Chapter Text
It’s a busy night, Saturdays usually having the biggest turn-out and variety of people, and Yeosang is itching to get onto the stage. He’s trying a new song tonight, something a little slower and intimate, flirty even. The door opens behind the blonde at his makeup station, tapping in setting powder and he looks into the mirror to see the devilish raven-haired bartender who unfortunately serves as his best friend grinning at him.
“Trying to score tonight or what?” Wooyoung makes a show of looking his friend up and down, pushing his lips out in a mute wolf whistle. Yeosang smiles to himself and continues finishing the light makeup in the mirror.
“Someone would be so lucky.”
“How do you feel about snobby businessmen?” Yeosang spins around to face Wooyoung who’s leaning back against the concrete wall, arms crossed and a look that proves he’s already spotted someone he believes would be ‘good’ for him.
“I feel like I never hired a matchmaker, and yet.”
“Designer suit.” Wooyoung pushes off the wall and walks over, stopping in front of Yeosang, leans down to whisper in his ear like anyone is around to listen to their usual Saturday night banter. “Big muscles, cute friends.”
“Where?”
“End of the bar, in the corner at the wheel table.” Yeosang sighs and shakes his head, though he’s already planning the ways he can eye the table that would make them lose their minds and fulfill his free drinks quota.
“Got an eye on one of the friends?” Yeosang raises a brow. Wooyoung rolls his eyes, turning around and walking back to the door so he can tend his bar before Hongjoong kicks his fat ass out the door with severance pay. “You’re a slut, Wooyoung.”
“What else is new?” Wooyoung laughs, disappearing into the dim lights on the other side of the door and Yeosang checks the time. Five minutes. He takes a deep breath and stands, adjusting his threaded diamond belt on his waist and giving his outfit one more glance-over. The slightly sheer white shirt lifts just enough to see the toned lines of his stomach when he moves his arms up, the white skinnies show off his long legs and his face is to die for - as always.
“Poor little businessman,” Yeosang purrs to himself.
“This is what we needed!” San yells enthusiastically, as though they’re in a club with thumping bass and not just a dive bar with what looks to be a lounge singer getting ready to croon. “Don’t you feel the knots just disappearing?”
“I think I have more of a headache than when the marketing miscommunication happened,” Jongho grumbles, taking a deeper sip of whatever beer the bartender handed him as his eyes stayed glued to San. “I’m out.”
“Already?” Yunho says with surprise, tearing himself away from the conversation about whether slugs are just misunderstood caterpillars with Mingi, to show concern. Jongho sighs, wishing his friends cared less about his social life and let this trip be work and sleep and nothing in between like he hoped before he saw the team he was assigned. It’s nice to work with colleagues you genuinely like, but it’s a curse when said colleagues are concerned with your life in all aspects outside of work.
“Of beer.” Jongho deadpans. “I’m out of beer.”
“I’ll get more.” San chirps, obviously eager to get back to the bartender, and waltzes his way over there swinging his hips exaggeratedly like he’s dancing. Jongho grimaces at the knowledge his friend will probably never make it back to the hotel tonight.
“Why
this
bar?” Jongho asks Yunho in curiosity. It’s nothing that special, although the pirate ship theme is a cool gimmick.
“You don’t like live music?” Yunho raises a brow, eyes moving behind the shorter man at the singer that’s messing with the microphone with a frown on his face. A beautiful blonde man with bright, catlike eyes is attempting to assist him, a smaller man with deep blue hair watching the both of them with a horrified look from just below the stage.
“Looks like we might not get any.” Jongho chuckles. He watches the scene, ignoring the strange feeling in his stomach when the handsome singer seems to glance their way and quickly looks back to his own situation.
“The singer keeps looking over here,” Mingi smirks. “Aren’t you tech savvy, Jongho? You should see if they need some help.”
Jongho tries not to look at Yunho’s hopeful gaze, aware that he’s hoping for a moment alone with the tall red-head too oblivious to notice the other giant’s feelings for him through the years.
“They have tech people, I’m sure.” He looks towards the bar, where he sees the bartender leaning so far forward into San’s space that he’ll fall onto his face any second. “If you want more drinks, you better get them before San takes the bartender into the bathroom.”
“I think the shortie is the owner, and he’s stabbing him with eye daggers from across the room,” Mingi says. Jongho watches the blue hair start stomping to the bar and the bartender leans back to take care of drinks, giving San an apologetic look who finally grabs the drinks standing on the side of the bar and starts heading over to their table.
“Sorry, I got a little distracted.” San says with a blush, handing everyone their second rounds.
“I hate all of you.” Jongho groans. “Why am I the fifth wheel every time?”
“Because you don’t get any.” Yunho answers.
“Fifth?” Mingi tilts his head in confusion and Jongho watches the light inside Yunho’s eyes die with sympathy.
“Maybe helping them will be more interesting.” The man takes a sip of his new beer but leaves it at the table, making his way over to the lounge singer who he assumes is a stage manager of some sort, currently tangled up in cords.
“Seonghwa, you made it worse.” The singer’s voice is deeper than Jongho expected, assuming it would be a light and pretty thing to match his beautiful face and outfit - this part of him much more masculine. Up closer, the man has strong shoulders and a toned stomach and a jawline that could cut through the tension between Yunho and Mingi.
“I come over here out of the kindness of my heart and this is what I get.” The blonde beside him whines, pushing wires off his arms that Jongho can’t figure out how got on him in the first place.
“I’m ten minutes past the first set!”
“I am trying my best.” Seonghwa shouts back, tears rimming his eyes with a pout.
“Ya!” Another voice calls from the side. Jongho watches the blue haired shortie appear once more, stepping up onto the stage this time and walking over to the blonde’s side to take the rest of the wires off his limbs. “Don’t yell at him. He’s sensitive tonight.”
“I am
not
.” Seonghwa’s voice breaks, he clears it and straightens his posture. “It’s been a rough day, okay?”
“Hongjoong, we need a new mic. I’ve been telling you for a month.” The singer stands with his hands on his hips.
“I’ve been telling you it’s not in the budget for just as long, Yeosang.” Hongjoong’s smile is taut, but he looks at the sad instrument and sighs. “I’ll find one on wholesale this week. Can you just try to make it work tonight?”
“I don’t know how to fix it,” Seonghwa sighs and Jongho takes the in.
“Excuse me,” he raises a hand and walks up the side of the stage’s stairs. “I think I can fix it.”
“Really?” Hongjoong and Seonghwa say at the same time, looking at Jongho like he’s their prayer answered. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them it’s not plugged in on the other side just yet.
Yeosang looks at a clock on the bar and groans. “Can you hurry up then?”
“Yeosang!” Hongjoong hits the side of his arm, and the other raises his arm in retaliation.
“Don’t damage the merchandise.” Yeosang hisses at his boss, and Jongho thinks he might not like this man in the end after all. He’s beautiful, and confident, but he’s a little mean. Jongho could handle it, if he needed to, trained by the nightmares of the business world into handling the most insane temper tantrums of entitled adults but it’s because of his job that he doesn’t desire to jump through hoops for someone who isn’t even part of some kind of sales team. Jongho walks over, plugging it into the outlet behind the wall and looking back at them with expectant eyes. Seonghwa turns red and excuses himself to the bar.
“I was going to pay you.” Hongjoong talks slowly, trying to organize in his head how many idiots it takes to plug in an outlet, removing Seonghwa from the equation out of pity and love. “But for that, I hope you’ll just take a waived tab for the night?”
“Sounds good to me.” Hongjoong bows and walks back to Seonghwa, putting an arm around his waist and placing a kiss on his red cheek with a smile. Partners, Jongho thinks with amusement. He turns to Yeosang and nods his head. “Looking forward to hearing you.”
“Meet me after the show?” Yeosang tilts his head up slightly, eyes looking down sultry and Jongho laughs but nods once more. It’s too bad the man is barking up the wrong tree, but he won’t mind telling him that in person after the show.
Yeosang sings his sultry tune, twenty-five minutes later than planned, thanks to the handsome businessman and his observant eye. His own eyes stay on the man and his group an appropriate amount of time, afraid to leave out any of the rest of the audience in his shows to appear unprofessional. It just drives him crazy that Jongho doesn’t take his eyes off him every second he’s on that stage, talking to friends without meeting their gazes, occupied with the singer on the stage and his love song meant for no one in particular.
The time passes too slowly to Yeosang’s perception, he feels like his sets last days and days, eager for the show to end so a new game can begin but the show does come to an end, with much applause for his voice and maybe his looks a little, and he steps off content. He doesn’t miss Jongho moving to meet him as he leaves, seemingly just as eager.
“Where you off to?” Wooyoung inquires as Yeosang rushes the bar, needing a little liquid courage because he’s not actually as cocky as he plays himself to be all the time and meeting an attractive man is hard for him. He doesn’t want to mess it up.
“Can you make me just the right amount of tipsy?” Yeosang can’t see where Jongho went, and anxiety claws at his stomach telling him the man wasn’t interested in the first place. Wooyoung slides over a shot of something colorful and nods at him to shoot it back. Yeosang does so with record speed, and feels warm almost immediately.
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“My payment?” Yeosang blinks at him; they both know they get unlimited drinks when they’re not on the job as a benefit, then it clicks. that Wooyoung is still waiting for an answer.
“Snatch myself a rich businessman, I guess.” He smiles, looks down bashfully as he imagines the things he could get up to tonight with the handsome dark-haired man in the pretty, grey pinstripe suit. He had a gold watch on his wrist, and a serious look that Yeosang could probably write a very cheesy song about if he wanted.
“Oh yeah?” A voice comes from behind, and Yeosang is slow to turn because he already recognizes it. His cheeks flush. “You’re so sure I’m rich.” Jongho’s eyes are as playful as his smile and Yeosang is glad he didn’t take it the wrong way. He’s not a gold digger, not actually chasing after any money. Love is not something he wants to buy.
“It’s a compliment. You look,” he looks him up and down coquettishly “expensive.”
“Says the man with the diamond belt.” Jongho laughs, a cute sound that doesn’t really fit his image at first glance. “Is this where you wanted to meet?”
Yeosang would prefer more privacy, maybe closer quarters so he can feel the muscles in the man’s arms and chest pressed up against him, but he’s getting ahead of himself.
“No, follow me.” He walks back to the dressing room to the side, looking back to see if the other is following and giving a reassuring smile to the confused look he gets. “It’s okay. You won’t get in trouble.”
“Hey, listen. I’m not -” the man starts. Yeosang is afraid he’s going to finish that sentence with
gay
. It would be just his luck. Wooyoung would never let him hear the end of it.
“Well you could try anything once?” Yeosang teases, though he’s really not about to coax a straight man into anything. He’s already planning how to turn this conversation around to save face.
“Not this.” Jongho pulls at his tie, letting it come loose, ears red and eyes wavering from Yeosang’s own. They come inside and Yeosang closes the door behind them, though doesn’t lock it. “I’m just not the type.”
“Yeah, you look really straight to be honest.” Yeosang sighs, sinking into his makeup chair and looking into the mirror.
“What?” The man sounds offended. “What did you just call me?” Yeosang looks at him again and giggles at the pure shock on his face. “First of all, you just
met
me.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” He gets defensive.
“I’m not one to judge people’s life choices, but-”
“Oh my god, I will kick your stupid muscly ass if you finish that sentence.” A bigot. Lovely. He gets ready to call security.
“Stupid!?” Jongho balks, moving closer and putting both hands on either side of Yeosang’s chair. The man feels intimidated and a tiny bit scared, body tense, with a strange amount of arousal. “It’s just personal preference.”
“It’s not a choice, idiot.” Yeosang wants to spit in his face, at the same time he wants to swap spit with their lips. Why are the homophobes hot now?
“Well it is for me.” Jongho looks frustrated, his brows are set deeply above his eyes and his mouth keeps switching from opening to frowning to opening - like he’s thinking too fast to say anything. “Look, you’re really attractive but I just don’t do this.”
Yeosang rolls his eyes. A closeted homophobe, of course. At least now kissing him wouldn’t feel quite as gross.
“You’ve never even tried, huh?” The man goes red like before, pulling at his tie once more like a nervous tic.
“When I was younger..” he trails off, then shakes his head and gets closer still, right into the man’s face. “What do you want?”
“For you to get your head out of your ass. Hating yourself is stupid.”
“Hating myself?” Yeosang loves the shocked look the other gets, makes him look younger - more innocent.
“The sooner you come to acceptance, the happier you’ll be.” He didn’t mean to be some guy’s gay awakening or queer guardian and yet here he is - full makeup, after show telling someone to
live their truth
. What a joke. Yeosang tries to stand, but Jongho crowds him in again with that same confused look. “It’s okay to be gay.”
“I never said it wasn’t! I’m bi, for fuck’s sake.”
There’s a pause, every noise that isn’t their voices amplified, as they stare at each other in disbelief.
“What,” Yeosang fumbles, his brain trying to catch up, “what were you going to say back there? When you said you’re not something.”
“I’ve been telling you!” He throws his hands up and Yeosang takes the time to escape his firm cage. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Because you’re straight.” Yeosang deadpans.
“Stop calling me that! I just told you, I’m bi.”
“Then why?”
“We just met!”
“So you would sleep with me at a later point in time?” Yeosang raises his brow. The man turns red again, reaching for his tie, but Yeosang takes his hand away from him. He looks into his eyes. “After a few dates, maybe?” He puts on his best smile.
“Well I don’t know.” His voice goes higher, squeaks a little. He’s adorable.
Yeosang starts to laugh at the exchange, even more eager to get to know the mysterious man in the slightly askew business suit standing with red ears and a crossed look.
“So, what’s your name?”