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Jaehyun and Taeyong messed around a lot.
Taeyong couldn’t remember how it started, but he also couldn’t remember a time they didn’t. There was no meaning behind it, they were just frustrated and a little lonely. Taeyong was okay with that. When he’d see Jaehyun the next morning and he didn’t show the slightest hint of anything, he was okay with that too. He knew he could never ask for more. They had a mutual understanding, it was just casual.
It was just what they did. Jaehyun would come into his room at night, they would fuck or mess around, and then he would leave. That was, until he started staying too. Later and later each night, until he was only leaving to shower in the morning before the others were up. Taeyong tried not to think about it, (them? whatever they were?), too much.
So that was what they did now, but it was just casual. Jaehyun didn’t have any feelings for him, and Taeyong locked any sort of feeling in a box far away.
When Jaehyun slipped into his room that night, he was playing on his phone in bed. He hummed in greeting as he rolled over to catch Jaehyun closing the door behind him and shucking off his top, leaving him in only boxers.
“Hey,” he said as he lifted the blankets on the bed to slide in beside him, like they always did.
“Hey.”
Jaehyun filled his arms with the smaller boy as soon as he could, finding his lips in the dimly lit room and meeting them with his own. Taeyong sighed into the kiss, allowing Jaehyun to manoeuvre him onto his chest and have the control. His skin was warm, swallowing him up in an embrace.
Taeyong could tell within a minute that Jaehyun had no intention of fucking him that night. Sometimes, he’d come just to lay with him. This was their grey area, because it didn’t fit in their unspoken rules, but it didn’t really break them either. They could sleep together without… sleeping together, right? That was still casual and meaningless, if he told himself enough times.
When Taeyong needed air, he pulled back from Jaehyun’s lips to place gentle kisses along his jawline and the veins of his neck down to the junction of his shoulder.
“Had a rough day today?” Taeyong asked in between kisses, pausing to nuzzle slightly against him.
Jaehyun sighed as he tipped his head back. “Is it that obvious?”
“No. I just know you.”
Jaehyun’s chuckle rumbled through his chest, and Taeyong smiled at the vibration. He hummed gently as he moved along his collarbone. Jaehyun played with the strands of hair on the nape of his neck, twisting their legs together. His breathing muffled the sounds of Taeyong’s lips on his skin.
“What happened?”
“Nothing really,” Jaehyun mumbled. “Just couldn’t get the steps right at practice, and my voice wasn’t cooperating for my lesson.”
“We all have off days, Jae,” Taeyong reassured him. “Don’t let it bother you tomorrow.”
Jaehyun stayed silent. Taeyong wanted to say more, but he didn’t really know how.
“Can we just…” Jaehyun trailed off, almost like he was embarrassed.
“Cuddle tonight?” Taeyong finished for him. “Of course, baby.”
With a final kiss to his collar, Taeyong sat up to seek out his lips again. While they were momentarily detached, Jaehyun bunched up his shirt to pull over his head, flinging it to the side and reaching to pull him flush against his own skin. Jaehyun was always warmer than him, and Taeyong loved the feeling of his palms roaming across his bare skin, trailing a pleasant warmth behind them. He gasped lightly as the hands began massaging his shoulders, kneading gently into his tense muscles as he leaned back against it.
“Sore?” Jaehyun asked as he continued to dig his palms farther down his back.
“If I said no, would you stop?”
Jaehyun laughed. “Not if you asked nicely.”
“Don’t stop, please.”
Jaehyun obliged, of course, because he could never say no to him. His hands dug into the muscle for a few more minutes before eventually slowing to just stroking up and down his sides, soothing and gentle. Taeyong could’ve fallen asleep on his chest, and he knew Jaehyun would’ve let him, but he forced himself up anyways.
Once he had his arms under him, he threw a leg across Jaehyun’s middle, straddling his waist, so that he could run his hands over his chest and shoulders, following the curves and dips of muscle. Jaehyun’s body was his favourite; the perfect balance of strength and softness, and he often told him. He knew Jaehyun liked to hear it, loved the way his cheeks dusted with pink whenever he told him.
“You’re pretty perfect, you know.”
Jaehyun’s torso tensed beneath him with laughter, cupping Taeyong’s slender waist on both sides as the tips of his ears flushed pink.
“You always say that.” He kept his eyes on Taeyong’s bare chest, flustered from the verbal praise.
“And I always mean it.”
Jaehyun looked up at him then, and Taeyong smiled. He liked any time they spent together, but especially when they had time to just enjoy each other with clear, sober minds.
“Not just your body, Jae,” Taeyong continued. “Every bit of you. I know you work hard every day to show it, and you do. You are. Don’t doubt yourself.”
Jaehyun fidgeted under Taeyong’s body, (and the heavy compliment), his fingers slipping down to grip at his thighs, focusing on the smooth skin there and keeping his eyes down.
Taeyong let one hand rest on top of the one on his thigh and used the other to pull Jaehyun’s chin upwards, leaning forward to meet his lips sweetly. Jaehyun’s hands wrapped immediately around his sides again, pulling him incessantly closer until Taeyong only nearly saved himself from face planting onto his chest. He had to pull away to laugh and smack him playfully as Jaehyun grinned.
They kissed lazily for a while, talking for bits in between, and rolling around when they got bored. Now, Jaehyun was splayed lower down the bed, his head on Taeyong’s stomach, arms wrapped loosely around his middle. His eyes were closed, but Taeyong could feel his leveled breathing fanning across his bare skin, not slow enough for sleep.
“If we had a few days off,” Taeyong said casually, “where would you want to go?”
Jaehyun hummed in thought, tickling Taeyong’s stomach and causing him to squirm with a giggle. Jaehyun only smiled, eyes still closed, as he nuzzled back against him.
“Maybe Japan? I don’t know, somewhere pretty. Also a short flight,” Jaehyun answered. “What about you? Where would you go?”
“Japan sounds nice,” Taeyong just nodded. "Could take lots of pictures.”
“Speaking of pictures,” Jaehyun said as he rolled over so that he was facing the ceiling, “you didn’t take one today.”
Taeyong had a polaroid from every night they’d spent together, no matter what. Some of them were right in the moment, some of them were after, or even the next morning, but he always took one. It started as a joke, but eventually it was part of their routine. It was habit. It was another thing they just did.
The camera sat on top of Taeyong’s nightstand, and he glanced at it. The box of photos was in one of the drawers, but he’d never shown Jaehyun that. He probably thought he tossed them every morning, to get rid of the evidence. (He would never.)
“I know,” Taeyong finally answered, realizing he’d been silent too long.
When he made no motion to grab the camera, Jaehyun turned to look at him, his gaze sideways from where he lay.
“Am I not attractive enough tonight?” He said with a lop-sided grin.
“You’re always attractive, Jaehyun,” Taeyong answered softly. Too fast, he thought, too fast.
Jaehyun’s rumbling chuckle after the joke he’d made quieted fast, and he stilled against Taeyong’s stomach. His hair tickled his skin as he turned to look at him.
His eyes were unreadable. Taeyong avoided them.
Taeyong debated going to sleep right then to get around answering any more questions. He closed his eyes and wiggled around to get more comfortable, but when he settled, he felt Jaehyun’s gaze prickling his skin. He sighed as he opened them again, he wasn’t going to sleep that easily.
They sat in silence for a moment before Jaehyun suddenly adjusted his arms. He slung one casually across his torso again, but this time began rubbing his thumb in circles into his hip. The touch ran a shiver up his spine, his heart rate picking up.
“Cold?” Jaehyun asked quietly. The blankets were pushed below him, and he shifted to pull them over Taeyong. “I can-“
“No,” Taeyong stopped him before he could sit up fully. “I’m fine. Leave them.”
The truth was, he was a little cold, but the blanket would be a barrier between them, and he craved the touch.
Jaehyun froze halfway, eyeing him for a second before he obeyed, settling back where he was. His thumb resumed its slow, soothing motion, and Taeyong, satisfied, gently threaded his fingers through his hair. Jaehyun sighed, leaning into the touch, and moving his head higher up Taeyong’s chest, frighteningly close to his beating heart.
Taeyong twisted the thick, healthy strands between his fingers, massaging gently at his scalp and trying to calm his heart rate with the repeated motion. When he looked back at Jaehyun and found him staring still, any progress he’d made was lost.
“What are you thinking about?” Taeyong asked, breaking the silence.
“How pretty you look.”
His immediate answer made Taeyong’s hand falter in his hair for a second. He suddenly remembered the first time they’d done this, when Jaehyun was laying next to him afterwards, sweaty and panting, and they’d said the exact same thing, only it was him saying it. Jaehyun had jokingly responded ‘take a picture then’, and so he had. He did every night after.
Jaehyun watched the thoughts, the memories, run through Taeyong’s head and flicker across his face. He stayed silent, eyes focused on him.
Taeyong’s mind was running a million miles an hour. Everything he kept locked away at the back of his mind, every feeling and emotion, hit him like a ton of bricks. He was sleeping with his best friend. More or less every night. He had a stash of polaroids of him in all forms, ever growing, in a box in his nightstand. How long could he push it off as meaningless before something cracked?
“Remember that one time you said you loved me?”
Jaehyun smiled. “Which time? When you washed the dishes for me when it was my turn? Or when you-“
“No, when you really said it,” Taeyong cut him off, watching Jaehyun’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and then loosen when he remembered.
“It was one of the first times, when we were going to sleep, and you said it so casually that I thought I was already asleep and dreaming,” Taeyong spoke to the ceiling, refusing to look at him. “You never said it again.”
Jaehyun was a little stunned.
“I- I didn’t know you were awake,” he mumbled, but what he really wanted to say was you thought you were dreaming?
“So you…,” Taeyong was trying hard to keep himself collected.
“Yeah. I remember,” Jaehyun said. “I meant it, too.”
He answered so nonchalantly that Taeyong stopped breathing for a second. He started shivering again, too lost in his words to try and hide it.
Jaehyun ran a soothing hand up his side one more time before he sat up, ignoring Taeyong’s weak whine in protest. He pulled the blankets up and over his torso before slipping underneath to join him, their foreheads only inches from each other.
“You were cold,” Jaehyun explained simply, his breath smelling of toothpaste so close.
Taeyong pouted. Jaehyun chuckled, leant forward to place a kiss over his stuck out lip, and then reached beneath the covers to find his hip again, tugging him closer. Only then did Taeyong drop his frown as he snuggled into Jaehyun, nosing at his neck.
He sighed. This night needed to be over before he thought too much. They needed to sleep before he grew too tired to keep his emotions in check. He needed Jaehyun to leave and greet him at breakfast the same way he greeted everyone else, and he needed everything needed to go back to normal. Normal for them. As normal as it… could be, all things considered.
Taeyong made it clear he was going to sleep, making himself comfortable and hoping that Jaehyun would take the hint. He did, of course, and shifted to put his right arm underneath Taeyong’s head and intertwined their legs. Taeyong pulled his arms into his chest as he pressed closer still, finally settling.
Just as he felt himself drifting off, Jaehyun cleared his throat. Taeyong lifted his head to find him staring at the ceiling. He grumbled as he buried his head back into his neck, knowing Jaehyun wasn’t going to sleep yet.
“Why do you?” Jaehyun asked absently, bending his free arm behind his head and jostling Taeyong in the process. He groaned again, rolling to lay flat beside him as he opened his mouth to respond.
“Take photos, I mean,” Jaehyun continued before he could answer. “I thought it was like… a sex thing, but you do it when we just sleep, too.”
Taeyong pondered his question for a second. He had expected Jaehyun to think it was some sort of kink, because he had no reason to think otherwise. He didn’t even know himself. Why did he?
“I don’t really know, honestly,” Taeyong breathed out finally. “I just like to… remember the moment, I guess.”
Jaehyun just hummed in acknowledgment. He knew it wasn’t much of an answer, but he really didn’t want to have that conversation right then. Or ever.
“That’s what photos are for, right? To remember the moment,” Taeyong was reassuring himself more than answering Jaehyun.
“Yeah, guess so,” Jaehyun answered, but Taeyong could tell he had more on his mind.
“Does it bother you?” he asked, to which Jaehyun immediately shook his head.
“No, it just makes me think that.. that maybe I’m…,” Jaehyun fumbled with his words, a rarity for him. He was always sure of his word.
Taeyong waited silently, unsure of where he was going and a little anxious about it.
“I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking it but… but usually photos are like memories right? Like you said, to remember a moment,” Jaehyun spoke slowly, like he choosing his words carefully. “So... do you take them because, at some point this will just be a memory?”
Taeyong turned onto his side so he could see Jaehyun’s eyes, but this time it was him who avoided his gaze, focused on the ceiling.
“I guess you never know when it’ll be the last.”
Jaehyun let out the breath he was holding shakily, turning finally to meet Taeyong’s waiting eyes with so much emotion written in them that he was startled. They were wide and focused, not like his own heavy ones, and the faint glassy shimmer made him look so vulnerable. When his lip trembled just the slightest bit, involuntarily, he looked back to the ceiling and flung one arm over his eyes.
“Oh, baby,” Taeyong lurched forward to wrap his arms around him, heart aching just a little. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
As they lay there, Jaehyun aggressively blinking away tears, warm in his embrace, Taeyong wondered what he would do if they ended it. It was no longer just for sex, for releasing stress (he wasn’t sure it ever was). It was a part of them. If Jaehyun was asking if he was disposable, he was wrong.
“I keep all of them, you know,” Taeyong said into his shoulder soothingly.
“The photos?” His voice cracked slightly, unsteady.
“Yeah, they’re in the nightstand,” He loosened his grip as Jaehyun sniffled and moved to sit up. “Open it.”
Jaehyun did so, eyes landing on a smaller box inside it, and pulled it out. Setting it in his lap, he picked up polaroid after polaroid, all of him. From above or below, half-clothed, bare skin shining in the flash, messy hair, dopey smiles, lidded eyes. Some of them had dates scrawled on the bottom, some were too dark and others overexposed, but each one was a memory.
His eyes caught on one that appeared to pure white, but when he picked it up to investigate, he saw the vague outline of bunched up covers and a single tuft of his, then faded, purple hair sticking up from within them. He held it up to Taeyong, who just giggled.
"A few days after we got home from tour last summer. You were so tired, we all were, but I liked you here even if it was just to sleep. Even though you slept like a hibernating bear," Taeyong explained, smiling up at him from his pillow. It grew wider when the furrow between Jaehyun's eyebrows began to smooth.
Taeyong sat up with him so he could lean his head against his shoulder, offering all the warmth he could give. He looked through the box himself more times than he wanted to admit, and each one played like a movie in his head.
“I thought you’d… throw them away,” Jaehyun mumbled as he looked at the handful he had and still not a dent made in the pile.
“Never.”
Jaehyun stared for another second, like he couldn’t believe what he was holding, and then he tossed them all back in the box and shoved it of his lap. Before Taeyong could say anything, his head slipped off Jaehyun’s shoulder as he stood up, sending him face first into the mattress. He scrambled up in shock, reaching out to catch his arm.
“Wh- wait! Where're you going?’ Taeyong rushed out in one breath, trying to get his legs underneath him to stand up but his drowsiness made his limbs slow.
Jaehyun looked back when he felt his arm being grabbed, and only then noticed the fear and distress in his voice. He turned back to where Taeyong now sat on the edge of the bed, holding both of his hands.
"It's okay, I'm sorry. Don’t worry, just give me a second,” Jaehyun soothed. “I’m coming back, I just need to get something. I’ll be right back, okay?”
Taeyong, still slightly panicked, nodded slowly. Jaehyun pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead before dropping his hands and slipping into the hall quietly. The crack of light from the door left ajar made his tired eyes ache. He had no idea what time it was, but it was late.
When Jaehyun came back in, less than a minute later, Taeyong had calmed his breathing for the most part and was still sat on the side of the bed. Jaehyun put his hands on either side of Taeyong’s body as he kneeled in front of him.
“Your wallet?” Taeyong asked as Jaehyun pulled back one hand to show him what he’d retrieved. “Why?”
“Just look.”
Taeyong watched obediently as he opened his wallet, dug his finger into one of the card slots, and pulled something out from behind it. A photo.
Taeyong drew in a sharp breath. It was a photo of him. A polaroid, likely taken with his own camera. Sleeping, face half mushed in the blankets and hair tousled, but calm. When he looked closer, he could just barely see Jaehyun’s arm disappearing underneath his body, his favorite pillow.
“Why do you… how-,“ Taeyong’s brain tried to rationalize the situation, but kept coming up empty. Jaehyun wasn’t the one who took photos, Jaehyun didn’t think about him during the day. Jaehyun didn’t have any feelings for him.
“I took it one day, months ago now. You just looked so… peaceful. No stress, no exhaustion, no worries. I want you to always look like that. It makes me happy when I look at it. That you look like that with me.”
Jaehyun was smiling so warmly, his eyes curved into crescents, as he looked at the photo in his hands. Taeyong was astounded, he felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him, like the boy on his knees in front of him was a totally different person.
“What if the others see it?” Taeyong’s voice came out as a whisper, more fragile than he had meant.
“What if they did?” Jaehyun looked up at him then, sitting back on his heels and reaching to wrap a hand around his arm. “Would you be upset?”
Taeyong had imagined this scenario many times. The members finding out about their… hobby, and being shocked, angry, upset. Jaehyun being upset with him. He had no real reason to base his assumptions on, but it scared him more than he wanted to admit.
“They- We…”
“Taeyong,” Jaehyun gently interrupted his stuttering, “I’m asking you only. If it didn't matter what they thought, would you be upset?”
He wasn’t sure about a lot of things in their… thing, but he was sure of this one.
“No.”
The grin that spread across Jaehyun’s face was brighter than the sun. Taeyong couldn’t help but smile back, momentarily quelling the anxiety that swirled in his gut, and stuck an arm out to stroke his hair, down to his cheek. Jaehyun leaned into it, hands running over for any part of Taeyong’s skin he could reach, like he was assuring himself he was real. Taeyong didn’t know exactly what had just happened, but he felt relieved.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages, but I just never got it out. I thought maybe you… wanted to keep it quiet. Casual,” Jaehyun rambled, before something clicked in his brain and he froze. “Unless you do! That’s okay, that’s fine, we can do that too. Just like normal, you know, nothing changes.”
“Jaehyunie.”
He looked up, disappointment clear in his eyes.
“Why on earth would I keep all of those polaroids if I wanted this to be casual? If I wanted it to end?”
Jaehyun still looked unconvinced, so he took his face in his hands and leaned down to eye level.
“I want to be with you. I thought you at night was all I was ever going to get, but I wish every morning that you could stay. That we could kiss in the kitchen and hold hands at practice and cuddle on the couch. I didn’t think you felt the same, but if you do, which it seems like, then the others will be okay, too.”
Jaehyun was nodding his head wildly in Taeyong’s hands, eyes lit up with excitement.
“What are you still doing on the ground, baby?” Taeyong teased lightly, playing with his ear in between his fingers.
In a second, Jaehyun sprung upwards, narrowing missing Taeyong’s chin, and pushed him backwards onto the bed. Taeyong’s laughter rang out as he peppered kisses across his face, caging him in with overflowing affection.
Taeyong ran his hands across his chest and shoulders as he continued to kiss any skin he could find, giggling when it tickled, until he was just nuzzling and breathing him in like a tired puppy.
“Ready to sleep now?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun lifted his head from his neck to nod.
Taeyong used his elbows to pull himself from where they were horizontally across the bed to lay straight, and Jaehyun trailed behind. Once Taeyong was comfortable, he made grabby hands at the other, earning a chuckle.
“Wait one second,” Jaehyun said as he reached over to the nightstand. “You didn’t get a photo tonight.”
He pushed the camera into Taeyong’s hands, who looked at him with his head tilted in confusion.
“Come on, just for tonight. The last one.”
Jaehyun was insistent, and Taeyong was nothing if not obliging. He turned the settings to flash, positioning the camera as Jaehyun simply sat by his legs, and pressed the button.
As soon as the flash was gone, Jaehyun was by his side, twisting his arms around him. Taeyong made sure the camera reached the nightstand safely before leaning into him, suddenly feeling how exhausted he was.
With his head on Jaehyun’s arm, a firm chest against his back and arms wrapped tightly around his own waist, he felt his eyes get heavier immediately. His skin was warm, but his heart was even warmer.
“Night,” Jaehyun murmured into his hair. “Promise to kiss you in the kitchen tomorrow.”
Taeyong smiled as his eyes drooped. “I can’t wait.”
The last thing he registered before they closed fully was the camera, sitting in the slit of light filtering through the cracked door, and the polaroid sticking out of it. Fully developed, Jaehyun’s smile was blinding, and his eyes shined the brightest he had even seen.
Taeyong fell asleep wondering how many polaroids he could fit in his wallet without looking suspicious.
He'd start with five.