Chapter Text
After years of building it up in his mind, the reality of kissing Doyoung exceeded every daydream, even if Taeyong discovered that Doyoung didn’t like french kissing nearly as much as Taeyong did, that he preferred to focus on lip to lip, a subtler, softer version of the kind of embrace Taeyong was used to with other lovers. Doyoung’s hands were warm and sticky beneath his shirt, sliding up and down the length of his spine, and Taeyong thought he could have stood there forever, in Doyoung’s kitchen, taking lesson after lesson in how Doyoung liked to be kissed. Doyoung may not have liked wide-mouth kisses that were deep and wet and a little bit messy, but he liked to kiss Taeyong’s cheeks, the long curve of this neck and the hollows of his collarbones, content enough to try and find all of the places that made Taeyong giggle and moan. Taeyong gave him everything he wanted, tipping his head to the side or his chin towards the ceiling, giving way to Doyoung’s exploration, delighted to for once be the subject of Doyoung’s relentless, single-minded focus, delirious with pleasure to be as worthy of such intense study as pansori chant.
Palms splayed on Taeyong’s waist, Doyoung lifted him up on the counter and took up all the space between Taeyong’s knees until they were nose to nose. Taeyong dangled his arms over Doyoung’s neck and kissed the happy creases spidering out from the corner of Doyoung’s gentle smile eyes and thought about how far they had come, how far they could still go.
“Doie, I need to ask you something,” Taeyong said, speaking for the first time in the ten minutes since their first kiss, his throat dry and his lips a little sore. Seemingly uninterested in words for the first time in his life, Doyoung brushed their cheeks together and pulled Taeyong even closer, his butt hanging precariously on the edge of the counter. Taeyong wrapped a leg around Doyoung’s hips and trusted that Doyoung would never let him fall. “Baby,” he tried again, liking the way Doyoung’s fingers dug into his skin at the term of endearment. “Could you look at me?”
Doyoung looked at him, then, his gaze soft and maybe a little nervous, his tongue peeking out between teeth that had no business being clenched. Taeyong slipped his fingers into Doyoung’s hair, stroking the soft fuzz at the back of his neck and kicking the heel not currently draped over Doyoung’s hip against the cheap wood of Doyoung’s cabinets, waiting until Doyoung’s anxious, uncertain expression morphed into a more familiar blend of fondness and exasperation.
“What is it?” Doyoung asked, gently squeezing Taeyong’s ribcage. “What’s so important that you gave up kissing to ensure I won’t get my security deposit back in full?”
“Oooh, so you like kissing me more than you like talking to me, Kim Doyoung?” Taeyong laughed, nose wrinkling with happiness. Doyoung pinched him, shaking his head as he quickly rubbed his fingers over the skin he had just twisted between thumb and fingers. “So mean,” Taeyong complained, bringing his hands out of Doyoung’s hair to rest them on Doyoung’s cheeks, smiling when Doyoung turned and pressed a kiss to his palm. “It’s just…there’s something I’ve wanted you to tell me for a long time. Something I really need to know.”
Doyoung stared at him for a quiet moment, his breath spilling out from lips pursed around confused concentration and over Taeyong’s bare arms, goosebumps rising up in the wake of each steady exhalation.
“Oh. Oh my god.” Doyoung stepped back so suddenly that Taeyong nearly lost his balance, laughter bubbling up and over at the panicked, cringingly guilty expression on Doyoung’s handsome face. “Taeyong,” Doyoung said, gathering him into his arms and kissing Taeyong’s temple. “I’m so sorry, I should have said it right away.” Taeyong’s heart stopped as Doyoung took a deep breath and looked him right in the eyes, so serious and so lovely that Taeyong wished that there was a hidden camera somewhere in the room to capture the way they both looked at the exact moment Doyoung said, “I love you too.”
As Doyoung’s confession echoed, Taeyong wondered for a moment what it meant that he hadn’t even needed to hear his feelings returned, that it had been enough that Doyoung had held him and kissed him, had whispered a single yes into Taeyong’s mouth before they had stopped speaking anything other than body language.
“That’s not what I meant,” Taeyond murmured, laughing and sucking back tears that after 555 days had finally turned more sweet than bitter, feeling effervescent with joy. After all this time, he finally knew, Doyoung didn’t love him too much, or not enough, but loved him exactly the way Taeyong had always wanted.“But I’m so glad.”
“It’s not?” Doyoung’s sincerity turned confused. “What then?”
Taeyong leaned in and kissed him, the novelty of Doyoung’s bottom lip between his own still wondrous enough that he thought the butterflies in his stomach might spill out of his throat and tickle their cheeks with their anxiously fluttering wings.
“Tell me what you dreamed about,” Taeyong whispered, running the tip of his tongue over Doyoung’s lip, wanting to coax every truth out of his mouth. “I want to know what happened. That inappropriate dream you had about me.”
“Seriously?” Doyoung groaned and took his pout away from Taeyong’s greedy, pleading smile. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
“No.” Taeyong curled his fingers in Doyoung’s collar and tugged him back where he was meant to be, close enough to feel Doyoung’s heart beat beneath the press of thumb to pulse. “No. I think about it at least once a week,” Taeyong confessed, remembering all the nights he had tried not to remember, how he had tried not to think about the pitch of Doyoung’s moan when someone else was sighing into his ear. “The way you sounded. How you felt next to me.”
“You already know it was about you,” Doyoung said, mouth against Taeyong’s ear, his skin hot and flush beneath Taeyong’s hands.
“I do.” Taeyong thought about confessions reluctantly made in the middle of the street they had climbed tonight and 555 nights ago. “But I want to know what I did with you,” Taeyong said, pausing to kiss Doyoung’s cheek, trying to chase the lips that were still hiding in the pink-blonde tangle of Taeyong’s hair. “What I did to you and for you.”
He could feel Doyoung swallow, the rise and fall of his throat and Adam’s apple as Doyoung exhaled around a question he should have always known the answer to: “Why?”
“Why else?” Taeyong laughed and slid off of the counter to steal a kiss, holding Doyoung within his arms like he was precious. Doyoung gazed at him with a mixture of trepidation and wanting, as if willing to follow along so long as Taeyong didn’t let him go. “So I can make your dreams come true.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Doyoung sagged into him, head collapsing against his shoulder. “How can I say no to that?”
“Poor thing.” Taeyong stroked the back of his head and cradled him close, squirming when Doyoung kissed his way up his neck and sucked on his earlobe. “You can say no to whatever you want, but whatever you want from me, whatever you dreamed about, if you ask…I’m going to say yes.”
“Okay,” Doyoung said, stepping out of Taeyong’s arms and taking him by the hand, lacing his fingers together just like had at the top of a very steep hill, before he had taken Taeyong the last of the way home. “Then let’s go to bed.”
Doyoung’s bedroom was just as Taeyong had remembered, but this time Doyoung didn’t run away from him and into a solitary shower, leaving Taeyong to imagine how Doyoung’s body looked when it was wet and slick with soap, how it would feel to run his over slippery skin and lick the water from Doyoung’s lips. This time, Doyoung sat on the edge of his bed, hands on either side of his thighs, gazing at Taeyong who stood in the doorway, waiting to be told what happened next.
“You were naked,” Doyoung said, fingers curling and uncurling in the neatly made sheets.
Taeyong had taken his clothes off in front of Doyoung countless times, each time wondering if it would be the time that Doyoung finally touched him, but this time was different. His skin felt electric as he pulled his tank top off, static shock racing through his veins at the sound of Doyoung shifting restlessly on the bed. Wordlessly, Taeyong unzipped his pants, his heart pounding even as his blood pooled in his cheeks and below his waist, making him hot and flush and hard enough that he knew Doyoung could see what it did to him to be watched like this – with intent, with desire, with so much affection Taeyong didn’t hesitate to strip himself entirely bare.
“Later, I want you to tell me what each of those mean,” Doyoung murmured, taking him in, glancing at each of the tattoos Taeyong had done since he had been gone, all of the ways he had changed himself in the 555 days since Doyoung had last seen every part of him.
“I will,” Taeyong promised, his footsteps soft as he came close enough for Doyoung to unclench one hand and put it on his waist, his thumb stroking his hip bone. “Baby, later, after, I’ll tell you everything.” Taeyong climbed into Doyoung’s lap, liking the rub of denim against his naked thighs, the cold press of a zipper and a belt buckle when he sat down and let Doyoung pull him into an almost messy kiss. “But you go first.”
“It was what you might expect.” Doyoung put his hands on Taeyong’s ass and squeezed, groaning into Taeyong’s waiting kiss when Taeyong rocked back and forth, pressing down until he could feel just how Doyoung wanted him. “You got on your knees for me.”
Taeyong closed his eyes and imagined how Doyoung would taste, how he would feel on his tongue, how he might stretch his jaw and make it ache, how sweet Doyoung would look when Taeyong met his gaze and took him deeper.
“And then?”
“And then…I…well, we…”
“Fucked?” Taeyong filled in Doyoung’s blank with the answer he hoped was lodged in a too shy, too demure throat. “Had sex?”
“Something like that.” Doyoung kissed his cheek, kissed the shell of his ear and hummed his assent. “But I’m not sure we can, not tonight, I didn’t exactly prepare…”
“We don’t have to do it all tonight,” Taeyong said, tilting his head and arching his back to make way for the slow, hot slide of Doyoung’s lips and tongue, the tease of his fingers as he traced the new shapes on Taeyong’s skin and played with his nipples. “We have all the time in the world to do anything and everything you want.”
“But what about what you want?”
Taeyong took Doyoung’s face between his hands one last time before going to his knees, smiling as he kissed a mouth that always came to his defense, always made demands on his behalf, always made sure that Taeyong expected better for himself.
“The only thing I want tonight is to know what you sound like when I make you come. Not dream me,” Taeyong murmured, “but real me, the one who loves you, the one who can touch you like this.”
“Who is the real you?” Doyoung asked, laughing with disbelief and watching with wide, almost unblinking eyes as Taeyong undid his pants and put his lips on the taut white band of Doyoung’s underwear. “What happened while you were gone?”
“I realized I had spent years waiting for you to say something, while never saying a thing myself.” Taeyong urged Doyoung to lift up his hips, hooking his thumbs beneath cotton and denim and pulling down until Doyoung was naked enough for Taeyong to have everything he wanted in front of his face. “By the time we said even half of what we needed to say, it was too fucking late.” Taeyong kissed Doyoung’s stomach and took him in hand, looking up at him through his lashes. “I never want to be late with you again. I won’t hold back, not any more, not unless you tell me to stop.”
“Don’t stop. Don’t hold back. Not with me. Never with me.” Doyoung brushed the hair from Taeyong’s forehead and bent over to kiss him right there, in the space he had just made. “And I’ll do the same for you. Always.”
Taeyong didn’t tell him that sounded like a vow, like a promise he wanted to keep and have kept, putting aside using his tongue for talking to confess secrets of a different kind, like how he had yearned for this, the feeling of Doyoung in his mouth and the sound of Doyoung whispering his name in his ears. He thought about it, of course, in the days before and in the 555 days that came after, what it would be like to put his lips on Doyoung, to have Doyoung pull his hair and push into his throat, to take his time learning how Doyoung liked to be sucked and blown.
Doyoung liked Taeyong’s lips and mouth and tongue, liked it when Taeyong put his hands on Doyoung’s thighs and took his time taking him down, but didn’t like it when Taeyong’s eyes watered or his throat moved like he might gag, because Doyoung had always cared more Taeyong than Taeyong really cared for himself. Doyoung liked it slow and focused, the curl of a tongue around the tip and the gradual stroke of hand around the base, pressure but not speed, a proper build-up to the desired end.
Taeyong liked it all. He liked Doyoung’s fingers in his hair and sometimes against his lips, as if Doyoung couldn’t believe that Taeyong was smiling at him from between his legs, that Doyoung was the reason Taeyong’s lips were swollen and red. He liked the way Doyoung laughed when Taeyong fluttered his eyelashes and blew on the head and called it a blow job, but liked it even more when Doyoung moaned like he was dying when Taeyong stopped playing around and pulled Doyoung into his throat like smoke, holding him there until they were both gasping for breath.
More than anything, he liked the way Doyoung didn’t hold back, the way Doyoung let him hear everything he had longed to hear – the little gasps of surprise, the murmurs of filthy encouragement that he hadn’t known Doyoung had in him, the sweetness of his name, and finally, finally, just as his jaw and his wrist and his knees were starting to ache, the way Doyoung sounded when he came.
Taeyong had waited so long and wanted so much that it only took two minutes after too many years for him to come on Doyoung’s pretty blue shirt, having climbed into Doyoung’s lap as soon as Doyoung had stopped twitching in his hand. Doyoung had watched him with awestruck eyes and parted lips, fingers digging into Taeyong’s hips as Taeyong straddled his hips and jerked himself off, whining for Doyoung to kiss him. Doyoung opened his mouth and let Taeyong kiss him deep and dirty, even though Taeyong knew it wasn’t his favorite, because Taeyong was his favorite, had maybe always been his favorite.
“Sorry,” Taeyong said, laughing as Doyoung looked down at his come stained t-shirt, rolling off of Doyoung and onto a bed he’d last slept in 555 days ago. “Maybe next time you should get naked too.”
“Or we do it in the shower.” Doyoung gingerly pulled the ruined shirt over his head and tossed it in the direction of the laundry basket, apparently too blissed out to care as much as he usually did about dirty clothes going in the hamper. He came back to Taeyong with a pretty blush on his face and a wicked suggestion falling out of the lips he put all over Taeyong’s happy, warm cheeks. “Or you can come in mouth. Swallowing is just so convenient when it comes to clean up.”
“Impeccable logic, Professor Kim,” Taeyong giggled, wrapping his arms and legs around Doyoung’s almost naked body, trying to push the underwear still dangling from Doyoung’s ankle entirely off. “I won’t argue with that.”
“Wow, there’s a first for everything.”
“Hey –”
Doyoung kissed him to keep Taeyong from protesting that he never argued with Doyoung, not when it really mattered, not when it came to things like swallowing or moving to Japan to find himself or when Doyoung stumbled out of the bed and said:
“We should drink the rest of the champagne.”
“Toasting the fact that we finally had the sex everyone assumes we’ve been having for years?”
Doyoung rolled his eyes but laughed, his bare chest shaking with it in the dim light from the desk lamp that Doyoung had left on when Tayeong had gone to his knees.
“Better than letting it go flat,” Doyoung said, putting his hands on either side of Taeyong’s head and dipping down to kiss him again and again. “I held on to that bottle for a long time, you know, I’d prefer not to let it go to waste.”
Taeyong closed his eyes as Doyoung kissed his forehead and murmured, “Then let’s not waste a single drop.”
Taeyong watched as Doyoung put on underwear and a clean shirt before leaving the room, apparently not wanting to scandalize his empty kitchen with his naked body. He pulled up the sheets and rolled over to what had always been Doyoung’s side of the bed when they slept together, helping himself to the bottle of water Doyoung always had on the bedside table and picking a long, black book embossed with golden letters that he had never seen before but felt like he knew as if it was his own, given the countless hours of his life he had willingly given to sharing Doyoung’s struggle.
The Chunhyangga in the Context of Contemporary Romantic Narratives
Kim Dongyoung
2025
He touched letters that were the same color as the champagne Doyoung was pouring in the kitchen while humming and felt glad to know that Doyoung sang love songs to himself after the sex was done. Taeyong opened the cover, smiling as the leather binding creaked and cracked, still so hot off the presses he had to wonder if he was the first person other than Doyoung to thumb through the stiff white pages.
“Do you want some of your snacks?” Doyoung called to him from the kitchen.
“You’re going to let me eat in your bed? It really must be a special occasion.” Taeyong turned the page, imagining the way Doyoung would roll his eyes and blush at the same time at his response. He considered all of the possibilities and landed on the least crumbly one. “Bring me —“
Taeyong forgot what he wanted to eat, demands lost to the stark black words on the dedication page.
To my mother, father and brother for their love and their support, for giving me the strength to go on by letting me know it was always okay to walk away.
To LTY, Mongryong is patiently waiting for his Chunhyang to return.
“What’s wrong?” Doyoung was suddenly in his space, champagne bottle chilled fingers on Taeyong’s cheeks as the pages of Doyoung’s dissertation wrinkled beneath the weight of Doyoung’s hurried reach. “Why are you crying?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything is right.” Taeyong turned his face into a pillow that smelled like Doyoung’s shampoo. “I just love you so much.”
“Oh…well, that’s fine, then,” Doyoung said, coaxing him out of his hiding spot with a smile that belied his exasperated tone. “But it’s nothing to cry over. Please never cry alone in my bed again.”
Taeyong nodded and pressed a kiss to the corner of Doyoung’s mouth, letting Doyoung coddle him until Doyoung was satisfied that Taeyong wasn’t going to start weeping again.
“Your champagne and your chips,” Doyoung said, sitting Taeyong up and tucking the sheets around his still naked body. “The bedtime snack of champions.”
“Thanks, baby.” Taeyong looked at the flute full of bubbles and the little bowl of his favorite treat and then looked at Doyoung, with his sex messy hair and kiss-bitten lips, and opened his arms up wide, begging him to come near. “But it’s not enough.”
“What?” Doyoung asked, rubbing his cheek on Taeyong’s hair as he climbed into his arms and slipped beneath the sheets, one hand on Taeyong’s thigh and the other curled around an almost full glass. “Tell me what you want.”
Taeyong let Doyoung pour a sip of champagne into his mouth like he was a baby bird and gazed at him with eyes he knew were dripping honey and hearts. “A bedtime story.”
Doyoung’s eyebrows arched as Taeyong reached over Doyoung’s narrow waist to grab the dissertation that had been crushed in Doyoung’s scramble to get to Taeyong when he thought that Taeyong was in distress.
“You want me to read you this?” Doyoung laughed a little around a mouthful of champagne. “I suppose it will put you to sleep –
“It’s important to you.” Taeyong put it down in Doyoung’s lap and laid his head on Doyoung’s chest. “So it’s important to me.” Taeyong tipped Doyoung’s glass into his mouth, letting bubbles play on his tongue one last time. “Chunhyang is here,” Taeyong murmured, closing his eyes and listening to the steady drumbeat of Doyoung’s heart. “So read to me, my Mongryong.”
Doyoung’s voice as he started to read was thick with what Taeyong suspected were tears he didn’t want to cry, but his body was warm and his words gentle as Taeyong fell asleep with the taste of champagne in his mouth and Doyoung’s lullaby in his ear, teaching him all he ever needed to know about pansori chant.
~~
The next morning, at a time of day teetering precariously close to afternoon, Taeyong looked up from his phone at Doyoung’s back as Doyoung washed dishes and said:
“Jungwoo got his man. And apparently they want to go out for dinner with us tonight. Like a double date.”
Doyoung’s shoulders moved up and down with the heaviness of his sigh. “If we go, do I have to apologize for the shoes?”
Taeyong got up from his lazy sprawl on Doyoung’s couch and put his chin on Doyoung’s shoulder, kissing him behind the ear. “If you play nice, I’ll give you a special treat later.”
“You’re going to do that anyway.” Doyoung turned his cheek just enough for Taeyong to see the sharp edge of his teasing grin. “But since it seems like we’re going to be stuck with this guy for the time being, I’ll do it.”
Doyoung turned off the water and peeled off his gloves, while Taeyong took a towel and wiped down the counter, just the way Doyoung liked and then pulled Doyoung into a hug, putting his fingers in Doyoung’s hair and kissing him just because he could, just because this was their first day, the counter of who they were to one another reset.
From 555 to 0 to 1 to all the days to come.
“You know,” Taeyong murmured, stroking the nape of Doyoung’s neck, “you wouldn’t be stuck putting up with that guy if you came back to Japan with me.”
Doyoung smiled and kissed his forehead. “And what am I supposed to do about a job?”
“I know you’ll find one,” Taeyong said, having always believed in nothing more than he did in Kim Doyoung. “And in the meantime, we can live out another romantic cliche.” Taeyong pressed in as close as he could, as if he could make up for all the years of unnecessary distance with a single embrace. “We’ve done friends to lovers. Maybe it’s time to try the broke academic and the up and coming artist, living together on love and not much else.”
“Living on love?” Doyoung kissed Taeyong and folded him into his chest. Taeyong looked up at him with a heart that was rich enough to sustain them for a lifetime and smiled as Doyoung kissed him again and promised, “I can do that.”