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It’s closing hours at the pub, and Dokja is wiping down the counters with a rag that’s probably half a decade too old to serve any sanitary use. He’s on the last shift before they close up shop for the long holiday weekend—courtesy of Yoo Joonghyuk, who, despite all of his serious looks and very threatening biceps, is a surprisingly generous boss. The floorboards creak beneath his feet. On any other day it’d be a source of minor irritation to him, but today, when the snow is drifting down outside in thick clumps and their ancient jukebox is making his pulse throb with the slow, smooth beat, Dokja thinks that he doesn’t mind it too much.
It’s a pleasant little tune. The singer has a way of crooning their words so that even if Dokja knew the language they were singing in the first place, he still can’t make out the syllables properly. But it’s not bad. He sways gently on his feet as he sets the bottles away on the shelves of the bar, wipes down any last tables, and stacks the chairs.
He’s just managed to hang up the last chair when a hand on his hip spins him around.
“Boss,” Dokja greets with a grin, laying his hands on Joonghyuk’s broad chest. “What brings you here? Harassing one of your poor overworked employees?”
Joonghyuk sighs and raises one hand to flick the tip of Dokja’s nose. “Stop that. Lee Jihye thinks weird things of me because you say that stuff.”
“Well, it’s not my fault you’re so big and scary,” Dokja says, slinging his arms around Joonghyuk’s neck. Joonghyuk just gives a haughty little sniff in response like a put-out cat, and Dokja can’t help himself from grinning and knocking his head against his husband’s. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I made sure to show off my wedding ring to her today, so I don’t think there’s a lawsuit coming your way anytime soon. I just finished cleaning. You wanna wrap up and go home now?”
To his surprise, Joonghyuk doesn’t step away to guide him out of the pub. Instead he steps closer until they’re practically nose-to-nose, and places his other hand on Dokja’s hip, reeling him in.
Dokja’s heartbeat stutters. Suddenly it feels like it’s grown six sizes too big from the proximity alone.
“Joonghyuk-ah?” he asks, trying to keep his voice mild. “There are windows. We can’t actually fuck here. Even if it is 2 AM with very few passerbys.” Then he stops to consider it. “Well, I could be convinced, but you’ll need a strong argument to get me into exhibitionism in this day and age.”
“Annoying,” Joonghyuk mutters, and Dokja just smiles, knowing that he doesn’t truly mean it. But where on any other day he’d be inclined to perform a minor act of violence on Dokja’s person or retreat into himself for what Dokja likes to call Petty Meditation, today Joonghyuk does none of that. Instead he pulls Dokja away from the tables—dashing Dokja’s brief hopes of table sex—and leads them out into the middle of the pub that’s apparently been cleared out with all of the other tables pushed up against the walls.
“Joonghyuk?” Dokja asks. “What’s this?”
“You like this song,” Joonghyuk says.
Dokja blink. Does he? Normally he memorizes the lyrics or even the title of songs he likes, but this one he only knows as That One Song That’s Always On The Jukebox During Closing Hours. It might not be that Dokja enjoys the song itself, but that he’s managed to link it to some odd Pavlovian response of triggering endorphins at the thought of closing hours, which he definitely enjoys.
But that seems like too much to explain to Joonghyuk—not to mention Dokja does enjoy the quiet jazz instrumentals of the song—so he shrugs in answer. “Maybe?” he says. “I do hear it a lot here.”
“I like this song, too,” Joonghyuk murmurs. Just when Dokja thinks his heart might actually give out on him at the ripe age of thirty-five, Joonghyuk adds, “It was playing when you first walked into this place.”
The piano meanders, pretty in its lilting notes. Dokja strains to hear it, but he realizes a moment later that he doesn’t need to because he’s humming along without even trying. He knows this song by heart: the way the drums tick a quiet beat in time with crooning trumpets, the gentle thumps of the bass going one, two-three, one, two-three, almost like a waltz.
Their half-swaying dance comes to a slow stop as Dokja raises his head to gaze at Joonghyuk, eyes wide. “How do you remember that?” he asks. “That was… what, ten years ago?”
“To the day,” Joonghyuk says.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Dokja says, disbelieving.
Joonghyuk is the sort of person who’s too proud to ever feel embarrassment, but Dokja imagines that if he was, he’d be flushing. But all Dokja gets is averted eyes and ears hot to the touch, and Dokja makes sure to check, because it’s an absurdly cute detail about Joonghyuk that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over.
Joonghyuk knocks Dokja’s hands away. “Stop that,” he grumbles.
“Who knew you could be so cute?”
“You married me.”
“Technically, you proposed. So you married me.”
“Kim Dokja.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Dokja says, and then, again, just because he likes the sound of it, the syllables clicking inside his mouth: “Yoo Joonghyuk. Is that why you’re dancing with me?”
“It’s not dancing,” Joonghyuk says. “We’re barely moving.”
He’s right—their gentle rocking in place can hardly be called dancing. But Dokja doesn’t care about what it should or shouldn’t be called. It’s something that Joonghyuk is willing to do for Dokja in a little space that he’s carved out for the two of them, for this moment, for this one song.
“It’s nice,” Dokja murmurs, and leans his head against Joonghyuk’s shoulder, tucking his face into the crook of his neck. He lays a kiss there on the pulse, because he can. Joonghyuk is his, and that’s a piece of knowledge that Dokja will hold close to his heart for as long as he lives.
But sometimes it’s not enough to simply know. In the space of one breath into the next, Dokja slides his hand up into Joonghyuk’s hair. Joonghyuk goes easy, obedient, and then they’re kissing, slow and gentle. Joonghyuk’s mouth is pliant and open beneath his, but neither of them take the chance to deepen it. The world narrows down. The warm air of the pub, to the curving notes of the song in their syncing pulses, to the soft curve of Joonghyuk’s half-smile against his mouth.
There it is, Dokja thinks, and smiles back. He cradles Joonghyuk’s face in his hands, hoping that his touch can convey everything about Joonghyuk that he holds dear and tender, and Joonghyuk’s hands come up to wrap around his own. He’s holding Dokja safe, even now—and they kiss and kiss and kiss until the song winds to an end, until they’re taking comfort in the sound of each other’s breaths.
Dokja leans his forehead against Joonghyuk’s. “Home?” he asks.
And Joonghyuk kisses him again. He presses a kiss to Dokja’s mouth, the tip of his nose, both eyelids, and then he pulls back to gaze at Dokja, still with that same half-smile on his face, and he says back, “Home.”