Chapter Text
“I love like a leaky faucet or I love
like a dam breaking. There is
nothing in between.”
— Shinji Moon
Jangma of 1990, Seoul.
The rainy season made it hard for Beomgyu to not think of Kai, not as a memory, but as a want.
Beomgyu would find Kai even in the water, in the small raindrops collecting on his window, in the puddles on the street, in the flower vase situated on his nightstand, full of flowers hanging on to life.
It had rained nonstop for three days now, chunks of water recklessly falling from the sky that often was a clear sign of the rainy season starting. Beomgyu noticed it in the morning, when he opened his curtains and saw the windows collecting small drops of water again, one by one covering the view—there wasn’t much to observe outside besides some buildings at the front and cars driving through the street, but it was soothing to distinguish something that wasn’t a dull gray sky fading into dark buildings.
Beomgyu was never fond of the rainy season for a plethora of reasons, right now: Kai, but as a kid, he used to stare at the window and think the sky was crying, leaving little teardrops on display so everyone would know about its sadness, making houses flood and clothes dampen so everyone would have something to mourn.
The rainy season wasn’t kind to anyone.
The rain was for the sky to talk and everyone to listen. This meant everyone stayed quiet all day long, and the house’s silence, especially, was unbearable.
It was unbearable in the way the only choice was to listen, to notice, and to endlessly think when there was nothing else to do.
“Morning,” Kai beamed, brown hair sweetly framing his face, stubble beard around his lips. He was wearing his favorite gray suit with a red silk necktie—Beomgyu had gifted him that tie on his 30th birthday last year.
This was the usual morning view: Kai sitting at his desk, papers in his hands already, smiling at him from his office at the end of the hall (an extension of the house, full of other offices). Kai’s desk was placed right in front of the door, which he left open in the mornings so he could greet Beomgyu; and maybe this wasn’t the exact reason why he did it but the constancy drove Beomgyu crazy anyway.
Like they didn’t live together. Like he didn’t know Kai through and through.
“You didn’t wake me up,” Beomgyu stood outside his office, a room to the right of Kai’s, smiling softly while leaning on the door, arms crossed. “You know I hate being late, and I’ve told you to wake me up!”
“I’m not reducing your salary because you get down here an hour later, you know that,” Kai spoke gently, leaving aside his papers to clasp his hands, “I was going to wake you up so we could have breakfast together but you seemed tired from last night,” he winked, like it was a secret between the two of them, then he smirked.
Sicko.
Kai liked making Beomgyu pout, and Beomgyu gave in unconsciously, just like now, just like with everything else. So there he was: flustered, pouting, and rattling the old doorknob he said he’d fix millions of times when the same thing had happened before, because fuck, All he wanted to do was to hide his face somewhere. Life was truly not on his side.
“Whatever,” Beomgyu sighed, giving up on the knob. “Just try waking me up next time, no matter if I look gorgeous while sleeping, deal?”
“I’ll try.”
“Fuck you.”
Kai’s giggle followed Beomgyu inside his office, which conveniently opened when Beomgyu stopped being so desperate.
It didn’t matter if Beomgyu had known Kai for ten years now, or if Beomgyu was a thirty-two-year-old man, or if Kai’s hands had wandered his body millions of times already. Kai could still make him feel like this. A mess. A bunch of things that had not faded with time.
These feelings were contained in a small flame that started from ashes years ago, so weak and dim that it couldn’t light up half of a room. A flame that with the slightest wind could easily go off again. But all fires were unpredictable when surrounded by a forest. The fire grew each time Kai walked inside Beomgyu’s office, arms open ready for a hug, nothing more. When he pouted his lips, hoping for a kiss, chaste, soft, a simple brush, nothing more. When his hands sought for Beomgyu’s, fingers tangled under the table while they talked to clients, for reassurance, nothing more. When he smiled at him in the mornings, waiting for him at the end of the hall, staring at him tenderly, nothing more.
It was easier for Beomgyu to disregard the beatings of his heart when Kai searched for something more. Because when carnal desires burnt them from the inside, Beomgyu could pretend he didn’t wish something more from Kai.
This was why the silence of the house was unbearable. Rainy season created little easy-to-open tombs with the things it had taken away that had become cravings. Nostalgia, people called them. They were silent cold rooms where voices, memories, and growing pains that came from silent feelings could be sown and taken care of. It was all the things hidden in the corners of his brain that sprouted with the coming of rain.
Before he got too deep, Beomgyu used to think he had two options: either the fire dimmed back to ashes, or it burnt it all down, and he used to think the fire was never going to grow enough for it to consume him. But existing beside Kai meant that the fire could only grow stronger even when Beomgyu tried to put it out. Existing beside Kai meant the tomb was always open, and the rain falling outside his window just made him want to look.
Feelings, not sudden, but stronger than before. A sudden seek for answers and settlement.
Beomgyu plopped onto the swivel chair of his desk, turned it to the window, and tuned the radio to that station that played Lee Sung Hee’s songs until twelve in the morning. Some romantic melancholic mix of tunes that helped him get through the day.
Music did not dim the fire, it did not close the tomb, but it helped him look away for longer, to ignore their existence, at least until Kai appeared in front of him again.
The music wasn’t meant to soothe quiet surroundings, but rather loud insides. So Beomgyu’s biggest concern was whether the radio (that he carried around like a bag, from downstairs at the office, to his bedroom upstairs at night) would last long enough until he could go out to buy batteries without coming back home bathed.
“That’s not what I said!” Kai’s thick voice grumbled over the music.
It was easy for conversations to slip through the walls, and Beomgyu never learned to ignore them. When the Huenings built the house, they had made sure all spaces were big enough to fit two beds and a piano, but didn’t mind the wallpaper-thin walls, so it became a rule for everyone inside to keep their lips sealed.
“I am not going all the way to Daegu for that! Well, yeah I might consider next week… I have other plans for this weekend. This is important to me. I can’t break a promise like this… No, I already have my tickets,” as Kai kept talking, his voice deepened with anger.
Kai’s anger wasn’t explosive, no energy outbursts nor flares, it was deadly stares, and a voice as low as hell. The tone was likely unnoticeable to other people’s radar because he still sounded professional and calm, but Beomgyu knew Kai well. There were things that came with knowing Kai, or maybe simply with knowing a person as much as Beomgyu knew Kai: it was noticing every little thing, understanding every facial expression, every change in tone, every small signal. Yet, understanding nothing at all.
Beomgyu could notice the anger in Kai’s clenched hands, hidden inside his pockets, or from his tightened lips that made his neck vein exalt and his jaw sharpen. He noticed the sadness when Kai’s mouth closed softly and the corners of his lips dropped slowly as his head fell. He noticed the happiness when Kai’s eyes opened wide and bright, laughing with his teeth out and his head back. But at night, when Beomgyu laid under Kai, skin to skin while hearing a blurred chant of his name, Beomgyu couldn’t notice a thing.
However, right now, Kai’s eyes could burn forests. The man was standing at the entrance of Beomgyu’s office, eyebrows strongly furrowed, and his hands resting inside his pockets just as Beomgyu had imagined him. Beomgyu smiled at this.
“Say it,” he invited Kai to talk, turning down the volume of his radio.
Kai walked inside the room fixing his suit, he threw himself over the sofa (one he had given Beomgyu to rest the nights he stayed overtime, even if his bedroom was upstairs), and he rubbed his stubble beard. Then he sighed.
“It’s like everyone wants to piss me off today!” He mumbled with resentment, hitting the armrests.
The tension ran from his clenched hands to his tightened jaw, and through the popping vein in his neck. Even in times like this, Beomgyu couldn’t help but mind the details, and he had to because Kai got used to brushing stuff down the rough and saying: “nothing happened”. So Beomgyu did well bringing it up on his face later at night, “Tell me what that was about, I’ll listen”. Right now, it was very clear.
“How is that my sofa’s fault?”
Kai’s eyes softened at the question, “sorry.”
Beomgyu giggled, “Oh-ho! You didn’t get mad at me for talking back. I’m feeling like the hyung all over again.”
“You are dramatic, I never get mad at you,” Kai said, slightly angered until his eyes set on Beomgyu’s. He smirked playfully then. If Beomgyu was more honest with himself, he would admit this is the reaction he wanted to get: a sudden flame lit up that made Kai look at him like he would eat him alive, that made his hands slowly grip the armrests, that made him caress the leather like it was Beomgyu’s skin, luring him into the touch. “I have no reasons to get mad at you… do I?”
Beomgyu grinned, “Shall I give you reasons?”
Kai tittered without parting eyes, “Maybe I will give you reasons,” he loosened his tie. “Choi Soobin will come for dinner later—Business related,” Kai blurted out quickly.
Beomgyu chuckled.
Choi Soobin. The Man. Another victim of Kai’s enchantments, but this one Kai seemed to actually fancy—too much for Beomgyu’s liking. Kai only knew Beomgyu wasn’t too fond of Soobin, but he didn’t know the reasons behind it. Telling Kai would mean Beomgyu would have to talk about the tiniest hint of jealousy he felt trying to protect someone that wasn’t his to begin with.
“You don’t need to explain your dating habits to me,” Beomgyu said, standing up from his desk and fixing his tie, leisurely walking towards Kai. It was like slow dancing, hands delicately cornering Kai on the sofa, a hand on the backrest to help Beomgyu dip his head and leave their eyes centimeters apart. Beomgyu placed a knee between Kai’s parted legs, holding all the control, and he liked seeing Kai under him, looking up confused but begging despite. Beomgyu liked how it felt: the burning necessity to touch each other lingering in the air, one that sparked whenever they got too close, it reminded him that such a necessity was all there should ever exist between them. Then he whispered, “but we all know that won’t end in just a signed contract.”
Kai quickly turned his head to the side and huffed a low laugh, “What makes you think that?”
“I know you.”
“You think so.”
I do, Beomgyu wanted to debate. He preferred giving short answers when it came to Kai, he preferred not disclosing too much for his heart’s safety. But his heart found ways to pull some strings and give unnecessary explanations.
As Beomgyu pulled back and returned to his desk, he spoke, “Time taught me everything I needed to know about you, Huening Kai. I also know it’ll take you around two hours to pick an outfit and three to get ready, so you better start now. Leave my office,” he sat.
Kai nodded. An answer that meant either fair, or I see how it is, but never I agree.
Beomgyu knew Kai the way one knew a close friend (even if they weren’t that), he knew his favorite food, what kind of clothes he liked wearing, what words he repeated while talking and how much he stuttered when nervous. Beomgyu knew a bit more than that, he knew Kai as much more than friends should know each other. There was no name for whatever they had going on, not one he could think of.
It was not odd that the house workers knew what happened between them, though none of them could name it either. They had seen Beomgyu walking out of Kai’s bedroom in the morning, hair messy and chest bare. They had seen them eating at the same table while looking at each other with some sort of loving stare. They had heard them fight, they had heard them kiss, they had heard them talk about visiting Hawaii together and staying there for a week. They probably heard about the plans they had made for only the two of them, those they discussed in bed while looking at the ceiling.
“By the way,” Kai stopped at the door’s frame, “we’re going to Daegu this weekend.”
“We are?”
“I thought you’d like to come, we can drop by your parents’ house and do whatever you want on Sunday,” Kai gave him a ginger smile, softly, like his eyebrows hadn’t been furrowed and his voice hadn’t been many octaves lower a few seconds ago.
“Who is forcing you to go?”
Kai lifted an eyebrow, inquisitive for an answer.
“I overheard your conversation, and you were so excited about our trip to Hawaii that I didn’t think you would let it go so easily… not for Daegu, at least,” Beomgyu started looking at his papers again, searching for his pen with his hand and skimming through the words anxiously. Going to Daegu with Kai was slightly exciting, and horribly frightening at the same time.
Beomgyu himself hadn’t been to Daegu in ages, so going with Kai for the first time in years was not the idea he had in mind for his grand return.
“There’s a meeting with some business partners I met last month, but Jongho just told me about it. Something about the construction of a theme park or something like that, they probably want to see how interested I am,” Kai sighed. “I know we should’ve gone to Daegu earlier, and I am sorry we—I couldn’t make time for it before, hyung,” he spoke gently, with the ashamed tone of a kid who had done something wrong.
“Don’t be sorry,” Beomgyu didn’t look up, but his voice became thin ice. “I wasn’t eager enough to go anyway.”
Six years ago, Beomgyu stopped asking. Kai needed him around all the time because they were building an image apart from Kai’s parents. Back then, Kai wouldn’t have been a reason for Beomgyu to stop in his tracks, not as much as he is now. Back then, Beomgyu stayed because he had no idea what to say to his own parents—his father, mostly—after running away. Running away was fine, not contacting them the first months after, out of guilt, was not. Especially because he had run to work for the Huenings. He had made the choice to come consciously, but the after effects came pouring in torrents.
“We can talk about it tonight, after Soobin-nim leaves,” Kai mumbled, and Beomgyu simply nodded.
Soobin. Kai liked Soobin.
It was strange enough when Kai walked inside Beomgyu’s office just to ask for a hug or a kiss, and it was tiring to think about Kai kissing other people and walking into Beomgyu’s room after a long day of “work”. Sure, Beomgyu had his own fair share of flings, but he didn’t crawl under Kai’s sheets and hug him from the back after any of these.
In reality, Beomgyu wasn’t sure about how he ended up tangled in this situation, and it didn’t matter how much he wanted out, there were forces stronger than gravity keeping him there. Kai was close to addictive, there was a spell in the way he walked like floating between clouds, in the fleeting touch of his feathery hands, in his pearl smile. Or maybe it was in the smell of his hair like soft cotton, the taste of his mouth like peaches, the scent of his skin like honeysuckle. And maybe it was in none of those.
Maybe Kai was addictive because of the way he talked to people, gently, trying to make his words clear while maintaining their meaning. Or the way he quietly helped others, sitting by their side, offering a hand, giving out money, giving out chances, and no matter how naïve he looked in the end, he never complained about what he had given out, but rather about the loss of a friend or a partner. Apparently, it was also the way he wasn’t able to do basic things like shaving.
On his way to hide inside his bedroom that night, Beomgyu walked by the bathroom and noticed Kai’s face in the clear space of their foggy mirror, struggling to know where to place his hand and where the knife. Beomgyu had to intervene before seeing his skin bleed, so he hurried inside and took the sharp blade from Kai’s hands, startling the younger and earning a terrified look.
“Woh,” Kai let out, a hand on his bare chest—lower half wrapped in a towel, “I didn’t know you’d walk in.”
“I’ve told you I can do it for you,” Beomgyu pointed at Kai’s chin with the sharp edge. “It can be dangerous if you don’t know how to manage this, you know? It’s like your mother never taught you anything useful but to steal money and be extremely polite. Which is generally fine and I have no problem with you being polite but—”
“Tsk.”
Beomgyu giggled at Kai’s facial answer: arched eyebrows accompanied by a tight mouth.
“Your mother was nice, regardless of whatever I think about her morals. Now sit,” Beomgyu signaled the wooden stool against the tiled white wall, and once the younger sat, Beomgyu straddled him and lifted his chin gently.
The stare Kai gave Beomgyu at that moment, his glossy eyes walking Beomgyu’s face, his tender smile calmly blooming on his rosy lips, tugged some strings in Beomgyu’s heart.
The first time Beomgyu shaved Kai must’ve been ten years ago when he was 22, he rushed to Kai’s rescue, and his hands were shaking because he couldn’t stand the younger looking at him from above, that was how he started telling him to sit. Their eyes rarely met back in the day, even if their hands touched while sitting in the back of the car while their chauffeur talked about finances, and they paid no mind to anything else but their beating hearts. It felt like being high on adrenaline.
The last time Beomgyu shaved Kai was a month ago, for a fancy dinner with a woman who wanted to scam him. Kai wished to trust her, Beomgyu had proof she was not someone to trust, so Kai had no option but to believe despite his sulking.
Beomgyu started moving the edge of the knife on Kai’s stubble as he talked, “I worry each time you lift a knife, it’s dangerous, and I know you like to stay classic, but maybe upgrading to a razor wouldn’t hurt. Especially if you want to do this on your own.”
“I will think about it, but these last longer and are way cheaper.”
Beomgyu chuckled, “You are horrible.”
“I should’ve fired you when I was able to. It becomes harder with time, no matter how mean you get,” Kai murmured playfully.
“You’re still able to, Kai. I am not stopping you,” Beomgyu replied unfazed, immersed in taking the hair off without hurting the man’s face. A face very dear to him after all.
“The thing is… now I don’t want you to leave,” Kai whispered, placing a hand on Beomgyu’s waist, warmly holding him under his linen shirt to bring him closer, pulling him down to make him sit on his lap. Beomgyu complied. “Why don’t you resign instead? Make it easy for me.”
Beomgyu felt the hand burning his insides like flames, consuming him, needing him, and though it was tenderly dragging him closer, Beomgyu still felt it pulling with force. “I don’t want to make it easy for you.”
God could’ve fucked up Beomgyu’s life in so many other ways, but he chose Huening Kai to do it instead. Soon it was not only a hand on his waist, but both traveling across his back, tracing his bones, leaving ghosts of their warmth in every corner.
Kai smirked.
Fuck this man.
“Let me finish,” Beomgyu heaved.
“Don’t mind me.”
“If your hands keep crawling on my back I might cut your face, so unless that’s what you want…”
“Make me bleed, then.”
I would, Beomgyu thought. He would’ve if Kai hadn’t closed his eyes right after, or if his mouth had not relaxed and his hands had not left Beomgyu’s back and ran to his thighs instead. Kai looked calm while leaving his fate, whatever it was, in Beomgyu’s hands. Probably because he knew Beomgyu would never do anything to hurt him. Not intentionally.
Beomgyu did not reply, of course, but instead, he quickly set Kai’s face free of any hair. He exchanged the knife for a small towel from the countertop and brushed the hair away, leaving Kai’s face clean and revealing his moles, the one above his lip Beomgyu liked kissing, and the one on his cheek, between his jawline and his mouth.
Kai smiled at him with half-lidded eyes and his hands started wrapping him closer until their noses were touching and their breaths warmed the remaining space between them. Kai kissed him then, parting his lips with his tongue, not rushedly nor needly, but gently, asking for permission to make his way into Beomgyu, explore like it was the first time, savoring his mouth, sucking on his tongue, nibbling on his lip.
Beomgyu’s hands traveled from Kai’s shoulders to the back of his head, making their way through wet strands of hair, pulling it back slightly while pushing his body closer until their chests were touching.
They were lazily grinding against each other, Beomgyu could feel the remaining moisture of Kai’s chest wetting his shirt, getting to his chest. Beomgyu could feel all of Kai under him seeking more: his lips, leaving open-mouthed kisses along Beomgyu’s neck, below his jaw, gnawing at the soft skin every so often; his fingers, wandering Beomgyu’s spine from start to finish like they were keys of a piano, making Beomgyu’s back curve to the touch, shivering.
“Hyung,” Kai panted against Beomgyu’s ear.
Reality hit Beomgyu then, he had prepared Kai to go and meet another man.
“I hate you,” Beomgyu whispered mellowly in Kai’s ear, head still dizzy.
“Don’t say that to me,” Kai’s voice broke softly. His words came out like a plea and instantly, his arms surrounded Beomgyu’s entire frame tighter.
“I wouldn’t lie to you—I promised to never lie to you, and you promised the same to me,” Beomgyu mumbled close to Kai’s ear, and he left a kiss below it after the words found their way out of his mouth. It was at the start of their relationship, some sort of deal about being honest to each other and themselves if they ever wanted this to stop.
“I don’t hate you,” Kai’s words came out muffled, sweetly traveling the threads of Beomgyu’s hair. “I could never hate you, hyung.”
Beomgyu sighed. There was something about the sweetness in Kai’s voice that gave him hope, just a little, just enough to embolden him, but also, there was something in the way Kai’s hands caressed his hair and traveled his back like the conversation didn’t mind. Beomgyu didn’t know if he had closed his eyes because of the touch, or in a leap of faith. He breathed slowly and then he whispered, “But do you love me?”
The silence was jarring after it, and the hands that surrounded his back deliberately started to disappear.
No.
Beomgyu pulled apart too, even if he wanted to stay in hopes of anything coming out of Kai’s mouth.
“Beomgyu,” Kai tried holding him down, “Hyung.”
“I was joking, it’s okay, that’s not even the kind of relationship we have. It’s okay,” Beomgyu reassured without being able to look into Kai’s eyes.
Beomgyu knew he wasn’t able to look without feeling ashamed. He knew that if he turned his head searching for some kind of comfort in Kai’s eyes, he would find it, beaming at him, luring him to drown in the perfect picture his head had created of a man that wasn’t his. A vast ocean that not even he knew half of.
Beomgyu left the bathroom with his head up, his chest dampened, and his hands harshly clenched together. All the ghosts of Kai’s touch talking to his body.
This was how much Beomgyu knew Kai, and how much it hurt. After all, it was a relationship built from the debris of other broken ones, from loneliness and the sort of pain that comes when you don’t know where to hide when you can’t live in reality anymore.
Beomgyu got there searching for freedom and, funnily enough, he found himself trapped again. This way, with Kai.
Regardless of the downfalls of the Huening’s as parents, Beomgyu had to give them the kindness prize. Kai’s parents were understanding enough to let him in despite his lack of formal studies. He was a man, barely in his twenties, who needed money, a roof to sleep under, and a place to shower in. He entered the Huening’s house with nothing but his knowledge of money management (related to gambling) and social relationships. That was enough to keep the family’s finances thriving, while he kept learning from their accountant.
With time, and after Kai’s parents’ death, Beomgyu became Kai’s private something, a middle ground between his caretaker and a secretary-sort of manager that spent most of the day around, if not all. Or maybe Beomgyu was Kai’s private everything: listener, confident, friend, relief. Gladly, Kai was a generous boss—maybe too much for his own good, because he gave out as much money as grains of rice his hands could hold. He gave Beomgyu much more than what a boss should. In all of the aspects.
Naïve, Beomgyu called him often.
Even if deep inside he knew the naïve one was himself.
He, who still loved Kai despite it all.