Archive of Our Own

“Uh, hello..?”

“Hey there, you’ve communicated with Guyline Seoul, I’m really, really glad you called. Should I call you hyung? Oppa?”

“Uh… Daddy is fine.”

“Okay, daddy.”, the word feels weird in Doyoung’s mouth. It is the first time someone asked him to call him that. “Please tell me about you… What do you look like? What do you like?”

“Uh…”, there is a longish silence on the other side of the line. Doyoung bites his lip, wondering if he should add something. “I’m, uh, tall. Like over 180 centimeters. Sometimes I bump into stuff on ceilings. One time I hit a lamp, but it was from an ahjumma’s restaurants, so it kind of doesn’t count, I guess.”

Doyoung mentally sighs, as he tries to stay in character, begging his voice to stay breathy and seductive.

“Wow… You must be so big then.”

“Well, I kind of am, but, uh, I haven’t really measured myself since like, high school. I was 17 centimeters back then. I might have grown. Do penises grow after you’ve gotten out of school?”

“I hope yours is growing right now.”

“Ah- aha, yeah.”

“You have a slight sexy accent, are you a foreigner, daddy?”

“Yeah”, he feels a smile on the voice. ”I’m from America. Well, I look Korean, but I was born in Chicago.”

“You must have learnt so, so much there, daddy. I wonder what would you do to me.”

“I… uh, well.”, Doyoung hears the voice trip on itself a couple times for what feels the millionth time in less than five minutes. “I’d like to know what you look like. To, you know, imagine better.”

“Well…”, Doyoung’s eyebrows twist in a little frown, as he tries to guess what this client’s ideal type would look like. He wanted to be called ‘daddy’, right? That must be his kink. “I’m smaller than you, daddy, so much smaller. My skin is so pale, and my legs really long and flexible, so you can open them easily.”

“You sound really hot, to be honest. What about your hair?”

Okay, good, this is finally going somewhere.

“I’m a redhead. Do you like that? I can change it for you if you don’t.”

“N-no, it’s fine. That’s cute, too. Do you, uh, have a name or something?”

“Yes…”

Doyoung blinks, as he tries to think of something.

He suddenly comes up with an idea, but his memory fails to remember the word he needs in English. His fingers fly to the old yellowed keyboard in front of him, but the encyclopedia program that every computer of the company has loads in tortuous minutes as always. He panics slightly, but he opens the block of notes and he insistently pats his coworker’s shoulder.

Ten’s eyes fly to his screen, turning slightly on his swivel chair and he kind of smirks as he reads what was written on it. He whispers the word to him, covering his own microphone, and Doyoung gives him a thumbs up.

“Uh, would you tell it to me?”

“Yes, sorry, I love it when you call me bunny.  Didn’t mean to make you wait, daddy, please don’t punish me for being a bad boy.”

“Uh, don’t worry I won’t… Oh, you mean like spanking and stuff, right? Sorry.”, the other side clears his voice. “I’m sorry I’m having a hard time following.”

“It’s okay.”, Doyoung reassures him with a softer voice, as he can’t help to take pity on him. He sounded truly apologetic, “I can connect you to a different person if you want.”

“No, no, it’s fine, you’re doing great!”, the other side is quick to reassure back. “I’m just… I have two finals coming up on Monday, you know?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’ve been obsessing over them. I was never really the type to obsess over college, you know? But this is my last semester until I graduate. These exams determine if I am out of this hell now or not.”

Doyoung feels truly sympathetic now.

He’s a college student as well, and he liked to call himself diligent (hell, aren’t those his notes on the side of the bright monitor over there?), so relating to what this guy is feeling is granted. He can only imagine how chaotic his mind must be right now.

Especially, and this is not Doyoung bragging, because he’s having such a hard time to get him to get into the mood.  He’d admit any day that  it isn’t the most useful skill, but he had been working in this hotline call center for almost a year now, four days a week, five hours, and this is probably the first time a client is like this.

Obviously he had had the politician that ranted about the elections, or the teacher who ended up talking shit about his students. Hell, he even had a lawyer that had a multimillionaire trial going on, and he had been able to get all of those to jack off after a while.

This guy must have been seriously bad.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, daddy. You’ve been studying, right?”

“I’ve been studying more than in my whole college experience. It’s eating me.” he sighs, frustrated. “I just thought I could relax on this Friday night, you know? Play some Atari, get a pizza, bust a nut. Relax. But I can’t even get it up. You were talking and my mind was going over the uncommon symptoms of myelomeningocele.”

“That’s not a very sexy thought.”

“I know! Ugh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t vent this to you. You’re just working, bunny.”

Doyoung found himself wanting to giggle and frown deeper at those words at the same time.

“No, I mean, it’s okay.”, he just replies, his work voice dropping completely, “I mean, you must be really stressed. I know I would be.”

“Thank you…”, the guy just mumbles, pathetically.

“College is so hard, the exams, the competitiveness, right? Sometimes I wish I was back in high school again, where my biggest worry was if the guy I liked was gay or not. College fries your brain, and teachers make it even worse. Two final exams in the same day? Daddy, you have every right to be stressed.”

“Thank you…”, he replies again, and Doyoung’s mind imagines a random tall guy holding his head on his hands. He looks pitiful, in his mind. “I just… I just want this to be over already.”

Is that a sob what he just heard?

“Three weeks, I keep telling myself, three more weeks of this and then just normal residence. A normal life.”

“You can do this, I’m sure.”

“I just don’t want to flunk it. I’m so scared of that. I don’t even want a high mark.”

“Ah, you won’t. You sound smart. I’m sure you’ll get a great mark.”

There is a new silence on the other side of the line. Doyoung waits, patient, click-dragging random squares against the bland background of the screen. He shoots a look towards the clock marking the calling time, a big sixteen minutes and seconds passing.  He’s sure he hears a few sobs now, but decides against saying anything, as it feels like the other side needs some privacy.

After some time, he hears the other side speaking up again.

“Thank you”, he finally says, now strong and more composed than before. “You were great.”

It isn’t the first time a client says those words to him, yet, for some reason, considering the whole situation that just happened…

He feels his insides fluttering.

“It’s okay.”, Doyoung assures once again, “Would you like to take up from where we left?”

The guy seems to deliberate for some seconds.

“Nah, it’s fine. I feel better now. I guess I should hang up, you must have a lot of clients to answer. So, goodbye?”

“I’m glad, daddy. You’ll do great.”, he feels the need to add that one last time, and he sincerely wishes he does. “Bye!”

He hears one last soft ‘bye’, and the line goes dead.

 Doyoung sighs one last time, and shakes his head. He takes a few seconds to take in that weird call.

Then, the red light starts blinking, indicating a new call.

Well, time to get back to work.

It’s a Tuesday night when Doyoung gets a new interesting call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, handsome, you’ve communicated with Guyline, the hottest in Seoul. Should I call you hyung?”

“Oh, it’s finally you!”

Doyoung’s eyebrows raise in recognition. That voice!

“Daddy?!”

It’d be a lie if he said he had forgotten about that particular call.

At first, he didn’t even think twice about it, about the guy. But for some reason, after some time, he felt himself mentally going over it more and more, until it got to an unbearable point.

He couldn’t help to wonder before he went to bed about the guy. He wondered if he had been able to enjoy his pizza after they hung up. He wondered if the dread he had felt had faded away. He wondered especially if he had been able to rest well afterwards.

Or at least properly jack off.

“I passed both of them! I passed the exams with honors!”

Doyoung’s eyes suddenly opened big, and he stirs in his chair, excited.

“Really!? I knew it! I knew you could do it!”

The other side laughs, and he feels himself laughing along. Then, he remembers where the hell he is, also known as, his workplace, and his eyes quickly scan the room for signs of his manager. Luckily, the only one surprised because of his outburst was Ten, sitting next to him.

“Thank you, thank you.”, Doyoung can almost see the bows in his voice, “It wasn’t half as hard as I thought it would be. Now I only have two exams left and I’m free.”

Doyoung feels his lips stretch in a smile.

“Just two more weeks!”

“Yes, two left. Two and two, hah.”, Doyoung rolls his eyes at the bad joke, but his smile doesn’t falter, “I just called to tell you. It’s thanks to you, you know? You really did help me destress. I guess I don’t talk to many people about what bothers me.”

“Ah, no, I didn’t study for you after all.”

“Still. It helped. You helped. Thank you.”

Doyoung smiles to himself.

They end up talking about life.

The guy (Doyoung still hasn’t asked his name) is going to be a pediatrician. He has been doing his residence for three years, now, but he had delayed the exams he had to take until last time, since he stupidly thought they’d be easier once he had more experience.  He told him he had had two long term boyfriends, but after he started his residency, his last one left him because they could barely see each other.

“He wasn’t really supportive of me studying hard, you know.  Or of studying in general.”, he coughed, “You kind of were way more supportive than him in fifteen minutes than him in the whole two years our relationship lasted.”

“Well, some people don’t understand hard work.”, he comments, as he doodles little flowers on his notebook.

“Yeah, especially him. Do you know what he did all day? Game and eat Doritos.”, he sighs, and Doyoung imagines him shaking his head, “I mean, that was cool at the time… Except when he left my place all upside down and wouldn’t shower for days…”

“What!? That’s…”

“Nasty. I know.”

Suddenly, Doyoung sees a flash of white, and he straightens up unconsciously.

“Ah, yes, daddy, I’m so nasty.”, his worker’s voice is back, velvet, “Your dirty little whore.”

“Uh…”

“What did you say you wanted to do? Ah, yes, that sounds so good; give it to me harder, daddy.”

“Um…”

He hears the door of the management room closing, and he relaxes once again.

“Sorry, our manager was around.” he is quick to explain, “He doesn’t listen to our phone calls, but he is always on the lookout for lazy workers.”

He listens to a fit of giggles from the other side.

“Your work voice is hot.”, he states, “but your normal voice is nice, too.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t really make dicks twitch, does it?”

“Hey, praise can get you places, you know?”

“I wasn’t praising you, daddy.”, he says that last word almost ironically, “It’s called encouragement.”

“It’s still nice.”, he hears in a whisper, and he holds his smile.

There’s no sound except his soft breaths coming from the line for some minutes, and Doyoung suddenly remembers something.

“You know, I’ve been wondering just how did you find me. ”, he breaks the silence, “I mean…”

“Oh, well, I had to call and hang up like five times.”, he admitted right away, “I was pretty sure I could recognize your voice right away, and I wasn’t wrong.”

This works to make Doyoung’s chest warm for a few seconds.

“I tried to ask for the redhead bunny once or twice, but they all thought I was trying to roleplay.”, this makes Doyoung laugh.

“I’m surprised they didn’t block your number. Had you called a few more times, I’d have never gotten to know that you brilliantly passed.”

He hears him blow some air from his nose in a small laugh.

“I guess I’m just lucky.”

Doyoung bites his lip and rolls his eyes once again.

“You can request operators, you know? My number is 23, just press it after the normal hotline number.”

“Does that mean you want me to call you more often?”, he is quick to ask, and Doyoung’s pen jolts from his hand.

“I-I mean, it’s more money for me, so…”

“Ah, right, right. I forgot I’m just a number for you. I’m hurt.”, he says, but his voice never changes the affable tone he’s been wearing the whole conversation. “I guess it’s time to bid goodbye then. I have to go study for my next test.”

It’s surprising to Doyoung how different it was from the insecure, clumsy one he had on their first conversation, especially since he thought he would be a bad talker. Quite the opposite, words seemed to smoothly come out of his mouth, expressiveness at full notch in his sentences.

“When is it going to be?”, Doyoung asks, before he’s able to stop himself.

“Next week’s Wednesday.”

“A bit over a week to go through your notes. You got this.”

“Yeah.”, he says, and there’s a small smile in his tone, “I guess you’re right. Thank you, bunny.”

“It’s nothing, daddy. Rest well.”

“You too,”, his voice softens, almost a whisper, “Good night.”

“Night.”

Doyoung cuts the call this time, and tries his hardest to ignore Ten’s raised eyebrows and sided smirk. And the slight hammer in his chest.

(He fails.)

“Sure.”

“Hey, I’m serious!”

“So, you’re trying to tell me that your actual name is the most stereotypical name for an American man in the world?”

“Yeah!”

“What kind of fool do you think I am?!”, Doyoung’s voice rises slightly in fake annoyance and he hears the other side of the line laugh.

“I’m telling you, my name really is Johnny!”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, and bites a smile.

“I have a Korean name too, Youngho, but nobody really uses it.”, he hears the shrug in his voice, “Aside from my roommate.”

“Taeyong?”

“Yeah, him. He’s kind of… Traditional, I guess. Formal at times.”

“Well, he does sound serious.”, Doyoung’s finger twirl around the endless curl of the phone cord, and he lets himself fall on the back rest of the chair. For the millionth time that month, his headset broke, and he had been forced to use a normal phone.

“Yeah, he’s an absolute no fun.”

Doyoung feels the warmth of the handset against his cheek as he unconsciously nods, and if he closes his eyes it’s almost as if he’s on the privacy of his own shared room, sitting on his own desk, talking on his own phone.  It’s a weirdly comforting thought.

Some silent seconds pass by (he’s almost already used to them), and he speaks up again.

“The exam is tomorrow, right? Shouldn’t you be sleeping already, Johnny?”

“Yeah,”, he hears the other side sigh, and the ambiguous sound of fabric movement, “I’m on my bed, actually. I just felt like talking to you.”

“Aish, don’t say things like that. I should be the one flirting here.”

“Hey, I’m serious.” Johnny yawns, “You help me relax. I feel like my nerves would be eating me right now.”.  Doyoung tries to think something to say, but he doesn’t have the opportunity, because the older talks again. “Heh, you said my name. I thought you thought it’s fake?”

“W-we call our clients what they want to be called. Company’s policy.”

“So if I said I want to be called Napoleon Bonaparte, you would?”

“Yeah.”

“And Bill Clinton?”

“Sure.”

“And if I told you to call me yours?”

Doyoung snorts, his legs swaying him side to side on the chair.

“You’re so dumb.” he ends up saying, except he can’t help the affectionate voice in which he says it.

He has a hard time admitting it, but the American guy has grown on him.

He has called more than once in the last week, always going straight to his intern, always late at night. Doyoung had tried, he had really tried doing his work and trying to commit him to phone sex, or kink talk, or just anything he would do with a normal client, but he always ended up laughing at him and telling him to turn off his work voice.

At first Doyoung had been kind of wary. He had heard the manager, in his old oversized dress pants and short sleeved button up shuffling around the lounge, always almost hitting the big fake palm leaves they had on a pot as the only decoration on the badly lit room. He worried he had started controlling his calls, listening how he was not working (even if he was still getting paid) and would ultimately lead to him being fired.  

However, he soon learnt that the fifty something year old just didn’t give a damn about them, and only got out of his office for either more coffee or to try to flirt with the receptionist.

They had chatted a little about everything, never longer than an hour. Johnny seemed to worry more for Doyoung’s other clients than for his own wallet, and Doyoung constantly felt the ‘please don’t go’s on the tip of his tongue.

He enjoyed talking to him. He couldn’t help it.

It didn’t help that it seemed that the man it enjoyed just as much, too.

“You should sleep, though. You’ll do great tomorrow.”

“Thank you”, Johnny says, and he lets a yawn he had seemed to be holding, “I hope your night ends well, too. No complicated clients and all. No other clients who refuse to let you work like me.”

Doyoung laughs a little, “Goodnight, Johnny.”

“Goodnight, bunny.”

Goodnight, Doyoung, he tries to imagine him saying instead, but it’s fruitless. As sweet as his mind makes it sound, he is sure it would sound a thousand times sweeter from the man himself. Doyoung sighs.

It would be nice to hear it from him, sometime.

The line keeps doing the annoying beep of a cut call behind Doyoung’s thoughts.

Yeah, it would be nice.

It would be a lie if Doyoung tried to say that he wasn’t anxious about Johnny’s exam.

It sounds stupid, especially because Doyoung barely knows the guy. Especially because he doesn’t know what he looks like. Especially because he’s, essentially, just another client he talks out of stress sometimes.

He really, really doesn’t know why he cares so much about Johnny.

But there’s no doubt he cares. Even if he had tried to deny it for even a second, his chewed-up-until-bleeding lips and all the times he cracked the bones in his hand would betray him anyway.

He just couldn’t shake out of his mind thoughts of him. He wondered how he woke up. He wondered if he felt the same dread as Doyoung himself felt before exams, that gushing feeling of wanting to throw up but not having the time or energy to do so. He wondered if he had any anxious habits, like biting his nails or bouncing his leg.

Even if he somehow had no doubts that the man was going to do well in it (he just seemed the type, you know?) he couldn’t help to worry about the come out. He knows all too well that even with months of preparation, if your mind goes blank, it goes blank, and there’s no helping it.

He just really, really hoped he was able to get through his stress this time around.

Doyoung clocks in, leaving his card in the machine, and he feels his legs stiff as he tries not to run to his station. He sits down very carefully, feeling all the muscles of his body tense as he peep talks to himself about not expecting a call, a certain someone’s call, and stop worrying at all about that certain someone. He’s not your friend, he tells himself; he’s a client. He’s a client. Johnny’s a client.

 “Why is a stick up your ass today?”

“Johnny’s having his last exam today.”, Doyoung says, before even thinking about it. “Wait. Shit.”

“Honesty! I love it.”, Ten exclaims, clapping his hands once and laughing, “I love how deep in you are.”

“Shut up.”, Doyoung says, as he fumbles to connect his headset and swipes the screen of his monitor, wiping away the static, “I’m not worried. More like curious.”

Doyoung pretends he didn’t see the younger’s doubtful mocking glance, before he sees the light on his caller blinking at him.

It’s not him, he tells himself before answering.

It wasn’t  him. The next call wasn’t either. Nor the other one. Nor the other one.

Johnny didn’t call.

Doyoung pretends that wasn’t disappointment and sadness swimming in his chest.

He doesn’t call the following day, either.

Doyoung doesn’t know what to think of it, so he avoids thinking about it at all. If Johnny didn’t want to call anymore it was fine. It was his life anyway. And his money. He didn’t need to spare it all in some random hotline worker. And Doyoung has tons of clients a day, he doesn’t need it either. Or him. He doesn’t need him.

(so he tells himself.)

But then, the day after that, Doyoung doesn’t have a second to breathe when the first call in his shift finishes because of a new incoming call.

“Hey handsome , you’re on Guyline, the hottes-“

“I got a 99.”

Doyoung feels his face paling, and his hands fall, hitting the keyboard sitting on his desk.

“J-Johnny?”, his voice, shaky, gives away his shock, “What?”

He hears a laugh that sounds relieved from the other end of the line, and the older repeats himself.

“I got a 99 on my test, bunny!”, another laugh, “Almost a perfect score!”

This time, Doyoung can’t help to laugh along. He feels his chest flutter, like thousands of butterflies wings hitting against it from the inside, soft, yet notorious. He doesn’t really know what makes him feel this, if it’s the news themselves, or the fact that he called back to tell them.

“Are you serious?! I knew it!”

“I’m officially graduated!”

“I’m so happy for you, Johnny!”, Doyoung’s mouth stretches into a smile that is soon repressed by his teeth digging in his lower lip.  “Congratulations!”

“Thank you, thank you,” he says, and Doyoung can almost imagine the theatrical bows in the voice he uses. But then, his tone suddenly changes; now it’s lower, and it feels more intimate when he says “I’m serious, thank you, bunny. I doubt I would have been able to get through this without you.

Doyoung feels flustered, and if his face lacked colour a few minutes ago, it was now a full picture in furious reds.

“i-I didn’t study for y-“

“I know! I know.”, he gets interrupted, “Still. I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

The line falls silent in both sides. Doyoung tries to think what to say to that, but he keeps getting distracted by the warmness he’s feeling, and just for a second he allows himself to marvel in the sensation, enjoying it.

However, he is brought back by the sound of the other side clearing his throat.

I made it awkward, Doyoung winces, but before he can say anything, the older starts talking.

“By the way, I’m sorry I didn’t call until now.” he says, casually, “I didn’t get my results until today. But, to be honest, I felt like I did so well in the exam, you wouldn’t believe it. My friends wouldn’t hear the end of it. I literally talked about it all day long.”

“You could have bragged to me too.”, Doyoung comments, no real bite in his voice.

“Yeah, I know”, he mutters, “it’s just…”

“Just?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you,”, he says, and it sounds so sincere that it sends Doyoung’s heart into a rave for some seconds,  “If by chance I had done badly, and I had bragged to you too… I just… You know? “

Doyoung presses his lips to suppress a smile, “I know. its fine, I didn’t really notice.”

He suddenly hears a snort behind him, and spares an annoyed glance on his coworker. The Thai boy was looking at him with his big eyes, mock clearly shining in them.

“Uh, you know,“ Doyoung’s attention Is back on Johnny, “I was wondering…”

“Yeah?”

There is another silence in the line, before the older speaks up again.

“There’s, uh, a ceremony. For the graduation I mean, and it’s next Sunday. Not this week’s, I mean, the next week’s one.”

Doyoung twists his eyebrows, intrigued. Johnny sounds different, he had never heard him so nervous before. It was even worse than the first time he called.

“And since all of my friends are from college they are graduating with me. And, well, my family won’t be able to come, you know, America’s kinda far…”, he hears him clearing his voice again, almost in a hurry, “What I mean is, it’d be nice to have someone in the ceremony cheering for me. w-would you, uh, like to come? Maybe?”

Doyoung’s eyebrows arch in the most incredulous surprise, and if he hadn’t had enough self control, he’d have shouted.

“Me?!”

“Yeah. Uh, I mean, you don’t have to come, I was just suggesting. I know it’s only been like three weeks but I-“

“Johnny”, Doyoung suddenly cuts him, acting as if his heart wasn’t hammering a Bon Jovi drum solo on his chest, “I’d love to.”

“Really?!”, he sounded shook, “For real!? Great!”, he lets out a small giggle, “That’s great.”

Doyoung’s mind takes a second to process what was going on, and the fact that he had actually agreed to it. He hadn’t even taken a second to consider the dangers, his worries, the whole situation itself. He hadn’t even taken a second to consider anything.

It’s the first time he does something like this.

“Um, do you have a phone number I could call to? We weren’t really given the details of the ceremony yet, just the date. I mean, it’d be cool if I could tell you as soon as we got them, instead of waiting for your shift or something.”

“Uh, oh, sure.” Doyoung said, still submerged in his fluster. But then, he remembered the exact reason their calls were always being recorded, “I can’t give personal information through here though, you know…”

“Oh…”

Doyoung hated how disappointed he sounds. He probably thinks Doyoung was putting that as an excuse.

Suddenly, though, he gets an idea.

“Wait”, he says,” Let’s try this. Do you have a pen? Get something to write.”

Not even replying, Doyoung could hear the sound of things falling, moving and crashing against each other through the line. After some seconds, they were replaced by the ruffling of paper and the click of a pen.

“… Yeah.”

“Okay, daddy, listen carefully.”, Doyoung straightens his back, suddenly professional. “So, we are two, right? And I’m… I’m laying in four legs.”

“…What?”, the older sounds lost.

“Johnny, follow me. We are two, I’m laying in four.”

Some seconds went by, before Doyoung hears a clear “Oh!”

Doyoung smiles as Johnny catches on.

“Okay. Yeah. And what’s next, babe?”, Doyoung had to repress a laugh at how excited he sounded now.

“And you touch up and down my two legs… Uh, nine times?”

“Foreplay? I like that.”

“And I get one throbbing boner.”

“Got it.”

“And I start whining so hard that I want to touch myself, but you stop my hands.  You lift them up my head with your big hand and grab the bottle of lube with the other, instead.”

“Uh, was there a number I missed in all of that?”

“No, but sex safety is important in all stances. Anyway, you start stretching me, I’m whining more, whatever, and you stick up to five fingers in my little hole.”

“I’m fisting you!? Baby, that’s not a little hole.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes.

“Do you want to get my number or not? I’m trying my best here.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, I know.”, Johnny says, but there’s still traces of mockery in his voice, “Go on, baby, I’m close.”

“Well, then you start fucking me. And you last seven minutes. “, Doyoung’s voice deadpans, faking annoyance, “I get zero orgasms. There.”

“Wait- no. What?! You know I wouldn’t last that little.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes once again, suppressing what it must be the hundredth smile in the call.

“How could I know, though?”

“Well, you could know. You know, after the graduation. There’s a party.”

“…”

“Doyoung?”

“H-have you come yet? If so, daddy, I must go.”

“Okay bunny.”, Doyoung hears the smirk, “You were amazing. Talk to you soon?”

“B-bye Johnny.”

And Doyoung cuts the call.

“I love red; glad to see it’s the colour in season!”

“Shut the fuck up, Ten.”, Doyoung mutters, as he tries to cool down his face with his own hands.

(He fails.)

About two weeks later, the sun shines on his face, and Doyoung finds himself squinting. There’s a hurricane of black, long robes, balloons of every colour, and people, people, people. He stops, as a little girl passes by running before him, escaping from other little girl with ponytails that follows her seconds later.

Doyoung takes a few seconds to understand the scene before him.

There is a huge stage, flags and posters with the name of the college hanging everywhere, and tons of balloons floating, erasing the seriousness out of the scene. In the middle of it, a small wooden pedestal with a microphone and some tech guys working around it.

There were chairs set in front of the stage, too, but Doyoung doesn’t bother to try to calculate how many, and the crowd varies between standing around them, on them, or far away from them. The field where the ceremony takes place is big, anyway, and there’s still twenty minutes left before it starts.

He hears a whistle beside him, and his head turns to the shorter guy next to him.

“Wow, look at that building! This place must be pretty fancy, huh?”, Ten says, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed in the big construction that is the college.

“It’s just a college…”, Doyoung replies, distracted. He had been focusing on taking shallow breaths through his mouth, trying to make his heart calm a beat or two.

Ten turns to him, a small smirk on his face, but doesn’t say a word. he knows that he knows just how nervous Doyoung is feeling.

“Relax.”, he ends up saying, and Doyoung sees his turquoise Hawaiian shirt flash as he turns towards the building again.

If only it was that easy.

He was about to meet Johnny, also known as Johnathan Suh, also known as the guy that had been calling him for over four weeks now. Also known as the guy that had been invading his thoughts almost at all times, facelessly, but at the same time feeling so familiar in Doyoung’s thoughts that it was crazy.

After Doyoung had given him his number, the older had been calling every day around midday, when he knew Doyoung would be having lunch in the college cafeteria. They would talk about random things, occasionally flirting, occasionally laughing, but always talking.

It was crazy how they wouldn’t run out of conversation, no matter how much time they’d end up talking. Even Doyoung’s teachers were starting to get annoyed, he had gotten late to his classes more times in two weeks than in the whole year.

He felt more than affability for the guy. He had grown feelings. And it would be pathetic to admit how deep in he was, if he didn’t suspect that on the other side of the line, Johnny was about the same.

He felt constricted in his own body, and suddenly, he felt thankful that he had actually listened to his best friend when he told him to change out of his favourite leather jacket. Doyoung had whined, but he was finally convinced to exchange it for an opened flannel, not without almost fighting the guy when he tried to convince him to wear a denim overall.

“You look like H.O.T.”, Doyoung suddenly tells Ten, more to distract himself than to start a fight.

“If you had worn the overall, we’d both look like H.O.T.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

Suddenly, the microphone makes a deafening, high noise, and Doyoung has to cover his ears. Some old man announces that the ceremony was about to start, and asks everyone to take a seat. They follow the crowd, taking a couple of seats as close to the stage as they can.

Doyoung can’t help to let his eyes wander through the graduates, wondering who he was, who Johnny was. There’s about 20 late teens, almost adults dressed up, wearing the characteristic black hats with the red cord, and he secretly wonders if his own college does the same to their own graduates. He tries to look at every face, to listen every voice, but it’s impossible to make out too much. It’s like the rush of their excitement got to him, and everything feels blurry and fast.

Although he feels Ten’s hand clutching on his forearm, trying to set him back to reality, he can’t focus on the long, heartfelt speech that is being given by some tall, long haired guy on the mic. He sees the guy gesticulating, and he just can’t help to wonder if the strand of hair that falls on his cheek doesn’t bother him.

He doesn’t know for how long he talks, but suddenly he’s replaced by someone else, a short, pale girl with strictness printed on his face. Finally, she finishes talking and the crowd cheers again, just as hard as they had cheered for the tall guy.

And then finally, finally, the part of the ceremony that he was waiting for starts.

“Now we will start calling everyone’s names.”, a different old man with thick rimmed glasses and an old grey suit says, and he hears more cheers.

“Are you ready?”, Ten whispers at him.

Doyoung turns slightly to him, his eyes bugging out of his socks.

No. He absolutely wasn’t. His heart hammered, actually hammered inside his chest. He felt sweat building in his hands, and his nails in pain as he gripped tightly from the holes of his loose, ripped jeans. He felt uncomfortable.  He felt suffocated. If it wasn’t for Ten’s grip, he would have run away in that very instant.

“Yes, you are.”, Ten replies for him, and he makes him turn back to the stage.

The letters on the alphabet pass too fast for Doyoung’s liking, and soon the old man reaches to the  letter J. Doyoung exchanges an anxious stare with Ten, and they look back to the stage once again.

But…

No Johnnys, Johnathans or anything alike gets called to the stage.

Doyoung swallows hard, and his eyes fall to his lap. He feels Ten's hand pressing his forearm once again, calling his attention.

“Hey, let’s wait till the end. Maybe they skipped him?”

Doyoung nods with difficulty. “Yeah. Maybe.”

But dread is an ugly sensation, and he feels it growing in his stomach.

 Names go by way too fast for his liking, and suddenly they are almost at the end of the list. Doyoung’s eyes have been set on his lap, defeat already accepted, somehow, and from the corner of his eyes he can see Ten’s attentive profile, nose slightly perked up, as he tries to look over the people in front of them.

“And finally, the last of our list, Suh Youngho!”, the old man explodes, and there’s a loud cheer coming mostly from the graduates. The tall, long haired guy that gave the speech comes up, and grabs his teacher’s hand, shaking it. “Ah, yes, our Johnny Suh is finally here.”

Doyoung perks up in a flash, and his eyes open big.

“Johnny!”, Ten says to him before he can even open his mouth, “Doyoung, that’s Johnny!”

Doyoung is on his feet in an instant, and his eyes open big, as if trying to have a better look at the stage.  Next to him, his friend does the same and both of them start hollering, clapping loudly, and there’s a new round of applauses for him.

Doyoung sees Johnny look around, laughing when he sees him, and giving a big wave before he picks his diploma and gets his picture taken.

He laughs, relieved, so relieved because he’s finally going to meet him. He’s finally going to get to hear that laugh live, and those lips smirking as his voice follows along.

His anxiety turns into excitement in an instant, and now Ten’s grip works to keep him sat and calm while the ceremony closes.

It’s a blur again, but suddenly everyone is standing up, and the graduates are running to their respective families, and Doyoung just circles around on his own feet as he tries to figure out what to do, where to go. He can’t wait a single more second to meet him. He’s about to explode.

Suddenly, he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“You came!”

There he is, waiting for him with open arms. Doyoung doesn’t think twice, and falls in them, euphoric.

Doyoung laughs as he feels pressed against the older guy, and he presses back. His nose is pressed against his shoulder blade, and he can smell his cologne, strong and inviting, and he closes his eyes, enjoying the sensation.

“I told you I would.”, he says once he calms down, and they stay like that for a few seconds. Still in his arms, he hears the older laugh quietly once again.

“You never told me you were this tall. Or that you had purple hair.”

“You never asked.”

“I like it.”, he says, and it’s almost like it’s reassuring, “I really like it.”

After a while, they finally let go, and Doyoung takes a good look at his face.

Now, Doyoung had been mentally preparing himself to meet someone he wouldn’t like physically. He was the type to be quite picky when it came to things like appearance, but he was even more nitpicky for personalities. So, honestly, he was ready to accept most anything as long as the Johnny he had talked to was the same as he’d finally meet.

But he had to say, he was surprised. Very surprised. Very pleasantly surprised.

There was his height and his hair cut that would already had won more than a couple points in Doyoung’s scale (Doyoung himself was kind of tall, and it was hard for him to find guys taller than him).

But also, with a small, almost impossibly perfect nose, and flawless cinnamon skin, Doyoung found himself in front of someone really, really attractive. His eyebrows arched in a way that would have made him seen professional and serious if he hadn’t been laughing just seconds before, and his eyes were somehow warm and mischievous at the same time.

And his lips, oh, his lips. Thick, plump, defined. Perfect to be bitten, ready to be kissed.

Doyoung would lie if he said he’d want to try them at that very instant, in front of everybody, not caring about anything else.

Suddenly, though, his appreciation is interrupted by a new voice.

“Oh, good, so the big giant finally found a mate.”

Doyoung turned, and a brunette graduate was standing in front of them.

“Yuta!”, Johnny said, and instantly went to hug him, patting his back with strength, “Congratulations to you too, man!”

Johnny’s friend laughed, and for some reason, Doyoung remembered in that instant that Ten was still there.

However, Ten might have probably forgotten that he was there.

“This is…”

“Doyoung, yeah, and I’m Ten, his best friend.”, the shortest is quick to introduce himself, extending a hand towards Yuta. He blinks once, and then extends his other hand in Johnny’s direction, as well. “I’m Ten!”, he repeats, and Johnny laughs, as he shakes his hand.

Doyoung groans, wondering why the hell he had asked Johnny to let him bring a friend in the first place.

But then, he raises an eyebrow as he sees Yuta’s eyes shining with something different.

“Oh, you are the one that works at the hotline with him, right?”, he says, not letting his hand go, “You know, what about we let these two have their space for a while? There’s some drinks over there.”

Ten dedicates him one of his most pleasant smiles.

“I’d really like that.”

EPILOGUE

“Hello there, you’ve communicated with Guyli-“

“We’re eating pizza tonight.”

Doyoung groans. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me here?! It’s expensive!”, the younger readjusts his headset, and falls on his elbows, “Besides, I know that, you already told me!”

“Sorry baby, I just miss you.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, but the words make him soften in less than a second.

“We’re eating at yours tonight, right?”

“Mhmm…”, Johnny hums, “I’ll come pick you up, okay?”

“Yep!”, Doyoung nods, happily, “Thank you~.”

“No need to thank, baby. Pepperoni?”

“Yep! See you later. I got clients to help get off.”

Johnny chuckles. “See you later, bunny.”

“Bye, daddy.”