Archive of Our Own

Even on a good day Hyuntak doesn’t know how to explain his relationship with Seongje.

‘What happened was—’

‘You don’t understand—’

‘He’s not like you think—’

He’s given up trying for the time being.

His mother is the least bothered by it, but that’s because she doesn’t really know who Seongje is. He’s surprisingly great at seeming like a decent human being in front of her. She likes him, even tells Hyuntak she’s relieved he seems to have a good head on his shoulders. The guilt of that still hasn’t worn off.

Juntae tries to be understanding; he isn’t very good at it, but doesn’t press. Sieun, of all people, handles it the best. It’s likely he’s too busy with Suho to fully analyze the situation, but he tells him that as long as Seongje isn’t hurting him, he’s not going to tell him what do to.

Baku… pretends it’s not happening. He acknowledges it to the best of his ability, but still smiles awkwardly and tells Hyuntak, ‘I know, Gogo, but I’d rather not know unless—’

Hyuntak understands. He has no right to feel hurt about it, so he swallows it down before the feeling becomes anything else.

It’s only natural, after all, that they all see each other less after graduation. Adulthood catches up with them before they’re prepared for it.

Tonight, he comes back from meeting up with them for barbecue straight to Seongje’s apartment.

Lately, it’s more like their apartment. Seongje keeps nagging him about just moving in already since he’s there all week, but Hyuntak refuses to live somewhere Seongje’s parents pay for.

Unfortunately, it has little to do with whether he wants to live with him or not.

He does. It’s mortifying to admit how much he likes coming home to someone who, just two years ago, would lay fists and nails and teeth to his face for fun.

Now Hyuntak lets himself in, half-drunk on a Friday night and still sweaty from work; and said someone looks up from his game with something that’s not anywhere near mockery.

“Hey,” Hyuntak kicks his shoes off and walks around to the back of the couch.

“Took you long enough,” Seongje grumbles, dramatic as ever, leaning his head back against the cushions.

“Yeah,” Hyuntak reaches for his hair, running his fingers through the locks. They’re shorter now, a little more taken care of. “We had a lot to catch up on,”

“Hmm, whatever,” Seongje hums, looping a finger around the strings of his sweatshirt, trying to pull him down. “I’m locking you up here next time,”

Hyuntak snorts, resisting the pull. “As if,”

He tries to pull away and head to the bathroom, desperate for a shower, but Seongje frowns and reaches for his arm.

“What?” Hyuntak sighs.

“Were you cheating on me?” Seongje asks, tightening the grip on his forearm and pulling him with the stubbornness of a child.

Hyuntak rolls his eyes. “Let me go shower. I’m gross,”

“Cheater,” Seongje doesn’t let go. “Come kiss me.”

Hyuntak groans but relents, nearly stumbling as he leans over the couch and presses his lips to Seongje’s.

It still shocks him how clingy he is. Hyuntak wonders how much of Seongje seeking him out back then was disguising his want to have him close. He wouldn’t dare say this out loud to him, but the thought remains.

“You taste like barbecue sauce,” Seongje murmurs against his lips. “And smell terrible,”

He sighs and kisses his lips one more time for good measure, then allows himself to press another one to the apple of his cheek. Disgusting.

“Told ya,” he tells him, then finally manages to wriggle away from Seongje’s grip. “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Coming with,” Seongje announces, following him into the bedroom.

“No, you’re not,” Hyuntak denies him on the spot, doesn’t even bother turning around. “Keep it in your pants and give me like half an hour,”

“Why not?” Seongje trails behind him to to bathroom door like a starving dog. “Isn’t it more practical?”

“No, you’re gonna give me a moment to clean myself,” Hyuntak throws a towel over his shoulder. “Then I’m going to lie in bed and you’re gonna do all the work,”

He turns to give Seongje a shove, then closes the bathroom door in his face.

This is the part he doesn’t tell his friends, never will.

Lying beneath Seongje, his arm locked around Hyuntak’s neck, the way he pants against his hair. His cock buried deep inside of him and the weight of his body pressing Hyuntak chest down like an anchor.

How Hyuntak nearly suffocates and, yet, his body is more relaxed than ever, knowing what it needs and letting Seongje give it to him.

Then how Seongje is the one to hold his hand and lace their fingers together. How Hyuntak doesn’t even know whether it’s sweet or if he just wants to torture him and stop him from being able to reach underneath himself and touch his own cock.

Or how it doesn’t matter, anyway, because he can come just from this. The feeling of Seongje splitting him open, grinding down to the point of pain, coming inside his hole and staying there. How the mere friction against a pillow does it for him.

He doesn’t think they would even believe him if he told them about how Seongje cleans him up; or the way he asks about his knee, then maneuvers Hyuntak into the circle of his arms in a position that doesn’t strain it.

Hyuntak nuzzles into his chest and hides a kiss in there, above his heart. He’s not bothered by keeping both sides of his life separate for now.

The sun is not out yet when they’re woken up by the vibrations of Seongje’s phone.

Hyuntak’s eyelids feel too heavy for him to properly open his eyes, but Seongje does move to pick up the call, so he’s instantly more alert. Seongje doesn’t pick up many calls that aren’t Hyuntak during regular hours, let alone in the middle of the night.

“What happened?” Seongje asks as a greeting.

Hyuntak’s eyes are not open, but he tries to listen to whoever is on the end of the line. He can’t understand much.

“Shit,” Seongje curses under his breath. “Okay, text me where to meet. I’ll pick you up,”

Something else he can’t pick up on is said.

“Yeah, he’s here—” Seongje sighs. “It’s whatever, I’ll figure it out,”

The call ends after that.

Hyuntak feels the confusion turning into something too close to dread as Seongje detangles himself from him.

The optics aren’t great. Seongje taking an unusual call, important enough to get him out of bed. ‘He’s here’ had obviously been about him.

Hyuntak wants to ask. He wants to pretend to wake up, find out where he’s going and see if he’s going to make an excuse up. If he’s going to lie to his face.

He finds he can’t. He knows if he does, he’s going to jump to conclusions. There’ll be a fight. Maybe it’s going to make something he’s terrified of real.

His eyes burn inside his eyelids and he keeps them shut.

“Hyuntak?”

He doesn’t move. Seongje sighs audibly, then Hyuntak can feel his hands tucking the comforter around his shoulders. Fingers brushing his hair aside, warm-honeyed kiss to his forehead.

Seongje leaves and Hyuntak can’t go back to sleep.

The clock hits four, then five, and Hyuntak is still alone.

At eighteen minutes past five in the morning he’s fully awake and up, thinking it’s a reasonable enough time to pretend to have woken up naturally by the lack of warmth.

He’s nursing a steaming mug of coffee when the door opens again.

Seongje walks in, eyes zeroing in immediately on Hyuntak sitting on the couch.

Behind him, there’s someone.

It takes Hyuntak a good minute to realize who’s the man walking inside their home. Seongje’s home.

“What the fuck?”

It doesn’t stop either of them. The man doesn’t walk out immediately, barely reacts.

He looks so different. His hair is shorter, like Seongje’s, but bleached a patchy, icy blond. He’s thinner, his cheekbones even sharper than Hyuntak’s ever seen.

The eyes are still the same. They land on Hyuntak much like they always have, like he’s an insect to be looked at under a magnifying glass, preferably under the sun.

“Hey,” Seongje greets him like he didn’t just bring Na Baekjin through the door. He walks straight to him and cups his face, leaning down as if expecting a kiss.

Hyuntak momentarily wonders if being cheated on would’ve been better.

He puts a hand to Seongje’s chest and pushes, shakes his head to try and shake off his touch.

What is he thinking?

“Seongje,” he grits through his teeth, surely looking crazy in his disbelief.

Seongje exhales. “I was going to talk to you before I left, but you were pretending to be asleep,”

Hyuntak almost feels embarrassed that he knew. Of course he did. But Hyuntak is not at trial nor is he at fault here.

Na Baekjin is leaning against their kitchen counter. Seongje’s kitchen counter. Looking at them with barely concealed disgust.

Hyuntak feels the ghost of pain tingling under the scarring on his knee, entirely exposed in his shorts that barely cover his ass.

“Then fucking talk, Seongje. What the fuck.”

“I thought you said you’d handle it,” Baekjin says, tone flat and bored.

Hyuntak can feel the anger rising. Any sort of sympathy Baekjin’s disappearance had left him feeling is gone like being hit with a lightning strike, burning on the way out.

He had a feeling Seongje had an idea of where he’d gone off to. They had never talked about it, but Seongje had been the only one close enough to him to know of anything.

“You shut up,” Hyuntak spits out, the looks back at Seongje. “You talk,”

Surprisingly, Seongje does. He can be so annoyingly frank and to the point sometimes that it makes Hyuntak’s easily-embarrassed self squirm.

It’s been a long time since Seongje has had anything to do with the defunct Union, or anything that came after that. It was one of Hyuntak’s very few conditions to making them something solid.

With time Hyuntak came to understand why Seongje had so little care in his future. Things came with such ease for him.

He graduated with somewhat decent grades, despite everything. He got an apartment as a gift from his parents, then started working at his sister’s Design company with the condition he took coding classes seriously.

Maybe that’s why he’d been so bored in high school. Things worked out and he always knew they would. He even has someone crazy enough to be his boyfriend now, and of course the only motherfucker with enough brain damage to do it ends up being Hyuntak himself.

Seongje’s life is pretty mundane. Sometimes Hyuntak feels guilty as if he’s the one who forces it to be so, but Seongje insists it’s the opposite.

He’s not entirely surprised something from his time with the Union has bled into the normalcy.

For better or worse, he knows Seongje like the palm of his hand. He knows the parts he doesn’t let anyone else see, the part that’s human and cares in his own fucked up way. The part that has become a tamed, domesticated beast that kisses Hyuntak hello-goodbye and orders him food and insists that he should just move in.

It’s the same one that lets himself be Na Baekjin’s emergency contact when he has nowhere else to go. It’s the same one that doesn’t beg Hyuntak to let him stay, but doesn’t declare he will anyway either.

He could, if he wanted to. It’s his house.

“I know,” Seongje tells him simply. He knows the implications of letting the person who did what he did to Hyuntak inside. What it would mean for Hyuntak to be subjected to his presence.

“He decides,” Seongje tells Baekjin. “I’m not picking you over him, Baekjin-ah. We’ll figure something else out.”

It’s like the universe thinks it’s funny to put Baekjin’s fate in Hyuntak’s hands.

If he were any more of a vindictive person, maybe it would be. If he were out to have Baekjin at his mercy and make him pay, make him beg and crawl and still deny him.

The opportunity falls into his lap as easily as Seongje’s comfortable life fell into his.

He stares at Baekjin and tries to fantasize about it. He wishes it’d make him feel good to even think about humiliating him.

Instead, something much more nauseating fills him. He looks at Baekjin and sees nothing more than a boy, still. He has nothing and no one. Not even Seongje’s loyalty that he once had almost entirely.

How awful would it be for Hyuntak to cry in front of him? Would Baekjin laugh? Would he look at Hyuntak and think about how he has always thought of him as weak, as less, as a whimpering animal?

Baekjin has nothing except whatever weird blood contract he had signed when he broke Hyuntak’s life. What a sad existence.

“How long?” he asks Seongje.

“I don’t know,” Seongje replies without missing a beat. “They’re not called sharks for nothing. It’ll be a while before we figure something more permanent out,”

“So he’ll stay here like, what, like a hostage that can’t even go outside?”

“Worried about my sanity, Go Hyuntak?” Baekjin asks as if he’s in any position to test his patience. Except they all know that no immediate shutting down of the idea is already a yes.

“Worried about mine,” Hyuntak says. “We’ll go stir crazy in this house.”

“I’ll go the moment you kick me out,” Baekjin tells him.

When Hyuntak searches in his face for a taunt or even a challenge, he finds none.

“Whatever,” Hyuntak says, and it’s a good as they’ll get. “I’m going back to bed before work. You brought the stray inside, you feed it,”

It makes Seongje laugh. He grabs Hyuntak’s unwilling face by the chin, fingers digging into the hinges of his jaw, and presses a forceful kiss to kiss to hips lips.

“So territorial, puppy,” he whispers against his lips and kisses him again.

Hyuntak pushes him away, ears heating up at the fact that Baekjin is still, in fact, staring.

“Fuck you.”

Unfortunately for him, Seongje watches him with a look that’s both thankful and fond; so even when he pulls something horrific like this, he might love him.

The thought is as disconcerting as it is comforting.

Hyuntak dismisses playing basketball with Baku on Saturday and seriously considers going straight home after work. When he left in the morning, later after the incident, Baekjin had been asleep on the couch like a surreal nightmare Hyuntak would’ve had in high school.

He’s not sure he has the stomach to go back and see him there, but the thought of leaving Seongje alone with him makes him uncomfortable. Not for his safety, or course, but Hyuntak doesn’t want to admit what really bothers him about it.

Then there’s Baku.

He knows he can’t tell him and he wouldn’t even know how to, but he’s not naive enough to think him finding out wouldn’t completely ruin the trust between them.

Baekjin is and always will be Baku’s biggest tormentor and an even greater what if.

He knows Baku’s eyes still look for him everywhere he goes. He still stares off into the distance when something reminds him of Baekjin. He still loves him.

Hyuntak feels like the worst person in the word.

Yet, he cleans up at the Dojang after the last kid is picked up by their parents and takes the bus to the opposite path of his house.

Seongje isn’t home when he arrives, but Baekjin of course is.

His entire body tenses up at the confirmation he didn’t just have a weird, surreal dream.

Baekjin sits at the small table on the kitchen, focuses on something on his phone. He looks up at Hyuntak, and that’s all the acknowledgement he gets.

Hyuntak doesn’t know what to say. The idea of greeting Baekjin doesn’t sit right with him, so he opts to say nothing and beeline to the bedroom.

A hot shower helps unclench the overworked muscles and clear his head a fraction.

Still he overthinks when changing, almost considers going for one of Seongje’s loose sweatpants, not loving the idea of being so vulnerable in front of Baekjin of all people. He decides it’s more rebellious to pretend like he isn’t there, and compromise no more of his comfort for him.

Let him see the scar he put there. Let him face the fact that he’s forced to accept help from Hyuntak. It’s probably eating at him more than anything.

There’s food in the fridge that wasn’t there the day before and Seongje is still not home.

“I thought you weren’t supposed go out,”

Baekjin looks up at him through his glasses that Hyuntak has no idea where he pulled from. “In modern Korea we have the wonders of delivery service,”

Baekjin looks at him from head to toe. As expected, his eyes do land right above the deformed ruin that is his knee. Hyuntak moves around the tiny kitchen and pretends it doesn’t make him shiver, looking for something to occupy his hands that aren’t throwing a fist to Baekjin’s face.

There’s also food in the stove. Fried rice, some containers with green onions and sides Hyuntak doesn’t bother looking through.

“Eat, Hyuntak,” Baekjin says, bored, eyes back to whatever he’s doing on his phone.

“Are you trying to poison me?”

“Fortunately for you, I don’t think our Seongje would appreciate me harming you very much,”

Hyuntak clenches his fingers around the container on his hands. Our Seongje. It’s a very obvious provocation, but said so lightly it feels more like a reflex. Hyuntak used to be so quick rising to anger, mostly Seongje’s fault.

He tries not to give Baekjin the same satisfaction.

“And that has stopped you before,” Hyuntak sneers. “Oh, right. It has encouraged you.”

Surprisingly, Baekjin has no retort to that. He exhales his annoyance, and Hyuntak tries not to feel too victorious about it.

“The food isn’t poisoned, Go Hyuntak,” he speaks, voice flat once more. “Eat it or don’t,”

His stomach decides for him, but he makes a mental note not to let it happen again.

Seongje’s apartment is bigger than anyone their age can afford on their own, but they’re still living in Seoul, so that doesn’t mean much in terms of space.

Except for the bedroom itself, Baekjin’s suffocating presence is everywhere else, all the time. It doesn’t seem to bother Seongje at all, which is unsurprising, considering how often he used to be locked up in that bowling alley or wherever else with him.

Hyuntak can’t escape him. Or worse than that, Hyuntak can escape him, as he technically can just go home some days. But for some unknown, delirious reason, he can’t force himself to.

He sleeps at his own house one or two days of the week, helps his mother with whatever he can as a good, filial son. She’s all but accepted he’s only under the illusion of living there, a surprised smile gracing her face every time she comes home from a shift to a clean house and warm meal.

They talk and watch TV and he lets himself be comforted by her hands in his hair until they fall asleep midway through a foreign drama.

When he bids her goodnight and moves to his room, all sleep vanishes from him.

All his mind can conjure up is Seongje. Seongje in their—his home. Seongje in Baekjin’s company. Baekjin’s corporeal form everywhere. Alive, present, in front of him. Under his care.

It makes him nauseous with something so easily mistaken for jealousy.

Is it? What does he feel when he thinks of Seongje and Baekjin?

Hiding under his covers that don’t smell like Seongje only make him ache. Sweat gathers at his temples and his memories travel back to high school.

Seongje leashed like a dog by whatever Baekjin wanted. Seongje who would, time and time again, let himself be commanded to do things he never particularly cared for. He had been happy to be his executor. He had been blindsided when Baekjin had acted like he always would.

Only ever out for himself fighting a one-man war.

Hyuntak finds himself stuck between nightmare and memory, and the reminder that Baekjin had broken Seongje’s heart making him want to crawl out of his own skin.

“Tak-ah,” Seongje picks up on the second ring, his voice is laced with sleep.

“Hey,” Hyuntak’s voice breaks.

“Are you okay?” he instantly sounds more alert.

Hyuntak’s weak, pathetic heart jumps. It’s such an embarrassing thing to still feel a thrill of making Geum Seongje turn into this. The boy who used to act like a mad-man being forced to accept he has a heart, after all.

‘I’m not choosing you over him, Baekjin-ah,’

“I think I’m coming down with something,” Hyuntak tells him.

“Do you need anything?”

He hears the rustling of sheets on the other end and his traitorous mouth breaks into a feverish smile. That’s his hound on a leash now. His sweet boy.

“No, mom is home, it’s fine,” he dismisses it, even though he badly wants to make Seongje come over. It’s the juvenile, insecure part of him that makes him want to prove to Baekjin he’ll come second.

He doesn’t need to do it. Na Baekjin is already driving him crazy.

“Okay,” Seongje settles. “You don’t have work tomorrow, do you? Stay home. Don’t be stupid to go in if you’re sick,”

“It is my day off,” Hyuntak tells him, still smiling. He’s past pretending he’s not in love with him. “And it’s probably just a cold,”

“You get whiny when you’re sick,” Seongje says. “A sore throat takes you out worse than a kick to the face,”

“I get kicked in the face for a living,” Hyuntak reminds him.

“By small children,” Seongje clicks his tongue. “Which fits you, when you act like one.”

“Fuck off,” Hyuntak actually laughs.

In quick succession, he’s hit by the thought that he already misses him; and then by the sudden clarity that maybe this is why Baku refuses to hear about anything involving his relationship with Seongje.

It’s not his most sane decision to be so infatuated with someone he used to fanatically hate.

“Do you want me to come over tomorrow?”

Hyuntak sighs. “Maybe at night? You can come pick me up and see mom. She misses you, for some crazy reason.”

“You have to accept she loves me at some point, Tak-ah,” Seongje says, and he can tell he’s trying not to smile and doing a terrible job at it. “I’ll bring dinner,”

“You’re so full of shit,” Hyuntak groans. “Your son-in-law act makes me sick.”

“She’ll be begging me to take you as a wife soon, it’s going to be terrible.”

Hyuntak blames the way his body heats up on his fever worsening. “Shut up. Fuck you.”

“I’ll be there at seven,” Seongje says. “Maybe six. Eat some medicine, for fuck’s sake, so I don’t have to deal with your sulking.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, asshole,” Hyuntak mutters. “Go back to sleep.”

“Sleep well, puppy.”

There’s a church across from the gym he works at. Every now and then, during his lunch time, Hyuntak sees someone walk in in distress. Some time after, they walk out serenely.

His mother has never had a habit of going to church, so in result Hyuntak is not one bit religious.

It makes him curious, though, to see if he’d feel any better after confessing his sins to a priest. He never understood the appeal of it until now. The reality that he sees Na Baekjin more than any of his friends claws at his throat.

He takes a bite of his sandwich, averting his eyes from the holy building.

Suho’s eyes are on his, whatever video on his phone forgotten and his brows furrowed in worry.

“You good?”

Hyuntak shrugs.

It’s easy being friends with Suho. They got closer after he got him the job at the same gym he works at, and even if their schedules don’t align every day, they’re glued together whenever it does. He’s a good guy.

“Can I ask you something invasive and that’s definitely none of my business?”

Suho laughs. “What the hell, sure,”

“What do you think you’d do if you ever met the guy who did that to you again?”

Suho goes still.

“I told you it was invasive,”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Suho frowns at him. “I didn’t think it’d be that,”

“You don’t have to answer,” Hyuntak tells him sincerely. “My mind is just wandering.”

There’s a long moment of silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. He and Suho have an understanding about things like this—things they can only talk between themselves.

Sometimes Suho is a lot like a mirror.

“I don’t know,” Suho finally speaks. “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but I think it changes depending on when you ask. Sometimes I feel like I’d fuck him up and do something irreversible, but right now I think I’d just ignore him. He would probably hate that the most.”

Hyuntak lets the answer sink in.

“You have any idea where he is?”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Suho shakes his head. “I don’t want to find out I’m capable of worse than what I think. I don’t want to disappoint Sieun.”

Hyuntak loses his appetite.

The floor to ceiling window in Seongje’s apartment does little to keep the roaring thunder outside. Lightning splits the sky every now and then, illuminating the living room in fractions of seconds at a time.

In the bedroom, Seongje moves but doesn’t wake up.

In the living room, Baekjin is curled into himself, sat up on the couch with his head between his knees and his hands behind his head like a frightened child.

For a moment Hyuntak thinks he’s seeing a ghost.

When lightning strikes, he can tell Baekjin is shaking.

He wonders if he should get Seongje or if he should retreat back into the room and pretend he’s never seen anything, but he’s unwilling to give him the courtesy.

Hyuntak will be himself even when facing him, and maybe his bleeding heart will be Baekjin’s karma after all.

He makes his way to the kitchen and fills up a cup of water before returning to where Baekjin is still folded into himself, and the only indication he’s aware of Hyuntak’s presence is the way he stills when he sits on the other end of the couch.

Hyuntak places the cup on the coffee table and waits.

It feels like an entire life passes by before Baekjin moves. He with his back tense and his face pale, eyes narrowed in anger Hyuntak is not sure where it comes from.

He stares at the glass of water for a long moment before he looks at Hyuntak.

“You’re a bleeding heart, Go Hyuntak,” he spits the words out like venom, but it’s too late for Hyuntak to see anything but an open wound.

“That’s doesn’t offend me,” he tells him and finds out he means it.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Baekjin scoffs, but he reaches for the glass and knocks it back like liquor, then wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “You think it’s noble. Maybe that’s what it is about you…”

“About what?”

He doesn’t understand what Baekjin means at all, much less why he wants to unravel it. It seems like the worst time to stick his fingers into the cut.

“Why they all flock to you. Humin, that Yeon Sieun, even Seongje…” he looks at Hyuntak again. “Is it that you take so many hits and still come back for more?”

Hyuntak stares back in disbelief, refusing to look away first. He almost laughs when he speaks. “Is that why you hate me so much? Are you jealous, Baekjin-ah? I didn’t think you were so simple,”

Baekjin doesn’t seem to have an answer to that. He stills looks shaken—raw, even—and Hyuntak thinks he could break him if he wanted to.

“It wasn’t about you.”

“No, it was about Baku,” Hyuntak snorts. “But it was my life you ruined, anyway. Tell me, Baekjin, why didn’t you go to him for help?”

Baekjin exhales like he’s trying to hold back his anger, and his sardonic smile is shaky at best. “I’ve outgrown Park Humin, and I think he has outgrown me.”

Hyuntak nearly denies it, but he’s not even sure if the statement is untrue. Baku might love him still, deep down, but he’s not sure he could push the hurt aside enough to do this for him. He’s even glad that he doesn’t have to, not now that Hyuntak is taking the brunt of it.

Or maybe the thought just makes him feel better about the blatant betrayal he’s committing.

Baekjin is the first to look away, and his gaze travels down Hyuntak’s body and land on his knee.

He forces himself not to flinch under the scrutiny, and Baekjin takes his time taking in the sight.

Something churns inside of him at the odd intimacy of it all. That is in the end Baekjin’s mark on his body. It’s something only the two of them share in this life.

Regardless of how many times Baku has touched it in the past to help him apply numbing medicine, or how many times Seongje has put his lips on it with an unspoken apology; neither have the fucked up, distorted type of ownership Baekjin has over it.

Maybe being around him is truly deteriorating his mind, but he turns and sits to face him to he can take a better look.

“Why don’t you say the words?” Baekjin asks suddenly. “You can just send me away. One word from you and this is over.”

Hyuntak fights the urge to roll his eyes. “You think I want that on my conscience, for you to cheat death in high school only to die at the hands of some fuckers wanting some money? I’m not you.”

Baekjin’s still looking at his scar, almost enthralled by it. “It’s not money. It’s—It doesn’t matter. Do you want to kill me yourself?”

Hyuntak exhales, patience thinning. “Maybe I’ve outgrown wanting to get back at you, Baekjin.”

“You shouldn’t,” he finally locks eyes with him again, and there’s a type of sincerity in there Hyuntak has never seen before.

“I’m not asking you for permission,” Hyuntak scoffs. “I’m not sending you away either. You’re just going to have to live your disdain for me yourself,”

Then Baekjin smirks, like letting Hyuntak in on a secret he’s not going to enjoy keeping at all. “Surprisingly enough, my feelings about you have changed. We’re in a zero-sum game, after all.”

When the rain thins into a drizzle and the outside stops sounding like the world is ending, Hyuntak slips back into bed with Seongje feeling like he’s stuck inside his body. He feels a lot like he’s going to vomit, so he presses his chest against Seongje’s back and slips an arm around him.

He buries his face on the back of Seongje’s neck, surely seeming panicked. He’d crawl inside of him if he could, hide in there and give up all hold on his own mind in favor of the comfort of him.

“Puppy,” Seongje slurs his name, rolling around to face him. “What is it?”

Hyuntak shakes his head and hides under his jaw. He doesn’t know what it is either. All he wants is Seongje.

Seongje pulls away for a moment so he can slide an arm under him, then brings him back with his free hand behind his head, pressing Hyuntak’s face into the crook of his neck.

“I love you,” the words spill out of him in a whisper and out of his control, like keeping them in would make him feel even worse. “I know we don’t—you need to know.”

For a brief moment, Hyuntak is seventeen and Seongje is eighteen and he thinks he’s going to be laughed at then punched. But Hyuntak is twenty and Seongje is twenty one and he tightens his arms around him nearly suffocatingly.

“I know that,” Seongje says. “It’s not your best quality.”

Lips pressed to his temple. Sweet, sweet boy.

“I love you too.”

Maybe living with the knowledge that Baekjin doesn’t hate him anymore is his karma.

“I’ve met someone,” Baku tells them over dinner a few weeks later. It’s hotpot this time, and their faces are red from the spice. “I was waiting to see if it was going anywhere to say anything,”

“Oh, Baku, that’s great!” Juntae smiles at him sincerely, the first to congratulate him.

Hyuntak freezes with a spoon midway to his mouth. “Where did you meet?”

Baku blushes even through his already flushed face. “He’s in a band, I’ve seen him play at a bar near the restaurant a few times.”

“Is it serious?” Suho asks.

Baku shrugs, obviously shy about it. “We’ve, uh, gone on a few dates. I think so? I want you guys to meet him.”

“What’s his name?” Sieun breaks his silence.

“It’s Gayul,”

“We’d love to meet him, Baku,” Sieun tells him. Then, to Hyuntak’s shock, his gaze turns to him. “I think Hyuntak should bring Seongje too. It’s about time we do this properly.”

Baku’s face falls instantaneously.

“What?”

“Sieun, it’s okay,” Hyuntak shakes his head, ready to bring them back to a neutral zone. “Really.”

Sieun shakes his head. “You’ve been together a while, Hyuntak-ie. If we’re going to meet Baku’s Gayul we might as well make it fair,”

“Sieun-ah,” Baku laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “We already know Seongje. You hate Seongje,”

“I don’t really think I know him anymore,” Sieun doesn’t let the topic go.

It’s a little surprising to see him advocating for Hyuntak like this, even if it shouldn’t be. Sieun is sincere to a fault.

“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” Juntae agrees, voice soft, trying not to sound like he’s ganging up on Baku. “We’re all adults now.”

Baku looks at Hyuntak as if waiting for him to back down.

He should. He should. He no has credit with Baku on this, even if Baku has no idea of how deep his sins go. The last thing he needs is to involve Seongje with his friends when they have a ticking time bomb at home that would make all of this fall apart.

He has no right.

And yet.

“Okay,” Baku relents in the face of Hyuntak’s inaction. “Okay. Sorry, I—I know I’m being difficult. I’m gonna try, Gogo. Sorry for being a dick about this.”

Hyuntak’s guilt makes bile travel up to the back of his throat.

“It’s alright, Baku,” he shakes his head. “I know it’s hard to believe, but he’s—it’s different now,”

“So, Sieun can bring me and Juntae can bring his comic-shop boy,”

Sieun rolls his eyes and elbows him with no force, and Juntae blushes all the way to his ears. “There’s no boy, where did you get this from?”

Suho grins at him. “I was baiting you but oh, there’s totally a boy, spill!”

The atmosphere lightens but Hyuntak remains stuck in his dread.

He gets home one day not to the sight of Baekjin or Seongje, but voices coming from the bathroom. He doesn’t know what it means that it doesn’t make him nervous. Instead, he kicks off his shoes and calmly folds his umbrella before following the sound.

He finds Baekjin sat on the edge on the bathtub and Seongje towering behind him, hands clad in black later gloves, fully focused on his task of applying a purple concoction to Baekjin’s head that he can only assume it’s bleach.

“Do you know bleach stains?” he asks Seongje, who looks up at him with a grin.

“I’m being careful,”

Hyuntak grimaces. He doesn’t think the bleached hair is Baekjin’s best look, but he’s not sure it matters or why.

“Why bleach it, anyway?” Hyuntak grimaces at the chlorine-like smell that must burn on the scalp. “Doesn’t it draw more attention?”

“The opposite,” Baekjin looks at him and shrugs. “Because nobody expects me to.”

He supposes it makes sense.

He watches from the doorway as Seongje handles Baekjin with care, and his gut twists with something that doesn’t feel at all like jealousy. He pushes it down and blames the reaction on the chemicals.

There’s an ease in the way they move around each other that’s both expected and shocking. Hyuntak has only ever seen Baekjin interact with people with off-putting intensity.

Seongje has his trust. It’s like watching a zookeeper feed a panther that has known them all their life. Hyuntak isn’t sure who’s predator and who’s caretaker, either. The lines have started to blur.

“Is there food?” he asks, breaking his own reverie.

Seongje shakes his head. “Don’t think so,”

“I’m gonna make some sandwiches or whatever,” Hyuntak announces, eager to busy himself and pretend he doesn’t want to stay and watch. “Anything you don’t like?”

Both Baekjin and Seongje stare at him like he’s grown a third head. He wants to go on the defensive, prove he’s capable of basic courtesy, but he’s not sure that’s what it is, either.

He wants to run before they realize his ears are burning.

“Onions,” Baekjin tells him.

Hyuntak grimaces. He doesn’t like onions either. “Got it,”

He rushes to the kitchen on beat with his racing, disquieted heartbeat.

Later, he watches Seongje help Baekjin rinse it out. The way his fingers dig into his scalp delicately, something he never is with anyone but Hyuntak. Baekjin’s head rests heavily in his hand.

Over Baekjin’s closed eyes, Seongje’s gaze locks onto Hyuntak’s. He searches for something and finds it before Hyuntak can decode the meaning of it.

Whatever it is, it makes Seongje happy at least.

The type of tension that looms over the apartment the following days leaves a different taste is his mouth. It feels nearly tangible in the air, like sweating off he walls.

Maybe it’s the first he’s truly noticing how tactile Seongje and Baekjin are with each other.

Even the way they all move around each other in the limited space changes. Hyuntak is not sure if the way he stops flinching or having to force himself to be still around Baekjin is a positive development.

Baekjin laying a hand on him absentmindedly as he passes him in the kitchen makes him sick, and yet he doesn’t jump away. It should feel like a colossal moment to have Baekjin’s hands on him without violent intent for maybe the very first time.

Instead it goes by so fast Hyuntak nearly reaches for him just to test, to try and figure out what any of it means.

There’s also the look Baekjin gets when they show affection in front of him.

Hyuntak has no idea how he can just stare without feeling the least bit awkward. Seongje has no qualms about it either, so Hyuntak is the only one left feeling juvenile embarrassment, unable to hide the flush that spreads down his neck or the heating up of his ears.

To be so open in front of Baekjin before any of his friends is the type of absurdity that would’ve made him laugh until his lungs gave out a couple of years before.

He’s then reminded of the impending situation of bringing Seongje to dinner when they finally set it up. He doesn’t know if he can handle any of the feelings the situation will bring to the surface.

How naive he had been thinking he was past all of the chaos from high school.

Hyuntak can hardly breathe through the pressure of Seongje’s fingers over his mouth. He’s so worked up his eyes roll to the back of his head.

Seongje is buried so deep inside of his bent over body, feet forcing his legs further apart and his other hand tight around the base of his cock, stopping him from coming until he allows him to do so.

It’s been weeks of quick handjobs in the shower and silent blowjobs in the middle of the night. Hyuntak has been too mortified to do anything knowing how loud he gets, how easily it would be for Baekjin to hear them from the living room.

The pent up tension turns him into a whiny mess, nothing but a fuckdoll in Seongje’s hands. He’s so, so weak for this. He keeps the thought hidden in the most secretive rooms of his mind, but it feels like he's only fully himself when he has Seongje this close.

“Puppy,” Seongje groans into his ear and follows it up with a bite, teeth sinking into the spot below, above his pulse. “You’ve been so cruel to me,”

Hyuntak shakes his head and even he isn’t sure if he’s nodding or denying it. The drag of Seongje’s cock over his prostate is torturous, worsened by the way he tightens the circle of his fingers painfully around him.

He can’t speak, terrified of how loudly he’d give away just what they’re doing.

If he were in his right mind he’d admit it’s ridiculous. They’re adults and Baekjin knows. He knows.

It’s the thought of being heard like this that ruins Hyuntak, makes his body heat up and tighten like walking barefoot through lava.

“So cute,” Seongje nuzzles into his damp hair, his voice barely above a whisper. “Were you scared of being caught, baby?”

Hyuntak whines, the sound breaking through the stuffy quietness and reverberating much louder than intended. Fuck, he can’t—

“You don’t want him to know how dirty you are,” Seongje keeps taunting, speeding up the snap of his hips and fucking into him harder. The slap of sweaty skin on sweaty skin grows louder too, undeniable. “Or… is it that you want to be watched?”

Tears spring in his eyes instantly and he shakes his head once more, vehemently denying the only way he can.

Of course it isn’t. Of course it’s not true. What kind of person would that make him?

Seongje hooks his chin over his shoulder, bone digging into bone, making it so he can’t even turn his head to check on the door.

“Are you sure?” he taunts, licking over his jawline. “What if that door opened right now, puppy?”

Hyuntak shuts his eyes, making the tears spill and run down Seongje’s hand. Cruelly, he slides his palm down and frees Hyuntak’s panting mouth, holding onto his neck instead.

“Does it make you harder, thinking he can hear you?”

Hyuntak feels Seongje pushing on the back of his knee with his own, letting his leg be propped up over the mattress. He’s so spread open like this, and Seongje is always so aware of his bad knee at all times it’s obvious this is on purpose.

His tendon burns at the strain and he’s so fucking close to coming.

“Puppy, don’t act like I don’t know you inside out,” Seongje licks a stripe up his cheek, drinking the fresh tears that keep running down. “You can’t hide it from me, you know that,”

“Seongje-yah, don’t—”

“I know you,” Seongje insists, grinding in deep, his own hips chasing a frenetic rhythm Hyuntak can’t keep up with. “You don’t even realize you want his hands on you, do you?”

“I don’t—” Hyuntak’s ears ring with it, insides burning from shame. He has no idea anymore how loud he’s being, his brain liquefying inside his skull.

“You do,” Seongje groans, hand finally starting to stroke Hyuntak again, soaked from how much he’s been leaking. “It’s okay. It’s almost your right, no? For him to make it up to you,”

“Don’t—no, no, don’t say th—Fuck, hgnnn gonna cum—”

“It’s okay, pup,” Seongje shushes his denial. “Do it, let Baekjin-ie hear you,”

His body starts convulsing midway through Seongje’s sentence, his orgasm so strong all his senses blank and his mind becomes pure static, spilling into the merciless hand around him, tightening around Seongje's relentless cock fucking into him.

He doesn’t even realize he’s sobbing until he finally hears himself, too late to stop it, to take it back.

“Fucking tight like this just from his name,” Seongje laughs, but his voice is hoarse, breathing labored.

He doesn’t give Hyuntak a second of relief, not even to gather his own dignity.

His body slumps into Seongje’s hold, who loops his arms around him and holds his weight like he’s a ragdoll.

Hyuntak’s head falls back onto his chest, limbs heavy and loose, but his mind races.

It takes Seongje no longer than that to grind into his twitching, fucked out hole, spilling hotly into him with his teeth on his shoulder.

When he’s clean and exhausted and refusing to look Seongje in the eyes, the man slides back into bed, crawling on top of him and prying his hands off his face.

“Don’t cry, Tak-ah,” he has the audacity to chuckle. “You’re being dramatic,”

“I’m not crying, fuck off,” Hyuntak tries to turn his face away, but makes no effort to get out from under Seongje.

He feels so fucking sick.

Seongje nuzzles into his cheek like the world’s worst pet, not even the slightest bit sorry about the emotional strain he puts on him.

“It’s not the end of the world, you know,”

“Yes, it fucking is,” Hyuntak looks at him in disbelief. “This is—this is foul, Seongje. What does that say about me? I’m already hiding this from Baku, how could I even—and what about you—”

“What about me?” Seongje raises an eyebrow.

“Was this your plan?”

Seongje snorts, pressing a kiss to the corner of his jaw so sweet it’s unfitting for the moment.

“Was it my plan to bring Baekjin here after years to make you lose your shit? Let’s think.”

It does sound ridiculous, but Hyuntak is not ready to admit that. He’s so angry with himself and even angrier at how well Seongje seems to be taking it.

“What, then? Do you love him?” Hyuntak regrets asking the moment the words are out. He doesn’t want confirmation. He’s a selfish, selfish being. He doesn’t think he can handle sharing Seongje.

“Baekjin is… important to me,”

Hyuntak scoffs. “Don’t mince your words now. Is is the same way you love me? Just say it, since you’re so insistent on talking about it.”

Seongje exhales, annoyance peeking through. “Is anything the same? Do you love me the same way you love that idiot Park Humin? Yeon Sieun? Seo Juntae?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Hyuntak shakes his head.

“Why, because you’re not fucking them?” Seongje shakes his head. “Of course it’s not the same thing. You still wouldn’t give up on them over me. I’m not asking you to, either,”

“You’re being unfair, Seongje,” Hyuntak tries pushing him off.

“No, I’m not,” Seongje cups his face, forcefully making keeping Hyuntak’s eyes on in. “Stop being so self-sacrificing. I hate when you deny what you are, I thought you were past this shit,”

Hyuntak's eyes burn.

“And what am I? A selfish, insane piece of shit?” Hyuntak laughs, and his voice betrays him so easily, cracks all over it. “A filthy fucking masochist?”

Seongje’s eyes soften and a small smile graces his lips. He kisses him then, and Hyuntak lets him pry his lips open. The fight leaves him just like that, making it impossible to deny that he might just be this.

“All of that,” Seongje says, his lips kissing the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, his temple. “And stubborn, and soft-hearted, and short-tempered,”

Seongje whispers all of the things he struggles coming to terms with about himself into his skin, in between open-mouthed kisses, like he’s singing him praise.

“And you hate that,” he says even though he knows it’s not true.

Seongje chuckle, biting softly at his cheek. “No, I like you the most when you own that. Don’t play coy with me,”

“Fine, then. Maybe I am all that, and maybe my brain is wired wrong and I’m destined to want fuck-ups who ruined my life,”

Hyuntak accepts defeat, offering up his sins to Seongje the same way he imagines those desperate people he watches walk into the church do to a priest.

Except Seongje is far from being a holy man. He might just be the devil, and he’s doing well to remind Hyuntak of such.

“Doesn’t saying it feel better?”

“No,” Hyuntak replies without a thought, then shakes his head. “Yes. I don’t fucking know. I just know that I can’t act on it. I think it will break me, Seongje. I mean it.”

Surprisingly, Seongje nods and holds his face with such an open, loving gaze that even Hyuntak feels a little queasy.

“Okay. Just be what you are, Hyuntak. Be all the beautiful things you are and be them without apology.”

Hyuntak wants to kill him and to also disappear into him.

“And you?” he dares to ask. “Can you handle not acting on it?”

Seongje has the audacity to laugh. “All this time and you haven’t realized I’ve become your attack dog? I’ll only do what you allow me.”

All of Hyuntak’s self control gets thrown out the window when he least expects it.

He hasn’t realized how much he’s gotten used to the suffocating dynamic of the three of them until he comes home from work on a Friday and finds the apartment empty.

For a second, he wonders if Seongje and Baekjin are doing something stupid in the bathroom again, or if he’s going to find them tangled up in bed together.

He immediately knows it’s not the case from the darkness that engulfs the place and the eerie quiet, no sign of life anywhere.

“Yah, Baekjin-ah?”

Still, he goes through the entire apartment in a rush. Baekjin is nowhere to be found.

His hands shake as he pulls his phone from his pocket, freezing when he realizes he can’t call Baekjin. He doesn’t have Baekjin’s phone number; the idea of ever needing it so ridiculous he had never thought to ask.

Why would he ever use it, when Na Baekjin had just been there every time he walked through the door?

He calls Seongje instead.

“Hey,” Seongje’s voice is calm, dragging in the lazy way it always does.

“Where’s Baekjin?”

“I’m not home yet—”

“He’s not here, Seongje,” Hyuntak cuts him off. “Didn’t he say anything to you? I thought he wasn’t supposed to—”

“Wait, calm down,” Seongje says, then curses under his breath. “Fucking idiot, let me call him, I’ll call you back,”

Hyuntak can do nothing but wait.

His mind can’t decide which catastrophic option to land on. If he’d been taken, if he just decided he’s had enough of being cooped up inside, if he’s just up and left like the selfish, cruel motherfucker he’s always been.

Who leaves without a warning? Not even a word to Seongje, it seems. Fuck Na Baekjin.

Seongje calls him back in a couple of minutes.

“He’s not picking up,” he announces, sounding more annoyed than desperate. “I’m leaving class now, wait for me there,”

“Seongje, did he really not say anything?”

Seongje sighs. “No, but I’m gonna go look for him,”

Hyuntak’s feels his heart in his throat.

It’s over an hour later of texting Seongje back and forth with no answer when Na Baekjin walks in through the door.

Hyuntak is on his feet in an instant, charging in his direction with rage electrifying his every cell.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

His hands grab the collar of Baekjin’s—Seongje’s—shirt, fingers clenched so tight they hurt.

Baekjin’s eyes widen, and maybe that’s the first time Hyuntak has managed to catch him by surprise ever.

“What’s your problem, Go Hyuntak?” he tries prying Hyuntak’s hands away unsuccessfully.

“With me? What the fuck is your problem? Didn’t you think to give any of us a fucking warning you were planning to leave?”

Baekjin pushes into him, smirk flourishing on his face like Hyuntak’s anger is a prize. Hyuntak hates him.

“Am I a prisoner?” he forces Hyuntak to take a step back. “Do I need your permission?”

Yes, Hyuntak wants to reply.

“You’re such a selfish piece of shit still,” Hyuntak shoves him back, wanting so bad to just deck him in the face. “What if someone followed you, huh? You’re not putting just yourself in danger, you fucker,”

“Nobody followed me, do you think I’m stupid?” Baekjin laughs, the sound so cruel. “Is my business your business now?”

“Yes, it’s my fucking business,” Hyuntak shoves him again, but Baekjin catches him by the wrists in a death-grip. “Are you a child? Will it kill you not to be a selfish asshole once in your life and at least give someone a warning?”

Baekjin doesn’t reply right away. Instead he looks at Hyuntak’s face, searching. His lips widen into a shark-like smile. “Say what you really mean, Hyuntak-ah. Is that really what you were worried about?”

“I’m not going to let you ruin our lives—”

“You were worried about me.” Baekjin cuts him off.

Hyuntak stops struggling in his hold for a moment. When Baekjin loosens his grip on his wrists a fraction he twists them out of his hold.

“So fucking what if I was? I know you don’t care, but I’m nothing like you,” his clenches his fist and punches Baekjin hard enough to draw first blood.

Baekjin has always been stronger than him on a good day. It’s no hard feat for him to loop at arm around Hyuntak and reach for his hair, gripping tightly on the locks and forcing his face closer, making his scalp burn.

“Did you get sick from worry?” Baekjin taunts. “Do you care about me, Hyuntak?”

He wants to spit in his face. Baekjin makes him so fucking angry.

However, he looks into Baekjin’s eyes and realizes that under all his spite, Baekjin hopes for an answer. Whether positive or negative, it’s killing him not to know.

“Yes,” Hyuntak says, his voice steadying. “I care about you, Baekjin,”

Baekjin’s eyes widen a fraction, then something Hyuntak has never seen on his face makes itself clearer.

“You’re pathetic,” he mutters.

Hyuntak knows he doesn’t mean it. It’s suddenly so obvious he wants to laugh.

“You’re a coward,” Hyuntak scoffs. “And you’re desperate. I’m not gonna let you brush this off. You don’t get to try and end your sad life without remembering this, now.”

For once, Na Baekjin is silent, flayed open. For once, he’s the one at Hyuntak’s mercy. Maybe this is his reckoning.

If it’s true that they can never win without losing, that they can never be good to each other without equal cruelty, there’s no good or bad decision.

He presses his mouth to Baekjin’s bleeding one.

It’s a kiss as ugly as they are together. It’s more of a knocking of teeth at first, painful and unfitting. Hyuntak licks over the wound he put there and the metallic taste fills his mouth, along with Baekjin’s insistent tongue.

He pours all of his desperation into Hyuntak’s mouth like this, licking behind his teeth and sucking on his lower lip, the hand on Hyuntak’s hair pressing their faces together so hard his nose aches.

It’s awful, nauseating, and Hyuntak wants more of it—more of him. He wraps his arms around Baekjin’s shoulders and refuses to let go, sucking on his tongue so filthily he can’t stop himself from groaning into it.

Baekjin lets go of his hair, his hands finding the back of his thighs and hoisting him up, forcing Hyuntak to wrap his legs around his hips.

They don’t stop kissing—if the animalistic thing they’re doing can even be called that—even as Baekjin carries him to sit him on top of the kitchen counter.

“You’re really something, Hyuntak-ah,” Baekjin bites the words into his skin, over his cheek and down his neck, pulling his shirt over his head.

Hyuntak knows he can’t possibly taste any good with the layers of dried sweat still clinging to him. Baekjin doesn’t seem to care.

Baekjin’s mouth finds the brown circle of Hyuntak’s nipple, teeth sinking into his chest and sucking without any care for his sensitivity. He gasps and pushes himself into it, fingers grabbing at Baekjin’s stupid bleached hair.

He pulls him away when his entire body shudders and he can’t take it anymore.

Baekjin’s face looks sharp in the same way he’s seen him during a fight. Hyuntak’s cock twitches at the sight. Everything about them is so fucked up.

He cups Baekjin’s jaw and presses right where his lip is split open, and Baekjin licks over the pad of his thumb.

His palms grip at Hyuntak’s thighs, running up until he bunches up his shorts and exposes him even more. He leans down and puts his lips over one side, and trails down until he reaches Hyuntak’s knee.

His breath hitches when Baekjin’s exhales hotly over the scar and their eyes find each other again.

When Baekjin licks over the marred, oversensitive skin Hyuntak keens on the back of his throat, hips bucking up into nothing.

It’s so wrong, it should be so wrong. Instead, he’s filled with the need to fuse Baekjin into him.

This one piece of himself is—and has been since that day—Baekjin’s.

It’s not a beautiful sentiment. It just is.

“Hyuntak,” Baekjin says his name like a prayer, and Hyuntak doesn’t know how, but he knows he’s going to say something about it.

“Don’t say it,” Hyuntak snaps at him shakily. “Don’t ever say anything about it. You’re not sorry. What’s done is done and you can’t ever take it back,”

Baekjin nods, kissing over the spot—his spot—one more time before coming back up to him.

He carries Hyuntak over to the bedroom.

Seongje comes home at some point Hyuntak fails to notice. He sees him watching them from the door like a creep, and it would draw a laugh out of him if only he weren’t choking on a sob as Baekjin’s fucks into his hole without giving him any space to breathe.

He fucks him nothing like the way Seongje does.

With Seongje, Hyuntak lets himself go. He tries to hold on to sanity but melts in his hands until he feels like he’s floating.

With Baekjin, Hyuntak feels like he’s the one anchoring him. He shoves his cock into him like he’s going to fall apart if he doesn’t, and Hyuntak holds him together between his legs and with his arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

He barely even notices when he comes. The pain has long mixed with the mind-breaking pleasure, as things tend to be with Na Baekjin.

Baekjin falls apart when he spills inside of him, face buried into his neck, suffocating him under his weight.

Over his shaking body, Seongje smiles.

“Aren’t you a dear, Seongje,” Baekjin snorts sarcastically as Seongje wipes him clean after he’s done with Hyuntak. “He really did a number on the crazy dog.”

“Don’t strain your neck too much or that leash will shock you, too,” Seongje bites back, but he leans down and presses his lips to Baekjin’s, kissing any possible retort away.

Hyuntak feels a thousand different things at once, but he lets them all go in favor of feeling full.

Whatever this is—wherever it goes—he’s too exhausted to be at war with himself over it.

He’s not a good person, but none of them are. It has to be enough that Seongje loves him because of it, and that Baekjin will never be at peace again at the thought of him.

He lets himself close his eyes.