Archive of Our Own ^beta

The small room he’s in for his annual check up has the vibe of every other doctor’s office ever: a little drafty, clinically clean with a vague antiseptic smell that you almost think would be stronger but are grateful it isn’t. The light is fluorescent, just as cold and lifeless as the decor of anatomical posters of the two major canals people can have, inner ear and the birthing, which is a little more mature that what he’s used to as until recently he had just made the journey home to his pediatrician if need be (or simply skipped the ordeal all together, as he had since they stopped stocking grape suckers in the treat bin), but otherwise it’s not too bad. 

Jaehyun had spent the twenty or so minutes he’d spent waiting for his doctor acclimating to his new environment, and when he’d finally shown up– tall and stately with perfectly smooth, brown skin that contrasted his salt and pepper hair– he mostly asked Jaehyun questions before listening to him breathe. It had all been pretty much fine, but then Dr. Amin had suggested he stick his fingers in Jaehyun’s ass, which had pretty much split the experience 50/50, good and bad.

“Isn’t it too early for a yearly prostate exam?” he’d asked, sitting on the cold, tacky edge of the exam table and watching the good doctor coat his gloved fingers in lubricant. 

“They’ve changed the guidelines recently. Every year these cancers: testicular, rectal, etcetera, are taking fit young men such as yourself and ending their lives.”

Jaehyun tries to engage with such a bummer thought, but is more caught up in being called young and fit, patting himself on the back for his recent gym sessions. “Oh wow, how awful.”

“Yes,” he says, somberly. He motions for Jaehyun to stand and turn around. “Don’t worry though, it’s relatively quick.”

So Jaehyun turns about face, leaning his arms on the table and pushing the elastic of his briefs and sweats over the swell of his ass to wait for the inevitable. Dr. Amin gently pulls his cheeks apart with one hand, presses the tips of his lubed up fingers to his hole, and then begins to push past the tight ring of muscle. 

“Remember to breathe normally.” Dr. Amin says, and he does try, but he can’t help the feeling that’s overwhelming him, one he can’t quite place, his breath coming quicker. 

It’s clinical and invasive, vaguely embarrassing, that this man has put his digits somewhere no one, including Jaehyun himself, has ever gone. None of that is quite what he feels though, not quite fitting the sweat that’s covered his body. 

Then, with no further preamble, the doctor presses his fingers deeper and, even though he’s not ever experienced it before, he knows that he is touching Jaehyun’s prostate. As soon as contact is made, two things happen in both an instance and an age: First, he gets hard. Like lightning strike, bend-a-steel-rod-over-his-dick hard. And second, he lets out an unfortunate grunt/moan hybrid that is a noise of pure, unadulterated pleasure. 

Once his vision has cleared and he has collected himself, he realizes Dr. Amin is laughing, likely in an effort to diffuse the mood. 

“It happens all the time,” he says. “You’d be surprised.” 

But his face makes it clear that he is surprised. And at the end of the day, it may happen to other people, but it has never ever happened to Jaehyun .

He doesn’t stop thinking about it once over the next few days, going through the motions of day to day life on autopilot, and trying not to get hard remembering, and then feeling immense shame.

Because he wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, right? Gay dudes (who Jaehyun is totally cool with, by the way!) do that shit on purpose, but it’s not the same thing, right? It’s supposed to be like lights turned low, jazz playing in the background and some dude doing it nice and slow while you lay back and enjoy it—  or so he assumes. 

They’re not just like rando sticking fingies up butts with no finesse! It’s like when you finger a girl, you have to start slow and get her hot before it feels super good for her. 

So why did it feel so good?

At first, he isn’t sure how to fix this new, stupid problem in his brain, but he knows he has to, because he can’t keep avoiding his girlfriend. He’s been dodging her calls and texts, explaining that he’s busy with work, but he knows that right now he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye. 

Then, while he’s watching re-runs of MadTV, it comes to him in a flash of brilliance: he should just ask Reddit.

I [23m] just discovered prostate stimulation... Help?

First, sorry for the way I wrote this. I'm really embarrassed by all this and it was the only way I could convince myself that I could post it, even anonymously. Just bear with me, okay?

This starts in a stupid, embarrassing way. I’m 23, but my doc decides he wants to do a prostate exam during my physical. (Quick question - isn’t that like twenty years early?)

Okay. So he pushes in and it is the first time anyone’s ever been in there. Like ever. And two things happen within three seconds: I get stupid hard. And I groan, kind of like a moan but not really haha.

My doctor laughed his ass off. I mean laughed , and told me it was okay. But his face tells me it’s not that common. 

So bros, I totally want to like feel good like that again but I do not know how to achieve this myself and obviously don’t want to involve anyone else. Can you help a dude out?

Edit: Obviously I am not gay (#ally), and I am looking for serious answers only!

Needless to say he gets some mixed messages. Some are for, some are against, but the one big problem is that most websites try to suggest that liking something up your ass means you're gay, hence the edit!

Because that’s the thing! Jaehyun isn’t gay! Haha. Wouldn’t life be easier if he was? But no, he loves pussy and his girlfriend. He loves women in general! So he needs to find a non-gay way to get that feeling again. 

Luckily he gets a response from CoinChaser69, who is clearly just a business minded gentleman (also straight), who seems to understand Jaehyun’s problem:

 “Listen, it’s okay to want something in your butt, I know it seems weird for us straight dudes, but my research says that’s like where the men’s ~pleasure center~ is. So it’s not gay, unless you use like a dildo or your fingers. The key is a drumstick: long enough for you to do it yourself, coated so it’s completely safe! LMFAO, sounds wild, but it totally works bro!”

So he follows his advice and googles the nearest music store, thinks about it for a bit, and then googles music stores that are farther away. And it’s a good thing too, because looking for his drumstick (or sticks apparently because they’re sold in sets, duh), is an overall horrifying experience. Not because the old dude with shoulder length hair, big nose, and ancient band tee, named (fucking obviously) Keith, is rude, but because he knows.  

How could he not know? Jaehyun knows approximately zero things about drumming, even as a supposed beginner; plus he accidentally lets it slip he doesn’t have a set so he has to backtrack, and lie that he can’t afford one, even though the sticks that Keith recommends are almost thirty bucks which is a lot to pay for drum sticks you can’t use yet. 

He almost backs out, but then remembers how good he had felt at the doctor’s office and follows Keith, who is probably trying to figure out a subtle way to call the police because Jaehyun is a pervert who is going to fuck himself with a drum stick, to the cash register.

One random music shop guy knowing what he was up to was bad enough, but on the way home he stops through a drive through and that guy knows too; so does the little old lady who crosses the street in front of his car, evident from the way she squints at him through the windshield.

 Even his girlfriend Jill knows; why else would she be texting him at 2 in the afternoon while she was working? 

Do you think I should dye my hair back brown? Her text reads, and he sweats over the obviously coded message. 

When he gets back to his apartment he takes the bag in, held close to his chest. He locks his front door, runs upstairs, throws it in the closet and slams it shut. After staring at the closed door for about 30 seconds, he takes a deep breath, opens it back up, and takes the bag out. 

He removes the sticks in their plastic sleeve from the bag, tossing the trash aside and setting it on the corner of his perfectly made bed, a habit that Jill had gotten him into. 

(Before her, he hadn’t had even one full set of sheets that matched, and now he had two, plus a duvet cover and fancy pillows that weren’t for sleeping but only for matching the duvet.)

The seconds tick by and he decides he can’t look at them anymore and goes to shower, taking his phone with him to play his mellow playlist that has really deep, thoughtful songs from Coldplay and the slow Maroon 5 stuff too, and he doesn’t make the water too hot because he’s already burning under his skin.

Once he’s out of the shower he wraps a threadbare towel around his waist and pads back to his room, drying off with it before laying it out on the made up bed, along with his jerk off lube and one of the brand new drum sticks.

The sight of everything laid out together with a singular purpose makes him feel nervous but excited; the frisson of the unknown. The important thing to focus on is the end result, so he climbs on and lays down beside his supplies, ignoring the fact that he’s already half hard from the anticipation. He doesn’t really look, instead just feels around for the stick and the lube, slicking it up fast and then taking a deep breath and lining it up. 

It can’t be difficult right? Just push it in. 

When he does, his first thought is that it feels different compared to fingers, the width lacking, in his opinion. His stomach muscles twitch regardless, and he finds himself getting hot again, feeling a little sweaty all over, but in this context it’s probably normal, so he embraces it and pushes it in a little deeper. And that feels fine, an intrusion, but not painful or anything, so he goes deeper, then just a little deeper, and suddenly he’s seeing stars, and a deep moan rips out of him. 

Fuck . That’s it. The feeling he had when the doctor… examined him. He doesn’t want to say fingered because obviously that would be gay, which he’s not. But Jesus Christ does that feel good. 

Now that he found it, just one touch isn’t enough, so he carefully withdraws the drumstick a bit, struggling to maintain the angle and control before pushing it back in, against that spot again. His dick is achingly hard, but he can’t get the drumstick in the right place to hold himself up and jerk himself off so instead he focuses on the in and out movement. The way it feels to have the blunt tip of the drum stick hit again and again.

Unbidden, he wonders what it would be like to have something like the drum stick but maybe a little wider, a little softer, pressing against the spot. Wonders if there might be something else he could use that would be less work; so he could just lie there and take it, the pounding into his tight heat stimulating him and pushing him closer to the edge until—

“Oh my god! Oh!”

He comes then, untouched, all over his abs, so intense his vision starts to blur.

Later, after he comes off the high, and he’s washing the drumstick with some unscented dish soap, it dawns on him exactly what he’s done and what it might mean. The best orgasm he’s ever experienced and it came not from his girlfriend, or from kinky porn or anything else, but from having something up his ass. 

He’s totally fucked.

Three days later he’s on his couch with Jill on his lap, bouncing on his cock, and he can’t help the weird mood he’s still in. 

They’d gone out to dinner and then come back to his place to watch a movie, something cringey and action packed that neither of them was really watching. It had only taken twenty minutes for Jill to get bored waiting for Jaehyun to make a move, so she’d undone his jeans and pulled out his dick to start blowing him. 

He got hard fast, and when she asked if he wanted to fuck her he had nodded eagerly. He wanted to fuck her; knew her pussy would be wet, hot, and tight; knew it’d feel amazing wrapped around him.

So when she gets on her knees to straddle him, he helps guide her with his hand on her hip before taking the condom she’s produced and putting it on. She’s wearing a skirt so all she has to do is reach under and pull her panties to one side to let him slide in. 

He watches as her mouth falls open in pleasure while she gets settled. Then she starts moving her hips, bouncing so her cunt slides up and down his dick. His breath starts coming heavy as he wonders what it feels like. Obviously he loves being inside her, it feels good, but now he knows how good it feels to have something inside too. It makes him question if that’s the kind of pleasure she’s feeling now. 

Jill’s cheeks are bright pink, and she’s moaning continuously, hands wound into Jaehyun’s hair as she starts bouncing harder. 

“Fuck, Jae, yes!” She whispers and he’s mesmerized. “I’m close, so close.”

God, she’s so pink, so breathless. He watches where his dick is going inside her and wonders what it’s like being in that position. Not being on top, but getting fucked. If getting fucked by a cock feels as good as it looks. 

He shouldn’t have thought it, but as soon as he does he can’t un-think it. Can only think of their positions being switched. Would he turn pink like that? Would he scream for it? Would he beg for—

 “Harder, Jae, harder!” 

Gripping her hips, he thrusts up with force, once, twice, before he buries himself and comes with a groan. Still not as hard as he had with something up his ass, but harder than he has in a while with Jill. She doesn’t even seem to notice, reaching down to play with her own clit before clenching down and coming, crawling off him once she’s finished. 

After a few minutes of laying there and catching their breath, they head upstairs and when she asks Jaehyun to join her in the shower he agrees. 

“Did you have fun?” he asks while he shampoos and she stands under the spray. 

“Yeah, duh.” She looks at him skeptically. “Did you?”

She looks like the thought hadn’t occurred to her he might not enjoy himself. 

“Of course. I always do with you.” She smiles and leans up to peck him on the mouth. “Do you ever think  that it might be fun to try something new though? Like switch up positions or something?”

He doesn’t really mean to say it, but that’s a thing, right? Girls fuck guys too, with like fingers and straps. Guys can’t help it that their pleasure centers are in their ass, right?

Jill’s perfectly groomed brows furrow. “You mean like reverse cowgirl? Or doggy?”

He shakes his head. “No like, you know…” He motions between them. 

The second it dawns on her she starts laughing.  “Oh, come on, Jae. Nice tryyy.” 

She draws out the syllables and for a brief second his brain follows suit, falling into slow motion like the best parts in Fast and Furious movies: he can hear every single drop of water as it hits the fiberglass bottom of the shower, and the steam from the hot water clouds his vision and stops him breathing in all the way. 

It reminds him of when he was a kid at the playground  and he’d fall behind the other kids, excitement overwhelming him and he’d have to reach for his bright green inhaler. He pictures himself, snot nosed and tiny in a too big puffy coat and rock em’ sock em’ robot pants, pulling the small device from his pocket and popping the cap. 

Shake and put the mouthpiece between your lips. Suck in air slowly as you press on the top. Hold…

In the present he follows in time, finger twitching by his thigh as if to press an imaginary inhaler.

… and release. 

He breathes out in a small gust of air, making the steam billow around him and Jill. In all, the experience is probably three seconds, four maybe, but it feels like a lifetime. Long enough for Jaehyun to change his mind.

 “You’re not into that gay shit, you can’t even try and trick me!” Jill pokes his stomach and starts shuffling so they can switch places again, still giggling.

He steps forward into the spray. “Hahaha, you got me!”

“Gosh, you’re so goofy.” She rolls her eyes at him, squeezing the water out of her hair before she adds conditioner and he turns toward the spray, ducking his head under and closing his eyes, wishing to meld into the water and slip down the drain with the soap. 

Though Jill had been especially unchill about the idea of fucking him, and like also about gay people (which kind of made him feel weird, because he didn’t know many but he was like so supportive of their rights), he figured she had a point.

He isn’t gay, or into the other stuff gay guys do like paint their nails or go to brunch, so why would he be even thinking about doing something even kind of gay?

The idea weighs on him. He spends hours thinking about it, in between rounds of gaming and shifts at work, and one night the idea comes to him in sort of a brilliant epiphany as he prepares for his nightly jerk off session: he should just watch a gay porno!

It’s fucking brilliant, if he does say so himself. 

He’ll watch two gay dudes fuck and then when he isn’t turned on, he’ll have actual evidence he isn’t gay, you know? In case someone asks. It’s completely foolproof.

His usual jerk off routine is pretty simple, he puts his special soft blanket on the edge of the bed and set his laptop up on the dresser directly across from it, dims the lights and puts his solo sexy playlist on in the background for ambience, but turned down low enough that he can hear the video he plays. Lube and tissues on the bed beside him. 

Tilting his screen just right, he opens an incognito browsing page, because he does not need The Man knowing about this, and pulls up his favorite website. Normally he goes straight to one of his favorites; titles such as, College Slut Solo Fun, Amateur POV Sloppy Blowjob, or Sexy Blonde Loves Doggystyle, and he recently bookmarked MILF Fingers Herself to Orgasm Again and Again! which he’ll get to as soon as he’s done with his little experiment.

The tab for the gay porn is conspicuously labeled ‘Gay’, but there are tons of other categories under the banner, many of which Jaehyun is totally unfamiliar with and is a little scared of. But when he first started watching porn during his freshman year of college at his roommates’ suggestion, he started with threesome videos, and it's got kind of a nostalgic vibe to it. So he clicks on it and then scrolls until he sees a thumbnail that looks tame enough. Just three guys kissing, tamer than a lot of the other stuff he sees, and the video is labeled ‘Threesome Fun with Josh and Michael!’. 

It starts out totally fine, kissing, taking their clothes off, neither of which does nothing to really… excite Jaehyun; it’s actually a little boring for a minute. But then, the whips come out and a mask; one guy has a stick of butter ,which seems less than sanitary. He clicks out as fast as he can, narrowly avoiding the start of what appears to be a competition in who can pee on the bottom for longer. 

Once it’s off his heart is beating a mile a minute and he can’t help the hysterical laugh that bubbles up. Maybe nostalgia was the wrong move, maybe he should look for something closer to what he likes now? His go to page when he’s looking for new videos is generally solo stuff, girls fucking themselves on their fingers, or POV videos of girls getting dicked down. So he clicks the solo tab, and looks this time at the titles while choosing, settling on ‘College Hunk Rides Rubber Cock’. 

The video is shot on a home camera, definitely amateur, with the college hunk in question kneeling on the floor at first to get it set up. The angle cuts off at the neck, highlighting broad shoulders and chest, with defined pecs and abs, but not too bulky. Actually, a little like Jaehyun himself.

He’s already naked, soft cock laying against his thigh, probably six inches or so, and so far nothing weird is happening. Jaehyun can’t even see a dildo anywhere, but he does pull out lube, fancier than the stuff Jaehyun uses. 

The hunk lays back against a sort of wedge pillow, slicking up his fingers, and then rubbing them against his hole. It isn’t blatantly arousing but Jaehyun can feel the prickle on the back of his neck, and he finds he can’t look away as the guy starts pushing his fingers inside. 

Obviously with the drumstick he didn’t need to do this part, though of course this was like a totally different scenario. 

The wedge pillow has the guy at an angle where his abs are super engaged, and they flex as he starts breathing heavily, fingering himself open, and moaning all of the sudden. His moans are deep and he sounds like it feels really really good. Jaehyun actually feels his ears and his face starting to heat up just listening to it. 

He fingers himself on screen for about a minute, until he’s got three fingers inside and there’s lube smearing here and there, creating a gloss on his skin, then he’s reaching out of frame for a second before he comes back with a dildo. 

It’s not especially massive. Maybe roughly the size of this guy’s own cock, a little smaller than Jaehyun but not by much, thinner than he expected and in a natural color with balls and flesh colored raised veins. The guy gets more lube on his hand and rubs it over the silicone before lining it up against his hole. 

The noise he makes when he pushes the head past his rim shocks Jaehyun, and he doesn’t believe anything could feel so good that anyone would be making a noise like that, let alone a rubber cock. But the noise has the added effect of making him realize with shocking clarity that he himself is hard as a rock, dick actively leaking onto the special blanket, as he watches the college hunk fuck himself. 

It’s an out of body experience, completely surreal, but that doesn’t stop him from wrapping a lubed hand around his dick and turning his attention back to the screen. He doesn’t even move it at first, just grabs it firmly and tries to ignore his pulse throbbing through his erection. 

On the screen the hunk is no longer laying back, but he’s kneeling again, turned away from the camera, back muscles flexing as he moves up and down on the dildo, which is secured between his ankles somehow. His rim is stretched, straining pink and white around the fake dick, cheeks covered in slick lube, and he’s moaning. 

He’s moaning so loud and so deep, like that fake fucking cock is the best thing he’s ever felt. It’s probably better than a drumstick, better than the slim pokey head of the wooden instrument. 

You can’t bounce on a drumstick, riding it hard and fast; a drumstick doesn’t fill you up or stretch you out the way the dildo must be, stretching and fucking the hunk on screen so right for him to be whining like that, high and desperate, breath coming fast… but the hunk sounded more rough than that. More guttural. No, Jaehyun realizes, those sounds aren’t from the hunk; they’re from him. He’s making them as he watches and jerks himself fast and hard, tip of his cock nearly purple with arousal. 

When he realizes, he gasps, tightening his hand into even more of a vice grip. The slide isn’t easy so he keeps his eyes glued to the screen and uses his free hand to grab blindly for the lube and squirt it over his hand and cock. 

Between the cool shock of the lube and the gushing slide and the sounds of the hunk, he’s totally overwhelmed, mesmerized by  the view of the dildo disappearing into his hole over and over and over... 

It must feel so good , he thinks, and then comes, harder than he ever has in his life. 

Jaehyun resolutely Does Not Think About It. He marks the results of his little experiment as inconclusive, then files it away under stuff he has purposefully repressed, like when his dad gave away his childhood teddy, Mr. Cuddles, and replaced it with a box of toy trains, or when Emily Martinez told everyone about how he cried after they kissed behind the gym in eighth grade. 

What he does think, is that he maybe needs to see what this dildo business is all about. He knows the other reddit bros probably wouldn’t get it, so he doesn’t update his post or even really let himself consider what he would say to them (another thing on the list of Stuff Jaehyun Cannot Think About), and that’s how he ends up here: outside a sex shop on Saturday morning, loitering and trying to mount up the courage to go inside. 

The store, which he found researching online (read, TikTok) is called The Toy Box. According to his sources, they don’t allow filming inside or the exterior if they can help it, so he hasn’t actually seen it outside of one, kind of blurry picture, but it had been easy to find. 

It's in a huge historic building that’s been well maintained compared to some of the neighboring shops. Big windows make up most of the facade, emblazoned on either exterior side with the shop’s logo: a literal box, with a doily-heart lock, made to look like it’s been engraved with a large TB, presumably for Toy Box. It’s a soft pink and deep red in distinctive style, intricate, sketched line work, but still soft somehow. 

On the interior side of the glass, backing the logo and blocking any view of what lay inside was a curtain made up of string after string of delicate red beads in a myriad of sizes that shine yellow and purple iridescent in the light, and even the glass of the antique door is covered by the glittering gems.

There’s a mat in front of it that says: Come Back with a Warrant! and in the very center is a notice in the same style as the logo, red ink catching his eye right away:

Welcome!

This establishment is NOT a children’s toy store. You must be 18 or older to enter.

We reserve the right to request an ID if you appear underage.

Additionally, we cater to the beautiful LGBTQ+ community of this fair city, but all are welcome so long as you are respectful & kind. We reserve the right to ask any patrons who are disturbing the peace & safety of others to leave.

The sign was clear enough, all were welcome, but Jaehyun couldn’t help but feel a little like no matter how welcome, he didn’t belong. 

He looks down at his outfit, dark green cargos with sneakers and a t-shirt, goodwill hoodie overtop, thick glasses and he’d been wearing a hat but he’d left it in the car because it was squeezing his head, leaving his hair fluffy and generally stupid looking. 

The people who shop here are probably really cool, and have gay fashion knowledge beyond his imagination.  They probably feel confident walking into a place they’ve never been. Jaehyun is none of that, has none of that, and looks like a guy who would, under other circumstances, be more at home at Hustler.He rereads the sign and sighs, pats his pockets until he feels his wallet, and then goes inside. 

Unlike Hustler, this place is bright and welcoming. There’s a disco ball in the center of the hugely tall ceiling, catching the light of the windows in the overhead space, a second floor that is further back and looks out over the first, the railing lined with shelves. 

Everything is clean and organized and it’s basically empty, unless you count the mannequins in the wide window area, which are designed to be little bedroom scenes, plastic bodies modeling leather and lace, mesh and metal, harnesses and lingerie with quirky faces painted on them. 

The clunky 80’s cash register is on the right as he comes in,  on a wide wooden built-in that looks original to the old building, especially compared to the machine on top of it. Pinned in a row to the ceiling above it are all the different flags for the different identities, and the whole back wall is covered in cork board with pictures and reviews and lost pet posters and maybe bumper stickers, tacked here and there in a collage of color and chaos.

He takes a deep breath and finds that somehow the room smells like sex, kind of musky and earthy, but also bright and clean like orange or maybe mint… the scent changing as he takes it in. 

Some cutesy pop is pumping through invisible speakers and its grounding, like being in a grocery store playing the same twelve Top 40 hits. The music and being alone for a moment make him feel instantly less like a deer in headlights. He sees a tall skinny table off to one side that has what looks like a map, and takes one. 

Too shy to ask? That’s okay!

While every member of our staff is trained, professional, and happy to help, sometimes you’d rather figure it out on your own. Use this map to help find things, and see the back for top sellers in popular categories!

For additional assistance, see staff at the desk.

It’s cute and colorful, with cartoon sketches of the store and products on the back, and funny little people, all shapes and sizes, doing different sex stuff. For the section on lubricant, it’s a guy in a tub filled with the stuff and a bondage rubber duck, and the picture makes him laugh

Using the map, he makes his way back to the section labeled ‘Dildos’ on the map, showing a couple feeding lollipop colored versions of the toys to one another on sticks. 

The shelves are neatly filled and each dildo is tagged and has its own display model. Their tags had symbols on them like the map: cartoon butts, vaginas, rain jackets, harnesses, a framed legend on the wall explaining each one. 

Some of them have additional tags with pictures of another product and say ‘find my perfect match’. 

There’s a shelf labeled ‘Beginner’ and that’s where he wanted to start, obviously. He's looking at the back page to see which are recommended, finally starting to relax, when a voice comes from just out of sight.

“You lost there, big boy?”

Jaehyun gasps, actually gasps like in a soap opera, and whirls around. Behind him, leaning against a display of… uh… nipple clamps, is a guy. 

He’s shorter than Jaehyun by an inch or so, drowning in an all black oversized button down and jeans, the latter of which flare out dramatically and have one of those chains that isn’t attached to anything. 

Jaehyun can tell it’s fashionable because of the chain and because the guy has make up on, dark around his eyes that kind of reminds him of when Jill doesn’t take her makeup off after a night out, but it’s clearly on purpose. The rest of his skin is pristine, even and smooth, with a healthy pink flush around his nose and high on his cheeks that looks more like it’s from exertion than cheek makeup. His hair is a silvery white, a stark contrast to his outfit. Long, but not like when Jaehyun leaves his haircut too long, obviously that length on purpose; shiny and cut in layers with pieces that hang close to his face.

Jaehyun realizes a beat too late that he’s staring when the stranger grins, wide and mischievous, looking Jaehyun up and down.

“Maybe not so lost after all.”

Jaehyun clears his throat, looks away from the stranger’s face and back to the wall… the wall of fucking DILDOS he’s standing next to. He shakes his head. 

“No, I uh— I’m not lost.”

If team sports and frat life had taught him anything, it was this: fake it ‘til you make it.

The stranger quirks yet another sharp smile his way.”Right, surely you see why I might have been confused, though?”

He gestures at Jaehyun vaguely and Jaehyun’s ears turn bright red almost instantly, and cute gu— the stranger, notices.

“Oh that’s cute! Can you do that on command?”

And nope! Jaehyun does not have the mental capacity to process whatever that was, so he ignored it. “I don’t think I need any help right now. I’m just looking.”

He smiles but it’s stiff and does nothing to deter the other.

“Well, I’m happy to help, I promise.”

“I, uh, wasn’t really looking to buy. Or looking, really. I just have never been here before…. I’m not from around here.”

Yeah, there we go. Just checking out a new place in town, just a tourist.

Again the sales associate (?) is undeterred, raising his eyebrows like he’s even more interested now.

“Oh, very cool. Where are you from?”

He leans in close, standing directly in front of Jaehyun, leaning against the dildo shelves, head right next to one labeled ‘Fantasy’ where there are rows of what he assumes are dildos, shaped like octopus arms and horns and shit. 

Jaehyun swallows, and it’s loud even to his own ears, like a cartoon cat swallowing a bird. Like there’s a bubble floating about his head that says Gulp!

“Fairfield.” Which is true. Jaehyun is from Fairfield originally, lived there for ten years before his family moved to Pleasanton. Unfortunately, neither of those places are even close to being out of town. 

Though Fairfield is further, maybe an hour outside the city in bad traffic.

Yuta just looks at him for a second and then laughs, full and deep. 

“You’re funny… I like that in a man,” he practically purrs it, reaching out to just barely brush his fingers over Jaehyun’s chest.

Jaehyun takes what can only be described as a violent step back, breathing in sharply. 

“I’m not gay,” he says, with more force than really intended.

He should attempt to correct: ‘I'm not gay but…’ only the problem is he can’t breathe again with this guy looking at him, touching him, as he’s surrounded by dildos. Suddenly, he can’t remember why he came here. 

He isn’t gay. This place isn’t for him.

“Okay… do you want a prize?”  His expression has turned sour, and Jaehyun has to avert his gaze. “God, all you little straight fucks coming in here for fraternity bets to see who can get the most numbers or buy the ‘weirdest’ thing,” he says, using air quotes on weird. “You think you’re god’s fucking gift, huh?”

He doesn’t even pause, doesn’t even need to breathe, and Jaehyun admires him, because he himself very much so needs to breathe, but it’s happening again. Just like in the shower, he thinks back to the playground and to his little green inhaler. 

Shake, press and inhale, hold.

“You and your frat brothers and your little sorority girlfriends may get a huge laugh doing this shit, but I’m here to tell you to get out, because you don’t belong here!”

Breathe.

He advances a little closer to Jaehyun just as he is able to take his first breath, shuddering and shallow, in what felt like 30 minutes but was really barely half of one. 

Jaehyun doesn’t think, he just acts, taking another step back bumping into something he can’t see, nearly falling, but catching himself.

If he had looked up, he would have seen the look of surprise that passes over the other’s face, and the way he takes another step forward, this time with concern, but he does hear him.

“Are—“ Jaehyun rights himself and keeps backing away. “Hey, wait, are you alright?”

“I have to go. I’m sorry.” He knocks into something else and finally turns around, toward the door so he can really make a break for it.

He runs all the way to his car, parked half a block away; not because he was trying to be sneaky but because parking is a bitch in town unless you want to pay.  When he gets inside he locks the door and puts on his seatbelt, but he doesn’t start the car. He doesn’t even put the keys in the ignition. He just sits there in the silence, letting his breath slow. 

He doesn’t realize he’s been crying until he gets home and looks in the mirror to see his blotchy, shiny cheeks, sticky to the touch from the salt of his tears.

The next week, he throws himself into work at the gym, not once taking a lunch break or leaving on time until Friday, when he hits his max overtime and has to go home three hours early.

He uses that time to take a long nap, making up for some of the much needed sleep he’s absolutely not fucking getting. When he wakes up, he feels moderately normal and has an idea (He would call it another brilliant epiphany, but the last one was sort of—well, let’s just say it was a normal, regular idea): to text Johnny and see if he wants to hang or eat or something.

Dude, fuck yes

I’m craving Luca’s soooo bad

So they meet at Luca’s. Johnny gets the pork-chetta and Jaehyun gets the Calabrian , both with sodas, and they sit outside at one of the little iron tables to eat.

“So man, what’s up with you, it’s been like… so fucking long, dude.”

Johnny nods sagely. “A minute and a HALF.”

Johnny is one of Jaehyun’s oldest and closest friends. He’s big and broad and he’s dated around almost as much as Jaehyun. They’d met when Jaehyun rushed Johnny’s frat, it became his frat too, and they had been paired as big and little. They’d been close before but the bond of brotherly love…. Fatherly love? Uh… anyways, it made them even closer. They became inseparable. 

He’d been the first person in Jaehyun’s life to ever seem to think he was fine how he was. Growing up, his dad had wanted him to be more: tougher, faster, or whatever. His mom had wanted him to be smarter. Teachers needed him to talk more but not too much, friends wanted him to like the same things they liked, girlfriends always found something that needed fixing. 

But Johnny hadn’t been like that. He thought Jaehyun was funny even if he didn’t like the same stuff as him, and he was really chill about letting Jaehyun talk to him about it and never got mad, just wanted to talk about his stuff too. He introduced Jaehyun to so many other people in the frat and outside of it, like his best friend Ten, that were just as cool and nice, and Jaehyun felt like, totally lucky they all liked him and included him.

The second gay person he ever met (after Ten who didn’t really date, but rather fooled around with people outside their group) was Taeyong, who was Ten’s freshman year roommate and forever bestie. He was smarter than all of them but was never mean about it, and wanted to be a molecular biologist or something. He was such a regular dude, but also open and confident about being gay and it blew Jaehyun’s mind a little.  

He dated a senior named Baekhyun his second year, Jaehyun’s first, and threw a drink at him at a party once over something Jaehyun couldn’t recall, and the moment is burned into his mind even now, because he’d heard so much about gay people growing up that seeing such a simple thing, so mundane in its sameness to the straight couples he’d see on tv, was jarring and grounding at the same time. 

Jaehyun remembered thinking, stupidly, ‘wow, they’re just like us’. Though he had never told anyone about it, ever, because he was ashamed to know people who thought otherwise and tried to teach him the same, it was mad important for him. Significant in a way he probably still didn’t fully understand. 

Johnny’s graduation, alongside Taeyong and Ten, and even Taeyong’s new boyfriend, Doyoung, who had come late to their little group, had hit him pretty hard. His senior year had been kind of lonely; not because he didn’t have anyone, because a lot of the younger guys were very nice, but because he had never put a lot of effort into building up those other friendships the same way. 

He made it through though, and Johnny made sure to still be around and was still Jaehyun’s best friend. They all hung out as much as they could before Jaehyun graduated, and now, as much as they wanted with all of them living in the city.

So logically, he knew that he could talk to Johnny bro to bro and he wouldn’t judge him or be freaked or anything. Johnny was also a man of the world; he liked photography and traveling, and when he wasn’t at work, he was playing tourist and trying all the newly-opened restaurants or going to galleries and shit. He probably knew way more about this stuff than Jaehyun.

He lets the conversation hit a natural lull once Johnny had caught him up on his week and Jaehyun had done the same, leaving out anything embarrassing of course (which was actually everything besides work and Jill), and the opportunity presents itself when Johnny takes a big bite of his sandwich, munching away. 

“Have you ever uh… switched it up?”

Johnny squints, finishing his bite and then takes a sip of his drink.

“No man, pork is the way to go. You know this.”

He laughs good naturedly and Jaehyun laughs with him, nodding. “Oh yeah, haha. I actually meant like in the bedroom. Switched it up in the bedroom.”

He wiggles an eyebrow like Johnny might still not get what he meant by bedroom, and wants to smack himself for acting like such a loser.

“What like… handcuffs? Role-play? Does she want to play sexy school teacher or some shit?”

Sauce smooshes into the corner of his mouth but he must feel it because he thumbs at it, licking it away before he continues chewing, and Jaehyun blinks a few times to refocus. 

“Well, I meant more like… have you ever let a girl… put it in.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raise but he doesn’t laugh or point or sneer at Jaehyun. “Like a finger? Or more, like pegging?”

“More t-than a fi-finger.” He stutters through, blushing, not sure exactly but hoping pegging is what he’s thinking and not something even weirder.

“No, I’ve never let a girl up there, man. But I let Ten fuck me last year. That shit was great. I get why bottoms like it.”

Now it’s Jaehyun’s turn to be surprised, his own eyebrows doing less of a raise and more of a full zip code move. “Ten?”

“Yeah! When I realized I was bi, Ten helped me loads and when I was scared to get out there, he helped me uh… get over my fear.” He winks lasciviously. 

“Dude, since when are you bi?”

“Oh, I guess since I was born, but I only realized after I met Mark.”

“MARK?!” 

Mark was a snot-nosed freshman who’d joined the frat after Jaehyun, the following year, when Johnny was a junior. He wasn’t so snot-nosed anymore, but at the time he’d been the nerdiest little church boy type. His ascension into (gay?) full-time frat boy, part-time campus crush hadn't taken long, but it was epic.  

He’d easily wormed his way into their group of upperclassmen, and even though he had a tight knit group of friends his own age, he still spent a shit ton of time with them. 

“Yeah, well I used to hate Donghyuck, right? Like for no goddamn reason, but I eventually realized I was actually mad jealous of him and Mark together, because I wanted to fuck Mark, and that sent me into a tailspin. Then I figured shit out with Ten and decided to come out and that’s why we had that party.”

Johnny continues and is starting to realize that maybe Jaehyun hadn’t known this but is saving him the embarrassment of having to admit it like the total alpha dog he is.

In retrospect, Jaehyun had certainly thought it was weird that the theme of Johnny’s end of the semester party that year was ‘bi-pride’, but he thought since they had at least one gay person there and they seemed chill with it, he didn’t say anything.

Jaehyun is almost more embarrassed that every single friend he had was apparently gay or bi or something, and he hadn’t even fucking noticed or paid attention, than he is about all the stuff that had lead to this moment.

“Right, right,” he says, as if he had just forgotten, and lunch carries on like normal.

After they’d finished eating, Johnny had invited him to a party at his and Ten’s place, the house they’d lived since they graduated, to welcome their new roommate, Kun. Jaehyun had agreed easily, glad his friend wasn’t so bothered by Jaehyun being such a selfish jerk that he would abandon him forever. They parted outside the restaurant and Johnny had hugged him tighter and longer than normal.

“You can always talk to me, man. What are best bros for?”

The whole lunch experience had overwhelmed him a little, and he’d nodded and ducked his head to hide how emotional it made him before he went back to his car, but he felt infinitely lighter, despite the fact he hadn’t even actually discussed anything that has been going on, but also infinitely more confused.

The part where Johnny had had gay sex wasn’t hard for him to wrap his head around. Johnny told him he was half gay basically, so of course he’d have some gay sex, right? Whatever. But Johnny didn’t fit his image of what a bottom was. Obviously in the scenario of him and Ten, Jaehyun assumed that Ten would be the one… taking it. 

He knew that it was probably wrong, for no other reason other than he now had a firsthand account that it didn’t work like this, but he had always assumed the smaller person would be the catcher and the bigger the pitcher, as Johnny had phrased it. 

Johnny was a big dude, a hunk of a man, taller than all their other friends, broad and ripped, and as of recently, totally confident in who he is. So while it was hard to understand that he let a little guy like Ten, strong but still delicate and petite, fuck him, it also kind of opened Jaehyun’s mind to the possibility that one could be all those things like Johnny— like Jaehyun himself — and still get fucked. 

He goes back to the Toy Box the next day, because it’s what Johnny would do if he had to guess, and he certainly doesn’t want to actually ask. It’s nerve wracking, but he parks a little closer, and dresses nondescript this time, less fratty but still just normal for him, jeans and a plain t-shirt, and a black wash denim jacket.

The weather is a little more gloomy today, so the disco ball doesn’t reflect the light like it had the other day. It’s overall less dazzling the second time and he sighs in relief because he had built it up in his head. In fact, if anything, the whole space looks cozier, with several lamps turned on strategically, flooding the space with warm yellow light. And there’s a sign up on the wall he hadn’t seen the other day, big with neon red spilling out all around it: Adults Only!  

He plans to make a beeline for the dildo wall, grab the first non-tentacle shaped toy he sees, and then make a break for it, maybe even throw his cash at the register as he bolts so as to avoid the same employee from last time. His plan, of course, is foiled by the presence of someone right by the register as he comes in. 

Luckily, it’s not the same guy, the one who thought Jaehyun was some kind of homophobic jackass. He’s not as tall as Jaehyun but still broad, with jacked up arms that pull at the sleeves of his shirt and highlight his defined chest; and Jaehyun would guess that if he pulled his shirt up it would reveal clear cut abs as well.. Not that he would randomly do that to another bro or anything.

His whole outfit is kind of similar to Jaehyun’s actually, and his hair, shorter at the back and sides only to flop down into a kind of dark brown set of curtains, like a Kpop idol off-duty or something. His face is just as masculine as the rest of him, with a square jaw, strong nose, and angular cheekbones. But when he smiles, that all sort of melts away, and all you can focus on are his kind eyes, half mooned and happy to see a customer. 

“Hey man, welcome to the Toy Box!”

It’s such a casual greeting, like he already knows Jaehyun, and he looks so much like he could be one of Jaehyun’s friends that he feels instantly at ease, none of the tight tension in his shoulders that the last guy had caused. 

He looks around as if maybe this new, more approachable guy is addressing someone else before he answers. 

“Hi.” he says, holding up a hand in a half hearted wave, then letting it drop when he realizes. 

“Have you ever shopped with us before?”

“Yes?” It lilts up at the end, just as unsure as he is, but the other just nods.

“I see, an old pro then?”

Not quite, he thinks, but doesn’t say, shaking his head instead.

“The last time I was here I didn’t really uh… shop?”

The employee laughs back. “What, are you a shoplifter?”

Dread immediately seizes him and he shakes his head. “No, no, I’m sorry, no. I just meant I left before I could buy anything and I didn’t really uh mean it lik—“

“Hey, wait!” The guy holds a hand out as if to pause Jaehyun. “I was only joking, I swear—“

He looks troubled for a moment before a sudden look of realization comes over him, almost like he’d forgotten something then remembered it. He steps out from around the counter slowly.

“I promise I was joking, but I’m sorry. Do over?” he asks, with a sheepish smile as friendly as the first, before offering his hand. “I’m Jeno.”

Jaehyun takes it and shakes it once. “Jaehyun.”

“Well Jaehyun, what can I help you find today?”

Once Jaehyun manages to stutter out that he’s looking for a dildo, accompanied by some pantomiming that would have been at home on a bus full of fifth grade boys, but he wasn’t sure did much to get his point across, Jeno smiles and leads him across the store. 

Working with him is very different than with the other guy; he doesn’t make comments or assumptions, instead asks questions that Jaehyun answers shyly (“No, I’ve never used one,” “Yes, it’s for solo use”), before he starts pointing out the ones that may fit Jaehyun’s needs.

The first one is bright purple and it’s shape isn’t organic, a protruding purple cylinder, all one width attached to a base that’s a little wider, which Jeno says serves as a way to attach it to a harness if someone wanted to wear it, and a safety precaution for anal play. 

“Otherwise it would just get sucked in,” he says with a laugh and Jaehyun laughs too, mostly because he doesn’t know if Jeno is being forreal with him. The next one he points out looks basically the same to Jaehyun, but it’s pale blue. “But this is another one that’s good for beginners, because it’s smaller, right around five and a half inches, and it comes with a sample of the brand’s lube, too.”

He lets Jaehyun test the rigidity of each, demonstrating by flexing the silicone back and forth before handing them over for him to do the same. Jeno shows him some additional differences between them, and he even lets Jaehyun feel the lube between his fingers.

“So which one would y— or I guess if you had to choose?” He doesn’t want to make Jeno think he’s assuming anything about him, because that would be really rude, right?

Maybe he knows so much about dildos because it’s literally his job!

“Well, actually if you want to know the truth,” He pauses and looks at Jaehyun, waiting until he nods. Of course he wants the truth. “I would choose this one. Not one normally recommended to beginners, but only because it’s a bit thicker.”

Jeno gestures to the fake cock in question and Jaehyun feels his ears heating up. He says fake cock versus dildo, because that’s the difference between the ‘beginner’ models they recommend and this one: it looks like a dick.

 It’s a tan color, with the pink flush of skin, and Jaehyun sees there are other color ways to match different skin tones, all shown on a little sheet. It’s listed as 6.5 inches, and it has a detailed cock head and balls that cover the base, it’s not as firm as the others, it has a bit more give but also doesn’t flop around when Jeno hands it to him. He feels a little off center just looking at it and thinking it could go inside him, and he certainly hadn’t considered he might buy anything so realistic. 

He realizes he’s been staring a while and clears his throat before glancing back up at Jeno. “Why this one?”

“A few reasons, actually. Besides the organic shape, it’s also dual density with a heavier core to keep it erect and an outer layer made of a medical grade waterproof silicone gel, which means it warms up faster and makes it less stiff. So it kind of feels like the real thing.”

Jaehyun nods, because weirdly enough it all makes total sense, but that doesn’t make it any less odd to be talking about with another person, much less a dude. Jeno continues. 

“Plus the design means it can be used in a strap-on harness, or mounted against a smooth, flat surface, like a wall or the floor. Which makes it more versatile.” Jeno pauses like he’s not sure if he should carry on, but then he does anyway. “But the real reason I recommend it so highly is because it’s the one I use.” 

He shrugs like it’s nothing, smiling placidly like before and not even blushing at all. Jaehyun looks at Jeno, then looks at what looks and feels effectively like a real dick in his hands, at least as far as Jaehyun is concerned, and he doesn’t even let himself think. 

“I’ll take it.”

At home, he unloads his purchases with tender, loving care onto his waiting bed. It’s obviously more than a drumstick but he doesn’t feel panicked in the same way he had when he brought that home and planned to use it. In fact, he feels oddly calm, though as he unpacks, his excitement builds. 

First, the special wash to help clean and keep the toy in good condition; then the lube, flavorless and with minimal packaging, no bright red or blue bottle that begs to be noticed like the ones he’s bought from the drugstore before; and then the special instrument that Jeno had taught him about in the store to help get himself clean before he used it; and then finally, the dildo itself.

He puts it down next to its counterparts and then steps back to look at them, crumbling the nondescript eco-friendly brown paper bag in front of him. He looks at them, takes a deep breath, and then goes to work unwrapping everything and throwing all the trash away. 

He doesn’t use any of it, just puts it all away in a box in his closet, tucked inside on top of a fancy scarf he got for Christmas a few years ago from a distant relative who apparently had too much money, and not a clue who Jaehyun was as a person, made of a special silk supposedly hand painted, that he never ever wears.

For now, it’s enough to know it’s there. 

The party is casual but busy, sexy and cool in a way he’s only seen the parties that Ten throws be.

Ten’s family is super fucking rich and Johnny makes enough to cover his part of the rent too at this point, so he doesn’t know why they’re still roommates or why they needed a third roommate. But he also learned everything he knows about finance from a seminar at the community center he went to with his mom when he was in high school, so what does he know?

The house they live in is very cool, tucked in a row of other cool old houses on a steep hill; all of them two storeys high, skinny and deep with really fancy woodwork, in conversation heart colors, and sometimes he imagines if they could talk they’d say stuff like ‘Be Mine’ or ‘Eat Me’.

The music, jazzy old people stuff, and the din of conversation floats through the open windows and one of Ten’s friends catches sight of him on the walkway and leans through the nearest one. Was his name Sicheng?

“Hey! Jaehyun, right?”

“That’s me!” He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken to this guy before; all of Ten’s friends are too pretty and smart to talk to without making a complete fool of himself. But Probably Sicheng greets him like an old friend, a drunk look in his eye visible even from this distance to someone with Jaehyun’s experience.

“You’re missing it!” he says and waves his hand.

He wanders inside, and he’s greeted here and there by friendly faces, including Definitely Sicheng, who reintroduces himself and several other people when they see Jaehyun inside. It’s cool that people are being so friendly, but the majority of people he runs into are strangers.

Even though the lighting is low, it’s still easy to see in the room, and he can’t figure out how Ten does it. 

People are using real glasses and milling around, talking. On the porch he can see people smoking cigs and blunts, and in the yard there are more lights, more people, dancing around like kids, movements erratic and likely tequila-infused.

He can’t help but notice, as he makes his way through the place, stopping for a chat here and there, that Ten and Johnny are nowhere to be found, so he can’t talk to them or meet the famous new roomie. And also, everyone here is like… queer. Not in a slur way, obvi, but like in a LGBTQIA plus way, an acronym he’s so proud to remember that he gives himself a discreet high five for doing so.

It’s obvious from the way people are drinking fancy cocktails with orange slices in glasses meant for wine, and red (so hardcore!!) wine out of regular cups instead of the usual jungle juice and beer. Everyone there is super hot, and people of all genders are wearing lots of cool different make up, which he knows Ten (a gay person) does a lot at parties. He’s seen like three girls with armpit hair too, and every other couple he’s seen tucked into a corner of the room making out has been two people of the same gender, so.

It makes sense in a way, especially since Ten is gay and Johnny is bi, something he is still processing tbh, and hell maybe their new roomie is too? Obviously they invited their friends and if they themselves are all gay or half gay or whatever, then it makes sense that they’d know a lot of other gay people of all flavors. 

If anything, it makes it odd he’s here, though, right? A thought he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on; instead, he asks around until someone tells him they saw Johnny down the hall headed into a room then sets out to look for him.

He checks the bathroom then the guest room which, is this room Kun's? If so, sorry Kun! 

Finally, it’s just the laundry room which is actually huge and has another entrance to it, almost like it’s a tunnel and a room or something, two doors facing each other; one leading in, one leading out. He opens the inside door, swinging it open with force, hoping to spook Johnny good if he is there, but when he enters and takes in the scene in front of him, he’s the one who ends up spooked.

Johnny has Ten in his lap and is making out with someone else over his bare shoulder where they’re straddling Johnny’s legs to lean in, a stranger Jaehyun doesn’t know. Clearly they’ve been at it, whatever is happening, for a while; all three of them are in various states of undress, clothes littering the floor, and Ten’s tinted lip balm is smeared over both, or all, their faces. When he fully gets a grasp on it, (this is clearly some kind of threesome he’s stumbled upon, though to be fair to him, the laundry tunnel doesn’t seem like THE place for it) he realizes they’re all staring back at him, alerted to his presence thanks to his grand entrance. Now all four of them, Johnny, Ten, the stranger, and he himself, are staring at each other. Someone has to move first, and since he was the only one not invited, he takes the initiative. 

“Uh, sorry, my bad,” he says, then backs out of the room, closing the door behind him, then takes a deep breath before moving back down the hallway.

Jesus fuck he needed a drink.

But his beeline for the kitchen to get one is foiled, as he’s stopped by someone obnoxiously standing in the doorframe leaving no room to walk in.

“Excuse me,” he says but the man doesn’t hear him so he speaks up. “Excuse me, could I just get past you?”

That does the trick and he turns around and, “It’s you!”

Normally, Jaehyun would think that nothing could have prepared him to run into this guy, the guy from his first trip to Toy Box. The one who accused him of being a fratty, homophobic, time-waster. But the last five minutes have actually done a pretty good job because it all feels equally surreal, yet it doesn’t make him anymore capable of doing anything that isn’t standing there in shock. 

The Guy has a glass in his hand, a short tumbler ice up to the rim, clear save for the bright lime wedge floating on the top, squeezed and spent. Probably a vodka soda, but it’s the least pressing thing on Jaehyun’s mind right now. 

He’s looking at Jaehyun with derision on his immaculate features, which Jaehyun had noticed the other day but look different in the ambient light of the party; eyes warmer, cheekbones and jaw sharper but lips fuller. His hair is still long, artfully shaggy with a well cut fringe framing his face, but it's black now, or maybe dark brown. He didn’t appear to be wearing make up today, but Jaehyun could tell it was definitely the same guy, stylish outfit a solid giveaway; well tailored pair of slacks in a maroon color, chunky shoes made of black leather, and a t-shirt from a band Jaehyun didn’t know, but the shirt looked like genuine vintage, a few holes from aging letting his creamy skin show through. The t-shirt made it look less fancy but the chunky silver chain around his neck and the rings on his fingers elevated it right back.

He was, objectively, one of the most handsome men Jaehyun had ever seen, and he seriously didn't need this right now. The guy doesn’t seem to be as affected by Jaehyun’s sweater and jeans combo. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he says, but before he can answer they’re being unceremoniously interrupted by the tiny stampede of Johnny, Ten, and their mystery man.

“Jaehyun, hey!”

Johnny’s voice comes from behind them and Jaehyun glances around to see them approaching, sheepishly. They all have flushed cheeks and kiss swollen lips and Ten’s fly isn’t up, but Jaehyun can’t even focus on that because he’s too worried about whatever the Toy Box Guy might say to his friends. 

“Hey,” he manages, and he can feel the blood draining from his face, his heart sinking. This cannot be happening. 

“We are, so so sorry about that. Really,” Johnny says, voice low like he’s trying to lessen the trauma. 

Jaehyun lifts his shoulder, trying to appear casual. 

“It’s no big deal.”

He smiles at Johnny then shifts to let it fall on the other two as well, hoping the dimples will be enough to convince them, and based on the glances they’re all exchanging, it’s working. Finally Ten nods and smiles back. 

“Well… good. Uhm, I know it wasn’t the best introduction but this is Kun, our boyfriend.”

Our boyfriend. Johnny could have told him Kun was their live-in spiritual counsel, and that probably would have made more sense. So not only are Johnny and Ten… together? But they also have another boyfriend, this Kun guy?

Kun, to his credit, seems to have taken all of this in stride and though he seems a little flustered, breathless and a little pink from the rush to get out here, he just smiles and holds out a wide hand. 

“Hey, nice to meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Now that Jaehyun knows, he realizes that he has actually heard quite a bit about Kun too; that Ten and Johnny actually talk about him more than you would someone who was just there to split utilities with. So he holds out a hand of his own, hoping it’s not too clammy.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“And it looks like you’ve met Yuta too, unless… Do you two know each other?”

He glances between them and 
Jaehyun gulps down the bile rising in his throat, opens his mouth to say something stupid and panicked when Toy Box Guy, Yuta, jumps in.

“Not yet Tennie, I was just in his way.” Jaehyun turns to find a wide, friendly smile on Yuta’s face as he switches the hands holding his drink and reaches out just like Kun had. “I’m Yuta, nice to meet you.”

Relief washes over him, lungs expanding normally, and he doesn’t quite get to a smile but he does think his expression is at least polite and friendly in return. 

“Jaehyun.”

Small talk has never been Jaehyun’s forte but in a situation like this, it’s worse. Anything he thinks to say has the telltale ring of anxiety to it that is never good but that right now, when he’s trying not to give himself away, he is even more keen to avoid it. So he stays silent and waits for a minute or so, keeping that same neutral-ish look on his face before he interjects with the only thing he actually wants to say. 

“I’ll be right back, just gonna grab a drink!” He murmurs it, trying not to disrupt the flow of Ten’s story and draw attention to himself, then squeezes past Yuta, catching a whiff of something warm and powdery— expensive. More so than Jaehyun’s 12 dollar body spray that he only uses half the time, for sure.

Their kitchen isn’t cramped but it’s one of the only areas that the last owners hadn’t remodeled, so even though there aren’t very many people, because it’s such a small space, running longways parallel to the open plan living area, it feels like it is. There’s a group pouring and handing out shots, sampling their own merchandise as they go. They hand him a skinny tall shot glass and Jaehyun downs it without asking what it is (tequila), then he grabs a low carb beer from the untouched cooler on the floor, and with a cursory glance around to make sure no one will follow, he retreats outside.

There’s this one little spot on the back porch that’s wonky, a design flaw where it should have wrapped around the rest of the house to connect with the front but doesn’t and just stops against the slatted siding; a dead end. From the back of the house or just standing on the porch facing the backyard, it’s invisible, thanks to an optical illusion made by the railing. Soo unless you know it’s there, you can’t see it. 

He goes there quickly, so none of the drunk, dancing people see him. The porch itself is blessedly empty, and he takes two big gulps from his beer, the carbonation making the soft spot behind his ears ache. Once he’s taken a drink and he’s sure he’s completely alone, Jaehyun cries, for the first time in a while, since the car after his first trip to Toy Box if you count that, which he’s hesitant to do. 

When he can’t stand anymore, he presses his back into the side of the house and slides down, drawing his knees up toward his chest, and lets his head fall in his hands. He can’t even really pinpoint a specific reason why he’s crying because if he tries to do so, it just makes him feel panicked.

What the fuck , he thinks. What the fuck is wrong with me?

He takes another deep pull from his bottle and then realizes he’s finished it already, so he sets the bottle down and wipes at his face. He feels like a little bitch, but at this point he’d rather admit that and go home than confront what’s going on inside him. He’s using the hem of his shirt to wipe at his face and dry up what his hands couldn’t get, when there’s a throat clearing to his left and he drops it, startled. 

It’s Yuta. Chic, mean, expensive smelling Yuta. Great.  

“Brewski for your thoughts?” He holds out a beer, another already open in the opposite hand. 

Jaehyun only hesitates for a second before nodding, pursing his lips and sniffing dramatically as he takes it and Yuta steps further into the secret alcove, dropping into criss-cross applesauce across from him. 

Belatedly, Jaehyun scoffs at Yuta’s bad joke. 

“Also, Brewski? C’mon, no one calls it that,” he laughs in spite of himself. “This isn’t Animal House.”

Yuta smiles and takes a sip of his beer. “Got you to laugh, though.”

“And why would you care about doing that, exactly?”

Yuta doesn’t answer right away but Jaehyun doesn’t brush it off. He feels like it’s a valid question. That day at the store, Yuta had taken one look at him and assumed the very worst, and though Jaehyun hadn’t thought much about it again, too scared to examine what happened in detail, he does now and it occurs to him that Yuta and the other people who work there probably deal with that kind of shit a lot. 

Or at least enough where Yuta felt justified in jumping to that conclusion with Jaehyun and his ugly cargo pants.

“I’m sorry. About the other day, I mean. I was mad about something else and that really does happen at the store quite a bit, but…” He trails off, shrugging. “I’m just sorry. No excuses.”

Jaehyun looks at Yuta, his dark eyes are wide and he’s clearly been drinking a while, but there’s something there that seems genuine, a certain sparkle, and he finds himself accepting the explanation easily.

“It’s not a huge deal. Thanks, though, for the apology.”

“Sure thing.”

They both go quiet for a minute, sipping their beers and up until then, Jaehyun hadn’t even registered the party still happening outside of their little bubble. But now in the silence between them, the sound of people talking, drunk and loud, the thumping bass carrying the synth under the ethereal voice of the woman singing over the speakers, all becomes obvious to him. 

Little rings float in your eyes, try to forget who you are now…

“So are we gonna talk about,” Yuta motions at Jaehyun’s face. “All of this? Like, what’s going on exactly?"

Jaehyun’s eyes drop to the amber glass in his hands. “You mean the crying?”

“Well, yeah. But if you’d rather talk about those lethal dimples and the rest of your handsome face, we can.” Jaehyun can't help the way his gaze snaps back up at that. “But I figured maybe talking about what has you so upset would be better in the long run.”

As always, his ears give him away, turning bright red by the feel of it, but Yuta wouldn't notice because he’s staring into Jaehyun’s eyes, which he is simultaneously very grateful for and terrified of. 

“I just got overwhelmed, that’s all.”

Yuta nods. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Not at all, at least not until recently,” he says, shoulder lifting in a half hearted shrug.

Jaehyun means to stop there, quick simple answers. Don’t go deeper. Don’t share too much; Yuta is a stranger after all. But something about his presence, or maybe the booze, loosens his tongue, and he keeps going.

“I don’t know, it’s just crazy to me how one little thing can happen and it changes everything.” He thinks for a second. “No, it doesn’t change everything, it’s like— you know on SVU, how they have the two-way glass?”

He looks to Yuta, who gives a short nod for Jaehyun to continue, even though his expression says he has no idea where this is going. 

“Well, it feels like everyone was on the other side, the side the cops stand on, where they could look at me, and they could all see each other. But I was inside and all I could see was my reflection… and now it’s all too much,” he whispers.

“The party?”

He shakes his head and takes another drink.

“Not the party.”

“Yes and no.” He slides his nail under the label on his beer bottle pushing it up on the edges just for something to do. “It’s the party but it’s everything else too.” 

“Everything else?”

It’s the past three weeks, it’s Jill, it’s Dr. Amin, it’s Johnny and Ten and Kun. It’s the way everyone here is beautiful and secure and has their shit together and figured out. 

“I— I feel like I’m surrounded by all these people who have always known themselves and each other. People who look right through me. And they’re open, shiny, and gay, and I’m– ”

He abruptly cuts off, biting the tip of his tongue to stop himself from getting carried away. He’s… what is he?  

“What?” Yuta asks, mirroring Jaehyun’s thoughts and when he doesn’t respond, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Yuta repeats the question. “What are you, Jaehyun?”

Shake, press and inhale, hold. Breathe.

“I’m really tired.” 

As soon as he says it, he realizes it’s true. He’s tired all the way to his bones and he can’t stay any longer or drink any more, and he definitely needs to stop talking about this. So he opens his eyes and the bubble pops, even though Yuta is still looking at him, watching him as he gets on his feet. For a second, Jaehyun thinks he’s just going to sit there, but at the last second, he springs up.

“Hold on a second, okay?” Yuta says, putting his hands on his hips, and Jaehyun stops. “For what it’s worth, everyone feels like that.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, starting to walk away again. He doesn’t need a lecture about how he’s not special and has never had an original thought, or whatever. But Yuta grabs him, stopping him in his tracks, not because his grip is particularly strong, but because it feels inexplicably intimate, Yuta’s hand hot on his skin, and he can’t help but be hyper aware of the way Yuta’s thumb brushes over his pulse as if on instinct.

Yuta himself looks just as surprised to have done it, but he continues anyway. 

“Don’t get mad. I don’t mean— it’s just that everyone thinks that way. That the people around them know something they don’t. And sometimes, it’s even right. My point is that if so many of us feel that way, even if it’s all for different reasons, then we’re not alone.”

His expression softens. 

“You’re not alone, Jaehyun. Even if you feel like you are. And I know we don’t know each other well—”

“Try at all!” The words tumble out, his brain not functioning well enough to stop them.

“Okay,” Yuta concedes. “We don't know each other at all. But if you want, we could hang out, maybe talk?”

Jaehyun searches his face but can’t find anything there that would explain why he would suggest this. 

“About what?”

“I’ve been where you are. That thing you’re feeling, I’ve felt it.”

The words are like ice, slipping down his spine and Jaehyun shakes his head. “It’s not the same thing.”

He expects Yuta to make a face like he had the other day, to sneer at him or something, but he just smiles and nods. “Maybe so. But I’m offering anyway. Just think about it, okay?”

Jaehyun nods and ducks his head, and when he looks back up, Yuta is gone. 

He does think about it, so much in fact, that the only way to stop thinking about it is to find something else to obsess over, and using the dildo for the first time seems to be better than anything else he might come up with as an alternative, so he decides to go for it. 

Preparing with the douche doesn’t take as long as he thought it might, though he could confidently say nothing could have prepared him for the experience, and it was gonna take some getting used to… if he ended up liking it, of course. 

Earlier, he had locked the house, set the alarms, turned his phone on do not disturb and tweeted about running trivial errands to throw people off the scent, removed his pillows so he could lay an old sheet over the entirety of his bed, and mounted the dildo to the headboard. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

Before he crawls onto the bed where his lube is waiting for him, he puts on his pump up playlist for the gym, trying to make everything feel less like sex or jerking off, and more like a clinical experience. Like this is maintenance for his body the way his personal workouts are, and his smoothies and stuff. Guys need to get off and this is just one of the ways they do it.

Once he’s on the bed, he lays back and slicks his fingers up, and having never done this before he’s a little nervous, unsure how to begin. So he just does and hopes for the best.

He uses one of his fingers and rubs over his hole. The ridges of it feel foreign to him, but he focuses on the sensation, on making sure that everything is coated. After a while it starts to feel good, the gentle pressure of it, so he adds more and he gasps as the pad of his finger breaches the hole. 

It makes him pull back for a second, before realizing that this is the whole (haha, whole, hole) point. So he braces himself mentally and pushes down again, letting the tip of his finger sink inside. He waits a beat getting used to the sensation, which isn’t really anything to write home about, before he presses a little further, then a little further, and suddenly he’s a full finger deep inside himself. 

He marvels at the fact that it doesn’t feel weird, just a little different, and he wiggles it around without finesse, trying to see if there’s a method he should be using, and eventually settles on a gentle in and out movement. One seems like no big deal, so he squirts out more lube and then starts working in a second finger, which is more of a challenge but feels fine, good even after about a minute, and then he’s adding a third. 

Five minutes pass and he’s fingering himself properly now, like the guy in the video all that time ago, and he’s genuinely enjoying it, which he tries to not be so surprised by. He decides he must be ready now, tired of the anticipation and waiting, so he rolls over and starts crawling up the bed to the dildo. It’s eye level with him, and the crazy thought of putting it in his mouth crosses his mind but he doesn’t, dismissing the idea as if he'd never had it. 

Focus, Jaehyun, this is business. 

He coats it in lube until it drips, unsure how much is needed for something like this, then turns around, backing up until he feels the prod of the silicone head against the top of his right thigh and realizes he’s going to need to arrange it behind himself if he actually wants to do this, and reaches back to line the head against his hole. 

The lube makes it slip and the sensation of it sliding between his cheeks makes his cock twitch and his face flush, but he ignores that and tries again, going slower this time, and when the head breaches his hole, he can’t help but gasp out loud. 

It’s an intrusion, not a completely natural feeling, but nevertheless causing a fizzing excitement, a pressure in his belly like the time he took a huge gulp of fresh McDonald’s Sprite on a dare in college. Part of him, a part that is cowering in fear and has been maybe his whole life, urges him to stop; but the rest of him is more than ready. Once the head is in, the only thing left to do is commit. So he takes a deep breath and then slides back, slow but steady until it’s buried to the hilt inside.

“Oh my god,” he moans. “Holy shit.”

It’s an out of body experience, to feel full like that, to feel complete in a way he never has. He struggles to catch his breath, vision blurring a little. Is this… is this how pleasure is supposed to feel? He’d had a little taste of it with the drumstick, but this is on another level entirely.

Sex has always been fun, felt good– great even. He never would have turned down the sex he was having before, but now he isn’t sure what to think. He isn’t even moving yet and he can feel his thighs shaking, his cheeks flush with heat that is quickly spreading all over him, and only makes him want to try moving, but Jesus fuck, it feels so good, he almost can’t. 

He wiggles his hips to get a sense of how ready he is to try, which presses the blunt head of the dildo against his prostate and he moans again. He decides he doesn’t care about waiting and instead lurches forward just to throw his ass back. Then he does it again and again.

There’s no thought or reason to his movement except recreating the feeling, the pleasure. Desperate is the only way to describe how he’s acting, except pathetic maybe, and he realizes he’s crying because it feels so goddamn good. 

He reaches out looking for something, anything, to hold onto, and only comes up with the sheet, bunching it in his hands and leaning forward to bite down on it, hoping to calm some of the sounds he’s making. It only ends up making them worse though, the more extreme arch of his back creating a delicious new angle and sending him into overdrive.

He can feel the strength draining from his body, and the idea flits through his mind that if it were a real cock, attached to a real person, he would be able to simply lay here and take it, and he tries to push it down but he can’t. 

The idea of someone grasping his hips and fucking into him, that he could go boneless and simply accept the pleasure they would give him, it’s overpowering, intoxicating and he wants it so so badly. He can easily picture someone behind him, a nameless faceless person, someone with longer hair, someone with silver rings that might feel cold on his skin, with a smug smile on their face because they’re doing that to him– could be doing to him what that dildo is, pushing him to the edge and then over so that he—

“Fuck!” 

He shouts, and comes, settling back on the dildo and letting it consume him, body and soul. 

The best orgasm of his life. That was the harsh reality. An orgasm that peaked so high above the rest, he was going to have to start a new scale of measurement, and it had taken barely five minutes to achieve. With Jill and his other two girlfriends before her, an orgasm like that wouldn’t have been possible, and an orgasm at all would normally have taken him anywhere from thirty five minutes to an hour. 

When he’d been in college, he had developed a reputation on campus for being a generous lover, because the women he fucked mistook his timeliness issue as an effort to go slow for them and work them up properly; and while he would like to say he was that committed to the hashtag feminism, it was hard to deny now that maybe it was just that that kind of sex didn’t do it for him. 

(He resolutely ignored the voice of reason, often overlooked in his case that asked: If that kind of sex didn’t do it for him, what kind did?)

Since that first time, he’d fucked himself three more times on his dildo. Each time was better, hotter, more mind-blowing than the last. Since that first time he’d also fucked his girlfriend several times. Each time watching her face when he pushed inside and thinking to himself, god I wish that were me …

But the change in his attitude must be obvious because one night he gets an ominous text from her, not so succinct, but with the same ominous vibe as ‘we need to talk’.

J, we should meet up at Starbies tomorrow

I know you’re not busy with anything until like 11 so

Yeah sure

Everything cool?

How can you even ask me that??

Just be there…

ok

Once they’ve settled in at their miserably uncomfortable little table with their expensive little drinks, two iced almond milk cinnamon dolce lattes, Jill obviously takes the reign of the conversation. 

“I’m guessing you know why we’re here, huh?”

She smiles a wry smile and waits for him to respond so he looks around. 

“To have coffee, and talk right? You said it in your text.”

He can’t help but notice she looks… flat. Not her boobs but her vibe. Her skin seems extra tan, like she’s started going to the beds again, and it’s red and peeling around her nose. Her eyes even seem to be absorbing the cold fluorescent light rather than reflecting it. 

“Well, yeah, but do you know what we need to talk about?” She said it like he was an idiot, as if he would just know. It could be anything, why would he assume?

“No, I was hoping you were going to tell me.”

Her sigh is exasperated and has an edge of unkindness, the type that always sets Jaehyun’s nerves on edge when he hears it, and she shakes her head. “This is why. You’re so contrary and just totally emotionally unavailable… how am I supposed to be with someone who can’t connect?”

He’s guessing the point is she can’t be, that she’s about to break up with him and he can’t help but feel utter relief at the thought. She’s going to leave him and he won’t have to do it, the inevitable question of why won’t have to be answered. He feels like he dodged a bullet.

“…. so I am now! Why won’t you fight for our love?”

Clearly she had been speaking during his private triumph, but he catches the tail end of what she says; enough to respond, unthinking and honest.

“Because I’m not in love with you.” 

Once he says it, he can’t take it back, and he doesn’t think he’d want to anyways. Jill’s mouth falls open before she snaps it shut and stands, gathering her things.

“God, you’re such a fucking jerk. I’m leaving. Lose my fucking number.”

And she storms off, taking a little of the weight that had been on Jaehyun’s shoulders as she does. 

Maybe he should mourn it, the loss of his longest ever relationship (if you don’t count the one between him and the Warriors, lol… DUB NATION!), but he doesn’t. In fact, the most pressing thing on his mind as soon as she left is the fact that, when he uses the dildo, he comes too fast. 

He’s used it thrice since the first time, and now that he’s not so nervous on the approach, it’s like he’s a fucking teenager again, coming the second he gets inside something— or now something inside him . The dildo is so good that he wants to prolong it if he can, and when the idea of going back to the Toy Box for something to help comes to him, he’s already on his way before he realizes what he’s doing. 

When he gets there, it's pretty quiet but there are a few other customers, a few solo shoppers, and a couple. For a moment he expects that familiar panic to come over him again, but it doesn’t. In fact, the couple, two mature women looking at the harnesses, smile politely and he smiles back, feeling welcome and safe. 

There’s no one behind the counter, but he had been hoping Jeno would be there, so he loiters a bit, checking out the quarter mystery prize machines that he hadn’t noticed last time and are filled with all different flavored condoms and dental dams— Jaehyun isn’t even sure he knows what a dental dam is and he’s about to get out his phone and google it when someone addresses him.

“I would recommend the cherry.” He whips around and there’s Yuta, but he’s not looking at Jaehyun, he's looking at the machine. “I had an ex that was really into the choc mint chip flavor but…”

He trails off and glances at Jaehyun. “It didn’t suit my taste.”

Jaehyun’s ears betray him but he manages to keep a straight face. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Yuta passes him, approaching the counter, opening the waist height door between the two sides and walks through to settle behind the cash register plopping down an empty basket before zeroing back in. 

“So Jaehyun, long time no see! What brings you in today?”

Having to tell his… to tell Yuta he needed something to stop him from coming so fast on his lifelike dildo wasn’t really something he was prepared for, and was frankly something he’d rather die than actually do. When he obviously hesitates, Yuta smiles mischievously at him, leaning on his elbows across the counter. 

“You don’t have to tell me, but I’m happy to help. After all—” He gestures around them, casual as anything. “What else am I here for?”

“I thought you were here to drop off the new designs and shop— why, what were you gonna say?”

Yuta doesn’t startle at Jeno’s sudden appearance and interruption but he scrunches his nose a bit and at first Jaehyun doesn’t understand why, but then he realizes: it’s because he’s been made.

“What have I told you about pretending to work here, Yuta?” Jeno continues, crossing his arms and making his biceps bulge in a way that would be intimidating, if only his face weren’t so soft and sweet.

“Not to?”

“Yes.”

“Ethics aside, I think it’s kind of true… in a way.”

Jeno throws his hands up, and Jaehyun is beginning to think this is a conversation they’ve had before.

“Being employed on a freelance basis for your art is not the same as being an employee! Trust me, I do the taxes. I’d know.”

“You don’t even work here?” He finally finds his voice, and they both turn to him as if they’d momentarily forgotten what had started the topic. 

Yuta shrugs. “It’s a gray area, I designed the logo and the map and all the tags. I do all their graphic design, actually.”

Jeno ignores Yuta completely and focuses his attention on Jaehyun as he makes his way around the counter to stand in front of him. “Jaehyun, why don’t we go look around and you can tell me what it was you needed help with.”

Jaehyun spares one more glance at Yuta who’s already looking at him, staring unsubtly, then looks away quickly and follows Jeno deeper into the store. 

The simple bag he tucks under his arm and leaves the store with is light, and an unending source of curiosity for Yuta, who had been in the back pouring himself some tea when they’d made their way back to the front, timed perfectly thanks to Jeno’s insider knowledge of Yuta’s distinctive habits. 

“So secretive. Maybe we can get dinner sometime and you could tell me?”

“How would I get in contact with you?”

Yuta raises a cheeky eyebrow before shrugging. Jaehyun rolls his eyes, before thanking Jeno, and leaving the store with a wave. 

Maybe he should have been totally chill and just said what was in the bag, but there was something about Yuta knowing that was different than someone else knowing. It was stupid but he felt kind of shy about it, and he didn’t want Yuta thinking he couldn’t handle himself in bed. 

Okay, fuck, that sounds kind of wrong. What he means is that he doesn’t want Yuta to think he’s not good in bed. And if he knows Jaehyun can’t go four minutes without coming once he gets something inside him, he would think Jaehyun was a loser with no game. 

It was a matter of pride, that’s all. 

And based on the way Jeno’s first instinct to help with that was this little rubber ring, if Yuta knew, it would give everything away. A cock ring, a seriously aggressive name for something that was basically just a dick accessory (Daccessory? Dick-essory?). There had been so many of them on the wall Jeno led him to; vibrating, adjustable, leather, silicone, bright or neutral, some with remotes, some in sets and some that wrapped around the dick and the balls too. 

Basically the cock ring would slide down to the base and it would make his erection stronger, but it would also prevent him from coming prematurely. Jeno said he could use it to train himself while he was getting used to things.

He also gave Jaehyun some other advice too: come before the main event, more than once if necessary, so that by the time he starts using the dildo his body is already kind of spent and slower on the uptake in general. 

“The easiest way to do that is with a partner,” he’d said, delicately, face neutral. “Just something to think about.”

Jaehyun had nodded politely, but as of now he doesn’t have a partner, and thinking about what all that meant is a little too much for him. Best to focus on the here and now. 

He picked out a light blue, almost periwinkle color he thought was nice, simple and silicone, non adjustable cock ring. Easy to use, easy to clean, and effective. 

When he gets home he gets straight to it, without ceremony, stripping down and sitting on the edge of his bed, ripping the silicone ring from its package and slipping it down his soft cock to the base. 

Even just putting it on has him chubbing up against his thigh and by the time he gets the dildo and the lube out he’s fully erect, the squeeze a little tight but not as uncomfortable as he’d imagined. He kneels next to the edge of the bed and reaches around to finger himself open, quickly, and it feels good but he doesn’t stop to relish it, all he can think about is getting the dildo inside, staring at it where he’s mounted it to the floor beside him.

He’s so worked up by the time he leans up on his knees, spread to straddle the empty space on either side of the dildo that he’s nearly shaking. He uses a hand to hold the blunt head in place as he sinks down onto it and he moans loud and uncaring as he does. Once it’s all the way inside he lays a hot cheek on the bed, body falling forward for a moment before he uses his elbows to brace himself and start riding the fake cock properly. 

If he were to let himself think beyond the pleasure, beyond the twisting delicious feeling in his gut at fucking himself like this, he might have thought that riding a dick, fake or not was pretty gay. He may have registered that this felt gay despite how he would like to say otherwise. 

Luckily he can’t think; can only feel, and move. 

Riding the dick, listening to the wet squelch of it entering and leaving his hole, he normally would have come already, but thanks to his brand new cock ring he’s able to keep going, enjoying more and more. When he finally is ready he slides it off using his lube, though not before admiring how the light blue ring is a stark and pretty contrast to his hard red cock, and grinds down on the cock instead of bouncing. The firm, slick grip on his own, very real, neglected cock, combined with the steady pressure on his prostate has him shaking through a mind numbing orgasm, his vision blacking out and coming back spotty at first. 

When he manages to convince himself to climb off the dildo he takes a breath and then starts to clean up.  The bag he’d brought his new friend home in is on the table, and as he moves to clear it up he notices that the normally nondescript brown paper is marred with ink. Out of the corner of his eye, it looks like a defect or something, but when he looks properly, he sees that the bag had been sketched on, little doodles in what he’d come to know as Yuta’s art style, except black and white. 

On the bottom right corner, there's a bottle of beer with the label peeled down, tipped and spilling into a little puddle shaped like a heart, and on top, a little cartoon Yuta is standing on tiptoe, glancing over his shoulder like he was looking at Jaehyun, or maybe watching for little cartoon police who might catch him vandalizing, which is what he was doing. 

Dripping paint brush in hand, there was a phone number written in big block letters, drawn like they’d been made with the stroke of a paintbrush, and underneath where cartoon Yuta was writing, it said ‘call me ’ is swooping letters. The rest of the space above it was filled with other random doodles, made to look like angels or cherubs: a baseball cap, a squirrel in a dunce cap, glass of wine, a teddy bear, a dildo, and detective Elliot Stabler from SVU.

He looked all over the bag and he read the number twice, and as he took each individual element in again and again his heartbeat quickened considerably. 

This was a come on, right? He wasn’t just imagining things?

It was hard to imagine any other reason for these designs and the number, the ‘call me’ especially. He’d asked Yuta in the store how he was going to get in touch with him and instead of asking him out directly, he’d taken this bag and spent the time he was alone up to design and draw this out and then put it back so Jaehyun would have it. 

He had put the ball in Jaehyun’s court entirely.

Obviously, he had told Jaehyun if he wanted to talk they could, but he hadn’t been hitting on him then, right? He’d been trying to get Jaehyun to admit that he was— well that he could be—but he hadn't pressured Jaehyun then, either. He’d offered these opportunities twice now, and even though they felt suffocating in their implications, in their weight, he had never done anything but offer and let Jaehyun decide. 

Now all he had to do was choose.

“How many?”  

“I’m actually meeting someone, Naka—“

The host’s previously impassive face morphs into something akin to glee, mouth turning up at the corners, positively devilish. 

“ You’re Yuta’s friend? Holy shit.”

Jaehyun looked around himself, mostly because he felt awkward, unsure what exactly was happening. He had texted Yuta and they’d decided to get lunch at this place: Whistle Stop, the kind of regular cafe with check table cloths and no gimmicks that all the trendy places that were opening in the area wanted to be so desperately but couldn’t quite emulate because they hadn’t been around for thirty years. It had been Yuta’s suggestion, but he hadn’t expected it to be like this. 

The way the host chattered, marveling at Jaehyun being so handsome and judging Yuta for saying that Jaehyun was, ‘unbelievably gorgeous… what an undersell’, and then trying to pry information out of Jaehyun about how he knew Yuta and did he have a brother… or better yet, a twin?

Luckily the, probably well meaning, tirade was interrupted before it could really build up Jaehyun’s anxiety.

“Jaemin, sweetie.”

Yuta had appeared, like a teenager interrupting vision, from the doorway to the direct left of the host stand and Jaemin had closed his open mouth to stop talking and grin even wider.  

“Yes, Yuyu?”

Jaehyun mouthed it, Yuyu , and tried not to laugh, feeling more relaxed now that he was there.

“I’m sure this is all very fun for you, but Jaehyun is probably hungry. We’re gonna go sit, okay?”

Jaemin huffs, rolling his eyes and pouting obviously. “Whatever! You never let me have any fun.”

“I introduced you to Jeno, didn't I? Sounded like a lot of fun from the way he tells it!” Yuta shouts as he drags Jaehyun away by a hastily grabbed jacket sleeve, leaving Jaemin blushing behind them.

Yuta takes him to a table in the corner lit by a wall sconce shaped like a shell with clear signs of habitation on its surface. On the table there's a crumpled straw wrapper, the condensation rings from where Yuta has picked up his drink and placed it down several times, and the menu is opened to ‘ Lunch ’. 

He sits down and motions for Jaehyun to do the same, releasing his sleeve and waving a hand at the waiter. 

“Sorry about Jaemin. He’s like a brother to me, so he takes annoying me and my friends very seriously.”

Jaehyun settles into the leathery seat and shrugs his jacket off. “Does that make us friends?”

“Do you want to be friends?”

It’s a casual enough thing to ask, easily a yes or no question, but Yuta says it in a way that makes Jaehyun look up. He’s looking back already. Jaehyun had mostly wanted to joke around, break the tension, but it feels like something deeper with that glint in Yuta’s eye. He doesn’t know how to answer, mouth opening as if he might even still, but he’s saved by the waiter. 

“You beckoned, Yuta?”

“Hi, Chenle.”

“Hello. Who’s your friend?” He glances at Jaehyun, and once again, Jaehyun is left feeling like he’s under a microscope.

“This is Jaehyun, and he needs a drink as well.” Yuta raises a single eyebrow which seems to quell this Chenle person’s curiosity because he rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to his notepad.

“Okay, Jaehyun, what can I get you?”

“Just water, please? Or do you have tea?”

“Hot or iced?’

“Iced.”

“Regular or peach?”

“Peach.”

“Another peach iced tea coming this way, and I’ll take your orders whenever you’re ready.”

He leaves and they’re alone again and Jaehyun can’t keep it in. 

“I— listen,” he says, even though Yuta’s full attention is already on him. “Is this a date?”

As soon as he says it something shifts into place inside him, and he gets lighter, like he had after Jill broke up with him. He isn’t supposed to want to date a man, or be with a man, or think about a man, but he is. He’s been thinking about this man, sitting right in front of him until it finally bubbled over, and now there’s no going back. No un-telling the truth. 

Yuta looks distinctly amused at the suggestion, shaking his head and smiling a knowing sort of smile (maybe there’s something in the tea here he should be worried about?) that does serious damage to his ego and his overall mental well being until he responds. 

“No, it’s not. Trust me, when I take you on a date, you’ll know.” When I take you on a date. When, when, when!

After they clarify the purpose of their meet up and Jaehyun has had a few sips of the not-too-sweet peach tea, the sugar helping to calm his nerves, the conversation flows easily. 

They talk about everything, finding no shortage of topics from college; Yuta also attended their university before he dropped out to pursue art, which is how he knows Johnny and Ten, to work; how Jaehyun lost his way a little after he graduated, and how much going to the gym helped keep him sane and occupied his time, until finally one of the trainers noticed him and helped him get certified to teach classes and train his own clients too. Meanwhile, Yuta got his start in graphic design and owning his own business, which gotJaehyun started on how he thinks he might want to do the same eventually. 

The food is good, cheap and filling, and when he pops the last of his pickle spear into his mouth and realizes the meal is over, he’s a little bit sad. Chenle comes back with two bills and stands there waiting for them to put their cards down, snatching it all right back once they do. In the wake of his grade A waitering, Jaehyun looks around at the place and the table before his eyes settle back on Yuta, the nerves of earlier seeping back in now that there’s nothing to do with all that energy. 

“Thanks for inviting me, I had a great time.”

Yuta, who has been busy pulling gum out of his tiny bag, pauses to smile at him. 

“I’m glad. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” He unwraps the long, grape flavored stick and then pops it into his mouth holding the package out in offering to Jaehyun. 

When Jaehyun doesn’t answer, too busy watching Yuta’s tongue fold the gum over in his mouth,  Yuta retracts his hand and turns his head back to his little bag to pull out his keys instead. The bag is small and red, kind of shiny but not in a way that looks cheap, and it has handles but also a long strap, so it can be worn across the body. 

The red of the bag matches the red of the striped cuff of his silver bomber jacket, worn over a distressed black sweater, more fishnet than anything, which layered even more over a white tank top. The tank top is tucked into light wash jeans, distressed so patches of Yuta’s creamy tan skin show through, and so artful that they obviously were made that way. 

When he had been standing, Jaehyun had seen them in all their glory, cuffed at the bottom in one big turn up, and the whole punk rock vibe he had going on was solidified by his thick soled boots, with a thick chain that was stuck in the platform itself, which didn’t seem comfortable, but Jaehyun doesn’t know much about fashion, so maybe it wasn’t supposed to be. 

Yuta’s look doesn’t make Jaehyun insecure, he likes his own clothes and knew that to many people, they were probably boring, but he enjoys being comfortable: jeans, t-shirt with a short sleeve button up over top and a jacket, plus the fancy vegan sneakers his mom bought him so he’d look ‘smart’. His clothes were more him, just like how Yuta’s were more him , and he likes how Yuta dresses. Cool and edgy. He looks how Jaehyun might imagine an artist in his head except without a beret, though he could undoubtedly get away with one. 

“What are you thinking about over there in that pretty little head of yours?”

His voice brings Jaehyun out of his admiring stupor and he realizes he’s been staring pretty much the whole time. 

“Your outfit.”

Yuta looks down, frowning a little. “Too much?”

“No way, it’s so cool. I like your bag.”

“Really?” He pulls it from the wayside onto the table. “Not too feminine?”

He raises an eyebrow at Jaehyun, clearly trying to gauge his reaction.

“Clothes don’t have gender,” he says, automatically, parroting the phrase he’s heard Ten say a million times. “Your bag is nice. Very shiny.”

If it was a test, Jaehyun had passed. Yuta breaks into a wide grin and shakes his head in disbelief.

“Well, well, look who contains multitudes!”

Jaehyun relishes the pink flush on Yuta’s cheeks, and feels his own cheeks and ears mirroring, pleased with himself, the shocking thought that he wants to be the one making Yuta look like that all the time enters his mind. 

Chenle brings their checks back and they gather up their belongings and walk through the brightly painted doors onto the street. While they stand under the bright sun, Jaehyun only has a moment to appreciate how Yuta’s boots even out their height and he can look directly into his eyes before he pulls out a funny pair of black sunglasses that hide them away.

“Thanks for having lunch with me,” Jaehyun says, and Yuta laughs. God, his smile makes his brain fuzzy.

“You already said that, inside.”

“Yeah, I know. I just mean it. Thank you and I hope we can do it again sometime.”

There’s a big gust of ocean air then, coming up the hill off the bay, and it ruffles their unfastened jackets, their hair, and fills the brief moment of silence before Yuta responds. 

“Of course we will, you can’t ghost on me now. I don’t know where you live but I have my methods.”

“You can text me, I’ll answer.”

Probably within seconds, an embarrassing amount of time. 

“I’ll hold you to it, Jeong.”

Jaehyun’s hand is red from the force of knocking on Taeyong’s door waiting for someone to open it. He texted him immediately after he got home from his lunch with Yuta, a quick ‘can we talk? ’, and he had wanted to wait until they made a plan, maybe meet up tomorrow or just whenever. But as soon as he had sent it, knowing exactly what it was he wanted to talk about, he couldn’t contain himself. 

First he was fidgeting, bouncing a leg, then Taeyong had texted back his agreement and he’d stood up to start pacing. And somehow between a double text from Taeyong asking if everything was alright and a can of red bull, he had ended up here, across town with almost zero memory of grabbing his keys or driving over. 

His frantic knocking isn’t enough to startle the unflappable Lee Taeyong, but as he opens the door, pace leisurely, and Jaehyun breezes inside to start pacing again, in his and Doyoung’s living room, his expression grows concerned. 

“Uh, hey Jaehyun. I wasn’t really expecting you right away, when you texted me."

“Shit, is this a bad time?” God he shouldn’t have just showed up here! What was he thinking? He runs an errant hand through his hair and then walks, head down, back to the door.  “I’m sorry, I should have asked. I am gonna go home and just—“

Taeyong holds out an arm, thin but iron like in its strength, capturing Jaehyun before he can make it out.

“No way, you’re always welcome, Jae. Come sit down.”

He barely registers being led back into the living room to sit on the couch, or that Doyoung has wandered in from somewhere else in the house. He gestures at Jaehyun with a questioning glance and Taeyong shrugs, a silent indicator he has no clue either, before he motions toward the kitchen and Taeyong nods. When Doyoung reappears, he has a cold glass of water, condensation already forming on the glass. 

“I’m sorry for barging in. Really.”

“You’re fine, Jae. Here, drink this and tell us what’s going on.”

Jaehyun takes the glass, so on edge that for a moment, he worries he’s going to smash it in his hands. When he doesn’t, he tips it back, taking a prim sip before setting it down on the coaster that has magically appeared on the coffee table in front of him. 

“I— I should have waited, but I just needed to talk to someone.”

Doyoung squints at him. “Is this about Jill? Did you guys fight?”

“No… Well, we did. But no, we broke up last week.”

This is news obviously, and he realizes he hasn’t even told Johnny, probably too scared of admitting why.

“Jae, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.” He rubs a gentle hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder and the feeling is heavenly, comforting. “I know you really liked her.”

Just like that the nervous energy is back, and he stands up, moving away from the comfortable seat and the comforting touch, turning back to them and looking between their concerned faces.

“But did I? Did I really like her?”

The couple share a quick glance, nearly imperceptible to the human eye, but to Jaehyun, who is on high alert, nerves frazzled, it’s clear as day. Finally, Taeyong responds.

“What do you mean, Jaehyun? Did you not like her?” He says it with an air of humor and clearly means it as a rhetorical question. 

Jaehyun glances at him then away and answers anyways.

“No, I don’t think I did. I don’t think I liked her as a person, or as a girlfriend.” He swallows and shakes his head. “I guess... I don’t know that I’ve ever liked a girl the way I’m supposed to.”

It’s silent for a moment, no one saying anything. Taeyong’s face is impassive, normally an open book but good at schooling his emotions in this kind of setting, and Doyoung looks openly shocked, mouth agape and looking at Jaehyun like he just announced he’s going to move to Antarctica to become a penguin farmer.

“Taeyong, I— I’ve always admired you for how unapologetic you are. You’re always 1000% yourself, and it’s so hardcore. I just want to know how you do it. I want to do it too.”

Taeyong’s neutral expression lifts and he’s laughing suddenly, though not unkindly.

“Jaehyun, babe, do you really want to know the secret?”

Which, like duh, obviously! he wouldn’t have asked otherwise… but he nods. “Yes, of course.”

Taeyong’s smile is warm and gentle, bemused as he leans back into his perfect white leather couch.

“The secret is, there is no secret.” He laughs again, and shakes his dainty head. “The secret is that I am not 1000% unapologetically myself— or at least I haven’t always been.”

“Being one of like three out queer kids in our incoming class was so fucking terrifying, and people used it against me, or us rather. We were a novelty at best and a problem at worst. The closeted boys always had their ways of finding us and if we fucked them, we were sluts with no self esteem, but if we didn’t, we were fucking freaks.”

Jaehyun watches Taeyong, and he feels like another set of his illusions, made of shiny reflective glass, surrounds them, cracking and splintering before the final blow. 

“It wasn’t exactly awful but it definitely wasn’t easy and the reason it must have seemed so effortless to you was because I wanted it to look that way. I wanted people to think I was untouchable and confident, because I wasn’t at first, and though it got easier over time, it's the easiest it's ever been now, and I really do feel so lucky to be a part of this community and to be confident in myself, but it took time and effort.”

“And therapy.” Doyoung chimes in, and Taeyong throws his hands up.

“Shit yeah, so much therapy!” He looks back to Jaehyun. “The point is, there is no perfectly well adjusted person who doesn’t struggle with their self image or identity, who doesn’t get confused or scared. We all do, so if you’re questioning anything, you should know that it’s okay and you don’t have to know anything right away.”

It was a lot to take in, he felt himself deflate a little, all the restless frightened energy seeping out to be replaced with a sense of grounding calm. He didn’t need to know right now, but as soon as he’d started to say anything he realized he knew already, at least for the most part.

“But that’s the thing, I think I do know. I think I’m— I think I am gay and might have always been gay.”

No one says anything, and he realizes they’re just giving him space to talk it out.

“I think I’ve always been gay and I repressed it because I was so scared, but I’m tired of it. All this started and I knew, but I just kept trying to fight it because I thought it would be easier.”

“And it isn’t?”

He thinks of Yuta and the way he makes Jaehyun feel. He thinks of the pleasure he’s discovered, the happiness of his friends and their lives, and he suddenly sees himself there, among them.

So much of his struggle to this point had been self-inflicted, built up in his mind. He knew there would be obstacles in the future but it would all be worth it if he could just let go and enjoy his life, live it the way he wanted to.

“I think I’ve decided I don’t care anymore. I’m ready to be the real me, even if it’s hard.”

He spends the rest of the afternoon at Taeyong and Doyoung’s place, talking and catching up, and he eventually admits that it was his lunch with Yuta that inspired this particular outburst. They tease him about it, and though he still feels odd admitting it all out loud and talking about it, it doesn’t inspire that same panic in him it did before.

When he gets home, he texts Yuta before he goes to get ready for bed.

Maybe next time, we could do dinner?

The smell of bacon in Yuta’s apartment is overwhelming, but not unpleasant. Jaehyun arrived almost an hour ago to find Yuta fixing a full breakfast spread, fresh cut fruit arranged on a plate, coffee and tea, eggs and bacon all frying together in a cute pink pan, and a slowly growing stack of toast. 

Apparently, it was the only meal that Yuta was particularly proficient in that wasn’t store bought ramen and Jaehyun had watched him finish frying and plating before they’d eaten at the overflowing breakfast bar, on stools that were clearly more style than function. 

Yuta’s apartment, just like him, was edgy and very cool. The walls were painted an orangey red that might have looked serial killer-y in any other space, but Yuta’s pitch perfect styling had made it not only tolerable but warm and inviting. The whole place was messy, ‘organized chaos’ supposedly; with stacks of papers and half done canvases filed in different corners around the room depending on the days he worked on them or their style. There was a standing desk where a dining table would normally go and he could see concept sketches for the store and other other local businesses, watercolor supplies, fancy pens and markers, folders and inspiration texts. Behind it on the wall was a huge cork piece that seemed to serve as his mood board, the frame painted in gold, and covered in all manner of color and shapes. 

In the living room is a couch that’s kind of minimalist, black with square silver studs, two matching chairs, and a marble coffee table laden with all kinds of knick knacks; An ashtray full of candy cigarettes, little trinket dishes with m & m’s, coasters made of lacquered wood, and piles of with books, that hang in places over the severe edges and corners. 

There was also a geometric print rug attempting to cover the more basic beige carpet in the room, and the curtains over the windows almost too trippy to look at. Brightly colored with the red of the walls, teal, yellow, green, and white; and it looked like Yuta’s design. They had roughly drawn bulls and scorpions, snakes, and vines, stones and flowing rivers with people wading and pouring the water over themselves, or drinking from cupped hands, delicate intricate drawings that folded in on another and told a story. 

He got lost in the design of it, and it isn’t until Yuta speaks to him as he settles on the couch with his mug of tea that he realizes he’s back in the room.

“You like them?”

“They’re beautiful. Your design?” He glances back at Yuta, who smiles and pats the cushion beside him, calling Jaehyun over, before answering.

 “My old curtains were heavy velvet, and these old walls barely hold the nails I use for the art I put up, so 20 pounds of fabric kept pulling the rod off the wall.”

He takes a long sip then puts his mug down. 

“So I finally donated them and then had a friend of mine who works with textiles collaborate with me on them. It took a while but it was worth it, they stay up perfectly, so much lighter and one of a kind which I like a lot.”

“They match the wall perfectly.”

Jaehyun had thought it was a coincidence but Yuta shakes his head. 

“Well, I’d left them this weird color blue forever, they were painted like that when I moved in, but when I got the curtains, I had to change it. So I used the fabric as inspiration and mixed a custom shade. I call it Red River, like the John Wayne movie — I was going through such a phase.”

“My last phase was probably Digimon, in middle school.” He says, smiling softly as Yuta bursts into bright laughter. “Or I guess convincing myself I was straight for so long.”

Yuta stops laughing, but his smile doesn’t fade. He wonders if maybe Yuta’s impressed with him. “A phase huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re all grown out of it now?”

He shrugs, he doesn’t know about all that, but that’s what he wants to be. “I think so. I hope so.”

Yuta raises an eyebrow. “I’ll have to take that under advisement then.”

“Please do.” He looks away, unable to take the look Yuta has pinned him with, and changes the subject. “You know this wasn’t what I envisioned when I said we should have dinner.”

“No?”

“No, not really. I thought you know maybe we’d go out to a restaurant? Eat actual dinner food?”

“Hmm, well then I guess that gives us an excuse to see each other again.”

His sly smile makes heat spread from Jaehyun’s belly down to his groin, and quickens his breath. The idea that someone as cool as Yuta liking him and wanting to spend time with him is weird enough as it is, but the idea that he wants more? Truly mind boggling.

“Do you need an excuse?” he asks, and Yuta glances down between them, playing coy.

“I guess not, but it’s nice to have one.” He brings his gaze back up and that piercing look, like he’s the needle and Jaehyun is a butterfly in a case, is back. “Because I do want to see you again.”

Jaehyun blushes, and in his head he’s kicking his feet and spinning in circles, making himself dizzy with glee. Externally he takes a beat to gather himself so he doesn’t squeal or do something else equally as embarrassing.

“Would this be the elusive date I’ve heard about?” 

The whole time they’ve been sitting here they’ve been inching closer together, leaning in little by little. At this point Jaehyun is pitched so far forward that if he didn’t have such good core strength he would be face planting in Yuta’s lap, an image that sends his mind into overdrive. 

“Is that what you want? To go on a date with me?”

“Maybe not at this exact second—“ Another inch lost between them is another uptick in his heart rate, Yuta’s face is so close to his, and he can smell his expensive perfume, see the sheen of bacon grease on his bottom lip. He wants to taste it, and by the way Yuta is looking between his eyes and his mouth, it seems like he wants to taste Jaehyun too.

“No?”

“No.” 

“Then what do you want to do? Right. This. Second.” He lets the tip of his nose bump against one side of Jaehyun’s and then slides it up and over to the other side, mimicking the way they might touch if they were kissing.

“I want to kiss you, Yuta.” The words are little more than hot air between them, but Yuta hears him.

“Then kiss me, Jaehyun.”

So he does. 

Their lips meet and that’s all it is, a brief press, Jaehyun’s dry bottom lip sticking to Yuta’s when they pull apart, and he licks over it before meeting Yuta half way for another, then another. 

Kissing a man isn’t like he expected, though if you’d asked him to tell you what exactly he had been expecting, he isn’t sure what he would have said. Rough, maybe? Awkward? Neither word described their kiss, and in fact it started the opposite: gentle, easy as breathing. 

The next kiss is deeper, searing in its heat, and though nothing is awkward, just like the fucking dildo, it made him feel like a virgin again. Blushing and fumbling, he leans his weight into Yuta and even though they’re only touching at the lips it occurs to him he could be touching Yuta wherever he wanted, so he brings a hand up to rest on the area right over Yuta chest but under his collarbone. 

Yuta covers Jaehyun’s hand with his own on his chest, then reaches to cup Jaehyun’s cheek as he uses his tongue to coax his mouth open, and Jaehyun meets it eagerly. He knows how to kiss, has no shortage of experience, and a mouth is a mouth, right? Once he remembers that, it gets easier to lose himself in it, biting, licking, and enjoying the little sounds Yuta makes. 

When he reaches his free hand out, moving it from the back of the couch to the dip in Yuta’s waist, he feels a heady rush of breath leave his own mouth and leans back in with a new intensity, pulling Yuta closer and closer until Yuta is pushing him back and laying on top of him, elbow over Jaehyun’s shoulder and arm cradling his neck ask his other hand runs down his side. 

Normally that would tickle but with Yuta, it’s just heat and he can’t help but arch into it, reaching his own hands up to cup Yuta’s face, pulling their faces back together and keep kissing as Yuta’s hand dips first under his shirt in the same spot over his side before moving lower, fingers teasing the edge of his jeans. 

“Can I—“ he says between kisses. “Touch you?”

It catches Jaehyun off guard, because he’s already touching him, but then he realizes Yuta means to touch him… more . He nods, just once, then again more frantically as he kisses him making their noses bump all over again, but Yuta doesn’t seem to mind. 

Yuta undoes the button on his jeans, his shirt is already rucked up around his pecs, abs contracting, and he can’t help but preen a little at the way Yuta’s gaze seems momentarily fixated on the sight and he struggles with the zipper. Yuta’s left leg lies between Jaehyun’s and it prevents him from moving as much as he’d like, so he just lays there and lets Yuta take charge. 

When he is finally undone, Yuta reaches into his briefs and wraps a warm hand around him, making him moan, the sound nearly lost in their kisses. He opens his eyes and finds Yuta already watching him, seemingly cataloging every minute reaction to his touch, and Jaehyun blushes ears to chest at the prospect of someone watching him like that, so focused on making him feel good. 

“Is this okay?” Yuta asks as he starts working his hand up and down Jaehyun’s dick, and he nods again, afraid of what might come out if he tries to speak.

Probably unintelligible gibberish about how fucking good it feels to finally have some pressure relieve his rock hard erection, which has been present since the moment their lips touched. About how much he likes the way Yuta knows exactly how to twist his hand and work his thumb over the head. The way anyone with a cock knows, and Jaehyun has never been able to get another person to replicate quite right. 

Maybe he’d wax poetic over how nice it is to be lying here, letting Yuta touch him, how small he feels under him and how he thought it would be scary but it isn’t. It just feels good, and right, and he wants a repeat performance before this one is even over. 

Yuta starts moving faster then, making Jaehyun moans, mouth falling open, and Yuta’s mouth mirrors it, like it feels good for him too. Like giving Jaehyun pleasure is making him feel good in the exact same way, and he smiles. 

“That’s it. You close Jae?”

He nods, head bumping against the arm of the couch, dark hair matted at the back of his head.

“Yes! So close!”

“Take your time, there’s no rush.” he says in his low voice, murmuring against Jaehyun’s lips. “Feels good, huh? To finally be touched how you deserve?”

“Yuta, oh my god!”

He comes, spilling all over Yuta’s hand and his own stomach and Yuta works him through it but let's go exactly as it starts to get too sensitive. He pulls Yuta close again, half on top of him, then reaches for Yuta’s jeans. He can see the question in Yuta’s eyes so he pauses. 

“Please?” 

Yuta nods and Jaehyun carries on, not taking a second to think before he undoes his button fly in one swift motion and Yuta’s springs out, no underwear to stop it from doing so, which is so unbelievably sexy. 

Wrapping a hand around Yuta is exhilarating, he’s hot to the touch and slick with precome that makes the slide easy. They kiss, Yuta hovering above him as Jaehyun strokes him to a quick finish, his whispered ‘come on me’ helping things significantly. 

After they lay there, quiet and sated, they don’t kiss anymore but Jaehyun can’t help but stare into Yuta’s eyes like he can really see someone for the first time. Like he’s finally really connected. 

Once they’re all cleaned up, taking turns in Yuta’s equally disheveled, inexplicably all green bathroom, and he’s dressed, Yuta walks him to the door. The giddy feeling has yet to leave him, and he smiles in what he can only assume is a very idiotic school boyish way as they stand in his entry way. 

“Thank you, for tonight.”

Yuta smiles and crosses his arms over his chest. In the bathroom, he's changed into a black and white striped robe with little Karuomis all over it, and it takes the edge off his smug look. 

“It was my pleasure.”

He’s about to go but he pauses with his hand of the worn doorknob. “I just wanted to say before I go, I was serious about a real dinner. I don’t want this to be a one time thing.”

Yuta’s smile doesn’t waver, but it also doesn’t change at all. His expression is perfectly frozen as he nods. 

“Yeah, me either.” He says. 

Jaehyun breathes a sigh of relief, and smiles again. “Good.”

If breaking up with Jill had been like taking 25 off the bar on a bad day, then coming out to his friends and spending a steamy night with Yuta was like locking out of a 275 deadlift. Yeah the weight was off, but it was also a massive victory, like he’s been training up and bulking for this moment all this time and it was all worth it. But just like when you conquer one weight and all you can think about is the next one, he is left thinking what’s next with Yuta and his sexuality in general.

In the gym, Jaehyun would know exactly what to do, but this part of his life is so unknown to him that he feels like a noob who can’t figure out how to put on his support belt or how to attach more weight to the bar. 

Somehow, when it comes to his sexuality and labels, he doesn’t think there’s much he can do. It might just be the kind of thing that takes time. He thinks he’s gay, but he’s had sex with women and it’s not like he hated it; just because he’s never liked anyone the way he likes Yuta doesn’t mean he hasn’t liked them at all. 

The more he and Yuta talk, the more he’s beginning to suspect it’s not just about being gay or dating and fooling around with a man that is intensifying all the things he’s feeling, but rather Yuta himself. He’s magnetic and open, even over text, which is how they’ve been communicating over the past week or so since Yuta has been slammed with his new commission for the ‘Rose Queen Boutique’, while Jaehyun himself has had an influx of new clients at the gym.

But texting is a poor substitute and after trying to set up a lunch or coffee date a few times with no luck, they finally manage it on a Thursday; dinner at a seafood joint Jaehyun had never heard of, but since learning that Yuta is kind of foodie for someone who can’t fucking cook, he trusts his judgement. 

The outside is nondescript with not even a sign in the window, but inside it’s bustling with life, people of all ages and classes gathering inside. The bar is rowdy but there’s plenty of seating elsewhere around the room, and Jaehyun spots Yuta right away, facing away but he’d know that shaggy hair anywhere. 

He weaves through the room, feeling emboldened now that they're finally sharing the same air. Jaehyun waits until he’s right on top of him before greeting him, and when Yuta looks up, he swoops down to kiss him, full on the mouth.

Right away, it’s clear something is off, Yuta’s kiss back a long beat out of time with his, so that when he pulls away Yuta is left puckering to the air. He tries brushing it off, but things only get more odd, as Yuta is clearly avoiding eye contact, and it stings a little; does he look bad? Does he not want people to know he and Jaehyun are here together? 

He purses his lips and tries to smile anyways. “Long time no see!”

“I know right? Work has been so hectic.”

Jaehyun nods minutely, afraid if he moves too quickly or too drastically he might make things worse. “But we made it!”

Yuta smiles half way, sort of dead in the eyes, and when he opens his mouth some piece of him braces for impact. 

“I wanted to, uh, talk to you while we’re here.”

“Right now? Don’t want to save it for the moonlit walk after?” He laughs but Yuta doesn’t join him. 

“Yeah, I just… didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. About everything.”

“The wrong idea?”

If he could go back in time, and relive that night at Yuta’s apartment again and the days leading up to this meal too, he would do it. Live in ignorance for just a little longer, as he had a lot of his life; or maybe he could figure out what had gone wrong and fix it so this moment didn’t come. Instead all he can do is wait, and listen.

“Yeah, the other night at my place, things got kind of hot, kind of fast. I am really happy for you that you’re figuring your shit out and I know I said I wanted to help, which I do.” He smiles again, but this time it’s more of a grimace. “But as your friend.”

Jaehyun doesn’t respond, only because he’s not fully processing what is being said. 

“I like you obviously, you're hot and you're a cool guy, we get along great. But you’re totally green, a baby gay if you will. I don’t do relationships and I don’t want your first experience in this part of your life to be like a… friends with benefits thing. You deserve way more than that.”

The room is spinning, the air sucked out around him, but no one else seems to be having trouble. It’s just him. Just me. Just me me me. 

“So obviously, before we started eating or whatever, I just wanted you to know in case you had expectations, or something. For this.” He motions between them, says it like it might be crazy to even suggest. 

But why wouldn’t he have had expectations? They kissed, they touched each other. He already had his first experience, as Yuta so gently put it, and it was with him . The thing he wants to avoid by cutting this off at the root is something that has already happened. 

There’s no ringing this time but instead of the sound of the patrons or the too loud 90’s alt, he can hear the sound of glass shattering, or maybe un-shattering; the high pitched, unsettling noise of the pieces reforming all around him, reflecting. He has to breathe now, trapped in his glass box, protected, but he has to breathe. In his head, his tiny toddler hand pulls out a worn yellow inhaler. Shakes it, and then presses down, inhaling on the influx of the medicine. 

And finally the world settles back as it was, and Yuta is looking at him expectantly. What else can he do but agree? So he plasters on a fake smile and nods. 

“Yeah, of course. I get what you’re saying.”

Yuta looks surprised, but then just as quickly, relieved. Did he think Jaehyun would make a scene? The thought makes him more sure that pretending not to be bothered was the right move. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, it makes sense. Thanks for, uh, letting me know.”

He does a combined shrug nod that looks too jerky to be natural. “What are friends for?”

Jaehyun laughs, not even having to fake it.

 “Right.” He says, and Yuta’s attention shifts to looking around and flagging down a waiter. Much more quietly, and dejectedly Jaehyun mutters to himself. “Friends.”

It tastes twice as bitter as it sounds, and it’s the only thing that registers on Jaehyun’s tongue for the rest of the evening. 

He gives himself the evening to lick his wounds, taking a hot shower and drinking a beer in the billowing steam before laying down on his couch to cry himself to sleep while The Notebook plays on a loop. He’s puffy the next day, but if his coworkers or clients notice, they don’t say anything, and Jaehyun appreciates it immensely. After his morning training sessions, the sprints and lifts are extra brutal after his long night, he looks mostly human but he still feels like shit, moving through the rest of his day in a daze. 

After lunch, around 3 he shoots off a text, needing something or someone familiar to take his mind off this, and Johnny agrees easily, telling him to come by after work. 

But shower first dude or Ten won’t let you in

His work day ends right around five, and he doesn’t feel like going home so he showers there, in the depressing stall showers, happy he brought his fully stocked gym bag with him. All in all he makes it to The Love Nest in about 20 minutes, dried and dressed in sweats and slides, looking a little bit like a bum, but clean and smelling good if nothing else. 

The expression he wears must be giving him away because the first thing Johnny does is wrap him in a big bear hug before he herds him inside and into the dining room area. Kun is sitting at the table marking papers and Ten is in the kitchen cooking. 

“It won’t be ready for a little while longer, you want a beer?”

He nods and then sits down at the table across from Kun, who smiles and lifts his own beer in greeting before going back to his work. 

“Hey Hyunnie!” Ten shouts. 

“Hey Ten, how are you?”

“I’m good, you?”

He pokes his head out from around the corner. “Never better!” He winks then darts away again and Johnny takes his place in the doorway, coming around the table to sit beside Jaehyun. 

“How’s it going man? Are you enjoying your brand new rainbow lifestyle?” Johnny jokes, unscrewing his bottle for him before passing it over and undoing his own. 

“I don’t know if it’s all it's cracked up to be.”

Just three days ago, he’d been here telling them all about his big revelation and Yuta. It had been nice, and they’d been excited for him, encouraging. 

“Oh shit man, for real?” Jaehyun nods, sipping his drink and watching Johnny’s face turn down with worry. “What happened?”

So he tells them, trying to keep his voice steady and avoiding eye contact when he fails, his voice going watery with emotion and the tears slipping free. They listen diligently, Kun putting down his pen when he realizes what happened, and Ten coming to lean in the door frame with his white wine. 

When he finishes, Johnny puts a comforting arm around him. “I am so sorry, Jae.”

“Seriously, he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Ten stays inexplicably quiet, and when they look up he’s on his phone, texting, but Johnny clears his throat and Ten hits one more forceful tap on his screen before setting it down and smiling in a strangely maternal fashion that he recognizes from seeing Taeyong do it. 

“You did not deserve to be jerked around like that Jaehyun, I hope you know that.” He walks around the table and hands Johnny his wine before plopping himself in Jaehyun’s lap and hugging him hard. When he pulls away he looks around at all of them. “I can’t say I expected your first boy crisis to come quite so soon but it has, and I can assure you we will rise to the occasion.”

“Yeah, by literally kicking Nakamoto’s ass.” Johnny says, and Jaehyun shakes his head. 

“No way. John, I really appreciate you all, but I don’t want to cause a fuss. He has every right to tell me if he isn’t interested. I just got way ahead of myself, and I’m embarrassed, but I’ll get over it.”

“Are you sure Jae?”

He nods. He’s certain of it. There is no use making more out of his heartache than is totally necessary. Each of his friends nods as his gaze falls on them of their agreement and he smiles. 

“Thank you all.”

It’s silent for a moment before Ten sighs dramatically. 

“Well, best I can tell, fuss or no fuss, you need cheering up and I know just the right thing to do it.”

“What’s that?” Kun asks, and Ten’s smile turns devilish. 

“Big, gay night out!”

“Big gay night out?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny nods solemnly. “Big gay night out.”

A Big Gay Night Out, it turns out, is mostly like a regular night out but with every gay person you know, to the biggest gay club with the cheapest drinks you can find. 

Ten plans everything, including but not limited to the guest list, the pre game music and booze, Jaehyun’s outfit (slim cut jeans and a black tee with boots and a black belt with a kind of intense gold buckle that Ten insists meld with the group and is “Very in”), and the place they go, which is one of his favorite’s apparently: Pin Curl. 

It’s older with a huge dance floor and suspended catwalks for the gogo dancers (yes, gogo dancers, scantily clad and hitting every beat), disco balls, fog machines, and multicolored lights that strobe all around pink and black interiors. 

The four of them had gotten ready at their house and Ubered together so no one had to play DD, and they were meeting Taeyong and Doyoung there with one of their good friends, Taeil. He had explicitly asked Ten not to reveal why they were doing a big gay night out, preferring to keep his pathetic rejection to himself, which turns out to be kind of a mistake because when they show up instead of three people waiting a the designated spot, there are four: Taeyong, Doyoung, Taeil, and Yuta. 

He tries not to react but it’s difficult, and he stomps on Ten’s foot on purpose. “Ten, what the fuck?”

Taeyong rushes up before he can answer or retaliate. 

“I am so sorry. I know this was supposed to be like a "Yay Jaehyun get over Yuta thing,” of course Taeyong would know. He and Ten are thick as thieves. “but he stopped by earlier and he was going to convince me to go out but I clearly already was, and couldn’t think of a good excuse that he wouldn’t be able to join us.”

He wants to lament the lack of even a proper warning text, but the others are starting to notice their suspicious huddle, so he just shakes his head. 

“It’s fine. No big deal seriously.”

Taeyong nods and turns back to the others, leading the way inside, and Ten squeezes his hand and they approach. Yuta greets them all enthusiastically, Johnny getting a bro hug, while Ten gets a cheek kiss and Kun gets a bro nod. When he gets to Jaehyun he smiles, giving no indication anything would be wrong so Jaehyun does the same, waving. 

“Hey, Jaehyun, how are you?”

He wants to laugh at how formal Yuta sounds, but that doesn’t seem very friendly. 

“I’m good. You?”

He looks fucking amazing, that’s for damn sure. His fringe framing his face, falling out from his half up hairstyle, the rest of his long hair skimming his shoulders is shiny, like it’s been freshly cut. His signature kohl lines his eyes, and his cheeks are flushed, lips bitten red.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’s there at all he’s wearing a black button up, with the sleeves cut off and left unbuttoned from  half way down, showing off his stomach and tattoos, the front of it has an intricate design Yuta created by pinning safety pins one after the other to create graphic shapes, and a belt made of more safety pins is woven through the loops on his leather pants, and complementing the silver details on his thick soled boots. 

When he realizes he’s been staring he curses himself, and tears his gaze away, clearing his throat before he brings his eyes back up to Yuta’s, who is kooking on genially, unbothered.

“I’m great.” he answers, and Jaehyun wants to flick him between the eyes.

“Well, good.”

“Shall we?” Kun says, and they follow the rest of their party inside to start the Big Gay Night Out, quickly devolving into Jaehyun’s own personal hell.

Just when he thinks that’s going to be the extent of this distinctly not cheerful evening, the hits keep coming. 

They head inside to find seating while Doyoung and Johnny go to round up drinks. As they settle in at a booth near the wall, Yuta turns his attention to Jaehyun. 

“Is this your first time? In a gay bar I mean?” Reluctantly he nods. 

Taeil’s eyes widened. “Baby’s first gay bar! Hell yeah, we should get shots!”

Because he’s a literal angel, Ten glares at Yuta for starting this train of thought, before turning a sugary sweet look on Jaehyun. 

“When I’m through with you tonight, there will be nothing baby about you.”

Taeil, Kun, and Taeyong all ‘ooooh’ at that. It sounds like a promise and a threat, but before he can get any clarification on what that means, they’re interrupted by the return of the boys with their drinks. 

The topic has already veered in the direction of being a baby gay, and so it stays there; first times and coming out stories seem to spill out of people, involuntarily, and while interesting, it feels like the opposite of why they’re here. Additionally, he keeps finding Yuta looking at him like he wants to gauge Jaehyun’s reaction, like he’s expecting him to throw up or run away. It’s tiring and after another minute or so, he can’t take it. 

“We should dance.” It’s more of a declaration than a statement or a question, and it leaves very little room to disagree or not participate. 

They make their way out onto the dance floor just as a total throwback comes on, upbeat pop, “I’m every woman”. Jaehyun does not identify as a woman, but the energy of the song and the joy it seems to be inspiring in the other patrons is undeniable, infectious. 

He starts moving his hips and rolling his shoulders then mimicking Taeyong, hands in the air and bouncing in his grooving steps. They aren’t in a circle but more of an organic blob, turned facing in all directions but clearly all together and enjoying each other’s company. He discoes with Taeil and twerks with Johnny, and jumps all around with Kun. 

When another more groovy song comes on, Taeyong and Doyoung seem to have some kind of choreo ready and Jaehyun is laughing and breathless as he tries to follow the steps. Doyoung reaches out his hands and he exchanges a look with Taeyong before they each take one and Doyoung spins them in dramatically before spinning them back out. Jaehyun turns like a top; out and out and out until he’s bumping into someone. 

A petite, curvy woman with dark hair.

“Shit sorry! So sorry!”

“It’s totally fi— Jaehyun?” In his drunken stupor, fighting laughter and giddy from the dancing, he hadn’t seen that the woman he’d bumped into was none other than…

“Jill?”

Her make up is thick, caked on in the unflattering, obvious way that all her friends do. She’s wearing a shimmery black dress, heels and a bright pink sash that says “Bridesmaid”. Her face takes on a sneer as she takes him in. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh, drinking. Dancing. I’m with—”

“Are you like… gay now?” Her mouth falls open and she looks him up and down. “Is that why you wanted to switch?”

Her friends seem to have noticed she isn’t dancing but rather trying to carry a conversation over the thumping bass. For a split second, he’s worried everyone will hear but then he realizes they’re the outliers here and rolls his shoulders. 

She’s started laughing by the time he goes to say something else and his own friends have started to notice too, and their motley crew is hovering around them, waiting to see how Jaehyun will react. He wants to wait and see if she’ll stop laughing but then Yuta is stepping up. 

“He’s not gay, he’s just here with us.”

Jaehyun whips his head around to look at him, looking at her. What the fuck ? He glances at their other friends and Jill’s friends and they’re all looking at Yuta too. 

“Yes, I am.”

Yuta looks at him. “Jae—“

He ignores it and turns to Jill resolutely.

“I am gay. You’re right. I was confused and that’s why I wanted to switch to see if I’d like it. And I do by the way.”

Her laughter halts but she’s still semi hysterical when she responds. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you’re a fucking fag! I should have known.”

Behind him he hears several gasps and a low “What the fuck, he dated her?”, and Jill’s own friends look stricken at the word. But it doesn’t feel like anything to Jaehyun. 

“Yeah, Jill, I am. So what? I’d rather be a fag than your boyfriend any day of the week.”

That seems to sober her and she rolls her eyes, stomping away with a dramatic “Fuck you” and spilling her drink as she goes, her friends trolling after her looking apologetic and disturbed by her behavior. 

Once they’re gone, he can feel his friends reaching out to him, wanting to provide him with comfort but he ignores them, turning on Yuta with all the pent up irritation he feels even now that she’s gone. 

“What the fuck did you say that for?” He asks, and Yuta looks confused. 

“I just thought I —“

“Yeah, you just thought! You had no right to say that to her, whether you believe it or not.” He takes a shuddering, furious breath. “I get you don’t want to be with me, but you don’t get to play pretend like it’s because I’m just experimenting, or I’m not really gay and I’m going to come to my senses. I really really liked you Yuta, and I thought we could try it out, dating and everything, but you didn’t want to so you also don’t get to play boyfriend on the white horse, just deciding what you think is best.”

“Jaehyun, I really didn’t mea—“

“It doesn’t matter.” He turns to the rest of their friends. “Sorry for the disturbance. I’m gonna head home, but thank you all for coming.”

And with that he turns one final time, away from them and the crowd, to go home and forget this night ever happened. 

He manages to keep up the anger of what happened at the club for a few days before the bitterness finally leaves him and he’s forced to face what happened. 

He goes about his daily routine and he doesn’t regret what he said, and if anything he only becomes more certain that he made the right call: Yuta had no right to speak on Jaehyun’s behalf or tell his version of Jaehyun’s truth. 

But knowing it and living with the consequences of it is easier said than done.

He doesn’t hear from Yuta at all but his friends do make an effort to reach out to him. He had left in a hurry at the club, and though he had texted to assure them he got home okay and he was fine in general, they didn’t seem to believe him.

Taeyong and Ten both call him on no less than three occasions, and one time they even call him together. They only outright ask how he’s feeling once, but he knows that they’re just worried. As are Johnny, who tries to arrange a lunch date between them, and Doyoung who asks him for coffee. Generous, well-meaning offers that he rejects, not eager to spill his guts just yet. 

The person who finally gets to him, sneaking in as a new client on his roster (the last place he’d look), is none other than Kun.

It’s a smart move because he has taken to throwing himself into work. Even when he’s off the clock, he’ll wear himself bone tired in his personal workouts, in addition to the ones he does with clients. When he says as much, Kun just waves a dismissive hand, and says he really has been meaning to make an appointment with Jaehyun but now is as good a time as any.

They start by unfurling yoga mats and working through basic stretches that give him a better idea about Kun’s mobility, when he pounces.

“I know we don’t know each other very well, but sometimes that’s better for stuff like this”

“Stuff like what?” He asks.

“Stuff like, I think you should give Yuta another chance.”

Jaehyun shakes his head.

“There’s nothing to give a chance over. He made it very clear that he isn’t interested in me.”

Kun’s considering nod makes him look even older. “I understand, and I think you were right about what you said to him. But I also think there’s more to the story.”

He moves into the next stretch position and shakes his head unsure how to rebuff Kun when he interrupts Jaehyun’s train of thought.

“Have Johnny and Ten ever told you how we got together?”

He shakes his head no. “Just that you all met at work.”

“Well, that’s  true, we did meet at work, but I knew Ten from way before. We grew up down the street from each other and I was a real bully to him back then.”

This shocks Jaehyun and his wide-eyed expression makes Kun laugh.

“I know it was out of character and he was the only one I treated that way. Obviously, I know now it was because I had a huge crush on him, but I had never been able to explain. So when we met again at work I wasn’t really expecting anything to come from it, except perhaps a long overdue apology on my part.

But Ten, of course, is a notorious grudge holder. He pretended to get my name wrong and to forget meetings we had together, basically anything he could get away with as far as HR was concerned.”

Kun takes a breath and gives up on the next stretch, flopping back, and Jaehyun has long since stopped pretending to be doing them at all, sitting crossed legged and listening.

“It wasn’t until one day I asked him out after work so that I could apologize that anything changed at all. He refused me, of course and he said that I’d had my chance back then and just said I was forgiven before leaving.

But after that, he did start talking to me more, and he treated me normally; better than I probably deserved. Eventually, he took me up on the offer for coffee, and as we got closer, I started hanging out with him and Johnny too.

I couldn’t be sure, but I had my doubts about the way they treated me and thought they felt like I was more than a friend, so one night I asked them about it and they denied it.

I took them at their word and I wasn’t heartbroken, but I’ve never been the type to want someone who doesn’t want me, so I tried to put it out of my mind and move on, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t feel stupid for having thought otherwise.”

Jaehyun is about to interrupt and ask what that has to do with him when Kun seems to read his mind.

“The reason I bring this up is because when they did approach me later and wanted to talk about it again, if I had refused, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now.

I’m the happiest I’ve ever been with two really great boyfriends, and I would hate for you to miss out on something great because of your pride.”

It rubs Jaehyun the wrong way, and he shakes his head.

“You’re acting like this is all my decision though, and obviously it wasn’t. If I had had my way he and I would already be dating, but that’s not what he wants.”

Kun nods consideringly.

“Maybe not, but I just want you to be open to the idea, just in case. I don’t want you to think that you’re the only one who might be scared, or might have been scared.”

The conversation drops off after that and when it picks up again, they move on to general chit chat and polite small talk. It isn’t until he’s walking Kun toward the locker rooms and saying goodbye, that he brings it up again.

“Just remember Jaehyun, you never know what might happen if your heart's still open to love.” And he leaves with that mysterious advice weighing heavy around them.

He can’t say that he hadn’t been expecting something after his talk with Kun. It had felt oddly specific, too pointed to be random, Kun blatantly asking Jaehyun to forgive and forget what happened with Yuta. Maybe a part of him thought it was a set up for Yuta to apologize. Regardless he definitely got his hopes up– hopes that are dashed when another week passes with no word from Yuta.

He is, however, pleasantly surprised to hear from Jeno.

Apparently, The Toy Box just got a new shipment in and it has some new toys he thinks Jaehyun might really like. He asks if Jaehyun wouldn’t mind stopping by the shop and it’s a no-brainer to agree.

It will be something to take his mind off of everything. For whatever reason, Jeno is adamant that Friday is the best day for him, and it really doesn’t matter to him so, Friday it is then.

The shop doesn’t seem particularly busy, or even open when he gets there on Friday after work. Jeno had assured him that this would be a fine time to stop by, however, so he goes inside anyway.

“Hello?”

He’s met with silence at first, but then there’s a rustling sound from the counter area, and  Jeno appears from behind the curtain that leads to the mysterious back room.

“Hey, Jaehyun! How’s it going?”

Jaehyun looks around. “It’s going okay… Why are all the lights off?”

Jeno laughs, pulling his bag up onto his shoulder.

“Because we’re closed for a private event.”

A private event? He tries not to react negatively, but he’s almost positive that he hasn’t screwed up the date. Jeno specifically asked him to stop by today. Why would he do that if there was a private event going on?

“But then— I’m sorry but why did—?”

Before he can finish asking and before Jeno has a chance to answer, a voice from above does it for him.

“Don’t be mad at Jeno, I asked him to lie.”

Jaehyun turns around to find Yuta standing under one of the only lights left on, illuminating the stairs that lead up to the second floor loft, halfway up and halfway down. 

He’s dressed in a hodgepodge suit, looking pretty spiffy and put together, but sheepish.

“Why?” He looks at Yuta then at Jeno who smiles and shrugs.

“I’ll let him explain. But I’m a hopeless romantic, so you can’t be mad at me for going along with it.” He then starts walking away, raising his voice to address them both. “You crazy kids have fun! Don’t forget to lock up when you leave Yuta.”

“Roger that, Boss man.”

Jeno exits, muttering under his breath about how he is not, in fact, Yuta’s boss, and locks the door behind him. Once he’s gone, Jaehyun is left alone with Yuta and he can’t help but look up at him, their eyes meeting across the room. 

“You didn’t answer me. Why did you ask Jeno to lie? And why are we here exactly, isn’t there a private event?”

“Yeah, but it’s our private event. Well, if you want it to be yours too that is.” He looks cautiously optimistic. “It’ll be easier if I show you.

Jaehyun could leave, if he really wanted to— crush Yuta’s heart like a jelly bean; but Kun’s speech about keeping his heart open is fresh in his memory urging him against it. Not to mention that even though he had said his piece and supposedly washed his hands of it, Yuta hadn’t gotten a chance to say his. Maybe he needed closure too?

And while Jaehyun certainly didn’t owe him that, he could admit it might make him feel better too. Then they could close the door on the love-that-wasn’t for good, right?

He takes a deep breath and then makes his way through the shelves, losing sight of Yuta once or twice as he moves toward the stairs. He doesn’t move as Jaehyun ascends the seventeen or so stairs between them and meets him in the middle, but once he’s resting on the step below he waves a hand over his shoulder and leads the way on. 

“Follow me.”

He’s never been up to this floor, but he assumed, thanks to the shelves that ran along the front and were covered in books that maybe the whole area was a sex themed library, and for all he knows, most of the time it could be. But right now they pass the shelves and walk into a wide open space, semi enclosed to create the illusion of privacy in a public space, and it’s been set up not for an event, but for something else entirely. 

There’s a projector close to them facing the far wall displaying the opening menu for a Ghibli movie, and on the floor is a pallet, thick quilts and woven blankets layered all around with different shapes and sizes of pillows. There is a low table with a big bowl of popcorn drenched in butter and all manner of candy, and two fountain drinks with bendy straws. 

There are a few lamps with special bulbs painted pink so the whole space is washed in a cotton candy glow. 

“Yuta, what is this?” he asks, softly, in awe of the scene before him.

“A second chance I hope.”

“What?” He tears his eyes away and looks at Yuta, staring back at him already with that same hope in his eyes, wry smile in place. It’s not half as good as his real one, like when he’s laughing at something stupid Jaehyun said, but it still makes his stomach flop over. 

“You were right. Everything you said was true.” He shakes his head. “I feel so stupid but, Jaehyun, I took one look at you and wrote you off. You showed me again and again that my perceptions of you were wrong and I didn’t listen, even when I thought I was.”

“Yuta there’s—”

He reaches a hand out to rest gentle fingers on Jaehyun’s forearm. 

“Please, I need to say this: I’ve never been in a real relationship, at least not the kind most people are used to. With flowers and long walks on the beach and I love you’s. I have never let anyone get close to me, and I’ve never wanted to until I met you.” Yuta dips his head down like he’s afraid of Jaehyun’s reaction. 

“And I messed it up because I was scared, and then blamed you so I didn’t have to deal. I was really shitty to you, and there’s no excuse. But after seeing how brave you were in that club— I realized if you could be brave in the face of bigotry, when you’re so new to this experience, then I could be brave enough to try again with you and face the possibility of a well-deserved rejection.”

There’s nothing but space between them, and Jaehyun suddenly hates it very much so he takes a big step closer to Yuta. 

“So if you’ll let me, Jaehyun. I want to try and make it up to you and try and give us a shot because— because I think I love you.” He laughs. “I know that sounds fucking crazy, and we haven’t known each other very long but I love you.”

Jaehyun blinks, and the whole room goes quiet; not with the rush of panic, there is no ringing, no air that doesn’t quite reach his lungs. It’s still in the soft pink light, and Yuta is standing right in front of him. Telling him he loves him, telling him he wants to try, and the only mantra in his head now is this: Keep your heart open. Keep your heart open to love. 

It echoes and reverberates and it feels so real that he blames that quaking vibration for the way he moves forward and throws himself into Yuta’s arms and they stay like that for a moment, his head tucked into Yuta’s neck, before he pulls back and they're kissing. 

Feverish from the start, wet and deep, swaying on unsteady feet, until Yuta takes a step back and Jaehyun follows him eagerly. They have to break apart to sink down onto the downy blanket kingdom Yuta has made them, but the second they do, he reattaches them, working his tongue into Yuta’s mouth and moaning as his hands travel over Jaehyun's chest and arms. 

“What do you want?”

“I want you to touch me.”

Yuta is already touching him of course, but at Jaehyun’s request his hand travels further, fingers skimming his nipples and his abs, sending little zips of pleasure down his spine; his palms heavy on Jaehyun’s thighs as he maneuvers himself between them. 

Jaehyun holds himself up with his hands planted behind him until Yuta starts to work his shirt over his head, and he does the same pulling Yuta’s stupid sport coat off, then his tie, more fashionable than formal, barely fastened so he can pull it over his head with ease. 

He lays back and watches as Yuta undoes the buttons on his white shirt, and slides it off his shoulders until he’s bare and Jaehyun can take him in, all lean sinewy muscle and tan skin, tattoos littered on his arms here and there, as well as both hips and the real kicker: his pierced belly button, sparkly gem tucked into his navel, drawing the eye as if they wouldn’t already be magnetized to him. 

Yuta leans down over Jaehyun and licks back into his mouth, with perfect technique, but sloppy enough that you know he’s just a good kisser, it’s not forced.

 Jaehyun uses the opportunity to run his own broad hands over Yuta’s body, lingering on his tattoos and his nipples when the initial touch makes him bite Jaehyun’s lip. Eventually he works his hands down to Yuta’s waist and undoes the dress slacks he’s paired to create a makeshift suit. 

Once again he finds Yuta is not wearing anything underneath and he has to pause their kissing to catch his breath and groan in frustration; he need’s Yuta — like, yesterday. 

He flips them so they’re both on their sides and they can shimmy out of their pants, and he can’t help but giggle at the prospect on laying with Yuta like this, naked and touching and kissing for as long as they like, their bodies warm and bathed in the pink flush of the room. But a bigger part of him doesn’t want to waste time. 

“I want to try.”

“What, try dating?” Yuta looks confused at the perceived change in topic, and Jaehyun laughs at his scrunched up face. 

“No, I mean try sex. I want us to try having sex.”

“What right here?” Even though they’re both naked and that’s clearly where this has been headed he still maintains shock. “I didn’t exactly come prepared.”

Jaehyun gestures around them. “Yuta, we’re literally in a sex shop.”

Yuta goes through the seven stages of grief in one fell swoop before landing on acceptance with a stupefied grin.

“If you’ll excuse me?” he says, and Jaehyun laughs as he grabs his discarded shirt then makes a break for it toward the stairs. He comes back not five minutes later with a bottle of lube and a box of condoms and lays back beside Jaehyun.

“You’re sure?”

Jaehyun nods. “I’m completely sure.”

But as Yuta unwraps the plastic from the bottle, a thought occurs to him, one he has had for a while but has been too nervous to voice. He looks between them, thinks of his own stereotypes and how others might see him and assume things, just as he had with Johnny.

“Actually, Yuta?”

He hums in acknowledgement undoing the sticker on the box of condoms now. 

“You know that I— I want you to fuck me right?” Which, okay Jae, super chill casual way to ask that, but there’s no going back now. “I want you to top.”

Yuta looks up at him, hands still preoccupied with their task falling to his lap to drop the box and reach back up to cup his face, running a thumb over his lip. 

“Baby boy, we met when I stumbled across you perusing the dildos, remember?”

“But you thought it was a joke!!”

Yuta rolls his eyes and kisses him once, sweetly.

“Yeah, until you got so spooked when I confronted you and ran. Then we met at JohnTenKun’s place— which they need a better couple name, seriously— and I realized you were actually just a regular person and customer that I had been a total jerk to.”

He thumbs at Jaehyun’s cheek now moving closer and closer. 

“I know exactly which model you bought by the way. I looked up your customer account the second I had your phone number.” He reaches between them and wraps a hand around Jaehyun. “So tell me: did you like it?”

He moans as Yuta starts working him in earnest and he nods.

“I loved it.”

Yuta keeps the pace twisting his hand and slowing down only to speed back up, keeping consistent pressure on his cock, tip red and ruddy from the ache of it. “Is that right?”

“I fucked myself with it and I thought of you.” He says, and Yuta sucks in a harsh breath, grunting as he strokes Jaehyun through his sudden orgasm. As soon as he pulls away, he’s laying Jaehyun back to settle between his legs and start working him open.

It’s a totally different experience to when he does it to himself. The stretch of it more somehow, even though he knows Yuta’s fingers are slim, the hands of an artist. It feels good, fast, slick and hot, and almost as soon as he’s worked one inside Jaehyun asks for another. 

He had known that being able to just let someone do this to him would feel better than doing it himself, and he was right. He suddenly feels completely impatient, eager to be fucked almost as much as he was after that first time he felt the pleasure the prostate could bring him, that one day in the doctors’ office that had permanently altered the course of his life. 

Maybe he should send Dr. Amin a thank you note…

“Yuta, please. I’m tired of waiting for you. Please.”

“So eager, you sure you don’t need me to go get a ring for you baby?”

Jaehyun moans as Yuta adds another finger, teasing him literally and metaphorically.

“You know about that?”

“Know about how you were so hot for it you had to buy a cock ring just to stop yourself, baby? Of course I do. Got hard just thinking about how pretty you’d look with it on.”

“Fuck, fuck! Yuta please, please!” He’s outright begging now and Yuta seems to like it a little too much, but as another pitiful whine leaves Jaehyun he obliges, unwrapping a condom and sliding it on as fast as he can to line up with Jaehyun’s hole.

It’s fluttering, he can feel it, even his body beyond ready for Yuta, for this experience in general. His hole, slick and opening, begging in its own way, takes the head of Yuta’s cock in of its own accord, opening as Yuta moves to press in.

“Shit, Jaehyun!”

Jaehyun can only moan. That first breach, the gentle pressure of Yuta’s cock head inside, just a sweet whisper of the full thing, is unreal to him. But it’s nice to know that Yuta’s just as affected, especially since he clearly has the experience between the two of them.

Experience he uses as he works himself deeper inside with steady movement and then, once his thick cock has settled inside Jaehyun, to start fucking the ever loving shit out of him.

It feels like Yuta might actually split him open, tear him in two pieces, or a million little ones chipped away with each pounding thrust. 

He grips onto Jaehyun's hips as if he’s trying to get even deeper than he is, which doesn’t seem possible. Jaehyun can feel Yuta in the back of his throat and he moans, desperate, wanton moans that anyone walking down the street past the shop could likely hear, but he just didn’t care.

“Harder, Yuta, please!”

Yuta pulls at his legs and he interprets it as a command, and lifts them to wrap around Yuta’s dainty waist. It changes the angle and he screams. He’s seconds away, he knows it.

He can’t be sure but he thinks Yuta is too, his beautiful features twisted up in effort, grunting, a slight sheen of sweet over both of them in the old loft. So Jaehyun reaches up an pulls him into a final kiss, the angle totally wrong between the height difference and the dangerously quick pace Yuta has set, but somehow it’s still perfect, and when he comes, it’s breathing Yuta’s air, his cock buried inside; and he can’t help but think he’s finally breathing easy after all these years.

[UPDATED]

I [23m] just discovered prostate stimulation... Help?

First, sorry for the way I wrote this. I'm really embarrassed by all this and it was the only way I could convince myself that I could post it, even anonymously. Just bear with me, okay?

This starts in a stupid, embarrassing way. I’m 23, but my doc decides he wants to do a prostate exam during my physical. (Quick question - isn’t that like twenty years early?)

Okay. So he pushes in and it is the first time anyone’s ever been in there. Like ever. And two things happen within three seconds: I get stupid hard. And I groan, kind of like a moan but not really haha.

My doctor laughed his ass off. I mean laughed, and told me it was okay. But his face tells me it’s not that common. 

So bros, I totally want to like feel good like that but I do not know how to achieve this myself. Can you help a dude out?

Edit: Obviously I am not gay (#ally), and I am looking for serious answers only!

[Update]: It turns out I’m really gay actually. I love anal sex and dildos and would recommend them to anyone. My therapist thought I was joking about this post but when I showed her, she suggested I update it, not for other people but for me. So I can see how much I’ve grown in the year since I posted it and started therapy, and maybe help other people who are stuck in the closet— not that everyone who likes anal is, but I was, so maybe you are too.

This post, and the events that lead up to it are the reason I met my boyfriend and came out and started therapy. It may have been kind of a low moment, looking back, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s also pretty fucking funny tbh! 

Anyway, I’m finished and I hope you read this and heard my story and can take something away from it, even if it’s just a laugh. 

Best of luck dear reader, and baby if you’re reading this: I LOVE YOU! Haha, crazy right?

TL;DR I was in the closet but not anymore and anal sex rules! Try therapy! Bye!

PS - DUB NATION REPRESENT!! Go WARRIORS!!