Chapter Text
Jisung cries until he’s concave.
He’s barely even conscious of Jeno’s arms around him, ushering him through the lobby of the dorm, shielding him from eyes that stick to them like fruit flies to honey. Jisung can't think of anything besides that panicked note in Johnny’s voice, one that Jisung once thought him incapable of; of all the parts of Johnny that have been handed over to him like secrets. What was he thinking? He wants to run back to the guest room and tell Johnny that he didn’t mean it, any of it, that he’ll push down what he’s feeling a little longer if it means he can press his nose to Johnny’s neck and inhale.
“Jisungie?”
Chenle happens to be at the dorm when Jisung enters with Jeno still resting protective hands on him, guiding him forward. Jisung looks up with raw, blurry eyes to see almost the whole group in the living room—save for Jaemin, who frowns over his shoulder from the kitchen. The attention only makes Jisung curl in on himself as a fresh wave of tears bubbles up before he can stop it, and in an instant the group descends on them with coos of concern and outstretched hands.
“What’s wrong?” Donghyuck asks, gently touching his shoulder. “Jeno-yah, what happened? Why’s he crying?”
Jisung grimaces through the tears. He doesn’t even try to speak.
“I don’t know if we can talk about it yet,” comes Jeno’s hushed response.
“Is everything okay?” Jaemin asks as he approaches.
Chenle scoffs at him. “Obviously not, Hyung—Jisungie, what—I thought you and Jeno-hyung—”
“—Stop,” Jisung pleads, sinking to the floor. “Stop, stop, I can’t—I can’t—”
“Give him space, for fuck’s sake.” Renjun pulls the rest of them back. “Jisungie, what do you need?”
Jisung shakes his head. Nothing. There’s nothing that can make this better, even if he were to run all the way to Chenle’s house and fall back into Johnny’s arms.
“I think he just needs some time,” Jeno murmurs over the group’s sounds of distress. “Jisungie, do you want me to stay with you in your room?”
Jisung shakes his head again, chest heaving. “No, I-I—”
He’s winded by the way his body is turning itself inside out, but Jeno seems to understand.
“Then I’ll just take you there.”
Jisung lets go of reality again for a moment as Jeno leads him down the hall, shushing him and tucking his hair behind his ear the whole way; when they get there Jeno leaves the room briefly to come back with tissues.
“You just want to be alone?” he asks. Jisung nods, but before Jeno retreats Jisung clutches onto his shoulders one last time, shaking. Jeno holds him, rocking back and forth like he’s done every other time Jisung has needed comforting over the years.
“Thank you,” Jisung manages, though his voice is scarcely above a rasp.
“Oh, Jisungie. Of course. My baby.”
Jisung hiccups and draws back. Then he curls his legs up on the bed, letting his swollen eyes slide shut, and waits for Jeno to leave with his lip between his teeth.
He falls asleep somewhere along the line but he doesn’t dream; he doubts his brain has anything left in it.
The days that follow are brittle, tense—he knows that everyone present at the dorm when he and Jeno came back are tiptoeing around him but he can’t manage to feel anything but muted annoyance about it. If anything, he’s grateful to be left alone most of the time, which isn’t usually the case; in general, his hyungs take their roles very seriously. They always have. If Jisung is upset, they’ll try to move mountains to make him feel better. Now, Jisung just sees disturbance on all their faces when they’re around him, like they’re worried that the slightest move toward him will make him disintegrate. Jisung supposes they’re not used to seeing him like this.
Chenle does approach him after a few days, though, which Jisung can’t fault him for. Everything happened in his house, after all.
“This isn’t like you,” he says when they’re hanging out in Jisung’s room. Even he has been particularly accomodating to Jisung lately, staying mellow and making sure Jisung has company when he wants it. In fact, this is the first time he’s brought up the situation at all.
Jisung bites his tongue, stomach roiling.
“Jisungie, what happened?” Chenle presses. “It really isn’t like you to just shut all of us out—”
“—I’m not trying to shut you out,” Jisung cuts in. “I just don’t think it’s going to fix anything by talking about it. I don’t always want everyone’s help, you know?”
Chenle purses his lips. “Seems like it’s just making things worse.”
Jisung bristles. “How would you know that?”
“That’s the point—I don’t know. You’re completely shutting down and just expect us all to, what, watch? Not do anything? The hyungs are worried, I-I’m worried—”
“—Please...don’t be.” Jisung heaves a sigh, drawing his knees up to his chest. “I promise I can handle this. I just haven’t dealt with anything like it before.”
Chenle is quiet for a few moments. Then he looks up with an unreadable expression on his face, fidgeting with his fingers in his lap.
“It’s not about Jeno-hyung, is it? About how you two have been sleeping together?”
Jisung goes still, unable to lift his mouth out of a frown. For a moment, the guilt that’s been following him ever since he started sneaking into Chenle’s house almost overpowers his need to keep himself distant; he’s never kept something from Chenle for this long. He figures he owes him something.
So slowly, he shakes his head. When he meets Chenle’s eyes it’s hard not to break and tell him everything—part of him wants to, so badly, to air it all out for just one person. But he doesn’t, and Chenle stops asking questions, and Jisung slowly withdraws back into himself to continue keeping everything at bay.
At work, Jisung puts on his best face; he can’t muster his usual energy but he makes the usual excuses to anyone who asks—he’s tired, he’s just thinking, he’s having an introvert moment. His birthday is quickly approaching, which means everyone is inclined to baby him even more than they do during the rest of the year, and he tries his best to be gracious but heartbreak hangs over him with every move he makes.
And it is heartbreak. Jisung’s been let down before, sure, he’s felt the sting of unreturned feelings or frustration at situations that didn’t quite line up. But this is something else entirely, dragging its leaden feet up and down the length of Jisung’s body, heavy with months and months of murky promises and bitter hopes. As he thinks in circles, he realizes that maybe even he himself underestimated the gravity of Johnny’s hold on him; he feels scooped out from the inside, sort of crumply like tissue paper. It’s inescapable, even while everyone dotes on him.
On the day of his birthday, the members put together a live for him, although he can’t bear to admit to them that the only gift he wants is the freedom to sleep all day and maybe order some particularly indulgent takeout. Even so, he finds himself in a room full of his hyungs singing to him, adoring smiles on their faces; Jisung feels terribly ungrateful to be in such a bad mood but it hasn’t lifted for a week. He doubts that there’s anything able to cheer him up enough to forget.
And then, of course, like a slap in the face: the last group enters with Johnny in tow, ducking his head sheepishly as he meets Jisung’s eyes. Anger pulses in Jisung’s gut, the first he’s felt since this whole thing started—Johnny looks like he knows what he’s done, and he won’t confront Jisung about it. Fuming, Jisung looks away.
He’ll just have to do his best to avoid Johnny right back.
“I say Jisung-ah plays with whoever draws the short Pepero,” Jaemin suggests when they’re getting to the last of the games. Doyoung is opening a pack and Jisung feels dread brewing in the pit of his stomach, but he’s frantically shoving it down.
“Yah, Jeno is just going to cheat,” Chenle pipes up. “Watch him, he’ll break his Pepero in half while no one’s looking.”
“Chenle-ya…” Jeno makes a strangling motion and Jisung finds himself smiling, exhaling a laugh.
“What if I want to play with Jisung-ah?” Mark chimes in.
“What if I want to?” Yuta adds, and suddenly all of his hyungs are speaking up. Jisung begins to laugh, he can’t help it—half out of embarrassment and half out of fondness at his hyungs’ tireless efforts to make him feel better.
“Please,” Jisung begs between giggles. “Please, stop, I can’t take it—”
And then he looks the wrong way, opening his eyes at the exact wrong moment; he meets Johnny’s gaze with no facade to conceal either of them and the ache comes crashing back in.
“Guys, quit it,” Doyoung says, smacking Jaehyun on the arm. “Play nice.”
Jisung is winded from just a few seconds of eye contact. He inhales shakily, quietly.
“Take your pick,” Doyoung says when he’s prepared the pack, and offers it to everyone with outstretched hands.
Jisung waits anxiously, unsure of who would cause the least damage to play with, until Jaehyun exclaims and holds his hand up. The group jeers and teases, pushing them together hard enough that they bump into each other. Jisung swallows thickly.
“Jisungie,” comes Jaemin’s voice, followed by his hands on Jisung’s shoulders. “Face your hyung, Jisungie!”
Jisung steels himself. He knows that this is all in good fun but Johnny’s presence is like a black hole, sucking his attention toward him and warping the objects in the room. He squeezes his eyes shut and puts the Pepero between his teeth, waiting for the game to start, and feels his stomach lurch when a steady chant of Kiss! Kiss! builds up around them.
Eventually he can’t take it—he opens his eyes to find Johnny already looking at him with a kind of grief laid out so plainly on his face that it digs into Jisung like claws. For half a second, he’s not in the room; he’s somewhere else, in that place he goes to when he and Johnny are alone together. He hadn’t realized it existed until now, but all at once finds himself missing it with everything in his being.
“Oh—!”
Jisung rocks back, one hand over his mouth, cheeks heating. In his distraction, he didn’t notice how close he and Jaehyun were getting until it was too late—heat in the shape of Jaehyun’s lips remains on Jisung’s mouth. Slowly, Jaehyun sticks out his tongue to reveal a crumb of the Pepero there and the crowd goes wild.
Through it, all Jisung can do is keep his eyes on Johnny. It feels wrong, the desecration of something sacred.
Jisung is almost frenzied in getting out of the room, thanking all of his hyungs in a rush—luckily, he does have somewhere to be, and Jeno takes on his role of guardian angel again as he ushers him away. But before they can depart, Jisung feels a tug on his sleeve; he turns around expecting one last greeting and is met with uncertainty written all over Johnny’s features.
“Jisung-ah,” he says, a little breathless. “Can we talk for a sec?”
Jisung feels their eyes on him—Donghyuck, Chenle, Jaemin, everyone who’s had a front-row seat to his meltdown. He can hear the gears in their heads turning, the sound of pieces being put together, and stands frozen while he tries to think of what to say.
“Sorry, Hyung,” Jeno replies in lieu of Jisung’s silence, “We’re gonna be late to the Huya live.”
“Just a second,” Jisung interjects. It’s probably a horrible idea, but with Johnny right in front of him, he can’t say no. “I’ll catch up.”
Jeno gives him a look. A this-is-probably-a-horrible-idea look. But Jisung gives him an I’m-an-adult-who-can-make-his-own-unwise-decisions look in turn, and after a few seconds, Jeno turns to Johnny begrudgingly and nods.
It only takes a couple of minutes for Jisung to start regretting this choice.
“Jisungie,” Johnny says, when they’re alone in a side hallway, and then stops.
He’s fidgeting, which is rare—Jisung doesn’t see him fidget unless he’s really distressed about something. Some sick part of Jisung feels satisfied, but the longer the silence stretches on, the more the bitterness dissipates to be replaced by disappointment. Jisung thought, for just a moment, that maybe Johnny was finally going to tell him something true.
“Hyung,” he prompts, desperate.
But Johnny drops his gaze. His mouth opens and closes a couple time before he finally chokes out,
“Happy birthday.”
It takes a moment to register. Johnny sought him out, pulled him aside, let him get his hopes up for—?
A bitter laugh escapes Jisung’s mouth before he can stop it. He’s in disbelief. The anger that subsided earlier thrums to life again and he feels himself pulling away again, retracting.
“Thank you,” he replies. “I…thanks.”
“Jisungie,” Johnny says again. Jisung is quickly growing tired, jaded, unable to bear the words stuck in Johny’s throat.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t…I don’t know what to…”
Tears prick at the corners of Jisung’s eyes and the anger reaches in, toward himself—he’s already cried too much. But all that resentment just draws more up from the well of his throat, and the angrier he becomes, the harder it is to keep himself from crying.
“Are you going to say anything?” He whispers. His voice shakes.
Johnny shakes his head. “I just want to know what you—”
“Jisung-ah!”
Jeno peeks around the corner and immediately looks furious, although he schools it into something softer when he approaches Jisung.
“Jisungie,” he repeats, gently, “we’re going to be late.”
Johnny is still stuck in place. At once, Jisung hates him so much that he burns with it—he hates the way Johnny’s looking at him, jaw clenched, refusing to take any steps forward, and he hates that he let himself sink so deep into this mess that light can’t reach either of them now.
He allows himself a tiny scoff, a shake of his own head, and then lets himself be led away—and he decides right then that he can’t afford to mourn anymore. He has to close the channel, shut the door.
So that night, he deletes their texts. All of them, including the pictures they sent while they were sexting, although scrolling up to them makes Jisung’s throat tighten. It nearly knocks the wind out of him to work backward, to see them get progressively more nervous around each other until he’s back at their first conversation after Johnny caught him in that fucking bathroom. Jisung hadn’t really given thought to how tightly Johnny was woven into his life before, but now it hits him with sickening force—he was in Jisung’s thoughts always, in his dreams, the first thing he thought about when he woke up. Since that day, Johnny seemed to be absolutely everywhere.
Then, as if sharing in some cosmic joke, the next note that strikes through his headphones belongs to the first chord of a song that takes him back to one soft, velvet night—Jisung can still feel the warmth of hot pot in his belly, the blush of alcohol on his cheeks.
Harry Styles sings about falling and all Jisung can see is him and Johnny in the company building after dark, their smiles laced with sweet anticipation as they sung the same lyrics into that cavernous space. Everything was so sweet in the beginning. Even though Jisung couldn’t see two feet in front of him, Johnny made things feel sweet.
What am I now? What am I now? What if I’m someone you don’t want around?
Jisung deletes the texts and turns off his headphones, taking one more moment to clutch his stomach and dig his face into the uncomfortable wetness of his pillow.
The next day almost feels normal. Perhaps he’s finally cried himself out—he wakes up puffy but with no desire to break down again, just swathes of exhaustion where the pain was before. He moves through tasks like he’s meant to and he doesn’t complain, he just tries his best to remember how he’s supposed to act—and as far as he can tell, he manages to keep everyone happy. Occasionally some of that indignation will try to sneak in, not attached to any thought in particular but carrying all the weight that Jisung knows will crush him. Now, he simply tries to let it pass right over him without clipping the top of his head.
“You seem a little better,” Jeno says to him on their way back to the dorms. He sounds hopeful.
“Yeah, I guess,” Jisung replies. “I just needed some time. I think I still, um...”
Jeno nods. He takes Jisung’s hand and squeezes, then strokes his thumb over Jisung’s knuckle. Jisung feels awful for everything Jeno’s been forced to endure with him and wonders at how he’s been able to take it all in stride—but that’s just Jeno, he supposes, an indestructible wall that’s soft to the touch.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”
Jisung sighs. “Not...right now. But probably. Eventually.” He smiles. “I feel like I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Jisung-ah.”
“Hyung...”
Jeno just gives him a reprimanding look and goes back to staring out the window, tracing the patterns of the rain with his fingertips. Jisung spends the whole way back to the dorms feeling guilty for one thing or another, wondering how long it’ll take to go away.
He’s in his room when Renjun comes to get him.
“Um,” Renjun says, pushing his glasses up his nose, “Johnny-hyung’s here. To see you.”
Jisung feels himself go pale. “What?”
Renjun raises an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“I—” Jisung swallows, feeling his heart pick up speed. He shakes his head but he doesn’t know the answer. “Hyung, I—”
“...Does this have to do with what’s been going on?”
Jisung can’t say anything. He can tell his eyes are wide, terrified, while all of his meticulous work to distance himself is at risk of crumbling. Renjun’s face settles into something stoic.
“Should I tell him to leave?”
Jisung’s mind is racing—Johnny is right here, in the place that’s been off-limits to him since they started seeing each other, and he’s here looking for Jisung—but no, Jisung is tired. He doesn’t want to extend himself just to watch Johnny go silent again, unable to summon the nerve to even open his mouth. Jisung inhales, poised to tell Renjun to kick him out, but apparently his feet have other ideas; suddenly he’s rising from his place on the bed to join Renjun at the door. When Renjun looks at him quizzically and moves to the side, Jisung looks down the hallway and feels every space in his body fill up with the sweetest ache.
Johnny is dressed in jeans and a flannel, hair wet from a shower, chatting with Jaemin by the front door. He’s nodding and smiling at something Jaemin’s saying but he lacks his usual shine; the confidence that carries him is absent as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. It’s not a totally unfamiliar sight—Jisung registers with a jolt that he’s seen Johnny like this more in the last few months than he ever has. That unshakable aura is what lured Jisung in, but he stayed for the little hitch in Johnny’s breath when Jisung touched his hand. The fingers that trembled just slightly while they brushed Jisung’s hair back from his face.
“It’s okay,” Jisung says, trance-like. “But, um, could you...I know you all were talking about getting dinner...”
Renjun smiles solemnly. “We can get out of your hair.”
“Thanks.”
Renjun sighs, reaching up to squeeze Jisung’s shoulder. “Are you going to be all right?”
Jisung nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Hyung.”
With that, they make their way back into the living room, where Renjun slips his arm around Jaemin’s waist and tells him they’re going out for dinner. Jaemin frowns.
“But I thought—?”
“—Doesn’t that place down the street sound good? It’s been ages since we all went out.” Renjun looks pointedly at Jeno as well, who’s squinting from the couch.
Jaemin starts to sigh, his hands on his hips. But his eyes flick back to Jisung, then over at Johnny, then back once more.
“We’re gonna hang back,” Jisung says, as if it wasn’t clear. “I can catch up later.”
Jaemin closes his mouth. Then he nods, slowly, before gesturing for Jeno to join them by the door.
“Okay, Jisungie. Text us if—”
“—Yeah, I will.” Jisung smiles. “Thank you.”
Jaemin gives one final look to each of them. Then he raises his eyebrows dismissively and the three of them bid Jisung goodbye, leaving him completely alone with Johnny still looking like he wants to bolt.
After a few moments of heavy silence, Johnny clears his throat.
“Hi,” he says. “And also, first of all: I’m sorry about yesterday.”
Jisung presses his lips together. He nods, unsure of what more he can offer.
“I couldn’t—” Johnny sighs. “I...wanted to talk to you, to get some things straight, but—well, I had no idea what to say.”
“Clearly.”
Johnny stops short, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Jisung crosses his arms.
“Right,” Johnny continues. “But now I’ve thought about it, and—I just, I want to know what you want. From me.”
Jisung frowns. Annoyance makes his skin itch, and maybe this was another in his series of terrible ideas; he briefly considers ending the conversation right there.
“What I want? What do you mean?”
“Why you walked out. You said that you couldn’t do...this anymore but I never really—you didn’t say exactly which part was bothering you. What you wanted to change. I just want to know.”
Jisung stares at him for a moment, then heaves a sigh. “I don’t know. I didn’t really get a chance to think about what I wanted.”
Johnny lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Didn’t—Jisung, you’re the one who walked out. You made that decision. You don’t know? You don’t know why you walked out—?”
“—I know why I walked out, you just asked me what I wanted—”
“—then forget what you want, why the fuck did you walk out?”
Jisung wraps his arms around himself and turns away, already feeling that telltale lump forming in his throat. He walks into the living room, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“Because,” he says. “Because.”
“Because what?”
“Because!” Jisung spins around to face him, eyes welling up beyond his control. “I—I couldn’t just lie there and sleep with you and pretend that I haven’t always wanted something different than you did, ever since the beginning, ever since—” A hiccup breaks his words. He fights it for a moment, lip trembling. “—always, always, I did what you wanted, whatever I could to keep you from freaking out, even though you were supposed to be the one who knew what they were doing, I just—”
He stills, chest heaving, and covers his face. He hears Johnny take a few steps forward before stopping.
“Hey,” Johnny says, voice deep and soothing. “Hey, Jisungie, please—”
“—No, I can’t—” Jisung shakes his head. “—I decided that day when I left, I can’t keep falling back into this without knowing that you’d do the same for me. That you’d be so afraid of me leaving that you’d—you—”
Another sob racks him, deep from his core, and he holds onto himself for dear life. He can’t face Johnny anymore—this is the crown jewel of his most awful ideas and now he’s in a hurricane of his own making.
“Jisung-ah. Look at me.”
Jisung’s eyes are still shut, weathering wave after wave of grief and regret. But Johnny speaks again.
“Please. Look at me, Jisung.”
Painfully, full of more dread than he thought his body was capable of fitting, Jisung lifts his head. Johnny’s face is resolute, earnest to every fault that there is, and he’s moving toward Jisung like he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. Carefully, he reaches up with his sleeve over his hand and wipes the tears from Jisung’s cheeks, one by one.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I—I think I haven’t been totally honest with you.”
“About which part?”
Johnny shakes his head. “I don’t even know where to start. Mostly, I—I don’t know how you couldn’t tell that I was—oh, God, I was so scared of losing you. Every time I thought I might, I went into this panic—one that I’d never felt before in my life, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with it.”
Johnny sighs. The red, pulpy mess of Jisung’s heart throbs.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” he replies. Johnny laughs, then takes one of Jisung’s hands between both of his.
“You’ve got to understand, I ingrained that fear of being found out so deep into my brain—after Sicheng and Yuta broke up, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What would happen if we were found out, the stress that would put on you, on me, and—I just wanted to do everything in my power to keep that from happening.”
“I know,” Jisung says. “I remember how you looked when you came back from visiting Yuta.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jisung inhales. A pause. “That still doesn’t...Hyung, I put my feelings on hold for you. You wanted me to and I did.”
“I get that. And I’m sorry.”
“But they never totally went away, did they?”
Johnny’s mouth twitches downward. His brows are drawn together and Jisung’s thumb twitches, still drawing on the muscle-memory urge to smooth them out.
“They were always there,” Jisung continues, barely above a murmur. “Under whatever thin layer I could pull together to keep you cool. And when you started showing signs that you liked me too, they just got bigger, they came back, and I was so confused all the time—sometimes you made me feel like it was okay, the fact that we felt something for each other, and others—” He takes a sharp breath, holding it. “—You never said anything about it, what you were feeling, and then you started sleeping around again.”
Johnny’s mouth is set in a grim line. “That was the deal.”
“The deal?” Jisung scoffs, dropping Johnny’s hands. “The deal. Fuck the deal, Hyung, we’re way past the deal now—”
“—Are we? Because you never said a thing about all this to me either—”
“—Because I thought that’s what you wanted—”
“—Maybe it was what I wanted, in the beginning, but—”
Jisung throws his hands up. “Am I supposed to just read your mind, then?”
“No! God, no—”
“—It isn’t all about you,” Jisung interrupts. “That’s what I couldn’t do anymore. I couldn’t keep shoving down what I felt every time you acted like you didn’t want to see it.”
“Jisung-ah, I’m sorry.” Johnny runs a hand through his hair. “I never meant to make you feel like—like you were...”
He looks at his feet and Jisung feels himself start to tear up again.
“I just—” Johnny continues “—it all scared me so much, every part of it—”
“—Scared you? What—”
“—Listen, you know relationships aren’t something I’m used to, and even the idea—”
“—But we weren’t in a relationship—!” Jisung sniffles, gesturing to Johnny standing in front of him. “Hyung, why are you even here? Is this all that you came to say to me? Th-that you were just following the rules for the stupid deal and you were too scared to speak up, and—”
“Because I love you!”
The rest of his words drop right out of Jisung’s mouth, one after the other, before landing like pennies on the floor. Johnny’s hair has fallen into his face and his eyes are shiny, wet, matching the half-grimace on his face that tells Jisung he’s close to tears too.
“What?”
Johnny sniffs. He rocks back on his heels, avoiding Jisung’s eyes in a way he’s scarcely done before.
“I’m here because I’m in love with you,” Johnny says, “and I can’t control it, and it scares the shit out of me, but I’ve tried to do things without you and I just, I—I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Jisung’s voice has retreated all the way to the back of his throat. Johnny loves him. Johnny loves him?
“—And I understand that I hurt you, Jisung-ah, I knew I was hurting you while I did it and I didn’t do anything to stop myself. And fuck me for that.” Johnny closes his eyes as a tear slips down his cheek and all of Jisung’s breath gets caught in limbo. “But I haven’t been in love in a really, really fucking long time. Add in the chance that you might love me back?” He exhales a laugh. “I had no idea what to do. About any of it.”
“How long?” Jisung asks. “How long have you...?”
Johnny takes a deep breath. “I don’t really know. It didn’t happen all at once, I kinda just…eased into it, every time we kissed, or hung out, or just, like, looked at each other. It didn’t take much.”
Jisung smiles, disbelieving. It was happening in front of him the whole time, right in front of his face.
“I’m in love with you too,” he blurts, all in one breath. “I don’t know a lot about love, but this is—I’ve never felt like—” He cuts himself off, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I feel so, so much, Hyung.”
Now Johnny’s laughing through tears, reaching out again to cup Jisung’s face with his hand. He wipes Jisung’s tears again, so gentle, so full of care. Jisung can’t believe Johnny’s in love with him.
“You didn’t deserve all that,” Johnny tells him. “And so much of it is my fault, Jisung, I never, ever want you to feel like your feelings are a burden to me.”
Jisung nods, another quiet sob shaking his shoulders. “I’m sorry too. For not saying anything, and for—for walking out.”
“It’s okay.” Johnny pulls him in and Jisung buries himself in all the warmth he’s been craving since he gave it up. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”
Like this, wrapped up in Johnny’s scent with the sturdy planes of his body under Jisung’s hands, Jisung holds tight. Johnny grips him back, hard enough to make Jisung believe how afraid he was of losing him—and somewhere the final piece slips into place, smoothing out all the jagged edges.
“My Hyung,” Jisung whispers into the crook of his neck. “My Johnny-hyung.”
“My Jisungie,” Johnny replies without hesitation.
When they pull back, Jisung wastes no time kissing him.
It feels different from all of the other kisses they’ve shared so far, their lips imbued with every raw intention of the words that just left them. Jisung kisses like he has nothing to hide; he pours his secrets into Johnny’s mouth like love letters and relishes the way Johnny laps them up before offering his own right back. Their movements quickly turn passionate, and soon Jisung is whimpering into Johnny’s mouth as he paws at his back, his chest, his hips.
“Fuck,” Johnny breathes against Jisung’s chin, pressing a kiss to it casually like adoring Jisung is as easy as breathing. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too. So much.”
They share another kiss, and then another, before Jisung speaks up.
“What do we do now?”
Johnny kisses his jaw, then his neck, then moves up behind his ear. He mouths at Jisung’s earlobe and makes him shiver, grinning in pleasure.
“Well, it seems like all the odds are against us,” he whispers into Jisung’s hairline. “Like, all of the odds.”
“Mm.”
“And neither of us have the first clue about what we’re doing.”
“Mmmh—Johnny-hyung—”
Johnny’s fingers dig into Jisung’s ass like they’ve done a thousand times—somehow, none of them have come close to this.
“But I want to be with you,” Johnny finishes. “And I’m ready to do what you want.”
“I just want you,” Jisung breathes. He looks into Johnny’s eyes, stroking his thumb across Johnny’s cheek. “I want to be yours.”
Gently, like the sun emerging to light the edges of leaves on fire, Johnny grins. Jisung loves him, from his front teeth to his smile lines, from his ignorance to his earnestness. He swoops in to kiss him again and they’re gone, swept away in each other. Lost in a tide long overdue.
“How long do you think we have?” Johnny asks between kisses. His hands are already under Jisung’s shirt, warm and sure. “‘Til everyone comes back, how long—?”
“Dunno,” Jisung mumbles into Johnny’s mouth. “Don’t care. C’mon, come back to my room.”
Johnny wiggles his eyebrows. “Your room. Oh, I see how it is.”
“How it is,” Jisung says, “is that I need to get my hands on you right now, like right this minute, or I’m pretty sure I’ll die.”
“Wouldn’t want that.”
“Nope.”
Jisung tugs him down the hallway by the hand, unable to keep the smile from his face and stops to kiss Johnny against the doorframe just because he can.
“We should go somewhere,” Johnny says. “Just you and me, get away for a day or two. I could try to pitch it as a birthday present, maybe, since mine’s in a couple days—”
“—You realize that would mean telling everyone about us, right?”
Johnny inhales, then exhales, looking like he’s fending off anxiety. Then he thumbs Jisung’s lips, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of them.
“I want them to know,” he replies. “I want everyone to know.”
After a moment Jisung laughs again, loose and packed to the brim with delight. He captures Johnny’s lips in the sweetest kiss he can muster, an echo of those early days of sweetness but with twice the strength behind it.
“Good,” Jisung says. “But let’s worry about that later.”
They tumble into Jisung’s bed, shedding clothing along the way. Johnny’s bare skin under the pads of Jisung’s fingers feels like the most delectable victory, and when Johnny takes his cock into his mouth, he swears he can sense the circuit of his body completing.
“It was never the same,” Jisung gasps as Johnny kisses designs into the dips of his pelvis. “With Jeno, it was never the same. I almost always thought about—ah—about you, I was thinking about—you—”
Johnny smiles against the tip of Jisung’s cock before giving it a sly little lick. “Me too. Especially those last few weeks, God, I really took it out on Hyuck—”
“We have a lot of people to thank,” Jisung says. Johnny mouths his way back up Jisung’s abdomen until he’s sucking a mark into Jisung’s collarbone, good and dark. Jisung tangles his fingers in Johnny’s hair and pulls lightly, remembering the mark that Johnny once left on the inside of his thigh, all the way back at the beginning. He remembers the sight of Johnny digging his teeth into Jisung’s skin and how, even then, it felt like some sort of claim; Jisung coveted that mark until the last moments before it faded away.
“We do,” Johnny agrees. “Later.”
Jisung gasps when Johnny takes both of them in his hand, pumping them slow and deliberate.
“Mm, yes, later.”
He throws his arms around Johnny’s neck while they rut against each other, too caught up to worry about perfect coordination, just reveling in the place where they’ve managed to meet in the middle. It’s almost frantic, the way they roll all over the bed—how Jisung’s breaths run like rabbits into the once-lonely air of his bedroom.
“Want you inside me,” Jisung pleads. “The next time we—”
“—Yes. God, I’m gonna fuck you so hard, so fucking deep—”
“—Ahh, yes, wait, just like that—”
Johnny speeds up his pace around them and moves to the other side of Jisung’s neck, leaving a symmetrical hickey right on the curve of his clavicle. Jisung groans wantonly at the sensation of Johnny’s teeth, wanting more of them, anywhere, everywhere—
“Gonna come,” Johnny says. And Jisung, a nostalgic smile on his lips, keeps his pace.
“Do you wanna come together?”
“Yes.”
There’s no tissue handed from one hand to another this time, just two sweat-sticky bodies that crush into each other like planets colliding, mixing, their scents and colors running together. Johnny comes with Jisung’s name on his tongue and Jisung is soon to follow as he holds onto Johnny in the storm of his own pleasure; when it’s over they just breathe, unhurried.
“I think,” Jisung says after his lungs have slowed down a little, “I’d like us to stop seeing other people, if that’s okay.”
Johnny’s lips quirk up. He pecks Jisung on the nose before saying, “Sounds good to me.”
Jisung isn’t sure how much time passes while they lie there, slightly filthy—Jisung makes a mental note to change these sheets later—but all he knows is he’s drifting, caught between consciousness and unconsciousness, and it’s the most at peace he’s felt in weeks. Even before he walked out, even before all the tears. He and Johnny, they’re just floating. Far away from everything else.
At least, until Jisung hears the front door open.
The voices of his groupmates filter in through the hall and Johnny stretches like a cat, disturbed from his half-slumber. Jisung scowls when he thinks about getting up, but they’re both covered in dried sweat and come—he can feel the layer of sex-grime on his skin when he sits up.
“‘M gonna grab a towel from the bathroom,” he tells Johnny, who nods drowsily. Then he tugs on his pants and slips into the bathroom across the hall, almost making it back to his room before he’s spotted.
“Jisungie?”
The voice is Jaemin’s, and Jisung stops dead in his tracks, towel in hand. He has the brief impulse to try to cover up his shirtlessness with it but dismisses the idea just as quick—there’s no point.
“Yes?”
“Did Johnny-hyung leave?”
Jisung feels himself blush, but he forces out an answer anyway.
“Nope, he’s still here.”
He looks at Jaemin for just long enough to see his eyebrows shoot up in something that looks like true surprise. Then he scuttles away before any more questions can be asked, slipping back into his room where Johnny’s pulling on his underwear.
“Here,” Jisung says as he hands him the towel. “I got that part a little wet.”
“Thanks.” Johnny takes it and swipes the towel over his stomach, his beautiful abs, the peaks of his hip bones—
“Also,” Jisung continues, cheeks hot, “I think everyone knows now. Well, at least, everyone who lives here.”
Johnny stops, then looks up at Jisung with an unreadable expression. For a second, Jisung thinks he’s made a mistake—but then Johnny bursts into laughter and tosses the towel back at Jisung, pulling him in by the forearm for a kiss.
“That was fast,” he says.
“Yeah, I guess. Sorry.”
After they’re cleaned up and redressed, Johnny stands up and pops his back, stretching again with his arms way over his head. Jisung just admires him, uncaring of the way his eyes rove the dips and curves of Johnny’s body.
“I’ll ask about getting a day or two off for us,” Johnny tells him. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to swing it, but...”
“Do you want me to come with? To tell people? I mean...” Jisung chews his lip. “...You’re probably going to have to tell Taeyongie-hyung, right?”
Johnny shakes his head. “I think that’s something I should do alone.”
“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Johnny smiles again, wrapping his arms loosely around Jisung’s waist to draw him in again.
“You’re too good,” he murmurs. “I don’t know how it all...”
Jisung shakes his head. “I don’t know either. But I’m glad it did.”
He gives Johnny one last kiss, languid, dipping back into that feeling of contentment that seems to live in Johnny’s lips.
“Are you ready to face Jaemin-hyung?”
Johnny snorts. “I guess I have to be.”
“Well, I can walk you out.”
It’s true, Jaemin has definitely told the others—Jisung wonders if Jeno pretended to act surprised or if he just spilled the beans, which he shudders to think about either way—and when he and Johnny walk into the room, all eyes snap to where they’re holding hands. Jaemin takes a long inhale while Renjun just keeps nodding, as if confirming some long suspicion to himself; Jeno, bless him, is simply smiling that charming smile.
“Always a pleasure,” Johnny says to the three of them, and Jisung has to stifle a laugh. One of Jaemin’s eyebrows is still high up on his forehead.
“Uh-huh,” he replies. “Likewise.”
“Okay!” Jisung leans over to plant a quick kiss on Johnny’s cheek. “I’ll see you soon. Get home safe.”
“I will.”
Before he knows it, Johnny is kissing him on the mouth, a proper, romantic one, before breaking away and closing the door behind him with a smirk. Jisung turns back to his roommates bashfully, met with various looks of confusion and disbelief.
“Well,” Jeno says after a while. He heaves a satisfied sigh, still smiling pleasantly. “I’m glad that turned out well.”
Jisung smiles down at his hands, the spaces between his fingers still warm from where Johnny’s were. There’s a softness to everything, almost like the world is a little out of focus.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Me too.”