Work Text:
requested by
CORTISFORLIFE5626
implication of sex, not smut.
Martin's laughter echoed through the practice room, bright and unrestrained, as he demonstrated the choreography for what felt like the hundredth time. His body moved with a fluid grace that belied the exhaustion in his muscles. At twenty-six, he was the oldest, the leader, the one who was supposed to hold everything together. And he did-with smiles that stretched a little too wide and hugs that lingered a little too long.
His eyes, as they always did, found Keonho.
Keonho, nineteen years old and all sharp angles and sharper words, was leaning against the mirror, scrolling through his phone as if the grueling twelve-hour practice day meant nothing. The fluorescent lights caught the perfect line of his jaw, the sweep of his dark lashes against pale skin. He was beautiful in a way that made Martin's chest ache- a dangerous, cutting beauty that drew blood.
"Keonho-ya, pay attention!" Martin called out, his voice carefully light, carefully teasing. "Even if you're the main dancer, you still need to practice the formation changes."
Keonho didn't look up. "I know it already. Unlike some people who need everything repeated fifty times."
A few of the other members chuckled nervously. Juhoon, the main vocalist, shot Martin a sympathetic look. The dynamic was well-known among them: Martin, the affectionate, touchy-feely leader who wore his heart on his sleeve, and Keonho, the brilliant, moody maknae who seemed to exist solely to prick at that heart.
It was a joke to their fans. #KeonMartinFighting trended weekly with edited videos of Keonho rolling his eyes at Martin's attempts to hug him, with captions about "cat and golden retriever" energy. They didn't see the way Martin's smile would fracture for a millisecond before cementing back into place. They didn't hear the things said off-camera.
Practice ended near midnight. The members shuffled out, groaning about sore muscles, heading for the vans that would take them to the dorm. Martin lingered, gathering discarded water bottles and toweling down the mirrors. It was a leader's duty, but it was also an excuse. An excuse to be near Keonho, who was taking his sweet time tying his shoes by the door.
"Here," Martin said, approaching with a fresh bottle of the vitamin water Keonho preferred. He'd made a special stop that morning to get it. "You worked hard today."
Keonho finally looked up. His eyes, dark and fathomless, swept over Martin, from his sweaty hair to the offering in his hand. A slow, cold smile spread across his lips-the kind that never warmed his eyes.
"Did I ask for that?" Keonho's voice was soft, almost pleasant, which made the words cut deeper.
Martin's hand wavered. "I just thought—"
"You think too much," Keonho interrupted, standing up in one fluid motion. He was slightly taller now, having hit a growth spurt that seemed to give him both physical and psychological leverage. "And you're always giving things no one wants. Your annoying advice. Your pathetic smiles. This." He flicked the bottle with a finger, sending it tumbling from Martin's grip to clatter on the linoleum floor. "Stop trying so hard. It's embarrassing."
He shouldered past Martin, his scent-clean cotton and something uniquely, painfully Keonho washing over him for a brief moment before disappearing out the door.
Martin stood frozen, staring at the rolling bottle. The echo of the words pathetic and embarrassing bounced around the empty, too-bright room, finding their mark with practiced precision. He bent slowly, picking up the bottle, his knuckles white around the plastic. He didn't cry. He hadn't cried in front of Keonho since the first time, over a year ago, when Keonho had told him his constant need for validation was "suffocating." The memory of Keonho's disgusted look at his tears had cauterized that particular wound. Now, he just felt hollow.
The van ride was quiet. Keonho had earbuds in, his face turned toward the window, a wall of indifference. Martin chatted with Jaehyun about the upcoming album, his voice steady, his smile convincing. He was the leader. He had to be okay.
---
Back at the dorm, the chaos of five young men washing off the day provided a temporary shield. Martin retreated to the leader's room- a slightly larger space he didn't really deserve-and closed the door. The silence was a physical weight. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood, the mask finally cracking.
Why? Why did he keep doing this to himself? Keonho had been different when he'd first joined the company as a prodigious fifteen-year-old. Shy, awed by the older trainees, clinging to Martin's guidance. Somewhere along the line, as Keonho's skills surpassed everyone's and his popularity skyrocketed, that awe had curdled into something else. Contempt, maybe. Or a resentment so deep Martin couldn't fathom its source.
His phone buzzed. A notification from a fan forum. A gif of Keonho side-stepping his hug during a variety show, with the caption: "KEONHO WANTS PERSONAL SPACE SPEEDRUN ANY%". Thousands of likes. Hundreds of comments laughing. Martin's thumb hovered over the screen. He should laugh too. It was funny. It was all just funny.
A sharp knock at his door made him jump. Before he could answer, it opened. Keonho stood there, already in sleep pants and a thin t-shirt, his hair damp from the shower. He looked like a dream, and he looked at Martin like he was a stain on the carpet.
"The manager called. Schedule change tomorrow. Photoshoot at seven instead of nine. Try not to be late and make us all look bad." His delivery was flat, factual, yet laced with an inherent criticism.
"I'm never late," Martin said, the defensiveness creeping into his voice before he could stop it.
Keonho's eyebrow arched. "Could've fooled me last week during the radio recording." He'd been five minutes behind because he'd been helping a staffer carry equipment. Keonho had glared at him the entire show.
"That was-"
"Save it," Keonho cut him off, turning to leave. Then he paused, glancing back over his shoulder. His gaze was a slow, deliberate drag down Martin's body, still in his practice clothes. "You should shower. You smell like desperation."
The door clicked shut.
Martin slid down to the floor, his back against the door. The words weren't just cruel; they were intimate. They were designed to find the hidden bruises and press. Desperation. That's what it was, wasn't it? A desperate, hopeless love that had grown thorns and was now choking him from the inside out. He was the leader, the sun, the one who was supposed to give warmth, but he was orbiting a black hole that consumed all his light and gave nothing back but cold, empty space.
---
The photoshoot was a special hell. The concept was "sun and moon," with Martin, naturally, styled in warm golds and creams, and Keonho in silvers and deep blues. The photographer wanted "tension." "Give me that push-pull dynamic you two are famous for!" she cheered.
Keonho was a professional. He could turn it on. He'd sling an arm around Martin's shoulder for a shot, his smile dazzling for the camera, while his fingers dug just slightly too hard into Martin's flesh. In the close-ups, where their faces were inches apart, Keonho's eyes would hold a glittering, challenging heat that made Martin's breath catch, only for it to vanish the second the shutter stopped, replaced by blank indifference.
During a break, Martin was laughing at something silly Juhoon did, leaning into his side. He felt a gaze like ice on his neck. He turned. Keonho was watching him from across the set, sipping water. His expression was unreadable, but the intensity was a laser.
Later, as Martin passed him to get to makeup touch-ups, Keonho muttered, low enough that only he could hear, "You're so needy. Clinging to anyone who'll give you a scrap of attention. It's pathetic."
The dam broke.
Not there, not then. Martin finished the shoot, smiled, bowed, did his job. But back at the dorm, as the others ordered chicken and argued over a video game, Martin felt the walls of his own mind collapsing. The noise became a roar, Keonho's voice-annoying, creepy, gross, pathetic, desperate- looping on a merciless track. The smiles he'd forced all day felt etched into his face, painful cracks in porcelain.
He stumbled to his room, locking the door. The darkness was a relief. He slid to the floor again, but this time, the sobs came- great, heaving gasps that tore from his throat silently, tears streaming hot and unchecked down his face. He was drowning in it, the love that had become a sickness, the admiration that had turned to self-loathing. He was their leader, and he was crumbling because of their youngest, because he loved a boy who seemed to find his very existence an offense.
He didn't hear the door unlock- Keonho had picked the simple lock months ago, a fact Martin knew but never addressed. He only realized he wasn't alone when a shadow fell over him.
He looked up, vision blurred. Keonho stood there, silhouetted by the hallway light. For once, his perfect composure was gone. He looked... unsettled. His eyes were wide, taking in Martin's tear-streaked face, his trembling form curled on the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Keonho's voice wasn't cold this time. It was tight, almost strained.
Martin choked on a wet, bitter laugh. The truth, raw and unfiltered, spilled out. "You. You're what's wrong with me. You have been for years. Every word, every look... it's killing me, Keonho. Can't you see that? Or do you just not care?"
Keonho flinched as if struck. The panic Martin saw flash in his eyes was genuine, but it was quickly smothered by a familiar defensiveness. "Don't be so dramatic. You're fine. You're always fine. You're the happy one, remember?" The last sentence was almost a sneer, but it lacked its usual force.
"I'm not fine!" Martin's voice rose, cracked. "I haven't been fine! I'm so tired of pretending for the cameras, for the members, for you! I'm tired of loving someone who treats me like I'm nothing!"
The word loving hung in the air, a grenade whose pin had been pulled.
Keonho's breath hitched. His hands, which had been clenched at his sides, twitched. For a long moment, he just stared, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The mask was fully off now, revealing a tumult of emotions Martin couldn't name-anger, confusion, fear, and something else, something dark and possessive.
"Shut up," Keonho whispered, but it lacked conviction.
"I love you," Martin said, the admission a final surrender. "That's my crime. I love you, and you hate me for it."
Keonho took a step forward, then another, until he was looming over Martin. "I don't hate you," he growled, the sound animalistic, torn from somewhere deep. "You... you make me crazy. You and your stupid sunshine and your need to touch everyone and your... your goodness. It's suffocating."
"Then why did you come in here?" Martin challenged, wiping his face with a shaky hand. "Why not just let me fall apart in peace?"
"Because you're not allowed to!" Keonho snapped, his control shattering. He dropped to his knees, his hands shooting out to grip Martin's wrists, pinning them to the floor on either side of his head. The physical contact, after so much cold distance, was an electric shock. "You're not allowed to break. You're mine to break."
The words should have terrified him. Instead, a treacherous spark of heat ignited in Martin's gut. Keonho's face was inches from his, his eyes blazing with a feverish intensity Martin had never seen. This wasn't contempt. This was raw, unfiltered need.
"Yours?" Martin breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs.
In answer, Keonho crushed their mouths together.
-----
The kiss was nothing like Martin had imagined in his weakest, most secret moments. It wasn't sweet or gentle. It was a conquest. Keonho's lips were demanding, bruising, his tongue forcing entry to claim Martin's mouth with a frantic, hungry desperation that belied all his previous coldness. He tasted like mint and something uniquely, addictively Keonho.
Martin melted into it. A broken sound escaped him-part sob, part moan-as he kissed back with equal fervor, all his longing, his pain, his years of unrequited love pouring into the connection. His hands, freed from Keonho's grip, came up to tangle in the blonde man's hair, pulling him closer.
Keonho groaned into his mouth, the sound vibrating through both of them. He shifted, pushing Martin flat onto his back on the floor, his body a heavy, welcome weight. He broke the kiss, his breath coming in ragged pants as he stared down at Martin, his lips swollen, eyes dark with a possessive fire.
"You're mine," he repeated, his voice a guttural rasp. He said it like a curse and a prayer. "You hear me? All this... this light. It's mine. I don't care if it burns me."
He descended again, his mouth leaving a searing trail down Martin's jaw, his neck. He bit at the junction of neck and shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to brand, to claim. Martin cried out, arching into the touch, his body alight with sensation.
"Keonho..." he gasped.
"Shut up," Keonho murmured against his skin, but his hands, which were roaming under Martin's shirt, pushing it up, were trembling. The dominance was there, absolute and thrilling, but beneath it ran a current of something fragile, something as vulnerable as Martin felt. "Just... feel."
And Martin did. He felt Keonho's hands, those elegant dancer's hands, mapping his torso with a rough reverence. He felt Keonho's hardness pressing against his own through their clothes, a blunt demand. He felt the shift in power, the terrifying, exhilarating moment when the predator showed that his obsession was also his weakness.
Keonho sat back on his heels, pulling Martin up to a sitting position. With impatient, urgent movements, he stripped Martin's shirt off, then his own. The sight of Keonho's bare chest, pale and leanly muscled, stole the air from Martin's lungs. Before he could process it, Keonho was kissing him again, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other fumbling with the button of his jeans.
It was clumsy and frantic and perfect. Clothes were pushed out of the way, not fully removed, just enough. When Keonho's hand wrapped around them both, hot and sure, Martin saw stars. He clung to Keonho's shoulders, forehead pressed against his, their breaths mingling in ragged sync.
"Look at me," Keonho commanded, his voice thick.
Martin forced his eyes open, meeting Keonho's burning gaze. In that moment, he saw it all-the jealousy, the anger, the cruel words, all just the barbed wire around a feral, terrified love Keonho didn't know how to express.
"Only me," Keonho whispered, his thumb stroking a devastating rhythm over the head of Martin's cock, smearing pre-cum. "Your smiles, your tears... all of it. Only for me."
"Yes," Martin choked out, his orgasm building like a tidal wave, fueled by years of pent-up emotion. "Only you. Always you."
That seemed to be what Keonho needed to hear. His movements became more urgent, his own breath hitching. He captured Martin's lips in another searing kiss as they fell over the edge together, Martin's cry swallowed by Keonho's mouth, their release hot and messy between them.
In the shuddering aftermath, Keonho didn't pull away. He slumped against Martin, his face buried in his neck, his arms locking around him in a vise-like grip. They sat there on the floor, sticky and half-dressed, clinging to each other as if the world outside had ceased to exist.
----
Keonho was the one to move first. He pulled back slightly, avoiding Martin's eyes as he cleaned them both up with a discarded t-shirt with a practicality that felt surreal. His movements were stiff, the vulnerability of moments ago being bricked back up at an alarming rate.
Without a word, he pulled Martin up and guided him to the bed, pushing him down onto the mattress. Then he climbed in beside him, his back to Martin. The silence stretched, thick and loaded.
Just as Martin's heart began to sink, thinking it had all been a mistake, a cruel extension of the game, Keonho spoke, his voice muffled by the pillow.
"If you tell anyone..."
"I won't," Martin whispered.
Keonho was silent again. Then, so quietly Martin almost missed it: "You really love me?"
Martin's eyes filled with fresh tears, but these were different. "Yes."
A long exhale. "You're an idiot."
A small, genuine smile touched Martin's lips for the first time in what felt like years. "I know."
Keonho finally turned over. In the dark, his features were soft, young, stripped of their defensive sharpness. He looked at Martin, his gaze searching. Then, hesitantly, he reached out and touched Martin's cheek, where tear tracks had dried.
"Stop crying,"
he muttered, his voice rough but lacking its usual edge. His thumb, calloused from hours of practice, brushed tenderly beneath Martin's eye, wiping away a stray tear. "It's annoying."
Martin captured his hand, pressing it to his cheek, his fingers lacing with Keonho's. "Okay," he whispered, his voice hoarse with unshed tears.
Keonho's arm tightened around Martin's waist, pulling him closer, his face burying into the crook of his neck. The scent of Martin's skin, warm and familiar, filled his senses, calming the storm within him.
Martin's heart ached, but it wasn't just from the pain of Keonho's thorns. It was from the realization that those thorns were born from something deeper, something fragile and desperate. Keonho's cruelty, his sharp edges, were shields masking a vulnerability he couldn't yet voice.
As they drifted into an uneasy sleep, Martin knew the thorns would remain. Keonho's habits were too deeply rooted to disappear overnight. But for the first time, he understood the soil from which they grew-fear, insecurity, a love too fierce to be expressed any other way. And Martin, with a heart as vast as the sky, knew he would willingly let those thorns pierce him, again and again, if it meant he could hold the fragile, beautiful flower blooming within Keonho's guarded soul.
In the stillness of the night, their breaths synchronized, a silent promise hanging between them. A promise of patience, of understanding, and of a love strong enough to weather even the sharpest of thorns.