Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a burnt kind of afternoon.

The trees sway in a low susurrus, the roads, dry and hot, lay flattened to a pulp by tires. The swarm of bikers has already settled. Many bars are overflowing with guests —sweat mixes with food, bartenders get sore biceps from the onslaught of beer, scooping more and more of it into their arms. It’s a sudden Octoberfest in the Appalachia. The owner of the bar stands to the side to fix the music. He settles on old rock. It’s fitting, most people who visit the place align the closest with music from the eighties and nineties. Minho himself prefers softer metal over rock, bands like Pantera or Metallica match his vibe. However, Twisted Sister is also good. He finds himself enjoying the atmosphere, it’s very familiar to him, he doubts anything here could catch him off-guard.  

Minho’s face swims in the reflection of his beer, it quivers a little from the intensity of radio-chewed electric guitar. He looks like he always does: five o’clock shadow above his lip, stern eyebrows, slightly tired. His eyebrow piecing glints under the light. He hides his phone beneath the table, elbow balanced on one knee — all to obscure the screen from his drinking buddies. Sue him, he doesn’t feel too-social at the moment. He’s got a dating app open and doesn’t want anyone looking in on his gay business. An offensive white crack of the screen runs right over the head of the guy he’s trying to assess; he doesn’t really care for his physique as on the picture he seems a tad too skinny, and despite sunken stomachs not rating high on his attraction scale, Minho swipes right either way, hoping that he at least sports a cute face. 

It has been a little over two weeks since he had last slept with someone, way too long of a celibacy streak for a guy like himself — one who really does enjoy sex. He grows bored of life very, very fast. He has a stable job, stable friend group, he doesn’t need much to keep himself busy. Although, when things get a little too repetitive he’ll hop on his bike and leave to meet someone off Grindr to satisfy the urge. Cheap, lazy rushes. At times he rushes a bit too much, ignoring a red light and the speed limit, getting in little, petty trouble with the police. 

He’s not a rule breaker by choice — he’s a rule breaker by circumstance. Avoidable things get in front of him way too often: road pits, house bills, grocery prices, freshly washed floors which still shine with the greenish residue of soap, twisted ankles from slipping on said wet floors, threats in spanish after he falls and crashes isles of produce with his heavy weight, cursed, green, soap sizzling on his shoe soles. 

Things never quite go his way. 

His phone buzzes with a match from the same guy he had just hovered over and Minho sighs deeply, closing the in an instant. He doesn’t want to talk to him. He quickly imagines the exchange, the setting up of meeting times, the eventual burden of pushing his new hookup onto the bed and prepping him for his length. He imagines again the fast, rough orgasm and how it would hit him, and how he would wish it would’ve hit him harder. 

He doesn’t want to top again. 

Another whack of the entrance door opening steals Minho’s attention, and he turns to briefly greet whoever has come in with his eyes. He knows most people who frequent the place, or at least is acquainted. This guy however seems like someone new, the appearance of the man pulling off his coat at the racks is what keeps him looking. 

He’s a little underwhelming with his clothes. Eighties business casual. Browns and beiges. Minho doubts he arrived on a bike even, judging by the clean state of his pants and the neat hair, brown and wavy, undisturbed by neither wind nor helmet. The zig-zag pattern knitted into the fabric of his sweater, which parts in a V-neck at his chest, keeps Minho entertained as he observes how the man awkwardly pads through the smelly hoard of bikers and nests on a bar-stool, waving to catch the attention of one of the waiters.  

Minho thinks he’s grabbing attention by attempting to avoid it. Everything surrounding him is angry colored, the man in the brown sweater shrinks amongst the multitude of leather and grease. He seems unaffected. There’s a single golden earring dangling from his left ear and Minho finds it intriguing, perhaps a hint at his inner rebellion, or a nod at his sexuality. He’s orders a burger. A large, overflowing burger, one with buns bigger than your average jaw’s stretch. When he cuts it with a knife and fork Minho’s lips stretch to a smirk. 

Yeah, treating bar-food like fine dining is kind of weird. 

There’s something incredibly charming about watching him apply upper-class table manners to a double stacked hamburger, padding sauce off his lips with a carefully folded napkin. He safely zones out from the conversation his drinking buddies pass around. Maybe he should approach? What are the chances the guy is gay after all… but the earring is there and Minho is hopeful. He’s pretty too. Cute, even.

Ah, fuck it. 

Minho doesn’t stumble when he stands up from his seat, nor when he plants himself onto the barstool next to the stranger’s — eyes sharp, flirtatious, passing a tongue over his dry lips to make them look a little pinker. He ignores the way his heart is beating inside his chest, treacherous, giving him away so silently. Yet, if the music in this ratty bar were to be just a bit lower, he’s convinced that anyone around him would hear it beating. It’s unnerving just the slightest bit, enough to put him on edge. He’s not usually this antsy around men.

Now, from this distance, Minho takes the selfish liberty of noticing the details — the straight slope of the man’s nose, rounded to a button at the tip, his long, manicured fingers wrapped around the beer glass, the way his large, dark eyes seemed almost animated under the bar’s low-quality lights. His neck is slim and Adam’s apple pronounced, a vein protruding slightly from beneath his skin that disappears, teasingly, under his shirt. His hair is a windswept auburn, parting to reveal the oval of his face, acorn both in shape and shade. His strong, elegantly masculine cologne enters Minho’s nose and doesn’t leave. 

The man spares him a single glance, but it’s enough, it’s more than enough. Minho is nothing if not observant; he doesn’t miss the way the guy’s eyes discretely shift from Minho’s face to sweep over his body. The handsome stranger isn’t as subtle as he thinks. 

“One more,” Minho calls to the bartender, putting his glass down with a thud. “And one more for my friend, here.”

He sees the stranger’s lips curl upwards. It’s similar to the way his hair curls at his nape, overgrown, untidy, and Minho’s fingers itch to touch it and sort through the tangles. 

“Some time ago, people used to say ‘hello’,” the man teases after a throaty swallow of his bite. 

Minho smiles. “Hello.”

The stranger takes a napkin and pats the corners of his mouth, again. Polite, mannered. There’s nothing there, his face is clean, but Minho still wants to reach out and pretend it’s not — wants his thumb to trace over the shape of the other’s lips. Damn, he’s really desperate, isn’t he? 

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

The other chuckles. The sound of it is deep, it reverberates inside Minho’s chest, makes him feel strangely fuzzy. “How could you tell?”

“You’re too prim and proper. I like that. Clean boys, I mean.”

“Those bikes out front... is one of them yours?” he asks, lips pursed. Minho finds that intriguing, a bit enticing. The guy is clearly going along with Minho’s raunchy attempt at flirting, even if he’s expertly dodging questions.

“How could you tell?” he raises his pierced brow.

When the stranger looks at him again, it’s provocative and lewd; he keeps his lips trapped under the overbite of his teeth, eyes intense in the way they trickle over his muscle. His gaze stays on Minho’s buff chest, then his stomach, then the way his thighs are spread on the barstool: obscenely so. It takes willpower for Minho not to slam his legs shut. And, well, he’s never felt like that before. 

“Look at you,” the other murmurs. “You’re a walking stereotype.”

Minho props his elbow on the bar stand. Unconsciously, his hips shift him to the edge of his stool. The guy’s body radiates magnetic energy, there’s a not so subtle need to get closer. 

“I sense a bit of judgement.”

A shake of the head. A smile. Minho watches, hawk-eyed, as the man sips some foam off his beer. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows — tongue tracing up the soft mustache it has set above his upper lip. 

“I like it,” he muses, “but I’m not as easy as you think.”

With a tilt of his head, Minho lets his friends behind know that he’s anchored his grip. Hook line and sinker — this boy will be the cause of his next orgasm. It sits at the tip of his tongue: the reassurance that Minho approached him just because he didn’t seem so easy. Air around them thickens, warms, condenses into sweat right beneath the collar of his leather jacket. He picks at the skin of his thumb with a nail — this is a game of chess.

 “I’m not saying you are,” Minho responds. “You just stick out. People don’t really sit in a biker bar and eat a burger with a knife and a fork.”

It’s a tense few seconds before the stranger speaks again. 

“No offense,” he begins, with a sudden seriousness. Minho’s blood curdles for a painful second. “But I just don’t think I can give you what you need.”

Minho fights down the urge to scoff. “And what do I need?”

“A pretty boy to lie under you. Someone you can quickly fuck and leave. Want me to call you Daddy too, right?”

And, Minho knows how familiar it is to betray himself. He knows the art of self-sabotaging, the need swimming in his gut, overpowering everything else — his reason, the fact he shouldn’t say things without thinking, not now. 

Yet, he shakes his head.

“No?” the stranger asks, blinking in confusion. 

“No,” Minho says. “That’s not what I need.”

His eyes flash under their red-neon, amber glitter in that split second of mutual recognition. As if he understands. Minho prays he does. There’s a warm hand suddenly enveloping his, the man finds his eyes. Minho laps at his eagerness like cream in a saucer. His touch proves itself electric. 

“I misread you,” he says. “And I think you misread me.”

Minho’s spit curdles under his tongue. His throat constricts. “Yes. Yes, I think so too.”

He thinks he feels a fingertip massage into his rough knuckle — soft, perhaps smelling of antiseptic. 

“I’m Jisung.”

“Minho.”

“Oh,” Jisung laughs, “You’re Korean too?”

Minho hadn’t even realized — too preoccupied with building flirtatious remarks in his mind. “I’m… half-Korean, yeah.”

“I’m staying at that nearby motel,” Jisung nods to the left, a brown curl bounces off his nose as he grins, talking into the intimate space between their faces. But as Minho shuffles forwards, he backs away again. He plays a dirty game. He’s such a tease, it hurts.

 “You can join… If you want to spend some time with me.”

At first, Minho’s ego refuses him to act so eager. He’s not. He’s definitely not. Not even when he begins to imagine how smooth the glide of his jeans would feel over Jisung’s khakis. How he’d moan with Jisung’s slim thigh pushed under Minho’s crotch. He pulls an easy smile — an act, ‘keep in mind I remain older’— and it crashes, doesn’t work. Jisung sees right through his tough exterior. Can persevere through the spikes on his coat. 

“I’d love to,” he says and Jisung clicks his tongue. He pulls out his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, and leaves enough money to pay for both Jisung and himself. 

When they’re out of the bar, the air of a setting autumn sun meets the two men with a gentle breeze. Jisung points at a large orange sign spelling out the Rouge Bull Motel — a name raunchy and fitting for their anticipated night. Minho traces its swervy, coil-y lettering with his eyes, noticing how the ‘o’ in ‘Motel’ buzzes with a wink, LED lights inside it evidently nearing their expiration date. 

The ascent up to the third floor of the motel is slow, a rhythmic thump of footsteps raising echo in the empty spiral of the staircase. Despite the promise of sex, neither are in a flurry of chase and savageness. Jisung has his rusty golden keys swinging on his finger, he stops at the cheap brown door with woody scabs on it and sighs. His face is fat and sideways in the swirl of the janky room-number ‘36’. 

He seems slightly nervous and Minho wonders why; but before he can begin to second guess the lock clicks and a gust of roomy-gutty air puffs out before him. Jisung grabs his wrist and they dive in. 

“Someone seems eager-“

Minho’s back hits a wall. 

They’re face to face in the semi dark — window across the room is blaring siren-orange. The sun has fallen somewhere behind the zigzag of pines. If Minho closes his eyes he can hear the chant of silence and refrigerator humming. He wants to say something but Jisung’s thumb is pressing into the dimple on his chin and he swallows down the beginning tease. 

“Hush.”

A beat passes and they’re kissing. Teeth clack awkwardly, stubble burns stubble. Minho breathes in his scent and it’s beer on beer, cologne on sweat. Minho’s hands are grabby and prying. He’s pulling at Jisung’s hair — fingers curdling the maroon softness of his curls and clawing through them like he’s searching for lice. Jisung is much tamer. He has one forearm on the wall to cage Minho in and another grasping the firmness of his asscheek. Modestly, somehow. It’s a grounding squeeze compared to Minho’s messy working of his scalp and baby hairs at the base of his nape. 

Jisung suddenly parts them, a string of saliva webbing in between before it snaps. It’s hot, he’s hot, breathing burns. 

Jisung wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, there’s spit glistening on his pink knuckles. “I’ll be back in the blink of an eye, ‘kay?” he murmurs against Minho’s cheek and gives him a peck and quick squeeze of his butt. 

When Jisung disappears into the bathroom, Minho takes it as a moment to calm the shy beating of his heart. A vulgar jealousy towards Jisung’s confidence corrodes somewhere beneath his fingernails and he uses the buzzed anxiety to tear off the dead skin on his thumb. He has navigated unfamiliar beds with both ease and displeasure when he was aware of his position, or rather, anticipated position as the one who takes charge. Now, finally, when he’s offered the ability to bend beneath someone else, he stalls, he hesitates. He misses the moment Jisung is out of the bathroom by sitting on the edge of the bed and inspecting his hands lacking manicure. 

Jisung’s out with wet hands and slightly wet swept back hair, a grin tugging Minho’s way when he approaches. He meets Minho’s eyes and Minho blinks away the moment of hesitation. He guesses the purse of his lips has been picked up on when Jisung sighs and gently turns Minho’s chin upwards. “Nervous much?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“Hmmm,” Jisung hums distantly, he motions for Minho to stand up and drags the bed covers off, letting the green fabric fall on the floor. One of his hands crawls back on Minho’s waist and turns them face to face: they’re standing close enough for Minho to need to look up slightly to meet Jisng’s eyes. “You’re okay with kinky sex?” 

“That’s what I want from you,” Minho challenges, biting his lower lip and chewing on it lightly. 

“Even if I tie you up or hit you?” 

The skin on Minho’s scalp tightens from the crass words. “I dare you to.” 

The dare triggers a shot. 

Jisung pulls him in by the waist and traces one of the prominent veins on his neck with the tip of his nose, a dog following its trail until he snarls — Bull’s eye. He bites into the soft skin under his ear, and licks. From the damp pressure, Minho’s groin tightens with immeasurable heat. 

It was a sledgehammer taken to the crack of the nut: He unshells in an instant. Thrown, the leather jacket scrapes the floor with its metallic jewels, his white tank is shamefully stained. Minho heaves. He reaches down to the hem of the fabric and is about to peel it off when he notices how Jisung’s eye has found a cleft on his right arm. His mouth is slack in an effeminate pout, bottom lip jutted out with a sweet crevice between it — he wolf-whistles. 

“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” Jisung notes, one hand caressing the soft slope of his hip. “They’re colorful.” 

Minho’s chin leads the way, he’s staring down at his sleeve. It’s american-traditional, awfully popular amongst bikers here, especially Millennials. When Jisung theatrically raises a brow and licks the row of his front teeth, he feels a slight heat bake the tips of his ears. “I figured they’d be a given… given the– you know. Me.” 

“Every biker has tattoos?” 

Minho shrugs. “Most of us do.” 

Their crotches are teasingly close, shoes touching. Minho’s heavy, nasty combats are timidly kissing the tip of Jisung’s brown loafers. The sweet contrast of their skin tones melts at their junctures: Jisung’s tawny ochre on Minho’s multitude of pinks. At the cusp of summer, an uneven sun-burnt pattern clung to his skin like burrs. The pad of Jisung’s finger rises to misshape the work on his shoulder — pulling at the snout of the lynx. She’s pestrant like a peacock. Minho got her in his early twenties; a branding, a thick smudge of character, reinstating what’s his — his agency. There’s a story behind her, like there often are under the pebble of a tattoo, wriggling larva. Something philosophical. Jisung’s nail slides downwards and finds his target in a nude femme embraced by a tiger. This one pulls a deep chuckle out of him. The pad of his finger lays over her naked breast and something about the pressure strikes Minho as incomprehensibly erotic. 

He no longer has the patience to let Jisung trace over his tattoos. He cups his cheek, turning Jisung’s face towards his mouth. They’re about to kiss and Minho catches himself longing. The desire for sex licks up between his cheeks and he tightens involuntarily. 

“Jisungie,” he begins, but Jisung’s thumb pressing over his tongue cuts off his speech. 

“I know, angel,” he says. “Let me rock your world.” 

Jisung works fast on his clothes — his wife beater drops to the floor. Minho’s legs hit the bed and he sits, sinking into the mattress, coils toughening beneath his weight with a quiet squeak. Jisung’s hands burn on his chest, he slowly lifts his fingers off the heated skin and lets his eyes trace the naked torso before him. With their heartbeats accelerating, the room begins to gain a pinkish tint of sex-anticipation. Jisung’s dark eyes run down his navel and back up — Minho has his breath caught in his throat. 

“Heart?” he quietly asks, nails grazing over the black shape above his right pec — a tattoo large and anatomically correct. He presses his warm palm onto it. Minho hums and the ink thrums with the true organ beneath it. 

“I like it...” 

Minho feels dizzy. His soft chest, his small nipples — one pierced, one with a nubby scar from a past piercing — have stiffened just slightly. His tummy is rounded where it sits in the pouch of his unbuttoned jeans. Jisung can spot the dark tuft of hair beginning at his belly button and trickling downwards, where it hides beneath the stretchy waistband of his red underwear. He’s soft all over, muscles well hidden beneath his relaxed build, armpits unshaven, privates unwaxed. 

There’s some unspoken insecurity raising the thin hairs on his arms, awareness over his physique tightens the skin on his scalp with quick worry. He’s long past the daily work-outs, just as he is long past people shaming him for his body, yet this is Jisung and his opinion somehow matters. 

“So?” he asks, unable to keep his tongue glued to his teeth. 

Jisung smiles lewdly, teasingly.“You’re hot. Or are you asking me to give you a grade?” His hands find Minho’s knees and he pushes them apart, coming to stand between his thighs, crotch-to-crotch.

“I’m no male underwear model.” 

“Shame… they’re missing out.” And then Jisung reaches to the last, few, teasing, buttons of his shirt and quickly pushes them through, flexing his shoulders as he sheds the fabric off his tan body. He’s lean, slimmer, with a soft, lazy definition to his abs, a whisper of earned strength resting beneath the skin of his stomach. His chest is full, his ribs look healthily-ill-defined.

He carefully leans forth, pushing Minho’s chest with his knuckles and letting him fall backwards onto the bed, now fully beneath him, black hair splattered on off-white foam. 

Minho feels his heartbeat accelerate. 

They’re going slow, it’s like Jisung wants to drag out the strip-tease, undress him bit by bit, savor the reveal of his pallid skin. He raises his hands to Jisung’s hips, but the moment his thumbs come in collision with the pant material at his hip bones, he feels a sharp slap on his wrist. 

Minho pulls them back, a meek gasp leaving his lips. 

Jisung’s eyes remain playful, though now gleam curiously with sternness. “Who told you that you could touch me?” he speaks, and his voice is novel; there’s a commanding, peppery raspiness to it. “I thought you knew that I was the one to set the rules.” He tsks his tongue at Minho in disapproval, such a trivial action, but the small sound sparks a virgin flame in Minho’s chest. His dick chubs in his underwear — he feels a dull ache to submit. 

“We’re gonna do this my way…” Jisung begins, he flips open his belt and it ramps out of his khakis like a thick, leathery snake. The silver buckle flashes before his eyes, then falls clattering onto the floor. 

His pants begin to slide down his hips. “But. I’m giving you an out. Always. We’ve talked a little of what’s possible when you’re beneath me,” he pauses briefly, “A lot. I won’t spin your compass too much this time around, but enough to have you really remember me. Are we on the same page, Angel?” 

Minho nods. He thinks they are, he even wishes they’re slightly not, that Jisung is one page ahead. 

“Good.” In Jisung’s left hand, his tie appears. He steps out of his pants, knees around Minho’s thighs on the bed and shuffles forth, almost straddling him. “Put those hands up to the headboard for me, okay?” he says, but it’s different. His eyes are pushy, his voice authoritative. 

Minho slowly raises his arms up: they’re intercepted with the hawkish grip of Jisung’s hand. Both wrists immobilized, pinned to the bed with just the knuckles touching the wooden bars above. Jisung works quickly, pulling a skilled knot around him. Despite the tightness of the fabric pressing against his supple skin, Minho feels no pain. There’s little discomfort, only arousal dawns on his body, throwing one lush wave of heat down his torso. 

Nipples harden. Tongue dries. Heart skips a beat. 

They have briefly discussed this… the tying up. But Jisung is attentively watchful over his reaction, of the slow roll back of his eyes. Minho’s sure he makes it painfully obvious that he wants this, but Jisung still double checks. When there’s grounding pressure in the tie; lips ghost over Minho’s ear, kissing and nipping at the red skin, whispering praise. Jisung asks him if he’s okay, if he’s fine to continue and Minho aches. 

“Yes please… Sung,” he gasps and teeth bite his lobe. 

A murmur. ”Sir.”

“Yes please, Sir.”  

It’s as if a switch is flipped inside Jisung when Minho utters the word, and he is immediately being kissed, with tongue and feverish want, with teeth and stubble. Jisung tastes like body and aftershave, like slight beer and ketchup. He’s both salty and sweet, and slightly unknown, slightly foreign, as if Minho is being invaded with something new and something controlling, pinning him to the bed and swallowing each breath and gasp he makes. 

Jisung kisses nothing like he looks — kisses like a troublemaker — and he kisses good. 

It takes a little bit of selflessness from Minho not to whine in complaint when Jisung pulls away, missing the tandem of their lips gliding against one another. He’s ready for submission physically but something in his head still holds him back from fully caving in, and exposing parts of himself that are embarrassing and untidy. 

Jisung pays him no mind. 

He moves from teeth at his collarbones to teeth at his hips, hands trickling down and raising goosebumps in their wake. He lifts his head when he’s face to face with Minho’s clothed bulge and sits up slightly, steep orange eagerness illuminating his face in the semi-dark of the room. 

His palms find Minho’s bent knees. 

Minho’s legs are strong and smooth and fatty, two marble columns — they’re nice to look at, even nicer to touch. Jisung’s fingers find their home on his thighs, by-passing the two experimental but deep scars closer to his groin. Keloids. A funny plum-purple shade. He hopes Jisung doesn’t mind, it’s not like his skin is littered in them. They were a one off, a loose hand he regrets. 

Jisung’s thumb presses into them quick and leaves them quicker. He doesn’t even ask, doesn’t even look, yet something in the way he touches him tells Minho that he’s understood — that he’s comforted him already. His eyes, however, remain lust-filled. Two pools infinite with tea leaves. A brewery of black, english and chai. It’s as if Minho was boiling alongside them, all of the blood in his body quickly concentrating in his chest and cheeks. 

“Do you have a safe word?” Jisung asks. It takes a moment for the question to register in his head. 

“Egg-yolk.” He’s never gotten to use it before. It’s exciting. 

“Mine’s Squash.” 

“Like the vegetable?” 

“Yeah, yours is also food… See how we match?”  

Ha. Minho giggles, he’s suddenly fuzzy around the edges. 

Jisung begins by settling himself between Minho’s spread legs: hands moving up his side with gentle sensuality, pressing into the fading outline of his ribs and back down, to the soft curvature of his hips where Minho’s underwear still snuggly conceals his erection. Minho arches when he feels nails dent the underside of his back, paired with a warm tongue traveling down the path of his navel and yelps suddenly when it's sinking into his belly button. The reprimand is instantaneous — one of Jisung’s hands rounds the firmness of his ass and squeezes painfully enough for him to squeal, tongue switching out for teeth as he lands a mean bite into the fluff of his lower belly. 

“You stay silent, alright, Angel?” Jisung muses as he traces his nose back up to Minho’s chest, finding interest in the stiffness of his pinkish nipples. “I’m the one doing all the touching right now.” He takes the pierced bud in his mouth, sucks, releases with a pop “or did you forget?” 

Minho hasn’t forgotten. His hand tugs at the leash of the tie, his hips rouse insubordinately. 

All of the attention to his sensitive body is overwhelming, magnified by the raw dominance poisoning Jisung’s every word. He tosses his head back and attempts to collect his own thoughts, slightly taken aback by his own eagerness. 

“Lift your hips up for me,” Jisung instructs, and as Minho complies, slender fingers hook over his underwear and pull them off, letting Minho’s flushed cock bounce lightly as it reaches to lay by his tummy. 

He’s a pleasant, sizable length. Five strict inches with a lean and curve to his right, a tuft of black pubic hair he leaves untrimmed on his groin disappearing further up his butt-cheeks. He’s flushed and needy with pearls of precum beading at the tip. Jisung pulls on a smug smirk as he takes Minho’s length in his hand, lightly squeezes it, and traces his thumb up the faint vein. 

“You’re being good for me angel, so well behaved,” he muses as he presses a pad of his finger over the tip and smears the wetness there accumulated. 

“A-Aah!” Minho’s hips immediately jerk upwards, yet the moment they lift, they are immediately brought back down by Jisung’s left hand as the younger keeps him pressed to the bed, demanding full compliance and immobility. 

And Minho tries, really tries to keep himself docile. However, when Jisung uncaps a bottle of lube with his teeth and squeezes it grossly right over his leaking length, Minho jerks again, this time with a gasp. The clear gel is cold and viscous, it spurts all over his dick and runs down his balls. Jisung frowns at him, pressing the nails of his left hand into Minho’s hip, reprimanding him for the sudden movement. 

“Shhh, gosh, that won’t do, will it? You just can’t stop wanting to swerve your pretty little cock away from me, hmm?” 

Minho shakes his head no. He’s sorry. Was he bad? Did he misbehave? 

Sternly, Jisung’s large palm wraps around his base and with a squelch begins to fluidly massage over his dick, jerking him with a vindictive firmness. As he does so, he carefully helps himself up and cages Minho spread legs with his own thighs, pushes them together, and quickly sits upon them, fixing Minho into a matching immobility with his wrists. 

“What a shame that I have to do everything myself…” Jisung muses, interrupting Minho with a pinch to the balls when he opens his lips to argue back. 

It’s so mean and so strikingly degrading that Minho’s innate reaction is to startle upwards, but  he is so quickly pushed back down by Jisung that the next thing he knows, he has his cheeks squished together by a strong hand and the patronizing playfulness in Jisung’s eyes switched out for mild, yet scary irritation. 

“Angel.” He leans in close, really close to Minho’s forceful pout, “You seem to be forgetting some key things, you are beneath me. I do what I want with you. You have surrendered yourself to me, and you will do as I say and think as I say. Is that clear?” 

Minho nods and receives a startling twist to his nipple. 

“Nodding is what dogs do, Minho. Are you a dog? Do you not know how to speak?” The venomous, chastising pronunciation of words hits Minho full force, and as he attempts, through squeezed cheeks to spell out his apology, the true arousal of submission suddenly dawns on him. 

There is hot, red, boiling shame sizzling over the plains of his face. 

His skin, from the tips of his ears to the softness of his chest is ignited in a rash of primal humiliation. And worst of all, the next place where it had spread to is the betraying chubbiness of his cock which twitches with each tuft of saliva he spits out. 

“I’mph- I’muh, phowry— I’mph phowry Phir!” 

Despite the shameful execution, Jisung seems to be pleased with his efforts and leans down to lick a stripe up Minho’s puckered mouth, sucking in his red upper lip between his teeth and giving it a tug and a wet release. It’s messy and it’s far from a kiss, but it feels like approval, and brings him a novel rush he has never felt before. He feels good for completing his task — he feels good for apologizing just the way Jisung had asked him to. 

Saliva begins to run down Minho’s chin and Jisung uses it to his advantage, letting go of his aching cheeks and smearing his spit all over Minho’s lips. It’s so dirty — and when Minho attempts to turn his face away Jisung brings it back with a slap to his cheek, then pushes his thumb into his mouth.

”Suck” Jisung commands, and presses his thumb into the softness of Minho’s tongue. 

Fuck. 

Everything is so much more intense than Minho has anticipated. His cheek burns distantly, but he only lets out a quiet moan as he slurps around Jisung’s knuckle, beginning to suckle dutifully on the finger. While he’s preoccupied with swallowing around it, he feels how Jisung slowly advances further up his thighs, positioning his own clothed cock next to Minho’s naked one, and begins to gently rut against him, providing Minho with minimal pleasure. The friction is just enough to get him to start moving his own hips in little circles, but not nearly enough to stimulate anything past a surface level frottage. 

The calm exchange of moans and sighs lasts about five minutes, perhaps letting Minho rest from the brief intensity he has experienced. However, Jisung picks up his pace fast enough as he pops his finger out of Minho’s mouth, and demonstratively wipes it off on Minho’s belly, leaving a trace of spit to flatten the hairs of his happy trail. 

“You’re being so awfully obedient,” Jisung praises, squeezing the skin spilling at the sides of Minho’s love handles. “I can’t wait to devour you. What do you say, want Sir to fuck you, finally?” 

“Mmhm,” Minho hums, biting his bottom lip to keep himself from a plea of greater embarrassment, but by Jisung’s stalling he is fast to understand that a nod isn’t enough from him, and that he will need to vocally confirm his desires.

 “Want Sir to fuck me,” he mumbles out, tugging playfully at the tie at his wrists. “Want you inside of me.” 

Jisung kisses him deeply upon hearing his request and crawls back until he’s in reach with the lube, uncapping it, and squeezing it over Minho’s ass and cock. His legs are positioned over Jisung’s shoulders, and his hole is exposed to Jisung’s view, glistening with the lube that has been poured over it. Jisung’s hand comes to massage Minho's cheeks as he spreads the clear gel all over him, the tactical pressure of his finger pads forcing Minho to shake a little, as if he’s being pampered, the brewery before the storm. 

“Relax for me a little,” Jisung whispers when he kisses up Minho's thigh, leaving hot snail trails with his tongue. “Shhh angel, I’m here.” 

He listens at first, body laxing, but as Jisung gently inserts one finger into his hole, Minho immediately tightens up. The long awaited intrusion has him slightly nervous, slightly unsure, but Jisung is there to check up on him as his attentive eyes catch Minho’s and he leans down to press a lingering kiss to his navel, mumbling reassurances into his heated skin. 

“Relax Angel, I’ll take my time with you. I know what I’m doing .”  

“Ah! Ah, ah Sir,” Minho sighs out as the finger is pushed in and out deeply, searching, but not yet hunting for his sweet spot. Jisung unceremoniously fits another once he deems Minho ready, and the stretch still doesn’t sting, though the resistance finally makes itself known when a third is pushed through into Minho’s tight heat.

Keeping Minho’s legs spread and his cock pathetically hard and untouched, Jisung begins to push in and out of his hole with a wet squelching, building the pressure and searching inside him for the sweet spot.

 “There you go, sweetie.” he mumbles, kissing Minho’s knee when he releases a wail and his legs twitch in the air. “Haven’t been touched there in a while have you, angel? Must feel so overwhelming,” he taunts, smiling to himself while Minho is shivering from the gusts of spiked heat and pleasure in his groin. 

And Jisung is right, he hasn’t been touched like this — his own, sad, pink dildo and fingers rarely deliver him the pleasure he needs, and jerking off alone through fingering is usually too much effort and he’s used to simply massaging his hole while rutting into his bed covers. This however, is completely different, and the lack of stimulation on his glistening cock is beginning to irritate him. Whimpering pitifully, he tries to lift his hips to bring awareness towards the flush of his erection.

 “Ah- Jisung– Sir, I, I need some– please touch me, Sir, please,” he manages, speaking with an embarrassing whine within his vowels. But he’s too softened, too bare and needy to care over the continuous slipping of his pride, and of the childish poutiness to his features. His state only seems to egg Jisung on. 

“You want your lil’ cock touched, hmm?” he teases, flicking the head with his free hand while curling the fingers that are inside Minho, causing him to whimper high in his throat. “Want your little dick played with?” 

Despite the embarrassment flooding into Minho’s head wave after wave, he manages to nod through the haze. But as always, that isn’t enough.

“Say it, Angel, what do you want Sir to do to you little cock?” 

“M’not little,” Minho replies, but is quickly reminded of his position as Jisung squeezes his already tightening balls with his hand, “Ah- no, I– I want–” 

“Want what?”

“Want– Want S-sir to touch my l-little cock!” he cries out, tears running down his face from frustration. “Please Sir– Please touch Angel’s little cock!” 

Satisfied, Jisung leans down and kisses his belly, before praising him “There you go, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?” 

In the heat of the thrusts, Jisung finally wraps his left hand around his leaking cock and begins to tighten his hold on it, pushing it down, delivering slightly sadistic jolts of pleasure to Minho through his skillful hands. The double stimulation startles him, and he twists like a wet cloth, sweat glistening like scales on his heated skin. He attempts to close his thighs only once when the peak is too close, too fast approaching, but Jisung catches him in the act by pressing down one of his knees to the bed with a leg of his own, and slowing down his jerking of Minho’s member. 

“S-sir, I’m so– I’m about to c-cum–” Minho manages, moaning breathily from the movement of fingers inside him, Jisung’s hand scooping him up and lathering down gentleness and meanness over the puffy swell of his prostate. “T’s too much, Sir!” 

“Aww…” Jisung coos. “But Angel, I know you can handle more.” He quickens his pace and everything heats up more and more: faster, hotter, better. 

Minho jolts on the bed, closing his eyes but— the orgasm escapes him. 

Both of Jisung’s hands are suddenly off of him: not on his cock nor inside him. He’s left to pathetically wiggle on the sheets, hands tied and knees spread open by Jisung towering over him, unable to deliver any stimulation to his own self. He can see the younger’s grin gleam in the semi dark; his auburn curls shine with slight sweat obscuring his dark eyes — round and murky — watching Minho in fascination. 

It’s excruciating and it’s electrifying and it's painful. 

“No!” Minho moans, raising his voice for the first time after a prolonged expanse of measured moans. He’s never been loud in bed, and is usually afraid to be too vocal, but the denial of a climax hits him and hits him hard, as before he can recognize what’s happening, he begins to blink quickly and whimper, crying into his arm. “No, no, no…” 

“Shhh…” Jisung shushes him, bringing his hand to Minho’s cheek and turning his face to lock eyes while wiping off tears from Minho’s ignited cheekbones. “No, Angel, it’s okay,” he reassures him, kissing his nose and his forehead. “You did so well, yeah? I won’t do it again, not today, I promise.” 

Minho’s lips wobble as he pouts up at Jisung, sniffling and blinking rapidly. “P-promise?” 

“Yeah, baby, I promise.” A peck on the lips, “Sir just wanted to play with you a little. I won’t edge you much tonight, yea?” 

“Yea,” he nods. 

“My sweet boy, my perfect angel.” 

The compliments and reassurance are somehow demeaning, yet Minho can’t exactly place his finger on how. Soon, Jisung’s hand returns to his cock and his fingers prod at his hole, sliding in home. He has Minho responding like a puppet to each curl of his fingers, heat fluttering in his tummy and skin electrified all the way down his arched spine. 

It doesn’t take Jisung too long to push Minho over the edge.

The first orgasm of the night burns like a bite. He’s ignited from his toes to fingertips, twists on the bed like a big, coily serpent, un-elegant, as if he’s disturbed mid-digesting a meal — arching and bending with the smoothness or blocky tenderness of an albino python. He groans and revolts against the wrist’s snatch, throws his head back and attempts to press his cheek to the cool side of the pillow as his damp hair sticks in dewy and black flower petals to the skinned pink of his throat. 

His pathetic cock jerks in Jisung’s grasp one last time before relaxing into weakness; cum has reached his nipples and even a few stray spots have landed on his collarbones.

He leaves residual sea-lace on the white-beach of his stomach. He sizzles and he smokes. 

“So sensitive, my angel.” Jising’s low voice reaches him as the younger bends down and presses a kiss surprisingly gentle to the tip of his sensitive cock, making Minho mewl and instinctively pull away. “Came so good for me, hmm? Couldn’t hold it anymore, baby, had to spill, hmm?” 

Minho nods. “S’good, so so s’good,” he pronounced lazily, throwing his head back and wiping off tears on the soft cushioning of his bicep. 

Jisung lets him catch his breath. He licks up the cum on his stomach and he gently lies between his spread thighs, still hard himself, and plays around with the small triggers of Minho’s body. The sensitivity of the skin webbing his ribs, the surprising ticklish spot in his elbow-joints. It gives Minho enough time to catch his breath and for interest to sink back into his balls, tightening them as Jisung mouths over Minho’s tattooed tit and noses beneath his armpit before passing his teeth over his under-arm.

It almost pulls a giggle out of Minho, he has never had the forgotten parts of his body receive so much attention before, too familiar with sex revolving around bland orgasms. He lazily turns his head to the side and asks for a kiss by puckering his lips Jisung’s way which the dom understands and holds him by the chin before messily sliding his lips over Minho’s. 

Within the brief moment of quietness, Minho can taste the undertones of Jisung's mouth through the fading mint and even fainter beer. His ticklish chin and soft lips taste distantly of amber and sweet black pepper: strange and mellow, trickling down his chin and staining the corners of his mouth in shiny spit. Despite him being much older than Jisung, the skin around his mouth is distinctively softer, as the only place on his body where hair had trouble sprouting was his upper lip and chin, preferring the warmer crevices such as between his legs and beneath his arms. Jisung on the other hand, has a scratchy, lovely, sand-paper thrill to his face. That brisk flair of masculinity has Minho’s mind spinning, imagining how the young man would look were he to forlorn shaving for a week. 

Still youngish, Jisung fell into a violent passion when handling Minho. He descended down his neck as if searching for a spot soft enough to bite into a stain, and Minho finds himself complacent in his nudity: legs open, cock nudging up his thigh as it comes more and more alert. 

Jisung takes his time until he doesn't — his left hand finds the lube again (now half empty) and grinning Minho with a mixture of boyishness and mature, enthralling, powerful hunger he rises to his knees and sets his hands on Minho’s firm waist. 

The tie at his wrists twists when Minho is flipped over, then dragged slightly back by his hips as Jisung quickly hoists his butt upwards, pressing down between the juncture of his shoulder blades to force Minho into a deep arch. He groans, but then bites his tongue when Jisung’s commanding hands grasp at his thighs and spread them further, pulling at the taught muscle. It stings — he isn’t flexible one bit, and yet with Jisung over him the stretch is pleasant and burns in just the right way. Thighs spread, cock bouncing from excitement, he stifles a whine beneath the pressure of Jisung’s weight bending his spine, and whimpers when a rough hand comes around to pull at his ass-cheek, exposing his puffy hole. 

He feels so undeniably naked, so grossly overpowered that he lets out the most pitiful moan, the most whiny plea as he receives a sharp, merciless spank. ”Sir- Sir please, I’m so ready for you, please…” 

Minho can sense Jisung’s smirk without having to see it. The hand on his back claws down his skin as he pulls it swiftly towards his roused ass and then slides back up. “You’ve never presented before, have you, angel?” 

”N-no?” Minho whimpers out. He’s unsure what presenting even means, but if he’s doing it right now — he sure loves it, he’s never felt so good before. So well taken care of.  

Jisung snickers, his hot heavy cock slapping over Minho’s entrance as he grinds slowly between his cheeks, the head of his member catching teasingly on his rim. He takes both of Minho’s cheeks in his hands and pushes them apart like squeezing the nectar out of a peach, soft and malleable in human hands, before returning the skin back to create a concave sleeve for Jisung to rut into. The erotic low register of his quiet moans gets Minho drunkenly lightheaded. He imagines being used for pleasure this way: where Jisung has access to each inch of his skin, and a determination to use him up for good, to his full ability, to satisfy, to please his dominant, his own pleasure discarded like the clothes beneath the motel bed.

He arches and some of the lube escapes his ass and runs up his spine, lathering him up. Glaze on a pastry; crème-freshe on a tenderloin. 

Before too long, Jisung’s wet cockhead finally presses at Minho’s slick entrance and he rouses a deep, sweet moan of satisfaction out of himself once Jisung begins to push in, strong fingers keeping his cheeks spread and open for him to take. 

“Ah!” 

It’s a swift and menacing thrust that takes Minho off guard — with how meticulously Jisung has been prepping and edging him — he had anticipated for the penetration to be just as thoughtful and slow paced, but Jisung takes him in one go, balls smacking against the shiny crevice of Minho’s perineum. 

“There you go, Angel. My baby’s taking it so good,” Jisung praises as he smoothes a palm over his hip, and stays still for a moment letting Minho adjust. He’s… not small. 

While all of the attention has been directed to Minho’s long denied orgasm, he had completely forgotten to take in the girth and length of Jisung’s own cock. And fuck, Jisung might as well have been very right in taking his time to stretch him out as now, with Jisung fully submerged inside him, Minho feels breathtakingly good and breathtakingly stretched full. 

What is he — eight inches? Nine? Might he be? No, absolutely not. He didn’t look Nine, but Minho feels undeniably split open. 

But Minho’s brief break of contemplation is quickly cut short as Jisung begins to thrust, one hand coming up to tangle into Minho’s sweaty strands and he is once again pulled away by the strong current of pleasure which drags him back to the depths of obscure submission. 

“Ahhhnn…. aah, Sir, I’m so f-full…” he mumbles, eyes shutting while his fingers scrunch the bedsheets. 

“Just how you like it, huh, Angel?” he hears a distant, taunting, voice, “Let Sir ruin you…”

As if he wasn’t already. 

The rocking of their hips meet each other halfway. It’s one tide breaching another. Jisung’s hip bones begin to softly smack against Minho’s bottom and the erotic skin-on-skin beat of sex fills the room with gasps and groans and whimpers. 

Jisung’s hands press into Minho’s ass and spread him with a tough massaging motion, taunting the stiff muscle with an applied pressure. He squeezes him like a tender-mango, and Minho both bleeds and preens, his soft cock regaining both hardness and wetness like a spur of the summer fruit having its juices squeezed out of its rind. 

He’s both ready for, and dreading, a second orgasm. But Jisung has already made that decision for him. 

Minho’s face is pressing meanly into the cheap cushion as he grapples with the strength of Jisung’s thrusts bouncing his body higher up the mattress with every smack of hip-bones against his raised ass. He’s tugging a bit too generously on the knot of Jisung’s tie, not having half the mind to consider of its tearing or of the tenderness of his wrists — gladly Jisung’s experiences has provided him with the knowledge of a safe wrist bondage, avoiding an accidental tightening from a forceful pull.

The pleasure from each merciless hit at his prostate is heaven on earth. He’s heated and soft, the pronounced thickness of Jisung’s cock makes itself known in the very minor, very squishy but still present, bump in his lower belly where from the deepness of his arch, the dom manages to push through far enough to cause a belly-bulge. He can see it if he cranes his neck a bit, but feeling it is enough, if not too much.

The jug of lust rocks side to side, threatening to spill. 

“Gnnhmm, ah, pleaagnhh—“ Huh? Oh, he’s unable to speak coherent sentences. 

He’s unsure what he was about to ask but it was probably another plea. As if understanding his gibberish, one of Jisung’s palms descends a hard smack onto his ass-cheek and Minho whimpers from the spank, the pink flesh giggling from impact. 

It’s too much. It’s too much and he’s good, and he’s pliant and he…— The pillow beneath his cheek is damp with his own spit and his tongue drags across the wet fabric as he gasps, freezes, and cums. 

From the tips of his fingers to the curl of his toes, Minho feels like cotton on a fresh cut. Everything thrums. He can sense his hard, dripping cock shake side to side as he’s being pounded, balls tightening and relaxing as he mediates the whirlpool of spice. There’s a pleasant, milky fog inside his head. Eventually he will be diminished, reduced, ultimately dumbed down to a single cell organism which only knows compliance, only understands commands, orders, and aches to obey religiously and unquestioningly the hand and voice of the man above him, controlling him like the moon controls the sea. 

He’s in the limbo of orgasmic bliss for a few, solid, pounding and pulsing seconds. He feels sensitive. Floaty. When the weight of his own body returns to him, he realizes that Jisung hadn’t stopped moving. His dick is still hard inside Minho, nailing his prostate, pushing him over the edge. His own cum has reached his chest. It’s being rubbed into the covers creating a sticky mess. 

“I— Ah! Sir…”

In pity for Minho’s deep headspace and overstimulation, Jisung takes just another few minutes of continuing thrusting and groaning to spill inside him, pressing his palm greedily into Minho’s soft, shaking belly as he fills him up with the warmth of his release. Fuck, it’s deep and it’s warm. It’s cleansing, almost. 

There’s a condom separating them, though Minho hiccups, wishing there wasn’t. 

He’s so deeply in tune with Jisung’s pleasure that a barrier robbing him of being claimed inside out is insulting to his poor state of mind, reminding him of their title as one-night-stand partners. 

But he’s still deeply under the surface of lucidity. The longing doesn’t register, not yet. 

After slumping onto Minho’s frame in aftershocks and catching his breath, Jisung pulls out and gently flips Minho around to kiss him deeply on the lips. There is tongue — the tongue is pitiful. He licks Minho’s gums and pecks the corner of his mouth which is sticky with saliva. Gently kisses his nose, his eyelids, giving Minho a moment to pant and whimper before they finally flutter open. The room — Jisung’s face — everything is slightly misty from the glassy film of his tears beading between his lashes. 

His mouth is both dry and wet; he has so much to say to Jisung that he’s afraid he shall tell him nothing. 

“Angel…” Jisung whispers, his hand cupping Minho’s cheek. “Are you with me, angel?” 

Minho nods, awareness returning to him bit by bit. “I think— I think I’m about to fall asleep,” he mutters, leaning into the palm beneath his cheek and craning his neck like a cat yearning for affection. 

Jisung coos, “Need rest?” 

Minho nods. The bed dips again as Jisung gets up, and before Minho has a half-of-mind to start needily worrying over his leave, he can hear the bathroom sink turn on, and the squelch of a towel being submerged. 

He’s always been dimly aware of the importance of aftercare, however such intimacy was always disregarded by both himself and his hookups, deeming the gentility of it’s occasion too personal for what was established to be mindless fucking. With Jisung, he feels like a pearl in a shell, naked and safe. Slowly, the sounds leave him and a dreamless and quick slumber whisks him away, rolling on the sea-foam of elusive sex-sleep unconsciousness. 

When Jisung leans over Minho to free him from his binds, his eyes flutter open from his quick, shut-down nap. The sweat on his body has cooled, and with the yellow glow of bedside-lamps tugging him back into lucidity, he begins to feel his own weight again, sinking pleasantly into the scratchy bed-surface beneath. There’s a soft rash of fabric-burn around his wrists where Jisung has apologetically undone the knot from the headboard. He inspects his hands, flexes them, chest rising and falling almost rhythmically, still under the sleepy-haze of an afterglow. Each crack of the finger relaxes his joints. Snap, snip. He resigns into the gentle beats of his heart. 

There is no post-nut clarity with Jisung. 

Instead, a sense of accomplishment wafts through the air — Gosh, he could really use a cigarette right now. Above him, the young man beams. His softened cock is safely returned to the confines of his boxer-briefs, un-sexy and polka-dotted. His lips are pressed into a sheepish thin line of apologetic softness. Minho pictures Jisung’s dog tail to be curled under his thigh when he wraps the tie around his finger and pointedly looks at the redness on Minho’s wrists. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Jisung whispers. He is sweet, really, honestly sweet. Minho brushes him off easily, finally finding it in him to sit up. There’s pain somewhere up his ass; it’s almost hilarious how pleased he is to discover traces of his bottoming resigning in the soreness of his upper back. The last time he’d been treated roughly — if he’s being honest, too roughly — was four months ago when he arched his back beneath a construction worker eight years his senior. He remembers being awfully glad to resign his power and equally uncomfortable with the careless handling of his sensitive person. Spanking with a brass knuckle, or, that’s what it felt like. 

No, Jisung’s fingers worked him like a pianist works his keys: precise, rapid, sensually intentional with each chord their strum. 

A glass of water is thrusted into Minho’s loose wrist the moment he sits upright. Jisung’s warm palm around his, he guides it up to his lips and tilts. 

“Drink,” Jisung mumbles, gently combing through his hair. “You did so good, really good. I’m so incredibly proud of you.” 

Minho wants to giggle. He hums instead. “This water is really nice and cold.” 

“It’s mine. I brought it with me and put it in the mini fridge before we… Well. I knew you’d need something to drink when I was done with you.” It’s both considerate and cocky, the foresight of babying Minho proving itself to be excitingly charming. His cheeks bunch up at the sentiment.

“I usually smoke after I fuck.” Minho says absentmindedly.

“We can smoke too, I wouldn’t mind. This room provides a narrow little balcony and the weather rests hopeful.” 

Setting the water aside, Minho glances past the curtains to the slim floor length windows that open to a little lift outside. He nods as Jisung helps him stand, grabbing his underwear from the floor and pulling it on clumsily while balancing on one leg. They’re both a little too naked and fresh to be out in the night air like that, but Minho could count on one hand the amount of times he’s gotten sick from a cool breeze. The atmosphere is too adventurous to include caution and they step out onto the cold, firm tile of the balcony with their bare feet. 

Minho immediately leans onto the balcony, savoring how the metallic rails brand his forearms. Rough, slippery, cool, they dig into the softness and warmth of his heated skin. He never thought he’d describe himself as delicate, yet this was how he suddenly felt: touched, peeled out of his rind. The rabid thrum of sex still ran hot beneath his skin, slowly seeping out onto his shoulders and chest in a transparent sheen of sweat, immediately cooled off by the swift breeze. He could really use a cigarette right now — Jisung is taking an awful lot of time digging through his bag to find his Marlboros, and he could easily dip back inside and grab his own from his pant pocket— yet… he doesn’t want to. Still so raw and flaccid, he thinks only to breathe what Jisung blows into his lungs. The distinguished curl of  better smoke, something so Jisung that the sentiment would rock him back into submission.

When Jisung returns, Minho asks him just that; the younger kisses him with that lewd, toothy split of the lips. The nicotine is passed between languid tongue movements. 

When Jisung pushes his naked back up against the dirty brick wall, Minho places his rough palm over his heartbeat and feels it smelt through the ribcage, fingers finding the pounding, slimy, organ beneath his pierced nipple and small, black, chest hairs. It beats in tandem with his thoughts: devour, devour, devour, before it shifts into hurl, hurl, hurl. 

He coughs, and it blends into the bright echo of Jisung’s laughter. He laughs too. They laugh in unison, laugh at their own stupidity, laugh at the inability to regain sobriety post-orgasmic-bliss.

Minho asks Jisung for a kiss on his nose, he receives just that. 

“You’ve got me all wrapped around your finger, Minho,” Jisung sighs, pressing warm lips to Minho’s shoulder as he gently lets his finger pads trace around his middle, finding bruises he’s made and reclaiming them with his thumbs. 

Minho hums, holding the wilting cigarette in his right hand. He can feel how his skin cools down, how the sweat on his temples has dried and greased his hair. It’s not enough to cover the palette of emotion Jisung has painted him with, so he gently pushes him back to grab a second cig and lighter, briefly burning his thumb with his eager carelessness. 

They smoke this one without much interruption to kiss. 

Jisung sits with one leg outstretched, Minho with both folded to the side. He thinks in this short brief moment, with Jisung by his side, he has been alleviated of all trouble. His job is abandoned somewhere downstairs, so are his friends and all of his responsibilities. Everything has ruptured, his perception of himself has reaped — Jisung made him let go, fatally so, made him crave something he knows will be a challenge to match the taste of. 

It’s an easily quick route into loss if he thinks about it for too long. Sex was always less about the dismantling of emotion and much more about the climax. Dynamics and roles open too much liberty for exploration he doubts he can venture into alone. 

And Jisung… for all he knows, Jisung will stay here, in this little motel when Minho leaves him behind at dawn. 

But presently, he sweeps the thoughts off the stage of his current relationship. The night has him coddled and kissed. He can accept happiness for all it’s worth while here. While it’s still warm. 

Still fresh, and firm. 

By the time Minho finishes his second cigarette, the sky is dutifully dark. A bright night. A young one. His palms begin to feel cold and needy, so he leans slightly into Jisung’s side, cushioning his head onto his strong, naked shoulder. He can feel Jisung smile, his soft hum working as a break in a piano key.

“Is that your bike out there?”

Minho startles awake — he hadn’t even noticed he’d dozed off. The wind blows gently through his hair, and he follows with his misty gaze the outstretched, copper bridge of Jisung’s arm, wrist slack in the direction of the parking lot. It’s an anthill of motorcycles beneath their feet, all crowded and parked however they please. Minho squints down and finds his own. 

“Yes, it’s parked down there…” he muses, too lazy to point it out. He feels both sleepy and wide awake; he wants whatever Jisung wants — conversation or physical touch. “You like it?” he asks, frowning when the shoulder beneath his ear trembles with low, reverberated laughter. “What’s so funny?”

“You never showed me your bike,” Jisung whispers, “I’ve got no idea which one of these it is.”

Minho hums, “Take a guess.” He doesn't expect Jisung to humor him, but he does. 

“The red one? With the yellow flames all over its sides?” 

Minho slaps his hip as if offended. “Who do you take me for, a tasteless show-off? I’m much classier than that.”

“You, classy? That’s something I’d never count on, to be honest. Is it the sleek blue one there then, with the thin tires?” And this time Minho actually snorts; it’s his turn to laugh at Jisung’s lack of knowledge.

“Never in a million years.”

“Oh well, I give up then.” Jisung pouts. “How am I supposed to pick your bike out of this sea, infinite with options?”

“Well, it’s sexy. Pick the sexiest bike you can see.”

Jisung opens his mouth and is about to say something but quickly changes his mind and shakes his head. “No, you won’t trick me into this. If I pick a ‘sexiest’ bike as per my judgment and it isn't yours, I don’t think I’ll ever get a second handful of that ass.”

Minho chuckles and leans into him with his shoulder. Jisung reciprocates, and they fall into a pendulum of pushes on the balcony, shoulders grazing and heads occasionally falling onto shoulders.

“What do you say I take you for a ride?” Minho mutters.

“A ride? Like, right now?”

“Mhm…”

“Man,” Jisung passes a hand through his hair, “I don’t know. I want to — If you have the strength after sex to drive me around that’s pretty hot. You’re not too tired?”

“I’m good, I think. You?”

He watches how Jisung smiles widely, looking away — Minho’s offer must’ve really smitten him. He presses a hand to his mouth, only the fingers, attempting to school his smile, and gives his answer. 

“Lead the way.”

Once fully clothed, the staircase makes up a bigger challenge than Minho had anticipated as his lower back does make itself known, but not enough to worry him. He does pinch his brows though. Well, he should bottom more often. That’s all on him. It’s a little humbling, though not too much. When they make it outside, the parking lot for the bikes isn’t as empty as they had hoped, popping their bubble of intimacy and solitude with multiple people standing here and there. A woman with bleached hair is lounging, smoking on her bike, while some drunk college kid tries to gain her attention through an animated story. The Bar and Grill lights are on, people still chugging beer inside. A group of older men stands near the hotel entry; they’ve all got long and flaky gray hair, curly at the bits like yellowed greens, and patchy bandanas on pink foreheads.

Minho can sense how Jisung stalls a bit. It’s cute how shy he is, looking around. Minho is more on the boastful side — it’s obvious to everyone that they have just rolled out of a sex-bed.

He places a reassuring hand on the younger’s shoulder and walks him into the passive field of sleeping motorcycles. They’ve each got some flair to them, intimidating in their own right.

There are even a few modules that Minho may count himself envious of, with customized handles and pipes. But still, his bike is proud, just as proud as Minho himself is to show it off.

The motorcycle stands nestled between a lime-green Kawasaki and a small, red sports bike, dominating both in size: chunky, black, and slightly weathered. The long torso isn’t without an arch, the maroon saddle a tattered pinkish-off-white where his butt had rubbed the leather clean off. It’s an Indian Scout Bobber, 2018. An expensive beast; he recalls how anxiously he was saving up for the purchase, how every penny of loosely thrown change was mourned by his piggy bank. Now he’s incessantly boastful of the thickness of his grill-marked tires, of the matte black polish on its shell. The exhaust pipes are polished, fat cylindrical mufflers looking as threatening as the double-barrel of a shotgun.

There are a few stickers on its gas tank and fender: but they’re hip and groovy, opposed to the tacky weed-leaves with sunglasses and flaming USA flags every other rider slaps on their bike’s ass. His are the ghost rider in black and white, a kitty smoking a joint, and a bumper sticker in grungy font spelling out his life’s motto: ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away.’

When he rests his palm on its hand grip and gives the headlight a soft pat, he can hear a timid ‘woah’ leave Jisung’s lips.

A prideful flame sparks in his chest. Maybe Jisung thinks he’s radically more masculine than he’s seemed before. Or at least, cooler than the bikes he’d picked out from the balcony’s edge.

“So, what do you think?” he asks, turning back around to cheekily meet Jisung’s gaze.

Jisung is… still and stiff where he stands.

The half-unzipped coat lets moonlight fall into its cavern, basking the soft line of his chest in a fresh blue. His chestnut hair seems curlier now, pinned up by a hotel hairclip out of his face. He looks astonishingly young like this; wide, shimmering, black eyes fixed on the object behind him, hands timidly in the pockets of his pants, kissed lips parted in subdued awe. Minho instantly knows he’s never ridden a bike before. He will be taking his virginity in some way tonight, and it puts him at ease, and them two on an even ledge. First Jisung tilted his world on its axis — now it’s time for Minho to reciprocate.

“So, what do you think?” Minho repeats, now just a little louder.

“I’m… a bit speechless. It looks intimidating.”

“Matches her daddy.”

“Oh please,” Jisung laughs, “You’re like a kitten in a spiked collar. Also, don’t speak to it like it’s a woman; you sound like those slightly misogynistic boat guys.”

“What boat guys?”

“I don’t know, yacht guys?”

Minho rolls his eyes. “You just found it weird that I call my bike a ‘she’. That sounds more misogynistic to me than calling her that in the first place.”

Jisung raises both hands in the air, waving in defeat. “All right, all right, you got me. I won’t stick my nose into the biker business. But, wow, seriously. It’s—“ then he corrects himself, “She is gorgeous. So manly and… sexy. All the tubes and pipes are like muscle veins or something.”

Minho feels pride pour into his head. “Jisungie, do you want to fuck my bike?”

“Gosh, no! I’m gay. But if it was a he—“

Minho shuts him up with an awkwardly toothy kiss. It works; they smile against each other's lips, and Jisung chases Minho’s breath when they separate, making him chuckle softly. “Stop this, you’ve just gotten your dick wet not even ten minutes ago. Have some shame.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t try to fuck bikes. Only bike riders.”

“Enough of you,” Minho giggles, approaching the motorcycle, but Jisung catches his sleeve. “Uhm… Minho, are you sure you can ride your bike though?”

Minho frowns, curving a brow. “Well, yes?”

“No, I meant, after sex. You needed my hand to get down the stairs fast enough, and now you’re planning to drive us around, and I feel like your upper back would complain a little, no? This is all very romantic, but I don't want to cause you any, well, pain.”

Minho stills, a disbelieving smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Jisung must really underestimate him and his toughness that he had so easily picked apart. A little pain in the lower back won’t stop him from riding his bike. It comes like second nature to him.

“Jisungie, don’t worry, I’ll be just fine.” He slings one leg over the bike as he says that, and his eyebrows hitch higher on his forehead.

Jisung be damned, it does hurt, so he bites his lip for a moment and lets the pain simmer. It disappears quickly enough, but leaves a lasting, little ache.

“Well?” Jisung teases.

“Don’t be an ass, I’ve ridden bikes when I was green and blue from food poisoning before; this is nothing for me.”

Jisung mumbles something about it not being too much of a flex underneath his breath but approaches nevertheless. Then, he sighs. “Oh. Helmet?”

Minho grabs his helmet and hands it over to Jisung without much thought. There hangs a small silence in the air when Jisung tugs at it and looks over it in his hands, face swimming funny shapes under the sleek black of its shell. He laughs, shortly, then glances back up at him.

 “And you?”

“And me?”

“Your helmet. I only see one. You don’t drive passengers around too often, right?”

“No,” Minho chuckles, waving him off. “No, no. You’re special. I don’t carry around a second helmet, and I’ll be fine driving without one. It’s night, the streets are empty, and since I’ll have a pretty prince clinging to my back, I’ll be extra careful with the curves.”

“And the royal rider will be without protection?”

Minho smirks, rolls his eyes. The euphemism isn’t lost on him. However, he still grasps the moment to show off. His hand sneaks into his jacket’s pocket and he pulls out cloth-wrapped glasses. They’re dark, shaded, silver, Gucci. They’re scratched, but they’re shiny.

Jisung wolf-whistles. “Fancy pants. These are nice.”

“Mmm.”

“Not to be rude, but... I thought you were, erm— financially challenged. Slightly.”

Minho allows himself a cackle at the way Jisung so carefully worded that. He pushes the glasses onto his nose bridge and everything is slightly darker, but he feels slightly cooler so it’s worth it. They’ll protect him from the winds.

“I didn’t buy them. I had a friend once, he was sorta rich. Sorta liked me. These were a birthday gift.”

“Where’s that friend now?”

“Married in Miami. I still have his number, but it’s been four years, and if I call he’ll either assume I’m dying or planning to. Last time I rang him up was with help for medical bills, and it would figure…”

Jisung draws out a sigh, reaches up to zip his coat a little further; it’s chilly out here. “I hope he has a pretty husband.”

“Wife.”

“Really?”

Minho shakes his head, leaning further onto the bike. “Not that kind of friend, Jisung.”

They should get to riding now, or he’ll start to assume Jisung’s got cold feet.

Once seated on the leathery swell of the bike cushion, Minho waits for Jisung to take his own, slightly shaky seating behind him. Jisung tests the wobbles of the bike, awkwardly positions his hands first on the seat handles, but then swiftly decides Minho’s waist feels safer — more secure. They gently roll off the tarmac and onto the plain of the parking lot. Minho feels warm fingers on his tummy, and it’s a little intimate, a little much; he’s not too used to having his muffin top even acknowledged outside of sex and jokes, but Jisung seems to like it lots, tracing small circles above his belly button with his thumb. It makes Minho feel fluttery, a little bit on edge to impress.

He starts the motor, presses the gas, and the bike jerks forth with a groan, and a thrill immediately shoots up his spine as Jisung immediately presses himself against Minho’s form — finger-pads switching out on nails and a kitty-grip.

It’s an odd feeling, having someone’s arms grounding you into reality, trusting you with their life. Jisung is warm against his back, squeezing his thick waist as he startles from the insubordinate jerk of his bike. She’s a beauty. He can maneuver her however he wants.

It’s a short ride until the highway begins, but it is a little empty, woodsy. At times, the turn might be a bit too rough, but Minho feels electrified when he gets to show off his skill. When he swerves, all fatigue is summarily dismissed — adrenaline seems to pump from the oil tank of the motorbike straight into the threading of his veins. His gloved hands tighten; he’s alert and fastened into his seat. Jisung’s experience depends solely on the show they put on, and he needs to walk the tightrope between scaring him off bike rides for the foreseeable future and shocking him into gleeful elation. Here comes the nook of their road; it curves, it's a risk to tilt, Jisung might cower — but as they approach it he only slows down enough to allow them for a sweet incline to the left.

As expected, behind him catches on a yelp. “Aay!”

When the bike is slightly off kilter, Jisung molds his chest into Minho’s back. His helmet is smooth against his nape. Something smug sparks in his chest when he hears him chant a rising: “Woah, woah, woah!” but the scare is over just as fast as it began. The bike straightens, they’re almost out on the tongue of the highway.

“You’re nuts!” Jisung shrieks, his arms losing their ferociousness. “That was insane.”

Minho worries for a split second, until his passenger begins to laugh. A giddy, fun, whirling laughter, slightly dulled by the vacuum of his helmet. Minho’s lips are stretched wide, his gums dry from the forthcoming speed of wind.

Gotcha, he thinks. Bull’s eye.

Jisung’s enjoying it — it’s important that he does, really. If Jisung were to hate bikes, he might’ve even regretted the fuck. 

On one sharp turn Minho remembers his youth. His midnight alliance with Jisung is a tryst unusually silly, and unusually adventurous for his ripe old age of thirty-five. In a way, Minho has put trust in himself to quit his insubordinate desires and begin venturing into the life of a gay man that has already lived. 

He thinks he has. 

More things have happened to him in the ages of fifteen to twenty-two than what has taken place in the past ten years. Granted — his life is never boring. He’s adventurous and flammable. He gets in and out of trouble like a baby being dunked repeatedly for baptism. 

And yet… romantic, tummy-fluttering antics have somehow wiggled out of his fishing nets. 

He had almost joined a gang once. He had scraped his own tattoo with a rusty razor blade and filled it with pen-ink from his school supplies, and had had it cleansed and peeled at the emergency room when it had inadvertently infected, and pussed, and bled. He still has its stain within his skin, a blur of a star beneath his elbow. 

Things track on him. 

In scars or tattoos or piercings or hickeys. 

Everything leaves a mark. Jisung squeezes his midsection and Minho shivers. Everything leaves a mark. 

To shake some nostalgic and slightly hurtful tension in his chest, Minho swerves off to the right, sneaking into an off branch between trees again, but one that parallels the high-road. They’re close to the Appalachian trails, where most greenery is doused in an ever-present sweat, and the pines lose their bite underneath the moon, appearing bluer than the natural blueing of evening woods. Minho quiets the motor and the bike reduces to a swift gliding, allowing Jisung to get a pleasant whiff of the smoky trunk grit and jammy rot of autumn-leaf detritus beneath tires. Agitation in the upper crowns reveals fleeing nocturnal birds who complain of the disturbing machinery with their meek and haunting quips, squirrels scurry up branches, scattering from their nutt-hiding spots closest to the trail. If they're lucky enough, they might even meet a deer. 

Minho can feel Jisung lift one arm off his waist to gently scoot the protective glass of the front of his helmet, the little window for his face allowing all the bugs and smells to infiltrate. Usually he would advise against that, but today he feels whimsical and naughty, so why not let the man break a small, insignificant rule. If he catches a fly in his eye that’s his problem, after all. 

“Do you live around here?” Jisung asks, quietly. 

“Mmm, two hour drive.” 

The motor blends into a background purring. 

“Woah, you’re confident on this woodsy path?” 

“I come here often. Seen the massive car wash, car-part, car graveyard before you pulled in towards the bar? My buddies own it. I sometimes arrive to help out.” 

“And nature is nice. We’re midst bush n’ pine.” 

“I love the Appalachia, and hiking. Really tears into you if you’re careless enough you know? I love getting up on the mountains with the viewpoints but I get anxious about leaving my girl chained up at some wood-log fence for days at a time so I rarely do so.” 

“You’d need a car for good camping and hiking.” 

“Which I’m never getting.” 

“Have you ever rented?” 

“Twice, horrible experience.” 

Jisung scoffs. “It’s bugging me how much of a car hater you are as a car mechanic.” 

Minho shakes his head, snickering. “Shut up.” 

They keep their drive through the woods for around eight minutes, steering clear from narrower roads and trying to remain on the thickest part of the concrete in the dark. Minho’s front light catches shadows of mosquitoes and other little flies scattering from hovering above the tracks as they power through. He swerves back to the main road soon enough, pinching Jisung’s thigh as he orders for the helmet-protective-glass to be returned over his eyes when he pushes on the speed and they’re back to a grueling roar; back to street-lights, back to not being alone as a stray truck drives past them from time to time. 

Minho drives fast, it’s a given, but he steadily slows down when Jisung leans forward into his space and yells through the helmet and into his ear, voice shaky over the wild yell of wind. 

“There’s a gas station over there, can we stop by?”

Minho makes a swift turn for the gas station before Jisung can even finish his yelp. 

They park neatly by the vending machine. Jisung swings his leg over the bike and stumbles on his feet when he tries standing. Minho can’t help but smile — he can still feel the phantom grip of Jisung’s arms around his waist, a small crease in the fabric of his leather jacket where his chin laid tucked over Minho’s shoulder. 

He reaches out a hand to help Jisung stabilize himself. Jisung waves him off — as expected, so independent and self-assured down to the bone — so Minho only watches, amused, as Jisung starts shaking out his limbs as if he’d just finished a workout. There’s a soft sparkle to his palms which Minho recognizes as sweat and it pushes him to chuckle beneath his breath. Jisung returns him a cheeky grin when he slips off Minho’s helmet with only a bit of trouble, hair gone mad, all adorably frizzy. 

“That was fun,” Jisung sighs. His voice is slightly higher pitched than usual. “Does it always make you this jittery?”

Minho shakes his head. “Not after the first time, not really.”

“I wanted to stop for sour candy. Do you think they sell those strips, like, those super sour ones?”

Minho shrugs. “Maybe. I’m craving it now, too.”

Jisung brightens with a wide smile, curls of his hair bouncing when he turns on his heels to head inside the shop. The sight is strangely charming, even as they enter and greet the elderly man by the cash register. They’re only spared a casual glance, not even a nod disturbing his snoozy, midnight newspaper-reading — however Minho quickly translates the snobbish eye roll as judgement towards their cheery person. 

The gas station is, well, substandard. The AC blasts like crazy, incessant whirring drowning out the sound of whatever cheesy love song is playing on the radio. Jisung skips straight to the candy aisle, carefully sorting out through a selection of various sour gummies and bubblegums. 

Minho watches fondly with his arms crossed as the younger quirks a childish pout. “No strips here.”  

“Just get everything else,” Minho says. 

“You don’t get it. I want these to be crazy strong.”

Minho grabs a few packs of gummies. “Then just put five of them in your mouth at the same time.”

Jisung nods, thoughtful, like he hadn’t thought of that before. 

When Minho rounds the corner and begins to quickly sort through the layers of sour candy in search of Jisung’s target, he raises a soft shuffling sound that catches the clerk’s attention. He raises his voice above the music, making Jisung’s hands twitch for a moment and grip his candy tighter. 

“You two better not be stealing anything over there.”

“Who? Us? Never,” Minho calls out as he slips a chocolate bar into his pocket. “Also,” he goes on, even as Jisung is eyeing him warily, “This store sucks. You need to get sour strips. I’m sure that’d get your business booming.”

Despite eliciting a snort of approval from Jisung, he still receives a soft slap on his forearm. It spurs him on. When Jisung’s attention is safely diverted, another chocolate bar makes its way up his sleeve. Just in case Jisung doesn’t end up liking the sour candy — just in case. 

At the cash register, Minho eyes two packs of cigarettes and a lighter, picking them up while they’re at it. He’s pretty sure Jisung had snatched his lighter back in the motel room without realizing, but he doesn’t want to call him out for it. Selfishly, he wants Jisung to have it. Now, Jisung politely offers to pay for everything. 

“To pay you back for the drinks,” he sheepishly mutters, unzipping the faux-croc wallet.

“Those drinks were much more expensive than this,” Minho jokes. It’s an obvious lie; a couple of glasses of beer barely cost anything. He has a discount in that bar, too — from the owner knowing him and his friends. Jisung’s unimpressed, and just as Minho relishes in the satisfaction of a playful jab, Jisung grabs a pack of ridiculously overpriced condoms from near the register, throwing them upon the pile of sweets. 

“This should even it out.”

He pays before Minho can take his words back. However, the constipated look on the clerk’s face as he scans the condoms proves to be hilarious, though, so he can’t really get mad over that.

Outside, Jisung is comfortably leant onto the shiny bike seat. He fixes his glasses, pushes them higher up his nose, loudly tears open the plastic wrapping of a candy bag.  Minho stands in front of him: not too close, but not too far, either. Close enough for their height difference to be almost amusing, Minho having to slightly tilt his head back to look up into Jisung’s eyes. He’s charmingly youthful with his hair pinned back like this — all round cheeks and high forehead — Minho thinks absentmindedly. 

The bare skin of Jisung’s chest is right there. Even if it tempts him, Minho doesn’t reach out — he keeps his hands in his pockets, fiddling with the foil of the chocolate bars. 

Jisung pops a candy ball into his mouth. Minho can see the way his cheeks bulge, how his tongue swirls around it. He makes a face.

“What’s the verdict?” he asks.

Jisung smacks his lips. “It’s… not very good.”

“Not very sour? Or not very good?”

Jisung turns the bag over, looking at the ingredients. His eyebrows are furrowed — he doesn’t look satisfied. “Both.”

“Okay, let me try.”

Minho glances at the candy, expectant. He reaches out a hand, waiting for Jisung to pour some into it, but it never comes. Instead, there's a press of a thumb to the plush curve of his bottom lip.

 “Open,” Jisung mutters. 

Minho’s mouth follows the command — so easy, so quick, and Jisung places the pink ball onto his tongue. 

It’s offensively more sour than he’d expected. His body seizes up against his will, the sharp sting spreads mercilessly from his tongue to the rest of his body. It makes him excessively salivate, scrunch up his nose for a good five seconds; but when the initial feeling disappears, the candy offers him an out by melting into a pleasant yet artificial peach.

“This isn’t sour enough for you?” Minho whimpers, cracking the lolly under his teeth. 

Jisung shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not really. But it’s cute how reactive you are. Are you this reactive to everything?” he wiggled his brows teasingly. 

Minho scoffs. “You and your sour candy can fuck off. Wanna trade?” He pulls out the now-melting chocolate bars. It slipped his mind how warm the nights get here, how his clammy hands gripping them in his pocket didn’t help. 

“When’d you buy this?” Jisung asks.

“I didn’t.”

He’s already bracing himself for a scolding: but then he sees Jisung’s eyes crinkle and mouth form into a familiar heart-shaped smile.

 “Romantic. Thank you.”

Transfixed by the gas-station’s neon limbo, Minho allows himself a slip of judgement, falling victim to Jisung’s force-feeding of sour-candy into his mouth. His palate gets used to the taste after about three pieces, so he’s not too mad, taking a liking to the kiwi flavor best. Besides, he gets to watch Jisung struggle with the chocolate, to see tiny smears of it around his mouth. His nibbling is awfully akin to a rodent, biting with his front teeth then swirling his tongue into a cheek pocket — cute. 

Jisung makes direct eye contact as his tongue licks over his lips one last time. Minho finds it hard to blink. He feels something stir low in his gut.

 “We should get going.”

“Yeah,” Jisung agrees, standing up from the bike. “We should.”

──── 🏍x 📚────

Once back at the Motel, Minho falls face front on the bed as soon as he has the chance to, exhaustion ringing through his bones from their brief escapade. His muscles feel like they’ll ooze out of his body — he hadn’t noticed how tired he’s been getting. A joint in his knee cracks as he adjusts himself, causing him to let out a stifled whimper. Jisung seems to be in a similar state; his hair has gone in all five different directions and glasses slightly askew on his nose bridge. He moves sluggishly, footsteps quietly brushing over the coarse carpet. 

Sleep seems to be looming over both of their heads. 

Minho hadn’t really asked if he could stay the night. Yet he remains reasonably hopeful that he had earned himself this sleep-spot, alleviating Jisung from the expected cruelty of kicking him out just a few hours before sunrise. Besides, there seems to be a mutual desire for company, if Jisung’s pressed brows and mellow gaze are anything to go by. While Minho rolls over and stretches on the covers, Jisung shrugs off his coat and the bed dips as he settles on top of it, then promptly on top of Minho’s thighs. 

The touch is surprisingly sexual. 

“Tired?” Jisung says, oddly affectionate.

Minho closes his eyes. Jisung’s weight on top of his body feels soothing. “Mhm.”

“Okay,” Jisung whispers. He sounds much closer now, and Minho feels his warm breath fanning over his lips. “Just relax then.”

The kiss is met with a pleased sigh. There’s no teeth, but there’s tongue — Jisung’s, mostly. Minho lets him take the lead because it’s easy, and it’s right. He listens and lets himself relax.

They pull apart after what feels like lazy hours. Minho isn’t sure he’s even awake at this point — but then Jisung’s teeth graze his jaw, catching on his stubble. He admires Jisung’s stamina for an indulgent second, even if he knows both of them are passing out as soon as this is over. However the listless haze building in the room still doesn’t deter him from enjoying the experience: the feeling of soft lips on his skin. He imagines for a brief moment that instead of a hookup Jisung is something more permanent. A tide that reoccurs, a movement which falls in tandem with the beats of his life. Their fingers lock into a clandestine alliance beneath the covers — Minho lets the rolling foam overtake the soughs down his navel. His body lights up when Jisung moves to his neck. There are still marks from before, purpling bruises that Jisung goes over with his tongue, then sucks the skin into his mouth again. It stings in the way good sex does, makes him shiver when Jisung goes on to kiss behind his ear. He grinds down on him, on purpose, and Minho has to bite his lip in order to not groan.

Jisung presses one last tender kiss to his neck before moving on to the rest of his body, and Minho’s heated skin begins to miss something that happened only a few seconds ago. He doesn’t want to seem too desperate all of a sudden, or too impatient, even though he can be and he is. Coveted by the dark of night and Jisung’s encouraging murmurs, he thinks he can give in one more time, in the name of pleasure and sickness of mind. Seemingly just a few minutes ago he was dozing off, but now he’s wide awake — every nerve ending of his buzzing with low electricity.

Despite his elusive rationality, Minho finds himself craving the secure immobility of his hands. He aches for the sting of Jisung’s nails digging into his waist and the plush of his thighs. His mind welcomes the rolling fog, it melts, it turns sickly sweet and cotton candy-like — Jisung is bringing him up to his high carefully, steadily. Although he’s unsure he can achieve that same feeling with merely a few gentle kisses. 

He still shivers when Jisung pulls off his shirt. They’d forgotten to close the window, but even with the midnight breeze cooling his overheated skin, he already feels how a shiny film of sweat begins to bead in the nooks and crannies of his body. Jisung slides his hands up Minho’s sides and to the tattoos that sit on his shoulder. He’s squeezing along the way, but not as hard as Minho would like. He preens at the attention — he feels like Jisung’s stress toy. 

Before he can drift too far away into his own mind, Jisung interrupts his train of thought, “I couldn’t savor you before. I want to do that now, if that’s okay.”

Minho can’t help his eyebrows shooting up. Savor him? That’s certainly a first. Wasn’t romantic sex restricted to couples only?

“So, no more Sir?”

Jisung pinches the junction where Minho’s neck meets his shoulder. He grunts — that one hurt. “I’m always Sir to you.”

“Right,” Minho mutters, ignoring the warmth that floods into his groin.

 His hands are free, though in a pitiful attempt at mimicry he keeps them to the bed, gripping the cheap bedsheets just so he has something to do with them. A faked pretense of yearned confinement, a mouse sneaking through a tight squeeze to imitate a mouse-trap. He doesn’t quite know if he’s allowed to touch Jisung, or if he’d simply get his hand slapped away like before. He desires to read the braille of goosebumps cluttering Jisung’s back — even over his clothes, even for a few seconds. 

“I know we’re both rather tired, but I still want to make you feel good. You know, for an easier sleep,” Jisung’s hot breath murmurs against the softness and warmth of Minho’s neck. 

“You’re being awfully kind to me, Sir.”

“You took me out on your sexy bike, I’m just returning the favor.”

Minho lets himself laugh at that. “You don’t have to be on top of me for this, you know. Lie down. I’d ride you, but my bones are aching.”

“Next time,” Jisung says, fully knowing there might not be a next time. Minho doesn’t call him out on it.

The sex that follows is slow and languid and strangely intimate. 

Jisung has Minho on his side as he spoons him, one hand thrown over his mid-section and the other in his hair, having Minho’s head pulled back enough to have his neck exposed and grazed by Jisung’s teeth from the side. He fucks him slowly, gently, but not without the continuous presence of dominance, shushing Minho each time he begins to whimper or biting down his neck when he arches outwards, out of his shell of dignity, and allows himself to beg. Please Sir, Please Sir— I’m trying for you, Sir. Am I good? Ah— Right there Sir— Yours, yours, yours. 

Jisung revels in Minho’s quiet, breathy tones and admittances. He mirrors each accordingly: with his hands groping and pinching and dragging, with his words breaking the stiff presumption of vulgarity. You’re so eager, It’s almost pathetic, Angel. Ah- ah- No cumming yet, no, baby, angel, sweetheart, no, don’t cry— Shhh. It’s good, you’re doing good, so good for what you are. There you go, sweet thing. Mine, mine, mine. 

Jisung is possessive. 

Or at least he is when there’s less kink involved, and more of an established domination sparks between them — Jisung’s manner of assurance, his placing his knee between Minho’s thighs to both allow him release and grant him slow punishment when he so deserved. Pressed up on his cock, prevented him from rubbing his thighs together. Despite Minho’s desire to speed them up, Jisung thwarted his attempts at quick fucking, making it slow, hard, and not without the leisure of time. 

They cum almost in unison, almost, with Minho being jerked off after Jisung’s own release. They stay put and they breathe. Their chests rise and fall. Minho feels malleable like clay, and fragile like clay vases and plates. He’s never in his life been more grateful for being held. 

After a little reflection before sleep overtakes him, Minho lays in Jisung’s arms and attempts to form a proposition of his phone number, Jisung’s flaccid penis slowly slipping out of him. But he falls into a deep slumber before he gets the courage to do so, warm, sheltered, unnervingly safe. 

──── 🏍x 📚────

In the dead of night, there is no movement. Cars crash through tarmac. The soft rain hardens. The windows are open and anyone could climb in, could rob them. The only thing that slips inside however, is the rain; a rapid sheen licks up Jisung’s naked shoulder, forcing him to snuggle deeper into the scratchy hold of the comforter. Minho sleeps like he is dead and snores like he is dying. Passion, sex, feelings — all fizzle out from their heated muscles and disperse into the stoic hotel-room air, which still smells strongly of cigarette smoke, cheap air-freshener and muggy dust. They fall asleep touching chest to back and they don’t unglue. When the sun rolls out, acidic, tangerine, it grows in size steadily, as if it's speeding into earth.

 The bedside clock strikes noon.

 The bedside clock strikes two.

 The bedside clock strikes three, and someone jolts awake. 

Now, the room is filled with whispered curse words; a naked man runs around collecting clothes and underwear — like picking flowers. He’s gone quickly, clumsily, not too quietly, but quietly enough to allow Minho his heavy sleep. 

About an hour later, Minho awakes. Despite the blaring, barred sun pouring through the barred window onto his face, his sleep was broken by a dull aching in his arm. He has slanted sleepy eyes and a puddle beneath his cheek from where he had drooled through the night. He briefly wonders if Jisung had seen it, had smelt his morning breath and decided not to kiss him awake.  He lays like a beached whale on the springy hotel bed and wonders if he had leaned just a little harder onto the joint of his elbow, had he woken up first, in time to greet Jisung good morning? A bird caws outside, bringing along with it the tsunami of sounds that his brain had previously blocked out: somebody coughing, a honking of cars, roll of tires, conversation. 

Today, Jisung feels like a rogue mirage. A pain in his backside reminds him of the sex they had when he sits up, shooting quickly up his spine and freezing him still when he attempts to stand up. 

It’s not that bad. It will be fine in just a few hours. 

Minho sits back down and passes a lazy hand through his hair. His eyes feel slightly heavy, as if he had overslept despite spending most of the night in active tussling. A full glass of water stands on his side of the bed, albeit not without a puddle spilt around it — the clumsiness makes Minho smirk. Beneath the glass of water, in wet ink is written down a neat, rounded phone number with little hearts drawn all over the paper. There’s no name, but there’s a drawing of a bike too, and Minho thinks he’s in love. He picks the glass up and downs it in one go. It’s decent: not as icy cold and crisp as he’d prefer after such a heavy sleep, but pleasant nevertheless in its lukewarmness. 

The number is quickly punched into Minho’s phone, though sleepily, so he takes a picture of the paper just in case he messed it up. He stretches, yawns loudly and hitches when his jaw releases an unpleasant crack, quickly maneuvering his yawn into a pained squeal. He checks the clock and rubs his eyes lazily when a tiresome four pm stares back at him; half of his day has been fed to sleep. There's several missed calls on his phone from his biker buddies, as expected. They've all left without him, only asking him to notify the group chat that he’s okay and well, and that his hookup has not murdered him and left him in a ditch. 

In the bathroom, after fluffing up the minty hotel toothpaste inside his mouth, Minho finds something glinting next to the soap. He picks up the slab, surprised to see a thin, gold chain coiled up beneath it like a cobra hiding under a rock. It has a cross at its head, with a delicately carved Jesus mid-crucifixion. Upon closer examination, he notices how at each of his bleeding wounds rests a glinting pink rock, about the size of a freckle each. 

Though Minho isn’t much acquainted with religion, he can admit that the work is delicately rewarding, and that whoever had lost such a thing would be grieving over it greatly. 

And… It is Jisung’s, most certainly. 

He doubts that a place like this would have noticed a cross of this quality while cleaning the room and would’ve not immediately stolen it. Jisung hasn’t mentioned him being religious, though it’s not like either he or Minho had prompted one another to discuss much more personal sides of themselves either way. 

After a quick shower to get rid of his sex-wrapped skin, Minho pockets the necklace and gets dressed, making a mental note to notify Jisung that he’s found the item. The drive home isn’t long, or rather, not long enough to worsen his quietly mellowed out back pain; an hour with a few shortcuts. He drives a little carelessly, swerves between a few cars. The inside of his helmet smells a teasing amount of blackberry hair spray, and he wonders just how much of it had rubbed off from Jisung’s curls. By the time he’s parking next to his house, the sky has been blended from faded-jean blue to a blueberry-raspberry smoothie mix. The foam off the blades drips down from its dome and accumulates in clouds above the buildings of the peeling, tangy horizon. 

Bouncing over the fluff of his couch, Minho hooks his left food on the low coffee table and presses his phone between the juncture of his cheek and shoulder, lazily peeling off his sock from the right one as he’s greeted with the cheerful voice of Jisung on the other end of the line. 

“Evening, beautiful. I see you didn’t miss the paper with my number on it. Hope your day has been great.” 

Minho snorts at the cheesiness, “Has been fine. I’m covered in sweat, and I think I still reek of you and sex.” 

“You haven’t showered yet? It’s like eight in the evening, you could’ve used the shower at the motel too. I extended the room’s rent by lunch so you weren’t booted out…” 

“Ah that’s how it was. No, I did shower, but it was quick since I kind of felt all yicky staying there on my own, hopped onto the bike and now I’m back at my place. I’ve had lunch and now I think I’ll climb into a hot bath because my back is seriously out to murder me today.” 

“Yeowch— too much sex? I should’ve gone softer on you, my bad.” 

“Don’t say ‘my bad’ for railing me. Besides, I really did enjoy it.” 

A chuckle. “That’s flattering.” 

“You got out of state in time for your conference by the way?” 

There’s a little ruffle of bedsheets at the other end of the line, as if Jisung is readjusting his position. “Oh yes, well— technically no. They were stressing the times so much but when I arrived late, the team assured me I was fine and due to the absence of the director they had to reschedule for tomorrow. His flight got delayed.” 

“Ah… Well that’s good then. You’re already in bed?” 

“Early morning tomorrow, but I’m not actually sleeping until ten or ten thirty.” 

“That’s ridiculous. I barely tap out at two.” 

“Could guess, I try to keep my schedule intact on most nights, except for when I travel or I've got some weeks off. Or when there’s a pretty boy in my bed.” 

Minho snorts. “I’m pretty?” 

“The prettiest.” 

“That’s not usually the word people describe me with. I get ‘hot’ a lot, I get ‘manly’ and ‘handsome’ and sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get ‘cute’.” 

“Mhmm,” Jisung hums thoughtfully, “Well you’re all of those things. But pretty too. Cute — yes. And adorable, sweet, I want to bite you.” 

“I think you’ve bitten me enough. I’m like an apple going bad, there’s stains all over my skin.” The admission makes his cheek bunch up and Jisung to wolf whistle. He’s proud of his work and effect on Minho, no doubt. 

The flirting through the phone lasts for the next ten minutes, Minho curling on on his couch as he hugs one pillow, feeling a tad too giddy than a man his age should be when talking with some guy he’s had sex with once. When Jisung hangs up, saying he has a company dinner, Minho stays on the same spot and presses the pads of his fingers to the pulse on his neck, then to the pulse on his wrist. 

He’s not as smitten as he’d like to be, but he loves to heighten his own emotions, especially ones he rarely gets to experience. 

That same approaching evening, as he’s going through the pockets of his jeans he’s about to throw into the washing machine, he finds again the cloth-wrapped crucifix Jisung had forgotten at the motel. Even though the younger man hasn't mentioned the loss, Minho cups the necklace into his palm and lazily walks out to the living room in search of his phone and grabs it off the coffee table alongside a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. He brings the cross to the window where the little pink stones catch light and glimmer, zooms in on it, and snaps a picture before sending it to Jisung. 

[photo attached] 

me: you forgot this back at the hotel 

me: so pretty. looks expensive, 

want me to drive out to harrisburg next week?

 I can pass this to you 

me: haha good thing i like you,

 if this was some random hookup I’d pawn the thing

It only takes a few moments before the messages are read. 

[ Jisung(ONS) is typing . . . ] 

Then radio silence. Whatever he’s typed he must’ve deleted because the three dots disappear, before reappearing again after a few minutes only to disappear again, a moment later. 

Minho sighs and steps outside to the veranda to light himself a cigarette. Maybe Jisung’s busy. Maybe he should give him a call? The weather outside suggested it was tired of sun and clarity, bringing upon a plump fogginess. Minho stares off into the erected towers of mills and watches how their caterpillars of airy-curdled-cloud pour into the sky. He lights the tip, inhales, exhales, shakes off the ash. 

Returns his eyes to the phone once it buzzes, but once he opens the chat it says that the message has been deleted. Frowns. 

And suddenly, there’s a small chain of red writing on his screen. 

You can no longer message user ‘Jisung(ONS)’ 

This user has blocked your number. 

Huh? 

Minho takes another drag of the cigarette, leans on the porch. Blocked? That can’t be right. He attempts to send a message but it says that it cannot be delivered. 

He returns his eyes to the sky. The sky is cat-fur grey and cat-fur stuffy. His hands tremble under an irritated spasm.

What an asshole. 

Minho hovers his finger pad over the red button. 

No, what an asshole! 

And just like that, Jisung too, is now Blocked.  

Chapter Text

A week passes and Minho has trouble forgetting the night he spent with Jisung. It stalls him. Leaves him hanging. His body remembers Jisung’s touch with the worst timing and stops him in his tracks, mid-eating breakfast or mowing the lawn. It’s frustrating at best and hindering at worst. At first, he attempts to block it out by listening to music the moment his mind begins to wonder, or downs a glass of water whenever he gets too pent up, but it still fails to work. Fails to distract him from his new-found horniness. 

He… jerks off a lot. 

Once a day. It happens at least once a day. 

Sex is usually forgetful to him, it’s oily and slightly awkward and very primal — like two dogs doing it in a parking lot out of an instinctive need to breed. Minho has sex because he likes the nettle-burn of climaxing and because it takes the edge off of his mid-life crisis. He never has sex to connect with people, or because he hopes that he will accidentally fall in mutual, whirlwind love with his one night stand. 

Those hopes were budding in his twenties. They passed. 

He thought he’d outgrown his tendencies to think back to misfortunes. And that is what Jisung becomes to him: a misfortune. 

If not for him, Minho wouldn’t be so… perplexed.

 Today, he lies beneath the elevated bottom of a semi-truck and unscrews a pipe for an oil-change — hot, black, sticky liquid flushing right into his awaiting palm before directing its stream into the bucket Minho has placed by his head. The air around him smells of car-leather, road-dust, gasoline, and he stares up at the underbelly of car mechanisms with defeat. 

Everything is grey and dusty. 

He thinks he can distinguish road ash by its smell: main road. This one reeks of the highway. Before his eyes, the truck pees out happily its black urine. He swallows down a knob of slight disgust and begins to scoot out on the wooden creeper, its yellow wheels leaving uneven traces of machine oil on the dirty ground. 

Once out and the soothing breeze of autumn wind returns to him, Minho sighs and sits up. Makes a sour face. He’s been moody. He comes to the conclusion that he’ll have to thick it out. Suckered, cloudy beads of sweat run down his forehead and into his hairline — he relaxes so his ass sticks to the ground like a melting popsicle dropped on the tarmac. The owner of the car stands a few feet away from his lax body and uncaps a Pepsi bottle. 

He’s a young kid, maybe twenty-something, with brittle hay hair tied up in a man-bun. There are three piercings in one of his ears which makes Minho wonder. He thinks briefly what that kid’s future will be, if he, (unlikely) has finished college and pursues a higher education. It makes his arms a little tense — thinking about youth — considering he has wasted his own. 

The kid finishes his drink and asks Minho where the trash can is. The brief flash of familiarity flickers out of existence. 

Once Minho is done with the oil change, another car has already pulled up towards their garage and his boss directs his colleague to take it. He tells Minho that he looks a little distracted, like he’s been staring at the sun for too long and grew a soupy absence in his eyes. Considering they’ve worked together for ten years, Minho is inclined to believe him. 

He feels strangely fresh as of recent — in a new wound sense. As if the skin on his waist and thighs has had an unfortunate encounter with sand-paper. They burn a bit. Minho pats them down with the back of his hand when people aren’t looking.

Tells his system to reset.

For that too — he blames Jisung. 

He blames Jisung at work and at home, when he sweeps the floors in his house and the dust, instead of clumping together and rolling onto the paddle, falls into the crevices between the tiles, darkening them into a deeper contrast between blue and black. As if he’s trying to tidy away some grime that is meant to be there. Grime that has wormed its way into his folds and wrinkles, that needs a scooping out with a nail to get it scratched out. 

When he’s back from the Mechanic’s shop, Minho takes a long, bubbly bath. 

He likes bubble baths — it's one of the simpler joys in life that he allows himself to have. He thinks his character is very predictable to others, people see him and they can guess what he likes: unfiltered beer, rock from the eighties and nineties, Metal, sports TV, spicy food (courtesy of being Asian) and leather jackets. He falls into stereotypes with a sitting down sense. Like acceptance of an award. It makes him happy sometimes. To know exactly what others think of him. If he follows those rules then he will never be caught off guard. Stereotypes are amongst the few things he’s earned, and he likes being easily recognized for what he is. 

Aside from his sexual preference. 

Minho sinks a little deeper into the pink water and sticks out his toes from the foam. Wiggles them a little. His bath bomb had clearly expired, judging from the bitter-ish flower scent. Stinks of wilting roses. He doesn’t soak in it for too long, wraps himself in a towel and slowly pads into his room. His feet dampen the carpet of his bedroom. He drops onto the soft mattress and rolls into the covers until they envelope his skin with a warm cocoon. 

This feels nice. 

Comforts like these never change, he can remember doing the exact same thing at thirteen. Except for, he’s not reading comics while tuning out his parent’s arguments. 

Instead, there is an open search on his phone into BDSM and kink space. 

Being a bottom didn’t immediately equal someone being submissive — Minho knows that. But the more he thinks back to his past hookups, the more he remembers the frustration he had during sex about having to pretend to get off on control. When he remembers how Jisung spoke to him, his tummy does a little flip, a pang of self-awareness.  

Understanding reluctantly that he should sleep before he touches himself to the thought of being degraded again, Minho sits up against the headboard and sets an alarm for eight AM. 

No, he sets three. He’s a heavy sleeper. Slides back down and stares up at the expanse of a greyish ceiling. 

The old clock above his head continues its peckish ticking. Sleep pulls him under slowly, by his shoulders. Takes off like an old school bus. Wonky and familiar. Surrounded by faces and colors. A little damp in places. It rolls and it wobbles. 

It gets a sudden flat tire and shakes. 

Minho’s eyes are pried open by his phone’s buzzing. 

“What the— who?” 

Drowsily, he reaches over to the little stool and picks up his phone, looking at the unknown caller ID on his screen. There’s other missed calls from the same number — for the fourth time in a row, huh. This guy really wants to get under Minho’s skin. 

The desire to decline tickles him and yet he slides the accept button. Well… it could be something important after all. He pushes his heavy body semi-upright and presses the phone to his ear. 

“Hello?” 

There’s heavy breathing at the other end of the line, lazily tearing through the awfully grainy and awfully nostalgic static of a pay phone. Minho is almost impressed with the dedication of this scammer to bother him and remain anonymous. However, once the silence turns a little creep-ish and Minho almost decides to hang up, a burp comes through, followed by a voice. 

“Shit— sorry, uhm…” 

Minho frowns. 

The words are slurred. Drunk dial? Sure, but drunk dial from a pay phone? No, unlikely. 

“Lee— Lee Minho, uhm, I have the right number?” The voice rasps, and maybe it could shape into something familiar, but the presence of sleep and a lack of enthusiasm prolongs Minho from recognition for another few seconds. 

“Yes, that’s me, who is this?” 

“Shit, it is you. I uh, you would remember me, I think, I hope. I remember you! I do… uhm, we had a night we shared in the cheap motel— uh, fuck… gas station ? Your bike went whir—“ The voice rolls his r’s, “And then we fucked.” 

Minho chokes out a startled laugh. What is the caller on about? He reaches up to rub his eyes lazily. Sounds of the night begin to reach him while he’s shedding off more and more of his dream. The caller is slightly nonsensical, clearly far beyond tipsy — but then it strikes: Bike, gas station, sex in a cheap motel. 

Minho’s chest tightens. 

“Jisung?” 

The line goes silent. 

Minho swears they’ve both stopped breathing, but if the voice of potentially Jisung does not carry on with confirmation any time soon, Minho will hang up with great enthusiasm. He’s unsure if either from embarrassment and hope or disappointment, though. 

“Yes. I… yes, it’s me. Hi, Minho.” 

Minho whistles out a sigh before flopping onto his back and staring at his ceiling in contemplation. “Hello, Jisung. It’s three AM.” 

“It is? Fuck, it is. Shit, I’m sorry— I tried calling you d-during the day but you’ve got me blocked and I— I just, this pay phone and your number...” 

“I know how pay phones work, Jisung.” Minho rubs at his temple with his knuckle to wake himself up a bit further, readying to nurse a drunk Jisung into returning home and not telling him to go fuck himself. 

Of course he still holds his own grudge for the block very near to his heart — but, he is at least mildly curious as for why Jisung has decided to reach out. Despite the sleepiness, he is eager to feed on a teary apology, especially after he was so convinced they’ve both left a lasting impression on one another. 

The apology is brief though, and without tears. 

“I’m really so, so sorry for the block. I pan’ick’ed,” Jisung politely hiccups through his words. “And… I understand you blocked me b-back but I really, and I mean really will need, uhm… you have the…”

The line goes silent again.

”Best ass?” Minho decides to tease. 

“No! Not that, I mean— No, yes, absolutely! Fuck, c-couldn’t stop thinking ‘bout it, baby, but… you have my cross necklace and I need it like I need to breathe.” 

Another scoff bubbles up Minho’s throat. Huh. “Ah, that thing… I pawned it, like I said I would,” he decides to bluff. 

Jisung gasps. “H-huh?” 

“Mhm, I told you it looked expensive. I figured I could get some extra cash from it, I’m not one to keep sentimental heirlooms of men that give me orgasms and disappear.” 

There’s a very heavy, watery sigh that comes through. “You pawned it,” Jisung repeats. His voice is suddenly both very deep and strangely weak. “For how much?” 

“Five hundred bucks?” He has no idea how much Jisung’s necklace is worth. 

“Five hundred bucks,” Jisung repeats blandly. “It costs three grand.” 

“Three grand!” Minho whisper-yells, “What is that thing made out of?” 

“Gold and… real rubys. It doesn’t matter a-actually. S’fine. F-fuck…” 

Jisung’s voice trails off before Minho hears another hiccup come through. It’s wet, less drunk and more dreadful. Almost as if Jisung is holding back tears. Wow. Now Minho feels like a royal asshole. 

He groans quietly and looks back at his window while a little sob comes through and shakes him by the shoulders, urging for his humanity to swoop back in. Comfort Jisung. 

He’s being a dick. Does Jisung really deserve this? 

Short answer — maybe. 

“Are you crying?” 

“N-no, uhm, a bit.” Jisung says. “H-how long ago have you pawned it? Do you think there’s s-stil time to buy it back if I go?” 

“Jisungie…” 

“Mhm.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“N-no, I do, It’s—“ 

Minho closes his eyes. “I didn’t pawn it, you can stop crying. I— It’s on my bathroom shelf as of now..” 

“You lied?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why? Actually, never mind. Ugh, thank god.”

Minho can practically sense the relief which overtakes Jisung at that moment. He laughs a grainy, pay-phone laugh.

“Will you text me? So…” 

“I can pass it onto you, yeah, that’s fine. Just don’t pull anything ridiculous on me.” 

“I won’t. Ah, I promise I won’t. Thank you so much. Goodnight!” 

The line goes silent when Jisung hangs up. 

When Minho wakes up the next morning, the first thing he does is unblock Jisung's number. They agree on a meeting place in town, in Harrisburg, the next weekend when Minho knows he’ll be off work for the next day, just in case. 

He doesn’t allow himself to text Jisung often. Three to four word sentences are sent Jisung’s way and when the other attempts to spin a conversation Minho ghosts him. 

He’s not in the mood. So far, Jisung seems just a little bit messy. 

Minho doesn’t get him at all. 

Upon driving into Harrisburg, he feels a little pulse jump beneath the skin of his eyelid. Trees are green-ish-ochre, an admirable amount of lawn for a main city takes-up most of the ground to the left and right of his road. It is a very clear, very flat, blue day. He cannot spot a single cloud in the sky, instead being met with an epitome of endless, primary azure. His meeting with Jisung is not until six-thirty, but he, half-an-hour early, parks his bike by the rusty-bicycle-stands beside their agreed-upon spot and climbs off the saddle, shaking static out of his knees. 

He’s unusually tense for someone who could not pick between excitement and disinterest before the drive. 

To their mutual surprise, Jisung only shows up five minutes later. 

His car parks by the restaurant and his head pops out from the open door. The head’s a mane. Minho immediately recognizes him by the past-decade clothes and khakis but his curls seem enhanced strategically, forming a large and noticeable mop of hair. It flicks and burns in the wind, a campfire of strands and brushes. When the man turns around, Minho’s chest is suddenly punctured with tension. He lifts one hand in the air and waves, though once Jisung’s eyes land on him he passes the same hand through his hair and pretends to find interest in the ground.

Jisung runs up to him in a soft trot. 

His face looks just like Minho had remembered him, though a little less tired and a little more anxious. He has a red flannel on which’s top buttons are undone. Minho can’t exactly make out the depth of his eyes from the way sun rays whiten his glasses but he’s almost certain that they shine a bright, orange-ish brown in the light. 

“You look good.” Jisung tells him. 

“Likewise.” 

Minho shoves a hand in his back pocket and pulls out the little pouch where he has stored the necklace. Extends his hand to Jisung and waits. 

Nothing happens for a few confusing seconds as Jisung looks down at Minho’s palm and doesn’t move to grab it. 

“Come on, it’s yours.” 

“Sorry I—“ Jisung stammers, gently picking the pouch up. “Didn’t think you’d cut straight to the chase. Thank you.” 

“Well there’s no use dragging this out, considering you don’t wanna talk to me,” Minho mumbles bitterly. 

Jisung raises his startled eyes from inspecting the insides of the pouch. “I don’t wanna talk to you? Why?” 

“That’s a question for you to answer.” 

“I— I’d love to talk to you, Minho. I mean, I booked us a spot at the restaurant here.” He turns around and motions towards the building to their right, “Right here. I thought we’d have dinner.”

“You reserved a table.” 

Jisung nods, pocketing the necklace. 

“And you didn’t care to ask me if I was available?” 

“You said you’d be free to drop off the necklace…” 

“And did you clarify if I wanted to have dinner with you?” 

“You seemed a little curt when we talked.” 

“Because you blocked me last time we did,” Minho reminds him. 

Jisung sighs.

He seems both lost and nervy, worrying his lip briefly between his teeth. Minho almost regrets his blunt statements. He’s a little blindsided by the booked table and the dinner proposition, and as eager as he is to accept it, he wants first to hear what Jisung has to say for himself, maybe earn back a little of Minho’s respect. 

“Look…” he begins, voice a little lower. “You really, really weren’t supposed to know about the cross, let alone see it. I take it off each time I have sex. I hid it beneath the soap, really didn’t think I’d forget about it but… here we are. I do like you, but I work to keep my unusual sex life apart from religion and for them to never interact.” 

“You’re Christian?” 

Jisung nods first. Then shakes his head, then stills mid shake and finishes it off with a slow nod, again. 

“And that’s why you blocked me. Because I found out you’re Christian,” Minho says, deadpan. 

He understands that it’s a little rare to be both a gay BDSM-dom (or whatever Jisung is) and religious, and that many might avoid that in sexual encounters. If he’s being honest with himself, he has very nasty views about religious people he wouldn’t like Jisung knowing… However, if the Christian boy is hot and doesn’t call him slurs he might as well hop into bed with him. 

“I don’t tell people I’m Christian, Minho,” Jisung emphasizes. “If they find out, I cut ties. It’s complicated. I could expand on some of it, but I couldn’t tell you the whole truth since I don’t even see the full picture myself. Yet. Let the topic go, please?” 

“I’m just trying to understand.” 

“You don’t have to though— you really don’t.” 

Minho rolls his eyes. “Sure, just wine and dine me and leave me in the dark.” 

That answer shuts Jisung up for a brief moment. He offers Minho a tight lipped smile and gently takes him by the elbow, marching him down towards the restaurant. While Jisung talks to the woman at the welcoming desk, Minho observes the prices on the menu. They’re not cheap, but he figures he isn’t the one paying. It’s a steakhouse and he’s not about to turn down some free filet-mignon. 

“Can you afford to buy me a 120$ dish?” Minho speaks, flipping through the pages. 

“Of course I can,” comes the reply. 

“You have a platinum card or something?” 

He hears Jisung groan, then the man is by his side again. “I don’t. I have a regular card. Here, actually, let me show it to you,” Jisung begins, reaching for his wallet. 

It takes him quite a moment. Or rather; he doesn’t find it at all. 

To Minho’s sadistic amusement, Jisung turns very pale. He slaps around his front pockets, his back, and looks up at Minho with wide eyes. 

“What?” 

“I— uhh…” 

“Did you forget your wallet?” 

“Maybe.” Jisung says. “I’ll run to the car, one moment. It’s definitely there, I mean, I couldn’t have left it at home, could I?” 

Minho watches him trot back to the parking spaces and dig around the front seat. He turns increasingly stressed as he does so, climbing fully inside, groping through the glove compartments. 

Yep. He’s definitely forgotten it at home. That much is obvious. 

Minho crosses his arms over his chest. He is almost happy with how poorly tonight is going for Jisung. It’s almost a little cute. He seems to be honestly trying to make things up to him, and Minho can’t keep being that bitter over being blocked. 

Or can he? 

Either way, if Jisung doesn’t have his wallet, the date is certainly ruined. Minho’s pretty sure this was supposed to be just that — a date. Steakhouse dinners aren’t thrown around into laps of ever meaningless hookup, he reasons, and it flatters him beyond belief that he’s left such a lasting impression on the younger, which has him scurrying to ask Minho out. 

It boosts his ego, so to speak. 

“Look, this will sound a little bit impromptu — but,” Jisung rambles as he jogs back up to him. “I have a good pair of steaks at home. I could cook them for us! I mean, we could still have dinner, if you want to.” 

“No wallet?” 

“Nope. And I’m not letting you pay.” 

Minho scoffs. “And who said I was going to offer?” 

“Ah, ah, you’re really something, aren’t you? Steaks at my place: yes or no.” 

Jisung’s car smells a lot like car-air freshener.

 A lot. 

Minho thinks having too much airfresher is kind of kitsch but he doesn’t voice it — there’s butterflies migrating from his stomach to his throat and to keep them in he has to bite his lip — leaving his tongue tied ten minutes into the ride. Jisung turns on the radio once he realizes Minho isn’t starting conversation, to fill the silence, maybe he thinks it’s awkward. It’s a little tense on Minho’s part but not in a bad way, more so in a teen way, as if they’re sneaking away to do something dumb and rom-com-ish and spontaneous. 

Reminds him a bit of the night they met. 

“Can you cook them nicely?” Minho speaks up when one of Jisung’s hands leaves the steering wheel to tug on his earlobe. 

“Hmm?” 

“The steaks.” 

“I usually burn them but I can promise to get it right this time around.” Jisung says, confidently. 

“Alright, so that’s a no. I, on the other hand, am great with steaks. Maybe I can do a better job.” 

“Sure, I mean… you’d want to cook instead?” 

“Are you offering your kitchen?” 

“To you? Yeah.” 

Minho stifles a chuckle. “So confident. I guess I’ll be the one making dinner at your house.” 

Jisung glares at him. “Alright I’ll be the one cooking then—“ 

“Nope. Don’t want burnt steak.” 

“Alright. You’re such a little shit, you know that?” 

“Keep your eyes on the road.” Minho says, laughing. 

With the tension dissipating, the rest of the ride to Jisung’s place goes by without much awkwardness.

──── 🏍x 📚────

Jisung’s house is a very pleasant, very brown place. Where there isn’t carpet, dark, wooden floors are laid, even in the kitchen, and where there is carpet, usually stands a pillowy looking armchair or extends a couch. He has a large kitchen filled with units which connect with the living room in a spacious oval, a bedroom, two bathrooms with green tiles, a small study-room filled with shelves and a small, dark room for laundry. It’s all very clean. Vacuumed. Perhaps mopped. The walls are plastered with naff, sepia landscape-wallpaper which reminds Minho of photographs from the 19th century he sees amongst stamp collectors. The faded details of a monochromatic pine forest carry his gaze up the wall and to the checkered, peabody and russet, floor-length curtains that collect dust where their drapes swoop the floor. The design choice is strange. It fits though. Makes him wonder if Jisung arranged everything himself.  

Minho stills by the windowsill where several crooked (and rather tall) cacti reach for the sun with their pin-cushion heads. Their pots have grandma-ruffles around the clay ring like tutus. Pink and green. 

It’s both a little French and a little gay. 

Inside the living room, it smells like wood, candle-wax and turmeric. Distantly reminiscent of an old church. On the oak cupboard by the couch stands a slim, polished church icon. Its glass is freshly wiped and the frame around it, red and ornate, serves a stark contrast to the golden and faded paint inside. Virgin Mary. A crucifix lies by it, tangled in rosary beads. It looks like a shrine. Smells of incense. Minho is scared to touch. There’s another icon by the kitchen, though smaller, and of a prophet whom Minho doesn’t recognize. Aside from religious items, the house is filled with small figurines and trinkets: a globe stands on the living-room shelf, a plastic recreation of a DNA chain, paintings of lakes and seas, even funny-shaped rocks and amorphous, cracked-open, egg-shaped crystals which catch Minho's attention the most. 

There’s simply a lot of things to look at. Minho wonders if Jisung would find his own place boring. He doesn’t collect many things. If he did, everything would be dusted. 

While Jisung walks towards the fridge and pushes it open, Minho occupies himself in inspecting a large family portrait.

Mother, father, Jisung (looking kid-ish, probably in his teens) and a boy beside him, slightly taller, with a mean grin on his face — most likely his brother. The whole family is clothed in beiges with blackish-brown, short, wavy hair swept to the side. Golden crosses on their necks. Small Jisung looks just like his father — with relaxed, downturned eyes and tanned eyelids, full cheeks supported by a renaissance smile — while his mother has sharper, bird-like features easily recognizable in the kid to Jisung’s left. They look exactly like their parents. The family is touching each other in a polite, posed way. Reminds Minho of strangers on a train. The mother’s fingers cup Jisung’s pointy shoulders and resemble a manicured epaulette. Her look is both proud and pushy. The father’s eyes are a little bit off from the camera lense so Minho struggles to read the emotion in his gaze. His wrist carries a watch on a crocodile-skin strap. 

Minho rolls around the supple skin on his knuckle in circles — it glides smoothly. He wonders how much that watch costs. 

He begins to imagine price tags. Stops when he realizes it to be rude. 

Is it rude? 

Jisung clearly has money, is it bad of him to guess the amount? Probably. But Minho rarely deals with money on a comfortable level. When there’s too much of it he’s reckless. When there’s too little, he feels at ease, because he’s used to it, because that’s how it always is. 

With him and with people around him. With how he grew up. 

His singularity startles those who have families; he wonders if Jisung would lose respect for him if he finds out. 

That he’s the odd one out. 

He becomes the fifth person, with his back turned to the flash. 

“Hey I do have steak, I was right,” Jisung’s voice rings out through the quietness of the house and startles him. 

“Oh?” 

Minho shuffles away from the picture and forgets to school his expression when he turns to face Jisung. “That’s good.” 

“Is everything okay?” 

“Mhm. All great. I just— was looking at the family photo. It’s nice.” 

Jisung’s cheek forms a dimple from how briefly he shrugs his lips. “Ahhh. That picture. Yes, that’s us. Don’t… nevermind. You said you could cook a mean steak?” 

“Yeah, I usually grill it outside or at a BBQ but I can work a pan well.” 

“That’s great. But I’ll help you, as the guest you can’t be doing all the work.” 

They both shuffle quietly around Jisung’s kitchen, preparing ingredients. While Minho inspects Jisung’s fancy pans, the other sets up music on his loudspeaker. He puts on Jazz first which earns him a glare from Minho and quickly switches it into a radio station with mellow rock. Seventies British rock. Minho likes it. He gently bobs his head to the music. Jisung seems to like it too, if the sway of his hips is anything to go by. 

They’re very, very comfortable in each other's presence with knives. 

Minho doesn’t usually trust strangers in his home, and certainly not with sharp objects, so the fact that Jisung does is a little funny to him. He dices onions and herbs, heats up butter and begins to carve the steak all the while Jisung stands leaning on the counter. He’s telling Minho something: something about the music. A fun ‘did you know that’ or a basic ‘fun fact’ about Queen. It’s a little endearing and a bit patronizing too. Minho’s sure he knows so much more about rock than Jisung does, and sets himself a goal to prove himself to the other man in the sphere. Jisung already seems so much more knowledgeable in the history of everything smart. 

Rock and Metal isn’t something Minho will give to him, oh no. 

As he flips the steak and watches it sizzle, he begins to collect facts about music which could impress. But then, Jisung’s hands are on his hips and his chin on Minho’s shoulder and he’s stalling in his head. The pan lands back on the stove. Minho’s hands find Jisung’s fingers. 

What is this? 

Tension floods back into his body. Attraction resurfaces. He’s aware of Jisung’s breath and his chest to Minho’s back. He’s pretty — Jisung, that is. Minho was always weak for pretty boys. But he was mostly weak for confidence, and there is little hesitation in the way Jisung touches him. 

It makes him feel stupid. The good kind. 

“Smells so good.” Jisung says, his long fingers playing briefly with Minho’s pants button. “Can’t wait.” 

Then he’s gone again. He’s pulled away from Minho by the beeping of his fridge which stood open for too long. Jisung closes it and squats down, opening the door to the wine-cabinet. His eyes are slightly darker when they meet Minho’s. 

“Wine?” 

“I… I have to drive back.” Minho replies, eyes switching from Jisung to the steak. Back and forth. 

“Right. I’ll indulge, if you don’t mind?” 

“Not one bit.” 

He takes out a pretty bottle and walks out from the kitchen island to the living room. Begins to set the table. Minho just now notices that on its surface has appeared a vase with flowers. Not roses — just some pretty white ones he doesn’t know the name of — though it still challenges his understanding of the evening. 

Does Jisung want something more from him? 

He’s been single for a very long while. He’d be lying if he said the efforts don’t flatter him. Jisung is his type after all, even if he is religious, or something along those lines. 

A drop of hot butter squirts on Minho’s hand and he’s brought back to reality through the quick ick of pain. Steak one is ready. He plates it.

The radio starts playing Queen. 

Once dinner is set, Minho is invited to the table. It has ornate wood and a polished glaze, a pleasant walnut. Jisung pulls away one of the chairs like a gentleman, offering Minho a seat and his heart gives weakness when it flutters. 

“So, tell me about yourself.” Jisung finally says as he leans back in his chair, a glass of wine swirling in his hand. He doesn’t sip at it yet, only occasionally bringing it to his nose so he can feel the berry aroma. 

“So, this is a date?” Minho asks. 

“Well, let’s not jump to conclusions.” 

“Oh really? What, do you usually get together like this with your friends?” 

Jisung laughs. “You’d be surprised — yes, actually. All my friends are married, old coots. When we get together it’s often just like that.” 

“How old are we talking?” Minho asks. 

“Late… thirties? Early thirties too, sometimes. Always in their thirties though. A few in their forties!” 

“Wow.” Minho fake gags. “That’s so old. Can you guess my age?” 

Jisung grins. “Thirty-five?” 

“Spot on. So I’m a coot… how old are you exactly?” 

“Twenty-four, but my birthday is next month. So a decade younger.” 

Minho blinks at him several times. Jisung is young. Minho knew he was young, but at twenty-five, Minho was fucking around, not working a stable, well-paying job and owning an extravagant home. He remembers, he had just locked in a place at that car-mechanic’s. To think that he still works there, to this day. 

“You have no friends your own age?” he decides to pivot instead, shooing away thoughts of comparison. Jisung has rich parents— it’s different for him. 

“I have… one. And from a completely different field of work. The BDSM scene.” 

“Ahhh…” Minho breathes out. He figured Jisung would be in the community. “Otherwise, is it all work related?” 

Jisung nods. “I spend a lot of my time giving lectures when I attend big gatherings and that usually leads to acquaintances, but predominantly, I work from home.” 

“Your job?” 

“Molecular biology. My field is biotechnology specifically, I study the nicknacks of pharmaceutics but my speciality is trans-species viruses and adaptation of micro-organisms through different mammals. But I did papers on insects too. Fungal ant infections are ridiculously gripping, you should know.” 

Minho blinks at him. Lectures? Jisung gives lectures? Everything he’s just described sounds like a whole different realm. It sounds high end, like a position people strive for their whole lives — does Jisung have a Phd?

”Do you have a Phd?” Minho asks. 

“I do. This is my first year post graduate after the program. I finished high school at sixteen after skipping a few grades then zoomed through university— It was a lot of studying,” he laughs. “What about you? What was your major?” 

“Ah…” 

This is awkward. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Why did Minho have to ask Jisung about his studies? This puts him between a rock and a hard place; he can’t lie about this. But the thought of telling Jisung the truth, after hearing of his immeasurable success in academics, floods him with a clear and slippery sense of dread. 

He drums his fingers on the table. Next, takes his knife and fork, cuts off a large chunk of the meat and shoves it behind his cheek with a deep moan. “Mhm.” 

Jisung raises his eyebrow. “Good steak?” 

It’s great steak, actually. But he’s avoiding the topic and he can’t chew forever. 

“I never went to university. I jumped right into work after traveling the country for a few months, and settled here, in Pennsylvania.” 

“Oh, you’re not a local?” 

“I’m from Virginia, actually.” 

“Ahh, that’s nearby. Your parents were fine with you not attending university?” 

“Well, my line of work requires primarily hands-on skills that I was already familiar with, besides money was an issue too… so it just turned out that way,” Minho weasels out. 

He notices that Jisung’s cheeks puff out when he chews and he finds it adorable, deciding to concentrate on that rather than the crippling sense of inferiority that begins to settle on his shoulders. He feels out of place in Jisung’s home when he talks about his background. 

“And your line of work is?” Jisung asks.

“I’m a mechanic,” Minho says, swallowing another bite of steak. “I, uhm. I fix cars. I’ve always wanted to fix motorcycles — and I do, sometimes — but it’s cars, usually. I work at this repair shop, It’s outside of town, I’ve known the owner for around twelve years and we’re good friends.” 

He gauges Jisung’s reaction but the man is undisturbed. He looks attentive. He lets Minho speak and stays silent when he finishes, in case there’s something else Minho wants to add.

“Wow, physical work, huh? I’m just about as good with cars as your average nerd, if something breaks down I’m a bit helpless. So you’ve done this your whole life?” 

“Yeah. A little underwhelming compared to yours, huh?” 

“No, I think It’s great that you’ve found your path in life. Seems like both you and me gravitated towards something we knew we’d do pretty early on.” 

“Maybe, yes,” Minho decides to agree, he’s not the type to spill his tragic backstory on the first date. 

From there on, the conversation digresses into casual get-to know each other talk. Pleasantly surprised, Minho discovers that he and Jisung have a similar taste in music after all. They share preference in a few bands such as Pink Floyd, Nirvana and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Jisung’s favorite song is Rape Me and Minho doesn’t have one but he likes hearing Jisung sing the melody. He’s off tune but his voice is gentle enough to mask it. It makes Minho a little giddy, knowing that he can sing better than him. He won’t try to prove it, but he pockets the small victory discretely. 

Recounting facts about the history of his favorite bands is easy and it flows. Minho has been in the metal crowd enough to not make himself out to be an idiot when the topic arises. He can entertain with did you know?’s that catch Jisung lacking, and Jisung is attentive when listening to and about Iron Maiden. He says— I’ve supposed you’d like something like that. It suits you just right. And Minho takes it positively. 

The praise pets him. Jisung is good at that: throwing him treats along the way. 

When Minho attempts to bring up Jisung’s religion again, he pivots and beetles off into a safer and less controversial topic. Like movies, or hobbies. He lets Minho know that his family and himself are both Christian and that they’re aware of him being gay.  He’s tense when he admits that, as if being out is something he struggles to tie to his family, but Minho steers that thought aside, considering how comfortably Jisung had expressed his sexuality with Minho up until now.

He’s articulate, and very engaging when he tells a story. 

He never talks when he chews. He always keeps his lips clean, the handkerchief beside his elbow growing a stain after repeated usage. He looks Minho dead in the eyes when he talks. He never interrupts. His back is straight and facing forwards, he never swivels his chest neither to the left or to the right. As if Minho is a magnet, as if slouching is a sin. 

Somewhere along the way of their conversation, Minho does end up drinking. He tells himself it’s because one glass of wine won’t do any harm, but it’s mostly because he wishes Jisung would ask him to spend the night again. 

Soon enough — they’re flirting. Jisung beams at him like a flower in full bloom, an infectious smile accompanying each word he says. Minho can’t remember the last time in his life he’s ever been so roped in by a man before. He keeps changing the position of his legs, trying to make his hips more appealing beneath the table cloth. 

Manspread then crossed. 

Manspread then crossed, then knees together like a school-boy. He fidgets and his cheeks bunch up when he laughs at Jisung’s jokes and he knows, senses that Jisung can see how easily he’s picking apart his composure. 

Surely he knows what he’s doing when he stands up and relocates to the couch. Minho follows him. Of course he does, and he does so in wide, manly steps that assert his authority. He’s confident and he’s done this before, many, many, many, many times. 

So much more than Jisung has. 

Why is he so anxious then? Why does he feel the hairs on his arms tingle and lift when Jisung chuckles a little too closely to his ear. Where his breath tickles the warm spots on Minho’s neck. 

He wants Jisung to touch him. 

He must touch him now, or Minho will undress unprompted. He leans back on the couch and stretches as erotically as he can, moaning so softly — it resembles a whimper. 

When his tactic works and Jisung’s hand lands on the patty of Minho’s thigh, he remembers he’d worn polka-dotted boxer-briefs today. They’re white and red, and still crisp from being bought. He hadn’t shaved but he never does. He’d only brushed his teeth once this morning. His deodorant for sure wore off. He must smell of leather and road. His perpetual flavor. 

A dish on the common-man menu. 

Why does Jisung like it? 

Jisung is so distinguished. He’s so unique. He looks accomplished and young and when his glasses come off so he can keep kissing Minho without them knocking onto his cheeks — he’s the hottest lead of a romance tv show. 

And it’s funny how attraction works. 

Because, in his drunken state, Minho thinks he might like Jisung. 

He sits in his lap and he feels fairy-light. Where Jisung’s hands splay on his legs, right below his ass, Minho's muscles tense and relax and tense again. He’s lost a little control of his body, only because he knows he’s allowed to. If he falls backwards he won’t hit the hard floor but Jisung will lean forth and catch him. Let him dangle as his hot breath mouths over Minho’s neck. 

“Want you, Sir,” he whispers against the smooth edge of Jisung’s jawline. 

“Hmm, baby, you’re sure?” 

“M’sure. Fuck me?” 

“You’re a little drunk.” 

Minho pulls away. His eyes are glassy but his mind is so heady and heavy with want that he has no idea how to translate it all to Jisung. He opens his mouth and he thinks that if he speaks, his heart will fall out instead of his voice. Do what you did to me last time. Minho wants to say. Make me feel like liquid honey. 

“I’m not drunk.” he says instead. “I had two glasses, just like you. I’m a bit tipsy but I— I want you.” 

Jisung has a better tolerance of alcohol than him. 

Jisung seems to be better at everything.

Even in the way that he’s attentive to Minho right now, as he’s trying to get fucked, shows how special Jisung is. He brings one of his warm, large hands to Minho’s cheek and invites him to lay his head on it. Minho complies. His lips pout a little. His head is heavy with thoughts of sex and of Jisung inside him, thrusting, fucking. But Jisung holds him up like he’s the lightest thing ever. 

“Okay.” Jisung finally complies. 

He leans in and kisses him. Minho’s hands come to grab at his cheeks, push his tongue into his mouth, moan at the beautiful collision of their lips. 

“Thank you, Sir.” he says against Jisung’s mouth. It makes the dom chuckle deeply. 

Calling Jisung ‘Sir’ comes naturally to him. He feels hands on his ass as he’s being picked up so he hides his face in Jisung’s neck and hopes that the other doesn’t notice how deep down his blush has already reached. 

They stumble a few steps until Minho’s back hits a wall. Of course — Minho is heavy and Jisung isn’t strong enough to be carrying him around, but it’s the intention that matters. He’s already made Minho feel portable, like he could be small if he wanted to.

They make it to the bed stumbling and Minho is pushed down onto his back. 

Jisung touches him like he’s beautiful. 

Like he’s made of something very breakable. Minho doesn’t recall any of his partners treating him with this much care, always assuming that a guy like himself would prefer to avoid pleasure outside piston-fucking someone to release. Jisung seems to respond to the calls Minho’s body puts out. He kisses down his navel and Minho whimpers without meaning to, legs falling open and inviting Jisung inside. 

They undress. They kiss. They have sex. 

Of course they do, Minho’s hands are digging into Jisung’s shoulder blades, legs wrapped around his waist, he’s holding onto him as if Jisung might slip away. 

What does this night mean for them? 

No, he can’t contemplate these things now, not when Jisung’s teeth are leaving indents in his shoulder, not when he’s calling him all these wonderful things. 

My pretty angel. My thoughtless baby. My angel. Lovely angel. 

Minho gets lost in the praise, in the pleasure that is fucked into him over and over again. It’s much less intense than the first night they’ve spent together. It’s impulse on impulse. Both drunk, no strict lines are drawn and no dynamics are curated. Jisung’s dominance feels a lot less strategic and a lot more like his raw form. Sex because they find each other attractive and because it feels good — so good, that Minho forgets about all of his previous anxieties and grudges he’s held over the man. 

He cums and he likes Jisung again. 

Likes him so much. 

He smiles up at him, tears running down his eyes and cock spent on his tummy and giggles, Jisung's pretty face so close to his own. 

Maybe this is the beginning of something new, he tells himself as he lies on the warm surface of Jisung’s chest. 

He thinks he could get used to this. 

Minho wakes up with a lazy stretch, greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling. The room he’s in is very bright, the bed beneath him very cozy, basking in the glow of morning sun. It’s… decent weather. Not his favorite. He can tell there’s a fair share of wind and ick from how the tree by Jisung’s window won’t stop banging its branches against the glass. 

But it’s sunny nonetheless. 

He sits up. Locates his clothes folded neatly on the tabouret by the night-stand. His back gives a little ache and Ahhh… there it is. 

They had fantastic sex — again. 

Minho can’t help but laugh at himself. He slips out from underneath the covers, finds his thighs littered in hickeys, and walks himself to the bathroom where he inspects the damage done to his neck and finds a spare toothbrush in the coaster. Jisung is attentive before anything else. 

There’s a little sticky note on the mirror too, it reads; If I’m gone, you’ve slept past noon ;-). 

But Jisung isn’t gone. He can hear some commotion through the door. 

He gets dressed and sneaks out. 

Jisung stands in the kitchen island with his back turned to Minho, legs bare, a stretched out, green t-shirt hanging off one of his shoulders. He’s leaning onto the counter, holding a silver whisk in his left hand and a bowl in his right. A scent of french toast fills the kitchen and floats for a while. There’s subtle hints of cinnamon Minho can taste on his tongue. 

Jisung hadn’t noticed him yet. 

He still looks sleepy, eyes puffy and semi-closed, mouth relaxed in a pout which reminds Minho of toddlers who struggle keeping their heavier, bottom lip from hanging open. His hair is elaborately dressed in riddles of waves and curls, glowing a hidden ginger in the light, like maple sugar. His collarbones are bare and the wide shirt collar shows the beginning of his bust, also, naked. He isn’t wearing his necklace, which Minho now knows must stay off and put away during sex. 

Minho watches how Jisung sighs and brings the whisk to his mouth, sticking out his tongue and taking a little lick. A dollop of milk-cream runs down his chin, leaving a glistening trail on his stubble that drips down to his chest before he wipes it off with his sleeve. Seemingly satisfied with the taste, he shakes the bowl appreciatively and turns back towards the counter where he has laid out loaves of brioche bread. 

Minho takes it as his cue to fully sneak out from behind the bedroom door. 

He tip-toes silently until he’s standing right behind Jisung, holds his breath, and gently leans in. His chest fits against Jisung’s back like cutlery.  A small gasp meets him half way and then a deep chuckle. His hands find Jisung’s waist and Jisung’s hands find his wrists, pulling them tighter against his middle. 

They sway a little where they stand. 

“Goodmorning, Min.” 

“Goodmorning,” Minho returns. He presses his nose to Jisung’s nape — the hair there smells of burnt chicken feathers. 

It feels a little too domestic, but Minho likes it, even though he knows that he and Jisung should probably talk if neither of them want to leave their encounters to just a two-time thing. It’s good sex. It’s good sex and it feels comfortable, like a sleepover at a friend's house. He kisses his neck and gives it a shy lick. It’s moisturizer cream and something musky. The skin of Jisung’s body tastes like a completely different life, and Minho wants to keep tracing its map with his lips. 

Slowly, Jisung turns around in his arms and their noses are touching. Jisung’s fingers gently pry Minho’s hands off. He offers a sly smile. 

“I still need to grill the toasts.” he whispers against Minho’s lips. “You’re just using the fact that neither of us are fully awake to cozy up to me hmm?” a peck. “Won’t work. I need to talk to you before I kiss you again properly.” 

Minho pouts but relents. 

He sits by the dining table with one bare foot on the chair and lets himself be served. The food smells, tastes and looks delicious. Minho can’t recall the last time he had a breakfast that wasn’t scrambled eggs and beer, slightly charred from his unevenly heated pan. The coffee feels like a piece of satin going down his gullet and wakes Minho up immediately, having a similar effect on Jisung. 

“So,” Jisung begins, wiping off the corner of his mouth. “About… us.” 

Minho straightens tightly in his chair. “So?” 

He thinks he knows where this is going. ‘Us’ sounds promising. They’ve had fantastic sex and it just seemed like there was romantic tension in the air. Minho gingerly pushes a strand of black hair behind his ear and offers Jisung an encouraging smile — as in — keep talking. 

So Jisung does, and what he says sparks a record scratch. 

“I don’t want a relationship. I’m… not looking to date you. I can’t — I hope I didn’t shatter any expectations.” 

Minho keeps a neutral expression but he thinks Jisung can see the slight surprise in his eyes. He swallows down the piece of french toast he had in his mouth, his plate is now clean, but the fullness is no longer satisfactory. 

He’s read this wrong. He completely read this wrong. 

“No, I just— This is a one time thing then? Two times now, but you just want me to leave?” He can't help but sound a little bitter. 

“No, no. I don’t want you to leave.” 

“So, what do you want?” 

“See… I’m a dominant. I’m in the local BDSM scene but… I don’t have a submissive at the moment. I’m exclusive when it comes to play partners and no one really matches my taste,” his eyes meet Minho’s again, intensely. “But you do. Are you interested in BDSM at all?” 

“Oh. I…” 

Minho is at a loss for words. 

“It’s okay if this is not in your interest range but, the first night we slept together we… We had a scene. And you seemed to really like it. I just think that there’s a lot of things that I could teach you.” 

“We had a scene? We had sex, Jisung.” 

Jisung tsks at him. “When sex includes restraints, power dynamics and a particular headspace,” he points Minho’s way when he says so. “It becomes play. As we call it: a scene. A not pre-planned one, and a more or less tame one, without much specific fetish, but most certainly with kink. Besides, I dommed you.” 

Minho blinks. “You dommed me.” 

“Did you like it?” 

“I— yes,” he admits, scratching at his neck. “A lot.” 

“Does a casual sex, dom/sub type relationship sound enticing to you?” 

“You want to be fuckbuddies?” 

“I want to be play partners. I’d introduce you closely to what that entails.” 

“It’s— It sounds okay.” 

Jisung smiles at him gently. “You don’t have to give me your answer today, you can think about it. How familiar are you with bdsm?” 

“What we did the night we met and… I’ve called guys sluts before, but I didn’t really like it.  And I’ve been spanked too,” he blushes as he admits the last part.

”Ah, well. There’s a lot more to it than that.” 

“I’d hope.” 

“We do contracts, when a dominant and submissive decide to step in a relationship they sign one. It’s not legally binding of course, but it provides security. As explicit of consent as you can have. We discuss kinks and do’s and dont’s. I’d make sure you understand what I’m offering you.” 

“Contracts — wow,” Minho whistles. “Sounds official. You know I also live way out of town. Nearby Pittsburgh, it’s a 3 hour drive. I wouldn’t be able to see you too often. And my place is…” 

“If… you are considering my offer. Would every weekend sound okay? I understand that it’s quite a drive.” 

“Maybe. Sorry, this is new” 

“I know,” Jisung says, smiling awkwardly. “I was hesitant about asking you this, but… I kept coming back to the night we spent together. I was telling myself over and over what an idiot I was, and that I blew my chance of having you again. You’re frustratingly my type. Sorry, I’m being desperate, you probably have places to be.” 

“I’m not in too much of a hurry, but I won’t overstay my welcome,” Minho replies. “You’re my type too so I’ll think about it.” He stands up from the table and fixes his shirt. “Will you drive me back to the restaurant? My bike is still parked there.” 

“Oh— right, of course.” 

Jisung guides him to the door and Minho’s brain won’t stop running. He’s never felt so blindsided before, and as he’s toeing on his shoes he keeps building scenario after scenario in his mind of what that life with Jisung could be like. Of what this relationship could be. Not romantic, not anything he’d anticipated. 

He already knows what he’ll do when he gets home — a lot of research. 

“I’ll text you my final answer. I’ll do a bit of snooping online, and I’ll text you,” he tells Jisung as they’re driving up to the spot where his motorcycle stands. 

Jisung offers him a pleasant smile. “Alright angel, I’ll be waiting.” 

His warm hand is on Miho’s cheek as he swipes something from the corner of his mouth, it makes Minho’s lips tingle a little. He swipes his tongue over the spot. 

“T-thanks Jisung. Bye.” 

“Bye-bye.”

──── 🏍x 📚────

2:08 AM 

me: i decided i want to be your play partner

me: or your submissive, i think it’s the same thing

Jisung: ❤️

Jisung: When can you come over to discuss? 

me: wed.

Jisung: See you on Wednesday, Angel. 

Minho flings his phone across the room and groans, burying his face in the pillow. 

──── 🏍x 📚────

The next wednesday, after work, at Jisung’s house; Minho timidly sits down on Jisung’s couch, both knees together and hands on his lap. He feels a little out of his depth, knowing that he’s about to expose his most intimate desires without an explicitly sexual context. They haven’t even had any alcohol — and yet, he’s supposed to talk about BDSM and things deviant from his usual sexual world. 

Jisung, contrary to himself, is positioned rather comfortably on the couch, with his feet extended until his soles touch Minho’s thighs. His computer rests on his lap as he types something, then shoots Minho a tight-lipped, albeit welcoming smile once his hands lift from the keyboard. 

“I sent it to you.” 

Minho hesitates before checking his phone. There’s a google doc invitation. He clicks open. 

 “Uhm.” 

“Yeah?” Jisung prods. 

“There’s a lot.” 

“You just need to fill it in as you go.” 

Minho scrolls down the document. There’s a section where the kink/play is named and then a little table where he needs to put a ‘cross’ where he stands on it. It ranges from: No, Forced, Unsure, Curious, Yes and Need. He lifts his eyes and meets Jisung’s gaze — it’s intense, as if he’s attempting to see through Minho’s skin and inside him. 

“I’m… not too sure what all of these mean.” 

Jisung sits up a little and leans towards him. “There’s a description of what each particular kink or fetish entails to the left of the margin, and to the right there’s a blank space for you to add any comments. Do you understand all of the options you have?” 

“Maybe? I think so. I’m not sure what ‘forced’ is though, I don’t think.” 

The way Jisung talks about kinks is a little intimidating. The words are airy when he pronounces them, as if they’re discussing something he’s read out in a newspaper. As if this isn’t Minho’s innards being untangled and inspected. Although — maybe it’s better this way, if Jisung doesn’t make a big deal out of it. So Minho too, can pretend that he’s okay with this. 

That he isn’t — for the first time in an alarming while — out of his depths. 

“Alrighty then,” Jisung hums, bringing him out of his thoughts. “‘No’, means you’re not interested in the kink and its exclusion from the bedroom is non-negotiable. I will not even bring up anything you’ve labeled as ‘No’ in conversation. It’s your hard set limit. Okay?” 

Minho purses his lip in a thin, agreeable smile and gives him a quiet yep. 

“Then, ‘Forced’ means that the fetish or kink isn’t something you have any desire in trying, and usually would be a decline, but that you’re willing to ever consider in the future if I have a great deal of an interest in it. Anything you label as ‘Forced’ will not be brought up by me unless I feel that we have a good, trusting connection and I am incredibly eager to attempt the experience with you. It does not mean that the experience is being ‘forced’ on you though — absolutely not.” 

“Yeah, I think I understand.”

“You think?” Jisung prods. 

“I do.” 

“Okay, next is ‘Unsure’. This encompasses any fetish or kink that you’ve never considered before, and would need a little more information on before you gave your final opinion, though it does imply that you aren’t eager to try it. Or at least, not off the bat. Anything on the list can be explained by me but, I will take my time on educating you about plays which you categorize in the ‘Unsure’ section if you do want that.” Jisung wets his lips and continues. “Curious is very similar. It is a kink or fetish that you’re not too familiar with but that sounds like something you might like, though it also means that you need to look into more before engaging eagerly.” 

“I think I’ll have a lot in this section.” Minho says. 

“I hope so, I love enthusiasm and I love introducing BDSM to people.” 

“Hmm, I can tell. What’s the difference between ‘Yes’ and ‘Need’?” 

Jisung offers him a lewd grin. “‘Yes’ covers things you know you will enjoy and actively want to involve them in our play. You don’t have to be experienced in the specific kink for you to add it into the ‘Yes’ area, in fact, you might’ve even never engaged in it prior, but you do need to have a certain level of understanding of it. ‘Need’, on the other hand, is a part of BDSM play that will be a dealbreaker for us not to include. It’s a dynamic or fetish you require in a sexual relationship, and that you can’t relinquish for the sake of this relationship to work, were it, for example, one of my limits.” 

Minho nods in understanding. “Do you have any of these?” 

“Five. I have five I must include. But we’ve already done two of them by the time of our first hookup, so I don’t think it will be much of an issue. I must say, though I do have a very sparse amount of hard limits, I advise you to keep your ‘Need’ section relatively short. No more than ten.” He explains. “Your role as a submissive is not included in them as that comes without saying.” 

Heat rises to Minho’s face at the reminder of his new title. The moment he completes going through this google doc and Jisung prints it out to sign, he will be officially Jisung’s Submissive. 

His Sub. And Jisung will be his Dom.

 It all sounds… very kinky, a little too adventurous at worst. But the prospect of said adventure has him winded up like a spring-toy ready to be sprung. 

“Okay.” Minho says, after a brief moment of processing. “I think I can start going down the list now. Don’t… don’t look at the document while I do so though, it makes me shy.” 

Jisung offers him an amused glare. “You do know I’ll read it all out loud to you later on, right?” 

Minho’s ears burn with redness. “Yes. Uhm, that will be okay.” 

“Alright then, Angel. You can begin.” 

They settle into a silence thereafter, Jisung giving Minho a little space on the couch so he doesn’t feel too observed, or too pressured. He types his name into the blank at the top, selects the square titled ‘Sub’ and begins to read through. The start of the first page is all formal and explanatory so he skims through it relatively fast, only slowing down once he reaches the very first table where he has to mark down choices. 

It reads; Praise — No, Forced, Unsure, Curious, Yes, Need.

An image floats up to Minho’s mind; Jisung holding him by the hips as he thrusts into him, gently slowly, whispering into his ear. Telling him he’s good. That he’s doing good. That he’s enough. That he’s— 

Minho selects Yes without much thought. Glances Jisung’s way. As promised, Minho isn’t being observed. 

He bites his lip and moves onto the next: Marks (hickeys, bite marks, scratches.) His face heats up, a new scenario ready in the forefront of his mind, pushing his hand to click Yes once again. 

Alright, this ought to be simple. 

The first fifteen or so modules are taken extremely warmly by Minho. They’re simple, understandable, reasonably kinky. He marks them all as Yes without much contemplation, wiggling in his seat with excitement at the prospect of experiencing them later. It all looks pretty innocent so far: Hair pulling, Body worship, Manhandling, Condescension, spanking, nipple play… 

He only utilizes his first Need when he’s met with Humiliation. 

It’s beneath the little ‘Sexual Masochism’ section, sandwiched between ‘Slut shaming’ and ‘Body shaming.’ 

He doesn’t register it in his mind at first when he reads it over. It’s a simple word after all — Humiliation. 

Something he shamefully knows he likes. But the more he thinks back to the night he spent with Jisung, the more he tenses, zoning out as he relives the moment that shocked him the most. 

Jisung… made fun of him. During sex. 

No one has ever done that, in his entire life. That’s what has him curious. He remembers how the first emotion he felt before his arousal was fear, and the next confusion. Very briefly, the two sensations rumbled through him. Ran a red light in his head, so fast he could barely make out the headlights. But they were there. Zapping up his tense wrists and into his elbow joints where they ached a little, making his hands shake and want to grab at things. 

Heat briefly travels to his groin and Minho’s mouth falls open as he squeezes his thighs. 

Humiliation. 

That’s what he wants out of this, isn’t it? 

What’s the point of having this arrangement with Jisung — unless he gets to experience that again. Where he was weaseled out of his comfort. Cock hard and head empty and complacent. Ready to be run over again and again. 

His finger trembles as he puts down Yes. 

But that isn’t strong enough. He needs Jisung to fuck that feeling in and out of him again and again. 

Minho takes a deep breath, and selects Need instead. 

Jisung, sitting beside him, doesn’t budge. Good, that means he isn’t looking after all. Minho holds his breath for a few seconds before breathing out quietly through his nose and continues scrolling. 

‘Slut shaming’— Unsure. ‘Body shaming.’ — Curious. He likes the way Jisung made fun of his size. It makes him sweat a little, the amount of embarrassing kinks piling up. They weigh on his shoulders and make him sway a little. Make him feel a little hazy and remember all the places on his body Jisung has touched and squeezed. He wonders how he’s never noticed this about himself before. There was a time when Minho was nervous about being smaller than his sexual partners and now it, what, turns him on? 

He’s five inches long and Jisung is about seven and a half.

The inferiority sparks something in him. Makes it hard to swallow. Makes him pick at the fabric of his shirt. 

He scrolls through the doc and keeps ticking off boxes with shy eagerness. Scratching, restraints, bondage, flogging, gags, oral-play, edging, anal, breeding, butt plugs— 

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes… 

Everything seems appealing the moment he adds Jisung into the equation. His slenderness and prettiness accentuates all the scenarios that Minho imagines. How a cute young man can play pottery with his skin and bone. 

Only halfway through the list does Minho find himself venturing into unknown territory. 

‘Immobility, statue/mannequin play’ and ‘human furniture’ have him pause. He glances at Jisung's way. He isn’t sure what it entails, even after reading the small description beneath; The sub is treated as an inanimate, unmoving object, and is expected to behave accordingly. 

Huh. 

Being treated as an object — that’s humiliation, right? He isn’t sure. He imagines standing naked in Jisung's room, doing nothing while the dom reads a newspaper. Is that what it is? It sounds odd. He marks it as Forced first, but changes to Unsure when he realizes he has little opposition to it overall, and maybe it’s sexy in some way. 

Jisung would know. 

Bathroom control — Forced. Same with Piss kink. No, pee doesn’t turn him on. But like all men he’s pissed while hard before and he didn’t dislike it to say the least, so the fetish has the right to be. There's a lot that goes into the Forced segment, just because he’s too chicken to mark it as Unsure. It expands from ‘needle play’ to ‘Sexual slavery’ to ‘Sounding’. 

Genderplay, vomit, pregnancy, lactation, inflation — No. 

He doesn't even bother imagining them, just moves past.

‘Age play’ halts him, however. His immediate reaction is to press No and move on but the description catches him a little off guard. He’d always assumed the fetish to encompass diapers and other strange play but what it says on the sheet is different; The sub and the dom role-play as an age either greater or smaller than their own to establish a desired dynamic. Age play may also include the sub and the dom swapping their current ages for a reversal of their power-play’s pre-established context, or imagining an age transcending the human lifespan, including immortality. 

So ‘Age play’ simmers. 

Minho can certainly feel their age gap, but not always in ways that make him proud. He wonders what it would be like, to pretend as if he’s yet to experience life. What if Jisung was the one ten years older? Then all of his achievements would make better sense. He’d guide Minho, provide him all the mentorship Minho never had. He’d be well off and intelligent and experienced and Minho would sit in his lap and play pretend, as if he’s shocked, as if he’s still only figuring out how to do his taxes. 

The fantasy doesn’t turn sexual. 

…And Minho clicks Curious. 

Following that there’s more and more options that he finds surprising. A whole section on roleplay has him questioning just how adventurous he is, and even though he considers costumes for sex to be a little tacky at best, and laughable at worst, he selects the options which leave room for consideration. Those with fantastical creatures and movie characters are ones that entice him the least, and yet, he figures if Jisung is a nerd — which he is — and he really likes those, Minho’s wouldn’t see much harm in trying. 

Even if it's a little bit ridiculous; sex can wear many hats and masks. 

The options of roleplay that he highlights as most likely to get him hard are ‘Teacher/student’ and ‘Master/Pet’. It’s the dynamic that he likes. The power imbalance, those scenarios he imagines could emanate it best. Even if seeing himself in cat ears and a tail plug are a little much, he’s curious as to how these things could play out… Would Jisung make him crawl on all fours? 

He wishes he would. 

Have Minho untie his shoelaces obediently. Have him lay naked on Jisung’s lap with a collar on his neck as Jisung pets his hair. Call him a good kitty. He squeezes his thighs as discretely as he can when he imagines wearing these kinds of things for Jisung. The tip of his cock oscillates. 

Behind closed doors, he could be anything. Sex is suddenly so fun. 

‘Shibari’ is next. It’s a Japanese form of rope bondage. Minho has heard the word before, but knows nothing of it, and yet, he still chooses Curious. Any type of bondage has him at least curious… It’s a strange type of liberty to be restrained. Minho has never been physically immobile. Not once. He’s been in fights but he’s never been pinned down to the point where he couldn’t wriggle out. He’s never had a reason not to want to. 

People mull about and never do anything about him. Maybe Jisung will. 

More options. More spaces to fill out, the list is invigorating. 

He glances timidly at Jisung when he’s done. His eyelashes flutter cutely. 

They don’t talk much when they exchange lists. 

Jisung hands over his laptop with the form open under his own name and Minho skims through it. There’s a lot more enthusiastic yeses than on Minho’s list, but he’s primarily looking for Jisung’s Need section — wonders what has the dom most aroused. What could Jisung depend on so much in his sex life? 

He finally finds them all after a few scrolls down.

Bondage, Humiliation, Marks/Hickeys, Shibari, Impact play. 

Okay, he thinks as relief floods him, I can do that. 

“That’s a lot more than I expected from you.” Jisung says, after a moment of mutual silence. “You seemed a little startled by the idea of BDSM when I first brought it up.” 

“Ah… yes. I did some research online,” Minho admits. 

“Research, huh. Is that what we call porn nowadays?” 

“Hey! It wasn’t only porn. I mostly went and read through forums. And reddit.” 

“Well, can’t say that I’m not impressed. This gives me a lot to work with.” 

Minho smiles in response. 

Jisung is patient, very patient when they go through Minho’s list. He describes things Minho thought about so bravely… and with very explicit lingo. Seriously, it flusters Minho to no end.

Jisung looks so soft and so unassuming — when he addresses Minho with a clean smile and asks “So cock cages are okay? You’re fine if I blue ball you? It would be very humiliating if you got off on that so I think you’d like it,” and Minho has no true way to respond but to whisper out his agreement shyly. 

It takes a moment for Jisung to print out the final contracts and he hands Minho a pink pen to sign it with. It’s the final step in their arrangement: it’s official to Jisung so it is to Minho as well. 

Minho signs it after Jisung — of course he does. 

He isn’t signing himself into a relationship. That’s what he needs to remember the most. It’s a casual thing, even if it’s exclusive and prolonged and they’ll be fucking. 

Even if he likes Jisung. Just a little. 

When they’re done, it’s time for Minho to get going. He stands up and he’s sporting a half-chub so he pulls out his crumpled shirt from his pants and lets it fall over his crotch. Hopefully Jisung doesn’t notice. He’s worked up and he has all these feelings tumbling in his head— he looks at Jisung and his eyes linger. He wants to kiss again— is that bad? It must be. 

They can’t kiss. Or can they? 

No, they probably can. He’ll ask, actually. 

“Since I won’t see you until next week…” Minho mumbles, “Maybe I could get a kiss.” 

Jisung grins cheekily and has him against the wall in seconds. 

Minho’s hands settle on the small of his waist. He kisses him with a playful smile. He holds both Minho’s cheeks in place and turns his face sideways so he can reach further inside Minho’s mouth— slow and deep. His tongue passes over Minho’s teeth making him moan out and his eyes flutter closed. He missed this; he missed Jisung’s taste, Jisung’s smell, the sensation that Jisung gives him. 

He’s so absorbed into the make-out that he doesn’t even sense Jisung pulling away until their lips part with a soft sound. Eyes still closed, Minho’s head leans forth, chasing the kiss with a soft pout. 

He whimpers a little when there’s nothing. Only quiet breathing. 

Upon opening his eyes he can tell something is different. They’re breathing in tandem and Minho’s fingers dig into Jisung’s sides impatiently, waiting for him to resume, but he doesn’t. 

He wears a strange look. Carbon. Steely. The tip of his pink tongue is caught between his teeth. Minho tries mimicking the look to level the playing field but Jisung is one step ahead. 

“I don’t think we should kiss outside of the bedroom, actually.” 

Minho blinks. “What?” 

Jisung’s hands are leaving his cheeks and Minho panics, steps forth. He needs that touch— what is Jisung thinking, taking it away?  

“I… look. I think I’m giving you the wrong idea—” Jisung begins but Minho stops him. 

“No! No, I mean. No kisses outside of the bedroom. Sure, that’s fine,” he can’t help that he sounds bitter. 

“Sorry, Minho. I can’t risk complicating things before they start.” 

“Yeah, I understand.” He doesn’t. 

He clears his throat and steps away from the wall. Fixes his hair in the window reflection. 

“I think I’m gonna go.”

”Minho—”

”I’m not— We’re okay, this blindsided me, that’s all. I was leaving either way.” 

Jisung chases him down to the front door, but Minho is swifter. They part awkwardly. It’s so awkward — he can tell Jisung is anxious. So he beetles out of Jisung’s garage on his bike as swiftly as he can. 

At home, in his own garage, Minho squats and douses his bike with a hose. He’d run through tons of puddles and mud on his way, so much so that he doubts his pants are salvageable. They cling to him with a sudden coolness only native to roadside mud. 

All slippery and the color of feces. 

His reflection in the tank is warped and ugly, and his piercing looks like it needs a cleaning, so Minho wonders what exactly Jisung sees in him anyway. Definitely not good enough to date… No. He promised himself he wouldn’t be a bitter romantic when he agreed to sign the contract. He can’t have a crush on his fuck buddy. On his fuck buddy who is now his BDSM dominant above all else. 

Minho stops hosing for a moment. The water pools under his feet creating a large puddle. 

He’s a BDSM submissive now. Wow. 

He wonders what his dad would think of that. What his mom would say if she knew. She was alright with gay people that weren’t perverts and weren’t family — in her words — but the only person whom that included was her Zoomba coach who stayed single which averted him from trouble, because acting on gayness was the true perversion, not just thinking it. 

He needs to be back at work tomorrow early, at seven. 

Minho hates waking up early and usually his boss respects that, but this week they have a large van with car parts arriving and the damn thing will be there at eight so Minho needs to set everything up beforehand. Manual labor which he hates. Even though he’s a mechanic, he much rather prefers technical issues. He likes digging around in car parts and fiddling with screws and wires. It’s a lot more fun than oil changes or blown tires. Or sorting through boxes — which he will be doing tomorrow all day long. 

Sometimes, he does get to work with motorcycles. But their customer base is much more local. Trucks and Honda CR-V. Those he sees lots of. 

There’s a large and well respected bike-restoration business a little outside of town where everyone goes to fix their bikes. Minho himself frequented it a few times but he’s not very welcome for an array of ancient reasons he’s never resolved with the owner, so any thoughts of quitting his own place of work and relocating there are futile. 

Besides, at their garage, they’re like family. 

Minho has seen his co-workers' naked asses. He helped identify a hemorrhoid once, but that’s a whole other story. 

There’s a bit of irony in his new relationship with Jisung. Minho isn’t poor— maybe a little—  but Jisung is wealthy in comparison. Having this Master/Slave dynamic he’d ticked off in the Yes section tickles his shins with ridiculousness. Hooking up with a rich guy, who’s religious and close with his family, puts Minho at an odd spot with himself. He looks at Jisung and sees the exact opposite of himself. When he looked at the portrait in Jisung’s house he saw the exact opposite of his own family. 

It stings. 

Family was a tough sore to heal, yet money was tougher. 

He was very, very young when he lost his footing and stumbled from a semi-lit future into loss and strangeness. No school, no hopes of university, no roof over his head, and most importantly; no way to earn money. Without an education all he had to rely on was a pretty face, and Minho was semi-pretty. Semi — like many things in his life were. Scattered stars of acne scars confused the previously pleasantly-even tone of his pale cheeks and a too-short haircut exposed an overly generous amount of angles to his teenage face that hadn’t quite-yet grown into his nose. 

His boyfriend at the time was none the wiser. He invited Minho to come live with him to their trailer park. The family was accepting ‘cause the dad was dead and the mother had a rare developmental disability that made her very kind, but also very awkward to talk to. She both spoke and behaved like she was younger than them both, much younger, and walked a little odd. Minho had no problem helping take care of her, but their grandmother had a big, big problem with him settling in. 

Dirt poor and living off of disability benefits and pension money there was no room for another mouth to feed. He left the trailer park after two weeks of living there. Reached the foster home. Settled in. Met all kinds of strange, child faces, with permanent dwelling malice in their eyes or a crease of the mouth held bent by dread and the passing of it. It made Minho realize that he wasn’t the only miserable kid on earth.  And that growing up didn’t make someone any less miserable, especially if they were different. 

And in that particular part of Virginia — different meant a lot of things. 

Back in his kitchen, Minho boils a pot of water while talking on the phone with one of his friends. They ask him how the ‘date’ went and he lies and says it was great. Tells them that he’s satisfied sexually and they congratulate him, ask him more questions about Jisung and he answers in ways that leave them hanging. 

His fear gurgles in the pot like a bubble bath. It’s clear and ordinary and necessary. He brews a calming chamomile tea with it and wrestles the herbs. Wants to keep his throat put in a chokehold. Press its boiling fingers onto his voice box. Is this burning sensation the tea or the anxiety? 

“I don’t think I want to date him though, he’s great but we’re so different,” he says. A forced truth and a true one. 

He wonders if Jisung did want to date him at first… before they talked at dinner. Before Minho revealed himself a little too eagerly and it turned Jisung off. Maybe something about Minho struck him as sub-par. Maybe the romantic attraction that was there at first fizzled out after he got to know Minho closer. Perhaps Jisung found himself disappointed in what Minho was. Decided that he’s purely attracted to him on a sexual level.

Minho is his type — his stereotype — and that’s all he needs. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Minho replies to a question if he’ll keep picking up people in bars. “This is something mutual and exclusive. If I’ll be hanging off his cock I think I’ll do good without tinder men who want mine.” 

He leaves out the BDSM for the whole conversation. It hides beneath the kitchen counter and he kicks it when it reminds him of its existence. Shushes it. At home he’s ordinary and he likes it. Apart from Jisung he’s still fulfilled, Jisung is an extra that he happens to crave. 

If Minho thinks about it, he hasn’t quite been craving much in his life recently. Back in his early twenties there was so much commotion, now things feel more like a routine. And in his teens, it was all hellscapes and no fun. 

He didn’t find something that gave him true pleasure until his eighteenth birthday.

It was when he discovered motorcycles. Granted, he knew he liked them for a long while, but he’d never ridden one until then. 

One of the staff stood smoking outside of the foster home, leaning on a polished, very red, very lobster-looking motorcycle with hello kitty stickers. Minho snuck out and ran up to her, party cone askew on his head. He was on good terms with this staff — she was older, and she knew how to deal with teenagers — boosting his confidence to ask. 

This was his special day after all. The day he graduated from foster care. 

“Can I get a ride?” He asked. 

She looked at him, sized him up. His boyish face with porous skin. His jet black hair. His eyes red with hope from the streetlights. Like the bike. She let him climb the motorcycle after finishing her cigarette and told him to hold her waist. The helmet was a little too big on his neck and bobbed around, bouncing like a funk-pop with each road-bump they conquered. 

When they gained speed Minho knew he wanted one of his own. 

He’ll buy the fattest, meanest, most effulgent bike he can afford with all the money he’d collected for his first apartment and stay just a few months longer at the foster home. He’ll build his future around this; join a club or— or a gang— he’ll travel all over the states until his tires get smooth. 

He’ll be the toughest nut to crack. 

To hell with school, he’ll live a life full of adventure and Rock n’ Roll. He’ll make his dad eat his words and his mom drink her tears. They’ll be all wrong. His whole life people hobbled around in their own falsehood and stuck their heads into TV screens. There’s freedom in this; he didn’t ruin his life when he came out — he didn’t. 

He won’t miss the squalid slump of his old home. 

When they returned, Minho’s body was awash with static electricity. He pressed his hands to both his cheeks when he thanked the staff, she dismissed him like she knew she’d shifted his outlook on life. He snuck back into the building through the postern. He smelled of teen spirit. He couldn't fall asleep until six, and spent his time imagining the future like never before.

Right now, that feeling resurrects. Slowly, like a zombie. Crawls out of its grave and it’s all weird-looking and scary and moss hangs off its bones. 

Jisung is that same rush. That first ride. The first ever hit your parents give you, with a twist of rolled up newspaper across the face. It’s shocking. The first bad grade and the first ever good one. The first scar you remember. 

He falls asleep, and he falls asleep wanting more. 

──── 🏍x 📚────

The first play they ever do after establishing their dynamic is spanking, the following Wednesday, by Minho’s request. 

On Tuesday he sits at Jisung’s dining table and plays with the pasta on his plate while Jisung highlights paragraphs in his textbook. 

Minho isn’t hungry. 

He’s eaten a full box of fried chicken before driving to Jisung’s place, only to be met with pasta and scallops and a kitchen filled with the dense aroma of seafood. Jisung wore a green apron and was excited to guide Minho in, telling him that he’s inspired him to try out some recipes.

It’s awkward. 

It’s awkward to break his excitement, so Minho says nothing and congratulates Jisung on his success. He figures — he’s used to eating lots of food — why should it be any different now? 

It shouldn’t be. The pasta tastes great and Jisung scarfs down his own portion in record time while Minho picks at his, discovering that the creamy sauce is a lot denser than he’d anticipated. He smiles at Jisung politely when the other asks about the taste, taking away his plate and jamming it in the dishwasher alongside his cutlery. 

Minho tells him he just wants to savor it. Jisung shrugs. He looks only a bit dejected but once Minho shoves the biggest scallop behind his cheek he’s happy again, and runs into his room to grab a book. To keep himself busy while Minho finishes up so he doesn’t distract him from eating. 

By the twentieth minute however, the ruse is up. 

“You don’t like it, huh.” Jisung says after a while of silence, gently sliding a bookmark in-between pages. He’s smiling but Minho knows he’s hurt. 

“What? No, I love it. It’s good.” 

“You’ve barely eaten anything though, and you have an appetite, Minho. Just tell me the truth. Is it the sauce? Did I leave it too creamy?” 

He did. It is too creamy, but Minho likes too-creamy sauces. On a good day he’d have licked it off his fork and fingers. 

“No, Jisungie, It’s perfect.” Minho tries. He birls the noodles again, brings them to his mouth but his hand is intercepted gently. 

“Min, don’t force yourself. You look stupid trying to please me.” 

The fork falls back onto the plate and Minho slouches. Looks up at the ceiling. His tummy is uncomfortably full. 

”The pasta is delicious. I ate chicken before I left my house. I was full when I arrived but you seemed so happy to have cooked something new so…” 

“So I’m not a bad cook?” 

Minho shakes his head. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” Jisung gets up and grabs Minho’s plate off the table. He covers it in kitchen wrap and places it in the fridge. “You should’ve told me you were full and couldn't eat anymore. It wouldn't have hurt my feelings, okay? Never force yourself just because you think it will make me happy, a little leftover pasta is nothing and I can always cook it another time, when both of us want to have lunch.” 

Minho shrugs. 

Not finishing his food is a touchy subject. He hates leaving stuff un-eaten, hates food-waste. Jisung has a point but it doesn’t iron out his guilt. This is a date after all— right? Pasta with scallops? It’s cheesy and gay, and Minho has never been good with dating, and despite him and Jisung not being involved romantically a part of him wants to please and impress. 

When he stands up from the dining table, he suddenly feels a little too big for the room. That feeling carries into the evening. Like a rug burn, he becomes sensitive to Jisung’s requests. When he asks Minho to close the window for him he does so without question. When he says he needs to read a bit before they can begin Minho waits patiently on the bed, swiping through his phone. 

It’s bad enough that he doesn’t even feel horny. Fucking, right now, feels a little off. 

That sucks. 

He was anticipating them having kinky sex all morning. He even brushed his teeth when he went to use Jisung’s bathroom — thrice, with so much toothpaste it ran down his chin. His breath is all mint now and he’s not even sure he’s in the mood. And another thing — he wonders if there’s a way to have his share of kink tonight without the sex part. He knows people do that, is aware of BDSM being in reach for asexual people and such… but he’s not. And Jisung isn’t either. 

Would Jisung even want that? 

The pasta incident swims in his head and he just wishes Jisung could submerge it physically. Hold him by the hair and his head under the water. Have him struggle a bit before he’d fall into that strange, foamy, spot in his mind. Where Jisung’s hands could reshape him through manual therapy. Could pick the guilt out and make it climax instead of him. 

While Jisung is distracted, Minho glances his way. He’s unbothered. Probably waiting for Minho to take the initiative. 

“Jisungie…” 

“Hmm?” 

He takes a small breath, wets his lips. It’s alright to ask, he reminds himself.

”Can we not have sex right now?” 

“Oh.” Jisung raises his head, he’s a little surprised. “I mean, I wasn’t planning on penetration. You weren’t either, right?” 

Minho quirks his head to the side. 

“With the food and all. The prep.” 

“Oh.” he’d forgotten. “Right.” 

“If you don’t want to do anything at all tonight, that’s fine too. You seem a little off this evening, I’ve noticed. I know we’ve agreed on today to have a scene — our first scene — but if you're not ready, we can reschedule. Is there anything that prompted this?” 

“Not… necessarily.” 

Jisung nods, expecting him to continue. 

“I think… I’m still looking forward to our dynamic. I just… I’m not sure if I exactly want to feel pleasure right now. Sexual pleasure. Like I’m being gratified. It’s almost as if instead of a reward I’d want a—“ 

“Punishment?” 

Minho sighs. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

“Are you sure nothing prompted this?” 

“Well…” 

“Do you still feel guilty?” Jisung asks, placing a hand on his bare knee. “About the pasta?” 

Minho nods shyly.  

Jisung reaches beneath his chin to tilt his head upwards a little, so their eyes meet. ”Angel,” he says. “Do you not want me to forgive you so easily? Do you need me to be a little bit upset?” 

Fuck. That’s an odd question. 

No sane person would want their dom to be upset at them, especially so early on. There’s no real reason to be upset either; there’s no true, understandable causation for the way Minho is feeling today at all. He thinks he’s read too much about BDSM online, and now he’s acting too unlike himself. It makes him want to snap out of it — remind himself of his harsh exterior. 

But in the safe vacuum of Jisung’s room he thinks he can concede to this strange yearning. That’s what their relationship is for — experiments. 

His chin is still pinched between Jisung’s fingers and he wets his lips. 

“Maybe a little. Upset at me.”

Admittance burns him. Exposes him like a picked-at scab to fresh air. His cheeks and chest are pink. It prickles a little right underneath his ear and beneath his jaw, places where he’d like to be either kissed or choked.

Places Jisung’s hands have access to. 

Jisung hums. His eyes are brewing into blackness. He smells of experience and he’s hot to the touch. 

“Would you like me to punish you a little, Angel? It could help you work through these emotions. Does it sound good to you? For Sir to make it hurt a bit. Because you’ve been ungrateful.” 

It sends a pang through Minho’s chest, hearing Jisung say it. 

Ungrateful… Minho isn’t ungrateful! 

But then there’s that small ache of shame. And of guilt. And it hurts a little too good. A little like that’s what should've been. That it’s controlled and that he could stop this shame if he wanted to: but he doesn’t. 

“You don’t think you deserve to feel good right now?” Jisung asks. 

“I— I…” 

“I have a few nice ways I could punish you.” 

Jisung brings his face a little closer to his by pulling on his chin. Minho’s neck is all extended, his mouth runs dry, there’s a pulse in the corners of his lips. Like a tiny, fetal heartbeat. His mouth is ready to fall open if Jisung just slightly pulls on his jaw and fits his fingers into it. 

“I haven’t shown you my toys yet… but I was planning to introduce them to you today anyways. Since this will be our first scene without any sex, just punishment, I’ll let you pick,” his teeth pull at Minho’s upper lip and let his snap back. “So sit here and look pretty while Sir gets it for you, alright, Angel” 

Minho whimpers and Jisung pulls back. He’s pan-seer hot. He needs air and thankfully Jisung gives it to him.

He stands up, stretches, heads for one of the many book-shelves. It’s built into the wall. Minho expects Jisung to pull open one of the cupboards beneath but instead he grasps it by its side and pulls the whole thing forth; it opens like a door, revealing a hidden wardrobe behind. 

Minho tries to see inside. This is exciting, this isn’t like anything he’s ever witnessed before — Jisung resembles a dark, mysterious gentleman in that moment. Full of kinky secrets. 

The secret closet is cast in a shade of reddish-peach light from a diode bar fixed at its corners. The walls within are lined with black satin. They have ornate, silver hooks all over, it’s extra and it’s fancy.  Minho can’t make out much, Jisung’s back shields it, but there seems to be a clothing rack with multiple outfits hanging off it too. He can distinguish the way latex gleams wetly. When Jisung squats down and begins pulling out a large chest, he finally gets a better look at what’s easily accessible. There’s a fair share of costumes, though what catches his eyes are the belts, ropes and other restraints coiled on the hangers. Most of them are curtained by the clothes, but it’s enough, the tools he sees have him suddenly nervous. 

Everything carries a smell of experience and leather-polish. 

Minho's heart pounds deeply. It swamps into his stomach and jumps back up to his throat, his organs feel shook in soda. 

Before he knows it however, the closet is back to being a regular book-shelf, and Jisung has positioned the aforementioned chest before him on the floor. It’s all black with a heavy, metallic lock. There’s tiny spikes and leather folds on its sides, it appears customized specifically to look as menacing as possible. Jisung squats down, a key in his hand, and opens the thing. 

Minho softly slides down to the floor to kneel by him on the carpet. “Is this where you keep all your toys, Sir?” 

“Yeah.” Jisung grins. “My treasure chest. I’ve been collecting for a while. And don’t worry, most of them haven’t been used once.” 

When the lid is tipped open, Minho is met with… a bit of a mess. 

There’s toys atop toys; he can make out large dildos with phantasy shapes, colorful leather floggers, coiled whips, fluffy and metallic handcuffs, clamps, gags, ribbons — everything catches his eye. Jisung’s hand plunges inside and he takes out a pink hairbrush and a black flogger.

”I could spank you with either. There’s more options inside but… since this is your first time I’ll let you choose. Just don’t touch any whips. You’re too young for them, Angel.” 

Minho doesn’t even think of touching them. They’re short and thick and single-tailed. They look like they’d split his untrained skin apart. 

Biting his lip he scoots closer to the chest and begins to explore. He’s never really used sex toys; he fucks himself with his dildo on a good day and owned a vibrator when he was younger, but never something from the realm of fetish. 

A wooden paddle sticks out of the bunch. 

Minho pulls at it and it reveals itself cleanly. It’s a bit long, brown, rectangular — maybe even boring at first glance. But along its smooth surface range nine, small, heart-shaped holes. Down the handle there’s an engraving. It reads: NaughtyBoy. Then it ends in a heart shaped base. 

Minho places the paddle in his lap and contemplates looking back up at Jisung who has gone silent. 

He knows Minho has made his pick, he’s just waiting for him to say it. It would indicate Minho’s submission, and he can tell Jisung is one who likes to test and tease, so he must admit to the want. To be spanked with a paddle. 

Like they’ve agreed on paper. 

Like they’ve discussed before, and both had been eager to explore punishments, or funnishments, like Jisung calls them. However, now that he’s here, and he’s a single sentence away from being pulled under Jisung’s heel of dominance and being hit (therapeutically, as he keeps telling himself) he hesitates. 

But it’s okay. Because Jisung gives him both space and time.

“Sir.” Minho finally says, meeting Jisung’s intense gaze. “I want this one.” 

He takes the paddle and extends it towards Jisung. The dom takes it from him gently. He trails his finger alongside the paddles side and his eyes meet Minho’s. They glow in dim approval. Jisung won’t say it to him — but he’s proud of Minho right now, Minho can sense it. Perhaps it’s that he took the initiative for the play, and it makes him feel comfortable. 

When Jisung stands up to sit on the bed Minho doesn’t budge. 

That seems to be the right move as Jisung hums in approval. His foot nudges at Minho’s knee and he signals for him to spread his thighs a bit. 

“When you submit to me,” Jisung begins, “You need to take a certain position. It will indicate that you’re not Minho the individual anymore but Minho, my submissive.” 

Minho nods, looking up from where he’s sat. 

“I’ll teach you the first position now, it’s very simple. Straighten your back, kneel and spread your thighs so that your crotch is exposed to me. I want your chest full and your hands on your knees. You can keep your eyes down but I prefer you look at me.” 

Jisung judges Minho’s every move as he gets into position. He hums when he sees something he likes. 

“Ideally you’d be naked but I’ll work with this right now,” Jisung says and Minho’s cock reacts to it lightly. 

 It’s intimidating, but it’s just as rewarding to obey. He closes his eyes for a brief moment when he thinks he’s taken the position his dom wants him in. Puffs out his chest and lets the feeling marinade. It creeps up on his cheeks a little. When he opens his eyes, it’s a bit blurry from how tight he’d squeezed them, and it’s as if he can see Jisung’s aura through the blur. 

A thin layer of gold-yellow around him before it blends back into the light. Bright and spikey like carambola fruit. 

Once satisfied with Minho’s sitting, Jisung does ask Minho to undress. Minho complies. He tries to breathe strictly through his nose as he does so. He smoothes his hands down his shirt and reaches the hem, plays with it a little. This is a punishment, they’re not having sex, and it’s weird. He’s never been so bothered without the need to relieve himself immediately. He’s never gotten naked before another person like that; as if they’re at a doctors office and Minho’s nudity is a requirement and not an option. 

He feels his tummy push against his belt and he closes his eyes and he begins to unveil his abdomen. 

Jisung tsks. He’s clinical. He’s the calmest he has ever been. 

But Minho is shy, can’t Jisung tell? 

Once the shirt is gone Minho’s fingers anxiously push through the button on his ripped jeans and slips out the belt. The zipper comes undone on its own, reminding him that he’s out of shape. Jisung’s eyes zero in on his belly button when Minho sits on his butt and peels his pants off his legs, awkwardly shuffling about in silence. 

That’s another part of his humiliation — the silence of it all. 

The moment Minho began getting naked Jisung had stopped talking to him. He sits with one leg crossed atop another, the paddle swinging on his finger and observes Minho with hooded eyes. They’re a mixture of lust and boredom. Of the character he plays and the emotions he suppresses. 

It’s flattering: that he has to suppress himself. 

It gives Minho that little bit of confidence to keep himself at bay. Once both socks are gone he stands up and begins to wiggle out of his underwear, catching a glimpse of his own body in the reflection of one of the glass-cupboard doors. 

He looks so awkward. Bare and big. 

Minho’s cock is tiny when it’s soft, much smaller than someone of his size should be and he’s ashamed of that too; he’s a ‘grower’. Jisung knows he is, but he avoids showing himself flaccid. It’s the kind of obligatory shame someone feels when getting hard during a prostate exam or when the seatbelt brushes a little too rigidly against the nipple. 

And worst of all, he enjoys this. The clinicality of the situation. This is a play and it’s consensual and Jisung is getting a little hard too. They’re both getting off on this scenario. 

Naked — Minho stands. He has both hands covering his crotch area, he keeps his nose down, he nibbles at the dead skin on the surface of his lip. 

He waits for Jisung to say something and it makes him good-nauseous. His body wants to fidget and kick under the scrutiny. His cheeks are tense from how he attempts to school his expression. 

It’s his first time like this— his first ever time being so vulnerable. 

“Good boy.” Jisung finally says, and Minho’s fingers twitch into sudden fists of composure. 

Good boy. He’s good, he’s good, he’s done something right. He did what he was told for once. 

Jisung leans back a little and spreads his thighs the smallest bit. He pats his lap. “Lie down. Chest on the bed, cock between my thighs and your butt should be facing me. You can have a pillow to support you,if you want.” 

Minho complies. He climbs on the bed and lies down just like Jisung tells him too. 

Jisung then gives Minho’s ass a soft patting. 

He lays flatly and tensely, eyes staring ahead. His white butt dimples smoothly beneath Jisung’s fingers, like a scallop would. The silence of the room exposes him to more things; to portraits on the spines of Jisung’s books, to the photograph of a big black dog on the shelf, to the swaying eyes of the clock. It’s shaped like an owl. Minho wonders if it hoots. 

“I’ll start spanking you in a moment, baby. Do you feel okay?” Jisung’s voice asks. 

He’s very gentle. With how he touches him and how he speaks to him. His voice is deep and it runs under Minho’s skin and through his blood-vessels. 

Jisung shouldn’t be gentle. He should be punishing. 

“Everytime I give you a hit, you give me a number. We’ll start with fifteen spanks. And If I think you can take more, we’ll do more. If at any point you feel like it’s too much, you can tell me your safe word.” 

“Mhm.” 

“Remind me your safe word, Angel?” 

Minho bites his lip. It feels plush on his teeth. “Egg-yolk.” he says, very quietly. 

Jisung’s palm caresses his butt. “That’s right. If… if at any point you feel that the pain is a little too much, or that I’m being too cruel, you need to use it.”

”Mhm.” 

“Humming won’t do, Angel.” 

“Yes Sir, I understand.” 

The next thing that Minho feels, trailing gently on the skin of his ass, is the smooth, wooden surface of the spanking paddle. Jisung isn’t hitting him yet — just letting Minho have a sense of it. The little holes scratch on his butt like a cheese-grader at an Italian restaurant. He wonders if it will hurt more or less because of them: if his backside will be littered in shapes of small hearts. 

He’s all gooseflesh at the thought.

 All that anxiety concentrated on the rounded surface of his ass. All that need. All that sauce. 

Spank!

The first hit whistles through the air and meets Minho’s ass with the sharpest sound. 

“Ah!” 

Minho startles, his eyes widen and he grips the bed covers out of instinct. But it wasn’t the paddle; what hit him had been undeniably the soft surface of Jisung’s palm. His hand kneads Minho’s flesh as he mediates Minho’s reaction. 

And Minho— Minho is speechless and he’s covered in horripilation. He’s firm, he’s stiff, he’s melting where his skin softly spills over Jisung’s knees. Waves of soft shock are reaching his forehead wrinkles and smooth them out. 

“That was a warning slap, did it hurt?” Jisung asks. 

“A bit.” Minho says honestly. “But it hurts good.” 

The next blow comes from the paddle. 

The wood breaks cruelly against Minho's left cheek. It’s so loud, it hangs in the air with its ringing. The room fills with bells and Minho jolts, the pain shoots up his nerve endings and makes a spot beneath his nipple twitch.

Ouch, ouch, ouch… he thinks. It hurts more than he’d anticipated. Once the initial pain subsides, the hurt spot begins to heat up. As if his ass is blushing. 

“O-one,” he says aloud, voice shaky. 

“That’s right, Angel. I don’t want to hear another word from you but numbers. You’ll only speak when spoken to.” Jisung muses. His voice has completely changed its cadence and Minho astutely understands that he takes on a character during play. 

Perhaps he is the same. Maybe that’s what subspace is for him, he takes on a role not unlike an alter ego. 

I’ll only speak when I’m spoken to, Minho repeats inside his head, I’ll be good. 

It’s easy to relinquish power like that, and do what you’re told. 

“Two—ahh!” 

Jisung’s hand grips the flesh of Minho’s ass after the spank, nails digging into the flesh beneath the cheek. 

“Such a cute butt,” he thumbs a spot. “This paddle leaves the prettiest marks on you, I wish you could see.” 

He lifts the paddle again and rhythmically delivers more hits, making Minho tense and squeeze his eyes shut as tears begin to gather. The pain is so— so blunt. The paddle feels so much heavier when it’s used to hurt him. His composure is slipping and he grits his teeth tightly, whining out the following numbers like a plea. 

“Three, f-four, f-five…” 

He can feel how his toes curl a little when he begins to move around his legs. Jisung takes notice, his fingers wrap around Minho’s calf as if to signal him to stay put. It’s embarrassing how little control Minho has over his body at this moment. He can’t even see when Jisung raises the paddle, only laying there and anticipating each hit. 

Punishment and pain have never felt so right, and as Jisung delivers the sixth spank, he feels himself slowly sink into that fuzzy headspace he’d experienced only once before. The first time they had sex. 

It’s strange. 

In response to the pain, his cock twitches into hardness. He equally wants to hide it and to gently rut into Jisung’s thigh, just enough to receive a little stimulation. However, even now, sex remains an afterthought. 

It’s really not what he’s after right now— 

“Seven! Ah!” The sting burns and yes, this is what he wants. 

When Jisung talks to him he’s being especially cruel. He reminds Minho of his place. Tells him how pathetic he looks but doesn’t outright degrade him. His knuckles travel up and down Minho’s spine as he describes the redness of Minho’s ass to him and relishes in the full body shiver he elicits. 

“You’re so needy, Angel. You think I like ungrateful boys? You think it’s fun for me to be met with your inexperience? It takes a lot out of me to train a sub, but it seems like your little cock can get off by itself, without even being touched.” 

Jisung raises the paddle and his next hit lands directly on both cheeks forcing Minho to cry out loudly. 

“Eight! N-nine!” 

“One more for me, sweetheart…” 

“Ten! Ah— ah…” 

Chuckling above him, Jisung hovers his hand over the spot he’d just hit and lets the heat from his palm meddle with the burning warmth of Minho’s ass. He gives him a break, finally, setting down the paddle. Then, Jisung bends down and plants a small kiss on one of the many heart indents covering Minho’s skin, causing the elder to twitch. 

“A-ah—”

Minho isn’t talking, his mouth feels lazy and full of cotton, but he’s still crying quietly, one cheek smushed against the pillow. It should be embarrassing just how easily the tears come. Minho isn’t a quick crier. He’s always in check of his emotions, but something about the context of BDSM unwinds him.

Right now, he’s small, guilty, aroused. 

Pathetic. 

“Are you good to carry on, baby? bend up one leg if yes and both if no,” Jisung instructs him.  

Minho sniffles but bends up one. 

“Five more?” 

Minho bends up one again. 

“Could you go for ten more?” 

Minho bends up two. 

“Alright then, Angel,” Jisung whispers. He pats Minho’s left cheek and watches it jiggle a little. It’s so pretty — so blemished. “Let’s go five more.” 

A spank lands itself onto Minho’s ass and he yelps. 

“Eleven!”

It hurts, he’s ashamed and it hurts. 

“Just look at you, my baby Angel. A little pain to clear your guilt. Sir needs to spank that out of you, doesn’t he?” Jisung’s nails squeeze his flesh meanly. “This fat butt has had enough of my love. And you’re being so good right now, you must know that you deserve it…” 

Jisung’s voice enters his capillaries. It spreads out into his tense muscles. Ribbons through the knolls of his brain. Tangles like spaghetti would.

He grips the covers tightly with his fingers when the dom raises his hand holding the wooden paddle and, three, consecutive and jiggly spanks land on his backside. They burn his pink skin. They make him jolt and wriggle. He whimpers, he yells out, his eyes blur and he finds himself sobbing open-mouthed.

”Twelve, thirteen and f-fourteen S-sir…” 

Jisung’s gentle hand spreads his ass boldly. His hole, dry and exposed winks up at Jisung, but Minho isn’t worried — he knows Jisung won’t touch him. That’s not what they’ve agreed upon. Even if his cock is painfully hard and erect between the gap of Jisung’s thighs. 

And Minho trusts him. 

Dear god, does he trust Jisung. 

“So good for me angel, taking your punishment so sweetly.” 

The last hit descends onto Minho’s ass and he clenches desperately, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. It hangs in the air and it breaks against his skin. It hurts — it really does burn through down to his legs. Minho groans and spasms, he bites the pillow instead so as to not draw blood. Everything glows, blooms, softens. He’s somewhere entirely distant from the room. 

“F-fif…F-fifteen…” he finally choked out. 

Jisung does stop after the fifteenth spank, but Minho doesn’t register it. 

His eyes burn at the retinas, tears collecting on the lash lines before they overfill and run down his cheeks. It’s pathetic, he’s pathetic: crying into his pillow while he lays bent over someone’s lap. He can feel how pink his ass is just from the sensitivity of his skin there. When Jisung’s hand comes to caress it, Minho recoils lightly at the heat of his palm. 

“Angel, Angel…” Jisung calls out to him. “It’s over. You took your punishment well, like a good boy. So obedient.” 

His deep voice lathers like pomade. He speaks with the same cadence teachers spoke to Minho in middle school. 

“Hahn..” Minho whimpers. His words escape him. He lays lax across Jisung’s lap and allows himself to shrink. It feels good. 

Jisung’s praise echoes in his head. It strokes him and pets him. 

Minho has been obedient. Good. 

The transition from play to aftercare is smooth. Jisung helps Minho off his lap and throws a blanket over his naked body. He kisses his forehead and his cheeks, and tells Minho to lay on his tummy or his side, since direct contact with his butt will hurt a little. 

Minho is still hard but neither comment on it. He will probably just let it go down on its own. He’s borderline sleepy too, so he turns his face away from the light and allows Jisung to do all of the hard work, only reassuring the dom that he’s okay and that he’s coming out of the headspace. 

Gently, Jisung massages a healing cream into the red skin of Minho’s ass and pulls him into a hug. Minho fits in between Jisung’s spread legs, arms around his waist and melts into his chest. Burrows into him like he’s a stingray and Jisung is sand. There’s unspoken trust between them. 

There was no sex but there was something more. 

Something new. 

“Sleep, Angel?” Jisung asks. 

“Mhm.” Minho replies. 

He’s pulled under in minutes. 

──── 🏍x 📚────

On Friday, before taking a shower, Minho pulls down his underwear in front of his mirror and looks at the roundness of his own butt. It’s not the prettiest butt, he doesn’t think — but it’s still pinkish. That makes up for the peachy-aesthetics.The wanness of his skin has been kindled. It’s pink and Minho likes that. Pink, from how Jisung has spanked him. He can’t make out the hearts anymore so he presses his fingertips to the soft skin and lets his nails leave little frowns in the flesh. Pulls his hand away and sighs. Flops onto the bed face first, ankles bound together by the sagged jeans and underwear. 

He feels a little pathetic. 

He spent the whole day fixing one of their nastiest jobs. A huge truck had been brought in. They’d toed it for an hour towards their little repair-shop. The insides were a mess, something had exploded and Minho dug around the metallic gutty-works all day, sweating and straining and still couldn’t find the root cause. He broke off a bit of his nail while working too, as if life was out to spite him. Beneath its cap has now spread a jacinth shard. It doesn't hurt on its own but aches when pressed on. 

Just don’t press on it then, one of his co-workers had said when Minho showed him the reddish blob.

Minho wonders if it will get infected. 

As if responding to Minho’s silent call, his phone pings with a notification from Jisung. It’s a picture of the dom holding a thick book by its spine and smiling. 

The caption reads; You really breathed some new air into me, Minho! I’ve decided to grab a break from work (wow!!!) and relax, have some me time. I’m reading science fiction, finally!!!!! HAHA. This is ‘Head of Professor Dowell’ — A CLASSIC. I’m rereading it. I can lend it to you when I’m done if you want, should be through with it by next week <3 

Through with it by next week? Wow, Minho is a joke. 

Jisung is adorable though, he looks excited — so Minho sends back a series of hearts — Jisung makes him smile. 

Jisung is…. Fuck. 

There’s something there, between him and Jisung. Or… there is from his side. Jisung’s a lot of things but most importantly he’s Minho’s type, and Minho never usually sleeps with the same guy more than twice so this friends with benefits thing they have going on is messing with his head a little. 

It feels a tad too intimate. Like a relationship. They only lack the title. 

He knows that he’s technically not committed to anything, the documents they’ve agreed upon not binding legally, but he already feels a distant sense of belonging to Jisung. As if a part of him became private property. He’s not quite sure where to put that newfound trust. It’s exciting, on one hand, but on the other, he’s still a little ashamed. 

Isn’t he a little too old to fuck around? Or, isn’t Jisung a little too young for him? 

Jisung — who has a Phd, who lives in a beautiful house, who has a trusting relationship with his wealthy family, who has so much control both in his life and in bed and who has Minho smitten and crumbling to a pile of sand beneath him. Beneath the power of his current.

He brings along new emotions in colorful shells onto his shore. Sensations. Realizations. Things Minho walked over in the past. Minho likes his hard exterior but finds himself enjoying being scooped out of it. He’s a crab and Jisung holds the crab-crackers and seafood-pics. Jisung can afford that; sitting down and eating an expensive crab-dinner. 

Minho isn’t sure he can afford being snapped apart. 

What if Jisung finds him to be boring after a while? 

It’s not like Minho can keep up with Jisung’s topics. He read some classical literature back in his teens. Then books got lost in the motion. He’s never been great at science. He’s always relied on physical strength. On street smarts. He assumed that he’d never have to deal with the pressure of academic performance again, and just supposed that since he’s made himself comfortable without it, it wouldn’t catch up to him. His achievements are very solid, after all. 

Besides, his deal with Jisung should not be exaggerated above what it is — it’s sex. It’s BDSM but no, it’s sex. Jisung fucks him. That’s what he does. 

Though he realizes, begrudgingly, that part of the shame he feels when humiliated by Jisung is a little more than sexual masochism. It seeps into his life. It rubs salt over his hang-nail of insecurity until it peels, and peels, and reveals the meat of his finger. 

Lee Minho is incomparable to Han Jisung, because Han Jisung, at twenty-five years old, surpasses him in every envious way. 

And Minho, pressed into the mattress with his hands tied behind his back, has a smaller cock, smaller brain, smaller worth.