Chapter Text
Myung Jaehyun felt otherworldly, sometimes— a specimen of absolute beauty that Dongmin didn’t feel deserving to hold in his hands.
After all, Dongmin didn’t get to touch Jaehyun very often. On the nights when his boyfriend would come to see him, it didn’t always register with Dongmin right away that he was really there; he’d find himself touching his face, running his fingers through his hair, half-expecting the cold of the TV screen against his fingertips each time.
“I don’t have much time tonight. I’m supposed to be practicing.”
Dongmin could read between the lines. That meant, “If you want to fuck tonight, let’s get on with it.” Which, of course, Dongmin couldn’t exactly turn down. Whether or not he’d convinced himself that Jaehyun was there, the sex would be fantastic.
But laying there after, sweaty and sore and blissed out, Dongmin would always remember that it was temporary. Jaehyun wasn’t solely his anymore, he had to share him with millions of fans around the world. It almost made Dongmin feel like a fan too; it almost made Dongmin forget that he’d been there since the very beginning, and sometimes he wondered if Jaehyun had forgotten altogether.
//
Mornings were hard. Dongmin hated waking up, hated the process of showering and shaving to make himself presentable. He hated taking his medicine, the sticky little gelatin capsule that always caught in his throat and made him gag, but he hated the way he felt when he didn’t take it even more. His moods could be unpredictable, and he needed something to make him feel stable.
He hated going into work and forcing a smile while he waited tables for customers that just looked through him anyway. Once upon a time, when he’d had the energy, he would have spent his break scrawling lyrics on napkins and shoving them into his pocket to work out with Jaehyun later; now he simply sat in the cafe kitchen and stared at nothing, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee.
“You okay?” Sanghyuk, the manager, looked over his way when there was a lull in business. “You’re looking awfully pale today.”
“I’m fine.”
“Doesn’t he look pale?” Sanghyuk griped when the kitchen door opened again and Donghyun stepped in— looking, like he always did 6 hours into a shift, like he'd just been through a tornado, hair messy and tea spilled in a drying discoloration on the front of his apron. “I keep telling them, we need to hire more waitstaff. We send him home, and who are we going to call in?”
Donghyun didn’t need to look at Dongmin to make the call: “He doesn’t need to go home. He’s fine.” Donghyun had known Dongmin for years, after all, and he was intuitive— he knew to expect a depressive episode whenever BOYNEXTDOOR started new album promotions. And then, efficiently, he went on, “Table 5 wants you to remake their sandwich. No tomato this time. It’s an allergy.” On his way back out, though, discreetly, he passed his hand over Dongmin’s head and fluffed his hair. “Text me tonight if you need me, okay?”
Dongmin hummed out an affirmation, but he already knew he wouldn’t. He liked to be miserable by himself: a bottle of soju, a blunt, and the fading twinkle of a hope that Jaehyun would return his good-morning text.
//
They’d been eighteen and nineteen when they’d met. Jaehyun and Donghyun had been holding auditions to start a band, and Dongmin had been looking for ways to kill time now that he was out of high school, jobless, and on his own. They’d been holding auditions for a bass player, not a second vocalist, but that had all changed when they’d heard Dongmin sing. He’d never forget that first moment that his eyes locked with Jaehyun’s, the absolute wonder in his gaze, making him feel inexplicably and wonderfully hot.
Dongmin had never had anyone to write lyrics with before, he’d never had anyone to click with before. All at once, he had someone who seemed to understand the unique sorts of pain that Dongmin had never been able to explain, the squeezing sense of not belonging but wanting to. They could vibe without doing anything but drinking soju and listening to Dongmin’s record collection. Jaehyun had been the first person to see Dongmin so drunk that he had to lay down and close his eyes to avoid throwing up, but he hadn’t teased him, only guiding Dongmin’s head gently into his lap and playing with his hair in silence until the moment passed.
Jaehyun had also been the first person to touch the scar on Dongmin’s neck without shying away, and the first person to ask the question bluntly, instead of tip-toeing around it: “What happened?”
“Oh… it’s kind of a heavy story.”
“That’s okay.”
“I, uh… tried to kill myself when I was sixteen. Slit my own throat. Actually, the doctor said it’s just dumb luck that I didn’t cut my vocal cords when I did it.” He’d closed his eyes, his face feeling warm as he recounted it back, and he’d thought to add as a disclaimer, “It was over something kind of dumb, too. A bad test score. I was fucking crazy back in high school. I’m better now. Mostly.”
Dongmin hadn’t seen it happen, but somehow, Jaehyun had gone from sitting beside him on the edge of his mattress to laying beside him, and there wasn’t very much space in Dongmin’s narrow little twin bed, but it hardly mattered. “You weren’t crazy. You were just in pain. Human beings can only take so much pain before they snap, you know?” And then— out of nowhere, with a delicacy that still made Dongmin tremble to think about, Jaehyun kissed the side of his neck, the scar’s gnarled beginning, where the knife had first broken skin. Their first ever kiss, and it was on the ugliest part of Dongmin’s body— what wasn’t romantic about that?
“I’m glad you didn’t lose your voice, though. It’s too beautiful.” Jaehyun had a penchant for pretty words, words that made Dongmin feel like a beautiful gem. For the first time that he could remember, Dongmin was thankful for his voice, too.
They fell in love at eighteen and nineteen. Two years later, Jaehyun was scouted by KOZ Entertainment while he was waiting for a cab, and he went to the auditions mostly as one big, fat joke.
//
“You need to find something to occupy your time,” Dongmin’s therapist said.
Dongmin hated his therapist. He was fairly certain that he was an alcoholic, too, by the number of run-ins they’d had at the liquor store, but Dongmin couldn’t bring it up without implicating himself. He only shrugged mildly, slumping back against Woo Jiho’s overstuffed couch.
“I don’t think it’s that. I mean, I work full-time. I see my friends. I write music.” Okay, so those last two were lies in the last six months or so. He drank and smoked and stared at the TV and ignored phone calls and forgot to eat. He listened to painfully sad music, and sometimes, when he was really looking to tear a hole in himself, he put on Jaehyun’s first solo album and sobbed into his pillow. “I’m not bored. I’m just sad.”
Jiho didn’t react or argue, just leaned in a little bit, his brows raised. “You haven’t mentioned your boyfriend at all this session. Are you still watching his videos?”
“No. Not really. I don’t really think about him anymore.” A big, fat lie. He’d texted him that morning: a good morning, a string of heart emojis, and a naked picture. Jaehyun hadn’t replied, but he would. Eventually. Dongmin was sure.
“What’s the point of a relationship where you don’t think about each other? Do you think he’s still thinking about you, Dongmin?”
“Probably not,” Dongmin replied boredly, closing his eyes. “Guess I’ll just throw his worthless ass away, since you’ve spent the last god-knows-how-long indirectly telling me to.”
Jiho sighed. Dongmin found that he really enjoyed testing his patience— it was a fun game. His mother only said that he needed to talk to someone, not that he needed to do a good job of it. “I never tell you to do anything. I’m only here to talk over your feelings and help you decide a good course of action. You were the one who suggested ending the relationship— I wonder why that is?” He was jotting something down in his notebook, and Dongmin snorted, watching impassively.
“Hm. Yeah, I wonder, too.”
//
If I Say I Love You - BOYNEXTDOOR
Lyrics: Myung Jaehyun
Wanna tell ya,
I could fake the inspiration,
Write some clichéd lyric, but
It always comes back to my feelings for you.
So sick of being sober,
Pretending you don’t live in my head,
I’ll keep pretending, day after day,
No matter how much it exhausts me.
Guess I’ll use my memories
To write another song about you…
//
Dongmin watched every one of BOYNEXTDOOR’s music show stages, even though he knew he shouldn’t have. He also watched every vlog and variety show appearance, which Jiho had told him before was unhealthy, because it filled him with such visceral rage.
Dongmin hated them, hated each and every one of them. Hated Sunoo for squishing his face close to Jaehyun’s for a selca. Hated Jungwon for putting his arm around their leader’s shoulders and rubbing his arm as he gave their Inkigayo winning speech. Hated Beomgyu for calling him his "favorite little brother" and mussing up his hair, hated Kai for saying in an interview that Jaehyun is the heartbeat of the group. Hated Sungho the most, with a white hot passion, for pressing his finger into Jaehyun’s dimple and setting the entirety of stan Twitter on fire with JaeHo screeching. If he was given the opportunity, he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hold himself back from breaking Sungho’s perfect nose.
Was he the only BOYNEXTDOOR anti who owned every one of their albums? Quite possibly.
He watched everything to know the exact night of their goodbye stage, the exact moment that their promotions would begin winding down. He wanted to know when he might have the possibility of a text returned, or maybe even one of those coveted visits. He didn’t care if Jaehyun couldn’t spend the night, he didn’t even care if they didn’t have time to fuck. He wanted to hold him close, inhale him and hold him in his lungs, kiss every centimeter of his skin.
↪ [5:46 PM] are you doing anything tonight?
↪ [5:58 PM] i really want to see you
↪ [6:40 PM] i’ll be up for awhile probably. text me when you’re free.
↪ [8:32 PM] Dongmin sent a photo.
↪ [8:33 PM] i want you so fucking badly
Dongmin couldn’t sit still. He hated when he got like this, manic past the point of elation, until he was just twitchy and he had to pace from the bedroom to the living room to the kitchen just to keep himself grounded. He hadn’t felt this shitty in ages— maybe he should call Donghyun, he thought, trembling. Maybe he should call Donghyun, or maybe he should just take a swallow of vodka and hope that it stopped his heart from racing out of his chest.
Or maybe… Dongmin’s skin prickled. There were razorblades in the bathroom. He hadn’t indulged in a good cut for close to a year, Jaehyun hated when he did it. But it would certainly distract from the deep, gnawing ache in his stomach.
He glanced down at his phone. 8:52, no word from Jaehyun, messages left unread. Dongmin’s insides twisted. Just one. Just one. Jaehyun couldn’t blame him for just one.
He made his way into the bathroom, phone still clutched in his hand. Opened the medicine cabinet— there were bandages, cotton balls, aspirin and antiseptic wash, but not a razor blade to be found. He huffed. Hadn’t he had some, hidden in the bandage box? He let it fall carelessly into the sink, dropping to his knees and throwing open the cupboard under the sink. There was a bag under there, he knew it for sure— he’d stashed some supplies the last time Jaehyun had scolded him.
But no. Nothing but a few cleaning supplies and extra bags for the wastebasket. Instantly, every muscle in Dongmin’s body went tense; he fell backwards onto his ass, and there, sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor, he re-opened his conversation with Jaehyun and hit the “call” button.
“Dongminnie, hi,” Jaehyun answered casually on the second ring, with an ease that made Dongmin want to explode with rage. Where had that easy reply been in all the hours passed, when Dongmin had been texting him nonstop? “Can you give me a few minutes more? We just met with the choreographer. We’re about to head home. I can call you there.”
Dongmin’s breath was ragged, voice trembling despite his best efforts to control it. “Where are they? My razor blades? Where did you put them?”
“Dongmin…” Jaehyun sighed. “Calm down. I’ll come over, just give me a few minutes. I’m busy even when I’m not promoting, you know?”
“I’m not asking you to come over, I’m asking for my fucking razors,” Dongmin spat, his voice raising painfully, cracking and trembling. “You have no right to take things out of my house! You have no right to not be here and decide that you’re going to control what I do anyway!”
“Stop screaming,Dongmin! I’m on my way. Stay on the phone with me. I’m going to drive over straight from the company building.” Jaehyun’s voice was shaking, too. At least there was that. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen you in awhile. I’m trying my best, baby.”
He must have really been by himself, then— Dongmin would never be “baby” in front of anyone else. Jaehyun really didn’t hang up the entire way there, even when there was nothing to say, and Dongmin heard his footsteps over the phone in sync with the footsteps in the hallway, approaching his apartment door.
“Dongmin, it’s locked. Let me in.”
Dongmin’s jaw locked. “Did you bring me a new box of blades?”
“Christ, just let me in before someone sees me out here, will you?”
It was always that, wasn’t it? Always what others would think. Where was the Jaehyun who didn’t give a shit about that? The one who would hold him openly in public and shove a middle finger in the face of anyone who didn’t like it? Despite himself, Dongmin reluctantly unlocked the door, and let Jaehyun fold him up in his arms the minute it closed behind him.
“I’m not going to let you hurt yourself, Dongmin. I don’t care how mad you are at me.”
Dongmin was still mad. Furious, actually, and he wanted to tear Jaehyun apart, but all he could bring himself to do was fist his hands into the fabric of Jaehyun’s sweater as he started to cry. Jaehyun didn’t seem to have any words, and he simply squeezed Dongmin tight like he used to, with his face pressed against his hair.
“I just miss having you home. How much longer do we have to do this, Jaehyun? You said it wasn’t going to be forever.”
“I know. It’s not,” Jaehyun whispered, his voice trembling. “But I’m doing this for you, baby. I’m doing this now so I can take care of you later. You believe me, don’t you?”
Dongmin didn’t want this. He didn’t need the money or the high-class lifestyle, especially if it meant keeping himself a secret. He wanted the all-night songwriting sessions that ended tangled up together in bed, whispering and laughing and kissing until they couldn’t keep their eyes open. He wanted cute dates in low-key cafes, where Jaehyun didn’t mind holding his hand and letting Dongmin steal sips of his drink and bites of his dessert. He wanted the lazy days off spent naked in bed, the comfortable embrace of Jaehyun’s strong arms, the constant assurance that he was beautiful just as he was. But he couldn’t say any of that— his voice was gone, and all he could do was slump against Jaehyun’s shoulder and let him hold him up, too exhausted to fight.
Dongmin’s chest suddenly hurt so deeply that the need to cut was muted. His whole body felt numb as Jaehyun dragged him to bed, numb even to the kisses he knew that his boyfriend was pressing along his scarred neck. He heard the tears, the trembling voice promising to do better, but his chest felt completely hollow.
At some point, he fell asleep. When he woke, it was nearly 4 AM; his apartment had been ransacked, picked clean of every knife and pair of scissors, liquor bottles dumped and left empty by the sink, and even his bag of miscellaneously collected rainy-day pills missing from the bottom of his stash box. The coffee maker was set to go for the morning, there was a long handwritten note on the countertop that Dongmin knew he’d end up reading and re-reading a hundred thousand times— but importantly, most importantly, Jaehyun wasn’t there.
//
“I know it’s been a long road, you have to believe me. I’ve been struggling, too, and I miss you just as much. But I know it must be hard for you to wait… I know you’re not well, Dongmin, and it scares me. Are you still talking to your therapist? Is there a chance you need your medicine adjusted? Do whatever you need to, and send me the bills. I’ll take care of everything.
Please take care of yourself, baby. I’ll try to be more diligent about responding to texts… but just in case, I let Donghyun know that you’ve been having a hard time. You shouldn’t be scared to talk to him if you need to. He’s a good friend, you can trust him during the times that I can’t be there.
By the way— I told the guys that I’m seeing somebody. Waiting for the right time to tell them everything. When we get some time off, I’d like to introduce them to you. I think you’d get along.”
(Dongmin ripped off the last paragraph and burned it in the gas flames from the stove. Nearly set off his apartment fire alarms, but worth it anyway.)
//
What would his life be like if Jaehyun were still there?
Dongmin thought about it all the time. Laying in bed at night, battling insomnia— he’d be holding me, we’d be talking about our day, he’d be saying stupid shit and trying to get me to smile, maybe kissing my ear and grabbing my ass and seeing if I’m horny enough to be distracted. Sitting around with nothing to do on his day off— we’d be working on songs, singing together, Jaehyun playing guitar while I rolled us enough blunts to last the afternoon. When Dongmin was teetering on the edge of a panic attack, wanting to slit his wrists or cease existing— he’d be holding onto me with everything he had, telling me how badly he needs me in his life, putting up a fight to keep me alive, reminding me that there's a place for me here and there will be a hole in his heart forever if I die.
But Jaehyun wasn’t there. Jaehyun was way the fuck somewhere else, living his dream, and Dongmin was sitting home alone, wondering if there was something else filling Jaehyun's heart up instead, trying not to hyperventilate and feeling stupid.
//
“After weeks of heated rumors, a representative from KOZ Entertainment has confirmed this morning that all six members of BOYNEXTDOOR have renewed their contracts with the company. Their extended contracts are for an additional three years of activity. According to the representative, ‘BOYNEXTDOOR have plans to continue activities with a repackaged album this month. Afterwards, we’re shifting focus to preparations for a world tour.’”
//
Dongmin was out with Donghyun and a couple of his friends for some after-work drinks when he saw the news. His jaw tightened, his blood ran cold, and his phone screen swam in front of his eyes, but he did not cry. He knocked back the rest of his drink, made some excuse about being tired, and caught a cab home.
He’d walked these streets tipsy before, more times than he could count— always leaning on Jaehyun’s arm, trusting that he’d get him home safe. “The fun kind of alcoholic,” Jaehyun would tease dryly, petting his crunchy, bleached hair. And then Dongmin would insist, childishly, that he wasn’t that drunk, and Jaehyun would half-laugh and press a kiss to the top of his head. “Sure you’re not, Tipsy Tumbles. Walk these next three squares of sidewalk without my help, then. Prove it.”
Dongmin proved it. He’d never walked so straight or fast, and damn, if Jaehyun could have seen him take those stairs, he would have been proud.
Back in his apartment, hands shaking, he found probably the least-used number in his phone memory: Fuckface (therapist).
Jiho had told him during their very first session that he kept his phone on for calls twenty-four hours a day, and that Dongmin should alert him to any psychiatric emergencies. Did this count? Yeah, close enough.
“Hello, this is Woo Jiho.” His same professional greeting as always, impressively put-together. Dongmin set aside one moment to just hate him whole-heartedly.
“Hi, Woo Jiho. This is Han Dongmin. I need you to talk me down from killing my boyfriend.”
“Dongmin—” There was no masking the surprise in his voice, but Jiho only had to clear his throat once to revert into therapist-mode. “Weren’t you considering breaking up with him? Let’s talk about that.”
“You didn’t actually think I was going to, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t. I never know what to believe with you, frankly. Sometimes I get the impression that you’re not taking our sessions seriously.”
“I—” Dongmin hiccupped, and only then did he realize that he had tears running down his face. Fucking perfect. Dongmin had never cried in front of Jiho, or— actually, he couldn’t think of anyone who had seen his tears but Jaehyun. “I want to get better,” he whispered. “I do. I just— don’t know how.”
“Getting better starts with change. Obviously something you’re doing isn’t working, and I think you have an idea of what that might be.” Silence, both waiting. Dongmin hated silence, but he tapped his fingers on the edge of the coffee table and waited him out. Finally, Jiho asked, “Are you safe right now? Do you think you need to check yourself in somewhere?”
No. Not again, never again, not if Dongmin could help it. He stilled his quivering breaths, fumbling for a cigarette. He’d burned himself earlier in the week, pressing a cigarette against his upper thigh, but it hadn’t been the kind of cold, clean, cathartic pain that he liked. It still ached like a bitch, constantly chafed by his work clothes, and— yeah, he had not thought that one through.
“I’m safe, don’t worry. Did I tell you, this asshole took all my knives? For a shitstain of a boyfriend, he’s amazingly thorough. He even took my bottle opener.”
“Ah. Sounds like you’ve had a rough week.” In the background, Dongmin might have imagined it, but he could have sworn he heard the uncorking of a wine bottle. “Well, I’m not busy right now. Why don’t you fill me in on everything?”
//
So let's go see the stars - BOYNEXTDOOR
Lyrics: Myung Jaehyun
I'm in front of your house right now,
If you're not sleepy, come out and see me.
The sky is full of stars,
So let's walk together.
Without you, late nights don't mean a thing, yeah,
Sunsets don't mean a thing, yeah,
Shining stars don't mean a thing too.
With you, late nights, it's full of starlight,
Sunsets, it's full of dreams, yeah,
So let's go see the stars right now…
//
Sometimes, it was easy to distance himself from Jaehyun. Other times, it was incredibly hard, and Dongmin wanted to throw himself to the ground and quit. After a rough five days of withdrawal from his boyfriend, he had his first relapse, putting his Jaehyun playlist on his bedroom speakers and crawling under the comforter for a smoke and a cry. How pathetic was he? Worse than the most delusional of delusional fans. Well, he just wouldn’t allow himself any more relapses, then. When he’d finished crying and feeling sorry for himself, he dragged himself out of bed and deleted each and every instance of Jaehyun’s influence from his Spotify.
I wrote you another song, Dongmin could hear the ghost of Jaehyun’s whisper in his head. I haven’t even pitched it to the company yet. Want to be the first person to hear it? That was how he’d first heard “So let’s go see the stars”, lying across his bed, with the afternoon sunlight dappled across their bodies by the broken blinds. Dongmin had regarded this as one of the most romantic moments of his life for a long time— a perfect man holding him in his arms after making love, singing such beautiful words to him, about him. Telling Dongmin that he and only he put the starlight in his night sky, and made beauty worth experiencing. He could have lived in that moment forever.
Dongmin hesitated. Maybe he’d save “So let’s go see the stars”. Just because— y’know.
The albums had to go, though. Without exception, Dongmin had to purge his life of his demons, even if it hurt. He called Donghyun, asked him if he was interested in making some extra money. “All you have to do is sell them, and whatever you get is yours. They’re all first press. Some of them are signed.” He sighed. “Just promise me… you won’t keep them. I don’t want to see any of them ever again, not even when I come visit.”
The photocards were far more cathartic. Burned, every last one of them. Goodbye and good riddance, Myung Jaehyun.
But as it always happened, just when the pain was beginning to lift, Jaehyun’s name popped up on his phone screen. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to delete the contact, after all. It was a Saturday night, and Jaehyun was probably assuming Dongmin was drunk somewhere.
Jaehyun would have been correct.
Dongmin answered the phone on the third ring, saying nothing in greeting, simply waiting for his voice: “Hey, babe. We just found out that our schedule tomorrow is cancelled. Are you home? Want me to come spend the night? This might be the last chance I have before we’re promoting again…”
The answer, of course, was yes. Dongmin met Jaehyun at the front door, had his boyfriend’s pants unzipped before his shoes were even off. Just one more hit, he promised himself desperately, wrapping his legs around Jaehyun’s waist as the other lifted him up and carried him towards the bedroom.
“Am I correct,” Jaehyun purred in Dongmin’s ear, gripping his jaw with a delicious possessiveness that left him weak, “in assuming that you’re also looking for a bit of stress relief tonight?”
Jaehyun’s touch, so strong and self-assured, was already doing wonders towards turning Dongmin’s muscles to jelly. The promise of a good, hard fuck was so tempting— it brought back the wisp of a hazy seven-year-old memory that made Dongmin smile. “You know what’s helped me keep from cutting this week? Pressing on sex bruises. No, I’m serious! Plus— I think they look so pretty. Do you want to see them? I love it— being marked up. Makes me feel even more like I belong to you.”
“Do your worst.”
Dongmin loved the loss of control: there was something almost comforting about the helpless feeling of Jaehyun’s weight pinning him down, one hand wrapped easily around his slender throat while he fucked Dongmin hoarse. The bruises would be a pain in the ass to cover, but it was no matter, he told himself: by the time they finally faded, Jaehyun would be purged from his life altogether.
Afterwards, while Jaehyun kissed apologies across his face, forehead and cheek and jaw and ear, Dongmin’s anxieties came flooding back like a tidal wave. This was the last time, this had to be the last time. With his voice quivering and his stomach in knots, he spoke out into the darkness: “Why did you renew your contract with KOZ? I thought we were just waiting for your contract to expire.”
“Ah…” Jaehyun had barely caught his breath, and he sighed, taking a moment to think, with his head nuzzled up against Dongmin’s. “I know you didn’t want me to continue, but— everyone else was sort of counting on me to do it. Besides, this contract is a lot better. Only one album a year from here on out, and I’ll get a higher cut of the profits. Sungho and I are planning a full sub-unit album in the beginning of next year, and if it does well, that could cement me in as one of the greats!” Silence followed— thick, gritty silence— and Jaehyun went on, almost desperately, “I’m doing this for you. So I can give you everything you deserve. Your own house. A life where you can focus on your art and not struggle at a dead-end job. The dog we always talked about. Remember?”
It had been one of their favorite games from the early days of their relationship, bullshitting about how amazing their life would be once their band took off and they got rich and famous. And it was hard not to fall into it— we’ll have a room in our house just for our instruments. We’ll have a private balcony, so we can smoke at night under the stars. We’ll have a garden with a koi pond, where you can go to decompress when you get home from a long day.
It was an idealistic world they’d been peering into, a world where they stayed together until the end, no questions asked. Dongmin wasn’t a child anymore, and that world was a faded memory. He resisted the swallow of deluded fantasy, and pressed on evenly, “Have you told any of them about us yet?”
“Dongmin,” Jaehyun said his name instantly, like he’d meant to scold, but he kept his tone neutral as he asked, “Can we not do this tonight?”
“I just want to know. I want to know if I’m still a secret.”
“It’s not that,” Jaehyun protested, with the first douse of impatience soaking into his words. “You don’t know how it is when you live with a bunch of straight dudes, okay? I sleep in the same room as Sungho. We get changed in front of each other. I hope he’d be cool with me being gay, but if he’s not, it’s going to fuck everything up. I’m waiting for the perfect time, baby, that’s all.”
To an outsider, it might have seemed like a valid excuse. This was Korea, after all, and ideas were changing, but conservative ideals were everywhere. It was the last thing Dongmin wanted, for Jaehyun to find himself on the outs with the people who had helped make him famous, but at the same time— “Why would Sungho be homophobic? I’ve seen him lick you on your livestream before.”
Jaehyun sighed into Dongmin’s neck. “It’s just different. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m just— a stupid idiot who doesn’t understand anything.” Dongmin sniffled, suddenly feeling cold and slimy against Jaehyun’s chest. He wriggled away, putting some distance back between them. “You know… my therapist thinks I should break up with you.”
Two could play dirty, Dongmin thought smugly, for he heard Jaehyun’s airless little gasp as the words landed like blows. “You’re kidding. Dongmin, what the fuck?!”
“He says our relationship is toxic,” Dongmin reported softly, pulling the blanket tight around his bare shoulders. “And I would have to agree. I can barely live day-to-day, because I have a boyfriend who’s too busy to return my texts and too scared to tell his friends that I exist. I know I shouldn’t hinge my mental health on you being there, but— I can’t help it when you’re such a part of me.”
I know it’s bad, but I want you. Dongmin had an addictive personality that knew no limits. He drank too much, smoked too much weed, drank coffee like water, and spent more on K-pop merch than on food. But more and more by the day, it seemed like his addiction to Myung Jaehyun would be the one to kill him.
Jaehyun scooted up against him, put his arms around him. Dongmin tried to shrug him off, and Jaehyun’s grip tightened until Dongmin gave up on pushing him away and went still, letting Jaehyun hold him again. Privately, it gave Dongmin a thrill; Jaehyun chasing after him always did. “Baby.” he whispered in his ear, pleading. “Three years. Give me three more years, and I promise, I’ll quit. I’ll retire from entertainment completely, and we’ll do whatever you wanna do. Travel. Open a bar. Get old and wrinkled up and gross together.” The unexpected punch of humor made Dongmin tear up, and he couldn’t hold back a small sob when he felt Jaehyun’s arms shudder around him. “I’ll tell the guys tomorrow,” he begged quietly. “I’ll tell them all. And I’ll text you every day. Please just don’t break up with me. I’m doing this for us.”
Yes, this would be the one to do him in. Dongmin rolled over in Jaehyun’s arms, burying his face in his bare chest, and cursed himself out in his head all the while. He’d eventually regret this, just like you always came to regret indulgence when the hangover came, but for now— one more hit.