Chapter Text
“Hey,” it’s Seungkwan, sliding onto the empty seat next to Joshua at the bar. “You OK?”
Joshua smiles at him. He does want to smile, looking at Seungkwan, who is pink and glowing and relaxed and happy again after so long, in the way Joshua has been wishing to see him. “I’m good,” Joshua tells him, because the last thing he would want now is to make Seungkwan worry. Pushing his hair behind his ear, he tries to look light and unburdened - the way he wants Seungkwan to feel. “I like this place.”
“You’re not looking at the bar, you’re thinking,” Seungkwan states.
“I’m looking at plenty,” Joshua retorts, tilting his chin in the direction of the barman. Seungkwan rolls his eyes, but visibly relaxes.
A few moments later, as Joshua had hoped, Seungkwan wafts away again, back to the table their group has commandeered, about half of them out in Budapest tonight celebrating the wrap on the ‘God of Music’ music video shoot. Normally they’d stick to a hotel room, but the last week in Italy gave them a taste of freedom, something it’s been hard to forget.
Soon there will be idols debuting who were born the same year as the scotch Joshua is drinking right now got distilled, and he’s been thinking about that, and about all the things those boys and girls will be aiming for, and all the things they won’t even grasp that they’ll be sacrificing. And he’s been thinking about the way the barman’s hands might feel on him, whether they’d be sticky with drinks still.
Jeonghan would call Joshua on his bullshit and his impending bad decisions, but Jeonghan is back at the hotel right now FaceTiming Seungcheol, and isn’t that kind of the point? Joshua isn’t jealous, not in any of the obvious ways, but he’s worried that Jeonghan is worried, and sad that Seungcheol is sad, and yeah, OK, maybe he hates them both, just a little tiny bit, for having found it. The thing at the end of the fairy-tale, the thing Joshua has been so certain was only a fictional construct to sell diamonds and chocolate, unattainable, unrealistic. It’s not an emotion he’s proud of, and he keeps it in the small suitcase in the corner of his soul where he puts the parts of himself that he doesn’t like.
“Hey?” Joshua calls out lightly, raising his hand. “Another?”
This place isn’t exclusively or even mainly LGBTQ, but the barman has a double Ares sign tattooed on his considerable bicep, and he gives Joshua an approving once over, coming to serve him right away although there are others who’ve been waiting longer. Joshua sizes him up – yes, he would probably do. If he’s built in proportion, and those lovely muscles aren’t the result of too many anabolic steroids that have also shrunk his dick, then he could be what Joshua needs tonight. Complicated, with the hotel, but the members are on a long leash and at this point the bodyguards are familiar enough with Joshua going to random apartments in tour cities to ‘see this guy’s record collection, actually.’
(Jonny had charmed the bodyguards effortlessly. He’d bought Joshua flowers, after every concert, and even staff Joshua knew to be homophobes would slap his shoulders, nice work buddy. Oh yes, Jonny knew how to tick the boxes. Jeonghan had never liked him, but Joshua had thought that was jealousy, or managed to convince himself of it.)
“Jack coke,” Joshua requests in English.
“Coming right up,” the barman says, through his own Hungarian accent, with every possible layer of suggestiveness any of those words could carry, and runs his hands along the Coca Cola hose in a totally unnecessary way. He has knuckle tattoos. Joshua is probably going to do this.
“And I will have another WKD blue,” someone announces at Joshua’s side. Joshua turns. It’s Jihoon. Yes, of course, Jihoon had come along out drinking, for once. An Italian habit too.
Jihoon blinks up at him. “You’re buying, right, Jisoo-yah?”
It’s been a little over a week since ‘New Woozi’ had emerged like Botticelli’s Venus from an ocean of chianti, and it turns out that Jihoon drinks like he does anything: methodically, with careful intentionality. He’ll order what he wants, regardless of what anyone else is drinking, and he’ll drink the amount he wants to, even leaving half the bottle to go to waste (or to Mingyu), if that’s the point where he knows he’s had enough.
Joshua has been wondering, actually, what it would be like, to have that clarity of self-knowledge. Whether, if he leant over one day and put his fingertips to Jihoon’s arm, he could absorb skin-to-skin that level of control. What that would be like.
Jihoon gets up onto the bar stool next to Joshua’s, resting his elbows on the bar itself. He’s not remotely dressed up – it’s not something he does, not something he’s ever cared about – and this close Joshua can see little fraying points in the neck of his black t-shirt. Despite the insistent beat of the music playing over the sound system, he’s singing something else to himself, lips moving to words Joshua can’t identify.
Then: “I’d like to try sex next,” Jihoon confides, in his most matter-of-fact tone, and Joshua chokes on his drink.
Jihoon blinks up at him, perhaps a glimmer of uncertainty crossing his face.
“Wow, OK!” Joshua schools his expression – he needs to be encouraging, non-judgemental, non-traumatising. Jihoon has never, as far as Joshua is aware, ever even kissed anyone or gone on a date, so this is probably basically a formative developmental experience for him, and Joshua needs to respond in a nurturing and supportive way, and like he himself has got a leg to stand on for advising a well-adjusted sex life. “That’s a big decision, for sure, but if you’re ready to do that, then good for you!”
Jihoon breaks into a bigger smile than Joshua expected. Wow, Joshua must be really good at supportiveness. Even this tipsy.
“So, you agree, then?” Jihoon prompts, and grins again, visibly relaxing. “I thought I might have to convince you.”
“You don’t need to convince me!” Joshua draws himself up and sniffs. He leans over and carefully puts his hand on Jihoon’s forearm, just like he was thinking of, which Jihoon tolerates surprisingly well, although he does stare for a moment at where Joshua is touching him. Jihoon doesn’t really hate being cuddled, but he’ll tend to put up a token protest all the same.
Whereas for Joshua, being touched is delicious - that’s always been true, even after he gave up on the hearts and flowers nonsense people dressed it up in - and he considers himself a connoisseur. And if you can have a whole festival devoted to wandering around just taking a sip each of like, five hundred different red wines, why shouldn’t he trace a sampling path through the physical contacts he can get from Jack’d?
And it's not like the other members can be totally oblivious to this. And maybe that’s why Jihoon has come to him?
“Listen, Jihoon-ah,” Joshua says, and Jihoon immediately looks up at him, eyes wide and attentive: “You are the boss of your own body. You shouldn’t feel ashamed of anything you want, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t like.” He clears his throat, sitting up straighter on his barstool, getting into his theme. He sounds like a mentor on Queer Eye, he sounds so well adjusted: “This is normal, natural part of human experience and I support you one hundred percent.”
“OK, so, you’ll do it?”
Joshua blinks at him: “Pardon me?”
Jihoon tilts his head, widening his eyes, visibly patient: “You’re agreeing to have sex with me?”
-
“OK, first of all, why me?” Joshua asks, in the low murmur he knows from experience is harder to overhear than a whisper. They’re walking back from the club to the hotel, and the bodyguard who peeled off to escort them is keeping a respectful distance, which will be partly to avoid drawing too much attention on the street since ironically the very presence of personal protection can provoke a need for it.
Joshua feels exposed. Feels like anyone who passes could turn to them and see his current total dismay and confusion. The sensible thing to do would have been to just say no, haha, this is comical misunderstanding. Or to have asked to talk about it in a couple of days, when they’re back home in Seoul, and sober, and in total privacy. But no, he can’t leave Jihoon’s words alone, and neither can he wait to know more, and so he’d said they needed to get outside where they could hear each other, and Jihoon had shrugged amiably and waved goodbye to the others, and come along with him.
It feels like there’s a stranger walking alongside him. A stranger in Jihoon’s familiar, ambling body, walking with his hands in the pockets of his awful Gore-Tex shorts, one black t-shirt sleeve pushed up and not the other, hair held back with sunglasses even at night. Because the idea that Jihoon would ask this, that Jihoon has been thinking about this…
“Why you?” Jihoon repeats, as if he’s in an interview and wants to be absolutely sure he’s understood the question correctly, meticulous as ever. “Well…”
Joshua is braced for the answer, because Jihoon rarely filters and perhaps he’ll reflect what all the others are probably thinking about Joshua at this point: You’re pretty. You seem like you don’t care too much anymore who fucks you and why. You’d keep a secret.
(“I could have had any of you,” Jonny had said, at the end, “don’t you get that? With my connections? I could have had anyone and I picked you, and it’s like you’re not even grateful.”)
Jihoon looks down and away, and then back up again, brow furrowed with determination as he meets Joshua’s eye. Like he’s going to say something he’s embarrassed about.
“Because,” Jihoon says slowly, “I feel safe with you. I know you’ll be kind about it. About me. Obviously, I won’t be good at sex, at first, but that’s what practice is for. You won’t laugh.”
“No,” Joshua pauses. “No, I won’t laugh. Did someone…” He cuts off the question. Clears his throat. “I don’t know, I mean, it might not be the best idea to do this with someone who’s a member of the group?”
“It happens, though.” Jihoon points out. He pauses, letting that rest between them for a moment. “Seungcheol talks to me about it. And he thinks Jeonghan talks to you, and I’m sure he does.”
Joshua breathes. Seungcheol and Jeonghan isn’t actually a secret, not for any members or close staff with eyes and half a brain, but no one asks, and no one tells, and no one talks about it. For a long time, Joshua had thought that was sensible because it would give them all plausible deniability when the bubble broke – as surely it would – and his two same age friends realised, just later than him, that love was bullshit.
But here they all are, eight years later.
“Anyway,” Jihoon continues, not forcing Joshua to confirm or deny, “I don’t…” he stops again. Swallows. He’s gone a little pink. “I don’t really know anyone else. Outside work.”
You think I know everyone that I fuck? Joshua wants to say. But even as he thinks it, he recoils. Just imagining Jihoon downloading an app and picking up some random person for this, or approaching staff or… No. They wouldn’t treat him right – they couldn’t, even if they were well intentioned, because you have to get used to Jihoon, you have to learn how to speak Jihoon. Jihoon can be an absolute dick, but that’s not really his fault, and he’s surprisingly easy to hurt, even if he won’t tell you so.
“I guess that makes sense,” Joshua allows, and Jihoon perks up a little. It’s funny, Joshua thinks as they continue to walk along, dodging the occasional mass group of hen or stag parties, or shift workers going to or from their jobs - a woman sitting in a bus stop in a nurse’s uniform having a day a hundred miles from their own - it’s funny that he’s spent the last forty-eight hours singing and singing this man’s song. A song that’s probably going to make them millions, that’s probably going to win the charts, again. On paper Jihoon is a catch, he would have every reason to assume he could get anyone he wanted. But instead, he’s walking along this street, in some ratty t-shirt and shorts an actual child would disdain to use for football practice, tentatively asking Joshua to do him a favour.
How would he characterise his relationship with Jihoon, to this point? Not close, not exactly. If someone was going round, picking out the strong ties in the thirteen of them, no one would land on the two of them first. In smaller bands, Joshua assumes, you have to end up all in with everyone, sooner or later, but with thirteen it’s possible to have some that you know as well as people who have lived together ever could, but aren’t…
…he knows what Jihoon looks like naked, of course. In detail. It’s the same for all the members, give or take, but Jihoon seems allergic to shirts and so Joshua tends to have his physiognomy totally up to date. Jihoon is well built, almost sculpted, strong arms, strong thighs, he could probably…
Joshua shakes his head and tries to focus.
Suddenly, something occurs to him. “So, does this mean…Like, do you think you’re gay, then? Is this you coming out?”
In the Budapest street-lamp light, Jihoon looks at him like he’s just turned the conversation to the anti-capitalist implications or otherwise of blockchain AI. “Well, sex is just sex, right?”
“Um.” Joshua bites his lip.
“I mean, it’s not like there’s really a difference between anyone’s bodies, not when you get down to it.” Jihoon gestures with his hands, lecturing. “I know people pretend that it matters a huge amount, and I suppose there are options that you do or don’t have with different anatomy, but all it’s the same really, surely?”
“Bisexual, perhaps?” Joshua offers him, in a weak voice, and Jihoon shrugs again, unbothered.
“I’m gay,” Joshua tells him firmly, trying to re-establish some solid ground in this conversation. Again, this is not something they often talk about directly in the band, even though more than half of them are some flavour of queer, but it’s not like it should be new information to Jihoon. “I know you may not get it, given what you just said, but I am… not attracted to women.”
“I’m not a woman, so that’s fine.”
“Sure, uh…”
“I mean,” Jihoon pauses. Takes a little huffing breath, frowns. “If you… If you only want men who are taller than you, or something…”
“No! No, of course not, no, that’s not what I….” Joshua takes a deep breath, tries frantically to think of some other way to end this sentence, but it’s all that seems possible in the moment: “No, I would… like to have sex with you, of course I would. Sure.”
“Great,” Jihoon says, pleased, whilst Joshua is wondering what exactly just happened. He’s still a little drunk – an amount of drunk he’d become purposefully, in order to have sex tonight. Right about now, the tattooed barman was supposed to be drawing that final inch closer, suggesting a venue, sealing the deal. Joshua loves that part the most, the bit where it’s all potential, the electric energy that flows between two bodies on the way to making each other come. Deep-seated instincts drive everything but that goal from your brain, and there is nothing else that matters, just for a while. The actual event is never as good as the build-up, but they say what makes gambling addictive is the misses, not the hits.
He feels none of that right now, of course. It’s Jihoon. It’s not mysterious. In 2013, fresh off the plane, trying desperately to remember names and the Korean word for ‘exhausted’, Joshua had had a staffer point Jihoon out to him in a low voice: don’t fall out with that one, that’s their genius, if it’s him or you they’ll always keep him, and he’d been braced for any number of powerplays over that. But Jihoon had been shy and sweet and incredibly awkward, and all too quickly Joshua had just relaxed around him. Jihoon has never made him tense.
Now, as they make their way onwards through the streets, Jihoon starts talking about the chord progression on a song he’s working on, singing little snatches of it into the night air. Somewhere in the distance there’s a siren blaring, and from one of the apartment blocks they pass, the thunka-thunka of a late night party. It could be any other time they’ve hung out, except obviously for the fact that they just don’t, outside work.
Not that Jihoon ever really hangs out with anyone. It had been surprisingly nice, in Italy, just having him around, participating in idle nonsense with the rest of them.
You’ll be kind about it - Jihoon had reviewed their whole band, a band that includes some of the loveliest people Joshua could ever hope to meet, and he’d picked him for that badge?
Jihoon doesn’t really hang out because Jihoon is usually achieving something 103% of every hour. He’s not about time wasting, not about small talk. He’s an entire adult, skipping the meaningless constructs along the way, whereas sometimes Joshua feels like he’s just twelve constructs in a trench coat…
Somewhere further along the street, a stag group bursts into the chorus of an old Britney Spears song, and at Joshua’s side Jihoon sings along, grinning to himself. The two of them could be ordinary young people on a foreign street, anticipating a blessed union.
-
Jihoon lucked out on this trip and got assigned a room on the nicer side of their hotel – there’s a window onto the Budapest skyline, where now in the distance the very first of the dawn is putting a grey edge to the night. Daylight catching them up again.
Joshua wonders sometimes if his life would make more sense if he had any kind of normal bio-rhythm. If he wasn’t on a shift pattern that could make even a hospital clinician wince in sympathy.
(It was what had made Jonny end things between them, in the main, Joshua’s sheer lack of availability, the one thing Joshua really had no ability to change even to please him. And that had been the relief of shifting to hook-ups, that they were always on Joshua’s timing, on Joshua’s terms, no ongoing obligations to be around. He doesn’t even take them to his house, there is no way he’s ever letting another person think they have the right to stick around and dictate to him.)
Joshua takes another long swig of the sparkling water he got out of Jihoon’s mini-fridge, and turns around to look at Jihoon once more. Jihoon runs a hand through his ever-lengthening hair, almost nervously, and looks back.
“Sure you don’t want a drink?” Joshua prompts. It feels weird, he feels so weird, he feels like he’s in a tiny observation deck inside his own brain, watching himself be weird.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Jihoon licks his lips. They’re very nice lips, obviously, and Joshua can’t now recall if that’s something he’s always noticed. “Or maybe. Maybe yes, OK.”
“There’s, uh, mineral water, energy drink, Fanta, Coke?”
“Coke. Thanks.”
Joshua hands it over. Jihoon takes it, cracks it and drinks deeply, all in one swift set of practiced movements. Then he wipes the back of his hand over his lips. It feels, again, like being in a room with someone Joshua’s never met before, even though he’s probably seen Jihoon drink cans of coke into the thousands.
It’s bizarre, actually. Feeling awkward like this, feeling self-conscious like this when sex in recent years has become something so easy, like a dance routine Joshua is completely familiar with. A performance. Something he can actually detach from, kind of, and let happen, and then await applause.
Usually, with hook-ups, he’s careful about what he presents. The rich, suave, elegant, beautiful man. Smile, smile, and rile them up, get them thirsty for it, tease enough that they’re slightly mad, slightly mean, that they throw him down with just an edge of violence and push in fast, rough, so the feeling overwhelms everything in his head. They’re not staying, but they need to have the illusion kept until the end, until it’s Joshua alone in the bath, aching and unsure if he feels good or not. It’s still better than fooling yourself thinking all those hormones mean something else. Thinking anyone means the things they say when they want you, that their dance isn’t just as false.
Jihoon gives a soft burp, expelling the carbon dioxide from his drink. Wipes his mouth again. Licks his lips again. He’s staring at Joshua.
“What do you want to have happen next?” Joshua prompts him. And then, when Jihoon doesn’t answer: “It’s OK if you don’t want to actually do this right now, or if you’d rather…”
“We take our clothes off first, right?” Jihoon asks, like he’s an eager honour student worried they’ve taken a leap of faith too far beyond certainty.
“Uh,” Joshua bites his lip. “Yeah? Sure. OK.”
He isn’t expecting much, honestly. Some high-school level of fumbling. Urgent, male need, unpretty and selfish, because isn’t that how everyone is in their first sexual experience?
But as he takes his clothes off, carefully – they’re nice things, he paid a lot for them – Jihoon, naked in practically two movements, doesn’t show any impatience or give him any pressure. Jihoon is impatient, though, Joshua knows this because he knows Jihoon – he knows that intent, fascinated look when he wants something.
And it’s interesting, being on the receiving end of that look. That’s not something most people get to experience, and it certainly hasn’t often happened to him, bar a couple of times in the recording booth when Joshua has managed to surprise Jihoon with a vocalisation above his norm.
Those times felt good, and so does this. It’s still weird, but if Joshua couldn’t work with weird he wouldn’t have coped with this band for ten years. Good weird, Joshua decides, is OK. He goes and lies down on the bed, on his back, torso raised on his elbows, and realises he feels almost comfortable.
Jihoon comes to kneel on the bed in front of him, between his legs, studying him intently, his eyes wandering over Joshua’s body. He’s most of the way hard, which is flattering. Joshua isn’t, his dick is just lying there, limp against his thigh, but that somehow doesn’t feel like the problem it usually would with a sexual partner, not least because Jihoon has no apparent concerns about it. Clearly, Joshua is doing something for Jihoon by just existing, and that feels… satisfying.
“Can I touch you?” Jihoon asks again, and Joshua gives a sincere agreement. Yes, it’s weird, but also, he realises, he feels safe.
The main time he’s had Jihoon touch him, up till now, other than the hugs that form a part of their total group interaction on a background basis – the main times that Jihoon touched him, personally and specifically - has been when Jihoon’s helped the rest of them through an away-from-home workout. Jihoon is a self-taught anatomist and physiologist, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of muscle groups, and knows what each exercise is actually supposed to do, and how to figure out the source of any strains. They’ve all learnt they can trust him with their bodies.
Jihoon is using his anatomical knowledge now, Joshua can tell. Surging forwards, reaching out slowly and carefully, he fits his fingers to the top edge of Joshua’s pectoral muscles and works along them. Then his touch brushes down the centre before fanning out again, tracing the dips of his ribs. Joshua’s stomach kicks with the sensitivity, nearly ticklish. Jihoon’s fingers are slightly cool, perhaps from the chilled drink he was holding.
Joshua realises his throat is dry, and swallows.
When Jihoon was trying wine for the first time, in Italy, he took his time with it. Studied it, stared at it, even. Smelt it, took a moment to appreciate that, before he tasted. It was the same with espresso – Joshua remembers now sitting with him at a table in the sunshine in Rome, that first Italian morning, oddly charmed watching Jihoon savouring the experience so carefully. Joshua highly doubts Jihoon has listened to a mindfulness podcast in his life – he just seems to come to it organically from his level of focus, that total attention on the one thing he’s interested in at that time.
It’s kind of nice, being treated like fine wine.
Jihoon’s fingers circle round the knobs of Joshua’s hips, and into the cut of his pelvis. Holding one hand steady, Jihoon runs the first two fingers of the other down the inside of Joshua’s thigh, and suddenly Joshua feels it, a rush of blood into his groin, a sense of stirring.
“Wow. OK,” Jihoon clicks his tongue, frowning, nodding slightly, clearly noting his progress, and repeats the touch, even more lightly.
He’s just staring at Joshua’s cock and balls, watching them swell and redden and move, and that’s… the more conscious Joshua is of it, the more it happens, and Jihoon’s breathing catches, just a little, and Joshua can see Jihoon’s erection twitch.
For the first time since this session started, Joshua’s conscious of actively wanting to touch Jihoon there. It’s habit, instinct, politeness maybe, but all the same, there it is. Joshua appreciates a good dick, and Jihoon is… not in proportion at all. It’s large enough that Joshua might struggle with it, and God help him he likes that so much.
Jihoon doesn’t seem to want that, though, for now. He runs his hands back up into the crease, and down to brush Joshua’s balls, a shivery sensation that Joshua bites his lip through.
Jihoon looks at his mouth for a long moment, and then licks his own lips possibly unconsciously, and as Joshua watches that he feels hotter again – he’s always liked being on his back, being displayed, being judged and found acceptable – liked it until he doesn’t, until it sours and he gets defensive, protective, private, but this is just Jihoon, so he doesn’t even feel the edge of scared.
Jihoon moves his other hand to Joshua’s taint, and then down, clearly curious. “Do you like this?” he enquires.
“Not all gay men do, you know.”
“Yeah, but do you?” He pushes slightly, Joshua feels like an instrument, tested for sound. He does make some. Quickly, though, he reaches out and grabs Jihoon’s wrist:
“Not without lube. Do you have any lube with you?”
“You need lube just for fingers?” Jihoon asks, in a tone that makes it clear there is not, actually, any lube in this room, and Joshua is surprised by his own level of frustration.
“You need lube just for fingers,” Joshua confirms. Except. Well, it’s not like it’s a law and God knows in the past he’s… but that’s not how Jihoon wants to treat him, and right now it’s not how Joshua wants to be treated. “You can buy some, though, and you should get some condoms, too, if you want to fuck me.”
Jihoon’s eyes widen like fried eggs.
“Uh!” Joshua gets up on his elbows. “I mean, assuming you want to do this more than once! I was kind of assuming that that was what we were basically working up to, but I guess I shouldn’t assume, I mean, whatever you want but…”
Jihoon leans forward, suddenly, with a punched-out gasp, and comes all over the bed and part of Joshua’s leg.
“Holy shit!” Jihoon murmurs. He seems to be struggling to keep his torso off the bed, arms trembling. “Ah…sorry.”
You won’t laugh - “It’s OK, that’s what showers are for.” Joshua can’t help grinning. “It’s very flattering,” he adds, sincerely. And OK, yeah, that was the high-school style grope he was expecting, but this, now feels good anyway. It is kind of fun, having broken Lee Jihoon’s calm façade in, what, ten minutes or less? Just from being there? And he is glad, now, that he said yes to this, because this Jihoon is vulnerable, like a cat trusting you with its fluffy belly, and Joshua wants him to never regret it.
“I would definitely like to fuck you, Jisoo-yah,” Jihoon says firmly, having managed to right himself and set his shoulders, staring into Joshua’s eyes. He’s gone all pink, and there’s a red splotchy rash on his pale chest. He’d be easy to mark up, Joshua catches himself thinking, and pushes the thought into the suitcase. “I want to know how to make you come.”
He says it so calmly, like someone might say ‘I want to know how to beat the level 4 boss’ or ‘I want to try my hand at pottery or ‘I really want to relearn piano’.
Of course, for Jihoon, that’s what this is. A skill he wants to explore. An activity he wants to try and consider, to determine whether to make it a proper hobby or not. Joshua, for him, is a weekend taster class, an expert seminar, a sex 101. And why not?
He’d taken Jihoon’s words as a future intention, so he’s pleasantly surprised when Jihoon, still pink, puts his slightly trembling hand to Joshua’s dick. It’s dry, obviously, but Jihoon’s touch is very gentle, the guitar-calluses on his fingertips brushing just, just on the right edge of too much, and Joshua has a full-body shiver, a tingling all the way to his toes. Before he can stop himself, he arches, flexing his feet, whining as his hips rise into Jihoon’s touch.
Jihoon makes a satisfied noise that Joshua associates with having just done a good vocal take, and when Joshua opens his eyes, Jihoon is still staring at Joshua’s junk like he’s going to be taking a test later, watching intently as just a little pre-come bubbles from the top. It’s still nothing like enough to make things slippery, but Jihoon is calibrating his touches carefully, less movement now and more of a firm grip, just tightening. Then he licks one finger tip on the other hand, and places it at that one spot under the head, which feels pretty good for Joshua but not as much as perhaps…
“Is this how you do it for yourself?” Joshua asks him, and then flexes again, because dear lord, it didn’t feel like much to start but it’s building, building and he’s so sensitive now. He’s not even sure it feels good, exactly? It’s totally unlike how he’d touch himself, he prefers everything wet as possible and fast and hard. “Don’t you ever use lube at all?”
“It can get sticky on the instruments! And the computer!” Jihoon has flushed again. His hand falters, slightly.
You won’t laugh
“Is that… when you like to jack off? When you’re writing music?”
“Not always. But sometimes, you know, you get creative block? And if you get used to doing it with lube then you can’t adjust when you need to go without.”
“That… makes sense. I guess?”
“Do you like this?” Jihoon asks again, in a tentative tone Joshua has almost never heard from him. And that makes Joshua thinks, because he’s been asked that so many times (though, let it be noted, not always), in so many ways and with so many meanings underneath. On this particular occasion, he decides for once it might just be OK to tell the truth.
“I don’t know,” Joshua says slowly, but reaches out and grabs Jihoon’s hand, keeping it in place, when he makes to pull away. “I’ve never had it this way? It’s a lot, you’re making me…” he breaks off and lets himself give a gasp, opening his legs wider. Jihoon looks up and down his body, quick, hungry for knowledge, and that is a lot of fun, actually. “You’re not making me feel bad, that’s for sure, I just… I don’t know…” He’s tipsy, and aroused, and a bit overwhelmed with sensation, and he’s being touched, and he’s still carefully observing himself, too worried about saying the wrong thing to let himself finish sentences. He kind of wants to grab Jihoon’s hand and spit in it, but that feels like too much for right now, and his mouth is too dry anyway.
He comes suddenly, not expecting to. All the sensation building and tipping exponentially, and it’s a weird orgasm, a fire raging over all his skin at once, coalescing at his dick, and even as he arches he wishes he had something inside him, clenching down on nothing, and maybe Jihoon sees that, he’s staring hard enough.
And then Joshua’s back in his body, on the bed, messy, breathing, blushing, Jihoon looming over him still eyes gone so dark and so wide. Jihoon isn’t fully erect again already but he isn’t soft, either. The size of him. Joshua feels himself twitch.
“Shall I kiss you?” Jihoon asks him. He has to clear his throat half-way through. He’s so pink.
Joshua is still letting the tingles in his skin settle.
“If you like. Sure.”
Jihoon leans in and brushes their lips together. It’s brief, and dry, and still tastes like Coca Cola. Jihoon smells musky, may not have bothered showering between the shoot ending and going out in the first place, and his hair falls down around them a little, brushing Joshua’s face.
“I should go and wash this off,” Joshua observes, and makes himself sit up. He would have liked to lie there longer, but he’s practiced at shoving that urge away, because it’s a trap. If he can get into hot water soon enough after sex, he doesn’t ache too bad at not being held, and he’s keen to get onto the track for it.
But there are responsibilities, when you’re someone’s first sexual experience.
“How are you feeling, Jihoon-ah? Was that OK?”
“Are you kidding?” Jihoon breaks into a grin like he’s found a second-hand manga shop stocking something he’d thought was out of print and has never been uploaded online (Joshua heard a long monologue on this subject once, which was so needlessly obsessive it tipped into charming). “Hyung! That was… I didn’t know it could be so amazing!”
Joshua grins. Honorifics from Jihoon mean a lot, imply more than any kind of specifically sexual praise could. And that feels warm, that relief and pleasure of knowing he did good, that Jihoon is satisfied.
“So, for when we get back to Seoul,” Jihoon continues. He gets off the bed, standing naked and with cum drying on his body without apparent consciousness. He reaches the Coke can that was clearly his goal and takes another deep draught, then wipes the back of his hand over his face. Joshua is struck by an unexpected vision of dragging him into the shower too and really, really soaping him down, not so much erotic as how you might with a puppy. “I have the whole of my optional time for the next week set aside for this in my diary.”
Joshua raises an eyebrow. “You timetabled sex with me into your Outlook calendar? You were very sure I was going to say yes!”
“Oh, not you specifically!” Jihoon waves his hand quickly. “I cleared the time in my diary before I’d decided how I was going to go about it! Otherwise, what if I’d suggested it to whoever and then always been too busy to actually see the person? I mean my schedule is very full.”
Joshua wants to laugh at the sheer… brazenness, of this. And he wants to smile, kind of, because Jihoon isn’t wrong. Jihoon was thinking about his sexual partner with consideration in the total abstract and that’s… not a terrible way to start.
Because it’s Jihoon, and not a random stranger, or anyone he’s actually trying to impress, he feels safe to tease: “What if there’s no time in my diary to let you fuck me for a week?”
At that, Jihoon does blush. “No, no, I don’t we have to do it all the time! I don’t think that would be possible, anyway? I just mean I can be free whenever might suit you. You’re not obliged.” He actually looks quite worried about it, as if this is the worst behaviour anyone has ever displayed in re: Joshua’s ass, and access to it.
Joshua relents. “OK, I’ll look at my availability I guess, and, uh let you know? And, uh, thank you,” he adds, as he’s pulling his clothes back on. He’s got to make sure Jihoon doesn’t feel weird, because he doesn’t deserve to, but his own endorphins are dropping away and he’s struggling to remember how anyone ever feels normal. He needs that shower. “Seriously, Jihoon-ah, that was a better evening than I was expecting to have. Thank you for trusting me with this.”
Jihoon gives him a slightly awkward smile and nods in acknowledgement. “Bye then! Sleep well!” He even gives a small wave.
Will Jihoon wash now, at all? Or sit and compose? Sleep? Workout, even? Joshua has no clue, but with the door closed behind him he doesn’t have to care, and he strides back to his own room in pair of Jihoon’s complementary slippers, watching the bodyguard on the corridor watching him.
After his shower, he sits drying his hair and realises the thing he’s half conscious of waiting for is regret. It doesn’t come. He gets out the novel he’s reading, but it falls out of his hands almost straight away, and then, for once, he’s easily, rapidly asleep.