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Even though the air outside is approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun, it has nothing on the sudden, scorching heat of Juwon’s whole face when he glances down the aisle at the corner store and catches sight of the display of public indecency that is Lee Dongsik eating a Melona bar.
It’s…god, he really does try to think of any word to describe it other than obscene. He pumps the popsicle in and out of his mouth, lips red and sticky and shining, his cheeks hollowing in time with each stroke to suck with enough force that Juwon can hear it from the other end of the fucking aisle. At one point, his tongue darts out to sweep up an errant run of melting ice cream from the tip of his chin, and Juwon nearly pulps the orange he’d just picked up.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
“Lee Dongsik-ssi,” he hisses, rushing over to snatch the freshly opened box out of his hands. He stops short of actually ripping the popsicle out of Dongsik’s mouth, but he thinks about it. “You can’t just…” He trails off, realizing that he’s too great a coward to voice the real reason he’s flushed as red as the tomatoes they’d spent the morning planting. He falters for only a second, then course corrects. “You have to pay for those!”
The wet pop of the popsicle leaving Dongsik’s mouth sends a jolt of electricity straight to Juwon’s groin. “Oh, calm down, I’m going to,” he says, waving off Juwon’s concern with his free hand. “Mr. Choi won’t mind.” He slips the ice cream back into his mouth, humming to himself as he licks and sucks. Juwon swallows, his mouth suddenly as hot and dry as the Sahara. Up this close, the sound is so much worse.
“Mm, I wonder if they have ube here,” Dongsik says then, turning back around to scan the freezer. The back of his t-shirt clings to the skin between his shoulder blades, damp with sweat that glistens all the way up to the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. “That was always my favorite when I was a kid.”
“Lee Dongsik—” Juwon starts, trying so hard to reign in the desperate strain of his voice.
“Don’t worry, Juwon-ah,” he says, glancing back at him. He’s tucked the bar to one side of his mouth, so he can speak around it, and the bulge it creates in his cheek makes Juwon’s heart race like it’s about to explode. “I’ll let you have one if you’re really, very good.”
All right.
So Dongsik is trying to kill him.
They’ve been…something for a few months now. Neither of them have made any attempt to put a label on what, exactly, that is. But Juwon spends nearly every one of his weekends off in Manyang, and Dongsik has been known to pay visits to him in Gangwon on the days between, driving almost four hours round trip for sometimes just a meal or to share a coffee over Juwon’s break, in the parking lot outside the police station.
It’s a comfortable enough no-man’s-land, or has been. Juwon finds himself smiling easier than he ever has, the seemingly bottomless well of his loneliness close to running dry. Dongsik’s laughter is lighter, less razor-edged, what sorrow there still is buried deep in his marrow made milder by the slow, saccharine fondness building up in his bloodstream. They are happy like this, sharing early morning hikes and late evening phone calls and too-quick lunches in the backseat of Dongsik’s car.
But Juwon, at least, has been getting a little frustrated.
They’ve kissed twice. Once, two weeks ago now, when they’d been walking home from dinner at Jaeyi’s and Dongsik had stumbled into Juwon, a collision of warm limbs made loose by a few too many shots of soju. Juwon had caught them against the stone wall outside Dongsik’s house, but just barely, his hands snarling in the fabric of Dongsik’s shirt to keep him from falling face-first in the dirt. Dongsik had looked up at him, face silvered in the moonlight, his eyes huge and swollen with the light of every single star in the sky, his lips parted in an easy, lopsided smile, and Juwon hadn’t been able to stop himself. He’d caught those lips with his, swallowing down the sweet, surprised sound that had issued from Dongsik’s mouth, fighting hard to breathe even as his pulse sprinted under the fragile skin of his throat. For half a beautiful second, Dongsik’s fingers had slid up his chest, curled in his collar, held him close, and then he’d pulled away, putting two paces of space between them, his expression shuttering as he ran a hand through his tousled hair.
“Aish, Juwon-ah,” he’d said, laughing a little, though there was no humor in it. “You can’t do that to me, not when I’ve had that much to drink. I won’t be able to control myself.”
I don’t want you to control yourself, Juwon had thought, choking on the furious drumbeat of his heart in his throat. I want you to do whatever you want to me.
He could’ve said it. He almost had, but something in the taut line of Dongsik’s jaw as he swallowed had stilled the words where they hovered right there on the very tip of his tongue. So they’d walked on inside as if nothing had happened, and Juwon had spent the night—as he always did, when he stayed over—in the spare room, half a house separating him from where Dongsik slept, at the end of the hall.
Then, just last Sunday, Dongsik had chased Juwon down at the end of his driveway, trapping him up against the side of his car as he’d tried to leave to go back to Gangwon.
“Here, take this,” he’d said, shoving a paper bag of leftover dakgalbi into Juwon’s startled hands. “You’re still not eating enough.”
(Which was patently untrue, Juwon had been eating better than he ever had, his arms and thighs starting to strain the seams of his old clothes, but he knew there was no point trying to refuse.)
“Thank you, Dongsik-ssi,” he’d said. “I’ll be back Friday to help you with the garden. But it might be late, since I’m working nights this week. If you’d rather I wait until Saturday morning to come so I don’t disturb your sleep, I can.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dongsik had said, his laughter as light and easy as the late May sunshine. “Disturb me all you like.”
And then he’d leaned in, taken Juwon’s face in one warm hand, and pressed the softest, sweetest, quickest kiss to the corner of his mouth.
Juwon had been so stunned that by the time he’d processed what had just happened, Dongsik had been waving to him from the front stoop and vanishing back into the house.
(Every single night since he has dreamed about what might have unfolded, had he been brave enough to chase after him. Every single morning, he has woken up so desperately hard that the barest pressure of his hand or the mattress sends him careening over the cliff of his climax. He’s done a lot of laundry over the last week. He’d had to run to the bank twice for more quarters. The second time, the girl behind the counter had looked at him so knowingly he’d seriously considered asking her to sign an NDA.)
So he’d already been wound a little tight when he’d arrived in Manyang late last night, but a cold shower and a morning spent toiling under the scorching sun in Dongsik’s garden had cleared his head of the worst of the dreamtime debauchery.
But now, here he is, so painfully rock-hard from watching Dongsik deepthroat a goddamn Melona bar that he has to keep the grocery bag in front of his crotch the whole way home lest he be arrested for indecent exposure. Dongsik seems completely oblivious to Juwon’s suffering, chattering as mindlessly as ever as they make lunch, a ritual they’ve performed often enough by now that they move in easy harmony around one another—Juwon chopping the green onions as Dongsik mixes the batter, the cast iron pan starting to hum as it comes up to temperature. The radio croons in the background, an oldies station that plays songs Juwon has categorically never heard of, and that Dongsik can sing along to word for word (though always at least a little out of key).
Juwon, for his part, does a good job of hiding his predicament, keeping his hips tucked up tight against the counter and his expression wiped clean. There’s nothing to be done about the flush in his cheeks or the slight arrhythmia of his breathing whenever Dongsik slips into his space to steal a bit of chopped shrimp, but it’s a hot day, and even hotter in front of the stove. It’d be more suspicious if he wasn’t sweating.
At least, that’s what he tells himself.
Once the food is ready and they’re both seated, Dongsik devours his pajeon in record time, humming happily as he scrapes the last bits into his mouth and chases it down with a long swallow of beer, tilting his head back to give Juwon a torturous view of the long, sweat-slick line of his throat. He is decidedly not trying to look, because he knows better, he swears that he does. He tries very hard to focus on his own meal, shoveling down one mechanical bite after another, chasing them with enormous gulps of water that do nothing at all to alleviate the wild burning at the base of his throat.
But Juwon has not ever been good at looking away from Dongsik, not really. Especially not when he’s just right there, so close their elbows could brush, bathed in a sweet ray of sunshine falling through the kitchen window that burnishes his skin and dances through his tousled hair. Not when his eyes are sparkling and his smile is unwinding and the neckline of his shirt is stretched with age, gaping over the sharp wing of a collarbone that Juwon wants to gnaw between his teeth.
Instead, he bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough that his mouth floods with copper. It does not curb the edge of his desire in the slightest. If anything, the flash of pain makes his cock throb where it is trapped against his thigh. God, Juwon, get a hold of yourself.
Then, because apparently whatever god there might be has it out for him today, Dongsik gets up, walks to the freezer, and pulls another fucking Melona bar from the already opened box. He peels back the plastic wrapper and pops it into his mouth, holding it there with just the pressure of his lips as he tucks the box away and starts tidying the kitchen, piling dirty dishes in the sink and returning the ingredients to their various respective proper places—the fridge, the corner cupboard, above the sink. When he stretches up to put the soybean paste on the top shelf, the hem of his oversized t-shirt tugs up to bare the improbably narrow dip of his waist.
Juwon feels pinned in place like a prey animal, unable to move or blink or look away, his throat suddenly, achingly dry despite the empty glass of water in front of him. He’s thought more sinful things about that waist than he would ever admit, under oath or threat of death. It takes a herculean effort, every time he catches a glimpse, not to reach out and measure it with the span of his hands.
When Dongsik rocks back down onto his heels, he brushes his hands on his shorts and turns, too-clever eyes alighting on Juwon where he is frozen stock still at the table. He pulls the bar from his mouth with a wet pop, shiny red lips curling into a tiny frown. “Juwon-ah, are you alright?” he asks. “You look pale.”
Juwon grinds his teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I’m fine,” he says, too quickly, too forcefully to be believed. He gathers his plate, a flimsy shield that he holds carefully in front of himself as he climbs to his feet.
A stark crease appears between Dongsik’s brows. “You hardly ate anything,” he says, gesturing with his dessert towards the picked-at pajeon on Juwon’s plate. The popsicle is whittled down to nearly nothing already, spirals of melting ice cream running down towards the curl of his hand around the stick. When he speaks, Juwon can see that the tip of his tongue is stained green. He wants to know what it would taste like. “Have you had enough water? When the weather’s like this, you need to make sure you drink enough water.”
“I’m fine, Dongsik-ssi,” Juwon insists, stepping across the kitchen to take up residence at the sink. Doing the dishes will buy him some time. Maybe even enough to subdue the tent in his pants before Dongsik notices it. (He’d taken Dongsik up on his offer of a faded t-shirt and old gym shorts for gardening that morning, because he hadn’t wanted to ruin his own clothes, but he should’ve known better. At least his trousers would have provided him with an ounce or two of plausible deniability.)
Dongsik tuts, rolling his eyes. “Don’t give me that, you’re shaking like a leaf.” He slips the popsicle back into his mouth to free his hands, reaching out as he crosses the distance between them, his voice muffled but still comprehensible with the ice cream bar tucked obscenely in the pocket of his cheek. “Come here, let me—”
Juwon is not overly proud of how he panics, in the following moments. The dish in his hands clatters into the sink, sending the pile of others tumbling over with a crash. He tries to retreat, tries to maintain some precious distance between them, but there’s nowhere for him to run. Dongsik turns one of his hands over, stretching it out towards Juwon’s forehead as if to check his temperature. He’s suddenly close, so close—too close—and Juwon can smell the salt-sting of his skin, can count every fine droplet of sweat along his hairline, can trace the delicate pattern of fine lines at the corner of his eyes.
Juwon’s heart careens against his ribcage, the twin spikes of desire and adrenaline fizzing like acid through his veins. He presses back against the counter, the edge of it digging into the base of his spine, and flings his hands out, trying to keep his distance, but Dongsik is too slippery, slithering in between his arms to push back the sweaty tumble of his hair with one hand and press the other to his forehead—which is, in fact, burning, just not for any of the reasons Dongsik might’ve been imagining.
“Dongsik-ssi—” Juwon hisses, a useless protest, squirming under the attention as his panicked brain struggles after an escape, any escape. He’s so close, too close, and if he moves even an inch closer he’s going to—
Fuck.
Juwon can’t swallow the short, agonized sigh that’s ripped out of his chest when Dongsik’s thigh brushes against him. It is the lightest touch imaginable, the idea of a touch more than the reality of one, but still it’s enough to make his knees shake. For a split second, he allows himself to imagine that Dongsik didn’t notice, that he will be able to salvage this most mortifying ordeal of his entire adult life and walk away with some shred of dignity intact.
But, of course, Dongsik is—as ever—nothing if not observant.
He stills, the quiet falling between them so total that Juwon fears he will be able to hear the furious hammer of his heart in his chest. Something shines in his eyes as he runs them over Juwon’s face—once, twice—something that might just be a reflection of the sunlight coming in through the kitchen window, but might not be. He retrieves his hand from Juwon’s hair to pull the remnants of the Melona bar from his mouth, the tiniest fraction of air escaping, and he lifts one eyebrow as he slowly—but deliberately, decisively, with simmering intent—slots his leg between Juwon’s.
The rush of pleasure is so overwhelming that Juwon nearly chokes on it, his next breath catching in his throat. He has to close his eyes and snap his mouth shut to keep down the moan that batters against the back of his teeth. His hands cinch around the edge of the countertop, tile scraping sharp against his palms, and every thunderous thud of his heart hits his breastbone so hard he fears it will snap.
Fuck.
“Aigoo,” Dongsik exhales, his lips curling into a wicked, knowing smile. He keeps his thigh there, snug against Juwon’s throbbing erection, but holds it so horribly still—the proposition of relief without the reality of it—that Juwon feels about to cry. “So that’s the problem.” He says it simply, with a complete lack of fanfare, as if they are discussing nothing more consequential than the weather. Then, a flash of pure mischief in his eyes as he lets one hand slide down to cup the curve of Juwon’s cheek and presses. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
Juwon balks, his mouth snapping open and shut like a beached fish as he tries to find any word he has ever known amid the sudden, delirious fog of Dongsik touching him. “I didn’t… We haven’t…”
“Well, no,” Dongsik says, simply, stretching each word thin with all the patience of a preschool teacher. “I didn’t want to rush you. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t wanted to.”
Every single part of Juwon is in total and complete meltdown—he hasn’t ever suffered a stroke before, but thinks this cannot possibly be so far removed from the experience—but he just manages to croak out, “You… what?”
Dongsik’s eyes sparkle as he lets loose a soft, husky laugh. “Juwon-ah, come on,” he says, his voice dropping treacherously low as he skims his free hand up the outside of Juwon’s thigh, each fingertip trailing sparks even through his shorts. “Have you seen yourself? Especially today. All muscled and sweaty, those ridiculous shoulders stretching out one of my t-shirts?” His fingers dart up to cinch into the washed-thin fabric of said t-shirt, his knuckles grazing hot over Juwon’s bare belly. He leans in even further until their chests brush, until barely an inch of open air remains between the infuriating curl of his lips and the sweat-tacky skin of Juwon’s throat. “I’ve hardly been able to stop myself from ripping it off you with my teeth.”
Juwon gapes, his jaw dropping. Is he fucking serious?
“Me?” he snaps, the syllable cracking on its way out of his mouth. His face is on fire, hot blood high in his cheeks and throbbing in the base of his skull, the beat of it a perfect match to the desperate punch of his heart against his ribs. “What about you with those fucking popsicles? It’s obscene. I haven’t been able to look at you without the rush of blood to my dick making me lightheaded.”
The words are out before he can think to snatch them back behind his teeth, echoing through the kitchen that feels suddenly, desperately small. A beat of quiet, then—
Dongsik’s smile is so wide it seems liable to crack his jaw. He tilts his head ever so slightly to the side, still so close that Juwon can smell the sharp salt of clean sweat on his brow and the too-sweet popsicle on every exhale.
“Is that right?” he asks, doing no work at all to hide the unbridled delight in his voice.
He pops the remnants of the Melona bar back into his mouth, bits of melted ice cream gathering on his lips as he glides it back and forth, back and forth. A drop works its way down, towards the tip of his chin. Another slides down the back of his hand. He hollows his cheeks to swallow, and Juwon can see a perfect outline of his tongue where it curls around the stick.
Screw a stroke. Juwon is pretty sure he’s having a fucking heart attack.
“Lee Dongsik-ssi, you—”
His voice cuts off with a strangled moan as Dongsik’s hand darts down to cup him, the tips of his fingers biting just this side of too-hard into the tender skin of his balls.
Fuck.
Stars swim at the edge of his vision, the sudden flood of pleasure brutal as a gut punch.
“Shh, Juwon-ah,” Dongsik hums as he tugs the now-bare stick from his mouth and tosses it behind him into the sink. His mouth is a ruin, his lips flushed and sticky and the flat of his tongue a monstrous shade of green, but any lingering part of Juwon that would’ve found that anything other than a huge fucking turn on is dead and buried deep under the towering mountain of his desire. “I know just how to help.”
Strong hands fist in the waistband of his shorts and tug, letting the loose material pool around his ankles. Then those same hands are on his boxers, suddenly the tightest scrap of clothing on earth, and the gasp that Juwon lets out as they are shoved down his thighs is entirely involuntary. It’s so hot in the close dark kitchen, but somehow Dongsik’s touch is even warmer still, the pads of his fingertips scorching Juwon’s skin everywhere they touch—his legs, his hips, the fragile seam at the apex of his thigh, but not where he wants them most. Not yet, anyway.
Dongsik’s hands skirt carefully around the aching length of his cock, coming close enough that Juwon can feel the heat off his hands but never quite crossing that line. Juwon squirms, bracing himself against the countertop, fighting every nearly-irrepressible urge to grab a fistful of Dongsik’s hair and put him right where he wants him.
God is it hard to breathe.
He should’ve known he’d be a fucking tease.
Then, as if he can read his mind, as if he knows precisely what Juwon has spent the entire morning imagining in viscerally vivid detail, Dongsik is sinking to his knees right there on the hard tile floor and looking up at him through the fan of his dark lashes, his eyes suddenly, dangerously dark, and his smile creeping over the line into outright indecency. His face hovers half an inch from Juwon’s cock, which is flushed an angry purple that Juwon hasn’t seen since he outgrew the worst of his teenage tendency towards self-denial. A heavy pearl of precum is already gathered at the slit and ready to spill over, the surface tension just barely holding it in place.
Dongsik’s gaze drops, looking him over with the leisurely interest of someone skimming a surprisingly good magazine they found in their doctor’s office. “Hmm, I should’ve known,” he murmurs, the warm ghost of his breath drawing a hiss from between Juwon’s teeth.
“Known what?” Juwon just barely manages, each word half-choked around the swell of his heart in his throat.
“That your cock would be just as pretty as the rest of you,” he says, simply, as if it ought to have been the most obvious thing in the world.
Then—
When Dongsik’s lips close over him for the first time, Juwon feels as if his soul is being pulled out through the cracks between his ribs.
He sucks him down slow, so slow, curling one hand around the base where his mouth can’t quite reach. Juwon can feel the slightly sticky tack of the ice cream on Dongsik’s lips as they begin to slide up and back, the taut muscle of his tongue tracing a delicate line along the underside.
It feels… god.
It is so many thousand times better than Juwon could ever have imagined.
And he’s spent an awful lot of time imagining.
He cants his head against the cabinet behind him, his hands gripping the rough edge of the countertop. He cannot seem to get half as much air into his lungs as he needs, even though his chest rises and falls at an alarming rate, nearly matching his furious pulse beat for beat.
Is he actually going to have a fucking heart attack?
Dongsik pulls back, letting his spit-damp cock hang in the open air. “Shh,” he says, his voice already husky and raw. He runs his free hand up the outside of his thigh, to his hip, massaging the firm flesh there. “I’ve got you.”
Juwon whines, the sound drawn from some wretched, needy thing that has grown wild roots in the pit of his stomach. “Dongsik—”
“I know,” he says, so gently. “Don’t worry.”
And then he is swallowing him down again, all the way to the root, letting the head slam against the back of his throat, once, twice, three times, and Juwon realizes he does not care one bit if he does have a heart attack. Let him die like this. Life could not possibly get any better.
He fists one hand in Dongsik’s tousled curls, desperate for something to hold onto, and Dongsik hums in satisfaction at the roughness of his touch, the vibrations sending hot sparks shooting through his bloodstream. Without conscious thought, Juwon slides one leg over Dongsik’s shoulder, the too-taut muscles of his inner thigh trembling against the sharp curve of his jaw as it works. Dongsik grins—or as much as he can grin with his mouth full—and hooks a hand under Juwon’s other knee to secure it on the opposite side, forcing Juwon to grab for the cabinet behind him to keep from slipping off the edge of the counter. It’s a precarious position, one that has Juwon’s whole body tensed like a drawn bowstring, but if anything that just coils the viper of his desire even tighter where it lurks deep in his chest.
Like this, Dongsik can sink so far down that the ends of his curls brush the tender skin of Juwon’s stomach where his shirt has ridden up. Like this, Juwon can feel the swell of his own cock against the insides of his trembling thighs when Dongsik hollows his cheeks. Like this, Dongsik can bury his hands in the firm flesh of Juwon’s ass until the blunt half-moons of his nails leave marks.
Juwon cannot help the noises that escape him, reedy and desperate and drawn so thin they seem liable to snap in half.
It turns out that popsicles are, in fact, not the only things Dongsik knows how to suck.
Juwon does not have all that much of a frame of reference, but even he is sure that this is a world-class goddamn blowjob. Dongsik’s mouth is hot and tight and so, so wet, his rhythm a perfect teasing pace that builds and builds hand and hand with the pleasure in Juwon’s belly. His tongue feels as if it is everywhere at once, sketching along the veins in Juwon’s cock and tracing the seam at the base of the head and darting into the weeping slit at the tip to lap up every single drop of precum before it can escape down the back of his throat.
Juwon has no leverage with which to roll his hips forward, cannot chase down his own orgasm, but there is something undeniably arousing about relinquishing control. About allowing himself to be molded like clay under Dongsik’s clever hands. About accepting that it is entirely up to him when and how he comes.
Dongsik hums, low in his throat, and the sensation of it cinches tight around the swiftly mounting pleasure in the pit of Juwon’s stomach. He’s so close already, teetering right on the brink, and all it takes—in the end—is a firm hand around his balls and the slightest scrape of teeth along the length of his cock for him to careen over the edge.
His head slams back against the cabinet, the muscles in his thighs so rock-hard that he will worry, after, about having cut off Dongsik’s air supply. A high, keening sound coils up from his chest and breaks off the edge of his teeth as the strongest orgasm he can remember ever having rips through him like a wildfire, lighting up every last nerve ending in his whole, quaking body. Dongsik swallows the first few spurts, but relaxes his jaw and pulls back just far enough that he does not catch every last drop in his mouth, letting Juwon paint the red, shining circle of his lips with his release.
Juwon watches this with a mixture of horror and awe as the tension begins to drain out through his toes. His chest burns with something like shame, and he feels like he ought to apologize, or say thank you, or—
But Dongsik just grins, his tongue darting out to clean the mess off his face, and runs a hand through his hair to push it back out of his eyes.
Juwon tugs his wobbly legs free of Dongsik’s shoulders and finds the ground underneath him is still—miraculously—solid, even if the rest of the world feels turned completely upside down.
“Well?” Dongsik asks, his eyes twinkling. His face is flushed, his lips shiny and swollen, his voice made raspy by the abuse to the back of his throat. Even the most debauched of Juwon’s daydreams could never have captured how it feels to look down at him, like this, after that. Like a line has been hooked right through the meat of his heart. “Feel better?”
Juwon hauls him to his feet by the stretched thin collar of his t-shirt. Up close, he can see that Dongsik didn’t quite manage to get it all, a spot of something that might be ice cream and might be cum and is more likely both lingering still at the corner of his mouth. Juwon is—frankly—horrified at how badly he wants to taste it.
Sliding his hands down the backs of Dongsik’s thighs, he lifts him easily, preening just a little at the surprised exhale that ruffles his hair as Dongsik’s legs wrap reflexively around his hips. Taking three quick strides to the kitchen table—blessedly cleared from lunch—he sets Dongsik down on the edge, the wood squealing a few inches over the tile at the sudden, unexpected shift in weight. A breathy laugh escapes off Dongsik’s lips, one hand buried in the fine hairs at the nape of Juwon’s neck and the other fisted in the fabric of his borrowed t-shirt. Juwon crowds between his knees, pressing up against him until every last line of their bodies are flush except for the barest last gasp of air between their mouths.
“Already?” Dongsik asks, lifting one eyebrow as he rolls his hips against where Juwon is half-hard—still or again, he doesn’t know or care—with Dongsik’s spit not even yet dried along the entire length of him.
A sound rips its way out of Juwon’s chest, feral and wanton, as he digs his fingers into the narrow of Dongsik’s waist. “It’s those fucking popsicles,” he snaps, leaning in—finally—for a taste.