Chapter Text
Doyoung thanked his ancestors that he’d brought his walkman with him. The diner had a dime box on every table and the kids in the corner were mainlining an Oingo Boingo song that they were too young to remember being played to death when it came out. There was a free booth at the back of the diner, and it was there that Doyoung set up camp for the night. He had to press pause long enough to order a hamburger and coffee, and then he was able to drown it out again. He sunk into the music coming through the pads over his ears; the tinny snare and the whooping of the teenagers were drowned out. The Edge pealing off on high tones, and the steady bass beat of Adam Clayton keeping time with Larry Mullen. The vocals when they came in were almost intrusive. Doyoung rewound the song and started it again, and then decided that he couldn’t sit here all night wallowing in self pity. He tried his best to ignore even his own music and opened the Stephen King paperback he had stashed in his jacket’s inside pocket and set in to wait.
And I’ll wait without you.
What am I doing here? he asked himself, rereading the same page for the third time. What the fuck am I doing here?
My hands are tied.
Were they? Or was this a trap he’d set himself.
He should get up and go home. He should put his suit back in his closet and plug his phone out of the wall. He should make plans for the rest of his weekend so he wasn’t in the house. He should just stay the fuck away from Taeyong Lee for the rest of his fucking life. But of course he wouldn’t leave. He’d told Taeyong he would be here, and Taeyong had said he wouldn’t be late. He turned the page, giving up on this one.
He didn’t get three lines in before it came back to him, the sensation of Taeyong’s lips on his and his tongue in his mouth. He swallowed hard. Taeyong, so close to him he could smell the engine oil and the sweat he’d built up from riding his bike with Doyoung on the pannier rack. The stubble on his skin that had grazed Doyoung’s upper lip when he kissed him. Taeyong was stronger than he looked, of course he was. He braced himself under cars every day, and lugged tyres and engine parts across the shop without any help. When he was holding Doyoung against his body on that bench, Doyoung could feel that quiet strength in him, the taught muscles of Taeyong’s shoulders under his forearms. The heat of him, radiating into Doyoung. There was this, right front and centre of his minds eye now instead of descriptions of the Falcon in Derry. He felt again what had driven him from that bench, the shop, Taeyong’s giant eyes and oddly cutting gaze: the ache in the base of his abdomen every time he thought about how Taeyong had been hard. He had been.
Doyoung shut his eyes and shifted on his seat. He couldn’t think about that right now, here, in this public place. What if there was a fire, and they had to evacuate? What if he had to run outside with his book and his walkman and his pants all strained at the front? People would think he was reading a dirty book. He forced all thoughts of Taeyong from his mind, and forced himself to focus on the pages in front of him. This wasn’t a part of the book that was making him forget about whatever was going on between him and Taeyong. Adrian moving into Don’s apartment after only six weeks just put him in mind of how he’d sat next to Taeyong on a bus one day when he was fifteen and a month later had a new best friend. He rubbed his eyes and skipped the next three pages, and kept reading.
His headphones and the volume of the jukebox meant that he didn’t hear the bell when the door opened nearly two hours later. He didn’t notice the two men walk in because there had been people coming in and walking out all night, and the only thing he noticed was his coffee getting topped up, or the piece of pie he’d ordered after dinner when it arrived and the plate when it was cleared away again. He had no warning, so, when Johnny Suh slid into the seat in front of him. No warning at all until Taeyong’s arm around his shoulder startled him into looking up from his book.
“Hi,” Johnny said. Doyoung’s heard him because Taeyong pushed the headphones from his head
“Hi,” Doyoung said, blinking in surprise. He turned and took in Taeyong, his flushed face and his lips. His soft lips. Did they look a little swollen? Doyoung felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Hi,” he said again to Taeyong’s lips.
“I have to pee,” Taeyong pushed himself out of the booth, and took off across the diner, leaving Doyoung alone with Johnny. They just looked at each other for a moment, taking each other in.
“Charlie Kim, how the hell are you?”
Doyoung swallowed. This wasn’t a good start. “I mostly go by my Korean name now, outside of work,” he muttered.
Johnny beamed, but didn’t say anything to that. He just nodded and waited for Doyoung to say something else - his name maybe? Doyoung didn’t. His mind was blank.
Doyoung knew Johnny. They were a few years apart in age, but everybody at their high school knew Johnny back then. He had been popular amongst a certain set, and in the very small diaspora group Doyoung had gravitated into, he was practically a god. Funny and loud and - by everybody’s admission - a thoroughly nice guy, he had been untouchable at high school. Doyoung knew him in other ways too, though. Doyoung had started seeing Johnny at parties in his teens, and at the right bars when he was old enough to go to them. Nothing was more jarring than the sight of stunning six-foot-something Johnny with his big hands encircling the waist of the Canadian grad student on the dancefloor at Teddy’s at 2am on a Saturday night, only to find the same grad student - clean cut and prim - holding the hymnal for Johnny’s mom at church the following morning. Johnny didn’t go to church, and hadn’t done since Doyoung was old enough to notice his absence.
“How’s your mom?” Johnny asked him now.
“She’s good,” Doyoung said warily. Johnny had a kind of combative way of talking that he had never been able to keep up with. Doyoung wasn’t good at figuring out what people wanted from him. “How’s yours?”
“Doing fine,” Johnny nodded. He waved to the waitress and ordered himself some coffee. He didn’t order anything for Taeyong, so Doyoung did.
“Chocolate shake,” Doyoung told her. “And a refill, please,” he tapped his coffee cup.
An awkward silence settled between them when the waitress walked off. Doyoung knew he was being rude but he didn’t know how to navigate this situation, or if he even wanted to. This was a mistake. He should had left Taeyong at the theatre and driven himself home.
“Do you drive Taeyong on all of his dates?” Johnny asked, dragging the sugar bowl in front of him and tapping at it with his finger tips. It was a very direct question. Doyoung decided to swipe back by being direct too.
“Taeyong didn’t say it was a date. He said you were just hanging out.”
It was a cheap shot. Johnny’s eyes narrowed, but the smile didn’t leave his face. He was annoyingly handsome; stupidly pretty. What did anybody need cheekbones like that for? Doyong shook his head and looked back down at his book, at the pages he was barely paying attention to even before. He shut the book. When he looked up he found Johnny watching him. Then he drew something out of his pocket.
The cassette case clicked softly against the tabletop
“I have this on vinyl,” Johnny said. “But I was planning to buy it for my car. Good choice.”
Doyoung was at a loss for words.
“I think you picked this out, right?” Johnny had the most unnerving stare. He would make an excellent cop.
“What?” was all Doyoung managed to say.
Johnny glanced in the direction of the bathrooms. Taeyong still hadn’t emerged. Their drinks arrived and Johnny sat back, winking at the waitress. When she left, he went on.
“When he gave it to me, he called it Joshua’s Tree,” Johnny said, a small smile tugging at his perfect, perfect lips. His eyes flicked up to Doyoung’s, and Doyoung looked away. “I thought that maybe somebody else had picked it out. This isn’t really his taste.”
Doyoung felt defensive, even though Johnny was bang on the mark. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said bullishly. “Taeyong is great,” he said, watching the bathroom door and willing it in vain to open, for Taeyong to come back. “He’s funny and he’s creative and he’s kind and he’s really generous. If he gave you that gift it’s because he wanted you to have it. He’s like that.”
“I know,’ Johnny said, hands raised slightly. “I just don’t think U2 is really his sort of music. But it’s yours.” He reached across and rapped his finger lightly against the perspex window on Doyoung’s walkman. He really should be a cop. Doyoung would like to tell him so, because he had the feeling that kind of comment would piss Johnny right off. He looked down at his walkman. The Joshua Tree was paused inside. Doyoung cursed himself for not bringing something, anything else.
“I-”
“You told him I’d like it,” Johnny said with conviction. “I know you did, because I asked him. And he told me.”
“Oh…” Doyoung felt guilty for some reason, like he was showing Taeyong up or something. He felt the ridiculous need to defend him, to showcase his best friend who was absolutely everything in his eyes. “Taeyong- he really does have great taste,” he said a little uselessly.
Johnny smiled at him. It wasn’t a barbed smile or the pretext to a tease or a jab. It was a kind smile, and a little sad.
“I know he does,” Johnny agreed meaningfully. Doyoung didn’t know what to say. He knew he was blushing furiously. Johnny asked him again, “Do you drive Taeyong on all of his dates?” and Doyoung had had enough.
Finally, the bathroom door swung open. Johnny reached out and pocketed the album before Taeyong could see it. Taeyong sat down next to Johnny this time, and Doyoung knew he couldn’t watch the two of them be gorgeous together. He stood up and excused himself. He splashed some water on his face in the bathroom, and looked at his reflection in the stained mirror, at the black shirt he’d thought was funny when he put it on knowing he looked good in it and having zero expectations of it doing him any good. He saw the tiny mustard stain on his tie and took the thing off rather than try to wash it, pocketing it hurriedly. He took one last look at himself.
“You’re pathetic,” he said to the mirror, and then left the bathroom. He felt a sense of unreality as he approached the booth, at the sight of Johnny’s arm draped across the back of Taeyong’s seat, and Taeyong looking flushed with excitement, playing with the straw in his shake. He looked up when Doyoung appeared next to them, eyes bright. Doyoung felt sick.
“I’m maybe going to head out,” he said in as level a voice as he could manage. “I’m tired.” He didn’t sit down, just reached across to his jacket and dug his wallet from his pocket before donning it. Taeyong blinked up at him.
“Home?” he said.
Doyoung swallowed hard, and busied himself taking money from his wallet.
“I got this,” Johnny said, but Doyoung dropped the notes on the table before Johnny could even get his wallet out. This one thing, he could do.
“I’m going home,” Doyoung said, glancing at Taeyong and away again. He couldn’t stand that look on him, the flushed look and his mussed hair and how that stupid new shirt looked so good on him.
“Let’s go,” Taeyong said, swinging his legs out of the booth. Doyoung nearly swore at him. Was he really supposed to drive Taeyong home with Johnny? Were they going to sit in the back seat and make out while he navigated the interchange off the i-94 onto Old Orchard Road?
“No.” He’d put himself through enough tonight, he couldn’t put himself through that. “You guys have a good night,” he said with no real warmth behind it. He had none left.
There was some sort of hurried conversation going on behind him, but Doyoung didn’t want to wait to find out. He was done waiting. He was done with all of this. There was absolutely nothing about Johnny Suh that he could compete with, and being called out - he had been called out - being called out was beyond what he was willing to put himself through. He pushed out of the diner and charged across the street, narrowly missing a passing cab that blared a horn at him that he ignored. He made it all the way to the car before Taeyong caught up to him.
“Doyoung, wait.”
Doyoung was at the driver’s side. He hated himself for how he stopped and looked up. Taeyong was at the car, Johnny way on the other side of the street, raising an arm in farewell.
“I-” Doyoung’s filter was gone now, along with his book that he’d definitely left inside on the table. The idea of Johnny was nothing like the reality and the reality had just hit him like a semi. “I can’t drive you around any more. I can’t sit with you and with him while he-” taunts me, he didn’t say. He took a deep breath, but Taeyong got in there first.
“You’ll like him,” Taeyong insisted. “He’s not what you think.
Some of the lyrics of that song he’d been mainlining all night came back to him.
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose
Well, he had nothing left to lose now.
“I don’t care what he’s like. He’s nice? I’m glad.” Doyoung was on a roll now. He was aware he was raising his voice and dropped it to a whisper, hissing across the roof of the car. “But here’s the point Taeyong. I’m not that concerned with how nice he is. Or how much you like him. Because-” he cut himself off, breathing hard. Across the street, Johnny was watching them. He wouldn’t be able to hear all the way across the street and with the city noise around them. He wasn’t going away, though. Waiting for Taeyong, probably. Doyoung’s heart hurt. “I don’t care about how much you like him because I- I live to like you. So-” he almost stopped, he should stop. He didn’t. “So stop asking me to do things for you. Stop asking me to drive you to your dates, and help you pick out things to wear and gifts to buy him. I can’t watch this happen.”
Taeyong was ashen. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that for the first time in your life, you’re on your own.”
Taeyong shook his head. “You don’t mean that, Doie.”
“I mean it.” Doyoung’s heart was pounding. He looked up and saw that Johnny was walking away now. He was confused. “What are you still doing here?” he hissed at Taeyong. “Go with him.”
“I want to go home,” Taeyong said, eyes fixed on the door and not looking at Doyoung. “With you.”
Doyoung watched him for a long moment. His mind was a mess of static. Johnny Suh was gone, had disappeared around the corner of Oak and Rush, and Doyoung was alone with Taeyong on the street. He opened the car door and got in, reaching across to unlock Taeyong’s door too. Taeyong handed him his book and Doyoung flung it into the backseat along with his walkman.
They left the city in silence. Taeyong’s tape was still in the player, but he turned it off as soon as the engine started, and didn’t fill the void with anything. No response, no rejoinder, no argument. He was proving a point by saying nothing at all and just sitting there, and the point was that despite what Doyoung had just told him - that he liked him, that he was cutting him out, that Taeyong was on his own - that none of that actually bore up to action. Taeyong was still sitting in Doyoung’s car; Doyoung was still driving him home.
Eventually, Doyoung couldn’t take the silence and the tension any more, and pulled off the parkway into a little parking lot that overlooked the lake. There were other cars in the lot, but they were far enough away that their steamed-up windows didn’t make Doyoung any more uncomfortable than being in this car with a silent Taeyong did.
He killed the engine. He got out of the car. A moment later, Taeyong followed suit and they sat on the hood, their elbows brushing.
“Doyoung…” Taeyong said finally. Doyoung chanced a sidelong glance, and saw that Taeyong was smiling. It was a smile he recognised, a shy look that Taeyong only wore when he talked about whomever he thought he was in love with this time.
Doyoung couldn’t bear it.
“I really don’t want to hear about him,” he said abruptly. “Please, Taeyong. Just this once. Please don’t.” Despite everything he had just said, this was all he could come out with.
Taeyong’s eyes were huge as saucers when he turned them on Doyoung, the lights of the volleyball courts on the shore a little ways away making them sparkle in the dark.
“Doyoung,” he said again, his voice steadier, less dreamy. Doyoung forced himself to hold his gaze. Then, Taeyong said, “I’m sorry. I really didn’t know.”
Then he leaned in and kissed him before Doyoung could ask what he didn’t know about.
It wasn’t like their kiss this afternoon, which had been hot and full of tension and not a little anger on Doyoung’s part. This kiss was sweet, a lingering of lips on lips that spoke volumes more. This was what a first kiss should be. Doyoung was so shocked he couldn’t even respond. He sat motionless while Taeyong stood, still kissing him, and took his face in his hands. When Taeyong pulled back, he was standing between Doyoung’s legs, smiling down at him in the half-light cast from the highbeams passing on the parkway, and he was cupping Doyoung’s face in his hands. Some of the numbness that had overtaken Doyoung abated long enough for him to wrap his arms around Taeyong’s waist and pull him closer.
This wasn’t happening. Was this happening? Doyoung didn’t trust himself to speak. He didn’t have to because Taeyong leaned in and kissed him again, and it was deeper this time. Doyoung thought he was starting to discern a pattern. He recognised micromovements of Taeyong’s tongue against his and the way he hummed a little into the kiss. After years of thinking that he knew every single thing about Taeyong, he was learning something new. A tantalising prospect, that there were other new things to learn, shuffled about at the edge of his consciousness. He pulled Taeyong closer, bunching his fists into the shirt and taking control of the increasingly frantic pace of their kiss. Taeyong really was so very good at kissing him. Doyoung was overwhelmed. Taeyong’s hands were playing with his hair and he was helpless.
Finally, he drew back and looked up at Taeyong, a little higher than him for standing when Doyoung was still sitting on the car. This was what it had been like earlier.
“What’s happening here?” he managed to ask. “What about-” he held his breath, “what about Johnny?”
Taeyong’s croaky little laugh was a thousand times cuter when Doyoung could feel it against his lips. Taeyong kissed him lightly again. “You’ll like him, really. He really isn’t what you think. He was kind of mad at me. When we arrived at the diner, that’s maybe why he was so- ah. He said he would talk to you.”
Doyoung recalled that Taeyong had been in the bathroom an awfully long time. He’d put it down to the fact that Taeyong normally consumed a gallon of soda at the movies. He said so, and Taeyong laughed again.
“What’s going on?” Doyoung finally asked. “Tell me. Please.”
“I like you,” Taeyong said. “I more than like you. I just- I guess I didn’t know. Until today. Until we…” he trailed off, a shy look in his eyes that was entirely at odds with the way he was pushing his hips into Doyoung’s. “Then you showed up looking like this, and all I could talk about all night was you.” He dropped his head onto Doyoung’s shoulder. “Johnny asked me when I was going to tell you I was in love with you.” He wasn’t looking at Doyoung, and Doyoung thanked every star in the sky for that because his eyes started to sting just then.
“And?” he managed to ask, when Taeyong didn’t go on.
“And I’m telling you now,” Taeyong stood up, looking down at him. “Doie I’m sorry. I really didn’t know.”
Doyoung huffed a wet laugh, not really able to hide it now that Taeyong was looking right at him. “Yeah, well you can be a little stupid sometimes.”
Taeyong tugged at his hair ungently, and stepped in closer. “Why didn’t you tell me? That you felt the same?”
Doyoung swallowed hard. “You never asked.”
Taeyong kissed him again. It was definitely more familiar this time, and Doyoung luxuriated in it. He marked every patch of stubble on Taeyong’s upper lip, and the way he had a little pattern he liked to follow with his tongue, and the way they fit so well together that it was bizarrely, beautifully natural to kiss his best friend like this. And that this wouldn’t be the last time, that this wasn’t an experiment or practice.
“This counts,” Taeyong said against his mouth.
“Hmm?” Doyoung was thinking that they should leave this parking lot, get back in the car, go home. He wanted to do this all night, but not out here where anybody could see. This was for him and Taeyong. His brain was haze again but for completely different reasons now.
“You said earlier that it doesn’t count if it’s with you.” Taeyong looked at him earnestly. “But this counts. This is kind of the only thing that does, to me.”
Doyoung made a face. “That’s such a line,” he said, feeling so warm he thought he might burst into flames from it. He pushed himself off the hood of the car, and walked Taeyong back over to the passenger side. “Let’s go home,” he said, opening the door for him.
“Can I play my tape?”
“You can play whatever you want,” Doyoung said, then changed his mind. “But I just have this one song off The Joshua Tree that I want you to listen to first.”