Work Text:
People think that because Seokjin can cook that he does cook; in reality, he's as guilty now as a thirty-something as he was as a college student when it comes to eating too many instant noodles or take-out meals from convenience stores unless there is food at work. Jeongguk is the one who handpicks the groceries items that make it into his fridge. He also is the one to organize and deep clean it, going so far as to prep meals for him when he has the time. Seokjin hemmed and hawed about it at first, distressed because he is the hyung and Jeongguk the dongsaeng, but those days are long gone now. Now Jeongguk can message him any time of any day and tell him exactly what to eat because he knows everything inside Seokjin's home.
Sometimes he'll direct Seokjin to stop and pick up a take-out order on the way home too if Jeongguk thinks he needs a special treat.
You're spending money on me when it's meant to be the other way around, Seokjin texts with an attached frowning emoji followed by a teary eyed one.
Stop sending me all this extra, he receives back immediately. I don't need it.
But what should I eat tonight? You won't be there.
Jeongguk is out of town for the next three nights still, and quite frankly, Seokjin doesn't know what to do with himself. That's why he has Jeongguk.
You're going to eat with Yoongi hyung tonight after work at that kimchi jjigae place, one beer only, then go home and take a bath. If you're done with your bath by 10 pm, you can play MapleStory for one hour, then bed, okay?
Warmth floods Seokjin's face first. He takes a little too long to respond, which he can get away with at work because it's work, even if Jeongguk is painfully aware of how little he does on any given day, but a follow-up text prompts him for confirmation. Okay, Seokjin texts back, no room for even an emoji, because his chest feels both hollow and buzzing.
Seokjin goes with Yoongi as requested, and his former roommate of college years brings along one of Jeongguk's friends - Taehyung, shockingly on his own without his conjoined twin. "Where's Chim?" Seokjin pokes Taehyung's cheek when he joins them. Yoongi wouldn't even wait for him to leave the building.
Taehyung scowls. "He went to a dance class with Hoseokie." He sighs so forlornly that even Yoongi looks uncomfortable. "He only ever tells me no."
What a lie.
"He doesn't give me nice instructions like your boyfriend does," Taehyung blows out hot air as if they need that, the three of them crouched over the bubbling soup on their table.
"Ahahahahaha!" Seokjin laughs, because Taehyung thinks what? What does he think about what Jeongguk tells him?
"Our Ggukie is so considerate, always making sure you have something to do and someone to do it with when he's busy." Taehyung pouts until Yoongi loudly protests.
"Yah, what do you think Jimin telling you to message me was?"
Taehyung drops the hand he was resting his chin on to very seriously answer with the most deadpan look. "Cruelty."
Seokjin joins Yoongi in audible protest, his one beverage chilly in his hand, but he doesn't feel like drinking much tonight. Not when Jeongguk isn't there to knead the back of his neck while he drinks it and nuzzle at his cheeks when they get too pink.
Your young man, they call him.
Your Jeongguk, some of the older men in his office leer, or much more kindly, his administrative assistant.
People know what Jeongguk is to Seokjin - important - but they still don't exactly know who he is to him.
Of course, even between them, what they have is too tentative even for the words.
The first time it felt explicit was after months of build up; Seokjin, fueled by self loathing since the passing of his father and abscondence of his eldest brother who should be in charge, worked too hard in a place that would never make sense to him. With seemingly no sense of identity at an age that felt too old to be so lost, Seokjin stopped eating, bathing, leaving work, even talking for long periods of time. He was just a figurehead to people, and while some might enjoy the benefits of inherited wealth, he remained frozen in anguish, a stature in the likeness of his father without any of his father’s best qualities.
It was fun to try and see how long Seokjin could go without talking until someone noticed.
Jeongguk noticed though.
He and Jeongguk had been friendly for a year at that point; they met through Hoseok, although their acquaintance was truly a casual one, just enough for them to all greet each other at the same bar one night when Seokjin and Hoseok ran into Jeongguk in his trio with Jimin and Taehyung. They met, they drank, they exchanged numbers over easy puns and bad pick up lines, all of which seemed pretty harmless at the time. There was no separation of Jeongguk's attractiveness, rather it was just a fact of life. He was hot. Seokjin couldn't really date. Such was life. There was no need to move on because he never entertained any possibilities.
But over time the two of them flirted with less laughter and more flustered silence. Seokjin didn't know what to do. He only very casually dated a couple of girls in his college years, and although they were plenty nice and attractive and everything his mother wanted them to be, they were too young for anything serious, and thank god because Seokjin isn't too proud to admit he might have gone along with an arranged marriage before his big gay revelation post undergraduate if they had been allowed to meet his mother and she pushed for it.
In their group, Seokjin was known for being outgoing, easygoing, charismatic. He was often in charge of details like when, where, who, etc by virtue of being the oldest and having the money to fund whatever the outing was. He didn't mind.
It just wasn't him.
The older he gets, the more he realizes just how much he hates making decisions. Any decision. Big, small, it doesn't matter. Seokjin doesn't know himself and how can he know what he wants to do with his life, as set as it is? All he has to do is show his face and do nothing, touch nothing. How should he know what this season's best coat is or whether or not it's best to wait to travel to Singapore? He doesn't know what he likes to eat anymore, and doesn't even have a go-to drink for socializing at the bar. At least in college, he had that.
Now, he's expected to make very big decisions at a very large company. In reality, the shareholders and the board make the decisions, but he still has to be the face of said decisions, so really, what's the difference? If they're bad, they're his fault, and if they're good, it's not because of him. It's a no-win situation he was born into that his brother somehow escaped. He escaped by knocking up his young girlfriend and leaving with her, and had the circumstances been slightly different or if he was simply born into a different family, then perhaps things wouldn't be the way they are, but their mother let him go and expressly told Seokjin to do the same.
He sends his nephew a care package every month though. His mother doesn't need to know if he signs her name on the accompanying notes sometimes. One day, she might want a relationship with her grandson.
For years, every morning of every single day, Seokjin walked into the sky high company building with a parking spot with his name on it in the garage, and he rode the elevator in pointed silence, the kind that falls around him as soon as he enters a room and ends the moment he leaves it. Men give him a deferential bow and women at least accompany it with a small smile, but it took years to befriend Namjoon at work and years for him to convince his old friend Yoongi to accept a position with them. At least he has them at work. They still get quiet when it comes to certain things, hesitant to express opinions even when it comes to which charities to donate to or where to take their visiting colleagues to dinner, things that he knows they have plenty of opinion on.
Seokjin's hands tremble now when he meets someone new.
He didn't used to be like this. What will a new person ask of him? What do they expect? Just because he's quick with a smile and joke, they assume he's comfortable and confident enough to have at the very least a simple and friendly conversation. Even that, Seokjin feels increasingly less equipped to handle. A short look, a tiny gesture, anything and everything sets him off - is the shareholder upset with him because he didn't stand fast enough when he entered the room? Is his assistant annoyed because he asked her to call someone back for him? Yoongi would tell him to let others do their jobs, but he can't do his.
It's better now, with Jeongguk.
Seokjin retains all of his anxieties, of course he does, but he holds himself together by sheer determination in the knowledge that at the end of the day, he'll talk to Jeongguk, and Jeongguk will tell him exactly what to do.
His dom.
"Your young man is here."
"Jeongguk is here."
Or one time, the woman working the front of one of their favorite casual lunch spots to meet up at called him Seokjin's fella. "Your fella called to order ahead so you'd have something warm and ready for you." What was warm and ready for him were all of his favorites, half of the menu at this place. Seokjin's cheeks burned in embarrassment when he sat down to so much food for seemingly one person, but he was rewarded when Jeongguk arrived and scolded gently at the untouched items. He was rewarded further with hand feeding and later with a long kneeling session, fingers in his mouth while he spaced happily in his otherwise stifling apartment.
It's not always like that.
Often, Seokjin just kneels. Sometimes, Jeongguk gives him something to suck or sometimes he makes stay there long enough just looking up at him or not allowed to look at all until his muscles start to fatigue and ache, right until that one touch on the back of his neck gives him permission him to collapse forward, head guided into a waiting lap where two hands soothe through his hair and massage his scalp until he fitfully falls asleep there, perched half on the floor and half in Jeongguk’s lap.
Kneeling is where some of their more formal explorations began; before, they had been dating and sure, Jeongguk took on certain roles in their relationship, a more assertive role in particular when it came to - basically anything. Back then Jeongguk just thought it was fun to be the one to plan their dates, thought it was a way to show off his romantic nature, and he was the one who brought up anything that required discussion. At first it was the normal things - What are we? Where is this going? When should we tell friends and family? - all things Seokjin would have preferred to never have to explain aloud, because he hates explaining himself ever. There are never the words, especially when it comes to how he feels.
Jeongguk though - he's so good at knowing. He reminds Seokjin occasionally, gently, in that special voice that he only uses for Seokjin, that sometimes he will need to explicitly tell him what he wants with words, not just pleading eyes and strained silences, but so often his boyfriend just can accurately guess what Seokjin wants or needs, sometimes before he realizes it himself, and he never makes Seokjin verbalize when he really feels like it will physically kill him to do so.
Surely, if any of his acquaintances saw him, they'd be shocked how quiet he is around Jeongguk. Seokjin deflects with buoyant babbling, often at high volumes, to make others comfortable, to make himself look social. So many people see him like that - loud, sometimes obnoxious, some might even call him bubbly, but Seokjin feels anything but those things. He has to be seen, and seen in a very real everyday way, when all he wants is to disappear into the nameless crowd. Do not perceive, please and thanks.
He just can’t help but think he wasn’t always like this. It’s a terrible mantra that brings nothing but anguish every time he remembers.
Seokjin also thinks he might be getting worse, no matter how much Jeongguk helps.
Jeongguk travels not infrequently for work as a freelance sound technician hired out on all sorts of jobs these days. He started out mixing for live events while helping out friends with demos and commercials on the side, something that ended up taking off once his name got out from one particular commercial that went viral, mostly for the unintendedly humorous acting in it, but Jeongguk has no shortage of offers these days, mostly short projects that he can hop on and off of easily, but every once in a while one takes him to another city for the week or even another country.
He doesn't need Seokjin’s money at this point.
Four years ago Jeongguk made the dangerous choice to set his phone down right after checking his bank info to turn the stove off in the kitchen quickly. He hadn't swiped out of the app yet. Seokjin descended on the phone faster than he's ever committed to playing a sport in his life. He took that account number, the routing number, everything, and he transferred a tidy sum.
He was not thanked for it.
Jeongguk thought it was some sort of joke, which. It wasn't not a joke. "Unless you need it to be," Seokjin said at the time, uncomfortable, fast approaching boiled levels of heat in his body, it's just that he knew Jeongguk couch surfed more so than he had a stable address, in part he said as a choice, but Seokjin thinks the lady doth protest a little too much at the time.
Now, Jeongguk makes enough to comfortably do what he wants and lives on his own in a little place right off the subway line that runs between them, but most of the nights spent in Seoul he stays with Seokjin anyway, far enough into their relationship as both his boyfriend and his dom that they can weave between the two as needed. It was difficult enough to concede some things about what he wanted from Jeongguk, but it was harder yet to find the footing between when he needed Jeongguk and when he needed Jeongguk in charge.
"It's a challenge," Jeongguk confessed to him, at that point a year into the two of them exploring both sides of the relationship. "Sometimes it feels like you always want me to be in charge, and most of the time, that’s alright, but some days…”
And Seokjin, flustered, curled up on himself (on top of Jeongguk). "Honestly, I do want that, but also - that doesn't mean you need to be a dom every minute of every day." He was still at the point he could barely say the word dom, stumbling over it. "Just, you know. Take a break. Just be my boyfriend. Or, when do you make decisions, don't - you can't expect, you know. I have to be something else out there in front of others.”
“Do you wish you could just be my sub?” Jeongguk asks, voice earnest, even if his smile is easy going. Jeongguk is so good at walking the exterior facade of nonchalance and earnest interest, or perhaps better described as simple intensity. “Would you rather stay home and wait for my command every day?”
He twines his fingers through his hair and gently tugs at the nape; one of the early concessions, and an easy one at that, was that Seokjin is expected to keep his hair a certain length for precisely this reason. Jeongguk uses it as an easy grip to steer him, and for a solid six months it sent a Pavlovian response straight to his dick, but these days, less so. It still makes him shiver, but the longer they’re together, the less sexual his submission tends to be, even if sometimes it will still revolve around that.
They’re well aware many couples who are into the scene don’t act as compatible partners in a romantic sense. Seokjin knows just how lucky he is that he gets to have Jeongguk as both. He wouldn’t have any submission if not for Jeongguk; they stumbled into it together, found their rhythm over time, and honestly, Seokjin isn’t sure if he could do it with anyone else. He isn’t sure what they have is proper submission, really - Jeongguk was the one who put in the research whereas Seokjin bummed about a couple of message boards where nothing seemed to quite fit. He didn’t want anything intense, he didn’t want to hurt, he didn’t need to feel humiliated, he just didn’t want to make decisions.
That was all very healthy, wasn’t it?
The closest he came to confiding in someone about his feelings over it is Hoseok, and Hoseok just looked at him like one of them was stupid because he said: “But isn’t that just a boyfriend? A boyfriend would help you make decisions, hyung. A relationship is making them together.”
Needless to say, Seokjin hadn’t fully explained and never will. Hoseok is great to talk to about other relationship things, like when Seokjin blurted out the big three word declaration way too soon after telling himself he would never say it first in any relationship for so long as he lived. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t romantic, and Seokjin at the time wasn’t even sure he wanted something serious with Jeongguk. They went out a lot together, hooked up a few times, then spent all of their time together, all in the span of about a month, and then he just said the damn thing.
And meant it too?
It took longer to understand that, but month after month passed. Things didn’t change, they only got better. Now Seokjin has a dom, but only because they jokingly refer to it as such. He isn’t sure what they do would be considered proper BDSM, but Seokjin couldn’t be bothered to define what proper BDSM is. They have a relationship. It works for them. Seokjin doesn’t expect other people to be able to define it when he certainly cannot.
Seokjin never makes it to the bath. He doesn’t make it to any game. He lies down in his empty bed (stuffed full of Jeongguk’s clothing and pillow and his favorite Hello Kitty stuffie next to all of his own MapleStory plushies) and thinks he will never fall asleep, then falls asleep.
“You’re so quiet today, seongsaengnim,” his assistant remarks in the morning, then afternoon. Seokjin nods at her both times. Does he look busier if he manically clicks open empty tabs? “The new accounts manager requested to move back the meeting an hour? Is that alright?”
Seokjin nods. His phone lights up, but it’s only a notification his phone is finished charging. He’s technically met Chanho before because he isn’t all that new, and like everyone working in the building, is dressed impeccably with his own sense of style whereas Seokjin still feels like he has none because the things he longs to wear he leaves the tags on.
One-on-one meetings dictate that he cannot get away with silence, but fortunately Chanho’s position means he generally reports to Seokjin and Seokjin can nod along. “Thank you for your time. You didn’t have to take time out of your busy schedule just to sit with me,” Seokjin says at the end, later into the evening already. Much of the staff is either gone or working on another floor for a project, so it’s quiet and Chanho gently takes his wrist and replies, “You’re welcome. Any time, for you.”
His face burns before he can control it; he hopes his colleague doesn’t notice. What will he think of him if he does? Seokjin doesn’t want him to think about him at all. Clearing his throat, he shifts, enough that he can pull his arm away.
Chanho walks him out of the office, something so absurd and unnecessary that Seokjin needs back-up and safety, and Jeongguk isn’t there, and he isn’t even in the same time zone, so Seokjin says he needs to get off on the twelfth floor to meet his friend, and the man watches, arm slung over the elevator door, as Seokjin hustles down to Yoongi’s office.
The lights are off.
At least Chanho is gone, but to be sure, Seokjin decides to hang out there.
He gets a text finally forty-one minutes later. Yeobo, did you eat?
Seokjin shoots back a big eyed emoji that he knows his boyfriend will correctly translate as no, and I’m sorry.
For some reason, his hands begin to shake, and then his entire body. I don’t know if I can stomach anything right now.
Are you ill?
No, I don’t think so.
Are you home?
No.
Seokjin hesitates, but before Jeongguk can send anything back, the dreadful and equally joyful typing dots flashing, he adds: I’m hiding at the office.
It’s an inconspicuous enough thing to say; Seokjin hides out in his office all the time. As a thirty-something year old man, he’s not too proud to hide under his desk if he overhears someone mentioning they want to invite him to lunch and he’s already halfway to vibrating out of his skin. Jeongguk knows this about him. He knows Seokjin was the kid who hid in the library during school years from kids too scared to physically touch him but more than happy to cut him down with words. He never outgrew it.
It isn’t normal for him to be stuck hiding out so late at night, however.
Why are you hiding at work?
Biting his lip, Seokjin realizes Jeongguk isn’t there to hear him whine.
When the text goes unanswered for a couple of minutes, Jeongguk messages again. Hyung, I asked you a question: why are you hiding at work?
This time, he doesn’t really wait to continue the slew of inquiry: Did something happen?
An incoming call, which Seokjin likewise ignores.
Is there a reason you didn’t pick up my call?
A few minutes of nothing pass, then: I expect an answer, or there will be consequences.
Regardless of his absence, this makes Seokjin whine so loudly that he claps a hand over his mouth, heart racing in the fear that someone could have heard, as unlikely as it is. It didn’t look like anyone was left in their offices when he got off the elevator, but he’s in a general staff room, lights off, half hiding between an industrial size copy machine and the wall.
Jeongguk pulling the dom card out means nothing more than his express concern over him, and Seokjin knows that, but also he now knows how much he’s disappointed him, and that disappointment sends him spiraling, untethered out into the ether and there is absolutely nothing to bring him down. Jeongguk isn’t there. He isn’t there.
No matter how much he dreads it, Seokjin absolutely cannot be seen hiding and whining behind a copier at work. His knees shake when he stands, and for what? Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong, he repeats to himself. He can easily walk home, although he has a car in the garage. He would prefer not to drive at the moment, but the idea that Chanho or any person he doesn’t want to talk to might find him walking out the front door and down the busy street abhors him to the point of nausea.
What is wrong with him?
There’s nothing wrong.
He makes it home, head bent down and shoulders up to his ears. The doorman who sees him almost every day hesitates when he marches up to the door too quickly because he must not immediately recognize him; Seokjin makes it to his unit, beelines through the kitchen and living area with the lights off and into his bedroom where he closes the door on nothing and no one.
Somehow, he’s lost his phone.
He checks and rechecks his coat pockets, turns his pant pockets inside out. It’s clear it must be at work, probably on the floor somewhere in the staff room. He has no interest in going back to get it for the evening - it’s late. He’ll go to bed, he’ll get up and go back to the office and hope it’s still there or whoever picks it up recognizes the Pink Bean lockscreen.
It’s fine, he thinks. Nothing is wrong. He can take a hot shower and crawl under the covers and not think about anything without his phone, but turns out his phone really was saving him having thoughts, because he tosses and turns for most the night, only falling into a fitful sleep an hour before he needs to get back up.
In the midst of another shower, he contemplates not showing up to work. He’s allowed to call off. He has a laptop in his home office that he can email or call or video message literally anyone from.
He sits behind his desk on the fifteenth floor of his work building seven minutes early, phone back in hand, found exactly where he expected it. There are more messages and calls from Jeongguk, a few others too, including his mother which he doesn’t open. Jeongguk stopped texting after a few more probing questions, but Seokjin is shocked there aren’t more this morning. Even though Jeongguk is not the early riser, he also isn’t the sort who can let a single thing go. He festers. Seokjin ignoring him, intentionally to unintentionally as it was, would keep him up.
Seokjin can’t find it within himself to send another message, either. He opens Jeongguk’s contact, finger poised to call, then closes it out and opens his photos instead. He scrolls past all the photos he took at Hoseok’s birthday weekend gathering, half of which are the birthday boy passed out either on top of Namjoon or just staring at Namjoon’s chest from across the room, and then there’s the ones Seokjin took of Jeongguk smiling at him in the dark night sky, a rough angle because they sat not just next to each other but basically on top of each other. It was a rooftop bar. There was lighting that felt too romantic for the rest of the bar. Seokjin looked at Jeongguk every time he felt nervous so he spent the evening watching Jeongguk scrunch his nose and smile back at him, or others, but mostly him.
“You can’t become too reliant on me,” Jeongguk had told him before, past the point of ease in their relationship. “I can’t always be with you, and I don’t want your anxiety to get worse because you get too used to me buffering for you.”
Earnestly, Seokjin thought it was too late for that, but he kept his mouth shut because he knows Jeongguk is right, and Jeongguk didn’t need to know he’s right.
His workday commences with an inbox full of things that don’t particularly concern him, followed by a meeting with HR to catch him up on the ongoing case of a bias incident that happened within what is technically his department. There is a lunch meeting with a sponsor that offers foods too rich to be anything but packaged in the tiniest of forms, but even those Seokjin has an issue forcing down despite his hunger growing to near nausea.
He stops by Namjoon’s floor, but he can hear multiple voices in the accountant’s office, so Seokjin morosely sighs, heavy enough that a nearby coworker looks over. He takes himself upstairs to his office, stepping more quickly off the elevator when he notices Chanho on the other side of the floor.
Seokjin should have known when no one made a move to ask him for something. When he walks through the door to his office, his knees just about give out, a cry leaving him that may not qualify as human.
Jeongguk lurches into action, catching him around the waist and immediately closing the door behind them with his free hand. “Shit! Are you alright? Hyung. What’s-” He heaves him up, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, and helps him to the couch he keeps in his office. No one uses it except him. Men in suits would rather die than sit on his pink couch, and Jeongguk eases him to sit on it even when he would prefer to kneel.
“Not here, baby.” Jeongguk brushes his hair away from his face to look him over, but Seokjin ducks his head. “Hyung, deep breath in for me and hold. Hold it. There you go. Now release out through the nose, and another deep breath in through the mouth.”
He couldn’t explain to anyone why his hands shake so badly when he holds onto the front of Jeongguk’s jacket, a deep wrinkling touch that will be evident until washed out. “‘M sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to - I wasn’t trying to be - bad -”
Whatever their working dynamic is and how much or little it follows any real dom/sub relationship, they don’t usually use words like bad or naughty or misbehaving earnestly. That was never part of this. Seokjin right now just can’t help but feel like he’s behaved poorly, and now his boyfriend has stopped whatever he was doing to be here just because he couldn’t pick up a phone.
“It’s okay, you’re okay.” Jeongguk’s fingers massage at his scalp as he directs his face to his chest. “We’re going to take some more nice, deep breaths, and when you feel up to it, we’re going to let Minyoung know that you’ll be taking a sick day, and I’ll take you home, alright?”
Seokjin shakes his head, and beneath him, Jeongguk tenses. “Hyung.” His voice issues a warning, assuming he’s about to decline the sick day.
“Can we - can we go to yours?” Seokjin asks instead.
The tension immediately dissipates from his solid chest pillow. “Yeah. Yeah, of course, we can do that.” Jeongguk sits with him long enough there is a knock at the door which his boyfriend gruffly replies not right now. He does it without changing the smooth and consistent pace of his hands on his head. Right at the point in which Seokjin’s heart has slowed and his eyes drawn heavy, Jeongguk gingerly moves out from under him despite his whining protest. “Lie back and give me just a few minutes, alright?”
What’s wrong with you? Seokjin asks himself. You’re an adult. You’re the adult. Jeongguk shouldn’t need to take care of you. Why would he want to stick around when absolutely nothing at all is wrong but you won’t stop shaking and can’t eat like a normal person or talk on the phone like an adult or -
Jeongguk re-enters his office. When did he leave? “Alright, let’s go now, hyung.”
“I can’t feel my feet.”
Jeongguk’s frown deepens. When they cross the floor to the elevators, it is blessedly quiet with few potential spectators. Often, Jeongguk draws a bit of a crowd, either because the men want to scoff at them or a few of the women harbor their own crush on the heavily tattooed man dressed in a leather jacket rather than a suit jacket. Seokjin drags on behind him, fingers tucked up where his boyfriend’s elbow bends so they can’t be seen at all. On the ride down to the garage, Seokjin rests his head on Jeongguk’s shoulder and then Jeongguk tucks him into the passenger seat of his own car, some soulless black thing that his mother had delivered instead of the one he picked at a dealership on his own.
The tension in the car radiates more than the virtually nonexistent engine. Nonetheless, Seokjin’s teeth chatter.
“When we get home, you remove all your clothing except your underwear and go straight to the corner of the living room where your cushion is, then kneel.”
His entire body shivers once more, then suddenly not at all. He is too tired, his mind bordering on numb. In the doorway of Jeongguk’s apartment, he has to help him out of his shoes, socks, and pants. Seokjin manages the rest on his own, a neat pile made and left in Jeongguk’s arms before he shuffles over to the corner where an innocent looking cushion sits permanently, wide and flat and not anything particularly useful except to him.
The floor thuds when he slumps to the ground. Jeongguk’s back, visible to him from the kitchen, tenses, but if he wants to chastise him for not being careful, he doesn’t at this moment. Seokjin’s clothes sit on the top of the kitchen counter while his boyfriend opens and shuts the fridge. Time passes, because a pan on the stove is hot enough to sizzle when Jeongguk dumps something in it. Aromas arise. Seokjin’s mouth waters at the same time as his stomach seizes.
“Eat this.” Jeongguk comes to stand before him, towering over his head, the bowl in his hands a little above Seokjin’s mouth.
Seokjin trembles.
“It’s not a request.” He uses a spoon for rice, this time not waiting for his lips to part. He gives a small amount at a time, Seokjin gingerly mouthing at it until Jeongguk sighs, then he swallows thickly. “Good boy.”
That warms him faster than any meal will.
Usually, good boy is uttered between smirks, something brought out more so for fun than any true behavior, but neither of them are in a playful mood at present. Jeongguk stands over him, Seokjin kneels and takes what he gets.
He knows what he wants.
He reaches, and Jeongguk shakes his head. “Put them behind your back.”
“But-” Seokjin throttles off his dying rebuttal with a whine, shrinking in on himself into a posture that will soon have him chastised as well.
“What is it?”
Seokjin licks his lips. “Can I just-?” Jeongguk knows how much he hates to ask. He risks reaching for him again, and when his fingers pass the bowl hovering in his way, Jeongguk stays perfectly still.
Seokjin hooks two fingers from each hand into the waistband of Jeongguk’s jeans.
He allows this.
“Open your mouth.”
When Seokjin risks looking up, Jeongguk stares down with such an intensity there is no space to deny him a thing. He opens his mouth. He takes what he gets.
For now, that is rice, simply seasoned.
For now.
His fingers twitch in the waistband of Jeongguk’s bottoms. His skin is so warm, and it smells predictably like the citrus shower gel he’s used the entire time Seokjin’s known him. In between bites, Seokjin sways close enough that his nose touches belly button. A deep inhale does more for him than any modern medicine.
“Mouth.”
Seokjin’s jaw drops and a spoon works its way in from where he leans one cheek heavily to stomach.
Between his face and one of his hands, Seokjin watches a stiff outline forming. He can hardly keep up with swallowing down saliva quickly enough now. Above him, the spoon is poised, frozen. Is the meal done? Seokjin opens his mouth and rolls his tongue over rough black denim. Denim can feel nice when there is something nice beneath it.
“Hyung.”
Seokjin rolls his face down the length to where he knows the head is and encloses it in his mouth.
“Is this what you need right now?” The fingers of one hand pet through his hair. The clatter of a bowl and utensil sat down somewhere. Victory is his.
“Color?”
Seokjin lathes at him.
“Color or tap.”
Seokjin reaches up to tap twice with two fingers on Jeongguk’s wrist. “That’s good, baby,” he says, and Seokjin shivers. Jeongguk is here. Jeongguk will give him what he wants now. Tension melts out of his body at the same rate as thoughts.
“Are you comfortable?”
Seokjin double taps again. Even if he weren’t, he’s fine.
“I wasn’t going to require any active participation tonight, yeobo. I can just restrain you for a bit-”
Jeongguk stops talking over the sharp whine. There is no room to misconstrue what Seokjin wants. He mouths at it obscenely through Jeongguk’s pants, achingly hard in his own slacks that do less to hide how affected he is. His grip at his waist lacks any ferocity, but surely his boyfriend feels the way he tugs at his pants nonetheless, as light and trembling as his fingers are.
“Alright, baby. Alright.” Jeongguk’s voice is as soft as anything Seokjin could feel for him. It fires him up only to cool him back down with the sobering realization of just how much Jeongguk feels for him. It is only too evident in his voice.
The hand in his hair steadily pets him as Seokjin dances his lips over him. “Aright.” Jeongguk unzips himself and Seokjin is all too ready to pull the jeans down, struggling to take the underwear at the same time. Jeongguk shimmies them down just enough so that as soon as he springs free, Seokjin dives to the base to kiss there, nuzzling at his balls, certainly the heftiest, most mouth watering smell concentrated at the root.
He sucks them first, one at a time. Above him, Jeongguk hisses and grips his hair tighter, borderline rough, but this is the roughest he ever will be with him. If his hands lack gentleness, then they are guiding, dictating, perhaps forceful in their intent, but they never hurt him, and this is the surrendering part. This is proof that Seokjin can let go. There is no hurt to inflict, no shame given. Seokjin can’t tolerate degradation at all, something the internet tells him he ought to like, that it should go hand and hand, but Jeongguk only gives assurances and Seokjin thinks he knows anything else would bring him toppling to an end.
He bruises easily, something only one previous ex delighted in. Jeongguk, when he sees anything left behind, will frown a little, until Seokjin pushes away. “You didn’t hurt me,” he always reminds him. “They don’t bother me.”
But in the heat of the moment, Jeongguk stays sure and on task, always so careful.
Precision. It’s what makes his boyfriend good at everything he tries.
By the time Seokjin sinks down on his cock, Jeongguk is as hard as he’ll get and a faint twitch in his mouth nearly makes him momentarily gag. Spit gushes out around his mouth near immediately, sloppier than he wants or needs it to be, but Jeongguk groans, suddenly shifting, a faint quiver in one thick thigh close to his head. His own dick twitches in his pants because he’s never been able to give a blowjob without enjoying it almost too much.
His eyes slip shut.
The world narrows and all it remains is pleasure. The sounds of pleasure are this - gasping, groaning, slurping. The feeling of pleasure is nails on his scalp and the corners of his lips stretching, a growing soreness in between his jaw. The scent of pleasure is spicier by the moment, a twinge of sweat and concentrated body odor that Seokjin absolutely adores, and the taste of pleasure is just as salty to go with it.
Seokjin doesn’t think much about the sight of pleasure.
He likes to keep his eyes shut.
Certainly, he’s seen Jeongguk’s face while he comes more than a few times. He used to carefully watch him for pleasure when they first started sleeping together, but as things shifted, so did Seokjin’s need for extra quiet. The trust between them allowed him this - he can shut his eyes and just listen, and feel.
He feels nice like this.
“Hands, baby.” Jeongguk’s voice sounds both strained and gruff. “Give them to me.”
Seokjin releases his tentative hold of Jeongguk’s thighs to slide them up until he collects them into one hand, the other going back to his neck to dictate the pace at which Seokjin bobs his head, and then Seokjin just hangs there, in his grasp, like a puppet. Total surrender. He’s busy tracing the vein on the underside of his dick, up and down, with as precise of a tip of his tongue as he can when Jeongguk’s fingers tense tighter and he stands up a little straighter. Seokjin knows he is about to come without him telling him so, and Jeongguk wouldn’t at this point of their relationship anyway. He knows he doesn’t need to, and he trusts that Seokjin wants it.
He comes down his throat and Seokjin swallows, then he stays there while Jeongguk’s chest heaves above his head and his dick slowly softens in his mouth. They both like it when he stays there after, giving Jeongguk time to come back down in a warm place that also satisfies Seokjin’s oral fixation.
He lets Seokjin decide when to slide off, and when he does, he collapses face first into Jeongguk’s lower stomach, arms still held above him. In a well orchestrated dance by this point, Jeongguk bends down to gather him up in his arms and lift him from the corner of the living room, carefully walking them to the bedroom, an impressive feat given that he remains half undressed and Seokjin only does his part of remaining limp in his arms.
His boyfriend’s bedroom is predictable; there are always mood lights on, colorful ones in pink and purple often, although Seokjin thinks the pink is for him. The humidifiers in the corner never stop, and he keeps a special comforter folded at the end of his bed for Seokjin because he sometimes needs the extra. It smells grassy this evening - it might be the new plant near the bed where he lies Seokjin down, something that desperately needs to be watered, and after he quietly kicks his pants all the way off, his boyfriend undresses him next.
He wraps Seokjin’s blanket around his shoulders, and then he wraps a hand around his length through his briefs, a questioning look before Seokjin nods. He often doesn’t want reciprocation, but tonight he feels loose enough to enjoy it, opening his legs as Jeongguk slides his hand beneath the waistband to jerk him off.
It takes little, and only a little of the wetness from his tip. Seokjin shudders through an orgasm that some might find unsatisfactory, which he’s never understood, but then again - Seokjin had all the satisfaction he needed from Jeongguk coming down his throat.
Before Jeongguk can return with clean boxers, Seokjin clamps his legs together to feel the nastiness of the soiled underwear, because it’s something he needs to feel. Jeongguk takes them off with a playful tug before wiping his soiled stomach off.
Seokjin doesn’t keep much at his boyfriend’s apartment, because they spend more time together at his place, but also, it’s an excuse to be gifted with extra large sweats to sleep in. Jeongguk owns no matching pajama sets, doesn’t own a lot of color unless dark green counts, which in Seokjin’s opinion, does not, but that’s why it feels extra special to wear Jeongguk’s things. They are so decidedly his and Seokjin will never look more claimed than in a pair of generic and baggy black sweatpants.
Once dressed, Jeongguk gently rolls him into a burrito and lights one of the candles he knows Seokjin approves of. It’s sweeter than the ones Jeongguk would light alone. It’s enough to nearly give Seokjin an appetite.
“Do you think you could be happy doing this forever?” he asks his boyfriend, still walking around nude because he likes that, or because Seokjin likes that.
Jeongguk cocks an eyebrow at him, crouched down and pulling out one of his storage bins under the bed. “Is that a proposal?”
Hooded with his blanket, Seokjin can hide his face. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Not that he is opposed to the idea of marrying Jeongguk; the two of them have talked about it before, if left dodging remarks or short jokes count as discussion, but this is not a conversation about how serious they are with each other. Of that, there is no need for discussion.
Jeongguk lies down in bed next to him, snug black boxers pulled on and one bulging bicep propping up his head. Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Don’t distract me.”
His boyfriend laughs, immediately rolling onto his back and pulling him in. “I think this is actually perfect.”
“Hm?”
“Just like this. We cross lines with ease. Just a few minutes ago, I was in charge. Right now, I’m just your boyfriend in need of a kiss and a solid night’s sleep.” Jeongguk scrunches his nose, and Seokjin dodges out of the cocoon to kiss him at the corner of his mouth. They grin at each other, then Seokjin kisses him properly.
“What we’re doing works, and yes. I can do it for as long as you need, or as long as we enjoy it. I don’t think you need to worry about it, hyung.”
Seokjin fake snores, and Jeongguk huffs lightly beneath them. “I love you,” he says, and Seokjin repeats it back, a rote pattern that does not make it any less special. “Now. You want to tell me about what happened last night now or later?”
“You were the one who just said they were tired!” Seokjin protests. He’s tired too, and more than that, he absolutely does not want to talk about it, ever.
Jeongguk hums. “Fine. But we will be talking about it. Later.” He squeezes at his nape, and with a shudder, Seokjin relaxes.
“Yes, sir.”
Jeongguk tries to tickle him through the blanket for that - and they both giggle about it, because that’s never been their thing. One time, they went to a real scene club. Out of all their friends, it was Namjoon who knew a little about it and gave them a very brief rundown and address before sending them on their way, and Seokjin still isn’t sure if he thinks Namjoon knew about it because he partakes or if it is simply because he seems to know about everything.
They lasted an hour, which was about forty minutes longer than Seokjin needed to be there. Jeongguk, the loving and open person that he was, earnestly seemed to be taking mental notes of things while Seokjin could not look up from the ground.
Outside of the color system and some very basic etiquette, they never made it much further, and sir is about as foreign to them as the idea of most of the props they saw that night.
It was a bonding experience, and admittedly, a good way to force a conversation out of him about what he didn’t want. Seokjin thinks he would let Jeongguk do a lot of things to him, but fortunately he knows that what Jeongguk wants to do with him is appease his every whim, which usually revolves around staying up later than he should to not be a responsible adult or overindulging in cute purchases that he looks at rather than wears.
One day he might wear some of those things.
Jeongguk waits to corner him about Chanho until a couple days later, the moment tense over dinner, just the two of them, with nowhere to run. When Seokjin tries to explain, he still finds he can’t. “He really didn’t do anything wrong,” he repeats, hands in his lap, hunched up enough on himself that Jeongguk removes his jacket to cover him.
Jeongguk frowns. “He made you uncomfortable, intentional or not, but it sounds like it was intentionally flirtatious. Hyung.”
Seokjin’s lip quivers. He will never be able to understand why it bothered him so much, and he would never expect someone else to either. He turns to Jeongguk and sags into his chest where his boyfriend rubs at his back. It’s more intimacy than is probably appropriate for the restaurant they dine in, but Jeongguk would rather spar verbally or physically with a homophobe than deny him an ounce of physical affection.
He doesn’t need Jeongguk to tell him he isn’t good at putting up boundaries; Seokjin knows. He knows he’s either too emotional for any one instance or not emotional at all. He rarely hits a cue for genuine sincerity, and his good looks and fortune and family name will get him by while on the inside, he’s shaking and unsure.
“I wish you had been able to pick up my call at the time, but it’s okay that you didn’t.” Jeongguk flicks at his chin until he looks up at him. “He made you uncomfortable, you removed yourself from the situation, but you also removed yourself from asking for help. It’s something that you might think about for the future, but it isn’t something you need to punish yourself for. It’s certainly not something I will punish you for.”
It’s a joke, of course. Seokjin huffs, and Jeongguk grins at him, a soft kiss to his hair. Jeongguk has never punished him. “What would you do if I asked you to spank me?” Seokjin asks, but he rolls his eyes to remind Jeongguk that this is a joke. He can’t imagine it, not really.
“I’d spank you in Mario Kart.”
Seokjin shoves him, gently. Jeongguk’s stupid big body doesn’t go anywhere he tries to push it. “I love you,” he says, because sometimes, he can say it first. It always makes Jeongguk grin so wide, a special kind of smile that Seokjin never saw before they started dating and according to Hoseok, is his whipped in love smile that no one saw before they dated.
He isn’t sure when he will feel like the man he’s supposed to be, but it’s a couple months later when Seokjin asks Jeongguk to accompany him to a gala event for work that he decides he can start somewhere. Funnily enough, for the amount of people who comment on it, Seokjin doesn’t think they totally get it, to them it is a fashion accessory, the only one he has ever chosen to wear despite his career in fashion editorials, and still, they cannot see the significance. His mother surely doesn’t, nor does a sunny faced Chanho who sours as soon as Jeongguk steps up beside him, but when Namjoon whips his head over from across the room to double take at the collar with a heart shaped link that Seokjin dons in lieu of a bowtie, Jeongguk reaches up to give it a gentle tug.
Seokjin kneels for Jeongguk, right then and there. Jeongguk might look surprised, but it passes in a short moment, his eyes drawn to the shape of a square box in Seokjin’s impeccably tailored pant pocket.