Work Text:
--_--
His hands caressed smooth tanned skin, as his lips followed the path they made. He licked and scraped his teeth teasingly, earning himself a shudder from the slumbering male beneath him. He crawled his way back towards the tuft of black hair, rubbing his front against the long line of the younger’s back.
“Sshhh, go back to sleep, beautiful,” he whispered against the exposed ear, then laid a kiss there. The body beneath him hummed in reply before burrowing deeper into the pillow. His breath began to slow again, signaling the older one of the other’s departure to dreamland.
Slowly, the fair-skinned man left the bed, careful not to disturb the younger. He admired the gorgeous naked body, his hand itching to draw the scene. But as much as he wanted to, alas, he wasn’t the one talented in that area. It was his muse, the one he wanted to draw, who was gifted in the art of creating pictures that looked alive. He wouldn’t do his lover any justice if he attempted such thing.
Instead, he let his mind convert his bursting emotions into something else; something he was more well-versed in. His ears heard the music that nobody else could: a new melody, rhythm, the lilt of the staff dancing across his eyes. His mouth itched with words unformed yet, just waiting for his fingers to pluck them out one by one. An idea came into his mind while he stared into the tanned beauty and he scrambled to find some Sharpies.
Returning to their bed in all his naked glory, he sat down beside the slumbering male again, this time with his chosen weapons on hand. He set out into drawing parallel lines, carefully, painstakingly making sure that they were evenly spaced as the rules of art followed him even into his music creation.
Red ink began to dance across those lines, being drawn up, then down, then across on some. Lines and circles interconnected or left alone. Symbols that meant something to someone like him. Thighs and biceps weren’t spared, as the notes and rests continued on them. The sides, too, contained lines of a musical masterpiece.
He wanted to write across his ribs too, since he wasn’t done yet with his music, the climax of it has yet to come. So carefully turned the younger around, exposing the front that was as beautiful as the back. He kissed slack lips when a whine escaped from them. He shushed him as he rubbed soothingly against flat belly, leaving soothing kisses across exposed skin. When the breathing turned deep again, he set out to continue his work.
Parallel lines curved across ribs, passing through the softly rising and falling chest, until it reached the other side, where the staff met its kin perpendicularly. He was tempted to nip at those defined collarbones, still bearing the evidences of their passionate night, but he digressed. The music in his mind didn’t let him.
He converted some of his own love bites into notes, snickering at what he had done. He kissed those afterwards, though; he couldn’t help himself. At last, the music was finished, signing off the last note with a flourish. He surveyed his work with a smile, excitement welling up in his chest. He looked at the bare stomach though, eyeing it critically. The words were still missing to complete the song, he might as well sully the area.
--_--
Kongpob slumped on his seat as he dumped his coat on his desk. He heaved a heavy sigh of relief when he could finally sit down and rest after a whole day of running around town, meeting with investors and developers and what-not.
“Kong,” came from his office door after a couple of knocks. He groaned out loud as he heard his best friend, not deigning to open his eyes in the hopes of the other going away. He had no such luck though, as he heard what sounded like a bunch of papers being dumped on his less than pristine desk. He opened his eyes to glare at the other.
He found his sound engineer and head artist standing there along with a smirking Em.
“What?” he asked in resignation.
“We have the proposals for the musical scores and concept art for the Oracles project. We need you to look into them and approve what you deem is good,” Em said as he sat himself down on the arm of the sofa. He still had his infuriating smirk on.
“Just leave them here, I’ll go over them later.” That was his dismissal. It was obvious, wasn’t it? So, Kong got confused on why the trio wasn’t leaving his office. He was tired, damnit!
“What?” he asked tiredly.
“Are you okay, Kong?” Prae asked, concern shining through her face. He looked at her and Maprang, and saw the same concerned look on the latter’s face.
“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, I’m just tired right now, so there’s that.”
Prae and Maprang exchanged glances, decided to have a staring contest, while they gestured not-so-subtly in his direction. He waited patiently for the two to tell him what was on their minds.
“Since when did you get a tattoo?” asked Prae curiously, seemingly having lost to the nonverbal argument with Maprang. The latter nodded her head enthusiastically.
Kongpob looked at them in confusion, then towards his best friend, who was also looking at him curiously. He deemed it useless to ask his friend so he’d better ask the source themselves.
“What are you talking about? I don’t have ink in my body,” he told them.
“Uh, you have. It’s kinda showing right now.”
“Huh? Where?”
“On your chest. I can see it on your chest, what with your buttons undone like that. That was the reason why most of the office staff weren’t listening mush during the last meeting. You’re distracting.”
Kong looked at Prae incomprehensively then checked his chest. He gasped when he found black and a hint of red ink peeking through his white shirt. Without thinking about his surroundings, he hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt and got more and more bewildered as more black and red ink got revealed.
He stood up and stalked towards the en suite, removing his dress shirt in the process. He heard gasps come from the others inside his office and he belatedly remembered about modesty, but only for a while though. He deigned it unimportant, ‘cause, as of the moment, he wanted to solve the mystery first.
“Are you sure you’re okay Kong? That’s a lot of ink on your body. Why the sudden obsession with tattoos? There would’ve been no problem even if you decided to get one. But usually, people tend to gradually get a tattoo over a period of time, not get them all in one go. Wait, you’re not planning on breaking someone out of prison, are you? Like, those tattoos don’t make up the floor plan of a correctional facility, right?” Maprang said, gasping in horror at her own thoughts.
“What? No! I don’t have ink on my body. Or you know, the permanent kind. These aren’t tattoos.”
“Yeah, Maprang. And how could a musical sheet turn into a building plan?” asked Prae.
“W-well those might not be building plans but they could be codes for all we know!”
“You’ve watched way too much dramas,” Prae deadpanned.
“Did Morgan do that? Maybe she pranked you or something,” Em finally said.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror inside the washroom and saw the mess of notes and words written in a very familiar scrawl. He took his phone from his trousers and took a selfie, his friends photobombing behind him. He shot them a glare through the reflection and then decided to just send the picture to his lover.
K: (You sent an image)
K: Mind explaining this?
A: a gorgeous specimen of a yummy male
K: I’m serious
A: Who said I was joking?
K: P’Arthit
A: Fine
A: I got inspired
A: looking at you all naked
A: the music bugged me so I wrote it out
A: didn’t you read the words?
Kongpob took a closer look at the lyrics written on his abdomen and blushed when it registered in his head.
K: How come I never noticed this in the morning?
K: are you going to really release this song?
K: don’t release this song
K: please
A: weeeeeell…
A: 😏😏😏
A: 👅🍑💦
A: 👉👌
K: You!
A: and why not?
A: it describes you
A: that’s how I see you
A: “Chocolate melted that taste like sin”
A: or maybe heaven’s delight that’s forbidden
A: that’s you babe
K: yeah, that’s why you shouldn’t release this
K: it sounds so sexual!
A: there are more sexualized songs out there
A: this is tame compared to them
K: still!
K: What would you tell in your interview, huh?
K: if they asked you about this?
A: oh!
A: I just had an idea!
A: I’ll release this as a single
A: so that I could tell the world how this song is all about you
A: then they’ll know how amazing you are!
K: NO!
K: please P’Arthit, nooooooo
A: Arthit yes
The young CEO stared at his phone in horror as he kept on begging his lover not to release the song. He forgot about the people behind him and his near-nakedness, busy going back and forth with the older. He only realized that he wasn’t alone when he heard a gasp from the other room.
“What?” he asked, rushing out, only to find Prae at his seat, the music composition program open at the screen. She had the headphones on and she looked at me in wonder. Em and Maprang also looked as confused as he was.
“Who wrote that thing on your back—oh, there are lyrics,” she said, zeroing on on his exposed stomach. He covered the words with his arms the best he could while he searched for his discarded shirt. He found it inside the bathroom, hastily donning the material. He went back out and met the stares of his friends.
“I don’t think Morgan could write something as vulgar as that. It’s not as vulgar as other songs, sure, but that’s still vulgar for a child,” Maprang pointed out. He ignored her comment, turning to Prae for an explanation.
“Well, I inputted on the program the visible part of the song on your back and it sounds so good, Kong! You know how certain songs just speak to your soul and you can’t stop listening to them? That’s what the song is!” Prae explained excitedly. “Who wrote the song, Kong? We should get them on board to write for the game.”
“They’re busy,” he evaded. Well, that was true. Arthit and his friends were truly busy writing songs for their next album.
“Aww. Are you sure? You’re not just saying that so I wouldn’t meet them? This is a good opportunity for them to be discovered you know.”
“They’re really busy. Sorry Prae.”
“Ah, shame. You know that I’m not into boys, right?”
“Yeah… What’s that got to do with this?”
“I’m not gonna steal your boyfriend away from you, you can be assured of that.”
“Wha—How—What’re you talking about?” Kong answered, flustered.
“Oh, come on Kong. You’re gay and the musical sheet drawn on your back disappears well into your pants. It doesn’t take a genius to come to the conclusion that the writer and composer knows you intimately. You don’t do one night stands, and I’m sure that you won’t let a one night stand do that to you. Would you?”
Kong stared at his friend mulishly.
“Ah, fine, fine! It’s my boyfriend, alright. He doesn’t need to be discovered, though,” he insisted.
“Okay, fine. Keep your boyfriend to yourself, you possessive geek,” Prae answered teasingly. A ding sounded from the computer and Prae, forgetting that that wasn’t her computer, opened up the email. She got confused when the sender’s ID was unfamiliar to her but she opened it anyway. There was a sound clip attached to it and she pressed play.
The sound of guitar strings resonated from the speakers and all of the occupants of the room listened in, intrigued. Prae recognized it immediately, having just heard it a few minutes ago. Then a familiar voice began to sing, and they all listened, mesmerized. The whole song was hauntingly beautiful, even with the less than innocent lyrics. With the melody accompanying the ones that they have seen on tanned skin before, it didn’t sound so sexual anymore. It just sounded like someone worshipping the muse of the song, every aspect of their being, devoted to that one person only. It was surprisingly sweet and anyone could feel the love.
It felt so intimate that Prae stopped in the middle, knowing who was being described in the song, who exactly the muse was. She apologized silently to her boss, feeling uncomfortable at accidentally invading his privacy.
“It’s okay, Prae. Just… next time, don’t go through my emails, please?”
“I’m really sorry, Kong. I forgot that this isn’t my computer. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was an accident…”
“Then…”
“Wait, before we leave. Are we not going to discuss about the elephant in the room? You know, that familiar husky voice from a very popular band right now?”
“Maprang, don’t,” Prae warned.
“But Prae…”
“No. Leave Kongpob alone. It’s his business, his personal life. We don’t need to butt in it,” Prae said, ushering a still protesting Maprang.
“But—”
“Yes, Arthit and I are dating,” Kong revealed. “Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“A bit. I still have more questions.”
“Prang!” Prae exclaimed.
“Shoot.”
“Are you that Nong? Is he the one that you said that got away?”
“Yes to both. And yes, we’re back together.”
“Oh my god, I’m so happy for you two! I’ve always found some of their songs very heartbreaking and I’ve always hated that sad look on your eyes. I’m so glad that you’re both happy now. You know, together! I hope for the best in your futures,” Maprang exclaimed sincerely. She had always felt the melancholy from her friend ever since they met. Seeing him now, happy with his love, put her somewhat at peace.
The two girls bid their goodbye, leaving the best friends alone in the spacious office. Kongpob’s phone chirped with a notification so he checked it. His eyes widened at the message then groaned in frustration.
A: Uhh…
A: Please don’t be mad
A: So, I wasn’t really planning to put the song into the album
A: I was just teasing you.
A: I just recorded it so you can listen to it
A: but the idiot Bright found it and added it to the list of songs
A: I didn’t notice it was there
A: and it’s already approved by P’Nat
A: he doesn’t like to take it out of the list even though I explained to him already
A: So… I’m really sorry
Em asked him what was wrong and he showed the new messages from his boyfriend. His rambunctious laughter resounded inside the office for quite a while.