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Jeongin follows Felix through the bar entrance with one hand curled loosely around the strap of his cross-body bag and the other held close to his side so nobody’s bracelet catches on his. The door swings shut behind them, muting the street noise at once. Inside, everything feels warmer, lower, closer. Red light spills across dark walls covered in old flyers and sticker residue. The floor has that faint tacky pull under his Converse, half beer, half time, and the air smells like smoke clinging to clothes even though nobody’s smoking inside.
Felix looks instantly at home.
Jeongin expects nothing less. Felix can make a dentist’s waiting room look like somewhere he’s been invited to wreck. Tonight, his icy-blonde hair hangs loose around his shoulders, bright against his black jacket, freckles scattered across his face like somebody put them there with care. He slips between people with an easy little smile, one hand already reaching back to make sure Jeongin keeps up.
“You look good tonight, Innie,” Felix calls over the music, eyes sparkling.
“I didn’t do anything special,” Jeongin calls back, eyes narrowed.
Felix rolls his eyes fondly and keeps moving.
Jeongin glances down at himself despite knowing exactly what he put on before leaving his apartment. Baggy jeans, torn at one knee because he likes them that way. A washed-out yellow T-shirt, soft from wear, tucked messily at the front. His silver cross necklace rests against his collarbone, visible above the neckline, and a few silver chain bracelets sit around his wrist. Black and white Converse, scuffed at the toes.
It’s his normal style. Comfortable. Familiar.
The bar around him has no interest in normal. Everyone looks a little sharpened at the edges, boots and dark denim and metal flashing wherever the lights catch. Someone near the bar has a safety pin through the hem of his shirt. A girl by the wall wears heavy eyeliner smudged under her eyes and laughs with her whole chest. Two guys at the front of the room argue about amps like they might start swinging, though both of them keep smiling.
Jeongin isn’t scared. That surprises him less than it would’ve a year ago.
A year ago, he’d have thought about sin before stepping through the door. He’d have felt guilt blooming under his sternum before he even bought a ticket. He’d have heard his mother’s voice, his priest’s voice, his own rehearsed apologies. He’d have wondered whether liking the music counted as wanting the life attached to it, whether wanting the life counted as slipping, whether slipping counted if nobody saw.
Tonight, guilt still lives somewhere in him, old and stubborn. It has softer teeth these days. At some point, being good started to feel less like devotion and more like disappearing. Finding himself piece by piece might be what’s saving him.
He likes punk music. He likes jeans with holes in them. He likes the tongue piercing he keeps hidden behind careful speech, even though he spent the first week after getting it kneeling beside his bed every night, dizzy with shame and pride.
Felix tugs him gently toward the front. “Come on. I told Hyunjin I’d be close.”
Jeongin’s stomach shifts. “He knows I’m here?”
“I said I was bringing a friend.”
Jeongin huffs, and Felix’s smile softens for half a second, fond in a way Jeongin pretends he doesn’t see. Felix has known him since before Jeongin learned how to say no without whispering afterward. Felix is Catholic too, which used to make Jeongin trust him faster than he trusted most people. Then he found out Felix goes to Mass with a hangover sometimes, owns more mesh shirts than basic ones, and says things during confession that make priests pause too long before answering.
Somehow, that makes Jeongin trust him more.
Felix knows the shape of the cage. He’s also figured out where the hinges are.
The stage is a platform raised a little off the floor, scuffed black wood with cables snaking across it and a drum kit shoved toward the back. There’s no barrier, no polite distance. Jeongin can see the tape wrapped around one microphone stand and the chipped paint on the bass drum. A set list is taped near the edge of the platform, handwritten in thick marker.
Jeongin reads it before he thinks better of it.
He knows three songs by title. One of them makes his pulse jump.
Felix catches him looking. “See?”
“I listen to things.”
“You said you’d heard one song.”
“I said I’d heard them.”
“You said one.”
“That sounds unlike me.”
Felix laughs under his breath and bumps Jeongin’s shoulder with his own. “Liar.”
Jeongin presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, feeling the cool metal there. The barbell clicks softly against his teeth. He keeps his lips closed around it.
The house music dips. A few people cheer before anything happens, like they feel the shift before they see it. Jeongin straightens without meaning to. Felix whistles loudly beside him, fingers in his mouth, sharp enough that Jeongin flinches and then glares.
“Sorry,” Felix says, entirely pleased with himself.
The band walks out from the side, and the room tightens around the sound of them.
First comes the drummer, head lowered as he climbs behind the kit, then the bassist with a black strap slung over one shoulder. Someone else follows with a guitar, rolling his neck once like he’s already annoyed by the lights. They all look comfortable in a way Jeongin envies, like the stage belongs under their feet.
Then Hyunjin steps up behind the center microphone, and Jeongin’s thoughts go cleanly, violently quiet.
He’s beautiful.
Jeongin knows beautiful. He’s seen pretty men before. Seoul is full of them, polished and styled and lit through café windows, faces arranged for cameras, hair shaped into softness. Hyunjin’s beauty has none of that careful distance. It’s closer to heat off pavement, to a bruise under thin skin, to something caught mid-motion.
His hair is dark brown, wavy and shoulder length, layered in a fluffy wolf-cut that falls around his face, with an undercut visible when he turns his head. The bar lights catch the texture of it, messy enough to look touched, deliberate enough to make Jeongin’s fingers curl once at his side. A beauty mark sits beneath his left eye. His gaze is sharp even when he smiles, and when he does, his eyes crease into crescents that make the whole front of him change.
Jeongin forgets to blink.
Hyunjin wears a red-and-black striped sleeveless knit top fitted close to his body. A dark washed denim vest hangs half off his shoulders, patched and distressed, sliding low enough that Jeongin can see the long line of his neck and the lean cut of his arms. The moto jeans sit low on his hips, washed gray-black, faded hard across the thighs and knees, ribbed black panels bending with him as he steps closer to the mic.
Silver chains layer at his throat, one pendant hanging longer against his chest. Rings flash when he grips the mic stand. Bracelets crowd one wrist. Earrings catch the light when he tilts his head. His eyebrow piercing glints, and the vertical labret below his lower lip pulls Jeongin’s attention so fast he has to breathe through his nose to hide it.
Hyunjin taps the mic twice. The speakers pop.
“Can you hear me?” Hyunjin asks.
The crowd shouts back. Felix shouts too, loud enough to make Hyunjin’s eyes flicker toward them.
Recognition sparks across Hyunjin’s face. His smile widens.
“Felix,” he says into the mic, amused. “You actually came.”
Felix cups his hands around his mouth. “Your set better be good!”
A few people laugh. Hyunjin leans his weight onto one leg, denim slipping a little farther down one shoulder. “You brought company.”
Jeongin’s lungs forget their job.
Felix nudges him. “Yeah. Be nice.”
Hyunjin’s eyes land on Jeongin.
It lasts a second, maybe two. Long enough for Jeongin to feel seen from his pale ginger spikes down to the scuffed toes of his shoes. Long enough for Hyunjin’s gaze to pass over the yellow shirt, the cross necklace, the bracelets, the torn knee of his jeans, then return to his face with interest brightening behind his eyes.
Hyunjin’s smile turns slower.
“I’m always nice,” he says.
Felix snorts.
Jeongin should look away. The old reflex rises, tidy and obedient, telling him to lower his eyes and stop inviting trouble. He’d spent years learning the difference between temptation and action. A thought can be confessed. A want can be swallowed. Desire can live in the body as long as the hands stay clean.
He feels awkward. He feels out of place.
He also feels awake.
That’s newer.
Hyunjin turns toward the drummer and lifts two fingers. The drummer spins one stick between his knuckles. The bassist checks his tuning with a low, humming note that vibrates through the floor into Jeongin’s shoes. Around him, bodies shift closer. Felix’s shoulder presses against his.
“Ready?” Felix asks, voice lower now.
Jeongin swallows. His cross rests heavy against his chest. His purity ring sits snug on his finger. His tongue piercing touches the back of his teeth. He nods.
Onstage, Hyunjin faces the crowd again. He wraps one hand around the mic, rings shining, lips almost touching the grille.
Jeongin’s whole world narrows to that mouth, that voice, that waiting breath.
Hyunjin smiles.
The first chord tears through the bar.
Jeongin feels it in his ribs before his ears catch up, a rough, immediate crash of guitar and bass and drums that makes the floor hum under his Converse. The room surges forward by half a step. Shoulders bump his. Felix stays steady beside him, familiar enough with the crowd to move with it instead of against it.
Hyunjin doesn’t sing right away. He lets the band hit the intro first, one hand wrapped around the mic stand, the other hanging loose at his side. His head tips back as the lights sweep over him, catching the silver at his brow, his ears, the chain at his throat. The vest slips farther down one shoulder, denim hanging from the sharp line of him like it’s given up trying to stay in place.
Jeongin knows this song.
He knows it from headphones turned low in his room when he’s supposed to be grading assignments. He knows it from late-night walks with his phone in his pocket, volume pressed close to dangerous. He knows the first breath before the vocals come in.
Hyunjin leans into the mic. His voice is lower live.
Rougher, too, scraped at the edges, shaped by the bar’s cheap speakers and the wet heat of everyone packed close. The recorded version always sounded good. This sounds alive in a way that makes Jeongin’s fingers tighten around the strap of his bag.
He can’t look away.
Hyunjin moves like the music starts somewhere under his skin. He rolls one shoulder as he sings, denim sliding with it, then plants a boot near the front edge of the platform. The height difference is small enough that Jeongin can see everything too clearly: the curve of Hyunjin’s throat when he lifts his chin, the shine of sweat starting at his collarbone, the way his rings flash when his fingers flex around the mic.
The crowd shouts the next line back.
Jeongin’s mouth shapes it silently before he catches himself.
Hyunjin sees.
There’s no dramatic pause. No wink. He keeps singing, eyes moving across the crowd, but they return to Jeongin after a beat. Then again. A brief, cutting glance, direct enough that heat crawls up Jeongin’s neck.
Felix leans close, voice pitched for Jeongin alone. “You know them better than you said.”
Jeongin keeps his eyes on the stage. “I said I’d heard them.”
“Mn.”
That’s all Felix says, which somehow makes it worse.
Jeongin swallows. The barbell in his tongue shifts, a small hidden weight behind his teeth. His cross sits heavy against his chest. He wonders whether Hyunjin can see it from the stage. He wonders why the thought makes him feel caught.
The first song hits its chorus, and Hyunjin changes with it.
He grips the mic with both hands and bends into the sound, mouth almost brushing metal, eyes half-lidded beneath messy brown waves. The vest slides open with the movement. Through the low armhole of his tank, Jeongin catches a quick glimpse of silver at his nipple, there and gone as Hyunjin twists toward the guitarist.
Jeongin’s breath stutters.
He looks away too late, staring at the drum kit as if he has sudden interest in cymbal placement.
His cock twitches in his jeans.
The realization lands hot and humiliating, sharp enough to make him shift his stance. Nobody notices. Nobody cares. The whole room is moving, shouting, sweating, alive with noise. Still, Jeongin feels exposed, as if the whole bar can read him through denim and skin and the modest little circle of silver around his finger.
He presses his thumb against his purity ring. It’s a habit. A small correction. A reminder.
Hyunjin looks back at him during the next line.
Jeongin’s thumb freezes.
The second song starts with almost no space between, faster than the first, more jagged. Felix cheers, bright and pleased, and Jeongin gets pulled into the rhythm before he can organize himself. The crowd bounces. Someone behind him shouts a lyric off-key. Hyunjin laughs into the mic without breaking the song, eyes crinkling, full mouth curved around the words.
Jeongin sees why Felix likes him.
He hates that thought as soon as it comes, because it’s too clean for what’s happening inside him. Liking Hyunjin feels too small. Appreciation, attraction, admiration, desire; none of them fit neatly either. Jeongin feels like he’s standing too close to an open speaker, every part of him vibrating with sound that isn’t asking permission.
Hyunjin is funny with the crowd between songs. Loose. Loud. He teases the bassist for missing a cue, laughs when the drummer flips him off, asks if everyone has enough to drink. He speaks like he expects to be answered and gets answered every time.
Then his gaze dips back to Jeongin.
“And Felix’s friend,” Hyunjin says into the mic, smile curling around the words. “First time here?”
Jeongin’s face goes hot.
A few people near the front turn to look. Felix lifts his brows like he has no intention of rescuing him. Jeongin should nod. That would be easy. Polite.
He gives a small shrug instead.
Hyunjin laughs, delighted in a way that makes Jeongin’s stomach drop. “Quiet one.”
Felix says, “Careful,” loud enough for Hyunjin to hear.
Hyunjin’s eyes flick to Felix, amused. “With him?”
“With yourself.”
The crowd misses most of it. Jeongin hears enough to feel the meaning slide under his skin.
Hyunjin’s smile stays in place for another second. Then he turns toward the band, lifts his hand, and the next song begins.
This one is slower.
The bass comes in first, heavy and pulsing, then the drums settle into something that feels less like a march and more like a body moving in the dark. The room changes around it. People still sway and shout, but the energy thickens. Hyunjin takes his time with the first line.
Jeongin has heard this song dozens of times. In his apartment, it always made him restless. Here, with Hyunjin’s mouth wrapped around each word, it feels indecent.
He tries to focus on the lyrics. That works for half a verse.
Hyunjin steps closer to the edge of the platform. The lights cut red across his face, then white, then red again. His hair falls forward, showing the undercut when he pushes it back with one ringed hand. Sweat darkens the neckline of his tank. The vest hangs low around his elbows now, useless as clothing, perfect as a distraction.
Jeongin’s throat goes dry.
Hyunjin crouches near the front during the bridge.
The platform brings him close. Close enough that Jeongin can see the damp shine on his lower lip around the vertical labret, the tiny movement of his throat as he breathes between lines, the faint unevenness of eyeliner at the outer corner of one eye.
Jeongin stands still while everyone around him reaches up, cheers, laughs, tries to catch Hyunjin’s attention.
The next line comes quieter. He sings it downward, gaze fixed on Jeongin like the crowd has thinned into smoke. Jeongin forgets the next breath. His fingers curl around his bag strap until the seam digs into his palm.
Then Hyunjin reaches down. For a dizzy second, Jeongin thinks he’s reaching for his face. Hyunjin catches the silver cross instead.
His fingers hook the chain lightly and pull, careful enough to avoid hurting him, firm enough to make Jeongin move half an inch forward before he can stop himself. The necklace tightens against the back of his neck. The cross lifts from his chest and hangs between them, caught in Hyunjin’s ringed fingers.
Jeongin’s body betrays him so fast he almost makes a sound. His cock twitches again, harder this time, a pulse of heat low in his stomach that makes his knees feel briefly unreliable.
Hyunjin’s eyes drop, only for a second, then they return to Jeongin’s face, and his smile deepens around the next lyric.
Jeongin can’t breathe through it. He can’t move either. His cross is in Hyunjin’s hand. His purity ring presses against the strap of his bag. His tongue piercing sits hidden behind his closed teeth, metal and secret and suddenly too much.
Hyunjin releases the necklace on the next beat. The cross falls back against Jeongin’s chest, warm now from Hyunjin’s fingers.
The crowd roars around them like something has happened for everyone, though Jeongin knows better. They saw stage flirting. A pretty singer playing with a pretty boy in the front row. They saw nothing worth confessing.
Jeongin feels ruined.
Hyunjin rises smoothly, turning away before Jeongin can gather a single thought into sense. The vest slips back from one shoulder. His hair swings with him. He throws himself into the last chorus, voice rough and bright, and the room explodes with him.
Jeongin sings along this time.
The set keeps going. Song after song. Jeongin loses track of how many. His body adjusts to the volume, the heat, the press of people, until the bar starts feeling less like foreign territory and more like a place he’s been late to arrive at. His guilt stays with him, old and familiar, but it has to shout to be heard over the drums.
Hyunjin keeps finding him.
A glance during a chorus. A smile between songs. His eyes dropping once to the cross, then back up with private amusement. Each time, Jeongin feels the touch of his fingers on the chain again.
By the final song, Hyunjin’s hair is damp around his face. His vest has slipped off entirely and lies somewhere near the amp. The tank clings to his torso. When he lifts both arms to clap over his head, the armholes gape again, silver flashing at his nipples as the crowd claps with him.
Jeongin might actually fucking die.
The last chorus hits like a door kicked open. Hyunjin sings until his voice frays, grinning through it, sweat shining on his skin. The band crashes into the final note together, messy and loud and perfect.
The bar erupts.
Hyunjin steps back from the mic, chest rising hard, mouth open around a breath. He laughs at something the guitarist says, wipes his face with the inside of his wrist, and looks toward the front row again.
Toward Felix. Then Jeongin. The smile he gives him is smaller now. Less for the room.
Jeongin feels it settle somewhere dangerous.
Felix touches his elbow. “Come on.”
Jeongin blinks, sound rushing back in. “Where?”
“Back.”
Jeongin turns his head. “Back where?”
Felix gives him a look that says he’s choosing patience as a personal favor. “To see Hyunjin. I always say hi after his sets.”
Jeongin’s fingers go to his cross before he can stop them. The metal is still warm against his skin, or maybe he’s imagining that.
Felix notices. Of course he does.
His expression softens, though his voice stays casual. “You can leave if you want.”
Jeongin looks toward the side of the stage, where Hyunjin has disappeared into the narrow hall behind the platform. The old reflex rises again, polished smooth by years of use. Go home. Pray. Forget the exact shape of his mouth.
Jeongin’s thumb slides over the cross.
Then he drops his hand.
“No,” he says, and his voice comes out steadier than he feels. “I’ll go.”
Felix leads Jeongin through the narrow hall beside the platform like he owns every inch of it.
Jeongin keeps his eyes on the back of Felix’s head because it gives him somewhere safe to look. His body still hasn’t calmed down. The set sits under his skin, all heat and rhythm and Hyunjin's ringed fingers pulling the cross from his chest. He can still feel the chain tighten against the back of his neck. He can still see Hyunjin's eyes dropping, seeing too much, smiling because of it.
Felix opens a door without knocking.
Hyunjin is there already, sitting on the arm of a battered couch with his head tipped back against the wall, throat gleaming. His vest is gone. The red-and-black tank clings to him in damp patches. His hair hangs messily around his face, undercut visible on one side where he’s pushed it back. The labret piercing beneath his lower lip catches the light when his mouth curves.
He looks at Felix first, then at Jeongin, and the smile that crosses his face is lazy, exhausted, and far too aware.
“You brought him,” Hyunjin says.
Felix drops onto the folding chair and steals the open bag of chips from the table. “He has legs. He followed.”
Jeongin's face warms. He shifts his bag strap higher on his shoulder.
Chris, the drummer, is sitting on the floor with his back to the couch, wiping sweat from his buzzed hair with the hem of his shirt. He’s broader than the others, thick through the shoulders, with an expression that makes him seem bored until Felix looks at him. Then his whole face changes, small and obvious if anyone bothers to watch.
The bassist, whose name Jeongin has already forgotten from the stage introductions, is packing a pedal into a case. A feline-looking man in a leather jacket leans in the open doorway behind him, phone in hand, patient in the way people are when they already know they’re leaving together.
Hyunjin reaches for a water bottle and drinks. His throat works around each swallow. Jeongin looks away, then at the mirror, then accidentally at Hyunjin again through the reflection.
Hyunjin sees that too.
“You knew the words,” he comments.
Jeongin realizes he’s being addressed only after Felix turns toward him with raised brows.
“I listen,” Jeongin shrugs.
Hyunjin lowers the bottle. “To us?”
“To music.”
Felix laughs into the chip bag.
Hyunjin's eyes brighten. “Cute answer.”
Jeongin presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. The piercing clicks softly against his teeth. Hyunjin's gaze drops to his mouth for a fraction of a second.
Chris stands. “I’m taking a smoke.”
“You quit,” the bassist says.
“Didn’t ask, don’t care.”
Felix gets up immediately. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t smoke.”
Chris looks at him.
Felix looks back, all freckles and pretty brown eyes and no shame at all.
The bassist snorts. “Subtle.”
“Go home with your boyfriend,” Felix huffs.
The man in the doorway lifts a hand. “That’s the plan.”
Jeongin feels the room rearranging before anyone says anything direct. The bassist zips his case, gives Hyunjin a lazy wave, and leaves with his boyfriend. Chris picks up his jacket. Felix follows him out, pausing only long enough to glance at Jeongin.
It isn’t a warning. It isn’t permission either. Felix looks at him as if he knows exactly what kind of door he’s leaving open.
“Text me if you’re leaving,” Felix says.
Jeongin nods once, watching as he walks out.
Hyunjin stays on the couch arm. Jeongin stays near the door with his bag strap in one hand and his thumb resting against the side of his purity ring. The old guilt has returned in a thinner form, threaded through the heat still sitting low in his stomach. He feels the cross against his chest. He feels the piercing in his tongue. He feels his cock half-hard in his jeans from one touch to his necklace and the memory humiliates him all over again.
Hyunjin looks at him for a long moment.
Then he lifts his hand and beckons Jeongin with two fingers, “Come here.”
Jeongin goes. One step, then another, shoes sticking faintly to the floor. Hyunjin's smile changes when Jeongin stops in front of him. Softer at the edges. Hungry in the center.
“You follow directions fast,” Hyunjin hums.
Jeongin's mouth goes dry. “You said to come here.”
“I did.”
Hyunjin reaches out and hooks one finger under the silver chain at Jeongin's throat. He doesn’t tug yet. He lifts the cross with care, letting it rest against his knuckle.
“Does this mean what people think it means?”
Jeongin's pulse beats hard under the chain. “Depends who’s thinking.”
Hyunjin laughs under his breath. “You’re sharper than I thought you’d be.”
Jeongin looks at Hyunjin's hand on the cross. His rings are cool where they brush the base of Jeongin's throat. He could step back. He could make a joke. He could say Felix’s waiting, even though Felix’s absolutely getting fucked somewhere in the building by now.
Hyunjin's thumb rubs once across the front of the cross.
Jeongin's cock twitches again.
Hyunjin sees the change in his face this time. Jeongin knows he does because Hyunjin's lashes lower and his smile turns filthy.
“Oh,” Hyunjin murmurs. “That’s what that does.”
Jeongin's grip tightens around his bag strap. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Say it like that.”
“Like you got hard because I touched your little cross?”
Jeongin's breath catches. The words punch straight through him. Shame rushes in, hot and familiar, and underneath it comes another pulse of arousal so strong his knees nearly loosen.
Hyunjin watches him take it. “Yeah. Thought so.”
Jeongin's voice comes out lower. “You talk too much.”
Hyunjin's smile splits wide enough for his eyes to crinkle. “And you like it.”
Jeongin hates the way his body answers before his mouth can. His hips shift, small and helpless, denim dragging against him. Hyunjin's gaze drops again.
“Bag off,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin slides it from his shoulder and sets it on the floor.
“Closer.”
Jeongin steps between Hyunjin's knees.
Hyunjin tips his head back to look up at him. From this close, Jeongin can see the sweat at his hairline, the smudged liner beneath his eyes, the beauty mark under his left eye. He can see the faint flush in his cheeks from the set. He can smell him, clean sweat and stage heat and something sharper from the room.
Hyunjin's hand leaves the cross and touches Jeongin's waist, then his stomach through the muted yellow shirt. His palm slides over the firm line there, feeling the muscle Jeongin has built through years of discipline. Lifting, running, controlling what he eats, controlling what he does, controlling every urge until control starts looking holy.
Hyunjin's brows lift slightly. “You’re strong.”
Jeongin's ears burn. “I work out.”
“I can tell.”
The compliment makes Jeongin's stomach tighten. He wants to hear it again. The wanting must show, because Hyunjin grins.
“Pretty face, good body, ugly little guilt problem.” Hyunjin's fingers curl in the hem of Jeongin's shirt. “That sound about right?”
Jeongin should resent it. He does, maybe. A little. The rest of him leans toward the sound of it like he’s starving.
Hyunjin lifts the shirt a few inches and presses his mouth to Jeongin's stomach.
Jeongin's hand flies to the back of Hyunjin's head before he thinks. Wavy hair slides between his fingers. Hyunjin hums against his skin, pleased, and Jeongin almost apologizes. He bites it back.
Hyunjin looks up. “Keep your hand there.”
Jeongin does.
Hyunjin kisses higher, over the center of his stomach, then hooks his fingers in the chain at Jeongin's throat again and pulls him down. This time Jeongin bends with it. The cross digs lightly into Hyunjin's knuckles.
Their mouths meet.
Jeongin has kissed before. A girl once, years ago, careful and dry and miserable for both of them. Another boy once, drunk outside a club, fast enough afterward that Jeongin could pretend it had happened to someone else. This is different from the first second because Hyunjin kisses like he already knows where Jeongin's restraint lives and wants to press bruises into it.
His mouth is hot. The labret is cool against Jeongin's lower lip. Jeongin makes a sound he can’t swallow, and Hyunjin opens him with a slick push of tongue.
The piercing gives him away.
Hyunjin freezes for one breath, then pulls back only enough to look.
Jeongin's lips part around a shaky inhale. He sees the exact moment Hyunjin understands. Surprise flickers first. Then delight.
“Open,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin opens his mouth.
Hyunjin's thumb touches his lower lip. His eyes fix on the metal in Jeongin's tongue, dark and bright at once.
“Look at you,” Hyunjin whispers. “Walking in here with your cross and your ring and this in your mouth.”
Jeongin's face burns so hard it almost hurts.
Hyunjin presses his thumb against Jeongin's tongue, light enough that Jeongin could close his mouth, firm enough that he doesn’t. The barbell shifts. Spit gathers. Hyunjin watches every second.
“Pretty little sinner,” Hyunjin murmurs.
Jeongin whimpers.
Hyunjin's eyes sharpen.
The sound embarrasses Jeongin worse than any word could. He tries to pull back, and Hyunjin catches his chain again.
“Stay.”
Jeongin stays.
Hyunjin kisses him again, deeper this time, licking over the piercing, making a low sound when metal drags against his tongue. Jeongin's hands find Hyunjin's shoulders. The tank is damp under his palms. Hyunjin's body is slim, hard in the right places, heat coming off him in waves from the set.
Jeongin wants to be good at this.
The thought arrives with such force that his whole body follows it. He kisses back harder, desperate and clumsy for half a second, then better when Hyunjin groans and grips his belt loops. Hyunjin pulls him closer until Jeongin's thighs touch the couch. Jeongin's cock is hard now, trapped in his jeans, aching against the seam.
Hyunjin notices because Hyunjin notices everything. He unbuttons Jeongin's jeans with one hand.
Jeongin breathes in sharply against his mouth.
“Sensitive,” Hyunjin smiles. “That’s going to be fun.”
Jeongin's hands shake when he reaches for Hyunjin's waist. Hyunjin lets him fumble for exactly three seconds before catching his wrists.
“Easy.” Hyunjin places Jeongin's hands on his hips. “Here first.”
Jeongin grips him.
The star tattoos sit low, mostly hidden by the waistband of Hyunjin's jeans, glimpsed when his tank rides up. Jeongin's thumbs brush the ink and Hyunjin's lashes flutter. That tiny reaction does something terrible to Jeongin. It makes him braver.
“You’re beautiful,” Jeongin says, hoarse.
Hyunjin blinks, then laughs softly. For once, the sound has less performance in it. “Fuck. You say that like you’re praying.”
Jeongin's fingers flex. “Maybe I am.”
Hyunjin's smile comes back, slower and dirtier. “Then get on your knees.”
Jeongin drops before shame can catch him.
The floor is hard under his knees. Hyunjin watches him from the couch arm, mouth parted, chest rising faster. From here, Jeongin can see the way the tank hangs open at the sides. The silver at Hyunjin's nipples flashes when he shifts. Jeongin's mouth waters.
Hyunjin pulls his own shirt up enough to expose his chest. “You can look.”
Jeongin does. Then he leans forward and kisses him there, at the sternum first, tentative for a heartbeat. Hyunjin's fingers slide into his spiky pale ginger hair and tighten.
“Nipple,” Hyunjin hums.
Jeongin obeys. He closes his mouth around one pierced nipple through no fabric now, tongue dragging over metal. Hyunjin's breath breaks.
“Shit,” Hyunjin whispers. “Good boy.”
Jeongin moans.
The praise hits worse than the degradation. Better. Both. He sucks harder, tongue piercing clicking against Hyunjin's nipple ring, and Hyunjin's hips jerk forward. Jeongin feels the shape of him through denim, hard against his chest.
“Dirty mouth.” Hyunjin’s fingers pull at Jeongin's hair. “Wonder if you know what to do with it.”
Jeongin pulls off to look up at him. “Tell me what you want.”
Hyunjin's smile trembles at the edge. “You want instructions?”
Jeongin nods before he can pretend otherwise.
Hyunjin slides down from the couch arm onto the couch cushion, legs spread. “Then take my jeans off.”
Jeongin's hands move fast. Button, zipper, waistband dragged down over lean hips. Hyunjin lifts himself enough to help, graceful even here, and Jeongin works the denim down his thighs. The star tattoos reveal themselves fully, black ink over pale skin, sitting low on both hips like they’re pointing somewhere Jeongin's trying very hard to earn.
Hyunjin's cock springs free, hard and flushed.
Jeongin stares.
Hyunjin laughs, breathless. “You like?”
Jeongin swallows. “You’re...”
“Careful.” Hyunjin's hand strokes once over himself. “Compliments make me mean.”
Jeongin's gaze lifts to his face. “You’re gorgeous.”
Hyunjin's expression flickers. Then his grip tightens in Jeongin's hair and he pulls him closer. “Mouth.”
Jeongin goes willingly.
The first taste of him makes Jeongin's eyes shut. Hyunjin curses above him, low and pleased, one hand in Jeongin's hair, the other braced on the couch. Jeongin tries to be good. He tries to listen to every sound Hyunjin makes, every tightening of fingers, every hitch in breath. The tongue piercing earns him a sharp moan when it drags under the head, and Jeongin repeats the motion because Hyunjin's reaction feels like instruction.
“Fuck,” Hyunjin groans, voice rough. “That’s it. Knew there was a slut under all that church-boy shit.”
Jeongin moans around him.
Hyunjin's thighs tense.
“Yeah, you like that. I felt it.” Hyunjin's laugh breaks into a groan when Jeongin takes him deeper. “I knew you would. Pretty ring on your finger, piercing in your tongue, down on your knees after one set. You’re so easy.”
Jeongin's cock leaks into his briefs. He can feel the wetness, the aching pressure, the humiliation of how true it sounds when Hyunjin says it. His hand drifts toward his own jeans.
Hyunjin catches his wrist.
“No.”
Jeongin whines.
Hyunjin pulls him off by his hair. Jeongin gasps, mouth wet, lips swollen. Hyunjin looks wrecked in a way that makes Jeongin dizzy, chest flushed, nipple piercings shining, hair falling around his face.
“Couch,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin rises too quickly and nearly stumbles. Hyunjin laughs, then pulls him down by the chain and kisses him, tasting himself on Jeongin's tongue. It’s filthy. Jeongin's entire body shudders.
Hyunjin pushes him back onto the couch.
Jeongin lands seated, breathless. Hyunjin climbs into his lap with no hesitation, knees on either side of Jeongin's thighs. The heat of him settles over Jeongin's cock and Jeongin's head tips back against the cushion.
“Please,” Jeongin says.
Hyunjin grinds down once, slow and cruel. “Please what?”
Jeongin's hips buck despite himself. “Anything.”
That pleases Hyunjin. Jeongin feels it in the way Hyunjin's hands slide up his chest, over his shoulders, into his hair.
“Pathetic,” Hyunjin says softly. “You’re built like you could throw me around, and you’re begging before I even touch your cock.”
Jeongin's eyes flutter. “I want to be good.”
Hyunjin goes still.
For one second, the room changes again.
Then Hyunjin kisses him hard enough to bruise.
Jeongin clutches his hips. Hyunjin grinds down again, denim against denim at first, then his hand works Jeongin's jeans lower. Jeongin helps, shoving them and his briefs down enough to free himself. The air hits his cock and he groans, embarrassed by the sound until Hyunjin looks down and swears.
“Well,” Hyunjin says. “God gave you something.”
Jeongin chokes on a laugh that turns into a whimper when Hyunjin wraps a hand around him.
Hyunjin's palm is warm, slick only with Jeongin's own wetness at first, dragging slowly from base to tip. Jeongin's hips jerk up into it. He tries to stop. Hyunjin's weight pins him down enough to make him feel held.
“You’re leaking all over me,” Hyunjin murmurs. “From a kiss and a few insults.”
Jeongin's head tips forward. “Hyunjin.”
“I know.”
Hyunjin reaches behind him without getting off Jeongin's lap, grabs his own backpack from the floor by one strap, and drags it closer. He unzips the front pocket with the ease of someone who knows exactly where everything is. The lube bottle appears in his hand.
Jeongin's stomach drops and rises at once.
Hyunjin sees his face and grins. “I’m prepared.”
Jeongin's voice cracks. “You brought that to your own show?”
“I bring a lot of things to my own shows.”
Jeongin groans, half shame, half desire.
Hyunjin coats his fingers first, unhurried. He shifts higher on Jeongin's lap and reaches behind himself. Jeongin can’t see everything from this angle, which somehow makes it worse. He can see Hyunjin's face, though. The way his mouth parts. The way his brows draw together. The way he keeps eye contact while his hand moves behind him.
Jeongin's hands hover uselessly at Hyunjin's hips.
Hyunjin catches one and puts it on his waist. “Hold me.”
Jeongin holds him. Carefully, then tighter when Hyunjin sinks lower against his lap and breathes out through his nose. His body is warm everywhere, thighs firm against Jeongin's, cock hard between them, nipples pierced and flushed from Jeongin's mouth.
The first slick press of Hyunjin's hole against Jeongin's cock makes Jeongin's vision blur.
Hyunjin has prepared himself enough to make the first slide possible, though it still takes patience. He grips Jeongin's shoulders and lowers himself inch by inch, chin tucked, mouth open. Jeongin goes rigid under him, every muscle locked.
“Fuck,” Hyunjin breathes. “You’re big.”
Jeongin makes a strangled sound. “Sorry.”
Hyunjin laughs, shaky and mean. “Don’t you dare apologize for that.”
Jeongin nods fast, helpless.
Hyunjin sinks lower. Jeongin feels every second of it, slick heat taking him, tight enough to empty his head. He grips Hyunjin's waist and tries to breathe. Tries to stay still. Tries to be good.
Hyunjin bottoms out with a low moan, sitting fully in his lap, arms around Jeongin's shoulders.
Jeongin can’t move. He’s terrified that if he does, he’ll come too fast, spill inside him before he’s earned anything. His purity ring presses into Hyunjin's skin where he holds him. The cross rests crooked against his chest.
Hyunjin lifts his head. His eyes are dark, wet at the edges with pleasure. “Look at you.”
Jeongin whimpers.
“Inside me with that ring on.” Hyunjin rolls his hips once, and Jeongin's mouth falls open. “You’re filthy.”
Jeongin's hands tighten on him. “Please.”
Hyunjin rides him slowly at first.
Every rise and drop is measured, controlled by Hyunjin's thighs and hips, by the hands gripping Jeongin's shoulders. Jeongin watches him because he can’t do anything else. His cock bobs between them, flushed and wet at the tip. His nipple piercings catch the light when he arches, and Jeongin leans forward on instinct, mouthing at his chest again.
Hyunjin's rhythm falters.
“There,” Jeongin breathes against his skin. “You like that.”
Hyunjin laughs, though it comes out thin. “Listen to you.”
Jeongin sucks his nipple, then licks across the piercing with the metal in his tongue. Hyunjin's body clenches around him so hard Jeongin nearly comes.
He sobs into Hyunjin's chest. “I can’t.”
“You can.” Hyunjin grips his hair and pulls his head back. “You’re going to sit there and let me use your cock until I’m done.”
Jeongin's eyes roll half-shut and he nods jerkily. “Okay.”
“Good.”
Hyunjin rides harder.
The couch creaks under them. The dressing room fills with wet sounds, ragged breathing, the muffled thud of music from the bar. Jeongin's body wants to thrust up. He keeps trying to hold still because Hyunjin told him to. His thighs tremble with the effort. Sweat gathers at his back under the yellow shirt. His jeans are shoved down around his hips, his cock buried raw and bare inside the prettiest man he’s ever seen, and the cross bounces lightly against his chest with every movement.
The thought should split him open with guilt. It does, a little.
Then Hyunjin moans his name.
“Jeongin.”
Jeongin thrusts up once by accident.
Hyunjin's whole body jolts. His mouth opens, no sound at first, then a broken curse.
Jeongin freezes. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Hyunjin grabs his jaw. “Do that again.”
Jeongin blinks at him.
Hyunjin's smile is gone now, replaced by something hotter, less controlled. “Again.”
Jeongin obeys. He thrusts up, careful and deep, and Hyunjin drops his forehead against Jeongin's. The sound he makes goes straight through Jeongin's spine.
“Good,” Hyunjin pants. “There. Fuck, there. See? You can do something right with that pretty cock.”
Jeongin whines. “Thank you.”
Hyunjin laughs, breathless and mean. “You’re thanking me?”
Jeongin's face burns. “Yes.”
“Jesus, you’re pathetic.”
Jeongin's cock pulses inside him.
Hyunjin feels it. “Of course you’d like that.”
Jeongin nods, unable to stop.
Hyunjin's hand slides to Jeongin's throat, fingers curling around the sides with light pressure. Jeongin's eyes roll back. The pressure anchors him. Hyunjin's weight on his lap, Hyunjin's tight heat around him, Hyunjin's hand at his throat, the cross trapped between their chests.
“Look at me,” Hyunjin demands.
Jeongin looks.
Hyunjin's eyes are dark and bright. “You’re gonna fuck me properly now.”
Jeongin's breath catches.
Hyunjin leans closer, lips brushing Jeongin's ear. “I’m tired.”
The words are casual. The meaning isn’t.
Jeongin's hands tighten on his hips. “Okay.”
Hyunjin climbs off him with a shaky little hiss that makes Jeongin feel almost proud. Then he turns, bracing himself against the couch arm, knees on the cushion, back arched. He looks over his shoulder, hair falling across one flushed cheek.
Jeongin stares.
Hyunjin smiles. “Are you praying again?”
Jeongin shakes his head.
“Good.” Hyunjin lowers his chest toward the couch, ass raised, one hand reaching back to spread himself. “Come on, church boy. Show me what all that repression’s been doing for you.”
Jeongin moves behind him.
He lines up with trembling hands. The sight of Hyunjin like this, open and slick and waiting on the dressing room couch, almost breaks him again. He pushes in slowly because he can’t help it, because the first slide makes both of them groan, because he needs to feel every second of being allowed.
Hyunjin pushes back onto him. “Fuck me.”
Jeongin does.
The first few thrusts are uneven. Too careful, then too hard, then careful again. Hyunjin curses into the couch cushion and reaches back blindly until Jeongin catches his wrist and pins it against Hyunjin's lower back.
Hyunjin goes still for one breath.
Jeongin realizes what he’s done and nearly lets go.
Hyunjin's voice comes out rough. “Keep it there.”
Jeongin keeps it there.
Something opens in him then. His submission stays intact, hot and aching, tied to the need to please Hyunjin, to follow him, to be called good. Under it, his body finds rhythm. Strength. Confidence built from Hyunjin's sounds and the way Hyunjin pushes back for more.
Jeongin fucks him harder.
Hyunjin's mouth falls open against the cushion. “Fuck. There. That’s it.”
Jeongin whimpers at the degradation and drives in deeper. “Fuck. Fuck, you feel so good.”
“I know, baby.”
The couch knocks against the wall. Once. Twice. The sound punches through the room with every thrust. Jeongin grips Hyunjin's pinned wrist with one hand and Hyunjin's hip with the other, fingers digging into lean muscle. His thighs work behind him, steady and strong, and sweat gathers at the back of his neck.
Hyunjin turns his face enough to gasp, “Pull my hair.”
Jeongin's hand leaves his hip and slides into Hyunjin's damp hair. He gathers a fistful near the roots and pulls.
Hyunjin moans so loudly Jeongin nearly comes from that alone.
“Harder,” Hyunjin snaps.
Jeongin pulls harder, dragging Hyunjin's head back enough to bare his throat. Hyunjin's eyes are wet and wild, mouth swollen, labret glinting. Jeongin bends over him and kisses the side of his neck, still fucking him, still holding him pinned.
“You’re so beautiful,” Jeongin says, voice breaking. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Hyunjin laughs, ruined and shaky. “You’re saying that while you’re fucking me like this?”
“I mean it.”
“Yeah, I know you do.” Hyunjin's voice catches on a thrust. “That’s what’s wrong with you.”
Jeongin groans.
Hyunjin's free hand reaches between his own legs. Jeongin sees the motion and loses another piece of himself. He releases Hyunjin's wrist to slide his hand around Hyunjin's throat from behind, light pressure at the sides, exactly where Hyunjin had touched him. Hyunjin's whole body clenches.
Jeongin gasps.
“Fuck, fuck,” Hyunjin chokes out, delighted and wrecked. “You learn fast.”
“I wanna make you come.”
“Then do it.”
Jeongin tightens his grip in Hyunjin's hair and keeps his other hand at Hyunjin's throat. He fucks him with everything Hyunjin has dragged out of him: the guilt, the hunger, the years spent wanting quietly, the discipline that turns frantic need into motion. Hyunjin jerks himself in time with it, hips rocking back, sounds getting higher and less controlled.
“Good boy,” Hyunjin gasps. “Fuck, you’re being so good. Making a mess of me like you were made for it.”
Jeongin's vision blurs.
“Hyunjin, I’m close.”
Hyunjin twists enough to look back at him. His eyes are half-lidded, mouth open, face flushed and obscene. “Inside.”
Jeongin's breath stutters.
Hyunjin's smile is pure filth. “You’re gonna come inside me like a good little sinner and think about it every time you touch that ring.”
Jeongin breaks.
He comes with a strangled sound, hips driving deep, body locking over Hyunjin's as heat tears through him. His hand tightens in Hyunjin's hair, the other loosening at his throat as he trembles through it. Hyunjin swears, strokes himself hard, and follows a few thrusts later, spilling over his own hand and the couch cushion with a shaking moan that turns into Jeongin's name.
For a while, neither of them moves.
Jeongin's forehead rests against Hyunjin's shoulder blade. He’s still inside him, softening slowly, heartbeat hammering so hard he feels it through his chest. His cross hangs forward, brushing Hyunjin's back. His purity ring gleams on the hand still curled near Hyunjin's hip.
The dressing room smells like sweat, sex, lube, old fabric, and the faint metallic bite of the bar outside.
Hyunjin exhales first, a ragged little laugh. “Fuck.”
Jeongin closes his eyes. “Yeah.”
Hyunjin turns his head enough to look at him. His smile is tired now, crescent-eyed and devastating. “You’re dangerous.”
Jeongin huffs, breathless. “I’m really not.”
Hyunjin's expression shifts, amused and soft around the edges. “Don’t start lying after all that.”
Jeongin's face warms. He slips out carefully, and Hyunjin hisses through his teeth before collapsing onto the couch with theatrical exhaustion. Jeongin grabs tissues from the table because he needs something to do with his hands, and Hyunjin lets him clean what he can, watching him with that same sharp, delighted attention.
When Jeongin reaches for his jeans, Hyunjin catches his wrist.
“Come back next week,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin looks at him.
Hyunjin's thumb strokes over the purity ring. “Wear the cross.” His smile turns filthy again. “And the ring.”
Jeongin nods dumbly.
From somewhere beyond the door, Felix laughs, bright and wrecked, followed by Chris telling him to shut up.
Hyunjin rolls his eyes. “They’re alive.”
Jeongin laughs before he can stop himself. It comes out shaky, too open, and Hyunjin looks pleased by it.
Then Hyunjin tugs him down by the necklace, gentler this time, and kisses him one more time.