Work Text:
(i slithered here from eden,
just to sit outside your door.)
“Do you think I have a choice?”
Jihoon’s voice trembles when he speaks, the air between them thick with the viscous scent of his anger. The year is long over and here Hyeonjun stands, staring up at the shiny silver guillotine dangling precariously over his own head.
“I’m your mate,” he says, knowing he’s being irrational, but he can’t stop the words from spilling through his teeth, helpless to the sinking, oily feeling of desperation coating his lungs. “Your mate.”
And he can feel it—it’s all he can feel, it has been since the bond first appeared that warm summer’s midnight so many months ago. That gentle glowing warmth, lingering within his ribcage, settling snugly against the want burning in his chest like a smoking gun.
“I know,” Jihoon snaps, and Hyeonjun nearly recoils from the force of his grief, his nostrils burning with the acrid smell. He watches Jihoon flinch, one hand reaching out towards him only to pause halfway and slowly, surely retract.
He wonders what becomes of the almighty heavens when an angel weeps. Who mourns the blackened earth, razed cities, rivers of gold and glimmer? Whatever are the repercussions, the consequences, which luckless soul shoulders the burden of such an unholy transgression?
“I don’t have a choice,” Jihoon murmurs. “I wouldn't do this if I did.”
He has that strange steeliness in his eyes, that melancholy Hyeonjun doesn’t recognize, that aching stench of misery and please and trust me, I would never, I’m sorry—
But Jihoon wants to win more than he wants anything else in the world, and he watches Hyeonjun so carefully, cautiously. What is he, something wretched? Something precious?
It’s laughable to even consider. Since when did angels spare a thought for their fallen? His wings turned black and blue, rotting halo in pieces around his feet, ribbons of ichor and shattered facade dribbling down his neck. Hyeonjun hasn’t been good enough in a long, long time. Not for pearly gates, not for himself, and certainly not for Jeong Jihoon.
“Yes,” Hyeonjun spits, thoughtlessly, vitriol hot like bubbling acid on his tongue. “You would.”
He imagines a spool of blood red string steadily unfurling, slinking across the ground and wrapping tight around his ankles, his wrists, threading through his veins.
His bones shudder as the rope strokes each joint like a gentle lover, coaxing his body into their embrace. Coiling, sentient, a livewire trapping him in place where he stands. A sentence of eternal damnation handed down so easily, so freely, as though it means nothing.
Hyeonjun leaves. Jihoon doesn’t stop him, doesn’t say a word, and between them the red string unravels.
(he often wonders how far it can go,
how determined are the hands of fate in their governance—what of tragedy? what of this wretched truth? what of a yearning so terrible, so abhorrent, so incessant that really, would they not be better off buried?
six feet under.
he treads on ghosts and they cry out no. when he thinks of taking scissors to thread, they all fall silent.)
The surgery takes him two hours, on a wintry Tuesday afternoon deep into the off-season; he leaves the indentation of his shoes in the ground outside the hospital, sits by the roadside and watches fresh snowfall swallow them whole.
Everything else feels like a lifetime.
“Almost done,” the makeup artist says brightly, squeezing another delicate glob of cream onto the puff. “Just finishing up your neck. I need to cover your mark.”
Her tone is casual, unassuming even. And who can blame her? She’s done this exact maneuver a hundred times before; she isn’t even the first one to bring it up in conversation, and she won’t be the last.
Thing is, Hyeonjun has never kept it a secret. What’s the point, really? He’d been all of twenty and a half when their eagle-eyed fans had first spotted the mark, and since then he hasn’t even gotten the chance to deny it.
The scent-blocking patch he’s wearing is too sticky against his skin; he stares at the mirror as the artist carefully peels the thin film away, mentally preparing himself for that familiar swooping sensation in his belly, that hopeless pit of desire flaring to life only to be smothered by needling rejection.
He’s used to going through the motions of those infinite cycles, every emotion just another pit stop along an endless race track. Except this time… this time, something feels off.
The artist blinks, her gaze fixated on the curve of Hyeonjun’s neck. The blank, empty canvas of Hyeonjun’s neck. “Oh,” she says softly.
Oh. Hyeonjun inhales too fast, too hard, nearly choking on the depth of it. Oh.
He always forgets how strange it looks—the absence of those incisor imprints nestled against his scent gland, each divot carefully carved into his skin the way he envisions sculptors molding their marble statues. A remnant from another life, when he’d stumbled headfirst into the bottom of a soju bottle and, inevitably; warm bedsheets, hazy eyes, are you sure, of course I am.
That’s all in the past now; the bite’s long gone. Or, well, three weeks gone. He’s healing quicker than the doctors expected he would, but the surgery had been more cosmetic than anything else, really.
The bond won’t just disappear, the nurse had explained. You’ll still feel it, and you won’t be able to mate with anyone else. In fact, only the same alpha can give you another mating bite.
“Seems like we’re good to go,” the makeup artist tells him, and he knows she’s watching him with pity swimming in her round eyes but he can’t look at her, can’t begin to decipher how to feel about it.
He thanks her, slides off the chair and heads towards the door. Minseok passes him on the way in, his eyes automatically flitting down to Hyeonjun’s bare neck.
This isn’t a secret, either—someone had to drive Hyeonjun home after the surgery. Someone had to let him cry into their shoulder, soaking their shirt through. Someone had to soothe him during the phantom heats that followed, and someone had to ply him with snacks and water when he’d felt like hurling his guts up every other second.
“See you later,” Minseok says, offering a small smile, and Hyeonjun returns it, grateful.
(i’m going to kill him,
so petite yet so full of righteous anger, he can’t help but marvel at the sight of it—ryu minseok reminds him of an avenging force, the kind who asks no questions and hesitates no longer than a fraction of a millisecond before exacting justice.
don’t, hyeonjun says, wide-eyed
and minseok looks at him for a long moment before sinking down onto the ground beside him;
they both pretend the teardrops are glass shattering along their cheekbones.)
He stumbles in the corridor, his nose full of that scent and his belly swirling with that same awful, too tight heat.
Slowing to a stop—he knows better than to run, by now—he lingers. Waiting.
Waiting for the hand to close around his throat, waiting for the warm fingers to dig into the side of his neck; he tilts his head, closes his eyes, revels in it. This is contact, too, this is something familiar, the kind of desire he won’t even let himself dream about, these days.
“You smell weird.”
A tiny huff, like a disgruntled kitten, and Hyeonjun’s spine aligns parallel against the wall. He has to look up slightly, fighting against the glare of the fluorescent light hanging above his head, and Jihoon scowls back at him, entirely unimpressed.
It hits him like a freight train—he thinks, despairingly, that the articles he’d read online were all wrong. The wanting never stops, but it can’t, or his heart will too and he believes it. Put an end to it, the voice of his younger self pleads, you never wanted this. What a liar.
What does that make him now?
“Where’s your mark?” The pad of Jihoon’s index finger jabs into the skin, as though he means to gouge it out with his nails. Too rough. Hyeonjun’s going to start bleeding all over again.
He breathes in, tasting ire on his tongue. “Makeup.” Can’t you tell? Why do you care?
Jihoon’s hand stills. “Hm,” he answers, but he doesn’t move so Hyeonjun doesn’t, either. Like the damn alpha would even let him.
For a long time, they stand there, blanketed in silence. Hyeonjun’s neck has just started to cramp up when Jihoon finally lets go of it, turning away but not retreating.
“My rut is next week.” His tone is curt, a little harsh, as though the words are tearing themselves out of thin vocal folds and his lungs and raw bloodied tissue. “Saturday, 10 o’clock. Someone will let you in.”
It’s not even a demand. Just a pure expectation, because that’s what happens when you’re twenty years old and you let your pretty-faced, sharp-eyed mid laner bite you so hard it sticks. How convenient, now, that they’ve found themselves only a measly elevator ride away from each other.
“Okay,” Hyeonjun hears himself say.
Jihoon takes one step away, then seems to rethink it and moves back in. He’s still glaring down at Hyeonjun, his slender throat flexing, and he’s so close, so fucking close, this close—Hyeonjun’s eyes drift to the collar of his black jersey, to the bite marks peeking out from beneath the fabric. Not as clearly defined as the ones that used to be on Hyeonjun’s neck, but they’re there. They’re there, he repeats in his head like a mantra.
His jaw aches.
Look away, look away he begs his eyes, but how can he? How can he when it’s right here in front of him; twenty year old Hyeonjun didn’t have what he knows now but he’d done his damned best and he still remembers how it’d felt. Jihoon beneath him, nearly vibrating with the effort of maintaining control, all that warm skin spread out against his, the give of it under Hyeonjun’s teeth soft and delicious.
Can’t, Jihoon had groaned, when Hyeonjun wiped the blood off his mouth. Staring, starry-eyed, like he’d hung the moon in its perch. I have to—
That was back then, of course.
In the present, Hyeonjun’s brain hasn’t quite managed to catch up just yet, and he sways on his feet, tilting forward. Leaning in.
The way Jihoon jerks back, the movement wild and quick and wholly instinctual, would almost be amusing; but then there’s that potent venom in his eyes, the heady vitriol rising in his voice. Again, again. If Hyeonjun could take it and bottle it up, would he? Would he throw it into the Han River and pretend nothing ever happened?
Or would he tuck it safely into his pillowcase, like a precious artefact? Like a twisted good luck charm, unspoken proof made corporeal. At least he’d be able to actually feel it, then.
“Don’t be late,” Jihoon spits out roughly. “And don’t hide—“
He cuts himself off so abruptly Hyeonjun wonders if he’s bitten through his own tongue. “What?” Hyeonjun asks, blinking, cocking his head. Wondering if he’s mishearing the low, almost noiseless growl rumbling through Jihoon’s chest right where he imagines their bond lays, thick and irrefutable.
But not indestructible. They can only hope.
“Nothing,” Jihoon snaps, before pointedly turning away and stepping out from the shine of the lightbulb until the shadows eclipse his face again.
(the aftermath:
they’re both looking at each other, staring down the barrels of twin shotguns; he has his finger on a trigger but so does jihoon, so does jihoon.
his head pounds, a final souvenir from the soju bottle, an ache blooming behind his eyelids and in his arms and his thighs and most damningly of all, at his neck—right above his scent gland.
and this, too, jihoon has. a matching mark adorning his delicate collarbone.
what do we do? he asks.
nothing, jihoon says, his eyes downcast.
we just made a mistake.)
Hyeonjun isn’t late.
Jihoon plans these things obsessively, down to the hour, paranoid about it taking too long or too much and then inevitably getting in the way of his job. Their jobs. It’s always been like this. Ruts are infrequent, but it’s been four years—Hyeonjun knows how it goes.
So he isn’t late.
In fact, he’s fifteen minutes early as he pads up to the door he used to live behind and presses the bell once. Frankly, despite Jihoon telling him otherwise, he isn’t expecting anyone else to let him in; half of Gen.G are alphas and smart enough to clear off whenever one of them’s in rut. Gi-in and Minkyu are relatively safe, but after that first time, they’ve never quite been able to look Hyeonjun in the eye.
It’s surprising, then, when Minkyu opens the door and ushers him inside, expression grim. “He’s having a rough one,” he tells Hyeonjun, and doesn’t follow him down the hallway.
Hyeonjun appreciates the warning, regardless. He finds Jihoon’s assigned bedroom with ease, frowning slightly when the unlocked door swings open with only a gentle nudge from his foot—Jihoon hates when anyone sees him in this state. Hyeonjun closes it tight behind him.
The room is still irritatingly immaculate despite the circumstances. The scent permeating every orifice of the place tells Hyeonjun that it’s been a day, maybe two; that Jihoon had pushed his luck and his body a little too far in denying his baser wants. Typical. Though it’s not like Hyeonjun can judge after what happened the last time he went into heat.
Alphas don’t really nest, but Jihoon’s curled up underneath the duvet with only a sliver of dark hair peeking out from the pristine white edge. For a moment, Hyeonjun thinks he’s asleep, watching the steady rise and drop of his chest beneath the sheets; but then Jihoon groans, deep and gravelly and entirely uncontrolled and oh, it makes all the blood in Hyeonjun’s veins sing a wretched melody.
“Fuck,” Jihoon whispers, though he isn’t looking at Hyeonjun. “I hate this.”
When he sits up, the blankets falling down to his lap like a flurry of first snow, he’s almost a painting come to life. His bare chest littered with angry red scratches—so you can’t mark me any more—sweat glistening on his shoulder blades, his gaze sharp and hazy all at the same time and the look on his angular face near feral, his whole body trembling against the limits of his self-restraint.
He’s beautiful. An angel walking among them, something so damn tragic about him, Eden’s lonely keeper. I don’t want you, says the hard edge in his eyes, but you can’t leave, his heaving lungs plead.
And oh, that control he so prizes, slipping through his grasping fingers. That mouth bitten raw and red, his incisors a knife, weapons of his making, and how dare he sink them into his own lips and draw out blood meant for his mate. The jealousy burns a bonfire deep within Hyeonjun’s chest.
He doesn’t wait for an invitation before shedding his pants, stepping neatly out of the circle they form on Jihoon’s bedroom floor so he can find his place between the sheets. Jihoon remains perfectly rigid beneath him, unmoving, a statue carved from white marble—until Hyeonjun’s weight settles fully upon him, and then his hands move.
Sliding up Hyeonjun’s legs to bracket his hips; not to touch, only to drag him closer. Jihoon’s hard already, the head of his cock sliding between Hyeonjun’s slicked thighs, and Hyeonjun has never been so grateful for his own powers of foresight when Jihoon slips inside him smooth and easy, not stopping, not even bothering to.
His back bows—extensive prep or no, fucked up mate bonds or no, Jihoon’s thick enough to make the stretch uncomfortable. Hyeonjun’s body, traitorous bastard that it is, it knows how to make space for Jihoon. It wants to.
But when he stares down at Jihoon’s face, at his eyes screwed shut, at the tip of a fang digging into his swollen red lip, it still feels like too much.
Too perfect.
What he knows about mating bonds is that they’ll change you. Doesn’t matter if you never meant for it to happen, doesn’t matter who or how or even why. Like it or not, they’ve been reshaped and remolded and broken down and reconstructed into caricatures of themselves that, god damn it, will fit together regardless of whether they want to or not.
Jihoon can scowl about it all he wants, and Hyeonjun can cling to his farce till he’s blue in the face, but none of it will help. It’s permanent. No going back.
“Relax,” Jihoon snaps, his tone clipped. “You’re squeezing my dick off.”
“Good,” Hyeonjun mumbles under his breath, trying desperately not to outright moan the word. As a general rule he refuses to introspect on his latent masochistic tendencies, purely out of principle, but fuck if the burn isn’t getting to him.
Hyeonjun lets his head tilt backwards, just a little. He feels full, gloriously full, and it’s better than the paltry stretch of his own fingers earlier, better than anything else could ever be, and isn’t that where the trouble truly lies? It’s hardwired into his DNA, no matter how he tries to convince himself otherwise.
The tiny movement is a mistake, and he should have known it would be. Opportunistic as ever, Jihoon immediately bends to nose at his collarbone, rumbling a low displeased sound. “I told you not to hide your mark.”
He didn’t say it, technically, but far be it from Hyeonjun to argue pedantry with an alpha in the throes of rut. He squirms, angling his scent gland away from Jihoon, away from scrutiny and that tempting, shiny pink mouth.
“Let me see it,” Jihoon huffs. Leaning in too close.
Without thinking, Hyeonjun lurches away, clapping a hand over his neck.
And all at once, all together, everything seems to grow still.
The claim feels sore beneath his palm, as though his body hasn’t quite gotten used to the lack of it, as though the skin is still raw and tender. But there aren’t any scars or scabs to speak of, not even lines left behind—the doctors at the hospital had done a wonderful job making sure all physical evidence would never be found again.
Jihoon stares at him, unmoving. There’s a rising fragrance of alpha, confused, angry, disappointed, floating in the air that Hyeonjun can’t hide away from; Jihoon’s scent cycles endlessly through the turmoil of his emotions, settling on one only to be ejected straight into another, over and over again. And Hyeonjun responds instinctively—sorry, I’m sorry, Jihoon.
“I’m not hiding it,” Hyeonjun confesses, like a sin.
(what have you done to me? you, the echo in my veins? with your diamond knife and your vanquishing gaze? with the twist of your breath and the scarlet of your eyes?
strike down the call of providence
send kismet to its grave in the sky
make and remake destiny as you will it
do it for me.
you have what you want, you have the prophecy by which you guide your soul, you have your warrior’s glory, you have the pelian spear nestled within your hands, you have it all, you have—
you have undone me.)
“What did you do?”
What hasn’t he done? So much time spent learning to want this misery, learning to crave it. Nurturing the death of his better instincts, watering its roots with sheer devotion and still, his heartbeat continues to strum an angry, frantic rhythm in his ribcage.
“I got rid of it,” he says.
“You didn’t,” Jihoon breathes, softly, as though he can hardly dare to disturb the air. He reaches for Hyeonjun’s nape, drags him close, and Hyeonjun lets him. Lets Jihoon pull the collar of his shirt away, lets him rub furiously at the scent gland as though he still doesn’t believe that it’s gone, that it’s only makeup, a thick layer of foundation, Jihoon’s mark is still there, still—
Jihoon makes a sound like a hurt, keening kitten. His eyes are blown wide, sorrowful, pupils dilated past the point of rationality. “Show me,” he demands, gripping the dips of Hyeonjun’s waist. “Show me, hyung.”
His hips arch up, splitting Hyeonjun apart even more, even harder; and Hyeonjun lets out a whine, taking it, because he knows how to, because he wants to. Jihoon leans in, that glowy half-crazed look still shining on his pretty face, his lips slipping back to reveal rows of pearly white teeth.
Don’t bite me, don’t bite me, Hyeonjun practices in his head. Because Jihoon can, and it would certainly take—the doctors had warned him of it, of old wounds reopening with a careful slice of an incisor. It’s so easy, so simple. Jihoon could do it, but only Jihoon. Only him. Don’t bite me.
“Jihoon,” he gasps out.
“Fuck,” Jihoon mutters, movements growing erratic, that unrelenting pressure pooling and swirling and swelling between them. There’s a distinct note of something like grief, of distress, anguish in the way he mouths desperately at Hyeonjun’s shoulder blade.
Hyeonjun wants to ask him if angels mourn the same way men do but his eyes find the pale, barely visible bite mark still decorating Jihoon’s neck and the words choke up in his throat and he moans, instead, loud and wanting.
Even devastated, Jihoon is beautiful.
(one time,
the heat had bordered on unbearable, torturous, cruel; his vision swimming sanguine and his nerve endings aflame.
don’t call jihoon, he’d cried. the ever-present threads in his chest had stretched so taut it felt like they were plucking his heart from his body. don’t, don’t—
jihoon turned up anyway, burdened by the tireless pull of their bond. face pinched, brow furrowed, annoyance dripping from his very pores. his hand in hyeonjun’s hair, his skin soft and sun warmed.
later,
why won’t you let me go, hyeonjun had whispered. breathless and satiated and soothed with jihoon’s knot.
because you’re mine, jihoon answered lazily, faraway, like a dream.)
Jihoon turns him onto his back and fucks him like that, slow and saccharine.
“Shh,” he coos when Hyeonjun whimpers, overstimulation rattling through his bones. “You can take it, hyung. You can take it.”
He swirls his hand into the viscous liquid pooling on Hyeonjun’s navel; he’s come three, maybe four times now, losing track of the feeling every time Jihoon kisses his jaw tenderly, coaxing him through it. He’s in an unending freefall, hurtling over and over again off the edge into oblivion, never quite able to reach the ground before Jihoon hauls him up and drags him bodily towards the peak. Again.
Jihoon pushes three fingers into him, each digit slick with his own release, watching in fascination as Hyeonjun wriggles helplessly, the intrusion both agonizing and delicious all at the same time. “Enough?” Jihoon murmurs.
“No,” Hyeonjun sobs, the ache so tangible he can almost taste it in his throat, wrapping around his neck. “Knot.”
He’s fairly sure he isn’t in heat, nothing like that, it’s just—he’s drifting aimlessly, untethered, and he’s never told anyone that losing his mark had felt like excavating an entire part of his soul from his body, like the scalpel had sliced cleanly into his heart and cut out everything Jeong Jihoon has ever touched. Something’s different, now; he’s incomplete, a fraction of himself, searching for an anchor to ground him.
Jihoon smiles, the pad of his thumb tracing the side of Hyeonjun’s cheek. “Look at you,” he croons sweetly, a little meanly. “I’ve never heard you beg like this. Dripping all over me, hyung, of course you want a knot, you’re so needy.”
His fingers twist and curl with every syllable, and Hyeonjun squirms, cries Jihoon’s name, whines out, “Want mate’s knot.”
He thinks he’s delirious; at least, he would if he could string two thoughts together, if he could focus on any one thing. As it is he can barely concentrate his vision enough to watch Jihoon shake his head, blurry and distorted, his answer muffled through the fog clouding his awareness.
“Don’t say that,” Jihoon whispers, his voice full of grieving. “Don’t.”
Hyeonjun closes his eyes, triumphant, drowning in his consolation prize.
(what is this?
some kind of spiritual murder, undoubtedly. character assassination, perhaps? a person can only change so much before becoming a new one entirely.
kda: 1/1/0.
he’s grown weary of pulling teeth and wearier still of atoning. he could furnish museums with his mistakes, but he doesn’t; he strings them like beads
along
rope
necklaces
and hangs them from a tree
presenting them bare to the world.)
“Close,” Jihoon breathes into his skin finally, warm and heady, like a lover’s caress. He would bleed ichor, Hyeonjun thinks, in a daze. Golden as the sun, as the apples of Eden.
If someone took a knife to his throat, what would it be—sacrilege? Desecration? Surely holy fire would rain down before anyone did something Jeong Jihoon didn’t like.
Hyeonjun’s teeth on his neck are an oddity; most alphas wouldn’t stand for it, couldn’t stand for it. Jihoon had wanted it, branded on his skin, and Hyeonjun had tried to give it.
“Please,” he says, fatigued. “Jihoon.”
Okay, his alpha’s scent soothes. I know.
His knot flares, swelling full; Hyeonjun feels it pressing against him every time Jihoon’s cock pushes into him to the base, the delectable ache of it, the promise fluttering just out of reach. He holds his breath, counting the minutes, then the seconds; he’s too tired to come again but he wants this, needs it more than air, won’t settle for anything less than Jihoon filling him up to bursting.
“Don’t worry, hyung,” Jihoon hums, and Hyeonjun can barely recognize the low, tired drawl of his voice anymore, rough as sandpaper scratching against his throat. “I’ll give you what you want.”
(i want you to ████ me again.)
Jihoon’s knot slips inside on his next thrust, and then he’s coming with a groan, spilling hot and sticky all into Hyeonjun, teeth just scraping the outer curve of his shoulder.
And this, for once, feels right.
The sensation of being come into—of being filled, of being full to the brim—Hyeonjun’s dizzy with it, so overwhelmed that his entire brain seems to blur, warmth seeping through the core of his body and he revels in it. It’s been a long time since he’s been so sated, since he’s felt so perfectly whole.
He’s so out of it that he only notices that Jihoon is mumbling under his breath when the alpha nudges at him, trying to tuck his face into Hyeonjun’s neck. “Let me,” Jihoon whines. “Hyung, please. Let me.”
Hyeonjun doesn’t realize what he’s asking for until Jihoon digs a nail into the skin right beside his scent gland, and he hisses, flinching back, despite the fact that there isn’t exactly much space for him to go.
“No,” Hyeonjun tells him, not caring that Jihoon’s still in rut, not caring that he’s being cruel.
The frenetic pace of his heartbeat rings loud in his ears, like bell chimes heralding endings and beginnings at the same time, new cycles reborn. Hyeonjun slides his palm across his collar, shielding it from Jihoon’s hungry gaze.
Jihoon scowls, propping up on his elbows as he opens his mouth to complain, and the bells roar louder, clamorous, deafening. He’s better than this. Is he?
Hyeonjun bends forwards and sinks his teeth into Jihoon’s neck, neatly covering the faint imprint of his bite from all those years ago.
The scent of blood hits him first; a coppery metallic tang, iron on his tongue, painting his teeth scarlet. It turns out angels bleed red like the rest of them. He hears Jihoon snarl, an entirely feral sound, his fingers pressing hard into Hyeonjun’s arms.
“Hypocrite.” He’s panting, his voice strained taut, either from the pain or from the sheer willpower he’s deploying to keep himself from teetering off the edge into a full-blown frenzy. “You’re such a fucking hypocrite, hyung.”
Hyeonjun lets go.
He’s spent years pretending to know better. Maybe he just isn’t strong enough to stave off the pull of that goddamn red string. The wheels of fate turn endlessly, spinning and weaving his life into vivid tapestries on a loom; and he follows the rules, follows the call of destiny. He’d made his choice a long time ago.
“Then do it,” he whispers, the words barely denting the air around them. “You’ll always be mine, anyway.”
He cries when Jihoon bites him, again, tongue immediately darting out to soothe the sting. The pain flares out, traveling the base of his collarbone up his throat and out to his shoulders, every nerve frayed from the contact. He’s bleeding, too, but Jihoon licks each droplet up, eyes bright and shiny.
“I’m sorry,” Jihoon says, sounding repentant but not quite managing to look the part. He kisses the brand new bite almost reverently. “I’m sorry, hyung.”
It’s not his fault, but Hyeonjun still nods, silently accepting the apology. There can be no end to this pattern of theirs. The cycles go on, relentless, and so too will they.
And after this, they will return to their normal. Two opposing sides of the same vicious fight, forever intertwined, eternity unfurling leisurely as the inexorable march of the years passes them by. After this, when the rut wears off and the hormones subside, this gentle peace between them won’t last.
After this, nothing changes.
“My heat is next month,” Hyeonjun informs him. Clinical, even as Jihoon continues mouthing at his neck. “I’ll text you to come over.”
Jihoon draws back, his eyes lingering on Hyeonjun’s neck. If there’s any sorrow, any guilt in his countenance, he masks it well. He nods pensively. “Okay.”
Then he smiles; it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but he makes a commendable effort, regardless.
“It’s not so bad, is it? Hyung?”
Hyeonjun exhales, reaching up absently to touch the new bite settling into his skin. His fingers come away warm and bloody. “Yeah.”
And there they both are. Trapped.
(you don’t love me,
do you? you have a funny way of showing it. i feel like i’ve done something terrible, you know—robbed a liquor store, swallowed pills, shoveled myself a grave. there is something of a cosmic joke in all of this; look closer, you’ll laugh. but i never expected you to. the obligation lies dead and entombed in sand, and my adoration.
it would be a little contrived, to be honest. if you did.
do you?)