Chapter Text
When Jun wakes, it takes a minute for him to figure out where he is and why he’s naked in a bed that’s not his own, the memories trickling in a few at at time—but he knows immediately who is curled up beside him without even a moment’s hesitation. The knowledge is instantaneous, innate—almost as if, some traitorous part of his brain whispers, you’re meant to be next to him.
Dylan.
Jun has one arm flung across Dylan’s bare chest, their legs tangled together beneath the blanket that they’d only bothered to pull halfway up the mattress in their mutual exhaustion last night. Dylan isn’t quite cuddling Jun, but he is lying fairly close, the fingers of one hand just barely brushing against Jun’s hip. His face looks softer than Jun’s ever seen it before, all traces of his usual grumpiness and even the anxious vulnerability he’d displayed last night replaced with something relaxed and safe.
Jun’s heart—also a traitor—twists fondly at the sight.
The rest of it comes back to him slowly: filming the MV, seeing P’Ice’s video, following Dylan into his room, hooking up for the second time, and then the immense surprise of hearing Dylan talk willingly about his own past. It hardly feels real, and yet the slight ache in Jun’s muscles and the way Dylan’s scent fills his nostrils make the reality impossible to deny.
He can feel a stutter of panic as he remembers that without a song to release, MARS might truly be over now, and casts around frantically for something else to think about.
The grossness of his own sweaty skin and the way he can feel traces of dried semen under his arm where it’s draped over Dylan’s torso quickly provide a welcome—if rather disgusting—distraction. He vaguely remembers Dylan leaning over to grab someone’s shirt from the floor to wipe themselves off with afterwards, and he knows that the condom at least ended up in the little garbage bin beside the bed, but other than that, they hadn’t bothered cleaning up before they’d passed out, exhausted both physically and emotionally.
Jun frowns. It’s not like him to skip showering, ever, not even when he’s so tired that he can barely move. He’s always managed to drag himself through the motions of bathing, even after grueling days of rehearsal or travel or working out. It makes him feel centered, regardless of whatever chaos is going on around him—plus, as the designated “visual” of the group, he’s always been too nervous to let his skincare and hygiene routines lapse. But last night…
Last night, Jun hadn’t been able to even consider leaving Dylan’s side, not for one second, regardless of how gross he felt—not when Dylan was clearly still upset, not when Jun felt more at home than he had in years.
But now, with the first rays of sun starting to peek in through the blinds, Jun wrinkles his nose in disgust. What the fuck was I thinking?
Moving slowly so as not to disturb Dylan, Jun leans over to the beside table to grab his phone—only to realize immediately that it’s not his phone but Dylan’s, the case practical and the surface cracked in two places, unlike Jun’s own pristine screen protector and sleek leather cover. Jun’s phone is probably still in the pocket of his jeans, which he knows ended up on the floor somewhere near the door.
Still. A phone is a phone, and it’s not like Dylan’s is all that different from his. ONER has provided all of them with phones since their debut as part of a brand deal with Samsung. Jun checks the time—still early—and then sees what he was looking for: notifications from their group chat. He holds the phone over Dylan’s sleeping face until it unlocks, his desire to know if there are any updates about their future just barely overpowering his desire to shower immediately.
The messages, however, are all from Pepper, and none of them do anything to assuage Jun’s worry.
Per – 10:21 p.m.
@Thame, any updates?
Let us know what Khun Pemika says pleasePer – 5:03 a.m.
@Thame, what happened? Are you okay?Per – 5:42 a.m.
Does anyone know if Thame came home last night?
Jun realizes he doesn’t actually know. Thame was supposed to have some kind of movie date with P’Po, and Jun had been working on the assumption that after talking with Pemika, Thame would update them all and go meet up with Po. Even in the midst of an emergency, Thame isn’t the sort to go back on his word, not where Po is concerned—at least, Jun doesn’t think he is. But if Thame had never texted them back last night…
“Is that my phone?”
Jun glances sideways to find Dylan glaring at him with half-open eyes, looking barely awake. Cute.
“Yup,” he says, powering the phone back off and tossing it aside on the mattress. “Just checking to see if there was any news from Thame.”
“And…?” Dylan prompts him after a moment.
“And nothing. He hasn’t texted at all.” Desperate to deflect from the frenetic, anxious energy he can feel building in his chest, Jun sends a mock pout in Dylan’s direction. “Why do you have everyone else in the chat listed under their name, but my contact is a buffalo emoji?”
Dylan rolls his eyes and shifts sideways, his hand slipping away from Jun’s hip. “Take a wild guess.”
“Rude.” Jun very seriously considers pushing Dylan off the bed completely for that, but decides that might be a taking things a bit too far—it is Dylan’s bed, after all, and he very graciously had not kicked Jun out of it after their hookup. Plus, Jun thinks wearily, if he does try something, it is far too early in the morning to defend himself if Dylan decides to retaliate. He hasn’t even had coffee yet…
Or more importantly, a shower.
Groaning, Jun pries himself up into a sitting position, rolling his head around and feeling his neck and shoulders creak in protest.
“I need to shower,” he grumbles.
“I call first dibs on the upstairs bathroom,” Dylan mumbles into his pillow.
Jun snorts. “Not if I get there first.”
He wastes no time in collecting his things from the floor, pulling his boxers on so that he’s at least not walking around naked, in case Thame did come home.
After checking to make sure the coast is clear, Jun slips out into the hall with the rest of his clothes bundled up in his arms, making a beeline for the bathroom.
However, he makes the mistake of peeking into Thame’s room on the way, just to check, noting the empty bed with its undisturbed sheets—and when he’s done, he finds that Dylan has zipped around behind him to get to the bathroom first, having not even bothered to get dressed, his naked ass on glorious display.
“Hey!” Jun dashes to catch up. “No fair.”
“You snooze, you lose, idiot.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Jun huffs before Dylan can get the door closed. “Wanna shower together?”
It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done so—and this time, Jun thinks, he’ll actually be able to participate in and remember the whole experience, instead of barely keeping his eyes open as Dylan helps him clean up in the midst of a post-bliss stupor.
Dylan leans against the jamb for a moment as he considers the proposition, raking his eyes up and down Jun’s form in a way that has his cock twitching with interest. After a moment, his mouth twists up into a smirk.
“Not today, puppy,” he says, his voice teasing, and then he swings the door shut, the lock clicking loudly into place.
Jun stares at it for a minute, unsure whether he’s more annoyed at Dylan claiming the big bathroom or delighted at being called puppy again or shocked at the implications of Dylan saying, “not today”—as if there is a possibility of them showering together again in the future.
Eventually, there’s nothing else for it except to trudge downstairs to the other, smaller bathroom, making a pitstop in his own bedroom to trade in his dirty laundry for a fresh change of clothes and to text Pepper that there’s been no sign of Thame—on his own phone, this time. He considers waiting for Dylan to finish, since Jun keeps all of his best products in the upstairs bathroom, but in the end, he feels too gross to sit around in his own sweaty skin a moment more. There’s decent enough shampoo in the other shower, and Jun can almost feel his pores clogging up with every second. He needs to be clean, now.
Under the hot water, Jun starts to feel like himself again, but even after he is objectively clean and refreshed, he lingers, as if staying in the shower will prolong whatever time he has left with MARS—because the more time passes with no word from Thame, the more certain Jun is that Thame has gone radio silent to avoid sharing bad news. If the news was good, he would have said so immediately, right?
When he emerges from the bathroom nearly forty minutes later, dressed in clean clothes and drying his hair with a towel, he finds that Dylan must have come down to put on a pot of coffee and then disappeared again, leaving the kitchen and living area empty.
Jun helps himself to a mug and makes himself some oatmeal with protein powder for breakfast, the way he normally does when recovering after a long day of shooting, but even after adding extra chocolate, he can’t seem to find any of it appetizing. Instead of hunger, his stomach clenches hard around anxiety, and he pushes the oatmeal around in the bowl more than he actually eats it.
Suddenly, finally, there’s an incoming message from Thame.
Eagle One – 7:03 a.m.
Sorry, I stayed with P’Po last night
K. Pemika seems set on MARS disbanding but there is a chance
I have a plan, but…
It’s risky. Like, really risky.
I have to run an errand but let’s meet at the house at 11 to discuss. OK?
Jun swallows hard. Their original plan was already risky. How much worse will Thame’s mysterious new plan be? And what sort of errand is so important that it comes before filling in the rest of them on the details?
He dumps the remainder of his oatmeal in the trash, even less hungry now than before.
The worst part is that instead of giving Jun any answers or any relief from the all-encompassing anxiety that threatens to drown him, Thame has prolonged his misery by four long hours, four hours in which Jun has no idea how to distract himself or pass the time. Dylan reappears briefly to pour himself a cup of coffee, but then holes up again in his room, leaving Jun with nothing to do but think about what happens next.
At one point in the past, Jun had resigned himself to the disbanding of MARS. He had seen the toll it was taking on Thame to try and keep them together, exhausting himself with solo work and constant events to balance out the debts of their latest album. He had seen the tension that was slowly driving all of them apart, and in the midst of that gradual collapse, the idea of letting go of their dreams as a group had seemed like the kindest thing any of them could do for each other. And even if none of them knew his real designation, Jun couldn’t help but feel like it was his job as a beta to take care of them by guiding everyone towards the kind thing. His heart broke at the thought of losing this, losing his family, but he couldn’t stand to watch Thame destroy himself when there were better options for him—for all of them, really.
But now, things are different. They’ve been reminded of how wonderful and thrilling and joyous it feels when they’re all on the same page, working together towards a goal, united as a team. They’ve gotten a small taste of hope, and all the work Jun did to gradually accept the loss of MARS has been obliterated by that taste. If they fail now, he’ll have to start over from scratch, getting used to the idea of MARS ending all over again, bit by painful bit.
Sure, he can pivot to acting, but if ONER doesn’t want to work with him anymore, he’ll be screwed. As Dylan pointed out in his uncharacteristic anxiety spiral last night, both his and Jun’s reputations in the entertainment industry rest on their access to prescription shifters, their ability to maintain their stage designations. It’s possible Jun could, with ONER’s help, negotiate a contract with a different company that would preserve the façade, but there’s no guarantees.
Sitting on the couch in their living room, Jun rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he first learned that ONER intended to disband them and send Thame to Korea, his understanding had been that the rest of them could stay on at the company in different roles, if that’s what they wanted. Khun Pemika had even talked about the kinds of auditions she wanted Jun to think about for the future. But in trying to secretly go against her plan and bring the group back together, Jun wonders if they’ve squandered any goodwill ONER might have for them once MARS is over—and with it, any chance of staying with the company that maintains his and Dylan’s cover.
As much as Jun has never wanted to be a real alpha, he realizes now that he’s come to depend on the shifters. Those pheromones, false as they are, have given him access to the career of his dreams. They open doors for him, unlocking opportunities at every turn. They settle around him like an aura of celebrity, drawing eyes and noses his way, making him stand out. He’s only gotten this far because everyone believes what they smell, and what they smell is a powerful, charming alpha. Without that medication, is he even someone worth noticing? Any talent he might have, any skills he might have developed—will they matter at all if people can smell the truth?
Pepper comes back to the house eventually, and even though he tries to stay upbeat, Jun can tell that he’s just as worried. They agree to play a video game, but neither of their hearts are really in it, and after a couple of levels, they end up just sitting together in their respective beanbag chairs, staring at the main menu screen as the rest of the morning yawns before them like a void.
Even Nano’s arrival, his arms weighed down with bags and bags of food his mom sent over for their lunch, does nothing to brighten the mood in the house. Nano sits and twists one corner of his fluffy pink sweater in his hands, unusually subdued.
Dylan comes back out of his room eventually to join them in the miserable waiting—wearing a hoodie, Jun notices, that completely covers any marks that may or may not have been left on his neck last night—and he doesn’t even bother pretending to listen to something playing in his headphones. Instead, the four of them sit and glance all too often at their phones to see how much time has passed. Every once in a while, one of them tries to start a conversation, but it always peters out after a few minutes, leaving them right back where they started.
Thame comes through the door at 10:53 carrying two enormous bags with the Neutrogena logo on them. He stops immediately in the threshold when he sees them all sitting there, his face looking drawn and tired.
Jun frowns. “Did you really go shopping?” He can’t help the edge that creeps into his voice, because if Thame made them sit around waiting while he took a trip to the fucking mall…
“Not exactly.” Thame sighs, kicks off his shoes, and sets down the bags.
They all watch as he trudges fully into the room and takes a seat on the floor facing them.
“What did Khun Pemika say?” Per asks when Thame doesn’t immediately begin talking.
Thame takes another moment, as if composing his thoughts. Come on already, Jun finds himself thinking, desperately impatient.
“Well, obviously, she knew about our song,” Thame begins. “I don’t know how but… she knew exactly what we were up to, and that’s why she had P’Ice rush to record and release the song instead. She tried to… discourage me from continuing to fight back. She wants me to go to Korea and MARS to disband, just like she planned from the beginning.”
Jun can feel the restless energy spreading through his limbs, needing Thame to get to the point faster.
“You said there’s a chance, though, right?” Dylan asks, clearly feeling the same impatience.
Thame nods slowly. “She said that if we manage to write, record, and release a song that earns a perfect all-kill before the concert, she will try to persuade the Korean company to take our whole group… or at least let us all stay together at ONER instead.”
Jun feels his breath leave him in a whoosh. A perfect all-kill? Seriously? In order to have a song release in time to get on the charts and make a splash before the concert, they’d only have—he runs some quick calculations in his head—maybe seven or eight days at most to get it done.
“But no T-pop group has ever gotten a PAK before,” Nano ventures, echoing Jun’s thoughts, clearly having made the same calculations. “To do it in a week…”
“I know, I know. It’ll be difficult, but…”
“Difficult?” Dylan cuts in. “Try impossible.”
“Thame, I don’t know if we could manage that even if we had plenty of time. It’s so hard to predict what will chart well. With only a week…” Pepper shakes his head.
“I didn’t give her an answer yet. If we decide we don’t want to go for it, then… we can just follow her original plan,” Thame explains.
He doesn’t say it, but Jun hears the truth of what he means: we can just give up.
“I wanted to talk to all of you first, before we agreed on anything. Especially because…” Thame pauses and takes a deep breath. “Especially because there’s a catch.”
“A catch?” Jun laughs incredulously. “Thame, everything you’ve already told us has been a catch.” It’s already an impossible plan—how could it get any harder?
“If we… if we decide to produce a song ourselves, outside of ONER, then… Khun Pemika said it would count as working beyond our contracts, meaning she can cut off our access to all the usual contractual amenities.”
“Can she do that?” Per exclaims.
Thame shrugs. “P’Po and I tried to look at the language in my contract this morning. I don’t know if I understood all the legalese but it seems like maybe yes, she can?” He sighs and runs one hand through his hair. “Normally, I’d say we should vet and hire a lawyer to consult with, but… we don’t have time. It would only be a few weeks, anyway, and then when we get into concert rehearsals, she’ll have to return to following the contracts as usual.”
“What even counts as… ‘contractual amenities?’” asks Nano.
“Stylists, rehearsal space, studio access, transportation, catering… Stuff like that.” Thame swallows visibly. “Also what she called, uh… non-essential healthcare.”
Jun feels a sudden swoop in his stomach. He’s seen those words before, countless times, on his own contracts and NDAs, on his financial paperwork and health insurance summaries. Non-essential healthcare. It’s the coded phrase ONER uses to refer to the reproductive endocrinology appointments and medications Jun has to protect his stage designation.
Across the room, Jun sees Dylan—who had been twirling a pen around his fingers, full of nervous energy—suddenly freeze, the pen shuddering to an abrupt halt in his fist.
Fuck fuck fuck…
“Khun Pemika also told me…” Thame says, then frowns and shakes his head, starting over. “The thing is… I mean, I… There’s something you all should know, and…”
Jun’s blood runs cold, his entire body suddenly feeling too tight. This can’t be happening.
But he can’t stop it, and as Thame finally seems to find the words he’s looking for, Jun feels his entire world start to crumble around him.
“She told me that not everyone in MARS has been performing under their real designation.”
The silence stretches to fill every inch of the room as his words sink in. Jun can’t breathe, his nails digging sharply into his palms where they’re hidden in the folds of the beanbag chair.
He can’t bring himself to look at the others, can’t bring himself to see his own panic mirrored in Dylan’s face or to confront the shock and betrayal Nano and Pepper must be feeling. And Thame—does he know that it’s Jun? Does he know that his own best friend has been lying to him?
Per speaks first, eventually, his voice hesitant as he asks, “Did she say who it was?”
Thame closes his eyes, looking almost pained. “Yes. But it’s… it’s not my secret to tell. I don’t want anyone feeling pressured to reveal themselves to the rest of the group if they’re not ready, especially because… well, Khun Pemika explained that ONER’s standard non-disclosure agreements prevent you from telling even your own members. I don’t want anyone to have to break their NDA right now, because if the company finds out about the violation… Khun Pemika seemed ready to use any opportunity she can find to make sure we follow her plan. I’m sure she’d use it against us, maybe even sue.”
Jun feels sick, acid swirling in his gut. So Thame does know about him—and presumably about Dylan, too. He brain feels empty of everything except panicked static. At least Thame doesn’t plan on outing them to Per and Nano, but if Khun Pemika is threatening to withhold their “non-essential healthcare,” then… Per and Nano and the rest of the world will figure it out anyway.
Hadn’t he just been thinking that he doesn’t know what to do without his shifters anymore? Fuck.
He can feel how Thame is purposefully not looking at him, just as Jun is purposefully not looking at Thame, and the acidic knot in his stomach twists even harder. For so long, he’s believed that Thame would be more understanding than the rest of the group if he found out because he understands what it means to pretend, but now, Jun worries that all he’ll find in Thame is hurt and anger and even hatred—not understanding.
The suffocating abyss of the future is opening up beneath his feet again, threatening to pull him down, but this time, Jun feels acutely the possibility of losing not only MARS in general, but of specifically losing his best friend forever. It feels about as awful as the thought of losing a limb. Without Thame…
“The problem is,” Thame adds, “that if we agree to go for the all-kill and temporarily lose access to all those things in our contracts, then we lose access to all the things that make maintaining a stage designation possible, including prescription pheromone therapy.”
“So we would all find out who’s been lying,” Dylan interjects, his voice tight with tension. “Wouldn’t that violate the person’s NDA and make the whole thing pointless? Khun Pemika would sue, the truth would get out, and MARS would be over either way.”
“Yes, but…” Thame lets out a long breath, as if steeling himself. “I have a plan. That’s what I was doing this morning.”
He stands suddenly and retrieves the bags he’d left near the door, carrying them over to the middle of the living room floor. As he plops them down, a few boxes spill over the top, and Jun can make out enough of the words from where he’s sitting to recognize them for what they are: pheromone blocking patches.
“As of this morning, we are officially brand ambassadors for Neutrogena’s new line of pheromone blockers for sensitive skin.”
Jun stares at the boxes, uncomprehendingly, his brain moving frustratingly slow. Could the solution really be that simple? Blockers?
“If we decide, y’know, not to make the song,” Thame continues, “then there’s no harm done. We just have one last brand partnership to boost our final paychecks as a group. But if we want to try, then… Well, if it was just a specific person in the group who suddenly started wearing blockers, people would get suspicious. But if we all wear them and frame it as a deal with Neutrogena, then it looks like we’re just sticking to the brand agreement. We can wear them at home, too, since the sensitive skin ones can be used for up to sixteen hours at a time, apparently. And at night, we can use the neutralizers in our rooms and stuff like that. If we’re careful, I think we can make it work.”
Jun worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Sure, perhaps they can make it work… until they run into each other in the middle of the night when getting up to pee or grabbing a midnight snack or something. And even the most powerful neutralizers can’t completely prevent their scents from leaking through the gaps under doors or clinging to clothes and furniture.
“And if it doesn’t work?” Nano asks, his voice small. “The house isn’t that big…”
“We can also try splitting up,” Per muses, before Thame can answer. “I can stay with P’Gam, and maybe P’Po would let you stay with him, Thame. And if Jun and Nano can go to their parents’ homes, then…”
Jun frowns at that. His parents live far enough outside the city that trying to go back and forth would be a nightmare. And the thought of leaving Dylan here alone…
Jun knows all too well how depressing it can be to live in this house without the rest of the group to fill all its empty corners.
“I still have the condo I rented when we split up before,” Dylan offers. “The lease isn’t up for another few months.”
Thame tilts his head, considering. “So do I, actually. And maybe after the song is finished, that could work. But to make it happen in a week, I think we’ll need to stay close so we’re not wasting time commuting all over the place… which means staying here, in the house. I’m not sure how long we’ll have before the shifters stop working, so we’d need to start with the blockers pretty quick.”
The last injection Jun received had been the day of his appointment with Dr. Ran… ten days ago. He’s not sure when Dylan’s shifters will wear off, but as for his own, he has only four days before he’s due for his next shot. Jun knows the medication will linger in his system for maybe forty-eight hours past the two-week deadline, but it’s not a very wide window.
“Thame,” begins Per, his voice suddenly a little more pointed than before. “How exactly did you get Neutrogena to agree to this partnership? We’re not authorized to make brand deals on our own behalf. Those have to go through P’Mick, right?”
Thame flushes and ducks his head, fiddling uncomfortably with one of the boxes that spilled out from his bags. “Ah, well… P’Po went with me, and he… um, well he might have… kinda sorta pretended to be P’Mick’s assistant,” he mumbles.
“Thame!” Per exclaims, right as Jun lets out an offended noise.
“Is that a good idea?” Nano asks.
“P’Po could get in real trouble for that,” Jun adds. He might have been acting overly interested in P’Po’s career advancement mostly to get a rise out of both Po and Thame, but when push comes to shove, he does actually care about Po not getting fired for trying to help them.
“I know! It’s not like I asked him to do it.” Thame sighs, sounding almost defeated. “He just came into the meeting with me and started saying things. I couldn’t stop him without giving up the whole game and making us both look like idiots. Besides, I went to the company afterwards and made sure P’Mick signed off on the paperwork for real.”
“How did you manage that?” Dylan narrows his eyes.
“I just gaslit him into thinking he’d already agreed to the partnership weeks ago and had forgotten about it. So when the contract got emailed over, he just signed immediately, without even questioning it.”
Jun lets out a little laugh, momentarily relieved that at least one of their problems could be solved with such a simple solution. “I never thought I’d be glad to have such an incompetent manager.”
Because of fucking course Mick would just believe something like that. Agreeing to a brand deal and completely forgetting about it is exactly the sort of thing Mick would actually do, and they’re all familiar enough with his particular approach to bullshitting his way through the job that Jun honestly isn’t surprised Thame could play him so easily.
“Me either.” One side of Thame’s mouth crooks up into a little smile, but it disappears again almost immediately. “So, what are we thinking? I do have an idea for a new song, one that ONER can’t steal from us, but… I understand if we don’t want to take the risk.”
Jun had been momentarily distracted from the acid pool burbling in his stomach, but now he’s painfully aware of it again, anxiety threatening to eat him from the inside out. The thought of just rolling over and giving up, letting Pemika have her way, losing MARS without even trying to put up a fight after how far they’ve come already—it feels unthinkable, and he knows if they choose to go that route, he will ache with the grief of what might have been for the rest of his life. But the idea of risking his stage designation for a one-in-a-million chance… Thame’s plan offers a glimmer of hope, but making it work feels like trying to cross the mouth of an active volcano on a bridge made of fragile silk thread. The blockers might help, but they’re certainly not a foolproof solution. Even the strongest patches are liable to get dislodged after a particularly sweaty dance practice or start to fail midway through an interview, not to mention that they can’t be worn 24/7. At night, MARS will have to rely on neutralizers and a whole lot of luck. And even if the blockers and the neutralizers do hold up, the chances of them actually getting a perfect all-kill…
From the uncomfortable quiet that fills the room and the uncertain expressions on everyone’s faces, Jun can tell that the others don’t know what to choose, either. He can guess that Dylan’s internal calculus mirrors his own, and even if Per and Nano don’t have to weigh the risk to their own individual reputations in the same way, they still have to consider what it means to take on such an impossible goal alongside a group where someone has been lying to them for the past three years.
“Can we think about it?” Pepper asks eventually, after a long moment of silence.
“Yeah, but… we don’t have that long to decide. If we want to make a song in a week, we need to start today.” Thame fidgets with the box of blockers he’s still holding. “Maybe we can check in after lunch? Is that enough time for everyone?”
Jun finds himself nodding without thinking about it—because what else can he do? How much time does he need to make an impossible choice? How much time does he even have before he implodes from the panic of it all?
They disperse, Nano disappearing immediately to call his mom while Per heads across the street to the basketball court, as if shooting some hoops will clarify the answer for him.
For a moment, Jun considers following Dylan into his room, wanting to know what’s going on in that quiet, sullen, pretty head of his, wanting to talk through the whole thing with someone who understands… but a forceful glare from Dylan and the slamming of his door kill that plan before it really even has the chance to form.
Thame is still sitting on the floor of the living room, and when he looks up, meeting Jun’s eyes for the first time since revealing that Pemika told him the truth…
Jun is out the door and halfway down the street before he even realizes that he’s moving. He can’t be there anymore, in that house, under the knowing microscope of Thame’s gaze. He’s not even sure where he’s going at first, just that he needs to go.
He walks and walks, his mind spinning so fast that it feels difficult to hold onto any particular thought long enough to process its meaning.
Thame knows, and blockers or not, the others know now that one of them is a liar, and Jun can’t imagine that it will take them long to suspect him. Dylan only took the news well because he’s in the same boat, but Jun feels certain that the rest of them will hate him the moment they know the truth, and then it won’t matter whether or not they get to stay as MARS, will it? The thing that makes their dream worth it in the first place—the most important thing about this life as an idol, the thing worth saving—is that MARS is a family, and if Jun loses that family…
He has to stop and sit on a random bench for a minute to catch his breath, because his lungs are tight with the pressure of that impending doom.
He’s going to lose MARS either way. One option leads directly to disbandment, and he knows that even if they all promise to stay in touch, they’ll drift apart slowly as their new lives take them in different directions—especially Thame, off in Korea on his own. The other option also leads to eventual disbandment, in all likelihood, except this time with the chance that the other members—plus Sphere and the general public to boot—will all hate his guts with a fiery passion upon learning that he’s not even a real alpha.
And, of course, in that scenario, he’d also be sued and booed out of the entertainment industry altogether.
The pressure on his lungs remains, but the restlessness in his limbs prevails, and he stands, starting to walk again, trying to find a valve for the vortex of negative feelings building up inside him.
At least you’ll still have Dylan, some small part of him tries to argue. Dylan already knows the truth. Dylan promised not to judge, because he made exactly the same choice and has been maintaining exactly the same lie. Dylan hooked up with him twice, and that has to mean something, right?
But the larger part of him knows that Dylan is going to get tired of him any day now. Dylan always gets tired of him, annoyed at his mere existence, and Jun can’t say he blames him.
The events of the past week have done nothing to shake Jun’s belief that his bandmate is immeasurably out of his league, but they have unfortunately brought to the surface the attraction that Jun’s spent the better part of three years trying to bury and ignore. He’s always refused to acknowledge that he might be into Dylan, because being into Dylan equals rejection, and Jun categorically does not do rejection.
But now, after having sex with Dylan not once but twice, after seeing Dylan be vulnerable and anxious, after all of it, Jun is having a very hard time pushing his own attraction back into the dark and secret corner where it belongs, and it’s only making the tightness in his lungs worse. Maybe Dylan won’t hate him immediately the way the others will, but one day, Jun is going to fuck it up somehow, and Dylan will leave him behind, too—and Jun knows he won’t survive that.
Jun glances up and realizes that his feet have taken him to the arcade without his permission.
Which, he supposes, is not all that surprising. The arcade has always been a place he goes when he feels overwhelmed—sometimes with Thame, but many times by himself, too. As the visual of MARS, he’s used to everyone looking at him all the time, under constant scrutiny, but here in the arcade, with all the flashing lights and bright colors commanding everyone’s attention, for once, it feels like Jun is the least interesting thing in the room to look at. For once, he can simply fade into the background.
He sinks into the seat of a racing game near the back and lets his head fall back against the hard plastic.
There aren’t any good options in this situation, and normally, he would be scrambling to find the secret third choice that no one’s thought of yet, the hidden backdoor shortcut that will take them straight to the perfect solution… but breathing is still difficult and his heart is still pounding and Jun is so, so tired.
Why had he ever agreed to this stupid stage designation in the first place?
Tears burn in his eyes, and he scrubs them away angrily with the back of one hand. He’s too tired to scheme his way out of this, his brain too caught up in endless circles of anxiety, and the only solid thing he can find to land on is that one way or another, MARS is going to be over.
Jun isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting there—maybe thirty or forty minutes—when he becomes aware of a presence behind him.
“Thought I might find you here,” Thame says, settling into the other driver’s seat.
Jun swallows the sudden lump in his throat, blinking back more tears. He isn’t quite sure what he plans to say, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because when he opens his mouth, all that emerges is a completely unplanned question: “Are you mad at me?”
He can’t look at Thame, keeping his gaze trained instead on the little game animation on the screen in front of him.
Thame sighs. “I’m… trying not to be.”
So that’s a yes. Jun pushes down a wave of sudden nausea, trying to keep anything sour or panicky from leaking into his scent.
“I understand that you weren’t allowed to tell me,” Thame continues. “I get that it must have been really hard for you, keeping a secret like that. I just…”
He trails off, and Jun can hear the hurt lingering there in the sentence he doesn’t finish.
“I wanted to tell you.” Jun hates how small his voice sounds. “I always thought… out of everyone, you might understand.”
Thame lets out a puff of humorless laughter.
“But I couldn’t, and then the longer it went on, the more I worried that if you ever found out, you’d hate me for lying to you.”
“Jun…”
“I know I never should have agreed to do it, but Pemika made it sound like… like no one would ever take me seriously as a beta. And then once we debuted, I just felt more and more certain that if anyone ever found out, they’d realize I didn’t deserve to be there in the first place, that I’m just a pretty face, that I’m not even a real alpha…”
“Ai Jun!”
Jun stops talking, at a loss for what else he can even say other than apologizing a million times.
“So you don’t trust me,” Thame says eventually, his voice bitter.
“Of course I do, I just couldn’t tell…” Jun starts, his gut feeling like it’s full of wet concrete.
Thame cuts him off. “But it wasn’t just that you couldn’t tell me, Jun. You just admitted to being worried that I would hate you. Don’t you know me better than that by now? Did you really believe I would think less of you? That I’d be upset about it?”
“But you are upset about it!” Jun feels like he’s sinking deeper and deeper into a hole in which there’s nothing he can say that would be correct, nothing that would fix this. Every thought that occurs to him seems wrong, as if it will only make things worse, even as he can’t stop those thoughts from making their way to his mouth. “You do blame me for lying. Was I so wrong to be afraid of that?”
“Yes!” Thame slams a hand down on the game’s steering wheel in front of him in exasperation, and even though his scent normally doesn’t reveal much in the way of emotions, Jun can smell a whiff of pain in it now. “I’m upset because I found out from our boss instead of from you! I’m upset because three years ago, we sat in this same arcade and I told you my biggest secret, and you just made up some shit about your first rut that wasn’t even true! I spent years feeling jealous of you for being a real alpha, when the whole time, you were even more of a fake than I was!”
Fake. The word stings, and Jun feels an unexpected surge of anger. It’s one thing to feel guilty for lying, to take responsibility for his own mistakes, but the issue Thame has with his nonexistent rut isn’t something Jun can control or, therefore, be responsible for, and having it thrown in his face now, when for so long he’d hoped that same issue might create some kind of solidarity between them, hurts more than he thought it would.
“What, so now it’s my fault you’re insecure?” Jun hisses back before he can think better of it.
Thame turns to glare at him, opening his mouth as if to retort, and then clamps it shut again, settling back into his seat and crossing his arms sullenly. “No,” he mutters eventually, staring at the pixelated car zooming across the screen as if he could explode it with his mind. “I just wish you’d told me.”
Jun crosses his own arms, his anger deflating almost immediately, and they sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Thame’s scent quickly starts to smell normal again, and although Jun still feels unsteady and anxious, he tries to follow suit.
“It wasn’t made up, you know,” Jun says eventually.
“Hmm? What wasn’t?”
“The thing I told you about my first rut. I mean, yeah, it was a bliss instead, but… the rest of the story was true. My first ever bliss hit in the middle of sports day when I was supposed to be the captain of our football team, and we lost because of it. Like, by a lot. Everyone was pissed at me for weeks, even if they knew it wasn’t really my fault. I told you the story and made it about a rut because I just… wanted you to know you that you’re not missing much with the whole cycle thing. I’m sure ruts aren’t any better.”
Jun leans his head back against the seat. He really had wanted to comfort Thame that day, to let him know that even if Thame felt inferior sometimes, there truly was a silver lining to not having a cycle to deal with.
“Is bliss… really so bad, though?”
“Fuck, yes,” Jun says emphatically, and then adds without thinking, “I wouldn’t have suppressed mine for so long if it wasn’t.”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
Oops. Shit.
In all the discussion of secrets that were now out in the open, Jun’s stupid brain had somehow forgotten there were still some things he meant to keep to himself.
“Oh. Nothing, I just…”
“How long did you suppress your cycle? Haven’t you had one every year?”
Jun winces. “Not… exactly. Up until last week, I hadn’t had a bliss since our trainee days.”
“What?” Thame sits up straighter, his head swinging around to face Jun directly. “Jun, isn’t dangerous? What about your trips to your parents’ house?”
Jun shakes his head sheepishly. “I was just visiting my family. I knew it was risky to keep taking the suppressants, but… going through bliss is shitty enough already without having to try and do it in secret in a house full of people who aren’t supposed to know you’re having one.”
“But…” Thame cuts himself off abruptly, swallowing whatever he was going to say with a pained expression.
“That’s why mine hit so unexpectedly last week,” Jun continues when it becomes clear that Thame isn’t going to reveal what he was thinking. “The doctor told me I had to come off of the meds, and I thought I’d have more time before the cycle hit, but it came on while I was in the middle of working with P’Po. I didn’t want to come back to the house smelling like that, so I…”
Went to P’Po’s condo instead and fucked our bandmate.
This time, Jun manages to keep his thoughts inside his own head. Some secrets, at least, ought to remain private.
He clears his throat. “All this to say… I mean, I know it sucks to feel different from everybody else, but I really do think you’re lucky not to have to deal with a cycle. They’re painful and inconvenient and…”
And only fun when you have someone nice to spend them with. Jun absolutely cannot say that out loud, either.
Before he can think of a better way to end his sentence, Thame sighs. “I know. I just wish… I mean, I always thought you made being an alpha look so easy.” He laughs bitterly. “I guess I was wrong.”
“Thame,” Jun says, his throat aching, and he wills himself not to cry. “If it makes you feel any better, I was always a little jealous of you, too.”
“Really?”
He hums affirmatively. “Ruts or not, you were the real alpha I could never be. You didn’t have to lie all the time.” After a moment, hoping to break some of the tension, he adds, “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that you spent all that time worried you weren’t a real alpha like me or Dylan, when it turns out you’re the only actual alpha in the group.”
He tries for a laugh, but Thame doesn’t join him.
Instead, Thame cocks his head and frowns. “Well…” he begins, and then he blinks, the furrow between his eyebrows becoming more pronounced as something clicks. “Wait, you know about Dylan?”
For the second time in as many minutes, Jun winces. Shit. How on earth had he ever managed to keep anything a secret for so many years in the past? The moment one little thing gets out, he’s suddenly letting everything else slip out left and right.
Unexpectedly, though, before Jun can answer, Thame blinks again and glances away, almost as if he’s embarrassed—and the way his ears start to get suspiciously red only confirms that hypothesis.
“Ah, right, I guess I should have known that already,” Thame mumbles, looking anywhere but at Jun.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Thame makes a face, looking chagrined. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything. I’m not supposed to know about it.”
“Thame,” Jun says warningly, with a sinking feeling in his gut that he knows exactly where this is going.
“It’s just… P’Po said that when you were at his place, that you and Dylan… y’know. On the couch.”
Jun feels his own ears heat up. So much for keeping that to myself.
“I’m gonna murder P’Po next time I see him,” he grumbles.
“Aow, don’t be mad at him. I begged him to tell me,” Thame whines, and then, after a moment, he tacks on, “and then immediately wished I hadn’t.”
Jun closes his eyes. “Yeah, I wish you hadn’t, either. No one was supposed to know.”
“I did promise P’Po I wouldn’t say anything about it, so please don’t…”
“It’s fine, Thame,” Jun interrupts him. “I’m not actually upset about it.” He really isn’t that upset, he finds, to his own surprise. He still feels bad that he’d had sex on someone else’s furniture in the first place, and so he can’t blame P’Po for wanting to complain to somebody about it, even if having someone else in MARS know the truth might make things awkward in the future.
At least no one has told Nano.
“So I guess Dylan knows about you, too?” Thame asks hesitantly.
Jun nods.
“Did you… I mean, when did you find out about each other? Was it before, or…?”
“No, it was just last week. Before that, we didn’t… We each thought we were the only one.”
Thame hums thoughtfully, tracing one finger along the edge of the coin slot and then the game’s start button. “So, are you two… together now?”
“What? No! It was just sex. Why would we be together?” Jun tries to make his mouth form around the words without stuttering, as if they’re just totally normal sentences that he feels totally normal saying aloud.
Thame shrugs. “Just curious. I thought maybe you’d finally admitted that you like each other more than you let on.”
“We don’t like each other! What on earth are you talking about? That’s fucking crazy.”
Thame raises one eyebrow. “Uh-huh. So you’re not going to admit that you’ve had a thing for him since we were trainees? It was really just a one-time hookup?”
Jun chooses to ignore Thame’s insinuation that he’s had a crush on Dylan for years—because he hasn’t! He’s refused to even entertain the possibility! That’s the whole point!—but he can’t completely stop himself from reacting to Thame’s other question, and something must show in his expression, because Thame instantly latches onto it.
“Wait, did this happen more than once?” he demands, his gaze laser-focused on Jun’s face.
“We… might have… kinda… hooked up again last night.”
“Ai Jun!”
“He was upset! I was upset! Our song got stolen! I dunno, it just sort of… happened.”
“So, what, are you friends with benefits now?” Thame leans forward, his expression intense, and Jun can’t tell if he’s eager for something to be happening between his members or worried about it imploding and bringing the group down with them.
“No! Of course not. I mean, we haven’t really talked about it, but I’m sure it won’t happen again. You know how Dylan is.”
“Apparently, I don’t,” Thame mutters. “All I know is that the two of you enjoy riling each other up way too much to just let things go. Who knows if that applies to sex, too?”
“That’s not… We don’t… Gah, can we just talk about something else? Anything else, please.”
“Really? Would you rather we go back to talking about how you lied to me?” There’s a teasing edge to Thame’s voice, and the amused glint in his eye tells Jun that he’s not really angry anymore—or, at least, not that angry.
It soothes something fundamental in Jun to see it, to know that no matter upset Thame might have been to learn the truth, he doesn’t hate Jun now. Their friendship is still intact—maybe a little rough on the surface, but still strong underneath, enough to handle a bit of teasing.
Jun groans with mock despair and leans forward to rest on the edge of the steering wheel on his side of the game, pillowing his head on top of his folded arms. “Yes. Fine. That.”
Thame laughs softly, but not unkindly.
After a moment, Jun turns his head so that he can see Thame without fully lifting it from his forearms, and he lowers his olfactory guard a bit so that Thame can smell just how sincere he is when he apologizes.
“I really am sorry, Thame. I wanted to tell you, I promise. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to do it myself.”
One corner of Thame’s mouth quirks upwards in a sort of bittersweet half smile. “I know.”
“Do you really still want to do this? Keep fighting for MARS, even though some of us lied to you? Even though I lied to you?”
Thame goes quiet for a minute, his expression becoming more somber, and even though Jun knows what the answer will be, his heart still constricts a little with anxiety while waiting to hear it.
“Yes,” Thame finally tells him. “You’re my family, no matter what. And the fact that… it’s not just me in the group who has to pretend to be someone I’m not in order to convince the world I deserve to succeed, the fact that we have this… extra obstacle that makes people like Khun Pemika think we’re less worthy of our success as a group… Well, it only makes me want us to stick together even more. Prove them all wrong.”
“And if we can’t? There’s a really good chance that if we try this, we’ll fail.” Jun hates to say it out loud, but it needs to be said, especially now that Thame knows the extra risks that Jun and Dylan will face if it comes to that.
“I’d rather fail alongside my family than succeed by myself. And if that happens, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we all land on our feet, even with the stage designations. I’ll handcuff myself to Pemika’s desk if I have to. She can’t make me go to Korea if she can’t promise me that the rest of you will be okay.”
Thame gives him a wavery, wan sort of smile, and Jun tries to return it despite the tears that are pooling in his eyes again.
“What about you, Jun? Do you want to try to save MARS one more time?”
The anxiety is still simmering in the pit of Jun’s stomach, but to his surprise, it feels less overwhelming now. Thame doesn’t hate him, and now that two of his four bandmates have discovered his secret without his entire life falling apart, for the first time, Jun wonders if maybe Nano and Pepper might also one day be able to accept the truth without immediately hating Jun forever. Thame doesn’t hate him, and in fact, Thame is still willing to go to bat for him—and for Dylan, it seems—to ensure that even if MARS has to disband, they’ll still have a future in the industry if they want it.
There’s something else blooming in his gut, there amongst all the panic and self-doubt, and if Jun isn’t mistaken, he thinks that thing might be hope.
“Yeah. I’m in. Let’s do it.”
*
Later that evening, after they’ve all reconvened in the living room and decided unanimously to try for the all-kill, after they’ve spent several hours listening to Thame’s song idea and dividing up packages of blockers and meticulously planning out their schedule for the next week, after Thame and Dylan have disappeared into the music room to start hammering out the lyrics and chords, after Jun has jogged around their neighborhood three whole times to try and get out some of his remaining anxiety and then taken as hot a shower as he can possibly stand, he returns to his room and finds, to his surprise, that Dylan is waiting there for him.
Dylan, who never hangs out in anyone’s room but his own and who slammed the door in Jun’s face earlier, is sitting on the edge of his bed, idly looking through one of the fashion magazines Jun keeps in a tidy pile by his nightstand.
Jun frowns, keenly aware of the fact that he’s wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his hips, pausing just inside the doorway.
“What are you doing in here?”
Dylan glances up and smiles lazily at him. “Educating myself,” he snarks, closing the magazine and waving it in Jun’s direction.
Jun huffs. “I mean, aren’t you supposed to be working with Thame on the song?”
“Thame needed some time to think through the lyrics. I think he’s onto something good, so I figured I’d let him cook. Check back in tomorrow morning to finalize everything.”
“And you decided to come to my room because…?” Jun prompts him, stepping over towards his closet to pull out a sleep shirt and some comfortable plaid pajama pants.
Dylan shrugs, then leans back on his arms, watching Jun move much like a panther watching its prey. It makes the skin on Jun’s arms prickle with goosebumps, and he can’t tell if he likes it or wants Dylan to stop as soon as possible.
“Did you talk to Thame earlier?” Dylan asks instead of directly answering Jun’s question. “About our stage designations?”
“Yeah, didn’t you?” Thame and Dylan had spent a lot of time together in the music room; surely it would have come up.
Unexpectedly, however, Dylan shakes his head. “I think we both just wanted to focus on getting the song ready to go.” He pauses, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. “Did he… seem upset?”
Oh my god. Suddenly, it clicks for Jun: Dylan is worried that Thame is mad at him, just like Jun was—he’s just too prickly to ask Thame about it directly.
The fact that he’s asking Jun instead is… well, something. It makes Jun feel warm and satisfied inside that Dylan is here, in his room, being a little bit vulnerable on purpose. Nothing like his little breakdown last night, of course, but still. Dylan trusts Jun enough to seek him out and ask the question.
“A little,” Jun tells him honestly. “He said he was trying not to be. I think… I think he was hurt that we didn’t tell him, but at the end of the day, he understands why we couldn’t. And it was clear he still cares about us. I think he just needs some time. I don’t think he’ll stay angry forever. Even by the end of our conversation, he was already less upset.”
“Good,” says Dylan softly. “That’s, uh… good.”
Jun pulls his shirt over his head, then pauses and glares at Dylan for a moment, holding up his pajama pants and raising one eyebrow.
Dylan sighs and says, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” but he turns his head aside anyway, allowing Jun to drop the towel and yank the pants on as quickly as he can manage without falling over.
“Speaking of which,” Jun adds, somewhat reluctantly. It’s not a conversation he’s looking forward to having, but Dylan does deserve to know. “Thame also knows about us.”
Dylan swings his head back around and stares Jun down with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that P’Po apparently told him that you and I fucked on his couch during my bliss.”
The frown on Dylan’s face was already quite severe, but at that, it somehow gets even deeper.
“And how does P’Po know that? Didn’t you clean up the couch before you left?”
Oh. He doesn’t know? Dylan must have been truly asleep after their marathon sex when Po showed up, not just half-conscious like Jun was.
“I did, and I actually also bought him a brand new one. But P’Po came back by the apartment to grab something that morning, right when you and I were sort of… passed out together.”
Jun can see the moment that Dylan puts the puzzle pieces together, his face crinkling in confusion and then dawning horror, apparently remembering the fact that he’d fallen asleep in Jun’s lap with Jun still inside of him, too tired to even fall into a horizontal position after riding Jun to that final peak.
Dylan closes his eyes and flops backwards onto the bed. “Well, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Jun agrees automatically, although panic is suddenly rising in him at the thought that Dylan might actually be pissed. He knows that Dylan probably wanted to keep the fact of their hooking up on the down-low, just as Jun did, to make both of their lives easier. It’s not really anyone else’s business, at the very least. But if Dylan is truly embarrassed to have people know the truth, if he regrets sleeping with Jun now…
“Is that why P’Po kept looking at me funny yesterday?” Dylan asks, interrupting Jun’s spiral, and his tone sounds… exasperated, perhaps, but not truly angry. “Ugh, that’s so annoying.”
Jun swallows, feeling guilty that the secret got out, even if he hadn’t directly told anyone. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Dylan rolls onto his side and gives him a one-shouldered shrug. “As long as Nano the Shipping King doesn’t find out, we should be okay.”
Okay, he’s not pissed, then.
Still, Jun can feel Dylan’s eyes on him as he crosses the room to hang his towel up on the hook by the door, and his gaze is starting to feel panther-y again.
“Did you need something else?” Jun finally asks. “Or can I go to sleep now?”
Dylan rolls onto his back again and stretches, his eyes on the ceiling and his voice just a little too nonchalant when he says, “You could sleep… or we could do something else.”
Jun feels like the floor is falling away beneath his feet. What. The. Fuck. Is this really happening again? Is Dylan actually trying to initiate sex for a third time?
“Like what?” he manages to respond, trying to sound charming and flirty and confident instead of revealing his internal freak-out.
“Wanna fuck me again?” Dylan asks, as if it’s no big deal.
Jun thinks he might actually be dying. Dylan Zhou is in his bed, asking to be fucked, and if this isn’t a dream, then the only explanation is that Jun is dying or hallucinating or… something.
He clears his throat, struggling to bring his voice back from wherever it’s disappeared to. “You… But we… The others are home, though,” he finally gets out.
“Thame will be in the music room for another few hours at least, and obviously there’s soundproofing in there, plus he’ll probably be listening to the rough instrumentals we made earlier to try out different versions of the lyrics. Per went to stay with Gam for the night, since he won’t really be able to see her at all this coming week if we’re going to be working on this song nonstop,” Dylan says, ticking off the members on his fingers. “And Nano is already asleep, and you know how hard it is to wake him up unless you have, like, an airhorn.” He glances up at Jun, looking entirely too satisfied with himself. “Unless you think you can make me scream…”
Jun knows he’s being baited with a challenge, but it doesn’t matter, because he also knows he would say yes regardless. Somehow, impossibly, the universe keeps giving him the opportunity to sleep with Dylan, and even if it feels too good to be true, even if Jun knows it can’t last much longer, he isn’t stupid enough to turn it down.
And Dylan makes excellent points about soundproofing and Nano’s sleeping habits.
Jun sighs heavily in mock irritation, knowing that Dylan will see right through it. “I literally just got dressed.”
Dylan smiles broadly at having won, turning so that he’s lying on his stomach and propping up his chin on his fists to watch Jun with hungry, eager eyes. “I know. But that just means you can give me a show.”
Jun rolls his eyes, yanks his shirt up and off in one smooth motion, and twirls it around his finger a few times as he makes his way to the bed to meet Dylan’s waiting lips with his own.
This will probably never happen again—and the fact that it’s happening now already feels surreal—but as long as Dylan’s offering, Jun plans to make the most of it.