Work Text:
but before i lead you on
baby, tell me what's your motive?
me: missing you
junnie: are you fucking serious rn?
junnie: enough. just block my number already.
me: how mean :(
me: don’t you miss me too?
seen 6:10 pm
this marks jeonghan’s eighth time re-reading their text messages that night, frustrated beyond belief that he’s been left on seen by junhui for the past three hours. the blonde clicks his phone off with a sigh; the black, lifeless screen stares at him mockingly and he fights back the urge to check again just in case junhui messaged him this time and he didn’t feel the vibration.
he’s in the back seat of an uber that was so dutifully paid for by seungcheol, jeonghan’s (as junhui likes to call) pretty, new side piece. the petty name makes him roll his eyes with uncontrollable irritation. ‘rebound’ or ‘replacement’ would have sounded better, but even then could anyone really replace junhui?
if it wasn’t obvious enough from the blasting electronic music and flashing purple and red LED lights, the party at soonyoung’s house is in sight and is booming with college kids. he hasn’t even left the car yet, let alone step inside of the house, and he’s already physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted of the partying scene.
the phantom vibration syndrome that jeonghan has developed in waiting for junhui to just fucking respond starts riling him up as the car comes to a stop. his fingers ache to find out if junhui finally replied, as if anything changed in the five seconds he spent looking away from his phone. one more second without junhui’s attention makes him want to throw his phone out the window and sob, but he’s saved enough of his dignity to just bite on his lips and curl his toes nervously instead so his so-called separation anxiety with junhui isn’t so apparent.
he thinks let me check one more time before he feels a shove to his side by seungcheol, who urges him out of the car. “ah, shit, sorry,” he mutters, lifting himself out of the car with a grunt. the driver doesn't spare him a glance nor cares much for the apology.
“you good?” seungcheol asks, draping his arm around his waist as they head towards soonyoung’s house.
jeonghan’s head is already aching, but he nods just to assure him. or to just get him off of his back. without knocking, the two of them squeeze through the white and grey slab of wood that is soonyoung’s front door. the whole campus is in the house anyway and they aren’t expecting a bouncer to let them in, so they invite themselves in. the first thing jeonghan sees is a crowd of drunk adults, pushing up against each other like waves with beer soaking into their skin like sweat. it makes him want to vomit.
“i’ll get us some drinks,” seungcheol whispers quietly into his ear. the blonde doesn’t answer and instead just watches him leave with a sense of relief washing through him.
the living room full of people is electric, everyone feeding off of cheap alcohol and horrible dancing. if jeonghan was feeling a bit more like himself, he would shove himself in and go at it all night long, feet moving to the crazy beat as if they belong to the music. but junhui’s been on his mind since even before he got into the uber and it’s been souring his mood for the past two weeks and it keeps him from moving anything at all.
“jeonghan hyungggg,” the host himself greets, bounding over with great difficulty, “you came!”
the stench of booze and weed attacks jeonghan’s nasal system like a truck but he keeps himself from completely covering his nose in disgust out of respect for his dongsaeng. it’s a difficult task, really, pretending like he doesn’t smell like he was found in the garbage disposal under the sink, but jeonghan is the champ of pretending that he's unbothered.
soonyoung is so obviously high and wasted that jeonghan is surprised that he even recognized him. he can barely keep himself on his feet, and while he is a dancer, he is swaying more fluidly than he should. “yeah, uh, happy birthday. i don’t have a gift for you though. i’m kinda broke.”
“nonsense! your presence is my present.” jeonghan knows and would have said that himself if he wasn’t so exhausted, but he’s glad that soonyoung can fill in the blanks for him. he watches as soonyoung’s eyes fail to keep open with a slight chuckle. “oh my god...that sounded so cool. i’m like a rapper now. wonu! i’m a rapper!” wonwoo murmurs something nonsensical from the other side of the room, the straight people music way too loud to hear anything.
“right,” he sighs, wincing at the sound of soonyoung screaming in his ear. “anyway—“
“wait, jeonghan hyung! did you come here with seungcheol hyung!? i heard a bunch about you two from junjun!” jeonghan appreciates soonyoung’s attempt to whisper, but he completely misses (and currently lacks the cognitive ability to decipher) which words he should be whispering.
his interest piques at the mention of junhui and he tries to make it less obvious (but fails anyway). ”yes, i did.” he doesn’t know why he did, though. “what did junnie say? he talks about me?” it’s humiliating gossiping to a drunk soonyoung about whether or not junhui mentioned his name like he’s a freshman in high school finally being exposed to male validation, but he can’t help it when it’s junhui they’re talking about. too beautiful for words, junhui is an enigma and somehow leaves jeonghan wanting more despite ignoring him in every other circumstance.
soonyoung just laughs in his face and takes jeonghan’s hands, shrugging. “who cares!? let’s go drink!” with a groan, jeonghan lets soonyoung give him a smooch on the cheek, a drunk habit he’s developed over the years.
he stumbles forward, tripping over his feet, and jeonghan catches him quickly. “no, you should sleep, i’ll take you up to your room.”
soonyoung flails like a fish out of water in his arms, screaming “no, stop! can’t you see that i’m partying!?”
partying is a weird word for someone who is just standing and screaming while under the influence, so jeonghan assumes that soonyoung won’t be missing anything really.
and while he didn’t sign up to be a babysitter tonight, it beats standing in the middle of the crowd trying to search for someone who doesn’t seem to give a shit about him.
jeonghan sighs. “no, but i can see that you’re drunk so you’re going to your room.”
“whatttt,” soonyoung drawls but doesn’t protest when jeonghan takes his arm over his shoulder and uses all of the energy left in his body to trudge both of them up the stairs.
with his nike air force ones against the white door, he kicks soonyoung’s bedroom door open and marvels at just how incredibly messy it is in there. “how do you live like this,” he mutters, throwing a now unconscious soonyoung onto the bed and laying him on his side. clothes are thrown lazily on the desk chair and floor, showing just how much soonyoung cared for the space. he finds three empty pizza boxes in three separate parts of the rooms, empty beer cans, and dirty underwear and thinks what the hell. absolutely winded with an approaching headache, jeonghan huffs and exits the room to leave soonyoung to rest, bumping into someone on the way out.
“watch where you’re—“
“hyung.”
the voice is familiar, almost too familiar, and it shakes jeonghan to his core. in desperation, his head snaps up so quickly that he could have broken a bone, but it goes unnoticed when junhui is staring down at him with the most indifferent yet icy gaze he’s ever received in his life. “junhui,” he whispers, breathless, and how couldn’t he be. there’s danger embedded in junhui’s irises and it is screaming at him to stay away, but instead it keeps him grounded to the point where he can’t look away at all.
“i didn’t think you’d be here.” he spoke, using his right hand to brush a piece of jeonghan’s long blonde hair away from his eyes like it’s completely normal and natural.
his cheeks burn at the intimacy and only then does he realize what he’s been missing for the last few weeks. “i just, uh, wanted to stop by,” he explained, breath hitching when junhui cups his red cheeks. he can tell that junhui can feel the warmth radiating from his cheeks and it makes him flush brighter, harder.
“yeah?” he stares down at him with blank and emotionless eyes that do nothing but pierce his soul. junhui’s hand travels down from jeonghan’s cheek to hang at the curve of his waist, purposely teasing him and leaving him wanting more. junhui’s specialty.
“yeah,” jeonghan echos, savoring the feeling of junhui’s hands on him. he starts impulsively standing on the tips of his toes, chasing junhui’s lips but never touching them. “you didn’t answer my texts. felt like you were ignoring me, junnie.”
a low chuckle escapes junhui’s lips and while it makes jeonghan’s heart stutter, it also makes his cheeks burn in humiliation. “of course i was,” junhui starts, smirking. he leans down so that his lips meet jeonghan’s ear and he lowers his voice to a raspy growl. “it would be stupid to let you back in when you cheated on me three times, wouldn’t it?”
the words make jeonghan’s blood run cold and he’s left speechless.
“jeonghan-ah, there you are.”
the two turn their heads to see seungcheol at the edge of the staircase, two classic red cups in his hands filled to the brim with cheap beer. junhui smirks, eyes darting in between them before he releases the grip on jeonghan’s waist. “enjoy the party, you two,” he remarks, patting seungcheol on the shoulder on his way back down the stairs.
seething, jeonghan grits his teeth and clenches his fists as he watches junhui trudge down the stairs. “what was that about?” he hears seungcheol ask obliviously, but he’s so dumbfounded and angry to respond. jeonghan snatches one of the cups from his hands and chugs it until it’s empty, taking out his frustrations on a cup.
seungcheol somehow coaxes him into dancing it off, to which jeonghan finds himself agreeing. before he knows it, jeonghan is sandwiched against some drunk people, dancing but losing his rhythm consistently because his head is screaming junhui, junhui, junhui and it just won’t shut up. he hallucinates junhui’s figure around him like he’s so close but so far and it’s pure torture that junhui’s hands aren’t on him right now. instead, seungcheol’s hands are all over him like they always are but he feels disgusted by it, repulsed by any touch that isn’t junhui’s. so he stops dancing halfway through the song, turning to his partner and shoving his wandering hands off.
“i’m going to the bathroom,” he lies straight through his teeth. seungcheol offers to lead him there to which jeonghan vehemently refuses and abandons him on the dance floor in the hopes of escaping the chaos on the dance floor.
his feet and mind aren’t set on finding the bathroom, but junhui. he knew that he would end up like this, desperately searching for junhui in a crowd like it’s his sole purpose. it’s pathetic, but jeonghan has no way of keeping his emotions at bay, especially when it’s been ten minutes since he last saw him and junhui has somehow disappeared into thin air.
he sees a shut door at the end of the hallway and feigns curiosity, opening the door like it’s his first time at soonyoung’s house and that he has no idea that this is the master bedroom.
it’s then that he sees junhui in all his glory, smiling widely into the cheek of a lithe girl, who is half-naked and draping her arms around him.
junhui’s eyes snap to the door where jeonghan stands speechlessly. he smirks and squints at him through hardened, glowing eyes that once had been his salvation. its color had, only a few weeks ago, reminded him of a warm summer day such as today. but now they’re simply chilling, but undoubtedly alluring. every muscle in his face is tense, and, without a word, he communicated a fervent sense of revenge and payback.
red.
everything goes red.
his vision blurs as a flame curls in the pit of his stomach. at the brink of his patience, a surge of rage spreads through his skin and turns his ears a bright red. the flames in his stomach rise to his chest, crawling through his veins to spread through the rest of his body. still, junhui stares at him all the same, taunting him.
junhui has a face of an angel, even more so if his lips would ever break farther apart into a smile. but his smirk has his lips parted a centimeter, making it seductive to many, especially jeonghan. yet the fake smile on his pristine face makes him appear all too arrogant, and it makes jeonghan furrow his eyebrows in exasperation.
foolishly and thoughtlessly, jeonghan stomps over and seizes junhui forcefully by the wrist, dragging him out of the room and into a bathroom nearby. junhui has no time to speak before jeonghan throws him against the door, kissing him senseless. the younger tries to resist, but jeonghan interrupts him with another deep kiss, his hands cupping his face in some sense of desperation and starvation. reluctantly but lustfully, junhui lets jeonghan’s lips reign free, attacking any skin that is exposed.
when jeonghan shows no sign of relenting, junhui grabs his shoulders and pushes him away. “what the hell are you doing?”
with tears in his eyes, jeonghan weakly punches the younger’s chest, not really wanting it to hurt. “what the hell were you doing!?” another punch. “you’re crazy, seriously!”
“why? does what i did bother you?” jeonghan freezes, fist halfway between hitting him again. “it’s not like you think i’m yours anyway, and in that case you’re obviously not mine either.”
“what?”
“am i wrong? what am i to you then?”
jeonghan goes quiet, gaze dropping to the floor. what is junhui to him? junhui, who has been by his side since the beginning, giving into him at any time, leaving himself completely vulnerable to jeonghan’s whims. or has it always been the other way around?
who is he to jeonghan? and who is jeonghan to him?
it’s hard to explaIn to anyone what their relationship is. under his nonchalant appearance, jeonghan undoubtedly has a burning desire for junhui ever since they first met in that frat house basement for someone's graduation party. at that night they only kissed and slept together, but the burning sensation of junhui’s phone number in his contact list was enough to drive him wild.
and as the years go by and jeonghan finds himself only a few months away from completing his undergraduate, they keep meeting and chasing each other to the point where every interaction is a rush of never-ending bliss. never establishing a line or asking each other who they really are to one another was one of their many charms. the underlying implications between their shared breaths and between their bedsheets was enough for them both to understand: you are mine and i am yours.
but jeonghan, so intimacy-dependent and unstable, wanted something concrete—that sounds more like i love you more than come over. and maybe that’s what fueled the revolution and rebellion in jeonghan, and that's where seungcheol comes in.
in seeking a relationship with foundation and knowing that junhui would never leave him, he found seungcheol, a man who followed jeonghan's every move until it became suffocating. every moment with him was a fleeting infatuation (and more of a social experiment than a real relationship) without an ounce of sincerity. sex at one a.m. and kissing each other senseless on on walls of junhui's apartment seemed enough to catch junhui's attention, but he didn't understand the severity of his actions when junhui suddenly texted him keep your distance the third night he slept with someone other than junhui.
from seungcheol? jeonghan had texted back with the giddy feeling of a teen seeing her first boyfriend get jealous.
from me. he replied, and jeonghan fell apart.
and he feels the most broken right now in the bathroom of soonyoung's parents' house, tears at the edges of his eyes and threatening to fall at any moment.
junhui, who has been waiting for a response for two minutes already, scoffs, turning to open the door and leave. “right. nothing, as i thought.”
“you’re mine,” jeonghan croaks weakly behind him. junhui freezes, his hand on the doorknob, but he doesn't dare to move. the elder turns and wraps his arms around junhui’s waist, hugging him tightly from behind. “you’re mine, junnie. and i’m yours.”
taken aback, the brunette just stares back and jeonghan has the devastating realization that this is probably the last conversation he will ever have with the love of his life.
to his surprise, junhui laughs defeatedly like he wants to fight back for a split second, his hand dropping from the doorknob. “god, i can’t win against you no matter what i do, huh?” in one swift movement, jeonghan is lifted off of the ground and onto the marble sink, pushed against the mirror as junhui leaves fervent, desperate kisses over his neck and collarbones. jeonghan returns the energy right back, pulling junhui in and keeping him as close as he can.
“let’s get out of here,” junhui whispers in his ear, and it has jeonghan groaning lowly. “before your side piece shows up and ruins the moment again.”
jeonghan starts chuckling, arms around the younger’s neck. “alright,” he agrees, a huge smile on his face as the missing piece of his puzzle slots right into place.