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Wong Yukhei isn’t one to be manipulative when it comes to someone else’s feelings, but he’s come to realise that all his common sense is pushed into the furthest corner of his mind when it comes to Mark Lee.
Yukhei isn’t this; Yukhei isn’t that.
There are a lot of things Yukhei swore that he would never let himself do only to find himself victim to said situations whenever it’s related to Mark. Yukhei never brings anyone from formal events home; Yukhei is usually the first to suggest that they forget whatever happened the night before; Yukhei doesn’t sleep with the same person twice.
And yet Yukhei finds himself coming back to Mark, again and again, like a moth drawn to a flame.
He’s well aware that they’re not good for each other, it’s evident in the way they treat one another. They bring out the worst in the other person, and that’s a fact.
Yukhei’s never thought about wanting to actively hurt someone from the inside as much as he does whenever he’s with Mark. And Mark… Mark seems content pushing Yukhei away as far as he can right after he’s gotten off.
Having Mark under him is a whole different story, though. Yukhei finds that these are the moments he enjoys best nowadays—having Mark all to himself, soft and pliant under his fingertips, readily taking all of him in.
Mark is so beautiful like this—quiet, lips bitten raw as he tries to restrain from making noise. Mark’s back is arched against the headboard of the bed as Yukhei fucks into him, his hands buried in the sheets at his side, fingers clutching at the fabric so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.
Yukhei wants those fingers on him—scratching down his back, leaving marks down his chest, even drawing blood if Mark so pleases. He just wants Mark to touch him, more so than he’s doing right now.
They’re strangely distant for two people who have been fucking exclusively for over half a year now.
Yukhei knows just about everything there is to know about Mark’s body by now. He knows where every freckle is, the points at which Mark is most sensitive, and even what pushes Mark over the edge. It comes with experience to learn the areas of someone’s body like this, and Yukhei’s taken more time to get himself familiar with just that.
He’s sure that Mark knows the same about him. Mark’s fingers always seem to find themselves in the mess of Yukhei’s hair, tugging tightly on the strands just as Yukhei is about to come. Yukhei is certain that Mark knows that’s how he likes it.
Sometimes this is the only form of communication they get—Mark’s moans of pleasure whenever Yukhei hits the right spot and Yukhei’s peak of euphoria when Mark bites into his neck just as he’s about to release.
They’re rough with each other without good reason.
They could probably be so much more, if one of them were to back down.
“Someone probably left a shirt your size on the dresser,” Yukhei says, indicating in that direction when Mark gets up to leave. Mark rarely stays over ever since that one night many months ago.
The shirt Mark arrived in earlier is lying soiled on the ground—Yukhei used it to wipe up the come on Mark’s abdomen just moments ago with purpose. He needs Mark to know—no, he needs Mark to think he knows.
The expression on Mark’s face shows exactly that. Mark is standing at the foot of the bed, wide-eyed, as he stares at Yukhei who’s still lounging on it.
“What?” Mark asks.
“Your shirt’s dirty. Take the one on the dresser, someone left it last night.”
Hook, line, and sinker. Mark’s eyes betray everything his mouth refuses to say. Everything Yukhei knows his heart feels but he won’t admit. Mark is jealous; Mark doesn’t like that Yukhei sleeps with other people.
Mark has feelings for him beyond an easy lay because of their arrangement.
And yet Mark doesn’t say a word. He takes the shirt, putting it on in one swift motion, buttoning it closed with practiced precision. He holds eye contact with Yukhei the entire time.
When he’s dressed, Mark leaves. He doesn’t say anything else—no goodbye, no mention of when they’ll next meet. It doesn’t matter, anyway.
Yukhei knows that he always comes back.
Mark never thought of himself as selfish. All his life, he was groomed to be the next heir of Lee Corporation—the multinational company his grandfather built from nothing, now in the capable hands of his father, and soon to be in Mark’s clumsy fingers.
Sometimes he imagines it all slipping away from him. All the investments, the stocks plummeting in value, and his parents—oh, his parents—the look on his parents’ faces when it turns out to be all Mark’s fault. Mark’s fault that the company is failing, that the Lee family name is disgraced.
Mark promises himself that he can never let that happen. How can he, when all of this was kept just for him?
He’d never be able to forgive himself if he were to be the one to cause them to lose it all.
So he locks himself up—in the highest dungeon in the tallest building he can find in his imagination. Mark makes sure that he stays there, contained, so there’s no chance for him to make a blunder and fuck it all up. That is, until he meets Yukhei.
They meet at a charity auction. Yukhei is the suave celebrity guest of the night—a world renown model who has featured in high fashion magazines and walked the runway for international brands. He’s a household name, an up-and-coming star whose career is just beginning. There’s as much for Yukhei to lose as there is for Mark.
Which is why it’s so easy for Mark to fall for him.
Yukhei takes him home that night.
Mark finds that he really enjoys letting Yukhei’s calloused palms roam his body. He likes having Yukhei’s fingers in him, each long digit spreading him open as Yukhei works his way through it. He likes how Yukhei chews on his ear as he fucks him.
There’s a lot Mark likes about Yukhei.
Yukhei’s broad back that Mark leaves angry red stripes on. The hickey at the base of Yukhei’s throat where Mark sunk his teeth in as he sucked. The stupid low, sexy voice that Yukhei uses to ask, “Good?”
It’s good. It’s all too good.
Mark knows that this wasn’t built to last.
Yukhei gets the crazy idea that he can afford wrecking his career for Mark. He tries to tell Mark that, attempting to talk out his feelings one night, when something in Mark snaps.
They used to have so much in common back when this all had to be kept under wraps to avoid ruining both their reputations, but now that Yukhei thinks that Mark is worth giving up on what he has, Mark doesn’t know if they work anymore. Mark tells him that, as curtly as he can, adding that this entire arrangement was always just “easy” for Mark.
Except it’s not.
Mark’s come to learn every curve, angle, and dip in Yukhei’s body. He’s memorised every noise, every breath, and every rise and fall of Yukhei’s chest. Sometimes he wonders if things will be easier if he could just take matters into his own hands and hold Yukhei to him forever.
But he can’t. He knows he can’t.
Thankfully, Yukhei takes it with stride. He doesn’t care to argue. He looks hurt at first, but then it’s like a switch in him flips. Yukhei apologises, blaming it on post-coital hormones. He’s always been an emotional person.
Mark thinks that this is the end of it.
Until Yukhei starts sleeping with other people.
The green-eyed monster in Mark starts whispering in his ears—poisoning him with ideas. Maybe if Mark were to be more straightforward, maybe if Mark would just take a leap of faith.
Maybe if Mark could acknowledge his own feelings.
Mark comes to realise that maybe he is kind of selfish. He wants Yukhei all to himself, but he doesn’t want to sacrifice his family name.
It’s not true.
Yukhei doesn’t sleep with anyone other than Mark.
Yes, Yukhei brings people home—most of them strangers—but whatever they do doesn’t go past the initial phases of kissing and touching. None of them have ever stayed the night, and none of them ever will. In fact, not one person he’s brought home to date, other than Mark, has ever seen his bed.
Yukhei’s determined to keep it that way, but Mark doesn’t need to know.
Sometimes Yukhei wonders if Mark really thinks of him beyond the physical—does Mark even think of him as a person? Or does Mark only see him as an easy lay?
These questions run through his head again and again, threatening to break him down from the inside.
But Yukhei knows the answers.
He’s seen the way Mark looks at him when he thinks he’s not paying attention. He’s overheard the quiet murmurs Mark makes in his sleep. He knows what Mark means whenever he calls him “Xuxi”.
Yukhei knows a lot more than he lets on.
And yet Mark won’t say it. Mark pushes him further and further away, building a wall between them with sharp words and no remorse in his tone. Mark lies to him, telling him what he is and what he’s not. Mark tries, and fails, to pretend that Yukhei means less to him than he does in actuality.
It’s nice to see Mark try.
Maybe that’s why Yukhei started to do this.
Yukhei brings someone home every other day—sometimes from a bar, other times from a noisy club, even people that he’s met through his friends. He lets them have their fun—he pretends that he’s interested in them, he plays up the whole “playboy” persona that they’ve come to believe is ingrained into his personality.
None of it is true, though.
Yukhei might as well branch out into acting with the amount of theatrics he’s been practicing.
He makes sure to drop hints that others have been over when Mark comes by. There are panties, shirts, sometimes even an odd accessory lying around, just so Mark will think that he’s not the only one in his life.
Yukhei knows how cruel this is. He’s aware of Mark’s feelings for him—he knows that Mark sees him as something more. Tormenting Mark like this is a sadistic ploy, but is it not justified when Mark plays with Yukhei in his own way?
Yukhei’s stopped trying to figure out the reasoning behind this.
So he lets himself get lost in Mark—the sound of Mark’s voice when he breathes his name, the soft mewls that escape his lips.
And every time after Mark comes, right before he’s regained his senses, Yukhei takes the opportunity to bundle him into his arms. They fit like puzzle pieces—Mark’s form buried in Yukhei’s embrace like they were made out of a single mould. Yukhei would take one deep inhale of Mark’s scent—burying his nose deep into the crown of Mark’s head—up until he feels Mark struggling against him.
That’s when he knows the night is over.
More often than not, Yukhei wonders who’s more ruthless—him, or Mark?
Mark finds himself coming back to Yukhei’s door, again and again, like clockwork. It’s not something that he’s acutely aware of—it just happens as it happens.
The road to Yukhei’s apartment complex is a well-memorised route by now. The streetlights illuminate Mark’s journey there, and each marking on the divider of the highway lets Mark know how much closer he’s getting to his destination.
Mark periodically questions why he has to leave. Why does he always have to travel back down the lane on the opposite side of the road?
Right, because he doesn’t have the luxury of staying with Yukhei.
He’s way too fucked up to interfere with Yukhei’s life.
Mark’s knocks on the door to Yukhei’s penthouse suite is a practiced rhythm. It’s three knocks, quickly, then two knocks after a beat. He doesn’t remember when he started doing it, he only knows that Yukhei doesn’t take time to look through the peephole whenever he hears that rhythm anymore.
Yukhei swings the door open like he’s done countless of times before, pulling Mark into the apartment by the arm. The movement is swift and fluid, rough with intent.
Mark is pushed against the back of the door the moment the door slams closed.
Yukhei’s lips are on his, pressing harshly. As their lips move together with fervour, their teeth knock against each other painfully a few times. Mark can barely bring himself to care. Yukhei bites down on Mark’s bottom lip after awhile, hard enough to make Mark gasp.
There’s a metallic taste in his mouth when they break apart for air.
Yukhei doesn’t waste time tonight. He hoists Mark up onto his shoulder, Mark’s body draping across him as if he weighed nothing. Yukhei is strong—but Mark’s never been worried about the possibility of Yukhei hurting him.
When they enter the bedroom, Yukhei throws Mark onto the bed. Mark feels his head collide with the headboard, but he doesn’t have time to register the pain before Yukhei’s lips are on him once more, this time travelling from his lips to his jaw, then slowly down his neck. Yukhei’s breath is hot against his skin—almost too hot.
Mark doesn’t realise that he’s said this out loud until Yukhei loosens his tie, his lips never leaving Mark’s skin even as he undoes button after button. This is a talent.
“Xuxi,” Mark says, huffing, when Yukhei licks a stripe up the side of his neck. It feels warm and so obscene.
“Hmm?” Yukhei hums, his movements never halting as he pulls his shirt over his head, revealing the tanned, toned muscles underneath. It’s the first thing Yukhei has said to him tonight, and Mark wonders if it’s going to be the last.
Mark doesn’t get the chance to continue speaking as Yukhei orders him to take off his shirt as he unbuckles the belt on his dress pants.
Yukhei’s fingers are deftly undoing each clasp, pulling Mark’s pants down in one motion as Mark shrugs off his shirt. “So pretty for me, hmm?” Yukhei whispers, but it’s not really a question because he leans back down to connect their lips once more, swallowing each moan Mark produces as he palms Mark’s dick through his underwear.
Whatever happens that night takes its time to unfold.
Mark finds himself getting lost in the feeling of Yukhei—Yukhei’s aura engulfing him as Yukhei crowds into his space as he’s pounding into him. Yukhei’s grip on each side of his waist is so hard that Mark can only imagine the bruises that will be left in the morning.
Yukhei flips him over, fucking Mark into the mattress as Mark buries his face into a pillow, muffling his cries with the material.
It feels so good when Yukhei pulls his hair.
Yukhei lets him come first—Yukhei strokes Mark to completion as he continues thrusting into him, making sure to keep a consistent pace. It doesn’t take long before Mark’s coming in spurts into Yukhei’s palm and onto the bedsheets, biting down into the pillow to avoid from making a sound.
Yukhei follows soon after, his teeth sinking into the flesh of Mark’s shoulder as he reaches his orgasm.
They clean up as quickly as they start. Mark untangles himself from Yukhei as soon as he regains his senses, crawling away from Yukhei towards the edge of the bed to look for his clothes. It’s always a struggle to find something clean to wear after all of this because he can’t be sure that there isn’t going to be come stained onto any of the fabric, but Mark gambles with the possibility anyway.
Tonight, however, Yukhei speaks up.
“Stay,” he says, and it’s as simple as that.
Mark turns to look at him, unsure of what to expect. He sees Yukhei, already leaning forward to grab him by the waist.
Yukhei wraps his arms around Mark’s body, hiding his face in Mark’s abdomen. “Stay,” he repeats, but Mark can’t read his expression.
It’s all so complicated. Mark doesn’t know why they’re like this.
Mark’s grip on his shirt loosens as he lets it fall onto the floor. His arms find their way around Yukhei’s neck as he buries his nose into the crown of Yukhei’s head.
Blame it all on post-coital hormones, his brain supplies.
Mark stays, and the reason is bigger than both of them know.