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He almost stumbles over the untied laces of his sneakers as he makes his way across the parking lot.
It’s riddled with steadily deepening puddles—Dongmin’s car is shiny and black, standing at the very end of the admittedly small, concrete space. Jaehyun can see him sitting on the driver’s seat, his pale fingers wrapped around the steering wheel visible through the window, although blurry due to the rain that keeps sloshing over everything.
Jaehyun’s shirt is drenched within seconds. The car shakes with his weight when he plops down into the passenger seat, letting out a heavy breath.
The car smells new. Jaehyun feels gross and he wants to apologize for soiling the carpeted floor with his muddy shoes, soaking through the leather with his wet back, but Dongmin doesn’t look much better.
Besides, this is awkward enough as it is.
Working together is fine for the most part—today, their boss let Jaehyun scrub in on the surgery of a cat that got caught in some barbed wire and the smell of disinfectant still lingers in his hair and underneath his fingernails. He can’t wait to get home and shower.
Dongmin has been working at the animal clinic for longer than him, and Jaehyun repeatedly gets the feeling that more than anything, Dongmin doesn’t appreciate change.
Admittedly, Jaehyun can get a bit… overzealous? Over-enthusiastic? He doesn’t mean to be, really. He’d like to be friends with everyone he meets, and since it works for the most part, he’s been a little stumped trying to get Dongmin to like him.
And then there’s the other thing.
Dongmin clears his throat. “You can put your stuff on the backseat.” He fumbles around with his car keys, the puffy Chococat chain dangling cutely, its fur matted with age. Jaehyun does as he’s told, hurriedly putting on his seat belt.
The car is cold but he welcomes it. He doesn’t know what to say. When Dongmin off-handedly offered to take him home earlier, the incessant pouring coloring the April sky a sad gray, Jaehyun’s heart had leaped out of his chest—he isn’t used to feeling this anxious around another person.
Normally, Jaehyun is the one people orbit around like planets do the sun. He doesn’t like how Dongmin makes him feel so insignificant, makes him insecure and eclipses him so ruthlessly.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Dongmin decides, tone clipped. He readjusts the rear-view mirror. The skin around his nails is all chewed-up, a singular crack in his otherwise so unblemished exterior.
It makes sense—they go to the same school, even share some classes, and Jaehyun’s bike is cozily locked in their boss’ garage. Jaehyun doesn’t know where exactly Dongmin lives but it can’t be too far from his house.
“I can just ask my mom to drive me,” he mumbles, offering the other boy an out.
Dongmin gives him a look and it’s the first time they’ve made eye contact in hours. Jaehyun’s belly whooshes nervously. He feels himself flush.
His mom has work in the morning. He’d be screwed if Dongmin weren’t able to look right through him.
“Just be ready at 7:45.”
So that’s settled, then. Jaehyun feels thankful but his discomfort overrules his gratitude. Working with Dongmin is one thing—they just each do their thing, exchanging as little words as they can.
Jaehyun feeds their four-legged patients, cleaning cages and sorting the storage room that their boss tends to leave in utter disarray. Dongmin is usually behind the counter, making appointments and welcoming clients in this quiet, noncommittal voice, smiling sweetly at worrying owners, telling them their pets are in good hands.
As reserved as he is, he has a surprisingly calming aura. To everyone but Jaehyun, that is. Dongmin seems tense around him, too—Jaehyun doesn’t want to find fault in himself for it, doesn’t like the urge to tinker with his personality that overcomes him whenever they’re in each other’s general vicinity, but he can’t help it.
The thing they don’t ever talk about pops into his mind over and over again. It’s like neither of them can find proper words. Which is probably for the best. Talking means acknowledging and acknowledging means defining. Jaehyun isn’t sure he’s ready for anything like that.
He waits patiently for Dongmin to start the car, powers through wafts of his cologne as he buckles his seat, the scent of flowery fabric softener tingling his nose.
Dongmin smells so sweet, like he’s freshly showered at all times of day, like he hasn’t been messing with cleaning products and smelly animals all day.
Actually—Dongmin kind of avoids the animals, now that Jaehyun really thinks about it. While his arms are littered with scratches and his pant legs are spotted with curious, wet nose-prints, Dongmin seems to stray away from what Jaehyun loves most about their job.
He cuddles dogs, lets cats shed their unyielding hairs all over him and even managed to befriend some of the few birds that come in, poking his finger in between the metal bars of their enclosures. He gets bitten now and then, gets drool and shit on his clothes, breathes in rank dog breath, all in stride.
His mother is a nurse—she comes home in a pungent cloud of hospital. She doesn’t complain when he comes home looking like he’d been at work because that’s how it should be.
Dongmin is the only person Jaehyun has ever felt this disgusting around. It sends an unfamiliar thrill down his spine.
The engine roars and Jaehyun jumps. He half-expects Dongmin to snort, to muster him with that look again, like he can’t believe how jumpy Jaehyun is. Other people find it cute. Find him cute.
But—nothing. He just stares ahead, through the misty windshield, out into the dreary wet. His black hair is neat, a bit overgrown in the back but his fringe is trimmed perfectly. Jaehyun has to remind himself not to stare, even if it’s just from the corner of his eye. Dongmin is vigilant and Jaehyun doesn’t doubt he’d notice, feel queasy, snap at him to stop.
Jaehyun kind of wants him to. At least then he’d know what Dongmin’s thinking.
They don’t start moving. Dongmin doesn’t even touch the stick-shift, doesn’t move it from park into first gear, doesn’t budge. He sniffs, a shatteringly human sound.
His fingers are still on the car key. It seems that before he knows what he’s doing himself, he twists his wrist back around, the silence that follows cutting. Jaehyun doesn’t dare to look over.
He wants to say something. Wants to ask. His mouth is cotton-filled. This… this is almost like the last time. It’s almost like that.
Another sniff from the other side of the car. Then, with an air of reluctance, Dongmin reaches over the middle console and unbuckles Jaehyun’s seat.
They’re looking at each other then, and it really is like last time, it’s exactly like that, and Dongmin’s eyebrows twitch with worry, with fear, like he doesn’t know that Jaehyun has been wishing for this to happen again, has been lying in his bed, relentlessly replaying revisiting recreating it all in his sleep-clouded head like a twisted prayer.
In spite of the hunger sizzling under the skin of their faces, their first kiss is cautious. Dongmin’s still buckled in and the seat belt strains against his chest as he leans in, brushing Jaehyun’s nose with his, eyes fluttering shut.
Close-lipped at first, shyness tinting their cheeks red, they move against each other, Jaehyun’s brows furrowed, concentrating on not forgetting how to breathe.
Dongmin’s fingers are icy when he slides his hand up to cradle Jaehyun’s jaw, angling him up, and instinctively, Jaehyun’s lips part and he grabs Dongmin’s wrist, breathing out harshly at the first taste of Dongmin’s tongue.
Oh, he even tastes sweet. Of himself entirely, aside from a flash of mint, and Jaehyun remembers this so well, has longed for the memory of it to be as good as the real thing, chasing after it to no avail—nothing his mind could conjure up came even close to this, and now that he has it back, the thought of this moment passing, of Dongmin slipping away from him, leaning deep into his seat and catching his breath, makes Jaehyun’s throat burn.
Jaehyun preemptively pushes himself more into Dongmin’s space—instead of backing out, he tugs Jaehyun closer by his shirt, hands everywhere suddenly, gasping into his mouth, breath hot.
Everything is bright red. Jaehyun’s body feels like it’s burning, scalp on fire and limbs charred, and Dongmin’s fingers lick at him like flames.
He can’t even hear the rain anymore.
“Hold on,” Dongmin rasps, voice worn already, and Jaehyun has half a mind to whine when they separate. His lips hurt, he hasn’t done this in so long. In months. The last time was in winter, the heating in the clinic turned up, and towards the end of their shift, Dongmin had pulled him in by his scarf, mumbling a mistletoe against his lips.
(There hadn’t been. Riding his bike home over slippery, frozen sidewalks had proven to be an easier feat than making sense of their relationship.)
Don’t stop, Jaehyun wants to beg, wants to dig his teeth into the side of Dongmin’s neck, mark him up enough for it to still be there tomorrow, a reminder that this actually happened, that all those other times actually happened.
“Do you…” Dongmin blinks. Unbuckles his seat. Pulls up the middle console. Reaches under his seat, sliding it back and—
Oh.
Oh.
He musters Jaehyun anxiously, eyes following every twitch of muscle in his face, expectant. He wants Jaehyun in his lap. It’s new. His chest is heaving, and they haven’t even been kissing much.
Kissing. Kissing kissing kissing. Dongmin and Jaehyun, kissing.
Jaehyun starts by kicking off his shoes, desperately willing for his feet to smell okay. He holds onto Dongmin’s seat, climbing over entirely ungraciously. Dongmin doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even offer to help. He just looks at him, from below now, stares at Jaehyun’s blush-toned face, at where his head bumps into the ceiling of the car.
They’re too tall. It’s cramped and Jaehyun’s knee hurts where it presses into the car door and he’s scared to accidentally hit the honk with his butt.
“Hi.”
Dongmin fails to conceal a smile—a real smile, his lips pursed with it. He lets Jaehyun brush back his hair, carefully exposing some of his forehead. He has some acne scarring along his jaw and his eyebrows are bushy, the only messy, untamed part of his face. Even the shadows under his eyes are porcelain.
“Is this comfy?” he asks quietly, genuinely.
Jaehyun cringes, promptly bumping into the roof again. “It’s okay,” he says, and then it’s really okay, because Dongmin’s fingers find his waist and Jaehyun melts.
It’s hard, making the first move with Dongmin, so Jaehyun doesn’t. He always waits until Dongmin’s intentions and wants are as clear as they get, until he tilts up his head and stares at Jaehyun’s lips, closing in tentatively.
When there are no questions to be had, that’s when Jaehyun pounces. He can’t help it, can’t help the way his body yearns to become one, this need overpowering all his remaining senses. He feels this comes with the contract of being a high school boy.
They’re on the borderline between tender and brutal. Jaehyun’s nails dig into the fabric of the headrest and he parts his mouth—Dongmin slowly licks along the seam of it first, tickling against his top row of teeth, his grip on Jaehyun’s side tight now, unrelenting.
It keeps going like this, a continuous dance of sensations. The air in the car heats up slightly but it’s still cold enough for each touch to be scalding. Dongmin shares more through his kisses than he ever could verbally—that’s what Jaehyun thinks sometimes.
Maybe it’s that same language of high school boys. He doesn’t want this to be true, so he swallows down all the minty confessions he can get. They’re real to him at this moment, at least.
Dongmin’s fingers press into the flesh of his hips, somehow angling up his knee in such a way that he manages to roughly drag Jaehyun’s crotch over the taught muscle of his thigh.
The feeling is unexpected—Jaehyun isn’t a stranger to a strategically bunched-up ball of fabric and he’s gotten off to the thought of Dongmin manhandling him once or twice, fantasies so fuzzy he feels ashamed for them before they’re even flushed down the shower drain. Actually experiencing it, however...
Jaehyun grunts into Dongmin’s mouth, brows furrowing, shoulders tensing up. The embarrassment that follows is immediate. He hits his head on the roof once more, eyes wide, heart skipping beats as the reality of what just happened sinks in.
“I’m—I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
Dongmin’s pupils are blown. He frowns, hands lifted between them as if in surrender. Jaehyun has never felt this watched by him. He wishes the ground below them would open up.
“I’m confused. Didn’t you like it?”
Jaehyun blinks. He’s seconds away from straining a tent into his pants. Of course he liked it. Dongmin’s mere existence is like a lit match to the line of gasoline leading to his insides.
His voice remains quiet: “I liked it.”
Dongmin lets his knuckles brush against Jaehyun’s arms slowly, wandering up to his shoulders, his neck, his ears. He caresses away the burn there and replaces it with a warmth much more bearable.
“I liked it, too,” he says. Gentle, like Jaehyun’s an injured bunny rabbit. Like he can feel his thumping heart on the tips of his fingers as he holds him. The rain almost drowns out his next words. “I liked it so much—hearing you. Feeling you.”
In lieu of a response, Jaehyun turns his head, rubbing his nose against Dongmin’s hand, smudges a kiss in between his slender fingers, closes his eyes.
(Jaehyun gives all the pets that come into the animal clinic new names because he thinks the ones they have don’t suit them. He likes this kind of weather. It’s like the sky can’t quite make up its mind these days. Fabric softener is so bad for the environment. He should tell Dongmin that. He wonders if they’ll pretend none of this happened tomorrow. They’re on the borderline between tender and—
No. There is nothing brutal about the way Dongmin touches his face.)
It’s just short of everything he’s wanted to hear from the other boy. He can do this. He just needs the moon to look at him like this a while longer.