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“You do know the more you squirm, the more it’ll hurt, right?”
Donghyuck shuts his eyes in indignation. As if all the guides hadn’t already told him the same thing. “I do. Just, fuck—hold on. Gimme a moment to breathe.”
The needle is so close that he can feel his ear prickle with heat. By the dingy, somewhat ominous-looking shop round the bar across campus, Donghyuck mentally checks this moment off of his laundry list of bad decisions, courtesy of his shitty ex and even shittier threshold for impulse control. Plus his spoiled milk lying in the fridge, and his crippling student debt piling up by the second, and a lot more than that, honestly, but he doesn’t want to be thinking of anything more pain-inducing right now.
Riskiness aside, he tells himself it’s the first real step in his recovery. Moping around in the dorms was getting kind of boring, and benders were starting to feel more like a one-way ticket to liver failure than they were a means to have a good time, so he figured something new would help. Sure, it was probably gonna make him cry like a bitch, but at least he'll look good.
Chenle is the lone piercer who miraculously accommodated a walk-in at this hour, granted that Donghyuck be out the door in five minutes flat. However, it’s been a full fifteen since then, and suddenly the lights are too bright and the air conditioning is a few notches too cold. The only other person he dragged into this mess was doing nothing to help calm his nerves. Donghyuck had also caught him sleeping at one point. So much for moral support.
“You should really listen to what he says,” Jaemin drawls, slinked over a chair like he’d rather be elsewhere. “I’ve heard your skin could tear. Shit does not look pretty.”
Chenle glares at him, gloved finger pointed to his face. “For your information, that only happens with piercing guns, not needles. Don’t make this worse for him than it already is.”
Donghyuck crosses his arms, pouting with all the irk his mouth could muster. “Yeah, exactly. And what are you even doing there? Hold my hand like you told me you would.”
“I never said that.”
“Well, Renjun was unavailable. You have no other choice.”
Jaemin does not hold his hand, which Donghyuck kind of already expected. It begs the question as to why Jaemin had come. Or why Donghyuck bothered asking in the first place, too downtrodden by Renjun’s last-minute cancellation to realize that his last-minute replacement was less than ideal.
Looking back, not much actually tethered them together: it was mostly only Renjun, the Introduction to Ethics class they semi-skipped on Thursdays at four, and their shared distaste for graying, post-Smiths Morrissey. Everything else Donghyuck had learned about Jaemin was exclusively through the campus grapevine, which he clearly grappled onto against his will—most people claimed that Jaemin was cool and nice and totally non-threatening once you get to know him, but the sharp teeth lining his concerningly sharper mouth always made that hard to believe.
However, when it really comes down to it, partial company is still better than none. Even when said company is grating the wheels of his chair, stare icy as he inches closer. “Can I film it?”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Would you like it if your soul were still tethered to your body?”
“Easy there, babe. Blood on the floor is an instant health code violation,” Chenle eases. “Think we could try again? For both your sake and mine?”
“It isn’t a bad idea, honestly,” Jaemin says nonchalantly. “Think a little color could brighten things up around here.”
Is this guy for real? “Oh, bite me, Na. Scoot your ass back there. Or maybe down the road, if you’re feeling adventurous.”
“There’s nothing I’d want more,” Jaemin smiles for the first time tonight, not bothering to confirm which part he agreed to. It makes Donghyuck’s gut churn in a twist he can’t quite untwine. “But didn’t Renjun just hold us at gunpoint? He won’t let me back in tonight unless you make it home okay.”
Bless Renjun and his heart of gold, really, but violence still feels like the most viable option here. The only thing holding Donghyuck back is picturing the look on his face if Jaemin and him went for each other’s throats unsupervised. “Okay, yeah. Best friend’s orders are basically gospel. I’d be a jerk for turning back on them now.”
“Cute. But I think you mean my best friend, Lee.”
Donghyuck scoffs. This cannot be happening. “Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.”
“I sleep just fine. Ask Injun yourself—he says my cuddles are immaculate. Top of the line.”
“Uh-huh. Highly debatable. Kinda doubt your arms are anything but pillows for you to drool on.”
“Debatable how?” Jaemin raises a brow, briefly pulling at the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a toned forearm. Veins and healed burns wrap around it, which make them kind of tempting to touch. Not that Donghyuck actually would, though. “These are the same ones that cook him dinner every night. I don’t see you doing that.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation again. I’m on his Valorant team, for crying out loud. His D&D guild. The fucking igloo he built me on Club Penguin! You bribed him with a bowl of soup once and stole him from me—”
Chenle clinks his spare clamps on a tray. “Hey. Can we speed it up on the warfare here? I’ve got bills to pay. And a dog to feed. So it’s either that or you kiss your sparkling customer review goodbye.”
“Right. Of course. We promise we won’t be more of a nuisance,” Donghyuck bows his head, panic spiking his nerves again. “Which will be tough. Unfortunately for you, I still think I’m gonna piss myself.”
“Let me guess. Doctor too trigger-happy on you as a kid?”
“Kind of. But it’s mostly ‘cause my pain tolerance is shit.”
“So is his alcohol tolerance. As is with everything else about him,” Jaemin adds.
“How kind of you to disclose that to a stranger, really,” Donghyuck deadpans. “Like I hadn’t embarrassed myself enough.”
Chenle looks down at him with sympathy, or at the very least a smile of someone who clearly isn’t being paid enough. “You’re fine. I've already smelled it on you the minute you walked in.” He pulls at the band of his glove. “Breathe in for me?”
The needle glints with some kind of wicked power, like on the spinning wheel from that one scene in Sleeping Beauty. For a while Donghyuck sees a beam of green out to get him, until he realizes that that had only scared him when he was like, nine.
But then the needle glows again. And then doesn’t. And then the needle scares him one more time, just to be sure.
Jesus. This is going to be harder than he thought.
“Wait.” He turns to Jaemin in one last act of desperation, fiddling with the tattered hem of his shirt. “Jaemin. Jaemin Na. Come onnnn.”
"Oh, please. You gotta do better than that.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, this is just as much of a hassle for me as it is for you. It’s best to just get this over with.”
“Tempting, but how about this: you stop stealing the food I leave out for Junnie, and we’ll never have to speak of this again,” Jaemin proposes, holding his ego boost over Donghyuck’s head for as long as humanly possible. “Like, seriously. Do you know how bad it gets at the clearance aisle? I literally have to claw my way to his favorite tub of Rocky Road."
“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here," Donghyuck says annoyedly. "It’s not my fault Mark's such a bad cook. And free food always tastes better. Wouldn't you agree, Chenle?”
Chenle shrugs. "Um. I guess. Whatever gets you two to leave."
Jaemin is barely ever the easiest to appease. “My terms still stand.”
"You are so annoying. Do I have to get down on my knees for you? Is that what you want?”
“Not necessarily, but that would be very much appreciated.”
The groan that practically gusts itself out of Donghyuck is inevitable. Pre-determined. Fated, somehow. Needless to say, it is getting harder and harder not to see anything past Jaemin's shit-eating grin, his teeth sparkling and probably approved by nine out of ten dentists. “Unsay that shit right now. Before I jump and take you with me.”
Still no response. No matter how atrocious Jaemin is, his cooking is anything but, and Donghyuck isn't sure he wants to give that up just yet. So, ultimately, he wings it the only way he knows how: “Minnie," he pleads, the vowels lazing more softly than he'd like. "Please? Just this once?”
The name is more of a retort than it is a term of endearment, so it’s enough to make Jaemin’s eyes shoot up in surprise. The only other time he’s been called that was when Donghyuck fell fresh off his breakup, head too far down the toilet to fully cuss him to shreds.
Jaemin reaches out with a wordless nod. His hands aren’t the slightest bit clammy or reptilian, which is nice. Donghyuck even thinks they’re well-manicured, which is a definite plus compared to the other ones he’s held in recent years.
It should be awkward, but Jaemin’s thumbs perfectly rest over his knuckles, rubbing slow circles at the skin there. It’s oddly comforting. Warm.
Before Donghyuck could think too much about it, Chenle sighs and readjusts his needle, the slanted tip of it finally dotting flesh. “Okay, my guy. On the count of three. Let’s make whoever 'Junnie' is proud.”
Donghyuck braces himself, blinks to remember the wise words Renjun had told him with a kiss on his cheek and his hand shoving him towards the door: You’re overthinking it. Waiting for pain is worse than the pain itself.
His grip on Jaemin gets involuntarily tight. “Alright, cool. Cool. Yeah! Perfectly doable. So, um. Just to be clear, you really mean on three, right, or—”
A thick, loud crack! rips through the shell of his ear, stabbing hot in a fraction of a second. It’s certainly not bad, but it grows increasingly clearer to him that he’s lived through much better. It’s as if all of human suffering were shot straight to fourteen-gauge space—his conch reddens with a slow, simmering throb, traveling down the rest of his body in excruciating tremors.
“Figured we deal with the hard part first,” Chenle says, admiring his handiwork before screwing a barbell in. It’s as easily balled shut with a sharp and chimy clink. “Sorry. I promise it’s smooth sailing from here on out.”
Donghyuck glowers, fighting the urge to prod at the surgical steel. “I don’t know whether to thank you or punch you in the face.”
“Will a kiss do? It’s been a very long day.”
Chenle then repeats the process three more times, only deviating a few centimeters south with each poke. Contrary to what Donghyuck first thought, it does not, in fact, get any easier. A fresher twinge of heat stacks over the last, itching and hurting so badly that it almost leaves him numb. He’s just glad he avoided the ear he sleeps on.
There are faint scratches on the back of Jaemin’s hand now, which honestly look twice as sore than what Donghyuck just went through. It’s very unlike Jaemin to not want to complain. His lips are bitten raw, stare on him drawn-out, like he’d been holding his breath for just as long. Donghyuck is sure that this must be the part where he cringes, but again the feeling doesn’t come.
So, yeah, maybe Donghyuck did plot his murder once or twice, but guilt still eats at him regardless. He tries to soothe the marks there with the shy, drum-like wriggle of his fingers.
“You alright?” Jaemin eventually asks, face kind of unreadable. If Donghyuck were any less sober, he might have missed the slight lilt of concern in his voice. It’s kind of weird. This is probably the longest they’ve gone without fighting.
Are you? Donghyuck wants to reply, but he nods, eyes stinging with what he refuses to be defeat. “Worst five minutes of my fucking life.”
Chenle gives them both a congratulatory pat on the back. “Swab them twice a day—once when you wake up, and then again before you go to bed,” he tells Donghyuck. “No headphones or anything of the sort, and under absolutely no circumstances should you ever clean them with alcohol. Are we clear?”
Donghyuck mocks a salute in understanding, chest puffed with bravado. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Glad we could come to an agreement. Let’s get you some saline for the road.”
Chenle attends to the storage closet in the next room, and it’s at this precise moment that the spiky ring on Donghyuck’s thumb snags onto the ball end of his third lobe, tugging skin along with it. If what he just felt was pain, then this was still that, only multiplied a million times over.
Which is great. Completely manageable. Just the price that comes with beauty, he supposes.
“Fuck!” Donghyuck tries to yelp as quietly as possible. His pulse rips loudly out his chest. “I think we should make a run for it. I’m not really in the mood for a sermon this late.”
In contrast, Jaemin is as steady as stone. His fingers crawl to the curled ends of Donghyuck's overgrown hair, tucking the strands gently behind his ear. “And deprive a man of his hard-earned cash? It doesn’t even look half bad.”
If this is an intimidation tactic, then it is definitely working. Somehow it was gradually getting harder for Donghyuck to look Jaemin in the eye. “Bullshit. They’re bleeding, aren't they?”
“Well, that’s what they’re supposed to do at first,” Jaemin reassures him. “Jeno’s used to crust like crazy.”
Donghyuck sighs. “You underestimate just how badly I can mess this up. And that’s saying a lot, having the track record that I have.”
“Relax. You’re gonna be fine." Jaemin pauses to do a quick Google search. "Uh, WebMD does say scarring can worsen over time, especially when you don’t clean right, or when you change the jewelry too soon, or basically when the wind blows the wrong way, but yeah. You’ll be more or less fine.”
“I’m fighting for my life in here, and you’re telling me to relax?”
“O-kay. Let me rephrase that. I mean. You—it—they look good. There’s no reason to worry.”
The statement lacks some enthusiasm, but Donghyuck will take what he can get. “Oh. Pretty sure I heard a compliment there. Care to repeat that for me?”
Suprisingly, the silence that follows speaks volumes. “I don’t know what you mean," Jaemin dismisses just as carelessly, still missing the cheek to fully pack a punch. "Must be all the blood in your ear.”
They’re a lot closer now, quite awfully more than Donghyuck would usually allow. It'd be easy to leave. To smile and write off the ridiculousness of the situation as nothing more than a fever dream, or even just to move a bit to the left, but the sticker-littered mirror on the wall stops him in his tracks.
Three golden studs match the one on his conch, twinkling with the neon signage outside. They’re pretty. Hot. Inviting, like they'd be nice to bite sweet nothings onto. Admittedly, Donghyuck feels like he’s outdone himself.
And then there’s Jaemin, gaze lined to his, the edges of his face lit with orangey red. His hair is still mostly bleached—kind of messy in the way that seems incidental, but also loosely styled the morning prior. Paired with his laidback get-up and some faint whiff of smoky cologne, it glows with the rest of him, embodying the likes of men people would fawn over and hang posters up of in their rooms.
Which begs the bigger, perhaps even badder question: has he always looked this attractive?
Who is Donghyuck kidding? Of course Jaemin did. Maybe he was just too pissed to fully acknowledge it.
Donghyuck scrambles for something to say. “You.”
Jaemin’s stare doesn’t falter. “What about me?”
One: you’re hot, and two: it’s kind of making me lose my fucking mind? What comes after that? Donghyuck hasn’t actually thought that far down yet. “Nothing,” he mumbles instead. “Just wondering how I’m gonna explain this to my parents over Christmas dinner.”
“I think they’ll be more bummed about you not bringing Sungchan home.”
“Well, Sungchan’s old news. But God, now that you mention it… maybe I will hit Chenle up on that kiss. Those snakebites are kinda sexy.”
The lie isn't convincing, not even to himself. This puzzles Jaemin, too, and Donghyuck half-expects an insult about his recent surge in “bitchless behavior”, as he had put it one night crying on Renjun's shoulder. Although it'd be funny of him to do so. As far as Donghyuck knew, Jaemin wasn’t seeing anyone, either.
What he doesn’t expect—in fact, it ranked pretty high up in another list of his, including impossibilities like Judgement Day or the next SISTAR comeback—is that Jaemin takes his hand again, even without the pretense of sitting through an appointment. Cradles it. Laces his fingers more carefully. And then he leans in, pressing his lips near the soft skin of Donghyuck’s temple, right where a mole is dotted.
“There,” he says, like what he just did was the most normal thing in the world. “That shut you up now? I don’t think we should bother Chenle any longer.”
Donghyuck’s cheeks overheat. The kiss was quick. Airy. The slightest bit teasing, and in all respects the most calming thing he’s ever felt. He’s seen Jaemin do this to people who drift in and out of Renjun’s dorm some mornings, but to have it happen to him leaves a breathlessness he hasn’t known in months.
A big, fat huh? pops up in his brain, and it’s as frustrating as it is intriguing. Has the enemy been conspiring with him this whole time? Has he? “What the hell was that for?”
It’s Jaemin’s turn to deflect eye contact. The cherry-colored vape pen in his free hand twirls with a practiced ease. “Best friend’s orders, right? I’m only doing as I’m told.”
“And I wasn’t sleeping, by the way,” he adds. “Looking at you just kind of makes my head hurt.”
Donghyuck contemplates for a moment, thinking back to impromptu Haneul Mart runs carting Renjun to the parking lot, lunch breaks before Ethics trading notes, the play-flirting that more often than not bordered on passive aggressiveness. In with the push and pull of it all is the idea of something better: surrender, maybe, if you could call gawking at Jaemin’s lips that.
“In a good way, I hope,” he says with finality, the flush on his skin a bright pink.
Jaemin laughs with him, smiling that smile of his that Donghyuck can definitely get used to. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You never would have believed it, Renjunnie!” Donghyuck revels in the success of his recovery, celebrated with a cream cheese bagel and a large iced latte the next day. “Four straight times. I took it like a champ.”
Renjun finishes the last of his, gnawing on a straw as he rests a cheek on his palm. “Right. So I assume the photographic evidence has magically disappeared like always?”
“Okay, ouch, but luckily Jaemin has lived to tell the tale. Right, Na?”
Despite having consumed enough caffeine to kill a relatively small horse, Jaemin hasn’t fully woken up yet. His lashes flutter with every drowsy blink, the long swoop of them catching tiny beams of sunlight. “Yeap,” he yawns. “Lee never so much as shed a tear.”
Beneath the table, he leans to Donghyuck’s side, still sleep-soft. The tips of his fingers are just within reach.