands fisted into the sheets as his thrusts grew hard and fast, the pillow muffling his moans and growing damp beneath him.
"Fuck—fuck, you feel so good," Keonho said, panting.
The words made heat pool in his stomach, and he couldn't stop thinking, This is Keonho, my best friend, and he's inside me right now, and I'm making him feel good.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a lucid voice pointed out that this was probably not what best friends did. But he ignores it, because they're doing this for a purpose.
His arms were dragged back, pulling him into every thrust, his face lifting from the pillow and releasing the embarrassing noises he was making. "There you go," Keonho breathed, and Seonghyeon's face burned hotter.
Seonghyeon came first, hips grinding back onto his cock, and Keonho followed a few strokes later, slamming in one final time before filling him up with a groan.
Keonho collapsed onto the mattress beside him, both of them panting. "You good?" he asked, hand landing on Seonghyeon's shoulder.
He turned his face out of the pillow. "Yeah," he responded, voice croaking.
Keonho studied his face for a second, then nodded. "Good. That was—" He laughed breathlessly. "That was good."
Seonghyeon stared at the wall and tried to control his breathing.
Then they did the reverse of the first video, with Keonho standing at the edge of the bed and Seonghyeon kneeling before him. His hands shook before he even unzipped Keonho's jeans, and he had looked down at him and told him, "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"I want to," Seonghyeon said. Then he took him into his mouth, and Keonho's hand landed in his hair, fingers brushing through the strands. He started with his tongue flat against the underside, filing away the weight of him, the taste of him.
Keonho's breathing picked up above him, his grip tightening. "Fuck, Hyeon."
Warmth coils in his stomach, cock throbbing in his pants. He took him deeper, mouth working down until his nose pressed against his stomach. Keonho whimpered, his hips jerking. Seonghyeon pulled back and dragged his tongue up the length of him before swallowing him down again, head bobbing.
"I'm close," he warned, voice strained and fingers tightening in his hair.
Seonghyeon kept going, hand working the base, and Keonho came with a shudder, spilling across his tongue. He swallowed and pulled off, and Keonho stared down at him with his chest heaving and said, "Holy shit."
They filmed a video with Seonghyeon on his back, thighs spread, Keonho propped on one elbow beside him with two fingers working inside him. His mouth wandered to Seonghyeon's jaw, his neck, his collarbones, and he came over his own stomach with Keonho's fingers curling inside him. He had pulled his fingers out unhurriedly and licked them clean, to which Seonghyeon shoved him by the shoulder and called him "fucking disgusting." And Keonho had shrugged and said, "What?! The lube is salted caramel flavoured!"
They fucked on the kitchen counter, the couch, in the shower, against the wall—And on the nights between videos, Seonghyeon laid awake and thought to himself, We should stop. We should stop, but I don't want to. But I can't keep doing this. I need to stop. Every thought he had was of Keonho, and somewhere along the way he had become accustomed to the growing want he felt with every video.
He tried to exhaust the wanting in his own bed, with his own hand, but it refused to, and he hated himself a little for it. And then his phone would light up—filming tmrw?—and he would type yeah, and hit send before he could stop himself.
The comments were probably Keonho's favourite part. He read them out loud from their new couch with his laptop on his stomach. "Here's one. 'More of the shy one bottoming.' You hear that, Seonghyeonie? They're talking about you." He laughs before reading out another. "'Oh my God, the head game is unreal.'"
Seonghyeon comes over with two sodas and sits at the other end of the couch, his ears burning.
"'The top's hands, I'm wet,'" he reads out.
"Dude, please stop," Seonghyeon says, voice coming out higher than he wants it to.
Keonho keeps scrolling. Then he pauses.
"'The chemistry. Are you a couple?'"
Seonghyeon's stomach turns over. A couple?
They aren't a couple. They're two broke roommates who film themselves for rent money. The fact that he could pick out Keonho's voice—and his moans—out of a thousand recordings and recall the exact texture of his skin meant nothing. The fact that he woke up every morning with his arms already reaching for the space Keonho should've been occupying meant nothing. And the fact that Keonho is on the forefront of his mind everyday means absolutely nothing.
He takes a sip of his soda and says, "We're not a couple."
Keonho stays quiet for a second before continuing to scroll. "Right. We're not."
Then there were the requests. Keonho read them off one by one: POV video, 69, jerk each other off, make the tan one squirt. And Keonho, to Seonghyeon's horror, said: "We're doing the squirting one. That one has the most likes."
His brain lags for a second before the words catch up to him. "Wait, hold on, no—I don't—I don't know how to do that!" he sputters.
"We'll figure it out, don't worry! I'll search it up." He says it so simply Seonghyeon doesn't even know how to argue. Keonho leans over and pats him on the thigh. "You have good hands, remember?" He says it with a wink, and then his eyes are back on the laptop, and Seonghyeon sits there frozen with butterflies in his stomach.
The day of, Keonho put three towels down on the mattress before they started. The phone was propped on the tripod, and he lay back resting on his elbows as Seonghyeon knelt beside him. Two fingers, slick with lube, worked him open. The wet squelch of it filled the room, and Keonho's voice went higher when he found that spot inside him, hips rolling and hands gripping the edge of the towel.
Seonghyeon watched his face. The camera caught none of it, but he saw it all—Keonho's jaw going slack and eyes falling shut. His own cock ached in his pants, and he hated how much he wanted to pull out and sink inside and feel him clench around it instead of his fingers, hated even more how he kept his hand exactly where it was.
He thrusts the digits in and out faster, and Keonho's whole body was trembling, stomach tensing, cock leaking onto his stomach. He massaged over his prostate incessantly, his other hand coming up to rub his palm over his cockhead. And Seonghyeon catalogued every sound, knowing he would replay them at night in his own bed.
"Seonghyeon, I'm gonna—Wait, I feel like I'm gonna—" and then his back arched, thighs flexing, and the liquid came, gushing out in a clear stream that soaked the towel under him. It kept coming with every curl of his fingers, spurt after spurt, running down Keonho's stomach and thighs, soaking Seonghyeon's own fingers where they pressed inside him. Keonho mewled through it all with his hips twitching uncontrollably, hands fisted in the towel. And when Seonghyeon kept going after, astonished by what he had just witnessed—what he had just caused—Keonho gripped his wrist with shaky fingers, urging him to pull out. "Fuck, fuck—Seonghyeon, stop—I can't."
He pulled his fingers out and wiped them against a dry corner of the towel. Keonho lay there for a long moment, his chest heaving and hair stuck to his forehead. And then he laughed. "Holy shit, you really did it."
He looks down at his hands, and wishes for a second that he licked them clean instead of wiping them, and then he immediately clears that thought from his head because what happened to having some dignity?
"Good video," Keonho said, cleaning himself up with a towel.
"Yeah, good video."
Seonghyeon lay awake in his bed that night and stared at the ceiling for longer than usual.
Are you a couple? The comment echoes in his head.
He turns onto his side and pulls the blanket to his chin. We're not, he thought, and he hated how much that answer bothered him.
We should've stopped a while ago.
We need to stop.
I'm going to tell him tomorrow.
Tomorrow came. Keonho made breakfast and said, "Seven hundred new subscribers overnight, dude. Wait until we post the video from yesterday."
Seonghyeon drank his coffee and said, "Nice," and the sentence about stopping never came out.
Three months into filming, their videos made them enough money to pay their rent entirely, fix everything that had been falling apart around them, and buy real groceries for the first time in months. They looked at the prices of everything they grabbed, freaked out at how expensive it was, then remembered they could afford it, and dropped it into their carts with cheerful smiles.
It didn't feel real.
They walked out with bags full of things they hadn't let themselves indulge in for years—expensive coffee beans, cheese they couldn't pronounce the name of, thick paper towels that actually absorb liquid instead of turning limp.
Seonghyeon made them dinner—wagyu steak with truffle mashed potatoes and roasted organic asparagus. They ate it on the couch while watching some Netflix movie, ad-free, because they're balling like that now. Then Keonho brought his laptop, and they edited the squirting video, watching the footage side by side with their shoulders touching.
Keonho's moans filled the room through the speakers. Seonghyeon watched his own hands on the screen, his fingers inside him, hand rubbing over his cock, forearm veins bulging with every movement, Keonho's voice climbing, breathy and sweet, and the room suddenly felt unbearably hot.
Seonghyeon glances at him. His gaze lowers to where Keonho's sweatpants were doing a poor job of hiding the fact that he was hard.
Wait what?
Keonho is hard. He's sitting right next to him and he's hard watching the video of Seonghyeon fingering him until he squirts. His mouth goes dry.
Look away. Look away.
He keeps looking.
Keonho notices where he's staring. "Sorry," he says with an awkward chuckle. "I can't help it."
Seonghyeon had no words. He looks at the flush creeping up Keonho's neck, the wide-eyed look on his face, and the tent in his pants. The video kept playing, Keonho's wrecked voice coming through the speakers. And then Keonho's eyes drop to his lips, and then he's leaning in, and Seonghyeon is leaning in too, and their mouths meet.
His hands fist in the front of Seonghyeon's shirt, pulling him closer. He kisses him hungry and urgent, tongue sliding against his. Seonghyeon's hands come up on their own—one holding his jaw, the other sliding into his hair. Keonho makes a sound against his mouth and slides his hands under his shirt. It makes Seonghyeon gasp into the kiss, and Keonho swallows the sound, face tilting, kissing him deeper.
They stumble off the couch towards Seonghyeon's room without breaking contact, hands grabbing at their clothes, at their skin, at anything they could reach.
Seonghyeon's back hit the mattress and Keonho climbed on top, straddling his hips. His mouth worked down his throat, his collarbone, his chest, hands shoving his shirt up to kiss his stomach.
"Wait—wait, should we be recording this?" he questions, panting.
Keonho pulls back, his hair a mess, lips swollen. "Fuck the recording." And then his mouth was on his again, and Seonghyeon tried not to think too hard about what they were about to do.
His hands worked Seonghyeon's pants open, tugging them down alongside his boxers.
He does the same for his own, and then he's reaching for the lube on the nightstand without looking—the same bottle they used for a dozen videos—and pops the cap, about to slick his own fingers.
"Let me," Seonghyeon says. He coats his fingers and moves his hand between Keonho's legs, one finger circling him before pressing in. A second finger joins the first, scissoring and curling, Keonho arching against him and burying his face into his neck. He works him open, adding a third, until Keonho grips his wrist. "Come on, come on, I'm ready."
Keonho sits up and guides his cock to his entrance, sinking down with his hands braced on Seonghyeon's chest. He watched Keonho's face the whole time—the way his eyes fluttered, the way he bit his lip, the way his head tipped back and his breath shuddered when he was fully seated.
He moves slowly at first, finding the rhythm, hips grinding in circles that make Seonghyeon's breath grow heavier.
It's just us this time.
He wants this.
He wants me.
Keonho leans back, his hands gripping onto Seonghyeon's legs. He watches his thighs flex, his stomach tighten, and his cock, hard and leaking, bounce with every roll of his hips. And Keonho was blushing so hard, but he was looking down at him with dark eyes, taking what he wanted, and it was better than every video they'd ever made.
The sounds he was making—short punched-out gasps on every downward roll, Seonghyeon's name caught in his throat—were ones he would never forget.
His hands find his hips, gripping onto them and helping him move. Keonho's rhythm picks up, his movements becoming less controlled as he chased his peak. Seonghyeon thrusts up into him, and Keonho's head falls back in a moan that tore out of him, nails digging into his thighs hard enough to leave marks.
"Fuck—right there," he pants. "Right there, don't stop."
Keonho leans down until they're pressed chest to chest and kisses him, messy and open-mouthed until the pleasure was too much for him to continue, staying nose-to-nose, breathing the same air. Seonghyeon keeps driving up into him, watching the way his face scrunches in pleasure, the way it built. "I'm close," Keonho whines, his thighs tightening around his hips. He moves a hand between his legs, stroking himself fast.
He comes over Seonghyeon's stomach with a cry, clamping down around him. He continues thrusting, helping him ride it out, finishing inside him with a sound that rips out of his chest and Keonho's name on his lips.
Keonho's head collapses forward, tucking into Seonghyeon's neck. They lay there for a while catching their breaths, Keonho's weight on his chest, Keonho's heart hammering against his ribs. He reaches up and brushes through his hair, his other arm tightening around his waist.
We really just did that.
They did it without planning for it, they did it without a camera, they did it because they wanted to. The thought made his skin tingle, and his face heat up, and his mind was racing, and he didn't know what to do with any of it.
And then Keonho sat up after a while and said, "I'm gonna wash up," in a quiet voice and he got off and left the room and didn't look back.
Seonghyeon heard the water turn on, and he laid there with come cooling on his stomach and his chest tightening. He'd just had Keonho, really had him, for the first time, and he walked out like it meant nothing.
No weird vibes. The rule from months ago surfaces in his mind, back when this was all just supposed to be for money and nothing else. Too late for that now.
I guess I was mistaken. He doesn't want me.
Seonghyeon woke up alone. The sheets still smelled like both of them. He walked out of his bedroom to see Keonho's door closed.
He made a cappuccino with their new espresso machine and stood at the counter drinking it, nails anxiously tapping against the laminate. And when staring into nothing just made him overthink a million scenarios of what was going to happen—Keonho not wanting to film with him anymore, be his roommate anymore, be his friend anymore—he started brewing Keonho a latte to keep his hands busy.
The door finally opened. He walked out in a t-shirt and boxers, and Seonghyeon could only think, Why must you torture me like this?
Seonghyeon tries to act casual, like last night wouldn't have to change anything between them. Which is foolish, because last night changed everything and then some, and there was no way to sweep it under the rug.
"I made you a latte," he says.
"Thanks."
They stood at the counter, on opposite sides, and for once, in all their years of living together, it was dead silent. Seonghyeon finished up his cappuccino. Keonho stared at the floor and took tiny sips of his latte. He watched Keonho's lips close around the mug—the same lips that were on his own last night—and his breathing was shallow and he couldn't find the words.
Keonho breaks the silence first. "So for the next video, I was thinking—you know, maybe we can do the one where—"
"Keonho."
He stops mid-sentence, mouth open around the rest of it.
"I can't do this anymore." His voice comes out way steadier than he was feeling. "I can't keep filming with you."
Keonho's face crumples. His mouth presses together, eyebrows drawing inward, and eyes going wide. Seonghyeon watches it happen and his stomach drops.
"Why?" His voice was small. "Is it because of—was it last night?"
"No." Seonghyeon's chest was so tight it hurt to breathe. "Yes. I just—I can't keep pretending like this doesn't mean anything to me."
Keonho goes still. For once, the fridge doesn't groan, the light doesn't hum, and the faucet doesn't drip. When he speaks, his voice comes out careful. "You think it doesn't mean anything to me?"
Seonghyeon blanks.
Every version of this conversation he had daydreamed about ended with Keonho agreeing that things have gotten weird and saying that it was a mistake. Not this. "Last night… you left right after. You just got up and left me there, alone."
"I'm sorry, I freaked out, I—" He draws in a quick breath. "Look, I haven't been completely honest with you."
His head tilts in confusion, brows furrowing. "What do you mean?"
Keonho puts down his mug and cracks his knuckles in nervousness. "I mean that I'm in love with you, Seonghyeon."
Seonghyeon's eyes widen. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, doesn't even know what he's trying to say yet.
In love with.
In love with?!
Keonho continues, words flowing out of him. "I've felt this way about you since before we even started filming and I'm so sorry because I basically just took advantage of you and I hope we can still be friends and I'm so sorry I really, really didn't mean to—"
"Keonho."
He stops, eyes wet and hands squeezed together tightly.
"You didn't take advantage of me." Seonghyeon's voice shakes. He can't believe what he's just heard. "You couldn't have because I—" He swallows. "I'm in love with you too. Probably since before the first video. Before you even suggested this whole thing. I was just super in denial, and I told myself I was doing it for the rent, when really I was doing it because it was you." He laughs, and it comes out wet. "We're so stupid."
Keonho blinks. "So you're telling me, this whole time… we could've just been dating?"
Seonghyeon groans and drops his head into his hands.
"And instead we did porn?"
"Hey, that was all you," Seonghyeon says, arms raised in defence.
Keonho laughs, and then he's moving, closing the distance, pulling Seonghyeon's hands down and kissing him, slower than last night. His arms wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, and Seonghyeon's hands cradle his face. When they pull apart, their eyes are red, laughing and crying at the same time. "We could've just talked," Keonho says.
"But then we wouldn't have made all that money," Seonghyeon responds, and Keonho laughs harder, and pulls him back in for another kiss.
"So what now?"
"I don't know," Seonghyeon admits. "We've never done this part before."
"I guess we'll figure it out. Maybe I can search it up."