淡い青春

Sucking in a large breath, Kihyun faces the officiator and nods. “I do,” he says, thankful his voice doesn’t waver.

The officiator sends him a light smile and turns to his soon-to-be husband. “Lee Minhyuk,” she calls, beginning to recite the same vow to the taller man.

Yes, that’s his name. Lee Minhyuk, the son of some old friend of his father who apparently watched over Kihyun sometimes when he was an infant. They used to have play-dates when they were younger, apparently, but neither of them have any memory of it.

The marriage was always coming — in general; not necessarily to Minhyuk and not necessarily at this time. Kihyun’s parents’ marriage was arranged, as was his grandparents’, and so on. They talked about it a couple times as he was growing up. Kihyun was originally meant to wed a woman named Yura, but finally coming out as gay three years ago ruined those plans.

Minhyuk finally rips his eyes away from their hands, quick like taking off a bandage, and looks at Kihyun with round eyes. He’s gorgeous, that’s for sure. A little green with nerves, but that only makes Kihyun want to bring him down to his level and wrap him in a hug.

The taller man swallows thickly and parts his lips. He freezes, just staring at Kihyun with trembling pupils.

Silence settles at the alter and it’s thick with tension, with fear, with unsureness. It’s okay, at first, but then it starts to drag. Kihyun refuses to look away from the other man to glance at their families and friends, not wanting to take himself out of the moment and make them think something is wrong. He can hear them already getting unsettled, shifting in their seats more the longer Minhyuk doesn’t return the vow.

Rejecting an arranged spouse at the alter isn’t common, mainly because they usually get to know each other ahead of time and decide if they’d like to stay together or be rematched. But either their parents are convinced they’ll be a perfect fit or Minhyuk’s the only other out, unmarried man in their social circle and they’re tired of how long it’s taken to marry them off.

“Lee-” The officiator begins to call his name again but Minhyuk sucks in a deep breath and squeaks, “I do,” before she can finish.

When they’re finally pronounced married, Kihyun lifts one of their tangled hands and lightly presses his lips to Minhyuk’s knuckles to the applause of their guests. He returns his now-husband’s strained smile and tells himself that he trusts his family to find him a perfect match.

“Minhyuk?” Kihyun calls, backing out of their spacious kitchen until he can poke his head out and look down the hall into their living room. The couch is barely visible from the doorway, but he can make out his husband’s form.

Minhyuk drops his head against the back of the couch so he can meet Kihyun’s eyes. “Yes, darling?” He drawls, already sounding bored and disinterested.

Kihyun inhales deeply. He’s fine, he’s calm. There’s never been anyone more calm on this planet before. “Could you come here for a second, love?” He asks, sickeningly sweet.

“I’d rather not.”

If you were to look up the definition of calm in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of Kihyun losing his mind as an example of what calm doesn’t look like. “Lee Minhyuk, if you don’t bring your ass over here in the next five seconds and clean up all this shit, your body will never be found.”

He spares a glance to the kitchen that could play a stunt-double to a landfill. There’s dishes everywhere, wrappers and cartons and an empty pancake mix box scattered around the counter tops; the two trash bags Kihyun asked Minhyuk to take out before he went to work this morning are still sitting by the entranceway too. The kitchen was decent when he left and now Kihyun feels like if someone walks in, their house will be at risk for getting condemned. When he signed their marriage license, he was hoping he’d be starting a life with a new housemate, not a kid who can’t take care of himself in a twenty-five year old body.

With an exaggerated sigh — that’s not even warranted because this is his mess — Minhyuk heaves himself off the couch and drags his feet through the living room and down the hall to the kitchen. He frowns at Kihyun as he slips past him and it takes all of Kihyun’s strength to not reach out and snatch his lips right off his face with his bare hands.

“Couldn’t this have waited? I was in the middle of something,” Minhyuk grumbles. He blindly flips the lever of the sink tap, moving it to the side with the red, hot marker as he leans against the counter.

Rolling his eyes, Kihyun crosses his arms over his chest. “Your marathon of My Love From the Stars can wait. It’s not as if you don’t own the DVD box set.”

“I meant, I was in the middle of a sketch.”

Kihyun lifts one hand and rolls his neck like he doesn’t get the point. “And? That’s nice and all but…” He waves his hand around at their wrecked kitchen.

Whirling around, Minhyuk grabs the sponge and pours dish soap all over it, beginning to wash the dishes. “I finally got an idea for that logo I got commissioned for. I didn’t want to lose it. Thought I’d get to the mess before you came home.”

“That’s always your excuse, Minhyuk,” Kihyun says disappointedly, dropping his arms. For as quickly as he heats up and gets angry at his husband, he cools just the same. They’ve only been married for four months but all they do is argue or generally ignore each other’s existence. Kihyun knew the beginning would be rough, and maybe he was naive in thinking that after a rough patch they’d click and everything would be rainbows and happily ever afters, but they don’t get along. At all. Sometimes Kihyun wonders if the cute, shy, nervous man from their wedding day and the first couple of weeks is the same one standing before him now and not a doppleganger.

The older man’s sigh isn’t audible but Kihyun can see it in the exaggerated lift of his shoulders. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s because I’m actually doing shit.”

Kihyun scoffs. “If you want to call sitting on your ass all day ‘doing shit’, then okay, Minhyuk. Whatever.”

As soon as the words come out of his mouth, Kihyun regrets them. Minhyuk’s shoulders tense until he’s a bow strung tight and the silverware clanks noisily as he scrubs them with more force, channeling his anger into his cleaning.

“I didn’t mean that,” Kihyun quickly tries to amend. He takes a step forward — to do what, he doesn’t know because he’s not going to go up and touch Minhyuk now that he’s crossed a line. He knows how sensitive Minhyuk is about people saying he isn’t doing anything with his life as a freelance graphic designer, knows he’s tried to find more stable work with any company or studio out there. Kihyun remembers how excited he was to get a commission from a tech start-up looking to make promotional materials a couple of weeks ago.

Minhyuk slams a bowl into the dish rack with the gentleness of someone who seems like they’re not even trying to hold back and grits out, “Goodbye, Kihyun. You don’t need to watch over me.”

Wilting, Kihyun ruffles his hair, annoyed with himself for making a bigger mess than the one that sparked this argument in the first place. “I’ll, uh, I’ll take out the trash.” He grabs the double knot of the full garbage bag and hauls it up, fleeing from the kitchen and the nagging thought that all of this is a mistake.

Kihyun flops onto his best friend’s couch and immediately grabs for the polka-dotted throw pillow lying there. He clutches it close to his chest, but makes sure not to dig his nails in like he would if this was his own house. He was screamed at enough the last time he was here and accidentally tugged a thread loose on one of the couple’s knit blankets.

He shifts his eyes over to Hyunwoo when the older man shuffles in, fuzzy grizzly bear slippers on his feet and holding a Pooh mug full of  hot lemon tea.

“You sure you don’t want anything to drink?” he asks as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the couch, angling his body towards a shrinking Kihyun who shakes his head.

“I’m good. How have you been?”

Hyunwoo leans over and sets the mug down on a coaster on the wooden coffee table in front of them before slumping into the couch cushions. “Great, actually. We’re going to start looking at houses in a couple weeks.”

Kihyun blinks, surprised. “Oh, really? Are you trying to stay in the area?”

“If possible. But if we find—”

They both pause for a second at the sound of the lock of the front door turning and glance in the direction of the door.

Hyunwoo makes a confused sound and checks the time on his watch. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to be home until later.”

They hear the door swing open and a jangling of keys. A moment later, a tall man walks into the room with ruffled hair and huge, square glasses falling off his nose. He drags himself over to the couch and all but falls into Hyunwoo’s lap, snuggling into his chest.

“You look like shit,” Kihyun says in lieu of a proper greeting.

Hyungwon snorts, closing his eyes. “Thanks.”

“You’re early,” Hyunwoo says, petting his husband’s hair as if he were a small cat.

“Started feeling faint halfway into my shift and my handler noticed and pulled me off the floor. So I’ll probably be fired the next time I walk in because Disney is shit.”

Hyunwoo hums, pressing a kiss to Hyungwon’s temple and rubbing his back. “I told you that you weren’t healthy enough to go back to work.”

Kihyun’s frown deepens as he watches the couple interact. He’s known Hyunwoo since they were in junior high school and Kihyun’s parents forced him to join a sports club. He was a member of the basketball team, but never played, and the only thing he got out of it was Hyunwoo who’s always been too sweet and too patient for his own good. Hyunwoo was matched with Hyungwon when they were sixteen and fifteen, respectively. It was weird because Kihyun had never seen an arrangement between members of the same sex and he had never heard Hyunwoo say he wasn’t interested in women.

The arrangements don’t always end in genuine love, Kihyun’s sister’s sure as hell didn’t, but Kihyun swears he’s never seen a more perfect couple. And to think, Hyunwoo thought they wouldn’t work out when he first met his now-husband.

“I know,” Hyungwon sighs. He sits up and swipes Hyunwoo’s mug off the coffee table, cradling it in his hands. “But I felt fine. Anyway, what have I missed on this week’s episode of Kihyun’s Dying Marriage?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my marriage.”

“Your marriage trouble is the only reason you ever come over here.”

Hyunwoo palms Hyungwon’s sides and manhandles him onto the space beside him. He lightly plucks his husband’s nose and says, “Be nice.”

Bringing the mug up to his lips, Hyungwon tosses his ostrich legs over Hyunwoo’s lap. “Did I lie though?” he mumbles into the tea before taking a sip. He sits it on the coaster soon after, grimacing a bit, and curls up into Hyunwoo’s side.

Kihyun doesn’t even know why he visits them as often as he does; they try their best to give him advice but looking at an example of what his marriage could be in a perfect world always leaves him feeling worse. But, they also (kind of) give him strength in the same way that watching someone eat a double cheeseburger and a large fry while you’re on a diet makes you simultaneously want to work ten hours at the gym and also buy everything off the McDonald’s menu.

“There’s really nothing to talk about,” Kihyun says. “We have one good day out of the week and the other six are a disaster.” He pulls his legs onto the couch and leans back into the arm of the three-seater. “Today was our good day, actually. We spoke five whole sentences to each other without it developing into some petty argument.”

“Have you thought any more about counseling?” Hyunwoo asks, referring to one of their many talks before.

Kihyun has thought about it, came close to bringing it up to Minhyuk before deciding it would be a terrible decision. Maybe he would be okay with it if they got married on their own, without an arrangement, but at some point, their counselor will ask for their parents to come in to explain the rationale behind Kihyun and Minhyuk’s pairing. He doesn’t want this to become a family affair.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Kihyun shakes his head. “I don’t know. We’re too volatile.”

Hyunwoo gives him a look of dead eyes and firmly pressed lips. Hyungwon, pressed into his husband with his eyes closed like they’re two halves of a whole person fitting back together, frowns.

“I’m starting to think you like him more than me.” Minhyuk shifts to look Hyungwon in the eyes.

They’re focused, staring unwaveringly into Minhyuk’s own and the promise that Hyungwon is on the edge of his ‘hunting’ head space and more than ready to rip Minhyuk apart has the older man stiffening embarrassingly quick in his sweats.

Hyungwon sniffs and wets his lips, his eyes dropping to focus around Minhyuk’s mouth. “He’s cute,” he eventually says, voice airy and distant.

“And I’m not?”

With a lazy curl of his fingers, Hyungwon’s nails scratch over the back of Minhyuk’s neck. It takes him another thirty seconds to say, “You don’t know when to stop talking.” He dips his head, searching for Minhyuk’s mouth.

Minhyuk grapples onto the younger man’s hair, yanking his head back, and Hyungwon hisses at him. In an instant, Minhyuk’s light smirk thins into a firm line and a warning growl rumbles shallowly in his chest. “Don’t bare your teeth at me, Won.”

He doesn’t care much for the playing the dominant role in this manner, but Hyungwon likes the challenge to his authority and Minhyuk loves to please.

Scowling, Hyungwon glares down his nose at Minhyuk, eyes dark and threatening as Minhyuk’s tone and the pet name forces him into his head space.

Before Minhyuk can scold him again, he grabs fistfuls of Minhyuk’s collar and yanks the older man up, sealing their mouths together. And because he’s annoyed he bites, sinks his teeth into anything he can get his mouth on — Minhyuk’s tongue, his lips, his cheeks, his nose. He bites red all over Minhyuk’s collarbones, not marking his territory as much as he’s reminding Minhyuk that he’ll leave the older man covered in scratches and marks if he’s pushed too far.

And so Minhyuk lets him have his way, tilting his head back to give Hyungwon more space to work and huffing out an amused laugh.

Hyungwon nibbles over his jaw and licks into his mouth, tasting of the sour candy he’d been eating all day. He coils his tongue around Minhyuk’s own and grinds his hips down and the blessed attention to his dick elicits a sharp, wavering gasp from the older man.

“A-Ah, Won—” Minhyuk’s lids flutter as Hyungwon begins to rut against him, eager and to no particular rhythm. His hands find purchase on Hyungwon’s waist and he slows his kitten down to an unhurried rock.

Hyungwon whines indignantly but, surprisingly, relents, content to lay his head in the crook of Minhyuk’s shoulder and puff heavy breaths against the skin of his neck.

“Good kitty,” Minhyuk praises into his hair, slipping his hands over the small curve of Hyungwon’s ass. “I’m sure Kihyun would like you best like this, so sweet and well-behaved.”

Hips jerking off tempo, Hyungwon buries his face in Minhyuk’s chest and muffles a needy mewl. His hand slithers between them, palm flattening against the swell of his erection.

“Aw, look at you — getting all worked up thinking about your precious Kihyunnie,” Minhyuk teases. “Do you fuck yourself thinking about him when I’m not around? When he’s in the next room?”

Hyungwon frantically shakes his head but his feverish moan and they way he digs his palm harder into his cock tells a different story.

“Wanna strip for me, kitty? Show me how you’d put your tail up for Kihyun?”

Minhyuk barely loosens his hold on Hyungwon’s hips before his kitten rolls off his lap, already working his shirt up over his head. Chuckling under his breath, he slides off the bed. As he walks over to his desk to grab the lube he doesn’t remember putting there, he divests himself of his own ratty tank top and pushes his sweats down over his hips. His dick, already a blushing pink, flops hard against his stomach and Minhyuk teases light fingers up and down its length, collecting the bit of precome at the tip with his thumb.

Sucking the digit into his mouth, he waddles around to the bed. His cock jerks, slightly standing a little straighter when he lays eyes on Hyungwon perched on all fours with one cheek pressed into the sheets and his ass in the air, his hand moving quick over his swollen dick between his legs.

“You’re such a pretty kitty, aren’t you, Wonnie?” Popping his thumb out of his mouth, Minhyuk smoothes up Hyungwon’s back and scratches behind his ears.

Hyungwon preens, nuzzling his cheek in the bed sheets and grinning up at Minhyuk, face a light, springtime pink.

Further shimmying out of his sweatpants and kicking them behind him, Minhyuk kneels one leg on the bed and returns his fingers to Hyungwon’s hair. He draws Hyungwon closer and the younger man wastes no time in pushing up on his arm and wrapping a strong hand around the base of Minhyuk’s dick and slipping the head into his mouth.

Minhyuk is glad he gets off on pain, because even with a dick in his mouth, Hyungwon is all teeth. And a particularly harsh scrape of them has his toes curling and his nerves lighting up like fireworks, a groan clawing its way out of his throat. “A-Ah, fucking hell, Won, don’t.”

Glancing up, eyebrow raised as if to tease Minhyuk about pretending that he doesn’t like it, Hyungwon pulls off his cock. He nods his head towards the lube and shows his hand, palm side up.

“Are you gonna prep yourself for me, kitty?” Minhyuk asks, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. Usually when Hyungwon allows himself to go into kitten space, even when he’s more on the aggressive side, the younger man makes Minhyuk do all of the heavy lifting, only using his hands to claw and scratch and help guide Minhyuk’s dick to wherever he wants it.

Hyungwon takes the lube with an odd smile and an even stranger noise that’s neither agreement nor disagreement. He shifts his eyes down, silently requesting Minhyuk climb on the bed properly as he unscrews the top off the lube and turns the bottle over the squirt a liberal amount over his fingers.

Minhyuk hardly gets his other leg up before Hyungwon is tossing the lube aside, pushing Minhyuk onto his back with the flat palm of his dry hand.

“What are you doing?” Minhyuk squawks, scrambling up onto his elbows.

Wet fingers trail over his balls and Minhyuk shudders when one rubs firmly over her perineum. A smirk returns to Hyungwon’s face as he circles the pad of his finger around the rim of Minhyuk’s entrance and eases it in.

Legs falling open involuntarily as Hyungwon inches in, Minhyuk tries to get a grasp on the situation. “Were you planning this the entire time?” He laughs with a bit of disbelief.

The twinkle in Hyungwon’s eyes is answer is enough. It also explains why Hyungwon explicitly told him to wash inside and out when he shoved Minhyuk into the bathroom this morning. Waggling his eyebrows, Hyungwon drips more lube onto his fingers and wedges in a second alongside the first, knowing how Minhyuk likes the ache of being rushed through prep.

Minhyuk moans, muffling the sound with a firm bite down on his lip as Hyungwon pushes in to his third knuckle and swipes his fingers dangerously close to his spot. “Don’t tease me. I know you can go deeper than that.”

Disobedient as always, Hyungwon ignores him. He fucks Minhyuk quick but shallow — satisfactory but not at all enough. Gripping the sheets in his hands, Minhyuk tries to roll his hips down, desperate for those long fingers to reach deeper, and Hyungwon snarls at him. And Minhyuk, always on the edge of his own dead space when Hyungwon is in his, whimpers pitifully and blinks wide puppy dog eyes up at his kitten.

That seems to satisfy Hyungwon who slips his fingers out and once again pops open the lube to coat his dick. He fists himself lazily and twirls his fingers, motioning for Minhyuk to get on his does.

Without question, Minhyuk does so, holding his weight on his forearms and letting his legs slide open.

A hand comes down heavy on his left butt cheek, the crack of the slap loud and drawing out a sharp cry from the older man. His cock leaks pathetically between his legs, precome smearing against the inside of his thighs when he squeezes them together.

Hyungwon sucks his teeth and forces Minhyuk’s legs open again. He shoves three fingers inside the puppy, angling his wrist so his longest finger brushes against Minhyuk's prostate.

“Yes, yes, fuck, yes.” Tugging at the sheets, Minhyuk drops his forehead against the bed and groans. A hand at the back of his neck keeps him down as Hyungwon leans over him, roughly massaging his spot until Minhyuk's legs start to go weak beneath him.

"For fucks sake, Won, get on with it," he moans, blindly kicking his foot at the younger man’s knee. That earns him a laugh and Minhyuk would have worked up a growl if not for Hyungwon listening for once and replacing his fingers with the blunt head of his cock.

Hyungwon doesn't ease in gently, he never does, and Minhyuk exhales a hot, 'good kitty, feed me your dick, baby," as the pleasant ache of being fucked open sears through his nerves. Dropping his hand between his legs, he tugs at his length, and a laugh bubbles from his throat at how wet he is.

A soft moan sounds above him as Hyungwon draws back out, not having bothered with fully bottoming out, and the heavy hand on his lower back being pushed down with extra weight is the only notice Minhyuk gets before Hyungwon slams back in, his long dick hitting deep and punching out a shout straight from Minhyuk’s chest.

Curving his chest toward the bed, Minhyuk drops his hips down and back, meeting Hyungwon for every harsh thrust and hoping the angle will have Hyungwon hitting his spot in that way that makes his bones turn to jelly. It doesn’t, but that’s fine because Hyungwon is popping the lube open again and then a finger is pressing up against his rim.

Clearing his throat, Hyungwon slows his rhythm but doesn’t stop, rocking his hips shallowly. It’s a question of permission and Minhyuk more than ready to give it.

“Fuck, yes, baby, tear me open. I wanna feel it,” he begs, spreading his legs further and planting his cheek in the sheets so he can reach a hand back and part his ass for his kitten.

With a groan, Hyungwon forces his finger in alongside his dick and Minhyuk keens a semi-pained sound. Leaning over his back, Hyungwon presses soft kisses over his shoulder blades, finally taking it slow as he works up to nudging in a second digit. He nips bruises into the back of Minhyuk’s neck, puffing out harsh, uneven breathes over wet skin that has electricity raising the skin of Minhyuk’s arms.

“A-Ah, shit, Minhyuk,” the younger man vocalizes for the first time since they really started, steadily building up his pace until he’s fucking Minhyuk so good and fast his legs tremble with the intensity of the burn of the extra stretch and Hyungwon’s cock punching his prostate dead on.

It’s almost like they trade places — Hyungwon grunting out feverish curses as Minhyuk white outs, unable to do anything but moan around the drool beginning to pool in his mouth, leaking over his parted lips and wetting damp spots in the bed sheets. His dick is hot and a furious red in his hand. He’d be a little embarrassed about how quick the need to come sets him alight but Hyungwon knows all of Minhyuk’s buttons and he’s been pushing them from the start, working the puppy up until he lost his mind.

Unexpectedly, it's Hyungwon who comes first, pulling out without warning and shooting pearly lines over Minhyuk's back with a throaty groan.

Minhyuk whines disappointedly, so keyed up he forgets that he hates the feeling of come up his ass. Moving his hand quick over dick, still chasing the edge and the final leap, he sucks in a sharp breath, jaw nearly unhinging with his muted scream as Hyungwon slips three fingers into Minhyuk's loose, blushing hole and angles them up against his prostate, fucking him until he comes hard over his fist.

He falls forward, flat onto the bed, trembling lightly with the force of his orgasm. The bed shifts around him and there’s the phantom notion of Hyungwon hovering in a straddle over his knees before a slick tongue laps at the small of his back. Minhyuk hums as Hyungwon cleans him of his own semen.

“Is this how you’re going to treat Kihyun when you finally bag him?” he asks, raising his hips so he can move his hand from under his stomach.

Hyungwon snorts against his back and sits up. “Switch the subject and the object of that sentence around and that’s what I’m hoping for, yeah.”

Minhyuk makes a noise of interest at the revelation that the younger man wants to spread his legs for his housemate. “You’re not going to clean my hand too?” he asks, rolling over onto his back when Hyungwon gets up and climbs off the bed.

He’s returned with a scowl that’s tempered by the slight quirk to his lips. “I don’t know where your hand has been. You could have been touching your dick for all I know.”