Chapter Text
"so this is what you've been hiding from everyone?"
jaehyun nods. the cat's already out of the bag, so there was no point in denying it. "yeah, what did you think i was doing?"
younghoon quirks an eyebrow, tone still tinted with disbelief. "with how dodgy you were, hiding a spouse and two kids, maybe."
"younghoon, i'm twenty four and broke, what are you even on?"
younghoon rolls his eyes, downing his drink in one go. "i know, you asshole. it's just... why did you hide the fact that you've been moonlighting as a groupie? from me of all people?"
jaehyun scrunches his nose at the insinuation. he'd like to think this was different. that he warranted something else, a better label to what he thinks they have, even if he didn't deserve it. they weren't exactly friends now, but once upon a time, they could have been more. but that ship had sailed a long time ago. and if he were given the chance to go back in time, his decision would have remained the same.
"i'm not- that's not it."
younghoon eyes him warily, the way he does when he's trying to spare jaehyun from the words that would inevitably send him on an existential crisis. "okay? but you literally just told me you have an arrangement with him! that you attend his shows and, like, usually end up in his bed?"
jaehyun bites his tongue. younghoon isn't exactly wrong. he got the basics down, sure. and he made an assumption based on the information available. and from the bits of information he knows, younghoon thinks he's spent an entire year hiding the fact that he's become a groupie for indie singer, jacob bae.
and while, that seems to be the most accurate tl;dr to frame their set-up, the thing is, younghoon doesn't see the entire picture, because jaehyun had deliberately chosen to leave that part of his life out of conversations.
there's history there, between him and jacob bae. something he's kept to himself for so long that he's aching to spill his guts to someone, and he almost does. he always almost does, yet he simply chews on his bottom lip and nods.
"yeah, so?"
jaehyun finds himself on a train to daejeon on a friday night, still in his suit and tie, straight out of a meeting with his bosses that ran past his usual 8 to 5 shift at the office. the holidays are slowly creeping in, and while the majority of south korea doesn't exactly celebrate christmas, working for an international marketing agency means they have to adjust to their clients' schedules.
jaehyun is drained, really. his clients had a handful of last minute requests, and his bosses were hell-bent on making sure he delivered. and he did, as per usual.
but as soon as the meeting ended, he bolted out of the conference room, grabbed his messenger bag and padded jacket, made a beeline for the bus stop in front of their building, and mindlessly hopped onto a bus that led to seoul station.
he should have gone home, cooked himself a decent meal, and passed out on his couch from exhaustion. and yet, there he was, fidgeting on his seat and repeatedly glancing at the clock by the cabin door. the train ride is short, an hour tops. but jacob's set starts at ten, and he's not sure if he'll make it on time.
he wasn't even supposed to go to this one. from the instagram post jacob reposted, there were a number of people on the line-up, which meant the sets were shorter. and while, yes, he'd gladly take the chance to see jacob again, to hear his voice, and to…
he shakes those thoughts away, fully aware of where they’re leading.
but screw his pride. if he comes off as desperate, then he probably is.
his phone pings, and an instagram notification greets him. a smile instinctively makes its way onto his face. jacob posted a story, a blurry selfie from what seems to be the artists' waiting area. jaehyun quickly notices that he changed his hair. the last time they met, around a month ago, in an intimate solo gig in itaewon, jacob's hair had been a light ashy brown.
but in the photo, jacob's face is framed by light blonde locks that almost looked like they were glowing, like a halo.
it makes his head spin, a flurry of memories resurfacing at the sight. because the first time they met, the summer after his graduation, on a trip before he became the corporate slave he was meant to become, jacob looked almost exactly the same.
jaehyun could go anywhere in the world. that was what his parents proudly announced at the height of his graduation dinner, with his relatives egging them on happily. he did well, and they were proud of him. and if a month-long trip to wherever was what he wanted, they would gladly give him that.
he thanked them graciously, and his older sister even promised him pocket money. he thought long and hard about it, where he wanted to spend the last bits of freedom he had before his expected onboarding at the consulting firm he had his internship at.
it's his last chance to do something that deviated from the path he's carefully carved out for himself, and he wanted to make the most of it.
yet, he procrastinated. he left the decision until the last minute, going through the korean airlines website a couple of days before he planned on leaving, his suitcase packed and ready.
he decided to go to canada, which isn’t entirely unfamiliar territory. his family went on a trip to canada a few years back, and he has an uncle, his mother’s cousin, who had been living in vancouver for quite some time. so a quick message had gotten him a place to stay the entire trip.
long story short, the summer after he got out of university, a marketing degree in his back pocket and a job offer waiting for him once he got back, he met jacob bae.
it wasn’t even that remarkable, the day they first met. he learned that his uncle would be vacationing across the border, leaving his entire two-bedroom downtown apartment to jaehyun.
a knock on the door woke him up from his jetlag induced afternoon nap, and what greeted him at the door was a platinum blonde boy, who looked roughly his age, carrying a box of muffins.
“oh! um- sorry, i could have sworn mr. han lived here…”
jaehyun isn’t one for cliches, but there was something about that moment that gets to him. when jacob’s eyes widened in shock, features contorting into something… endearing, jaehyun stilled. he understood what was said, but he chose to reply in korean after another assumption.
“ah, my uncle’s going to be in new york for a couple of weeks.”
jacob nodded, the slight pout on his lips still there. “i moved in next door the other day, and mr. han helped me out, so i wanted to thank him again.”
jaehyun knew then, seeing that small smile grace the other man’s face, that he was fucked. years later, things have yet to change.
because jaehyun was a coward then, and he still is now.
which is why he settles with this.
watching from the back of the pub, perched on a bar stool, nursing another glass of whiskey as jacob’s smooth voice fills the space. the chairs and tables at the middle of the main seating area are fully occupied, and he’s not even sure if jacob would see him from where he’s seated.
but jacob is all he sees. and for someone who claims he isn’t a romantic, jaehyun thinks he’s ironically a sap.
“tonight’s final song is an original.” jacob says to the crowd, moving towards the back of the stage to open one of his guitar cases.
he takes out a classic guitar that looks awfully familiar, and jaehyun has to reign in his shock to prevent himself from dropping the glass in his hand. if jacob tilts a little, moves a bit to the left, there’s a small drawing that can be seen at the base of the neck of the guitar.
side by side were a misshapen rabbit and a bear that looked awfully like a rat.
it looks as stupid as it did two years ago, when he drew on jacob’s guitar at a drunken jacob’s insistence.
“you look like a bear, and you keep saying i look like a bunny…” jacob mumbled, slightly tongue-tied from the wine they’ve been sipping on. “so go, draw.”
he can’t draw to save his life, and jacob knew that, because they were basically the same. but he did as he was told. and the laugh that spilled out of jacob’s mouth at the sight of the barely recognizable figures he drew is still a sound well-catalogued in his mind.
and the kiss that followed is something he still relives, their first kiss. despite having the chance to feel jacob’s lips on his more times than he probably should have, things are different now.
"for tonight's last song, this is melatonin."
the mornings after are always the hardest.
jaehyun is an early-riser, thanks to his corporate job he's managed to gain an alarmingly accurate body clock that forces him out of bed at six in the morning every single day.
which means he always wakes up first, slowly, as he shakes off the remnants of sleep that seem to want to cling onto him. he wakes up next to a warm body, one he's still quite attuned to. one he wishes he can always wake up next to.
this year's winter is brutal, and the temperatures are forecasted to drop even lower as the new year creeps in. but at this very moment, jaehyun feels warm. more than he has in a long time. the arm over his waist. the shallow breath on his neck. the cold feet pressed against his calf. all of these sensations renew the warmth that had been fizzling out.
to jaehyun, this is what comfort feels like. it goes beyond the fleeting touches and the haze of the mutual pleasure that this arrangement brings them.
he sits up, and for the first time, he takes in the room they're in. it's a decent suite. a queen sized bed in the middle, a seating space to his left, and a floor-length window to his right.
he catalogues the space, mostly to figure out where his clothes are. his padded jacket is by the door with his shoes. his blazer is near the bathroom door, next to the spot they spent a lot of time making out at, with jaehyun's back against the door as jacob pressed on—lips coaxing, hands wandering.
he finds his pants and underwear by the foot of the bed. and his button down is still hanging from his shoulders. a memory from the night before resurfaces, and jaehyun feels his cheeks heating up.
jacob stirs beside him, and he can't help but stare. he'd like to think that the jacob he met two years ago isn't that much different from the jacob he accidentally bumped into more than half a year ago at a bar in itaewon. but that may just be because he hasn't exactly had the chance to get to know the person jacob's become in the years since jaehyun left canada without giving jacob the response his confession deserved.
a confession that scared twenty-two year old jaehyun out of his mind.
"jae, i know this might sound crazy, because it's only been a month but…"
jaehyun remembers holding his breath. because he knew what was coming, because he'd been ruminating over the same thing, wondering if it'd be possible to feel so much so soon.
"i like you. i like you so much, that…" jacob stuttered, and jaehyun tried to push down the clawing feeling in his stomach. "i think i'm in love with you."
jaehyun froze, his mind unable to come up with anything that would convey how he felt. because he knew he liked jacob, that he was certain of. but love? jaehyun wasn't sure. and he didn't even have any time left to figure that out.
he was set to leave the next day, and seoul and vancouver couldn't be further away.
did he love jacob? or at the very least, did he like him enough to try? he wasn't sure, and that was a scary thought.
but jacob took his silence as an answer, and they left things at that.
jaehyun tried to rationalize how things ended on the plane, staying wide awake for the entire ten hour flight. the lives they were living couldn't be any more different. their dreams and aspirations just didn't line up.
jaehyun had a clear plan, and he already had a foot in the door with that job offer he verbally agreed to before leaving for canada. he wanted to buy a car at twenty seven and a house in incheon by thirty five. he wanted to retire by fifty five and live comfortably by then.
jaehyun craved for stability, and he'd always thought that his plans were unshakable. but jacob came, and jaehyun had been swept into a summer romance he hadn't been able to prepare himself for.
because jacob. jacob had talked wistfully of his dreams of the stage, of wanting more people to hear his music. he spoke about the countless auditions, songwriting camps with more experienced producers, and the little gigs he'd done while he was in university.
jacob had his fears and worries of the uncertainty of the path he's chosen, but he was determined to see things through. and jaehyun admired him for it. he admired him for braving the unknown.
jaehyun had found happiness in watching jacob in his element, but jaehyun didn't see a future for them. at least, back then, he didn't.
what did he know? he's only had short-lived flings before meeting jacob. the idea of jumping blindly into something that implied a level of permanence that was entirely unfamiliar to him felt daunting. so he tried dating other people, just to see if it'd been a fluke, if he had only been blinded by infatuation.
a year later, after a nasty break-up with a girlfriend who broke things off because of how emotionally unavailable he was, he realized that he did love jacob. that he probably liked him enough to do long distance, but by then it'd been too late.
or so he thought.
their eyes meet as jacob's slowly flutter open, and jaehyun finds the softness he'd been craving for there, for a split second before jacob regains enough consciousness to bring his guard up.
"hey," jacob gives him a small smile. it doesn't reach his eyes, and jaehyun wonders if this set-up is only weighing them down.
"did you sleep well?" he asks, a lame attempt at small talk.
jacob nods, already averting his gaze. "yeah, i'll, um, hop in the shower first."
jaehyun isn't sure if that's an open invite, because he usually leaves before jacob even wakes up to avoid the awkward, stilted conversations. but something compels him to stay, so he simply watches as jacob rummages for fresh sets of clothes from a duffel bag.
he places a pair of sweatpants and grey sweater on the bed and says, "um, if you wanted to change into something more comfortable."
"oh. yeah, thanks cob-ah."
the small slip of the tongue doesn't go unnoticed, but jacob quickly schools a neutral expression. like the familiarity doesn't phase him as much as jaehyun does, who thinks he's slowly falling into a sense of delusion.
this isn't the relationship jacob deserved, and jaehyun doesn't even dare to ask why jacob continues to indulge him like this. when they tumbled into bed that summer night, after bumping into each other at a bar in itaewon, the unresolved tension was palpable. the desire was clear.
but when jaehyun asked, his head buried on jacob's neck, lips pressed against his collarbone, "can i see you again?"
what did jacob see?
had jacob sensed the desperation? the regret? what drove him to say yes each time the found their way into each other's arms? was it pity? the way jacob can't say no, even if jaehyun was a nuisance. it could be nostalgia, a rehashing of something that was good until it wasn't.
and if he were to be optimistic about this, it could be something else. jaehyun could only hope.
but again, he fears. if he asks for more, he could lose what he already has.
friends with benefits? were they even friends?
he isn't sure. they were, at most, almost lovers.
almost lovers who fuck around.
almost lovers who fuck around because one of them still wants to cling onto the possibility of another chance but is too much of a coward to tip the balance and potentially ruin things.
only now does he notice that jacob slept with a shirt on, a white threadbare shirt that leaves little to imagination. jacob turns to look at him, almost as if he wanted to say something but holds back the last minute.
jaehyun matches his gaze, and he waits. but before even saying anything, jacob looks away, leaving jaehyun to ponder about the words he chose to leave unsaid.